Friday fun and more

The Long Beach Museum of Art, which has an ongoing California landscapes exhibit, offers free admission on Fridays. So does the nearby Museum of Latin American Art, which is free on Sundays, too.

Starting Friday, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach hosts “Holiday Late Nights.” From Dec. 26 to Jan. 2, admission drops to $10 after 5 p.m., and the aquarium is open until 9 p.m.

The annual migration of Pacific gray whales from Alaska to Mexico officially begins Friday, too. Working with the aquarium, Harbor Breeze Cruises includes naturalists on excursions that take you up close to whales, dolphins and other sea life. Press Telegram.

Updated: What are you doing New Year’s Eve?

Savoring the holiday weekend in SoCal

I did an interview this week with LAist Editor Zach Behrens, who asked about SoCal getaways for the holiday weekend and my new project, the Seal Beach Daily website.

On long weekends I like to escape up the coast or plan a kickback retreat to the desert. But this tumultuous season of fires, storms and economic meltdowns feels like a good time to stick closer to home. So I suggested a handful of day trips. Among them: the California landscape exhibit at the Long Beach Museum of Art. Orange County’s timeless Crystal Cove. Southern California’s other Wine Country. Bargain hunting in LA’s Fashion District.

Browse the entire LAist interview here.

More buzz: Check out Shelby Grad’s nice take today on the LAist interview at the LAT’s LA Now blog. Michelle Vranizan Rafter also writes about Seal Beach Daily at the excellent Word Count website.

**Photo of the Seal Beach Pier by Kate Cohen/Seal Beach Daily

Tunes that take you there and other travel stories

I just added a link over in the navigation bar (right) to my Google Travel Reader page. It’s a daily collection of hand-picked travel stories about California and other newsy items for travelers.

Today’s offerings, for example, include a link to National Geographic’s Intelligent Traveler blog,
which features a monthly playlist of tunes to take along on the road. The current destinations is East Africa. You also find suggested soundtracks for trips to Hawaii, Paris, Italy, New Orleans, Miami, and, of course, Southern California. Browse the playlists here. And check out the other travel stories in today’s Reader here.

Elsewhere: WorldHum compiles a list of 13 Great Travel Horror Movies.

Eco adventures: Virginia Hayes, curator of the Living Collection at Santa Barbara’s wondrous Lotusland botanical gardens, has just released a new book, The Gourmet Garden.

LA Noir weekends: Take in a slice of LA’s seamy history on the “Real Black Dahlia” tour this Saturday or the “The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain’s Southern California Nightmare” on Nov. 8. Esotouric.

Another downtown day trip: J. Michael Walker’s All the Saints of the City of the Angels exhibit opens this weekend at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in LA. “After exhibiting “All the Saints” at the Autry Museum for seven months, I am delighted and honored to be able to present this project in the intriguing (and challenging) environment of Downtown Los Angeles’ austere new cathedral,” the author and painter says.

Playing tourist in Hollywood, er, Culver City

My nine-year-old son has been clamoring to see Wheel of Fortune ever since his older sister got to schmooze with Vanna White a couple summers ago – and came home with cash that the show’s announcer handed out in between shows.

Well, this year Eben is old enough to go (the Wheel is one of the few shows that admits kids younger than twelve) and I scored some tickets after stalking a handy site called TVTix.com for several months.

A week ago I set out on the 405 with Eben and three buddies after they solemnly promised not to shout out letters and get us thrown out of the show. The boys buzzed with excitement as we arrived at Sony Studios in Culver City and learned that Spiderman had been filmed there, American Gladiators was born there, and Adam Sandler often zips around the lot in a souped up golf cart.

Once we finally were ushered into the Wheel of Fortune sanctum, the boys got caught up in the behind-the-scenes action: jittery contestants practicing on the big wheel just before the show, guys in black shirts hoisting cards ordering us to clap or “SHHHHH,” Pat Sajak filming blooper reels promos during breaks, Vanna emerging in a string of shimmering gowns, and, best of all, staffers handing out dollar bills and freebies in between shows.

The boys didn’t win any cash, but they did wangle some front row seats by the second taping. During the third and final show, the studio erupted as a computer-programmer contestant vanquished the bonus round puzzle AND picked the elusive $100,000 envelope, too. Confetti burst from the ceiling. The contestant danced with joy. And the boys hollered and clapped and mugged for the camera from their prized front row seats, right in the heart of game show heaven.

The verdict on the way home: The boys decided the Wheel of Fortune set was smaller than expected, and the stop-and-start action seemed kinda fake and yet somehow very, very cool.

Grazing LA with Jonathan Gold

Yelp Weekly has a Q&A with Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer Prize-winning restaurant critic who writes LA Weekly’s terrific Counter Intelligence column. Here’s a taste:

Yelp: Being a native Angeleno, in your opinion, what makes LA so unique?

JG: There are too many to name, but I am very fond of the Alameda Swap Meet, Al & Bea’s at lunchtime, the bar at Musso and Frank’s, the mind-blowing southern Thai curries at Jitlada, Koreatown in its entirety, and the Hollywood Farmers Market.

Yelp: Every foodie has a guilty pleasure, so tell me, do you have a favorite fast food restaurant? (Sorry, I had to!)

JG: The Rosemead branch of Lee’s Sandwiches, the mammoth Vietnamese banh mi operation, has a drive-thru window now. That’s living: house-made Vietnamese charcuterie on a freshly baked baguette without getting out of your car.

