Arsenal defender Ben White says people do not know the “full story” behind his decision to previously make himself unavailable for England selection – but says he would make the same decision again.
He then made himself unavailable for selection for the rest of Gareth Southgate’s reign, and was booed by some fans in March’s 1-1 draw with Ukraine after returning to the squad under Tuchel.
Asked by BBC Radio 5 live’s football correspondent John Murray what he would say to people who define his England career by what happened in Qatar, White said: “I think obviously people don’t know the full story, because I [have] never said anything and I won’t put anyone under the bus or share any of that.
“I think that is probably the best way.
“It’s been amazing [though], obviously a bit tricky and not straightforward, but it is amazing to be here now.”
White is now 29 and asked if he would have done anything differently in hindsight, he added: “No, I don’t think I would.
“Obviously, I was a bit younger, I am a bit older now.
“I think as a person I am quite real and I think I made the decision that I would probably continue to make.
“So, one that I am not happy about, but obviously it happened and [it is] time to move on.”
White came on for his first England appearance since 2022 in March’s 1-1 draw with Uruguay and was booed by some supporters before he scored but also gave away the penalty that led to the visitors’ equaliser.
After that, Chelsea midfielder Jordan Henderson said he and his fellow England players would always support White, while Tuchel said recently that the defender deserves “a new chapter” and “positive feedback from the crowd”.
Asked how he dealt with the emotions of that night at Wembley, White added: “Before the game I was thinking ‘don’t not stand out, but [take it] nice and easy’.
“Then I came on and obviously got booed, then I scored, then I gave away a penalty.
“So, it was obviously full of emotions that night, [but] it was a good night.”
England play Croatia at Wembley on Thursday, 12 November before taking on world champions Spain in Madrid three days later.
White is looking to add to his six England caps in this international break and said: It is obviously an amazing privilege to be called up.
“The feeling is the same every time you do get this chance to play for England. It’s one I am really looking forward to this week.”
Édouard Manet’s “Execution of Maximilian” will go on view at Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum next week, marking the first time the painting has been exhibited on the West Coast. The historic canvas, on loan from London’s National Gallery, has a fascinating backstory and represents a key moment in French political history, making its arrival shortly after this country’s stunning midterm election particularly auspicious.
The painting is the second of five versions Manet created (circa 1867-68) shortly after the shocking execution of Austrian archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, who briefly served as the emperor of Mexico after being encouraged to do so by the French emperor Napoleon III. In 1867, Maximilian — along with his generals Tomás Mejía and Miguel Miramón — faced a firing squad made up of soldiers loyal to former Mexican President Benito Juárez, who had been forced out of Mexico City in 1863 when French forces descended on the capital. Maximilian’s ouster and death stunned many Europeans, who blamed Napoleon III for the bloodshed.
Manet’s monumental canvas is cold and unyielding in its impersonal depiction of the violent episode, and in many ways helped birth the modern historical political painting. Through Manet’s eyes, political violence is not heroic, but pedestrian, benign even. It contains echoes of another famous political painting: Francisco de Goya’s “The Third of May, 1808,” which also depicts death by firing squad — this time the execution of civilians by French troops during Napoleon’s notorious occupation of Spain.
The canvas coming to the Norton Simon was long neglected and is thought to have been discarded by Manet when he became dissatisfied by discrepancies in the size of the figures he painted. His family cut the canvas into four pieces after his death and sold them separately. It was saved from oblivion by Manet’s friend Edgar Degas, who managed to get a hold of all the fragments. The painting was acquired by the National Gallery in 1918 at Degas’ studio sale, and the painting was pieced together again in the late 1970s.
“Manet’s Execution of Maximilian is not only an icon within the history of nineteenth-century art, but also a profound reflection on the ways in which images shape our understanding of political events and collective memory,” said Emily Talbot, vice president of collections and chief curator at the Norton Simon in a news release. “By bringing this extraordinary painting together with historical materials that document the French intervention in Mexico, we invite visitors to consider how history is constructed in visual form.”
The painting will be on view at the Norton Simon from Nov. 14 to March 1, 2027.
I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt ready for a jubilant walk through a museum on the heels of a roller coaster of an election. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
[Update: A previous version of this story said Manet’s “Execution of Maximilian”had not been shown in the U.S. for 20 years. It has not been shown on the West Coast before, but was shown in New York in 2024.]
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
LA Phil’s incoming music director Daniel Harding conducting at the Hollywood Bowl in 2025.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
Daniel Harding Leads Bernstein & Brahms The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s incoming music director leads the orchestra for Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphony No. 1,” with mezzo-soprano Avery Amereau, and is joined by Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes for Johannes Brahms’ “Second Piano Concerto.” 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Idina Menzel The Broadway star joins with the Pacific Symphony, led by conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez, for a night of hits. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 300 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org
NOW 2026 REDCAT’s New Original Works Festival features a different program each week over three weekends. First up, Alfonso Abraham Cervera and Irvin Manuel Gonzalez’s “las cosas que enter(r)amos,” a mix of Latinx American social and folk dance, storytelling, and contemporary dance; Scottie Harvey’s “Hole Gazers,” a comedic satire about fantasy, surveillance and life online; and Jeonghyeon Joo’s “how to bathe properly,” a solo work for haegeum, a two-string instrument, performed in a staged Korean sauna. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, through Nov. 21. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
Radio Galaxy Joey McIntyre, Lesli Margherita, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Meera Simhan, Rishi Golani and Jordyn Rahman star in a new play by Michèle Aldin Kushner about a New Jersey teen who dreams of becoming an astronomer. Directed by Kimberly Senior. Through Nov. 22. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
Sable Elyse Smith “Sky Fence Ground” features new woven works on paper, a recent video work and a monumental kinetic sculpture by the multimedia artist. Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Friday, exhibit runs through Dec. 19. Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. regenprojects.com
SATURDAY
Angela Anh Nguyen Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) presents the artist’s “Entropy,” a site-specific installation that addresses the collective experience of the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires through social media, monitoring apps, and other forms of digital communication. Opening reception, 1-4 p.m., exhibit runs through Dec. 13. Old Fire Station No. 6, 534 E. Edgeware Road, Angelino Heights. nomadicdivision.org
Takes Care of Them Four large-scale prints by artist Dyani White Hawk (Sicangu Lakota) each depict a dress adorned differently to reflect on the roles of Lakota women in four areas: Wówahokuŋkiya (Lead); Wókaǧe (Create); Nakíčižiŋ (Protect); and Wačháŋtognaka (Nurture). Autry Museum of the American West, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Griffith Park. theautry.org
SUNDAY
Billie Holiday and The Blues L.A.’s Marlonius Jazz Orchestra, led by virtuoso bassist and composer Marlon Martinez, is joined by Brooklyn vocalist Mara Kaye for this tribute to Holiday and deep blues cuts. 8 p.m. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org
Camerata Pacifica The November program includes a world premiere by Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Mozart’s “Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Major,” alongside contemporary chamber works by Michael Daugherty, Missy Mazzoli and the late Sarah Gibson. 3 p.m. Sunday. Bank of America Performing Arts Center, Janet & Ray Scherr Forum Theatre, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Huntington, Rothenberg Hall, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; 8 p.m. Thursday. The Colburn School, Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; and 7 p.m. Friday. Music Academy of the West, Hahn Hall, 1070 Fairway Road, Santa Barbara. cameratapacifica.org
Romeo and Juliet: Time Enough for Love Open Fist Theatre Company presents a new age-reversed adaptation conceived and directed by Christian Lebano. Previews, 7:30 Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday, play runs Nov. 13-Dec. 19. Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. openfist.org
Sage Ni’Ja Whitson: Revival_ _Revival A free processional performance across the once predominantly Black community of Santa Monica, visiting sacred historic sites lost to time and gentrification, with a live score of gospel, house, hip hop, and voice. Audience members are invited to wear white clothing and white masks, and the procession closes with a fellowship meal at Ocean Bay Beach. 2 p.m. First AME Church, 1823 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica. 18thstreet.org
WEDNESDAY
Destiny of Desire Karen Zacarías’ smart and fearless homage to telenovelas yields an epic, twisting yarn, full of coincidences and cliff-hangers, mistaken identities and gobsmacking revelations. It’s invigorating fun but also radiant with insight into the age-old debate between nature and nurture. When I first saw the play at South Coast Repertory in 2016, I was seduced by the production’s Brechtian energy. And I’m eager to see what fresh light director Marcela Lorca sheds on a play that my students at CalArts one year claimed as their favorite of the semester — and they have excellent taste. (Charles McNulty) Through Dec. 20. Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org
LaTanya Richardson Jackson, from left, Kara Young, Glenn Davis and Jon Michael Hill in the Broadway/Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of “Purpose.”
(Marc J. Franklin)
Purpose The original Steppenwolf Theatre Company cast of the Broadway production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning drama reassembles at the Geffen Playhouse for the most anticipated dramatic event of the season. The play, about a prominent Black Chicago family headed by a civil rights icon with skeletons in his closet, has the scope, heft and flamboyant idiosyncrasy of the landmark American domestic dramas of the past. Under the assured direction of Phylicia Rashad, the actors brought the characters so richly to life in New York that I can’t wait to experience their ensemble alchemy in L.A. (Charles McNulty) Through Dec. 13. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. geffenplayhouse.org
THURSDAY The Heiress Theater 40 presents the classic American romantic drama, adapted by Ruth Goetz and Augustus Goetz from Henry James’ novel “Washington Square.” Directed by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky. Through Dec. 13. Beverly Hills High School, Mary Levin Cutler Theatre, 241 S. Moreno Drive. theatre40.org
Kafka’s Letter to His Father Keeping things in weird perspective, CAP UCLA, in collaboration with Brightwork Ensemble, presents a production of Czech composer Jiri Trtik’s opera “Letter to His Father.” About Kafka’s artistic liberation from paternal authority, it is produced by and stars the most transformative tenor of our time, Timur. (Mark Swed) 8 p.m. Thursday-Nov. 14. UCLA Nimoy 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Las Migas The Spanish Latin Grammy-winning all-women quartet melds traditional flamenco with contemporary stylings to reimagine the classic art form. 7:30 p.m. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with Isata Kanneh-Mason The New York-based classical ensemble is joined by the British pianist for a program featuring Mozart, Handel, Haydn and Welsh composer (and New York transplant) Katie Jenkins. 7:30 p.m. Broad Stage at Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St., Santa Monica. broadstage.org
Dispatch: A harrowing exhibition of Iranian art in Chinatown
“Lunch,” by BSisters (Behnaz and Baharak Khaleghi), on view at the Fellows of Contemporary Art gallery in Chinatown.
(Fellows of Contemporary Art)
“Lunch,” a centerpiece installation at Fellows of Contemporary Art’s new exhibition centered on the works of Iranian-born women artists in California, is an upsetting sculpture that’s as soft and intimate as a pillow.
The piece, by the Bay Area duo BSisters (Behnaz and Baharak Khaleghi), riffs on the myth of Zahāk — a vain tyrant with snakes around his head that eat human brains to keep him alive. It’s a tale from the Shahnameh, a 1,000-year-old Persian epic poem. BSisters have rendered it here in cozy pastel fabrics and gauzy spilled cotton, materials that speak to how women activists in Iran have been brutalized and consumed by the fundamentalist regime there. The sculpture — very funny and unnerving at once — also evokes the strange mix of distance and intimacy of Iranian immigrants to the U.S., watching the current conflict curdle their hopes for change into deeper worry.
It’s one of several affecting pieces on display at FOCA’s Chinatown gallery as part of “I Saw a Woman, Pounding Light into Mortar,” an exhibition in which six California-based Iranian women artists grapple with distance and helplessness, amid a conflict where both governments seem driven by an almost cannibalistic consumption of people and resources.
“Growing up in Iran, political repression was never something distant from our everyday lives. It shaped our childhood, our experiences as women, and the ways we learned to express ourselves,” said Katayoun Bahrami, the exhibit’s curator. “Living in the United States now, I feel a constant tension between building a life here and remaining deeply connected to what is happening back home. This past year has been especially painful. After the deadly crackdown on protesters in January and the war that followed, hope and anger have been hard to separate. Watching from thousands of miles away, unable to do much, has brought a sense of helplessness that is difficult to describe.”
