Lifestyle
29 gifts for the homebodies, brats and design devotees
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Sonya Lee, Maya bag, $200
With its unique angular silhouette and shoulder-length spaghetti straps, the Maya is not your average baguette. This is a sought-after piece with staying power. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Comme Si, Yves Cinque sock set, $150
Give the gift of a pair of socks for every day of the workweek with this set from Comme Si, made from breathable, stretchy, mid-weight Egyptian cotton. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Flore Flore, Esmé tank, $91
Launched in Amsterdam in 2021, Flore Flore has quickly become the go-to for fashion-forward and thoughtful cotton basics. Picking a color is the hardest part. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Relax Lacrosse x Lisa Says Gah, the Bow Pant, $148
(Relax Lacrosse x Lisa Says Gah)
For the friend with flair, these mesh lacrosse pants are the perfect balance of comfortable and cute. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Mohawk General Store, Smock Big Pocket tee three-pack, $150
L.A.’s Mohawk General Store has mastered the ultimate wardrobe building block via its Smock Big Pocket tee. This three-pack will keep your gift recipient covered for years to come. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
The Six Bells, Duck Boot ornament, $19.50
(Tory Williams / The Six Bells)
Deck the halls with cozy fashion ephemera. These felted duck boot ornaments from cottagecore store the Six Bells are the ultimate Christmas tree accessory. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Helen’s, Fusilli Palace gift box, $140
Bring L.A.’s iconic Jon & Vinny’s home with this gift box set, expertly curated for a decadent night in with a bottle of Italian wine, Jon & Vinny’s homemade dried fusilli pasta, Frankie’s olive oil, tomato paste, the J&V vodka sauce recipe, and a Heather Taylor Home kitchen towel. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Cookbook, gift card, any amount
Choice is sometimes the ultimate gift, so load up a Cookbook gift card for the grocery shop lover in your life. Fresh seasonal produce and the best collection of curated goods awaits. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Semi-D, Dimes pepper mill, $120
From the minds behind NYC’s lauded Dimes restaurant, comes Semi-D, a design-focused brand exploring various (yet to be determined) mediums beyond food. Each Semi-D pepper mill (its first product to date) is made from turned solid wood, individually hand-painted and finished in a high-gloss lacquer. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Fish Wife, Cantabrian anchovies three-pack, $27
Every home cook, pro chef and food lover knows that a good quality anchovy is a pantry staple. Bonus points for this stocking-stuffer size. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Formas, Souvenir Tee, $45
Founded by Natalia Luna & Josh Terris, Formas is L.A.’s go-to for rare and highly covetable vintage furniture and design items. Wear your taste on your sleeve. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Casa Veronica, Mágico lamp, from $1,500
(Casa Veronica)
Available in three sizes and five colors, the Mágico is a hand-built and painted stoneware lamp and lampshade. Each is one of a kind. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Commune, light socket, $50
The Commune light socket (with 18 colors to choose from!) is an easy way to elevate just about any space. We highly recommend throwing in its custom socket shade too. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Casa Shop, Peter Shire mugs, from $75
These one-of-a-kind Espresso Splatter mugs featuring paintings by artist Peter Shire (best known for his work with the Memphis Group in the ‘70s) are crafted by Echo Park Pottery in Los Angeles using slab construction and are individually hand-painted. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Starface, party pack, $10.99
Instant confidence in a tiny package, the Starface party pack features the internet’s favorite hydrocolloid pimple protectors in four fun colors. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
D.S. & Durga, Road Trip Hits auto fragrance set, $60
What party? From your car to your closet, the masters of scent at D.S. & Durga have created the ultimate go-anywhere room and wardrobe refreshers. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Beats by Dre, Solo Buds, $99.95
“Looks tiny, sounds huge” is the tagline for these earbuds in the juiciest shade of cherry red. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Bonnie Clyde, Groupie glasses, $178
For the ultimate fan, the Bonnie Clyde Groupie sunglasses come in seven shades to suit every mood and genre. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Pela, London Fog Chestnut Checkers iPhone case, $65
Plastic phone cases are a major drag. Thankfully, Pela has developed the first 100% compostable and durable phone case with hundreds of original styles to choose from. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
POJ Studio, Yuzu Leaf incense, $32
This incense is almost too beautiful to burn. Made in Japan, each pack contains five handcrafted incense leaves, wrapped in 100% plastic-free packaging. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Habit, Organic Masala Chai tea blend, $19.95
Skip the cafe line and make your own gourmet chai latte with Habit’s delicious loose-leaf chai tea blend, which is organic and fair trade. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
The Good Liver, Zig Zag wine opener, $84
(The Good Liver)
Equal parts object of design and functionality, this accordion-style corkscrew wine opener is made of nickel-plated steel and was first invented in France in the 1920s. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Art of Play, the Family Game, $36
This is not your average family card game. Don’t be afraid to dig a little deeper with 100 unexpected and thought-provoking questions dreamed up by the game’s inventors, the School of Life, a global organization helping people to lead more fulfilled lives through useful resources and tools. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Houseplant, pebble match strike, $125
Keep your matches handy and organized with this multi-purpose pebble match strike that looks like two stones stacked on top of each other. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Activist, Mānuka honey mask, $65
Mānuka honey has gained a cult following for its naturally healing and soothing properties, suitable for all skin types. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Sky High Farm Universe, All-purpose Tallow Balm, $38
Sales of Sky High Farm’s Tallow Balm go toward sustaining its nonprofit farm in upstate New York, which aims to address food insecurity by increasing access to fresh, locally produced food. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
F. Miller, Necessity Kit, $128
A travel-friendly set of daily essentials, the Necessity Kit includes mini versions of F. Miller’s bestselling products like its face and body oil, packaged in a reusable washed paper bag made from recycled content. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Rōz Hair, Foundation Mask, $48
A celebrity favorite, each bottle of L.A.-based Rōz Hair Foundation Mask comes with a handy key for getting the last little bit of product out. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Living Libations, Best Skin Ever Seabuckthorn, from $32
For friends who love efficiency, the Living Libations Best Skin Ever is an all-in-one cleanser, exfoliator and moisturizer. It’s also available in three sizes and refills. Purchase 👉🏽 here.
