MIRACLES ON THE MESA

the

SB’s hub for od, Fashion, Art, Foolks Libations, and F t.. . who do it righ

. . . Page18

V O L 4 ISS23 NOV2 1 D E C 5

2015

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MIRACLES ON THE MESA WHETHER IN OIL, ACRYLIC, WOOD, OR WATERCOLOR, THESE MESA ARTISTS REALLY DO CREATE MAGIC (STORY BEGINS ON P.12)

LANNY’S TAKEP.5 SY VALLEY SNAPSHOTP.28 REEL REVIEWSP.31

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We Are Closed Temporarily The Museum Store Remains Open for Treasure Hunting

SBMM Santa Barbara Maritime Museum

11/20 - 12/7: SBMM will be temporarily closed as we upgrade our flooring and children’s area.

During this time, the SBMM store remains open for holiday shopping!

113 Harbor Way, Ste 190, Santa Barbara, CA 93109 • sbmm.org • (805) 962-8404

Content

P.5

L anny’s Take – Lanny Ebenstein throws his support behind Ed St. George’s project on Cliff Drive; the development would provide more student housing near SBCC

P.6 P.7

Biweekly Capitalist – Jeff Harding returns to form, analyzing ISIS and how the Paris terrorist attacks will impact the U.S. presidential campaign

P.8 P.10

Beer Guy – Zach Rosen gives thanks and a history lesson the only way he knows how: by tapping into the history of beer in pre-vehicle America

S tate Street Scribe – There’s more to Thanksgiving than an obscenely wiggling cylinder of can-shaped cranberry sauce. We can be thankful for that

The Fortnight – How’s about a dinner theater where the entertainment is a man excitedly holding forth on the vibrational nature of quantum gravity?

Pass the ketchup!

P.12

Up Close – Jacquelyn De Longe chronicles the 12th year of the Mesa Artists Studio Tour and gives a nod to an array of local participating painters, printmakers, and instructors

P.14

Man About Town – Mark Léisuré lives up to his surname but still goes Reeling at the New Vic, looks ahead to musical interludes ranging from SOhO to Carpinteria

P.18

The Local – Five Things about Sasha Ablitt; SB Downtown app; Cause & Effect with SB Hospice; Take A Hike on Franklin Trail; Wellema Hat Company; Salt Cave Santa Barbara; Holdren’s steaks raise the bar; bites of Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Figs; and then some

P.19

Berry Girl – Cory Clark, sales manager for The Berry Man, Inc. takes a crack at writing a sponsored column about food production, farming, and distribution

Thanksgiving Nov 26th!

P.21

Behind The Vine – Hana-Lee Sedgwick casts her gaze and taste to Five & 1/4, the wine bar collaboration of Jeremy Bohrer, Sayward Rebhal, and Yvan Morin

P.24

American Girl – Tommie Vaughn takes note of a musician’s magic spell – especially that of guitarists – during Singer/Songwriter Wednesdays at the Funk Zone’s Figueroa Mountain Brewing

P.25

Plan B – You know those neighbors who put up Christmas decorations right after Halloween and finish shopping weeks in advance? Briana Westmacott isn’t one of ‘em, but she offers a list of suggestions to survive the holidays.

P.27 P.28

I Heart SB – Elizabeth Rose will, to paraphrase Whitney Houston, always love Hugh – Mr. Morris, that is, author of The Art of Kissing SY Valley Snapshot – Eva Van Prooyen traverses the scene in Santa Ynez and vicinity, dishing out details about Peg Ivy and A Dash of Southern; Solvang Julefest, Turkey Trot Run/Walk, Fig Mountain gala, ladies night, and New Year’s Eva at Root 246

1106 State Street

Santa Barbara

AndersensSantaBarbara.com

P.31

Cinema Scope – James Luksic takes a close look (from the fifth row) at Secret in Their Eyes, The 33, Love The Coopers, and Spectre

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Lannys take

by Lanny Ebenstein

Lanny Ebenstein is president of the California Center for Public Policy

St. George Project Merits Consideration

T

he recent proposal by developer Ed St. George to create a dorm-style project adjacent to Santa Barbara City College at 801 Cliff Drive should be considered by the community. This proposal would provide more student housing immediately next to SBCC, where it is needed the most.

Mr. St. George has a record of philanthropy in Isla Vista that is superlative. The recently dedicated St. George Family Youth Center there is a significant addition to civic and community-serving infrastructure. Located in Estero Park, the Youth Center provides recreational and leadership activities and an after-school homework center, among other programs.

Santa Barbara City College is our leading local higher educational institution for local young people. Perhaps a greater proportion of local young people attend City College while they are in high school than is the case for any other community college in the United States, and perhaps a higher percentage of local young people attend SBCC after they graduate from high school than for any other community college in the United States.

It cannot be said too clearly or too frequently that Santa Barbara City College is primarily and predominantly a local community college.

To add to housing capacity immediately adjacent to City College, through the private sector, would lead to a substantial saving of funds by the public sector. Many in the community have advocated increased housing for SBCC students close to the college. This proposal is as geographically close a plan as there can be: it’s right next to City College.

The Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees has yet to consider the proposal; the college has not been involved with its formulation. Trustee Jonathan Abboud is a particularly strong advocate of increased housing for SBCC students, in part on the basis of impacts on Isla Vista housing.

Santa Barbara City College president Lori Gaskin emphasizes that enrollment

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at City College is declining. Between fall 2014 and fall 2015, the number of credit program students at SBCC declined 4.7% percent or 884 students. This follows a similar trend between spring 2014 and spring 2015. The number of international students at the college is down 7 percent this year, in part as a result of higher tuition for international students. The total number of applications to City College declined by 11% between Fall 2013 and Fall 2015, from 15,608 to 13,847.

The idea of building more student housing adjacent to Santa Barbara City College has merit because this would reduce transportation costs for students (including costs to the environment) and would increase housing availability elsewhere in the community. The issue is not increasing enrollment at Santa Barbara City College – that is a factor that operates completely independently of housing availability in the community, especially for a private project. The issue is locating more City College students geographically closer to the school and locating fewer SBCC students in areas such as the westside and Mesa.

Any project that is proposed in Santa Barbara receives substantial review through the planning process, and this will undoubtedly be the case with this development.

A public meeting to discuss the proposal will be held on Monday, November 30, at 6:30 pm at the Holy Cross Catholic Church at 1740 Cliff Drive.

Part of the goal of the project is to reduce the number of students located in neighborhoods on the Mesa and westside, and to increase the number of students who live near Santa Barbara City College. According to Mr. St. George, security in the area will be substantially enhanced as a result of the project.

It would be important for there to be close cooperation and interaction between Santa Barbara City College and the new student housing to be located next to it. For this reason, it would be appropriate and worthwhile for the board of trustees of City College to head and discuss this proposal at an upcoming meeting.

Santa Barbara City College has heard the community’s desires regarding outof-area and international students, and the number of such scholars is declining.

SBCC also recently voted to discontinue the location of a private foreign language school on campus.

The goal of increased student housing for SBCC students near campus has long been sought. The recent proposal to build more such housing immediately adjacent to campus should be strongly considered.

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Bi-Weekly Capitalist

by Jeff Harding

Jeff Harding is a real estate investor and a writer on economics and finance. He is the former publisher of the Daily Capitalist, a popular economics blog. He is also an adjunct professor at SBCC.

Paris Changes the Debate

T

he terrorist attacks in Paris have changed the U.S. presidential campaign. The main issue for the 2016 elections will now be homeland safety, and candidates will now beat the drum even louder for more military spending.

It is true that we have something to worry about now that ISIS is intent on fulfilling its apocalyptic death wish.

The attacks in Paris, and (if true) the downing of a Russian airliner, has demonstrated the intent of these fanatics to establish their own country (caliphate) and to wage war against any challengers in order to fulfill their prophecy.

ISIS is not a group which can be effectively walled off and contained.

Their very existence as a state will continue to inspire and attract jihadis from around the world to their cause.

More dangerous to us will be their attempts to encourage and sponsor

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terrorist acts against us. They are not dissimilar to al Qaeda in Afghanistan under the Taliban, where Osama bin Laden and his followers had a base from which to plan and execute their attacks.

They are not subject to negotiation or appeals to mercy. Like many fanatical religious groups, their acts are driven by the “book,” not reason.

That is not to say they are stupid and irrational people. Their logic is clear: we are fulfilling a prophecy revealed by the Prophet; nothing can stop us, and we will use any means against you to fulfill God’s will. How do you argue against that?

The “what to do” is a complicated issue. And here is the problem: this issue will be demagogued by candidates of both parties to get your vote. Their goal will be to attain power by scaring voters into acquiescing to more spending and spying as salvation against terrorism. And the complexities of this issue will be lost in the smoke and fury.

For example, in the last Republican debate you would think that America is incredibly weak and defenseless because Obama “slashed” defense spending and manpower. The fact is that America has the most powerful military in the world, hands down. The world fears us, not the other way around.

Nevertheless, almost all of the candidates pandered to the uninformed base of their party who swallow that line without checking the facts. Marco Rubio was the worst on this issue. In addition to pandering, he put a cherry on top by making the sensationalist point that ISIS is “crucifying Christians.” He says we’ve got to spend another trillion dollars to make us safe again.

Here are the facts. When Obama took office in 2009, the Defense Department budget was $666.7 billion.

The estimate for 2015 is $584.3 billion (in constant 2009 dollars, the numbers are $656.7B/$578.2B). Thus, over his six years in office, Obama “slashed” the budget by 13.4%, or 2.2% per year (or 2% per year in constant dollars). [Source: OMB 2015 Budget.]

That’s not even close to “slashing” – considering that we wound down our war in Iraq.

As far as manpower, according to

the Department of Defense Data Center, as of September 2015, we had 1,353,762 people on active duty; add to this about 850,880 in the reserves.

In 2009, it was 1,418,542 persons on active duty. Again, over his six years in office, Obama “slashed” the military by 4.6%, or 0.77% per year. According to the Wiki on worldwide military size, the U.S. was topped only by China (2013).

One need only look to the war on Saddam Hussein to know that war hysteria can lead to disastrous results

Now, whenever you challenge the conventional wisdom that more spending makes you safe, the kneejerk response is that you are naïve and weak on defense or an “isolationist” (as Rubio accused Rand Paul) and fearful of using our military when needed. One need only look to the war on Saddam Hussein to know that war hysteria can lead to disastrous results (ISIS, Iran, Syria, Libya, et cetera.).

While I have a lot to complain about Obama (economic policy failures, regulatory zeal, and Obamacare), the very least one could say is that he is following the wishes of most Americans who say they don’t want us to get into another war.

No one can predict the future, so I

won’t try, but I think it’s a reasonable bet that no matter who is the next president (Hillary/Rubio/Bush, Trump/Cruz), I’m pretty sure that we’ll go to war against ISIS. And by that, I mean “boots on the ground.” This isn’t Serbia, where you can bomb them into submission. In this part of the world, an army needs to go in, take territory, hold it, and move on to the next town.

We are pretty good at winning wars in the Middle East, but we and our western allies have proven to be not good in being viceroys of conquered territories. Our stay in post-Saddam Iraq turned into a disaster. Not only did we destabilize the Middle East, we fractionalized it into small states run by warlords – resulting in a power vacuum now being filled by ISIS. Will a defeat of ISIS solve the problem of terrorism? Hard to say.

In the short run, maybe. But the long term is not so clear. You have to defeat an ideology, and right now the Islamic radicals are way ahead of us. See my article “Why Freedom and Free Markets Can Save the Middle East” in our August 23, 2014, issue (MJ Vol. 3, Issue 17) to see why.

I deplore the terrorist acts in Paris, and my sympathies go to the victims and their families. We are in a new era now and should brace ourselves for another war in the Middle East.

Will terrorism go away? I doubt it. You can double the defense budget, but as long as radical Islam is tolerated by Muslims, it won’t go away. Ideology is the front we must fight.

