In 2016, local rapper Alwa Gordon was working on his song “Motown.” He found himself singing over the beat.
“It wasn’t a conscious decision,” says Gordon. “I started to play beats, and it wasn’t rap that was coming to my mind.”
He had been rapping for over a decade but suddenly found himself wanting to take his music career more seriously. “Motown” landed on 16 Summers, which was released on May 15. The whole EP reflects his newfound diversity, and stretches beyond strictly hip-hop.
“It’s very hard to put 16 Summers in a category,” Gordon says. “It’s hip-hop. It’s pop. It’s got soul. There’s some surf guitar, Santa Cruz vibes in there.”
He explores himself deeper than before, as a person and an artist, but also as a product of Santa Cruz, something full of contradictions. On “Before I Go,” he talks about seeing success on the horizon, but also acknowledges issues in Santa Cruz that contradict the town’s reputation for positivity, like racism, homelessness and drug addiction.
“It’s kind of a love-hate dynamic,” says Gordon.
A major struggle here is the lack of a hip-hop scene. Big acts come through town and headline the Catalyst, but there’s not much space for up-and-coming artists. Local emcee Khan has been doing his part by throwing quarterly events at the Crepe Place called “Diggin’ In The Crepe,” and Gordon has played most of them.
But that’s part of his duality. As a rapper in a town that has no rap scene, he’s been able to stretch and grow in unexpected ways.
“I’ve done shows with bass artists, DJs. I’ve made music with [folk-hip-hop group] Driftr. I’ve done acoustic stuff with just a guitar. It’s made it so I’ve had to get out of this whole thinking that it’s just hip-hop, so I had a space to share my gift,” Gordon says. “Now I love it, because I can exist in so many different worlds.”
Director James Grey tries out a Terence Malick style in Ad Astra to crack the enigmatic calm of a Neil Armstrong type.
Brad Pitt, bewitchingly cool and handsome in a space suit, plays near-future astronaut Major Roy McBride. He is a famous man and a stranger to himself. In voice over, he muses over the lack of emotion that’s caused his wife (Liv Tyler) to leave him. He’s honored at Space Command for a resting pulse that never breaks 80. Roy is cool under pressure, even when he plummets from a stratosphere-piercing antenna, nearly blacking out before his parachute opens … and then the chute is pierced by falling debris.
Roy has one nerve, and the story twists it. Roy’s father Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones) was a renowned astronaut who abandoned his family on a mission. Though he never came back, Clifford may still be alive, living in Neptunian orbit; inexplicable pulses from that direction are zapping the earth, killing tens of thousands. Perhaps it’s from the anti-matter generator Clifford took with him into deep space. Has he succumbed to space madness? In one last gamble, the Command sends Roy to Mars to deliver a secret personal message to Clifford. They’ve pre-written it for him.
Heart of Darkness parallels increase as Roy approaches. As we hear in the endless and mostly redundant first-person narration, the moon has been turned into a tourist destination, complete with an Applebee’s and alien-masked buskers. Towering over the moon base is a replica of the cowboy Vegas Vick neon sign, the Las Vegas landmark. This is scolding stuff, compared to the fun Paul Verhoeven had with Mars as a carnival planet in Total Recall. A lunar dune buggy chase through the moon’s unpacified zones is interesting enough, but Gray’s not an action director. You know how Roy feels: it doesn’t raise the pulse.
In Mars’ underground tunnels, Roy meets an executive born and raised on the red planet; she’s played by Ruth Negga, togged out in a handsome set of black pajamas. Like Donald Sutherland, who turned up earlier as a wary Space Command officer, Negga gets dropped from the movie, perhaps for the crime of being too distracting from Grey’s fathers-and-sons thesis.
In the Belt, Ad Astra has a passage illustrating the matter of whether our species belongs off-world, through a fatal encounter with a floating lab doing experiments on animals. It’s similar to the business of the abandoned ship of feral dogs in Claire Denis’ High Life, where the fate of poor Laika the Soviet space dog was multiplied to a thousand. Ad Astra frets over the problem of human contagion of the pristine emptiness, of sending us apes where we don’t belong.
And like the bloody encounter with an ape in the abandoned ship, the most exciting moments are the most traditional science fiction movie incidents. It’s Roy breaking into a rocket from the outside just as the countdown from T-minus-10 has begun. Later, in a haunted space station, some deceased crewman left the TV on, and it’s playing something strange and eerily beautiful: the Nicholas Brothers’ dance to “I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo” from Orchestra Wives (1942).
