Event highlights for the week of October 25, 2017.
Green Fix
Succulent Class and Plant Exchange
Succulents are the perfect plant for anyone—even plant killers with the best of intentions. UC Master Gardeners hosts a free class on growing succulents, just in time for the holidays. Learn the best way to cut and regrow your succulents, trade cuttings, and take home your very own planted pot at the end. The class will fill up, so online preregistration is recommended.
Museum is a comic platform for human expression. It’s set in an art show, and showcases the comings and goings of dozens of people, each with their own set of problems, ideas and celebrations. Performed, organized and directed by San Lorenzo Valley High School students, the show includes a silent auction, where the audience can bid on the museum artwork created by the student cast and crew. All proceeds benefit the student director program, and help future student artists.
INFO: Runs Oct. 26-Nov. 5. 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. San Lorenzo Valley High School Performing Arts Center, 7105 Hwy. 9, Felton. hs.slvusd.org. Tickets available at the box office, general admission $12.
Chili is an ultimate comfort food, and what’s more comforting than vats of it as far as the eye can see? Sounds like heaven on Earth. The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s seventh annual chili cook-off features meat and vegetarian chili options from both amateur and professional chefs. A tasting ticket includes six chili samples, a bowl, spoon and people’s choice ballot to vote for your favorite.
INFO: 10 a.m.-4 p.m, tasting begins at 1 p.m. Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, 400 Beach St., Santa Cruz. beachboardwalk.com. Admission is free, tasting kits $10. A portion of proceeds fund Santa Cruz Playground Project.
With the increased urgency of political peace between east and west, UCSC has joined with the Korean government to bring a highly esteemed Korean orchestra to share their heritage and culture. UCSC’s Pacific Rim Music Festival is a collaboration of the Korean National Gugak Center Traditional Orchestra and western composers. The traditional and contemporary musical event spans five days and includes new performers and pieces each day. The event is free in effort to bring all community members to the shows.
INFO: All shows begin at 7:40 p.m., except 10/29 at 3 p.m. UCSC Recital Hall, 402 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz. pacificrim.ucsc.edu. Free.
Take your pick of local food trucks and snuggle up with your loved ones during this pre-Halloween event for the family. You’re never too old for Hocus Pocus, or movies in the park, but if you feel that way, there is a beer and wine garden to make you feel mature. Dress up in your Halloween costume for a free treat to go with your dinner. It’s getting chilly, so don’t forget blankets and lawn chairs for optimal comfort. Weather permitting, check @foodtrucksagogo for updates.
Bob Morgan, a longtime resident of the Live Oak area near Pleasure Point, admits that Santa Cruz County’s communities are likely to grow, paving the way for newer businesses and new housing.
But Morgan hopes that as they do, the county retains the character of areas like Live Oak, Aptos and Soquel that make each a desirable place to start with.
“Density is a fact of life,” Morgan says, adding that building more in established areas preserves the natural environment near given neighborhoods. “But you have to do it intelligently, because you could really ruin a community if you do it wrong.”
Corridor rezoning efforts may have garnered more attention in the city of Santa Cruz, where planning staff, council members and locals have disagreed overplans to update zoning codes for increased density on the city’s busier streets. But several unincorporated areas of Santa Cruz County have also been targeted for development with a similar aim of boosting the local economy and providing housing to a region with rising rents. That’s left residents wondering what’s next.
Morgan has lived in his neighborhood since moving from San Francisco 27 years ago because he felt the community was ideal for raising a family. “It’s important to preserve that element,” he says.
On a sun-kissed Saturday morning in September, 100 or so residents filed into the auditorium of the Live Oak Elementary School to debate design features that are likely to guide future development for decades to come, with a focus on the Pleasure Point area.
Like Morgan, most neighbors welcome development in the transportation corridor at the intersection of 41st Avenue and Portola Drive, but they also want any new buildings to slip seamlessly into the funky, unique character of the neighborhood.
During the meeting, residents broke into groups of eight to 12, discussing their visions for the future. Conversations ranged from heated debate to more gentle disagreements. By the end, several overlapping areas of agreement emerged: two-story buildings that increase density while still preserving views of the Santa Cruz Mountains; fewer driveways onto Portola to reduce collisions and congestion; an emphasis on bike and pedestrian transportation; dedicated lanes and turnaround spaces for delivery trucks, which otherwise clog the streets during the day; businesses that cater to residents, rather than tourists.
“It’s good for the community to be in sync,” says District 1 Santa Cruz County Supervisor John Leopold, whose jurisdiction includes the commercial district of lower 41st and Portola, already home to businesses like Zameen at the Point, Freeline Surf Shop, Chill Out Café and two Pleasure Point Pizzas. “Instead of fighting over individual projects, I thought it would be better if we could collectively decide what we want.”
Leopold says that most residents realize change and development are coming to Santa Cruz County, as the region grapples with growing pains reflected in a housing crunch that’s caused escalating prices in both the rental and real estate market.
The county Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the Sustainable Santa Cruz County Plan in 2014 to provide a guiding document for land use, zoning, transportation and infrastructure improvements in urbanized areas.
