It's that time of year again--time to pack everyone in the car, gas it up, and trek out to the Fairplex in Pomona to get your LA County Fair on. You may have been seeing those ads that play on current events for this year's 18-days of fun and counting the days, or maybe you've never been. Either way, it's a fun outing, and, if you go today, admission is only $1 until 5 p.m.......

FESTIVAL*: The first ever Downtown Film Festival – Los Angeles began yesterday and continues through the weekend with 23 feature and 180 short films at venues throughout Downtown L.A., from the historic movie palaces on Broadway Avenue to Barker Block and SCI-Arc in Downtown’s Arts District. Featured tonight are A Beautiful Life at the Laemmle Grand and Audie & the Wolf at the Los Angeles Theatre. READING: Photographer Peter Sutherland talks about his book Muddy......

The streets of Sherman Oaks recently got plastered with signs announcing a new Thursday night Farmers Market coming to the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square property starting on August 7. It's been years since the weekly market in another part of the neighborhood closed down, so this could be a fresh awakening and good complement to the already popular Studio City Farmers Market on Sunday mornings. They expect over 4,000 people to attend and it suspiciously......

Photo by neonspecs via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr POW WOW--WOW!!! It's the last day of the Southern California Indian Center’s (SCIC) Annual Pow Wow at the Autry National Center, which will give visitors the chance to celebrate the country’s diverse American Indian cultures through drumming, songs, and dance. The festivities last until 6 tonight. GET YOUR OBON ON Another big cultural fest wraps up today--it's the West LA Buddhist Temple's Obon Festival......

Photo by Adamina via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr DO A TOLKIEN TRILOGY ALL-NIGHTER From 8:30 p.m. until dawn (seriously) in the One Colorado Courtyard in Old Town Pasadena the Old Pasadena Film Festival will be blowing things out Middle Earth-style with back to back to back screenings of the whole Rings trilogy, followed by a sunrise Hobbit Breakfast. "BEE" OUTDOORS FOR A MOVIE IN MALIBU Enjoy a screening of Bee Movie outdoors......

Fans of deep-fried anything rejoice! The Orange County Fair opened its gates yesterday and will be welcoming crowds in Costa Mesa until August 3. There's tons of stuff going on there from Tuesdays through Sundays, including live performances, kids stuff, carnival games, animals, exhibits, and did we mention the food? The theme this year in the OC is "Say Cheese!" so some combination of cows, photo ops, and dairy products is sure to be in......

Photo by Lush.i.ous via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr PARTY Pop shop Japan L.A. celebrates their 2 year anniversary at Rise at the Highlands. Come decked out in your best Lolita and Japanese street fashion and get your picture taken with Hello Kitty. 10 p.m. // Rise at The Highlands // 6801 Hollywood Blvd. Suite 433 Hollywood // (323) 461-9800 // Free ART For one night only, Billy Shire Fine Arts will......

Try hard and you might get this hang loose feeling from checking out the Hawaiian Fest in Northridge Photo by bhollar via Flickr Annual Northridge Ho Olau lea (Hawaiian Fest) Say Aloha to the the 50th state with a taste of the food and fun of Hawaii. Lots of Hawaiian shirts and grass skirts, vendors with all sorts of goods, fresh floral leis, loads of food (shaved ice!!!!), and beer. Luckily it won't be......

If the rain doesn't deter you from heading out today, there are some weekend-long festivals that might make it worth your time... Or you can hedge your bets and hang tight today and wait for Sunday--or in some cases Monday--to get in on the fun. Photo of last year's Topanga Days by mackenzieeeee via Flickr Topanga Days Topanga Days, a three-day music and arts festival, features The Living Sisters (Inara George, Eleni Mandell, Becky Stark)......

California Strawberry Festival (Oxnard) This annual fundraiser is focused on the legendary Ventura County strawberry, and has lots of food, crafts, and entertainment from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Strawberry Meadows of College Park (3250 South Rose Avenue, Oxnard). Tickets: $12 Adults; $5 Youth (Ages 5-12); $8 Seniors (55+); $8 Active Military and Dependents with ID; Children 4 and under are free Lilac Festival The 26th annual Lilac Festival in Frazier Park at......