Publisher/Editor • Tim Buckley | Design/Production • Trent Watanabe Managing Editor • James Luksic | Creative Director • Megan Waldrep Columnists Shop Girl • Kateri Wozny | Man About Town • Mark Leisure Plan B • Briana Westmacott | Food File • Christina Enoch Commercial Corner • Austin Herlihy | The Weekly Capitalist • Jeff Harding The Beer Guy • Zach Rosen | Cinema Scope • James Luksic Girl About Town • Julie Bifano | In The Zone • Tommie Vaughn I Heart SB • Elizabeth Rose | Fortnight • Jeff Wing State Street Scribe • Jeff Wing | Holistic Deliberation • Allison Antoinette Up Close • Jacquelyn De Longe | Behind The Vine • Hana-Lee Sedgwick The Local • Megan Waldrep | Lanny’s Take • Lanny Ebenstein Advertising/Sales Tanis Nelson • 805.689.0304 • tanis@santabarbarasentinel.com Sue Brooks • 805.455.9116 • sue@santabarbarasentinel.com Judson Bardwell • 619.379.1506 • judson@santabarbarasentinel.com Kim Collins • 805.895.1305 • kim@santabarbarasentinel.com Published by SB Sentinel, LLC PRINTED BY NPCP INC., SANTA BARBARA, CA Santa Barbara Sentinel is compiled every other Friday 133 EAST DE LA GUERRA STREET, #182, Santa Barbara 93101 How to reach us: 805.845.1673 • E-MAIL: tim@santabarbarasentinel.com

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STATE STREET SCRIBE

by Jeff Wing

Jeff is a journalist, raconteur, autodidact, and polysyllable enthusiast. A long-time resident of SB, he takes great delight in chronicling the lesser known facets of this gaudy jewel by the sea. Jeff can be reached at jeffwingg@gmail.com

The T-Bird of Happiness

O

h, and here comes the holiday season like a runaway Edsel, excuse me. It’s always a little surreal how suddenly it shows up.

Another year? Really? Is that Jack Frost nipping at my nose or the taunting, flicked finger of the Grim Reaper?

“It’s almost Christmas!” the little ones yell with unbridled glee. Yes, you tiny, careless immortals; it’s almost last Christmas. How’d the year pass by so quickly? Just a week or so ago, we were throwing ourselves into the ocean in full-tilt escape from the brutalizing heat wave that we were sure would set the mountains on fire. Now, a couple of puny rain squalls later, the inevitable “fall” weather sweeps in as an almost reluctant little cold snap, and we Santa Barbarans respond by excitedly dragging on our pea coats and diaphanous, utterly useless Donna Karan scarves. We swoop our gossamer “winter” accessories around our room-temperature necks like N.Y.

hipsters or movie actors, turning up our collars and stamping our feet as if to shake the snow off our galoshes, we’re so giddy at the change of seasons and the prospect of candlelight and mulled wine. It’s the one time of the year you can gulp Tramp Juice from a soup-bowl sized mug without the other guests remarking about it behind their sleeves. The whole demeanor of the town changes “Ooh, it’s a little chilly, isn’t it?”

No, not really. But let’s live it up. We get maybe 80 of these. It’s time to get about the business of Holiday Cheer.

And what’s not to love? The city workers begin dutifully stringing the lights up along State Street, great arcing stars making of our downtown a glowing arbor. Suddenly, the shop fronts all have paper snowflakes in their window displays, faux-Victorian carolers hunch and yell in close-harmony at every street corner, the chill evening air takes on that seasonally pleasant aroma as

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the town’s fireplaces gently surrender a fragrant bouquet of crackling cherrywood, and frightening sootcovered chimney sweeps flash-mob the rooftops with mad, high-stepping dance routines. Chim-Chimney, Chim Chimney, Chim-Chim-Cheroo, if you damage my ridge vent, I’m likely to sue. Soon enough that strangely phallic Christmas Rocket erects itself near the Arlington Theatre, they throw some lights on it, and we’re off and running.

But first… ah, yes. First, there is Thanksgiving to get through, the weird, uber-American ritual whose most famous visual expression remains that nightmarish Normal Rockwell painting of an aproned matriarch proffering a slain and naked bird; recumbent, belly-up, beyond embarrassment (the bird, I mean), its truncated little wing-arms relaxed at its sides, its formerly strutting legs now stiff and shortened and dressed in paper anklets. In the iconic painting, which like most of Rockwell’s stuff is meant to embody and crystallize the rubberized American Soul, the homespun Ma and Pa figures stand at the head of a table crowded with strangely leering family members in da Vinci-like attitudes of conversation, but strangely feral; all teeth and eyebrows and clasped paws.

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It’s an unnerving work of art.

In the upper left-hand corner of the photorealist painting is a grinning boy with a slightly reptilian expression, and seated beside him a little sister figure likewise stares down the length of the table like a drowsy viper. In the lower left of the painting, a man is laughing maniacally at the empty air, displaying a scary set of choppers, while a sunlit pear with a suggestion of humanoid countenance looks balefully up at him from a bed of grapes. In the lower right corner, a man’s haunted eyes stare back at the viewer. Even for the diabolically exacting Rockwell, it is a strange and unsettling hymn to the holidays, one of the most singularly dreadinducing paintings this country has ever produced. What did Rockwell call this thing? Freedom From Want. My alternate title, you ask? Horn of Plenty Heebie-Jeebies.

But Thanksgiving means well, and however cynically plasticized and oversold the “gather and be thankful” vibe is this time of year, however much it is leveraged by the Commercial Sector to brace us for the aptly named Black Friday, all doubts fly up the chimney with the cherrywood smoke when you ...continued p.15

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by Zach Rosen

This chronicle describes the role of beer during the Pilgrims’ voyage on the Mayflower

Beer in Early America

T

hanksgiving is one of the most popular American holidays, yet its history and traditions are still debated. While many of the commonplace Thanksgiving menu items that fill our tables each year were not at the first Thanksgiving, what about beer?

What did the Pilgrims drink at the first Thanksgiving celebrations? If beer was served at the first Thanksgiving in 1621, there was no record of it.

Cider was the most likely beverage to be served at the first Thanksgiving.

Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth details how the Mayflower was running low on beer and they needed to decide on a landing spot (Plymouth) before the winter set in to ensure that the ship would have enough beer for a return voyage. Although the Pilgrims did drink beer, they did not have a solid barley crop when they first settled at Plymouth. Barley did not grow very well along the hot, humid East Coast and many of the early forms of beer were brewed using corn. This practice dates to before the Plymouth settlement.

Upon returning to London in 1588, Thomas Hariot, an unsuccessful settler, published his Narrative of the first English Plantation of Virginia. This is one of our earliest accounts of brewing in America. He describes the vast variety of corn and how the settlers produced both bread and beer from it, mentioning the addition of hops, which they must have brought with them. The hop plant was not introduced into America until the 1620s. The first brewery in America was founded by Dutchmen, Adrian Block and Hans Christiansen, on Manhattan Island in 1612, eight years before the Pilgrims would land at Plymouth. These early beers were brewed using corn and often included molasses as a supplementary fermentable sugar.

Colonists, Natives, and Trade

Alcohol was likely downplayed during the early Thanksgiving celebrations, as overindulgence was a point of tension between the early settlers and Native Americans. The relationship between Native Americans and liquor is not a pleasant story, but for better or worse, the alcohol trade played a large part of early colonial trade. Trade was a crucial part for the survival of early colonists and their relationship with natives. The Native Americans’ desire for products such as blankets and firearms were quickly met,

Pour yourself a porter and learn how alcohol influenced early America

man to seize any Indian found drunke.”

Any intoxicated Native American was thrown into the stocks until they were sober. The law was later changed to make the punishment a whipping.

This is a complex story, and I suggest reading Deadly Medicine: Indians and Alcohol in Early America by Peter C. Mancall for a more in-depth look at the relationship between settlers, natives, and alcohol.

The Porter Revolution

Zach Rosen is a Certified Cicerone® and beer educator living in Santa Barbara. He uses his background in chemical engineering and the arts to seek out abstract expressions of beer and discover how beer pairs with life.

since once these items were obtained they did not need to be regularly replaced.

Liquor was often quickly consumed by the tribes, and they would immediately return to posts and traders for more. This proved to be a powerful economic force, though over-intoxicated natives began to be a significant problem for the colonists.

Ale was not the preferred beverage by the Indians. Rum from the English and brandy from the French tended to be the most requested beverage. Colonists would often rip off the natives by watering down casks, with one record showing that rum traded to the Choctaw tribe had been diluted to a ratio of 87 gallons of water to 33 gallons of rum. While laws were later enacted to prevent the sale of liquor to Indian tribes, many of these were overlooked since the liquor trade was profitable and helped keep goodwill between settlers and natives. Traders, colonists, and politicians continued in the practice, since it had become such an integral part of trade in early America.

The Pilgrims in Plymouth enacted their own law against the sale of alcohol to Indians in 1636, with the only exception being “in case of sicknesse or faintnes & then onely with the foreknowledge & consent” of the magistrate or governing party.

This law was amended in 1662, when lawmakers noted that it was ineffective.

They changed the law to empower the colonists, making it “lawful for any

The Seven Years’ War largely left the British as the dominate force in early America. Until the Revolutionary War, colonists saw a steady influx of ale, most likely bitter, and porter from England.

Porter was never the dominant style in the Americas the way it was in England, but it gained popularity after the Revolutionary War. In 1769, Washington put a ban on the importation of British goods, including beer, which ended the British porter trade. Mercenary armies being led by the British actually had quotas of porter written into their contracts and British leaders had to scurry to import 600,000 U.S. gallons of London porter to fulfill their contracts. Washington encouraged people to “buy American” – claiming that his family consumed no “porter or cheese” that wasn’t from the States. He even noted that Philadelphia brewer, Rober Hare, made the best porter and Washington made sure to keep his porter in stock. When Hare’s brewery lit on fire, Washington sent someone to secure extra stocks of the beer for him.

In 1783, Washington gave his farewell address at Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan.

While Washington was one of America’s earliest homebrewers and beer supporters, Jefferson has certainly left his mark on the beer world as well.

Jefferson referred to beer as “table liquor” and always had bottles of it on his dinner table. He preferred bottled beer, over serving it from a cask, and built home breweries on two of his properties. He would brew three 60-gallon casks of ale at a time. You can even find his original recipe on the Monticello website.

Jefferson used his own estate-grown hops and even malted his own grain, a combination of wheat and corn, since they did not grow barley on the estate.

Jefferson produced both a dark and a light malt that he would use to brew

Brewed since the 19th century

a porter (dark), a pale ale (light), or combine the malts to make a brown ale.

For his strong beer, he would use a bushel of malt (a bushel is eight gallons which is about 56 pounds of corn or 60 pounds of wheat) for every eight to 10 gallons of strong ale, noting that “public houses” would use a ratio of 15 gallons to every bushel of malt, producing a weaker ale that was “meager and often vapid.”

Porter was not limited to the East Coast. There is a 1849 record of at least one brewery in San Francisco brewing porter, and even the Coloradoan Adolph Coors ran a bottling business where he sold bottled porter before opening a brewery. Of all the early breweries that produced porter, only one survives.

D.G. Yuengling & Son (originally called the Eagle Brewery) opened in 1829 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and is the oldest surviving brewery in the U.S. The brewery is still ran by the Yuengling family, currently with the sixth generation working at the brewery and has produced their porter since the 19th century, except during Prohibition, of course.

While we are not familiar with Yuengling on the West Coast, this brewery is a standard in eastern cities. Yuengling Dark Brewed Porter is a classic with roasty, mocha-like aroma, a smooth body, and flavors of black chocolate and licorice. In 1840, German immigrants imported the first lager yeast to the States and began brewing lager along the East Coast. Germans fleeing feudal lords resulted in a huge influx of German immigrants during the mid-19th century that cemented lagers popularity in the states. Lager soon overtook all other beer styles and spread throughout the country (and the planet), but that is a story for another time.

While beer may not have been a traditional Thanksgiving beverage, it certainly deserves a place on the table during this holiday. Historic styles such as porter or bitter make a wonderful pairing with turkey, stuffing, and other popular dishes, and pumpkin or other holiday ales can be a fun addition to the table.

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by Jeff Wing

Tell us all about your art opening, performance, dance party, book signing, sale of something we can’t live without, or event of any other kind by emailing fortnight@santabarbarasentinel.com. If our readers can go to it, look at it, eat it, or buy it, we want to know about it and will consider it for inclusion here.

Special consideration will be given to interesting, exploratory, unfamiliar, and unusual items. We give calendar preference to those who take the time to submit a picture along with their listing.

