5 Things to Do in Santa Cruz Oct. 17-23

A weekly guide to what’s happening.

Green Fix

Water Harvest Festival

While everyone else is out harvesting apples and pumpkins, you could be harvesting water. Guess who will make it longer in the zombie apocalypse? You will, you, smarty, you! Soquel Creek Water District, the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County and Santa Cruz County Parks are hosting an all-day affair on water and water conservation. There’s even a costume contest for those in need for prepping water-based Halloween costumes. Limited parking; biking or public transportation recommended.

INFO: Noon-3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20. Soquel Park. 4740 Soquel Drive, Soquel. soquelcreekwater.org/waterharvestfestival. Free.

Art Seen

Jenny Robinson: Structural Anatomies

Jenny Robinson is a highly accomplished printmaker who’s latest show focuses on the anatomy of buildings and structures. Of course, we all see buildings from the outside, but never really know what goes on within the walls, or understand the complex framework behind boats or water towers. Robinson takes aim at the ambiguity in her striking large-scale prints. The show is only on for another week, with an artists reception at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 17.                     

INFO: Show runs through Friday, Oct. 26. Cabrillo Gallery, 6500 Soquel Drive, Aptos. 479-6308. Free.

Friday 10/19- Sunday 10/21

The All Joan Show

Veteran local choreographer Cid Pearlman celebrates her longtime collaboration with Joan Jeanrenaud in an evening of three works. It begins with the 10-minute duet Strange Toys, followed by Small Variations—originally a 30-minute sextet, but for this program Pearlman is adapting the work for four female dancers who will be doing the lifting that men originally did. Finally, the evening will conclude with Your Body is Not a Shark, which premiered at ODC Theater in San Francisco in 2013. Four sections of the nine-part whole will be presented in this program. There will be a pre-show talk-back with Jeanrenaud and Pearlman at 7:30 on Saturday, Oct. 20. Photo: Beau Saunders.

INFO: 8 p.m. Motion Pacific, 131 Front St E, Santa Cruz. 457-1616. motionpacific.com. $15-$30.

Friday 10/19- Sunday 10/28

Sleepy Hollow: The Musical

The nights are getting longer and spookier every day, and if there is a perfectly fitting October play, it’s Sleepy Hollow. The guy does, after all, have a pumpkin head. This musical version was written by local sisters Katelyn and Sierra Laird, and promises Broadway-style vocals, choreography, and scenic design to get you in the spooky mood before Halloween.

INFO: 2 and 7:30 p.m. Matthews Theater, Santa Cruz Veterans Hall, 846 Front St., Santa Cruz. $12-$22.

Saturday 10/20

Apple Tasting at Wilder Ranch

Put down that mushy tasteless Red Delicious this second. It’s apple season, and that brings all of the apple nerds—ahem, growing enthusiasts—out of the woodwork to present this year’s best and brightest varietals. The farmers market is already stocked on all kinds of eating, cooking and baking apples, but Wilder Ranch Harvest Festival apple tasting includes more than 70 varieties, including several not found at the weekly market. We hear pie/jam/tarts may be in order.

INFO: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wilder Ranch State Park, 1401 Coast Road, Santa Cruz. 662-2216. mbcrfg.org. $5.

What Do We Value? Risa’s Star’s Oct. 17-23

We remain for many weeks (until mid-November) under Venus retrograde (in Scorpio, then Libra), reminding us that Venus retrograde is the time to assess our values.

We are to focus upon and ask ourselves what (resources, people, relationships, kingdoms, etc.) is of value to us. Creating a state of illumination in Scorpio and contemplation in Libra. We are to ask ourselves two questions: What of value will we keep, cultivate and cherish? And what will we eliminate (share, give away, allowing it to drop away)?

Life events occur during Venus retrograde (Scorpio tests then Libra choice) creating an acute awareness of what we value, whom we value, all that we value, including the value of the self/Self. The latter most important to consider. Aware of this Venus retrograde influence, we observe our lives within the lens of Venus. And then Venus retrograde, as we assess, we are also called to choose (Libra’s task).

Under Libra Sun and Venus retrograde we are in an interval, a time of oscillating between two things (you/me, I/Thou, up/down, here/there, etc.), until we finally come to rest. Venus retro calls us to stand for what we value. And Libra, informing us that we must choose wisely and rightly, also tells us how.

