Carla H. Brown, a self-professed “recovering serious person,” is the planet’s best at conjuring laughter when there’s nothing specific to laugh at. She leads an online Santa Cruz group of 1,000 aiming to tap into laughter’s documented health benefits, and says winning the global competition gives her “a way to bolster the importance of joy and levity and laughter as a tool for healing and well-being.”
Coast Life
Posted inUncategorized
How I Got My Job: NOAA fish researcher Tom Laidig on spending 31 days at sea for work
Tom Laidig’s job as a fish researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration takes him out in some of the deepest parts of the ocean to study the ecosystem hundreds — even thousands — of feet underwater. Laidig’s current research involves environmental DNA, where scientists take a water sample and run the DNA to see what is present in the ecosystem at different points along the coast and how it changes, in part to understand the effects of climate change on marine life.
Posted inLatest News
Record wet winter inflicted more than $210M in damage to California parks — $100M at Seacliff alone
California state parks have declared $187 million in damage to 85 state parks in January’s FEMA storm event, with an additional $23 million in March’s storm event. Seacliff State Beach in Aptos accounted for more than $100 million.
Posted inCity Life
Go along for the ride as latest Catamaran sets sail
The author himself will be among the writers, poets and artists on hand Tuesday at Bookshop Santa Cruz for the launch of the Summer 2023 edition of the Catamaran Literary Reader.
Posted inCity Life
Remembering George Winston and Santa Cruz’s connection to a musical tradition
George Winston, who died June 4, is best known for his piano oeuvre, but Dancing Cat Records, his Santa Cruz-based recording label, helped keep Hawaiian slack-key guitar alive and gave many of its practitioners a boost.
Posted inCity Life
K-Squid turns it up for summer on strength of new signal
Beginning June 21, Santa Cruz’s KSQD 90.7 FM will be beaming into radios as far away as Carmel and perhaps tripling its audience after a successful fundraising campaign enabled the station to buy additional licenses.
Posted inCity Life
Math, music and the Mutantrumpet: Indexical hosts a dance of disciplines
It’s a different sort of equation Friday as mathematician and former UC Santa Cruz professor Ralph Abraham joins forces with horn player Ben Neill.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter staff raise alarm over working conditions, labor shortages
Workers and volunteers at the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter have been stretched thin in recent years, and voiced their concerns to the shelter’s board of directors Monday. Though next year’s budget includes a 3% cost-of-living wage adjustment, short staffing and the difficulty of performing important, low-cost services are weighing on the workers.
Posted inLatest News
Santa Cruz County Fair names Zeke Fraser new CEO
Longtime Santa Cruz local Zeke Fraser was named the county fair’s new manager Thursday, replacing Ken Alstott, who was hired in April on an interim basis. Fraser has a background in finance, property management and operations and has most recently been working for the Santa Cruz-based digital publishing company FileOpen Systems.
Posted inCity Life
Mount Madonna’s immortal epic returns for 44th year
Mount Madonna School near Watsonville has long used the musical “Ramayana!” as an educational tool and a community-building experience for its students, and this year’s production of the theater epic based on a Sanskrit story from ancient India takes place Thursday through Sunday at the Mexican Heritage Theater in San Jose.