The L.A. Times Festival of Books runs Saturday, April 18 and Sunday, April 19 at USC, pulling in authors, chefs, publishers, and readers from across Southern California for what amounts to the region’s biggest literary weekend of the year.
LAIST named the festival the weekend’s essential event, with staff on the ground if you want to find them. It’s the sort of gathering where you arrive with a reasonable budget and leave with 10 books you hadn’t planned on buying and a tote bag that’s actively threatening your rotator cuff.
Out in Irvine, the Orange County Museum of Art hosts a free artist talk with Ruben Ochoa on Saturday, April 18, at 2 p.m. No ticket required.
Ochoa’s practice covers photography, large-scale installations, and augmented reality, all oriented around how Southern California’s built environment shapes the way people move through space and understand where they belong. He’ll be in conversation with curator Dr. Michaela Mohrmann as part of the exhibit Breakdown/Breakthrough: Art and Infrastructure, running at 18881 Von Karman Ave. through May 16. The same day, there’s a pop-up activation at the Irvine Barclay Theatre Plaza at 4242 Campus Drive. “The work asks people to look hard at the infrastructure they walk past every day without seeing,” Ochoa said of the exhibition.
In Silver Lake, the Friends of Elysian Park are screening Ed Ruscha’s short film Elysian Park and the Stone Quarry Hills on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. at the Edendale Library at 2011 Sunset Blvd. Ruscha completed the film in 2023, and it carries narration by actor Benicio del Toro. The film moves through the park’s long and crowded history: indigenous origins, a quarrying operation, brick manufacturing, a hospital, and eventually a baseball stadium. That’s a lot for one piece of land to absorb.
Also free.
Up in Altadena, the Great Altadena Poppy Festival opens Saturday at 10 a.m. at 2270 Lake Ave., with a fun run kicking off two hours earlier at 8 a.m. for anyone who wants to earn their flower wall selfie. The Pasadena Jaycees are distributing passports so attendees can log the stops they’ve made, and a drive-through poppy route is available for people who’d rather stay in their cars. The festival is also a direct economic support effort for Altadena, a community that’s been working to rebuild since January’s fires hit the area. Admission is free, which means there’s no reason not to go if you’re anywhere near the 210.
Over on the Santa Monica Pier, a free outdoor play called Save the Pier runs every night this weekend. No reservation, no cost. Show up.
The music calendar runs heavier. Friday at the Novo, Avatar, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Frozen Soul are headlining a show that’ll register on seismographs. Blood for Blood plays the Belasco the same night. Saturday, Gwar takes the Belasco stage with Soulfly in support. If you’ve never been to a Gwar show, don’t wear anything you can’t throw away. My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult plays the Teragram the same night, which offers a very different kind of theatrical chaos.
For anyone driving to any of these events, California’s highway conditions dashboard is worth a check before you head out. Weekend traffic around USC on festival days can chew up 30 to 45 minutes that weren’t in your plans.
Licorice Pizza has records and related gear available at locations across Southern California for anyone looking to pair the music weekend with some vinyl.
The Orange County Museum of Art opened its current location in 2022 and has been building out its programming steadily. The Breakdown/Breakthrough exhibit, which pairs Ochoa’s infrastructure-focused work with the museum’s broader built-environment theme, closes May 16. The Irvine pop-up at 4242 Campus Drive on April 18 adds a second access point for people who can’t get inside the museum itself.
The Altadena festival at 2270 Lake Ave. runs April 19 as well, with 17 vendors and 16 community organizations listed as participants. Last year drew an estimated 19,000 visitors over the weekend, and organizers expect turnout to exceed that given how many people want to show support for the community after January.