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Banksy Takes Los Angeles: Documenting The Street Artist's Tour of Tinseltown

Take a tour of Banksy's latest artistic contributions to the Los Angeles street-scape.

Zak Stone
By Zak StoneMar 04, 2011
Zak Stone
See Full Bio

Thanks to the LAist and MELROSEandFAIRFAX for their excellent coverage.

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A school bus in Calgary picks up dogs for daily adventures and training sessions

Imagine the most nostalgic school bus from your childhood. Now, fill the seats — instead of with children — with Golden Retrievers, Poodles, Labradors, and every breed in-between. That’s what you’ll get on the Ruff and Puff Doggy Day Camp bus, from the canine-loving mind of Denzel Morrison.

That’s right. A good old-fashioned bus goes house to house to pick up neighborhood pups to take them on jaunty adventures to a private park and even get dog-friendly Pup-Cups at Starbucks. Self-described as "the first original Dog Bus in Calgary, Alberta," they have been brightening up people’s algorithms online for a while now.

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www.flickr.com

An artist shares how making an effort to understand artwork enables intellectual freedom and self-expression.

For a few years, there’s been a rash of videos on social media declaring, “I hate modern art” or comparing “modern art vs. real art.” But as artist J.J. Ellis shares, there’s a bigger danger posed by this negativity to not just to art (modern art is, of course, real art), but to freedom and self-expression.

In a video last week, Ellis discusses a recent controversy around painter Yves Klein’s 1961 work Blue Monochrome and why the painting still matters over 60 years later. In 1961, Artforumshared, “New York artists virtually boycotted his show of monochrome paintings in “International Klein Blue” (his own patented formula of blue) at Leo Castelli’s gallery. The art press, which did not bother to investigate the wider context of his work, found him easy prey.” But the major lesson here, whether or not one is a fan of Klein’s work, is to understand that there’s more than one way of looking at or considering a work of art without dismissing it completely.

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Redditors debate the "most millennial song" ever.

Photo credit: Canva, with text from screenshots of Reddit threads

What's the 'most millennial' song? Semi-charmed strangers have all-star debate

Can you define an entire generation by a single song? Nah, probably not. But it’s still fun to think in sweeping generalizations, and it’s even more fun to debate nostalgic pop-culture topics. Enter: the Internet, where strangers have been regularly trying to determine, based on raw emotion and zero science, "the most millennial song" ever.

It’s an all-star challenge with a semi-charmed foundation, and the good folks at Reddit have been tossing this one back and forth for years. After scouring numerous threads, I can’t definitively conclude which song best represents the millennials, a group that, according to the Pew Research Center, includes everyone born between the ages of 1981 and 1996. But as a music journalist and card-carrying member of this age demographic, I feel equipped to sort through the hundreds of responses, take note of clear patterns, and select some of the most cogent arguments for one tune or another.

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Two teenage virtuosos trolled their high school by playing a bizarre version of Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" during a talent show.

Photos: Make Weird Music

How two teens trolled talent show with weird cover of Vanessa Carlton's 'A Thousand Miles'

In its original form, Vanessa Carlton’s 2002 hit "A Thousand Miles" is a cinematic pop song about romantic longing, carried by one of the hookiest piano melodies ever written. But here are two other universal truths: Music is a fluid art form built for reinterpretation, and high school generally sucks. In that spirit, a pair of Arizona teenagers performed a bizarre and virtuosic piano-and-drums version of Carlton's classic during their student talent show—part next-level trolling, part act of polite youthful rebellion.

Make Weird Music, a YouTube channel devoted to "shining a light on the world's most creative music," documented the whole tale. (The source makes sense, given that the page is operated by Anthony Garone: a tech ghostwriter, musician, author, and proud father of Gabe, the 17-year-old pianist in question. Gabe's drummer bandmate is best friend Owen Dueck, also 17.) Garone's video actually opens with a home-studio live performance by the duo, and that alone is worth the price of admission: The piece, originally arranged by Brekky Boy's Taylor Davis, opens with a straightforward rendering of the piano melody—before everything goes haywire with dissonance, leading to a heavy jazz-fusion section and other forms of avant-garde chaos, with the original melodies sprinkled in throughout.

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Uber driver who gets passengers to open up about their love lives is revealing his secrets

Lupe Zapata has always been a storyteller, fascinated by what makes people tick and, perhaps more importantly, what makes people connect. In college at the University of North Texas, he created a project called "Tell Me a Story" for his film documentary class. The idea was to get "random people to talk about love." Then, it became a "Valentine's tradition" for three years when he worked as a reporter for Big 2 News in Odessa, Texas.

For a time, Lupe was a self-described "journalist without a job." While living in Los Angeles—during the in-between days—he made ends meet by driving for Uber. "I worked as an Uber driver and invited my passengers to share a story as I drove them to their destination." But what continued to grab Lupe the most were stories about romance. So, he started recording these stories—with permission, of course—and turned it into a regular segment on his YouTube channel.

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Need love? Join a cornhole league!

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Chicago man romantically matches up singles in 20 cities through his cornhole league

In 2024, Tommy Flaim had a simple mission. All he wanted was a singles cornhole league so folks could have fun playing the bean bag game and maybe find a date to grab a drink with after. After noticing so many women signing up and the lack of men participating, he offered $50 for every referral of a straight man that signs up for his speed-dating cornhole league. Now he has held events in 20 cities across the U.S. and it’s continuing to spread.

Dating culture in the past had most bars and other businesses host a “ladies night” in which women would get special deals and perks since it was presumed that men would likely outnumber women, but Flaim noticed a shift.

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Perfect for that long commute or a lazy Sunday.

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, United Artists, Miramax Films

5 movies that you can just listen to like a podcast

There are three things that are guaranteed in life: death, taxes, and errands. Whether it’s picking up the kids from soccer, going grocery shopping, folding laundry, or washing dishes, we all have responsibilities and chores we need to do. Many people try to get some enjoyment during these tasks by listening to a podcast or some music, but sometimes a film fan still needs their fix.

Luckily, there are a number of movies you can download onto your device or have on in the background that you can just listen to and enjoy while doing your tasks, without the need to even look at the screen. Here are some of the best movies to “watch” without actually paying attention to the visuals.

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Bräutigamseiche, Sept 2014

commons.wikimedia.org

In Germany, find the 500-year-old “Bridegroom Oak,” and you could fall in love.

Nestled in Northern Germany’s Dodau Forest stands a tree with over 130 years of love stories. Known as the “Groom’s Oak” or “Bridegroom Oak,” the tree’s story begins with the forbidden love between a woman named Minna and a chocolatier named Wilhelm. Minna’s father refused to give his blessing for the two to marry, but the star-crossed lovers used the knot in the tree, approximately 9 feet above the ground, to place love letters they wrote to each other. Eventually, Minna's father relented and the two were married right at the tree on June 2, 1891. News of their courtship spread. “Shortly after the wedding, a pub and guesthouse were opened in the nearby forester's lodge,” DHL reported in an article translated from German to English. “Thus, the oak's popularity grew over the years. Many spa guests hiked to the forester's lodge and also visited the [Groom's Oak].”

People began sending their own letters to the tree, and the post office put a ladder there in 1927, Zeit Onlinereported. Eventually the post office created an official address for the tree, putting it on a designated postman’s route. As of 1993, the tree also has its own postal code, and now it receives between 50 and 60 letters every month, hand delivered by postal workers who climb up a ladder now stationed there.

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