Here they are, nine necessary know-abouts for the week ahead. It’s the Leap Day B9:

  1. Special show of glorious Irish music with singer Eilis Kennedy and Santa Cruz guitar master William Coulter in Scotts Valley on Saturday. 
  2. Tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki has a few ideas on how you can live your best life, and he’s willing to share them.  
  3. He’s jazz royalty — simple as that. And, yes, you can see Branford Marsalis up close Monday.
  4. The Watsonville Film Festival kicks off next week, and if you like cool cars, you’re gonna want to know about it.
  5. Many of UCSC’s most promising grad students square off to see who can excite an audience more with their research. It’s Grad Slam time.
  6. Come celebrate all things Squidward, with a big party and jam session to honor our fine and scrappy community radio station KSQD. 
  7. If you remember the Buena Vista Social Club, surely you know the amazing Cuban sonero Eliades Ochoa. If you’re holding a ticket to his Kuumbwa show, consider yourself lucky.
  8. Three days of amazing feats and beguiling vistas, an armchair adventurer’s nirvana. The Banff Mountain Film Festival moves into the Rio.
  9. Journalist and familiar NPR voice Michele Norris will be in town to lead an insightful discussion of race in America.

Wallace reports and writes not only across his familiar areas of deep interest — including arts, entertainment and culture — but also is chronicling for Lookout the challenges the people of Santa Cruz...