Looking for Something to Do? Free Pasadena Events April 6 to 12

Here are events scheduled Saturday, April 6, to Friday, April 12. 

All events are free, so take a look -- and don't you dare say there's nothing to do in Pasadena!

The next Explore JPL event at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be Saturday and Sunday, May 18 and 19, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. YOU MUST HAVE A TICKET TO ATTEND! Online ticket registration will begin Saturday, April 6, at 8 a.m., and tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets are not required for children younger than 2. You'll see special exhibits indoors and outdoors, 3-D movies and multiple unmanned spacecraft on display, learn about space missions, chat it up with JPL scientists and engineers and much more. 

It's Family Fun Saturday at Eaton Canyon Nature Center Saturday, April 6, with a guided family nature walk at 9 a.m., Nature Tails Story Time at 10:30 a.m., a presentation with live animals at 11 a.m. and a nature craft at 11:30 a.m. Family Fun Saturdays are scheduled every week.

Special guest Richard Maxwell will speak in the Los Angeles Times Media Center at Art Center College of Design's hillside campus Tuesday, April 9, at 7:30 p.m. for the ongoing Graduate Art Seminar, to which the public is invited. Maxwell is a playwright, theater director and the artistic director of the New York City Players. The Graduate Art Seminar is a forum for Art Center graduate students and members of the community to dialog with internationally recognized artists, critics and art historians.

"Forever Amber" (1947, NR) starring Linda Darnell and Cornel Wilde will be shown Wednesday, April 10, at 1 p.m. in the Donald R. Wright Auditorium at Central Library. Suppressed by her 17th century British Puritan upbringing, Amber St. Clair moves to London where she becomes a courtesan, gets pregnant by a dashing soldier and has encounters with other uncaring men, including the King of England, while true love eludes her.

Part of Los Angeles's radiance comes from streets lined with signs from the gold age of neon from 1925 to 1965. On Wednesday, April 10, at 5:30 p.m. at the Women's City Club, photographer and historian Tom Zimmerman will show images that depict what Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald and countless other writers have tried to put into words about a city that has carried a very special glow for decades. Reservations are encouraged for this Book Club of California presentation. You do not have to be a member of BCC to attend.

The six-part Great American Songwriters series continues Thursday, April 11, at 2 p.m. in the Scott Pavilion at the Pasadena Senior Center with a focus on Dorothy Fields and other women who write hit songs including "Lovely to Look At," "On the Sunny Side of the Street," "A Fine Romance," "You Ought to Be in Pictures" and many more. Join pianist Bob Lipson and commentator/performer Saul H. Jacobs for this fun, interactive program. You do not have to be a member of the Pasadena Senior Center to attend but you do have to be 50 or older.

It's a poetry party! Celebrate National Poetry Month by creating your own poetry Thursday, April 11, from 4 to 5 p.m. at Hastings Branch Library. Write a poem, make a blackout or collage poem and/or hang your poem on the Poet Tree. All ages are welcome.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" (2018, PG-13) starring Rami Malek and Lucy Boynton will be shown Friday, April 12, at 1 p.m. in the Scott Pavilion at the Pasadena Senior Center. The film is a foot-stomping celebration of the rock group Queen, their music and their extraordinary lead singer Freddie Mercury who defied stereotypes and shattered convention to become one of the most beloved entertainers on the planet. The film is based on true events.

Photo credits: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Oregon Zoo, The New Yorker, Twentieth Century Fox, Design: A Beginner's Handbook, Library of Congress, Flocabulary, GK Films