Rose Sellery opens Passages at MPC Art Gallery 4:30pm this Saturday.

• For the first week of February (through this Sunday), the Monterey Bay Aquarium is free for locals from the tri-county area, with ID and proof of local residency, to kick off a celebration of its 30th anniversary.

• History is like a mystery. There are clues, there are searches, there are findings and conclusions. So a good history lecture, like “The Nature Study Movement” by Don Kohrs at Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, taking place 6pm Thursday, is worthy of popcorn. Kohrs will share his “recent findings” of the summer gatherings of the Chautauqua Assemblies in Pacific Grove, which emphasized the natural sciences, romantic literature and the arts, the seeds for which blossomed in many places. Admission is $5 suggested donation or free for volunteers of any local organization (with name tag). See also, Chautauqua.stanford.edu.

• “The ‘60s was Britain’s brief period of cultural cool in the 20th century,” writes the Pacific Grove Art Center. What about their subsequent punk, new wave, rude boy, electronica, Britpop, shoegazer, neo-soul, garage, drum n’ bass and trip-hop scenes? Anyway, it’s just prelude to their introduction of musician Robert Marcum and actor Howard Burnham’s revisit to London’s Swinging ‘60s and the Beatle’s 50th anniversary of arriving in New York City, called “Satire, Swing and Shorts Skirts!” ($10 at the door) 7:30pm Friday at PGAC.

• River House Books in the Carmel Barnyard hosts author John Hagen 3pm Sunday for a signing of his book Play Away Please, a “tale of the sale of golf’s greatest icon, the St. Andrews Old Course Starter Box.” If you are into golf as much as I am, you also have no idea what any of that means. 626-2665.

• The Oriental Art Society is hosting a free video, “By Light of Lanterns,” and lecture by Gerry Low-Sabado, the great-granddaughter of Quock Mui, the “first documented Chinese-American girl born in the Monterey area in 1859.” It takes place 7pm at the Hacienda Carmel Fiesta Room, Carmel Valley Road & Via Mallorca, Carmel Valley. 644-6148. And just so we’re clear on the word “Oriental,” the Oxford Dictionary elaborates thusly: “The term Oriental, denoting a person from East Asia, is regarded as offensive by many Asians, especially Asian Americans. It has many associations with European imperialism in Asia. Therefore, it has an out-of-date feel and tends to be associated with a rather offensive stereotype of the people and their customs as inscrutable and exotic.”