And it’s a Wrap!

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Who Is Sarah Kidder imposters, Mary Baird, Sands Hall, and Gladys MacWood Birdsong

The edutainment video project “Who Is Sarah Kidder” is now complete. Just over one year after I worked to develop a project that would not only tell history but engage multiple generations in wanting to learn history in a fun, light-hearted manner, I am happy to say that this project did more, said more was more fun than I expected.

Why? Simple. All the amazing community members came together to contribute their time and input. From actors Mary Baird, Sands Hall, and Gladys MacWood Birdsong to our MC, Robert Trent, and on to panelists Kimberly Ewing, Adam Kline, Michael Keene, and Wendy Willoughby. Michael was joined by Ken Teichmann in creating the stage setting. The Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum was an awesome partner, supporting three talks, the video premiere, and an exhibit that will run through the summer. Nevada Union Broadcast Club, led by instructor Jason Searles, learned how to prep, film, and edit a game show. They are awesome beyond words and I am grateful to everyone who showed up in spades for this video. Nevada County Media provided the perfect destination for us to film.

The informative talks by Megan White of Sierra College, Bernard Zimmerman and Elinor Barnes of the Nevada County Landmarks Commission, and NY Times best-selling author Chris Enss brought a wide range of context to women in Nevada County’s storied history.

As a further benefit, I approached the Nevada County Board of Supervisors requesting March 2023 be designated as Women’s History Month in Nevada County. This resolution was accepted and granted, with a thank you from the Board of Supervisors for this community history project.

This project was made possible by a grant from California Humanities.

Thanks, everyone!

Filming at Nevada County Media, February 2023

Note: California Humanities promotes the humanities – focused on ideas, conversation, and learning – as relevant, meaningful ways to understand the human condition and connect us to each other in order to help strengthen California. California Humanities has provided grants and programs across the state since 1975. To learn more visit www.calhum.org

Constellations 

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Notes on Film

A favorite poem by Rainier Maria Rilke

In 1977 I had friends that lived on Green Street In San Francisco. The way I remember it, I had stayed over for a few days, and then, as I was leaving, the wife of this couple pressed a hand-written poem into my hand and somehow, this has stayed with me through the years…perhaps because it is such a small scrap of paper or perhaps because it found a home in a handmade placeholder. Anyway, today, here it is, reminding me how the world seemed so large then, yet now I see it was really much smaller, simpler, and humane. 

I have always seen this poem as being about choices—the choice to adorn and admire appearances or to reach deeper for the real flavor of life. In this sense, it’s like looking at a still-life with a bowl of waxed fruit contrasting with wandering in an organic orchard and reaching up and picking the sunset-colored peach and letting the warm juice drip down your chin. In short, surface versus depth. 

This thinking is a part of how I consider the film. There are many stories out there that are all surface, some quite good. Other stories reach for depth and maybe even hint at metaphors that may or may not be discovered. This year, “The Menu” is a rare film that manages both in my view. 

One of my favorite examples of a film going beyond the surface is the wonderful 2002 indie film “Made Up” Tony Shalhoub produced with his wife Brooke Adams and Susan Sarandon’s daughter, Eva Amurri. This film is a mix of relationship resolutions between mother and daughter, aging, and perceptions of beauty. It was such a joy to see the fun the actors were having and the fun they were poking at a society adapted to illusion, made up, and also made up with cosmetics. My guess is that the audience for this film was in the thousands, not millions. There is art for the masses and there is art for specific audiences, like indie film lovers who show up at places like the Mill Valley Film Festival, Nevada City Film Festival, or art houses across the country. 

With the Academy Awards coming up, it is nice to note a few unconventional films in the mix with blockbusters and action flicks. Specifically “Everything Everywhere” and “The Banshees of Inisherin” have gotten well-deserved attention in spite of their disregard for formula and shiny, predictable surfaces. 