The lower 41st area near Portola is on the forefront of a public process as the county seeks to involve community residents. The plan also seeks to guide development in Soquel, Aptos and Seacliff village centers, as well as around the Dominican and Sutter hospitals on Soquel Drive and in the areas fronting Highway 1.
These so-called “transportation corridors” are the center of future county plans, similar in concept to discussions in the city of Santa Cruz, where planning officials have been looking at updating the zoning code in four of the city’s major thoroughfares—Water Street, Mission Street, Ocean Street and Soquel Avenue—in some cases expanding the allowable height of buildings and the density of residential occupancy.
Unlike in the city, Santa Cruz County leaders haven’t endured much hand-wringing over their plans, perhaps because county officials haven’t put forward any major changes to height allowances.
That may change, as plenty of projects are in the pipeline.
At 3800 Portola Drive, the Lumberyard Project—a three-story development with commercial elements like coffee shops or artisanal markets on the first floor and space for residential condos on floors two and three—exemplifies the type of project that is likely to come.
Another possible project, 10 years in the making, calls for 10,000 square feet of commercial office space on the ground floor and 18 residential units on the second floor at 40th and Portola, assuming the developer can secure financing.
Rancho Del Mar in Aptos is getting a serious facelift, with TRC, the shopping center owner, investing $10 million to renovate. Many residents have welcomed the changes, butseveral of the small businesses there are unlikely to survive looming rent hikes.
The county’s poised to announce the sale of two parcels to separate developers—one near 17th Avenue and Capitola Road and the other at the upper Santa Cruz Harbor, off 7th Avenue.
The county created the economic development team in 2012, looking to bring more vitality and businesses to unincorporated areas, while boosting local tax revenue. A newer focus has been building new housing. Barbara Mason, the county’s economic development coordinator, says that some studies have shown the region has a 15,000-unit housing deficiency countywide.
Local businesses, she says, feel hamstrung by a workforce that they don’t feel is sufficient.
“It’s by far the number one thing businesses complain about,” Mason says. “Businesses want to create more jobs, but they can’t service expansion in the county without new housing. It’s a real problem.”
Mason says that denser three-story buildings may be necessary to accommodate housing demand, even though neighbors at the Pleasure Point meeting felt strongly about restricting new buildings to two stories. “We would be thrilled to build to the density that is already allowed in our code,” she says.
She says the county is desperate enough for housing that it needs to build wherever possible, while creating an environment that’s easier on local businesses.
“The Board of Supervisors made a decision a couple of years ago that we could either be a bedroom community for Silicon Valley or have our own economy,” Mason says. “They chose to have our own economy.”
Leopold, who thinks the county can actually be both, says he’s heard from residents across the county at community meetings that they want to see economic growth. But he says that has to be done carefully, taking into account the wishes of those who live in the county’s more urban areas.
“Everything just works better when you get the community involved in the planning process,” he says. “You need a lot of voices for it to work. Some of them can be professional, but some are there just because they care.”
Update 11/07/17 1:55 p.m.: We incorrectly reported Barara Mason’s title. She is the county’s economic development coordinator. Also, we originally misreported the exact location for the proposed development on Capitola Road; one is near 17th Avenue and Capitola Road and the other is at the upper Santa Cruz Harbor, off 7th Avenue.
From the hurricanes of September, which caused unprecedented damage and displaced hundreds of thousands, to a fire season that brought the largest firestorms in California history and is now 50 days longer than it was just a few decades ago, the latest news in climate change has crescendoed to an apocalyptic chord. We’ve reached a point where neglecting to adopt greener, more sustainable behaviors is not just ignorant and dangerous to future generations, it’s self-canceling.
But to reduce our individual footprints requires making daily decisions to live more organically—and that includes dying more organically.
Cremation, long considered to be the “greener” alternative to traditional burial, requires the natural gas equivalent of driving 500 miles, notes Caitlin Doughty of the “Ask a Mortician” web series. Or, about two SUV tanks of fuel per body. Cremation also doesn’t fit into the desirable concept of returning to the Earth from whence we came, to enrich the soil and push up wildflowers.
“In a traditional cremation, the ashes that are left over, inorganic bone fragments, form a thick chalky layer that, unless distributed in the soil just right, can actually hurt or kill the tree,” says Doughty in an April Ted Talk.
In traditional burials, the body is pumped full of carcinogenic formaldehyde and rubbing alcohol, placed in a hardwood or metal casket with rubber sealant and lowered into a vault of concrete or metal. Not only does this use a lot of resources, but, “When you choose burial at the cemetary, your dead body is not coming anywhere near the dirt that surrounds it,” says Doughty, and food for worms, you are not. The expensive process of embalming with chemicals for sanitization reasons is also moot, she points out, since a dead body is only dangerous if it has been consumed by a wildly infectious disease like ebola.
“Human decomposition is perfectly safe,” says Doughty. “The bacteria that causes disease is not the same bacteria that causes decomposition.”
Whether they mean to or not, she says, the multibillion-dollar funeral industry, with its sterile, out-of-sight, out-of-mind practices, promotes this idea of human exceptionalism—that it doesn’t matter what it takes, how much it costs, or how bad it is for the environment, because humans are worth it.
