Greenbrae native and 1978 Redwood High graduate Buddy Biancalana spent seven relatively middling years in Major League Baseball, registering a paltry .205 batting average for his MLB career.

All that changed the Kansas City Royals went to the World Series in 1985, playing their cross-state rival, the St. Louis Cardinals. Biancalana drove in the winning run in a crucial game five and rang up an on-base percentage of.435, good enough for second best on a team that featured Hall of Famer George Brett and stars like Willie Wilson, Hal McRae and Frank White, among others.

Biancalana recounts his performance as his getting in the proverbial "zone," often described as a mystical experience for an athlete and musician. It arrives with a tremendous sense of freedom that happens by chance, allowing the athlete or musician to perform at a very high level.

After his playing career ended, Biancalana says he was inspired to pursue an understanding of what being "in the zone" was and how to get in the zone with intent rather than by chance. His book, The 7 Secrets of World Class Athletes, dives into the science behind the zone, and Biancalana sits down for a conversation with Bay Area Hall of Fame Sportscaster Rich Walcoff on Thursday, Oct. 25 at 7pm and the Depot Bookstore & Cafe in Mill Valley.

Biancalana & Wolcoff will discuss the brain's process in athletic development, as well as his work on the science behind greatly enhancing performance, expediting development and minimizing soft tissue injuries. Biancalana, the founder of Buddy's Zone Motion Training, will show how to get in the “zone” through teaching subtle yet powerful processes in the brain.

The 411: Buddy Biancalana will speak about his book, The 7 Secrets of World Class Athletes, and sit down for a conversation with Bay Area Hall of Fame Sportscaster Rich Walcoff on Thursday, Oct. 25 at 7pm and the Depot Bookstore & Cafe in Mill Valley. MORE INFO.

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When Amanda Davis and Paige Charbonnier opened the AP Luxe Salon with ex-partner Jaylana Zemansky in June 2016, they chose a tagline that spoke directly to their guiding principle: “Self-indulgence is the ultimate form of luxury, and luxury lives at AP Luxe.”

That tagline, along with their focus on creating a fun, supportive hair salon for women, has paid dividends. They've been bursting at the seams of their nearly 500-square-foot space at 40 Millwood Street ever since they opened, so much so that they've been on the hunt for months for a larger space.

Now they've found one, signing a lease for a 1,500-square-foot in the new development at 250 East Blithedale Ave., where they'll be positioned in suite C between Pacific Union International Real Estate and Faya Jamali's new Belle Marin Aesthetic Medicine. Le Marais Bakery is the fourth tenant in the four-suite center.

"We're thrilled to have found a space that allows us to serve more of our clients at once, hire some new stylists and launch our own blowdry bar," said Davis and Charbonnier, who first met while working together at Magnolia Avenue Salon in downtown Larkspur, where they morphed from colleagues to friends to partners..

Davis and Charbonnier, who are among the very few Certified L'Oreal Professionnel Balayage Artists in Northern California, also said they plan to partner with L'Oreal to become one of the brand's professional academy education centers.

The pair plan to build out their new space over the next few months and hope to open in February or March 2019.

"We can't wait," Davis said. ""We really want to create a good place for employees to work and empower young women and give them a supportive space."

The 411: AP Luxe Salon is at 40 Millwood Street until it moves in early 2019 to 250 East Blithedale Avenue, Suite C. MORE INFO.

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"Much of the country, owing to our current political reality and Raoul Peck’s 2016 documentary, I Am Not Your Negro," writes Angela Flournoy in a New York Times Magazine profile of director Barry Jenkins, "has recently become better acquainted with a truth black readers grasped long ago: James Baldwin was right about everything."

Baldwin's still-urgently relevant catalog of work includes If Beale Street Could Talk, his fifth novel and 13th book, which was published in 1974. Jenkins, whose film Moonlight won the Academy Award for best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay, appeared at the 41st Mill Valley Film Festival's closing night on Oct. 14 to screen his adaptation of Baldwin's tome, making him the first person to garner the approval of the Baldwin estate to adapt one of his novels for a big-screen, English-language film. 

In a Q&A after the two-hour film, Jenkins made it clear how much he agreed with Flournoy's statement, and how much that fact drove his desire to make the film and the process of making it. "This film is more about Baldwin than it about me," Jenkins told a packed house at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. "The cultural weight of words were much heavier than they are now, and his words remain extremely powerful today. I wanted the reaction to this film to be not 'what a great film,' but 'holy sh**, how can I read more James Baldwin."

