An epiphany struck Brayden Estby as he sat in a coffeehouse near Pinecrest Lake four years ago: he realized that, despite the fact that he had never roasted coffee before, he wanted to open a coffeehouse of his own.
“It wasn’t actually the coffee that got me into it—the coffee at this place was pretty horrible, actually—but the design was beautiful and the aesthetic, the passion of the people that worked there and the overall environment inspired me.”
Estby bought 200 pounds of green coffee and a home roaster, and began teaching himself to roast in earnest when he returned to Aptos. After working for a short time at Verve, he and his brother Joel Estby established 11th Hour Coffee, Santa Cruz County’s newest coffee roasting company, earlier this year. The fledgling business managed to snag a spot at the new farmers market in Willow Glen last winter, and shortly after began selling at the downtown Santa Cruz farmers market, where they were an instant hit.
My friend adores 11th Hour’s handcrafted, whole bean coffee so much that she brought me a bag of an Ethiopian called the Origin to try. The next morning, as I inhaled the robust aroma and took my first sips, I could see why she had fallen in love with the bright, fruity, well-rounded brew.
11th Hour eschews the three overarching coffee categories of light, medium and dark, and instead roasts every bean to whatever degree brings out its best natural attributes. “When people ask, we like to say ‘it’s roasted until it’s roasted,’” says Joel. Their dynamic, single-origin coffees from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Kenya and Ethiopia can be brewed a variety of different ways, including as espresso.
If the enticing aromas wafting through the farmers market don’t draw you in, their gorgeous, hand-made coffee cart decorated with swirling river stones and succulents might. Joel explains that even their design is meant to enhance their customers’ coffee experience: “We want every detail taken into consideration to provide a custom craft experience that puts you into a mindset of imagination, creativity, and passion that can be taken with you into the rest of your day.”
11th Hour is available at the downtown Santa Cruz farmers market, Staff of Life and Deluxe Foods of Aptos. eleventhhourcoffee.com.
We took our bottle of Muns Syrah to friends who had invited us for dinner. Turns out their favorite wine is Syrah, and they even planted a vineyard of Syrah grapes a few years ago.
Produced by Ed Muns and partner Mary Lindsay, the 2011 estate-grown Syrah ($25) is rich, well-balanced and complex, with intense aromas and flavors of dark fruits, licorice, earth and herbs. It paired well with our hearty split-pea soup.
Muns Vineyard does not open very often to the public, but 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22 is their next open house and vineyard tour. Please contact Lindsay at ma**@mu**********.com for reservations and directions. Muns says on his website, “Muns Vineyard brushes the sky on the Loma Prieta ridge top at 2,600 feet above Monterey Bay,” so, if it’s delicious wine and a grand view you’re looking for, then you’ll find it at Muns. They will also be participating in Passport Day on Nov. 18 (visit scmwa.com for info on that), and will be pouring for Winemaker Wednesday at Shadowbrook in Capitola on Dec. 13—when you can join them for some holiday cheer.
Dining at Hyatt Carmel Highlands
After a hectic week walking all over Washington D.C. in the summer heat, we were glad to get back to the clement weather of the Monterey Bay. Then to re-charge our batteries, we headed to one of our favorite spots for lunch, the Hyatt Carmel Highlands, where an unrushed meal is as soothing as a visit to a spa. The hotel is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, so check their website for special planned events at highlandsinn.hyatt.com or call 620-1234. A sumptuous dinner on Nov. 9 featuring the wines of Bernardus Winery will be one of the highlights. The event starts at 6 p.m. and tickets are $120 inclusive.
Two new restaurants have opened in Aptos—Akira Sushi at 105D Post Office Drive (next to Armitage Wines tasting room and Starbucks); and Parish Publick House at 8017 Soquel Drive (in the space that was the Britannia Arms and then Kauboi). Welcome additions to the transformation of Aptos Village.
As I walked among the embers of what was the Coffey Park neighborhood in Santa Rosa Monday morning, my eyes burning from the smoke as I watched weeping residents gazing at where their homes once stood, I was shocked not only by the devastation, but by the fact that a wildfire could reach so far into the city. I thought wildfires were supposed to stay in wild lands, not move into subdivisions with busy intersections, schools and restaurants. Of course, fires don’t follow any such rules, but if this neighborhood could fall victim to a wildfire raging down the hills like a flood, what neighborhood is safe?
Indeed, Coffey Park was outside of the city’s “very severe” hazard zone. As the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, that meant homes were exempt from regulations to make them more fire-resistant. It’s not clear how such precautions would have protected the neighborhood from the early-morning firestorm. More than 1,200 homes were incinerated in a matter of minutes.
I don’t see this as city or state negligence, but as a chilling testament to the fact that we live in a different era of fire danger. The climate has changed, and so have the risks. This is the terrifying new normal.
Poised for Catastrophes
Sparking PG&E power lines may have pulled the trigger on last week’s catastrophic fires, but evidence shows that climate change built the weapon and aimed it right at the North Bay. And we remain under the gun.
The devastated landscape of Santa Rosa captured last week as fires continued to burn. PHOTO: STETT HOLBROOK
As this issue went to press, a 125-acre blaze that started Monday night northeast of Boulder Creek in the Santa Cruz Mountains had injured five firefighters and destroyed at least four homes, and was threatening 150 more.
