19 Aug 2025
Celestial Clusters in the Cosmos
This month’s stargazing event will feature several star clusters, including M18, the Black Swan Cluster in Sagittarius, on Friday, August 15, beginning about 8:30 pm and lasting several hours at the Westmont Observatory; home of the powerful Keck Telescope. The college hosts a free public viewing of the stars that lasts several hours, on the […]
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Physicist Among Winners of Prestigious Award
Westmont scientists join thousands of researchers worldwide who have been honored with the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, awarded to the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, a particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as several related experiments. The Breakthrough Prize specifically highlights the ATLAS Collaboration’s significant contributions […]
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Study Explores Nursing, Belief in Miracles
Female nurses who believe God intervenes to cure ill people are less likely to experience depressive symptoms, according to findings published in Mental Health, Religion & Culture. The study, which uses interviews from nearly 4,000 American Indian and South Asian women as well as white, female nurses, asked respondents who believe in God to choose […]
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Second Annual SB Museum of Art Gilded Gala Preview
To all my art-society followers, in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, it is time to buy that golden ticket and take the ride to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s 2nd Annual Gilded Gala scheduled for February 28, 2026, which as you read this, is close to selling out (say no to #fomo). Do […]
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Casa del Herrero Centennial Gala Tickets on Sale Now
Casa del Herrero Board of Trustees President Elizabeth Esrey is inviting the community to join in their Centennial Gala celebration on September 6, from 5:30-9 pm. Tickets are required and they are selling quickly. I met with Esrey, the Gala committee, and two honorary chairs who are prior Board of Trustees Presidents at Casa del […]
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Hate to Hope Talk with Chabad
Frank Meeink, a former neo-Nazi skinhead recruiter turned Jewish educator, will share his extraordinary story in “Hate to Hope,” a public talk on Thursday, August 14, at 6 pm at the Louise Lowry Davis Center in Santa Barbara. Raised in South Philadelphia, Meeink was drawn into violent white supremacy as a teen before prison friendships, […]
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Crime in the Cito: Sheriff’s Blotter 93108
WhatsApp Spam Messaging / Middle Road — Wednesday, July 30, at 11:45 hours The Reporting Party stated that she received two WhatsApp messages that said in Spanish, “Hi my love, how are you” from an unknown number. She blocked the number from the App. She then received two facetime calls. She ignored them and then […]
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Picture Perfect
Casa Dorinda has been accentuating the negative! Former Ford Executive Roger Craton, 93, a keen photographer and traveler in his retirement, is showing 29 pieces of his colorful work on textured watercolor paper which gives it “a more painterly look.” He last had an exhibition in 2023 and has captured tens of thousands of images […]
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‘Project Fiesta’
Fiesta may officially be over, but the Santa Barbara Historical Museum hosted a Project Fiesta fête to mark the tony institution’s purchase of the voluminous records of the former Santa Barbara News-Press for its Gledhill Library, and also honor my late colleague Erin Graffy de Garcia who left us earlier this year. The News-Press collection […]
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AFO Finale and More Miscellany
The Music Academy of the West ended its annual summer festival on a high note at the Granada with the Academy Festival Orchestra, under conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, playing Mahler’s “Symphony No. 3 in D Minor.” The stellar performance featured Julia Holoman, mezzo-soprano fellow, the children’s troupe Sing! and the Music Academy Women’s Chorus. Stirring stuff… […]
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Curator’s Choice: Skull of a Duck-billed Platypus
In life, the skull of this Duck-billed Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) contained a lot of sensing tools for finding prey underwater. The Y-shaped bones at the front supported a bill full of receptors, thousands of which could sense the electrical fields created by the movements of other animals in the water. Echidnas are the closest living […]
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Music After the Music Academy
Music Academy of the West’s summer festival and its 100-something event season has moved to the rear-view mirror after last weekend’s triumphant performance of Mahler’s Third at the final Academy Festival Orchestra symphony concert, complete with the MAW women’s chorus (which sprinkled in eight LVI fellows) and the Sing! Children’s Choir. But there’s only a […]
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CAMA’s Goodbye to Gustavo and Visit to Venice
The opening concert in the International Series segment of CAMA’s 107th season represents the continuation of its long association with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This early date for the annual performance also represents the end of an era, as maestro Gustavo Dudamel leads the orchestra in his final Santa Barbara appearance before departing to assume […]
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Kabaretti Era Turns 20
The Santa Barbara Symphony marks a major milestone with its 2025-26 season as Music & Artistic Director Nir Kabaretti notches his 20th year at the helm – which translates to his SBS tenure accounting for more than a quarter of its 72-year history. The typically diverse series of seven concerts begins with a joint season-opening […]
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Lingering Librettos at the Lobero
Opera Santa Barbara’s new singular focus on performing meticulously crafted works solely at the Lobero Theatre – which Artistic and General Director Kostis Protopapas calls “right-sizing and refocusing on our mission” – brings three works spanning both genres and centuries of operatic repertoire. Pietro Mascagni’s 90-minute Cavalleria Rusticana (November), directed by Layna Chianakas, updates the […]
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Arts & Lectures’ Classical Connection
With its 2025-26 season UCSB Arts & Lectures is now offering more classical music events than any other programming organization from fall to spring, with a full 14 concerts on the slate for their 66th season. Recitals dominate the schedule, with performances from pianists Daniil Trifonov, Víkingur Ólafsson, Van Cliburn Gold Medalist Aristo Sham and […]
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More from MAW
Music by and at the Music Academy of the West also returns shortly courtesy of both the third season of its Mariposa Concerts, which feature pre-concert wine receptions before the Hahn Hall performances, and a pair of special intimate fundraising concerts with longtime MAW faculty artists billed as “Up Close & Unforgettable.” Mariposa makes its […]
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12 Aug 2025
Next Health Montecito
Just opened, Next Health Montecito, at 559 San Ysidro Road Suite C, is owned and operated by locals Zahra and Nick Salisbury, Next Health Area Developers. Next Health CEO and Founder Dr. Darshan Shah and Co-founder Kevin Peake explain the concept of their centers, “Our mission is to empower people to achieve optimal vitality and […]
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Crime in the ‘Cito — Sheriff’s Blotter 93108
Burglary Messages / Butterfly Lane — Sunday, July 20, at 07:57 hours Homeowner returned home late on 7/19 to discover the residence had been broken into and ransacked. A possible latent fingerprint was discovered on the rim of the safe keypad. The keypad was disconnected and booked into evidence for further forensic examination. Meth / […]
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Make Polluters Pay?
The Climate Crisis is already costing the public billions of dollars a year. And the full effects have barely even begun. Who should pay for this? There is a precedent: the law that created the Superfund for chemical cleanup. Before the Superfund was created, massive chemical spills had to be cleaned up at public expense. […]
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