One-by-one, big fashion houses are dropping fur from their collections. Gucci and Versace are among the pioneers, but the wave of environmental consciousness has yet to reach leather with a similar force. In Sausalito, however, Filbert co-founder Bridget Brown is ahead of the curve, manufacturing vegan leather bags with a luxurious look and feel.
“I came up with the concept of Filbert after moving to a vegan lifestyle five years ago, literally the next day after watching the documentary Vegucated,” says Brown, who was born in Louisiana and lived in San Francisco before moving to Marin in 2008. “The movie opened my eyes to the cruelty behind factory farming and the horrific conditions that animals live in, and the abuse they are subjected to. I found the dietary change much easier than the fashion aspect of trying to find luxe, beautifully crafted, made-in-the-U.S.A. handbags.”
After Brown’s husband and business partner Nick Brown pointed out that the perfect handbag was always out of reach, the two decided to try and create one themselves.
“Vegan leather is an extremely durable fabric that is also easy to maintain and care for, and the bags will last a long time,” Bridget says, “because we don’t need more things, just things that are made better and that will last longer!”
The Filbert website currently offers a wide range of cruelty-free handbags and accessories, from elegant crossbodies to trendy bucket bags, as well as the Bay Area staple—the roomy, carry-all tote bag, in relaxed greys, browns and creams. Bridget and her husband previously dealt in much brighter colors; in 2000 they founded Bella Bridesmaids, which grew to 43 franchise locations across the U.S. before the couple eventually sold the company in 2012.
“We founded Bella Bridesmaids after seeing a need for chic, modern and wearable bridesmaid dresses,” Bridget says. “We opened our first by-appointment-boutique in Cow Hollow and started seeing very quick growth.”
Despite having moved to Sausalito on a whim (“We had a boat that was anchored in Clipper Yacht Harbor when we lived in the city, and every time we’d travel over the Golden Gate Bridge to take the boat out, we’d wonder how it is to live there,” Bridget recalls), the brand’s name carries San Francisco in its heart. “Filbert is the street we lived on in San Francisco that was very near and dear to us, but then I found out it’s a type of hazelnut. Who knew?” she says with a laugh.
The brand’s vegan leather, a nylon-fiber matrix without plasticizers, is made in a factory in Massachusetts. “Vegan leather looks and feels like leather,” Bridget says. “There’s an age-old perception that leather equals luxury. I think there’s a newer, better way to look at luxury. Luxury to me is knowing that my products are made in a factory with good, safe conditions and where the workers are treated well and paid fairly, without human or animal suffering.”
Despite having products that are primarily based online, with items placed additionally at International Orange spa at the Marin Country Mart, Bridget enjoys lots of support from the local community.
“We find that so many of our customers like supporting local businesses,” she says. “Sausalito feels like you’re in an Italian village every time you walk out your door, from hanging out at Cibo cafe, to walking the boardwalk and watching the ferry come in, to ending the day with a glass of wine overlooking the bay.”
In 2018, this timeless European-style romance pairs especially nicely with a stylish leather bag made mindfully without animal product.
If you scan the tables of America’s favorite eateries, from foodie to fast-casual, you’ll witness many variations of a certain salad. A base of leaves, piled high with chicken, shrimp, cheese and croutons, as well as other foods that may or may not be raw, and may or may not be vegetables. One gets the feeling that these over-garnished deli platters are aimed less at “real” salad eaters and more at people who have been told by their families, friends and doctors to eat salad. If one isn’t so into raw veggies, this kind of salad allows one to eat salad by dipping a crouton into ranch dressing.
While it may seem like cheating, there is actually historical precedent for such decadent interpretations of salad. Larousse Gastronomique by Prosper Montagne, an authoritative encyclopedia of classic gastronomy published in 1938, defines salad as a dish “ … made up of herbs, plants, vegetables, eggs, meat and fish.” You’d think Montagne wrote his book in a booth at the IHOP.
But there is an important caveat to his apparent condoning of busy salads. A good salad, Montagne writes, “ … freshens without enfeebling and fortifies without irritating.” If I only ate croutons and cheese, I’d feel more enfeebled and irritated. But if freshened and fortified are how you want your body to feel, definitely consider raw vegetables.
