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Journeys with Geneen

Spiritual Feast

Former Cruzan and best-selling author Geneen Roth opens up about food, life, God and the legion of emotions that can illuminate our deepest held beliefs

When you take your pulse, you know you’re alive. But are you really “living?” If Geneen Roth were asking that question, she’d no doubt add: How are you really living?

Santa Cruz Area Events

Events this Week and Beyond
Need something to do? Read about what events are not to be missed.
Also see our area featured music page >
Post your event on our calendar >
Radio Station Guide >

On the Air Again

Free Radio Santa Cruz returns after brief displacement
It’s not easy being free. There’s bound to be someone who will want you to pay for it. Or tell you how to express your freedom.

One local experiment in freedom has resounded on Santa Cruz airwaves 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the past 15 years. But on Tuesday, Aug. 3, the experiment—known as Free Radio Santa Cruz (FRSC) 101.1 FM—went off the air and left a gap in independent local broadcasting. However, the silence didn’t last long: the underground station recently found a new transm... Read more...

The Science of Space

Mary Roach’s latest book illuminates the strange yet true facts of space travel
If you thought her first three books (“Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers,” “Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife,” and “Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex”) were disgusting, yet you were struck by the strange affliction of being unable to put them down, just wait until you read “Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void,” Mary Roach’s fourth scientifically based book that explores the oddities of human beings in unusual situations—... Read more...

San Narciso

While having sushi dinner at Mobo recently, I mentioned San Narciso, to which my friend pondered aloud, “Why have I heard of them?” The reason is because a new 4-song EP, Friend Prices, confirms what many local show-goers have already discovered: San Narciso, the year-old local indie rock band, is fantastic. Read more...

Ventana Vineyards Chardonnay 2008

The 2008 Gold Stripe Chardonnay is a take-anywhere, eat-with-everything kind of wine. It’s drinkable, delicious—and very reasonably priced at less than $15. Ventana Vineyards is a successful, popular winery. Their wines are always in demand, they can be found in most wine stores and supermarkets, and the label boasts that they are “The most award-winning vineyard in America.”

Win It and Wear It—Sept. 1

Congrats to the winners of this week’s contest:

Stripe necklace: Winona H.
Beauty 360 facial: Amariei

Please enter our next contest by leaving a comment here at this blog. Contest ends Sept. 7. Winners are announced on Sept. 8. Read more...

Music Calendar

Live Music This Week
Hot concert picks. See also events page > Post your event
> GT Weekly Club Grid PDF >

Arts and Crafts

The Crafter’s Studio opens for its second time
It’s a blistering hot day in late August, and a woman ducks out of the heat and sweeps through the front door of The Crafter’s Studio, rushes straight to Rebecca Clinger, and says something along the lines of, “I heard there’s a class where I can make pajama pants. Sign me up.” Read more...

Cutting Class

Cancellation of Cabrillo’s Chinese language program causes a stir
Budget cuts: two of the most dreaded words in current economic times and, unfortunately, also two of the most common. With the state’s deficit at a staggering $19.1 billion, funding for social programs has been hacked away, leaving schools and communities to deal with the brunt of the blow.

For most of the Golden State’s public schools, this means having to cut many needed and desired courses. Cabrillo Community College is no exception.

Borne from Original Sin

Original Sin Desserts, Bakery and Café moves its creative menu
and decadent edibles to downtown Santa Cruz

What was Capitola's loss has become Santa Cruz's gain as Original Sin Desserts Bakery and Café moved into the Culinary Center on Front Street. Read more...

Real Meal

‘Women Food and God’ is a delicious literary meal
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” —Carl Jung

Geneen Roth’s incisive and well-written book “Women Food and God” is a timely book. I don’t know if eating problems have proliferated but women today certainly discuss them more openly than in previous generations. Read more...

Folie à Trois

‘Alice Creed’ a gutsy, audacious three-character thriller
There are few things more exciting in moviegoing than finding a truly original film by someone you’ve never heard of before. Think back to the first time you saw Christopher Nolan’s Memento, say, or Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects. Remember that feeling of, “Wow, where did this guy come from?” You may get that same hit of awe, coupled with a gleeful sense of discovery, when watching The Disappearance of Alice Creed, a gutsy, disturbing, scrupulously well-honed little thriller from rooki... Read more...

In and Out

When I was younger, an occasional buffet meal was an opportunity to gorge myself on the less healthy foods that I rarely saw at home. Like piles of bacon and a table-full of desserts. Now I appreciate buffets as a quick lunch stop. The new Thai Village restaurant in the King's Village Shopping Center offers a small, fresh buffet ($8.95) that was well-attended by local Seagate employees last week.

Mao's Last Dancer

It’s really a tale of two dancers. One, Li Cunxin, a peasant boy plucked out of his rural Chinese village and sent to the Beijing Arts Academy toward the end of the Mao Zedong regime, became one of the most prominent ballet dancers in the world. The other, Chi Cao, is the phenomenal young Chinese ballet star who plays Li in Bruce Beresford’s heartfelt, rewarding film. Scripted by Jan Sardi (Shine) from Li’s autobiography, the film sticks to the highlights of Li’s incredible journey, but dramatic resonance and Beresford’s beautifully shot dance ... Read more...

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