I would like to formally apologize to the tourists, for living in Petaluma before they discovered it.
I realize now this was presumptuous of me. Had I known my hometown would become a recreational backdrop for other people’s Instagrammable weekends, I would have cleared out decades ago. These days, Petaluma feels less like my town and more like I accidentally wandered into a brand activation.
I recently overheard a visitor ask if Petaluma is “authentic.” I wanted to tell them yes—it was, right up until they asked that question.
Parking, once a minor inconvenience, has become Sisyphean. I now budget 20 extra minutes just to circle the block and go home. It’s the Netflix menu of small town living.
To be clear, I understand tourism is good for the economy. I enjoy commerce. I even enjoy a good oat-milk latte. What I don’t enjoy is feeling like a non-player character in my own life while someone else documents “discovering” my once favorite cafe.
So by all means, visit Petaluma. Eat, drink, stroll, photograph, hashtag. Just remember: authentic people live here too, and you’re not one of us until you’re tired of being one of them.
Cassady Caution Petaluma
Ignoble Prize
I’m sorry to hear Maria Corina Machado’s Nobel Prize can’t be transferred to Donald Trump, because I was kinda hoping I could get Martin Scorsese’s Oscar and some of Jeff Bezos’ money transferred to my bank account.
This is the first of a three-part series on the effect of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence in our community. —Editor
Part One: Initiation Into the Fear
My “handler” was a friend of a friend of a friend. That delicate linkage was a conduit of trust.
Trust enough to meet me anyhow; ICE informants had made his work more dangerous. I would need to be tested and mettled before he would introduce me to the undocumented workers who trusted him. They were the story. I wanted to talk to them in the rippling shock of recent ICE deportation raids. The televised raids in the sanctuary city of Los Angeles, in the sanctuary state of California, staged a spectacle, staged for terror, staged to humiliate democratic leaders in their strongholds. As seen on my phone, videos of their protester-beating Gestapo theater had left me in a cold sweat.
I wanted to talk to the undocumented. I wanted to hear their account of things. It had been a near miss in San Francisco, with ICE convoys turned back from The City just days before their expected arrival. The City would have been their base for raids throughout the Bay region—that had been the pattern of Chicago.
My handler, “Esteban,” chose the location for our initial meeting. I thought he had chosen it for his comfort. But stepping into the busy diner, I wondered whether it was intended for my comfort.
It was an independently owned diner off the interstate—the kind one could find anywhere in America. And it served, for the most part, working class whites. The walls of the place were lined with ’40s and ’50s memorabilia and fading family photos. It served nostalgia with its pancakes—nostalgia for an America where, fresh from our great moral victory over the Nazis, we found ourselves the leader of the free world. It was, perhaps, America’s great moment.
The first thing “Esteban” did was turn off my recorder—the reporter’s indispensable tool. Over a short stack, he told me his story. He was an advocate, descended from farmers. He told me with pride that his father had marched alongside Cesar Chavez. And he told me with some bitterness that he had spent his long life fighting for some of the same concessions Chavez and his father had fought for—and failed to win.
In turn, I told “Esteban” of my intentions—to print the words of the undocumented in the public record, to document their hope and fear, to present the appeal of their common humanity. And to rally the undecided to fight—for them.
He paused; he seemed satisfied by my earnestness. As a reply, “Esteban” told me his conditions. There would be no names in the article. Even though he was a publicity-courting public figure, I would not use his real name. I would not even learn the real names of the people I would interview. I would publish no identifying details. I would not even identify the county in which my interviews took place.
He cleaned his plate. “We don’t want Trump to think this is a hotbed,” he said. (Even allowing for some guesswork about the location, it isn’t a hotbed by any reasonable measure. In California, about 7% of the population lacks legal citizenship or a visa—do the math for your own town. Nationally, the figure is closer to 3%, or roughly 11 million people without papers.)
As he relaxed somewhat, “Esteban” alluded to clandestine meetings of immigrant’s rights groups held in The Central Valley, and secret meetings with powerful state officials.
His precautions and activities reminded me of what I had read about the
French underground. I believed that was a funny thought at first … preposterous. I began to feel excited and then overexcited by “Esteban’s” vigilance, his paranoia—and as he spoke, I began to feel the fear. It chilled me.
“Esteban” wanted me to feel the danger—to know what was at risk—his co-workers, his friends and neighbors suddenly disappeared into unmarked cars in lightning raids on The Home Depot or after school pick-ups—their children looking helplessly on.
Here I will put in a fact—related to me by Corazon Healdsburg, an immigrant resource operating in Wine Country. Because most immigrant families are of “mixed legal status,” with “legal” children or grandchildren and undocumented parents or grandparents (60% of undocumented people have been in the United States more than 20 years), detainment and deportation commonly results in the breakup of families. What to do with the small children left behind has become a complex problem.
I stopped eating. As much as “Esteban” wanted to test me, he wanted to steel me. This first meeting was my initiation—my initiation to the fear. …Welcome to the underground.
Serving America
We set our date for the interviews at an undisclosed location. Settling his bill “Esteban” stopped, and leaned toward me over the table. In a hard and confidential voice he said, “I don’t come here for the coffee, I come here for the workers,” indicating the back of the house with a look over my shoulder. “I happen to know that they are all working without papers.”
