An educational consultant’s report found that diversity efforts at Scotts Valley Unified School District have been hampered by a “pervasive fear” of how parents would react to changes and the belief such initiatives would be “obstructed by vocal community disapproval and retaliation.”
Key findings of the review by Inclusion Counts include minor and major abusive behavior directed at minorities and ineffective discipline systems.
“Instances of racism, heterosexism, transphobia, faithism, ableism, hate symbols and hate speech are pervasive, especially at the middle and high school grade levels,” states the report, which also offers suggestions about how the SVUSD should handle negative situations. “A clear, consistent and calibrated protocol for responding to incidents, preventing escalation, and broadly addressing the community post-incident is recommended to close the communication loop and distill misinformation.”
The review is part of a two-year $13,200 contract with the Phoenix-based company, and is the result of group listening sessions, interviews and data provided by SVUSD.
It comes just months after the suicide of Mateo Deihl, a 15-year-old Scotts Valley High School boy whose mother said he was “mercilessly” bullied at school, including for being Hispanic.
SVUSD Superintendent Tanya Krause was not available for an interview by press time, her assistant said.
The Inclusion Counts report found that SVUSD’s community is “polarized” about the need for diversity improvements. It noted that while some parents offered support, others threatened lawsuits.
School staff shared that families wanted to—and can—opt out of reading “books about diverse populations and people,” the consultant said; it urged SVUSD to reexamine this policy.
“This is not to say that parents should have no influence over how their children are taught,” the report states. “However, when a parent’s desire to inculcate a particular worldview denies the child exposure to diverse ideas, perspectives and values, public schools and educators must remain firm in their approach.”
Inclusion Counts gave SVUSD good marks for its Cultural Responsiveness Committee, which has been trying to ensure the curriculum accurately reflects the student body.
“At the same time, exposure of students to frequent micro-aggressions, microinvalidations and micro-insults, and persistent and pervasive bullying is a source of social inequality,” it continued. “This stressor has negatively contributed to student and family sense of belonging and in some cases, student and family departure from the district.”
It added that test scores reflect “significant achievement gaps” between Latino and non-Latino populations. The consultant recommends administrators monitor suspension rates by race, ethnicity and disability.
And the report notes parents in grassroots groups—such as the Scotts Valley Diversity Equity Inclusion and Allyship Community Facebook Group and the Brook Knoll DEI Committee—have been requesting broader cultural exposure for students and staff, through events, activities and professional development opportunities for employees.
SVUSD has embarked on a few of these efforts. For example, the district partnered with Hope Squad, a school-based peer suicide prevention program, and increased counseling resources.
But, according to Inclusion Counts, SVUSD still has a fair way to go.
“School improvement strategies will require significant financial investments and are codependent on the personnel (people) able to dedicate a significant amount of time to this cause,” the report states. “SVUSD will need to budget accordingly for the cost of programming, school interventions and personnel-needed, while recognizing that implementing new school initiatives requires a ‘give & take’ in which the financial investments in other strategic priorities will need to be reduced to increase investments in new areas.” [formatting in original]
Scotts Valley is hampered by the fact that, while the community is upper-middle class, its school district does not get that much money from the state, relative to other districts. That’s due to a quirk of the funding formula used to divide education cash.
This has led some teachers to voice concerns about being unable to cover living expenses on their meager salary at school board meetings.
Inclusion Counts recommends hiring earlier in the year and casting a wider net to attract a more diverse candidate pool for teaching positions.
In 2020-21, SVUSD had a turnover rate of 20%, compared to the national average of 16.5%.
Distrust of leadership, low pay and hostile relations with parents were cited as the main causes for leaving.
When thousands of attendees file into the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in September for the annual county fair, they can expect the east end of the grounds to look much different than years prior.
If all goes according to plan—and government agencies work at hyper-speed over the next few weeks—pig and sheep pole barns that have been deemed unsafe will be dismantled to possibly make way for a new state-of-the-art multi-purpose building.
While the construction of the multi-million-dollar building is part of a long-range plan that is still in its infancy, the dissembling of the weathered, 67-year-old barns is now at the top of Fairgrounds CEO Dave Kegebein’s to-do list in the weeks leading up the Santa Cruz County Fair.
The Fair Board at a special meeting on Tuesday directed Kegebein to move forward with the removal of the barns, pending approval from various state agencies. The board voted 6-2—Director Michael Pruger was absent—on the motion. Board President Don Dietrich and Director Tony Campos cast the dissenting votes.
The item came to the board on Kegebein’s recommendation. He said their removal is needed because the barns pose a safety hazard. In addition, Kegebein said the move would allow county fair organizers to keep the beloved livestock displays in the same location with temporary display pens and tents.
It’s unclear whether Fairgrounds leadership will receive the approvals they need from the state to dismantle the barns in time for the county fair, which is scheduled for Sept. 14-18. If they do not, Kegebein said they will have to cordon off the barns and use other areas on the Fairgrounds for the livestock displays.
Both Dietrich and Campos, in explaining their votes, said they preferred keeping the barns up and fenced off for the county fair and revisiting the topic at a future date when Fairgrounds leadership had the approval of the state, which oversees the facility.
But their peers said that keeping them around could be a hazard for the thousands that are expected to attend the fair over its five-day run and that if Kegebein does not receive state approval to remove the barns before the start of the event, they will be fenced off regardless.
The barns were built in 1955.
According to Kegebein, they have been in disrepair for at least 10 years. An inspection in 2012-13 found that more than half of the posts that hold up the roofs have been rotted off their base. Since then, they’ve made small but pricey renovations each year to prepare them for the fair.
The barns have become a much-debated issue over the past few weeks as people have raised concerns about what their removal could mean for the future of the livestock displays, and the Fairgrounds’ responsibility as an emergency evacuation center.
In his presentation to the board, Kegebein addressed those concerns, saying that the county fair had no plans to cut ties with its livestock displays—he says they are one of the festivity’s biggest draws and hopes to expand the organization’s relationship with local FFA programs—and that the organization had plans in place to provide emergency shelters for animals if another local catastrophe similar to the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex were to happen in the near future.
About four dozen people showed up to the evening meeting at the Fairgrounds’ Fine Arts Building—a larger than usual turnout, several board members said.
A couple of people said that Fairgrounds leadership was wrong in its assertion that the barns were beyond repair, and asked that the board instead invest the money to renovate them so that the livestock community is not displaced for several years while the organization fundraises for a pricey multi-purpose building.
A handful of other speakers, however, said that the board needed to move forward with the removal and the proposed building that they said could be a year-round revenue generator for the fairgrounds and solve many of the livestock community’s issues with the current barns.
“Each year we are putting bandaids on buildings that have been around for generations,” said Kyle Middleton, a member of the Fair Board’s Livestock Committee. “We’ve always understood that it is not fiscally responsible to put tons of money into buildings that only get used for one week out of the year—we have to take the first step into the future in order to preserve our past.”
The Watsonville Police Department faces criticism after a video was posted to social media showing one of its officers punching a man multiple times during an arrest on Tuesday night.
This week, a video posted to multiple social media platforms shows two officers responding to a domestic disturbance call in a Watsonville neighborhood. The officers are standing behind 39-year-old Antonio Zepeda as he’s on his knees with his hands behind his back.