Read more of Aunny De La Rosa’s interview with Gold here.

In a recent column this summer, Gold revisited Fred Eric’s Tiara Cafe, an eclectic and unexpected gem in downtown LA’s Fashion District. “Eric’s Asian-tinged, pan-Mediterranean menu is still painted in 17 shades of farmers-market salad,” Gold writes. “There are bubbly, skateboard-shaped lengths of flatbread served with curried squash, preserved lemons and harissa, and a selection of `Freshwiches,’ rice-paper rolls stuffed with spice-tinged `Thai’ cobb salad, with grilled tuna and vegetables, or with shrimp, mangoes and Granny Smith apples. Low-carb and fat-free, Freshwiches are big with the perpetually fasting fashionistas that make up a big part of the clientele. A Cuban-style pressed sandwich is made with smoked duck and house-pickled cucumbers, and noodle dishes come both vegan and not — I suspect there is no system of culinary belief the kitchen cannot accommodate.”

Summer Staycation

The LA Times business section looks at this summer’s travel trend — the staycation. Faced with sky-high gas prices, many Southern California travelers are planning getaways close to home. Hotel reservations here are up from last summer (by 9 percent, says the Times) and families are loading up the car and driving to area theme parks and attractions that don’t involve costly air travel.

Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., said Southern California might have a unique advantage over other major regions of the nation in weathering the downturn in travel.

“You have 21 million people in Southern California, so there is a big market right in your own backyard,” Kyser said. At the same time, “there are a lot of things to partake in without going far such as Catalina Island. Our backyard is a pretty exotic and fun place.”

Booksellers are seeing a renewed interest in close-to-home travel books. At the Barnes and Noble Marina Pacifica in Long Beach, for example, community events director Cindy Patterson has created a special SoCal travel table and shoppers are snapping up her selections. I’m delighted that Cindy’s picks include Great Escapes: Southern California.

*Photo: a slice of Malibu’s spectacular coast, courtesy of Veronique de Turenne. Malibu is one of the cool getaways featured in Great Escapes: Southern California.

Buy Me Some Sushi and Baby Back Ribs

Now this is a great idea for a travel story: New York Times writer Peter Meehan eats his way through twelve major league baseball parks and critiques the chow. West Coast stops include Dodger Stadium (he praises the pastrami heroes, but disses the Dodger Dogs) and San Francisco’s AT&T Park (the “leading example of upscale food”).

Meehan’s taste of the Bay: “By the seventh-inning stretch, I had sampled a peppery clam chowder served in a bread bowl dotted through with tender bits of clam; a fried catfish sandwich in a crisp, Cajun-accented crust; and a homey bowl of jerk chicken over rice, with a healthy dash of jalapeño hot sauce. “

You’ll want to devour the entire story here. And then add your two cents here.

Looking for discounted baseball tickets this summer? Check out the Goldstar website.

Booked in Westwood

Next weekend is the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, a sprawling outdoor affair that regularly draws 100,000 book lovers to the UCLA campus every spring. (Who says people in LA don’t read?!)

The festival is great fun. You’ll see throngs of people lined up in the sunshine outside lecture halls, waiting — and obviously excited — to join conversations about current events, current fiction, and the latest offerings from sci-fi masters and chick-lit queens. Poets give impassioned readings under the big tent outside Powell Library. Open-air stages feature celebrated chefs and celebrities touting their children’s books. I love to browse the dozens of booksellers, publishers, museums, non-profit foundations, and retailers who set up shop along UCLA’s grassy plazas.

More than 400 authors appear on Saturday and Sunday (tickets to daytime events are free), so you’ll find plenty of great choices. A festival map is here.

I’ll be at the Festival of Books on Sunday, April 27, signing copies of My California: Journeys by Great Writers from 1 to 2 pm with Edward Humes and Veronique de Turenne. Please be sure to stop by the Angel City Press Booth (#332, near Royce Hall) and say hello.

36 hours in Pasadena

The New YorkTimes features a family-friendly weekend escape to the City of Roses. Jennifer Steinhauer stops by the Norton Simon Museum, Distant Lands Travel Bookstore and the Kidspace Children’s Museum. She wisely suggests spending an entire day at the nearby Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens, which is magical this time of year. Check out the 36-hour slide show here.

Don’t miss this: The Huntington just opened its $18 million Chinese Garden, Liu Fang Yuan, the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, this past month. Recent stories: LA Times, Wall Street Journal.

Soul of the City

Thumbing through a map book one day, Los Angeles painter J. Michael Walker noticed just how many of the city’s streets are named for saints. Santa Monica Boulevard. Santa Rita Street. San Ysidro Drive. San Vicente Boulevard. San Julian Place. San Remo Way. He eventually chronicled 103 saintly streets in all.

“Walker had a brilliant idea: he found all the L.A. streets named for saints, retrieved their stories and illustrated them in works that draw from Goya and folk art and 1920s real estate ads,” says Peter Fish, an editor at Sunset Magazine. “…each saint street tells a story, tragic, hopeful, beautiful, violent, that together form a remarkably powerful panorama of L.A. You’ll never look at your Thomas Brothers guide in the same way.”

Heyday Books has just published Walker’s book, All the Saints of the City of the Angels: Seeking the Soul of L.A. on its Streets. The Autry National Center at Griffith Park has a companion art exhibit that runs through September 7.

“The saints’ names are common enough, we drive them every day,” Walker says in an interview with The New York Times. “But we see them without looking, without thinking of the resonance of names.”