When Linsly Donnelly confronted one of the most vexing parenting challenges of the modern age – managing the content her kids consume during screen time – she did what any Bain & Company alum, ecommerce innovator, tech industry vet, author and entrepreneur would do: She created a company to address it.

​Donnelly, who moved with her husband and three kids (ages 6, 7 and 10) from Orange County to Mill Valley four years ago and is an active parent leader in the Old Mill Elementary School PTA, launched the SmartFeed application publicly in July 2016 after building it for the past two years.

“I love tech – but I hated what was coming in on the screen,” Donnelly says of SmartFeed’s inception. “It’s not so much that I want to get my kids off the screen. It’s what’s on the screen is often so terrible. There was just so much media that was inane or violent or gender stereotyping or all of the above.”

Smartfeed is an application fueled by a database of more than 30,000 titles of apps, movies, games and books. Parents can filter the database based on things like age, gender, interests and character traits, or they can create a profile for their kids and then accept SmartFeed’s recommendations based on that profile.

Now seven months in, Donnelly says she’s looking to grow SmartFeed's user base with two primary goals in mind: continue to fine tune the app – “the users have already taught me a lot,” she says – and to get some additional funding to pay for things like expanding SmartFeed’s team of experts who help strengthen the filters with their knowledge area specific mediums and subjects.

Now, Donnelly’s primarily focused on building audience and getting feedback about the product. She’s been doing so nationally via bloggers, incentivizing people to try it out. Now she wants to draw on the population of super-engaged parents in her hometown, and she’s looking to connect with kid-centric businesses and organizations to do so.

On Friday, Feb. 3, (5-7pm), Donnelly is hosting a SmartFeed event – dubbed “Happy Hour & Screentime Help,” at Poekie Nook, Sophia van der Harst’s bustling Tam Junction hub where kids learn how to sew by making “Poekie” stuffed animals. Donnnelly promises “three tips to achieving ‘good’ screen time for your kids,” as well as art projects.

A graduate of Washington and Lee University who got her MBA at the University of Texas’ Red McCombs School of Business, Donnelly spent four years in the Los Angeles office of consulting giant Bain and Company before launching her first startup, IdeaForest.com, an online arts and crafts business, in 1999.  She eventually sold the business to Joann Fabric and Craft Stores, and continued on to build and run Joann’s ecommerce division.

In 2004, Donnelly, opened her own Yoga Loft studio in Manhattan Beach, and over the course of the nearly seven years that she owned it, she wrote her first book, The Happy Go Local: The Smart Mom's Guide to Living The Good (and Sustainable) Life (Adams Media), in which she shared “countless ideas from her own experience in living locally to help you raise a happy and sustainable family.”

Donnelly and her family moved to the Bay Area in 2012, and she became the chief marketing officer for Wine.com. After nearly two years there, she stepped back from the corporate world for a while, only to become engrossed by the possibility that SmartFeed could be the answer to her screen time issues, and those of countless parents in Mill Valley and beyond.

She initially drew on her experience at Joann, where her team allowed customers to create a “profile of what they liked and we would just feed them what they liked,” Donnelly says. SmartFeed lets parents do the same, but they can also filter the database on their own and make playlists within the different mediums.

​First up was a “ginormous” software build, which a successful Kickstarter campaign partially funded by raising more than $75,000 on the promise of a “Pandora meets Netflix with Facebook” app for parents.

Donnelly particularly likes the ability to create a playlist that can be shared with a babysitter or the parent of another child hosting a sleepover. SmartFeed runs on iOS and at TheSmartFeed.com.

Donnelly says she looks to kids' media experts like leader Common Sense Media, the 14-year-old Bay Area nonprofit that “provides education and advocacy to families to promote safe technology and media for children” by serving up reviews of children’s media, as well as Tech with Kids, Teachers with Apps and other children's media expert to inform parents' media choices. She hopes to connect parents to excellent review sources – as a one-stop shop for family media.

Donnelly says she’s going the for-profit route because “that’s how you change the landscape. There’s no reason for Disney to make different stories until parents are saying so with their dollars.”

For now, SmartFeed is free, though Donnelly hopes to build the app and its user base to the point of being able to charge a subscription. SmartFeed currently generates revenue via affiliate marketing fees from Amazon and Apple.
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“I’m really concerned about our culture and what we’re feeding our kids,” Donnelly says. “It bums me out that my eight year old already knew the plot of The Hunger Games. I found myself saying no too often without having any good ideas to suggest as an alternative. SmartFeed changes that.”

The 411: Smartfeed is hosting a “Happy Hour & Screentime Help” event on Friday, Feb. 3, (5-7pm) at Poekie Nook, 247 Shoreline Hwy. in Tam Junction. Free. RSVP here.

