Five Most Dazzling Musicians In History

To truly be a legendary musician, you need to possess a unique combination of talents. Not only do you need a mind that can reconcile both the complex task of performing music, but one that can also infuse it with emotion. The five musicians in this article combine physical mastery with deep reserves of soul to stand above all others.

Glenn Gould
Widely regarded as one of the most versatile and compelling pianists in history, Gould had a unique ability to infuse his personality into everything he played. There were certainly performers who had more technical skills, but none with as much soul.

Jimi Hendrix
You can’t find an electric guitar player on Earth who wasn’t inspired in some way by Hendrix. The Seattle-born axeman was one of the greatest innovators the instrument has ever seen, and few have even come close since.

Buddy Rich
Despite his legendary sour temper, nobody worked the drums like Buddy Rich. The sticksman elevated every ensemble he played with by furious, perfectly-phrased beats. Rich was able to skirt the line of chaos but always come back to perfect timing.

Lester Young
Jazz clarinetist Lester Young came to prominence playing with Count Basie’s orchestra, and he gave the woodwind a tremendous amount of dynamic range and feeling. “Prez,” as he was called, influenced a generation of musicians after him.

John Fahey
The Maryland-born guitarist John Fahey reinvented the acoustic guitar with his seminal recordings, taking an instrument that was commonly used as backup for singers and giving it a unique and powerful voice of its own.

Smartest Magazines For Women

Print lives! Even in our days of Facebook and iPads, printed magazines offer tactile and visual pleasures all their own. Here are five of the most delightful women's magazines available today:

W Magazine
Full of sopisticated takes on style and living, W is a highly sophisticated fashion magazine. Gorgeous photography and great articles fill this elegant, over-sized publication, making it an essential read.

O, The Oprah Magazine
This relatively new magazine by Oprah Winfrey is all about empowering women and encouraging personal growth. Covering a wide range of topics, everything from fitness to career choices, this magazine is a valuable asset for the 21st century woman.

Prevention
With an emphasis on family health, Prevention works off of the basic premise that little changes can yield big results. It offers a friendly voice on issues of health, exercise, and nutrition, and is full of comprehensive and intelligent writing.

Bust
Tapping into women's issues intelligently and with a strong feminist perspective, Bust is a groundbreaking lifestye magazine. Its writing covers pop culture, news, music and book reviews, and a strong editorial voice that a strong, independent woman can read with pride.

Cooking Light
Unlike a lot of other food magazines, Cooking Light matches recipes with smart writing on health and fitness issues. This magazine is very educational and doesn't condescend, making it a good resource for nutritional information.

Canine Cabana Doggy Daycare

Crafting In A Day: Five Simple But Cool Crafts

Whether you need a last minute gift or an activity for yourself or the kids, these quick and easy crafts will produce great results in just a couple of hours:

1. Cut and sew small fabric scraps and stuff to make a simple pincushion. Mix some catnip into the stuffing and you’ll have an irresistible cat toy, or stuff with lavender or potpourri for a fragrant sachet.
2. Place colorful paper in a picture frame and let it serve as a backdrop for a favorite photo or a photo collage. Just a little time and effort will net you a keepsake photo you will treasure.
3. Pick up some decoupage medium and cover a vase with any kind of paper you have – origami paper, wrapping paper, even the comics page.
4. Make a cool custom t-shirt by cutting out a cardboard stencil, putting it on a dark-colored t-shirt, and spraying the shirt with a 50/50 bleach/water mix. Be sure to have a tub of water ready to dunk the shirt into as soon as the color is where you want it, and always wear safety goggles and gloves when using bleach.
5. Make a sweet stand for cakes and snacks by using a dishwasher-safe glue to stick a saucer or small plate on top of a teacup.

Give a Pinkberry Swirly Gram this Valentine’s Day!

Give a Pinkberry Swirly Gram to your loved one this Valentine’s Day! Have Pinkberry Swirly Gram delivered to your office or pick-it-up Valentine’s Day at Pinkberry Beverly Center!

