Lifestyle
Is print dead? Not at this indie bookstore publishing L.A.'s untold stories
Donato Martinez reads his poetry at the Libros Lincoln Heights bookshop.
On a Saturday evening in late April, the door of the Libros Lincoln Heights is propped open. Inside, 18 local poets pack the narrow single-room bookstore, waiting for a chance to read a poem or two at this month’s open mic in front of an enthusiastic audience.
Donato Martinez, an English professor at Santa Ana College, is the third poet to take the podium. He reads from a stack of loose papers, his hands moving in time with the stanzas he spits like rap bars.
“All street vendors are allowed. / taco stands that never get shut down / Free zone any time / Patrolled by our own. That means Elotes. Churros. Bacon wrapped hot dogs / Fruit cocktails anytime,” Martinez recites from his new poem, titled “If I Was God I Would Visit the Hood.”
The audience snaps and hums, layering their own harmony over the soft whir of the ceiling fan and the cars rushing down North Broadway.
Martinez’s poetry collection “Touch the Sky” can be found on the surrounding shelves, along with collections from three other of the night’s readers. Their presence speaks to the driving ethos behind the Libros: 80% to 90% of the merchandise on the bookstore’s mismatched shelves are written by residents of Lincoln Heights and nearby neighborhoods.
“I don’t just have one little shelf for local authors. The whole place is local authors,” Jesse Marez, the owner of the Libros, said. “It blends in with the neighborhood.”
Marez, an electrical engineer by trade and lifelong book lover, opened the Libros last November, in an effort to consolidate the bookshelves he’d been curating at cafes across the Eastside since late 2021. He estimates that it is the first bookstore in Lincoln Heights in upwards of 70 years.
A sticker for the Libros on the doorway of the shop.
Beverages at the open mic poetry reading.
Growing up in Lincoln Heights and neighboring El Sereno, where his family settled after immigrating from Mexico in 1969, Marez experienced this paucity firsthand. Now he’s determined to be at least one place where local authors can share their stories and readers can find a book across a variety of languages and genres.
“We didn’t grow up going to a bookstore or having books, so for me I think it’s valuable for a child,” Marez paused, ducking his head to wipe away tears. “I think it’s important for them to know they can have a book of their own, and it not to be a used book because we’re all used to hand-me-downs. I think in a neighborhood like this, people need to know that they can get a new book, especially at an early age.”
In the months since opening, the Libros has become a neighborhood hub, spotlighting books and authors that can’t always be found on the shelves of other bookstores. Collections of self-published poetry and family histories of Lincoln Heights sit alongside multi-award-winning books by Viet Thanh Nguyen and Kelly Lytle Hernández (also L.A. residents). On a table in the center of the room are copies of “Violet’s First Big Goodbye,” a picture book written by the bookstore’s youngest author, 8-year-old Luna Yanez-Cuestas.
Yanez-Cuestas, who lives in Burbank, wrote and self-published the book with her mother, Adriana Cuestas, to share the grief she felt after saying goodbye to her old neighborhood.
“It’s about saying goodbye to what you really love,” Yanez-Cuestas said.
A signed copy of “Violet’s First Big Goodbye” by Luna Yanez-Cuestas lies on a table at the Libros bookshop.
Customers come to the store for this wide selection of books, many of which have been signed by their authors. Marez said most of the books sell quickly because they are local.
Readers aren’t the only ones who frequent the store. Authors regularly stop by with books tucked under their arms, shyly asking whether Marez will sell their memoir or poetry collection. His answer is always an enthusiastic yes, even as shelf space becomes increasingly limited.
Marez has a knack for finding local writers, too. He met Lluvia Arras, L.A.-based author of “A Kids Book About Blended Families,” when their sons were playing soccer together. A few months later, he connected with Joseph Robledo at an exhibit on the Olympic Auditorium at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes.
Robledo is the author of “Blood on the Canvas,” a book commemorating his father, local boxing legend Canto ‘TNT’ Robledo. The son of Mexican immigrants, the elder Robledo became an amateur boxer at 15, turned pro at 16 and won the Pacific Coast Bantamweight Championship at 19. He was on his way to the world championship when a series of injuries left him permanently blind.
“Blood on the Canvas,” guides readers through backyard gyms in South Pasadena to the World Boxing Hall of Fame to tell the story of his father’s transformation from would-be champion to inspirational trainer who touched the lives of hundreds.
Attendees write poems during a poetry reading and open mic night at the Libros bookshop.
Attendees place their poems on plants outside the Libros bookshop.
