Pop-up review: With mishmash of unrelated exhibits, the Egg House isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

The latest pop-up on Melrose Avenue takes the egg out of egg-cellent.

The first Egg House opened in New York City in 2018 and from there traveled to Shanghai and will now be in Los Angeles until April 28. However, on a street already filled with plenty of Instagram-worthy backdrops, the attraction does not add a particularly compelling element. Although its unconventional theme of eggs plays well with the trendy vibe of Melrose Avenue, its lack of coherence sticks out like a sore thumb.

Walking into the Egg House, each individual exhibit has its own merits. They are interactive and colorful, with every shade of pastel, and of course, gram-worthy. Inside one of the rooms, visitors can find enlarged eggs in miniature shopping carts which line a room wallpapered in various egg patterns. Another room has a pink and blue basketball court featuring egg yolks as balls to be slam-dunked by visitors, while across the hall artificial eggs are cracked in half and turned into chairs beneath a shining Hollywood sign hanging on the wall.

Out of all the rooms, the ball pit steals the spotlight. Rather than a simple ball pit for visitors to swim around in, the Egg House creates an egg hunt out of the activity. People can search for a golden egg hidden among hundreds of white and yellow rubber balls. The golden egg can later be traded in for Egg House merchandise, which includes a variety of trendy phone cases, enameled pins and egg-themed socks. The prizes, which can also be purchased, call to a recent trend of materialism and the search for the perfect “aesthetic.”

While each display room has eye-catching colors and props, they feel oddly separate with a lack of connection from one exhibit to the next. On the lower floor, a blue room with two swings is adjacent to a strange room with vividly yellow pool noodles jutting from light pink walls. The Egg House then feels like a lesser version of the Museum of Ice Cream: the ball pit is a poor imitation of the sprinkle pool which carries the same concept only with plastic sprinkles. Meanwhile, the pool noodle room tries to employ pleasing pastel colors, but this was also done before by the ice cream pop-up.

[RELATED: Museum of Ice Cream offers sweet sights, minimal samples for high price]

Another room further incorporated eggs, but under the larger concept of brunch, once again alluding to current trends. “Brunch Babes” shines as a neon pink sign boxed off in palm tree wallpaper. People can pretend to eat miniature plastic toast or bacon patterned felt with a choice of fake milk or fake orange juice. The brunch theme gives the Egg House authority to sell merchandise that is only tangentially related to eggs, like avocado phone cases or toast key chains.

A solar room display featured three planets hanging from the ceiling with a giant inflatable sun at the center. The room was poorly thought out and lacked a connection to the overall egg theme. The same could be said of the black-and-white Route 66 exhibition: save for the “Egg-Shell” gas station, the room was a photo shoot opportunity with no other clear association with eggs.

Amid rooms that either make little sense and feel like they were slapped together in a matter of minutes, sections of the Egg House can only be described as unfinished. Colored sheets hanging from the ceiling have no clear purpose, and accidentally walking behind an unlabeled curtain means running into the storage areas.

“Photo shoot opportunity” is then the perfect descriptor of the Egg House. It is a place that offers the perfect backdrop for any Instagram feed that needs a little spice. However, it does not fully live up to its theme with rooms that possess no true association with the beloved breakfast food.

[RELATED: Viewers can immerse themselves in giant food displays at interactive art exhibit]

The exhibits themselves are sparsely related, but even more so the Egg House features an excess of blank, underutilized space. There were spaces in the building that could have easily promoted another egg-themed exhibit, but instead, one finds themselves walking through blank spaces of an otherwise industrial building.

The Egg House in LA takes advantage of modern social media culture. Each room is photo-ready and guaranteed to gain likes and retweets. Overall, however, it lacks substance. The atmosphere feels manufactured and for $34, there are better places in LA that provide memories that last longer than an Instagram photo.

Academic discussion turns intense in play’s portrayal of contemporary race relations

A traditional office hours discussion will escalate into an impassioned debate on the fundamentals of American society Tuesday.

