Ojai Quarterly - Winter 2022-23

ABOUT THE PROPERTY

Welcome to a rare find in Ojai. This lovely four bedroom, three bath home has vaulted ceilings and a spacious open floor plan. The sellers built the home in 1992 and it was designed well before its time. There is a fireplace in the living room which is open to the kitchen and dining room with French doors leading to magical gardens. A large library is off the living room with two of fices upstairs. Perfect blend of indoor/outdoor living as there are many windows and plenty of light. There is a 2 bedroom,1 bath guest house and an artist studio on the property as well. All of this is sitting on 7.5 flat usable acres with some of the most incredible views of the majestic mountains.

ABOUT THE PROPERTY

Located within walking distance to downtown Ojai, this elegant family home has it all. Light and bright, you will love the open spacious floor plan. The beautifully detailed kitchen and den open to a sunroom, with a massive rock fireplace, which overlooks the private backyard and swimming pool. There are four fireplaces, a large office, downstairs primary bedroom with a “spa-like” bath, formal living room and formal dining room — all with incredi ble details, balconies and patios to bring the outside in. This property, just over an acre, has an art studio, garden sheds, meandering pathways, a bridge leading to a five-star chicken coop, guest house, orchards, vegetable and rose gardens, wonderful mature trees, views of the mountains and, yes, a Tree House.

THE NEXT LEVEL OF REAL ESTATE SERVICES

Realtor | Luxury Specialist Berkshire Hathaway Unwavering commitment to my clients’ satisfaction. Driven by passion for the work I do 805.236.3814 | gabrielacesena@bhhscal.com CAL DRE# 01983530 Gabrielacesena.bhhscalifornia.com

Authentic Spanish Hacienda in Midtown Ojai, California! Find your sophisticated haven in this thoughtfully-designed and loving ly maintained Spanish three bedrooms, two baths, just-under 1,800 sq ft. masterpiece infused with romance and beauty at every turn! A wall of floor-to-ceiling French doors opens to a lovely covered porch, creating seamless indoor-outdoor spaces. A spectacular grand room with an in viting fireplace and exposed wooden beams provides warmth and rustic

character; a chef’s kitchen offers a welcome view of the sunny court yard. Past the living area, down the hall, a cozy office awaits, with its own doorway to the courtyard. The luxurious primary suite, with a patio over looking the Topa Topas, is simply a stunner. Your guests will be spoiled in a lovely, comfortable guest room with French doors opening to a terrasse. A couple of steps down, enjoy gathering with friends or soaking in a hot tub while enjoying views of the famous Pink Moment!

Enchanting

206 Topa Topa Drive | Offered at $1,675,000 | Pink Moment Views | Midtown Authentic Spanish Hacienda

Transport yourself to another world ... a world of full moons and waterfalls. Aro matic orange blossoms and papaya. This 23-acre biodynamic farm just 5 miles from downtown Ojai offers all of this and more. The comfortable 3,211 sq. ft. farmhouse features a large kitchen/family room, spacious porches, breezy balconies, and an attached studio apartment and a second studio attached to the garage. Come see it all for yourself. New Price: $3,295,000, a $604,000 reduction!

Tucked away off Montgomery Avenue this sweet 2BR/1BA vintage cottage sits under an ancient valley oak tree. You’ll also enjoy the large studio, screened porch with fireplace, and yoga room or office. All on 1/4 acre in town, close to everything. $1,449,000

a n y m o r e . B u t n o w w e d i s c o v e r e d t h e m a g i c a l t o w n o f O j a i a n d t h o u g h t t h a t t h i s w o u l d b e t h e p e r f e c t p l a c e f o r T h e I v y t o r e o p e n . O u r w i d e r a n g e o f i t e m s i n c l u d e s a n t i q u e s , n e e s t a t e j e w e l r y, s t e r l i n g s i l v e r, E u r o p e a n p o r c e l a i n s a n d p o t t e r y, l i n e n s , a n d e x c e p t i o n a l a n t i q u e f u r n i t u r e f r o m a r o u n d t h e w o r l d . A s a l w a y s a t T h e I v y, t a b l e t o p a c c e s s o r i e s a b o u n d i n n e d i s h w a r e , c r y s t a l , a n d s i l v e r t o n i s h o ff y o u r t a b l e i n s t y l e . C o m e s e e o u r n e w l y e x p a n d e d s h o w r o o m f e a t u r i n g e x c l u s i v e , v e r y m o d e r n , a n d u n u s u a l f u r n i t u r e , a r t , r u g s , a n d a c c e s s o r i e s . I f y o u n e e d t o n d t h e e l u s i v e " p e r f e c t " g i f t , T h e I v y i n O j a i i s t h e o n e s t o p s h o p f o r a l l y o u r n e e d s C o m e j o i n u s , a f t e r a l l : ' E v e r y o n e s h o p s a t T h e I v y.'

Financial Planning:

SHOULD YOU PAY OFF A MORTGAGE BEFORE YOU RETIRE?

LAINE MILLER Certified Financial Planner™ with Integrity Wealth Advisors

Whether it makes financial sense to pay off your mortgage depends on your individual situation. Here are some things to consider.

If you’re like most people, paying off your mortgage and entering retirement debt-free sounds pretty appealing. It’s a significant accomplishment and the end of a major monthly expense. However, some homeowners’ financial situation and goals might call for attending to other priorities while chipping away at their home loan.

Let’s look at why you might—or might not—decide to pay off a mortgage before you retire.

YOU MIGHT WANT TO PAY OFF YOUR MORTGAGE EARLY IF …

You’re trying to reduce your baseline expenses: If your monthly mortgage payment represents a substantial chunk of your expenses, you’ll be able to live on a lot less once the payment goes away. This can be particularly helpful if you have a limited income.

You want to save on interest payments: Depending on a home loan’s size and term, the interest can cost tens of thousands of dollars over the long haul. Paying off your mortgage early frees up that future money for other uses. While it’s true you may lose the tax deduction on mortgage interest, you’ll have to reckon with a decreasing deduction anyway, as more of each monthly payment applies to the principal, should you decide to keep your mortgage.

Your mortgage rate is higher than the rate of riskfree returns: Paying off a debt that charges interest can be like earning a risk-free return equivalent to that interest rate. Compare your mortgage rate to the after-tax rate of return on a low-risk investment with a similar term—such as a high-quality, tax-free municipal bond issued by your home state. If your mortgage rate is higher than the interest rate on an investment asset, you’d be better off paying down the mortgage.

You prioritize peace of mind: Paying off a mortgage can create one less worry and increase flexibility in retirement.

YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO PAY OFF YOUR MORTGAGE EARLY IF …

You need to catch up on retirement savings: If you completed a retirement plan and find you aren’t

contributing enough to your 401(k), IRA, or other retirement accounts, increasing those contributions should probably be your top priority. Savings in these accounts grow tax-deferred until you withdraw them.

Your cash reserves are low: You want to avoid ending up house rich and cash-poor by paying off your home loan at the expense of your reserves.

You carry higher-interest debt: Before paying off your mortgage, close out any higher-interest loans—especially nondeductible debt like that from credit cards. Create a habit of paying off nondeductible debt monthly rather than allowing the balance to build so that you’ll have fewer expenses when you retire.

You might miss out on investment returns: If your mortgage rate is lower than what you’d earn on a moderate-risk investment, consider keeping the mortgage and investing what extra cash you can.

A MIDDLE GROUND

If your mortgage has no prepayment penalty, an alternative to paying it off entirely is to chip away at the principal. You can make an extra principal payment each month or send in a partial lump sum. This tactic can save a significant amount of interest and shorten the life of the loan while maintaining diversification and liquidity. But avoid being too aggressive about it—lest you compromise your other saving and spending priorities.

The decision to pay off your mortgage is irrevocable and should be consulted beforehand with a financial advisor. We can help you project this decision’s impact on your portfolio.

If you decide that paying off your mortgage is the path you want to take, the source of funds is another decision that should not be taken lightly. Taxes and penalties, as well as investment returns, should be considered.

DREAM. PLAN. ENJOY.

IT ALL STARTS WITH A DREAM.

At Integrity Wealth Advisors, we are committed to helping individuals, families and businesses grow, preserve, and distribute wealth.

An old adage states that THERE IS ACCOMPLISHMENT THROUGH MANY ADVISORS. Today’s complex and ever-changing financial planning and investment management world requires a process that is overseen by a team of experienced professionals. As fiduciaries we are bound both legally and ethically to act in our client’s best interest with a duty to preserve good faith and trust.

“If you’re considering having your event at the Deer Lodge in Ojai I have one thing to say to you; DO IT! The staff went the extra mile for us on our big day. The vibe of the Deer Lodge cannot be beaten - it is quintessential Ojai.”

Come hang out with us.

“A night at The Deer Lodge guarantees great conversation with folks you’ve known your whole life or visitors stopping by for the weekend. The menu is hearty, the cocktails are unrivaled and it’s clear that all are welcome at the Lodge.”

p.27 Two Degrees ‘Nature Boy’ & Ojai

OJAI LIFE: p.23

p.27

Friends of the Pod Rain Perry’s New Show and Much More at ‘Ojai Talk of the Town’

By Bret Bradigan

By Bret Bradigan p.45

Artists & Galleries Where Ojai Finds Its Purpose p.47

Food & Drink

Ojai’s Plant-Based Journey

By Ilona Saari

p.110

Nocturnal Submissions

Where There’s Woke, There’s Ire: The Hillbilly Takeover

By Sami Zahringer

Editor’s Note p.24 Contributors p.27 Ojai Notes p.30

Art & Artists Section p.47 Food & Drink Section p.65

Yesterday & Today Section p.89

Healers of Ojai p.109

Calendar of Events

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

“It’s all a question of luck. I was born with good legs. As for the rest ... beautiful? No. Amusing? Yes.”

— Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker was a top international celebrity in the 1930s and 1940s, and a prime example of what Nazis termed “degenerate art.” Her subversive use of traditional forms of dance, taking white conceptions of blackness and using them to illuminate and illustrate greater truths, was legendary. There are good reasons why she was among only six women, and the only Black one, among the 81 historical figures whose remains are interred in France’s Pantheon along with Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Marie Curie.

Primarily, it was her incredible courage and steadfast support of the resistance to Nazis and their French collaborators that won her this honor. It’s a shame she isn’t better remembered for that heroism than the Banana Dance, though that, too, is memorable. If you are looking for what the expression “hide in plain sight” means, you’d be hard put to find a better example. The entire French intelligence apparatus had been destroyed by June 14, 1940 when German tanks rolled beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. They had to rebuild it piece-by-piece across Europe and Africa, and many of those pieces were connected by Baker. When she was on her extensive tours through Spain, Italy and other Nazi-sympathetic regimes, admirers and press would throng the train platforms or wharfs, hoping for a glimpse or a witty quote. While the crowds were busy doing what crowds do, French resistance agents were busy off-loading steamer trunks full of information and equipment, reams of coded instructions, radios, encrypting devices. It was a perfect distraction.

Baker’s heroics are much grander than anything you’ll find in these pages. But we’d like to think we’re inspired by the same subversive spirit, that if (and as) the country tilts toward authoritarianism Ojai will become crucial, a symbol of resistance, of impish good humor, of enduring humanity and hope. This is not the key purpose of your Ojai Quarterly — which is the more mundane, yet important, mission of connecting this remarkable community to our visitors and ourselves through our stories and businesses — but it is a felicitous byproduct.

Certainly, you can see this attitude at work with Yvon Chouinard giving away Patagonia and its annual $100 million in profits for conservation causes in perpetuity. Kit Stolz’ story illustrates how Ojai has already benefitted from Chouinard’s innovative approach to philanthropy and will continue to do so. While the pandemic put a halt to American Mustang Legend’s plans to rescue these symbols of the Wild West, it has given them time to refocus and think bigger and better, as chronicled in our cover story. Jerry Dunn takes us along on a trip to Sedona, Ojai’s sister vortex city, inspiring us to get out and see the world. It is said that you never really know your home until you travel. And the conservation theme of Patagonia fits in well with Chuck Graham’s epic trip through some of the wildest and most threatened country on the planet, the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. OVATE’s new theater project, FuryUs, channels post-Roe anger and frustration and puts it vividly on display. As Mother Jones said, “Don’t get angry, organize.”

