He has one nerve. The story twists it. Roy's father, Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones), was a renowned astronaut who abandoned his family for a one-way ticket into Neptune's orbit. Now, inexplicable pulses from that sector of the solar system are zapping Earth, killing tens of thousands. Perhaps it's from the anti-matter generator Clifford took with him. Has the old man succumbed to space madness? In one last gamble, the command sends Roy to Mars to broadcast a secret personal message to Clifford. They've prewritten it for him. Heart of Darkness parallels increase as Roy travels. Via endless first-person narration, we learn that the moon has been turned into a tourist destination, complete with an Applebee's. » Read More

Andy Muschietti's It Chapter 2 is a textbook "getting the band back together" movie. Twenty-seven years later, we re-meet the Loser's Club, that group of small-town rejects who sent Pennywise the Dancing Clown back to hell in 1989. As children, they swore a blood oath to return if the monster ever revived. Now the six are recalled to action by Mike (Isiah Mustafa taking over for Chosen Jacobs). Mike stayed put at the hellmouth in Derry, Maine, living above the public library and studying the multi-formed horror. Turns out the local Native Americans knew him all too well, long before It (Bill Skarsgard) materialized in bad clown form: wall-eyed, needle toothed and with a bulbous forehead upon which the make up has cracked like rotting » Read More

The opera premiered on April 5, 1874, at Vienna's Theater an der Wien. Since then, it has not only been a staple of the theater's repertoire but has grown in reputation, becoming one of the most popular operas ever produced. Opera San Jose's adaptation opens on an upper-crust Austrian apartment, where consummate man-about-town von Eisenstein (Eugene Brancoveanu) has found himself in a bit of a pickle. Eisenstein was planning to attend Austrian Prince Orlofsky's annual New Year's Eve Party. However, a recent altercation that ended with Eisenstein punching a police officer in the face has thrown a wrench in the works. » Read More

As the sun sinks behind the Santa Cruz Mountains, a group of people mill about outside the Winchester Mystery House. A white-haired man at the gates urges them to go no further, for they will likely never return. Based on the silver flask he's white-knuckling, it's safe to assume he's seen some things he'd prefer to forget. A historic San Jose estate with a legacy rooted in the supernatural, the Winchester Mystery House is a popular destination for those seeking close encounters with the astral plane. With the fall season upon us and October lurking right around the corner, the mansion has once again opened its doors to guests seeking an evening of paranormal activity. » Read More

Two of Stanford University's museums are devoting this curatorial season to one of their most celebrated alumni, artist Richard Diebenkorn (d. 1993). On Sep. 20, two of his paintings will be on display in "Left of Center: Five Years of the Anderson Collection at Stanford University," an exhibit devoted to West Coast artists. His Girl on the Beach (1957) and Ocean Park #60 (1973) will represent the artist's approaches to figurative and abstract painting. Concurrently, at the Cantor Arts Center next door, there's "Richard Diebenkorn at the Cantor," which opened on Sep. 4. Both could be thought of as an amuse-bouche rather than the kind of bountiful buffets that career retrospectives tend to proffer to a certain set of museum-goers. » Read More

Author, podcaster and public speaker Malcolm Gladwell has carved a career out of turning conventional wisdom on its ear. In his 2013 book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, the longtime New Yorker staff writer proposed that he wasn't surprised by the outcome of the fabled battle between the diminutive David and the hulking Goliath. After all, David had better technology, he says, as the sling was about as close as one could come to a pistol in the Old Testament days. In and of itself, this argument might pass for boilerplate cocktail party contrarianism. It is only after the writer and TED Talker doubles down that his case becomes quintessentially Gladwell-ian. » Read More

Many of the places I mentioned do not exist anymore, and with developers now dumbing down the street's character with cookie-cutter housing complexes, the time was right to revisit the grand promenade. This stretch of road takes one to a different era. The streetscapes are leftover from decades ago, when San Jose wasn't entirely filled in with suburbia and 280 didn't exist yet, so miles of connector thoroughfares with single-story retail still made sense. Don't fret, though. Interesting stuff still remains, if you just ignore all the new housing. The emotion started right away. While riding the bus over to Just Leather, I overheard a former Del Monte Cannery employee, now 74, on his way to the 99-cent store, waxing nostalgic about how » Read More

Not surprisingly, dating sites take advantage of this widely believed myth, hawking features like the "billion points of similarity" compatibility test. Dating sites advertising themselves with a meaningless test reinforce the myth that partner similarity equals romantic happiness, and this belief has a real downside, according to research by psychologist Michael Norton. Consider that when we first meet a person, we get excited about all of our apparent similarities. At this point, and in the early days of a relationship, we're prone to identify similarities where none exist, spinning ambiguities into support for their being just like us. But Norton explains that as partners get to know each other, dissimilarities begin to surface. And » Read More

We're in the equinoctial season. During this pregnant pause, the sun seems to hover directly over the equator; the lengths of night and day are equal. For all of us, but especially for you, it's a favorable phase to conjure and cultivate more sweet symmetry, calming balance and healing harmony. In that spirit, I encourage you to temporarily suspend any rough, tough approaches you might have in regard to those themes. Resist the temptation to slam two opposites together simply to see what happens. Avoid engaging in the pseudo-fun of purging by day and bingeing by night. And don't you dare get swept up in hating what you love or loving what you hate. » Read More