From the most destructive hurricane season on record to the devastating fires still burning in the North Bay, the reality is becoming devastatingly clear: the climate has changed and the conditions for fires like the ones burning in Northern California will intensify. It was just two years ago that that the Valley fireexploded in the parched hills of Lake, Napa and northern Sonoma counties, burning 76,000 acres and 1,350 homes and killing three. Northern California’s 15 concurrent fires have scorched 220,000 acres, burned an estimated 5,700 structures and caused at least 40 deaths, making them the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in California history.
“That’s the way it is with a warming climate, dry weather and reduced moisture,” said Gov. Jerry Brown in a press conference last week. “These kinds of catastrophes have happened, and they are going to continue to happen.”
Wildfires in California are a fact of life. Fire plays an important ecological role in the chaparral and conifer forest ecosystems of the North Bay. Problems arise when people choose to live in those fire-prone environments. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and local fire departments mandate property owners carve out a ring of defensible space to help defend against wildfires. But there was little chance of fending off wind-whipped fires of such intensity and speed.
“We know that Northern California’s climate has changed,” says Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Stanford University, “and we’re in a climate that’s different than when a lot of what we have on the landscape was designed and built.”
Climate plays an important role in wildfire risk, but it’s not the only influence, says Diffenbaugh. Human elements such as forest management and where and how we build also play a role, he says. Then again, climate change is the biggest human element of all.
“Climate sets the stage, and we have strong evidence that the global warming that’s already happened has increased wildfire risk in the western United States through the effects of temperature drying the landscape,” he says.
“For this particular event, we can really see the impacts of heat. We had record hot conditions during the drought. We had record high temperatures that coincided with record low precipitation that created the most severe drought on record that killed tens of millions of trees. Those record drought conditions were followed by extremely wet conditions this winter that were again followed by record hot conditions.”
In short, climate change primed the landscape for a vicious wildfire.
Fueling the Fires
Rising temperatures also lead to less snowfall in the Sierra and earlier melting of that snow, he says, meaning there is less runoff available during the hot, dry days of fall.
Hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed in the fires in Santa Rosa, which were fueled by Diablo winds that reached hurricane strength at higher elevations. PHOTO: STETT HOLBROOK
In California, Diffenbaugh says, low precipitation levels are twice as likely to produce drought if they coincide with warm conditions. “Overall, we’ve seen a doubling in frequency of drought in California in recent decades.”
The east-to-west Diablo winds that fanned the flames, reaching hurricane strength at higher elevations, may also be pegged to climate change, Diffenbaugh says.
Richard Heinberg, a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, a nonprofit think tank focused on climate change and sustainability issues, lives in Santa Rosa and was evacuated the first night of the fire. His house was spared. While the links between climate change and wildfires can be indirect, he says the impacts of a warming climate on California are clear. Heinberg says research shows that increased CO2 in the atmosphere leads to rapid but less viable plant growth—more fuel for fire.
“It’s almost like we’re growing junk food with more CO2 in the atmosphere,” he says.
On a larger scale, he says data shows that California is moving into a hotter and drier climate.
“The 20th century was a wet spell for California,” he says.
City officials say Santa Rosa will rebuild and will be “better than before.” But better in what way? Better prepared for future wildfires? Better built to reduce the CO2 emissions that contributed to the perilous state we’re in? Or will better just mean bigger? While Gov. Jerry Brown admirably sounds the climate change alarm, the sentiments are not keeping pace with the explosive conditions on the ground.
Urgent Action
In an essay on the North Bay fires called the “The Devil in Wine Country” to be published in the London Review of Books, Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imaginations of Disaster,admits he’s “an elderly prophet of doom” as he laments “the hopelessness of rational planning in a society based on real estate capitalism.”
“We’ll continue to send sprawl into our fire-dependent ecosystems with the expectation that firefighters will risk their lives to defend each new McMansion,” he writes, “and an insurance system that spreads costs across all homeowners will promptly replace whatever is lost.”
Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey says he’s thought about how the city might rebuild to be more resilient, but with the fire still blazing and people’s lives at risk, now is not the time for that. “I’m not there yet,” he told me after a press briefing at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.
Ann Hancock, executive director of Santa Rosa’s Center for Climate Protection, says that when the time is right, she hopes the conversation centers on reducing the impacts of climate change.
“It’s not too early to start thinking about that, so long as the people who are suffering are taken care of,” she says.
As a trained public health professional, Hancock is a strong advocate for prevention: “Prevention is where we have the best opportunity for impact with the lowest cost.”
Local measures such as better forest management and more defensible space are worthy, but her organization is focusing on bringing down the greenhouse gas emissions that helped get us into this crisis.
“It is a wholesale systemic change and that’s overwhelming for most people to think about, and yet we have to,” she says.
When the North Bay rebuilds, Heinberg calls for building great resiliency into local infrastructure—redundant electric and water systems, larger inventories of food and supplies—that can better withstand future disasters. Knowing that climate change is exacerbating the risks, he says the region should deepen its investment in mass transit, zero-energy buildings and clean energy.
“Ultimately, though, what all this suggests is we need to build differently, change our patterns of living and build a lot more resilience into our whole society, because we unquestionably have more disasters on the way of different kinds, not just wildfires,” he says. “We in California have the opportunity to see the handwriting on the wall and make some changes.”
Those looking to help with relief efforts may donate to the Rebuild Sonoma Fund, which supports the nonprofits on the front lines of the Sonoma and Napa areas. For more information, visit rebuildsonomafund.org.