When we align with the Will-to-Good, Goodwill and Right Choice and Harmony come forth. All illusions, distortions, glamours and hindrances fall away. We are able to see clearly how the self and each of us are deeply valuable to our world. Love and harmony from Venus then come forth. As Agni Yoga Helena Roerich said, “The heart, filled with love, becomes active and valiant, expanding its capacity. Such a heart, praying without words, bathes in Bliss. How greatly in need is humanity’s realization of the Fire of Love! A fire from a star of the highest tension.”

ARIES: You are learning many things about yourself—the use of your vital life force; your sense of altruism; your ability to initiate and undertake anything, even the risky and questionable; your sense of self-worth and of being valued; and the fact that you are able at this time to shape an idea and anchor it into form and matter. These are extraordinary gifts. You are to recognize them. Inviting others to learn them.

TAURUS: You teach the use of positive thoughts, of constructive and progressive actions. They deter us away from adverse, harmful and destructive thinking which obstructs and hinders any moving forward. The fact that you are very principled, ethical and ask others to also have morals and principles needs to be recognized. We are grateful. You have a purity of action that lights up our Path with Goodness.

GEMINI: A guardian angel hovers over and around your life at this time. Can you see, sense or feel it? Angels take our forlorn sadness and turn it into courage, hope, faith and knowledge that “love underlies everything in our lives.” Your angel also guides you to retreat into contemplative solitude. Just for a while. Into a meditative state of creative visualization that vitalizes your life force. You will learn Mercy.

CANCER: It’s important to be out and about, away from family, even though family is your entire life. But other groups are also valuable to your health and well-being. You are influential, important, nurturing and helpful to so many. However, at times your shyness doesn’t allow this to register. You are also tolerant and forgiving. Humanity’s progress is your progress.

LEO: Your kindness comes forth because you realize that all leaders need to have kindness or they are destroyed in their attempt at leadership. You realize you cannot destroy those who look up to you for leadership. Leo is to be the heart of kindness. You excel at everything. Allow this excellence to become mature, seasoned and above all, ethical. Value others’ achievements. Let them surpass you. The leader’s (teacher’s) purpose.

VIRGO: Go slowly and you will make it to where you are going. This is applied to travel as well as study. Like Pallas Athena, whose father is Jupiter, you always seek knowledge that leads to wisdom. You enjoy sharing what you know. Be aware of whether or not people are listening. Sometimes they are not ready for your depths of information. They will be, someday. But not now. What inspires you these days?

LIBRA: In between tending to your ceaseless professional work, you’re able to strategize, research and investigate new realities, getting to the root cause of any situation. Your instincts unravel mysteries and solve things deep and complex. Amidst it all, you continue to display great charm and grace and stability within your ever-shifting relationship(s). Realize you are of great value to the balance and harmony in the world.

SCORPIO: You must attempt to cultivate close relationships. Just one or two loving intimate friends will do. When you allow this to come forth you are able to do your best. Close friends are important for your fair play to emerge, your value to be accepted and reflected, your goals to be reached. We all need help. You, too, at times. You are able to strategize and negotiate. These are very important Scorpio gifts.

SAGITTARIUS: Your ethical high standards are apparent wherever you are, but especially at work. Faith in others and respect for their abilities are how you expect everyone to treat everyone else. Sometimes others do not reflect your ethics or morals. This presents a choice. You always choose the higher path, the right thing to do. Many, seeking a mentor, a guide and/or teacher, watch you carefully for cues of leadership. Humanity needs education today more than anything. That’s your call now.

CAPRICORN: Many like you, think you’re a bit mysterious, and want to be around your kindness, generosity, playfulness and warmth. Children especially trust you. Adults and young ones recognize your creativity, ability to entertain, ability to make people laugh, ability to teach, your sense of aesthetics, patience, love with no complications, and helping others learn. Did I miss anything? Think greenhouses, flower bulbs, roses and fruit trees.

AQUARIUS: You are guided to create and maintain safety, security and deep roots in your home. You value loved ones, yet you keep a certain distance so that freedom and your world work can be accomplished. Careful of things occurring behind the scenes. Careful of criticisms (yours or others). Maintain ethics and truth at all times. Careful driving. Know that the world is your home. Know that you come from the future for this time now.

