It’s hard to believe that the mind that framed the viscerally disturbing Titus (1999) and the sexually luminous Frida (2002) could fluff out into this embarrassing claptrap. Julie Taymor’s film combines all the worst aspects of a debased concept: the corporate simulation of the countercultural epic. This is a genre that has included such loathsome camp extravaganzas as Hair, Tommy, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Rent.
UCSB announced on 9/25 that the Campaign for UCSB-a private fundraising effort for projects and initiatives on campus-has reached 86 percent of its $430-million goal.
When Hurricane Katrina swept into New Orleans in late August 2005, it destroyed much of the city’s infrastructure, including many of its public schools. Soon after, a network of conservative think tanks led by Milton Friedman, the founder of modern neo-liberal economics, pushed the Bush administration to impose a charter system in New Orleans. Charter schools-publicly funded schools run by private entities-are a politically polarizing issue in the United States, and Friedman saw in the still-reeling city a window.
On 9/24, the U.S. Senate voted 81-12 in support of Ventura County’s plans to destroy the Matilija Dam near Ojai.
THE COMEBACK KIDS: After a two-year hiatus, multi-talented singer-songwriter Sean McCue returned to the music scene with the 2005 release of his debut solo effort, Apart. The Santa Barbara native stopped recording after his stint in the alt-rock band Summercamp, which experienced moderate mainstream success on Madonna’s Maverick record label during the late ’90s. With Summercamp now defunct, McCue-a guitarist, pianist, and vocalist of impressive range-has crafted his own broad, guitar-based alternative record, brimming with lyrics that are melancholy without being whiny.
Few have mastered the art of grit and wisdom filmmaking like David Cronenberg. The Canadian-born director has been dealing elegantly with exposed membrane, experimental surgery, and other kinky quirks for years, starting with The Fly, and including Dead Ringers and Crash. Here, he’s up to his artful tricks again with Eastern Promises, an edgy though somehow graceful tale about the savagery and severe moral codes of the Russian mafia in London, with typically dark-and sometimes darkly funny-undercurrents.
Following her arrest on charges of methamphetamine possession at Lookout Park in Santa Barbara, former Ventura attorney Lori Lee Coffey appeared in Santa Barbara Superior Court to ask that her felony charge be reduced to a misdemeanor.
It’s not just the weather, the beautiful beaches, and the hiking that make Santa Barbara one of the best places in the world to live, although they could be indirectly responsible for one of our other advantages: the great number of luminary authors and thinkers who come to town each year. Santa Barbara is more than a beautiful natural setting-it’s an inspiring cultural landscape. But if this is paradise, we’re about to be taken by storm.
You know an event has something for everyone-not when it can combine art, food, and wine, and not when it celebrates the recent reconstruction of history-but when it can have both Brooks Firestone and Salud Carbajal as Honorary Chairmen. Such an event is Tapas, Vino, y Arte 2007, which takes place this Saturday, September 29, at the spectacularly restored Santa Barbara Presidio Research Center. Bid on art by the usual roundup of area artists while eating food from the likes of Fresco at the Beach, Tuttini, and Panino.
Another whale was found dead in the Santa Barbara Channel on 9/20, the third since 9/8.
