ART CAN BE MURDER

Artists countywide will be throwing open their studio doors to the public next weekend for the 2012 edition of the Open Studios Art Tour.

What better time for local mystery writer, Vinnie Hansen, to launch her new detective novel, Art, Wine & Bullets, which concerns murder most heinous during the Open Studios event?

She'll be reading and signing copies of Art, Wine & Bullets at the Capitola Book Cafe, this Thursday, October 4, at 7:30 p.m.

This is Hansen's sixth mystery set in Santa Cruz, featuring baker-turned-amateur sleuth Carol Sabala. Hansen's series heroine, first glimpsed baking tarts in the kitchen of a swanky restaurant in the first book, Murder, Honey,  has solved crimes from Watsonville High (where Hansen taught English for 27 years), to Mexico. In the new book, she's trying to solidify her reputation as a private eye.

There's always a lot of local color in Hansen's books, which make them fun reading for Cruzans. And she's sure to bring an insider's view to the OS milieu, since she's married to a longtime OS participant, abstract artist Daniel S. Friedman.

So, is Art, Wine & Bullets a roman a clef? We're not telling! Better read the book and find out!

(Art, Wine & Bullets is available as we speak at Capitola Book Cafe, Bookshop Santa Cruz, and Inklings & Things (Capitola Mall). If you miss the book launch this week,  Vinnie will be signing books at Inklings & Things 2-4 p.m., Saturday, October 13.)

ARTISTS at WORK

Don't turn around, but the 2012 Open Studios Art Tour is just around the corner. Santa Cruz's premiere art event takes place during the first three weekends in October, when more than 300 artists countywide will open their studio doors to the public for the annual self-guided art tour.

You know the drill: South County artists (from Watsonville to the lower Yacht Harbor) will be open October 6 and 7. North County artists (upper Yacht Harbor to Davenport) will be open October 13 and 14. Anything goes on the third, Encore weekend, October 20 and 21, where participating artists countywide can choose to open for one last hurrah. Studios will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Remember, this is not a race (or an endurance test); you don't win a prize for visiting the most studios—but you might make yourself so crazy you no longer even know what you're looking at. The idea is to breathe, Grasshopper, focus on what you really want to see, and open yourself up for the task at hand—the optimum stress-free pleasure of mingling with art and artists in their native habitat.


Start with the OS Artist Guide, a 15-month calendar with a color photo of the work of every OS artist, along with their addresses, websites, emails, phone numbers, shoe sizes, mothers' maiden names—well, you get the idea—all for only $20. Detailed maps and supplemental indexes list artists alphabetically, and according to medium.The Guide also tells you which artists are open which weekends, and whether their premises are wheelchair-accessible.

Go here to buy a calendar online or find a location near you to purchase one in person. All proceeds go to the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County to support OS and fund arts programs throughout the county.

New this year is the OS App, which puts all the info in the Guide on your phone. It's available now for just $4.99 via iTunes or Google Play; click here for details.

And don't forget to visit the Open Studios Preview Exhibit at the Art League (526 Broadway in Santa Cruz), to see a sample of each artist's work. Believe me, seeing the work in real life will save you hours of aimless driving around later. You can also pick up free color postcards of many of the artist's work, or purchase the OS Guide at the Art League.


The OS show opens this Saturday (September 29) and continues through October 21. Meet the artists at the opening reception this Sunday, September 30, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Exhibit hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

And that's all there is to it.  So do your homework, grab an art buddy or two, and maybe I'll see you on the road!

SOUL FOOD

'Chicken With Plums' a luscious, imaginative love story

First there was Persepolis, a gorgeously rendered black-and-white animated film about growing up female in Iran based on the graphic novel memoir by Marjane Satrapi. 

Now, Satrapi and her filmmaking partner Vincent Paronnaud are back with a splendid sophomore effort, Chicken With Plums. Although based on another Satrapi graphic novel, the new film is a stylistic departure from Persepolis in many interesting ways: it's live-action, it tells a soulful, romantic fictional drama, and its shot in delirious color.

In Chicken With Plums, the filmmakers take a fanciful approach to a story supposedly inspired by Satrapi's uncle, a concert musician, turning it into a wistful, allegorical, fairy tale-like drama. 

Although shot in French with an international cast, the film story is set in Tehran in 1958, during the last eight days of its protagonist's life. The narrative pirouettes back and forth between past, present, and future, a device that allows the filmmakers to observe several decades of Iranian culture while gradually revealing the love story at its core. (Read more)

The ART of STUFF

Usually, you go to a museum to view capital-A Art. The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History democratizes the whole process in its current exhibit, Santa Cruz Collects, wherein ordinary local folk like you and me are invited to show off their personal collections of stuff.

Got a thing for shoes? Check out the vintage footwear from all eras collected by Judy Steen, research librarian and aficionado of historical costume.  The variety of shoes in so small a space is amazing! These are downstairs in the Atrium, fetchingly displayed in this wonderful cabinet painted by Watsonville artist Carol Bowie.

