Signs That the Sun Is Setting on Summer

Late summer is an odd season, here in the near desert.

In moderate climates, the first leaf of fall has begun to change color. Some child will see it and mourn the passing of another summer. But here, the rejuvenating chill of autumn is still a long way off. We wait.

Despite the heat, schools are starting up again. Notebooks replace sunscreen on dime-store shelves. Summer festivals are closing.

Before these seasonal programs end, let’s revisit two of them. This is the way we mark the passing of summer, in the absence of weather.

Closing out the Long Beach Museum of Art’s outdoor concert season this Wednesday is a performance artist unlike any the museum has had this summer: Meryn Cadell.

Cadell is one of those performers who needs at least four descriptives after her name. In her case, the list is singer, songwriter, storyteller, performance artist. Anyone who has heard her work (the story/song “Sweater” has been a hit on college radio stations) would also be inclined to include the term comedian.

This is a woman who, in one instance, tells a story of lust, love, betrayal and renewal, all the while interrupting her story with the bumblebee song. You remember, “I’m bringing home a baby bumblebee, won’t my mommy be so proud of me? . . . I’m eating up my baby bumblebee, won’t my mommy be so proud of me?” Strangely enough, this not only works, it’s funny.

On her recently released Sire Records album “Angel Food for Thought,” she includes a beautifully harmonized a cappella song called “Being in Love,” whose title should be, more accurately, “Being in Love Sucks.”

Go to her concert at 7 p.m. Wednesday on the museum lawn (2300 E. Ocean Blvd., gates open at 6 p.m.) and you probably will manage to forget that we’ve got two more months of intermittent heat waves to look forward to. Tickets are $10, or $8 for museum members. Information: 439-2119.

If you prefer activities more sunny and, shall we say, diesel, you will want to catch the last day of Long Beach’s Sea Festival.

The final event today is the California Outboard Boat Racing Assn.’s competition at Marine Stadium. Sit in the sun and watch inboard and outboard boat races, alongside cracker box, super-stock and K-boat racers. If you know what all these different types of boats are, you probably are a natural for this daylong event.

A celebrity boat race, which has attracted the likes of actor Don Johnson in past years, also is included. Burton Gilliam of “Blazing Saddles” fame and Jeff Severson, who played in “North Dallas Forty,” will be racing this year. Now isn’t that worth the $10 admission price? Children younger than 12 are admitted free.

The event begins at 10 a.m., lasts until 5:30 p.m. and is being held at Marine Stadium, 2nd Street, just south of Pacific Coast Highway. Information: (714) 540-9110.