Daniel Zeller 1937 – 2024
Daniel Wolfgang Zeller passed away peacefully in the evening of January 16, 2024, at the age of 86, attended by his wife Nancy and sons Jacob and Joseph. Dan was born June 9, 1937 in Berlin, Germany to Max...
Topanga Actors Company Presents: Farm Hall
An inspired staged reading of an exciting new play by Katherine Moar based on real events—the provocative engrossing drama of what happened at England’s Farm Hall in 1945. Six top nuclear German scientists are cut off from the outside...
Radiant Beauty
Radioactive glassware is a hot commodity—literally and figuratively. Uranium glass, colored with the radioactive element, was manufactured throughout much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Pieces like this hand-blown art glass vase are popular collectables today, prized for...
THE COASTWATCHERS Chapter Seventeen
The war continued to escalate all summer in Europe and the Pacific, but the sun shone every day in Malibu, California. Jessie and I spent whole days at the beach. I learned to swim and to surf. A friend...
Beachcomber’s Diary
Every winter brings king tides to the California coast—some of the highest and lowest tides of the year. King tide isn’t a scientific term, but it has become a popular way to refer to the astronomical high tides that...
A Lone Voice
John Marshall served as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1801-1835 and is largely seen as giving life and meaning to the third branch of our nation’s government. In 1833, a boy was born in Kentucky...
King Tides
Winter King Tides make the headlines at this time of the year for their potential to cause coastal flooding, and as a grim warning of what sea level rise may look like on the West Coast in the future....
Leanne Hirsh, Perfumera
Emmy-award-winning make-up artist and perfumera Leanne Hirsh landed in Topanga seven years ago. “I’ve been a make-up artist for forty years, since my teens,” said Leanne, who just won an Emmy for applying Jada Pinkett Smith’s make-up for her...
The Art of Jealousy
“I can’t believe she’s wearing that!” “I wish I had the money he has.” “I want my life to be more like hers.” Jealousy can have a variety of different faces. From a psychological perspective, when we feel jealousy...
West Basin “Being Water-Wise” Art Contest
West Basin Municipal Water District (West Basin) announced the launch of its “Being Water Wise Is…” student art contest. Completed entries from service area students in grades three through 12 are due Friday, March 15, 2024, by 5 p.m....
Community Wildfire Mitigation Training
Learn how to conduct Home Ignition Zone Evaluations on February 9th & 10th! During this training attendees will learn about wildfire regimes and the importance of home hardening and defensible space practices on a community-wide scale. After two lecture...
Tree Planting with RCD!
Volunteer with the Resource Conservation District to plant native oak trees! Help to reforest the woodlands of the Santa Monica Mountains. RCD is hosting two volunteer events in the coming weeks. During both events, volunteers will help RCD staff...
PALIDEMS ANNUAL MEETING
Join the Palisades Democratic Club on SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2024, 2 – 4 PM (Doors & Zoom open 1:30) Open to all—in person on the Palisades Charter High School campus, Mercer Hall, or on Zoom! The Pacific Palisades Democratic...
Teen Spirit at the TCC
I think I remember what it was like to be a teenager. Those years fill my head with a multi-sensory mosaic of sounds, scents, and images. On weekends, open mic nights and turntables, packed coffee houses, warehouses, church basements,...
Helen Yoon 1975 – 2023 There’s a Light…
There’s a light. Her name is Helen Yoon. In her passing, after privately battling cancer, a fracture was felt in the center of our little town, Topanga. She held that center together in many ways—that is not hyperbole. I...
Women of the Board
Surfing was big in the 1920s. The sport, recently exported from Hawaii, attracted some unexpected enthusiasts. George Bernard Shaw gave it a try. So did “It Girl” Clara Bow. Dame Agatha Christie mastered surfing on a wooden longboard in...
Deacon King Kong Brooklyn
While teaching eighth graders about the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, I tended toward emphasizing the larger picture of social and cultural change because this is what the state curriculum standards mandated; and for good...
Agatha Christie’s Surfing Safari
[Surfing] is one of the most perfect physical pleasures that I have known. —Agatha Christie, An Autobiography In 1922, at the age of 31, British crime novelist Agatha Christie learned to surf. She was not yet the “Queen of Crime,”...