Doughty, who runs a funeral home in L.A., is among a new wave of funeral directors and environmentalists looking for a more eco-friendly way of dying. One such new option is composting, or “recomposition,” which people have been doing with cattle and other livestock for years, says Doughty, and which is being put to the test at Western Carolina University’s outdoor human decomposition facilities—one of just six in the country. Bodies are laid in a nutrient-rich mixture that reduces the body, bones and all, to soil. “In those four to six weeks your molecules become other molecules. You literally transform,” says Doughty.
Another option on the rise is green burial. There are 93 registered green burial sites in the country. The closest one to Santa Cruz is Mill Valley’s Forever Fernwood green cemetery, which since 2004 has been offering green burials of un-embalmed bodies. Most choose to be wrapped in a cotton shroud or provide their own pine box, and stones or simple GPS are used to mark the plots, which run from $6,500-$9,700.
Perhaps the greenest prospect, though, are conservation burials, where large swaths of land are purchased by a land trust.
“The beauty of this is that once you plant a few dead bodies in that land it can’t be touched, it can’t be developed on. It’s the equivalent of chaining yourself to a tree, post-mortem,” Doughty says. It’s a way for the dead to blend seamlessly into dedicated green spaces in both rural and urban areas. “Most importantly, they offer us once again a chance to just decompose, in a hole, in the ground,” says Doughty. “The soil, let me tell you, has missed us.”
Live music highlights for the week of October 25, 2017.
WEDNESDAY 10/25
POST-FOLK
LAURA CORTESE & THE DANCE CARDS
Laura Cortese is a Bay Area-born, Boston-based singer-songwriter and fiddler. As frontwoman for the Dance Cards, Cortese leads the group through a repertoire of folk, roots, acapella and instrumental roots music grooves that “inspire Cajun two-stepping and rock-n-roll hip swagger.” Comprising Cortese, Valerie Thompson on cello and vocals, Jenna Moynihan on fiddle and vocals, and Zoe Guigueno on bass and vocals, the Dance Cards easily morph from string band to string quartet to pop outfit with ease. Also on the bill: acoustic duo Paper Wings and clawhammer banjo player Evie Ladin. CJ
It wasn’t that long ago that L.A.’s Dustbowl Revival was being described as the kind of band that would be right at home in the “Preservation Hall of New Orleans’ French Quarter.” It was apt at the time. The ensemble was a frenzy of infectious Americana with Dixieland jazz, bluegrass and folk spilling over into one another to delightful results. On the new record, not so much. What we’ve got here is a straight-up R&B album, although all those other influences still play a part. AC
Inspired by Japanese psychedelic rock, German krautrock and tons of coffee, Earthless has been blowing minds since 2001. Featuring professional skater Mario Rubalcaba (also of Off! and Rocket from the Crypt) on drums, Mike Eginton on bass, and Isaiah Mitchell (Lions of Judah, Nebula) on guitar, this instrumental power trio unapologetically blasts into the core of the psychedelic genre with one hand on the wheel and the other on the nitrous booster. MAT WEIR
As a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Rhiannon Giddens helped bring the black string band tradition back into the spotlight. It wasn’t until she left the group, however, that the full scope of Giddens’ talent was revealed. A singer-songwriter multi-instrumentalist whose musical comfort zone seems to have no bounds, Giddens winds her way through early-American folk music, blues, soul, jazz vocals, gospel, country, pop and more to reveal an artist well-versed in tradition and moving American music forward in exciting ways. Now several celebrated albums into her solo career, Giddens is one of the most important voices in the contemporary music scene. CJ
INFO: 7:30 p.m. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $30/gen, $45/gold. 423-8209.
SATURDAY 10/28
AFROBEAT
ANTIBALAS
There’s been a vibrant afrobeat scene in Brooklyn for a while. A lot of credit goes to Antibalas, who formed in 1997 and brought the African fusion sound to the Big Apple. Afrobeat originated in Nigeria with Fela Kuti, but Antibalas originated in Mexico City, beginning in earnest when the members relocated to Brooklyn. The latest record, 2017’s Where The Gods Are In Peace, is a vibrant, funky jam that could almost work as the score for a chase scene in a really weird ’70s B movie. AC
Ward was an indie-folk darling when he first came to public attention in the late ’90s. Over the last 20 years, the Portland, Oregon-based singer-songwriter has proven himself to be a lasting presence in the genre and an accomplished collaborator and producer, to boot. His own work tends toward introverted, catchy acoustic folk music, but his collaborations—including She & Him with Zooey Deschanel, and Monsters of Folk with My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, and Mike Mogis—stretch from radio pop to underground rock. His production credits include work with the legendary Mavis Staples and singer-songwriter Jenny Lewis. His latest album, 2016’s More Rain, is perfect listening for an introspective pajama day. CJ
INFO: 8 p.m. Cocoanut Grove, 400 Beach St., Santa Cruz. $29.30. 423-2053.
