Saturday February 26 @ 7:30 pm. Sha’Motown! at Occidental Center for the Arts. Come join us as we celebrate Black History Month with an exciting live music homage to Motown’s greatest superstars and song hits! This amazing, award winning band features the refreshingly angelic songstress Ariel Marin, plus the musical arrangements of platinum producer James “Jae-E ” Earley. Get your dancing shoes ready! $30 General/$25 for OCA Members. Tickets/Info @ www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org. Proof of Covid vaccination is required, masking indoors as per County health order. Audience capacity will be limited to 65%. Fine refreshments available. OCA Art Gallery exhibit ‘Celebration of Black History” will be open for viewing. OCA is accessible to persons with disabilities. Become an OCA Member and get discounts/free admission. Occidental Center for the Arts is a non-profit performing and fine arts venue staffed by volunteers. 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental, CA. 95465, 707-874-9392.
Aja Gianola-Norris is a Sonoma County-based director, whose passion is “empowering and connecting our community through music and theater.” She’s directed or music directed over 85 musicals, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Les Misérables, Grease, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, and The Wiz, to name a few.
In this interview she answers a few questions about her process, her work on this production and how HAIR, the musical, is still relevant and powerful more than 50 years after its original production.
Q. It’s been more than 50 years since HAIR was first produced, and the US and the world have seen major cultural changes. How did you adjust your direction (if any) to address those changes?
A. It is so interesting how the bulk of the HAIR’s script is still relevant and holds meaning in 2022. There are some lines that we chose to drop, as they had outdated humor or used words that have shifted in our culture, so that the majority of our audience will receive the original message or intent.
Q. How has the Omicron surge affected your rehearsal process? What challenges have been presented and how did you manage them?
A. Oh my! I thought it was hard to learn a big musical before – add pandemic-related twice-weekly testing, masking in rehearsals, and actors Zooming in when they are under the weather – and man, it seems extra chaotic and challenging.
But on the flip side, absence makes the heart grow fonder! We performers have been asked to forgo our hearts and theater these past two years, and it has made us all extremely thankful and humbled at this chance to be allowed to sing and dance together. Also, when we do take off our masks it is amazing to simply see each others’ faces!!
Oh and there are plenty of good jokes we make about working a show with nudity–being naked while wearing a mask!! Ha!
Q. What are the strong suits of your actors?
A. Kindness! Thoughtfulness and respect in how they learn/come together with the racially difficult/triggering material. They have an insatiable appetite to thoughtfully grow their characters and present a beautiful story of a tribe of hippies living, loving and playing–a snapshot of life in the summer of 1969.
Q. What has been the most enjoyable part of your experience rehearsing the play so far?
A. This is my first production with 6th Street and I adore the collaborative spirit and professionalism of the production team uniting to present a powerful piece of art to SoCo. I love how the theater strongly embraces diversity and equality. The playhouse has supported me as a director and as a woman of color, and in new practices that have been asked for through my work. The staff and crew at 6th Street are brave and work very hard to keep theater alive and progressive, despite the many hardships of a pandemic and the new AB5 law.
I encourage and ask audiences who come and are affected by this show to make their voices heard and share with 6th Street what you gained from the experience.
But my heart MOST enjoys the process of working with those passionate actors!
They are life-affirmingly rooted in this unique and perfect art of musical theater.
Q. What projects do you have coming up that you’d like our audience to know about?
A. I am super excited to be in the cast of 9 to 5, The Musical at 6th Street in late spring!
I have an extensive list of shows I still want to direct or perform in and I eagerly await local theaters announcing their upcoming seasons.
Q. What do you think are the aspects of the play that will most appeal to our audience?
A. I don’t know….the love? … the dancing? The singing is so good! The story is powerful.
Q. How has your background in theater prepared you for directing this play?
A. Having been a performer I have a deep understanding of the pragmatic details, which allows me to help cultivate healthy singing, dancing and exploring. We’ve all had experiences that were wonderful, so I adopt those experiences into my tool kit as a director.
There are also non-theater experiences that contribute to my skill set as a director. My work as a business owner has taught me the incredible value of communication, scheduling and preparation. Parenting gives me empathy and the ability to work with the whole person. Also being bi-racial has allowed me an unique authentic tie to two American cultures and perspectives.
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6th Street Playhouse’s production of HAIR is directed by Aja Gianola-Norris, with music direction by Lucas Sherman, and choreography by Rachel Wynne.
