Playhouse Village Association

Pasadena Playhouse: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (Childcare Matinee)
2025-10-25 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Avenue, Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
All Julia Masli wants to do is solve people’s problems and win the Nobel Peace Prize, but this plan keeps going wrong as she continually wins prizes for comedy. In her wildly unpredictable solo show ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, the award-winning performer turns the audience’s problems into surreal, side-splitting theater. No script, no safety net, just one woman on a mission to help. After sensational runs in Edinburgh, Melbourne, New York, and D.C., Julia is on her way to Pasadena to solve all our problems.

FUMC: Trunk-or Treat
2025-10-25 18:00 - 20:00 | First United Methodist Church, 500 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Bring your friends and family to our annual Trunk-or-Treat in our church parking lot! There will be games, crafts, and trick-or-treating for children ages 12 and under, but we welcome people of all ages to come enjoy the food and fun. We encourage everyone to wear costumes (Nothing scary and no masks, please!).
The parking lot will be full of decorated car trunks. Children will be able to trick-or-treat at each one. There will be prizes for the most creative trunks! This event is FREE (no need to RSVP) We hope to see you and all of our Pasadena neighbors there!

Bark in the Park: Howl-O-Ween Costume Contest & Parade
2025-10-26 11:00 - 14:00 | Playhouse Village Park, 701 Union St, Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Everyone’s favorite Halloween-themed Dog “Pawty” Returns to Playhouse Village Park on Sunday,
October 26 from 11AM to 2PM.
Playhouse Village invites dogs and their owners to celebrate Halloween and have a howling good time at the annual Bark in the Park: Howl-o-ween on Sunday, October 27 from 11 am to 2 pm at Playhouse Village Park. This free spooktacular event presented by Playhouse Village Foundation features a costume parade and contests with prizes, treat stations & pup bites, photo-ops, pet caricatures, and more fun activities for dogs and humans.
Dogs can show off their best scary, adorable, and creative Halloween costumes at the Bark in the Park Howl-o-ween Costume Contest, with prizes awarded for Best Small Dog Costume, Best Big Dog Costume, and Best Group Costume, which is open to entries with multiple dogs or a human and dog combination. For additional information on the Bark in the Park: Howl-o-ween celebration, contact Playhouse Village Association at 626.744.0340.

Archetype Yoga: Cosmic Sound Bath
2025-10-26 19:30 - 21:30 | Archetypa Yoga, 638 e colorado ave, pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Members are FREE | Non-Members $35📚 Bring a journal, pen, and a mug!
An evening to journey inward through vibration, intuition and connection. Join Starla for a Sound bath, breath work and tea.
In this workshop, expect to:
🔥🐍 Step into Scorpio season with us, and embrace themes of shedding and transformation.
Join @starlafrequency for a Cosmic Sound + Breath Journey to shed what’s old and root new intentions.
Stir up what’s stuck with breath work, then melt into a crystal bowl Sound Bath to calm the nervous system, renew your creative spark, and find equilibrium in relationships. Plus: the event will feature a custom scent blend woven through + journaling to leave the evening with 1–2 grounded intentions.
Come as you are—no experience needed.

Vroman's Bookstore: Thomas Schlesser discusses & signs Mona’s Eyes
2025-10-27 19:00 - 20:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
THE SENSATIONAL #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER THAT HAS TAKEN THE WORLD BY STORM
Ten-year-old Mona and her beloved grandfather have only fifty-two Wednesdays to visit fifty-two works of art and commit to memory “all that is beautiful in the world” before Mona loses her sight forever.
While the doctors can find no explanation for Mona’s brief episode of blindness, they agree that the threat of permanent vision loss cannot be ruled out. The girl’s grandfather, Henry, may not be able to stop his granddaughter from losing her sight, but he can fill the encroaching darkness with beauty.
Every Wednesday for a year, the pair abscond together and visit a single masterpiece in one of Paris’s renowned museums. From Botticelli to Basquiat, Mona learns how each artist’s work shaped the world around them. In turn, the young girl’s world is changed forever by the power of their art. Under the kind and careful tutelage of her grandfather, Mona learns the true meaning of generosity, melancholy, love, loss, and revolution. Her perspective will never be the same — nor will the reader’s.
Mona’s Eyes is a heartfelt, enlightening journey across five centuries of Western art history. With the emotional impact of The Elegance of the Hedgehog and the readability of The Little Paris Bookshop, Thomas Schlesser’s sensational debut novel is at once a moving book about the beauty of life and a deeply touching story about the special bond between a girl and her grandfather.
Discover all 52 masterpieces inside the fold-out dustjacket.

