Page 633 – Good Times

Film Review: ‘Everybody Knows’

Lisa Jensen

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February 26, 2019

Madrid looks beautiful in the Spanish-language drama Everybody Knows. Centuries-old, honey-colored stone buildings perch on ancient cobbled streets; private walled courtyards are shaded by leafy trees strung with dozens of lights; interiors are warm and rustic, painted in pale shades of terra cotta and celery. The vast, open fields outside of town are planted with juicy wine grapes. The movie is an immersive timeout in a warm climate that we could all use about now.

Maybe it’s the outsider’s perspective brought to the production by Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi that makes the movie so visually appealing, a sense of wonder as the layers of beauty in the locale keep unfolding. But the layers of plot within Everybody Knows so essential to the mystery—suspense, revelations, complex family histories—don’t always unfold quite as smoothly.

The nuance of family dynamics is sort of a specialty of Farhadi, as seen in his two previous Foreign Language Oscar-winning Iranian films, A Separation and The Salesman. Family secrets and hidden agendas abound in Everybody Knows, and while Fahardi handles them with his usual sensitivity, the movie never quite achieves the emotional epiphany we hope for. Stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem (even more expansive and full of gusto than usual) are worth watching in every frame they’re in, and the ensemble cast is excellent. But when all is finally revealed, there’s just not as much there, there as we might wish.

Directing from his own original script, Fahardi crafts a mystery-suspense drama that begins with a lighthearted family reunion in Madrid. Laura (Cruz), returning to her childhood home from Buenos Aires, where she has relocated with her Argentinean husband, arrives with her teenage daughter, Irene (Carla Campra), and young son. Laura’s niece is getting married, and the old family compound—presided over by Laura’s cranky, elderly father and her sister and brother-in-law—is a hive of activity.

Among the friends, relations, neighbors, cleaning crews, and delivery people traipsing in and out of the place, Laura happily reunites with childhood friend Paco (Bardem), a genial winemaker who owns the vineyard a little way down the road, now married to the more reserved Bea (Bárbara Lennie). The wedding is a great success, as is the celebration that goes on all night in the family courtyard, despite a few cases of over-indulgence (Laura has to put Irene to bed upstairs) and a temporary power outage.

But the festivities come to an abrupt end when Laura discovers Irene is missing. Ransom notes via text soon follow, along with a dire warning not to involve the police, and the movie veers into suspense, with characters desperately trying to figure out how the girl was taken, by whom, and how best to get her safely back. When Laura’s husband Alejandro (Ricardo Darín) arrives, the stage is set for dark revelations and suppressed animosities and resentments to surface as the family sifts through its collective history, searching for clues.

Fahardi handles the suspense element pretty well, finding subtle ways to imply that anyone within the family circle or its intimates might plausibly be in on the plot. But the wrap-up is more straightforward and less intriguing than we’ve been led to expect.

And there are complications along the way. After the family decides not to involve the police, a character pops up to provide them with detailed procedural instruction on dealing with the abductor, but we’re given no explanation of who he is. And with so many supporting characters drifting in and out of the household and the storyline, Fahardi doesn’t do enough to differentiate between them. It’s often hard to keep track of who’s who and what their relationships are to each other.

Still, it’s interesting to see how Fahardi’s grasp of intricate human interaction translates to a more open, expressive culture. Everybody Knows teems with life lived in the moment, even if the destination is less compelling than the journey.

EVERYBODY KNOWS (TODOS LO SABEN)

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With Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi. A Focus Features release. Rated R. 133 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.

Rob Brezny’s Astrology Feb. 27-March 5

Rob Brezsny

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February 26, 2019

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Free will astrology for the week of Feb. 27, 2019