HAIR features book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado with music by Galt MacDermot.
6th Street’s production of HAIR features a diverse cast of actor/singers, many of whom will be familiar to local audiences, including Gillian Eichenberger, Serena Elize Flores, David Lee Hall, Ezra Hernandez, Keene Hudson, Jamin Jollo, Lindsay John, Tyehimba Kokayi, Nicole MacDonald, Theo Olson, Jourdan Olivier-Verde, Noah Sternhill, and Peri-Zoe Yaldrim-Stanley. There will also be a featured performer – Lynnea Mackey – who won a walk-on role in the production in the 6th Street Applause Gala auction.
HAIR has a special sneak peek performance Friday, Feb 11 at 7:30 pm, and formally opens on Sat, Feb 12 at 2 pm, with a run that extends through March 6. Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm, and Saturday and Sunday 2 pm matinees.
DISCLAIMER: Audience discretion is strongly advised. HAIR contains adult language and situations that may be deemed offensive, objectionable, profane, upsetting, even vulgar by some members of our audience. The musical HAIR, from its inception in the late 1960’s, has always intended to shatter boundaries in the theatrical art form and those aspects of this work of art have not abated over time. There is one brief scene involving nudity wherein all performers onstage are adults aged 18 or older.
NO PHOTOGRAPHY OR RECORDING ALLOWED WHATSOEVER: There is no recording, photography or image-capturing allowed whatsoever during the performance of HAIR. This is strictly prohibited, and anyone found to be doing so will have their device confiscated. Confiscated devices will be returned to their owners and the end of the performance after any photos or video related to the performance have been deleted.
We’re offering you a SNEAK PEEK at HAIR
Get half-price tickets to the Feb 11 special preview!
50% OFF WITH THE DISCOUNT CODE SNEAKPEEK The cast of HAIR (book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado with music by Galt MacDermot) is already thrilling themselves and the rest of the crew with their passionate and beautiful portrayal of a movement that changed the world. Don’t miss this glorious rock musical, a joyous celebration of youth and a poignant journey through a tumultuous 1960s America. This exuberant story about a group of teenagers searching for truth, peace and love in a Vietnam War era retains its power and relevance, 50 years after its original production. HAIR features an eclectic score filled with classics, including “Aquarius,” “Let the Sun Shine In,” “Hair,” and “Easy To Be Hard.” 6th Street’s production of HAIR features a diverse cast of actor/singers, many of whom will be familiar to local audiences, including Anne Clark, Gillian Eichenberger, Serena Elize Flores, David Lee Hall, Ezra Hernandez, Keene Hudson, Jamin Jollo, Lindsay John, Tyehimba Kokayi, Nicole MacDonald, Lynnea Mackey, Theo Olson, Jourdan Olivier-Verde, Noah Sternhill, and Peri-Zoe Yaldrim-Stanley. HAIR’s formal preview is Feb 12 at 2 pm, but you get a chance to see it before everybody else doesAT HALF PRICE ON FEB 11 ONLY! Tickets are regularly $22 – $38 which means your special prices WITH DISCOUNT CODE SNEAKPEEKare $11 to $19 (plus ticketing charge)
DISCLAIMER: Audience discretion is strongly advised. HAIR contains adult language and situations that may be deemed offensive, objectionable, profane, upsetting, or even vulgar by some members of our audience. The musical HAIR, from its inception in the late 1960’s, has always intended to shatter boundaries in the theatrical art form and those aspects of this work of art have not abated over time. There is one brief scene involving nudity wherein all performers onstage are adults aged 18 or older. NO PHOTOGRAPHY OR RECORDING ALLOWED WHATSOEVER: There is no recording, photography or image-capturing allowed whatsoever during the performance of HAIR. This is strictly prohibited, and anyone found to be doing so will have their device confiscated. Confiscated devices will be returned to their owners and the end of the performance after any photos or video related to the performance have been deleted.
Welcome to May We Present…, a column from Lambda Literary that highlights authors with recent or forthcoming publications. This November, we’re featuring Nefertiti Asanti and their new poetry collection, fist of wind, published on October 29th by Foglifter Press. fist of wind centers the simultaneously magical and mortal Black body as a site of healing and transformation from pain, ranging from larger forms of structural, communal, and intergenerational pain to the personal pain of menstruation out of which the collection was born.