Naturalist John Muir once said that when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it attached to everything else in the universe. He was probably talking about studying trees or glaciers, but he might as well have been talking about the affordable housing crisis in Santa Cruz.
“It’s important to understand that when we talk about affordable housing, we aren’t just talking about units built,” says Santa Cruz Housing and Community Development Manager Carol Berg. “We’re talking about parking, density, the height of buildings, what our town is going to look like in 30 years. Ultimately, it’s about our values as a town.”
With Santa Cruz Affordable Housing Week kicking off Thursday, Oct. 19, event organizers aim to increase public awareness and participation to find solutions that have broad community benefit.
The housing crisis isn’t unique to Santa Cruz. Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed a bundle of bills aimed at increasing low-income housing statewide, including one placing a $4 billion affordable-housing measure on the ballot. Even if that bond passes, the state measures will make only a small dent in California’s problem. And locally, given the pressures from university students living in town, the proximity of Silicon Valley and the increasing number of units being rented to overnight tourists, even working professionals struggle to find housing.
Similar struggles are unfolding around the country.
“Everyone who lives in a desirable location is fighting the same battle,” says Todd Brown, a town councilmember for Telluride, Colorado, a high-end resort town with a median household income similar to Santa Cruz. “We’re all trying to maintain a thriving local community in the midst of skyrocketing housing and land costs.”
In Telluride, city leaders have been working for two decades to make sure everyone from dishwashers to teachers to mid-level shop managers can afford to live there. Fifty percent of the town’s workforce lives in deed-restricted affordable housing. “But it’s nowhere near enough,” Brown says.
Efforts to provide affordable housing in Santa Cruz go back to the 1979 passage of Measure O, an ordinance that called for 15 percent of all units built in the city to be made available for low- and moderate-income residents. Thirty-seven years later, only 7 percent of our housing stock is deed-restricted. And the City Council is poised to cut the current requirement in half.
When housing construction slowed, the city began allowing developers to opt out of actually building the less profitable lower-income units, hoping to encourage the creation of more housing. Developers were allowed to pay an in-lieu fee, and funds went into an Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
How much money has the city collected from in-lieu fees? How many affordable units were built with contributions from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund? No one at Santa Cruz City Hall seems to know the answers to these questions.
The city hired financial consultant Kathe Head, of Keyser Marston Associates, to help them get a grip on the issue. She concluded that requiring builders to make 15 percent of their units affordable would result in no new construction. “She told us it wasn’t financially feasible,” says Berg. “It just won’t pencil out for a developer.”
According to local affordable housing advocate Sibley Simon, investors want to see a 20 percent return in order for a project to “pencil out.”
“Development is really risky and expensive here in California,” Simon explains. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars are sunk into projects that never get built.”
Currently, Simon sees mostly high-end housing getting built in Santa Cruz, with a few affordable units. In an effort to provide housing for the vast population in between, he’s approached foundations and nonprofits for funding for new projects. “These groups are willing to accept lower returns, like 5 or 6 percent, in exchange for having a positive social impact,” says Simon, who’s working on building a complex of small units near the Homeless Services Center.
Meanwhile, the Santa Cruz City Council is considering dropping its affordability requirement from 15 percent down to 7.5 percent, in an effort to appeal to developers and spur new housing construction.
In the coming months, the council will also be hearing a plan to rezone Lower Pacific Avenue for up to six floors. Lee Butler, the city’s new director of Planning and Community Development says current height restrictions were a “roadblock” for developers.
With few vacant sites left in the city, finding a place to locate any new units poses a significant challenge. “The city is pretty much built out, so infill housing is the way we need to develop in the future,” says Berg. Infill could involve subdividing large lots with one unit into multiple lots with single-family homes, building taller high-density developments or allowing mixed-use developments. But every time a developer is allowed to opt out of actually building affordable units, there’s less available land where any low-income housing can be built in the future.
Many city leaders fear imposing conditions that might make developers walk away from the table. “What if we pass something really well-intentioned, and it results in developers not being able to build anything?” asks City Councilmember Richelle Noroyan.
Butler insists that market realities guide Santa Cruz’s development. “We need to consider the market implications of whatever program we put forth,” he says.
Every town has to take market forces into account, but not every town lets developers dictate the terms. In Telluride, for example, city leaders’ commitment to building affordable housing is stronger than their allegiance to the free market.
“We recognized that if we let the free market dictate housing construction, our workforce wouldn’t have anywhere to live. If we can’t provide housing and parking for our working class, we won’t have a community left,” Councilmember Todd Brown says. “So the town government stepped in and decided to let carefully crafted policy guide housing construction, not market realities.”
The city of Telluride, with just 3,000 residents, actually hires contractors to build affordable housing. Less than six months ago, they completed an eight-unit project in town. Right now, the city has 18 more apartments under construction, three tiny homes and an experimental 44-bunk rooming house that can be converted back to apartments if the effort doesn’t pan out as planned.
In Santa Cruz, a town with 60,000 residents, there are currently six affordable housing units under construction. Two are being built with assistance from Habitat for Humanity, and another two are accessory dwelling or in-law units.
In Colorado, sales tax is only 2.9 percent, compared to 7.25 percent in California. The town of Telluride has chosen to take on some of the financial burden of providing workforce housing themselves.