SUNDAY 10/29
HIP-HOP
SAGE THE GEMINI
Bay Area rapper Sage the Gemini returns to Santa Cruz with both feet on the gas pedal. For the last nine years, he has cultivated hit single after hit single, expanding his music beyond the Yay. Along with P-Lo, Iamsu! and others, Sage is part of the HBK Gang (HBK stands for “heartbreak”) and was featured on their 2013 mixtape Gang Forever. This past July, he dropped his unannounced, 15-track mixtape Morse Code, but fans are still anxiously waiting for the follow-up to his 2014 debut, Remember Me. MW
Vincent Segal is an innovative French cellist who has collaborated with artists like Brazilian superstar Carlinhos Brown, Cape Verdean diva Cesaria Evora, rocker Elvis Costello and the hip hop duo Blackalicious. But he’s forged his deepest partnership with Mali’s Ballaké Sissoko, a master of the harp-like kora. Six Degrees Records recently released their second album, Musique de Nuit, a gorgeous, intimate Afro-chamber project weaving together Segal’s percussive textures with Sissoko’s incantatory melodic lines. More than a meeting of West Africa and Western Europe, the duo is a soulfully sonic communion between two artists seeking (and finding) beauty. ANDREW GILBERT
INFO: 7 p.m. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $25/adv, $30/door. 427-2227.
TUESDAY 10/31
INDIE
DELICATE STEVE’S HALLOWEEN EXTRAVAGANZA
Delicate Steve sure knows how to throw a party, but do be careful if you attend his Halloween Extravaganza—he’s fragile. At least you might assume so by his name and contemplative poses on his album covers. But on his records, he kind of sounds like both an arena rocker and an indie bedroom loner at the same time. The whole thing is pretty weird. When Steve hit the scene in 2010, he had Chuck Klosterman write him a fake bio, which was taken as fact, and then later exposed on NPR’s All Things Considered. AC
Every Memorial Day, Telluride, Colorado hosts the Mountainfilm Festival, a showcase of films, talks and more about “issues that matter,” including environmental, cultural, climbing, political and social justice stories. Once the festival ends, the films hit the road. On Nov. 11, they come to the Rio Theatre. This year’s films cover Alaskan glaciers, one cyclist’s journey back from amputation, people who value experiences over income, BASE jumping, light pollution, one family’s refugee experience, and more.
INFO: 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $18. 423-8209. WANT TO GO? Go to santacruz.com/giveaways before 11 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 6 to find out how you could win a pair of tickets to the festival.
Dreaming Ghosts is a sci-fi punk band made up of local musicians known for playing in very non-sci-fi punk bands: 7 Come 11, Coffis Brothers and Brothers Comatose.
Ryan Avellone, the mandolin player from bluegrass ensemble Brothers Comatose, first brought the project together a year and a half ago as an outlet for the weirder side of his musical interests.
“I love all kinds of different music. I needed something heavier, more psychedelic, experimental. I’ve never really had a rock band,” Avellone says. “I already have a band that has popularity. It has an audience. It has a relationship with its crowd. I wanted something where I wasn’t focused on the audience. I was just making art.”
Unlike Brothers Comatose, which writes very precise pop-oriented songs, Dreaming Ghosts is loose, goes longer, and has room to go darker.
“The rule I have for this band is to not have rules,” he says.
The band plays hard rock riffs doused in a gritty, dark mood, drifting in and out of instrumental jams, and the lyrics are inspired by science fiction.
“I’m a big fan of little pocket paper sci-fi books and illustrations. That’s a big influence,” Avellone says. “Whatever book I’m reading, I’m ruminating about that in my head, and it’ll maybe influence the narrative I’m writing.”
A few weeks ago, I was ranting in these pages about biographical movies that commit a sin of admission—unable to be selective about the facts of a person’s real life, they let the point of the movie drown in too many details. Not so in Goodbye Christopher Robin. In telling a story about A. A. Milne, author of the celebrated Winnie the Pooh children’s books, director Simon Curtis seizes on one aspect of Milne’s life and career to focus on, and follows it through to its conclusion. A larger picture of Milne and his era emerges along the way, but it never distracts from the emotional core of Curtis’ very poignant film.
Curtis has impressive credentials for translating real-life stories to film, after directing My Week with Marilyn and Woman in Gold. Working from a thoughtful script by veteran Frank Cottrell Boyce and Simon Vaughan, Curtis crafts a gentle-spirited movie around a serious theme: how Milne’s harrowing experiences in World War I drove him to create the healing fantasy of Winnie the Pooh, inspired by his young son and his son’s toy animals. Serious, too, is the minor theme: the effect of worldwide fame on a 6-year-old boy.
After an ominous 1941 prologue, the movie switches back to the glitz and glamour of Jazz Age London. Alan Milne (Domhnall Gleeson) is a writer of frothy stage comedies who’s finding it hard to adjust to his old life after a tour of duty in the trenches of France. He keeps having devastating flashbacks of the battlefield—whenever a champagne cork pops, for instance, or a car backfires.
To “cheer him up,” his social-butterfly wife, Daphne (Margot Robbie) consents to bear their son, Christopher Robin. But after enduring childbirth, Daphne is eager to resume their usual round of parties and opening nights. Alan, however, who finds London too disturbing, shocks his wife by moving the family, along with Olive (the always endearing Kelly Macdonald), the young nanny who has raised the boy, to a country house in Sussex, where he hopes to start writing again.
