FastForward
Vol. 30 #4 March-April 2021
THE PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST
More than 400 entries vied for the top prizes. See the pictures that took the top three spots, Honorable Mentions and Awards of Merit in a particularly strong year for photographers from Marin County high schools.
Photo by Alyssa Mulligan Junior, Marin Catholic High School Honorable Mention
SPONSORS PLATINUM
WASTEWATER AGENCIES OF MARIN COUNTY
GOLD
Edna Maguire Elementary School Celebrating Ms. Lisa Stapp’s Kindergarten class at Edna Maguire School celebrated the 100th day of school by creating fun hats to start. We used our imaginations to turn 100 into many different things!
100
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CONTENTS
Check out the great photography in this issue! We’re publishing some of the over 400 entries to our Photo Contest we received from high school students across Marin. We’re announcing our three Winners and 10 Honorable Mentions, although we were stunned by the quality of so many beautifully executed photos. For our Diversity/ Equity story, we interviewed Lisa Bennett of SURJ Marin. As a White woman in Marin, Lisa is a leader, striving to help make Marin County more equitable for any and all persons of color. We interviewed Twitter’s Head of Music Engineering, Randeep Bhatia, gaining an understanding of the challenges and success he and his team achieved. And we interviewed local girl Devon Baldwin of Los Angeles about being a musician in today’s world. Enjoy!
We thank the Sponsor of our Photo Awards — Bellam Self-Storage and Boxes. We also thank photographer and teacher Glen Graves who offers classes to students. Visit: https://www.photoartscalifornia.com
MARCH/APRIL 2021 FASTFORWARD PUBLISHER: Winifred MacLeod winifred@fastforwardweb.com 415-272-3569 775 E.Blithedale Ave #388 Mill Valley, CA 94941 Published by KidSpeak, Inc., Vol 30 #3 www.fastforwardweb.com EDITORS: Zadie Winthrop (High School) + Emerson Swift (Middle] CONTRIBUTING INTERVIEWERS/WRITERS: Jackie Chin, Jack Callaway, Eliza Gould, Anna Palfy, Zadie Winthrop, Lily Leone, Hugo Leinbach, Marguerite Waldman-Kaufman, Lilah Richman, Semira Robinson, Jacob Taichman-Bernstein, Simone Harper CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS: Addie Egan, Cameron Taylor, Beck Lorsch, Maya Wadhwani, Alyssa Mulligan, Luke Goodman, Sylvia Martin, Aedan Rees, Jack Bober, Jameela Bowo, Kavi Subramanyan, Aidan Tull, Connor Meny, Sophia White, Theresa Ogden, Ivy Brenner, Aiden Squiers, Max Kline, Kyle Ginwala, Alexandra Phillips, Harris Neal, Abigail Perry, Jayden Moore, Mark Schulist, Eli Michael, Brian Gonzalez, Melo Liu, Elizabeth Lurrson, Chase Faber, Shaleez Razavi, Mercer Yee Geyser, Chris Schneider, Ivan Ewers, Elsa Schutt, Liam Schlager, Miles Hunt, Cecilia Bull, Dessa Needham, Adeline Turner, Olivia West-Lewis, Reilly French, Eli Michael, Brendan Cassidy, Jake Ures, Otis Hunt, Alexandra Potts, Oliver Goldman, Walker Frisbee, Julia Shippey, Erlin Lopez-Rodas, Sarah Williams, Catherine Zola, Kernus B. Travis, Timothy De Leon De La Rosa, Ethan Wenner, Paris Marquis, Sydney Luong, Ellie Ronald, Lily Brown, Harry Wait, Nave Cleary, Danica Blix, Nicholas Rankin, Tony Metaxas, Owen Rankin, Amelia Thommes, Natalia Aghazadeh, Zoe Bauer, Ethan Garston, Nick Latinavich, Aiden Achuck, Max Unkrich, Andrew Maxwell, Emerson Kropp, Liam Schlager, Isabelle Ashley, Everett Rosauer, George Campbell, Katie Page, Lily Brown, Justin Goldin, Isabella Riley, Patricia De Palma, Parker Mascott, Robbie McGlashan, Atira Wahle, Roland Ruegg, Will Shuler, Liliana Pedroni, Oliver Vilkin, Avery Hanson, May Ling-Roberts, Naomi Kessinger, Skye Zweben, Cici Dedyo, Tika Win, Kaya Dierks and Manelle Dillard.
