Blazing heat. And it was an eventful day in Echo Park. There was a morning bird count at Echo Park Lake. I was not lucky enough to attend, but am looking forward to learning the numbers. I've heard some distressing news about avian botulism in waterfowl down at the Los Angeles River, and I am wondering if any of the same has been seen at Echo Park Lake, where the lotus are so horribly sick this year.

In the early afternoon, I did finally make it to Echo Park Lake, briefly, for the Cuban Music Festival, which celebrates that nation's disengagement from Spain in 1902. We were there in time to hear the Echo Park Project shake their marimbas for the grannies in Orlando visors, the salsa dancers -- an all ages crowd, well-dressed, on the northwest edge of the park, near the Cuban poet Jose Marti's memorial. Lots of folding lawn chairs and a big crowd dancing down by the stage. We stumbled onto the scene by accident, and if we hadn't been set to visit the Kaprow exhibit at MOCA downtown I would have been happy as a healthy duck to stay all afternoon. Not to mention that beneath the huge trees, and with the grass and water, the heat was defanged in the park.