san diego

Sorry, Orlando. Southern California is the theme park capital of the world. Yes, I believe that.

A brief history: Knott’s Berry Farm created a framework that allowed Disneyland to invent the theme park, which Universal Studios tweaked. SoCal innovations, all of them — and the industry remains centered here.

Theme parks are integral to SoCal life. They’re institutions, as familiar as Dodger Stadium, Griffith Park or the Getty. Many of us grew up going to the parks and have archives of fading photos to prove it.

That’s why The Times is launching its first-ever theme park newsletter, a weekly guide to what matters and how to best experience these themed wonderlands. Welcome to Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride, where I’ll take you on my adventures in make-believe, share news and tips, and go deep on the hidden artistry behind SoCal’s most beloved attractions. (Sign up, and we’ll be in your inbox soon.)

Why theme parks are magical

Maybe you haven’t been to a theme park in a while. And maybe that’s intentional. Yes, ticket prices increase every year, crowds frustrate and your ankle will probably be struck by a stroller. But theme parks are art. They’re meticulously designed, as real as our ability to pretend. Few spaces exist in which so many artistic endeavors collide: architecture, costuming, landscaping, animation, engineering, urban design and more. The delight is in the details.

Theme parks are more than an escape — they reflect and respond to culture. Maybe these are simply the ramblings of a Disney adult and fan of all theme parks, but I won’t apologize for seeking joy, wonder and play. It’s what’s needed right now.

I visit theme parks regularly — probably too often by some people’s standards — but I’m excited every time. The key is to stop viewing them as a checklist of activities. So as we enter the busy spring break and summer seasons, here are some ways to develop a deeper appreciation (and simply have more fun) at our most iconic parks.

Embrace the Disneyland classics

I received pushback when I declared It’s a Small World the best attraction at the Anaheim resort, but hear me out. The ride is designed in the look of animator turned theme park artist Mary Blair, reflective of her color clashes and childlike whimsy. It’s akin to a boat trip through an art gallery. No other attraction is so reflective of a singular art style. The facade, designed by renown Disney Imagineer Rolly Crump and inspired by Blair, mixes glistening white metals and fiberglass with gold leaf accents that nod to the Eiffel Tower, Tower of Pisa, a Dutch windmill and more. How many more landmarks can you spot amid the jagged edges and byzantine shapes?

Fun fact: Legend tells that Disneyland used the entire U.S. supply of gold leaf to make the facade. Germany, apparently, came to the rescue.

Don’t skip a ride on the greatest tram tour ever built

Visitors enter the set of Jupiter’s Claim from the movie “Nope” while taking the Universal Studios tram tour in May 2023.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Universal Studios’ World-Famous Tram Tour, as it is officially designated, is the most important modern theme park attraction in America. The slow-moving backlot trek existed long before Universal Studios had a theme park, but it changed the industry.

In 1976, one year after Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” opened, the studio put guests face-to-face with a 24-foot shark. Never before had a cultural phenomenon like “Jaws” been so quickly replicated in a theme park. “Ride the movies” is a phrase coined by Spielberg, and it’s an industrywide trend that hasn’t stopped.

Fun fact: Universal consulted submarine builders General Dynamics to construct a shark that could survive long term under water.

Spend an afternoon in America’s first theme park

Knott’s Berry Farm’s entrance as parkgoers ride the Silver Bullet roller coaster behind it in May 2021.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

There are times I go to Knott’s Berry Farm and never leave its Ghost Town area, which predates Disneyland and is filled with oddities. A toy shop, for instance, sells actual puppets, and a train ride still features a staged robbery. The park also just remodeled its 72-year-old Bird Cage Theatre, home to outrageous vaudeville-style shows, where a young Steve Martin once performed. It’s a rarity these days to have live theater at a theme park.

Fun fact: The theater’s facade is a replica of the original Bird Cage in Tombstone, Ariz., which has long had a bawdy reputation.