LEARN, EXPAND... P. 4 THE PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST P. 17 ENVIRONMENTAL PAGE — PHOTOGRAPHY P. 26 ART PAGE— PHOTOGRAPHY FROM MARIN STUDENTS
P. 28 SURJ MARIN — LISA BENNETT P. 30 TWITCH: RANDEEP BAHTIA, HEAD OF MUSIC ENGINEERING
P. 32 DEVON BALDWIN — A LOCAL GIRL’S SUCCESS STORY
P. 34 ART GALLERY: THE BRANSON SCHOOL P. 40 SAN RAFAEL HIGH SCHOOL THEATRE PRESENTS!
ADVERTISERS/SUPPORTERS of STUDENT ART + JOURNALISM Framecrafters Headlands Preparatory School La Ginestra Marin Academy Marin Catholic High School Marin Primary & Middle School
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Park Elementary School
Celebrating
We had a blast celebrating the 100th day of school in Kindergarten. We did many activities to mark 100 days including: printing each of our 10 fingers 10 times to get 100 fingerprints, creating collections of 100 objects and making crazy crowns with 100 hearts to wear proudly all day long.
Days of School!
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Spotlight
PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST
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With 402 entries, we are publishing our 1st-, 2nd- and 3rd-place winners and 10 Honorable Mentions
1st $300
Cameron Taylor Marin Catholic, Senior “Back to Earth”
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2nd
$200
Addie Egan
Marin Academy, Senior
Cameron Taylor Sophomore “Back to Earth”
3rd
$100
Beck Lorsch
Marin Academy, Senior FASTFORWARD
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PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: HONORABLE MENTION
Aedan Rees, Senior, “Exile”
Aidan Tull, Sophomore 6 FASTFORWARD MARCH-APRIL 2021
$50
Jameela Bowo, Sophomore
Jack Bober, Senior
Kavi Subramanyan, Senior FASTFORWARD
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Maya Wadhwani, Junior
“Playing Piano” PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: HONORABLE MENTION
Maya Wadhwani, Junior, “Playing Piano”
Sylvia Martin, Sophomore Luke Goodman, Freshman
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PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: AWARDS OF MERIT
Eli Michael, Senior, “Inner Demon”
Harris Neal, Senior, “Shape”
Sophia White, Sophomore
Jayden Moore, Sophomore, “Broken Street Music”
Abigail Perry, Sophomore, “Mountain Light” Connor Meny, Senior
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PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: AWARDS OF MERIT
Alexandra Phillips, Junior, “Window Study”
Parker Mascott, Sophomore, “Bright Bulbs Nighttime”
Amanda Davis, Senior
Miles Hunt, Senior, “Geometry”
Andrew Maxwell, Junior
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Aiden Squiers, Junior
Kyle Ginwala, Sophomore
Ivy Brenner, Sophomore
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PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: AWARDS OF MERIT
Dessa Needham, Junior “Belize cave”
Melo Liu, Freshman
Anna Palfy, Sophomore
Adeline Turner, Sophomore
Cecilia Bull, Sophomore
Brendan Cassidy, Junior
Max Unkrich, Junior, “Dandelion Girl” Reilly French, Junior
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PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: AWARDS OF MERIT
Chris Schneider, Sophomore
Brian Gonzalez, Junior
Max Kline, Junior
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Elsa Schutt, Junior, “Futures”
Shaleez Razavi, Sophomore, “Tree Hill”
Chase Faber, Junior “Red Horse Portrait”
Theresa Ogden, Sophomore
Ivan Ewers, Sophomore “Orange Halo”
Elizabeth Lurrson, Senior, “Fragments” FASTFORWARD MARCH-APRIL 2021
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PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: AWARDS OF MERIT
Oliver Goldman, Freshman
Jake Ures, Junior
Otis Hunt, Sophomore
CLOVER SONOMA
Proud to Sponsor Student Photography
Mark Schulist, Sophomore, “Starlings”
Zoey Bauer, Junior
Olivia West-Lewis, Junior
Alexandra Potts, Sophomore, “Exposure”
Mercer Yee Geyser, Sophomore
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PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: AWARDS OF MERIT
George Campbell, Junior
Amelia Thommes, Junior
Justin Goldin, Sophomore
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Lily Brown, Junior