Vroman's Bookstore: Eli Frankel discusses & signs Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, the Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter
2025-10-28 19:00 - 20:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Who killed the Black Dahlia? In this eye-opening shocker, an award-winning producer, true-crime researcher, and Hollywood insider finally solves the greatest – and most gruesome – murder mystery of the twentieth century just before its 80th anniversary.
In January 1947, the bisected body of Elizabeth Short, completely drained of blood, was discovered in an undeveloped lot in Los Angeles. Its gruesome mutilations led to a firestorm of publicity, city-wide panic, and an unprecedented number of investigative paths led by the LAPD–all dead ends. The Black Dahlia murder remained an unsolved mystery for over seventy years.
Six years earlier and sixteen hundred miles away, another woman’s life had ended in a similarly horrific manner. Leila Welsh was an ambitious, educated, popular, and socially connected beauty. Though raised modestly on a prairie farm, she was heiress to her Kansas City family’s status and wealth. On a winter morning in 1941, Leila’s butchered body was found in her bedroom bearing the marks of unspeakable trauma.
One victim faded into obscurity. The other became notorious. Both had in common a killer whose sadistic mind was a labyrinth of dark secrets.
Eli Frankel reveals for the first time a key fact about the Black Dahlia crime scene, never before shared with the public, that leads inexorably to the stunning identification of a criminal who was at the same time amateurish and fiendish, skilled and lucky, sophisticated and brutish. Drawing on newly discovered documents, law enforcement files, interviews with the last surviving participants, the victims’ own letters, trial transcripts, military records, and more, this epic true-crime saga puts together the missing pieces of a legendary puzzle.
In Sisters in Death, the Black Dahlia cold case is finally closed.

Vroman's Bookstore: Ticketed - Andrew Morton discusses & signs Winston and the Windsors: How Churchill Shaped a Royal Dynasty
2025-10-29 19:00 - 20:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
From an early age, Winston Churchill was convinced that he was a man of destiny. Today, it seems his premonition was correct; few figures in British history have been so deeply and consequently involved with the British family as Churchill. While many people in positions of power have advised kings and queens during their reign, Churchill is unique in his role: helping to shape not only a reign, but an entire royal dynasty.
In Winston and the Windsors, one of the world’s best-known biographers and a leading authority on celebrity Andrew Morton presents a meticulously researched joint biography of Winston Churchill and the House of Windsor. Throughout the course of his career and life, Churchill’s relationship with the Windsor’s fluctuated wildly. At times, he was the royal family’s trusted confidante. At others, he was their leading antagonist. In exploring the complex relationship between the two, Morton argues that – whether the attitudes of the royal family were warm or icy towards Churchill – their relationship is central to the twentieth-century history of the British monarchy.
From the Churchill family’s complex relationship with the crown; to Winston’s initially begrudging but ultimately fruitful partnership with George VI; to his enduring fondness for Queen Elizabeth II, this fascinating narrative biography sheds a new light on the ways the crown not only shaped Winston Churchill’s career – but the ways in which Churchill shepherded the monarchy into the modern era.
This is an in-store ticketed event with two ticket options.- General Admission + 1 copy of Winston and the Windsors– 2 General Admissions + 1 copy of Winston and the Windsors

Young Readers' Halloween at Vroman's Boo-kstore!
2025-10-31 16:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Join us on Friday, October 31st for Halloween at Vroman’s Boo-kstore!
We will have a special Halloween themed storytime with Mr. Steve and Halloween activities starting at 4pm.
After storytime, make your way through Vroman’s for trick-or-treating! We will have designated spots all around the Boo-kstore where young ghouls and goblins can happily haunt for goodies!
Costumes are highly encouraged!

