‘The Tempest’

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‘The Tempest’

Photograph by Seymour and Macintosh

Tempest Tossed: Wallace Henderson Ingalls as Caliban, Nina Auslander as Trincula, and Peter Temple as Stephano.

On Prospera’s Island

Napa Valley Shakespeare Festival’s ‘The Tempest’ brings womanly energy to the storm

By Sara Bir

Shakespeare, like Hollywood, was not a big crafter of spectacular roles for adult women. Go figure–back in the Bard’s day, willowy adolescent boys played the female roles, and it was often easier for them to convincingly pull off virginal maidens than worldly mothers.

So the mother-daughter relationship does not get much service in Shakespeare’s plays; rather, it’s fathers and daughters (e.g., King Lear) that get the lion’s share of attention. In the Napa Valley Shakespeare Festival’s production of The Tempest, the shifting of the sorcerer Prospero to the sorceress Prospera–the thwarted duchess of Milan–alters the focus from father-daughter to mother-daughter, and thus introduces an intriguing new set of dynamics to the play.

Years ago, Prospera’s brother Antonio usurped her dukedom and set her adrift on a decaying boat with her daughter Miranda. They now occupy a tiny, featureless island where Prospera dotes lovingly over Miranda and asserts her magical powers over the shapeshifting servant Ariel and the pathetic half-fish, half-witch creature Caliban.

When a tempest threatens a ship carrying the king of Naples and his party (including Prospera’s wayward brother Antonio), Prospera conjures up winds to draw the ship to the island. The king’s son Ferdinand washes ashore alone–much to Prospera’s design–and soon he stumbles upon the nubile Miranda.

Beth Kellermann’s Prospera isn’t so much a dynamic, all-powerful force on the island as she is a maternally vengeful manipulator. She yearns to preserve Miranda’s youth, yet it’s clear that her daughter’s ambitions are outgrowing the confines of the island.

Nesbyth Rieman and Chester See make fairly tepid young lovers Miranda and Ferdinand. Miranda spends the duration of the play in constant wide-eyed wonder that borders on simpering, while Ferdinand comes across as little more than a Disney cipher.

The comic trio of Caliban, the drunken butler Stephano, and the wenchlike cook Trincula steal the show with their bright, playful costumes and stumbling intoxicated antics. They’re obviously having a blast onstage. Wallace Henderson Ingalls’ wonderfully loathsome Caliban looks like he crawled out of a radioactive swamp, creeping lowly across the periphery of the set and speaking as if the barnacles encrusting his sickly green arm also infested his throat.

As Ariel, Natalie Adona brings a lithe athleticism to the weightless “airy spirit.” She soars across the set, poised and fluttering and unflappable.

Napa Valley Shakespeare Festival artistic director Mary Fullerton (who also directed the play) and costume designer Loran Watkins do a fine job of integrating the costumes, props, and puppetry (courtesy of the Magical Moonshine Puppet Theatre, and a dramatic extended metaphor for Prospera’s control over the island) so that the distinction between real and unreal is blurred into enchanted swirls of fabric, skull-faced phantoms, prancing goddesses, and decaying trails of flotsam. Music and song have always played an important supporting role in The Tempest, and the music and sound effects never fail to chime in just as magical doings stir.

This is the Napa Valley Shakespeare Festival’s second season at the Napa River Mill, and The Tempest is a natural for its outdoor riverside setting. As twilight falls, random seagulls swoop into the set’s rafters, and cool breezes set Prospera’s enchanted cape fluttering. Guests at the very nearby Napa River Inn can sit out on their rooms’ balconies as if they were box seats, and theatergoers can purchase wines and foods for a posh theatergoing experience. Which is nice, but this gender-shuffling Tempest needs no liquid spirits in order to sweep its audience away.

‘The Tempest’ runs Aug. 22-24 and 29-30 at 7pm. Riverbend Performance Plaza at the Napa River Mill, 500 Main St., Napa. $14-$24. 707.251.WILL. www.napashakespeare.org.

From the August 21-27, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

VW Lupo

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Swung for a Lupo

VW’s most fuel-efficient car isn’t available in the U.S.

By Joy Lanzendorfer

Since you’ve probably never seen a Volkswagen Lupo, let me describe it to you. For one thing, it’s cute. It’s not quite as cute as a VW Beetle, but still pretty darn adorable for a car. It weighs less than a ton, great for weaving in and out of traffic. Though it’s not the fastest car on the road, it can go from zero to 62 mph in 8.3 seconds, according to the British VW website. It’s a marvel of engineering with a three-cylinder, 1.2-liter diesel engine. And if you wanted to, you could grow your own fuel to run it.

Best of all, the Lupo has gotten up to 99 miles per gallon in test drives, though in normal driving situations, it may be closer to 78 miles per gallon. It has been called the most fuel-efficient car in the world.

But VW has no plans to sell the Lupo in the United States. The company believes there is no market for fuel-efficient cars in our SUV-populated country.

Local programmer Saill White started an online petition to change VW’s mind about the car. White commutes from Oakland to her job in Petaluma. Though she’s happy with her 1993 VW Passat, she has been looking for a newer, more efficient car. She heard about the Lupo from colleagues.

“I saw it online and thought, ‘Oh, this is what I want!'” she says. “But when I called Volkswagen America to ask when the Lupo would be available here, they said they aren’t going to sell it in the United States. After some pleading and whining on my part, they suggested I petition it.”

In June, White launched a website (www.lupousa.com) with an online petition asking people to sign if they want VW to sell the Lupo here. White sent the first batch of 500 signatures to Volkswagen a little over a month later. As of this writing, the petition has nearly 700 signatures.

Volkswagen told White they have given the petition to marketing and will get back to her. In the meantime, White plans to continue gathering signatures and will send the company a batch every 500 names or so.

Though there are a number of reasons why VW doesn’t sell the Lupo here, the main concern seems to be that the market isn’t big enough to justify the cost of meeting U.S. safety standards.

But White believes she’s part of an untapped niche looking for cars like the Lupo.

“I really thought about the market a lot,” she says. “And I don’t think it’s true there is no market here, though I think it may be kind of hidden. There are a lot of people like me who are concerned with fuel-efficiency and having a ‘green’ car, but aren’t as concerned about price.”

There are reasons to wonder if the Lupo would do well in the United States. Some reviews of the car say its lightweight frame makes for a loud and bumpy ride. Other reviewers say it’s slow to accelerate though able to maintain speed well. And the small size of the car may turn some people off, especially at $13,000 to $14,000.

But despite the downsides, word of mouth seems to be spreading.

“We’ve had quite a few people ask about the Lupo,” says Jason Smith, a sales consultant for Prestige Imports in Santa Rosa. “I think the market would be perfect for it. I really think the Lupo could compete with other cars in its class.”

The Lupo would also encounter difficulties coming into California. In 2006, California will restrict the import of diesel engines to cut down the pollution caused by high-sulfur diesel.

The irony is that such laws could keep environmentally friendly cars like the Lupo out. Since the Lupo uses far less gas, it gives off less pollution than other cars.

The Lupo could also use low-sulfur diesel, which sells for about $2 a gallon, and biodiesel vegetable oil that has been treated to have the same viscosity as diesel. Biodiesel is 100 percent renewable, doesn’t pollute, and is good for most cars, though using it may void some warranties. You can even make biodiesel yourself using waste oil from restaurants, according to Lindsay Hassett of the Sonoma County Biodiesel Co-op.

“Diesel engines have been getting a lot of bad press for pollution,” Hassett says. “Because of that, I believe the Lupo would have a tough time coming to California.”

At this point, VW has not said how many signatures it needs before it considers marketing the Lupo here.

“I have no idea how many they want,” says White. “But 700 seems like a good start.”

From the August 21-27, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Randy Newman

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Randy Newman

Life Imitating Art: The self-discovery aspects of Randy Newman’s songs sometimes sneak up on him.

Political Science

Randy Newman on power, politics, and Gary Coleman

By Greg Cahill

Randy Newman is bright and chipper, and he has good reasons to be. After all, the 60-year-old pop music star and film composer has a new record deal (Nonesuch Records), a new CD (a solo piano songbook and the first of a planned three-part career retrospective), and a new soundtrack (to the Oscar-bound feel-good racehorse saga Seabiscuit).

So what’s the first thing he wants to talk about during a phone call from the office of his Los Angeles publicist? “Hey, who’s the North Bay Bohemian backing in the recall election?”

Can’t answer that question, Randy, but personally I’m taking a close look at diminutive former child actor Gary Coleman because he stands for the little guy.