Some of the funding for Telluride’s projects comes from a 1 percent sales tax devoted to affordable housing. Some of it comes from fees. In Telluride, any development project, including a single-family home or significant reconstruction, must pay fees to the town’s affordable housing fund. While the calculation for in-lieu fees is complex in Santa Cruz, in Telluride it’s a simple formula involving percentages and square feet.
When the proposed project is larger than about 3,800 square feet, the developer can no longer opt out of building affordable units by paying a fee. They need to build an affordable unit, either on-site or at another location within the city limits. Or, the developer can purchase a free market unit and hand it over to the housing authority as a deed-restricted unit. Developers have a variety of options, but every time a large project gets built in Telluride, the town gets more affordable housing.
“When developers say ‘that won’t pencil out,’ we say ‘that’s your problem,’” says Brown. “We know there’s always another developer in line behind them.”
Affordable Housing Week runs Thursday, Oct. 19 through Saturday, Oct. 29, with a total of 17 events, including discussion forums, legal clinics and government meetings. For more information, visit santacruzcommunitycalendar.org.
When it comes to health and healing, Americans are living in a difficult but interesting time. As we imagine new ways to heal ourselves and create healthy communities, two timely books—A Mind at Home With Itself by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell, and Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing by Victoria Sweet—are helping to light the way.
Katie knows a lot about healing. Emerging from a depression that almost consumed her, she developed a system of self-inquiry called “The Work,” designed to help alleviate the suffering that comes with anxiety, fear, depression and anger. A Mind at Home with Itself proposes that asking four simple questions can shatter our damaging beliefs.
“The Work is experiential,” she says. “Sometimes I refer to it as ‘checkmate,’ because those four questions are deadly to the ego, yet it works for anyone whose mind is open to it. The more we question what we believe, the more open our minds become.”
A Mind at Home with Itself explores the common thread between the Work and The Diamond Sutra, one of the most important ancient Buddhist texts. Mitchell—a writer and scholar who is also Katie’s husband—lays out the nature of mind to be found in both. “The more you realize that there is no such thing as the separate self, the more you become naturally generous,” he says. “This is something that Katie has lived out.”
Katie believes that a kinder way of living and more compassionate point of view come when we cut through the hypnotic spell of our own beliefs. “Most of us take the thoughts that come rushing at us for granted,” she says. “If we slow down with an open mind and contemplate the thoughts arising within us, they can become different. That’s a state of grace as far as I’m concerned. An open mind is a privilege.”
Slow Up
As a physician at San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital for more than 20 years, Victoria Sweet came to understand that the intrinsic nature of medicine is slow and personal, an experience she wrote about in her book, God’s Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine. In her new book, Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing, she offers an alternative to the tyranny of efficiency at the expense of healing. In a recent conversation, I asked her to flesh out her ideas.
What do you mean when you say slow medicine?
VICTORIA SWEET: I mean that the doctor, nurse or therapist spends a certain kind of time with you. It’s focused, attentive, and slow in terms of its pace. Slow medicine is a counterpart to the slow food movement, with everything that it implies—as in, the way to something is the way of it. You can’t have a beautiful meal unless it’s prepared in a certain way. The same applies to medicine.
You consider the term “health care” to be problematic. Why?
We didn’t have “health care” when I was in medical school. Doctors practiced medicine. Suddenly this weird concept emerged of “providing health care,” which prompted economists to ask how much we spend on medical care, nursing care, hospitals, medicine, advertising, etc., and put it all in a box. I’m like the retail clerk who will provide you with health care for the least amount of money, but I can’t give you health. Doctors take care of sick people. If you’re not sick, but you just don’t feel right, there’s not a lot I can do on my own. What you eat and drink, your activity level, temperament, mood, stance toward life—these are things that you control.
I like your analogy of the human body being more like a plant than a machine. What’s the benefit of thinking like that as a doctor?
Both concepts are useful, as long as they’re applied at the right time for the right reasons. When you get acutely ill, it’s most helpful to find out what’s broken. That places me in the role of mechanic. But once the appendix comes out or the cancer is removed, a shift takes place. The body moves into self-repair and healing. Then my job is as a gardener. Now I ask myself, how can I nourish the patient’s power of healing and remove whatever is in its way?
Can slow medicine be cost effective in a fast-paced, high-tech world?
Trying to fix health care has only made it more expensive, because they took out the crucial piece, which is getting the right diagnosis. The best way for a doctor to get the right diagnosis is to see you, talk to you, listen to you and examine you. When doctors can take the time necessary to get the right diagnosis and treatment, there are fewer ER visits, fewer hospital admissions, fewer medications. It’s just better all around.
You talk about medicine as a spiritual pursuit. How have you found it to be spiritual?
My patients give me a sense of deep connection. When I can sit with them and hang out, it’s incredibly moving—the way it’s supposed to be. I would not be the same person if I hadn’t become a doctor and been able to experience this a lot.
It was in juke joints and southern barbecue shops that pre-rock musicians would hammer out boogie-woogie, rowdy blues and high-octane gospel music—the kind of music that celebrates life while simultaneously dancing away the pain. That’s the era in which Quinn DeVeaux finds his inspiration.
But as much as DeVeaux loves the music of the past, he felt that he needed to carve out his own musical genre, something that honored the music’s legacy while emphasizing innovation and a blending of many different styles. He called it “blue beat.”
“It signifies a beat I’m riding. I call it blue beat because there’s not really a name for it,” DeVeaux says. “Sometimes for shorthand, I say ‘I play soul.’ I learned that calling it blue beat, there’s like a five-minute explanation of what that is.”
