GOLDEN APPLE:
Buellton Union Schools music teacher Ron Zell was named Santa Barbara County teacher of the year at last week’s County Board of Education meeting.
Year: 2006
The Spirit of Mother’s Day
Forget tea and cookies. MotherHearts is throwing a different kind of Mother’s Day event, one that celebrates the original intent of the holiday.
Capitol Entertainment
The Capitol Steps
At the Lobero Theatre, Wednesday, May 3.
Twenty-five years ago, a group of disillusioned Washington congressional staffers decided they needed a new way to vent their mounting political frustration. From this came the Capitol Steps, a group of singing, satirizing, former aides. In the years since 1981, the Steps’ rotating cast has become a favorite on the D.C. social circuit and recorded six albums of biting lyrical prose-all set to the sounds of great 20th-century standards. This past week, its touring company delighted local audiences at the Lobero Theatre.
ARTISTS TAKE NOTE:
The S.B. County Arts Commission, in conjunction with Off Axis: A Global Exploration of Contemporary Art, recently announced a call for entries for its State of the Art Gallery 2006 exhibition. As part of the State Street Beautification Project, eight artists will be selected to create sculptures to be placed on State Street between Victoria and Carrillo streets. Applications are due by May 15. Visit sbartscommission.org.
UCSB’s Most Dangerous Professor
Dick Flacks is situated comfortably in his living room, the legendary ground zero of Santa Barbara’s progressive politics. Dressed in a loose, beach-bum T-shirt with broad horizontal stripes, blue jeans, and fleece-lined slippers, Flacks leans back into his couch. It’s a ridiculously beautiful Sunday afternoon, and Flacks is preparing for his retirement party, an exaltation of his career as activist and academic-a two-day event billed as Flacks Fest. But at the moment, Flacks seems a little miffed. Somehow, he was not included in the recently published book listing the 101 “most dangerous” college professors in the United States, written by David Horowitz, the one-time left-wing radical turned right-wing firebrand. “I was upset,” Flacks says, an ironic twinkle escaping the prism of his Coke-bottle glasses. “I wasn’t in there. I don’t know why not.”
GOING HALFSIES:
In a last-minute move engineered by Santa Barbara City Councilmember Das Williams, the City Council voted to increase harbor slip fees by 2.5 percent, rather than the 5 percent initially proposed to subsidize pesticide-free maintenance in city parks.
Challenging Male
Steve Huston: The Works
At Sullivan Goss, through June 7.
There’s something so deeply traditional about Steve Huston’s paintings, now on display at Sullivan Goss through June 7, that it almost feels perverse. Here is an art form that is as much about the Western history of art as it is about the boxers and construction workers it depicts. The first example confronts you as you enter the door: “The Battler,” an image of a boxer at rest, offers an unmistakable rendition of the Belvedere torso, perhaps the most quoted male form in the West during the last 500 years.
Cops Seeking Cops
With Santa Barbara City Hall projecting a balanced budget for the first time in five years, police brass and union leaders showed up at City Council Chambers Monday evening to pressure councilmembers to make up for lost positions and increase officers’ pay by about 10 percent.
MARTIAL ARTS:
Carl Nunes, 32, was arrested early last Thursday following a bizarre stabbing incident at Elsie’s Bar on De la Guerra Street.
A HARD RAIN’S A-GONNA DRAIN:
Come next winter, Santa Barbara residents may no longer be sloshing through the Westside’s famous flooded intersections.
