Wine Country Film Festival

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Wine Country Film Festival

The Big Picture

Reel to reel: Wine Country Film Festival founder Steven Ashton scours the globe for the quirky little gems of world cinema.

Movies go global at the Wine Country Film Festival

By Patrick Sullivan

AT THIS POINT in history, I think we have to start focusing on our common humanity and turn our attention to redemption and forgiveness,” says Steve Ashton. “And it really seems that many filmmakers around the world are also thinking along these lines.”

Ashton should know. As the founder and director of the 13-year-old Wine Country Film Festival, he trots around the globe every year, exploring the world of film from Sundance to Berlin, skimming the cream of the cinematic crop and bringing it back home to Northern California. This year, he returned bearing a sheaf of international films–from shorts to documentaries to features–that might be said to constitute a heroic global effort at cross-cultural understanding.

Reel Time: A rundown on Wine Country Film Festival flicks.

If the 103 films from 31 countries screened at the sprawling festival–which kicks off on July 22 and continues through Aug. 15–have a common denominator, it is this: They tend to find deep fractures and divisions, whether in human lives or in human societies, and plunge into their depths.

From a dramatic documentary about Serbian nationalism (The Reckoning, showing on Sunday, Aug. 1, at Masonic Hall in St. Helena) to a dark comedy about a beleaguered high school teacher who resorts to highly unorthodox methods of classroom discipline (Detention, showing Thursday, Aug. 12, at 9 p.m. at Sonoma Cinemas), these films are certainly anything but parochial, anything but safe. In the crowded world of the film festival, that “not from around here” quality has become the Wine Country Film Festival’s most distinguishing trademark.

“Part of the purpose of the festival is to open our minds and create a greater understanding among peoples,” Ashton says. “Throughout a lot of the schedule, that’s the theme–multiculturalism and understanding, both in terms of nationality and in issues of gender and race.”

When you call the festival’s offices, there’s a good chance that Ashton himself will answer the phone. It’s one more sign that the 56-year-old Glen Ellen resident, who studied film at New York University, takes the event rather personally.

Indeed, despite the event’s growing reputation and long list of corporate sponsors (Volvo signed on last year), the event is still miles from the slick cinematic extravaganzas to be found elsewhere in the Bay Area.

This year’s opening night gala trots out the star power–with the premiere of The Nephew and an appearance by the movie’s rising young star Hill Harper–but Ashton and his wife, Justine, still run the festival from their rambling old farmhouse, and the eclectic selection of films continues to reflect Ashton’s personal passions.

While one of Ashton’s goals is to feature films that help people understand each other, another aim is to further understanding of cinema itself. The festival is especially focused on educating the next generation about the wonders to be found off the beaten path of the Hollywood blockbuster.

“We’ve got lots of films for kids this year,” Ashton says. “One of the things that we’re trying to do is introduce young people to films they wouldn’t ordinarily see and help them see that the language of cinema can cross national borders. We want to accustom them to the idea that it’s OK to see a film with subtitles.”

Among the festival’s most important components are the short-film showcases, which offer a rare chance to get a look at such works as The Spitball Story and Human Remains.

A record number of entries poured into the festival’s short-film contest this year (the awards will be announced on Aug. 14 at the Valley of the Moon Cinema in Jack London State Park). That surge in participation, Ashton believes, may reflect the fact that the short film is gaining greater respect in the United States.

“The audience can be just as powerfully moved by a well-constructed short film as they can by a feature,” Ashton says. “This is not just a testing ground to see if you can make a longer movie. It’s an art form in itself.”

Then there is the festival’s first poetry slam, the filmmaking seminars, the presentation of a lifetime achievement award to Ernest Borgnine, and much, much more.

It’s the endlessly unpredictable nature of these offerings that makes this quirky festival so distinctive. And it’s clear that the event’s founder wouldn’t have it any other way.

“We try to have something for everyone,” Ashton says.

From the July 15-21, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘South Park’

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‘South Park’

Words Worth

Slang-Master Jesse Sheidlower on ‘South Park,’ bad manners, and words that begin with F

By David Templeton

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

Jesse Sheidlower is still buzzing. It’s 9 p.m. in New York City, a full two hours after seeing the new 88-minute South Park movie–a film that crams more dirty words (excuse me, more “free speech”) into its slim running time than Kenneth Starr managed to squeeze into all those boxes of Monica evidence. Sheidlower–a senior reference editor at Random House and a noted expert on slang–is still feeling that peculiar, intellectual high that one gets from inhaling so much Lenny Bruce-style artistic expression in one sitting.

He’s not alone, of course. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut–the hilarious big screen version of the audacious animated TV show–has become something of a cause célèbre among the nation’s anti-censorship intelligentsia, and an R-rated Holy Grail for kids too young to get in without reverting to fraud and subterfuge (which they are, and in droves).

“I’d read reviews and articles that said the movie was very vulgar, very obscene,” Sheidlower remarks, “but I thought, ‘Yeah, right. OK, whatever. I have a different standard for what to call ‘very obscene.’ But in the first 10 minutes of South Park, I was sitting there thinking, ‘Wow. This is pretty obscene.’ I mean, how many times was the word fuck used in those first 10 minutes?”

“One hundred and 10 times,” I quickly reply. “I was checking them off on my popcorn box.”

Sheidlower solemnly pauses, savoring the thought of 110 repetitions of that most indelicate of single-syllable epithets. The lion’s share of those epithets were uttered during Asses of Fire, the pivotal, hyper-flatulent film-within-the-film–a foul Canadian comedy that pollutes the minds and mouths of the underage South Park kids, inciting the irate townsfolk to increasingly desperate means, including war against Canada–that includes a giddy little song with the oft-repeated chorus “Shut your fucking face, Uncle Fucker.”

“You just don’t see that level of obscenity too often,” Sheidlower utters, appreciatively.

Well. That’s for darn sure.

Jesse Sheidlower, it must be said, holds a special connection to that robust four-letter noun/verb/adjective that upsets many people and rhymes with “chuck.”

You could say he wrote the book on the subject.

The F Word, second edition (Random House, 1999; $12.50), is an affectionate and shocking compendium of creative and popular uses for that word that Norman Mailer–in the initial 1948 edition of The Naked and the Dead–was forced to render as “fug,” leading Dorothy Parker to remark, on meeting the young novelist, “So you’re the man who can’t spell ‘fuck’?” Exhaustive and alphabetical–there is every phrase from “Zipless Fuck” to “Absofuckinglutely”–The F Word contains a charming forward by Roy Blount Jr. (“If my parents were alive,” he admits, “I would not be writing this”) and plenty of scholarly historical background from Sheidlower.

As for the brouhaha caused by the South Park movie, and the much publicized efforts of Matt Stone and Trey Parker (the filmmakers) to avoid getting an NC-17 rating from the MPAA (according to Entertainment Weekly, Matt and Stone were forced to replace the phrase “Fucked in the ass by God” with the R-rated “God is the biggest bitch of all!”), Sheidlower is mainly just amused.