With those words he left me, and I sat in our booth for a quiet while — digesting this. Across the United States, undocumented workers are key to our restaurant industry and the marginal profitability of those businesses that survive that industry’s fierce competition. They are keystone because undocumented workers work harder—for less pay, for longer hours, with fewer days off, and fewer benefits. They do the hardest work, the least desirable work, and the most dangerous work—with fewer safety precautions. Immigrants don’t work hard because they are hard workers. No one likes to work hard. They work hard because they have to—because their precarious legal status lends itself to economic exploitation. They can’t complain because they fear reprisals. Any boss or landlord can report them to ICE. They work hard out of fear.
Across the United States undocumented, immigrant labor is key to the restaurant industry and the hotel industry, the janitorial industry, the tourism industry, the construction industry, the homebuilding industry, the transportation industry, the cattle industry, the egg industry, the dairy industry, the produce industry, the wine industry, and manufactures.
They—we—are dependent on them. They are the lynchpins of our business models, and their forcible removal en mass would bankrupt and fold hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses across the US overnight (not to mention billion-dollar companies ). At bottom, we need immigrants. America needs them—just as much as immigrants need us. Losing them would be a blow to the economy as bad as Trump’s tariff trade wars with our allies or the bursting of the AI stock bubble.
It was off-putting to think about the working conditions of immigrants. I tried to comfort myself the way generations of Americans have comforted themselves as they gazed at sweat shops and tenements. This was the way of America—nation of immigrants, and secret engine of its prosperity. Each generation, new people would arrive, washed up from some distant war-torn shore. They would be begrudgingly tolerated , and for a generation they would work—hard in our worst jobs—but their children would prosper. Their children would become citizens, and live out the American dream. It was like that for my people, Irish fleeing from a genocidal famine.
It happened each generation—or it had. The grand bargain was breaking down. The American dream was dissipating like thin smoke. We were sliding backwards now. I for one would never own a house.
Sitting in my booth, looking across the predominantly white working class patrons, to the predominantly brown and undocumented waitstaff, line cooks, and dishwashers, I began to wonder whether the immigrant underclass had disguised how much the working class has fallen across thirty years of falling wages and a ripping safety net. We are now in the age of the billionaire—and now, the trillionaire (Trump’s ally Elon Musk).
Whether or not he had intended it, the 50’s dinner that “Esteban” had taken me to, serving Americana — serving America, was a working model of America today.
Terror
“How often do you think about ICE?” I asked “Juan,” the gruff old ranch hand. He paused, reckoning, and replied, “Maybe 50 times a day.” That shocked me—was he that frightened? He had been stoical, like a rock, even when he had told me that he had not seen his wife or his children living in Mexico for 23 years. There were grandchildren now—grandchildren he had never held. His eyes were distant. Perhaps, looking inward, he was trying to see them now.
“Why don’t you go back to see them?” I asked, deeply moved. “I cannot re-cross the border,” he said. There is no work back home. My family, they need me here—working.”
We sat at a picnic table under a tree beside a field, where undocumented farmworkers volunteered after their work shifts, farming organic vegetables for the local food bank. Despite paying local and federal taxes, and despite their poverty, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Calfresh foodstamps—as well as Medicaid medical insurance, disability insurance (though they work some of the most dangerous jobs) and Social Security retirement checks. They might be keeping those safety net programs solvent for us.
The winter crops were in. The workers were tending two types of onions, garlic, two kinds of cabbage, Brussels sprouts, jicama—and strawberries for the small children to pick. “Why do you work here, after working so hard in the vineyards all day?” I asked “Ernesto.” “Because I know hunger,” he said. “I know what it is like…”
“Esteban,” my handler, brought undocumented immigrants over in pairs for their comfort. “Marisol,” a local Latina politician, translated for me. To ease their evident anxiety, I told them that my recording of their voices would be destroyed after I had written my “historia.” I thanked them for their bravery.
“Sophia,” a vineyard worker, is married to “Rodrigo,” a construction worker who commutes into The Valley. “Sophia” told me of the late night argument when she and her husband decided they would stop going out all together—no more parties, no more weddings, or holidays, or even church. To reduce the danger of being taken by ICE, they were effectively choosing to avoid all concentrations of brown-skinned people. It was a choice to cut themselves off from their community, like some desperate surgical amputation.
That same decision has been undertaken by tens of thousands of families in California, and it has had the general effect of breaking up Latino communities, and driving them out of public.
“Was this the intended design of Trump’s mass deportation campaign?” I wondered to myself.
“Maria” and her family have become desperately isolated in their house. Despite the new door cameras, and new locks, and the front made up to look like no one was home, she still didn’t feel safe. …Is it even home if one doesn’t feel safe?
She tries to appear calm or brave for her four young children, but the fear was eating away at her. She was over-thinking the raids. She was obsessing. It was giving her stress headaches. She could barely sleep—even after days of hard farm labor. And when she slept, she often woke from nightmares of faceless men with guns pointed, her heart racing.
“What about when you absolutely need to leave the house, for groceries, or work, or to go to the hospital?” I asked. “Sophia” told me she hated to leave her house now, and when she left, she hated to leave her van—but she had to feed her babies.