Then, one of the officers tries to push Zepeda down on his stomach with his knee. The second officer then jumps in to help the first officer wrestle Zepeda down and a third officer attempts to grab Zepeda’s legs. As the first officer loses control of Zepeda, the second officer begins punching him. The officer throws at least three punches before the video cuts out.
A second video shows the officers continuing to wrestle with Zepeda, who is now on his back. One officer uses a TASER on Zepeda as the other two attempt to constrain him before that video ends.
A person can be heard saying, “don’t push him,” as the first officer tries to push Zepeda down. Then, multiple people can be heard yelling at the officers as the second officer starts punching Zepeda.
In a statement issued Wednesday, WPD said it was aware of the video and that the incident was under review.
The statement also stated that the video only showed “a small glimpse of the officers’ interaction with the suspect.”
“Any time there are serious concerns over our officers’ actions, we investigate and share as much information with you as possible,” the statement read.
According to WPD, officers responded to a domestic disturbance call around 6:30pm on the 400 block of Chappel Road. The caller said Zepeda punched his brother in the head and then pushed his mother, WPD said. Zepeda then left the home before officers arrived, but returned armed with a knife and tried to reenter the house less than an hour later.
He was arrested for an outstanding misdemeanor warrant and resisting arrest, according to police logs. He was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail on $2,500 bail.
When officers arrested him in the video, he did not appear to have a weapon.
WPD’s social media posts received more than 120 comments as of Thursday afternoon. Some thanked the department for its transparency, and others asked for the department to release body cam footage from the arrest.
WPD spokeswoman Michelle Pulido said she could not say on Thursday whether the department would release the body cam footage.
New California education data helps tell an old story: Schools with higher rates of low-income students have more underqualified teachers.
A CalMatters analysis of teacher credentialing data released this month by the California Department of Education found this correlation statewide as well as within districts.
The state’s data from the 2020-21 school year details the percentage of classes by school and district that were taught by fully credentialed teachers, intern teachers or teachers without proper subject credentials. The data also shows the percentage of classes taught by “experienced” teachers—those with more than two years of experience.
The CalMatters analysis crossed the state’s data with student demographic information for the state’s 10 largest school districts—which collectively serve about a sixth of California’s public school students. It compared the 10 schools with the highest percentages of students qualifying for free or reduced price meals to the 10 schools with the lowest percentages of those students at each of the districts.
Statewide, 83% of classes were taught by fully credentialed teachers in the 2020-21 school year. But at eight of the 10 largest school districts, classes at schools with the highest percentages of low-income students were more likely to be taught by a teacher without full credentials than at schools with the lowest percentages. Los Angeles Unified had the largest disparity among non-charter schools—the rate of fully credentialed teachers was 22 percentage points higher at schools serving more affluent families.
Source: 2020-21 school year data from California Dept. of Education • Student poverty based on percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price meals. CREDIT: Erica Yee, CalMatters
The 2020-21 school year was the first full school year under the pandemic, which brought a pre-existing shortage of fully credentialed teachers to a breaking point. Educators and experts interviewed by CalMatters said early retirements surged and other teachers left the profession, sometimes in the middle of the school year. School administrators said they rushed to get vacancies filled, often hiring teachers without full credentials. Substitute teachers were also in short supply, especially for schoolswith high rates of low-income students.
Marcus Funchess, who oversees human resources at San Bernardino City Unified, said the district has battled a teacher shortage for years. To fill vacancies, the district hired teachers who lacked a full credential as long as they demonstrated a commitment to staying in the district. Earning a full or “clear” credential typically requires a bachelor’s degree, completion of a credentialing program at a university and working as a student teacher. There can be additional testing or coursework requirements, depending on the grade you want to teach.
“If those teachers are interns, but they have a passion for our students, those are the educators we’re looking for because they’re apt to stay,” he said. “They’re not going to leave when the going gets tough.”
But Kai Matthews, a project director at UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools, said low-income students—defined as those qualifying for free or reduced price meals—have always had less access to better prepared teachers, mostly because their schools were underfunded. And schools serving more affluent families are able to fundraise to pay teacher salaries, allowing them to reduce class sizes.
The socioeconomic disparity among schools is often coupled with racial disparities, Matthews said. A preliminary study she’s conducting shows that barriers to the teaching profession result in fewer qualified and experienced teachers of color, while students of color are more likely to be in classrooms taught by underqualified teachers.
“What does it mean if we keep sending less prepared teachers to less resourced schools?” Matthews said. “There’s no additional pay, just additional heartache and struggle for teachers.”
At Los Angeles Unified, the largest district in the state, the 10 schools with the greatest share of low-income students reported 76.3% of classes were taught by fully credentialed teachers. At the 10 schools with the smallest percentages of low-income students, 98% were taught by fully credentialed teachers. Los Angeles Unified spokesperson Shannon Haber said the district is working to address these disparities for the upcoming school year.
The disparities at the state’s largest school districts are the product of historical underfunding of public education as well as a system of teacher preparation that presents barriers to aspiring educators who come from low-income backgrounds, Matthews said. The credentialing process includes being a student teacher, which means working without pay to fulfill the teaching hours required. Additionally, the relatively low teacher salaries compared to those of other college-educated professionals can deter prospective teachers.
The state data, released for the first time, isn’t a perfect snapshot of teacher qualifications or experience. Statewide, credentialing data was missing for the teachers who teach about 7% of public school classes.
“From my understanding, there could have been a transition from one teacher to another or a mid-year resignation,” said Funchess, the human resources director at San Bernardino City Unified. “It’s just a matter of not having all the information.”
Officials at San Juan Unified in Sacramento County contested the data published by the state. According to the data, 75% of classes in schools with the highest rates of low-income students were taught by teachers with more than two years of experience. At schools with lowest rates of low-income students, 92% of classes were taught by experienced teachers.
However, San Juan Unified spokesperson Raj Rai said the district’s own data shows some of the schools actually have higher percentages of experienced teachers. Rai said the district would work with the state to address the discrepancy.
In at least one case, the percentage of classes taught by inexperienced teachers doesn’t match the percentage of inexperienced teachers at a district. At Long Beach Unified, the state’s data shows that 80% of the classes at the district’s 10 highest-poverty schools are taught by teachers with more than two years of experience. However, the district’s own report shows about 94% of teachers at those schools have more than two years of experience.
Despite problems with the data for some districts, experts like Matthews say this data collection will help policymakers allocate funding more equitably.
“I think we need to get serious about resources,” she said. “How much longer are we going to ask these schools that serve a majority of students of color to make do?”
AN OLD STORY
California’s low-income students have long been less likely to have fully qualified teachers. A 1999 study conducted by The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning found that “More than 1 in every 10 classrooms in the state are
staffed by teachers who have not met the state’s minimum requirements.” The study also found that a student in a school with a large percentage of low-income students was six times as likely to have a teacher without the proper credentials. Twenty-two years later, about 17% of classes in public schools are taught by teachers with less than full credentials, according to the state data from the 2020-21 school year.
Many experts arrive at the same explanation for the disparities: an historically uneven distribution of funding. For years, schools serving more low-income families received less money because the property taxes in their communities generated less revenue.