“The MPAA was apparently OK with kids seeing the gore and violence and death,” he says. “But they couldn’t handle a few hundred ‘fucks.’ I like to think that in the future people will be more offended by violence than by language.

“Thirty years ago,” he points out, “you would get into a fight for using the words ‘goddamn’ or ‘bastard’ in public. Now they aren’t any big deal. Even ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ are becoming more and more mainstream and commonplace. The New York Times printed ‘fuck’ for the first time ever last year, quoting the Starr Report.”

“There are those,” I submit, “who would say that our increased acceptance of such vocabulary signals a decline in the quality of our manners.”

“Well, people who would say that are wrong and stupid,” Sheidlower patiently counters. “It has nothing to do with manners whatsoever. Standards of what is considered offensive in language change constantly and have for centuries. If you go back to 19th-century America, the word leg was considered so vulgar that if you said it in front of a woman she might faint.”

The accepted word, by the way, was limb.

“Contrary to what you said before about manners,” Sheidlower continues,” I’d point out that it’s the racial words and epithets that are coming to be considered vastly worse. The word nigger has far more of a social stigma on it, is far more forbidden, than the word fuck. There are people who say ‘fuck’ all the time who would never use a racial slur. I think this indicates that good manners are getting better, not worse.”

Sheidlower is not saying that shouting “fuck” in public can’t still start a fight.

“Just that there’s a social difference between saying ‘Fuck you,’ which is still very charged, and saying ‘Ah, fuck!’

“So words don’t necessarily mean what they mean anymore?” I say.

“Exactly. I can’t remember when it was, but somebody wrote about seeing two teenage girls on the street, and one of them looked down and said, ‘Oh shit, I stepped in some doo-doo!'”

“So then,” I can’t help but wonder, “are there any special phrases in South Park that might end up in future editions of The F Word?”

“Sure, if it manages to work its way into the popular vocabulary,” he says, then with a laugh, adds, ” ‘Uncle Fucker’ would obviously be the one to watch.”

From the July 15-21, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Joan Baez

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Joan Baez

The War Is Over

New & improved: Folk legend Joan Baez returns to LBC.

Folk legend Joan Baez finds inner peace and the joy of fishing

By Greg Cahill

YOU KNOW, there was a lovely young reporter in France who’d heard me a couple of years ago in Yugoslavia,” recalls Joan Baez, during a phone interview from her Woodside home, “and he said, ‘I’ve always loved your music, I’ve always loved the art and your voice, but now I feel like you’re talking to me.’

“That was the nicest thing I’ve heard about this last album–that it feels like I can slow down and talk now.”

Back up for a minute. If you surf the Internet, there are two Joan Baezes. There are a hundred websites devoted to the fiery ’60s folksinger who probed the nation’s conscience and championed civil rights, got arrested at anti-war protests, and dated Bob Dylan. And then there’s …

“I know,” Baez interrupts with a laugh, “this mellow, boring . . .”

OK, let’s talk about that “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” page on her own website. Here’s the new Joan Baez, standing confidently on a mountain trail near Yosemite, hands on hips and clad in a bright red Stetson, sunglasses, blue parka, backpack, hiking boots, and a short girlish skirt. To the right, a second photo shows Baez swirling beside a crystalline alpine lake, beaming brightly in a summer print dress, arms outstretched to illustrate the caption: “Really, you should’ve seen the one that got away–it was this big!!!”

Unabashedly hokey.

“Oh, so you want to hear the fishing stories,” she adds with a chuckle. “What can I say? I like to go to hot springs and play in the mud. It’s my way of returning to the earth. And on tour, we’re all such good friends, that I can say, ‘Hey, guys, let’s cancel the hotel and camp out for the night.’ They’re such great sports–we have cookouts and stuff.

“One night the bus driver caught 25 trout while we were onstage.”

And then there’s that legendary Joan Baez, who’s not known for pan-frying fish on the roadside. After more than 30 years, the singer/songwriter that Rolling Stone once hailed as “the perfect symbol of the ’60s folk revival” still is a committed social activist and popular entertainer, reinventing her performances, garnering a Grammy nomination for 1993’s intimate Play Me Backwards (Guardian), and raking in rave reviews for 1997’s Gone from Danger, an album that found her drawing inspiration from the pens of such bright young songwriters as Dar Williams, Richard Shindell, Sinead Lohan, and Betty Elders.

Coincidentally, that album contained a song titled “Fishing,” a vicious interrogation of an illegal immigrant that is far from serene.

Two years ago, Baez–who performs July 20 at the Luther Burbank Center–recorded three of Williams’ songs and toured the United States and Europe with the rising neo-folk star. But Baez is quick to downplay her role as mentor to a new generation of emerging coffeehouse denizens. “I really see it as co-mentor, because anything else would be silly,” she explains. “Now when they’re coming of age, it’s my turn to learn from them about how they reflect the world. So I enjoy them. I love them. They are people who somehow comfortably, in their own fashion–namely through contemporary folk–keep up the roots of folk music.

“Each does that in their own way. Dar is heavily feminist–and hemp–inclined, and Richard Shindell often addresses immigration issues. And he’s really subtle. The first time I heard ‘Fishing,’ I didn’t even understand it. I mean, this is certainly not a time for blunt protest songs, so there’s a chance for these other things to come out.

“And they are coming out.”

What does that say about the endurance of the genre? “In a way there are two folk musics,” Baez offers. “One is traditional and never changes. Someone like Jean Richie does a brilliant show of antiques performed by an Appalachian folkie–and no one does it better. Then there’s the folk music that changes as the times change, so that what is being reflected is the political, and not so political, atmosphere around us as interpreted by the younger generation. In an odd sort of way, though it’s often hard for me to listen to it, rap may be the most straightforward contribution to folk music at the moment. It comes out of a totally different environment than the one I live in–hungry and frustrated, so the songs come out pissed off.

“And they have every reason to be that way.”

BAEZ KNOWS a thing or two about protest songs. Born in 1941 in New York City, she grew up in a liberal household heavily influenced by her professor father. At age 15, she heard a young Martin Luther King Jr. lecture on non-violence and civil rights. Weeks later, Baez bought her first guitar. The following year, she committed her first act of civil disobedience, refusing to leave her Palo Alto high school during an air-raid drill.

That year, she also met Gandhi scholar Ira Sandperl, who became one of her strongest political influences.

In 1958, she enrolled at Boston University, immersing herself in music and performing at Cambridge folk clubs. By age 20, Baez already had performed at the prestigious Newport Folk Festival, cut her first album, and met a young Bob Dylan at a Greenwich Village night spot. Thus began a long, turbulent–and often very public–relationship that has played out in sometimes cryptic and, in the case of Baez’s 1975 hit “Diamonds and Rust,” often scathing lyrical jabs at each other. The two later reconciled.

Baez became a key figure in the anti-Vietnam War movement, marrying and later divorcing draft resister David Harris, and performing for and personally urging President Lyndon Johnson to withdraw U.S. troops from the Southeast Asian nation. Since then, Baez has continued her social activism, as the founder of Humanitas International Rights Committee–which played a pivotal role in the evacuation of Vietnamese civilians after the war–and more recently as the first major artist to perform in Sarajevo after the five-year civil war.

