Onstage in front of a few hundred people at the NEXTies on Friday night, Event Santa Cruz honored one of the greats.
Taking home the NEXTie—an engraved glass mug—for “best athlete” at the Rio Theatre on Friday, March 24 was Ryan Navaroli, a nationally ranked rising star in a little-known sport called Spikeball.
“It’s like beach volleyball, except it’s a 360-degree game with no boundaries, so basically you can imagine you’re diving all over the place,” Navaroli said at the NEXTies podium, award mug in front of him. “When I first started playing, I was having body parts sore that I didn’t even know existed.”
So either Spikeball is extremely competitive, or Navaroli is just lousy at anatomy. Either way, after quickly getting the hang of it, Navaroli—who played baseball at Santa Cruz High School and Cal State University San Bernardino—found it both a surprisingly rigorous workout and a lot of fun. Two teams of two surround a circular, trampoline-like surface, bouncing the ball off of the net below, and players lunge into the sand, trying to keep the play alive.
As he finishes up his master’s program at San Jose State University, Navaroli, 25, has been noticing that many kids have also taken to the sport. He even helped convince Shoreline Middle School to add Spikeball—also known by its generic name, roundnet—to its physical education curriculum.
“Everything has just spiraled into Spikeball and roundnet going crazy, and it’s awesome that it’s picking up,” he tells GT.
In competitions around the state, Navaroli plays alongside teammate and fellow Santa Cruz native Will Potter, and the Santa Cruz Roundnet club that he startedhas 4,000 followers on Instagram.
Navaroli has also held three local tournaments, the last one in December. He’s currently rallying to create the fourth—the second annual Santa Cruz Summer Showdown, scheduled for July 8 at Seabright Beach.
“I’ve already got 13 teams for that, and I’ve only been promoting it for two days, so I’m curious how big that’s going to get,” he says.
This year’s NEXTies received 1,000 nominations, says Matthew Swinnerton, founder of Event Santa Cruz. A committee of eight—including past honorees—voted on winners for the 17 categories, which stretched from mentors to businesses that are involved in the community.
This was the most winners the event has had in its eight years, and it was the second year that the awards were divided into separate categories. “We’ll keep it at that number,” Swinnerton says. “We can’t do anymore, or we’ll be there all night.”
The awards went 45 minutes over schedule anyway, and next year, he plans to have the house band cut off speakers who go on too long.
PRESSING GAUZE
In what quickly turned into a crummy pre-dawn morning, veteran Paul Damon got stabbed after getting robbed in his home in January, as GT reported last month (“Will to Heal,” 2/17). He and his friend Adam Binckley chased down the guy who had ripped the two men off.
But what Damon and Binckley, a fellow vet, didn’t realize until later was that the knife that went deep into Damon’s thigh didn’t actually belong to the criminal. Rather, it turns out that when Damon attempted to hip-throw the alleged thief, he accidentally thrust his own body into a knife that Binckley was running with.
“A friendly stabbing,” says Damon, who heads the nonprofit Holistic Veterans.
Damon has fully recovered, and says he cut his recovery time by using Eastern healing practices and focusing on a healthy diet. Since the incident, he has spotted more of his veteran friends out in the neighborhood, keeping an eye on their streets. “I noticed everyone walking with their chests out,” he explains. “I think it inspired everyone.”
Alternate moral of this story: Don’t run with a knife.
The new drama from French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, Personal Shopper, has an identity crisis. It seems to be going in a lot of interesting directions, scrupulously building up elements of mystery, horror, philosophical pondering, character study, and psychological thriller. But like so many modern multi-taskers, in its zeal to be and do everything, it never quite does any one thing well.
Assayas has a reputation for thoughtful, nuanced contemporary stories. His Summer Hours, about three siblings deciding how to disperse their late mother’s art collection, dealt with family and cultural heritage. More recently, his femme-centric Clouds ofSils Maria, involving three women at various stages of life in the theatrical community, explored female issues of aging and image.
The milieu is still upscale in Personal Shopper, although the eponymous protagonist does not exactly belong to that rarefied world. Maureen (Kristen Stewart) is an American adrift in Paris. She works as a personal shopper for a wealthy socialite/philanthropist who is constantly in the papers at charity events and has to look fabulous, but is too busy to shop on her own. It’s Maureen’s job to bomb around Paris on her motorbike, pop into Chanel, Dior, and Cartier to select items, and deliver them to her client.
Maureen is not a fashionista herself, in her grungy sweaters and jeans. She’s also coping with the recent death of her twin brother, Lewis, due to an abnormality of the heart, a condition she also shares. Her friend and sister-in-law, Lara (Sigrid Bouaziz), has moved into an apartment and is selling the house she and Lewis shared in Paris. But Maureen spends a few nights there alone in hopes of making contact with Lewis’ spirit.
As Maureen matter-of-factly tells everyone, she’s a medium, and so was Lewis; they once made a pact that whichever one of them died first would contact the other twin from the other side. She doesn’t do anything overt, like hold a seance; she just wanders around in the dark “waiting”—not only to hear from Lewis, we soon realize, but to figure out a way to escape “a job I hate,” and move on with her life.
There are lots of interesting themes and possibilities here—the colliding worlds of glitz and glam with spirituality, the process of grief, the nature of identity, and the human need for connection in an increasingly alienating world. This last comes to the forefront when the midsection of the movie becomes a kind of stalker melodrama, as Maureen starts receiving a series of insinuating texts. Freaked out at first, she turns to these messages from an unknown texter, and her own responses, as a kind of therapy.