He’s been playing music in some form since 1998, but in 2010, he made his new genre official, billing his group Quinn DeVeaux and the Blue Beat Dance Band.
Since then, he’s released two solo records, and two Blue Beat Dance Band records. His two solo records hearken back to when he came up in the late ’90s at Evergreen State College in Washington, playing contemplative songs with no backing band. With the BBDB, he plays feel-good dance music.
“I’m a generally happy guy,” DeVeaux says. “That’s the kind of music I like to listen to—music that lifts me up. I guess I would say it’s uplifting. Life is so short and so beautiful and so worth celebrating that it drives me to do that.”
Originally from Indiana, DeVeaux moved to Oakland in 2002, and stepped up his musical game a notch. While playing solo shows in the Bay Area, he briefly joined a band called Blue Hurt that played dance music. It completely changed his perspective.
“That’s really addictive, when people start dancing to your music. You really want that to continue. So I went off on the whole dance thing,” DeVeaux says.
By 2015, he was starting to feel the limitations of high-energy dance music, and moved to Nashville to focus on the craft of songwriting.
“The problem with dance music is that no one really listens to the words. No one really knows what you’re doing, or cares,” DeVeaux says. “I’m kind of splitting the distance. I love writing, I love the dance stuff, but I also like to have a point to the music. I think music should have a point to it. I felt like I was combining everything that I’d been working on for 10 years or so.”
He’s no longer backed by the Blue Beat Dance Band, but he has a new band that blends his deeper songwriting side with his high-energy dance music. And he’s still in the Bay Area a lot, mostly because the other primary member of his band, Joe Lewis (formerly of Foxtails Brigade), lives here. The duo, along with various other musician friends, helped record DeVeaux’s new record, which is tentatively scheduled for an early 2018 release.
“Me and Joe are still filling out the roster. We are the nucleus of the band,” DeVeaux says. “There are a few guys we work with out here, a few guys we work with out in Nashville. I don’t know exactly who’s going to be in the band. But we are looking for a specific thing. We want to fill out the band in the right way, so we’re taking our time doing it.”
Quinn DeVeaux plays at 9 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 20, at the Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $10. 429-6994.
After what I’ve tasted this season, I think it just might be true that the fig was the fruit Eve gave to Adam. Seriously. This year’s produce was astonishing in its flavor depth and abundance, and nowhere more so than with the Mission fig. I tasted them at farmers markets, I bought them at all of my favorite groceries, and I was especially lucky to have friends who gifted me with baskets and baskets of their tree-ripened figs. All of them were sensational! Full flavor development, gorgeous, rosy interiors, and even a subtle perfume that enhanced every one of those experiences. We enjoyed them at breakfast and with cheeses after dinner. Glorious figs this year, and with any luck there will be a few more weeks of these spectacular, ancient and yes, erotic, delicacies. Don’t miss the figs this autumn—they’re at their very best right this minute.
Sensory Workshop at New Leaf
As the seasons change so does our sensory palate, and in autumn we crave the flavors of the cooler weather. You know the ones I mean—pumpkins, polenta, root crops, dark earth-hued vegetables, slow-cooked stews, and soups. I have a few ideas about why we enjoy returning to certain foods and certain meals this time of year, and I’m prepared to explore some of them with you this week, on Thursday, Oct. 19, at the Westside New Leaf Community Market. [There will be another encounter around this topic, next month, on Wednesday, Nov. 15.]
Life’s too short to eat boring food, and I have strategies for ensuring that you’re getting the very most out of every flavor encounter. Seasonal foods, farmers markets, focusing on what you’re eating, maximizing textures, colors and dining companions. The event will begin with a brief overview of my own travel and food biography, and I’ll regale participants with how I got involved with food and wine reviewing. Then we’ll have some Q&A about your own favorite meals, and why you remember them so vividly. What foods do you love? What meals have you regretted—and why? Here are the keys to your own food pleasure and how to heighten it from now on. Make plans to join me for some lively conversation and a few surprising confessions about food rituals and flavor discoveries. Bring your inquiring foodie friends. It’s free and it’s bound to engage you on a variety of levels. Food isn’t just fuel. It’s one of the great pleasures of being human. Hope to see you there. Heightening Your Food Pleasure! with Christina Waters, 6-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 19. Reserve your place on eventbrite.com.
O’mei Re-Opens
What you’ve heard is (mostly) true: the Westside restaurant is moving ahead toward new ownership by chef/manager Karl Cook, who has been running the restaurant and finessing the cooking for the past 15 years. But let me dispel any confusion here. Cook has been nursing his staff along ever since the Roger Grigsby affair shut down O’mei. Ideally, he told me several weeks ago, Cook had wanted to compensate, feed, and maintain his skilled kitchen staff until the change-of-ownership paperwork was in place, and then re-open. But the death of the original landlord the very week that the restaurant closed complicated everything, and the kitchen team needed to support their families. “I want to keep it open for them, for the staff,” says Cook. “It’s about keeping the cooks employed,” he admits. “And I certainly didn’t want to lose them.” So while the legal details that will put O’mei fully into Cook’s hands are being finalized, the restaurant is open for dinner every day except Monday. Next week, I’ll give you the longer back story. Having this restaurant re-opened and under new ownership is a huge relief to Karl Cook’s many fans.