Today, California distributes money more equitably to public school districts. Under the state’s Local Control Funding Formula, schools with more English learners, foster children and students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals generate more money for their districts.
But experts say this aspirationally equitable method of funding is often offset by other costs at schools serving low-income communities. Schools in these neighborhoods are more likely to be older and require more repairs, said Saroja Warner, director for talent development and diversity at the research nonprofit WestEd. These communities also may be food deserts and tend to have fewer public libraries.
“It’s sort of this perfect storm in high-poverty communities,” Warner said. “Teachers are another thing they don’t have access to.”
Kristin Bijur, who oversees human resources at San Francisco Unified, said private fundraising in her district allows schools in affluent communities to fund their own teacher salaries. Those schools can hire more teachers and reduce class sizes. Schools in low-income neighborhoods, on the other hand, struggle to hire and retain qualified and experienced teachers despite getting additional state funding and federal Title I money for low-income students.
“The amount of private fundraising in San Francisco is a huge problem,” Bijur said. “That erases the strategy of Title I, which is an attempt to reckon with systemic racism.”
Additionally, class sizes are set without considering that students in low-income communities, who tend to struggle more with food and housing insecurities as well as other traumas outside their classrooms, might need more individualized attention.
“Right now we’re applying the same staffing ratio to all the schools,” Bijur said. “We haven’t yet changed the conditions of teaching in high-poverty schools, which in the Bay Area tend to be schools with high numbers of Black and brown students.”
STUDENTS AND TEACHERS OF COLOR LOSE
Matthews, the UCLA expert, said a preliminary study conducted by her team shows that teachers without full credentials are more likely to be people of color. They are often stuck in the credentialing pipeline because they can’t afford to take an unpaid year to work as a teacher-in-training.
“Getting a teaching credential is expensive,” Matthews said. “Not only are students of color receiving less, but the teachers who are getting less than stellar credentials are teachers of color.”
In rural districts, Matthews said, the lack of nearby colleges and universities to recruit from results in a labor shortage for schools. And while some districts have the marketing budgets to hold teacher hiring fairs, others are stuck in these “pipeline deserts.”
“These are counties where there isn’t a teacher preparation program in a 50-mile radius,” she said. “You don’t even have the pipeline that’s being generated there. It’s almost impossible to get teachers to go to these areas that aren’t their hometowns.”
According to the CalMatters analysis, rural and smaller school districts had a disproportionate percentage of teachers with substandard credentials and less experience. While 83% of classes statewide were taught by fully credentialed teachers, that was the case for only 77% of classes at California’s smallest districts. And 90% of classes statewide were taught by teachers with more than two years of experience compared to 82% at small, rural districts.
Linda Darling-Hammond, the president of California’s State Board of Education and CEO of the education research center the Learning Policy Institute, said research shows that a fully credentialed teacher is the biggest factor contributing to student success. But keeping qualified and experienced teachers at the schools that need them most, she said, means creating working conditions that entice educators. Compensation is the most obvious way to keep teachers, she said.
“First, I would make sure teacher salaries were comparable to other professions that have college degrees,” Darling-Hammond said. “Teachers are on average paid 85% of what their college-educated peers make.”
Teachers union leaders said beyond compensation, districts need to reduce class sizes and make sure principals and administrators are supporting teachers to retain quality educators.
“What is the promise once they get here?” said Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, Los Angeles Unified’s teachers union. “Are we willing to lower class sizes? Are we willing to give them the professional development they need?”
But Myart-Cruz said she does not want raises or bonuses for just the teachers who work at schools with high rates of low-income students. She wants an overall increase in teacher pay and smaller class sizes across the district.
Ashley Alcalá, the president of the San Bernardino City Unified School District’s teachers union, also said she wants to see pay raises across the district. In San Bernardino, nearly all of the schools have a majority of students who are low-income.
“When the majority of schools are high poverty, it doesn’t really make a difference where you’re teaching,” she said. “We’re going to be competing with surrounding districts if we don’t raise the salaries for everyone.”
Alcalá said the state data only tells half the story. She said while more experienced teachers tend to be more effective educators, she said newly credentialed teachers might also bring more enthusiasm and a willingness to try new methods.
“It’s frustrating,” Alcalá said. “If you have the right working conditions then people will stay. If you have an administrator who supports their employees and a school that has a culture that has a positive working environment, then people will choose to stay.”
Myart-Cruz and Alcalá say you can’t just target high-poverty schools with more money. They say the state needs to fix the entire education system.
“When you do surveys, it’s not the money that keeps teachers at a school,” Alcalá said. “It’s the culture, and it’s the administrators that teachers are drawn to.”
The state in recent years has funneled billions of dollars into addressing the teacher shortage. The most recent effort has been the Golden State Teacher Grant Program, which gives college students $20,000 in grants if they commit to teaching for four years at a school where at least 55% of students are English learners, foster children or students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals.
Darling-Hammond said she’s hopeful about the grant, saying four years is enough time for teachers to get invested and stay in their school communities as long as they receive the compensation and training they need from their school and district leaders.
Teachers union leaders agree with experts that compensation and smaller class sizes help attract and retain fully credentialed teachers. But building a healthy and stimulating environment for both students and teachers will make a school a more enjoyable place to work and to learn. This means hiring more mental health counselors as well as more art and drama teachers.
“The whole system is broken in its design,” Myart-Cruz said. “I want to see a holistic solution.”
CalMatters Reporter Jeremia Kimelman contributed to this report.
YOSVANY TERRY QUARTET Saxophone prodigy Yosvany Terry dazzles listeners with his latest, Ancestral Memories, an effortlessly absorbing 10-track suite. The Cuba native melds inspiration from Africa and France with a killer modern jazz ensemble. Yosvany co-leads the quartet with genius French pianist Baptiste Trotignon, his brother Yunior on contrabass and Jeff “Tain” Watts on trap set. $36.76/$42; $21 students. Thursday, July 21, 7pm. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. kuumbwajazz.org.
PACIFIC ROOTS Following several years on the scene, the Santa Cruz-based reggae rockers regrouped with a new lineup and returned to their roots in 2019. The band is dedicated to delivering a mix of punk, rock, ska and reggae that channels the California vibe ignited by Sublime more than two decades earlier. Boardwalk shows are on the Colonnade Stage, located on the beachside of Neptune’s Kingdom—the dance area is in front of the stage. Free. Thursday, July 21, 8:30pm. The Colonnade at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, 400 Beach St., Santa Cruz. (Free Movie at the Beach features Ghostbusters: Afterlife on Friday, July 22, 9pm). beachboardwalk.com.
‘CANDIDE!’ A score by the incomparable Leonard Bernstein and lyrical contributions from the subversive and legendary Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler’s book is transformed into a fast-paced musical centered around Candide. “The bastard cousin of Baron Thunder-Ten-Tonck” is expelled from home, dragged into the Bulgarian army, brought before the Spanish Inquisition, swindled out of a fortune, shipwrecked on a desert isle and separated from his true love, Cunegonde. $25-60. Thursday, July 21-Saturday, July 23, 7:30pm; Sunday, July 24, 2pm (runs through Sunday, Aug. 14). Cabrillo Crocker Theater, 6500 Soquel Drive, Aptos. cabrillostage.universitytickets.com.
