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On Friday, September 8 at 7pm the Ventura Improv Company, a collective of improvisers, will gather to grow in our craft and co-create - to enrich people’s lives through excellent improv education and hilarious shows.

$10.

Our vision is a world filled with laughter. Our passion is creating joy.

​More info: http://venturaimprov.com
Ventura Improv Company is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

On Friday, September 12 at 7pm embark on a timeless musical journey with local favorite Shawn Jones, where soulful melodies and authentic lyrics blend seamlessly in a captivating fusion of blues, folk, and rock — touching hearts worldwide.

Shawn Jones, will perform his first single “Too Hot To Hold” written by legendary Steve Jordan and produced by Niko Bolas in addition to “In My Blood” and other favorites.

On September 9, the Hancock Honors, presented by CoastHills Credit Union, will celebrate three Hancock luminaries who have changed the odds in their communities.

Join us for this elevated evening featuring unique culinary stations, local wine, beer, and craft cocktails, interactive art installations, and live music by the San Francisco collective, Jazz Mafia — all on the outdoor plaza of the new $50 million Fine Arts Complex on Allan Hancock College’s Santa Maria campus.

For more information on our honorees and to purchase tickets, visit: https://www.hancockcollege.edu/honors
Contact for more information: ahcfoundation@hancockcollege.edu or AHC Foundation at 805-925-2004

HARBOR COVE CAFE PRESENTS
CINEMA BY THE SEA - JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO

MOVIE AT DUSK

WHEN A HYPOCHONDRIAC LEARNS THAT HE IS DYING, HE ACCEPTS AN OFFER TO THROW HIMSELF IN A VOLCANO AT A TROPICAL ISLAND, AND ALONG THE WAY THERE, LEARNS TO TRULY LIVE.

With our first series on Art Restitution, we focused on the legal issues and art losses of WWII, yet we merely covered the tip of the iceberg. There are far more cases for us to investigate: the post war actions of Bruno Lohse, a mysterious suitcase secreted away from France, the ill-gotten dazzling jewels of Horton, the idyllic painting that Hitler claimed for the Führermuseum and the Guelph Treasures.

The Third Reich’s repercussions were also felt in the East. Japan and Korea had significant art entanglements and the art restitution cases are just beginning to surface. We will look at how the methods of restitution have been strengthened by law and the latest cases in repatriation to the countries of origin. Once again, grab your legal pad and pencil!

Christine Maasdam holds a Master in Humanities and a B.A. in Cultural Geography. Her art studies include The Courtauld Institute of Art in London, The Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center in D.C. and Post Graduate studies in Antiquities Trafficking and Art Crime at the University of Glasgow. She is a graduate of the Art Crime Investigation Seminar led by Robert Wittman, founder of the FBI's National Art Crime Team. Christine is a member of the International Foundation for Cultural Property Protection and holds a certificate from Trident Manor on Protection of Cultural Venues. Christine received Sotheby’s certification on Determining Value: An Appraiser’s Perspective. She has spent over a decade as a LACMA docent and is an active volunteer at the City of David archaeological dig in Israel.

In this six-week course, we’ll look closely at the early development of radio programming. Using the unprecedented career of Jack Benny as a stepping off point, we will look at the incredibly rapid rise of radio entertainment, its heyday, and its decline only to be supplanted by early television – a medium originally conceived and designed to be just like radio but with pictures.

The impact of commercial radio on our culture cannot be overstated. By the end of the 1930s, 83% of American homes had radios – and radio remained the number one medium of home entertainment until the 1950s when television gradually took its place. Radio, in addition to being an extension of newspapers, was primarily a way of bringing musical entertainment into people’s homes at first. Vaudeville comics were brought on to add variety, mostly to repeat their old stage routines.

Jack Benny was one such comic. He began his radio career to fill in the gaps between musical numbers, but he and his writers developed their shows into something quite different; they pioneered a new kind of program and as a result laid out the rules and tropes that soon morphed into a new genre: the situation comedy.

Join us as we examine radio’s golden age and the dawn of television.

Matthew Weisman received his MFA in Film from Columbia University School of the Arts where he also taught classes in Cinema Studies and directed the Cinematheque film program. His undergraduate degree in English is from Boston University. A professional screenwriter and producer, he taught Graduate Screenwriting at the USC School of Cinema for fifteen years. He is a retired member of The Writers Guild of America. He has taught several continuing education courses in film and television history and appreciation both online and in the classroom.

The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) presents “Cargo in Question: Two Films about Labor, Shipping, and Globalization in the 21st Century” taking place on Saturday, September 16, 2023, at 1:00 p.m.

As part of this special event, Mae Miller-Likhethe, PhD and Charmaine Chua, PhD, both assistant professors of Global Studies at UC Santa Barbara, will screen two films—Cargo (2001, 29 minutes) and All that Perishes at the Edge of Land (2019, 31 minutes)—followed by a Q&A session and discussion (a full 90 minutes). The films, which blur the lines between fiction and reality, offer important insights into the daily lives, working conditions, and dreams of the seamen and shipbreakers across global supply chains.

The cost is free for all SBMM members; free for students with student ID; and the price of admission for the general public. Space is limited, registration is required.