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Marin Theatre Company Artistic Director Jasson Minadakis didn’t mince words when he introduced the opening night production of Native Son, Nambi E. Kelley’s adaptation of Richard Wright’s hugely influential 1940 novel.

"It is unbelievable that this amazing piece of art that was created in 1940 is still so important and relevant," Minadakis said. "It's still so important that we built our 50th season around it. It's important to keep pushing the conversation forward and making sure that our society is more humane."

It was a bold statement to center MTC’s golden anniversary around Kelley’s adaption of Wright’s intense, suffocatingly bleak tome about young African-American Bigger Thomas’ downward spiral, as the aspiring pilot is stifled at every turn by society’s deep-seated racism, concluding, that “When you look in the mirror, you only see what they tell you you is.”

But it’s paid off in spades – the impact was palpable in the audience’s near-breathless exchanges as they exited the theater on opening night.

And the subsequent glowing reviews poured in soon after, with the Marin Independent Journal’s Sam Hurwitt calling it a “devastating gut punch of a play” in which society “is all too ready to believe the worst about (Thomas). That’s just one of the reasons why it’s so sobering to revisit this story now, because that readiness to demonize doesn’t seem to have changed much.”

For Talkin’ Broadway, Richard Connema writes that Jerod Haynes as Bigger “gives an intuitive performance that borders on a mishmash of rage and terror,” adding that he “skillfully plays the character with a creepy expression and a mysterious stare.” Connema also credits Kelley with the insertion of a new character, William Hartfield as The Black Rat, the subconscious of Bigger who both drives him toward poor decisions and seeks to help him reverse course.

And at the Huffington Post, former San Francisco magazine senior arts editor Pamela Feinsilber uses her Native Son review to throw broader praise at the Miller Ave. theatrical juggernaut, calling MTC “the most consistently excellent theater company in the Bay Area,” where “audiences have come to expect outstanding acting, directing, set and costume design, sound and lighting in any production we see here in Mill Valley.”

Feinsilber also hails Minadakis for his effort to “showcase plays with African American themes, by African American playwrights,” particularly those of Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose In the Red and Brown Water debuted in the Bay Area at MTC in 2010, long before he became a household name for his play that served as the foundation for the Academy Award-nominated film Moonlight.

To Feinsilber's point, Minadakis noted in his opening remarks that MTC participated in the Gaslight Project, in which theaters around the country put on lights outside on January 19 to "create a light for farm times ahead and to make, or renew, a pledge to stand for and protect the values of inclusion, participation and compassion for everyone regardless of race, class, religion, country of origin, immigration status, (dis)ability, age, gender identity or sexual orientation." 
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As for Native Son itself, Feinsilber calls the play “gripping, thanks to its intensity, pacing, and fine acting,” and she says Kelley’s “imaginative conceit” that “shuffles time, characters, and events,” gives the audience “tumbled shards of Bigger’s life rather than a straightforward rendering. This approach makes a plot that seems rather simplistic—certainly when compared to the plays mentioned above—appear more complex.”

The 411: Native Son runs at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., through Feb. 12. MORE INFO & TIX.

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For the six years since former Van Halen frontman and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Sammy Hagar opened El Paseo in downtown Mill Valley, the restaurant has served up a selection of craft beer and an extensive wine list that includes rare collectables straight from Hagar’s personal cellar.

But it never had cocktails.

That’s about to change.

On Wednesday, Feb. 1, El Paseo is launching the Passage Bar, home to the restaurant’s “full-service and meticulously curated spirits and cocktail program,” including six flagship cocktails Hagar has designed along with bar manager Steve Gizzi. Those include the Waborita, Santorita, Rumarita, Evelyn’s Old Fashioned, The Passageway and the Old El Paseo (more info below). Several of those cocktails will include Hagar's liquor brands, including Cabo Wabo Tequila (which he sold in 2010), Sammy’s Beach Bar Rum and his newest brand, Santo Mezquila, which is a partnership with Maroon 5 frontman and fellow Grammy winner Adam Levine.

Located along the brick passageway leading into the restaurant, the Passage Bar is designed to complement chef Henry Cortez’s focus on California cuisine with Spanish flair featuring local seasonal ingredients, Hagar says.

“With every project I take on,” says Hagar, who owns 10 restaurants and bars, from Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker Bar & Grill in Memphis to the various Sammy’s Beach Bar & Grill and Cabo Wabo locations all over the country and in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. “I am very hands-on with the process while also allowing the experts to do their thing.”

The Passage Bar also has its own menu, including items like Chimichurri Fries, Prosciutto Wrapped Pineapple, Patatas Gratinadas, Shrimp in Sofrito, Olives/Almonds/Boquerones, Pimiento Cheese, Fried Chicken with Pimenton Honey and Passage Bocadillo.