“The Niceties,” a play running through May 12 at the Geffen Playhouse, showcases this debate to illustrate the reverberations of racial injustice. Set at an elite East Coast university, the play explores a discussion between a white professor and her young black student who attends office hours to seek feedback on her thesis about the American Revolution. The student argues that insurgency would not have been possible without the institution of slavery. The professor vehemently disagrees.

“Through the debate that heightens in intensity, the characters expose the skeletal problems of the conversation we’re seeing today in America,” said director Kimberly Senior.

The professor claims the student’s assertion doesn’t have accurate historical backing. She retaliates by arguing that revolutionary history is told solely through the lens of white individuals and therefore lacks unbiased credibility. The discussion of the paper’s validity lays the framework for a much larger conversation about racial demographics and discrimination on both college campuses and society at large, said playwright Eleanor Burgess.

“It’s about communication. It’s about putting your beliefs out there,” Burgess said. “And it’s about how we should talk when we disagree.”

[RELATED: Theater review: ‘Black Super Hero Magic Mama’ successfully uses comic book tropes to add humor]

The storyline was inspired by Yale University’s Halloween costume controversy in 2015, in which a debate between racial insensitivity and freedom of expression was sparked, Burgess said. Yale’s Intercultural Affairs Committee sent an email to the student body urging them to avoid wearing culturally insensitive costumes for Halloween, such as headdresses, turbans or blackface. In response, a faculty member sent out an email saying she felt the original message hindered students’ freedom of speech.

Since Burgess is a Yale alumna, she said the conversation hit close to home. Having experienced the intense Ivy League culture firsthand, Burgess said she drew from her familiarity in order to pose the question that forms the basis of the play’s narrative.

“How do we waive the niceties of academic discourse and freedom while supporting the personal feelings of young people?” she said.

Throughout the play’s running time, a variety of answers to this question unfold. According to actor Jordan Boatman, who plays university student Zoe, it’s easy for audiences to understand both characters’ perspectives, since they are both informed, scholarly individuals with valid points.

“The first time I read the script I was pinballing back and forth between the two perspectives,” she said. “These women have genuine respect for each other, and they’re trying to meet in the middle.”

[RELATED: Satirical play portrays two polar opposite political views to urge tolerance]

“Since both characters hold the same progressive political views, it focuses the conversation about white and black America. It allows us to hone in on specific details,” she said. “Rather than having this be a politically polarized debate, it’s one that becomes much more personal.”

Although the piece addresses topics that are heavily discussed in today’s political climate, Burgess said she aims to instead highlight generational differences and emphasizes the need for healthy discussion.

“There’s a tremendous amount of empathy in this play. Audience members are able to stand in someone else’s shoes, and hopefully they’ll go out and have these important conversations,” Senior said.

Architects to speak on winning design of Taiwan Pop Music Center, creative process

Reiser+Umemoto, or RUR Architecture DPC, won an architecture design contest by including bridges in their plans for a music center.

Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto of RUR Architecture will hold a lecture in Perloff Hall on Wednesday discussing their two current architectural projects in Taiwan and teaching students about the process of creating architectural theory. A group of academic jurors from around the world selected the company’s Taipei Pop Music Center design, a project included in the discussion, to be used for the building. Reiser, a professor of architectural design at Princeton University, said the company has been characterized by its experimental design work, but it recently began working on bigger projects such as the music center. RUR Architecture collaborated with music industry officials to design a site that could be used for different performers and listeners alike, Reiser said.

“(The Taipei Pop Music Center) wasn’t just an architectural project, but it was really an urban planning project,” Reiser said. “The ambition was to create a new area in Taipei dedicated to the production and performance of music, and have that integrate with the everyday life of the city.”

[RELATED: Alumna’s architecture integrates aesthetics with practical design]

Reiser said building the music center in Taipei has been a long process since the firm’s plan won the contest and began working. The government and officials in the pop music industry gave instructions to their firm on requirements, such as theater size, that they had to follow during their construction, he said. The original winning theater plans increased in scale to include 2,000 additional seats because of the project’s shift in control from the Taiwanese government to representatives from the pop music industry.

