In this Issue

Los Angeles has had its share of sensational murders (something about living in paradise brings out the worst in people): the Black Dahlia case, the Hillside Strangler, the Wonderland killings, the Night Stalker, the Menendez brothers. But no murder--or set of murders--terrified Los Angeles the way the Manson killings did. Forty years ago this August a hippie psychopath named Charles Manson sent out his followers to do his violent bidding. Over two nights they killed seven people: actress Sharon Tate, 26, who was married to director Roman Polanski; hairstylist Jay Sebring, 35; Voytek Frykowski, 32, an old friend of Polanski's; Abigail Folger, 25, Frykowski's sweetheart; Steven Parent, 18, a delivery boy; and Leno LaBianca, 44, president of Gateway Markets, and his wife, Rosemary, 38. Brutal and random, the murders changed the country's view of the counterculture. What had been thought of as an occasionally silly but idealistic--even utopian--movement was now seen as no different from the society it was rebelling against: Hippies were not immune to the most violent and darkest of human impulses. In fact, innocence served as the perfect mask for evil. Marking the 40th anniversary of an event that transformed L.A.--and the nation--Steve Oney interviewed many of the major figures and compiled an oral history for the July issue. Read outtakes from his interviews here. Also in the issue: critic Steve Erickson's review of The Hurt Locker and In the Loop, the first two movies, he says, that get the Iraq war right; writer-at-large Ed Leibowitz's interview with actress Kerry Washington; and a portfolio of unpublished works by photographer Dan Winters. Don't forget our ongoing series of recommendations for exploring the city. This week the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus's director and choreographer, Shanda Sawyer, gives us her LA to Z. On June 17 I conducted an interview with LAUSD superintendent Ramon Cortines about the cascading crisis that is crippling the region's public schools. If you'd like to hear what he had to say, go here.

Kit Rachlis
Editor-in-Chief