It’s not that these elements never add up (they do, sort of, depending on how you choose to perceive them). The problem is the accumulation of intrigues never quite gains the resonance it should. Whether or not you think you “get” a story, a viewer wants to embrace something about a movie—its cleverness or its profundity or its jazzy style. But this one rarely elicits a strong or satisfying reaction.
Stewart’s angsty face fills just about every frame, but neither she nor the script can make us understand her character’s profound sense of disconnection from life. There are a couple of intensely spooky and eerie paranormal visuals, but also a lot of screen time frittered away in endless shots of Maureen racing through traffic on her bike, or with the camera peering over her shoulder at her tiny phone display screen.
One interesting factoid Assayas tosses into the mix is the story of real-life Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, whose geometric, abstract work at the beginning of the 20th Century anticipated better-known work by artists like Kandinsky by some 20 years. Hilma af Klint claimed spirits were guiding her hand when she painted, so we see snippets of a documentary about her Maureen watches on her phone.
But the artist’s story doesn’t really have anything to do with Maureen’s story. It’s just another potentially interesting ingredient that doesn’t help gel the movie into a meaningful whole.
PERSONAL SHOPPER
**1/2 (out of four)
With Kristen Stewart. Written and directed by Olivier Assayas. An IFC Films release. Rated R. 105 minutes.
As customers hunched over a wooden counter sip craft beers and ciders, Noelle Antolin, co-owner at Lúpulo, gazes out of the windows and across Cathcart Street, to where the sun plays on trees in the parking lot.
She and husband Stuyvie Bearns haven’t taken a stance on the parking structure—with a public library on the first floor—proposed for the lot across from their spot on Cathcart and Cedar streets. She admits that certain examples of parking garages that consultant firm Group 4 showed at a Santa Cruz City Council meeting in December were surprisingly artistic—some immersed in vines and greenery or bejeweled with a rainbow of bright pastel lights. Another was designed toresemble a row of classic novels, including Catch-22.
Antolin isn’t sure what to make of it all.
“It would change the dynamics of the street. We’re in the land of blue skies and old trees. But at the same time, it might bring more foot traffic,” says Antolin, who has been going to meetings to learn more about rough sketches for the possible garage. Others have stronger feelings about the possible 70-foot-tall structure.
“There are so many ways to travel now,” says Wade Hall, who owns Spokesman Bicycles next door to Lúpulo. “Electric bikes. Electric skateboards. Rail to trail. All these things are just coming online.” He insists that in a few decades, giant parking structures will look as outdated as an old barn does now.
So while the possible garage wends its way through the city process, some neighboring businesses have joined environmental activists in opposing the plan.
And although most downtown business leaders haven’t exactly been resistant to the idea, neither have they embraced it.
“Not enough business members are tuned in to this issue yet. People don’t know about it, and the people who do know haven’t decided yet,” says Santa Cruz Downtown Commissioner Robert Singleton, also a policy analyst for the Santa Cruz County Business Council.
With all of the money they already spend toward parking deficiency fees, some business owners are wary of a garage estimated to cost around $35 million, until they know where the money’s going to come from.
The Downtown Commission heard about the garage at its March 23 meeting, while looking at the city’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP). Transportation Manager Jim Burr suggested the commission give the City Council direction on how to spend CIP money, especially when it came to a possible $2.3 million allotment city staff would use to design the garage if the project moves forward. That’s a chunk of change the commission declined to either endorse or oppose for the council. Or, as Singleton put it, “It’s your bed, you have to make it.”
If the council stays the course, the combination parking structure and library would come back for more robust public hearings, with more notices going out to people who live and work nearby. By then, a downtown parking study will have come out, and the commission should have a better sense of how they would fund the garage, and the city manager’s office should have an idea of how to preserve the downtown farmers market, which currently calls that lot home. Library leaders, who are spending money from the June 2016 election, might then have a clearer sense of what their timeline is—as well as how well it lines up with the garage.
The plan could also shift in shape or size, partly because Christophe Bellito, who owns Toadal Fitness, doesn’t want to run a gym in the shadow of a parking structure—especially one that would block his rooftop solar panels. He says he’s open to selling the parcel and moving somewhere nearby.
In explaining the demand for parking downtown, City Manager Martín Bernal has stressed that the city could lose parking in a couple lots, as two are sites for possible developments, including Owen Lawlor’s possible Lower Pacific Avenue housing project. Lawlor tells GT that once the city passes its Downtown Recovery Plan amendments, he’ll submit his plans.
A much larger parking lot belongs to the Calvary Episcopal Church. Its fate is difficult to pin down, but the parish has talked about putting housing there before, and it always listens to offers.
“Property owners are getting more and more pressure if you have a property that’s vacant or basically vacant,” says parishioner Scott Galloway, who serves on a church committee. “And I can safely say that a single-story parking lot isn’t the best use for the city.”
But even if the church does pick a project, Galloway says it would be at least a couple of years before it would break ground.
The church gets $80,000 per year from the city to lease the lot, Galloway says, which helps maintain their 157-year-old building. A housing project might provide a little more money, while also helping people in need, but developments like those often come with risk.
Calvary finds itself constantly weighing the desires of different parishioners, most of whom enjoy having a free place to park on Sundays.
Walking through the redwood church, Galloway points out the colorful, south-facing stained glass windows. Those could end up in the shade if the parish erected a towering apartment complex next door.
“We want those to have sun,” he says.
