MichaelKate Interiors Is Closing in a Few Months

••• A reader sent word that MichaelKate Interiors in the Funk Zone is closing its doors at the end of summer. The staffer with whom I spoke said that owner Michael McColm is retiring. According to the store’s website, the store was founded in 1953 as Danica House.

••• I Madonnari street painting festival is on for Memorial Day Weekend (May 27-29).

••• “Can you tell us what’s going on with all those palm trees by the Hot Springs entrance to the Montecito Country Mart?” asked E. I’m afraid I can’t; I tried emailing the Montecito Club, site of the aforementioned trees, but I haven’t heard back and don’t really expect to. Anyone know what the club’s plans are? There must be around fifty trees. UPDATE: I hear that Montecito Club owner Ty Warner bought them from a nursery that was closing, and he may not even have any use in mind yet.

••• The French Wave Film Festival is back at the Riviera Theatre from July 14 through July 20. The 11 films include new offerings by Michel Hazanavicius and Louis Garrel (whose The Innocent is on my shortlist), and performances by Vicky Krieps, Romain Duris, Bérénice Bejo, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Virginie Efira, Noémie Merlant, and more.

••• The Sunburst is an outfit that rents rail bikes—two-seat, electric-assisted recumbent bikes that ride on unused railroad tracks—for guided three-hour tours out of Santa Paula, with a stop along the way at a farm with petting zoo. The cost per two-person bike is $249.

••• One of my very favorite bands, Cowboy Junkies, plays the Lobero Theatre on July 21, in support of Such Ferocious Beauty, out June 2. It’s hard to pick just one song to embed here, but “Ring on the Sill” gets me every time, particularly the final verse:

And they’re thinking of the long road ahead
And the strength that they will need
Just to reach the end
And there in the silence they search for
The balance between this fear that they feel
And a love that has graced their lives

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