As a kid born and raised in Southern California, the idea of autumn leaves and winter snow were novelties. Though just a three-hour drive from my family’s town, the wooded San Bernardino Mountains felt like another world, so much so that when a mountain guide once asked 10-year-old me where I was from, I told him “California,” as if we’d left the state entirely.
Cascading ponderosa pines and Douglas fir trees sweep the Transverse Ranges toward Big Bear Lake, which sits in a valley that the Indigenous Yuhaaviatam called Yuhaaviat, Place of the Pines. Big Bear’s tourism story starts in the 1860s, when a short-lived gold rush in Holcomb Valley left behind roads, cabins and a frontier myth that later drew tourists. In 1884, a dam built for irrigation flooded the valley and created the alpine lake that still defines the region.
Angelenos have been making the drive to Big Bear for more than a century, chasing cooler air in summer and snow in winter. As early as 1912, day-trippers and film crews in Model-Ts wound up the mountain roads, using Big Bear’s forests as both a quick escape and a Hollywood back lot.
By the 1920s Pine Knot, now known as Big Bear Village, was filled with lodges and storefronts to greet Los Angeles motorists escaping summer heat. The region’s first ski lift arrived in 1938, while post-World War II highways, film shoots, and the Hollywood set turned the once-remote valley into a four-season resort through the 1960s. To this day, Big Bear maintains its small-town feel with a population of just 5,000 even though it sees more than 7 million visitors a year.
For my parents, who loved to ski, Big Bear was more affordable and closer than Tahoe (meaning less time in the car with two squirmy kids) and had just enough amenities to keep us warm, fed and happy. Over the years, locals have held tight to its character, resisting abject luxury development while defending the habitats of local wildlife. Thanks to those efforts, the place still carries a bit of Howard Johnson-era Americana charm.
Whether traveling solo or with friends and family, a weekend in Big Bear makes for a quaint but restorative winter getaway, whether or not you hit the slopes. Pack your sweaters and boots and be careful taking the curves of Highway 18.
Noah’s Ark, an interactive exhibit for kids at the Skirball Cultural Center, might be the only place in Los Angeles where a parent can ask their child if they want to scoop up some animal poop and receive an enthusiastic, “Yes, please!” That’s not to make light of the interactive experience — which is among the most fun and inspiring activities for children at a local cultural institution — just to note that it’s a fun perk.
The beloved 18-year-old exhibit quietly reopened in mid-December after being closed for more than three months to undergo a renovation that includes enhanced gallery spaces, immersive theatrical lighting and new interactive set pieces like a giant olive tree that kids can curl up inside, as well as slides that serve as exits from the ark and a watering hole for puppet animals that have just reached dry land.
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The linchpin of the renovation is a reimagined Bloom Garden planted with native, edible and medicinal plants, and fruit trees including mulberry and pineapple guava — all there to explore at the end of a journey on the ark.
“The goal is not to change the story, but to bring forward a chapter that’s always been there — that moment after the storm, when the work begins,” said Rachel Stark, vice president of education and family programs at the Skirball, adding that the new garden creates “this immersive space where you can imagine the storm waters have receded, the rowboat has washed up onto shore. Things are growing, and you are responsible to help add to that.”
The Bloom Garden, which replaced a simpler ornamental garden, was designed by biodynamic farmer and educator Daron Joffe — known as Farmer D — with the goal of creating a multigenerational space for relaxation and inspiration. It was built around artist Ned Kahn’s existing 100-foot-long Rainbow Arbor sculpture with mist sprayers that create rainbows in sunlight as guests walk through. A trickling stream runs through a valley in the garden, and kids are encouraged to play in and around it. There are hammocks, a sand table and raised garden beds with fresh herbs that families can pick, smell and taste.
Stuffed animals that kids can carry through the exhibit line shelves inside the renovated Noah’s Ark exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center.
(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)
“It’s an inviting space for kids to scramble down into and engage in nature play. It gets them more out of their heads and into the environment,” Joffe said. “I saw kids barefoot out there, which is so cool.”
Parents and children enjoy the Skirball Cultural Center’s new Bloom Garden, which opened alongside the revamped Noah’s Ark exhibit. The garden features raised beds filled with herbs that kids are invited to smell, pick and taste.
(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)
The garden, says Joffe, is a haven for biodiversity, filled with plants that support the full life cycles of butterflies and bees. Shemesh Farms, which employs adults with diverse abilities, will cultivate the garden on an ongoing basis. In addition, the Skirball is looking to hire someone through a Getty Global Art and Sustainability Fellowship. That person will help grow and enhance the garden moving forward.
