831
| Streettalk |
| Real-estate |
| Outside |
| Astrology |
The Other 20 Percent
A York School English teacher gives students back one-fifth of their time – to do anything.
Lamby Kreeger has had world records on her mind since she can remember. So when her 10th-grade English teacher opened up the school year with the invitation to work on anything interesting – yes, anything ...
A Mission From God
The famed Carmel Mission Basilica stands stronger than ever after a just-completed renovation.The famed Carmel Mission Basilica stands stronger than ever after a just-completed renovation.
Southern drawls, Brooklynese and rolling Spanish “rr”s melt into a united murmur as tourists shuffle through the gates of the Mission San Carlos Borroméo del Río Carmelo, better known as Carmel Mission. Construction workers pry ...
Beneath the Sea Therapy
Special training, new dive boat opens the ocean to disabled vets.
Joe Rivera spits out water at the CSU Monterey Bay pool. “What’s all the choking and gasping over here?” asks dive instructor Frank Degnan, sidling up to the sputtering student. “Put the regulator in your ...
The Sky’s No Limit
How an immigrant pulled himself up by his bootstraps – and strapped on a parachute.
Long before Marina’s Juan Juarez was jumping out of planes for pay, he was faced with an impossible choice. He was 15. He’d emigrated alone to a rural town near Kuna, Idaho, from Mexico nine ...
Licking the Habit
George Krieger started one of the best stamp collections in the world out of boredom.
As a 7-year-old boy in Queens, George Krieger traveled to Africa without leaving his house. Or at least he felt like he did when his uncle, who worked in the coffee-and-tea industry, would bring Krieger ...
Surprise Winner
Outstanding tennis players emerge from an unlikely place: city courts in Seaside.
If you lose, you run. It’s more than a rule Jimmie Brooks says constantly. It’s also a way to understand his approach: Nothing too fancy. Always working. Always improving. A loss means added fitness, added ...
Beyond Five Walls
Leon Panetta reflects on drones, Congress and women warriors after retiring to Carmel Valley.
Leon Panetta, who retired from a half century of public service in February, jokes that he’s occupying his time with “a different kind of nut” than those in Washington. Ever since Chuck Hagel was confirmed ...
Rebel Cozy Knitting
Anonymous artists seek to beautify CSUMB campus through clandestine yarn projects.
Rare are the knitters so intrepid and extreme that – like taggers or whistleblowers – they go by aliases for security purposes. But so it goes with members of Monterey Midnight Knitters, a new guerrilla ...
Two Words: Fast Raft
Fast Raft Marine Eco Tours does unique Monterey Bay joyrides.
The words “eco tour” conjure up a certain aura of calm and solitude. A Monterey Bay eco tour, for instance, could involve a long, slow float in the sun, with plenty of time to talk ...
Death Cab for Dumbass
How a Weekly delivery driver survives a two-day heart attack.
It’s not every day you’re supposed to die. Then again, it’s not every day the two people dearest to you call you dumbass – or that two different doctors declare you The Craziest Patient They’ve ...
Enter the Vampire
Behind the mythos of the cowboy window washer with a beard.
Thomas Skeens’ signature look – a tattered and weathered cowboy hat adorned with tons of feathers and doodads – is so classic around Monterey County he got picked as an extra in a Clint Eastwood ...
Paging Back
A Monterey brick-and-mortar bookstore survives – even thrives – by taking a different tact.
Mary Hill examines the haul she purchased from a heavy equipment operator the previous winter night. As she flips through A Critical Inquiry Into Ancient Armour, published in 1824 in London, she can’t help shouting, ...
Cool Cats by the Dozens
East of Eden Cat Fanciers Show brings chichi breeds and standout household felines to fairgrounds.
Look around at all the LOL cats – those ubiquitous and goofy feline images with funny text – or hang around on a Caturday, when cat lovers share photos through social media websites every Saturday, ...
Very Fast Learner
Young Monterey Peninsula pro cyclist Logan Loader takes to international races quickly.
Compared with most 23-year-old people, Pacific Grove-born-and-raised Logan Loader’s face is stern – even toned – with determination. He squints as if he were Clint Eastwood and the other guy’s going for his gun. The ...