Gray endeavors to give this drama the sweep and detail of TV’s The Expanse. The over-explaining desiccates Ad Astra, despite both its 2-billion-mile scope, and Hoyte van Hoytema’s glowing photography. There may be a reasonable explanation for the constant comments, even at their most redundant. Roy sees a frightened fellow officer and thinks aloud, “He’s scared”—is Roy, then, like a man with Asperger’s, always having to read other people’s emotions?
Pitt’s humanity, so evident in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, keeps one hooked through this. The lost-father drama can be tedious in the deftest hands. But this time, the celestial backdrop adds some allegorical freshness to the subject of fathers so obsessed with their business, so closed off from their families that they might as well be in ice-cold orbit around one of the outer planets. Jones is terrific at demonstrating that lack of regret, the inner deadness of one of these technical geniuses. But he also demonstrates flashes of the weakness and willfulness of a father on the edge of senility. Still, in the end, just like High Life, all Ad Astra can do is helplessly endorse the beauty and preciousness of Earth.
AD ASTRA
Directed by James Grey. Starring Brad Pitt, Liv Tyler and Tommy Lee Jones. (PG-13) 122 minutes.
From Shasta to San Diego, Yosemite to Santa Cruz, there is a sense of foreboding, maybe even dread, as summer turns to fall.
Fire season is here.
The last couple of years have seen some of the most devastating wildfires in the state’s history. Taken as a whole, the fires of 2017 and 2018 are unprecedented, as measured by damage and death. The Camp Fire, which all but destroyed the foothill town of Paradise in 2018, is now classified as the deadliest blaze in California history, and the most lethal fire in the U.S. in a hundred years.
Several months before that, the Mendocino Complex fires became the largest wildfire event by acreage in California history. Add to that the almost-as-tragic Carr Fire in Shasta County, the Tubbs Fire which devoured large parts of Santa Rosa, the Wine Country Fires which killed 44 people across Northern California, and the Thomas Fire which laid waste to huge chunks of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and it’s clear that the past two fire seasons could one day be remembered a particularly terrifying period in state history.
That is, if we’re lucky.
Although this year’s wildfires have not come close to the impact of 2017 and 2018, that’s thanks in part to significant rainfall, and it’s also still quite early. Most of the deadly fires of the last two years took place in October and November. The 2017 Thomas Fire in Southern California didn’t begin until December.
This could be the ideal moment for an event like “California On Fire: The Past, Present and Future of Fire Ecology in the Golden State,” sponsored by the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. The lecture/panel discussion comes to the Rio Theatre on Thursday, Sept. 19. San Francisco State University biologist and plant ecologist Thomas Parker will give the keynote presentation. Following Parker’s lecture will be a panel discussion featuring the county’s Emergency Services Manager Rosemary Anderson, chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band Valentin Lopez, and former Cal Fire Director Ken Pimlott.
Pimlott retired at the end of last year, after eight years leading the state agency. He says that the nightmarish recent years were the culmination of an almost decades-long period in which fires were made increasingly deadly because of the years-long drought in California. He remembers the devastating but “almost forgotten” Valley Fire of 2015 that consumed much of the small town of Middletown in Lake County in less than 24 hours.
“That was in 2015,” he says, “and I remember we were all asking ourselves, how could it possibly get worse? But it did.”
While most of the media coverage and public conversation surrounding catastrophic wildfires comes from the context of the human cost, keynote speaker Parker focuses on the California landscape. From his perspective, fire ecology is about the role fire plays in various landforms—forests, oak grasslands, chaparral, etc.—and how native and non-native vegetation adapts to the threat of fire.
Fire, Parker says, has been a part of the local landscape for millions of years. But human intervention and changes in climate have altered the nature and the severity of fires in recent years. Rainfall, or the lack of it, obviously plays a big role in fire season, but there are other factors.
He says that recent California autumns that have seen more frequent high-pressure systems coming from the east, the kind that drive high-wind events. “And when there’s an ignition during those high-wind events, like what happened in Santa Rosa two years ago and Paradise last year, that’s when you get the devastating fires,” he says.
If there’s good news here, it’s that, in the aftermath of the historic fire seasons, Californians may be paying more attention to fire preparation, says former Cal Fire Chief Pimlott. “In 2017, we issued red-flag warnings about critical fire conditions. But, by that time, it had become like white noise to the public,” he says. Pimlott now lives in the fire-prone Sierra foothills where, he says, “people are now hyper-aware about fire. They’re scared, and they’re listening to what other people are saying. It really has improved, as long as people maintain their attention.”
Santa Cruz County is, of course, far from immune from fire devastation. As the county’s Emergency Services Manager, Rosemary Anderson has a wide-ranging purview that includes earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, fire, and other potential disasters. Anderson says that, when the unthinkable strikes, local residents should take action instead of waiting for an authority to tell them what to do.
