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Madonna’s “MDNA.” Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising.” Mariah Carey’s “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel.”

According to the Recording Industry Assn. of America, none of these albums — each the 12th studio LP by its respective maker — has sold 4 million copies in the United States in the decade or more since it was released.

Yet that’s what Taylor Swift just did in a single week with her 12th album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” which Billboard reported Monday had moved 4.002 million copies in the seven days between Oct. 3 and 9.

That figure, which combines sales and streaming numbers, represents the biggest opening week for an album in modern history, breaking the record set by Adele 10 years ago when her “25” moved 3.482 million units in its first week.

Swift marked the achievement on Instagram on Monday with a note to her 281 million followers.

“I’ll never forget how excited I was in 2006 when my first album sold 40,000 copies in its first week,” she wrote. “I was 16 and couldn’t even fathom that that many people would care enough about my music to invest their time and energy into it. Since then I’ve tried to meet and thank as many people as I could who have given me the chance to chase this insane dream. Here we are all these years later and a hundred times that many people showed up for me this week.

“I have 4 million thank you’s I want to send to the fans,” she added, “and 4 million reasons to feel even more proud of this album than I already was.”

The speed with which Swift hit the 4-million mark is undeniably impressive. Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem,” the biggest album of 2025 so far, has sold and streamed the equivalent of 4.2 million copies, according to the trade journal Hits. But “I’m the Problem” has been out since mid-May; “Showgirl” will almost certainly have surpassed Wallen’s LP by the end of this week (if it hasn’t already).

What’s more remarkable is where “Showgirl’s” blockbuster success comes in the arc of Swift’s career.

Madonna and Springsteen were both in their early 50s when they released their 12th LPs; Carey was 40 when “Imperfect Angel” came out. Swift, in contrast, is only 35 — one advantage of starting out professionally as a teenager.

Still, Swift has been a star for nearly two decades, a point at which many pop musicians have shifted the focus of their work to touring even as they continue to make new records generally ignored by all but their most devoted fans. In 2024, according to Pollstar, Madonna’s and Springsteen’s latest road shows — each drawn from a catalog packed with hit songs — were among the year’s 10 highest-grossing tours.

And indeed Swift has been amply rewarded on the road: At No. 1 on Pollstar’s list was her Eras tour, which sold more than $2 billion in tickets across 149 dates on five continents.

Yet unlike virtually every other veteran act in music, Swift’s recording business is growing along with her live business.

“Everything that’s happening here is historic and unprecedented,” said Hits’ editor in chief, Lenny Beer. “Maybe if the Beatles had stayed together, we’d have seen something like it.”

Also worth considering: Nobody seems to think “The Life of a Showgirl” is Swift’s best album. Reviews have been mixed, and even some fans have expressed disappointment with the record on social media — a once-unthinkable development among the fiercely loyal Swifties.

So how did the singer pull off such a feat?

First, a little math: Of “Showgirl’s” 4 million units, approximately 3.5 million were sales of either digital or physical versions of the album (including CDs, cassettes and vinyl LPs); the remaining half-million came from streams of the album’s songs on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, which the data firm Luminate counts toward what it calls streaming equivalent albums.

“Showgirl’s” 12 songs racked up 681 million streams in all, Billboard said — the fourth-biggest streaming week of all time, behind Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” and Drake’s “Scorpion” and “Certified Lover Boy.” But the album’s sales number is the largest ever recorded since Luminate started tracking sales electronically in 1991.

Among Swift’s strategies to get to that number was selling more than three dozen editions of the album, each with its own artwork and bonus material designed to lure collectors. On vinyl alone, “Showgirl” came out in eight so-called variants, which helped drive the album’s first-week vinyl sales to a modern record of 1.3 million copies.

Offering something for sale doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will buy it, of course. Yet Swift was positioning “The Life of a Showgirl” as a juggernaut from the moment she announced it. Appearing with her fiancé, the NFL player Travis Kelce, on his “New Heights” podcast in August, the singer described the album as a return to the hit-making ways of albums like “Red” and “1989” after the relatively experimental “Folklore” and “Tortured Poets Department.”

To make “Showgirl,” she reteamed with the Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback, with whom she’d collaborated on some of her biggest singles, including “Blank Space,” “Bad Blood” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” On “New Heights” she and Kelce talked about the new album as a “180” from the moody confessions of “Tortured Poets,” whetting appetites for the kind of crisply hooky Taylor Swift songs that blanketed Top 40 radio in the mid-2010s.

Promised the football star: “12 bangers.”

Fans visit an activation for Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” at the Westfield Century City mall on Oct. 4.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Once “Showgirl” was out, Swift jumped into the promotional fray with more gusto than she’d summoned in years, sitting for numerous radio interviews and putting in appearances on Graham Norton’s, Jimmy Fallon’s and Seth Meyers’ late-night shows; the weekend after the album’s release, a glorified sizzle reel called “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl” played in AMC movie theaters across the country.

On Monday, Swift kept the conversation going with the announcement that two Eras-related projects are headed to Disney+ in December: a six-part behind-the-scenes docuseries and a concert film of the tour’s finale in Vancouver.

“One of the hardest parts of ensuring you have a record-setting first week is making sure that everyone who could possibly be interested in your album knows about it,” said Bill Werde, director of the Bandier Program for Recording and Entertainment Industries at Syracuse University. “I’m not sure anyone has ever covered that need the way Taylor did with this album cycle.”

Yet “The Life of a Showgirl” has not been greeted as enthusiastically as some of Swift’s earlier work.

Pitchfork said “her music’s never been less compelling,” while The Guardian called the album “dull razzle-dazzle from a star who seems frazzled.” Fans on TikTok have complained that Swift’s lyrics — which take up her romance with Kelce, the burdens of fame and an apparent beef with Charli XCX — are unusually shallow; some have even formulated a kind of tradwife critique of “Showgirl” in which Swift is seen as upholding regressive ideas about marriage and domesticity.