Much of the work here is quietly devastating in evoking absence, fear and exile. Shaghayegh Cyrous’s video installation “Reenacting the Future” is a mirror image of a mother and daughter, filmed over 12 years in the U.S. and Iran, a visual echo cleaved by exile. Narges Poursadeqi’s sculpture “Between Dots of Blindness” could fit in a desk drawer, but the braille poem it spools through a music box feels like the last thing you would shove in a suitcase, fleeing for a new country.
“This exhibition was born during the internet and phone shutdowns in Iran, when we had no way to reach our families or know whether they were safe. That silence was terrifying,” Bahrami said. “Bringing these artists together became deeply personal for me. I recognize parts of my own fears, memories, and longing in their work. Through their art and our conversations, I’ve found ways to process feelings that are difficult to carry alone. Curating this exhibition has helped me turn some of that helplessness into something meaningful. It has also reminded me how much we need one another, especially when we feel powerless to change what is happening.”
“I Saw a Woman, Pounding Light into Mortar” at FOCA-LA through Nov. 28; 970 N. Broadway, Suite 208, Los Angeles 90012.
— August Brown
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Director Zhailon Levingston sits outside before the rehersal of “Passing Strange” at the Pasadena Playhouse.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
“Passing Strange,” a 20-year-old musical that takes place in downtown L.A. and went to Broadway, has never been performed here — until now. Pasadena Playhouse hosts its SoCal premiere.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is shaking things up. This week it announced a slew of new leadership positions that will go into effect alongside incoming music director Daniel Harding. The orchestra’s post-Dudamel future is shaping up to be quite interesting.
The most anticipated play of the season is about to open as “Oh Mary!” heads for the Ahmanson. Ticket sales have been so brisk that Center Theatre Group has already booked the show again for next season.
A “Do Not Enter” sign hangs on the fence at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Sept. 25 in Washington.
(Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP photo)
The Kennedy Center may be closed indefinitely for renovations, but that did not stop its Trump-anointed leaders from announcing who would be recognized at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors — to be held by necessity at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 7. Honorees include singer-songwriter Paul Anka, music producer David Foster, actor Andy Garcia, playwright David Mamet and country singer Barbara Mandrell.
Martha Stewart is setting the record straight about her controversial Halloween costume: It wasn’t Craig Melvin’s fault.
The lifestyle magnate stopped by the “Today” show Friday to once again apologize for deciding to dress up as a person experiencing homelessness for Halloween and explain why she threw Melvin under the bus amid the backlash.
“I don’t blame you at all,” Stewart said during her sitdown with the NBC host. “It was a joke when I said I blamed you. It was stupid.”
Stewart posted — then quickly deleted — a photo of herself dressed up in torn and disheveled clothing and holding a makeshift sign that read “I AM HUNGRY HELP ME!!” on Oct. 31. She was photographed on a pristine porch along with her immaculately groomed chow chow and French bulldog. The backlash was swift.
“It was just stupid and I apologize,” the TV personality said Friday, noting that her grandson had warned her even before she shared the photograph on Instagram that it was “tone deaf.” “I was not making fun of anybody or making light of the great problems that face our country.”
According to the ex-convict lifestyle mogul, she had thrown together the outfit last minute because she had been too busy to plan a proper costume to attend a Halloween party.
Stewart had previously apologized for her gaffe. After telling Page Six in a statement that her costume was meant “to bring more awareness” to the issue of homelessness and that she was “distressed” it “offended people,” she posted a since-deleted apology to her Instagram Sunday acknowledging her first statement “didn’t go far enough.”
“Wearing a costume like I did was insensitive and not funny. I am very sorry,” she wrote.
“Today” host Craig Melvin wanted to know why he got pulled into Martha Stewart’s Halloween costume controversy.
(Charles Sykes / Invision / Associated Press)
But Stewart added an extra layer to her story on Tuesday. During a speaking engagement in Orlando, Fla., the TV host blamed her costume on Melvin, who had spilled chocolate on the sweater she wore during her Oct. 30 appearance on “Today.” Stewart had worn a white sweater with an American flag and Olympic rings on the front in the episode to match with Melvin, who had dressed up like Olympics superfan and ambassador Snoop Dogg.
“Why was I dragged into it?” Melvin questioned Stewart during her most recent appearance.
“I was making a joke,” Stewart said. “I was giving a talk and I just made a joke that you had spilled chocolate on me so I couldn’t wear that costume, which I had planned to wear on Halloween night to this party.”
“And that became part of the story,” Melvin said, before confirming that he had apologized for the spilled chocolate when it had happened. “But to be clear, there was no connection to [the spilled chocolate] and the costume later?”
“Oh, no, no, no,” Stewart said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
She added she understood she needed to “pay closer attention to social issues” moving forward.
“I’m aware of all those social issues, as you can imagine, and I care desperately about all the problems facing us,” she said. “But I made a mistake. I mean, I was stupid. … I’m so sorry, and I hope that my followers and my fans and the rest of America forgives me for doing something that was not meant in any way to be a bad thing.”
If you’re a certain age — say, the generation most excited by the prospect of a “Rocky” origin story — you probably have spent a good few decades watching people imitate Sylvester Stallone. You might be able to pull it off yourself. Start with the gravely voice that rumbles and mumbles, make your eyes as heavy-lidded as possible, add a swaggering shoulder roll and then just brood, baby, brood.
Anthony Ippolito has the moves down pat in “I Play Rocky,” Peter Farrelly’s endearing crowd-pleaser, an underdog story about making the underdog movie that went on to win the Oscar for best picture in 1977. The title comes from Stallone’s repeated insistence that he portray the working-class fighter in the film that he wrote for himself. The studio wanted a star — Ryan O’Neal or Burt Reynolds, among others — and offered Stallone $360,000 for the script if he would just walk away. Stallone refused, even though his bank account was down to $106.
“I told my wife that I’d rather bury it in the backyard and let the caterpillars play Rocky,” he said shortly before the movie opened. “I would have hated myself for selling out, the way we hate most people for selling out.”
And that’s why the new film, written by Peter Gamble, has Ippolito say the title so many times that, by the end, you feel like you’ve gone a full 15 rounds with Apollo Creed and been pummeled into submission.
But as you’re watching this breezy movie as it slipstreams its way down memory lane, it starts to feel like Ippolito really is playing Rocky and not Stallone. The difference might be negligible, since “Rocky” was, in many respects, Stallone’s story: a sensitive palooka struggling for the chance to prove himself and earn a measure of self-respect, all the while supported by a woman who believes in his dream.
But the charming, softie Stallone we see in “I Am Rocky” seems like a character from mythology, a Hercules lacking the prickly complexities that Stallone himself detailed in his recent memoir. His tumultuous relationship with his father, Frank (Matt Dillon), is given little attention. Watching this movie, you might be reminded of the quote from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” And while the facts of this oft-told story are, for the most part, accurate, “I Am Rocky” feels too neat, a movie that relies on our love for “Rocky,” the movie and the character.
The film’s first half wastes no time laying the groundwork. It’s 1974 and Stallone is living in squalor in a New York flophouse. When he can’t even afford that, he takes to the streets, sleeping in an alley and adopting a stray bullmastiff that he names Butkus, the same dog that would go on to appear with him in “Rocky.” Desperate for cash, he accepts a part in a softcore porn flick. He eventually takes a job at a movie theater, where he meets Sasha (a lovely AnnaSophia Robb), who, growing weary of his frustrations and their precarious finances, tells him he should write a screenplay with a meaty part for himself.
Stallone soon does just that, cranking out “Rocky” in three and a half days after watching longshot Chuck Wepner (a.k.a. “The Bayonne Bleeder”) go 15 rounds against Muhammad Ali in a heavyweight championship fight. Producers Robert Chartoff (Toby Kebbell) and Irwin Winkler (P.J. Byrne) love the script and take it to brusque studio exec Sandy Maddox (Tracy Letts, gloriously cantankerous playing a composite character), who tells them to give Stallone $50,000 for the screenplay and send this complete unknown on his way. Stallone has a three-word rejoinder.
You don’t need a spoiler alert to know that he indeed does play Rocky, and the second half of the film re-creates the movie’s production, which, because of the shoestring budget, was arduous. The tight schedule forced Stallone to work even when he was sick and hurt. If he didn’t, he feared he’d be fired because the studio still wasn’t thrilled with him playing the lead.
There’s something for everyone in this section. Film nerds will glory in watching Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown (Michael Fuchs) sprinting up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, smoothly following Stallone, creating “Rocky’s” most famous scene with a fluidity that revolutionized moviemaking. Downtrodden directors will appreciate Jay Duplass’ knowing portrayal of John G. Avildsen, charged with making “Rocky” as quickly and frugally as possible. Avildsen brought the movie in on time and went on to win the Oscar for directing.
And longtime fans will appreciate that the film plays all the hits: the bare-knuckle beef pounding, the training sequences, the intimate ice rink scene with Talia Shire (Kiki Seto). Hollywood loves to celebrate its own scrappy mythmaking. (Ippolito’s biggest part prior to this was playing Al Pacino in “The Offer,” a limited series about the making of “The Godfather.”) Sure, it’s sentimental. And maybe you’d be better off just staying home and revisiting “Rocky.” What can I say? I put Bill Conti’s soaring “Gonna Fly Now” on repeat during the drive home. Nostalgia is a powerful drug.
‘I Play Rocky’
Rated: PG-13, for strong language, brief sexual material, and smoking
DEARBORN, Mich. — Campaigning relentlessly across Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed didn’t highlight the possibility that he could become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. But with victory in hand, he savored his triumph over the vitriol aimed at him and his fellow Muslim Americans.
“They tried to demonize people because of how they pray,” he told the Associated Press on Wednesday. “And Michigan — the whole Michigan — clapped back. People don’t want that. They’re sick of it.”
He showed his pride in his victory speech, declaring: “My name is Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.”
Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath yanked anti-Muslim sentiment into the forefront of American life, those emotions are shared by many Muslim Americans in Michigan and across the country.
They saw a surge of anti-Muslim rhetoric after Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York City mayor a year ago, and they saw the attacks intensify as El-Sayed became the new prime target. President Trump called him a “jihadist” who was “on the side of the terrorists.” Dozens of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress formed a Sharia-Free America Caucus, depicting Islam’s religious code as a threat to the U.S. Constitution.
But now, after El-Sayed’s defeat of GOP rival Mike Rogers was confirmed early Wednesday, there is a pervasive sense that a broader victory is at hand.
The outcome “represents a historic turning point for American Muslim political engagement and a historic defeat for the politics of hate,” said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“Anti-Muslim extremists, Israel lobby groups and even the president of the United States used every smear in the book to paint Dr. El-Sayed as a Muslim bogeyman,” he said. “None of it was true, and none of it worked. Anti-Muslim hate was on the ballot, and it failed.”
In Dearborn, talk of ‘a beautifully American story’
Excitement over El-Sayed’s victory was palpable in Dearborn, a city near Detroit with a sizable Arab American population. The mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, said residents showed up at the ballot box in huge numbers.
“What a beautifully American story,” Hammoud said. “One of our brightest and best earned the support of the majority of Michiganders who participated in yesterday’s election. And regardless of the direction in which he prays, they’re sending him to the U.S. Senate.”
Hammoud, who has known El-Sayed for more than a decade, said although his win was important for many Arab Americans, people voted for him because of his platform, not his identity. He cited support in Dearborn for independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Sanders, who is Jewish and caucuses with Democrats, ran on a progressive platform.
In El-Sayed, residents of Dearborn “finally saw themselves and a candidate who appealed to them, but it had to do with far more than just his ethnicity or his religion,” Hammoud said. “It was honestly because of the policies and building a coalition with this community in an honest way.”
When Zaynah Jadallah, 26, canvassed for El-Sayed in Dearborn, she said most people told her they already planned on voting for him before inviting her in for water or food. She credited the name recognition to El-Sayed’s grassroots campaigning and his pride in his Egyptian heritage.
“He’s always been proud of his identity. He never shied away from it or from saying his name,” Jadallah said.