She notes that many local communities already have plans in place through the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program. Through CERT trainings, Anderson is trying to build a culture of self-reliance—about preparedness and how neighbors can take care of one other.
“In lots of neighborhoods, people don’t even know each other, because they’re not home most of the time,” she says. “How do you get these people engaged in some kind of response post-incident? The people who you are going to rely on the most are the people who live right next door to you. That’s been the case in every post-disaster we’ve had in Santa Cruz County.”
Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History presents California On Fire onThursday, Sept. 19, at 7 p.m. at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $5 Museum members; $10 general; $25 Gold Circle. santacruzmuseum.org/california-on-fire.
Every time I taste an interesting Tannat wine from Uruguay, I am so glad it’s available locally at Soif.
The Santa Cruz restaurant and wine bar is not just about good food and enjoying a glass of wine to go with your dinner. This well-stocked establishment also carries a select inventory of wines from all over the world, including the Tannat 2015 ($24) from Uruguay. Blended with 30% Merlot and 15% Zinfandel, these two robust wines add an abundance of flavor and depth.
Considered the “national grape” of Uruguay, Tannat is less familiar in the U.S., and many people haven’t even heard of it. Grown historically in southwest France, it is now one of the most prominent grapes in Uruguay. Deeply aromatic, this delicious Tannat blend is suffused with black raspberry, cedar and spice—coalescing in a velvety mouthfeel. It is handcrafted by award-winning women winemakers.
Artesana is a small-production estate winery in the acclaimed Canelones region of Uruguay specializing in Tannat, Tannat blends and Zinfandel (the only Zinfandel produced in Uruguay). It is imported by Leslie Fellows (one of the owners), who has family at the winery. Although she lives locally, she heads to Uruguay often. Artesana is just outside the capital city of Montevideo and well worth a visit.
Available at Soif Wine Bar & Merchants, 105 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz. artesanawinery.com.
Farmhouse Culture
Kathryn Lukas is the guru of sauerkraut. Her Central Coast company Farmhouse Culture is extremely successful, and her products sell far and wide. The organic “gut shot” health drinks are superb. I especially love the Classic Caraway and the Ginger Beet.
Lukas has now co-authored a book with her son, master fermenter Shane Peterson, titled The Farmhouse Culture Guide to Fermenting: Crafting Live-Cultured Foods and Drinks with 100 Recipes from Kimchi to Kombucha. Lukas and Peterson will be presenting their new book at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 12, at Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. 423-0900, bookshopsantacruz.com.
It’s been a year of unpredictable weather. We saw record levels of snow in the Sierras—nearly double the annual average in some places—while peaches in Georgia froze and tornadoes touched down in Massachusetts.
Climate change and this year’s unusual weather are making things a bit more unpredictable for growers everywhere, including those in south Santa Cruz County.
“Everything this year is late,” says Katy Thompson, owner of Copper Moon Apothecary. “I’m seeing a lot of green growth, but not a lot of fruit or blooms. Things are really taking their time. I’m seeing some changes with the herbs this year. Everything is a little smaller.”
Since starting Copper Moon more than 10 years ago, Thompson has grown most of the herbs she needs, including comfrey, calendula, plantain, and elder, on her 9-acre property in the Larkin Valley. She makes lotions, soaps, bath soaks, cleansers, and live face masks and scrubs by hand using homegrown herbs and locally sourced products.
“At first, I tested everything on my poor friends. I remember selling my first bar of soap at the farmers market. I was so excited,” Thompson says. “The business grew, and that’s all I wanted to talk about and do. I was collecting seeds and growing herbs and wildcrafting, and I created this big, beautiful monster.”
As we move into citrus season, Thompson says she will start looking to fall’s citrus to make fresh products, like bath and shower scrub. Because she sources everything from her fields and nearby areas, Thompson says the late bloom will affect how she operates this year. “I’m fine for now, but it’s really going to hit me in December and January when I may not have the backstock of dried herbs.”
Other community members have expressed similar concerns about weird weather patterns this year. “We are all buzzing around and talking about it in the ag community,” Thompson says. In her case, she may need to buy herbs from other suppliers.
Depending on the farmers market, website and wholesale orders, Thompson will figure out how much to make per week. This week, she’s making all of the products for markets and incorporating herbs that are prime for use, like calendula.
“If you buy a bar of soap from me this weekend at the farmers market, you are going to have big, green flecks of lemongrass because it’s in season right now,” she says. “So fresh lemongrass will go into the soap. But come December or January, there is no fresh lemongrass, so I’ll have to rely on everything I have harvested and dried months ago. The appearance will change dramatically.”