Vroman's Bookstore: Pasadena Conservatory of Music presents Musical Storytime: Over the River and Through the Wood by Lydia Maria Child
2025-11-01 11:30 - 12:30 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
The Pasadena Conservatory of Music will be putting on a special musical storytime with featured book: Over the River and Through the Wood by Lydia Maria Child. Caregivers and children aged 3-9 will enjoy story, craft activities, creative movement and a mini-concert!

Vroman's On Screen - Howard Berger discusses & signs Making Monsters: Inside Stories from the Creators of Hollywood's Most Iconic Creatures
2025-11-01 16:00 - 18:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Explore behind the scenes of the greatest monster movies ever made!
What makes a great movie monster? Academy Award-winning make-up effects artist Howard Berger and acclaimed journalist Marshall Julius have spoken to dozens of film industry legends to find out.
A celebration of monsters, monster movies and monster movie makers, Making Monsters delivers an illuminating, entertaining and accessible oral history of the genre, gathering an enviable array of A-list talent from make-up and digital effects legends (Tom Savini, Phil Tippett) to directors (John Carpenter, Ti West), actors (Simon Pegg, Barbara Crampton), composers (Michael Giacchino) and writers (Russell T Davies).
Packed with hundreds of images, from film stills to personal, behind-the-scenes pictures from dozens of interview subjects – many never before published – Making Monsters is a treasure trove of monstrous creations, and the stories behind them, that is sure to make fans jump, scream and howl with delight.

Vroman’s On Screen is an ongoing event series highlighting books & authors that explore the elements of Film and Television from actors & directors to artists behind the camera to media studies & criticism.

Tepito Coffee + Vroman’s Bookstore Present: Rings of Dissent: Boxing and Performances of Rebellion
2025-11-02 11:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Tepito Coffee + Vroman’s Bookstore Present: Rings of Dissent: Boxing and Performances of Rebellion, a special conversation moderated by Mike de la Rocha, featuring Rudy Mondragón, Gaye Theresa Johnson & Priscilla Leiva

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Professional boxers practice their trade within an ostensibly apolitical arena. In reality, however, the fighters work inside a capitalistic and neoliberal sports culture that they both challenge and uphold. This collection delves into professional boxing’s capacity for brilliance, contradiction, resistance, and complicity. Scholars, activists, and artists explore the boxing ring as a site for understanding original and diverse ideas about the performance of race, citizenship, gender, power, and dissent. Essays and interviews draw attention to the cultural politics and performances of marginalized boxers while revealing the structures of power and practices of agency at work around Black, Brown, and queer bodies. As the contributors establish boxing’s central place in communities of color, they open exciting new avenues for studying race, immigration, gender, and capital. Multifaceted and innovative, Rings of Dissent uncovers fascinating corners of the boxing world as it illuminates what the sport tells us about America.

Vroman's Bookstore: Caroline L. Perry & Sydney Hanson read from & sign I Am Not Happy!
2025-11-02 14:00 - 15:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
In the vein of Grumpy Monkey and Unicorns Are the Worst!, this hilarious picture book introduces the adorable quokka, who–despite his ever-present smile–is definitely not as happy as he looks!
With its bright eyes, puffy cheeks, and beaming smile, the quokka is clearly the happiest animal on earth. Or is it? This quokka is here to tell you…he is not happy! At least not all the time. Just like everyone else, he can be sulky, or sorry, or sad; but you’d never know from the look on his face! So, what’s a moody marsupial to do when he’s being misunderstood? Teach every other animal from kangaroos to koalas not to judge a critter by its cover!