Other collected objects include the humble—Lance Linares' bottle caps, Bruce Bratton's international toothpaste boxes and tubes, and Stacy Grant's (I kid you not) dryer lint. Some are formed around domestic objects, like Nita Gizdich's garden gnomes, or Dusty and Craig Miller's fantastic display of vintage toasters.

Others qualify as found art, like Daymel Shklar's aquarium tank full of sea glass, or the crushed metal forms  culled, again, by Grant. (She has seven different oddball, yet strangely compelling collections on display, including a wall full of multicolored beach sand in tiny vials, as varied as seeds or spices.)

And some collections are plain weird. (My favorite category!)  Assemblage artist Jack Howe shows a vast array of the found junk he uses in his work, ingeniously  displayed in three twin bed-sized boxsprings, their rusting coils a perfect network of cubbyholes. Local veterinarian Dr. David Shuman displays his collection of bleached animal skulls, gorgeously mounted in the corner of the Solari Gallery, under the skylight. Dr. Bruce Damer presents a tower of quaintly clunky vintage computers that seem to date from the Flintstone era.

Here's one of my favorite collections in the show. These are electric drills from all eras collected by woodworker Sandor Nagyszalanczy, a craftsman who has published many books on woodworking, tools and home projects.

Normally, I would never look twice at a drill, but look how strikingly these are displayed, like so many Buck Rogers ray guns!

Some are sleek, chrome Art Deco models, others more of the Rube Goldberg variety, but all are endlessly fascinating. (I'm sure Nagyszalanczy must have built this giant wooden mandala of a display board, too.)

Be sure to click on the image and see them in more detail!

I was also drawn to this grouping of Native American "baby baskets." The collector is Dean Silvers, a longtime Santa Cruz  elementary school teacher and self-taught historian. He is also an avid collector of California Indian baskets, Latin American crafts, and Native North American art.

I did a lot of research on Native American baby-carrying devices for my first novel, The Witch From the Sea. In the northeast, among the Iroquois (the heritage of my fictional heroine), they were carved out of wood and called "cradleboards." Most of my tribal research for The Witch ended up on the cutting room floor, but if you're interested, I've posted more info on cradleboards on my Witch website.

I assume these are all California Indian basket cradles, and possibly reproductions of vintage designs. (Maybe the tiniest ones are for dolls?) Look at the intricate workmanship on these pieces. There is nothing like seeing  such beautiful artifacts in person to make history come alive!

Santa Cruz Collects is up and running at the MAH through November 25.

A HISTORY of HOOK

Evidently I'm not the only one who thinks James M. Barrie's immortal pirate captain is ripe for revival.

 Last year's hit TV series, the fairy tale mash-up Once Upon A Time, is adding a new character to its roster of villains for its second season; none other than (wait for it)—Captain Hook.

Here's a teaser trailer, oozing sinister portent.

For most of us, the "original" Captain Hook is this cartoon version from Disney's 1953 Peter Pan.

First produced for the London stage in 1904, Barrie's play about a tribe of boys who refuse to grow up in a childhood dream world called the Neverland might have gone the way of the Dodo if not for the presence of this flamboyant, crowd-pleasing pirate chief, the lovable, hissable villain who's kept generations of audiences coming back for more.

This overdressed, supercilious, cowardly comic-opera villain that we know as Captain Hook is almost—er—single-handedly responsible for the ongoing popularity of Barrie's sentimental domestic comedy.

Disney's animated Hook wrings every possible laugh out of his swordplay, pratfalls and surreal flights of fancy, along with an exaggerated cartoon visage worthy of his every scheme— hawk's beak, chin jutting like the prow of a ship, quivering Salvador Dali moustachios, wiggling eyebrows with a life of their own.

Not to mention the juicy, overripe trilling of Hans Conried's vocal performance (he was also the voice of Snidely Whiplash on the old Rocky and Bullwinkle TV show).

Another famed onscreen Hook was stage actor and music hall veteran Cyril Ritchard (right) in the Broadway musical Peter Pan, which was filmed for TV in the mid-'1950s and rebroadcast sporadically after that. This is the famous version with Mary Martin as Peter, but, it was the delightful Ritchard, dripping dry wit and fussbudgety sarcasm, who made the show so much fun.

It's been a longstanding tradition for mature women to play Peter onstage. But ever since Barrie published his novelized version of the play, Peter and Wendy, in 1911,  allowing readers to imagine Peter as a real boy, it's believed that all little girls swoon for Peter. Current discussion boards on Goodreads reveal that young female readers still can't understand why Wendy doesn't choose to stay forever young with Peter in the Neverland.

But not me. Stay in the Neverland forever with a bunch of mangy boys? No thanks. Even as a child, I thought Peter was too much like the boys I went to school with—bratty and full of himself.

I liked Hook! He had the funniest lines, and by far the coolest clothes!

Book representations tend toward a more menacing Hook. Look at this F. D. Bedford illustration from a 1912 edition of Peter and Wendy.

