Fern Bar, located in Sebastopol’s Barlow district, is known for its good times.
But its upcoming Drag Trivia Night on Thursday, March 23, from 6–8:30pm, will undoubtedly prove to be an excessively good time. Presented by THTR Productions and Fern Bar, and hosted by Bay Area bombshell Sasha Devaroe, the disco-themed event will include food, drinks, performances and, of course, trivia. The prix fixe menu includes a four-course dinner, and neighboring Barlow businesses will award prizes during the evening.
When I spoke to Fern Bar owner Sam Levy recently, he told me, “People come to Fern Bar to have a good time. We are lucky—we get to host a special night out with wonderful guests who appreciate what our team does. I get to work hard with people I respect, and feel fortunate to be a part of Fern Bar.”
“We have dozens of signature drinks with and without alcohol,” he added. “My favorites right now are our Golden Hour non-alcoholic cocktail and the Neighbors Bounty cocktail. We are donating a dollar from every drink to Food For Thought. We have won Best Cocktails and Bar four years in a row with the Bohemian, and two years in a row with the Press Democrat. We are best known for our Bar Program.”
Like most local businesses, Fern Bar rolled with the punches during the past few disaster-filled years. “Things have been pretty good recently, but it’s been a long few years of endless hurdles,” Levy said. “We went from wildfires and a flood, into COVID. It was crazy for a bit, but we have a wonderful team making incredible food and drinks every night, a very supportive and positive community, and a great space to celebrate life in.”
Live music on Sundays from 6-8pm has proved popular. Upcoming bands include Jazz Gathering: Michael Price & Co., Spike Sikes & His Awesome Hotcakes and the Greg Hester Trio. In his efforts to host a different band each week, Levy is always on the lookout for new talent. The Fern Bar website includes a contact link for interested musicians.
Fern Bar serves brunch on weekends and provides dinner service seven nights a week, and hopes to bring lunches back this spring. While reservations can be made online, Levy also encourages drop-ins.
Drag Queen Sasha Devaroe, a hit in both the Central Valley and the Bay Area, is a high-energy, animated entertainer, judging from video clips on her Facebook page. She also sells her own line of makeup. Her debut at Fern Bar is sure to be a blast.
“All the stuff in the national news recently about the dangerous, fear-based culture war on drag shows and trans youth has made me proud to be a part of a community that celebrates our differences,” Levy said. He added, “I’m sure this Trivia Night won’t be our last.”
Tickets for Drag Trivia Night are $75 and can be purchased at opentable.com/r/fern-bar-sebastopol. Ticket price includes admission and a four-course dinner.
Fern Bar, 6780 Depot St., Ste. 120, Sebastopol. Dinner Mon–Sun, 5–9pm; brunch Sat–Sun, 11am to 3pm. 707.861.9603. fernbar.com.
Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock said it best when he declared, “In feature films, the director is God; in documentary films, God is the director.”
Naturally, this assumes A) a higher power and B) that the Auteur Theory is bunk. No matter what one believes, those who like their truth at 24 per second are in luck—the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival (SDFF) has what one needs.
Now in its 16th year, SDFF starts Thursday, March 16 with an opening night celebration that will find the West County burg once again teeming with filmmakers, film fans and over 60 films from around the world. SDFF is distinguished by being an Academy Award-qualifying festival, which means viewers can get a rare sneak peak of documentaries on the cinematic horizon long before awards season spurs wider releases.
“What is also unique is that every film that is submitted is vetted, meaning screeners actually watch each film,” says Cynthi Stefenoni, producer and SDFF co-director. “With over 650 films submitted from around the world, the final round is screened by six viewers before being chosen to be in the festival.”
The highly-curated results of these endeavors include both feature-length films and shorts, many of which are followed by conversations with the filmmakers after the screenings.
This year, the fest’s special discussion panels are clustered under three main categories—style, industry and justice.
