From dives to upscale lounges, Los Angeles boasts several spots where artists of all stripes gather. But earlier this year, art flys earned what might just be the best place to meet in L.A. for dinner and drinks, thanks to LACMA’s Ray’s restaurant and the adjacent Stark Bar.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (or LACMA, if you're lazy) is featuring a show of exclusively traditional Japanese artwork that closes on September 14, 2008. Forgoing large-breasted heroines and other animé tropes that seem to be fixtures in most Japanese art lately, the show is an exciting throwback to nature and a less discordant, complicated time, before the advent of Tokyo Disneyland, when artists painted with watercolors and focused on subjects like tigers and herons.