So now she goes to Safeway this way: First she drives right by the market to have a first scan. Then she circles within the lot looking for the generic cars with unusual or unmarked license plates favored by ICE. Then she parks and waits, and waits, and watches—searching hard. “Is it safe? Is it safe?” she asks herself, gripping the wheel.
This is terror.
“Lupe” talked about a pain she had in her pelvis last summer. For months, the pain grew and grew intolerable, and still she told no one—she knew that her friends would try to make her go to the emergency room—but the hospital wasn’t safe from ICE. What was this pain stabbing up like knives from her pelvis to her navel—“Was it a cancer?” she wondered.
Finally, she admitted it—there was no hiding it; she would pause in her farm work as she breathed through the unbearable pain, swooning. Her friends and family were begging her to go, begging her to go, but she wouldn’t go—she would be taken by ICE. What would happen to her children then? Finally, she was taken in a faint for emergency surgery, by friends with H-2A papers.
This is terror.
It is well to remember that, as yet, our region is one of the least affected in the nation. And still the levels of fear are this high. According to Gina Garibo,approximately 90% of call-in ICE sightings she receives to her tip line in “Lupe’s” area are false-alarms driven by a general panic.
ECONOMY America’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants are the lynchpin of our economy. Immigrants work harder for longer for less in the worst jobs. Their labor is key to the profitability of the farm, cattle, wine, restaurant, hotel, tourist, construction, homebuilding and manufacturing industries. Deporting them all cannot be the endgame for Donald Trump, as it would bankrupt tens of thousands of small, medium and billion dollar businesses. Copyright (c) 2025 Lawrey/Shutterstock.
Garibo is an immigrant defense organizer at North Bay Organizing Project, one of the 22 “Rapid Response” networks in California that tracks ICE and sends legal observers to monitor raids or public celebrations where the chance of raids are high. They publish only the verified sightings. But still, panic is spread over chats and social media channels—which is especially bad for their social media-obsessed children.
“Sophia” fears for her teenage daughter, “Ana,” who was already already given to panic-attacks. Like many Latino youth with undocumented friends and relatives, her social media algorithm is filled with shaky cam POV shots of raids and arrests at homes and school drop-offs, or ICE contingents parading in full battle regalia down residential streets, guns pointed, or smuggled videos of immigrants deported to war zones (like South Sudan) or hell-on-earth prisons (like El Salvador’s CECOT prison).
As they’re often missing dates and locations, children frequently react to these videos as if they were happening here and now. “Ana” doesn’t want to lose her mother, and so she watches these traumatizing videos in her teenage bedroom obsessively, looking for tips to evade ICE.
Again and again, throughout my interviews, the first concern and greatest fear of these people was not what will happen to themselves, but what will happen to their children if they are suddenly abducted at work or on errands. Every time a family member fails to reply to a text, these fears choke them.
The older children would be better able to take care of themselves, my interviewees agree. But the younger ones, possibly less affected by the panic, are more helpless. “Who will care for my son?” when she is taken, asks “Maria.” “It’s hard for him to understand; he’s only six years old.” Sensing his mother’s distress, the boy came up to where we were sitting in the winter shade and pressed his cheek against her cheek, smiling at us all. As he left, he slipped her phone out of her pocket.
STUDY Per a 2024 National Institute of Justice report, undocumented immigrants have a lower rate of violent crime convictions than native-born Americans. That study recently disappeared from the Department of Justice website. Copyright (c) 2020 Eduard Goricev/Shutterstock.
Bad Men
“Please—please tell the president—have compassion for us,” she said—imploring me, crying now. Indicating her son, she added, “He is an immigrant too. We are not here to hurt anyone. We just want to work—to give our children a better life…”
“Maria’s” plea cuts across the Trumpist narrative that most immigrants crossing the border illegally are “rapists,” “murderers” and “terrorists”—not the salt, but “the scum of the earth.”
And the hard data rips that narrative to tatters. Per a 2024 National Institute of Justice report, undocumented immigrants have a lower rate of violent crime convictions than native-born Americans. That study recently disappeared from the Department of Justice website.
It can therefore be argued that the entry of undocumented immigrants makes America safer—as well as richer. Their deportation makes America less safe. And their deportation by rights-violating, terror tactics makes Americans less safe.
Per The New York Times, the push to make more arrests faster has “necessitated” a major mission shift in the Department of Homeland Security, in which upwards of 15,000 agents have been shifted from their regular duties (NYT, Nov. 16, “Homeland’s Core Missions Disrupted by Deportations”; the story was based on interviews with 60 past and present agents).
This shift to deportation work has caused slow-downs, stoppages and/or the unraveling of cases against “high level” child sexual predators, sex traffickers, smugglers, scammers, international criminals, embargo evaders and international terrorists. As the deportation arrests surge, the true bad guys are getting away.
The Department of Homeland Security was established in response to 9/11 terror. But under Trump, the antiterrorism department has itself become the department of terror.
Now, the Trump administration has accused some of the detained immigrants of new, low level crimes in some of these same categories, but the “expedited removal” of its new deportation courts puts these cases into doubt.