Not on anyone’s award radar in particular is a film I found wondrous, in part because I had read the short story that it was based on and found the use of film to tell it as a sort of visual miracle. George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing” is loosely based on the A.S. Byatt short story “The Djinn and the Nightingale.” It received a standing ovation when it opened at Cannes. The film cost $60 million to make and grossed just under $20 million. “Three Thousand Years of Longing” is a story about a story and storytellers with fantastic acting led by Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. The special effects are bent more on beauty than violence. (Maybe Miller can take on Byatt’s “A Stone Woman” next).

Each year many small films are made that represent a labor of love for the filmmakers, (though most won’t come close to the budget George Miller can muster). So this year, if you happen to watch the awards, I hope you can find a film that is special to you, that is not included in the fanfare. In my view, it just may be the rare shooting stars of indie films that bring a richly human, if brief and tenuous light, to the broader constellation of movie-making. 

In the Drawing Room 

By Rainier Maria Rilke 

They are all around us, these lordly men 

in courtiers’ attire and ruffled shirts 

like an evening sky that gradually 

loses its light to the constellations; and these ladies, 

delicate, fragile, enlarged by their dresses, 

one hand poised on the neck-ribbon of their lapdog. 

They are close to each of us, next to the reader, 

beside us as we gaze at the objets d’art 

they left behind, yet still possess. 

Tactful, they leave us undisturbed 

to live life as we grasp it 

and as they could never comprehend it. 

They wanted to bloom 

and to bloom is to be beautiful. 

But we want to ripen, 

and for that we open ourselves to darkness and travail.

~

Watch for this story in the spring edition of Kernel, the in-house zine of the Onyx Theatre, theonyxtheatre.com

A Few Notes on the Magic of Indie Documentaries

Someday I’ll write an article about why I fell in love with independent film. In this article, I’ll try to tell people what it is that’s so unique about a handcrafted film featuring real people. I’ll want to talk about how personal passion drives projects, how they become film, and all the special innately human situations encountered in the process. Especially important is how people give up several years of their lives to create a true story and film it. 

The ideal independent film would be unfiltered and it would probably have to be a story that would include how the making of this film changed their lives and the lives of the people around them and held within it the kernel that could change other people’s lives—the kernel of a great story is transformative, for the participants and the audience.

It’s this kernel, this genuine human experience with all of its imperfect texture, that we seem to crave as humans. Independent film first and foremost for me is about sharing a deeply human experience and all the many qualities that this encompasses.

Recently released “Salt from Bonneville” has all of these qualities. Just think about it — two guys from Ukraine decide to rebuild a 1951 Russian 350 cc motorbike and then once built, challenge the vintage record on the Bonneville Salt Flats during Speed Week. This tale of course encompasses moving from one part of the world to another with highly technical, fragile irreplaceable equipment through several layers of bureaucracy and asking for something that most likely, no one has ever done. It’s a film that’s as much about the journey as the process. The outcomes are still changing as Ukraine is now at war. Mechanics, riders, and a motorcycle find themselves in America with a great story and an ending that is unexpected. Asked about their intention in building the bike and bringing it to Speed Week, Nazar said it was his and Max’s intent to make some good news about Ukraine and give people some hope. This film and its record-making run were covered by virtually all Ukrainian networks, winning recognition through online screening with Docu Days UA, Kharkiv Meet Docs, and Kyiv International Film Festival.

Whether you find yourself at the Onyx Theatre, the Onyx Downtown, at an independent film festival or perhaps streaming something online, I encourage you to remember the value of an independent voice, ready to tell you a great story. Independent documentaries sometimes hold that slightly magical kernel that keeps us remembering how wonderful slightly off-kilter cinema can be.

Published in Kernel, The Onyx Theatre’s Zine, Fall 2022

Who Is Sarah Kidder?

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Sarah Kidder was the first woman to head a railroad. She ran the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad.

California Humanities has recently announced the September 2022 Humanities For All Project Grant awards. The Nevada County Historical Society’s Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum has been awarded $5,000 for its project entitled “Who is Sarah Kidder?”.