Although he longs to produce a work that will convince people to abolish war, as they once abolished slavery, Alan is still unable to write in the country, and Daphne soon flees back to London. But when Alan is left alone for a few days with 5-year-old Christopher, whom everyone calls Billy (the disarmingly dimpled Will Tilston), wandering the benign, sunlit wood on their property, the two begin to bond. Alan starts to get drawn into the imaginative world Billy creates for his stuffed animals, which jump-starts Alan’s own creativity. Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, and Piglet are born.
These lovely scenes between Tilston and Gleeson (reserved at first, then playfully loosening up) are the heart of the movie. The publication and immediate global mania for the Pooh books and poems go by in a fleeting montage. (Director Curtis is smart enough to realize that’s the part of the story we already know.) But even as Billy becomes an accomplished, if reluctant celebrity (to Daphne’s delight), their father-son relationship is damaged. It’s heartbreaking that they can never again regain that golden time when the stories were just for the two of them, before the whole world was watching.
The movie has a brief, smart denouement as well, that never feels tacked-on, as Billy enters boarding school and suffers the consequences of being Christopher Robin. Alex Lawther is excellent as teenage Billy, trying to reconnect with his father after surviving his own personal hell—with the deeply ironic result that he seeks the anonymity of becoming a private in the army, just in time for the next World War.
It’s a little odd that, except for her hairstyle, Robbie’s Daphne doesn’t seem to age at all in the 20-some years the story covers. But otherwise, in these last few absorbing scenes, Curtis and his scriptwriters return to their main themes, which are paid off with very sharp attention to emotional detail and an enormously satisfying resolution.
GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN
***(out of four)
Domhnall Gleeson, Margot Robbie, Kelly Macdonald, Will Tilston. Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Simon Vaughan. Directed by Simon Curtis. A Fox Searchlight release. Rated PG. 197 minutes.
When Alec Stefansky from Uncommon Brewers and Chris La Veque from El Salchichero joined forces to create the Oasis Tasting Room and Kitchen earlier this year, anyone in the know assumed this would be a marriage filled with creative and experimental food and beers—and they were right. One of the most interesting aspects about Oasis is that in the half-year they’ve been open, the menu has already undergone several changes. The latest puts its focus on ramen, while keeping some old favorites. Executive chef Elijah Chausse talked to us about the new menu.
Why are you shifting gears to focus on ramen?
ELIJAH CHAUSSE: It’s something that we wanted to try before we opened. We went a different route when we started. We are not tied to anything there. My executive sous-chef Jasper Ramirez and I are really trying to go with the flow and see what people are receptive to, and test the waters in a few different cuisines. Neither Jasper nor I have a ramen background. So we hit the books hard and did a lot of reading. It’s certainly not traditional by any means. The cool thing about ramen is it’s one of those dishes that you can kind of make your own. And the beer pairs really well with the Asian flavors. Alec does a lot of Asian-influenced beer, as far as the flavors and profiles go.
Will the menu continue to change?
As of right now, the response to the ramen has been pretty good. It might be one of the items that sticks around. In five months, we’ve had a handful of menu changes. And we’ve kept one or two from each one. This might be the evolution of a more semi-permanent menu. But we don’t really want to be tied to anything.
How many different ramens do you have?
Right now we have two broths. Tonkotsu ramen and a veggie ramen with additions as options. You can add a miso bomb, which turns the tonkotsu broth into a miso broth. Then you can add three different kinds of meat. You can add tofu. There are a lot of different possibilities, kind of a build-your-own-ramen kind of thing. We started with four different kinds of ramen, and we slimmed it down to the two. More options, less menu style. So, we can add other menu items and still keep the menu rotating and not be 100-percent a ramen shop.
I spotted this Pacific Redwood wine in New Leaf for $8.99—a totally organic Chardonnay with no sulfites added. Many people are allergic to sulfites in wine, but this one contains only naturally occurring sulfites.
“Uncork a bottle of real organic Chardonnay,” says Pacific Redwood. “We don’t stop halfway when it comes to bringing you organic wine. It’s not just grown organically, but processed organically.” They also note that their Chardonnay is acceptable for vegans. “Natural farming is a way of life for our family winery.”
This Mendocino 2015 Pacific Redwood Chardonnay has a distinctive label featuring, fittingly, a single redwood. It’s fermented in stainless steel, and the end-result is a fruity bright wine with notes of apple, pear and caramel that goes well with many kinds of food.
Around a dozen breweries have united to help David Purgason, a local brewer who was severely injured on the job in July, and was hospitalized in Valley Medical Center with major burns over 60 percent of his body, says local brewer Dustin Vereker of Discretion Brewing. Donations are ongoing. To donate directly to the VMC Fund set up for David, visit: vmcfoundation.org/vmc/support-the-david-purgason-fund.
Revival Ice Cream
A wine event I attended in Carmel Valley was serving Revival Ice Cream, made with organic milk from Clover Dairy and fresh, organic, locally sourced, in-season ingredients. I tried the Heart of Darknesschocolate, and the award-winning Bee’s Knees—a vanilla ice cream with bee pollen and honey comb. Both flavors were incredible.
