We also spoke with Michael Love, the veteran screenwriter (he authored the screenplay for the Academy Award-nominated, Gaby: A True Story, in 1987) and director with dozens of credits to his name, including multiple short docs and a few features that have premiered at SBIFF over the years. His 2021 entry, Dist-Dance, chronicles the ecstatic […]
Lea másThe Montecito Heat Index measures demand for Montecito single-family homes in five price sectors. By identifying demand, (contracts to purchase), rather than sales, (closed escrows) we create a forward-looking indicator of market strength. And since real estate activity fluctuates seasonally, today’s Heat score is compared to this date last year. All data are from the […]
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Sustainable landscaping doyenne Susan Van Atta is healing the local ecosystem one acre at a time… It was Susan Van Atta’s birthday just after the presidential inauguration and she wanted to spend it quietly riding her bike on a nostalgic tour through “her” Carpinteria. She set off along the paths of the Salt Marsh Reserve (she helped designed […]
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Kristina McKean’s passion project is saving one elephant at a time in the United States and abroad Kristina McKean has funneled her lifetime passion for helping animals into a full-time profession by creating The Elephant Project. McKean had always felt drawn to animals and their related causes but it wasn’t until her honeymoon to Thailand with her […]
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ARA 24K Collection is part of a family tradition that goes all the way back to ancient Turkey La Hoya If it wasn’t for a simple spelling misunderstanding, Cuneyt (pronounced “June eight”) Akdolu, owner of ARA 24K Collection on Coast Village Road, might never have arrived in Montecito. It was early 2004, and Akdolu, who at […]
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Two years – and a century (it seems) – ago, I had the pleasure of taking my wife, Helen, our son, Tim, his wife, Jacqueline, and their two boys, Deacon and Kessler (then five and seven years old) on a glorious seven-day Christmas Market cruise on AmaWaterways’ 164-passenger river cruise ship, AmaCerto. We traveled down […]
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Everybody in town likely knows about One805. Sure, they’re the organization who three years ago created the “Kick Ash Bash,” mounting the massive benefit concert as a way of thanking both the firefighters whose brave stand against the Thomas Fire in December 2017 saved untold homes in Montecito, as well as honoring the already weary […]
Lea másMontecito artist Allison Armour, whose huge global figures have been collected by former Beatle Ringo Starr and even Russian President Vladimir Putin, is getting back to prominence in Goleta, and I’m delighted to hear it. Eight years ago, Goleta Valley Hospital held a competition for a new art installation outside the complex and Allison’s work […]
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In one of those quirky COVID coincidences, Metropolitan Theatres is reopening its doors just as the Santa Barbara International Film Festival is about to get underway with a hybrid virtual/drive-in edition. Nine days after the county moved back into the red tier, movie theaters will be allowed to open indoors at 25 percent capacity or […]
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Whether it is painting, sculpting, or writing, the creative arts offer an opportunity to express oneself. For Susan Read Cronin, or Susie as she prefers to be called, her extensive body of whimsical bronze sculptures have led to a lifetime of play. She was born on the north shore of Long Island, and her parents […]
Lea másIt is every parent’s nightmare. Their child goes missing. It is 1993 and young girls are disappearing in Northern California. The New York Times bestselling author Paula McLain (The Paris Wife) makes an abrupt departure from her popular historical novels to delve into the world of suspense and crime mystery in When the Stars Go […]
Lea másAs a 66-year-old downtown businessman Randy Rowse is no stranger to Santa Barbara city politics. In 1983, Rowse opened the Paradise Café across the street from the Santa Barbara News-Press; last year he sold the joint, which has now been re-christened La Paloma Café. A longtime Democrat, Rowse dropped his party affiliation in the 1990s, […]
Lea másFormer Music Academy of the West fellow Jacopo Giacopuzzi is using his keyboard skills in his new profession as a realtor with Berkshire Hathaway in Montecito. Jacopo, who hails from Verona, Italy, moved to the Left Coast in 2013 to start his master’s degree at USC after being a fellow at the Miraflores campus. Since […]
Lea másLast Friday, Jane Olson, one of the founding members of our Hands Across Montecito homeless outreach project, happened to be out walking near Hammond’s Meadow and encountered a very thin woman screaming at the top of her lungs and disrobing. We had met this woman before, during the homeless point-in-time count at East Beach in […]
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At their monthly board meeting on Thursday, March 18, the Coast Village Association Board of Directors heard from Jesse Rosenberg, General Manager of Santa Barbara BCycle, as she pitched the group on bringing electric bicycle docking stations to Coast Village Road. The private bike share company has been working with the City of Santa Barbara […]
Lea másIn many marriage ceremonies, the couples swear to stay together “Till Death do us part” – and some manage to fulfil that vow, even though Death may be a long time coming. No similar oaths, that I am aware of, bind parents and their children – in fact it is assumed that, at some point, […]
Lea másI love chatting alcohol with Brett Escalera – as in the alcohol content in wine. Many seasoned sippers, after all, make judgment calls on wine based on the percentage marked on the label, with their predilection for lower alcohol based on the assumption that a wine with less booze will be a better match for […]
Lea másWelcome to the second half of our Olders-Youngers, Dear Montecito double-feature! Last week we heard from volleyball star and my former Older, Anika Wilson, and this week we’re hearing from my former Younger and current student at Lake Travis High School, Corinne Yungling. I am especially happy to share Corinne’s letter with you not only […]
Lea másA little-known American tradition was evident in the backstory of Meghan Markle’s remarkable interview with Oprah Winfrey last Sunday that few recognize today. Unbeknownst to most, there exists a tradition of Black Victorians in America, the sophisticated middle-class African Americans who assimilated the tastes and manners of upper-class life in Britain, especially its aesthetic codes, […]
Lea másHow did Vladimir Putin fail? January 6, 2021 must have been the biggest surprise and disappointment of his entire life. He worked diligently in 2016 to sew dissension amongst Americans to undermine our democratic institutions. He used all his skills, his deceit, and his incredibly powerful “asymmetric warfare” apparatus in the FSB (formerly the KGB), […]
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