About the Films

Cargo (Dir. Laura Waddington, 2001, 29 minutes) is the story of a journey on a container ship with a group of Rumanian and Filipino sailors, who were delivering cargo to the Middle East. Most of the sailors weren’t allowed to leave the boat and they spent their days waiting, singing karaoke and telling stories in a small TV room. In Syria, the ports were military zones. The filmmaker hid at a porthole and secretly filmed the life below – a man stealing wood and a soldier fishing off the edge of an abandoned submarine – and later created a narrative that falls between reality and fiction in an effort to show the limbo these men were living in.

All that Perishes at the Edge of Land (Dir. Hira Nabi, 2019, 31 minutes) shows the Ocean Master, a decommissioned container vessel, and enters into a dialogue with several workers at the Gadani yards. The conversation moves between dreams, desires, places that can be called home, and the violence embedded in the act of dismantling a ship at Gadani. As the workers recall the homes and families they left behind, the long workdays mesh indistinguishably into one another, and they are forced to confront the realities of their work in which they are faced with death every day. How may they survive and look toward the future?

This event is generously sponsored by Marie L. Morrisroe.

Beginning in the mid-1800s, artists began to proliferate in Montmartre, the recently annexed hill on the outskirts of Paris. With its inexpensive rent, Montmartre soon became a mecca for cafes, nightclubs like the Moulin Rouge and the Cirque Fernando, revolutionary ideals, and artists. In this course, we explore those artists, including Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, as well as other artists of the late 19th and early 20th century including Vincent van Gogh, Suzanne Valadon, Pablo Picasso, Maurice Utrillo, Amedeo Modigliani, and Theophile Steinlein.

Katherine E. Zoraster is an Art Historian and a Professor of Art History at several local colleges specializing in Western art from the Renaissance to the 20th century. She graduated with a double major in English Literature and Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles. Following her undergraduate degree, she received a Master’s Degree with Distinction in Art History from the California State University at Northridge.

In addition to the courses Katherine teaches for other lifelong learning programs, she also works as an Adjunct Professor of Art History at Moorpark College and an Art History Instructor for the full-time program at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Arts. Katherine also serves as a commissioner for the Burbank Cultural Arts Commission and volunteers at the Burbank Animal Shelter. In her free time, Katherine is an avid runner and travels extensively.

Camerata Pacifica, a chamber music collective renowned for its musical versatility and bold programming demonstrating the limitless scope of the chamber music repertoire, launches its 2023-24 season with turn-of-the-20th-century English romanticism on a program featuring Elgar's mighty Piano Quintet in A Minor. Other works include Mozart’s Piano Sonata in F Major, a musical mosaic that shifts from dancelike to dramatic, and one of Beethoven’s remarkable early works, the String Trio in D Major.

Camerata Pacifica presents the program in four locations across Southern California, from the San Gabriel Valley to Santa Barbara, with a matinee performance on Sunday, September 10, 3 pm, at Thousand Oaks’ Janet and Ray Scherr Forum; and evening performances on Wednesday, September 13, 7:30 pm, at The Huntington’s Rothenberg Hall in San Marino; Thursday, September 14, 8 pm, at Zipper Hall in Downtown Los Angeles; and Friday, September 15, 7:30 pm, in Hahn Hall at Santa Barbara’s Music Academy.

Five virtuosic artists comprise the unparalleled ensemble on Camerata Pacifica’s 34th season opener, including violinist Paul Huang, The Bob Christensen Chair in Violin, recipient of the 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and a winner of the 2017 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists. Violinist Jason Uyeyama has performed and toured regularly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 2005. British violist Timothy Ridout is “that rare kind of musician who could play a cardboard box and make it sing” (Guardian). Armenian cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan, Gold Medal winner of the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, was named a BBC New Generation Artist. Celebrated Principal Piano Irina Zahharenkova is acclaimed for her “impressive…musical color” (Bachtrack).

Artistic Director Adrian Spence says, “The repertoire of masterpieces was specifically selected to showcase the strengths and boundless talent of the program’s five exceptional musicians.”

For tickets ($75 at The Huntington, Hahn Hall and Zipper Hall; $80 at Janet and Ray Scherr Forum).

In the Civil War, the United States confronted fundamental issues of liberty, justice, and equality. In that spirit, we will examine the causes of the war, consider the questions that the war resolved, and reflect on what remained unanswered. Rather than focus on the battlefield, we will examine the conflicting ideas about the war and its aftermath. We will focus closely on significant documents such as the Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg Address, landmark court cases from the 1857 Dred Scott decision to the Brown case of 1954. The three Civil War Amendments (13th, 14th and 15th) will also be examined with attention paid to their relevance today.

Dr. Chris Kimball is Professor of History at California Lutheran University. His undergraduate degree is from McGill University and his master’s and doctoral degrees are from The University of Chicago. He previously served as California Lutheran University’s seventh president (2008-2020) after two years as provost and vice president for academic affairs. Specializing in U.S. history, he has taught on subjects such as the Civil War, U.S. Foreign Relations, the history of sports, the history of American cities, and legal issues in higher education.