Fringe

IT'S BEEN a boho summer, with more frayed denim shorts and fringe on young Hollywood than there was at Woodstock. But now, as we move into fall, the look is going more native, Native American that is, with the kind of Southwestern hues and beaded, feathered details that we haven't seen since the '80s heyday of Ralph Lauren's Santa Fe chic. The trend is being interpreted by high-end designers and fast-fashion chain stores. Better yet, you can hit local boutiques and museum shops that carry the real deal -- authentic and inexpensive items actually made by Native American tribes.

BOOKS Physics on the Fringe With Margaret Wertheim Pick up a new perspective on physics from the internationally noted science writer whose work focuses on the relationships between science and the wider cultural landscape. Wertheim has written three books dealing with the cultural history of physics, including "Pythagoras' Trousers," and the relationship between physics and religion. Santa Monica College, 1900 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. 11:15 a.m. Free. (310) 434-4303. http://www.smc.edu.

Of all the big cities in the United States, Los Angeles is the one where the mattress and furniture recyclers, the bottle and can collectors, the food vendors and other street hawkers are most ubiquitous. Their workshops -- where they repair the items they've salvaged, do piecework for sweatshops, make pinatas to sell to variety stores or craft mantelpieces to sell to their neighbors -- are often in rented garages or in their backyards. Driven by the need to survive, these fringe workers -- often young Latino immigrants -- work at their own pace, setting their own schedules and acting as their own bosses.

Much of what's out there for fall looks like it could have been ripped from the pages of Cowboys and Indians magazine: arrow print maxi-skirts, blanket-stripe ponchos, suede jackets with swinging fringe, cowboy booties and T-shirts with more Navajo patterns than Ralph Lauren's RRL ranch. Shopbop.com calls the trend "neo-native," Les Nouvelles refers to it as "nouveau Navajo," and at H&M it's "bohemian style. " It brings me back to the 1990s and my first apartment in West Hollywood, with its Kokopelli lamp and IKEA Ektorp sofa in Santa Fe stripe.

No sooner had servers set down truck-tire-sized metal platters laden with various Ethiopian stews than the hungry private party of 26 people seated in the back dining room of Culver City's Industry Cafe & Jazz descended into a cutlery-free feeding frenzy. Diners fought one another for hunks of spongy injera bread with which to mop up every dribble of spicy goat tibise and a raw, minced beef dish called kitfo , both off-menu dishes specially prepared for this group. Some people didn't even know what they were eating ?

Re "When the Dunce Patrol Is Removed, What's Left Is Encouraging" and "True Left Versus the Lunatic Fringe," Commentary, April 10 and April 3: Two weeks in a row conservative Norah Vincent defined the good ("principled") liberal versus the bad ("lunatic fringe") liberal. For years now, the right has co-opted ideological terms, defining for its own political needs what is good and what is bad, thereby creating a system of values that ultimately makes us bad and them good. Talk radio has made this a cottage industry, and the liberal (as the right has defined for the world)

Beachy glam is the theme at Redondo Beach's new home and accessories store, Fringe. Located in Riviera Village, the 2,000-square-foot shop is loaded with sea-inspired finds: fan coral, brass seahorse hooks, mermaid bookends and lots and lots of shells. Distressed-looking vintage cabinets and shelves, new white linen slip-covered chairs and fresh bedding complete the Malibu-meets-French-countryside vibe. A lot of it can be had for less than $100. Hooks and knockers, which look perfectly salt-air-aged, cost $6 to $20. A great selection of pillows includes $32 Moroccan throws with contrasting prints on each side.

She was dressed for the occasion in a black suit with an emerald green blouse and a jaunty black Spanish sombrero. In the modest Anglican church, she cut a dashing figure. Heads turned. People nodded in recognition of the best-known inhabitant of this township south of Johannesburg. The minister, the Rev.

Usually, a TV series loses viewers after the premiere episode, starting the inevitable drift down to whatever its typical audience is going to be. But Fox's "Fringe" is proving to be a big exception. Last week, J.J. Abrams' latest thriller launched with a less-than-spectacular 9.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. Given Fox's heavy promotion of the costly series, some TV insiders were making dire predictions about the show's future. But on Tuesday, "Fringe" roared back with 13.4 million viewers -- a 47% increase, the biggest second-episode jump for any network series since at least 1991, according to Fox. The key factor behind the "Fringe" surge was its lead-in, the Season 5 premiere of "House," which was the night's most-watched program with 14.4 million viewers.