Our columnists provide, as always, the spice and color to this issue. Sami Zahringer is a local treasure, and should be a national treasure for her insightful and manic wit. Ilona Saari, a dedicated carnivore, peeks behind the curtain of Ojai restaurants’ incredible array of plant-based dishes, which encourage our way forward for living lightly on the planet. As you make your way through this issue, look for the symbols and reminders of how incredibly fortunate we are to call this place home, or even to be among the hundreds of thousands of people who visit each year.

So while the present age may not yet require of us the artistic heroism of Josephine Baker, it is reassuring to find evidence in this issue, that if called upon, Ojai is as likely as any place to answer.

ONTRIBUTORS

BRANDI CROCKETT

is an Ojai pixie tangerine peelin’ native and an editorial and destination wedding photographer. Check out her work at fancyfreephotography. com

MARK LEWIS

is a writer and editor based in Ojai. He can be contacted at mark lewis1898@gmail.com.

KIT STOLZ

is an award-winning journalist who has written for newspapers, magazines, literary journals, and online sites. He lives in Upper Ojai and blogs at achangeinthewind.com

JERRY DUNN

worked with the National Geographic Society for 35 years and has won three Lowell Thomas Awards, the “Oscars” of the field, from the Society of American Travel Writers.

UTA CULEMANNRITKE

is an independent artist, designer and curator. She is a member of Ojai Studio Artists and runs utaculemann.design.

JESSE PHELPS

grew up in Ojai and has written extensively for and about the town. He enjoys freelance projects and throwing things. He can be reached at jessephelps@ outlook.com

CHUCK GRAHAM’S

work has appeared in Outdoor Photographer, Canoe & Kayak, Trail Runner, Men’s Journal, The Surfer’s Journal and Backpacker.

ILONA SAARI

is a writer who’s worked in TV/film, rock’n’roll and political press, and as an op-ed columnist, mystery novelist and consultant for HGTV. She blogs for food: mydinnerswithrichard. blogspot.com.

SAMI ZAHRINGER

is an Ojai writer and award-winning breeder of domestic American long-haired children. She has more forcedmeat recipes than you.

What does it mean to be Educated?

OQ | ojai notes

One of Ojai’s earliest contributions to California’s cultural symbols came in the 1880s, when San Francisco Examiner owner William Randolph Hearst sent a reporter, Allen Kelly, to Ojai to hire a crew to capture a live grizzly. After the publicity stunt ran its course, Hearst donated the bear, named “Monarch,” to the Golden Gate Park menagerie. Monarch served as the model for the bear on the state flag.

IN BRIEF: OJAI TALK OF THE TOWN PODCASTS

FRANZ LIDZ ON OJAI’S RESTAURANT SCENE

Author and journalist Franz Lidz returned to Ojai: Talk of the Town for a lively discussion about his viral article in the Los Angeles Times on Ojai’s burgeoning food scene. Lidz, a frequent contributor to the New York Times and Smithsonian magazine, also talked about 155mm howitzers, his stint in the Detroit Pistons front office, Dark Brandon and how this globetrotting writer found his way to Ojai.

PARKER: WATERGATE FROM THE INSIDE

Ojai retired attorney Douglas Parker was brought into the Nixon White House to help manage one of the biggest crises the country had faced, the Watergate investigation. He talked about that tumultuous time, as well as the parallels with the Jan. 6 hearings. He also spoke about his popular blog, “Rinocracy,” and his apostate views on the modern Republican party, as well as his authorized biography of humorist Ogden Nash.

Jonathan Fraser Light owns and operates a successful employment law practice in Ventura County, but he has a longstanding obsession. He joined the Ojai podcast to talk about the creation of his 1,112 page, six-pound monument to the national pastime, “The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball,” originally published in 1997. It describes the fascinating lore of the game, from which the Civil Rights movement gained important momentum, as well as anecdotes about alcohol and baseball, superstitions, parks and youngest and oldest players.

'THIS IS WATER’: RAIN PERRY’S NEW SHOW EXAMINES RACIAL VIEWS

Singer-songwriter Rain Perry opened her new one-woman show, “This is Water,” at Kim Maxwell Studio in October and is taking it on the road. The show featured a tight performance of anecdotes and songs, inspired by race relations

‘NATURE BOYS’ & OJAI: THE CONFLUENCE

ONE: In the spring of 1948, a song burst onto the charts with the remarkably memorable line, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love and to be loved in return.” Nat King Cole’s version of “Nature Boy” hit the top of the charts and stayed there for eight straight weeks. It was written by a deliberately lowercased man named eden ahbez, “a strange and enchanted boy, a nature boy.” He slept in a sleeping bag beneath the first “L” in the Hollywood sign, lived on less than $3 a day, went barefoot and also lived in and among other nature boys in Tahquitz Canyon near Palm Springs. While ahbez wrote many other songs, “Nature Boy” may well be the best known, having been recorded dozens of times

in America and informed by David Foster Wallace’s famous commencement address.

Perry’s show coincides with the release of her latest recording, the non-incidentally named “A White Album,” which includes nine songs

performed during “This is Water.” She described on the podcast how the Black Lives Matter protests led to her latest project, examining unspoken assumptions she had about race and privilege, through the lens of family history.

by many artists, including David Bowie, Frank Sinatra and even recently as a duet with Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett.

TWO: Influenced by the German “Wandervogel” movement of the late 19th century, the Nature Boys, who also included long-time Ojai resident and fitness celebrity Gypsy Boots, rotated amid three locations: the Eutropheon health food store in Los Angeles, Tahquitz Canyon and Ojai, where ahbez often hitched rides to hear Krishnamurti’s famous talks beneath the oaks. These proto-hippies and their cultural importance were chronicled by author Gordon Kennedy in “Children of the Sun.”

CONSIDER

a show-business career arc that segues in orderly fashion from actor to theater director to playwright to filmmaker. Surely that reflects focused ambition in disciplined pursuit of long-term strategies, right? In the case of Ojai’s Peter Fox, it reflects pure serendipity.

Fox didn’t deliberately set out along that path, but he kept putting one foot in front of the other, and things kept turning up.

Did we mention that he’s also an assemblage artist? Another unplanned move.

PETER FOX, RIGHT, WITH WILL GEER ON “THE WALTONS.” PETER PLAYED THE REV. HANK BUCHANAN .

STORY BY MARK LEWIS

This spring he will take over the Ojai Art Center to display his art pieces in the entrance hall gallery, while the Art Center Theater presents his play “Disappearing Act,” directed by Peter himself. (The play is about a graduate student who writes her thesis about a magician.) Meanwhile, Fox is in post-production with his new short film “Good Vibrations,” which he wrote and directed, and in which he co-stars as a music teacher.

What’s his secret? Don’t overthink the career thing. Let destiny be your friend. And always keep handy a copy of the “Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s Guide.” It may change your life.

PETER FOX

was born in 1950 in Newark, N.J., and grew up in Wilmette, Ill., a leafy suburb north of Chicago where he attended Loyola Academy. He was one of eight kids in an Irish Catholic family, which makes his childhood sound like an early version of “Home Alone,” set in the same suburbs three decades later. Unlike his Loyola classmate Bill Murray, Fox didn’t do much acting in high school, apart from that one time when he won a spot in the chorus of “The Music Man.”

“Just to be around girls,” he says. (Loyola was boys-only at the time.)

But as a starter on Loyola’s varsity football team, Fox performed before vastly larger live audiences than Murray ever did. With Fox playing halfback and safety, the Loyola Ramblers won two consecutive Chicago City Championship games in Soldier Field in 1965 and ‘66, playing before audiences of 75,000 and 61,000, respectively.

Moving on to Harvard, Fox dropped football and took up acting — but just for fun, not as a possible career.

“I did two Hasty Puddings,” he says, referring to the annual comedies put on by the school’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals.

What Fox didn’t do, to his later regret, was write for the Har vard Lampoon. “But I wound up working for them on ‘Delta

House,’” he says.

Delta House? That’s getting a little ahead of our story. Peter graduated from Harvard in 1972 without a clue as to what he wanted to do. He had majored in primate anthropology, but he didn’t want to be an anthropologist. He had acted in those Hasty Pudding shows, but he had no interest in acting. So he retreated to Michigan, where his family now lived, and got an assem bly-line job at a Ford plant to earn enough money to finance his next move.

That moved turned out to be to L.A., where his brother Steve was working in Santa Monica as a newspaper reporter. Why L.A.? It sounded interesting. Peter crashed on Steve’s couch and picked up various dead-end jobs while waiting for fate to take a hand.

“It was just, go to California and see what happens,” he recalls.

The last of those dead-end jobs was as the bartender at Mr. Chow’s, the famous Chinese restaurant in Beverly Hills. Fox had never been a bartender before, but he had a copy of the “Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s Guide” to fall back on. It came in handy on the night someone walked in and ordered a Ramos Gin Fizz.

AS ANY BARTENDER

can tell you, the Ramos Gin Fizz is a very complicated drink to make. Invented by Henry Charles Ramos at the Imperial Cabinet Saloon in New Orleans in 1888, its ingredients include

A WELL-MADE RAMOS GIN FIZZ.

“FRATERNITY ROW” (1977) WAS FOX’S FIRST MOVIE.

gin, citrus, simple syrup, egg white, heavy cream, orange flower water and club soda, plus a whole lot of vigorous shaking. Fox had never made one before. But he had his “Mr. Boston” guide, so he dug it out and went to work, and served the results to the customer. Later, as the customer headed out the door, he said, “Good job with that drink, kid.”

That customer turned out to be Bill Cunningham, a bigtime talent agent for actors seeking jobs on TV commercials. Fox al ready had a Screen Actors Guild card from his youth in Chicago, where he and his siblings worked as catalog models for the many department stores based in the Windy City. He figured, OK, this is a door that’s opening. I may as well push through it.

“So I wangled my way into his office,” Fox says, “and I said, ‘I’ve got a SAG card — how about sending me out?’”

Cunningham, still savoring that well-made Ramos Gin Fizz, said he would try Fox for two weeks.

“And I got the first thing I went out on,” he says. “It was for Certs breath mints — ‘Two, two, two mints in one.’”

Soon, Fox was working steadily in TV commercials and mak ing useful contacts. Through one of them, he won a lead role in a USC student film that eventually was sold to Paramount Pictures, which distributed it as a regular feature release in 1977. Called “Fraternity Row,” it was a success d’estime with the critics.

The same year, he appeared in “Airport ’77,” a big-budget disaster film featuring an all-star cast plus some young unknowns like Fox. This flick was decidedly not a success with the critics, but Fox struck up an enduring friendship with one of the stars, Jack Lemmon, a fellow Harvard and Hasty Pudding alum.

Next, it was back to TV, where Fox succeeded his friend John Ritter on “The Waltons” in a recurring role as the Rev. Hank Buchanan, a young minister who was set to become romantically entangled with a Walton daughter. Ritter had left to do “Three’s Company.” Fox soon left for the same reason — his own sitcom ship seemingly had come in.

That would be National Lampoon’s “Delta House,” the TV sitcom version of “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” the enormously popular 1978 comedy that made a superstar of John Belushi. Fox played Otter, the role Tim Matheson had played in the movie. Michelle Pfeiffer, in her first screen role, played Otter’s girlfriend. “I was paid handsomely to make out with Michelle Pfeiffer,” Fox notes.

“Delta House,” alas, was cancelled after only 13 episodes. Next up for Fox was a recurring role in “Knot’s Landing,” the long-running “Dallas” spinoff.

“I did two years on that,” Fox says. “Started the same day as Alec Baldwin.”

FOX WORKED STEADILY

on TV throughout the ‘80s, with guest appearances on such popular primetime shows as “Hill Street Blues,” “Dallas” and “Murder, She Wrote.” But something was bothering him. He was making a good living as an actor even though he had never trained to be one. Was he a real actor, or did he merely play one on TV? To find out, he joined the Alliance Repertory Company, a theater group in Burbank.

