On Wednesday Sept. 19th, further destruction of misconceptions about women surfers around the globe will take place at the historic cottage on Calafia in San Clemente. “Surfing Beyond the California Beach Babe Cliché” will be equal parts film screening, photo exhibit, reception and conversation. Organizers expect the discussion to extend from myth-busting to Southern California and Baja, […]
Culture
“Surfing Beyond the California Beach Babe Cliché” Screening, Exhibit and Talk
Long Beach’s Busker Fest to Wrap Up 10 Year Anniversary Celebration
Set your ears to Long Beach, where Busker Fest will be taking place in just a few days. This charming music festival will conclude the season-long celebration of the 10th anniversary of the city’s Summer and Music (SAM) festival, which this year also included: Bicycle Drive-In, FKA720, and Twisted at the Pike. SAM, produced by […]
Orange County’s Tiki Bars of the Past and Present Help You to Forget About Your Boring Life
Standing on what was a quiet orange grove more than half a century ago is a small faux grass hut. A diverse crowd gathers outside: tourists wearing mouse ears, children savoring the sweet tang of a frozen pineapple-flavored treat. Tiki enthusiasts drink in all the details of one of the last remaining sites of the […]
Some (Virtual) Ink for “Ink” at Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA)
The Museum of Latin American Art’s “Ink” is a complex, sophisticated history of tattoo art in California—in particular the way Navy town Long Beach served as a focus for artists who’d go on to help invent a distinctly Chicano vocabulary of imagery. Think of it as a lesson in art, history, sociology, culture and politics […]
Mission San Juan Capistrano Hosts Native American Storytelling Twice Monthly
Before ethnocentric white folks with Manifest Destiny fever claimed the land for their own, the Acjachemen Nation were Orange County’s native citizens. Join cultural storyteller, award-winning indigenous educator and Acjachemen descendant Jacque Tahuka Nunez on the first Sunday and/or second Saturday each month for “Journeys to the Past: Celebrating California’s First People.” This multi-sensory exhibition […]
John Reed Puts Shakespeare in a Blender and an Anti-War Statement Results
When mistakes are made in the wild, wacky world of journalism, it’s usually always the writer’s fault (sometimes, it’s an error by an editor; but we’re not supposed to talk about that). But in THIS case, it’s absolutely someone else’s fault: that of John Reed, whose play All The World’s a Grave: a […]
Radical Grace in “Women Making Waves” Exhibit at SHACC
Four phenomenal athletes are profiled in Surfing Heritage and Culture Center’s (SHACC) exhibit “Women Making Waves.” Their prowess on the fiercest waves is only part of what makes these surfers legendary. Fearlessness in life, challenging the status quo, and taking action to overcome hurdles for others as well as themselves make them role models and […]
UC Irvine’s Thuy Vo Dang is the Newest Member of the John Wayne Airport Arts Commission
Thuy Vo Dang is the curator of the UC Irvine Libraries’ Southeast Asian Archive, co-author of the 2015 book Vietnamese in Orange County, and, as of today, the newest member of the John Wayne Airport Arts Commission. We recently spoke about her interest and experience in the arts, her goals for airport arts commission, and […]
Now Go to This: “Judithe Hernandez: A Dream is the Shadow of Something Real”
Although she’s not commonly described as a surrealist, there’s a surreal, dreamy quality in Judithe Hernandez’s art that contributes an eerie, yet calm feeling upon seeing it. Hernandez, a venerated figure of the Los Angeles muralist movement in the 1970s, has presented her colorful pastel murals on paper across the world in such institutions as […]
Epic Beauty Reigns at Love Long Beach
Peace on Earth and good will toward mankind still exist; you just have to look in the right places. While many people’s lives are dominated by the dark realities of the Information Age, other people make it their goal to promote and celebrate the spirit of the continuing Age of Aquarius. This weekend, in Long […]
Atomic Ballroom Kick-Starts the Heart of Dancing in Downtown Fullerton’s Historic Williams Building