My wife is completely satisfied with raw leaves, in part because she is the salad whisperer and has the ability to make perfect salads with laser-leveled flavors. She thoughtfully analyzes the raw materials, and creates a game plan for an awesome salad, including a custom dressing. I respect the leaves more than I love them. With some delicious lube to make the leaves go down, I’m happy. For me, salad is not so much something that is made of raw vegetables, but a method of eating them.
With their fibers and vitamins, raw plant parts are the best things you can eat. The problem is, they don’t fill you up. A good-sized salad will still leave your belly wanting more, unless the veggies are eclipsed by empty calories or followed by a serving of lasagna. If you eat enough leaves, of course, you will eventually get full. But the trick is to stay focused on the raw plant parts. The way to do this, I have found, is to make a dressing that is extra decadent, and omit the other bells and whistles.
For today’s recipe, I borrow the dressing my wife uses when she’s eating alone and too lazy to make a salad. At such times, she eats straight radicchio, head after head, dipping the wedges or peeled-off leaves into a three-way mix of olive oil, soy sauce and vinegar. Radicchio disappears this way, as she dips it in dressing and crunches it down. I split her dressing up into parts, to be combined later. The vinegar part of the dressing goes onto the leaves, while the oil and soy sauce are added later with bits of meat and other chunks.
Saucy (Meaty Brussels-y Sprout-y) Salad
-One softball-sized head of radicchio, sliced thin as if by deli machine (think coleslaw, but thinner)
-Roughly the same amount of romaine lettuce, similarly cut (or use mostly romaine, if radicchio is too bitter for you)
-A medium-sized sweet or yellow onion, sliced in half and then into thin arcs
-Two cloves garlic (pressed, grated or pounded)
-Sliced cucumber, to taste
-Half-pound lean ground red meat (or alternative meat or protein)
Twelve Brussels sprouts, trimmed and sliced lengthwise (or another vegetable like asparagus)
Toss the radicchio and romaine with the vinegar, cucumber, half of the macerated garlic and half of the sliced onions, and set in the fridge. Pour the olive oil into a pan, and heat the meat, breaking it up into pieces with a spatula. Add the Brussels sprouts to the pan, cut sides down, and the rest of the onions on top. Cook slowly with the lid on, allowing the onions to give their moisture as the meat browns but doesn’t burn, and the Brussels sprouts soften. When the water is running low, add the soy sauce and the rest of the garlic, and stir.
What you have, at this point, is a lusty sauce that could be poured over noodles or some other empty carb. If the veggies sucked up too much oil, add more to the pan, so the dressing is as greasy as it is meaty and salty. Let it cool for at least 10 minutes, then spoon it onto your salad.
For what it’s worth (a lot, I would argue), the salad whisperer approves of this recipe.
Jack Kerouac once sat on a bench at Mill Valley’s Depot Bookstore & Cafe. Though it wasn’t exactly a cafe back then. It was a bus stop.
That was in the late 1950s, when Kerouac was living in Mill Valley with poet Gary Snyder, and though the building—indelibly described in Kerouac’s 1958 book The Dharma Bums—has not been a transportation hub for decades, its current owners have won city approval to renovate the site, and a number of Marin County residents have challenged certain details of the plan, asking the Mill Valley City Council to slow down a bit, and either rescind or amend its February 27 approval.
“This is a moral issue, at this point,” says author and activist Gerald Nicosia, taking a seat on what he believes could be the very same bench Kerouac once waited on. Nicosia, the author of Memory Babe, a 1994 biography of Kerouac, has joined up with Mill Valley resident Mary Fenlon and other Depot regulars to cast light on what they fear is a plan to gradually transform the institution into a high-end restaurant.
Nicosia and Fenlon have been collecting signatures on a petition that they plan to present to the City Council during an appeal hearing on the matter, tentatively scheduled for April 2. “This,” says Nicosia, “is about serving the community’s best interests rather than the interests of people who put the value of money over the value of regular people.”
