Santa Cruz Good Times

Friday
Mar 12th
  • Login
    Username . . . . . . . . . . . . Password Log in to post comments, add Community Calendar events & get access to web-exclusive content. Welcome!
  • Create an account
    Registration
    *
    *
    *
    *
    *
    Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required.
Text size
  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size

Santa Cruz Area Events

Tuesday, 09 March 2010 00:00 GT Staff Events
 E-mail

event_desalinationSEvents this Week

Need something to do? Read about what events are not to be missed.

Also see our area featured music page >

 

.

.


Tuesday  | March 9

evemt_transTales of Transcendence
There is always room for lighthearted banter in the search for enlightenment. Richard Stockton knows this. Debuting this Tuesday at the ever-appropriate Gateways Books is a new monthly Planet Cruz production, “Tales of Transcendence.” Alongside the local comedy Godfather will be songstress Teresa Tudury, comedian Joe Klosek, KZSC’s Davis Banta, Sentinel stalwart Wallace Baine and more—all dishing out their stories, songs and inspiring gift of gab to help make you one entertained sentient being. | LK
INFO: 7 p.m. Gateways Books, 1126 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $5/donation. 429-9600

Saturday | March 13

event_Derby2Santa Cruz Derby Girls
Grab your foam fingers, put on your game face and pray you don't get in the way. Refreshed from their sold out 2009 season, the Santa Cruz Derby Girls are back, ready for a whole new year of chaotic fun. Recently, the team was accepted into the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), the "international governing body" for women's roller derby. That's right, they have the credentials to prove you don't mess with the Cruz. And there's an added bonus: this Saturday's bout will have a Red Carpet theme. So dress to the nines and support our Derby Girls as they show what they're made of. | MW
INFO: 6:30 p.m. Santa Cruz Civic, 307 Church St., Santa Cruz. $7.50-20.50. 420-5260.



event_GamelanDanceGamelan Music and Dance of West Java
The number of locals who’ve made their way to Indonesia is just another factoid that proves we’re a spoiled county. But while surfing is more often than not the primary agenda for the many lucky ones who’ve taken the long flight, this Saturday Indonesia comes to us—and it’s got nothing to do with getting tubed. Pusaka Sunda, a Bay Area gamelan degung troupe, brings the color and culture of West Java in the form of traditional song and dance. A suling flute star, Burhan Sukarma joins veteran drummer Undang Sumarna to create the soundtrack for Margot Lederer Prado’s deep-rooted Sundanese choreography. Expect plenty of authentic Indonesian fun—minus the reef rash. | LK
INFO: 8 p.m. Pacific Cultural Center, 13-7 Seabright Ave., Santa Cruz. $5-15. pusakasunda.org.

Saturday/Sun. | March 13/14

event_Jewish10th Annual Jewish Film Festival
For 10 years the Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival has been exploring the controversial and delicate issues concerning Jewish and Palestinian lives in and out of the Middle East. Films in this year’s festival promise to give insight into the stories of a Palestinian family’s fight to keep its lemon grove, which is under threat of being destroyed in the name of “security,” as well as the 2007 effort by an unlikely group to bring baseball to the holy land. Episodes of the groundbreaking Israeli sitcom, Arab Labor, exposing stereotypes on both sides as it follows an Arab family’s assimilation into Jewish life, will follow each film. The festival, which continues next weekend on March 20 and 21, also boasts guest speakers, flamenco dancers and pizza interspersed throughout the festivities. Check the Temple Beth El website for the complete event lineup. | MW
INFO: 6 p.m. Temple Beth El, 3055 Porter Gulch Road, Aptos. $5-7. 457-2249 or tbeaptos.org.

Sunday | March 14

event_EarthquakeBenefitEarthquake Benefit
Spurred on by all the lighthearted St. Paddy’s Day fever going around—and the not-so-lighthearted call to action to help earthquake stricken co   mmunities—Jesse Autumn and Shelley Phillips are bringing out the Celtic music gear for a special fundraising concert featuring harp, piano and woodwinds. A benefit to raise funds for Episcopal Relief and Development, which tends to the needs of those affected by the recent headline-making earthquakes, the show follows the mindset that there is, indeed, a helpful pot of gold at the end of the musical rainbow. | LK
INFO: 3 p.m. St. John’s Episcopal Church, 125 Canterbury Drive, Aptos. $15 donation. 475-2894.





