It’s ridiculous how expensive it is. I used to live here. I live in Burlingame now, and it’s crazy expensive, but being in Santa Cruz, for what the incomes are, it’s insulting. Annette Cavalier, Burlingame, Flight Attendant             It’s out of control, and will probably continue to be because of the...

Red Baraat incorporates three drummers, four horns, a guitarist and well-placed electronic effects The inspiration for the band Red Baraat stretches back decades to when, on a trip to India, founder Sunny Jain first saw an Indian brass band. He was only 5-years-old at the time, but the experience stayed with him. When it came time...

Charming cast, lush production, no surprises in ‘Cinderella’ With Once Upon A Time still knocking ’em dead on TV, the folks at Disney now realize what profits can be made from repackaging their old cartoon fairy tale classics into new live-action formats. Last year, they tested the cinematic waters with Maleficent, which was bold enough to...

India Joze gears up for the Persian New year The 42 years that Jozseph Schultz has cooked in Santa Cruz are punctuated by festivals and parties of all kinds, from calamari to chickpeas to edible flowers. This weekend marks the 30th year he’ll throw a festival for the Persian New Year, Now Rooz. GT sat down...

Hate crime at UCSC reveals larger issues When UCSC students shut down traffic on Highway 17 in early March, media coverage was intense. But when a gay male student was brutalized at Kresge College on Feb. 7—leaving him with a dislocated hip, a fractured jaw, broken knuckles, a shattered wrist, and a concussion—it slipped by without...

Authentic Northern Italian in Soquel, plus a dessert and a pastry to melt hearts A fabulous bowl of fat paccheri pasta—think oversized rigatoni—won our instant approval on a first dinner at the new La Gioconda on Main Street in Soquel. Through its many incarnations the craftsman-bungalow setting has retained its charm. From the personal greeting from...

Santa Cruz author Nancy Abrams seeks the most real of all possible gods in her latest book Like the cosmos that fascinates her, Nancy Abrams is unfathomably diverse. Schooled in history and the philosophy of science, she’s an author, philosopher, teacher, lawyer, musician, and international mediator whose co-creation of a technique called “scientific mediation” may or...

Even toddlers like OK Go now. So why is ‘Hungry Ghosts’ their most melancholy record? The first time I heard OK Go was on the 2004 compilation Future Soundtrack for America, the unjustly forgotten “alt bands go political” mix that helped prime a generation of indie kids for Obama’s 2008 youth revolution. Their contribution—a cover of...

Internship ecosystem primes new local tech talent Several days a week, Gregory Ruffin goes downtown to NextSpace, where he sits next to his mentor, Gabriel Kopito, a web developer at local web company Launch Brigade, which specializes in building websites. Under Kopito’s supervision, Ruffin is creating an online automatic billing system. A participant in Launch Brigade’s...

Most people assume that hitchhiking is a long-gone tradition in the 21st century. But in the San Lorenzo Valley, the continued popularity of thumbing it is one example of how things are done a little differently The 3:07 p.m. bus was due 15 minutes ago, and Xavier Pujol has been waiting at the Felton bus stop...