“We actually had to start over. … (Originally) the performance hall had to work both as a music venue, but also could be modified for traveling Broadway-type shows. That was completely eliminated when the music industry took over,” Reiser said. “They had a totally different idea about how the audience should participate or be part of the space of music.”

a&e reiser

The design also includes a space that could be used as an urban plaza during the day and create a large, open concert space when closed off at night, Reiser said. The plan allowed the plaza to be used for 24 hours instead of the limited operating hours of a shop or venue that can close during the day, he said.

The way RUR Architecture designed the music center implemented typical architectural elements that exist in Taipei, like bridges and a plaza on the ground below them, Reiser said. But it was also important that the plans included design aspects that could be dedicated to the history of the Taiwanese and Mandarin pop music industry. The “Hall of Fame,” a cube-shaped section of the site, focuses specifically on honoring the industry’s growth in the 1970s with a museum and archive dedicated to the period, Reiser said.

Umemoto, a visiting professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said by involving people who would perform at the center while planning designs, RUR Architecture was able to work more quickly. Artists told them what equipment they would need in each part of the site and what necessary changes were needed to be made to the theater for performance, she said.

“We realized that you can’t mix a Broadway musical kind of theater to pop music center, or classic ballet theater – they are completely different,” Umemoto said. “So this is dedicated to the pop music center, the music and the musicians.”

[RELATED: Architects discuss building around urban environment, natural terrain]

Communication continues to be a large part of the construction process, said Jasmine Lee, who is in charge of coordinating and revising plans for the Taipei Pop Music Center. Speaking with theater consultants from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States helped to shape what the complex would look like, Lee said. Even though the site will be used for pop music, each performer will use the space differently, she said. RUR Architecture had to plan for the differences accordingly, creating a space in the main hall that is more established for bigger crowds, while smaller indoor venues and open theaters will be located on the complex’s south side, Lee said.

“According to the local music industry, it’s not going to be like superstar kind of performances, but more of those growing bands,” Lee said. “And (the performers) attract very different people and they have more experimental ways of performing, so that’s why we try to work with them on that.”

RUR Architecture created a plan for the Taipei Pop Music Center that could be flexible for a range of artists performing there in the future, Reiser said. Including a large outdoor performance space, two different clubs and a pop music museum and archive allowed the plan to avoid becoming too specific to one type of music, he said. The multiple aspects of the site can be used in accordance with whoever is performing or the experience attendees want to have, Reiser said.

“Taiwanese pop is part of a larger constellation of different pop, like K-pop and Japanese pop, they’re all in some way linked,” Reiser said. “And so part of this also was about visual identity – that the center would be striking and would be televised, so that people would recognize Taiwan’s Pop Music Center as being, in a sense, iconic and visible.”

The Quad: A look into UC employee union strikes in the past year, reasoning behind them

The activity of 44,000 students is usually impenetrable – but the University of California employee union strike that took place during finals week of winter quarter did not abide. Or the one before that. Or the one before that.

For the fourth time in the last year, UC workers will assemble at the picket line to exercise their rights protected under the National Labor Relations Act. Since previous negotiations between workers and University administration have proven fruitless, it is unlikely the strike set for April 10 will be the last.

Such strikes weren’t always so ubiquitous on our campus. While negotiations have been in the works since 2012, May marked the beginning of a series of public displays of workers’ efforts to end outsourcing and ensure more fair pay and benefit policies.

Claire Doan, a UC Office of the President spokesperson, said in an email statement the UC pays patient care and service workers at or above market rates with excellent benefits.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, the UC’s largest employee union, which represents more than 24,000 service and medical workers, claimed in April the University failed to respect low-wage workers by increasing retirement age and health care premiums. At the time, Doan said the shift in retirement age policy only applied to new workers.

The union rejected the UC’s final proposal, which included a 3% wage increase and other health care benefits, asking instead for a 6% increase, and held a strike for three days alongside the University Professional and Technical Employees and the California Nurses Association who joined in solidarity.