The Bloom Garden is special in another way: It features the seven ancient plant species that are integral to Jewish teachings, and symbols of the Promised Land — wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates.
The Skirball, founded in 1996, is a Jewish cultural, arts and education center, but it has always been an inclusive space that welcomes people of all faiths, communities and walks of life. The Noah’s Ark exhibit is based on the story of the biblical flood that caused Noah — at God’s direction — to build a ship for his family and two of each animal on Earth. The boat weathered a punishing storm for 40 days and 40 nights, and when the floodwaters receded, those aboard began a new life.
The exhibit also draws inspiration from hundreds of other flood stories from around the world. Taken together, these stories speak to the resilience of nature and the ability of human beings to cooperate — even when they are very different — in order to make meaningful and lasting change, as well as to be responsible and caring stewards of the earth’s bounty.
Susy Doody and her daughter Joy, 21 months, feed parrot puppets inside the Noah’s Ark exhibit.
(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)
Noah’s Ark is organized into three chapters staged in different areas. The first is an entry room where a storm is brewing and animals are loaded into the ark. The second is the interior of the ark, including a “move-in day” room where kids can rummage through food crates and pick up animal puppets to care for, as well as another room with places where they can feed, bathe, put to sleep and clean up after animals (that’s the fake poop!).
There are also climbing nets that kids can use to ascend to the rafters to take care of the animals up top. A system of pulleys allows children on the ground to hoist food to kids above. The third room is the dry land that kids step onto when they disembark from the ark. It features a rainbow, a massive olive tree with a cozy interior nook and a watering hole for the animals.
I recently took my 9-year-old through the exhibit and she had a blast busily engaging with almost every element of the space. She was particularly taken with a blue tarantula puppet and was encouraged by staff to share her journey through the space with her puppet friend. The only sorrow came when it was time to part ways with the hairy creature she had nurtured during the experience.
Allister Celong, 5, climbs through a rope tunnel in the rafters.
(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)
Over the past 18 years Noah’s Ark has hosted more than a million visitors, with about 50,000 people journeying through the space each year. Joffe noted that the exhibit, with its focus on kindness, empathy and the value of shared labor in pursuit of a healthy, sustainable planet, is more timely than ever in this tumultuous, fractured era.
It has been a place of comfort over the years.
“It is a beloved place — one that many visitors grew up coming to,” said Stark. “And then bring their kids back and their grandkids.”
George Clooney, wife Amal Clooney and their 8-year-old twins are officially citizens of France, as of the day after Christmas.
The news was reported by multiple French outlets as well as the Guardian, all citing an announcement published in a French government journal.
The Clooneys bought property in France — a farm, he recently told Esquire — in August 2021, when their twins were 4. He said it was a “much better life” there for Ella and Alexander.
“Yeah, we’re very lucky. … A good portion of my life growing up was on a farm, and as a kid I hated the whole idea of it. But now, for them, it’s like — they’re not on their iPads, you know?” he said in the interview, published in the magazine’s October/November issue.
“I was worried about raising our kids in L. A., in the culture of Hollywood. I felt like they were never going to get a fair shake at life. France — they kind of don’t give a s— about fame. I don’t want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don’t want them being compared to somebody else’s famous kids.”
Domaine Le Canadel in France is, according to Hello, “an enchanting and sprawling 425-acre Provence wine estate” that cost the Clooneys a reported $8.3 million. It has a pool, tennis court, gardens, a lake, an olive grove and a 25-acre vineyard, the outlet said. But, you know, it’s just a farm.
Other celebrity couples have put down roots in the area, of course, with less than charmed results over time. Then again, those folks weren’t French citizens, for the most part.
Clooney’s remarks about the French attitude toward fame echoed previous comments made by Johnny Depp, who years ago found refuge in France for himself and his children, Jack and Lily-Rose, until he split in 2012 from longtime partner Vanessa Paradis, a French singer, model and actor.
The country “afforded [Depp] the possibility of living a normal life. Really a simple life,” the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor told SFGate in 2001.
In 2010, Depp told People, “With Vanessa and the kids, we live in a sort of little village in the south and I have the impression of being in paradise … and you know what I do there? Absolutely nothing.”