Update 4/5/2017 9:45a.m.: Hula’s Island Grill was incorrectly said to oppose the parking structure. The restaurant is still exploring how it feels about the project.
Today is a “Dig Day,” in the parlance of the Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz group, but there is no digging just yet.Just coffee, and pastries, and a curious assemblage of people that look a little like local skateboard groms, and a lot like aging surfers. This is Santa Cruz, after all.
To one side, the hardcore are discussing the day’s suspension settings and the latest bling for their megabuck ’niners. Before the day is over, there will be seven hours of sweat, dirt, laughter, sore muscles, and maybe even blood. And, this being Santa Cruz, there will be local microbrews at the end, to celebrate a job well done.
Welcome to a typical day of trail work with the Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz (MBoSC). It’s one of the hallmarks of the pioneering advocacy group, which is celebrating its 20th year as a fixture in this fat-tire-infatuated community.
Over the years, the group has done what no one ever expected a cycling group to do, helping build trails in the hyper-regulated California State Park system, and linking to the UC Santa Cruz campus. They’ve made successful diplomatic forays to equestrian and hiking groups, marshaled hundreds of people to attend city council meetings and engage in letter-writing campaigns, conducted mountain bike festivals, and even hosted a race, called the Old Cabin Classic, in a local state park.
In 2013, they earned the respect of local law enforcement for helping to eradicate a problematic drug hangout deep in the forest—by building a mountain bike trail straight through the middle of it. Earlier this year, they marshaled their considerable resources to begin construction of a pedestrian-only trail in a local park, purely as a goodwill gesture.
When it comes to mountain bike advocacy, says Geoffrey Smith, one of the group’s first presidents, the MBoSC has succeeded by “being the adults in the room”—even if they may not always look like it.
Making a Connection
With its redwood forests that reach nearly unimpeded to the sea, Santa Cruz County was a magnet for mountain bikers from the sport’s earliest days.When the MBoSC was formed in ’97, “there were no legal trails at all” in the county, remembers Smith. For mountain bikers, it was a pleasing kind of anarchy—ride anywhere, obey no one, have fun. But it couldn’t last.
In ’99, the opportunity to get on the right side of history presented itself: plans were developed to create the U-Con (short for University Connector) trail, bridging bucolic Highway 9 and the lush expanses of UCSC.
In an emerging model of cooperation, MBoSC partnered with local landowners Bud and Emma McCrary, the Santa Cruz County Horseman’s Association, and the Association of Concerned Trailriders to construct the short, multi-use trail.
For Smith and MBoSC, the U-Con trail was a major milestone. “It was the first legal singletrack in Santa Cruz,” he says. “And it was a good model for what was to come.”
“I will always be proud of the Emma McCrary trail. It changed everything for mountain biking in Santa Cruz.” — Mark Davidson
Having attained a level of political legitimacy, the group’s next opportunity came from an unexpected place. For years, the city of Santa Cruz had grappled with a seemingly intractable problem: a scenic and remote hillside above Highway 9 had been taken over by drug users and traffickers. Nicknamed “Heroin Hill,” the spot was within the former golf club and polo grounds of the Pogonip. In one famous photograph, a heroin needle is shown unceremoniously jabbed into a redwood tree.
“People were coming from all over the state to score cheap heroin,” says Mark Davidson, MBoSC president from 2003 until 2015. “What the city of Santa Cruz really wanted was to take it off the map.”
MBoSC, working with the parks department, came up with a solution that would benefit not only the city, but also local mountain bikers hungry for new singletrack. What drug users hate most is for the full light of day to shine on their clandestine activities, and that’s exactly what MBoSC proposed, in the form of an undulating trail right through the middle of Heroin Hill. The trail, completed in 2013, exposed the infamous area, and its drug trade, to the unrelenting glare of dozens of people, every day. To ride it now, you wouldn’t know it was ever Heroin Hill.
If ever there was redeeming social value to the sport of mountain biking, the Emma McCrary Trail was it. “We didn’t have an answer” for the blight of Heroin Hill, remembers Santa Cruz Police Deputy Chief Dan Flippo. “But through the Emma McCrary Trail, we pushed the illegal activities out.”
The “EMT,” as it became known, was also a turning point for the engine that members say will drive future MBoSC projects: trail work. In creating the trail, MBoSC marshaled more than 300 volunteers, who devoted more than 3,500 hours of work.
“I will always be proud of the Emma McCrary trail,” says Davidson. “It changed everything for mountain biking in Santa Cruz.”
Digging Deeper
DIY RIDE Mark Davidson, one of MBoSC’s first presidents, on his favorite of Pogonip’s many trails, which he helped to build. PHOTO: KEANA PARKER
I’m riding the EMT with MBoSC’s Matt De Young, but his mind is elsewhere. De Young, a geography major in college, knows these trails as well as the shifters on his ’niner. It’s been a historically wet winter in California, and while he seems to be enjoying the day, he’s immediately and irrevocably distracted—thinking about work crews, French drains, shoring up berms, and trail rerouting.
As the MBoSC’s sole paid employee, the indefatigable 30-year-old can be variously found riding the trails, attending meetings, leading Dig Days or training trail workers and crew leaders. The guy is everywhere, and works with passion. Perhaps that’s why the EMT is no mere trail—it’s art.
“People think the ‘government’ does this,” says De Young. “They don’t always realize that volunteers are out there working every weekend.”
