Interview with T. C. Boyle
***
For many a novelist, personal geography can be an unwanted poetry. Suffused with lived-in details, sensorial charm, and familiar beauty, localism bears a wealth of literary attraction scented by the sensual schoolroom aphorism, “Write what you know.” The works of Borges, Murakami, and most notably, Joyce, all enthusiastically find mischief in the reality of their creators’ surroundings. →

Interview with Mulatu Astatke
***
Mulatu Astatke, 67, is an extraordinary multi-instrumentalist, arranger and composer, who used his incredible talent as a tool to elevate social consciousness in the little-known neighborhood of Addis Ababa.  Among tight circles of the well informed — i.e., the beatmakers, musicians, and vinylphiles — Mulatu’s oeuvre, which spans four decades, →

Interview with Chicha Libre
***
Surrounded by snow-capped volcanoes, I wiped the jet lag off my brow and took a moment to catch my breath—a belabored process due to high elevation (a staggering 7,700 feet above sea-level). It was my first night in Arequipa, Peru and I sat down to a sumptuous three-course meal for two, which amounted to about the mere price of a deli sandwich back in Los Angeles. →

Interview with Blue Scholars
***
Keeping it local is a whole different ballgame when you call Seattle home. The clash and melding of America’s titanic super-corporations with our nation’s most organically nurtured independent art scene has birthed a culture as diverse as it is unique. This is the state that rears its children on Nirvana and sends them off to work at Microsoft when they come of age. Growing into one’s own identity, to say the least, is a sophisticated quest for →

Interview with Mario Gonzalez
***
Downtown Los Angeles is home to a new kind of turf war, the likes of which hasn’t been seen here for decades and – as is fitting in the world’s most cinematic city – the stakes are high and the opponents poorly matched. On the one side are the developers, the police, and the hipsters whose skinny jeans and cool bars have become emblematic of Downtown’s shiny, new exterior. →

Editorial
***
Welcome to the neighborhood of Echo Park. A visual reference point for consciously clad hipsters, flanneled Cholos with a penchant for paint markers and at large, a time-honored melting pot of social and economic backgrounds. It is precisely this unique makeup of inhabitants that embodies Los Angeles’ ‘niche culture,’ →