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Pencil This In: A Zoo Party, Rod Serling Series, Poetry, Politics and Music and Bacon and Wine Pairing

TGIF! We found a few great events happening around town tonight if you're not into watching the Olympics opening ceremony on tape delay. The Craft Study Center hosts and evening of politically themed poetry, music and performance; there's a zoo party with live world music; a Rod Serling retrospective screening series starts tonight; and for the bacon lovers out there, we found a bacon and wine pairing in Hollywood. Read on for all the details.
POETRY AND POLITICS
Tonight at 8 pm, theCraft in America Study Centerpresents a mix of poetry and music with performers taking on works by Shakespeare, J.S. Bach and original compositions. Poetry recited by Randy Oglesby and music provided by Argenta Walter, accordion, Heather Lockie, viola, Claire Chenette, oboe/guitar/ukulele, Alex Wand, guitar, and Maggie Hasspacher, bass. The theme compliments the Center’s current exhibition: Looming Election: Woven Works. Free.
BACON+WINE=HELLYA*
They had us at bacon: The small plates restaurant/wine bar Vintage Enoteca holds a Bacon & Wine Redux Tasting Eventtonight from 7 pm onwards. It’s three courses of gourmet bacon bites paired with a different wine: Scallop & Bacon Roll with a Gouveio/Viosinho/Rabigato: Quinta de la Rosa, Douro, Portugal, 2009; Bacon Wrapped Corn Dogs & Bacon Aioli with a Blaufränkisch: Glatzer, Carnuntum, Austria, 2009; and finally Bacon S’mores with a Grenache Noir: Cornet et Cie, Banyuls, France, 2009. $25 per tasting. Tax and tip not included.
MUSIC
There’s a great lineup tonight at the Hotel Cafe: Harper Blynn, Madi Diaz and Cary Brothers take over the small stage from 8-11 pm tonight, and Mind the Gap starts its set at 11. Tickets: $12.50. 21+.
MOVIES
We’re huge fans of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, and the UCLA Film and Television Archive opens the series Rod Serling: Other Dimensions tonight at 8 pm with a closer look at both Serling’s well-known and under-the-radar works. Screening tonight are Saddle the Wind (1958), which was written by Serling, and "The Twilight Zone: Mr. Denton on Doomsday," which first aired on CBS in 1959. 7:30 pm at the Billy Wilder Theater. Tickets: $10.
PARTY (WITH THE) ANIMALS
It’s an evening of Music in the Zoo tonight from 6-9 pm. It’s Global Fusion Night and world music bands perform throughout the zoo and Botanical Gardens serenading people and the animals that are allowed to stay up past their bedtimes. (The animals are put to bed at 8 pm, though.) Bands include Rocky Neck Bluegrass Band, Marieve Herington Band (French), Paddy’s Pig (Irish), Wicked Tinkers (tribal Celtic), AK and Her Kalashnikovs (Slavic), Bandidos de Amor (California rumba), Tropical Punch (Calypso), Shaya and Rafi (Mediterranean), and Kenny Hudson and World Beat (African). Picnics are permitted, but a number of diverse and eclectic food stations will be set up around the zoo with food available for purchase. Local micro brewery Golden Road and Eagle Rock beers are available, too. Admission: $20 for adults, $15 for children ages 2-12. Children under age 2 are free. Discounts for Zoo Association members.
MUSIC
wild Up, the LA-based experimental classical/contemporary ensemble, is now the Hammer Museum’s first orchestra-in-residence. It’s curating a series of music events and happenings throughout December at the museum, exploring various genres. Tonight, ensemble player and clarinetist Brian Walsh brings his jazz trio to perform a set on the terrace. Free.
*Pencil pick of the day
Want more events? Follow me on Twitter (@christineziemba). Or follow Lauren Lloyd—who takes care of Pencil on Wednesdays (@LadyyyLloyd).
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