ART

Last year was the year Bill Gross said his stamps had outperformed his bond fund, Stanley Ho beat Damien Hirst in bidding for a truffle and Amazon.com Inc. paid 39 times estimates for a book of J.K. Rowling stories. Among the mishaps in 2007, Marie Antoinette's pearls and a Van Gogh painting didn't sell. Money poured into the sales rooms in New York, London and Hong Kong, swelling auction sales by 46% at Sotheby's, to $5.33 billion; Christie's International totals aren't in yet.

Leo Politi captured some of Los Angeles' most charming places with his two dozen children's books and countless artworks. With brush and pencil, he immortalized the city's crumbling Victorian mansions, its parks and its ethnic diversity long before "multicultural" entered the language. Hailed as "the Artist of Olvera Street," Politi, who died in 1996, is commemorated in other neighborhoods and in cities including South Pasadena, Redlands and his native Fresno.

ONCE again, I thank Lewis Segal for bringing attention to the art of dance ["An Art of Stolen Glances," Jan. 6]. As a student and teacher of Labanotation [the notational system used for analyzing and recording human movement], I know too well how video has permeated the recording of dance for future generations. I have always wondered how bootlegging, pirating and plagiarism come into play with the performing art that is always least recognized yet most independent of any other medium.

Writer Will Blythe asked artist Rachel Mason to accompany him and draw the candidates as he covered the John Edwards campaign last year. It's an electronic world these days, jittery with what passes for communication, especially on the campaign trail. Case in point: the Citadel, Charleston, S.C., July 2007. Here we are in yet another spin room after yet another presidential debate, this one for the Democrats, sponsored by CNN and YouTube.

For eight days, protesters paraded in front of one of Little Saigon's leading newspapers. They carried an effigy of Ho Chi Minh and called the editors "traitors" for running a photo they said was so offensive that it had to be the work of communist sympathizers. Two top editors at the newspaper were replaced several days later.

PARIS -- At age 96, artist Louise Bourgeois has lost none of her ability to startle and unsettle: Her latest major series includes giant etchings of her own body -- including esophagus, stomach and intestines -- all soaked with blood-red gouache. The 11 panels are a gallery-sized lament on the limitations of the body, with Bourgeois describing her own physical sensations in spindly handwriting. One panel almost moans: "The breathing, the palpitations, THE HOT FLASHES."

When San Diego's Old Globe announced last week that its co-artistic director Jerry Patch had accepted a position as director of artistic development at Manhattan Theatre Club, few may have registered the extent of the theatrical loss to Southern California. For those on alert, the news also carried a faint yet detectable signal of what may be the most insidious problem facing American theater today -- the subtle and not-so-subtle blurring of commercial and nonprofit realms. The issue boils down to procedures, values and, most important, who's in control.

How does it feel to share the limelight with rock legend Bob Dylan? This year's Pulitzer Prizes honored two musical innovators who tend to reject categorization: A special citation went to singer-songwriter Dylan, and the annual music award went to composer and Los Angeles native David Lang. In an interview Monday, Lang enthusiastically mixed metaphors: "You know, I am not fit to touch the hem of his shoes. Bob Dylan is the only artist who's in heavy rotation in my household."