So I hope you’ll sign up for Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride, where we’ll geek out on the history, the artistry and the future of these spaces. Have a theme park question? Email me, and I hope to answer it in an upcoming edition of the newsletter. Life is tough. We can all use more fun.

Today’s top stories

Billionaire Tom Steyer speaks during Jewish California: Governor 2026 Candidate Forum at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 26.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Billionaire candidate for California governor faces criticism

• Tom Steyer, a Democratic candidate for California governor, faces mounting criticism over his former hedge fund’s prior investments in private prisons now housing undocumented immigrants.
• Steyer says he deeply regrets the investment and left his hedge fund 14 years ago and has since spent hundreds of millions on Democratic causes, particularly efforts to fight climate change.

Artemis II crew flies past the moon

• NASA’s Artemis II crew flew past the moon Monday, traveling farther from Earth than any humans in history and becoming the first to see some sections of the moon’s far side in the sunlight with the naked eye.
• The four astronauts described the far side in eloquent detail: Geometric patterns of browns, blues and greens amid the moon’s typical shades of gray.

L.A.-based relatives of a deceased Iranian leader were arrested

• The niece and grand-niece of an Iranian general have been arrested by immigration agents after the niece celebrated the Iranian leadership and denigrated the U.S.
• The general’s daughter has disputed the family connection, according to Iranian media, which has quoted a statement attributed to her saying that the two women bear no relation to the general.

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

This morning’s must read

For your downtime

State Route 78.

(Josh Jackson)

Going out

Staying in

And finally … your photo of the day

The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne travels over the Coachella 2004 crowd in an inflated plastic bubble.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Robert Gauthier during 2004 Coachella. Here’s a look at The Times’ photos from every year of the festival, including its origins in 1999, legendary performances from Daft Punk, Prince and Beyoncé, and the iconic art installations the festival has hosted over the years.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

Covered marquees. Downed statues. Painted-over murals. A canceled holiday.

California has effectively exorcised César Chávez from the public sphere just weeks after a New York Times investigation found two women who said the legendary labor leader sexually assaulted them when they were teenage girls in the 1970s. Just as explosive was the revelation by his longtime lieutenant, Dolores Huerta, that he raped her in the 1960s.

My prediction for the next place we’ll see a Chávez purge: books about him, which number into the dozens and span from academic treatises to children’s tales. But before critics relegate those texts to the banned section, folks should read some of them to see how writers helped establish the Chávez myth and propagated it for decades.

The books that created the Chávez legend

The tendency to elevate him above other activists was there from the start. In 1967, John Gregory Dunne published “Delano: The Story of the California Grape Strike,” which saw the author (and husband to Joan Didion) capture the essence of el movimiento in its earliest days through on-the-ground reporting and interviews with Chávez, whom Dunne described in the introduction as “the right man at the right place at what was, sadly, both the right and the wrong time.”

Famed writer Peter Matthiessen cemented Chávez’s image as a humble hero fighting a lone, brave battle against philistine farmers with a two-part New Yorker profile that became the basis for 1969s “Sal Si Puedes: Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution.” That narrative continued with Jacques Levy’s 1975 release “Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa.” Talk about getting too close to the subject: The author’s archived papers disclosed he served as Chávez’s literal notetaker during the 1970 negotiations that ended the grape strike and led to the UFW’s first union contracts.

Chávez came under strong scrutiny

Rose-tinted biographies tellingly stopped around the time Chávez created a commune in what’s now currently the César E. Chávez National Monument in Keene and began to target perceived enemies within the UFW. Critics instead appeared in the media — one of the first was a 1979 Reason article that alleged he was misusing federal funds and contained the prescient line, “Many people will be reluctant to believe anything that could cast a shadow over this man.”

Other critical dispatches included pieces in the L.A. Times, Village Voice and one in the Sacramento Bee so damning in its indictment of how Chávez had, on his own, sabotaged the movement so many associated with him that its author, Marcos Breton, recently wrote how Chávez was left “hostile and angry” by his simple questions.