Meeting authors like Robledo and Arras has drawn Marez into L.A.’s literary world and taught him tricks of a trade that is often opaque to outsiders.
Behind each book on the store’s shelves is a journey scattered with roadblocks. It’s challenging to break into the mainstream publishing world and, according to a new survey, the industry remains overwhelmingly white.
“I was obsessed with self-publishing because I thought based on how I hear things go for authors in our society, it just didn’t seem fair to give such a big part of your work to another person,” said Cuestas.
For these reasons, authors like Cuestas turn to independent or self-publishing to get their books out into the world. The latter, which has recently become increasingly popular, gives authors creative control and the potential to earn a greater share of the profits, said Brenda Vaca, an author based in Whittier who created her own publishing house to publish her poetry collection titled “Riot of Roses.”
But that creative control comes at the cost of donning all the hats: writer, publisher, distributor and marketer. Stewart J. Zully, who self-published a memoir about the 40 years he spent vending in Yankee Stadium, says he’s spent a large part of his writing career hustling alone and hoping for a break.
“The creativity and the work [to get] it done is one side of the brain and then the business side is completely different,” Zully said.
At the Libros, Marez is trying to lift a few of these hats off the authors’ heads by launching his own publishing company, Legacy Publications.
A paper bag with a sign that reads “We publish authors, talk to us” sits atop a shelf at the Libros bookshop.
“What we’re trying to do is help these authors with the distribution and the printing and the publishing,” he said. “Because they’re more worried about how to make a dollar or how to do the distribution, where they should be worried about their second book.”
Like the bookstore, Legacy Publications is deeply rooted in Marez’s pride for the Eastside neighborhoods he grew up in.
“I want to feature people that have actually made our community,” Marez said. “We want to talk about people who have left a legacy in our neighborhoods.’”
In launching this new branch of the business, Marez aims to highlight local voices, help authors make a profit and ensure the books themselves are made with high-quality materials. He prioritizes working with local printers such as Litho Press and Paperleaf Press and plans to release at least three books by the new year.
In his dual roles, Marez is filling Lincoln Heights with books that take readers to distant countries and eras, opening up new worlds. Alongside them, are stories that bring readers home with untold histories of the neighborhoods that have raised them and their families. The authors themselves find solace in knowing that, at least at the Libros, their books will be read and shared.
“Our books, they don’t appear at Barnes & Noble,” Martinez said, referencing how stories by authors of color have largely been kept out of mainstream publishing, and thus bookstores, for generations. “I wish they did and I think our stories belong there. If they’re not at Barnes & Noble, we need these independent bookstores to house our books. We support Libros and then Libros provides a safe space for the writers and poets. I think that right there is a relationship.”
The art industry is increasingly shaped by artists’ and art businesses’ shared realization that they are locked in a fierce struggle for sustained attention — against each other, and against the rest of the overstimulated, always-online world. A major New York art fair aims to win this competition next month by knocking down the increasingly shaky walls between contemporary art and fashion.
When visitors enter the Independent art fair on May 14, they will almost immediately encounter its open-plan centerpiece: an installation of recent couture looks from Comme des Garçons. It will be the first New York solo presentation of works by Rei Kawakubo, the brand’s founder and mastermind, since a lauded 2017 survey exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
Art fairs have often been front and center in the industry’s 21st-century quest to capture mindshare. But too many displays have pierced the zeitgeist with six-figure spectacles, like Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped banana and Beeple’s robot dogs. Curating Independent around Comme des Garçons comes from the conviction that a different kind of iconoclasm can rise to the top of New York’s spring art scrum.
Elizabeth Dee, the founder and creative director of Independent, said that making Kawakubo’s work the “nerve center” of this year’s edition was a “statement of purpose” for the fair’s evolution. After several years at the compact Spring Studios in TriBeCa, Independent will more than double its square footage by moving to Pier 36 at South Street, on the East River. Dee has narrowed the fair’s exhibitor list, to 76, from 83 dealers in 2025, and reduced booth fees to encourage a focus on single artists making bold propositions.
“Rei’s work has been pivotal to thinking about how my work as a curator, gallerist and art fair can push boundaries, especially during this extraordinary move toward corporatization and monoculture in the art world in the last 20 years,” Dee said.
Kawakubo’s designs have been challenging norms since her brand’s first Paris runway show in 1981, but her work over the last 13 years on what she calls “objects for the body” has blurred borders between high fashion and wearable sculpture.
The Comme des Garçons presentation at Independent will feature 20 looks from autumn-winter 2020 to spring-summer 2025. Forgoing the runway, Kawakubo is installing her non-clothing inside structures made from rebar and colored plastic joinery.