Opening night kicks off with a reception and a screening of Exposure, which finds a Muslim chaplain, a French biologist, a Qatari princess and eight other women from the Arab World and the West attempting to ski across melting Arctic sea ice to the North Pole. In this tale of resilience and survival, director Holly Morris and her team document the group’s myriad challenges, including frostbite, polar bears, self-doubt and sexism.
This year, the fest’s special discussion panels are clustered under three main categories—style, industry and justice—and will include, among other filmmakers, Nina Nawalowalo, director of A Boy Called Piano (the heart-breaking story of Faʻamoana John Luafutu, detailing his experience as a state ward in New Zealand), and Bernardo Ruiz, director of El Quipo, which chronicles an unlikely meeting between a legendary American forensic scientist and a group of Argentine students.
An Emmy-nominated filmmaker, Ruiz tells through film of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, which revealed the truth to Argentine families about their “disappeared” loved ones, generating evidence that led to the conviction of hundreds of perpetrators in and out of government.
The evening of the screening, the filmmaker will be in conversation with human rights investigator Eric Stover in a special panel entitled “In Search Of Justice” at 4:15pm, Saturday, March 18, at the Robert Brent Auditorium, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High St., Sebastopol. Tickets are $12, $5 for students with ID.
A lot of “firsts” were achieved when Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun debuted on Broadway in 1959. It was the first time Broadway produced a play written by a Black woman and the first Broadway show helmed by a Black director.
Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse has been attempting to mount a production for the last few years. The challenges in casting a show requiring 10 of 11 roles to be performed by actors of color, compounded by the pandemic, led to several postponements. The curtain has finally gone up on the playhouse’s Monroe Stage, with a production scheduled to run through Mar. 26.
It was worth the wait.
Three generations of the Younger family occupy a cramped two-bedroom apartment in Chicago. Mama Lena (KT Masala) is awaiting an insurance settlement from the passing of her husband. Her adult son, Walter Lee (Terrance Smith), is tired of his life as a chauffeur and sees the money as an opportunity to move up and own a business. Her daughter, Beneatha (Amara Lawson-Chavanu), dreams of medical school.
Mama Lena wants no part of Walter Lee’s business proposition and decides to use a portion of the settlement to put a down payment on a home, a decision supported by Walter Lee’s wife, Ruth (Ash’Lee P. Lackey). Eschewing the cheaper-built but more expensive homes available in Black neighborhoods, Lena chooses a home in a white development. This prompts a visit from Karl Lindner (Jeff Coté) of the Clybourne Park Improvement Association. It seems the neighbors want to buy Mama out, which may become necessary due to some poor choices on Walter Lee’s part.
First time director Leontyne Mbele-Mbong makes an impressive directorial debut here. The wide casting net thrown throughout Northern California landed an impressive troupe led with a blistering performance by Smith and a moving one by Lackey. Masala was clearly struggling with some lines, but delivered in her most powerful scenes. Lawson-Chavanu’s character may be the most dynamic, as the agent through which Hansberry raises the issue of assimilation, courtesy of two distinct suitors (Rodney Fierce and Mark Anthony).
The genius of A Raisin in the Sun is that Hansberry has the audience identify with the universal challenges faced by the Younger family and then exposes them to the additional weight imposed by systemic and “casual” racism. It’s both a heart-wrenching family drama and a social commentary.
It’s a terrific production of a great American play.
‘A Raisin in the Sun’ runs through March 26 on the Monroe Stage at 6th Street Playhouse, 52 W. 6th St., Santa Rosa. Thurs-Sat., 7:30pm; Sat-Sun, 2pm. $22–$43. 707.523.4185. 6thstreeetplayhouse.com.
In the last weekend of February, as another rain storm soaked Sonoma County, over 40 people from around California gathered in Santa Rosa to reconnect with fire.
On that Sunday morning, participants gathered at the California Indian Museum and Culture Center before heading to the Heron Shadow, a property used by The Cultural Conservancy as a refuge for Indigenous food and culture.
There, attendees took turns lighting piles of sticks and other plant material. The gathering was the last in a series of five events held throughout northern California, titled “Rekindling Culture and Fire.”