ARIES (March 21-April 19): South Koreans work too hard. Many are on the job for 14 hours a day, six days a week. That’s why a new concept in vacations has emerged there. People take sabbaticals by checking into “Prison Inside Me,” a facility designed like a jail. For a while, they do without cell phones and Internet and important appointments. Freed of normal stresses and stripped of obsessive concerns, they turn inward and recharge their spiritual batteries. I’d love to see you treat yourself to a getaway like this—minus the incarceration theme, of course. You’d benefit from a quiet, spacious, low-pressure escape.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The astrology column you’re reading is published in periodicals in four countries: the U.S., Canada, Italy, and France. In all of these places, women have had a hard time acquiring political power. Neither the U.S. nor Italy has ever had a female head of government. France has had one, Édith Cresson, who served less than a year as Prime Minister. Canada has had one, Kim Campbell, who was in office for 132 days. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the coming months will be a more favorable time than usual to boost feminine authority and enhance women’s ability to shape our shared reality. And you Tauruses of all genders will be in prime position to foster that outcome. Homework: Meditate on specific ways you could contribute, even if just through your personal interactions.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): A 19-year-old guy named Anson Lemmer started a job as a pizza delivery man in Glenwood, Colorado. On his second night, he arrived with a hot pizza at a house where an emergency was in progress. A man was lying on the ground in distress. Having been trained in CPR, Lemmer leaped to his rescue and saved his life. I expect that you, too, will perform a heroic act sometime soon, Gemini—maybe not as monumental as Lemmer’s, but nonetheless impressive. And I bet it will have an enduring impact, sending out reverberations that rebound to your benefit for quite some time.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Scientist Michael Dillon was shocked when he learned that some bees can buzz around at lofty altitudes where the oxygen is sparse. He and a colleague even found two of them at 29,525 feet—higher than Mt. Everest. How could the bees fly in such thin air? They “didn’t beat their wings faster,” according to a report in National Geographic, but rather “swung their wings through a wider arc.” I propose that we regard these high-flying marvels as your soul animals for the coming weeks. Metaphorically speaking, you will have the power and ingenuity and adaptability to go higher than you’ve been in a long time.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Do you find it a challenge to commit to an entirely plant-based diet? If so, you might appreciate flexitarianism, which is a less-perfectionist approach that focuses on eating vegetables but doesn’t make you feel guilty if you eat a bit of meat now and then. In general, I recommend you experiment with a similar attitude toward pretty much everything in the coming weeks. Be strong-minded, idealistic, willful, and intent on serving your well-being—but without being a maniacal purist.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): If you gorge on sugary treats and soft drinks, you ingest a lot of empty calories. They have a low nutrient density, and provide you with a scant amount of minerals, vitamins, protein, and other necessities. Since I am committed to helping you treat yourself with utmost respect, I always discourage you from that behavior. But I’m especially hopeful you will avoid it during the next three weeks, both in the literal and metaphorical senses. Please refrain from absorbing barren, vacant stuff into the sacred temple of your mind and body—including images, stories, sounds, and ideas, as well as food and drink.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Charles Grey was the second Earl of Grey, as well as Prime Minister of England from 1830 to 1834. His time in office produced pivotal changes, including the abolition of slavery, reform of child labor laws and more democracy in the nation’s electoral process. But most people today know nothing of those triumphs. Rather, he is immortalized for the Earl Grey tea that he made popular. I suspect that in the coming weeks, one of your fine efforts may also get less attention than a more modest success. But don’t worry about it. Instead, be content with congratulating yourself for your excellent work. I think that’s the key to you ultimately getting proper appreciation for your bigger accomplishment.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): At a young age, budding Scorpio poet Sylvia Plath came to a tough realization: “I can never read all the books I want,” she wrote in her journal. “I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life.” Judging by current astrological omens, I can imagine you saying something like that right now. I bet your longing for total immersion in life’s pleasures is especially intense and a bit frustrated. But I’m pleased to predict that in the next four weeks, you’ll be able to live and feel more shades, tones and variations of experience than you have in a long time.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): When Europeans invaded and occupied North America, they displaced many indigenous people from their ancestral lands. There were a few notable exceptions, including five tribes in what’s now Maine and Eastern Canada. They are known as the Wabanaki confederacy: the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Micmac, Maliseet, and Abenaki. Although they had to adjust to and compromise with colonialism, they were never defeated by it. I propose we make them your heroic symbols for the coming weeks. May their resilient determination to remain connected to their roots and origins motivate you to draw ever-fresh power from your own roots and origins.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn javelin thrower Julius Yego won a silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics. How did he get so skilled? Not in the typical way. He gained preliminary proficiency while competing for his high school team, but after graduation, he was too poor to keep developing his mastery. So he turned to YouTube, where he studied videos by great javelin throwers to benefit from their training strategies and techniques. Now that you’re in an intense learning phase of your cycle, Capricorn, I suggest that you, too, be ready to draw on sources that may be unexpected or unusual or alternative.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The first edition of Action Comics, which launched the story of the fictional character Superman, cost 10 cents in 1938. Nowadays, it’s worth $3 million. I’ll make a bold prediction that you, too, will be worth considerably more on Dec. 31, 2019 than you are right now. The increase won’t be as dramatic as that of the Superman comic, but still: I expect a significant boost. And what you do in the next four weeks could have a lot to do with making my prediction come true.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Until the 16th century in much of Europe and the 18th century in Britain, the new year was celebrated in March. That made sense given the fact that the weather was growing noticeably warmer and it was time to plant the crops again. In my astrological opinion, the month of March is still the best time of year for you Pisceans to observe your personal new year. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to start fresh in any area of your life. If you formulate a set of New Year’s resolutions, you’re more likely to remain committed to them than if you had made them on Jan. 1.

Homework: Write a short essay on “How I Created Something Out of Nothing.” Go to realastrology.com and click on “Email Rob.”