The album has also attracted criticism from people who say Swift’s songs recycle familiar elements from other pop tunes without giving credit: the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” in “Wood,” for instance, and the Jonas Brothers’ “Cool” in the LP’s closing title track.

“When every song is a derivative of another song, that’s an issue,” said one hit songwriter who asked not to be named in order to speak freely. “That one song is the Jonas Brothers song — the exact same melody. And here’s how lazy that is: It’s the same key and the same tempo.”

In Werde’s view, Swift’s place atop the pop hierarchy makes such carping inevitable. “Anytime an artist gets this big, there’s going to be backlash,” he said — a take with which Swift would likely agree.

“I welcome the chaos,” she said in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “The rule of show business is: If it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping.”

Even so, the polarized reaction to “Showgirl” — Swift’s 15th album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — raises questions about the breadth of Swift’s popularity as compared to its depth. Should the album’s gargantuan numbers be taken as a sign that she appeals to a wide spectrum of pop music lovers or to a committed group of hardcore Swifties willing to spend untold amounts of money to demonstrate their loyalty?

“Showgirl’s” second-week stats should provide the beginnings of an answer, given that they won’t be shaped by one-time sales of all those limited-edition variants.

Then again, another unprecedented chart achievement from the album’s first week is already shedding some light on the matter: “The Fate of Ophelia,” the album’s lead single, is the first song ever to debut inside the top 10 of Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart — an indication of the heavy Top 40 radio play it’s getting along with the millions of daily streams that have kept it atop Spotify’s U.S. Top 50 tally since the song came out.

That’s one banger certified, with more perhaps to come.

MILWAUKEE — Blake Treinen’s first save of the postseason was hardly a memorable performance.

He threw more balls than strikes. He walked the first batter he faced and nearly hit the second. And he got the final out on a pitch that was well out of the strike zone.

But he did get the final out, preserving the Dodgers’ 2-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers in the opening game of the National League Championship Series on Monday.

And for Treinen and the bullpen he’s supposed to be anchoring, that counts as major progress.

“We’ve been putting in a lot of work to try to get some things in a better place with myself,” Treinen said. “Today, I thought I executed almost every pitch.”

The fixes, he said, were simple mechanical tweaks that helped set up his pitches.

“Sometimes through catch-play and touching the mound a little bit, things start to click. And you’re kind of shocked at how a subtle tweak can change everything,” he said.

In the Dodgers’ World Series run last season, Treinen was as vicious as an ill-tempered Doberman, going 2-0 with three saves, a 2.19 ERA and 18 strikeouts in 12 1/3 innings.

This year, not so much. In his first four playoff appearances more batters got a hit than struck out and five of the 12 men he faced reached base. That followed a disastrous September in which he went 1-5 with a 9.64 ERA.

He wasn’t so much putting out fires as he was starting them. The poor performances began to build on one another.

“At times this year, when it hasn’t gone well, th[ings] can speed up a little bit in your mind,” he said. “That’s the hard part, to carry the thoughts and focus on what you’re good at.”

But manager Dave Roberts, who has had Treinen for the last five seasons, kept giving him chances to turn things around.

“I think the best way to for me to kind of view it is whether you’re a position player slumping or a pitcher maybe not getting the outs at the clip that you want, we all know what our abilities are,” Treinen said. “Dave’s seen me at my best and at my worst, and so when he calls my name, I’m grateful that he has confidence in me.

“And I have confidence that he’s putting me in situations for the team to win. So there’s a lot of peace in that.”

Treinen may have been at peace but he didn’t have much wiggle room when he replaced Roki Sasaki on the mound Monday with two out in the ninth and the Dodgers clinging to a one-run lead.

Sasaki, the team’s surprise playoff closer, had been lights out in the postseason, with just one of the 17 hitters he faced reaching base. Against the Brewers, he gave up two walks, a ground-rule double and a run-scoring sacrifice fly in the span of two outs. When Treinen entered, Milwaukee had the tying run on first and the winning run on third — and the right-hander immediately made things worse by walking William Contreras on six pitches to load the bases.

Treinen quickly got ahead of Brice Turang, the Brewers’ left-handed cleanup hitter, but courted disaster again when he sailed a 1-2 sweeper that nearly hit Turang. That would have forced in the tying run had Turang not instinctively danced out of the way, eliciting a groan from the sold-out crowd.

“It’s a natural reaction,” Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said. “When the ball is coming towards you, it’s a breaking ball, your natural reaction is to do that.

Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki delivers in the ninth inning against the Brewers in NLCS Game 1 on Monday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“It happens. He’ll learn from that situation. But it’s hard.”

For Treinen, whose only luck lately has been bad luck, the break was one he quickly cashed by getting Turang to chase the next pitch, which was head high, to end the game.

That swing brought equal measures of joy and relief for Treinen, who has supplied little of either for the Dodgers this postseason. This time, he said it felt good to finally be able to contribute.

“Our guys have been playing great baseball,” he said. “Our bats are doing a great job. Our starters have been amazing. So [I’m] just doing my job to finish the game.”

He also did his job in picking up Sasaki, the hero of the NL Division Series win over the Phillies, who stood to be the goat if the Dodgers lost Monday.

“Any time as a professional, when you have the ability to pick up your teammates, there’s a lot of pride in it,” Treinen said. “You just want to do your part because it’s a team game.

“I’ve certainly had guys pick me up this year. To have the opportunity to pick someone else up, it feels good.”

And it’s been a long time since Treinen has felt that.

Dearest gentle reader, Lady Whistledown — voiced by Julie Andrews — is back.

Netflix released a trailer for the fourth season of “Bridgerton” on Monday, and the Ton’s resident gossip columnist promised to have all the delightful details. The teaser also revealed that the next chapter of the Regency-era romance will be released in two parts on Jan. 29 and Feb. 26.

