Poet and New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear has begun Postcard from Los Angeles on the magazine's website. Her first blog post is an homage to the late Elizabeth Stromme, the Echo Park writer and gardener who died last year. "The decay was magnificent, like fungus under a microscope: the color of driftwood and rust, with muddled mauves and slick greens," she writes of a visit to Stromme's garden. Goodyear's second post visits with Rob Hickman, the "aspiring producer" who is trying to bring to the screen a comedy loosely based on those older women who await trial on whether they murdered homeless men for their insurance benefits. Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis play the accused perps.

This week in the magazine: Jane Mayer gets inside one of the CIA’s most secret programs: the detention and interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other suspected terrorists. Also, Steve Coll comments on Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the Wall Street Journal. It's the Aug. 13 issue.

Cropped photo: Galleycat