Soif, UCSC Bring Climate Debate to Dinner Plates

Christina Waters

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February 26, 2019

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Soif, UCSC Bring Climate Debate to Dinner Plates

Soif Restaurant & Wine Bar and UCSC’s Coastal Science and Policy Program will unveil a new dinner and discussion series, “Sustainable Coastal Communities: Challenges and Opportunities,” on Tuesday, March 26, at 7 p.m.

“I am hoping to bring the challenges of climate change directly to our dinner plates,” says Soif owner Patrice Boyle, who began thinking about the possibilities when she first met Anne Kapuscinski, a former Dartmouth professor brought on to direct the new UCSC program. Kapuscinski and Boyle, along with colleague Mark Carr, began brainstorming about a dinner program that would spotlight coastal ecosystems. “I am very excited about this series, and especially about the new Coastal Science and Policy Program at UCSC,” Boyle says. “The basic format will be to have one of the scientists lay out the global issues and challenges.”

A selected supplier will also present specific strategies and solutions. “Our first partner will be the Ocean2Table founders, Charlie Lambert and Ian Cole,” Boyle reveals. The March 26 debut dinner will focus on fisheries, with biologist John Field of UCSC’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center on hand to lead the discussion along with the Ocean2Table team. “We’re excited for the upcoming event,” the Ocean2Table entrepreneurs told me. “It should be a great opportunity to showcase some of the catch coming into our local ports and explain what differentiates it from what is typically available in local markets.”

A local grower will be featured at the next dinner in June, and the third dinner in September will highlight ranching. In December, the focus will turn to aquaculture, ideally showcasing Kapuscinski’s closed-system fish farm in progress at UCSC. At all of the events, Boyle says, “Our chef Tom McNary will create a menu representative of that evening’s theme highlighting local sustainable foods.”

At the inaugural dinner in March, the duo behind Ocean2Table plan to give a brief overview of how the current global seafood supply chain works, Cole says. A quick primer: most of the seafood consumed in the US is imported, and two species widely used in our kitchens are farmed salmon and farmed shrimp. “Most farmed fish has a bad rap—for good reasons,” Cole says. “They are fed a diet that contains antibiotics, as well as fishmeal produced from wild fish stocks. The practice of catching wild fish to feed farmed fish is inefficient and unsustainable. Fish farming practices degrade wild habitat, and during storm events it is not uncommon for large numbers of farmed salmon to escape and breed with the wild population.”

He also revealed one variety of “rampant seafood fraud” that makes it difficult for consumers to make smart choices. “As much as 40 percent of the seafood in the U.S. is mislabelled,” Cole says. “The longer the supply chain, the more likely the fish you’re eating is not what it claims to be.” Which is why Cole and his partner are building a “transparent and traceable” local fishery.

That’s lots of food for thought at Soif’s new dinner series, a delicious town/gown partnership bringing guests together to better understand the unique pressures on our coastal ecosystems. Boyle is once again setting the pace. “I am thrilled to bring together some of the top researchers and thought leaders from the UCSC team,” Boyle says. “We’ll see how this goes, but I would love to make it a permanent program and a regular public lecture series.”

Sustainable Coastal Communities dinners at Soif will cost $100 per person, plus $50 for wine pairings. To reserve your space for the Tuesday, March 26, dinner at 7:00 p.m., call Soif at 423-2020, soifwine.com. Details and dates for subsequent dinners highlighting farming, ranching and salmon to be announced soon.

5 Essential Songs By The Chills

Steve Palopoli

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February 26, 2019

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New Zealand alt-rock innovator Martin Phillipps brings his band the Chills to the Catalyst on Tuesday, March 5 as part of their long-overdue return to the U.S. Here are five songs essential to understanding what makes the Chills great:

“Pink Frost”: This 1984 single from the Chills arguably cemented the cool factor of the “Dunedin sound” that came out of the band’s hometown in New Zealand. (The Kiwi label that released it, Flying Nun Records, also championed other Dunedin bands like the Clean and the Verlaines.) Ironically, it doesn’t sound much like what the Chills would evolve into, at least on the surface—with its spooky, winding guitar ramble and gothic tale of a man who accidentally kills a lover in his sleep, it’s a bit more like something the Cure would have put out around that time. But on a deeper level, it’s an early example of how Martin Phillipps’ music has always evoked primal elements of the natural world.