In the group’s worldview, caring for trails is an integral part of procuring trails. Once you’re invested—through sweat, blood, and perhaps a few days of feverous itching from the ubiquitous Northern California poison oak—you begin to feel differently about the places you ride every day. You may even go so far as to write a letter to a local politician, attend a city council meeting, or convert a renegade, illegal-trail-building friend into a responsible trail user.
In other words, Dig Days are where trails and trail advocates are built, one shovelful at a time.
Finding Their Flow
After establishing the Emma McCrary trail, a new challenge emerged: to accommodate riders seeking a more intense riding experience. The Soquel Demonstration Forest, a yawning 3,000-acre plot of land on the spine of the Santa Cruz Mountains, was the perfect candidate. The area, adjacent to Silicon Valley, was already a popular destination for avid mountain bikers from the likes of Google, Apple, and Facebook, eager to bust out of their dull cubicles. These riders, taking advantage of the new breed of long-travel suspension bikes, tended to like their riding like their coffee—in strong doses.
“We didn’t have enough legal trails to satisfy that user group,” says Davidson. “And we knew the Soquel Demonstration Forest could supply a more aggressive riding experience.”
The MBoSc found an ally in Angela Bernheisel, Calfire Forest Supervisor. The proposed route, to be known as the “Flow Trail,” would be “unlike anything else in the Calfire system,” Bernheisel says. Nonetheless, she remembers encountering a lot of skepticism about the project.
“It was a huge undertaking for our small staff. It took a lot of money and work, and MBoSC brought that to the table. The Flow Trail never would have been possible without them,” she says.
Davidson, De Young, and trail builder extraordinaire Drew Perkins, threw themselves into the project. Environmental statements were produced, and trail designs underwent numerous iterations. Ibis Cycles raffled off a new mountain bike to help raise funds. Then, in a stroke of good fortune, a wealthy Facebook employee riding in the forest with his family saw signs soliciting donations for the project. He matched the current fundraising amount—about $45,000—out of his own pocket. Suddenly, the club had $90,000 in hand for the Flow Trail construction. Over the course of two years, thanks to De Young, Perkins, and more than 10,000 hours of volunteer time, the four-mile project became reality.
When it opened in 2015, the trail immediately exceeded anyone’s expectations. By unanimous consent, the elusive “feel” had been achieved. It also exceeded anyone’s expectations for popularity. “After the trail first opened, you would see 150 cars parked at the Demo Forest,” says Perkins. “It was a good feeling, that people were enjoying our work.” A counter was installed on the trail that recorded up to 600 trips per weekend.
Battles Over Biking
Santa Cruz City Council meetings are a place where you are as likely to discuss LGBTQ issues as water quality and low-income housing. But on Feb. 7, the meeting is mostly about one thing: a new, downhill-only mountain bike trail being proposed for the Pogonip.
MBoSC has mobilized the brethren, and the room is so full it needs to be partially evacuated by fire marshals. But while speaker after speaker advocates for the trail, some groups are less sanguine. A few hikers and dog walkers raise legal technicalities in an attempt to have the idea scuttled. Others argue from a more visceral point of view: they simply don’t want to see mountain bikers on trails, ever.
It’s a debate that’s played out in hundreds of similar venues across the country. But here, there’s a difference: MBoSC has embedded itself in every step of the process: from letter-writing campaigns, to trail building efforts, to fundraising and scientific studies.
Ultimately, the group’s purpose is not to battle with other user groups, members say, but to win them over with logic and calm. It’s what past president Smith calls the “steady drip-drip” of progress for mountain bikers.
Debbie Boscoe, board member of the Santa Cruz County Horsemen’s Association, considers herself a onetime detractor who was won over by the MBoSC.The equestrian group regularly uses the Santa Cruz trail system, to the tune of hundreds of miles per year. It also conducts the Fireworks Endurance Ride, a 30-50-mile event that traverses Henry Cowell, Pogonip, UCSC, and Wilder Ranch parks.
In other words, they use the same trails that are beloved by every mountain biker within 100 miles. Early on, trouble between the two groups was practically inevitable.
“Things were not good,” says Boscoe. “Mountain bikers would rip trail markers off trees during the big ride. Relations were at such a low, I thought we couldn’t do it anymore.”
In a remarkable gesture of détente, the two groups created the “Carrot Fest” where mountain bikers were enlisted to carefully encircle a group of horses, and gently proffer carrots. The diplomatic foray was a revelation to both sides. “Now,” says Debbie, “horses will go over to mountain bikers, expecting a reward.” It was the beginning of a kind of armistice between the groups, which continues to this day.
MBoSC has reached out to other groups, too. It recently marshaled its resources to help build a pedestrian-only trail leading to a new outdoor Shakespeare theater in the Pogonip.Though a bike will never traverse the trail, mountain bikers will almost certainly benefit from it.
“I appreciate MBoSC contributing volunteer hours to the trail,” says Meta Rhodeos, Santa Cruz field supervisor for Parks and Recreation. “They showed they’re about trails—and not just biking trails.”
Local hiking groups such as Friends of the Pogonip, also known as Pogonip Watch, routinely battle the MBoSC. The organization’s website is emblazoned with red type calling out what they perceive as mountain bike incursions into hiking land and illegal trail construction. Indeed, there is no doubt that scofflaw mountain bikers construct illegal trails in state parks throughout the county—an activity that MBoSC is trying to combat.
Former Santa Cruz mayor and environmental lawyer Celia Scott is one resident who routinely speaks out against expanding trail access to mountain bikers. At the City Council meeting, a good share of the 50 public comments were in opposition to the new trail at Pogonip—an opposition led by Scott.
