0519| May 19

Real Life Drama

Allston James’ wild journeys bring depth and soul to his playwrighting.

“Boys will apply all sorts of pressures on young girls,” says a father in Allston James’ new one-act Garden Talk. “Exploit every stripe of their emotion, every category of natural reflexes, whet precisely the wrong—and ...

FEAST: Planetary Party

Cooking for Solutions.

Remarkably, yet routinely, Monterey County spawns interesting events within its borders, events that feed on the abundant regenerative energy of this exquisite meeting of land, sea and air. Festivals, conferences and events of all types ...

Metal Guru

Sculptor Richard MacDonald forges art from life.

Richard MacDonald’s studio feels poised to burst into movement. It’s a garden of kinetic potential, an expectant place of tightly wound muscle, a forest of half-formed and fully-formed bodies caught on the cusp of a ...

FOODCHAIN: The Old and the New

I’m running around like a chicken trying to keep his head from being cut off. All of a sudden there are restaurants opening, festivals coming up, consulting gigs happening, restaurants that need watching for friends, ...

STREET TALK: Feel The Force

Asked at Century Theaters in Monterey

Q: If you were endowed with the powers of The Force would you follow the Light or the Dark Side? Follow-up: Which of the Star Wars films so far is your favorite? Marco Noriega Consultant ...

Letters

You Say Filibuster, I Say Democracy By intimidating American judges and attempting to seize absolute power over judicial nominations long into the future, Bush’s favored right-wing Republicans are attacking the balance of power that has ...

ArtListings

TheaterListings

Moving Images

Emerging Choreographers Showcase brings cutting-edge talent to Marina.

The committed producers, teachers and activists who give their time and talents to assure that the arts happen in smaller communities sometimes don’t think of themselves as artists. But they are motivated by a love ...

FILM: The Art of War

A film about the iconic Huey helicopter brings vets a strange solace.

When seeking closure on painful issues, it can help to have an old friend who’s been there along for the ride. For the protagonists of In the Shadow of the Blade, an award-winning documentary about ...

Afraid of the Darth

Despite wooden performances, Revenge of the Sith doesn’t suck.

Just in case that visit to Amish country lasted a bit longer than you planned, this little chamber piece of a movie wraps up a saga that has been part of the cultural consciousness for ...

HOMEPAGE: Uncovering Wonder

To drive by Phil and Lynette McKay’s house in Monterey is to glimpse what appears to be a Carmel-style cottage behind a white picket fence with two languid oaks lazing high above the roofline. What ...

Golden Girls

Two pillars of English acting—Judi Dench and Maggie Smith—play spinsters who take in a mysterious foreigner in Ladies in Lavender.

Imagine recovering from a serious injury in an isolated farmhouse where both of your doting grandmothers dwell. Think of how they would overwhelm you with lots of home cooking, attention and love. This is the ...

DiscSpace

LYRICS BORNSame !@#$ Different Day | Quannum Projects More of a companion piece to Later That Day… than a completely new album, Same !@#$ Different Day presents us with a collection of remixes from Lyrics ...

A Wild Midsummer Night

MPC finds the heat in Shakespeare’s hottest play.

At its best, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not simply a light romantic comedy. Shakespeare’s classic tale of bewitched love and tangled triangles is a hard-rock bacchae of lust unleashed beneath the dark chaotic canopy ...

Powerful Whispers

Quieter voices get heard at Big Sur ‘new folk’ fest.

When the term folk music is used, one thinks of protest music and sing-alongs, Greenwich Village, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. But these days, there are a growing number of musicians seeking—possibly unconsciously—to redefine the ...

Battle Won

Panetta and Farr celebrate winning effort to protect local bases.

Rep. Sam Farr [D-Carmel] likes to tell a story about Gen. John P. Abizaid of US Central Command (CENTCOM), who testified before a House military appropriations subcommittee in March. Farr asked Abizaid, whose area of ...

NewsBriefs

Swimming Upstream Thirty seven members of Congress, including Rep. Sam Farr [D-Carmel], recently signed a letter to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez asking him to declare the 2005 salmon season a disaster so fishermen can get ...

FORUM: Global Blowback

The US is paying a deadly price for its victory over the world.

Solo, Indonesia—Sholeh Ibrahim is a teacher, a slight man of intense gaze. His ardor contrasts with the languor of the Indonesian tropics. “I am angry with your President Bush, who sees Islam as an enemy,” ...

The Phantom $600 Million

Schwarzenegger’s plan to spend more on popular programs hits snag.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s revised budget overestimates state revenue by $600 million, according to the nonpartisan legislative analyst’s office. In a report released Monday, May 16, analyst Elizabeth G. Hill warned that an accounting error caused ...