Baldwin's words, particularly those spoken by the two main characters, 19-year-old Tish Rivers and 22-year-old Alonzo "Fonny" Hunt, are the force behind nearly every aspect of the elegiac film, which tells the story of the couple's deep, abiding love and a pregnant Tish's efforts in 1970s Harlem, joined by her family, to free the innocent Hunt. 

But much as Jenkins' Moonlight, in adapting Tarell Alvin McCraney play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue told a larger story about the ravages of poverty, the war on drugs and complexities of being gay in America, his If Beale Street Could Talk digs into the American black experience, as relevant in many ways today as it was when the book was published 44 years ago.

As newcomer Kiki Layne, who plays Rivers in the film, says in a film voice-over quoting Baldwin's words verbatim, "The kids had been told that they weren't worth sh** and everything they saw around them proved it."

"I choose to make films that are rooted in blackness," Jenkins said.

"For a film to rise to greatness it has to have something to say," said MVFF Founder Mark Fishkin in his Q&A with Jenkins and Layne. "This film certainly has a lot to say, and it is as poignant and beautiful as any film that we've ever shown."

The evening – and festival – concluded with a Closing Night Party at the Elk's Lodge in San Rafael.

The 411: Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk opens with a limited release on Nov. 30. MORE INFO. Here's the trailer:

Here are photos by Kirke Wrench of the Closing Night Party of the 41st Mill Valley Film Festival: 

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 Who's ready for the Book Oscars?!?

On Tuesday, October 23, the Mill Valley Library celebrates the near-completion of the Great American Read, a multi-platform digital, educational and community outreach campaign, designed to get the country reading and passionately talking about books. The centerpiece of the campaign is an eight-part PBS series that "explores and celebrates the power of reading, told through the prism of America’s 100 best-loved novels (as chosen in a national survey). The grand finale episode will be the main event at the Library's free Top 10 Countdown Party at the Sweetwater Music Hall.

At the event, which begins at 6:30pm, attendees will able to fill out their own ballot predicting which books America voted into their top 10 favorites, sample cheese and cookies, grab a drink at the cash bar, and enter to win a door prize. At 7:30pm, organizers will do a raffle, followed by the PBS Great American Read grand finale countdown episode, hosted by Meredith Viera, at 8pm.

After the episode airs, special guests Lorin Rowan and Kirk Casey's Deep Blue Jam will get people off their feet and onto the dance floor. 

The Great American Read series features a series of documentary segments, with compelling testimonials from celebrities, authors, notable Americans and book lovers across the country. It kicked off in September with an episode revealing the list of 100 books, followed by five one-hour theme episodes that examined concepts common to groups of books on the list, and a finale, in which the results are announced of a nationwide vote to choose America’s best-loved book.  

The 411: The Mill Valley Library hosts a Great American Read Top-10 Countdown Party at the Sweetwater Music Hall on Tuesday, October 23. Free. Starts at 6:30pm. Sweetwater Music Hall, 19 Corte Madera Ave. Registration recommended. REGISTER HERE. 

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On Thursday, October 18 from 4-7pm, Mill Valley Scout Hall, the 118-year-old building that has been home to countless scout troop meetings, special events and fundraisers and once served as a saloon, a livery stable and a laundry drying shack in the early 1900s, will be home to one heck of a celebration.

The completed, much-needed $1.2 million renovation of the building itself is the reason to celebrate. But more specifically, it marks an opportunity to celebrate, among other things, persistence and a sense of community. The former reflects the result of the efforts of board members like Sue Moxon, Roberta Keller and many more to not give up on a fundraising campaign that languished at times over the 12 years since it began. The latter was the impetus for people all over town to step up in a variety of ways, from architect Kurt Schindler to contractor Michael Butler, both of whom drew on their own deep scout roots to bring the renovation to fruition.

"It's been a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and it truly required a community-wide approach," says Greg Everage, the board president of Mill Valley Scout Hall, the non-profit organization "dedicated to serving all the youth of Mill Valley and Southern Marin, regardless of gender, race, religion or sexual orientation." "But we got over the finish line, and we're excited to show off this beautiful new space."

Everage, born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, joined the board at the midway point of the fundraising effort. He'd spent many years in the film industry in Los Angeles in a variety of capacities, and then moved in 2005 to Mill Valley. Since then, he's led media content and distribution divisions for companies like ad agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners and video gaming giant Nintendo. He's also reconnected with his Eagle Scout roots and brought his son to Troop 1 at Scout Hall.

"The scouts have always been close to my heart," he says. "I hear that all the time about people who were affected by this place as a youth, either through the scouts or otherwise. Scout Hall holds a dear place in a lot of people's hearts, even beyond Mill Valley. The reason this got done was  because of people with connections to the different scout troops over the years."

