BIG EASY SOUND: New Orleans and San...

BIG EASY SOUND: New Orleans and San Juan Capistrano aren’t sister cities, but they do have at least one thing in common: St. Joseph’s Day--this Saturday--when the swallows annually return to Mission San Juan Capistrano from their winter migration. St. Joseph’s Day is also a day of festivities in New Orleans. . . . It was in honor of the legend of the swallows that New Orleans musician Leon Rene in 1940 composed “When the Swallows Come Back To Capistrano.” It was a huge hit for both Glenn Miller and the Ink Spots.

LATE ARRIVAL: Most teams at this weekend’s state high school basketball finals will be in Oakland a day or two before their games, but not the Brea Olinda girls. They’ll fly up Saturday morning, play at 2:30 p.m. and then spend the night after the game in a hotel. . . . “The one year we flew up the night before, we lost,” Brea Coach John Hattrup explains. “It’s not because of anything we do, it’s because everyone around you on the (hotel) floor is keeping you up.”

HERE SHE COMES? Anaheim Arena folks were hoping for Barbra Streisand to sing at last summer’s grand opening, but she wasn’t doing concert work at the time. Since then, though, she’s wowed them on stage in Las Vegas. So she’s set for an upcoming cross-country tour and negotiating with the Anaheim Arena to include multiple shows there. The tour starts April 20 and Streisand’s Anaheim dates--if agreement is reached--would likely be in late May.

FUNNY BONES: Brooklyn-born Yaakov Kirschen, who appears here today, started his career as a children’s book illustrator and gag cartoonist, often for Playboy. But in 1971 Kirschen moved to Israel, and is now its most famous cartoonist with his “Dry Bones” strip. His fame reached a new level this year, with his highly acclaimed “Trees, the Green Testament,” a cartoon history of the Jews in Israel. . . . He signs copies at the Golden Dreidle gift shop in Costa Mesa, starting at 11 a.m., and speaks at the University Synagogue in Irvine at 7:30 p.m.