Smooth with soft tannins, this velvety crimson Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 is delicious and very drinkable. Aromas of blackcurrant and creamy chocolate greet the nose, and the rich, ripe fruit that lies within, just waiting to be enjoyed. A recent wine tasting trip to Soquel’s Hunter Hill Vineyard & Winery brought this wine to my attention—and now...

The late film critic Robert Ebert profiled in lively doc, ‘Life Itself’ You don’t have to be a movie buff to enjoy Life Itself, the fascinating biographical documentary about the late film critic Roger Ebert. It’s not like you’re going to be subjected to a lot of obscure intellectual pronouncements on the art of cinema. Instead,...

Santa Cruz expat Yoodoo Park reduces indie-pop to its essence in GRMLN The first GRMLN EP Explore is really short—like 16 minutes long—and that includes seven songs, with each tune coming in at about the two-minute mark. Santa Cruz expat Yoodoo Park, the lone figure behind GRMLN, actually recorded a bunch more songs, but paired it...

Santa Cruz Shakespeare hits new comic heights with ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ If we knew that William Shakespeare had looked into the future and predicted the existence of the Marx Brothers, Tina Fey, Bill Murray, Peter Sellers and Monty Python, poured their comic styles into a literary pot, and added huge helpings of shameless jokes...

One man spins his wheels trying to bring an unsuccessful transportation program to light Local business owner and activist Paul McGrath unrolls a scrolled piece of paper onto the ground, revealing a gray and white bar graph, 18 feet long. The chart on white paper has two bars, one that goes on for several yards, and...

Changing Colors When Kaleidoscope owner Sheryl Guidera talks about her toy shop and bookstore potentially closing, it’s hard for her not to tear up. A fixture of Santa Cruz for 40 years, the toy shop has been an educational store that parents and teachers have come to rely on. But Guidera, exhausted from working day and...

Cabrillo Festival’s Marin Alsop is back to ‘rock the boat of tradition’ After a series of personal setbacks took her away from the podium last year, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music maestra Marin Alsop returns to lead this season’s bill of 14 composers in residence, some brand-new musical innovators and several return veterans with her own...

Andrew Jackson Jihad’s darkly funny anthems have gained a cult following, one text at a time In 2010, a friend sent me a text that just said “Andrew Jackson Jihad.” Not many bands can inspire this kind of text, because it reveals the ultimate confidence the sender has in his or her recommendation. It had no...

Could cactus be the food (and energy) of the future? Manfred Warmuth has been growing cacti for about ten years at his house on Santa Cruz’s upper Westside. He loves sharing his nopales, or pads from the Opuntia cactus, with the community at the Festival de Nopal, which takes place downtown and celebrates its fifth year...

As long as he can remember, local musician Dustan Sheehan has been in love with ’50s and ’60s pop culture—specifically, old horror movies and early rock ‘n’ roll. He’s been marrying these two obsessions the past decade with his horror-punk group Stellar Corpses. They wear dark clothes, sport an upright bass and sing a ton of...