BUT, WHILE HER songs are still infused with protest, it is a different force that drives her music now. “First of all, it never dawned on me during my lifetime, until these last few years, that I could sing for the sake of singing–it really was about getting something across. So I think it’s only fair to say that this past decade has been the time when I cracked the inner kernel of my problems–something I’d worked around since I was 15 years old, but later took on in therapy. And things changed massively for me. One of the things that has changed is the ability to walk onstage with a light foot and sing for the pleasure of singing and the enjoyment of others.

“That’s a new thing for me, and I’ve loved it.

“At the same time, nothing basically has changed in me. When I walk onstage, I know that I represent 30 years of history. But right now what I’m getting across may be more directed to myself.”

Which brings us back to those vacation photos and that new Joan Baez, so confident and at ease with herself. “Well, I now think that I have a really good idea what people meant when they used to say to me, ‘You look so peaceful.’ Of course, I was in absolute turmoil for years, which served the world well. I did what I did and I’m very, very glad of it.

“But to rid myself of neuroses and panic attacks and insomnia, and God knows what else, produces that smile I have on my face during those summer vacations.”

Joan Baez performs Tuesday, July 20, at 8 p.m. at the Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. Chris Smither opens the show. Tickets are $21.50 and $26.50. For info, call 546-3600.

From the July 15-21, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Sonoma County Growth

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Sonoma County Growth

Growing Pains

Outer limits: Rohnert Park City Councilman Jake McKenzie, on the edge of the town’s new urban-growth boundary, is calling for “smart growth.” He will be a panelist at an upcoming workshop that may help define just what that means.

Photograph by Michael Amsler

Exploring the limits of the county’s growth

By Janet Wells

WHEN Ann Hancock thinks back on her stint as a local real estate agent, she remembers clients buying into the Northern California lifestyle of expensive houses and multiple cars sustained by long commutes, longer working hours, and little free time. “I don’t think people realize how much we have given up to sustain this quality of life–people feel really stretched,” she says. “Not having to spend your life on the freeway, not worrying about the mortgage so much, spending time with the children, getting to know your neighbors, that’s the kind of things we will get if we get off the economic treadmill,” she says.

Slowing down the treadmill is part of the focus of Sustainable Sonoma County, a group working to maintain the qualities that have made Sonoma County one of the fastest-growing regions in the state, without continuing to deplete resources like open space and air and water quality. Those issues–the proliferation of urban-growth boundaries, increased agricultural demands on Russian River water, the dilemma of how to dispose of Santa Rosa’s wastewater, the impact of Highway 101’s proposed expansion, the lack of affordable housing–have dominated the headlines in recent years.

On July 23, Sustainable Sonoma County is hosting its first event, “Better Not Bigger: Grappling with Growth in Sonoma County,” a one-day workshop on urban growth.

Eben Fodor, a community planning consultant from Eugene, Ore., and author of Better Not Bigger: How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community, will be the workshop’s keynote speaker.

“We’re trying to change the mind-set, going against the American conventional grain, and bust open the myth that growth is always good,” says Hancock, an administrator at the New College in San Rafael and one of the group’s core.

The average U.S. citizen has an “ecological footprint” of about 25 acres, because of the heavy use of imports of fossil fuels, computers, food, and clothing, adds Hancock. “That’s the world’s largest. Sustainable culture requires that each citizen’s footprint not exceed 4.2 acres,” she says. “What we see as the challenge of our generation is to become sustainable.”

Says Fodor, “Mostly we hear about the benefits of growth, bringing jobs, building tax bases. I find that in many cases the benefits are nonexistent. Tax revenues proclaimed for a particular project are more than offset by costs the project will create for a net fiscal drain on the community.”

The reason? While development generates revenues, it also results in such costs as schools, roads, sewers and parks, and police and fire services, Fodor says, adding that housing has the biggest impact on a community.

“[The added cost] is $20,000 to $30,000 per house, and a large part of that has to do with schools,” he says. “The average house has two thirds of a school-age child. For every 1,000 units developed, you need to build an entire new school, and the cost must be paid by the community or the community will pay in other ways, with declining services, more crowded streets.”

SIGNIFICANT LOCAL sustainability issues include water and air quality, land preservation, transportation, job and housing locations, and energy consumption, says Susan Bryer Starr of Sustainable Sonoma County. “We’re dealing with a citizenry that recognizes that Sonoma County is a truly unique place in the world,” she says. “The health of the resources, the small scale, the landscape, the air quality, and biodiversity, these are not trivial treasures to people who live here.

“People see these landscapes in other parts of the country vanish because of the rampant drive to develop,” she adds. “We have a chance in Sonoma County to preserve these resources before they are gone.”

For Rohnert Park Councilman Jake Mackenzie, the bottom line is population. “We’re facing some huge problems in California and the Bay Area and Sonoma County, and they all center around how we’re going to deal with an increasing population,” says Mackenzie, who is one of the workshop panelists. “We constantly need to be reminding people that this is a very, very real problem.

“The problem is you’re banging right up against more people being born into our society and pressure from all of these people, not to mention people coming up from Santa Clara County and having half a million bucks in their hip pocket,” he adds.

Shutting the gates to Sonoma County isn’t the solution, Mackenzie says. It’s smart growth. “We feel we have to accommodate some growth, but we’re not necessarily wanting to build houses at the rate that people who own land around the city would like us to.”

And population growth is part of a larger, more complicated picture, says Starr. “Is it a population issue or a consumption issue?” she wonders. “Could we have twice as many people if we consumed half as much? Do we have a carrying capacity in Sonoma County? This is what we’re going to be exploring.”

The how of community sustainability requires more than public will, Fodor says. Communities must adopt policies that reflect priorities. “One of the myths that surrounds urban growth is that there is nothing we can do about it,” he says. “The whole idea of determining how much and how a community grows is dismissed as not a legitimate policy question, when things can be done to determine the nature and rate of growth.”

While there is no silver bullet–and no one community has emerged as the model of sustainability–Fodor says the future is in a framework of policies that moderates growth to protect a community’s lifestyle and resources.

“Growth debates and discussions tend to get stalled at the same points,” Fodor says. “You’re either for it and want lots of it, or you’re against it and want to shut it down. It leaves out an entire range of options in between.

“The first step towards moderating growth in a community is to stop subsidizing it,” he adds. “Currently, most communities subsidize growth in at least 10 different ways with public resources.”

Developers aren’t exactly thrilled with Fodor’s advice. “I’ve faced a lot of hostility from developers,” he says. “The developers have had a profound influence on land-use policy in most communities around the country. They dominate in spite of the fact that they are a relative minority in the community.

“Trade associations don’t want citizens in the process; they want subsidies, and no regulations,” he adds. “I’m trying to shift those policies in a public-interest direction that reflects the long-term interests of the broader community.”