The Puzzle of KIC 8462852

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pace is indeed the Final Frontier, and I reckon it’s time to circle the wagons. I’m referring, of course, to KIC 8462852, a star in the constellation Cygnus nearly 1,500 light years away. Known informally as “Tabby’s Star” (after Yale post-doc smarty pants Tabetha S. Boyajian, whose recent paper on the strange star began the present hubbub), this distant ball of gas is… blinking. The light signature put out by this thing comports with that of a star surrounded by some irregular, rotating mechanical structure, and the mainstream press has joined hands with the ET set in hesitantly putting forth that possibility. It’s an odd story.

Glass half full; a distance of 1,500 light years means that what we’re seeing now existed around the time the Western Roman Empire was being done in by Barbarians. So science tells us that any distant, scary mega-structures would surely by now be rusted into disuse. Whew! Now, let’s see what Earth culture is offering in the here and now, shall we?

Winter Wonderland at Center Stage

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964 was a helluva year. The Beatles swam ashore and sent Connie Francis to the powder room, awkwardly named uber-nerd Lee Iacocca saw the first fruits of his pet engineering project, the Ford Mustang, roll off the assembly line, and Carol and Bob Hanlin founded Santa Barbara Festival Ballet.

The “Nutcracker at the Arlington” gang have been all over the SB Holidays for decades, and they launch their 51st December with typical pirouetting panache in the seasonally inspired

“Winter Wonderland” on Sunday, November 22, at 2:30 in the terrifically intimate Center Stage Theater at Paseo Nuevo. Do you want an infusion of holiday warmth? This is the theater, and this is the show. Tickets are $15 to $20.

Call (805) 963-0408 for more info.

Giving the Turkey Second Flight Everyone gives themselves a pass for gorging on Thanksgiving Day. I mean, c’mon: the Pilgrims and the Mayflower and Indian Corn and stuff?

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Monday

November 30, 6 to 7 pm ■ String Theory explained. KITP grandly unifies everything while you dine – SOhO. (original artwork by Bathsheba Grossman) am. Registration is $35 for adults and $20 for participants under 18. Check out 5k.zeeblu.com for all deets. And if you gorge on turkey early enough in the morning, you may find that bird taking flight once again as you near the 3rd K, or thereabouts.

Sunday

November 29, 1 to 5 pm ■ T’was the Night Before Christmas, an original piece by Inspire Dance SB at Center Stage We owe it to our ancestors to do this one right. However, if you’d just as soon forgo the caloric Armageddon that is Thanksgiving, how about a healthy little run along the beach instead? ZeeBlu’s Thanksgiving 5K is a “Santa Barbara race for Santa Barbara”, an event that donates 100% of the day’s proceeds unfilteredly (not a real word) to local organizations. These guys are the real deal, and you may have seen their 5K course in years past, a lovely route that takes your from Leadbetter at the foot of Shoreline Park to East Beach at Calle Caesar Chavez. The thing begins at 9

Not a Creature was Stirring Inspire Dance Santa Barbara presents “T’was the Night Before Christmas” at Center Stage Theater for two performances: 1 pm and 5 pm.

Tickets: Adults $18, Student/Senior $15, Children under 12 years $10. Coartistic directors and co-choreographers/ mother-daughter dynamic dance duo Sean L. Crawford and Emmy Lou Crawford have launched a new dance school endeavor and it promises to be a knockout. In the program, Victorian girls Frances and Mary are making their way to Auntie Bess’s place for the holidays and are set upon by all manner of charming holiday-themed terpsichorean mayhem. It’s like the Iliad for the snowflake set. Don’t miss this adorable show. November 29, 1 pm and 5 pm, Center Stage. Call (805) 963-0408 for more info.

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monthly garden tour for members and these tours include some of the loveliest gardens in Santa Barbara. I mean, what’s the catch? Triffids?

Saturday

December 5, 11 am to 5 pm ■ Greta and Meredeth display hand-made contributions to the Living Faith Church’s craft fair Macro and Cheese “Café KITP” is at it again. The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics’ Francisco Rojas will have the SOhO floor (normally reserved for dancing) for an hour and try his darndest to explain why String Theory and Quantum Tunneling could prove the key that finally unlocks the mystery connection between General Relativity (big stuff in space behaving sensibly) and quantum mechanics (tiny Planck Scale stuff that behaves bizarrely and seems to inhabit a sort of Felix the Cat netherworld). While this far-seeing theoretical physicist is cooking up a Grand Unified Theory and rocking the very foundations of the quantum canon, you can enjoy a delightful dinner in the cozy SOhO environs and nod thoughtfully. Or as SoHO bills the evening; “Eat, Think, and be Merry!” Cute… Café KITP, Monday November 30, 6 to 7 pm (doors open at 5 pm) – SOhO Restaurant and Music Club Pruning for Essence Okay, look. If your taste runs to aesthetic pruning, have we got an event for you. On Wednesday December 2, at 7 pm, stop by Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church on the corner of Foothill and La Cumbre Road and get a heartful of art; living art, pal.

Aesthetic Pruning is an art form that brings the artistic skill of the pruner to bear on revealing the essence of a tree. And contrary to popular belief, the essence of a tree is not a spiral notebook. Aesthetic Pruning has its foundation in Japanese garden pruning, bonsai and arboriculture, and uses all the moxie of visual art and design principles to direct a plant’s mojo in its given environment. The Santa Barbara County Horticultural Society had been meeting regularly since 1880, visitors are always welcome, and check this: there is a “free plant exchange” before the meeting, there are refreshments, and after the night’s speaker concludes, there is a plant raffle. Raffle tickets cost 25 cents! The society often arranges a

Folk & Tribal Arts Marketplace The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History is rolling out the 30th Annual Folk & Tribal Arts Marketplace. Thirty truly unique artisans (one per anniversary year, as it were) will be displaying items available for purchase in prices ranging from the delightful to the frightful, but this is original art and not manufactured junk, people. The works on hand will include baskets, décor, wearable art, furniture, jewelry, pottery, rugs, sculptures, and toys from more than 50 countries around the world including Chile, Honduras, Indonesia, Pakistan, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, and others.

The museum receives 25 percent of all sales, making it a crucial fundraiser for the museum. I happen to know that a portion of the monies go to paying a Butterfly Whisperer to give the showoffy bugs in the threateningly titled “Butterflies Alive!” exhibit a good talking to. Without that lecture the butterflies will just swarm the terrified, hapless visitor. We do not want that.

Friday, December 4, 10 am to 6 pm and Saturday and Sunday, December 6, 10 am to 5 pm. SB Natural History Museum, 2559 Puesta del Sol. Chef Pete Clements of the Funk Zone will be providing comestibles for purchase.

If you like your arts and crafts a little more….heartlandish, Living Faith Church is hosting a Christmas Art and Craft Fair on Saturday, December 5, from 11 am to 4 pm, 4595 Hollister Avenue at Auhay Road, across from the Youth Page Center. Support local artists! Find that perfect gift! Crafts make the most personal and meaningful gifts, as everyone knows. Stop by and pick something up for that special someone who is so perennially difficult to buy for. This Craft Fair has no entry fee and boasts mucho parking. And what is a church without a raffle? You will have an opportunity to win a one-ofa-kind gift from the Raffle Table and enjoy some good eats, besides. Please contact Barbara at (805) 453-7254 or barbara62239@gmail.com for more information.

That’s it for this Fortnight, old chums. This Thanksgiving, remember to pardon your turkey and set it free with open arms. If it flies away from you, it was never meant to be yours in the first place. If it returns to you, serve it with a mildly spicy brown gizzard gravy and a side of small curd cottage cheese. You heard it here first.

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LAWYERING IS MURDER – LIDA SIDERIS EXPLAINS

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here are those who can’t leave the office at the office. You know the type. Chiropractors return to their sumptuous homes and spend the evening manipulating the furniture till the joinery pops, CalTrans workers enter their living rooms, drop their elaborate tool belts, don their headlamps and plow through mauve shag carpet with a jackhammer.

Even the hotshot brain surgeon finishes the dishes, reshaves her head in front of the bathroom mirror and scrupulously remaps the medullum ostentatiousellum on her stubbly cranial vault with a fine point Magic Markerâ. Lida Sideris is just such an obsessive. An attorney by day (the executive director of the Santa Barbara Bar Association, no less), she has for the last little while come home after a long day at the office, seated herself by one or another variety of fancy attorney-lamp, and typed away at a murder mystery. This book will be signed by its author on November 2 Murder and other Unnatural Disasters, at Chaucer’s published to stellar reviews this past October and is due for a signing.

We caught up with Counselor Sideris, swore her in, and began the crossexamination. First question was the inevitable “Why’d you do it?”

“My possibly prenatal and postnatal desires revolved around two main activities: reading and writing. Drop me on a desert island with books and a writing instrument, and I believe I could survive without food and water. The legal career was driven by a firmly planted parental seed from my mother, who convinced me I needed to support myself financially, after which I could do whatever I wanted, career-wise. Knowing that the legal profession required a good amount of reading and writing, I was game. Little did I know I was collecting fodder for what would be my first published novel.”

Was it a given that you would turn your writerly attentions to the mystery genre? Why not Space Opera or the Dickensian social sprawl?

“At age nine, I read my first novel, The Hidden Staircase, written by Carolyn Keene and starring Nancy Drew. Being an impressionable youngster, I was inspired by the Nancy Drew series to seek out and solve my own small, home-grown mysteries: The Case of My Cousin’s Missing Pet Turtle, The Kidnapping of the Neighbor’s Siamese Cat, Uncloaking the Annoyingly Persistent Obscene Phone Caller (in the pre-caller ID days). It was fun! I started out reading mysteries and continued because it is my favorite fictional genre.”

Tell us a bit about the book’s unpredictable and somewhat beleaguered heroine, Corrie.

“Corrie is a newly minted lawyer who miraculously lands a dream job in a film studio. She suffers from a lack of confidence since she has zero experience and soon finds herself enmeshed in a cannibalistic industry. But her tough side won’t let her fold. At least, not without a fight. She honed the toughness when she shadowed her renowned private investigator father on his high-profile cases. Corrie’s comfortable in the P.I. world, whether she’s willing to admit that or not. She knows her way around weaponry, legal and otherwise, crime scene investigations, and shifty characters. She’s also adept at inventing plausible lies, as needed. All of which come in quite handy when she’s blackmailed into investigating the suspicious death of a co-worker.”

Sounds more like a cozy mystery to be read with the lights dimmed and a glass of wine at hand than a brutalizing James Ellroy meat grinder.

“I chose to write a light-hearted mystery, the kind I like to read. I wanted the book to be so light that it could float if not grasped with both hands. My hope is that my reader will feel a lift after reaching The End. I started out writing a work of historical fiction and felt depressed after each chapter. I certainly did not want any reader to share that unpleasant emotion. My intent was to tilt the mirror of life slightly upward. I wanted to have fun in a setting I knew well (Southern California), and draw in a few readers to enjoy the ride right alongside me.”

Ms. Sideris will be reading and signing her book Murder and Other Unnatural Disasters at Chaucer’s Books on Tuesday, November 24, from 6 at 8 pm. If you can possibly manage it, drag your Habeas Corpus over and fête the Central Coast’s newest author.

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UPCLOSE

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by jacquelyn De Longe

Jacquelyn’s creative interests earned her a degree in fine art from Art Center College of Design, followed by years in the Los Angeles art world working for major galleries and prominent artists. She is regularly published in West Coast newspapers and magazines, in addition to working as a producer and director in the performing arts. She is an advocate for children’s art programs and, she is not afraid to dance down the aisle at the grocery store with her kids when Talking Heads plays overhead. Contact Jacquelyn at www.delongewrites.com.

Mesa Artists Studio Tour S

prinkled on the Westside hills of the Mesa are quaint homes hidden by tree-filled byways, sprawling mansions with Technicolor views of the city and the Pacific, and a dozen studios of local artists tucked in between. Once a year for two days, the Santa Barbara Mesa artists open their homes and studios to the public for the Mesa Artists Studio Tour. In its 12th year, this tour is a popular excursion for landscape lovers and local art supports all over Santa Barbara County.

Here are some of the passionate artists I met on my weekend exploring the Mesa Studios: Sarah Carr, who studied at both UCSB and RISD, retired from teaching art at Dos Pueblos HS and now focuses on her studio practice. Her paintings reflect a fascination with light and color, and she is exhibited at Corridan Gallery.

