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How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Bobby Berk

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How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Bobby Berk

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

You might not expect one of television’s hippest and most recognizable interior designers to admit to being a fan of the valley — that’s right, the San Fernando Valley — but that is partly why “Queer Eye’s” Bobby Berk moved from New York to Los Angeles.

“One of the things I love about L.A. is how outdoors-centric it is,” Berk says. “The weather allows you to be outside as much as possible. I was in New York for 14 years, and that was not my experience.”

As a creative director, interior designer and television host on the Emmy-nominated series on Netflix, Berk has always tried to make home decor accessible to everyone. “I want to democratize design,” says the 41-year-old designer and author of “Right at Home: How Good Design Is Good for the Mind,” which will be released Sept. 12.

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“My book is about the intersection of mental health and home design,” Berk says. “The book delves into not just how to make your space pretty, but how to figure out what makes you happy. What is your favorite clothing? Vacation? You should work those things into your home because they will make you happy. Your home is like your phone charger. If you don’t charge it, your phone won’t make it through the day, and it will die.”

When not traveling the country for “Queer Eye” or his inaugural book tour — he will be signing his book at Barnes & Noble at the Grove in Los Angeles on Sept. 15 — Berk likes to relax in L.A. by spending time with his husband, Dewey Do, and their mini Labradoodle, Bimini.

Berk’s Sundays usually begin at the gym in Studio City and end with dinner at home with Do and friends like comedian Atsuko Okatsuka. Here, he shares how he typically enjoys Sundays in L.A.

Berk, a SAG-AFTRA member, was recently nominated for an Emmy for his work as a host on “Queer Eye.” This interview was conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.

7 a.m.: Walk Bimini around Lake Hollywood

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The first thing we do when we get up is feed our mini Labradoodle, Bimini. Then we usually walk around Lake Hollywood or hike one of the trails that lead up to the Hollywood sign. We are obsessed with getting our steps in.

8:30 a.m.: Spin class in the Valley

I have to force myself to go to the gym. If I don’t book a class, I’ll take calls or read emails, and then I won’t go. If I commit to something, I will do it. So I will either take a spin class at Heimat on La Brea — it’s as if SoHo House and Equinox had a baby — or I’ll book a class at the Equinox at the Shops at Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City. The funny thing is, before I moved to L.A., I would think, “The Valley? Ewww!” But now you have to twist my arm to get me to go in to L.A.

I go to Sherman Oaks and Studio City for everything. The Shops at Sportsmen’s Lodge has an Equinox, Erewhon, Fred Segal, Kismet — and there’s parking! I usually work out after spin class, so if I took a class at 10, I wouldn’t leave until noon or 1. That way, I’m out of the gym by 10:15.

10:30 a.m.: Grab a coffee in Burbank

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After I hit the gym, I usually grab a coffee at Coffee Commissary in Burbank.

I love supporting smaller coffee shops. Don’t get me wrong, when I’m out of town for work, I’ll hit Starbucks because I know what to expect, but I prefer to support small businesses when I’m home.

Noon: Shop the Rose Bowl Flea Market

If it’s the second Sunday of the month, I’ll go to the Rose Bowl Flea Market. If I am looking for something specific, I’ll go early, but usually, I just purchase regular admission. For me, it’s more about having fun. My tip is not to go in with any expectations. If I find something, I find something.

Whenever I’m looking for something specific, I don’t find it. It’s a flea market; after all, everything is unique. But if I go for fun, I find the most amazing things, like a beautiful Midcentury Modern credenza I have kept for years and years. I am constantly changing things but have kept it in three different houses. I advise going for fun, and you might find something unique. You can always call Task Rabbit if you need a truck pickup.

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2 p.m.: Brunch in Silver Lake

Our dog goes with us everywhere, so we go to places where we can all sit outside.

We like to have brunch at Bacari in Silver Lake. It was beautiful when it was Cliff’s Edge, but they have made it even more beautiful. And the food is terrific.

3:30 p.m. Ice cream in Los Feliz

We love ice cream — especially salty and sweet flavors — and I love me some Jeni’s. I usually get the Everything Bagel [sweet cream ice cream schmeared with sesame, poppy seeds, onions and garlic], which is my favorite. I became obsessed with Jeni’s when we filmed the first season of “Queer Eye,” and there was one next door to where we were staying in Atlanta. There’s usually a line, but you don’t have to wait if you buy a pint. My tip: Buy way more ice cream than you need, so you don’t have to wait in line.

