State Of The Art

The best thing you could once say about benefit concerts was that they are tax-deductible. Aside from such historic moments as the Concert for Bangladesh, benefits were little more than amateur nights: poor sound, self-indulgent speeches and almost total lack of musical ambition. The artists seemed to think it was enough simply to have donated their services. You want a heartfelt performance, too?

The U.S. government has spent more than $1 billion to turn about 20 of its embassies around the world into state-of-the-art anti-terrorist fortresses, designed to withstand mob violence and car bombs. The buildings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam are not among them. State Department officials said that, until Friday's deadly bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, neither country was on the department's list of high-danger posts.

Rain soaked the big top, but nothing short of a tsunami could have dampened the enthusiasm of audience and performers alike as Cirque du Soleil opened its latest extravaganza, "Alegria," at the South Coast Plaza mall Tuesday. Alegria means "joy" in Spanish, and in its best moments, when bodies are free falling in curlicues or snaking themselves into outlandish profiles, this new Cirque production conjures whoops and laughter.

Fans who go to see the California Angels tonight are sure to see at least something sparkle at Anaheim Stadium. Making its debut at tonight's game against the Chicago White Sox will be the new $3.6-million Sony Jumbotron Video board. The board is bigger and more technologically advanced than its predecessor, which toppled during the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake. Not only are its color images far brighter, but it is also a good deal more resilient, seismically speaking, officials said.

With Toyota/Lexus and Nissan/Infiniti already wrestling BMW and Mercedes for some small portion of an overpopulated luxury car market, along comes Audi with its quiet but highly significant challenge in walnut, leather and velvet V-8 power. Stylistically, here is a flagship of handsome looks falling somewhere between dispassionate and dignified--without resorting to body badges, numerics or nomenclature to brag of its muscle and punch.

In a Playa Vista aircraft hangar that turned out Army helicopters during the Vietnam War, an actor wearing a multicolored princess gown, tiara and wand waits for a crew of about 25 to finish lunch and resume filming. The building that once was part of Howard Hughes' sprawling Hercules complex, where the famous Spruce Goose was assembled during World War II, now provides a setting for another kind of American innovation - YouTube videos. The Google Inc. division has converted the 41,000-square-foot hangar into a state-of-the-art digital production facility that is believed to be one of the largest in Southern California devoted exclusively to content distributed online.

An exhibit booth--just the booth, not the people--was once taken hostage by a New York trucking company in a dispute with an air freight firm over an unpaid bill. The kidnaping stunt worked. The panicked company that owned the booth scurried to scrape together something--anything--else for the trade show that was about to open in Washington. Meanwhile, it pleaded for a settlement and, barely in time, the deal was made and the booth set free.

To the untrained eye, Diane Curran's portraits resemble psychedelic Rorschach tests. That's because she doesn't bother with faces or figures of her subjects: She paints portraits of their energy patterns. "I started seeing pictures of light and color in my mind when I was 4 years old," says the Sherman Oaks-based metaphysical artist, who began painting as a hobby more than 20 years ago. "Over the years, I've just learned to focus these perceptions without editing them with my rational mind."

When I can't sleep, I blame red wine, lack of exercise, caffeine after noon or being stressed out. My mind never goes to my mattress. Still, it is an alluring fantasy to believe that with the right mattress it wouldn't matter how much wine I drank, how little I exercised or how stressed out I was -- I would still sleep like a baby. My mattress could be the acupuncture, spa treatment and Ambien of my sleep world. Not likely, sleep experts say. "There is zero research to support claims that mattresses promote sleep or better sleep," said Dr. Alon Avidan, associate professor of neurology and director of UCLA's Sleep Disorder Center, a new state-of-the-art sleep laboratory.

Operators of a former hospital campus known as the Dream Center expect to receive a $49.7-million federal grant to add more housing to their charitable operations in Echo Park. The expansion marks a major milestone for the charity, which purchased the property formerly known as Queen of Angels Hospital for $3.9 million in 1996 and has worked since then to build a facility to help impoverished families, troubled youths and victimized women, some of whom might otherwise land in the penal system.