Author: Matt Kettmann

The Birth of a Sacred Site by Donald Stadtner
Arts & Entertainment By | Thu Sep 20, 2007 | 6:00am

The Birth of a Sacred Site by Donald Stadtner

The Southeast Asian country of Burma remains an elusive destination for many a globetrotter. The country-which is held on a tight leash by the military government, sanctioned by the West for numerous human rights violations, and known officially as Myanmar-has only been open to tourists for 15 years, and it still gets fewer than one million visitors per year. Lucky for Santa Barbara, then, that the Museum of Art is bringing Asian art expert Donald Stadtner to town to sign his new book, The Birth of a Sacred Site, and give a lecture on the spiritual highlights of this hidden land.

Union Activists Disloyal, News-Press Lawyer Claims
News By Martha Sadler | Thu Sep 13, 2007 | 6:00am

Union Activists Disloyal, News-Press Lawyer Claims

In the fourth week of the trial of the Santa Barbara News-Press on charges of unfair labor practices, lawyers for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) continued to call former News-Press writers and editors to the witness stand to testify that Ampersand Publishing, the paper’s parent company, retaliated against legally protected union activities. Barry Cappello, defending Ampersand, insisted that the NLRB had it exactly backward: Union activists tried to interfere with legitimate management prerogatives; in so doing, they were the ones who violated the rules of engagement.

89 portraits of Vietnam Zippos
Arts & Entertainment By | Thu Sep 13, 2007 | 6:00am

89 portraits of Vietnam Zippos

During the Vietnam War, American soldiers used more than 200,000 Zippo lighters. But they weren’t just for lighting smokes. As soldiers began etching designs and words on their Zippos, the shiny silver lighters became canvases for self-expression and very personal symbols of identity in a situation where individualism and creativity were discouraged.

Rap Pioneers Sugarhill Gang Come to Santa Barbara
Arts & Entertainment By | Thu Sep 13, 2007 | 6:00am

Rap Pioneers Sugarhill Gang Come to Santa Barbara

“A hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip hip hop you don’t stop.” Who knew that those goofy lyrics-the opening verse to the 1979 hit song “Rapper’s Delight”-would turn out to be so prophetic? In the 28 years since Sugarhill Gang dropped one of the first rap songs, the hip-hop movement has, as the song predicted, not stopped. Since then, the song has brought in billions of dollars a year and shaped popular culture from Tokyo to Tehran.

Urinetown, the Musical presented by PCPA.
Theater By | Thu Sep 06, 2007 | 6:00am

Urinetown, the Musical presented by PCPA.

Food, water, and shelter might be the top triumvirate of human needs, but it’s the urge to relieve oneself that requires the most immediate attention every morning, noon, and night. So when the right to pee gets privatized and priced-as is the premise of this happily wacky, intelligently humorous, and satirically self-referential musical-people get pissed, and revolution isn’t far away.

Matt Straka’s Notable Rejects
Arts & Entertainment By | Thu Sep 06, 2007 | 6:00am

Matt Straka’s Notable Rejects

A chunky, undressed Elvis impersonator in a man-bra and lady’s britches. That’s the symbolic soul of a month-long exhibit of “new and used” photographs by Santa Barbara native Matt Straka at Samy’s Camera on Chapala Street ’til October.

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