Thompson already ships in sandalwood oil and ylang ylang (a tropical flower), since they don’t grow here, and she tries to use them sparingly.
Lately, Thompson has been weighing the prospect of getting extra help. She doesn’t want to outsource anything. “If I do that, it’s no longer handcrafted by me, and I don’t necessarily know what’s going into the product,” she says. “I want to keep it small and keep it crunchy.”
Copper Moon Apothecary currently sells to markets all over Santa Cruz, including Staff of Life and The Herb Room, and runs weekly Santa Cruz Farmers Market booths. She’s also working on a “skin salvation” face serum and wants to experiment with frankincense and a new oil, called Kuss, originating from India. Between managing orders, saving up stock for the winter months and experimenting with new products, Thompson has her hands full.
“There are limitations. People want their product to smell like bubblegum, but it doesn’t,” Thompson says. “People are so used to the bubbles of Dove and other commercial products. This stuff isn’t that. It’s made to order for them. It’s natural and homegrown and good for you, good for the planet.”
We were saddened here at GT to hear of the passing of longtime friend of the paper Angelo Grova in July. With his groundbreaking FashionArt shows, Angelo obviously had a huge impact on Santa Cruz culture. But he changed how we wrote about fashion here in the alternative press here, too. Back in the day, the annual “fashion issue” was a joke. We always seemed to end up writing some variation on the tired cliché about how Santa Cruz had no fashion. I’m sure it was as much of a drag for readers as it was for us.
But Angelo changed all that with FashionArt. Suddenly, there was something exciting to write about in the world of Santa Cruz fashion. There were bold, eye-grabbing photos of pieces by local designers and artists. That talent may always have been here, but Angelo gave it a showcase.
You can see Angelo’s legacy in this week’s cover story by Susan Landry on Pivot: The Art of Fashion. Rose Sellery and Tina Brown, who both worked with Angelo on FashionArt before starting Pivot, have long been two of the most innovative fashion mavens in this area. And they are fostering new talent, like 18-year-old designer Josie Harris, whose “American Gothic” in this year’s show is both a wearable art piece and a political statement on gun violence. That Santa Cruz can now have something as edgy and challenging as her work in its largest fashion show is a testament to what Angelo started here, and this fashion issue is dedicated to his memory.
Louie, Louie, Louie, thank you so much for going where no one has gone before (with such LGBT glamour) in the history of the Ville. YouTube!
Some may question the need for a video on how to dance at quinceañeras, but you filled a need long empty in our social knowledge. As a retired teacher who has been invited to many quinceañeras, I often struggled to decide how I should dance at this occasion. Do I bust a move, or behave as society deems appropriate in the role of teacher?
Best wishes to you from a 66-year-old gay Latino admirer from the Ville. I do believe you were at Pajaro Pride in August at the YWCA.
We look forward to your comedy routines on YouTube and elsewhere.
Thank you for your courage and the ganas to be who you are. You are helping to end homophobia in Watsonville.
Steve Trujillo
Watsonville
Compromised By Anonymity
Name Withheld By Request’s letter (GT, 9/4) makes some interesting points about local government, but their argument, complete with apocalyptic sign-off, is fatally compromised by their anonymity. Good Times should require public identification of such writers or not publish their letters. Democratic discourse depends on accountability, and Name Withheld, like Antifa vandals and Klansmen under their hoods, should come out and make their case openly, not hide behind a cowardly disguise. The same goes for any replies.
Stephen Kessler
Santa Cruz
Courage, Not Cowardice
No wonder the anonymous letter writer from last week refused to be identified. I too would be embarrassed to put my name to such a letter. This person obviously feels passion for the cause, whatever it is, but is too cowardly to let others know that they subscribe to these beliefs.
As someone who has received hate mail and lost business because of the letters I have written, I understand why someone might not want to publicize their beliefs, but I have never asked for a newspaper to publish my letters without attribution. I believe that this newspaper erred in publishing a letter without disclosing the author. I think that we should know who writes these letters. Is it from a disgruntled city employee? Could it be from one of the councilmen who is subject to the recall petition? Perhaps it is from an escapee from a psychiatric ward. Don’t you think the readers should know?
As far as the content of the letter, it is hard for me to comment without knowing the expertise and knowledge of the writer. On it’s face, it seems to be an off-the-wall ranting of someone who has some knowledge of democracy and city government and a lot of anger that they are not getting their way, but maybe there is something to the allegations. Context would help.
Democracy needs people of courage who are not afraid to take a stand. Someone who criticizes public officials anonymously falls far short of this.