JESSE COLIN YOUNG In support of his recently released Highway Troubadour, singer-songwriter Jesse Colin Young—the Youngbloods’ founding frontman—has been delivering intimate acoustic shows all over the country on his “Highway TroubadourTour.” At 80 years old, the longtime musician continues to showcase his powerful tenor vocals and skillful fingerpicking on newly recorded solo performances of tunes spanning Young’s entire catalog, including an altered take on the Youngbloods classic “Sugar Babe” and a stripped-down rendition of Dreamers’ “Cast a Stone.” Of course, the popular sing-a-long “Get Together” endures as one of the most inspirational hits to come out of the sixties. $33/$48 plus fees. Friday, July 22, 8pm. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. riotheatre.com.
WAVVES WITH BOYO AND SMUT Wavves broke big with 2010’s King of the Beach, the outfit’s third record—it made several lists, including Pitchfork’s “Top 50 Albums of 2010.” The unpolished hook-laden garage rock nuggets in the vein of Dookie-era Green Day explode with an I-don’t-care attitude, and the outfit’s unpredictable and talented frontman Nathan Williams has helped propel the band to one of the most popular indie acts of the last decade. The San Diego rockers recently celebrated the LP’s 10th anniversary. $22/$25 plus fees. Friday, July 22, 9pm. Catalyst Atrium, 1101 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. catalystclub.com.
‘TWELFTH NIGHT’ Directed by Paul Mullins, director of The Agitators, Pride and Prejudice, Love’s Labours Lost, The 39 Steps and Hamlet, Twelfth Night is the story of Viola, physically and emotionally shipwrecked, along with a group of others. “Stuck in old ideas of love and grief that have grown so stale as to become something else entirely, the world of Illyria is shocked from winter into springtime by the passions of young Viola, who disguises herself as a man to survive.”Friday, July 22, 8pm and Saturday, July 23, 2pm. Visit santacruzshakespeare.org for more information about Santa Cruz Shakespeare.
THE CALIFORNIA HONEYDROPS WITH PAPIBA AND FRIENDS Guided by vibrant multi-instrumental talent Lech Wierzynski, the California Honeydrops have been delivering a mixed salad of R&B, funk, soul, blues and just about every other musical genre since 2007. The Bay Area collective’s live shows are more like epic dance parties than concerts. To celebrate their anniversary and return to live performances, the Honeydrops released Covers from the Cave, a unique series collection album featuring, well, covers of their favorite songs. Meanwhile, their Lil Bit of Lovin’ Tour 2022 is a hyperactive spectacle full of all the pent-up energy from the forced two-year hiatus. $45/$49 plus fees. Friday, July 22 and Saturday, July 23, 8pm. Felton Music Hall, 6275 Highway 9, Felton. feltonmusichall.com.
CABRILLO FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC Dubbed “Music of our time, for our time,” the special two-week event returns to live performances at the Civic Auditorium and additional venues throughout the county. Visit cabrillomusic.org for more information about the event. Sunday, July 24-Sunday, Aug. 7.
COMMUNITY
ANIMAL SHELTER SHOWCASES NEW SPACES The Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter is inviting the public to visit the new cat and rabbit spaces at the shelter, 1001 Rodriguez St. in Santa Cruz. On July 29, between 5-6pm, visit the shelter for “Bedtime Stories with Shelter Animals.” The public is encouraged to bring their favorite book and visit the shelter to read to the dogs, cats and rabbits. On July 30, all shelter animals will be available for a “Pay it Forward” adoption donation of adopters’ choice. The suggested donation is between $20-$200 and adopters can select a fund for their donation to go to: Planned Pethood Fund (low cost/free spay/neuter) or Extra Mile Fund (specialty lifesaving procedures for homeless animals).
SECOND HARVEST’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY To mark 50 years of serving Santa Cruz County, the dinner will host local and national speakers commemorating outgoing CEO Willy Elliot-McCrea’s 44-year tenure. The event is open to the community. $50. Thursday, July 21, 4:30-10:30pm. Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds, 2601 East Lake Ave., Watsonville. su*****@*********nk.org.
LET’S TALK ABOUT IT An interactive event designed to bring people together for conversations based on curiosity and to connect across differences, “Let’s Talk About It: Finding Common Threads Through Conversation” is co-hosted by CRC and The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. Dialogues cover a wide range of identities and experiences. People of misunderstood and marginalized religious identities, police officers, activists and people experiencing homelessness. The two people share a conversation that fosters empathy and understanding. Free. Sunday, July 23, 2pm. Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, 705 Front St., Santa Cruz. santacruzmah.org.
GROUPS
TODDLER STORYTIME The weekly bilingual program—in-person—includes sing-alongs, nursery rhymes and books that foster early literacy. Free. Wednesday, July 20, 11:30am-12:30pm. Freedom Branch Library (Meeting Room), 2021 Freedom Blvd., Watsonville. cityofwatsonville.org.
OUTDOORS
SANTA CRUZ SANDHILLS TOUR Experience Santa Cruz’s most sensitive ecosystem, the sandhills, during a two-mile guided walk. Learn about the habitat’s formation and the unique plants and animals adapted to the area. Meet at the campground amphitheater off Graham Hill Road and journey through a breathtaking setting in the mountains. Free ($10/daily use parking fee). Sunday, July 24, 9-11am. Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, 101 North Big Trees Park Road, Felton. thatsmypark.org.
Email upcoming events to Adam Josephat least two weeks beforehand.
True love is the stuff of fairytales. Everybody longs for it, some even find it. But does it happen by magic? By sheer animal magnetism? Kathryn Chetkovich’s ingenious new play The Formula asks as many questions as it answers, before toppling each one of them—leaving only the most unexpected conclusion. The Formula showcases a moment in the lives of seven people and a rogue science experiment, when romantic chaos breaks out at the wedding party they attend. Hilarious results and radical transformations erupt. In short, it is a perfect play. More than that, it is a captivating work of performance art receiving its world premiere this season at Santa Cruz Shakespeare.
Local playwright Kathryn Chetkovich has given us a shiny new vehicle for probing the human longing for true romance, searching for “the one” destined to be our perfect mate. Challenging our myths about desire and mating, Chetkovich writes through the timeless lens of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which the accidental slip of Puck’s magic elixir joins together two highly unlikely characters. Shakespeare had magic. Chetkovich has the Formula, a synthesized substance undergoing clinical trials by researchers Suzy (Allie Pratt) and her lab partner Dean (M.L. Roberts). It’s called “the most significant neuro-pharmacological breakthrough of our lifetime!” One spray of this stuff, and the subject will fall in love with the next person they see. Yes, just like Titania and her braying paramour.
It’s the eve of Suzy’s wedding to Dean’s brother Patrick (Christopher Silvestri), and she doesn’t yet realize what we in the audience already sense—that Dean is also in love with Suzy. Dean is a brilliant, methodical scientist. Patrick, “the human equivalent of a golden labrador,” is handsome, simple and generically perfect. Suzy gets jittery. Who hasn’t had self-doubts and jangling nerves the night before their wedding? As guests gather for the wedding, attitudes are unleashed. And the couples we meet all scrutinize the wisdom of their choices, past and future.