The workshop “Bigger Not Better: Grappling with Growth in Sonoma County” will be held Friday, July 23, from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Odd Fellows Temple, 545 Pacific Ave., Santa Rosa. Registration fee is $25. Eben Fodor will also speak at a free event Thursday, July 22, at 7 p.m. at Copperfield’s Books, 650 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. For details, call 763-1532.

From the July 15-21, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Laughter on the 23rd Floor

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Laughter on the 23rd Floor

Going Down

TV nation: Jill Page Collister, William McNeil, and Jeff Mattlin write for the tube in Laughter on the 23rd Floor.

‘Laughter on the 23rd Floor’ stays in the basement

By Daedalus Howell

THE ELEVATOR SEEMS to have jammed en route to the humor in Summer Repertory Theatre’s production of Neil Simon’s comedy Laughter on the 23rd Floor, directed by Michael Harvey.

A stage-borne memoir scrubbed of enough autobiographical data and bite to leave potential litigants claimless, Laughter on the 23rd Floor is Simon’s wan love letter to his early days as a freshman television writer for Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows. Simon culled his characters from the battery of funnymen then in Caesar’s employ (Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Simon’s brother Danny among them), and this cast constitutes a promising premise that never delivers.

Throughout, Simon riffs on his cronies and details their virtuosic ability for humiliating each other as the Caesar-esque Max Prince (played here by William McNeil with great gusto as a pill-popping, paranoid booze-hound) battles network honchos more concerned with the bottom line than the erudite comedy churned out weekly by his stable of thoroughbred writers.

At its worst, the humor of Laughter on the 23rd Floor is humorlessly baroque: Some gags choke on themselves, and others simply seem decorative, almost requiring a rimshot to cue the audience when to laugh.

There are some true laugh-out-loud moments, however, as when the fashion foibles of writer Milt Fields (Sean M. Smith) get some ribbing when he is told his white suit makes him “look like a Nazi trying to catch a boat to Argentina.” It’s not hard to imagine that such glib, throwaway lines are an accurate keyhole into the surely cheeky world of television writing.

Other more mechanical jokes also bring on belly laughs, as when Brian Doyle (an emphysemic Irish yuckster played by Daniel H. Reutter) and Brian Rickel’s garrulous hypochondriac Ira Stone (a bombastic facsimile of Mel Brooks) have a pissing match over who can concoct the funniest name. Doyle finally offers Stone’s own name. The bemused Stone queries, “What’s so funny about Ira Stone?” Doyle drolly replies “Nothing–an awesome putdown to a comedy writer.

Most of the play’s shtick, however, seems cribbed from the circular file at Mad Magazine, and though director Harvey keeps the pace brisk, what is intended to be balletic banter often dissolves into cacophonous blather.

A number of fine performances nearly bring the production to the brink of redemption–Joseph Hutcheson’s laconic Kenny Franks, a master of the withering gaze, is crisp and jocose, and Rickel’s Brooks redux is a constant scene-stealer. McNeil’s Prince also offers occasional moments of hilarity with his blustery antics and manic manner.

Other performances, however, are merely distracting. Jeff Mattlin draws an earnest portrait of Russian émigré-gone-gagman Val Skotsky, but his thick Euro-trash stage accent renders his dialogue unintelligible, and Mark Bakalor, whose wooden asides as Simon’s alter-ego Lucas Brickman serve to expedite the play’s lackluster plot, tends to recede into an invisible-man act when not specifically spotlighted.

Unfortunately, Laughter on the 23rd Floor never fully explores the emotional and artistic dynamics underscoring the writers’ relationships to one another. Consequently, its stabs at poignancy come off as hackneyed and maudlin–and Simon’s audiences, who are usually on the edge of their seats, may instead find themselves dangling their toes off a window ledge.

Laughter on the 23rd Floor plays through Aug. 4 at the Santa Rosa High School Auditorium, 1235 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa, with performances on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and on Sundays at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $13. 527-4343.

From the July 15-21, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Primus

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Primus

Primus Still Sucks

No formulaic pop: Les Claypool cooks up a new batch of Primus songs.

Les Claypool offers preview to new CD

By Alan Sculley

ASK LES CLAYPOOL, bassist and singer of Primus, about the artists he most and he touches on a long list-from country legend Johnny Cash to filmmaker Stanley Kubrick-blessed with an element of originality. “Seeing somebody who comes up with something and you go, ‘Wow, I would have never thought of that. How did they think of that?,’ that’s what intrigues me,” says Claypool, a west county resident.

Now in his 10th year as the creative sparkplug of the off-beat Primus, Claypool himself continues to intrigue his share of fans and fellow musicians with the utterly original, somewhat skewed sounds he creates with bandmates Larry LaLonde (guitar) and Bryan “Brain” Mantia (drums).

Prior to hitting the concert trail this summer as part of the Ozzfest tour, the band finished most of the recording for their next CD. And based on Claypool’s comments, the as-yet-untitled disc will introduce its share of new wrinkles in the Primus sound- and in doing so, offer at least a measure of the originality Claypool considers important in music. Where recent Primus CDs, such as Pork Soda, (1993) Tales From The Punchbowl (1995) and The Brown Album (1997) were largely self-contained projects, the new CD found Claypool, LaLonde, and Mantia bringing in a host of collaborators.

“Since we’ve been making records there have always been the suggestions that we work with producers,” says Claypool, who contributed to Tom Waits’ recent Mule Variations. “We shied away from that. But last year we worked with a few different producers on various little projects. We worked with the Dust Brothers on a soundtrack thing and Toby Wright (who co-produced and mixed the band’s recent EP of cover tunes, Rhinoplasty), so when it came time to do this record, we wanted to work with a producer, but we couldn’t really figure out who that individual would be. Who is the George Martin or the Brian Eno of-in fact we sent some stuff to Brian Eno-of Primus?

“So then I had this idea of let’s work with some artists that we respect,” Claypool adds. “So we sent some stuff off . . . and we got a pretty amazing response. Stewart Copeland (the former Police Drummer) produced a track. Tom Morello (of Rage Against The Machine) produced and played on a few tracks. Fred Durst (Of Limp Bizkit) produced a track. Tom Waits produced a track. Matt Stone (co-creator of “South Park”) produced a track. And Rob Zombie’s supposed to work on a track for us.

Needless to say the record’s got an interesting twist to it, an interesting element.”

Primus fans will have to wait until the latest disc arrives in record stores to know exactly how the new songs expand on the group’s previous music. But Claypool offers some hints on the overall sound of the new record. “This record is, you know, it’s kind of like nothing we’ve ever done before,” Claypool says. “It’s got very powerful stuff on it. And there are some very sort of spacial elements with some beauty to it, sort of eerie. It has a little bit of an eerie twist to it. It’s almost like old (Peter) Gabriel/Pink Floyd, but with some very aggressive stuff. There’s some stuff that sounds like old Black Sabbath.

“There’s definitely some big, thick, heavy stuff on here, like really aggressive heavy stuff,” he added. “But then there’s also some, we have this one song called ‘The Eclectic Electric,’ which is nine minutes long and it’s got three movements to it. Jim Martin (of Faith No More) and James Hetfield (of Metallica) play on it. It’s like Pink Floyd meets Sabbath or something, this big old spacial thing and then all of a sudden it gets very intense and heavy.”

