Those seeing the photo front page and reading the full-page coverage inside last week’s edition of the Surfside News may be interested in knowing what this “environmental festival” was all about and what the Chumash Dolphin Dancers have to do with Dolphins.

The Unbroken Chain is a series of concert festivals, featuring some very talented bands, that keep alive the musical tradition of the world-famous rock-band, The Grateful Dead. This event was produced by Rich Olsen as a benefit concert for Great Whales Foundation and for the Malibu Dolphin Recovery Center project, headed by our own Dolphina Bastel, who also performed at the concert. Also represented at the festival were Surfrider Foundation and People into Saving Trees.

The name “Dolphin Dancers” reflects the ancient Chumash tradition that traces the origin of the people and the dolphins from a common ancestry, as told in their story of “The Rainbow Bridge.” Many people today feel such a deep kinship with the dolphins (and their bigger cousins, the other whales) and feel a responsibility to protect them form the many man-made hazards threatening these “people of the sea.”

As I pointed out in my talk at the concert, the dolphins and whales are threatened today more than any time since the 1986 enactment of a global moratorium on commercial whaling (i.e., organized whale killing for profit). The mass media have underplayed, and many politicians are trying to avoid, the fact that an organized group of nations and other advocates of whaling has been working effectively in recent years toward a resumption of the slaughter of our aquatic friends, for such uses as sushi, animal feed, industrial chemicals and trinkets. The U.S. administration (i.e., Clinton-Gore) and most Republicans in Congress have been sympathetic to this movement, out of their “free trade” policies and international deal-making priorities, and the government is now encouraging, assisting and paying for a small and economically depressed tribal reservation in coastal Washington state, the Makah, to lead the charge by killing California Gray Whales as they pass by the Olympic Peninsula this autumn. The first killing could happen any day now, or may have already occurred by the time you read this. Great Whales Foundation is among several organizations that have backed a law suit to expose the treacherous and illegal actions by our government to promote whale-killing by exploiting the economic aspirations of the Makah tribe.

So, the Dolphin Dancers of the Chumash people danced with us, not only in connection with their ritual past, but also in spiritual solidarity with the living dolphins and whales in peril, our cousins of the sea!

Francis Jeffrey

The Cosentino family’s business is the beauty of nature. Artist Manny Cosentino makes that beauty eternal.

The son of the Malibu florists and nursery founders works out of his studio, a converted greenhouse behind the landscape nursery on Pacific Coast Highway. “My house is a mess, my studio is a mess,” he warns. “I pour every little shred of energy I have into this.” He points to his current work, a painting depicting his parents, a Malibu hillside in the distance.

“I’m going after the sensation of space, and the sensation of light hitting the objects, and the tactile sense of texture,” he explains. “I’m going for a sensation of deep space and Malibu light.”

He admires Venetian painters. “You see this figure coupled with the landscape — the figure in its contemporary background,” he elucidates. He seems to follow Italian ideals, occasionally making architectural blueprints for scale and perspective. “Even if I figure out perspective, I wouldn’t do an architectural rendering every time. It has to be real but natural.”

One of his landscapes depicts a residential street in Hollywood. “It’s an L.A. street painted as a Venetian would have painted it 500 years ago,” he says. “As an artist, I’m trying to make people see their own times with fresh eyes. If you stop to look at it, it’s an incredibly beautiful city.”

He admires Picasso for his rebellion, but says the appreciation of Picasso’s work is secondhand. “If you were in a room by yourself with Picasso’s painting, you wouldn’t get anything from that painting.” The understanding, he indicates, comes from outside the canvas.

His own technical goals are the creation of texture, light, space, volume, form and expressions. “Whatever’s not done,” he says, “I’ll get it in the next painting.” But the painting is complete “when I’ve convinced you of what I’m trying to say.”

Somedays painting is like pulling teeth. “When I’m midway through a painting, I get my jitters — I get my doubts. Part of maturing as an artist is letting go.”

Cosentino was raised in New York City and was engaged by art from an early age. He moved with his family to Malibu 24 years ago, attending UCLA for undergraduate and graduate work in art and receiving an MFA degree.