Passage Bar is set to open with a Feb. 1 launch party from 7:30pm–9pm. RSVP here for the launch event, which will feature  specially priced cocktails and bar bites, with a complimentary glass of bubbly served upon arrival. Make dinner reservations here. After Feb. 1, Passage Bar's hours will follow El Paseo’s regular hours (Sunday – Thursday, 5:30-9pm; Friday, 5:30pm –10pm, Saturday from 5pm –10pm). El Paseo is located at 17 Throckmorton Avenue.

“This isn’t the way I make a living – this is purely a passion of mine that I’m excited to share with others,” Hagar says.  “Just check out the brands that are in our well drinks – it says it all.”

FEATURED PASSAGE BAR COCKTAILS:

Are you worried about bee colony collapse? Wondering how we can nurture the nature of honey-producing bees in our own Bay Area?

​At a free public event hosted by the Outdoor Art Club on Thursday, Feb. 2,   Robert MacKimmie, a San Francisco-based urban beekeeper whose City Bees has installed beehives in backyards, gardens an sparks all over the Bay Area will teach attendees how beekeepers are doing their ecological duty by aiding the workings of nature.  

“Without assisting the bees,” MacKimmie says, “the blooming of the flowers and trees would be like musicians dressing up for the symphony, only to find no audience.”

Come discover the importance of honeybees, pollination and the protocols of bee etiquette. Find out what makes bees thrive and Bay Area honey a sustainable, eclectic world of sweet possibilities.

The 411: City Bees' beekeeper Robert MacKimmie speak at a free event at the Outdoor Art Club, 1 West Blithedale Ave., at 1pm on Thursday, Feb. 2.

In response to years of community requests and in an effort to create a defining logo for all of Mill Valley, the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center recently commissioned acclaimed graphic artist Michael Schwab to create a Mill Valley logo.

On February 7 at the Seager Gray Gallery as part of the Arts Commission’s First Tuesday Artwalk, Schwab will join Chamber and City officials to unveil that logo, along with a line of merchandise bearing the image, including posters, stainless steel water bottles, felt tote bags, hats, bound leather journals and more.

“We were looking for a unifying image for Mill Valley, and we were drawn to Michael because of his amazing track record for encapsulating the core values of places and organizations and distilling them into a single image,” says Kathryn Olson, a Mill Valley Chamber board member who spearheaded the logo project. “He absolutely nailed it, and we’re thrilled with the result.”

Along with the new Mill Valley logo, Schwab will showcase an array of his other Mill Valley-related work at Seager Gray on Feb. 7 (6-8pm, 108 Throckmorton Ave.), including designs for Peet’s, Mount Tamalpais State Park, the 2013 America’s Cup and Muir Woods National Monument, among others. Food will be provided by Mill Valley Market, with wine from Angels & Cowboys and Cannonball Wine Company. Schwab’s work will be on display for the rest of February at the Mill Valley Chamber & Visitor Center at 85 Throckmorton Ave. in the Depot building.

Schwab, 64, calls his creation of the new Mill Valley logo “a fairly daunting project. To create an image for a place as magical as Mill Valley, a place that has meant so much to me personally and to so many people here in Marin.”

“I wanted to approach it from a very broad point of view,” Schwab adds. “It’s about the mill and the trees and the water and the woodsy coziness of the town. I really wanted to portray the natural quiet beauty of Mill Valley because that’s the number one aspect of the town that people just love.”

To do that, the San Anselmo artist started by taking photos from a distance, along the Pickleweed Inlet portion of the Richardson Bay, near Acqua Hotel and Piatti restaurant. Schwab begins every design project by sketching with pen and paper before inking it with a mechanical pen. He then scans the ink drawing to turn it into digital artwork.

“It needed to be an image that could print well and also have some romance and drama to it,” he says. “I was hoping to evoke a woodcut and wanted it to feel handcrafted even though it’s a logo. It has a handcrafted feel and it evokes the historic romance of Mill Valley.”

Schwab grew up in Oklahoma, first studying graphic design at East Texas State University before moving on to the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He later attended the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, and found work under art directors for the likes of Rolling Stone and West magazine, as well as A&M Records.

A visit to San Francisco changed Schwab’s career, as he was deeply drawn to the city and the open space that surrounded it in every direction. He connected with Chris Blum, the creative director for Levi Strauss & Co. via their agency, Foote Cone and Belding, and created his first of several iconic posters for Levi’s.