The eight-episode season will follow Benedict Bridgerton’s (Luke Thompson) fairy tale-inspired romance. The beloved second-eldest sibling of the Bridgerton brood is is known for being commitment averse and uninterested in marriage, but, if the trailer is to be trusted, it seems a masked mystery woman he brushes past on a staircase might change that.

“With each passing season, one is known to experience plenty of ups and downs,” Whistledown says in the teaser footage. “So then we must ask ourselves, do we rise to the occasion? As always, time — and this author — will tell.”

Unbeknownst to Benedict, the mystery woman, also known as the Lady in Silver, is Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha). According to Netflix’s in-house blog Tudum, the staircase encounter featured in the trailer is the first time the pair cross paths during Lady Bridgerton’s masquerade ball.

Benedict and Sophie’s romance is based on the events in “An Offer From a Gentleman,” the third book in Julia Quinn’s “Bridgerton” book series. Much like the wicked matriarch in “Cinderella,” Sophie’s stepmother (Katie Leung) is more concerned about her two daughters’ (Michelle Mao, Isabella Wei) societal debut and marriage prospects than whatever her stepdaughter is getting up to.

“Bridgerton” showrunner Jess Brownell previously told The Times that Benedict’s character arc “has a lot to do with being someone who is learning how to exist between society and and being unconventional.”

“Benedict [is] trying to figure out what his place is in the world and how to circumvent certain rules, which is something Tilley Arnold (Hannah New) [taught] him [in Season 3],” she said last year. “I think we will continue telling the story of his [sexual] fluidity going forward.”

The brief “Bridgerton” Season 4 teaser focuses solely on Benedict and Sophie. Those interested in updates about the state of Penelope’s writing career or what Francesca, John and Michaela Stirling have been up to since the end of the third season will have to keep waiting.

More than two decades after their peak, the music of Yellowcard is a pop punk message in a bottle. The note that washed ashore from a simpler time describes the image of a young, sharply-dressed band full of aspirations, thrashing on their instruments — violin included — in the echoey tomb of an underground parking garage in the music video for “Ocean Avenue” as the chorus kicks into overdrive.

“If I could find you now, things would get better, we could leave this town and run forever, let your waves crash down on me and take me away,” frontman Ryan Key sang ecstatically at the top of his lungs.

That hit song, the title track of 2003’s “Ocean Avenue,” created a tidal wave of success that changed the course of their career from struggling artists to a world-touring headliner and darlings of MTV’s Total Request Live.

“The first time it happened, we were really young,” Key said, gingerly grasping a spoon with his heavily tattooed hand while stirring a cup of hot tea. “We were quite literally a garage band one minute, and then we were playing on the MTV Video Music Awards and David Letterman and whatever else the next minute.”

It’s a moment that hasn’t escaped his memory 22 years later. Now, he and his bandmates — violinist Sean Mackin, bassist Josh Portman and guitarist Ryan Mendez — are far from the ocean but not too far from water as they look out at a sparkling pool from the window from a suite at the Yaamava’ Resort and Casino in Highland. A couple hours from now, the band will play a splashy pool party gig for 98.7 ALT FM. The set will include a raft of all the old hits, including “Ocean Avenue” of course, as well as their first new songs in almost a decade.

Before the release of the first singles for the new album, “Better Days,” it might’ve been easy to write off their 11th album as another release destined to be overshadowed by their early catalog. However, with the right amount of internal inspiration and outside help from Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, who produced and played all the drums on the album, the result was a batch of new songs that haven’t simply been washed out to sea. Quite the opposite, actually.

Prior to the album’s release, the title track “Better Days” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart. This achievement came after a 22-year wait since their first appearance on the chart with the “Ocean Avenue” single “Way Away.” Key also notes that it’s the first time fans are using the band’s new music for their TikTok videos instead of “Ocean Avenue.”

“That’s crazy,” Key said. “Everyone is using ‘Better Days.’ I don’t think we’re alone in that. I think for bands in our scene, new music is getting a lot of love and a lot of attention again, and it’s amazing to see.”

It’s been about three years since the band reemerged to play a reunion set at RiotFest in Chicago, following their 2017 farewell show at the House of Blues in Anaheim. At the point they were ready to call it quits, the band was struggling to sell enough tickets to their shows to keep the dream alive. For Mackin, fatherhood forced him to also consider his family’s financial stability, prompting him to enter the corporate workforce as a sales rep and eventually becoming a service director for Toyota. At one point, he was responsible for managing 120 employees. “I just thought that was going to be what I was going to do to take care of my family for the next 20 years,” Mackin said.

After Yellowcard’s hiatus, Key continued playing music in several projects that distanced themselves from the pop punk sound — including recording solo work under his full name William Ryan Key, touring with bassist Portman at his side. Key also produced a post-rock electronic-heavy project called Jedha with Mendez, and the pair also does a lot of TV and film scoring work. For a long time, Key and his bandmates mourned the loss of what they had with Yellowcard. It was the most important thing in Key’s life, though he said he didn’t realize how much the band truly shaped him until it was over.

During their hiatus, band members took day jobs. One member managed 120 Toyota employees before the 2022 Riot Fest reunion reignited their passion.

(Joe Brady)

“Ungrateful is not the word to use about how I felt back then. It’s more like I didn’t have the tools to appreciate it, to feel gratitude and really let things happen and and stay in the moment and stay focused. Because I was so young, I was so insecure about my place, my role in all of it,” Key said.

But after some time away, the raucous 2022 Riot Fest reunion show relit the band’s fire in a way they hadn’t expected. They followed up with a 2023 EP “Childhood Eyes” that pushed the band to take things further with a new full album. Along with these plans came the stunning news that Barker would sign on to produce and play drums for them on the project. For a band that grew up idolizing Blink 182 and Barker specifically as the band’s red-hot engine behind the kit who spent the last 20 years evolving into a music mogul, it was a surreal experience.

“We look at him like a general. It was never lost that the best drummer of our generation is playing drums with us,” Mackin said. “We know him as Travis now, but man, this guy is just oozing talent — he’s doing all these amazing things and he doesn’t seem overrun by it, not distracted one bit. While we were recording, he was right there with us.”

