Weekend Preview: Day Of The Dead, Thrill-O-Rama, The Bard, And More

CAVANAUGH: This is KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Maureen Cavanaugh. We're switching gears now from a protest in San Diego that's expected to last through the weekend to the weekend preview. It seems the creepy crawliness of Halloween is getting an early start here in San Diego. Here to tell us about it are my guests, Barbarella is author of the diary of a diva column, and your week page at the San Diego reader. Barbarella, haven't seen you in a while! BARBARELLA: It's so great to see you. CAVANAUGH: Welcome back. Beth Accomando is KPBS arts reporter, and author of the blog, cinema junkie. Let's start with Barbarella and Resureccion. The Mexican day of the dead is the theme at the -- BARBARELLA: This is the reception for a visual art show. So paintings of 14 artists have contributed work. There's also going to be music, and live art of course meaning people will -- there are three artists who are going to be there, actively sketching and painting. There's jewelry, jewelry artists, and the funky suitcase, which is a company local low who has a woman who has hair flowers and accessories. So I would say every kind of art. CAVANAUGH: And not only art but sounds by zombies. BARBARELLA: Right. And that's OMFG zombies, and they wouldn't tell me what that stood for. CAVANAUGH: Probably because you're too young. BARBARELLA: Yeah, okay, okay. I would like what does it mean and is it an acronym, and they said NO, it's just mmffgg. And he calls it, loveable robot music. He performs live loops and. Swatches produced on the fly. So he's live DJing but in addition to them, there's going to be a live vocalist singing along with the music he creates. CAVANAUGH: Okay. So besides viewing art, and listening to the zombies, what else can people do at this event? BARBARELLA: Right. There's going to be ravel prizes. So asides from seeing art, buying things and viewing everything, there's a ravel and donations, and the donations are from actin standard. He's a local artist, member of a design team, and mainly Mozart. Their mission is to connect people to music. So there's ravels and of course drinking. It's blue foot bar. And people watching. CAVANAUGH: The thing I'm interested in is on the day of the dead makeup. What is that? BARBARELLA: Right! I total he blanked. Dia de Los Muertos, there are makeup artists who are going to be painting faces so you can look the day of the dead, they're the beautiful skulls, very ornate. And they make the face look like one of those sugar skulls. Then you can go get your portraits taken. Thank you for reminding me about that. There's just so much going on. I need a graph. CAVANAUGH: Anybody can see what's going on at Resureccion, starts at 7:00 PM this Friday at the blue foot bar and lounge in 54th park. Beth, I could think of a lot of things that should rightly be called Thrill-o-Rama, but you're going to talk about one of them. ACCOMANDO: Film out San Diego is hosting a 12-hour horror mayor than. The perfect way to warm up for Halloween. But it's going to be 12 hours of '70s horror films including the fog, burnt offerings, eyes of Laura Mars, dressed to kill, black Christmas, and susperia. They're really fun. A little bit campy, but great film, and with so many remakes coming out now, this is your chance to see the original the fog, and the original black Christmas. So it's a lot of fun. CAVANAUGH: And the original burnt offerings. I think we have a clip from that. Let's hear a trailer for burnt offerings from 1976 starring Oliver Reed and Karen black. (Audio Recording Played) ACCOMANDO: They don't make trailers like this anymore! Black Christmas has a Hine, if this film doesn't make your skin crawl, it's on too tight. Now -- CAVANAUGH: Do you have to see all the movies in this Thrill-o-rama? ACCOMANDO: No, you can buy tickets for each individual film. If you have a plan for Brian de Palma and want to see dressed to kill or -- like me, you can be there for the full 12 hours. CAVANAUGH: Full 12-hour. Do you have a favorite? ACCOMANDO: Well, I think burnt offering will be fun to see because it doesn't get much may on the big screen. It's by Dan Curtis who for those of you watching for remake, he did the original dark shadows series, and there's the Johnny Depp remake of that coming out. CAVANAUGH: Okay. Thrillo rama, this Saturday from noon to mid-night at the birch Northpark theatre. Wicked bugs, Barbarella. BARBARELLA: Speaking of skin crawling. CAVANAUGH: Creepy crawly. What is this event at the San Diego horticultural society? BARBARELLA: Author Amy Stewart wrote the book the wicked bugs, the louse that conquered Napoleon's army. And she's coming to speak about the book. She's a writer and public speaker, high in demand. One of the New York Times best sellers. It chronicles as it sounds wicked bug, with illustrations of over 100 of what she calls our worst entomological foes. Creatures that infest infect and generally wreak havoc on human affairs. I get the willies just reading the descriptions. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: I know. And the book, the louse that conquered Napoleon's army, it's a best seller in. BARBARELLA: One of three. There's bibbed plants and flower confidential. So she obviously specializes in the wicked. And it's hugely popular. CAVANAUGH: Here is -- we do have another clip. This is the author, Amy Stewart in a parody of 1950s educational films talking about wicked bugs. (Audio Recording Played) CAVANAUGH: Now, he's she's going to be speaking at the horticultural society. Remind us what the horticultural society is. BARBARELLA: Especially in a Mediterranean climate, is it doesn't surprise me we have such an active horticultural society in San Diego. But they're the people who know how to grow plants. And I don't. There's over 1,300 members, gardeners, designers, nursery owner, writers, landscape architect, anyone who has or wants a green thumb. Or wants to understand others like them. I can't keep a cactus Alive. It's very, very sad. I might have the kiss of death from one of these horror movies. CAVANAUGH: There are any of the bug stories that you're particularly -- I can't say fond of, but -- BARBARELLA: Freaked out by? It's all the stuff of nightmares for me. But particularly, the ones that stick out are the freakier ones the ones that eat living creatures from the inside out. They're a lot of insects that do that. For me, it's the teeny tiny ones, you the ones you don't even know are there, I'm like an elephant with a mouse. The smaller it is the creepier. And I'm going to have to rub a bristle brush all over myself after. CAVANAUGH: Amy Stewart will be speaking Monday, that's from 6:00 to 9:00 is the San Diego horticultural society at the surf-side race place thea the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Cinema en Tu Idioma is a Latino film festival that continues its 2011 annual series. Tell us about it. ACCOMANDO: The media arts center puts on the San Diego Latino film festival and Cinema en tu Idioma, and this is a chance for -- films they weren't able to fit into their schedule, a chance to show them there. So it's like a mini-distribution for these Latino films. And it's a great opportunity for people to see some films they either missed at the festival or won't have a chance to see elsewhere. CAVANAUGH: What is this month's selection? ACCOMANDO: This one is know an exceptionally good one, it's of love and other demons, an adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel. And it's a beautiful adaptation. Because it does what the best film adaptations of books do, it captures the spirit of the book, and it captures that sense of poetry in his books and makes it visual so much it's a wonderful film. CAVANAUGH: Of love and other demons begins a one-week run at the ULTRASTAR mission valley theatres at hazard center on Friday. Sacred craft surf board. Nothing scary about that, Barbarella. ACCOMANDO: No. I mean -- with skulls! CAVANAUGH: It's a huge event though? The it? ACCOMANDO: Yes, it's gigantic. It's going to be at the dell far Fairgrounds where we stick a lot of our bigger events. This is basically sacred craft surf board expo celebrating surf culture -- that's a tongue twister. Try that at home. But lots of vendors, lots of surf board, a lot of famous people, designers, are all going to be down there. CAVANAUGH: There's a shape off. Describe what -- it's not an exercise program. BARBARELLA: NO, no, that would take a little longer, I think. Than just a few days. But six shaper, basically they're going to design shape, and craft unique Asymmetrical surf boards. And this is all in honor of Carl Extrum, and he grew upright here in La Jolla and built his first board when he was 15. He actually developed the first Asymmetrical tail design in 1965 based on the idea that the board should better match the surfer's own nonlineal stand. She developed this whole new line, and there's going to be design legends including Extrum who are judging the contest. CAVANAUGH: We are going to be talking about extrum's exhibit at the Timken museum of art. So that fits right in. BARBARELLA: Oh, great! CAVANAUGH: Quickly, do the expo extend to skaters as well? BARBARELLA: It does. Lost skates is putting on a gram slalom. It's a challenge. And the winners will receive a free Lost skate board. CAVANAUGH: All right. The huge, huge event of sacred craft surf board expo is this Saturday and Sunday at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. BARBARELLA: And it's gigantic. CAVANAUGH: What is the celebrity sonnets event? The Shakespeare celebrity sonnets event, Beth? RIH1: This is their tenth annual one. And the Shakespeare society puts it on. It's a chance to hear local celebrities, actors, musician, a wide variety of people do Shakespeare. CAVANAUGH: How long has this been going on? ACCOMANDO: This is going to be the tenth year. And the event helps to draw attention to what the Shakespeare society does here in San Diego. CAVANAUGH: When we talk about celebrities, who are the people going to be reading the sonnets this year? ACCOMANDO: It's a diverse selection. Some people you're going to be familiar request, like Jonathan McMurtry who's gone of the --there are some interesting things like Vanessa denning who's in the Shakespeare society is going to be performing a sonnet with the San Diego civic youth ballet. And there's a lot of kids performing as well. And part of the reason is because this is to draw attention to the San Diego Shakespeare student festival that happens every April. CAVANAUGH: You see brought in a clip, is that from the student Shakespeare fest -- ACCOMANDO: No, this is from one of the students performing at the North County sonnets that they do. That's another annual event. But this is a young student performing a sonnet. (Audio Recording Played) CAVANAUGH: These kids get into it! ACCOMANDO: They do, and they're going to be as young as seven, and up through high school age too. But they are great. CAVANAUGH: What are they raising money for? This is a fund raiser for the Shakespeare society, right? ACCOMANDO: This is one of their fundraising events, and the money does go to the San Diego student Shakespeare festival, which is -- they have had hundreds of kids, and dozens of schools involved in performing shake peer in Balboa Park every year. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: The shake speak celebrity sonnets takes place Monday night, at the old Globe, and starts at 7:30 in the evening. I want to thank you both thank you so much. ACCOMANDO: Thank you. BARBARELLA: Always a great time.