Adrian Joffe, the president of both Comme des Garçons International and the curated retailer Dover Street Market International (and who is also Kawakubo’s husband), said in an interview that Kawakubo’s intention was to create a sculptural installation divorced from chronology and fashion — “a thing made new again.”
Every look at Independent was made in an edition of three or fewer, but only one of each will be for sale on-site. Prices will be about $9,000 to $30,000. Comme des Garçons will retain 100 percent of the sales.
Asked why she was interested in exhibiting at Independent, the famously elusive Kawakubo said via email, “The body of work has never been shown together, and this is the first presentation in New York in almost 10 years.” Joffe added a broader philosophical motivation. “We’ve never done it before; it was new,” he said. Also essential was the fair’s willingness to embrace Kawakubo’s vision for the installation rather than a standard fair booth.
Kawakubo began consistently engaging with fine art decades before such crossovers became commonplace. Since 1989, she has invited a steady stream of contemporary artists to create installations in Comme des Garçons’s Tokyo flagship store. The ’90s brought collaborations with the artist Cindy Sherman and performance pioneer Merce Cunningham, among others.
More cross-disciplinary projects followed, including limited-release direct mailers for Comme des Garçons. Kawakubo designs each from documentation of works provided by an artist or art collective.
The display at Independent reopens the debate about Kawakubo’s proper place on the continuum between artist and designer. But the issue is already settled for celebrated artists who have collaborated with her.
“I totally think of Rei as an artist in the truest sense,” Sherman said by email. “Her work questions what everyone else takes for granted as being flattering to a body, questions what female bodies are expected to look like and who they’re catering to.”
Ai Weiwei, the subject of a 2010 Comme des Garçons direct mailer, agreed that Kawakubo “is, in essence, an artist.” Unlike designers who “pursue a sense of form,” he added, “her design and creation are oriented toward attitude” — specifically, an attitude of “rebellion.”
Also taking this position is “Costume Art,” the spring exhibition at the Costume Institute. Opening May 10, the show pairs individual works from multiple designers — including Comme des Garçons — with artworks from the Met’s holdings to advance the argument made by the dress code for this year’s Met gala: “Fashion is art.”
True to form, Kawakubo sometimes opts for a third way.
“Rei has often said she’s not a designer, she’s not an artist,” Joffe said. “She is a storyteller.”
Now to find out whether an art fair sparks the drama, dialogue and attention its authors want.
Lifestyle
They set out to elevate karaoke in L.A. — and opened a glamorous lounge that pulls out all the stops
Brothers Leo and Oliver Kremer visited karaoke spots around the globe and almost always had the same impression.
“The drinks weren’t always great, the aesthetics weren’t always so glamorous, the sound wasn’t always awesome and the lights were often generic,” says Leo, a former bassist of the band Third Eye Blind.
As devout karaoke fans, they wanted to level up the experience. So they dreamed up Mic Drop, an upscale karaoke lounge in West Hollywood that opens Thursday. It’s located inside the original Larrabee Studios, a historic 1920s building formerly owned by Carole King and her ex-husband, Gerry Goffin — and the spot where King recorded some of her biggest hits. Third Eye Blind band members Stephan Jenkins and Brad Hargreaves are investors of the new venue.
Inside the two-story, 6,300-square-foot venue with 13 private karaoke rooms and an electrifying main stage, you can feel like a rock star in front of a cheering audience. Want to check it out? Here are six things to know.
The Kremer brothers hired sculptor Shawn HibmaCronan to create an 8-foot-tall disco-themed microphone for their karaoke lounge.
1. Take your pick between a private karaoke experience or the main stage
A unique element of Mic Drop is that it offers both private karaoke rooms and a main stage experience for those who wish to sing in front of a crowd. The 13 private rooms range from six- to 45-person capacity. Each of the karaoke rooms are named after a famous recording studio such as Electric Lady, Abbey Road, Shangri La and of course, Larrabee Studios. There is a two-hour minimum on all rentals and hourly rates depend on the room size and day of the week.
But if you’re ready to take the center stage, it’s free to sing — at least technically. All you have to do is pay a $10 fee at the door, which is essentially a token that goes toward your first drink. Then you can put your name on the list with the KJ (karaoke jockey) who keeps the crowd energized throughout the night and even hits the stage at times.
Harrison Baum, left, of Santa Monica, and Amanda Stagner, 27, of Los Angeles, sing in one of the 13 private karaoke rooms.