While the scouts have dedicated space in the building, the main Scout Hall event space – dubbed the hall at 30 Mountain View to reflect the main entrance in the back of the building at 177 East Blithedale Ave. – is available for rental as an event space. The two offices on the Blithedale side of the building are leased, with one occupied Stick & Ball, Elizabeth Goodwin Welborn’s equestrian, country polo-inspired apparel brand.

The building also contains a commercial kitchen available for rent, either for catering of an event or for distinct food-related uses.

"We want the community to use this space," Everage says. "We're a nonprofit organization, so we're just looking to cover our costs. It's really all about supporting the community."

The 411: Mill Valley Scout Hall hosts a grand reopening celebration on Thursday, Oct. 18 from 4-7pm. There will be valet parking on the Mountain View Ave, side of the building a with a MV Chamber Ribbon Cutting at 5:30pm, and light hors d'oeuvres, wine and cake will be served. MORE INFO & RSVP.

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When they unveiled the lineup for its 41st edition, organizers of the Mill Valley Film Festival included Sara Colangelo's The Kindergarten Teacher, which tells a story of obsession as a sensitive teacher, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, goes to great lengths to protect one of her students who she believes is a child prodigy for poetry. 

But the screening also provided an opportunity for MVFF to honor Gyllenhaal for a career that spans 30 films and 11 televised movies and series, work that "can be seen as nothing less than fearless," they said. "Ever since her sexy and outrageous breakout role in 2002’s Secretary, Gyllenhaal has crafted singular and unforgettable characters in Adaptation., Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Mona Lisa Smile, Happy Endings, Sherrybaby, The Dark Knight, her Academy Award®-nominated turn in Crazy Heart, Hysteria, Frank, HBO’s The Deuce, and many more."

They did just that with an Oct. 12th Spotlight event on Gyllenhaal, at which Gyllenhall sat with MVFF Director of Programming Zoe Elton and received the Mind the Gap Award, an honor in conjunction with the festival's gender equity initiative, which seeks to amplify and champions work by women filmmakers. MVFF has committed to a goal of 50/50 by 2020—50 percent women directors across all festival sections by 2020.

Gyllenhaal appeared at the event with her husband Peter Sarsgaard, best known for his work in films like Garden State, An Education and Shattered Glass.

Stay tuned for more coverage of the 41st Mill Valley Film Festival.

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In 2004, as construction workers were demolishing the former Old Mill Market building near Old Mill Park prior to the eventual construction of the Old Mill Cottages, a four-unit residential complex, they found something within a layer of siding that stopped them in their tracks.

But because what they'd found was so large – a decades-old, approximately 15-feet-wide and 10-feet-tall painting of a map laden with informal hiking trails – it took them a bit to figure what exactly they'd uncovered. Fourteen years later, the massive, painted trail map that spans the trails of Mount Tamalpais State Park, Muir Woods National Monument and beyond, has been restored and installed on the outside side wall of Urban Remedy (the old locksmith shop) and Equator Coffees' commissary at 34 Miller Avenue facing the driveway opposite the former Balboa Café.

On October 20 at 4pm, ​Mill Valley Historical Society and City of Mill Valley officials are hosting a public unveiling and dedication of the 69-year-old, billboard-size Mt. Tamalpais Hikers Trail map. Historical Society board members will be joined by Mill Valley Mayor Stephanie Moulton-Peters and Councilmember Jessica Sloan to unveil the map, as seen above and at right in its pre-unveiled state.

According to Historical Society officials, the map was originally commissioned and painted in 1949 on the wooden side wall of Clark's Grocery (which later became Old Mill Market, which was affectionately known as Thran's) that stood across from Old Mill Park at the corner of Throckmorton Avenue and Old Mill Street. The commission stemmed from the fact that Norman D. Clark, the proprietor of Clark’s Grocery, got tired of answering questions and drawing crude maps to hikers who used Throckmorton Avenue to approach the mountain. Officials say he hired Walter Finn, custodian of Muir Woods National Monument, and Melville Whittaker, chief ranger of Mt. Tamalpais State Park, to help design an oversize map of the hiking trails on Mt. Tamalpais. 

The map was visible on the west side of the building. But by 1960, the map had disappeared, having been covered by shingles. The market had changed hands many times, later becoming a fix-it shop. 

When the map was discovered, members of the Historical Society got permission to remove it. They stored it in pieces for 14 years and painstakingly reassembled and restored it behind the leadership of board member and architect Jill Benton-Tardy. who contacted the master lease holder of 34 Miller Avenue, Helen Russell, co-founder & CEO of Equator Coffee. 

