Summer is here and the students have more or less fled, as have the official jazz concert series in Santa Barbara at the Lobero Theatre and Campbell Hall. Have no fear this year: The conventional summer jazz drought is taking something of a holiday, thanks to a regular flow of jazz at SOhO.
It figures it would take a spot as chic as Blue Agave (20 E. Cota St., 899-4694) to find a guest chef like Roberto Cortez to design its special Prix Fixe Summer Dinner Magic Mondays.
Chef Michael Hutchings, a Santa Barbara culinary legend, owned the acclaimed Michael’s Waterside from 1983 to 1993. But that’s just part of his story, which is filled with work in kitchens from Paris to Disneyland (the exclusive Club 33).
Actually, the two go together like chocolate and peanut butter. Local winemaker Christian Garvin of Oreana Winery and weenie-slinger Vinnie Regina of the new Lettuce B. Frank restaurant and Doghouse fame will team up for the second year in a row to host another hot summertime event.
As a new summer season dawned on a distinctly chilly Santa Barbara last Friday night, two of this decade’s most revered musicians took to the Bowl’s recently refurbished stage. While Norah Jones’s genteel blend of pop, soul, and country has the songstress sitting pretty as one of contemporary music’s most finely polished jewels, M. Ward is unashamedly a diamond that resides happily in the rough.
Coral Casino Price Going Up: When the Four Seasons Biltmore opens the Coral Casino club to new memberships later this year, expect to find that the price has skyrocketed. Although Biltmore officials say nothing has been decided, I hear from reliable sources that the “deposit,” in lieu of a membership fee, could be around $75,000.
•The Snowy Plover Docent Program is holding a volunteer training session this Saturday, June 30 from 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Participants will learn how to help protect the endangered bird, which makes its home on the beach. Call 880-1195 for details.
It’s strange to admit that this account of a journalist’s worst nightmare (a deeply tragic human story, too, with a noble real-life protagonist) did not move me very much. In fact, throughout most of the film I felt fairly removed, partly because the film itself feels unsteady on its own narrative axis, wobbling between genres.
There’s nothing like yoga to tone the body and quiet the mind, and Santa Barbara is teeming with yoga classes for all skill levels, budgets, and schedules. Whether you prefer the park, the beach, the morning, or the evening, there’s a yoga class just waiting to stretch you into nirvana.
In 2004, Pixar released The Incredibles. Up to that point, previous Pixar productions were entertaining family films with dazzling animation, sympathetic characters, and a lot of heart. The Incredibles was like something from another planet-a truly grown-up fairy tale that worked for adults, looked like no other computer-animated film at the time, and whose plot unfolded like no other Disney film preceding it.
