‘A Thousand and One Arabian Nights’

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‘A Thousand and One Arabian Nights’

Photograph by Steven Underwood

Tell Us a Story

‘A Thousand and One Arabian Nights’ weaves yarns

By Julia Hawkins

Leslie Currier’s adaptation of the Arabian Nights, presented by Marin Shakespeare Company, opens with two armed Muslim soldiers who have captured a terrified Arab (performed with gripping presence by Scott Coopwood), whom they take for a spy. He pleads innocent; he’s a storyteller, not a spy. They hesitate to shoot him on the spot, especially since he offers to entertain them and relieve their boredom. And so the storyteller saves his life by telling stories against the dawn. He embarks upon the story of the Arabian Nights, and the play’s first story within a story begins.

Once upon a time, he says, there lived a king named Shahryar (played with good madness by Michael Wiles), who, upon catching his wife in bed with a servant, kills the lovers. Vowing to punish all women–whom he will never trust again–he marries a virgin every night and has her beheaded in the morning, before she has a chance to cuckold him. With his kingdom running short of maids, the vizier’s daughter, educated and wise, is eventually summoned as the next victim.

Scheherezade (the enchanting and heroic Stephanie Gularte), under pretext of telling her sister Dunyazad (the sweet and brave Melissa Thompson) a bedtime tale, launches into her tales. The intricate story weaving continues, with the storyteller and his guards perched on a platform above the stage and the subjects of the initial story telling their own stories below.

Scheherezade tells the story of a poor fisherman (the genial and talented Thomas Lynch) who catches a bottle in his net and uncorks a jinni–a spirit with supernatural powers. Instead of thanking the fisherman, the jinni, furious for having been cooped up for thousands of years, announces he will kill the innocent fisherman. But the fisherman tricks the jinni back inside the bottle until it promises to reward him. The fisherman then catches marvelous fish and becomes rich and lives happily ever after.

This story is a good one, says Scheherezade, but it is nothing compared to the story of . . . and she begins another. Each time Scheherezade reaches a story’s crisis, she, her sister, and the king are interrupted by the dawn call to prayer. Each day, the king must postpone her execution to learn the story’s conclusion.

This story within a story is a classical narrative structure, and we can see why, in this production, it is so effective. Nothing grabs the attention like death, and the listeners–the audience, the guards, the king–are prisoners to its suspense. Not until years of storytelling pass and Scheherezade bears the king three sons does he finally release her from his death sentence. The action then returns to the guards and the storyteller: the guards too are transformed by the stories and release the storyteller.

The production emphasizes the fine art of storytelling. Bruce Lackovic’s set places the storyteller and guards on a high platform and the king and Scheherezade on the side by their bed. The sound producers and musician/ composer Vince Delgado and accompanying musicians sit opposite, while the middle of the stage erupts with the stories’ action. The device of showing the mechanics makes for spell-inding theater. The ensemble of superb actors, especially John Ficarra, Jonathan Gonzalez, and Susan Wilder, handle the stories’ range with ease and authority.

Much has been made of the healing effects of storytelling. Fairy tales and tales of marvels place us in a universe that for all its surprises is yet structured, full of opportunity, and controlled by an all-seeing power. The universe in the Arabian Nights tells us we must accept turns in fortune while keeping our wits.

Scheherezade, by telling an immense range of stories that include women’s infidelity as well as honorableness, cures the king by putting his marital disappointment in perspective. A sense of wonderment is the beginning of philosophy, and the more perspectives we admit, the freer we are to tolerate opinions and behaviors that diverge from our own.

But storytelling is more than a cure. People’s stories are their lives; we do not leave our mark on the world until we have told our story, and our sufferings and triumphs may as well not have occurred if they are not told to someone. Theater tells our stories for us, in great part, but we must also tell our own.

‘A Thousand and One Arabian Nights’ plays weekends through Aug. 25 at Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, Grand Avenue, Dominican University, San Rafael. For ticket information, call 415.499.4488 or visit www.marinshakespeare.org.

From the August 1-7, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Hope Sandoval

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Hope Sandoval

Hope Springs Eternal

Ex-Mazzy Star singer still shines brightly

By Greg Cahill

Know this about Hope Sandoval: The famously reclusive Goth-folk singer is genuinely shy and modest. When asked about her life, she sounds, well, almost pained. Why doesn’t she like doing interviews? “For the usual reasons,” she offers during a phone interview from a San Francisco rehearsal studio.

Know this about Hope Sandoval: As the singer with Mazzy Star, a showcase for her soothingly narcotic croon and blue-lit moods, she became the voice of postpunk neopsychedelia in the ’90s. That band, with its fuzzy guitar workouts and plaintive folk musings, recalled the Velvet Underground. Sandoval, a svelte and sexy 36-year-old Natasha Kinski look-alike from East L.A., played a brunette Nico to guitarist David Roback’s laid-back Lou Reed.

In 1990, Roback and Sandoval released Mazzy Star’s debut, She Hangs Brightly (Rough Trade). It became an instant college-radio hit. When Rough Trade’s U.S. branch went south, Capitol Records picked up the disc and three years later released the band’s follow-up, So Tonight That I Might See. It reached the Top 40 and spun off the surprise hit “Fade into You.” But Mazzy Star got minimal press. As music writer Richie Unterberger has noted, “Roback and Sandoval remained as enigmatic and aloof as their music, rarely submitting to interviews and offering mysterious, unhelpful replies when journalists did manage to talk to them.” Some things never change.

Know this about Hope Sandoval: She has a girlish laugh and somewhat coy demeanor that is quite refreshing amid the look-at-me mega-acts driven by the music industry’s multimillion dollar PR machine.

Know this about Hope Sandoval: She’s not punching a clock. Her latest recording project, Bavarian Fruit Bread (Rough Trade), is a partnership with Colm O’Ciosoig, former drummer with My Bloody Valentine, who heads up her new band, the Warm Inventions. It was released last fall after a five-year span between the last Mazzy Star recording. “I don’t really think about time limits,” Sandoval explains. “We just make music and it comes out whenever it comes out, and then people remind us that it’s been a long time between recording projects or whatever.”

