Video

Rise up singing

Michael Redmond
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0
Rise up singing

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM A remarkably effective — and remarkably simple — form of music therapy pioneered by New York social worker Dan Cohen finds a strong advocate in filmmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett, whose documentary Alive Inside benefits greatly from its awesomely cinematic results. The doc sprang from a 2011 YouTube video, “Man In Nursing Home Reacts to Hearing Music from His Era,” a six-minute clip that went viral after a Reddit post. (It’s since garnered nearly 1.5 million views.)

The scene is a typically depressing nursing home, where an elderly man named Henry sits hunched over in a wheelchair. But once he’s given a pair of headphones and an iPod loaded with the gospel songs he used to love, he lights up. His eyes open wide. He boogies in his chair. He croons along at the top of his lungs. Even more incredibly, after the headphones are lifted, he’s able to converse with Rossato-Bennett, enthusing about Cab Calloway and his long-ago job as a “grocery boy.” In just seconds, the music he’d long forgotten seemingly zapped Henry with fresh life, enabling him to connect with his memories and express himself with surprising energy.

No wonder Rossato-Bennett, who filmed numerous examples of this phenomenon over the three years he followed Cohen, chose to make Alive Inside his first feature-length doc. Even though we know what to expect after seeing Henry’s reaction, the before-and-afters are intensely moving with every patient: the bipolar schizophrenic whose constant distress is alleviated, however briefly, by a spontaneous encounter with a funky tune; the man with dementia who sparks with his healthy wife, to her teary-eyed delight, as they listen to the Shirelles; the middle-aged woman whose frustration with her forgetfulness is soothed by a much-needed dose of the Beach Boys. And it’s not just the pleasure of hearing the music, Alive Inside suggests; it’s the regained sense of identity and emotion that music triggers in people whose memories have been essentially wiped clean.

Though the film could’ve probably sustained interest just based on these small yet monumental moments, Rossato-Bennett widens his focus to include neurology — Dr. Oliver Sacks explains how music is “a back door into the mind” for patients with Alzheimer’s and related diseases — and the history of American elder care, expanded upon by physicians and others who think the current system favors efficiency over nurturing. (It also struggles against a culture where youth is prized, and aging people are seen as something to be hidden away.) Care facilities emphasize regimented schedules, and most patients are overly medicated. As activist and geriatric medicine specialist Dr. Bill Thomas points out, the big bucks in health care are in pharmaceuticals. One social worker’s dream of distributing iPods filled with big band jams and other music tailored specifically to each patient is a fringe idea at best, no matter how effective it’s proven to be.

Alive Inside also investigates music’s primal powers, with Bobby “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” McFerrin and Musicians for World Harmony co-founder Samite Mulondo offering their expertise. More of an enigma is Cohen (Rossato-Bennett handles the occasionally over-sentimental narration), a lanky, soft-spoken man who cares deeply about the people he’s trying to help, even doing an awkward shuffle with a patient enjoying her first iPod experience. Cohen’s nonprofit, Music & Memory, came about as a result of his volunteer work in nursing homes, which he describes as a “life-changing experience.” Unfortunately, not everyone shares his point of view. We see him networking at a long-term care conference with some success, but he’s also shown pleading his case to facilities that refuse to accommodate him, and prodding deep-pocketed corporations that decline to donate.

Alive Inside‘s delighted chronicling of its own viral origins — Henry and his gospel awakening — caps the movie with a sense of hope that maybe The Kids can be bothered to care about The Olds, after all. One way to start: At screenings across America, including at San Francisco’s Opera Plaza, Cohen’s Music & Memory will have donation boxes to scoop up working iPods for its cause. *

 

ALIVE INSIDE opens Fri/8 in Bay Area theaters.

Eff you, gravity! Watch this skater fly over a fence at the new SoMa West skatepark

Erica Hanna
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8
Eff you, gravity! Watch this skater fly over a fence at the new SoMa West skatepark

The Guardian recently covered the unveiling of the SoMa West skatepark, a new skate spot giving a glint of hope to the city’s skate scene. And despite the crowing of the fist-shakers at the Chronicle (quit that damn noise, you hooligans!), our trip to the new skatepark found folks having a grind-happy grand ol’ time.

Now a new video from Thrasher Magazine shows a badass jump from a skater, who flies over the new skatepark’s fence and onto the streets. I mean, shoot, this guy flies. This skater essentially just flipped the bird to gravity, and landed his board straight onto Duboce.

Check it out below, and check out our photo gallery of the SoMa West skatepark here. Kudos to Julia Chan at CIR for spotting the video.

Watch: Lil B’s “No Black Person Is Ugly”

Steven T. Jones
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16
Watch: Lil B’s “No Black Person Is Ugly”

Because we’ve all been proving in this space lately that we’re intelligent, forward-thinking adults who can talk about ethnicity with nuance, sensitivity, and a deep understanding of the history of class issues and race relations in the U.S. and elsewhere, I’m just going to go ahead and post this new video from the 24-year-old East Bay rapper Lil B, aka Brandon McCartney, aka the Based God — who I am morally and perhaps legally obligated to mention is a product of the fine, tiny Albany public schools that (years before him) nurtured yours truly, among others — without too much commentary.

Suffice it to say that the song, with lyrics that straightforwardly call out how far this country has to go in its representations of African American people in pop culture and elsewhere, while simultaneously condemning street violence and rape  — I wish hearing a rapper say “no means no” wasn’t so damn surprising on the ears, but it is — basically overflows with warmth and positivity. It’s also a good reminder that the kid’s really got a decent flow, despite having made a gimmicky name for himself with songs that mostly got attention for being weird, like “I’m Miley Cyrus.”

That being the case, it’s tough not to wish he would put his obvious talent to work just a little more often. Vice called the track nothing short of “revolutionary,” and Pitchfork just named it best new track of the day. We’ll have to wait see what else is in store on the forthcoming mixtape that this new track is from, an album apparently, hilariously (while we’re discussing all this positivity) called Ultimate Bitch. Such is the enigma of Lil B.

 

Democracy wow!

Michael Redmond
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0
Democracy wow!

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER From a certain angle, democracy is just one big bout of audience participation. So when playwright Aaron Landsman, director Mallory Catlett, and designer Jim Findlay started kicking around the idea of somehow staging a city council meeting, of all things, the notion that the audience itself should enact it must have come as a eureka moment.

It is indeed the charm and challenge of City Council Meeting that, while conceived and instigated by the New York–based artistic trio, the show is ultimately a collaboration with whoever shows up, plus a few semi-rehearsed locals in on the running of the thing. These latter include a group of “staffers” who help guide participants through an actual city council meeting — or more precisely, a seamless composite of public transcripts of such meetings held around the US in the past couple of years, plus an artistic flourish or two. For the San Francisco premiere (running this weekend at local co-presenter Z Space), the staffers include Claudia Anderson, Awele, Dwayne Calizo, Jennifer Chien, Sarah Curran, and me.

Moreover, the piece always concludes with an original ending crafted specifically for the locale in which it plays (that, so far, has been Houston, Texas; Tempe, Ariz.; and New York City). This time, the play’s unique final movement, a creative response to what has preceded it, was built in partnership with Bay Area director-choreographer Erika Chong Shuch.

