And in the heart of it all, is Graumann’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

Cirque du Soleil is sponsoring free admission to the marine science center during public hours, from 12:30 to 5 p.m. The internationally known circus is performing its ode to the insect “OVO, ”under the Grand Chapiteau in the parking lot adjacent to the Aquarium and the Santa Monica Pier.

OVO is described as “immersion into the teeming world of insects.” Aquarium visitors will be immersed in the underwater world, gaining knowledge about the creatures of the Santa Monica Bay through hands-on, interactive exhibits of more than 100 species native to the Bay.
The free Sundays will in particular celebrate crustaceans – the ocean’s counterpart to insects on land – and as always, strive to inspire environmental stewardship for the benefit of all marine life.

In addition to the variety of crustaceans on exhibit, touch tanks at the Aquarium offer an opportunity to get up close and personal with sea stars, anemones, sea cucumbers and urchins. Moray eels, octopus, sharks, rays and a diverse number of fish species – all from the Santa Monica Bay – are displayed in habitat-specific exhibits. Moon jellies – some as large as dinner plates – mesmerize as well as educate. The Aquarium has its own nursery to raise these majestic oceanic drifters.

The Aquarium is located beach level, beneath the Santa Monica Pier, at 1600 Ocean Front Walk. More information is available at www.healthebay.org/smpa, or by calling 310-393-6149.

Click here to download this information as an 8×10 for handy printing!

Children’s Programs:

February 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 — Toddler Storytime: Stories, songs, and fingerplays for newborn to 3 years. 11:30 am

February 2, 9, 16. 23 — Toddler Storytime: Stories, songs, stretches for newborns to 3 years old. 3:30 pm

Feb 7 – Toy making workshop. Build moving toys out of simple, recycled materials in a workshop that intuitively explores physical phenomena and basic principles of mechanics. Inventive thinking & creative problem-solving are encouraged as children work together in making these toys. Limited spots (20 participants). Sign up @Library Ages 6+ 4:00pm.

Feb. 8— Jazz It Up with Baby & Me. Dance, stretch & strengthening for you & baby! Join instructor Lia Montelongo for 1/2 hr class. Limited spots (20 participants). Sign Up @ Library 4pm

February 14 Family Movie—TBA 3pm

Feb. 15 Story Theater! Master storyteller Vicki Goring spins new stories inspired by children’s suggestions & imagination. Each story is a fresh new journey into imagination, with positive messages and guaranteed surprises! All ages. 4pm

Feb. 22— Craft activity for kids. 4pm

Feb. 25 Yoga for Kids! Grab your towel/mat, listen to a story & practice yoga. Ages 5+. Parents welcome 4pm Monday-Saturday — GAB (Grown-ups and Books) Storytelling: Trained volunteers read to children of all ages in the
Children’s Reading Room. Call or visit the branch for specific times.

StudentZone Monday-Thursday 3-5p (M, W); 3:30-5:30p (Tu-Th). The Venice Branch Library offers a dedicated space, essential supplies, equipment, resources, trained staff & volunteers to assist students grades 4-12. Free printing

SAVE THE DATE!! Feb. 11 @ 12pm Special Screening—Happy The Movie . Venice Library is proud to host an advance screening of this film .

Teen Programs

Feb 16 Comic Making Workshop! Vince Moore of Comics Ink will teach a comic book making workshop.Explore your comic talent! Refreshments served and all materials will be provided.. 4pm

Feb 29 Teen Council Meeting: Get involved in your library and earn community service hours! Pizza served. 4pm

Adult Events:

Feb 7: Mindful Meditation. Take a refreshing pause by simply sitting and paying attention to senses, feelings and thoughts. 7pm

Feb 8, 22: Computer classes. LAPL Catalog Pt. 1 & LAPL catalog Pt. 2 (learn how to use this valuable resource). 10a

Feb. 9—Movie of the Month. TBA 5:30p

Feb. 11: VIP Venice: Denise Sullivan –Reading & discussion of “Keep On Pushing: Black Power Music from Blues to Hip Hop.

Music performance and student poets 826LA SPARC follows.