This Hook as more of a Medusa-headed ogre than mere villainous human.

The image of Captain Hook as mincing fop was re-established by Dustin Hoffman in the 1991 Steven Spielberg movie, Hook. Hoffman brings plenty of comic brio to the role, but this is an aging, defanged Hook fading into the sunset.

By far the darkest and sexiest screen Hook is Jason Isaacs in the 2003 live-action Peter Pan. Isaacs (below) is all menace laced with a shot of wry; he suffers children and childish pirates with elaborate, if short-fused patience. ("Silence, puling spawn!" he roars when the kids start whining, a sentiment any babysitter or parent will understand.)

It was Isaacs' Hook, cracking jokes to himself, sotto voce, that nobody else gets, who set off the spark in my imagination about how awful it must be for a functioning adult to be trapped in a world invented and run by children.


 And the more I started thinking about it in those terms, the more real and complicated and tragic the character started to feel to me. I started to think of James Hook as a character worthy of redemption. I wanted to get him out of there!

They've got a handsome young Irsishman, Colin McDonoghe, coming in to play the character in Once Upon A Time, which suggests another reinterpretation of the Classic Hook. (Not surprising in a series in which Red Riding Hood is also, herself, a shapeshifting Wolf, and the hobgoblin, Rumplestiltskin—played by the delghtful Robert Carlyle—also gets his own Beauty and the Beast love story.)

The series' second season begins September 30, and Hook is scheduled to make his first appearance in Episode Four.

But as long as Captain Hook remains a designated villain, that's not the story I'm telling in Alias Hook.

DUELING DIVAS

Julie James (L) and Diana Torres Koss (R)

Queens struggle for power in JTC's ambitious Mary Stuart


Two great divas from the local theater scene play two of the greatest divas in history in Mary Stuart, the inaugural offering of the Jewel Theatre Company's 2012-2013 season. This historical play dramatizes the conflict between Queen Elizabeth Tudor of England and her cousin, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, a volatile pair of queens brought to life con brio at Center Stage by JTC veterans Diana Torres Koss and Julie James.

When director Susan Myer Silton went looking for a property with strong female roles, it's easy to see why she pounced on this one. Based on an 1800 German play by Friedrich Schiller and given a spiffy new translation by English playwright Peter Oswald in 2005, Mary Stuart distills the complex power struggle between the two queens into a subtle war of wills and words as both women navigate the often conflicting demands of honor, politics, religion, the obligations of queenship, and the vagaries of the human heart. (Read more)

Btw, exciting plans are afoot for JTC next spring when the intrepid home-grown company partners with Shakespeare Santa Cruz. The fruit of this intriguing collaboration will be an evening of two one-act plays by Harold Pinter. One For the Road, directed by SSC Artistic Director Marco Barricelli, will feature Paul Whitworth, Mike Ryan, and Julie James. The Lover, will be directed by James and feature Ryan in the cast.

Play dates are April 25 - May 12, 2013, so mark your calendars now!

BAG THIS BOOK

Davenport's own Heather McDougal is a woman of many talents. She's an educator,  sculptor, beekeeper, designer, creator of the excellent blog, Cabinet of Wonders (which counts Neil Gaiman among its many fans), book reviewer, and short story writer. And, any minute now, she'll also be a published novelist.

Songs For a Machine Age, Heather's first book-length adventure in a clockwork world of mystery and magic of her own devising, will be available in bookstores and on Amazon in November, 2012. (Is this not a cool cover, or what?)

Heather's small, but intrepid publisher is Hadley Rille Books, which specializes in titles of fantasy, sci-fi, and archaeology. But the days are long gone when an author could just write the book, send it off, then sit back and be fabulous. Writing the book is just the beginning these days, and that's why Heather is personally taking her book to the prestigious World Fantasy Convention in Toronto in November.

But she has an even craftier plan to really jump-start the book, besides merely being there. Many of the genre's biggest writers, editors, reviewers, fans, and buzz-generators will be in attendance, and Heather's dream is to get copies of her new book into the free book bags handed out to every single attendee.  The only hitch is, Hadley Rille lacks the budgetary resources to finance this master plan.

So Heather has launched a fundraising campaign on the website Indiegogo. If she can raise the $1000 necessary to buy 100 copies of her book and get them distributed in conventioneers' book bags, she will reach a full one-eighth of  the event's 800+ attendees. (And of course, the more books she can buy to distribute, the merrier!)

If she raises the funds by October 15, she'll be able to get the books ordered and shipped in time. Meanwhile, YOU get an ebook or signed paperback of Songs For a Machine Age for your generous donation. Here's Heather to tell you all about it!

COMING SOON: ALIAS HOOK

Speaking of books, here's something I've wanted to post for a long time. I have a new novel coming out!

I've just signed a contract with Snowbooks,  a small, award-winning independent publisher in the UK,  to publish my fantasy novel, Alias Hook.

