HAVE-A-GREATER-WEEKEND: OF SANDMEN, SHAPING UP, MAKING MOVIES

LIKE SANDS THROUGH THE HOUR GLASS … OR FASHIONED INTO A GIANT SPONGEBOB

The most-popular event of the Long Beach Sea Festival? Probably the Great Sand Sculpture Contest. The most-profound metaphor for the fleeting nature of whatever mark we make on this planet? Ditto, no doubt. This is the 80th anniversary of the Great Sand Sculpture Contest and some 10,000 people—some attracted by the whimsical fun of a water’s-edge art gallery, others unable to resist a look over the precipice of their own mortality—are expected to revel in the amazing images fashioned out of sand. The artists range from professional sand sculptors to corporate teams to kids playing in the fine, gritty mud. Organizers have also planned a kid’s zone, a market for arts-and-crafts vendor, food booths and a stage for live music. It shapes up as a wonderful weekend … and yet on Monday, none of it will remain.

THE GREAT SAND SCULPTURE CONTEST • ON BEACH AT FOOT OF GRANADA AVE • LONG BEACH • 90803 • LBSANDCASTLE.COM • SATURDAY SCULPTING, 10AM-2PM; JUDGING, 2PM-3PM; AWARDS, 3PM • SUNDAY VIEWING, 10AM-2 PM

 •  • HAVE-A-GREATER • HAVE-A-GREATER • HAVE-A-GREATER • HAVE-A-GREATER •  • 

WORK, BABY, WORK … OUT!

Fifth District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske takes her “Shaping Up The 5th” program to another level today. It began as a group walk-and-squawk—-that is, residents took an invigorating stroll during which they identified and reported needed infrastructure repair. Today the shaping up  becomes an exercise in walking the talk—after residents have toured neighborhoods and reported what’s broken, they will get a chance to fix some of it at a work party at Pan American Park. Tasks on the to-do list include painting benches and tables, spreading mulch on several areas, and planting new shrubbery around the park’s snack bar until things are in fine shape.
SHAPING UP THE FIFTH WORK PARTY PAN AMERICAN PARK • 5157 EAST CENTRALIA STREET • LONG BEACH • 562.570.6932 WWW.LBDISTRICT5.COM • 8 AM

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YMCA YOUTH FILM FESTIVAL TODAY AT SCOTTISH RITE EVENTS CENTER

If you’re wondering where the filmmakers of tomorrow are coming from, please stop it. Stop it right now—you’re embarrassing yourself. Pondering something as untethered as that, wishing you could work out some sort of forecast for it … well … why? And as a matter of fact, we’ve got the same question about your mouth-breathing. Meanwhile, where the filmmakers of tomorrow are coming from is practically irrelevant until they get here … which, by the way, is today—and it turns out they are from here. More than 15 films created by local teens are being screened in the 12th YMCA Youth Institute Film Festival of Long Beach. Southern California’s largest youth Film Festival—more than 400 people are expected to attend—will unfold at the Scottish Rite Event Center from noon until 8:30 p.m. Youth Institute teens trained for seven weeks in developing short films, websites, and a teen magazine to showcase at the festival.
YMCA YOUTH INSTITUTE FILM FESTIVAL OF LONG BEACH SCOTTISH RITE EVENT CENTER • 855 ELM STREET (8TH & ELM) • LONG BEACH  • 90813 • http://www.lbymcayi.org/  • NOON TO 8:30 PM

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