Key says he was initially intimidated singing in front of Barker in the studio and had a few moments where negative, self-conscious thoughts were getting the better of him in the vocal booth during recording. Instead of getting annoyed, he says Barker helped ease his anxiety with a few simple words.

“Travis came into the booth, closed the door, put his hand on my shoulder, and he said, ‘You’re gonna do this as many times as you need to do it. I’m gonna be here the whole time.’” Barker was truly speaking from experience. He told Key at the time that he’d just recorded 87 rough takes of his parts on “Lonely Road,” his hit song with Jelly Roll and MGK. “That was a real crossroads for me,” Key said.

The aspect of the album that feels most akin to “Ocean Avenue” was that Barker never really allowed them to overthink anything when it came to songwriting, a skill the band had unwittingly mastered as kids back in the “Ocean Avenue” days by writing songs on the fly in the studio with little time to care about how a song might end up before they recorded it.

“There’s something about the way we did this record with Travis, where we would walk in and did it in a way we haven’t done in 20 plus years with him saying ‘We’re gonna write and record a song today,’” Key said. “ It was a return to that style of songwriting where you have to kind of get out of your comfort zone and just throw and go.”

The final product moves swiftly over 10 songs, the track list starts with a flurry of energy from the bombastic opening drums of “Better Days” that propel a song on inner reflection on the past. It moves on to the high-energy heartbreak of “Love Letters,” featuring Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio. Avril Lavigne lends her soaring vocals to the unrequited love song “You Broke Me Too.” Songs like “City of Angels” and “Bedroom Posters” track episodes in Key’s life where his band’s hiatus took a negative toll on his outlook on life but also about looking for a way back to rediscovering himself. The album wraps with the acoustic lullaby “Big Blue Eyes,” which Keys wrote as a tribute to his son.

Though the songs on “Better Days” frequently wrestle with self-doubt and uncertainty, the response from fans has been surprisingly supportive, Key said.

“I cannot recall seeing this level of overwhelming positive feedback. People are just flipping out over these songs,” the frontman said. “The recording was such a whirlwind. When I listen to it, it’s still kind of like ‘When did I write that song?’ It happened so fast, and we made the record so fast, but I’m glad we just did it.” Despite the success, Key is hesitant to label the band comeback kids, “probably because we are officially passed kids label,” he said.

“Maybe it’s the return of the gentlemen?” Mackin joked.

Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker produced the album, helping the band recapture the spontaneous energy that defined their 2003 breakthrough “Ocean Avenue.”

(Joe Brady)

Whatever they call themselves, coming back to the band after so many years of different experiences has made Yellowcard’s second shot at a career feel all the more rewarding.

“Because you feel like you know you’re capable of something other than being in this band, capable of connecting with your family in a way that you couldn’t when you were on the road all the time,” Mackin said. “There’s things that happened in that break that set us up for success as human beings, not just as creative people.”

For Key, it’s about taking all the lessons they’ve learned as a band and applying them to their future, realizing that the album’s title refers not just to the past behind them, but what lies ahead.

“This record needed to be the ultimate revival, the ultimate redemption song for our band,” Key said. “And so far it’s, it’s proven to be that.”

To live in Los Angeles is to be a seeker. There are those who come to the city in search of the limelight and affluence. There are others who crave temperate weather and long for accessible beaches. The list goes on. Some of these desires are easily satisfied, while others are left unfulfilled or forgotten. But for those born and raised in this atypical metropolis, like Shirley Kurata, the search is never-ending.

The costume designer tells me the key to loving this city is to never stop venturing around. We sit in the shaded back patio of Virgil Normal, a 21st century lifestyle shop she owns with her husband, Charlie Staunton. She wears a vibrant pink getup — a vintage top and Issey Miyake pants — complete with small pleats and optimal for the unavoidable August heat wave. Her signature pair of black circular glasses sits perfectly on the bridge of her nose. It’s a style of eyewear she owns in several colors.

“I always tell people, L.A. is like going to a flea market. There’s some digging to do, but you’ll definitely find some gems,” says the stylist and costume designer, as she’s regularly on the lookout for up-and-coming creative hubs and eye-catching storefronts. “It won’t be handed to you. You have to dig.”

In one way or another, “digging” has marked Kurata’s creative livelihood. Whether she’s conjuring wardrobes for the big screen, like in the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” or styling musicians like Billie Eilish, Florence and the Machine and ASAP Rocky for photo shoots and music videos, the hunt for the perfect look keeps her on her toes.

Over the summer, Kurata spent a lot of time inside the Costco-size Western Costume Co., pulling looks for Vogue World, the magazine’s annual traveling runway extravaganza. This year, the fashion spectacle is centered around Hollywood and will take place at Paramount Pictures Studios in late October. She is one of the eight costume designers asked to present at the event — others include Colleen Atwood of “Edward Scissorhands,” Ruth E. Carter of “Black Panther” and Arianne Phillips of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Kurata will be styling background performers and taking inspiration from the invited costume designers.

Shirley wears vintage hat, Meals Clothing top, shirt and dress, We Love Colors tights, Opening Ceremony x Robert Clergerie shoes and l.a. Eyeworks sunglasses.

“[Vogue] wanted someone that is a stylist and costume designer who has worked both in fashion and film. Because a lot of costume designers work primarily in TV and film, they don’t do the fashion styling for editorial shoots,” says Kurata. “I’m coming on and working with what other costume designers have done.”

Since her start in the business, Kurata has gained acclaim for her ability to infuse daring prints and vibrant color into the narrative worlds she deals with. Her maximalist sense of experimentation took center stage in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and earned her an Academy Award nomination for costume design. From a bejeweled Elvis jumpsuit to a look made entirely of neon green tassels meant to resemble an amoeba, her vision was avant-garde, playful and undeniably multidimensional.