Sweet Treats: Five Great Ice Cream Toppings

Sure, ice cream is great on its own, but sometimes you need to add a little something more. If you’re getting sick of sprinkles, here are some suggestions for lesser-known ice cream toppings that will jazz up your dessert service:

• Fruit is a great addition to any bowl of ice cream, both to add fiber and vitamins and also to make for more interesting flavors. One of my favorite additions are super-ripe fresh blueberries – they taste great with a little chill to them and go with just about any flavor of ice cream.
• To add a little crunch to a bowl of ice cream, sprinkle with homemade or store-bought granola. Again, this is something that makes the bowl a little healthier in the long run – not that you should care, if you’re eating ice cream.
• For a super decadent treat, drizzle a bowl of ice cream with caramel sauce and large-grained sea salt. The combination of sweet and savory flavors is absolutely unforgettable.
• To add a Mexican flavor to your chocolate ice cream, make a hot fudge sauce and stir in a liberal dose of ground cinnamon. This vastly improves the flavor, making it richer and more complex.
• Homemade whipped cream is much tastier and better for you than the pre-packaged supermarket variety, and it’s not really difficult to make. When you’re whipping the heavy cream, stir in a little cocoa powder for an extra treat.

January Events in Los Angeles

With so many things happening in Los Angeles, it's sometimes hard to know where to begin. Here are five events worth checking out in January:

Downtown on Ice at Pershing Square, ongoing

Downtown’s festive winter tradition continues through January at the Pershing Square skating rink. Six bucks grants access to L.A.’s largest outdoor skating rink — a fun destination for families and dates.

Tournament of Roses Parade, January 2, 2012

Sports fans ring in the New Year with, you guessed it, a football game. The day kicks off with a parade of floats and marching bands leading into the Rose Bowl matchup between Pac 12 champion Oregon and Big Ten champion Wisconsin.

People’s Choice Awards at Nokia Theatre Live, January 11, 2012

An award show we common people can attend, the People’s Choice Awards reflects what people are actually watching in a fun, laid-back award show.

Mythbusters Live at Nokia Theatre Live, January 15, 2012

The popular TV show offers a unique live experience where audience members can see with their own eyes whether or not cultural myths hold water.

Art Los Angeles Contemporary at The Barker Hangar, January 19-22, 2012

Sprawling across 40,000 square feet, the International Contemporary Art Fair showcases a wide cross section of current trends in the art world, with an emphasis on the local gallery scene. The fair also features curator and artist lectures, film screenings, and performances.

The Consolations of Alain de Botton

Writer Alain de Botton has made it his mission to show how thinking — and acquaintance with some of the greatest thinkers — can offer us solace and enlarge our happiness. Having begun a Ph.D. program in philosophy, de Botton left the ivory tower in order to write books for general readers. De Botton's work engages topics as diverse as airports, cookies, stoicism, and shoe shining while aiming throughout to help us lead better lives. Sound interesting? Read these five books by de Botton:

• In The Consolations of Philosophy de Botton argues that the teachings of the world's most important philosophers concern the day to day business of living in the world. In a tour of philosophical history, de Botton shows how works by great philosophers can help readers overcome everyday difficulties like frustration, heartbreak, and unhappiness.
• How Proust Can Change Your Life, similarly, presents Marcel Proust's novel Remembrance of Things Past as a peculiar sort of self-help book. De Botton culls a number of aphorisms and parables from Proust and presents these lessons in his characteristically witty style.
• De Botton's book The Architecture of Happiness explores the usually unnoticed (yet often quite deep) ways the spaces human beings inhabit affect our emotional lives. This book will change the way you see the physical world.
• A Week at the Airport issued from time de Botton spent as writer-in-residence at England's Heathrow Airport. De Botton sees the airport as a uniquely modern space that concentrates human beings' arrivals, departures, beginnings, and endings in a way made possible only by the miraculous fact of airplane flight. Movingly written and beautifully illustrated, this short book is perhaps the best introduction to de Botton.
• The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work surveys the strange and wonderful world of work. Offering the book as an investigation into a realm that claims itself as one of the principal sources of life's meaning, de Botton turns an anthropologist's eye toward enterprises like logistics, accounting, cookie making, career counseling, and inventing. Listen to an extended interview de Botton gave about the book here.

