Picks – July ‘26
Some things you can do in Los Angeles (and beyond)
Picks is a monthly selection of California happenings, goings-on, and general commotions we’re excited about. This July, we encourage you to never miss a sunset. Pause that Babysitter’s Club rewatch and get outside. The skies are painterly, the grass is sticky and sweet, your picnic blanket is calling. You’d do well to answer.
✸ Following a triumphant comeback after a lengthy hiatus, the Gilroy Garlic Festival will take a victory lap July 24–26. Worth the trip, especially if you can press a visit to Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park, which is—how do you say—Disney for garlic lovers.
✸ Returning to Los Angeles for the first time since 2015, LACMA will screen Christian Marclay’s The Clock, a 24-hour single-channel montage constructed from thousands of moments from cinema and television history depicting the passage of time, first, from Saturday, July 25–Sunday, July 26, and again, from Saturday, August 22–Sunday, August 23.
THINGS
Saturday, 7/4
✸ World’s Largest Salmon BBQ • 11 AM • Held each year on the first Saturday in July, all proceeds from this annual Fort Bragg event are used to improve salmon populations on the Northern California coast, especially streams flowing into the Noyo River. Enjoy live music, people-watching, and the sense of community, while the scent of smoked fish lifts you off your feet like a cartoon cherry pie.
✸ If you’re not spending the long weekend on the road, in the mountains, in the air, or (better yet) the desert, rejoice! You’re in the coolest city and have an opportunity to see the city’s coolest band: Guck is playing at Oblivion with Sea Moss, Miscomings, and Rearranged Face. Better than fireworks.
As the saying goes, America is a wild and lonely place. Break bread with your friends and family, greet your neighbors, and seek solitude with the one you love. Listen to Bill Callahan and laugh, if you can.
Sunday, 7/5
✸ Star Spangled to Death at 2220 Arts + Archives • 1 PM • Presented by LA Filmforum, Ken Jacobs’ six-and-a-half-hour epic pictures a stolen and dangerously sold-out America, which the Times called “a bargain-basement mash-up that variously evokes Greed, Howl, and Moby Dick.” We can’t promise it’ll cure your headache (or hangover) from the semiquincentennial, but what could?
Saturday, 7/11
✸ Swamp Dogg’s 84th Birthday at Venice West • 8 PM • Jerry Williams, Jr., the artist known as Swamp Dogg, has earned the title of living legend: he was the first Black A&R executive and producer at Atlantic, discovered Dr. Dre, saved John Prine’s career, and has written countless chart-topping hits. He’s also the funniest man of all time. For the unfamiliar, we recommend the stellar documentary Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted (free on Kanopy with a library card). He has a new album out, and it’s his birthday—so this is an absolute-must-go-don’t-skip! Because without you, there will be some disastrous bullshit.
Sunday, 7/12
✸ Math of the Heart: A Buckminster Fuller Birthday Experience at PRS • 5 PM • Join Jessica Hundley, series editor of TASCHEN’s The Library of Esoterica, alongside artist and curator Darren Romanelli, and renowned musician and producer James Fauntleroy, in celebrating the legacy of futurist, architect, and inventor Buckminster Fuller. More than a tribute, this gathering is an invitation to inhabit Fuller’s enduring question: how might we live more beautifully, intelligently, and synergistically with one another and the planet itself?
Monday, 7/20
✸ Chloe Lauter presents The Flayed Man at Skylight Books • 7 PM • Lauter’s debut has been hailed as “a propulsive novel of family curses, blood-thirsty ghouls, and budding romance” set against the Mojave Desert and Las Vegas. Which is right up our alley, and likely yours.
Saturday, 7/25
✸ Reimagining Tatreez — Stitching Land and Memory with Layal Bata at Craft Contemporary • 2 PM • Learn how to make your own tatreez, the traditional Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery which carries meaning through regional motifs and colors. Participants will explore a visual language of land, identity, and community in the face of displacement.
PLAY FUNNY GAMES
We’re halfway through the World Cup, which we’ve been covering in our latest series, Funny Games. You can catch up on those absurd dispatches here.
During the group stages, we enjoyed watching matches on weekend afternoons at Solarc on the fuzzy VHS big screen, chill weeknights on the back patio of The Fable, high marquee matches at Homage, sometimes Señor Fish if the Death Row grape seltzer was in stock, and we could hear the cheers from Johnny’s wherever we went.
For the knockout rounds of the tournament, we’re looking for bigger, better, more complex viewing experiences—like watching Mexico v. England while hiding in the shade of a 34-foot Trojan Horse at Universal CityWalk. Might we suggest the following preferred viewings and experiences, as well?
✸ The Fan Zone at Hansen Dam Lake from Thursday, 7/2–Sunday, 7/5, is a perfect excuse to visit the Hansen Dam Aquatic Center, which bills itself as “the largest pool in America.”
✸ On Thursday, 7/9, the LA Philharmonic will celebrate the beautiful game at the Hollywood Bowl with a Classical World Cup featuring works from across the Americas.
✸ If we say we’re going to Fan Zone at Venice Beach at any point on Friday, 7/10, or Saturday, 7/11, what we really mean is we’ll be camped out at Hinano Cafe (Jim Morrison’s favorite) before wandering over to Chez Jay (potentially Channing Tatum’s favorite?) for dinner. Can’t lose.
✸ Downtown Burbank gets a Fan Zone for the finals on Saturday, 7/18, and Sunday, 7/19. We expect to see you all there with a sandwich from Handy Market, gelato from Pinocchio’s, and a fresh costume from one of the area’s year-round Halloween stores. Maybe we can celebrate after at Bob’s Big Boy.
That’s it for our July picks. Follow us on Instagram for vintage picnic blankets, summer sandwiches, and feverish rants against VAR.
If we dropped something, let us know in the comments!