When Kurata isn’t on set or in the troves of a costume house, she’s likely tending to Virgil Normal. Housed in a former moped shop, the Virgil Village store offers a selection of novelty items and streetwear treasures, curated by both Kurata and Staunton. Though Staunton jokes that he’s constantly seeking her approval when sourcing inventory: “If it’s not cool enough for her, it doesn’t come in.”

The couple first met at the Rose Bowl Flea Market through mutual friends. At first sight, Staunton recalls being enthralled by her perpetually “cool” demeanor. Early in their relationship, he even floated the idea of starting a clothing line together, just to “knock off her closet.”

Shirley wears Leeann Huang t-shirt, skirt and shoes, We Love Colors tights and l.a. Eyeworks glasses here and in photos below.

“She’s like a peacock. It’s not like she’s trying to get attention. But she has her own vision and doesn’t really care what’s going on. She knows what’s cool,” says Staunton, who cites Kurata as the biggest “inspiration” for the store.

Inside the quaint red brick building, blue L.A. hats are embroidered to read “Larry David,” acrylic shelves are packed with Snoopy figurines (for display only), trays of l.a. Eyeworks frames fill the tables and each clothing tag is a different elaborate doodle illustrated by Staunton. He adds that everything in the store is meant to have a “rabbit hole” effect, where shoppers can give in to their curiosities.

“We wanted a place where like-minded people could come here and have it be a space to hang out. They don’t have to buy anything,” says Kurata. The attached patio is complete with a mural of a man floating in space, pipe in hand, and the coolers are still filled with chilled beers and sparkling waters from their most recent get-together. She tells me about how many times they’ve allowed musicians and artists to transform this peaceful outdoor space into a lively venue.

“Having that connection with a community of creatives in the city is essential. Having that sort of human interaction is really good for your soul, and for your creativity,” she shares. “Having this store has been one of the most fulfilling things that I’ve done, and it’s not like we’re not making a ton of money off it.”

From the cactus out front, which Kurata and Staunton planted themselves, to grabbing lunch at the taqueria down the street, she explains cultivating a space like this and being an active part of the neighborhood has made her into a more “enriched person.” Kurata, who is of Japanese descent, brings up the lesser known history of East Hollywood. In the early 1900s, the neighborhood, then called J-Flats, was where a sizable group of Japanese immigrants settled. It was once a bustling community with Japanese boarding houses that offered affordable rent and home-cooked meals. Today, only one of these properties is operating.

“Having that connection with a community of creatives in the city is essential. Having that sort of human interaction is really good for your soul, and for your creativity,”

For Kurata, being a part of this legacy means trimming the nearby overgrown vegetation to keep the sidewalks clear and running over to the locally owned convenience store when Virgil Normal needs supplies, instead of immediately turning to Amazon. She pours everything she learned from being raised in this city back into the store, and in turn, its surroundings.

Kurata was born and raised in Monterey Park, a region in the San Gabriel Valley with a primarily Asian population. The neighborhood is a small, homey stretch of land, known for its dining culture, hilly roads and suburban feeling (but not-so-suburban location). These days, she’ll often find herself in the area, as her mother and sister still live there. Together, they enjoy many of the surrounding dim sum-style restaurants.

Even from a young age, she was encouraged to treat the entire city as her stomping grounds. She attended elementary school in the Arts District, which she describes as quieter and “more industrial than it is today.” She also spent a lot of her childhood in Little Tokyo, shopping for Japanese magazines (where she found a lot of her early inspiration), playing in the arcade and grocery shopping with her family.

Shirley wears Leeann Huang lenticular dress and shoes, Mary Quant tights and l.a. Eyeworks sunglasses.

For high school, she decided to branch out even further, making the trek to an all-girls Catholic school in La Cañada Flintridge. “It was the first time where I felt like an outsider,” Kurata says, as she had only previously attended predominantly Asian schools. She laughs a little about being one of the rare “Japanese Catholics.”

“When you’re raised in something, you go along with it because your parents tell you, and it’s part of your education,” Kurata says. Her religious upbringing began to reach a point where she wasn’t connecting with it anymore. “Having that sort of awakening is good for you. I was able to look at myself, early in life, and realize that I don’t think this is for me.”

Her senior year, she discovered vintage stores. (She always knew that she had an affinity for clothing of the past, as she gravitated toward hand-me-down Barbies from the ’60s.) Her coming-of-age style consisted of layering skirts with other oversize pieces — and everything was baggy, “because it was the ’80s.” With this ignited passion for vintage and thrifting, Kurata began to mix items spanning across decades into one look.

“All the colors, the prints, the variety. It just seemed more fun. I would mix a ’60s dress with a jacket from the ’70s and maybe something from the ’40s,” says Kurata. It’s a practice that has remained a major part of her creative Rolodex.

Her lifelong interest in fashion led her to get a summer job at American Rag Cie on La Brea Avenue. At the time, the high-end store primarily sold a mix of well-curated timeless pieces, sourced from all over the world. It was the first time she encountered the full range of L.A.’s fashion scene. She worked alongside Christophe Loiron of Mister Freedom and other “rockabilly and edgier, slightly goth” kinds of people.

“Living abroad is such an important way of broadening your mind, being exposed to other cultures and even learning another language. It helps you grow as a person. It’s the best thing I ever did.”

“Time moved really slowly in that place. But just the creativity that I was around, from both the people who worked there and shopped there, was great exposure,” says Kurata, who recalls seeing faces like Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp browsing the selection and Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington trying on jeans.

Kurata continued her L.A. expedition to Cal State Long Beach, where she began her art degree. It wasn’t long before Studio Berçot, a now-closed fashion school in Paris known for its avant-garde curriculum, started calling her name.

“Living abroad is such an important way of broadening your mind, being exposed to other cultures and even learning another language. It helps you grow as a person,” says Kurata. “It’s the best thing I ever did.”

