PROFILES

John Rabe and Julian Bermudez

John Rabe, 46, and Julian Bermudez, 38, met at the close of a sunny day in Malibu in 2001, when separate afternoons spent sunbathing on the shores of El Matador beach led both to the Friendship on West Channel Road.

RJ Mitte

When RJ Mitte first moved to Los Angeles at 13, he never imagined he'd be an actor. “Sometimes I think about where I'd be right now if I weren't doing this,” he says. “I'd be on a boat somewhere. Fishing!”

Erica Nakamura and Amelia Posada

“I am six days away from becoming the mayor of this place,” says Amelia Posada, “but I left my phone at home!”

Adam Cooper

In Adam Cooper's life, there is The Mayor in 140 characters or less, his cartoon strip, “Ted the Terrible Superhero,” and Bruce Springsteen. Oh, and a helluva lot of food.

Dorothy Garcia and Tom Harding

“It’s a radical little city in its own conservative way,” says Dorothy Garcia, commenting on the Pasadena City Council’s 1993 decision to refuse doing business with South Africa in response to apartheid.

George Laguerre

First, there was the 7.0 quake in George Laguerre's native Haiti , which destroyed houses and businesses of his friends and family. Then, on the night Laguerre was packing for his first trip back to Haiti since the disaster, an electrical fire burned his beloved Echo Park restaurant, TiGeorges.

Bert Chan

Eight is considered a particularly lucky number in Chinese culture, so Bertha “Bert” Chan's 88th birthday on Feb. 8 should have signaled the beginning of her most fortuitous year.

Timur Bekbosunov

Ask Kazakhstan-born tenor (and occasional vaudevillian) Timur Bekbosunov about Achim Freyer's controversial staging of Wagner's Ring Cycle last year, and he will tell you it was completely misconstrued by Los Angeles.

Tootie Heath

“You just missed the morning ritual,” says Albert “Tootie” Heath, pointing to the telephone wires running like thick veins over his Altadena home.

Josh Brody

Josh Brody is not who you think he is, and exactly who you want him to be. Most of the time you can find him at the Sequoyah School in Pasadena where he acts as principal to a few hundred elementary and junior high school kids; strolling around the campus as the amiable hero of a small, progressive colony.

Ken Jeong

When comic actor Ken Jeong is tempted to laugh onstage, he thinks dark thoughts. “I'm pretty good about not breaking,” he says. Except with Alison Brie, “Annie” in NBC's Community. “She's a silent killer.”

Moses Sumney

Twenty-three-year-old singer-songwriter Moses Sumney likes to make music. In bed. Raised in the Inland Empire and Ghana by African Christian-minister parents, a shy young Sumney started writing songs in a notebook, which he hid under his bed.

Raul Ortega

The most remarkable clue that you have arrived at Mariscos Jalisco, a lonchera parked on Olympic Boulevard in Boyle Heights, is in the air.

Sascha Robinett and Edgar Arceneaux

When Edgar Arceneaux first asked out Sascha Robinett, he hoped she would accept his offer to have coffee but not his invitation to a movie. Although he had been eyeing his shy co-worker for some time, he was, frankly, broke.

Gary Leonard

On a gray March morning, photographer Gary Leonard stands in the center of his gallery, a small room dimmed by overcast skies, sunlight feathering through the gaps between high-rises on Broadway Avenue.

Laura Owens

On a balmy Saturday morning in March, a smattering of popcorn decorates the cement floor of a large warehouse in Boyle Heights, currently the studio, exhibition and event space of L.A.-based painter Laura Owens.

Alice Shin

When Alice Shin's brother-in-law phoned her to say that he'd gotten his hands on a truck they could use to begin peddling tacos filled with Korean-style barbecued meats, as they'd discussed late one night on an East L.A. street curb, Shin looked to a deck of tarot cards.

Jim Lang

When it comes to his music, Jim Lang is something of a purist. It’s not that he’s strictly acoustic or a snob about style.