From world-class art festivals, to movie theaters that invite filmmakers to talk about their work, to music venues that welcome big-name performers, Marin has it all when it comes to Arts & Culture. Marin residents can often be overheard saying that they don’t go into San Francisco much. One wonders if that’s really “because of the traffic.” Most likely, it’s because there’s really no reason to leave when, on any given week, you can catch a play, a ballet or your favorite band just a stone’s throw away.

Plein Air

For more than 60 years, the Sausalito Art Festival has attracted art collectors, aficionados and enthusiasts alike for a Labor Day weekend extravaganza that has earned it two titles in Marin: Best Art Festival and Best Outdoor Art Event. In fact, the festival is considered one of the most prestigious art events in the country, featuring fine art in every medium from more than 250 artists, and pairing that art with gourmet food, sumptuous wines, music, children’s entertainment and more.

Novato ceramic sculptor Barbara Sebastian, as well as artists from around the country, such as Portland, Michigan glass artist Mark Lewanski and Texas artist George H. Jones, have displayed their work. The festival has also boasted concerts from headlining artists like Pablo Cruise, War, Foghat and local bands like Rusty String Express and Charged Particles.

While little is known about 2018’s lineup, the festival’s timing in late summer and location on the Sausalito waterfront is more than enough reason to mark the event on your calendar.—Charlie Swanson

sausalitoartfestival.org.

Heartbreak

For more than a decade, San Francisco’s Petty Theft, Marin’s Best Cover Band, has been runnin’ down the dream of embodying one of American music’s most iconic bands, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. This tribute act started learning to fly way back in 2003, and over the years they’ve gone into the great wide open with live performances all over the West Coast.

Made up of veteran musicians like lead singer and guitarist Dan Durkin, who also founded Marin County bands Frontline and East of Eden, and bassist Django Bayless of late ’80s Marin bands like Sapphire, Petty Theft is a favorite for all—from the musical refugee to the American girl.

Though the world lost Tom Petty last year, Petty Theft has not had a change of heart about playing his music, and they won’t back down from representing the songwriter. The band has several shows in the Bay Area coming in May.—C.S.

pettytheftrocks.com.

Animal Lovers

When counterculture icon Wavy Gravy opened the legendary Woodstock Festival in 1969 by declaring, “What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000,” he was signaling to the world that the event was going to be based on caring, compassion and fellowship. Those ideals are exactly what drive the staff at Marin Humane, the county’s independent animal shelter, so it’s no surprise that the group adopts Woodstock’s moniker for their annual fundraiser, Woofstock, voted Marin’s Best Charity Event.

Last year’s attendees enjoyed music by Bay Area yacht rockers Mustache Harbor, with beer and wine for the adults, the ever-popular Kid’s Zone for the young ones and local merchants and animal rescue groups on hand to help loving families find a new friend. Keep an eye out for 2018’s Woofstock, and get information about adopting a pet at marinhumane.org.—C.S.

171 Bel Marin Keys Blvd., Novato; 415.883.4621.

WRITER’S PICK

Fish Fiesta

January in the Marin fishing world means herring, and every January at Sausalito Community Boating Center’s Cass Gidley Marina, the Sausalito Herring Celebration offers the Best Seafood Served Straight From the Water. In addition to a seaworthy feast prepared by several local restaurants—including contributions last year from Davey Jones Deli and Angelino Restaurant—the celebration always features live music, entertainment and docents on hand for tours and information. This past year’s celebration also included a screening of the award-winning film Sonic Sea, about the damage being done in our oceans from noise-polluting tankers and cruise ships, with an expert panel to weigh in. The fundraising event also helped the boating center continue with much-needed renovations this winter.—C.S.

Cass Gidley Marina, 1001 Bridgeway Blvd., #541, Sausalito; sausalitocommunityboating.org.