“We don’t support mountain biking in Pogonip,” she says. “When I was mayor,the U-Con mountain bike trail was created. And more recently, there was the Emma McCrary Trail. Now there is a proposal from the city and the mountain biking community to build at least three more mountain bike trails in Pogonip. In our view, that is too much.”
Scott says she is not anti-cycling, but that she wants to protect what she sees as the “crown jewel” of the Santa Cruz greenbelt.
“There is a lot of damage caused by mountain biking, and a large number of illegal trails. Other users—hikers and people walking with children—get displaced by mountain bikers on singletrack trails,” she says. “I love bicycles, but that is not the issue. The issue is how to take care of open space lands that we are very blessed to have.”
However its political fortunes may shift, themountain biking community in Santa Cruz—like almost everywhere in the country—is also battling a problem from within: there are more riders than there are resources to accommodate them. And as many successes as they have had expanding access for cyclists, there are future challenges. The 10,000-acre Nisene Marks remains problematic for mountain bikers, thanks to a highly restrictive family deed and a host of user groups vying for access. Other land access opportunities are on the horizon, too, including the newly designated Coast Dairy National Monument, and the San Vicente Redwoods. No one knows where the discussions on these properties will go, but thanks to their track record on these issues, the MBoSC will have a “seat at the table,” as Smith likes to say.
The way forward won’t be easy. At times, it may even be ugly, in the way that all political battles inevitably are. But, thanks to the MBoSC, it’s likely to reach peaceful conclusions. They won’t get everything they want. But they won’t come up empty-handed, either.
“Our biggest challenge is bringing mountain biking into the mainstream, in the eyes of land managers and other users,” says De Young. “Mountain biking developed as an outlaw sport, and that shaped the culture. Now we’re seeing things change.”
Elizabeth Swensen is a willowy blonde with a degree in Classics, an alto singing voice and a sly smile. She’s also an IndieCade-award-winning game designer, designated an entrepreneur to watch in Forbes magazine’s “30 under 30” a few years back. Brand-new in her current gig as Assistant Professor of Art and Design at UCSC, Swensen’s games explore narrative structures—how the ability to change a game’s storyline affects the player’s emotional response. In other words, she’s interested in interactive gaming beyond the world of competitive violence.
“Oh, I love the violent video games too,” she chuckles. “I grew up with them.” But her current projects are distinctly educational and interactive. “I’m interested in creating a mix of physical and installation games,” she reveals, showing me images from a recent project on her computer. Board games, card sets, and books—including Alice in Wonderland—line one wall of her office overlooking UCSC’s music building and the ocean beyond. “I’m sort of a jack of all trades as far as games go,” Swensen admits. But she clearly favors physical games—they often begin as cards before they’re translated into more costly digital form—games that offer choices, that send the players to dictionaries, which in turn generate new role options.
“My underlying interest is self-expression, absolutely,” she says. “Absolutely” is a frequent Swensenism. “I define games as expressive art pieces that someone is engaged in with another participant.”
So games for her aren’t necessarily rule-governed. In Swensen’s game world, winning and losing might not be as important as emotional outcomes.
Growing up in Sonoma, Swensen played “a lot of video games. But we played outdoors too, and made up our own games. All children are game designers,” she believes, making up rules to make-believe games. After studying Classics at Willamette University—“I loved Latin poetry”—chance conversation with a colleague on a visit to Prague led to her consider video games seriously. She applied to the Interactive Media MFA program at USC. “I got accepted and just jumped at it,” she says.
Like most game designers, Swensen can program. “I can do basic scripting tasks, but my real expertise is in narrative and experience design,” she says. Her process can begin with a series of experiments and prototypes. Sometimes just simple shapes, figures, or cards out of paper. “Then we ask what the player can do in the game. We need a playable idea. We might practice a role-playing situation. Here we begin to get into the aesthetics of play. The games are competitive yet with an emotional outcome,” she explains.
Once the game has been tested, “you begin digitizing. That takes the most people—animators, artists, engineers. And depending upon the game, you might need a sound designer, or a composer, user interface design, character design.” And for all that you need graduate student assistants and money.
“In my work I’m targeting different expressive outcomes, not just violence. There’s already market saturation in that area,” she laughs. “The ecosystem of games is broad, but not as broad as it could be. I’m interested in how we can use games for social outcomes. I tend to make games for readers. Think visual novels that invite moral decisions, rather than games about racing and shooting.”
Her Master’s project was a celebrated iPad creation called “The Witch,” a role-playing game in which players take the role of a girl who has been labeled as a witch. Identity construction in an interactive context. Swensen’s interest in learning games led to “Application Crunch,” which helps introduce underserved middle school students to strategies for college planning. The cards offer opportunities, but they can also specify disasters. The player has to learn to make choices in order to juggle time and opportunities. Like life.
After five years as a researcher with the Game Innovation Lab at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Swensen left that dream job last year to come to UCSC, partly because the game design program was not in Engineering, but in the Arts. “That’s unusual,” she observes. “And I wanted to be surrounded by artists and expressive media, not just engineers.”
What’s next? “Well, ‘The Witch’ still haunts me. Right now I’m working on an update to that game,” she says, one that will expand the conversations she’s having about women’s involvement in the sciences and mathematics.
Swensen believes she’s good at her work “because I’m comfortable being a dabbler rather than an expert. I ask questions, I still love the Classics, and I engage in other forms of art, like music. And I love to cook—which is another kind of creative, expressive project,” says the willowy game designer. “I have no private life right now.”