Still, his educators never taught him to prepare a canvas; 20 years later, his college works are cracking. “Colleges emphasize content, not form and technique,” he complains. “You go to the university and get an MFA, and you don’t know how to put the ground on the painting. I was using the wrong brushes for years.”

After graduating, he took up opera. Today, his 88-year-old singing teacher lives in his house. (She is Louise Caselotti, also known as the first American coach of Maria Callas and sister of the voice of Snow White.)

He has taught at Mission and Ventura colleges and has painted a mural at Wilson Middle School in Pasadena in collaboration with the students. “I just wanted to see what it was like to do a mural,” he says of the two-year project.

His family has welcomed his art. His father gave him studio space and refused rent. His brother, Marco, is acting as his publicist, entering him in competitions and showings. “I never worried about selling my work,” he says, happy merely to have the public look at his work, “so it doesn’t just go into my bedroom.” Starting this weekend, two canvasses will show at Loyola Marymount University. Other galleries have told him he does not produce work fast enough to suit them. “You go to art openings and nobody’s looking at the art — nobody’s being moved by it,” he laments.

Working outdoors, Cosentino sets up his palette on an ironing board. He recounts that a friend recognized Cosentino’s students painting in Echo Park — by their ironing boards. He takes up his brushes, recommending clove oil to keep his paints wetter longer. “The whole thing with painting is to look at what you’re painting, not to look at the canvas while you’re painting,” he instructs. He’ll listen to Mozart or Brahms while he paints, but not opera, “because if I put it on, I end up singing.” He blends edges on the canvas, saying, “If the edges are too sharp, they come forward in the picture.” He says these are things he passes on to his students that he was never taught.

“For painting outside,” he says, “I know France was the place, but for me Malibu is unbeatable. The wind is not bad, and the temperature is incredible.”

Manny Cosentino’s work will be on exhibit at Loyola Marymount University’s Laband Art Gallery. The artist’s reception is Saturday, 3:30 – 5:30 p.m.

We Americans give our president more work than a human being can perform, more accountability than a man should take and more burdens than a man can bear. We abuse him often and rarely acclaim him. We wear him out, use him up and consume him. And yet we Americans have a love for the presidency that goes beyond loyalty or party. The president is ours, and we as Americans exercise the right to demolish him.

Tom Fakehany

Why bump school coverage?

Ed. note: This letter was sent to

members of the Planning Commission

As I am unable to attend the meeting Monday I thought I would share my thoughts about the proposed Hillside Ordinance.

I think we have been spending too much time on design issues and not enough on the hard guidelines and parameters of the ordinance, namely, what properties are to be included, how big a house can one build on any particular parcel, and what are the physical constraints on the design. It is most important that a property owner and architect can know what size house can be constructed and where it can be located with a minimum of time and effort.

I have also come to the conclusion that I am against design review for a number of reasons.

First, it has the feeling of being an architectural review process, dictating what styles, shapes and appearances are acceptable and which are not. This is anathema to the architectural community and also not in keeping with the eclectic and free-spirited nature of Malibu as I know it.

Second, while our planning director is a fine fellow in whom I have great confidence, he will not be planning director forever. We are a government of laws and not of men, and what one can build on a hillside should not be determined by the current composition of the planning department.

Last, and most important, design review leaves the city open to charges, usually made incorrectly, of favoritism and political influence. There is already a perception in this city that if one knows the right people one can get what one wants approved, and if one does not, or is at odds with them, one can not. An ordinance with a large amount of discretion by staff, commission and council will only reinforce this perception.

Edward Lipnick

“Humps and Bumps” to curtail excessive speed on Point Dume is of great concern to Point Dume residents. However, where is the attention for our community’s educational system and all of our children?

Presently, only one member on the School Board represents Malibu. Tom Shotke, another local resident, who is a teacher, former school board member and has a background in corporate finance, is our only local candidate running. His election would give us two members to assure that we have additional and qualified representation. Let’s try and correct any oversight by backing our local candidate. Additionally, we must support Proposition X with a Yes vote so our local schools will have the $11.2 million to handle the overcrowding situation in our classrooms and provide a new high school gym, refurbish our track and do additional improvements so badly needed.

Please vote Nov. 3.

Lori Diamond