Yasmin El-Sayed, no relation to the senator-elect, took her two daughters to the Detroit watch party from New York. She teared up after the victory speech.
“Having grown up in a post-9/11 world, being Muslim, being Arab myself, never in a million years did I think we would see what we saw today,” she said.
In a time of suspicion of government, a message of representation
El-Sayed depicted his election as a victory for all those “who don’t see themselves reflected in our government or who’ve been told that they don’t belong for some reason or another — not just how they pray but who they love, how they identify, the color of their skin, where they grew up.″
“I didn’t run to be the first Muslim senator. I ran to be the next senator of the state of Michigan who happens to be Muslim,” he said. ″But I also know that democracy is constantly about the conversation about who we are, who we want to be.”
“Michigan proved just how big we are. Rejected a hateful, spiteful campaign that had nothing to say about the issues and only wanted to point to my name and my face,” he added. ″I want all of those folks out there who have been told that America’s not big enough for them to reflect on that. America really is big enough for all of us.”
Mohamed Gula, CEO of the Muslim American advocacy group Emgage Action, said he was elated by El-Sayed’s triumph after a year of “extremely Islamophobic and disgusting rhetoric being used as a campaign strategy.”
“For Abdul to come out last night and use his full name meant the world to someone who grew up in post-9/11 America, where the Muslim American community was seen through a national security lens,” Gula said.
“Our children, years from now, will be able to run for office,” he said, “to be seen as who they are.”
A debate over the place of sharia law — and its very definition
Among the most frequent targets of anti-Muslim rhetoric was sharia, the religious code that provides Muslims with guidance on how to lead righteous lives. At the Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas, some of the loudest cheers came after GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas declared: “Sharia law has no place in America.”
Muslim American civic leaders and scholars — in Texas and other states — responded forcefully to the anti-sharia rhetoric that dates back more than 15 years.
They passionately defended sharia — the way it’s practiced in the United States — as positive guidance that shares elements with the codes of other faiths, such as the Ten Commandments and the collective body of Jewish law derived from the Torah. They rebutted the claims of GOP critics that sharia is a coercive code that threatens the Constitution and the judicial system.
Gula noted that Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton were among the leaders of the anti-sharia campaign. Abbott lost his bid for reelection in Tuesday’s voting, and Paxton was trounced by Democrat James Talarico in the race for a U.S. Senate seat.
“I saw this as not just Muslims standing against Islamophobia as never before,” Gula said. “I saw Americans saying hate will not be used as a campaign issue … we are not going to accept hate.”
Asma Uddin, a professor at Michigan State University’s College of Law, has argued that many American politicians are depicting ordinary Muslim religious practices — such as prayer, choice of apparel, family counseling and mosque attendance — as evidence of political danger.
“What I find especially exciting is that El-Sayed won in a political climate where being visibly Muslim can still be a liability,” she said. His victory “gives us real reason for optimism. It suggests that anti-Muslim attacks don’t necessarily carry the political weight that those deploying them assume they do.”
GaNun, Cappelletti and Crary write for the Associated Press. Cappelletti reported from Washington and Crary from New York.
Starring Justina Machado and featuring singer Judy Torres, the 1980s-inspired musical “Freestyle: A Love Story” will make its Los Angeles debut on Nov. 6 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.
Bronx-born musician and producer Judy Torres remembers the first time she heard Nayobe’s 1985 song “Please Don’t Go”: the upbeat dance track with an infectious bass line and love-struck lyrics that pleaded with a lover to stay close.
“ I was floored at how beautiful of a vocalist she was,” said Torres of the Afro-Cuban artist, who hailed from Brooklyn but found a musical home in the genre known as freestyle. Though sometimes dubbed as “Latin freestyle” or “Latin hip-hop,” thanks to the many Latino vocalists who came to shape its sound, some fanatics trace the origins of the electro-funk genre to “Let the Music Play,” the 1983 smash hit by D.C. singer Shannon.
As Torres puts it, this distinctly 1980s sound — crafted with synthetic instrumentation and syncopated percussions sourced from Roland TR-808 drum machines, as popularized by Afrika Bambaataa’s 1982 single “Planet Rock” — didn’t have a label then. “It was just music,” she says.
But by 1993, as prominent radio stations transitioned from dance-pop to hip-hop and R&B, the freestyle movement fizzled out.
“Like a record scratch, there were no shows,” added Torres.
The genre’s vibrant, knotty history of set the scene for the musical-dance production of “Freestyle: A Love Story,” of which Torres is a co-producer. Created and directed by George Valencia — alongside his wife, “Scrubs” actor Judy Reyes as executive producer, plus “Ugly Betty” actor Ana Ortiz as co-producer — “Freestyle: A Love Story” will make its Los Angeles debut on Nov. 6 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.
The musical tells the fictional story of two middle-aged Caribbean Latinos, who reunite during a nostalgic night at a Freestyle Extravaganza at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. As 808 kicks echo through the atmosphere, the pair is transported back to 1987: the night they fell in love at a bass-thumping freestyle show.
Proceeds from the night will benefit the Sound of GOL Foundation, an organization founded by George Valencia and Judy Reyes that supports Latina soccer players.
(From George Valencia)
“The idea of telling a love story and having that love story run parallel with the actual musical movement of freestyle, which lasted nine years, is basically the whole framework of the play,” said Valencia to De Los.
Proceeds from the night will benefit the Sound of GOL Foundation: an organization founded by Valencia and Reyes, which supports Latina soccer players.
“Right now, in a time that is looking very dark for Latinos in the United States, I want people to take away that our history has proven time and time again that no matter what they do to us, they can’t take away our revolutionary joy,” added Valencia, making mention of the Trump administration’s mass immigration sweeps.
The production will star “One Day at a Time” actors Justina Machado and James Martinez as the former lovers — as well as Torres and K7, a.k.a. Louis Sharpe, frontman of the Latin freestyle group TKA, who will further bring the artists’ perspectives into the narrative.
“It’s the music that was a part of our everyday life,” Machado told De Los. “Wherever there was a huge Latino population, I think it was kind of a rite of passage.”
Machado was particularly obsessed with Lisa Velez, the lead vocalist of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, who took freestyle to new heights. The group’s breakout 1985 single “I Wonder if I Take You Home” echoed in the dance clubs before crossing over into mainstream radio and landing the No. 34 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
Their flamboyant track “Head to Toe,” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1987, making it the first time a Latina vocalist (as part of a group) topped the chart.
“When I was on ‘One Day at a Time,’ they knew I loved Lisa Lisa so much they hired her to perform at the wrap party for Season 1,” recalled Machado. “I have a video from 10 years ago, where I am just freaking out — ‘Is that Lisa Lisa?’ I swear I saw nobody else. It was just me and Lisa Lisa … She was my hero.”
Torres said she lost her mind when someone told her Lisa Lisa was Puerto Rican, just like herself. She recalled thinking: “If she can do it, maybe I can do it,”
By 1996, Torres would release her first single, “No Reason to Cry,” a punchy, melodramatic dance track ghostly vocals that reassure someone of her love.
That song reached No. 30 on the Billboard Hot Dance chart the following year. The track was the lead single from her 1989 debut album, “Love Story,” an electrifying project that sonically transports listeners into dramatic telenovela scenarios.
“Freestyle was the original Latin explosion, because it was created in New York, by the people of New York,” said Torres. “It was street kids, Hispanic kids. All of a sudden, the fans were realizing, ‘Wait a minute — this music represents us, the artists look like us.’ It took off so quickly that many of us were signed by major record labels. We were performing all over the country. We had several shows a weekend.”
Still, prominent Latino artists with Spanish surnames, including Torres, were often told they had to change their last name in order to appeal to pop radio stations. She included these experiences into monologues during “Freestyle: A Love Story.”
“Freestyle music was never given flowers,” said Judy Torres.
(From George Valencia)
The artist known as Soavé, who sang the hypnotic 1989 hit “Crying Over You,” revealed to music magazine Wax Poetics in 2010 that his birth name, which is Jeffrey Martinez, “wouldn’t have sold a record.”
Meanwhile, Puerto Rican singer George Lamond, whose 1990 single “Bad of the Heart” peaked at No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, professed that he dropped his surname, Garcia, at the behest of his label, Colombia Records. In an interview with Youtuber Honey German, the artist said the label argued that he needed to be more marketable to audiences — but in reality, they didn’t know how to market an artist who was neither Black nor white.
“Now, did I get airplay on the pop stations? No. Is it because I decided to keep [the name] Torres? I’ll never know that,” said Torres. “In a way, we opened the doors [for future Latin stars], because now it’s common for us to hear the last names. Jennifer Lopez, Selena Gomez, Christina Aguilera.”
Torres acknowledged that “freestyle music was never given [its] flowers.” But with “Freestyle: A Love Story,” fans and artists alike can take “a trip back into time” and revel in its glory for an evening.
“I can’t change it,” said Torres of freestyle’s eventual sunset. “So I have to choose how I’m gonna move forward.”
Nicole Taylor, one of Christian country band Taylor Red’s identical triplets, has died. The singer and musician succumbed to breast cancer on Sept. 28 in Nashville. She was 35.
“We are shocked and heartbroken to announce the passing of our sister Nicole Taylor. This isn’t the video we thought we’d ever be making,” Natalie said in a video posted to YouTube.
Nika continued, “We thought she would be here sharing her story of earthly healing, but instead we’re here sharing her story of heavenly healing, and she’s at peace and no longer suffering, so we’re thankful for that.”
The surviving sisters explained that Nicole was diagnosed in 2022 with Stage 3 breast cancer. Treatment put the disease into remission, but it returned as Stage 4 cancer. Eventually, doctors said Nicole had three months, Nika recalled in the video with Natalie revealing, “She lived around a year later after that prognosis.”
In between telling their sister’s story, Nika and Natalie read Bible verses they turned to in their grief.
“Nicole told us even before she passed that she had peace, and we were really thankful for that,” Natalie shared.
Nika continued, “Yes, things did not turn out as we hoped. We lived every day expecting full miraculous healing here on Earth and lived every day in hopes of that. Of course, we all had our moments of fear and doubt, but we fought it and fought it. And God gave us so much peace and hope in him along the way. We were so shocked and still shocked of her passing.”
The Mississippi natives are also known for their social media presence, with 16.7 million subscribers on YouTube and 13.5 million followers on TikTok.
The sisters created viral videos capitalizing on their red-haired identical-triplets identity. Using humor and social trends, the sisters filmed themselves wearing matching outfits, dancing in sync or playing instruments, including the guitar, banjo, fiddle and mandolin. They appeared in a national Sonic Drive-In commercial and also partnered with major commercial brands, including Crocs, Lipton, Skittles, Redken and Frito Lay.
“Country Money,” released in 2021, became one of the band’s most well-known songs with more than 810,000 streams on Spotify, while “Rent Free” has surpassed 664,000 streams. “Fresh off the Farm,” “Bringing Country Back” and “What They Seem” each have over 345,000 streams on the music site.
Nicole was also a Taste of Country morning radio show host. In a tribute on the country music-focused website, her colleague Evan Paul related the story of first meeting Nicole and her sisters and his later interactions with her at the media outlet.
“Nicole was such a warm soul. She was so smart and so talented that it was hard to even share a room with her. Her light was so bright. I am convinced that when you see a star shooting across the sky at night, it’s Nicole giving us a wink and letting us know she’s all right,” Paul said.
“Nicole, the oldest of us three sisters, will be greatly missed,” Nika and Natalie posted on their official site. “She was our leader and our best friend. We are heartbroken, but we know she is in Heaven and will see her again.”
In a small house in Omdurman, Hassan Saber Jumaa, a senior administrator at the Zamzam displacement camp in Sudan, sat on a simple wooden chair. He scrolled through his phone, looking for any photograph he might have of Zamzam, which is near el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and once sheltered hundreds of thousands.
He found nothing. Jumaa explained that his old phone was looted during last year’s attack by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces on the camp. Pointing to the bare walls around him, Jumaa said that all he has left are his memories of the camp, and the people who once called it home.
