SOUND OF MUSIC Participatory art can be wonderful—although over the years I’ve found that I enjoy it most when the participants are really good artists.

A little dicier are situations like the ones they’ve got going this weekend up in Bixby Knolls and down on Fourth Street’s Retro Row, where everyol’body is being invited to compose poems and/or sing classic operettas by Rogers & Hammerstein. Really:

The Art Theatre is presenting special sing-along showings of The Sound of Music—no shushing allowed, by ushers or anybody else—on Saturday and Sunday morning. Get your vocal cords tuned up by 11 a.m. If you’re unsure of the words, you can rely on the subtitles … or hum, maybe?

Such sing-a-longs have become increasingly popular, and if you want to get a sense of how they go, here’s a clip from one at the Hollywood Bowl.

Green poetry boxes have been hung around Bixby Knolls to collect the poetry of absolutely everybody who slides it through the slot.  The boxes are located at two coffee houses—It’s A Grind Coffee House (4245 Atlantic Ave.) and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (4105 Atlantic Ave.)—and will be there until at least 100 works have been deposited.

The Bixby Knolls Poetry project is a descendent of the Summer Shutters photo contests that have been held by the area’s business improvement association the last two years to help document the neighborhood in pictures. Like those photographers, winners of this contest will be published. The contest, itself, has already gotten some TV attention on the Channels 2 & 9 news. 

Far be it from me to criticize, which is why my first inclination is to get as far away from all of this as possible.

And yet …