"Why is this night different from all other nights?" you might ask. Well, it's the first night of Passover, and even folks who will be sitting down to a seder somewhere in the Southland tonight will also be asking the same thing, because it's one of four questions that are posed in the traditional pre-dinner ceremony. Passover is a hands-on Jewish holiday, where families and friends gather around the table to honor the Israelites' exodus......

Don't be angsty like this lady...go out tonight! / Photo by Plankton 4:20 via LAist's flickr pool. FILM “Animation Nite: From Halifax with Love” is a program at the Echo Park Film Center that features short animated and semi-animated films by women who’ve all lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, eh. The screening includes work by host Siloën Daley and six others. Music by local band Foot Foot follows. 7:30 // Echo Park Film......

Family, the great little bookstore on Fairfax is celebrating its one-year anniversary with a huge art show that opens tonight at 8pm and you're invited. The show is a "Thank You" to all those who've made Family's first year a success. And what a Thank You it is - the 26 artists they've assembled for this celebratory art show are impressive and reflect everything about the store that we love - eclectic and slightly off-kilter,......

Photo from inside LACMA's new Broad Contemporary by Sundogg via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr In honor of the opening of the brand new Broad Contemporary modern galleries, LACMA is hosting a free community weekend, opening their doors to the public at no charge for the next three days. In addition to full access to the current galleries of the museum, the weekend's festivities are set to include live music; workshops; roving......

My relatives on the east coast just don't understand California weather. For a time, it seemed they saw Southern California as the land of rainbows, unicorns and constant, seasonless, unrelenting heat. The gifts they sent me reflected these beliefs - bikinis that would embarrass a stripper, all manner of atrocious patterned terrycloth 'loungewear', big, cheap plastic sunglasses that they thought all the movie stars might wear whenever they ventured out of their fabulous mansions to......

If you ask me, it doesn't really feel like Christmas. Of course, what I then ask myself is: What is Christmas supposed to feel like? My answer is: I'm not sure. For the first time in a long while I'm here in Los Angeles doing Christmas solo. With airfare out of my budget (you'd be horrified to find out what CSU lecturers make, I'd bet) and the flight schedules whacked to boot, instead of joining......

The Human Calender, a Brady Bunch-esque representation of the calender....

Not about to throw his back out. With the holiday season coming up, many of us become nostalgic with the sights, smells, and sounds of relatives and good times past and present. Some of us turn to photographs to settle these hungry feelings, others slides, others old film reels. The main problem in this endeavor, though, comes when you try to actually find the photos you're thinking of. I know, in my house, we have......

When asked what I was thankful for this year, I really had to step back and think for a while. I know life is full of blessings, but writing about what makes me want to keep breathing everyday isn't as easy as it sounds. So without further ado here are some things, good and bad, big and small, that made me feel thankful this year in no particular order... 1. Guitar Hero III I’m......

Strobe lights. Fog. Serial killers. Screams. God damn, I love Halloween. Not only do I love dressing up in costume, eating lots of candy and carving out Jack-O-Lanterns, I love all the frightening fun Halloween entails. And for me the pinnacle of spooky good times always involves a haunted house. But there’s a problem. I’ve been to Knott’s Scary Farm and Halloween Horror Nights so many times that they have lost the element of......

Years ago, I found a book called Sister Crazy, wedged in on an unassuming shelf in a used bookstore called The Cabin, in a small town called Three Rivers CA. Finding the book reminded me of when I was a kid and I used to root through the old books at my grandparents' house, or wander through the library during the summer. (Yes, I was a nerd, basically Hermione.) But it has since become my......

Photo by Pinky P. The Autry museum is hosting the second annual Barbeque Championship and Festival tomorrow, Saturday, April 14, 2007, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Griffith Park. 32 teams will be competing for some kind of smoke-and-meat-infused title -- and for the greater glory of barbecue. Because what could be better than marinated, rubbed, glazed and barbecued animal flesh? **If you want to prove yourself a true glutton you can enter......