JULIE WALMSLEY

I wrote a listicle for LA Weekly to help people find 7 places to combine yoga and booze this month in Los Angeles. Yes, I ask the hard hitting questions for you. It was part of my week of fun articles, the other being my piece on Netflix-for-rad-toys startup Joymode . (Look for it on Thrillist on Thursday Sept. 22.) I became interested in the trend when I received an invitation for one of the events, and wondered how common it is to stack a happy hour on top of yoga class. I learned it's common, and spreading. Boston has a Bendy Brunch (vinyasa + mimosas), and Washington D.C. has Soul & Spirits, both produced by yoga event organizer Grip the Mat , which does Vinyasa to Vino here in LA. Later this month, a St. Louis ale house will combine yoga with a tasting , like the Dude's Brewing Company event featured in my Weekly article. That event was planned by Yoga Buzz , a St. Louis nonprofit that plans various yoga events to make it more accessible to the community. Early

My overview of the downtown Los Angeles Arts District for a special issue of The Real Deal is now live. The Real Deal is really a trade magazine for an investor-developer-agent-analyst readership, so I'm glad I had an editor who let me write honestly about a community uneasy with the change driven by that readership. I didn't have the editorial space to go as deep as I could have on different perspectives on change in the area, with Boyle Heights just across the river as an example of a vociferous, bordering on violent,   debate over the redevelopment of a longstanding Los Angeles community . It is noteworthy that two Arts District success stories -  Poketo  and  Angel City Brewery  - don't just sell product, but organize community. How quickly Boyle Heights would change without opposition is debatable; the two communities differ significantly. Part of the developer interest in the Arts District is the availability of a particular kind of space. As I wrote in the