More Candidates Surface Ahead of Nov. 8 Election

-

August 2, 2022

More Candidates Surface Ahead of Nov. 8 Election

Two more potential candidates have emerged for the Nov. 8 election, which could see the Santa Cruz City Council welcome two new council members, as well as a directly elected mayor.

Joy Schendledecker pulled papers to run for mayor, while Scott Newsome pulled papers to seek the District 4 city council seat, which will oversee downtown and the Beach Flats and Mission Street neighborhoods when Santa Cruz changes to district elections following the election.

Schendledecker, on her website, says she is a community organizer, artist and parent who lives on the westside. Her website also states that she is a member of the Working Families Party and the local Democratic Socialists of America group. In addition, she is on the organizing committees of Sanitation for the People and Santa Cruz Cares, according to her website.

Newsome is a UCSC lecturer in the political science department and an author who earned his Ph.D. in politics from the school in 2020.

Schendledecker joins former State Assemblymember Fred Keeley, who has also served as Santa Cruz County treasurer and supervisor, in pulling papers to possibly run for the new at-large mayor position. Keeley told GT last week that he has not yet determined if he will run for office.

Newsome, meanwhile, could face off against either Gregory Hyver or Bodie Shargel, a 19-year-old UCSC student who has already qualified for the Nov. 8 ballot, according to the city website.

Candidates have until Aug. 12 to turn in various election department forms to qualify for the ballot.

District 6 is also up for grabs in November, and current councilwoman Renee Golder is the lone person who has been issued candidate nomination papers as of Monday. This district will encompass neighborhoods west of Columbia Street and south of Younglove Avenue and Highway 1, as well as a portion of UCSC.

Along with electing two city councilmembers and an at-large mayor, Santa Cruz voters will also be tasked with deciding whether or not to place a tax on residential properties that are in use for less than 120 days within a calendar year. They will also determine if the city should proceed with plans to redevelop the parking lot on the corner of Cathcart and Cedar streets into a new library complex that would include at least 50 affordable housing units and a parking garage.

Rob Brezsny’s Astrology: Aug. 3-8

Rob Brezsny

-

August 2, 2022

0

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries poet Ada Limón advises us to notice and love “the music of the world.” She says that praising and giving attention to the good things “are as important and necessary as witnessing and naming and holding the grief and sorrow that comes with being alive.” This is always a crucial principle to keep in mind, but it will be extra essential for you in the coming weeks. Your ability to attract the influences and resources you need most will thrive if you focus on and celebrate the music of the world. PS: I encourage you to sing more than usual, too.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Here’s my hope for you in the coming months: You will cultivate a specialty for connecting people and situations that need to be affiliated but aren’t yet. You will regard your flair for blending as a gift you offer generously. Can you picture yourself doing that? I think it will be fun and will also benefit you in unexpected ways. So here’s my proposed plan: Conspire to heal fragmentation and schisms. Unite heavenly and earthly things. Keep the far side and the near side in touch with each other. Never let the past forget about the future, and vice versa. One more thing, Taurus: Be gleefully imaginative as you mix and conjoin and combine.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In a play by Gemini philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, a character says, “Hell is other people.” What did he mean by that? One interpretation is that our fellow humans always judge us, and their judgments rarely align with who we really are and who we imagine ourselves to be. Here’s my solution for that problem: Choose allies and companions whose views of you match your own. Is that so hard? I suspect it will be easier than usual for you in the coming months, Gemini. Take advantage of life’s natural tendency to connect you with cohorts who appreciate you. Be picky as you avoid the hell of other people.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): The people most likely to succeed as entrepreneurs are those with a high degree of analytical intelligence. Right? Well, it’s more complicated than that. Reasoning ability and problem-solving skills are key skills, but not as important as emotional intelligence: the power to understand and manage feelings. I mention this, Cancerian, because the coming months will be a favorable time to advance your ambitions by enhancing and expressing your emotional intelligence. Here’s some reading to foster your powers:

1. tinyurl.com/EmotionSmarts

2. tinyurl.com/SmartFeeler

3. tinyurl.com/WiseFeeler

4. tinyurl.com/BrightFeeler

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In the coming weeks, Leo, I urge you to always be confident that YOU ARE THE PARTY! Everywhere you go, bring the spirits of fun and revelry. Be educationally entertaining and entertainingly educational. Amuse yourself by making life more interesting for everyone. At the same time, be kind and humble, never arrogant or insensitive. A vital part of your assignment is to nourish and inspire others with your radiance and charm. That formula will ensure you get everything you need. I foresee bounty flowing your way! PS: Regularly reward your admirers and followers with your magnanimous Chesire-cat grin.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In my Astrological Book of Life, here’s what I have inscribed about Virgos: You may not always find the perfect solution, but you are skilled at finding the best solution available. This will be an especially valuable knack in the coming weeks, both for yourself and others. I trust you will scan for practical but compassionate answers, even if they are partial. And I hope you will address at least some of everyone’s needs, even if no one is completely satisfied. You can be the master of creative compromise that we all need. Thanks in advance for your excellent service!