Suzy’s father Jack (Dion Graham) brings his girlfriend Gina (Paige Lindsey White), much to the mocking disapproval of Suzy’s mother Miranda (Maggie Bofill). Patrick’s father Francis (Ward Duffy) brings his dead wife’s ashes and a kilt to wear for post-nuptial dancing. As you’ve already guessed, a sample spray bottle of the Formula somehow gets loose and new infatuations erupt like TikTok videos. The scramble to examine, reverse or accept the fallout of the chemical manipulation forms the heart of this brilliant, sophisticated play. Think of it as a dazzling sit-com of errors, with topnotes of psycho-hysteria and undertones of sweet humanity. Seinfeld meets Shakespeare after shaking hands with Dr. Frankenstein, and a few drinks with Nora Ephron.
From the flawless opening to its upstart ending two hours later, The Formula takes us through an explosion of epiphanies. Chetkovich is a detail genius, noticing the granular minutiae of sexual attraction, and the myriad pitfalls of diminishing desire. No doubt you’ll find yourself in her well-polished mirror.
White, a stunning veteran of SCS seasons past, gives a powerhouse performance as Gina, the father-of-the-bride’s new girlfriend, riddled with doubts about her life choices. A stunning actor, White wields an appealing stage presence, capable of intense introspection as well as robust physical dexterity. As the mother-of-the-bride—world-weary and so over the entire idea of marriage—Bofill has some choice asides, as well as some of costumer Nikki Delhomme’s brightest fashion statements. Wonderful costuming throughout! Special applause goes to scenic designer Dipu Gupta, whose spare, sly set serves every inch of this seductive play. Ditto the lighting perfection designed by Kent Dorsey.
As Suzy, the bride-to-be in the center of the formula-driven whirlwind, Pratt is a delightful and anxious bundle of doubts. Her energized performance powers each scene into emotional quicksand—Elaine in Seinfeld comes to mind. So strong and confident are all the female actors—and characters—in this production, that the men tend to recede by comparison. Duffy in full kilt mode is an exception. Like every newborn, The Formula will naturally continue finetuning in vocal technique and timing. But even on its opening night, the production soared and sparkled, bringing the audience to its feet, applauding and cheering its approval. In league with her co-conspirator and director Ellen Maguire, Kathryn Chetkovich has devised a challenge to our socially conditioned fantasies, while deftly navigating the crazy mysteries of being human.
The Formula is also something we don’t have any right to expect: an original work of theatrical art. No higher praise. A play is born twice; once in the mind of its author, and again as it’s brought to life in performance. What a gift it is to watch a new creation spring from the imagination onto the stage. The Formula is a bracing start to the Santa Cruz Shakespeare season, and guaranteed to shake up your pet theories about love.
“The Formula,” written by Kathryn Chetkovich and directed by Ellen Maguire, runs in repertory with “Twelfth Night” and “The Tempest” through August 28 at the Audrey Stanley Grove at DeLaveaga Park, 501 Upper Park Road, Santa Cruz. santacruzshakespeare.org.
Good Times, please correct the record of your coverage of the proposed Empty Home Tax last week (GT, 7/6). First, it’s not about “second empty vacation rentals,” as your writer stated. 3.38.040 of the proposed law on the November ballot explicitly exempts property registered under the Santa Cruz short-term rental ordinance.
Another mistake was this statement “Those hefty expenses include a budget of $65,000 to build a web portal for landlords.” Read the proposed law. It affects every homeowner in the city. Every homeowner will have to provide documentation to prove they were home enough, every year. Describing this as a law primarily affecting landlords is incorrect.
If the empty homes tax passes in November, the city will be monitoring every homeowner, every year, to make sure they are home enough. The effort to identify a handful of second homeowners will require every homeowner in the city to comply with a law that imposes civil and criminal penalties for missing documentation. It’s not a “landlord portal,” it requires every homeowner to submit personal documentation, every year, subject to random audits.
Lynn Renshaw
Santa Cruz Together
Aiyana Moya responds: The tax would not apply to 291 units registered under the Santa Cruz short-term rentals ordinance, for which taxes and fees are already being paid to the city, but will apply to Airbnbs that are unoccupied for 120 days per year. The web portal would require homeowners to submit an affidavit form answering yes or no to the question: “Has your property been in use for at least 120 days the previous calendar year?” No further documentation will be required.
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Growing up in the ’80s, NorCal bands opened my tiny teenage brain to sounds I’d never imagined. From Camper Van Beethoven and Spot 1019 in Santa Cruz to Dead Kennedys and Flipper in San Francisco to Negativland in Concord, I dove headfirst into some pretty out-there stuff. But El Sobrante, just a few miles away from Negativland’s hometown in Contra Costa County, produced one band I was not prepared for: Primus. By the time I was at UCSC in the early ’90s, their posters were pinned up in dorm rooms across campus, but I just could not wrap my head around their music. And Les Claypool, the mad bassist at the center of the band, seemed like an absolute maniac.
When I got a little older and made my way through the Parliament-Funkadelic catalogue, Primus started to make a lot more sense. I also began to understand just how talented Claypool really is—this is a man who was turned down after auditioning for the bassist gig in Metallica because he was too good.
As you’ll discover when you read Adam Joseph’s cover story this week, Claypool is a maniac, but mainly about music. The guy has such a passion for what he does that one band alone can’t contain it, which is why he’s had so many side projects over the years. (The latest of these, Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz, comes to the Rio on July 31.) So sail the sea of cheese with us this week, and thanks for reading!
STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ONLINE COMMENTS
Re: Sanctuary Anniversary
Many people do not know that the MBNMS boundary is the “mean high tide line” of the beaches of Santa Cruz County. Therefore, shorebirds resting and feeding along the shore are also protected by Sanctuary policies. Unfortunately, dog owners allow their dogs to run off lease and chase feeding birds, which stresses the birds, many migrating, who need rest and continual feeding for their long journeys. I hope readers of your excellent article, who have dogs, will allow Sanctuary birds the ability to feed and rest along the shore by keeping their dogs leashed.
— Jean Brocklebank
Re: Empty Home Tax
As a renter and fifth-generation Central Coast resident who would like to continue to live and work in the area, I definitely like the idea of a tax that’s high enough to make having a second home unfashionable. But I worry it wouldn’t, in which case, Santa Cruz still doesn’t have a lot of land for new buildings except for ADUs in people’s backyards. Let’s definitely make that easy and fashionable! I also wonder how such a tax would apply to people who don’t live in their homes but buy them for Airbnbs; companies like Pacaso, which some neighboring counties are fighting, trying to swoop in and create a market for new second home owners with homes essentially bought as timeshares; as well as people like the lovely lady who’s trying to move a violent sexual predator into her huge Bonny Doon second home (next door to a bunch of teenage girls) because California is willing to pay the exorbitant $6.5K monthly rent she’s asking. Would there be loopholes which these types of people and companies could use to still screw over local renters?
— Laurel
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
WEED LIKE TO SIT HERE Near the Visitors Center at Elkhorn Slough. Photograph by Ali Eppy.
