Another group I’ve heard throwing around the word “solarpunk” in recent months: the organizers of a monthlong “popup village” planning to take up residency in Healdsburg next weekend and stay for the entire month of June. The event is called Edge Esmeralda — a mashup of the names of the two out-of-town orgs behind the vision, Edge City and the Esmeralda Land Company. If you have a Sonoma County address, you can get a discounted ticket here for around $200. Locals in Healdsburg have had trouble making sense of the whole thing, thrown off by what some of them are calling the “word salad” of new-age lingo on the Edge Esmeralda website — but after speaking to organizers a few times, I think I’ve more or less wrapped my head around it, so I’ll do my best to explain. Basically, a group of 150-plus people will pay around $2,000 each (plus lodging costs) to attend daily talks, salons, workshops and “unconferences” at Healdsburg venues — like the Raven Theater, the CraftWork co-working space and the Community Center — led by experts on topics like AI, crypto, biohacking, space exploration, renewable energy, geopolitics and all sorts of other trippy stuff. This core group of village “residents” will stay in existing Healdsburg hotels like Hotel Trio, the Dry Creek Inn and H2Hotel (so no new infrastructure) and will be joined by hundreds more visitors and speakers who pop in for a day or two at a time, according to organizers. The ultimate goal being to re-envision the way society and community can work, no less. You can check out the full programming calendar here. To me, this whole concept also seems like an attempt by the global internet tribes invested in these particular futuristic topics to hang out face-to-face for a sustained period. The ticket price includes nightly dinners where everybody comes together to eat local farm-to-table type fare; daily morning runs; camps and classes for kids, as well as a “babysitting club” to make childcare easy; a series of hackathons for coders; a central spot for “sauna, cold plunge and daily workouts” at Hotel Trio; and “adventure days on weekends.” (Therapy sessions and blood tests/consults to “improve your biomarkers for longevity” are on the menu as well!) So that everyone can get to these events from their hotels without cars, organizers say they’ll be putting shuttles into rotation and renting out “used beach cruisers” to attendees. They’re hoping most people will walk and bike along the Foss Creek Pathway, a nature trail that runs the entire length of Healdsburg. “We planned all of our venues around a 7-minute bike path,” they said in a recent newsletter. “We’re calling it Serendipity Lane, because it’s where you’ll bump into fellow attendees between sessions and go for walks with new friends!” (This same pathway has also been the site of multiple violent crimes in recent months, a trend often pointed out by local critics of the Edge Esmeralda event when making the case that organizers are out of touch.) Another intriguing aspect of the Edge Esmeralda experiment: It’s being modeled off the “Chautauqua” gathering in upstate New York, which Esmeralda Land Company founder Devon Zuegel used to attend as a girl with her grandma. That, too, was a summertime popup village of sorts — famous for democratizing education, science and culture outside of a costly/elite university setting. Back in the day, there were also “traveling Chautauquas” that would set up shop in rural U.S. communities. “Our hope is that Edge Esmeralda is a place that supports and nurtures the next generation of people who can make such a positive impact on the world,” Zuegel told me over email — “whether it’s through physical technology (medicine, materials science) or through social technology (urban planning, childhood education, etc).” Down the road, once the Healdsburg popup experiment plays out, Zuegel is even hoping to find a site to build a permanent Chautauqua-esque community in California, perhaps just north of us in Mendocino County. Might not be a bad place to land for the climate apocalypse. (Source: Healdsburg Tribune & Edge Esmeralda)

An interesting festival is coming up next weekend in Guerneville: the Big West Wine Fest, a two-day natural wine tasting back for its second year at twice the size. “About 100 winemakers will be pouring throughout the weekend, alongside cider producers, food vendors and plenty of live music,” the Press Democrat reports. A grand tasting for the natty set! The whole thing goes down in a magical redwood grove at Solar Punk Farms on Armstrong Woods Road just outside town, which describes itself as a “queer-run regenerative hub in Guerneville” and a “climate hub focused on bioregional regeneration.” Most of the wineries showing up are local — Idlewild, Ruth Lewandowski, Horse & Plow, Hobo Wine Company, Monte Rio Cellars, Goat Rock Cider and Two Shepherds are some of the names I recognize — but the PD notes that there will also be some Bay brands in the house, like Laughing Gems from Richmond and Virgo Magic Wines in Berkeley. Here’s more info from the event invite: “Join us for year two of Sonoma County’s Favorite Natural Wine Festival: two days of revelry under the redwoods, a pageant of poppies, a vinous carnival for the ages. Big West celebrates the mainstay makers and the fresh faces, the big and the small, the farmers and the land, the people and wines that make up Sonoma County’s vibrant world of natural wine. And it’s TWO DAYS! This year features an all-star lineup of local producers pouring their vin du pays, local talent to serenade you as you sip, plus a stellar roster of vendors: offering everything from pierogies to plant-dyed painter pants. Check the roster for the lineups by day!” Also on tap: free ice cream from Alec’s in Petaluma; a “barn-raising, soul-nourishing” food hall; an interactive merch station where you can screen-print your own stuff; and a supervised camp for kids, so you can get tipsy without losing your children or overexposing them to the throes of natty-wine revelry. Tickets are $80 per day or $140 for the full weekend. “Bring your own water bottle & spit cup and consider packing a sun hat, sunscreen and a picnic blanket,” say the wild West County peeps organizing this thing. And one of them tells the PD that noobs are more than welcome: “Even if someone doesn’t know anything about wine, we hold a space for them here.” Another adds: “Wine can be very divisive by class and education, and we’ve taken a lot of care to create an event that feels welcoming. We want this event to challenge what people think about when they think of wine culture.” (Source: Eventbrite & Big West Wine Fest & Big West Wine Fest via Instagram & Press Democrat & Solar Punk Farms)

