Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, March 25, 2017

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SOUTH PASADENA - SAN MARINO

Mountain Views-News Saturday, March 25, 2017 

Film Night with Acclaimed 
Director Morgan Neville

Symphony Concludes 
Season with Beethoven

Lectures and Conferences 
at the Huntington Library

 
A very special Film Night 
with a screening of “The Music 
of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and 
the Silk Road Ensemble” will 
be presented in the Library 
Community Room on Friday, 
April 7 at 7 pm with an in-
person Intro and Q & A with 
the film’s Academy Award-
winning Director Morgan 
Neville. The free event is 
presented by the Friends of the 
South Pasadena Public Library, 
the South Pasadena Chinese 
American Club, and the South 
Pasadena Public Library.

 The Library Community 
Room is located at 1115 El 
Centro Street. Doors will open 
at 6:30 p.m. and refreshments 
will be served. No tickets or 
reservations are needed. The 
Library is only about a block 
away from the Gold Line Station 
and free parking is available at 
the Mission-Meridian Parking 
Garage, located at 805 Meridian 
Avenue next to the Metro Gold 
Line Station.

 And his “Music Of 
Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma And 
The Silk Road Ensemble”

Conference: West of Walden: Thoreau in the 21st Century

April 7-8 (Fri.-Sat.)

 The sun is but a morning star. Walden’s famous last line 
points eastward to the sunrise; but Henry David Thoreau 
also wrote of the west, the sunset, and day’s end. To mark 
Thoreau’s bicentennial year, this conference will pose the 
question: How can we read Thoreau from the sundown 
side, the far west of his imagination? Can we see, in the 
awakening light of the sunset, another anticipation of the 
dawn? 

 Registration for this two-day conference is $25, with an 
optional buffet lunch each day for $20.

 Conference registration is $10 for current Huntington 
docents and free for current Long-Term Fellows and 
students with a current Student I.D. Please bring your 
current I.D. to event day check-in. Students, please note 
school affiliation after your name when registering.

Distinguished Fellow Lecture - Potosi, Silver, and the 
Coming of the Modern World

Apr 12 at 7:30 p.m.

 John Demos, Samuel Knight Professor of History Emeritus 
at Yale University and the Ritchie Distinguished Fellow at 
The Huntington, will present an account of Potosi, the great 
16th- and 17th-century South American silver mine and 
boomtown which galvanized imperial Spain, fueled the 
rise of capitalism, destroyed native peoples and cultures 
en masse, and changed history (for good or ill?). Free; no 
reservations required. Rothenberg Hall.

Join us before each lecture for dinner in the 1919 café, just 
steps away from Rothenberg Hall. Our newly launched 
Research Lecture and Dinner series offers three-course, 
prix-fixe dinners inspired by the lectures topic, complete 
with full table service at The Bar. Signature cocktails, beer, 
wine, and small plates will also be available. Each lecture-
inspired dinner is $35 per person, and begins at 5:30 p.m.

East Asian Garden Lecture - The Lives of a Memorial 
Building: from Nara and Beyond

Apr 25 at 7:30 p.m.

 Some of the oldest timber structures that survive in Japan 
are a group of small buildings built in Nara in the eighth 
century to commemorate important patrons of Buddhism. 
Jun Hu, assistant professor of art history at Northwestern 
University, will explore the meanings and functions of this 
peculiar architectural typology, tracing its origins in China 
and its development as a feature of Japanese Buddhist 
architecture. Free; no reservations required. Rothenberg 
Hall

 The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical 
Gardens is located 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. For 
more information call 626-405-2100.

 The Pasadena Symphony 
closes out its 2016-2017 
Singpoli Classics Series with 
Beethoven Symphony No. 9 
on April 29 with both matinee 
and evening performances at 2 
p.m. and 8 p.m. at Ambassador 
Auditorium. This season 
finale will envelop audiences 
with voices from the Donald 
Brinegar Singers, the JPL 
Chorus, and the Los Angeles 
Children’s Chorus alongside 
four stellar solo vocalists: 
soprano Summer Hassan, 
mezzo soprano Tracy Van 
Fleet, tenor Arnold Livingston 
Geis and bass Steve Pence 
throughout the concert.