In the wake of Chávez’s decline and eventual death in 1993, authors created a new genre: Saint César. Titles like “Cesar Chavez and the Common Sense of Nonviolence,” “Conquering Goliath: Cesar Chavez at the Beginning” (by his mentor, Fred Ross Sr., the most important California organizer you’ve never heard of) and “The Rhetorical Career of César Chávez” pushed forth the gospel of their subject as a plainspoken prophet out of the Good Book.

Chávez inspired millions — but those books will now forever read as hollow and sadly myopic.

Rethinking the Chávez myth

True reappraisals of Chávez and his work wouldn’t start until after former Times editor and reporter Miriam Pawel published a 2006 series for this paper that showed the ugly, domineering side of Chávez and the UFW’s decline. Six years later, longtime activist Frank Bardacke simultaneously praised and damned Chávez in his “Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers.” Though a good read, it pales in importance and poignant lyricism to two double whammies that dropped in 2014: “From the Jaws of Victory The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement” by Dartmouth College professor (and my distant cousin!) Matthew Garcia and Pawel’s own “The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography.”

Garcia and Pawel are now making media appearances and writing essays to opine on where they think Chávez went wrong. Expect updates to all of these books and so many others in the months and years to come — if they’re ever published again.

Today’s top stories

Red diamond rattlesnakes are among species in the Golden State. One reptile expert who relocates snakes says her phone has been “ringing off the hook.”

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Weird rattlesnake season

• Unseasonably warm March weather triggered an unusually active rattlesnake season in California, with experts fielding record calls about sightings statewide.
• Two fatal bites in Southern California in March and 77 Poison Control calls in three months far exceed typical annual patterns.

Life after California

• A new UC Berkeley study found that people who moved out of California dramatically improved their financial conditions.
• Those former Californians said the move saved them almost $700 in monthly housing costs, and they became 48% more likely to own a home in their new state.

Minimal snow in California mountains

More big stories

Commentary and opinions

This morning’s must read

Other great reads

For your downtime

(Stella Kalinina / For The Times; Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times; Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times; Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: How are you celebrating Easter this year?

Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … the photo of the day

Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani delivers during the second inning of a 4-1 win over the Cleveland Guardians at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday night.

(Ronaldo Bolaños/Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Ronaldo Bolaños at Tuesday night’s Dodgers’ game. Shohei Ohtani battled through the rain to throw a one-hit gem in the Dodgers’ 4-1 win over the Cleveland Guardians.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, weekend reporter
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

So much seems to cost too much nowadays.

The expensive nature of everything is a popular topic on Reddit and the subject of countless papers and think pieces.

Plus, every time you drive, you can see the escalating average cost for a gallon of gas throughout the state that ranges from $5.77 in Orange County, $5.78 in San Diego County, $5.80 in Los Angeles County and $5.86 in San Francisco County to the high of $6.57 in Mono County, according to AAA.

It can easily make anyone think having fun is unaffordable.

Fortunately, our Travel and Experiences team has put together a list of 75 fun things to do for under $20.

Here is a selection of those picks, while the entire list should be explored.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Paddle a swan boat in Echo Park Lake (Echo Park)

Cost: $13 per hour, $7.50 for those under age 18.

On warm days, it’s hard to beat a ride on the swan boats at Echo Park.

They’re powered by foot paddles, and the pedaling is easy because you’re in no hurry. Maybe you’ll want to do a circuit of the lake (really a man-made reservoir). Maybe you’ll sidle up to the towers of whitewater rising from the mid-lake fountain.

Maybe you’ll wait until after dark (because the swans light up).

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Experience L.A.’s esoteric history at the Philosophical Research Society (Los Feliz)

Cost: Free to visit, workshops and lectures from $10 and up.

Located at the intersection of Los Feliz and Griffith Park boulevards, the Philosophical Research Society has long been a place of mystery, intrigue and, for some, apprehension.

