Monthly Archives: January 2025

Saving the Mall, Aid for All

Billionaire developer Rick Caruso, owner of the Rosewood Miramar, hired private firefighters and arranged for water tankers to save his Palisades Village Mall from the Pacific Palisades Fire that burned through 23,713 acres of prime California real estate, destroying 5,000 properties and (at the time of writing) killing at least 10 people. Jarring video showed […]

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A Baroque Bash

Camerata Pacifica was going for baroque at the Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall in its first concert of the New Year, curated by acclaimed flutist Emi Ferguson with celebrated French American jazz and classical keyboardist Dan Tepfer on the clavichord, an instrument that would have been used by J.S. Bach in his heyday. […]

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Mozart Madness

Wolfgang Amadeus reigned supreme when the Santa Barbara Symphony staged its first concert of the New Year at the Granada under veteran maestro Nir Kabaretti. It was one weekend, two different concerts and eight masterworks, including the glorious “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” during the Mozart Marathon. The highly entertaining two-part show, spanning Saturday and Sunday, included […]

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MERRAG at Sunset

The world is changing. Not to sound ill-advisedly sentimental, but the Human Touch is quickly going the way of the Triceratops. Today our consensual twin summits – Efficiency and Optimization – are turning us into almost childlike fans of automata. Robots, algorithms, and computer-generated flapdoodle are obsoleting such exotica as warm-blooded human beings walking through […]

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Storyteller

Thirty-seven years after its founding in the parking lot at Transition House – where the goal was simply to create safe play spaces for children experiencing homelessness – the nonprofit now known as Storyteller has gone through some transitions of its own in the last year. All of that is represented in the organization’s name, […]

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The 7th Annual Raising Our Light Ceremony

For the 7th year, the lives of the 23 Montecito residents who lost their lives in the 2018 mudslides were honored in a solemn ceremony, Raising Our Light, on Thursday, January 9, outside in the Montecito Union School parking lot.  There, with the Montecito Fire Department Engine as backdrop, was the podium for the speakers […]

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Biltmore Project at the Land Use Meeting

The Montecito Association Land Use Committee (LUC) January meeting was held Tuesday, January 7, in person at the Montecito Library community room and on Zoom. The meeting was called to order by its Chair, Dorinne Lee Johnson. Attendees were the Land Use Committee members, MA Executive Director Houghton Hyatt, MA President Doug Black, land surveyor […]

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Explore the World’s Hidden Wine Gems: Petite Wine Traveler’s Top Picks for 2025

Think Napa and Tuscany have the wine world cornered? Think again! Imagine yourself savoring a crisp white in Switzerland’s jaw-dropping terraced vineyards or sipping bold, handcrafted reds high in Japan’s tranquil mountain wineries. As a Santa Barbara-based wine specialist, I’ve spent my life immersed in the art of wine, and while I’ll always sing the […]

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Growing Oaks Offer Wildfire Resilience 

A Westmont biology class is celebrating the growing success of an oak woodland restoration project in the barranca along the westside of Westmont’s campus. Nearly all of the 60 coast live oaks that were planted along the dry Westmont Creek in November 2023 are surviving and many have grown more than three feet tall.  Students […]

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Strangely Beautiful ‘WILDLAND’ 

A large crowd of about 175 people gathered to appreciate the multifaceted exhibition of WILDLAND: Ethan Turpin’s Collaborations on Fire and Water on January 9 at the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art. The exhibition, which explores the complex relationships between fire, water and ourselves, is open through March 22.  The exhibit includes hands-on stereographs that […]

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Saving

Sometimes, when asked if I have any goal in life, I answer that I want to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. That may seem a less lofty aim, now that Bob Dylan has won it. But so far, the closest I myself have come – and in fact the only time I ever […]

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