Erasure

Michelle Rhee, head of an influential education advocacy group that backs using student test scores to evaluate teachers, this week fended off accusations that she failed to pursue evidence of cheating when she ran the District of Columbia school system. In an internal memo, a district consultant warned that about 190 teachers at 70 schools - more than half the system's campuses - may have cheated in 2008 by erasing wrong answers on student testing sheets and filling in correct ones.

Michelle Rhee, head of an influential education advocacy group that backs using student test scores to evaluate teachers, this week fended off accusations that she failed to pursue evidence of cheating when she ran the District of Columbia school system. In an internal memo, a district consultant warned that about 190 teachers at 70 schools - more than half the system's campuses - may have cheated in 2008 by erasing wrong answers on student testing sheets and filling in correct ones.

POP MUSIC In support of its newest LP, "Tomorrow's World," synth-pop superstar Erasure takes its tour to the Palladium. Expect a lavish gothic set, sassy singers and flamboyant antics from frontman Andy Bell. Frankmusik and DJ Paul V. open. Hollywood Palladium, 6215 W. Sunset Blvd. 8 p.m. Sat. $58.85. livenation.com.

POP MUSIC In support of its newest LP, "Tomorrow's World," synth-pop superstar Erasure takes its tour to the Palladium. Expect a lavish gothic set, sassy singers and flamboyant antics from frontman Andy Bell. Frankmusik and DJ Paul V. open. Hollywood Palladium, 6215 W. Sunset Blvd. 8 p.m. Sat. $58.85. livenation.com.

Regarding Leslie Carr's July 7 letter about Mike Boehm's review of Erasure's concert: I also attended that concert, and while I agree that Erasure put on a good show, I disagree completely that singer Andy Bell's homosexuality wasn't an issue. Having seen Erasure when they opened for Duran Duran in 1987, I was aware of Bell's flamboyant stage antics, but I considered his sexuality secondary to his dynamic performance. However, I was somewhat unprepared for the audience that Erasure drew as a headline act. In my opinion, their show was not a case of a straight audience lowering their guard to enjoy a gay performer; it was more like a gay pride festival.

Is Andy Bell, the singing half of the English electro-pop duo Erasure, the successor to James Dean? On Friday at the Hollywood Palladium he looked more like Liza Minnelli in "Cabaret," what with his skin-tight black-sequined lederhosen outfit.

Erasure created the expected synth-pop spectacle on Monday at the Mayan. The veteran dance duo's Victorian drawing-room set and period costumes underscored the drama of its pulsating disco numbers and heart-throbbing ballads, while not entirely masking their limitations. Although more popular in their native England, instrumentalist Vince Clarke and singer Andy Bell have been American cult heroes since their late-'80s hits "Chains of Love" and "A Little Respect."

Erasure "Other People's Songs" (Mute) ** 1/2 Singer Andy Bell knows all there is to know about the crying game. At least the vocal half of this veteran British dance-pop duo sure sounds as if he does on the best of Erasure's quirky new collection of covers. From widely disparate sources, the songs are generally about keeping that romantic torch ablaze, a favorite subject for Bell and his music-making partner, Vince Clarke.

After reading your review of the Erasure concert ("Capering Andy Bell Leads Erasure Through Zesty Evening" by Mike Boehm, Calendar June 18), I was pretty upset. For me and for three good friends of mine, this was our first concert, and we were very excited. Naturally, our hopes were high for this concert, and Erasure proved very quickly to be a very enthusiastic group. The four of us, as well as many others at the concert, knew of the two men's homosexuality. That had absolutely no effect whatsoever on our feelings toward the music or the band.

"WONDERLAND." Erasure. Sire. Vince Clarke, formerly of Depeche Mode, Yazoo and the Assembly, has acquired the bad habit of changing partners without making alterations in his music. As one-half of Erasure, Clarke continues to produce articulated, synth-pop dance music that was refreshing several years ago but has now grown very stale. Helping him out this time is newcomer Andy Bell, who does a good impersonation of Alison Moyet (Clarke's partner in Yazoo).

For better or worse, the stakes attached to standardized test scores are higher than ever. Now that schools can be taken over if their students' scores don't improve on the annual state tests, and now that the test results are considered in teacher evaluations, educators have more incentive to cheat, by giving students correct answers or erasing incorrect ones — or by looking the other way when others do it. Incentive, yes. Excuse, no. The rising...

Rose Mary Woods, President Nixon's loyal secretary who took initial responsibility for erasing part of a key White House audiotape during the Watergate investigation, has died. She was 87. Woods died Saturday night at a nursing home in Alliance, Ohio, about 60 miles south of Cleveland. The cause of death was not reported.

Todd Gray's midcareer retrospective at Cal State L.A.'s Luckman Gallery opens on a startlingly confrontational note: with a life-sized color photograph of a slender, nude, black, male body, smeared with what looks like shaving cream, his face covered with the taxidermic head of a fang-baring boar mounted to the surface of the photograph like a hunting trophy.

The U.S. marshal for the Southern District of Mississippi on Friday defended the erasure of two journalists' recordings of a speech by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia but suggested that Scalia's request that his remarks not be recorded should have been publicly announced.

Erasure created the expected synth-pop spectacle on Monday at the Mayan. The veteran dance duo's Victorian drawing-room set and period costumes underscored the drama of its pulsating disco numbers and heart-throbbing ballads, while not entirely masking their limitations. Although more popular in their native England, instrumentalist Vince Clarke and singer Andy Bell have been American cult heroes since their late-'80s hits "Chains of Love" and "A Little Respect."

Erasure "Other People's Songs" (Mute) ** 1/2 Singer Andy Bell knows all there is to know about the crying game. At least the vocal half of this veteran British dance-pop duo sure sounds as if he does on the best of Erasure's quirky new collection of covers. From widely disparate sources, the songs are generally about keeping that romantic torch ablaze, a favorite subject for Bell and his music-making partner, Vince Clarke.

The Universal Amphitheatre stage was transformed into a glittery ghost town for Erasure's concert Monday, providing a campy yet curiously effective backdrop for the romantic drama of the English synth-pop duo's new album, "Cowboy." Monday's sold-out, 90-minute extravaganza (the first of two nights at the Amphitheatre) featured a covered wagon, ersatz cacti and a hotel-saloon facade.

The state's new congressional district boundaries are spelling big changes for Long Beach. Its port--a major economic engine for the region--and most of its predominantly white, affluent neighborhoods have been sliced from the rest of the city and added to a new district drawn to favor Orange County Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican. And most of the rest of the city--ethnically diverse and poorer--has been included in the district of Carson-based Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, a Democrat.

Being a fiction writer can be an anxiety-riddled experience. Faced with an ominously blank computer screen or sheet of paper, writers worry whether their stories will be good enough, daring enough or will sell enough. Add to those concerns one that is peculiar to African American writers: Will it be black enough? Writers and others outside this small fraternity might wonder what on earth that means. And why it should matter?