The Kelp Conditioning
Open-water swimming off Pacific Grove’s coast nets a dozen understandings.
When all you see – and smell – of kelp are decaying strands on the beach, the notion of a vibrant undersea forest is more mystery than majesty. But swimming along and below the water’s ...
The Mermaid Treatment
Aqua Wellness Day Spa brings a new element to pampering.
Eyes shut, I can’t see the meditating gold frog perched beside the pool. But I can hear my own heart, and the water flowing past my ears, and a low hum from the chest of ...
The Extreme Relaxation
CVAC’s cutting-edge hydrothermal experience aims to soothe Monterey County with intense temperatures.
First comes the choice, then the moment of truth. The choice arrives after 25 minutes sweating in a massive Finnish sauna. It’s between cold-plunge pools: one chilled to approximate the Pacific Ocean (marked with a ...
The City Pool Wisdom
The guy in the next lane knows a lot about a lot, including nutrition, and lives to share it.
When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) went before Congress, Seaside’s Rick Lagerstrom read the whole thing. He powered through all 906 pages despite the fact he’s not in government (though he ...
Issues / 2012 / Jan 19
Against the Grain
A handful of heady restaurants give Monterey County hope – and flavor – without wheat.
Imagine your diet without cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch or pasta for dinner. Those with an allergy or intolerance to gluten, the primary protein in wheat and similar grains such as barley and rye, ...
Water-Supply Polo
Regional Project’s death breathes life into Peninsula mayors’ alternative.
The Regional Desalination Project has absorbed a series of blows since entering the ring in March 2010: public backlash, unmet financial obligations, conflict-of-interest charges, a lost court battle. On Jan. 17, California American Water finally ...
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 ...
Artful Dodgers
Seven of Monterey County’s greatest artistic minds will be honored at the seventh annual Champions of the Arts.
It’s not the kind of thing you expect to hear from a film professor. “Film is one of those industries where if you’re good at what you do, it doesn’t matter what kind of degree ...
Brezsny's Astrology Jan. 19-25, 2012
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The Macy’s ad I saw in the newspaper had a blaring headline: “Find Your Magic 2.0.” The items that were being touted to help us discover our upgraded and more deluxe ...
By the Numbers: 01-19-12
Real Estate
$2,150,000 Recent Sale 2705 14th Ave., Carmel Built: 1990 Size: 2,497 square feet Features: 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, 2-car garage Amenities: 3 fireplaces, central air conditioning, patio, deck, landscaped yard, wine cellar, vaulted ceilings, ocean ...
Letters to the Editor 01-19-12
Cause and Effect For 30 years, cities in California have used redevelopment agencies to appropriate the schools’ portion of tax local property taxes to themselves (“Supreme Court decision dooms redevelopment agencies, leaves cities reeling,” Jan. ...
Haywire
Secret Agent Meh: MMA star Gina Carano’s brawn meets director Steven Soderbergh’s brains – and it goes kind of Haywire.
We’ve seen this movie before. A helluva lot. Secret agent/gun for hire/covert badass gets burned. Who did it? The bad guys? The colleagues? The boss? Our Hero has to work hard and fast to pull ...
Solid Foundation
Nonprofit scandal nears resolution with a proposed new fund for AIDS patient housing.
It seemed almost unspeakable at the time. A Seaside-based nonprofit serving people with HIV/AIDS stood accused by the state Attorney General’s office of misspending $2.8 million from its general fund and an endowment for housing ...
Irish Spring
Celtic trio Molly’s Revenge helps celebrate the birthday of Scotland’s most famous poet, Robert Burns.
In 2004 and 2005, Molly’s Revenge performed at the Shanghai International Music Festival in China. The acoustic Celtic trio’s performances were a smash. “The people of Shanghai received us with open arms and wild applause,” ...
Pipe Dreams
A screwball musician brings his unique passion to Pacific Grove.
Composer, studio player, theater musician, teacher, multi-instrumentalist and 2006 Bush Artist Fellow Dick Hensold has always marched to the beat of a different piper: When the self-proclaimed “music geek” was a teenager, he’d diligently study ...
Swapping Sacramento for Salinas
Pacific Grove Mayor Carmelita Garcia retools her ambitions for higher office.
Hers was one of those candidacies everyone seemed to know about, but few could confirm – until Jan. 17, when Pacific Grove Mayor Carmelita Garcia announced she’s dropping out of the 29th Assembly District race ...
Room Underrated
As Carmel innkeepers push renovation tax incentive, union insists on worker protection.
When 16 protesters sat down in Carmel’s Camino Real in October, waiting to be arrested in an act of civil disobedience, they hurt the feelings of former owner John Cope. He insists he made an ...
Musings on an uninsured friend, Natividad’s Anthem issue.
A good friend of mine has, for the past few months, suffered one of the worst chronic coughs I’ve ever heard. It started with a cold, and it’s never gone away or gotten better. But ...
Squid Speaks
HOIST A GLASS… “He was a black sheep, a permanent pariah. He learned no lessons, he acknowledged no mistakes… He did what he wanted to do and he said what he wanted to say.” Quick ...
Asked at Lollapalooza in Monterey.
What creative things do you do to exercise your mind?
Follow-up: How do you define health? MARIA S. BECK | Receptionist | Monterey A: Through argument with people, my family, friends, etc. I try to introduce myself to new perspectives and challenges. Or I get ...
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Extremely Long, Incredibly Annoying: 9/11 serves as a cheap gimmick in this film take on Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel.
“As with anything,” Thomas tells his nine year-old son Oskar, “if you want to believe, you can find reasons to.” So true, and prophetic. For surely if you want to believe in Extremely Loud and ...
Getting Fishy
Inspiring ways to turn the tide against destruction of our oceans.
Part of me thinks it’s kind of cool when I discover that, say, there’s a cheese out there worth $500 a pound – and it’s from Swedish moose cows. But when I learn that a ...