WRITER’S PICK

Creative Roots

A tradition entering its 35th year in 2019, the American Indian Art Show, where one can find the Best Display of Indigenous Art, is recognized as the West Coast’s largest celebration of antique works created by Native American populations from the pre-colonial era. Every February, the Marin Civic Center welcomes more than 100 dealers and artists to show and sell an array of culturally rich works including jewelry, textiles, woven baskets, pottery and beadwork, in addition to paintings, photography and literary works. Last February, Marin’s American Indian Art Show was held on consecutive weekends with the San Francisco Tribal & Textile Art Show to create the San Francisco Tribal Art Week. Whether you’re a seasoned collector or a first-time observer, this ever-growing show is unparalleled.—C.S.

Marin Civic Center, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; 415.473.6800.

WRITER’S PICK

Sound Bites

West Marin’s community radio station KWMR serves the region in more ways than one. And this year, in fact, one of its radio hosts, Rick Clark, was crowned Best Media Personality: TV, Radio, Print. While the radio regularly represents and informs the local scene over the air, KWMR is inviting the public to the Best Storytelling Paired With Cuisine at the 5th annual Eat My Heart Out Supper Club on Saturday, April 28.

Held in the historic Peace Barn in Bolinas, the dinner party marries live presentations with several courses of dinner that are directly inspired by the stories. This year, the supper club welcomes acclaimed actor David Strathairn to the table as the event’s featured storyteller. Strathairn is best known for his Oscar-nominated performance as iconic newsman Edward R. Murrow in 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck, and his resonating voice recently portrayed President Roosevelt in Darkest Hour.

Fellow storytellers Mark Buell, Vivien Straus and others will join Strathairn, and chef Matthew Elias of The Bodega returns for a fourth year to turn the stories into an imaginative meal. This fundraiser for KWMR regularly sells out, so snag tickets quickly, and eat your heart out.—C.S.

70 Olema Bolinas Rd., Bolinas; kwmr.org.

Full List of Best of Marin 2018 Arts & Culture Winners

Best Art Festival

Sausalito Art Festival

Best Art Gallery

Art Works Downtown

Best Art Studio

Studio4Art

Best Ballet Company

Marin Ballet

Best Band

Danny Click & The Hell Yeahs!

Best Charity Event

Woofstock, Marin Humane

Best Cover Band

Petty Theft

Best Dance Studio

Love2Dance

Best Festival

Fairfax Festival

Best Film Festival

Mill Valley Film Festival

Best Indie Filmmaker

Gary Yost

Best Media Personality: TV, Radio, Print

Rick Clark, KWMR

Best Movie Theater

Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center

Best Museum

Marin Museum of Contemporary Art

Best Music Festival

Fairfax Festival

Best Music Venue

Sweetwater Music Hall

Best Outdoor Art Event

Sausalito Art Festival

Best Outdoor Music Festival

Fairfax Festival

Best Outdoor Music Venue

Rancho Nicasio Bar & Restaurant

Best Performing Arts Company

Marin Theatre Company

Best Performing Dance Company

Love2Dance

Best Place to Dance

Terrapin Crossroads

Best Theater Company

Marin Theatre Company

Best Videographer

Gary Yost

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the early history of the automobile, electric engines were more popular and common than gasoline-powered engines. They were less noisy, dirty, smelly and difficult to operate. It’s too bad that thereafter the technology for gasoline cars developed at a faster rate than the technology for electric cars. By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, the petroleum-suckers were in ascendance. They have remained so ever since, playing a significant role in our world’s ongoing environmental degradation. Moral of the story: Sometimes the original idea, the early model or the first try is better. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you should consider applying this hypothesis to your current state of affairs.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The Chesapeake Bay is a fertile estuary that teems with life. It’s 200 miles long and holds 18 trillion gallons of water. More than 150 streams and rivers course into its drainage basin. And yet it’s relatively shallow. If you’re six feet tall, you could wade through over a thousand square miles of its mix of fresh and salt water without getting your hat wet. I see this place as an apt metaphor for your life in the coming weeks: An expanse of flowing fecundity that is vast but not so deep that you’ll get overwhelmed.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): You’ll soon arrive at a pressure-packed turning point. You’ll stand poised at a pivotal twist of fate where you must trust your intuition to reveal the differences between smart risks and careless gambles. Are you willing to let your half-naked emotions show? Will you have the courage to be brazenly loyal to your deepest values? I won’t wish you luck, because how the story evolves will be fueled solely by your determination, not by accident or happenstance. You will know that you’re in a good position to solve the Big Riddles if they feel both scary and fun.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Strong softness is one of your specialties. So are empathetic rigor, creative responsiveness and daring acts of nurturing. Now is a perfect time to summon and express all of these qualities with extra flair. If you do, your influence will exceed its normal quotas. Your ability to heal and inspire your favorite people will be at a peak. So I hereby invite you to explore the frontiers of aggressive receptivity. Wield your courage and power with a fierce vulnerability. Be tenderly sensitive as an antidote to any headstrong lovelessness you encounter.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In 1973, Pink Floyd released the album The Dark Side of the Moon. Since then, it has been on various Billboard charts for more than 1,700 weeks, and has sold more than 45 million copies. Judging from the astrological aspects coming to bear on you, Leo, I suspect that you could create or produce a beautiful thing with a similar staying power in the next five months. What vitalizing influence would you like to have in your life for at least the next 30 years?