Know this about Hope Sandoval: She doesn’t get it when people say she works the dark side of the street. “We were just playing what we felt,” she says of Mazzy Star’s dark tone. “Even now, with the most recent record that Colm and I put out, people have said, ‘It’s so sad and dark.’ But we thought it was really a cheerful record.”

Know this about Hope Sandoval: She may not like to talk about herself, but she loves to talk about the people she admires. In fact, after 15 minutes of dodging questions, Sandoval opens up when asked about her collaboration with Bert Jansch, the seminal Celtic folksinger, songwriter, and guitarist who contributed two tracks to Bavarian Fruit Bread. Sandoval is in awe of Jansch.

She and Jansch met several years ago at an underground show in London. At the time, Sandoval had mentioned to a label representative that it was a fantasy of hers to perform with Jansch, especially if he could show up and open a gig for the band. The label rep said he believed it was possible. The proper calls were made, and Jansch opened a gig, which turned out to be the start of a long friendship.

Sandoval has co-written and recorded a song with Jansch for his upcoming CD. “When he came out to Norway to record with us, it was unbelievable to be in the same room with him,” Sandoval enthuses. “I mean, he’s a genius. It was very emotional for me. After the sessions, I sat in my hotel room listening to the recordings and crying.”

Know this about Hope Sandoval: The title Bavarian Fruit Bread has significance for her. “There really is such a thing as Bavarian fruit bread,” she says cryptically. “But the title is sort of a secret message to someone.” Would she like to share that secret? There’s a long pause. “No,” she demurs with that girlish laugh.

Nuff said.

Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions bring their dream-pop to the Mystic Theatre on Thursday, Aug. 8, at 8pm. 21 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. Tickets are $20. The Soledad Brothers open the show. 707.765.2121.

From the August 1-7, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘The Crocodile Hunter’

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‘The Crocodile Hunter’

Wild and Crazy

Is ‘The Crocodile Hunter’ a menace to nature–or just a waste of time?

Writer David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate postfilm conversation. This is not a review; rather, it’s a freewheeling, tangential discussion of life, alternative ideas, and popular culture.

I have precious little time on the road,” yawns author Susan Chernak McElroy, mentally preparing herself to travel from Albuquerque, N.M.–where she’s been for less than 24 hours now–to Colorado for the last few bookstore appearances in what has been an especially jam-packed publicity tour. A renowned animal advocate and bestselling nature writer (Animals as Teachers and Healers, Animals as Guides for the Soul), McElroy has been logging a lot of frequent-flyer miles to promote her newest book, Heart in the Wild: A Journey of Self-Discovery with Animals of the Wilderness. And now that it’s almost over, she’s understandably exhausted.

And just a little cranky.

“The last two weeks have been beyond brutal. I barely have any time to myself at all,” she says and with a throaty laugh adds, “so the fact that I just donated two hours of it to that movie is going to stay with me a long, long time.”

That Movie–and that’s how McElroy will refer to the film from this moment on–is The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, a big-screen version of the popular Animal Planet network TV show. It stars Steve Irwin, the beloved Australian zookeeper and super-manic reptile-disturber, a guy who thinks nothing of swimming with carnivorous, 300-pound amphibians or dangling venomous serpents by the tail as he faces the camera to make faces while expounding on nature’s beautiful creatures.

On the surface, one might expect McElroy to eat this guy up. After all, he loves nature, she loves nature; he appreciates the power and spirit of animals, and so does she. That’s why I invited McElroy to see That Movie in the first place.

I was wrong.

“I really don’t care for the guy,” says McElroy, wearily. “And because I don’t care for the guy, it sets me up to look at the movie in a very different light–and it’s a very harsh light.”

“Uh-oh,” I say.

“Don’t worry, I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at the movie,” she says. “I really question the necessity of using wild animals in film at all. Why should these animals give up their freedom and their wildness in order to be movie stars? I honestly think animals should be all digital or just not done at all. I’d like to see a movie where the disclaimer says, ‘None of the animals in this film were real because it is not respectful to animals to keep them in bondage for the sake of a movie.'”

“But the message that Steve Irwin passes along is a good one . . . isn’t it?” I ask. “Isn’t he saying that nature is worthy of respect?”

“Then he should respect it,” she replies. “I hate the fact that that guy–on his show and in That Movie–goes out and harasses animals while saying, ‘Wow! Aren’t these wonderful animals? Isn’t this exciting?’ Well, yeah, but how would he feel if some big moron came running into his house, grabbed his wife by the hair, and as she was screaming and trying to run away, says, ‘Isn’t this a beautiful babe? Just look at her! Look at her hair! Ooh! What an awesome creature!'”

For the record, McElroy does a pretty fair Steve Irwin impression.

“I don’t like people walking through my home and scaring me, walking up to my refrigerator, grabbing a glug of milk and leaving,” she continues. “That would be terrifying, and it’s terrifying for animals too.”

This, she says, is why movies like The Crocodile Hunter are more than just a waste of her time. They are, says McElroy, nothing short of dangerous, in spite of the charm and youthful enthusiasm that Steve Irwin conveys.

“When I was a little kid, I was that enthusiastic about nature too,” she says. “I raided nests. I took fledglings and raised them by myself. I found a tiny ground squirrel once that was outside its nest, and rather than let it go back in, I took it home–and it died. I had that childlike enthusiasm, and I still have it.

“But,” she says with a final chuckle, “I know enough to leave things alone now.”

From the July 25-31, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘Sex and Lucía’

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‘Sex and Lucía’

Rabbit Hole

‘Sex and Lucía’ dishes up Borgesian erotica from Spain

By

In its native Spain, the film Sex and Lucía is known as Lucía and Sex; the title reversal for export stresses the real appeal of the film in our nation of unsexy movies. But Sex and Lucía really ought to have been titled Emmanuelle on Borges Island.