Shelley’s Biscotti was one of the vendors at Gourmet Grazing on the Green in Aptos Village Park this month. Shelley Patterson always turns out the best and crunchiest biscotti—and they’re all handmade and delicious. They’re available in gift boxes, too. Shelley’s Biscotti, 216B Fern St., Santa Cruz, 479-4121. shelleysbiscotti.com.
She has green skin, long flowing hair, and a pregnant belly that looks like, or perhaps is, the Earth. Her name is Gaia, and she’s one of the many goddesses on display in miniature statuette form in the large glass case next to me.
On the other side of the room I see a couple shelves of toy dinosaurs, a collection so vast and diverse, I can only assume it was accrued over the course of several decades.
To its left, there’s a display case of skulls, which catches my attention. I ask its owner, Oberon Zell, about them.
“I used to find roadkills, take them home, clean them up, dissect them and collect the skulls,” says Zell, who is the 74-year-old proprietor of the shop we’re sitting in, Academy of Arcana, in downtown Santa Cruz.
The skulls are creepy—and all real, he casually explains, except the top shelf, which includes the skulls of an alien, a werewolf, and a cyclops.
We’re in the back room of the Academy of Arcana, the museum and sanctuary, he calls it. The front of the store features mostly merchandise and curiosities that can be purchased. Behind that is the library, which contains materials on magick (ie: not performance magic), paganism and the occult, as well as mythology, science, nature, history, astronomy, science fiction and fantasy.
The museum is lined with strange things displayed along every square inch of the walls. Later, I learn that one section has extensive pictures of Zell’s unicorns from the ’80s—yes, unicorns. If you went to Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey circus in this period you likely remember Zell’s unicorns. (“We discovered the secret of the unicorns. They were not a myth. The world has completely forgotten, but for a while it was in every magazine, every newspaper,” he says.)
What I find most interesting is Zell himself. He sits in front of me, long flowing grey hair, massive, thick beard: a real-life wizard. Or, rather, a pagan, the godfather of the neopagan movement in fact. He formed the Church of All Worlds in 1962, which kicked off the neopagan movement, and started Green Egg magazine in 1968, which “injected key memes into the whole mix.”
“I like living in a world that is strange and mysterious. It’s not so much about the answers, it’s about the questions,” Zell says. “They don’t always give you the answers, but they take you in interesting directions in the journey along the way. That’s what I try to work with.”
The Sacred and Mundane
Zell and Morning Glory with one of their ‘unicorns,’ Lancelot, in 1980.
Right now, he’s reading my tarot cards. He lays down three cards: the Lovers, Queen of Pentacles, and the Ace of Rods. He’s considering the cards’ meaning. My dilemma, I told him, was that I was torn on whether I should write an article. I’m considering that could bring a considerable backlash.
My second card, Queen of Pentacles, represents security and financial matters, he tells me. The third, The Ace of Rods is apparently speaking directly to the dilemma itself: “The Ace of Rods wields the power to have an impact to change the world. Probably a major reason why you’re into journalism is really wanting to have some far-reaching thing with your words.”
He considers how it all works together: “Pursuing what you believe to be right is more important than worrying about the consequences.”
He suggests that I take a picture of the cards before he picks them up and reshuffles them back into his deck. “I hope that’s helpful. I do this for a lot of people. I do card readings—and counselling,” he adds. “It was my professional career in the mundane world for many years.”
It’s hard to imagine Zell in the “mundane world,” especially as I glance over to the right and see a large photo of him in an actual wizard outfit. But he confirms that from 1966-1975 he worked as a family counselor and director of social services for the Human Development Corporation in St. Louis. This was while starting and running a religion. Zell, it turns out, is something of a legend.
But he’s new to Santa Cruz; he moved down from the North Bay, just outside of Cotati, in October 2015. According to Skot Colacicco, the president of the board of directors of Community Seed, a local pagan event coordination organization, the news that Zell was relocating here generated quite a bit of excitement in Santa Cruz’s vibrant pagan community. It’s a diverse group, and many of the resources locally focus on very niche aspects of paganism, whereas Zell’s vast eclectic knowledge, Colacicco says, makes him a remarkable resource.
He’s also got his own unique style that is, in its own way, very Santa Cruz. “He went down the wizard route, which a lot of us haven’t been brave enough to pose ourselves in,” Colacicco says. “He’s always been like, ‘yep, this is who I am.’ In that way, he’s been a huge inspiration to many of us who were like ‘I don’t want to be too weird.’ He’s willing to be weird so that other people can see that it’s OK.”
Changer of Worlds
Zell relocated to Santa Cruz following the death of his wife and longtime life partner Morning Glory, after her battle with cancer. The two met at the third annual Gnostic Aquarian Festival in Minneapolis in 1974, where he was a keynote speaker. They instantly clicked, and their first conversation lasted all night.
“It was love at first sight,” he says. “From then on, we were inseparable.”
Less than a year later, they married, and did everything together, including running the Church of All Worlds and Green Egg—and, of course, raising unicorns.
Now a couple of years after her death, Zell is still trying to figure out what to do with himself.
In 1990, original members of the Church of All Worlds reunited at the Heartland Pagan Festival in Kansas.