The Mayan Revival campus painted in Southwestern shades of clay, cream and sage was built in 1935 by the celebrated author and esoteric lecturer Manly P. Hall.

Today, it hosts a dizzying array of events each week including poetry readings, death cafes, sound baths, a weekly class on Buddhism, tarot and astrology salons and musical performances — some of which have a suggested donation of just $10.

If you visit, make sure to make time to browse the excellently curated metaphysical bookstore.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Find the perfect meditation spot at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine (Pacific Palisades)

Cost: Free.

Whether or not you’re familiar with the work of Paramahansa Yogananda, who founded the Self-Realization Fellowship in 1920, if you live in Los Angeles you owe him a debt of gratitude for the smattering of lush, meditative gardens in Southern California that are still open to the public today.

Among those is Lake Shrine, a beautifully landscaped 10-acre property in the Pacific Palisades surrounding a spring-fed lake that is dotted with quiet meditation spots.

It is free to visit, but you will need to make a reservation online before you go. (Reservations open each Saturday at 10 a.m. for the week ahead, and they can fill up quickly.)

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Cozy up with a flick at the Paramount Drive-In Theater (Paramount)

Cost: $14 per adult, $7 per kid (ages 3-11).

For a night out that feels as cozy as a night in, head to the Paramount Drive-In Theater. In the comfort of your own car, you can spread out, munch popcorn and make all the commentary you want without getting looks from other moviegoers.

Tickets are purchased on arrival, and the parking lot is huge, so you’re bound to secure a good view of the big screen. There is a concession store on site with candy, chips and drinks, but you are free to bring all the snacks you want from home. Recline your seat all the way back, relax and enjoy the show.

Check out the entire list here.

The week’s biggest stories

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Heat wave and environmental news

Los Angeles mayor, city council news

Cesar Chavez fallout

California governor’s race

Crime, courts and policing

What else is going on

Must reads

Other meaty reads

For your downtime

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

Staying in

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

LA28 revealed the schedule Monday for an extended Olympic soccer tournament that will begin four days before the opening ceremony.

The soccer competition begins July 10 with four men’s group stage games across New York, Columbus, Nashville and St. Louis. The women’s tournament begins July 11 with games in all six of the preliminary round sites, including San José and San Diego.

The soccer competition, which will feature 12 women’s teams and eight men’s teams for the first time, has the longest competition window of any sport in Olympic history because the International Olympic Committee Executive Board wanted to give each team two extra rest days throughout the tournament.

Each team will have two days of rest between group stage games and three days between the final group game and the quaterfinal rounds. The men will begin their knockout round games on July 20 while the women start quarterfinal play on July 21, including one women’s quarterfinal match at the Rose Bowl.

The iconic stadium in Pasadena will host only five matches for the Olympics, including a men’s and women’s semifinal July 24 and the men’s gold medal match on July 28 and the women’s on July 29.

San Diego’s SnapDragon Stadium will have the most matches of any site with 11. In addition to three days of women’s group stage games, the home of San Diego State football, San Diego FC and San Diego Wave FC will host a women’s quarterfinal July 21, men’s and women’s semifinals July 24 and both bronze medal matches.

With the coast-to-coast soccer tournament shaping up, LA28 announced additional ticket opportunities for the competition, allowing fans interested in attending soccer matches to buy up to 12 soccer tickets in addition to the current 12-ticket maximum for all other Olympic events. The 12-ticket maximum for Olympic events includes the opening and closing ceremonies on July 14 and 30, respectively, which each have a four-ticket limit.

Ticket registration for the first ticket drop ends Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. PDT with the first tickets going on sale to locals in Southern California and Oklahoma beginning April 2. The first general ticket drop begins April 9. Fans who are randomly selected to participate in the first ticket drop will be notified via email between March 31 and April 7 with information and their assigned timeslot to purchase tickets.

More than 5 million fans have already registered for Olympic tickets, LA28 said, with Paralympic tickets going on sale in 2027. The organizing committee expects 14 million tickets to be available for the Games, which could eclipse the total ticket sales record set by Paris in 2024.