“Is he really running?” asks the incredulous singer and songwriter, who once was vilified for his 1977 hit “Short People,” a satire on prejudice that was seen as an attack on the vertically challenged.

“How can this situation be more fantastic than it already is?” asks Newman, marveling at the absurdity of it all. “I’ll have to back him.”

Certainly you couldn’t credibly make up a scenario in which 135 people are on the recall ballot and the apparent frontrunner is a Hollywood actor and political neophyte beloved for his role as a brutal cyborg. “It would be like a bad Paul Mazursky movie,” Newman says, referring to the writer and director of Down and Out in Beverly Hills.

The rest of the allotted 15-minute interview is a little like speed dating, with Newman offering his views on classic literature (“The Iliad is great, except that it’s 600 pages of straight gore. The most violent book I ever read–it’s worse than [pulp fiction novelist] Jim Thompson”), film, religion, and politics.

Oh yeah, and then there’s the new retrospective showcasing one of pop music’s most reflective, insightful, probing, and at times outright sardonic writers. Which begs the question: To what extent is songwriting a process of self-discovery for Newman?

“It really is more than I would have admitted to 20 years ago or so,” Newman concedes. “Things I have written that I thought had nothing to do with me will sneak up later on and I’ll say, ‘Uh-oh.’ Take a song like [1972’s] ‘Old Man,’ which I thought was so cold and so hard. It’s about a father-son relationship. The old man dies. He’s raised his son to feel nothing and sure enough the son feels nothing and the father gets nothing in return. When my dad died, it wasn’t quite that bad, but it was too close for comfort.

“I guess you can say that, despite the fact that I write character studies, you can make a better guess what I was writing about than you can with a writer who writes openly confessional songs.”

And then there’s the big picture. Over the years, Newman has penned the scores to several films that chronicle the nation’s struggle for its soul (Avalon, The Natural, Ragtime, Seabiscuit), and he’s often blended beautiful melodies and dark prose about America’s failure to live up to its high ideals. For instance, on the song “Sail Away,” the sentimental melody belies clever lyrics that portray a slave trader trying to lure Africans to the New World with the promise of a better life.

While the post-9-11 period hasn’t inspired Newman to pen any new songs (it’s been four years since his last pop album), he’s clearly thought a lot about what events say about us as a society. After all, this is the guy whose 1972 satirical ditty “Political Science” mused on the shortcomings of our allies (“They all hate us anyhow / So let’s drop the big one now”). It was a cleverly cynical tune that now reads like a U.S. foreign-policy statement.

“It may not be the worst we’ve ever behaved, but it is the most openly arrogant that we’ve ever been,” he observes. “I mean, you can be arrogant behind the scenes in the CIA and assassinate people in secret, but to say we don’t need the Old Europe . . . I never thought that people would come close to being as loony as they are in that song. It’s just unbelievable.”

Randy Newman performs Monday, Aug. 25, at 8pm at the Luther Burbank Center for Performing Arts, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. Tickets are $35 and $45. 707.546.3600.

From the August 21-27, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Accordionists

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Accordionists

Photograph by Diane Malek

And the Accordionists Shall Inherit The Earth: Lou Jacklich (left), one of our most accomplished operatives, performs with his star student, Jeremy Jeans, at 11:05am on Saturday at the Cotati Accordion Festival.

Accordion Manifesto!

The time has come to talk tough about the accordion revolution

By

Accordionists! Our day has come!

The time of insults about white belts and shoes, and the accursed mockery of our sacred anthem “Lady of Spain” are over. The bitter inmates incarcerated for the “crime” of using an accordion will now draw their revenge! We have suffered anti-accordionist discrimination. We have seen the social consequences of the rise of the electric guitar: bad attitude, poor grooming, and declines in trigonometry scores. [Catcalls, boos, cries of “Revenge!”] Soon, the world will tremble at the wrath of our instruments! Woe to those who stand in our way!

Thirteen years after our first meetings in a small Northern California town, we now have sufficient strength to invade. Our upcoming target is familiar to some of you from our early days of dispersion: a six-sided plaza in this small town strategically controlling Highway 101, just south of Santa Rosa.

At 0945 hours on the morning of Aug. 23, strike teams code-named “Universal,” “Hohner,” “Columbo and Sons,” “Parrot,” “Excelsior,” and “Bugari” will converge on each of the six sides of the main plaza of this hamlet. The natives call it Cotati–a name that will live in history.

Over both days of the weekend, we will rally support from San Francisco–an accordion-prone city, ready to fall into our hands without a fight, like a ripe Gravenstein apple. In Los Angeles and points south, untold millions favor the button box in ranchera music. We can count upon their support as well. Fellow accordionists! What is the so-called Nortena music but the polka, cleverly disguised to fly under the radar of antipolka legislation?

Weird Al Yankovich is back on the airwaves. Our commandos are working behind the scenes to ensure California will have a pro-accordionist governor shortly. Our special operative is from Austria, the birthplace of the accordion in the early 1840s. By Thanksgiving, all will play the accordion! [Applause.]

Now, I’d like to turn this meeting over to the information officer.

Yes, thank you, Major Bellows, for your stirring words. Portable, sturdy, and most of all loud, the accordion was built to travel. “The instrument of unsuccessful men, of poor immigrants and failures,” argued E. Annie Proulx, whose novel Accordion Dreams depicted the colonization of our country in terms of the journey of our sacred musical instrument. European immigrants to North America–Scandinavians, Italians, Central Europeans–all brought accordions to tame the frontier. Failures? Tell it to Lawrence Welk.

In faraway Argentina, the bandoneon–an instrument whose fingering its master Astor Piazzolla used to call “diabolical”–had been intended for use playing liturgical music but then left the churches for the brothels in order to create the tango. The accordion’s musical likeness to an early free-reed instrument–the 2500 year old sheng, said to imitate the cry of the phoenix–has made Asia a hotbed of accordionism.

In Russia, the accordion is practically the national instrument. A quote from Maxim Gorky’s novel Mother: “He did all a young lad should do–bought himself an accordion, a shirt with a starched front, a loud-colored necktie, and a cane.” Presently, the “accordion gene” is found in most of the world’s peoples and popular music, making the task ahead of us all the easier.

At this point, I’d like to discuss some information gathered from the promoters of the so-called 13th annual Cotati Accordion Festival, the cover for our invasion. Participants at this event range from young (the O’Grady Family band) to elder (Lou Jacklich, who claims a near 70-year passion for the instrument). The Mexican R&B band Dr. Loco y Sus Tiberones del Norte wrap up the Sunday night show.

Odile Lavault, a talented San Francisco bal musette player with the Baguette Quartet, will be on-hand performing a series of Argentinian orquesta tipica traditional tangos with her new ensemble Marcelo Tango. Daniel Thonon, the Belgian-born musician famed for his group Ad Vielle Que Pourra, is playing in a duet with the singer Dominique Dupire, under the code name “Le Temps du Cerises.” The two specialize in French chansons–the cafe music of eastern Paris. Oh, have no fear, soldiers: In our struggle, the French are with us this time.

The musical jackassery of Those Darn Accordions! will entertain the troops with a repertoire of novelty songs and vintage polka. While you men know I’m not a fan of so-called rock and roll [good-natured hisses and boos] TDA!’s version of Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge” has a warm spot in my heart.

I’d like to mention the capital work Jason Webley’s been doing for us in Seattle. Webley’s combination of commedia dell’arte and macabre cabaret absolutely slew a crowd at the Oakland performance space 21 Grand recently. Observers think of Tom Waits when they see Webley, probably because of his raspy voice and the reedy squeezebox. But on a song like “Time Is Not Your Friend,” Webley’s hypnotic powers not only make you embrace your mortality, they make you like it.

During an intelligence-gathering session, we also interrogated this festival’s honorary director Julio Morgani about his upcoming appearance on A-Days one and two. A well-known operative in Santa Cruz, Morgani’s elaborate costumes have made him a rallying figure for accordionist activities. He’s dressed as insects, aliens, and even a human Oscar for Academy Awards parties.

Let’s do the numbers. Morgani owns 33 accordions, has 50 outfits, knows 1,291 songs, has been playing for 52 years and has, he claims, “more shoes than Imelda Marcos, and mine are prettier.” Morgani’s unique method involves costuming the accordions themselves, using “stretch lycra bathing-suit material. It’s actually fairly easy. I can’t remember what accordions that are under these things. . . .”