Thursday | March 18

event_desalinationDesalination and the Alternatives GET your GREEN FIX
Rather than a question of give or take, this week’s community discussion about a future desalination plant will have participants debating whether we can give up a bit of water use to conserve—or take the controversial new plant. Pooling water resources external to a community has long been a California debate (think “Cadillac Desert” and the state’s hunt for, and usurping of, water), and now the targeted source is the ocean. Weighing the pros and cons of the desalination plant being planned for Santa Cruz, Live Oak and the Soquel District, a panel of leading authorities in the field will helm the public meeting. Some say the plant is the only option—while others feel it simply rubs salt in the environment’s wound. | Linda Koffman
INFO: 6:15-9 p.m. Live Oak Elementary, 1916 Capitola Road, Capitola. Free. 425-0341.

Ongoing

event_ARTseenVisual Conversations with Women in the Arts II ART SEEN
Sometimes you can do a bit of self-reflection just by observing others. In Ann Thiermann’s second installation of “Visual Conversations with Women in the Arts,” the artist draws inspiration from her peers. Just in time for Women’s History Month, Thiermann is displaying 28 acrylic and pastel portraits of fellow local female artists side by side with the tools, instruments and art by the women featured. CD-listening stations provide the audience a unique opportunity to transcend from viewer to participant, connecting the music with the instruments and artists. The opening reception on March 21 will be a rare occasion for the public to view the artists demonstrate their talents in silk-screening, braid-making, calligraphy and more; all to the rhythmic beat of live Taiko drumming as it flows through the yard. | Mat Weir
INFO: Thursday, March 11—May 2. Pajaro Valley Arts Council Gallery, 37 Sudden St., Watsonville. Free. 722-3062 or pvarts.org.

 

 

< Prev
 

Advanced Search

More Good Times

 

Doctor’s Orders

Christopher Durang’s witty work hits the Actors’ Theatre Theater director Gerry Gerringer sits in a tiny office, and we talk, like therapist to patient, which is ironic, since he’s directing a play about such things, with Christopher Durang’s “Beyond Therapy,” opening up at the Actors’ Theatre on Feb. 25 and running through March 19. “It's really a clever, funny script,” Gerringer says. “It was kind of a play for its time, and now as time has elapsed since the ’80s when it was written, it becomes kind of a satire that’s relevant today. Though all of the characters in some ways have their strangeness, the two therapists who are in this play are so out there and eccentric that it's almost going beyond therapy to think that they can help these people. Comedy is very therapeutic. I think humor connects people and provides access to dialogue about different political issues. Laughter is one of the best things you can do on a regular basis.”

 

The Casting Couch

When Julia Roberts glided into her Mystic Pizza audition, she was completely unprepared, and a little rough around the edges. But nonetheless, the divine Ms. Roberts was imbued with magic—the type of stuff that stars are made of. Casting director Jane Jenkins sent the pretty woman home and told her to come back the next day, better prepared and dressed for the part. Roberts did just that. And she landed the role, which ratcheted her up a notch in Hollywood. While Steel Magnolias gave her an Oscar, and Pretty Woman made her a bonafide star, Mystic Pizza was unarguably Roberts’ breakthrough role. She might want to send a thank you note to Jenkins and her casting partner, Janet Hirshenson.

 

Lucien Kubo

Kubo's world of assemblage I highly recommend that if you can sequester yourself away with Lucien Kubo and hear her talk about the atrocities of war, life as a Japanese American, and how both things relate to her artwork, it will be a meeting well worth your time.

 

What does your future hold?

Scotts Valley | Self Employed  

 

From the Editor

Some foods are too tempting to pass up. That seems to be the case this week with GT’s dining scribes. In our biggest Food & Wine issue to date, our resident foodies experimented with some old favorites and also embarked on new culinary adventures. Delicious. Plus: “11 Sexy Foods.” (Spring is coming, after all.) Send us a list of your favorite local hotspots at letters@gtweekly.com. Tell us what local foods you can’t live without. (That might be a long list.)