I strongly urge the Good Times not to publish letters without identifying the writer. The phrase “Consider the source” is appropriate here.
Gil Stein
Aptos
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
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GOOD IDEA
Ah, at long last, how we have waited for this moment! We now bid adieu to the days when readers of the Santa Cruz Sentinel’s online edition used to lose their voices screaming at their computer screens. That’s because the local daily announced on Thursday, Sept. 5, that it was finally doing away with its online comment section, at least for now. In an editorial, the paper argued that it did not have the resources to make a staffer sit on the page full-time to “babysit” forums rife with bigotry and name-calling.
GOOD WORK
Speaking of local media, the new upstart media company Santa Cruz Local finished its first-ever membership drive on Wednesday, Sept. 4. Launched by two Sentinel alumni this year, the group has been releasing free podcasts, with extra perks available to those who join. Santa Cruz Local has now reached 150 members, and the company hopes to reach 350 members by Dec. 31. Memberships range from $9 per month to $1,000 a year. For more information, visit santacruzlocal.org.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“In difficult times, fashion is always outrageous.”
It’s a true luxury that here in Santa Cruz, many of us can do our grocery shopping on bikes. In anticipation of bike to work day on Oct. 3 (mark your calendar for free breakfast on the way to work at Aptos and Westside New Leaf locations), the new Aptos New Leaf Community Market is hosting a free workshop with Matt Miller, program specialist at Ecology Action and cycling enthusiast, that will cover all of the basics of how to efficiently grocery shop on a bike. Basket or panniers? How do you pack supplies and distribute weight? How much is too much? Meet in the parking lot.
INFO: 6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17. Aptos New Leaf Community Market, 161 Aptos Village Way, Aptos. 685-8500, newleaf.com. Free, online registration recommended.
Art Seen
Nancy Lynn Jarvis Reading
Pumpkins and Halloween decor are starting to pop up around town, and nights are also getting longer, which means it’s a great time to settle in with a new mystery novel. Santa Cruz’s queen of mystery Nancy Lynn Jarvis will be reading and signing her latest book The Glass House, a haunted mystery story about a librarian who gets a lot more than she bargained for at a glass-forming class. Who knew glass forming and murder go hand-in-hand?
Two years ago, local artist Erika Perloff decided to paint each and every beach between Santa Cruz Main Beach and Pigeon Point to document the beauty of this stretch of coastline and highlight the need to protect it. She has painted over 50 views of our beloved beaches, working from life and from her plein-air sketches. A selection of the paintings will be on display all month at Hotel Paradox. All work is for sale, and Perloff will donate proceeds from art sales to Save Our Shores to support work in ocean education and stewardship.
INFO: Artist reception 6-9 p.m on Friday, Sept. 13. Hotel Paradox, 611 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. Free.
Thursday 9/19
Gravity Water Presentation
Danny Wright grew up in Santa Cruz living the outdoor life surfing, hiking and fishing, all while gaining a deep appreciation for water in all its forms. After receiving a B.A. in environmental studies and a master’s degree in international water management, he created a nonprofit that has since won recognition from National Geographic and MIT. His organization Gravity Water aims to bring clean drinking water to over 25 communities in Nepal, Vietnam, Indonesia, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica. Folks from Gravity Water will be explaining and presenting their efforts in providing EPA-rated safe water to over 10,000 children every day with a system that can be built, managed and maintained 100% by local community members.
INFO: 7 p.m. Live Oak Grange, 1900 17th Ave., Santa Cruz. 476-6424. Free.
Wednesday 9/11- Saturday 9/14
Santa Cruz Follies’ ‘Fascinatin’ Rhythms’
Similar to the Ziegfeld Follies, the Santa Cruz Follies are a group of seniors who combine the Broadway show with a more elaborate, high-class Vaudeville show. Like the Ziegfeld Follies, they have their own beautiful dancing girls and fantastic singers, with everyone decked out in fancy-dancy costumes. Celebrating their 64th birthday this year, the Follies presents Fascinatin’ Rhythms, a collection of American popular music through the ages as directed by Jo Luttringer.
INFO: 1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 11- Saturday, Sept. 14. 7:30 p.m. show on Friday, Sept. 13. Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, 307 Church St., Santa Cruz. 423-6640, santacruztickets.com. $22 general.
For 18-year-old designer Josie Harris, a gun is a far more apt symbol of the state of American culture than a pitchfork.
That’s why she made her wearable art piece “American Gothic” entirely out of shotgun shells, bullet casings and string.
The Santa Cruz High graduate hopes her work will spark a conversation about the reality of gun violence. “I want to bring attention to how scary it is to be in school, and how scary it is to go to church, or a nightclub, or a garlic festival, or anything like that, because you’re not safe,” she says.