Elly Ronald, Sophomore
Paris Marquis, Junior
Timothy De Leon De La Rosa, Junior
Harry Wait, Sophomore
Katie Page, Junior FASTFORWARD MARCH-APRIL 2021
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PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: AWARDS OF MERIT
Roland Ruegg, Freshman
Isabelle Ashley, Sophomore
Liam Shlager, Junior
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Nicholas Rankin, Sophomore
Tony Metaxas, Sophomore
Nave Cleary, Freshman
Danica Blix
Atira Wahle, Sophomore FASTFORWARD MARCH-APRIL 2021 21 FASTFORWARD MARCH-APRIL 2021 21
PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: AWARDS OF MERIT
Will Schuler, Sopho
Robbie McGlashan, Senior
“Movie”
Aiden Achuck, Junior “BLM”
Emerson Kropp, Senior “Out of the Void” 22 FASTFORWARD MARCH-APRIL
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omore
Natalia Aghazadeh, Senior
Ethan Garsten, Senior
Nick Latinovich, Senior
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PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: AWARDS OF MERIT
Sydney Luong, Junior
Patricia de Palma, Sophomore
Liliana Pedroni, Sophomore 24 FASTFORWARD MARCH-APRIL
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Everett R
Kernus B. Travis, Junior
Rosauer, Sophomore
Owen Rankin, Senior
Ethan Wenner, Sophomore
Isabella Riley, Sophomore
Oliver Vilkin, Junior FASTFORWARD MARCH-APRIL 2021
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PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST: AWARDS OF MERIT
Erlin Lopez-Rodas, Senior
Julia Shippey, Junior
Walker Frisbee, Senior
Catherine Zola, Sophomore
Sarah Williams, Senior
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On Amending Broken Systems, Indivisibly An Interview with Lisa Bennett Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) - Marin County WRITER: Zadie Winthrop Sophomore, Urban School of San Francisco
L
isa Bennett was walking down the street in dark glasses – she had lost vision in one eye – her back ached – the result of four surgeries – and she had a cane. She was having nervous breakdowns and beginning to feel like a really, really old person. Lisa, then, was only 50. The injuries caused her to lose her job as a Chief Financial Officer. She no longer had the title and status that came with her previous position... her life had been pretty intensely shaken. Lisa describes this as her lowest moment; at one point, “I just sort of cried out to the Great Spirit, ‘Use me,’” she said. Since then, her life has been centered around social justice. Lisa’s season of personal unrest arrived when this country was going through its “national nightmare,” as she calls it. Most others know this time as 2016 or the year Donald Trump was elected. Lisa, feeling quite furious at the political situation, gathered her friends around her dining room table. They were meeting to read The Indivisible Guide, a 23-page 2016 document written by former congressional staffers with the goal of “resisting the Trump agenda.” Indivisible was Lisa’s initiation, but she wasn’t ready to stop there. Soon she began meeting other folks equally fed up with the current political situation. As a Sausalito community member, the people around her were also reflecting on change that needed to happen in Marin County. Quickly, she found herself around people who also “wanted to bring the movement for racial justice into Marin County,” she said. Marin County is the most racially disparate in the state as documented in a study by the Advancement Project in 2017 (www.racecounts.org/county/Marin). From there, the Marin County chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) was born. SURJ’s mission is to be a national network organizing white people for racial justice: “We are accountable to and follow the powerful leadership of local Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) organizations and community leaders.” This excerpt from their mission statement is key to Lisa, one of the leaders of the Marin County chapter. She asked us, perhaps three times in our interview, in different words, that in the magazine, we do not draw too much attention to SURJ. She instead prefers the attention go to organizers of color, as she spends quite a bit of time appraising how