 Additional featured works 
on the program are Vaughan 
Williams’ Serenade to Music for 
chorus and orchestra, written 
for Henry Wood’s golden 
conducting anniversary and 
was premiered at The Proms 
in 1938; and Holst’s Choral 
Hymns from the Rig Veda, 
which will showcase Music 
Director David Lockington 
on cello and the Los Angeles 
Children’s Chorus conducted 
by Anne Tomlinson. Holst was 
intensely interested in Indian 
texts and music, an inspiration 
evident in several of his works 
from the first decades of the 
20th century.

 The Pasadena Symphony 
provides a quintessential 
experience combining great 
music with a festive social 
atmosphere. To learn more 
about the music join us 
for Insights – a free pre-
concert dialogue with David 
Lockington, which begins one 
hour prior to each performance. 
Patrons who plan to arrive 
early can also enjoy a drink 
or a dinner in the lively Sierra 
Auto Symphony Lounge, yet 
another addition to the carefree 
and elegant concert experience 
the Pasadena Symphony offers. 
A posh setting at Ambassador 
Auditorium’s beautiful outdoor 
plaza, the lounge offers 
uniquely prepared menus from 
Claud &Co for both lunch and 
dinner, a full bar and fine wines 
by Michero Family Wines, plus 
music before the concert and 
during intermission.

 All Classics concerts 
take place at Ambassador 
Auditorium, 131 S. St. John 
Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91105 
with matinee and evening 
performances at 2:00 p.m. and 
8:00 p.m. Tickets start at $35 
and may be purchased online at 
pasadenasymphony-pops.org 
or by calling (626) 793-7172.

 Parking: Valet parking is 
available on St. John Ave 
for $15. General parking is 
available in two locations: next 
to the Auditorium (entrance 
on St. John Ave) at the covered 
parking structure for $10 and 
directly across the street at the 
Wells Fargo parking structure 
(entrance on Terrace at Green 
St). ADA parking is located at 
the above-ground parking lot 
adjacent to the Auditorium 
(entrance on St. John Ave.) for 
$10. Parking purchased onsite 
is cash only. 

Sierra Auto Symphony 
Lounge: Located on the plaza 
at Ambassador Auditorium. 
Opens at 12:30 pm before the 
matinee and 6:00 pm before the 
evening performance. 

 Pre-Concert Discussion: Pre-
concert discussions with David 
Lockington begin one hour 
before curtain and are available 
to all ticket holders at no cost.

 
Summer is around the 
corner and we’re gearing up 
for another amazing season of 
Huntington Explorers Camp! 
Our 2017 program is filled with 
hands-on fun for children ages 
5-12.

 Huntington Explorers Camp 
runs for three consecutive 
weeks, July 10 - 28, from 9 a.m. 
to 4 p.m. daily. Campers can 
register for a single week or 
multiple weeks. We’ll focus on 
a range of topics that emphasize 
active learning, design-based 
thinking and most of all, fun! 
Our Instructors are expert 
artists and makers, who use 
the Huntington collections as 
inspiration for engaging art 
and science-based activities. 
Campers will explore the 
Huntington’s gardens, library, 
and galleries and become 
incredible inventors, botany 
buddies, super storytellers, and 
eco-rangers!

 Registration will open on April 
7. Members’ Price: $350.00 
per week. Non-Members’ Price: 
$400.00 per week.

 The Huntington is located 
1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. 
For more call 626-405-2100.

