El Dorado County Art, Culture & Media Digest

I thought my journalism and others’ could change policy, perhaps even inspire a New Deal-style response equal to the challenge. Such was my naiveté.

It quickly became clear that Elon Musk’s SpaceX was responsible for the show. The lights were a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 new Starlink satellites into orbit. The rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 7:30 p.m., and it’s trail was visible from Los Angeles to Joshua Tree National Park.

Local South Tahoe High grad and award-winning documentary filmmaker Michelle Aguilar-Ficara announced a three day program of screenings, discussions, networking and connecting with filmmakers in the fall.

The March 11 edition of the Los Angeles Times print edition will be its last at the Los Angeles Times Olympic printing plant in Los Angeles.

Journalism and democracy are undeniably intertwined. As the late media critic James Carey put it, “No journalism, no democracy; but, equally, no democracy, no journalism.”

UC Merced will be highlighted on an Amazon Prime show that showcases universities around the world.

The Grateful Dead have broken the record for the most Top 40 albums to chart on the Billboard 200.

She toured the world wowing audiences, and she captured the public’s imagination for decades. No, not Taylor Swift; Ellen Beach Yaw, also known as Lark Ellen.

James Dean’s last stop before he died in a car crash was at Blackwell’s Corner, a gas station in rural Kern County. His memory isn’t the draw it once was.

A shrink-wrapped Endeavour was hoisted and then carefully placed in its final location at the still-under-construction Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.

The proposal aims to help working artists become arts teachers in elementary schools.

A combination of tax credits, revenue sharing and coupons could bring stability, writes Steven Waldman, president of Rebuild Local News.

Pasadena is the only California city named a travel destination for 2024 by The New York Times. This comes despite the Los Angeles-area city being just the 45th-largest city in the state.

Philadelphia-based Audacy, which has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with $1.9 billion in debts, owns six radio stations in the Bay Area. These include 95.7 The Game, KCBS and 102.1 Jams.

The Nevada City Film Festival is now open to submissions, and applicants who live in Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Sacramento, Sierra, Butte Sutter or Yuba counties can submit for free.

Under new state laws, five cities will test cameras to catch speeding drivers and cruising bans will be lifted statewide. The first is supposed to improve road safety, but critics of the second say it will endanger the public.

State audits of the University of California and the California State University found both systems have failed to comply with decades-old state and federal laws mandating the return of Native ancestral remains and cultural artifacts. Only UCLA and Cal State Long Beach have returned a majority of their collections.

Darby Patterson, a local journalist, novelist and bronze sculptor, will soon unveil her latest work: a bronze monument dedicated to the Heroes of the Caldor Fire.

One of the countless billboards in New York City earlier this year afforded a glimpse of an advertisement for Khloe Rose’s debut EP, “The In Between”—a rising star who is living an everyday life in Placerville.

The 22nd annual festival takes place in-person Feb. 15-19.

The Hangtown Christmas parade runs parallel to Hangtown Creek in downtown Placerville and that’s where Ed Hagen’s story began.

With its hilly terrain, parts of Los Angeles aren’t always the easiest to build in. But that didn’t stop an architect from building a unique structure in Silver Lake.

The Divide Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring Christmas in Cool on Dec. 3 with an alternate rain date of Dec. 10.

Arts and Culture El Dorado’s newest exhibition at the Switchboard Gallery in Placerville showcases the history of climbing in the region.

Placerville Arts Association’s expectations for the 57th National Mother Lode Exhibition were blown away as the MACC gallery rooms filled with patrons of the arts huddled in groups to express their artistic observations.

Changes are on the way for Placerville’s holiday celebration, previously called the Festival of Lights, following the approval of this year’s event plan by the Placerville City Council.

The San Diego Union-Tribune, which has operated for 154 years, sold to controversial Alden Global Capital last year. It’s not looking great for the paper’s future.

Robert Irwin, an artist and MacArthur genius grant recipient, died in San Diego at 95 on Oct. 25. Michael Govan, who heads the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, offers a colorful retrospective on Irwin's work.

Applications to enter the 2023 Hangtown Christmas Parade are now available online. The theme for the 45th parade is “Hometown Christmas” and it will be staged on Dec. 3.

Through this new program, artists, culture bearers, and California Native American tribes will be eligible to receive funding to create artwork throughout state and local parks.

Written by Center for Biological Diversity scientist Tiffany Yap and illustrated by artist Meital Smith, “Tales of the Urban Wild: A Puma’s Journey” takes the reader through diverse habitats, across busy freeways and inside science labs to learn about one mountain lion’s survival story.

Alexander Reben, a leader in “human-machine symbiosis” since 2012, displays his work in an exhibition that asks audiences to consider the role of AI in the future.