Explore the ghoulish side of life in the soil with fascinating, sometimes horrifying, creatures who have the ability to turn dusty dirt into healthy, life-giving soil. Join us for an engaging evening of storytelling and performance. Wear a costume and get in free. A typewriter poet will be on hand to transform your foggy aspirations into dreamy verse. Yummy treats from the Huntington's Bon Apetit Cafe. Seeds and other healthy soils giveaways.

Buy a ticket, get a free drink. Use theses promo codes "healthysoil" or "things_hidden"  for half price ($10) Wear a soil critter costume and get in free. Go ahead, we DARE you!

Linda Ravenswood, PhD abd (Impresario) Storykeeper, Poet, Performance Artist, and Arts Advocate Linda Ravenswood is a Los Angeles native and 7th generation California schoolteacher. Her book — a poem is a house — won The Arthur Smith Prize in Poetry and was published by Madville Press in January 2024. Find her at thelosangelespress.com

Mick Lorusso (Soil Microbe Projection) Mick is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who draws upon the fields of biophysics, microbial ecology, and permaculture as they relate to the health of life on earth. Find him at https://www.instagram.com/micklorusso/

Lynn Fang, MS (Soil Microbe Projection) Lynn has over 10 years of experience in ecological landscape design, soil science, community composting, and regenerative farming. She centers soil health as the foundation of thriving and abundant gardens. She is the primary landscape designer and soil health consultant at SoilWise. Find her at: https://soilwise.earth/about

Rusty Perez is a #blind #SingerSongwriter. AKA @Dreamora making music about Life, love and The divine for ordinary people, film&Tv #RustyPerezMusic #MusicForSync. Here's. link to his music. Link to his latest release.

Brian Sonia Wallace was born in St. Louis and raised in Culver City, California, and Santiago, Chile. He holds an MA in sustainable development from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.curates an LGBTQ+ poetry column for The Pride LA and teaches creative writing through UCLA Writers’ Extension and Get Lit—Words Ignite. Find him at https://poets.org/poet/brian-sonia-wallace

Christina Cha is a writer of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published in The Coachella Review, Pratik, and The Los Angeles Press, and was shortlisted for the 46th New Millennium Writing Award for Nonfiction. One of her pieces was just nominated for this year’s Pushcart Prize. Find her at https://christinachawriting.com/

Diana Dinerman is a writer and actor. She writes nonfiction, poetry, spoken word and screenplay. Her one woman show, DETOUR, was invited to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Sun, The Los Angeles Press, Eat, Darling, Eat, Wifey.tv, and SmartMouth. Find her at https://www.dianadinerman.com/

Bernadette McComish is a poet, producer and performer with The Poetry Society of New York in New York and Los Angeles. She produces the West Coast Chapter of the Poetry Brothel, booking talent, creating a budget, and running a show that provides poets and artists a safe space to share their work and make money in the process. Find her at https://thelosangelespress.com/2019/06/16/bernadette-mccomish/

Tom Laichas is author of three books of poetry, most recently Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (FutureCycle Press, 2023). His latest work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Los Angeles Times, Plume, The Moth (Ireland), the Irish Times, Main Street Rag, and elsewhere. He lives in Venice, California. Find him at https://www.tomlaichas.com/about

Planet Earth Observatory's team members (Critter Fashionistas) Our team will lead a soil critter fashion show with creepy costumed members of the audience joining in.

The event will be held in Patagonia's store in downtown Pasadena. The store will close at 6pm to set up for our 7pm event. Doors will open at 7, with the performance starting at 7:15. Please try to arrive on time. Each guest is entitled to one free drink. Sweets avaialble for purchase by The Huntington Library's Pastry Chef Luis Perez. You'll have some time after the performance to meet the poets and the critters, mingle, buy a drink and some yummy treats. A typewriter poet will be on hand to turn your foggy thoughts into dreamy verse.

• All Ages:  This is not a chldren's event, but it is framiy-friendly.
• Check-in starts at 6:45pm
• Paid parking across the street, public parking a block away is cheaper.

Do you have to wear a soil critter costume?Of course not! But we would be s-o-o-o happy if you did. We want this to be a celebration of life and death in the soil. Come as you are in a celebratory mood. We'll be happy to see you.I'm wearing a soil critter costume. 

How do I get in for free? Send us an email. Tell us what soil critter costume you'll be coming as. We'll put your name of the guest list. Write to: lydia@planetearthobservatory.org

Can you give me some ideas for soil critter costumes?

Sure! Go to our webpage and scroll down to a slideshow about some different creepy soil critters to find out how what they look like, how they move in the soil, what they eat and who eats them. Here's hoping it will give you a smile! https://planetearthobservatory.org/halloween-celebrationIs 

Is this a kids' event?This event is not specifically for children but it is a family-friendly event. We ask that young people under 17 be accompanied by an adult.

Linda Ravenswood, PhD abd (Impressario) Linda is a poet and performance artist from Los Angeles. Her book — a poem is a house — won The Arthur Smith Prize in Poetry and was published by Madville Press in January 2024.The poems in the Collection also received an Oxford Prize in Poetry, and The Edwin Markham Prize in Poetry from Poet Laureate of The United States, Juan Felipe Herrera. The book is also nominated for The National Book Award 2024. Her manuscript — girls in the desert — was a finalist for The Donald Hall Prize in Poetry from AWP in 2024 and will be published in 2025 by Flowersong Press. In 2018 she founded The Los Angeles Press to address the critical need for WOC in publishing, and to promote and produce works of originality, depth, and beauty. Find her at thelosangelespress.com

Mick Lorusso (Soil Microbe Projection) Mick is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who draws upon the fields of biophysics, microbial ecology, and permaculture as they relate to the health of life on earth. With visual arts degrees from Colorado College (BA) and San Francisco Art Institute (MFA), he is currently the STEAMWorkDesign Studio coordinator at Westridge School in Pasadena, CA, the Sustainability Coordinator for the Cosmic Labyrinth eco-education platform and a member of the Mexican interdisciplinary cooperative XOCIARTEK.

Lynn Fang, MS (Soil Microbe Projection) Lynn has over 10 years of experience in ecological landscape design, soil science, community composting, and regenerative farming. She centers soil health as the foundation of thriving and abundant gardens. She is the primary landscape designer and soil health consultant at SoilWise. She has taught compost ecology and soil health at Cal Poly Pomona, Pitzer College, and the University of Vermont. She helped launch community soil health programming at LA Compost and ECOFARM, and has also consulted with Metabolic Studio and Studio Petrichor. Her past experience includes work with the LA County Arboretum Crescent Farm, CropSwapLA, Buena Vista Community Garden (now Gente Community Garden), and Huerta del Valle. She received her MS from the University of Vermont in 2015 investigating the impacts and mechanisms of compost-mediated disease suppression on the fungal root rot pathogen Rhizoctonia solani.