LA Times Festival of Books 2011

New thing of the day, went to the LA Times Festival of Books! 

Been dying to go since I heard about this, although every single year it's on a weekend that we're busy or unavailable. This year I'm studying for finals, plus we helped a friend move and had a birthday party, so I wasn't sure we'd make it. I was very good in studying yesterday Saturday, so felt confident we could spare half a day on Sunday to go to the Festival. Also as another excuse, as a library student, I felt it was part of my duty to go to book events. 

It was a lot of fun and 10am-2pm was the perfect amount of time to spend there. We wanted to get there early at opening, so drove down through traffic to get to USC by 10am. Then wandered around the multiple stalls, booths, author signings and other venues.

Highlights

Free Stuff

Free ice cream from Ben and Jerry's, along with free iced coffee sponsored by McDonalds. Such a great way to start the morning. Although we didn't get ice cream, my mom and sister got in line two or three times for the good stuff. We also got free tote bags, laundry detergent, poetry books, frisbees and other goodies. 

We got a copy of Make magazine. It's a neat book on DIY projects that are incredibly creative. Our issue cover shows how to create a cigar box into an electric guitar. It's a bit techy and hip, and we'll have to see what other articles they have but the website and issue look really interesting.

Another great freebie was from the LA Museum organization. I got a flyer listing all the free days at the local LA museums. We also got some coupons for the Skirball Cultural Center's Houdini & Magician Exhibit which is on the list of things to do this summer. 

Celebrities, authors and illustrators

Our morning started out pretty awesome. As we were walking the husband was "Hey there's Patton Oswalt". In case you didn't know him, he's the voice of Remy in Ratatouille, but also a more famous comedian and actor. I was like "Oh what stage is he on?" and the husband was like "No he's right there". Standing in front of us less than 5 feet away was Patton. He looked a bit lost and was making a phone call. The husband is big into comedy and I was like "Want a photo?", but he didn't want to bug Patton. Then a few other people recognized him, asked for his photo, and he was obliging. So the husband and I went over and I snapped a photo of the two of them. Patton was super nice about it all. We also watched a bit of him on stage promoting his new book. Funny guy :)

We saw R.L. Stine of Goosebumps signing autographs. The line wasn't too long so if we were fans we could have waited 20 minutes, but decided not to.  We also saw one of the creators of the Archie comic signing stuff. There were a lot of lesser known authors giving away free copies of their books for recognition, as well as signing and promoting their work. 

Books

My favorite free book copy, and I think the greatest treasure was a copy of the Al-Qur'an below. We saw an interfaith Islam society booth with a sign saying "Free Qurans". My sister and I were curious and interested. The guy handing out the books told us a bit about the Quran itself and it's place in the religion and the teachings it presents. He also gave us a CD of the recitation of the Quran. One of them explained that the book was meant to be heard, to be read out loud. He said that it's kind of an oral tradition and if it's always heard, it's ok, but if only the book survives and no one reads it out loud, they're at a loss. So he read a line or two, and it's very musical and melodic. The guys in the booth were really cool. There was a sense of peace about them, and a sense of wanting to share. It was very much an interfaith and peace mission by the group. There was absolutely no tone of trying to convert or degrade other religions. It wasn't a scientology attempt to join or take the book literally. It was almost like this is our holy book and our culture and we want to share the goodness of it. Islamic faith needs the PR in America unfortunately, so we enjoyed the chat and the book. The booth was hosted by the Why Islam group. Sister and I are both into studying world religions, so we found it interesting and I am curious about what it has to say. It can go along with my reading of Arabian Nights :) 

My absolute favorite booth though, was the Philippine Expressions Bookshop. It took up two booth spaces and was all books on Filipino stuff. They had kids books, language study, culture and history, fiction, and lots of other good stuff. They had a book I'd read years ago, When Elephants Dance. It's a fiction book based on the experiences of the Filipinos during WWII. The beginning quote from the book was "When elephants dance, the chickens must be careful" (Tess Uriza Holthe). I was hooked and the book had some vivid and striking images about what happened to Filipinos and Manila during that time. I forgot about it and was pleasantly reminded of it. I'll need to dig it out and make sure I don't give that one away. Perhaps re-read it. 

