For many technophiles, Santa Cruz-based game designer/programmer Graeme Devine is an über creative beast. But what’s behind the secret to his most recent success with GRL Games?

It’s 2012, so when it comes to something like social gaming, it’s not that hard to do the math. Add any one of the numerous devices to which we now have access—from the iPhone and the tablet to the computer and the console—with the bastion of game designers and programmers out there, draw a line under it and you’d find the number of games available reaching somewhere in the millions. Why … it was only two years ago that news reports revealed that social gaming would rise 30 percent by 2012, gaining an edge in popularity over traditional forms of entertainment like television and film. (And then, there’s Wii.)

At 40, the county’s indelible Second Harvest Food Bank reaches a significant milestone. And the fight to eradicate hunger has never been stronger.

Aisles of stacked pallets, crates, and cardboard boxes filled with rice, beans, pineapples, canned food, foods of every kind, stretch out as far as the eye can see. This is the massive warehouse of the Second Harvest Food Bank (SHFB) in Watsonville, and it is buzzing with activity. Volunteers remove plastic film from crates full of bananas to prevent them from spoiling. Workers zip by in orange forklifts, packing orders into trucks destined for the Davenport Resource Center, the Salvation Army, Padres Unidos, or any one of the 200 agencies SHFB serves.

How one local lured in hundreds of artists for the ultimate fest

What Fringe?
Let’s play a game. I will describe something for you, and you guess what the subject is. This mystery subject focuses on the performing arts—theater, dance, performance art, puppetry, spoken word, improvisation, film and visual arts. This mystery thing is uncensored— no one is too overly concerned with swearing or nudity, and family-friendly content is also welcome. What’s more, participation is vital and varied, and it celebrates originality. Now, what would you say I have just described:
0 Santa Cruz, California
0 A Fringe Festival

Fred Swanton was a larger-than-life figure with larger-than-life ambitions on the Santa Cruz waterfront. Some of his dreams came to fruition. Others went up in flames.

During May of 1906—only a month after the Great Earthquake and Fire destroyed much of San Francisco and severely devastated the economy of the entire West Coast—Santa Cruz impresario and civic booster extraordinaire Fred Swanton embarked on a whirlwind railroad tour of California and Nevada, championing Santa Cruz and its colorful Neptune Casino as a summertime destination.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming history book, Geoffrey Dunn cracks the mystery of talented local artist Lillian Howard

Each little plant has its purpose in living, and attends to that purpose with a single-hearted devotion beautiful to witness, if only we open our dull human eyes to see the marvels around us.

Lillian Howard
Beautiful Santa Cruz County, 1896

On the eve of his only (and rare) public appearance for his new book, ‘Farther Away,’ the celebrated author opens up about life, loss and finding connection
GT Exclusive: Listen to Jonathan Franzen read from "Farther Away" (below)

I fear striking this match, but let’s see what happens …

A baby monkey fighting with a kitten has more than a million hits on YouTube. The one with the Bengal cat “talking” to her kitten has attracted nearly 2 million viewers. And the 10 best cat bloopers? More than 8 million hits. If you’re still reading this, bless you. Everybody else may be watching YouTube.

As Burning Man’s popularity soars, it also grapples with growing pains. The festival’s community ponders the future, while bringing the culture to a wider public.

In 1986, a small group of friends gathered at Baker Beach, in San Francisco, to celebrate the summer solstice by lighting a 9-foot-tall wooden man on fire. The group, led by Larry Harvey, could not have known the magnitude of what they had set in motion.

Fast-forward almost 10 years, to 1995—the first year that Marian Goodell attended what was by then known as Burning Man. By that time, the week-long annual gathering had situated on a parched lakebed in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. The Man, as he came to be called, was now about 40-feet-tall, and was burned toward the end of the festival in a cathartic marvel of fire. Tickets were $35, and the ephemeral city—which was on its way to becoming “Black Rock City” (BRC)—held 4,000 people.

Soquel’s own culinary whiz kid takes us behind the scenes of competitive cooking

In the United States, most people associate the act of turning 21 with one thing: the ability to legally purchase and consume alcohol. But for Soquel native Reilly Meehan, who just reached the milestone in November, being 21 has an even better perk: He can now study the art of wine pairing.

It’s a passion that’s out of the norm for people his age, but for Reilly, a burgeoning chef who just earned the title of American Culinary Federation Western Region Student Chef of the Year, in March, wine pairing is the next conquest in a long line of skills he hopes to master in the kitchen.

Deep thoughts, bons mots and other misadventures in the art of ‘summering’

There is a holy trinity of summers that dwell within my psyche,  not unlike Charles Dickens’ well-worn Ghost of Christmas past, present and yet-to-come. Mine don’t anthropomorphize, shake chains or walk through walls, and my specters are not intentioned on providing a learning moment, as they were for dear Ebenezer Scrooge. Mine serve more as reminders; mine are more taunt than haunt. (For you Dickens fans, I vow to deal with the allegorical implications and comparisons later.)

Bike to the future
Three’s A Charm
‘We’re Open’
GreenBiz