“I joined Alliance to prove I deserved my success as an actor,” he says.

Apparently he did, because he thrived on stage as an actor, and

also behind the scenes as the group’s longtime artistic director. And it was at Alliance that he stumbled into yet another profes sional role — that of theater director.

Festival. They moved here in 2005, and Peter got involved at the Art Center and at Theater 150, which had been founded by two of his old friends from the Alliance Repertory Company, Kim Maxwell and Dwier Brown.

(Other Fox friends from Alliance who moved to Ojai around that time included Betsy Randle and Scott Campbell.)

To help celebrate Ojai’s Edward Libbey Centennial in 2017, Fox wrote “Ojai Reinvented” to dramatize Libbey’s Spanish-style makeover of the downtown district. Joan Kemper’s Ojai Per forming Arts Theater produced a staged reading of Fox’s play that summer in Libbey Bowl, where it played to a large and enthusiastic audience.

It was after moving to Ojai that Fox took on yet another artistic role, that of assemblage artist. He had always collected odd-look ing items and objects; now he started putting them together in interesting ways.

It just came naturally to me,” he says.

Ironically, however, as Fox succeeded in the theater, his star was dimming on the screen. His 1990s TV appearances included a soap opera, “The Young and the Restless,” and a couple of “Wal tons” reunion movies. But the job offers became fewer over time.

“It got to the point when it wasn’t happening anymore,” Fox says. “I had outgrown the cute frat-boy phase.”

He decided to try his luck on the other side of the camera, by writing and directing a short film. The result was “The Sorrow ful Mysteries of Boomer Pastor” (1995), which won a CINE Golden Eagle Award. Fox also wrote “Two Weeks From Sunday” (1997), an award-winning short starring Ed Asner.

Having won plaudits as an actor, a theater director and a film maker, Fox now took on yet another role — that of playwright. His first produced play, “Acts of God” (2002) was hailed as “hilarious” by the Los Angeles Times. It enjoyed a four-month run in a North Hollywood theater, and was published by Samuel French Co.

“I never thought I’d be a published playwright,” Fox says.

Meanwhile, Peter and his wife, Julie, had discovered Ojai in 2001 when “Boomer Pastor” was screened at that year’s Ojai Film

The resulting artworks were featured at the Museum of Ventura County in 2019 in a joint exhibit with his friend Carlos Grasso, and will be featured at the Art Center starting May 5, 2023, in the exhibit coinciding with the run of Fox’s play “Disappearing Act.”

If all this makes Fox sound like an interesting guy that you’d like to meet, mark your calendar for Saturday, May 6, when the Art Center’s Literary Branch will host “A Conversation With Peter Fox” at 4 p.m. That’s the day after Cinco de Mayo, an occasion that usually calls for margaritas. Perhaps instead we’ll ask Peter to bring along his “Mr. Boston” guide and shake us up some Ramos Gin Fizzes, just for old times’ sake.

PETER AND JULIE MET ON A BLIND DATE. SERENDIPITY!

“HOW TO SCULPT A BUTTERFLY” BY PETER FOX.

FASHION & WARES

Ojai Valley Artists Theater

Ensemble (OVATE) has announced its newest venture and the name of the project might give a clue to the urgency animating it.

STORY BY SAMI ZAHRINGER

FURIES IN REHEARSAL

FURYUS

will be an original, artistic-activist performance piece created in response to the recent Roe V. Wade reversal. FURYUS intends to take us back in time to discover the roots of misogyny, to trace it through history and to try to discover why it persists. However, OVATE founder and Artistic Director, Susan Keleji an, as well as being a seasoned theater professional, is also a li censed therapist and so, far more than simply railing at injustice, FURYUS aims to offer a new way to converse, to grapple with our emotions, and to reconcile voices around this highly charged subject.

Devised Theater is a collaborative, improvisational form of performance involving everybody in the production — cast and crew — and it is a modus that results in theater of enhanced im mediacy, both inviting introspection and inspiring action. For the FURYUS project, classical Greek texts, such as Aeschylus’ “The Furies,” will be woven with movement, song, and contemporary monologues developed by the cast to create a piece of theater designed to stimulate conversation and inform social change.

Acutely aware of the shock and reverberations the Roe v. Wade reversal has caused all across the country, and also in her own counseling practice, Kelejian went to the board of OVATE with the bold idea of swerving their current projects in favor of FU RYUS. Art has the power to corral and articulate feelings and ideas and express them in ways which both heal and provoke, and the board agreed that, given the widespread impact of the Supreme Court decision, this project ought to be a priority.

“FURYUS is in alignment with our other projects, and we’ve

never shied away from a challenge,” says OVATE Founding Member, Jolene Rae Harrington. “From its earliest days, theater has been a vehicle for social and political critique.”

Kelejian has spent her life in theater and is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Goddard College, and USC. She is an award-winning actor, director and writer, seen often on local stages, and is a renowned and powerful voice for gutsy art and expression in Ojai. In addition, as the founder of the Muse of Fire company, she has led numerous young Ojai actors into theater, teaching them classical technique and inno vation and watching as many of them went on to pursue their own careers in theater. She and her able and committed board are well placed to make FURYUS an electrifying and important piece of theater.

FURYUS will premiere at Ojai’s Women’s Community Center in March of 2023. That will just be the start. Kelejian plans to make the production available nationally as a model of what activist theater can be.

Stay tuned. This project is sure to be exciting.

SUSAN KELEJIAN

DANCE REHEARSAL

Perhaps it was potter and “the Mama of Dada” Beatrice Wood’s influence, going back nearly 90 years. Maybe it even goes back further, to the Chumash people’s ingenious and astounding artistry with basketry. It’s clear that Ojai has long been a haven for artists. The natural beauty

FIRESTICK GALLERY

Firestick Pottery provides classes, studio/kiln space and a gallery abundant with fine ceramics. 1804 East Ojai Avenue. Open from 10 am to 6 pm every day. Gallery Open to the Public. FirestickPottery.com 805-272-8760

NUTMEG’S OJAI HOUSE

Featuring local artists, including William Prosser and Ted Campos. American-made gifts and cards, crystals, and metaphysical goods. 304 North Montgomery nutmegsojaihouse.com 805-640-1656

OVA ARTS

40+ LOCAL artists with a unique selection of contemporary fine arts, jewelry and crafts. 238 East Ojai Ave 805-646-5682 Daily 10 am – 6 pm

OjaiValleyArtists.com

JOYCE

HUNTINGTON

Intuitive, visionary artist, inspired by her dreams and meditations. It is “all about the Light.” Her work may be seen at Frameworks of Ojai, 236 West Ojai Ave, where she has her studio. 805-6403601

JoyceHuntingtonArt.com

OQ | ARTists & GALLERIES

framed so well by the long arc and lush light of an east-west valley lends itself to artistic pursuits, as does the leisurely pace of life, the sturdy social fabric of a vibrant community and the abundant affection and respect for artists and their acts of creation.

PORCH GALLERY

Contemporary Art in a Historic House. 310 East Matilija Avenue PorchGalleryOjai.com 805-620-7589 IG: PorchGalleryOjai

CANVAS AND PAPER paintings & drawings 20th century & earlier Thursday – Sunday noon – 5 p.m. 311 North Montgomery Street canvasandpaper.org

KAREN K. LEWIS

On a road trip to our new home in 1964, my children kept asking, “Are we there yet?” Our new town was integrating its schools. Reviewing these diverse faces in 2021, I ask myself, “Are we there yet?” KarenKLewis.com

LISA SKYHEART MARSHALL

Colorful watercolor+Ink botanical paintings with birds and insects. Visit her studio October 8,9,10. For info see: OjaiStudioArtists.org or SkyheartArt.com

POPPIES ART & GIFTS

You haven’t seen Ojai until you visit us!

Local art of all types, unusual gifts, Ojai goods! Open daily 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 323 Matilija Street

DAN SCHULTZ FINE ART

Plein air landscapes, figures and portraits in oil by nationally-acclaimed artist Dan Schultz.  106 North Signal Street | 805-317-9634 DanSchultzFineArt.com

MARC WHITMAN

Original Landscape, Figure & Portrait Paintings in Oil. Ojai Design Center Gallery. 111 W Topa Topa Street. marc@whitman-architect. com. Open weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

TOM HARDCASTLE

Rich oils and lush pastel paintings from Nationally awarded local artist. 805-895-9642

By Ilona Saari

to table is a concept that wasn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye when some of us were growing up. Our moms and sometimes dads (or hired household cooks for the “Park Avenue” crowd, but I digress) were focused on teaching their children to eat “balanced” meals. Food was placed on the dinner plate in a triangle pattern — 1/3rd protein, 1//3rd starch, 1/3rd veggies, a plated arrangement copied by the early TV dinners. If you were a kid like me, you wanted your plate to be 3/4 meat, and 1/4 starch, especially if it was mashed potatoes.

Thankfully, portions back then were smaller, as America hadn’t morphed into super-sized everything from burgers to bakla va causing an epidemic of health problems, including obesity, especially among our children. Even with my preference for meat (my mom wouldn’t give me seconds unless I had seconds of veg gies … yup, digressing), we ate healthfully with appropriate-sized portions that kept us bubbling with energy.

Back to farm-to-table. As fast-food and chain restaurants multiplied like wire hangers in a closet and competed to serve the biggest, fattiest everything from a steak the size of an iMac or slice of New York cheesecake the size of Manhattan, or lest we forget, the 32-ounce glass of sugary soda, many Americans became alarmed over the growing rates of heart disease, diabetes and obesity and began looking for more healthful choices.

More fruits and vegetables and way smaller portions of red meat became the concerned foodies’ mantra. The Mediterranean diet, considered one of the healthiest in the world, grew in popularity … olive oil over butter, fish over meat, fresh veggies over frozen or canned, sparkling water over soda. Many Americans became vegetarians and vegans, and that has developed into a food movement around the country.

HOUSE

Alice Waters, with her restaurant Chez Panisse which opened 50 years ago, is considered the mother of the farm-to-table move ment, serving her homegrown produce alongside her free-range protein choices. But, before “Eve” there was an “Adam,” and the Adam in this food movement is Ojai’s Alan Hooker.

In 1949, Al and his wife, Helen, opened The Ranch House Restaurant in an Ojai boarding house built in 1875.

For $14 a week, boarders scored a room with strictly vegetarian farm-to-table fare created by Alan to be shared at a large “board ing house reach” table. Helen took care of the housekeeping. In 1956, two years after the boarding house was sold, The Ranch House reopened in its present location. Renowned “Mama of

RANCH HOUSE — WEDGE GREEN SALAD

RANCH HOUSE — BURRATA SALAD

ALAN AND HELEN HOOKER, THE FOUNDERS OF THE RANCH

PHOTO BY ILONA SAARI

Dada,” Ojai artist/ceramicist, Beatrice Wood, molded the plates and bowls while Alan continued to cook his vegetarian meals and Helen served the diners. The price for dinner — $3.50. However, the restaurant struggled to stay open and, although Alan and Helen were longtime vegetarians, he began creating delicious entrees with local meats and fish to complement his seasonal fresh “farm-to-table” produce, and eventually introduced a full bar, though they were already known for their Wine Specta tor Grand-Award-winning wine list.

The Ranch House, now under the ownership of Italian artist and

designer, Maria Angela Edelson, has continued to uphold the fine cuisine style that Alan Hooker had envisioned: no freezer, no fryer, and only fresh, seasonal ingredients.

This holiday season, a vegetarian night on the town can be an abundant treat in Ojai for anyone who wants to relax and celebrate the season by being pampered in a restaurant. No messy kitchen. No after-dinner clean-up.

Along with legacy restaurant, The Ranch House, with its vegetarian/vegan soups, salads, entrées (such as baked eggplant stuffed with seasonal veggies, dried apricots, cranberries and a tomato-pesto puree) and plant-based dessert selections, sample the meatless fare at The Dutchess, one of the new “kids” in town that will satisfy anyone’s meatless cravings.

