The common brassiere is a thing of the past, thanks to the outrageous “Bras for A Cause” gala and live auction fundraiser, now in its sixth year. Organized by Soroptimist (meaning “good for women” in Latin) International of Capitola, Bras for A Cause dares entrants to get zany and design a bra to enter into the auction. Nothing is considered too bodacious.
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Summer Jam 831
The saying “it takes a village to raise a child” rings truer than ever in the midst of the Great Depression 2.0. Summer Jam 831, a benefit for the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Cruz, will feature music by DJ Kid Neemo, tons of fun-filled games and activities for kids (like the hands-free Jello eating contest) and an exclusive raffle for prizes like a laptop, skateboard and flip camera.
PLATED: This Little Market
Last Tuesday I found Carra Duggan, the flower grower at Everett Family Farm, ensconced on the sunny porch between Farmers Exchange and River Cafe. For the past month, Duggan and Everett Family growers have been offering an organic mini-market on Tuesdays from 11:30am–4pm at the popular veranda location on River Street. “We’re seeing how it goes,” said Duggan, who is especially proud of the incredible watercolor-tinted yarrow that thrives on the farm property.
The Two Sides of Rudy Rucker
One might expect the author of a book that opens with an ax-wielding, corpse-smoking necrophiliac to be out back in the woods, gnawing on animal bones after a self-mutilation and methamphetamine binge. Instead, we’re greeted by a grandfatherly, mild-mannered retired professor in tortoise-shell glasses and sandals who comes off much younger than his 65 years. “Compared to what I write, my life has been surprisingly conventional,” Rudy Rucker confesses.
Fiction: Jim and The Flims
In his newest novel, Jim and The Flims, cyberpunk author Rudy Rucker takes a detour to a bizarrely imagined afterlife—via the North Coast of Santa Cruz. Reprinted here is Chapter 1, “Four Mile Beach.”
Cabrillo Music Fest: The Magic of Mizuno
Marin Alsop claims variety is a goal of her Cabrillo Festival programming. Plenty of that was heard in the festival’s two full orchestra programs last weekend. Nine of 10 works performed Friday and Saturday nights at Civic Auditorium were composed since 2003, while one of the best, Shuko Mizuno’s Natsu, dates from 1988. Born in 1934, the shy Mizuno seemed a bit shell-shocked by the Cabrillo orchestra’s brilliant performance and the boisterous audience response that followed. From the podium, Alsop described the work—the title of which means “summer” in Japanese—as “harmonically dense” and its composer as the “Japanese Rouse,” referring to one of the Americans she has long championed at Cabrillo.
A Big Chill in SC Mtn Vineyards
On a foggy August morning at the Bailey’s Branciforte Ridge vineyard, Jeff Emery gently holds a cluster of pulverized grapes in his palm. They look like a miniature unripe version of the picked-over batch that sat in the refrigerator for too long: some of the berries are large, some are the size of BBs and others are barely visible.
In-Home Service Workers Getting Squeezed
Fourteen years ago Michael Lucas took a fall from the Aptos Bridge. It left him paralyzed from the neck down and dependent on a ventilator to breathe. Since then, Lucas has been cared for by his mother, Sylvia. In exchange for caring for a citizen who cannot care for himself, she earns $11.50 an hour from the government through In Home Supportive Services of Santa Cruz County. That hourly wage, along with that of nearly 2,000 other in-home care workers in the county, is set to be cut by 10 percent by the county Board of Supervisors.
‘Henry’ Belongs to Hotspur and Falstaff
Brilliant flashes of scarlet punctuated the misty redwood glen last Friday as the third drama in this season’s Shakespeare Santa Cruz opened to a rapt full house. The first of the three central histories tracing the rise of royal rogues, Henry IV, Part I reverberates with one part kingly remorse, another part power grab and a third part Sir John Falstaff. In this masterpiece of language and intrigue, Shakespeare interwove the imagined back story behind the takeover of the English throne by Henry Bolingbroke and the tale of ribald Falstaff, the carousing buddy of the king’s son, Prince Hal. One of the best-known and best-loved characters in the canon, Falstaff is a larger-than-life lout whose hard-drinking lifestyle has lowered the standing of the Prince of Wales in the eyes of his father.
Man Arrested in Cold Case in Santa Cruz Jail
Back in April 1984, Tina Faelz, 14, of Pleasanton was walking home from school at about 2:30pm. She had been having problems with some of her classmates, and decided not to take the school bus that day. She never made it home. An hour later her body was found in a drainage ditch near Interstate 680. She had been stabbed multiple times and was covered in blood.
