From UCLA, the Arboretum, the Huntington, Cal State Dominguez Hills & Occidental
On a weekend with promises of no rain, brisk temperatures but plenty of sunshine, here's to the ample opportunities to explore and experience what once would be an idyllic, ideal scholarly life awash with books, history, gardens and plenty of other diversions.
From Westwood to Arcadia, of course, there are the pillars and posts of the spring season: on the Westside, there will be the big Los Angeles Times Book Festival attracting tens of thousand of bibliophiles and an array of authors, including Bruin faculty; and on the eastside, there's the Los Angeles County Arboretum's annual garden show, one of the largest such outdoor events on the West Coast with plenty of plants for sale and a focus this year on environment friendly gardening. Snatch the kids' wagon and take it to both events to bring home piles of autographed tomes and lots of great new greenery to add to the lushness of the area's rain-soaked yards.
Click here for more info on the Times' 'Festival of Books'
Bruin authors at the book fest in Westwood
In Arcadia, Arboretum stagest one of the largest garden events on West Coast
The Golden State, then as it sometimes feels now, might only have been a
far imagining in the farthest distance of the frontier. But for some
reason, on a contemporary basis, the
Revolutionary period of the nation
rides triumphant this weekend in the Southland as a
major exhibit opens in
San Marino,
examining not the 1776 American divorce from Britain as a crown colony but
the crucial predecessor stirrings on the new continent as
colonists, including a
young soldier named George Washington (shown at right)
, took
on French interlopers in 1754 and
set a tone and
tenor in the
Seven Years War
that would be critical for then
British America and all that would follow. That New World
conflict, experts say, had a huge effect on
shaping not just what would
become the
United States but it also ended up
involving and affecting many of
what
then were global powers. The result? Well, a key document that would
spring forth from the rabble-rousing set makes a West Coast stop in a
national tour and will be available for a free, public but
restricted viewing Saturday. It's a historic pressing of
the Declaration of
Independence, printed by colonial craftsman John Dunlap just hours after
Thomas Jefferson had finished his writing. This rare copy moldered
behind and hid in a junky picture frame until it was
discovered in a
flea market and later changed hands to a
Norman Lear-supported
foundation that paid
$8.1 million for it.
In San Marino, opening of exhibit focused on Seven Years' War, British America
*Updated 9-9-201: a working link to info on Declaration
In South Bay, a chance to view historic Declaration
If the clamor for getting out of the house or tackling something fun don't encompass, well, say, chowing down on entries in the annual Grilled Cheese Invitational or maybe roaming downtown to collect pointers so as to win hotel stays in an online trivia contest, well, then perhaps the thing to do is to hie over to Eagle Rock for an eccentric, eclectic, free, public event that hearkens to a time when it is said the arts and sciences weren't separated and even more weirdness than can commonly be found in zany Southern California often prevailed. Intellectual impressario Lawrence Weschler (shown at right) will be putting on his day-long cavalcade of art, film, chat, PowerPoint, music, performance and whatever else fits into the ol 'Wonder Cabinet.' Hmmm.
In Eagle Rock, a day-long cavalcade of art, science, music, performance
