Culture Lust Weekend: Fruit of the Soul, Frightened Rabbit, Pumpkins and Breasts

EVENTS

A cornucopia of our favorite things, Fruit of the Soul is filling our Saturday with food, music, art, drinks and dancing… all for a good cause. Need we say more?

Blind Lady Ale House is at it again, hosting “Keep-A-Breast Benefit” this Sunday. Help raise awareness for breast cancer by having your bust cast and painted, while drinking good beer.

MUSIC

Kids from all over SD will be “bustin a move” at The New Children’s Museum this Saturday during Move ‘n Groove Family Dance Jam. Studio FX and Super Galactic Beat Manipulators will be strutting their stuff (and showing us how!) from 10-4, with Karaoke and a DJ in between. All ages are welcome and encouraged to dance (that includes you gram and gramp!) which will be easy because it’s free with regular admission.

If Mozart and Al Gore got together and had a baby (gender and centuries aside), it would definitely be Nathan Currier. Classical music and climate science aren’t the most likely pair, yet somehow Currier has managed to intertwine these worlds. The award-winning composer and musician will perform Tuesday, premiering A Sambuca Sonata at the San Diego Museum of Art.

Adding an Ethiopian twist to the San Francisco jazz scene, Meklit Hadero is not your average lounge singer. With lyrics ranging from personal to poetic, against the milieu of her rich, warm voice, Hadero has recently been called Northern California’s answer to Norah Jones. She’ll be performing tonight at The Loft at UCSD.

For twelve days in October, the Oceanside Music Festival draws culture lusters of all ages up to North County. “Keeping the Music Alive… in Our Schools and in Our Community” is the theme of the 9th annual OMFest, and by the look of the line-up, it’s definitely going to live up to its name. Performances ranging from Big Band concerts with the Oceanside Society Orchestra to “High School Showcase” by Oceanside High, started last Tuesday and will continue through the 24th.

Tonight at Lestats, watch and listen as Les Shelleys perform “their sweet quiet songs” that, as Time Out New York lauds, “conjure the same lovely, swoony magic as watching a kiss in a 1940’s movie.” The adorable duo from Los Angeles, Tom Brosseau (FatCat Records) and Angela Correa (Correatown), have brought their acoustic guitar crooning together to channel some bluesy folk.

Recently circulating through indie circles, Frightened Rabbit is hot on the new music scene. Critics have been quick to compare them to early Coldplay or Snow Patrol. The House of Blues plays host and act fast because the last time they were here, tickets sold out.

Kicking off their 27th season with Symphony No. 41, Orchestra Nova is back in classical action. Wasting no time warming up, the orchestra is delving straight into Mozart’s Very Best with his Clarinet Concerto (arguably the most famous clarinet concerto ever written) and Jupiter (the last symphony Mozart wrote before dying at age of 35).

Inspired by Luis Jimenez’s sculpture “Border Crossing,” Art of Élan is presenting “Crossing Borders,” an original program of Latin American and Cuban music. This Tuesday, "speak the universal language of music" and help welcome “One Voice” back to the SDMART where artistic mediums continue to inspire one another.

Helping the La Jolla Athenaeum usher in their 21st Anniversary Season, the internationally renowned Juilliard String Quartet will be playing their classical chamber music at the intimate venue this Monday.

THEATER

Charlie Chaplin and his multiple stage personas have entertained filmgoers for decades. This Saturday head to symphony hall for Silent Film Night: A Chaplin Quartet to be entertained by the iconic man in the mustache.

Celebrity Sonnets are back this Monday at the Old Globe Theatre! Watch as local talents try their hand and add some jazz (literally) to Shakespeare’s beloved sonnets. The San Diego celebs include famed fashionista Zandra Rhodes, actor Austyn Myers (currently staring at The Globe’s "Brighton Beach Memoirs"), Tangocentrics (bringing us the Bard, Bollywood-style!), and Jason Connors and Co. who will be indulging us with some “sonnetized” jazz.

Nevermore! Write Out Loud is presenting “Quoth the Raven” this week and weekend. Hear two Edgar Alan Poe classics alongside works from H.P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury. Readings take this Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.

ART

As Viva La Revolucion: A Dialogue with the Urban Landscape continues to bring life to San Diego’s streets, curator Pedro Alonzo and Obey artist Shepard Fairey are continuing the conversation by staying On Topic and Engaging the Public Space. This Friday at MCASD La Jolla, Alonzo and Fairey will be teaching a street-art inspired course with the hope of redefining the relationship of art and the urban environment.

If you can’t get enough of Toulouse Lautrec, or his Paris, you’re in luck. This Friday, Vanessa Schwartz will be at SDMART to help us better understand both the city and the artist. A professor of History, Art History and Film at the University of Southern California, Schwartz is well versed in la ville de l’amour.

PREPPING FOR HALLOWEEN

Celebrating autumn with four acres of pumpkins, Pumpkin Palooza is a pumpkin-pickers paradise. Grab the wheelbarrow and your cutest coveralls and make your way to Suzie's Farm in Bear Barranca for the perfect day in a pumpkin patch.

Shiver your timbers on the Star of India as she twists her tales of spooky times out at sea. Step off the land and into the legend this Saturday or next at the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

Meet Hippolyte Bouchard and help Jaoquin Murietta look for his head this month at “Séance at the Seely Stable.” Watch and learn as Madam Stolichnaya summons “real live” ghosts who tell their fascinating stories of historic San Diego… in a spooky way of course.