The Great Morgani admits to the discomfiture of older members of the accordionist persuasion–those who favor formal attire and sober, starless and bible-black squeezeboxes. Yet Morgani’s turn for flamboyance may be the weapon we need to win the hearts and minds of the young. His musical repertoire includes the collected works of Fellini’s soundtrack composer Nino Rota–“My soul music”–though the Great Morgani can be caught performing anything from the theme song from Amélie to “Stairway to Heaven.” Morgani’s dress is as eclectic as his music.

Clifton Buck-Kauffman, a local operative in the festival and the owner of Prairie Sun Recording, asks us to remember that this weekend’s festival is a benefit. The previous nine years of paid admission have raised more than $150,000 for various school programs. This festival has not only put Cotati on the map, it’s also helped revive the accordion from dormancy. In addition, the festival’s founder, Jim Boggio, of the Swamp Dogs (his statue stands in the Plaza, a monument to an early fighter for our cause) will be memorialized in scholarships for young accordionists.

Those young students will never know of our days of struggle. No Internet existed to connect us; there was no Boaz or Smythe in Oakland to spread the word. A person like myself could be stopped and questioned because I was–I am–an accordionist. I will say it again: I am an accordionist, and I have no guilt. [Applause.]

We can, I say with confidence, count on community support for our heroic undertaking and expect a crowd of some 3,000 a day. Ground support on this weekend includes a polka tent with music by Steve Balich equipped with a springboard floor, a Louisiana-music dance by Al Rapone’s Zydeco Express at the Cotati Community Center, and a BYOA jam tent.

At 3pm daily is the mass performance of “Lady of Spain.” No words can describe the gallant sound of some 50 accordions united. We band of botherers! All of us sounding as one instrument–one hellish, monstrous, and out-of-tune instrument. Morgani councils playing “Skater’s Waltz” in the same chords, as a jazzy counterpoint. The resulting vibrations have been known to rattle windows as far away as Sausalito.

There you have it, men. Carry low-profile canvas chairs. It’ll be hot, so dress accordingly. Or, if you’ll permit me a small joke, accordiongly. Our arpeggios will change the world! We stand like the Spartans, only with banyans, melodicas, and chromatics instead of spears and shields. We cannot fail. We will not fail.

Free soil, free men, free reeds!

From the August 21-27, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Washoe House

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Washoe House

Photograph By Michael Amsler

Shoe-’nuff: Cheryl Jensen, manager and bartender at the Washoe House. Her parents have owned the business for 30 years.

Beating the Roadhouse Blues

Before wine country, there was Washoe House

By Sara Bir

Roadhouse: A tavern, inn, or, especially, a nightclub at the side of a road in the country.

That’s what the ol’ Webster’s New World Dictionary had to say about roadhouses. I though I would be safe and make sure I knew exactly what a roadhouse was before I went blabbing on about how you don’t see many roadhouses around anymore.

So, yeah, you don’t see too many roadhouses around anymore. Dive bars and shady spots are not too tough to locate, but places of those persuasions located out in the country are a dying breed. Maybe Red’s Recovery Room is a roadhouse, though it’s more of a bar and less of a tavern.

If you want the real thing, hoof out to Washoe House, whose wonderfully informative paper placemats claim it to be “the oldest roadhouse in the state.” This could possibly be disputed, but by whom? The place has been around since 1859, so by now it’s earned the right not to be argued with.

It’s in a lovely spot, right off of Stony Point Road, where Rohnert Park sprawl melts away and the hills are golden and rolling and left alone to look scenic. And there are no grapevines in sight. It’s like the time-warp zone of Sonoma County.

Washoe House used to get a lot of action. It’s easy to walk into the bar and imagine ruffians with wild, unkempt facial hair brawling over the ladies upstairs–and that’s where the real action came in. Washoe House was a brothel, perhaps a bit like the one Cathy ran in East of Eden. I imagine not many whorehouses look like Washoe House anymore, either, but the whores are long gone anyway. You can get grub and libations there, but no libidinous action.

Washoe House is like the un-wine country. What you get there is California food and not California cuisine. Some movie location scout apparently was drawn to Washoe House’s lived-in charm, because it appears in that Clint Eastwood movie True Crime. The parking lot itself is the first good sign. It’s spacious, so you pull in and get the sensation that they’ve been waiting just for you.

There are a few different rooms to dine in (with country wallpaper or without), but the best one is the barroom. On the wall there’s one of those late 19th-century paintings of a smooth, fleshy nude Venus lounging on some clouds, attended by cherubs (one of whom seems to be giving Venus mouth-to-mouth resuscitation)–very 1860s whorehouse. Immediately next to it hangs a framed cartoon of a man on the crapper that reads “The only guy in here who knows what he’s doing.”

Washoe House’s ceiling, undoubtedly its most famous feature, is invisible–meaning the actual ceiling itself is obscured by decades’ worth of dollar bills, business cards, photographs, and do-dads by the score. There’s probably at least a thousand bucks stuck up there, though it’s mostly dust-covered and yellowed and brittle now. I can’t look at the ceiling too long without losing my appetite. But it’s almost as if the dollar bills are ghost money leeching down from upstairs, where so many amorous transactions transpired. The ceiling is tiled with whores’ money!

There’s a good mix of clientele. A lot of them are older, just nice, normal folks who want a plate of honest grub. During an early dinner, I spotted a lot of really great crusty old guys at the bar, rolling dice with the bartender. A lot of places have all kinds of antiques and junk tacked up behind their bars, but Washoe House’s old junk has a patina of authenticity about it. Don’t bother bringing reading material; just look at the décor.

They just recently changed over the jukebox to digital. It used to play vinyl singles, a Washoe-lovin’ friend of mine informed me. I saw the waitress go over and punch in a few Eagles songs. (I think there’s a law that every jukebox in America must contain selections by the Eagles and Creedence Clearwater Revival.)

I’m guessing people go here for the atmosphere primarily, though the food is in keeping with the spirit of the place. The menu is posted up on the wall, written on a chalkboard and a dry-erase board. And it’s fairly easy to comprehend, because it’s filled with the kind of stuff we’re all familiar with: New York strip steak, battered jumbo prawns, broiled salmon and halibut, burgers, club sandwiches, prime rib.

Entrées come with bread and a green salad or soup. The salads consist of kidney beans and iceberg lettuce, with an equal volume of dressing to lettuce, so if you are one of those dressing fiends, have at it. The blue cheese in particular is fine and rich, very mayonnaisey.

I think it’s great that with most entrées you not only get bread, but home-baked biscuits too. It’s like a two-course carb-tasting menu. The bread is perfectly serviceable, though I’d advise holding out for the fluffy, crumbly-as-heck warm biscuits (drizzled, perhaps, with some honey to make for a sticky mess).

Mr. Bir du Jour got the fish and chips ($8.75), and he liked it OK, though I had reservations about the breading on the fish, which shared a few too many qualities with Shake ‘N Bake. The chips were broad and flat and much more chiplike than most “chips.” Instead of the typical cole slaw that comes with a lot of fish and chip dinners, Washoe House provides a big helping of mushy canned green beans. So unexpected!

The chicken in a basket ($8.75) is, more technically, half a chicken in a basket. Breast, wing, thigh, drumstick–that’s a lot of chicken. It all sits on top of a pile of fries that are identical to the chips, but since they don’t come with fish, they are, in this case, fries. I’ve had better fried chicken before (it’s pretty much just that–chicken, fried), but it was nice to see that Washoe House does not use some weird frozen, prebreaded chicken parts.

The broiled halibut ($14.75) reminded me of the food I ate in the dining rooms of old hotels when I was young. The halibut, sprinkled with paprika and broiled to a pasty dryness, tasted very good when dunked in either the tartar sauce or some of the surplus dressing from the green salad. The familiar green beans came alongside, as did a baked potato with sour cream in a tiny paper cup.

My favorite dinner was the plain old hamburger ($8.50), a monster of a patty cooked to a perfect, juicy medium-rare. There’s no special sauce, no fancy topping. Just burger. I wound up getting ketchup and mustard all over my Washoe House place mat, which made me sad, even though I’d already stashed one away.

A Washoe House favorite is the buffalo burger, which was reviewed secondhand by my Washoe-lovin’ friend: “It was good. I love the Washoe House, the history, the whoring. I ordered a whiskey and Coke and specified ‘Southern whiskey, from the South of America.’ Waitress: ‘From South America?'” Speaking of waitresses, I had the same waitress at each visit, and she was wonderful.

It would be wise to avoid the consumption of too many potatoes and bread to save room for pie. Either that, or make a special trip just for the pie. It’s homemade, and not in the sense that they just dumped a ton of filling into a premade crust. I wanted to get the blackberry pie à la mode ($3.75, in that case), but I was too full and chose to order it naked instead ($3). The ample filling glistened like garnets under a sweet Dutch-crumb topping that offset the pleasant tartness of the blackberries. An ideal pie experience.