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Everyone knows that “balance” is a keyword for you Librans. However, there are many interpretations of what balance entails. Here’s how I define it for you during the coming weeks: 1. an openness to consider several different ways to capitalize on an opportunity, but to ultimately choose just one way; 2. the ability to see and understand all sides of every story, while also knowing that for pragmatism’s sake you must endorse a single version of the story; 3. the capacity to be both constructively critical and supportively sympathetic; 4. the facility to be welcoming and inviting while still maintaining healthy boundaries.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Life is enchanting for me because I have so much control over what I think,” my Scorpio friend Daria told me. “If I decide to flatter myself with comments about how attractive I am, I can do just that. If I would like to imagine a good fairy visiting me while I sleep and giving me a dream of having an orgasm with my lover while we fly over the Serengeti Plains, I can.” I asked her about the times when worries gush forth unbidden from her subconscious mind and disturb her joy. She said, “I simply picture myself shoving those worries in a hole in the ground and blowing them up with an exploding rose.” I bring Daria’s mind-management expertise to your attention, Scorpio, because the coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to raise your mastery over what you think.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): People might impatiently advise you to relax and settle down. Others might tell you to stop dreaming such big visions and formulating such adventurous plans. Still others might give you the side-eye because they imagine you are having too much fun and brainstorming too wildly and laughing too loudly. If you receive messages like those, give the complainers a copy of this horoscope. It will tell them that YOU WILL NOT COMPLY WITH ANY INHIBITING DIRECTIVES. Your astrologer, me, authorizes you to be as vast and venturesome and enterprising and spontaneous as you dare. In doing so, I am speaking on behalf of the cosmic rhythms. Your plucky audacity has been heavenly ordained.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In accordance with astrological omens, I hereby authorize you to worry, worry and worry some more. Stew and simmer and ferment as you weigh all the options and mull the correct actions. But when the time is right, end your fretting with crisp decisiveness. Shake off any residual doubt that still clings to you. And then undertake robust action to transform the situation that provoked your righteous brooding. In my astrological opinion, what I have just described is your best plan for success in the coming days.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “I was looking for a love unlike my parents’ love or my sister’s love or the love on a foreign kitchen floor,” writes Rebecca Dinerstein Knight in her novel The Sunlit Night. “I wanted to forgive my mother and father for their misery and find myself a light man who lived buoyantly and to be both his light and his dark.” I offer you her thoughts, Aquarius, in the hope of inspiring you to expand and deepen your ideas about the love you want. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to revise and reinvigorate your definitions of intimacy and togetherness. You will have extra power to see new truths about how best to create maximum synergy and symbiosis.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Even raw and messy emotions can be understood as a form of light, crackling and bursting with energy,” writes Jungian psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés. For example, “We can use the light of rage in a positive way, in order to see into places we cannot usually see.” Likewise, confusion might be a healthy sign that a long-held misunderstanding is dissolving. Disappointment may herald the demise of an unrealistic expectation. So let’s unleash a big cheer for raw and messy emotions, Pisces! I suspect they will soon be your gateway to clarity and renewal.

Homework: Ask for something you’ve never had the clarity or chutzpah to ask for until now. Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com.

On the Road: Lescombes Family Vineyards in Deming, New Mexico

Josie Cowden

-

August 2, 2022

1

On the Road: Lescombes Family Vineyards in Deming, New Mexico

When visiting our friends Anne and Lee in Deming, New Mexico, my husband and I were surprised to find a thriving wine industry.

Three days in Deming gave us plenty of time to experience the town, including lunch at the Wild West-like restaurant called the Adobe Deli, which lives on in fame and glory after four decades.

Showcasing what Deming has to offer, our friends took us to a wine tasting at Lescombes Family Vineyards. We loved every wine we tried, including a delicious 2021 Brut Sparkling Wine ($22).

“We proudly use only the finest early-harvest fruit from our family-owned vineyard to produce this sparkling wine of great character,” says proprietor Florent Lescombes. “Beautifully soft, fine bubbles dance on your tongue and reveal a perfectly crisp, clean finish.” She recommends serving it with hors d’oeuvres, which we enjoyed for our couple of hours in the tasting room.

Lescombes recently won several awards against stiff worldwide competition at a premier wine event in Croatia. You can buy Lescombes wines online or take a trip to Deming.

Lescombes Family Winery and Tasting Room, 7075 Hwy. 549, S.E. Deming, New Mexico, 575-546-9324. lfv.wine.

Outstanding in the Field Dinners

The founder of the famous Outstanding in the Field dinner series, Jim Denevan, returns to where it all started to prepare a fine feast—his brother Bill’s apple orchard in Santa Cruz.