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4:30 p.m.: Chill and play fetch with Bimini

One of my favorite things about living in L.A. is how chill it is. I laugh at myself when I say that by the way. When I lived in New York, a good friend and I rented a house in the Hamptons one time, and when my best friend and business partner came out with his husband, they kept talking about how “chill” it was in Los Angeles. As a New Yorker who was definitely not chill, I would start twitching whenever they said the word “chill.” But now, I say it too: We like to chill at home and play fetch with the dog on Sunday afternoons.

6 p.m.: Alfresco dinner on the deck with family and friends

On Sunday evenings, we catch up on our shows and have dinner on our deck, often with my friend comedian Atsuko Okatsuka and her husband Ryan Harper Gray.

Hosting a small dinner party at my house with friends is my favorite thing to do on a Sunday evening. We mostly eat vegan and pescatarian at home, and my husband cooks. I can cook but don’t like to, so Dewey cooks. And we all clean up together. Our friends are good about cleaning up. Dewey loves to cook and experiment. He doesn’t have a signature dish because every meal is different.

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8:30 p.m. Catch up on TV shows

I love sci-fi, so we enjoy TV shows like “Silo” or “Foundation,” which just released a second season. “High Desert” is something we have been watching too.

“Stars on Mars” is so stupid, but I love it. It’s basically “Big Brother” on Mars. The celebrity contestants are sent to the Australian outback, which has been designed to simulate Mars. Our friends [Olympic figure skater] Adam Rippon and comedian Natasha Leggero are on it. William Shatner is the host. I am usually not a big reality show fan, but any time my friends are on a show, I have to watch it.

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6 new books out this week, including true stories of trailblazers

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6 new books out this week, including true stories of trailblazers

When we were kids, summer was graced with the tang of saltwater and possibility, and the fading song of school’s final bell. But for many working adults these days, the season often just kind of feels … the same as the rest of the year. Except with, maybe, a few more bugs and a bit more sweat.

So perhaps our notion of a “beach read,” that quintessential artifact of the season, ought to evolve too. Sure, there will always be room for breezy books, but this week’s publishing highlights at least feel refreshingly different — if only because these books, filled as they are with historic firsts, complex lives and destructive loves, don’t promise too much escapist refreshment at all.

Consider them, instead, as windows on a complicated world that’s always with us, whatever the calendar may say.

@UGMan by Mark Sarvas

Don’t be fooled by the triumphalist lie trumpeted by those Billy Goats Gruff: The troll never really died, he just traded his underbridge lair for the less literal — and more insidious — darkness of social media. And he has a lot to catch you up on. In this disquieting novel, Sarvas’ third, a protagonist known better by his online handle (@UGMan, natch) allows readers into the barbed tangle of his thoughts in an multiform monologue that recalls the captivating obsessives created by the late great Thomas Bernhard.

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I’ll Be Right Here: A Novel by Amy Bloom

Half a decade removed from her husband’s decision to pursue assisted suicide — an experience she chronicled in a devastating 2022 memoir, In Love — novelist Amy Bloom is returning to the comparative succor of fiction. Her latest novel weaves intimacies on an expansive loom of decades, following a found family of immigrants and sparkplug friends in New York City. The intergenerational saga, as reviewer Heller McAlpin notes for NPR, “once again showcases Bloom’s signature open-armed embrace of love in its many forms.”

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Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh by Robin Givhan

By the time Abloh died of cancer in 2021, the 41-year-old had ascended the commanding heights of the fashion world. Men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton, founder of a label repped by hip-hop’s household names – Off-White, IKEA collaborator and former architecture student, the renaissance man was many things — including, simply and perhaps most powerfully, a Black man. Givhan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic, followed the trailblazing designer’s rise as it took shape; now, in a book that’s equal parts biography and essay, she is reflecting on a legacy that defied the limits of the runway.

Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

A poet and professor whose work has been steeped in memoir and archive-plumbing biography, Jeffers made a monumental pivot to fiction with 2021’s centuries-spanning epic, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois. Though certainly a leap, her debut novel continued what has become something of a career-long project for her, foregrounding the stories of heroic Black women. Now, Jeffers is carrying that project forward in still another mode, turning to personal and political essays to reflect on the complicated — at times seemingly impossible — position that Black women like her occupy in a culture determined to reduce them to virtually anything but themselves.

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Room on the Sea: Three Novellas by André Aciman

The author best known for Call Me By Your Name, the lush portrait of young same-sex love adapted into a beloved 2017 film, here presents a triptych of novellas rooted in the same sweetly painful intimacies. The three stories collected in Room on the Sea all concern the kinds of quiet, complex love that refuse to fit neatly on a greeting card. Swoonworthy though their settings may be, these relationships look less like the scenes on postcards than the images we catch in passing patinated mirrors.

