The environmental impact report for the Santa Cruz desal plant, originally due September 2011, has been delayed a second time. Now city staff has given up on estimating specific months and instead started ballparking seasons.
A Labor of Love
“I got my first copy of Be Not Content in 1972, shortly after taking a job as an assistant professor at a small college in upstate New York,” writes cyberpunk novelist Rudy Rucker, who’s reissuing Billy Craddock’s opus. “I quickly began to idolize Craddock. I had my own memories of the psychedelic revolution, and when reading Be Not Content I felt—’Yes. This is the way it was. This guy got it right.’”
Pacific Cookie Company Makes Gluten-Free Flavors
The aromas of fresh-baked cookies filling this shop are almost too good to be possible. Always ahead of the curve with home-baked attitude in gourmet packaging, Pacific Cookie Company won our hearts and taste buds 30 years ago, thanks to founders Larry and Shelly Pearson, and has stayed fresh ever since.
‘The Best ’60s Memoir Ever’
There was little to suggest that the relaxed and easygoing guy behind the cash register at the motorcycle shop on Mission Street would be rediscovered 30 years later by a major author and hailed as one of the most important voices of a pivotal era.
Kale, Supplements Provide Solutions to Iron Deficiency
As a child, I went through an anemic phase, a very tired time punctuated by my mother chasing me around the house with a dropper of metallic drops to squirt on my tongue. I was 4. Chomping copious amounts of iron-rich beets and kale, per my mother’s orders, I began to feel a bit more energetic.
Excerpt From ‘Be Not Content’
“The night was all joyous discoveries, many of which brought me almost to the point of tears, to laughter and astonished wows regularly. Whole new horizons. I felt humble and honored to be in a room with and listening to such enlightened powers. I felt in flash after flash that I’d never been so high before, never so aware and never—at least not since a long, long half-remembered time ago—so hopeful and happy.”
Letters to the Editor: July 4-10
One reader explains why she gave up on both political parties and found hope elsewhere instead. Others discuss Occupy’s place in Santa Cruz and money’s place in our lives. Plus: An update about Matt Groening’s (first) famously silly cartoon.
7 Questions for A Startup: Mike Spinak
“A lot of children’s books are made in a way that doesn’t respect children much,” says Mike Spinak. “They’re often designed for the lowest common denominator, made to appeal only through bright colors, cuteness, talk about candy, and the like. Very few children’s books treat kids as the brilliant beings they are.”
Fourth of July in Santa Cruz
The unofficial, un-sanctioned, really-not-legal-but-biggest-fireworks-party-anywhere happens on every beach in Santa Cruz for a six-mile stretch. Word has it that it’s settled down significantly from years past, when just stepping onto the sand between Main Beach and Seacliff was a declaration that you were a willing participant in a bottle rocket fight. Many locals avoid this scenario at all costs, though it’s hard to argue with the sheer prettiness of a Silver Fountain on a beach at nighttime. If you go, remember to pack your gunpowder-tainted trash and cigarette butts off the beach; that stuff’s really not so good for the wildlife.
Roswell Hour at Bonny Doon Vineyard
Getting Doon cheaply is what’s in store if you stop by the Tasting Room from 3pm to 6pm, any day but Saturday. During those hours you’ll be able to savor a glass of Bonny Doon Vineyards wine at half price—51 percent off, to be precise. It doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to know that this is a bargain of extraterrestrial proportions, and another reason to consider the Ingalls Street watering hole as Santa Cruz’ answer to Area 51.
