Blood simple: Theranos founder - and current inmate - Elizabeth Holmes in one of the baffling billboards popping up in L.A. Tristan Cassel Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Why Is Elizabeth Holmes Suddenly All Over L.A.? Logo text If you've found yourself stuck in traffic on Sunset lately, or crawling down Crenshaw Boulevard, or inching through West Hollywood, you've undoubtedly noticed them. Stark white billboards with blood-red lettering, a cryptic slogan and big, declarative claims like: "ELIZABETH HOLMES INNOCENT." No branding. No website (at least not on the ones Rambling has seen). Just a blown-up profile of the currently incarcerated biotech scamstress, sometimes with a bearded mystery man, sometimes not. Related Stories Lifestyle Alexis Bledel Narrates 'Tuck Everlasting' Audiobook for 50th Anniversary Edition (Exclusive First Listen) Movies 'My Oxford Year' Star Corey Mylchreest Breaks Down That Karaoke Scene and Talks Jaime's Big Choice Let Rambling explain. It's all part of a very strange and very L.A. viral campaign for something called Just Blood, a would-be documentary project (maybe) from a filmmaker (sort of) who is trying to reframe the disgraced Theranos founder as a misunderstood hero whose miracle blood machine actually worked. The brains behind the campaign is Ryan "Egypt" Elhosseiny, a Miami-based entrepreneur and provocateur with a flair for attention-grabbing stunts and a rabbit hole of a résumé that includes stints as a nightclub impresario, a social impact strategist, a filmmaker, a creative director and a rapper. And, oh, yeah, a "blood testing expert." Holmes, of course, was convicted in 2022 of fraud related to her bogus blood-testing technology. She's currently serving 11 years in a federal prison in Texas. But Elhosseiny insists that he has replicated Holmes' work and says he's relaunched Holmes' company - claims that should probably be taken with a truckload of skepticism considering the locale where, earlier this year, he unveiled his staggering breakthrough: Miami's LIV nightclub. Of course, Los Angeles has a long history of bonkers billboards - remember the baffling Tommy Wiseau placard that loomed over Highland and Franklin for five years back in the 2000s? - but this is a strangely strategic campaign, with billboards planted in particularly high-visibility, high-traffic zones like the Mid-City corridor at Crenshaw and Washington. Whatever other talents he might possess - and he didn't respond to Rambling's request for an interview - Elhosseiny obviously has mad skills as a Los Angeles traffic engineer. Alinea Pop-Up in Beverly Hills - Enjoy the Blade Runner Amuse-Bouche Dinner theater: For $695, you can eat like you're in The Truman Show at The Maybourne Beverly Hills. Danielle Hamilton/courtesy of subject What do The Truman Show, Blade Runner, The Witch and The Menu have in common? In Beverly Hills this summer, they're all dinner. To mark its 20th anniversary, Chicago's three-Michelin-starred Alinea has taken over The Maybourne Beverly Hills with an eight-course tasting menu staged across eight movie-themed rooms. Guests sip cocktails in a neon-lit Blade Runner bar (with a deconstructed Chicago-style hot dog amuse-bouche), watch stone-faced chefs move like NPCs in a Truman Show-style kitchen, get a side of existential dread with The Witch and finish in a dessert room inspired by The Menu, where marshmallow is smeared directly onto the table in tribute to the film's fiery finale. At $695 a head (excluding alcohol), it's less dinner than performance art. Or, as Alinea CEO Jason Weingarten puts it: "You're getting into the chef's brain." Yum! The pop-up runs through Aug. 16. Hermione and Draco and ... Jane Austen? Potter Fanfic Hits the Best-Seller List If you've recently glanced at The New York Times best-seller list and detected a faint whiff of wand polish and teen angst, here's why: two of the buzziest books right now - Rose in Chains, by Julie Soto, and The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, by Brigitte Knightley - began life as Harry Potter fan fiction. More specifically, Dramione fan fiction. "Dramione," for the uninitiated, is a genre where Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger stop trading hexes and start falling in love - a pairing that never happens in the books but has thrived in the fanfic trenches of Archive of Our Own and FanFiction.net. The authors, formerly known online as LovesBitca8 (Soto) and Isthisselfcare (Knightley), have since rebranded their stories for print - swapping out Hogwarts, Voldemort and other J.K. Rowling-specific elements to avoid trademark issues. In Soto's case, that means her leads are now Briony Rosewood and Toven Hearst. "It's incredibly hard to build from scratch, stripping out the influences that shaped it," Soto says of reworking her fanfic for print. B