27 Aug 2024
Biltmore Faces the MBAR with Its Future Unknown
When the Biltmore opened its doors in 1927, a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean, various hotel aficionados around California gathered for dinner there. According to a December 1927 issue of The Morning Press, many praised it as “a hotel in the most beautiful spot in California.” Its Spanish Revival charm, easily recognizable by the […]
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Acolytes of St. Andrews visit Montecito Club and Pronounce it Magnificent
The Montecito Club is unique – a sometimes-tiring adjective that doesn’t say a helluva lot. “How unique?” Thank you for asking. For starters, the MC’s Director of Agronomy is a guy named Tennessee McBroom, if you can imagine. McBroom is the soil and turf scientist whose Hulk-like green thumb has helped elevate the Montecito Club […]
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400 Warriors Arrive at Westmont
About 400 new incoming students, including the Grotenhuis Nursing cohort of ‘24, arrived at Westmont to begin their first week of Orientation, Aug. 21-25, and the start of the fall semester, Aug. 26. Nineteen percent (70) of new students are first-generation and joined their parents beginning Aug. 20 for a First Connections Pre-Orientation program, which […]
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Beebe to Sign New ‘Crucibles’ Book
Gayle D. Beebe, entering his 18th year as president of Westmont College, will sell and sign copies of his new book, The Crucibles That Shape Us: Navigating the Defining Challenges of Leadership, on Thursday, Aug. 29, from 4-6 pm in front of the turtle fountain at La Arcada Plaza, 1114 State Street in downtown Santa […]
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Exhibition Offers Glowing ‘Night Visions’
Duncan Simcoe, a Southern California artist and former chair of the College of Architecture, Visual Arts and Design at California Baptist University in Riverside, offers his signature limited-palette paintings on dark construction-grade tar paper in Night Visions: The Black Drawings of Duncan Simcoe, 2014-2024 from Aug. 29 to Nov. 9 in the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum […]
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Embracing the Haar
A half mile up Scorpion Canyon on Santa Cruz Island, I could hear the deep barks and bellows of raucous California sea lions. Their symphony of bawls carried beneath the low canopy of dewy fog hovering above the Santa Barbara Channel, and the Channel Islands National Park. It was 4 am, and as time crept toward […]
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Miramar Beach Erosion
Miramar Beach residents are urging beachgoers to use the Miramar Hotel’s public access to the beach instead of the Eucalyptus Lane entrance due to safety concerns regarding the erosion at the base of the stairs. Currently, at high tide beachgoers must walk over a mound of rocks atop the sand in order to reach the […]
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Increase in Domoic Acid Poisoning in Our Marine Animals
The Channel Islands Marine and Wildlife Institute (CIMWI) reports this week an increase in calls for marine mammals showing signs of domoic acid poisoning. Domoic acid is a neurotoxin that can be fatal for marine mammals when consumed at high amounts. If the mammal has come ashore, signs of poisoning are stargazing, head weaving, lethargy […]
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This Magic Moment: New Festival at the Alcazar
Recovery from the pandemic is still a part of our world, and if there’s anything that hasn’t fully come back, it might be our shared experiences of humor and magic. Combining those two for an immersive weekend is the point behind the first annual Comedy & Magic Festival at the Alcazar Theatre in Carpinteria. Fourteen […]
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Selah’s Summer Dance Fest
It’s been a couple of years since the local Nebula Dance Lab has produced its HHII Dance Festival, so Selah Dance Collective has stepped up to offer something similar in the same Center Stage Theater space this weekend. While the event won’t be as wide-ranging nor as long in duration as HHII, the vibrant and […]
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Out of the Box’s Taylor-made Retrospective
If Donald Trump can re-post deepfake AI images implying that Taylor Swift has endorsed him in response to her terrorist threat-canceled European shows, there’s certainly no reason that Out of the Box theater company – which is much more politically/socially aligned with Swift’s actual proclivities – can’t co-opt the title of the pop singer’s massive, […]
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Symphony Stars at SBMA
Violinist Jessica Guideri, concertmaster of the Santa Barbara Symphony, and Amy Tatum, the orchestra’s principal flutist, head half a block south of their normal Granada Theatre venue to play a series of pop-up performances in the galleries of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art on August 25. The pair of musicians will play a combination […]
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Robert at Riviera
Missed Robert Zemeckis at the Granada earlier this month when the Montecito moviemaker made it down the mountain to intro Romancing the Stone and launch the four-film retrospective as part of the Home Movies Centennial celebration? No worries. Zemeckis will also be on hand for a pre-screening chat at SBIFF’s Riviera Theatre prior to a […]
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Harris or Trump?
In my last two articles I reviewed the policies of candidates Harris and Trump. Here’s my take on the two. Just so you know, the standards through which I analyze politics and policy are things that have worked best over the years to make us the most prosperous country in the world: individual liberty, freedom […]
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Wellness Loud: Could this be the future of podcasts?
Earlier this week I sat down with Drake Peterson, co-founder of Wellness Loud, the first wellness media and podcast network of its kind. Many here in town might know Drake from his Isla Vista formed band, Iration, but lately his focus has been on spreading the word of health, one podcast at a time. Incorrectly […]
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The Lobero Piano
Silently listening, a 150-year-old piano has been hidden in the bowels of the Lobero Theatre in a coffin-shaped box standing vertically in wedge of a corner, without legs, a lid, or a keyboard cover. The once beautiful rosewood case and once fine ivory keys identify this ghost as a piano, secreted behind racks of heavy […]
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How to Be Heroic
What makes a person a hero? In our culture we regard heroic deeds as those which involve courage and self-sacrifice for a worthy goal, such as rescuing another person or even an animal. It usually requires modesty. He or she did not intend to gain any reward, nor any other kind of glory. “I couldn’t […]
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