A big fitness festival was supposed to happen in Santa Rosa today. Spoiler alert: It didn’t. The event was called NorCal Fitness & Dancefest, and it was “the brainchild of an eccentric and supposedly wealthy out-of-town philanthropist,” the Press Democrat reports. “He went by the name Jon Micheline and started connecting with local community members in the fitness scene. He professed a desire to give up his worldly possessions and become a ‘beach bum.’ He said that as a wealthy real estate investor at an existential crossroads, he was looking to rid himself of excess and start giving back by supporting charity projects and community events.” So he reportedly reached out to all these local entrepreneurs in the fitness space, plus DJs and whatnot, to help him set up one big whirlwind day of “fitness and martial arts classes, acupuncture, sound healing and massage booths, an epic dance party featuring pole, burlesque and belly dancing, and a Guinness World Records group twerk attempt,” according to the PD. Some business owners paid up to $120 each for a booth at the festival, while others say they put in setup work on the promise they’d be paid later. That’s when our dude disappeared. “He no-showed, never met us, never signed the contract, never paid my friends for the work they put in,” says Tristan St. Germain, a “trauma-informed somatic life coach and fitness professional” who got involved. The fact that the festival ended up being a scam makes the specific offerings on the bill feel even more bizarre — especially the world-record twerk attempt and dance party, which was supposed to be a fundraiser for St. Germain’s teenaged son, Kainoa. The therapist has been raising money to help pay for her son’s multiple sclerosis treatments — and she’s now sickened that people may have bought the fraudulent $25 dance party tickets while they were live on the festival’s website in her son’s name, with this mystery scammer pocketing the money. “I feel bamboozled,” she tells ABC. “It’s hard for me to understand how people can be so mindless and heartless and cruel. I feel he played on my vulnerability at the worst time of my life.” Meanwhile, the festival’s Instagram page, which is still live as I write this, is full of cheesy — and now, in context, pretty creepy — wellness memes with slogans like “Never Mess With a Woman Who Hands Upside Down for Fun” and “Love the Body You Have, While Working on the Body You Want” and “Don’t Half Ass Anything. Always Use Your Full Ass.” Another big cringe factor: NorCal Fitness & Dancefest was supposed to take place at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building on Memorial Day weekend, but the guy who orchestrated this whole thing reportedly ended up shorting the folks who oversee events at the veterans building on final payments and going dark. Doesn’t get much skeezier than that. (Source: Tristan St. Germain via GoFundMe & Press Democrat & ABC7 & NorCal FitFest & NorCal FitFest via Instagram & Feed Your Happy)

The biggest music festival in the North Bay is underway as we speak, for its 11th year: BottleRock at the Napa Valley Expo. And from all the social-media slideshows and news reports I’ve seen so far, it looks like it’s popping off pretty hard right now. In an interview with the Bay Area’s local FOX station, one attendee calls it “momchella.” Indeed: Everymom’s favorite rocker, Stevie Nicks, reportedly crushed her set last night, casting what the San Francisco Chronicle called “a nostalgic spell” over the crowd with an hour-and-a-half setlist of Fleetwood Mac hits, some solo stuff and crowd-pleasing covers of rock classics like Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” and Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.” The set was even more climactic for the fact that her first two scheduled BottleRock appearances, in 2020 and 2021, never happened because of COVID. Other big artists who laid it all out on the stage last night: Meghan Thee Stallion, Nelly, St. Vincent and Bebe Rexha. Tonight’s acts will include Pearl Jam, Mana, Kali Uchis, My Morning Jacket and the Kid Laroi; and tomorrow, we’ve got Ed Sheeran, Queens of the Stone Age, Norah Jones, the Offspring and more. But Bottlerock isn’t just a music festival. Almost more of a draw than the procession of rockstars is the lineup of food and drinks — which makes sense, considering we live in wine-and-food country. First, there are the 80-plus food vendors serving crazy stuff like lobster tots and caviar hot dogs — turning the expo grounds into a Mecca for the trashy-meets-classy food trend. Wine-wise, the festival seriously upped its game this year, the Chronicle reports, with “a handful of small, premium Napa wineries… added to the typically lackluster roster.” There’s also this whole culinary performance type stage at the festival, run by Williams Sonoma, where BottleRock musicians and other celebs josh around with famous chefs; stir big vats of things; hawk their own food and wine brands; and engage in other variety show-style stunts that would make the Michelin crowd blush. For some reason, everyone can’t stop talking about Cameron Diaz’ appearance on this foodie stage yesterday, where she danced in all denim and sipped a glass of her own organic wine. But the highlight, according to the Chronicle, was “the day’s final pairing, which featured celebrity Bay Area chef Tyler Florence and Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee in a theatrical open-fire cooking demonstration of tomahawk steaks — featuring an unhinged cameo from Neil Patrick Harris — that rivaled the excitement of a rock concert’s pyrotechnic show. The standout moment came when Mayclem handed Lee a pair of bones, leading to the rock legend delivering an unforgettable drum solo on a specially built drum kit.” You can’t make this stuff up! Last BottleRock update of note: The Napa Valley Register is reporting that three of the yachts used to transport attendees into the festival from Vallejo via the Napa River — an attempt at “avoiding the occasionally treacherous and often stressful traffic and parking issues” at BottleRock — became ensnarled “in a different sort of jam when the drawbridge at the Mare Island Causeway Bridge in Vallejo” got stuck in the down position, leaving the yacht riders “idling just out of sight of the fun and music.” Thus adding a small sprinkle of Fyre Festival-esque *fail hype* to the 2024 event. Genius… (Source: Bohemian & BottleRock & KTVU & Daily Mail & Press Democrat & Napa Valley Register & SF Chronicle & SF Chronicle & Marin Independent Journal)