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Zamzam, established in 2004, was home to generations of people displaced by western Sudan’s Darfur war, which began in 2003 and continued for nearly two decades. Alongside Abu Shouk camp and al-Salam camp, Zamzam formed part of one of Darfur’s largest concentrations of displaced people.
Jumaa recalled a bustling community, with its market open every day, and children walking to school.
Zamzam memories
Zamzam continued as a refuge for civilians until Sudan’s current war, which began in 2023. The RSF, fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces and its allies, captured the camp in April 2025, after months of attacks. Famine had been confirmed in the camp in August 2024.
Mukhtar Musa, a survivor of the assault, watched the community he knew descend into starvation and violence. He said restrictions on the movement of goods had exhausted food supplies, leaving some residents with little choice but to eat animal feed and peanut shells.
Umm Kulthum Ali Saleh described the months before the final attack as the hardest of her life. The RSF siege on Zamzam stopped goods from entering. She searched for food every morning, and recalled seeing women cooking grass and mixing mud with flour to bake bread.
Saleh believes the blockade was not merely a military measure, but a deliberate way to weaken the camp’s residents in advance of the final offensive, and Zamzam’s fall.
Brutal military offensive
On April 11, the RSF launched a three-day assault using cars, camels, and horses, burning straw homes and health facilities.
A United Nations Human Rights Office report documented at least 1,013 civilians killed, including 319 who were summarily executed in homes, markets, schools, clinics, and mosques. The report documented other abuses, including rape, gang rape, sexual slavery, and other forms of sexual violence, particularly targeting the Zaghawa community.
Musa was a witness to some of those mass killings, and said he saw RSF fighters kill civilians while chanting religious slogans. He described seeing bodies scattered around the main market and near schools, and said fighters continued pursuing civilians along roads leading out of the camp.
Saleh also recalled seeing bodies littering the roads, with only chickens, donkeys, and sheep wandering among the abandoned buildings.
The attack forced tens of thousands to flee Zamzam, with many remaining in the el-Fasher area, and others fleeing south to Tawila and Dar al-Salam.
The violence continued to engulf el-Fasher and its surrounding displacement camps over the following months.
With Zamzam under its control, the RSF launched an attack on el-Fasher in August 2025, and soon captured the Abu Shouk camp.
The UN Human Rights Office said at least 40 displaced people were killed inside Abu Shouk, while 19 others were injured. The International Organization for Migration reported that at least 500 residents fled the camp that day.
The RSF captured el-Fasher itself on October 26, 2025. More than 6,000 people are believed to have been killed in the attack, in el-Fasher as well as on escape routes out of the city. The UN found that RSF fighters targeted civilians, including members of non-Arab communities, and committed acts amounting to war crimes.
The RSF has previously denied targeting civilians in Zamzam and el-Fasher, while acknowledging that some fighters committed abuses.
The survivors of Zamzam, al-Shouk, and el-Fasher focus on bearing witness to the tragedy they faced.
Jumaa said the destruction of Zamzam marked not the end of the violence, but the beginning of another wave of displacement.
For him, the camp survives in the memories of those who once lived there – even as they are now displaced elsewhere.
Musa, meanwhile, said he cannot forget the first days of the siege, and the bodies he saw on the streets.
“Whoever survives must tell the story of what happened,” Musa said.
Zainab Johnson believes in optimism — to a somewhat alarming degree. Not just because she usually presents as smart and happy and sharply dressed on stage or because she’s doing incredibly well in her comedy career, or even just because she’s a millennial. She’s happy in spite of every aspect of life that conspires to bring her down because it’s the ultimate power move. From surviving a near deadly car crash that broke both her legs to fighting for every opportunity to become successful in stand-up only to realize there’s more work at the top of the mountain, Johnson’s attitude towards it all has been to keep smiling. It’s no wonder she named her newly-arrived second special “Toxically Optimistic” (the first stand-up special produced by the Obama’s Higher Ground Productions).
But the unbridled joy is also the byproduct of a weight she’s lifted off herself in this new hour on Netflix — the pressure of always having to keep it real in her comedy. As a Black female stand-up it’s the box she says she’s often put in when she goes on stage and audiences are expecting her to air out her true-life trauma and make it funny as if she’s got nothing else to offer. Those who know her know better. Johnson’s mode as a storyteller has always been to dig for the deeper meaning in things, and in this new special she uses an opossum — her unlikely spirit animal — to get the job done.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity
Having optimism is tough these days, especially for people glued to their algorithms and, of course, watching too much news. Is it a challenge as a comedian to be able to get people out of that and get them into the positive mode of thinking?
It’s not difficult because it’s kind of what they want. People come to comedy shows because they want to feel good. Ultimately, they do want to come to hear you say the things that they can’t say. They want to hear your opinion on the things happening in the world that we’re all experiencing. They want to be affirmed by you. They want to be challenged by you, but ultimately they want to feel good. A comedy club is like a restaurant for the soul. Nobody likes to eat and then not feel good afterwards, right? And so I think that what I do in my comedy is I always like to put medicine in the candy. And “Toxically Optimistic,” is another medicine in the candy.
What were some things that you took from your first special “Hijabs Off” that helped you craft “Toxically Optimistic?”
My first special “Hijabs Off” was me laying the groundwork. I just wanted people to understand my foundation of who I am and know that whatever I give them after that, this is who it’s coming from. I think that “Hijabs Off” taught me to have fun, to really trust myself in the moment. There’s really spontaneous moments that I have in “Toxically Optimistic” and watching at home, you might not know that they’re spontaneous. You might think that I wrote that and I have been performing that all along. Some things in that special that night was the first night I said it… I don’t shy away from things. If anybody watched “Hijabs Off,” one of the most talked about moments was when my hair was like getting unruly because of the temperature in the room, and I can’t see myself, but I could I could feel it, and I called it out in that moment, like comedically. You see everybody on camera all the time, and so it liberated every woman in the room to “OK, good, she knows her hair is going crazy right now.” I was glad that I trusted myself at that moment, and so I just leaned more into that with “Toxically Optimistic.”
Johnson says Black women comedians often face pressure to deliver authenticity and personal meaning, while some white male peers can roam freely into the absurd; her bit nudges audiences to expect more.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
The people that know you now through that special know your story of being one of 13 siblings. If that doesn’t make you funny. I don’t know what will.
A lot of people say “you must be so funny being one of 13.” But I don’t know if that can take responsibility for me being funny.
I think it helps at least when it comes to fighting to be heard. I know because I’m one of a bunch.
How many specifically?
Well, I’ve got four in my immediate group, but my dad had 14 total.
Oh wow, look at papa, a Rolling Stone.
[Laughs] So I understand what it is to like fight for space in the conversation or to do anything. So maybe for you it was something like that?
I definitely think that it is. I can attribute that to being one of 13, being on stage with stand-up. Because with comedy, you could choose improv, you could choose sketch, right? But I think I do like that I’m carving out time almost every night that I get to be the center of attention, whether it’s for 15 minutes at a time or an hour at a time. But yeah I think my family’s so funny. They just don’t have the guts to do it in front of people over and over again, which is why I try to bring them as characters to life on stage. I feel like I might be the messenger.
You talk specifically about one of your sisters in your new special and how close you are with her as well as her mental state.
I think she would be called neurodivergent but I don’t really like that term. Every time I see a movie with “divergent” in it, the divergent is bad. Anytime you see a sci-fi movie and they talking about a divergent, the divergent is like not a good thing.
“I’m not a person that gets on stage and just talks about something for the joke of it,” Johnson said. “I’m always looking not just on stage, but in my life, for the deeper meaning, or the ‘why’ in things.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
I think it’s worth noting that you don’t necessarily treat your sister any different.
Oh no, no. I talk about that on stage a lot. Like any time we have taboo topics or taboo-like scenarios different from the “norm” we get really precious about it. Even in comedy clubs, people get awkward and stuff. The only way to normalize it is we have to get comfortable talking about like it is not something different. My sister is getting roasted like everybody else. She’s having a say like everybody else. She has a voice like everybody else — and we wouldn’t have it any other way. However, that’s inside the house. Now, outside the house, protection is different. I’m not like, “Oh yeah, you could talk to her like you would talk to me.” No, no, no. Talk to her nicely or you’re gonna have 12 other people to deal with.
In comedy specials there’s a difference between storytelling for a cheap laugh and showing us an allegory or something with a deeper meaning within the story. I love that you take that route with kind of an unlikely character.
I love talking about comedy when you’re not trying to give away the punchline.
I’m trying.
You’re trying to save the bit. Like they gotta go watch the bit. Yeah. But you want to talk about the bit!
What was the key for you about going beyond the joke or the story in that particular part of your special?
I am aware of the point that I’m making. The point that I ultimately end up making, I’m hyper aware of that because I’m living in that every day. Eugene, the opossum [the main character of the bit in question], was something that was really happening to me, and so these were like these two simultaneous situations — what does it mean for me to now be on stage as a Black woman every night trying to deliver comedy, but also I got this wild animal in my backyard every night and like, how am I dealing with this? And at some point on stage, I found the connection. I found it because I’m not a person that gets on stage and just talks about something for the joke of it. I’m always looking not just on stage, but in my life, for the deeper meaning, or the “why” in things. And when I found [it], I know it’s a trip to just give the audience this [wild story] but I’m gonna use it to prove a point. I’m gonna use it to illustrate something that I think is really important for the audience to be aware of. And when I figured that out, I felt really good. Watching it, you’re like “Where is she going with this?” And then when you get there, you’re like “it’s a great destination, thank you so much for bringing me here.”
And I think that destination brings up a big issue about what Black women are and aren’t allowed to say or how they’re “allowed” to be comedic. Why was that topic important for you to put out there to the world?
A few reasons. One, I am an observer as much as I am a doer, and I would be doing these really fun shows with really big comedians…I remember Mark Maron put me on a show with him and Zach Galifianakis, who’s hilarious and can speak very deeply about things in the world. I remember he went out in front of this audience, and I mean the stuff he was saying was so wildly imaginative. I was kind of like, “Hold on a second, they’re not even requiring him to be based in reality.” Like they were eating it up, you know?
And I was like, “What would happen if I did that?” That’s just a question that I asked myself… I watch someone who’s fully capable of being accountable not have to be accountable at all and kill in front of this audience. But the moment I went out there [on stage], I felt the pressure. I don’t know if it’s from me or from [the audience]. I can’t tell. But the pressure is there. It’s pungent, for me, like to “Give us something real, give us something valuable. Tell us who you are.” And [Galifianakis] didn’t have to do that. And I was like, “What does it feel like to not have to do that?”
“I don’t know if I should say that, but sometimes I’m watching things, and sometimes I’m up there as a performer, and I want the audience to want more,” Johnson said. “I want the audience to be smarter.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Does the freedom from “being real” as a Black female comedian feel like an unboxing for you?
I think this is an unboxing. I’m naturally so scared to be trapped. It’s crazy because I’m usually not a person that’s trapped, but it’s because I’m so scared to be trapped. But also, the thing that I love about the Eugene [opossum] bit is that I say, you know, that there’s this comedian talking about a horse. A horse is a majestic animal. It’s a respected animal, nobody’s afraid of a horse, people love horses, horses signify beauty. But the opossum? To make an audience love an opossum is very difficult because I would go out on a road, and the moment I would say, “Anybody know what an opossum [is]?” Immediately, the audience would be like, oh, like their reaction to an opossum is like, “Girl, don’t even. I’m not trying to think about that right now. I’m sitting here enjoying some chicken wings at a comedy and you about to make me think about a big a— rat!” So even just to get them to sort of endear an animal that usually gives people a sort of like a reaction of like “ugh,” just that alone is a win for me. But then to turn up the heat and say also, I want you guys to know that I walked you through something that you had no idea that I was walking you through, and here’s why, you know. And I hope that it trains the audience in a way.
I don’t know if I should say that, but sometimes I’m watching things, and sometimes I’m up there as a performer, and I want the audience to want more. I want the audience to be smarter. I want the audience to be more sophisticated. I don’t want them to have less fun. I don’t want them to be less silly. I knew every time I did that bit, I was challenging them without letting them know. Like I’m about to challenge you guys to do something, and when you leave here, I hope that you, you know, I hope that you don’t do it just for me, but every other person that you see that is not a straight cis white male.