A Madrid waitress named Lucía (Paz Vega, a cross between Winona Ryder and Patricia Arquette) falls immediately in love with a blocked writer who comes to her restaurant. Lorenzo (Tristán Ulloa) and Lucía have wild sex and move in together. But as the months go past, Lucía begins to realize that she doesn’t have all of the writer’s attention. Is it the book Lorenzo is laboring over–is that her rival? Or is Lorenzo distracted by his own memory of a tryst he had long ago on a faraway beach?

Later, when Lorenzo turns up missing, he is presumed dead under circumstances that Lucía doesn’t really investigate. Most lovers would want to say goodbye, if only to the body. Instead, she decides to go for a vacation on the unnamed Mediterranean island where Lorenzo once lived (and where, we know, he had that one magic evening years ago).

While Lucía is exploring a cliff, she falls into a hole. The hole is real–the opening of a cave. But it’s also symbolic, since once Lucía falls in, the story starts again from the beginning, this time telling us all the details that Lucía knew nothing of.

We learn of Lorenzo’s simmering affair with a nanny named Belén (Elena Anaya), a woman with a fantastically troubled sex life (she lusts after her own mother). And we also learn that the child in Belén’s care has a secret of her own. The little girl is a key to the unfinished business that tormented Lorenzo.

Confused yet? Sex and Lucía would be an easy-to-read sexual melodrama if it weren’t for the Möbius-strip plot. The most flamboyant parts–Belén’s anarchic sex life–may be so unbelievable because they’re fiction within fiction, a creation of Lorenzo’s writing. This could be the story of a writer having a torrid affair with one of his characters.

But the idea of who, what, or where in Sex and Lucía becomes more a matter of opinion than fact, because director and writer Julio Medem (Lovers of the Arctic Circle) delivers some passages with marbles in his mouth. Take, for example, the death of a little girl in a savage dog attack, a sequence so badly directed that you can’t figure out what happened for nearly an hour afterward.

Sex and Lucía offers the familiar disconcerting effect of sitting through a movie in which the reels have been confused. The careless viewer may watch it as fancy-schmancy erotica, upon which level it works very well. However, a dry satire of the banality of men’s sexual fantasies can be just as banal as men’s fantasies themselves.

‘Sex and Lucía’ opens Friday, July 26, at the Rafael Film Center.

From the July 25-31, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘Mr. Smith’

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‘Mr. Smith’

Mime Time

SF Mime Troupe’s ‘Mr. Smith’ ain’t Capra

By Sara Bir

Cracking jokes at the expense of the most tragic event to take place on American soil since the bombing of Pearl Harbor is a bold maneuver. But then again, so is our government’s using the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as an opportunity to further agendas of globalization and corporate gain. Leave it to the ever trustworthy San Francisco Mime Troupe to bite off such a politically charged mouthful and spit it out as a feisty, lampooning monster. Mr. Smith Goes to Obscuristan, the Mime Troupe’s topical target for this summer’s season, sets its cross hairs once again on the occupants of the White House and the strings they yank.

For those of you unfamiliar with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, they have been performing the lost art of socially relevant musical theater since 1959. They mime not in the sense of grease-paint and silent pantomime but in the sense of mocking and mimicking. In fact, the San Francisco Mime Troupe may be the loudest mimes on earth.

Josh Kornbluth, monologist (“Red Diaper Baby”), filmmaker (author and star of the temp-worker cult epic Haiku Tunnel), and longtime Mime Troupe admirer, takes his first spin at writing a multicharacter script with Mr. Smith Goes to Obscuristan. Kornbluth’s irreverent voice is evident in the script (“the war on terrorism is brought to you by Chevy Trucks!”), but the lasting impression of Mr. Smith –swift set changes, exaggerated props, sweeping motions–is all Mime Troupe.

The Mr. Smith in question is Jeff Smith (co-director Michael Sullivan), a sincere and aw-shucks-pure fireman whose heroism on Sept. 11 has caught the attention of the Bush administration, who send him off as a diplomat to the tiny, sub-dirt-poor nation of Obscuristan. Obscuristan is, in fact, so poor that they are utterly devoid of natural resources, making them the only desert nation forced to import their own sand.

Smith’s mission is to act as a ray of solid American democracy for Obscuristan’s first-ever election. When an upstart candidate, Ralif Nadir, springs up to challenge the rigged victory of president-for-life Automaht Regurgitov (Victor Toman) and Obscuristani oil reserves suddenly come to light, the president of the United States runs across a dilemma: Using the war on terrorism to advance corporate interests is obstructing his actual foreign policy of . . . advancing corporate interests.

The White House-based scenes wield the sharpest humor, with a clueless George W. Bush (Amos Glick, who also played George W. in last year’s 1600 Transylvania Avenue) sneaking around in a smoking jacket, trying to avoid the bulldoggish Cheney (Ed Holmes). When Cheney discovers an open bag of pretzels on the Oval Office desk, he phones the Secret Service: “We got a code P!”

Bush, Cheney, and a buoyant Condoleezza Rice assume they have a fail-safe pawn and generator of positive PR in Smith–they even pass up sending Jimmy Carter for his chumminess with Cuba. The true-blue Smith, however, actually believes in American democracy and sets out intending to adhere to it.

The highlight of the Obscuristan scenes are the newscasts of a Selected News Network reporter, who is out there expressly to produce feel-good, newsless puff pieces about the election. These scenes drive home the lengths the media goes to broadcast what amounts to absolutely nothing whatsoever. There’s a great four-way scene where she’s on a cell phone with her SNN producer (who, naturally, is skiing in Aspen), while Smith is concurrently on the phone with the American ambassador to Obscuristan.