I really wanted to get a Filipino cookbook but wasn't sure which one. This one book caught my eye and I had to have it. Filipino Ghost Stories! I totally wanted to support the store and give over more of my money, but decided to be prudent. Plus carrying around a lot of books during the festival got pretty tiring. 

In conclusion, we really enjoyed our half day at the festival. It was sunny and I'm sure I have a sunburn. I got tired in the end and should get and wear some better walking sandals. Overall though it was lovely watching people passionate about reading, sharing books and ideas. We'll be going as many times as we get the chance. 

Map of USC Festival of Books 2011

Mustache Animals

One of my coworkers/friends had a birthday recently. He was gone for his birthday and he always likes to draw mustaches on things. So I had a Planet Earth daily animal calendar that at times he likes to draw mustaches on. So I saved all the days, cut off the dates, and took a bunch, drew mustaches, and peppered his cube with animals with mustaches. He came back to this - and I think he liked it. LOL :)

My Calendar

Monitor

Phone

Cabinet

Cabinet

Modern Cubicle Art

I'm back :) Took a bit of a break but I'm ready to start-up again. Not necessarily daily, but every so often.

New thing of the day, made my first modern art piece in my cubicle. This was Desktop Aquarium that I decided to dry and clean out. Leaving water in there made it a bit stale and icky, so after cleaning and drying, decided to play with it a bit. 

I call this piece "Fish Out of Water",

as a statement on artificial life 

and living outside the box.

Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

New thing of today, watched episodes of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

I added the series season 4 to our Netflix instant queue because I thought my husband would enjoy it. So while I was busy he started playing an episode, and it caught my interest and got me watching too. They focus in on an issue or thing that they think is "bullshit".

I really enjoy the swearing in this pseudo-documentary style. It's part entertainment, documentary and sort of a journalistic candid viewpoint on issues. It takes a comedic jab at any point it can. It doesn't take the issues seriously and tries to take a rounded view on things.

We skipped around the season on topics that sounded interesting. The first episode we saw was on prostitution. It was about the debate of legality and criminalization of prostitution. I really enjoyed this episode. They partly shock and make you think. They interview both sides, look at history and they also make fun of people and situations. Of course they show naked girls and make light jokes about various situations. It was overall a comedic view the issue but also takes a side and adds some magic side demonstrations to help elaborate points.

The next episode we saw was based on the topic of rudeness. This was hilarious! It is based on etiquette and analyzes how rude people in America are. They interview various people, talk about etiquette organizations. Of course they're making fun of everything as they go, especially the etiquette experts. Calling one guy "Let's go back to the angry fuck". Wow the etiquette lady is a total bitch and they make a point to point it out, politely.

The next episode we saw was on crypto-zoology, the study of finding hidden bizarre mysterious animals such as the bigfoot, chupacabra, loch ness and various other mythical animals. Interestingly enough, the most interesting evidence they demonstrate against Loch Ness is a new and very smart solution that I've never seen on any loch ness documentary. They bring in a scientist that talks about the feasibility of an animal being that large, living off the lake and the food in the lake. He demonstrates how the amount of food in the lake can't sustain an animal like the Loch Ness. That is amazingly smart and logical.

This may be my new favorite show. We laughed out loud quite a few times. The etiquette episode was the funniest. I love how they make fun of people and situations. I'm so happy it's on season 4 which means there's plenty of fans and fodder for future and past shows. This is another show that makes me sad that we don't have cable or TV.

This is a perfect show for our tastes. It brings up interesting issues and has some very smart comedic views on things. It's an easy watch. Lighter than a documentary, but not as serious. Surprisingly it has more information then a lot of watered down history channel type shows. It's got a lot of smart insights and some meaty informational bits, mixed in with comedy and magic. As odd and weird as that sounds, it totally works.

It also makes me re-think my swearing off swearing. I really like Deb - the sister on Dexter who swears all the time. This show swears a lot, but it's fun and entertaining. I like the rawness and honesty and no holds barred mentality behind swearing. I think I won't be so anti-swearing any more.

I absolutely love this show. I think Penn said it best when he said, "Don't take yourself too seriously". It gets my thumbs up and we will continue watching.