Thursday, March 28, 2013

Upcoming Literary Events

Panoramic Bookshelves at Skylight Books by intellichick
Panoramic Bookshelves at Skylight Books by intellichick
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books recently announced their schedule of events for April 20-21 at USC.  While we're super excited for the event, it is a WHOLE MONTH away!  So while you're planning your Festival of Books excursion, here's some great events to quench your literary thirst in the mean time!  Literary events can be found throughout Los Angeles at literary venues, universities, theaters, museums, libraries, and more!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Happy World Puppetry Day

Chain Chomp from Chatterbox Puppets.
Chatterbox Puppets offers custom-made puppets
and classes in puppet-construction 

Our friends at the Pantages Theatre let us know that today is World Puppetry Day!  So, how best to celebrate then by looking at our events calendar for puppet-related events?  While there are events for kids, the humor and magic of puppetry comes to life in shows for all kinds of ages!

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Reflecting on "This is Your Library"

From Left to Right: John Szabo, Exene Cervenka, Hector Tobar,
Mike White, and Justin Veach.
Photo by Gary Leonard
On March 2nd, I enjoyed an evening program at the Central Library entitled "This is Your Library".   Conducted in a late-night TV show style, the program was moderated by humorous host Justin Veach and accompanied by the Library All-Star Band.  Guests included a number of prominent Angelenos: punk legend Exene Cervenka; actor, writer, director Mike White of HBO’s Enlightened; author and Los Angeles Times journalist Héctor Tobar; and new City Librarian John Szabo.  Following the event was a performance by Feeding People.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

The Los Angeles Theatre or “The Theatre Unusual”

The Los Angeles Theatre proudly featured "Romeo & Juliet" for one night only.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough (thanks to Cinespia and the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation) to visit the Los Angeles Theatre, a movie palace built in 1931 on Broadway in the Los Angeles Theatre District. It was the last of its kind to be built. The reason for my good fortune was a charity event to help fund the care for this theatre, as well as others, in the Los Angeles area.  The event featured a special screening of Baz Luhrmann's rendition of the Bard’s Romeo & Juliet.

Monday, March 04, 2013

TED Fellow Cyrus Kabiru C-STUNNERS Art Exhibit Until March 9, 2013

DSC_4810
A quick heads up from ExperienceLA. If you blink, this one week exhibit of wearable C-STUNNERS eyewear sculptures by 2013 TED Fellow Cyrus Kabiru from Africa will be gone, as it was timed to immediately follow the recent 2013 TED convocation. I frankly stumbled on this exhibit on Saturday, while eating lunch at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. I had a chance to discuss the exhibit with Ed Cross who curated the exhibit at the Frank Pictures Gallery, as to how Cyrus developed his unique artistic skill and how he was discovered by TED. The exhibit will close on Saturday, March 9, 2013 with an art talk and closing reception from 4 pm to 6:30 pm. As I understand it, Cyrus Kabiru will still be around.  The Frank Pictures Gallery is open daily from 11:30 am - 6:30 pm for this exhibition.  The rest of my C-STUNNER flickr pictures can be found here.

Here is a short YouTube video showcasing the C-STUNNERS eyewear:



Friday, March 01, 2013

Top 10 Take Off on Outer Space Related Tourism Destinations in Los Angeles

Central Library Public Art - Earth
I was reading "What If We Made Space Travel Practical?" by Curtis Hill and I began to think about the top ten destinations in the Los Angeles area that could take you on a NASA inspired journey in greater Los Angeles.  Now Curtis Hill's theme of his just released book is how one could go about drastically reducing the cost for a reuseable spacecraft (the Star Horse Project concept) with a focus on weight reduction, and it was coincidental that this week, there was an announcement on a privately funded flyby space flight to Mars, and now another SpaceX flight to the orbiting space station. So with thanks to Curtis Hill for inspiration to write this post, and to encourage one to visit his website, where one might find out when he might be doing a presentation and book signing, I present to you the ExperienceLA top ten ways to reach for the stars in Los Angeles.

Stay Home and Read Today!

I know what you're thinking: "Wait?  You're telling me to stay home? Experience LA is telling me to just stay home?"  But that's the name of a great fundraising event today for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles called The Stay Home and Read A Book Ball, and you don't actually need to stay home to participate.