Attendees were drawn together by a desire “to put fire on the land in a healthy way,” Cody Walker, a board member of the California Indian Basketweavers’ Association (CIBA) and member of the Chukchansi tribe, said. “When fire comes down like the Tubbs fire, that’s bad fire. It’s destructive.”
The Rekindling series, organized by CIBA in partnership with other nonprofits, comes at a time of renewed interest and access to cultural and prescribed burns. Many Indigenous attendees of the Santa Rosa event knew the benefits of “good fire” before the Tubbs Fire struck. However, that disaster helped to bring broader attention to the problems with America’s forest management strategies, which, for decades, have greatly restricted the use of intentional fires, allowing fuel to build up, strengthening wildfires.
For much of the 20th century, the U.S. Forest Service implemented “fire exclusion” policies aimed at protecting lumber and structures, according to a February 2021 study in Fire Ecology. In California, this included a ban on cultural burning, a tradition of many tribes long predating the arrival of European colonizers.
“From the 1920s to the 2000s, fire exclusion policies and regulations against cultural burning increased the scarcity of suitable basketry stems for basketweavers,” the Fire Ecology study states.
For thousands of years before the restrictive policies, Indigenous people used cultural burns to enhance the production of basket weaving materials, including producing straight and strong hazelnut stems. Baskets are used for child-rearing, storage and ceremonies. Now, groups like CIBA are trying to reconnect with the entire process, from tending to the land with cultural burns to creating baskets with the resulting materials.
“It really is a way of life, not just a once a year thing. You tend to the land, grow really nice sticks, harvest the sticks and put the sticks and plants together to create a beautiful basket,” Walker said.
Jordan Torres has worked in project management at Heron Shadow Farm for almost a year. He began as an intern and stayed because he loves working with the land. Torres is from the Chocktaw Nation.
Legalizing Fire
As Indigenous groups continue to reintroduce cultural fires, public agencies and private property owners are warming up to the use of prescribed burns.
A 2020 Stanford University study recommended that California increase use of prescribed burns on private property as a tool to decrease the risk of massive wildfires. The researchers found that, after decades of fuel build-up, the state needed to reduce fuel loads on about 20 million acres, approximately 20% of the state.
However, a variety of factors, including property owners’ insurance concerns, stigma about fire and restrictive regulations, have discouraged the use of planned burns.
In recent years, state lawmakers have eased some rules and set up a pot of money to offset possible costs to private landowners. Last March, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force announced a plan to burn 400,000 acres per year by 2025 as part of the state’s wildfire mitigation strategy.
“We know that returning good fire to the ground is one of our best tools in the fight against catastrophic wildfire and climate change,” Wade Crowfoot, the state’s Natural Resources secretary, said in a statement announcing the task force’s plan. The federal government has also set aside funding to increase the use of prescribed burns in high-risk areas.
Still, such planned fires aren’t totally without risk. Last summer, for instance, New Mexico suffered the largest wildfire in recorded history, after prescribed burns started by the U.S. Forest Service escaped.
However, Michael Wara, a Stanford researcher, has said that only two of 400 prescribed burns on private property over three recent years escaped, causing minimal damage. Most prescribed and cultural burns on private property are much smaller than the ones the Forest Service uses.
And, despite the small risk planned burns pose, the previous fire management model clearly didn’t work either.
Ron Goode, tribal chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe. Photo by Chelsea Kurnick
Standing under a tent at Heron Shadow, Ron Goode, tribal chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe and a long-time cultural fire practitioner, reflected on the difference between Indigenous and western approaches to wilderness management. Despite recent wildfires burning a huge amount of northern California, Goode said that government agencies still aren’t doing enough to work on areas that didn’t burn, instead focusing on clearcutting areas that did.
“Right now, the United States government says, ‘Wilderness, that’s a good thing, because if we leave it alone, we don’t have to do anything with it. And it won’t cost us anything.’ Those are the two items they’re after: don’t have to do any work on it and don’t have to pay anything for it,” Goode said.
Indigenous groups favor a closer, ongoing relationship with the land, which Goode likened to tending a garden.
