The exclamation point runs rampant through the forums of weddingwire.com. “Engagement pics!!!” one forum is titled. “100 Days and Counting!” squeals another. “What is your mother wearing!?” another is eager to know. The excitement is palpable, and so are the nerves. Finally, one user—bella628—spells it out: “anyone else tired of planning???!!” The question-mark-to-exclamation-point ratio means […]
ANNA WELTNER
Posted inMusic, Arts & Culture
A Canadian circus acts tackles modern absurdity with ‘Cirkopolis’
Jeannot Painchaud discovered circus arts in the summer of 1984. A native of Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, or Magdalen Islands—a small archipelago off the Canadian coast; population something like 12,000—a teenaged Painchaud traveled to the mainland see the tall ships, dreaming of travel and adventure and pirates. It was Canada’s 450th birthday, and the biggest sailboats in […]
Posted inMusic, Arts & Culture
Literary orphan
New Times’ managing editor Ashley Schwellenbach releases her first novel
Ed. note: Ashley Schwellenbach, managing editor of the Sun’s sister paper, New Times, frequently contributes to this paper (mostly behind the scenes for stuff like the Holiday Guide and the like), so we wanted to show you what she does when she’s not writing about clam poachers. Schwellenbach admits she’s going for something of […]
Posted inMusic, Arts & Culture
‘Ancestors of our enemies’
At SLOMA, photographer Donald J. Rommes pays homage to an ancient civilization
It’s a strange sight, a home built into a cliff. When, on a hike in southern Utah, this sight first greeted Dr. Donald J. Rommes—neonatologist by profession and photographer in his spare time—the doctor was initially wary of sharing photos of what he’d seen. The cliff dwellings he’d encountered were just some of many such […]
Posted inMusic, Arts & Culture
After the revolution, before the millennium
Ubu’s Other Shoe stages a reading of Amy Herzog’s After the Revolution
In Amy Herzog’s intelligent play After the Revolution, Emma Joseph has built a career on the legacy of her grandfather, a Marxist who was blacklisted in the ’50s. Then Emma discovers Grandpa Joe was actually a Soviet spy, and her world unravels. After the Revolution, which will be presented as a staged reading at the […]
Posted inMusic, Arts & Culture
It was all a dream
Our annual 55 Fiction short story contest is back
Twenty-six years ago, New Times and Sun founder Steve Moss challenged readers to write a story in 55 words or less. Billed as “the world’s shortest stories of love and death,” the contest launched a new genre, sometimes called “flash fiction,” and spawned a host of imitators (what’s up, Monterey County Weekly?). Every year, the […]
Posted inNews
The movies that matter
The San Luis Obispo International Film Festival returns for its 20th year
I love this time of year. I love meeting actors and filmmakers. I love serving on the judges’ panel. I love attending parties and eating cheese with film buffs. Like any journalist, I love any chance to wear a lanyard around my neck, knowing afterward I can add it to my prized collection, pretending not […]
Posted inNews
Everything is illuminated
One writer’s look into the people and films that made a difference at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival
Throughout the past year, many of the most successful films have seemed especially concerned, each in its own way, with justice. Spielberg’s Lincoln is, of course, an obvious example—the masterful telling of how slavery was abolished. But at the movies, justice can also be served retroactively in a show of flamboyant ultraviolence, as in Tarantino’s […]
Posted inNews
Everything is illuminated
One writer’s look into the people and films that made a difference at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival
Throughout the past year, many of the most successful films have seemed especially concerned, each in its own way, with justice. Spielberg’s Lincoln is, of course, an obvious example—the masterful telling of how slavery was abolished. But at the movies, justice can also be served retroactively in a show of flamboyant ultraviolence, as in Tarantino’s […]
Posted inOpinion
How hipsters will save the world!
It’s pretty complicated; you probably wouldn’t understand
The word on the street about hipsters is that we’re a bunch of know-it-all jerks. (I say “we” because I ride a bicycle and I write about art for a living, so apparently I’m in the club, too. Whatever. I mean, it’s cool.) Knowing this, however, a recent study surprised me. Conducted last month by […]
Posted inNews
Wham! Biff! Pow!
Is that all there is to the misunderstood world of comics?
The great unused potential of the comic is baffling to me. Take the written word in all its nobility, beauty, and dexterity. Compound that with all of the visceral, emotional, and evocative qualities of the visual arts. Now put them in your transmogrifier and press the button. What you expect to get from the equation […]
Posted inMusic, Arts & Culture
A smattering of applause
One writer’s arbitrary look at a few Santa Barbara International Film Festival selections
Attending the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s opening weekend with the intention of generating some sort of conclusive report is a fool’s errand at best. So I didn’t try to see it all. Instead, like many at the festival, I made a rigorous viewing schedule for myself, then proceeded to meander over to whatever looked […]