Instructor Deborah Breedon has

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been teaching for 12 years, most recently at the Center for Life Long Learning.

Her nature-inspired pastel and oil paintings have won multiple awards; she is represented by Gallery Los Olivos.

Self-taught artist Cree Mann began painting at the age of 40 after spending her career working in the fashion industry in dress design. While her watercolor paintings vary in subject matter, they are always inspired by nature with a great sense of color and light.

Morgan Green is a self-professed “natural outdoors person” who prefers to work in plein-air style. Having lived all over the world, Green has called the Mesa home for the past 20 years where she creates regional California scenes with pastels. She has studied under such artists as Richard McKinley and David Gallup and is represented by Gallery Los Olivos.

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DREAMY DISH

Nuance

Cree Mann, Mighty Oak

Artist Cree Mann

The only printmaker in this artist collective, Sara Woodburn creates beautifully detailed woodblock prints.

With her textile design degree from UC Davis, she spent her career designing and printing handmade fabrics before exploring woodblock printing only four years ago. Her work can be found at Channing Peake Gallery and was recently exhibited at the Wilding Museum.

Originally a potter, Karin Aggeler spent 30 years at the Santa Barbara Braille Institute coordinating the Arts and Craft program and teaching ceramics. Her work can be found at the Primavera Gallery in Ojai.

Ellen Yeomans is a self-taught painter inspired by Robert Henri and Bonnie Blau. She only works outdoors in plein-air fashion and is currently included in an exhibition at the Santa

Paula Art Museum.

Erin Williams received her MA in printmaking and MFA in painting from SUNY and has been painting ever since. Inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe, she creates colorful watercolors of flowers, birds, and landscapes. Williams is represented by Gallery Los Olivos and Village Gallery in Lahaina, Hawaii.

Liz Downey of Downey’s Restaurant originally majored in law and society at UCSB before following a different path. Taking after her mother who was a painter, Downey has been creating oil paintings of local landscapes for the past 25 years.

Committed to her painting practice, Margaret Nadeau spends three days a week in her studio focused on her craft.

This former dress designer and docent UPCLOSE ...continued p.16

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Warren Miller, Chasing Shadows on Tuesday, December 1

with Mark Léisuré

Mark spends much of his time wandering Santa Barbara and environs, enjoying the simple things that come his way.

A show here, a benefit there, he is generally out and about and typically has a good time. He says that he writes “when he feels the urge” and doesn’t want his identity known for fear of an experience that is “less than authentic.” So he remains at large, roaming the town, having fun. Be warned.

Reeling in the Year

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our intrepid columnist has not been doing a whole lot of prowling on State Street and environs in recent times, due to any number of reasons. So, he doesn’t have much to report in terms of the thumbs up/down variety in the bailiwick of music or what have you.

But I did make it to one performance that stands out over the previous fortnight. That would be Reeling, the dance-theater piece that represented the Santa Barbara debut of Laura Karlin’s Los Angeles company Invertigo. This charming, kinetic evening-length work that takes place in the unlikely dance setting of a dive bar was surely the dance event of the year in the non-Granada categaory.

Reeling explores all the nuances of the word, from that intoxicating feeling that can come from imbibing alcohol or connecting deeply to a partner to the literal act of reeling in a fish (yes, that goldfish in the bowl that opens the show was real).

This whimsical work features eight dancers who are in constant motion through a variety of situations and activities that range from intimate couplings to madcap leaps from the on-stage bar, and even a few minutes of karaoke. There are several interactions with the audience – breaking the fourth wall is something we see far too rarely in dance – which never veered into the cloying. In fact, the closing number was so touching it almost brought tears to my eyes.

The shows took place at the New Vic Theatre, which was just perfect except that the audience would have fit easily at Center Stage. ‘Tis a shame that most dance outside of UCSB Arts & Lectures events can’t find an audience in town.

But hopefully, word of mouth will spread far and wide about Invertigo, and the next time they come to town the place will sell out.

Giving Thanks to Music Makers

Looking ahead, not a whole lot of entertainment activities go on during Thanksgiving week, which is fine, because we all should be deep in contemplation over things that inspire our gratitude, such as, for example, in living Santa Barbara. Where normally,

“100% Reindeer Art Show” opening night festivities on Thursday, December 3

besides the amazing weather and natural beauty and ambiance of the area, there’s normally a lot going on in the arts scene. Except not this week of our fortnight, because it’s Thanksgiving.

But there are, actually, a few things happening, in that normally fallow period surrounding Turkey Day. On Tuesday, November 24, SOhO hosts Beyond This Moment, the Santa Barbara by way of Bay Area band that has came together to provide the live musical soundtrack for Dana Lawton’s Dance Company. Guitarist Jon Lawton, Dana’s husband and the erstwhile leader of Little Jonny and the Giants, one of the great R&B bands that once populated Santa Barbara bars, is part of the group, as is Sean McCue, Dana’s brother, the erstwhile leader of Santa Barbara pop-rock band Summercamp, which got signed to Maverick Record nearly 20 years ago, and scored a hit with “Drawer” off their Pure Juice album back in ‘97.

These days, McCue is doing movie and other soundtrack work, often with Michelle Beauchesne, a classically trained cellist who has worked with Leonard Bernstein, Placido Domingo, Natalie Cole, Andrea Bocelli, and Isaac Stern among others. They’ve made several CDs together in various guises, and part of the Beyond This Moment program is original compositions by Beauchesne original compositions to which she also adds vocal harmonies.

The final member of this awesome quartet is Bill Flores, the Ventura-based multi-instrumentalist who can veer between genres like a pinball careening off the bumpers. Tuesday’s concert features as special guest Mike Fishell, another Ventura County guitar god.

Beyond This Moment’s music is both heady and soulful, rhythmic, and contemplative, which seems like a pretty good way to head toward the holidays.

The next night at SOhO, however, might be even better, as the music club hosts its annual Hansen Family and Friends songfest, a pre-Thanksgiving tradition during which many of the club owners’ large clan get up on stage and perform far more memorably than you might imagine, often accompanied by a sampling of local hero types who have played at the club. No names being dropped here, but it’s always a lot of fun. And it’s free, too.

Post stuffing yourself with stuffing, might we suggest the annual Mozart

By Candlelight concert from the West Coast Chamber Orchestra Founder-conductor Christopher Story VI and associate conductor Dr. Michael Shasberger, who toils at Westmont College the rest of the year, are working up several Mozart favorites that should go down easy on the holiday weekend, including the Eine Kleine Nachtmusic Serenade K. 525; the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, No. 3, K. 216 in G Major with orchestra concertmaster Tamsen Beseke as soloist; the Overture to Mozart’s opera La finta giardiniera; the Sinfonia Concertante in A Major with violinist Beseke, violist John Acevedo, and cellist Joong-In Rhee; and the Divertimento in D Major K. 136. The music reverberates on Friday, November 27, at First United Methodist Church downtown.

Finally, on Sunday, November 29, we’ve got the return of the Mari Martin Band, featuring the longtime former founding co-lead singer of Area 51, who moved Back East several years ago for some family obligations. Now back at her old stomping grounds at SOhO, Martin – who with her bands in Massachusetts has recently opened for Travis Tritt, Iris Dement, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (also from Santa Barbara-Ventura), reunites with former colleagues George Friedenthal on keys, Larry Perpoli on drums, and Ray Pannell on guitar for two sets of music spanning the 1940s to 2010s, covering an eclectic mix of jazz, blues, soul, R&B, folk, funk, and good old rock ‘n’ roll. What a way to dance off those extra calories. (Area 51, by the way, plays at SOhO two nights earlier, on Friday, November 27.)

Skipping further ahead, the line-up truly goes Christmas-season happy on

us, beginning on Tuesday, December 1, when the Lobero hosts its annual screening of the latest ski movie from venerable filmmaker Warren Miller. Chasing Shadows, Miller’s 66th snowsports films (bless his 91-year-old heart) features JT Holmes, Seth Wescott, Caroline Gleich, Steven Nyman, and many others as they pursue turns on some mighty mountains, including Chamonix, Alaska’s Chugach, Utah’s Wasatch and the Himalayas. Get all psyched up for the annual ski season sensation via the trailer and other details online at www. skinet.com/warrenmiller.

Portland-based Pink Martini has now become something close to an annual tradition around these parts.

This time around, Thursday, December 3, at the Arlington, they’re bringing back the holiday show, adding seasonal songs to their grab-bag of glamorous swing jazz, cabaret and movie music, a hopelessly eclectic ensemble.

Native Santa Barbara painter Brad Nack, who just left his post at the Arts Fund, is still churning out the miniature oils that comprise his annual “100% Reindeer Art Show”, but there’s something new on tap for the 19th year.

While the tiny abstract masterpieces featuring the critters in all sorts of whimsical poses will make up the bulk of the show and be whisked away at the end of the opening night festivities on December 3, Nack has fashioned a number of larger oils of reindeer that will hang in Roy’s front room through the end of the year.

Prism Productions, the folks who ran the Circle Bar B Dinner Theater until its demise last fall, are mounting the over-the-top holiday screamer The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswoman’s Guild Dramatic Society presents A Christmas Carol as their third production out at the Goodland Supper Club, otherwise known as the Timbers Event Center. Show dates are December 3-13.

Plaza Theater in Carpinteria presents a more traditional version of A Christmas Carol featuring local thespians from December 4-13.

And don’t miss Cambridge Drive Concert Series’ annual holiday show, which features a bevy of local singersongwriters doing their thing to benefit the needy, on Friday, December 4.

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start mingling with family and friends in closed quarters while through the windows brisk, happy breezes stir the trees and foliage in blanched autumnal sun. As hard as the numbskull forces of human avarice try, they can’t completely wreck Thanksgiving. They can’t strip away, for instance, my hardwon memories of my mom coming over on those Thanksgiving mornings.

Per the yearly ritual, I would have dropped in on my mom’s apartment at Villa Santa Barbara the evening before to remind her of our Thanksgiving breakfast the next morning. She would inexpertly and comically disguise her uncertainty as to who exactly I was, and we would have our usual bemused summit for a couple hours, watch the home movies for the severalhundredth time, bat the same overfamiliar questions and answers back and forth. I’d long since stopped being maddened by mom’s endlessly repeated questions, and came to be charmed by a universe that oversaw our elderly parents exasperating us with the same ninny repetitions they’d had to suffer when we were mindless little non-stop blabbermouths. Fair play.

The next morning, Thanksgiving morning, I would stop in to nab mom for the drive over to our place and explain our Thanksgiving date all over again. “Hey! What are you doing here?

And who are you, again?” She would laugh nervously at her own question sometimes, but she knew in her core that I was on her side, that we shared something. “I’m your son, mom. Jeff?”

“Right!” she would laugh again, making comic gestures of dismissal, still not quite believing it. But she would grasp my arm, dance me into the elevator and veritably skip from the Villa Santa

Barbara lobby to my car parked on the street outside.

We would take the long way to our place, the miraculous, palm-lined, ceaselessly stunning Cabrillo Drive, the unlikely Pacific sparkling off to the left like an over-earnest special effect.

As hard as the numbskull forces of human avarice try, they can’t completely wreck Thanksgiving

At our condo, mom would be greeted like royalty, Judie and the kids rushing to her at the door. Mom’s face would be simultaneously aglow and bewildered, Judie’s Dutch broodtafel likely adding to her dislocation as it featured breads and cheeses and sliced meats and hardboiled eggs. This isn’t what the Indians and Pilgrims ate, is it? I can clearly picture mom sipping delightedly at her mimosa as the rest of us blab away in conversation she only half follows, her sated half-smile turning to each of us in turn as we speak, her expression a sort of uncomprehending exaltation in the moment. She didn’t know I was watching her watching us, her indefinable love and gratitude shining like an aura. She’s gone. This year will be our second Thanksgiving breakfast without her, and I’m unspeakably grateful for the sometimes harrowing 14 years we had her in town.

