From the Monterey Bay poet and jazz musician, a love letter to Santa Cruz.
News
Ten Questions for Susan Culligan
The owner of Tom Teifer Santa Cruz on great new fabrics, her favorite New York street and her ever-expanding list of favorite Hollywood actors.
PLATED: The Brew Mistress
The blatantly retro Red Restaurant and Lounge has always championed distinctive beers such as Chimay Cinq Cents and Boont Black IPA. And if all goes well next month, it will have its own cicerone, or certified beer expert. UCSC graduate Miriam Victor already has almost three years of learning the food and beverage biz at Red under her belt. “Artfully crafted beer is a big movement,” she notes, handing me a snifter of deep chocolate-hued India Pale Ale (yes, IPAs can be dark) loaded with toastiness and creamy depths.
The Spring-Summer Fashion Cheat Sheet
Women wear the pants this season. OK, so they also wear flirty lace dresses and bold, Aztec warrior princess necklaces. But first: pants, big pants. From full, fluid trousers to high-waist flare jeans, the spring/summer 2011 silhouette is long and loose. It has a powerful, in-control attitude, helped by its natural pairing with tall wedge platforms, which add height and length. Stovepipes and jeggings, begone!
UCSC Grad Hunts ’60s Treasure For ‘Mad Men’
AMC’s Mad Men is all about image. Don Draper, played by a rakish Jon Hamm, is an advertising executive whose specialty is convincing the rest of the world to buy whatever he is selling—even the identity he’s taken pains to craft, leaving out less desirable details of his past. Form follows function: the show’s creators have been heaped with praise, and more than a few awards, for the pitch-perfect slice of the 1960s they create and serve up to fans each week.
Peggy Orenstein Battles The Pink Robot
Peggy Orenstein admits that her behavior on the subject of princess culture has been “hypocritical, inconsistent, even reactionary.” But she didn’t take it kindly when her expensive pediatric dentist asked her 3-year-old daughter to “sit in my special princess throne so I can sparkle your teeth.”
Bill Pops Soda’s Bubble
To make a point to the assembled crowd at Marina’s Monterey Bay Science, Education and Technology Center last Friday, Assemblymember Bill Monning recalled a commercial that reached 111 million viewers on Super Bowl Sunday. The ad showed a Latina woman holding a liter of soda, asserting herself in bold defiance of forces that would try to tell her what she could or could not drink. PepsiCo paid $3 million for the 30-second spot; Monning invoked its as an example of the aggressive campaign soda manufacturers are waging for a particular demographic. “They are targeting minority communities because that’s where we have the more abundant consumption,” he told the crowd.
Borders of Oblivion
As its liquidation sale got under way last week the Borders store downtown was swarming with consumers, myself included, in search of bargain books, music and the miscellaneous merchandise marked down by 20 to 40 percent, ALL SALES FINAL. As a faithful longtime patron of both Bookshop Santa Cruz and Logos, I scarcely ever bought a book at Borders, but in the early years of the new millennium I did take advantage of the big chain’s extensive selection of new music, scoring quite a few excellent CDs, and—before the vandals trashed them—made use of its public restrooms from time to time.
SC Blues Fest’s Hendrix Extravaganza
Santa Cruz Blues Festival organizer Bill Welch consistently books top-of-the-shelf talent to headline the annual Memorial weekend blues party. Following up previous headliners such as Buddy Guy and B.B. King is a tough proposition, so for the 19th annual festival, Welch, who also owns Moe’s Alley, has one-upped himself with a revolving cast of blues players, each of whom could credibly top the bill on his own.
James Durbin Spoiler Alert
By now you should know that local boy James Durban will be back on the teevee box tonight, competing for a place in rock history. The scarves are back from the dry cleaners, the gel is hardening in his hair, and the bandana … well, that is gone for the evening, replaced with about a dozen silver bangles on his right arm. So what should we expect for tonight?