It’s these moments Mr. Smith needs a few more of. Even with a promising setup and excellent send-ups, Mr. Smith never truly gels. The musical numbers (with lyrics by Bruce Barthol and music by Jason Sherbundy) are forgettable and flat; they hold up the action instead of advancing it and waste what should be the play’s biggest opportunities for a laugh.

The plot is rife with chances for screwball twists, but the momentum never builds to the level that you feel it could–it’s as if a page or two of sight gags and verbal digs are missing. What could be great is merely good. Still, the orchestra’s interludes, especially the Middle Eastern-flavored Obscuristani bits, set the scene and punctuate the dialogue well.

Mr. Smith‘s main strength (besides Holmes’ take-charge cameo as Barbara Bush, who, we discover, is still the real brains behind the White House) is that it deals with depressing topics–corporate ruthlessness and the government’s allowance of it, empty media regurgitation of “news,” and America’s constant need to be the world’s top cop–and makes them, through humor, comfortable for the audience to confront. You’re not going to see political humor this bold on Saturday Night Live or a Mark Russell PBS special.

In classic musical theater fashion, everything wraps up tidily and for the best, which is cheesy yet reassuring. As Americans, we can make a difference! I’d forgotten. Seeing Mr. Smith Goes to Obcuristan was a great reminder. Those who feel vastly disappointed by what they see as shifty dealings of our government will leave this play feeling more patriotic than they have in a long time. Which might make up for the guttural laughs Mr. Smith lacks.

‘Mr. Smith Goes to Obscuristan’ plays Thursday, July 25, at 8pm (music starts at 8pm). Analy High School theater, 6950 Analy Ave., Sebastopol. $15 advance; $20 door (tickets available at Town Hall Coalition Center and all Copperfield’s locations). 707.874.9110. The San Francisco Mime Troupe will also perform ‘Mr. Smith’ at the Marin Music Festival in San Rafael on Saturday, Aug. 17, and at the Sebastiani Theatre in Sonoma on Thursday, Aug. 29. For details, call 415.285.1717.

From the July 25-31, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Beth Custer

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Beth Custer

Beth Hears Her Calling

‘Eclectic’ is too limiting a word for Beth Custer

By

Beth Custer lives about five lives at once in San Francisco, but she’s taking time out for local shows. Her upcoming Point Reyes performance brings in Custer’s latest band, Doña Luz 30 Besos, dubbed in tribute to an abuelita of a landlady named Doña Luz, with whom Custer stayed when she was studying Spanish in Oaxaca.

“Originally, the band was called Doña Luz 30 Minutes, but that sounded too sexual,” Custer says. “Thirty kisses sounded mas suave.”

When not performing with Doña Luz 30 Besos, Custer collaborates with Joe Goode and the Dance Theater, which entails a musical residency at the LAB, a San Francisco arts showcase. Custer also busies herself teaching music and preparing for a long vacation trip to Spain, which will be followed by a recording session for the new Doña Luz album. She is also incubating a new film soundtrack for debut in November at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre–accompaniment to Kote Miqaberidze’s silent film Chemi Bebia (or My Grandmother), a once banned and little-known 1929 Soviet comedy. “It stars an Ernie Kovacs look-alike,” Custer says.

To keep busy, Custer is also taking a crash course in Spanish to further a fascination with Latin music that spurred her recent trip to Cuba. “I think about moving there,” she sighs with true love. “Every street corner has a cafe, where the music starts at 11:30am and goes on till 2am. There’s government support for musicians there, but you have to audition and then get certified class A, B, or C.” Cuba probably doesn’t need to import any musicians, but I bet they could use Custer, a class-A musician if ever there was one.

Mostly, I’d been familiar with Custer’s clarinet playing on the Club Foot Orchestra’s love theme from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a cobwebby waltz that is miles away from her velvety session work on the underrated Connie Champagne album, La Strada.

Custer’s been playing piano since age three. She went from being a young prodigy to a BA in music studies at SUNY, Potsdam. Custer came out West on a bicycling trip and stayed put. In between her many projects, she finished up an MA in clarinet performance at San Francisco State University before turning back to the piano.

Custer grew up expecting to become a classical musician. Indeed, she ended up in one of the most eccentric orchestras since Raymond Scott’s–the Club Foot Orchestra. This ensemble, founded by Richard Marriott, went from a one-room nightclub to international performances of original scores for silent classics such as Metropolis and Nosferatu.

The orchestra’s membership waxed and waned, at one point including the distinctive Ralph Records guitarist Phil “Snakefinger” Lithman. Eventually, Club Foot fielded some CBS money doing the soundtrack for the Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, a noble attempt to bring back the wonky surrealism of the pre-Mickey Mouse cartoon pioneer.

“It was extremely low pay for a 12-piece band,” Custer said in 1998, “but later you get royalties for these things, and television royalties are pretty happening. It’s gotten me through the bad times financially.”

Work with the orchestra began Custer’s performance of original music. “I went from free improv and solo concerts to writing down stuff. That’s when I started to blossom as a composer.”

The Doña Luz lineup now includes David James (guitar), Jan Jackson (drums and vocals), David Rosenthal (bass and vocals), and percussionist Hugo Godoy. Doña Luz covers songs by the half-Galician, half-Basque musician Manu Chao, including “Lagrimas de Oro.” The band will also bring out new versions of songs from Custer’s former outfit, Eighty Mile Beach, a collaboration between her and DJ/engineer Christian Jones named after a five-person town in western Australia (“Sixteen miles of beach for every person,” Custer figures).

The Doña Luz concert may also include a song that she’s recorded three different versions of, “In the Broken Fields Where I Lie.” The song, an excerpt from her own Vinculum Symphony, is “a final ode to my grandmother,” Custer notes. The Vinculum Symphony is Custer’s other project this year, which she’ll perform with the Minneapolis Symphony.

I sought in vain some vinculum (bond, that is) that connects all of Custer’s work, but it’s easier just to listen to the music of this multifaceted performer for whom the word “eclectic” itself is far too limiting.