“I tell them, ‘Is that how you build a garden? You don’t clean up the ground first, you don’t clean up last year’s crop and then you plant all your plants right next to each other? That’s not how you do a garden, and that’s what the forest is: a garden that needs to be tended,’” he reflected.
“From the Native American standpoint, that’s what we’re saying. We’re here to restore. We’re here to rejuvenate. We’re here to regenerate,” Goode said. “Yes, we still take. We still use the resources, but our impact is nothing like the [government] agencies’ impacts.”
The Santa Rosa Junior College’s Multicultural Museum is currently showing 130 masterfully woven baskets from the Elsie Allen Pomo Basket Collection. ‘Breaking Traditions, Saving Traditions: Elsie Allen & the Legacy of Pomo Basketry’ is open Monday thru Saturday until Dec. 22.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Repressed feelings and dormant passions are rising to the surface. I bet they will soon be rattling your brain and illuminating your heart, unleashing a soothing turbulence of uncanny glee. Will you get crazy and wise enough to coax the Great Mystery into blessing you with an inspirational revelation or two? I believe you will. I hope you will! The more skillful you are at generating rowdy breakthroughs, the less likely you are to experience a breakdown. Be as unruly as you need to be to liberate the very best healings.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You finally have all you need to finish an incomplete mission or resolve a mess of unsettled karma. The courage and determination you couldn’t quite summon before are now fully available as you invoke a climax that will prepare the way for your awe-inspiring rebirth. Gaze into the future, dear Taurus, and scan for radiant beacons that will be your guides in the coming months. You have more help than you know, and now is the time to identify it and move toward it.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Our sun is an average star in a galaxy of 100 billion stars. In comparison to some of its flamboyant compatriots, it’s mediocre. Over 860 light years away is a blue-white supergiant star called Rigel, which is twice as hot as our sun and 40,000 times brighter. The red supergiant Antares, over 600 light years away, has 12 times more mass. Yet if those two show-offs had human attitudes, they might be jealous of our star, which is the source of energy for a planet teeming with 8.7 million forms of life. I propose we make the sun your role model for now, Gemini. It’s an excellent time to glory in your unique strengths and to exuberantly avoid comparing yourself to anyone else.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): The philosophical principle known as Occam’s razor asserts that when trying to understand a problem or enigma, we should favor the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions. While that’s often a useful approach, I don’t recommend it in the coming weeks. For you, nuances and subtleties will abound in every situation. Mere simplicity is unlikely to lead to a valid understanding. You will be wise to relish the complications and thrive on the paradoxes. Try to see at least three sides of every story. Further tips: 1. Mysteries may be truer than mere facts. 2. If you’re willing to honor your confusion, the full, rich story will eventually emerge.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “There are no unsacred places,” wrote Leo poet Wendell Berry. “There are only sacred places and desecrated places.” Poet Allen Ginsberg agreed. “Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!” he wrote. “Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeteria! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets! Holy the sea, holy the desert, holy the railroad.” With Berry’s and Ginsberg’s prompts as your inspiration, and in accordance with current astrological imperatives, I invite you to invigorate your relationship with sacredness. If nothing is sacred for you, do what it takes to find and commune with sacred things, places, animals, humans and phenomena. If you are already a lover of sacred wonders, give them extra love and care. To expand your thinking and tenderize your mood, give your adoration to these related themes: consecration, sublimity, veneration, devotion, reverence, awe and splendor.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): My favorite Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, wrote the following: “In us, there is a river of feelings, in which every drop of water is a different feeling, and each feeling relies on all the others for its existence. To observe it, we just sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it surfaces, flows by and disappears.” I bring this meditation to your attention, Virgo, because I hope you will do it daily during the next two weeks. Now is an excellent time to cultivate an intense awareness of your feelings—to exult in their rich meanings, to value their spiritual power, to feel gratitude for educating and entertaining you.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): How might your life come into clearer focus when you uncover secrets that inspire your initiative and ingenuity? What happens when resources that had been inaccessible become available for your enjoyment and use? How will you respond if neglected truths spring into view and point the way toward improvements in your job situation? I suspect you will soon be able to tell me stories about all this good stuff. PS: Don’t waste time feeling doubtful about whether the magic is real. Just welcome it and make it work for you!