Feb 25: Social Branding What is your social media brand? Join authors Beverly Macy & Teri Thompson, in exploring the value of social media for customer service and as an essential sales & marketing tool. 12p

Feb 28 Book Club . This month’s selection TBA. Copies available at the Library Circulation Desk. 6:30p

Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library
501 S. Venice Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291

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KNX 1070′s Claudia Peschiutta reports on the Hollywood Museum of Death.

The holiday, also known as Chinese New Year, Korean New Year, Japanese New Year and Tet in the Vietnamese community, celebrates the new year on a lunar calendar and the beginning of spring.

In the Chinese zodiac, the Dragon is considered to be the luckiest sign, symbolizing good fortune and intense power. According to Wikipedia, the dragon’s motto is “I reign.”

In most Asian homes celebrating Lunar New Year, the holiday is a time to clean house, clear debts and host elaborate feasts with family and friends. Distributing money in red “lucky” envelopes is a widespread tradition, and the night is often ended with firecrackers.

In Hacienda Heights, the Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple welcomes thousands of visitors over for special events on Monday, like the Chinese New Year Peace Lantern Festival  and the New Year Cultural Performance.

Most communities will commemorate the holiday this weekend with dragon parades and festivals.  In downtown Los Angeles, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce will hold its Golden Dragon Parade Saturday, Jan. 28 at 1 p.m.

The city of Monterey Park will hold its weekend-long festival Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 28 and 29, in its downtown business district on Garvey Avenue, between Garfield and Nicholson.

Garden Grove’s Tet Festival of Southern California is the largest outside of Vietnam and spans three days, from Friday, Jan. 27 through Sunday Jan. 29. The festival features a Miss Vietnam of Southern California pageant, a talent competition, and live performances at Garden Grove Park.

A simple playground has neighbors on tilt in Santa Monica. The Santa Monica Daily Press reports that the issue lies with a proposed 20,000 square foot playground at the south end of the city limits, just before SaMo becomes Venice and things get a little freaky. Katherine Spitz Associates Inc. designed the park, which would be "the city's first universally accessible playground." Plans call for a "play area that looks like a buried clipper ship complete with sails and images of marine life...sails would provide shade and the hulls, decks and areas around the ship would provide places for the kids to play with traditional playground equipment like slides and swings as well as sea-themed features like periscopes and sandboxes" All of that sounds like a kid's wildest dreams, and the park has the added benefit of being designed to give kids with disabilities full access to the fun. The current park has a sand area, picnic tables, turf, and palm trees. But locals are concerned that the upgrade would be a magnet for more pernicious behavior than play.

Residents of the Sea Colony One condo complex nearby are concerned that the playground would also give homeless people and gang members a place to do drugs and "fornicate," according to the SMDP. At a city council meeting on the issue this week, resident Steve Unger said that "If there was ever a foreseeable hazard, this is it...My mind boggles at the crime, lawsuits and inevitable liability to Santa Monica taxpayers that this wrongheaded project would cause." The Canyon News, meanwhile, provides the following list of possible vulgarities feared by opponents of the project: "violence, public sex, urination, defecation, garbage, fireworks, partying, public drunkenness, broken bottles, drug materials and cigarette butts."

Adding to the opposition's worst nightmare, there is also the issue of the Marvin Braude Beach Bike Path, which playground users would have to cross to get to the bathrooms--opening the door for collisions and probably more drug use. The city will look at ways to deal with the bike path. According to the CN, Recreation and Parks Commissioner Phil Brock said the problems with crossing the bike path (which councilmembers said is a problem everywhere in the city) could be fixed with forthcoming yellow signs that will warn bicyclists to slow down.

Possible solutions to the horrors the playground is almost definitely going to bring include closing the site at 10 pm or having local police patrol the area.
· Universally accessible, but not universally loved [Santa Monica Daily Press]
· Locals Attack Multi-Use Playground Plans [Canyon News]
· Universally Accessible Playground Schematic Design [Agenda Item 8-B]

As Patch reported earlier this week, the Culver City Music Festival received a temporary reprieve from the city council Monday night, after a vote to pull funding for the festival was postponed until Jan. 23.

The festival is just one of scores of cultural programs that to date have been funded by the city’s Redevelopment Agency. However, once the agency is abolished on Feb. 1, as per the State Supreme Court’s directive, many of those cultural attractions will find themselves struggling to survive.