The uniquely identifiable Spanish-tiled building—its image having graced countless calendars and books over the years—was originally built in 1929 as part of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad. When the oil trains stopped running and commuter trains no longer carried residents to Sausalito and back, the place was converted into a bus stop in the early 1940s, and it operated as such for more than 25 years. Now owned by the city of Mill Valley, the building’s interior has been leased to various businesses, including Ganey’s Bookstore and Cafe in the 1970s. The late Mary Turnbull and her husband William took over the lease in 1987, further establishing the space as a safe space for writers, artists, families and local folks.
In her 2015 obituary, Mary Turnbull was quoted as saying that the Mill Valley Depot was created, “as a place where book people could meet, relax with coffee or wine, laugh, gossip, cheer each other on, and talk about great writing.”
After Turnbull’s death in October of 2015, the lease to operate the business was acquired by local restaurateur Paul Lazzareschi, whose business partners include Gary Rulli. Lazzareschi is the owner of Vasco Restaurant, a stone’s throw from the Depot Cafe. Rulli owns Larkspur’s Emporio Rulli.
People sit on the popular patio behind Mill Valley’s Depot Bookstore & Cafe. Photo by Gerald Nicosia.
In January, Mill Valley planning commissioners were presented with plans to renovate the building. Those plans include remodeling the interior and parts of the exterior, moving the small existing restroom into the bookstore area and expanding the kitchen. The new restroom would be wheelchair accessible. In addition to adding retractable awnings outside, allowing for more exterior seating, the bookstore would be enclosed rather than remaining in its current status, fully open to those entering the cafe. Some windows would be replaced with doors, and the size of the store would be reduced to accommodate the new restrooms, and apparently to allow for an expansion of the cafe area, currently a counter-only operation, with no waitstaff. That expansion, according to architectural plans, appears to require removal of the historic bench that Kerouac once waited on.
At a study session on Tuesday, January 9, the Mill Valley Planning Commission appeared to be favorable to the plans, though making it clear that the bookstore must remain “viable.” At the session, Commissioner Anne Bolen warned Lazzareschi and his partners that the bookstore was not to be messed with, calling it “an important part of the business.”
Lazzareschi, who did not respond to a request for comment and clarification, has insisted that the renovations would reduce the bookstore’s footprint no more than 10 percent. At the Planning Commission’s February 17 meeting, the plans were approved, allowing the renovations along with a plan to expand operating hours from the current 7am to 8pm schedule, opening at 6:30am and closing at 10:30pm.
“This all sort of came out of the blue,” says Fenlon, displaying a copy of the architect plans. “Shouldn’t there have been a public meeting of the community to talk about this, before plans were sent to the city for approval?”
On Friday, March 15, Nicosia and Fenlon held a press conference at the Depot, inviting television and print media to attend, with the hopes that expanded awareness of the issue would encourage those opposed to the plans to speak up. This afternoon—one day after the press event, which Fenlon says was well attended—Nicosia says that he was somewhat offended at the previous day’s event being characterized by some local media outlets as a protest rally.
“It wasn’t a rally, it was press conference,” Nicosia says. “If I do a rally, you’ll know it. I was against the Vietnam War. We carried picket signs. That’s a rally. I’m not saying it might not get to that, but there aren’t any picket signs yet.”
According to Nicosia’s reading of the plans, they detail a 50 percent reduction of the bookstore.
“Everyone knows the bookstore’s being cut in half, and that the children’s section is basically history,” he says. “So it’s nonsense to be saying that [the bookstore] is only losing 10 percent. The store is going to look like an airport kiosk when this thing is through.”
Though not reached for comment, Lazzareschi has repeatedly stated that he has no plans to drastically alter the operation, and that it will remain a counter-only operation as it has for decades. To opponents’ claim that the restaurateurs secretly intend to install a high-end eatery in the place, Lazzareschi has firmly denied that, emphasizing that the renovation is to give the iconic building a long-overdue facelift, to bring it up to date and to modestly expand seating inside and out.
Nicosia and his supporters stand firm in their belief that, if the current plans are seen through, it will spell the slow, eventual death of the Depot as an unofficial community center.
“The big issue is money,” Nicosia says. “The owners keep saying they’re going to keep things the same way they are, just selling coffee and chili, with no plans to convert the place into a full-on restaurant, with waiters and waitresses. But no one has revealed how much this remodel is going to cost. I’m guessing it’ll be expensive to knock down walls, install new restrooms, put in three new doors, close in the bookstore, change the outside area and all the other refurbishments that the Planning Commission has approved.