Beth Custer and Doña Luz 30 Besos play with Elaine Buckholtz on Saturday, July 27, at 8pm, at Point Reyes Dance Palace, 503 B St., Point Reyes. Tickets are $10. 415.663.1075.

From the July 25-31, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Bohemian Grove Protesters

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Bohemian Grove Protesters

Photograph by R. V. Scheide

Kinder, Gentler Protest

The Bohemian Grove protesters shake it gently

By R. V. Scheide

It’s just after noon on Saturday, July 13, and Greg Haas, owner of the Pink Elephant bar in Monte Rio, is pissed. In 15 minutes, a crowd of demonstrators will march across the bridge spanning the Russian River, past his establishment, and into the nearby Bohemian Grove, where the Bohemian Club has just begun its annual two-week retreat in the Sonoma County redwoods.

The exclusive all-male club, which counts some of America’s wealthiest and most powerful men among its approximately 2,500 members, has been meeting at the grove for 125 years. The intense secrecy surrounding the gathering, which in the past has been attended by such luminaries as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and both George Bushes, has led some critics, including the Sonoma County Global Justice/Direct Action Network, which organized the protest this year, to claim that the annual retreat provides conservative politicians and their rich cronies convenient cover for designing public policy in private.

But Haas has no beef with the Bohos, as they are known locally. It’s the demonstrators that have him down. They scare away the tourists, he says. They trashed Monte Rio last year, he protests. Adding insult to injury, the protesters don’t even patronize his establishment. Bucking the New World Order and hoisting drinks don’t seem to be compatible behaviors to these folks, who dubbed their protest this year the “Fat Cats Festival and Parade.”

“Why are they messing with me?” asks Haas. “I’m not a fat cat.”

And it’s true, he’s not a fat cat, and they are messing with him, if only unintentionally, standing in the public-beach parking lot across the river, listening to speeches about corrupt politicians instead of ordering drinks at the Pink Elephant. “By the time this thing is through, we’ll have her house,” Haas says, alluding to Mary Moore, the longtime Sonoma County political activist who until this year played a leading role in the annual demonstration. “I hope they have a nice house, this little group of do-gooders.”

Not all of the patrons are in agreement with the bar owner’s sentiments.

“We’ll all be living in mud huts by the time that happens,” says one silver-haired patron perched on a bar stool. “That’s the way the Bohos want it.”

Outside the bar, smoking a cigarette next to his Harley knucklehead chopper, a local biker is in concurrence when told that the demonstrators believe a bunch of rich people are trying to take over the planet, and he doesn’t seem bothered that the protest might be scaring all the tourists away.

“Get rid of all the tourists, that’s what we need to do,” he says, nervously eyeballing a squadron of CHP motorcycles parked across the street, part of a contingent of 34 CHP officers and 20 Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputies deployed to direct traffic and make sure the protesters don’t get out of hand.

Nearly 1,000 demonstrators showed up for the Bohemian Club protest last year, snarling traffic and riling some Monte Rio business owners who claim they were left to clean up the protest’s mess. This year, the local chamber of commerce tried to force the protesters to get a parade permit, but the Sonoma County Global Justice/Direct Action Network said it couldn’t afford one and planned the march anyway. About 150 protesters are gathered in the parking lot on this brilliant Saturday afternoon, some helping carry larger-than-life street puppets, including one of Vice President Dick Cheney wearing prison stripes and a sign that says “Corporate Criminal.”

According to Schuyler Erle, a spokesman for Global Justice, the protesters can roughly be divided into two camps. Generally, those over 40 fall into a group he calls the “rational left,” epitomized by the a cappella singing group the Raging Grannies, who belted out a song slamming the genetic engineering corporation Monsanto to the tune of “Old McDonald” before the march into the grove started. Those under 40, a group that includes Erle, can loosely be called “magical activists,” young people who have perhaps read their Trotskyist literature but also believe in a more holistic, New Age approach to political activism. They also tend to sport dreadlocks and wear body glitter. At any rate, the goal of the two groups is the same.

“We want justice for all the beings on this beautiful planet,” Erle explains.

Marching to the steady beat of bongo drums, the protesters, young and old alike, carrying street puppets and placards and pushing baby strollers, make their way peacefully across the bridge and past the Pink Elephant, looking more like a lost tribe than angry, leftist rebels. The CHP has temporarily closed the bridge to traffic, delaying at most a dozen motorists. The police reopen the bridge after the marchers turn left onto Bohemian Avenue and proceed into the grove, where, about a hundred yards before the encampment’s entrance, they’re met by a line of khaki-clad police officers stretched out across the road, halting the march’s progress.

The protesters begin moving in a circle, chanting “Let it go! Let it go!” Their Resurrection of Care ritual has begun. The ritual was originally intended to satirize the Cremation of Care ceremony the Bohos traditionally use to open their annual retreat, in which members don hooded, Klan-like robes and hold a mock human sacrifice. The protesters, perhaps inspired by the magical activists among them, seem to take the Resurrection of Care ceremony seriously, calling upon all of the forces of nature to restore the world’s equilibrium, knocked off balance by the evil Bohos. “Love is what will heal the world,” says Dusty, the woman leading the ceremony.

That may be so, but after all is said and done, when the last scrap of litter has been picked up and the last protester has left Monte Rio, it’s difficult not to think that the complaints of the demonstrators will have fallen on deaf ears. As Greg Haas, owner of the Pink Elephant, pointed out earlier in the day, it’s doubtful that the Bohemians, safe and secure in their private enclave, will have even been aware the protesters were here.

From the July 25-31, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Wine Country Film Festival

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Wine Country Film Festival

Poetic Justice

Wine Country Film Festival builds cinematic bridge between cultures and arts

By Sara Bir

There are two reasons we go to see movies. One is to escape, to effortlessly slip away into another space for an hour and a half. The other is to discover–the glimmer that after it’s all over, we’ll come out knowing more about ourselves. Truly great movies do both. Mainstream movies often accomplish only the former, and those still thirsting for the latter know to look elsewhere.

