Brigade

Seth Morris of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and special guest Rob Huebel of "I Love You, Man" (filling in for Ed Helms) transform into their puppet alter egos to host this comedic live talk show. Guests perform, then chat with the felt hosts. Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave. 10 p.m. Sat. $8. (323) 908-8702. www.ucbtheatre.com.

Coachella's second weekend is upon us, and if you find yourself again frozen out of the desert festival the merry pranksters of Upright Citizens Brigade have assembled in what they're calling the Desert Tent (better known as the UCB stage) for a music festival that features troupe founder Matt Besser along with provocatively named groups such as Hip Hop Penguin, Cosby Sweater and Up Up Up. As an added bonus, chances of heat stroke are considerably diminished here. 5919 Franklin Ave., Sun. 9:30 p.m. $5 (323)

A Claymore mine set by leftist guerrillas wounded 18 Salvadoran troops in a small village north of the capital, the army said Thursday. The mine, which scatters shrapnel over a wide area, went off Wednesday in Las Cajas, 20 miles north of San Salvador near the Guazapa volcano. Troops of the first infantry brigade have for the last week been sweeping the area around the volcano, long considered a rebel stronghold.

BEIRUT - Twenty-one members of a United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Syria near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights were taken captive Wednesday, apparently by armed rebels, according to the U.N. and opposition activists. The action represents a potentially serious escalation of the violence and chaos sweeping Syria, where an armed insurgency seeking to topple the government of President Bashar Assad is nearing its second year. Amateur video purportedly from the scene shows armed men flanking three white vehicles emblazoned with U.N. logos.

To the anti-soccer brigade: Take a walk in any park (and) see how many kids are kicking a ball about. Perhaps the question that should be addressed is: Why are American sports so unpopular abroad? ROY DICKINSON Mammoth Lakes

The last of the 1,200 men imprisoned in Cuba for the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion a quarter-century ago arrived Saturday in Miami, saying he would "continue to be a soldier of freedom." Ramon Conte Hernandez, 56, hugged his wife, Hilda, and other family members who greeted him at Miami International Airport on a flight from Havana. He was accompanied on the flight by his 82-year-old mother, Maria Hernandez Ojeda.

France unfurled its military majesty in honor of its last World War I veteran, who died last week at 110, and all the other Frenchmen who fought in the conflict. Flags fell to half-staff, and at the gold-domed edifice where Napoleon is buried, the president unveiled a plaque to honor Lazare Ponticelli and the 8.4 million other Frenchmen who served in the war. Ponticelli was a French citizen for most of the last century and an unusual soldier who fought first for France, then for Italy, where he was born.

Something in us loves a maze. Clearly we derive a peculiar pleasure, at least a thrill, from experiencing confusion and physical disorientation. Else why are there fun houses at state fairs, or vegetation pruned into a complex of walls and cul-de-sacs, whether in an imperial garden or a farmer's just-harvested cornfield -- where for a buck or two anyone can have the adventure of getting lost then found?

THE WOMEN ON THE ISLAND By Ho Anh Thai University of Washington Press $30, 176 pages * Just as Americans, seized by anger and patriotism, feel their individual concerns being dwarfed by a national emergency, here comes a Vietnamese novel about the opposite process: the reemergence of individual desires in a people who for decades had subordinated everything to the collective struggle.

Stacy Peralta was fighting off bronchitis inside Santa Barbara's fabled Skate One complex - a kind of Willy Wonka world for skateboard manufacturing that he and former business partner George Powell established in 1978 to distribute their groundbreaking Powell-Peralta line. While the factory hummed with the day-to-day business of cranking out hundreds of candy-colored urethane wheels and pressing plywood into signature decks for Kilian Martin, Tony Hawk and more top riders, Peralta ripped into a box containing DVDs of his latest documentary, "Bones Brigade: An Autobiography.