With fist of wind, Asanti became the first winner of the Start A Riot! Chapbook Prize, a prize for local emerging queer and trans Black writers, indigenous writers, and writers of color, created by Foglifter Press, RADAR Productions, and Still Here San Francisco. The win was well deserved, as fist of wind is a breathtaking and candid lyrical testimony, one that might be thought of as an exceptional exploration in translation. Asanti masterfully translates the physical into the textual and, through the reader, back into the physical again. Through bold engagement with form and space, Asanti translates the dynamic qualities of the spoken word into the written word without losing its sense of embodiment. Reading fist of wind becomes a transfixing, corporeal undertaking, one that everyone should experience at least once.
Below, Nefertiti Asanti elaborates on the most difficult tangible sensation to put into words, how poetry interacts with other forms of text, and the last thing she read that surprised her.
When did you realize you had to write fist of wind?
When I started writing toward fist of wind, I was actually writing toward stopping some pain. I was living alone in Brooklyn in a basement-level apartment I could barely afford after resigning from the first full-time job I’d ever had. I was living alone, and I was in pain, physical pain as a result of my period. I had cramps, debilitating cramps that demanded my attention once they hit and kept hitting.
One day it was just out of control—the pain was so uncomfortable and relentless and beyond me, something inside me was like, “This don’t belong to me; this ain’t mine,” so I prayed a spell into it. Eventually, the pain subsided and along with it went the idea of the pain being a singular thing that I owned, that owned me.
During that time, I wrote what I called “full moon lunes,” three-line, three-syllable, three-word per line poems that were prayers to my womb to welcome healing and expel the pain I’d absorbed from being Black and bleeding and alive and the un/healed histories of my ancestors, lineage, and community. As a person who absorbs so much of what’s around me, it was important that I let go of what I could in a form that echoed the physical boundaries pain can create and transcend them. At least two pieces in fist of wind are in lunes or borrow from the form. I wrote fist of wind because I wanted to have conversations with other Black people about periods and healing from violence, whatever the source.
The brilliantly funny queer comedian Robert White who made it to the finals of Britain’s Got Talent flippantly explained his Asbergers away by claiming he is a genius. He played the line for laughs although, by the time he finished his act, I had totally come to agree.
White’s appearance on TV is part of a visible dialogue about the sheer potential that people on the spectrum can achieve if their parents refuse to accept the traditional medical advice of just writing them off at childhood. Up to very recently once a child had been diagnosed with Aspergers they were actively encouraged to place them in a special residential home and literally walk away knowing that their child could never amount to anything.
Luckily for six-year-old Kyle Westphal when his parents learned he was on the Autism spectrum they went against all medical advice and refused to accept they could never develop a real connection to him. As they watched him withdraw from their world and all that was around him they desperately searched for an alternative means to enable Kyle to start to relate them
They are the real heroes of this heart-string-pulling film that documents the journey the entire family , and a host of volunteers undertook for Kyle to have a real connection with them. They came upon an experimental project which they soon embarked on which immersed them all in an intense one-on-one program with them joining Kyle in his unique behaviors The emphasis was not to punish or forbid him from constantly wrapping himself up in blankets and his favorite piece of fabric but to join him and encourage him and to slowly develop him to adopt other activities that would path a way into some more social behavior.
The documentary tracks this exceptional journey and the sheer patience and commitment to the lengthy process which is a story of extraordinary love the like of which is way too rare.
Now twenty years later and Kyle has achieved his lifetime ambition of becoming a fashion designer in which his tutors acknowledge how very talented he is at. It’s an art form that encourages individuality and uniqueness that so suits a very happy Kyle and gives him a sense of fulfillment none of us could have imagined at the start if his journey
Except maybe his parents as they look back and see how by ignoring the traditional medical advice and let the Kyle who always found comfort in his favorite fabric to making it his real purpose in his life.
We viewed this fascinating and eye-opening documentary by Dan Crane and Kate Taber recently at DOC NY Festival,and the new good news is that Greenwich Entertainment will be giving it a full release in February 2022. Make a note as you really shouldn’t miss it.
Long-running “Jeopardy!” champion Amy Schneider lost in an episode that aired Wednesday, ending the second-longest winning streak in the quiz show’s history.
Schneider, an engineering manager from Oakland, California, was defeated by Rhone Talsma, a librarian from Chicago, who raked in $29,600 in the latest game, besting Schneider, at $19,600.
She left the show with nearly $1.4 million in winnings and had no regrets about the streak’s end.
Almost all of Schneider’s wins had been in 2-to-1 blowouts going into Final Jeopardy, meaning the final questions figured only in how much prize money she would score.
