​On the heels of its decision to extend its production of playwright Young Jean Lee's popular, Freaky Friday-inspired Straight White Men through July 15, the Marin Theatre Company has cooked a fun promotion for its July 4th performance.

MTC's "Pay What You Can" offer offers anyone to buy a ticket on July 4 between 12pm and 7:30pm can pay whatever they want (even just $1!) for a ticket to that evening's performance. Don't miss out!!

The 411: Straight White Men runs at the Marin Theatre Company through July 15. MORE INFO & TIX. 

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​The name Marc Bamuthi Joseph carries massive weight in the Bay Area artistic community and beyond. The current chief of program and pedagogy at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship, co-founder of the Life is Living Festival for Youth Speaks, and an artist whose latest work was commissioned by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

All that is context for Bamuthi Joseph's words below, in praise of San Francisco poet Tongo Eisen-Martin, who is set to read at the Depot Bookstore & Cafe on Thursday, July 5 at 7pm:

"Eisen-Martin makes spare, efficient, wild-eyed jazz…rubs mud and accountability into the pores of the zeros and ones in the glass and steel city. Throughout (his 2015 book "Someone's Dead Already,") I return to the wonder of the writer's economy of language, how deftly the words infuse their amulet casings with blood temperature at the edge of boiling. This work is as hungry as revolution, a necessary, deadly still in these shifting times…"

Eisen-Martin an SF native, received his MA from Columbia University. He is the author of Heaven Is All Goodbyes (City Lights, 2017) and the aforementioned Someone’s Dead Already (Bootstrap Press, 2015), which was nominated for a California Book Award.

Earlier this year, Eisen-Martin was short-listed for the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize 2018, founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin and one of Canada's biggest prizes for Canadian and international poets.

The reading at the Depot will also feature poets A'aron Heard and Isabelle Khoo-Miller and, the latter of whose own identity as a queer Chinese-Mexican-Jewish woman inspires her social work to establish intersectional and inclusive actions and conversations. 

Khoo-Miller has recently been involved in anti-gun violence organizing throughout the Bay Area, sexual assault advocacy through creating safe spaces and change around how to talk about and deal with sexual violence, and temporary relief programs for some of the Bay Area's homeless population. 

The 411: San Francisco poet Tongo Eisen-Martin reads at the Depot Bookstore & Cafe, 87 Throckmorotn Ave., on Thursday, July 5 at 7pm. He'll be joined by poets Isabelle Khoo-Miller and A'aron Heard. Here's a poetry reading by Tongo Eisen-Martin at Laney College in Oakland in February 2018:

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Mill Valley is one of the best beach towns in the country!?!

You read that right, we're up there with world famous beach communities like Lahaina, Hawaii, Santa Monica and Key West.

So says the financial website WalletHub, which ranked Mill Valley fourth among the top 10 "best beach towns to live in" in the United States "among seaside municipalities with a population of over 10,000 residents. The survey considered considered affordability, weather, safety, the economy, education and health, and quality of life to compare 161 cities and arrive at its rankings.

Here are the top 10 Best Ocean Beach Towns and their points total:

• No.1: Lahaina, Hawaii, 64.9 points
• No.2: Naples, 63.61 points
• No.3: Sarasota, 61.9 points
• No. 4: Mill Valley, California, 60.74 points
• No. 5: St. Augustine, 60.66 points
• No. 6: Santa Monica, California, 60.26 points
• No. 7: Boca Raton, 59.07 points
• No. 8: Kihei, Hawaii, 59.02 points
• No. 9: Westport, Connecticut, 58.99 points
• No.10: Key West, 58.31 points

MORE INFO & FULL POINTS BREAKDOWN.

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Weeklong camp, set for July 16-20 at the Community Center, helps kids design a city and build it using low-tech maker materials and code a game using the block programming language Scratch.

