Author: Hillary Louise Johnson
A New Path Forward
The Gorman Museum at UC Davis marks its golden anniversary with a beautiful, much bigger new home to showcase its vast collection of contemporary native american art. Welcome in.
Best of the City 2023
Airy French puffs, comforting cupcakes that taste just like Grandma’s, sports legends who go the extra mile, hot hotels that breathe fresh life into historic buildings, rockin’ speakers made from retro lunchboxes, and a whole bunch more. What’s old is new and what’s new is newsworthy in our annual list of the local people, places and things that have caught our eyes and captured our imagination this year.
Eastern Eden
Head east for a delicious oasis without leaving town. The Slough House Kitchen offers a haven from the hustle of city life with desert-island-worthy dishes and an escapist patio made for watching summer sunsets while sipping a glass of Amador zin.
The Humor, the Ardor and the Candor of Darrin Bell
In 2019, Darrin Bell became the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, and his nationally syndicated comic strip Candorville will mark its 20th anniversary later this year. Today, the Sacramento cartoonist is receiving acclaim for his new graphic memoir, The Talk, which illustrates the racism he has faced, first as a Black child and later as a Black man in America. As Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau says of Bell’s new book, “It’s nearly impossible to appreciate another person’s truth, but if a brilliant storyteller offers to light the way, take him up on it.”
Where the Sidewalk Blooms
In an innovative effort to green up and cool down our concrete jungle, the Seed Pile Project empowers citizen botanists to color outside the lines (and inside sidewalk cracks) throughout our region. With a goal of expanding statewide and beyond, the nascent urban environmental movement hopes to spread like wildflowers.
Can Electric Bikes Help Save The Planet?
Pre-pandemic, electric Jump bike rentals in Sacramento trailed only Paris in popularity. Today, electric bike ownership is soaring. From commuters to joyriders to grandmothers, e-bikes are turning even non-cyclists into e-vangelists (like Rocklin City Councilmember Jill Gayaldo, pictured below) and creating a greener, less fossil-fuel-filled world. Now we just need more of our region’s leaders to make it easier and safer for all of us to plug and play.
Younglandia
In an industry where women rarely take center stage, Julie Young has quietly become one of the most significant and thoughtful urban developers in the region—crafting exquisitely curated projects that bloom like defiant wildflowers in the concrete jungle. And now, through sheer tenacity and savvy scrappiness, she may just have unlocked the mystery to attainable housing that aspires to forward-thinking design as much as affordability. It’s a beautiful day in her neighborhood, indeed.
Where It’s Easy Being Green
Welcome to Nudge Eco Store, a retail wonderland where you can shop guilt-free, because every item—from shampoo bars to bamboo bandages to vegan eyeshadows—on the recycled shelves of this midtown boutique is sustainably made. If you’re aspiring to live a more earth-friendly lifestyle, this shop will gently guide you in the right direction.
Love Language
Brenda Novak knows a fine romance when she writes one. As the Auburn-based best-selling novelist gets set to release her newest love story and embark on a cross-country Airstream book tour, she talks about her own happily ever after, her days slinging books at the State Fair and living the California dream.
Man. Verses. Nature.
Like the ripple effect of a pebble dropped into the still water of a pond, Gary Snyder’s outsized influence extends far beyond the edges of his remote, hand-built home in the woods near Nevada City. At 92, the poet and environmentalist has lived an extraordinary life—from birthing the Beat Generation with fellow writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to winning the Pulitzer Prize for his book Turtle Island, which has been described as a “poet’s love lyrics to planet Earth,” and even inspiring the release of the Pentagon Papers. With two new major anthologies out, this former UC Davis professor is proving that he still has a lot to teach us all.
“By Any Means Necessary, I Will Keep Being an Artist.”
Painter. Bluesman. Filmmaker. Educator. After retiring in 2012 from UC Davis, where he was an art professor for 43 years—and on the eve of a solo show at the Manetti Shrem Museum—Mike Henderson reflects on shining shoes as a young man in Missouri, seeing his soul in Van Gogh's Potato Eaters, believing he had lost decades' worth of paintings in a fire, and securing his place in one of the greatest university art departments ever assembled.
A Comedy Giant
Jimboy’s Tacos, Tower Records and Sunrise Mall. As Brian Posehn gets ready to take the stage at Punch Line and release a new special this December, the “forever nerdy” 6-foot-7 stand-up comic—who is also a proud metalhead and Dungeons & Dragons podcast host—shares tall tales (literally) from his childhood and how he got his comedy start right here in River City.