But Wednesday’s game was unusually close. Schneider led Talsma by $27,600 to $17,600 heading into the last question, under the category “Countries of the World.”
The show wanted to know which is the only nation that ends its English spelling with an “h” and is also among the world’s top 10 most populous countries.
Talsma correctly asked, “What is Bangladesh?” while Schneider came up blank. His winning bet of $12,000 and her losing wager of $8,000 meant a new champion was suddenly crowned.
“It’s really been an honor,” Schneider said. “To know that I’m one of the most successful people at a game I’ve loved since I was a kid and to know that I’m a part of its history now, I just don’t know how to process it.”
Talsma’s quick trigger was key to his staying close throughout the game, Schneider said.
“I had thought that Rhone was going to be tough going into it,” she said in a statement released by the show.
“I loved hanging out with him, we had great conversation before the taping, but I could tell that he was here to play and that he was going to be good. I still came very close to winning, but I did feel like maybe I was slipping a little bit. And once it was clear that he was fast on the buzzer, I knew it was going to be a battle all the way.”
Rhone Talsma, a librarian from Chicago, finished in first place with $29,600.Casey Durkin / Sony Pictures Television
For much of the Double Jeopardy round, it looked as though Schneider would cruise to another easy win. At one point, she was up by $24,400 to $5,800 over Talsma.
But then Talsma nailed a late Daily Double, correctly naming the Greek goddesses of vengeance, the Furies. He doubled up from $7,800 to $15,600 and put himself in position to overtake Schneider in Final Jeopardy.
Just after the game, Schneider praised Talsma for taking the huge gamble on that Daily Double.
“It’s the right thing to do but I’ve seen several contestant not be able to pull the trigger on that,” she told the winner.
With nothing to lose, Talsma said he didn’t think twice.
“I’m just playing for fun, I was just going to go big. Wow,” he said.
When Talsma, sporting distinctive neon-framed glasses, took the “Jeopardy!” stage in Culver City, California, he had no idea he’d be facing down one of the winningest contestants in the show’s history.
“I’m still in shock,” Talsma said of his victory. “This is my favorite show. … I was so excited to be here, and I just wanted to do my best. I did not expect to be facing a 40-day champion, and I was excited to maybe see someone else slay the giant. I just really didn’t think it was going to be me, so I’m thrilled.”
Schneider’s success was particularly celebrated by the transgender community, as she became the first transgender contestant to make it to Tournament of Champions, which will be played this fall, and is now the highest-earning female competitor in “Jeopardy!” history.
She won $1,382,800, good for No. 4 all time in regular season play, trailing only Jennings ($2.5 million), James Holzhauer ($2.4 million) and Matt Amodio ($1.5 million).
Jennings, who splits “Jeopardy!” hosting duties with former “Blossom” and “Big Bang Theory” actor Mayim Bialik, presided over Schneider’s winning streak.
“It was just so amazing to watch; like I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Jennings told Schneider on stage after the game. “It was an honor to be here.”
Set amongst the bustling crowds and underground karaoke clubs of Tokyo, WEST NORTH WEST explores themes of gender, sexuality, nationality, and religious identity through the complex desires of three women. The film is now featuring on PeccadilloPOD, a new On-Demand platform for LGBTQ+ cinema.
Beautiful Kei (Hanae Kan) works at a cocktail bar, and her girlfriend Ai (Yuka Yamauchi) works as a model. Fearing she’ll be ostracized by society, Kei chooses not to admit her sexual orientation to anyone, and, as a result, she becomes distressed and lonely. One day, randomly in a café, Kei meets Naima, (Sahel Rosa) a very religious Iranian student studying art in Japan. Despite their vast cultural differences Kei and Naima begin to enjoy each other’s company. Passionate Ai quickly becomes jealous of them and their budding relationship. Kei gradually becomes pessimistic as she thinks about a future with Ai, and Ai worries that she will lose Kei. In the meantime, Naima is having a hard time understanding what Kei wants despite growing closer to her. All three of them are embarrassed and insecure but eventually, they begin to share their emotions.
Actor turned award-winning director, Takuro Nakumura’s feature film takes us on a slow journey through modern-day relationships in Tokyo. Dark and gloomy cinematography complements a melodrama told through dialogue, the actors’ expressions, and long silences rather than action-packed scenes. We follow the three young women as they tentatively navigate their way through their developing relationships with each other, often inconclusively. The slow-burn scenes are intimate and intriguing, and sometimes confusing, reflecting today’s life for many early 20 somethings who don’t fit into a stereotypical relationship box.