“Since bargaining started with both unions in 2017, AFSCME leaders have refused to put any of UC’s competitive proposals up to a membership vote,” Doan said.

John de los Angeles, an AFSCME spokesperson, said the workers’ strike reflected their desire to close the wage gap between themselves and better paid UC employees.

“They were raising issues over what they believe to be growing income inequality between the top of UC’s administration and the workers who run the University every day,” he said. “We believe that this is in part being driven by the University’s desire to outsource jobs that have traditionally been performed by these workers.”

Outsourcing essentially turns jobs normally performed by UC employees into contracted positions performed by private for-profit companies who receive meager pay and few benefits.

But it wasn’t just outsourcing that AFSCME Local 3299 thought was unfair. The union felt the UC’s hiring practices were biased against women and people of color.

Then in October patient care technicians held a strike in response to new employment terms which increased retirement age by five years and raised health care premiums by up to 61%. Once again, service workers joined the technicians in solidarity.

The UC wrote in an announcement that it offers AFSCME Local 3299 employees health care benefits at the same rate as other employees, some of whom are represented by other unions.

[RELATED: AFSCME strike comes to a close with hopes of a new deal for UC employees]

De los Angeles said the UC cannot see the validity in workers’ concerns and as a result has been unable to address them.

“I would say that the University is choosing time and time again to ignore these very valid concerns. It has not acknowledged the existence of these problems and … when asked about these issues, the university typically responds with something completely irrelevant,” de los Angeles said.

The University, on the other hand, made clear through a statement at the time it believes disrupting normal quotidian affairs through strikes is not as effective as sitting down and bargaining to achieve reasonable compromises.

University Professional and Technical Employees-Communications Workers of America 9119, representing around 14,000 UC research and technical workers, held a strike March 20 as a last resort after 22 months of bargaining to no avail.

Doan at the time said UPTE-CWA 9119 asked for raises more than 16% over the proposed terms of the agreement, a request the University deemed unreasonable.

[RELATED: Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at union rally, urging UC to negotiate fair contract]

Following the first three strikes, AFSCME Local 3299 filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against the University for allegedly intimidating strikers.

“This is, from the perspective of workers, an attempt by the University to silence the voices of those raising their concerns,” de los Angeles said.

He said the intimidation ranged from workplace harassment to threats of police citation to violent physical assault. For example, one striker and employee at UC Berkeley required stitches after being arrested.

The strike scheduled for April 10 seems to be less about the issues about which workers struck three times prior and is more in response to the University’s alleged maltreatment of its workers on the picket lines.

“At issue with this upcoming strike is something much more fundamental than wages or benefits – it’s about whether or not workers at the University of California even have the right to raise these issues, to voice these concerns, to protest and strike against them,” de los Angeles said.

In response to AFSCME Local 3299’s announcement to strike for a fourth time, a UC spokesperson said again that striking is a futile, disruptive attempt to achieve their end and that negotiating would prove far more productive.

“We’ve offered compromises on wages, service contracts and pensions, while union leaders have not budged on those issues,” Doan said.

The disruption that these strikes create is undeniable. Not only are students faced with limited dining options, but the ruckus from the picket line makes for an environment neither conducive to studying nor sleep.

De los Angeles said students are vital to the workers’ efforts to champion change. Because of the fact that a lot of the workers work multiple jobs or have familial obligations, the students can fill in for them when they are unavailable to be present during a protest.

“Students are extremely valuable and important to workers in the sense that they can offer to fill this void,” de los Angeles said. “They have the ability to go and put bodies on a picket line and to sit in and to voice these concerns.”

Mick Cronin leaves Cincinnati to join UCLA men’s basketball as new head coach

The fourth time was the charm for the Bruins.

UCLA men’s basketball has signed Cincinnati’s Mick Cronin to become the 14th coach in the history of the program. Cronin signed a six-year, $24 million deal with the Bruins, boosting his average annual salary from $2.2 million to $4 million.