“The cardinal rule of business,” he continues, “is that if you put money into something, you expect to take money out, with interest. How are you going to get this kind of money out if all you plan to do is sell chili by the bowl and coffee by the cup? I think there’s going to have to be major meals served, I think prices are going to be going up, and eventually this place is going to be a full-on restaurant. But no one is saying that, because if they said that, the city would never go along with it. That’s my best prediction.”
Asked whether or not investors and business owners have the right to expect to make money, Nicosia says yes, but adds that some things aren’t about money—or shouldn’t be.
“This is a de facto community center,” Nicosia says. “It’s been operated as such for years. It would be such a shame to lose that. I understand why the owners would do that. Paul has said he’s a businessman, and he has the right to make money, and legally, he does. But there are ethical considerations.
“I have no doubt an expensive restaurant here would be successful,” he goes on. “This is the best location in Mill Valley. This would be a hotspot restaurant. It could probably be called Paul’s on the Square and end up listed in all the best restaurant guides. But that would take away something that has been precious in Mill Valley for decades. And by marginalizing the bookstore, it’s going to hurt the whole tone of the place. If they really do have to lose the children’s books section, that’s going to be a huge hit to this community.”
Nicosia and Fenlon are hoping that if enough concerned citizens register their wariness about the approved plans—with construction potentially beginning soon—the Planning Commission will take a firmer hand in guiding the future of the Depot.
“We hope as many people as possible will come out for the meeting, to show the village that they care about this place. Our hope is that the Planning Commission rescinds its approval of these plans, and requires the owners to modify them. But leave its character alone. Don’t change anything that you wouldn’t logically do to preserve a historical building. And don’t turn it into something it isn’t.”
The appeal hearing is tentatively scheduled for April 2, 6:30pm, at the regularly scheduled Mill Valley City Council meeting at City Hall, 26 Corte Madera Ave., Mill Valley; cityofmillvalley.org.
Hero: During the Northern California fires last fall, doctors, nurses and staff continued treating fire victims even as their own homes burned. Payton Walton of Mill Valley worked as a nurse at two Santa Rosa hospitals during the firestorm. Back in Marin, she had a bit of culture shock. Life continued as usual for us, while folks up north lost everything. That’s when she took to the website Nextdoor to ask for volunteer families to support families devastated by the fires. The response was so overwhelming that Payton started an organization called Family Matching, which has now paired 250 families in need with nearly 9,000 donors. Our local hero has been featured on Today, The Doctors and in Real Simple magazine. Payton, we’re in awe.
Zero: Nancy had barely fed her card into the ATM at the Bank of Marin in Sausalito when a man wearing sunglasses walked up to her and asked if it was working. “Has there been a problem?” she asked. He indicated that he didn’t know and just wanted to use it. “I’ll be done in a minute,” Nancy said. He moved two feet behind her and craned his neck to look over her shoulder. She asked if he would mind moving back. “Yes. I would. This is the fucking line, lady,” he yelled, while he motioned to a crack in the sidewalk. “I’ll finish after you step away,” Nancy replied. “Bitch,” he said. Finally, he left. Temper, temper. Stand back next time and be a gentleman.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The “School of Hard Knocks” is an old-fashioned idiom referring to the unofficial and accidental course of study available via life’s tough experiences. The wisdom one gains through this alternate approach to education may be equal or even superior to the knowledge that comes from a formal university or training program. I mention this, Aries, because in accordance with astrological omens, I want to confer upon you a diploma for your new advanced degree from the School of Hard Knocks. (P.S. When Ph.D. students get their degrees from Finland’s University of Helsinki, they are given top hats and swords as well as diplomas. I suggest that you reward yourself with exotic props, too.)