Given Primus’ track record, it’s a safe bet that regardless of exactly how the songs sound, the new CD will have its share of musical quirks. After all, over the course of six full-legnth CDs (plus two collections of cover tunes-Miscellaneous Debris and Rhinoplasty) Primus have fashioned a unique sound that combines jagged guitar playing with a funky yet thrashy rhythm section. The playing- especially by Claypool on bass- has often been dazzling, while the lyrics have frequently emphasized Claypool’s wicked sense of humor (“Jerry Was A Race Car Driver” and “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” being obvious examples of the lyrical wit). All these elements-naturally enough-have placed Primus well outside of the musical mainstream. Some critics-and probably a few fans-have felt by injecting such quirkiness into the band’s music, Claypool and company have sought to be non-conformists for the sake of being non-conformists.

Claypool, even if he recognizes the less-than-conventional aspects of Primus’s music, doesn’t quite embrace that characterization. “Well I don’t know. I’m definitely not your average joe, but to an extent, I am very much the average joe. I’m just not your average joe rock star guy,” he says. “My friends are carpenters and mechanics and fishermen. That’s who I hang out with. That’s what I like to do. But my tastes in the arts, I’m a big film guy and I tend to like eclectic stuff. In music it’s all the same. I tend to like things that push the envelope. I like seeing things I’ve never seen before. And I like that feeling of ‘How the hell did they think of that?’ That’s what inspires me. That’s what makes me go ‘God dammit, I need to think of something. Look at what the Coen brothers did. They did this amazing thing. How did they think of that?’ That’s what I like.

“I mean, I can respect something that (Steven) Spielberg does, but it’s not necessarily going to always be the most cutting edge, original thing. But then again, sometimes he does do things that are very surprising, even though he is a big mainstream guy. And guys like (Stanley) Kubrick and Terry Gilliam, those are the type of people who I find exciting, my heroes.

“Sure, we’d like to make a record that sells five million copies,” Claypool adds, turning his thoughts to Primus’ place within the music mainstream. “But I don’t watch MTV and I have a hard time listening to most radio stations. It’s just such a bunch of crap. I’ve always been like that. Since I was a kid, stuff that appeals to me is generally fairly rare. It’s not that I dislike a lot of the stuff. It’s more the stuff that captivates me and makes me want to go and buy it, it doesn’t necessarily have to fit in with any genre. If it’s music, or the artist is exciting to me, I’ll go get it, whether it’s Johnny Cash or a Rob Zombie. So it’s not so much wanting to be the non-conformist guys as I’m not going to do things that don’t appeal to me. And most pop music just doesn’t appeal to me. To me it’s lifeless. A lot of it’s very pretentious and I’m not like a fashion guy. I could care less about the latest shoe or clothes or any of that crap.

“It’s just not my world.”

From the July 15-21, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Occidental Arts & Ecology Center

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Occidental Arts & Ecology Center

The Art of Life

Nature’s way: “Our strategy is to develop an educational research center that will allow us to … make systemic changes in society rather than just responding to the latest crisis,” says OAEC executive director Dave Hanson.

Occidental Arts & Ecology Center celebrates five years of sustainable living

By Paula Harris

RESIDENT GARDENER Kalanete Baruch looks relaxed and tanned as she strides along the grassy pathways in her short flowered dress, yellow straw hat, and black sandals. Taking occasional swigs of water from a large plastic container, she guides the way through the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center’s impressive tangle of wildlands this hot Sunday morning. Baruch, 20-ish, is eager to begin the tour of this west county educational institute and so-called intentional community, which sits on 80 acres. Dreamy birdsong drifts down from the redwoods as we head for the south garden.

The gardens are beautiful in a casual, unkempt sort of way. No uniform rows, just great clumps of organic crops and flowers in shades of red, purple, orange, and white growing side by side like a vivid patchwork quilt. The earth is friable, soft, and lofty. It has been well worked into the beds and is irrigated by rainwater catchments.

There are abundant weeds, and small coppery tree frogs jump out from the undergrowth as Baruch strolls by. At night, she says, they strike up a wild chorus from the shallow ponds on the property.

She says the center harvests a huge variety of organic fruit and vegetable crops, including tomatoes, peppers, 25 varieties of garlic, squash, carrots, fennel, grapes, Asian pears, quince, and mulberries. There’s even a rare medlar tree displaying its mushy, cinnamon-apple-flavored fruits.

We pass a wooden picnic table and a large oval bell suspended from a tree. “When the bell calls us, we come together for communal dinner,” explains Baruch.

The meals are all vegetarian, prepared with the produce from the gardens.

Nestled amid high-forested ridges that once served as hunting grounds for Miwok and Pomo tribes, about 15 members of the center’s community now live on the land and share cooking and chores. “That’s my house,” Baruch says proudly, pausing at a solitary wooden cabin located outside of the main gathering areas. The rustic structure is tiny, about 10 by 10 feet, with a bed-sized loft and two small solar-powered reading lamps. For the past several months, Baruch–who trades gardening tasks for food, board, and use of the center’s facilities–has called it home while she participates in the OAEC’s gardening program.

Since 1994, the center has been developing through the concentrated efforts by activists like Baruch interested in building and sustaining communities. Its programs run the gamut, from the practical (beekeeping and blacksmithing) to the political (rethinking democracy and the corporatization of public schools) to the esoteric (a course in naturalistic sight-size painting).

“We focus on trying to solve some of the root causes of environmental, social, and economic problems of the day,” says OAEC executive director Dave Henson. “So many activists tend to deal with the symptoms. Our strategy is to develop an educational research center that will allow us to do the work to make systemic changes in society rather than just responding to the latest crisis.”

Flower power: In search of a creative outlet, Tiona Gundy was drawn to the center’s acclaimed gardening program.

AT THE HEART of the OAEC are six interlocking programs that define the center’s philosophy of organic farming, ecological literacy, and protecting the healthy rural nature of the county:

* The Mother Garden Biodiversity Program aims to grow as many different plant types as possible, focusing on heirloom varieties and crops that are in danger of becoming extinct. There are three public plant sales each year that showcase biodiversity. “In a culture that’s become so urbanized in the last 50 to 100 years, people have gone from agrarian to urban and lost contact with the earth and food and water cycles,” says Henson. “We want to help our county remember and experience our relationship to earth and to food.” As a backlash against chemical corporations like Monsanto, which purchases, files patents on, and controls much of the world’s seed stock, OAEC is preserving the lost tradition of seed exchanges.

* The School-Garden Teacher Training Program’s goal is to start gardens in all elementary schools in Sonoma County. Teachers can participate in a five-day residential workshop that shows how to create a curriculum based on gardening, including nutrition and ecological principles. “It’s the antidote to an increasingly computer-based curriculum,” says Henson.

* The Corporations and Democracy Program explains how large corporations are able to get the authority to control the world’s food supply, and helps activists develop strategies they can incorporate to regain control. For example, the OAEC is set to launch a campaign in the county against genetically engineered food crops and genetically altered seeds.