Per the National Immigration Law Center and Harvard Civil Liberties Law Review, “expedited removal” seems to require Miranda rights violations, denial of legal counsel and the very right to defend themselves against heinous charges—if there is indeed any actual evidence of wrongdoing. Guilt is assumed.
The injustice of these proceedings has drawn official censure from Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner on [unalienable] human rights. Turk stands on ethical grounds. On religious grounds, the entire deportation campaign has been criticized by Leo XIV, “the American Pope,” moral leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholic Christians.
America was once a moral leader too, and that moral standing was of key importance to our power and strategic standing. The deportation surge is making America weaker and less safe in the world. And everywhere, dictators are on the march.
Now that Ralphie got his BB gun, Scrooge became a better person and George Bailey decided he really did have a wonderful life, it’s time for North Bay theater companies to get their 2026 shows on the road.
Petaluma’s Mercury Theater is first out of the gate with Woody Guthrie’s American Song. It’s a musical tribute to the American folk singer and poet that uses adaptations of Guthrie’s prose, poetry and 30 of his songs to narrate his life and the historical and social forces that shaped him and the nation. The show, with direction by Elizabeth Craven, musical direction by Tom Martin and vocal direction by Justin Pyne, opens Jan. 9. mercurytheater.org
Then things go quiet for a couple of weeks until four productions open in Sonoma County.
Healdsburg’s Raven Players will be presenting John and Gabriel Fraire’s Who Will Dance with Pancho Villa? It’s a work originally written in 2008, but updated as part of the Raven Players’ ScripTease new works program. It will feature performances by the Ballet Folklórico Legado de Mi Alegría de Cloverdale as dancing spirits who are intertwined throughout the play. The show’s seven performances begin Jan. 22 at the Raven Performing Arts Theater. raventheater.org
A little further north, the Cloverdale Performing Arts Center will be presenting The Outgoing Tide. The family drama about a strong-willed father, his wife and their son grappling with aging and quality of life issues opens on Jan. 23. cloverdaleperformingarts.com
For audiences whose tastes lean to classic Broadway musicals, Cinnabar Theater will be presenting Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady. The iconic musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, will be directed by Christian Arteaga. Eliza Doolittle will be screeching in the Warren Theatre at Sonoma State University beginning Jan. 23. cinnabartheater.org
If Shakespeare’s your thing, how about Romeo & Juliet? 6th Street Playhouse’s Monroe Stage becomes the fair Verona where two households, both alike in dignity, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny. The ubiquitous Drew Bolander directs the tragedy that also opens Jan. 23. 6thstreetplayhouse.com
Over in Napa, Lucky Penny Productions kicks off 2026 with Peter and Alice. The 2013 play by John Logan dramatizes a fictional meeting between Alice Liddell Hargreaves (the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland) and Peter Llewelyn Davies (the inspiration for Peter Pan). The show opens Jan. 30. luckypennynapa.com
The North Bay is fortunate to have the number and variety of live theater companies that it does. Please continue to support them by attending a show.
Some albums announce themselves with urgency. Others arrive the way wisdom does—slowly, after enough living has occurred to make the listening worthwhile. All Is Song, the new record by Northern California duo Misner & Smith, firmly belongs to the latter category.
The album has been six years in the making, conceived in 2017 and shaped in fits, starts, pauses and reckonings. That extended incubation paid off—the songs sound lived with, considered and assured. As the duo (married couple Sam Misner and Megan Smith) puts it, the unexpected stillness of the pandemic gave them “time to pause, breathe and reflect,” allowing the music to become “the most acutely powerful and transformative” work of their career.
That sense of earned clarity came through vividly during their recent in-studio visit, where harmonies landed with the confidence of people who trust the work—and each other. Misner & Smith have been collaborating for more than two decades, a partnership that began not in a rehearsal room but backstage at regional theater productions. They met as actors, performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Seagull, and later found musical alignment while working on Woody Guthrie’s American Song.
“We both played music all our lives,” Megan Smith said, recalling the moment things clicked musically. “I started singing harmony to some of Sam’s recordings and kind of fell in love with his ability to write these amazing songs with stories and beautiful melodies.”
Sam Misner describes his songwriting process less as construction than excavation. “Very rarely do I sit down and go, ‘I want to write a song about X, Y and Z,’” he said. “I feel like my job is kind of like a sculptor … scraping away what isn’t necessary to get to the heart of it.”
That philosophy is especially apparent on “Anthem,” one of the album’s standout tracks. The song circles the idea of needing “an anthem all your own,” not for a nation or a team, but simply as a psychic soundtrack to goad oneself onward. “It’s just to kind of keep yourself going,” Misner said. “Especially as artists and creative people.”
“Each of Sam’s songs is like a planet in itself,” Smith added. “When we’re arranging things, it’s about asking what the song needs and how we serve it best.”
That same ethos carries into their live performances, including their upcoming full-band show at HopMonk Sebastopol Friday, Jan. 16. Joining them are co-producer/multi-instrumentalist Bruce Kaphan on mandolin and pedal steel guitar and Dillon Vado on drums and percussion.
“Everything is very specifically chosen,” Misner said. “If it doesn’t serve the story of the song, it’s getting in the way.”
