Page 51 - Sonoma County Gazette 3-19

A Guide to the Night Sky
March 2019
“Invisible Bars”
Bay Area Prison Documentary Premieres on KQED March 19
By Tre Gibbs, L.A.S.
March brings the return of Spring to the Northern Hemisphere with the
Filmed entirely in the Bay Area over the past four years, the documentary takes viewers into San Francisco courtrooms, state prisons, Mendocino summer camps, Tenderloin halfway houses, Oakland recording studios and churches to tell the story of children growing up with shame, parents riddled with guilt, all struggling to maintain any semblance of a relationship after a violent crime tore them apart.
annual Vernal Equinox!
On Wednesday, March 20th at approximately 2:58pm, Spring will
Along the way, we meet public defender Chesa Boudin, whose parents were part of the radical Weather Underground. He grew up with both parents in prison after a botched 1981 armored-car robbery in New York left three people dead. Now Boudin and his boss, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, are fighting for the rights of children, often forgotten when harsh sentences are handed down.
officially begin, while our neighbors below the equator in the Southern Hemisphere will simultaneously be celebrating the return of Autumn. On this day, both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere will receive equal amounts of daylight and darkness, hence the term Equinox which is Latin for “Equal Night”. Back in December, ever since the Winter Solstice, the sun has been gradually making its way northward. On the Equinoxes, the sun rises due east and sets due west, right in the middle—equidistant between the rising and setting locations of the sun during the Solstices. After this day however, the amount of daylight becomes greater than the amount of night time, as the sun continues its journey northward and the days continue to get longer until June 21st, The Summer Solstice.
As always, the moon travels the sky with several planets this month. Early risers will be treated to Venus, Jupiter and Saturn in the pre-dawn skies,
while early evening star gazers will be able to view The God of War, Mars. On the morning of March 1st—at about 5:00 am—look towards the Southeast to see Venus, Saturn, the Moon and Jupiter all lined up in a diagonal line stretching from low in the east to high in the southeast. Venus, The Goddess of Beauty & Love, is the lowest and brightest, Jupiter, The Roman King of the Gods, will be the highest and second brightest, while Saturn (the God of Agriculture AND the farthest naked eye planet) will be less spectacularly bright and just to the left of the moon. The following morning however, the waning crescent moon slips further east and travels the sky to the right of Venus. In the early evening hours of March 11th, look to the west for faint, reddish Mars to the right of the young waxing crescent moon. Towards month’s end, the moon has continued its monthly orbit around our planet and will line up with Jupiter and Saturn again. In the pre-dawn skies of March 26th, look for bright Jupiter to the left and slightly below the waning gibbous moon. If you miss it, don’t fret - the next morning, March 27th, you can see
the moon on the other side of Jupiter, just slightly below and to the left of the Roman King of the Gods. The morning after that, the moon, continuing its journey eastward through the sky, pairs up with the faint but quintessential Saturn, whose spectacular ring system makes it a favorite of just about everyone’s—though you’ll need a telescope to see that particular detail. Look for Saturn just below and to the left of the moon before sunrise on March 28th, while on the 29th, the moon has slipped past Saturn and now travels the pre- dawn skies to the left of the distant ringed wanderer...
Enjoy all the night sky has to offer —and remember, keep looking up!
Director John Beck (“Worst
in Show,” “The Monks of Vina”) also shines a light on the nonprofit Project Avary, which was founded by the Grateful Dead’s Rex Foundation to help nurture children growing up with incarcerated parents.
not to be like her mother, who spent a large part of her daughter’s childhood addicted and in jail. Jessica, who grew up as a Project Avary camper, now works as a counselor for the nonprofit. She still makes weekly visits to see her father, Fred Stillman, who’s served 23 years for second-degree murder after a bar fight in Lake County left one dead and one severely injured.
In this age of mass incarceration, when the U.S. locks up far more people than any other country in the world, the impact it has on families continues to have a profound effect on American society. “Invisible Bars,” an hour-long documentary premiering on KQED after “Frontline” on March 19, follows Bay Area families trapped in generational cycles of incarceration and the people trying to help them break those cycles.
Marh 20th not only ushers in The Vernal (or Spring) Equinox but also this month’s Full Moon! The full moon in March is known as the Full Worm Moon. This is the time of the year when the ground begins to soften and the earth worm casts reappear, inviting the return of the Robin—a true sign of Spring. As always, the moon appears full because it is opposite the sun relative to Earth, therefore we see the entire face of the moon illuminated, rather than just a sliver or part of it. The moon being opposite the sun (or full) also means it rises in the east at the same time the sun is setting in the west.
There’s 14-year-
old Cesar, who
has never met his
father, an inmate at
San Quentin. By the end of the film, it will be impossible for them to ever meet. And 17-year-old Castanya, is busy raising her 1-year-old daughter, vowing
In a flashback, the film revives Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart’s historic recording of a gospel concert in San Quentin state prison, featuring guards and inmates singing along together. It was the inspiration for the founding of Project Avary.
Who I was - who I AM
In Solano and San Quentin state prisons, we meet inmates trying desperately to rebuild relationships with their families. Jessica goes behind bars for a rare sit-down interview with her father, who shares how the love of family pulled him out of a very dark and violent place while in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay state prison. Released after more than two decades behind bars, Billy High is sent to live in a halfway house in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, where he finds a new family in a local church.
The latest addition in a rich history of prison documentaries going back decades, “Invisible Bars” mines new territory in trying to answer an age-old
question: How do families maintain a relationship with loved ones behind bars and what effect does it have on our society?
KQED broadcast dates:
11 p.m. March 19, 5 a.m. March 20 and 10 a.m. March 21 Watch the “Invisible Bars” trailer: https://vimeo.com/216441484
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