Agony

'The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs' Where: Theatre Asylum, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays, through April 10 Price: $20 Information: (323) 962-1632

The hours before Selection Sunday are what Lakers announcer Chick Hearn used to call "nervous time. " Defending national champion Kentucky might want to chew on some of Jerry Tarkanian's old towels after probably blowing its bubble bid with an early SEC tournament ouster against Vanderbilt. Kentucky Coach John Calipari needs to move Sunday morning's team breakfast into the beggars banquet room. Those eight NCAA titles are of little use now. "The good news is everyone seems to be losing," Calipari said after his team "laid an egg" against Vandy.

I was very sorry to read in Travel Insider ("Will Losses Force Carriers to Restructure Air Fares?" Oct. 7) that Christopher Reynolds was forced to have a three-hour layover on the way out and a four-hour layover on the return from his trip to Charlotte, N.C. And to think that he only saved $1,139 for this agony. Why, that's less than $165 an hour. By the way, as a travel writer, did he have to spend full 60-minute hours like the rest of us, or were they reduced for him? It's a tough life.

'The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs' Where: Theatre Asylum, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays, through April 10 Price: $20 Information: (323) 962-1632

In response to Jim Herron Zamora's column "Nude Dance Club vs. the System" Feb. 15, I'm 100% part of the system--the system for clean living, moral dignity and self-respect. Classy, wholesome, free speech? Come on, what kind of garbage is this? No liquor? Only fruit juice? The empty six-packs and wine bottles in the parking lot tell a different tale. What about the guys that get their hands stamped and run across Corbin Avenue to the two restaurants that have bars? Randy claims he has a family and a job. He just comes for a "little tease."

The new Lavender Diamond album started out as a solo disc by frontwoman Becky Stark that was to be called - wait for it - "Agony, Agony, Agony. " "It became like a joke," said Stark over lunch last week in Los Feliz. She was wearing a vintage floral-print dress that suggested nostalgia for a simpler time, though she compulsively checked her iPhone too, firming up details for an East Coast tour scheduled to begin on Tuesday. Wrecked by a bad breakup years after the release of her Los Angeles band's 2007 debut album, the singer had funneled her feelings of agony into recordings she made with Jonathan Wilson and Nate Walcott, local scenesters known for their involvement in work by Bright Eyes and Dawes.

Carol Nashe paces the floor in the middle of the night, memories flooding her mind. She remembers that weekend in Maine as she sat on a river bank cheering on her younger son, Harold, in a canoe race: "Go for it, Hal! Go for it!" She remembers the six-week cross-country trip with sons Rick and Hal and her husband, Russell Weinberg. She remembers how she and Russell met, at a dance when she was just 16, and married a year later. Images Darken Then darker images crowd in.

The Agony and the Ecstasy--the Dodgers and the Lakers. BARRY BERNSTEIN Santa Monica

A post-primary thought: To every complex problem (i.e., our national agony) there is a simple solution (i.e., Ross Perot) and it is always wrong. TOM HOGAN Cypress

Kudos to writer Preston Lerner and photographer Ian Logan for capturing the spirit and agony of the Hour challenge ("This Is a Bike. Trust Us." Aug. 27). The three days in Casa Grande, Ariz., at the Nissan test track were a nerve-racking pleasure for those of us witnessing human powered vehicle (HPV) racing history. For more information on future events and history, please visit www.hpva.us. Al and Alice Krause Executive Vice President/Treasurer Human Powered Vehicle Assn.

Is the ecstasy and agony of Mike Daisey finally over? It's been nearly a year since the monologuist was first feted, then pilloried, for his solo play "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. " This mix of tech-geek autobiography and labor exposé was running at New York's Public Theater in January 2012 when the popular public-radio show "This American Life" aired a scalding excerpt in which Daisey described brutal working conditions he said he witnessed at Foxconn, a Chinese plant that manufactures Apple products.

