Weekend: Dia de los Muertos

Make-up and hair flowers on, SoCal skeletons; it's time to remember.

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS: Convivial and solemn, food-lively and music-meaningful celebrations to remember loved ones who've gone beyond the veil will flower around the region in the days to come, from the large-scale LA Day of the Dead at Hollywood Forever on Nov. 1 (note: everyone but everyone dresses up in their calaca-best) to George Newman's sculpture-beautiful, all-weekend-long Casa de las Calaveras (make for Huntington Beach) to Canoga Park's Dia de los Muertos Festival on Sunday, Nov. 2. You don't need to build an altar or paint on a toothy grin to admire the costumes and art of your community, friends and fellow calaveras.

WEST HOLLYWOOD HALLOWEEN CARNAVAL: You could just go with the billing on the site -- "the largest Halloween street party in the world" -- and you'd automatically understand that this annual Oct. 31 costume-elaborate soiree brings it, on every level: crowds, amazing outfits, great tunes on six stages, more people, more people-watching and the chance to show of your ingenuity via your own get-up. Should we add that about a half million people show up on Santa Monica Boulevard? Now, how original can you make your costume, so you don't see it repeatedly throughout the night on other people? And...go!

STAN LEE'S COMIKAZE: Pop culture mega-happenings, those huge scenes that feature cosplay and comics and artists and everything, continue to grow, but not many have a legend's moniker before the event name. Mr. Lee, a man synonymous with Marvel and Spider-Man and the robust genres he helped build, is at the helm, and fans'll show to talk superheroes, television shows, films, anime, and anything fictional, funny, and/or offbeat at the LA Convention Center. Dates? Oct. 31-Nov. 2.

HELLO KITTY CON 2014: Firsts are pretty fun, especially when they involve a character who is blowing 40 candles out on her proverbial cake. Hello Kitty has never had an official convention before, but that will all change when aficionados of the Sanrio icon make for LA with Kitty-fied toothbrushes and lunchboxes and shoelaces and hair bows in tow. Tickets? Well, they're gone, as predicted, but the Hello Kitty retrospective at the Japanese American National Museum is on through late April of 2015.

MOVEMBER OPENS: We know, for sure, absolutely: This grow-a-moustache-for-men's-health benefit really revs up, visually, at the end of November, when all of those moustaches have been getting progressively hairier over the month. But you have to start clean shaven, so you can start growing, on Nov. 1. Have a razor? Some shaving cream? A place on social media to document your hairy progress, the better to raise funds for the fine initiatives Movember supports? Good. Now find events, throughout the month, to make merry and make a difference. Your moustache'll thank you.

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