Vroman's Bookstore: Garrett Hongo and Robin Coste Lewis read from & sign their new books Ocean of Clouds: Poems and Archive of Desire: A Poem in Four Parts for C. P. Cavafy
2025-11-02 16:00 - 17:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
About Ocean of Clouds:
In his fourth book of poems, award-winning poet Garrett Hongo sees coastlines and waters, skylines and ancestral lines for what they inspire and teach.
In a surpassingly beautiful collection of poems, with his characteristic long-lined, rolling music, Hongo is alert to the possibilities of individual moments of perception and grace in the landscapes of his life, whether waiting for a ferry in Balboa after a writing workshop (“An oil slick from a yacht . . . / Spread rainbows on the water, an aleph / curving toward us”) or hanging out and playing LPs with the late, great poet Michael Harper, or watching his daughter in the sun with a halo of messy twelve-year-old’s hair, or listening to the sea, which speaks to him in so many places: at the Wai’ōpae Tidepools, at Cassis, at Divi Bay in Saint Martin, where, he tells us, “I thought of writing to the soul of Nâzim Hikmet, / saying loving a woman was like writing a book– / . . . it is love’s body on which you write a page of kisses . . .”
These poems of cloudy moons and sandstone cliffsides, the black glass of lava shattered into sands, waves surging, and stories of a poet’s gratitude for the journey he has made, come together to make a paean against forgetting.
About Archive of Desire:
The National Book Award, PEN/Voelcker Award, and NAACP Image Award winner returns with another inventive and boundary-breaking book: a sensual journey ignited in the archives of iconic queer Alexandrian poet C. P. Cavafy.
In her first book, Robin Coste Lewis’s poems exploded the imagery of the Black female figure from antiquity through the present day. Her second book was an expansive hybrid photographic and poetic study of human migration and the human family. Now she delivers a “poem in four parts,” which originated as a musical, visual, and lyrical collaboration with the composer Vijay Iyer, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, and visual artist Julie Mehretu, with Lewis on the microphone offering a live reading of this sequence. Ignited by their encounters with Cavafy’s archive, in the heart of Athens, the multimedia quartet exalted the liminal spaces where desire and diaspora meet–where art often asserts itself most forcefully. In this volume, Lewis brings this performance to life on the page, where the poem weaves in and out of Cavafy’s bedrooms, notebooks, and the suppressed erotic excavation underpinning all of his work. Lewis converses directly with Mr. Cavafy: “often you / reminded us that // the only true / barbarians are the ones / raging in silence inside // of our own / minds.” But she also brings equal parts of herself to this study of artistry and sensuality, as in the short, tender section entitled “Cavafy in Compton/Closet Anthem: Self-Portrait at Sixteen, 1979.”
As in all Lewis’s works, here she reaches across centuries to express what is timeless and not bound by our current moment or our single selves: the discipline and glory of art, the give-and-take of love, the kiss that lives in the moment, and the unfolding journey of being human, whose contours become clear only with the passage of time, the igniting of memory, and the words we find to describe the journey.

Vroman's Bookstore: TICKETED - Mac Barnett & Shawn Harris Present: The First Cat in Space and the Baby Pirate's Revenge: A Graphic Novel
2025-11-03 18:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
In the fourth installment of Mac Barnett and Shawn Harris’s New York Times-bestselling series our heroes–First Cat, LOZ 4000, and the Moon Queen– encounter Captain Babybeard and his crew of swashbuckling pirates.

Vroman's Bookstore: Julia Ioffee discusses & signs Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy
2025-11-04 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
Acclaimed journalist Julia Ioffe tells the story of modern Russia through the history of its women, from revolution to utopia to autocracy.
In 1990, seven-year-old Julia Ioffe and her family fled the Soviet Union. Nearly twenty years later, Ioffe returned to Moscow—only to discover just how much Russian society had changed while she had been living in America. The Soviet women she had known growing up—doctors, engineers, scientists—seemed to have been replaced by women desperate to marry rich and become stay-at-home moms. How had Russia gone from portraying itself as the vanguard of world feminism to becoming a bastion of conservative Christian values?
In Motherland, Ioffe turns modern Russian history on its head, telling it exclusively through the stories of its women. From her own physician great-grandmothers to Lenin’s lover, a feminist revolutionary; from the hundreds of thousands of Soviet girls who fought in World War II to the millions of single mothers who rebuilt and repopulated a devastated country; from the members of Pussy Riot to Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, Ioffe chronicles one of the most audacious social experiments in history and documents how it failed the very women it was meant to liberate—and how that failure paved the way for the revanche of Vladimir Putin.
Part memoir, part journalistic exploration, part history, Motherland paints a portrait of modern Russia through the women who shaped it. With deep emotion, Ioffe reveals what it means to live through the cataclysms of revolution, war, idealism, and heartbreak—and how the story of Russia today is inextricably tied to the sacrifices of its women.