In the late 1920s, Western swing hit the Texas music scene. By the 1930s, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys were a household name and Western swing was a staple of radio stations and dance halls across the Great Plains. The style offered the danceability and fun of the jazz big bands, but with a twist.
“I always joke that it’s jazz with a cowboy hat,” says Gerard Egan, guitarist for local outfit the Carolyn Sills Combo. “Those guys were as sophisticated as anybody else playing in Benny Goodman’s band or Duke Ellington’s band, but they grew up in Texas or Arkansas and wore cowboy shirts and cowboy boots.”
Western swing, which pulls together elements of country, jazz, blues, polkas and Hawaiian steel guitar, represents an American melting pot. But it remains something of a throwback genre; bands like Asleep at the Wheel and the Hot Club of Cowtown are top-of-mind among contemporary Western swing bands, but the list is short.
Egan believes that the reason the style hasn’t been widely adopted is because it’s hard to play well. Bandleader Carolyn Sills points out that Western swing doesn’t fit into the singer-songwriter focus of folk and country.
“A lot of today’s country is focused on one person singing a song with a guitar,” says Sills. “Western swing is much more of a group dynamic.”
Sills and her combo—comprising Egan, Charlie Joe Wallace on steel guitar, Jim Norris on drums, and Sunshine Jackson on harmony vocals and percussion—isn’t strictly a Western swing band. But the Western swing community recognizes a good thing when they see it. The band was recently nominated for Best Western Swing Group and Best Western Swing Female at the Ameripolitan Awards in Austin for its new album, Dime Stories Vol. 2, which was recorded by Andy Zenczak at Gadgetbox Studios in Santa Cruz.
They didn’t win, but the band members had an unforgettable experience in Austin. They opened for West Texas honkytonk legend James Hand and were called onto the stage at the Continental Club by country icon Dale Watson, who coined the phrase “Ameripolitan” and is the mastermind behind the awards. There were also late-night jams at the local Holiday Inn, where many of the out-of-town bands stayed.
Sills and Egan have been making music together since 1999, when they met at college in Connecticut. As the three of us sit out on the Crepe Place patio, they share stories of bonding over Stevie Ray Vaughan bootlegs and old music. When Egan wanted to attend the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix, he proposed to Sills, and the two moved from New York City for the six-month program. Egan was offered a job at the Santa Cruz Guitar Company and, three weeks later, Sills was hired to help run the office.
As newcomers to Santa Cruz, the two played small gigs until local promoter Tom Miller took a chance on them, and booked them to play a Patsy Cline tribute show. One hundred or so people attended, and a rising star of the Santa Cruz music scene was born.
Sills and Egan have profound respect for their bandmates. Egan says that at any time on the bandstand he can call out a tune that’s “a Johnny Cash beat, in this key.”
“That’s really magical right there,” he says.
“I have absolute confidence that we can do that to all of them at any time,” agrees Sills.
When asked about being a bass-playing, singing frontwoman in a country band, Sills laughs and admits it’s “like a squirrel wearing clothes.”
“You don’t meet a ton of female bass players, and there are definitely some that can kick my ass,” she says. “But it’s fun. I get respect from people—dudes, as well.”
As Egan sees it, Sills has the hardest role in the band.
“If someone misses a note in a solo, it’s not big deal,” he says. “But bass is rhythm and melody at the same time. If you miss that one note, it’s so obvious. For Carolyn to do that, and sing, and lead the band, she’s taking on many roles at once.”
Even though the Carolyn Sills Combo isn’t strictly Western swing, the members take their role as torchbearers for the genre seriously.
“We’ve gotten that Western swing tag and we love it,” says Egan. “It’s an honor to represent that form of music, the musicians that made it well-known, and how it shaped so much that came after it.
The Carolyn Sills Combo will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 1 at Kuumbwa, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $25/gen, $32/gold. 427-222
Solaire, an elegant landscape of dove-grey upholstery unfurled between the swimming pool and lobby of Hotel Paradox, is graced with more than its share of mood. Especially at the magic hour when the sun begins to lower just enough to splash low light across the sparkling bar.
Such a great spot to unwind, either at the bar or on couches in front of the fireplace, as we did last week. I had my palate set for one of the house signature cocktails and found just the thing in a “Santa Cruz 75,” a generous martini glass full of chilled Venus small batch gin inflected with Prosecco, the haunting nuance of elderflower and the bite of fresh lime. A great rendezvous with a friend, and given the quantity of stylish liquor, a bargain at $12.
Partnering the striking botanicals of this cocktail, we chose the Coconut Prawns with sweet chile sauce ($8) from the “Bar Bites” menu. And what arrived proved to be a luscious, crunchy quartet of fat prawns enfolded in an expert deep-fry of coconut cream batter. The slightly bitter perfume of the gin made a brilliant counterpoint to the slightly sweet coating on the prawns. Haven’t had a fried appetizer this wonderful—served hot from the kitchen—in many years. My companion found her “Equinox” cocktail of vodka, Aperol, elderflower and lemon juice a bit on the sweet side. Beautiful, pale pink in its sugar-rimmed cocktail glass, but I had to admit that my gin-intensive adult beverage was much more refreshing and palate-sparkling. The low light raking across the attractive dining room made for sophisticated eye candy as we sipped. Yes, we agreed, this is the perfect time of day to hit Solaire, where the bartender knows what he’s doing. Solaire, in the Hotel Paradox, 611 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. hotelparadox.com.