Sometimes after Thanksgiving breakfast, we would flop onto the couch and flip through a photo album,

beer, my dad there with a can in each hand, his smile-worn dimple catching the late afternoon shadowfall just so, his black curly hair already hinting at the premature gray that would soon compel comparisons to the actor Jeff Chandler. In the fading picture, the seated women are wearing scarves over their hair, and Capri pants, and beautiful bug-eyed sunglasses. Just a lovely thing! Their legs are crossed, they’re all laughing with their lady heads thrown back, happy faces aimed skyward forever. The men and women and the kids present are all turned toward the camera in a posture of hilarity (one! two! THREE!). Over the sea, in the sky behind the party, a single towering cumulonimbus cloud boils straight up into the sepia sky with frozen, explosive force, and mom has her feet up on the lawn chair and is hugging her knees. Although her face is turned away, the flesh is seen to follow the smooth cornice of her jawbone where it meets her neck, cleaves as snugly as the velour skin of a new love seat. Unlike the rest of the gang, she’s looking away from the camera and out to sea.

Everyone has their own little story, and they’re all of a piece. We’re lucky.

Happy Bird Day.

H OLI D A Y

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one of the weird old ones I’d known since childhood. It had a dissolving, nautically themed cover and stiffened pages to which the fading photos had been sloppily fastened an eon ago with now-opaque squares of yellowing Scotch tape. I’d seen all these pics a hundred times or more growing up.

When I was a kid, I was bored silly by the album (as by everything else to do with my parents), all the blackand-white snapshots of laughing men in government-issue khaki, lots of pics of my mom – the beauty, the dreamer – more recently a 90-year-old with failing faculties and loose-fitting flesh.

Of course, as I grew older I became forensically interested in what the album held, particularly a photo of my dad, now long gone, as a 14 or 15 yearold. Wonder of wonders.

And here was a curling picture of Crashboat Beach, in Puerto Rico, 1956, at the foot of Ramey Air Force Base, that particular stretch of sand and surf a scene of so many storied parties and languorous afternoons during that time, my parents, Bob and Aloha, drinking and talking and laughing with Air Force chums and wives, a rough circle of lawn chairs, the men leering comically at the camera and hoisting cans of Falstaff

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Book before 12/31/15 to receive 25% OFF. Sansum Clinic is a 501(c)(3) California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation, and is accredited by the Institute for Medical Quality.

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UPCLOSE ...continued from p.13

HEALTH FOR THE HOLIDAYS

OsteoStrong

O

OsteoStrong (805) 453-6086 2277 Las Positas Road www.osteostrong.me

steoStrong helps you build stronger bones, relieve joint and muscle pain, and develop better balance and agility naturally. It also helps you actively age – now that’s something to be truly thankful for.

Call for a free bone scan and session at OsteoStrong. (Photo: Sigrid, an OsteoStrong member and husband, Jim Twomey on a recent trip to Prague.)

Deborah Breedon, At The Ranch

Deborah Breedon

Ellen Yeomans

FULL SERVICE MAINTENANCE & REPAIR Established 1978

Mulle r & Go s s

Locally Owned

IMPORT AUTO REPAIR Specializing In

Ellen Yeomans, Dawn at Hendry’s

Mercedes • BMW• Audi Rolls Royce • Mini•VW

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424 N. Quarantina Santa Barbara, CA

AT THE

SANTA BARBARA BOTANIC GARDEN FRIDAY – SUNDAY NOVEMBER 20 – 22 10am – 4pm

Holiday Marketplace

Over 30 local artisans ~ Free to shop

www.sbbg.org/hmps 1212 MISSION CANYON ROAD, SANTA BARBARA, CA

at LACMA creates more that calming landscapes, she also incorporates her knowledge of the figure in bronze sculptures.

Nancy Hull retired from biology and chemistry to indulge in her creativity, creating bold plein-air pastel and watercolors. She is a member of the Santa Barbara Art Association and has been painting for the past 12 years.

William Hull spent 32 years in biology before returning to his art practice. He works in multiple mediums such as oil paints, stained glass, and ceramics.

For these artists, sharing their stories and creations with visitors is as exciting and enjoyable as making their work.

Each of them is inspired and driven to keep creating, keep learning, and

Karin Aggeler

Karin Aggeler, Planet With Heart

improving at their craft. Our beautiful city is an endless source of inspiration for them, and on the Mesa they have found an incredibly supportive community.

ONE-OF-A-KIND ECLECTIC NEW ARRIVALS! IN STOCK JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS! GREAT GIFT IDEAS!

133 E. Carrillo Street 805.845.1285 www.anticafurnishings.com Direct Importer of Asian Antiques & Fine Furnishings

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Erin Williams, Dancing With Desire

Erin Williams

Liz Downey, Early Walk in Steven’s Park

Liz Downey

Margaret Nadeau

Margaret Nadeau, Queen of the Missions

Morgan Green, Big Break

Morgan Green and art enthusiast Kathy Burba

UPCLOSE ...continued p.23

MEET WALTER

At Perry Ford/Mazda

W

alter Alfaro is the general manager at Perry Ford/ Mazda. He can always be found greeting customers as they pass through his dealership. Whether you’re having your car checked or shopping for something new, you are certain to be taken care of because Customer Service is their number-one priority. Come meet Walter and the rest of his team at Perry Ford/Mazda today.

Perry Ford 440 Hitchcock Way (800) 645-8982 www.PerryFordSB.com

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Obsessed With:

Giving Thanks to Our Readers!

HEALING HOLIDAY GIFTS

D

Y

our support means the world to us and on behalf of our small-but-mighty staff, we are grateful for your readership.

Supporting us means supporting our local community, so thank you, thank you! Fortunately, our town is full of local talent and products to write about, such as Wellema Hat Company in artist On The Spot, Salt on State Street for our current obsession, San Marcos Farms hits our Sweet Spot just right, and private Chef Robin’s cookbook makes for tasty kitchen play time.

id you know Salt on State Street is North America’s largest Himalayan Salt Cave? Pretty cool! Salt has a variety of handmade Himalayan salt products for bath, body, cooking, and home. Packed with 84 minerals, these concoctions are excellent for healing and detoxifying the body. For under $25, you can snag gifts of the healing kind for the ones you love.

Salt Cave Santa Barbara 740 State Street, Santa Barbara (805) 963-7258 Instagram: @SaltCaveSB www.SaltCaveSB.com facebook.com/saltcavesb Twitter: @saltcavesb

Hit us up if you’d like to be featured: megan@santabarbarasentinel.com or on Instagram @santabarbarasentinel We want to show you off!

ONTHESPOT: TOPPING IT OFF

W

alking into the Wellema Hat Company is a visual step back to the early 1900s; even the tools owner Cody Wellema uses are from the turn of the century. Hand stitching and molding equals completely-by-hand, high-quality, and good-looking headwear. A gift like this lasts for generations to come.

Wellema Hat Company 115 West De La Guerra, Santa Barbara Unit B (behind Elsie’s Tavern) Instagram: @wellemahatco www.wellemahatco.com

PANINO soups + salads + sandwiches p a n i n o re s t a u r a n t s. c o m

Open for Lunch Daily Los Olivos (805) 688 9304

Santa Barbara (805) 963 3700

Goleta (805) 683 3670

Solvang (805) 688 0608

Montecito (805) 565 0137

Santa Ynez (805) 688 0213

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the

BerryGirl

is Cory Clark

The Berry Man, Inc. is a wholesale produce distributor supplying produce and artisanal products to restaurants, resorts, institutions, caterers, and markets from Big Sur to Santa Barbara to Santa Monica. While sourcing worldwide, special emphasis is on the locally grown. Cory Clark is sales and marketing director of The Berry Man, Inc. and the voice of this sponsored column, Berry Girl.

GROWING UP

R

ecently, while at an event during sustainability week at UC Santa Barbara, I got to chatting with some students about sustainability and the future of our food supply. Being in the agricultural distribution industry, I often find myself in conversations such as these.

That day, my eyes were opened to things I did not know, and it left a big impression on me. I learned that by the year 2050, nearly 80 percent of the Earth’s population will reside in urban centers. At present, throughout the world, more than 80 percent of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use. This prompted me to research on the subject: what can be done about this?

What are our options? Some experts say there is a possible solution: indoor farming, or more precisely, viable, vertical farming.

Greenhouse growing has been around for years, but using greenhouse methods to grow in levels vertically, as opposed to horizontally, are more recent and provide a more efficient use of space. Some say that in the years to come, this will be the prevailing method for farming. I figured that since I am in the produce business, I better know where we are headed!

Although we are lucky to live in a region where the sun shines almost 300 days a year and yields the best produce in the world, we are still subject to Mother Nature. Weather-dependent crops such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers simply will not grow in the soil here, year ‘round.

Lucky for us, enter the hydroponic, hothouse-grown versions. In the winter, when our customers lament about the pale, tasteless tomatoes, I always recommend hothouse-grown. The industry has gotten so good at producing these, that you almost can’t tell the difference. In fact, some customers prefer them to the farm-grown. Another bonus is that we are only a stone’s throw away from many of these growers; among them, some of the most famous for the living lettuces seen everywhere.

I recently toured a butter lettuce facility and was blown away by the operation. They turn out millions of heads of beautiful butter lettuce a year, using a completely closed system. What takes 30 days to grow in the field takes them 15 days, using 95 percent less water, about 50 percent less fertilizer, and zero pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. As a reference to the popularity, The Berryman sells more than 80,000 heads per year. The current technology allows for pretty much anything to be grown hydroponically, from potatoes to melons to corn. But is that what we want? Is farming indoors a betrayal to traditional farmers?

In short, vertical farming is just traditional farming, with a substitute for the soil and sunlight; moved to a warehouse with nutrient-fortified water and wired with LEDs. I must admit, I feel a little funny supporting a concept that deviates from the story of the farmer and his fields. To me, the latter is a much more romantic story of nature; stewarding the land, the sun rising and setting on Nature’s majesty. The alternative sounds like a chemistry lab with its bright lights and closed environment – but isn’t that something we should get our heads wrapped around, considering we are heading for some serious issues with no apparent solutions using traditional methods?

What will be the fate of the soil farms? Will they be a thing of the past? Will we lose our connection to nature by growing and consuming food grown in controlled environments? The answer is: probably not.

The current technology for indoor farming is still costly. It’s an environmental solution but still has its drawbacks. Certain crops are simply too expensive to be grown indoors, e.g., it would cost $25 worth of light and energy resources to produce enough wheat indoors just to make one loaf of bread.

Could there be a place for both? In my estimate, yes – they can co-exist.

Vertical farming can ease the burden on nature’s land scarcity by growing crops that can thrive indoors, and if we continue to grow crops in nature that are best suited to soil growth, such as wheat, rice, and corn, we can have the best of both worlds. It may take some adjusting to change that we might not like, but perhaps it’s time to open our minds and expand our views as we watch farming “grow up.”

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CAUSE & EFFECT...

HELPING THOSE WHO HELP US

W

ith the holidays representing a difficult time for many grieving the loss of loved ones, Hospice of Santa Barbara is inviting those in need to use its free professional bereavement services and attend its grief workshops. Hospice of Santa Barbara provides its free professional bereavement support to individuals and families, including community organizations, schools, hospitals, and senior care facilities year ‘round.

Attend free workshops at Hospice of Santa Barbara located at 2050 Alameda Padre Serra, Suite 100: Holiday Grief Workshop 11/21 and 12/12, Noon – 1:30 pm First Holiday for Families (Bilingual) 12/16, 5:30 pm – 7 pm Nuevos Caminos (Spanish) 12/3, 5:30 – 7 pm Días Festivos (Spanish) 12/10, 5:30 – 7 pm

Call (805) 563-8820 to RSVP (required to attend) or visit www.hospiceofsantabarbara.org for more information.

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Local LIBATIONS HEALTHY ENERGY DRINK

A

ll natural, organic, calorie-free (seriously!), and never any GMOs, Bragg’s seems to be one of the only companies you can trust for pure healthy goodness. The Ginger Spice variation of the Apple Cider Vinegar drink has a mild ginger and vinegar taste with a hint of Stevia sweetness to quench your thirst. “Serving health since 1912” – it doesn’t really get more traditional, natural, and healthy than this.

Cantwell’s Summerland Market

2580 Lillie Avenue, Summerland (805) 969-5893 www.cantwellsmarket.com

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SPECIAL RECIPES FROM TALENTED CHEFS IN SB

QUICK BITES R

obin Goldstein, known as “Private Chef Robin” to her clientele, cooks for special events and private parties. Make your spice rack complete with her salt fusions such as Lemon-Rosemary, Chile-Garlic, and Mediterranean. Also, grab her cookbook A Taste of Ojai for more yummy recipes likely to entertain you palate.