Her Parisian studies lasted around three years and it was the closest she had ever gotten to high fashion. Sometimes, she would be able to see runway shows by selling magazines inside the venue or volunteering to work backstage. Other times, she relied on well-intentioned shenanigans. She used to pass around and reuse an invitation within her group of friends. She once snuck in through a large, unattended hole in a fence. In one instance, she simply charged at the entrance when it began to rain. All things she did in the name of fashion.

“I would just do what I could to see as many shows as possible. All of the excitement is hard to explain. When I worked backstage, there’s this labor of love that’s put towards the show. It’s this contagious energy that you could feel when the models start coming,” says Kurata, who saw everything from Jean Paul Gaultier to John Galliano and Yves Saint Laurent. When she was backstage for a Vivienne Westwood show, she recollects seeing this “shorter model, and thinking, ‘Oh, she’s so tiny,’ and then realizing that it was Kate Moss who was still fairly new at that point.”

“We wanted a place where like-minded people could come here and have it be a space to hang out. Having this store has been one of the most fulfilling things that I’ve done.”

Staying in France was intriguing to a young Kurata, but the struggles of visas and paperwork deterred her. She instead returned to L.A., freshly inspired, and completed her bachelor’s degree in art (to her parents’ satisfaction). She didn’t plan to get into costume design, Kurata explains. But when it became clear that designing her own line would require moving to somewhere like New York or back to Europe, she realized, “Maybe fashion is not the world I want to get into; maybe it’s costumes.”

“I felt comfortable with that decision,” shares Kurata. “I do love film, so it was just a transition I made. It was still connected [to everything that I wanted to do].”

Without the aid of social media, she sent letters to costume designers, hoping to get mentored, and started working on low-budget jobs. She quickly fell in love with how much the job changed day-to-day. On occasion, there are 12-hour days that can be “miserable,” but her next job might be entirely different. One day she’s styling the seasonal campaigns for her longtime friends Kate and Laura Mulleavy, owners of Rodarte, and the next she could be styling for the cover of W Magazine, where a larger-than-life Jennifer Coolidge stomps through a miniature city in a neon polka-dot coat.

Whenever Kurata takes on a project, Staunton says she “just doesn’t stop.” Sometimes, he’ll wake up at 3 in the morning and she’s emailing people in Europe, attempting to hunt down a rare vintage piece. Her passion is the kind that simultaneously consumes and fuels her.

“There’s a lot of times [with her work] where I’m like, ‘That’s just straight out of Shirley’s closet.’ It’s not like she has to compromise. It’s something she would wear herself. She doesn’t have to follow trends,” explains Staunton. “People seek her out, because she has such a unique vision.”

“I always tell people, L.A. is like going to a flea market. There’s some digging to do, but you’ll definitely find some gems.”

Kurata thinks of herself as “someone who gets bored easily.” It’s a quality that’s reflected in her eclectic style, busy travel schedule, Virgil Normal’s constantly changing selection and even the common feeling she gets when she’s sick of all of her clothes. It’s a good thing being bored and being in Los Angeles don’t go hand in hand.

I ask Kurata a somewhat daunting question for a born-and-bred Angeleno.

“Do you think you could ever see yourself calling another place home?”

She lets out a deep sigh and tells me it’s not something she’s closed off to. Though, she takes a moment to reflect on how everyone came together to provide support during the Palisades and Eaton fires earlier this year. Or how good it feels when they have events at Virgil Normal, to be surrounded by a diverse group of creative minds “who don’t judge.” She even thinks about how she currently lives in a Franklin Hills house, a neighborhood she never thought she would be able to afford.

Time and time again, Kurata and this sprawling city-state have looked out for each other. From the way she speaks of different areas with such an intrinsic care, to showcasing her unique creative eye in Tinseltown, L.A. has made her into a permanent seeker. Whether she chooses to stay in Franklin Hills for the rest of her life or packs up everything tomorrow, she’ll always keep an eye out for hidden gems — just like at the flea market.

Former President Obama, speaking on stand-up comedian Marc Maron’s final podcast on Monday, said the Trump administration’s policies are a “test” of whether universities, businesses, law firms and voters — including Republicans — will take a stand for the nation’s founding principles and values.

“If you decide not to vote, that’s a consequence. If you are a Hispanic man and you’re frustrated about inflation, and so you decided, ah, you know what, all that rhetoric about Trump doesn’t matter. ‘I’m just mad about inflation,’” Obama said. “And now your sons are being stopped in L.A. because they look Latino and maybe without the ability to call anybody, might just be locked up, well, that’s a test.”

In a more than hourlong discussion with Maron on the wildly popular “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast, the former Democratic president said current events could jolt Americans.

“It’d be great if we weren’t tested this way, but you know what? We probably need to be shaken out of our complacency,” he said.

Obama also criticized some Democrats’ messaging as he touched on significant issues facing Californians and discussed the state of the nation’s democracy, core convictions and the weakening of institutional norms.

After Los Angeles-based Maron joked, “We’ve annoyed the average American into fascism,” Obama responded, “You can’t just be a scold all the time.

“You can’t constantly lecture people without acknowledging that you’ve got some blind spots too, and that life’s messy,” Obama said in the interview, which recently took place in the former president’s Washington, D.C., office.

Faulting language used by some liberals as “holier than thou,” Obama argued that Democrats could remain true to their principles while respecting those with whom they disagreed.

“Saying, ‘Right, I’ve got some core convictions [and] beliefs that I’m not going to compromise. But I’m also not going to assert that I am so righteous and so pure and so insightful that there’s not the possibility that maybe I’m wrong on this, or that other people, if they don’t say things exactly the way I say them or see things exactly the way I do, that somehow they’re bad people,’” he said.

Obama’s remarks come as the Democratic Party faces a reckoning after losing the presidential election in 2024, in part because of declining support from the party’s base, notably minority voters.

Maron, a comedian and actor, launched his “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast and radio show in 2009. Interviews with guests such as actor Robin Williams, comedian Louis C.K., filmmaker Kevin Smith and “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels often took place at his Highland Park home.