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GOOD IDEA
OAXACAN DELIGHT
This Thursday, enjoy some of the “Traditional Foods of Oaxaca” at an event of the same name featuring chef Doña Lorenza, who will give a cooking demonstration and tasting at the Midtown Parking Lot at Cayuga Street and Soquel Avenue, 6-7:30pm. Mole and tejate, two staples of Oaxacan cuisine, are on the menu. For those who don’t know, mole is a spicy, smokey and earthy-sweet sauce, and tejate is a delicious corn and cacao beverage. The event is put on by local nonprofit Senderos, which aims to foster Latino culture in our community. scsenderos.org.
GOOD WORK
SPRAY WATCH
Watsonville’s residents can now sign up to receive alerts when dangerous agricultural chemicals will be sprayed in fields nearby. Santa Cruz is one of four counties taking part in this pilot notification program that gives locals the option to sign up for notifications of planned pesticide spraying. The notification system is part of the state’s long-term goal of alerting communities before pesticide applications occur, which California plans on rolling out in 2024, state officials say. agdept.com.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?”
“Is Primus a weird band?” is one of the top questions regularly asked about the longtime alt-rock trio, according to Google.
Who’s to say what “weird” means these days? Primus founder Les Claypool could be considered the ultimate wizard of weird—he looks like a gangly lifelong film school student raised in a commune of rednecks, but he’s also arguably one of the greatest slap bass players ever. He’s on Rolling Stone’s “50 Greatest Bassists of All Time” list, and his variation of thrash-funk playing has been hailed for his innovative treatment of the bass as a lead instrument.
“One of the big things I decided to do when I was starting out was to play with three fingers,” Claypool tells me. “A lot of guys play with two fingers, so I figured if I played with three, I could be faster.”
If you need direct evidence of his talent, check out his manic opening on Primus’ “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver” (Claypool taps the main melody on fretless six-string bass) or his Mach 3-strumming throughout “Pudding Time.”
In addition to his superhuman bass ability, Claypool’s music—a madcap mashup of Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and Parliament Funkadelic swimming in a river of LSD laced with mescaline—is otherworldly, freak-flag-flying experimental funk-rock. The videos Claypool makes are even freakier. “Mr. Krinkle” features the Primus frontman sporting an ominous pig mask as he plays double bass in an abandoned warehouse while a creepy carnival unfolds behind him. The trio dresses like plastic toy cowboys who call themselves “Buck Naked and the Bare Bottom Boys” in “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver.” That’s just the beginning of a lot of strange material.
Whatever twisted psychedelic hillbilly dimension he guides listeners—and viewers—into, one thing that’s remained consistent throughout the last four decades: Claypool is in perpetual motion. He is one of the most prolific artists on the planet. In addition to Primus, Claypool’s short and long-lived list of side projects, including jam band supergroups like Oysterhead (with Phish frontman Trey Anastasio), Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains (featuring guitarist extraordinaire Buckethead) and the Phil Zone (with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh), continues to grow.
In 2021, Primus kicked off a 46-date tour performing Rush’s seminal A Farewell to Kings in its entirety. Claypool even garnered approval from the members of Rush—including bassist Geddy Lee, who also appears on the “Top 50 Bassist” list.
“I really got off on watching how [Claypool] approached the instrument,” Lee told Rolling Stone. “He used to say to me, ‘You’re a big influence on me,’ but he’s got his own style. He has a sense of rhythm that I [find] very appealing.”
This year is gearing up to be a Claypool whirlwind of project after project. Primus released a new EP, Conspiranoid, centered around an 11-minute tune. He put together another supergroup to record one song to raise money for the people of Ukraine a day after Russia invaded the country. Primus is performing the South Park (Claypool penned the show’s opening theme song) 25th Anniversary Concert at Red Rocks with Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Ween. In addition to more “Primus: A Tribute to Kings 2022” shows, Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz, yet another Claypool supergroup, set off on a special tour that begins this week and goes through the first week of August—including a show July 31 at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz.
The guy is so goddamn busy that our interview had to be rescheduled five times. After reading, you will concur: It was well worth the effort.
Since 1986, Les Claypool (left) has released more than 30 albums between Primus and his various side projects. He brings Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz to the Rio on Sunday, July 31.
Where are you right now?
LES CLAYPOOL: Saskatoon, Canada.
Let’s start with wieners—specifically, Whamola Wieners, now sold at Claypool Cellars [also known as Pachyderm Station], your winery in Sebastopol, California. What inspired you to begin serving gourmet hot dogs?
During Covid, you couldn’t have a tasting room open in Sonoma County unless you had food service. I started looking at taco carts, food trucks and whatnot, and I stumbled across this 20-foot fiberglass hotdog trailer. I got on Craigslist and found one in San Diego, so I bought it; we started serving the gourmet franks at our tasting room for special events. It’s sort of evolved into a pretty cool thing. My daughter was running it at first, but it’s just grown into this wonderful little sideshow at our tasting room.
It’s only natural that we move from wieners to balls. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, you released the single, “Zelensky: The Man with the Iron Balls”—all proceeds of the track benefit Nova Ukraine, a nonprofit that provides humanitarian relief to the people of Ukraine. You collaborated with Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hütz and Sergey Ryabtsev, the Police’s Stewart Copeland, Sean Lennon and Billy Strings. How did the project come together?
I was in the middle of four different recording projects. I had zero time, energy or inclination to do any of this. I was hanging out with some friends from Poland on February 24, the night of the invasion—two of them were actually in the U.S. on vacation with their family and were getting ready to head back to their home in Poland, which is like 50 miles from Ukraine—and they were flipping out. We started commiserating, drinking some vodka, and I ended up texting with Eugene [Hütz] to get his perspective on things; he’s got family [in Ukraine]—he’s been coordinating getting food and lodging and whatnot for all his people. We just got to talking, and we were very impressed by the fortitude of Mr. Zelensky. It led to this notion of “he’s got balls of steel,” which led to “The Man with the Iron Balls.” Then I put the word out. We didn’t have much time, so we did it quickly. Sean Lennon is a buddy of mine, and we have [the Claypool Lennon Delirium] project together, so he jumped on board, and Stewart Copeland got on board. Of course, Eugene and Sergey [Ryabtsev] jumped on board, and Billy [Strings] and I have been working on a recording project, so he jumped on board. It all just fell together. [The song] is not a condemnation of anybody; it’s more about pointing out the fortitude, bravery and quality of this leadership I haven’t seen in my tenure on the planet. I would assume [Zelensky] is gonna go down in history as a Patrick Henry-type picture. As opposed to hopping on a helicopter and flying to some golf course to wait out the hostilities, he hunkered down and said, ‘I need weapons, not a ride!’ That’s an amazing thing. I have all these friends that are directly affected by what’s going on over there. [The song] was something that needed to be done.
Primus’ tribute to Rush’s ‘A Farewell to Kings’ has taken on a life of its own. Rush’s bandmembers have even given you props. What inspired you to take on that project?