Trailblazer: Perseverance in Life and Politics by Carol Moseley Braun

Moseley Braun, more than most, has heard her fair share of the word “first.” The politician made history as the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, back in 1992, and later as the first Black woman to serve as ambassador to New Zealand. Yet, as glamorous as that word may be, the necessary flipside of “first” is the struggle that comes with occupying spaces that aren’t used to people who look and talk like you. In Moseley Braun’s memoir, she reflects on a life lived in the public eye, which in her words, “has always been an uphill climb.”

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Inspired by her dog, this L.A. ceramist makes beloved pets 'eternal'

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Inspired by her dog, this L.A. ceramist makes beloved pets 'eternal'

Ceramic characters, each with their own whimsical charm, gaze from various angles in Rami Kim’s studio. Built by hand, their faces emerge from planters, ceramic dishes and slip-cast mugs like the cast of an animated Hayao Miyazaki movie. On a shelf, a customized dog figurine — a client’s beloved terrier — lies on its stomach atop a lilac-colored butter dish. Nearby, a retriever, in a seated position, rests on a woman’s head.

“I like the idea of giving life to the objects I create,” Kim said, standing in her garage studio. “They’re my imaginary friends.”

In this series, we highlight independent makers and artists, from glassblowers to fiber artists, who are creating original products in Los Angeles.

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Some of her sculptures have names, each a tribute to the inspiration behind them. There’s the Penelope table lamp, where a mysterious, almost melancholy face base is adorned with a glass globe. And there’s Gus, Kim’s beloved white Maltese, who was her constant companion for 17 years until his death in 2023.

“I spent my 20s, 30s and part of my 40s with Gus,” she said softly before adding, “I miss him.”

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Kim was sculpting a life-size Gus lamp at her work table the other day when a smile suddenly illuminated her face. With each detail of his fluffy coat, she seemed to be acknowledging the dog who brought her so much joy, infusing the lamp with the same warmth and happiness as her constant companion.

Two pet tiles show a poodle and a dachshund
Face pots
Ceramic butter dishes with the heads of Maltese dogs
A bowl featuring ceramicist Rami Kim's late dog

“People like to have something functional that they can use every day,” Kim said of her character-driven works.

“Gus was my family,” said the 43-year-old artist as she painted the dog’s eyes and nose. “He was a sweet boy with a gentle personality. During the pandemic, it was so helpful to have him near me when life was so uncertain.”

Born and raised in Seoul, Kim studied character animation at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). After earning a master of fine arts from the UCLA Animation Workshop, she secured a job as a background painter for Nickelodeon’s “Dora the Explorer” and the independent animation company July Films, where she worked on her former CalArts professor Mike Nguyen’s 2D-animated feature film “My Little World.”

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Gus accompanied her.

Ceramicist Rami Kim poses for a portrait at her studio

“I want to make work that people can touch and hold,” said Kim, a former animator.

Kim smiled, remembering how her colleagues embraced Gus. “I would bring him to work with me every day,” she recalled. “Everybody liked to greet him and was so happy to see him. He would sit under my desk on his dog bed while I worked at the computer.”

Kim was still working in animation when she first tried ceramics at Ball Clay Studio in Highland Park, which is now closed. “I started making these little figurines as a product for stop-motion animation,” she said, holding two floating faces. The transition from the digital world to the tactile process of ceramics was a turning point in her artistic journey.

A ceramic face lamp with a globe top
Ceramics on a shelf
Rami Kim paints her late dog Gus on a ceramic plate

A selection of works inside Kim’s ceramics studio near La Crescenta.

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“I still remember when I first touched the clay,” Kim said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God. I need to keep doing this.’ I loved working with my hands. The possibilities seemed endless. I just knew that I would be doing ceramics for the rest of my life, as I would never get bored with it. And I get bored easily.”

It grew from there.

Coming from an animation background, where she learned the art of bringing characters to life, Kim said she “always wanted to create characters in a different form. That’s how I give life to my ceramic creations.”

A lamp depicting ceramicist Rami Kim's dog Gus is displayed at her studio

Adding faces to her vessels made Kim feel like the pieces “now have a life.”

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She started to turn her organic vessels into faces, complete with eyes and lips. “That made me feel like they had a character,” she said. “The sculptures now have a life.”

When she grew weary of sitting at a computer all day long doing animation, Kim decided to pursue ceramics full time, working out of a studio in Atwater Village and later a garage studio next to her rental home near La Crescenta.

Nguyen, her former CalArts professor, isn’t surprised to hear she has an emotional attachment to the characters she creates.

“We as humans are very much interested in each others essences, thoughts and feelings,” he said in an email. “Character-driven work is one focus aspect of the overall experiences of being alive. It is not necessarily coming directly from her work as an animator, but from the people she has met, the friends in her life and her family.”