* The Horticultural Therapy Program examines an emerging discipline that focuses on the healing and transformational powers of gardening on the body, mind, and spirit. The OAEC is now collaborating with Food for Thought, the local food bank for people with AIDS in Sonoma County, to create an organic, “healing” garden surrounding the food bank’s new facility in Forestville. The goal is to grow a wide variety of fresh vegetables, flowers, herbs, and fruit, and to establish a place for gatherings, respite, celebration, and memorial.

* The Permaculture Program focuses on creating sustainable systems designs–such as natural building, beekeeping, and rain catchment–to create intricately connected and productive communities that are socially just, ecologically sustainable, and economically viable.

* The Arts Program is a fine arts course that emphasizes painting in the garden. “Here at the center, we keep our eyes and hearts rooted in artistic expression,” says Henson.

THE OAEC’S UPCOMING fifth anniversary gala fundraiser also promises to be a work of art. The celebration (like such other pricey OAEC fundraising banquets, including the $100-$500 per plate Lost Crops of the Incas dinner) will boast a gourmet vegetarian feast with exotic seasonal crops from the center’s gardens.

“We’re celebrating that we’ve made it this far, ” says Henson with a laugh.

Indeed, the property has a varied history. After a succession of family owners, the Farallones Institute purchased the land in 1974 for workshops in community development, appropriate technologies, passive-solar architecture, and bio-intensive organic gardening. The institute also ran a Peace Corps volunteer-training program funded by a U.S. government grant. The Farallones Institute ran out of steam in 1990 after the Reagan administration pulled the Peace Corps grant, its main source of income.

Then, the C.S. Fund in Freestone purchased the land and renamed the site Center for Seven Generations, focusing on biodiversity and food crops, and expanding the gardens.

In 1994, the current owners, a collective called the Sowing Circle (a nine-member group of biologists, artists, activists, educators, and horticulturists), purchased the property and founded the current center as a private non-profit organization. Henson, who is a member of the Sowing Circle, lives on the land with the other members.

“Our work as landowners is to steward the property and let the non-profit do its work and research,” he explains.

BACK IN THE gardens, Baruch points out an even smaller cabin under a cluster of trees close to the main pond. It is home to Tiona Gundy, another work-trade gardener at the center. In March, she moved from a regular two-bedroom house in Tucson to this tiny wooden cabin, which actually is a small wagon. “We call it the gypsy wagon,” Gundy says with a laugh. “It has no electricity or water, so I learned to get really simple.”

A love of gardening and search for a creative outlet brought her to the OAEC, where she hopes to meet and network with other farmers and eventually get into the organic farming business and work with local chefs. “It’s more important for me to be living on the land in a good community than to be isolated in a house in the city,” says Gundy, 39. “I don’t have a lot of stuff, but I’m a lot happier.”

In the meantime, she says, she is becoming self-motivated and learning when to push herself and when to take a break in a job that’s anything but 9 to 5. “It’s a little community here: everyone pulls their weight to cultivate the gardens and keep the education center open,” she says. “I feel like this land is being well taken care of.”

The OAEC, at 15290 Coleman Valley Road in Occidental, celebrates its fifth anniversary on Saturday, July 31, with a festive gala. Tickets are $250-$500 (tables are available for $500-$5,000). The center also hosts garden volunteer days from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each Wednesday. Bring a vegetarian potluck lunch item to share. For details, call 874-1557.

From the July 15-21, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Casa Botín

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Casa Botín

Old World Charm

This little piggie …: Chef Juan Maneiro of Casa Botín serves up a suckling pig slow-roasted in the restaurant’s 18th-century woodstove.

A glimpse of Casa Botín: ‘World’s oldest restaurant’

By Paula Harris

WE’RE SPRAWLED in a small hostel room in the center of Madrid, listening to a rhythmic rumba gitana pulsating from the boom box we hauled over along with suitcases crammed with hip-hugging ruffled skirts and nail-embedded dance shoes.

It’s been an arduous journey, but we won’t unpack. This is a stopover. Tomorrow morning my friend Helen and I will catch the high-speed AVE train to Seville, where we’ll study flamenco dance. If we can revive in time.

It’s dark outside. We slowly crank open the balcony shutters in the modest pension room near central Puerta Del Sol and peer out into the sultry night.

Nocturnal Madrid glitters and swirls below.

Calle Marqués Viudo de Pon-tejos–a bustling street filled at 10:30 p.m. with honking traffic, unleashed dogs, and strolling pedestrians–beckons enticingly. We ignore the jet lag that prickles behind our eyes and join the evening throng.

Outside, the warm night air reeks of exhaust fumes, lemon cologne, black tobacco, and frying garlic. It’s intoxicating. We head to Plaza Mayor, the large colonaded cobblestone square in the old part of the city, filled with taverns and handicraft workshops. Our destination is Casa Botín, once a favorite haunt of Ernest Hemingway’s.

“We lunched upstairs at Botín’s. It is one of the best restaurants in the world. We had roast young suckling pig and drank rioja alta,” the author wrote of Jake and Brett’s visit to the venerable landmark, on the second to last page of The Sun Also Rises.

If Hemingway made the restaurant famous, the Guinness Book of Records further cemented its celebrity last year by proclaiming Casa Botín (founded in 1725) the World’s Oldest Restaurant.

Stepping back in time: The brick-lined dining room is steeped in history.

CASA BOTÍN is located on Calle de Cuchilleros (Cutler’s Street) in the heart of Madrid’s old commercial center. We pass through an ancient archway and descend stone steps that are illuminated by an old wrought-iron lantern protrouding from a crumbling wall.

The restaurant was once a small inn where weary muleteers and traders ended their journeys with a sumptuous roast dinner and a bed for the night.

Our first impression when we enter the four-story building with its four distinct dining rooms is of exposed beams, oil paintings, hanging copper pans, and crimson carnations against snowy table linens.

It’s like stepping back in time.

At the heart of it all is an open kitchen boasting the original 18th-century woodfire oven, fueled by aromatic green oak logs. It’s still used to cook the house specialties: traditional Castillian roast lamb and whole suckling pig.

Chef Juan Maneiro, a burly figure in a white toque, tends the flames. The heat burns slowly and constantly builds up layers of flavor. One roast takes 2 1/2 hours, Maneiro tells us, as he removes a shallow earthenware casserole of fragrant pork.

Casa Botín caters to a bustling mixed clientele. The Madrileños are well dressed and poised with their Fortuna cigarettes and sleek leather accessories. The tourists tend to wear thick-soled sneakers and fret about what to order.

Our table is downstairs in a cavernous brick dining room set deep underground and steeped in history. Here also is a an ancient wine cellar resembling a catacomb, where dust-encrusted bottles of rioja are taking an extended siesta.

We eat creamy triangles of tangy queso manchego, sheep’s cheese from La Mancha, with crusty fresh bread and a glass of chilled extra-dry fino sherry. The fino is so pale and ethereal, it’s been dubbed “the wine with a hundred souls.”

