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Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America Talk & Booksigning with Author Leila Philip
Monday, March 25, 2024, 6:30pm
Location: Community Environmental Council's (CEC) Environmental Hub, 1219 State St, Santa Barbara, CA

Award Winning Journalist Leila Philip first became interested in beavers when she saw a group building a pond near her house. Her fascination led her to research and write her new book, New York Time Bestseller Beaverland, which describes how this amazing oversized rodent has played an oversized role in American history—and how it can positively impact our future.

Philip will be the Keynote Speaker at the SLO Beaver Festival Sat March 23 2024

Through history and contemporary storytelling, Beaverland highlights the beaver's profound impact on our nation, from the early trans-Atlantic trade and our feverish western expansion, to today's river restoration efforts. Through her search for contemporary beavers, their advocates, and their foes, what emerges is an ecological history, a call-to-action, and a startling portrait of the contemporary fur trade. Altogether it tells one of the greatest conservation stories in American history.

The Washington Post called the book "fascinating," the Wall Street Journal said it was "full of charm and wonder," and the New York Times called it "inspiring"—but what makes Philip most happy is the book's impact on beavers.

"The movement to bring beavers back to North America has grown in the past sixteen months since the book first went to press," she writes in a new afterword, where she goes on to list recent legislation and lawsuits in support of beavers. "'Beaver believers' are moving from the fringe into the mainstream. Government agencies, federal and state employees, tribal governments, and state legislators are joining nonprofits, scientists, individuals, ranchers, farmers, and other landowners in new partnerships with the shared goal of harnessing what beavers do to help restore river systems and create watershed resiliency."

Meanwhile, efforts are underway to quantify the economic value that beavers provide. For instance, in a 2021 study, researchers at the University of Wisconsin calculated that within 25 years, the return of beavers to the Milwaukee watershed could create 1.7 trillion gallons of storm water storage annually valued at $3.3 billion.

These developments prove that "the light bulb is turning on," Philip writes. "We are coming to grips with the ecological consequences of our long history of…abuse in the ways we have used our water."

"We urgently need to reset our relationship with the natural world," she concludes. "The underlying connections that we cannot see, the increased flow of water through the land and the increased connection between water and land through the beaver damming complex and the start of canals has initiated biologic, ecologic, hydrologic and geomorphic processes that we are only beginning to understand."

At the event, Philip will discuss:

Beavers' historical and contemporary impact on both our economy and our ecosystem.
How the work beavers do is being harnessed throughout the country to restore stream systems and repair drought ravaged grasslands for ranchers and farmers alike.
How beavers are being put to use to help us face the urgent challenges of climate change by mitigating damage from flooding, wildfire, and drought—at a fraction of the cost of engineered solutions.
The human challenges of coexisting with beavers who often bring water where humans either also wish to live or have built infrastructure—and the new coexistence strategies being developed and refined with increasing success.
The challenge of returning rivers to their natural state and learning to live with the ways beavers are part of the water cycle.

A community program hosted by The Santa Barbara Permaculture Network and the Community Environmental Council (CEC)., SLO Beaver Brigade, SB Beaver Brigade

Boom Duo is John Lacques (drums, percussion, small instruments) and Noah Thomas (trumpets, conch, theremin, electronics). Boom Duo perform compositions created in the moment, taking listeners on a trip through a varied sonic landscape. Drawing from their personal experience of a rich world musical heritage, Boom Duo echoes second-line parades in New Orleans, jamming on the streets of Jaipur, India, or a deep dive into the freedom of Chicago experimentalism, they revel in the energy of 1940s 52nd street NYC while dreaming of impromptu jam sessions in Havana or Port au Prince. Lacques and Thomas have a unique take on free jazz, a psychedelic journey at times ambient and profoundly grooving.

John Lacques is the founder and lead facilitator for Drum Time and has studied and performed in a wide variety of drumming styles including Classical Indian music, jazz, rock, punk and professional theater productions in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. Noah Thomas is a multi-instrumentalist and anthropologist who has played professionally for more than 30 years in classical, jazz, world music, rock and experimental genres.

