Page 750 – Good Times

Meet Botanical Print Artist Lili Arnold

A&E
Art

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November 28, 2017

In a small room filled to the brim with beautiful botanic prints, frosted light bulbs and scented candles, Lili Arnold is making magic happen. Though succulent season is over and cacti have gone dormant for the winter, they are Arnold’s printmaking specialty year-round.

Specializing in botanical printmaking, Arnold can make anywhere from 15-50 prints daily while also maintaining her website, numbering and packaging her work, and freelancing. She’s a bit of an anomaly—at only 28, she’s made printmaking into a full-time, successful career from the comfort of her bedroom.

The remarkably tidy 300ish-square-foot studio-bedroom is home to countless paint tubes, around 50 linocut blocks and several mandolins, each of which fits comfortably in its place. Cozied up with a knit sweater and herbal tea, Arnold sits at a makeshift portable table next to her bed.

“Most people are surprised I work out of this room,” she says, looking around it. “I have to be very careful about putting things away and cleaning up so that the clutter doesn’t get out of control.”

But don’t be fooled by the immaculate cleanliness of the carpet or her perfect wavy hair; Arnold is a very busy woman. She’s prepping for the holidays, she explains, apologizing for the prints sprawled across her bed and about the room. With several large protea susara prints hanging over her sink, it’s a wonder she manages to brush her teeth.

“I’m going to start running out of space,” she says. “I am already maxing out here.”

She gestures around the room as she explains how what began as a hobby unexpectedly blossomed into a career. Since graduating from UCSC with an arts degree in 2011, she spent several years in graphic design and textile printing and only took up printmaking as a weekend creative outlet. Amid a pop culture obsession with drought-tolerant plants, her work garnered more interest, and and she eventually began selling it in local shops and online.

Since her work isn’t traditional fine art, she’s her own salesperson—no Sotheby’s here. She admits readily available art online may be taking away some value from fine art, but says that overall, art is much more accessible than it’s ever been. An online presence can make or break a career—and in her case, having more than 100,000 followers on Instagram (@liliarnoldstudios) has its perks. The majority of her direct sales come from social media.

“That is the only reason why I have been able to do this, because of Instagram,” she says. “The only way I make direct sales is by promoting on Instagram and Facebook. I don’t know what I would do without it.”

With her worldwide clientele, it’s fair to say Arnold has made a pretty big name for herself. Her followers ask her for advice on materials and processes, and she often meets other artists through her social media pages. She’s also expanded her wholesale retail to 15 locations from California to Colorado. Her most recent and popular cactus series showcases stunning iridescent blooms diluted by the symmetry and simplicity of their host cactus or succulent.

She’s done several series of prints, including her first ocean series, and multiple commissioned band posters and freelance projects. She says she’s looking forward to starting new projects, and is considering featuring the banksia plant, known for its spikey, woody foliage and bulbous blooms.

“It would be cool to start an entirely new series that’s graduated from the cactus, something a little more complex, a little more interesting,” she says, sipping her tea.

As the daughter of two artists, she says it was inevitable she would go into some creative arts field, though she acknowledges that she didn’t think her hobby would become a career, since the job landscape for art majors is a bit nebulous. But technology influences everything it touches, and art is no exception. Arnold hopes to take a brief break from social media to get back to her creative roots, but can’t stay away for too long, since her sales and promotion depend on it.

“Social media and technology are making art more accessible for people,” she says. “Whether its Etsy or Instagram, social media is giving artists a better chance to be seen and make a career.”

For more information, or to purchase prints, visit liliarnold.com. Arnold will also be selling her work at upcoming holiday fairs, including 5 p.m.-9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 1 at Cosmic Design Holiday Fair, 115 Cooper St., Santa Cruz; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3 at the Pleasure Point Holiday Fair at Opal Creative Co., 3912 Portola Drive, Santa Cruz; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10 at Lúpulo’s Sip and Shop Event, 233 Cathcart St., Santa Cruz; and 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 16, at the Winter Makers Market at Alibi Interiors Warehouse, 802 Estates Drive, Aptos.

Preview: Valerie June to Play the Rio

A&E
Music

Cat Johnson

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November 28, 2017

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Valerie June’s long, thick dreadlocks lead some people to expect the Jamaican accent of a reggae singer. With just a few words in her thick Tennesseean accent, however, June makes assumptions evaporate, and opens the door to questions about what kind of music she plays.

As she explains it, she’s a songwriter, first and foremost. Her songs journey through folk, blues, soul, country and R&B, so she could broadly be called an American roots artist. But her particular sound—a soulful, acoustic, porch-jam style—is like nothing else. One reviewer remarked that June has the “most strikingly individual delivery [he’d] heard in ages.”

But June sees it as simply writing songs in whatever form they come through.

“I let the song be what it is,” she says. “I don’t say, ‘OK, this has got to be a blues song because I’m a blues singer.’ That’s boring. If I write a rock ’n’ roll song, it’s a rock ’n’ roll song. If I write a gospel song, it’s a gospel song.”

Born in Jackson, Tennessee, June grew up surrounded by music. She’s always loved it and she “just soaked up every single type.” At 21, she picked up a guitar and started writing and performing. At 35, she now plays the banjo and lap steel guitar, as well.

