It’s the first weekend of October, and things are starting to look just a bit spooky out there as the first few Halloween-themed events start popping up.
But before we get to those, we also have a couple of big cultural events.
First is the 45th annual LA Korean Festival, which started yesterday (Thursday) and runs from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. through Sunday at Seoul International Park, 3250 San Marino St. This huge celebration is described by the organizers as “one of the major advocates of the Korean culture” in our very multicultural city, not to mention simply one of the largest cultural festivals in the nation. The free event features jam-packed days of live performances (including KSHMR and Dean), art exhibitions, wares for sale from local Korean businesses and vendors, and lots of Korean food. Festival admission is free, but do bring cash for food and other purchases. For the full entertainment lineup, see the event link above.
Also on Saturday, and marking Filipino American History Month, the Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources is celebrating the historic contributions of Asian Americans to the city with a special Asian Americans in Los Angeles Historic Contexts Community Symposium, from 8:45 a.m. to noon on Saturday at the Filipino Christian Church, 301 N. Union Ave., in Historic Filipinotown. The seminar will celebrate the historic contributions of Asian Americans in Los Angeles, and highlight historic and cultural contributions documented by the OHR’s SurveyLA.  It will include information from preservationists, students, and members of the Asian America and Pacific Islander community, who will show participants how they can recommend historic sites for recognition and to suggest ways to incorporate AAPI history into historic preservation efforts. Special guests will include Los Angeles City Council Member David Ryu, and the keynote speaker will be former State Assemblymember Warren Furutani.
October also marks the beginning of public school choice season in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Unified School District will be holding an LAUSD Schools Fair on Saturday, from 9 a.m. to noon, at Webster Middle School, 11330 W. Graham Place. Parents, grandparents and others with children in LA schools can learn all about the district’s magnet programs, dual language programs (in Spanish, Korean, French, Mandarin and more), Schools for Advanced Studies, Gifted Programs and Admission Criteria Schools (e.g. some programs for high school students offer the opportunity to earn and AA degree while earning a high school diploma). You’ll learn how the various programs differ, and how to apply to each kind of school through the LAUSD eChoices website. (Applications are open from October 1 through November 9.) See GoTo.Lausd.Net for more information.
Speaking of schools, starting at 11 a.m. on Saturday (and ending at 4 p.m.), you could take the family over to Hancock Park Elementary School, 408 S. Fairfax, for its annual Harvest Festival. This year, the event features a petting zoo, climbing wall, bounce houses, games and yummy food…and all proceeds benefit the school.
Also at 11 a.m. on Saturday, you can take the kids to enjoy the Bob Baker Marionette Theater’s Traveling Show, which will be back for its monthly visit to the Miracle Mile Toy Hall, starting at 11 a.m. Tickets are $11 and available at http://www.miraclemiletoyhall.com/events
After the puppet show, head back to the Larchmont area, where the Friends of the John C. Fremont Library (6121 Melrose Ave.) will hold its monthly book sale on both Friday (12-4 p.m.) and Saturday (12-5 p.m.) As always, most books are priced between $.10 and $1…and all funds raised support the library’s many free programs.
Next, as long as you’re in the area, head over to 568 N. Larchmont Blvd., where the Wilshire Rotary’s annual Pumpkin Patch opens this weekend. Come for some family-friendly Halloween spirit and get your beautiful pumpkins before they’re gone!
For the history minded, and starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday, the Hollywood Heritage Museum will be holding its quarterly Docent Training session, which will include a presentation on the history of the Lasky DeMille barn and how it became Paramount Studios, and then the Hollywood Heritage Museum. There will also be a special presentation of “The Squaw Man” history before “The Squaw Man” movie(s) – the story of the 1905 play and how it got to be the first movie made by Cecil B. DeMille. Hollywood Heritage president Richard Adkins will present the program. The event is targeted at potential museum docents…but everyone interested in Hollywood history is welcome to attend the free presentation.
Later, on Saturday evening, there are two local art openings. The first, at the Craft and Folk Art Museum, from 6-9 p.m., celebrates the opening of three new solo exhibitions. In Sherin Guirguis: Of Thorns and Love, Los Angeles-based Egyptian-born artist Sherin Guirguis presents her research of Egyptian feminist poet, activist, and writer Doria Shafik (1908 –75). Shafik was a prominent leader of the Egyptian feminist movement where her publications and political actions helped ensure the rights of women. Guirguis will generate a new body of two- and three-dimensional works that draw upon important architectural sites, poems, and political actions in Shafik’s life as a way to echo the silenced voices of the past and the invisible histories they represent. Merion Estes: Unnatural Disasters explores the destruction caused by present-day environmental crises and the lasting impact of these events in works that combines found fabrics with mixed paint applications and photo transfers to create evocative, saturated landscapes that are simultaneously beautiful and disturbing. And Daydreaming by Uzumaki Cepeda presents the artist’s interactive, site-specific soft spaces, where she covers furniture and housewares in brightly colored faux fur. Her installation portrays her daydream of a safe and happy childhood, mixed with the loud palette of New York bodegas, the countryside of her homeland, the Dominican Republic, and freshly painted acrylic nails. Tickets for the opening reception are $12, or free for members. For more information on all three shows, see http://cafam.org/exhibitions/
Next, the LaunchLA gallery, 170 S. La Brea, presents an opening reception for MILIEU, featuring works by Erin Harmon and Devon Tsuno, from 6 to 9 p.m. Harmon’s work “dwells in the twilight zone between painting and sculpture,” and”tinkers with scale to produce environments that we can project ourselves into as landscapes, even while confronting their qualities of un-nature.” Meanwhile, Tsuno’s spray paint and acrylic paintings, prints, and installations stem from his interests in access to public space, fishing and urban bodies of water in the Los Angeles.
And finally (!) on Saturday, you could take in another big annual Halloween-themed event – the special “Tales from the Other Side” version of Paramount Studios’ exclusive “After Dark” studio tour, which includes the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in all its nighttime spookiness. The 2/12 walking hour tour (wear comfortable shoes!) starts at dusk and includes a champagne toast to the coming darkness. Then, “in the silence of the night, you’ll descend into the mysteries behind our iconic gates via cavernous sound stages and the darkest corners of our infamous backlot. Guided by flashlight, you’ll creep through the legendary Hollywood Forever Cemetery to learn the tales of Hollywood’s most dearly departed and the secrets that followed them to the grave. Surrounded by the memories of the famous, and the infamous, your eyes may begin to play tricks on you as you get a glimpse into the legends and superstitions that weave throughout the history that makes Hollywood what it is today.” Tickets are $99 per person through the Parmount link above…but are also currently available for $65 through the Goldstar discount site.
The agenda on Sunday is much less crowded this week…so it would be a great time to catch up on some of the multi-day events above. The one Sunday-only item on our agenda this week, and not starting until 1 p.m., is “Ken Jacobs: A Swim Through Open Space,” a talk at LACMA with experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs, who will share his lifelong observations on flatness versus depth, dwelling on painting as well as cinema and life itself. Selected clips from Jacobs’s work will demonstrate his achievement of 3D by non-traditional means, patented by the artist and not requiring glasses. The talk is associated with LACMA’s current exhibition 3D: Double Vision. The event is free, but space is limited and tickets are required at http://www.lacma.org/event/ken-jacobs
Have a great weekend!
