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Jun 17th
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From the Editor

Greg 12There’s some good news unfolding at The Tannery Arts Center. A recent report reveals that, thanks to immense fundraising efforts (and some creative teamwork among boardmembers), the center  reached $3 million in funding. This bodes well for the city and arts and culture enthusiasts who are ready for The Performing Arts Center to fully bloom.

To that end, the center promises to be a worthy hub for a variety of performances—from music and drama to dance. Still, there’s some work ahead. Jess Brown, Board Chair, recently noted that while the $3 million turning point is hopeful, the center needs another $2 million, adding; “we hope the community will come forward and see that having a Performing Arts Center will round out this special place.” The $55 million project is designed to offer an affordable and permanent space for artists to live, work, perform, and exhibit, and the Performing Arts Center will house a 200-seat theater and host Kids on Broadway, Jewel Theatre Company, Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre, music groups, school productions, and several other creative entities. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months. In the meantime, learn more by visiting tanneryartscenter.org.

You can find even more inspiration in this week’s cover story, in which writer Damon Orion weaves together a wondeful exposé of Santa Cruz-based singer Snatam Kaur and her distinctly unique and spiritual family. As an added bonus, GT also spoke with Oprah Winfrey about Kaur—it seems Winfrey and the devotional singer share a one-of-a-kind connection. All that and Ram Dass make for a spirited if not spirtual, week ahead.

In other news, be sure to catch the next episode of GTv (Good Times Television). Our new show is doing well in its 8 p.m. time slot on Wednesdays on Community Television, with repeats on Sundays. Check it out and send us your thoughts and tidbits on locals you feel deserve some attention on the airwaves. Email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Have a great week. More next time ...

Greg Archer | Editor-in-Chief


Letters to the Editor

Yours For Film
I want to thank Lisa Jensen for the "Treasure Hunt" article in the Dec. 27 issue. Critics seem to forget the "worthy gems" that appear earlier in the year, focusing on the big powerhouse films that cluster around the year’s end. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel seemed to run in Santa Cruz forever, and everyone I know adored it. This was a film that could only be produced by the Brits.
Beasts of the Southern Wild was certainly one of the most creative films in recent times, as were Chico and Rita, Pina, and First Position. So if you missed their brief runs at The Nick, there is always Netflix. Thanks to Lisa for helping us to remember some of the lesser-known pleasures of last year’s film offerings.
Judy Slattum
Capitola

On The Watch
In response to some of your crime articles, I work on the corner of Pacific Avenue and Laurel Street, on the frontline of “the war zone”—drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, heroin addicts, meth heads, mentally challenged and street people. The PitBull Lowriders are a threat to the neighborhood and must be busted.
Michael Collins
Santa Cruz

What Are You Talking About?
One of the Local Talk answers to "Would you support tougher gun regulations?" concerns me. Isn't the response, "No. Pry them out of my cold dead fingers," reason enough for tougher laws?
Kathy Runyon
Santa Cruz


Online Comments

On ‘If We Had Our Way’ ... 
1. Gay tourism. Multi-billion dollar industry that Santa Cruz is not cashing in on because we can't advertise any gay night spots. 2. The article mentions the Fab Friday event, but it doesn't mention that it is men-only, and the gay nights at bars start too late on a weeknight to draw older crowds.  3.Hate language: Ask any LGBT person who has walked holding hands with thier partner on West Cliff if they felt entirely comfortable. Most people don't.
Brandon McCord

Why do you blame Mark Stone for the La Bahia mess? They could have just proposed a design that fit the coastal requirements.
—TT

On No. 5, Greg Caput and redesigning the levee: I live there and have to pay three times my homeowners insurance rate for flood insurance and I am three-quarters of a mile from the levee. This is ridiculous and costly. And if the levee is not safe, then what? We have waited long enough. Let's get it done!

—Rebecca Tait

We love Cynthia Sandberg and Love Apple Farms, and we love the third bright idea to Create Food Not Lawns. This has been our passion going on 25 years now. We want to help. To that end we at Terra Nova will offer a free edible landscape design to the first person to mention the Good Times article 'Bright Ideas for 2013'. Thank you GT for the bright ideas! Call us at 425-3514 and mention Good Times Bright Idea number three to create Food Not Lawns.

