An Evening with “When the Band Played ON” Author Michael Lee Happens October 11 in Napa
Gary Carnivele
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Playing in Mill Valley Film Festival the World Premiere of “The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & The Art of Survival” 11 & 13 at the Mill Valley Film Festival
The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & The Art of Survival will have its world premiere at the 2024 Mill Valley Film Festival on Friday, October 11 at the Sequoia Cinema in Mill Valley, with a repeat screening October 13 at the Lark Theater in Larkspur.
Tamara de Lempicka & the Art of Survival traces the life and survival of the renowned painter through her powerful paintings – from her rise to international stardom in 1920s Paris, to her move to the United States fleeing fascism in 1940, to her revival in the current art market. The film follows this remarkable refugee as she reinvents herself multiple times, looking behind the veneer of the publicity she generated for herself and examining the bisexual, Jewish artist who embodied talent, resilience, passion, and a relentless pursuit of artistic freedom.
Her story is brought to life with never-before-seen 8mm home movies, along with stunning drawings and paintings that depict passionate, intimate relationships with both her male and female models. Barbra Streisand provides exclusive access to images of her private collection, while Madonna pays tribute to Lempicka, featuring her imagery in her videos and concert tour. Anjelica Huston lends her voice to the narration. Lempicka’s popularity soars today as one of her pieces recently sold at auction for over $21.1 million, marking the third-highest price ever paid for a work by a modern female artist. The film also reveals Lempicka’s true name, heritage, identity, for the first time through newly-discovered documents, including birth and baptism certificates that indelibly alter art history.
The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & The Art of Survival is an empowering story of a multi-talented, brilliant artist who captured a new woman, a new man, and a new society. Co-produced by Svetlana Cvetko, Neva Tassen, Blake Wellen, Jennifer Wallace, and written by Julie Rubio & Amy Harrison, edited by David Scott Smith & Nikki Hausherr. Additionally, 2024 will see a groundbreaking retrospective at San Francisco’s Fine Arts Museum, where, Tamara de Lempicka & the Art of Survival, will be featured for a special one day screening on January 11, 2025.
About the director
Julie Rubio is an award-winning film producer, writer, & director. As President of Women in Film SF Bay Area & founder of East Meets West Productions, she produced the acclaimed East Side Sushi. She is also the director, writer, and producer behind Too Perfect, Six Sexy Scenes and A Murder, Everything is Temporary, Oakland Be Mine, and Impression. Her films have been distributed by industry giants Samuel Goldwyn, Sony Home Entertainment, HBO, Netflix, Apple TV, & Osiris. The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & The Art of Survival marks her debut as a feature documentary writer, director, and producer.
WORKSHOP AT PEPPERWOOD INSPIRES CONNECTIONS WITH THE NATURAL WORLD THROUGH EXPLORING ARTISTIC EXPRESSION
Sebastopol songwriter Anne Carol Mitchell aka Brightdarkdawn, who writes music inspired by ecology and conservation, is teaching a day-long, collaborative workshop with Pepperwood’s Education Program Manager, Holland Gistelli. The workshop, Nature as Muse: Songwriting with the Land, will take place at Pepperwood Preserve on Saturday, October 19th.
Mitchell and Gistelli are providing a workshop to inspire connections with nature through artistic expression and discovery in the natural world. Gistelli, who has over 14 years of experience in environmental education, will lead participants on a hike where they will be invited to explore the extraordinary beauty of Pepperwood through their senses followed by a meditative journaling exercise. Mitchell will introduce participants to music derived from experiences in nature and guide participants to use their revelations in the natural world in the development of lyrics and songs. The focus on the workshop will be on discovery and the creative process, so all levels of musical and writing experience are welcomed. For more information, visit bit.ly/NatureSongwriting.
“Pepperwood’s work and dedication to conservation through the arts are so important for connecting people to nature, helping them to go deeper than just a walk in the woods. Our workshop will be a place where people can not only take in the extraordinary majesty of Pepperwood, but also use artistic practice to cultivate greater presence with the natural world,” said Mitchell
Pepperwood, whose mission is to inspire conservation through science, is known throughout Sonoma County as a place that spotlights the arts and artists that work in environmental subject matter. Pepperwood’s Inspiring Connections with Nature Initiative includes seasonal shows in the Gallery at the Dwight Center for Conservation Science as well as outdoor sculptures prominently displayed on its property. As Pepperwood’s Gallery Director and Cultural Resource Coordinator, Ben Benson, has shared on Pepperwood’s website, “Pepperwood utilizes art as an aesthetic segue and as an emotional stimulus. The goal is to open people’s hearts so that they can feel more deeply the magnificence of Nature.”