In 2013, the Brooklyn-based June became a global sensation with the release of her major label debut album, Pushin’ Against a Stone. She had previously self-released two albums, but Pushin’ was an overnight sensation 10 years in the making. June found herself the focus of tastemaking publications and shows, including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, NPR, The Tonight Show and Austin City Limits. She even performed at the White House at the invitation of former First Lady Michelle Obama.

June found herself very busy, very quickly—and for good reason. Pushin’ is a masterclass in artistry, originality and authenticity. The album remains utterly fresh.

This year, June dropped her sophomore release, The Order of Time. Where some artists who make big splashes fail to deliver on their sophomore release, June went deeper into the magic that makes her unique, and emerged with a record that leaves listeners wondering where her talents end.

The Order of Time sees June sharing stories of her family and life. The opening tune, “Long Lonely Road,” is a sparse and quiet song about the sacrifices her ancestors made and the journey through hard times to better days. It sets the tone for an album that’s been called her best work yet.

Recording the new album was a chance for June to step into her own vision and courage. On Pushin’, she was new to the big business of recording and producing. On The Order of Time, she was in familiar territory.

“Pushin’ was my training ground,” she says. “It was me going into the room and learning how musicians talk to each other, how to speak to an engineer, what the language is that producers use with artists.”

On The Order of Time, June was more confident making decisions and directing the sound. She told the musicians what she wanted—and if it failed, they tried something else.

“I was more fearless,” she says.

An open-hearted fearlessness runs through June’s music. She’s acutely aware of the transience of life and the beauty of everyday moments. The Order of Time is an exploration into the big picture questions of life: existence, loss, family, joy and spirit—themes she’s drawn to in the music she loves.

“When I listen to my favorite songs, that’s what I hear,” she says. “Every single moment of this life is special. When you’re in love or when you’re in sadness; when you’ve got the blues, when you don’t have the blues. All these things are really special.”

For June, music is part of the animating and connecting force between all of us humans just trying to figure things out.

“It all seems to be a spiritual thing to me,” she says. “If I get out of my body and just listen to the songs, it’s a spirit talking to another spirit …These songs come from the spirit world—they just exist out there in the ether. Bringing them into this body and sharing the messages that they have is kind of my job.”

Valerie June will perform at 8 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 3 at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $27/gen, $40/gold. 423-8209.

Birichino Tasting Room Opens on Church Street

Christina Waters

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November 28, 2017

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Birichino Tasting Room Opens on Church Street

An antique mirror in elaborate gold frame, circa 1880, approximately 12 feet high, holds its dramatic own at the far corner of the new Birichino Winery Tasting Room, a study in 19th century Wild West avant garde decor. Forest green wall treatment flatters the curved mahogany heartwood bar bordered with rare pewter trim. A Buddha perches next to a vintage hand-tinted oval portrait, and sophisticated spherical light fixtures are suspended from the pressed tin ceiling. An astonishing retro flourish—with plenty of postmodern wit—in which to celebrate, pour, taste, and enjoy the vibrant line of Birichino wines. At long last the tasting room is now open—still a work-in-progress, mind you—but open to help nudge us toward the holidays. Congratulations to Alex Krause and John Locke. 204 Church St. in downtown Santa Cruz. 425-4811, birichino.com.

Persimmon Harvest

No one told me that persimmons were extraterrestrial. But clearly they are, as I discovered when I began making persimmon pudding cake last week. My hands were quickly covered with gleaming, gelatinous orange goo, and I flashed back to the latex monster of the sci-fi classic Alien. I had found myself gifted with a huge bounty from the nonstop persimmon harvest that struck Santa Cruz last week. Every yard seemed to glow with the gorgeous heart-shaped Hachiya fruit, dripping from trees whose very leaves echoed the vermillion hue. Seriously, the persimmon has to be the most beautiful fruit. My sweetie painted many oil portraits of the harvest that graced our table this month. My friend Dee is so passionate about persimmons that she freezes the pulp and dries the fruit so that she can both snack on and bake with persimmons all year long. Here’s to the persimmon!

Wine of the Week

The structurally robust and aromatically appealing Tempranillo Pierce Ranch 2013 from the hand of Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard’s winemaker Jeff Emery. Offered for close to $20 under Emery’s Quinta Cruz label, the ambidextrous red wine partners memorably with chile verde or highly seasoned curries, as with meals of salmon and quinoa, or—yes—a juicy cheeseburger. Recently elevated in our hearts and tastebuds to new status as our house red, this lovely wine yields an aromatic middle bandwidth of dark berries, bay leaves and anise. Perfect for the briskets of Hannukah or any other meal that requires a sturdy, distinguished red wine. At Shopper’s.

Surprise Appetizer of the Week

Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t when ordering an unknown dish on a menu. This time we won! The place was Ambrosia India Bistro in Scotts Valley, the dish was a global creation of crisp samosa, stuffed with potatoes and peas, plus fresh avocados. It’s called Samosa Avocado Chat—who could resist? and it arrived in a large square dish with the above ingredients covered thickly with a blanket of yogurt spiced with mint and tamarind. Cool yogurt, intriguing spices, and the warm crisp samosa accompanied by fat slabs of ripe avocado. Easily enough for an entree, this bold appetizer gave us flavor thrills and unexpected ingredients—a lot for $6.50. ambrosiaib.com.