Pop a Wheelie:
Food trucks return to Skypark in Scotts Valley this Friday, with a nifty little dinner, drinks, and swing dance party from 5-8 p.m. Swing into Spring will offer complimentary swing lessons, thanks to the pros from Swing Set Lounge, followed by dancing from 6-8 p.m. Take a swing at dancing, or simply sip and sample from the onsite brews and food truck possibilities. Foodtrucksagogo.com will fill you in on this Friday night special. Heads up—Food Trucks A Go Go brings food truck lunches to the Wrigley Building every Thursday, 11 a.m-1:30 p.m. Lots to choose from—check it out.
Brew News
Yay! Humble Sea Brewing Co. opened its Westside taproom last week to the wild acclaim of as many thirsty fans as could fit into the patio/corral that borders Swift Street (a half block up from El Salchichero). The brainchild of Taylor West, Nick Pavlina, and Frank Scott Krueger, the newest house of fresh libations—in an already well-populated saloon neighborhood—will offer tasty matching brew bites and loads of ambience in the Stripe Design Group-finessed taproom. Grand opening coming this summer. Also, chef Brad Briske and his Home team plan a first-ever beer dinner with Corralitos Brewing Co. on Sunday, April 2. Four courses paired with fresh brew. Limited seating—expect astonishing flavors—email in**@ho********.com or call 334-2134. Home is where the heart is. It’s also at 3101 N. Main St., Soquel.
Rich and hungry?
Got a spare $255? Then consider joining the fresh fisherfolk from H&H, plus SF chef Jonnatan Leiva, on May 27 at the Secret Sea Cave (North Coast Santa Cruz) installment of Outstanding in the Field’s al fresco dinner series. Need something more expensive? Join the chefs and farmers in Burgundy, France on Aug. 27: bring 245 euros. Details at outstandinginthefield.com.
There’s a lot more variety to Mexican food than we typically see represented in restaurants in the U.S. Every region in Mexico has its own unique characteristics. The kiosk Café Campesino on Pacific Avenue was a local expression of this variety, but because space is limited, there was only so much owner Dina Torres could do. Earlier this year, Torres opened the similarly themed Jaguar Mexican Provisional on Soquel Avenue, in addition to keeping her kiosk open, and she talked to us about her new restaurant.
What inspired you to open Jaguar?
DINA TORRES: I made the decision to open the Jaguar restaurant because people were always asking me to open my own restaurant to eat inside, because many times of the year it’s rainy or windy. I started working on the project for years and years to reach this goal. At Café Campesino, I only serve chicken. It’s a very small place. Here, I’ve added pork, fish, beef and shrimp to expand the menu. I decided to make a new menu here with more choices. I use the menu at Café Campesino for specials.
What’s a new item you have on the menu for Jaguar?
I have entomatado. It’s made with pork chops and a special chunky tomatillo sauce with herbs and chile morita peppers on top. That’s one of my favorites. We serve with Spanish rice, homemade tortilla.
Are you preparing food from any particular region in Mexico?
My menu is all over from different states in Mexico: Oaxaca, Querétaro. Puebla, Mexico City. Yucatán. Nayarit. I’m changing the dishes of the specials. For example, for Valentine’s Day, I served rabbit. It’s from Nayarit, the recipe. It’s rabbit in spicy sauce with spices and herbs and potatoes. My mom made family dinners with amazing dishes. She was very exotic, cooking. She can do whatever. I drove with my parents across my country; that’s why we have different regions’ dishes. In my family, we have a lot of chefs. One of my nephews has a culinary school. My other nephews have bakeries or restaurants.
Tell me about your mole.
My mole is Puebla style. It’s got 31 ingredients. We make the sauce with raisins, walnuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, plantains, many kinds of dried peppers and spices. This is Puebla style.
Silver Mountain Vineyards makes quite a few varietals but is very well known for its Chardonnay. Winemaker Jerold O’Brien was one of the first in the Santa Cruz Mountains to plant 100-percent organically farmed Chardonnay grapes—and this was back in the ’80s, when very few people were thinking “organic.”
The 2013 Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains ($34) is all estate-grown and bottled, and made in the style of French Burgundy “to showcase our estate vineyard,” says O’Brien. “The Mount Eden clone is rich in flavor, and hearkens back to Martin Ray and the early days in the Santa Cruz Mountains,” he says of planting his vines a long time ago. And with three decades of experience under his belt, O’Brien certainly knows his vines and his wines. He produces some fabulous Chardonnays—the estate 2013 being no exception. Elegant and complex, it has a beautiful nose of vanilla and citrus peel, with subtle aromas of minerals, pineapple, yellow apple, and delicate herbs. On the palate, this zesty wine is citrusy, creamy and refreshing. I paired it with one of my favorite things to eat, salmon, first enjoying a glass as I cooked it. This Chardonnay also pairs well with many kinds of cheese, especially French Brie.
Silver Mountain Vineyards, 402 Ingalls St., Santa Cruz, 408-353-2278. Open Friday through Sunday. silvermtn.com.
Wine Events: Dare to Pair
Cabrillo College Culinary Arts students are teaming up once more with Surf City Vintners (including Silver Mountain) for the eighth annual Dare to Pair food and wine challenge. The competition will take place from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, April 23 in the Surf City Vintners’ tasting rooms in the Swift Street Courtyard complex in Santa Cruz. Enjoy enticing appetizers prepared by Cabrillo’s culinary students, paired with fine wines from participating wineries, and then vote on your favorites. Then have yet more fun at the Awards Ceremony and After Party until 5 p.m.—featuring live music by West X Southwest. Tickets are $75. Visit daretopair.org for more info.
