Apparently Music Academy of the West personnel aren’t just nerdy (er, well-versed) in classical music. At least that’s the conclusion one must draw from the fact that a MAW staffer, Henry Michaels, will be appearing on an episode of Jeopardy! airing on NBC on February 2. Michaels is the Music Academy’s Director of Audience Experience […]
Lea másMonthly Archives: January 2021
Music Academy of the West (MAW) has always been a decidedly different sort of summer music festival for both the young fellows who hone their classical music skills and repertoire over an eight-week period from mid-June to mid-August each year. That’s because in addition to the academic offerings of its program – which is very […]
Lea másI know I am not alone in having friends or family battling COVID – making up a small part of our national tragedy. The more devastating piece for Santa Barbara is those who are fighting for their next breath at Cottage Hospital after being denied or deemed ineligible for vaccination by the County. In the last […]
Lea másJust What the Doctor Ordered UCSB Arts & Lectures has announced the winter series of House Calls, a slate of intimate, interactive virtual events to replace the live performances that were canceled due to the ongoing COVID pandemic. Yvon Chouinard, founder and its philosopher-king of the Ventura-based Patagonia, kicks off the series on February 9 with […]
Lea másAs you are reading this, it’s the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birthday (January 8) and I’ve been talking to Steve Binder, an American producer and director born in Los Angeles. Steve, who just celebrated his 88th birthday last month, is currently working as a creative consultant on Baz Luhrmann’s film Elvis, where Dacre Montgomery is […]
Lea másRick Caruso’s Rosewood Miramar beach bar is now open for walk-up service for locals and guests alike, given the pandemic. A full bar is available, in addition to a limited menu of the bar’s most popular cocktails, wines, and beers. The Miramar Food Truck, conveniently parked adjacent to the bar, will continue to serve existing […]
Lea másBarely 50 miles from downtown Santa Barbara is one of the most fascinating and important parts of the California coastline. Point Conception is the headland where the coast transitions between north-south and east-west orientation, a very rare delineation that works as a natural division between Southern and Northern California. It also marks the location of […]
Lea másMy mom, Carrie Haffner, has two stickers on her car. One is a harbor pass that expired six years ago, the other is a Bucket Brigade magnet. She likes both and says she keeps them because they “show other people that we’re locals.” This week we’re hearing from an old classmate of mine, Laguna Blanca […]
Lea másOne hundred and thirty-nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted, after the insurrection (which sacked the Capitol building and took five lives), to support the mob’s demands to overturn the results of the recent presidential election. An election found, after sixty meritless legal challenges, to have been a free and fair exercise in […]
Lea másMost of us grew up thinking that there were two World Wars, the first in 1914-18, called the Great War, which became World War I, when its successor of 1939-45 qualified as Number Two. But let me tell you how I came to question that whole idea. My father’s elder brother, Mortimer Brilliant, was, like […]
Lea másUCSB’s second segment of its year-long Race to Justice series of virtual talks and Q&A sessions, which was created in part by the heightening of awareness of inequity raised by the Black Lives Matters protest after George Floyd’s murder-by-police last spring, got underway last week with a conversation with the compelling author Ta-Nehisi Coates. It’s […]
Lea másFor five nights, my wife and I slept in the guestroom, while relatives slept in our room. “This bed is too hard. My back is killing me,” Pat said. “How are you holding up?” I could have said: “Fine. You probably just slept wrong.” Instead I said: “My neck’s a bit sore.” Two days later […]
Lea másIt’s no surprise that Lou Cannon does a pretty good imitation of President Ronald Reagan. After all, he covered Reagan from his governorship in California to his time in the White House through to his final days, writing five books about California’s former governor and president, including President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, among […]
Lea másNew York auction house Christie’s is selling more than 100 pieces of rare vintage Chanel jewelry estimated to be worth more than $163,000. The 106-piece hoard of designer necklaces, earrings, brooches, and more comes from the collection of Susan Gutfreund, an interior designer and Manhattan socialite, who was a good friend of the Kate fan […]
Lea másWhen COVID-19 first closed down in-person meetings, everyone hurried to figure out online opportunities. But New Beginnings Counseling Center (NBCC) had a leg up, having already nearly completed a partial pivot to Zoom before the pandemic opened the floodgates toward the platform. It turns out the nonprofit had recognized a need to find a way […]
Lea másDid you ever wonder about the Plaza del Sol or the Rotunda at the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort, formerly Fess Parker’s Resort? Was it originally for bullfights because it’s patterned after the bullring in Sevilla, Spain. Why was it built there anyway? The arches are reminiscent of the façade of the Old Mission. The […]
Lea másOn July 20, 1976, seven years to the day after humans first walked on the moon, a bunch of us new employees of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory trooped over to Caltech’s Beckman auditorium (the one that looks like a circus tent) to see the first landing of a spacecraft on another planet. Viking 1 was […]
Lea másOur childhood shapes who we become and for Josie Levy Martin, it has led to a lifetime of studying childhood experiences. Josie is a teacher, school psychologist, writer, and author of Never Tell Your Name, a book that captures her own experiences as a German Jewish child being hidden around France during the Nazi occupation. […]
Lea másBack in 2010, rising country music singer-songwriter Brandon Stansell was ostracized from his strict Southern Baptist family after coming out as gay. He spent the past decade healing from that pain, finding a new support system, and building a name for himself in country music by refusing to hide his truth. The 33-year-old’s 2020 EP […]
Lea másThe late Santa Barbara actor Paul Walker was an avid car collector and one of his prized autos is coming up for auction. The Fast & Furious franchise star, who died in a car accident in 2013 in Santa Clarita aged 40, had a number of exotic cars in his collection, including the 1965 Shelby […]
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