An ideal roadhouse experience, in fact. This is one of the few places where you are equally well-off getting drunk as you are chowing down with the entire family. Washoe House feels like home. As the menu says, “I await you. I am Washoe House.”

Washoe House. Stony Point and Roblar roads, Cotati. Open daily for lunch and dinner. 707.795.4544.

From the August 21-27, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Spins

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Spins

Spins

Café Tacuba
Cuatro Caminos (MCA) (Buy this CD at amazon.com)

This is the surprise sleeper of the summer–a CD that deserves to be in the collection of every serious pop music fan. Café Tacuba started getting mainstream attention a few years ago after the band opened for Beck’s Midnight Vultures tour. On their fifth U.S. release since 1992, Café Tacuba continues to wow critics–now if they could just get some airplay. Or maybe an MTV reality show. How strongly do critics feel about this eclectic band, with its mix of alt-rock, ska, hip-hop, and Latin music? An Alternative Press blurb on the CD jacket proclaims that the Spanish-language Cuatro Caminos is the rock en Español Kid A. The All Music Guide goes one better, declaring that Kid A ain’t as good as this blazing Café Tacuba release. I’m inclined to agree. Certainly comparisons to Radiohead are inevitable. This Grammy-winning Mexico City band has a firm grasp on British rock, and singer Ruben Albarrán, who often barks his lyrics à la Johnny Rotten, at times sounds like Thom York on a tequila bender. But the praise hasn’t stopped there. After Café Tacuba contributed to the multiartist compilation En Sessions at West 54th Street, the New York Times declared their work as “the equivalent of the Beatles’ White Album for the rock en Español movement.” This time out, the band gets production assistance from David Friedman of the Flaming Lips and Andrew Weiss of Ween. The resulting songs are awash in postpunk sonic soundscapes, fuzz guitars, electronica sub-bass, and a sustained sense of wild abandon that makes Cuatro Camino one of the best rock albums of the year. Now if only the label would include English translations of the lyrics . . . (Greg Cahill)

Mike Oldfield
Tubular Bells 2003 (WEA International) (Buy this CD)

Thirty years ago, buoyed by its inclusion in the Exorcist soundtrack, Mike Oldfield’s proto-New Age classic Tubular Bells hit the top of the charts and went on to become the biggest-selling instrumental album of all time. Now Oldfield has updated–for the fourth time in his career–that multi-instrumental tour de force in a new 30th anniversary edition. This time around, however, Oldfield has replayed and reproduced the entire release to take advantage of state-of-the-art recording technology (this new version also is available on the DVD-audio surround sound format). While the music has an almost quaint British gothic prog-rock charm–the track titles (“Fast Guitars,” “Basses,” “Latin,” Blues,” “Thrash,” “Ghost Bells,” etc.) reflect the wide range of styles and dominant instrumentation–there’s no denying the lingering appeal of Tubular Bells or its impact on a new generation of electronica buffs. Here are just a few quotes from the press kit: “Tubular Bells is a very hypnotic piece of music, very engaging,” says Chandrasonic, guitarist with midi warriors Asian Dub Foundation. “Tubular Bells–that’s the acoustic version of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn for me,” says Phil Hartnoll of world-conquering techno duo Orbital. “They stuck out in my mind when I was 10 years old. Being prepubescent and enjoying adult music. That daring, that novelty–what, only one song on one side of an album? Things like that showed us the way to compose instrumental music that isn’t classical music.” For Ibiza’s DJ Pippi, Tubular Bells was also a key record in his musical youth. “When I first heard it, I was very young, but I was very into this sound. It was a very important point for the development of electronic and acoustic music. And a very important point in my life–like Pink Floyd.” And if that isn’t proof enough that Oldfield’s ambient masterwork has found its way into pop culture, know that the “Tubular Bells” (Exorcist) theme is found as a ring tone on a Nokia mobile phone near you. (Greg Cahill)

Jeff Beck
Jeff (Epic) (Buy this CD)

He is one of the most distinctive rock guitarists ever to bend a steel string, and arguably the most wasted talent in a genre infamous for lives languished and lives lost to excess. After a six-year dry spell that ended in 1999 with the ass-kicking Who Else! this is Beck’s third album in four years. On Jeff, he reunites with producer Andy Wright, who gave Beck’s last album, You Had It Coming, its strong electronic edge. Here you’ll find plenty of patented flash and fire–the opening track, “So What,” boasts enough he’s-gotta-riff-and-he’s-gonna-use-it histrionics to fill a thousand rock-guitar websites–in short, all the instrumental tricks that put Beck on the map as a member of the legendary Yardbirds and later as a fusion pioneer. But Beck also delivers heartfelt melodic lines (the ’70s jazz-inflected “JB’s Blues,” for example) and the eloquent space jam “Bulgaria,” all reminiscent of his best work on 1974’s Blow by Blow and 1976’s Wired. He steps into Pat Metheny territory once again on the wistful “Why Lord Oh Why.” Whether shapeshifting electronics, full-throttle drum-and-guitar bashes, or techno- and funk-inflected balls-to-the-wall, unapologetic guitar rock, this is one rock icon who’s reclaimed his status as a latter-day guitar god. Crank it real loud. (Greg Cahill)

Johnnie Taylor
There’s No Good in Goodbye (Malaco) (Buy this CD)

Johnnie Taylor, who died way too young three years ago, was one of the most woefully underappreciated R&B singers of the last 40 years, even though he was on a par with Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, and Al Green. Now we have this gift from the Malaco label, culling previously unreleased tracks from Taylor’s last six albums and his final 1999 sessions to help set the record straight. And, man, could he sing! Taylor started out as a gospel phenom, replacing longtime friend Sam Cooke in the legendary gospel group the Soul Stirrers after Cooke left to pursue a career in pop music. Taylor later recorded a string of marginal R&B hits on Cooke’s short-lived SAR label, and in 1968 rode to the top of the R&B charts with “Who’s Makin’ Love.” After the untimely death of soul great and Stax labelmate Otis Redding, Taylor became the biggest-selling artist on the Stax roster. But it was the smash 1976 hit “Disco Lady” that became his biggest success and in some ways branded him as less than the brilliant musical talent that he was. The best of his work can be found on the essential three-CD compilation Johnnie Taylor–Lifetime: A Retrospective of Soul, Blues, and Gospel, 1956-1999 (Fantasy/Stax), which was released three years ago and includes several tracks from the Malaco era. In addition to unissued songs, There’s No Good in Goodbye offers one track, “If You Take Your Love Away,” that, although released on his seventh album, appears here with a stripped-down mix that dispenses with strings, horns, and background vocals. The tracks were chiefly recorded at two legendary studios, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio and Malaco’s own studio. Even the overly slick production on some of the ballads, which often mars the Malaco material, can’t get in the way of Taylor’s velvety smooth delivery on an old-school soul chestnut like “If You’re Lookin’ for a Fool.” Meanwhile, “Crazy ‘Bout You Baby,” from 1986’s Lover Boy sessions, showcases Taylor’s awesome talent as a contemporary blues singer. We’re still crazy ’bout you, Johnnie. Highly recommended. (Greg Cahill)

Fats Domino
Blues Kingpins: Fats Domino (EMI/The Right Stuff/Capitol/Virgin) (Buy this CD)

Ike Turner
Blues Kingpins: Ike Turner (EMI/The Right Stuff/Capitol/Virgin) (Buy this CD)

John Lee Hooker
Blues Kingpins: John Lee Hooker (EMI/The Right Stuff/Capitol/Virgin) (Buy this CD)

Lightnin’ Hopkins
Blues Kingpins: Lightnin’ Hopkins (EMI/The Right Stuff/Capitol/Virgin) (Buy this CD)

Elmore James
Blues Kingpins: Elmore James (EMI/The Right Stuff/Capitol/Virgin) (Buy this CD)