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Europeans used to think that all swans were white. It was a reasonable certainty given the fact that all swans in Europe were that color. But in 1697, Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh and his sailors made a pioneering foray to the southwestern coast of the land we now call Australia. As they sailed up a river the indigenous tribe called Derbarl Yerrigan, they spied black swans. They were shocked. The anomalous creatures invalidated an assumption based on centuries of observations. Today, a “black swan” is a metaphor referring to an unexpected event that contravenes prevailing theories about the way the world works. I suspect that you’ll soon experience such an incongruity yourself. It might be a good thing! Especially if you welcome it instead of resisting it.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Crayola is one of the world’s foremost crayon manufacturers. The geniuses in charge of naming its crayon colors are playful and imaginative. Among the company’s standard offerings, for example, are Pink Sherbet, Carnation Pink, Tickle Me Pink, Piggy Pink, Pink Flamingo and Shocking Pink. Oddly, however, there is no color that’s simply called Pink. I find that a bit disturbing. As much as I love extravagant creativity and poetic whimsy, I think it’s also important to cherish and nurture the basics. In accordance with the astrological omens, that’s my advice for you in the coming weeks. Experiment with fanciful fun, but not at the expense of the fundamentals.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): According to Vice magazine, Russian scientist Anatoli Brouchkov is pleased with the experiment he tried. He injected himself with 3.5-million-year-old bacteria that his colleagues had dug out of the permafrost in Siberia. The infusion of this ancient life form, he says, enhanced his energy and strengthened his immune system. I can’t vouch for the veracity of his claim, but I do know this: It’s an apt metaphor for possibilities you could take advantage of in the near future: Drawing on an old resource to boost your power, for example, or calling on a well-preserved part of the past to supercharge the present.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Booze has played a crucial role in the development of civilization, says biomolecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern. The process of creating this mind-altering staple was independently discovered by many different cultures, usually before they invented writing. The buzz it provides has “fired our creativity and fostered the development of language, the arts and religion.” On the downside, excessive consumption of alcohol has led to millions of bad decisions and has wrecked countless lives. Everything I just said is a preface to my main message, Leo: The coming weeks will be a favorable time to transform your habitual perspective, but only if you do so safely and constructively. Whether you choose to try intoxicants, wild adventures, exhilarating travel or edgy experiments, know your limits.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The astrological omens suggest that the coming weeks will be favorable for making agreements, pondering mergers and strengthening bonds. You’ll be wise to deepen at least one of your commitments. You’ll stir up interesting challenges if you consider the possibility of entering into more disciplined and dynamic unions with worthy partners. Do you trust your own perceptions and insights to guide you toward ever-healthier alliances? Do what you must to muster that trust.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): If you want people to know who you really are and savor you for your unique beauty, you must be honest with those people. You must also develop enough skill to express your core truths with accuracy. There’s a similar principle at work if you want to know who you really are and savor yourself for your unique beauty: You must be honest with yourself. You must also develop enough skill to express your core truths with accuracy. The coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to practice these high arts.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Your journey in the coming weeks may be as weird as an R-rated telenovela, but with more class. Outlandish, unpredictable and even surreal events could occur, but in such a way as to uplift and educate your soul. Labyrinthine plot twists will be medicinal as well as entertaining. As the drama gets curiouser and curiouser, my dear Scorpio, I expect that you will learn how to capitalize on the odd opportunities it brings. In the end, you will be grateful for this ennobling respite from mundane reality!
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence,” wrote philosopher Erich Fromm. I would add a corollary for your rigorous use during the last nine months of 2018: “Love is the only effective and practical way to graduate from your ragged, long-running dilemmas and start gathering a new crop of fresh, rousing challenges.” By the way, Fromm said that love is more than a warm and fuzzy feeling in our hearts. It’s a creative force that fuels our willpower and unlocks hidden resources.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): My goal here is to convince you to embark on an orgy of self-care—to be as sweet, tender and nurturing to yourself as you dare to be. If that influences you to go too far in providing yourself with luxurious necessities, I’m OK with it. And if your solicitous efforts to focus on your own health and well-being make you appear a bit self-indulgent or narcissistic, I think it’s an acceptable price to pay. Here are more key themes for you in the coming weeks: Basking in the glow of self-love; exulting in the perks of your sanctuary; honoring the vulnerabilities that make you interesting.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): One day, Beatles’ guitarist George Harrison decided to compose his next song’s lyrics “based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book.” He viewed this as a divinatory experiment, as a quest to incorporate the flow of coincidence into his creative process. The words he found in the first book were “gently weeps.” They became the seed for his tune “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Rolling Stone magazine ultimately named it one of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” and the 10th best Beatles song. In accordance with the astrological omens, I recommend that you try some divinatory experiments of your own in the coming weeks. Use life’s fun little synchronicities to generate playful clues and unexpected guidance.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Millions of you Pisceans live in a fairy tale world. But I suspect that very few of you will be able to read this horoscope and remain completely ensconced in your fairy tale world. That’s because I have embedded subliminal codes in these words that will at least temporarily transform even the dreamiest among you into passionate pragmatists in service to your feistiest ideals. If you’ve read this far, you are already feeling more disciplined and organized. Soon you’ll be coming up with new schemes about how to actually materialize a favorite fairy tale in the form of real-life experiences.