Holy Ship
Somewhere on the beach between Marina and Moss Landing, a long-forgotten boat lives past its purpose.
The Facebook message was cryptic but enthusiastic: “We found a shipwreck!” But the finder was keeping its spot secret, replying to a request for directions with essentially this: We’ll meet you in Marina and take ...
Skirts and Sea Stars
Pacific Grove librarian chronicles how women trailblazed hands-on science education.
Hopkins Marine Station library assistant Donald Kohrs sees Pacific Grove not as it is, but as it used to be. As he gazes out a library window, the waves break against Lovers Point as they ...
Dogs’ Best Friend
Emergency vet saves Monterey’s furry four-pawed friends as the county sleeps.
Dr. Katja Herrmann thinks her life is normal. She rescues animals all night – from 5:30pm to 8:30am at the Monterey Peninsula Veterinary Emergency and Speciality Center in Ryan Ranch – then comes home to ...
Repair-a-Cop
How one retiree helps the Salinas Police – and learns about people’s reactions to the law.
Salinas retiree John Viarengo, 74, isn’t a police officer, but he was driving an officer’s vehicle through his city a few weeks ago when a woman made an unprotected left turn across his lane. When ...
Survival of the Literate
Taking food orders and reading Darwin, English learners at the local library evolve with oomph.
When Rocio Marin moved from her home in Michoacan, Mexico, to Salinas at age 22, she didn’t need to learn English. “In Salinas, most people can speak Spanish and I could speak with everybody,” she ...
Vexing Texting
Many of Monterey’s naughtiest and implausible activities are captured on smartphones.
Some tales from the area code can be told in texts. Two years ago, the Weekly compiled some of the most loco local examples of the year with the help of a website called Texts ...
The Last Typesetter
After more than 50 years on the job, one printer exited his outsourced position with poetry.
Here are some things they don’t teach much anymore: the use of pica poles and slugs, the meaning of words like hot type and ligatures. And here are some things that were true in 1960, ...
State of Mind
NAMI Monterey County offers support to mental-health clients and loved ones.
Monterey County Behavioral Health and the nonprofit group Interim spend almost $40,000 a year on Monterey-Salinas Transit passes for their mental-health clients. Without the bus tickets, many wouldn’t have rides to doctors’ appointments, meetings, school, ...
Seriously, I’m Santa
Pagrovian carpenter visits Monterey Bay Christmas events by way of the North Pole.
At a certain age, many men dye their gray hair a younger-looking color. But Vern Brischke does the opposite: He dyes his reddish-brown hair gray and silver. For the last four years, Brischke has added ...
Hostel Environment
The planned Fort Ord hostel brings eco-design, adventure travelers to the old military base.
The Monterey Hostel counts some 10,000 overnight stays each of the last two years and is on track to break 11,000 this year, says Peter Kambas, president of the Central California Council of Hosteling International. ...
A Gift of Wow
The Weekly’s list of easy-but-amazing local gifts – yes, you can give Father Time, or the entire ocean – makes economic stimulation fun.
As this paper hits the streets, it’s Dec. 13. And if you follow the tradition of giving the people you like gifts for Hanukkah, Christmas or Kwanzaa – or, hell, just because everyone else is ...
Helping Hands
The Rice Plus Project feeds thousands every month with an all-volunteer crew.
Dozens of rain-gear clad volunteers stood outside in the storm and passed wet, slippery bags of rice off to the next pair of hands in the human chain they formed, from the street, down a ...
All About Artisan
Brand-new craft boutique Lilify delivers design and whimsy to New Monterey.
For Hanni Liliedahl and Jesse Silacci, artisan isn’t just a technique, it’s a way of life. The most recent result is newborn Lilify, a Lighthouse Avenue boutique in Monterey that unleashes a flood of vintage, ...
Read All Over
Even as national book chains sputter, local booksellers see a bright future.
When Matt Sundt’s mother decided to clear out her cookbook collection – some 2,500 strong, including titles like Cooking with Love and Butter, a 1977 paperback, and Tennessee Favorites, including a page of instructions for ...
Late Bloomer
Peace of Mind Dog Rescue give senior dogs like Lily a second chance.