B. B. King
Blues Kingpins: B. B. King (EMI/The Right Stuff/Capitol/Virgin) (Buy this CD)

In the only smart move they’ve made in years, the U.S. Congress proclaimed 2003 as the Year of the Blues (because it’s the 100th anniversary of blues pioneer W. C. Handy’s first encounter with the blues form, not because of the war in Iraq, rampant unemployment, or national malaise). Of course, the big story is the upcoming PBS multi-episode blues series supervised by filmmaker Martin Scorsese and enlisting a host of top film directors for an exhaustive look at the blues. Universal Music and Sony are teaming up for a massive release schedule that will include blues reissues and newly recorded material. But don’t let that media onslaught overshadow this new reissue series, featuring some of the greats of the genre captured in their most fruitful and formative period. Included in the Blues Kingpins series, six separate “best of” CDs, are B. B. King, Ike Turner, Elmore James, Fats Domino, John Lee Hooker, and Lightnin’ Hopkins from their peak ’50s Imperial/Aladdin/RPM/Flair/Sue sessions. Some of this material has never been heard on CD. Each disc contains liner notes by music writer Bill Dahl. A portion of the profits from the series will be donated to the Blues Foundation, a nonprofit corporation headquartered in Memphis that helps to preserve the blues through such programs as the Blues Hall of Fame and the W. C. Handy Blues Awards. In addition to being the first time much of the material has been released on CD, the Blues Kingpins series offers some sides which were previously unissued in the United States altogether. For instance, J. W. Walker’s “Can’t See You Baby” (he later became known as Big Moose Walker) on the Ike Turner disc has only seen the light of day on a very rare Japanese two-CD set until now. Among the tracks that have never been reissued previously in the States are the Hooker recordings cut with his Detroit road band, the Lightnin’ Hopkins sides from Modern/RPM labels, most of the Ike Turner material, some of the nonhit Fats Domino, and at least one B. B. King track (“Please Hurry Home”). And it just don’t get any better than R&B pioneer Ike Turner wailing “You’re Drivin’ Me Insane” or tickling the 88s on “Loosely.” Essential releases, one and all. (Greg Cahill)

Web extra to the August 14-20, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Insalata’s

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Insalata’s

Photograph by Michael Amsler

Cal Fed: Owner and chef Heidi Insalata Krahling presides over her long-standing Cal-Med restaurant.

Marin Med

Cal-Mediterranean flights of fancy at Insalata’s

By Sara Bir

On a Saturday night visit to Insalata’s, the place was packed. Chef and owner Heidi Insalata Krahling’s Mediterranean-via-San Anselmo mecca–featuring Mediterranean rim influences, distilled onto a palate uniquely Californian in its approach–has been drawing in crowds for seven years. We were there to find out why.

Arriving early, we were obliged to wait outside for a bit, which wasn’t a problem. It was a splendid evening, and the front of the restaurant affords a wonderful view of Mt. Tam. Insalata’s is on a very nice stretch of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, and though lovely flowers grow all around the restaurant’s broad facade, from the outside the building communicates all of the boxy charm of a gigantic cement block.

We had an 8:15pm reservation, and the hostess emerged a few times with a worried look on her face to let us know that earlier diners were in a lingering mood but that our table would be ready as soon as possible. Our stomachs were rumbling, but we enjoyed watching parties exit and emerge, all of them much better dressed than we were. Despite our scruffier exteriors, our hostess went out of her way to keep us abreast of the seating situation, which was comforting.

So when we finally set foot inside the restaurant, the evening’s service was in full swing; the clatter of dishes and the clinking of flatware and glassware rebounded off the walls. Insalata’s is as boxy on the inside as it appears from the outside. The ceilings are high and the dining floor–formed by warm parchment-mustard painted walls–is huge, with patio dining off to one side. In the back of the restaurant stands a bank of refrigerated glass-front cases for Insalata’s take-out operation, but it being later on a Saturday, this area was practically vacant.

None of the rest of the room was, though. Insalata’s can be a hectic place. The tables are close together, and the bar is in the exact center of the dining room, so you can see the waitstaff dashing about with drinks and darting in between tables.

But we were pleased to be seated at last, and soon the cocktail menu had tempted us. I had a nice glass of Soave (1999 Capitel Foscarino, $8.75 glass), whose easygoing, crisp clarity segued perfectly into our Mediterranean platter.

The starters are sort of divided in two. There’s a usual section–salads, a soup, roasted clams–and then there’s “Tapas, Mezze, and Piccoli,” with six grazeworthy dips and nibbles to order in small plate form. The Mediterranean platter ($11.95) changes daily but offers a good sampling of mezzes, so we went with that. It came with an assortment of tongue-twister dips–hummus, eggplant muhammara (eggplant, red peppers, walnuts, and pine nuts), and taramasalata (fish roe, olive oil, potatoes, and bread crumbs). The latter may not sound very appealing on paper, but the taramasalata was captivatingly silky in texture and alluringly fishy from the roe. The eggplant muhammara was also splendid, but I wish there’d been more than just one tiny dish.

Besides soft, warm pitas for dipping, there was a small mound of an unexceptional orzo salad and two long, thin, deep-fried savory pastries called arnipita. Cigar-shaped and stuffed with lamb, mint, and feta, these were almost like Mediterranean egg rolls. My one big caveat with the platter was that, for $11.95, there was not much of it.

Our resident meat eater got a very manly braised lamb shank ($19.95) with a roasted pepperonata (red peppers and tomatoes) and fregola (a Sardinian pasta similar to Israeli couscous, but toothier). The meat fell off the bone and soaked up some saucy, red-wine-laced juices.

Mr. Bir du Jour got the grilled ahi tuna ($21.95), a summery presentation with wax beans, haricot verts, fingerling potatoes, and a sweet-sour relish of onion, roasted red pepper, and preserved lemons. He ordered the ahi medium-rare, and it was all I could do to bite my tongue and let him get the tuna as he liked–destroyed!

The bites I had were on the dry and bland side, owing partially to his preference for overcooked tuna and partially to the too-small amount of relish. The ras al hanout (a Moroccan spice blend) listed on the menu would have benefited from a more generous hand to spike the whole dish, but its cumin-laced presence was delicate and subtle.

My honey-balsamic glazed duck breast ($19.95) kept me happy for a good hour. With two quinoa corn cakes and sautéed spinach, it was a well-rounded plate. Huge enough to be garden burgers, the quinoa cakes had a grainy crunch that benefited from the sweetness of the corn. Best of all was the almost neon-bright apricot-ginger chutney, a shiny-sticky mess whose sugar content highlighted but did not overshadow the juicy duck breast.

The wine list at Insalata’s was too fun not to play around with. Sure, there are California Merlots and Zinfandels and Chardonnays–but there are also Italian Nebbiolos and Sangioveses and the wonderful Chateau Musar Cabernet Sauvigon from Lebanon.

The 1999 Quinta do Crasto, a Portuguese Temprillano ($6.50 glass) was acidic enough to cut through the duck breast, with just a smidgen of earthiness and spice to give it body. The carnivore got the McDowell Syrah ($5.75 glass) at the waitress’ suggestion (the waitstaff at Insalata’s seem to be very trustworthy in this area).

The very typical dessert menu didn’t carry on the Cal-Mediterranean theme too much, but we enjoyed our caramel semifreddo ($6.50), with its little amaretti crumbs and caramel sauce outdoing the semifreddo itself.

There’s no doubt that Insalata’s is a fun restaurant, with its inspired yet subtle Mediterranean twists on the same tired California cuisine. But there seems to be some kind of spark missing in the setting; it’s comfortable yet refined, but lacks spunk. Luckily, as a result, the food stands out even more–which, after all, is the way it’s supposed to be.

Insalata’s. 120 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., San Anselmo. Open daily for lunch and dinner; takeout available Monday-Saturday. 415.457.7700. www.insalatas.com.

From the August 14-20, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Downtown Santa Rosa

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Downtown Santa Rosa

Photograph by Michael Amsler

I’ll Hand It to Ya: Santa Rosa is still trying to atone for the feng shui nightmare that is the Plaza mall.

Brighter Lights, Bigger City

In Santa Rosa, the same old story of downtown is getting newer

By Sara Bir

Downtown Santa Rosa is like an old zombie flick. No, it’s not like the streets are eerily silent or the populous is shuffling around in an undead haze–though some may feel it’s that way. It’s the issue of how to address downtown’s faltering vitality that keeps rising from the grave.

The problems are all too familiar: Courthouse Square isn’t even a square; the Plaza Mall makes for bad feng shui; on most nights, the city streets become a ghost town after 8pm. A whole slew of committees, studies, and organizations have come, gone, and come again, all with the very noble intention of giving downtown Santa Rosa an injection of class, commerce, and character.

How do you prove to 152,900 residents of the largest city in the North Bay that their downtown can sustain thriving culture, entertainment, and–here’s the big one–personality? There’s no denying that downtown Santa Rosa is in a midlife identity crisis. How did it get like that? Where did we go wrong, and how can we right it?

A Main Street Mentality

A few months ago, banners reading “Downtown Santa Rosa: A Main Street Community” appeared on light posts along E Street. And if they got people wondering what, exactly, a Main Street community was, they did their job.