RANCH HOUSE — COCONUT, GINGER, CARROT SOUP

THE OAKS — OJAI INN, HARVEST BOWL — QUINOA, WEISER FARMS SQUASH, CHICKPEAS, BEETS, POMEGRANATE, AVOCADO, SPROUTS, AND FARM EGG.

PHOTO BY SARA PRINCE THE DUTCHESS, RICE BOWL

THE DUTCHESS, TEA LEAF SALAD

PHOTO BY DAMIAN CORDOVA

PHOTO BY MEGHAN REARDON

THE DUTCHESS is celebrating its first holiday season. Executive Chef Saw Na ing’s Burmese menu with a California twist offers vegetarian and vegan choices from spicy nuts to a tea leaf salad entrée, along with chickpea tofu, crispy potatoes side, and a vegan rice and lentil bowl. Some of the other must-try vegan and vegetarian entrees: Dive into a bowl of Chef Saw’s chickpea curry made with local seasonal produce or his “in season” eggplant or squash curry … or his puff pastry vegetarian biryani or, if you order 24 hours in advance, a vegan biryani sans pastry. Chef Saw also ferments summer vegetables that he’s able to incorporate into his winter menu. The Dutchess will see you now!

For more delectable (I must digress again to say I love that word) meatless choices offered at Ojai’s delectable restaurants, here are a few that will satisfy those meatless cravings (in alphabetical order):

BOCCALI’S

known for its pastas and pizzas, offers vegetarian lasagnas, including eggplant lasagna, vegetarian ravioli, and vegetarian pizzas you can build yourself. And, go back for its famous straw berry shortcake, when ‘tis the season!

CA’ MARCO’S Italian menu features homemade meatless ravioli, creamy Fettuc cini Alfredo, veggie pizzas, and more. Veggie Italiano!

THE DEER LODGE relishes its burgers and meat rep for its tavern crowd, but can also satisfy one’s vegetarian palate with a black bean burger, veg gie/rice medley, roasted cauliflower tacos and its grilled cheese sandwich with a side of fries. Who doesn’t like a grilled cheese and fries for dinner? But I digress.

OJAI PUB

Check out the Ojai Pub for its Impossible burgers, Buffalo cauliflower, veggie paninis, chickpea chili with vegan cheese, and other vegan and vegetarian dishes. Veggie pub grub.

OJAI VALLEY INN & SPA’S OLIVELLA AND THE OAKS RESTAURANTS

offer vegetarian salads, pastas and garden and grain choices, including The Oak’s Harvest Bowl, made with quinoa, Weiser

Farms squash, chickpeas, beets, pomegranate, avocado, sprouts, and farm egg. Dine in with the Inn Crowd.

OSTERIA MONTE GRAPPA

offers vegetarian soups, salads, pizzas, and entrees, including such dishes as eggplant roasted then baked with smoked mozzarella and homemade tomato sauce. OMG, it’s OMG!

PAPA LENNON’S PIZZERIA

From appetizers, salads, pastas, paninis and pizzas, Papa Len non’s Pizzeria Offers vegetarian choices in all categories. The Lennon Sisters would sing its praises.

RORY’S PLACE is also celebrating its first holiday season and has a variety of vegetarian choices on its menu such as marinated olives tanger ine with fennel pollen, and charred lunchbox peppers & egg plant, and Greek yogurt, dressed with smoked paprika garlic oil. Place your order!

SEA FRESH

For vegetarian, vegans and pescatarians there’s no finer restaurant find than Sea Fresh with its meatless salads and sushi choices, not to mention its grilled tofu plate with a tahini dressing, tofu tacos or tofu bowl. For meatless burger lovers, try its black bean veggie burger or its Impossible burger, and grilled, charred, baked or blackened fish dishes galore.

Zaidee’s Bar & Grill with its gorgeous views of the Soule Park Golf Course is a bar/ restaurant where you can enjoy a kale & romaine Caesar salad or its garden artichoke wrap entrée. Not to mention its gooey grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup for a holiday supper treat. More than par for the course.

And, let’s not forget all of Ojai’s wonderful Asian and Mexican restaurants which offer delicious meatless and fishless entrees to delight any lover of plant-based cuisines.

CA MARCO, BIANCA PIZZA

PHOTO BY ILONA SAARI

THE DUTCHESS, CHICKPEA FRITTERS

DEER LODGE, VEGGIE RICE MEDLEY

RORY’S PLACE, SEASONAL TOMATO SALAD

CA’ MARCO

PHOTO BY RICHARD CAMP

PHOTO BY RICHARD CAMP

McNell Rd. Ojai,

93023

CHEF RANDY

Bring in the New Year with a bottle of your favorite sparkling wine and my herbal cream cheese spread. Dijon mustard, fresh basil, and fresh ground black pepper combine to make this a mouth-watering treat as you celebrate 2023.

INGREDIENTS: DIRECTIONS:

• 4 ounces of cream cheese

• 2 tablespoons fresh basil (chopped)

• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

• Fresh ground black pepper to taste

• 1 baguette

• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 3 small leaves of fresh basil (for garnish)

• 1 bottle of sparkling wine

Mix cheese, basil, and mustard in a small bowl. Season with pepper to taste. Set aside.

Cut two to three slices from the baguette—brush one side of each slice with olive oil. Broil in the oven, olive oil side up, for one to two minutes or until toasty. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a minute or two.

Spread the cheese mixture on the toasted side of each baguette slice. Garnish with a small leaf of fresh basil if desired. Serve with a flute of your favorite sparkling wine. Which wine do I like? I recommend the Brut Cuvée produced and bottled by Laetitia Vineyard & Winery in Arroyo Grande.

(For more recipes from Chef Randy, check out his more than two dozen books on Amazon, and in local bookstores.)

BRUSCHETTA WITH DIJON & CREAM CHEESE

PREP 10 MIN COOK 1-2 MIN SERVES 4 EASY

By Jerry

Dunn

ABOVE AND RIGHT: PATAGONIA GOT ITS START MAKING GEAR FOR CLIMBERS IN THE TIN SHED, PICTURED AT RIGHT

PHOTO RIGHT: YVON CHOUINARD

STORY BY KIT STOLZ

The Holdfast Collective, which will be headquartered in Ventura, will donate Patagonia’s approximately $100 mil lion in annual profits to non-profit environmental groups focused on reducing the harms of climate change and on

preserving habitat and wildlands. Patagonia has already endowed the collective with an initial grant of $50 million, with $100 million more expected this fiscal year and in years to come.

Patagonia will remain a for-profit company, overseen by the Chouinard family — who are the voting stockholders in a trust, the Patagonia Purpose Trust, which retains 2 percent of the company — in order to continue to generate revenues and fund environmental actions.

The company, estimated to be worth about $3 billion, will not be sold, because Chouinard has a low opinion of the stock market and corporations focused on short-term profits.

Dr. Geoffrey Jones, a historian at the Harvard School of Business who has written about Chouinard and Patagonia, said that this gift of a major corporation to a charitable cause is unprecedented in American history.

“I believe this is a first in the US, but not in Europe,” he said, mentioning for comparison the Bosch auto parts company in Germany and the John Lewis Partnership, a retailer, in the Unit ed Kingdom.

In an interview with the New York Times, Chouinard spoke bluntly about why he gave away the company.

“Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people,” Ch ouinard, now 83, told the Times. “We are going to give away the

maximum amount of money to people who are actively working on saving the planet.”

Patagonia stores around the world — 34 in the U.S, 109 stores in total — closed for a day, and Patagonia employees came into their workplaces to see the recording of Chouinard making the announcement about the future of the company. The news about the new holding company was kept secret from all but a few executives: at the Brooks campus the announcement kicked off a celebration.

“They kept the news incredibly secret,” said Tania Parker, the deputy director of the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy, which has been supported by Patagonia, both by small annual contributions, and by employees who are paid by Patagonia but volunteer for assignments at the Conservancy.

“Even the Patagonia staff working there didn’t know about it.

PATAGONIA’S ORIGINAL TIN SHED IN VENTURA

OVLC’S TANIA PARKER

I was just blown away. As soon as the news was announced, my phone started blowing up with people sending me the (NY Times) article.”

Kim Stroud, who worked for Pata gonia in Ventura for many years, and remains close to the company, as she developed and launched the non-profit Ojai Raptor Center, said that Yvon wanted to break the news to the whole company at once. She added that he’s always had doubts about capitalism with a capital “C.”

“Yvon has always been kind of against capitalism,” she said. “At least the way it’s currently run. Patagonia will continue as a business. We’re not really anticipating a great number of changes, but the Holdfast Collective will be a separate non-profit, with its

own board of directors and mission.”

Although the company’s business “core values” have not changed since its early days, in 2018 Patagonia announced a new mission statement: “We’re in business to save our home planet.”

Patagonia insiders say that in truth it’s not a new idea: Ch ouinard was giving Patagonia company profits away to small non-profit environmental groups long before the company became prosperous, a decade before the company had formalized its philanthropic ideals.

It all began with the Ventura River, and a handful of activists trying to save the river from being transformed into a channel made of concrete, which was the fate of the Los Angeles River.

PATAGONIA’S FIRST ENVIRONMENTAL GRANT

In an outtake for a talk filmed for what eventually became an American Express commercial in 2010, Chouinard explained how Patagonia became involved in the fate of the river.

“In the ‘70s, the City (of Ventura) wanted to channelize the Ven tura River, and there was a city council meeting, so we decided to all go, because we were concerned about the sand flow,” he said. “So we showed up and there were all these scientists there saying

PATAGONIA’S FIRST GRANT WAS TO PROTECT THE VENTURA RIVER

THE ORIGINAL TIN BLACKSMITH SHED STILL STANDS

RAPTOR CENTER FOUNDER KIM STROUD

it’s not going to hurt the river because it’s a dead river. So just forget about it. And at the end of the talk, a young grad student got up and showed a slide show of all the life along the river; all the eels, and the birds that nest along the river, and the raccoons, and there were still 50 steelhead who went up that polluted river every year. It wasn’t dead at all. And that brought the house down, and it showed me what one individual can do.”

It was the first environmental grant Patagonia ever made,” Capelli added. “Yvon was so impressed with the return on his “investment” that he later initiated the “1 percent for the Planet” program, which has now culminated in Patagonia’s recent plane tary grant.”

HOW PATAGONIA FUNDS OVER 1,100 ENVIRONMENTAL NON-PROFIT GROUPS

In Ojai, Tom Maloney, the executive director of the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy, said that even a month after hearing the surprise announcement that Yvon was giving away Patagonia, he still can’t talk about it without tearing up.

“On a late afternoon 40-plus years ago I bumped into Yvon leaving the parking lot where the Friends of the Ventura River had their office in the Patagonia headquarters,” he said. “Our conversation only lasted a couple of minutes, and Yvon may have forgotten it ever occurred.”

After a brief discussion of the surf at Rincon Point, because both Capelli and Chouinard were surfers, Capelli asked Chouinard for a small donation to defray the costs of a lawsuit contesting an agreement between the City of Ventura and Casitas Municipal Water District to divert almost all of the Ventura River into the Casitas reservoir. This meant the river would go dry in stretches in the summer, which would devastate its wildlife, and likely end the remaining steelhead run.

“Without hesitation, Yvon said sure, how much do you need,” Capelli recounted. “I said about $3,000. He said just go up the stairs and have Clovis — who was Patagonia’s bookkeeper at the time — write you a check.”

The safe had already been closed for the day, it turned out, so the bookkeeper wrote Capelli the check the next day. “This financed the case all the way through to the California Supreme Court and prevented the dewatering of the Ventura River,” Capelli said.

“It’s a little crazy,” he said. “But that’s the way I feel about it. I think it’s a transformational change. At least I hope it’s a trans formational change.”

The Ojai Valley Land Conservancy that he leads garnered $24,000 in grants from Patagonia in 2019, the most recent year for which tax records for such donations are available from the IRS. Maloney said that Patagonia prefers to donate to activists, rather than towards land acquisition, but he thinks that Patagonia recognizes that the Land Conservancy is working to “enhance natural capital,” including fish and wildlife, as it works to protect the lands around the town.

