Art-Themed Summer Street Fair & Breakdancing Symposium A Success in Canoga Park

By Sherman Farralone, Quilt staff

DATELINE: OWENSMOUTH AVENUE 

The numbers are in and last week’s Third Thursday was a success.

The trimonthiel event — a celebration of art, food, tagging workshops, fellowship, and people carrying little dogs so they don’t get accidentally kicked across the street by someone doing windmills in front of that tire place — is held in Canoga Park on the first full Thursday that follows the second Friday (so long as both Fridays had been preceded by a Thursday in that month) during months ending in an ‘e’ or a ‘t’; and/or any month ending in a ‘y’ that specifically falls between ‘e-’ and ‘t’-ending months. 

Staff photo.

For the 2017 “Third Thursday” schedule, the event’s dates had been predetermined to occur on June 15, July 20 and August 17.

Murla Havemeyer. Staff photo.

“It was a great night,” says Murla Havemeyer, head of event organizement for the Canoga Park Summer Event Series: Third Thursdays ArtWalk and Collective of Artists & Local Raw Artisanal Honey Sellers. “We had a lot of people come by this month. Sure, it meant that I had to stand in line a little longer for my sisig fries at the food truck, but it was worth it.” 

While specific numbers haven’t been released for this year's second Third Thursday, most agree that attendance was up significantly from the event in June, the first Third Thursday event of 2017, nearly matching that of September 17, 2015, the fourth Third Thursday event of the third year the Third Thursday annual street festival was held.

“Yeah, it was real busy,” says local artist Brian Rauschebart, who sold unlicensed “Rick & Morty” religious candles at his booth. “I think it was just as hot and muggy as [the Third Thursday event] in June was, but people came anyway because we’d all just gotten used to the never-ending, stifling heat by now.”

Getting The Word Out:  Locals were made aware of the event by these cards, left on the wind-
shields of Canoga Park's myriad of permanently parked RVs as well as other vehicles. Staff photo.

Havemeyer, however, attributes the increased attendance to handbills advertising the event. “We came up with a really clever idea — to have thousands upon thousands of these little cards printed up — then had volunteers put them on all the car windshields in the downtown Canoga Park area,” she says. “That really got the word out and made the night a triumphant smash.” 

Not one to rest on her laurels, Havemeyer, who keeps busy on many local committees, hopes she can duplicate her “Third Thursdays” success on other projects. 

Staff photo.

“I also head up the Canoga Park Friendly Neighborhood Council’s ‘Tidy Neighborhoods’ initiative,” the civic-minded Wyandotte Avenue resident says, “and currently we’re looking at ways to clean up the trash in our streets.”  

DWP Restores Power Before Entire West Valley Begins To Stink

By Sherman Farralone, Quilt staff

DATELINE: NORTHRIDGE

A massive power outage affecting over 100,000 residents in the west San Fernando Valley narrowly avoided becoming catastrophic when electricity was restored to remaining customers still without power this morning just ahead of an odor-based “point of no return.”

“We knew we were racing against time,” says LADWP spokesman Mitchell Dianis. “With this heat we’ve been having, things were about to get bad. Real bad.”

A Winnetka neighborhood during last night's power outage. Or perhaps Woodland Hills. No, no,
wait — this is definitely Tarzana.  Or possibly West Hills.  Could be Reseda, maybe.  Staff photo.

Sustained triple-digit temperatures coupled with an inability for residents to sufficiently cool down via air conditioners would have resulted in an enormous, life-choking haze of apocrine-secreted particulate, or sweat cloud, that would have hovered over the western part of the San Fernando Valley indefinitely before settling and permanently seeping into clothes, structures, even concrete.

Dr. Morris Detzer.
Photo: Mimi Detzer

“140,000 people, many of whom are unfamiliar with modern methods of personal hygiene to begin with  — if the people in front of me in line at Dollar Tree yesterday are any indication — without any means of bringing body temperatures down for twelve-plus hours would have been cataclysmic,” explains Dr. Morris Detzer, professor of osphresiology, or stink, at Pierce College Winnetka.  “Had we gone on much longer, in this weather, the resulting funk would have made much of the Valley completely uninhabitable for future generations.  ...Well, more so.”

A sense of impending panic was starting to rise among residents, as well.

“I was driving through Chatsworth last night during [the outage],” says Canoga Park resident Teodor Pasternak. “And you could tell it was already starting to turn. At first I thought it was the horses out there. But no, it was definitely [human] b.o.  I can’t imagine what Reseda would have smelled like.”

Thankfully, work crews at the affected DWP Receiving Station J were able to perform the necessary repairs in time and get transformers, turbines and generators humming again — before residents began to.

“I mean, it’s not as bad as it could have been, but even this morning, eugh, you can still smell it a little bit,” says Pasternak. “I think it’s wafting up from Valerio and...  ...snff...snff...  Holy crap, that’s me.”

“...Actually, snnfff, that’s not bad, huh?”

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