April Offers Rare Glimpse of Santa Cruz Sandhills

Few readers of Sunset Magazine know that the publication was started by Southern Pacific Railroad as a promotional gimmick to persuade East Coast residents to visit the West Coast.  It flopped at first, but eventually Laurence Lane, a former Midwestern farmer, purchased the magazine with the idea of turning it into a West Coast version of Better Homes and Gardens, and Sunset was on its way.

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Journalists Say They Were Targeted for Covering Occupy

IndyBay photographer Bradley Stuart Allen outside 75 River St. in downtown Santa Cruz. Photo by Chip Scheuer.

After surveying the December damage to a vacant bank building owned by Wells Fargo that included graffiti, broken cameras and damaged ceiling tiles, investigators from Santa Cruz Police Department went to work. They came up with preliminary list of 12 suspects—out of more than 75 who passed through the building—involved in the three-day occupation of 75 River Street. Police handed their list over to county District Attorney Bob Lee’s office, and Lee’s office served 11 warrants to suspects.

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Adrienne Rich, 1929–2012

Adrienne Rich (photo by Lilian Kemp)

She wasn’t the most visible poet in Santa Cruz by any means, but Adrienne Rich was certainly its greatest. The winner of a National Book Award, MacArthur “genius” grant, two Guggenheims and numerous other distinctions died in her Santa Cruz home on Tuesday, March 27 from complications related to rheumatoid arthritis.

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Council Approves Pogonip Multi-Use Trail

Mountain bikers will soon be getting a new place to ride in a city park. Santa Cruz City Council approved construction of the Pogonip East Multi-Use Trail on Tiuesday night. The controversial trail, which will be open to bikers, equestrian and pedestrians, will offer a passage to the park’s U-Conn trail and up to UC–Santa Cruz.

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Retro Glamor Meets Garage Rock In The Wild Ones

The Wild Ones photographed by Collin Atkinson

In 1958, the man who would go down in history as Australia’s first rock & roller, Johnny O’Keefe, recorded “The Wild One.” Its opening verse eventually become one of the most famous in early rock, thanks to Jerry Lee Lewis’ arguably more convincing version.  O’Keefe also recorded—twice—the song “Shout!,” getting his own hit version into stores only a month after the original landed on the charts. “Shout!” was picked up by the Shangri-Las for their 1965 debut album, Leader of the Pack. Then it was recorded again by Joan Jett on her 1980 debut album Bad Reputation, which featured guest appearances by two of the Ramones, Dee Dee and Marky. Years later, Jett would cover…”The Wild One.”

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Jewish Film Festival: Week Two

The Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival continues this weekend with screenings of films by and about Jews. On Sunday, 100 Voices follows a group of American hazzan, or Jewish cantors, as they travel on mission to Warsaw’s Grand Theatre, Poland’s grandest opera house, where they will perform a concert of traditional Jewish music to a mostly non-Jewish audience. As their personal stories unfold we are confronted with a culture torn asunder by the most horrific single crime ever perpetrated against a people.

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