Having long developed a reputation for utilizing an interplay of positive and negative space to create iconic images that are strong and simple yet always contemporary, Schwab has created an illustrious list of clients, including Robert Mondavi, Sundance, Apple, the US Postal Service, The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, Major League Baseball, the 2002 Winter Olympics, Polo Ralph Lauren and the San Francisco Opera. He’s also created portraits of figures like Muhammad Ali, Elvis Presley and Lance Armstrong.

Schwab says that he’s at the point in his career that he’s not taking every job that comes his way, instead being much more selective “because I know how much passion has to go into them.”

He calls the Mill Valley project “a joy,” noting that Olson “was fantastic to work with and gave me creative freedom. It made for a beautiful graphic image that I’m very proud of and I’m hoping we can all be proud of for many, many years.”
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Schwab says he’s looking forward to the unveiling on Feb. 7, adding a dash of a spoiler: “I had the trees and the mountain and the water and it was just sitting there waiting for the red-tailed hawk in the sky.”

After nine years, hundreds of kid- and dog-centric evenings spent on the colorfully lit outdoor patio and a seemingly infinite number of pizzas served, Tony Tutto Pizza is set to close its doors at 9pm this Sunday, January 29.

This fact will not come as a surprise to Tutto’s cadre of devoted customers, as the restaurant at 246 East Blithedale Avenue has been in long-term limbo for more than three years since the 29,565-square-foot lot on which it sits was bought by San Francisco-based WorldCo., with plans to redevelop its 71-year-old buildings. WorldCo. intends to begin construction on the project in February, and the building in which Tutto is located will be razed as part of the redevelopment. It is unlikely that Tutto will have a space in the new development, as you’ll learn below.

The elongated foreshadowing of Tutto’s closure hasn’t dimmed the sentiment of his customers. “Tony is the real deal both as a human being and also as maker of genuine and authentic pizzas that are delicious,” wrote Michael Banks on a Nextdoor thread that included dozens of comments. “Tony exemplifies much of the best of ‘small town life’ – friendliness, kindness, generosity and a genuine care about his customers,” added TC Rikert.

Tutto, who had a decades-long career in the music industry under his pre-pizza given name as the manager for the likes of Carlos Santana and Narada Michael Walden and jumps at the chance to talk music with his customers as he makes their pizzas, is in the midst of figuring out his next move, but he’s adamant that there will be a next chapter for Tony Tutto Pizza, noting that 2016 was his best year ever and that each year has been better than the last.

“I’m actively looking for a new space,” Tutto says. “I just love making pizzas for this community. “It’s been a lovefest. I’ll miss the sea of smiles from our customers. I’ve been holding out all this time because I love Mill Valley so much. All I’ve wanted to do is stay here.”

Tutto adds specific thoughts for his customers of the young and four-legged varieties: “To the children, if you look closely enough, the twinkle in our eyes are really little shining pizzas!” he says. “And to the legions of dogs that have been to Tony Tutto Pizza, I am very sorry you won’t be getting any more pizza crusts or the chance to lick cheese off my fingers.”

The long run-up to Tutto’s closure is complicated.

WorldCo. first took its redevelopment plans to the Mill Valley Planning Commission for a study session – an informal opportunity for a property owner to get feedback on a proposal without a specific approval or rejection of those plans – in November 2013. Then and again at a subsequent study session in March 2014, commissioners told WorldCo. officials that its proposal for two restaurants on the property was too intensive in terms of parking and noise given its proximity to a residential neighborhood.

WorldCo. revised the proposal to include three retail spaces and one restaurant, and after two public hearings, was approved by the Commission in May 2016. WorldCo. Principal Alvin Chan says the project’s evolution was driven by input from the community and the Planning Commission, but also from outside forces.

In September 2014, after struggling financially for several years, longtime local print shop and stationery store Mill Valley Services closed its doors at 250 East Blithedale, with owner Dave Semling saying at the time that the business “was just too far under water.” Mill Valley Services’ closure in the nearly 4,500-square-foot space changed WorldCo.’s plans, as did the June 2015 decision by Summerhouse owner Robert Adams to move out of 6,000-square-foot adjacent warehouse and relocate across the parking lot to the space at 238 East Blithedale that was vacated by Cabana Home.

“When we first bought the property, we had every intention of keeping all three tenants in the project,” Chan says. “But that wasn’t meant to be.”

When WorldCo. learned that it could only get approval for one restaurant space, Chan says he counseled Tutto that he would have to go with the best offer available, and that he should work with a broker to identify other available spaces for his restaurant. Boo Koo owner Matt Holmes, also a principal at commercial real estate firm Retail West, has been helping Tutto to look at other spaces and in his negotiations with WorldCo.

Chan declined to comment specifically on what kept Tony Tutto Pizza from being the restaurant in the new project, saying that he’s held out hope that Tutto could be a part of the project if he were able to convince the City to let them include a second restaurant space.