“The idea for Outstanding in the Field was born with this place in mind,” says Denevan, “one long table right here, where these heirloom apples were planted several generations ago along the Santa Cruz Coast.” Expert local winemaker Ryan Beauregard will bring elixirs from his namesake Beauregard Vineyards and serve them for your absolute pleasure. What a glorious time this will be. Denevan’s dinners are now widely held, including in Europe and Africa.

Outstanding in the Field, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 3pm. Happy Valley Farm, Santa Cruz. $385. outstandinginthefield.com.

Pleasure Pizza Delivers Tasty Pies and Mellow Vibes

Andrew Steingrube

-

August 2, 2022

0

Pleasure Pizza Delivers Tasty Pies and Mellow Vibes

In the mid-1990s, Derek Rupp lived in Pleasure Point and worked around town in restaurants. Then in 2000, a friend of his became a chef at Google (then a small company of only a few hundred people) and brought Rupp on as a cook. The company soon blew up, and Rupp rode the wave of success, eventually becoming an executive chef. But he became less and less hands-on with food, and he wanted to cook again and work locally. As fate would have it, in 2009, he saw an ad to buy Pleasure Pizza and jumped at the opportunity, excited to live and work in his home community and own a business he had frequented as a customer for many years.

He describes the spot as “casual, wetsuit-welcome and no shoes required”—the surfboards and vintage Pleasure Point photos adorning the walls add to the vibe. Rupp’s favorite pie is the Telecaster with tomato cream sauce, pepper jack cheese, chipotle pesto, pineapple and bacon. Meanwhile, the Santa Barbara boasts artichoke hearts and spinach, and the Pleasure Combo is loaded with an assortment of meats and veggies. They are also known for Rupp’s killer homemade ranch dipping sauce—that doesn’t skimp on the dill. “It’s out of this world dill-icious,” he jokes.

Hours are 11am-9pm every day. Rupp took a slice out of his day to speak with GT about working for Google and what makes his pizza distinct.

What sets your pizza apart?

DEREK RUPP: The crust, for sure. It’s almost like focaccia bread, substantial and thick with a little more oil. This creates a nice textural contrast. You get the very crunchy and crispy bottom, paired against that nice soft bready inside. And since the crust is heartier, this allows us to add more toppings.

What was it like cooking for Google?

There were two really cool things about it. One was the fact that they pushed us to cook the best food possible for thousands of people, and also that we had so much creative freedom and got to cook different things every day. They questioned the status quo of a typical corporate cafeteria, constantly asking, “Does it have to be this way?” And out of that, we created these very unique cafés that were delivering food of incredible quality to employees and guests.

Pleasure Pizza, 4000 Portola Drive, Santa Cruz, 831-475-4002; pleasurepizzasc.com.

How Inflation is Impacting Restaurants

Christina Waters

-

August 2, 2022

0

Embracing your inner Costco? You bet you are. One look at the shelves in most grocery stores will have you running to the largest food stores you can find. A friend of mine recently returned from Costco having scored an enormous rack of ribs for $16. “Enough for a week!” she cried triumphantly.

Well, I don’t shop at Costco, so I’ve had to rethink my menus on a day-by-day basis.

My overall pro-tip: leave the grocery list at home. Throw away your preconceived notions; i.e., what you thought you wanted for dinner. Let the prices be your guide, and see what’s on sale. That’s what you’re having for dinner. You’re not imagining things. The cost of meat, poultry, fish and eggs is 13% higher since February 2021, says the USDA. Anyone who’s watched the price of free-range organic eggs zoom upwards knows this only too well. You want to eat eggs from happy chickens? You’ll pay a dollar per egg.

And it’s not just inflation that’s affecting consumers. Some brands are turning to “shrinkflation”—you’ve noticed it happening, where the price stays the same on your favorite box of sea salt crackers, only there’s half the amount of crackers in the box. Or a variation I’m seeing more of this year: the box is shrinking, hence less product inside, but the price stays the same. Manufacturers have done their research, and they’re betting consumers would rather have smaller quantity than bigger prices. And how about those toilet paper rolls! Same size on the outside, but lo and behold the cardboard roll inside has expanded.

Some anecdotal responses from near and dear included these kvetches: “Jameson’s Irish Whisky is $5-10 more than last year.” From an old schoolmate in Massachusetts: “Dinners in restaurants at the Cape were about $8 more than last summer.” From Corralitos, a professional chef reveals that sugar costs are way up: “50 lbs. of cane sugar pre-Covid was $23, today $40. Organic sugar has doubled. Dried figs, $350 for 30 lbs., pre-Covid $220.” Andre Beauregard at Shopper’s agrees that “everything has gone up, but some things more than others and for a combination of reasons, including supply chain, availability and inflation. All the conventional milk prices have risen to almost organic prices, and along with that came higher ice cream prices and dairy prices. Oats, oils, condiments, breads, pretty much everything.” Nothing is forever, but while these insane price hikes and inflation strategies hit us in the face, try to stay flexible. And remember, there’s always scrambled eggs. Terrific with a robust red wine.