Lily’s future didn’t look so bright. The 6-year-old Hollister stray, a black-and-white Chihuahua-rat terrier mix, was headed to the shelter where she would join a lot of other Chihuahua mixes, many of them younger and ...
Your Brain on Water
An area scientist takes a psychological approach to advocate for the ocean.
Marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols is embarking on a new journey into the science of the sea. The path he’s taking: our brains. His Blue Mind project is an in-depth study of how the brain ...
Overtaking the Cake
Parker-Lusseau yule logs are an indulgent holiday tradition.
Yann Lusseau plunges a lean forearm into a 40-quart stainless-steel bowl and whirls a thick pool of fresh custard, melted chocolate and whipped cream. The motion is as artistic as it is athletic: Decadent brown ...
For the Love of Literacy
Performances at Monterey County Free Libraries show there’s more to books than reading.
There’s no need to use library voices when a puppeteer, Bollywood dancer or magician is on stage – even when that stage is in the library. And performances like that are now part of regular ...
Drug Cartels for Dummies
At NPS, Rodrigo Nieto-Gómez teaches what corporations can learn from notorious gangs.
Discussions of Darwinism often revolve around jungle primates or Galápagos finches. For Rodrigo Nieto-Gómez, the fittest subject for study isn’t exotic fauna, but rather an elusive and rapidly evolving human population more lethal than any ...
Thing Theory
Local shopping might mean spending more, but the dollars go further – mathematically and philosophically.
Three months ago, President Barack Obama’s poorly phrased remark about business – “You didn’t build that” – looked like it could’ve cost him the election. It didn’t, but his message – one about collective creation ...
More Than a Toy Story
For the Least of Us keeps kids of incarcerated parents close year-round, closer during the holidays.
It’s been five years since Phoebe and Dylan spent Christmas with their father. He’s in prison, and their mother is hardly around, their grandmother says. So it meant a lot to them last year when ...
On Bikes and Under Seas
Rare local manufacturer Light & Motion illuminates extreme places for adventurers everywhere.
The ground floor of 300 Cannery Row, an unassuming building adjacent to Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa, buzzes with activity as workers assemble thousands of tiny aluminum and plastic pieces into compact lights.Machines rumble and ...
Every Time a Bell Rings
Loaves, Fishes and Computers earns its tech angel wings.
Teach a man to fish, so the saying goes, and you feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man, woman or child to use a computer, and you help them find housing, look for a ...
Where Are
We Exactly?
Welcome to the heart of South County’s Priest Valley, pop. 45.
Down in the flat southern swathe of the Salinas Valley, 17 miles south of King City, Highway 198 shoots off Highway 101 like a maverick striking out alone. The two-lane state highway winds between sensual ...
deYoung and the Restless
CSUMB film students and alumnus will be featured at one of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
The deYoung Museum in San Francisco, which began life as the Fine Arts Building in 1894, has in its collection thousands of paintings, sculptures, textiles, clothing, artifacts and other art objects from the Americas, Asia, ...
Danglers in the Dark
Pinnacles National Monument has a Day of the Dead message: Don’t spook the bats.
I’ve mostly known Pinnacles National Monument in the dry-sauna daylight of spring, with the sun glowing fuchsia and tangerine on the spires while I sweat up the High Peaks Trail. I once saw a condor ...
Conducting Research
Youth Music Monterey’s new youthful director brings a global background to the stage.
When Farkhad Khudyev addresses his orchestra, he often sounds more like he’s prepared to give a thoughtful commencement speech with deep truths about life rather than correct a measure played too quickly or a note ...
Don’t Mess – I am RAD
Rape Aggression Defense training helps a student learn to escape and fight off attack.
Students passing by Valley Hall at CSU Monterey Bay stop and stare as women throw air punches: right hammer fist, left shield. One kicks a bag with a thud and yells “No!” Another sends a ...
One Answer to Tragedy
Compassionate Friends provides a healing space for the grieving parents.
One day Todd Harris got a call from an old friend, angry at him for missing a funeral. “A funeral for who?” Harris asked him. “Your daughter,” his friend said. Her name was Jennifer Stephanie. ...