Workshop details:
Nature as Muse: Songwriting with the Land
Saturday, October 19, 2024
9:00am – 4:00m
$65 per person
Ages 16 and up welcome
Meet at the Bechtel House, Pepperwood Preserve
2130 Pepperwood Preserve Road, Santa Rosa, CA 95404
Participants must sign up beforehand at bit.ly/NatureSongwriting.
Bios
Anne Carol Mitchell aka Brightdarkdawn
Anne Carol Mitchell, MFA, is a composer and songwriter in Sonoma County who crafts music with the aim of awakening care and healing for the living earth. Her songs are reminiscent of folk traditions in the vein of Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. Anne’s work celebrates the storied existence of the Earth in all its beauty, vulnerability, resiliency, and ferocity. Anne is a graduate of the UC Climate Stewards certification course and the California Naturalist program at Pepperwood.
Anne’s most recent work in Sonoma County was the sold-out, queer art and ecology concert I’ll Show You the Night in partnership with the Robert Ferguson Observatory and the Arlene Francis Center. The event included the release of Brightdarkdawn’s new album I’ll Show You the Night.
Anne has shared the stage and studio with notable artists including Ani DiFranco, Jimmy Horn (Mr. December), Judy Grahn (a woman is talking to death), Peter Jaques (Brass Menažeri), as well as others. She has produced four albums of original songs under her name and under her new project name Brightdarkdawn. Listen to her latest releases at https://brightdarkdawn.com/.
Anne’s work as a teacher has included adjunct faculty at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, guest lecturing at New College of California, and Sofia University in the Women’s Spirituality and Experimental Performance Master’s programs. She has designed music curriculum for teenage girls and taught songwriting workshops at women’s retreats in Canada.
Holland Gistelli
Holland has over 14 years of experience in the fields of education and youth development, most of which has been dedicated to environmental education in Sonoma County. She has called both coasts home, from a childhood spent roaming the hills of Napa County to studying Psychology and School Counseling at the University of Connecticut. She is a firm believer in the multidimensional value of environmental education for all, and is passionate about connecting people with the natural world. Holland coordinates Pepperwood’s Community Education classes and hikes, manages our Students Conducting Environmental Inquiry (SCENIQ) and TeenNat programs, and is a certified California Naturalist and Climate Steward. In her free time she enjoys travel and camping, dabbling in art projects and gardening, and good meals with friends and family.
GLAAD Fact Sheet: Donald Trump on LGBTQ Issues: Immigration
GLAAD has documented the anti-LGBTQ history of Donald Trump, including his policies, rhetoric and proposals on immigration. Trump’s full anti-LGBTQ record is available on GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Tracker.
LGBTQ people seek protection and asylum in the U.S. to escape persecution and violence from countries around the world. Persecution due to sexual orientation is grounds to apply for asylum in the U.S.
Trump’s immigration record includes:
- False claims during a news conference on August 8, 2024, that 20 million people had crossed the U.S. border illegally under the Biden administration. NBC News reported that border crossings fell to their lowest monthly number of Biden’s presidency in June, with just over 84,000 migrants apprehended.
- False claims and fearmongering that migrants are committing crimes once in the U.S. Research shows immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than non-immigrants.
- Promising mass deportations, including threats of raids and use of camps to detain people.
- Falsely and baselessly describing migrants from Mexico at his first campaign announcement: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
- Vowing to build a wall along Mexico and having Mexico pay for it. Only part of a wall was built and Mexico did not pay for it.
- Creating Migrant “Protection” Protocols requiring asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border to be returned to Mexico, including LGBTQ and HIV-positive people who endured human rights abuses in Mexico.
- Ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protected an estimated 800,000 young undocumented immigrants, including an estimated 39,000 LGBTQ DREAMers, from detention and deportation.
- Signing an executive order promising to withhold federal money from sanctuary cities in an attempt to increase deportations.
- Ending a humanitarian program that allowed Haitian immigrants to live and work in the United States following a catastrophic earthquake.