I think wanting better for the audience, especially a comedy club audience, is the most toxically optimistic thing I’ve ever heard. But it’s a pursuit I think you’ve achieved. I also walked away with a greater respect and love for possums.
I love that. I think most people do. I was at an event last night, it was an event solely focused on beauty and makeup and that sort of stuff, right? And the amount of women that came up to me and were like, “How’s Eugene?” The special was not out yet at this point, but they saw me working out this bit, And it reminded me of the process. To get up on stage and just do that [bit], it’s not easy. It’s easier to do it once I’ve already given you a full, nice 40 minutes of comedy. Now I’m gonna go into the experiment. But [the women who saw the early version of the bit] reminded me “Yeah, Zainab, you’re bold. You, you’re not doing it the way most comedians do it.”
The picture has its own legacy, but it also captured the end of AC Milan and Inter Milan’s 2005 Champions League quarter-final that was abandoned after flares and other objects rained down on the San Siro turf from a section of Inter fans, one striking and injuring Milan goalkeeper Dida.
With 73 minutes played of the second leg, the referee abandoned the match and the tie was later awarded to Milan, who were leading 3-0 on aggregate.
“The atmosphere that night was like every time you have an AC Milan and Inter derby at the San Siro,” says Rellandini, who was working for Reuters at the time.
“It is always strong. They don’t fight a lot, but the choreography of the supporters is huge and great, so you can really feel it, even if you’re not a player.
“When you put your feet on to the pitch, you can feel that it’s not just a soccer match. It is something more.
“You are really close to the players. It was a nice atmosphere; there was adrenaline.
“It just blew up when they disallowed the goal from Esteban Cambiasso. That completely changed the situation.
“The Inter Milan supporters were freaking out. They started throwing down objects, flares, and did not stop for about 15 or 20 minutes. It was something like a war.”
The tension had been brewing. Milan had knocked Inter out of the competition two years earlier on away goals, despite both semi-final legs ending in a draw at the San Siro. Milan went on to beat Juventus on penalties in the final at Old Trafford.
Milan also headed into the 2004-05 campaign as Italian champions – a sixth Scudetto since Inter last got their hands on the Serie A title in 1988-89.
Owner Silvio Berlusconi was building his second truly great Milan side and the entrepreneur-turned-politician had trusted Carlo Ancelotti, a member of the team that won successive European Cups in 1989 and 1990, to deliver another period of success as manager.
For the quarter-final second leg a formidable back four of Cafu, Jaap Stam, Alessandro Nesta and Paolo Maldini sat behind Andrea Pirlo, Clarence Seedorf, Massimo Ambrosini and Kaka, with Hernan Crespo – formerly of Inter – and Andriy Shevchenko up front. Rui Costa was on the bench.
Inter, meanwhile, had spent lavishly to try and compete with Milan and Juventus. Chairman Massimo Moratti broke the transfer world record twice in three years, first to sign Ronaldo from Barcelona in 1997 and then to get Christian Vieri from Lazio in 1999.
Crespo and Seedorf had arrived at Inter on big deals, but failed to land any significant silverware, before uniting across the divide at Milan.
Fabio Cannavaro had also come and gone – a misfiring two-year spell ending with a move to Juventus.
By 2005 the Inter midfield was built around the Argentina pair of Cambiasso and Juan Sebastian Veron, while ahead of them precocious Brazil forward Adriano was enjoying his most prolific season in a black and blue shirt.
The team was improving. The results weren’t.
Inter carried the unwanted tag of ‘August champions’ among rival fans, who mocked the expectations that had been built up in the summer transfer market and invariably fizzled out by the time silverware was at stake in May.
Among Inter supporters, there was an underlying feeling that they were running an unfair race – between them, Milan and Juventus had won 11 of the previous 13 titles.
However, in 2006 both would be implicated in the Calciopoli scandal. Juventus were relegated to Serie B for their part and stripped of two titles. Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina were docked points.
In 2005 rumours were already swirling in the stands. Criminal investigations had begun in Naples and Turin over alleged bribery and corruption in football.
As the match turned against Inter, their fans’ frustrations – at the scoreline and their inability to close the gap on Milan and Juventus teams who always seemed one step ahead – spilled over from the stands and on to the pitch.
Stam and Shevchenko had given Milan a two-goal advantage in the first leg.
Just in time for next week’s midterms, Brooklyn-based artist Phil Buehler has unveiled another one of his series of public art installations critiquing modern politics on a stretch of chain link fence between a coffee shop and a bar in Bushwick. The 50-foot-long, 10-foot-high piece, “Wall of Crazy,” features 1,516 of President Trump’s social media posts — selected from more than 70,000 — and arranged chronologically, with color-coded statement categories aligning with the American Psychiatric Assn.‘s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition.
These include: social-emotional incongruity (“Happy Thanksgiving to all including the racist and incompetent Attorney General of New York State”); divine favor/ magical thinking (an AI photo of Trump seated beside Jesus Christ in court); catastrophizing (“This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision”); contradictions and reversals (a 2019 post calling Atty. Gen. Bill Barr “fair and reasonable” vs. a 2023 post calling him “dumb, weak, slow moving, lethargic, gutless and lazy”); hostility, humiliation and threats (calling Tucker Carlson a “very low IQ individual. He could barely get out of college and maybe he didn’t.”); grandiosity (“I am far healthier than Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, but especially, Kamala”); extraordinary and implausible claims (“The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran at levels of military strength and power not seen since World War II”); persecution and victimhood (“Only 25 percent want the president impeached, which is pretty low considering the volume of fake news coverage, but pretty high considering the fact that I did nothing wrong”); and conspiracy thinking (“Wayne County (Detroit) Michigan is one of the most corrupt voting areas in the United States, if not the world”).
In a recent phone interview, Buehler said he made the wall over a period of months beginning in July, using his day-job background in market research and data analysis and statistics to search for patterns in large amounts of data in order to distill it down to something simple. Buehler’s first foray into making a wall of public art came in 2020 with the “Wall of Lies,” which documented more than 20,000 false or misleading claims made by Trump.
A detail shot of the “Wall of Crazy” by Brooklyn-based artist Phil Buehler, featuring 1,516 of Donald Trump’s social media posts.
(Photo from Phil Buehler)
At that time, he said, he was struck by the massive volume of falsehoods. “I wanted to dramatize that in a way that brought the sheer scale of it to life,” he said, noting that the same objective holds true for the “Wall of Crazy.” People have known that Trump tells lies since the 2020 presidential election, Buehler said, adding that it’s a story that is continuously told and has simply become part of the daily news cycle that people move on from.
“Making something into a public artwork brings it back into that cycle because I think it comes into people’s heads in a different way,” Buehler said. Plus, because it’s sandwiched between a coffee shop and a bar, it gets both the thinking morning crowd and the more raucous and celebratory evening crowd. The piece, which is being presented by the independent community radio station Radio Free Brooklyn, has been up for about two days, but will be officially unveiled during a modest neighborhood ceremony today at noon EDT.
“The scale of it is important,” Buehler said. “By attracting your eye and attention and then allowing you to walk up to it and read … Trump’s posts.”
In photos Buehler shared, people are doing just that. Some pass by quickly, others stay immersed for quite some time.
The “Wall of Crazy” is the fifth such collaboration between Buehler and Radio Free Brooklyn. After the “Wall of Lies” came the “Wall of Liars and Deniers” (2022), “featuring 381 Republican election-denying candidates”; then the “Wall of Shame” (2025), “documenting 1,575 January 6 defendants pardoned by Trump”; and “Wall of Tears” (2026), “memorializing 18,457 children documented killed in Gaza.”
The “Wall of Lies” was extensively vandalized by Proud Boy protesters, but the others have been mostly left alone, Buehler said.
“The Wall of Crazy shows how Buehler and Radio Free Brooklyn use public art to spotlight our political climate. Calling out the inflammatory, incoherent, divisive and obscene rhetoric under this administration is critical to democracy,” said Orie Givens, president of the Radio Free Brooklyn Board, in a news release. “Like earlier walls, it captures our political culture and urges action before Election Day: voters can change the country’s direction. And it shows why we must support free media — especially independent outlets — that expose this administration’s actions and impact nationwide.”
I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt, wishing us all a peaceful and sane midterm election and a Happy Halloween. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
Singer Lila Downs.
(Berenice Bautista / AP Photo)
Lila Downs The singer blends Mexican tradition with jazz, cumbia, folk and contemporary rhythms in a celebration of Día de Muertos, featuring Ballet Folklórico de Los Ángeles and songs from Downs’ new album “Cambias mi Mundo.” 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Hercules vs. Vampires LA Opera presents a musical reimagining of Mario Bava’s 1961 cult film “Hercules in the Haunted World,” starring Reg Park and Christopher Lee, with an original score by Patrick Morganelli, conducted by Blair Salter. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. United Theater on Broadway, 929 S Broadway, downtown L.A. laopera.org
Kiki Smith “Untethered Journey,” the artist’s first solo show in L.A. in 30 years, includes historical and recent works. Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Friday; exhibit continues through Jan. 23. Jeffrey Deitch, 925 N. Orange Drive. deitch.com
SATURDAY
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Organist Brett Valliant performs the score live with John S. Robertson’s 1920 silent horror film starring John Barrymore. 3 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Día de los Muertos Forest Lawn celebrates the Mexican holiday at four of its locations, with marigolds, handcrafted Catrina and alebrijes (spirit guide) artworks and brightly colored community ofrendas (altars), plus folklorico dance and mariachi music performances, arts & crafts, face painting, food and refreshments. A free family-friendly event. Noon-3 p.m. Sunday. Forest Lawn Covina Hills, 21300 Via Verde Drive, Covina, Forest Lawn Cypress, 4471 Lincoln Ave., and Forest Lawn Glendale, 1712 S. Glendale Ave.; 5-8 p.m. Monday. Forest Lawn Cathedral City, 69855 E. Ramon Road. forestlawn.com
Harriet Sansom Harris in “Werewolf by Night.”
(Marvel Studios)
Werewolf by Night & Headless Michael Giacchino hosts an evening featuring the premiere of “Headless,” a musical by the Academy Award-winning composer and collaborators Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson, based on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” followed by a live-to-picture screening of his 2022 film “Werewolf by Night,” with Sarah Hicks conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
SUNDAY
Building Bridges: The Master Chorale in Concert With the National Chorus of Korea Two world-class choral organizations team up for a cross-cultural program uniting more than 100 singers. 7 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org
Family Fest: Día de los Muertos A free event featuring activities, festive music, dance and foods. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
TUESDAY
Singer Lyle Lovett.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Lyle Lovett and His Small Large Band The four-time Grammy-winning Texan performs his greatest hits. 8 p.m. Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 18000 Park Plaza Drive. ccpa.cerritos.gov
WEDNESDAY
Daniel Passer direct “The Farce Awakens: Ferdeau x 2” at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.
(Odyssey Theatre Ensemble)
The Farce Awakens: Feydeau x 2 Cirque du Soleil clown Daniel Passer directs “Going to Pot” and “Stark Naked,” two one-acts by Georges Feydeau. Through Jan. 17, 2027. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 South Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com
The Laugh Track Playwright Wendy MacLeod’s comedy goes behind the scenes of “I Love Lucy,” the groundbreaking 1950s sitcom starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Directed by Brian Shnipper. Through Nov. 22. International City Theatre, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. ictlongbeach.org
The SoCal scene
The Endeavour shuttle is on display in launch position at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center in Exposition Park.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
ICYMI: The best of this week’s L.A. Times arts coverage.
Artist Barry McGee poses for a portrait at Jeffrey Deitch gallery.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
San Francisco artist Barry McGee is back in L.A. after February’s wild takeover of a 99 Cents Only Store. This time he’s staging a show called “Another Round” at Jeffrey Deitch gallery on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins poses in the press room with the award for best revival of a play for “Appropriate” during the 77th Tony Awards.