—Ken Foster


 

 

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CYNDI

On the eve of Cyndi Lauper’s Mountain Winery gig, we dissect the woman, the icon, the creative beast. Plus: Her thoughts on the music industry, equal rights and those sparkling ‘Kinky Boots’ Few performers possess the kind of fierce, she-bopping tenacity Cyndi Lauper has become famous for. Equal parts free spirit, civil rights activist and Grammy-winner, Lauper is one of the few creative artists able to successfully marry her cutting-edge verve with a heart-of-gold panache. It certainly has helped fuel the remarkable career resurgence she has been experiencing lately.

 

Field to Vase

Open house provides opportunity for residents to meet their local flower growers Valentine’s Day is a high point of the year for those in the cut flower business. So when, one year in the late ’90s, the bouquet-riddled holiday failed to deliver for Kitayama Brothers Farms, the family behind the decades-old rose-growing business knew something was wrong.  “It was the writing on the wall,” recalls Stuart Kitayama, operations manager for the Watsonville-based company. “Those of us who had been hoping things would just get better finally said ‘it’s time to change.’”

 

To Arm or Disarm?

While gun sales soar nationally, a group of musicians fundraise for a local gun buy-back In the wake of high-profile incidents of gun violence—from the Sandy Hook school shooting last December to the fatal shooting of two Santa Cruz police officers three months ago—the debate over gun ownership in America centers on one question as it rages on: Do guns make us safer or do they make our lives more dangerous?

 

The Bold Woman and the Sea

A paraplegic veteran launches solo row across the Pacific Military veteran and paraplegic Angela Madsen finds life at sea liberating. What others call her disabilities melt away when she is rowing to far-off destinations, and all that remain are her capabilities—what she can or cannot do is determined by the tasks at hand and what the ocean will allow.

 

Mark Twang

Mark Twang plays a little bit of everything—rock, roots, jazz and bluegrass for starters—but so far they haven’t played much in public as evidenced by the fact that their upcoming show at Don Quixote’s will only be their second gig. But there’s a reason why the band isn’t performing a lot right now. “We have plans [to make an album],” says drummer Jeff Wilson. “We’re trying to do some things differently though and not just come out full-steam ahead and start playing all these shows.

 

Breaking the Waves

Free Radio Santa Cruz celebrates 18 years of subversive programming Though the term “free radio” comes to us from the Summer of Love—a time when some folks splashed the word “free” on their nouns like an all-purpose verbal condiment—you can rest assured that the name Free Radio Santa Cruz (FRSC) is no mere tip of the hat to the psychedelic era. For the past 18 years, the colorful characters at the helm of our community’s own pirate radio station have been enjoying the freedom to broadcast whatever they damn well please, be it up-to-the-minute, uncensored local and worldwide news, programs in the Spanish language, shows produced by children, teens and homeless people, or all manner of music, from death metal to free jazz.

 

Muscle-Bound

Valiant cast battles loud, ugly action for the soul of 'Man of Steel' Early in Man of Steel, fourth-grader Clark, the boy who will be Superman, is cowering in a broom closet at school, eyes screwed shut, hands clapped over his ears. He can't control his super powers: his X-ray vision shows him the skulls and skeletons under everyone's flesh; unfiltered noise—dogs, traffic, heartbeats—assault him from all sides. Rushing to school, his mom kneels outside the door and asks what's wrong.

 

The Plug Bug & Corbin Dunn

Mechanic, programmer, acrobat, builder, tinkerer. Corbin Dunn's 1969 Volkswagen Beetle is a fully electric vehicle. It has an electric motor powered by 48 stacked squares of Lithium-ion battery cells under the hood in place of the 50 horsepower gas engine that it was built with. He calls it, affectionately, “the Plug Bug.” Dunn, who was born in Hawaii, raised in Corralitos, and now lives in a large, old A-frame house near the summit in the Santa Cruz Mountains, is a 35-year-old programmer for Apple in Cupertino, where he helped develop the iPhone and works on the framework for the Macintosh operating system. But his aptitude for intricate technical work is not limited to computers. Dunn is a tinkerer.

