In the Eye of the Storm
... our bravest archetypes "dress it up"
The Daredevils
The Burners
The Animal Activist
The Goddess
The Lovers
The Cyclist
The Cool Chick
Surfer-Hipster-Sk8R
The Non-Conformist
The Techie
The Performer
The Hunk


Words and concept by Greg Archer. Photo shoot design by Stripe Design Group.
Photos by Keana Parker

Santa Cruz nonprofit Organic Farming Research Foundation leads the charge for organics in the Farm Bill and beyond

Organic. Santa Cruz can pat itself on the back for helping bring about this word’s current ubiquity.

The area’s more obvious contributions to the organic movement include The Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, which is headquartered at our City on a Hill, UC Santa Cruz, and is widely considered the birthplace of organic farming, and Westside Santa Cruz-based California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), one of the oldest and largest organic certification organizations in the country.

Santa Cruz’s own Joe Ortiz hits a high note. How his turbulent, and oftentimes humorous, childhood became the genesis of an original musical at Cabrillo Stage.

Growing up is hardly a walk in the park—especially when your father is a Puerto Rican womanizer with a gambling addiction that’s as aggressive as his drinking addiction. So was the case for Joe Ortiz, who at 6 years old, had his universe flipped upside down, when a bookie set up shop in his living room in order to settle the gambling debts of his father, who had secretly skipped town.

Fearless females honored at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music’s 50th

“It’s really easy to hide behind a camera,” Deborah Luster says, when asked how she became a photographer. The Louisiana native goes on to explain that she took up the hobby as a means of honoring her mother’s memory and re-engaging with the world, after she was murdered by a hired hit man in April of 1988.

Twenty-four years later, the resulting photos and Luster’s incredible life story have inspired a musical composition, which will debut as part of a larger work, entitled “Hidden World of Girls: Stories for Orchestra,” at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music on July 28 and 29.

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.