Over four summer weeks, the Wine Country Film Festival, now in its 16th year, brings us a vibrant palette of cinematic experiences that not only entertain but make us richer as people, more understanding of the world around and beyond us. The films span from big-time premieres (such as Ghost World and La Bamba in the past) to tiny, obscure foreign and domestic films that would otherwise slip though the cracks of the cineplex world.

Plenty of film festivals do that, though; that’s what they are for. The distinctive factor about the Wine Country Film Festival–besides its idyllic vineyard settings and laid-back pace–is that it’s not just a receptacle for random movies. “Celebrating independent film, as well as international cinema–yes, we do that, but almost all of the films have a special purpose. One of the things we try to do is present films that have a very special reason to be made,” says Stephen Ashton, the festival’s founder and creative director, who, with his wife, Justine, puts together the festival from the couple’s ranch in Glen Ellen. The festival opened on July 18 and continues until Aug. 11.

Films to Watch: Selections from the Wine Country Film Festival schedule.

The lust for life and poetry are the heavily listing slants running through many of this year’s films, be they features or documentaries, foreign or domestic, long or short form. Looking at the selections, it’s tough to distill one specific theme rather than identifying several overlapping shared themes, a factor that allows great leeway for diversity within the festival. There will be a tribute to Argentine director Eliseo Subiela and a Life Achievement Award for actor Richard Dreyfuss, who stars in Rolf de Heer’s The Old Man Who Read Love Stories; spotlight events combine food, film, and cultural backgrounds; and “Celebrate Tibet” day brings together Himalaya and The Making of “Himalaya“, plus others.

“The Poetics of Cinema–that’s really what one of our subheads is this year,” says Stephen. “What that means is that poetry is quoted in film, like in Eliseo [Subiela’s] work, but also it is the very nature of film–nonverbal storytelling–so that your impact is really delivered on many different layers, through visual metaphors that are presented. So cinema, in one sense, is an embodiment of poetry.”

In Eliseo Subiela’s work, this is often literally the case. Subiela’s films are infused with magical images, lighthearted neorealism, and poetry employed as dialogue, probably best personified in 1992’s The Dark Side of the Heart, which presents a libidinous poet’s quest for just the right woman–“I don’t give a damn if a woman’s breasts are like magnolias or figs,” he spouts, “but I cannot abide a woman who cannot fly.” He means it too; after wooing a series of women who achieve no airborne hovering during the act of passion, he ditches them through a trapdoor in his bed.

(Subiela’s sequel, Dark Side of the Heart 2, plays at the tribute, which will feature tango dancers and a lavish Argentine dinner with lots of grilled meats and maté.)

“The work of Subiela is remarkable,” says Stephen. “In the United States, he’s not at all well-known, except for one film: Man Facing Southeast. Around the world he is highly, highly respected. His work is laced with poetic and artistic references. He comes from a tradition that’s Buñuelian-influenced.

“It’s particularly interesting,” he continues, “because when [North Americans] try to do this style–because we don’t have the stringent kind of social conditions in most parts of our society–it doesn’t ring quite right. But somehow or other, when it’s integrated into this world, it’s appropriate and fits with the poetry and goes with the metaphors that you can read all the way down into the society. Some of Subiela’s work is very socially conscious.”

In the festival’s forum sessions (Aug. 2-4), filmmakers, scholars, and the public will discuss this relationship between poetry and cinema. Stephen sees these forums as great opportunities for everyone involved. “We’ll look back at the work of Luis Buñuel, we’ll reflect back on Jean Cocteau. Our dream is that some of these independent filmmakers of the American cinema, who may not be so schooled in that tradition as they are in other parts of the world, will be able to actually be inspired by encounters with filmmakers from other countries. It could very well influence how their next films are going to be.”

Expanding our perception of film’s role worldwide and what it is capable of communicating has always been one of the festival’s strongest points. “What we frequently try to do is introduce other cultures,” Stephen says. “The festival is really quite international in scope”–which does not translate to stuffiness and cinematic trudges, but to a joie de vivre that everyone can understand.

“There’s universal stuff that goes on in film, and I don’t see it as categorized–‘African-American’ or ‘Asian,'” says Justine Ashton. “There’s such a richness out there, and when you start seeing films from all over the world, something happens and you start breaking through cultural barriers somehow. I think viewers in this area particularly are more savvy in terms of world culture, whether it’s music or dance or film or literature.” Lucky for us, we have a film festival to indulge that.

The Wine Country Film Festival’s first section (in Yountville at Domaine Chandon) runs until July 28; the second section (at Glen Ellen’s Jack London State Park and Sonoma’s Sebastiani Theatre) runs Aug. 1-11. The Eliseo Subiela tribute and dinner is Aug. 3. Call 707.935.FILM or go to www.winecountryfilmfest.com for information on prices, times, and events.

From the July 25-31, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Stone Horse Farm

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Stone Horse Farm

Man and Beast: Stuart Schroeder tames nature with the help of Sparky and Ike.

Plowing Forward

At Stone Horse Farm, the tractor gathers dust

By M. V. Wood

Just as the sun sets, the wind picks up and the birds start calling out in unison. Some of the calls come from atop the old oak tree–the one Denise Cadman and Stuart Schroeder were married beneath.

“I love that tree,” Cadman says. And I’m sure she doesn’t mean she’s fond of it or that she simply likes the way it looks. “When people start feeling that having an oak tree in their front yard is going to enhance their lives more than having a new car in their driveway ever could, that’s the day things will start shifting in the world.” She says this with no holier-than-thou judgment in her voice. No anger. She just says it as a wish.

Schroeder would surely agree. But he’d probably throw in the idea that people would also be happier with a couple of horses in their yard as well. Right now, he’s leading one of his two draft horses to the other side of the house for a drink. The western end of the sky is still glowing with pink streaks, and the silhouettes of man and horse look like something from a Currier and Ives print.