In early May, hundreds of children and parents streamed into the Edna Maguire Elementary School multi-purpose room, circulating among a vast array stations designed to spark creativity and do-it-yourself problem-solving at the school's first-ever Makers Night. It was a jump-into-the-deep-end move by the school's leadership to infuse maker culture, the tech-centric DIY movement that revels in the creation of new devices and tinkering with existing ones, into the minds of its students.

The event offered kids and parents a chance to dig into an array of mediums, from Legos to Circuit Cubes, a set of electronic building blocks designed to make Lego creations come alive with lights and circuitry. Among those hosting stations was Claire Comins, whose station was swarmed by kids interested in creating "toothpick gumdrop bridges" – essentially a load-bearing bridge made of toothpicks and gumdrops – and a piano keyboard where the "keys" were bananas hooked up to a makey makey controller.

Comins beamed, seeing all the bright-eyed students and marking the latest step forward in her efforts to bring TinkerTech, the educational venture that fuses fun maker activities and coding challenges into a curriculum that spans after-school programs and summer camps. 

"You want children to bring their own passion and interest to the experience," says the Kentfield resident. "It's so rewarding to see what each child creates, and the journey that gets them there."

That journey continues this summer, as Tinkertech, which Comins launched four years ago, offers its first-ever summer camp in Mill Valley – at the Community Center. Set for July 16-20, the camp covers a lot of ground, from kids building the "city of their dreams" using low-tech materials and Circuit Cubes, to learning coding skills by making a game about their city in Scratch, the block programming language from MIT.

The new camp builds off the success of TinkerTech's summer camps in Larkspur for the past few years, as well as its after-school enrichment programs in Mill Valley and throughout Marin. The camp runs from 9am-4pm, boasts experienced teachers and a scholarship program for students.

"We assume a lot of affluence of Mill Valley, but that's not always the case, and we want to offer these programs to all," Comins says. "They just need the right tools and to be taught the right mindset." 

Comins, a mother of three girls whose family moved to Kentfield from London in 2012, says she's also interested in helping local schools create stem curriculums and developing publishing materials to guide teachers and parents through STEM subjects.

"This is an educational effort that I'm deeply invested in on all levels," she says. "I'm thrilled to be able to bring this subject to more children, and to see their eyes light up as they discover these new learning tools."

The 411: TinkerTech's new summer camp in Mill Valley is set for July 16-20 at the Mill Valley Community Center. MORE INFO & REGISTER.

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Danica Remy, a fourth generation Marinite and a 43-year Mill Valley resident, is in Luxembourg this weekend for Asteroid Day, an Earth Day-style event designed to raise awareness of the potentially catastrophic risk of an impact with an asteroid.

The event is held worldwide each year on June 30, the anniversary of the Siberian Tunguska event in 1908 that was the most harmful known asteroid-related event on Earth in recent history. Remy is the president of the B612 Foundation, an organization that was co-founded by Apollo 9 astronaut and former Tiburon resident Russell “Rusty” Schweickart in 2002 and named after the asteroid in Antoine de St. Exupéry’s story The Little Prince.

Remy co-founded the event along with Schweickart, filmmaker Grigorij Richters and Brian May, the Queen guitarist and astrophysicist. Remy works out of B612’s downtown Mill Valley office, while some of her colleagues work at offices in Menlo Park, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Boulder, Colo. and around the world.

Check out our earlier story on the work of the B612 Foundation.

The 411: B612 Foundation is entirely funded by private donations. MORE INFO.

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When we asked local artists to submit their work for 2018 Enjoy Mill Valley Guide Cover Contest, we crossed our fingers and hoped that we'd get some fun, creative contributions. We were overwhelmed with the results, to say the least, and Mill Valley artists once again reminded us how surrounded by artistic talent we are here in our little town.

With that in mind, we invited some of the artists that didn't win the contest – but whose work we'd be thrilled to showcase – to participate in a group show at the Mill Valley Chamber in July. Those artists – photographers Daniel Patrick, Frederic Larson, Summer Strauch and Suzanne Engelberg and mixed media artist Hazel Jaramillo – will showcase their work at the Chamber (85 Throckmorton Ave.), with a wine reception on July 10 (5:30-7:30pm) as part of the Mill Valley Arts Commission's First Tuesday Artwalk.