Obama’s 2015 interview in Maron’s garage became the podcast’s most popular episode at the time — downloaded nearly 740,000 times in the first 24 hours after it was posted.

On Monday, the former president criticized institutions for capitulating to President Trump’s demands. His words come as USC leaders are debating whether to agree to a White House proposal to receive favorable access to federal funding if they align with Trump’s agenda.

“If you’re a university president, say, well, you know what? This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for,” Obama said. “Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”

The walk-on took his place next to USC’s quarterback, the last man standing in a battered backfield. In the midst of a bruising Big Ten battle with Michigan, where brawn and ball control were at a premium, both of the Trojans’ top two running backs had already been carted up the Coliseum tunnel. Two of their top linemen, meanwhile, started Saturday in street clothes. The circumstances were anything but ideal for a team whose season hung in the balance.

King Miller, though, was already familiar with beating long odds. Not long ago, the redshirt freshman was buried on the depth chart, a preferred walk-on from Calabasas High without any obvious path to playing time at USC.

But that was before Saturday, before Miller saw a crease in the Michigan defense, before he took off on a breakaway, game-changing run that broke open the game and eventually lifted USC to a statement-making, 31-13 win over No. 15 Michigan.

It was a resounding victory for the Trojans, given how poorly they’d played in their loss to Illinois two weeks earlier, and for Lincoln Riley, who was just 3-11 against ranked teams prior to Saturday.

That the win came behind a back who pays his own way at USC only made it all the more impressive.

Miller had just two carries for 10 yards to his name, when Waymond Jordan, the Trojans’ leading rusher, hopped off the field in the second quarter, unable to put any weight on his foot. His next 16 carries, though, would go for 148 yards.

His outburst began with that breakaway early in the third quarter, as Miller slipped through a hole and took off, stutter-stepping his way past one Michigan defender and into the open field. Miller ultimately was tackled, only to punch in a touchdown two plays later.

USC tight end Walker Lyons makes a first-down gesture after catching a pass in the first half of the Trojans’ win over Michigan at the Coliseum on Saturday night.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

The score gave USC a 21-7 lead that it would never relinquish. But Miller wasn’t done with his breakout performance. He sprinted away for a similar, 47-yard gain on the very next drive.

The most encouraging developments came on defense, where USC bounced back from a disastrous defeat at Illinois to dominate Michigan and its standout freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood. After weeks of their secondary being picked apart, the Trojans held Underwood to just 207 yards on 15-of-24 passing. It was similarly stifling against the run, holding Michigan’s top rushing attack to a meager 3.5 yards per carry.

There were other positive signs Saturday too. For one, USC committed just three penalties, a season low.

Its offense, outside of Miller, has seen better days. Quarterback Jayden Maiava threw a bad interception in the red zone, when USC could have put the game away in the third quarter. Still, he finished with 265 yards and two touchdowns.

But this was the star walk-on’s night, begging the question: How long will it take USC to offer him a scholarship?

USC quarterback Jayden Maiava passes in front of Michigan defensive end Derrick Moore in the first half.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Before Miller burst onto the scene, it wasn’t clear how USC would look coming off the Illinois loss. But USC wasted no time asserting itself.

The Trojans marched down the field with ease on their opening possession. Jordan touched the ball six times, and Maiava completed all five of his passes, capping a seamless 11-play drive by hitting a wide open Ja’Kobi Lane in the end zone on a two-yard slant.

USC kept rolling on its next drive, until disaster struck and the momentum suddenly shifted. Just as the Trojans crossed into the red zone, threatening to bust the game open, tight end Lake McRee caught a pass over the middle and was popped by Michigan defensive back Jyaire Hill, who jarred the ball loose. The Wolverines recovered.

USC managed to withstand Michigan’s initial response, stopping an 11-play drive with a well-timed safety blitz on third down that pushed the Wolverines out of field-goal range. But a 14-play followup proved too much for the Trojans’ defense, which couldn’t stop Michigan’s ground game and gave up a tying touchdown to receiver Donaven McCulley.

With three minutes remaining in the half — and Michigan set to receive the third-quarter kick — USC finally kicked into high gear. It faced just one third down as it marched the length of the field. But with precious seconds ticking away, Maiava looked to the end zone where he found Makai Lemon, who leaped skyward to snag the pass between two defenders, then held on as he landed on his back for the go-ahead score.

USC, however, paid a price for that final scoring drive before the half. Jordan, the Trojans’ leading rusher, hopped off the field after a single carry, unable to put weight on his foot. He was eventually carted off the field, joining Eli Sanders, the Trojans’ other top back, who left the game in the first quarter.

But Miller seamlessly stepped into that void in the second half. He ripped off one big run, then another, sprinting his way into Trojan infamy in the midst of a statement victory.

USC wide receiver Ja’Kobi Lane celebrates after scoring a on a touchdown reception in the first quarter against Michigan.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

After consecutive losses, the Chargers are at an inflection point. Can they take advantage of a get-right game against a 1-4 team that’s just as banged up as the Chargers are?

A big challenge will be moving forward with the running game now that rookie Omarion Hampton has joined Najee Harris on injured reserve. The opportunity to pick up lots of yards is there, as Miami’s front seven have been hopelessly porous against the run.

“Time to shine, step up,” Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said.

Back in 2020, the Dolphins used the No. 5 pick on quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and the Chargers used No. 6 on Justin Herbert. A decade before that, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross tried to hire Harbaugh as Miami’s coach.

How the Chargers can win: Run the ball. Even with their top two running backs out, the Chargers can trample a defense that gave up 206 yards rushing last week to little known Rico Dowdle. Contain tight end Darren Waller, one of Miami’s few bright spots. Force Tagovailoa to improvise; he can struggle when he’s out of rhythm.

How the Dolphins can win: Get De’Von Archane the ball in space; he can do damage when he gets out on the edge. Make Herbert one dimensional by containing the Chargers’ ground attack. Protect Tagovailoa, whose strengths are his timing and anticipation. He thrives on offensive structure.