“I Love My Leather Jacket”: Like “Pink Frost,” this song was on the Chills’ first “album,” 1986’s Kaleidoscope World, which was actually a collection of previous singles. Unlike “Pink Frost,” it really captures the love-in-the-face-of-the-terrifying-abyss spirit of Phillipps’ songwriting. It’s a tribute to Martyn Bull, the Chills drummer whose illness caused the band to take a year off just as it was finding its first success. Before Bull’s death from leukemia in 1983, he gave Phillipps his leather jacket, and this song in Bull’s memory is a powerful swirl of shock at losing a loved one and gratitude for having known him in the first place. “I wear my leather jacket like a great big hug/Radiating charm – a living cloak of luck/It’s the only concrete link with an absent friend/It’s a symbol I can wear ’til we meet again … I love my leather jacket, I love my vanished friend.” It also really rocks, with a muscular, stripped-down sound that Phillipps has returned to more often on recent Chills albums.

“Heavenly Pop Hit”: You’d be hard-pressed to find a purer expression of joy in ’90s rock than this song, which earned the Chills an audience worldwide and came this close to breaking them in the mainstream. Ironically, Phillipps told me that because his problems with drug abuse and low self-esteem at that time are so well-known, many fans still can’t believe it was genuine. “You’d be surprised how many people come up to me and sort of say, ‘Wink wink, nudge nudge, but it’s not real, is it? You weren’t really happy, surely.’ Like it must have been cynical underneath or something. But it was a song about the power of rock music to uplift you.” Maybe they should have looked more closely at the lyrics, which suggest even Phillipps wasn’t sure how he could feel so good: “All the tension is ended, the sentence suspended/And darkness now sparkles and gleams/And it all seems larger than life to me/I find it rather hard to believe.”

“Submarine Bells”: The entirety of 1990’s Submarine Bells album is a far-reaching musical landscape, from the forest and stars of “The Oncoming Day” to the watery guitar ripples of “Effloresce and Deliquesce” to the evening afterburn of “Dead Web,” but nowhere in perhaps the entire Chills catalogue does Phillipps sync his sonics with natural beauty the way he does on this album closer. It’s a gorgeous love song so startlingly vivid that it seems to literally sink into the depths of the sea as he sings “sound moves further underwater.”

“Bad Sugar”: The lead single off the Chills’ 2018 album Snow Bound starts off with a glowing guitar effect that epitomizes Phillipps’ ability to harness a remarkable spectrum of sound. Like much of Snow Bound, the album that really solidifies the Chills’ comeback after nearly two decades of all but disappearing, “Bad Sugar”’s lyrics try to foster a little empathy for those whose belief systems leave us in staggering disbelief. Lines like “Of this wide world of wonder, you’re scared to take a look” and “When they’re hiding their heads in the sand/Then it seems they’ve been damned by their very own hand” would seem to be a setup for a total dismantling of the small-minded true believers he’s aiming at, but Phillipps brings his characteristic humanity to the chorus: “But then I’m wrong, I know I’m wrong/It’s just people and how they get along.” Bonus points for the sly kicker: “Even bad sugar makes bitter taste sweet.” I mean, your Creationist uncle may be filling some deep human need and all—and you should maybe be nice to him at Thanksgiving—but he’s still wrong.

The Chills play at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 5, at the Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave. in Santa Cruz. Tickets are $18 advance/$20 at the door; catalystclub.com.

New Zealand’s The Chills Make Santa Cruz Return

Steve Palopoli

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February 26, 2019

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New Zealand’s The Chills Make Santa Cruz Return

The rise of the #MeToo movement has brought the phrase “toxic masculinity” to the mainstream, but it’s something the Chills’ Martin Phillipps was challenging his audience to think about almost 30 years ago.

When the song “The Male Monster From the Id” came out on the Soft Bomb album in 1992, the Chills had fans worldwide for the first time, after the 1990 major-label debut Submarine Bells and its college-radio hit “Heavenly Pop Hit” had broken them out of the small—but now somewhat legendary—New Zealand indie scene of the 1980s. Phillipps used that platform to assert that “Each man I’ve seen has some animal behavior in him/Some can conceal better the male monster from the id,” and encourage his male fans to take a hard look inward. (Click here to brush up on “5 Essential Chills Songs.”)

Unfortunately, a combination of record-industry support crumbling beneath his feet and Phillipps’ own struggle with depression and drug use led to an almost total breakdown of the Chills, with the band breaking up and then resurrecting in fits and starts—and not producing a proper album for almost 20 years, until 2015’s Silver Bullets. But it was a strong return, and last year’s Snow Bound was even better. Phillipps’ complex and layered songwriting has returned to peak levels, and as the Chills land in the U.S. with a tour that comes to Santa Cruz on March 5, he finds a cultural landscape that is far more ready to explore some of the difficult issues it wasn’t altogether ready for three decades ago.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, because I think that’s true,” Phillipps tells me by phone from New York. “We seem to be saying the appropriate things for not just our own age group who are tackling some of these issues, but there’s sort of a new crowd coming up who are discovering us, too. It’s a very confusing time for a lot of people, and I think we seem to be tapping into that—a band with experience, that’s sort of on the right side in terms of being melodic rock music without being testosterone-fueled.”