“We were just total soulmates. We shared everything,” Zell tells me, stopping to hold back tears. “It’s very strange to have her not with me. We watched all the same TV shows, and movies. Read all the same books and magazines. Had the same friends, listened to the same music. It was a running commentary on everything. I can’t turn to somebody and say hey, ‘how about that?’”
After she passed away in May of 2014, Zell was unsure of what to do with his life. A friend in Bonny Doon invited him to come down and stay with him, suggesting he take all of those memories and accomplishments that he and Morning Glory had created in their life together, and put them on display in downtown Santa Cruz. Zell did so, and opened the Academy of Arcana on Nov. 27, 2015.
Since the move, Zell has been the subject of international write-ups and documentaries, including a segment shot by the Chinese travel channel. The impact that he and Morning Glory have had on American culture, even beyond paganism, is surprisingly significant. They were involved with environmentalism, women’s rights, and polyamory—in fact, Morning Glory is credited with coining the term “polyamory.”
Zell’s influence in paganism and the occult is hugely significant. There likely wouldn’t be a neopaganism movement had he not started the Church of All Worlds.
“There were sort of small scattered groups and individuals, but there was no movement. Church of All Worlds is one of the main driving forces of that,” says Sarah Pike, a professor of comparative religions at CSU Chico. “It would be hard to overstate his importance. He was one of a very small group of people that saw what was happening, and really saw the coming together of the environmental movement, feminism, and the sexual revolution, and sort of the emergence of a new religion during the 1960s. Before that, it was just some scattered people practicing individually.”
Everything leads back to the formation of Church of All Worlds, which predates his meeting with Morning Glory. In fact, the early years of Church of All Worlds seems more of a goof by college students who were obsessed with Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. But they turned out to be very serious about their efforts to revive the ancient pagan ways and deities, create a training system for self-actualization, ordain priestesses, celebrate the old seasonal festivals, revere nature and the Earth, and in general, create an alternative to Christianity and other contemporary religions.
Coffee Shock
Fifty years ago, Zell announced that he was the high priest of the Church of All Worlds—to a scattering of people at a St. Louis coffee shop.
“I said the fateful words: ‘We’re pagans.’ That was the first time anybody had ever put those two words together. It had always been ‘those pagans,’” Zell says. “It had always been a term of appropriation. Nobody had identified themselves as pagans.”
The Church of All Worlds began in 1962 between Zell and college friend Lance Christie, inspired by Stranger in a Strange Land. What started as conversations between the two about paganism, philosophy and the growing cultural changes, eventually evolved into a secret society that by 1965 had 100 members. The idea of a new religion was implicit in the book. After he and Christie read it, they dedicated their lives to manifesting that vision.
In 1967, the group was printing a newsletter of their ideas. In order to raise money for a ditto machine, they held a garage sale at a local coffeehouse over Labor Day weekend. The newspapers gave free ads to churches, so they advertised as the Church of All Worlds.
Regular patrons at the coffee shop wondered who the Church of All Worlds was. On the following Thursday, Sept. 7, Zell got on the mic to satisfy their curiosity. Dressed in a white turtleneck sweater and nicely trimmed goatee, he officially declared the Church of All Worlds a religion open to the public. People asked what this “Church of All Worlds” was. He replied, “I guess you could say we’re pagans.”
Of course, deciding to move his little group from secret society to a public religion brought up a lot of questions. For instance, what was their theology? As a student of mythology and organized religions, he didn’t want the Church of All Worlds to be controlled by any specific dogma. He certainly didn’t want it to become a cult. He made the decision to make it as open-ended as possible, while still embracing the ideals of paganism.
“It was intended to be all this inclusive, all-encompassing thing that could draw the wisdom and good experience from anywhere, but not be bound to any single, particular source. It’s still going strong,” Zell says.
The church grew in large part because of Zell and his kind nature, and because he treated people like family. He never tried to recruit or force his beliefs on anyone.
Gwydion Genzoli has known Zell since he was three years old. Genzoli’s father was a close friend of Gwydion Pendderwen, who purchased a 55-acre parcel on Greenfield Ranch in 1975. When Zell and Morning Glory moved in next door in 1977, they saw Genzoli and his dad fairly frequently.
“He and his wife had this idea of accepting what it is people are into and what it is they are about, even when—especially when—it contradicts your own [beliefs],” Genzoli says. “He’s a much better person than I am. I try to be as good as him, and sometimes, I think of him looking over my shoulder, to correct the choices I’ve made. You kind of appreciate him ’cause it leaves you a little less jaded about the world. We can use a few more dreamers out there.”
The Church of All Worlds was more to Zell than just an expression of his philosophies and ideals for how people could live in harmony together; it was a family of like-minded weirdos. Zell can’t recall a time in his childhood when he didn’t feel like the odd duck in his own family.
“My father was Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager for his first presidential bid. That gives you an idea where my family was on this stuff,” Zell says.
They weren’t quite sure what to do with him. As a kid, Zell would talk about memories that were his late grandfather’s, and that he would have no reason to even know. Looking back, he now says that he is his grandfather reincarnated.
“I remember dying very well. It was a very big deal when I was a kid. I used to have nightmare about it. Many kids’ nightmares, if you talk to kids about nightmares—really look at the story—it’s memories of their former death.”