My Sister’s a Soldier
A sibling reflects on seeing her older sister transform from high school rebel to Army lieutenant.
The thud of platform shoes reverberates against the hardwood floor. It’s early, but it’s routine to wake up to my oldest sister doing her makeup. She sprays cotton candy-scented perfume all over her, a scent ...
Hard Pressed
A young entrepreneur and an old printer make a statement that looks and feels timeless.
With a loud, rhythmic, mechanical kathunk!, Alissa Bell’s nearly century-old printing press chugs into action. The rich and sweet smell of fresh black ink fills her studio, which occupies part of a metal hangar-type building ...
Salsa Dance Experiment
Two left feet? Too bad. What happens when an editor demands a dance story.
Maybe I didn’t do enough trust falls in middle school phys ed classes, but the idea of leaning back against a stranger’s arm into a dip on the dance floor is terrifying. So when I ...
Footbath of the Future
A skeptical novice tries out an ionic tootsie detox.
I embark on my first foot detox with a friend visiting from New York. Her aunt, a Carmel Highlands local, swears she gets the best sleep of her life after ionic footbaths. We’re sold: As ...
Stirring Straw
A gifted pair of Mesoamerican artists bring a stunning and unique Aztec art to market.
A woman wanders through the Old Monterey Marketplace on a Tuesday afternoon, her eyes moving quickly from handcrafted jewelry stands to a Jamaican food truck. Suddenly she stops, turns around and walks a few paces ...
A Student’s Split Identity
As civil war buffets her childhood home, a local explores her sense of self.
The signs of her struggle are subtle. She’s quiet and calm about the loud and unnerving things taking place in her childhood home of Damascus, Syria – even as her family’s house is rendered uninhabitable ...
Lost in Time – Really
Searching for a lost Carmel time capsule reveals other memories of 1962.
In 1962, Ann Ostenso was figuring out how to sit down in front of a second-grade classroom while wearing a mini-skirt. “Pantyhose had just come in,” she said. “We were wearing skirts 5 inches above ...
Painting Patience
A third-generation thangka master adds color to Pacific Grove.
In the business district of downtown P.G., there’s a shop the size of a moderately wealthy woman’s closet. It’s adorned with vibrant Tibetan peace flags and exudes the scent of burning sage. A single step ...
Getting Sleepy
A monkey-minded reporter attempts a journey to a past life. It might not matter if it’s real.
In a previous incarnation I was a man. A builder named Hiro with long black hair, living in the Andean foothills before there were South American countries. My father is a mediator in our village. ...
The 40-Year Lunch
Local artists and art lovers make a lasting tradition of meeting at Fifi’s for lots of talk.
In the back corner of Fifi’s Bistro, aging artists gather over red wine and French bread. The weekly gathering, which they’ve named “Fifi’s Salon,” started in the late 1960s, but the individuals at the table ...
The Culture Sponge
Car-less Chris Essert is a diligent patron of all things cultural (and cheap) in Monterey County.
If you’ve been to any local art openings, film screenings, lectures, art walks or concerts in the last, oh, couple decades, you’ve probably seen Chris Essert. Though he volunteers and takes classes – and travels ...
For Wheels
Amtrak’s Route 21 bus transports locals to San Francisco smoothly and speedily.
Our private driver has us flying up the 280 North, the very Junipero Serra Freeway understandably described by its signage as the World’s Most Beautiful Freeway. Even with a stop to pick up some friends, ...
Surprising Heights
A local doctor takes on Mount Everest during its second deadliest season ever.
On the way up Mount Everest, 29,029 feet into the remote reaches of human survivability, s*** happens. Life-and-death dramas ranging from avalanche to embolism become companions – and famously so in a year like 2012, ...
On the Gaydar
Pacific Grove native Chip Hall founds first ever LGBQ student club of its kind – in the military.
In a job that demands as much togetherness as any – serving in the country’s armed forces – Chip Hall felt coldly alone. Until the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in September 2011, federal ...
Yoga’s New Flow
The latest wave in a genre swimming with them: paddleboard yoga.
Given that a standard Lululemon yoga tank top costs $52, it can seem a little ironic that “Friends are more important than money” stares out from the center of the wildly popular workout retailer’s mission ...