On Oct. 10, after a year in Libra, Jupiter (favorite planet of Sagittarius and Aquarius) entered the transforming and testing sign of Scorpio. Jupiter, in each sign for about a year, remains in Scorpio till Nov. 10, 2018. Jupiter is the sign of beneficence, fusion and expansion of everything—sometimes too much. Jupiter increases knowledge (Sag), our sense of community (Aquarius), sense of self (Leo), generosity and our understanding. Jupiter has many tasks.
Jupiter, like Venus, blends and fuses dualities, hearts and minds, love and wisdom. On its highest level, it externalizes the Love of God—which, when recognized through us, creates harmony and abundance. Jupiter is the Lord of Wisdom in Sag, the Lord of Humanity in Aquarius and the Lord of Love in Pisces.
Long ago, before Neptune was located in the sky, Jupiter ruled Pisces. In the incoming Aquarian Age, Jupiter offers humanity the blessings, truth, freedom and imagination needed for humanity to build and create together the new culture and civilization, cooperatively. Jupiter, with Uranus, brings forth new patterns, rhythms, rituals, and the new world religion, based on astrology and the Ageless Wisdom teachings. Jupiter evokes the Goodwill that creates the Law of Right Human Relations and the peace humanity seeks.
ARIES: All of your fiery, red, impulsive, life-giving energies are used in everyday living, whether in the world or at home, when tending to children, elders, animals, the garden or working on one’s health and well-being. Although the energy may be strong, your health may be somewhat compromised at this time due to inflammation. Curcumin helps, along with golden milk at night before sleep. Careful, you may have very little patience.
TAURUS: You can be somewhat reticent and inward. However, now is the time for fun and play and recreation and expressing yourself. It’s time for artful things, too. Consider the idea that everything is art. The Balinese say “we have no art,” because their daily living is dedicated to artful living at all times. “All of life is art,” they say. Taurus is the sign of teaching humanity the art of living. Have you seen the book If It’s Not Funny, It’s Art, by comedian Demetri Martin?
GEMINI: In our adult years we have the liberty, energy, vitality and freedom to re-create our lives. Through willingness, we can release anger or resentment harbored against parents. We have the adult ability to create security, safety, beauty and a new family. We can shift the learned moodiness to more forgiving feelings like nurturance, tenderness and giving. We can make our adult home into an ashram and temple.
CANCER: It is important now to express yourself in ways that others know you are thinking kindly of them. It’s also good to take short trips to nearby places you haven’t been before. You might consider writing siblings and close friends. Use paper and pen, envelopes and stamps—the old-fashioned way to make contact. Whatever you do, show interest in others, listen thoughtfully and with care. And don’t worry anymore.
LEO: Finances are important now, along with bill paying, insurance, and the care and tending to all resources. How you care for and use finances and resources shows how you value them. We are often tested as to the right use of matter—that means how we tend to all that is around us. Tithe from the heart to those in need. Rearrange and vitalize your environment, clean and organize the yard and plant a fall garden.
VIRGO: A new self-identity has been developing within you for the last year. It allows you to have a new sense of leadership, extra drive, and a feeling that you do indeed have the ability to create original projects and bring change into your life. It’s important to be factual and detailed when speaking, to remain poised at all times and see the good in others always. Allow no discontent to shadow your days or nights.
LIBRA: It’s important to be around art, architecture, museums, dance, color, shapes, symbols, artists and artful people. A triangle of artful things. Art (all forms) impact each of us, but especially Libra and Pisces. Art helps develop our original self; it purifies our emotions and cultivates soul faculties. Art lights up the “lamp” within us, the Divine Light that recognizes beauty. Art uplifts and awakens us.
SCORPIO: Social contacts are essential now, for through them opportunities emerge. Maintain close alliances with friends and groups. Offer them more than you receive. This ensures important needs are met later on. Join community projects wherever you are. Get out and about, speak of your hopes, wishes and dreams. Not symbolically, but with real words, real feelings. Being authentic protects you at all times.
SAGITTARIUS: You are becoming an authority, one who has honor and status, quite like a father figure. With this comes social responsibility with one’s career and profession. We each have a specific task to complete in every incarnation. We are successful in our task when we unfold, along with our talents and gifts, the willingness to love along the way. You have worked long in creating great intelligence. At some point, you will be called to teach. Let yourself be prepared.
CAPRICORN: Perhaps you’re thinking of expanding yourself through a particular study, religion or philosophy. Perhaps you’re reflecting upon relatives or people far away, or even long journeys somewhere. Maybe you’re waiting for news of something, or creating long-range goals, considering different ideas and plans, listening to others’ views. Perhaps you’re on a white horse riding over meadows, hill and dale, bow and arrows in hand, eyes on the mountaintop ahead.
AQUARIUS: You may feel it’s a time of deep change, shifts and adjustments. It’s actually a time of regeneration, a rebuilding of talents and abilities, a time of assessing your resources and conserving them for a later time. Use all of your talents, be thrifty and always be kind. There is a transformation of personal desires and wishes, a transformation of resources, too. It seems the spirit of Goodwill is calling you in many subtle ways. Will you respond?
PISCES: “Let choice be made” is the Libra keynote when we are building our personality. Pisces at this time is being tested in their choices and how they are functioning in relationships. There may be consistent tension, perhaps even a battle playing itself out in everyday life. One is being tested to bring forth Right Relations with the other, and to cultivate the proper use of love. How does one do this? By aligning with the Will-to-Good.