Depp, who started dating his “The Rum Diary” co-star Amber Heard the year he broke up with Paradis, listed his Provence property for sale for almost $26 million in June 2015, then reportedly put it on the market again in the years that followed for more than twice the price. However, despite containing an entire village in its 37 acres, the property appears not to have sold.
Meanwhile, Clooney’s buddy Brad Pitt and Pitt’s ex, Angelina Jolie, have been battling in court for years over the 2021 sale of her half of their Provence wine estate, Chateau Miraval, which actually produces wine. The former couple signed a long-term lease on the property in 2008 and later bought a controlling interest in the company that owned it.
Pitt and Jolie married at Chateau Miraval in 2014 after meeting in 2004 on the set of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” when he was still married to Jennifer Aniston. (They went official as a couple the following July after Aniston filed for divorce in March 2005.) Jolie and Pitt had kids and adopted kids together over the decade leading up to the wedding, but Jolie filed for divorce after only two years as husband and wife following a fight on a private plane. That also got ugly.
The story of the Pitt-Jolie court battle over the chateau and its winery is long and complicated, but it began with Pitt alleging that he and his ex had an agreement that if either wanted to sell their half of the place, the other would have to consent. Jolie, who sold her shares to Stoli’s wine division, Tenute del Mondo, said they had no such agreement in place.
Following a $1-billion-grossing, Oscar-winning smash could have left writer and director Jared Bush and director Byron Howard feeling like rabbits in the headlights, but they seem to have outfoxed the challenge. “Zootopia 2” has already stampeded past $1 billion to surpass its predecessor, and the awards nominations have just begun slithering in. But how did the sequel survive such high expectations, stay as socially relevant as the original and navigate the peril of too many cooks in the kitchen?
“Animation’s a team sport,” says Howard, referring to the sheer number of people who worked on the film over five years. “It’s 700 in the crew, but in this building, it’s about 1,000 and another 300 in Vancouver. So it’s everyone’s collective ideas, saying, ‘Here’s where we can do better.’ So everyone has skin in the game and they all want these movies to be great. It’s an emotional investment.”
The creative team screened “Zootopia 2” for all of Disney Animation multiple times in various stages of development. A feedback system enabled every employee to respond.
Bush says Disney regularly seeks internal reactions after screenings, “but we asked way more direct questions for this one, like at an audience preview. Then we shared that feedback, unfiltered, with the entire building. That allowed people to see that their feedback mattered because you could actually see ideas that came in [manifest] from screening to screening.”
Bush and Howard acknowledge that having that many collaborators keeps the inspiration flowing but also allows fragments of the colossal group brain to sneak into the film unnoticed. Even they aren’t sure where all the in-jokes are planted.
A “story jam” — reminiscent of a TV writers room — was just one of many avenues for collaboration in the making of “Zootopia 2.”
(Disney)
Like its predecessor, the sequel is packed with movie references and animal puns — “A Moose Bouche”; “Gnu Jersey” — and the directors are quick to spread the credit (or blame). “ ‘A Moose Bouche’ — we’ve gotten emails about that one,” says Howard. “Cory Loftis, our production designer, came up with it.”
There’s a “Star Wars” cantina bit, a soupçon of James Bond in the score at a fancy gala and dashes of Steven Spielberg in the camerawork. It’s easy to spot “Ratatouille” when an animal chef is revealed to have a rat under its hat, but Bush asserts there’s a second reference in that moment — the animal declaring “I knew it!” isn’t just any raccoon, but “Raccacoonie” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” That character is itself a “Ratatouille” reference (and, Bush points out, “EEAAO’s” Oscar-winning supporting actor Ke Huy Quan voices “Zootopia 2’s” lead snake, Gary). So it’s a reference coupled with another reference to another film’s reference to the first reference. Whew.
Those Easter eggs, including an extended callback to Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” — the realization of which they credit to animator Louaye Moulayess, a “Shining” superfan — speak to a willingness to cater to audiences beyond kids. Presumably, most children attending “Zootopia 2” haven’t watched Kubrick’s film. That’s a shoutout to the grown-ups for bringing the kids and, hopefully, discussing the historical practice of redlining with them after the show.
Byron Howard, left, and Jared Bush.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
The first “Zootopia” was not notable just for funny talking animals but also the fact that the funny animals were talking about bigotry and stereotyping. Perceptive viewers may have noticed a mammalian bias in the original — there were no reptiles to be found in its near-perfect society. It turns out they were discriminated against as a class and denied their rightful place as residents, as we learn in “Zootopia 2.” Bush said that concept fit right in with “continuing this discussion about how we as human beings have a hard time looking past each other’s differences.”