PISCES: You will move into a planning stage, designing agendas, creating lists, sorting and tending and organizing. You have begun to share with others your ideas, thoughts, teachings so everyone can have access to the big picture of life. You offer all that you have. In return many seek connections with you. You seek to expand networks, improve communications. The future comes to meet you. Your home life changes.

Glow: Festival of Fire and Light returns to the MAH

Apparently, no one ever told Matthew Gordon not to play with matches. Or maybe they did, and he didn’t listen. But who doesn’t like to light stuff on fire?

Gordon’s motto as part of the San Francisco-based Hydrocarbon Collective group is “because art should be dangerous.” He obviously abides by that, since his newest piece is a Skee-Ball game on fire.

“I don’t just like making fire art, I like making dangerous art, because you don’t even know if it’s possible to do,” he says. “It involves physics and science and a whole lot of perspiration. Sometimes you don’t get exactly what you want, but it turns out anyway.”

Dubbed “Hot Hand Luke,” the game was a side project while they were working on a seperate piece—they made fire balls for playing games as a fun distraction. Yes, that’s the kind of “fun distraction” that they have. “Hot Hand Luke” took about three months to make, compared to his other piece known as “Torch Song”—an eight-foot diamond shape fire machine—which took around three years. Gordon didn’t expect that anyone would actually show his game, since at the time it was a bit of an off-hand liability.

“I tried to bring it to Burning Man precompression, and the San Francisco fire department turned it down,” he says.

But the Santa Cruz Fire Department didn’t (high fives). Hot Hand Luke will be featured in this year’s Glow: Festival of Fire and Light, hosted by the Museum of Art and History (MAH). This will be the first time Gordon shows the Skee-Ball game publicly.

“As anyone who’s ever gone to Burning Man and seen the fire art there knows, it’s very tactile,” he says. “You feel it from like 10 feet away, you experience it in a way that you don’t experience other art that doesn’t have that physical feedback. It’s really amazing in that way.”

“Hot Hand Luke” won’t actually hurt players hands, thanks to some heavy duty Kevlar gloves. The four-inch balls are made from steel, with a central core wrapped in Kevlar-cotton weave wick, dipped in methylated spirits, and ignited. The Santa Cruz Fire Department has tentatively approved it for those age 15 and over, though they could still turn it down when Gordon shows up next weekend. Which would really, really suck.

“This isn’t standard by any means,” Gordon says. “It’s a combination of fire art and fire performance. So it’s a more complex approval process with the fire department. I’m adding some minor safety features to it right now to comply with a few of their requests.”

Glow will be spread out around the MAH and Abbott Square, with more digital art, projections, and LED sculptures within the museum and spilling out onto Cooper Street., where the 16 fire dancers and fire art will be.

Similar to a small-scale Burning Man in Santa Cruz, minus the dust storms, Glow is one of the MAH’s largest events of the year. Alongside Gordon there will be a few returning artists, including local light artist Geoffrey Nelson, who’s perhaps most recognized by his lit female form sculptures seen sailing over the San Lorenzo, Michele Guieu and her Plankton Soup With Plastic and Caroline Mills of the Flaming Lotus girls—a Burning Man icon—that will be bringing the flaming Angel of the Apocalypse.

“It’s really very exciting. I am so excited to be doing a museum show, that’s a first for me,” he says. “In terms of the amount of sheer joy, ‘Hot Hand Luke’ is a huge success. It’s throwing fireballs around, I don’t know if it’s art with a capital A, but it’s really fun.”

Glow: A Festival of Fire and Light: 6-10 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20. Museum of Art and History, 705 Front St., Santa Cruz. 429-1964. santacruzmah.org. $15/$20.

Film Review: ‘Colette’

Even for an era of such artistic and cultural ferment as the turn of the last century, famed French author Colette led an extraordinary life.

She was a country girl dominated by her sophisticated husband who became the toast of Paris for her wildly successful, trendsetting novels. She was also a music hall performer who scandalized the public, a lover of men and women, a cross-dresser, and an accidental advocate for equality who had to fight for the right to publish her work under her own name.

