Santa Cruz Good Times

Growing Berries Without Bromide

Researchers test a new alternative to a controversial chemical

The scarecrows perched in Santa Cruz strawberry fields do little to scare away the birds, much less the insects and fungi harbored in the soil. Everything likes to eat strawberries, which makes growing them a risky business.

This predicament led UC Santa Cruz professor Carol Shennan to take an unconventional approach to pest management. Nine years ago, the fatal plant disease Verticillium wilt was wiping out strawberry plants at the university farm. Chemicals hardly phase the pathogen...

Cruzin’ for Inspiration

Former resident pays homage to Santa Cruz with locally shot thesis film

When he left Santa Cruz for the University of Southern California’s graduate film program in 2010, Christopher Guerrero had completed the film major at UC Santa Cruz in 2008 and worked on campus in the film and digital media department. It wasn’t until he headed south, that Guerrero began to reminisce about the coastal town.

“It was really really hard when I moved to L.A., to acclimate and find friends,” he says, adding that—counter to the philosophical, conversational cultur...

Beck to the Future

In celebration of Beck’s solo acoustic show at The Rio, GT explores Song Reader , the alternative rock icon’s most ambitious interactive art piece yet.

Here’s an odd little paradox of the digital revolution: The more sophisticated our technology gets, the more our musical milieu begins to resemble that of a bygone era, when song ideas were passed around from musician to musician, perpetually taking on new twists. Dozens of different YouTube users might try their hand at setting somebody’s rant about cats or double rainbows to music, or you might hea...

Vine & Dine: Pine Ridge Vineyards

Chenin Blanc + Viognier 2012

On a recent trip to Palm Springs, I came across Pine Ridge Vineyards’ Chenin Blanc + Viognier at a new downtown restaurant called Lulu. Superbly decorated in Hollywood-esque style and with a very hip vibe, this California bistro is one of the hottest new dining spots—and the Chenin Blanc was just the right wine to pair with some of Lulu’s Happy Hour tapas-style food. And eating outdoors in the desert’s warm night air makes a chilled white wine taste even better.

May Day in the Alps

An extensive repertoire of German favorites brings us back to Tyrolean Inn

When my daughter returns to Santa Cruz from her new home in Los Angeles, she comments on how quiet it is here. It was even more so during a trip to Ben Lomond, when we set out for a sample of her second favorite macaroni and cheese. Sitting at the front of the Tyrolean Inn restaurant, the green tarp with plastic windows kept out the chill as well as the noise of an occasional passing car. A new draft beer celebrating the German spring, Maibok ($6) was refreshing, served i...

All That Jazz Age

Luhrmann delivers a Deco-licious, surprisingly effective 'Great Gatsby'

With Baz Luhrmann in the driver's seat, the slick, shiny roadster that is The Great Gatsby could go either way. This meeting of the florid visual stylist ( Romeo + Juliet ; Moulin Rouge ) and F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic American novel of the Jazz Age might be a head-on collision of inappropriate style, anachronistic music, and frantic bombast over substance. Or it might just as easily be a brilliant reimagining of an American classic revitalized to resonate with a new generation...