It was supposed to be a simple haircut at the Echo Park salon Lucas, but all of a sudden it was a puppy festival, as the front door opened and in walked a woman with a box of babies, which "belonged" to Alice, who happened to be cutting my hair at that very moment.

"The puppies are here," Alice said, dropping her scissors -- leaving yours truly with her hair wet and hurrying across the room, the high-ceilinged place filling with overlapping cries and squeals of "puppies!" All hair cutting and other salon work stopped as the women in the place -- soon to be joined by a man and a boy -- hurried over to play with the five little darlings, which are the sons and daughters of Alice's dog. Their breed, officially, is "dog," in their case meaning part corgi, part dachsund, and part "other." They are five weeks old, have short legs, long-wide snouts, fat bellies, and Alice was hoping to find homes for them.

Set loose on the floor of the salon, they started waddling in all directions. Then they got tired and piled on top of one another in their box. Sometime in between business-as-usual resumed.

Meanwhile, the large-scale Michael Faye photographs on the walls at Lucas showed dogs who were looking for a different kind of home: on the wall. The salon-gallery art opening for Faye's show was set for Saturday night (Sept. 18). Alice was considering bringing the puppies to the gallery reception, but she hadn't decided. At Lucas, it was a dog day afternoon into the evening.

Lisa at Lucas, with puppies.