Arts Reporting in Santa Cruz County
Rotary Meeting May 28th
Announcements and Reminders
Rotarian of the Week Burt Lemke was honored for his thoughts for the day
Debunking will be on June 19th Sign up now to go and let us know if you are bringing a guest
Sandra thanked everybody who participated in the American Music Festival. A total of $722 was raised on Saturday and $537 on Sunday.
Kate announced that she and Doug went to Aptos High School to present Rotary scholarship awards. One of the recipients (an InterAct student) came to thank us!
Tom reminded us of the 4th of July fundraiser. Sign up to help to sell food and beer at the Park.
Our speaker today was Wallace Baine from the Sentinel who writes a column covering the arts in Santa Cruz. He is also an editor and film critic and is a two-time winner of the national American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors (AASFE) Excellence in Writing competition for his well-known Sunday column “Baine Street.” He has also won the City of Santa Cruz Artworks award for leadership in the arts and his column is syndicated nationwide. He is the author of the book Rhymes with Vain: Belabored Humor and Attempted Profundity.
Story
Our speaker today was Wallace Baine from the Sentinel who writes a column covering the arts in Santa Cruz. He is also an editor and film critic and is a two-time winner of the national American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors (AASFE) Excellence in Writing competition for his well-known Sunday column “Baine Street.” He has also won the City of Santa Cruz Artworks award for leadership in the arts and his column is syndicated nationwide. He is the author of the book Rhymes with Vain: Belabored Humor and Attempted Profundity.
He began by telling us about his Rotary connection. His daughter was a Rotary exchange student to South Korea and the experience changed and directed her life. Now she is enrolled in college in South Korea, studying the Korean language in hopes of becoming an interpreter.
Mr Baine then spoke about the arts scene in Santa Cruz as well as his own work.
He covered the wide range of musical traditions in Santa Cruz, including even opera, as well as the visual arts, mentioning specifically the Open Studios event involving 320 selected artists from all over county.
He also spoke of his work for the annual Gail Rich Awards, honoring local artists and arts supporters in the Santa Cruz area. Every year creative people are selected to highlight what they are accomplishing. This is the 20th anniversary and they are doing a book to be published in November. It will be portraits of the artists. All money raised will go back to Santa Cruz Arts Council.
Mr. Baine also spoke about his own writing, much of which is based on his love of American history. He has a new book out entitled “The last Temptation of Lincoln” which is a collection of ‘what if’ stories.
He gave us one example. Abraham Lincoln lost the love of this life to TB when young . Mr Baine speculated on what would have happened if Mary Todd Lincoln, who conducted séances after the loss of their son in 1863, had managed to call up the ghost of his long lost love. Another story in the book involves the Apollo eleven moon landing. It is little known but as the space module pulled away, it knocked over the American flag. What if Nixon sent a group of misfits to go fix the flag?
Questions and a lively discussion followed. One question involved the future of the Santa Cruz symphony andanother, the future of printed newspaper. (He was optimistic about the first , but not the second!)