Sharon Salzberg, a nationally renowned meditation teacher and author is coming to the Calvary Center for Culture and Community (48th & Baltimore) next week to present a talk and a meditation retreat. The talk will take place on Friday, Nov. 11, from 8 – 10 p.m., and the day-long retreat will be held on Saturday, Nov. 12, from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Sharon has played a crucial role in bringing Asian meditation practices to the West and has been leading meditation retreats around the world for over three decades. She’s the author of The New York Times best seller “Real Happiness.”

On Friday Sharon will introduce the principles of meditation and provide a basic understanding of the practice. Saturday’s program will explore the tools of meditation in greater depth, and include meditation practice and discussion. Both days will feature guided meditations, talks, and allow time for questions and answers. Both new and experienced meditators are welcome.

Tickets are $20/Friday, $75/Sunday, $90/both. You can register online here, or by phone: 215-238-0989. A portion of proceeds will go to the Children’s Community School.

A couple of dozen pumpkins entered our 2011 Pumpkin Carving Contest. The artistic endeavor and sheer jack-o-lovliness has impressed folks far and wide. Alas, there can only be a handful of winners. And here they are:

• Reader’s Choice –  Bimal Desai‘s toothy, super-freak of a pumpkin (Pumpkin 21) topped the voting (160 votes cast). Bimal wins gift certificates from Wake Up Yoga and Dock Street Brewery.
• Kids – Wyatt Baker, 8, and his super crafty use of the stem (Pumpkin 4). Wyatt wins a tote bag and a gift card from VIX Emporium.
• Philly-themed – Katrine Lvovskaya and Becca Lausch with “Fall-o-delphia”, their homage to our lovely skyline and the love that is the Love Statue (Pumpkin 17). Katrine and Becca win a gift card from Milk & Honey Market.
• Scariest –  Terry Coleman – That “Gears of War” skull freaked the judges out a lot (Pumpkin 5). Terry wins a gift certificate from Aksum cafe/restaurant.
• Funniest/Ironic/ Wow! – Nate Johnson (Pumpkin 19). There has to be a place in our awards for a pumpkin that just blew the judges’ minds. A fitting tribute to REM and Michael Stipe a couple of weeks after the band announced the (yes, we had to do it) End of their World as We Know it. Nate wins a fall food basket from Mariposa Food Co-op.

Last but not least, we want to give a hearty shout out to everyone who entered a pumpkin and all who voted.

We would like to add two more events to the list of Halloween happenings in our area.
 

Monday, October 31

 
Halloween Haunted Garden

4611 Springfield Ave.

5 – 7 p.m.

All ages, free

This annual Halloween party features 10+ spooky “Sets” with five being “Treat” stations, over 2,000 full sized candy bars, about 1,600 hugs and thousands of fruits, pretzel bags and bite-sized treats. The PHILLY THRILLERS will entertain the folks who are waiting in line.

NOTE: Volunteers are needed to hand out treats and tricks. Anyone who is free Monday from about 4:30-7:30 p.m. and has a warm costume, can help deliver the candy. Treat delivery starts at 5 p.m., so volunteers must commit from about 4:30 to about 7:30 p.m. At least two people are assigned to a station, so come with a friend or make new ones at the event.

You can also help with decorating needs today until 5 p.m. and doing a run-through in the early Monday afternoon, to turn on machines, check power, batteries and fluids, and ‘break’ the glow sticks into eerie perfection.

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror

University of Pennsylvania – Irvine Auditorium, 3401 Spruce Street

7:15 p.m.

Free, open to the public

Following Penn’s annual Halloween concert tradition, the 1922 German classic movie “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” is screening Monday night, accompanied by a musical score performed by famed organist Peter Edwin Krasinski on Irvine’s 10,731-pipe Curtis Organ. For more information go here.

Update 2: The deadline for entry submissions has been extended until 6 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29.

Update: Wake Up Yoga has joined the list of our sponsors and is donating a gift card (5 class card, $65 value) to one of the winners.

There are only three days left to participate in our 2011 Pumpkin Carving Contest. We are accepting snapshots of your pumpkins until 6 p.m. Friday. Please email them to: editor[at]westphillylocal.com

Many thanks to everyone who already emailed their photos. But there has to be more of you out there. So what are you waiting for? Please get to work to give yourself a chance to win one of our awesome prizes. If you haven’t bought your pumpkin yet, we hear that Milk & Honey is selling them for 4 bucks a piece.

For more information about the contest go here.

West Philly photographers – professional and amateur alike – get your cameras ready! On Friday, Oct. 28, the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center invites everyone in the city to take a picture. The photo can feature anything you like as long as it’s taken on that day within the city limits. Then upload your favorite picture to their website between October 28 and 31.

The organizers said they want West Philly to be well represented.

On November 10, from 6 – 9 p.m., the PPAC will host the Philly Photo Day Opening Reception. Every single picture they have received will be printed and hung for exhibition at 1400 N. American Street. Reprints of all the images will be available for $25.

For more information about the event visit: https://www.philaphotoarts.org/events/philly-photo-day.

How do you imagine Africa? You can join the discussion, explore and also have a lot of fun tomorrow, Oct. 26, at Penn Museum‘s Evening to Imagine Africa, a free event for neighbors, friends and first-time visitors. This community night is part of special programming around the new gallery project Imagine Africa with the Penn Museum, an initiative using a new visitor-centered method of exhibition planning.

The event will begin at 5:30 p.m. and feature two workshops – a Hip Hop dance workshop with an instructor from Rennie Harris RHAW, and an African Dance Workshop with the Penn student group African Rhythms. Also in the program: belly dancing with Habiba, and Spoken Word with the Philly Youth Poetry Movement. Complimentary refreshments will be served.

Tomorrow’s night is the first of three free Wednesday evening community nights. The additional nights will run March 28 and May 23, 2012. To learn more about the Imagine Africa with the Penn Museum project go to this page.