With Easter over and the cloud hovering above last weekend’s 4/20 revelers now dissipated, this week’s “The 7” is, well, all over the place. From an other-worldly symphonic performance to the grand opening of a cat cafe, there just has to be something in here that you’ll do, there just has to be. Otherwise, when sharing your weekend outings on social media, make sure to tag #MyWeekendLBP and #The7LBP for a chance to be included in next week’s My Weekend recap.
1. FELINE GOOD SOCIAL CLUB GRAND OPENING (Caturday)
UPDATE: 4/25/19 at 5:55 p.m. | Feline Good Social Club announced Thursday that the lounge’s official opening will be delayed for up to six weeks. Reservations that have already been made will be honored free of charge (but you have to select an alternative option on the website). For more info, check out the Facebook post here.
PREVIOUSLY: Long Beach’s first ever cat lounge is having its grand opening Saturday. It’s a great concept: hanging out with cats will likely decrease your stress levels and maybe lead to adopting one of the cats—or not, that’s fine, too—and then you can go about the rest of your day feeling energized and covered in cat hair. News of the forest-themed cat cafe has spread rather quickly (apparently Long Beach is a city full of cat people) so make sure to RSVP ahead of time for one of the available time slots.
Is it heaven? Not quite, but there’s a cat cafe coming to Downtown Long Beach
Another great thing: The 18 rescue cats now housed at Feline Good range from kittens to 5-year-olds. Did I hear kittens?
Giving us a moment’s pause: It’s $15 to spend one hour with the cats, but the rules clearly state that an “hour” is actually 55 minutes. Yes, that $15 goes toward ensuring that these furry creatures don’t end up in a shelter and euthanized, but this cat lady in training wants her full hour, dammit!
Feline Good Social Club’s grand opening is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; 301 Atlantic Ave. For more info and to reserve your time visit the website here.
2. POETS, PROTESTERS, AND PANTHERS (Friday)
Page Against the Machine, a new bookstore on Fourth Street, just opened and the owner, Chris Giaco, is throwing its inaugural event tonight. We asked Giaco a few questions about Poets, Protesters and Panthers and the role he hopes his small store will play in Long Beach.
Some Long Beach residents may know Jim Coke for his photo of Jim Morrison, blown up as “Flying Morrison” as a mural on a building in the East Village; what else can viewers expect to see from the photographer at P, P and P?
Jim Coke and his friend and shooting partner, Takashi Suzuki, were barely into their 20s when they plunged headlong into the Southern California counterculture movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As the name of the exhibit implies, Jim and Takashi captured some truly iconic moments including Allen Ginsberg reading Howl at USC, an assortment of protests, sit-ins, and love-ins, Black Panther rallies and memorials, as well as a pre-Lizard King Jim Morrison at an early Doors concert in summer 1967. Their 35mm photographs are stark, intimate, and powerful and seem infused with renewed relevance given today’s highly-charged political climate and the rekindled activism of the younger generation. We thought it would be a most fitting inaugural art exhibit for Page Against The Machine!
What is there to say about the lineup of poets/spoken word artists performing Friday? How did you choose each performer and why?
Joan Jobe Smith and Fred Voss are a self-described “rare pair” of local poets who happen to be married. Joan is the founding editor of the literary journals, Pearl and Bukowski Review, and “blue collar bard” Fred works as a machinist when he’s not writing poetry. Like Jim Coke, both of these artists experienced the 1960s firsthand and we thought their poetry would make a fitting companion to the subject matter of the photographs. The guitar and keyboard duo, performing under the name Dos Mauraders, caught the ear of Jim Coke at another venue thanks to a Ray Manzarek-inspired keyboard sound. They will be performing what can loosely be described as jazz improvisation, and will add some gently avant-garde, atmospheric music to the event.
So, you’ve opened a bookstore that sort of doubles as a performance space and art gallery during a time when bookstores and art galleries (at least in Long Beach) are… closing or closed. What’s your secret???
Well, seeing as PATM has only been open for less than a month, it’s far too soon to tell whether or not I’ve discovered a magic “secret” to success as of yet! The demise of the brick and mortar bookstore (and books themselves) has been foretold for many years now. And while the retail landscape has been radically altered in recent years thanks to online shopping and large chain stores, I think the pendulum has started to swing back the other way.
Long Beach has a huge community of artists, activists, musicians, writers, and just plain quirky, iconoclastic thinkers that I think are hungry for a venue such as Page Against The Machine. And while PATM is most certainly a bookstore, it was conceived at the outset to serve as a community hub for information and inspiration, and to host relevant lectures, events, and art shows. I think that Long Beach is the right place for such a concept and that the times are ripe for a small, community-based bookstore with an unapologetic progressive focus!
Another great thing: Poets, Protesters, and Panthers takes place during 4th Fridays, where up and down Fourth Street from Temple to Cherry avenues businesses and vendors will be celebrating this month’s earth-day theme, with bands playing outside and more.
Giving us a moment’s pause: We’re good.
The opening reception runs from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at PATM, 2714 E. 4th Street. For more info, check out the event page here. For more info on 4th Fridays, visit the event page here.
3. ANYWHERE BUT HERE: OPEN STUDIOS AT KEYSTONE ART SPACE (Saturday)
For this week’s “Anywhere But Here” entry (when we provide you with something worth getting out of Long Beach to experience) we have an event at Keystone Art Space, an industrial art warehouse in Los Angeles’ Lincoln Heights area, where over 50 artists will open their studios to the public. This only happens twice a year and is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to check out some great art in a variety of mediums, support artists directly (yes, by buying art), and get an inside look at how these creatives have set up their studios (which is sometimes a work of art in itself).