If her life was the stuff of melodrama, it was always tempered by her wit and wry self-knowledge in her books, reviews and voluminous letters to friends and family. In his biographical feature, Colette, filmmaker Wash Westmoreland sticks to her early years in Paris, during the metamorphosis by which she would eventually turn herself into the celebrated author. As portrayed by Keira Knightley, this Colette is all good-humored innocence and coltish bravado. The film ends just as she’s about to launch herself back into the world on her own terms, so we never get a sense of the wry wisdom of the author’s maturity, but Knightley is appealing as an awakening personality in the making.

Co-written by Westmoreland (Still Alice), with Richard Glatzer and Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the movie begins in 1892, at a remote house in the French countryside of Saint-Sauveur. Nineteen-year-old Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (Knightley), her beloved mother Sido (Fiona Shaw), and her father are entertaining Willy (Dominic West), a renowned magazine writer and critic from Paris, whose father knew Colette’s father in the military.

A year later, Willy and Colette are married and living in Paris. There she discovers that “Willy” is a cottage industry; he employs other writers to crank out the work that appears in the press under his name. And while Willy always has money to spend on salons, gambling and mistresses (“That’s what men do!” he splutters, when the outraged Colette catches him in the act), their finances always seem precarious.

To stave off creditors, her husband decides “Willy” should write a novel, and assigns the task to Colette, who is already writing all his personal correspondence. She balks at first, but when he physically locks her in her study to work, she starts writing about her own schooldays. The book, Claudine at School, is an immediate bestseller. Together with its three sequels, it influences a generation of young women, who copy Claudine’s clothes and hair, bathe with “Claudine” soap, and nibble “Claudine” chocolates. But the books all come out under the name of “Willy,” who refuses to compromise his “brand” by allowing Colette to take credit for her own work.

Bolstered by new confidence over her books’ success, however, Colette begins to experiment in other aspects of her life. She joins a cabaret act with mime George Wague (Dickie Beau), begins an affair with transplanted American socialite Georgie Raoul-Duval (Eleanor Tomlinson, familiar as Demelza on TV’s Poldark) and forms a deep bond with an audacious French aristocrat, Missy (Denise Gough), who dresses as a man and responds to the pronoun “he.”

Willy’s attempts to insert himself into these adventures (starting his own affair with Georgie; turning Colette’s stage debut into an ill-fated PR stunt) are presented here as ways of trying to keep his wife on a short leash. But considering the power he wielded over her due to his own celebrity, and the fact that he controlled the rights to the Claudine books, it’s satisfying to watch Colette evolve out of his shadow toward a new life built around her own talent.

No feature-length movie could do more than scratch the surface of the real-life Colette’s long, rich and productive life (she died in 1954 at age 81), or include her expansive circle of friends, artists, writers, mentors and devotees. But the movie looks beautiful (largely shot in old-world Budapest), and Knightly captures enough of Colette’s spirit of adventure to encourage viewers to explore the rest of her story.

COLETTE

*** (out of four)

With Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Denise Gough and Fiona Shaw. Written by Wash Westmoreland, Richard Glatzer, and Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Directed by Wash Westmoreland. A Bleecker Street release. Rated R. 112 minutes.

Pumpkin Decorating Bonanza at Felton Farmers Market

The Felton Farmers Market hosts its annual Pumpkin Decorating Bonanza on Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2:30-6:30 p.m. At this free event—fun for kids and everyone—you can talk with farmers, enter a raffle, take part in a scavenger hunt and enjoy face painting and live music.

The main event features free Rodoni pumpkins ready to be decorated. Veggies, string, pipe cleaners, buttons, googly eyes—use whatever fires your imagination. With more than 25 years under its belt, the Felton Farmers Market is a beloved San Lorenzo Valley fixture. The seasonal market runs May through October, so the last day to enjoy this market is Oct. 30.

Stock up on the season’s organic produce, herbs, eggs, and flowers, plus your favorite local specialty ice creams, coffees, fresh breads, seafoods and pastries.

Seasonal Menu at La Posta

An exceptional dinner last week at La Posta confirmed once again that chef Katherine Stern is a master of seasonal flavors. Stern keeps stride with the expressive trends of the culinary zeitgeist.

An example: in New York several weeks ago, I had noticed the prevalence of wild herbal flavors and sauces (e.g. sorrel and nasturtium) in mains as well as desserts. Stern’s kitchen always seems to be ahead of the curve. Our dinner began with a shared salad of rose-colored chicories, luscious burrata, a few slices of nectarine, a perfect cylinder of yellow beet, and a dusting of toasted pistachios ($13). Early autumn in every bite. The salad was almost too beautiful to consume. But we forged ahead. The contrasting bitter greens, buttery cheese and salty crunch of the pistachios were brilliant together. The tart sweet nectarine played a memorable topnote. Salad that exactly matched the month of October.

