Grand Opening of 14 Below - Santa Monica nightclub

Being a lifelong Santa Monica resident has evoked feelings in buildings and places. 14 Below is such a place, not sure if it's because I hung out there as a teenager while watching my friend's band or because of the genuinly cool group of patrons that gravitated there.

14 Below is making a come back and bringing live music and the cheapest drinks back to the Westside!!

Personally I am very excited for the Grand Re-opening tonight, March 12th 2010, and I'm looking forward to hearing live music again.

Check out 14 Below for hours, location and for their exciting calendar of events featuring everything from punk rock to old school country music.

You can also follow them on Twitter for the latest information.

Read more...

Santa Monica Event - Enlightenment Made Fun and Easy

March 23 (Tues) You Are What You Love: Enlightenment Made Fun and Easy. 

(Book Signing & Free Workshop)

Vaishali will answer all your questions about higher wisdom with fun, light hearted practices instead of dry memorization and restrictive limitations.  FREE. Mystic Journey’s Bookstore: Mystic Journey’s Address: 1319 Abbot Kinney Blvd. Venice CA 90291 310.399.7070. 7-9pm FREE.

About Vaishali:

The path to vibrant health and wellness begins by creating a right relationship with your mind and your body. Vaishali, who has healed herself  from terminal illness twice without western medicine, prescription drugs or surgeries, shares natural health tips and practices that will improve your health and your mindset in ways that are practical, easy to implement and relevant to anyone with a human body.

Life Management Expert, Vaishali, is the author of "You Are What You Love"© and Wisdom Rising." She hosts a weekly talk radio show "You Are What You Love"© on KTLK 1150am Sundays from 11am-12pm PST / 2-3pm EST and can be heard on Contact Talk Radio® Fridays 1-2pm PST / 4-5PM EST. Vaishali is also a faculty member at The Omega Institute. She has appeared on national radio and network television programs including ABC TV, CBS TV & NBC TV and on The Dr. Oz Radio Show. Vaishali’s articles have been published in hundreds magazines worldwide, and she has been quoted on Oprah.com and featured on the cover of Awareness Magazine and in Yoga Magazine. Vaishali graduated Magna Cum Laude from San Francisco State University with degrees in both Philosophy and Religion Studies as well as Radio and Television. She is also a certified level two practitioner in Chi Nei Tsang.

Read more...

Art Show - Opening Night Reception - Reinterpret Fairy Tales

Mercedes Gertz and Esau Andrade reinterpret fairy tales with photographs by Elizabeth Beristain
Opening Night Reception:  Saturday, March 13, 2010 from 7-10 pm
The Avenue 50 Studio is proud to present “Cuentos de Hadas” (Fairy Tales), an exhibition of works by two contemporary Mexican artists.  Through a narrative language, Gertz and Andrade portray the female vs. male versions of fairy tales.  The exhibit opens with an artists’ reception on Saturday evening, March 13, 2010 from 7 to 10 p.m. and closes on Sunday, April 4, 2010.

Mercedes Gertz. Using humor and sensuality, Gertz’s fairy tale series asks us to consider where women are in the 21st century.  Her heroines are unapologetic symbols of female confidence.  We sense in them a comfort with the body, with play and decoration.  They confidently own the sensual, and relish in being a woman in charge.

These … fairy or folk tales … recur over and over through millennia in the guise of innocent stories telling us time and again that the docile, young body gets the prince, that the girl brave enough to venture into the woods—the space of men--meets her fate at the hands of the big bad wolf. Peter Pan lives forever as a boy, Wendy must grow up--it is her calling, her duty, her essential nature. -- Marlena Doktorczyk-Donohue, Art Critic, Essayist, Poet
Esau Andrade.  Following in the footsteps of the Latin American surrealists, Esau Andrade twists reality, creating canvases bursting with color that are pop in nature.  He instills a childlike exuberance into his delightful paintings. Andrade comes from a folk art background, as both his mother Guadalupe Valencia and brother Raymundo Andrade are also artists.  He is mainly a self-taught painter, although attended La Escuela de Artes Plasticas de la Universidad de Guadalajara.
Unlike the candy colored confections of his more stylized folk art paintings, these other works by Andrade place him firmly in the surrealist tradition shared by many Latin masters. He retains a naiveté and originality with quirky images that are both charming and serious, and also remain indebted to his rich culture for visual symbols that are vivid and intense.  -- Kathy Zimmerer, Artscene 11/2004
Elizabeth Beristain.  Elizabeth was born in Mexico City.  A graduate of the Escuela Activa de Fotografia and staff photographer for “El Reforma,” one of the top national daily newspapers in Mexico, she moved to Los Angeles as a freelance photographer and later became Photography Editor for the cultural publication Latino Weekly Review.  A product of her Mexican mother’s artistic sensitivity and her Portuguese father’s decidedly more adventurous side, this subtle mixture of Old and the New World influences are germinal elements of Elizabeth’s artistry. Additionally, in devising the art direction of her own work, a wider range of crucial creative features shine through, from the world of opera, painting, music, and cinema, in a vision where a unique sense of artistry never intrudes with a boundless appreciation of our common humanity.  Elizabeth has participated in various collective and solo shows, both in Mexico and Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband, cinematographer Gabriel Beristain ASC, BSC, and their two children Max and Victoria.  She is currently at work on her new series, entitled Crowned Nuns.
March 13, 2010 through April 4, 2010

Read more...