“If there was a push to have a second restaurant space, we would work at it together,” Chan says. “And with his help, maybe it has a chance. There would only be a second restaurant if it is Tony.”

Such a request would trigger a new public hearing process for the project. With his impending closure to accommodate the construction regardless of the new development’s future, and after three years in limbo with the property owner, Tutto is ready to move on.

“I’m excited because I know we’re relocating somewhere else – just not sure where yet,” he adds. “Our website will be updated as we get more info, and you can submit your email address there to receive updates.”

“We’ve had an amazing run here, and I’ll appreciate that more after Sunday. I can’t thank all of our friends and customers enough for being a part of the community we created here. It’s been an absolute joy. I just really hope I can find a way to stay in Mill Valley.”

Over the past three month since Moonlight screened at the 39th Mill Valley Film Festival, and certainly with it garnering eight Academy Award nominations today, film lovers across the world have learned about the powerful storytelling talents of Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue serves as the basis for the film.

But long before McCraney’s work was the foundation for one of the most acclaimed films of 2016, his name was gold to the people at the Marin Theatre Company. McCraney’s acclaimed The Brother Sister Plays trilogy debuted at three Bay Area theaters in 2010, with his In the Red and Brown Water opening at MTC as part of an unprecedented three-theater collaboration with San Francisco’s Magic Theatre and American Conservatory Theatre. MTC’s production included a guerrilla-style performance in a courtyard of the residential developments in Marin City, a move that was in keeping with McCraney’s history of staging guerrilla theater in the Liberty City housing projects in Miami where he grew up.

Five years later, MTC hosted the Bay Area premiere of McCraney’s play Choir Boy, a heartbreaking coming-of-age drama set amid the choir of a prestigious prep school for young African-American men. The play drew standing ovations and rave reviews for being an “emotionally devastating yet ultimately life affirming ‘play with music.’”

“He’s a dear artist and we’re very lucky to have had him be a part of our family here,” says MTC Artistic Director Jasson Minadakis of McCraney. “He’s been incredibly generous to our company.”

McCraney’s ties to Minadakis and MTC run deep.

McCraney’s agent first sent Minadakis The Brothers Size – another of the The Brother/Sister Plays trilogy – while he was the artistic director of Actor's Express Theatre Company in Atlanta and while McCraney was still a student at Yale School of Drama. By the time Minadakis came to MTC to work alongside his friend Ryan Rilette, then the producing director for MTC, “I knew Tarell’s work well and was a big fan,” so doing The Brother/Sister Plays was a great opportunity. “From there, we just became more and more enamored of his work – he’s just an amazing talent.”

In 2010, Rilette, who got to know McCraney while he was still at Yale and directed In the Red and Brown Water at MTC, told the San Jose Mercury News that he remembered thinking back then, “how could this kid be so young and write this well? He’s a young-looking guy but he definitely has an old soul. He writes in a lyrical language that is vulgar and profane, but at the same time sacred.”

As McCraney and Minadakis corresponded in advance of the The Brother/Sister Plays production, McCraney mentioned how he always envisioned doing the play in the projects in Miami where he grew up. “It occurred to me that it was similar to some of the housing developments in Marin City,” Minadakis says.

Those similarities, and MTC’s well-established ties to the community in Marin City, got Minadakis thinking. Before long, they decided to put on a production of the play – no lights, no set and no props – in the courtyard between two of the residential buildings just prior to its debut on the MTC stage. Struck by the move, McCraney himself flew in from London, where he was serving as the Royal Shakespeare Company’s International Playwright in Residence, to catch the production in person.

“Tarell was just so excited to see it that way,” Minadakis says. “And it was such a great way to really get to know him that weekend, and the community really appreciated the work that went into making such a unique experience happen.”

In a Reddit AMA in 2010, McCraney said he “was most surprised and gobsmacked" by MTC  performance in Marin City.
“And I watched as the play and the audience began to engage,” he added. “How we had to hold for laughter, for audience members speaking to the performance, for the wind. It was incredible. I never forgot that. And don't think I will.”

When McCraney was wrapping up work on the The Brother/Sister Plays trilogy, “everybody was so taken with his unique vision and wanted to know what his next piece would be, and everybody had heard that he had a script that wasn’t finished but was very autobiographical,” Minadakis says.

That script turned out to be In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, a drama school project that had languished. Director Barry Jenkins used McCraney's play as the basis for Moonlight, which chronicles the life of a young black man from childhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.

Minadakis says he was struck by the fact that one of the first things McCraney ever wrote “is the one that has really taken him into an entirely new medium of film and has been seen so incredibly well. He just has such unbelievable writing and an incredible sense of rhythm and what has struck many people is how quiet it is and how he leaves such space between his words.”