De Botton also runs The School of Life, a private school based in England that hosts classes, dinners, and a series of "secular sermons." The sermons often reprise de Botton's great theme that philosophy can help human beings with the business of living. View some of these sermons online here.

Movies Coming To Theaters in December

December 9, 2011
New Year’s Eve: A romantic comedy that explores relationships, forgiveness, love, and new beginnings through a series of intertwining stories about New Yorkers on New Year’s Eve. Starring Halle Berry, Zac Effron, and Katherine Heigl.

The Sitter: A comedy about a college student, suspended from school, who ends up babysitting for the neighbor’s kids. Starring Johan Hill and Ari Graynor.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: An espionage thriller about a soviet double agent who has infiltrated the upper levels of the British Intelligence community. Starring Colin Firth and Gary Oldman.

December 16, 2011
The Iron Lady: A dramatic biopic exploring the life of Margaret Thatcher, the United Kingdom’s first and only female Prime Minister. Starring Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: Master detective Sherlock Homes finds himself confronted with a new criminal genius whose brilliance just might equal his own. Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.

December 21, 2011
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol: This is the fourth movie in the Mission Impossible action thriller franchise. The filmmakers have been careful to reveal no spoiler details about the movie’s plot but it’s sure to be packed with stunning visuals and edge-of-your-seat suspense. Starring Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, and Paula Patton.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: A film based on the popular Stieg Larrson book trilogy, telling the story of a disgraced journalist who is hired to investigate the long-ago disappearance of a woman from one of Sweden’s wealthiest families. Starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.

December 23, 2011
The Adventures of Tintin: An animated Steven Spielberg family movie based on the famous book by Belgian artist Georges Remi (under the pen name Herge). The plot centers around an intrepid young reporter named Tintin whose thirst for a great story puts him in the midst of various exciting and sometimes harrowing adventures. The film features the voices of Daniel Craig, Jamie Bell, and Simon Pegg.

December 28, 2011
War Horse: A Steven Spielberg drama about the connection between a horse and his young trainer in rural England during the First World War. Starring Jeremy Irvine and Emily Watson.

Got Appeal: Five Banana Recipes

Bananas are one of the most interesting fruits in the world – rich in potassium and other nutrients, they are filling and delicious. The good thing about bananas is that you can use them in a variety of recipes. When cooked, the flesh of a banana reveals a wide variety of flavor complexity. Here are five great ways to use bananas.

-          Bananas are great on the grill. One awesome way to make a sweet treat is to slice open the skin of a banana and fill the space with peanut butter chips. Close the skin and throw it on the grill and the peanut butter will melt all over, turning it into a delicious mess.

-          Add grilled bananas to a s’more: while you’re roasting the marshmallows, throw some banana slices on the grill until they caramelize. Add them to the graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows to add a new dimension of flavor to the sandwich.

-          Banana is great for baking, as it adds sweetness and moisture to quickbreads. Banana bread is a very popular way to use bananas that have become old and brown, but you can use perfectly ripe bananas as well.

-          For breakfast, try making banana waffles. Mash the bananas thoroughly and add them to your waffle batter, then cook normally. The fruit will add a crispness to the outside and a fluffiness to the exterior. Add walnuts for extra protein if you like.

-          You can even do good things with unripe bananas. Green bananas make awesome fries – peel them, slice the firm flesh, then heat peanut oil to 375 degrees and fry until golden brown. Pat the oil off and lightly salt for a great side dish.

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