Stories for February 2005

Thursday, February 24

Advanced Shakespeare

Al Pacino as Shylock helps bring Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice to the big screen.

William Shakespeare’s thorniest play arrives in this new film format with most of its prickliness still intact. The poetry of Shakespeare’s language is given the freedom to soar by director Michael Radford (Il Postino), and ...

DiscSpace

…AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEADWorlds Apart | Interscope Records On their fifth album, Worlds Apart, …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead trade in some of their ...

Making Room

Creating sanctuaries creates space for our selves.

On a quiet road off Highway 1 in Carmel Highlands sits an Asian-inspired home wrapped in a green canyon. Nine years ago, Joan and Terry McHenry built Water Fall House to incorporate views of a ...

Power of the Pooch

A girl and her dog mend a town in Because of Winn-Dixie.

Director Wayne Wang has made an erotic treatise on disconnection in the Internet age with films such as The Center of the World and the neighborhood slice-of-life dramas Smoke and Blue in the Face. In ...

Exile on North Main Street

Recent Salinas’ arrivals Rum and Rebellion set local politics to cowpunk music.

Just looking at a flier promoting their upcoming shows, it is obvious that the Salinas country punk trio Rum and Rebellion is doing something different than most local bands. A handout announcing three shows—including Saturday’s ...

Letters

Marina Needs to Think Ahead At the Marina City Council meeting of February 1, we heard about 14 recommendations to improve the City’s financial outlook, some of which included raising fees for current Marina citizens. ...

TheaterListings

| theater openings | The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? Opens Fri 8pm; continues Sat 8pm; Sun 5pm. Martin, a hugely successful architect who has just turned fifty, leads an ostensibly ideal life with his ...

Deep Truth

Jean-Michel Cousteau brings ocean protection message to CSUMB.

When CSUMB faculty and staff were asked to submit suggestions for the school’s 10th Anniversary Distinguished Lecture Series last spring, the names came fast and furious. They wanted a speaker with international appeal as well ...

Homepage

Time’s Graceful March

Many of Pacific Grove’s hallmark homes are Victorians carrying the name of the original owner and the year the house was built. However, few are ensconced within the sort of time capsule this one is. ...

White Shark’s Days

The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s weekend-long shark celebration may be the beginning of the end.

The white shark may be shrouded in a school of shimmering uncertainties, but one thing is for certain: the female that’s been patrolling the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Outer Bay exhibit for the last four months ...

Family Tribute

Pa’s Chicago Kitchen opens in Carmel in honor of a beloved father.

Once word got out that Mick Chiero was serving Italian beef sandwiches at Pa’s Chicago Kitchen in Carmel, it soon became a mecca for Monterey County’s Chicago expatriates. Pa’s, which opened three months ago, is ...

Mid-Size Crisis

State pulls AIDS money from non-urban counties following drop in rural cases.

When it comes to caring for people with HIV and AIDS, Monterey County’s got different challenges compared to urban areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Next year, it will have less money to fund ...

Lifestyles of the Broke and Inebriated

After 7,000 gigs and 7,002 sacks of weed, Todd Snider finally arrives.

Songwriters really shouldn’t use their little tunes to talk shop, even if they do have juicy stories about backstage necking and illegal drugs and tuning-fork mishaps and whatnot. Skynyrd freakin’ nailed that bag. Still, people ...

Squidfry

ONE SQUID’S TRASH…It’s been a tough couple of weeks. It’s a Lent thing. Squid gave up one of Squid’s most treasured pastimes. No, not spreading good ink—Squid’s not up for Sainthood. Yet. Squid gave up ...

Where To Shop

Carmel and Carmel Valley Avant Garden and Home 14 Del Fino Place, Carmel Valley Village, 659-9899. Homescapes, Carmel Two locations: SE Corner of 7th and Dolores, Carmel, 624-6499, and 13766 Center St., Carmel Valley Village, ...

Red Wines and Gold Medals

MONTEREY MIRACLE… You don’t know how lucky you are. This is the second column I filed for this week. The first one was a dawn bombing run on a handful of what I perceive to ...

Street Talk

…And Your Little Dog Too!: Asked at the MIIS International Business Center in Monterey

Q: Have we in the United States become a “sue-happy” nation?Follow-up: What corporation deserves to have its pants sued off? Adam WootenStudent | MontereyA: Definitely. It’s great that some measures are being put in place ...

831: Waking Giant

After a long hiatus, local poet David Gitin publishes a new book.

