We all know that 2020 has been an incredibly difficult year—we need not belabor that point. And neither the Covid-19 pandemic nor the deep inequalities it has exposed will go away the moment the clock strikes midnight. Finding a worthwhile “new normal” is going to take work and careful effor…

When Covid-19 forced the Monterey-based nonprofit children’s museum MY Museum to close, Executive Director Lauren Cohen knew she needed to find a way to continue serving the children and families that normally fill the museum.

With all the shutdowns and delays, 2020 proved a rough year for the movies. But even without movie theaters and movie theater popcorn, it wasn’t all bad—after all, this is the first year without a new Marvel Cinematic Universe release since 2011. Instead, 2020 offered a tasteful spread of pe…

Over 12 years, Melinda Collis has built a successful business and devoted following at her vintage clothing store, the Cat's Meow, in New Monterey. Her shop has been through a few chapters here (for her first three months in 2008, the store was in Sand City) and now it's time for another new…

It's a sad day for downtown Monterey, which is losing two businesses housed in the same building. 

As Hollywood became the motion picture capital in the early 20th century, filmmakers turned to the diverse landscape of California for locations that resembled different parts of the world. 

When I walked into the Seaside headquarters of Monterey County Weekly 13 years ago, to apply for a job as a writer, a loud rap song was bumping through the lobby. I asked the office manager, Linda Maceira, what that was about. She said it was “Hip-Hop Thursday.” Right then I knew I had to wo…

Piglet racing, corn dogs, petting zoos and rides. The Monterey County Fair is one of the showcases that brings these things together on the Peninsula, for a few days every year. This year will be the exception. 

Paper Wing Theatre does big musical numbers, small productions with edgy plays, play-reading festivals featuring new works—the gamut. It's long occupied a building on Hoffman Avenue in New Monterey, which is slated to become apartments. That meant goodbye after 30-plus years as a performing …

It's not just private businesses that have been champing at the bit to reopen. Included in Gov. Gavin Newsom's reopening phase 2.5, along with dine-in restaurants and barbershops, are libraries, which are allowed to reopen for curbside pickup. 

Over 100 years ago, artists and other creatives were drawn to the tiny town of Carmel-by-the-Sea as a place of rest and inspiration. Back then it was word-of-mouth that spread the village's reputation far and wide. Today, it's Instagram.

War is hell. Watching beautifully made movies about war is not. Here are some of our favorite war films, TV miniseries and books to keep you enthralled—a fews steps back from the frontline—until Veteran’s Day in November.

The show will not go on this year. 

There will not be customary parades or communal festivities for Cinco de Mayo this year due to Covid-19, but it's still an opportunity for a history lesson—and to drink a celebratory margarita. 

As we brace for another month of sheltering in place, maybe it's finally a good time to hit the stack of books you promised yourself you'd read during this time but haven't touched. OK, maybe that's just some of us, and you desperately need some new reading material. Public libraries have a …

Over 85 years, since it was founded, the Carmel Bach Festival has put on concerts big and small. There are choral ensembles in churches, contemporary compositions in the Sunset Center, intimate quartets in smaller venues. They've put on acclaimed masterworks and world premiers. And they've o…

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is now recommending that we wear masks if we leave our homes to be out in public. Medical facilities need all the N95 and surgical masks available, so for the rest of us, homemade it is. Below are two easy options for making a mask from what you have on h…

The Elephant Conservation Act of 1988 was an effort by the U.S. government to protect a vanishing species across the planet. The law created funding mechanisms to support African elephant conservation and research project, also established criminal and civil penalties for the import or expor…

The narrator in Another Morning, the sixth collection of poetry from longtime Monterey County artist, musician, and writer William Minor, 84, speaks with authority from what Shakespeare calls that “time of year thou mayst in me behold.” The poems are celebrations of a long, vibrant life at i…

Kevin Willmott grew up in the small town of Junction City, Kansas, and came of age in the movie theater during the golden age of 1970s films. In his own film career as a writer and director (greatly influenced by fellow Kansan, Gordon Parks), he’s made many independent films including the sl…

1. Death of a Gangster Murder Mystery—Folktale Winery, Friday

1. AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am—Pebble Beach, Friday-Sunday

1. North American Indian photographic plates—Curtis Gallery, Friday

1. Beyond Glory—Pink Flamingo Theater, Friday-Saturday

1. Rock Legends Tribute Concert—Golden Bough Theatre, Friday-Sunday

1. Ice Skating by the Bay—Custom House Plaza, Friday-Sunday

1. Comedian Liza Treyger—Friday, Studio 105

1. Christmas on the Wharf—Old Fisherman’s Wharf, Friday-Sunday

1. Christmas on the Wharf—Old Fisherman’s Wharf, Friday-Sunday

1. Holiday Tree Lighting—Cannery Row, Friday

1. Joanna Newsom—Sunset Center, Friday

The writer Rebecca Solnit has a way of writing essays that are of the moment, but then the moment of their relevance rises again. She's published more than 20 books, including anthologies of those essays, Hope in the Dark among them. 

1. Robert Cray—Golden State Theatre, Friday

1. Amy Obenski—East Village Coffee Lounge, Friday

CSU Monterey Bay is beginning to look more like a college campus and less like a former military base, thanks in large part to the new College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences building, which opened this semester. A ribbon-cutting on Oct. 11 marked the official grand opening for the b…

1. Monterey Plays—Carl Cherry Center, Friday-Saturday

1. International Documentary Film Festival—Osio Theater, Friday-Saturday

1. Raise Hell: The Life and Time of Molly Ivins—Osio Theater, Friday-Sunday

1. B & The Hives—Henry Miller Library, Friday

Over Labor Day weekend, the 2019 Monterey County Fair offered all of the classics—lots of fried food on offer; performances, including the Macias Family acrobats on tour from Mexico; lots of carnival games with stuffed animals as prizes; spinning rides that lit up the night sky; kids' activi…

As the tents come down and car haulers turn their tail lights on Monterey County, the results are starting to filter in. And—as always—there are winners and losers.

“I ask that question, too.”

The Season 2 finale of Big Little Lies was the complete opposite in suspense and drama from its Season 1 predecessor. The one bright spot: At least this slow-moving season is over.  

As the audience forms in this parking lot, a misty drizzle forms in the air. Thursday night’s showing of La Cortina de la Lechuga, the latest play written and directed by Cristal Gonzalez, is performed outdoors at El Cerritos Townhomes in Castroville. 

The once plain, white wall on the side of a Fremont Boulevard building is now home to a large humpback whale.

Seaside’s 73rd annual Obon Festival—a centuries old Japanese festival to honor the dead—was an awesome amalgam of community, culture and food. Parking was scarce around the Monterey Peninsula Buddhist Temple, but that didn’t stop the community from coming out in droves, an estimated 3,000 or…