Free will astrology for the week of October 18, 2017.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “I am my own muse,” wrote painter Frida Kahlo. “I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.” Would you consider trying out this perspective for a while, Aries? If so, you might generate a few ticklish surprises. You may be led into mysterious areas of your psyche that had previously been off-limits. You could discover secrets you’ve been hiding from yourself. So what would it mean to be your own muse? What exactly would you do? Here are some examples. Flirt with yourself in the mirror. Ask yourself impertinent, insouciant questions. Have imaginary conversations with the person you were three years ago and the person you’ll be in three years.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “Happiness comes from getting what you want,” said poet Stephen Levine, whereas joy comes “from being who you really are.” According to my analysis, the coming weeks will bear a higher potential for joy than for happiness. I’m not saying you won’t get anything you want. But I do suspect that focusing on getting what you want might sap energy from the venture that’s more likely to thrive: an unprecedented awakening to the truth of who you really are.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Sigmund Freud was a medical doctor who laid the groundwork for psychoanalysis. Throughout the 20th century, his radical, often outrageous ideas were a major influence on Western culture. When Freud was 50, he discovered a brilliant psychiatrist who would become his prize pupil: Carl Jung. When the two men first met in Vienna in 1907, they conversed without a break for 13 consecutive hours. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you could experience an comparable immersion sometime soon: a captivating involvement with a new influence, a provocative exchange that enchants you, or a fascinating encounter that shifts your course.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): In the next 12 months, I hope to help you track down new pleasures and amusements that teach you more about what you want out of life. I will also be subtly reminding you that all the world’s a stage, and will advise you on how to raise your self-expression to Oscar-worthy levels. As for romance, here’s my prescription between now and October 2018: The more compassion you cultivate, the more personal love you will enjoy. If you lift your generosity to a higher octave, there’ll be another perk, too: You will be host to an enhanced flow of creative ideas.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Are you interested in diving down to explore the mysterious and evocative depths? Would you be open to spending more time than usual cultivating peace and stillness in a sanctuary? Can you sense the rewards that will become available if you pay reverence to influences that nurture your wild soul? I hope you’ll be working on projects like these in the coming weeks, Leo. You’ll be in a phase when the single most important gift you can give yourself is to remember what you’re made of and how you got made.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Louisa May Alcott wrote a novel entitled A Long Fatal Love Chase, which was regarded as too racy to be published until a century after her death. “In the books I read, the sinners are more interesting than the saints,” says Alcott’s heroine, Rosamund, “and in real life people are dismally dull.” I boldly predict that in the coming months, Virgo, you won’t provide evidence to support Rosamund’s views. You’ll be even more interesting than you usually are, and will also gather more than your usual quota of joy and self-worth—but without having to wake up even once with your clothes torn and your head lying in a gutter after a night of forlorn debauchery.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): A woman I know, Caeli La, was thinking about relocating from Denver to Brooklyn. She journeyed across country and visited a prime neighborhood in her potential new headquarters. Here’s what she reported on her Facebook page: “In the last three days, I’ve seen three different men on separate occasions wearing sundresses. So this is definitely the right place for me.” What sort of signs and omens would tell you what you need to do to be in the right place at the right time, Libra? I urge you to be on the lookout for them in the coming weeks. Life will be conspiring to provide you with clues about where you can feel at peace, at home, and in the groove.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Simon & Garfunkel released their first album in October 1964. It received only a modest amount of airplay. The two musicians were so discouraged that they stopped working together. Then Bob Dylan’s producer Tom Wilson got permission to remix “The Sounds of Silence,” a song on the album. He added rock instruments and heavy echo to Simon & Garfunkel’s folk arrangement. When the tune was re-released in September 1965, it became a huge hit. I bring this to your attention, Scorpio, because I suspect you’re now at a point comparable to the time just before Tom Wilson discovered the potential of “The Sounds of Silence.”
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Consider how hard it is to change yourself,” wrote author Jacob M. Braude, “and you’ll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.” Ninety-nine percent of the time, I’d advise you and everybody else to surrender to that counsel as if it were an absolute truth. But I think you Sagittarians will be the exception to the rule in the coming weeks. More than usual, you’ll have the power to change yourself. And if you succeed, your self-transformations will be likely to trigger interesting changes in people around you. Here’s another useful tip, also courtesy of Jacob M. Braude: “Behave like a duck. Keep calm and unruffled on the surface, but paddle like the devil underneath.”
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1969, two earthlings walked on the moon for the first time. To ensure that astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed there and returned safely, about 400,000 people labored and cooperated for many years. I suspect that in the coming months, you may be drawn to a collaborative project that’s not as ambitious as NASA’s, but nevertheless fueled by a grand plan and a big scope. And according to my astrological calculations, you will have even more ability than usual to be a driving force in such a project. Your power to inspire and organize group efforts will be at a peak.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I predict your ambitions will burn more steadily in the coming months, and will produce more heat and light than ever before. You’ll have a clearer conception of exactly what it is you want to accomplish, as well as a growing certainty of the resources and help you’ll need to accomplish it. Hooray and hallelujah! But keep this in mind, Aquarius: As you acquire greater access to meaningful success—not just the kind of success that merely impresses other people—you’ll be required to take on more responsibility. Can you handle that? I think you can.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): What’s your top conspiracy theory? Does it revolve around the Illuminati, the occult group that is supposedly plotting to abolish all nations and create a world government? Or does it involve the stealthy invasion by extraterrestrials who are allegedly seizing mental control over human political leaders and influencing them to wage endless war and wreck the environment? Or is your pet conspiracy theory more personal? Maybe you secretly believe, for instance, that the difficult events you experienced in the past were so painful and debilitating that they will forever prevent you from fulfilling your fondest dream. Well, Pisces. I’m here to tell you that whatever conspiracy theory you most tightly embrace is ready to be disproven once and for all. Are you willing to be relieved of your delusions?