Sahel Rosa gives a very convincing performance as the studious, very religious, Iranian Naima who has never even worn make-up before she encounters the very sophisticated Japanese Kei. Hanae Kan (Kei) and Yuka Yamauchi (Ai) are also strong actors with great chemistry, and the three hold our attention for the two-hour running time of the film. Director Nakumura wants us to appreciate that ultimately there are actually only very small differences between characters of different sexualities and different cultural backgrounds. This he achieves. A good film for the long winter evenings right now.
Sunday January 30 @ 3 pm. Duo Quartet at Occidental Center for the Arts. The Duo Quartet brings together the stellar talents of Nina Gerber and Chris Webster in concert with another dynamic duo, Pam Delgado and Jeri Jones of Blame Sally. With a beautiful set of original music mixed with surprisingly original takes on a few choice covers, Duo Quartet brings to the stage a band that is greater than the sum of its already impressive parts.Tickets are $30 General / $25 for OCA members at www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org . Proof of COVID Vaccine is required for this event, please bring your vaccine card and ID. OCA’s facilities are accessible to people with disabilities. Fine refreshments available, masking required when not eating/drinking per current County Health Ordinance. OCA Art Gallery open for viewing/gift purchase.Become an OCA Member and get discounts/free admission. OCA is a non profit performing and fine arts center located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental, CA. 95465.
Proust wrote “Perfume is that last and best reserve of the past, the one which when all our tears have run dry, can make us cry again!” The Perfume Thief by Timothy Schaffert offers a vivid and striking story that exemplifies this observation. A whiff of a scent conjures up an event in the past, transporting one to that moment where a smell becomes indelible in the catalog of one’s senses. In a novel imbued with deception hidden in plain sight, perfume emerges as the most powerful and truthful presence in this redolent tale of Nazi Occupied Paris during World War II.
It’s six months since the Nazis took over Paris. An American ex-pat lesbian, seventy-two-year-old Clementine, spends her days creating perfumes on the first floor of her house, formerly a school for young gentlemen, which serves as her laboratory and shop. At night, Clem dresses in her best menswear to move around the dingier side of Parisian nightlife. Accompanying Clem on her nightly excursions is Blue, named after his stunning blue eyes, a twenty-one-year-old gay Frenchman, who escaped his abusive uncle to find the school. Most nights Clem and Blue, in matching tuxedos, head to Madame Boulette’s, a brothel that hosts a lively and seedy cabaret. At Madame Boulette’s, they visit their friend, Day Shabillée, an American singer known for a sentimental hit twenty years ago.
As Clem’s reputation as a perfumer precedes her, Madame Boulette also hires our hero to produce signature fragrances for her girls. With a candid first-person voice, Clem’s empathy, tinged with cynicism, establishes itself in her relationships. Day summons Clem to Madame Boulette’s in hopes of convincing her to help her friend, Zoë St. Angel, the daughter of a famous Jewish perfumer, Monsieur Pascal.
… the novel evokes a tapestry of smells and their obscure origins. Paris is wistfully recalled through the scents of each character’s freedom before the war.
The Nazis have taken Pascal away and a superior intelligence officer, Oskar Voss, is ensconced in his house. Zoë receives a note from her father adorned with a special symbol which she knows is the key to finding her father’s perfume secrets, including the formula of the eponymous perfume he created for her. Faced with the reality of the Occupation, she wants to reconcile with her father after a seventeen-year absence. She asks Clem to help her find his book before it falls into Voss’s hands. Voss believes the diary contains a perfume recipe that can disguise the use of a fatal gas which he hopes will solidify his worth in Hitler’s estimation. Clem herself has an ulterior motive for finding Pascal’s book: she thinks it will confirm her suspicions that Pascal stole a perfume from her.
When Voss hears about Clem and her talent for recreating any scent, he orders her to his house so they can partner in the search for the book. Voss, close in age to Clem, flirts with her with invitations to parties and excursions including a grotesque free reign shopping spree in a department store housed with goods taken from the Jews of Paris. He finds Clem so enigmatic because she was mythologized in a tawdry exposé, The Perfume Thief, penned by a detective that spent his career chasing after her. Voss challenges her gender expression by sending over dresses for her to wear on their outings. Clem demonstrates her agility to code-switch as she strings Voss along with stories of her thieving escapades and revealing to him about the great love of her life, M. Clem learned from M about tea concoctions that elicit sickness. She uses this knowledge to make sachets “stitched together [from] a smoky blend of noxious herbs and pernicious weeds that would be fatal only to a kitten,” and passes them off to Voss as healing teas. What ensues is a high-stakes strategic and intellectual game of cat-and-mouse with consequences that could result in death for either of them. Their relationship is complicated further by their flourishing respect for each other’s survival skills.