Perhaps the reason that Phillipps has been able to bring brutal truths to his songs is that he always seems to start by owning up to his own frailties. He did it on older songs like “Male Monster” (and the great line from the Submarine Bells album, “Familiarity breeds contempt…and I’m not exempt”), and has continued to do so on new ones like “Scarred,” the drug-addiction mea culpa “Time to Atone,” and the rational-thinker anthem “Bad Sugar.”

“Frankly, I think it reaches more people at a deeper level if they can see that you’re trying as well, and looking within. I found that finger-pointing is too simplistic,” says Phillipps.

The results are lyrics that sometimes seem almost too smart for rock music, but which are grounded in the alternately shimmering and jangly hooks of the Chills’ catchy rock.

“That’s what I love to hear in lyrics myself—but I don’t know, in some ways I’ve shot myself in the foot, so to speak, by making them too clever,” admits Phillipps. “Especially when I was young and being a bit pretentious in my songwriting. But it’s still more fun, and it makes performing them live a lot more interesting, too.”

This international tour is especially celebratory for Phillipps because it was only three years ago that the Chills comeback was almost cut grimly short when he was told he had only a year to live. He had contracted Hepatitis C in the 1990s as a result of his drug use, and doctors told him his liver was about to give out. However, a drug developed in his native New Zealand, Harvoni, turned his situation around. He is determined to make the most of it, bringing both the Chills’ new and classic songs to U.S. audiences who have never gotten to hear either live.

“In a strange way, I feel like we’re picking up and getting back to where we should have been,” says Phillipps. “It’s kind of like a parallel universe sort of thing. It’s really odd.”

The Chills play at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 5, at the Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave. in Santa Cruz. Tickets are $18 advance/$20 at the door. catalystclub.com.

2019 Oscar Picks

Lisa Jensen

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February 21, 2019

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The 2019 Academy Award nominees reflect the industry’s desperate attempt to express support for a diversity of themes and cultures. Will the winners reflect that same diversity? You’ll have to tune in on Sunday to find out, but here are my best guesses:

BEST PICTURE Roma, Alfonso Cuaron’s memoir of his Mexican childhood, and a mood piece about stillness and being present in the journey of life. I loved Bohemian Rhapsody, Black Panther was a lot of fun, Green Book was entertaining, and shame on me for missing Vice, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, and A Star Is Born. The Favourite is the only nominee I question. All three lead actresses were terrific, but I don’t understand why Yorgos Lanthimos has a career.

BEST DIRECTOR Alfonso Cuaron, Roma. With an impressive Hollywood track record (including a Harry Potter movie, and a previous directing Oscar for Gravity), Cuaron’s heartfelt film celebrates everything undervalued in the current political climate: strong women, people of color (from south of the border, yet), and compassion. The other of these five directors also nominated for a foreign-language film is Pawel Pawlikowski, for the brilliant Polish drama Cold War. Lee has a better chance for BlacKkKlansman, his first-ever directing nomination, than Adam McKay for Vice.

BEST ACTRESS Olivia Colman, The Favourite, absolutely fearless as cranky, sad-sack Queen Anne—no matter how awful she looked on screen—had the kind of anti-glam riskiness that wins Oscars. She also created the only character in this mannered, peculiar movie viewers could care about, in all her imperious vulnerability. Melissa McCarthy was incisive, but her character is too unpleasant in Can You Ever Forgive Me. Lady Gaga will score for music, not acting, in A Star Is Born. First-time actress Yalitza Aparicio, in Roma, is an honorable mention. But watch out for Glenn Close in The Wife. After a career full of nominations, she has yet to be the bride. Could be her turn.

BEST ACTOR Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody. Willem Dafoe’s despairing angst as Van Gogh in the misbegotten At Eternity’s Gate can’t compete. Viggo Mortensen could cruise to gold as an affable guy who discovers, then rises above, his own racism in Green Book. Likewise, Christian Bale, since the politics of Vice align with a large percentage of Oscar voters. (Who could resist his Golden Globes speech thanking Satan for inspiring him to play Dick Cheney?) But the strutting exuberance of Malek as Freddie Mercury has won every other prize this season. He’d get my vote.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Maria de Tavira, Roma, for her deft, classy turn as a woman adapting to crisis. Neither Emma Stone nor Rachel Weiss is likely to win over the other for The Favourite, where they were so evenly matched. Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk and Amy Adams in Vice aren’t getting enough buzz.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Mahershala Ali in Green Book. Sam Rockwell (Vice) won in this category last year. Adam Driver’s chances seem iffy in BlacKkKlansman, and the ever-reliable Sam Elliott only has a chance if A Star Is Born sweeps. Richard E. Grant was caustic, slinky fun in Can You Ever Forgive Me? I’d split my vote between Grant and the impressive Ali, who won in this category two years ago for Moonlight.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Alfonso Cuaron, Roma, the director who also acted as his own cinematographer. I love that two of the nominated films are in evocative black and white. The other one, Pawlikowski’s Cold War, shot by Lukasz Zal, gets my vote—dark, intoxicating and complex.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE Going out on a limb here: with Roma poised to take Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography awards, the Academy has no excuse not to bestow gold on the gorgeous Cold War.

