Caleb Wiseblood

The opportune moment to finally learn that new skill or pick up that new hobby you’ve been procrastinating on for who knows how long has finally arrived—at least, as long as said activity doesn’t break social-distance protocols.  While the primary demographic for the Santa Maria Recreation and Parks Department’s online educational video series is the […]

Is COVID-19 just a bad dream? Or maybe the former world was the dream, and most of us just took the red pill this time around? For Book Loft manager Echo Molina, hearing the initial news of the sweeping pandemic sounded more like a plot device than history in the making. “It seemed so unreal […]

Amid our current reality—or any reality for that matter—there are few better ways to spend time cooped up at home than with a good read, and better yet, with the knowledge you’re supporting a local writer in the process.  The published works of Santa Barbara-based novelist and journalist Robert Eringer range back to the 1980s. […]

With galleries, museums, theaters, and other venues closed for the foreseeable future, the current state of the art world at large is almost exclusively online. The staff of the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature already had a strong handle (pun intended) on social media long before the COVID-19 outbreak (scroll through the museum’s Facebook, […]

Originally scheduled to run through the end of May, the Elverhoj Museum’s Legacy of Decency: Rembrandt, Jews, and Danes exhibition will remain on display through July, although the museum is temporarily closed without an official reopening date. The museum’s closure was announced on March 17, with a statement from Executive Director Esther Jacobsen Bates.  “We […]

With COVID-19 mitigation measures in full swing and movie theaters closed indefinitely, film buffs can either rely on streaming services or their own personal VHS, DVD, or Blu-ray collections to get their fix (sorry LaserDisc). When Daniel Lahr, founder and executive director of the Central Coast Film Society (CCFS), took his family out to see […]

The Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville’s production of Sherlock Holmes and the Sign of the Four opened on Thursday, March 12, and was scheduled to run through Sunday, April, 26. As of March 16, the show is temporarily suspended in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. No dates were listed for when the show would resume. […]

Ooos and aaahs occasionally interrupt the ordinary murmurs you’d expect to overhear in a wine bar or tasting room. Before you can take another sip of your cabernet franc, a man in a suit approaches your party with a deck of cards, among other props. This is Mark Barbere, a Central Coast-based professional magician. His […]

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears—the Pacific Conservatory Theatre’s (PCPA) production of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is here. What better way to spend this year’s Ides of March (and through March 22) than with William Shakespeare’s quintessential, historical tale of political upheaval? One key factor I enjoyed about this iteration, helmed by director […]

Capturing rare moments of untamed horses roaming the wild requires a great deal of patience, but career photographer Deborah Kalas was well-prepared before her latest venture. For her new book, The Wild Herd: A Vanishing American Treasure, Kalas spent countless hours (within a total of more than five years) observing the herds of wild horses […]