Skateboarding legend Stacy Peralta's latest documentary, "Bones Brigade: An Autobiography," is like a high school reunion, filled with affectionate memories of an earlier, more innocent, time. The director returns to his pro-skateboard roots, and it's clear from Peralta's comments, sprinkled through the film, that the sport and the players remain his first love. But while his breakthrough documentary, "Dogtown and Z-Boys," cracked open the window on a largely unknown world in vibrant and visceral ways, "Bones" feels like an epilogue.

Broken sidewalks may not be quite as dangerous as rutted streets, but they too can be treacherous. An estimated 42% of the 10,750 miles of sidewalks in the city of Los Angeles are crumbling or buckling, lifted by tree roots in some places to scarily high inclines. The city gets about 2,500 "trip and fall" claims each year, and wheelchair users have sued the city, contending that the sidewalks are an obstacle course that violates the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. That they need to be fixed is a no-brainer.

BEIRUT - They were close friends and shared a singular lineage: Both were blood royalty of the Syrian leadership caste, birthright beneficiaries of their fathers' stranglehold on the nation. But the conflict tearing Syrian apart also opened a deep rift between President Bashar Assad and Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlas, a brigade commander in the country's ultra-loyal Republican Guard. On Friday,France's foreign minister confirmed that Tlas had defected. Tlas' departure from the Assad administration is the highest-profile to date, and many read the move as a sign that even Assad's inner circle is losing faith after 16 months of fighting, a savaged economy and international opprobrium.

WASHINGTON - Moms, a few dads and some children gathered at the Capitol on Tuesday to urge Congress to strengthen the federal government's powers to regulate harmful chemicals. The group of almost a hundred activists, which included registered nurses and cancer survivors, came from across the country to support the Safe Chemicals Act, which if passed by Congress would create a new process to monitor toxic chemicals used in consumer products. The chemicals, which are common in furniture and baby products, have been linked to neurological defects, cancer, developmental problems and impaired fertility.

Some years ago, Hollywood made a movie, "The Devil's Brigade," about a U.S.-Canadian commando force during World War II. Now an effort is underway in Congress to award the Congressional Gold Medal to that elite strike force. Legislation to award the nation's highest civilian honor to the First Special Service Force has been introduced in the House and Senate by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. The Canadian Embassy in Washington plans to call attention to the effort next week by screening the documentary "Daring to Die: The Story of the Black Devils" with at least five members of the dwindling force in attendance, along with government and military officials from both countries.

Montel Williams is not your typical pot-smoking snowboarder. Best known as an Emmy-winning talk show host, the former Marine and decorated naval intelligence officer was also a champion boxer, bodybuilder and power-lifter. In 1999, Williams was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and it hit him hard. After a downward slide to rock bottom, Williams decided to get his life back. Were you active in your younger years? I was extremely active. I was a martial artist.

  Three years ago, Quentin Derrick was eating clams at a beach-side restaurant in Da Nang. As he gazed east at the South China Sea, he couldn't believe what was rolling in. Derrick has lived in Vietnam for eight years and surfed a good part of the Vietnamese coastline. But he didn't think it compared - surfing-wise - with the coastlines of Spain, France, Scotland, Morocco, Indonesia or his native Australia. He hadn't expected to find good waves in Da Nang, Vietnam's fourth-largest city, but the ones breaking off Non Nuoc Beach looked eminently carve-able.

COMEDY In a necromantic gesture worthy of its subjects' interest in sci-fi and fantasy, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre will be summoning authors from the dead, including J.R.R. Tolkien and H.G. Wells, to discuss their lives and works. Proceeds will benefit 826LA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 in their creative and expository writing skills. UCB Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave. $5. 6:30 p.m. Fri. (323) 908-8702.

MUSIC Wilco Over its 17-year career, Jeff Tweedy's band has gradually moved from roots rock to something a bit more nebulous, as though the bandleader were with each album further distancing himself from his whiskey bottle and Levis past. The band is having fun not only with sound but with structure on "The Whole Love," without sacrificing catchiness. Nearly every song contains some tangential surprise, odd hook, sonic back flip or mid-song redefinition. Hollywood Palladium, 6215 Sunset Blvd., L.A. 7 p.m. $45. livenation.com.