ROASTED SWEET POTATOES AND FIGS Ingredients: 2 large sweet potatoes 5 tbsp olive oil 2 tsp of A Taste of Ojai Wild Fennel Sea Salt 1 tsp freshly ground pepper 3 spring onions, halved lengthwise and cut into 2-inchlong segments 1 red chili, thinly sliced or ½

teaspoon red chili flakes 4 tablespoons aged balsamic vinegar 8 ripe figs or dried mission figs, quartered 4 ounces soft goat cheese, crumbled *Serves 4

Directions:

Private Chef Robin (805) 284-4264 • www.atasteofOjai.com

Preheat oven to 425°F. Drizzle a baking sheet with 2 tbsp of olive oil.

Scrub sweet potato skins well, cut in half lengthwise, then cut each half lengthwise again into four long wedges, a total of 16 wedges. In a bowl, toss with 2 tbsp olive oil, sea salt, and pepper. On baking sheet, lay wedges and roast for 25 to 30 minutes. Flip wedges after about 15 minutes until golden brown. Add Robin’s pomegranate glaze to round up the flavors. Grub.

Raising the Bar

OLD TOWN COOLER Ingredients: 2 oz. Tito’s Vodka 1 oz. St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur

FAVORITE BARTENDERS AND SERIOUS COCKTAILS

M

DISCOUNTS DAILY

F

or local residents and visitors alike, the Santa Barbara Downtown app is updated every day to keep you posted on restaurant and bar specials, events, transportation services, and more. Exclusive discounts for mobile customers will keep you one step ahead of the game.

Download the free app from iTunes to get the party started.

1 1/2 oz. Lemon juice 2 oz. Club soda Dash of lavenderinfused simple syrup

Directions:

anager Brad Mueller has worked at Holdren’s Steaks and Seafood for a decade now. His native land is Tucson, Arizona, but when he moved to Santa Barbara 16 years ago, he never looked back.

Today, Brad serves us an “Old Town Cooler.” Fun Fact: Clay Holdren, owner of the place, made this drink for his wife and it’s said to be her favorite. Order Holdren’s mouth-watering fried calamari (seen here) to make a happy hour complete.

WHAT’SAPPENING

*Find Private Chef Robin products at A Santa Barbara Company, C’est Cheese, Isabella Gourmet Foods, the Santa Barbara Winery Tasting Room, Porch on Santa Claus Lane, and Viva Oliva in Montecito.

Combine ingredients into cocktail shaker and add ice. Shake. Pour contents into glass and garnish with a lemon round and lavender bud.

Holdren’s Steaks & Seafood 512 State Street • (805) 965-3363 www.holdrens.com • Instagram: @Holdrens_SB

SweetSpot:

THE

BUZZ WORTHY

Y

ou’ve seen them at the farmers market and local grocers, and you most likely have some of their products in your home. San Marcos Farms produces local honey, bee pollen, and beeswax candles through ethical practices that seem to make their products taste a little better than the rest. They also have crop-pollination services available, so you can add a San Marcos Farm touch to your farm or garden.

San Marcos Farms P.O. Box 60338, Santa Barbara (805) 681-0312 • info@sanmarcosfarms.com www.sanmarcosfarms.com

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Behind the Vine

by Hana-Lee Sedgwick

Hana-Lee Sedgwick is a writer, wine consultant and lover of all things wine and food. As a Santa Barbara native, she loves to explore the world of wine in and around her hometown. Visit her popular blog, Wander & Wine, for wine tips, tasting notes, and adventures in wine and travel, at wanderandwine.com.

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Animal House

A RESCUE WHO RESCUES

A NEW PLACE FOR OLD WINE Jeremy Bohrer and Sayward Rebhal, owners of Still and co-partners of Five & 1/4

M

eet Tequila, a 3-year-old miniature Schnauzer rescued from South America. She is a well-trained service dog who is loved by catering business owner Tuty Bon Gusto and her two daughters. Tequila can be seen with her owner almost everywhere, and you’ll know when she’s around – she always says hello with a howl!

To see your pet in ANIMAL HOUSE/Pet of the Week, email a photo, name of pet and owners, and some fun facts to megan@santabarbarasentinel.com

T

here’s a plethora of good wine being made in Santa Barbara County.

From big producers to small, we have plenty of great options to choose from, as you have probably realized from reading this column. Also great are the amount of places Santa Barbarans can enjoy said wine… from restaurants to tasting rooms and wine bars, we have a lot of options.

As much as I love wine from our backyard, I think it’s good to switch it up and try wines from different regions, too. Variety is the spice of life, right?

That’s the thinking that led Jeremy Bohrer and Sayward Rebhal, owners of the downtown barware shop, Still…

Elevate Your Ethanol, to partner with Yvan Morin of Pacific Crepes to open Five & 1/4 (pronounced “Five and a quarter”), a wine bar completely dedicated to Old World wines here in Santa Barbara.

Wine veteran Jeremy and girlfriend Sayward had been fans of Old World wines for years (Old World meaning the countries that are considered the birthplaces of wine), but grew frustrated with the high price tags that usually come with such wines. Although they thought a casual wine bar serving Old World wines would be what Santa Barbara needed, they put their focus into running Still.

After their business neighbor, Yvan, decided to start closing Pacific Crepes for dinner, Jeremy and Yvan got to talking about ways to use the space after 3 pm. Soon, they agreed to partner together on a new wine venture unique to Santa Barbara, and

PlantingRoots

by Frederique Lavoipierre Director of Education at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

SHRUBS AND TREES

L

Taste some Old World Wines, by the numbers, at 705 Anacapa Street

Five & 1/4 was born.

On Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, Pacific Crepes becomes Five & 1/4, a casual wine bistro collaboration between the two businesses, which is named after Sayward’s son who used to refer to his age in quarters. Here, you can enjoy unique and often rare wines from their rotating list, which features red and white wines in three categories: Safer, Stranger, and Geeky, depending on how adventurous you’re feeling. Also, to go with the theme, they offer two different wines by the glass for only $5.25, served in vintage glassware that you can purchase separately.

I have to say, I was impressed with the list of hard-to-find, interesting wines

ooking for something to fill a large gap in your landscape? Native shrubs and trees are the perfect choice, and now is a great time to plant them. Well-adapted to our local soils and climate, they are generally drought-tolerant and easy to grow and maintain. Some of the larger shrubs – for example Redbud, Toyon, Lemonade Berry, and some types of Manzanitas and Ceanothus – can be grown as a multi-stemmed shrub or, with a bit of pruning, a single-trunked small tree. But don’t be fooled into thinking a 25-foot tree is small. It will mature in proportion to a small garden, where a magnificent live oak would eventually be too large. Be sure to water the ground before planting, and keep your new shrub or tree watered until the rains have moistened the soil is well below the root zone, then water as needed between storms.

Santa Barbara Botanic Garden 1212 Mission Canyon Road, Santa Barbara (805) 682-4726, ext. 111 • flavoipierre@sbbg.org

from places such as France and Greece, all without a hefty price tag (glasses are $7 to $11 on average). They also have an interesting selection of seasonal and local food offerings, from light snacks such as rosemary cashews to more substantial savory chickpea pancakes.

Looking for a place to enjoy a glass of Vouvray or Txakoli while playing

a board game in a relaxed, casual atmosphere? Then definitely check out Five & 1/4 open Thursdays through Saturdays from 5:15-10 pm. It’s fun because it’s different. Cheers!

Five & 1/4 705 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara

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Local

the

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POINT VIEW

SPONSORED BY:

© Jason Niiya

O

n 1st Thursday, December 3, Samy’s will be unveiling their new Leica display. Representatives from Leica will be on hand to answer questions and display images shot with their unique and prestigious line of digital cameras. If you’ve never held a Leica, here’s your chance. At Samy’s Camera, the employees use and understand the equipment they sell. If you want the best advice on camera gear, visit your only local camera shop in downtown Santa Barbara.

SAMY’S SERVICES INCLUDE: • Camera & Video Sales • Film Processing • Digital Printing • Metal Prints • Full Rental Facility • Pro Lighting • Audio Equipment • And Much More

PHOTO INFO:

CAMERA - Leica D-LUX Typ 109 LENS - 24-75mm equiv. Shot at 28mm EXPOSURE - 1/500 s @ f/2.1 ISO - 200 LIGHTING - Natural LOCATION - Downtown Santa Barbara

PHOTOGRAPHER:

Samy’s Camera • 530 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 • (805) 963-7269

Jason Niiya Samy’s Camera Sales Dept. since 2009

Local

the

UPCLOSE ...continued from p.17

Nancy Hull, Low Tide at First Light

Nancy and William Hull

Sara Woodburn, Veronica Springs

Sara Woodburn

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Sara Woodburn and fellow artist Lynn Weber

America Martin Sara Woodburn, Thin Place – Ghost Ranch Series

10 years of America Solo Exhibition

Elizabeth Gordon Gallery

Sarah Carr, Mustard Hill, Arroyo Hondo

Opening Reception

Saturday, December 5th Sarah Carr, Quiet Evening Devereux

5-8 pm

Sarah Carr

William Hull, Mt. Rainer Springtime

Morgan Green, Cool In Her Grass Skirt

Elizabeth Gordon Gallery 15 West Gutierrez 805 • 963 • 1157

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Alyssa Davey and Sam Kulchin of The Caverns

OH YEAH, ALL RIGHT...

by Tommie Vaughn Tommie adapted her love of the stage to the love of the page. As lead singer for the band Wall of Tom, she created This Rock in My Heart and

This Roll in My Soul, a fictional book series based loosely on her experiences in the L.A. music scene. Now she’s spending her time checking out and writing about all things Santa Barbara. Reach Tommie at www.TommieV.com or follow her on Twitter at TommieVaughn1.

IN THE ROUND

W

ithin a loud room stands a lone axman. With his acoustic guitar in hand, an ever-so-slight shake in the knees and he is off, fingers like lightning flying across the strings. The room’s banter decreases as ears prick finally to notice a sound that isn’t a clinking of a glass, voracious laughter, or another bad ‘80s song. The room’s eyes turn toward a makeshift stage as the musician slides into his first verse, of a song that was written in the quiet of his own room, words that whisper from his own soul – fancifully floating out to the once bourgeois but now completely captivated audience.

He has them in the palm of his hand as

he descends into the chorus, transcending his gaunt, wrinkled appearance, as the beautiful women swoon at his sensual song, seeing their heart strings being artfully plucked by their future exhusband for the first time.

Is this some kind of wet dream or bad B movie that has settled upon Santa Barbara? No, I try to stick to the facts, even though I love a good tall tale – but what I speak of is happening every Wednesday Night at the Funk Zone’s biggest hot spot, Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company. It’s called Singer/Songwriter Wednesdays and I experienced it first-hand, watching with glee at the young girls squealing

grab a pint, and hear some original music. “This isn’t an open-mic night by any means,” Tony says, “It’s all set up

by Polly and Steve, who know a lot of songwriters from Santa Barbara, Ojai, and Los Angeles. We wanted to give acoustic music a shot, where talented musicians could have a platform to test-run new material. Usually, they play three to four songs and if we really like them and they get a great reaction, we may book them as a full band for a longer set at one of our taprooms.”

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at a sensitive ponytail man and the frat boys nodding and tapping their toes to a bubbly girl, whose baby-doll voice is keeping their rapt attention – not on the TVs or the scantily clad waitress, but on the small corner stage where musician after musician, duo after duo, put their art on the line and stepped into the round.

THE BLUEBIRD’S SONG

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“In the Round” is actually an old songwriters term that got its roots from Nashville, music capital of the U.S., where the songwriters flock year after year, to the unassuming yet irreplaceable Bluebird Café – all for a chance to sit in a circle with some of the greatest songwriters of our time, where musicians can sell a song to the biggest artists in show business in just about three minutes time.

With the help of Polly Ann and Steve Hoganson, the fabulous couple behind “The Ones To Watch Productions” and Fig Mountain’s own Retail Operations manager Tony Grimes, who is an amazing musician himself, they have created a night that is not to miss on our favorite day of the week to go out,

The talent is out there and with the emcee being Sam Kulchin of Santa Barbara’s beloved band The Caverns, you know you’re going to see him step up to the plate with his Oxford shoes keeping mad time as his fingers tear up his Martin Acoustic. Local darlings The Brambles have been regulars on Wednesdays, as well as a few surprises from touring musicians who just happen to be passing through town. You never know who you’re going to see as the new night has been picking up speed, with last week’s crowd at full capacity to see some heartfelt crooners dish up their soul on a tasty platter.

