••• People keep asking what’s the story with the escalators at Santa Barbara Airport, which seem to be broken more than not. I’ve tried asking for an explanation of what the problem is—assuming it’s the same problem over and over—and why it’s so hard to fix. No answer yet but I remain hopeful. (The photo is from July, not that it matters.)
••• NH asked how to pronounce Syuxtun—”the Chumash word for ‘it splits,’ or ‘where the two trails run,’ [which] referred to a fork in the main trail along the coast,” according to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History—which will be relevant to more people once West Beach’s Ambassador Park gets renamed Syuxtun Park. “Syuxtun is pronounced roughly as syoo-khooton or phonetically as /sjˈuː.kstʌn/, with the ‘x’ pronounced as a guttural, breathy ‘kh’ sound (similar to the Spanish ‘j’ or x’). In this 2010 video about the Syuxtun Story Circle on Cabrillo Boulevard, Ray Ward says the word right after the 6:00 mark. (Earlier in the video, around 3:45, the moderator says that she hopes the kids who worked on the Syuxtun Story Circle will be able to return and take pride in their efforts. It’s poignant, given that the memorial has been in disrepair for a long time now—and a reminder that the good intentions behind all memorials and monuments need to be backed up with the funds to maintain them.)
••• Attention mountain bikers: “SAGE Trail Alliance is raising $100,000 to build a new bike-specific trail at San Antonio Creek Park. It’s the first of its kind in our area, on public land, and designed for young and beginner riders to learn and build confidence.”
••• Opening November 14 at Separate Reality: No Time For Love, paintings by Larysa Myers. Below: “We’ll Talk Tomorrow.”
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••• A. asked whether the county is still planning a crosswalk across N. Jameson as part of the Ortega/Sheffield/Jameson intersection project (look for the “construction” tab) that I mentioned recently. The Public Works department confirmed that there will indeed be two crosswalks, one across N. Jameson near the Sheffield underpass road, and other across the Sheffield underpass road where it meets N. Jameson.
••• I hadn’t paid attention to what’s playing at local cinemas until recently, when the good movies started arriving, so it was news to me that the SBIFF Film Center is showing live broadcasts from the National Theatre in London (including Josh O’Connor in Clifford Odets’s Golden Boy today and Christine Baranski and Richard E. Grant in Noël Coward’s Hay Fever on January 18) and the Metropolitan Opera (including Camille Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Delilah on December 5).