MISCELLANY: The Favourite may lead the pack for Production Design, but Black Panther ought to sneak in for Costumes, and Vice should win for Makeup/Hairstyling for transforming Christian Bale into Dick Cheney. Yikes!

The 2019 Academy Awards will be broadcast live, Sunday, Feb. 24, at 5 p.m. on ABC.

Byington’s Mountain Hideaway, Plus Wine On the Wharf

Josie Cowden

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February 20, 2019

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Byington’s Mountain Hideaway, Plus Wine On the Wharf

High in the Los Gatos hills, along the winding Bear Creek Road, is Byington Winery. This beautiful estate boasts acres of stunning property and impressive vineyards. Weddings, corporate events and parties galore are held both outdoors and indoors.

There are tables, umbrellas, gas and charcoal grills for your use (for a fee, and bring your own tools), and there’s a bocce ball court as well. Picnic tables are available on a first-come, first-served basis but can be booked in advance for parties of 10 or more. The tasting “fee” for a picnic table is the purchase of a half-bottle of wine per person—to enjoy on the property or to take home. In a nutshell, Byington Winery is a fun and welcoming place to visit, and their wines are excellent.

The Chardonnay 2015 ($28) from Byington’s estate Tin Cross Vineyard in Alexander Valley is a bright and lively expression of this varietal. White florals, lemon citrus and crisp green apple delight the palate—crowned with a clean, refreshing finish and softening into flavors of honeyed lemon custard. Byington suggests pairing the Chardonnay with risotto and spring vegetables.

Byington Vineyard & Winery, 21850 Bear Creek Rd., Los Gatos. 408-354-1111, byington.com

Pop-Up Tasting on the Bay at Vino Locale

The new locally owned Vino Locale wine bar on the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf will be hosting Muns Vineyard from 2-5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 23 for an afternoon tasting flight of Muns’ 2012, 2013 and 2014 Pinot Noirs, as well as a 2014 Syrah. Join Ed Muns and Mary Lindsay of Muns Vineyard for an enjoyable afternoon—complete with an incomparable view of the Monterey Bay. The cost of $22 includes the wine flight and cheese hors d’oeuvres.

Vino Locale on the Wharf, 55 Municipal Wharf, Santa Cruz. 426-0750, vinolocalesantacruz.com

Murder Mystery Dinner

Elf Empire Productions is putting on three murder mystery dinners at the Food Lounge in downtown Santa Cruz on Feb. 23, March 2 and March 9. Dinner seating is at 5:30 p.m. and the $55 price includes dinner, show, tax, and tip.

Visit elfempire.com for more info.

5 Things To Do in Santa Cruz: February 20-26

GT Staff

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February 20, 2019

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5 Things To Do in Santa Cruz: February 20-26

A weekly guide to what’s happening.

Green Fix

Replacing The Lawn

Learn about the advantages of replacing your water-guzzling lawn with drought-tolerant California native plants. Instead of gazing at gopher mounds, plant something to save the bees and butterflies. Neal Christen, water conservation representative from the Santa Cruz water department will provide information about the city’s Lawn Replacement Rebate Program. Arrive 15 minutes early to sign in or register, but the class is limited to 16 people, so early sign-up is recommended.

INFO: 10 a.m.-noon. Saturday, Feb. 23. Costanoa Commons, 335 Golf Club Drive, Santa Cruz. 763-8007, mbmg.org. Free/donations welcome.

Art Seen

Quilt Show

These are not your grandma’s quilts. Well, maybe they are, depending on who your grandma is—maybe she is an epic quilter. Featuring over 300 handmade quilts and wearable arts, the Pajaro Valley Quilting Association’s Quilt Show includes a flea market and vendor mall, plus a fashion show. There’s a featured artist and a featured quilt, plus live demos so you can start a new quilt at home.

INFO: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24. Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds, 2601 E Lake Ave., Watsonville. pvqa.org. $10.

Friday 2/22 and Saturday 2/23

‘R.U.R. Humans Versus Robots’

Meet the play that coined the term “robot.” Best known as Rossum’s Universal Robots, this 1920s scientific stage play is an adventure tale of humans versus technology, which quickly became an influential piece that bridged art and science. The play’s robots aren’t what we commonly think of today; they are artificial flesh-and-blood humans built in a factory. They are often mistaken for humans and able to coexist at first, but their rebellion leads to a grim future for the human race.