Humanities For All Project Grant is a competitive grant program of California Humanities which supports locally-developed projects that respond to the needs, interests, and concerns of Californians, provide accessible learning experiences for the public, and promote understanding among our state’s diverse population. 

This historically focused project, “Who Is Sarah Kidder?” organized by Pamela Biery at the Nevada County Historical Society, Nevada City, seeks to foster meaningful reflections on community histories that have shaped this state. “Who is Sarah Kidder?” will consist of a series of 16 programmatic events and three participatory activities as part of a major exhibition at the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum running from March through June 2023, in celebration of National Women’s History Month. “Who is Sarah Kidder?” is an interdisciplinary exhibition that features historical artifacts, the ability to ride a historic narrow gauge railbus, and an educational video produced by the Nevada Union High School broadcast department. 

“We have dedicated a great deal of time to establishing a Sarah Kidder Wing in the Museum and see this as a fitting project to expand the importance of both Kidder’s role and railroads in building the West,” notes John Christensen, Nevada County Narrow Gauge Museum Director. This project seeks to engage youth in history and in general elevate the understanding and appreciation of women’s contribution to California.

“Who Is Sarah Kidder?” invites both museum visitors and participants to learn more about California’s history. In addition to Nevada Union High School Broadcast Instructor Jason Searles, local actor Mary Baird and Nevada County Media’s Ramona Howard are acting as advisors while Sierra College Women’s History Instructor, Megan White will offer an informative talk. 

Pamela Biery notes, “We are honored and grateful to be among the distinguished awardees throughout California. We are very appreciative of research support from Nevada County Historical Society, Searls Historical Library, and the Doris Foley Library.” 

“These projects will bring the complexity and diversity of California to light in new ways that will engage Californians from every part of our state, and will help us all understand each other better,” said Julie Fry, President & CEO of California Humanities. “We congratulate these grantees whose projects will promote understanding and provide insight into a wide range of topics, issues, and experiences.”

California Humanities promotes the humanities – focused on ideas, conversation and learning – as relevant, meaningful ways to understand the human condition and connect us to each other in order to help strengthen California. California Humanities has provided grants and programs across the state since 1975. To learn more visit www.calhum.org, or follow California Humanities on FacebookTwitter and Instagram.

See other Fall California Humanities Quick Grant Awardees here: https://calhum.org/98300-awarded-to-humanities-projects-reaching-new-and-underserved-audiences/

A Book Is More More Than Its Cover

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Heart Wood is about much more than four women…

A friend of mine recently introduced me to a wonderful book by a ‘local author’… the thing about this introduction is that the book, Heart Wood: Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future, is that it’s much more than a book about four women and has far greater reach and acclaim than our local community offers.

While Amazon characterizes the book as “An eco-speculative-historical-mystical-feminist novel”, this book is really about looking at where we going, very quickly, in terms of climate change, AI, and GMO nutrition. In detail, author DicKard creates characters that we can believe and relate to while they face the lovely rural history of the past, juxtaposed with the horror of a future we are busily seeding today.

Take a look with an eco-friendly Kindle copy…this page-turner may just put you into action.

A Silver Linings Screenplay

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Mary Baird as Ellen Sargent in “An Evening with Ellen”

In December 2019 I began what looked like a fun project of writing a one-woman performance play for the local non-profit, Famous Marching Presidents. By mid-January, the actor Mary Baird and I had compiled a good bit of research with particular help from the Nevada County Searl’s Historical Museum. Then came COVID.

The project, An Evening with Ellen, celebrates and recognizes Nevada County suffragette leader Ellen Clark Sargent to commemorate the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote, the passage of the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920.

Rather than abandon our work, we suddenly had more time to dedicate to producing this performance as a video. So, in a way, there was a silver lining to COVID of offering something creative to work on, and also the time to allocate to such an undertaking.