In an era increasingly crowded with synthetic sounds and AI slop, Misner & Smith offer something sacred: songs built by hand, shaped by time, honed, lived with, battle-tested and meant to be experienced—body and soul. Misner & Smith paid the dues forward and don’t seem to mind. As they sing in “Little Light,” their album’s final track:
I don’t mind the dark
The dark’s what made a light of me
Misner & Smith bring their full band to HopMonk Sebastopol on Friday, Jan. 16. ‘All Is Song’ is available now. Visit misnerandsmith.com.
It is the dark time of year, and it was just the time of the high holidays. Here I evoke “pagan” Solstice, Christian Christmas and secular New Year’s Day.
Whether observed as a high ritual or as a habit of long standing, each of this close-packed run of dates derives meaning from this time of year, and the turning of the great solar cycle. Variously, each date marks the same meaning—the (re)birth of light and life in the world.
By custom, it is time to ask ourselves, “What does this new year—this new life—bring?”
To answer that, some will “look inside ourselves” and take inventory. Others may consult the great mathematical models of experts to plot trends. Others, still, will consult the tarot spreads. And, to my knowledge, at least one divine will is literally looking inside herself for guidance; Anistara Ma Ka, reader of vulvas, is “the yoni oracle.”
Now reader, before you titter, please consider the words we use for our year-end rites—“birth,” “rebirth” and ritual “passage”—each evoke the birthing canal, and with it archetypes of “the mother.” And that it is everywhere our tradition to regard the fertile earth as a “she” and a “her.” So, among the many and great prognostic and oracular systems, it seems fitting to bow down to this one—as the year and the wintering earth are born new.
Cincinnatus Hibbard: Anistara, tell me about your school and lineage.
Anistara Ma Ka: I learned to be a pussy oracle through the Portal Priestess Mystery School established by Sierra Sullivan.
I understand you are principally in service to women…
I believe that when women are in their full power, they can do great things for this world. Our linear, hierarchical, male-dominating society is breaking down. If divine feminine energy can then arise, then we can come into a more accepting, understanding, compassionate, loving and peaceful age.
I understand your Sacred Portal Puja aims to reconnect women to the power and wisdom of their yonis—in part by shedding shame of their ‘private parts.’
When we don’t embrace and love ourselves completely—including our shamed shadow side—we don’t feel whole and complete, and we have to look outside of ourselves to validate ourselves or feel accepted. When women are disconnected to their yonis, they often fall into abusive relationships with men, or have unsafe sex with a lot of people, or get pregnant too young … I would love to see this work come to young women too, when they are just starting to moon [menstruate]. They could enter womanhood with so much self-worth and power…
To briskly describe the process that results in that reconnection, your Sacred Portal Puja weekend includes lots of trust-building, venting, patriarchal deprogramming, journaling, self-examination with mirrors, a yoni naming ceremony, a collective honoring and praising of each participant’s yonis, as well as the oracular reading of the vulva. And it all takes place within the safe container of sacred sisterhood. The next puja at your private retreat center isMarch 21-22.But tell us about your next event, Jan. 11—which will be online.
It’s called,“New Year, New You.” Between Jan. 1 and Jan. 11, our identity is more pliable. This workshop is about creating your vision for the new year from your new personality rather than your old identity—which will have you falling right back into old patterns. 2025 is the year of the snake. It’s time to shed your old skin.
Learn more: A quick glance menu of Anistara Ma Ka’s many offerings can be seen atlinktr.ee/anistara1111.
At The Lodge at Dawn Ranch, co-executive chef Juliana Thorpe channels her global culinary expertise into a menu that celebrates authenticity and regional abundance.
Her culinary philosophy centers on simplicity and natural ingredients—an approach shaped by her formative years in Matutu, Brazil, where she grew up immersed in the rhythms of nature and agriculture. Surrounded by the South American countryside, Thorpe developed an intimate understanding of food through her family’s vegetarian traditions and garden-to-table lifestyle, forging a connection to ingredients that continues to define her cooking today.
Thorpe’s professional journey spans some of the world’s most distinguished kitchens. She trained under Roberta Sudbrack in Brazil and worked alongside Rafa Costa e Silva at Lasai before expanding her repertoire at Spain’s acclaimed Mugaritz. Her path eventually led here to Northern California, where she refined her craft at the three-Michelin-starred Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa Valley. This experience crystallized her culinary vision: cooking that honors the natural wealth of a region.
Since joining The Lodge in 2023, along with husband and co-chef Ignacio Zuzulich during its relaunch, Thorpe has woven together her Brazilian heritage with the seasonal offerings of Sonoma County. Now entering a new chapter, the refreshed dining experience at The Lodge showcases two distinctive tasting menus, a shorter seven creation format or a more extensive 12-course journey, alongside a seasonal a la carte selection. Depending on the season, guests might encounter oysters with watermelon agua fresca, dadinho de tapioca, gnudi with green pesto and chili oil, spot prawns pasta or Brazilian coconut cake.
Amber Turpin: How did you get into this work?
Juliana Thorpe: I was living in France doing voluntary work that included cooking, and it was what made me the most happy.
Did you ever have an ‘aha’ moment with a certain beverage? If so, tell us about it.
I just love to try new and different stuff.
What is your favorite thing to drink at home?