Santa Rosa Main Street (formed officially in August 2002) is part of the Main Street Program, a nationwide group that works to revitalize individual downtown districts. “Santa Rosa Main Street came out of some of the other groups that were here prior,” says Patti Bowie, SRMS’ executive director. “CityVision had a lot of things they wanted to do. From that, they spun off into different groups.”

Back up a few years. To find out who CityVision is, you first need to know about the 1998 report issued to the city-appointed Downtown Partnership Committee by the American Institute of Architects’ Regional/ Urban Design Assistance Team. Among other things, R/UDAT recommended reunifying Courthouse Square, maintaining a year-round farmers market under Highway 101 behind the mall, moving the Luther Burbank Center (or something like it) downtown, and creating pedestrian linkage between the mall and Railroad Square that would be usable 24 hours a day.

One nonprofit group that arose from the Downtown Partnership Committee in response to the R/UDAT report was CityVision, whose goal was to see R/UDAT recommendations through. CityVision refined those recommendations to better address the community’s specific issues and then released an action plan in April 2000.

The booklet had a lot of great ideas, but not many of them got too far. One of them–a food and wine center to be built in Railroad Square–took on its own entity. But CityVision fizzled out, and Main Street Santa Rosa was formed in its place to focus on Railroad Square, the Santa Rosa Plaza mall, and Courthouse Square.

The breadth of that zone makes Santa Rosa an unusual case with the Main Street Program. “Most Main Street Programs just take one little section and focus on that,” says Bowie, who has worked with Main Street in four towns over 10 years. “We’ve decided to work with them all together. So it makes it a bigger district, but what we have to do is make sure each district retains its own character.

“What’s unique about Main Street,” Bowie adds, “is that it takes on smaller projects to get momentum building.” Its strategy is a one-two punch: help downtown businesses grow stronger from the inside out, beautify the town from the outside in. Santa Rosa Main Street played a big part in the additional diagonal parking on Fourth Street, as well as putting in new planters with more flowers. “People might not know that Main Street’s doing that, but it’s more attractive and inviting, and that’s when you start attracting more businesses.”

The Three Big Boo-boos

What is Main Street up against? There are two elements whose hulking presence dominate downtown: Highway 101 and the Santa Rosa Plaza mall. Then there’s something that’s conspicuously absent: an inviting town square.

The 1968 bisection of Courthouse Square to connect Mendocino and Santa Rosa avenues literally severed the heart of downtown in two. Talk of reunifying it has ebbed and flowed since then. Currently, the city is using grant money for a study to assess the possible impact of reunification, with a plan tentatively going to Santa Rosa City Council in March 2004.

There are many unresolved issues in the reunification. Traffic circulation, for instance, would be deeply affected, and the buses would have to be rerouted from Mendocino Avenue. And the cost of reunifying the square would not be small.

Meanwhile, Santa Rosa Main Street has posted flyers depicting aerial views of Courthouse Square as it stands today (two generally featureless half-parks with four lanes of traffic barreling between them) and a vision of a reunified Courthouse Square (a central fountain with walkways radiating from it, a large outdoor performance structure, and two areas for diagonal parking buttressing the square).

The 1969 earthquake jump-started major remodeling downtown. The foundations of many historic buildings were damaged, resulting in the declaration of downtown Santa Rosa as an urban renewal zone. Of the 89 buildings in the zone, 74 were torn down for safety reasons. A lot of them were replaced with some very ugly buildings. Let’s just say that the ’70s were not a high point in civic architecture.

Then in 1983, the Santa Rosa Plaza mall was built where many of the prequake buildings had stood. At the time, some people saw Railroad Square as a blighted mess, which could account for the mall’s damlike structure. The mall blocked easy auto and pedestrian access to Railroad Square, although a lighted, more navigable walkway connecting Santa Rosa Plaza with Railroad Square was completed along Fourth Street in April of last year. (The city and the Railroad Square Association are working on another such pedestrian linkage on Fourth Street and Wilson; it’s been postponed for redesign to allocate delivery trucks.)

However problematic the mall’s obliteration of connectivity between Railroad Square and the rest of downtown may be, Santa Rosa Plaza accounts for over half of the retail land use downtown and attracts thousands of shoppers every year. While most of those shoppers do not venture outside of the mall, they are still shopping locally, and the mall’s signing on retailers Bebe Sport and possibly Abercrombie and Fitch could infuse the mall with new customers.

And who’s to say those customers can’t be lured outside? “We are working closely with mall management to try and cross-promote,” Bowie says. “We’re trying to keep communications open so that people know we’re trying to do all of this together.”

It’s Hip to Be Square

The proactivity of Railroad Square’s merchants and property owners has proved that it’s possible to transform an area from an overlooked, undervalued neighborhood to a destination. The little district behind the mall offers an eclectic mix of fine dining, live entertainment, antique stores, vintage shops, coffee houses, and thrift stores–all with a funky, historic feel that no other corner of Santa Rosa can offer.

“Railroad Square has always been in her own little niche,” says Linda Angell, president of the Railroad Square Association, a group that formed 25 years ago to get the historic district out of the dumps. “It’s just that now, she finally has become a desirable niche.”

Efforts of Railroad Square businesses span from large-scale (working to secure a lease for the food and wine center) to small-scale (planting flowers in barrels purchased with association funds).

“The association is the strength of Railroad Square,” Angell says. “Railroad Square is where it is today because of the association. We’re a very small district, but we care about what the other businesses are doing. They help each other out.”

There are numerous development projects in the works–including retail space on Third Street, a live-in loft and workspace building beyond the railroad tracks, and a 29-unit housing development. Petite Syrah–a wine bar and retail wine shop connected to Syrah Bistro–will open on Aug. 24. And a little over a month ago, the California Visitors Center opened up in the depot that houses the Santa Rosa Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Another big boost to Railroad Square has been the nearby 155-room Vineyard Creek Hotel, Spa, and Conference Center, which opened up last summer. “The merchants definitely see sales going up on the weekends, when visitors are here,” says Angell, who notes that the Railroad Square Association works with Vineyard Creek to “bring people over to Railroad Square or vice versa.”

From Plan to Action

On July 22, city officials got their first peek at the Economic Development Strategy Plan, the result of a $60,000 grant. The plan calls for developing the proposed food and wine center in Railroad Square and building a mulituse transit center next to it.

Also proposed was moving the fortresslike Sonoma County Library from Third and E streets and reestablishing it on City Hall property. The vacancy left by the library could be filled with upscale chain stores, like Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma, to create a more welcoming anchor to the downtown gateway.

Do any of these concepts sound familiar? Maybe that’s because they’ve been volleyed around town for years. You can play with deluxe all you want, but ultimately we’re going to have to stop planning and start moving.

In the works is some new life for the old J. C. Penney building at Seventh and Mendocino, with plans to remodel the nondescript building into a Mission-style retail center. And along Fourth Street, the space that once housed the Moonlight is now home to the sushi-cum-barbecue-themed Tex Wasabi’s.

A few blocks down the street, the former Audio-Visual Showroom and the Old Vic are being transformed into what will soon be Russian River Brewing Company–an establishment many are hoping will pick up some of the nightlife slack created by the Old Vic’s departure.

And after months of rumors circulating over Copperfield’s plans to vacate its Fourth and D streets venue, it was announced in May that Copperfield’s would stay, and Peet’s Coffee and Tea would be coming in next door.

So that will make a grand total of five coffee shops and two brewpubs in a four-block radius. Can downtown Santa Rosa support all that, plus more?

The New Urban Hope

Increased housing downtown, which would supply downtown Santa Rosa with a readymade audience of bar hoppers, showgoers, and latte sippers, could be the answer.

It’s the theory behind New Urbanism, a movement begun in the early ’80s by architects who felt that increasing dependence on the automobile was not a positive direction for our society–or architecture–to go. “In order for the downtown to be vital at night, people need to live downtown. Why not have a more livable, dense, smart-growth city with an urban-growth boundary, and make it a more vital urban center?” says Ralf Konietzko of CSS Architecture in Santa Rosa. Konietzko was formerly on the City Design Review Board.

“New Urbanism is interesting in that it may be for everyone,” Konietzko continues. “For example, if you live out in the suburbs and the kids are at home and need to visit their friends, they need to get in an automobile and be driven somewhere. If they lived in a more walkable, dense neighborhood, they could perhaps walk themselves.

“It also is something that could be quite good for seniors. If you are no longer able to drive your automobile, but you live in a neighborhood where you can walk to the grocery store [and] the drugstore, that still gives you some independence and vitality. Even if you can’t get outside, if you could look down on the street and watch the activity below you, you’re still engaged in the world.

