Dining and entertainment suggestions that might fly under your radar.

The brilliant verse of counterculture icon Allen Ginsberg changed the course of American poetry forever. His entire published work, including his most famous epic, “Howl,” is compiled in Collected Poems 1947-1997. You can’t beat it.

Books

Drag queens and artists and commies—oh my! Daniel Hurewitz’s engrossing Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics uncovers the area of L.A. where the first enduring gay rights movement emerged.

DVDs

The extra 40 minutes will fly by while watching the homoerotic tension between Colin Farrell and Jared Leto in the now three-and-a-half-hour long Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut, the definitive version of Oliver Stone’s flawed epic about the great military leader.

Eats

Authentic Cajun cuisine is hard to find in L.A., but some of the best can be found at The Gumbo Pot in Farmers Market, 6333 3rd St., L.A. For more information, go to www.thegumbopotla.com.

Music

Composer Ennio Morricone’s scores for movies like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and The Mission are as iconic as the films themselves. Before he receives an honorary Oscar on Feb. 25, brush up on his distinctive body of work with the two-disc live CD Arena Concerto.

Web

For hilarious and tongue-in-cheek explanations of an insipid comic strip, check out Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke 500 Words or Less (marmadukeexplained.blogspot.com).

TV

Just when you thought the sitcom was dead, Sarah Silverman revives the fading TV genre with her hilarious The Sarah Silverman Program. This offbeat show goes boldly where no sitcom has gone before—Silverman sings, drums up laughs with her political insensitivity and, in one scene, soils herself while trying to impress her friends with a fart. Check it out Thursday nights at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.