New Odonata Tasting Room Cozily located right next door to Companion Bakers, in the former New Leaf/Beckmann’s strip, Denis Hoey’s spiffy new Odonata Tasting Room offers plenty of tasting, fun food ops and sleek vintage woodwork. Hoey, who still makes his wines in the Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard space near Kelly’s, is still finetuning his new tasting space.
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Fringe Festival in Downtown Santa Cruz
The Santa Cruz Fringe Festival, which runs July 13–22 at five different venues throughout downtown, is a festival of offbeat performance. Across the globe, there are about 50 Fringe festivals that occur throughout the year. This year, Santa Cruz joins the ranks for its first annual festival.
‘A Chorus Line’ at Cabrillo Stage
In 1975, A Chorus Line shattered and rebuilt the world of musical theater. Within six months of its Broadway opening, before the world had had a chance to pick its jaw up off the ground, most of the cast went to London for the international tour. Finally, after six months of magazine covers, nine Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, they returned to the United States. Janie Scott was 25 at the time and just starting her dancing career. When she saw A Chorus Line in San Francisco, it changed her life forever.
Summer Movies at the Boardwalk
Who needs giant, exploding balls of gas when there are Hollywood stars to gaze at? The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s free movies on the beach start this Wednesday. This year’s films are all modern coming-of-age classics that are all, we must add, highly quotable.
A Labor of Love
“I got my first copy of Be Not Content in 1972, shortly after taking a job as an assistant professor at a small college in upstate New York,” writes cyberpunk novelist Rudy Rucker, who’s reissuing Billy Craddock’s opus. “I quickly began to idolize Craddock. I had my own memories of the psychedelic revolution, and when reading Be Not Content I felt—’Yes. This is the way it was. This guy got it right.’”
‘The Best ’60s Memoir Ever’
There was little to suggest that the relaxed and easygoing guy behind the cash register at the motorcycle shop on Mission Street would be rediscovered 30 years later by a major author and hailed as one of the most important voices of a pivotal era.
Excerpt From ‘Be Not Content’
“The night was all joyous discoveries, many of which brought me almost to the point of tears, to laughter and astonished wows regularly. Whole new horizons. I felt humble and honored to be in a room with and listening to such enlightened powers. I felt in flash after flash that I’d never been so high before, never so aware and never—at least not since a long, long half-remembered time ago—so hopeful and happy.”
Fourth of July in Santa Cruz
The unofficial, un-sanctioned, really-not-legal-but-biggest-fireworks-party-anywhere happens on every beach in Santa Cruz for a six-mile stretch. Word has it that it’s settled down significantly from years past, when just stepping onto the sand between Main Beach and Seacliff was a declaration that you were a willing participant in a bottle rocket fight. Many locals avoid this scenario at all costs, though it’s hard to argue with the sheer prettiness of a Silver Fountain on a beach at nighttime. If you go, remember to pack your gunpowder-tainted trash and cigarette butts off the beach; that stuff’s really not so good for the wildlife.
Hop ‘n’ Barley Festival
Touted by the festival’s organizers as “the one and only beer and barbeque festival to attend this summer,” the Hop N’ Barley Festival just may have a prophecy on its hands—they are serving not only local sausages, but local sausages made with beer from local breweries. Whoa.
Mates of State Grows Up
Mates of State first made a name for itself for being unpolished and incomplete. The duo had only an organist (Kori Gardner) and a drummer (Jason Hammel). They both sang, usually at the same time. Their songs were loosely stitched together, often with one section awkwardly attached to the next. Yet their bubbly songwriting sensibilities and penchant for catchy pop-hooks made them a hit with indie college kids.