Romany Williams is a writer, editor and stylist based on Vancouver Island, Canada. She is a contributing editor at L.A. Times Image.
President John F. Kennedy, left, looks at a model of what was later named the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC., in 1963.
National Archives/Getty Images
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National Archives/Getty Images
On Thursday, the Kennedy Center’s name was changed to The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
By Friday morning, workers were already changing signs on the building itself, although some lawmakers said Thursday that the name can’t be changed legally without Congressional approval.
Though the arts venue is now closely associated with President Kennedy, it was three American presidents, including Kennedy, who envisioned a national cultural center – and what it would mean to the United States.
New signage, The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, is unveiled on Friday in Washington, D.C.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
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Jacquelyn Martin/AP
The Eisenhower Administration
In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower first pursued building what he called an “artistic mecca” in Washington, D.C., and created a commission to create what was then known as the National Cultural Center.
Three years later, Congress passed an act to build the new venue with the stated purpose of presenting classical and contemporary music, opera, drama, dance, and poetry from the United States and across the world. Congress also mandated the center to offer public programs, including educational offerings and programs specifically for children and older adults.
The Kennedy Administration
A November 1962 fundraiser for the center during the Kennedy administration featured stars including conductor Leonard Bernstein, comedian Danny Kaye, poet Robert Frost, singers Marian Anderson and Harry Belafonte, ballerina Maria Tallchief, pianist Van Cliburn – and a 7-year-old cellist named Yo-Yo Ma and his sister, 11-year-old pianist Yeou-Cheng Ma.
In his introduction to their performance, Bernstein specifically celebrated the siblings as new immigrants to the United States, whom he hailed as the latest in a long stream of “foreign artists and scientists and thinkers who have come not only to visit us, but often to join us as Americans, to become citizens of what to some has historically been the land of opportunity and to others, the land of freedom.”
At that event, Kennedy said this:
“As a great democratic society, we have a special responsibility to the arts — for art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color. The mere accumulation of wealth and power is available to the dictator and the democrat alike; what freedom alone can bring is the liberation of the human mind and spirit which finds its greatest flowering in the free society.”
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Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline were known for championing the arts at the White House. The president understood the free expression of creativity as an essential soft power, especially during the Cold War, as part of a larger race to excellence that encompassed science, technology, and education – particularly in opposition to what was then the Soviet Union.
The arts mecca envisioned by Eisenhower opened in 1971 and was named as a “living memorial” to Kennedy by Congress after his assassination.
The Johnson Administration
Philip Kennicott, the Pulitzer Prize-winning art and architecture critic for The Washington Post, said the ideas behind the Kennedy Center found their fullest expression under Kennedy’s successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson.
“Johnson in the Great Society basically compares the arts to other fundamental needs,” Kennicott said. “He says something like, ‘It shouldn’t be the case that Americans live so far from the hospital. They can’t get the health care they need. And it should be the same way for the arts.’ Kennedy creates the intellectual fervor and idea of the arts as essential to American culture. Johnson then makes it much more about a kind of popular access and participation at all levels.”
Ever since, Kennicott said, the space has existed in a certain tension between being a palace of the arts and a publicly accessible, popular venue. It is a grand structure on the banks of the Potomac River, located at a distance from the city’s center, and decked out in red and gold inside.
At the same time, Kennicott observed: “It’s also open. You can go there without a ticket. You can wander in and hear a free concert. And they have always worked very hard at the Kennedy Center to be sure that there’s a reason for people to think of it as belonging to them collectively, even if they’re not an operagoer or a symphony ticket subscriber.”
The Kennedy Center on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Kennicott estimated it will only take a few years for the controversies around a new name to fade away, if the Trump Kennedy moniker remains.
He likens it to the controversy that once surrounded another public space in Washington, D.C.: the renaming of Washington National Airport to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in 1998.
“A lot of people said, ‘I will never call it the Reagan National Airport.’ And there are still people who will only call it National Airport. But pretty much now, decades later, it is Reagan Airport,” Kennicott said.
“People don’t remember the argument. They don’t remember the controversy. They don’t remember the things they didn’t like about Reagan, necessarily. . . . All it takes is about a half a generation for a name to become part of our unthinking, unconscious vocabulary of place.
“And then,” he said, “the work is done.”
This story was edited for broadcast and digital by Jennifer Vanasco. The audio was mixed by Marc Rivers.
In the 1998 World War II film “Saving Private Ryan,” Tom Hanks played Captain John H. Miller, a citizen-soldier willing to die for his country. In real life, Mr. Hanks spent years championing veterans and raising money for their families. So it was no surprise when West Point announced it would honor him with the Sylvanus Thayer Award, which goes each year to someone embodying the school’s credo, “Duty, Honor, Country.”
Months after the announcement, the award ceremony was canceled. Mr. Hanks, a Democrat who had backed Kamala Harris, has remained silent on the matter. On Truth Social, President Trump did not hold back: “We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American awards!!!”
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