Santa Monica Close-up on Facebook

Santa Monica Close-up on Facebook

Santa Monica Close-up on Facebook

(top) Cancer survivors walk laps during the 8th annual American Cancer Society Relay For Life  at Santa Monica College's Corsair Field on Saturday July 10, 2010.  Teams walked for 24 hours around Corsair Field to fight cancer, increase awareness of the disease and raise much-needed funds to support the services of the American Cancer Society.  The American Cancer Society Relay For Life is an international event. (center) Amy Albuera places a survivor's medal on Nat Trives during the 8th Annual Relay for Life of Santa Monica on Saturday, July 10, 2010. (above) Iao Katagiri places a glow stick in memory of her mother Nobu Sosai Katagiri during the American Cancer Society Relay For Life's Candle Light Luminary Ceremony at Santa Monica College's Corsair Field on Saturday July 10, 2010. Iao's mother passed away on March 21, 2010 from Pancreatic cancer. The Candle Light Luminary Ceremony is to honor loved ones and friends who have had cancer or in memory of those who lost their battle to cancer. The Names of those being honored are printed on the luminary  and are placed around the track.

Santa Monica Close-up on Facebook

Santa Monica Close-up on Facebook

Santa Monica Close-up on Facebook

Orion Comstock, Director of Herpetology with Star Eco Station, puts Princess, a ten year-old Red Tail Boa, around the neck of  Jared Lyne, 9,  during the Venice Eco Fest on Saturday, July 10, 2010.

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Konono No. 1 kicks off  the 26 the Annual Twilight Dance Series at the Santa Monica Pier on Thursday, July 8, 2010. The group performed Congolese Trance Dance-tronica music.   Konono No. 1, was founded over 25 years ago by Mingiedi, a virtuoso of the likembé, a crude "thumb piano" central to Bazombo trance music from the region near the border of Congo and Angola.   The band's line-up includes three electric likembés (bass, medium and treble), which are amplified through hand-made microphones that Konono builds from magnets salvaged from old car parts. There's also a rhythm section which uses traditional as well as makeshift percussion, your everyday junkyard pots, pans, garbage cans and car parts. Mix in three singers, dancers and a sound system featuring some old-fashioned megaphones and you’ve got Konono No. 1, a most singular sound and musical experience.   With a set of releases for Crammed Discs, their brand new “Assume Crash Position” carries on the strange and spectacular electro-traditional mixtures that make up Konono’s “Congotronics!” One would say “Buzz’n’Rumble from the Urb’n’Jungle!”

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