Frenchtown Confidential

(Dear readers: permit me, if you will, to veer slightly off topic tonight. I've been wanting to get this off my chest for quite some tim...

The French, whether in France or abroad, are known for a lot of things. Sophistication. Military might (fight me on this, Google). Knowing...

History should be presented fairly and honestly. Otherwise, we'll never learn a damn thing from it. I strive to do that on this blog (...

LAVA's September Sunday Salon was yesterday. I was absolutely thrilled to give my talk and participate in the walking tour (and with a s...

Last weekend, I gave a presentation on the French in Southern California at San Diego Mensa's Regional Gathering in Palm Springs (video ...

I am thrilled to announce that I will be giving a presentation on Southern California's forgotten French roots at San Diego Mensa's ...

It's hard to believe that the pocket of downtown containing the LA Convention Center, Staples Center, and LA Live was ever quiet and rur...

I love music more than life itself, and have been to many, MANY shows. Consequently, I know Southern California venues pretty well. I was ...

Certain modern-day Angelenos say they're into their art (usually meaning they're auditioning for an art film so weird even I won...

At the dawn of the nineteenth century in Virginia, seventeen-year-old Anne Beverley Whiting, whose stepfather had squandered her family'...

(Image courtesy of the California State Archives. View more here .) There were four Sainsevain brothers in all, but two of them - Pierr...

Just last month, I wrote about Humberto Pedretti's Doughboy statue - the World War I memorial anchoring Pershing Square. (Or what passe...

In the fall of 2014, I bought an old, well-worn copy of The French in Southern California History and the Southland Today , published in 193...

Los Angeles proper has never had its own mission (200+ years ago, the San Gabriel and San Fernando missions were about a day's journey f...