When Zell became a pagan leader (he appointed Don Wildgrube as ‘high priest a few years later, giving himself the title of “Primate”), his father couldn’t accept it. At his marriage with Morning Glory in 1975, where 500 people attended, including a film crew from Japan that showed up to document it, one of Zell’s friends asked his dad if he was proud of everything his son had achieved. His response was: “I feel like I’ve given birth to the anti-Christ.”
The Empress
Morning Glory had a profound impact on Zell and the Church’s happenings. Zell and his organization were always interested in fostering a women-empowering organization. Her partnership made that all the more real. Her focus, and even workshops on goddesses through the years would help Church of All Worlds, and even the pagan community alone become a place where women held leadership positions and were viewed as equals within the structures of power.
Originally from Long Beach, Morning Glory moved to Eugene, Oregon a few years before she’d gone to the third annual Gnostic Aquarian Festival. Like Zell, she was different from other people around her. But her friends appreciated her interests, and helped chip in to get her a bus ticket to go the festival.
She got her name at age 16 during a trip to Big Sur, on a vision quest. She woke up one morning covered in morning glories people had picked and left on her. From then on, that was her name.
The Church of All Worlds was always a pro-feminist religion, which is what made it so attractive to Morning Glory. Their first priestess, Carolyn Clark, was also an ardent feminist, as would be anyone ordained as a Priestess. Morning Glory carried that on even further.
Mystery School
Lately, there is a lot of focus on a newer aspect of Zell and Morning Glory’s legacy: the Grey School of Wizardry, which they started in August of 2004. Through it, folks can take online courses on magick. Zell likens it to the old “mystery” schools of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle that explore the mysteries of the universe. There’s no separation between modern science and magick. Astrology and astronomy are treated with the same respect. Physics and metaphysics. Alchemy and chemistry.
The Academy of Arcana serves as a physical space for the school with a library, museum, classroom, meeting place, scheduled classes, and events.
The wizard school was something that Zell always wanted to do, but it wasn’t until the popularity of Harry Potter bloomed that he felt compelled to do it. He was invited to speak in November 2001 at a screening of the first film.
“All these kids with pointy hats. And we sat up there in the balcony—the school had reserved the whole balcony. Looking down, there were all of these kids watching the show,” Zell says. “We thought, ‘this is huge. And these kids, some of them are going to want to look for the real thing. And maybe that’s what we should do is to put it together.’ So this is a real life school of wizardry, instead of just the fantasy one,” Zell says.
Creating a school and a church had been in their minds for a while, and was inspired by Professor Xavier’s School of Gifted Youngsters in the X-Men comics.
A few years following the release of the Harry Potter film, Zell was commissioned to write a book of Wizardry, which became a textbook, so he thought this was the time to create a school for it.
“I realized that the world was finally ready for a school of Wizardry,” he says.
In the back of the museum/sanctuary at the Academy of Arcada, a small section catches my eye. I ask Zell about it. It’s a shrine to Morning Glory. It has different pieces of memorabilia. He shows me an old photo of her where she’s topless and says, “You can see why it was so easy to fall in love with her. She was an amazing woman.”
He then adds that the entire place is a shrine to Morning Glory.
“Everything reminds me of her. She’s so embedded in so many things. This was her priestess crown, these are her magical tools,” he says, holding them up. “I feel like an amputee, running around with a good part of me missing. I go to take a step and there’s none left there. She was just truly a phenomenon. And dearly beloved by so many. I can survive. It’s not what I want to be doing, just surviving.”
There’s more to the Academy of Arcana than simply remembering the past. With all of Zell’s history, rarely has he had it on display for the public to see and learn from. A lot of the reason for his decision to move to Santa Cruz and open this business was to do just that. For the first time, he’s really focusing on establishing his legacy.
“This is my life,” Zell says. “I’m very proud and happy with my life. I don’t have any dark secrets that I want to hide from anyone. To be able to show it off is kind of cool. It’s like having a big fancy estate and having guests come through—escort them through the collections, the library and the exhibits.”
Succulents are the perfect plant for anyone—even plant killers with the best of intentions. UC Master Gardeners hosts a free class on growing succulents, just in time for the holidays. Learn the best way to cut and regrow your succulents, trade cuttings, and take home your very own planted pot at the end. The class will fill up, so online preregistration is recommended. 
Museum is a comic platform for human expression. It’s set in an art show, and showcases the comings and goings of dozens of people, each with their own set of problems, ideas and celebrations. Performed, organized and directed by San Lorenzo Valley High School students, the show includes a silent auction, where the audience can bid on the museum artwork created by the student cast and crew. All proceeds benefit the student director program, and help future student artists. 
Take your pick of local food trucks and snuggle up with your loved ones during this pre-Halloween event for the family. You’re never too old for Hocus Pocus, or movies in the park, but if you feel that way, there is a beer and wine garden to make you feel mature. Dress up in your Halloween costume for a free treat to go with your dinner. It’s getting chilly, so don’t forget blankets and lawn chairs for optimal comfort. Weather permitting, check @foodtrucksagogo for updates. 