We could have dined on baby eels or stewed partridge, but how could we pass up the roasted suckling pig with its crispy bronzed skin and luscious meat? It’s a huge portion–actually enough for two. The slow cooking has rendered the meat sweet and tender and infused with olive oil, herbs, and garlic. Add some perfectly golden roast potatoes and a noble valdepeñas house red wine to wash it all down and we’re in hog heaven.

For dessert, we savor slices of cool fresh pineapple marinated in Dry Sack sherry, and smooth housemade caramel custards with whipped cream. The meal is capped with strong coffee and a small glass of pacharán, a sweet anise-flavored elixir made from sloes.

AT MIDNIGHT, a group of student minstrels, in black cloaks trimmed with colorful ribbons, serenades diners with old regional songs strummed on lute-type instruments. We watch as if in a dream while waiters in their white jackets flutter among the tables like graceful moths.

Antonio González, a gracious man with a courtly manner, tells us his family has owned Casa Botín for three generations. Another family member opened a Casa Botín in Miami last year. One of the partners of the Miami restaurant is from San Francisco, so a future Casa Botín may be slated for the Bay Area, says González.

What’s the recipe for Casa Botín’s impressive longevity? “Of course, the food must be the best we can offer, but there’s something about warm cordiality, even from the youngest waiter, so that you feel a little like you’re in your own home,” explains González.

“It’s not only the taste of the pig, but that you feel fine,” he says with a faraway look in his dark eyes. “Taste alone is not enough to remember–a restaurant is not only a place to have food and drink, it’s a place to collect moments in life.”

Hemingway would have agreed.

From the July 15-21, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Talking Pictures

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Talking Pictures

Free Fall

Out on a limb: How can a real-life acrobat compete with a cartoon Tarzan?

San Francisco acrobat Aden O’Shea takes a swing at Disney’s ‘Tarzan’

By David Templeton

Writer David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate post-film conversation. This column is not a review, but rather a free-wheeling discussion of popular culture.

ADEN O’SHEA is upside down. Dangling 30 feet above the floor, the 24-year-old acrobat, clad in blue tights and a fitted gray shirt, seems improbably at ease up there, in spite of his being wrapped up thickly in long coils of rope, head down, legs up, arms outstretched, while numerous folk, myself included, stare in disbelief.

Before returning to the earth, O’Shea will repeat this gravity-challenging maneuver several times, wrapping and unwrapping, climbing and swinging and pirouetting about like . . . well, like Tarzan. At last, having pulled the entire length of rope up to where he hangs, and having coiled it around his body like thread on a spool, he allows himself to unwind, slowly downward–all the way to the ground.

O’Shea–a circus performer since the age of 13 and one of the instructors here at the renowned San Francisco School of Circus Arts–stands panting as a class of young acrobats-in-training reward him with applause.

The 14-year-old school, which evolved from the Pickle Family Circus School and has been located, since ’91, in a cavernous old gymnasium across from Kezar Stadium, seemed a fitting place to meet after we’ve both seen Disney’s latest animated blockbuster, Tarzan, itself a marvel of acrobatic derring-do set against a lush jungle rendered in “deep canvas” animation.

O’Shea’s spontaneous demonstration of aerial craftsmanship has come at the end of our discussion, in which he admits being frustrated by the animators’ over-the-top depiction of the physical activities of Tarzan (given voice by Tony Goldwyn in the movie).

“Tarzan does acrobatics,” O’Shea says, sitting on the brightly painted bleachers overlooking the trapeze training area. “I do acrobatics. He works with ropes. I work with ropes. We both fly through the air. So I can identify with Tarzan, the mythic figure.

“But this Tarzan,” he says of the movie, “was less of an acrobat and more of an Extreme Sports type athlete. He was a surfer. A skateboarder. And most of what he did was physically impossible. It was the animator showing off.

“Frankly, I think the things that are possible–even just barely possible–are more exciting to watch that something that is not possible, even in animation. There are real people who can fly through the air, and the way they do it is thrilling.”

“I kind of thought [Tarzan] was thrilling,” I admit. “Sure, it wasn’t entirely realistic, but watching Tarzan zip through the trees made me want to be up there with him.”

“Well, me too,” O’Shea laughs. “And ‘zip’ is right. Tarzan hauls ass in this movie. He never stops. When he goes from limb to limb, from vine to vine, he’s so fast you can almost not get a sense of how he’s moving.

“Actually,” he adds, “I kind of got the sense that Disney was kind of uncomfortable with the idea of having this buff, nearly naked man in their movie, so they made him move so fast he could never be thought of as, you know, sexy.”

“He was still pretty buff,” I point out. “With all that momentum gained from flying so fast, you’d think his loincloth would have flapped up once or twice. What do you bet there’s some Disney animator with an outtake of a naked Tarzan pinned to his cubicle wall?”

But we digress.

“In spite of the fantasy elements,” I say, “the elation and freedom of flight does come through pretty clearly.”

“It does, and that’s good,” O’Shea admits.

ASKED TO DESCRIBE the sensation of learning to fly, trapeze-wise, O’Shea turns to face the elaborate rigging above us. Pointing out the bars from which the flyer and the catcher each hang, he says, “So you’re hanging there, and you’ve been practicing for months, and then finally you let go. You’re in the air, flying to the guy who’s gonna catch you. And just seconds before you were thinking, ‘This is too hard. What am I doing wrong? I’ll never be able to do this.’ And, ‘Shit! What am I doing up here?’

“But then you do it. You may not have done it perfectly, but you did it. This weightlessness has found you, for the first time ever–and time stops. There is no sound. In that moment you know yourself better than you ever have. Because now you know what you are capable of.”

Jeez. Trapeze as self-actualization therapy. Sign me up.

“It’s true,” he laughs. “It’s like therapy. You learn a lot about yourself up there. In fact, I think that’s the underlying reason for the fitness craze going on in America. People are discovering that when you feel yourself pumping iron, you are forcing a relationship with your own body.

“There have been renaissances of art and philosophy and science. There have been cultures of the word, and cultures of the painted picture. Currently, among the affluent of America, we are experiencing the culture of the body. From San Francisco, California to Texarkana, Texas, anyone who can afford a Stairmaster can be part of the culture, they can pursue the ideal of having a perfect body, a powerful body.”

“A Tarzan body?” I add.

“Of course. You know,” O’Shea says, eyeing the dangling ropes across the room, “I was sitting there during the movie, thinking, ‘Hmmm.’ As a performer, this Tarzan thing might be what the market will be asking for now.

“Maybe,” he grins, “it would behoove me to get comfortable working in a loincloth.”

From the July 8-14, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Food & Wine Showcase

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Food & Wine Showcase

Show Off

Local flavor: Mary Dee Morrison and Frank Spirarski of Gallo/Sonoma savor the sort of bounty that will be on hand at the upcoming food and wine showcase.


Sonoma County Food & Wine Showcase grows up

By Marina Wolf

YOU TAKE ALL your visiting relatives to the tasting rooms. You dutifully attend every farmers’ market. You eat at restaurants with cloth napkins when you can, except when the call of “Pink Palace” chow mein joins with the gravitational pull of the couch–you even know which Santa Rosa Chinese restaurant “Pink Palace” refers to. In other words, you think you know the food and drink of Sonoma County inside and out.

