Round two of Cabrillo’s hit still sizzles
It is no wonder that audience popular demand brings this uplifting glance at the human “relationship” back to the Cabrillo Stage for a second season. “I Love you, You’re Perfect … Now Change,” sparked mirth from curtain to close on opening night, June 18. The dynamic cast of four—Max Bennett-Parker, Nicolas Ceglio, Sarah Stein and Ariel Buck— carried out roles that ranged radically in age and complexity. The small cast tackled more than 40 different parts altogether in the two-hour outing, ranging from awkward twentysomething daters, to an elderly couple that meets at a funeral. So, it’s official—this show is still a hit.

CocoRosie’s Bianca Casady on songwriting in graveyards as therapy
The term “freak folk” might be a misnomer when applied to the likes of Vetiver and Sufjan Stevens, but it’s a more than appropriate description of CocoRosie. The group’s avant-garde music is a good indication of its creators’ offbeat sensibilities: Frequently compared to the work of Björk and Joanna Newsom, it makes use of everything from children’s toys to coffee grinders. Then there’s the band’s visual presentation: CocoRosie’s two key members—vocalist Bianca (“Coco”) Casady and her sister Sierra (“Rosie”), who also plays guitar, piano and harp—regularly perform in gender-bending attire, and the sleeve art for their 2005 album, Noah’s Ark, was provocative enough to be named one of the worst album covers in history by both Pitchfork Media and The Guardian. (It involves unicorns, experimental sex and puking—let’s leave it at that.)

There can be beauty in chaos, melody in meltdowns, and bliss in torrential sonic attacks. Just ask Taito Reed and company. When you want to investigate the old adage “There is light through all the darkness,” hit up the former Junk Sick Dawn frontman’s latest project, Noise Clinic. Balancing structure with floods of improv, pitting screeching elements of jagged rock against classical strings and random found sounds, spewing shouts and spoken word, singer/guitarist Reed, violinist/singer Sayaka Yabuki, drummer Rick Walker, and bassist Joe Gabent eschew the norm. The quartet, made up of veteran musicians long steeped in the local scene, lands itself in an ambiguous state where the aggressiveness of punk coalesces with quiet poetry.

The most pressing local issue that I would help solve would be increasing our capacity to conserve more water and prepare us in the face of drought. Reducing our current usage from 69 gallons per day to 40 gallons per capita per day.
Sherry Bryan
Live Oak | Program Specialist

Santa Cruz County was recently awarded with 25 rental vouchers for homeless veterans from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and will be able to house as many as 60 homeless veterans. The voucher program is part of the $75 million nationwide initiative to assist homeless veterans. Similar to the federal Section 8 housing choice program, eligible veterans rent a market-rate rental unit with 30 percent of their gross monthly income, and the Housing Authority pays the remainder. “Though they served and sacrificed so much for our country, too many of our veterans find themselves on the streets and in homeless shelters,” said Shaun Donovan, HUD Secretary.

Santa Cruzans are changing the way people work
What does the future of work look like? For those struggling to find a job in this downturned economy, it may be difficult to look beyond the present to what the future may hold. But the silver lining to the terrible job market is that it shows us that the current way we work doesn’t, well, work for all of us. Many people are realizing that there are alternatives to the nine to five grind. And thanks to some Santa Cruz innovators, it’s now easier than ever to choose where, when, and how we want to work. According to them, the way we work in the future will be more flexible, under our control, and maybe even friendlier.

Bay Area company comes to Santa Cruz with affordable way to go solar
With as much as 60,000 barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf per day, local economies on the brink of ruin and fragile ecosystems likely tarnished for years, there is no better time to really start thinking about what our dependency on fossil fuels is costing us. Sure BP is the evil company that may have skirted regulators and operated the unsafe rig that has caused the greatest environmental disaster in American history, but could it have been avoided if our demand for oil weren’t so insatiable?

The oil leak in the Gulf continues. What are your thoughts on it?
Every night we watch the news reports of the leak, we see the dead and dying animals and the sludge in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s heartbreaking.

I also find some of the comments coming out of Washington to be unbelievable.

“I don’t want Johnny Depp in my lap.” These are eight little words that no one who knows me would ever expect me to utter. I was as shocked as anybody when I heard them cross my own lips at a recent Memorial Day party. Art Boy naturally assumed the most logical explanation: my brain had been taken over by aliens.

It has been interesting while being on the road with our Inspired by California film project visiting other art communities. We have seen several First Friday Art Walks, some of which consisted of only six venues, but were very well attended. One of the art communities that we visited that stands out in my mind is Laguna Beach.