As a staffer, your job is to help facilitate the encounter between the play and its audience. Since that’s kind of what a critic does anyway, I reasoned, and given that everyone in the audience is already at least minimally involved in the production, I signed on for a more inside track on City Council Meeting‘s three-day San Francisco run. At the first rehearsal, director Catlett introduced us to our binders, which contained things we’d need, including something like the script of the performance.

(There is no definitive script. The play is an un-distillable architecture of discrete dialogue, directions on note cards, live and recorded video feeds, and whispered cues, not to mention the unforeseeable but pretty much guaranteed contingency. And perspectives and experiences will vary pretty widely depending on the physical and dramatic space one chooses to occupy: council member, speaker, bystander.)

It was a little confusing, frankly. But halfway through a swift two weeks of rehearsal, I’m seeing more clearly the shape of the show as well as appreciating the subtleties in its construction. Like much contemporary participatory performance, or what’s sometimes called “social practice” art, City Council Meeting moves the bulk of the action and agency onto its audience as a way to simultaneously investigate and manifest our social circumstances and potentialities. It is therefore purposely unsettled — participants are always themselves and yet tasked with enacting the words of other real people like, or more often not like, themselves.

The sheer awkwardness of it is really the point. Is this a study, a parody, an incitement, an invocation? In enacting the form, does the piece share in some of its power? A strange combination of sincerity and dry humor runs throughout it all, as the double-consciousness built into the piece throws everything gleefully up in the air, suspended somewhere between the rehearsal of dead forms (whether political or aesthetic) and the activation of new ones.

That’s a salubrious position, encouraged by the context at large. Or so I couldn’t help thinking. Was it merely coincidence that after leaving rehearsal one night I walked directly into road blocks, sirens, and hundreds of cops — the wake left by a president and secretary of state on political shopping sprees? Is the power that creates such disruption, traffic, and annoyance wherever it goes, like some heedless B-movie giant, even related to the power invested in local government? Was it just coincidence that after leaving another rehearsal a few days later, the Chronicle building was papered over in posters reading, “the media lies as Gaza dies,” this time the unsanctioned wake of a protest on behalf of the powerless?

For a moment there, Occupy took back government from representative bodies and held it in the bodies of real people, acting on their own behalf. It was wild, unexpected, and startlingly easy. It was also strikingly creative — and art was everywhere in the movement. It’s become clearer since then that the relationship between art and politics is a much more serious question than many of us had realized. We can’t afford a paucity of imagination in either. We need the room and wherewithal to ask questions. If nothing else, City Council Meeting asks questions. Including these:

“Are we working together? Are we capable of it? Is that why this structure is here? Or is that what the structure prevents?” *

CITY COUNCIL MEETING

Fri/1-Sat/2, 7pm; Sun/3, 2pm, $20

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

www.zspace.org

 

What she sees

Michael Redmond
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1

cheryl@sfbg.com

SFJFF The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival opens July 24 with The Green Prince, a documentary based on the memoir of Mosab Hassan Yousef. The son of a founding member of Hamas, he worked as an undercover agent for the Israeli secret service for 10 years, sharing a profound trust with his Shin Bet handler. The closing night film is also a documentary about a conflicted childhood that paves the way for tough choices later in life — but if Little White Lie is also a personal story, it’s a far less political one.

It’s a thoroughly American story, telling the tale of filmmaker Lacey Schwartz, who was raised by her parents — both products of “a long line of New York Jews” — in the decidedly homogeneous town of Woodstock. All of Schwartz’s grade-school friends had light skin and straight hair, while Schwartz was dark, with coarse curls. Lovingly recorded snapshots and home movies of her Bat Mitzvah and other occasions suggest a happy young life, but the “600-pound gorilla in the room,” as one relative puts it, was that Schwartz did not look white, despite ostensibly having white parents. Once she reached her teenage years — and particularly after she enrolled in a high school that had African American kids among its population — she began to realize the go-to family explanation (yeah … that one Sicilian way back in the family tree …) was nothing but a flimsy excuse holding back a mountain of denial.

Now in her 30s, Schwartz has overcome years of identity confusion and is self-confidently assertive in a manner that suggests years of therapy (and indeed, we see footage of sessions she filmed for a student project at Georgetown, where she found a supportive community among the Black Student Alliance). Her parents, however, are not quite as psychologically evolved, although her mother — a pleasant woman who has nonetheless been content to spend her life surfing the waves of passive-aggression — eventually opens up about the Schwartz family’s worst-kept secret. The aptly-titled Little White Lie clocks in at just over an hour, but it packs in a miniseries’ worth of emotional complexity and honesty. Schwartz will be on hand at the film’s San Francisco and Berkeley screenings — the Q&As are sure to be lively.

Another, rather different tale of women using cameras in pursuit of the truth surfaces in Judith Montell and Emily Scharlatt’s In the Image, a doc about Palestinian women who work with Israeli human-rights NGO B’Tselem. Group members, who include high school girls and middle-aged mothers, are given small video cameras to keep an eye on protests, harassment, and anti-Palestinian violence perpetrated by Israeli soldiers and settlers. (In one disturbing clip, we see a small child launch a giant spitball at the lens.) Able to capture footage in areas deemed off-limits to mainstream journalists, In the Image shows how B’Tselem brings investigative reporting to the front lines, and then to the world (thanks, YouTube). It’s also an empowering outlet for the camerawomen-activists, for whom career opportunities are otherwise as rare as are opportunities for artistic expression.

Women are also front and center in a number of SFJFF’s stronger narrative entries. Writer-director Talya Lavie won Best Narrative Feature and the Nora Ephron Prize at Tribeca for Zero Motivation, a pitch-black comedy about female frenemies jammed into close quarters while doin’ time in the Israeli Defense Forces. Most movies prefer to show soldiers in combat, and Zero Motivation does just that — if “combat” means fighting to avoid boring admin work, to achieve the highest score at Minesweeper, to fuck up the most extravagantly, or with staple guns. “There’s a war going on — get a grip!” a superior officer reminds self-centered slacker Daffi (Nelly Tager), and that’s more or less the only current-affairs statement uttered in a film that’s mostly concerned with the agonizing task of achieving responsible young adulthood.

Another coming-of-age tale unfolds in Hanna’s Journey, director and co-writer Julia von Heinz’s drama about a Berlin business-school student (Karoline Schuch) whose résumé is lacking in the sort of warm-fuzzy community service that’ll elevate her in the cutthroat job market. Her estranged mother, who works with a German group placing volunteers in Israel, proves unexpectedly helpful, and Hanna is soon winging her way to work with developmentally disabled adults in Tel Aviv, leaving her sleek wardrobe and yuppie boyfriend behind.

Hanna’s Journey has all the potential to be a pat story about a German woman coming to terms not just with her own life choices, but with complicated family history (hint: it involves World War II) only a trip to Israel can unearth. There’s also a conveniently hunky Israeli (Doron Amit) in the mix. But! Schuch, who resembles Jessica Chastain, brings authenticity to a character who morphs from superficial to soulful in what might otherwise seem like too-rapid time. She also benefits from a subtle, nicely detailed script, which avoids stereotypes and oversimplification, and is not without moments of wicked humor (“German girls are easy — it’s the guilt complex!”)