Mark Lettieri, six time nominated, five-time Grammy winning guitarist, composer, and producer, brings back his groundbreaking, genre-bending, funky music to the Scherr Forum on Sunday, May 26, 2024, at 7:00 pm.

Lettieri creates acclaimed guitar-based instrumental music and is a member of leading instrumental bands Snarky Puppy and The Fearless Flyers. As a session musician proficient in a multitude of styles, he has recorded and performed in virtually every genre of popular music with both independent and major-label artists.

Outside of Snarky Puppy, Lettieri has released six albums as a leader: Knows (2011), Futurefun (2013), Spark and Echo (2016, #2 on iTunes Jazz and #11 on Billboard Jazz) Deep: The Baritone Sessions(2019, #21 on Billboard Jazz), Things of That Nature (2019, #1 on iTunes Jazz), and most recently, Deep:The Baritone Sessions, Vol. 2 (2021, #2 on iTunes Jazz) that was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Contemporary Instrumental Album category.

Join us on Saturday, April 6, 7PM! Nathan & Jessie are a jazzy folk duo from Temecula, California, known for their unique blend of music and captivating performances. With resonator guitars, accordion, and male-female vocals, they create upbeat tunes rooted in jazz, improvisation, and storytelling. Their love for sharing music has taken them around the world, and their energy and charisma make them a must-see duo. People praise their multi-talented performances and their ability to sing in multiple languages. Tickets are $20 and can be bought on www.NambaArts.com.

Studio Channel Islands Art Center (SCIART) will present Dinner in the Gallery: a sumptuous dining experience served in the gallery, surrounded by fine art and live entertainment on Saturday, March 30 at 6:00 p.m. This fundraising dinner includes fun games and a chance to win artwork from the exhibition. This event will be held in the main gallery at 2222 Ventura Blvd., Camarillo, CA 93010. Fundraiser Tickets are $200 per person and can be purchased here: bit.ly/sciart-dinner.

"Using Theater as a vehicle for Social change, Kenyatta is powerful & poignant, entertaining & educational, heartfelt & humorous, the show celebrates our common humanity." Cape Cod Times. Don’t miss this very important play!

Santa Monica Playhouse is proud to present two additional performances of film, television and stage personality Stogie Kenyatta’s acclaimed NAACP Award-Winning solo show about African-American artist-activist Paul Robeson. Robeson – internationally renowned actor, recording artist, concert singer, football player, All-American athlete and Phi Beta Kappa Society laureate at Rutgers University, was witness to the artistic wonders of the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz/Be-bop era, the horrors of the slave trade, the shame of the Holocaust, McCarthyism, blacklists, racism and oppression.

Robeson’s life’s work celebrates our common humanity as he fought globally for social justice. “Armed with nothing more than the strength of his convictions and his vision of a world where men live as brothers, his message was his life," says Kenyatta. “He shows us that in spite of our differences, we still have more in common than we do in conflict.” Jamaican born and Brooklyn bred Stogie Kenyatta has been seen on everything from sitcoms and film to soap operas, from Bernie Mac and Jake and the Fat Man to HBO’s Tyson (Co-star) to The Bold and The Beautiful. He co-headlined a USO comedy tour in Tokyo, Japan and Okinawa. “The World Is My Home – The Life of Paul Robeson” had its first performance at the National Civil Rights Museum and has become the number one show on the American college scene, honoring a great American hero.

Santa Monica Playhouse is supported in part by the City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Arts Commission, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, the Ahmanson Foundation and Playhouse PALS.

7:30pm, Sat, Mar 16, 23, 2024

There’s no destination in daydreaming. It doesn’t have to result in anything other than you had a moment of reprieve. You had a moment of just being in a place that can hold you.
— Austen Smith, Imagination Doulas

The San Luis Obispo Museum of Art is pleased to present Outlandish, an NEA Our Town grant-funded exhibition by multidisciplinary artist April Banks. Including film, mixed media, ritual, and sculpture, Outlandish imagines a respite of mystery for those who most need it. This exhibition returns to and proceeds from ancient knowledge and harmony with nature, world-building an alternate narrative toward a freer existence.