At Tuesday night’s Cultural Affairs Commission Town Hall meeting, some of the speakers took the opportunity to bring the issue to the commission’s attention, in the hope that something might be done to save the festival and raise the $75,000 required to produce it before the Jan. 23 deadline.

At this stage, outside sponsorship is likely the only way to raise the funds and community activist Meghan Sahli-Wells told the commission she started working towards that goal immediately after Monday night’s council meeting ended.

“A lot of people have a tendency to think of the arts as a luxury,” she said. “But we are in the heart of screenland and with Sony as one of our biggest businesses, there’s no doubt this is a huge and vital part of our economy.”

She urged the community to engage in “hard core community dialogue on how we are going to fund the arts going forward,” adding that it was “fairly clear” the council will not fund the concert series from the city’s general fund.

“We have until the 23^rd to decide how we will make it live,” she said, adding that she personally contacted two people from the Downtown Business Association and both pledged to donate $500 each if other local businesses pitch in to help save the music festival.

“It’s not much,” Sahli-Wells confessed, but said it could possibly work with a good Kickstarter campaign. She also said she would be interested in activating the commission’s foundation to bring it on a par with the education foundation. “Maybe that’s one of our answers,” she said.

Jonathan Weiss, a music supervisor for film and television said he couldn’t understand why during the music festival’s 17-year history, the organizers of had not been tasked with seeking out sponsorships as part of their job description.

Weiss suggested that performing rights organizations such as The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) should be contacted in an effort to sponsor the festival.

“[These organizations] sponsor a lot of festivals around the country like South by Southwest (SXSW),” he said. “Sony has also contributed a lot of help in the past [to local projects],” he added.

As the music festival was not an agenda item at Tuesday night’s meeting, the commission could not discuss possible solutions to save the music festival. In an effort to try and expedite the process and with the Jan. 23 deadline looming, Commissioner Ronnie Jayne recommended that a sub-committee be put together to discuss the issue as soon as possible. That meeting will be held as soon as staff coordinate schedules.

Commissioner Michelle Bernardin said, “Hopefully we can get something done and we can all be happy again.”

Be sure to like Culver City Patch on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. 

Palisadian Rudy DeFelice is the founder of a company called "Kidworth," an online resource aimed at teaching kids how to be smart with their money.

According to the site, it's all about teaching a child how to use their income (money from birthdays and allowances) in a productive way. The site helps kids set goals and even helps them build a portfolio.

On Jan. 5, DeFelice was featured on KABC news during a consumer report.

"If you could get kids to think about just the money that comes into their life ordinarily, and use it in a productive way that serves their interests, it would do them a great favor, both in terms of building a nest egg, but also in giving them some skills," said DeFelice in the report by KABC's consumer specialist Ric Romero.

• To watch DeFelice on KABC, click here.
• For the Kidworth website, click here.

3rd St & 3rd St Prom, Santa Monica, CA

PASADENA (CBS) — Floats from Monday’s Tournament of Roses Parade are now on display for the public to enjoy.

The Rose Parade’s Showcase of Floats presented by Bayer Advanced gives visitors an up-close look at 44 floats, which are located on Sierra Madre Boulevard between Washington Boulevard and Sierra Madre Villa Avenue. There are also some on Washington Boulevard between Sierra Madre Boulevard and Woodlyn Road.

The event runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday. Parking is limited, but shuttle service will be available from three locations:

Pasadena City College
1570 E. Colorado Blvd.

Community Education Center
3035 E. Foothill Blvd.

Rose Bowl Stadium, Lot H

General admission is $10, but children under five will be admitted for free. Shuttle tickets are $3 per person, round trip. Ticket booths will sell all tickets at Park & Ride locations until 2:30 p.m.

Swimmers run into the chilly Pacific Ocean during the 52nd Annual Venice Penguin Swim on New Years Day- Sunday, January 1, 2012, at the Venice Beach Breakwater.  Water temperature was 56°degrees.

The full Mar Vista Recreation Center Winter Brochure is available online (PDF).

A few activities still have openings or waiting lists at this time.  Available slots are listed below:

Bring in 2012 with a bang! Burton Chase Park at 13650 Mindanao Way is always a good place to watch them from!

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A fireworks show will light up the night to usher in 2012 in Marina del Rey thanks to a slew of donors who stepped up after the budget issues forced the cancellation of the annual Fourth of July fireworks display.

