Chairs

Hey book lovers, please take a seat. And if you'd like, please take a seat with books inside of it. The annual Salone del Mobile furniture fair begins in Milan next week, and to launch its coverage of the event, the Atlantic Cities website has a list of “10 chair designs for people who really love their books” from the site Architizer. Among my favorites is the Sunflower Chair by the designers He Mu and Zhang Qian, which the Chair Blog says was presented last year as a part of a retrospective on Chinese chair design.

WASHINGTON - The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are in an unusual position in today's era of Washington austerity: They could soon receive more federal money. A bill sent to the Senate by a committee chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) seeks to address a long-standing California gripe: Its ports receive pennies back for every dollar raised by a tax on cargo. The measure would nearly double, to about $1.6 billion a year, funding for harbor maintenance nationwide, give priority to the busiest ports and expand the use of the money to include work that the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports are eager to undertake.

The Watts Village Theater Company's signature for the past three years has been "Meet Me @Metro," a traveling show in which the small nonprofit company rode L.A.'s light rail system, with actors and audiences disembarking and reboarding for performances related to the history and issues of neighborhoods along the route. But after last summer's production along the Metro Gold Line from Union Station to the East L.A. Civic Center, artistic director Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez's ambitions for "Meet Me @Metro" became a sore spot for the theater's board of directors.

SACRAMENTO - One of Jim Brulte's first acts Sunday as the newly elected leader of the California Republican Party was to hand-deliver a $50,000 check from a friend, with the promise of another one this week. They will only dent the state party's debt, which is in the high six figures, but Brulte's ability to tap a vast network of donors is among the reasons that the former legislative leader was elected to try to salvage the beleaguered party. "Look, wherever - wherever - there is a willing heart and a checkbook that's willing to write a $5, $10, $15, $20, $50, $100, $1,000, $10,000 check, I'll go," Brulte told reporters after the weekend's party convention ended.

George Aratani, a Los Angeles businessman who donated millions of dollars to Japanese American causes, and with his wife endowed the nation's first academic chair to study the World War II internment of people of Japanese descent and their efforts to gain redress, has died. He was 95. An entrepreneur who founded the Mikasa china and Kenwood electronics firms, Aratani died Tuesday at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center of complications of pneumonia, his daughter Linda Aratani said. He had lived at the Keiro nursing facility in Lincoln Heights since last summer.

Eric Trine , the Oregon artist whose cool technicolor latticed leather chairs won fans at the downtown Los Angeles store Poketo last year, is returning to L.A. this weekend. This time Trine is collaborating with illustrator Will Bryant , and the two Portland-based artists are calling the showing and sale of their work "Alley-Oop. " The designs premiere at an opening reception Saturday at Poketo. The collection includes beach chair versions of Trine's original latticed design, as well as wall hangings, mug cozies and graphic tees ($12 to $30 apiece)

Designer Betsy Burnham looks back at this Benedict Canyon house as one of her most fun projects, even though her description of her client includes the four words that would make some decorators wince: “He likes his stuff.” It's often easier working with a blank canvas, but Burnham said her client happened to be “a collector of the most unusual things. There is no end to the treasures he would pull out: vintage Hermès, vintage model Chris-Craft boats.” If you spot a clock in the house, she said, it's a good bet it's vintage Cartier.

WASHINGTON -- As Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner prepared to leave office Friday, he was clear about one thing he won't be doing in the future -- running the Federal Reserve. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's second term expires in January 2014 and the speculation is he will not seek reappointment. Geithner has been rumored as a potential replacement. Asked about the possibility, Geithner dismissed it. “Not a chance,” he told Politico. “I have great respect for the institution, but that will be someone else's privilege.” With Geithner apparently out of the picture, Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen moves to the top of the list of potential replacements if Bernanke opts to step down.

William Haines Designs, the company that carries on the design legacy of the legendary Hollywood decorator-to-the-stars, fittingly chose Oscar season to bring back a classic: the Avalon.  The 1950 Billy Haines chair and bench designs are being reissued this month with some 2013 tweaks. Whereas the original Avalon chairs were painted with oil enamel, production manager Greg Bianchini said, the reissues will be zinc-plated and powder-coated for weather resistance. Modern, fast-drying foam has replaced 1950s foam rubber that eventually hardened or disintegrated.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Dianne Feinstein's hopes of taking over the panel that will be crucial to her efforts to renew an assault weapons ban and overhaul immigration laws were dashed Wednesday when Sen. Patrick J. Leahy decided to remain chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The California Democrat had expected to become the first woman to chair the committee following the death of Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) this week. Leahy was widely expected to seek to succeed Inouye as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, which oversees billions of dollars in federal spending.