She turned tragedy into comedy and found the perfect way to heal. Now she’s inviting everybody to celebrate something divine: female sexuality

It’s a breezy February afternoon when I meet with San Francisco performance artist Sia Amma. She appears in a doorway looking fresh, draped in a flowing chocolate brown frock, her dark hair a passionate explosion of freedom, expression; her persona totally female, fully alive, absolutely happy.

A few minutes later, when we’re walking along the bristling Santa Cruz thoroughfare known as Pacific Avenue, Sia Amma tells me about her upcoming gig at Kuumbwa Jazz Center. It will be an unconventional showcase, she says, something that will celebrate female sexuality. I believe her. Five years ago, I witnessed one of Sia Amma’s performances locally and if her upcoming show—launched in celebration of Women’s Month and featuring other dynamic female performers—is anything like her previous endeavors, it’s a safe bet that audiences will walk away amused and smiling … if not a bit shocked by some of the subject matter.

More than 60 years ago, Dina Babbitt came face to face with the ‘Angel of Death.’ How she remained alive during the Holocaust is another story.

Dina Babbitt is a striking 82-year-old woman. She stands on the porch of her Felton home, which is set in a picturesque landscape, complete with big trees and a garden. Babbitt is ready for lunch—ready to break bread together.

Once inside, a mutual friend, Judy Bouley, and myself, watch Babbitt’s little dachshund, Penny, hop around our feet, hoping for a pat on the head. On the way to the kitchen we pass an art studio where an easel holds Babbitt’s work-in-progress: the gypsy woman, Celine, staring out from her painted face. She looks sad. Celine’s baby just died, Babbitt later explains.

Inside the brilliantly choreographed world of Robert Kelley and Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre

Radon is a chemically inert radioactive gaseous element produced by the decay of radium. Log on to radon.com and you will discover that the "action level" for deciding when you need to "do something" about the radon in, say, your home, school, or work place is 4 pCi/l. Let’s break that down: pCi/l= picocuries per liter, is the most popular method of reporting radon levels. For number queens, a picoCurie is 0.000,000,000,001—one-trillionth—of a Curie. A Curie is an international measurement unit of radioactivity.

Radon has nothing to do with dance, the topic I am supposed to write about after I interview Robert Kelley, who has everything to do with dance, specifically ballet. Radon is, however, the thing that fascinates Kelley at the moment, and the very thing he speaks of, as he winds his SUV along Old San Jose Road’s scenic thoroughfare on the way to the stables that house Zugia, his 16-year-old pregnant horse. Radon is also the very thing that keeps me captivated on my subject.

Kelley’s curiosity of the two-syllabled element began the evening prior to our meeting. The night was significant mainly because Kelley enjoyed a rare evening out.

Filmmaker Dana Brown opens up about his new surf documentary “Step Into Liquid’. PLUS: Inside the film that also spotlight somes of the best surfers in Santa Cruz.

When I was growing up in Chicago, our summertime fun usually consisted of a few treks to Lake Michigan. It was there I saw my first wave. It must have been four inches high. Adventure sports on the shores of the ol’ LM back in the ’70s invited the use of one primary material—rubber. Rafts, floaties, beach balls—you name it. Yeah-ha! What fun! I did not have the finesse of a swimmer—I was 40 pounds overweight—and, quite often, my rocket red bikini-like swim trunks felt uncomfortably snug, exposing the unwanted physical side effects of consuming too many Ho-Hos and Hostess Chocolate Cream Pies. In a way, I was “surfed” the treacherous waves of LM whenever I embraced the canary-yellow Donald Duck innertube of my youth. At the time, it was cool. And it hid the fat surrounding my mid-section. I’d often sit in Donald—so buoyant, so there for me—while my Polish parents and their gregarious friends lounged in striped lime green lawn chairs on the shore. They’d down a Schlitz or two, talk about the Bicentennial, or gossip about the risqué new temptress at the last Polka party. For chuckles, they would tell jokes in Polish—you haven’t heard a real joke until you’ve listened to the rhyming ones in my family’s native tongue—and cheer on all the kids performing “daredevil” stunts in the lake. The closest thing a Chicagoan like me got to surfing was watching Greg Brady wipe out in that cool Hawaiian episode from The Brady Bunch. (Third season; episode three, and it’s really sad that I know that.)

The Lowdown: Whether he’s attending epic surf competitions like Eddie Aikau Quicksilver Big Wave Event or just kickin’ it locally at Steamer Lane or Mavericks, 33-year-old Peter Mel makes his presence known. He says passion is the key to success—perfect for a guy who loves to “take a challenge against mother nature.” While he’s fast become an international force in the surf world, deep down, Mel enjoys his home turf—Santa Cruz. (There is, of course, the über popular Freeline Design Surf Shop, founded by his father, John, which has been going strong for more than 30 years.) Surf to him at www.petermel.com. Here, “Condor” discusses the inner workings of appearing in Step Into Liquid, specifically, surfing the Cortes Banks, an area 100 off the coast of southern California,  outside of the contintental shelf, where the biggest expansive of ocean produces amazing yet dangerous swells.

The Lowdown: Considered to be “100 percent Westside” and one of Steamer Lane’s royalty, SkinDog is a mighty force on the water. Sure, he’s proven he can push it with “the big boys” locally, but SkinDog’s frenetic, adventurous spirit is downright captivating—watch, and you’ll see. These days, the Santa Cruz native enjoys partaking in the myriad of surf competitions out there and boasts a long list of sports sponsors. After nailing a Mavericks event several years back, his name has generated big buzz in the surf universe. But what was it really like surfing the Cortes Bank with local boy Peter Mel in Step Into Liquid?

A: Well the scariest part was just getting out there. We set out to sea at sunset the night before into 20-foot swells, and motored all night, up and down. To tell you the truth I wasn't digging it.