You’ve tacked up your favorite poster, adjusted the lamp on the desk, and plugged in your computer. Your wallet is feeling thin after a trip to the campus bookstore, you’ve scouted out all your classrooms, found a place to park your car, and bought a junker bike.
An L.A.-based TV screenwriter who turned to crime novel writing after his father died in 1985, Robert Crais (pictured) is listed in the company of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler as a top mystery author. He invented the popular Elvis Cole series with his first book, The Monkey’s Raincoat, and in the 20 years since has been both prolific and poignant, returning class and craft to a genre full of hacks.
Following the pattern for its festival seasons established last year, Opera Santa Barbara will kick off its 2006-07 season with a production of Viva Verdi on Friday night at the Arlington. Viva Verdi is an original dramatic rendition of a crucial moment in Verdi’s life that will include both an actor playing Verdi and six singers, each offering a highlight from Verdi’s extraordinary body of work. Arias to be sung in Viva Verdi include the Triumphal Scene from Aida and the Quartet from Rigoletto.
Thu., Sept. 28
Open House: Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center invites supporters to attend a community housewarming celebration at its new digs. 4-7pm. 433 E. Canon Perdido St. Call 963-6832….
Fri., Sept. 29
Ventura Harvest Festival: Arts, crafts, and live entertainment; continues on Saturday and Sunday. 10am-7pm. Seaside Park, 10 W. Harbor Blvd., Ventura. Call (415) 447-3205.
Environmental Task Force: Representatives from the League of Women Voters discuss coastal issues. 9:30am. Call Jean Holmes at 687-8260…
Westmont’s associate professor of art Susan Savage is showing her paintings at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art‘s Art Rental and Sales Gallery through October 26.
About 280 of the City of Santa Barbara’s 1,050 employees either telecommute or schedule their workdays to avoid driving during
Few Santa Barbarans are as cool as the Empress Palace staff, so unflappable they seem balanced on the edge of the void. Even the most seasoned among them though, such as Mark Wong and owner Su Mei Luo, get flustered when Pai Hsien-Yung visits. Early last summer, Pai came into the Hong Kong-style eatery with a group of people who were working on the monumental Chinese production of The Peony Pavilion, a nine-hour, three-day Kunqu opera that will be performed in early October at the Lobero. The usually stolid waiters clustered around Pai as though he were a rock star, asking for autographs and wanting their photos taken with the great man.
Rhythm genuinely ruled the Lobero Theatre last Wednesday, when the Mickey Hart-led project Planet Drum returned to the accommodating venue and filled the house with tumbling, jam-happy rhythmic energy from the four-or more-corners of the globe.
Carol B. Simmons of Santa Barbara; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; and Dharamsala, India, made her transition on September 12 from Cottage Hospital. She had maintained a home in Santa Barbara beginning in 1993, when she moved here to be closer to our younger sister Joyce and mother Elle Bleiman.
FORTUNE BEFRIENDS THE BOLD: Casa de la Raza is the place to be for back-to-back nights of noteworthy noise. N.Y.C.-based hardcore pioneers Bold take the final stand of a reunion tour on Friday, September 29. The contumacious quintet has been out of commission for nearly 17 years since its last show in the summer of 1989, but time has had little authority over these boys. Widely recognized as harbingers of the post-hardcore movement that followed shortly after they called it quits, Bold’s discography tells a tale of progression, documenting their evolution from unrefined, desultory anger to a polished and focused rebellion. Their resurgence has brought them on a transatlantic tour spanning dozens of dates that will be coming to a close in our own backyard.