“That physical space between the words and the silences has translated so well to Barry Jenkins’ film and the visual language that’s in the piece,” Minadakis adds.

McCraney and Moonlight director Barry Jenkins grew up in the projects in Miami, and the film’s screenplay, written by Jenkins but very much based on McCraney’s play, is filled with autobiographical anecdotes from both of their lives.

“There is not a single scene in this movie with that character that didn’t happen to either myself or Tarell growing up,” Jenkins said in a post-screening Q&A at the Cinearts Sequoia Theatre in Mill Valley during MVFF39 in October 2016. “Both of our mothers went through this addiction to crack cocaine. It’s so dark that it had to be rooted in truth. This is very much a shared biography between me and Tarell, but mostly Tarell.”

Moonlight garnered eight Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director for Jenkins and Best Adapted Screenplay for both Jenkins and McCraney. The 89th Academy Awards will be held Feb. 26 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles with host Jimmy Kimmel. ABC will air the awards show.

Here's a video of Marin Theatre Company's outdoor production of In the Red and Brown Water in 2010:

​Here’s the trailer for Moonlight:

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Three years after launching to create “public awareness about litter and its impact on our community and the environment," local nonprofit organization Clean Mill Valley continues to honor local businesses that pledge to keep the exterior of their shop litter-free – and follow through on that pledge.

The organization did so again this month, heaping praise upon Peet's Coffee & Tea, Playa Mill Valley and Joe's Taco Lounge. Clean Mill Valley co-founder Joan Murray says Peet's Coffee & Tea in downtown Mill Valley "deserves a gold star for their creative approach to eliminating coffee refuse and their diligence in keeping the heart of our town clean." 

​Store Manager Matt Borello worked with Clean Mill Valley's Jill Young and the City of Mill Valley Public Works Superintendent Denise Andrews to remove the city-owned garbage can, which was emptied each morning and "substituted it with an attractive Peet’s-owned garbage can that their staff empties multiple times each day," Murray says. "This has reduced the paper products that often flowed onto our sidewalks and into our gutters. Thank you Matthew and your regional staff for making this happen. Kudos!"

Playa, the newest restaurant downtown, also earned praise form Clean Mill Valley "for their good care of the sidewalk in front of their restaurant. It’s a pleasure to have them as a new eatery in town." 
 
Longtime Miller Avenue fixture Joe’s Taco Lounge also garnered acknowledgement for their longtime commitment to keeping their restaurant frontage litter-free. "With a public bus stop close by they are cleaning more than their share," Murray says.

Clean Mill Valley currently has 154 merchants throughout the 94941 that have signed its pledge, which calls for merchants to take simple steps such as assigning employees to pick up litter around their business and properly dispose of and sort the litter; to contract with Mill Valley Refuse to provide garbage service for the business, per the City of Mill Valley’s Municipal Code; and to educate employees about the proper disposal and sorting of garbage. 

Merchants who participate in the program receive a Clean Mill Valley window sticker as well as recognition on both the Clean Mill Valley and Mill Valley Chamber websites.

“This is a fantastic program and we are so grateful for Clean Mill Valley's dedicated efforts to rid our streets, sidewalks and waterways of litter,” said Chamber Co-Director Paula Reynolds. “We continue to wholeheartedly support this campaign and urge our Members to participate in it.”

For additional information about the program, contact Joan Murray at joan@cleanmv.org.

In an effort to provide more opportunities for talented local artists and to support the Mill Valley Arts Commission's First Tuesday Artwalk, the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center became an Artwalk venue 21 months ago. The result  has been a boon for artists, the Artwalk and the Chamber itself, as opening receptions are regularly packed and exhibits draw art lovers throughout the month.

With that in mind, the Chamber's art committee invites artists to submit works to fill its 2017 calendar. Artists have the opportunity to exhibit works at our bustling downtown Mill Valley office at 85 Throckmorton Ave. and receive promotion on the popular Enjoy Mill Valley website and related social media channels. It’s a fantastic opportunity to gain exposure to local residents and visitors from all over the world. Go here for submission guidelines and send your application to info@millvalley.org.

A chance encounter induced by the heavy rains and power outage early this month has led to a collaboration between a pair of well known women-owned Mill Valley businesses and a fledgling organization created by a new local resident, a collaboration that has coalesced rapidly in advance of the planned Women’s March San Francisco and Women’s March Oakland on Saturday.