2. Thumping, high sound quality was a top priority
As someone who toured the world playing bass for Third Eye Blind, top-tier sound was a nonnegotiable for Leo. “Typically with karaoke, the sound is kind of teeny, there’s not a lot of bass and the vocal is super hot and sitting on top too much,” he says. To combat this, he and his brother teamed up with Pineapple Audio, an audio visual company based in Chicago, to design their crisp sound system. They also installed concert-grade speakers and custom subwoofers from a European audio equipment manufacturer called Celto, and bought gold-plated Sennheiser wireless microphones, which they loved so much that they had an 8-foot-tall replica made for their main room. Designed by artist Shawn HibmaCronan, the “macrophone,” as they call it, has roughly 30,000 mirror tiles. “It spins and throws incredible disco light everywhere,” says Leo.
Karaoke jockeys Sophie St. John, 27, second from left, and Cameron Armstrong, 30, right, get the crowd involved with their song picks at Mic Drop.
3. A concert-level performance isn’t complete without good stage lighting and a haze machine
Each karaoke room features a disco ball and dynamic lighting that syncs up with whatever song you’re singing, which makes you feel like you are a professional performer. There’s also a haze machine hidden under the leather seats. Meanwhile, the main stage is concert-ready with additional dancing lasers and spotlights.
Brett Adams, left, of Sherman Oaks, and Patrick Riley of Studio City sing karaoke together inside a private lounge at Mic Drop.
4. The song selection is vast, offering classics and new hits
One of the worst things that can happen when you go to karaoke is not being able to find the song you want to sing. At Mic Drop, the odds of this happening are slim to none. The venue uses a popular karaoke service called KaraFun, which has a catalog of more than 600,000 songs (and adds 400 new tracks every month), according to its website. Take your pick from country, R&B, jazz, rap, pop, love duets and more. (Two newish selections I spotted were Raye’s “Where Is my Husband” and Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” which both released late last year.) In the private karaoke rooms, there’s also a fun feature on Karafun called “battle mode,” which allows you and your crew of up to 20 people to compete in real time. KaraFun also has an entertaining music trivia game, which I tested out with the founders and came in second place.
The design inspiration for Mic Drop was 1920s music lounges and 1970s disco culture, says designer Amy Morris.
5. The interiors are inspired by 1920s music lounges mixed with ‘70s disco vibes
A disco ball hangs from the ceiling.
If you took the sophisticated aesthetic of 1920s music lounges and mixed it with the vibrant and playful era of 1970s disco culture, you’d find Mic Drop.
When you walk into the lounge, the first thing you’ll see is a bright red check-in desk that resembles a performer’s dressing room with vanity lights, several mirrors and a range of wigs. “So much of karaoke is about getting into character and letting go of the day, so we had the idea to sell the wigs,” says Oliver. As you continue into the lounge, the focal point is the stage, which is adorned with zebra-printed carpet and dramatic, red velvet curtains. For seating, slide into the red velvet banquettes or plop onto a gold tiger velvet stool. Upstairs, you’ll find the intimate karaoke studios, which are decorated with red velvet walls and brass, curved doorways that echo the building’s deco arches, says Mic Drop’s interior designer, Amy Morris of the Morris Project.
Sarah Rothman, center, of Oakland, and friend Rachel Bernstein, left, of Los Angeles, wait at the bar.
6. You can order nontraditional karaoke bites as you wait for your turn to sing
While Mic Drop offers some of the food you’d typically find at a karaoke lounge such as tater tots, truffle popcorn and pizza, the venue has some surprising options as well. For example, a 57 gram caviar service (served with chips, crème fraîche and chives) and shrimp cocktail from Santa Monica Seafood. For their pizza program, the Kremer brothers teamed up with Avalou’s Italian Pizza Company, which is run by Louis Lombardi who starred in “The Sopranos.” He’s the brainchild behind my favorite dish, the Fuhgeddaboudit pizza, which is made with pastrami, pickles and mustard. It might sound repulsive, but trust me.
As for the cheeky cocktails, they are all named after famous musicians and songs such as the Pink Pony Club (a tart cherry pomegranate drink with vodka named after Chappell Roan), Green Eyes (a sake sour with kiwi and melon named after Green Day) and Megroni Thee Stallion (an elevated negroni named after Megan Thee Stallion).
When John Lantigua, a retired journalist in Miami Beach, checked his email one recent morning, he was glad to see an invitation.
“It was like, ‘Come and share an evening with me. Click here for details,’” Mr. Lantigua said.