Sporting a bushy white beard, David Gitin leans back from the table and says he’s feeling a lot like Rip Van Winkle these days. The renowned poet and MPC professor hasn’t exactly been asleep for ...

Newsbriefs

GPU Fight Escalates—Again It’s time for the next go-round in the General Plan Update process and this time the gloves are off. County Supervisors held an all-day workshop on Wednesday, Feb. 23, to hear two ...

Forum: Hunter S. Thompson, Rest in Peace

He was a hero of American journalism in a historical moment still filled with hypocrites and whores.

In the same month the planet gets to know the “journalist” James/Jeff Guckert/Gannon, Hunter S. Thompson decides to make The Big Bit-Spit and eject from the planet. This could be sacrilege, and I hope his ...

The Sacred Rustic

Elizabeth Murray’s garden is a work of spirit and art.

It’s a late Sunday afternoon in Elizabeth Murray’s own private Eden, a one-acre hilltop spread tucked in a sleepy neighborhood above Munras Avenue. A small sign perched on a worn wooden gate, ‘Entrée Les Artistes,’ ...

ArtListings

Class Actions

PG’s rent hikes on public buildings have instructors irked.

Al Shoats of the Pacific Grove Judo Academy says he feels like PG City Hall has him in a financial headlock. The rent he pays for space in Chautauqua Hall to teach judo is about ...

Thursday, February 17

Stranger Than Paradise

Keanu Reeves plays a Neo-like character in this biblical action movie based on a comic book.

With its intense focus on a distinctly Roman Catholic metaphysical cosmology, Constantine acts less like a typical comic book adaptation than it does an attempt to turn Paradise Lost into a blockbuster action movie. And ...

Chef Profiles 1

Ingrid | Jeffrey | Estelle

INGRID ROHRERTitle: Sous ChefRestaurant: Rio Grill Marital Status: EngagedZodiac Sign: LibraPrior Stints: Earthbound Farm’s Organic Kitchen. What’s In Your Fridge? Sriracha sauce, bacon, Diet Coke. Favorite Local Foodstuffs: Heirloom tomatoes, calamari and artichokes. Favorite Wine: ...

Chef Profiles 2

Walter | Boris | Tony

WALTER MANZKE Title: Executive ChefRestaurant: L’Auberge Carmel and Bouchée Marital Status: MarriedZodiac Sign: LibraPrior Stints: Patina (Los Angeles), Le Louis XV in the Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo with Alain Ducasse, Pinot Bistro (Los Angeles)and ...

Food & Wine: The Living Masters

The annual event in the Highlands is a breathing, evolving thing.

This weekend, the best of weekends, sneaks up on us each February like Glynda, the good witch from the Wizard of Oz. After Christmas holiday madness, beyond the New Year’s hangover, past the torrents of ...

DiscSpace

OPIOTriangulation Station | Hiero Imperium In his solo debut, the latest of several such releases from the Bay Area’s Souls of Mischief, Opio uses his album to show a side of himself we’ve never heard ...

Wisdom and Humility

One-woman show demonstrates Zen-Christian doctrine as lived by religious homeless activists.

Like the moon emerging from a cloud, the Fool sees there is no separation between one sentient being and another. —Excerpt from The Witness Parker Palmer, an American theologian, once wrote, “Neither truth nor love ...

Letters

Funny Actor and Salinas Mayor in Cahoots Everyone who cares about keeping the libraries of Salinas open was happy to hear of Bill Murray’s $25,000 donation, right? Well, although it was helpful to us, it ...

Schools Fight Back

Schwarzenegger’s education cuts may draw fire at Thursday budget forum.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plans to take money away from school kids and teachers doesn’t seem to be sitting well with California voters. The governor’s spending plan would give schools $2.3 billion less than they are ...

ArtListings

TheaterListings

Monterey County’s Own Food Masters

The Masters of Food and Wine, a local institution for the past 19 years, brings the best chefs from around the world—as well as a crush of gourmands and general epicures—to the fair shores of ...

Mommy Doesn’t Cook

True confessions of a single working mom with neither pot nor pan.

For most people, the discovery that they are going to be parents is equal parts joy and fear. Mostly fear of themselves. Not: “How am I going to afford them?” or “Do I have to ...

Surf Active

The recently lauded Surfrider Foundation opens a Monterey chapter.

Twenty years ago, surf culture hit an all-time low. The surf industry was exploding in a crass day-glo mushroom cloud, surf breaks were crowded, polluted and threatened by development, and Jeff Spicoli whacking his head ...

Food & Wine: World Class Local Wines

Monterey wines continue to star at their own show.

