Loft

A two-person show reminds us of the post-Pollock days when every graduate school and loft was filled with paint-splattered abstractions designed to stand for impressions and experiences in the world. The show also demonstrates the range that such experiments can encompass. Melinda Miller creates believable, energetic compositions that pit flat static areas of color fractured by animated black lines against gnarled, kinetic skeins of color.

Somewhere along the line, it became an item of folk criticism to say: "I went out whistling the sets." It usually meant there wasn't much else worth whistling about. But once in a while the sets are so spectacular that they are likely to linger in mind long after you've forgotten the plot, the tunes or who it was who was excellent as the drunken uncle. It was true of the late Sean Kenny's sets for Lionel Bart's "Blitz," for example.

Tony Cabral is the kind of consumer who makes a habit of checking his credit files at least twice a year. "I just want to be safe," he told me. "I want to know how my credit looks. " These days, though, it's become surprisingly difficult to stay on top of this most basic of consumer needs, an especially timely concern as hordes of Black Friday shoppers break out the plastic in search of holiday deals. Consumers are entitled to one free credit report annually from each of the three leading credit bureaus ?

It's the battle of the big-bucks beaches. Malibu's celebrity-studded Broad Beach appears to be engaged in a throw down of sorts with billionaire bastion Carbon Beach to the east. Several properties have come on the market within the last month that will require diamond-encrusted pocketbooks to purchase. At $57.5 million, the most expensive Malibu listing now in the Multiple Listing Service is the Frank Gehry-designed Borman estate set on more than an acre. The site has 160 feet of Broad Beach frontage, an ocean-view tennis court, a lap pool and a spa. A steppingstone path through lawn leads to the sand.

The staircase is narrow and creaky, with a bookshelf made from a 100-year-old harp case teetering on the precipice of collapse at the top of the landing. Overflowing with open books, pages wildly askew and dangling from uneven shelves, the bookcase looks as if it's escaped from a vintage cartoon. Rolls of yellowed, turn-of-the-century sheet music waft through the air, unfurling from a manual typewriter suspended from the ceiling. A black-clad young woman, with a prominent pierced dimple and a philosophy book under her arm, slips by on her way up. She has found the way into the Labyrinth at the Last Bookstore.

Susan Sarandon and hotelier Andre Balazs sit side-by-side watching Pasadena's 16-year-old Olympic pingpong prodigy Erica Wu battle her opponent in a heated game of table tennis. Their eyes follow the tiny white ball, back and forth, back and forth. A breathless announcer in a tacky gold jacket tells the crowd, “It takes a royal couple like Andre and Susan to make this thing happen! I've never seen this in the history of table tennis!” Indeed, this is a rare moment for pingpong, which until a few years ago was associated with dank basements and cheap beer.

In a multimillion-dollar twist on celebrity musical chairs, singer-actress Jessica Simpson has purchased Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne's estate in Hidden Hills for $11.5 million, public records show. The Cape Cod-inspired mansion, built in 2001, sits on a 2.5-acre promontory off a cul-de-sac in the gated community. It features a paneled study with fireplace, a home theater and studio area, six en suite bedrooms and a guest apartment with kitchenette. The family room of the 11,000-square-foot home has sliding barn doors and a reclaimed brick fireplace.

The tourists think big. Arriving in Southern California, they expect to conquer Disneyland and Hollywood, perhaps on the same day, in between the surfing and snowboarding. Then they get stuck in traffic. Then come the recriminations, the tears, the vows to visit an island next time. The locals think small. Tracing tight little loops between home and work, they dodge freeways and alien neighborhoods. There are Los Feliz people who haven't set foot in Venice since the latter Bush administration (I'm one)