 

Making the Grade

The quest to identify sources of high levels of bacteria at Cowell Beach continues With straight As on Heal the Bay’s annual “beach report card” for 10 out of 13 Santa Cruz County beaches—Main Beach, Seabright, and even Cowell Beach at the Stairs, to name a few—it would seem that Santa Cruz boasts a high coastal GPA. But in recent years, one Santa Cruz beach just can’t seem to pass: Cowell Beach west of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf.

 

Flag Day, Father’s Day and Chiron

Another week of complex planetary energies falling to Earth. Mars interacts with Pluto (inconjunct), Uranus (sextile) and Chiron (square, challenge, ouch!). We won’t know how to comprise, we’ll want to be friends but our hurts will challenge that desire.
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Good Morning Maui

Goodness, righteousness, virtuousness and fairness are some of the four-score English words that attempt to describe the Hawaiian essence of pono, whose use in the state motto translates to “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.”

 

The Power of Conversation

Local author Cecile Andrews emphasizes importance of community engagement in newest book Cecile Andrews, author of the new book “Living Room Revolution: A Handbook for Conversation, Community and the Common Good,” probably wouldn’t get along too well with Larry David’s character from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, known for hiding his face and avoiding communication with anyone he runs into on the street. Andrews is a longstanding part-time Santa Cruz (part-time Seattle) resident who says something that’s struck her about this town over the years is people's willingness to participate in a practice she’s dubbed the “Stop and Chat”—which is exactly what it sounds like.

 

What’s your secret to avoiding the summer swarms?

 

Best of Santa Cruz County

The 2013 Santa Cruz County Readers' Poll and Critics’ Picks It’s our biggest issue of the year, and in it, your votes—more than 6,500 of them—determined the winners of The Best of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll. New to the long list of local restaurants, shops and other notables that captured your interest: Best Beer Selection, Best Locally Owned Business, Best Customer Service and Best Marijuana Dispensary. In the meantime, many readers were ever so chatty online about potential new categories. Some of the suggestions that stood out: Best Teen Program and Best Web Design/Designer. But what about: Dog Park, Church, Hotel, Local Farm, Therapist (I second that!) or Sports Bar—not to be confused with Bra. Our favorite suggestion: Best Act of Kindness—one reader noted Café Gratitude and the free meals it offered to the Santa Cruz Police Department in the aftermath of recent crimes. Perhaps some of these can be woven into next year’s ballot, so stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the following pages and take note of our Critics’ Picks, too, beginning on page 91. A big thanks for voting—and for reading—and an even bigger congratulations to all of the winners. Enjoy.  -Greg Archer, EditorBest of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll INDEX | Shops | Food & Drink | Arts & Entertainment | Health & Fitness | Professionals | The Rest |

 

Dancing Creek Winery

At the Pinot Paradise event back in March, I tasted some very good Pinots from the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Dancing Creek Winery’s 2009 Pinot ($27) was one of them. This plummy dark brew, made from grapes grown in Corralitos, has delicious flavors of pomegranate, prosciutto, dried cherries, and mint julep.

 

Stranger than Fiction

Memphis singer-songwriter, Amy LaVere, finds joy and humor in painful situations Producer Craig Silvey likely saved singer-songwriter Amy LaVere’s life a few years back. Before recording 2011’s Stranger Me, LaVere had endured a breakup with her longtime boyfriend and was in the midst of one of those I-need-to-find-out-who-I-am phases. She knew the content for the album was going to be incredibly dark and moody, but Silvey did something which changed the course of the recording sessions entirely.

 

A Very Fine House

Adjacent to the front door, the long, clean wooden bar is surrounded by pumpkin-colored stools. At the entrance to the dining rooms, there is a new low-slung cafe door hung in the wood-covered arch. Where there once was a stage, stocky wooden tables are neatly arranged perpendicularly on a new tile floor, each set with square white plates and burnt orange cloth napkins.

 

Exposed

David Cay Johnston’s new book explains how big companies rob us blind In his late teens David Cay Johnston started to ask questions. “Why do we have these guys in uniforms with guns driving around in cars all day?” “Why is the Santa Cruz County Courthouse being built in such an unusual shape?” He wrote an article, while still living in his hometown of Santa Cruz, proving that the off-kilter courthouse building, which officials had promised would save money, actually cost more than a conventional building.

 

What activities would you suggest to friends and family visiting Santa Cruz?

Santa Cruz | Mom