LIAM Gallagher has become a grandfather for the first time after his daughter Molly Moorish gave birth to a baby boy.

The Oasis frontman, 53, had Molly, 27, in 1998 following a short-lived romance with her mum Lisa.

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The pair were estranged for 19 years but have become close and now Molly has given the rocker his first grandchild.

Molly shared the news of her son Rudi’s arrival on Instagram on Saturday, although it appears she gave birth a few weeks ago in September.

One picture featured her long term partner – footballer Nathaniel ‘Nat’ Phillips – holding their son while he wore a little red jumper with a big R initial on the back.

Another snap showed Rudi in his Moses basket facing the window with the sun coming in in front of him.

She also showed off some of the monogrammed items she had around the house for her baby boy.

She captioned the images: “a message to you, rudy.”

Watching comedians perform under the thumb of a government that is actively attacking swaths of its population is nothing new for Angelo Colina.

The 31-year-old joke teller was born and raised in the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo as the South American country faced continuous political turmoil under the prolonged presidencies of Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro, among other economic, humanitarian and democratic challenges — such as hyperinflation, increased rates of starvation and decreased access to adequate healthcare services.

Colina — who carved a lane in the Americas as a Spanish-language comedian and has garnered millions of views across social media due to his whip-smart jokes and playful crowd work — left his home country at 21 and began pursuing a comedy career after moving to the neighboring Colombia.

It was the audacity of Venezuelan acts — like Nacho Redondo, Led Varela, Erika de la Vega and Luis Chataing, who spoke out against oppressive government rule — that inspired Colina and informed his worldview.

“As someone who grew up watching [them] perform and doing jokes about the government in Venezuela while they still could, that was my example,” Colina told The Times. “They really fought censorship as long as they could.”

As a self-described “double immigrant,” first to Colombia and subsequently Salt Lake City, the New York-based comedian said he felt as though he’s already lived four lives — all of which have helped shape his comic eye and sharpened his observational skills.

The current political climate, the continued artistic acceptance of Latino art in the U.S. and the ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids throughout the country were at the top of mind as Colina spoke with The Times ahead of his Oct. 11 performance at the Hollywood Improv.

This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.

What has it been like doing comedy shows for a Spanish-speaking crowd in the time of ICE raids?

I start my shows by saying, “We’re doing comedy. You guys are not noticing, but we’re doing comedy in Spanish. In the United States in 2025. This is the closest to punk that we’ve ever been.” And people start laughing about it, because [federal officials] backed up by the law to say that if you speak Spanish, then they can ask about your current immigration status. And it’s like, all right, let’s speak Spanish. We’re not doing anything wrong. We’re just celebrating our culture in every show we do.

Do you like the idea of being a little punk?

I think it just became that; it was more organic. I wasn’t thinking that I’m part of a larger movement that started by other people of doing comedy in Spanish, which has always been and it’s certainly been a cool thing to me, but now it’s counterculture for sure. But I don’t need to invite people to my show because it’s counterculture, that’s not the reason why I want to sell. People have been freely celebrating being Latino for years already and I don’t think there’s any way to stop it, honestly.

Have you felt a change in your audience at all in recent months?

Unfortunately, I have. I do, however, have to give a shout-out to all the non-Latinos coming to the shows. They are coming because they want to see a form of Latinidad in its own rhythm and they are in love with our culture and they come and they support it.

I see the hesitance to come to shows a lot more with people that used to come with their parents. A lot of people born in the States, but with immigrants parents, used to come to my shows. My shows have always been a place where people finally can do something with their parents. Normally, they don’t find a lot of activities where they can share something like that. So their parents are now the ones that are faster on the joke and they are the ones that are catching up. It’s always been part of my whole demographic.

That’s the shift I’ve been seeing. A lot of people have reached out to me and said, “I would love to go to your show, but I don’t think it’s a good idea right now.” I got a lot of Venezuelans coming to my shows and saying, “This is the last show I’m going to in the States. I’m leaving next week. I got a deportation letter.” I got screenshots of it and they’re saying they’ll see me in Colombia or Argentina. It’s been pretty emotional. Honestly, this might be the first time I actually get emotional talking about it, but it’s hurt a bit.

It must be nice for the audience to have that time at your show to be who they are, but are you addressing the craziness of everything in your act?

I’m not pretending that’s not happening out there. Comedy gave me the opportunity to become a resident in the United States. I got my visa because of the people coming to my shows. It would be disgraceful for me not to talk about what’s happening or not to at least try to be of help, even if it’s by making people laugh.

Has it been difficult navigating the U.S. comedy scene as a fully Spanish act?

I would say dealing with the industry can be tougher sometimes because of the lack of awareness of how powerful Latino crowds can be. Luckily, it’s changing a bit because of musicians like Bad Bunny and Karol. Everything artists like them have done has made people organizing shows say, “Hmm, let’s see. Maybe I won’t give the Spanish act a Tuesday night slot. Let me try them on a Thursday or Friday night or a Sunday.” And then they see the room packed and people spending money, just having a great time.

I complained a lot about the industry last year and now I’m in a phase where I just want to do this for my people for as long as I can. I’m just enjoying being able to perform.

How has it been seeing Latinos in the U.S. further embrace Spanish-language content?

It’s not only Latinos; people from all backgrounds are interested in our culture. In L.A., a lot of Latinos that were born here didn’t have the chance to learn Spanish or practice it as much, but they love the culture. You also see a lot of people that are non-Latino at my show because they’re interested in Spanish.

It’s like music. There’s no merengue in English because there’s no need for merengue in English. If you are a non-Spanish speaker and you like the rhythm, you’re gonna come to the music. And that’s happening at my show and I’m learning how to navigate it. Sometimes I see people making faces and you don’t hear the laugh coming back at you. Then the show ends and everyone’s DMing me and then they’re signing at the very end of the DM because white people love doing that.