To partner our meal, Katya chose a floral/salty Ligurian Vermentino ($12) and I opted for a quartino of the house red, a satisfying light Piemontese Barbera ($12). With our salad, we consumed shameless quantities of the spectacular house breads, especially the addictive walnut dark with lightly salted butter. Also addictive. Katya’s entree of Fogline Farms chicken breast ($28) was stuffed with spinach and ricotta, and presented sliced into plump cylinders on a bed of leeks and crispy roast Brussels sprouts. Crisp buttery bread crumbs were strewn here and there, adding the right texture note to the succulent poultry. My entree was the evening’s special chitarra pasta. Piled high in a robust mound, the pasta had been well tossed with housemade Italian sausage, loaded with fennel, Early Girl tomatoes, and spicy red chiles ($21). A dazzling dish, which is exactly what I expect of La Posta. Dazzling dishes. Especially pasta.

More easy-to-love dazzle came in the form of an apple cornmeal cake ($9). Truly flavors of autumn. The wedge of cake arrived on a pool of fennel crema topped with quince mousse that had been subtly spiked with red wine. Unexpected and resonant flavors combined in each bite. Apple, quince, fennel. A brilliant dish. Kudos to the kitchen of La Posta.

Wine and Paint Night at Sotola Bar & Grill

While you’re sipping wine at Sotola on Nov. 1, from 5-7 p.m., local artist Anastasiya Bachmanova will guide you, step by step, through the creation of your very own original painting. At the end of the night, take home a unique masterpiece—perhaps a one-of-a-kind Christmas gift? Light wine-pairing snacks will be served in addition to the wine.

Sotola—231 Esplanade, #102, Capitola. sotolabarandgrill.com.

Paychecks Shrinking At 90% of Silicon Valley Jobs, UCSC Finds

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Sometimes one region can have such a big impact on our collective consciousness that its name starts taking on new meanings. That’s essentially what happened with Hollywood, which went from being a location in the middle of Los Angeles to a concept that represents movies, fame and fortune.

Something similar is happening around Silicon Valley, an idea quickly becoming synonymous with technological innovation and a strike-it-rich ethos extending well beyond the region itself.

And so with a critical eye toward wealth inequality, UCSC’s Chris Benner set out to study how the idea of Silicon Valley operates within the region of Silicon Valley. Benner, a professor of sociology and environmental studies, found that nine out of 10 jobs in the region pay less in real wages than they did 20 years ago.

More than ever, companies in the booming tech industry maintain low operating costs, Benner says, and that means they’re able to pull in exorbitant profits that funnel mostly into the checking accounts of CEOs, investors and venture capitalists.

All this tech money distorts the economy in a number of ways, including in the housing market, where the vast majority of workers are finding rent unaffordable.

A new report, co-authored by Benner, makes a few suggestions, including:

  • Ensuring that workers have a voice and the freedom to stand together and negotiate a fair return on their work
  • Setting responsible contracting standards to ensure subcontracted service and supply chain workers in tech are paid livable wages and have critical benefits, like affordable health care and paid leave
  • Working with surrounding communities for companies to address the consequences of growth, especially sky-high housing costs, and pay their fair share to fund essential public services

One idea, Benner says, would be to reintroduce the inheritance tax and use it to fund affordable housing. Another would be property tax reform. We talked to Benner about some of his findings and proposals.

What role do tech companies have in the wages of workers in other sectors over in Santa Clara County?

CHRIS BENNER: There are a number of ways to look at that. One is just recognizing the dominant role of high-tech industries in the overall economic output of Silicon Valley. It’s about 25 to 30 percent of direct employment and about 40 percent of total output in the valley, so it’s obviously the main economic driver, and that has all types of multiplier effects. For every tech job, there’s gonna be a certain number of additional retail jobs, restaurant jobs.

They have outsourced work that used to be in the high-tech industry. Janitors, cafeteria workers, landscapers, in the past, were much more frequently direct employees of the firms, and over the last 20 years, there’s been a process of that being outsourced to building services firms, food service firms, security firms, and we have very clear evidence that those wages are lower.

