When I first walk into the barn, I meet a mass of bodies holding hands and reeling from one end of the hay-strewn wooden floor to the other as it spirals towards the center of the room. A blonde little girl in pint-sized cowboy boots tugs a tall, young bearded man—a farmer, judging by his boots—along, laughing. The train thunders like a summer storm, and although I am only 20 miles outside of town, I feel like I’ve traveled back in time with the dozens of other folks lined up shoulder-to-shoulder under the canopy of twinkle lights.
Touche’d By An Angel
Hamlet certainly knows what it is to grapple with self-doubt. In Mountain Community Theater’s production of Paul Rudnick’s I Hate Hamlet, the actor behind tragedy’s greatest hero does, too.
La Vie En Prose
We make our own lives out of words from the stories we tell ourselves and rarely realize our own good fortune. To understand, we need to see words that describe another’s life and fortune, to see that life from within after having seen it from afar.
PLATED: Betty’s In Gear
The award-winning Seaside burger joint opens up a full-fledged eatery downtown, complete with turquoise barstools and cocktails. Plus: Lulu Carpenter’s is now at the Westside farmers market.
Tsunami Panic And The Missing Media
At 3:30am on the morning of March 11, Reyna Ruiz was awakened by a knock on her door. It was her neighbor, warning her that a tsunami was headed toward Santa Cruz. Ruiz is the director of the Beach Flats Community Center, which serves a neighborhood of 1,068 residents, 82 percent of them Spanish-speakers and 40 percent monolingual, according to 2000 census figures. All over Beach Flats, people had begun getting phone calls from family members beginning at 1am. “By 5:30,” Ruiz said, “everyone had left.”
Deposit Security
In the minds of most renters, interior design is the Eden-like province of homeowners. Time and again, the looming threat of losing one’s security deposit keeps tenants in the live-in equivalent of a hospital room—white walls, sterile décor, few or no design elements whatsoever and a TV in the corner. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are some cheap and easy methods of basic design that can ameliorate Ugly Rental Syndrome.
LED And The New Lighting Landscape
Roy Johnson of Johnson Art Studio Lighting Design loves his job. As a lighting designer, he ensures the quality of light in our homes and businesses. And as California phases out incandescent light bulbs, he and his fellow light designers have their work cut out for them.
Bee, Whiz
Amazing factoids from the hive.
Avoiding The Sting
Rules on beekeeping vary greatly throughout the county. Some jurisdictions don’t regulate at all, while others demand—in theory, at least—a bundle of cash for a beekeeping permit.
Santa Cruz Catches A Buzz
I’m wearing a white full-body canvas suit with a net veil zipped to it, arm-length leather gloves and a mesh pith helmet the same shape as the ones British colonists wore in tropical climates. That last item feels particularly appropriate, since I’m with a group similarly outfitted and getting ready to descend on some potentially hostile colonies.
