By May S. Ruiz Baseball has long been hailed as America’s favorite pastime. According to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s website, its history dates back to the 1840s. Years later Civil War soldiers on both sides played it as a diversion from the grimness of their circumstances. And, depending on whom you…
An Expanded Chinese Garden Opens at The Huntington
By May S. Ruiz To say that it took a village and a few decades to create the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Garden’s Liu Fang Yuan (the Garden of Flowing Fragrance) wouldn’t be an exaggeration. And we’ll have the opportunity to see the completed project and revel in all the pleasures within when…
October College Search Guide
The Road to College By May S. Ruiz The road to college involves four years of complicated planning and complex scheduling. High school students are extremely busy – homework, extra-curricular activities in art and sports, campus clubs, all compete for their time. As if all that weren’t difficult enough, they have to make sure they…
Pasadena Playhouse Launches PlayhouseLive
By May S. Ruiz Theatre saw its early beginnings over two thousand years ago in Athens, Greece when festivals were held in March to honor Dionysus. Today, this art form is staged all year around the globe. And it can be argued that nowhere is it performed more at its magnificence than at the Pasadena Playhouse,…
Modern Feminism: RBG and Beyond at The Broad Stage at Home
By May S. Ruiz The Broad Stage and esteemed L.A.-based publisher Red Hen Press continue Season 2 of the Red Hen Press Poetry Hour as they discuss modern feminism. The online episode, which will broadcast on Facebook Live on Thursday, Sept. 24 at 6 p.m., will honor the extraordinary life and legacy of one of…
Restored ‘Blue Boy’ Displays Gainsborough’s Brilliance
By May S. Ruiz Created by English landscape and portrait painter Thomas Gainsborough around 1770, ‘The Blue Boy’ occupies a place of honor at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Garden’s Thornton Portrait Gallery and is seen by about 800,000 people annually. After an 18-month restoration project, it has been rehung and will be…
Arcadia High School Sophomore Advances in Competition
By May S. Ruiz Fifteen-year-old Weber Lin was an Arcadia High School freshman when schools closed their campus in March and resorted to virtual learning. One day he and his parents read a CNN online article about a group of people in Montana who were making 3D-printed Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to help with disposable…
A Salute to the USPS and its Employees
By May S. Ruiz Benjamin Franklin appointed the first postmaster general in 1775 but it wasn’t until the passage of the Postal Service Act in 1792 that the post office department was created. In 1970, it became what we now know as the United States Postal Service (USPS). For all the noble purposes its creation…
September College Search Guide
The Road to College By May S. Ruiz It’s hard to believe that Labor Day is upon us, marking the end of summer. With the pandemic and the resulting lockdown, your children have been learning from home since March. Online classes for the fall term have begun mid- or late August and no one knows…
August College Search Guide
The Road to College By May S. Ruiz For the August College Search Guide, I would customarily write that I hope your children got the chance to decompress and savor the summer break. These are extraordinary times, however. Our usual activities have been upended and we’re constantly challenged to get to a place of normalcy…