Fables

"Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" A Modest Bestiary by David Sedaris Little, Brown : 176 pp., $21.99 Somewhere, David Sedaris is giggling. His new collection of short stories — of mice and chipmunks and dogs, of cats and chickens — appear to be fables, but they're not exactly. Because, he says, fables have morals; what he's created is a "modest bestiary," where lessons might not be learned, and a critter meeting a bloody end might not deserve such a cruel fate.

Beloved singer Morrissey has been teasing fans for close to two years with news that he's penned a 660-page memoir. The catch is, it doesn't seem to have a publisher -- or didn't, until an exchange at a concert this week. Is the Morrissey memoir really coming to shelves? How long will it be -- how soon is now? At a concert in New Jersey on Tuesday, Morrissey appeared to nod in assent when asked whethre the book would be published by Penguin Classics. In April 2011, Morrissey told BB4's Front Row that Penguin Classics was the imprint he'd most like to publish his book.

Down the Mysterly River A Novel Bill Willingham, with illustrations by Mark Buckingham Starscape: 336 pp., $15.99, ages 10 and older Bill Willingham is a comics icon, best known for his imaginative fairy tale mash-up series, "Fables," which begins with the Big Bad Wolf as sheriff of a town populated by Jack (of beanstalk fame), Beauty (and the beast) and the long-divorced couple Snow White and Prince Charming. Published by the DC Comics imprint Vertigo, the series earned the author multiple Eisner awards after its 2002 premiere and catapulted him to his current status as one of the bestselling international writers of comics.

Larry White photographed this fairy tale-like scene during a trip to Hallstatt, Austria, in October. He and his girlfriend, Christine Cyran, visited the UNESCO World Heritage Site to celebrate her birthday, and stayed at the Pension Sarstein, near the spot where he snapped this photo. On Cyran's birthday, the couple rented a motorboat for a cruise around Hallstatt Lake, White said. The Westlake Village resident used a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. To submit your photos, visit our reader photo gallery . When you upload your photos, tell us where they were taken and when.

MUSIC Pairing a very old Indian concept of life death, "samsara," with cutting-edge electronics and synthesis, the KarmetiK Machine Orchestra takes a contemporary route to explore ancient themes. The group plays musical takes on traditional Indian fables accompanied by dancers and multimedia stagecraft, but makes these old stories sound like the future. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., L.A. 8:30 p.m. Thu.-Fri. $20. Redcat.org.

There's been some confusion about Wolf in Sheep's Clothing , the popular pop-up series that had a several-month run inside Capri in Venice, now the name of a full-fledged restaurant in the former Lily's space down the street on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. But the chefs who cooked at the original pop-up series aren't affiliated with the current incarnation; instead they've opened a new spot in the Palihotel in West Hollywood called the Hart & the Hunter . So let's not get our A esop's fables mixed up. Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (a biblical idiom often referred to as one of Aesop's fables)

A picture book is more than three-quarters illustration. The remainder is text. When skillfully composed, it is a fast read. The idea is to spend most of one's time on the pictures, while noting the spaces, corner places and other details that make one focus in on each of the illustrations. Well-done picture book art emphasizes the simple narrative and expands it to new dimensions. In Nettie Joe's Friends, we hardly know where the word meanings end and the rich color images begin. Pigtailed, sweet Nettie Joe is to be the flower girl in her cousin's wedding.

It's Friday night at the drive-in. As the pale-skinned hero of the season's hot new martial-arts flick snaps the bones of the Asian archvillain, the Winnetka 6 erupts in honking horns and flashing headlights. The movie that has the big-wheeled pickups beeping is "Bloodsport." Advertised as the true story of an American who defeated all comers 13 years ago in a no-holds-barred international tournament of warriors, the movie opened last month at 800 U.S.

Lu Miao speaks very little English. He's never traveled outside of Asia. He's not a software engineer. But in a few short months, he became the founder of a successful software company selling apps in the United States and Europe. In less than half a year, Rye Studio has sold 1 million downloads of apps with traditional Chinese children's stories at 99 cents each for Apple Inc.'s iPad and iPhone. Lu bought a courtyard home in the city's tech hub, the Haidian district, and converted it into a playful office with a giant replica of a Michelangelo painting and a bamboo garden.

TEN days, one wallaby, no kangaroos. My fantasy -- adorable 'roos galumphing around every bush in the Outback -- was just that. Camels -- wild ones, at that -- were another matter. About 60,000 of the feral beasts roam the Outback that unfolded outside the picture window of my train compartment. I had come to Australia to ride the Ghan, the legendary train that bisects the country, traveling from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north.