How would this affect businesses?

“It’s a chicken-and-egg thing,” says Konietzko. “If there are no retailers open, nobody’s going to go downtown. To buy a CD, to buy a frozen yogurt, to browse through a bookstore–it’s difficult to do that later at night. Railroad Square has realized that there is great synergy by having more restaurants in one location. And with the [food and wine center] coming there, I think that could help quite a bit.”

“We’d like to get more housing downtown. And housing downtown brings different types of businesses. You’d need a grocery store downtown, there might be entertainment, restaurants would do much better,” says Bowie. “There’s less crime, because you have people there 24 hours a day. You just want to see activity. That would be our long-term vision, to see people at all hours, all days of the week downtown. Santa Rosa has grown so fast. A lot of people who have lived here forever think of it as a little town, and it’s not. It’s a big city population. Those changes are sometimes frightening to people who have always been around.”

Anchoring the Cultural District

Make a memo on your 2007 calendar: “New Sonoma County Museum opens.” Hopefully, the Sonoma County Museum’s ambitious plans for expansion will have by then become reality. The museum’s current home–the old 1908 Santa Rosa Post Office–will be set in an enclave of galleries, performance spaces, and a street-level cafe and store to kick-start Santa Rosa’s so-called cultural district into high gear, all with one dramatic building, a signature statement for both Santa Rosa and Sonoma County.

Los Angeles-based Michael Maltzan was chosen from six leading international architects to design the new museum. Maltzan is known for his critically praised designs for the temporary Museum of Modern Art in Queens, as well as a renovation of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

“The museum itself is going to make up for the fact that Santa Rosa does not have a utilized public square–not like Healdsburg or Sonoma, where cultural events occur in their town square,” says Natasha Boas, director of the Sonoma County Museum. “So this museum is in some ways going to become the town square.”

The intention is to shift the major flow of downtown automobile traffic to B Street, which would place emphasis on Seventh and B streets–the museum’s “anchor corner”–and also stream more traffic past the mall.

“It’s a city block that can be the connectivity that really makes up for the problems of the shopping mall,” Boas says, pointing to Zaha Hadid’s design for the Cincinnati Museum, which has been heralded as a great boon for downtown Cincinnati. “The pavement actually goes inside the building so that the pedestrian is drawn into it. Michael’s design is going to be very similar in that it will draw the pedestrian inside and will allow the visitor to experience Santa Rosa’s downtown in a new way.

“It’s sort of a healing process making up for the ’70s. The mall did a lot of damage to the city, and this is a way that the museum sees itself as correcting those errors.”

At a May 13 city council meeting, Maltzan spoke of the diversity of the museum’s location–the historic St. Rose district, the mall, and the gateway to the heart of the businesses downtown. “In the museum, I think we’ve found an incredible bridge,” he said. “The museum is trying to be a bridge first to what Santa Rosa and the county has been, as well as what the county and Santa Rosa has the hopes of becoming.”

“Santa Rosa’s North Bay, it’s wine country, it’s one of the wealthiest counties in the country–it’s sort of the last bastion of building. It’s gotta build something.” Boas says. “Architecture has become the signature for towns today. And we absolutely need it.”

Return of the Creek

Santa Rosa does not have to rely on new attractions to draw people downtown, though; there’s a natural feature right under our feet that’s slowly coming back to life. For flood-control reasons, Santa Rosa Creek was channeled in the 1960s from downtown to the Laguna de Santa Rosa. Concrete on the sides and bottom destroyed the environment for salmon and steelhead trout, while the downtown portion was diverted underground, emerging at Santa Rosa Avenue.

In 1989 a group of concerned people formed the nonprofit Committee for Restoring Santa Rosa Creek. Eventually, they wrote up a plan for naturalizing the creek and building paths alongside it. “In the last several years, we’ve been concentrating on funding it and then designing and building it,” says Santa Rosa City Council member Steve Rabinowitsh, who’s been very active with the creek restoration. So far, the section behind Vineyard Creek has been restored, with bike paths on the north side and a walking path on the south side. The long-term goal of the project is to take out all of the remaining channel and make it natural, and to build a new park across from City Hall on Santa Rosa Avenue.

“One day, we may wind up building a new City Hall, and when we do that, we would unearth the creek and make it natural,” says Rabinowitsh. “But that’s kind of a long-term project.”

Much closer to realization is the connecting of an off-street, seven-mile bikeway linking Santa Rosa Creek to the existing Prince Greenway, and going all the way out to the Laguna de Santa Rosa. By October or November, that bike path project is projected to be completed. There are also efforts with the county to connect Prince Greenway to the Joe Rodota trail leading to Sebastopol, to create a regional bike path.

The benefits of the creek restoration will hopefully not just be environmental. “We’re upgrading the area,” Rabinowitsh says. “It’s a very important economic development project. It’s the only good pedestrian connection between downtown and Railroad Square–and it is a bikeway.

“The visitor center sends people down there because it’s a very beautiful place that I think one day will define Santa Rosa, this reborn creek which goes to the heart of the city. There are some commercial buildings along it that one day I believe will become businesses that serve the people along the creek–restaurants, bike rentals, ice cream shops. All of those kinds of things you see in San Luis Obispo, Boulder, or San Antonio. . . . Those projects have really helped spur economic development. And tourism. And I think this one will too.”

There’s also a lot of public art along the creek trails–murals and benches painted by students of ArtStart, and even a light sculpture on the bridge on the greenway. The art is part of an art walk that goes from the visitors’ bureau past the creek and over to City Hall. “We’re continuing to add to that, but we have 15 pieces or so that are forming a whole spine of public art,” Rabinowitsh says. “It’s another attempt to define Santa Rosa and its image as a community of the arts. It has a ways to go, but we are working on downtown to make it more of a cultural center.”

“There’s a real interest in making the downtown a place for its residents, as well as for other people that come through here,” Konietzko says. “I think it’s a successful business district, and we’re optimistic about taking what we have and turning it around. There are a lot of ideas out there and there’s been thousands of dollars put towards studies, but I think we’re right on the verge of really incorporating some of those ideas and moving it forward.”

Santa Rosa Main Street’s Bowie, who’s only lived here for a year, points out that newcomers and decade-long residents see different Santa Rosas. “When I came to Santa Rosa, to me, it looked like a bustling downtown. People who have been here for a long time see things they’ve been putting up with for years that they don’t like. And I don’t see that–I see a real positive side of the downtown. I think our downtown is pretty, it’s clean. . . . I’ve been in a lot of cities, and I think they just don’t recognize that they have a jewel here. I see this city just getting better and better.”

If actions come out of all these many plans, Santa Rosa can’t stay a zombie for long.

From the August 14-20, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Irvin Mayfield

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Irvin Mayfield

‘Irvin Mayfield’ (1999)

‘Live at the Blue Note’ (1999)

Jaz Sawyer & Irvin Mayfield’s ‘Live at the Blue Note’ (2000)

‘How Passion Falls’ (2001)

Los Hombres Calientes’ ‘Vol. 3: New Congo Square’ (2001)

‘Half Past Autumn Suite’ (2003)

Los Hombres Calientes’ ‘Vodou Dance, Vol. 4’ (2003)

Young and Caliente: Irvin Mayfield has talent to burn.

Bop City

Irvin Mayfield paints his own shades of cool

By Greg Cahill

It’s one of the most ambitious, one of the best, and one of the mellowest jazz recordings of the year. The recently released Half Past Autumn Suite by 26-year-old New Orleans trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, with contributions by Wynton Marsalis and Renaissance man Gordon Parks, is an impressive neo-bop jazz suite written three years ago for an exhibit of Parks’ paintings held at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

As jazz critic Stanley Crouch has written, “The Half Past Autumn Suite has a special glow.”

The recording is the cross-generational meeting of two great minds. Parks, 91, is an award-winning author, photographer (in 1948, he became the first black photographer for Life magazine), and filmmaker best known for 1971’s Shaft. Mayfield is a young jazz lion who has made a name for himself as a soloist, bandleader, and the driving force behind Los Hombres Calientes, the ultratalented New Orleans jazz outfit that has featured veteran jazz drummer Bill Summers and trombonist Jason Marsalis.

Mayfield returns to the North Bay on Saturday, Aug. 23, for a show at the Powerhouse Brewing Co. in Sebastopol. He brings an ace touring band that features Ronald Markham on piano and Hammond B-3 organ, Aaron Fletcher on alto and soprano saxophones, Jason Stewart on bass, and Jaz Sawyer on drums.

