NEIGHBORS : Jargon as Art : Serious stylistic issues are at stake in Santa Barbara’s ‘Pioneers of Safety’ exhibit.

An article in a recent issue of Ventura Life compared the art scene in Santa Barbara to that in Ventura. Some mail that arrived the other day pretty much put the whole debate into perspective.

The downside of residing in Ventura: There aren’t as many opportunities to go to art shows such as the “Pioneers of Safety” photo exhibit at the UC Santa Barbara art museum.

The upside of residing in Ventura: At least convoluted descriptions of art exhibits are kept to a minimum. Check out the following paragraph from the promotional material for the “Pioneers of Safety” exhibit:

“There are nonetheless, serious stylistic issues at stake in this installation, and in his work in general. For instance, if the question of formal language gives prominence to the possibility of structuring positive contents, a literature dedicated to language gives prominence, in all its empirical vivacity, to the fundamental forms of finitude.”

Sort of all balances out, doesn’t it?

Guess how many authors live in Ventura. Five? Forty-five? Five thousand?

At least on Saturday, the figure will be closer to the latter. That’s the day set for the fourth annual Young Writers’ Fair sponsored by the Ventura Unified School District.

About 5,300 students, from preschool to eighth grade, have put their creativity to work to produce the 4,500 books that will be on display at Loma Vista Elementary School from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The children wrote, stapled, stitched, edited and illustrated the works, with the help of a teacher or two.

The subject matter of the books varies, but some topics keep coming up, organizer Jean Eaton said. “They write about things close to them,” she said. “Friends, animals, sports, movies.” Some of the teachers, though, went for the more unusual.

“A lot tried to get their students to be creative and adapt other stories and make them their own,” she said. “Say the story of the ‘Billy Goats Gruff.’ They would have to change the story and put different characters in it.” One teacher had the students rewrite fairy tales from the villains’ point of view.

Eaton, a first-grade teacher at Junipero Serra Elementary School, assigned personalized versions of the book “Quick as a Cricket.” The results included: “I’m Fast as a Cheetah” and “I’m Slow as a Snake.”

Here’s some food for thought:

Last week a customer at the Ventura A&W; Restaurant was getting ready to pay for his purchase when a box was delivered for the folks behind the counter.

And in the box? A pizza from Domino’s.

While we’re on the subject of fast food, this story comes in from a colleague who went to a McDonald’s restaurant just outside Ojai about a week ago.

He went up to the counter and, as might be expected in a hamburger establishment, ordered a hamburger. “Sorry,” said the woman behind the counter, “we don’t have any hamburgers or cheeseburgers.”

Attempting to deal with his dismay and his hunger at the same time, the customer asked what was going on. The restaurant was out of buns. “We’re waiting for the bun man,” said the woman. At that point someone called out from the back. All was well. The bun man had kept his appointed rounds.