Homework: Imagine a bedtime story you’d like to hear and the person you’d like to hear it from. Testify at Freewillastrology.com.
Q: For three months, things were going really well with this man I was dating. He’d introduced me to his daughter. We’d even planned a trip together. And then he just disappeared. I eventually texted him to find out what happened, but he simply texted back, “Really busy, all good.” This isn’t the first time this has happened to me or my girlfriends. Why do men do this? Why don’t they tell you what’s really going on?—Upset
A: When a guy just cuts you off like a bad tree limb, it’s tempting to come up with ego-cushioning explanations: He’s in a coma! He’s trapped in a wooded gully in his crashed car! He’s being interrogated at a CIA black site!
However, the best explanation for this man’s disappearance is probably textbook stuff—psych textbook, that is, and specifically a couple of personality traits. One of these is “conscientiousness.” The bad side of the spectrum is being “low in conscientiousness”—psychologists’ term for a person who is careless, irresponsible, impulsive, lacking in self-control and habitually ducking obligations.
The other trait is the unfortunately named “psychopathy.” Though it calls to mind shower-stabbing hobbyists, it doesn’t necessarily lead to murderous rampages. Still, it isn’t exactly the personality trait of angelic hospice nurses, as it’s marked by exploitativeness, aggression, poor impulse control, self-centeredness and a lack of empathy. Low conscientiousness and psychopathy partner up into an inability or unwillingness to admit to being wrong. Apologizing takes emotional and character strength—the conscientiousness and empathy that leave the wrongdoer feeling queasy until they come clean and express remorse to the person they hurt.
It isn’t just men who do the disappearo thing; it’s anyone low on conscientiousness. The problem is, when love appears to be on the horizon, we want to believe more than we want to see. It’s helpful to take an almost pessimistic approach to any new relationship: Assume that a man has flaws, figure out what they are and decide whether any are deal breakers. This takes observing his behavior over time (at least a year) in a variety of situations—especially crisis situations. You want to know that when the chips are down, a man’ll have your back—and not just to use you as a human shield so the SWAT team snipers won’t pick him off.
Q: Every photo my boyfriend takes of me is horrific (one eye kind of shut, bad angle of my face, etc.). My female friends take decent pictures of me, so it’s not like it’s impossible. I know my boyfriend loves me and thinks I’m beautiful. Could he be trying to keep other men from being attracted to me?—Occasional Bride Of Frankenstein
A: You’d think you wouldn’t have to give a man who loves you a detailed list of instructions for photographing you—down to “immediately erase any shots in which I look like I’m having a seizure or bear a strong resemblance to a surprised goat.”
In fact, you are far from alone in complaining that the man you love takes terrible pictures of you—or in worrying that it means something. Research by cognitive neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga suggests that we get so itchy over mental chaos—being in a state of uncertainty about someone or something—that we’re quick to sweep aside inconsistencies and ignore missing information in service of creating a coherent narrative. And then (conveniently!) we turn right around and go with the story we’ve created—in this case, the suspicion that your boyfriend is plotting to make you look uggo in photographs.
The reality is, if you aren’t a professional model being shot by a professional photographer, it sometimes takes dozens of shots to have even one you don’t want to delete in horror. (Shoot my long face from above, as my boyfriend sometimes forgets and does, and I look like a movie star—the horse that played Seabiscuit.)