I promise that you will love it – every artist may not be your style, some might not resonate with your euro-pop taste.

But every one has an original song to sing, so that you can appreciate how courageous these musicians are. It’s easy for anyone to step up to a karaoke microphone and cover another’s tune, but to stand emotionally naked in front of your peers singing your heart out for all to judge – now those guts are golden in my book.

I hope to see you there; I just might be the naked one in the round.

Figueroa Mountain’s Singer Songwriter Acoustic Wednesdays from 6:30 to 9:30 pm, 137 Anacapa Street. For more information on joining the stage, contact Polly Ann Hoganson at: www.onestowatchproductions.com

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PLANB by Briana Westmacott

yummy, local bottles delivered directly to your door. You can impress your guests and save time on your grocery list. Check out the details for Section’s wine club membership in my Best Bets.

When Briana isn’t lecturing for her writing courses at UCSB and SBCC, she contributes to The Santa Barbara Skinny, Wake & Wander and Flutter Magazine. Along with her passion for writing and all things Santa Barbara, much of her time is spent multitasking through her days as a mother, wife, sister, want-to-be chef and travel junky.

Writing is an outlet that ensures mental stability... usually.

A GAL’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING THE HOLIDAYS Last year, I happily followed “holiday survival” tip number one, and this was my Christmas tree on Roatan Island. Don’t I wish I could have the same tree this year, too!

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did not heed to Halloween’s warning. Somehow, I forgot that after the costumes come off and the candy is eaten, we are hit with a flurry of: recitals, cocktail parties, parades, sings, baking, shopping, and wrapping. Before I know it, 2016 will be here. I’m already questioning my survival.

I really wish that I were one of those people who have all of their holiday shopping and cards done before Thanksgiving blows into town. But I’m not. I’m never even close. I’m usually the one who is running around days before Christmas, cold and miserable and Grinch-like.

All of this got me thinking; there must be a better way to go about the holiday hurricane. So, I sat down and wrote up a list of ways to alleviate some of the seasonal madness. Here they are – tips on how to endure (and hopefully enjoy) the holidays: 1. SKIP IT. Yes, you still have time to buy a plane ticket to an exotic island far, far away. If not this year, maybe next, but definitely try it once. It really does nurture the soul to skip the whole darn thing.

2. CHEAT. No, not on your spouse – that would only make things worse – but you can and should cheat on the cooking and the wrapping. Whole Foods and Gelson’s will make any and every part of your holiday meal, and you can easily plop that food onto your own platter and smile like you spent days and weeks

preparing it all. For the wrapping, there are tons of pop-up wrapping fundraisers in December. Just keep an eye out for where you can drop those gifts and come back to find them wrapped better than you could have after hours of rolling around with paper and ribbons.

3. DITCH THE CARD. It costs tons of money for the photography and the printing. That, coupled with all the time you spend updating those addresses and shipping them all out, imagine the freedom you will gain if you simply don’t do it this year. When all the other cards start arriving in your mailbox, don’t dwell in guilt; you’ll send one next year and that will be here before you know it.

4. JUST SAY NO. It’s okay to respond “No” to half, if not all, of those holiday parties. Remember, if it isn’t going to bring you joy, don’t do it. Most holiday parties only bring me a hangover.

5. GLUTTON (AND GLUTEN) IS NOT GOOD. I know it’s easier said than done, but if you avoid overeating and overdrinking, you will feel so much better. Who isn’t guilty of overindulging during all of the December festivities?

This year, I’m going to try staying on track with my pre-holiday habits that usually (usually) keep me healthier and happier. I’ve even given up gluten for the next month; wish me luck with that!

6. JOIN A WINE CLUB. I know, this completely contradicts number 5;

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My girls, years and years ago, all festive and holiday-ready

however, the wine that gets delivered isn’t for you. It’s for your guests. My good friends at Section Wines have a super wine club offer. Once you join, you get

BRIANA’S BEST BET

T

his past summer, I wrote a column about the guys at Section Wines and got a chance to visit Section’s vineyards and winemaking facility. During the visit, I tasted some of the wine that you can now buy when you join their wine club – and let me just say, it’s good. Sign up now to get your holiday bottles delivered: www. sectionwines.com Knit Fit is a local craft shop that has launched a heartwarming project. They have partnered with Cottage Hospital to provide a gift to children when they are admitted into care. For just $15, you can purchase a Knit Fit Kit that will be given to a sick child when they are admitted at Cottage. The kit has all the art and paint supplies for the children to create something special that they can keep in their room and take home once they have recovered.

What a wonderful gift this holiday season! Contact Knit Fit at www.knitfit. org or go to one of their stores in Santa Barbara or Solvang to purchase a kit.

7. ENLIST HELP. I always find it hard to ask for or accept help, but when someone offers to bring a side dish or a dessert, just say yes. And be proactive.

Hire someone to help with the cleaning before or after your guests come. It may sound extravagant, but the time that you save by not having to scrub the kitchen floor can be better spent enjoying your family.

8. DONATE YOUR TIME. Nothing brings more happiness than giving to others. Take some time this year to volunteer at a homeless shelter. Or you can take a group of children caroling at a retirement community. Bake something special and randomly distribute some cheer to people along State Street. All of these activities will bring you more joy than the shopping and the cleaning.

9. ENFORCE THE “MAGIC” OF THE SEASON. I’m referring to the Elf on the Shelf, the “Santa knows if you’ve been bad or good,” the Hanukkah Helper, any or all of the wonderful threats parents can use on their children during the holidays. You really only have fewer than four weeks to pull from these extrinsic motivators, so make each day count.

That’s it. I swear if you utilize just some of these survival tips, your fetes will be much more delightful. It’s always good to remember that the focus of it all should be the moments you are sharing with your loved ones. And if things start to spiral into chaos, simply pour another glass of wine. It’s the holidays!

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SASHA ABLITT OF ABLITT’S FINE CLEANERS & LAUNDERERS

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5 ThingsYouDidn’tKnowAbout: Q&A

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n Santa Barbara, Sasha Ablitt is the woman behind those lean, green washing machines. Her family has been in the dry-cleaning business for more than 100 years and five generations. After buying Ablitt’s Fine Cleaners & Launderers from her parents in 2002, Sasha dedicated herself to reducing the business’s carbon footprint and racked up a Green Business Certified membership along the way. (Ablitt’s is also a part of the Association of Wedding Gown Specialists, so you can eco-clean your dress for the big day.) Follow this “Queen of Clean” on Instagram: @ sbqueenofclean.

JOSH BROUGH

OF POOR MAN’S WHISKEY

A

group of UCSB grads make up Poor Man’s Whiskey, a band which has 6 studio albums under their worn-in, leather belts.

Since forming, PMW has brought bluegrass/ southern rock music to towns and festivals throughout our great country. We saw them at SOhO along with a large, foot-stompin’ crowd. Read below as Josh (who commands the banjo, harmonica, and vocals) and the Local get more acquainted.

1. You know those little, round air vents above your seat on an airplane? On the Boeing 737, that’s my name on the patent.

2. I’m a rocket scientist. Academically speaking, I hold a bachelor’s of science in aerospace engineering from UCLA. I earned my MBA-international business from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

3. Ablitt’s has been named among America’s Best Cleaners for years.

4. I’m particularly proud of the national magazine Inc. using the Ablitt’s team as a case study because our leadership development program is the most important facet at the cleaners. We have three coaches teaching managers how to develop employees. Our focus on employees allows us to be a more conscious business. Every day gets better.

5. My parents are Tiny House Movement pioneers. Their footprint is 20 x 20 feet. Yes, not a typo: 20. Two-oh.

Sasha Ablitt Ablitt’s Fine Cleaners 14 W. Gutierrez Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 (805) 963-6677 • sales@ablitts.com

Take A Hike

by Andy Wood

FRANKLIN TRAIL

S

tarting at Carpinteria High School, the Franklin Trail connects the beach-town to the backcountry into the Los Padres National Forest. The trail begins at Carp High, then circles around the school and heads up the hills. The path was closed in the 1970s, but the combined efforts of multiple organizations and volunteers has reopened two phases of the trail, totaling 5.2 miles. With enough funding, the last phase will add 2.7 miles – on the historic trail used more than100 years ago – that will connect over the mountain top to Jameson Lake. For more information on how you can contribute to the reopening, visit the Friends of Franklin Trail at www.FranklinTrail.org.

Directions: Franklin Trail From downtown Carpinteria, drive away from town on Linden Avenue and take a left on Meadow View Lane and park.

You can also park on Sterling Avenue next to Franklin Park. You’ll see a sign that will take you across Foothill Road at the high school. Follow the signs that will direct you around the left side of the school.

Q. Where are y’all from?

A. Originally from Marin and the other guys are from Santa Rosa.

What is your go-to place when you come back to visit?

I always love to go to Jalama. Going surfing at the Jalama camp ground area is my favorite place.

What made you guys go toward a Southern sound?

We actually saw a bluegrass band playing at Cold Spring Tavern, the Cache Valley Drifters, and we were just blown away by that. We had never even heard bluegrass before and were like, “What is going on here?!” And that’s how we decided to pick up these acoustic instruments and really go deep into the bluegrass world, to go to the roots and discover it all from there.

How is it to play in SB? It’s like a reunion for me. All my college friends that have stuck around show up, and it’s kind of this twice-a-year time that we can all connect.

It’s sort of an excuse for everyone to come out – especially with the ones that have kids – it’s few and far between that we get together.

If you could pick any person to play in front of, who would it be?

That’s a tough one but at this point, it would have to be Willie Nelson. He’s my hero. He’s still doing it.

Poor Man’s Whiskey Instagram: @pmwhiskey www.poormanswhiskey.com

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IHeart SB

BY Elizabeth Rose

I Heart SB is a social experiment in dating and relationships through stories shared with and experienced by a thirty-something living in the Greater Santa Barbara area. All stories herein are based on actual events. Some names, places, and timelines have been altered to preserve anonymity and, most of all, for your reading enjoyment. Submit stories (maximum 700 words) to letters@santabarbarasentinel.com.

THE ART OF KISSING

“F

or a kiss can never be absolutely defined. Because each kiss is different form the one before and the one after. Just as no two people are alike, so are no two kisses alike. For it is people who make kisses.

Real, live people pulsating with life and love and extreme happiness.” These are the words of Hugh Morris, author of The Art of Kissing published in 1936.

Some of Morris’s descriptions come as a shock; he busts out some chauvinistic remarks in a few passages. (Repressed anger, my guess.) Although we do not endorse all of his ideas, the overall poetic expressions can make you melt and may bring out a chuckle or two.

Hope you enjoy.

Excerpts from The Art of Kissing by Hugh Morris:

APPROVED METHODS OF KISSING

A man must be able to sweep a woman into his strong arms, tower over her, look down into her eyes, cup her chin in his fingers, and then bend over her face and plant his eager, virile lips on her moist, slightly parted, inviting ones. All of these are impossible where the woman is the taller of the two. When the situation is reversed, the kiss becomes a ludicrous banality.

PREPARING FOR THE KISS

The breath should be kept always sweet and pure so that, when the lips are opened, the breath will be like an aromatic breeze. Sometimes it is advisable to touch the corners of the mouth with perfume. The teeth should be kept cleaned and polished.

Nothing can dampen a young man’s ardour, or a young woman’s, for that matter, than a row of brown-stained, unkempt teeth.

HOW TO APPROACH A GIRL

In kissing a girl whose experience with osculation is limited, it is a good thing to work up to the kissing of the lips.

Only an arrant fool seizes hold of such a girl, shoves his face into hers and smacks her lips. Hold her gently but firmly and allay her fears with kind, reassuring words. Your next step is to flatter her in some way. All women like to be flattered. They like to be told they are beautiful, even when the mirror throws the lie back into their ugly faces.

THE FRENCH “SOUL” KISS

There is more to your tongue than its tip. Probe further. Gently caress each other’s tongues. For, in doing this, you are merging your souls. That is why this kiss was called the “soul” kiss by the French, who were said to be the first people to have perfected it. It is because of the fact that they dropped Puritanism many years ago that the French were able to perfect themselves in the art of love and, particularly, of kissing.