If you drive by Stone Horse Farm on Occidental Road, between Sebastopol and Santa Rosa, you might see Schroeder farming the land with his horses, Sparky and Ike. Schroeder owns an assortment of old farming implements, some dating back almost to the turn of the century, which he bought at auctions and other sales. He hitches the instruments up to his two Percheron horses, and that’s how he does all the plowing, mowing, and moving on the farm. The harvest is then sold at the Sebastopol Farmers’ Market.

When the horse is done drinking, Schroeder returns to the picnic table. The outdoor spot seems to serve as the hub of their home life, at least during the warmer months. Their two-year-old daughter, Rosalie, plays nearby, searching for bugs.

Schroeder, 41, sits down, his eyes scanning the small, family farm. “Sometimes people ask me why I have such a sense of nostalgia,” he says. “But I don’t think it’s nostalgia. I mean, I never even saw people using horses to work a farm when I was a kid, so I’m not nostalgic for it. It’s something else.”

As a kid, Schroeder helped out on his family’s farm–a large, modern business full of tractors and pesticides and chemicals. As he got older, he traveled to the Iowa farm during summers to help his uncle run it. On especially busy days, his grandfather would pitch in as well. But usually it was just Schroeder and his uncle, working all 800 acres. These days, Schroeder sometimes works from sunup to sundown farming his 3-acre plot. He considers this progress.

“Well, this tastes better and it’s healthier,” he says, commenting on his organic produce. “But this was really a lifestyle decision. Here, it’s not about controlling nature; it’s about developing a relationship with it. You’re always taking in information and thinking and experimenting and learning. And at the end of the day, you can feel good about what you’re doing.”

Schroeder says that from an early age he knew he liked farming, but he didn’t feel comfortable with the paradigm of the large, commercial farm. He became interested in organic agriculture and went to UC Santa Cruz as an agro-ecology major. One day in class, a student hitched up a donkey to help move some of the heavier objects in the field, “and I just had this vision that I would someday work with horses that way,” Schroeder says. “I almost don’t want to say that, it sounds so strange. But that’s what it was–a vision.”

After graduating, Schroeder and a couple of friends bought horses and rode them for four months along the Pacific Coast Trail to Three Sisters Wilderness in Oregon. From there they hitched a ride to northern Idaho where they had already scoped out a place to live.

Schroeder spent the next couple years farming with his horse there. During the winters, a friend would snowshoe over to his cabin, carrying a guitar on his back, and the two would play music and sing all day. When a popular reggae band lost their drummer, the members asked Schroeder to play with them. He sold his horse and toured with the band through the Western states, but eventually he quit and moved back to California. He still plays, though, and has been with the local reggae band Biocentrics for the past decade.

After a few years back in California, Schroeder got a job with a wildlife biologist. That’s where he met Cadman. “I wasn’t looking to get married, but when I met her, everything just fell into place,” he says with a smile. “And then we had Rosalie–and that’s been incredible.” But along with the love for a child comes the worry over what kind of world we’re handing over to all children. “We’ve got to make some changes,” Schroeder says. “We need to think about what progress actually means.”

Like his wife, when Schroeder speaks about the environment, he doesn’t sound angry or condescending. The two seem to have found a balance between being concerned for the world and enjoying the world and their lives, right here, right now.

“Oh sure, sometimes I think the world’s going to hell in a hand basket,” says Cadman with a laugh. A biologist who works part time for the city of Santa Rosa as a natural resources specialist, Cadman also teaches biology at Santa Rosa Junior College. “But thinking that way doesn’t really help anything. Besides, who wants to be upset all the time. You can strive to make a difference and enjoy your life all at the same time.”

For Cadman, that joy comes from watching a tree blossom in the springtime, she says. It comes from eating dried fruits in the winter, made from the summer harvest. And for Schroeder, joy includes working with Sparky and Ike.

From how he describes it, farming with horses sounds like an intricate dance between man and nature. Perhaps it’s the way a surfer feels, riding a wave, or a skier flying down a snowcapped mountain. There’s that state you get to, where everything flows and the experience becomes Zen-like.

There’s such an appeal to watching that flow that some people have started hiring Schroeder to plow and mow their land instead of renting a tractor. “It takes about the same amount of time with the horses as it does with a tractor and the cost is comparable, but the horses are a lot quieter,” Schroeder says. “Plus, people tell me they really like watching the work. There’s just something very soothing about the whole process.”

Schroeder and his horses also work at weddings and other celebrations. But instead of pulling the usual plows behind them, Sparky and Ike pull a white coach with red velvet interior.

“I used [the coach] on Mother’s Day,” Schroeder says. “I took Denise and Rosalie out for a ride. It was beautiful outside. I had my family with me, the horses were pulling us. It was perfect.”

Produce from Stone Horse Farm is available at the Sebastopol Farmers’ Market, Sundays 10am-1pm. Stone Horse is also a member of Farm Trails. 5743 Occidental Rd. 707.576.7237.

From the July 25-31, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Chernobyl Children’s Project Benefit Concert

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Chernobyl Children’s Project Benefit Concert

Fresh Start

A Petaluma program helps Chernobyl’s children

By Greg Cahill

When Connie and Cliff McClain traveled to the Soviet Union in 1990, the Petaluma couple had a chance to witness first-hand the devastation caused by the worst nuclear accident in history. That 1986 accident–a catastrophic explosion in Unit No. 4 reactor of the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl in Ukraine–sent a plume of radioactive material into the atmosphere, unleashing more fallout than the combined U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of World War II.

It is estimated that three million people living in Belarus, Ukraine (the bread basket of the former Soviet Union), and Russia–including one million children–are still suffering from the long-term health effects, as well as the psycho-social repercussions of the accident.