“I want to live in a world that includes steelhead in an intact watershed,” Maloney said.

In Oxnard, Lucas Zucker, the communications director for the non-profit organizing outfit CAUSE, the Central Coast

That “young grad student” was a biologist named Mark Capelli, who went on to become the Steelhead Recovery Coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Council, where he still works today. He recalled a subsequent conversation with Chouinard back in the 1970s that changed his life.

OVLC’S TOM MALONEY

Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, said that although Pata gonia’s support — which totalled $15,000 in 2019 — adds up to no more than a small fraction of his organization’s budget, their willingness to fund environmental justice campaigns and to challenge the powerful oil and gas industry in Ventura County has made them invaluable.

“Patagonia was our first funder in the westside power plant campaign against the Puente Power plant proposed for Mandalay Beach by NRG Energy (in 2014),” he said. “This was a four-year battle led by us and environmental groups against the largest power plant operator in the U.S. No one thought that a low-income heavily immigrant community up against a huge company would ever win. It’s very rare that these plants ever get rejected.”

Zucker said that CAUSE had not been directly funded by Pata gonia before taking on the fight against NRG Energy.

“This was an environmental justice issue in their backyard,” he said. “Because Patagonia has a culture of paying their employees to volunteer for environmental causes, employees came to south Oxnard. They saw the pollution and their staff was exposed to the community abuse there and they realized, hey, we need to prioritize equity, we want to see more of a diversity of organiza tions being funded, not just traditional environmental groups.”

Although Patagonia the corporation has long funded environ mental groups, the corporation has also empowered employee volunteers at the retail stores to form councils to judge the small er grant applications that are submitted in a local area. Every few months the employees grant council will meet after hours, on salary, to go over a stack of grant applications and determine which groups deserve funding. Zucker thinks the employees grant councils in Ventura pushed the company to take a harder stand against oil and gas companies than they had in the past.

“It’s rare for companies in the private sector to take on the oil and gas sector,” he said. “Oil and gas companies will spend mil lions of dollars and turn out their employees for governmental meetings. Patagonia has become kind of a countervailing force in Ventura County, as they realize that if they’re really about saving the environment, then they’ve got to get just as involved as the polluters.”

This year, in the most expensive ballot proposition fight in the history of Ventura County, the oil and gas industry, led by Aera Energy, spent a total of $8.2 million dollars over three years to overturn regulations on the industry imposed by the Board

of Supervisors in November of 2020. These measures required oversight and permitting on all oil wells, even those drilled in the wildcat days before environmental laws such as the Environmen tal Protection Act. Powered by over $6 million in advertising, and claiming the oversight would “shut down” the industry, the industry won a hard-fought election by fewer than 6,000 votes out of over 200,000 cast, or about three percent.

In the weeks before the June election, Patagonia donated $455,000 to the Westside Clean Air Coalition, in which a num ber of environmental and community groups, including CAUSE, came together to campaign for the proposition against the oil industry.

Among those groups was CFROG (Climate First: Replacing Oil and Gas), currently led by Haley Ehlers. Ehlers, who said that Patagonia granted CFROG $10,000 in 2020, said that Patagonia’s substantial support for advertising and get-out-thevote efforts on behalf of Propositions A + B “gave the Coalition a chance against Big Oil.”

“They’re generally very supportive of our efforts. Their employees actively participate in the Westside Clean Air Coalition,” she said. “They’re great in their willingness to support our meet ings and efforts, and I would say that it’s unique for a for-profit business, not a community foundation, to support environmental justice and not be afraid to stand up against fossil fuels.”

For Hans Cole, the current Vice-President of Environmental Activism at Patagonia, this willingness to fund large campaigns against fossil fuel industries speaks to the reason the Holdfast Collective was created in the first place.

“Frankly, the scale of our participation in the 1 percent for the Planet focuses on small grassroots grants,” he said. “These grants usually range from $10,000 to $20,000. The collective will continue to support those grants and values and the community engagement, but I think the scale of the grants from the Hold fast Collective can be larger, in the hundreds of thousands or over a million for particular grants.”

In 2019, according to tax records, Patagonia contributed small grants from its 1 percent for the Planet fund to over 1,100 organizations around the country and the world, adding up to a total of $28,619,329.

In the future Cole said that the Holdfast Collective will donate about $100 million a year to environmental causes and climate action. Under IRS rules the Chouinard family chose to establish

the new organization as a 501(c)4 charity, which allows for polit ical activity and lobbying, and not the more conventional 501(c)3 charity, which limits political activity on the part of grantees. The family could have enjoyed a substantial tax break, had they cho sen the more conventional route, but instead paid $17.5 million dollars to establish the Holdfast Collective as an entity that can fund political activities on behalf of the environment without restriction.

“Patagonia prides itself on paying its taxes,” Cole said. “We have actually advocated for increased corporate tax rates to enable more dollars to come to things like climate funding at the national level. We believe in taxes. And I can tell you there was never a time when Yvon or the family or our leadership ever said to me or anyone working on this, hey, let’s try to lower our tax burden. Truly, that was never part of the decision-making.”

Cole pointed out that in 2018, when the Trump administration passed a huge tax break for corporations, instead of taking profits, as did most corporations and corporate officers, Patagonia donated its $10 million in tax savings to groups fighting the climate crisis.

Cole added that also this year, concurrent with the announce ment that Patagonia was giving the company away to a non-profit holding collective, Patagonia initiated another new fund, a 501(c)3 non-profit called the Home Planet Fund, which will be backed by an initial donation from the corporation in December of $20 million.

“The reason we helped create this fund, which is a public charity, a 501(c)3, is because that entity, as a separate public charity, can receive donations,” he said. “Each of these funding entities, whether it’s the Holdfast Collective, or 1% for the Planet, or the Home Planet Fund, has capabilities that we believe can help advance and put more resources towards our mission.”

THE LOCAL REACTION

Caryn Bosson, a grant writer from Ojai who became an expert in non-profit governance working as a founder and executive director for the Ojai Youth Foundation in the 1990s, as an executive for many years with the non-profit TreePeople in Los Angeles, and for The C.R.E.W. in Ojai, sees the giving of an entire multi-billion corporation to planetary health as “super inspirational.”

“I think this is how we have to go forward at this moment in histo -

YVON CHOUINARD, ON THE EDGE

ry,” she said. “This is a time to invest in the planet, and to demon strate what’s truly important in the world. I hope this will be a mo del for other corporations, because what’s the point of holding on to piles and piles and piles of money, when so much is being destroyed all around us?”

Several local non-profit leaders, including Haley Ehlers of CFROG, Jeff Kuyper of Los Padres ForestWatch, and Alasdair Coyne of Keep the Sespe Wild, spoke gratefully of Patagonia’s willingness to support small grassroots groups engaged in politi cal actions or lawsuits. Often businesses and community founda tions shy away from that sort of controversy, they said.

“Businesses are often willing to support conservation efforts or cleaning up the beaches or create living trusts, but when it comes to environmental justice or climate action most businesses aren’t interested,” Ehlers said. “Patagonia is definitely not afraid. They’re willing to put their influence and their logo on the line. And when other donors see that Patagonia supports us, that confidence on their part influences other people to give.”

Patagonia, or its part, shows no signs of backing down. When asked for an example of the sort of environmental action we might see the Holdfast Collection take in the future — the sort of action that Patagonia in the past has not taken — Cole pointed to Patagonia’s donation of nearly half a million dollars to take on the oil and gas industry in the election this June over Propositions A + B, a far greater contribution to one cause than the corporation has made in the past through One Percent for the Planet. Patagonia believes that the planet is in crisis, and is giving all it can to restore its health and balance.

“If we have any hope of a thriving planet — much less a thriving business — 50 years from now, it is going to take all of us doing what we can with the resources we have,” Chouinard wrote in a public letter explaining the gift of Patagonia to the planetary fund. “This is another way we have found to do our part.”

OVLC has permanently protected 2,400 acres of open space and maintains 27 miles of trail for all to enjoy. This is all done with donations from you—our community.

El OVLC ha protegido permanentemente 2.400 acres de áreas naturales y mantiene 27 millas de senderos para el disfrute de todos. Todo esto se hace con sus donaciones—nuestra comunidad.

Photo by Anthony Avildsen

first there was no strategy, no plan, just curiosity. On that clear day in September 2018, Shane Harris saw the Bureau of Land Management’s corral in Ridgecrest with mustangs snorting and pacing in the warm Mojave Desert air. He was a goner. “They were so beautiful! What was I going to do? Just leave them there?

“I didn’t know what to expect when I got there. There’s hundreds and hundreds of horses and that just kind of broke my heart. I was like, ‘This is crazy!’ I wanted to take them all home … it was bigger than what I thought. I wanted to save all these horses,” Harris said. “I went for one and came back with three.”

THE WILD MUSTANG POPULATION IN THE WEST IS ESTIMATED AT 82,000

The first two were Inigo and Elko; they’ve since adopted out 22 horses; eight of the adopters still stable their mustangs at the 24acre River Rock Ranch off Meyer Road.

Next step? Enlist a few accomplices, first trainer Bruce Siben, a regular at the ranch, and Shane’s son Aaron Harris, a technically proficient 22-year-old who knew little about horses at the time, but was eager to build something together with his father.

It was Aaron’s notion to structure the rescue process as a 501-

STORY BY BRET BRADIGAN

Wild Mustangs up for Adoption

c-3 nonprofit organization, and so American Legend Mustang Rescue was born. The founding principle revolved around Siben’s idea that taming these magnificent wild beasts should be through the gentle art of persuasion, rather than the bronc-bust ing domination once the standard method of breaking a horse to saddle.

Like many other notions, the pandemic brought the project to a skidding stop, but it gave them time to reconnoiter and reorga nize. They knew they had something. They’ve seen the volunteers,

some from overseas, who would come to clean stalls and get a wide-eyed look as they got to know these wild creatures, a potent symbol of America’s wide-open spaces.

Siben said that the mustangs vary widely in bloodstock — but adapting to arid sagebrush country “has made them a little smaller, wiry and stronger.” Most retain some of their Spanish genes, he said, “But there’s all kinds of wild horses. Certain characteristics are distinctive … typically, say, 13-14 hands high, with a slight bone structure, similar to Arabian but not quite.” Escaped horses from the U.S. Cavalry, explorers, miners and ranchers have also introduced different bloodlines into the gene pool. Mustangs can range in weight from 700 pounds to over half a ton, while burros are typically 500 pounds and 11 hands tall.

Mustangs also vary widely in temperament, Siben said. It typically takes three to six months to train the horses to saddle, sometimes less. His approach is modeled on the Natural Horsemanship movement of Tom and Bill Dorrance and Ray Hunt. Siben first came to the ranch in 1999 with his mule, where he met a fellow boarder, Jood Lee, the woman who led him to the ground-breaking, and trust-building, work of Ray Hunt. Hunt was a student of Bill and Tom Dorrance, and popularized their work with clinics in horsemanship as well as several books.

“They have had a major impact on me,” he said, emphasizing close observation of the horse, and the way it reacts to humans. “All in all it’s better deal for the horses,” Siben said. “Most have a natural propensity toward wanting to trust people, but most of them are also scared and don’t want anything to do with humans.”

As Tom Dorrance wrote, “The thing you are trying to help the horse do is to use his own mind.”

LET’S BACK UP A LITTLE. Like two million years. That’s when horses originated in North America, before going extinct in this hemisphere about 11,000 years ago, along with mam moths, mastodons, American camels, wooly rhinos, saber-tooth tigers and giant sloths.

Some scholars speculate that horses were hunted to extinction by America’s first residents, crossing over from Asia on the pres ent-day Bering Straits when ice sheets lowered ocean levels, but others point to rapid climate change at the end of the Pleisto cene era as the more likely cause.