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I beg you to take a break sometime soon. Give yourself permission to indulge in a vacation, recess or sabbatical. Wander away on a leave of absence. Explore the mysteries of a siesta blended with a fiesta. If you don’t grant yourself this favor, I may be forced to bark, “Chill out, dammit!” at you until you do. Please don’t misunderstand my intention here. The rest of us appreciate the way you’ve been attending to the complicated details that are too exacting for us. But we can also see that if you don’t ease up, there will soon be diminishing returns. It’s time to return to your studies of relaxing freedom.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Singer-songwriter Roy Orbison achieved great success in the 1960s, charting 22 songs on the Billboard Top 40. But his career declined after that. Years later, in 1986, filmmaker David Lynch asked him for the right to use his tune “In Dreams” for the movie Blue Velvet. Orbison denied the request, but Lynch incorporated the tune anyway. Surprise! Blue Velvet was nominated for an Academy Award and played a big role in reviving Orbison’s fame. Later the singer came to appreciate not only the career boost, but also Lynch’s unusual aesthetic, testifying that the film gave his song an “otherworldly quality that added a whole new dimension.” Now let’s meditate on how this story might serve as a parable for your life. Was there an opportunity that you once turned down but will benefit from anyway? Or is there a current opportunity that maybe you shouldn’t turn down, even if it seems odd?

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You’ve been to the Land of No Return and back more than anyone. But soon you’ll be visiting a remote enclave in this realm that you’re not very familiar with. I call it the Mother Lode of Sexy Truth. It’s where tender explorers go when they must transform outworn aspects of their approach to partnership and togetherness. On the eve of your quest, shall we conduct an inventory of your capacity to outgrow your habitual assumptions about relationships? No, let’s not. That sounds too stiff and formal. Instead, I’ll simply ask you to strip away any falseness that interferes with vivacious and catalytic intimacy.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In 1824, two British explorers climbed a mountain in southwestern Australia. They were hoping to get a sweeping view of Port Phillip Bay, on which the present-day city of Melbourne is located. But when they reached the top, their view was largely obstructed by trees. Out of perverse spite, they decided to call the peak Mount Disappointment, a name it retains to this day. I suspect that you may soon have your own personal version of an adventure that falls short of your expectations. I hope—and also predict—that your experience won’t demoralize you, but will rather mobilize you to attempt a new experiment that ultimately surpasses your original expectations.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn rock musician Lemmy Kilmister bragged that he swigged a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey every day from 1975 to 2013. While I admire his dedication to inducing altered states of consciousness, I can’t recommend such a strategy for you. But I will love it if you undertake a more disciplined crusade to escape numbing routines and irrelevant habits in the next four weeks. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you will have a special knack for this practical art.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Germany was one of the big losers of World War I, which ended in 1919. By accepting the terms of the Versailles Treaty, it agreed to pay reparations equivalent to 96,000 tons of gold. Not until 2010, decades after the war, did Germany finally settle its bill and fulfill its obligation. I’m sure your own big, long-running debt is nowhere near as big or as long-running as that one, Aquarius. But you will nonetheless have reason to be ecstatic when you finally discharge it. And according to my reading of the astrological omens, that could and should happen sometime soon. (P.S. The “debt” could be emotional or spiritual rather than financial.)