The high cost of living is linked to both the rapid economic growth—the boom, due to the tech wages being paid. And we just know that housing markets respond much more slowly than labor markets for a variety of different reasons, but essentially it’s easier to hire someone than to build a new housing units.

I imagine tech leaders, government officials and economic experts have all contributed to this problem. What groups or individuals are most responsible for creating that and also for fixing it in the future?

There’s a bunch of different actors in how the economy is structured. One thing we found comforting is that we can see the impact of higher minimum-wage policies. Wages at the very lowest level of the labor market did not decline as much as the middle of the labor market. We think that’s partly due to us having a higher-than-average minimum wage. San Jose has a higher than state-level minimum wage as well, so we can see that in the data.

There’s a variety of ways in which investors and owners of companies get rewards and labor doesn’t, or at least the revenue is disconnected from the labor input.

Let’s go really big-picture. President Donald Trump has bragged about stock market gains in recent months, while wages have mostly stagnating. More than ever, many on the left are questioning whether Wall Street’s a good indicator of a strong economy. But, with all its inequality, is Silicon Valley a strong economy?

There’s no question that Silicon Valley is growing, jobs are being created, there’s wealth being produced. But California and the Bay Area, once you adjust for cost of living, have the highest level of poverty in the country. The levels of homelessness now make it particularly visible. I don’t think we can call that a successful economy, if we think about an economy as the sustenance that provides livelihoods for the vast majority of people in society.

Silicon Valley is a progressive area in a solidly Democratic state. However, many tech leaders lean left and write big checks to their electeds. Even with a new Democrat probably moving in to the Governor’s Mansion in January and big legislative majorities, will liberals have the political will to do much about these wealth gaps?

There’s no question that the state and local officials have made important steps in recent years. Higher wages are important. Cap-and-trade revenues being invested in disadvantaged communities is another really important step. There are things we can celebrate. Early childhood education is nearly universal in the state. We’ve been strong supporters of trying to expand access to health care and insurance. I think there’s a lot to celebrate.

There are some more fundamental issues that we’ve not been able to address yet. It does come around to this issue of wealth accumulation and how do we address the incredible wealth that’s being concentrated at the very top half of one percent and extending down to the top 10 percent?

Santa Cruz’s tech scene is growing, if not booming. What can other communities, like Santa Cruz, learn from what happened in Silicon Valley?

Be wary. [Laughs] No, I think it’s great that we’re getting more tech companies in Santa Cruz, but we have to be thinking carefully about how we collaborate and coordinate with cities in the Bay Area and around the Monterey Bay to ensure that Santa Cruz is building its fair share of affordable housing units, that we’re trying to figure out how to preserve the existing housing units that we have.

How do we invest in transportation systems so that people don’t have to spend so much time in their cars? And I don’t want to get into the Measure M debate in this context, but we do need to be thinking about how to protect renters.

Map Shows Creep of Gentrification in Santa Cruz

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A report released last month from the Urban Displacement Project shows a startling trend of low-income families being priced out of entire neighborhoods.

UC Berkeley worked with the California Housing Partnership to create the Urban Displacement Project (UDP) and draft the study, which was released last month. It examines the far reaches of the greater Bay Area, from Watsonville to Sacramento.

With Affordable Housing Week kicking off on Saturday, Oct. 13, a look at a map from the UDP shows sobering levels of displacement across the county.

The map indicates two areas with advanced gentrification locally—in the lower Westside census tract, stretching from Lighthouse Field to Mission and Swift streets, and in the heart of Live Oak.

Nearly every swath surveyed was either too expensive for low-income families or is at risk of becoming that way.

Areas that were already higher-income to start with are showing especially high rates of displacement and exclusion—particularly in Scotts Valley, Prospect Heights and northern Live Oak.

Managing Editor Leaves the ‘Sentinel’

Outgoing Santa Cruz Sentinel Managing Editor Kara Meyberg Guzman penned a heartfelt farewell to the paper on Thursday, Oct. 4, her last day at the 162-year-old daily, which she led for 10 months.

Guzman thanked the paper’s hard-working reporters, photographers and editors in challenging times. “Nobody here is complacent,” she said. Guzman also cited differences with management. The Sentinel is part of NorCal Community Media, run by Digital First Media, which is owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital.