(Evan Agostini / Invision / AP)
London’s Royal Court Theatre announced that playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ 2025 Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning “Purpose,” directed by Phylicia Rashad, will launch its new season in January, marking the hugely successful Broadway show’s first staging outside of the U.S. (“Purpose” opens at Geffen Playhouse next month.)
The Angels had just reached the promised land, after more than four decades of wandering through baseball’s wilderness. Who better than Newhan, who had been there since Day 1, to write a first-person account of that long and winding road to their first World Series?
Newhan was reluctant. That would make the story about himself, which he despised. The editors prevailed, and within the story he delivered a sentence that struck deep within the heart of every loyal and long-suffering Angels fan.
“I can’t help but feel a sweep of emotions seep through the cynicism and dispassion that is the byproduct of being present for all or part of every Angel season,” he wrote on Oct. 14, 2002.
To this day, the Angels have one guy in the Hall of Fame: Vladimir Guerrero. The Times has two: Jim Murray, the Pulitzer Prize-winning sports columnist, and Newhan.
If Vin Scully provided the voice for the first half-century of Major League Baseball in Southern California, Newhan provided the words.
Newhan died on Sunday, at 89, after what his wife Connie called a “cardiac event.” His reporting — first at the Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram, then over 37 years at The Times — distinguished The Times as a national source for baseball coverage.
Ross Newhan, center, interviews Jim McGlothlin, left, and Jim Fregosi of the California Angels during the 1969 season.
Bud Selig, the former commissioner and occasional antagonist in Newhan’s columns, told The Times: “I mourn the passing of Ross Newhan. He was an excellent sportswriter, and I always had a great amount of respect for him personally and for his work.”
In his Hall of Fame acceptance speech, he reserved a special mention for a teacher at Wilson High in Long Beach, the one that envisioned a writer blossoming within a student dozing in class.
“If a high school journalism instructor named John Gartner hadn’t hollered my name and pounded my desk one day, I might still be sitting there asleep,” Newhan said, “with no real clue what I wanted to do in my life.”
Ross Newhan, receives the J.G. Taylor Spink Award from Jane Forbes Clark, chairman of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, N.Y., on Aug. 5, 2001.
(Associated Press)
In the 1990s, as a young reporter at the Riverside Press-Enterprise, I was among a small group of writers talking with Tony Gwynn, the San Diego Padres’ Hall of Famer. Newhan was there too, and as the group dispersed, he told me: “You ask good questions.”
Talk about inspiration: It was as if Clayton Kershaw had seen a kid throw a curveball and said, “Not bad.”
Behind a gruff and occasionally intense exterior, Newhan had a heart of gold. Mike DiGiovanna, the longtime Times baseball writer, called Newhan “a security blanket” for colleagues needing a fact check, a phone number or an introduction to someone famous.
“He was a giant without the giant ego,” DiGiovanna said.
Newhan trained former Times colleague Jason Reid on how to cover baseball. Reid affectionately called him “Boss Ross.” The two were such relentless reporters that, amid the wild initial days of the McCourt family ownership of the Dodgers, Reid got co-owner Jamie McCourt so frazzled that she actually said this: “This is bad because you guys remember everything and you write everything down.”
Newhan and Reid had reported on concerns with the McCourt financing before the ownership deal closed, and six years before Frank McCourt’s divorce attorney admitted in court that McCourt had put “not a penny” of his own money into the deal. That did not make Newhan and McCourt the best of friends, but neither did it make them bitter enemies.
“He seemed to take a sort of pride in being the guardian of Los Angeles baseball, for lack of a better term,” said Hall of Fame president Josh Rawitch, then the Dodgers’ publicist. “He had an ability to garner respect from people even when he was writing something you weren’t happy about.”
Said Mike Scioscia, on whom Newhan reported as a Dodgers player and Angels manager: “Ross was a true gentleman and had a real matter-of-fact way of asking questions that put you at ease.”
Ross Newhan shares a happy moment with his great granddaughter, Bailey, earlier this year.
(Courtesy of the Newhan family)
There was nothing flashy about Newhan, not in his writing, certainly not in the way he conducted himself. He let his work and its credibility speak for itself.
Newhan is survived by his wife, Connie; his son, David, and daughter-in-law, Karen; his daughter, Sara, and son-in-law, Mike; five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
The story about David is the one most often recalled Monday, because it really was a story about his father.
David, the kid that tagged along with Newhan when the Angels held spring training in Palm Springs, developed into a major leaguer. He had joked with reporters that he hadn’t been sure if rumors of his call-up were true because “as everyone knows, you can’t believe what’s in the paper.”
In 2004, as Newhan and I covered a game at Dodger Stadium, David appeared as a pinch-hitter for the Baltimore Orioles against the Colorado Rockies, in his first major league at-bat in three years. Newhan was glued to his laptop, where these words suddenly appeared: “In play, run(s).”
Waiting, waiting, waiting … and then I heard one of the loudest screams I have ever heard. Rawitch heard it too. Everyone in the press box heard it.
“Home run.”
The scream was out of character for a professional writer, entirely in character for a proud father. He aced both, and we’ll miss him.
On the same week that a court filing showed that construction on President Trump’s hotly contested triumphal arch could begin as soon as Nov. 5, another less reported development pointed to the possibility that the government might be misrepresenting its plans for Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes in West Potomac Park.
On Monday, the National Park Service held a meeting about a proposed redesign to the park, which is part of the National Mall and also where Trump wants to put his Garden of Heroes featuring more than 250 statues ranging from Humphrey Bogart to Kobe Bryant to Benjamin Franklin. Trump first proposed the idea in 2020, but it wasn’t until his second term — when he began a crusade to remake much of Washington, D.C.’s historic core according to his own predilections — that the plan looked as if it might manifest. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act even appropriated $40 million for the project.
The Garden of Heroes has remained largely in the background while preservationists focused on the demolition of the White House East Wing and the construction of a massive ballroom in its place, as well as the botched painting of the Reflecting Pool, and, of course, the gigantic triumphal arch.
But Monday’s NPS meeting about plans for West Potomac Park rang alarm bells for some when Judy Chesser, chair of the nonprofit conservation and preservation group the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, asked, “How does this relate to the Garden of Heroes that is being discussed in West Potomac?” to which the NPS spokesperson replied, “This is just an update to the tidal basin master plan we started before. This is not the Garden of Heroes.”
However, the Washington, D.C.-based education and advocacy organization Cultural Landscape Foundation noted that the rendering in NPS’ presentation and the illustrated “Pledge Agreement” from the National Garden of American Heroes Foundation contain similarities that “go way beyond coincidental.”
“Each includes a great lawn, a giant oval/circle, an amphitheater, a fountain, and a staircase to the Potomac River,” Charles A. Birnbaum, founding president and chief executive of the foundation, wrote in an email.
“In addition, the new design shown Monday amputates part of the FDR Memorial to accommodate the Oval. This is intentional. Clearly the Oval is meant to host something else or it would be re-scaled so as not to interfere with the FDR Memorial,” the email continued.
In that instance lawyers repeatedly said there were no plans to renovate the golf course (thus preventing U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes from issuing an injunction against said renovations), only to chop down hundreds of trees on the course with no notice over a holiday weekend. Reyes was irate and sources familiar with the feud say that the judge expects the case to go all the way to the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, as of 2 p.m. PDT, Thursday, opponents of Trump’s arch have filed a motion for an injunction on the possible Nov. 5 construction, arguing that Congress needs to approve any plan moving forward. This head-snapping whirlwind of motions and counter motions is expected by critics to continue to be the norm as Trump tries to push through as many of his D.C.-based renovations as possible before a new Congress is seated in January.
“What better way to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary than to shut down the legally required review process, ignore some 100,000 negative public comments, and fast track the construction of a bloated and deeply unpopular monument that the president claims is for him,” wrote the Landscape Foundation’s Birnbaum in a statement about the arch.
I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt pitching preservationists for my personal garden of heroes. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
You’re reading Essential Arts
Our critics and reporters guide you through events and happenings in the SoCal arts scene. In your inbox every Friday.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
American Sound Takes Flight MUSE/IQUE explores the nation’s music from Aaron Copland to Paul Simon in a concert setting infused with storytelling and cultural context. Featuring Brandon Victor Dixon, Liv Redpath and the MUSE/IQUE Orchestra, led by Artistic and Music Director Rachael Worby. 7:30 p.m. Friday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
Bach to Broadway The 31st annual concert, featuring Pueri Cantores SGV, the St. Andrew School Choir, Los Angeles Children’s Chorus and members of the L.A. Opera and L.A. Master Chorale benefits the restoration of historic St. Andrew Church. 7:30 p.m. St. Andrew Church, 311 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. saintandrewpasadena.org
Ballet Festival: Jerome Robbins at the Ahmanson Theatre
(Steven Pisano / The Joyce Theater Foundation)
Ballet Festival: Jerome Robbins Three programs of the choreographer’s masterworks, curated by New York City Ballet principal dancer Tiler Peck, with dancers from New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet and other major companies performing to live chamber music 7:30 p.m. Friday, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. musiccenter.org
Andrew Bird The acclaimed multi-instrumentalist and songwriter joins with the Los Angeles Philharmonic to mark the 20th anniversary of his album, “The Mysterious Production of Eggs,” with orchestral arrangements, plus popular songs from his catalog. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Aymeric Hainaux and François Chaignaud The musician and choreographer team up for “Mirlitons,” a marathon vocal and dance duet. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The Nimoy, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Museum on Haunted Hill: A Celebration of Vincent Price The institution pays homage to its original patron, the noted actor, art collector, advocate and historian, with an evening of after-hours access to exhibitions, casual screenings of classic Price films, drinks and snacks, music, a photo booth and haunted decor. 5-8 p.m. Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College, 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Monterey Park. vpam.org
PLAY: A Play EmIly Mast’s unscripted conceptual performance features six players, guided by a coach, working against a clock and an evolving set of rules to examine “the invisible systems that govern power, behavior and care.” With Hugo Armstrong, Gregory Barnett, Chu-Hsuan Chang, Jessica Emmanuel, Jessica Hemingway, Aramazd Stepanian and Maxwell Transue. 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 4:30 p.m. Sunday. The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, 152 N. Central Ave., Little Tokyo. moca.org
Sinners: Sounds That Summon This exhibition examines the standout Club Juke scene in Ryan Coogler’s Oscar-winning 2025 film focusing on the guitar played by the character Sammie Moore (Miles Caton), costumes, objects and archival material. Through March 14, 2027. California African American Museum, 600 State Drive, Exposition Park. caamuseum.org
SATURDAY
Grand Ave Arts: All Access Tenth annual celebration of L.A. downtown cultural corridor with free exhibitions, tours, performances, family-friendly activities and more from participating organizations including the Broad, Center Theatre Group, Colburn School, Classical California, Dataland, Gloria Molina Grand Park, Grand Performances, L.A. Opera, L.A. Phil, Los Angeles Central Library, Metro Art, MOCA, the Music Center and REDCAT. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Grand Ave., between Temple and 6th Streets, downtown L.A. grandavearts.org
Kabuki in Motion: The Lion Returns U.S. Kabuki Ken Kyu Kai presents this program of kabuki dance, Nihon buyō (Japanese classical dance), and live koto and shamisen music featuring artists from Japan and California. 4:30 p.m. The Huntington, Rothenberg Hall, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. huntington.org
Picasso Ceramics From the Rosenbaum Collection The exhibition presents 63 original prints and limited-edition ceramics, including vessels, plates, pitchers and sculptural forms created by the artist after 1947. Through Feb. 28, 2027. Bowers Museum, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana. bowers.org
SUNDAY
Lucile Dollat The French organist performs music from the 16th century to the present. 7:30 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
TUESDAY
Jason Moran Presents Duke Ellington: My Heart Sings The pianist and composer performs with members of the Pacific Symphony to engage with Ellington’s work through a contemporary frame. 8 p.m. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org
The Music Man Meredith Willson’s Tony Award-winning musical comedy brings smooth-talking con man Harold Hill to River City, where his schemes are curtailed when he falls for Marian, the local librarian. Through Nov. 8. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org
Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal with Rafael Payare The Canadian ensemble and its charismatic Venezuelan conductor (who also leads the San Diego Symphony) perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93,” plus Felix Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64” with Leonidas Kavakos. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
The 39 Steps Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 spy thriller (itself an adaptation of a novel by John Buchan) about an ordinary man entangled in international intrigue. Directed by Hunter Foster. Through Nov. 22. Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. lagunaplayhouse.com
The Who’s Tommy The band’s 1969 rock opera featuring “I’m Free,” “See Me, Feel Me,” “Sensation” and, of course, “Pinball Wizard,” is transformed into a Broadway musical by composer Pete Townshend and original director Des McAnuff. Through Nov. 15. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. broadwayinhollywood.com
WEDNESDAY
Nedra Ryan Taylor and Sarah Scott Davis in the play “Confederates.”