All the predictions, drama and pageantry of Hollywood’s biggest night will play out at the Dolby Theatre this afternoon as the 98th Academy Awards get underway.

How many awards will “Sinners,” directed by Ryan Coogler, win from its record-setting 16 nominations? And will Coogler win best director? Our critic says, “no.”

Tonight is also a big evening for our entertainment team, which has been producing features, previews, explainers, predictions and so much more.

Let’s jump into some of that work.

How and when to watch

My colleague Katie Simons provided some show basics, like it’s 4 p.m. Pacific start time.

The 2026 Oscars will air on ABC, and those with cable subscriptions can also watch by logging into the ABC app or abc.com.

The telecast will also stream live on Hulu, YouTubeTV, AT&T TV and FuboTV. Internationally, the ceremony will be broadcast in more than 200 territories. You can check your local listings here.

When the red carpet viewing gets underway

“Chicken Shop Date” host Amelia Dimoldenberg will return, for a third-straight year, as social media ambassador and correspondent for the official red carpet, which will kick off at 3:30 p.m. on ABC and Hulu.

For extended coverage, E! will begin its red carpet broadcast at 1 p.m. ABC’s coverage begins at 12:30 p.m., followed by “The Oscars Red Carpet Show,” hosted by Tamron Hall and Jesse Palmer.

“Sinners” is picking up steam heading into the show

My colleague Greg Braxton wrote about how award prognosticators believe Sinners gained positive press after its stars — Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan — were called a racial slur at the BAFTAs.

Jordan’s and Lindo’s handling of the BAFTA incident, along with warmly received victories for the “Sinners” cast at the Actor Awards on March 1, has given the Warner Bros. release unexpected momentum leading up to Sunday’s Oscars ceremony.

Although it received a record-breaking 16 nominations, the film has been largely overshadowed through much of awards season by Paul Thomas Anderson’s political thriller “One Battle After Another.”

And Timothée Chalamet of “Marty Supreme” had been considered for months as an almost-certain lock for lead actor. But the events in past weeks have seemingly positioned “Sinners” for upset wins in the picture race and lead actor for Jordan.

Who’s going to win?

Our critic Amy Nicholson and our expert Glenn Whipp believe they know the winners and the snubs.

Nicholson believes “Sinners” should win for best picture.

Nicholson wrote that the Jim Crow-era murder musical is the best kind of smart filmmaking, a barn-burner about religion and art and race that ditches the speeches for scenes of action and romance.

Every character — from Miles Caton’s rebellious guitarist and Jack O’Connell’s lilting vampire to Wunmi Mosaku’s soulful witch and Michael B. Jordan’s bootlegging twins Smoke and Stack — has been scarred by life in 1930s Mississippi.

She also said the film “Eddington” should’ve been a contender (perhaps a nod to “On the Waterfront”). Ari Aster’s merciless black comedy drags us back to May 2020 when tempers, temperatures and misinformation were heating up across America.

Dueling civic leaders Sheriff Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) and Mayor Ted (Pedro Pascal) agree that COVID has yet to arrive in their New Mexican hamlet.

Whipp wrote that “One Battle After Another” vs. “Sinners” is very much a 1A/1B situation, with Anderson’s epic having the slight edge.

But with the Oscars, quality is often secondary to an awards narrative. Both movies have cultural relevance.

Both won critical acclaim and, to a degree, commercial success. (Though “One Battle” wasn’t the blockbuster “Sinners” was, it still grossed more than any other movie in Anderson’s career.) “Sinners” scored 16 Oscar nominations, the most in history; “One Battle” was close behind with 13.

There’s much more to read in the above links. Enjoy them and the Oscars.

The week’s biggest stories

(Chris Putnam/FiledIMAGE – stock.adobe.com)

Election news

Oil and the Iran War

Crime, courts and policing

What else is going on

Must reads

Other meaty reads

For your downtime

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Richard Shotwell / Invision / AP)

Going out

Staying in

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

When I think of the solidarity of musicians, I recall an iconic scene from the film “Titanic.”