Immortal Poetry
Immortal Poetry
Robinson Jeffers died in 1962. But he lives in Carmel, by way of words, life and spirit resurrected every Friday and Saturday during docent-led tours of his Tor House and Hawk Tower. When Jeffers and ...
A Different Sort of War
Stand Down at Salinas rodeo grounds helps homeless vets find services and support.
Tracy Smith says he’ll never wear shorts around town because he doesn’t want to draw attention. But when prodded, he hesitates then rolls up his pant leg to reveal a dark, splotchy calf. “I have ...
Speaking Minds
Native speakers and local missionaries work to save an indigenous Mexican language.
Gloria Moreno walks with a slight limp under the weight of the black messenger bag slung over her shoulder. It holds something of a botanical encyclopedia, petals and leaves gathered from the streets of Greenfield, ...
Crafting Creativity
Small artisan-supporting Etsy works to launch local craftspeople toward profitability.
The names are the same. So is the retail platform: Etsy. And the result: success. Monterey County residents Sarah Burns, Sarah Cerney and Sarah Lapp each use Etsy, an increasingly popular online hub that supports ...
Police Log Ride
A review of Seaside’s police reports from 2012 charts part of a community’s character.
The city of Seaside keeps a journal, and it’s called “The Monday Report.” The extended memo from the city manager to the mayor and City Council includes everything from local house-sale trends to updates on ...
Homeless, Harmonious
Shelter Outreach Plus and San Jose Symphonic Choir collaborate on a concert in Monterey to benefit outreach.
There are plenty of obstacles Shelter Outreach Plus confronts as one of the oldest homeless services providers on the Monterey Peninsula – hunger, fear, stigmatization, stereotyping and insensitivity among them. So it shouldn’t be a ...
A Thin Line
America the Beautiful 2 and a new eating disorder center reveal how we slip into dieting dilemmas.
Last weekend, The Avengers raked in $100 million from 4,349 movie screens, for a total two-week gross of more than $373 million. Its budget: $220 million. Big numbers. But big deal. Last Friday evening, Monterey ...
Wrestling Tongues
After a long hiatus, the annual DLI Language Day is again open to the public.
A great golden dragon bobs and weaves before an awestruck crowd. The beat of Chinese drums keeps the time of the graceful dance. Costumed people with poles glide beneath the satin dragon skin, moving in ...
Through Rose-Colored Glass
Local sea glass collectors find treasures – and peace – along Monterey Bay shores.
Rob Ellis sets out in the muted late-afternoon sun, searching for glass for it to shine through. He plucks a clear piece from the tide line, then tosses it back because of its sharp edges. ...
Big Macs and Marathons
The astonishingly average record holder for most marathons laces up for Big Sur International.
Imagine waking up not long after the downtown bars make last call. Then imagine having to drive through darkness and foul weather for hours in order to make it to the starting line in time ...
Wheels Turning
New Bikes Not Gangs class, in partnership with Salinas youth center, gears up for first session.
When Korey Ericson was 5 years old, his father spread out the parts of his first bike in front of him on the patio. “You’re going to learn to assemble this,” Korey remembers him saying, ...
Zits and Bugs
Business Regional plan contest generates intense ideas, including technology to fight acne and track pesticides.
The other day, a few young area entrepreneurs caught a fever – which was a good thing. A very good thing. Last month Ryan Hambley, Ben Holber and Darius Sadeghi appeared at the “fever pitch” ...
Squid Fry 4.05.12
Squid Speaks
POPULAR GUY… Lonely Squid was prowling Facebook the other day – then recoiled all eight tentacles at once. That’s because Squid came across the virtual forum for that thing everyone in Salinas is whispering about: ...
Planting Power
How one Seaside resident has grown a blighted patch of land into a garden and more.
A neglected patch of land once sat at the entrance to Seaside on Fremont Boulevard at Canyon Del Rey. Most passersby didn’t notice it. Others probably looked the other way. When Mary Wilson first moved ...
Trippin’ on Jellies
Monterey Bay Aquarium expands on the jelly obsession with its spectacular new exhibit.