The Masters of Food and Wine is an all-star game for wineries from around the world—industry titans such as Bouchard Pere & Fils of Burgundy, Henschke of Australia, Cloudy Bay of New Zealand, Weingut Dr. ...

SquidFry

SHINNY, HAPPY BUILDING… The end is near. No, not the apocalypse. Not the end of reality TV programming. Not even the end of Dan Albert’s reign as Mayor of Monterey. Squid’s talking about the new ...

Golf is for Giving

The AT&T Pro-Am is fueled by volunteers.

At the AT&T National Pro-Am 2005 Tee Off Party on Wednesday, Feb. 9, George Lopez was one of a number of top shelf celebrities to take the mic. “Volunteer,” he cracked, “is an Indian word ...

FoodChain

Now’s As Good As Ever

IT'S ALL TOO MUCH… Today I am a butterfly (no wisecracks). Today I flutter around in my little butterfly home, preening my beautiful butterfly wings, polishing my cute little butterfly shoes, freshening my delicate butterfly ...

StreetTalk: Gourmet in Monterey

Asked at the Post Office in Marina

Q: What’s your idea of fine dining? Follow-up: What’s your favorite food? Debra Williams Adult Day Care | Seaside A: I look for courtesy, politeness and quick service with a smile. The place also has ...

NewsBriefs

Meteorites on Mars? Scientists continue to fill in the pieces of the puzzle that is the Red Planet. One such scientist on the front lines of Mars Exploration will speak of recent successes and failures ...

Food&Wine: World Class Local Wines

Monterey wines continue to star at their own show.

The Masters of Food and Wine is an all-star game for wineries from around the world—industry titans such as Bouchard Pere&Fils of Burgundy, Henschke of Australia, Cloudy Bay of New Zealand, Weingut Dr. Loosen of ...

A New Centurion

Sean Smith revives a guitar style from the early 1900s.

Pacific Grove native Sean Smith got disappointed in the rock music scene at a very early age. After playing with the local pop group Soylent Green as a teenager, Smith realized that he was more ...

Gang War Talk

The president puts few dollars behind his promise to ‘keep young people out of gangs.’

When President Bush announced during his recent State of the Union address that he would introduce a new $150 million anti-gang program, overseen by First Lady Laura Bush, ears perked up from Washington to Salinas. ...

Homepage

A Family Property

Seven years ago, Joe and Stephanie Flores took the chance to buy a piece of land in Marina. Many with that opportunity might have built a spec-house to turn good luck into fortune, but the ...

Overdraft Resistance

Coastal Commission may reconsider Elkhorn Slough development.

A North County subdivision—shot down by the California Coastal Commission late last year—may get a second look. On Feb. 16, developer Steve Bradshaw asked the commission to reconsider his proposal for a 10-lot subdivision he ...

Chef Profiles 3

Yann | Paulo | Bernabe

YANN LUSSEAU Title: Pastry Chef/OwnerRestaurant: Parker-Lusseau Pastries Marital Status: Married to Anne Parker (above left).Zodiac Sign: GeminiPrior Stints: Gotham Bar and Grill (NY), Casanova, and Paradiso. What’s In Your Fridge? Whole milk—no frou-frou stuff. Favorite ...

Chef Profiles 4

TODD FISHER Title: Executive Chef/OwnerRestaurant: Hullabaloo Marital Status: MarriedZodiac Sign: CapricornPrior Stints: La Scuola, Montrio, Stillwater Bar & Grill and Billy Quon’s. What’s In Your Fridge? Yogurt, sliced deli turkey, jelly, a variety of hot ...

SF’s Secret Ghetto

Kevin Epps’ Straight Outta Hunter’s Point explores the roots and travails of his eighborhood.

Being from the East Coast, I have always felt that San Francisco was a fairly non-threatening city. Sure, I walk fast through sections of the Tenderloin and the Fillmore, but I have never felt scared ...

Dancing Wheels

The AXIS Dance Company moves way beyond disabilities.

“They always have these really candid questions,” says Alisa Rasera, Education Director at AXIS Dance Company. “How fast can your wheelchair go? Why can’t you get out of your chair? Why can’t you open your ...

Blue Collar Rocker

Jon Dee Graham is a dyed-in-the-wool alt-country hero.

In the Second Annual No Depression Critic’s Poll detailing the best releases of 2004, the bimonthly alt-country magazine places Jon Dee Graham’s The Great Battle above albums by roots music heavies like Wilco, Steve Earle, ...