The monthly celebration of local art includes a host of venues, including the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, Seager Gray Gallery, Julie Zener Gallery, the Mill Valley Public Library, Terrestra, Dolls & Dandy, the Depot Bookstore & Café, City Hall, Famous4, the Mill Valley Community Center and the Throckmorton Theatre, among others. Receptions at each venue are Tuesday from 5:30-7:30m. First Tuesday Artwalk Guide with venues and a map.

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Since it opened in the Mill Valley Lumber Yard in April, Suzy Ekman's Makers Market has hosted a series of weekly trunk shows, and it does so again on Saturday, June 30. The event showcases the work of Napa Valley-based Alexia Viola Jewelry, featuring Viola's work as well as lemonade and mimosas from 10am to 5pm.

Viola began her jewelry business "with a strand of tiny, blue sapphires I brought back from India," she says. "I discovered them during a trip to explore women's stories (including my own as it turned out.) That strand of tiny gemstones, purchased on a whim with no real intention, gave birth to a line of handmade jewelry inspired by what our stories are often inspired by – a sense of place."

Viola uses hand-selected gemstones, signature metal elements and soft deerskin leather.

"I hope my jewelry will help you know and tell your story, the way that strand of tiny sapphires helped me tell mine," she says.

The event is the latest in a string of events Makers Market has hosted since its debut at the Mill Valley Lumber Yard. Ekman, who met and hit it off with MVLY co-owner Jan Mathews in 2017. Ekman's ever-expanding collection of shops showcase and celebrate the products of independent creators, artists and makers.

“My brand is authentic, nostalgic, high quality and it draws upon tradition,” Ekman says.

Coupled with the opening of Flour Craft Bakery in April – in addition to the long-established Ambatalia, Bloomingayles and Guideboat Co. – the Mill Valley Lumber Yard is celebrating a new dawn, becoming a multi-faceted community gathering that also has artist studios and office spaces for local entrepreneurs.

“We’re really excited to have a space here and to connect with this community,” Ekman adds.

The arrival of Makers Market continues the history of the DIY spirit in Mill Valley, from its decades-old craft fairs and arts festivals to creative hubs like Once Around and more recent additions like Pollen + Wool and The Makery.

It also builds on the Lumber Yard’s ever-growing reputation as a community gathering space. The Mathews family bought the 42,500-square-foot property in 2012 from the Cerri family, which had owned and maintained it as a lumber yard and True Value hardware store for the previous 14 years. The property was built by lumber magnate Robert Dollar in 1892 as Dollar Lumber Company.

The Mathews steered their plans to renovate through the Planning Commission and City Council before garnering approval in July 2016. They’re now on the home stretch of that vast renovation.

The concept for Makers Market spawned in Ekman’s vivid memories of helping her father in his workshop as a girl growing up in Huntsville, Alabama. “We just had such great access to so many different kinds of people who made things,” she says. “As a result, I grew up with a great appreciation for that and loved the type of people that do that type of thing for a living, just  - extremely genuine and down to earth, resourceful people.”

She launched in June 2014, and opened a pop-up shop in the Westfield Center in San Francisco five months later. Ekman moved the shop to a larger space within Westfield for one year through late 2015, and then opened a shop in Santana Row in San Jose. In July 2017, she opened another store in Broadway Plaza in Walnut Creek.

One of the distinctive elements of Makers Market are the regular events that step beyond the confines of the retail space. Ekman hosts monthly outdoor markets, providing an opportunity for artists whose work is not yet on Makers Market shelves to showcase their work in that setting. The typical event hosts between 20-50 artists, featuring live music and drinks. The MVLY location will host at least six outdoor markets a year, Ekman says, and the next one is set for Saturday, July 14.

