Behold: Five great things you should do in Southern California this week, from art to food to music to an adventure we'll call "the Wild Card," from the makers of the 5 Every Day app. You can also get this as a new podcast in iTunes. If you want five hand-picked things to do in Los Angeles every day, download the free 5 Every Day from the App Store.
ART: LA Art Book Fair
Every year, MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary transforms into a print bazaar, a vast and terrifying ocean of publications from more than 250 international presses and independent publishers.
They call it the LA Art Book Fair. For the uninitiated, it’s Printed Matter's annual celebration of artists’ books, art catalogs, monographs and periodicals. Four mostly free days of browsing and schmoozing, the Art Book Fair is one of the city’s most important contemporary art moments.
It’s a great time to renew subscriptions to your favorite art rags, buy one-off zines and link up with writers and publishers of all stripes, all of whom are blissfully unaware that the rest of the world thinks print is dead.
And it’s practically bursting at the seams with official and peripheral events. The Fair’s Classroom will host conversations on subjects as diverse as graphic design in the Black Lives Matter movement, Chinese zine publishing and punk flyers. Plus pop-up exhibitions, book signings and countless afterparties.
The whole thing barrels on through Sunday.
CITY: Flower District
It's Valentine's Day weekend, so why not surprise your sweetheart with a trip straight into the beating, bloody heart of the industry of love?
Romantic, right?
We're talking about the Los Angeles Flower District, of course. Because nothing says “I love you” like watching hundreds of florists frantically sculpt arrangements of roses and cheap baby’s breath—all while undercutting each other to offer you the best deal on the block.
Jokes aside, the Flower District is supremely cheap. $2 gets you access to the wholesale Flower Market where you'll find blooms here for a quarter of the price you would in the real world. And it smells amazing.
FOOD: Prince Restaurant
https://www.instagram.com/p/BAYhYDztN0t/
When you step into the Prince in Koreatown, you’re instantly transported. It’s just a question of where to. Is it the 1950s for a lunchtime tryst straight from the plot of a Mad Men episode? Is it the retro-dystopian Los Angeles of Blade Runner? Or a timeless supervillain hangout?
Wherever it is, you’ll to want to sink into the Prince’s red velvet depths.
Legend has it, you can order live octopus straight to your booth in this time-warp of a bar but it's more likely you'll want a round of their spicy fried chicken and some kimchi fried rice topped with a greasy egg.
Bells built into the booths summon waiters tableside, to keep the drinks flowing at your pace.
Pro Tip: Skip the martini. Cocktails aren't the Prince's strong suit. Brisk soju, poured generously, is more fitting.
MUSIC: Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red in It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7FUMKO8vRA
While we’re on the subject of Princes — "Purple Rain."
The Purple One's mega-smash film and its soundtrack have spent the last 30 years echoing around the globe, leaving an impression on some of the most unlikely places in the world. Like on the cellphones of North African teenagers.
This Tuesday, Cinefamily presents the LA premiere of “Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red In It,” a mind-bending, feature-length remake of "Purple Rain" filmed over eight days in Niger and starring members of the nomadic Tuareg people.
Directed by American ethnomusicologist Christopher Kirkley, it’s the first ever Tuareg-language film — a language, it should be said, with no word for “Purple.”
The plot centers on Mdou Moctar, a real life, self-taught star of Niger’s thriving local psych-rock scene. Mdou rides around on Purple motorcycle, rebels against his Muslim father and (spoiler alert!) triumphs over enemy and ego to win the girl.
It’s all there minus Lake Minnetonka.
WILDCARD: 2Wet Crew
The second Sunday of every month, the Satellite in Silver Lake presents 2Wet Crew Live. Under this moniker, the comedy trio of DJ Douggpound, Mikey Kampmann and Jay Weingarten present a monthly bazaar of the bizarre.
2Wet Crew shows are like expeditions through the caves of the comedic uncanny — their own goofball variant on the gonzo, avant-comedy Douggpound helped to invent with his work on Adult Swim’s cult comedy "Tim and Eric Awesome Show."
They screen experimental animations between stand-up sets, most of which are made especially for the show. They trigger strange foley and hi-fidelity airhorn samples between jokes. Awkward laughs abound!
For this month’s edition, they welcome Awesome Show regular David Liebe Hart, plus comedians Byron Bowers, Naomi Elizabeth and Cory Loykasek.