Taste of Terroir Salon

Head up to the pastoral vineyards of Lester Estate Wines for an enjoyable and enlightening tasting tour of the Corralitos growing region. Over 12 wineries of Corralitos and environs will be pouring at the afternoon tasting salon from 2:30-5pm, featuring Alfaro Family Vineyard, Aptos Vineyard, Bargetto Winery, Beauregard Vineyards, Farm Cottage Wines, Ferrari Ranch, La Vida Bella Vineyard, Left Bend, Lester Estate Wines, Regan Vineyards Winery, Sandar & Hem and Sante Arcangeli Family Wines. Tasting will be accompanied by appetizers prepared by the always remarkable chef Brad Briske and HOME Restaurant. Salon tickets are $65.

Fish the Markets

Look for the H&H folks, with their table of ice well-stocked with fresh-caught seafood items. I’m fond of their various salmon, halibut and whole rockfish. At your local farmers markets. Westside, Saturday 9am-1pm; Felton, Tuesday, 1-6pm; Aptos, Saturday 8am-noon. hhfreshfish.com.

Watsonville Strawberry Festival Returns to Three Days

Local News

Johanna Miller

-

August 1, 2022

1

Watsonville Strawberry Festival Returns to Three Days

The Watsonville Strawberry Festival is returning to a three-day event for the first time since 2019.

The popular event runs this Friday through Sunday. It will include food booths, many featuring strawberry-themed treats, a beer garden, live entertainment, pie-eating contests, artisan and commercial vendors, nonprofit booths, a carnival and more.

“We are very excited to be able to bring this festival back to its full glory,” says Jessica Beebe, recreation supervisor for the city’s Parks & Community Services department. “Last year, it was wonderful to pull together a modified, scaled-down version of the event after the Covid hiatus. But it’s wonderful to bring it back to what the community has come to expect of it.”

The festival, which highlights the region’s most famous crop while raising money and awareness for local nonprofits, was first held in 1994. Initially called the Watsonville Strawberry Dessert Festival, it was meant to raise funds to help the city recover from the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.

After two years of pandemic-related struggles, organizers hope the festival can once again act as a healing experience.

“We hope people will come together and feel that sense of really moving forward after what we’ve all been through,” Beebe says. “It’s great, just watching the people’s smiling faces, doing whatever they enjoy at the festival.”

The event kicks off on Friday, Aug. 5, with carnival rides 5-10pm and a performance by the Chicano All-Stars in Watsonville Plaza. The entire festival, with booths, pie eating contests and events, happens Saturday 11am-8pm and Sunday 11am-7pm.

Every year, the festival features a new event poster with strawberry-themed artwork. This year, local artist Priscilla Martinez was chosen to create the piece, which depicts a heart-shaped basket of strawberries with sunflowers and monarch butterflies, and a background showing an agriculture field in the Pajaro Valley.

“I was trying to go for ‘the heart of Watsonville,’” Martinez says. “I wanted to make that the main focus—our agriculture, the landscape. And with the sunflowers, I was going for a summer-like theme.”

It is the eighth year Martinez has been selected to create the Strawberry Festival poster. She says she loves how the event brings people together every year.

“It’s something I’ve gone to every year since I was a kid,” she says. “It’s a family-friendly event, where everyone can come and enjoy themselves.”

Though the event does tend to attract out-of-town visitors to Watsonville Plaza each year, it is also a time for locals to celebrate their hometown, Beebe says.

“Watsonville takes a lot of pride in their community,” she says. “With the festival, we highlight our history and culture.”

Martinez adds, “I hope it’s a good turnout, especially after Covid. I’m just glad things are once again starting to pick up.”

Watsonville Strawberry Festival, Friday, Aug. 5, 5-10pm, Saturday, Aug. 6, 11am-8pm and Sunday, Aug. 7, 11am-7pm. Watsonville Plaza, 358 Main St., Watsonville. cityofwatsonville.org/1117/Watsonville-Strawberry-Festival.

Watsonville Playwright’s New Work Explores Family, Culture

Stage

Johanna Miller

-

July 29, 2022

1

Watsonville Playwright’s New Work Explores Family, Culture

Writer, director and actor Steve “Spike” Wong remembers when he realized he wanted to tell stories.

He was about 5 years old and was riding the Jungle Cruise attraction at Disneyland with his parents. He managed, he says, to convince them that the animatronic hippopotamus on the ride was real.

“My parents never really shut down my imagination,” Wong says. “They just let me go with it.”