she, as a white person, and how SURJ, as a predominantly white group, should navigate supporting BIPOC and taking up space in the movement for racial justice. Currently, SURJ is working on a campaign in solidarity with the BIPOC youth of Marin County, and are speaking up about removing school resource officers (SROs) from the schools. “There’s a system of white supremacy, where the behavior of Black and Brown students is being criminalized disporportionately, compared to white kids. Having a police officer in the school is basically opening up the school to the prison pipeline,” she said. Together, they have worked to remove school resource officers from numerous schools but are still urging the schools to hire culturally competent advisors and
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mental health professionals as replacements. While following the lead of BIPOC activists is paramount to both Lisa’s mission as well as the mission of SURJ as an organization, Lisa also believes that it is the duty of white people to dismantle systems of white supremacy. “It’s really our work to do,” she said. She has arrived in this position for two reasons: first, “people who have been impacted by [white supremacy] are exhausted. They have been speaking out about white supremacy for 400 years,” she said. And secondly, she added, “it’s not a system that upholds them. It’s a system that upholds us.” It often strikes Lisa that if she wants to, she can call the district attorney. This is not a privilege that others have. So, “I do that as often as I can; I call the public defender or the sheriff,” she said. She even detailed a story about walking up to Sheriff Doyle in the Civic Center hallway to talk to him face to face and realized that she could speak on behalf of undocumented immigrants who would be terrified to speak to the sheriff for fear of retribution. Lisa believes in utilizing her privilege as a white person to dismantle the very systems which give her that privilege. Organizing white people, though, definitely presents its challenges. Lisa frequently encounters people who approach racial inequality with color-blindness, a term used to describe someone who does not acknowledge their participation in racism by choosing to believe that they do not see color. While this viewpoint does not align with Lisa’s approach, in her opinion, SURJ is at its best when it lets people show them where they are, and then, Lisa believes, “you meet them there,” she said. From there, the work of SURJ is to assist community members in changing their perspectives on racial justice. SURJ is open-minded. They do not call people out; instead, they believe in calling people in. But their work is not just about keeping people comfortable; they are an active group. Education and discussion are important to SURJ, and Lisa often witnesses outrage, shock, and horror as people begin this process. But her work, she believes is to, “find opportunities to transform that into something they can hold all the time, like principled outrage. I’m always there. And that’s different from paralysis,” she said. Lisa went to school in the 1970s at the peak of integration. But when she moved to the Bay Area, “I felt how siloed we were, and how we weren’t integrated but were very much segregated. It was weird to me,” she said. It wasn’t until 2016 — the year of her political awakening — that she got involved. In 2019, when California Attorney General Xavier Becerra ordered Sausalito to desegregate an intentionally segregated school, Lisa felt like the need to institute long-overdue change. On Nov. 3 of 2020, voters in Sausalito and Marin County saw Lisa Bennett’s name on the ballot for the Sausalito and Marin City School Board. But Lisa, as a white woman, had been conscious of how she takes up space and was cautious about running. Why should she do it? Surprisingly, it was in her work that she encountered many people of color who told her to run. And when she asked, “Why should I run, ‘I’m a white woman from Sausalito?’ they said, ‘because you’re a white woman from Sausalito, and you get it.’”
“People who have been impacted by [white supremacy] are exhausted. It’s not a system that upholds them. It’s a system that upholds us.”