INFO: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. Merrill Cultural Center, UC Santa Cruz. Free. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23. Broadway Playhouse, 526 Broadway, Santa Cruz. $12 general/$5 students. 212-3491, rurcrown.weebly.com/tickets.html.

Saturday 2/23- Sunday 2/24

38th Annual Clam Chowder Cook Off

Who knew that the country’s biggest and longest-running clam chowder fest was right here in Santa Cruz? The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Clam Chowder Cook-Off and Festival is back for its 38th time around. There are both amateur and professional categories, plus prizes for the best chowder. Be a part of Santa Cruz’s storied clam chowder history, and find out where you fit into the bigger clam chowder picture. (OK, just kidding on that last part. There is no bigger clam chowder picture, but wouldn’t that be kind of cool?)

INFO: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. 400 Beach St., Santa Cruz. 420-5273, beachboardwalk.com. Free admission/tasting kits $10.

Saturday 2/23 and Sunday 2/24

Santa Cruz Symphony ‘Symphonic Fire’

This two-part concert opens with Dvorák’s monumental cello concerto, featuring the Santa Cruz Symphony’s internationally renowned principal cellist and Grammy-winning artist Jonah Kim. Dvorák wrote the cello concerto while living in New York, where both the B minor Cello Concerto and the New World Symphony were written within a few years. Rachmaninoff’s final symphonic masterpiece, his fiery Symphonic Dances, follows. In it, Rachmaninoff reflects his nostalgia for the Russia he had known.

INFO: 7:30 p.m. Saturday Feb. 23. Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, 307 Church St., Santa Cruz; 2 p.m. Sunday Feb. 24. Mello Center for the Performing Arts, 250 E Beach St., Watsonville. 462-0553, santacruzsymphony.org. $31.50-$102.

Holy Smokes Makes BBQ A Family Affair

Georgia Johnson

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February 20, 2019

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It only took four months for Holy Smokes BBQ to move from catering to the old U.S. Meal spot. With the help of her family, owner Janis Cota worked through Christmas and the New Year to open her first storefront.

A favorite local caterer, the family started with farmers’ markets in Sonoma before moving to Santa Cruz seven years ago. Her three kids grew up helping out in the kitchen, so Cota says opening a restaurant was a fairly natural progression for them.

They previously did pop ups at East Cliff Brewing, and will now be serving food to the brewery and running the catering business, too. Cota says she wasn’t sure what to expect when they opened, but they have been so busy that they’ve had to hire extra help just to keep up.

Are you hiring other non-family staff?

JANIS COTA: We’ve hired a few people so my kids don’t have to work so much. I’ve hired three people so far, and I’m hiring someone to help me put everything together since I make everything myself—I made the carrot cake and macaroni salad this morning. So she is going to have to video it or write it down, because I have all of my recipes in my head.

Why BBQ?

My ex-husband and I purchased the barbeque [grill] to do long road trips to Mexico. We would go deep-sea fishing and have a BBQ. It was easy, and I just fell in love with cooking. We’ve had that BBQ since 1996, and when we divorced it helped me support my kids. I never thought I was going to open a restaurant. It’s always been a dream, but when U.S. Meal closed so quickly, it was a right-place-right-time kind of opportunity. It was crazy how it happened.

Your back patio looks amazing!

Yeah, we redid it all. We have a firepit and a rotisserie that we will be doing whole pigs on. We’ll have cornhole and darts, plus we just applied for a beer and wine license, so hopefully we will get that in time for the summer. It is just a cool place to hangout, especially when the sun comes out.

holysmokescountrybbqandcatering.com

Opinion: February 20, 2019

Steve Palopoli

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February 20, 2019

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EDITOR’S NOTE

This is the third year we’re doing Santa Cruz Burger Week, and every time we do, we get letters from vegetarian and vegan readers bemoaning the focus on beef. We’ve had veggie burger options every year, but of course it’s true that the majority of Burger Week offerings are beef burgers.

But will it always be that way? Anyone who read my dust-up with Lily Stoicheff in these pages a couple of years ago over who has the best burger in town knows that I do have a thing for well-made burgers, but I’m also an aficionado of great plant-based patties, going way back to my days of haunting the Saturn Café when it was on Mission Street (I loyally followed to its current location downtown, of course).

When I first tried the Impossible Burger last year, I was instantly sold. The idea of making a veggie burger as “rare” and juicy as possible might seem gimmicky at first, but the results are remarkable. In combining the umami bomb that most beef-burger eaters seek with the sustainability of a plant-based product, I have long suspected Impossible Foods has found a winning formula.