Harris was compelled to create the piece after hearing about the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg. “It was such a violent attack on such a peaceful community,” she says. “I don’t always have the ability to stand up and talk for myself, so I tried to make an art piece to show my opposition against this horrible, horrible violence that has been corrupting our country.”
“American Gothic” will be one of the pieces showcased in this year’s Pivot: The Art of Fashion show on Saturday, Sept. 21, at the Rio Theater. It’s her second time at Pivot, but the young designer has participated in Santa Cruz’s FashionTEENS since the sixth grade.
While this is her first political piece, Harris is far from conventional. Almost all of her work is made with non-traditional materials like tea bags, coffee filters and even old soy milk containers. This year, she collected the shotgun shells and bullet casings from a friend’s father.
‘American Gothic’ by artist Josie Harris.
Pivot is known for its fun, extravagant and other-worldly designs, but founders Rose Sellery and Tina Brown say deeper messages are part of what makes the show so special.
“The thing that’s really different about our show is it’s not just fashion,” says Brown. “The wearable art pieces are usually one of a kind, and they tend to run from a serious social piece to a tongue-in-cheek piece. People think fashion can be surface, right? But we really dive a little bit deeper than that.”
The duo founded Pivot in 2015 to sew their love of fashion to their dedication to supporting local artists and designers. “We’re giving them a platform, a space to do what they do best,” says Brown. “That’s why we created the show.”
Harris will join three other youth artists at Pivot this year. For Sellery and Brown, who will be taking over FashionTEENS this year, working with youth is how they give back to the community. “It is fantastic to see these young people who have created something wear it on the runway,” says Sellery. “They just beam.”
While not always known for its fashion-forward thinking, Brown says Santa Cruz’s will to be weird and embrace the unexpected make it the perfect location for their avant-garde event.
“It’s not a typical runway show,” says Sellery. “We like to mix it up and make it as dramatic as we can.”
Pivot’s eye-popping designs and dynamic performances will be presented at the Rio this year. The aisles will become runways, and performers will pop out from all across the auditorium. One of them is the accordion-playing Great Morgani, who’s teaming up with local jazz singer Lori Rivera for a duet.
“The audience isn’t going to know when any of that is going to happen,” says Brown.
Sellery and Brown revel in keeping the audience on its toes and making the element of surprise a central tenet of the show—even for themselves. “There’s like 100 people backstage, and you’re trying to wrangle them all in, but you just have to let it all go when the show starts,” says Brown. “What happens out there happens.”
‘Loopholes’ by artist the Great Morgani. Photo: Jana Marcus
The two say it helps to expect the unexpected when dealing with wearable art, which is often so ornate that it can present real logistical challenges, like, “It’s gonna take four people to lift that up and get it on her—do you think she’ll be able to walk?” says Sellery.
Brown says that’s what keeps the show exciting. “We love the ones that are like, ‘So you think you could manage stairs in that? How are we gonna get that on stage?’ That’s the kind of problem solving we like to do.”
Practicality is what helps distinguish this year’s 16 artists from 12 featured designers. While art pieces in their own right, the designers’ work represents things people can wear on the street, or in day-to-day life. “You can actually sit in them and relax,” says Brown. “That’s sort of the line in my head. But really, we do like to blur those lines.”
Helping to blur them is Pivot veteran Ellen Brook, who says her line of hand-painted silks is an attempt to mix elegance and ease. “I’m creating very wearable pieces,” says the 55-year-old designer. “My line is under this tagline of luxuriously down to earth.” This year, Brook’s six-piece collection, dubbed “Super Californialicious,” will pair her hand-painted silks with leathers, linen and denim to emphasize wearability and honor the laid-back California lifestyle.
“I believe what we wear can be a vital form of personal and soulful expression,” says Brook. “If it takes one piece that’s a killer, unusual, exciting statement that helps people step out in the world with a little more flair and confidence, I just love that.”
On the opposite end of this year’s wearability spectrum sits Haute Trash, a nonprofit designer collective that upcycles trash into extravagant wearable art pieces, including this year’s featured “Wired For Sound,” a dress crocheted entirely from colorful phone wires and speakers.
Executive Director Kathan Griffins says the purpose is to “educate people about sustainability in a fun manner.” The collective will feature 12 designs this year in an ode to “slow fashion,” which Sellery and Brown say is “pivotal” to their event.
“It’s different than going to a department store and buying a T-shirt for $6, where a week later the threads come out,” says Sellery. “The nuances are professional and elegant, not mass-produced and slammed out the door and then into the dump.”