For this exhibition Banks creates a place called Yemaluna, combining the name of Yemaya, the ocean deity in African Diasporic spiritual practices, and lunar, referencing the moon. Banks imagines Yemaluna as a cloud island, where everyone migrates every leap year on February 29. Clouds allude to the conjunction between the ethereal and nature, holding immense amounts of water yet dispersed with the wind, they are universal, drifting, wandering, and borderless. Like clouds,Yemaluna evokes imagination, daydreaming, and wonder. It is a metaphor for a geography of freedom.

Outlandish visualizes this network of exit routes including Apothecar(r)y (Bodies of Water), a staircase adorned with small bottles filled with water from SLO County, capped with rocks foraged from Montaña de Oro. These vessels are whispered with intention to safeguard against drought, thirst, and greed. The stairs depart to It’s Important to Me that We Know We Are Free, a meditative video work depicting Sojourner’s Proof, a Yemaluna archetype, swinging freely. Artifacts from Yemaluna adorn the walls of the gallery along with clay-pulled prints that reference Tidewalker, the sculpture installed on the Museum’s adjacent lawn. These objects of both labor and leisure conjure reciprocity and passage into new possibilities and geographies.


April Banks is an artist and creative strategist working across visual art, social engagement, and exhibition design. Her practice sits intentionally between image, space, and experience. Her work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Daytona Beach, New Hampshire, Maryland, New York, Switzerland, Colombia, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, Senegal, and Ethiopia. Her work is in the collection of the Getty Museum and other private collections. April graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture from Hampton University in Virginia in 1996. She obtained a Master of Science in Environmental Design from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1999.

In a timely offering, Jewish Voice for Peace-Santa Barbara offers the film Israelism, When two young American Jews raised to unconditionally love Israel witness the brutal way Israel treats Palestinians, their lives take sharp left turns. The Israel/Palestine conflict is roiling the Jewish community. Come and learn more!

We're thrilled to share that we're sponsoring the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers’ Charity Casino Night! Join us for a spectacular evening at the iconic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, filled with delicious food, lively music, and thrilling casino games! Let's come together for a night of fun while supporting LATLC's incredible philanthropy efforts to assist those in our community who need it most.

Join us for a unique peek into the creative process with Jodi Farrell, an award-winning music teacher and performer. Experience a live transformation of talent as artists refine their performance with Jodi's guidance, then take the stage again with new skills. It's an afternoon of inspiration, learning, and entertainment. Don't miss out—witness art in motion at Namba Arts.
This Master Class offers the opportunity to observe performing artists as they prepare for a live performance. Award-winning music teacher and performer, Jodi Farrell, provides suggestions and recommendations to improve their performances. Artists then have the chance to implement these techniques and perform again in front of a live audience. This intimate master class provides a professional and entertaining experience for audience members.
Have you ever wondered what performers do to prepare for a performance in front of a live audience before the actual day of performance? There’s a lot more to the naked eye than you might think!
During this Master Class, you will have the opportunity to witness “tricks of the performing biz” that goes into creating a professional and entertaining performance for the audience.
Performing artists presented in this master class will work out their performance skills as the audience receives the privilege of witnessing the kinds of techniques that go into presenting a more professional, believable & entertaining performance.
Each artist will perform a song, then receive suggestions and recommendations from the award-winning music teacher and performer, Jodi Farrell (jodifarrell.com), on how to improve his or her performance. After the coaching, they will get to perform their song again and work on implementing the suggested techniques, gaining a truly “in the moment” experience of honing their performance skills in front of a live audience.
Secure your spot at NambaArts.com! Choose from two ticket options: Attendee tickets available for $10 or elevate your experience with Participant tickets for $35.