Since winter solstice, the New Group of World Servers has been preparing for the Three Spring festivals (Aries, Taurus, Gemini solar festivals at the time of the full moon), and especially for Wesak, the Buddha Full Moon Festival in Taurus.
The purpose for the Three Spring Festivals is to assist humanity in “Restoring the Plan for the Earth.” Helping humanity to cooperate with, anchor and further the Plan of spiritual unity.
The Three Spring Festivals are the first three full moons in the new spiritual year (begun at Spring Equinox, as the Sun entered Aries). The dates of these festivals are Tuesday, April 11 (Aries festival), Wednesday, May 10 (Taurus, Wesak) and Friday, June 9 (Gemini festival). Everyone can join in the festivals. Preparation begins with knowledge of them.
The Three Spring Festivals form a template for the new spiritual year. Along with the following nine new and full moons (festivals) the Three Spring Festivals direct humanity toward the Path of Return via the sacred knowledge of astrology. What is this astrology?
Astrology is a “unified field theory” that directs us in our search for spiritual truth. Astrology allows one to “Know the self” (words inscribed over the Mystery Temples) and cultivates within each of us the knowledge that we are each of great value (to self, to others and to the world). Astrology helps us have an accurate understanding and appreciation of the Divine Plan. Astrology helps in the synthesis of universal, human and divine values. Astrology (the science and art of) is the foundation of the Ageless Wisdom Teachings.
ARIES: The sign and time of Aries demands that things not come too easily. We need challenges, a contest, a test. We need to be dared and to feel that life is an experiment where only the brave need participate. There needs to be a bit of opposition, something to defy, something to call forth one’s courage. If these aren’t in the air, then there’s no reason to be in the game. The game of life. Aries understands the “chase.”
TAURUS: There may be difficulty expressing yourself at this time, especially with Venus, your ruler, retrograde. It isn’t easy to share your inner thoughts. What we know about you is this: you’re subtle, hidden, compassionate, complex. You need comfort, and you’re interested in psychology and helping others. Showing your feelings in public never happens. Only with those you trust. They’re the lucky ones.
GEMINI: Are friends around these days, more than usual? Are you assessing the groups you belong to and the friends you have? With Venus retrograde it’s important to evaluate if what you value is true and real. There are many ideas presented in our world. But there is only one truth. Are you following what others believe? Geminis have a responsibility to gather the truth and disperse it. They can’t be followers.
CANCER: You can wonder how you contribute to the world at large and if you have authority or even if anyone listens to you, honors you, and if you are a guide to anyone. These are important questions for everyone, but especially for Cancers, who can hide away but really hope someday they are seen as strong in character, recognized as important and able to communicate successfully. Are these questions you’re asking?
LEO: The essence of all of your past experiences and learnings is how you formed your philosophy of life. As you review the past, including what you valued then and what you value now (people, events, lovers, etc.,) you see how life educated you, offered you vision, long journeys and spiritual realities. You have these days the mind of a priest, a judge, a journeyer, a professor and a mystery.
VIRGO: There is a sense of losing one’s direction or boundaries, a sense of self-sacrifice in order to blend with others forming contact and connection. There’s a sense of something disappearing or dying. Not physical death but perhaps the death of limitations that leads to growth, transformation, regeneration, rebirth of the self or of a relationship. The changes may be creating a crisis. This will pass. You’re the phoenix.
LIBRA: All Libras need people, social things, relationships, intimates to bring them out into the world, to be friends, to partner, to play and to share with them. “Other” is always Libra’s basic need. It is only with the “other” that Libra can reflect upon and understand the self. Libra is intelligent, has a loving nature, attracts love, and creates harmony out of all of life’s conflicts and chaos.
SCORPIO: You have very artistic abilities, deep and refined. However, many are unable to see them. You keep your abilities quite protected. It’s important to have a peaceful, harmonious and beautiful environment. You’re both an old soul yet very young at heart. Be clear, direct and truthful when communicating. Relationships are really about communication. Begin to be the peacemaker. Warriors are able to be peaceful too.
SAGITTARIUS: There will be lots of dramatic goings on in your life or in lives around you. Drama, not a judgment, is simply lots of intense expression. There are also things attractive, sensual and romantic, the arts and music around you. All of these you need to match your creative self-expression. Your heart’s desires are often apparent along with your feelings. What you’re really displaying is kindness, compassion and warm-heartedness. A colorful blend.
CAPRICORN: Perhaps you’re thinking of your heritage, ancestry and lineages. And childhood times. The planets in the sky seem to have precipitated down into wherever you are presently. Perhaps in your home and garden. Trying to secure themselves, and offer their seeds of wisdom directly into your heart. Creating within you a stable sense of spirituality. They are calling you to rest more, to relax, to know all’s well. In all areas of life, past, present and future. Their sound is Ohm.
AQUARIUS: You have many ideas, many talents, are curious with a very intelligent mind. You seek community—through family, siblings, friends, short journeys, writing and communication. There is a need to assess what your values are (people, events, resources, things, etc.). And to communicate your gratitude with those who love and care for you. There will be a lot of moving about in your life. Stabilize each day with prayer.
PISCES: Your environments must begin to reflect calmness, beauty, order and organization. There may be memories of early childhood experiences. We realize that families and relationships are given to us so that we may learn more together—learning how to help and care for each other, develop compassion and recognize forgiveness. All of our relationships have this as a purpose. We remember our family, our early lives. We are grateful. Always and forever.