It appeared to be a Paperless Post invitation from someone he once worked with at The Palm Beach Post, a man who had left Florida for Mississippi and liked to arrange dinners when he was back in town.
Mr. Lantigua, 78, clicked the link. It didn’t open.
He clicked a second time. Still nothing.
He didn’t realize what was going on until a mutual friend who had received the same email told him it wasn’t an invitation at all. It was a scam.
Phishing scams have long tried to frighten people into clicking on links with emails claiming that their bank accounts have been hacked, or that they owe thousands of dollars in fines, or that their pornography viewing habits have been tracked.
The invitation scam is a little more subtle: It preys on the all-too-human desire to be included in social gatherings.
The phishy invitations mimic emails from Paperless Post, Evite and Punchbowl. What appears to be a friendly overture from someone you know is really a digital Trojan horse that gives scammers access to your personal information.
“I thought it was diabolical that they would choose somebody who has sent me a legitimate invitation before,” Mr. Lantigua said. “He’s a friend of mine. If he’s coming to town, I want to see him.”
Rachel Tobac, the chief executive of SocialProof Security, a cybersecurity firm, said she noticed the scam last holiday season.
“Phishing emails are not a new thing,” Ms. Tobac said, “but every six months, we get a new lure that hijacks our amygdala in new ways. There’s such a desire for folks to get together that this lure is interesting to people. They want to go to a party.”
Phishing scams involve “two distinct paths,” Ms. Tobac added. In one, the recipient is served a link that turns out to be dead, or so it seems. A click activates malware that runs silently as it gleans passwords and other bits of personal information. In all likelihood, this is what happened when Mr. Lantigua clicked on the ersatz invitation link.
Another scam offers a working link. Potential victims who click on it are asked to provide a password. Those who take that next step are a boon to hackers.
“They have complete control of your email and, in turn, your entire digital life,” Ms. Tobac said. “They can reset your password for your dog’s Instagram account. They can take over your bank account. Change your health insurance.”
Digital invitation platforms are trying to combat the scam by publishing guides on how to spot fake invitations. Paperless Post has also set up an email account — phishing@paperlesspost.com — for users to submit messages for verification. The company sends suspicious links to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a nonprofit that maintains a database monitored by cybersecurity firms. Flagged links are rendered ineffective.
The scammers’ new strategy of exploiting the desire for connection is infuriating, said Alexa Hirschfeld, a founder of Paperless Post. “Life can be isolating,” Ms. Hirschfeld said. “When it looks like you’re getting an invitation from someone you know, your first instinct is excitement, not skepticism.”
Olivia Pollock, the vice president of brand for Evite, said that fake invitations tended to be generic, promising a birthday party or a celebration of life. Most invitations these days tend to have a specific focus — mahjong gatherings or book club talks, for instance. “The devil is in the details,” Ms. Pollock said.
Because scammers don’t know how close you are with the people in your contact list, fake invitations may also seem random. “They could be from your business school roommate you haven’t spoken to in 10 years,” Ms. Hirschfeld said.
Alyssa Williamson, who works in public relations in New York, was leaving a yoga class recently when she checked her phone and saw an invitation from a college classmate.
“I assumed it was an alumni event,” Ms. Williamson, 30, said. “I clicked on it, and it was like, ‘Enter your email.’ I didn’t even think about it.”
Later that day, she received texts from friends asking her about the party invitation she had just sent out. Her response: What party?
“The thing is, I host a lot of events,” she said. “Some knew it was fake. Others were like, ‘What’s this? I can’t open it.’”
Andrew Smith, a graduate student in finance who lives in Manhattan, received what looked like a Punchbowl invitation to “a memory making celebration.” It appeared to have come from a woman he had dated in college. He received it when he was having drinks at a bar on a Friday night — “a pretty insidious piece of timing,” he said.
“The choice of sender was super clever,” Mr. Smith, 29, noted. “This was somebody that would probably get a reaction from me.”
Mr. Smith seized on the phrase “memory making celebration” and filled in the blanks. He imagined that someone in his ex-girlfriend’s immediate family had died. Perhaps she wanted to restart contact at this difficult moment.
Something saved him when he clicked a link and tried to tap out his personal information — his inability to remember the password to his email account. The next day, he reached out to his ex, who confirmed that the invitation was fake.
“It didn’t trigger any alarm bells,” Mr. Smith said. “I went right for the click. I went completely animal brain.”
The new scam comes with an unfortunate side effect, a suspicion of invitations altogether. It’s enough to make a person antisocial.
“Don’t invite me to anything,” Mr. Lantigua, the retired journalist, said, only half-joking. “I’m not coming.”
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