Then I saw more and more places locally add it to their menus—now there are nearly 20 places in the county (by my last count) that serve it. Several Burger Week participants are offering an Impossible Burger as an option, including not only Saturn, but also Flynn’s, Hula’s, Parish Publick House and Splash.

So in our pullout cover story for Burger Week, we take a closer look at how the Impossible Burger is changing the veggie burger game. You’ll also find a guide to every participating restaurant, along with their menus and an explanation of how this week of burger feasting works. Like me, you can plan your own restaurant route for the next seven days. See you there!

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Read the latest letters to the editor here.

Down the Drain

Perhaps the most crucial problem currently underway in the Soquel Creek Water District is the huge amount of money that has been, and continues to be, spent on developing a system to clean up sewer water and inject it into the aquifer (sometimes referred to as the poop water project). Yes, it is being done elsewhere, but that is no reason to justify doing it here.

It is said that it is virtually impossible to eliminate all the various pharmaceuticals people dispose of in their toilets, and that treated water being dumped into the oceans contains such contaminants. This being the case, there is no reason to believe that the district could avoid contaminating our aquifer. Furthermore, it is questionable whether this source of water is necessary, as there is evidence of adequate water without it. Yet the district management continues to spend tons of money on the project. It is time to know the truth!

Another significant problem is the number of water offset credits granted to the Aptos Village Project. The fence that surrounded the project since the beginning of construction had a lot of signs on it that extolled the idea that the project has saved great amounts of water, much of it having to do with a claim that the developer replaced a significant number of fixtures at Cabrillo College.

Replacing a single toilet results in a document four pages in length. The document describing the replacement of 70-some toilets and 40-some urinals at Cabrillo consists of one page and is signed by a foreman from the Village Project; no evidence of purchases by whom, when, where, how many, or the cost. Neither the college nor the water district produced any of that evidence. If this work was actually done, it is up to the college, the water district and the developer to prove it!

Thomas Stumbaugh
Aptos

West Cliff Ride

E-bikes are great, and so is the idea of using them as alternative transportation. Unfortunately, it seems only Claire Fliesler, the city architect of this plan, supports introducing 118 electrified bikes to the West Cliff multi-use pathway; 162 residents and pathway users have written the City Council in opposition, and 250 residents/pathway users have signed a petition in opposition. The comment that the pathway was designed to accommodate bikes, pet-walkers, seniors, wheelchairs, pedal-power bikes and electrified bikes is a bit disingenuous. The pathway in many critical sections is less than 6 feet in width and has no lane markings or regulatory markings. Folks have gotten injured along this pathway in bike-pedestrian collisions, and that is before introducing 118, 60-pound electrified bikes. In addition, residents and friends of the natural environment along West Cliff Drive find the idea of locating dozens of bright orange bikes in commercial lots along our coastline a degradation of a precious coastal environment. But, some folks think that multiple facial tattoos and nose ornaments are really cool. Are these the same folks that champion dotting the lighthouse, Steamer Lane and Mitchell cove with orange e-bikes? Also, CVC Section 21207.5(b) allows the City Council to forbid these electric bikes on the pathway. I wonder why.

Phil Crawford
Santa Cruz

PHOTO CONTEST WINNER

Submit to ph****@go*******.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.

GOOD IDEA

Santa Cruz environmentalists have joined the Humane League’s “imnotlovinit” campaign to raise awareness about the welfare of chickens that end up in America’s sandwiches. UCSC’s Banana Slugs For Animals will hold a silent protest in front of the McDonald’s at 1421 Mission St. in Santa Cruz on Friday, March 1, from 5-6 p.m. The Humane League is campaigning to see McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast food company, publicly commit to a meaningful welfare policy for chickens suffering in its supply chain. For more information, email Sydney Fox at se***@uc**.edu.

GOOD WORK

Julia Hartz is “an energy person.” The Eventbrite cofounder, who grew up in Santa Cruz, said as much in a recent interview with the New York Times. “Maybe it was growing up in Santa Cruz, or maybe I was just born with it, but human energy, I just feel it so much,” she explained. Also, a job with the Ugly Mug that Hartz took at age 14 left a big impression: “I would get there before it was light out and open up. From the Ugly Mug on, I’ve never not worked.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We all need to make time for a burger once in a while.”
-Erica Durance

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EVERYBODY KNOWS (TODOS LO SABEN)

Pop-Up Tasting on the Bay at Vino Locale

Murder Mystery Dinner

Replacing The Lawn

Quilt Show

‘R.U.R. Humans Versus Robots’

38th Annual Clam Chowder Cook Off

Santa Cruz Symphony ‘Symphonic Fire’

EDITOR’S NOTE

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

PHOTO CONTEST WINNER

GOOD IDEA

GOOD WORK

QUOTE OF THE WEEK