Thursday, February 10

Soledad Brothers

Next door to the Salinas Valley State Prison, a labor camp provides a shabby kind of community.

Mario Hernandez turns off the weed cutter. He pushes a visor, now spattered with lawn clippings, on top of his head. He’s got thick black hair and a mustache, and lines around his eyes and ...

Poet In Two Worlds

Robert Sward’s work spans borders—literally and metaphorically.

‘You don’t look like a Canadian.’ Saul Bellow to Robert Sward. Robert Sward and his poetry inhabit what poet and critic Jack Foley calls “an enormous in-between.” He is celebrated as one of the great ...

Pretty Vacant

Debra Messing stars in

Inexplicable Fantasy Romances for the Harried Modern Gal 101 is a more fitting title for this shameless mediocrity, although you’d likely lose no points for comparing it to kissing cousin Pretty Woman, which operated in ...

Pan-Asian Legacy

The Grill at Ryan Ranch is a pleasing successor to Billy Quon’s.

It’s typically bad advice to try to be all things to all people, but The Grill at Ryan Ranch excels as an every-occasion dining destination. Though it abuts a business park off Highway 68, it ...

One For The Books

Caballero launches two campaigns to save Salinas’ libraries.

Mayor Anna Caballero was all smiles when she took to the stage at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas last Thursday night—her excitement visibly difficult for her to contain. She made eye contact with fellow ...

FoodChain: Fore!

LET'S SHOW SOME DISCRETION… There’s a lot of pressure on me this week. Every year it’s the same song, beginning around Christmas and building, building, building right up until the first pop-up drive on hole ...

TheatreListings

Harmony in Green

Even as the crowds descend, the AT&T is a picture of tranquility. Just like Bing woulda wanted it.

I didn’t know Bing Crosby. I hear he was a pretty cool guy. Folks around here who go back a ways will pepper the conversation with personal anecdotes about running into the man now and ...

Letters

We Can Do Better Thank you so much for Doug Ireland’s column on the campaign to be the next chair of the Democratic National Committee [Forum, Jan. 27-Feb. 2]. It is obvious after the 2004 ...

Rushad’s New Groove

Cellist takes yet another new direction with Crooked Still.

Carmel High School graduate Rushad Eggleston is a busy guy. Now, with a new collective titled Crooked Still, the cellist plays in four bands, including the Grammy-nominated Fiddlers 4 and his own instrumental outfit the ...

Art Listings

HomePage: Del Monte Neighborhood

Dave and Cheri Diehl have about as much going on in their lives as any two people could and still know what year it is. Aside from being a Pacific Grove Police Officer for over ...

Three Kingdoms

Legendary French director Jean-Luc Godard’s Notre Musique is a fractured meditation on war.

More poetic essay than movie, Jean-Luc Godard’s Notre Musique is an unsettling and slightly disjointed meditation on killing and destruction in the “age of fables.” It’s an examination of the vanquished and victor, fiction and ...

StreetTalk: The Sweet Smell of Romance

Asked in Downtown Pacific Grove

Q: What does “romance” mean to you? Follow-up: What celebrity would you like to be your valentine? Maria Carolina Visger Teacher | Monterey A: From the girl’s point of view it’s more tangible, like flowers, ...

831: Hardly Working

Pebble Beach caddy Christian Morgan has got it made.

‘We work in paradise,” says Christian Morgan, describing his typical work day as a caddy at the Pebble Beach Golf Links. “Every morning some of the other caddies and I go out surfing at Carmel ...

Plaster’s New Cast

Former Liquid 8 frontman switches hardrock outfits.

After Paul Hastey parted ways with his longtime bandmates in Liquid 8, the first band that the charismatic frontman contacted was the local hard rock trio Plaster. Now, in the dark, galley-like Alfredo’s Cantina in ...

DiscSpace

THE INFRAREDSSounds From the Darkroom | Golden Dragon Records There are several ways to play surf music—a style of usually instrumental rock music that usually features watery, reverb-drenched guitar soloing. Bands like the Mermen have ...

Fine Cheap Romance

Frankie and Johnny make something like love in Salinas.

When things have gone wrong for so long, the whole world looks baited and ready to snap like some kind of giant bear trap. After years of disappointment, abuse and struggle, all Frankie wants is ...

SquidFry

HEADS WILL ROLL… Squid’s somewhat of a sucker for direct mail, especially when it’s flattering. “You and other carefully selected achievers from the metro area are cordially invited to one of the most dynamic, life-changing ...