Rush was my world when I was first starting to play when I was a teenager. They got me into doing what I do. So obviously, as you move through life, you acquire other influences and whatnot. But as far as what got me started [as a musician], it was definitely Rush. I could speak for the other two guys [Larry LaLonde and Tim Alexander] in the band, as well. We’ve always joked, “Hey, we should go out and do Rush’s Hemispheres in its entirety.” We’ve done these conceptual projects on tour before—I did Pink Floyd’s Animals years ago with [the Les Claypool Frog Brigade]. Then we thought, “Well, maybe we should do something like Hemispheres”—this was a few years ago when Neil [Peart] was still on the planet. We thought, “We can’t do Hemispheres or 2112 because they’re too obvious. And Moving Pictures would also be too obvious. So, we said, “Let’s do A Farewell to Kings.”
We’re in Canada right now playing the Rush album, and people are flipping out. We even got to play A Farewell to Kings for [Rush’s] Geddy [Lee] and Alex [Lifeson] in Toronto a couple of weeks ago.
It’s been an amazing thing, and it’s been great for the band because we actually had to rehearse. We’re lazy bastards [in Primus]; we very rarely rehearse. But we had to buckle down and learn this stuff—you can’t fake Rush. You gotta do it right. It was a good bonding experience for the three of us, and it also led to these new compositions on the [EP] that we just released. Learning A Farewell to Kings for the [tour] was therapeutic for us, and it continues to be.
Since Rush is a Canadian band, has the show been received differently by audiences in Canada compared to the U.S.?
I think Rush fans are just Rush fans. They’re like Trekkies. They’re very devoted, very knowledgeable and very scrutinizing. When we toured with [Rush in 1992], they were amazing to us. Once, I talked Geddy and Alex into bringing the Melvins out to open for them on one of their tours, and it just shocked the shit out of all the Rush fans. I remember being at the Cow Palace and watching the Melvins melt all these people. The [fans] were all very polite about it, but you could tell it was not the band of choice for them to be experiencing.
You said that Primus rehearsals are very loose, so how did you and the other band members switch gears while prepping for ‘A Farewell to Kings?’
I’ve rehearsed many things a lot. When I do an Oysterhead project with [Phish’s Trey Anastasio], we have to rehearse. When we do the [Lennon Claypool] Delirium with Sean [Lennon], Sean likes to rehearse. When “rehearsing” Primus material, we tend not to [rehearse]. It’s always been a very rare thing for us. But obviously, when I did [Pink Floyd’s] Animals in its entirety years ago with the Frog Brigade, we had to rehearse our asses off, so I don’t object or deter from rehearsing. When Primus gets together, we jam it out a little bit—play some of the old tunes, but we just get it. The songs are ingrained in us. We’ve played them for so long that it’s almost a muscle memory. When we took on the Rush thing, we had to really hunker down because that shit is hard.
Primus has been on tour this year covering Rush’s “A Tribute to Kings” album. The vinyl version of their latest EP, “Conspiranoid,” comes out Aug. 5. PHOTO: Randy Johnson
I read that sometimes you use your son Cage as a sounding board, and he offered you advice about the Rush tunes that you struggled with as far as recreating Geddy’s extremely challenging vocal range.
Geddy Lee is way up in the ultra-stratosphere with his vocals. It’s all difficult. But yeah, [Cage] basically just said, “It sounds great, but you should sing [the Rush songs] the way you would sing them. Don’t try to sing like Geddy, because it’s up there.” But some Primus songs are up there too. At the end of [Rush’s] “Cygnus,” there’s a really high part, and I just put on my “Sgt. Baker” voice, which is a Primus song that has vocals that are kind of up there—I just go into that character. It’s a good combination of my approach and paying homage to Geddy’s [approach]. But even Geddy says he can’t believe how high he sang this stuff back in the day. He can’t do it anymore.
Your son is working on a Primus documentary, correct?
Yes. He’s a fledgling filmmaker. He’s directing the Primus documentary; he’s gone through something like 760 video cassettes of old footage. He’s made a couple of little short films, and he’s done a lot of visuals for us and a lot of visuals for the Rush material and [Primus’] “Conspiranoia” video. He’s working on a “Follow the Fool” video right now.
Your latest project, Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz, features an incredible lineup of musicians. From the live performances on YouTube, it’s evident that the four of you gel incredibly. How did the group initially materialize?
Mike [Dillon] and I were in Frog Brigade for years, and I’ve known Stanton [Moore] for a long time, though we haven’t ever done a project together. I initially did Bastard Jazz for the comedy festival up in San Francisco [Clusterfest]. They asked me to put together a project, and I said, “I want to do an all-improv thing. I’m just going to call it ‘Bastard Jazz.’ I’m just going to get a bunch of guys together, and we’re going to walk on stage not knowing anything about what we’re going to do—no rehearsals, no nothing—and just start jamming.” And we did. It’s pretty much the same lineup. I just have Stanton Moore on drums now. We just go on stage and start having a musical conversation without any preconceived notions.
Everyone also has a great time performing, translating to the audience’s energy.
I love playing with guys of this caliber who can just freeform, and dance on the edge of disaster. I feel like I have an amazing safety net. I mean, my amps can completely blow up, or I could fall off the stage or have a stroke or whatever the hell it is, and the show could go on, and it would still be amazing. These guys are all monsters. They’re virtuosos. It’s a very comfortable shoe.
Will there be a Bastard Jazz album sometime in the future?
I don’t know. We have been recording shows. We’ll look into it when we’re done [touring]. Right now, it’s a very casual thing. There is no preconceived anything. Even with the tour, I asked our manager to book a few shows, and suddenly we had a full-on tour. I was like, “What the hell happened?”
Meanwhile, Primus has recently released new material, including the 11-plus minute suite, “Conspiranoia,” featured on the Conspiranoid EP. How did it come together?
We initially wanted to do a 20-minute song, but we fell short. We ended up with 11-and-a-half minutes. I knew we were going back out on tour, and we’ve been playing so much and rehearsing so much; we were just this finely honed machine. We thought, “Well, let’s come up with some new material.” But we didn’t want to do a whole album. I said, “Let’s do a 20-minute song.” I had this idea for “Conspiranoia,” and I laid out an arrangement and had the vocals. Then we all fleshed out our parts, and we had this 11-and-a-half-minute song, so we needed two B-sides—it turns out that you need two B-sides to fit for vinyl; otherwise, you have this big empty space. So, we did two B-sides, which technically makes it an EP.
Is there something creatively that you haven’t done but have always wanted to do?
I’ve always yearned to be a filmmaker. I’ve written a bunch of screenplays, and I have directed a lot of videos—I also did a little mockumentary—but I’m kind of running out of energy for that. My son is taking up those reigns. We’ve been working on some projects, and we’ve been trying to breathe life back into some older stuff. The Pumphouse project, which is the screenplay that I’ve written, is now a novel in its seventh or eighth printing, I believe. It’s very relevant, and it’s very caustic. I’d like to get something like that going at some point, but you never know. I keep meeting amazing musicians like Billy [Strings] that I want to work with. So that’s what I do.
Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz performs Sunday, July 31 at 8pm. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $40/$50 plus fees. folkyeah.com.
If you or someone in your life needs an ego check, pick up a grain of sand and hold it up to the sky at arm’s length. That grain of sand covers about the same amount of sky as the James Webb Space Telescope’s First Deep Field image. In just this tiny speck of space, Webb revealed thousands of galaxies—each containing millions to billions of stars.
NASA unveiled the first images from JWST last week, showing the universe in a new light.