Designer: IBBayo; Model: Danay Weldega; Hair/make up: The Cosmo Factory; Photo: Jana Marcus
This year’s show will see the return of several seasoned Pivot artists and designers, including IB Bayo, Charlotte Kruk, and Sellery herself, but there will also be a palpable absence in the room. Angelo Grova, founder of the pioneering FashionART event that Sellery and Brown worked on for years before starting Pivot, died in July.
“Without Angelo, we wouldn’t have gotten started, and I wouldn’t have had an avenue to continue to explore wearable garments,” says Sellery. “He had this great, upbeat, ‘Let’s do it’ energy. He was a wonderful man.”
Inspired by his memory, the two say they hope to keep pushing forward, supporting their community of artists and having a great time while doing it.
“We’re thinking about what’s going to be fun, what are they going to enjoy?” says Sellery. “Damn, we love it.”
Now, with the artists finalized, venue booked, and show only weeks away, only one question remains: “What are you going to wear?”
At 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 21, ‘Pivot: The Art of Fashion’ returns to the Rio Theatre,1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. pivot-artfashion.com. $25 general/$60 Gold Circle.
Jeremy Leonard says with a laugh that his own personal story with Volkswagens goes “all the way back.”
In 1973, Leonard’s mom was standing in her driveway, eight-and-a-half months pregnant, when she realized she’d forgotten to set the emergency break on her VW Bus, which started rolling down the hill. When she jumped in to stop it, she started feeling contractions immediately. Leonard was born the next day.
Now the 46-year-old entrepreneur is combining his love for all things VW with his flair for Santa Cruz surf style to put on the second-annual Santa Cruz Dub’n festival this Saturday. The free event transforms the county government building’s Ocean Street parking lot into a street-fair-style celebration, featuring almost 200 vibrantly painted and restored VW Buses, Bugs and Ghias. This year’s festival is a fundraiser for the Coastal Watershed Council.
For Leonard, the festival is a chance to celebrate Santa Cruz’s counterculture and surf-town roots. “Although it’s totally changed now, Santa Cruz has this aura of being a VW place,” he says. “You think of Santa Cruz, and you think of hippies; you think of Volkswagen Buses cruising around. It lends itself naturally to a Volkswagen show.”
He sees the shifting culture here in Santa Cruz as similar to what’s happening in VW bus culture. In the realm of Volkswagens, new money has created less opportunity for ordinary enthusiasts to buy an old van and get involved in the fix-it-up hobby of making a car their own.
“Now, they’re this rare vehicle, commodity sort of thing. Not every hippie can drive one around anymore,” Leonard says, “I was kind of dumbfounded—this car I bought for a hundred bucks is now worth $20,000. I honestly thought people were joking.”
For Leonard and fellow co-founders Andres Burgueno, Mike Krakowiak and Randy Widera, Dub’n is a way to push back against this trend by creating a space where everyone can participate in and enjoy the quirky VW culture.
“Unique and creative people are all around, and it’s a way to share that and to hear people’s stories,” says Widera.
Burgueno says they do it “for the love, for the passion and for the kids.”
In addition to the VWs, the event will feature gear swaps, vendors, raffle ticket sales, and food stands—including from Burgueno, whose family will serve up tacos at their cart Tacos Freestyle. A live music stage will feature local bands, including the headlining Hoopty Funk, which plays a mix of dance and modern jazz music.
JUST COASTING
Santa Cruz’s Coastal Watershed Council, the beneficiary of this year’s event, is a nonprofit aimed at restoring the San Lorenzo River watershed, which provides drinking water to nearly 100,000 Santa Cruzans.
The Watershed Council does water quality monitoring and habitat enhancement for endangered and threatened species, and community events.The Watershed Rangers, the nonprofit’s youth environmental education program, also works with 2,500 elementary and middle-school students each year. The project shows kids how to help to take care of the river through field trips, after-school programs, summer camps, spring-break programs, and in-class lessons.
“Ultimately, we’re helping to empower kids to learn that, no matter their age, no matter if they’re in kindergarten or 7th grade, they can make a difference for their river today,” says the nonprofit’s Programs Director Laurie Egan.
Since Watershed Rangers is completely free for schools and students, Egan says the Santa Cruz Dub’n funds will help the program reach more students and lead to more field trips to the river.
Widera worked in outdoor education for years, even founding his own outdoor school, the Web of Life Field School, out of his VW Bus at age 25. That kind of long-standing passion for empowering youth made donating to the Coastal Watershed Council a natural choice.
“The river is a place we’ve kind of been turning our backs on, and their passion and leadership has really transformed the river,” says Widera. “I know we’re supporting a great organization; we’re supporting great stuff, and we’re supporting great leaders. To me, it’s just everything I could want.”