Vroman's Bookstore: Aria Mia Loberti reads from & signs I Am Ingrid: The Adventures of the World's Greatest Guide Dog
2025-11-05 11:00 - 12:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
This funny, adorable picture book is based on the life of Ingrid, the real guide dog to actress, author, and UNICEF Ambassador Aria Mia Loberti!
Ingrid knows she is fabulous. She flies around the world with her person, Aria. Working as a team, they navigate everything from college classes and ancient ruins to movie sets and red carpets. And Ingrid never goes anywhere without her string of pearls. But before Ingrid was the best guide dog there ever was, she was just a small, black puppy with very big paws.
Growing up at Guide Dogs for the Blind, Ingrid saw lots of grown-up dogs wearing special harnesses. They were guide dogs, and they got to help people and go on adventures. Ingrid dreamed of being just like them. But becoming a guide dog isn’t easy. It takes a lot of training and hard work. When they are wearing their harnesses, guide dogs must be focused and calm. That means no sniffing strangers, barking, or picking up food from the ground — no matter how good it smells! But Ingrid was determined to complete her training and become the best guide dog in the world.
This funny and heartwarming illustrated picture book will teach kids what guide dogs do and how they work together with their humans to become an unstoppable team. Plus, the back of the book includes nonfiction information about guide dogs, the spectrum of vision, Aria’s life and career, and photos of the real Ingrid — including her wearing her trademark pearls!

Vroman's Bookstore: Tori Atencio McCullough, Kelsey McCullough, & Bobbie Lucas, discuss & sign Xavier X Atencio: The Legacy of an Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend
2025-11-05 19:00 - 20:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
From apprentice animator on Pinocchio to the lyricist behind “Yo Ho, Yo Ho A Pirates Life for Me,” Xavier “X” Atencio’s Disney career was diverse and spectacular.
Now for the first time his talent, humor, and creativity come to life in a book celebrating the body of work and the legacy of one of Walt’s original and most versatile Imagineers.
Xavier “X” Atencio: The Legacy of An Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend depicts the life, art, and lasting legacy of X, detailing how he put himself into his work and used his talents, passion, humor, and creativity to inspire generations. It is the most comprehensive look to date at the one of Walt’s original and most versatile Imagineers.
Featuring previously unpublished artwork and photographs from X’s personal collection, this book grants readers the unique opportunity to discover the true depths of influence X attained on his life journey. For while it was rare to become a Disney Imagineer, it was even rarer to end a career at Disney with as diversified a resume as X’s–from “small-town Colorado boy” to art school attendee, Disney animator, attraction scriptwriter, lyricist, voice-over artist, and finally Disney Legend.
Set against the historic and cultural evolutions of The Walt Disney Company, Xavier “X” Atencio: The Legacy of An Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend provides a deeply personal perspective into the life and career of a Disney Legend whose story, until now, had remained largely untold.

Boston Court: MARIOLOGY
2025-11-05 19:30, 2025-11-09 14:00 | Boston Court Pasadena, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena, CA, 91206, United States
In a mythical fifth-grade classroom, indoctrination explodes into fantasy and rebellion in Nancy Keystone and Critical Mass Performance Group’s form-busting and exuberantly theatrical West Coast Premiere. Mariology explores the Virgin Mary both as a source of faith and a weapon of control, illuminating Mary’s roles in systems of gender, power, and personal agency.