But you can’t really know it until you’ve tested the scope of your expertise at the 19th annual Sonoma County Showcase of Wine and Food, held July 14 through July 17.

This year, the word auction has been dropped from the title of the event; predictably, as reported in local media, some loose Napa lips are flapping away about how Sonoma County can’t keep up with Napa’s own annual wine auction. Of course, comparisons between the big wine-auction events of the two competing wine country counties are inevitable. Both have been running for 19 years, and represent regions that are widely recognized as producing some of the best wine in the nation. But comparing begs the question: Do we want to keep up, especially with a package price for the Napa auction of $1,800 per couple?

In terms of accessibility, the Sonoma County Food and Wine Showcase more than keeps up. Ticket prices are considerably lower here, and are available for separate events, even at the door in a few instances. It’s true, though, that the Sonoma County event will probably never be as financially lucrative as Napa Valley’s signature event, which this year collected a record $5.5 million. “The Napa auction has such a huge reputation, a whole life of its own, really,” says Bob Hobart, a senior vice president at Clos du Bois and this year’s local auction chairman. “There’s no way that we as a county and a viticultural region can compete with that.”

Sonoma County also has had to deal with the geographic ignorance of other Californians, who for years persisted in blurring together everything north of the Golden Gate Bridge into one big happy region. Michele Anna Jordan, a Sonoma County-based food writer who is organizing the authors’ booth at the Taste of Sonoma County Showcase, says that people used to ask her all the time if Sonoma is in Napa. But no more, she says. “Now I think Sonoma [County] stands on its own as a separate geographic region in the minds of people throughout the country.”

Accordingly, the showcase has been redesigned as a showplace for Sonoma County, with a full program of tours, meals, and meet-the-people-behind-the-wine events. For the first time this year, the word food is included in the title of the event, indicating an increased emphasis on edibles that both organizers and participants are hailing as an almost revolutionary shift. Of particular note is the July 17 showcase in which local food-industry folks will host cooking demos throughout the afternoon, and Select Sonoma County will staff a prominent booth to give some of its 360 members a chance to spread out samples of their products and produce.

THOUGH FOOD HAS stepped into the spotlight, the wine is still a driving force for this event. Terroir tours introduce visitors to the unique interaction between land, climate, and the resulting quality of the wine, while winemaker dinners bring guests into the heart of the action. And then there’s the auction itself. This year, it’s being held at two sites via an electronic bidding system.

The showcase is turning over part of the proceeds to benefit the national anti-hunger programs of Share Our Strength, a connection that is having a profound impact on the event. “Because of the hookup with Share Our Strength, the showcase has become much more national in scope,” says event coordinator Mary Dee Morrison, special events director of the Sonoma County Wineries Association. “We’re getting responses from across the country.”

Ten chefs from the SOS network will be joining local winery chefs to produce the lunches and dinners. Simultaneously, the showcase has attracted national sponsorship and the biggest, fluffiest feather in a food event’s cap: Food & Wine magazine.

Most local participants agree that broadening the national understanding of Sonoma County’s offerings is important, but they also are aiming for shifts on the local level. Hobart hopes that the showcase will be compelling enough to draw the Sonoma Valley auction (a completely separate event that started eight years ago) into the fold for one mega-event that includes the whole county. She believes the showcase also marks a new era of cooperation between the regions in the county. “People see us as separate, bickering appellation groups,” says Hobart. “That’s not really true, but the perception is reinforced by the separate events.”

Others are hoping for increased local awareness of the interconnection between food and wine. This linkage may seem obvious, but strangely has been underemphasized at auctions past. Chef/caterer Barbara Hom, for one, is excited that the food of Sonoma County is finally getting the limelight that it deserves. “We need to learn that the wine doesn’t stand alone anymore,” says Hom, who has been cooking at the auction/showcase for almost a decade. “The wine can’t exist without the food.”

From the July 8-14, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Wine Country Film Festival

The Big Picture Reel to reel: Wine Country Film Festival founder Steven Ashton scours the globe for the quirky little gems of world cinema. Movies go global at the Wine Country Film Festival By Patrick Sullivan AT THIS POINT in history, I think we have to start focusing on...
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‘South Park’

Words Worth Slang-Master Jesse Sheidlower on 'South Park,' bad manners, and words that begin with F By David Templeton David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate post-film conversation. This column is not a film review; rather , it's a freewheeling, tangential discussion of life, alternative ideas,...
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Joan Baez

The War Is Over New & improved: Folk legend Joan Baez returns to LBC. Folk legend Joan Baez finds inner peace and the joy of fishing By Greg Cahill YOU KNOW, there was a lovely young reporter in France who'd heard me a couple of years ago in Yugoslavia,"...
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Sonoma County Growth

Growing Pains Outer limits: Rohnert Park City Councilman Jake McKenzie, on the edge of the town's new urban-growth boundary, is calling for "smart growth." He will be a panelist at an upcoming workshop that may help define just what that means. Photograph by Michael Amsler Exploring the limits of the county's growth...
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Laughter on the 23rd Floor

Going Down TV nation: Jill Page Collister, William McNeil, and Jeff Mattlin write for the tube in Laughter on the 23rd Floor. 'Laughter on the 23rd Floor' stays in the basement By Daedalus Howell THE ELEVATOR SEEMS to have jammed en route to the humor in Summer Repertory Theatre's...
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Primus

Primus Still Sucks No formulaic pop: Les Claypool cooks up a new batch of Primus songs. Les Claypool offers preview to new CD By Alan Sculley ASK LES CLAYPOOL, bassist and singer of Primus, about the artists he most and he touches on a long list-from country legend Johnny...
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Occidental Arts & Ecology Center

The Art of Life Nature's way: "Our strategy is to develop an educational research center that will allow us to ... make systemic changes in society rather than just responding to the latest crisis," says OAEC executive director Dave Hanson. Occidental Arts & Ecology Center celebrates five years of sustainable living By...
Read more

Casa Botín

Old World Charm This little piggie ...: Chef Juan Maneiro of Casa Botín serves up a suckling pig slow-roasted in the restaurant's 18th-century woodstove. A glimpse of Casa Botín: 'World's oldest restaurant' By Paula Harris WE'RE SPRAWLED in a small hostel room in the center of Madrid, listening to a...
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Talking Pictures

Free Fall Out on a limb: How can a real-life acrobat compete with a cartoon Tarzan? San Francisco acrobat Aden O'Shea takes a swing at Disney's 'Tarzan' By David Templeton Writer David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate post-film conversation. This column is not...
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Food & Wine Showcase

Show OffLocal flavor: Mary Dee Morrison and Frank Spirarski of Gallo/Sonoma savor the sort of bounty that will be on hand at the upcoming food and wine showcase. Sonoma County Food & Wine Showcase grows upBy Marina WolfYOU TAKE ALL your visiting relatives to the tasting rooms. You dutifully attend every farmers' market. You eat at restaurants with cloth...
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