0517| May 17

Fast Family

A Laguna Seca Legend — and son — make a big weekend at the track bigger.

Dan Gurney’s favorite local memory involves a twist to rival those of the storied Seca corkscrew: In this tale there are no other racers giving chase, just military police.Gurney was in the Army, stationed at ...

Keeping Vigil

Local cancer victim’s memory lives on in the Relay for Life.

The Carmel High girls’ field hockey team almost never won, but its coach, Brenda La Mica-Hoge, taught her players to be proud of the small stuff—each well-executed play, each blocked shot on goal. Brenda knew ...

Celtic Explosion

Culann’s Hounds bring big sound to London Bridge.

Over the last year, the San Francisco-based traditional Irish group Culann’s Hounds has been blowing up. Last St. Patrick’s Day, the quartet headlined a concert at the Great American Music Hall. That day also marked ...

PublicCitizen

5|17THURSBIKE TO WORK | COUNTYWIDE —Free breakfast for people who bike to work. Information on locations at Bike2work.com. MARINA TRAFFIC | MARINA —Chamber luncheon features “Marina Traffic Issues: Current and Future.” 11:45am-1pm. A Pizza Paradise, ...

A Lot of House

>>REALESTATEIn Pacific Grove, on a big piece of land that’s more meadow than yard, venerable pines and redwoods soar vertically, their canopies closer to the sky than the ground. They stand in demure composition to ...

The Master’s Voice

Jonathan Poretz learned a lot by playing Frank Sinatra.

Imitation can be a creative cul de sac for musicians, a dead end in the search for a personal sound. But immersing oneself in the work of a master can also unlock new avenues, enabling ...

Soldiers Silenced

The Pentagon’s shortsighted milblogger crackdown.

>>FORUMIn a recent Saturday morning, Conference Room D outside the Ballston Westin Gateway hotel’s F. Scott Fitzgerald Ballroom was filled with bloggers. So, naturally, there was lots of fulminating about the mainstream media (MSM).But when ...

Spring Cleansing

What one food addict discovered when he gave it all up.

My love of food is what gets me arm-deep in the food chain every week, prying pearls of inspiration like so many wisdom teeth from the mouths of experts— the chefs, farmers, home-cooks, butchers and ...

Reason for Rhyme

A Sudan transplant continues his journey through verse.

Ibrahim Musa holds a plain folder containing the essence of his fateful life experience. Before coming to the US almost three years ago, the 49-year-old taught English, wrote poetry and was a journalist in his ...

Alive and Flapping

Condor chick is doing well in its Big Sur cave.

It’s been a big week for Joe Burnett, senior biologist with the Ventana Wildlife Society. From a room in the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, where his wife Wendy is about to give birth ...

Healthy Progress

Cooking for Solutions promises more wise and simple breakthroughs.

Two years ago, at the end of the Cooking for Solutions expert panel question-and-answer period, a scientist in the audience raised his hand. Why, he asked, given the sorry state of tuna and other top ...

Just Another Huge Week

SET ’EM UP, ZOLE… My sweetie and I are still in the throes of confusion over our new satellite TV and exactly what channels are available and for how much. We agree that all these ...

Squid Fry for May 17, 2007

MONEY TALKS… Squid keeps a close eye on Squid’s money—one-third of Squid’s income pays the rent and utilities, one-third pays for the Squidmobile and the final third for booze. And being such an accountable cephalopod, ...

Country Joe Returns

Folk rock icon brings Woodie Guthrie tribute to Big Sur.

The last time folk rock legend Country Joe McDonald played Big Sur was back in 1967. With former bandmate Barry Melton, his band Country Joe and the Fish performed in a field right off Highway ...

Numbed by War

The pain that crippled one Marine cripples all of us.

>>THELOCALSPINAdrian Jimenez accepts his cruel fate with a shrug. Reading his story, that is what’s most troubling. At 22, he is too world-weary to feel even a little bit sorry for himself. It’s as if ...

The Long Goodbye

Julie Christie stares down the clock in

Away from Her treats the trauma of loss with the dignity it deserves: as something that never goes away, but settles like a terminal ache deep in your bones. The drama, directed by actress Sarah ...

Border Crossings

Tish Hinojosa explores the boundaries of popular music.

Since her 1989 debut, Homeland, Texas singer/songwriter Tish Hinojosa has effortlessly mixed coffeehouse folk, twangy country-and-western and percussion-heavy Latin music. “I don’t like to stick to one style, because I get bored with things,” she ...

Pie in the Sky

Adrienne Shelly’s last film is a breezy revelation.

I first saw Adrienne Shelly in 1989, starring in Hal Hartley’s micro-indie The Unbelievable Truth at Houston’s Landmark River Oaks Theatre. Shelly was a rarity among women in that age: She was blond; she was ...

Letters to the Editor for May 17, 2007

GIVE JESSICA AN AWARDAfter reading Jessica Lyons’ “Sex And The County—Back To The Future,” I know who writes Squid Fry. It’s her, the only society gossip reporter in Monterey County with a head on her ...

Budget Plan Cuts Farm Money

Governor says funds have better uses.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s revised $145 billion state spending plan, released Monday, eliminates state funding for a program used to protect farmland and prevent urban sprawl.In an effort to reduce a $1.4 billion deficit without raising ...

Pass the Arugula

CSUMB considers replacing eco-friendly Sodexho with a new food-service provider.

Given the choice, many college students would probably choose grease over greens. Yet CSU-Monterey Bay sophomore Josh Varon seems to have found the right combination of vegetables and fried food. Varon, who has dark hair ...

For the Birds

The region’s top birder chases species all over the county and the world.

Under a sky bruised by rain clouds, Don Roberson pulls his Isuzu Trooper into County Supervisor Lou Calcagno’s Moon Glow Dairy Farm behind the Duke Energy Power Plant in Moss Landing. “There is almost no ...

Asked at Custom House Plaza in Monterey.

Street Talk

Q: THE US HAS A NASTY OIL HABIT. DO YOU HAVE ANY NASTY HABITS?Follow-up: What isn’t a habit but should be considered one?Wendy Forsythe | College Graduate | New Jersey A: My husband would tell ...

Artists’ Journey

Belle Yang documentary tells a Chinese immigrant family’s story.

A gaily painted kite bucks and twists in the wind, tail snapping loudly as it soars, seemingly fragile, but jerking hard against the string held taught by an elderly man below. Joseph Yang and his ...

DiscSpace

BLONDE REDHEAD | 23 | 4AD/Beggars BanquetBlonde Redhead, the trio of twin brothers Amedeo and Simone Pace and Kazu Makino, once traded in the sonic dissonance inspired by New York’s early ‘90s no-wave scene. Now, ...