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): It’s not the best time to tattoo a lover’s likeness on your abdomen. Maybe in May, but not now. On the other hand, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to see if your paramour might be willing to tattoo your name on their thigh. Similarly, this is a favorable period to investigate which of your allies would wake up at 5am to drive you to the airport, and which of your acquaintances and friends would stop others from spreading malicious gossip about you, and which authorities would reward you if you spoke up with constructive critiques.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world. They may grow as high as 350 feet. Their roots are shallow, though, reaching down just six to 12 feet before spreading out 60 to 100 feet horizontally. And yet the trees are sturdy, rarely susceptible to being toppled by high winds and floods. What’s their secret? Their root systems are interwoven with those of other nearby redwoods. Together, they form networks of allies, supporting each other and literally sharing nutrients. I endorse this model for you to emulate in your efforts to create additional stability and security in your life, Sagittarius.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): What’s the best way to be fulfilled? Hard work and discipline? Are we most likely to flourish if we indulge only moderately in life’s sweet pleasures and mostly focus on the difficult tasks that build our skills and clout? Or is it more accurate to say that 90% of success is just showing up: being patient and persistent as we carry out the small day-to-day sacrifices and devotions that incrementally make us indispensable? Mythologist Joseph Campbell described a third variation: to “follow our bliss.” We find out what activities give us the greatest joy and install those activities at the center of our lives. As a Capricorn, you are naturally skilled at the first two approaches. In the coming months, I encourage you to increase your proficiency at the third.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Mackerels are unusual fish in that they must keep swimming nonstop. If they don’t, they die. Do they ever sleep? Scientists haven’t found any evidence that they do. I bring them up now because many of you Aquarians have resemblances to mackerels—and I think it’s especially crucial that you not act like them in the coming weeks. I promise you that nothing bad will happen if you slow way down and indulge in prolonged periods of relaxing stillness. Just the opposite in fact: Your mental and physical health will thrive as you give your internal batteries time and space to recharge.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A financial advisor once told me I could adopt one of three approaches to running my business: 1. Ignore change; 2. always struggle with change, half-immobilized by mixed feelings about whether to change or stand pat; 3. learn to love and thrive on change. The advisor said that if I chose either of the first two options, I would always be forced to change by circumstances beyond my control. The third approach is ultimately the only one that works. Now is an excellent time for you Pisceans to commit yourself fully to number three—for both your business and your life.
Altered BooksHumans read them, they ban them, they burn them—and sometimes they make art out of them: books. Artist and instructor Nathalie Valette will offer her “Book Altering Mini Workshop” from 2:30 to 5:30pm, Sunday, March 12, at Studio 64, 64 Louise St., San Rafael. “An altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that changes a book from its original printed form into something completely new,” explains the event’s press release (if only there were a workshop for newspapers). Class size is limited to 10. To bookmark a spot, send a check for $50 to Nathalie Valette, ℅ Studio 64 (address above) or Venmo @Nathalie-Valette. Materials are included.
Occidental
‘The Last Professional’
Step aside, planes, trains and automobiles—author Ed Davis sees the ante and raises with trains, hobos and carnies. He’s not bluffing, and to prove it he will read from The Last Professional, his new novel inspired by all the above (and a mad person to boot) at 4 pm, Sunday, March 26 at Occidental Center for the Arts, 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Admission is free; donations accepted; refreshments for sale. A Q&A follows a selection of readings, as well as a book sale and signing. occidentalcenterforthearts.org.
Sonoma
The Envelope Please
Sonoma’s Sebastiani Theatre plays host to the valley’s glitziest Academy Awards screening and party on Sunday, March 12. The live event will be projected on the big screen, with hors d’oeuvres and drinks covered by the $50 price of admission (theater concessions, beer, wine and champagne will also be available for purchase). Doors open at 4pm, and attendees are encouraged to come in costume as their favorite actors or movie characters (with prizes awarded to the best costumes). The theater is located in Sonoma on The Plaza at 476 First St. East. sebastianitheatre.com.