After months of Zoom readings and script refinements, we began outdoor rehearsals in May with host/interviewer local businessman, Rick Ewald.

We were able to secure a historically significant video location with the cooperation of Nevada City’s Oddfellow Lodge. The video crew filmed during August and by September, we had a finished project to share with educators, historians, and the general public.

COVID continued to shape the destiny of this project as both the 2020 and 2021 Constitution Day Parades were canceled—each potential screening dates. Not to be dismayed, we made this video open to an expanded audience through film festivals.

Earles of Newtown, photo by Waking Crow Studio

To date, the 30-minute video An Evening with Ellen has been accepted n three film festivals, serving to inform and entertain a much broader audience than initially envisioned. The festivals which screened An Evening with Ellen are Toronto Women’s Film Festival, International Sound & Music Film Festival, and Hollywood Women-themed Film Festival. Special thanks to the incredible team that made this happen, including John Boyer’s videography and the music lent to us from Earles of Newtown.

Who knows what the next silver lining may be…

See the video on YouTube and read the full project history here.

Of Gold Dust and Grinding Rocks

Two books by Heyday Press paired together in this review to make compelling bookends for the native experience in California’s Sierra. “Deep Hanging Out: Wanderings and Wonderment in Native California” just published and “Deeper Than Gold: A Guide to Indian Life in the Sierra Foothills” from 2005 combine to provide images, first-person accounts, and a sly coyote’s commentary from within the trusted circle of native friends.

Read more here for the full book review…

A few SF favorites ever so slightly off the beaten trail

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The view from Coit Tower across San Francisco to the Gold Gate

We have friends visiting from the East Coast who have never been to San Francisco. This begs the question, what would you want to share in this mythical city if you only had one day?

Of course, there are the tour book favorites, which are all so crowded that you can barely see your own feet (or so it seems at times), but what else? Where are the less known places that might not be found?

These are the questions I asked myself after some decades of mixed wandering and residency in the city by the bay.

First off, my personal choice is to NOT follow the tour books unless you love crowds and feeling like a lemming. Look for local neighborhoods, which have their own flavor. Sure, yes, there are a few exceptions and even the “offbeat sites” are well-trafficked.

Note: These are a few tips for straight-up quick sightseeing—maybe I’ll write in the future about hikes, literature, neighborhoods, and art. Been there, done that? No worries, on to the next experience to sample.

Here are a few places that might get missed:

The Marina District is at the edge of the city and as such, offers great views and sea breezes, easy access to any major thoroughfare and highways, too. Let’s start there.

Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge
Why not? You can catch a cab back on the other side. The view in the middle is remarkable and totally free.

Palace of the Fine Arts Garden
This one-time site of the World’s Fair is still a wonderful spot to enjoy swans, bougainvillea, and local color.

Fort Mason Center

Marina Green
Take a stroll on the Marina Green. Drop by Fort Mason and check out the daily menu at Green’s or see if the Long Now Foundation’s Interval Cafe might be open.

Golden Gate Park & Japanese Tea Garden
Spectacular and huge, there is more to do than would fit in a single day, so why not choose the extremely picturesque Japanese Tea Garden and then whatever suits your eye and timing. You can see the exterior of the DeYoung Museum, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Conservatory of Flowers.

Japanese Tea Garden

Pied Piper by Maxfield Parish at Sheraton Palace
I love that for the price of a beverage, you can hang out with a playful mural by Mayfield Parish.

And then there’s North Beach…
Fill in some history with culture by dropping by City Lights Bookstore and then making your way down the street to Cafe Zoetrope where you can perhaps try meatballs made from Francis Ford Coppola’s mother’s recipe. Too bad if you are on a non-dairy diet because the tiramisu is divine.

The building itself has a fantastic history, and Coppola provides access to Zoetrope All-Story by way of a printing machine near the bar (need to confirm—may not still be there).

Coit Tower
Coit Tower can be seen from many vantage points and it is arguably worth doing the many stairs to just stand there once, but the real reward is the murals done as WPA projects.

