Arts Business

When Santiago Canyon College President Mark Rocha looks out the window of his second-floor office, his view is of the empty 12 acres that will lead to the transformation of the east Orange campus. Next comes $100 million of construction, expected to be completed in 2007.

It was a typical Show Time night at the Forum. The lights were bright, the crowd was coming alive and the Lakers were ready to roll. Center court was filled, not with the purple and gold of the Lakers, but with a group of starry-eyed kids with musical instruments. As the downbeat began for the "Star-Spangled Banner," the musicians--all from local high schools--were joined by a jovial Herbie Hancock, a portable keyboard slung over his shoulder.

Los Angeles is often called the mural capital of the world -- and no place is this truer than on the streets of Boyle Heights, where hundreds of walls at pharmacies, general stores, guitar shops and even churches have been transformed into urban artwork. The murals depict Mexican American history, advertise businesses and take the form of abstract art at the hands of graffiti taggers.

It's the perfect year for the International Committee of Modern Art Museums to convene in Los Angeles, according to Margit Rowell, president of the organization, which wound up its 25th annual meeting over the weekend. About 85 members, representing modern and contemporary art institutions from around the world, spent last week here, attending lecture sessions at Loew's Hotel in Santa Monica and visiting museums and private collections in Southern California.

"Winter's Bone" is no easy sell at the multiplex. Adapted from an acclaimed but little-read Daniel Woodrell novel, the low-budget movie unfolds in Missouri's impoverished Ozarks, its sometimes violent main characters subsist on methamphetamine and the R-rated film's protagonist is a 17-year-old girl played by the unheralded actress Jennifer Lawrence. Yet as soon as Roadside Attractions saw "Winter's Bone" at January's Sundance Film Festival, it knew it had to have the film that would go on to win the festival's top prize.

The facade of the elegant Paris townhouse that serves as headquarters for Yves Saint Laurent's fashion empire is decked out with bunting and evergreen wreaths. But inside, Pierre Berge, who runs the business for his designer-partner, is oblivious to the holiday cheer. He is lamenting the decline of French culture over the past 12 years. And he finds enough blemishes to spoil anybody's Christmas mood.

In what is said to be the largest fundraising goal in American academia to date, USC is launching a campaign to garner $5 billion in donations by 2018, on top of $1 billion given to the school in the last year. USC President C.L. Max Nikias said he was optimistic that the campaign, to be announced Sunday, would succeed despite the economic worries that even wealthy alumni may have about their investments. "Yes, we have to be mindful of the short-term economic uncertainties, but this campaign focuses beyond the next few months and next few years," Nikias said.

I'm searching for body fat in Hollywood. It's the 2007 MTV Movie Awards, and judging by the standards of the youth-obsessed network's magenta carpet, blubber, let alone curves, or even softness is out of fashion. Girls -- and I mean girls, given their lack of womanly heft, glide by. Jessica Biel, in a loose black mini-dress. Jessica Alba, with sylph-like arms rising above her red puffy mini-dress.

Imagine that you've been renovating your ranch house for two years when you realize that you'd rather be building the home of your dreams, a two-story Craftsman of your own design. Imagine that you decide to go for it — to gut and rebuild — and so you move into a converted garage for two years. Imagine that your wife, meanwhile, is home-schooling two young daughters and expecting baby No. 3. Imagine that you have no formal training, but with your father lending a heroic hand and your mother running your graphic arts business from a nearby shed, you take on 80% of the construction work yourself.