There's been some confusion about Wolf in Sheep's Clothing , the popular pop-up series that had a several-month run inside Capri in Venice, now the name of a full-fledged restaurant in the former Lily's space down the street on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. But the chefs who cooked at the original pop-up series aren't affiliated with the current incarnation; instead they've opened a new spot in the Palihotel in West Hollywood called the Hart & the Hunter . So let's not get our A esop's fables mixed up. Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (a biblical idiom often referred to as one of Aesop's fables)

What gruesome casualty statistics fail to do, a horse made of wire mesh and plywood pulls off with profound simplicity: Joey, the magnificent puppet stallion at the center of"War Horse,"communicates to a broad public the staggering waste of war. Yes, it's sentimental. Yes, there are scenes that might have given even as inveterate a melodramatist as Charles Dickens pause. But this 2011 best play Tony winner, which launched its national tour at the Ahmanson Theatre on Friday, takes the audience on a thrilling roller-coaster ride in which innocence is thrown into a man-made hell.

It seems fitting that "Moonrise Kingdom,"arguably Wes Anderson's most grown-up film yet, is a warm and funny fable about kids on the cusp. Here the writer-director's tendency toward the allegorical casts a magical spell with Anderson finding a near perfect balance between the humanism and the surreal that imprints all of his work - sometimes for the better ("The Royal Tenenbaums,""Fantastic Mr. Fox") and sometimes not ("The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou"). In this tale about growing up and falling in love, it seems Anderson has found his true heart.

MUSIC Pairing a very old Indian concept of life death, "samsara," with cutting-edge electronics and synthesis, the KarmetiK Machine Orchestra takes a contemporary route to explore ancient themes. The group plays musical takes on traditional Indian fables accompanied by dancers and multimedia stagecraft, but makes these old stories sound like the future. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., L.A. 8:30 p.m. Thu.-Fri. $20. Redcat.org.

Down the Mysterly River A Novel Bill Willingham, with illustrations by Mark Buckingham Starscape: 336 pp., $15.99, ages 10 and older Bill Willingham is a comics icon, best known for his imaginative fairy tale mash-up series, "Fables," which begins with the Big Bad Wolf as sheriff of a town populated by Jack (of beanstalk fame), Beauty (and the beast) and the long-divorced couple Snow White and Prince Charming. Published by the DC Comics imprint Vertigo, the series earned the author multiple Eisner awards after its 2002 premiere and catapulted him to his current status as one of the bestselling international writers of comics.

Perhaps no single individual in the last half-century has promoted and showcased African American beauty and fashion with as much flair as Eunice W. Johnson. The co-founder with her husband John H. Johnson of pioneering magazine Ebony in 1945, she was one of the first to market a cosmetics line, Fashion Fair Cosmetics, to African Americans, . And, most famously, she created the Ebony Fashion Fair — a traveling fashion runway show that's raised more than $55 million for various charities since its inception in 1958.

I gather that Robert Hawkins lives with President Reagan on the ranch in Santa Barbara in exchange for the comforting fables he tells. There is no other explanation for his letter of Oct. 19. Like Hawkins' nephew, I have never had trouble finding work in Santa Barbara. Temporary jobs paying $4, $5 and sometimes $10 an hour are quite easy to find there. Unfortunately, finding an acceptable place to live on such low and often intermittent pay is nearly impossible. Speaking from my own experiences, "cash-only" or "service-exchange" jobs can provide nearly anyone with 32 hours of work a week, providing someone is willing to put in at least eight hours a week looking for work while enduring such unpaid interruptions as bad weather, holidays, late materials, or the boss' unscheduled days off. Thirty-two hours a week at $5 an hour comes to $640 a month.

Thanks for reminding us about the "lost" freeways that were never built, such as the Laurel Canyon Freeway ("Freeways' Missing Links Can Frustrate Commuters," April 2). Although many believe that Los Angeles has an extensive network of freeways, many more were planned that would have greatly increased mobility across the region. In fact, Los Angeles ranks near the bottom in freeway miles per capita for U.S. urban areas. No wonder we have such crushing congestion! The Laurel Canyon Freeway would have provided a critical link from the Valley into the Mid-Wilshire district and down to LAX. While many extol the virtues of mass transit--and no one wants to live right next to a freeway--over 95% of us are still dependent on the freeways and major arterial surface streets.

Gen. Vang Pao, the controversial but revered Hmong leader who was a key ally to the United States during the Vietnam War, died Thursday in Clovis, Calif. He was 81. Vang Pao was admitted to a hospital for pneumonia Dec. 26 shortly after his traditional opening remarks at the Hmong International New Year Festival in Fresno. "Because of him, the Hmong are here in America. I have uncles and pastors who fought with him in the jungles. As a child, I grew up with his name," Maya Xiong, news director of a Hmong radio station in Fresno said as she prepared to go on the air and confirm the news to a grieving community.

Some advance by conquest, some by calculated surrender. Shuja al-Daula, nawab of Awadh province, profited by the latter when trounced by British forces in the Battle of Buxar in 1764. He made concessions to the British in trade and military defense and also paid them a hefty war reparation of 5 million rupees. But he was restored to his position and thrived as patriarch of an estimable dynasty. Shuja al-Daula relocated to nearby Faizabad from Lucknow, but his son, Asaf al-Daula, moved the court back to Lucknow.