Howard says the diversity-as-strength theme plays out not just in grand terms but also in the dynamic between the two protagonists, Judy (a rabbit, voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick (a fox, voiced by Jason Bateman): “Nick and Judy are such different, contrast[ing] characters that are really stronger [together] because of those differences, and that speaks to something we really value, which is differences between each other as a working pair,” he gestures to Bush and himself. “We continue to thrive in that way.”
Howard agrees with the comparison of him and Bush to conductors of a giant orchestra, listening for notes being played just right. He thinks of composer Michael Giacchino “onstage with those virtuosos at their respective instruments; we work with masters all around us, so we have a lot of trust in them.”
However, he admits with all those voices, “Writers have a tough time here because we scrutinize these movies and redo them over and over and over again. Jared is a great example of someone who thrives in this environment.”
Bush, explaining he came from the culture of TV sitcoms and all their constant revisions in writers rooms, says, “We have this amazing luxury of being able to rewrite and rethink and absorb these better ideas over years. It is an extreme luxury.
“There’s nothing else like this in Hollywood that I’ve seen — that level of deep collaboration and iteration. There’s no place I’m ever going to be that I will love as much as this.”
My name is Jon Halperin. I booked and managed Chain Reaction from 2000 to 2006. It started by accident while I was running a one-person record label. I went to the club to see the band Melee perform and the prior talent buyer for the club had just quit that day. I told owner Tim Hill I’d do it (having only booked three shows ever at a coffee shop). We slept on it, and I was hired the next day.
I joined Ron Martinez (of Final Conflict). He was booking the punk and hardcore shows. I booked the indie, ska, emo, screamo and pop punk stuff. We made a great team. Best work-wife ever.
Story time. My friend Ikey Owens (RIP) hit me up and told me that he and the guys from At the Drive In were going to be starting a new band. I’d booked Defacto (their dub project) before, and we agreed to throw them on a show and just bill it as “Defacto.” There were maybe 200 people there to see the first show for a band that would soon be known as the Mars Volta.
That wasn’t out of the ordinary. Chain Reaction had many artists grace that stage that went on to bigger things: Death Cab for Cutie, Avenged Sevenfold, Maroon 5, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, Taking Back Sunday, Pierce the Veil, My Morning Jacket. The list goes on and on.
Jon Halperin, who booked Chain Reaction from 2000 to 2006, stands in front of the club during its heyday.
(From Jon Halperin)
I used to make a deal with the kids. Buy a ticket to “X” show, and if you didn’t like the band, I’d refund you. I never had to. I knew my audience and they trusted my curation of the room. … It was by the kids, for the kids, except I was 30 at the time. I had to think like a teenager. My friend Brian once called me “Peter Pan.”
Halfway through my reign, social media became a thing. There was Friendster and a bit later MySpace. YouTube stated just a few years after. But those first few years of me at the venue, it was word of mouth. It was paper fliers dropped off at coffee shops and record stores. It was the flier in the venue window. It was Mean Street Magazine and Skratch Magazine.
I’d tease the press when they wanted to review a show. If you don’t show up with a pen and paper, you aren’t getting in (sorry, Kelli).
Most music industry went to the Los Angeles show, but smart industry came to us. Countless acts got signed following their shows. You’d often see the band meeting with a label in the parking lot near their tour van.
It was a dry room when I was there. No booze or weed whatsoever. We made only one exception to the weed rule. An artist in a band with Crohn’s disease who traveled with a nurse. Not saying bands didn’t drink backstage, on stage, in their vans (we rarely had buses), but what we didn’t see didn’t happen.
Touche Amoré performing at Chain Reaction in 2010.
(Joe Calixto)
We were often referred to as the “CBGB’s of the West,” and for a lot of bands, locals and touring acts alike, we were just that. We were the epicenter. There were other venues of course, but for some reason, we were the venue to play. Showcase Theater in Corona was edging toward its demise. Koo’s Cafe in Santa Ana was done. Back Alley in Fullerton wasn’t active. Galaxy Theater [in Santa Ana] was still, well, the Galaxy. There was no House of Blues Anaheim. Bands would drive a thousand miles to play one show at Chain Reaction. We were where the local bands started as first of four on a bill and would be headlining us within a year. We were their jumping-off point. We were where the kids came out. The real fans, many of whom started bands themselves.
