Year: 2006

Planting Little Seeds

Kokua

Jack Johnson, Michael Franti, Kelly Slater, Willie K., and Amy HÄnaiali’i Gilliom star in a documentary directed by Ira Hopper and written by Steve Barilotti. Screens on Saturday, May 13, at the Lobero Theatre in a benefit for Growing Solutions.
In the Hawaiian language, the word “kokua” means, roughly, “to help,” but it’s much more than that-it’s considered an ancient form of friendship that derived from the islands’ communal lifestyle, whereby neighbors help each other simply because it’s the natural thing to do.

KILLING THEM SOFTLY:

The City Council’s Finance Committee got an earful of big digits regarding the costs of controlling pests and weeds in city parks without chemicals.

Men Without Qualities

Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President, by J.H. Hatfield, Soft Skull Press, 2000;
Dick: The Man Who Is President, by John Nichols, New Press, 2004;
Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too, by Mark Crispin Miller, Basic Books, 2005.
These three books have several things in common. For one thing, they are all well written, though J.H. Hatfield’s prose is chattier and less elegant than John Nichols’s or Mark Crispin Miller’s. All three deliver a lot of information that concerned citizens should find very useful. And each in its own way demonstrates a new kind of censorship-one that seeks to suppress inconvenient information by ignoring it rather than confronting it directly. This last notion reveals a fair amount of cowardice on the part of the American intellectual establishment. How can we have an informed debate if we don’t know what the main propositions are?

It’s Elementary

GOLETA GOODNESS: Tonight, Thursday, May 11, The Hard to Find Show Space in Goleta will host yet another exemplary performance of indie rock when Springtime Is Wartime, Vaz, and Cair Paravel play. Brothers Josh and Tim Eymann, who play drums and bass for Springtime Is Wartime, are the sons of the pastor of the church that The Hard to Find is adjacent to, which helps explain why they’re also in charge of booking shows at the venue. Playing with them is Vaz, a two-piece band from Brooklyn that’s very intense, perhaps to the point of theatrics with so many references to death, fuzzy guitars, and bone-rattling drumming. It’s grab-you-by-the-throat music. Also playing is Cair Paravel-clean, fast, intricate electric piano-driven rock from Chico. Despite the venue’s name, it ain’t all that hard to find at 7190 Hollister Avenue in Goleta. -Erin Warren

Art Complicates Life

An Ex-Ode to the Corporeal Conversation: A Salon for the Suit-A Boutique for the Conversation

At the Contemporary Arts Forum.
The first time I saw the new exhibit in the Contemporary Arts Forum Norton Gallery, I felt as though I’d stumbled into someone’s living room or studio-circa 1762. Hand-sewn clothing samples were draped over antique furniture while a woman in cropped pants, a billowy blouse, and a fitted vest sat in an upholstered chair drinking wine from a cut-glass tumbler. Except for the laptop computer on the desk, the large-screen television on the table, the iSight camera projecting a square onto the opposite wall, and a gallery employee wearing a dress made of bubble wrap, it could have been the 18th century.

MEDICARE DEADLINE LOOMS LARGE

Throughout the country, senior citizens are anxiously sorting through medication lists and co-payments associated with the new Medicare Part D prescription benefit; in California alone, there are 48 prescription drug plans offered.