Presenting someone an e-reader satisfies the basic ritual impulse, but how do you give an e-book: a gift card for Amazon, an account at B&N, a login at Google’s new book-retailing project? These immaterial manifestations of books can’t really be wrapped in showy paper and colorful ribbons. They don’t come with the excitement of revelation. (“Oh, look, you got me a $15 credit to download a bestseller of my choice if I ever remember to get around to it.”)
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Last-Minute Gift Guide: The Cheat Sheat
For holiday shoppers who are out of time, patience or ideas, we present our handy-dandy, cut-to-the-chase, Very Busy Person’s Last-Minute Gift Guide, a collection of suggested gifts with broad appeal (with the possible exception of the disc golf driver) compiled by actual former and present gift recipients with reasoned opinions, fine instincts and excellent taste.
Last-Minute Gift Guide: Vintage Gifts
Friends don’t let friends do without fine wine during the holidays. Here are a few of our favorite ideas for gift-giving oenophiles who are long on goodwill but short on time.
Landmark Pesticide Drift Case Appealed
In 2008, Jacobs Farm made national headlines when a Santa Cruz County judge awarded the local herb grower a $1 million dollar settlement after its organic dill, sage and rosemary crops were contaminated by organophosphate pesticides. The pesticides were sprayed by Western Farm Services on the Brussels sprout fields at Wilder Ranch State Park, a popular destination for local hikers where Jacobs Farm leases 120 acres. The trace amounts of the pesticides, which drifted from the Brussels sprout fields to the herbs, rendered the entire crop unusable for commercial sale.
Santa Cruz Poets, Santa Cruz Inspiration: Charles Atkinson
From poet Charles Atkinson, a tribute to Santa Cruz writer James Houston.
The Exhibitionist: Ingrid Calame
The balcony overlooking the soaring Dart Gallery of the Monterey Museum of Art La Mirada provides a long leaning-on-the-railing view into the deep space. The facing wall—about 25 feet high and 50 wide with a giant, full-length window—creates a cavernous room that evidently provides an exhausting challenge to curators, as does the low-ceilinged warren under the balcony opening into the expanse.
New Photos Raise Old Questions About Hatchery
Last month, while at the Buena Vista landfill, Kelly Luker saw a white Cal-Cruz Hatcheries truck dumping mounds of fluffy yellowish material. Remembering that Cal-Cruz had been in the news earlier in the year, she pulled out her camera phone and moved closer to take pictures. “I walked up to get a better view, though I had a pretty good idea what it was,” Luker says. “Looking closer, I saw little chick eyes staring out of mangled heads and pieces of feet and beak scattered about. You can’t see something like that and eat chicken again.”
Surf’s Up—For Global Honor
The stretch of shoreline from the Hook at 41st Avenue to Natural Bridges State Park is as close to holy as it comes for many surfers, so why shouldn’t it receive the kind of recognition afforded the temples at Chichen Itza or Notre Dame Cathedral? The Save the Waves Coalition thought world-famous breaks deserve worldwide props, so it came up with the concept of World Surfing Reserves, sort of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of surfing.
The Santa Cruz Video Game Revolution
A modern top-tier video game takes years to make, represents the work of hundreds and will cost tens of millions of dollars to develop—and that’s before any money goes into marketing it. If that game fails, it could very well mean the end for the studio that produced it. This is not an environment that is well suited to wild experimentation. There is innovation. There is steady growth in sophistication. But very rarely is something genuinely new and risky produced.
SCPD Launches Volunteer Program
The SCPD is calling on the public to volunteer their time and skills to help keep Santa Cruz safe. Community members will be able to engage in all facets of police work,while freeing up officers to focus on the most critical needs of the community. Police volunteers will be able to participate in everything from recordkeeping to investigations to maintaining police vehicles. They’ll also be able to participate in community service initiatives.
