BIO SPHERE

Graduation Day, 1974

In celebration of the (ack!) 50th anniversary of my graduation from UCSC, here's what I cobbled together for the online Alumni Reunion Profile pages.

 

As a junior transfer from Southern California, I graduated in 1974 from Porter (then called College V) with a BA in Aesthetic Studies. This coveted document got me a job selling popcorn at the UA Riverfront Cinemas on Front Street, followed by a stint in the textbook room at Bookshop Santa Cruz. 

 

As a lark, I answered an ad in a new 12-page throwaway publication called Good Times for a second string movie reviewer, which I thought would be a fun thing to do until I got a real job. This experiment in gap employment lasted 45 years.

 

I went through two owners, three publishers, at least 17 editors  (I lost count), five changes of venue for our physical offices, and an earthquake. Not to mention some two thousand movies, at the very least, and probably a couple hundred more. In 2017, my reviews started appearing on Rotten Tomatoes. I would still be at it if COVID-19 hadn't eaten my job in 2020. The theaters closed, and even though they've now reopened, people no longer consume movies in the same way; the massive amount of available "content" is too much for a weekly paper to keep up with.

 

In the meantime, I've had three novels published since 2001, with a fourth on the way. It was also my ridiculous good fortune to be married to artist James Aschbacher for 40 years, whose vibrant and playful murals (three of which we painted together) decorate public spaces and elementary schools all over Santa Cruz County.

 

 

My principal workplace for 45 years! 

 

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Although the Aesthetic Studies degree would soon be discontinued in favor of an actual discipline, what it meant to me in practical terms was I got to make up my own DIY major. Having completed all my science requirements at the community college level, I spent my two years at UCSC taking lit classes from Paul Skenazy and John Jordan, art classes from Doug McLellan, and Art History classes from the inimitable Jasper Rose.

 

Rose was so entertaining, my housemate (who wasn't even a student) used to come with me to sit in on his class. He would come swanning into the room trailing his slightly tattered black and scarlet Oxford robes, launch himself across the lectern, and greet us with an expansive, "Hello, duckies!" (My girlfriend and I call each other "Ducky" to this day!)

 

 And although I never studied to be a movie critic (it was strictly on-the-job training), I did take one terrific film course from Tim Hunter on Alfred Hitchcock. In those days of Pass-Fail grading, we could do pretty much whatever we wanted for a final, so I drew a storyboard for an imaginary murder sequence in an imaginary Hitchcock movie. "This is hot!" Hunter scrawled in the margin. Translation: Pass.

 

My favorite UCSC memory? A bunch of us were loitering in the hallway waiting for our lit professor to come open the classroom when Jasper Rose came gliding by and asked what we were up to. Someone said we were waiting for our Victorian Fiction class. To which Rose replied, "Oh, there is nothing more fascinating than Victorian Fiction! Unless, of course, it's Victorian fact!"

 

SPIRIT GUIDES

Hey, kids, let's hop into the Wayback Machine for a jaunt back in time to Santa Cruz in the early 1970s. If you've seen the Big Creek Pottery ceramics and photo exhibit at the MAH, you may have enjoyed the quaint glimpse into commune life of that era, but the fact is, in those days, the same arty Bohemian vibe spread across all aspects of local culture. And perhaps nowhere was this more evident than up on the hill, where the spirit guides of the Santa Cruz arts community were shepherding UCSC through it's first decade of existence.

I was reminded of all this last week when, in the process of searching for something or other online, I stumbled upon an exceptional collection of vintage Santa Cruz images from photographer and former Cruzan Jim Hair. Like me, Jim was a student at the UCSC entity formerly known as College V (now Porter) in the very early '70s. But while I spent most of my time trying to navigate around the campus and get to my (pre-noon) classes on time and awake, Jim was doing something far more useful—documenting life in Santa Cruz, on and off campus, with his trusty Rolleiflex.

The set of 91 SC images on Jim's Flickr site contains some lovely shots of the wild, natural world in places like Pebble Beach, Point Lobos, and the redwoods of UCSC. But it's his collection of stunning portraits that will really melt your heart, especially those of the cultural icons and assorted Godmothers and Godfathers who created and shaped the Santa Cruz arts community that still exists today.

I fell in love with this portrait of Mary Holmes, busily painting angels for her own enjoyment up in her magical hilltop retreat. You'll find the inimitable Jasper Rose, in a natty bow tie, precariously posed on a rustic wooden bench in his art-bedecked hallway, Page Smith and Paul Lee on a picnic, George Hitchcock at work on his printing press, William K. Everson hugging a tree, Wavy Gravy debarking from his bus at the UCSC Quarry, a forthright Angela Davis, Gregory Bateson, screenwriter-to-be Charlie Haas, Futzie Nutzle, and some wonderfully evocative portraits of Jim Houston up in his workroom aerie. And that's just to name a scant few.

These photos aren't about nostalgia. Rather, they represent a kind of alchemy of time, place, spirit, and sensibility, captured by a gifted observer. Take a look, and enjoy!