The Santa Fe train and bus lines run through the city of Fullerton like a main artery straight to the heart of downtown. Terrestrial travelers flow through the district as though clusters of white blood cells—in and out with each arrival and departure. The pulse of the few blocks that make up the historic downtown […]
“The Art of Baja California” at Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens
The works of three extraordinary living Baja California artists fit perfectly into Casa Romantica’s slender gallery. The two distinct painters—landscape master Juan Angel Castillo and folk-surrealist Esau Andrade Valencia—each take half the room, while the small-scale, erotically charged sculptures of Benito Ortega Vargas run right down the middle. The Todos Santos-based sculptor’s bronze or wood […]
Orange County Buddhist Church Honors Ancestors With Annual Obon Festival
When the Orange County Buddhist Church plays host to the Obon festival this weekend, it’s a time to reflect on the impermanence of life. The centuries-old Japanese custom remembers ancestors that came before us through bon odori, an immersive dance celebrating the teachings of the Buddha. The parking lot of the Shin Buddhist temple in […]
Dead and Company Transport Fans To and From Dodger Stadium
One fairly hot day in LA, Dead & Company made it even hotter with a sizzling performance of a terrific set of Grateful Dead tunes. Singer / guitarists John Mayer and Bob Weir and bassist Oteil Burbridge were in particularly fine form from the get go, and the synergy they had with the audience at […]
Burlesque Superstar Dita Von Teese Performs Sold-Out Homecoming Show at the House of Blues Anaheim
Miss Dita Von Teese may not have been the type to be named homecoming queen when she was a student at University High in Irvine in 1990 (she was too busy staying home perfecting her craft and building the empire she now sits proudly on the throne of, after all) but she had a homecoming […]
Dita Von Teese, International Queen of Burlesque, Still Feels Like an Orange County Girl
“Somewhere in the archives,” a satin-smooth voice of a woman on the other end of a San Francisco hotel phone line says, “there’s a picture of a blond me inside this cage.” She estimates the photo would have been taken in the early 1990s: ’91, ’93 maybe. And it would have been used in the […]
The Road to Nowhere Begins and Ends in Fullerton
The Road to Nowhere begins at Ford Park* in Fullerton, California. The inaugural foot parade started with a small but mighty, plucky group of 20 or so of Fullerton locals, artists, journalists and even a bonafide ancient parade historian. The rag tag group met organizer Tim Johnson (of Fullerton’s infamous Fourth of July bike parade […]
Where to Start at Day of Music Fullerton 2018
The fourth annual Day of Music Fullerton is upon us. On June 21, 2015, the city of Fullerton joined the global Fête De La Musique (translation: Music Festival, but also known as “Make Music Day” and “Day of Music”). The purpose for the festival, which occurs on the summer solstice of June 21, is to […]
‘Enkrypt Los Angeles’ Made It Out The Struggle, Now She Struggles For Her Passion
Everybody’s a fucking photographer these days; HB bros with an iPhone 8s who go to the beach everyday, your annoying yet kind-hearted niece who just got her first Polaroid and just about every damn hipster in the greater LA area. But when you stumble on the work of someone like Enkrypt Los Angeles (a 27-year-old […]
The Recently Appointed Queen of Medieval Times in Buena Park Is Met With Cheers and Jeers
“Are you ready to be a queen?” Queen Isabella asks the young girl standing in front of her as a mid-size crowd of tourists gathers in the main hall of a replica castle on Beach Boulevard on a recent Monday night. “It’s quite exciting,” she assures the child. Just before show time at Medieval Times […]
A Dystopian Urinetown: The Musical Deluges STAGEStheatre
Fans of Urinetown: The Musical—and I count myself as one of those fervid believers—look forward to each new production as eagerly as if they are a kid on the night before going to Disneyland (before they realize it sucks) or a 15-year-old gearing up for his first dry hump. It’s a time of frenzied expectations […]