At 2,000 light-years away, the Southern Ring Nebula comes into focus. Webb’s image shows the dust and gas spit out from a dying star.
In the “cosmic cliffs” of the Carina Nebula 7,500 light-years away, gas and dust form new stars.
Moving deeper into the universe, an image of Stephans Quintet shows the merging of four galaxies 300 million light-years away, and a closer galaxy in the foreground. (Closer but not close. The foreground, in this case, is still 40 million light-years away.)
The First Deep Field shows distant galaxies and light that traveled for more than 13 billion years before reaching JWST.
The stunning images are the first results of more than three decades of planning, $10 billion and thousands of engineers and scientists from NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency.
Each new ultra-detailed image creates a frenzy of scientific activity, and UCSC researchers are at the forefront.
Heavenly Launch
“It is truly remarkable that it has come together so well. Everything is working better than we required, and in many cases better than expected,” says UCSC distinguished emeritus professor Garth Illingworth.
Illingworth started working on the project in the 1980s when it was still called the Next Generation Space Telescope. He spoke to Good Times from Baltimore, where he had just come from a meeting in the same auditorium that he attended the first science and engineering meeting for the project in 33 years ago.
Illingworth works as the U.S. lead for the Public Release Imaging for Extragalactic Research (PRIMER). He and colleagues will use Webb to peer back in time and study the formation of some of the earliest galaxies in the universe.
“We’re one of billions of stars in the Milky Way, and that’s one of billions of galaxies,” says Illingworth. “These telescopes are ways for exploring and learning about our origins, about how our planet, our Earth came about, and how the stars are formed.”
JWST captures images in the infrared, outside the range of light our eyes can see. Young galaxies often appear bluish, but as light travels through space and the universe expands, the wavelengths stretch and become redder.
By the time the light from the earliest galaxies has traveled for billions of years and reaches our solar system, it can appear infrared.
To photograph the universe in this range of light, Webb flew to a stable gravitational point a million miles from Earth and delicately unfolded a sunshield the size of a tennis court to block nearby light and keep its sensitive instruments a frigid -370 degrees F.
“It was a stunningly flawless, great launch,” says Illingworth.
The rocket, launched by the European Space Agency, placed the telescope on the exact path at almost exactly the right velocity and used very little fuel.
“So, in fact, the mission life, instead of being the really minimal five years or even the goal of 10 years, is now more than 20 years,” says Illingworth. “Other things may go wrong in that time, but we’re not going to have a problem with running out of fuel unless something weird happens with the propulsion system.”
After a successful launch, the telescope meticulously unfolded over the course of one, nail-biting month.
“Every one of those really scary deployments—particularly the sunshield—worked absolutely beautifully,” says Illingworth.
Now, after six months of calibrations, Webb is sending back its first images of the universe, and they’re like nothing astronomers have seen before.
Seeing Stars
Some of the images can be placed next to those from the Hubble Space Telescope, but it’s difficult to accurately compare the two. Hubble captures images in the range of visible and ultraviolet light from an orbit about 340 miles above the Earth. This makes Hubble data different—and complementary—to Webb’s infrared images from a million miles away.
“When we’ve done back-of-the-envelope calculations, we typically come up with that it’s around 100 times better,” says Illingworth of Webb.
Add to that the fact that JWST is even more sensitive than planned, and you have a lot of data to parse.
The largest of the five public images shows Stephan’s Quintet. Nearly 1,000 images combined to create this mosaic of over 150 million pixels.
“I’ve downloaded hundreds of gigabytes of data already to a local data server,” says UCSC Astrophysicist Brant Robertson.
But the data isn’t just large in quantity. It’s also unique in quality.
“It’s a new set of detectors,” says Robertson. “The cameras are different than we’ve ever had before, so we’re learning anew how to deal with some of the features of the data.”
Robertson works on the steering committee for the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) and the management committee for the COSMOS-Webb survey.
“One of the main points of interest for me is to try to find the most distant galaxies in the universe,” he says. “And JWST newly enables us to do that, because it’s such a sensitive telescope.”
The telescope also uses a technique called gravitational lensing to magnify distant objects. The First Deep Field image has a massive galaxy cluster 4.6 billion light years away at its center. The gravity of the enormous cluster bends space and light around it, working like a magnifying glass.
Distant galaxies behind the cluster appear warped and sometimes doubled in the image.
It took about 12.5 hours for the onboard Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to take the image. The comparable deep field image from Hubble took 500 hours.
Planets Aligning
Webb’s sensitivity allows astronomers like Robertson and Illingworth to cut through the cosmic dust and look back more than 13 billion years at galaxy formations. But it also provides a clearer picture of closer objects.
Natalie Batalha, director of the Astrobiology Initiative at UCSC, will use the data from Webb to study exoplanets. Our galaxy is full of planets orbiting other stars, and Batalha worked on NASA’s Kepler mission to find thousands of them.
Now, she will use JWST to study the diversity of the Milky Way.
Batalha leads the Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Program, which observes planets as they pass in front of stars.
“When the planet is in front of the star, some of the starlight is filtering through the planet’s atmosphere, imparting a chemical fingerprint that we can see,” says Batalha.
Scientists measure the total light of the star before, during and after a planet transits in front of it, and they break the light down into a spectrum that can reveal information about the planet’s atmosphere.
In the first example released last week, JWST captured the signature of water in an exoplanet 1,150 light-years away.
Researchers will look for different molecules in the atmospheres of exoplanets and calculate ratios of atoms.
“Those ratios tell us something really interesting about how the planets formed, how they evolved, what kind of dynamic processes they underwent when they were young,” says Batalha.
The thousands of exoplanets that scientists have identified within our galaxy come in an incredible array of sizes and types.
“We’re starting to understand what drives that diversity, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” says Batalha. “We really want to look at the whole iceberg and understand those processes, because they will impact our understanding of planetary habitability and the propensity for life.”
Batalha says Webb likely won’t be able to detect evidence of life, but it will provide a starting point.
“We will be able to say, ‘Yes, this planet has an atmosphere,’ or ‘No, it likely does not,’” she says.
A New View
Batalha started working in exoplanet research when it first became a field, and the team she collaborates with is enormous.
“The whole week has been a flurry,” she says between pings from a 300-person Slack channel.
“When you all of a sudden gain access to a new marvel of technology that’s going to open up a bottleneck in scientific exploration, there’s usually this frenzy of activity that goes along with it, and sometimes that can be very competitive,” says Batalha.
But so far, Batalha says the environment is one of support.
“There’s something about the teamwork and camaraderie, the intensity of working with other people collaboratively that is unparalleled in our day-to-day lives,” she says. “It makes you see the best of humanity, and it’s uplifting. It makes me hopeful.”
Batalha has one particularly special collaborator: her daughter, Natasha, who researches exoplanets at NASA.
“To be able to share this with her—have her understand exactly what I’m experiencing, and to be able to resonate with it and celebrate it together without having to say anything because it’s a shared experience—that’s really special,” says Batalha.
Whether working on the data or simply stargazing, Batalha and fellow astronomers say people should keep one thing in mind.
“Relish the beauty,” says Batalha. “That’s most important. We live in an amazingly beautiful universe.”
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