World Book Night Goes Surfing

The Vice Mayormobile on West Cliff Drive. Photo by Chip Scheuer.

On the Monday after a hot weekend in town mobbed with tourists, Santa Cruz skies are solid and gray. The ocean is as flat as old beer from Cowell’s Beach to the Moss Landing power plant, and Vice Mayor Hilary Bryant looks mighty lonely paddling out on her waxy board, carrying a mesh backpack filled with books meant for the surfers who are lurking inland until they can ambush the real swell like a pack of alligators.

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Hunting for Bigfoot in the Santa Cruz Mountains

Ashley Membree, Michael Rugg and Ralph Jack hunt for a Bigfoot around Felton. (Chip Scheuer)

When I found out I’d be going Bigfoot hunting with Michael Rugg, I figured we’d hike deep into the woods to some remote destination to conduct our search. In actuality, we spend most of the time in Felton, right along the road and close to the nearby homes. “Bigfoots don’t have to be in a big wilderness area to exist,” Rugg, who owns the Bigfoot Discovery Museum, explains to me on our outing. “They can exist around the edge of town.”

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The Creative Process Gets Its Closeup, Unretouched

What impulse drives people to create? And who chooses such an (often) unappreciated, solitary voyage in the first place? These are two of the central questions explored over a 12-year period by essayist and author Tom Bissell, whose new nonfiction collection, Magic Hours: Essays On Creators and Creation (Believer Books, $14), highlights a cross-section of writers, artists and filmmakers —from the relatively obscure to the relatively famous—all connected by their ability to produce something from nothing.

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Fundraiser Lends Hand to Student Bike Programs

Bobby D. Richardson gives students a balanced education in his Bike Tech classes. Photo by Dain Zaffke.

Bobby D. Richardson has been working on bikes for 33 years, but he didn’t start teaching people about them until September. Now the former bike mechanic instructs students at Scotts Valley High School in how to work on bikes, thanks to joint funding from the Santa Cruz County Office of Education and Project Bike Trip, a nonprofit that’s gearing up for a bike-a-thon fundraiser on behalf of students next month.

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