- Grossly characterizing immigrants and their home countries, including Haiti and countries in Africa: “Why do we want all these people from ‘shithole countries’ coming here?”
- Signing an executive order in 2018 initiating family separations. Thousands of migrants, including young children, were taken away from their families.
- Shutting down the federal government for 35 days, the longest government shutdown in American history, after lawmakers refused to fund more than $5 billion for the border wall along the United States and Mexico.
- Declaring a national emergency to get money for the border wall after the 35-day shutdown failed to produce funding results.
Project 2025, a blueprint for authoritarian takeover of the government created by anti-LGBTQ Heritage Foundation and 140 others connected to the first Trump administration, calls for:
- Legalizing mass deportation and raids of immigrant communities, as well as separating families and ending birthright citizenship. Same-sex couples and LGBTQ couples with children would be subject to these extreme and inhumane measures.
- Blocking financial aid for college students if their state permits immigrants, including DACA recipients, to access in-state tuition.
- Requiring public schools to charge tuition to unaccompanied migrant children and children with undocumented parents.
- Terminating the legal status of 500,000 Dreamers by eliminating staff time for reviewing and processing renewal applications.
- Suspending updates to the annual eligible country lists for H-2A and H-2B temporary worker visas and excluding areas from filling gaps in the agricultural, construction, hospitality, and forestry workforce.
- Barring U.S. citizens from qualifying for federal housing subsidies if they live with anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.
- Forcing states to share driver’s licenses and taxpayer identification information with federal authorities or risk critical funding.
Minnesota’s Transgender and Queer Equity Successes
With his selection by Vice President Kamala Harris, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz could be the next Vice President of the United States. Walz’s record of support for LGBTQIA2S+ youth and adults has been clear throughout his career as a teacher, legislator, and Governor.
Under Minnesota’s pro-equality legislative and executive branches, Governor Walz, Lt. Governor Flanagan, and the Queer Legislators Caucus built the state into a national model for protecting the healthcare access and human rights of the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, especially transgender, non-binary and 2-Spirit residents.
Below are a few of the accomplishments in Minnesota in the 2023-2024 legislative biennium.
First Queer Caucus: Voters elected 11 new LGBTQ+ individuals to the MN Legislature in 2022. In December 2022, Representative Leigh Finke was selected as the inaugural chair of the Queer Legislators Caucus in Minnesota.
Trans Refuge State: Gov. Walz signed an executive order to protect those traveling to Minnesota to receive gender-affirming care. Two months later Trans Refuge became the law in Minnesota, protecting patients, families, and providers from out-of-state laws punishing trans health care access, as well as allowing Minnesota courts to hear cases in which parents disagree about health care planning.
The Take Pride Act expanded protections under the Minnesota Human Rights Act for trans and queer Minnesotans by updating language around gender identity and sexual orientation. The bill also banned rental discrimination in duplexes for LGBTQ renters, as well as banning discriminatory hiring practices in certain nonprofit organizations.
Banned Panic Defense: The panic defense is a legal strategy in which defendants charged with violent crimes attempt to avoid liability due to the real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity of the victim.
Menstrual Equity: All menstruating students in grades 4-12 are provided free period products in Minnesota schools. These products will be available to all students regardless of gender. The law does not specify which bathrooms the products must be in, it requires school districts to develop plans to ensure all students who menstruate can access the products for free.
This is only a PORTION of what Minnesota accomplished. Other wins include:
- banned so-called “conversion therapy” on LGBTQ youth and adults
- mandated coverage of gender affirming care in certain insurance plans
- funded gender inclusive bathrooms and locker rooms in schools
- provided $1,000,000 for economic development grants to support in-migrating trans families and mentorship programs for gender affirming care providers
- created the Council on LGBTQIA2S+ Minnesotans to advise the Governor and Legislature on matters essential to queer Minnesotans.
Walz and the pro-equality majority legislature also passed and signed into law additional measures for the safety, health and wellbeing of all Minnesotans and youth:
- free breakfast and lunch to every school student
- codified abortion rights, and eliminated onerous restrictions on reproductive healthcare
- tuition free college for low-income Minnesotans
- created nation-leading Paid Family Medical Leave program
Supreme Court to hear landmark case on trans healthcare – here’s everything you need to know
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a legal challenge to a Tennessee banon trans healthcare.