Wong was born in Watsonville in 1952 after his father’s parents had landed there as agricultural laborers and cannery workers. He graduated from Watsonville High School in 1970 before attending Cal State Chico as part of their honors English program. Eventually, he returned to his hometown to be a teacher at Watsonville High.

“When I was growing up in Watsonville, it was really small,” he says. “It was under 10,000 people. Pretty much every family was at least aware of other family groups. For me, that helped ground me into my community. Having those connections is why coming back to teach at Watsonville High made complete sense.”

Throughout his life, Wong has written, directed and acted in numerous plays, including one performed off-Broadway in New York. His latest work, White Sky, Falling Dragon, will open at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts in just a few weeks.

The story is inspired by Wong’s father, Captain Ernest Wong, following his struggles as he moves back to Watsonville after World War II. The young Cantonese man faces emotional challenges after a tragedy occurs during his last war mission. His cultural and familial obligations continually clash with his search to settle in America.

“The play takes factual reality from my father’s experience and then creates a sort of fictional storyline on top of that,” Wong explains. “The biggest surprise when I was writing this—I always thought, from the very beginning, that the hero of the story would be my grandfather. But it was my grandmother. When I was small, my mother was ill, and I spent time with my grandparents in a house on Lincoln Street. I think deep down, her strength has always been inside me. The way that has come out in this play—it’s powerful.”

Wong was a freshman at Chico when he wrote his first play. But it wasn’t until he was 55, when he visited China for the first time, he said, that things shifted.

“When I got to China, suddenly, everything that I’d kind of set aside in my life … all of that just sort of started speaking to me,” Wong says. “When I came back, I started writing more things about what I lost, growing up in a country that still today has racism against Asians.”

In 2016 Wong wrote Dragon Skin, which premiered at the 2018 Eight Tens @ 8 play festival in Santa Cruz. The one-person show covered 50 years of his life in just 10 minutes and subsequently played at the Marsh Theater in San Francisco.

At the premiere of Dragon Skin, Wong realized his work’s impact.

“On opening night during the reception, this strong, swarthy older guy walks up to me, puts his hand out to shake, and says, ‘Let me tell you something: I am Greek, and that play was my story,’” Wong says. “I realized you can write from your cultural background as truthfully as you can, and it becomes a universal, human story.”

The idea for White Sky, Falling Dragon came to Wong in 2017, when he was abroad in Barcelona, Spain.

“I suddenly heard my dad’s voice, walking into a home and greeting my grandmother,” he says. “I got my phone out and typed a line of dialogue. Suddenly, all this stuff started coming up.”

Wong strived to answer the question: What was it like for his father when he came home from the war?

“He’d been a target of racism,” he says. “The Chinese Exclusion Act was still in place when the war was going on. 20,000 Chinese signed up to fight for a country that would not let even their relatives in. He was torn: ‘I’m Chinese, but I need to be American if I want to stay here.’”

Wong funded White Sky, Falling Dragon himself and set out to find the right set designers, producer and an all-Asian cast. The play features live music with Chinese instruments and visual effects.

*Captain Ernest Wong, USAAF, at 19 years old. —contributed photo*

“It’s so specific to Cantonese Chinese Americans, in a small town, I couldn’t turn it over to someone else,” he says. “I had no board [of directors]. I had to take a leap of faith and say, ‘OK, I can do this.’ Early on, people came to me wanting to work on this project. The play was attracting people. But it wasn’t me they were looking at; it was the story, the humanity, the power behind it.”

Wong has “never been more motivated” on a project.

“It’s not just me,” he says. “It’s all my ancestors who helped get one person to this country. That person started everything. I am the result of what they dreamed about and worked for. In some essence, this play is all their doing. I’m just the vehicle.”

‘White Sky, Falling Dragon’ runs Aug. 26-27 and Sept. 1-4 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. A complimentary reception will be held on the opening night following the performance. Tickets are available at mvcpa.com. More info at soaringdragon.net.

Things to Do: July 27-Aug. 2

GT Staff

-

July 27, 2022

0

ARTS AND MUSIC

4TO PRESTIGIO Self-described as an “alternative regional Mexican band from Salinas and Watsonville,” 4to Prestigio delivers an array of corridos, cumbias, zapateados, rancheros and more. All 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 28, 8:30pm. The Colonnade at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, 400 Beach St., Santa Cruz. (Free Movie at the Beach presents Iron Man on Friday, July 29, 9pm). beachboardwalk.com.

RISING APPALACHIA WITH TWO RUNNER Rising Appalachia’s folk interpretation of James Blake’s “I Need a Forest Fire” glows with restrained harmonies and subtle fingerpicking. The tune represents the heart and soul of the folk duo, led by sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith. It also showcases their versatility: The hard-traveling twosome’s foundation is Appalachian roots but expands to include worldwide musical influences. The multi-instrumentalists continue to grow their international fanbase through music and outspoken activism. $35 plus fees. Friday, July 29, 8pm. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. riotheatre.com.

