The howling started early on Monday, Jan. 10, the day Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled his plan for closing a $25.4 billion budget shortfall. And it came from all quarters, as might be expected in the case of a budget proposing an unprecedented $12.5 billion in program cuts combined with almost $12 billion in revenue from an extension of tax increases set to expire this year. As the saying goes, there’s something for everyone to hate.
Articles by Traci Hukill
Last-Minute Gift Guide: The Cheat Sheat
For holiday shoppers who are out of time, patience or ideas, we present our handy-dandy, cut-to-the-chase, Very Busy Person’s Last-Minute Gift Guide, a collection of suggested gifts with broad appeal (with the possible exception of the disc golf driver) compiled by actual former and present gift recipients with reasoned opinions, fine instincts and excellent taste.
Another Blue Christmas
It’s hard to say who or what stole the show at last year’s sold-out An Altared Christmas concert at the Rio. Was it the reindeer union marching in, demanding better wages for Rudolf and his ilk to the tune of a famous Police song? Was it Patti Maxine as a shell-shocked psychiatric patient singing a mournful “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” or the angular, black-clad David Wallis as Santa singing “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” in an ominous key? Or was it Tammi Brown fronting a shimmering, jazzy “Angels We Have Heard on High”?
No Tannenbaum in Felton
Felton has a few things most little towns its size don’t: two state parks, two Chinese restaurants and one 100-foot heritage redwood tree right in the middle of town. For seven years now, Christmas lights have bedecked the big fella during the holiday season, making a mighty pretty sight for anyone driving into the valley on a cold December night. In recent years the good people at the Felton Business Association have seen to it that the lights are low-energy LED models powered by solar panels, bringing that much more joy to the world.
Santa Cruz Poet Up For National Award
The first poem Robert Sward ever published was about a dog, so it’s fitting that the verse that got him nominated for one of poetry’s top honors also concerns Canis familiaris. On Tuesday, Nov. 30, Sward got an email from Joseph Zaccardi, editor of the Marin Poetry Center Anthology, telling him the Center had nominated his poem “Inter-Species Healing A Specialty,” which features a dog taking humankind to task over its narcissism and neuroses, for a Pushcart Prize. (Poem reprinted below.)
Holiday Foods: Sweet!
The bakers of Santa Cruz don’t agree on all things, but on the subject of holiday desserts there is some consensus: pecan pie filling should not be too sweet; people don’t eat much fruitcake anymore; and stollen—the rich German yeast bread studded with candied orange peel, raisins and almonds and dusted with powdered sugar—is the Best. Thing. Ever.
Gift Guide: Gourmet Goods
Let’s pause a moment and give thanks for the foodies of the world, shall we? They’re the ones who sniff out new restaurants, always know what wine to take to the party and insist on (copious amounts of) real butter for the (whipped, not mashed) potatoes. In so many ways, they complete us—maybe even add to us. So when gift-giving time comes, it’s important to do right by the foodie in your life.
Night of The Living Cliches
A catalog of Halloween fads we’d like to see buried alive.
NextSpace To Scout Santa Cruz-Area Entrepreneurs
Two years after opening its doors as an innovative co-working habitat, NextSpace is making a small but crucial shift from provider of workspace and wi-fi for freelancers to talent scout and mentor for budding entrepreneurs. As part of a new partnership with Menlo Park-based firm Wavepoint Ventures—its first tango with venture capital— NextSpace will identify and coach four to six entrepreneurial concerns each year from the Monterey Bay area. A small but as-yet-undetermined number of those will be selected by Wavepoint for funding, wildest-dreams-come-true-making, etc.
Santa Cruz Guide 2010: Neighborhoods
What is a Westsider, anyway, and why are they so smug? Answers to this and more in our handy crib sheet to the neighborhoods of Santa Cruz County.