(Davis Northern)
Confederates Institutional racism, as experienced in two different eras by Black women, is the subject of Dominique Morisseau’s 2022 dramatic comedy. Best known for her three-play cycle “The Detroit Project” as well as the book for the musical about the Temptations “Ain’t Too Proud,” Morisseau juxtaposes the plight of an enslaved rebel and Union spy during the Civil War with that of a contemporary political science professor facing a threatening work environment. Fountain Artistic Director Raymond O. Caldwell directs this sharp-eyed satire examining an unbroken thread of racial and gender bias in American history. (Charles McNulty) Previews, 8 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, play runs through Dec. 13. Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave. fountaintheatre.com
THURSDAY
Seasons of America With Teddy Abrams & Ray Chen The world premiere of Abrams’ L.A. Phil commission, written especially for violinist Chen, along with Julia Perry’s “A Short Piece for Orchestra.” Charles Ives’ “Three Places in New England, S. 7” and George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris.” 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.laphil.com
Sasha Velour: Travesty The Season 9 winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” performs a new solo work that spans queer history through lip-sync performances embodying various personas including a witch burned in a field, a clown who builds a theater and patrons of an underground gay bar. 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Oct. 30. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
The SoCal scene
Katie Folger gets ready at her home before her performance of “Getting in Bed With the Pizza Man” at the Elysian Theater.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
ICYMI, the best of this week’s L.A. Times arts coverage:
A marble torso sculpted during the early Roman Empire set a new world record for ancient classical sculpture at auction earlier this week when it sold at Sotheby’s New York for $34.3 million. That was almost three times more than its pre-sale estimate of between $8 million and $12 million.
Genres Book Society, a new bookshop coming to L.A., is hiding a few secrets. The first indication that something a bit fantastical is going on here is the fact that the boutique store has a mascot.
Look up upon entering the space, and you’ll meet Lore. Lore is a dragon, and this dragon is made of books. The striking sculpture will hover over a cozy space with modular bookshelves that are arranged on a floor covered in book quotes. Peer closely and you’ll see the quotes are designed in the shape of a tree.
A story is being built, a narrative that signifies that Genres aims to be not just a bookshop, but a place that feels like a real-life fairy tale. For this bookstore is also concealing a speakeasy of sorts, a secluded cafe and bar with multiple themed spaces and a two-story tree with glowing books growing out of its branches.
Stories, Genres is telling us, are life.
“This is for people who want to enter into story worlds,” says Ann Morrow Johnson of design firm Gensler. Johnson, a former creative with Walt Disney Imagineering, leads Gensler’s entertainment and experiences division, which is designing the bookshop.
She wants guests to feel transported into a fantasy universe, and understands how to make that happen. For instance? “Adding just a little bit of theatricality and sparkle helps create an invitation of suspension of disbelief,” she says.
The centerpiece of Genre’s bookstore, shown in an artist’s rendering, will be a dragon named Lore.
(Gensler)
Genres, on track to open in mid-2027 near the intersection of Melrose and Fairfax avenues, is tapping into a local trend of heavily designed thematic spaces with a penchant for fantasy. Think, for instance, of the Witch’s Cottage in North Hollywood, or the Last Canteen in the shadow of Universal Studios Hollywood. Consider it the latest evolution of the themed restaurant, and a way to bring the heavily theatrical worlds of theme parks closer to home. Johnson, for instance, says the firm’s research with the the Immersive Experience Institute has shown a hunger in younger generations to embrace spaces such as the Rainforest Cafe.
“People are seeking out a moment,” Johnson says. “Those more theatrical, highly scenic spaces are more likely to get you off your phone. Little moments of delight center you.”
Genres was dreamed up Clare Grant and Karissa Marston, who brought the project to Gensler and tapped them to lead its design. Grant, an actor/producer, says the idea came to her while experiencing the regret of missing a retreat hosted by her girlfriends, who had rented a cabin to read the latest edition in the fantasy “Crescent City” series.
“Just having a newborn, I was like, ‘Why can’t I go read this book in a fantasy-themed cabin?’ That’s literally my dream,” Grant says. “Then I started thinking about it. Why don’t I have something like this in Los Angeles, where I can pop in for an afternoon or evening where someone is handing me drinks and food in an immersive space?”
Marston, it turns out, who has experience in hospitality and marketing with an emphasis on fandom, was already dreaming of such a space. The two of them crafted a business plan for a bookstore, one that wouldn’t look out of place in a sword and sorcery fantasy novel, with a hidden speakeasy.
“I was in Paris, and I went to the Shakespeare bookstore, and it was truly the most magical experience I have ever had,” Marston says. “I walked in and felt so immersed in the books and the history and I went up to the second floor and sat up there and wept. I was like, ‘I never want to leave this place. I only ever want to feel this way and be surrounded by books and people who love books.’”
Their vision is grand. The bookstore, they hope, will become a gathering spot for authors in the fantasy and sci-fi realms. And they talk of the speakeasy as not just being a safe eatery to sit and read all day, but also a future venue for, say, immersive theater. The two-story space will house multiple themed rooms, either for hanging out and hiding, or for potential events.
“I think it’s safe to say that if you wanted to be transported to outer space, you would be pleasantly surprised,” Marston says. “Or if you wanted to escape to Dracula’s castle or some of these other really big genres that you have, readers will be pleasantly surprised at the worlds that we are building.”
Johnson says Genres will be flexible enough to welcome introverts who want to dream away the day with a book, but can also be a home for a baby shower in addition to an author signing or a theatrical event. That’s in part why the shop and ground floor of the speakeasy have a familiar fantasy vibe, one not out of place in, say, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, albeit with the welcoming tone of Disney.
Genres’ founders cited “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as an inspiration for the bookshop’s bar, depicted in an artist’s rendering.
(Gensler)
“The focal point of the space is this sort of epic woodland fantasy,” Marston says. “When we first brought this to Gensler, and showed them our inspo deck, we kept saying ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’”
That’s key, as everything in the space will spring from the written word. Genres, in that sense, also feels refreshing, emphasizing actual books and tactile media at a cultural moment when AI is often dominating conversations. Grant and Marston speak of being influenced by passionate social media creators who celebrate books, wanting to build a community as much as an event space. A prerequisite to be a bartender, says Marston, will need to be a love of books.
“We’re calling all our bartenders book-tenders,” Marston says. “Not only will they be well-versed in all things spirits and cocktails, but they are also someone who can give you the next book recommendation. These are very specialized employees. They can curate cocktails and books for you.”
Consider Genres a place for dinner and drinks, but one where story is always on the menu.
“People are craving more than dinner,” Grant says. “They want experience. They want magical memories that can get them through harder moments because nothing is easy right now. People want to spend money on something that is more than just dinner or going to a bar. Like whimsy.”
Young adult stories come in every imaginable flavor, and flavor combination, and several are present in “Phony,” premiering Tuesday on Hulu. Based on the four episodes (of eight) out for review, I am all in with this show, but as Doris Day so memorably sang, the future’s not ours to see.
Created and directed in part by Nick Paley (“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”), it’s a mystery driven by an uncanny event, with the beating heart of a high school dramedy, in the sense that what is dramatic about adolescence is at the same time comical. (Given time.) Temperamentally, it’s closer to “Freaks & Geeks” or “Dazed and Confused” than, say, “Stranger Things,” but I also wrote “Robert Altman” in my notes.
To begin, we are in some mountainous slice of small-town Pacific Northwest, where the Canadian tax breaks call American producers across the 49th parallel and the landscape presses in from all sides. (A reference to Lewis & Clark College suggests the story is set in Oregon, but I can’t remember any other clues; also, it isn’t important.) It’s an ordinary world wrapped in mystery and sometimes mist, but it’s the ordinariness that gives the show its power as much as, or more than, the mysteriousness.
Sonny Cooke (Sam Nivola, from the third season of “White Lotus”) attends Delby High, where his mother, Ellen (Connie Britton), is the principal. This would be a nightmare for many teens, but for Sonny and Ellen, it’s more of a dream, as the two are unusually (which is not to say perversely) close. (There is no father in the picture, nor is one even mentioned.) He operates in the corridors as a kind of unofficial lieutenant to his mother, bringing cheer and care to his fellow students, spreading sunshine all over the place. This is a little strange, but he is not accounted a weirdo.
He has a nice girlfriend, Chloe (Mahaela Park), with whom he has just “decided to be official”; Ellen clucks at this — she’s a little protective. Sonny and Chloe call each other “Bobo,” and in a nice, authentic touch we see he has written that nickname in ballpoint pen on the white sidewall of his sneaker. As we open, Sonny and Chloe are planning to have sex for the first time; there is some comedy written around this. He’s the less mature, more nervous party. (He also has a tendency to fall over and bump into things.) His best friend, Vogel (Maliq Johnson), an injured basketball player, is miffed that he had to hear about this from Chloe and not Sonny, but not seriously and only for a moment.
Best friends Vogel (Maliq Johnson), left, and Sonny (Sam Nivola), who is trying to make sense of his feelings about his mom.
(David Astorga / Disney)
Driving to meet Chloe for their Big Night, after a rare argument with his mother, Sonny swerves to avoid a downed tree and drives into Bucket Pond, where an official sign commemorates the many deaths that have occurred there. When he wakes from a coma a week later, he doesn’t recognize Ellen, and you won’t quite either. However it’s been accomplished, by makeup (or an absence of makeup), prosthetics, digital manipulation, hypnosis or some combination of the above — and by acting, of course — this alteration of Connie Britton, a face we know well, is just enough off to be incredibly creepy. (What have you done with Connie Britton? we want to ask.) There is nothing more frightening than when the familiar starts acting strange, in movies or in life. Sonny’s symptoms mirror an actual condition, Capgras syndrome, which no one here mentions, though to be fair, he hasn’t told anyone who might offer that diagnosis, and is too freaked out to look it up himself. Only Sonny and the viewer notice the difference, which suggests that he may be wrong, or, alternatively, that everyone else is.
Completing a not-quite Scooby Gang are Mallory (Grace Brennan), returning to public school after three years of homeschooling, and her cousin Weldon (Colter Lee), a deadpan original turn on the nerd. Sonny and Mallory shared a kiss once, on a class camping trip, but for … reasons, they meet again on tentative terms. Despite or perhaps because of her offbeat upbringing (religious parents), Mallory is the embodiment of the cool girl who doesn’t need to demonstrate how cool she is, and perhaps doesn’t even know or, more to the point, care. In a series thoroughly well cast (by Jessica Kelly and Lisa Parasyn), Lee and Brennan, especially, stand out as originals, their performances drawn from life, or some private corner of their imagination.
Weldon, who is ready to credit Sonny’s story — he believes, for example, that Avril Lavigne died and was replaced by “someone named Melissa, who has a clubfoot” — connects him with Sharla (Meera Syal), a private investigator he knows from an online forum. “She’s into alternative knowledge. So cryptids, One World Order, face peelers…”
“I know what it’s like to be called crazy,” says Sharla, “but all you really need is one person to believe you.”
“Or two people,” adds Weldon.
“Yep, two people. Two weird people.”
Much of what makes “Phony” special happens alongside the main plot, or doesn’t involve any plot at all — it’s pure atmosphere, bits of background business and chatter in the school halls, and at a party in the woods that occupies much of Episode 4. (Nice use of long lenses by cinematographer Andy Rydzewski.) Party scenes are a yardstick by which I measure the authenticity of a teenage movie — are these characters acting their age, or have they been designed to?