 

Memory Matters

Twenty years after the fact, a geologist and a historian say we must not forget “Loma Prieta was a humbling experience for most of us. a reminder of our diminutive stature in the grand scheme of things. I think that remembering events like that is a perfect antidote for our collective hubris; it keeps us honest.” —Sandy Lydon, ‘History Dude’  

 

Music Calendar

Live Music This Week Check out the latest hot concert picks happening around town. See more area activities on our events page >  

 

Cool Band Now

Ingredients: Nick Green’s guitar, Chris Hopkins’ bass, Logan Bean’s drums, ample 4-track tape recorders, a hell of a lot of irreverence, and a pinch of freak pop with the rock. Stir ingredients together in a mixer with a lot of attitude and humor on tape, then set out on a stage to cool. The result? Cool Band Now. Friends who grew up in Livermore going to punk shows and pizza parlors together, the trio formed in Santa Cruz as a reaction against the sometimes stifling nature of taking music too seriously. With each member having spent plenty of time and energy on previous projects and recordings, Cool Band Now began over a year ago as a spontaneous endeavor to just have fun. “It’s a trapping feeling sometimes when you spend so much time on a recording to make it sound perfect,” Bean says, “so this was a lo-fi escape from all that.” When Green and Hopkins (whose words sometimes grace GT pages) first haphazardly started recording sound collages that flexed their multi-instrumental talents (there’s a bit of synth, a bit of punk distortion, a bit of indie acoustic guitar) the tracks were made with the idea of television commercial breaks in mind: whacky, experimental and short—very short; some “songs” run 15 seconds long.

 

Bull’s-Eye

Zimmerman honed his chops at the San Jose Repertory Theatre writing  musical reviews in the 1980s skewering the yuppies that peppered the Silicon Valley (“YUP!”, “Up the YUP!” and “YUP it UP!”). The punning pundit-with-guitar blossomed during the comedy boom of that time. “I had a duo during that time with [Santa Cruz virtuoso] Stevie Coyle and we were called the Reagan Brothers,” the witty comic remembers. “We played the Comedy Store and all the clubs and learned a lot about standing and delivering.”

 

Muns Vineyard Rosé of Pinot Noir

Rose is fast becoming one of my new favorite wines. And when you find a good one such as Muns Vineyard’s Rosé of Pinot Noir, 2008 Central Coast ($18), then one’s wine-drinking life is most certainly elevated. I first tasted the Muns Rosé at a food and wine event at Café Cruz in Soquel.  Mary Lindsay, who, along with winemaker Ed Muns, plays a major role in production, public relations, tasting events, and everything else that’s involved with running a successful winery, was pouring that day. She invited me to try the Rosé and I immediately bought a bottle to take home. I often have friends over for wine and cheese get-togethers, and it makes a change to offer Rosé—along with the Merlots and Chardonnays of this world.

 

11 Sexy Foods

Fresh strawberries 1 Raw oysters (from booth at Saturday morning Cabrillo Farmers Market) An oyster’s texture, unmistakably sensual, can make your tongue dance—and who knows what will follow. Treat yourself to some oysters with lemon and Tabasco after shopping for fresh, organic produce on a sun-filled day at the Farmers Market with your sweetheart.Cabrillo Farmers Market, Cabrillo College, 6500 Soquel Drive, Aptos, montereybayfarmers.org/aptos.html.

 

Wild at Art

More than 400 artists unite in a stunning county-wide exhibit where assemblage meets collage To call it an undertaking would be an understatement. Susan Hillhouse, Theresa Myers and the team at the Museum of Art & History in downtown Santa Cruz have pulled off an undeniably impressive artistic feat. They have launched an inventive, county-wide art show,  “Assemblage + Collage + Construction,” which runs through April. The show features a cornucopia of talented artists from Santa Cruz County and beyond. Fourteen art galleries will showcase the work of about 400 artists, which includes Angelo Grova, Jack Howe, Michael Leeds, Robbie Schoen, Shelby Graham and many others.

 

After The Fall

The better you know the Alice books of Lewis Carroll, the more you'll appreciate Tim Burton's winsome and nutty remix, Alice In Wonderland. Instead of rehashing of the familiar children's story, Burton and scriptwriter Linda Woolverton borrow elements from both classic Carroll books, "Alice In Wonderland," and "Through The Looking Glass," then dare to imagine an entirely new story populated by Carroll's enduring fantasy characters. Burton and collaborator Woolverton (she wrote the marvelous script for Disney's Beauty And the Beast) understand what makes the books so much fun—deadpan, Seinfeld-like conversations about the minutiae of life, the usefulness (or not) of language, silly plays on words, and the stubborn pragmatism of resourceful little Alice in a world gone cheerfully mad. Staying true to this antic, anarchic spirit, they fashion a funny, girl-empowering saga that is often Carroll's equal in drollery.