“It’s a really fun and unique event because there’s always new work to see and the crowd is terrific,” said Keystone’s office manager Rusty Gantt.
Another great thing: There’s a group exhibition in the gallery that runs until May 5, so if you can’t make it to Open Studios there’s still a reason to check out the space later on.
Giving us a moment’s pause: 21 miles, 36 minutes.
Open Studios runs from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Keystone Art Space, 338 S. Avenue 16, Los Angeles, CA 90031. For more info and to RSVP visit the website here.
4. LONG BEACH SYMPHONY PRESENTS MOZART’S “JUPITER” (Saturday)
If you really want to feel something, Long Beach Symphony has the performance for you. Saturday night’s concert begins with Estonian composer Pärt’s “Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten” (1977) which, according to organizers, ends on a chord of such intensity that your breathing will become irregular and your body will feel “pressed into the ground as you decompress back to earth.”
Next up is Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 in C Major, nicknamed “Jupiter”, Argentine composer Golijov’s “Sidereus”, written to honor Galileo and evoke celestial feelings of the great unknown, and finally Austrian-born composer and conductor Erich Korngold’s Violin Concerto interpreted by renowned violinist Simone Porter.
Another great thing: An hour before the concert begins, the symphony provides a talk with guest conductors and musicologists about the composers and their works so you can easily gain insight on these other-worldly masterpieces before entering the theater.
Giving us a moment’s pause: This particular concert may not be an ideal situation for a first date as the symphony taking its audience through such emotional highs and lows is sure to cause some deeply buried feelings to rise unexpectedly to the surface; as in, she’ll find out right away if you’re a crier and will get to decide right then and there whether that laughing-on-the-verge-of-choking-sound you call sobbing is worth sticking around for.
“Jupiter” takes place at the Terrace Theater, 300 E. Ocean Blvd. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; concert starts at 8 p.m. and ends around 10 p.m. For tickets and more information, click here or call 562-436-3203.
5. BEACH STREETS PACIFIC AVENUE (Saturday)
There are few things more wonderful than living without the threat of being mowed over by a car, of being able to frolic freely in the street. That’s where Beach Streets comes in. A 2.5-mile stretch on Pacific Avenue from Third Street to Willow Street will be closed to vehicles so you can walk, ride your bike, skateboard, roller skate, scooter, you name it, all the while stopping at any of the four designated festival hubs to check out the live entertainment, participate in family-friendly activities and more.
Another great thing: Skate Kids will be providing free skate lessons at 14th Street Park throughout the day, while at the Magnolia Hub, expect BMX freestyle demos, a bounce house (maybe avoid the bounce house; bloody noses and all that) an obstacle course and face painting.
Giving us a moment’s pause: With the Blue Line closed between the 103rd Street/Watts Towers and Downtown Long Beach stations, you’ll have to take a bus shuttle to get to Beach Streets, which has actually been rerouted for, well Beach Streets. Visit the website here for detour information.
Beach Streets runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more info, visit the web page here and Facebook event page here.
6. SPRING INTO SUMMER COMMUNITY CONCERT (Sunday)
This family-friendly and free (thanks Suzie Price) shindig may just be the perfect feel-good type of event for those just itching for the warmer summer months to arrive. Just imagine the grass between your toes on a warm Sunday, sipping on coconut water you didn’t have to pay for, watching the kids jump around in a bounce house without any—wait, wait… is that little Tommy crawling out with a bloody nose? Get me a napkin!
Anyway, The Dustbowl Revival is playing this fifth annual event; an eight-person outfit mixing vintage Americana sounds likely to delight a crowd full of kids and parents in need of a high-energy pick me up. Prior to the concert, Wilson High School’s Syncopated Drum Corps Alumni and Maya Somers will perform, while at some point the commissioners for the third district will be announced.
Another great thing: free hot dogs!
Giving us a moment’s pause: free hot dogs.
The free community event runs from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Marine Stadium Park, 5255 E. Paoli Way. For more info, check out the link here.
7. PRINT FAIR & FESTIVAL (Sunday)
For the first time, the Museum of Latin American Art has organized a print fair, one that’s inspired by its current exhibition “Gráfica América”, which hones in on the “collaborative spirit of printmaking”—about 100 artists’ works are displayed as well as pieces by collectives Taller de Gráfica Experimental in Havana, Cuba and Buenos Aires-based Estampa Feminista. The festival schedule include: demonstrations, performances (by HeyDeon, Mind Monogram and Kotolan), panels on social issues, etc. Attendees will get to chat with artists and vendors, buy food from food trucks and get their faces painted.
“The Museum of Latin American Art takes great pride in the way we execute festivals. Our events incorporate the wonderful food and festivities that our visitors have come to expect at MOLAA functions, enhanced by our diligently curated exhibits,” said Dr. Lourdes Ramos, President and CEO of MOLAA, in a statement. “Come with high expectations and MOLAA will meet them.”
Another great thing: There will be printmaking demonstrations happening all day, from cyanotypes to screenprinting to monoprints and more.
Giving us a moment’s pause: The festival highlights artists who create printed works and publications, even zines (the museum put out a call for zine makers in March) which sounds a lot like Long Beach Zine Fest, a community-run and organized festival which up until last year had held its annual event at MOLAA, bringing hundreds of visitors through its doors and certainly leaving something to be desired in its absence—the community migrated to Expo Arts Center in Bixby Knolls for its 2018 iteration. Hopefully MOLAA’s first time showcasing the art of printmakers and self-publishers is another great addition to supporting that movement.
The print fair runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; 628 Alamitos Ave. For more info, visit the event page here.