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “I would rather have a drop of luck than a barrel of brains,” said the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes. Fortunately, that’s not a choice that you will have to face in the coming weeks, Pisces. According to my reading of the cosmic signs, your brain will be working with even greater efficiency and ingenuity than it usually does. Meanwhile, a stronger-than-expected flow of luck will be swirling around in your vicinity. One of your main tasks will be to harness your enhanced intelligence to take shrewd advantage of the good fortune.

Homework: It’s easy to see fanaticism, rigidity and intolerance in other people, but harder to acknowledge them in yourself. Do you dare? Testify at Freewillastrology.com.

Q: I’m a 45-year-old single guy seeking a long-term relationship. My problem is that when I’m interacting with a woman I’m attracted to, my ability to read whether she’s interested in me goes out the window. I suspect I’ve missed out on some great women because I couldn’t read their signals quickly enough.—Disappointed

A: Where you go wrong is in taking the hesitant approach to asking a woman out—waiting for her to give you some unambiguous indication of interest (ideally, in large red letters on a lighted billboard).

That said, you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. The psychological operating system now driving you (and all of us) evolved to solve ancestral mating and survival problems, and what was adaptive back then can be maladaptive today.

Take how we evolved to be deeply concerned about safeguarding our reputation. Reputation is essentially our social report card—others’ evaluation of the sort of person we are. It matters today, of course, but not in the life-or-death way it often did in an ancestral environment, where—per anthropologist Irven DeVore’s estimate—many people were with the same band of about 25 others for much of their life. Back then, if a guy got snubbed by a girl, it would be front-cave news; everybody would know and be laughing behind his back in short order.

Flash-forward to today. You’re in a bar. Some woman you hit on spurns you. Well, that blows—and more so if there are witnesses. But there are countless other bars—which means that you can erase the embarrassing stain on your social rap sheet simply by trotting down the block to the next happy hour.

Ultimately, recognizing the mismatch between our evolved emotions and modern life helps you understand when the emotions driving you are counterproductively outdated—and basically stupid. In short, assuming that a woman you’re chatting up isn’t giving you a hate glare, ask her out. If she isn’t interested, she’ll let you know with some brushoff like, “Actually, I have a boyfriend.”

Q: I just accompanied my best friend on this extremely stressful trip to put her mom into assisted living. My friend vapes, and I started vaping, too, after being off nicotine for years. I bought a vape, but I’m hiding it from my wife because she’s so judgmental about it. I’m not ready to stop yet, but I feel awful hiding it.—Hooked

A: What’s worse than the crime? The cover-up—when your wife asks, “How was your day, honey?” and you just nod as vape smoke leaks out of your nostrils.

Your hiding your vaping is an “instrumental lie.” This kind of deceit, explains deception researcher Bella DePaulo, is a self-serving lie used as an “instrument” to unfairly influence other people’s behavior—allowing the liar to get what they want, do what they want or avoid punishment. Chances are, the “punishment” you’re avoiding is the rotten feelings you’d have in the wake of your wife’s dismay that your old BFF, nicotine, is back. However, DePaulo’s research on people duped by those close to them suggests that covering up the truth is ultimately more costly.

It makes sense that the betrayal is the bigger deal because it socks the duped person right in the ego, telling them that they were a sucker for being so trusting. In romantic situations, a duped person’s notion of the relationship as a safe space gets shaken or shattered when reality turns out to be “reality” in a fake nose and glasses.

Telling the truth, on the other hand—leaving your wife feeling disappointed, but not deceived—sets the stage for a discussion instead of a prosecution. This allows your wife the emotional space to see the real you. Compassion from your wife should mean more leeway for you to set the behavioral agenda—to tell her that you want to stop but ask that she let you do it on your own timetable.

