‘Personal’ Pathways to Connection and More

We weren’t aware of the Personal Stories “reunion” arranged by longtime Montecito resident Maggie Mixsell that offered two shows as a one-off benefit for Center Stage Theatre last Sunday and Monday in time to promote it in last week’s issue. The black box venue above Paseo Nuevo mall was the last home for Speaking of Stories, the terrific series of literary performances featuring local professional actors reading short stories. With audiences dwindling, and The Moth programs of true stories told by their authors, SOS then morphed into its Personal Stories phase, featuring firsthand narratives that blended evenings of writers learning how to read them live on stage with actors trying their hand at writing stories. 

But gosh we sure wish we’d been able to preview the shows, as there were plenty of seats open for the Sunday afternoon and Monday night performances. These featured nine longstanding members of the SOS and Personal Stories family reading their tales to a fully receptive audience that filled about two-thirds of the house. The stories were alternatively touching and humorous, deeply moving and delightful – from the dedicated cast of characters that included well-known locals Gerald DiPego, Kathy Marden, Ed Giron, Anna Jordan, Rick Mokler, Gib Johnson, Tony Miratti, Carolyn Butcher, and Joe Spano. 

Mokler’s golf tourney yarn “To Hal and Back” – set to the meter and rhyming scheme of “Casey at the Bat” – evoked laughs for its over-the-top woes in a team trying to hold on to its seemingly insurmountable lead on the final hole. Meanwhile, Miratti’s “The Coach,” was about the life lessons imparted to him and others by the veteran track and field coach at SB High. His narrative sent shivers up the spine (mine, at least), and put a lump in Miratti’s own throat and brought tears to his eyes in the telling. Jordan’s “The One About the Bundt Pan” told of a domestic spat over cooking some 20 years ago that cleverly combined mirth and a morality tale. Spano’s closing “Dancing on Idiocy” was an exercise in memoir about prepping for the performance as a meta experience, complete with setting a 15-minute timer mirroring the max length allowed for the performance – which stopped in mid-sentence at the timer’s chime.  

Directed by Mixsell, who helmed both versions of SOS for many years before the final installment in 2022, the event featured was as no frills as ever, with the readers simply taking the lectern and diving right into their self-penned tales. In this age of multiple digital distractions demanding and shortening attention at all times, the effect was to focus the audience on the power of words to make human connection. The power lay in allowing us to internalize and visualize the spoken stories, to go along for the ride with the narrators who had lived them. What a gift! Can we please find a way to bring back Personal Stories on a regular basis?

TEDxSantaBarbara Lands at the Library 

Also making its return after an even longer hiatus, TEDxSantaBarbara – the local offshoot of the famous TED Talks conferences, videos and more – is hosting its first live speaker event since the pandemic put a pause to the gatherings. Producer-organizer Mark Sylvester – co-founder of the locally-originated,
high-end 3D graphics software company Alias|Wavefront – is a 35-year TED veteran with more than 250 talks and Salons in town to his credit. Sylvester will co-lead the community conversation on March 11, the first such event in more than five years. The live speaker is Dr. John La Puma, the two-time New York Times bestselling author, board-certified internist and professionally trained chef who created culinary medicine that is now taught at medical schools across the country. A small organic farm at his home on Santa Barbara’s upper west side is now home base for research, following decades of investigation into what nature, food, and movement actually do to the human body. La Puma’s new book, Indoor Epidemic (set for a late spring publication) argues that spending more than 90 percent of our lives indoors wreaks havoc on our biology. 

The five-minute lightning talk from La Puma – who was on stage for the first local TEDx event in 2010 – addresses how time in nature can serve as a superpower. It will be accompanied by a curated sequence of seven classic TED/TEDx presentations offering different perspectives on living well and longevity through daily practice, weaving together science, story, and purpose. The two-hour gathering starts at 4 pm at the Faulkner Gallery, Santa Barbara Public Library, and includes an opening welcome, discussion, and reflection both at midpoint and following the final talk, plus a guided discussion aimed at an action plan. The bad news? All 100 seats have been reserved. But feel free to stop in to see if there are no-shows. The better news? The March 11 TEDxSantaBarbara Salon heralds a return to live events. 

Visit https://tedxsantabarbara.com

Bethany Is Back in Town 

Even at the tender age of 13, Bethany Hamilton was on a direct path to fame, as the teen was considered one of the premier female surfers of her generation, full of talent, spirit and blonde-hair blessed beauty. But then a 15-foot tiger shark attack in Hawaii cost her not only her left arm but very nearly her life, the injury depleting more than half of her blood. Surprisingly, not only did she survive, but Hamilton hauled herself back onto her surfboard within a month of the attack and went on to become one of the leading professional surfers in the world, after all – and recently inducted into the Surfer’s Hall of Fame. The documentary about her life called Unstoppable brought Hamilton to Santa Barbara six years ago for the film’s local premiere at the Granada Theatre. She heads to the same venue again on March 5 through Network Medical Women’s Center for a presentation titled after her best-selling autobiography Soul Surfer, sharing her gifts as a motivational speaker, role model, and life coach to inspire others to lead their best lives. 

Visit www.granadasb.org. 

Justice for All: Journalism Still Matters

March 5 is also the date for the next event in UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Justice for All series featuring Caitlin Dickerson, the investigative journalist who has spent more than a decade covering deportation and migration, well before the issue became one of the biggest boondoggles and a controversial crisis in America today. Dickerson received the Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for her reporting on the forcible separation of children from their families, and her on-air work with NPR has also earned coveted Peabody and Edward R. Murrow awards. In Deported: The Price of Our Prosperity at UCSB Campbell Hall, The Atlantic staff writer shares how the current massive deportation scheme has affected millions in the United States, counting the cost of ICE’s work in a number of ways. 

Visit www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu

Plath and Swift as Patriarchal Targets

Maggie Nelson, the critic, poet and award-winning author of The Argonauts and The Art of Cruelty, returns to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art on March 8 to read from and discuss her book-length essay The Slicks: On Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift as part of Women’s History Month. The essay draws parallels between the poet Sylvia Plath and pop star Taylor Swift, arguing they are both targets of patriarchal criticism for being prolific, autobiographical female artists who “want hard, work hard, and pour forth.” Nelson examines how both women have been disparaged for turning intimate personal experience into public art. A book signing concludes the Parallel Stories series event. 

Visit www.sbma.net

Oh to Be in Orvieto 

Former Santa Barbara poet laureate Paul Willis reads from his book Orvieto at Chaucer’s Books on March 12 – the author’s latest volume in a career that includes 14 eight full collections and five previous chapbooks. Published in 2025, Willis’ book explores the walled medieval town of Orvieto in Italy, and he describes its art, churches, streets, monuments, and vineyards through a blend of history, nature and personal reflection. The collection functions as a poetic travelogue, merging ancient and contemporary themes with observations on art, faith, and the landscape. Willis is emeritus professor of English at Westmont College in Montecito.

Shared Waters: A Maritime Marriage

Santa Barbara Maritime Museum’s Distinguished Speaker Series hosts Mary Nishimoto, PhD, for her talk Shared Waters: How Fishermen and Offshore Oil Work Together, the little-known story of the Joint Oil/Fisheries Liaison Office – a unique, 40-year communication model created in 1983 that has helped minimize conflict and disruptions in shared offshore waters. The March 19 program is especially timely as platform decommissioning moves forward in the Santa Barbara Channel and stakeholders weigh partial vs. full removal.  

Visit www.sbmm.org.