Huntington 
Explorers

 Explorers returns for 3 
fun-filled weeks in July

Huntington Exhibit Octavia 
E. Butler: Telling My Stories

 A new exhibition opening 
this spring at The Huntington 
Library, Art Collections, 
and Botanical Gardens 
examines the life and work 
of celebrated author Octavia 
E. Butler (1947–2006), the 
first science fiction writer 
to receive a prestigious 
MacArthur “genius” award 
and the first African-
American woman to win 
widespread recognition 
writing in that genre. 
“Octavia E. Butler: Telling 
My Stories” opens April 8, in 
the West Hall of the Library 
and continues through Aug. 
7. Butler’s literary archive 
resides at The Huntington.

 “She was a pioneer—a 
master storyteller who 
brought her voice, the voice 
of a woman of color, to 
science fiction,” said Natalie 
Russell, assistant curator of 
literary manuscripts at The 
Huntington and curator of 
the exhibition. “Tired of 
stories featuring white, male 
heroes, she developed an 
alternative narrative from a 
very personal point of view.”

 A Pasadena, Calif., native, 
Butler told the New York 
Times in a 2000 interview: 
“When I began writing 
science fiction, when I began 
reading, heck, I wasn’t in 
any of this stuff I read. The 
only black people you found 
were occasional characters 
or characters who were 
so feeble-witted that they 
couldn’t manage anything, 
anyway. I wrote myself in, 
since I’m me and I’m here 
and I’m writing.”

 Butler would have been 
70 in 2017; she died an 
untimely death at age 58, 
apparently of a stroke at her 
home in Seattle.

After Butler’s death, The 
Huntington became the 
recipient of her papers, 
which arrived in 2008 in two 
four-drawer file cabinets 
and 35 large cartons. “She 
kept nearly everything,” said 
Russell, “from her very first 
short stories, written at age 
12, to book contracts and 
programs from speaking 
engagements. The body of 
materials includes 8,000 
individual items and 
more than 80 boxes of 
additional items: extensive 
drafts, notes, and research 
materials for more than a 
dozen novels, numerous 
shorts stories and essays, 
as well as correspondence 
and other materials. By the 
time the collection had been 
processed and catalogued, 
more than 40 scholars were 
asking to get access to it. In 
the past two years, it has been 
used nearly 1,300 times—or 
roughly 15 times per week, 
said Russell, making it one of 
the most actively researched 
archives at The Huntington.

 “Octavia E. Butler: Telling 
My Stories” will include 
examples of journal entries, 
photographs, and first 
editions of her books, 
including Kindred, arguably 
her best-known work. The 
book is less science fiction 
and more fantasy, involving 
an African-American 
woman who travels back 
in time to the horrors of 
plantation life in pre-Civil 
War Maryland. “I wanted 
to reach people emotionally 
in a way that history tends 
not to,” Butler said about 
the book. Published in 
1979, Kindred continues 
to command widespread 
appeal and is regularly 
taught in high schools and at 
the university level, as well 
as chosen for community-
wide reading programs and 
book clubs.


Mission Street 
Specific Plan

 
Richard Willson, Ph.D. 
professor, author, and 
leading expert on parking 
policy will share insights on 
Parking. The lecture will be 
on March 29, at 7 pm in the 
Amedee O. “dick” Richards, 
Jr., City Council Chambers 
located at 1424 Mission 
Street. This free event is 
open to everyone.

Free CERT 
Emergency 
Skills Training

 Free training for CERT 
graduates, Neighborhood 
Watch Block Captains, 
Amateur Radio Operators, 
and the general public. The 
goal of the meeting, April 
12 from 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., 
is to educate and empower 
groups of neighbors to 
be self sufficient during a 
disaster. This will be a very 
hands on discussion of the 
steps required to build a 
plan for you and your closest 
neighbors. 

 The Golden Hour is the 
one hour you have after 
an earthquake to find any 
neighbors who may be 
injured and trapped. The 
“Map Your Neighborhood” 
training will help empower 
you and your neighbors 
to develop a plan where 
“neighbors help neighbors” 
until help can arrive. Please 
bring 1-5 neighbors so that 
you can work as a team on 
your plan.

 The event will be at Library 
Community Room - 1115 
El Centro Street, South 
Pasadena.


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com