The bill, approved by state lawmakers last year, mimics similar laws in other states, with civil penalties for any adult who aids a minor to receive getting out-of-state gender-affirming care without their parent’s consent.
Several families, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued Tennessee to prevent the bill passing into law.
The case will now be heard by the country’s top court in October.
The ACLU’s deputy director for trans justice, Chase Strangio, said: “The future of countless transgender youth in this and future generations rests on this court adhering to the facts, the constitution and its own modern precedent.
“These bans represent a dangerous and discriminatory affront to the well-being of transgender youth across the country and their constitutional right to equal protection under the law. They are the result of an openly political effort to wage war on a marginalised group and our most fundamental freedoms.”
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to take the case, 64 trans adults, including actor Elliot Page, filed a brief sharing their own experiences.
What is the Supreme Court case US v Skrmetti?
Following the passing of the bill in the state house of representatives and senate, the ACLU, and Lambda Legal, aided by lawyers from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, sued Tennessee.
The pushback was, to a large degree, over the bill’s aim to outlaw medical care for trans youngsters up to the age of 18, while those currently receiving gender-affirming care would have been forced to end it by July 2023.
Samantha Williams, from Nashville, who brought the case on behalf of her trans 15-year-old daughter, said it was “incredibly painful” to watch her child suffer as a consequence of the proposed legislation.
“We have a confident, happy daughter now, who is free to be herself and she is thriving,” Williams said. “I am so afraid of what this law will mean for her.”
In June 2023, a federal judge blocked the bill from going forward. But a federal appeal court overturned that decision last September, allowing the bill to go into effect, a decision the ACLU described as “beyond disappointing.”
In June this year, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. While the outcome will specifically affect the Tennessee bill, it is likely to set a legal precedent for similar laws in other states.
Data collected and shared by the ACLU found that at least 530 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been proposed in the US since the beginning of the year, with 112 of those being healthcare restrictions.
Lambda Legal senior lawyer Tara Borelli said: “This court has historically rejected efforts to uphold discriminatory laws. Without similar action here, these punitive, categorical bans on the provision of gender-affirming care will continue to wreak havoc on the lives of transgender youth and their families.”
LGBTQ+ asylum seekers in the US have shared their ‘disgusting’ experiences in ICE custody
LGBTQ+ asylum seekers have shared their gruelling experiences as detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, as part of a new report.
An analysis into the mistreatment of LGBTQ+ and HIV-positive individuals while in US federal immigration jails revealed that almost one in three of those interviewed were sexually assaulted, and almost all were harassed because of their sexuality.
Not-for-profit organisation Immigration Equality, which published the report, added that roughly half the participants (20 of 41) were subjected to solitary confinement.
Bridget Crawford, Immigration Equality’s director of law and policy, told independent publication The 19th that ICE detention centres were a “critical lifeline” for LGBTQ+ refugees fleeing “unimaginable violence and torture”, adding: “Their experience in detention compounds the trauma that many of these queer and trans asylum seekers faced in their home country.”
One of those participants, Nikolai, described his time in custody as “completely disgusting” and he felt treated as “second class”. Diagnosed with depression prior to his detainment, he claimed that he was denied antidepressant medication by jail staff despite his mental health deteriorating.
“Imagine sitting in jail and not getting your medication,” he told the researchers. “You’re feeling worse and worse and worse.”
Upon entering the detainment centre in San Diego, California, Nikolai noted that certain cells had the words “HIV”, “gay,” and “transgender” written on the doors. Conditions were “like a zoo” and little was done to hide the identities of queer or HIV-positive detainees, leaving them open to abuse.
Another detainee, a trans woman called Tara, claimed that the guards “beat us like dogs” and that, after being outed, “the other detainees also beat me”.
She was reportedly laughed at and mocked when she asked to speak to a lawyer and was told the only way she could leave was through a deportation order.
Four of the 41 participants reported “outright hostility” from ICE staff when asserting their right to legal representation, and seven said they did not even know they were allowed to contact a lawyer.
Sexual harassment and abuse have also been found to be prevalent within ICE custody centres. A study for the research and advocacy group the Center for American Progress in 2018 revealed that, while LGBTQ+ people make up just 0.14 per cent of detainees, they are the victims of 12 per cent of the sexual abuse cases.
Eighteen participants in the latest research reported being sexual abused or physically assaulted, including Karina, who alleged that she was attacked be a male inmate in the shower after being incarcerated in a men’s detention unit.