Less successful at achieving subtelty is For a Woman, writer-director Diane Kurys’ latest autobiographical drama. Here, she explores her parents’ troubled marriage, inspired by a photograph of an uncle nobody in the family wanted to discuss. The fictionalized version begins as Kurys stand-in Anne (Sylvie Testud) and older sister Tania (Julie Ferrier) have just buried their mother, who was long-divorced from the girls’ ailing father.

For a Woman takes place mostly in flashbacks to post-war Lyon, where young Jewish couple Léna (Mélanie Thierry) and Michel (Benoit Magimel) settle and have Tania soon after. Russia-born Michel is a devoted Communist, and he’s overjoyed — yet understandably suspicious — when long-lost brother Jean (Nicolas Duvauchelle) suddenly appears in France, having somehow escaped the USSR. Michel’s political paranoia blinds him to the fact that Léna — who married him to escape a death camp (he didn’t know her, but couldn’t resist her icy blond beauty) — is bored with her stay-at-home-mom life, and has taken an unwholesome interest in his mysterious little bro.

There’s more to the story than that, of course, but For a Woman never goes much deeper than a made-for-TV melodrama: entertaining in the moment, but ultimately forgettable. And even gorgeous period details (Michel’s car is to die for) can’t make up for a frame story that feels rather wan next to the film’s cloak-and-dagger main plotline. 2

SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

July 24-Aug. 10, most shows $10-$14

Various Bay Area venues

www.sfjff.org

 

Homeless in transit

Michael Redmond
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25
Homeless in transit

joe@sfbg.com

For most people, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system’s stations are just that: transitory. Walk into Powell Station, zip down the escalator and glide out on a train, destination somewhere. But for homeless people drawn to BART stations, the agency is a place to be stationary, a home and safe haven from the elements, muggings, and other hazards of sleeping on streets.

But now, BART intends to reclaim the T in its name. It wants the homeless to be transitory and get out of the stations.

Last week, the agency announced new enforcement of existing safety regulations that ensure people can evacuate a BART station in an emergency. BART argues homeless people sleeping or sitting in BART station hallways are in the way of a swift evacuation.

This legal interpretation gave BART carte blanche to scoop the homeless up and out. On the first day of the new rules, 17 homeless people were removed from Powell Station, which the agency justified to news media by repeatedly showing a video of a smokey accident that sent passengers fleeing.

“We had places where a big puff of smoke would fill the station very quickly,” Jeffrey Jennings, BART Police’s deputy chief, told the Guardian. “People were running not knowing what happened, very fearful. Other people were lying down, tripping folks. We could have had significant injuries occur because of that.”

First time offenders get a verbal warning, the second offense garners a citation, and the third offense jail time, all in the name of safety.

But the idea that homeless sleepers in all parts of a BART station may be trampled seems a little silly. Sure, there are sections of BART that are narrow and should be kept clear, but a walk through Powell Station shows 20-foot wide hallways throughout. This is where the homeless often sleep and sit.

At 8pm on a Wednesday, Powell Station is quiet and mostly empty, except for Charles T. He’s sitting in a chair right by the Powell Street entrance, strumming a guitar (skillfully), singing Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay.”

His voice is a dead ringer for Redding’s: “Sitting on the dock of the Bay, wasting my good time… I have nothing to live for, looks like nothing’s going to come my way. So I’m just going to sit on the dock of the Bay.”

Some still sat in Powell Station that night, flouting the new ban. A woman in baggy clothes sat by the Fourth and Market streets stairwell, cuddling her very big, very droopy-faced Rottweiler. A bald man in soiled gray pants sat along the hallway to the next exit. Slightly past him lay a man with long black hair snoring next to the wall. And at the end of that hallway, two men stayed in each other’s orbit: a slender one in a red jacket and blue jeans slept with his dirt-caked hands folded over his stomach, while a portly man sat nearby on cardboard boxes, tapping his fingers to a silent tune.

The last man we saw sat with his feet pulled under his knees by the entrance to the Westfield Centre, studiously reading his Bible as he underlined passages from Revelations. The would-be scholar, Henry Terry, 59, greeted us with a smile.

Terry was born in Los Angeles, a child of Watts who was a kid during the violent 1965 riots when 34 people died, over 1,000 people were injured, and the neighborhood burned. Terry’s mother sent him to Alabama with his father.

Terry fondly recalls growing corn, peas, watermelon, okra, squash, and sugar cane. That’s food he doesn’t have ready access to nowadays.

After bouts with the bottle and drugs, Terry cleaned himself up and got a place to live at the Hotel Essex, part of the city’s Community Housing Partnership. But alcohol lured Terry back. While in rehab, he missed an important court date, and he was evicted.

Now he spends his nights holding his Bible sitting in a BART station, seeking guidance and shelter. “The only thing getting me back to functioning is reading God’s word,” he said.

Terry’s already been ousted due to BART’s new rules. But on this day, some of the officers were more lenient. “[The officer] told me to cross my legs the entire time I’m here,” he said, “so people walking don’t trip over you.”

They also asked him to leave the commuters be. “I don’t ask for food or money,” Terry said. He just wants shelter until he can appeal his eviction.

Counterintuitively, BART Police officers who already threw Terry out once are the reason he stays there. He said the streets are dangerous, and muggings by other homeless people are common. The gates to the station go down at 12:30am, and Terry sleeps next to them because he knows the BART police will keep the muggers away.

BART argues the new rule is about safety of the passengers. California Building Code 433.3.2.2 states, “There shall be sufficient means of exit to evacuate the station occupant load from the station platforms in four minutes or less.”

Though Terry was glad the officers left him alone to sit, the Guardian saw BART police apply the law to other homeless people: usually the ones mumbling to themselves, or, frankly, the dirtiest ones.

The two men in each other’s orbit were ousted. One tall and broad-shouldered officer woke the man sleeping in the red jacket.

“Excuse me sir, excuse me. Do you know about the new rules at BART?” he asked. After explaining the ban, he said “This is the first time, so I’ll give you a warning, the second time I will cite you. The third time, you go to jail.”

The officer recommended services they could call, together. He spoke kindly, even sweetly, but the result was the same as if he had been cruel: The man in the red jacket picked up his cardboard and went out into the streets.

We told Deputy Chief Jennings about the apparent selective enforcement, questioning the law had anything to do with safety. From our four hours of observation at Powell Station, it seemed to be applied only to the dirtiest or rowdiest people, or the ones specifically sleeping, we told him.

“Our policy is someone needs to be conscious, awake, and aware of their surroundings,” Jennings told us. “There’s no selective enforcement. We only have so many officers, so officers will be drawn more to someone who is not being quiet, or having a problem.”

He also told us they had never enforced the building code before because no one had ever thought to, until the idea occurred to a newly promoted sergeant.

To its credit, BART is making inroads to help the homeless. First, transit officials went to Bevan Dufty, the director of the Mayor’s Office on Homelessness.

“I was honest and said we don’t have on demand resources and our shelters are full,” Dufty told us. The Homeless Outreach Team is stretched to the limit. Dufty suggested BART hire its own help, which it did.

Its first full time Crisis Intervention Training Coordinator, Armando Sandoval, helps pair the homeless at BART stations with housing and other services. He targets his efforts on what BART calls its 40/40 list, which tracks the 40 homeless people that generate the most service calls to BART police. A BART press release said it placed 22 people with services within the last year.

“[Sandoval] hunts them down to see if he can work his magic with these folks,” Jennings said.