Because men evolved to prioritize physical attractiveness in women and women coevolved to expect this, women are extremely sensitive to being photographed in ways that don’t show them off at their sparkliest. That’s probably why, if you glance at various 20-something women’s Instagram pages, you’ll see that many strike the very same pose in photo after photo. Sure, some men are as acutely sensitive about engineering their perfect pose—mostly those whose work attire is a sequined evening dress, a ginormous feather boa and chandelier earrings the size of New Jersey.
The year 2018 has made us all connoisseurs of misrule. Thus Armando Iannucci’s speedy farce The Death of Stalin has relevance. Still, at a recent San Francisco appearance, Iannucci stressed that he’d shot it in the summer of 2016, lest viewers suspected that it was some sort of allusion to the court of Trump. (Putin didn’t like it—it was banned in Russia.) It finds comedy in the plight of shivering people, fearing the knock on the door in the middle of the night. And it lampoons that infuriating boredom that comes from serving a man who always must be right.
One evening in 1953, the highest executives of the USSR are socializing with Stalin. As played by Adrian McLoughlin, this enemy of mankind is smaller than you’d expect. He gathers his cohorts to watch an old cowboy movie in a language they don’t understand. Later that night, Stalin is struck by a brain hemorrhage; he’s flat on the floor in a large puddle of piss, which will soon be diluted by the crocodile tears of Stalin’s staff. No one wants to be the first to call a doctor, in case he wakes up. The dictator dies, and there is no clear designated successor. However, the portly bespectacled Beria (Simon Russell Beale), head of the NKVD secret police, aims to be Stalin II.
The contenders are nervous weaklings. The darkest horse among them is the diplomat Molotov (Michael Palin). Molotov tries to stay on Beria’s good side even though the secret police chief arrested Molotov’s wife. No one realizes that Nikita Khrushchev, not a prepossessing man, will be the most skilled of the plotters. Like Stalin, Khrushchev was a killer—he admitted later that he had blood on his hands.
Like the ’60s British political comedies it resembles, Death of Stalin may be too clever and too mordant. But it does have tang, with Tom Stoppard-like wordplay and some big and surprising laughs. What’s best about this razory comedy is that just from the tone, you can tell the difference between what’s true and what’s too good to be true, and there’s more of the former than the latter.
‘After the Fire: Vol 1’, a heartfelt ode to the North Bay by local songwriter/producer Scott Mickelson, features 15 tracks, all recorded in the last few months.
When songwriter, producer and longtime Bay Area figure Scott Mickelson was growing up, there was no such thing as DIY in the recording industry. “You either had a record deal, or you didn’t,” says Mickelson, who formed San Francisco alt-rock outfit Fat Opie more than 20 years ago. “I went through all those paces, and I’m at a place in my life where I can pay forward a lot of that experience.”
For the last seven years, Mickelson has been sharing his experience by working hands-on to produce albums with younger artists in his Mill Valley home recording studio. “I like to work with artists who are interested in pushing the boundaries of what they can do with their music,” he says.
Last October, Mickelson watched in horror as wildfires ravaged Sonoma, Napa and other North Bay counties for more than a week.
“I started hearing [fire] experiences from more and more people,” Mickelson says. Immediately, he turned his scheduled concerts into fire relief benefits. “My wife and I have been enjoying Napa and Sonoma since 1987; that was always our go-to place. It hit me hard, the thought that it won’t ever be the same in our lifetime.”
In a society of “yesterday’s news,” Mickelson wanted to find a long-term way of helping, so he called up songwriters like Sam Chase, Travis Hayes, Bobby Jo Valentine and David Luning to record a benefit compilation album that came to be known as After the Fire: Vol. 1. The album will become available at two record-release shows, on March 29 at HopMonk Tavern in Sebastopol and on March 30 at Café du Nord in San Francisco. All proceeds from the album sales and release shows go to fire relief efforts.
“I’m thrilled these artists gave me the opportunity to do this,” Mickelson says. “Unfortunately, it took a tragedy to get us together, but I’m glad we’re doing something useful.”
When it comes to wine, there are plenty of Francophiles who believe (strongly) that the only really good wine worth drinking comes from France. And many contend that wines from the Burgundy region are the best in the world. Fortunately, Back to Burgundy, opening at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center this week, steers clear of this age-old argument, and instead points its lens on a family drama that plays out in the lush vineyards of one of France’s most famous winemaking regions.