Pumpkin Pie of the Month

Everything your mouth wants in the way of a classic, full-bodied, texturally exact pumpkin pie is waiting for you at Kelly’s French Bakery. For roughly $4.75, the Kelly’s pumpkin pie is in all ways—voluptuous filling, tender flavorful crust, just the right spicing—perfect. Seriously, there are many great pumpkin pies in this town (OK, not “many,” but several), but if you order only one example outside the confines of your own homemade pumpkin pie this season, let it be Kelly’s. 402 Ingalls St., Sanat Cruz, open 7 a.m.-7 p.m.

Mercury Retrograde, Advent and Full Moon—Preparing the Heart

Risa D’Angeles

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November 28, 2017

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Mercury Retrograde, Advent and Full Moon—Preparing the Heart

Around midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning, Mercury turns retrograde (Sagittarius, 29 degrees) moving back to 13 degrees by Dec. 22. It’s best to purchase all holiday gifts (sending cards early, too) prior to the 22nd. Something seems to happen to gifts purchased (everything, actually) during retrograde times. The items become empty, unrecognized and not useful. Notice if this occurs.

Sunday is the Full Oak Moon/Sagittarius solar festival (12 degrees). The New Group of World Servers recites the keynote for Sag, “We see the goal, we reach that goal, and then we see the next goal.” We recite the Great Invocation (Mantram of Direction for Humanity), too, radiating the Will-to-Good which becomes Goodwill within humanity everywhere.

Sunday is also the first Sunday of Advent (Latin for “something’s coming.”) Advent wreaths are made which mark the week until Winter Solstice, (new light, birth of the Holy Child in Bethlehem). Advent wreaths (evergreens) have five candles—four violet and one rose candle in the circle with one white candle in the center (lighted Christmas morning). Each Sunday night a new candle is lit, until Christmas when all four candles are lit. Advent wreaths are art forms. Children especially love them. They prepare our hearts to watch and wait. The dark is set aflame. Many photos, ideas, etc. on making advent wreaths can be found on Pinterest and familyholiday.net.

ARIES: It’s possible you will review something from the past that was a deep loss—a person, resource, marriage, an intimacy. Review this loss and turn it around. Make it a gift, a power received, something of great value to you. Review all desires and aspirations. Do you know the difference? Ask everyone around what they value in you. You will learn new things.

TAURUS: You must ponder upon new, different, more inclusive ways of communicating. You realize it’s important to listen with curiosity, asking questions (instead of solving problems) when others speak. With deep listening, great insights occur for both listener and speaker. Search for ways to have more trust. Then you can reveal the deep hidden truths about yourself without fear.

GEMINI: Care for your health in all ways, from morning till night. Make this your priority. Begin with morning exercise before eating. Move onto green smoothies (almond milk, kale, chard, lemon, beets, parsley, apple, pear, spirulina, chaga, barley grass powder). Make cilantro pesto. Eat an avocado a day. Something, both dissolving and refining, occurs with work. Seek to understand a partner’s sorrows. Listen and observe. Maintain quiet.

CANCER: You will consider what in the past brought you joy, what helped you be creative, and what you were enthusiastic about. You will realize you’ve become more than you thought you would be. Non-verbal ways of expressing yourself are appropriate now. Spend most of your time in gardens, museums, places with art, creativity and beauty. Explore all of nature and what it means to be your natural self.

LEO: You may see family and friends from the past, perhaps from childhood. Family may seek to include you in celebrations, attempting to relive their past, which you have set aside. You remember younger years, when you were free and wandering, when the light you lived under came only from the firelight, sun and stars. Impressions from the past seek new interpretations. Plant blue morning glories inside and outside the home.

VIRGO: Over and over the same thoughts and ideas circulate through your mind. You want to discover all aspects of a puzzle, attempting to put it together. Thoughts come to mind but you are unable to articulate many of them. In this unusual silence, your eyes see more than ever before. It’s as if your senses shifted. As one sings, the other doesn’t. Seek to understand everyone’s truths. Let them stand equally with your truths.

LIBRA: When you look around at your living and working and garden environments, you realize you’ve come to love and appreciate and value all of them. They offer a specific calmness and orderliness that you need. They soothe your spirit and provide your life with daily context. They relieve anxiety. You realize you’ve had this all along, since birth. The change has occurred within. Have gratitude for the past. It built your present.

SCORPIO: Over the next several weeks and a bit beyond you assess your self-image. Not what others think of you but what you think of yourself. And then you begin to create a new image. No longer an outer persona, but one more in depth presented to the world. You no longer need to veil, arm or protect a self-image that’s no longer real. You are more and more authentic. There’s nothing to lose, nothing to gain. You’re the Buddha on the road.

SAGITTARIUS: Sorrows and sadness from the past seek a new state of gladness to replace them. All thoughts begin to be clothed in compassion. There’s no longer the question of why. There’s only the feeling of goodness, that life’s precious and paradox is acceptable. You will walk through a door in the next several weeks. You will open that door and then shut it behind you. You will see a mountain with an ascending light. You glimpse of your life ahead. Get good shoes.

CAPRICORN: During this retrograde time, be very aware of new insights, new revelations and new understanding appearing quietly and subtly. All previous experiences, especially sadness, coalesce into new states of knowledge. An old friend makes contact; strange twists and turns of relationships begin to ease. Defeat becomes triumph. Speak your mind with truth at all times. Allow others to adapt to you. Frustration turns to opportunity. Art calls.

