Here they are, nine necessary know-abouts for the week ahead. It’s the jump-scare B9:
- She’s the brilliant artistic mind behind one of the most moving music sequences in modern cinema. “Wise Up” singer-songwriter Aimee Mann is in our town.
- Downtown Watsonville simply is never more enchanting than on Día de Los Muertos, when it becomes a wonderland of ofrendas and calaveras. Experience it.
- Lovers of vintage cars will be crowding the Beach Boardwalk’s big parking lot this weekend to see the automotive beauty pageant known as Hot Rods at the Beach.
- South African jazz pianist Nduduzo Makhathini brings a vibrant vision, born of African spirituals and American jazz to the Kuumbwa on Monday.
- Santa Cruz’s most prominent voice on the national poetry scene, Ellen Bass, takes center stage at the annual Morton Marcus Poetry Reading next week.
- It’s true, the Brookdale Lodge is haunted — at least this weekend, when all kinds of otherworldly spirits descend upon the Ghostland festival.
- Maybe you don’t know the name Snatam Kaur. But maybe you’ll be open to experiencing kirtan and other Indian devotional music with her at The Rio.
- He gave so much soul to Old Crow Medicine Show, but now Willie Watson is on his own path of exploring deep-rooted American folk music.
- Yeah, we get it. Your impulse on Election Night is to go camping in some place with no cell service, and absorb all the drama Wednesday morning. But come out to Nail-Biter 2024 at The Rio and celebrate/mourn with the rest of us. We need you.

