Look at your shelves. It’s not the framed photos or unread books that make those shelves uniquely yours. It’s those knick-knacks, collectibles, and tchotchkes you’ve kept, moved, and refused to throw away over the years. What do these trinkets mean about us? Sam Fitz and Bella Vasquez, the co-founders of Santa Barbara’s newest art collective […]
My rebellious teen years formed me. I was an iconoclast, an outlier, a pugnacious and angry loner dancing on the knife edge of chaos. Refusing to play the idiot game, I skulked around the outskirts of the Established Order and its meaningless rules of conduct, taking wild, ferocious swings at this stupid world and its […]
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Newish Montecitan Susan Sofronas – recently arrived from the isle of Manhattan – is settling in nicely. She already adores our little woodland getaway, and as we sip java at sun-soaked Bree’osh on Coast Village, she charmingly parses her personal Tale of Two Cities with open delight. “If you think of New York City – […]
Dear Montecito, Four years later and here we are. This column started during the first COVID-19 lockdown, when I found out that half of my exams were being canceled. “Hey Gwyn… mind if I start a column?” And, well, you know the rest of the story! One hundred hours of phone calls, emails, and interviews […]
The energy and face of Amy Alzina EdD, Cold Spring Elementary School District (CSESD) Superintendent/Principal, is well noted in our town. For the past seven years, she has led the school and increased growth levels in education, STEAM, and community interface. She and her team have maintained this through multiple environmental disasters and lockdowns, without […]
This week I spoke to Mason Lender, the 23-year-old founder of an alternative investing company powered by artificial intelligence. Mason grew up here in Santa Barbara, attending Crane Country Day School and Santa Barbara High School before packing his bags to start as an undergraduate in Statistics & Data Science and Global Affairs at Yale […]
Troubled Surf legend Miki Dora – the Dark Prince of Malibu – remains a cipher. His lifelong desire to live in the moment has made him a mythic figure in the surf pantheon; a stature that in his lifetime royally pissed him off. Pop culture shorthand has reduced Dora to a James Dean for the […]
Preparing for her final year at Berklee College of Music, Makena Tate – a Crane Country Day School and San Marcos High School alum – reflects on how her relationship with music has changed over the years. Dear Montecito, Last month I Ubered to a gig and the driver immediately asked: “Why do you like […]
Come one, come all! Beatrice Tolan is getting ready to put on her first art showcase: HORSE$H*T. The exhibition opens May 2nd and continues until July 2nd. Join Beatrice at Elsie’s Tavern to see her new collection and join me below to hear about the creation process! Q. Thelast time I spoke to you, you […]
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SUNSENDER. There, I said it. Remember the word. It is the fruit of one woman’s search for everyday magic. Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily. Life is But a Dream. Adrienne Smith and three other women climbed into a fiberglass rowboat under the Golden Gate Bridge, shoved off, and rowed to Honolulu; a largish city in the […]
“I didn’t always know I wanted to be a doctor. Actually, I hadn’t really considered medicine until my sister was diagnosed,” says 17-year-old Natalie Martinez. Natalie and her family are Carpinteria locals. On the weekend, they enjoy hiking the Franklin Trail and visiting family in Ventura. But their lives were upended when Natalie’s 13-year-old sister, […]
Santa Barbara and Montecito have lost an icon. For two decades, Lynda Millner’s articles and photographs opened the window on countless local nonprofits. She was the first social writer for the Montecito Journal. Week after week, Lynda’s column “Seen Around Town” appeared every Thursday. Her column went beyond merely photographs of those in attendance. It […]
Yes – as advertised, this week’s essay is about senior scams and the jackasses who perpetrate them. It’s an info-rich message from an avenging angel in the DA’s office. Her name is Vicki Johnson. For a dozen years, Ms. Johnson – semi-retired Deputy District Attorney – has held her own full retirement in abeyance so […]
As acid tests go, this could be a paradigm-changer. Jacob Tell wasn’t always a psychonaut plumbing the Mariana Trench of perception. “Remember Reagan’s Just Say No campaign? I was a D.A.R.E. kid. I had the shirt and the pencil and the lunchbox and all the things that they gave us in grade school.” That was […]