Last December, Guzman was optimistic when she took over the Sentinel in place of then-Editor Don Miller, who was stepping down. Miller was decidedly less cheery at the time, although he believed in Guzman, who he said would need that positive spirit “to survive the headwinds that are rocking the newspaper industry.”

Guzman, who said she would rather not discuss the reasons for her departure, would love to keep doing journalism, but only if it involves staying in Santa Cruz. 

5 Things to Do in Santa Cruz Oct. 10-16

A weekly guide to what’s happening.

Green Fix

‘Evolution of Organic’ Screening

Organic farming and food wasn’t always mainstream. The documentary The Evolution of Organic is a time warp back to the late ’60s, when it was an act of rebellion to reject chemical farming and explore organic alternatives. The film tells the story of the earliest Alan Chadwick Garden farmers at UCSC, and their goal of making organic and sustainable agriculture and food accessible to everyone.

INFO: 7-9:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 11. Appleton Grill, 410 Rodriguez St., Watsonville. 724-5555. evolutionoforganic.com. Free.

Art Seen

New Music Works 40th Season Opener

Happy 40th birthday to New Music Works! They’re kicking off their 40th season with a series of four concerts from October to June. This first show includes Bob Hughes, founder of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and former student of Lou Harrison. Make no mistake, this isn’t just any concert. It includes electric guitar interplays, greek tragedy allusions and a world premier of a co-composed woodwind quartet by Hughes and Harrison.

INFO: Saturday, Oct. 13. UCSC Music Recital Hall, 402 McHenry Rd., Santa Cruz. newmusicworks.org. $25/$30 general, $12/$15 student.

Saturday 10/13

Voter Participation Festival

With the midterm elections quickly approaching, now is the time to register to vote and learn more about your local and state candidates. Those who are already registered will be able to verify their registration and polling location. This festival is the first of its kind and features local speakers Daniel Paul Nelson, Sara Nelson and Michael Levy. There will be complementary food and live music.

INFO: Noon-5 pm. Laurel Park, 301 Center St., Santa Cruz. 239-1955. poorpeoplescampaign.org. Free.

Friday 10/12

Seventh Annual Imagine Disability Short Film Festival

Local nonprofit Imagine Supported Living Services hosts their annual Film Festival event to both empower people with disabilities and raise awareness about them in our community. Individuals with disabilities don’t often get the opportunity to share their story through art and are commonly misrepresented in popular media and films. All of the films included feature those with developmental disabilities in some way, whether it’s the actors or directors, and the films will be a mix of documentary and fiction, professional and amateur.

INFO: 5:30-9 p.m. Colligan Theater at the Tannery Arts Center, 1010 River St., Santa Cruz. imaginesls.org/imagine-short-film-festival. 464-8355 ext 212. $20.

Friday 10/12-Saturday 10/13

David Swanson Lectures

Just a month out from Armistice Day on Nov. 11, join the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV) in a two-day event with Peace Activist David Swanson. David Swanson is a journalist and author who frequently speaks about issues of war and nonviolence. He received the 2018 Peace Prize and is a three-time Nobel Peace prize nominee. Friday evening events include music and book signings, and Saturday includes lunch and a workshop. Nov. 11 will be the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day; look out for updates on the RCNV celebration.

INFO: 7-9 p.m. Friday. 10 a.m.-Noon Saturday. Resource Center For Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. 423-1626. rcnv.org. Friday $15 suggested donation, Saturday $25.

Be Our Guest: Alkaline Trio

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Emo-punk was big in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Alkaline Trio wasn’t the biggest band to emerge from that era, but they’ve had much more longevity than some of their peers. The group’s debut album, Goddamnit, is a classic drunken “broken heart” punk record, and the band continued to release albums that were both aggressive and emotional. Now it’s 2018, and as so many bands have found, it’s hard to separate the personal and political in the Trump era. On their lastest, Is This Thing Cursed, they sing about depression, the 2016 election and looking forward to the future.

INFO: 8 p.m. Catalyst, Thursday, Oct. 18, Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $28/adv, $32. Information: catalystclub.com.

WANT TO GO?

Go to santacruz.com/giveaways before 11 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 12 to find out how you could win a pair of tickets to the show.

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Be Our Guest: Alkaline Trio

Alkaline Trio
Win tickets to Alkaline Trio on Oct. 18.
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