Tag archives: culture
After seven years of following a broad format for its annual Granada Legends gala, the performing arts venue is turning its attention inward for this year’s fundraising event. Previous galas have called attention to the region’s rich and interconnected cultural heritage of artists, organizations and philanthropists, as the event each year honored one of its […]
Soul Bites Restaurant, on lower State Street, is the community-based entertainment space during Black History Month and all year round. The food is served up homemade by owner and actor, Stirling Nix-Bradley and his partner Rose. Their mission: “To feed the soul of our community through the comfort of our kitchen.” Due to recent financial […]
There’s a new club in town! The Commission on Culture, Arts, and Joy Justice (CCAJJ) is a new student government associated organization at UCSB founded by PhD student Charlene Macharia. This week I spoke to Macharia to find out what it means to do creative activism and how social justice activists can keep progress moving […]
Black History Month (BHM) is an annual national celebration during February that commenced with Negro History Week (February 1926) initiated by Carter G. Woodson, founder of Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH). Later in the 1940s, Blacks in West Virginia began to celebrate February as Negro History Month, and by 1960 […]
Over 20 years ago I attended a talk on Madagascar at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. It was one long rant about how the ecosystems of Madagascar had been almost totally destroyed. How there were no indigenous organizations for outside conservation groups to work with. And how the Pope had gone there to […]
Over 6,500 miles separate Santa Barbara and Kotor, but the work of the Santa Barbara-Kotor Sister City Committee allows for an engaged and mutually-enriching relationship between that seaside community and ours. Sister-City International, founded by Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, was created to promote international peace and collaboration. With over 1,800 partnerships between U.S. and international […]
Fiesta isn’t only about music, food, dance, and arts and entertainment reflecting Santa Barbara’s Spanish cultural past and present, there’s also a pretty healthy dose of rock and roll, pop, and more in outdoor locations around town. Most notable are the twin Mercados at De La Guerra Plaza and Mackenzie Park, both returning for the […]
Spain’s Ministry of Culture department paid a visit to Santa Barbara recently headed up by the Counsel General of Spain Juan Carlos Sanchez Alonso. They were here by the Mission steps along with our Fiesta Spirit Ysabella Yturralde and a tapas truck with loads of Spanish ham. Spirit Ysabella just returned from Jerez, Spain. The […]
Public trust in government is at a 50-year low. According to an ambitious Harvard Business School study, the problem in our contentious duopoly is the lack of competition and resulting lack of accountability. Santa Barbara is the poster child for what this study raged against — a system that no longer focuses on the public […]
Recently, I had some L.A. friends move to town (don’t be alarmed, they really are “nice”). Mistakenly, they thought that I knew a bit about our County and asked: “So where does ‘our’ money go?” Mind you, these are philanthropic folks who care about culture so I had to be honest: “I can tell you […]
One of the religious ideas I find most attractive is that of divine intervention – particularly in the form of guardian angels. How wonderful to feel that, if things get really bad, there is a specially appointed agent of the deity who is assigned to protect you personally. Many religions and cultures promulgate ideas of […]
In the popular mythology of our culture, women have had a bad rap. The stereotypical images of the Mother-in-Law (never the Father-in-Law), the Dumb Blonde, and the Woman Driver – to say nothing of the Stage Mother, and the Spinster Schoolmarm – have been the butt of innumerable jokes. There has also been the legendary […]
Plans are being laid out for Old Spanish Days to have a full and safe Fiesta in 2022. La Presidenta Maria Cabrera will lead the organization into its 98th year. She has been a community volunteer for many years. “As we come out of restrictions and a new changing community, we look forward to meeting […]
Surely it can’t be merely coincidence that, in our language, “taste” has two separate meanings which however are somehow in sync with each other. One kind of taste relates to the tongue and the palate. The other, on an entirely different level, has to do with culture, esthetics, and educated appreciation. But they are both […]
A few months ago, my bestie, Lynn, a librarian and bibliophile, gave me a vintage copy of How to Talk with Practically Anybody About Practically Anything (Doubleday & Co., 1970), a guidebook to the art of conversation, written by none other than the godmother of celebrity interviews, Barbara Walters. Among her subjects: tycoons, royalty, politicians, […]
The theme of Old Spanish Days this year is to celebrate traditions. The Montecito Bank & Trust began a new one under the auspices of bank president George Leis, who says, “It’s my favorite time of the year.” They held their first Fiesta Party at the bank’s historic downtown branch on State Street for about […]