Vroman's Bookstore: TICKETED - David Daley discusses & signs Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right's 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections
2025-11-06 19:00 - 20:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
“David Daley has been at the absolute forefront of educating us about the theft of our elections by radical Republicans determined to subvert everyone else’s power to choose their own leaders. An absolute warrior for democracy.” — Rick Perlstein, New York Times bestselling author of Nixonland and Reaganland
In 1981, a young lawyer, fresh out of Harvard law school, joined the Reagan administration’s Department of Justice, taking up a cause that had been fomenting in Republican circles for over a decade by that point. From his perch inside the Reagan DOJ, this lawyer would attempt to bring down one of the defining pieces of 20th century legislation–the Voting Rights Act. His name was John Roberts.
Over thirty years later in 2013, these efforts by John Roberts and the conservative legal establishment culminated when Roberts, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, wrote Shelby County vs. Holder, one of the most consequential decisions of modern jurisprudence. A dramatic move that gutted the Voting Rights Act, Roberts’s decision–dangerously premised on the flawed notion that racism was a thing of the past–emboldened right-wing, antidemocratic voting laws around the country immediately. No modern court decision has done more to hand elections to Republicans than Shelby.
Now lauded investigative reporter David Daley reveals the urgent story of this fifty-year Republican plot to end the Voting Rights Act and encourage minority rule in their party’s favor. From the bowels of Reagan’s DOJ to the walls of the conservative Federalist Society to the moneyed Republican resources bankrolling restrictive voting laws today, Daley reveals a hidden history as sweeping as it is troubling. Through careful research and exhaustive reporting, he connects Shelby to a well-funded, highly-coordinated right-wing effort to erode the power of minority voters and Democrats at the ballot box–an effort that has grown stronger with each election cycle. In the process Roberts and his conservative allies have enabled extreme partisan gerrymandering to become the law of the land, while fringe conservative theories about our elections infiltrate the foundations of our democracy.

Monopole Wine by RX: Live Jazz
2025-11-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Monopole Wine By RX, 21 S. El Molino Ave, Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Join Monopole Wine by RX for an evening of Live Jazz with performances by The Todd Hunter Trio! This event is free with a 2-drink minimum!

Boston Court: Just Jazz Foundation Series: Ben Williams Band
2025-11-06 20:00 | Boston Court Pasadena, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena, CA, 91206, United States
Performing music from his albums “I AM A MAN”, “Coming of Age”, and “State of Art”, as well as brand new material from his upcoming album & film “Between Church and State,” Ben Williams brings his dynamic band to the Boston Court stage.

Vroman's Bookstore: Meher McArthur discusses & signs A Japanese Art Journey: A Curator's Memoir of Polka Dot Pumpkins, Paper Dolls and Woodblock Prints
2025-11-07 19:00 - 20:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Passion, Art, and Identity: A Multicultural Memoir of Finding One’s Place in the World
In this engaging memoir, Japanese art historian and curator Meher McArthur transports you into the extraordinary world of Japanese art — from ceramics, swords, prints and textiles to Buddhist art, folk painting, contemporary art and animation. One artwork and one language lesson at a time, we follow McArthur as she unspools a compelling narrative of curiosity and inspiration, personal and cultural growth, with heartbreak and resilience. This book will provide avid art lovers new ways of seeing and understanding the power of art, not only to inspire but to illuminate one’s place in the world.
The author presents her art memoir in three parts:
Discovering and Learning
Growing up in a small Scottish town as a multiracial child, McArthur often felt culturally out of place. Encouraged by her Persian and Scottish parents to embrace a global identity, she studied Japanese at Cambridge, eventually moving to Japan–where she fell in love with its language, temples, ceramics, and art traditions. Just as she found her passion, family upheaval challenged her sense of direction.
Becoming a Curator
With a master’s degree in Japanese art, McArthur forged a path as a museum curator in California, organizing exhibitions on folk art, sake, ceramics, and Buddhist calligraphy–while learning the rhythms of museum life and starting a family.
Curating Beyond the Museum
Stepping away from the museum world, she became an independent curator, exploring new creative territory through origami, anime, and contemporary art–discovering fresh ways to connect with audiences and with herself.
Spanning continents and cultures, this is both an inspiring art memoir and a resonant reflection on cultural belonging. McArthur’s story offers a warm, generous vision of how art can illuminate identity and bridge difference–inviting readers to fall in love with Japanese art and culture, and to embrace the idea that there’s no single way to belong in the world.