Not one to rest on his laurels, the Grammy-nominated Mayfield–executive director and artistic director of the Institute of Jazz Culture at Dillard University in New Orleans, and the university’s first artist in residence at the department of humanities and African world studies–in October will premier his new composition for orchestra and chorus, Strange Fruit. The event will be broadcast live on the World Wide Web by WWOZ.

Mayfield’s Strange Fruit is a story about love, hatred, death, and hope, and, he adds, “It’s about the reality of the American struggle for democracy in a world and time that attempted to deny blacks the right to consider themselves as human beings in everything from love to their legal rights.”

Tickets to the Irvin Mayfield Quintet’s upcoming Sebastopol show are $15. Call 707.829.9171 for details.


Random Notes

Marin jazz fans are in for a treat when singer Jackie Ryan takes to the Falkirk Cultural Center stage on Friday, Aug. 29, at a show dedicated to the Divine Divas of Jazz. Following a recent date at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London, music critic John Fordham of the Guardian (U.K.) hailed Ryan as “a real discovery of a singer–a theatrical, spontaneous, and technically immaculate American with a Betty Carter flavour.”

Her third and newest CD, This Heart of Mine, featuring special guests Toots Thielmans on harmonica and Ernie Watts on tenor saxophone, is a sensuous outing that reflects her Mexican, Irish, French, and Spanish ancestry. Ryan will be accompanied at Falkirk by Larry Vuckovich on piano, Harold Jones on drums, and Jeff Chambers on bass. Showtimes are 8pm and 10pm. 1408 Mission Avenue at E Street in downtown San Rafael. For ticket information, call 415.485.3328.

To call David Sydney Scott an eclectic artist is an understatement. Probably most familiar to North Bay audiences as the saxman for Gator Beat, the popular zydeco dance band, Scott makes a strong showing on his new self-produced solo CD Saxophone Pennywhistle. With 19 Sonoma County musicians along for the ride–and what a fun ride!–the 13 tracks run the gamut from Australian and Celtic roots to New Orleans R&B and jazz ballads, with stopovers in the Hawaiian islands and a few other exotic ports of call. Just try to keep your toes from tappin.’

Catch up to Gator Beat on Aug. 30, from noon to 7pm, at the big Cajun Zydeco Festival at Laguna Park in Sebastopol. Tickets are $8 advance, $10 at the gate (children 12 and under are free). Louisiana’s own Gino DeLafose and the French Rockin’ Boogie and the Zydeco Flames also perform. For details, call 707.823.1991.

From the August 14-20, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Turnitin.com

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Copy That

In schools and universities across the world, the laid-back plagiarism busters of Turnitin.com are keeping things real

Dr. John Barrie is all about plagiarism. As the mastermind behind Turnitin.com, the 35-year-old neurobiology Ph.D. has become the poster boy for preventing Internet theft of published material. It’s a long way from the world of labs and test tubes he entered when he first began college, long before he had any idea he’d help found the world’s most successful–and increasingly omnipresent–Internet-based system for catching cheaters and would-be plagiarists.

“Using the Internet to cheat,” he says, “has ballooned into an epidemic. The prevailing attitude seems to be that things from the Internet are inherently different than their material counterparts. For example, it’s cool to download a song from the Internet, but it’s uncool to steal a CD from a store. It’s OK to pull a computer program off the Internet but it’s not OK to walk into CompUSA and just take the thing. Same thing with textual intellectual property. It’s not OK to check a book out of the library and copy directly from the book and call it your own, but for some reason, it’s more OK to cut and paste something from the Internet and stick it in your own school paper.”

Since it was launched less than five years ago, the services of Turnitin.com have been subscribed to by countless high schools, universities, and even some elementary schools. The entire California State University system is a Turnitin.com client, as are hundreds of high school districts across the country and every university in the United Kingdom.

The way it works is simple. Sort of. A teacher or college professor assigns her students to write a report or term paper and instructs them to log on to Turnitin.com, enter a special password to access that teacher’s “classroom,” and upload the text of their report. Before the teacher downloads that report, however, the Turnitin.com computers will put it to the test, checking to make sure that none of it was “borrowed” from other sources on the Internet. The teacher receives the paper along with a report on its level of originality.

Like Barrie’s own career, the Turnitin.com story is a tale of surprises and unexpected success. In 1994, while slaving away at UC Berkeley as a grad student in neurobiology and an undergrad in rhetoric, John Barrie–then 24 years old and a hardworking teacher’s assistant in several classes–woke up one morning determined to make some of those classes “a little more interesting.” On top of his own classwork, he was frustrated at the minimal amount of feedback he could give to students whose papers he was grading.

“With 1,000 or so papers to grade,” he says, “I could only put ‘A–Great paper, B–Check your spelling, or D–Did you ever come to class?’ That was the level of feedback I could give the students.”

It would be helpful, he decided, to jump-start the level of communication among the students themselves by instilling a peer-review program so students could get and give feedback on one another’s papers.

“It’s the irony of all ironies,” he says, “that even today, all of professional academics is based on the peer review process, but 99.4 percent of all undergraduates are never exposed to that process.”

Barrie also felt that students would like to answer a couple of fundamental questions for themselves. “One of those questions happened to be, ‘OK, I just wrote this paper. What did all the other students write about?’ And the second question is something like, ‘Wow, I got a B on my paper. So what does an A paper look like?'”

To help students find answers, Barrie set up a website and required everyone in class to turn in their term papers to the website, after which each student was randomly assigned two papers to read and review–everything done anonymously, with neither the papers’ authors nor the reviewers being named–and finally, all the reviews were posted on the site alongside the papers.

“It worked like a charm,” Barrie says. “Suddenly, each student was getting six pages of feedback from their peers while being graded on the quality of the reviews they wrote.” Barrie’s project created such a stir that it was written up in Science magazine in 1996, in an article titled “How to Extend Education by Using the Internet.” In that article, after saying glowing things about the educational uses of the Internet, Barrie was asked to predict one or two ways the Internet might also be detrimental to education.

“That proved to be a very easy task,” he laughs. The biggest problem facing educators using the Internet, he already knew, was the ease by which students could use the Internet to steal parts of previously published works–and even whole papers–without being found out.

“After I started the peer-review program,” Barrie says, “I had a parade of students coming into my office, telling me about so-and-so who’d taken a paper from our website and turned it into another class, or who copied a paper from the Internet and turned it in as their own.”

Suddenly devoted to finding ways that the Internet could be used in the effort to prevent and control Internet plagiarism, Barrie–still up to his ears in neurobiology research–teamed up with some Berkeley buddies and “threw together some technology” that was put to use in their classes at Berkeley. Basically, the system took a student’s paper and searched the Internet, piece by piece, looking for any parts of the paper that matched those already published and posted in cyberspace.

“After a while,” Barrie says, “as we began reading newspaper reports of how bad Internet plagiarism had become, we thought, ‘Hey! Why not take this technology and throw it out there for everyone to use?'” They quickly put together a site called Plagiarism.org, through which students could submit a paper to their instructor, subjecting it first to a thorough search for any plagiarized material.

“People started using it right away,” Barrie says, “but then we realized that it was uncool for a student to submit a paper to any site titled ‘Plagiarism,’ so we got our brain trust together and we decided on the most neutral name we could think of–Turnitin.com.”

Success occurred, as Barrie puts it, in “a blindingly fast way,” turning Barrie and his buddies into accidental entrepreneurs more or less overnight. They were suddenly the creators of one of the fastest growing companies on the Internet. Turnitin.com also features an active peer-review program, all part of Barrie’s ongoing goal of making school a fair place for all students.

“There are plenty of students working hard to do their own original work,” he says, “and they know which students are cheating. But until now, there hasn’t been a damn thing they can do about it–which kind of devalues the work that the good students are doing.”

Though he finally earned his degree in neurobiology, Barrie now doubts he’ll ever use it. But with Turnitin.com has come rewards he’d have never received from neurobiology. That, he says, “is the rare opportunity of seeing the immediate payoff, in our society, of what I am doing. We’ve put this technology out there, people are using it, and it is changing the way education works, right before our eyes, and all in a very short matter of time. That’s extremely satisfying.”

And to think it was done without having to cheat.

From the August 14-20, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘The Tempest’

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Randy Newman

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Accordionists

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Washoe House

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Spins

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Turnitin.com

Copy ThatIn schools and universities across the world, the laid-back plagiarism busters of Turnitin.com are keeping things real Dr. John Barrie is all about plagiarism. As the mastermind behind Turnitin.com, the 35-year-old neurobiology Ph.D. has become the poster boy for preventing Internet theft of published material. It's a long way from the world of labs and test tubes he...
Read more
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