Unpredictably Genius
The annual 101 Word Short Story Contest rumbles through realms of humanity and dog deaths.
Each year they emerge mysteriously, with a life all their own, like zombies from the mist: Strangely consistent themes cropping up amid scores and scores of short-story entries. Most of the pieces will still spool ...
Issues / 2012 / Dec 27
Health Lockdown
Medical costs for prisoners higher in California than anywhere in the country.
A psychiatrist working in the Salinas Valley State Prison raked in more than $800,000 last year, bringing national attention to California public employees’ high salaries and benefits. But there’s another cost the issue brings to ...
Sour Milk
Former teacher alleges school district didn’t provide breast-pumping privacy.
A local woman’s lawsuit against the Carmel Unified School District is getting national attention as it explores working mothers’ rights. Sarah Boyle sued the district on Oct. 30, alleging administrators didn’t provide the accommodations she ...
Flanders Flounders
When Peterson Conway was a teen, he got to know Flanders Mansion’s steep roof and narrow windows while his brother was shooting a horror film there. Now, Conway wants to lease the 1924 English Tudor-style ...
Nader Nah-gua
P.G. developer nails eight-figure payout for stake in desal proposal, commercial park.
At the Dec. 19 P.G. City Council meeting, Don Lew announced his private-equity investment firm, Concord-based JDL Development, is taking immediate control of Agha’s desalination plant proposal and other assets at Agha’s Moss Landing Commercial ...
Best Ahead
The musical year 2013 welcomes a host of new material from bands that have been in hibernation.
“Long overdue” seems like an appropriate mantra for the music industry come 2013. Artists including Rage Against the Machine, Tool, Cher, Pearl Jam and even LL Cool J are all reportedly releasing new records in ...
Middle-Age Malaise
This is 40 melds emotionally stunted humor and dull drama in the married-with-kids life.
Sometime after the hilarious Knocked Up (2007), writer/director Judd Apatow inexplicably decided to become a serious filmmaker. It was as if, similar to Seth Rogen’s character in that film, Apatow felt he needed to stop ...
Hunting Freedom
Quentin Tarantino’s slavery revenge flick Django Unchained marks his best work since Pulp Fiction.
Quentin Tarantino is at his best when he gets out of his own way. Specifically, his tendency to overwrite dialogue scenes—and then not cut them down when editing—is often his worst quality. But when he’s ...
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, ...
First and Foremost
The last and best party of the year, First Night Monterey, celebrates 20 years with a bang.
First Night Monterey is the biggest New Year’s Eve party in the county. Last year it attracted about 22,000 people into its one-day universe of musicians, artists, food vendors, magicians and dancers. This year, its ...
Cannery Row Repeat?
Regulators consider forage-fish catch limits; enviros warn of sardine collapse.
Kathy Fosmark isn’t old enough to remember the collapse of Cannery Row in the 1940s. But after more than 25 years in the fishing industry, she’s sure there are plenty of fish in the sea. ...
Crema Espresso and Wine Bar
Room for Crema: Crema Espresso and Wine Bar serves coffee, food and drinks in a place unlike any P.G. has seen.
From a pair of brand-new plush leather chairs overlooking Lighthouse Avenue in Pacific Grove, you can nestle in and watch cars roll by at the easy pace of waves flopping on the beach. I’m sitting ...
By The Numbers 12.27.12
Real Estate
$1,155,000 Recent Sale 45 W. Garzas Road, Carmel Valley Built: 1965 Size: 4,000 square feet Features: 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 1-car garage Amenities: 3 fireplaces, vaulted ceilings, workshop, fenced horse property, deck, Roman soaking tub ...
No world-ending event means one final column for 2012.
Iwas half-hoping the Mayans were right, because if they had been, it would have meant I didn’t have to write a column this week. It also would mean the Weekly could cease a holiday schedule ...
Street Talk 12.27.12 (Asked at Maya Cinemas in Salinas.)
Tell the short story of your life in a sentence.
Follow-up: What breakthrough do you want to see in 2013? YOLANDE WHITLOCK | Retired | Salinas A: Upward mobility is still possible in the United States, and I’m a bootstrap example of success. Call to ...
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the sci-fi film trilogy The Matrix, the heroes are able to instantaneously acquire certain complex skills via software that’s downloaded directly into their brains. In this way, the female hacker ...
Letters To The Editor 12.27.12
Second Breakfast In reference to Dan Hudak’s review (“Peter Jackson plays it out with unexpectedly long journey in latest installment of The Hobbit,” Dec. 13-19), I saw the new film in its non-3D and non-Imax ...
Squid Speaks
COP WATCH… Squid has a way of behaving that sometimes makes people uncomfortable: sidelong glances one minute, chatty and forward the next. Mostly it’s Squid’s habit of sliding into public meetings and eavesdropping in courthouse ...
Shouldn’t the last act of murderous outrage in our nation have been enough of a wake-up call?
Fact: Eighty-eight people in this country have died in mass shootings this year alone, joining the 30,000 others who were murdered or killed themselves with guns. Guns make us stupid. This truth was on display ...
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, ...
Bitter Grapes
Disagreement on how to rep county wines leads a founding member of the growers association to quit.
Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association planted its first vines of life in the fertile soils of Salinas Valley almost 40 years ago. Several of the area’s biggest and mightiest vineyards—J. Lohr, Paraiso and Wente—were ...
It Might Get Loud
The Mystery Lights and newcomers The Tomb Weavers highlight a night of '60s garage rock.
Last spring, the Mystery Lights played for nearly 20,000 people at the Strawberry Music Festival in Beijing. Looking out into an infinite sea of faces was a far cry from playing to 50 at Jose’s ...