With only four episodes available for review, and nothing revealed, it’s impossible to say where the show is going — is it science fiction, or fantasy, or some super-complicated conspiracy, though why such a thing would be constructed around these people is beyond me. There’s a chance it’ll be brilliant, a chance it’ll be less than brilliant, and a greater than zero chance it’ll be dumb, but given the résumés of the co-showrunners Paley and Anthony King — whose credits include “Search Party,”“The Afterparty” and “Broad City” — I expect it to be interesting. Everything so far is so well done, I don’t mind how it ends; I don’t want it to end at all.
As Puerto Rico continues to grapple with the long aftermath of Hurricane Maria — from an unreliable electrical grid to ongoing water shortages — the need for stories that see the island as more than a backdrop feels especially urgent.
That’s part of what makes “Hurricane Seasons,” an intimate new independent film about a Puerto Rican family returning home, feel so timely. The film, which screens Sunday at the Newport Beach Film Festival, stars comedian Aida Rodriguez as Glori, a Brooklyn-based artist and community-center worker. She returns to Puerto Rico to help her sister (Justina Machado) care for their terminally ill mother (Priscilla Lopez).
When their matriarch convinces the family to embark on a bucket-list road trip around the island, old family secrets surface as the 2019 protests following Hurricane Maria unfold around them. Directed by Nicole Gomez Fisher and written by Xavier Ortiz — with Rodriguez also serving as a producer — the film is both a story of a multigenerational family and a love letter to Puerto Rico.
For Rodriguez, who is best known as a stand-up comedian, “Hurricane Seasons” also marked a return to a part of her artistic identity that existed long before comedy — her love of acting. But she admits that stepping back into acting, especially as the film’s protagonist, wasn’t an easy transition.
Aida Rodriguez, left, and Priscilla Lopez in a scene from “Hurricane Seasons,” directed by Nicole Gomez-Fisher.
(Laura T Magruder)
“It was terrifying. It was very scary because as a stand-up comedian, I work very hard at trying to obtain my most authentic self so that I can share it with everybody — to be my truest self, my truest Aida,” she says. “And when you loan yourself to a character and the art form of acting, you’re loaning yourself to that character and bringing yourself to that character, of course, because that is why they choose you. But you are telling a story from the perspective of another person.”
Rodriguez had pursued acting before going into stand-up comedy. Upon moving to Los Angeles, she quickly booked acting work, signed with an agency and began taking classes.
But comedy eventually taught her to do almost the opposite of what acting required.
“When I started doing standup, the direction and the notes were always like: ‘Release any character you have in mind and just access yourself,’” she says. “So it was a battle for me. Coming back to becoming an actor and giving the character Glori what Glori deserved — and allowing Glori to live, and Aida to sit in the back — became something important for me to do.”
She adds that it took a lot of work with coaches and classes for her to relax into acting again, allowing Aida the comedian to rest while focusing on what this role required of her.
The film’s protagonist, Glori, is a Brooklyn-born-and-raised Puerto Rican woman whose connection to the island runs deep, despite her living stateside. This is something Rodriguez, who is half Puerto Rican and half Dominican, born and raised in the States, also personally relates to.
That tension — between where you live, where your family comes from, and who gets to decide whether you are “Puerto Rican enough” — is one of the film’s central themes and one reason the script resonated with Rodriguez.
“My testimony through my art has always been finding unity, solidarity, power and connection with other people,” she says. “I think that the story of growing up in the States and connecting to the island is a universal story that most people, regardless of where they come from, experience. [There’s this] idea that you’re never American enough nor whatever you are — in this case Puerto Rican enough — because there’s always a judge and jury on both sides.”
Rodriguez sees those tensions as a consequence of a much larger and complex history. She believes so much of the judgment on both sides is a lingering effect of colonization.
“For me, that was one of the most attractive things about the script — [it] was being able to engage in a conversation about what being Puerto Rican really is,” she says. “Is it based on colonial standards? Or is it based on maintaining our cultural richness and our legacy, that is handed down to us regardless of where we are?”
That question takes on even more weight today as Puerto Rico sits in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which Rodriguez believes shifted the relationship between Puerto Ricans on the island and those living stateside.
“There was a shift, because there are wounds from both places,” she says. “There are wounds from the people on the island that stayed and stuck it out. [They want to ask] the ones who left, ‘why do you get to claim this, if you’re not here sticking it out with us?’ Then the people who leave feel like, ‘we had to do this, so that we can not only survive, but send money back to the island.”
Rodriguez explains that, in many ways, the aftermath of the hurricane sparked arguments on both sides that were necessary to begin healing the tension. She believes it highlighted issues that Puerto Ricans, as part of a diaspora, could no longer ignore; it also highlighted an island and a community that Americans outside of the Latine community paid little to no attention to.
“It took a hurricane for people to know what Puerto Ricans were,” she says. “I think there was a cultural shift and there was a conversation that needed to be had, about what happens on the island. And what that means to those of us who are not there.”
That conversation serves as the meat and bones of “Hurricane Seasons,” in which Puerto Rico isn’t simply a location. It’s an integral presence in the story. Rodriguez, Ortiz and Gomez Fisher all agreed that filming most of the movie on the island was essential, not only creatively but also economically and culturally.
“The other thing that was very important about taking the movie back to Puerto Rico was to invest in Puerto Rico and to stimulate some sort of revenues for the island and that the crew was a Puerto Rican crew,” she says. “The DP [director of photography] was a Puerto Rican DP — all people that live on the island.”
It was important to them that if they were going to tell a story about Puerto Rico that was also shot in Puerto Rico, that Puerto Ricans on the island actually benefited from the production.
“It’s not cool to go to Puerto Rico and shoot a movie and bring in your own people from the States, and the people in Puerto Rico have to be inconvenienced with their roads being blocked and things shut down and an influx of Americans that come there to be disrespectful and them not making anything out of it,” Rodriguez says.
This commitment shows in the protest scenes. Rather than using background actors, the film features real Puerto Rican residents, including a local activist and singer.
“It didn’t feel rehearsed. It didn’t feel fake,” she says. “I just think that the feelings and the passion and the rage and the sense of urgency is still there.”
Ortiz’s commitment to specificity extended to the family casting, intentionally matching the actors to the real-life relatives they are based on.
“It wasn’t performative. It was actually real because that’s what all of our families look like,” she says. “Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, we just have that diversity because of all the stuff that’s happened in the past.”
Glori’s character also represents a refreshing departure from the way Latina women are often portrayed onscreen. She is a mother, a daughter, a community center worker, an artist — and a woman with a complicated romantic and family history. She is beautiful and desirable, but her sexuality isn’t the defining characteristic of her existence — something we don’t see enough when it comes to Latina roles.
“For me, I didn’t have to step outside of myself for the role, which was really refreshing because every audition that I ever get, I do have to step out of myself because when people write Latinas in Hollywood, they tend to write them one way,” says Rodriguez. “They look a certain way, they talk a certain way, and that’s not the reality of what being Latino, especially in America, is like.”
Rodriguez could freely inhabit a Latina character without feeling as though she had to perform her Puerto Rican-ness for the audience.
“I didn’t feel like I had to perform my Latinidad. I could just exist in it,” she says.
Rodriguez adds she’s ready for a Hollywood that wants Latina actors to have the same range of characterization that white actors have long been afforded. She’s open to seeing Latinas being everything in TV and film, where can they exist in a world in which they can just be people who just happen to be Latinas.
“I really do look for a day when we can just be people and not just be the funny, spicy friend,” she adds. “Some Latinas are not spicy. Some Latinas are nerds, and some Latinas are quirky, and some of them are goofy and some of them are clumsy. And just like everybody gets to see the spectrum of whiteness with all the different kinds of characters, I would love to see that for our people. For all people of color, actually. I think it’s important to see us all as full human beings, and that means that we can be anything.”
The film’s multigenerational story touches on the cultural inheritance passed between mothers, daughters and grandmothers — whether through old traditions or ordinary rituals. It’s something audiences, regardless of background, can likely relate to.
“The most important message that I’ve kept from my [foremothers] was never to lose my sense of Puerto Rico; that, even if I don’t live in Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico lives in me,” she says. So much of that inheritance lives in the little things she remembers about her Puerto Rican grandmother, she says, from the té de tilo she’d make for an upset stomach; the recao that grew on her grandmother’s balcony because she didn’t have a backyard; or the azabache she still wears to this day for spiritual protection. They are the same small traditions she has passed on to her kids.
“My daughter makes better arroz con gandules than all of us,” Rodriguez says. “And her recipe is true to what my grandmother’s recipe was. That will continue to live on, until we are able to go back to our island and live in peace.”
That freedom is one reason Rodriguez believes independent film is so important for stories like “Hurricane Seasons.” Without a studio machine making decisions based primarily on commercial expectations, filmmakers have more room to tell a story on their own terms.
“Once the studio gets involved, they start thinking about dollars, which they got to make money, but they prioritize the dollars,” Rodriguez says. “And I think that’s why a lot of these big projects that they spend a lot of money on have failed because they don’t honor the storytelling. They don’t honor the authenticity of the world, the authenticity of the stories.”
Her hope is that “Hurricane Seasons” encourages more people to tell their own stories — especially Puerto Ricans.
“Puerto Ricans are not a joke; we’re not a punchline. You don’t get to tell us we don’t speak correct Spanish and make fun of our songs. Then, years later, appropriate our culture and become big time doing what we do, using our terms and our colloquialisms because it brings you capital,” she says. “We are people. We’ve been doing this for a very long time, and our grandmothers and our tias and tios matter, and they’re not [a] costume that you can just put on [to] make money off of it.”
Before we wrapped up the call, Rodriguez paused for a moment when I asked her what Puerto Rico means to her. Then her eyes lit up, and her voice softened as she described why the island means so much to her — and why so many people, even outside of the diaspora, find themselves drawn to it.
“Puerto Rico is a very special place, which is why so many people want to kick us out, so they can move [in],” she says. “But they’ll never have the magic, because the magic is us.”
The first player to celebrate with Lewis Koumas in front of the travelling supporters in Linz was Liverpool‘s hat-trick hero in Bradley Barcola.
This time last season, Koumas was on loan at Birmingham in the Championship while Barcola was at Paris St-Germain, who went on to win the Champions League for the second season in a row.
And as Barcola left the Raiffeisen Arena with the match ball after a superb hat-trick, the Frenchman knew that he wasn’t the only player who put the ball in the net three times on Wednesday in Austria.
Koumas had his first two strikes ruled out for offside, but thankfully it was third time luck for the 21-year-old Wales international.
And so, just three days after making his first Premier League start against Manchester City – with Alexander Isak, Cody Gakpo and Hugo Ekitike all injured – Koumas became the youngest Liverpool player to score and assist in a Champions League game.
Previously, the youngest to achieve the feat had been Steven Gerrard in 2001.
When that was put to him, Koumas wanted to know “Is that official?”.
“It’s not a bad stat, is it?” he said. “And it’s not a bad name to be alongside. Wow. What a legend. I just want more of this.”
He is enjoying his run in the first team but staying level-headed about it all, keen to point out: “This is my job.”
“I need to get goals and assists,” he said. “I hadn’t had any before Linz so it was really important to get them.”
In a Liverpool side where attention tends to be directed towards big-money names, Koumas provides a real feel-good story.
After spells on loan at Stoke, Birmingham and Hull, where he helped the Tigers win promotion last season, Andoni Iraola decided in the first week of pre-season that Koumas was part of his Liverpool plans.
He made his Premier League debut at Newcastle before coming on against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League. He was man of the match on his first start of the season against Tottenham in the Carabao Cup after an energetic performance which left Iraola describing his playing style as “contagious”.
That night, Koumas went straight on a video call with his family after the game and it was the case again in Austria after he scored his first goal of the season.
“It was probably the best feeling in my career, 100%. I’m just really grateful to have the opportunity again,” said Koumas.
“I would not have been a happy man [if I didn’t score], I would have been gutted. I just kept going because I knew the more the game was going on, it was opening up.
“Going over to the fans at the end meant absolutely everything. They are the reason we do this and that we want this job. I wish I could have got in there with them, but there was a big metal cage in the way!”