BRAHMS AND DOHNÁNYI CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERT An international group of musicians will perform a chamber program featuring the work of two master composers. Netherlands Radio Philharmonic concertmaster violinist Lis Perry will be joined by Netherlands Chamber Orchestra Richard Wolfe, principal violist and cellist Adelle-Akiko Kearns on Dohnányi’s “Serenade.” Additionally, Santa Cruz native, pianist Nicholas Harris, will join the string trio on Brahms’ “Piano Quartet No. 3.” $25. Friday, July 29, 8pm. Peace United Church, 900 High St., Santa Cruz. tinyurl.com/brahmssc.

‘CANDIDE!’ With a score from the unrivaled Leonard Bernstein and lyrical contributions from the legendary Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler’s book is transformed into a fast-paced emotional roller-coaster of a musical. Things can’t get worse for Candide (the bastard cousin of Baron Thunder-Ten-Tonck): He’s expelled from his home, forced into the Bulgarian army, brought before the Spanish Inquisition, swindled out of his fortune, shipwrecked on a desert island—and separated from his true love, Cunegonde. (Read story). $25-60. Friday, July 29 and Saturday, July 30, 7:30pm; Sunday, July 31, 2pm (runs through Sunday, Aug. 14). Cabrillo College’s Crocker Theater, 6500 Soquel Drive, Aptos. cabrillostage.universitytickets.com.

THE ALTONS WITH FLACO EL JANDRO AND DJ ARCHIVE 65 What the hell is Southeast L.A. retro indie-soul music? It’s the Altons. It’s also the sound that made an instant fan of Daptone Records co-founder Gabe Roth, who was turned on to the quartet just as he was starting Penrose Records, a Daptone subsidiary focused on the SoCal soul scene. The Altons’ Penrose debut “When You Go (That’s When You’ll Know)” was KCRW’s “Today’s Top Tune.” Meanwhile, the outfit’s recent single “Tangled Up in You” was featured on the esteemed Soulection Radio. $20/$25 plus fees. Saturday, July 30, 9pm. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. moesalley.com.

RUTHIE FOSTER WITH GARY BLACKBURN It’s not difficult to understand how Texas native Ruthie Foster has racked up so many accolades—the 2019 U.S. Artist Fellowship Award, seven Blues Music Awards and three Austin Music Awards—throughout her career. The musician’s roots-soaked fusion of folk, blues, gospel and rock has evolved into a unique style she can call her own. Foster’s most “big band” recent record, Live at the Paramount, scored a Grammy nod for “Best Contemporary Blues Album”—it was her fourth overall nomination. A Grammy win is definitely in her future. $24 plus fees. Saturday, July 30, 8pm. Felton Music Hall, 6275 Hwy. 9, Felton. feltonmusichall.com.

LES CLAYPOOL’S BASTARD JAZZ The tireless Primus frontman—one of the greatest electric bassists in the world—is a perpetual fountain of creativity. When Les Claypool appears to be sitting still, his mind works at a high velocity, spewing out idea after idea. One of those ideas that came to fruition is Bastard Jazz, featuring Claypool, Galactic drummer Stanton Moore and longtime Claypool collaborators multi-instrumentalist Mike Dillon and saxophonist Skerik. No rules, no concepts, no constraints—just a mountain of top-notch musical talent unfolding live before the audience’s eyes. (Read story). $40/$50 plus fees. Sunday, July 31, 8pm. Masks required. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. folkyeah.com.

NRBQ WITH THE MINUS 5 For more than five decades, the New Rhythm and Blues Quartet—known as NRBQ—have been flying just below the mainstream radar as several bands, including Widespread Panic, Yo La Tengo and Los Lobos, have covered their songs. Meanwhile, their fanbase has included everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Steve Earle. Additionally, the group served as the “unofficial house band” for The Simpsons (seasons 10-12) and NRBQ band members played zombies in George Romero’s cult classic Day of the Dead. Most recently, their 2021 release Dragnet has garnered significant critical acclaim. $25/$30. Sunday, July 31, 7pm. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. moesalley.com.

‘THE CZU FIRE IN THEIR OWN WORDS: FIGHTING FIRES, LOSING HOMES AND REBUILDING COMMUNITY’ Director Peter Gelblum uses actors to relay the words of the people who fought the August 2020 fires and those who lost their homes and possessions, illuminating the shared experiences—the evacuations, battling with insurance companies and getting local support. The film also uses family photographs donated by several local photographers, including Shmuel Thaler and Steve Kuehl. Mountain Community Theater produced the movie as a gift to the community. Free (all donations will be split between local volunteer fire departments and the Fire Recovery Fund of the Community Foundation). Monday, Aug. 1, 7:30pm. CineLux, 226 Mount Hermon Road, Scotts Valley. pb*******@***il.com.