Vroman's Bookstore: Erica Lee Schlaikjer reads from & signs Sky Luck
2025-11-08 11:00 - 12:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
As friends gather to look for shooting stars, one boy discovers how to pay attention to what’s here, not what’s missing. From an Own Voices Award winner comes a magical picture book celebrating abundant thinking.
A dark night. Friends have gathered. One by one they point out flames streaking across the sky. All but one boy. He sees an airplane, the Milky Way, a full moon, but no shooting stars. Frustrated by his bad luck, he gives up and goes inside.
His uncle sees things differently. He asks . . .
What if we open our hearts to all the wonders in the sky? The bright and the quiet, the everyday and the once-in-a-lifetime. What if nature’s gifts are all around, ready for us to recognize them? What if sky luck is infinite, and everywhere, for everyone?
Crisp, evocative text and lush, cinematic illustrations deliver an invitation to be mindful of our planet’s never-ending treasures. A final spread reminds readers of the abundance of celestial surprises all of us are lucky to delight in.

Vroman's Bookstore: TICKETED - Tigest Girma, discusses & signs Eternal Ruin
2025-11-08 15:00 - 16:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Like all ruinous things, he came from the abyss.
Kidan Adane has finally embraced her darkness. She’s killed without remorse, lied, and broken Uxlay University’s most sacred law by inviting elusive rogue vampires, the Nefrasi, into Uxlay.
Trapped with a violently unstable vampire, and reeling from her sister’s return, Kidan wields her anger like a weapon. She vows to master her house and protect the sacred artifact hidden inside, even if it means forging an alliance with the depraved leader of the Nefrasi, Samson Sagad–and betraying Susenyos.
A dangerous new philosophical text seems to hold the answers and promises the very thing Kidan has lost: control. Even as the dark pages consume her, Kidan knows no soul at Uxlay is trustworthy–least of all Susenyos. For Kidan and Susenyos, the lines of loathing and attraction may blur, but the quest for power rules them both. And neither is willing to surrender.
As devastating secrets resurface from the past, Kidan and her sister, June, must finally confront each other and take their rightful places in the looming war.

Archetype Yoga: Second Saturday Jazz Night
2025-11-08 19:30 - 22:00 | Archetypa Yoga, 638 e colorado ave, pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Since 2023, Jason Luckett, a local musician, has brought together artists to host a showcase of talent. 2nd Saturday Jazz Night was born as a place for artists to experiment and share their gifts with the local community. Once a month, you’ll enjoy an eclectic mix of musicians and vocal artists to make you smile, sing along, and meet locals.
Join Archetype Yoga & Jason Luckett every Second Saturday of the month from 8:00-10:30pm for a musical showcase with concessions for purchase. A suggested $25 donation is required and directly supports the artists. Beverages and snacks will be available for purchase; all proceeds go back into the production of building space for artists and the community. Seating is first-come, first-served. Doors open at 7:30pm.
Jason Luckett is a musician and has released multiple albums and performed globally. Known primarily as a singer and guitarist, his music effortlessly mixes elements of the classic singer-songwriters with the jazz, soul, and samba he grew up hearing at home. Over the years, Jason has played, recorded or shared the stage with artists ranging from Stevie Wonder, Tracy Chapman, BB King, Jeff Buckley, The Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge, Russell Ferrante (Yellowjackets), and members of Bauhaus, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lenny Kravitz’s band, The Count Basie Orchestra, Tears for Fears, Sheryl Crow’s band and others.
Archetype Yoga is a perfect venue to host and bring people together! An airy loft space located in the heart of the Playhouse Village offering daily yoga classes, workshops and retreats. A studio that is focused on building community on and off the mat in addition to supporting local artists.
We look forward to having you join us in our space, meet local artists, and be in the community.
Doors Open at 7:30PM
Archetype Yoga is located on the third floor- if you require assistance, please email hello@archetype.yoga prior to the event to use the service elevator.