Cronin led Cincinnati to a 28-7 record this season – his 13th with the Bearcats. After going 61-68 in his first four seasons with the program, Cronin and Cincinnati made the NCAA tournament nine straight times, posting a .748 winning percentage in that stretch.

“I am incredibly humbled and honored to become the head coach at UCLA,” Cronin said. “I’m especially grateful to Chancellor (Gene) Block and to (Athletic Director) Dan Guerrero for this opportunity to join the Bruin family. UCLA is a very special place with a strong tradition of excellence. To be able to join such a world-class institution is truly a privilege, and I can’t wait to get started in Westwood.”

Cronin coached three seasons with Murray State before taking the Cincinnati job, posting a .742 winning percentage with the Racers.

The Bruins’ deal with Cronin comes one day after Tennessee’s Rick Barnes turned down the Bruins’ reported five-year, $25 million offer, instead electing to return to the Volunteers. Last week, Kentucky’s John Calipari and TCU’s Jamie Dixon both saw negotiations with UCLA fall apart as well.

[RELATED: Jamie Dixon reportedly out of consideration to be next UCLA men’s basketball coach]

While Barnes is 64 years old, Calipari is 60 and Dixon is 53, Cronin is 47 – one year younger than Steve Alford was when he came to Westwood.

Cronin’s Cincinnati teams have been inside the AP Top 25 at some point in nine of the past 10 seasons, with the Bearcats posting 26-plus wins in six of those campaigns.

“Mick Cronin is a fierce competitor, and I’m excited to welcome him to Westwood,” Guerrero said. “(Cronin) has built a fantastic program at Cincinnati, backed by integrity and discipline, and he has instilled an undeniable toughness in his student-athletes. I am confident he will build this program the right way and lead UCLA basketball back to national prominence.”

Cincinnati ranked No. 28 in the defensive KenPom ratings this season after holding the No. 2 spot a year ago. Cronin’s Bearcats finished in 18th in defensive rating on average over the past 10 seasons.

Cronin has coached against UCLA three times in the past three years, first in the 2017 round of 32. The Bruins took that matchup 79-67, but the Bearcats took the next two games 77-63 and 93-64.

“At UCLA, we expect our coaches to inspire student-athletes to strive for the very best in everything they do – during a game, in the classroom and out in the community,” Block said. “I have great hopes for Mick Cronin and am confident he understands our values of academic and athletic excellence, recognizing the very high bar set by coach John Wooden.”

Guerrero will lead an introductory press conference for Cronin at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Pauley Pavilion.

UCLA organizations host free produce fair to fight food injustice among students

UCLA organizations co-hosted an event Monday to raise awareness about food-related injustices among students.

E3: Ecology, Economy, Equity held a free produce fair as part of Earth Month at UCLA, while the CalFresh Initiative enrolled students in CalFresh, a program that provides low-income individuals with need-based money for food, said Kristen Soares, co-chair of the event and second-year environmental science student.

Earth Month is a monthlong campaign to raise awareness about environmental injustice and ongoing climate change. The campaign will feature events throughout the month that focus on different aspects of climate change.

Soares said she and her co-chair Diana Nguyen wanted to host an event that focused on a specific problem caused by climate change rather than the problem in general.

Soares added she thinks the effects of environmental issues often disproportionately impact low-income communities.

“Normally Earth Month is a very nature-y, tree-hugging environmentalism,” Soares said. “Diana and I are trying to focus it on food injustice and environmental justice.”

Nguyen, a third-year political science student, said she hopes participants will become more aware of the resources provided by CalFresh.

“At the Free Produce Fair, we intentionally try to plan it with the CalFresh event,” Nguyen said.

Food Forward, an organization that sources leftover produce and donates them to communities in need, supplied the produce for the Free Produce Fair, said Chiara Phillips, a representative for Food Forward and a fourth-year geography/environmental studies student.

This year’s fair aimed to raise awareness about the issue of food injustice and the resources available to those facing difficulties affording food, Soares said.

Nguyen said 44% of undergraduate students experienced food insecurity.