And now we find ourselves in the torturous postelection, pre-result period: We wait. Not in vain like those guys in “Waiting for Godot.” Definitive answers will eventually visit us all, whether we're waiting to hear about the president of United States or the results on Proposition 285 (yes, I made it up, you didn't miss it on the ballot). With near-Shakespearean fatalism, President Obama seemed to acknowledge that even in the final hours of the campaign, there was little to be done accept wait for the campaign ground workers and actual voters to have at it on election day. Obama told a crowd at a rally in Concord, N.H., on Sunday that and he and his advisor, David Plouffe, had said to each other, “We're no longer relevant now. We're props.  Because what's happened is now the campaign falls on these 25-year-old kids who are out there knocking on doors and making phone calls.” But in fact neither he nor his rival, Mitt Romney, maintained that Zen state of acceptance during the early hours of election day. Obama, in Chicago, went to a campaign field office and made phone calls, himself, to stunned voters who probably thought they were being terrorized by pranksters.

Patsy Bivins can't stop worrying about the warning letter she got from the hospital. It came seven weeks after she received two steroid injections in her back to treat chronic pain. The steroid had been made at the New England Compounding Center and was from one of the three lots later discovered to be contaminated with a fungus. The notice informed Bivins, 68, that although she had tested negative for fungal meningitis, she was still at risk of developing the disease, which has so far sickened more than 300 people and killed 24 across the nation.

The new Lavender Diamond album started out as a solo disc by frontwoman Becky Stark that was to be called - wait for it - "Agony, Agony, Agony. " "It became like a joke," said Stark over lunch last week in Los Feliz. She was wearing a vintage floral-print dress that suggested nostalgia for a simpler time, though she compulsively checked her iPhone too, firming up details for an East Coast tour scheduled to begin on Tuesday. Wrecked by a bad breakup years after the release of her Los Angeles band's 2007 debut album, the singer had funneled her feelings of agony into recordings she made with Jonathan Wilson and Nate Walcott, local scenesters known for their involvement in work by Bright Eyes and Dawes.

LONDON -- Only the Guardian can make the Olympic men's weightlifting event look more interesting -- Lego-style, brick by-brick -- than the actual competition itself.  Welcome to the contest for the strongest man in the world. As they say, slightly tongue in cheek ... "prepare to be amazed": "This is the final weight division of what has been a riveting men's competition and like so many sports of these games, it has drawn a crowd mixed with aficionados and those who never in a million years would have thought they'd be sitting here, watching this.

Whatever the theme song to Phil Spector's troubled life and times might be, "To Know Him Is to Love Him" probably isn't it. That, as Spector fans know, is the title of the legendary record producer's first hit, recorded by the Teddy Bears in 1958 with words taken from the epitaph on his father's tombstone. Spector went on to produce hits almost without number, including "Be My Baby," "He's a Rebel," "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling. " Today, however, the man Sean Lennon called "the genius geniuses come to" is in prison serving 19 years to life after the jury in a second trial convicted him of the Alhambra murder of actress Lana Clarkson.

Don MacLeaniac! The Donski! What a dude! What a pass! Hit Brian Williams with a pinpointerino! It's Magic! Busted! Technico! Boo hoo, agony of defeat. Pac-10 Nowheresville. Classic Jerkerino! Shades of Trevorino! Heartbreakerino! CHARLES CHICCOA Glendale

The trials and tribulations incurred by omm'A Givens (Sept. 20) in his young life will give him the strength to endure the ultimate agony--being coached by Jim Harrick. PHILIP R. BLUSTEIN, Beverly Hills

At Port-au-Prince's main art museum, it looked as if a cruel giant had taken bites out of the walls and ceiling of the cavernous exhibition hall. Large wooden panels where paintings once hung had toppled. A bronze bust of DeWitt Peters, a California water colorist widely credited with bringing international attention to Haitian art in the 1940s, lay on the ground. Joseph Gaspard, a member of the board of directors of the College Saint Pierre museum, was inspecting the site Saturday for the first time since the Jan. 12 earthquake, crunching broken glass as he walked through the debris.