It’s the one where a quartet plays “Nearer, My God, to Thee” as the great, “unsinkable” ship sinks into the North Atlantic Ocean.

They attempted to offer calm amid a sea of panic as passengers and crew feverishly boarded lifeboats. The events were based on a true story and historians note that the body of the Titanic band leader Wallace Hartley was found floating in the ocean “with his music case strapped to it.”

Even in tragedy, we seek music to bring us solace.

Much closer to home, musicians from Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other affected areas have been challenged to keep the music going after losing instruments, studio equipment and business along with their homes in the January 2025 fires that claimed the lives of 31 people.

One organization, Altadena Musicians, launched the app Instrumental Giving to connect donors who can spare an old piano or a gently used cello with those who lost similar instruments.

KC Mancebo, an Altadena Musicians advisor, spoke with The Times about the group’s mission and success.

The campaign’s genesis

It started with composers Brandon Jay and his wife, Gwendolyn Sanford, who saw their Altadena home, music studio and several instruments destroyed by the Eaton fire.

Shortly after the fire, Jay posted about the lost equipment and what each piece meant to his family.

He said the response from that post — hundreds of people offering their instruments and other types of aid — left him “overwhelmed and gobsmacked.”

He called friends and helpers from throughout the music industry, including Mancebo, chief executive of the event production and talent booking agency Clamorhouse, hoping to offer to others the same help he received.

Mancebo had been helping homeowners navigate fire insurance paperwork and processes.

“Brandon Jay asked, ‘Why don’t we start gathering instruments for our friends,” Mancebo said. “We had 25 friends in the Palisades and 15 friends in the Eaton fire that lost everything, so we and others got involved.”

How’s it going so far?

The organization has passed out around 3,500 instruments to 1,200 families since the first donations in late January 2025, Mancebo said.

The donations range from ukuleles to Steinway & Sons pianos.

“We’re providing instruments to anyone from children who lost their first instruments to people who lost their entire studio,” she said. “The need is great.”

The gifts have come from individual donors and corporate benefactors such as JBL, which has provided speakers and equipment, as well as guitar makers Fender and Gibson, among others.

Rebuilding from the ashes

Mancebo lost her Westside home eight years ago because of a defective dryer that caught fire, she said.

“I went through the whole process of insurance, permitting and rebuilding and we didn’t have FEMA or anyone to help,” she said. “I want to provide that help to those in a similar situation.”

Mancebo said it took eight years to recover and rebuild her home.

“No one is fine after the first year,” she said. “Everyone needs help.”

Brentwood resident Amy Engelhardt, a singer/songwriter, composer, lyricist and playwright, donated her Kawai Upright Piano to the Altadena Musicians organization on March 10, 2026.

(Courtesy of Amy Engelhardt)

One person’s goodbye is another’s hello

Brentwood resident Amy Engelhardt, a singer/songwriter, composer, lyricist and playwright, loved her Kawai upright piano she purchased through a PennySaver ad in 2000.

“It was a deal for the starving artist,” she said. “I paid so little and I always considered it a gift.”

Since then, Engelhardt said she has written all of her music on that piano. She didn’t, however, play it while recording her Grammy-nominated vocal group, the Bobs.

Still, she donated her piano this week to a woman who lost her home. The instrument would not be making the permanent move with Engelhardt back to New York, where her playwriting services are in demand.

“I did get emotional about it, but it’s OK,” Engelhardt said. “It’s comforting knowing that someone else will love it and create their own memories.”

Those interested in donating can check out https://altadenamusicians.org.

The week’s biggest stories

(Hiro Komae / Associated Press)

War with Iran

Oscars on Sunday

Television and entertainment news

Dangerous situations

What else is going on

Must reads

Other meaty reads

For your downtime

Going out

Staying in

L.A. Timeless

A selection of the very best reads from The Times’ 143-year archive.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.