Shelly Dieu, a CalFresh outreach coordinator and a fourth-year geography/environmental studies student, said she thinks food insecurity can hurt students’ abilities to focus on their academics.

“When you’re hungry, you can’t focus on school,” Dieu said.

Dieu said the CalFresh Initiative participated in the event to inform students about how to enroll in the program.

“(In order to go through) the process to get the debit card with up to $192, you have to be eligible first, so we educate students how to do that and how to apply,” Dieu said.

However, she said she doesn’t want to discourage students from applying even if they think they are ineligible.

“If students are ineligible, we have other resources to help them,” Dieu said.

Ty Pearson, a CalFresh staff member and third-year anthropology student, said CalFresh has allowed him to eat affordably.

Pearson also said he believes Monday’s event is important because it helps CalFresh enroll more students, which allows the initiative to make the most use of its funding. If the initiative does not use most of its funds, it may receive less funding in the future, Pearson said.

“Lots of people qualify, and if you qualify, you should make use of it because thousands of dollars go unused, which makes it easier for funding to be cut,” Pearson said.

Yasaman Taghi, a fourth-year neuroscience student, said she thought the event was very educational and that she got to learn a lot about CalFresh.

“Just walking by I think this is a really great program because I know a lot of students that struggle to go grocery shopping,” Taghi said. “For me, a lot of times it’s lack of time, and not wanting to buy a $15 meal.”

Andrew Howe, a neuroscience graduate student, said he understands that Los Angeles is an expensive city to live in.

“I like things like this,” Howe said. “Having events like this helps out students who can’t afford fresh produce.”

Soares said she hopes students walked away from the event with a greater awareness of programs that help people affected by food injustice.

UCLA study suggests spending time in green spaces may improve mental health

UCLA researchers discovered increasing the amount of green vegetation in an urban area improves psychological well-being.

Although previous studies have already assessed the benefits of green spaces for general health and well-being, the researchers aimed to find out how green spaces affected mental health in particular, said Ying-Ying Meng, a senior research scientist at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and an author of the study.

Meng said they found an increase in the greenness of an environment corresponds to lower levels of psychological distress in teenagers.

To collect data about green spaces in California, researchers used a satellite map from the Global Agricultural Monitoring project that measured the degree of greenness of different parts of the state.

Pan Wang, the first author of the study, said the researchers found the correlation between mental health and greenness level by combining the data collected from the satellite image and the California Health Interview Survey, which collects data on many health topics from over 20,000 households in California each year. The researchers looked at data from 2011-2014 and assessed measures such as psychological distress.

After this, they determined the location of each survey respondent using the satellite map and concluded that lower psychological distress is associated with greener environments, specifically for those residents who live within 350 meters of a green space, Wang said.

In order to ensure accuracy in the results, researchers controlled for many social and demographic variables that also affected psychological distress, such as age, gender, education and income, Wang said.

Meng said teenagers and the elderly were most affected by green spaces.

Wang and her team came up with the idea for the study while looking at another paper that demonstrated the benefits of green spaces on IQ, which led them to question whether green spaces had the same benefits for mental health.

Drawing from the results of the study, Meng said she thinks UCLA should plant more trees to increase the number of green spaces on campus.

“My general impression is that UCLA is a more urban campus,” Meng said. “There are a few areas that have more green space, such as the botanical garden, but there could be more.”

Meng said students should also take advantage of green spaces on campus to improve their personal well-being.

“When (students) have access to this space, they should use it,” Meng said. “For example, the ability to exercise in a green space could be better than exercising in a gym.”

Monique Amber Torres, a first-year psychobiology student, said having more green spaces at UCLA could benefit students’ mental health.

“Personally, I enjoy sitting out in grassy areas to do some studying or homework,” Torres said. “It’s a really nice change of scenery, especially after spending so much time in classrooms and dorms.”

Wang said the urbanization of major cities has contributed to a decreasing number of green spaces available. California’s drought problem has also limited residents’ water usage, which in turn has led to fewer green spaces in the state.

“We cannot talk about green spaces without considering the big picture of environmental protection and climate change,” Wang said.