Horses didn’t return to their ancestral homeland until 500 years ago, with the Spanish conquistadors. As the Spanish advanced northward, it was natural that some horses would escape. And with astonishing speed, the formerly foot-bound tribes adapted to horse culture, helping to create the enduring legends of the American West. Comanches, Cheyenne, Lakota, Crow and oth ers soon rivaled Mongolian and Scythian riders for their skills and tenacity. It wasn’t until the U.S. Army hit on the strategy of killing off bison by the millions that they were starved on to reservations.

But horses continued to roam free, going feral as they were

ABOVE: WILD MUSTANGS VARY WIDELY IN BLOOD STOCK, BUT ARE TYPICALLY SMALLER, WIRY AND STRONGER THAN MOST. BELOW: SHANE HARRIS WITH FIANCE GWEN MULLIGAN, ANOTHER KEY MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN LEGEND MUSTANG CREW

PHOTO BY BRANDI CROCKETT

pushed further and further into arid, unpopulated regions as the best rangeland was taken over by cattle.

The escapees survived, even flourished in some of the harshest, scrubbiest desert regions of the West. Many of Ridgecrest-bound mustangs originate in Nevada and Utah, where they compete with cattle for the scarce forage.

Aaron said, “There’s 177 horse management areas throughout the mid-West.” Shane said, “Herds all have different bloodlines in them. that’s what makes it exciting.” Estimates of wild horse populations in the West range up to 82,000.

Shane Harris, whose eclectic career as a former professional boxer, CHP officer and hairdresser might seem an odd road to becoming a rancher, took a turn when his mother and stepfather, advancing in age, reached out for his help managing the River Rock Ranch. “Little by little it evolved. At first I thought we could make money training mustangs. But then it just hit me, wow, this is way bigger than what I was thinking.”

Siben left in 2009 and was gone for about six years. Then much like Shane, he was “asked to come back by Shane’s stepdad” to help run the ranch.

It was Aaron’s initiative that led to the formation of the nonprof it group and programs for volunteers and interns. Post-pandem ic, he is creating a credentialed certificate program for interns. He has seen the eagerness people have to connect with horses. In exchange, the volunteers and interns are provided room and board.

Volunteers are offered hands-on opportunities to learn about training, grooming and basic horsemanship. The intern pro gram is more structured; a three-month-long program, Aaron Harris said, “where we go to the BLM to pick out horses, and they stay on-site where they work with professional horse trainers. Essentially, they get to work start to finish with a wild mustang.”

So far, they’ve had volunteers come to work with the horses from Australia, Germany and Africa. “In other countries, the legend is the wild mustang in America,” he said. “I really want people to get in there and get to know the horses.” Shane adds, “We’ve had people that come and say that, ‘You know, we volunteered over there and we couldn’t even touch the horses!’ That’s no fun. You’re in there just scooping poop? C’mon!” The German couple who volunteered impressed him especially. “They were here five or six hours and we figured they’d had their fill. No, they said, ‘What time do you want us here tomor row?’ We were like OK, and they came for three more days.”

American Legend Mustang had interest from producers of “Tanked,” a popular reality show about aquarium builders in Las Vegas, which ran on Animal Planet from 2011 until 2019. “We were hoping they could lead us in the right direction and network with producers” Aaron Harris said. The tagline would be something like “In our wildest imaginings it would be ‘American Legend Mustang is the only wild mustang training facility north of Los Angeles, located in the beautiful Ojai Valley. We show that these untamed symbols of the West can become amazing companions while keeping the American legend alive!’”

ABOVE: THE ALM CREW INCLUDES BERN MARTIN, SHANE HARRIS, AARON HARRIS AND BRUCE SIBEN

MIA, THE COVER MODEL, WITH HER ADOPTER ALEXIS PLANK

PHOTO BY BRANDI CROCKETT

PHOTO BY BRANDI CROCKETT

While the show is still up in the air, they used the pandemic downtime to improve the property; building new corrals, arenas, even an event center for weddings and parties.

It’s become a labor of love for the three men. But there are oth ers involved, especially in building the first internship program. “We give a huge thank you to our past and current horse trainers and mentors; Obbie Schlom, Robert Hayley, Frankie Fullilove, Angie Nelson and George Ortiz,” Shane Harris said.

And of course, it wouldn’t be possible without the BLM. The Bureau of Land Management has under its control millions of acres, including more than 45 percent of California, 52 percent of Oregon, 61 percent of Idaho and 85 percent of Nevada. The federal agency created the adoption program in 1971 with the Wild-Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act, which declares horses and burros “to be living symbols of the historic and pi oneer spirit of the West.” Horse herds can double every four or five years. Shane Harris said, “They end up starving, too, because there’s not enough food and they’re multiplying like crazy. So they have to figure out a way to stop them from slowing down and giving birth and controlling the population. And that’s that’s the hard part they need to figure out. It’s probably gonna be some kind of birth control.”

The BLM rounded up 20,193 horses in fiscal year 2022, and 7,793 have been adopted or sold, the others given birth control. It costs adopters $125 at the time of adoption and title is given after one year of possession. There is also a $1,000 incentive program for adopting a wild horse or burro.

The horses, Siben and the Harris’ all emphasized, come in varied

shapes and sizes and ages and conditions. One, Aaron noted, “let me pet him in one day.” While others are not so amenable to handling. Shane has been “thrown off of horses many times. I don’t like that aspect … because each time I’ve been hurt and well, you get a certain age it’s not as easy to heal. Believe me, I know that.”

Mustangs present training challenges, Siben said, because of their natural wariness and skittishness. “We get a horse to a certain point, we’re thinking, Hey, this horse is doing great when it’s in the circle. But when we take it out into the real world everything is scaring and spooking it and it can become dan gerous.” The horses rarely run far … “They want to stick close to their buddies,” Aaron Harris said.

Shane said, “Except one time we had a horse went off the ranch and was running up the hill on Rice Road. Thankfully, someone grabbed him.” Another adopted mustang proved particularly challenging. “It had gone through three different trainers’ hands and had been returned to the BLM once. “That was Pocahontas. I feel really bad about it. She was such a beautiful horse, I thought, ‘I bet we can do something with her.’ There’s no way I didn’t want to believe that. So she did end up getting trained and ridden on. But once she charged me and I had to jump over a six-foot fence,” Shane Harris said. “I mean, she was a beautiful horse.”

It was a happy ending. Pocahontas found a perfect placement, someone who took the time in training her and she ended up becoming a trusty mount.

For the rest of the conversation, check out Episode 124 of the Ojai Talk of the Town podcast.

A FEW MUSTANG ADOPTERS GATHER WITH THE AMERICAN LEGEND MUSTANG TEAM IN THE RIVERBOTTOM

PHOTO BY BRANDI CROCKETT

JACALYN BOOTH

Certified Colon Hydrotherapist

Ojai Digestive Health

With more than 30 years of experience in healing modalities, Jacalyn brings a deep level of caring to the art of colon hydrotherapy. Professional, nurturing, experienced. OjaiDigestiveHealth.com 805-901-3000

OQ | HEALING ARTS

LESLIE BOUCHÉ, C.HT.

Cert. Hypnotherapist Find your calm center. Release negative thinking, emotional reactivity, anxiety, fear and unhelpful behaviors. Improve sleep and comfort. Safe, loving, rapid change. It’s time to feel better! leslie@lesliebouche.com LeslieBouche.com | 805-796-1616

MICHELLE BYRNES

Elemental Nutrition Nutrition & Wellness counseling focused on anti-aging, detoxification, personalized nutrition, & weight loss. For more information, visit elementalnutritioncoach.com 805-218-8550

AUBRIE WOODS

A graduate of USM's Master’s Program in Spiritual Psychology, a Certified SafeSpace trauma facilitator, and certified Theta Healer. Trained in pre-natal support, transformational parenting, pleasure mastery, relationship and intimacy coaching, chakra clearing, and Inquiry Method. AubrieWoodsCoaching.com

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LAURIE EDGCOMB

Lic. Acupuncturist since 1986, voted best in Ojai! Natural medicine including Microcurrent, nutritional and herbal consultation, Facial Rejuvenation. LaurieEdgcomb.com 805-798-4148

DR. JOHN R. GALASKA

Dr. John R. Galaska, PsyD, BCN, Cht, university professor of Psychology, Neurofeedback, biofeedback, hypnosis for past troubling experiences and enhancing subjective life experience. BeCalmOfOjai.com facebook.com/BeCalmofOjai 805-705-5175

ROXANNE ABELL

Certified Expressive Arts & Reiki practitioner utilizing Tarot, Shamanic & Tantric practices, performance, ritual & ceremony design to support holistic transformational healing for individuals & communities. Book sessions at: www. ariadnespassion.com 706.340.2692

LAUREL FELICE, LMT

Offers Swedish, deep tissue, reflexology, reiki, cranialsacral and pre and post natal massage with a reverent and joyous balance of hands and heart. laurelfelice54@gmail.com 805-886-3674

NAN TOLBERT NURTURING CENTER

Pre-birth to 3; pre/post-natal wellbeing; infant/toddler development; parent education/support. BirthResource.org info@birthresource.org 805-646-7559

ALARRA SARESS

Gong Meditation and Acutonics Sound Alchemist. Master Body worker. Founder of Harmonic Earth — sacred space for healing arts and performance. Call or text. 107 W. Aliso Street HarmonicEarth.org | 720-5303415

JULIE TUMAMAITSTENSLIE Chumash Elder Consultant • Storyteller • Spiritual Advisor • Workshops Weddings & Ceremonies JTumamait@hotmail.com 805-701-6152

STORY BY JERRY CAMARILLO DUNN, JR

Outside our hotel, Pink Jeep Tours guide Kellie Linafelter drove up and welcomed me aboard a vehicle the color of bubble gum. Soon our group of eight passengers was rolling out of Sedona to explore the red-rock country that rises in cliffs and hoodoos and spires all around this Arizona town.

Kellie shoved the jeep into 4WD and we jolted up the Broken Arrow Trail. (The rough route wasn’t named for Old West histo ry, but for a 1950 Jimmy Stewart movie filmed here.) Lurching and bouncing up the rocky track, our jeep appeared

“Oh, Jerry!” my wife called out. “Your Barbie jeep has arrived!”

THE WRITER’S “BARBIE JEEP”

CATHEDRAL ROCK

to be filled with wildly nodding bobblehead dolls. “So Kellie, is your husband a chiropractor?” I joked. “This tour must be good for the family business.”

On the drive we passed western cottonwood trees and gazed in wonder at towering formations of sandstone. It seemed that each one had a fanciful name: Coffee Pot Rock, Camel Head, Twin Nuns.

Our first stop was Submarine Rock, so called for its long shape. As we clambered up on it, I found that sandstone is like sand paper; it grips your shoes, making the climb easier. On the flat summit Kellie pointed out a seam where the rock had shifted five inches along a fault line. “It doesn’t have a name,” she said. “It’s nobody’s fault.” (Insert groan.)

Around us swept an ocean of red rock. In fact, this whole area was once covered by an ancient sea. Over time, its strand and sediments fused into sandstone. “You’re standing on an ancient

VIEW ATOP THE SANDSTONE FORMATION CALLED SUBMARINE ROCK, NAMED FOR ITS DISTINCTIVE SHAPE.

COURTHOUSE AND BELL ROCKS AT SUNSET

beach,” Kellie exclaimed. “In Arizona!”

Next our jeep jounced up to the Chicken Point overlook, where the vista took in an iconic red butte called Bell Rock. (To me it looked more like the Sphinx.) This is one of Sedona’s famous vortexes, alleged to be focal points of spiritual and metaphysical energy. (In Sedona, perhaps not surprisingly, you can take a $500 vortex tour, go shopping at the New Age Superstore with its “World-Famous Psychics!”, stock up on mystical healing crystals, or get your aura cleansed.)

Meanwhile, back on Earth: Kellie gazed up at the cliff rising above us and pointed out a feature called the White Line of Sedona. A stripe of white sandstone that runs across a nearly

vertical red cliff, it may be the world’s most dangerous bike trail. A fall of hundreds of feet from this faint track is sure to be fatal.

