A&E

The man who services our water softener admits “I’m not into kid movies...but Incredibles 2 is something else.” He’s spot on. Director/animator Brad Bird and everyone else involved in this stunner from Pixar knows that “It’s the story, stupid,” and they spent years getting it right. Building on the Mr. Mom concept, Elastigirl (Helen Hunt) takes a new job, so Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) must assume the Super Dad persona and cope with the 24-7 challenges of caring for 8th-grade daughter, Violet (Sarah Vowell) faster-than-a-speeding-bullet son, Flash (Huck Milner), and the fire-flaming, laser-vision, disappearing baby, Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile, Maeve Andrews) who defies the laws of physics.

I can’t imagine what Fred Rogers would think of our world today. The sweater and comfortable shoe-wearing children’s TV icon used his avuncular, calming voice and persona to share values which he thought of as Christian, but are much more universal—kindness, empathy, tolerance, dignity, willingness to accept other ideas, insatiable curiosity and quest for knowledge, tackling difficult issues head-on, and, most of all, being an all around nice person. To misquote the old Alka-Seltzer commercial, “Oh, what a relief he was.”

Guerneville artist Georgianna Kepler has been chosen as the featured artist for this year’s Senior Art Show in Santa Rosa. The 78-year-old, who has shown her work in the senior art show for the last ten years, says her paintings, with their vibrant colors, depict “an underlying harmony in a seemingly chaotic world.” Her work is currently exhibited at Cafe Meuse Wine Lounge in San Francisco, Mi Casita Mexican Restaurant in Guerneville, and MadroneFineArt.com.

Local art collector donates collection in honor of his late wife to fund children's art studio at Sebastopol Center for the Arts

Josiah Henson overcame incredible odds to escape from slavery, and improved the lives of hundreds of freedmen throughout his long life. He found international fame as the real "Uncle Tom" in the novel that fueled the abolitionist movement and ignited the Civil War. Join us on Josiah Henson’s birthday in celebrating his powerful story with author Jared Brock. Brock’s sweeping biography immortalizes Henson in an epic tale of courage and bravery in the face of unimaginable trials. Author Jared Brock has also made a short documentary called JOSIAH (Narrated by actor and activist Danny Glover), which will be screened at this event, followed by Q&A and a book signing with Jared.

Analy Band Wagon is seeking a talented and youth-oriented Program Coordinator to help maintain the excellence of the Analy High School music program.

Don’t miss a special evening with Occidental native, Daniel Ziblatt, currently Harvard Professor of Government and co-author of the best seller “How Democracies Die,” at Occidental Center for the Arts on Friday, May 18 at 7 p.m. (THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT.) This enlightening (and frightening) new book examines the ways democracies die at the hands, not of generals, but of elected leaders. The authors outline several key ways this happens, drawing from global examples, then show how those same processes are at work in our own country.

It’s been over a decade since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) decided it was a wise (and popular) move to bundle the Oscar-nominated shorts together and release them in theaters just before the gold statuettes are awarded. All three of the 2018 collections are being screened locally.

Seen from space, most of Africa can accurately be labelled “The Heart Of Darkness”— for although it is home to nearly a billion people, it generates just 1% of the world’s electricity. One of the darkest places on the continent is the East African nation of Wakanda—but in Ryan Coogler’s film, Black Panther we learn that our perceived lack of electric lighting is very, very wrong. For Wakanda is the only place on Earth depository for a rare-earth, meteorite called vibranium, and centuries of isolationist leadership has invested in a vibranium-powered infrastructure so modern, it makes other countries seem antiquated. It can’t be seen from space (or on the ground, either) because decades before the first satellites were launched, the technologically advanced nation erected an invisibility force-field around itself to protect it’s secrets, its people and its culture. 

100 YEARS OF ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE—Mayor Joe Palla (pictured right) and the Cloverdale City Council recognized the 100th Anniversary of Santa Rosa Junior College, in January of 2018, by presenting a proclamation to (pictured left) Ricardo Navarrette, vice president, SRJC Emeritus (retired) – 2016. Navarrette said access to quality higher education for all residents in the district continues to be the same motivation that drives the district 100 years after it was chartered in 1918.  Over its one hundred years, SRJC has served more than 1.7 million individuals with a vision of being an inclusive, diverse and sustainable learning community that engages the whole person, thus reflecting the legacy of its imprint on the entire North Bay region, a vision guarded vigorously throughout the test of time. Photo Patricia M. Roth