Supervisor Jane Kim is working with Dufty’s office to revamp BART’s new policy. “They clearly stretched safety concerns,” Kim told us. “It’s one thing to offer services, but another to force people out.”

BART’s Quality of Life service calls doubled from 2013 to 2014, according to a BART quarterly report, generated by complaints like public urination and disturbing the peace.

A BART police officer, who did not want to be named, told us he thinks BART has a hard choice: to let riders feel harassed and unsafe, or to oust people clearly in need of compassion. He said he saw the homeless population in the station swell with “the weather and the economy.”

“We have to do what we have to do,” he told us. But on the other hand, he said, “It’s not against the law to stink.”

He’s half right. Though being homeless and dirty may not be illegal, it may get you thrown out of a BART station.

Monday music video mayhem

Steven T. Jones
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5
Monday music video mayhem

Just in case you’ve been living under a rock slightly behind on your local music coverage for the past couple weeks, allow us to remind you of a crazy little 48-hour contest called the Music Video Race, which saw yours truly judging some rather impressive entries from 16 different local band/filmmaker posses, and which culminated with a premiere party at The Independent on July 20.

In honor of the teams’ hasty, ambitious efforts — and in honor of this amazing time-suck/curated exercise in pop culture history — we’ve decided to spend the rest of the day watching music videos. It’ll be kind of like coming home from school and zoning out in front of TRL, only you don’t have to look at Carson Daly. Join us, won’t you?

First, here are a few of the winning videos from the competition:

The Tropics‘ “Sons and Daughters” took home Best Video, with this otherwordly feast for the eyes that looks like it took way longer than 48 hours:

 

…while the ever-ingenious/usually pretty insane Bill Baird was the runner-up with “Soggy Soul,” featuring this kaleidascopic naked-cartwheel-on-the-beach party. 

 

Lemme Adams took Best Song with “Toys”…

 

And Mission-based man-about-town Doctor Popular won hearts and Best On-Screen Performance with “Rumspringa,” a song crafted using a GameBoy Advance. 

 

Still with us? Good. Here are a few new videos from local bands (not part of the MVR) that did take longer than 24 hours, that are still very worth your eyes and ears:

There’s this trippy orange business for “Always,” by SF’s Melted Toys, off their new release: 

 

Then there’s this dreamy, unabashed love letter to our home state in “I Love California,” from Be Calm Honcho:

 

And this hypnotic offering for “No Werewolf,” by LA hooligans the Allah-Las, off their upcoming full-length:

 

Finally, there’s this adrenaline-fueled sprint for “Story 2” from clipping., a three-man rap crew also based in LA, but we have it on good authority that two out of three of ’em grew up in the East Bay.

 

 

More reviews from the SF Jewish Film Festival

Sue Vaughan
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30

If Instagram is anything to go by (read: it’s not), anyone can make a short film — just slap a filter on it and call it a day! Thankfully, the protagonists in Anywhere Else and Swim Little Fish Swim, two films featured in the 38th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, work on creative projects that can pull their own weight — sans filters — even if the length exceeds 15 seconds from the sidelines. Short DIY clips, not integral to the plotlines, are interspersed throughout of each film and are a breath of fresh air, even if the overall film itself is a hit or a miss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynif8W-sto8

If you’re lucky enough to call yourself multilingual, you may have noticed that your personality seems to change when you speak in a different language (level of inebriation aside). With all these factors in mind, the odds of being misunderstood by others increase. This very notion permeates Anywhere Else, Ester Amrami’s first film — literally, as Noa (Neta Riskin), an Israeli graduate student in Berlin, gets her video project (documenting explanations of rich, untranslatable words in foreign languages) shot down by her advisor. 

Viewers, intrigued by linguistics or not, will have no trouble following the intricacies that accompany dialogue in the film, whether it’s in German, Hebrew, Yiddish, or English. At the same time, Noa unsuccessfully yearns for the security of “home” in both Germany and Israel. An impromptu trip back to Israel doesn’t help much, especially when her boyfriend Jörg (Golo Euler) visits. The film also tackles weighty issues such as disapproval of Noa and Jörg’s relationship (Noa’s grandmother lost her entire family in the Holocaust) and Noa’s brother’s unease about being a member of the Israeli army. 

Contrary to what Noa’s advisor thinks, untranslatable words are perfectly fine — who’s to say that the simple word “home” is sufficient enough to express the complex feeling of belonging? Anywhere Else ultimately and sentimentally proves that complicated problems don’t need complicated solutions.

At first glance, it’s a bit comforting to see that neither Swim Little Fish Swim‘s Leeward (Dustin Guy Defa) nor Lilas (Lola Bessis) have been hardened by the cynical realities of adult life. Leeward is a stay-at-home dad who entertains himself by jamming out on his toddler’s toys, while Lilas is a budding French artist on the brink of her twenties who crashes on Leeward’s couch in the dwindling days before her visa expires. While it initially seems as though Leeward still looks at the world in childlike wonder, the rose-colored glasses quickly shatter, and he becomes a hopelessly useless, naïve man and by far, the most annoying character in the film. The only thing his wife Mary (Brooke Bloom) can count on him to do is shirk his financial responsibilities. 

All in all, the sickeningly saccharine film is far too twee, distracting the viewer when Leeward and Lilas finally encounter adult life’s setbacks head-on. It’s stereotypically cute: The film is set in New York, Leeward insists on the hipster kid name “Rainbow” for his daughter instead of “Maggie,” Lilas totes around an old film camera that must be twice her age to record her new friends’ seemingly profound confessions, and Leeward struggles to avoid selling out as a musician. However, if you can muster through all of that, the Swim‘s ending is moderately satisfying, even if it is somewhat predictable.

SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

July 24-Aug. 10, most shows $10-$14

Various Bay Area venues

www.sfjff.org

Events: July 23 – 29, 2014

Michael Redmond
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0

Listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

WEDNESDAY 23

Mission Bay Hidden Water Walk Meet at CalTrain station (south side plaza), Fourth St at King, SF; www.laborfest.net. 10am, free. Walking tour of the rapidly-changing Mission Bay area. Part of LaborFest 2014.

James Nestor Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post, SF; www.milibrary.org. 6pm, $15. The author discusses Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves.

“Taxi, Tech, and Rideshare” Redstone Building, 2940 16th St, SF; www.laborfest.net. 7pm, donations accepted. Forum and video screening on the subject of Uber and similar companies that are affecting the taxi industry. Part of LaborFest 2014.

THURSDAY 24

Tom Barbash Hattery, 414 Brannan, SF; www.booksinc.net. 7pm, free. The author discusses his work and writing, including Stay Up With Me, his recent short-story collection.

State of the City Forum Modern Times Bookstore Collective, 2919 24th St, SF; www.mtbs.com. 7-9pm, free. Discussion of gentrification issues with SF poet laureate Alejandro Murguia and community guest panelists.

FRIDAY 25

“Bike Design Project Reveal Party SF” PCH Lime Lab, 135 Mississippi, SF; www.oregonmanifest.com. 6-9:30pm, free. Check out next-generation bikes created by top designers and bike craftspeople at this reveal party, featuring custom-brewed, “bike-inspired” beer from Deschutes Brewery.