Translucent, alien-like Aurelia labiata swarm in the water. Staring at the palm-sized blobs – some soft pink, others cloudy white – pulsing through the abyss is a psychedelic experience. This is one of six new ...
Bean Burrito Bagel Master
An enthusiastic home baker crafts Jewish comfort food out of frustration and inspiration.
Monterey’s Steve Souza started baking bagels out of a specific kind of anger. About five years ago, he received a bread maker from a friend after expressing interest in yeasts and crusts. But he had ...
Math Is Your Daddy
A brave tribe of calculating kids take aim at MATHCOUNTS state finals.
The quotient of two consecutive positive integers is 1.02. Find the sum of these two integers. Now. Many people fumble at totaling a tip. To ask them to do some algebra could qualify as cruel. ...
Heroes Real and Fictional
A magnetic Marina man defies cerebral palsy to conceive a novel and inspire others.
Spend enough time with Jonathan Schanz, and you see a telling transformation take place. The initial impression – of a thin 26-year-old man with halting speech, prominent cheekbones, curled tongue and arm muscles contracted tightly ...
Running 100 Miles for Fun
Locals travel well beyond marathons in preparation for the Western States century race.
Monterey’s Brian Robinson had been running for 12 hours when he vomited. “I was scared because I had never experienced being nauseous,” he says. “It devastated me.” Instead of rah-rah support, his wife and pacer ...
Antiques, Reimagined
Milestones, a still-young store filled with eccentric finds, sets up shop.
The billiard balls on the retro-deco carpet and spooky anatomic model in the storefront are the first clues Milestones ain’t your grandma’s antique shop. “We don’t do tea cups,” says co-owner Cam Wilde. “We do ...
Getting Scrappy
There is such a thing as a professional scrapbooker – and one lives among us.
Salinas’ Melissa Coventry, owner of Legacy Paper Arts, is a working entreprenuer, which isn’t terribly surprising. It’s the work, scrapbooking, that is. Forget the construction paper and stickers of old. Coventry’s layouts take the craft ...
Hair Peace
Larry Zellers uses his Boomerang Hair Studio to help locals find acceptance and relief.
Larry Zellers crafted no fewer than 29 wigs for PacRep’s new production of Hairspray, which opened last month at the Golden Bough Theater. But the job didn’t stop there. “The high school kids are all ...
Smoke Alarmed
A real-deal local chimney sweep talks of smokestack stereotypes and fire prevention.
If the thought of chimney sweeps triggers a pretty motion picture of Dick Van Dyke singing “Chim Chim Cheree” in Mary Poppins, don’t mention it to Jerry Forbes. “That’s fantasy,” grunts Forbes, who owns Morrill ...
Spearfishing Meditation
Local freedivers hunt both seafood and serenity.
Bryan Mabrey slides off the side of a red, 16-foot Tarpon kayak. He’s a half mile from shore, 24-inch plastic fins strapped to his feet. Armed with his favorite spear gun, he’s hoping an olive ...
Gray Hair Hip Hop
A Pacific Grove woman earns national TV appearance with surprisingly lively dance.
Silver-haired Pagrovian Carol Kuzdenyi wasn’t supposed to earn the big audiences by dancing hip-hop on YouTube. She’s a master out of the San Francisco Conservatory, a choir director and piano and voice teacher based in ...
The Invisible Michelangelo
Dong Sun Kim’s murals quietly capture the beauty of his adopted country.
Dong Sun Kim is a stealth artist. As he guides his brush around a pencil outline of a woman posing against a spectacular, wall-spanning Monterey Bay vista, he reveals that he’s making this work of ...
Very Fast Gas Relief
Local pioneer of aerodynamic motorcycles aims to ride without foreign oil.
Like a lot of people, 69-year-old Craig Vetter begins his days at a local coffee shop just down the road from his house in Carmel Valley. It’s how he gets there that’s different. He drives ...
Steinbeck’s Poker Game
Inside Doc Ricketts’ lab with the Jazz Guy, the Psychologist, the Hotel Guy and the Roughneck.
Sandwiched between the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Intercontinental Hotel sits a shack. Lights burn inside it, back-lit silhouettes move behind the curtain-drawn windows, and this hole in the skyline, which was once known a long ...