~ Lisa Bennett, SURJ Marin
THE TERM:
SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICER: A school resource officer (SRO) is a career law enforcement officer with sworn authority who is deployed by an employing police department or agency in a community-oriented policing assignment to work in collaboration with one or more schools. — National Association of School Resource Officers, www.nasro.org
SROs and the School-to-Prison Pipeline:
Some school officials might use SROs as cover when they seek to evade the responsibility of working with challenging students by turning those students over to law enforcement. The consequences of involving students in the criminal justice system are severe, especially for students of color, and may negatively affect the trajectory of students’ lives. — “Students, Police, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” by Jason P. Nance, University of Florida Levin College of Law
An excerpt from a post @restoringracialjustice:
The Marin County Free Library’s Mission is to provide welcoming, equitable and inclusive opportunities for all to connect, learn and explore. A core strategy to achieve our Mission is providing resources and information that will help our community learn about and more deeply engage in racial equity. For more info, Visit: marinlibrary.org.
“We need more school counselors, restorative justice coordinators, social workers, health physicians, and school staff that are trained in de-escalating.” ~ Monique W. Morris Film Writer FASTFORWARD
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Twitch
building the future of live, interactive entertainment
RANDEEP BHATIA Head of Music Engineering
As a young boy, Bhatia would crawl out of his bed at four in the morning, shirking comforters and leaping towards his favorite video games. Now, as the Head of Music Engineering at Twitch, Randeep Bhatia and his team of engineers are building products and techniques to navigate music technology for their community of users and creators. WRITERS: BT Salle-Widelock and Semira Robinson REPORTERS: Jacob Taichman-Bernstein, Zadie Winthrop, Eliza Gould and Taylor Elliot FROM: Phillips Academy Andover, San Rafael High, Redwood High, Sir Francis Drake High, Tamalpais High, The Urban School of San Francisco 30 FASTFORWARD
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While Twitch is mainly a service for streaming video games, creators across the website also cook, draw, and sing on their channels. Last spring, heading into an ongoing lockdown, people turned to the Internet for everything from family reunions to live conPhoto credit: Sandy Honig certs. During this period of turmoil and shel-
ter in place, Twitch experienced a spike in popularity. Self-described as a place “where millions of people come together live every day to chat, interact, and make their own entertainment together,” the hours watched on Twitch comparing Q4 2019 to Q4 2020 are up almost 103% year over year. Bhatia spoke to us about the growth of
Twitch beyond its original intent, as only a service for streaming video games. “Twitch was just gamers, and musicians became part of it, people who cook became part of it... so, it’s a journey. Our goal is to incorporate interactivity and creativity.” On Twitch, the largest service of its kind, successful streamers can have anywhere from five thousand to fifty thousand average viewers. For many streamers, this is a job. The website strives to be a place of welcoming, and the massive variety of content on it is reflective of that. “One of the things that we focus on is making Twitch a safe and inclusive place to express yourself,” said Bhatia. He’s also happy with how the website is bringing people together in a tough time. “Twitch has given such a huge platform to creators and artists to come in and express their creativity in a safe manner.” Graphics filled up his young years, speeding across his screen. And, as the passions of teenagers tend to do, video games became a lifelong endeavor for Bhatia. He has worked on the Sims and FIFA Madden, two big names in the video game industry. Now, three years into his new job at Twitch, he is already an accomplished member of the company.
