Tips, California peeps?

[d_aulnoy]

My parents are coming to town!  Yay!

Now, despite having lived here for ... good lord, over a year, I am still a Calignoramous in a lot of ways: I know about beaches and public gardens, the closet things LA has to walking areas, etc., but I am damned if I can think of more than a handful of good indoor activities.  My parents are even less receptive to extreme heat than I am, so I'd appreciate any suggestions y'all might have on (literally) cool things to do in SoCal in a week of 95+ heat.  Thoughts?

Comments

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

The Folk Music Center (http://www.folkmusiccenter.com/) in Claremont is a lot of fun. They have regular concerts and a large-ish store with a lot of interesting things. I generally have to be pried out of there.

Wednesdays at a little after noon at Pasadena Presbyterian Church there are free half-hour concerts (usually classical).

The Coffee Gallery in Altadena often has interesting folk music concerts and free Blue Grass jams the second sunday of every month.

If you can get tickets to Disney Hall, I really don't think that there's a bad seat in the house, though some do let you see better, but I don't think I've ever been to a bad concert there.

I'm not sure when the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is playing next, but they're also really worth hearing.

LACMA has some interesting concerts in a couple of styles going on (http://www.lacma.org/programs/MusicPrograms.aspx). I seem to recall they also have some interesting jewelry in their collection, though I don't know if it's currently on display. Oooh, The Getty, I believe, also has some interesting jewelry in its collection.

I'm sure there's something interesting down in the Jewelry district downtown, but I honestly don't spent a lot of time down there. I know that there's a nice jewelry store in Monrovia, because I've wandered by it and looked in the windows sometimes, but I'm forgetting the name. Arnold's in Pasadena is also a nice store and they usually have some interesting estate and consignment pieces.

Oh and more museums with concert series and similar things: The Skirball Center and The Hammer Museum at UCLA both often have concerts (or at least there are often concerts on the UCLA campus.) Oh, and I know they have a really interesting collection of musical instruments, but I'm not sure if it's open to the public. Still, that might be worth enquiring about.

Oh, and if you /do/ go to The Gamble House (http://www.gamblehouse.org/), be sure to stop into the bookstore. They always have a really, really lovely display of art neuveau/craftsman jewelry.