Good wine or really cold beer. I am from Brazil; I can’t help it.
Where do you like to go out for a drink?
Maison, Healdsburg. They definitely know what they are doing, and you always learn something new while having amazing wine.
If you were stuck on a desert island, what would you want to be drinking (besides fresh water)?
Sparkling apple juice.
The Lodge at Dawn Ranch, 16467 CA-116, Guerneville, 707.869.0656. dawnranch.com/dine.
Music takes on a deeper purpose at The Art of Healing, a benefit concert dedicated to supporting the recovery of Oshalla Marcus, executive director of the Marin City Art & Culture Center, following a life-threatening stroke. Conceived as a restorative musical journey, the evening, at the Throckmorton Theatre, centers on sound as a force for resilience, connection and renewal. The lineup includes Steven Halpern, a globally recognized pioneer of modern sound healing, alongside James Henry and the Hands on Fire Band. Cabaret performer and musical storyteller Craig Jessup adds narrative panache, while Piwai and the Bassmint Quartet weave mbira, bass and rhythm into music grounded in healing traditions. 7–9pm, Sunday, Jan. 18, Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley. Tickets $50–$100. throckmortontheatre.org.
Corte Madera
Artists & AI
What is the role of the artist when the machine picks up a pen—or composes a symphony? Emmy Award-winning composer and producer Lucas Cantor Santiago comes to Corte Madera’s Book Passage to explore that question in conversation with astrophysicist and author Adam Becker. The event centers on Santiago’s new book, Unfinished: The Role of the Artist in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, a clear-eyed and surprisingly optimistic meditation on creativity in an era of accelerating technology. Once a self-described luddite, Santiago’s perspective shifted after an unlikely commission: collaborating with artificial intelligence to complete Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, a project that drew international attention and forced a rethinking of authorship, tradition and innovation. Drawing on deep experience in both the arts and tech worlds, the discussion traces the long arc from bone flutes to algorithms, asking not only what is lost when machines enter the creative process—but what might be gained.
4pm, Sunday, Jan. 18, Book Passage Corte Madera, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. bookpassage.com.
Sonoma
Bowl of Terriers
Life Is Just a Bowl of Terriers offers a retrospective look at one of Northern California’s most idiosyncratic voices. A key figure in the Bay Area’s Funk Art movement of the late ’60s and ’70s, Maija Peeples-Bright built a singular visual universe crowded with animals—her beloved “beasties”—stacked, multiplied and set loose in surreal, often absurd scenarios. Painted in thick, audacious impasto, her canvases brim with energy, texture and a mischievous sense of excess, filling every inch with creaturely invention. This exhibition, at Sonoma Valley Museum of Art (SVMA), traces her evolution from the Funk years to the present, revealing a practice that has always reveled in imagination and humor. 5–7pm, Saturday, Jan. 24, opening reception at SVMA. Free for SVMA members; $10 for non-members. Pre-registration required; registration closes 5pm, Jan. 22. svma.org.
Healdsburg
Joni Revisited
The Joni Mitchell Situation brings Mitchell’s songbook into intimate focus at Furthermore Wine and Music Lounge, tracing her ballads, art songs and jazz-inflected turns with equal care and wit. Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Kate Foley-Beining leads the evening, moving easily between piano, guitar and dulcimer while drawing out the emotional elasticity of Mitchell’s writing. She’s joined by a seasoned Sonoma County rhythm section—Tom Shader on bass, Kevin Dillon on drums and Christian Foley-Beining on guitar—capable of shifting from lyrical restraint to improvisational swing. The setlist spans eras and moods, touching on everything from “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” to “The Fiddle and the Drum,” and reflects Mitchell’s enduring refusal to stay in one genre for long. 5:30–8:30pm, Friday, Jan. 30; Saturday, Feb. 28; and Thursday, March 19, Furthermore Wine and Music Lounge, 328A Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. furthermorewines.com/events.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The mystics drone on endlessly about letting go. But I’m here now to praise the art of holding on fiercely, tenderly, with full commitment. Some treasures deserve your passionate grip. Some people warrant your loyal devotion. Especially in the coming months, dear Aries, I invite you to devote yourself to your exciting dreams with ardent intensity. No surrender. Relentless perseverance. Uncompromising faith in the beauty and truth you love. What looks like stubbornness to outsiders will actually be fidelity to a vision others can’t yet see.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): As far back as the 19th century, daredevil college students in the UK have reveled in the practice of “night climbing.” They clamber up chapels, spires, towers and bridges under cover of darkness. Why? Mainly for adventure, mischief and altered perspectives. In the coming months, Taurus, you may be ready for your own symbolic version of night climbing. If that sounds fun, seek out vantage points you’ve never accessed. Experiment with possibilities you’ve dismissed as off-limits or outside your range. Be safe, of course, but also be joyfully exploratory. I bet the view from the frontiers will change you in inspiring ways.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In the coming months, I’m confident you will see and understand subtleties that most people miss. You’ll be a maestro at tuning in to nuanced subtexts in conversations and hidden openings in stale situations. Everyone else may assume that familiar situations will never change, but you will have the power to tease out creative possibilities. You might even decode seemingly contradictory truths with such aplomb that you surprise yourself. Use this superpower with as much kindness as you can, Gemini. Some discoveries may tempt you toward clever mischief, but I hope that instead you will choose inspired guidance. Your expanded spectrum, if spiced with compassion, can consistently reveal your next leap.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): The honeyguide bird of Africa has a lucrative arrangement with humans. It calls out to honey-hunters, leading them through brush to wild beehives built into trees. The people harvest the honey, and the bird eats the leftover wax and larvae. This cooperation is passed down over generations and benefits both species. Let’s use this as a metaphor for your future in 2026. You will have extra power to notice where mutual benefit is possible, even with unexpected allies. They may be able to guide you toward resources you couldn’t find alone, and you will have value to give in return. Keep an ear out for signals that say, “Come with me, and we’ll both gain.”