As the novel pulses forward, the narrative is infused with impending danger as Clem struggles to protect everyone. Through interspersing chapters, Clem narrates the memories of her past triggered by her present life. Clem’s intelligent narrative voice and her upfront tone captivate with its honesty and acuity. Through Clem’s perspective, the novel evokes a tapestry of smells and their obscure origins. Paris is wistfully recalled through the scents of each character’s freedom before the war. As secrets and truths are revealed of all, the destiny of each character—and the choices they make—cause reverberations in the lives of the others.
Small acts of bravery during the Resistance may be less known, but this novel gives imagination to the courage of queer lives during the Occupation. Clem embodies the wisdom of a fully-rendered life, filled with deception, compassion, and transformation.
Small acts of bravery during the Resistance may be less known, but this novel gives imagination to the courage of queer lives during the Occupation. Clem embodies the wisdom of a fully-rendered life, filled with deception, compassion, and transformation. A luminous character invented to populate the queer history that was lost. Once she’s allowed herself to love others, she deceives one last time for those she loves.
The Perfume Thief
by Timothy Schaffert
Doubleday
Hardcover, 978-0385545747, 368 pp.
August 2021
Dr. Phil is in the hot seat following an episode of his talk show featuring conservative blogger and podcaster/anti-trans activist Matt Walsh.
The episode aired on January 19 and featured Walsh, a self-described “fascist,” debating a non-binary couple. Over the course of the conversation, the couple, identified as “Ethan” and “Addison”, argued with Walsh about what constitutes a woman as he accused them of “appropriating womanhood.”
“This is one of the problems with left-wing gender ideology,” Walsh ranted. “No one who espouses it can even tell you what these words mean. What is a woman?”
Later in the exchange, words got especially heated when Addison asked Walsh, “I’m trying to understand. You definition of a woman is someone who is female, is what you said, right?”
“Correct,” Walsh answered. “A biological female.”
“So what happens when you have maybe someone who is female, a cisgender woman, as you just explained, that doesn’t have the ability to reproduce? Maybe she doesn’t have those organs–”
“I have answered the question,” Walsh snapped. “You sit up here and said ‘trans women are women.’ You tell me. What is a woman?”
Addison replied, “Womanhood is something that, as Ethan explained, I cannot define because I, myself…”
“But you use the word!” Walsh interrupted. “What did you mean when you said ‘trans women are women’ when you don’t know what that means?”
“I do not define what a woman is because I do not identify as a woman,” Addison explained. “Womanhood is an umbrella term that describes people who identify as a woman. Each person has their own relationship with their gender identity.”
Of course, to anyone who knows him, it should come as no surprise that Walsh came ready to spew transphobic vitriol. He has a long history of transphobia, having authored the children’s book Johnny the Walrus, which compares being transgender to pretending to be a walrus.
He also has a history of homophobia, having called Pride month a “celebration of vanity” and denounced adoption by same-sex couples. He has also defended the vigilante actions of Kyle Rittenhouse, opposes abortion, and claims that doing yoga is anti-Christian, among other things.
Saturday January 22 @ 7:30 pm. Stephane Wrembel Band. Occidental Center for the Artsis proud to presentthe world renowned French composer (theme song for ‘Midnight in Paris’) and dazzling Gypsy jazz guitarist Stephane Wrembel ! Wrembel brings his superb band, unique multi-faceted style and his dazzling Django-inspired guitar techniques to OCA for the third time. Wrembel’s stellar band includes long-time collaborators Thor Jensen (guitar), Ari Folman Cohen (bass),and Nick Anderson (drums). Don’t miss one of the finest guitar players in the world with his band on our stage! $30 General/$25 OCA Members. www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org. Masks are required. Fine refreshments available, Art Gallery open. OCA is accessible to people with disabilities. Become an OCA Member and get discounts/free admission. OCA is a non profit performing and fine arts center located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental, CA. 95465.
Gillian Eichenberger (Sheila) & Nicole MacDonald (Linda)
Jamin Jollo – Claude
