Thursday, December 28
Your Letters
Thanks, Ghostbusters Thank you for your good, detailed coverage of our local heroes ("Ghostbusters," 12/14-20), who uncovered the compromised land-use practices that had been allowed to flourish between developers--attorney Tony Lombardo and the county. Pat ...
The Music Heritage Society offers a world of hard-to-find choices for classical music lovers.
classicalWhile most classical record manufacturers continue to struggle for corporate stability and artistic direction, Music Heritage Society quietly continues to deliver the goods. Garnering licensing agreements that make up to 300 titles available to its ...
From The Editorial Desk
on an enlightening, entertaining year--read our cover story for all the shenanigans, skullduggery, boondoggles and Poppycock.Squid looks back
Squid looks back on 2000
Why''s Everybody Always Picking on Me? Stetson-sportin'' legislator Pete Frusetta was better known for his verbal gaffes than his silver spurs. Eventually his fellow Assemblymembers just stopped listening altogether. It Takes Money to Save the ...
The origins and orientation of a food critic looking for love.
Amazingly, the year 2000 has come and finally is about to be gone. Aside from the hyper hype and fanfare on the front end, it was pretty much like any other year. Now we''re about ...
The ancient Chinese art of feng shui has people all fired up trying to combat that nasty little 'sha' force.
831--Tales from the Area CodeWithin hours of my first feng shui workshop, I''d broken a sweat rearranging the bedroom furniture. It wasn''t that I actually held any hope for our overpriced little rental with its ...
Streetalk
New Year''s Eve is just days away and the parties are ready to begin. As we slide from holiday revelry and into the first year of a new millennium--or maybe the second, no one knows--resolutions ...
Scientists study the health risks of poverty.
Jesus Lopez''s eyes flash with indignation as he describes the difficulty of proving that it''s not just farmworkers who are at risk for pesticide exposure. A community worker who has worked for California Rural Legal ...
Thursday, December 21
Streetalk
The Season is upon us like fleas on rats. Everywhere people are spreading joy and maxing out their credit cards. Is this the spirit of America''s favorite holiday? To find out, we braved Santa''s little ...
Women with low voices find a niche in the boys' room.
classicalTrue female altos, singers whose range extends well below the middle C that stands at the bottom of the soprano range, are rare. Famous altos of modern recording history include Kathleen Ferrier, Erzsebet Komlossy and ...
Your Letters
Animals Are People, Too Having written about urban wildlife for years, I am used to seeing misinformation, and Christina Waters' article, "Boomer the Critter Man" (12/14-20), was no exception. For the record, Fish and Game ...
A return home for Christmas offers cold comfort and warm memories.
831--tales from the area codeFor those of us whose karmic condition involved a happy childhood, the kitchen refrigerator occupied a special niche. And I don''t just mean slightly to the left of the oven. In ...
the winners
Congratulations to Jeff Zunich, who's $101 dollars richer as a result of winning our annual short story contest. Zunich's miniature story narrowly beat out runners-up Gary Carter and Penny Ellsworth, who each scored a free ...
Squidfry
Torpedoes Be Damned The Monterey Bay Shores Resort, the 495-room hotel and condo complex previously destined for the Sand City coastline, went down in flames at the state Coastal Commission meeting in San Francisco last ...
Though the parallels with Robinson Crusoe are obvious, Cast Away misses the point.
Rereading Daniel Defoe''s Robinson Crusoe--the godfather of all castaway adventures, including the new movie Cast Away--it''s striking how much of a message it contains. Written in 1719, the novel flatters its middle class audience in ...
Scott Dosch creates stunning seaside sculptures that are literally here today, gone tomorrow.
Scott Dosch stands on the sand at the bottom of Carmel''s Ocean Avenue passing around a plastic bucket as gawking tourists scramble through their pockets and purses for dollar bills. "Please support the arts, folks," ...
At Little Wings' Carmel Highlands farm, abused kids and mistreated animals learn kindness and trust.
Across from Point Lobos off Highway 1, a dusty road winds past horse pastures, trailers, and barns. A small sign tacked on a tree points the way to Redwings Horse Sanctuary, a 50-acre refuge overlooking ...
Menorahs, dreidels and mom's homecooking make the Jewish holiday special.
SidedishHanukkah, the eight-day Jewish holiday that begins on Dec. 21, commemorates the survival of the Jewish faith. During the second pre-Christian century, the Syrian-Greek emperor Antiochus IV forced his subjects in Judea (the southern part ...
A frenzy of residential redevelopment threatens to change the face of Carmel.
Last Thursday, about a dozen longtime Carmelites journeyed from their sleepy village by the sea to San Francisco to give the state Coastal Commission a piece of their minds. On the commission''s agenda loomed the ...
From The Editorial Desk
Congratulations to Jeff Zunich,who's $101 dollars richer as a result of winning our annual short story contest. Zunich's miniature story narrowly beat out runners-up Gary Carter and Penny Ellsworth, who each scored a free dinner ...
Thursday, December 14
The electoral college reconsidered.
This Sunday, John Laird will climb into his car and drive part of the way to Sacramento to his mother''s house in Pleasanton to spend the night, just to make sure--really, really sure--that nothing gets ...
Excerpts from depositions taken by attorney Michael Stamp in the case Bernardi v. Monterey County
Joseph Karnes, attorney with Lombardo & Gilles: Q. Well, as part of your standard practice of reviewing what you submitted and comparing it to what the county actually filed, would it surprise you to find ...
How a retired schoolteacher and some lawyers unveiled a deceptive labyrinth of ghostwritten government records.
Something just wasn''t right. To neighbors and activists who keep a watchful eye on Monterey County''s development activities, goings-on down at the Planning Department hadn''t seemed fair for years. For the latter part of the ...