Let it be said at the outset: Paxton Whitehead, Jim Piddock, Jerry Pavlon and bom Lacy are unmistakably talented comedians. Whether or not a slightly dated "Beyond the Fringe" is still worthy material for this quartet is another matter. With four trumpeters in the courtyard to herald the opening of the Old Globe Theatre's summer season, a 25-year anniversary revival of the comic revue debuted Wednesday in the Cassius Carter Centre Stage.

Laura Burkett, a conservative Republican from Coralville, Iowa, didn't give Ron Paul a second thought in the 2008 presidential contest, turned off by his calls for an end to military action around the globe and unswayed by his warnings that the nation was teetering on economic implosion. "I really thought he was a nut," Burkett said. "Everything he said, I thought, 'This is ridiculous.'" Four years later, reeling from the nation's fiscal decline and what she says is an unprecedented federal expansion into Americans' lives, Burkett is an ardent supporter who plans to do anything she can to make the Texas congressman the GOP nominee.

The Hollywood Fringe Festival Where: Fringe Central at Artworks Theatre and Studios, 6567 Santa Monica Blvd. and various venues in Hollywood When: June 16-26, see website for showtimes Price: Some free. Average ticket price $11.50 Info: http://www.hollywoodfringe.org

Hollywood is a place that cultivates a vast and diverse fringe. For every act that reaches the rock club, there are scores of others still practicing in garages or music being programmed into laptops that may or may not ever reach the stage. For every play and film produced, thousands of scripts are rejected. But that's just where it starts. The city is full of choreographers, jazz musicians, digital effects freaks, artists, performers and ideas that might be too weird — or too good — to ever find a venue.

The first question is: What the heck do you call it? How do you describe a 12-day stretch of June in which three very different, recently minted theater festivals with major-league aspirations – " Radar L.A. " Hollywood Fringe and the Third National Asian American Theater Conference and Festival – all will be running in Greater Los Angeles at the same time that Theatre Communications Group the nation's largest theatrical professional...

When actress Natalie Portman walked this year's Oscar red carpet, raspberry tasseled Tiffany earrings swinging, jewelry aficionados took notice. Tassels and fringe are popping up all over, on earrings, necklaces, bracelets, anklets, rings — as well as purses, scarves, belts and shoes. Today's tasseled-themed jewelry is a bit Art Deco, a bit hippie '70's revival, a bit ancient Egypt and a touch old-world Venetian, all threaded together with a 21st century sensibility. "Tassels are very feminine and also very tactile," says London-based jeweler Carolina Bucci, who regularly uses them as a signature part of her collection, when asked why they reappear in fashion so often.

With the U.S. handing off responsibility for military action in Libya, scores of diplomats and international officials gathered in London to start plotting the country's future and declared their resolve to maintain pressure on Moammar Kadafi until he stops attacking his own people. But there were no Libyans included in the blue-ribbon guest list Tuesday. Nor was there a consensus among NATO countries taking command of the military action on its ultimate goal, or whether it would be enough for Kadafi to flee to another country rather than face prosecution.

He is not even a native Texan, this headstrong militiaman waging war over his beloved Lone Star State. No, Richard L. McLaren, the self-styled "ambassador" of the so-called Republic of Texas, is actually from St. Louis. He wrote a book report in the third grade about the Alamo. A confused sense of history and a keen sense of mythology later brought him here to meet his fate.

BOOKS Physics on the Fringe With Margaret Wertheim Pick up a new perspective on physics from the internationally noted science writer whose work focuses on the relationships between science and the wider cultural landscape. Wertheim has written three books dealing with the cultural history of physics, including "Pythagoras' Trousers," and the relationship between physics and religion. Santa Monica College, 1900 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. 11:15 a.m. Free. (310) 434-4303. http://www.smc.edu.

Jaimy Gordon was the dark horse in this year's National Book Awards, and she walked away in a long red dress clutching the prize for fiction. Rumor has it she screamed when she heard her name, and the name of her fourth novel, "Lord of Misrule," attached to the fiction prize. Her publisher, a small house in Kingston, N.Y., didn't see it coming either. They've been scrambling like crazy to print a lot more copies. More proof that the things that interest us the most ? Gordon's subjects often are long shots, risks, humans and animals sunk deep in the world's margins ?

If he didn't know it already, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is learning that no good deed goes unpunished. Bernanke's measured move to bolster the American economy by purchasing an additional $600 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds ? an attempt to pump liquidity into the economy ? is triggering a backlash from the right. The central bank's decisions have always come in for their share of ideological bickering, but with President Obama defending Bernanke and with the GOP testing voters' appetite for insurrection, right-leaning economists are making common cause with politicians to use the bond purchase to undermine Democrats as well as the Fed. It's an opportunistic move, one that plays into a broader radical agenda of injecting politics into monetary policy in order to tarnish the Fed's reputation.