Not your father's Peter Pan, my book views the children's paradise of the Neverland from the caustic perspective of Captain James Benjamin Hook, its prisoner, a grown man stranded in a world run by a capricious 11-year-old boy. (I don't know about you, but that would be my vision of Hell!) Once an embittered warrior with a grudge against the world, now Hook is trapped forever in a pointless war he can never win nor end against the boy tyrant, Pan, and his magical allies.

There's no Wendy or Tinker Bell in my book, but I do make pretty free use of the Neverland as created by James M. Barrie in Peter and Wendy, his 1911 novelization of his famous play. Except I go where Barrie feared to tread, deep into the society of merwives who live beneath the Mermaid Lagoon, the Sisterhood of fairies who guard the island, and the Indian tribes who have learned to make peace with the boys.

In my story, a grown woman dreams her way to the Neverland in defiance of all the boy's rules. She may be the key to Hook's redemption—maybe even his release—if they can unravel the curse that binds him there before Pan can capture her and drag Hook back into their neverending game.

Eight years in the making, Alias Hook is a story of love and war, male and female, and the delicate art of growing up. Tentative publication date is June, 2013, so watch this space for further details!

(Sketch of Hook at his glass © Lisa Jensen, 2012)

CLUELESS in MOROCCO

The irrepressible Laurie King is at it again.

Next week, her new Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes suspense novel, Garment Of Shadows hits bookstore shelves. It's the twelfth entry in the immensely popular series about the aging, but still brilliant and vigorous detective, and his smart, simpatico younger bride and companion in adventure. It's also the fourth Russell-Holmes novel in a row in as many years.

Hot on the heels (or perhaps the stern) of last year's rollicking Pirate King, the new novel eschews that novel's salty, serio-comic hijinks on the high seas for something completely different: amnesia. Scant days after separating from the movie crew in Morocco at the end of the last book, Mary wakens with a throbbing head, with blood on her hands, in a strange room dressed in men's robes—with no earthly idea who she is.

As a variety of handy skills come instinctively to her—climbing out windows, scaling down walls, reaching automatically for weapons long since taken off her, stealing food and coins (and above all, the instinct for self-preservation)—she makes her way into a teeming marketplace. She recognizes that she is within the walled part of the city (or medina) of ancient Fez, the second largest city in Morocco. But what she is doing there, and how—and to whom—she is to return home again are for the reader and Mary herself to find out.

Laurie King will be at the Capitola Book Cafe on Wednesday, September 5, at 7:30 pm, to read and sign copies of Garment Of Shadows. Or, you can catch her later at Bookshop Santa Cruz, Friday, September 14, at 7:30 pm.

In the meantime to get in the proper mood, check out Laurie's Pinterest page  (that's one of her images, above), all abloom with the exotic colors, food, spices, tiles, and cats of Fez!

REAL GONE

Andrew Ceglio (L) and Briana Michaud rock the boat

 Anything Goes one of Cabrillo Stage's all-time best

 Time is running out to catch up with Cabrillo Stage's excellent production of Anything Goes at the Crocker Theater. Only five more shows are scheduled for this absolutely fabulous all-singing, all-dancing musical extravaganza; some happy exiting theater patrons at last night's performance (okay, it was Art Boy) were heard to utter that this is the best musical production CS has ever mounted.

High praise indeed, and well-deserved. Everything works in this energetic production. Songs? An entire score of Cole Porter classics, from "I Get A Kick Out of You", "You're the Top," "It's De-Lovely," "Friendship", and, of course, the sly title tune.

Style? To die for. The lighter-than-air story takes place on an ocean liner ca. 1934 (when the show was originally produced on Broadway), and Skip Epperson and his design team have created a fantasia of Art Deco delight, from the image of a ship on a foaming sea painted on the scrim downstage to the split-level deck and staterooms on board; even the jail bars in the brig have a Deco-Moderne design. Costumer Maria Crush's wardrobe of gowns, tuxes, showgirl costumes, sailor suits, and satiny tap-pants add another layer of Deco gorgeousness.

Performers? Outstanding. As sassy nightclub hostess Reno Sweeney, the centerpiece of the show, Briana Michaud brings down the house—over and over again. Basically, every time she appears onstage, it's a showstopper. Michaud has a great big, vibrant voice, an easy, earthy style onstage, and she dances up a storm. Reno Sweeney was an early starmaking role for Ethel Merman; Michaud's voice is almost as big, but much more musical, pliable and interesting.

Andrew Ceglio, CS's one-man secret weapon, notches up another terific turn as Billy Crocker, the impromptu stowaway trying to get the girl. He sings, he dances, he mugs like a pro, and he's a pleasure to watch throughout. His duet with Michaud on "You're the Top" is irresistible. Kudos as well to Max Bennett-Parker as affable gangster Moonface Martin, an endearing Robert Coverdell as a goofy young British aristocrat (studying the arcana of American English idioms like Margaret Mead among the Samoans), and Anethra Moura as a cheeky gangster's moll.