French filmmaker Cédric Klapisch’s latest movie unfolds on a family-owned vineyard. The oldest sibling, Jean (Po Marmaï) shows up after a 10-year absence when he is notified that his father (Éric Caravaca) is ill and dying. His younger sister Juliette (Ana Giradot) has taken over winemaking duties since her father has been hospitalized, and the youngest sibling Jéremié (Francois Civil) lives nearby and has married into one of the region’s well-known winemaking families.
While the main plot revolves around 30-something Jean and his conflicted feelings about returning home from Australia, the siblings are also thrust into making decisions about the future of the winery. Just enough authentic exchanges between harvest workers, siblings and partners give it a fresh, modern tone. Refreshingly, the film captures the hard work entailed in running a winery—and doesn’t attempt to over-romanticize the process.
In all, the film offers what feels like an authentic glimpse into the lives of a Burgundian winemaking family. They come with all of the messy, complicated trappings of any family—this one just happens to have a breathtaking, world-class winegrowing region as its backdrop.
‘Back to Burgundy’ plays on Friday, March 23, with a wine tasting and panel discussion on Saturday, March 24; Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael; rafaelfilm.cafilm.org.
One-by-one, big fashion houses are dropping fur from their collections. Gucci and Versace are among the pioneers, but the wave of environmental consciousness has yet to reach leather with a similar force. In Sausalito, however, Filbert co-founder Bridget Brown is ahead of the curve, manufacturing vegan leather bags with a luxurious look and feel.
“I came up with the concept...
If you scan the tables of America’s favorite eateries, from foodie to fast-casual, you’ll witness many variations of a certain salad. A base of leaves, piled high with chicken, shrimp, cheese and croutons, as well as other foods that may or may not be raw, and may or may not be vegetables. One gets the feeling that these over-garnished...
Jack Kerouac once sat on a bench at Mill Valley’s Depot Bookstore & Cafe. Though it wasn’t exactly a cafe back then. It was a bus stop.
That was in the late 1950s, when Kerouac was living in Mill Valley with poet Gary Snyder, and though the building—indelibly described in Kerouac’s 1958 book The Dharma Bums—has not been a transportation...
Hero: During the Northern California fires last fall, doctors, nurses and staff continued treating fire victims even as their own homes burned. Payton Walton of Mill Valley worked as a nurse at two Santa Rosa hospitals during the firestorm. Back in Marin, she had a bit of culture shock. Life continued as usual for us, while folks up north...
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The “School of Hard Knocks” is an old-fashioned idiom referring to the unofficial and accidental course of study available via life’s tough experiences. The wisdom one gains through this alternate approach to education may be equal or even superior to the knowledge that comes from a formal university or training program. I mention this, Aries,...
Q: For three months, things were going really well with this man I was dating. He’d introduced me to his daughter. We’d even planned a trip together. And then he just disappeared. I eventually texted him to find out what happened, but he simply texted back, “Really busy, all good.” This isn’t the first time this has happened to...
This week in the Pacific Sun, our cover story, 'Dislike,' is about changes at Facebook that are upending journalism. On top of that, we've got a piece about the recent Student Summit on School Safety and Gun Violence Prevention at Dominican University, where more than 800 people gathered to talk about gun control, a review of the film 'Back to...
The year 2018 has made us all connoisseurs of misrule. Thus Armando Iannucci’s speedy farce The Death of Stalin has relevance. Still, at a recent San Francisco appearance, Iannucci stressed that he’d shot it in the summer of 2016, lest viewers suspected that it was some sort of allusion to the court of Trump. (Putin didn’t like it—it was...
‘After the Fire: Vol 1’, a heartfelt ode to the North Bay by local songwriter/producer Scott Mickelson, features 15 tracks, all recorded in the last few months.
When songwriter, producer and longtime Bay Area figure Scott Mickelson was growing up, there was no such thing as DIY in the recording industry. “You either had a record deal, or you didn’t,”...
When it comes to wine, there are plenty of Francophiles who believe (strongly) that the only really good wine worth drinking comes from France. And many contend that wines from the Burgundy region are the best in the world. Fortunately, Back to Burgundy, opening at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center this week, steers clear of this age-old...
