My scooter-riding experience was almost over before it began. As soon as I received the assignment to write about scooters in Santa Barbara, I headed to the DMV to get my motorcycle license, required by law in California for all scooter riders. With no line and a simple 25-question test waiting, I figured I didn’t need to look over the handy booklet.
I’m not a “car guy”-I don’t know a radiator from a carburetor, I’ve never been tempted to trade in my dusty pick-up for a shiny sports car, and I don’t really understand the constant left-turning that is NASCAR. But, like any red-blooded boy from the good ol’ U.S. of A., I grew up with posters of Ferraris and Lamborghinis on my walls, ma stered the arcade games Pole Position and Out Run, and relished that I was a passenger in a Saleen Mustang going 135 miles per hour as “my fastest ride.”
To celebrate The Indy’s first-ever “Wheels” issue, we’re giving you a list of the best car songs of all time. Here they are:
On a hot, lazy afternoon, teenagers sit smoking cigarettes in a fancy cafe, nibbling cakes and chatting about fashion. A few blocks away, children throw jacks and ride bicycles along a filthy cobblestone alley infested with cockroaches and raw sewage. This is daily life in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, and home to these disparate worlds of luxury and desperation. With a recent civil war and increasing gang violence, the country seems to have little hope for a sustained peace.
It’s hard to process an experience that will go down as one of the best in my life so soon after it’s done. The Cannes Film Festival, which ended on May 27, has always meant to me, a film-lover, what the Vatican means to Catholics, what Mecca means to Muslims. Cannes is my Xanadu.
Friday night’s opening of Lit Moon’s Midnight Sun Festival of Finnish drama marked not only the U.S. premiere of Queen C, but also the first time a professional American theater company has ever staged a Finnish play. Present for the historic occasion was the playwright herself, freshly arrived from Helsinki.
When Ganga White sits with his legs crossed, his spine perfectly straight, and his green eyes steady, he looks like someone who has practiced the mind-body discipline of yoga his entire life. Indeed, White has been practicing and teaching yoga for more than 40 years, and all that experience is distilled in his recently released book, Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice.
Now in its 35th year, the Santa Barbara Writers Conference has developed the kind of fervent, devoted fan club more commonly associated with boy bands, sports teams, and reality TV shows. Among Central Coast writers in particular, SBWC’s popularity has reached mythic proportions. The conference is the subject of breathless writers’ group discussions and Adult Ed night class lore.
It’s been two years since we discovered my father was having an affair.
Circuses are scary-and I’m not talking about the clowns. Last week, on a windy afternoon in Santa Maria, I found myself 40 heart-pounding feet off the ground, my sweating palms gripping a trapeze bar. I feigned a smile to my hosts from Circus Vargas, thought about my last ride in an ambulance, and jumped.