In 2015 Polish downhill champion Michal Kollbeck rode the White Line to the end. Then he managed to turn his bike around on the sheer rock face and pedal back. “The key was to block out the scary thoughts,” Kollbeck later reflected, “so I just focused on the trail and not on the terrifying space around me.”

Simply looking at the White Line made my palms sweat. To

finish the tour, our jeep embarked on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, lurching down a natural staircase of rocks. (Tilt!) At the bottom we suddenly left stone and dust behind and breezed onto the smooth pavement of a suburban Sedona neighborhood. “Civili zation!” I cried. “Paved road!” shouted a fellow passenger.

Kellie looked around. “I know,” she said. “I don’t like it either!”

REST BREAK

When visiting a tourist town that’s thronged with, well, tourists, you need a game plan. Mine is simple: Pick activities that take you far from the crowds, such as a jeep tour. For lodging, choose a quiet sanctuary in a pretty setting.

After a bit of strategic study, my wife, Merry, and I had picked L’Auberge de Sedona, a hideaway set just below town on the tree-shaded bank of Oak Creek. On arrival we checked out our airy creekside cottage, with its king-size spindle bed and a real fireplace. Then we sat on our private deck overlooking the water. Sycamore trees enclosed us, as if we were perched in a tree house.

For meals we strolled to the inn’s restaurant, walking along

the creek while ducks scooted beside us. We ate with sunlight streaming through cottonwood leaves, transforming them into bits of bright stained glass.

A true sanctuary. BY NIGHT

“It looks like a powdered donut,” said the disembodied voice of our star guide somewhere in the darkness. “Or a smoke ring in the sky. Check it out.”

“Whoa!” exclaimed a woman in our small group as she peered through a telescope at the Ring Nebula. Our guide explained that it was a star that long ago collapsed, puffing out a vast halo of glowing gas.

Nebulas, twinkling galaxies, and planets are always out there in the night sky, but few people get to see them anymore. The glare of city lights washes out the heavens, obliterating even the Milky Way, our star-spangled home galaxy.

If you’d like to reconnect with cosmic marvels, Sedona is a great place to do it. An official International Dark Sky Community, it designates light pollution as an environmental issue, just like air

CREEKSIDE DINING AT L’AUBERGE DE SEDONA

and water pollution, and works devoutly to prevent it.

With Sedona’s ideal conditions — dark skies, high altitude, and 300 clear nights a year — stargazing tours are a natural. The telescope our guide brought was powerful enough to gather 4,000 times more light than the human eye. Not to get all Carl Sagan on you, but its lens opened up a wondrous world of stars numbering “billions and billions.”

Stretching across the bowl of the sky was the Milky Way, the galaxy that contains our solar system. We earthlings see it on edge, a band of dazzling light shining from perhaps 400 billion stars. (In addition it may have 100 billion planets.)

As we focused in on star clusters and constellations, I realized that a telescope is a time machine. It shows the heavens not as they are, but as they were. Looking at our closest neighbor galaxy, Andromeda, I saw light that had taken 2.5 million years to reach my eye. (And that’s at a speed of 670 million miles per hour.) I wit nessed what this spiral galaxy looked like back in the age when mastodons walked the Earth and early humans struggled to survive. View ing the Andromeda Galaxy was like receiving a postcard sent more than two million years ago.

Gazing at stars sparks a sense of wonder in almost everyone, a valuable thing in this dis tracted age when people spend far more time looking at their phones than at the world they live in. A personal encounter with the immea surable mystery of the universe makes us ask big questions: Who are we? And where? What is time? What lies out there in the vastness of space?

A beautiful natural setting such as Sedona — with its ancient rocks beneath your feet and endless stars above — offers a good place to look for answers.

ANDROMEDA GALAXY

CREEKSIDE ROOM AT L’AUBERGE

COMPASS POINTS

GETTING THERE:

Sedona is located 114 miles northeast of Phoenix, a twohour drive.

VISITOR INFORMATION:

Sedona Chamber of Commerce: www.visitsedona.com, 928282-7722. Local temperatures range from 55 to 95 degrees; spring and fall are most moderate. Elevation is 4,326 feet.

WHERE TO STAY

L’Auberge de Sedona (www.lauberge.com, 855-905-5745)

Luxury inn focused around nature and food. Rooms are in a lodge and cottages (I recommend a creekside cottage, as the setting is everything). For dining, Cress serves three meals and Sunday brunch; locally sourced meats and pro duce, southern European cuisine. L’Apothecary spa, besides the usual treatments, offers Japanese “forest bathing” and sound healing. Rates $450 to $2,100.

WHAT TO DO

Pink Jeep Tours (www.pinkjeeptourssedona.com, 800-8733662) Off-road trips through red-rock country. I chose the three-hour combined Scenic Rim and Broken Arrow tours, $184.

Star gazing (www.eveningskytours.com, 928-203-0006) For optimal viewing, avoid times around the full moon; $88-$117.

Metaphysical pursuits, vortexes: www.sedonaspiritual.com. According to the tourism bureau, vortexes are “enhanced energy locations that facilitate prayer, meditation, healing, and self-exploration.” Sedona offers scores of vortex tours and spiritual boutiques.

And more: Sedona has many art galleries and some 100 hiking and biking trails.

FUN FACTS

Sedona was once home to German Dada artist Max Ernst, has the world’s only McDonald’s with turquoise arches (it was feared that golden ones would clash with the landscape), and inspired frequent visitor Walt Disney to name his theme park ride Thunder Mountain after a Sedona butte.

The American Legend Mustang is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to rescuing wild mustangs and giving back to the community through education, public events and programs. We rescue and train these remarkable symbols of the West so they can become amazing companions. Our training is done through Natural Horsemanship, an innovative method of gaining a horse’s trust through empathy and understanding.

Phone: 805-290-6416

LONE DALL SHEEP STARING BACK WITH KONGATUK RIVER IN BACKGROUND

AND PHOTOS BY CHUCK GRAHAM

THEYcould’ve been small patches of snow, remnants of an Arctic winter clinging to the North Slope of the Brooks Range in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Northeast Alaska

Instead, it was a herd of 18 Dall sheep, megafauna teeming in North America’s largest wildlife refuge, at 19.3 million acres.

STORY

Rafting along the serpentine flow of the Kongakut River, I scanned the sweeping topography with my binoculars for the snow-white herbivores. Browsing on a daunting mountain face smothered in peat, permafrost, hillocks and tundra wildflowers, the Dall sheep nimbly traversed up into a lichen-covered lime stone cathedral towering above the braided Kongakut.

After tracking that herd for two miles, I finally found myself approximately 100 feet across from the Dall sheep on my own limestone perch. However, I wasn’t alone. Apparently, I had overstepped my bounds, and two Arctic ground squirrels were letting me hear about it. They defiantly chirped at me, scuffed at the loose scree surrounding my perch, and then they vanished within their burrows throughout the limestone.

Rivers on the North Slope of the Brooks Range flow northward into the vast Coastal Plain, fortified by gritty barrier islands, the icy Beaufort Sea, and Arctic Ocean. The Coastal Plain spans 1.5 million acres and is the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd. The herd is 130,000-plus strong, breeds in Western Canada, and migrates into ANWR to calve. The migration route of the Porcupine Caribou herd is the longest of any terrestrial mammal on the planet.

The refuge possesses 250 bird species, and the Coastal Plain is vital habitat for thousands of nesting shorebirds like red-necked phal aropes, least terns, and dunlin. During harsh Arctic winters, ANWR provides important denning sites for polar bears. Among the 43 species of mammals, musk ox, gray wolves, grizzly bears, Arctic and red foxes and wolverines also thrive in the refuge.

ARCTIC CENTURION: AN ARCTIC GROUND SQUIRREL GUARDING ITS TUNDRA

THE ARCTIC BIOME — THE LANDSCAPE IS STARK, YET BREATHTAKING

PHOTO BY DAVID W SHAW

THE COASTAL PLAIN, LOOKING TOWARD THE NORTH SLOPE OF THE BROOKS RANGE

IN THE CROSSHAIRS

The refuge is also the native lands of the Inupiat in the north and the Gwich’in in the southeast. Indigenous people have subsisted in the Arctic for thousands of years, long before it was deemed a wildlife refuge in 1960.

Since 1977, the ANWR has been on a political rollercoaster, dodging advances by oil and gas companies eager to tap into its potential oil reserves. Estimates range from 7.7 to 11.8 billion barrels of oil beneath the permafrost on the Coastal Plain, also known as “1002 Area.” Due to political pressure, the Coastal Plain was left unprotected when the refuge was created. Since 1986, Congress has introduced bills to protect the fragile expanse of the Coastal Plain.

The Coastal Plain encompasses much of the Porcupine caribou calving grounds. That migratory caribou herd is named after their birthing grounds along the winding Porcupine River, which runs through a large swath of the range of the Porcupine Car ibou herd. If oil exploration took place on the Coastal Plain, it would disrupt that migratory route and the calving grounds the Porcupine Caribou herd relies on.

Under the Trump administration, a provision in the 2017 federal tax bill made oil and gas exploration in ANWR the law, but as law requires, leases went up for bid on January 6, 2020. Those bids fell far short of their financial mark of $900 million. About half the region received no offers at all, and not one major oil compa ny submitted a bid. Only two smaller companies secured leases totaling $14 million. Many Alaskan politicians argue drilling would be good for jobs, the economy and state revenue.

VIEW OF

FINDING PERSPECTIVE OVERLOOKING THE ANWR

ICE WALKER ON THE KONGAKUT

RAFTING AN UPHILL RUN ON THE RIVER

SOAKING IN THE KONGATUK AT 3 A.M.

However, on his very first day in office, President Joe Biden put a temporary halt to oil and gas drilling in the roadless expanse of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Northeast Alaska.

“NRDC, alongside critical partners among Indigenous peo ples and conservation groups, has drawn a line with the Arctic Refuge, and the Biden-Harris Administration understands the stakes,” said Garrett Rose, staff attorney with Natural Resources Defense Council’s Alaska Project. “This is America’s last, best place. If we can’t safeguard the Refuge from extractive industry,

FLYING IN WITH A BUSH PLANE IS THE ONLY WAY TO START A TRIP INTO THE ANWR

LONE MALE GRIZZLY, HEADING NORTH

SEEKING SHELTER FROM FIERCE ARCTIC WINDS

then no place in America is safe.”

Currently, the two small oil companies that did secure leases on the Coastal Plain, Regenerate Alaska, a subsidiary of Australia-based 88 Energy, and Knik Arm Services, a small Alaska company managed by an investor named Mark Graber, have rolled back their efforts to move forward with oil exploration. The costs of building roads, helipads and other infrastructure on the Coastal Plain has apparently far outweighed the means. For now, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is safe.

“It is so important that our young people see that we are heard, and that the president acknowledges our voices, our human rights and our identity,” Bernadette Demientieff, executive direc tor of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, said in a statement.

BIODIVERSITY ABOUNDS

Rafting downriver, but into a stiff northerly headwind, we paralleled a large, blonde male grizzly bear along the Kongakut. Its head down and into the wind, the big boar sauntered along the foothills of the Brooks Range foraging for food. It traveled toward the Coastal Plain still 15 miles away, but to satiate its vo racious appetite and make it to hibernation, its quest continued during those long summer days in the far north.

I exited the raft and kept pace with the grizzly while running along the cobble. I stayed downwind of Ursus arctos horrib lis, the apex predator of the ANWR. Once that bear crested a rolling ridge a half mile further and disappeared, I let it go as it continued northward.

Back in the raft, we paddled a couple miles further downriver. After locating a decent campsite, I kept my binoculars on me while I pitched my tent. Anticipating the bear continuing its foraging northward, I scanned for it after each tent stake was pounded into the tundra. Sure enough, the 800-pound grizzly found a place to bed down well within sight of my optics.

After pitching my tent, I was on foot bushwhacking through willows and permafrost, working my way downwind and south of the slumbering grizzly. Light rain fell as dark clouds swirled above the high peaks of the Brooks Range. Soddened by the rain, the grizzly occasionally rolled, yawned, and stretched its legs on its spongy bed of peatmoss.