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris took years to build. Work began in 1163 and continued till 1345. Generations of architects, masons and artisans contributed to the project, and those who began it didn’t live to see it completed. Yet they labored with devotion, trusting that the holy beauty they facilitated would endure beyond their lifetimes. I hope you’re inspired by this story, Leo. It’s an apt metaphor for you. In the coming months, you could and should lay stones for creations you may not see fully accomplished for months or even years. I encourage you to redefine and refine what faith means to you, and summon it in abundance.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Ready to decommission your inner censor? Interested in dropping the mask, relaxing your guard and rewilding your gorgeous but slightly inhibited self? That’s what I recommend. Here are ways to fully enjoy the liberating grace period of the coming months: 1. Don’t deny yourself pleasures that would be healthy to indulge. 2. Shed taboos that were smart safeguards once upon a time but are no longer. 3. Re-evaluate why you treat certain fun activities as questionable. 4. Be brightly compassionate toward aspects of yourself you regard as wounded or inferior. 5. Be receptive to rebellious urges.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In 1839, French artist Louis Daguerre perfected the daguerreotype, an early type of photography. The images were so detailed that you could count the threads in a subject’s clothing. The only downside: They required minutes of perfect stillness to capture. A slight twitch or squirm could blur the picture. People held their breath and resisted the urge to fidget, hoping to preserve the magic moment. In this spirit, Libra, let’s make the “long exposure” your power metaphor during the coming months. The most useful truths will reveal themselves best if you give them time to develop. In conversations, resist filling every silence. In projects, don’t rush the pace. Have patient fun lingering on the threshold as the mysteries coalesce and clarify.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In 1907, Scorpio artist Pablo Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. It was a work so radically different from his earlier art and from the era’s norms that even his friends were stunned. Some called it ugly; others, incomprehensible. Yet the painting became a foundation of Cubism and reshaped modern art. Dear Scorpio, I suspect you may be on the verge of your own “Les Demoiselles” phase in 2026: unveiling novel approaches and innovative changes so original that they rattle comfortable assumptions. Don’t be discouraged if the initial responses don’t bring you appreciation. The root-shaking breakthroughs you’re consorting with may take others a while to recognize and welcome.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): You Sagittarians are often drawn to teaching. You have a predilection and a passion for sharing what you have learned from your adventures and explorations. Many of you also possess a related gift: helping people make the journey to where enlightening lessons can best occur. You have a knack for opening their minds and clearing the way so they can awaken to new ways of seeing and imagining the world. I hope you will provide both of these blessings in abundance during the coming months. Your ability to inspire and educate will be at a peak.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The coming months are ripe for sacred audacity: boldness with a conscience and courage guided by kindness. Imagine you’re a Benevolent Initiator, whose superpower is to kindle beginnings without causing disruption and unease. Practice brilliant, incremental nudges and tweaks rather than grand interventions. If you’re hesitating to say what needs to be said, deliver a modest version now and a stronger one later. Make gradual momentum your ally. Homework: Identify a future scene you want to generate and take three elegantly simple steps toward it.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Safety isn’t the opposite of adventure. It’s the infrastructure that lets adventure be expansive. Keep that in mind in the coming months, Aquarius. You will be wise to cultivate cozy bravery. You should relax deeply and nurture your strength. Build the support system for your future boldness. Then, in the second half of 2026, you will be well-prepared to launch a phase of experimental fun and exploratory learning. For best results, surround yourself with love and care. Decide who best supports you, and make it attractive for them to support you.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): High in the Andes Mountains, farmers have for centuries made chuño, a freeze-dried potato that can last for years. They leave the potatoes outside overnight to let the freezing temperatures draw out the water. In the daytime, the strong sunlight and dry mountain air evaporate residual moisture. By this process, a perishable food becomes a long-lasting staple. I propose we make the chuño your symbol of power, Pisces. The coming months will be an ideal time to build reserves. I hope you will turn what you have grown and developed into resources that will nourish you well into the future.
To add to Craig Corsini’s observation (‘Party Foul,’ Dec. 31): Finally, someone who gets it.
I am neither a liberal nor a conservative and toe no party line. I don’t know much and kind of like it that way, but what I do know is this: Both parties are filled with bad people who are ruining everything.
To my point: Nothing will come from the Epstein files. Sadly, it’s nothing but a diversion by those in power so they can continue to rape, pillage and plunder the planet.
Remember, you only know what they want you to know. This isn’t America slipping into a Nazi Germany; this is the fall of Rome. And it’s just beginning.