Frozen Volleyball
A hardy bunch of beach players celebrate 20 years of ‘frosty palm tree’ tournaments in Carmel.
It’s a Saturday in November when a local crew shows up at Carmel Beach wearing costumes which will never be confused with gold medalist Misty May’s beach-volleyball bikini. One guy wears a black beard, a ...
Trail to Heaven
Big Sur Land Trust’s latest pathway project charms locals, leads to Palo Corona.
Strolling Carmel Valley’s new South Bank Trail on a sunny autumn morning, Eileen Cross recognizes the runner who bounds past with Zen-like focus. “I see her every time,” Cross says. But she’s surprised not to ...
Letterman Show
How a Carmel shop dominates the specific art of high school jackets with enthusiasm.
California Custom Logos is hard to find. It hides in an obscure back corner of a strip mall, past a pizza parlor, hair-and-nail salon, frame shop, grocery store and a fitness center, down a small ...
Tuning Up
Music therapy heals the ill and calms Soledad prison inmates in real, measurable ways.
Doctors didn’t think a 32-year-old survivor of a brainstem stroke could even hear, much less respond to the world around her. She’d lost all mobility, except for blinking, and her voice. But Seaside’s Cathy Rivera, ...
Super Sub, Sunken Ship
Plumbing the backstory of the Monterey Bay ‘Mystery Barge’ with help from a visiting vessel.
“Life support is functional,” says pilot Tym Catterson into the hydrophone. “We are ready to dive, dive, dive. Over.” The message travels through the water as sound waves from the little yellow submarine Antipodes to ...
Butterfly Food Fight
Nectaring experiment at P.G.’s Monarch Grove Sanctuary creates quite a flap.
As monarchs alight on the eucalyptus and pine trees of the Pacific Grove Monarch Grove Sanctuary, Bob Pacelli digs into the black soil. He removes a shrub in a plastic pot from one of many ...
Life of Smiley
Harrison Library brings in Jane Smiley to launch an impressive lineup of author appearances.
Carmel’s Harrison Memorial Library, which is sustained through donations, is lucky to have the support of the Carmel Public Library Foundation, which raises money for “every book, CD, DVD, all the services, equipment, resources and ...
Change Your Name Game
One writer eyes the path taken by Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe and Spike Lee.
Many – if not everyone – have pondered a new name. More of us than ever employ alternative handles for Twitter and Facebook. But few look into what it takes to go about legally re-naming ...
Cut and Rumble
A local barber uses motorcycles (and metaphors) to help out strangers.
Books like Falling into Grace by Adyashanti and Love by Mother Teresa aren’t usually the type of literary fare one finds in a men’s barber shop. But Fred Reynolds isn’t your average chap with scissors ...
Together We Ride
Rideshare Month hands out cash, joins other AMBAG efforts to take cars off county streets.Theodore Lawrence
Sasha Tepedelenova is trying to give away money. She’s been looking across the asphalt, from car to car, pump to pump, for more than an hour on this October day, searching for car poolers to ...
Water and Words
Bestselling author Clive Cussler headlines Camp SEA Lab Annual Dinner in Pebble Beach.
Sometimes it starts to feel like it’s all been done before – especially when you meet someone like Clive Cussler, who served in the Korean War, founded the National Underwater and Marine Agency and has ...
Enter The Spiderboy
A Monterey man shares his passion for tarantulas with everyone who will listen.
Vincent Pizzo sleeps soundly at night, but at the foot of his bed is a cabinet full of creatures that stalk other people’s nightmares. In separate plastic enclosures live around 90 mature tarantulas, hairy spiders ...
Heart of a Memory
An engineer-turned-entrepreneur turns fingerprints into treasured artifacts and even memorials.
Fingerprints, nature’s epidermal signifiers, are often associated with caution-taped crime scenes and the worst kind of criminals. Sometimes, they form messy tracks on oft-used objects. At others, they determine the cause of a death and ...
Debut Bonfire Heights assembles speakers who have changed the world with vision and verve.
It seems so simple. A small, basic lantern, little more than a flashlight, but bright enough to illuminate a small room. In a place like Kenya, though, it can mean everything: a chance to study ...