Gilroy Garlic Festival Christmas Park, Gilroy; www.gilroygarlicfestival.com. 10am-7pm, $10-20. Through Sun/27. Garlic is the pungent star of this annual food fair. Garlic ice cream gets all the press, but don’t sleep on the garlic fries, 2012’s most popular purchase (13,401 servings!)

Squeak Carnwath University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft, Berk; www.universitypressbooks.com. 6pm, free. The Oakland-based painter discusses her new book, Horizon on Fire: Squeak Carnwath Works on Paper, 1977-2013, containing over 90 images of her works from the past 35 years.

SATURDAY 26

Berkeley Kite Festival Cesar E. Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. www.highlinekites.com. 10am-6pm, free. Through Sun/27. Because where else are you gonna see the world’s largest octopus kite?

Oakland 1946 General Strike Walk Lathan Square (meet at fountain), Telegraph at Broadway, Oakl; www.laborfest.net. Noon, free. Revisit key sites of Oakland’s historic “Work Holiday,” the last general strike ever to occur in the US. Part of LaborFest 2014.

“Off the Wall” Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF; www.missionculturalcenter.org. 7:30pm, free. Mission Grafica hosts this closing reception for its current screenprinting and woodcut exhibition, with a silent auction of pieces from the archives.

Ohtani Summer Bazaar Berkeley Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple, 1524 Oregon, Berk; www.bombu.org. Today, 4-8pm; Sun/27, noon-5pm. Free. Japanese food is the focus of this two-day fest, with homemade Kushikatsu, sushi, teriyaki chicken, and other tasty treats. The temple is also known for its (American-style) chili.

Pedalfest Jack London Square, Broadway and Embarcadero, Oakl; www.pedalfestjacklondon.com. 11am-7pm, free. Celebrate biking at this festival, with bike-themed entertainment (“daredevils performing in a 30-foot Whiskeydrome”), “pedal-powered food,” a vintage bike show, bike demos, and more.

“Perverts Put Out! Dore Alley Edition” Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF; www.sexandculture.org. 8pm, $10-25. Readings by Jen Cross, Princess Cream Pie, Philip Huang, and others; hosted by Dr. Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard as a benefit for the CSC.

Vintage Paper Fair Hall of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, Ninth Ave at Lincoln, SF; www.vintagepaperfair.com. Today, 10am-6pm; Sun/26, 11am-5pm. Free. Huge vintage paper fair featuring antique postcards, prints, photography, Art Deco items, movie memorabilia, and more.

SUNDAY 27

LaborFest Book Fair Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF; www.laborfest.net. 10:30am, free. Numerous authors share their labor- and union-themed books and this day of readings and discussions. Part of LaborFest 2014.

Up Your Alley Fair Dore between Howard and Folsom, SF; www.folsomstreetfair.com/alley. 11am-6pm, $7 suggested donation. Folsom Street Fair’s naughty little brother fills Dore Alley with leather-clad shenanigans.

TUESDAY 29

Christopher Pollock St. Philip’s Catholic Church, 725 Diamond, SF; www.sanfranciscohistory.org. 7:30pm, $5. San Francisco History Association hosts this talk by the author of Reel San Francisco Stories: An Annotated Filmography of the Bay Area. *

 

What she sees

Michael Redmond
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3
What she sees

cheryl@sfbg.com

SFJFF The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival opens July 24 with The Green Prince, a documentary based on the memoir of Mosab Hassan Yousef. The son of a founding member of Hamas, he worked as an undercover agent for the Israeli secret service for 10 years, sharing a profound trust with his Shin Bet handler. The closing night film is also a documentary about a conflicted childhood that paves the way for tough choices later in life — but if Little White Lie is also a personal story, it’s a far less political one.

It’s a thoroughly American story, telling the tale of filmmaker Lacey Schwartz, who was raised by her parents — both products of “a long line of New York Jews” — in the decidedly homogeneous town of Woodstock. All of Schwartz’s grade-school friends had light skin and straight hair, while Schwartz was dark, with coarse curls. Lovingly recorded snapshots and home movies of her Bat Mitzvah and other occasions suggest a happy young life, but the “600-pound gorilla in the room,” as one relative puts it, was that Schwartz did not look white, despite ostensibly having white parents. Once she reached her teenage years — and particularly after she enrolled in a high school that had African American kids among its population — she began to realize the go-to family explanation (yeah … that one Sicilian way back in the family tree …) was nothing but a flimsy excuse holding back a mountain of denial.

Now in her 30s, Schwartz has overcome years of identity confusion and is self-confidently assertive in a manner that suggests years of therapy (and indeed, we see footage of sessions she filmed for a student project at Georgetown, where she found a supportive community among the Black Student Alliance). Her parents, however, are not quite as psychologically evolved, although her mother — a pleasant woman who has nonetheless been content to spend her life surfing the waves of passive-aggression — eventually opens up about the Schwartz family’s worst-kept secret. The aptly-titled Little White Lie clocks in at just over an hour, but it packs in a miniseries’ worth of emotional complexity and honesty. Schwartz will be on hand at the film’s San Francisco and Berkeley screenings — the Q&As are sure to be lively.

Another, rather different tale of women using cameras in pursuit of the truth surfaces in Judith Montell and Emmy Scharlatt’s In the Image, a doc about Palestinian women who work with Israeli human-rights NGO B’Tselem. Group members, who include high school girls and middle-aged mothers, are given small video cameras to keep an eye on protests, harassment, and anti-Palestinian violence perpetrated by Israeli soldiers and settlers. (In one disturbing clip, we see a small child launch a giant spitball at the lens.) Able to capture footage in areas deemed off-limits to mainstream journalists, In the Image shows how B’Tselem brings investigative reporting to the front lines, and then to the world (thanks, YouTube). It’s also an empowering outlet for the camerawomen-activists, for whom career opportunities are otherwise as rare as are opportunities for artistic expression.

Women are also front and center in a number of SFJFF’s stronger narrative entries. Writer-director Talya Lavie won Best Narrative Feature and the Nora Ephron Prize at Tribeca for Zero Motivation, a pitch-black comedy about female frenemies jammed into close quarters while doin’ time in the Israeli Defense Forces. Most movies prefer to show soldiers in combat, and Zero Motivation does just that — if “combat” means fighting to avoid boring admin work, to achieve the highest score at Minesweeper, to fuck up the most extravagantly, or with staple guns. “There’s a war going on — get a grip!” a superior officer reminds self-centered slacker Daffi (Nelly Tager), and that’s more or less the only current-affairs statement uttered in a film that’s mostly concerned with the agonizing task of achieving responsible young adulthood.

Another coming-of-age tale unfolds in Hanna’s Journey, director and co-writer Julia von Heinz’s drama about a Berlin business-school student (Karoline Schuch) whose résumé is lacking in the sort of warm-fuzzy community service that’ll elevate her in the cutthroat job market. Her estranged mother, who works with a German group placing volunteers in Israel, proves unexpectedly helpful, and Hanna is soon winging her way to work with developmentally disabled adults in Tel Aviv, leaving her sleek wardrobe and yuppie boyfriend behind.

Hanna’s Journey has all the potential to be a pat story about a German woman coming to terms not just with her own life choices, but with complicated family history (hint: it involves World War II) only a trip to Israel can unearth. There’s also a conveniently hunky Israeli (Doron Amit) in the mix. But! Schuch, who resembles Jessica Chastain, brings authenticity to a character who morphs from superficial to soulful in what might otherwise seem like too-rapid time. She also benefits from a subtle, nicely detailed script, which avoids stereotypes and oversimplification, and is not without moments of wicked humor (“German girls are easy — it’s the guilt complex!”)