COMMUNITY

UCSC FARMSTAND You will find many delicious organic vegetables, fruit and herbs—there are beautiful flowers, too. Everything is grown at the UCSC Farm & Garden. Open twice weekly through November 2022. Free. Wednesday, July 27, noon-5pm and Friday, July 29, 11am-3pm. Cowell Ranch Hay Barn, 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz. calendar.ucsc.edu.

SECOND ANNUAL TRUE LOVE CHRISTIAN MUSIC AND ART FESTIVAL Christian music, art and local nonprofits will come together for a free all-day event where “the church goes to the people, rather than expecting [people] to come to us.” Participants include pastors, elders, lay leaders and musicians from Santa Cruz Bible Church, the Point-A Jesus Community, Coastlands, Green Valley Christian, Vintage Faith, Calvary Chapel Capitola, St. Joseph, Calvary Chapel Aptos, Regeneration, Twin Lakes and Watsonville Nazarene. Free. Saturday, July 30, 10am-7pm. Aptos Village Park, 100 Aptos Creek Road, Aptos. truelovechristian.com.

GROUPS

TODDLER STORYTIME The weekly bilingual program—in-person—includes sing-alongs, nursery rhymes and books that foster early literacy. Free. Wednesday, July 27, 11:30am-12:30pm. Freedom Branch Library (Meeting Room), 2021 Freedom Blvd., Watsonville. cityofwatsonville.org.

OUTDOORS

LICK OBSERVATORY PUBLIC EVENING TOUR The “behind-the-scenes” walking tour—attendees should prepare to walk a mile (also, the tour lasts 4-6 hours)—culminates in a special up-close visit to the dome of the immense three-meter Shane Telescope, the largest telescope on the mountain. Also, learn about the history of the world’s first permanently occupied mountain top observatory, the eccentric California innovator James Lick and the current science conducted at the observatory. $75. Thursday, July 28 and Sunday, July 31, 6:30pm. Lick Observatory, 7281 Mount Hamilton Road, Santa Cruz. lickobservatory.org.

Email upcoming events to Adam Joseph at least two weeks beforehand.

Or, submit events HERE.

Scott Ordway’s ‘The End of Rain’ Makes World Premiere at Cabrillo Festival

Christina Waters

-

July 27, 2022

1

Scott Ordway’s ‘The End of Rain’ Makes World Premiere at Cabrillo Festival

Composer Scott Ordway is a 21st-century auteur. His eclectic creations involve music, video, performative installations, poetry and photography. All of this handmade rigor dissolves boundaries while lifting symphonic music into a realm that has no name, other than perhaps “exquisite.”

Growing up in Santa Cruz, Ordway recalls wanting to be a rock critic after years of exploring the indie music scene on the porch of Cafe Pergolesi and at the Catalyst. Hearing an orchestra for the first time in Seattle, he realized it had the power to echo the punk intensity he’d grown up with.

“It blew me away. I was a guitarist, and had played in any number of interesting basements in Santa Cruz,” he says with a chuckle in a phone interview last month. “After hearing the orchestra, all of a sudden I became a music major. Learned piano, bought a cello, I threw myself into it.”

Next he studied composition at the University of Oregon, and discovered the grand symphonic works of Gustav Mahler. “I was inspired by Mahler’s 19th-century model of composing, where you had to be able to play the instruments, conduct and perform, as well as compose. It was not the intellectual or technical model of the 20th-century composition.” Growing up with mountains, oceans and natural splendor within a “secular California context,” Ordway was drawn to Mahler’s combining of natural forces with spirituality. “I was drawn to the way that Mahler answered the big questions,” he says.

Now an assistant professor of music at Rutgers University, Ordway finds endless opportunities for creative work. In one of his classes, students investigate the acoustics of natural landscapes. These foraged sounds inspired his latest compositions; In the Kingdom of Bells began with a single sound.

“I’m intrigued by the change of scale, seeing what might happen,” he says. “[From] one bell, at what point of multiplying the number of bells does the sound become miraculous? Ten bells? One hundred bells? All the bells in the world?”

He favors exploring orchestral depth, rather than theme and variation. Citing the example of the ocean, he says, “It’s water all the way down, but the material can have different meaning, at different depths. Even though it’s all still water.”

Ordway’s The End of Rain, receiving its world premiere this weekend at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, is part anthropology, part documentary, with installation, projected images and docu-poetic text sung by festival artists Roomful of Teeth. The effect will come close to 21st century opera, in the Wagnerian sense of the complete work of art.