And the dancing? In a word: OMG. Director and choreographer Kikau Alvaro has the company dancing through every singe number, whether duets, quartets, or ensembles, and never more impressively than in massive production number for "Anything Goes" at the end of Act 1. It's a synchronized tap extravaganza for the entire company, performed on every level of the stage, and it's just astoundingly great! It is, by far, the single most virtuoso production number in the history of Cabrillo Stage.

Anything Goes will only play five more shows, through Sunday, August 19, so don't you dare miss it! Call (831) 479-6154, or visit Cabrillo Stage online for tickets.

Why are you still sitting there?

RASCALS and ROYALS

It's wine, women and song for Richard Ziman's Falstaff

Comedy and kingship rule in SSC's funny, moving 'Henry IV Part 2'

Sir John Falstaff rides again in Henry IV Part 2, the third production in Shakespeare Santa Cruz's 2012 summer season. The sequel to last year's popular Henry IV Part 1, returning director Scott Wentworth's production of H4P2 offers plenty of drama—death and loss, kingship, statecraft, rebellion, family dynamics, and the passing of the crown from one generation to the next, along with a resonant meditation on aging that runs throughout the play.

But the centerpiece is the bawdy comedy and ignoble scheming of Falstaff, and Richard Ziman's robust, gargantuan performance in the role. Extravagantly dressed by costumer B.Modern in a variety of hilariously spangled and braided military outfits and luxurious frock coats, Ziman fills the cavernous Festival Glen with this lusty, bragging, blustery, old rogue and his appetites—for food, wine, and women, for fleecing his friends in pursuit of all of the above, for life itself.

Repeating in the role from last year, Ziman has a stand-up comedian's knack for connecting with the crowd, delighting himself (and us) with his own merriment; his famous speech in praise of sack (wine) is a bravura showstopper, and yet the fleeting moments when he pauses to ponder the inevitability of aging and what lies beyond are just as compelling.

Charles Pasternak as Hal, the Prince who would be King

H4P2 is really less a sequel than a second act between the battles, roistering and political maneuvering of Henry IV Part 1 and the triumphant kingship of Prince Hal in Henry V (the final play in the "Henriad" cycle, coming to SSC in 2013).

The old king is dying, and Prince Hal (the excellent Charles Pasternak) is scarcely to be seen. Which leaves much of the play to Falstaff, contemplating the favoritism and life of ease he expects once Hal, his former protégé, gains the throne.

But for all the frivolity—and there's plenty of it—the play reaches its powerful and very moving climax in the final encounter between old Henry (V Craig Heidenreich) and Prince Hal. Each has much to regret and each needs absolution from the other, and between the textured emotions and unexpected physical business with which the actors and Wentworth navigate Shakespeare's poetry, the scene is a knockout. Heidenreich's mercurial voice is one of the chief assets of this production, and Pasternak is such a dynamic presence, the play feels a bit empty when he's not around. (Read more)

KITTEN SMITTEN

A big shout-out today to Project Purr. This worthy group of humane animal activists is doing its bit to reduce the unwanted feral cat population in Santa Cruz County, not by hunting down the animals or incarcerating them in shelters, but through the innovative Trap-Neuter-Return program.

Here's how it works: anyone concerned about a feline population explosion in the neighborhood, especially if you've been feeding the strays and looking out for them, can borrow a trap from the animal shelter. Any one or more feral cats you bring  in to an animal clinic will be spayed or neutered, given necessary shots, and treated for parasites and fleas, then freed again.

And right now, during the months of August and September,  these services are absolutely FREE to all Santa Cruz County residents at two participating animal hospitals: East Lake Animal Clinic (740 East Lake Avenue, Watsonville, (831) 724-6391), and Animal Hospital of Soquel (2651 Soquel Avenue, Santa Cruz, (831) 475-0432).

At the Watsonville Clinic, surgery is available seven days a week; no appointment is necessary. The Animal Hospital of Soquel requests that you call ahead before trapping, to make sure there will be surgery space available.

Anyone of any income level, with no voucher required, is invited to borrow a trap and help to liberate feral cats and kittens from the punishing reproductive cycle. Kittens brought in who are still young enough to socialize will be put up for adoption through the local shelters. That's what happened to BoBo (above), a feral kitten brought into the program whose sweet personality quickly won her a home with a smitten new owner in Los Gatos.

Which reminds me, if you're looking for a furry companion or two, the shelters are full to bursting with adoptable kittens right this minute. Spring and fall are "kitten season," so now is the time to go find and bond with the little fuzzit of your dreams.

Take two; they're small! That's what we did five years ago when we brought home our tortie sisters, Bella and Roma. Here's Roma, doing her famous impression of a harbor seal! With cats in the house, who needs any other kind of entertainment?

Click here to find out more about Project Purr.

(Photo of BoBo by Ann Parker.)

