There is no ‘try’ in Marin
Seeing as Marin County is one of the best places on Earth, it stands to reason that anything that lies within its borders is, by definition, also the best. That’s what makes this annual edition of the Pacific Sun so difficult to edit—how does one choose the best of the best? Our solution? We make the readers do it.
That said, once the votes are tallied, there’s always just enough room for the editorial team to weigh in with its own observations about what makes Marin County so special.
This is a place for dreamers. It was here in Marin County that George Lucas cooked up Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Marin is likewise where some of the more NIMBYish of our residents would prefer that homeless pitched their tents in a galaxy far, far away. Like anywhere, Marin is a county of contradictions, where dreams are both born and broken, yet somehow always alive and, in many cases, making Marin a better place for everyone. Among those are many of our this year’s Best of Marin winners.
This year, my esteemed colleagues—arts editor Charlie Swanson, reporters Nikki Silverstein and Will Carruthers, copy editor Mark Fernquest and regular contributors Evan Davis, Jonah Raskin and Jane Vick—have endeavored to fill that liminal space between the readers’ choices and our own proclivities with everything from fashionable ateliers to zombies.
We consider each of our pithy missives open love letters to a county that this newspaper has served since 1963.
The Pacific Sun never sets—it only rises. Every week, without fail, no matter what the world throws at us, we endeavor to keep the paper part of what makes Marin what it is. Naturally, we couldn’t achieve any of this without our team, our community of local businesses and partners, and ultimately, readers like you.
In San Anselmo’s Imagination Park, there’s a statue of Yoda, the diminutive space sage. He’s there to commemorate the area as a locus of Lucas’ most enduring inspiration. He always brings to mind his most famous line, one that’s effectively a motto for all of Marin’s dreamers:
“Do or do not; there is no try.”