Magic Mountain
On a clear day, find your way above the tree canopy in Sacramento, look southwest, and there you’ll spot it—the soaring 3,849-foot peak at the center of Mount Diablo State Park. The summit—reachable by foot, bike or car—rises over a thousand feet higher than the world’s tallest building, and from it, you can see 40 of our state’s 58 counties. At Mount Diablo, you can also hike up to 150 miles of trails, camp in the ultimate “room” with a view, and literally lunch above the clouds. So go west, young men and women, and experience California from a whole new point of view.
Thiebaud: A Celebration
Five months after Wayne Thiebaud passed away on Christmas Day at the age of 101, the Crocker Art Museum is remounting its Covid-curtailed 2020 retrospective of the artist’s career—this time with more than a dozen additional works. The museum’s chief curator Scott A. Shields gives us a tour of 10 of the 117 pieces in the exhibition, which opens May 29, and lends his perspective on Sacramento’s “patron saint of painters.”
The Shops Around the Corner
Talk about a Hollywood ending. Over two decades since Meg Ryan’s sweet little children’s bookshop lost the battle to Tom Hanks’ big bad Fox Books, it looks like indie bookstores around the country (and around town) may have won the retail war. We spotlight a dozen of our favorite local literary nooks in the Sacramento region. Trust us, this story is a real page-turner.
A Life of Crime (the Perfectly Legal Kind)
John Lescroart became an “overnight” success at 45, and the Davis author has since published 19 New York Times best-selling legal thrillers, with his 30th novel due out in late March. Meet the man with his ink-stained finger on the pulse of American crime stories.
Super Natural
A pair of local landscape architects take us to church with California Cathedral
Best of the City 2021
If there’s one thing we’ve learned during the pandemic, it’s that the human spirit perseveres through the darkest times. The dozens of Sacramentans featured here—struggling like all of us over this past year and a half—have found ways to shine some much-needed light into our lives, whether with charmingly anachronistic TikTok videos or a winning French pastry made with Top Ramen or an eco boutique that’s trying to help save the planet one bottle-free shampoo bar at a time. They bring smiles to our faces, good food to our bellies and taps to our toes. And if you haven’t already met, we’re thrilled to introduce you.
Perfect Picnics
We’ve filled our wicker baskets with the best takeout en route to eight sonnet-worthy spots across the region for your alfresco dining pleasure. Whether you’re unpacking a gourmet BLT on toasted artisan bread while gazing upon a sweeping view of Gold Country or digging into a bucket of crispy fried chicken while smelling the roses at McKinley Park, we prove that life in the wake of a pandemic can be a picnic after all. (Just don’t forget the sunscreen.)
Q&A: Sacramento’s Creative Economy Manager Megan Van Voorhis
Growing up in Flint, Michigan, Megan Van Voorhis wanted to be a ballerina like the one she saw twirling on an episode of Sesame Street. It wasn’t until she took a business administration class in college that she realized her calling wasn’t to make art, but to make art possible. As the head of Arts Cleveland, she introduced innovative programs linking art with health care and helping creators access their inner entrepreneurs. As Sacramento’s freshly appointed Cultural and Creative Economy Manager, the former dancer takes the stage for her next act. Here the new 916 resident talks about the arts’ influence on the GDP, how to reopen venues safely in the age of Covid, and why the ability to create is a basic human right.
The Sweet Life
On the eve of his 100th birthday, Wayne Thiebaud—the Sacramento painter best known for his evocative portrayals of desserts that look good enough to eat—talks about the new pieces he’s working on (yes, he’s still wielding a brush—and a tennis racket!), his favorite kind of pie, and why, despite his status as one of America’s most important living artists, he still sees himself as “just an old art teacher.”
Murders, She Wrote
Over the past decade, Granite Bay author Theresa Ragan—or T.R. Ragan, as she’s known on Amazon, where she has sold more than 3 million books—has been penning mysteries and thrillers in which female vigilantes exact not-so-sweet revenge on their male predators. Her latest page-turner stars a Sacramento crime reporter and a crew of femmes “fatal.” Get ready for a bloody good read.
Game Nights
We’ve got game—or rather, games. From a new underground mini-golf pub pouring local craft beers to a popular BBQ joint that just added axe throwing, here are six hot spots around town where you can eat, drink and play your way through these cool winter nights. Game on!
In the Name of the Father
After graduating from UC Davis in 1967, Stephen Kaltenbach headed east and thrived in the heady New York art world, exhibiting alongside future greats like Richard Serra and Bruce Nauman, and inhabiting provocative alter egos à la Sacha Baron Cohen before Sacha Baron Cohen was even born. But it was his return to Davis that resulted in one of Sacramento’s most beloved paintings: a hauntingly evocative portrait of his dying father. With the launch of his first solo American museum show in over 40 years, the artist reflects on the man who inspired his masterwork and his own starring role as both father and son.