After reporting the sexual assault, she was taken to hospital to prove she had “really [been] raped” and was forced to undress in front of a male immigration officer.
After experiencing a mental-health crisis following the ordeal, she was put in solitary confinement, she claimed.
Black & Decker becomes latest firm to face a boycott over DEI – but what is Consumers’ Research?
Tool company Stanley Black & Decker is the latest US firm to face right-wing criticism and calls for a boycott for having diversity, equality and inclusion policies (DEI) in place
Consumers’ Research, which describes itself as an independent educational organisation which dates back to 1929, and which boasts that it targets “wokeness” in businesses, has called out the Connecticut-based company for supporting racial equality, LGBTQ+ causes and net-zero climate goals.
The not-for-profit organisation was originally set up to test consumer products and report the results, a bit like Which? – the United Kingdom organisation that promotes informed consumer choice by testing products.
However, in 1981, Consumers’ Research was sold to conservative commentator M. Stanton Evans. It completely abandoned its previous core mission, moved its headquarters to Washington, D.C., and entirely stopped assessing products. Its New Jersey testing laboratories were closed down by 1983.
The organisation went dormant in 2000 before being resurrected over 20 years later as a Republican-aligned group, launching a campaign against so-called woke companies in 2021, and seeking to “[put] corporations on notice” and expose “numerous companies that have chosen to put woke politics above consumer interests”.
They have a section on their website which encourages visitors to report “companies who are going woke.”
In 2022, Consumers’ Research was instrumental in forcing insurance company State Farm to drop a partnership with GenderCool, a group that shares positive stories about transgender and nonbinary youth.
Consumers’ Research ran an advertising campaign calling State Farm “a creepy neighbour” and accusing the insurance company of targeting children with books about gender identity. State Farm dropped their support.
Black & Decker boycott
In urging a boycott of Stanley Black & Decker, the group says: “Stanley Black & Decker should focus on its customers, not woke politicians”, and urges customers to “contact Stanley Black & Decker and demand that they drop their ESG [environmental, social and governance] commitments and stop their DEI hiring practices”.
In a threat shared on X/Twitter, Will Hild, Consumers’ Research’s executive director, labelled Black & Decker “the latest formerly great American company to become tools of the radical left”, adding: “The company has abandoned their consumer focus and instead now says their ‘highest priority’ is advancing DEI both internally and externally.”
The tool-maker is the latest US firm to be targeted by conservative bigotry as culture wars continue to rage.
The backlash to businesses with DEI commitments have become the focus of right-wing pundit and failed political hopeful Robby Starbuck.
In recent months, Starbuck has stirred up social media storms against brands such as Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniel’s, Ford, Lowe’s and John Deere. A number of the companies have caved in and issued internal memos announcing they will abandon DEI commitments, such as support for Pride festivals, end partnerships with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and stop commenting on “polarising” issues.
Starbuck, who produced an anti-trans film that was banned by Amazon’s streaming service, has insisted in several posts that “we are winning, and one by one we will bring sanity back to corporate America”.
It’s not just Starbuck driving the fight. Former president Donald Trump has also been highly critical of DEI initiatives, while Project 2025 – hard-line right-wing policy group The Heritage Foundation’s vision for a second Trump administration – has attacked equality measures within government agencies.
The HRC has been critical of Starbuck, labelling him a “MAGA weirdo” and condemning businesses for “cowering” to him.
“This is obviously something that is having a moment, so to speak,” Eric Bloem, HRC’s vice-president of programmes and corporate advocacy, told USA Today. “This notion that we need a return to sanity or a return to neutrality is something that doesn’t resonate with people who are legitimately focused on business outcomes.”
HRC’s 2024 LGBTQ+ Climate Survey found that more than 80 per cent of LGBTQ+ people would boycott a company which rolled back DEI commitments, with more than half saying they would urge others to also not buy goods from such businesses.
Orlando Gonzales, HRC senior vice-president programmes, research and training, said: “The LGBTQ+ community is an economic powerhouse, and we want to work for and support companies who support us. “Attacks on DEI initiatives are short-sighted and make our workplaces less safe and less inclusive for hard-working Americans of all demographics and backgrounds.
“This new data confirms that companies like [brewers] Molson-Coors, Ford and others that abandon their values and backtrack from commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion, risk losing both top employee talent and consumer dollars.”