POST-MODERN PYGMALION

Writer falls for his fictional creation in smart, funny 'Ruby Sparks'


There's always a Pygmalion factor involved in the creative process. What author doesn't fall in love with his or her characters now and then? Imagine Margaret Mitchell grinning fondly at Rhett Butler's caustic wisecracks, or Anne Rice sighing over Lestat's every erotic bite.

But suppose an author was so profoundly in love with his fictive heroine that she emerged as a flesh and blood person in the midst of his real life? Such is the miracle—and the dilemma—at the heart of Ruby Sparks, the offbeat, savvy and charming new romantic comedy from directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine).

The screenplay was written by actress and playwright Zoe Kazan, who also co-stars in the film. The legendary Billy Wilder once advised an obscure young actor named Billy Bob Thornton that if you want a good part in Hollywood, you'd better write it yourself, advice Kazan has taken to heart.

In her story, novelist Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) was a publishing phenomenon at 19, when his first novel became a runaway bestseller, defined a generation, and became required reading on every college campus in America. Ten years later, battling writer's block, he starts writing down ideas about his ultimate dream girl, a character he names Ruby. The more he writes about her background and the quirks of her personality, the more inspired he becomes; soon he's in the thick of a manuscript in which Ruby falls in love with a writer named Calvin.

Imagine his shock when he wakes up one morning to find Ruby herself (Kazan) bustling about in his kitchen.

As movies about writing go, this is no Wonder Boys. It doesn't offer the same edgy, comprehensive look at the way publishing, academia, and literary lionism conspire to create an industry that eats its young. But Ruby Sparks isn't really a movie about writing; it's about finding the balance of power in a relationship, and finding a place for love to root and flourish somewhere in the twilight zone between control and free will. In this respect, it's both inventive and achingly true. (Read more in this week's Good Times)

Btw: big kudos to whoever designed that clever poster! I love how it sets up the whole premise in one great, punchy image!

ON THE ROAD

Random travel tips from the Inconstant Traveler

Art Boy and I don't get out that much, Hobbit-like as we are in our affection for hearth and home, not to mention the kitties. (That's why I'm the Inconstant Traveler!) So on the rare occasions that we do venture out into the great world, we like to make every nanosecond count, because who knows when (or if) we'll ever be back?

After two fabulous weeks in Europe last June, one in Vienna and one in Prague, I've come up with a short checklist of ways to make the most of your precious travel time. Everybody tells me September and October are the best times to travel (better weather; fewer tourists), so if you're planning an adventure this fall, maybe these tips will be useful!

First things first: always wear slip-on shoes in airports. It's not such a big deal flying between European cities, but in US airports, you're going to have to put them in the bin at the security checkpoint, so the less time spent fooling with straps or laces, the better.

A sturdy, square-bottom tote bag, with scrunchable straps that can be folded over under the seat in front of you, is the best possible device for carrying  whatever you'll need on the plane. I used to use canvas, briefcase-shaped carry-on bags, but they tend to slump after 12 hours in the air (who doesn't?), and they're hard to get in and out of.

Once you've arrived, if you're going to be hiking around town, ladies, bring a minimal purse just big enough for cash, key, an iPhone-size camera and (if you're an obsessive note-taker like moi), a tiny note/sketch pad. (This can also double as an evening bag.) If, like me, you bring the same saddle bag you haul around back home, you'll feel like a pack mule.

If you're going to museums—which is what we spent most of our time doing, this trip—this is critical: pick up a brochure with a floor plan at the front desk and find out the exact location of what you want to see most. Then start there; otherwise, you could be wandering around dazedly for hours before you stumble across what you came to see—and by then you'll be too exhausted to appreciate it.

(Another good museum tip: bring a bottle of water in a backpack and check it in the coat room. It can get hot in museums, and they rarely have drinking fountains—especially if they're located in a former palace or monastery.)

And finally—try NOT to travel in June! Global warming is real, folks; Vienna is about the same latitude as Seattle, Prague even farther north, yet we had hot, steamy days in the uppers 80s, with 80-90% humidity, almost the entire trip. (Even when it was raining, as it was the day we walked to the Hundertwasser Museum in Vienna.)

 If you must go in June, prepare to strip down to a tank top. On the upside: despite generous helpings of strudel, Viennese sausage, Prague ham, and Bohemian Sekt (Czech sparkling wine), this is one vacation where we actually lost weight!

(Above: at the Gare de Lyon, Paris (sigh).)

FANTASTIC FOUR

Musketeers ride again in SSC's rousing 'Man In the Iron Mask'

It's a rare treat to get to review a brand new play at Shakespeare Santa Cruz. It's even more fun when the play is as rollicking a success as Scott Wentworth's delicious The Man in the Iron Mask. The second offering in SSC's 2012 season, it's a sequel to last season's popular production of The Three Musketeers. Using material from two later Alexandre Dumas novels, Wentworth and director John Sipes collaborate to give the audience piling into the Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen everything they've come to see—action, humor, love, honor, and plenty of roistering camaraderie.