AQUARIUS: You don’t allow any glamorous nonsense to be in your life. Everything seems to be changing every moment. This will continue. You will seek stability wherever you find it. New revelations occur. New thinking. Use all of these in your work, present them to the world, allow others to respond and exteriorize whatever is in them. You know your path. It’s always the surprising unusual view. Community calls.

PISCES: Up till now you’ve had a firm grasp of what you want in your future. This is and will change in the coming months. You will accept where you are and the situations you’re in. An old dilemma becomes a great Truth. A philosophy is differently interpreted and you cherish it like a golden apple, a golden coin. Old friends drop away seeking a different path. Your work expands. You build within the crystal square.

Rob Brezsny Astrology Nov. 28-Dec. 5

Rob Brezsny

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November 28, 2017

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Free Will astrology for the week of November 28, 2017.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I hope that everything doesn’t come too easily for you in the coming weeks. I’m worried you will be met with no obstructions and face no challenges. And that wouldn’t be good. It might weaken your willpower and cause your puzzle-solving skills to atrophy. Let me add a small caveat, however. It’s also true that right about now you deserve a whoosh of slack. I’d love for you to be able to relax and enjoy your well-deserved rewards. But on the other hand, I know you will soon receive an opportunity to boost yourself up to an even higher level of excellence and accomplishment. I want to be sure that when it comes, you are at peak strength and alertness.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You were born with the potential to give the world specific gifts—benefits and blessings that are unique to you. One of those gifts has been slow in developing. You’ve never been ready to confidently offer it in its fullness. In fact, if you have tried to bestow it in the past, it may have caused problems. But the good news is that in the coming months, this gift will finally be ripe. You’ll know how to deal crisply with the interesting responsibilities it asks you to take on. Here’s your homework: Get clear about what this gift is and what you will have to do to offer it in its fullness.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Happy Unbirthday, Gemini! You’re halfway between your last birthday and your next. That means you’re free to experiment with being different from who you have imagined yourself to be and who other people expect you to be. Here are inspirational quotes to help you celebrate. 1. “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw. 2. “Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.” – W. Somerset Maugham. 3. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson. 4. “The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.” – Friedrich Nietzsche.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): I suggest that you take a piece of paper and write down a list of your biggest fears. Then call on the magical force within you that is bigger and smarter than your fears. Ask your deep sources of wisdom for the poised courage you need to keep those scary fantasies in their proper place. And what is their proper place? Not as the masters of your destiny, not as controlling agents that prevent you from living lustily, but rather as helpful guides that keep you from taking foolish risks.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In his book Life: The Odds, Gregory Baer says that the odds you will marry a millionaire are not good: 215-to-1. They’re 60,000-to-1 that you’ll wed royalty and 88,000-to-1 that you’ll date a model. After analyzing your astrological omens for the coming months, I suspect your chances of achieving these feats will be even lower than usual. That’s because you’re far more likely to cultivate synergetic and symbiotic relationships with people who enrich your soul and stimulate your imagination, but don’t necessarily pump up your ego. Instead of models and millionaires, you’re likely to connect with practical idealists, energetic creators, and emotionally intelligent people who’ve done work to transmute their own darkness.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): What might you do to take better care of yourself in 2018, Virgo? According to my reading of the astrological omens, this will be a fertile meditation for you to keep revisiting. Here’s a good place to start: Consider the possibility that you have a lot to learn about what makes your body operate at peak efficiency and what keeps your soul humming along with the sense that your life is interesting. Here’s another crucial task: Intensify your love for yourself. With that as a driving force, you’ll be led to discover the actions necessary to supercharge your health. P.S. Now is an ideal time to get this project underway.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Here are themes I suggest you specialize in during the coming weeks. 1. How to gossip in ways that don’t diminish and damage your social network, but rather foster and enhance it. 2. How to be in three places at once without committing the mistake of being nowhere at all. 3. How to express precisely what you mean without losing your attractive mysteriousness. 4. How to be nosy and brash for fun and profit. 5. How to unite and harmonize the parts of yourself and your life that have been at odds with each other.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I predict that in the coming months you won’t feel compulsions to set your adversaries’ hair on fire. You won’t fantasize about robbing banks to raise the funds you need, nor will you be tempted to worship the devil. And the news just gets better. I expect that the amount of self-sabotage you commit will be close to zero. The monsters under your bed will go on a long sabbatical. Any lame excuses you have used in the past to justify bad behavior will melt away. And you’ll mostly avoid indulging in bouts of irrational and unwarranted anger. In conclusion, Scorpio, your life should be pretty evil-free for quite some time. What will you do with this prolonged outburst of grace? Use it wisely!