Out and about in downtown Mill Valley on Jan. 8, Amy Maniatis and her family ducked inside Equator Coffees & Teas at 2 Miller Avenue to escape the downpour. She met Equator co-founder Helen Russell and got to chatting about Women on Washington, the organization Maniatis, who recently relocated from Washington, DC to Mill Valley, has launched with a group of female colleagues "to create greater solidarity among all those who believe in protecting feminist causes with an uncertain future ahead."

Maniatis mentioned her organization's campaign to distribute posters, designed by famed rock poster artist Chuck Sperry, to participants in the Saturday marches, and Russell jumped at the opportunity to help. On Friday starting at 8am, Equator will be handing out free coffee and Sperry's two-sided, weather-resistant 'Resist' posters (above) to marchers who visit Equator at 2 Miller Avenue. 

Russell also connected Mianitis with The Hivery founder Grace Kraaijvanger, who has organized more than a half dozen buses to go from Mill Valley to the Women's March San Francisco. The Hivery (38 Miller Ave., 2nd floor) is hosting an event Friday evening and will be handing out the posters at it and again as marchers board the buses on Saturday morning, according to Russell.

"Big doings at Equator and The Hivery," Russell says.

Mill Valley favorite Jackie Greene Band spends a lot of time on the road, but they always seem to carve out a nice, long stay here in town for a run of shows at the Sweetwater Music Hall.

They'll do so again in March when they kick off their spring tour with a six-show run at the Sweetwater before heading east for stops in Colorado and points Midwest. 

 MORE INFO & TIX.

Here's a taste of Greene's run of Sweetwater shows a few years ago:

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​Equator Coffees & Teas' two Mill Valley shops are hosting a pair of great events this month that seek to get you pumped for the outdoors.

The first, set for Wednesday, Jan. 25 at Equator downtown (2 Miller Ave.), is a book signing by Life of a Triathlete author Meredith B. Kessler, whose tome is loaded with "content triathletes can use for their own self improvement in a sport where quality information in a concise manner is hard to corral and utilize." Equator will serve up free cookies and gluten-removed beverage Sufferfest beer, while Kessler will be signing books from 6-8pm and will have copies of the book available to buy. MORE INFO.

One night later at 6pm, Equator at Proof Lab in Tam Junction hosts a film screening of Shades of Winter's Between, the latest film by Austrian pro skier and filmmaker Sandra Lahnsteiner who continues to redefine women in action sports movies since her first release in 2010. The film tracks the adventures of some of the world’s finest female athletes, including for the first time America’s Olympic Gold medallist Julia Mancuso, on a journey that takes them from the slopes of a volcano in Hawaii to the white-knuckle ride down an Alaskan giant.

The screening will be outside Equator's Proof Lab cafe, so attendees are encouraged to dress warmly as it might be chilly. Prior to the film, Lululemon will be hosting a meditation with Bex Urban, and ticket holders get a seat for the meditation and film and free gluten-removed Sufferfest beer and movie snacks like popcorn and cookies. MORE INFO & TIX.

​Here's a taste of Between:

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Once a mere pipe dream for longtime Mill Valley Middle School music teacher Lori Odessa, the now-two-year-old Mill Valley Middle School Bluegrass Club has grown to accommodate three bluegrass bands and regular live performances.

Their next live show serves as their first of 2017 and their latest opportunity to raise money for Kiddo!, the 35-year-old juggernaut private education foundation that supports a vast array of music and technology programs within the Mill Valley School District. Adessa and Bluegrass Club co-founder Phoebe Dong will be leading the bands through a live set at the venerable Sweetwater Music Hall on Tuesday, March 14.

The MVMS bands are opening for the Grateful Bluegrass Boys, a group of well-traveled bluegrass musicians playing classic rock songs from the likes of the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, the Eagles and Van Morrison. Two members of the Grateful Bluegrass Boys, Aaron Redner and Bryan Thorne, came through the Mill Valley School District music program and credit Joe Angiulo, the hugely influential local music teacher who retired after 30 years in Mill Valley’s schools and now sits on the board of the Mill Valley Chamber Music Society, with first connecting them to the genre.

“Joe was the person who first laid out all of the instruments in front me,” Redner says. “I was drawn to the violin and Bryan was drawn to the cello. We are living examples of the Mill Valley public school system.”

Redner, who attended Old Mill, Park and the Middle School, credits Kiddo!, the district’s music program and Angiulo specifically for a career that has sent him all over the world playing 200 shows a year over a 13-year stint as a member of stalwart California bluegrass band Hot Buttered Rum. Redner and Thorne first met in the Tam High Orchestra and played in Hot Buttered Rum together for many years.

Redner and Horne first bonded around the band Old and in the Way, a bluegrass supergroup that featured the likes of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, mandolin legend David Grisman, guitarist Peter Rowan, bassist John Kahn and renowned fiddler Vassar Clements. The band’s self-titled debut album is one of the best-selling bluegrass albums of all time.
As a violinist who got his master’s degree in classical music from the New England Conservatory in Boston, Redner was blown away by Clements.