“It’s a great opportunity to learn what products are well-received that marketplace,” she says. “That’s a big way that we learn what will end up in Makers Market. We are all about letting local makers get exposure.”

The key to Makers Market, Ekman says, is that each location features local makers.

“A big thing for us is to have it be as local as possible,” she says.

The 411: On Saturday, June 30, Makers Market, which is open in the Mill Valley Lumber Yard at 129 Miller Ave., hosts a trunk show showcasing the work of Napa Valley-based Alexia Viola Jewelry, featuring Viola's work as well as lemonade and mimosas from 10am to 5pm.
NOTE: Due to parking limitations, attendees are asked, if possible, to bike or walk to MVLY for the event. MVLY hopes to offer a shuttle for the July 14th event.

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In the months since it announced plans to open in the fall in the former Ring Mountain Day School space, the new, private K-8 Pacific Discovery School has evolved, incorporating as a non-profit and changing its name to Terra Marin School.

The new moniker comes after "an exhaustive, deliberate and productive process" and "truly speaks to our vision and what we seek to provide for all of our students, staff and parents alike," school officials said, pointing to the name's Latin roots of "Earth" and "sea."

"There is beautiful imagery evoked by the name Terra Marin, being the place where the Earth meets the Sea," said school founder Wendy Xa, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs and a mother of two who founded the Mandarin immersion Presidio Knolls School in San Francisco in 2008 as a preschool before expanding it to a K-8 program. "At this school, where the earth meets the sea, we are dedicated to helping our students get grounded, set down roots and develop a firm foundation of skills (social, emotional and academic) from which they will grow and soar."

School officials said that classes are filling quickly, the staff and faculty are almost all on board and they're hosting weekly tours on Tuesdays at 9:30am throughout the summer. RSVP here. The first day of school is set for September 5.

Terra Marin officials call the school "a progressive and inclusive K-8th grade program, dedicated to honoring the gifts of students while providing a safe and supportive environment in which they can inquire, explore and challenge themselves both in and out of the classroom."

"Our mission is to spark curiosity and intellectual wonder in every child," Xa said.

All elements of Terra Marin's program "seek to internally motivate students, create a sense of belonging, safety and acceptance and allow for leadership and agency over their own unique learning journey."

"Whether it is with our Harkness inspired teaching method or our robust Nature Discovery Program, Terra Marin is intentionally designed to inspire not pressure, embrace not change, and empower versus demand the best in each child," Xa said. "We believe that when children are heard, valued and inspired they become leaders, self advocates and impactful members in our society."

The school is accepting applications on a rolling basis. The school's full-time program is K-8th mixed grades and revolves around a core curriculum, while its adjunct Homeschool Support part-time program is targeted to 5th-8th grade students seeking an additional learning resource outside of the home.

Xa and her team plan to renovate parts of the Ring Mountain building, including the front facade, Forté says. They took over the building earlier this month.

The 411: Terra Marin School holds weekly tours on Tuesday at 9:30am through the end of summer. 70 Lomita Drive. REGISTER & MORE INFO.

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Would Marin Theatre Company audiences flock to playwright Young Jean Lee's Freaky Friday-inspired tale of a seemingly happy, trash-talking family that gathers at Christmas and struggles to understand the value of being a straight white male at a time when identity matters, and privilege is problematic?

The answer is a firm yes, as the organization has extended the play's run through July 15.

"The way straight white men are with me is different than what they are like when I am not there, so that was the thing I had no idea about," Lee says. "We're in a historical moment where straight white male-ness is being treated like an identity where for so many years, it wasn't. All of a sudden, straight white male is a label getting slapped on people and it's being used in a derogatory way. So, basically, for the first time in history, straight white men are experiencing what everyone else has been experiencing all along and unsurprisingly, they don't like it."