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “What is love?” asks philosopher Richard Smoley. “It’s come to have a greeting-card quality,” he mourns. “Half the time ‘loving’ someone is taken to mean nurturing a warmish feeling in the heart for them, which mysteriously evaporates the moment the person has some concrete need or irritates us.” One of your key assignments in the next 10 months will be to purge any aspects of this shrunken and shriveled kind of love that may still be lurking in your beautiful soul. You are primed to cultivate an unprecedented new embodiment of mature, robust love.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You know that unfinished task you have half-avoided, allowing it to stagnate? Soon you’ll be able to summon the gritty determination required to complete it. I suspect you’ll also be able to carry out the glorious rebirth you’ve been shy about climaxing. To gather the energy you need, reframe your perspective so that you can feel gratitude for the failure or demise that has made your glorious rebirth necessary and inevitable.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In an ideal world, your work and your character would speak for themselves. You’d receive exactly the amount of recognition and appreciation you deserve. You wouldn’t have to devote as much intelligence to selling yourself as you did to developing your skills in the first place. But now forget everything I just said. During the next 10 months, I predict that packaging and promoting yourself won’t be so #$@&%*! important. Your work and character will speak for themselves with more vigor and clarity than they have before.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): There used to be a booth at a Santa Cruz flea market called “Joseph Campbell’s Love Child.” It was named after the mythological scholar who wrote the book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The booth’s proprietor sold items that spurred one’s “heroic journey,” like talismans made to order and herbs that stimulated courage and mini-books with personalized advice based on one’s horoscope. “Chaos-Tamers” were also for sale. They were magic spells designed to help people manage the messes that crop up in one’s everyday routine while pursuing a heroic quest. Given the current astrological omens, Pisces, you would benefit from a place that sold items like these. Since none exists, do the next best thing: Aggressively drum up all the help and inspiration you need. You can and should be well-supported as you follow your dreams on your hero’s journey.

Homework: What change have you prepared yourself to embrace? What lesson are you ripe to master? Write: FreeWillAstrology.com

Opinion November 22, 2017

Steve Palopoli

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November 22, 2017

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EDITOR’S NOTE

It’s interesting to me how people’s passions are sometimes marginalized as “niche” or “trivial” when in fact they’re holding little chunks of our collective cultural memory together. I was reminded of that again while researching this week’s cover story on the rebirth of Actors’ Theatre. I personally remember being wowed by the quality and intensity of Actors’ Theatre’s work when I was just out of college and starting to cover the Santa Cruz arts scene in the mid-’90s. I realized many readers today wouldn’t really get why the fact that the company was returning to full seasons was a big deal unless they themselves had seen Actors’ Theatre work back then—which many, of course, have not. So I knew I needed to trace that history, and to really put it in context, I needed to give some background on the entire history of the Santa Cruz County theater scene. You can see how these things get out of hand.

Anyway, I got to talk to many of the key people involved with Actor’s Theatre and the local theater scene in general. They were a kick; just really fun to talk to. But I was in some cases asking them to remember names and dates from as far back as four decades ago, and the timeline I was piecing together was a mess.

Luckily, I discovered the archival work of local actor and writer David Sheaffer, which is housed in UCSC’s Special Collections and Archives. He basically documented the entire modern history of Santa Cruz County theater, and I’m sure more than one person told Sheaffer at the time that he was in way too deep on a subject that would be of “niche” interest at best to the public at large. But his work as a theater historian was absolutely incredible, and helped me to nail down many of the details in this story. In 2001, a Theater Arts endowment was established at UCSC in Sheaffer’s name, and I can’t think of anyone more deserving. Here’s to the people who are driven by their passion, whether they’re starting a theater company or preserving every scrap of memorabilia from that company that they can get their hands on.

STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Read the latest letters to the editor here.

Out of the Park Now

The current conditions that exist in San Lorenzo Park are deplorably unsafe, from both a health and a public safety perspective. This problem will not go away by itself. It will take leadership and the development and execution of a comprehensive, legally defensible plan to remove these squatters from San Lorenzo Park. This group is committing an illegal act every time they spend the night in the park. It is time for city leaders to create a safe and clean environment in San Lorenzo Park by ending this illegal encampment now.

Kevin M. Vogel | Retired Chief of Police | City of Santa Cruz

Online Comments

Re: “Tent Situation”

This article demonstrates both the city and county’s severe ignorance on the issues of mental health, substance use disorders, and homelessness.

One might remember that Santa Cruz did have a day center at Coral Street until city officials made it difficult and put up a fence. There was also a dual diagnosis treatment program on Pioneer Street that worked closely with the shelter to treat those in our community with complicated health, mental health, homelessness and substance use issues.

If the county and city are flummoxed by these issues, perhaps they might learn more about best practices currently working, like the Santa Cruz VA Supported Housing Program, which has seriously reduced veteran homelessness in Santa Cruz and has eliminated veteran homelessness in other areas. Subsidized housing is the small part … the success of programs like these are the clinical providers, therapists, social workers and case managers.

Santa Cruz used to do better! We can do this.

— Dave R.

You want to set up a homeless encampment? Downtown is not the place. Paradise Park used to work. I don’t know why they shut that down. There’s a huge empty field next to the old clubhouse in Pogonip. Build a fence around it and set up a big circus tent for people to camp under. Make that your “Hamsterdam,” out of sight and out of harm’s way for the average citizen who wants to enjoy the city’s public parks. You could retrofit the old clubhouse for homeless services. Think about it. Downtown is not working, though. It’s just kicking the can around.

— Neil

It’s interesting to see, the usual homeless-ophobe narrative of homeless folks as being “drunken, drugged, mentally ill, lazy, transient bums” becoming less fashionable. In fact, folks outside are a combination of many things, but die 20 years earlier, are treated like second-class citizens, and have the same faults, vices, and disabilities that those in housing have without the benefit of privacy, anonymity and support. And, of course, many of them are longtime Santa Cruzans dumped from housing because of the city’s support for profiteering developers and greedy landlords.