Napa Valley
Get a Job
Without picking up a guitar, one may start a career in music by bringing a resume to BottleRock Napa Valley’s job fair from 4 to 7pm, Tuesday, March 21 at Zinfandel Hall in the Napa Expo RV Park, 601 Silverado Trail, Napa. Positions for the late May music fest include spa assistants, food & beverage, ticketing services and more. Applicants must be 18 years or older. For more information, visit bottlerocknapavalley.com.
The Santa Rosa Junior College Theatre Arts program opens its 2023 Spring season with the dark comedy Gloria. Written by Obie award-winning playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, this finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama runs on the SRJC campus through March 12.
In true millennial fashion, Jacobs-Jenkins’ work is susceptible to spoilers. To know much about the plot is to lessen the story’s impact. Just know that the warnings in the program about gun violence, suicide, strong language and loud noises should be taken seriously, and when it says dark comedy, the emphasis is on dark.
Starting in a pre-pandemic, midtown-Manhattan magazine office, Jacobs-Jenkins ostensibly explores millennials’ role in the modern office environment. However, as with real life, things go off the rails pretty quickly, and by intermission the audience is left to realize that the play is about so much more.
All actors play multiple roles, except for Nate Musser’s nuanced and highly controlled performance of the realistically-neurotic Lorin. Juliya Lubin’s ice-queen Nan is strong, but her portrayal of the titular Gloria is too one-dimensional. Much is learned about the character’s humanity and normalcy later in the play, and it would have been nice to have seen some of that in her performance.
The first act of the script hinges on razor-sharp dialogue to attain the gut punch it leads toward. Unfortunately, Nina Nguyen’s Kendra delivers that dialogue in a monotone, robbing the words of their impact. On the whole, though, the students do an exceptional job of feeling out characters written with a depth and refinement that most college students have yet to find.
With the exception of direction by department chair Leslie McCauley, the play is entirely student-produced. The SRJC’s technical theater department shines through its students here. The lighting design (Chris Cota) is highly nuanced, if a tad overcomplicated. The costume design (Sophie Marie-Carlton) is detail-oriented. The set (Nora Meas) is cleverly designed to create various locations without much change, and the properties design (Abby Miranda) is frighteningly realistic.
Despite its flaws, the production does convey the deep moral conundrums Jacob-Jenkins intended. As he himself states, this play is really about who owns the story. In this production, the students have done a worthy job of taking ownership.
‘Gloria’ runs Thurs–Sun through March 12 in the Santa Rosa Junior College’s Burbank Auditorium Studio Theatre, 1501 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa. Thurs–Sat, 7:30pm; Sat & Sun, 2pm. $5–$25. 707.527.4307. theatrearts.santarosa.edu.
With shock and calls to action building around Sonoma County over the in-classroom altercation at Santa Rosa’s Montgomery High School that ended with the stabbing homicide of a 16-year-old boy on Feb. 27, it is time to ask how we want to raise the next generation.
Schools throughout the county are famously underfunded. Even when there is a qualified mental health counselor available, they are often shared between multiple campuses.
Now there is a call to fund so-called “School Resource Officers” (SROs). Armed cops in schools. In Santa Rosa.
SRO deployment is not correlated with a reduction in school crimes. Instead, SROs have been shown to disproportionately detain and arrest Black and brown students, while failing to defend schools against attacks. One may remember videos of the SRO hiding outside during Florida’s Parkland High School shooting of 2018.
Instead of adding guns to schools, let’s think about how to really address the needs of these kids.
Think about the three children involved in the fight. Automatically, one feels sorry for the deceased and disgusted by the killer. Yet the two stabbing victims entered a classroom in session to continue a two-against-one fight with a freshman two years behind them.
Only weeks ago, two students at a Petaluma high school felt compelled to leave their classroom before putting on masks to enter another in-session classroom to continue a fight from earlier.