Russell jumped on the opportunity and approved the installation of the historic map on the outside of the building. Longtime Mill Valley resident Guy Palmer, who regularly visited Clark's as a child, installed the map.

Equator Coffee and Urban Remedy will be providing beverages and snacks at the event.
 
The 411: , ​Mill Valley Historical Society and City of Mill Valley officials are hosting a public unveiling and dedication of the 69-year-old, billboard-size Mt. Tamalpais Hikers Trail map. Historical Society board members will be joined by Mill Valley Mayor Stephanie Moulton-Peters and Councilmember Jessica Sloan to unveil the map, as seen above and at right in its pre-unveiled state.

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Once a year for more than two decades, the prolific and talented BayWood Artists have been plying their paint brushes for an art show to raise funds and bring awareness to Bay Area nonprofit environmental organizations, spanning from the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the Point Reyes National Seashore Association to the Marin Conservation League over the years. 

For the past three years, the organization has used its annual show, set for October 12-14 at the Marin Art & Garden Center, to support One Tam, which works "to ensure a healthy, vibrant and diverse landscape for our beloved and iconic Mt. Tam. The organization is a community-supported partnership of Mt. Tam’s land agencies and managers that includes California State Parks, Marin County Parks, Marin Municipal Water District, and the National Park Service along with the nonprofit Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

This year's show, dubbed “Between Bay and Sky,” features more than 140 new watercolor and oil paintings of views, trails, and the natural environment in and around Mount Tamalpais. Fifty percent of all sales will be donated to One Tam.

A group of 10 artists created BayWood Artists in 1997, drawing inspiration a year earlier, when San Anselmo artists Zeneida Mott, Lissa Nicolaus and Sherrill Miller were approached by Mary Welch, then-director of MarinScapes, an art show that benefits Buckelew Programs. It was suggested that since they all painted landscapes, the artists could do something to also preserve the land they loved to paint. BayWood Artists has remained small in size with about 10-12 members with guest artists added every year.

Funds raised at this event go directly to One Tam programs and programs (MORE INFO HERE).

The 411: BayWood Artists' annual show, dubbed “Between Bay and Sky,” is set for October 12-14 at the Marin Art & Garden Center, to support One Tam. It features more than 140 new watercolor and oil paintings of views, trails, and the natural environment in and around Mount Tamalpais. Fifty percent of all sales will be donated to One Tam. An opening reception is set for Friday, October 12, from 5-8pm. MORE INFO.

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Two weeks before he passed away at the age of 87 in July 2012, longtime local architect and civic leader Richard “Dick” Jessup hosted more than a dozen fellow former Mill Valley mayors at his home, an indication of Jessup's stature in town and a realization that the end was near.

The group made small talk but mostly paid their respects to the man who came up with the idea to transform the former train station-turned-bus station at the center of Mill Valley’s downtown into the Depot Plaza, a community gathering place surrounded by parking. In 1982, the City of Mill Valley created the Depot Plaza based on Jessup’s design, and it remains the home of chalk drawings, fledgling two-wheel pedaling and scooting and relaxing.

Six years later, Mayor Stephanie Moulton-Peters, Mill Valley City Councilmembers and City officials are spearheading an event to honor Dick Jessup with a plaque dedication in honor of Jessup on October 20 at 11am in the Depot Plaza. A celebration with refreshments will follow the dedication.

"He was a renaissance man," said his daughter and local architect Kim Jessup at the time of her father’s death. "He was a great architect, a very talented craftsman, he loved gardening, a good athlete, a gentleman, a visionary, a great husband and father and just a very kind man."
 
"It's probably his crown jewel because it's such an important part of downtown and it looks like it's been there forever," she added about the plaza. "You almost can't imagine now what it looked like before."

Jessup's plans were later used by Royston Hanamoto Alley & Abey, which was hired by the city to implement the project, which did not have universal support in town, according to former Mill Valley Mayor Dick Spotswood, who succeeded Jessup on the City Council.

"Everybody got on board and the minute they voted for it, the opposition went away," Spotswood said. "Now if you look back and someone says, 'Let's demolish the plaza and put in a bus turnaround there,' folks would go nuts."

Born in Roslyn, N.Y., Jessup moved to Prescott, Ariz., when he was 10 years old to live with the Ormes, family friends in the central Arizona high country, in an effort to see if the dry air there would help his severe asthma. It did. He returned to New York to finish his schooling, attending Princeton University as an undergraduate and getting his architectural degree from the Pratt Institute in New York City.