20 years after events in the last play, the original three Musketeers have retired. Their former comrade-in-arms, D'Artagnan (Kit Wilder) has become Captain of the King's Musketeers, although now he serves a new king, son of his last employer—pleasure-seeking, war-mongering young Louis XIV (Charles Pasternak). The dying Queen Mother, Anne of Austria (an elegant, heartfelt Marion Adler), sets the plot in motion with a secret visit to ex-Musketeer, Aramis (V Craig Heidenreich), now a priest, with a terrible confession: her part in the unjust imprisonment of a young boy in the Bastille years earlier.

Meanwhile, Porthos (Ted Barton), now a wealthy baron hosting the king's upcoming birthday fete, is fretting about the state of his wardrobe. Athos (the formidable Dierk Torsek), now a count, has retired to a contemplative, teetotaler's life on his country estate—until King Louis sends Athos' only son, the dashing guardsman, Raoul (Armando McLain) off to a volatile war zone so the king can bring Raoul's betrothed, Louise (Lisa Kitchens), to court, and seduce her.

Aramis discovers the masked prisoner is Philippe (also Pasternak, wonderful in both dual roles), compassionate twin brother to Louis with just as legitimate a claim to the throne. Intrigues abound, loyalties are tested, friendships renewed, honor upheld, and, of course, swords are crossed as the plot gallops along. The play is both stirring and funny, especially when the old comrades are onstage together. ("Age before Beauty." "Pearls before swine," Athos and Porthos spar, each attempting to politely usher the other through a doorway.) And the cast is terrific. (Read more)

(Above: Kit Wilder as D'Artagnan (left) with Gabriel Lawrence as conniving Royal Guardsman De Wardes. Photo by rr jones.)

TOUR de FARCE

Raucous comedy highlights SSC's lively 'Twelfth Night'

Shakespeare Santa Cruz continues to brighten up our foggy coastal summers with imaginative and exciting live theater. The company launches its 31st season with a new production of Twelfth Night, one of Shakespeare's most enjoyable and accessible romantic comedies. Directed by SSC Artistic Director Marco Barricelli, this lively production floods the stage with knockabout farce, yet leaves enough breathing room for moments of poignant reflection on the many ways romantic love can be found—and lost.

Shipwreck survivor Viola (a winsome Lenne Klingaman) lands on the coast of Illyria. Believing her twin brother drowned, she dresses in male clothing for protection and finds employment with the nobleman, Duke Orsino (Tom Gough). Distracted by his unrequited love for the noble lady, Olivia (vivacious Rayme Cornell), Orsino sends Viola, now called "Cesario," to woo the lady on his behalf. Olivia remains unmoved by the Duke's message, but she falls for the messenger, "Cesario." Viola, meanwhile, trapped within her male disguise, has fallen in love with the Duke.

But the highlight here is its boisterous comedy. Vincent Paul O'Connor is hilarious as Olivia's debauched uncle, Sir Toby Belch, canoodling with saucy maid Maria (Shannon Warrick), or consuming a raw egg and tabasco cocktail onstage. William Elsman is absolutely terrific as his foppish cohort, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, commanding every inch of his stage space with his big, yet precise comic gestures and powerful voice. And special kudos to Mark Christine as Feste (above), who handles the clown's witty repartee, and sings and plays guitar with wistful sweetness. (Read more)

MAVERICKS: COMING SOON

Hey, kids, check it out!

Here's the cool new poster for Chasing Mavericks, which is the new title of the Jay Moriarty surf movie that was shot on location right here in Santa Cruz last summer.

The shooting title at that time was Of Men and Mavericks,  but maybe that one sounded a little too, I don't know, Steinbeck-ian? The new title implies movement and action, and there's sure to be plenty of both in a dramatic fiction film about local hero Moriarty and his quest to challenge the gigantic surf break at Mavericks in Half Moon Bay.

Remember last summer when director Curtis Hanson and the production crew were in town? Sightings of the Hollywood equipment trucks, catering wagon, actors and crew were frequent at the Boardwallk, the harbor, and local beaches. Rumors of star Gerard Butler (he plays Jay's mentor, Frosty Hesson), wandering around Pleasure Point in a wetsuit peeled down to his waist fueled party chitchat for weeks.

Anyway, Chasing Mavericks is coming soon to a theater near you. That's Butler on the right in the poster with Jonny Weston, who plays Jay. Release date is October 26, and it will be interesting to see if, this time, the movies get Santa Cruz right.

Update: here's a link to the new Chasing Mavericks trailer on IMDB!

THE BAT GOES ON

The debate over whether violent movies inspire real-life violence rages on in the wake of the mass murders last week at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises. It's important to remember that the suspect had not actually seen the film. Still, it can't help but color one's view of the way movies in general package violent action as mass entertainment.

Nolan is a master of violent action. Long, chaotic vehicle chases, extreme shootouts, and massive explosions (often all part of the same sequence) are the main reasons Nolan's Batman films bloat up to well past two hours in length (The Dark Knight Rises, clocking in at two hours and 44 minutes, contains all of the above). There are also queasy-making scenes when the villain and his paramilitary thugs bust into crowded public places like the Stock Exchange or a football stadium. But at least in the movie the body count accrues mostly from lawmen and villains fighting each other, not innocent bystanders.