This isn’t to say that you should always be perfectly or immediately honest. For example, if you prefer your wife with longer hair, that’s something she needs to know—eventually. But at that moment when she walks in with an “edgy” new haircut, “Helloo, beautiful!” is actually the best policy—as opposed to the more honest, “Whoa! Did Stevie Wonder attack you with a pair of garden shears?”

This, in case you were wondering, is what subtitles were invented for. Motivated by a dynamic mission of understanding the world through the art of cinema, the Tiburon International Film Festival returns this week to the tiny town on the bay, for yet another eye-opening seven-day bacchanalia of movies, meetups and global filmmaking inspiration.

With movies from dozens of countries, filmed in a veritable United Nations of languages, the yearly event in downtown Tiburon draws movie artists and cinema fans from around the world.

This year, with international tensions more strained than they have been in decades, the notion of folks from different cultures bonding over movies and popcorn seems innocent and a little quaint—but also vital and necessary.

Featuring a lyrical tribute to the late Italian filmmaker-poet Pier Paolo Pasolini (Saturday, April 21, 3:45pm), the other major highlights this year include a new documentary about legendary actor and filmmaker Dennis Hopper, Iranian filmmaker Hossein Shahabi’s feature about a parolee desperately avoiding a return to prison (Conditional Release, Tuesday, April 24, 8pm), a number of films about Russian hackers, a colorful program of short films by Marin County filmmakers and a new UK documentary (The Beatles, Hippies, and Hells Angels, Thursday, April 26, 6pm), about the outlandish investment and philanthropic practices of Apple Corps, the Beatles’ own business corporation, founded in the late 1960s.

It all begins—appropriately enough, given that the festival opens on 4/20—with Hopper: In His Words (Friday, April 20, 4pm). That’s a nice bit of synchronicity, given that Hopper’s connection with marijuana was well established. In Easy Rider, his character smoked plenty of weed.

Director Cass Warner and co-producer and co-writer Susan Morgan Cooper will be in attendance. Accompanying the feature-length Hopper documentary is Joao Canziani’s Pehelwani, a documentary short about the ancient sport of mud wrestling in India, focusing on the men who devote their lives to its continuation, and the almost spiritual connection they feel with the wet, mucky soil they wrestle in.

The Marin Filmmakers program (Monday, April 23, 8pm) is always a popular event, a kind of ‘Marin Filmmakers Have Talent’ showcase of narrative and documentary shorts made by artists who live and work in Marin County. This year’s array of shorts looks as vibrant as ever.

Girl Code, 10 minutes long, by Casey Gates (director), shows what happens when two ex-friends meet up, accidentally, at the gym—what they say to each other, and what they are really saying beneath the surface.

Director Elizabeth Archer’s Jail Bird, 13 minutes long, is a fictional film taking place on the 10th anniversary of a missing girl’s disappearance. Paradise Cove, 21 minutes long, is Charlotte Lobdell and Jack Flynn’s drama about a young girl who, while staying at a rundown motel, makes tenuous friends with a pink-haired teenager who insists that she is a mermaid.

Directed by S. Kramer Herzog and Leonard Marcel, the 17-minute documentary Spark Plug Cowboys is a high-octane exploration of America’s youth-fueled “car culture” of the 1950s. Return of Harbor Porpoises to SF Bay, nine minutes long, is a straightforwardly titled documentary by Jim Sugar, taking a look at the Save the Bay Foundation, formed in 1961, and its efforts to lure dolphins and other sealife back to San Francisco Bay after years of polluted waters and a World War II effort to keep enemy submarines away. Sugar will be there for the screening.

The 15-minute comedy D for DOCs, by Joe Sikoryak, follows a professor of documentary filmmaking on the day that his students—whom he believes to be his worst ever—screen their class projects for the department chair. Finally, Olivia, 10 minutes, by Nicolas Collins, is a narrative drama-comedy about a lonely 20-something woman from West Oakland, who is about to get two new roommates she’s never met, a couple who arrive in the midst of an epic argument. According to director Collins, the film is about overcoming loss “while letting strangers fill the physical and emotional void.”

Tiburon International Film Festival, April 20-26; tiburonfilmfestival.com.