Leonard, who has a background in outdoor education himself, likes to joke that donating to an environmental organization helps offset the carbon footprint of his hobby of working on Volkswagen Buses, which have notoriously low gas mileage.
Leonard adds, though, that there are several ways to increase the efficiency of a VW Bus, including a popular movement among VW owners to convert their vehicles to run on electricity. This year, car show participants can enter to win a rebuilt, zero-mileage engine.
Last year, with around 700 attendees, the group raised $3,000 for the O’Neill Sea Odyssey, a Santa Cruz non-profit dedicated to ocean education. This year, they’re hoping to raise more for the Coastal Watershed Council.
Krakowiak, a U.S. Navy veteran and 911 dispatcher, says that the logistics of the event can be challenging, but that it’s worth it.
“When it all comes together,” he says, “it’s magic.”
Santa Cruz Dub’N is Saturday, Sept. 14, from 9-5 p.m. at 701 Ocean St. Free.
Santa Cruz newcomer debuts brunch, Southern-style supper
Last Sunday, a casually sophisticated adventure began over at Bad Animal on Cedar Street. Something very Bohemian Left Bank in the form of a new Sunday brunch. The brunch menu will be on offer from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. every Sunday at the enlightened home of louche literature, seasoned philosophy and soul-changing poetry. The emphasis will still be on California-French cuisine, says co-host Andrew Sivak, which means we can look for dishes like duck rillette hash, soufflé omelette, Croque Madame (can you say “Cafe de Flore?”), plus house-made yogurt and granola. With brunch comes a new wine list; I’m guessing something chilled with bubbles.
On Sunday evenings, chef Todd Parker will inflect Bad Animal’s dinner menu with a Southern accent. Sunday supper will include Southern culinary staples like red beans and rice (Andouille sausage, ham hocks, bacon), and even boiled peanuts (with creole spice). I’ve learned to expect delicious surprises from Bad Animal, and the new Sunday brunch should put a definite “voila” in your attitude.
Queen of the vineyards and local viticulturist Prudy Foxx coaxes agricultural miracles and flavor complexity out of grapes with names like Syrah, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Grown men (and women) genuflect when she comes around their vineyards to check bud break, shading, pruning, sugar numbers, and readiness for harvest. A celebrated genius with regional grape planting, growing and management, Foxx never met a vineyard she couldn’t improve, and chances are if you’ve ever tasted a wine from the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation, you’ve tasted Foxx’s handiwork. Since the mid-80s, Foxx has helped winemakers express the finest from their vines. She’s also a lot of fun to talk to and taste wines with, which is why you want to score a reservation at the sensory tasting experience with Prudy Foxx at Soif Wine Bar & Merchants on Saturday, Sept. 21, from 2-4 p.m.
Foxx will hold forth at this classroom-style tasting in the restaurant. Admission—$50 general, or $35 for Soif wine club members—includes cheese and charcuterie, along with the following wines: I. Brand Bates Ranch Cabernet Franc 2016; Lester Estate Rose Syrah 2018; Lester Estate Pinot Noir 2016; Beauregard Winery Bald Mountain Chardonnay 2017; Sante Arcangeli “Integrato” Chardonnay 2017; and Margins Wine Zayante Barbera 2018. What Prudy Foxx doesn’t know about grapes, wine and winemaking probably isn’t worth knowing. Come to this tasting and find out.
Party Animal
You know about this legendary gardner’s new book, Fruit Trees for Every Garden, don’t you?
Well now you do. And to help Orin Martin of UCSC’s Alan Chadwick Garden celebrate, there’s a book launch party at the UCSC Hay Barn on Sunday, Sept. 15 from 4-6 p.m. This free event is open to the public, and Orin will be reading and signing his books, which will be on display and for sale, beautifully illustrated with color etchings by Stephanie Martin. Refreshments will be available, plus a pie potluck! Bring your favorite fruit pie to wow the public and impress Orin. casfs.ucsc.edu.
Wine of the Week
Stirm Wine Co. Riesling 2017, made by Ryan Stirm with old-vine grapes from Wirz Vineyard, Cienega Valley. Rounded, dry but loaded with dreamy flavors, this is a stunning creation. Flavors of pear and ripe lemon, aromas of lychee, with a whisper of olive. Like green taffeta. This bold-yet-delicate Riesling boasts 13.5% alcohol, still light but with gravitas enough to deliver memorable richness. Produced and bottled in Watsonville, this wine confirms a growing tide of acclaim for this winemaker. $28. stirmwine.com.