As usual, what's best about this final installment of Nolan's brooding trilogy is the evolution of Batman's personal story. Corrupt officials in Gotham City are trying to defang the anti-crime Dent Law, that's been in effect for the eight years since the events of the previous film, The Dark Knight. Meanwhile, billionaire Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) sulks in his mansion with a bum knee and a bad attitude; he's given up the batsuit now that everyone believes Batman is a murdering psycho. (A ruse he concocted to preserve the heroic image of secretly corrupted DA Harvey Dent in the last film.)

But trouble is brewing in the person of Bane (Tom Hardy), heir to the terrorist empire of Ra's al Ghul, who was Bruce Wayne's martial arts mentor, nemesis, and victim back in the first film, Batman Begins. (There's a great density of backstory in this movie, so you have to keep up.) (Read more)

Btw, here's an observation there wasn't room for in my GT review (in print tomorrow and online soon). Yes, I loved Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman (a cat burglar by trade, so her alter-ego makes a bit more sense); she brings much-needed zip and humor to the otherwise dark, troubling atmosphere of Nolan's Bat films.

But notice how they package sexy Selina for the fanboy public. When Batman rides his souped-up Bat Cycle (or whatever the heck it's called), his cape billows out from his shoulders and swirls over the back of the machine like a moody black cloud. But no cape for Selina; when she's stretched prone over the roaring engine, her pert black-leather derriere is visible to all, aiming for the sky.

I'm just sayin'...

SWASHBUCKLER ALERT

Say you've got a budding young swashbuckler in your life. Maybe she or he has seen too many Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, but when other kids are off at the beach or the skatepark, yours is in the back yard with an old broom handle, shouting, "En garde!" and practicing to thrust, parry and riposte.

Well, here's your chance to earn major brownie points by treating your young pirate-in-training to a live performance of Shakespeare Santa Cruz's rip-snorting new production of The Man in the Iron Mask—for free!

A brand new play penned by SSC stalwart Scott Wentworth, Iron Mask is a sequel to last season's hugely popular production of The Three Musketeers. It's based on a later novel by Alexandre Dumas in which the older Musketeers come out of retirement to join D'Artagnan for one last escapade, replacing the corrupt and heartless King Louis XIV with his compassionate twin brother, who has been imprisoned all his life.

If last season's twin productions of Musketeers and King Henry IV Part 1 are any indication, Iron Mask is sure to kick up some dust in the Festival Glen with plenty of action, clashing swords, and derring-do. And you can and your little swashbuckler can be a part of it when SSC presents Atlantis Fantasyworld Day on Saturday, August 4.

In partnership with the beloved local comic shop, SSC is offering one free child's ticket with the purchase of a full-priced adult ticket for the 2 pm performance of The Man in the Iron Mask on Saturday, August 4, only. Purchase tickets by phone (831 459-2159) or in person at the UCSC Ticket Office. Mention the code word "Atlantis" to get your free child's ticket for this performance; but the offer is only good for tickets purchased in advance before July 29. That's this coming Sunday, so act fast!

But wait, there's more: kids are invited to come in costume as their favorite Musketeer to participate in a pre-show costume contest at 12:30 pm on the 4th. Winner of the costume contest will receive a hardcover graphic novel of The Man in the Iron Mask from Atlantis.

Meanwhile, get in the mood for the new play (it opens this Saturday night), by revisiting my highly subjective history of Three Musketeers adaptations, Dueling Musketeers, which I posted last year at just about this time. En garde!

THEY WALK THE LINE

It's back-to-basics in Cabrillo Stage's vivid, heartfelt 'Chorus Line'


Talk about a singular sensation.

When A Chorus Line debuted in 1975, it broke all the rules for what a Broadway musical is supposed to be. There are no elaborate sets or scene changes; it all takes place on a bare rehearsal stage with one mirrored wall. Playing out in more or less real time, with no intermission, the storyline—you couldn't call it a plot, exactly—concerns a score of young dancers auditioning for the chorus of a Broadway show. Costumes? The kind of practice clothes every dancer has in his or her wardrobe. It also presents various gay and ethnically diverse characters in frankly sympathetic terms.

But everything that was supposed to be wrong with the show was evidently right on—it won nine Tonys, numerous Drama Desk and Obie Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. It also ran on Broadway for 19 years.

Cabrillo Stage veteran Janie Scott was a young dancer in 1977 when she won a place in one of the first touring companies of A Chorus Line, cast by the show's original director and choreographer, the legendary Michael Bennett. And now she recaptures the stripped-down, no-frills, emotionally exposed vibe of the original show as director-choreographer of her own vivid production of A Chorus Line, the flagship event in the 2012 Cabrillo Stage summer musical season. (Read more)

(Photo: Jana Marcus)