Directed by Morgan Gould, Straight White Men opened at MTC in the same month that it opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway with a star-studded cast that includes Armie Hammer, Josh Charles and Tom Skerritt. Lee's work has drawn near-universal acclaim, with The New Yorker declaring, "the 43-year-old playwright is one of downtown's most trenchant, least crowd-pleasing talents, whose stubbornly genre-resistant work melds identity politics, Dadaist humor and meta-theatrical mind games."

Lee has written and directed nine shows in New York with Young Jean Lee's Theater Company and toured her work to more than 30 cities around the world. She is the recipient of two OBIE Awards, the Festival Prize of the Zürcher Theater Spektakel, a 2010 Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 2012 Doris Duke Artist Award.

"The signal surprise of Straight White Men, written by the ever-audacious Young Jean Lee, is that the play is not a full-frontal assault on the beings of the title," says the New York Times, calling her “hands down, the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation.”

The 411: Straight White Men runs at the Marin Theatre Company through July 15. MORE INFO & TIX. 

One month after opening its showroom and marketing and merchandising headquarters on Locust Ave., Boon Supply – Lily Kanter's commerce-meets-crowdfunding startup – has opened a pop-up shop in the recently revitalized historic Mill Valley Lumber Yard. 

The pop-up, Boon Supply's first, showcases the company's ever-growing array of 200-plus products, from reusable totes and kitchen products to garden tools and storage and organizational items, all organized around design, color, and pattern. It's open every day from 10am-5pm at 129 Miller Ave. through July 31. 

Boon Supply draws heavily on the experience of Kanter, whose much-lauded career spans 17 years in accounting and technology at places like Deloitte & Touche and Microsoft, the creation of the former Mill Valley Baby & Kids Co. and co-founding of the renowned home design brand Serena & Lily brand with artist Serena Dugan. 

But while Kanter's retail and branding experience is much acclaimed, Boon Supply's business model takes a decisive left turn, splicing retail with the democratization of crowdfunding on sites like GoFundMe, IndieGogo and Kickstarter. On every item the company sells, 50 percent of the proceeds go towards the cause of the customer’s choice, including organizations like Kiddo!, the Mill Valley Schools Community Foundation that supports music, art, dance, technology, physical education and much more in all six Mill Valley School District schools. Organizations can also create their own fundraising campaigns on the site – just like they do on sites like GoFundMe.

“In many ways, Boon Supply is a combination of everything I've been doing and passionate about for the past 30 years,” says Kanter, a Kansas City, Missouri native who got deeply involved in supporting nonprofit organizations after leaving Microsoft. She was featured in Time magazine's July 2000 cover story, “The New Philanthropists.”

The lion’s share of the products on the site today are the result of Kanter’s acquisition of Mixed Bag Designs, a Burlingame-based school fundraising business co-founded by a friend of hers and which gave back 50 percent of purchases to schools. Kanter has already added some products to that mix, including an herb garden kit from the Living Seed Co. in Point Reyes.

“We’re building out a wide variety of products at price points under $25 as well as more premium offerings,” Kanter says. “And we’re completely innovating for our fall/holiday gift collection.”
​
In addition to Kiddo!, Boon Supply is supporting a number of local organizations, including schools and private school foundations all over Marin, including the Tam High Foundation, the Drake Fund, Kentfield’s kik, as well as Bridge to Gap College Prep, which provides programming aimed at preparing Marin City students for college success. They’re also working with much larger organizations like Every Mother Counts, which focuses on maternal healthcare and was founded by model Christy Turlington Burns.

“We have already given back over $10 million since acquiring the existing school fundraising business less than a year ago,” she says, noting that they’re on track to generate $26 million in revenue in this year.

But while those numbers are eye-popping for such a young business, Kanter is, not surprisingly for someone with her track record, thinking much bigger.
​
“I truly believe wholeheartedly that this can be a billion-dollar-a-year give back company,” she says. “It will take us a little time to get there, but we see this becoming a really successful micro-fundraising site. Some of those sites like GoFundMe are $2 billion platforms. We feel there is an opportunity to have a radically exciting giveback platform.”

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