Top ten films of 2014 are an eclectic mix of little gems There are no themes or trends to make note of in my favorite films of 2014. Having now seen most of the year-end contenders, I humbly offer up a mixed bag of little gems that ought to put some sparkle in your Netflix queue....

Jackie Zealous is a three-piece garage-rock band, but it’s also the name of a real person. Not one of the members, though—the name belongs to a guy they met at their practice space who provides them with a lot of unsolicited advice. And he lives in a van right outside. “He sits in on some of...

Portland duo plays junkyard blues at a hellfire pace John Johnson’s first drum kit was just a tad unconventional: a cardboard box, a soup pot, a bucket, and a barbecue lid. No, he wasn’t a toddler finding odds and ends to bang on; Johnson had just agreed to play drums in a new lo-fi blues duo....

Shawheen Keyani on public photography, the Hasselblad, and getting off Facebook From a well-equipped photo geek’s lab/bunker located in the corner of the student house he shares with, oh, let’s just say more than three other people, photographer Shawheen Keyani is able to tweak digital films, edit large-format photographs, and record audio to accompany his latest...

Crowdsourced exhibit ‘Everybody’s Ocean’ opens at the MAH Months ago, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH) issued a call to Central and Northern California residents for ocean-inspired visual art of any medium, any size: “your painting of West Cliff at sunset. Your two-year old’s drawing of the beach that’s been on the fridge...

POMP ADORE A television costume designer is returning to Santa Cruz to help with a grooooovy celebration. The hip gal is “Mad Men” designer Tiffany White Stanton, who graduated in 2003 from UCSC, a school that, for those who don’t know, opened in 1965. Hey, that was 50 years ago! And for a wacky 50th Anniversary...

Culinary classes make Mexican easy, plus a Grüner Veltliner that’s blowing our minds Deciding to follow her passion for “food, travel and music,” Melissa Palacios has been teaching her friends and colleagues to make authentic tamales and other foods of Mexico for the past 10 years. After lots of field study at cooking schools in Tlaxcala...

Mayor Don Lane talks about serving one last time Because mayors only serve one year at a time, they often like to pick an area of focus to make sure the term doesn’t get away from them. This year, Santa Cruz Mayor Don Lane, whose term began last month, wants to prioritize affordable housing. Lane, who...

Sixteen short plays at this year’s 20th ‘8 Tens @ Eight’ festival Twenty years ago, Santa Cruz’s 8 Tens @ Eight was the first short theater festival of its kind. Now, over two-hundred people from all over the world send in their 10-minute plays to be considered for selection. It’s all because short plays fulfill a...

Hackathon expands as organizers strive for diversity in world of tech In the era of pervasive, portable technology, seemingly everyone can access a wealth of information with their fingertips. But a disparity exists between the number of men and women who design these devices and applications that shape our everyday lives. “Unfortunately, it is still male-dominated,”...