Sactown Magazine

1 week ago | sactownmag.com | Hillary Johnson

Life for E.A. Hanks, who grew up in the Fabulous Forties as the daughter of Tom Hanks, may have looked like it was coming up roses. Too often, though, the reality was anything but, as the self-described “Sacramento girl” details in her poignant new book, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road, which follows a childhood shaped by her mother’s mental illness and a writer’s search for the truth, thorns and all.

4 weeks ago | sactownmag.com | Mark Kreidler

AA little more than a decade ago, it felt like the whole sports vibe around Sacramento, the idea of this area as a place where professional sports should be taken seriously, was circling the drain. It felt terminal. The Kings were on their way out. The remaining highest-level pro entity was a minor league baseball club. The region had, over the decades, been the often-too-willing host of every unfit, half-wit, two-bit sports minnow that’d ever dreamed of swimming with the big fish.

1 month ago | sactownmag.com | Rob Turner

The IdeaLast July, Boston’s convention bureau reluctantly removed 20 swings (glowing from LED lights within that changed colors when triggered by motion) that were intended for kids and adults alike. “Our idea was that all ages could use more infrastructure for play and interaction,” says Eric Höweler of Boston’s Höweler + Yoon Architecture, which designed the swings that were erected in 2014.

1 month ago | sactownmag.com | Hillary Johnson

A new museum retrospective spotlights the late Sacramento painter and professor Wayne Thiebaud as a master student of art history. From da Vinci to Picasso, great artists have always studied and copied their predecessors on the way to creating their own singular masterpieces. As this exhibit shows, Thiebaud is still teaching. The lesson: Imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery.

1 month ago | sactownmag.com | Hillary Johnson

This spring, a troupe of newcomers to the City of Trees is set to put on what you might call a “dress rehearsal” for a colorful annual outdoor pageant. For one to two weeks over the next month or two like the weather, these sensitive performers’ exact schedule is impossible to foretell the hundred-odd freshly planted cherry blossom trees that comprise Robert T. Matsui Waterfront Park’s new Hanami Line are getting ready to stage their very first preview performance.