Vroman's Bookstore: Souvankham Thammavongsa discusses & signs Pick a Color
2025-11-10 19:00 - 20:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
From Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labor, and class, an intimate and sharply written book following a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don’t even know her true name.
“I live in a world of Susans. I got name tags for everyone who works at this nail salon, and on every one is printed the name ‘Susan.'”
Ning is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer’s day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound complexity. A woman enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, but also haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost. A woman navigating the complex power dynamics among her fellow Susans, whose greatest fears and desires lie just behind the gossip they exchange.
As the day’s work grinds on, the friction between Ning’s two identities–as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances–will gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning.
Told over a single day with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Color confirms Souvankham Thammavongsa’s place as literature’s premier chronicler of the immigrant experience, in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms.

Vroman's Bookstore: Amber Smith and Sam Gellar discuss & sign Fade Into You
2025-11-12 19:00 - 20:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Bird and Jessa don’t have much in common. Bird is an aspiring poet, still finding herself after a transformative summer away at writing camp. Jessa lives for the discovery of new music, using it to block out the dysfunction waiting for her at home. They would never have crossed paths if it weren’t for one shared problem: Their two best friends have started dating, and the relationship is threatening to ruin their senior year. Tired of coming second to their friends’ romance, the girls come to the only logical conclusion: they have to break their friends up. But the more time Bird and Jessa spend scheming, the more they start to realize they might have more in common than they thought. Set in the late ’90s in a world full of change as much as possibility, Jessa and Bird relearn what it means to love themselves and receive love in return, and to dream for a future they never imagined.
About the Authors:
Amber Smith is the New York Times, USA TODAY, and internationally bestselling author of the young adult novels The Way I Used to Be, The Last to Let Go, Something Like Gravity, and The Way I Am Now. An advocate for increased awareness of gendered violence and LGBTQIA+ equality, she writes in the hope that her books can help foster change and spark dialogue. She lives in Ithaca, New York, with her wife and coauthor, Sam Gellar, and their ever-growing family of rescued dogs and cats. You can find her online at AmberSmithAuthor.com.
Sam Gellar kicked off her writing career with a short chapbook of poetry in third grade. In high school, her play Life Versus the Paperback Romance gained national attention and was subsequently performed Off-Broadway, starring Mary-Louise Parker and Lisa Kron. She earned her MFA in creative writing and has penned numerous short stories and screenplays. Fade into You is her first novel. She feeds her creativity and consummate inner nerd with graphic novels and weekly TTRPG gaming. She resides in Ithaca, New York, with her wife and growing gaggle of rescue fur babies. Visit her at SamGellarWrites.com.

Vroman's Bookstore: Gerald Petievich discusses & signs 13 Hillcrest Drive
2025-11-13 19:00 - 20:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
From the acclaimed author of To Live and Die in L.A…
In the streets of Beverly Hills, secrets are the most valuable currency. Meredith Fox, a once-prominent Hollywood publicity agent, has clawed her way back from the brink of obscurity. Now, she’s poised for a comeback, leveraging the dark secrets of her celebrity clients to put herself back on top. But when a routine money drop goes wrong, Meredith finds herself caught in a deadly web of betrayal.
Detective Michael Casey, navigating the waters of Beverly Hills’ elite, is tasked with unraveling the mystery behind Meredith’s death. With every clue leading to more questions, Casey must confront his own demons while piecing together a puzzle that threatens to expose the darkest secrets of the Los Angeles elite.
13 Hillcrest Drive is a gripping thriller that peels back the layers of Hollywood’s glitz. In a city where image is everything, the truth can be the most dangerous revelation of all.

Vroman's Bookstore: TICKETED - Kate Baer reads from & signs How About Now: Poems
2025-11-14 19:00 - 20:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
The third full length poetry collection from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Kind of Woman.
Renowned poet Kate Baer returns with a bold and compassionate collection that confronts the march of time in a shifting world.
With her trademark candor and curiosity, Baer explores what it means to grow older, to release children into the wildness of their own lives, and to reclaim the ever evolving self. Raw, luminous, and urgent, this collection channels Baer’s own journey to middle age into poems that are profoundly intimate yet resound universally, identifying the beauty, resilience, and fragility that arrive in every stage of life.
How About Now is a striking declaration of ongoing transformation and self-discovery. From the poet who has captured the heartbeat of the modern woman, this collection reaffirms Kate Baer’s place among the most vital voices of our era.