Courtside Cantina
An eye-catching Mexican eatery has opened across from the Golden 1 Center, boasting regionally sourced south-of-the-border dishes and a room with a view that’s perfect for hooping it up.
Signature restaurant announced for new downtown boutique hotel
After years of planning, the historic California Fruit Building at the corner of 4th and J streets in downtown Sacramento, will reopen next summer as a 100-room modern boutique hotel called The Exchange Hotel, with a signature restaurant on the ground floor called Ecce-llente!
Space Odyssey
You don’t need a wormhole to visit the cosmos, just a seat in Sacramento State’s space-age planetarium
True West
In his day job, Cornel West is a Harvard professor, a "New York Times" best-selling author, a national authority on race and a passionate advocate for the poor. In his spare time, he’s appeared in two of the three "Matrix" films (because, well, he helped inspire them), recorded three albums, and is taking meetings on the 2020 presidential campaign trail with Bernie Sanders and Cardi B. At a time when the country feels hopelessly divided, this nearly native son of Sacramento—and a “jazzman in the world of ideas”— has a message of love and compassion for all races, religions and political persuasions. And no matter how far he ventures from home, he carries with him a moral compass that unfailingly points west.
Rocky Horror Time Warps to the ’20s
Are you ready to travel to another dimension, with voyeuristic intention? The Green Valley Theatre Company continues its tradition of reinterpreting the ultimate cult classic, "Rocky Horror," as a period musical—this year, with a Jazz Age twist. Frank-N-Furter and flappers? We’re shivering with anticipation.
Best of the City 2019
As they say, there must be something in the water here—Sacramento’s got it going on. From a cool moonlight hike to a cooling moo-less milkshake, from fiery hot street food to a fire-breathing street dragon, and from an Olympic-caliber butcheress to an Olympic-caliber aquatic center, here is our list of the places, people and things making big waves this year.
Small Wonders
With the need for homeless housing solutions greater than ever, an aspirational new architecture competition is yielding innovative ways to approach domestic design
A Whole New (Old) Ball Game
Bocce is one of few sports you can play while holding your drink. No wonder it’s the local bar scene’s hottest trend. Here’s how—and where—to let the good times roll.
Paradise Found
After a career that took her from being a style maven at Williams-Sonoma to launching a boutique bowling alley in San Francisco, Fair Oaks native Sommer Peterson has returned home, importing a slice of mid-century Palm Springs along the way. She calls her little piece of heaven Shangri-la. You can call it your new home away from home.
New hotel and residential project to rise next to Tower Bridge
The Sacramento waterfront is about to get a big boost from some familiar names with deep local roots.
The Big Chill
It's summertime in Sacramento and the living is easy—except when Mother Nature cranks up our city's thermostat. If you can't stand the heat, it's time to get out of town. From clear-bottom kayaking in Tahoe to a waterfall-filled hike in Marin and an ocean safari in Monterey, we've got 18 ways to keep your cool right now.
Cast Away
Angling to become an angler? Start with the Japanese tradition of Tenkara fly fishing, where all you need is a simple rod, line and fly. Come on in, the water’s fine and the trout are jumpin’.
Making It All Popp
Call him an an interior designer, a home designer, a furniture maker, a graphic artist, a chef or a classic car collector—or all of the above. Whether he’s crafting the look and feel for a hot new restaurant, a neighborhood taproom, a high-end chocolaterie or someone’s home, Curtis Popp has carved out an eclectic career as one of the city’s most sought-after visual thinkers. Sacramento, meet the modernist Renaissance man.
Mid-Century Makeover
In 1959, two ambitious young architects and one soon-to-be-world-famous artist finished work on a building that caught the eye of the design world and introduced this city to the “International Style” that was sweeping America at the time. Today, that mid-century modern edifice, the original headquarters for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, is about to be born anew after an $86 million face-lift. Turning 60 has never looked so sexy.
Field of Screams
By day, they are nurses, schoolteachers, lawyers, students and auto mechanics. By game night, they are the beating heart of the Sacramento Republic FC. Meet the 800-strong Tower Bridge Battalion, a whomping, stomping, self-organized army of men and women whose bond with their team is uniquely fierce. Fair-weather fans, they are not. With the new soccer season starting in March, the fever pitch is already rising. Hear them roar.
The Ice Blocks Cometh
It is, by all appearances, an urban utopia. Come this spring, more than 500 people will work there, more than 200 will live there, and thousands more will dine and shop there. Its innovative tenant mix ranges from an insanely popular “doughnuterie” to a gourmet dog food shop and an Internet-based boutique where you don’t leave with the clothes you buy. And this bustling village within a city—elevated by art and cutting-edge architecture—all exists within a two-block span in the coolest district in town. Could the Ice Blocks be the new model for modern living in Sacramento?
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