Culture

Canadian Sharks Attack US

Feb 28, 2010, by Eric Johnson Culture Comments (0)

San Jose hockey fans must deal with a conundrum this afternoon, as the United States and Canada battle for Olympic gold. Do we root for the US team, or root for our home team?

Four San Jose Sharks—Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Dany Heatley and Dan Boyle—make up the backbone of Team Canada. They have been key to Canada’s success, working together in what TV announcer Kenny Albert has called “the San Jose connection.” Only one Shark—Joe Pavelski—is playing for Team USA.

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San Jose: America’s Happiest Big City

Feb 16, 2010, by Silicon Valley Newsroom Culture Comments (4)

People in San Jose told pollsters that life is good in the Valley of Heart’s Delight.

People in San Jose are happy. In fact, they’re happier than the residents of any other major city in the U.S. That was the finding of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which was released yesterday. To be fair, there are other, happier places, like Honolulu, Hawaii, or Holland, Michigan (huh?), but when it comes to the country’s biggest cities—the ones with populations of 1 million-plus, San Jose was at the top, beating out D.C., Raleigh and Minneapolis.

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Santa Comes to Sacred Heart

Dec 24, 2009, by Silicon Valley Newsroom Culture Comments (1)

Needy families lined up long before sunrise yesterday outside the Sacred Heart Community Services to find Christmas gifts for their children. Each of the 5,000 families that pre-registered for the event could pick out up to two toys for each of their child, from among the 15,000 that were donated this year. Especially popular were bicycles—over 1,000 were donated—and books so that parents could read to their children.

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Everyday San Jose

Dec 02, 2009, by Jack Van Zandt Culture Comments (5)

‘Night Over Burbank, San Jose,’ by Wayne Jiang

Young Bay Area artist Wayne Jiang was born in Guangzhou, China, and came to the United States at age 15. He earned his degree in illustration at SJSU and works as a fine artist and graphic designer. He now lives in Pacifica, but his period of residence in San Jose has resulted in a group of loving images of the city that are now on display at the Leonard and David McKay Gallery at Pasetta House in History Park.

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Joan Baez Begins Weekend Mexican Heritage Festival Events

Sep 26, 2009, by Jack Van Zandt Culture Comments (4)

Having Joan Baez open the series of high-profile weekend concerts might seem an odd choice at first, but it turns out to have been a brilliant programming decision. Her bicultural background (her physicist father Albert Baez was from Puebla, Mexico), local residence and iconic stature as an international political activist and singer certainly provide her with the credentials to fit the festival opener role. However, the great service she performed for the festival as a whole in her concert was to strategically place the traditions of Spanish-language songs (from Mexico, Spain, Chile and other Latin American countries) firmly within the context of her explorations of the “Great American Songbook,” thus affirming her own dual cultural background while illustrating and informing the intellectual and philosophical cultural crossroads the festival has become. 

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Linda Ronstadt to Give Free Concert

Sep 24, 2009, by Jack Van Zandt Culture Comments (5)

It has been announced that 2009 San Jose Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival Artistic Director Linda Ronstadt will be singing with Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano in Cesar Chavez Plaza around 5 p.m. this Sunday evening, September 27, to close the annual, all-day Feria del Mariachi.

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