To SoMa & Surrounds
See what’s up at The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Gardens. Make sure to check out the fountain dedicated to Martin Luther King.

If you still have a little time left, put your feet up and take in the view with a pricey beverage in hand, at the rooftop bar at the Proper Hotel, Charmaine’s. This is new to me and let me know what you think.

PS—I avoid Ghiradelli, Union Square, Pier 39, and Fisherman’s Wharf—so many other delights that are less populated, not to say these spots don’t have their own wonders if time allows.

Any favorites to add? What would you want to share? Drop me a note at pamela@pamelab.com

Local Project Recognized

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The 2021 Toronto Women’s Film Festival selected “An Evening with Ellen” for its monthly online viewing in May 2021—an unexpected and very pleasant surprise…

Wow! This is a nice accolade. Thank you, Toronto Women Film Festival.

The Famous Marching Presidents produced this film in 2020 to honor suffrage leader Ellen Clark Sargent.

All cast and crew are Nevada County residents. The film features actor Mary Baird and businessman Rick Ewald. The original screenplay was written and directed by Pamela Biery. Earles of Newtown generously provided the fitting music, with their original work Broad Street Suite.

View the video and learn more about Nevada County history here.

Watch for details on the upcoming Constitution Day weekend here.

California Dreamin’ On the Big Screen

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Note: Watch for an upcoming exclusive series of special video talks by Dream State author San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle hosted by TheOnyxTheatre.com. Book review follows.

Mick LaSalle’s new book, Dream State, California in the Movies, is a revealing journey into the psyche of California as it is reflected in cinema. Longtime San Francisco film critic Mick LaSalle has a knack for getting to the story behind the story and this book is full of great perceptions of just what California cinema expresses both intentionally and unintentionally through its film industry.

Dream State is a methodical examination of how California appears in film, from San Francisco to Los Angeles with a wonderfully witty narrative on just how many ways we can see the Golden Gate Bridge being destroyed. With chapters that take on the myth-making behind the Wizard of Oz and the dark underbelly of Film Noir, the reader begins to sense that Hollywood is both vacuous and deliciously full at the same moment, and this moment is a uniquely California moment, made possible at least in part, by a beautiful, mild and changeable climate where life just looks a bit more glamorous before the cameras start rolling.

For those who like to go below the surface of film, Dream State is a must read. LaSalle’s career as a film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle provides him with a steady flow of apt observations and most importantly, the connective tissue that is implied or perhaps hinted at as both cultural and cinematic references. One aspect that emerges as a theme is the dissonance between perception and reality as perpetuated through cinema–not the obvious, but rather the moments that tend to go largely unrecognized but have great influence, which LaSalle is near genius at identifying.

There are dozens of films mentioned, each presented with unconventional rarely discussed viewpoints. The eleven chapters include distinctly different time generations and genres, examining how Pearl Harbor is portrayed then and now, as well as Romance and Utopian visions. This is not a book of reviews or even in a certain sense, the in-depth discussion of individual films, but rather a closer look at what we rarely examine in terms of the culture itself as seen through the mirror of California cinema. LaSalle gives us a bit of American history as well as anthropological insights and a totally unique set of mind-opening perceptions.

In a broader sense, Dream State is about America and the values America chooses to portray through cinema and this too, is cast with an eye to historical context, examining how events like World War II, Woodstock, and 911 have shaped what we see on the screen and how this informs and reinforces that which is permissible and that which either by production code or implication, falls beyond the pale and shifts over time.

Dream State provides unique insights on what it means to be in California and why and who has been drawn to this seemingly superficial oasis of tempting promises fulfilled, along with the implied illusions Hollywood offers that vanish when the theatre lights come back on and the credits roll.

Locals in Nevada County, watch for upcoming videos, and know that The Onyx Theatre is looking forward to seeing you very soon!

Advance purchase available through Heyday Books.