THE GREAT OUTDOORS: This weekend, Los Angeles will open the $56 million Grand Park downtown. The beginning of the Los Angeles Times review reads: “Parks in Los Angeles have always been a peripheral presence, both literally and symbolically. … Truly urban parks have been rare here.” Sound like any town you know? The review concludes by saying, “Grand Park represents something else: an attempt, imperfect but encouraging, to chip away at the rigid infrastructure of the car-dominated city and make a private city a little more public.” Fingers crossed that the same thing will be said about Klyde Warren Park when it opens in the fall.

THE BIG 4-0: Half Price Books turns 40 on Friday. To celebrate, the bookseller is returning to its original location on W. Lovers Lane, which is now occupied by Tart Bakery. Drop in on Friday, and you can receive a free book and discounts from the bakery. Interested? Here are the details.

ANCIENT ART: Did you know that the Lower Pecos in Southwest Texas is home to 4,000-year-old rock paintings? Me neither. No one has ever really been able to figure out what they mean until recently, when archaeologist Carolyn Boyd began to crack the code. That breakthrough could lead to significant understanding of the ancient culture that created the paintings. “Just as finding the Rosetta stone in Egypt enabled linguists to decipher ancient hieroglyphs, these paintings help unlock the secrets of a majestic religious system that blanketed Mesoamerica nearly four millennia before the arrival of Columbus,” says an extensive story about the paintings in Discover magazine.