I walked onto the quad of Bella Vista High School on a Sunday afternoon to a sight of 20 or so men climbing walls, running like cheetahs on all fours and swinging from trees. This was the Sacramento regional parkour practice, led by a SFparkour.com representative, Victor Lo Forte. He has been a practitioner of parkour, or traceur, French for tracer, for three and a half years and has led the Sacramento group for about two years. "From what I understand, it's basically the discipline of training one's mind and body to prepare oneself to overcome obstacles in an environment," Lo Forte said. Parkour is said to be rooted in early 20th century French military practices. Georges Hébert, a Wor

Contributed by Jenn Walker At age 19 and 20, Sacramento City College students Diana Byrd and Elena Gallegos are discovering the business world firsthand with the growth of their online business Meshugga Chic. Meshugga Chic, casually referred to as just Meshugga (not to be confused with the Swedish death metal band Meshuggah), is the duo's online vintage clothing store, catering to men and women with a unique fashion sense around the world. Their merchandise is an array of color, fun and the unusual. Items like high-waist purple parachute pants, a billowy bright pink and purple windbreaker or an acid wash jumper scream '80s. Anything funky goes. The two launched their site around a year

When Michael Donnoe puts up magnets with compassionate statements around downtown Sacramento, he intends to have them ripped down, plagiarized, and re-posted elsewhere. Having moved to the downtown area around March 2008, Donnoe was struck by election paraphernalia floating around the city, as well as graffiti. "Election signs easily make people polarized," he said. He thought, "How about instead of having an election sign, somebody put something up about respect and kindness." These attempts to disseminate notions of compassion and thoughtfulness pushed him to create the Compassion Project. "It's best described as an art and activism project that is designed to cultivate the causes an

The Sacramento Film & Music Festival pre-screened Paper Heart Friday evening. Paper Heart was co-written by actress Charlene Yi and Nick Jasenovec, and directed by Nick Jasenovec. The film opens with Yi holding a microphone shyly in the middle of the Las Vegas strip, asking the question, “Does anyone really love?” A love-skeptic, she embarks on a cross-country tour to gain perspective on love from couples, divorce lawyers and children at a playground. Her findings are recorded in a way that combines faux-documentary filming and traditional storytelling, only part of which is scripted. Some of the storytelling is done through sequences of puppetry reminiscent of Science of Sleep. The s

Vhcle Magazine set the mood for their Launch Design and Music festival with a swanky location and a variety of tunes Saturday evening at the Greens Hotel on Del Paso Boulevard. The festival was a celebration of design and the arts, as well as a way for Vhcle to brand itself in the Sacramento community, according to Michael Hargis, an architectural designer and coordinator of the event. The Greens hotel is mother nature-meets-urban design. Hargis described the hotel as “1950s mid-century modern.” Upon entering the hotel, brown and green hues meet the eyes and lights hang from the ceiling. Walking through the bar and lounge area, it was possible to see local vendors set up shop. A door le

It's great to hear from you about the Sac parkour scene! Thanks for giving us your input, we really appreciate it!

Thanks for providing us with more information, Victor!

Great article, Cheya. Do you happen to have links for those Penn State studies?

So far his main basis of support is his personal circle of friends that know about the project and help him put up the magnets. I believe this article is one of the first to shed light on his actions, and hopefully he will gain more support in the future as the project evolves!

This article was a joint effort with Jenn Walker.