of music from independent artists, fully rights-cleared music. The engineering of this new product became one massive project. The goal was for the music to play separately from the stream, to avoid any risk of accidental muting or takedowns by detection programs. If it worked, records of said stream would show only the streamer, sans audio. In order to make this work, they had to rework some of Twitch’s service to accommodate multitrack audio without disturbing current Twitch users. Naturally, Bhatia’s team took to the jamboard. Ideas splashed into their meeting rooms and slowly came to life. Bhatia talked about seamlessly integrating the new feature into the website. “We modified the entire ingestion backend of Twitch to take audio video, as well as the metadata audio of Soundtrack. Now we can make that music only part of live streaming. And it doesn’t end up in any recorded media.” Now anyone, no matter your gaming setup or computer model, can access Twitch’s signature product Soundtrack. Bhatia’s team has also been working closely with the Soundtrack team to credit any artists whose music is used during streams. As Bhatia explained, the artist’s
positive during the pandemic. It has served as a bridge between friends unable to interact due to COVID-19 restrictions and an avenue for recent political reckoning. The House of Representatives’ own Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, took to Twitch to get out the vote while playing “Among Us,” a viral video game. Not only did Cortez have upward of four hundred thousand viewers, but she raised two hundred thousand dollars. As soon as you open up Twitch’s purple and white site, you may find streams featuring video games (arguably what they are most known for), painters, chefs, and much more. Its versatile nature with its hard-working engineers have become a brand for Twitch. With the help of Randeep Bhatia and his team of engineers Twitch has not only become more inclusive but deft in the latest music technology. Even when vaccines have been distributed and we’re free to gather together in person, Twitch is in no way going away. Its boom, along with the rest of the video game industry and social media in general, is a sign of what’s to come. Making entertainment together, being creative and interactive is something that can connect us more.
“Twitch was just gamers, and musicians became part of it, people
who cook became part of it... so, it’s a journey. Our goal is to incorporate interactivity and creativity.” — Randeep Bhatia All companies face challenges, but from this come opportunities for change. Twitch faced criticism when they saw an uptick in DMCA (or Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998) requests from the music industry, which resulted in Twitch taking down VODs that included copyrighted music. The company requested streamers to stop using any copyrighted music in streams, threatening suspensions or bans. Many creators were unhappy with the uptick in takedown notifications and spoke out about creative freedom and the spirit of the website being changed. But months ahead of this, Bhatia and his team had begun working on a solution to this problem. They were building a new product called Soundtrack by Twitch. Soundtrack is a library full
music and album would pop up on any stream featuring their music. Then, any viewer would be able to add that to their Spotify or Apple Music libraries with just the click of a button. Interactive ease such as this is widespread in modern technology, which is part of the reason why the Twitch logo has become synonymous with the video game industry. For many young gamers, Twitch is not only a service to experience the skill of their accomplished counterparts but a treasure trove of different live streams. It allows collaboration with friends and mentors. With a wide variety of age ranges on Twitch, engineers and staff remain vigilant, from vetting new hires to closely monitoring activities on the service. As a result, Twitch’s influence has remained
Want to become a music engineer? Music engineers at Twitch are full-stack in nature, meaning they work with the whole website, doing behind-the-scenes work and potentially modifying what users see when we log on. At Twitch, music engineers must be familiar with the relevant guarded data structures used while being proficient in front-end technologies. Bhatia encouraged us to follow our passion. He almost dropped out of engineering college to pursue a career in cooking! Now he enjoys making amazing red velvet cake and bringing video games to life. Bhatia gave his final parting advice with a twinkle in his eye, “You needn’t know exactly what field you want to go into. Do what you love and pursue your dreams. At the end of the day, it all goes back to the passion you have.” FASTFORWARD