The five-minute fireworks show will begin Saturday at 11:59 p.m. with a special 30-second countdown to midnight. The aerial display will be presented by Zambelli Fireworks Internationale, which has been in the pyrotechnics business for more than 100 years.

The annual Independence Day fireworks show was not offered this past summer due to "budget curtailments" within the Department of Beaches and Harbors.

The New Year's Eve fireworks show has been organized by the Marina del Rey Holiday Boat Parade committee and has received contributions from the California Yacht Club, C&O Trattoria/Cucina, Equinox Fitness Clubs, FantaSea Yachts & Yacht Club, Pacifica Hotel Company, Marina del Rey Lessees Association, Tahiti Marina, the Department of Beaches and Harbors and other donors.

The fireworks will be shot off the south jetty and will be viewable throughout the marina. Prime viewing spots include Fisherman's Village and Burton Chace Park. Parking will be available for a minimal fee in Los Angeles County lots throughout the marina.

For more information, call (310) 670-7130.

The Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden will reopen to the public on Monday, Dec. 26, about three weeks after Santa Ana winds toppled more than 100 trees on the 127-acre Arcadia site. The arboretum has been closed since Dec. 1 because of hazardous conditions caused by the debris.

"Thanks to the hard work of arboretum staff and volunteers, joined by workers from across Los Angeles County, we are able to reopen ahead of schedule," Richard Schulhof, the arboretum's chief executive, said in a statement. "As many of you know, these holiday weeks are among the best to visit the arboretum and enjoy nature's beauty."

In an interview with The Times immediately after the storm, Schulhof said some sections of the gardens may be reconceived to reflect "how people can create landscaping in harmony with Southern California." All of the damaged and destroyed trees have been shredded and composted and will be spread on the grounds.

The Arboretum Tree Fund was started on the arboretum's website. More than 100 people have donated a total of nearly $20,000 to the replanting effort.

-- Lisa Boone

RELATED:

How to prevent toppled trees

Using fallen palm fronds as succulent planters

L.A. County Arboretum's fallen trees open door to future

Photo: Richard Schulhof, the arboretum's chief executive, stands atop a fallen Eucalyptus globulus, also known as a Tasmanian blue gum. Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

Elizabeth Daniels, 12/21/11

Racked: When did you begin Santa-ing?
Santa: I'd say back in the '80s, '83 or '84. We used to go to the desert dune buggying and out there I was known as Sandy Claus. S-A-N-D-Y, because there's so much sand out there. I started going from camp to camp whenever we would be out there [as Santa].

Racked: How long did it take you to grow your beard?
Santa: Well, I've never shaved it off [laughs]. I have four 22-year-old grandchildren who've never seen me without my beard.

Racked: How do you maintain it?
Santa: Of course, showering and then conditioners, things like that. And by giving it a trim.

Racked: What's your favorite snack (aside from milk and cookies)?
Santa: My wife's tacos. Either beef or chicken. She makes the best in town.

Racked: What's the oddest present request you've ever received?
Santa: You know, I can't remember one. I've gotten the one where someone asked for trillions of dollars. And every once and awhile, a young lady comes and asks for a Rolls Royce or a Mercedes Benz. Usually what I will do, if someone is with them, I'll tell them to go down and buy a matchbox Mercedes Benz or Rolls Royce and give it to her from Santa. And they enjoy that.

Racked: What's the most popular present(s) this year?
Santa: Oooh, gosh. This year, I don't know. I haven't seen any trends.

Racked: Where does Mrs. Claus like to shop?
Santa: Wherever there's something for sale [laughs]. She likes Bloomingdale's.

Racked: How do you prepare for a day of work?
Santa: I usually pray for guidance in handling the children. That I don't misread them because it's a serious time for them. I don't want to be shoving them away and not worrying about them.
· A Woman Asked Santa at Westfield Topanga For a Husband [Racked]
· Santa at the Glendale Galleria Motivates With Christmas Music [Racked]
· Santa at the Beverly Center Fields Requests for iPads [Racked]

70 Entries From as Far Away as Victorville

According to Young Adult librarian Johathan Pitre, organizer and MC, an estimated 250 crowded the library for the first annual Beard and Moustache contest judging Tuesday night.