Thankfully, there are other smaller venues out there today fostering the all-ages scene: Programme Skate in Fullerton, the Locker Room at Garden AMP [in Garden Grove], Toxic Toast in Long Beach, the Haven Pomona, but it’s just not the same. It was a moment in time. A time that will be forgotten in a few decades, but for today, my social media is being inundated with memories of a room that was a second home for thousands of kids.
Zero regrets. It was the best and worst times of my life. Working a day gig and then heading to the venue nearly every day of the week was rough. Relationships and friendships were hard, being that I couldn’t go out at night. I couldn’t get a pet. I was constantly tired. But I wouldn’t trade those six years for the world.
Folks, who was supposed to be watching grandpa last night? Because he got out, got on TV and … It. Was. Not. Good.
For 18 long minutes Wednesday evening, we were subjected to a rant by President Trump that predictably careened from immigrants (bad) to jobs (good), rarely slowing down for reality. But jumbled between the vitriol and venom was a vision of American healthcare that would have horror villainess M3GAN shaking in her Mary Janes — a vision that we all should be afraid of because it would take us back to a dark era when insurance couldn’t be counted on.
Trump’s remarks offered only a sketchy outline, per usual, in which the costs of health insurance premiums may be lower — but it will be because the coverage is terrible. Yes, you’ll save money. But so what? A cheap car without wheels is not a deal.
“The money should go to the people,” Trump said of his sort-of plan.
The money he vaguely was alluding to is the government subsidies that make insurance under the Affordable Care Act affordable. After antics and a mini-rebellion by four Republicans also on Wednesday, Congress basically failed to do anything meaningful on healthcare — pretty much ensuring those subsidies will disappear with the New Year.
That’s bad enough. But Trump would like to make it worse.
The Affordable Care Act is about much more than those subsidies. Before it took effect in 2014, insurance companies in many states could deny coverage for preexisting conditions. This didn’t have to be big-ticket stuff like cancer. A kid with asthma? A mom with colitis? Those were the kind of routine but chronic problems that prevented millions from obtaining insurance — and therefore care.
Obamacare required that policies sold on its exchange did not discriminate. In addition, the ACA required plans to limit out-of-pocket costs and end lifetime dollar caps, and provide a baseline of coverage that included essentials such as maternity care. Those standards put pressure on all plans to include more, even those offered through large employers.
Trump would like to undo much of that. He instead wants to fall back on the stunt he loves the most — send a check!
What he is suggesting by sending subsidy money directly to consumers also most likely would open the market to plans without the regulation of the ACA. So yes, small businesses or even groups of individuals might be able to band together to buy insurance, but there likely would be fewer rules about what — or whom — it has to cover.
Most people aren’t savvy or careful enough to understand the limitations of their insurance before it matters. So it has a $2-million lifetime cap? That sounds like a lot until your kid needs a treatment that eats through that in a couple of months. Then what?
Trump suggested people pay for it themselves, out of health savings accounts funded by that subsidy check sent directly to taxpayers. Because that definitely will work, and people won’t spend the money on groceries or rent, and what they do save certainly will cover any medical expenses.
“You’ll get much better healthcare at a much lower price,” Trump claimed Wednesday. “The only losers will be insurance companies that have gotten rich, and the Democrat Party, which is totally controlled by those same insurance companies. They will not be happy, but that’s OK with me because you, the people, are finally going to be getting great healthcare at a lower cost.”
He then bizarrely tried to blame the expiring subsidies on Democrats.
Democrats “are demanding those increases and it’s their fault,” he said. “It is not the Republicans’ fault. It’s the Democrats’ fault. It’s the Unaffordable Care Act, and everybody knew it.”
It seems like Trump just wants to lower costs at the expense of quality. Here’s where I take issue with the Democrats. I am not here to defend insurance companies or our healthcare system. Both clearly need reform.
But why are the Democrats failing to explain what “The money should go to the people” will mean?
I get that affordability is the message, and as someone who bought both a steak and a carton of milk this week, I understand just how powerful that issue is.
Still, everyone, Democrat or Republican, wants decent healthcare they can afford, and the peace of mind of knowing if something terrible happens, they will have access to help. There is no American who gladly would pay for insurance each month, no matter how low the premium, that is going to leave them without care when they or their loved ones need it most.
Grandpa Trump doesn’t have this worry, since he has the best healthcare our tax dollars can buy.
But when he promises to send a check instead of providing governance and regulation of one of the most critical purchases in our lives, the message is sickening: My victory in exchange for your well-being.