I fear it’s likely that city authorities will use the opening of the slightly-beyond-token shelter (100 emergency walk-in beds for 1,500-plus folks outside) as an excuse to disperse the politically embarrassing spectacle of poor people huddling in cold winter weather away from San Lorenzo, and away from the communal support they now enjoy there, however briefly.

— Robert Norse

PHOTO CONTEST WINNER

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GOOD IDEA

ROLL FORWARD
Inboard, the first electric skateboard with a swappable battery pack, is bringing its M1 to 200 Best Buys this holiday season. The Santa Cruz-based company just finished an $8 million investment round. The high-end board—currently on sale for $999, via Inboard’s website—isn’t cheap, but it could be the ride of the future. Hopefully, locals will even be able to afford one.

GOOD WORK

ROLL FORWARD
Inboard, the first electric skateboard with a swappable battery pack, is bringing its M1 to 200 Best Buys this holiday season. The Santa Cruz-based company just finished an $8 million investment round. The high-end board—currently on sale for $999, via Inboard’s website—isn’t cheap, but it could be the ride of the future. Hopefully, locals will even be able to afford one.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it.”
-Thornton Wilder

What are you grateful for?

Columns

Matthew Cole Scott

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November 22, 2017

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“For my family, and any love and nice thoughts other people give us.”

Nancy Rumrill

Alameda

Environmental Engineer

“For all of the good people in the world. America’s already great. ”

Tim Larry

Alameda

Artistic Craftsperson

“That my head is better than it was seven years ago. I had a traumatic brain injury.”

Mike Davidson

Santa Cruz

Renaissance Man

“For my lovely fiancé. She puts up with me and she’s the sweetest woman in the world.”

Ross Albert

Santa Cruz

Water Operator

“That the Giants get another year to prove themselves. ”

Ellen Newberry

Santa Cruz

UCSC Teacher

With Retail in Trouble, Experts Ponder What’s Best for Business

Local News

Jacob Pierce

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November 22, 2017

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With Retail in Trouble, Experts Ponder What’s Best for Business

Not long ago, Derek Timm, a local developer and real estate broker, demolished a run-down Ocean Street party house to build a Dunkin’ Donuts—a newly opened safe haven for nostalgic, coffee-loving East Coasters, though it’s certainly not a player in the local economy that Santa Cruzans talk about so often.

Timm has gotten an earful about the new Dunkin’ Donuts and its neighbors, a T-Mobile and a Habit Burger Grill, both of which will be opening soon. People tell him they wish he had brought in local businesses. But Timm says that, as supportive as Santa Cruz proclaims to be of local businesses, fees often make it difficult for anyone other than a chain to set up shop.

“We want local businesses,” Timm says, “but with traffic impact fees totaling into the thousands of dollars, what small business can afford that?”

The one-time traffic impact fees paid by those three tenants combine to a total of $132,000, according to Chris Schneiter, Santa Cruz’s assistant public works director.

Schneiter, who developed the fee a little over 10 years ago, says the algorithm takes into account a business’ location, its size and the type of business. A fast food joint will create different traffic patterns than a warehouse.

The city wasn’t the first local government to implement the fee. Scotts Valley, Watsonville and the county all have similar ones. The fee to developers mostly funds nearby projects, but a small portion of the pot has gone to bigger undertakings, like the Arana Gulch Multi-Use Trail or the studying of improvements to the intersection of Highway 1 and Highway 9.

“We do get complaints that the fee is too high, but on the other hand, the public and the council have given the direction that the developer also needs to pay their fair share. It’s usually a give and take that comes with development,” Schneiter says.

As Small Business Saturday nears on Nov. 25, with more than 2,000 county businesses participating, the questions about what’s best for business are getting louder, and a new outreach program aims to help struggling stores stay afloat when it launches early next year.

Retail around the country is gasping for breath, with online retailers hurting many of the nation’s major chains—Urban Outfitters, Macy’s, Men’s Wearhouse, Sears, JCPenney, Barnes and Noble and even Target. Local businesses, meanwhile, are crossing their fingers for a strong December.

Here in Santa Cruz when a new business prepares to open, that business only pays a traffic impact fee if there’s a change of uses—for instance, when a developer takes a house and converts it to a restaurant. If The Habit were to go out of business, and a similar restaurant came in, that new business would not have to pay an impact fee. But Timm says the fee makes it difficult for any self-funded local to open in a brand-new building.

Over the years, Schneiter admits there’s been a history of businesses finding out about these fees late in the game—often after they’ve been talking to city staffers about their business idea for months. Schneiter says he’s worked with the planning department and economic developers to improve lines of communication, so entrepreneurs find out earlier if there may be a traffic impact fee, and he says he’s happy to provide estimates for a new fee.

“In a few cases, it’s fallen through the cracks where people either weren’t paying attention or plans didn’t get routed to me, or the information changed between one set of plans and the other, and it wasn’t caught,” Schneiter says. “Some things like that do happen—I would say a lot less than they used to.”

