Hot Soy In The Summertime
Hot Soy In The Summertime
The 2003 L.A. Tofu Festival returns this weekend for the eighth straight year of soy-inspired fun. With healthy food that benefits you, and proceeds benefiting the community, it's a perfect way to see and taste what's doin' with tofu today. Along with the usual attractions, from food vendors specializing in a range of ethnic cuisines (tofu risotto, anyone?), to entertainment, to health screenings, this year's fest offers a Saturday concert by East-meets-West instrumental ensemble Hiroshima. Known for its virtuoso playing of koto (a Japanese multi-stringed instrument), the group performs new arrangements of American R&B hits and other songs from around the world to inspire unity among nations. Also new this year is a pavilion for beer-, wine-, and sake-tasting, and a juried event called “Sidewalk Chalk Tofu Art” where, for the price of your desired concrete slab, you can illustrate (with chalk, not tofu) your own personal passion for the white stuff. Not to be missed is the Tofu Eating Contest, a staple of the festival, which will reveal the fastest tofu eaters, adult and child, in the West. Japanese Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto will appear as well, preparing his Spicy Tofu Bowl and proving, once and for all, that tofu cuisine reigns supreme.
Thursday 17
STUFFY NO MORE
Attend an interactive seminar and declare classical music … interesting! Conductor Peyman Farzinpour leads “Misshapen Pearl or the Music of the Sublime,” designed to put the excesses of Baroque classical music in the context of the period's art and architecture. Then, by listening to different performances of the same pieces, you can appreciate how skillful musicians have added ornament of their own. 7:30 p.m. Free, but reservations recommended. Marilyn Monroe Theatre at The Group at Strasberg, 7936 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 650-7777. Strasberg.com.
Friday 18
SCOPE IT OUT
As if there isn't enough artistry to the interior design of the Standard Downtown, tonight the hotel hosts –scopeLA, a four-day art exhibition winding through the third and fourth floors. Curators, collectors, and you, the art lover, can view works ranging in price from $500 to $15,000, displayed “intimately” on and around the hotel's beds. $10 daily. Standard Downtown, 550 Flower St., L.A. Fri. noon-6 p.m.; reception 8 p.m.-2 a.m. ($20 separate fee). Also Sat.-Sun. noon-8 p.m., Mon. noon-6 p.m. Info: (212) 268-1520 or Scope-art.com.
Saturday 19
KIDS ARE PATRONS TOO
Today is the last in a series of family-friendly performances at the Music Center, which offers kids' tix to 42nd Street at the Ahmanson Theatre for a greatly reduced price (starting at $12). Tykes can get revved up with specially created pre-show activities outside, beginning an hour before the show, at no additional cost. For only $6, the young'uns can also take a theater class that day, perhaps their own first step onto the Great White Way. Performance at 2 p.m. 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A., (213) 628-2772. Taperahmanson.com.
Sunday 20
SEW KEWL
Put more than 1,500 local fashionistas, clubgoers, DJs, and artists together in a multi-use venue, and you've got a Sew Down! Fashion shows, live graffiti and DJ performances, video art, and all kinds of cool creative stuff will clue you in to what's up and what's goin' down in street fashion and sounds. What's more, the cutting-edge couture promises to be affordable. Hee-haw! Free. 4 p.m.-midnight. Qtopia, 6021 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Info: (323) 466-5141 or greengalactic.com/sewdown.html.
Monday 21
MEET MISS ‘HELL BABIES'
Junko Mizuno is a Japanese illustrator whose cartoons walk that ever-so-fine line between sweet and unsavory. The queen of Japan's manga comics scene rose to prominence in 1998, when her drawings were reproduced on CDs for the Avex Trax techno-pop label. Miss Hell Babies herself signs her new novel, Hansel and Gretel tonight at Wacko. Free. 6 p.m.-9 p.m. Wacko, 4633 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 663-0122.
Tuesday 22
ADIEU, EV1
Now that California's Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate has been revoked, General Motors is ceasing production of the EV1, the little electric car that could've made a big difference. Join Ed Begley Jr., Alexandra Paul, and other environmentalists for a memorial to this miraculous auto and the genius technology that was never given a chance. 11 a.m. Free. Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. Info: generationEV.com.
Wednesday 23
RED PLANET DIARIES
How 'bout some cool pix of space for a hot night on Earth? As part of the Sixth International Mars Conference taking place July 20-25 at Caltech, Mike Malin of Malin Space Science Systems and Phil Christensen of Arizona State University present the lecture “A Mars Picture Gallery: Every Picture Tells a Story.” Indeed. Free. 8 p.m.-10 p.m. Beckman Auditorium, 332 S. Michigan Ave., Pasadena, (626) 395-4652. Lpi.usra.edu/meetings/sixthmars2003.
Published: 07/17/2003
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