FINANCIAL AID:
The Blue Ribbon Budget Task Force presented its cost efficiency analysis to a grateful Board of Supervisors last week.
Year: 2006
Win, Lose, or Draw
FAIR ENOUGH: Last year at the S.B. Fair & Expo, with a well-placed lob of a Ping-Pong ball, I won a goldfish (official species: “Carny Fish”). This sturdy, scrappy-looking specimen is named Sharky (gender as-yet undetermined) and has outlived several other temporary visitors to its fishbowl over the year.
The Royal Oui
Kings and Queen
Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric, and Catherine Deneuve star in a film written by Roger Bohbot and Arnaud Desplechin and directed by Desplechin. Screens on Monday, May 8, 7:30 p.m., at UCSB’s Campbell Hall.
Melodrama is not a pejorative term, I know. But the critics who refer to Arnaud Desplechin’s brilliant Kings and Queen as an exemplar of the M-word genre risk underselling the package. It’s charged indeed, but much of the raw thrill of it attaches to the beautiful and mercurial Emmanuelle Devos as Nora. The film opens on a bright intersection of Paris with traffic flowing to a light jazz rendition of “Moon River.”
I.V. PARTIES IN PEACE:
UCSB students and anti-war community members converged at the first-ever Isla Vista Peace Festival last Saturday.
Art Blossoms
Plant Portraits: The California Legacy of A.R. Valentien
At the Wildling Art Museum. Shows through June 11.
You hardly need an excuse to visit Los Olivos this time of year. The hills are green, Lake Cachuma is full, and the poppy, lupin, and ceanothus are all out. In case you need extra temptation, though, the Wildling Art Museum is providing it: through June 11 its exhibition, Plant Portraits: The California Legacy of A.R. Valentien, beckons.
LAST TANGO:
Maestra Gisle Ben-Dor (pictured) filed suit against the Santa Barbara Symphony on April 21, claiming she was bullied into resigning as director because she programmed too much Latin American music.
The Bright, Compelling ‘Future’ of Santa Barbara Wines
Doug Margerum and Wendy Van Horn, owner and wine director, respectively, of the eponymous wine-centric restaurant and wine store, The Wine Cask, have once again presented yet another successful S.B.
BLENDED ART:
Sacramento-based specialty coffee brewer Java City is hosting a unique contest for aspiring young artists to receive national exposure and to raise funds for youth art programs. Any artist under the age of 12 is asked to submit his or her artwork in an attempt to win $500 and a chance to have said artwork featured on packaging of the 2007 “Blend for the Arts” coffee. Java City will donate $1 for every one of these bags sold to art-based programs in public schools. Entry deadline is May 12, so see artforkidsake.com.
Twice as Good
The Music of Emma Lou Diemer and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, presented by the Santa Barbara Music Club
At the Unitarian Society, Saturday, April 30.
To whomever thought of it: It was a very good idea to combine the music of Emma Lou Diemer and Wolfgang Mozart, in about equal measure, on the same program. Emma Lou is a child of the 20th century, the Age of Anxiety, and as beautiful as her music is, there is always some residual tension. And no one clears up things and resolves ambivalence like Mozart.
Untrue Blue
A Santa Barbara jury found the Santa Barbara Police Department guilty of retaliation toward gay ex-cop Ruben Lino, though it ruled against Lino’s charges of discrimination based on sexual preference.
