The best things to do in Los Angeles this week

Netflix’s stand-up specials keep us cackling at home, but the streaming service’s ambitious comedy festival is nothing to laugh at. For its second iteration, Netflix is a Joke Fest is headed back here from May 2 to 12, and upping the ante: More than 300 shows at 35-plus venues with sets from Ali Wong, Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Gaffigan, Chris Rock, Taylor Tomlinson and literally hundreds of others.

Little Tokyo is one of L.A.’s most compact and bustling neighborhoods, so there’s a lot to explore in just a few blocks in the realm of food and drink. This year, Go Little Tokyo is back with its annual food tour and festival that will help you discover—or appreciate—the neighborhood’s cornucopia of legacy small food businesses. Highlights of the one-day event include a food history walkthrough of Little Tokyo, a bread decorating class and a whiskey workshop.

Explore the history of early Los Angeles life with free admission to five museums in Northeast L.A. and Pasadena. The annual Museums of the Arroyo Day is the perfect opportunity to brush up on historical architecture—the Gamble House, Heritage Square and the Lummis Home—and relics from L.A.’s past—L.A. Police Museum and Pasadena Museum of History. In addition to free entry, you’ll find shuttle service between all five museums. Some of the sites are bike and A Line-friendly as well. MOTA Day runs from noon to 4pm.

L.A. has changed immeasurably since 1921, when this event was first staged as an agricultural fair. However, the perennially popular event still has farm-friendly appeal (livestock beauty contests, local produce) alongside the more modern acrobats, wine tastings, exhibitions and concerts.

Want to peer through the eyepiece of Mt. Wilson’s historic telescopes? Your best and most economical bet just might be one of the Talks & Telescopes events. These monthly Saturday night astronomy lectures are followed up with a few hours of stargazing on portable telescopes on the grounds as well as the 60 and 100-inch telescopes for only $50 (a fraction of the price of the observatory’s late-night stargazing sessions).

This surf-inflected music fest will once again take over the Redondo Beach coastline for three days in May. Sting, Incubus, My Morning Jacket, Dirty Heads, Seal, Devo, Local Natives, Santigold, Fleet Foxes, Courtney Barnett and Trey Anastasio top this year’s lineup.

If you’re sick of First Fridays only offering a high density of food trucks and lines at your favorite dive bars, check out something old—in a good way, we promise—at the Natural History Museum, where First Fridays offer dinosaurs and DJs. The first Friday of every month from February through June plays host to a KCRW-presented evening of music, allowing visitors of all ages to stay late for a night at the museum. Each month offers a different lineup of musical guests and DJs, guided museum tours, and scientist-led talks. Check out the museum’s website for advance tickets and updates on info.

The former Lucha VaVoom has been essentially split into two, with this one helmed by longtime producer and burlesque and lucha scene mainstay Miss Rita. For its inaugural show at Don Quixote, Miss Rita’s Lucha VaVoom will stage an East L.A.-inspired Cinco de Mayo event with mariachis, lowriders, folklorico, minis, tamales, musica, mezcal and tequila.

One of L.A.’s best free live music offerings, Jazz at LACMA has featured legit legends over its three-decade run at the museum. Seating for the program is available in the museum’s plaza on a first-come, first-served basis, though you’re welcome to picnic on the grass, too (you won’t really be able to see the show, but you’ll still hear it). You’ll find the series on Friday evenings in LACMA’s welcome plaza (just behind Urban Light) starting in April.

Peruse handmade pieces from about three dozen ceramic studios and artists during this annual celebrations of all things clay at Craft Contemporary. You’ll find the bulk of the vendors in the museum’s courtyard, with the rest located in a pop-up shop. Aside from the shopping, you can learn how to handcraft (1–3:30pm) and take home your own air-dry clay project.

Support emerging Asian American chefs this APHAM at this Little Tokyo dinner series with menus inspired by each chef’s identities and experiences. This Asian Pacific Heritage Month, the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) will host the Rising Chef Series, a set of five-course weekday dinners ($180 per head) featuring three emerging Asian American chefs.

Immerse yourself in the work of the wildly creative students at CalArts during this interdisciplinary gallery show. The campus-wide event features 15 student-curated venues with pieces by over 600 artists that span visual art, music and dance performances, film/video, installation art, lighting sculptures, virtual reality and multidisciplinary work.

Catch a series of movies in the Valley screened at the locations where they were shot or at a local landmark that fits the film’s theme. My Valley Pass, the area visitors’ guide that runs the event, has lined up a showing of Star Wars in the parking lot of Neiman & Company (6842 Valjean Ave), the former location of Industrial Light & Magic, where the film’s groundbreaking effects were created.

Think men could do a bit of a better job listening when it comes to dating? This Bachelorette-style game show runs with that conceit as its one rule: The four men competing for a date can’t speak. Instead, they’ll nod and doodle while host Allison Goldberg searches their phones and dials their moms. You can usually find Love Isn’t Blind staged monthly (and you can even apply to participate in it); look out for the next edition at the Arts District’s House of Cocotte on May 4.

Rachel Bloom, Dulcé Sloan, Arden Myrin, Sam Morrison, Chad Opitz, Kaela Crawford and Antjuan Tobias top this outdoor comedy show in Glassell Park.

Hollywood’s Japan House has tapped artist Sebastian Masuda to dive into the roots of all things cute and colorful with this exhibition on Japanese kawaii culture. The free show includes multiple pieces and installations from Masuda.

No, the Academy Museum isn’t staying open past midnight—but it is celebrating films that have typically screened then. To complement the museum’s John Waters exhibition and Pink Flamingos’ place as a late-night mainstay, it’ll be screening some cult favorites this April and May, including Eraserhead, Up in Smoke, Donnie Darko and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The hour stands before another springtime, and the Renaissance Pleasure Faire is nigh. Good mistresses and masters, prepareth thy schedules and costumes for the return of the oldest Ren Faire in the country, a spectacle that cov’reth 20 Irwindale acres with Elizabethan libations and amusement: fully armored joust tournaments and tea parties with the Queen along with beguiling stage acts, rides, games, delicious edibles and ales abound. The fesitivies will transpire each weekend at the Santa Fe Dam Recreational Area; procureth day or season passes in advance by visiting ye olde online box office. And no, we can’t stop talking like this.

Nature lovers rejoice! Spend a day at the Natural History Museum’s Butterfly Pavilion, which will open from March 17 through August 25 with up to 30 butterfly and moth species and an assortment of California plants. The seasonal outdoor exhibit allows for adults and children alike to witness nature up close—we’re talking having bufferlies take flight and land on your arms or shoulders. Prime time for these unique butterfly flight experiences are between 10 and 11am each morning.