“That was my beginning,” says Redner.

The beginning of the MVMS Bluegrass Club arrived serendipitously, when a Tam Valley student asked Adessa if he could learn banjo. Knowing that the student would later be going to the Middle School, she asked Dong, who was recognized in 2015 as Teacher of the Year by the Marin Symphony and who is closely connected to the school’s string instrument players as the orchestra director. Dong signed off, and Adessa started spreading the word. It grew quickly from there. 

“Bluegrass is in now,” Adessa says. “Whereas when I was playing, it was NOT in for most kids.”

The music itself is great for the students’ overall musical skills, particularly because each musician doesn’t play the melody at the same time. Instead, one musician plays the melody, often improvising, and the rest are playing in the background – and everything is memorized.

“I bring all of the ideas of how to perform and play the music as a bluegrass band, so it doesn’t sound like a bluegrass orchestra but a bluegrass band,” says Odessa. Since most of the club’s musicians are also in the school orchestra, the club has participated in the school’s annual winter and spring orchestra programs to date, and at community events.

“Getting to play at the Sweetwater again is huge for them,” Adessa says.
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The 411: The Grateful Bluegrass Boys and the Mill Valley Middle School Bluegrass Club play the Sweetwater Music Hall on Tuesday, March 14, a all-ages benefit for Kiddo!. MORE INFO & TIX.

From raging creeks to a surging bay, the heavy rain in recent weeks has turned Mill Valley into our own little approximation of Waterworld. Local filmmaker Gary Yost recently took a jaunt along Mount Tamalpais State Park's Steep Ravine trail and shot this fantastic video of Webb Creek on his iPhone 7 and set it to "Cool Water" by Joni Mitchell and Willie Nelson.

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Nonprofit Friends of Mt. Tam arranged a two-year loan of the model from Chicago-based Azcon, which bought all the assets of the railroad when it was scrapped in 1930. It will be on display through May.

The Mill Valley Public Library's Lucretia Little History Room regularly documents the history of the 94941, but rarely does it get the chance to actually make history.

It did just that last month, unveiling a one-of-a-kind handcrafted steam engine model that was built 105 years ago by the once-world-famous Mill Valley and Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway, operator of the so-called "crookedest railroad in the world," which featured more than 8 miles of meandering track on the slopes of Mt. Tam.

The 80-pound, 57-inch-long model of a Shay engine locomotive is one of the types of locomotives that once climbed Mount Tam. It was largely the creation of Mill Valley resident Howard Folker, a conductor, engineer, and machinist for the Railway who completed the model in December 1911, the same month the actual engine was put on display in the Railway’s ticket office in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. A 1911 newspaper article in the Sausalito News describes how holiday shoppers would crowd around the Market Street window to get a glimpse of the locomotive and its moving parts.

“The Scenic Railway put the village of Mill Valley on the world stage,” said historian and Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway author Fred Runner, who gave a short presentation on the railway and the model at a Dec. 9th event. “Suddenly, Mill Valley was a tourist destination on par with other scenic railways in Colorado (Pikes Peak), New Hampshire (Mount Washington) and Switzerland (Zermatt to the Matterhorn). Mount Tamalpais offered a greater variety of scenery for less money per mile than the others.”
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In 1929, after years of popularity, including passengers such as Susan B. Anthony, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, and John Muir, the Scenic Railway ran its last trains, eventually filing for abandonment in 1930. The Railway was scrapped that summer by Chicago’s Hyman-Michaels (now Azcon Metals), and the model was taken to the company’s Midwest headquarters.

The Mill Valley-based nonprofit Friends of Mt Tam arranged for a two-year loan of the model, which was restored by master modeler Phil Mazzano. The model first arrived at the Civic Center Library in San Rafael in April 2016 and moved over to the Mill Valley Library in December. It will be on display through May.

“I want to have it displayed at the railroad museum here in Tiburon,” said Phil Cassou, a railroad historian and head docent at the Tiburon Railroad and Ferry Depot Museum. “I had heard about it, and never seen it. It was great to see. A lot of our visitors here have questions about Mount Tam, so I’ve been trying to school up on it.”

The 411: Through May, the Mill Valley Library's Lucretia Little History Room is showcasing a one- of-a-kind handcrafted steam engine model that was built 105 years ago by the once-world- famous Mill Valley and Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway. The library is located at 375 Throckmorton Avenue. Fred Runner will also give a short talk at 7 p.m. on March 1 as part of the Mill Valley Historical Society’s First Wednesday Program. MORE INFO.

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