In response, the McLains created the nonprofit Chernobyl Children’s Project, one of many similar grassroots organizations in North America, Europe, and Asia that sponsors children from the affected region for six-week vacations, allowing them to eat uncontaminated food, drink clean water, and enjoy the benefits of a relatively healthy environment.

Each year, CCP hosts up to 35 Belarussian children, from ages 9 to 17. It’s a transformative experience for many of the host families (mine being one of them) and for the children themselves, many of whom have never even been allowed to eat an apple, one of the region’s most contaminated fruits.

For the most part, CCP is supported by corporate and private donations large and small–the Bechtel Corporation pays for a day at Six Flags Marine World for the children and their host families, and the Novato-based Birkenstock shoe company donates free footwear. But the children also benefit from the largesse of the community–for instance, local dentists and opticians donate free dental care, eye exams, and even prescription glasses.

Next week, Thom and Becky Steere, owners of Sweetwater Saloon in Mill Valley and a CCP host family for the past five years, will present a benefit concert for the organization with Jesse Colin Young, Pete Sears, Mother’s Little Helper, and a live auction. The benefit takes place Monday, July 29, at 7:30pm, at Sweetwater, 153 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley. Tickets are $25. 415.388.2820.

Santa Rosa Symphony Award

When it comes to reaching out to the community, the Santa Rosa Symphony under conductor Jeffrey Kahane has set a high standard. Three years ago, the symphony staged Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, an ambitious collaboration between its regular orchestra, youth symphonies, local choirs, and university and high school theater arts programs. Everyone agreed the project was a resounding success. In April, the symphony followed up with a similar endeavor: a community-wide project centered around Sir Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, a musical and poetic protest against intolerance and tyranny written in response to the 1939 Nazi night of terror known as Kristallnacht.

This time, the American Symphony Orchestra League took notice. Last week, the league announced that the Santa Rosa Symphony is one of five winners of its prestigious MetLife Awards for Excellence in Community Engagement. The award–which comes with a $6,500 prize–recognizes orchestras that serve as models in the innovative and emerging field of community engagement and that are redefining what it means to be good cultural citizens.

In recognizing the symphony, the league noted that the project served as a catalyst for community building, bringing diverse groups together to find common ground on the themes of oppression, prejudice, tolerance, and acceptance while producing a memorable artistic event.

Throughout the 2001-2002 school year, Santa Rosa High School students of English, history, mathematics, and the arts studied the work’s themes, creating their own responses to it. The year-long study culminated in performances of the piece. If you missed it, Sebastopol filmmaker Tommie Dell Smith has chronicled the process in a documentary underwritten by a $100,000 grant from Santa Rosa Symphony contributor Don Green. Smith, who served as associate producer of the 1984 Oscar-winning feature-length documentary Broken Rainbow, hopes to complete a 30- to 40-minute film about the Child of Our Time project.

From the July 25-31, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘A Thousand and One Arabian Nights’

Photograph by Steven Underwood Tell Us a Story 'A Thousand and One Arabian Nights' weaves yarns By Julia Hawkins Leslie Currier's adaptation of the Arabian Nights, presented by Marin Shakespeare Company, opens with two armed Muslim soldiers who have captured a terrified Arab (performed with gripping presence by...
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Hope Sandoval

Hope Springs Eternal Ex-Mazzy Star singer still shines brightly By Greg Cahill Know this about Hope Sandoval: The famously reclusive Goth-folk singer is genuinely shy and modest. When asked about her life, she sounds, well, almost pained. Why doesn't she like doing interviews? "For the usual reasons," she offers during a...
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‘The Crocodile Hunter’

Wild and Crazy Is 'The Crocodile Hunter' a menace to nature--or just a waste of time? Writer David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate postfilm conversation. This is not a review; rather, it's a freewheeling, tangential discussion of life, alternative...
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‘Sex and Lucía’

Rabbit Hole 'Sex and Lucía' dishes up Borgesian erotica from Spain By In its native Spain, the film Sex and Lucía is known as Lucía and Sex; the title reversal for export stresses the real appeal of the film in our nation of unsexy movies. But Sex and Lucía really...
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‘Mr. Smith’

Mime Time SF Mime Troupe's 'Mr. Smith' ain't Capra By Sara Bir Cracking jokes at the expense of the most tragic event to take place on American soil since the bombing of Pearl Harbor is a bold maneuver. But then again, so is our government's using the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks...
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Beth Custer

Beth Hears Her Calling 'Eclectic' is too limiting a word for Beth Custer By Beth Custer lives about five lives at once in San Francisco, but she's taking time out for local shows. Her upcoming Point Reyes performance brings in Custer's latest band, Doña Luz 30 Besos, dubbed in tribute...
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Bohemian Grove Protesters

Photograph by R. V. Scheide Kinder, Gentler Protest The Bohemian Grove protesters shake it gently By R. V. Scheide It's just after noon on Saturday, July 13, and Greg Haas, owner of the Pink Elephant bar in Monte Rio, is pissed. In 15 minutes, a crowd of demonstrators...
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Wine Country Film Festival

Poetic Justice Wine Country Film Festival builds cinematic bridge between cultures and arts By Sara Bir There are two reasons we go to see movies. One is to escape, to effortlessly slip away into another space for an hour and a half. The other is to discover--the glimmer that after it's...
Read more

Stone Horse Farm

Man and Beast: Stuart Schroeder tames nature with the help of Sparky and Ike. Plowing Forward At Stone Horse Farm, the tractor gathers dust By M. V. Wood Just as the sun sets, the wind picks up and the birds start calling out in unison. Some...
Read more

Chernobyl Children’s Project Benefit Concert

Fresh Start A Petaluma program helps Chernobyl's children By Greg Cahill When Connie and Cliff McClain traveled to the Soviet Union in 1990, the Petaluma couple had a chance to witness first-hand the devastation caused by the worst nuclear accident in history. That 1986 accident--a catastrophic explosion in Unit No. 4...
Read more
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