Fortress

Two years and $265 million later, Santa Monica Place reopened Friday with thousands of shoppers pouring in to get a first look at the newly remodeled shopping center. "Finally! Finally they've done something to improve," said Cyndi Walters, 30, a nurse from Santa Monica. "It was just so run-down and boring. This is a big, huge difference. " By the time Walters arrived at 8 a.m., two hours before the mall opened, hordes of shoppers were already lined up in a scene reminiscent of Black Friday crowds on the day after Thanksgiving.

Update: Filmmaker, prolific commercial director and restaurateur Joe Pytka has sold Castillo del Lago in the Hollywood Hills for $7 million. The Bastide owner spent nearly 15 years restoring the fortress-like Mediterranean on about 3 acres of hillside above Lake Hollywood. There are nine bedrooms and six bathrooms in 7,783 square feet and such amenities as 25-foot-high beamed and coffered ceilings, a wine cellar, an elevator, a swimming pool, rose gardens, fountains and, befitting a castle, even a tower.

Moby, as DJ and singer-songwriter Richard Melville Hall is known, has purchased Wolf's Lair, a Hollywood Hills castle-like fortress with views of downtown, Griffith Park, the Hollywood sign and the ocean, for $3.925 million. The sellers are Lionsgate Entertainment's Jay Faires and Debbie Matenopoulos, former co-host of "The View" (1997-99). Wolf's Lair was built in 1927 by Hollywoodland developer L. Milton Wolf. Moby, who will be moving from the East Coast, plans to restore the property in keeping with its period charm.

Soar with the Liberty Belle You can relive history on the Liberty Belle, a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber from World War II. It will make a two-week swing through Southern California, including Sunday in San Diego County, Saturday and next Sunday in Long Beach, and March 13 and 14 in Burbank. Half-hour rides cost $430 per person. Seven people can ride on each flight. If you don't want to spend $430, you can, free of charge, watch the warplane take off and land and tour it after the last flight of the day. Reservations are accepted at (918)

George Washington Smith made his name creating Spanish Colonial Revival mansions in Montecito and Santa Barbara from 1917 to 1930, but the Pennsylvania-born architect and painter also left his mark on Beverly Hills, Pasadena and San Marino. The Osthoff house, on a leafy street a short walk from the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, is a meticulously updated example of Smith's oeuvre that retains much of its original detail. Built in 1924, the T-shaped structure has few windows facing the street.

Of all the myths enshrouding Michael Jackson's too-brief life, none was more potent than his image as the isolated artist, the tormented creative soul cut off from ordinary mortals. It's an archetype with a strongly American pedigree, as grizzled and hoary as Citizen Kane clutching his snow globe while he sits alone in Xanadu, brooding on happier days. Thoreau took to his cabin in the woods. Howard Hughes hid out naked in germ-free hotels. Elvis holed up in Graceland under the sway of drugs and a byzantine retinue of friends and false comforters.

Of all the myths enshrouding Michael Jackson's too-brief life, none was more potent than his image as the isolated artist, the tormented creative soul cut off from ordinary mortals. It's an archetype with a strongly American pedigree, as grizzled and hoary as Citizen Kane clutching his snow globe while he sits alone in Xanadu, brooding on happier days. Thoreau took to his cabin in the woods. Howard Hughes hid out buck-naked in germ-free hotels.

Silversun Pickups "Swoon" Dangerbird Records * * * 1/2 Growth is a necessity in every corner of rock 'n' roll, even for local heroes not far removed from the fab dives of Silver Lake and Echo Park. But by the time the Silversun Pickups released their 2006 full-length debut, "Carnavas," they already had perfected their fuzzy sing-alongs for shoe-gazers, making pure indie rock as forceful as it was accessible. They were eager to please and exceptionally good at it.

Construction workers in Poland have unearthed a World War II-era mass grave containing what are believed to be the bodies of 1,800 German men, women and children who disappeared during the Soviet Army's march to Berlin. The grave was at a fortress in Malbork -- which was Marienburg, Germany, during the war, authorities said.