“The summer of 2020, two days before the lightning storm [that sparked the CZU Fire], my parents were driving across the country to come see their newest grandchild,” says Ordway. “They continued east, but were glued to the images we were seeing of where the fire was, how it moved. My parents felt helpless, having left without being prepared to possibly lose their home. It really hit home emotionally for me. I had wanted to create during the pandemic, but everything was closed down. So I started making films, video and soundtracks, working back and forth from images, to then creating sound, and then back again to the images. It was fascinating to do both simultaneously. The two media wrapped themselves around each other. I came back to Santa Cruz in the winter of 2020, and drove all over taking pictures to see the impact of the fire in those places so familiar to me.”

Ordway invited people in the area to respond to his prompts about their experience during the wildfires. The composer took the accumulated 80,000 words and looked for themes. He extracted words as a structure for symphony, and to help illuminate the images he’d collected. The photographs were chosen as responses to words.

“I’d known about Roomful of Teeth for years—they’re a phenomenon in contemporary music—and at this point I pitched the piece to Cabrillo,” he says.

Once he had the go-ahead for a commissioned piece, he began working on the music. “The text grounded the piece,” says Ordway. “First and foremost, it was about the voices of the people who responded.”

He also put together a fine-art photography book for The End of Rain that collects 97 photographs, as well as the complete crowdsourced texts from those who talked about the impact of fire on their lives.

Ordway predicts that multi-media will continue to be part of his musical work going forward. “Images offer so much possibility to go deeper. In the last 10 years, the sense I have is more people are doing that. But that means that the bar’s going to get higher,” he says. “It’s not enough to simply have a position. You have to ask and answer a worthwhile question.”

“The End of Rain,” by Scott Ordway, a 40-minute multimedia work created for the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra and vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, has its world premiere Friday, July 29 at 8pm. cabrillomusic.org. The accompanying book is available at Bad Animal in Santa Cruz, and at scottordway.com.

Cabrillo Takes on Leonard Bernstein’s Challenging ‘Candide’

Johanna Miller

-

July 27, 2022

3

Cabrillo Takes on Leonard Bernstein’s Challenging ‘Candide’

Cabrillo Stage has returned in full-force this summer for a season of theatrical musicals.

After Covid canceled the 2020 season, the company moved to Cabrillo College’s outdoor amphitheater in 2021. But this summer, the company is once again holding shows inside the Crocker Theater.

A production of Grease ran from late June to July. Leonard Bernstein’s Candide opened July 22 and will run through Aug. 14, on weekends and select Thursdays.

Artistic Director John Nordgren said that Candide had been planned for 2020. They had already cast the production when things shut down.

“We had such a fine cast,” he says. “Amazing singers, lots of professionals involved. So we thought, let’s try it again. We offered everyone the same contract and invited them back.”

Based on the satirical, fast-paced 1759 novella by Voltaire about a sheltered title character who has his eyes opened to the realities of life on a series of misadventures around the world, Candide features music by Bernstein, with lyrics by Richard Wilbur and book by Hugh Wheeler.

This Voltaire adaptation was conceived in the 1950s by Lillian Hellman, one of the 20th century’s greatest playwrights (The Children’s Hour, The Little Foxes, etc.)—but it was Bernstein who convinced her to make it a musical. Hellman was reeling at the time, having been blacklisted in the McCarthy era after standing up to the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. Candide’s debut on Broadway in 1956 surely didn’t do much to raise her spirits—it was a critical and commercial flop. But as the “comic operetta” underwent a number of innovative revivals and revisions over the years, it came to be appreciated for its wit, and for Bernstein’s incredible music—some of the best of his entire career. Candide as performed now is far more faithful to Voltaire’s work than Hellman’s version was, and produced the Broadway standards “Glitter and Be Gay” and “The Best of All Possible Worlds.” Cabrillo’s production is directed by Gary John La Rosa, with musical director Cheryl Anderson.

Lavish sets, complex staging and operatic vocals make this show an ambitious one for Cabrillo Stage.

“Candide is one of the most difficult shows you could possibly do,” Nordgren says. “It’s also my favorite, my ‘bucket list’ show. It’s Cheryl’s favorite, too.”

Nordgren said the 2022 summer season is crucial for Cabrillo Stage’s future.

“Honestly, if we don’t do well this summer it’ll be difficult,” Nordgren says. “After our huge loss in 2020 … the college got us a grant, but we lost some after making a slight profit last year. So we’re a bit desperate again. We need about $300,000 just to go on.”

But everyone is remaining cautiously optimistic, he says.

“People are turning out to the theater again,” he says. “Everyone is over the moon excited, giving their all. They can’t wait to get back onstage.”

‘Candide’ runs through Aug. 14 at the Crocker Theater at Cabrillo College, 6500 Soquel Drive, Aptos. cabrillostage.com; 831-479-6154.

Good TimesGood Times

Good TimesGood Times

Snake Oil?

Foot Traffic Jammed

Trigger Plays

Making a Scene

Free Will Astrology

The Editor’s Desk

Beat It, Meat!

Beers for Cheers