Collection

The UCLA Film and Television archive has received a collection of Rudy Vallee films from the singer and actor's widow, Eleanor Vallee. The collection, which covers Vallee's career from 1929-34, is highlighted by an original print of Vallee's first talking feature, "The Vagabond Lover," and closed-circuit footage of Vallee on a mechanical television. The experimental footage is the earliest broadcast in the archive's collection, according to archivist Charles Hopkins.

Will Parker, 49, an operatic baritone whose collection of poems and lyrics about AIDS was set to music and performed as the "AIDS Quilt Songbook." A native of Butler, Pa., Parker sang with the Army Chorus and went on to win the Baltimore Opera Competition in 1970. He sang opera in Austria, the Netherlands and throughout the United States. In 1991, Parker began gathering poems and lyrics by or about people with AIDS.

The four women were roughing it for a week on the Baja California peninsula, riding mules, sleeping under stars, pursuing private interests. One was digging for old grinding stones called metates, another was busy with her flower press, a third had brought a sketchbook and paints. The fourth--a neighbor of mine--had been invited along at the last minute. It was her first such foray; she was hoping to forget urban worries and deepen her tan.

As he had done so often in younger days, Harry Lechler bent over a wooden Victrola, lifted the instrument's arm and slowly placed the needle onto a record. And as if he still were a young boy playing a song for his sweetheart, the 83-year-old man excitedly wound up the Victrola and listened as the voice of Bing Crosby filled the room. "If you want it loud, you keep both doors open," he said as he opened wide the doors of the wooden speaker. "If you want it low, you close the doors."

Macy's is stepping into the high-profile collaboration game, teaming up with New York designer Rachel Roy for an exclusive collection called Rachel Rachel Roy out this month. The American retail institution is betting that Roy's talent for blending uptown sleek with downtown street will appeal to the shopper who might not be accustomed to finding her sensibility at the mall. And other designers are likely to look with interest at the reach Roy's collection gains in a department store such as Macy's -- the 151-year-old retail giant has 840 locations in 45 states and had sales of $24.9 billion last year.

Who says you can't look gift horses in the mouth? Everybody knows that the horse's mouth is the place whence cometh the straight truth. Today the orifice in question is that containing the cache of Japanese art of the Edo period donated to the County Museum of Art by Oklahoma collector Joe D. Price. After considerable fanfaronade but no solid fare, we are at last treated to a look at some highlights of the collection in a selection of some 75 objects on view to May 18.

The showing of the major men's fall-winter 2011-12 European collections, which this season run Jan. 15 to 18 in Milan and Jan. 19 to 23 in Paris, are the traditional opening salvo in a seemingly endless globe-spanning fashion marathon that doesn't wind down until the Halloween decorations go up. And, because of their pole position on the catwalk calendar, the men's shows often end up being more than the sum of their parts. They offer an opportunity to get an early bead on where menswear and women's wear designers ?

Bob Brickman spent months fighting a ticket he got last fall from a red-light traffic camera at Wilshire and Sepulveda boulevards in West Los Angeles. The 61-year-old from Playa Vista eventually decided to give up the fight and fork over the $476 fine. Now he's regretting paying every penny. City officials this week spotlighted a surprising revelation involving red-light camera tickets: Authorities cannot force violators who simply don't respond to pay them. For a variety of reasons, including the way the law was written, Los Angeles officials say the fines for ticketed motorists are essentially "voluntary" and there are virtually no tangible consequences for those who refuse to pay. The disclosure comes as the city is considering whether to drop the controversial photo enforcement program, with the City Council scheduled to vote on the matter Wednesday.

Julius Wangenheim believed that a great deal could be gained by just browsing among books. When he died in 1942, Wangenheim left that philosophy behind in the form of a book collection at the San Diego Public Library downtown. But you can't just drop by and leaf through the collection. Browsing is more restricted in the Wangenheim Room than among the general stacks in the library. An appointment is necessary.