The Esther scroll, known as the megillah in Hebrew, captures the ancient legend of Queen Esther. Yearly the scroll is read on the Feast of Purim, a full swing celebration of the salvation of the Jews in the Persian empire under the rule of King Xerxes I in the 5th century. Dating back to 1746, […]

We’re just a little over a month away from the fifth annual two-day HARD Summer music event at L.A.’s Historical State Park in Downtown L.A. Headliners include acts like dubstep supergroup Magnetic Man, the legendary James Murphy, Little Dragon, Miike Snow, Datsik, up-and-comer Lunice and perhaps most importantly the reunion of Bloc Party (whose highly […]

Katsuyo Aoki is a Japanese artist whose latest work, Predictive Dream, consists of a series of hyper-ornate skulls made from ceramic. He uses historical backgrounds and ideas, myths and allegories to base his morbidly beautiful work on, incorporating decorative styles, patterns and symbolic forms to conjure up a variety of emotions. “The [ceramic pieces] existence […]

There are many books that cover the various dapper personalities who have defined men’s fashion over the last century — the rakes who wore timeless garments that became indelibly stamped into our cultural psyches (such as the impeccably disheveled Gregory Peck on the cover, above). But not many books will tell you the history of […]

Encompassing two-volumes, Taschen‘s 100 All-Time Favorite Movies is an 800-page encyclopedic who’s who of cinema from the 20th century. Every genre imaginable has been included in this extensive compilation that includes horror, romance, comedy, adventure, musical, western and noir. Read up on popular films like A Clockwork Orange, Some Like It Hot, The Godfather, Citizen Kane and […]

There are some pivotal historical events that are integral we all learn as Americans, lest we forget the soul of our nation and what it stands for. There are aspects of the formative years of our culture that if we let fade into the ether of yesteryear, we threaten to fray the very fiber of […]