 A ceramic home depicting Rami Kim and her dog Gus

A ceramic home depicts Kim and her dog, Gus.

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With people worried about a possible recession, Kim has seen customers hesitate to spend money on her works, which cost between $50 for a mug to $1,800 for a customized lamp. So she started creating custom animal figurines for clients, many of whom, like her, have lost their pets. “People share their stories about the past,” she said of the process. “They share photos of their pet and tell me their favorite poses, which helps me sculpt them. I feel like I know the pets. It’s very special.”

Eileen O’Dea — who commissioned Kim to design a figurine of her late dog, Owen, a mixed pup she found on the street near her West L.A. woodshop — talked about the profound emotional resonance of Kim’s work. “It’s the kind of object that blurs the line between beauty and memory,” O’Dea said of the butter dish Kim made her. “It looks just like him; even his floppy ear is perfect. Every time I use it, I’m reminded of him.”

Another customer ordered two custom figurines as a gift for her sister who had just completed nursing school at the age of 60. “Her dogs had helped her get through it,” Kim said. “It was such a touching story to be a part of.”

Ceramicist Rami Kim works on a sculpture of her late dog Gus
Ceramicist Rami Kim works on a sculpture of her late dog Gus

“Hopefully Gus is running around with other dogs having a good time,” Kim said of her late dog, Gus.

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The tactile nature of her work is something she hopes to share with others. “I want to create work that people can enjoy and touch and hold,” she said, adding, “I hope my work gives people a warm feeling.”

Yes, it’s hard working for yourself, she said, but Kim likes the flexibility of being able to work anytime she wants or take a day off to wander a museum or see a movie. However, after she relocated her studio from Atwater Village, where she shared space with other artists, to her home in La Crescenta, she admitted to feeling isolated.

“I miss having a community and visiting with studio mates. I feel like I learn so much from other people. That’s why I host workshops here in my studio,” said Kim, who enjoys teaching. “As an independent artist working alone, it’s tough because I don’t want to work too much in the wholesale business because then I would need a team and more orders, and then I would have to operate like a factory.”

Ceramicist Rami Kim is seen at her studio

“It makes me happy when people share stories about their pets with me,” Kim said.

Two custom cat figurines rest next to one another on a table
Two dog figurines stand side by side

Kim’s ability to capture the unique personality of each pet in her ceramics provides solace to clients who have lost their pets. (Rami Kim )

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Still, she can’t see herself going back to computer work. “I’ll never get bored with this,” she said. “I can do this until I’m 90. I’m having so much fun.”

Kim’s understanding of the comfort her ceramics provide to those grieving the loss of a pet is not just professional but deeply personal. She has experienced it herself in her studio, home and garden, where she is surrounded by the “friends” that she has created.

“When I put the Gus lamp on a table in my living room, it feels like he is sitting next to me,” she said. “He’s eternal now.”

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Democratic senators rent space at the Kennedy Center to host a Pride event

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Democratic senators rent space at the Kennedy Center to host a Pride event

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, April 2025.

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts


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John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

A group of Democratic senators and Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller are hosting a Pride celebration at the Kennedy Center Monday evening. But the Kennedy Center has nothing to do with programming it.

Senators John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin have rented the Justice Forum, a small theater at the REACH, an expansion to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that opened in 2019.

While the group of senators booked the space a few weeks ago, the Pride event, called Love Is Love, was only announced on Monday. A statement from Sen. Hickenlooper’s office says the event is “about standing up for the arts and the progress the LGBTQ community has made. The performance reminds us that our fight for equality — and for democracy — isn’t over. It’s happening right now.” Directed by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley, the show will include songs celebrating gay culture.

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Seller, whose credits also include Rent and Avenue Q, told The New York Times, Hickenlooper called him to see if he’d like to engage in some “guerrilla theater.” Seller, who is gay, didn’t hesitate.

After President Trump took over the Kennedy Center in February, Seller and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda canceled a production of the touring show scheduled for the Center in 2026. At the time, Seller wrote on X, “The recent purge by the Trump Administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national center represents.”

Current Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell called the cancelation “a publicity stunt that will backfire.” In a post on X, he wrote that Miranda “is intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically,” and that Miranda and Seller “don’t want Republicans going to their shows.”

Seller told The New York Times that Monday night’s show is “our way of reoccupying the Kennedy Center.”

The Kennedy Center did not respond to NPR’s request for comment.

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Meanwhile, the White House has proposed a major increase to the Kennedy Center’s federal funding, while funds to other cultural institutions have been severely cut. The request of nearly $257 million is “for necessary expenses for capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures of the building and site of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”

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