Learn from the French.

THE “VACUUM” KISS

Open your mouth a trifle, then indicate to your partner that you wish her to do likewise. Then instead of caressing her mouth, suck inward as though you were trying to draw out the innards of an orange. If she knows of this kiss variation, your maid will act in the same way and withdraw the air from your mouth. In a short while, the air will have been entirely drawn out of your mouths. Your lips will adhere so tightly that there will almost be pain, instead of pleasure. But it will be highly pleasurable pain.

Reprinted in 1988 by an unidentified publisher.

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SYVSNAPSHOT

by Eva Van Prooyen Keeping a finger on the pulse of the Santa Ynez Valley: what to eat, where to go, who to meet, and what to drink. Pretty much everything and anything situated between the Santa Ynez and San Rafael Mountains that could tickle one’s interest.

Serving up a Dash of Southern

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eg Ivy is described as an artist in the kitchen. Born in Austell, Georgia, and raised in Gadsden, Alabama, Peg, a true Southern belle, says, “My mom raised all nine of us alone, and we learned to cook by taste and memory, without a cookbook or measuring cup.” Peg explains it took a good amount of time and many attempts to translate her collection of mentally stored recipes into ones with actual measurements for her cookbook, A Dash of Southern.

“A Dash of Southern was written as a legacy cookbook for my three daughters,” says Peg, adding, “I am a stage- Peg Ivy is Pegilicious and author of A Dash of Southern cookbook four breast cancer survivor. All of these recipes were closely held family secrets, and my daughters weren’t sure they were going to get them. It took a long time, but it kept me focused and gave me a purpose to see it through.”

Don’t let the title fool you, you won’t find sweet potato pie or fried chicken in her cookbook. The title pays homage to how Peg learned to cook and still cooks in the kitchen, “always adding an extra dash of this or and extra dash of that,” she says. Among the 160 recipes foodies and fellow kitchen artisans will find crab cakes, individual beef Wellingtons, warm turkey salad, sun-dried tomato pesto brie, carrot cake, and cherry cheesecake, not to mention candies and caramels.

In the back is a “Recipe for Living. It’s how I faced my cancer,” says Peg. “Taking chances and having the courage to face it – it’s my philosophy and how I personally feel. Take control of your treatment. I did a lot of research and told my oncologist, ‘I’m going for the gold; bronze or silver is not going to work for me. Do what you gotta do, dust off your feet and keep moving.” Peg explains she wanted to show her three girls there is a life after breast cancer.

Her cookbook is loaded with beautiful pictures, and Peg reports she did all the styling herself and the featured table settings, displays, and linens are all her own. Pegs says, “This book is one-hundred percent pure me. Now my girls can always come home and sit at mom’s table.”

Peg came to California with her high school band for a competition at the age of 15; she played the saxophone and they won the national championship. “We went to Disneyland and I said, ‘This will be my home.’ This little girl from the sticks of Alabama was in another world,” says Peg, who moved to Santa Ynez in 1979 and has been here ever since.

Peg has been cooking for friends, family, co-workers, and celebrities for decades. She opened a catering business in 1985, ran the gourmet food circuit with Sunset Magazine food shows, once owned Zom’s Country Kitchen in Solvang, and was the first-place, blue-ribbon winner of the best upside-down apple pie and pecan pie at Los Olivos Day in the Country pie contest in 2013 and 2014.

Cookbooks and kitchen essentials can be ordered online at her “Pegilicious Store” – for more information, visit www.pegilicious.com or call (805) 691-9116.

Eva’s Top Faves:

My personal picks, best bets, hot tips, save the dates, and things not to miss!

Solvang Julefest 2015

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he town of Solvang delivers big in the “holiday cheer” department throughout December. The grand announcement the holidays are upon us begins with

a living Christmas tree display with more than 130 businesses throughout the village decorating and flaunting their evergreens. Santa also arrives at his Solvang-based village to visit with all those – both naughty and nice. Caroling sing-a-long, Christmas music by the Valley Wine Ensemble, Santa Ynez Valley Union High School Vocal Ensemble, Solvang School Band, dancing ballerinas, and tap dancers from Fossemalle Dance Studio performances all culminate in the lighting of the Christmas tree, with a Christmas parade the following morning. Shop, mingle, jingle, stroll, and explore special events throughout the town all month long.

When: Friday, December 4, Tree Lighting Ceremony from 5 to 6:30 pm, visit Santa 4 to 8 pm; Saturday December 5, Christmas parade at 11 am; December Julefest Wine Walk ($40) 12 and 13 from 11 am to 4 pm.

Where: Solvang Park, corner of Mission Drive (Highway 246) and First Street in Solvang.

Info: www.solvangusa.com

Fifth Annual Turkey Trot 5K Run/Walk

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fter stuffing yourself with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, glazed carrots, stuffing, pumpkin pie and other holiday goodies, run it off with a “just for fun” 5k run/walk the day after Thanksgiving. Grab everyone you know and join in the fun at Sunny Fields Park on Friday, November 27, at 10 am. The event raises money for the local Salvation Army chapter.

When: Friday, November 27, at 10 am Where: Sunny Fields Park, on Alamo Pintado in Solvang Cost: $28 per registrant Info: www.cityofsolvang.com

Fig Mountain’s Fifth

Celebrate Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company’s 5th Anniversary with a bottle release of their Doppelbock aged eight months in rum barrels. A rich, malty sweetness melds with a subtle toasted character from the traditional Munich malts. Complex notes of caramel and toffee pair with vanilla aromas from barrel aging to create a beer worthy of celebration. Live music by Mark MacCay, OneTwo Tree, and The Bomb food, games (including Keg & Stein Holding contests) and more. Bottles will be for sale at all Fig taprooms starting November 28.

When: Saturday, November 28, from 1 to 9 pm Where: Fig Mtn Buellton Taproom, 45 Industrial Way in Buellton Info: (805) 694-2252

Ladies Only – Wine, Shopping, and Chair Massages

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alley Grind is a full-service coffee house and urban general store featuring a full espresso bar, locally roasted coffee beans, fresh fruit smoothies, bagel sandwiches, farm-to-table quiches, baked goods, and a holiday worthy assortment of eclectic boutique items. Owner Chelsey Williams is hosting a ladies’ night out of holiday shopping with wine, hors d’oeuvres, and chair massages. Lots of quirky, funky, unique, and fun stuff to choose from. Pick up a pair of Sock It To Me funky socks adorned with ninjas, unicorns, monkeys, mustaches, monsters, or beer, a jar of Jimmy’s BBQ Sweet and Spicy Redneck Rub, soaps, candles, sweatshirts, and my personal favorite: California state bear holding a surfboard tree ornament.

When: Thursday, December 5, from 5 to 8 pm Where: Valley Grind, 3558 Sagunto Street in Santa Ynez Info: (805) 688-1506, www.valleygrindcoffee.com

Pop, Clink, Fizz

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et your reservations in early and ring in 2016 in style with a New Year’s Eve Dinner & Dance Party at Root 246, a fine-dining restaurant featuring farm fresh American cuisine and an extensive selection of local wines, whiskey, craft beer, and signature cocktails. Prix-fixe and à la carte menus, happy hour specials, party favors, professional photo booth, no-host bar, dance party fun with DJ Danny Vasquez, and a champagne toast and mini desserts at midnight.

When: Thursday, December 31 – The fun starts with happy hour 5 to 9 pm, followed by dinner, and dance party 9:30 pm to 1 am Where: Root 246, 420 Alisal Road in Solvang Cost: $85 per person prix fixe, or $35 per person for dance party only Info: (805) 686-8681, www.root-246.com

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CINEMA SCOPE

by James Luksic A longtime writer, editor and film critic, James has worked

nationwide for several websites and publications – including the Dayton Daily News, Key West Citizen, Topeka Capital-Journal and Santa Ynez Valley Journal. California is his eighth state. When he isn’t watching movies or sports around the Central Coast, you can find James writing and reading while he enjoys coffee and bacon, or Coke and pizza.

Better and Better

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y top 10 list for this year, with many of Hollywood’s heavy hitters still on deck, is almost full – as I recommend without hesitation a solid nine: Love & Mercy, Sicario, Ex Machina, Steve Jobs, Child 44, Black Mass, Far From the Madding Crowd, the documentary Amy, and Bridge of Spies. They signify impressive competition and good company, with lofty expectations for upcoming Spotlight, The Revenant, Joy, Brooklyn, The Hateful Eight, Concussion – you get the idea.

Suffragette, temporarily moved to this critic’s back burner (despite a fondness for Carey Mulligan), will get appraised soon enough. Same goes for The Big Short, which grows from Michael Lewis’s book concerning the 2007-10 financial crisis and underbelly of major banks. Any trepidation stems not from its fearsome foursome – Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Steve Carell, and Brad Pitt – but comedic-minded overseer Adam McKay, known for helming Anchorman and Step Brothers.

In general, this introductory segment focuses on those films with Academy Awards potential. Having endured two lengthy trailers, however, for Secret in Their Eyes (even its vague title is hackneyed), I sense the type of bloated rat one can smell for miles, despite a trio of formidable headliners: Julia Roberts, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Nicole Kidman. The premise, centered around avenging the homicide of an investigator’s daughter, allows scant space for neutrality or ingenuity; the dumb-downed dialogue about tracking the killer – “I will find him!” – wouldn’t be amiss in a five-and-dime gumshoe caper. Director Billy Ray, once known for the sharp Shattered Glass, now appears to think revenge is a dish best served with melodramatic mush.

A limited list of motion pictures that have been flickering for a week or longer:

Safety in Numbers

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he 33 marks an earnest, profound effort to chronicle the real-life terror and despair of the Chilean miners trapped underground for more than two months in 2010. Armchair doubters who downplay Mexican director Patricia Riggen’s project as trumped-up or “inaccurate” would be hard-pressed to create a grander version. Weaknesses cited include “too many characters,” as if those observers think it’s plausible to thoroughly flesh-out all 33 individuals plus their loved ones. (Such criticisms seem as obtuse as they are irresponsible.)

No question, Riggen’s crew should’ve pumped the brakes on excessive close-up shots, the political moments feel simplified and bowtied, while casting Bob Gunton – an American – as Chile’s president is a real howler. Conversely, Antonio Banderas dispenses an Oscar-worthy performance, with dignified support from Rodrigo Santoro and Juliette Binoche. The late James Horner’s final score is a suitable, triumphant curtain call.

Tough Love

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ove The Coopers – whose title lacks a comma (after “Love”) and thus reads as if an instruction – is another domesticated dramedy along the lines of 1995’s lukewarm Home for the Holidays and 2005’s touching The Family Stone. The concept of enlisting an acclaimed cast (Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Alan Arkin) to chew on wide-ranging, everyday material soon dissolves into a fusion of soap opera and hammy sitcom. Behind the camera, Jessie Nelson pushes and pulls, constantly

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striving to take sides while appealing to viewers from all walks of life; Steve Martin is the loquacious voice-over narrator who speaks as if delivering a bedtime story.

Conned, James Conned

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pectre signals the latest in the James Bond franchise that has strolled, fought, smirked, jumped, and slogged through a half-century on screen. By now, author Ian Fleming’s original hero must be an octogenarian, though – as portrayed

by Daniel Craig – Bond still looks 25 years younger. The man defies age as the series motors onward in an undying manner. This time, Bond’s past sends him on a rogue mission to Mexico City, then to Rome (the “Eternal” City, appropriate because the 007 machine seems endless) to unveil the titular organization, led by an old nemesis (Christoph Waltz).

Filmmaker Sam Mendes also helmed the previous installment, superior Skyfall – but overstuffed Spectre fails to compare on most levels; the exception is new Bond girl Lea Seydoux (Midnight in Paris), a beauty with brains. To suggest 007 and company have become directorproof is more than fair. To wit: during the initial sequence, an out-of-control helicopter had potential to excite – until spiraling into tedium, due to lazy editing and a predictable outcome.

Even so, this money-making machine churns onward; though sometimes cool and nimble, it’s more often an exhausting grind. The protagonist’s token romances and cheeky quips have given way to subdued tension.

Spectre’s pre-release scuttlebutt was that Craig doesn’t wish to portray 007 again because the actor’s heart isn’t in it. The same could be said about his writers and director.

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