Casey Beyer, CEO of the Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce, has seen the data on the priorities of many of the county’s businesses. Both the chamber and the Santa Cruz County Business Council have polled their members in recent years, and both came back with the same top four concerns: high cost of living, lack of housing, transportation options that are both limited and insufficient, and public safety. Fees and red tape don’t crack the top of the list.

Beyer, who used to lead the business council, would know as well as anyone how to compare Santa Cruz to other communities. He serves on the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, as well as the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. He worked as the chief of staff for former Congressmember Tom Campbell, a Bay Area Republican, and for a solar company in Los Angeles. He says that, although county businesses face many local fees, so do businesses in other California communities.

Beginning in early 2018, the local Small Business Development Center will lead Reset 2018, a new outreach program for retail, in partnership with the city’s economic development department and the Downtown Association of Santa Cruz. The program will work with about 15 struggling downtown shops, trying to help them survive. Teresa Thomae, director of Small Business Development Center, has a lot of experience offering guidance. She’s found that some clients listen better than others.

“We work with a lot of businesses that I wish could get out of their own way,” says Thomae—noting that a successful business owner needs a combination of financing expertise, marketing brilliance, a strong-willed ego, and the ability to listen to criticism. “And then there are other businesses that work really hard. It’s frustrating sometimes when a business won’t get out of their own way, but sometimes they don’t have it in them to do that.”

Around that same time next year, retail expert Robert Gibbs is scheduled to return for a twice-delayed trip to Santa Cruz. While here, Gibbs will update his 2011 analysis of the local business scene, says economic Development Director Bonnie Lipscomb, and give a few talks to downtown shop owners as well.

With Small Business Saturday around the corner, Beyer calls the nationwide event, which is sponsored by American Express, “a great model” to get people to keep money in the community. But helping our local economy is a complex game of pros and cons.

“A lot of folks are willing to pay the extra dollar for something that’s local, instead of a big box outlet,” he says. “But I remember years ago, before Trader Joe’s moved in and before Costco was there. That changed when [the City Council] saw the tax revenue of having those businesses there. So that’s interesting. It’s all about the tax base. It’s an interesting conundrum.”

Small Business Saturday is Nov. 25, with more than 2,000 local businesses participating. A number of events are happening in conjunction with the day. There will be hayrides and hot chocolate at Watsonville’s East Lake Shopping Center and a Makers’ Market in Felton, as well as giveaways of Boulder Bucks, which are good at many Boulder Creek shops. For more information, visit facebook.com/santacruzcountysmallbusinesssaturday or americanexpress.com.

Santa Cruz Nonprofits Save and Transform Animals’ Lives

Local News

Andrea Patton

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November 22, 2017

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Santa Cruz Nonprofits Save and Transform Animals’ Lives

Stepping into the center of a well-lit conference room, Michelle* and John* volunteer their Chihuahua, Mango, to show off a trick they’ve taught him. Following Michelle’s command, Mango does a spin—no small feat for a shelter dog who lost his hind leg just three weeks ago.

The room bursts into celebratory applause as the three of them leave the center stage area and return to one corner of the room, making room for the next group to step into the spotlight. Michelle and John, two teenagers, are preparing for the graduation program of their eight-week session, where three teams will introduce their adoptable, well-trained dogs—two pit bulls and a Chihuahua—to a larger audience.

Michelle feels she can relate to Mango, a canine she met through the UnChained program, a nonprofit that pairs at-risk youth with shelter dogs to help them both learn valuable skills. “It’s like he understands what loss is, so we kinda get each other because loss is loss,” Michelle says. “We just grieve differently.”

UnChained is one of the two nonprofits helping animals in the third annual Santa Cruz Gives campaign, which raises money for charity groups during the holiday season. Melissa Wolf, founder and director of UnChained, worked for 15 years in social work, devoting all of her free time to animal welfare. She saw devastating stories of animals, she says, and realized people could help them in a way that was mutually beneficial.

“It’s really about shaping the kids and helping them through the vehicle of dogs,” Wolf says.

Jen Walker, a humane education specialist, is leading today’s training session at the Kinship Center in Salinas. Walker, also the programs manager of the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter, is showing everyone a skill she calls “Zen dog,” and she demonstrates by holding a piece of kibble in one hand, and a much tastier cheese treat in the other. The trick teaches pups delayed gratification, a skill both dogs and humans need to learn, Walker says, and the youth in this program are in charge of teaching it.

Walker is also a volunteer board member of Heading Home Animal Rescue, the other animal-loving nonprofit participating in Santa Cruz Gives this year.

Heading Home is a placement partner, meaning it helps find alternative placement options for animals with special needs, such as an identified medical condition or behavioral needs. The nonprofit takes more animals from the shelter, Walker says, than all of the other 30-odd placement partners combined. “Their strong focus on caring for local animals in need is what really sets them apart from other organizations,” she says.

Heading Home acts as a bridge between shelters and their adoptive families. They take in animals who arrive at the shelter needing additional help—whether they’re neonates, have medical needs the shelter can’t address, or are simply shy and need help getting socialized. Working with their network of veterinarians and volunteers, Heading Home prepares these pets for adoption.

Heading Home is currently helping three puppies who were rescued from an abandoned travel carrier that was left in a Watsonville church parking lot. Two of the three puppies were pre-adopted, meaning that after being spayed/neutered, they would go home to someone who wanted them. But the shelter soon discovered that all three had parvo, a highly contagious canine disease, possibly caused from eating their own feces when they were trapped in the carrier. Melissa Finley, director of Heading Home has been working to get the puppies the medical care they need to survive. Forest, the third puppy, is still up for adoption.