Less successful at achieving subtelty is For a Woman, writer-director Diane Kurys’ latest autobiographical drama. Here, she explores her parents’ troubled marriage, inspired by a photograph of an uncle nobody in the family wanted to discuss. The fictionalized version begins as Kurys stand-in Anne (Sylvie Testud) and older sister Tania (Julie Ferrier) have just buried their mother, who was long-divorced from the girls’ ailing father.

For a Woman takes place mostly in flashbacks to post-war Lyon, where young Jewish couple Léna (Mélanie Thierry) and Michel (Benoit Magimel) settle and have Tania soon after. Russia-born Michel is a devoted Communist, and he’s overjoyed — yet understandably suspicious — when long-lost brother Jean (Nicolas Duvauchelle) suddenly appears in France, having somehow escaped the USSR. Michel’s political paranoia blinds him to the fact that Léna — who married him to escape a death camp (he didn’t know her, but couldn’t resist her icy blond beauty) — is bored with her stay-at-home-mom life, and has taken an unwholesome interest in his mysterious little bro.

There’s more to the story than that, of course, but For a Woman never goes much deeper than a made-for-TV melodrama: entertaining in the moment, but ultimately forgettable. And even gorgeous period details (Michel’s car is to die for) can’t make up for a frame story that feels rather wan next to the film’s cloak-and-dagger main plotline. 2

SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

July 24-Aug. 10, most shows $10-$14

Various Bay Area venues

www.sfjff.org

 

Track record

Michael Redmond
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0
Track record

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Hitch up your skirt and strap on your skates: It’s another crazy weekend full of too much to do. The bonkers three-day-long Sunset Campout riverside rave and Sunday’s gay fetish pig roast Up Your Alley Fair are only the start. (I’m totally stealing my Seattle buddy DJ Nark’s “inflatable yellow rubber ducky inner tube attached to leather harness suspenders” outfit idea so I can hit both, with a pair of winged Saucony Progrid running shoes — and nothing else — in honor of this weekend’s SF Marathon.)

Sunset Campout (Fri/25-Sun/27, $70–$150, Belden, CA. www.sunsetcampout.com), put on by our own illustrious Sunset crew, is pretty much the electronic dance music festival of my dreams, with a huge roster of acts like Soul Clap, Guillaume and the Coutu Dumonts, Danny Daze, Spacetime Continuum, Traxx, Lovefingers, and dozens of local heroes. And Up Your Alley (Sun/27, 11am-6pm, donation requested. 10th St and Folsom, SF. www.folsomstreetevents.org) is Folsom Street Fair’s gayer little sister, proving that most homosexuals need but a tiny strip of clothing to make a lasting fashion statement. Both events will feature wiener roasts.

 

J.PHLIP

One of my favorite local DJs, dirtybird crewmember J.Phlip, turns her poppin’ bass up for the United Hearts fundraiser, helping to buy school buses for kids in Ghana. DJ Khan from Bristol, UK, and our own Ryuryu of Soundpieces and several members of the Surefire crew will make sure your heart rumbles in the right place.

Thu/24, 9:30pm-2:30am, $15–$50. Public Works, SF. www.publicsf.com

 

BRAZA!

World Cup what? The world may have moved on ever-so-briefly from boys in shorts chasing little white balls. But this regular party, celebrating the funky breaks and beats of Brazil and beyond, will have you waving your arms and singing. Special guest Tom Thump, whose crates run so deep they pierce the Earth’s mantle, presides. With live percussion and DJs Elan and Zamba.

Fri/25, 10pm, $5–$10. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

 

KASTLE

Yummy UK bass and future sounds by way of this LA fave, one of the early players in the ’90s R&B dance floor revival. Support by a host of others, including Elliot Lipp, Lindsay Lowend, and Chiller Whale.

Fri/25, 10pm-4am, $15–$20. 1015 Folsom, SF. www.1015.com

 

PHIL KIERAN

Irish techno, thy name is Phil. Mr. Kieran has spent a couple decades repping Belfast with some truly fun, truly stylish stuff. (Latest killer slice “Computer Games” comes with a video worthy of cult flick The Visitor.) He’ll be making his debut at the Lights Down Low party.

Fri/25, 10pm-3am, $10–$15. Monarch, 101 Sixth St, SF. www.monarchsf.com

 

TOO $HORT

You know you still know all the words to “Money in the Ghetto” — sing out with Oakland’s finest and his full band.

Fri/25, 9pm-3am, $20–$25. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

 

GUY J

The Israeli technician (with such thick, silky-looking hair!) keeps his tempos at a deep and steady trot — the better for building excellently textured rides through sensual, emotive soundscapes. Good, heady stuff.

Sat/26, 9:30pm, $15. Audio, 316 11th St., SF. www.audiosf.com

 

TEEN WITCH

Those neon sad-emoji kidz from the 120 Minutes monthly are back with special guests Teen Witch, summoning all dark and lovely laptop electro-ghosts, and Banjee Report, an outstanding vogue-rap outfit from Chicago.

Sat/26, 10pm, $5–$10. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

 

PIXEL MEMORY

This awesome local atmospheric electro pop trio just released nifty Night Colors EP. They’ll be kicking it up live with ethereal matriarch Metal Mother and catchy shoegaze-hop Magicks for a truly magickal night of SF sounds.

Sun/27, 8pm, $5–$8. Brick and Mortar, 1710 Mission, SF. www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

Last chapters?

Michael Redmond
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27
Last chapters?

news@sfbg.com

The tale of the threatened independent bookstore, quivering under the might of Amazon, is nothing new.

It’s only been two months since Marcus Books was evicted from its Fillmore District location. Both Adobe and Forest bookstores fled the Mission’s 16thh Street last year. But ebook sales growth is shrinking, and sales for many of San Francisco bookstores are up.

Instead, the tale of the struggling indie bookstore has become less about Amazon and more about a different monster: gentrification. San Francisco’s rising rents, demand for commercial space by deep-pocketed chains, and lack of commercial rent control are putting the squeeze on the city’s remaining bookstores.

Take Bibliohead, for instance. Its owner has recently been forced to relocate in spite of her bookstore’s success. Bibliohead is an easily navigable, highly curated, and tiny book jungle — more like a carefully manicured garden, really. The whole store can be explored in minutes, and there’s a gumball machine that dispenses poetry out in front once the book-happy are satisfied.

Its size has served it well. Sales at Bibliohead — Hayes Valley’s only bookstore — have risen solidly 7 percent each year since the store opened 10 years ago.

“We’re small, but mighty,” Melissa Richmond, Bibliohead’s owner, told the Guardian. “Although recently we haven’t been feeling so mighty. I’m kind of a wreck.”

In May, Richmond learned that she has until January 2015 to leave her store for four months while her building undergoes mandatory earthquake retrofitting. The landlord will double Richmond’s rent after the retrofitting, and has asked Richmond to pay for further renovations to the building when she returns.

“It’s off the table that I can stay here,” Richmond said. “I will not be offered a new lease. I don’t hate landlords, but I want a landlord who will contribute to the spirit and creativity of San Francisco.”