Reap this year's harvest of boxed CD sets and make a music lover's day.
After a couple of fairly lean years for people who enjoy giving the gift of music for the holidays, the new century has begun with a bumper crop of boxed sets to consider for gift ...
Christmas feasts feed both the body and the soul.
Eating messy krushchiki and listening to mystic kolendy as a child at the home of my mother''s best friend always made me feel the magic of Christmas. Those Polish "angel wings"--a twisted, deep-fried cookie liberally ...
Streetalk
People can''t seem to stop hoping for World Peace--and we''re not just talking Miss America candidates, either. While wars and riots rage all around the world, we sit and conceptualize a budding utopia for every ...
Indian food temple's tandor and seasonings fire the palate and the imagination.
Here was the plan. Chico, Zeppo and I (Harpo), would meet Groucho down at India''s Clay Oven for a foray into the mysterious world of curry and tandoori. Chico wanted us to wear turbans, but ...
The Camerata Singers deliver a concert of seasonal music that reflects improved sound and tone.
classical Noticeable improvements marked John Koza''s Camerata Singers concert at Carmel Mission. The holiday program--a sampler which wandered the world from France to Latvia to Nigeria--was almost free of the pitch problems that have nagged ...
News of the The Long Bar's abrupt closure headlines a week that's filled with music.
Earlier this week, owners of the Long Bar suddenly shut its doors. On the one hand, it was sudden and unexpected; on the other, a revamp had been scheduled for sometime after Christmas. So it''s ...
The new organic standard is almost here.
When is a potato a potato, and when is it a pesticide? Ask McDonald''s, whose popular salty french fries were pulled from restaurants six months ago after disgusted customers learned that the potatoes had been ...
Tony-winner John Guare's glittering lines lost in lackluster production.
One of the key speeches in John Guare''s Six Degrees of Separation is delivered by Ouisa Kittredge (Marlie Avant in a fine performance). She marvels at the ways in which human beings are connected to ...
Your Letters
High Rents Hurt All I'd like to thank the Weekly for Traci Hukill's article on the Buena Vista Land Co.'s massive rent hike ("Home Breaker," 12/7-13). As a resident of the Olympia Grove Apartments mentioned ...
Two engaging exhibits echo a fixed fact of life, that it's the little things that really reveal the big picture.
Many writers claim that a second-rate novel is easier to write than a first-rate poem. With a small work, there''s no fudging or hiding: Every word counts. Something similar happens in art, as two local ...
Want a future community leader? Local churches and unions are finding the best way to get one is to train one yourself.
Martha Diehl just concluded eight hours of role-playing, active listening exercises and communication training aimed to make her feel more connected to people around her. "It''s a very different way of doing things. It''s very ...
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
The Virgen of Guadalupe''s mythic story has roots that reach back centuries and still enthralls believers. It begins when Indio Juan Diego first sees the Virgen on Tepeyac Hill outside Mexico City, a site sacred ...
Thursday, December 7
Monterey Bay SCUBA diving is not for the lazy, the vain or the faint of heart.
831--Tails From The Area Code Scuba Libre: Neophyte underwater adventurer Traci Hukill takes one last surface breath before her virgin dive. Fifty-five feet below the ocean''s surface in a hazy world of green and blue, ...
Artifacts
Scene and Not Heard Once upon a time, every cabbie, bookie or cableguy had a screenplay knockin' around the old brainpan. Taut, tense, terribly artsie all. Uppity Quentin Tarantino's rough and randy screen work unleashed ...
You can't taste, smell, see, touch, or hear it but you know what makes a band great.
What makes Tom Waits so goddamned special? Waits mumbles words that dribble like shards of glass on honey. Looking at his mug is something like staring at some old dog who has had a hard ...
Some thirsty citizens strive to flush away thePeninsula water district.
Mark Twain''s words "Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over" ring truer than ever today. In the year 2001, you may not see shotgun showdowns between riled ranchers. Nevertheless, some of Monterey ...
Squidfry
It's All For the Children!So, Skip Barber Racing School has become the new Kid Friendly Skip Barber Racing School, eh? Squid took note last week when 100 students from Buena Vista Middle School in Salinas ...
Carmel Valley photographer John Sexton examines the meaning and beauty of technology and the natural world.
Artistic inspiration can strike at the oddest times and in the oddest places. For Carmel Valley''s John Sexton--regarded as a contemporary master of large format black and white landscape photography--the inspiration for his latest book, ...
Smuin Ballet delivers a stockingful of seasonal treats.
classical It seemed everyone exclaimed "What a treat!" in reaction to the Smuin Ballets'' Christmas Ballet at Santa Catalina School last weekend. The performances--three of them--fired up the holiday spirit for those who attended. During ...
Don't laugh--'sudden oak death' is a real menace.
There are portions of Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park where the bare tanoaks and live oaks resemble a New England forest during the height of winter. The trees are victims of "sudden oak death syndrome," ...
Letters
Whale of a Tale First, I'd like to thank the Weekly for Traci Hukill's excellent article on the humpback whales, as well as the state of whales in general ("Fluke of Nature," Nov. 30-Dec. 6). ...
No rope can break Vertical Limit's plummet into bad moviemaking.
Chris O''Donnell, emoting horror at the death of his father, is one of the most uproarious sights in this year''s cinema. In the opening of Vertical Limit, Peter (O''Donnell), his father and his sister Annie ...
Buena Vista Land Co.'s rent hikes could force many long-term, older tenants to hit the road.
Terry Robbins is steamed. "For these landlords to do this to us is just unconscionable," the 79-year-old New York native says disgustedly. "They have no heart and they don''t care. What gives them the right ...
Streetalk.
You come to two doors. One leads to hell, the other to your goal. Standing in front of them are two men. One lies all the time and one tells the truth. You can only ...