Petey, a pit bull mix in the UnChained program, has been in and out of the shelter a couple of times. He has seen tremendous growth in the last few weeks, Wolf says, now that he has been working with his trainer, Kristen. The teens remember how Petey spent his first training session screaming and crying.

Now he is a much calmer dog and is able to follow Kristen’s “leave it” command in the Zen dog trick, Kristen says.

“It makes me feel good that I helped him with that,” she says.

*Name has been changed to protect child’s identity.

To donate to any of the 33 nonprofits participating in Santa Cruz Gives, visit santacruzgives.org through Monday, Dec. 31.

Vegan Chef Beth Love Takes On Healthy Dessert

Maria Grusauskas

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November 22, 2017

1

Vegan Chef Beth Love Takes On Healthy Dessert

For many, it’s the hardest part of adopting a healthier, plant-based diet: that lonely void where dairy-rich desserts used to be. A week into chef Beth Love’s “30-Day Health Challenge”—a group-supported program of eating fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes—that void had grown into a gaping chasm that no amount of dates could fill.

This is how I found myself squeezed into Love’s cozy West Side living room, nibbling on homemade cashew cheese atop homemade crackers, for a “Desserts in the Raw” class. At a kitchen table the size of a bocci ball court, I and 15 others would create four palate-dazzling iterations of a total paradox: healthy dessert.

Yes, beyond frozen bananas blended into “ice cream” (try it, trust me), there exists an entire world of opportunity for successfully swapping out ingredients that are unhealthy to the body and the Earth with healthy ones. Take, for example, Brazil nuts, four of which have been found to lower one’s bad cholesterol for a full month (though eating four every day may raise selenium levels beyond the tolerable limit). Or dates, a key sugar substitute that happens to contain fiber, minerals (especially potassium), vitamins, antioxidants and other nutrients.

“Since they are whole foods, the sugar in dates metabolizes more slowly in the body than refined sugars do,” says Love. Since embarking on her mission to help locals transform their diets and reclaim their health a couple of years ago—sparked, in part, by her viewing of the documentary Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret—Love has noticed a most common Achilles heel: ice cream and chocolate.

“The sugar is like the seductress that calls you in, but it’s not the unhealthiest part. What’s in those foods that is equally addictive and unhealthy is dairy products,” says Love, who recommends The Cheese Trap by Neal D. Barnard, M.D., for anyone interested in learning more.

Baked goods, Love points out, are full of refined flour, which depletes the grains of their nutrients and fiber—and if you’re buying them rather than making them, they are likely full of chemical additives, too. Aside from contributing to environmental destruction, dairy products come with a load of saturated fat, cholesterol and animal protein. “We’ve been conditioned to think animal protein is something we should be eating, and something we should be getting a lot of, but it’s actually toxic for our bodies,” says Love.

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, but within the past generation, the number of deaths from chronic kidney disease has doubled. Excess table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup are culprits, while high animal protein intake overloads the kidneys in a way that plant protein does not, explains Michael Greger, M.D. in his nutritional tome How Not To Die. Late last year, an expansive Harvard study entitled Association of Animal and Plant Protein Intake With All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality, concluded that replacing animal protein of various origins with plant protein was associated with lower mortality, while animal protein intake was positively associated with cardiovascular mortality.

But the USDA has two mandates: to protect public health by helping to develop the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and to support the growth of the agricultural industry—a conflict of interest addressed by the Food and Drug Law Journal: “The Guidelines sometimes favor the interests of the food and drug industries over the public interest in accurate and impartial dietary advice.”

Which is why it’s important to do our own research, says Love. “There is a huge industry, the food industry, that is spending billions of dollars to engineer foods that will hook you,” says Love, on why we shouldn’t feel so guilty about our Achilles heels.

Devoid of extracted oils and cholesterol, Love’s desserts are sweetened with fruit, made creamy and rich with nuts, seeds and avocados, and launched into heaven by spices like freshly grated nutmeg, ginger, cardamom and cinnamon. They’re also teeming with phytonutrients. At the end of the evening we enjoyed a Fruit Torte with Avocado Lime Cream, a Raw Zucchini Hazelnut Cake with Cashew Cream Cheese Frosting, and a Raw “Faux” Pumpkin Pie. All otherworldly. Epiphanic was the torte’s no-bake crust, made with energy-rich chia seeds, coconut, Brazil nuts and, of course, dates.

“What I found is that when I talk to people, it feels overwhelming. People feel like ‘oh, I can’t do anything to save the Earth,’ and it’s hard for people to get on board,” says Love. “But what really is a driver for people is the pain in their bodies and the sickness that they are facing. People are more receptive to hearing how they can, instead of killing themselves by fork, bring life to their bodies with their fork.”

More info at tasteslikelove.com.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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GOOD IDEA

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Nancy Rumrill

Alameda

Environmental Engineer

Tim Larry

Alameda

Artistic Craftsperson

Mike Davidson

Santa Cruz

Renaissance Man

Ross Albert

Santa Cruz

Water Operator

Ellen Newberry

Santa Cruz

UCSC Teacher