What had these kids learned about disagreement and conflict resolution?
Ask which institution is better suited to raising a generation confident enough to respect and support one another with kindness, patience and understanding: A well-funded, free to access pre-K–12 school system staffed with well-trained and dedicated educators? Or a policing system that is willing to use pepper spray or worse on children, that is well documented to escalate situations which involve mental health crises?
Which option would help a high school freshman not bring a knife to school just so he will feel safe? Although he survived the fight, his childhood is over.
No SROs in Sonoma County. Speak at city council meetings; tell friends. Let’s do better.
Michael Giotis is a music and arts contributor to the ‘Bohemian’ and ‘Pacific Sun.’
Fern Bar, located in Sebastopol's Barlow district, is known for its good times.
But its upcoming Drag Trivia Night on Thursday, March 23, from 6–8:30pm, will undoubtedly prove to be an excessively good time. Presented by THTR Productions and Fern Bar, and hosted by Bay Area bombshell Sasha Devaroe, the disco-themed event will include food, drinks, performances and, of course,...
Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock said it best when he declared, “In feature films, the director is God; in documentary films, God is the director.”
Naturally, this assumes A) a higher power and B) that the Auteur Theory is bunk. No matter what one believes, those who like their truth at 24 per second are in luck—the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival (SDFF)...
A lot of “firsts” were achieved when Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun debuted on Broadway in 1959. It was the first time Broadway produced a play written by a Black woman and the first Broadway show helmed by a Black director.
Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse has been attempting to mount a production for the last few years....
Chamber Music Marin
Mt. Tamalpais United Methodist Church, 410 Sycamore Ave., Mill Valley. chambermusicmarin.org
Telegraph Quartet and San Francisco Conservatory of Music graduate students make the grade. 5pm, Sunday, April 2. $40.
Elephant in the Room
177 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. elephantintheroompub.com.
The juice is definitely worth the squeeze with Sweet ‘N' Juicy—and no pulp. 6pm, Friday, March 16. Free.
The Flamingo Resort
2777 4th St., Santa...
In the last weekend of February, as another rain storm soaked Sonoma County, over 40 people from around California gathered in Santa Rosa to reconnect with fire.
On that Sunday morning, participants gathered at the California Indian Museum and Culture Center before heading to the Heron Shadow, a property used by The Cultural Conservancy as a refuge for Indigenous food...
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Repressed feelings and dormant passions are rising to the surface. I bet they will soon be rattling your brain and illuminating your heart, unleashing a soothing turbulence of uncanny glee. Will you get crazy and wise enough to coax the Great Mystery into blessing you with an inspirational revelation or two? I believe you will....
JaM Cellars
1460 First St., Napa. jamcellars.com.
Folk music from the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains will be performed by Jonathan Foster.
8pm, Thursday, March 9. $10.
Hopmonk Tavern Sebastopol
230 Petaluma Ave., Sebastopol. hopmonk.com.
From Western Canada, Moontricks is a duo that combines their love of folk, blues and electronic music in a performance this Friday night.
8pm, Friday, March 10. $24.23.
The Phoenix Theater
201 Washington...
San Rafael
Altered BooksHumans read them, they ban them, they burn them—and sometimes they make art out of them: books. Artist and instructor Nathalie Valette will offer her “Book Altering Mini Workshop” from 2:30 to 5:30pm, Sunday, March 12, at Studio 64, 64 Louise St., San Rafael. “An altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that changes a...
The Santa Rosa Junior College Theatre Arts program opens its 2023 Spring season with the dark comedy Gloria. Written by Obie award-winning playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, this finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama runs on the SRJC campus through March 12.
In true millennial fashion, Jacobs-Jenkins’ work is susceptible to spoilers. To know much about the plot is to...
With shock and calls to action building around Sonoma County over the in-classroom altercation at Santa Rosa’s Montgomery High School that ended with the stabbing homicide of a 16-year-old boy on Feb. 27, it is time to ask how we want to raise the next generation.
Schools throughout the county are famously underfunded. Even when there is a qualified mental...
