Hi friends,
Since we’re in the middle of the Stanley Cup playoffs, hockey fans might remember Ray Bourque, the star player who played for years without winning a championship until he was traded to a good team his final year, and then finally reached the mountaintop. After this week’s announcement that Lookout Santa Cruz won a Pulitzer Prize, I am feeling a distinct kinship to Ray Bourque, the old gray bear latching on with a pack of young and hungry wolves to bag the ultimate quarry. I’m so deeply honored to be part of this team of fine journalists.
Hey Ray, call me.
Now, on with the show.
This Just In!
Google’s innovation czar, Frederik Pferdt, is coming to Bookshop Santa Cruz to discuss his new book on June 18. Our friends at Santa Cruz Shakespeare have a date to present a preview of their upcoming season at Bookshop on June 24. The trippy SoCal psychedelic band the Allah-Las return to the Rio Theatre on Sept. 27. The great Brazilian musician and songwriter Ivan Lins will perform at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center on July 22. Ben Ottewell & Ian Ball, well known for their band Gomez, play Felton Music Hall on Oct. 12. And a collaboration of local musicians including Jaeger & Reid and Aileen Vance comes together to celebrate the life and music of the iconic Pete Seeger at Kuumbwa on June 9.
Be sure to check out Lookout’s carefully curated and constantly updated planning guide, Down the Line, for the staggering riches and amazing choices awaiting Santa Cruz audiences. It’s our look ahead at the best shows, concerts and events through the rest of the year at clubs, stages and venues all over the county.
Here they are, nine necessary know-abouts for the week ahead. It’s the merry-month-of-May B9:
First Friday’s 20th
We just had another fab First Friday last week, but the next one? Could be special. June’s First Friday will mark the 20th anniversary of the Santa Cruz art tour that has grown and evolved to be embraced by a wide range of artists and venues.
The tour’s director, Bree Karpavage, told me that she sent out an open call for artists to submit art pieces for a special group show at the Radius Gallery to take place June 7. She said that 99 artists responded to the open call (now closed), and the show, looking back at First Friday’s 20 years, will be called “Changing Spaces.”
“We really didn’t give out a lot of rules about what to submit,” she said, “because we really just wanted to leave it to artists to decide what they wanted to submit.”
We’ll hear more from Bree and First Friday co-founder Kirby Scudder as we go deeper into First Friday’s anniversary in a future story. I was the Sentinel’s arts editor when the event was established, so I got a front-row seat to see how far it’s come.
The future at PVA
Watch for big things on the horizon at Pajaro Valley Arts. After securing a new site last year at the Porter Building in downtown Watsonville, PVA has now announced new leadership.
The arts group’s new executive director is Miriam Anton, a veteran of arts sales and marketing with a particular interest in DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) issues in the art world. We’ll visit with Miriam in the coming weeks to get her take on PVA’s future engagement in the community and her ideas on what lies ahead. Stay tuned.
Tseng at Bookshop
Here’s a chance to interact with UC Santa Cruz creative writing professor Jennifer Tseng. She’s part of The Hive’s latest poetry reading at Bookshop Santa Cruz, alongside Salvadoran American poet Alexandra Lytton Regalado.
Tseng recently won the Juniper Prize for Poetry for her new book, “Thanks for Letting Us Know You’re Alive.” The event happens next Tuesday, May 14, at 7 p.m. It’s free but be sure to register.
Living like Amy
Our friend, the Santa Cruz writer and journalist Amy Ettinger, who died of cancer in March, didn’t quite make it to her 50th birthday. Her husband, Dan White, and those close to her will mark the occasion on Wednesday, May 15. As a fitting tribute to Amy, on the moment she would have hit the half-century mark, Dan has established a lovely touchstone for his wife titled “Live Like Amy” that seeks to gather ideas and inspirations of how “to say yes to life.” It’s a wonderful way to transform the sorrow of Amy’s loss to the joy of her life. Check it out and add your ideas of how to say yes to life.
Earworm of the Week
We’re up to the 1980s in our roll through the decades with popular music’s greatest duos. And this week we’re landing on Dead Can Dance, the amazing Australian band centered on the otherworldly talents of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. If you’re not familiar with DCD, they created a uniquely eerie sound that evoked ancient European ritual and magick (yes, with a K) tabbed “dark wave.” Gerrard and Perry each brought different vocal styles to the group’s sound — she had a gift at spine-tingling, wordless keening and he had a mesmerizing style that suggested a medieval shaman. Together, in the mid ’80s, they helped create the distinctive vibe associated with the British label 4AD. DCD’s career reached its peak in the 1990s, but even today, their music, steeped in a kind of Renaissance sense of majesty, sounds fresh and often more than a bit spooky. Let’s dive in with a track from the 1988 album “The Serpent’s Egg” called “Severance,” and if you feel like you should be wearing a black robe and ghost-walking through an abandoned church in Romania, well, you’re not alone.
All the Earworms in one place
For those who’ve been following my Earworm of the Week, I’ve assembled a playlist that contains them all.
That’s all I got, friends. Come at me with comments, ideas, complaints, or thundering insights. Thanks to all Lookout members for your faith and support, and please, spread the word on what we’re doing.