Monterey County 2020

The vision for the future includes a lot of new houses, but not for the people who live here.

Every now and then, you can glimpse a piece of the future here in Monterey County. Maybe it’s a scale model of a thousand homes and a business park that gobbles up acres and acres ...

Family Squabble

Gene Loves Jezebel, after their totally ‘80s in-fight, are touring minus the popster twin.

Throughout history, there have been artists torn apart by two competing desires: the wish to create a lasting, profound piece of work and the hankering for financial success and a larger audience. In the 1980s, ...

Thursday, February 3

A Cinderella Story?

Will the shoe fit on the new new GPU?

SEX and the COUNTY Our story thus far: Once—way back in 2001—there was a voluminous blueprint for future growth in Monterey County. It was intended to be a constitution of sorts, governing how and where ...

Letters

Dolls and Fat People Are the Real Problem In the “All In Her Head” article on anorexia [Weekly, Jan. 20-26], Jessica Lyons stated, “7 million women and one million men are sick with an eating ...

Forum: Press Hails the Dress

The way the media fawned over the first lady’s dress, it’ll be hard for them to resume their role as government watchdogs.

I’ve always thought that one of America’s best selling points was that it never had a king. If there is one thing that defines us as a people it is this fact. Every other nation ...

DiscSpace

GREENSKEEPERSPleetch | Om Records Self-described as “fusing the rock eclectic with the electronic electric like p-funk and e-funk,” the Greenskeepers strive for a dance music that fits a new generation, and it’s clear from the ...

The Voice of a Poet

Robert Pinsky brings the work off the page.

A master of improvisation, Robert Pinsky moves among ideas or images the way Charlie Parker moves in melody. His poems seamlessly telescope between cosmos and computers, God and green pianos, Hermes and a vintage Oldsmobile. ...

Squidfry

DIRTY INK…Sometimes not even Squid can believe the stuff humans spurt. Admittedly, Squid’s the sort of mollusk who often ends up in random conversations with complete strangers. But really now. Take Brian the Telemarketer, for ...

Frustration Grows in Salinas

Library cuts inspire some citizens’ wrath, and some new ideas.

The candlelight vigil in front of a Salinas library a few weeks ago wasn’t the solemn gathering most participants expected. The participants were there to show their dissatisfaction, and to condemn, by their presence, the ...

Fighting Killer Bugs

West Nile Virus provokes effort to minimize threat from mosquitos.

The mosquito population of Monterey County and California will begin to rise in the following months. As the region heats up, sitting water will start to swim with mosquito larva, and by summer the insects ...

ArtListings

| openings | events | Artist Loft Co-op February exhibit of co-op members. 700 Cannery Row, Suite RR, Monterey. 655-2222. Ends 2/28. Avery Gallery Celebration of Black History Month. Exhibit features Sandra Gray, Justin Hamers, ...

FoodChain

There’s Nothing Better Than This

RICK BAYLESS, MARK MILLER, MICHAEL MINA, BRADLEY OGDEN, CHARLIE PALMER, ALICE WATERS… those are the names of six American chefs who have risen to superstar status in our suddenly culinarily-conscious society. Let’s say you decided ...

Streettalk

Civil Disobedience: Asked at the Steinbeck Library in Salinas

Q: What crazy act would you do to stop the libraries in Salinas from closing?Follow-up: What is your favorite book? Tina JimenezReceptionist | SalinasA: Be crazy and link arms and surround the libraries. The truth ...

Scary Stares

Child actor Dakota Fanning’s eyes almost save the misguided Hide and Seek.

You might have thought it impossible that nine-year-old trouper Dakota Fanning could, at such a tender young age, appear in a more horrific nightmare vision than the misguided Bo Welch/Mike Myers missile of sorrow The ...

NewsBriefs

Whiskey Is For Drinking Water is for fighting over. But don’t take our word for it. (Or Mark Twain’s.) Come see for yourself at the League of Women Voter’s forum on Feb. 9, where public ...

talking poetry

Locals share some favorite poems.

Weekly reporter Nick Patella, armed with camera and recorder, asked some of our neighbors to recite poems they had memorized. Note: Sadly, due to technical difficulties of a past era, the tape got terribly tangled, ...

Theater Listings

| theater openings | Robert Louis Stevenson Fri-Sat 8pm; Sun 2:30pm. The Staff Players continue their American Authors Series with Keith Decker’s one-man show about the life and times of one-time Monterey resident Robert Louis ...

Off The Wall

Thursday, February 24

Thursday, February 17

Thursday, February 10

Thursday, February 3

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