Dick and Lyn Jessup moved to the Bay Area in 1956, immediately settling into the Cornelia Ave. home where they'd live for the next 56 years.
​
Jessup first got involved with the city in 1971 as a planning commissioner. He was elected to the City Council 1976 and served one term.

​The 411: The City of Mill Valley hosts a plaque dedication and celebration of Richard "Dick" Jessup on Saturday, Oct. 20 at 11am in the Depot Plaza. 

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A pair of Mill Valley institutions that nearly date back to Prohibition are now one.

The owners of Mill Valley Market, one of the 94941’s iconic businesses for nearly 90 years, have acquired Vintage Wine & Spirits, the downtown shop that’s been around for nearly as long, for an undisclosed sum.

​Market owners Doug and Dave Canepa are set to take over Richard Leland’s 1,400-square-foot shop at 82 Throckmorton Avenue on Nov. 1. They’ve named longtime employee Mike Beeson as Vintage’s manager and plan to retain the shop’s current employees. The acquisition won’t significantly impact either shop’s extensive wine, beer and spirits inventory beyond an expansion of each, the Canepas said.

Leland, who has owned the shop for 22 years and spent most of his career on the business side of the wine and spirits business, was searching for a succession plan for a business that dates back to when it began as Red Hill Liquors in the late 1930s. The bulk of those years were spent at 67 Throckmorton until Leland moved the shop across the street in 2014.

The acquisition is “an opportunity to ensure that Vintage Wine & Spirits remains independent, preserving the one-of-a-kind character of downtown Mill Valley, while also offering customers access to a portfolio of undiscovered, highly-sought after and allocated local and international wines, spirits and craft beers,” the Canepas said.

“Passing Vintage on to long-standing friends and fellow store owners ensures it will remain one of only two independent fine wine and spirit shops in southern Marin with origins dating back to shortly after Prohibition,” they added.

Vintage Wine & Spirits will remain in its current location at 82 Throckmorton with Richard Leland staying on-board through the transition. A 31-year veteran of the Mill Valley Market’s team, Mike Beeson, will assume the position of manager; Vintage Wine & Spirits current employees will be retained under the acquisition agreement.

Mill Valley Market wine and beer club members will receive selections from both locations, with the Canepas saying they also looking at future plans to host winemaker, distiller and brewer educational tastings and events at the Vintage location.

While there’s plenty of overlap between the pair’s respective inventories, the acquisition bolsters each. Vintage sources its wine from California, France and Italy as well as Germany, Hungary and Israel. It's one of the only locations in the Bay Area to find bottles of allocated wines from Carlisle, Castalia and DuMol, in addition to collectible vintages from France’s Premier Cru, first growth producers and California’s Grand Cru vineyards. Vintage also boasts the largest selection of single malt scotch in Marin, as well as “undiscovered or under-the-radar bottlings” of trending spirits, bourbon, rye and tequila.

The Canepas say they plan to enhance the current inventory of wine and spirits with a selection of hard-to-get craft beers including limited edition, small production brews from local favorites like Russian River and HenHouse Brewing.

Mill Valley Market was founded on July 4, 1929 by Frank Canepa, whose eldest son Jim took it over in 1955. Jim Canepa bought a Russian River Valley vineyard in the late 1970s, bottling Canepa Cellars Chardonnay with winemaker Helen Turley at the helm. After the flood of 1986 washed out the vineyard source, Jim Canepa created the Mill Valley Market Farm in Glen Ellen, delivering “Farmer Jim’s” produce to the store daily, a tradition that continues today.

In 1980, Jim Canepa launched the first Mill Valley Wine, Beer & Gourmet Food Tasting in the Depot Plaza, a first of its kind and which continues today, with its 38th edition set for June 2, 2019. The annual sell-out festival, which raises money for Kiddo!, the Mill Valley Schools Community Foundation, and the Mill Valley Chamber, draws more than 65 premium wineries, 15 craft brewers, 30 specialty food purveyors and 10 local restaurants and chefs.

Jim Canepa sold the market to his sons, Doug and Dave Canepa in 1990, remaining active there until he passed away in 2007. Doug and Dave Canepa have worked at the market since childhood, attended local schools, raised their families in Mill Valley and continue to volunteer in the community, and their fourth generation family members, Ryan and Eugene Canepa, are market managers. Through their Shop & Give program (est. in 1994); the Canepa family has donated more than $1 million to local community organizations.

​The 411: Mill Valley Market is at 12 Corte Madera Ave, while Vintage Wine & Spirits is at 82 Throckmorton Ave. MORE INFO.

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