Homework: If one of your heroes said to you, “Tell me the most important things you know,” what would you say? FreeWillAstrology.com.
As Good Times goes to press, a disaster of unprecedented proportions is unfolding in Sonoma and Napa counties, where our sister paper, the North Bay Bohemian, is published. We’ve shut the Santa Rosa office due to the smoke. Employees have evacuated their homes, one of which may have burned to the ground.
With thousands of homes and businesses destroyed, a rebuilding effort will be needed to put lives and communities back together. It’s reminiscent of the 1989 earthquake that devastated Santa Cruz for years afterwards.
For those who want to help, we’ve established a fund that will distribute all proceeds to the nonprofits on the front lines of the Sonoma County and Napa County relief efforts. Please go to rebuildsonomafund.org and assist if you can.
Natural disasters are unavoidable, and too often we feel helpless when we hear that lives and homes are lost. In this case, through the Rebuild Sonoma Fund established by Good Times’ owners, and administered by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, readers can make a difference and help our Bay Area neighbors by getting money directly to the impacted areas, without administrative overhead.
Re: “Fare Question” (GT, 9/6): Three years ago, Santa Cruz METRO was in dire financial straits, with insolvency being a real threat within a couple of years.
As a result of the Great Recession, METRO received $26 million less in sales tax revenue than forecasted from 2008-2014. This required METRO to spend almost $22 million in reserves and other non-recurring revenues to maintain its level of bus service. Due to this economic downturn, METRO was unable to maintain and upgrade its bus fleet. Of its fleet of 100 buses, almost 60 need to be replaced now.
Despite these enormous challenges, and contrary to inaccurate assertions in a recent Grand Jury report suggesting that METRO was not doing a good job, METRO is back on its feet financially. It has been a hard three years at METRO with financial belt-tightening, a 19 percent service reduction in September 2016, and difficulties meeting service needs during the 2016-17 harsh winter.
However, with community support, including voters’ passage of Measure D and UCSC and Cabrillo College students’ funding of student bus pass programs, we are on a path to long-term financial viability, as long as outside factors remain fairly constant.
This summer METRO adopted a new balanced two-year budget and a five-year plan, which will not draw on limited remaining reserves. In addition, the agency saved over $1 million in last year’s $50 million operating budget, which we can now re-allocate to rebuild financial reserves to appropriate levels, as well as begin to improve the bus fleet, which is threatening to become the limiting factor in METRO’s ability to provide bus service the community needs and wants.
The costs of running any agency continue to increase, which puts METRO at risk of financial difficulties. Currently, there are no opportunities for significant increases to bus service levels. In the near-term, METRO looks to provide additional capacity incrementally in the most needed corridors and expand daily hours of service where possible to increase the rider’s ability to access jobs and other trips which don’t fit into traditional morning and afternoon commute periods.
The loss of a community bus service which provides over five million trips annually would have a major impact to the economy and the environment. Every weekday, approximately 17,000 trips are made between homes and jobs, schools, medical, shopping—primarily by people with limited transportation options. Almost 80 percent of METRO riders do not have access to private transportation and they use METRO at least five days a week. Over 750,000 of METRO’s annual boardings are by senior and disabled riders along with another 85,000 who use METRO’s on-demand, accessible-van service ParaCruz.
METRO continues to need and welcome the support and partnership of other agencies in the county, as well as the support of the community. Together we can ensure a future where METRO provides a viable bus service alternative option to that of the private automobile for those who need the bus service, as well as want it.
Jimmy Dutra | Chair, Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District Board of Directors
Everybody’s Issue
Re: “Living on the Edge” (GT, 8/22): Is there any question that the effects of our ever changing and disrupting climate have affected the severity of the massive hurricane in Houston? Can we continue to ignore the signs and await further “proof” that the climate is changing, faster, and more dramatically?
This is the one issue which unites all life on this planet. Humans are the species responsible for these changes, and humans can have an impact on their mitigation. No other political or environmental issue compares in importance. Wake up people, call out loudly for attention to this crisis.
Pat McVeigh
Santa Cruz
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GOOD IDEA
PEOPLE SPOKE
The goal of transportation is to get people moving, and an exciting plan is now in the fast lane to better link the Westside of Santa Cruz to the downtown area. The Santa Cruz Planning Commission voted unanimously on Thursday, Oct. 5, to approve permits for Segment 7 of the Rail Trail, which will put a 12-16-foot-wide trail on the coastal side of the railroad tracks from Natural Bridges Drive to La Barranca Park, around Neary Lagoon.
GOOD WORK
FEELING FLIPPER
FishWise, a nonprofit based in Santa Cruz, has now entered the global scene as a coordinator for the Seafood Alliance for Legality and Traceability—a global initiative bringing together the seafood industry, governments and nonprofits to address environmental and humanitarian issues within the worldwide seafood supply chain. The alliance, announced at the Our Ocean Conference in Malta, aims to tackle illegal fishing and strengthen sustainable fisheries management.
