Begonias subtly bloom in the clouds as The Begonia Queen, a yellow, orange and red aircraft, tows a Capitola banner over the beach town. Ruth Korch’s poster for the 57th annual Capitola Begonia Festival, held Labor Day weekend, fully captures the theme “Capitola Takes Flight.”

This is the second consecutive year the artist has won the poster competition for the festival, which celebrates the flower that put this city on the map.

Korch said the poster is “very different from what I usually do.” The idea of a plane swooping down on the shoreline came to the Santa Cruz native on a whim after ruminating on the festival’s theme….

Begonia-covered floats will drift down Soquel Creek once more when the 57th annual Capitola Begonia Festival gets underway Labor Day weekend. Hat decorating, float building, sand sculptures, music and even movies on the beach are part of this unpretentious fete,

The festival, which honors the colorful flowers grown in this beachside town until the 1970s, got [...]

Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) filibusters the Senate.
With Barack Obama in the White House and the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy, it seems an especially fitting time to see Mr. Smith Goes to Washington on the big screen. Frank Capra’s 1939 film, appearing 8 p.m. Thursday as part of Flashback Flix at Santa Cruz’s Regal 9, [...]

For current events, see the complete listings at The Week, The Weekend and Everything Else.

For the Weekend of August 28-30, 2009.

PICK OF THE WEEKEND: Surf’s Up Friday at Capitola Beach.

Friday /// Saturday /// Sunday

Friday
Dave Crimmen at the Esplanade. 50′s Rock and Roll & Rockabilly rule when Dave Crimmen plays the Capitola Twilight Concert Series. [...]

For current events, see the complete listings at The Week, The Weekend and Everything Else.

For the Week of August 24-27, 2009.
PICK OF THE WEEK: The Deadly Gentlemen on Thursday.
Monday /// Tuesday /// Wednesday /// Thursday

Monday
EDITOR’S PICK: Les Nubians at Kuumbwa Jazz Center. Sisters Helene and Celia Faussart — better known as Les Nubians — [...]

Both Museum of Art and History curator Susan Hillhouse and Museo Eduardo Carrillo director Betsy Andersen have the same favorite story about Eduardo Carrillo, the late artist and UC Santa Cruz professor. Carrillo, each recounted separately, would wake up each morning, roll out of bed and sit at a table, painting watercolors and sketching while he had his first cup of coffee.

That passion shows in Eduardo Carrillo: Within a Cultural Context, which opened August 22 at the downtown Santa Cruz museum’s Solari Gallery. The show will be up through November 22….

At left: A detail from Eduardo Carrillo’s “Two Brothers Fighting.”

Terence Blanchard has never struggled to stay true to himself in the jazz world. “I have never felt the need to be or do anything outside of who I am,” emailed the trumpet player in an interview from on the road in Chicago.

What the three-time Grammy Award winner has felt the need to do is explore the world of ideas, which is where his latest CD, Choices, comes in. The recently-released album mixes a philosophical conversation between Blanchard and intellectual Cornel West, professor at Princeton University, with compositions by members of Blanchard’s quintet.

The quintet — Blanchard, bassist Derrick Hodge, drummer Kendrick Scott, saxophonist Walter Smith lll and pianist Fabian Almazan — will perform works from Choices at Kuumbwa Jazz Center on Monday, August 31….

See the surfing penguins on Capitola Beach. You read that right. This Friday, August 28, the village by the bay opens its Movies at the Beach series with Surf’s Up, a documentary-style animated tale of an Antarctic penguin who longs to win a tropical surf competition.

The PG-rated fare follows rock hopper Cody Maverick on his [...]

What is it about the times that inspire bluegrass fusion? Recently, bands coming through Santa Cruz have mixed the banjo-dobro-mandolin-fiddle form with rock (Jedd Brothers), punk (The Shitkickers, The Hackensaw Boys) and jazz-funk (Grampa’s Chili). So perhaps banjo rap was inevitable. The Deadly Gentlemen bring their mix of hip-hop and Americana to Don Quixote’s on [...]

For current events, see the complete listings at The Week, The Weekend and Everything Else.
For the Weekend of August 21-23, 2009.

Friday /// Saturday /// Sunday

Friday
Opening reception Form & Function at Mountain Arts. Exhibit honors all creative forms from wall-hangings to wearable, beads to baskets, bowls to sculpture. 6 – 8 p.m. Closing day September [...]