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s a child, it’s nearly impossible to avoid that one inevitable question — “What do you want to be when you grow up?” We are asked that question year after year, and, for most of us, our answer changes and evolves along with our physical selves. However, while it takes most people through their childhood and early adulthood to discover what career they’re truly drawn towards, some know straight from the start. Some people are born into a life of sports, or art, or science, and they never stray from that path. Whether you believe in destiny or not, it’s hard to disagree that some people have a calling. While some choose to ignore that calling and drift far from their childhood dreams, many persist and follow their fate. Devon Baldwin did not ignore her calling. The daughter of two avid musicians, Devon Baldwin was born into a life of music. “I grew up around music and started singing when I was, like, three years old,” she says. “Instead of playing with my Barbies, and having them have dialogue, I would have them sing to each other - like little mini-operas.” Both of her parents encouraged her to sing and create music since she was a young child, and once she started, she never stopped. A Bay Area native, Baldwin grew up in San Rafael and attended Marin Academy. She attributes much of her musical inspiration to her background and experiences growing up in Marin. “When I came back to the Bay, I was like, oh my God, there are mountains. And there’s the ocean, and there’s just so many elements in one place. It’s just like so, so magical. Andthat comes into my music a lot.” She particularly credits the music program at Marin Academy for her success today. After graduating from MA, Baldwin attended Loyola University in New Orleans; this is where her career really began to take off. Although she began college as a music industry major, she soon found herself switching to the only program in the school that vaguely resembled pop singing: opera. “Since they didn’t have a pop program, it was kind of like, either you sing opera music or you take business, or switch careers completely. So, yeah, that’s why I started singing opera in college,” she told us, going to on to explain how this was a difficult switch for her, especially considering she couldn’t even read music
at the time. Despite the challenge, it was a very valuable experience for Baldwin - “I learned a lot in terms of technique and other areas of music. It was really, really fun...I’m glad that I expanded my knowledge of music history as well.” While the knowledge she gained at Loyola was extremely valuable, the connections she made served an equally important role in forming her career. It was here that she met Christoph Andersson and Gerald Gillum (“G-Eazy”), with whom she has frequently collaborated, along with her former manager, Matt Bauerschmidt. She especially credits Gillum for influencing her career: “One of the first artists that I ever collaborated with was G-Eazy, because he and I went to college together. We were living together and writing music together, and that was just part of how I even figured out how to be an artist myself.” She knew she wanted to sing, but never considered writing her own music. Working with Gillium, she says, taught her how to hone in on her identity as an artist. “Let’s Get Lost,” G-Eazy’s 2014 hit, was the first song Baldwin professionally worked on. Although it was at a time before she had come into her own as a songwriter, Gillium had suggested that she write a song for his first album. “I was like, ‘Oh, you know, that’s a good idea. That doesn’t sound like any pressure,’” she recalled, laughing. However, despite her lack of experience writing music, it wasn’t long before a melody came to her. “I was literally watching TV, and suddenly, this melody just popped into my head. And I just recorded it on a voice memo and then wrote down these super simple words.” Although she was nervous to present the song to Gillium, he was immediately impressed and wanted to record it right away. “I just went in and found the chords on piano, which I barely knew how to do at that time. And I had never felt that validated from something I’d created because I hadn’t really created anything yet.” Fast forward a short time, and the song was released with G-Eazy’s first studio album, which peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 200 record chart.
However, things weren’t always that easy for Baldwin: when she was 23 years old, she suffered from a collapsed lung. “I was literally just sitting on my couch and I tried to crack my back, you know, by arching my back, and my lung just ripped open,” she told us. “It was super weird, and I had no idea what was going on. I just suddenly had this really sharp pain in my chest.” After calling her doctor, Baldwin was instructed to go to the emergency room, where a tube was put into her chest to help re-inflate the air into her chest cavity. After suffering from two more collapses in the following two months, she had to undergo surgery to staple the hole in her lung shut. “It was a crazy, crazy experience,” she recalls. “I remember when I first got to the ER, I was like, ‘I’m a singer, am I ever going to be able to sing again?’ And the nurse’s answer was ‘I don’t know.’” Having just graduated from college and recently written “Let’s Get Lost”, this couldn’t have come at a worse time for Baldwin. “It was a huge, huge wake-up call for me,” she described, explaining how the experience made her more dedicated to a career in music than she ever was before. Luckily, Baldwin fully recovered and was able to continue making music. In 2015, she performed at the Outside Lands musical festival, which she describes as one of her most memorable experiences and greatest accomplishments. Today, she continues to write and make music, most recently co-producing the single “Angel Cry” with G-Eazy. While the COVID-19 pandemic canceled Baldwin’s planned tours during April and July, she says she appreciates the time she’s had to focus on writing. She is currently working on her first full-length album, which she is excited to share with the public when the time comes. Above all, Baldwin loves that she is able to create something and share it with the world: “I think just creating in general for me is so rewarding because you get to give that thing to the world,” she described. “I’m like, ‘I made that and I gave it to the world and that’s never going to be undone.’ And it gives me a sense of accomplishment.” FASTFORWARD MARCH-APRIL
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Art Gallery
Eric Oldmixon’s art students — BRANSON SCHOOL
Manelle Dillard, Junior, Branson Kaya Dierks, Senior, Branson
Skye Zweben, Senior, Branson
Avery Hanson, Senior, Branson
24 Bellam Blvd. San Rafael, CA 94901 415 454-1983 www.bellamstorage.com
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Naomi Kessinger, Senior, Branson May Ling-Roberts, Senior, Branson Tika Win, Junior, Branson
Cici Dedyo, Junior, Branson
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SPONSORING NEIL CUMMINS SCHOOL GARDEN Each month Sloat Garden Center offers a $250 garden grant to a new Marin County school. Here’s what’s happening in the Hawks school garden: In our garden, we learn about different kinds of plants and how they grow. We have garden beds devoted to growing fruits and vegetables, and others devoted to California natives and other plants beneficial to pollinators, beneficial insects and other wildlife. “I like the whole garden because it attracts so many animals that help our ecosystem.” — Sofia “Our favorite thing about the garden are strawberries because they taste so good.” — Lena and Mariely “The bees work so hard to pollinate the flowers.”— Yasmin “I love watching the bees on the borage flowers.” — Chase “I like likes seeing all the vegetables and fruits.” — Georgia “The garden makes us feel good.” — Jack, Lorenzo and Collin “I like discovering plants I have not seen before.” — Harper “I love drawing the borage and cactuses.” — Siena “I love watching honeybees on bok choy flowers.” — Cole
Chase
Harper
To learn more about our work with Bay Area school gardens, visit www.sloatgardens.com 36
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MILL VALLEY 2021
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San Rafael High School “THE WALLS”
Top Row, l to r: Ash Jones, Grisha Driscoll and Gretszam Zabek. Middle row, l to r: Emily Daniels, Louie Blecka and Eric Burke. Bottom row, l to r: Sandra Serrano Garcia, Andrew Herold and Austin Graff.
San Rafael High School's 2021 play “THE WALLS” was written, directed and produced by seniors Austin Graff and Andrew Herold with an all-senior cast who are seasoned performers. It is being filmed live and available online. Theater has given me a place to feel comfortable expressing some of my feelings and being open about myself. It has given me a group of friends who are always supportive in allowing me to be so open in my expression. — Louie Blecka Through theater, I have gained a lot more confidence in myself and how I express it. Theater is just such an understanding and comfortable environment that you can truly be yourself. — Eric Burke Theater has taught me how to be comfortable around people I don’t know and become friends with them quickly. — Emily Daniels I’ve personally always enjoyed stage stuff, whether it be for music performances or plays, the stage has become a safe place for me. It’s stressful at times but I’m always learning and improving while also spending quality time with good friends.— Grisha Driscoll Theater has been a great way to creatively express different ideas, thoughts, and emotions whether it be through the writing side or the acting side. I love performing with these wonderful people and it’s great we all share this same passion. — Austin Graff Thanks to this show, I’ve been able to build strong bonds with a great group of people who always continue to impress me. Everyday I get more and more excited for the day we finally get to perform! — Andrew Herold This experience has helped me build stronger connections with the people around me. In theater I’ve become more comfortable with coming out of my shell and I now have confidence in myself. — Ash Jones Theater has helped me grow as a person and become more comfortable with expressing myself. I’ve also built strong friendships through theater that are pretty cool. — Gretszam Zabek
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