When we think of synchronicity or coincidences, we very often alight upon concepts that seem, at first glance, to have little in common, or nothing at all.
That isn't the case with the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. There's some synchronicity afoot for the 2015 unfoldings of both major happenings, or at least interesting timing, and as is often the case with big things that converge, time-wise, there is a hashtag.
Of course, and if you're wondering if "-chella" is involved, as it usually is come the spring's bigger, non-Coachella events, you'd be correct.
The hashtag du jour -- or du month or du season, more accurately -- is #bookchella, and it is being deployed to draw attention to the fact that one of musicdom's largest gatherings, the one in the desert, and one of literarysphere's hugest convergences, the one in the city, are both heating up, in all the ways, over the third weekend in April.
This is actually not the first year for #bookchella, which saw some trending action in 2014. It is, however, a reminder that if you want to see all of those author chats, meet your favorite writer, and pick up some tomes on special during the USC book-stravaganza, best go to Coachella over its first weekend, which is April 11 and 12.
It's nice when two major to-dos somehow entwine, whimsically, with cheek, at least on Twitter, because very often neither will note the existence of the other. But given that the Festival of Books and that lil' party at the Empire Polo Field in Indio are both tentpoles on the SoCal cultural calendar, there should be a unifying hashtag, by gum.
And if you want more -chellas in your life, hang tight. Events adding -chella to their names tend to flower like so many ocotillo flowers 'round the springtime, like Brokechella (which plays, for cheap, in downtown LA, on April 18).