On June 22, Richmond launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise the $60,000 she’ll need to move and attract new customers. So far, with a little less than a month to go, she’s raised almost $3,000.

“What really breaks my heart is when a new customer walks in,” Richmond said. “They ask you how you’re doing after they’ve fallen in love with the place a little bit. Then you have to break their hearts by saying you don’t know what’s in store for your future right now.”

 

DISPLACEMENT TREND

Richmond is not the only bookseller in San Francisco forced to relocate. Last year, Adobe Books and Forest Books were forced out of 16th Street within three months of each other when their rents increased. Forest Books slipped quietly off to Japantown, and has since experienced an increase in sales. Adobe Books’ anticipated closure was met with an invigorating Kickstarter campaign that raised $60,000. It was enough to keep the store alive, but not on gentrifying 16th Street.

Nowadays, Adobe is re-branded as Adobe Books and Art Cooperative at its 24th Street location. The original Adobe’s charming, lackadaisical, and no- structured structure has been traded for alphabetized and carefully curated books. There are only two staff members, and its used books are selling far faster than in the old location, despite its shrunken size.

“It’s strange. A lot of the times I was not sure if it would work at all, and now here we are in this shop,” Brett Lockspeiser, a member of the Adobe Books and Art Cooperative, told us. “Things are running differently, but it’s still Adobe.”

Adobe will soon be celebrating its first anniversary in the new spot. The store might not be making any profits, according to Lockspeiser, but the cause for celebration is that it’s survived.

There has been discussion among the collective members about whether or not Adobe should try to sell eReading devices, like Green Apple Books has done without much success for almost two years with the Kobo eReader. Adobe’s collective voted against Kobo, preferring not to use the same weapons as its competitor.

“I’m pretty technology positive, but I think some people in the group thought it was an ‘us or them’ kind of thing,” said Lockspeiser. “Like either you’re a book reader or you’re a techie who reads on a Kindle.”

Besides, it seems that ebooks’ incredible growth rate has finally simmered down. According to the Association of American Publishers, ebooks accounted for 27 percent of all adult trade sales in 2013. While that was up from 23 percent in 2012, it marked the first year ebook growth was down to the single digits. In January, a Pew study reported that among adults who read at least one book in the past year, just 5 percent said they read only an ebook.

Hut Landon, executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, reports that book sales throughout San Francisco bookstores have increased overall in the past two years. Green Apple Books, an expanding bookstore with an growing collection of books and records, is even poised to open another location in the Sunset below beloved video rental store Le Video on Aug. 1.

Pete Mulvihill, co-owner of Green Apple Books, said he recently got a call from Bibliohead’s owner asking for advice on potential neighborhoods and techniques for negotiating with landlords. But he can’t always explain his own store’s success.

“Some of it is just the economy. All that money floating around South of Market is maybe trickling over here,” he told us. “Or maybe the waiters are getting better tips. I don’t know what it is, but things have been better for us.”

The growth of bookstore sales, Landon said, is mainly because Barnes & Noble has been cast out of San Francisco. Last year, Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest bookstore chain, reported that its revenue decreased by 8 percent in the final quarter. The company’s Nook division, meanwhile, slid down 32 percent.

Yet Joe Marchione, who owns Mission Street’s Valhalla Books, still places the blame for his diminishing foot traffic on Amazon, which has made his hard-to-find books pretty easy to locate online. In 1998, when his store opened, 90 percent of Valhalla’s business came from people browsing through his odd and unique assortment of rare and used books. Now, 95 percent of his business is online.

“People forgot the joy of browsing,” Marchione told us.

As soon as his landlord makes him commit to a lease, he says he’s going to have to leave the business. “When we first opened, we were smug. We said there was no way trendy was ever going to come to Mission between 17th and 18th [streets]. Get real!” he said. “But trendy creeps in closer by the week. There’s no problem with that, except it’s forcing us out.”

 

“TRENDY CREEPS IN”

It’s even forcing successful booksellers, like Bibliohead’s owner, to worry. Her faith in the printed word remains strong. “I find that there’s a whole core of people who are relieved to feel something in their hands, to flip the pages of really cool, beautiful books and kind of remember with their bodies what reading is like,” Richmond said.

When Kate Rosenberger opened a fourth bookstore in 2011 — Alleycat Books on 24th Street — many questioned her sanity, the owner said. The store has only recently been able to pay its own bills, having been relying on Rosenberger’s other store, Dog Eared Books, for survival. But the rent at Dog Eared Books is set to increase, and that means trouble.

“You can talk about e-readers, and people being distracted. You can talk about people slipping out since the Gutenberg press was invented, and all that’s true, sure,” Rosenberger told us. “But when you get hit with a huge increase in your rent, how do you deal with that? When the lease is up, you can pretty much figure you’re gone.”

These days, you deal with it by setting up a crowdsourcing campaign, and crossing your fingers that people with money like you. Or maybe you transform into an art cooperative. Or you just go somewhere else. But Richmond doesn’t want to leave San Francisco.

“I would like to preserve the culture of the city,” Richmond said. “I still think there’s something really special here.”

Barnes & Noble might be gone, ebook sales might have stabilized, and the printed word might just still be alive — but for San Francisco’s booksellers, that no longer means anyone in the book business is safe.

Scare and scare alike: zombies, maggots, and more at ‘BAASICS.5: Monsters’

Sue Vaughan
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0
Scare and scare alike: zombies, maggots, and more at ‘BAASICS.5: Monsters’

“We stopped checking for monsters under our beds when we realized they were inside us,” reads a quote often misattributed to the Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight. The presenters at July 14’s “BAASICS.5: Monsters” event at ODC Theater capitalized on this concept, examining both modern monsters (though not “cars and corn syrup,” as one emcee mentioned at the beginning of the event) and monsters of yore. 

In past years, the organization has explored provocative topics such as the future (more weighted toward a possible uprising of robots rather than the nagging question “What am I going to do with my life?”) and psychiatric and neurologic disorders by juxtaposing science and art. It’s easy to find the right balance between the two for these past themes, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this year’s event. 

It ended up being a lot less grisly than I’d imagined — with the exception of a video clip depicting maggots violating a honeybee. (I can never unsee that.) I felt as though I were in a college lecture hall, viewing PowerPoints — which were much more aesthetically pleasing than the Papyrus-laden slides my freshman year history professor used — and listening to professors, each with an exceptionally dry sense of humor. 

Presenters, ranging from shark conservationists to artists, shared their definitions of a monster, often turning the tables on common misconceptions. David McGuire revealed that more people die from vending machines than from shark attacks, emphasizing how it’s truly a man-eat-shark world out there today. (Ahem, shark fin soup…) Closing presenter Brynda Glazier tackled societal expectations of beauty and normalness, drawing inspiration from her personal life as her brother is disabled, expressing this through seemingly ugly and monstrous sculptures. 

BAASICS’ associate content producer Georgeann Sack — described in the program as a “neuroscientist by day and science communicator by night” — also performed low-key acoustic songs as a segue between presentations. In fact, her music was so low-key that I often had trouble hearing and understanding her, although I’m sure the lyrics to her song “Vampire Love Song” were clever. Sack’s standout performance was her rendition of the Creepshow’s “Zombies Ate Her Brain,” which sounded a little like a singer-songwriter’s DIY GarageBand-recorded music. 

