A Bamboost From Santa Cruz

Craig Calfee puts his trade-not-aid philanthropy into practice with Bamboosero. Photo by Curtis Cartier.

Ibrahim Nyampong is a 32-year-old entrepreneur who lives in Accra, the capital city of Ghana on Africa’s west coast, where the average annual per capita income is $600. About two years ago, nationally renowned bicycle designer and Santa Cruz County native Craig Calfee taught him how to build bicycle frames from locally grown bamboo. Today, Nyampong earns about $150 for every frame he builds, shipping the completed frames—some a milky caramel color, others a deep mocha—to Calfee’s La Selva Beach manufacturing shop. (includes slide show)

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A Revisionist History of 2009

A Revisionist History of 2009

It was one for the record books, this 2009. Oh, sure, there were bright points: the inauguration, some entertaining scandals, the inauguration, Giants slugger Pablo “Kung-Fu Panda” Sandoval, the inauguration. But for the most part, when we look back at 2009 we prefer to contemplate what might have happened rather than what actually did.

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Cabrillo Stage’s ‘Scrooge’ A Nostalgic Treat

Scrooge (Joseph Ribeiro) gets an earful from the Ghost of Christmas Present (Benjamin Holck). Photo by Jana Marcus.

From the first bars of the Christmas medley that opens Scrooge, the audience understands that it’s in for one plum pudding of a theatrical experience. The chorus members, swathed in bonnets and frock coats straight out of a Dickens storybook, set about the cheerful business of caroling, converging in picturesque groups on the generous stage of the plush new Crocker Theater. Leslie Bricusse’s score hews closely to the traditional melodies, at least here, and director Andrew Ceglio, a master of the witty grace note, trains his comic impulses toward wholesomeness in the opening pantomimes. This adaptation of A Christmas Carol, we are given to understand, will not be sly or ironic but warm-hearted and nostalgic.

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Goy To The World

Goy To The World

A buxom aspiring female Santa Claus in a quilted down jacket swaggers out of room C1 in the Civic Center where I’m next in line for my “Rent-A-Santa” interview.
“Ho ho ho,” she says over her shoulder, giving me an unnerving sidelong glance, a sort of knowing sneer tinged with Christmas spirit. She’s warring with me for the job of Santa Claus.

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A Santa Cruz Holiday on The Hoof

Draft horses Josh and Greta consider the true meaning of the season while driver Randy Clayton looks on. Photo by Brian Harker.

Greta gives Josh a disapproving glance and sticks her nose in the air. Josh ignores her and stomps down the street. “They’ve been together a long time,” says Randy Clayton. The couple can’t get very far from one another, of course, as they are hitched together to a large white carriage rolling down the cracked pavement on Cedar Street in downtown Santa Cruz.

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