I am a citizen of planet Earth who has had it up to here and is sick to his stomach.
David Dale Sonoma
X Factor
Elon Musk’s disastrous changes at X, such as rolling back content moderation policies and creator payouts, have turned it into a platform where the right mainly argues with the extreme right.
Now, even right-wingers are perturbed by how popular bigotry and conspiracy theories are becoming on X, as feuds and controversies erupt there and shake the GOP.
Now this I do not understand. The GOP/MAGA/“not so” right wing wanted this. Now they are saying there are too many nattering nabobs of negativism?
The U.S. has overthrown the Maduro regime in Venezuela; captured its leader, Nicolas Maduro; and occupied the country.
Continuing a long history of U.S. interventions in Latin America, Donald Trump has vowed to “run the country until such time that we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”
The U.S. policy of regime change had been telegraphed for months, as Trump ramped up attacks on supposed Venezuelan drug boats, imposed an oil blockade and ordered a CIA drone strike on a Venezuelan dock alleged to be used for loading drugs.
Now those clear violations of international and U.S. law and false allegations about Venezuela’s role in the fentanyl trade are ending with an occupation and U.S. control of Venezuela’s oil-based economy.
The U.S. action is consistent with “America First,” said Trump, citing the need for oil and energy:
“The U.S. will be in charge of Venezuela’s oil industry. We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country.”
So, in a word, it’s imperialism—and a clear sign that for Trump, dominance in Latin America is his top foreign policy objective.
We now await word about whom Trump will select to be America’s puppet in Caracas—with Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth as their overlords.
The U.S. intervention comes despite a call by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum for UN action to prevent the crisis, and despite polls showing around 75% of Americans oppose an invasion of Venezuela.
Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Cuba and Brazil were among the Latin American countries that have condemned the U.S. invasion of Venezuela. France’s foreign ministry also did so. President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil said the U.S. attacks “crossed an unacceptable line,” set a “dangerous precedent” and evoked “the worst moments of interference” in Latin America.
Russia also criticized the U.S., but Moscow must be pleased that the U.S. has emulated Russia in attacking a sovereign nation.
Mel Gurtov is professor emeritus of political science at Portland State University.
Tourist Town
I would like to formally apologize to the tourists, for living in Petaluma before they discovered it.
I realize now this was presumptuous of me. Had I known my hometown would become a recreational backdrop for other people’s Instagrammable weekends, I would have cleared out decades ago. These days, Petaluma feels less like my town and more like I...
This is the first of a three-part series on the effect of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence in our community. —Editor
Part One: Initiation Into the Fear
My “handler” was a friend of a friend of a friend. That delicate linkage was a conduit of trust.
Trust enough to meet me anyhow; ICE informants had made his work more dangerous....
Now that Ralphie got his BB gun, Scrooge became a better person and George Bailey decided he really did have a wonderful life, it’s time for North Bay theater companies to get their 2026 shows on the road.
Petaluma’s Mercury Theater is first out of the gate with Woody Guthrie’s American Song. It’s a musical tribute to the American folk...
Some albums announce themselves with urgency. Others arrive the way wisdom does—slowly, after enough living has occurred to make the listening worthwhile. All Is Song, the new record by Northern California duo Misner & Smith, firmly belongs to the latter category.
The album has been six years in the making, conceived in 2017 and shaped in fits, starts, pauses and...
It is the dark time of year, and it was just the time of the high holidays. Here I evoke “pagan” Solstice, Christian Christmas and secular New Year’s Day.
Whether observed as a high ritual or as a habit of long standing, each of this close-packed run of dates derives meaning from this time of year, and the turning of...
At The Lodge at Dawn Ranch, co-executive chef Juliana Thorpe channels her global culinary expertise into a menu that celebrates authenticity and regional abundance.
Her culinary philosophy centers on simplicity and natural ingredients—an approach shaped by her formative years in Matutu, Brazil, where she grew up immersed in the rhythms of nature and agriculture. Surrounded by the South American countryside,...
Mill Valley
Art of Healing
Music takes on a deeper purpose at The Art of Healing, a benefit concert dedicated to supporting the recovery of Oshalla Marcus, executive director of the Marin City Art & Culture Center, following a life-threatening stroke. Conceived as a restorative musical journey, the evening, at the Throckmorton Theatre, centers on sound as a force for resilience,...
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The mystics drone on endlessly about letting go. But I’m here now to praise the art of holding on fiercely, tenderly, with full commitment. Some treasures deserve your passionate grip. Some people warrant your loyal devotion. Especially in the coming months, dear Aries, I invite you to devote yourself to your exciting dreams with ardent...
Rome Burns
To add to Craig Corsini’s observation (‘Party Foul,’ Dec. 31): Finally, someone who gets it.
I am neither a liberal nor a conservative and toe no party line. I don’t know much and kind of like it that way, but what I do know is this: Both parties are filled with bad people who are ruining everything.
To my point:...
The U.S. has overthrown the Maduro regime in Venezuela; captured its leader, Nicolas Maduro; and occupied the country.
Continuing a long history of U.S. interventions in Latin America, Donald Trump has vowed to “run the country until such time that we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”
The U.S. policy of regime change had been telegraphed for months, as...
