Where to find books, household tools, designer handbags and even business investors while cutting out The Man.
The Santa Cruz Sharing Economy
According to social media expert Rachel Botsman, our economy is about to embark on a transformation so complete it rivals the Industrial Revolution. “I think we’re going to look back and see the next decade as a momentous turning point: when technology reinvented entire sectors,” Botsman declared last month at an HP TECH@Work conference in Sydney, Australia.
Hamachi-Free at Geisha Sushi
The razor-sharp knife of sushi chef David Graham will probably never slice through the tender flesh of a bluefin tuna again. But Graham, head chef at Geisha Sushi, is cutting new fish and new ground in an effort to curb the plundering of the seas. Geisha, the newly opened sushi bar and teahouse in Capitola, is one of just several sustainable sushi bars in the world. The concept, initiated about four years ago at San Francisco’s Tataki (others followed in Portland, Seattle and New Haven) means no serving toro, hamachi, or unagi—three of the biggest draws in the sushi business but also three of the most unsustainable items on any menu.
U-Pick Guide Released
You can pick your farmers, and you can pick your rows, and now you can pick your farmers’ rows—if you know where to find them. The Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau has just come out with its free Country Crossroads map, which lists direct-sell farms (farm stands, U-Pick and farmers’ markets) throughout Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and San Benito counties.
Nerddom’s Gift to Heavy Metal
A scourge has been released upon the land, right here in Santa Cruz, and it’s not the hordes of new graduates. This scourge is of a mythical kind, unleashing a brutal onslaught of epic proportions while raining crunchy heavy metal upon its unsuspecting victims. It fills music halls with ghastly sights and sounds as human legions scream for more fake blood. With battle weapons in one hand, instruments in the other, and tusks—yes, tusks—sharpened, this plague is known as A Band of Orcs.
How To Grow Community
“Aren’t these beauuutiful?” Rachel Cohen asks, brandishing three bright purple, glistening “Bull’s Blood” beets, each about the size of a fist, with thick leafy stalks that look like chard (and can be used like so in recipes). Cohen supervises the Homeless Garden Project’s Natural Bridges Farm, and the beets she’s just pulled from the ground are part of a cornucopia—carrots, strawberries, dandelion greens, a micro greens mix, leaf lettuce, sage, chard and flowers, and that’s just this week—available at the farm’s new U-Pick CSA.
Sealing Home
No small number of Santa Cruz greenies wept salty tears last July when government-backed home mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spiked an innovative plan to encourage home solar installations. But from the ashes of the California First program—which would have allowed homeowners to borrow the cash for rooftop solar systems from local municipalities, then repay it through property tax assessments—has risen Energy Upgrade California (EUC), a statewide program that is perhaps humbler but for which administrators at Santa Cruz’s own Ecology Action, tasked with managing the initiative, have high hopes.
Book Expo’s Sorry Turn
Every year at the end of May, professionals of the publishing industry meet for three days at the Jacob Javits Center in New York for the biggest book trade event in North America. I had attended Book Expo America several years ago, but this year’s event signaled a deep change. If there was still any doubt that the Book is disappearing, this year’s BEA dispensed with any of it. About a third of the exhibit was dedicated to various electronic devices that are replacing print, and another third was children’s books. I have nothing against children’s books, but when all of them seem to participate in a contest of garishness for the most outrageous combination of colors, the esthetic model that is being set up is accountable for the bad taste of generations.
First Alarm in Harvey West
First Alarm Security Service is already patrolling Downtown Santa Cruz and the Wharf. A new, four-week pilot program has it patrolling Harvey West Park as well. While routine police patrols will continue in the park, this will allow the SCPD to devote more officers to work on what it considers to be “serious crimes.” First Alarm staff patrol the park with handcuffs and radios, and they can detain suspects, but the police must be notified and make the actual arrests. In general, their role is to “detect, deter, observe and report.”
Little Information from Stab Wound Victim
An 18-year-old resident of Santa Cruz County says he was attacked by 10 people at a party.