Concealed in the willows and 150 yards downwind of sleepy Ursus, there was a moment of utter calm across the tundra. Sud denly, without warning, the grizzly awoke, trudging northward, its search for food continuing into the next river veld.

As I watched the grizzly forage away from me on the immediate horizon, the enormity of the ANWR made it appear small, this phenomenal Arctic biome the largest, last, great wild place of the Last Frontier.

LEAST TERN PERCHED ON A BABY SPRUCE TREE JUVENILE BALD EAGLE

THE STEADY FLOW OF THE KONGATUK RIVER

RED FOX WITH PREY ALONG THE KONGATUK

MUSK OX SEEKING SHELTER IN THE WILLOWS

LONE CARIBOU USING THE RIVER FOR PROTECTION

PHOTO BY DAVID W SHAW

GENERAL & FAMILY DENTISTRY

“We specialize in biomimetic principles. Biomimetic dentistry is the reconstruction of teeth to emulate their esthetic and natural form and function. It is the most conservative approach to treating fractured and decayed teeth — it keeps them strong and seals them from bacterial invasion. By conserving as much tooth structure as possible, we can eliminate the need for many crowns and root canals.”

Dr. Andrew Eggebraten, USC Graduate and his family

OQ | EVENTS CALENDAR

december - january - february

recurring events

FEBRUARY 10

Perla Batalla in Concert”

Time: 6 p.m.

Location: Logan House, Beatrice Wood Center 8585 Ojai-Santa Paula Road Contact: 805-646-3381 BeatriceWood.com

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Perla Batalla will perform for her hometown audience, with an artist reception to follow the show. Growing up in a musical family in Los Angeles, Batalla was exposed to many influ ences that helped create her distinctive style. After years touring and recording with Leonard Cohen, she launched her solo career with his encouragement and has recorded seven albums, been featured on television and film, and has written and performed two one-woman shows.

DECEMBER 15 – FEBRUARY 5

“Paintings by Keith Vaughan”

Times: Thursdays through Sundays, Noon to 5 p.m.

Location: canvas and paper 311 North Montgomery Street Contact: canvasandpaper.org

A non-profit exhibition space showing paint ings and drawings from the 20th century and earlier in thematic and single artist exhibits. Free admission.

JANUARY 31

Amartithi Open House

open house

music

AMARTITHI OPEN HOUSE

| JANUARY 31 | mehermount.org

Time: 12 noon to 5 p.m.

Location: Meher Mount 9902 Sulphur Mountain Road

You are invited to visit Meher Mount on Tuesday, January 31, 2023, for the Amartithi open house in honor of Avatar Meher Baba. The event is free and open to all. You are welcome to spend time at Meher Baba’s touchstones, enjoy the views, and experience the silence and beauty of nature. The Topa Topa Patio, which looks out at the Topa Topa Bluffs, is open for picnics. There is no formal program.

RECURRING EVENTS

Historical Walking Tours of Ojai Date: Every Saturday Time: 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Location: Departs from the Ojai Valley Museum, 130 West Ojai Avenue. Contact: 640-1390 ojaivalleymuseum.org

DECEMBER 11, JANUARY 8 & FEBRUARY 12

“Ojai Cars & Coffee”

Time: 8 to 10 a.m.

Location: Westridge Midtown Market 131 West Ojai Avenue

Ojai Cars & Coffee events take place in the parking lot of the Westridge Midtown Market. The public is welcome to enjoy the mix of vintage classics, old muscle cars and luxury vehicles, and to talk with the proud owners.

Ojai Valley Improv’s Classes on Saturdays Times: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays and Mondays Location: The Raymund Room at The Ojai Art Center, 113 South Montgomery Street Contact: 818-648-9540

Learn to own your power, embrace your feear, develop better listening skills, value collab oration, adapt and be agile.Build a great ensemble troupe.

Beginner’s Improv Classes are also available Mondays at Ojai Youth Entertainers Studio. Cost is $10 per session, first class is free.

Shakespeare Reading Salon — every 1st and 3rd Monday Times: 7 to 9 p.m.

Location: Ojai Main Library, 111 East Ojai Avenue Contact: Laurie at 805-646-3733 ojaibard@gmail.com

Join our lively reading and discussion. Whether you like to read aloud or just listen, everyone is welcome! Drop in and join the fun. We read and discuss Shakespeare’s plays.

THURSDAYS

“Ojai: Talk of the Town” Podcast New episodes come out Thursday evenings through OjaiHub.com newsletter. Sign up at OjaiHub.com

OJAI CARS & COFFEE

BATALLA

BY SAMI ZAHRINGER

ANGRY LETTERS TO THE NEWSPAPER

A Housewife’s Log

It is with dismay that I sit to pen these words. Yes, dismay, and not a little fury!!! The Wokerati are at it again and they’re targeting our children!!! I sat down last week to peruse your august publication and what do I read? Topa Topa Elementary has had to install spittoons in classrooms because a child has identified as RTSOAG+!!! This apparently stands for Rootin’ Tootin’ Son-of-A-Gun Plus, though what the Plus is is anyone’s guess. Probably Gluten-Free. My neighbor’s cousin’s dog groomer said that it started out innocently enough with teachers normalizing the wearing of varmint-skin hats but before long they’d begun saying things like “Well, what in the tarnation is going on here!” each morning, and “By God’s green biscuits, this is some mighty fine vittles!” in the canteen.

But what’s worse, it’s spreading!!! My landscaper’s wife’s fish-monger says there are currently 17 RTSOAG+ kids in the school and there’s a club to provide a “safe space” for experi menting with fake whiskers. They’ve got sarsaparilla in the water fountains now and still the school board does nothing!!! Teach ers are grooming our children to become tiny charismatic des perados! They’re openly encouraging kids to stop brushing their

teeth, and pushing their sick Foghorn Leghorn agenda on tender minds. My Brazilian-wax lady’s father’s podiatry nurse tried to approach the children through the school fence but it was 10 minutes before they even noticed her amid all their “Hot digg ity!” hollerin’ and shooting at the sky. Even then, the only way they could be approached was with a piece of pickled hog jowl on the palm of an outstretched hand. It’s out of control! But you won’t hear anything about any of this in the lamestream media!!! I had to find most of it out from my prosthetic leg engineer and he had to hear to from the poison-control hotline lady when his cat ate some Viagra, which he didn’t know how had got into his house because it certainly wasn’t his. This is what happens when you start acro nymizing things! My priest is now identifying as a LIBACACD a Lactose Intolerant Buddhist-Adjacent Crypto-Anarchist Crucifixion Denier who thinks “The jury is still out on the whole God thing.” I mean, I’d love to identify as a wealthy toddler being high-end push-chaired around Manhattan but somebody has got to stay sane!!! Where will it end????

I read with sadness your report last week on “Spittoons at School.” Now, I come from a long line of hillbillies and we have battled mightily for decades against these tired old stereotypes. We have tried so hard in modern times to gain acceptance. We’ve trimmed back our lush red whiskers — my sister for one has a daily battle with the razor. We’ve gotten dental veneers, taken Hillbilly conversion therapy, possum sammich aversion therapy, and prolonged exposure to shampoo therapy. We’ve attended Equine-assisted, Sandplay, and Accelerated Experien tial Dynamic Psychotherapies with optional drama classes, and done all that we could to fit into mainstream society. But there’s a dark element in this town that wants to keep us in the past. They’re reducing us to caricatures and teaching our children that regression is good. I looked it up and what it is is “reductive cultural appropriation to satisfy a nostalgia for a time mercifully gone by.” That’s as maybe but it’s a slap in the unwhiskered faces of the Recovering Hillbilly Community.

Hillbilly Community

Re. your report “Spittoons at School” — This is an outrage! They’re mocking us! Damn liberals are taking all that is sacred and beautiful about wearing huge whiskers and having rickets. These leftist phonies haven’t earned the right, do you hear me! They haven’t earned the RIGHT to knock years off their lifetimes with a diet of road kill and moonshine! You can’t just DECIDE you’re a hillbilly. That goes against nature and any muttonhead can see it. You’re born that way as part of God’s great plan. They’re not even doing it right! Not one of them is engaged to their cousin! Not one!

Distressedly, President of the Ventura County Chapter of The Recovering

Yours, Lividly, President of The Yokel Pr ide Society of Ventura County.

SUBMISSIONS

Dear Editor,

I’m furious! Where was the trigger warning on your “Spittoons in School” article? Your newspaper has caused me to suffer a seri ous setback in my recovery. As of reading your paper last Friday I was Florida sober — I hadn’t done cocaine off a Lynyrd Skynyrd LP for 30 days. I was also New England sober. That means I hadn’t done heroin off a Stephen King paperback for almost 2 weeks. But best of all, I was West Virginia sober! I hadn’t done any fentanyl with raccoons for nearly 48 hours. Do you know how hard that is? Then I read your irresponsible rag and the lure of the backwoods, busted sofa, yielding-to-entropy lifestyle spoke to me afresh through words like “bumpkin” and “doohickey” and “innards.”

The old cravings came flooding back, demanding and irresistible but, low on cash, I was forced to go and rob a Tai-Kwon-Do Studio and then a bank because it turns out Tai-Kwon-Do studios don’t keep that much cash around but a child Tai-KwonDo practitioner picked me out of a line-up and now I’m in a cell with a crazed librarian-murderer.

Yours PrisonerIncarceratedly, #74911 Ventura County Correctional Facility.

a few more other menu items. Definitely not more than 10. These may seem like trifling concerns but I am a CUSTOM ER!

In the end, I requested an eggless fennel omelet with a steamed pistachio-stuffed tomato and chives cut on the bias and you would think I had asked for the moon! I patiently explained to the young waitress, who was about as sharp as a sackful of wet moles, the temperature at which the tomato was to be served and the chef was summoned again. The waitress, by now in tears — TEARS! The young are so sensitive these days — was dispatched to procure pistachios from Westridge Market so, maintaining serene patience in the face of this ordeal, I ordered a mimosa from a waiter to pass the time. It tasted like evil mar malade and I told him so. His insolent reply isn’t something one could print in the newspaper.

Why oh why oh WHY can’t we get decent waitstaff in this town? This morning I went to have breakfast at *******’s. Hav ing had a cup of coffee so strong you could trot a mouse on it, I asked the young waitress who had eyelashes a small child could ski off (Why?) about the contents of the vegetable omelet. If I have mushrooms, my ears get really hot and I start getting into the music of ‘80s pop sensation, Tears for Fears, so I have to avoid them at all costs. Then I politely inquired as to the prov enance of their eggs and was met with a stare blanker than a government check to Halliburton. I gently told the girl that she obviously wasn’t up to the task and asked her to have the chef to come to my table and speak to me about the eggs and explain

Eventually, the girl returned and eventually I got my break fast. Well! Let me tell you, my cat eats better that what was slopped on my plate. Nevertheless, ravenous by now, wearily, I ate it. About mid-way through, my ears began to feel unusual ly warm and I began to tap my foot to the unmistakable beat of “Everybody Wants to Rule The World.” Somebody had slipped a mushroom into the omelet despite having clearly been informed of my condition! I summoned the chef once more — as rude a woman as I have ever met. Apparently she has recently discovered that dry shampoo is a great way to freshen up between washes but doesn’t favor moderation and she appeared before me like one of the angrier Founding Fathers. When I told her, that as a food-service professional, she really ought to be wearing some sort of a hair covering, she narrowed her eyes, brandishing her whisk, and told me that maybe my problem wasn’t that I ordered omelets of a sort un likely to be found in a small-town diner but that maybe I was just fundamentally unworthy of human love. Well! I’ve never been spoken to like that in my life and for once I was lost for words. Due to malicious mushroom poisoning, all I could summon were the words “Shout, shout, let it all out! These are the things I can do without!” By now I was frantically applying ice-cubes to my burning ears and scream-singing 1980s pop lyrics at the chef.

I found myself being guided to the door by another diner who was telling me to calm down for God’s sake, let it go. “Yes, let it go” I told myself as I stumbled in fury towards my car. “Let it go.” But, Editor, I clung on tighter.