20 May 2025
Salut Salonen
CAMA – the Community Arts Music Association – closed its 106th season’s International Series with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by beloved conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, joined by French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Granada. The concert hailed maestro Salonen’s 16th appearance conducting for CAMA over the past three decades – 12 with the L.A. Phil […]
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Brunchin’ at MOXI
MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovations, hosted its annual spring brunch + learn event, an inspiring and informative showcase of MOXI’s educational programs and commitment to providing access opportunities for all youngsters and families. The event, co-chaired by Angie McGrath and Sabina Vohra-Miller, focused on the benefits of early childhood education and STEAM […]
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Words to Live By
Montecito actor Rob Lowe is at work on his third book. The working title for his next tome is What Do I Know? A Guide to Living which he hopes will land him in the self-help section at the bookstore. “It’s my truisms, what I found to work, what I found to not work, what […]
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The Voyage of a King
If you’ve ever been to a bakery First thing in the morningThe scents are so seductiveWith an endless line now forming. After forty full daysof fasting in the desert The first thing the fiend said –If thou truly be the Son of GodCommand these stonesbe made bread. When Odysseus’ menate the Sun God’s cattleThey were starving at […]
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13 May 2025
A Chat with Retiring Rabbi Steve Cohen
I’ve had many rabbis in my life – people who have given me spiritual counsel, friends, family members, and yes, clergy, who have been there with me and for me in life’s big and small moments – people whose wisdom I depend on when mine is hard to find. Rabbi Steve Cohen is the senior […]
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A Tree-People Weekend
Many years ago, in a land far, far away (New Hampshire), one of my neighbors told me that the reason his yard was so healthy was that he talked to his plants every day. I laughed. “Do they talk back?” I asked. “Ayup,” he said. I went home, locked the front door, and said to […]
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Ospi Montecito Brings Italian Elegance to the American Riviera
Montecito just got a little more delicious. The latest gem to grace the neighborhood is Ospi – a California-Italian restaurant with a bold Brooklyn soul and an unmistakable Westside edge. It’s not just another opening, it’s an invitation to live la dolce vita, one forkful of rigatoni alla vodka at a time, which by the […]
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Who Are the Elites?
Who do you think of when you hear the word “elites”? The term has come to mean “educated.” But 100 years ago, it was about economic power. And most people understood which party stood for the economic elites. Franklin Roosevelt made this point very clearly in his 1936 acceptance speech for the Democratic Party nomination: […]
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Bountiful Buddha Courses
The Santa Barbara Bodhi Path Buddhist Center has been offering a high-quality curriculum of instruction in Buddhist meditation practice and philosophy ever since its founding in 1997 at the direction of Shamar Rinpoche. Generations of students have come to learn and practice in a modern, non-sectarian environment focused on authentic Buddhist teachings taught and practiced […]
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Investing in Fine Art Prints
BL, a budding Gen Z art afficionado, asked if the fine art print market is a good investment. A great question, and the answer is “YES!” for some types of prints created in select eras in certain styles (for example Pop Art is strong today). Let’s look at the world of prints, often called “multiples,” […]
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The Best Laid Plans: A Trippy “Trip” at Lafayette Hotel and Club
It wasn’t exactly what we’d planned for. My high school friend Annie joined me to celebrate our mutual June birthdays. We planned a trip to San Diego and Valle De Guadalupe, Baja. She took Amtrak from Union Station to Oceanside; I picked her up at the train station and we sped down to the recently […]
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A Fish Story That’s No Fish Story
Once upon a time, and for thousands of years, steelhead trout gamboled and bred in the dancing creek of Arroyo Hondo on the Gaviota Coast. By 1919, a tall train trestle and a beautiful open-spandrel arch bridge rose high above the stream bed near the ocean. Below these towering roadways, the trout continued traveling merrily […]
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‘One Death at a Time’
If a crime could ever be called delightful, Abbi Waxman is its likely author. Her latest One Death at a Time will have readers laughing all the way to the final page. Julia is a former actress newly arrested for the murder of her sworn enemy who, most inconveniently, was found floating in her pool […]
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Celebrity
I used to call myself a sort of minor-league celebrity. Different people, I have found, have different standards for what they consider fame or notoriety. To some, in the old days of print media, it was a matter of how widely you or your photographed image appeared – nationally or internationally – in newspapers, magazines, […]
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The Aloha State
My parents met at a serviceman’s dance in 1942. I’m grateful for having been born to a couple whose generation continues to suffuse me like gentle lamplight through drawn rayon curtains. Theirs was a world of scotch-and-soda, weekend bridge with the neighbors, dancing at the Officer’s Club, service to country, and music. We had one […]
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Grads Urged to Use Phones for Good
Led by bagpipes under overcast skies, about 340 graduates made their Last March from Kerrwood Hall down to Thorrington Field where they walked across the stage to receive their diplomas on May 3. Retiring professor and Commencement speaker Jim Taylor (’78) encouraged the graduates to do something unexpected – to pull out and use their […]
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Thirty Years of ‘Brilliance’ with State Street Ballet
State Street Ballet closes out its 30th season with The Brilliance Program: Balanchine, Arpino, and Beyond, a title meant to characterize the works featured on the May 9-10 performances at the Lobero Theatre – but also apropos for the company’s spectacular season, the first full one under the leadership of Artistic Director Megan Phillips and […]
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Beauty of a Ballet from Ukraine
In a strange situation for an often ballet-starved town, the Arlington Theatre is also hosting a prime example of the art form this week – for the first time since the local Festival Ballet’s annual performances of The Nutcracker last December – as the State Ballet Theatre of Ukraine presents Sleeping Beauty on May 13. […]
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Young Playwrights Festival at ETC
Think of the Young Playwrights Festival as a reverse Launch Pad. The springtime program at Ensemble Theatre Company’s New Vic Theater gives aspiring playwrights ages 14-19 the opportunity to create a play that is produced and staged with professional directors and actors, and then presented as a staged reading at the theater. The Young Playwrights […]
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True Blue: CAMA’s Philharmonic Concert is Also a Farewell
This year’s annual Santa Barbara visit by the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Friday, May 9, at the Granada not only closes out CAMA’s orchestral International Series for 2025-26, but also serves as the penultimate concert in president Mark Trueblood’s CAMA career after 27 years at the helm. It’s rather appropriate, as the LA Phil was […]
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