Design

Mother-daughter designing duo Marie and Kelly Gray are back in business together with a new label called Grayse, eight years after stepping down from their day-to-day duties at St. John when a private equity firm bought the company and cleaned house in a rebranding effort that famously also involved hiring Angelina Jolie as spokesmodel and alienating hordes of loyal customers. Although St. John is best known for creating the conservative, Crayola-colored knit suit uniform worn by a generation of women in the go-go 1980s and '90s, Grayse taps into the more recent trend of casual luxury and seasonless, day-to-night dressing.

DALLAS - It's remarkable how slow - and disjointed - architecture can sometimes appear. For nearly a decade, younger architects have pushed for a new agenda in the profession. They've been loudly (and rightly) critical of the expensive, highly mannered and sometimes self-indulgent trophy buildings turned out by some of the world's most prominent architects. And they've helped bring different and more public-minded priorities to the fore. And yet the trophy buildings keep coming.

Men have discovered what the ladies have known all along. Now, more than ever, it's all about your shoes. "And it's about high time. Women have had a blast with shoes for years," says Jim Moore, GQ's creative director. "I think it's the most exciting category in menswear at the moment. It's a huge focus for us," says Terry Betts, buying manager for London-based online retailer Mr. Porter. And the trade paper Footwear News reported recently, "Men's footwear is on fire at retail, thanks to style twists on old classics," citing updates like pops of color, vintage details and distressed finishes that are making traditional silhouettes look fresh.

The gig: Tim Burkhart, 54, is corporate vice president of maintenance and construction for Six Flags Entertainment Corp. , the parent company of Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia and 17 other parks in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Burkhart's resume is pretty short. He has spent his entire career at Six Flags, starting in 1977 when he was in high school and worked as a ride operator on Revolution, the first looping roller coaster. It was meant to be a temporary job to raise money for some senior-year fun. Instead, Burkhart said, he fell in love with the park and its employees.

Hours before Pink's recent show at Staples Center, creative director Baz Halpin is crouched beneath the stage in the dimly lighted corridor he calls "the underworld. " That night, Pink's fans would witness the star scale a giant gyroscope, somersault from bungee cords, dangle precariously from silk ribbons and fly over the audience at dizzying heights. Halpin points to crash-landing pads that swell from a trap door to protect the singer, an ornate silver rig for one of five aerial numbers and a small tank filled with water for a finale that blurs the line between circus and pop performance.

Original design details preserved in this gated Spanish Revival home include the owners' crests and emblems, hand-painted in the early 1940s, and the ceramic tiles of the fireplace. Among updates, the living room includes three plasma-screen televisions hidden behind canvases depicting bullfighting. Location: 1284 Temple Hills, Laguna Beach 92651 Asking price: $5.995 million Year built: 1940 House size: Four bedrooms, five bathrooms, 4,855 square feet Lot size: 0.4 acre Features: Media room with 10-foot screen, open-beam ceilings, wall murals, office/den, exercise studio, dual walk-in closets in the master suite, copper hammered tub, touch-pad entertainment and security system, multiuse sport court, swimming pool, live-in carriage house atop the three-car garage, motor court for additional parking, ocean and coastline views, olive trees, flagstone walkways, lawn About the area: Last year, 430 single-family homes sold in the 92651 ZIP Code at a median price of $1.273 million, according to DataQuick.

Hollywood boulevardier Joshua Wattles was taking his daily constitutional along the Walk of Fame when he stopped to point at a pole bristling with parking signs. "It's predatory signage," said Wattles' companion, whom he called his "ghostwriter. " "It's gotcha signage," Wattles said, turning to his friend. "How's that? Is that better?" "No, predatory signage," the friend corrected him. The two men were talking about the confusing and contradictory parking signs proliferating in our city.

The Eisenhower family told a congressional panel Tuesday that it supports a bill that would do away with architect Frank Gehry's design for the planned Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington and halt any additional federal funding for the design. Susan Eisenhower, the granddaughter of the former president, spoke to the House Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation. The chairman of the group is Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who introduced the legislation last week.

PHOENIX - What was an ordinary split-squad spring-training game for most players at Camelback on Sunday was of monumental importance for Carl Crawford. The Dodgers' 11-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers was Crawford's first game with the Dodgers and his first with any team since August, when he underwent a season-ending elbow operation. "The nerves were racing a little bit," Crawford said. "When you have something taken away from you that you like to do and you've been out for so long, you have a different appreciation for it. " Crawford was hitless in three at-bats as the Dodgers' designated hitter.

Architect Frank Gehry 's controversial design for the proposed Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial is once again the object of bickering in Washington. A major architectural organization said it opposes a new congressional initiative to do away with  Gehry 's design for the memorial. Last week, Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah introduced legislation that would mandate an alternative to Gehry 's design and eliminate further federal funding for the project. The American Institute of Architects issued a statement on Sunday voicing opposition to the initiative.