However, the biggest letdown of the event were the short videos. With topics such as malaria research and glowing plants, the videos had potential but ultimately came off as too sterile. The two video shorts seemed as though they were filmed with a cheap digital camera — that highlighted distracting background noise while researchers spoke — and edited in iMovie. Other audience members were just as unimpressed as my friend and I were — I heard some people in the row behind us begin a slow clap after the second video. 

Art and science weren’t exactly joined in holy matrimony at this event. To me, BAASICS.5 was more like an evening well spent in your friend’s apartment — you know, the friend with a great appreciation for art who’s basically a living, breathing encyclopedia of weird shit — and can talk endlessly about it. Bring up Bigfoot and they’ll mention how the highest number of reported Bigfoot sightings originate from Humboldt County and slyly attribute this to the inhabitants’ altered perceptions. And did they mention how there’s a pseudo-porno titled Bigfoot’s Wild Weekend? (Here’s looking at you, Jill Miller!) Maybe zombies are more up your friend’s alley and they created an amazingly detailed zombie survey for people to fill out. (Your hard work definitely paid off, George Pfau.)

As for me, I checked off “Zombies are Vaudeville performers,” “The apocalypse is ‘the big one,’” and “After death, you take harp lessons” as my answers to Pfau’s zombie survey, which I picked up in the lobby afterwards. The real highlight of the event was being exposed to modern takes on tales as old as time, if the outside of the survey brochure, a Where’s Waldo-inspired scene even featuring Michael Jackson from his “Thriller” days, is anything to go by. 

Live Shots: OK Go power through technical difficulties at The Independent

Steven T. Jones
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1
Live Shots: OK Go power through technical difficulties at The Independent

Ok Go’s catalog is the sonic equivalent of Fruit Loops. Bright, fun, tasty, and far from satisfying or substantive. They are also one of our generation’s greatest bands. Because what Ok Go lacks in musical imagination and originality, they make up for tenfold with the way they have revolutionized and thoroughly dominated the art of the music video.

Harnessing the power of internet culture and viral videos, Ok Go burst onto the music scene and the blogosphere in 2006 with their now-famous treadmill dance video for “Here it Goes Again.” Now, a century later in internet years, Ok Go continues to churn out pleasant power pop and a steady stream of mind-blowing film pieces (“music videos” almost seems condescending for these painstaking projects—while most bands go on set for six hours to two days, singer Damian Kulash pointed out, Ok Go works on theirs for six weeks to six months).

ok

Somehow, the band has managed to continuously outdo itself with each new video, spending incredible amounts of time and energy on stunningly creative videos featuring stop-motion, Rube Goldberg machines, optical illusions, and the pure power of great choreography.

Perhaps fittingly, playing music seems to be a more of a side effect than a focus of Ok Go’s live show, which more prominently features bright video displays, interactive apps, and truly mind-blowing amounts of confetti (although, unfortunately, no dance routines). And, as with most technology-based things, a certain amount of troubleshooting was required.

ok

However, despite a lot of technical difficulties, stalls, and spotty sound quality at their sold out Wednesday show at The Independent, the audience’s enthusiasm was not dampened in the slightest. A large part of Ok Go’s charm comes from their youthful excitement, curiosity, and energy, all aspects that translate beautifully to a live setting.

During glitches, while guitarist/keyboardist and “genuine, bona-fide nerd” Andy Ross worked on fixing technology failures, frontmen Damian Kulash and Tim Nordwind entertained the audience with Q&A sessions, and even (in what may have been the highlight of the show) a full run-through of Les Miserables’ “Confrontation,” with Kulash as Javert and Nordwind as Jean Valjean.

ok

Ok Go are truly great performers. Their energy is high, their spectacles spectacular, and their banter playful and plentiful. I was taken aback, however, when Kulash casually called San Francisco a city “known for having a lot of faggots.” Even though Kulash is public about his support for gay rights and he followed this statement up with a lame “I say that with love in my heart,” it felt inappropriate and offensive. And all this was even before he called SF “Boston with Disneyland attached.”

But clearly not everyone in the audience took issue with Kulash’s faux pas, and there was an air of excitement and appreciation in the intimate venue from the first song to the last flurries of confetti. When the show had ended, leaving behind deep drifts of the colorful paper, fans didn’t want the fun to end. When I departed, half an hour after the show’s finish, people were still laughing, shrieking, and throwing confetti to the sky.

ok

Security officers target Apple over contractor’s unfair labor practices

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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4
Security officers target Apple over contractor’s unfair labor practices

Next time you head to your neighborhood Apple store to get that smooth and harmonious feel that can only comes with the gentle touch of an iPad air, you might be greeted by an unhappy security officer picketing outside. The officer might share some choice words about the working conditions at Apple’s security guard contractor, Security Industry Specialists.

Over the next few weeks, the SEIU United Service Workers West has organized a series of actions with security guards to demand Apple choose a more responsible security contractor.

Currently, Apple, Google, and Ebay all have contracts with SIS, a firm the SEIU claims has unfairly terminated employees and surveiled union meetings. The SIS denies these allegations, devoting an entire page on its website to confronting what it’s termed “SEIU lies and distortion.”

“The contrast between Apple’s boom times and worker’s decrease in wages is incredibly startling,” said Alfredo Fletes, communications specialist for SEIU. “You would think that a company that has benefited so much from what Silicon Valley has to offer would support the jobs for workers – not just in their engineering department, but at all levels.”

Since the launch of the iPod in 2007 to 2012, Apple saw a 600 percent growth in its stock. Meanwhile, from 2008 to 2012, average worker wages in Santa Clara County dropped by 3 percent. On average, Silicon Valley’s security officers make $15 an hour through SIS.

But the actions SEIU has organized aren’t just about wages, nor are they just about Apple. Walter Redding, for instance, was one security officer working for SIS through Google. He’ll be attending some of the actions, because he’s angry. He was fired for taking a phone call from his girlfriend while she was in labor.

“I thought I was doing great,” Redding said. “But I got screwed. I only got two checks since I got fired. It’s been almost a year. My friends got fired for things, too. Everybody gets treated unfairly. I love the products. I’d buy them everyday. But when it comes to working for Google or Apple, I don’t know about that.”

Bryce Miller-Williams, an organizer for SEIU’s Stand for Security campaign, says that the SIS is harsh everywhere, but Apple is where security officers really don’t want to work.

“There’s a very militaristic atmosphere there,” he said. “One gentleman sat down to tie his shoe. Guards are supposed to be standing at all times, and so he was let go because of that.”

Although Apple doesn’t employ the security guards directly, Fletes said the tech company still has the power to select a better security guard contractor. To him, changes at Foxconn, one of Apple’s largest suppliers, offers proof. When labor activists launched an outcry following a series of suicides at Foxconn, Apple stepped in. According to a report from the Fair Labor Association last December, working conditions at Foxconn have since steadily improved.

“I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to ask Apple to look into workplace issues for security officers in the Bay Area,” Fletes said. “Or, at the very least for them to meet with security officers who, despite working for one of the most valuable companies in the world, are still struggling to survive.”

Apple does at least give the appearance of wanting to do good. The Cupertino company requires its suppliers meet a “code of conduct” and issues a Supplier Responsibility report to document its progress each year. This past December, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke about his company’s code of conduct in a video message sent in a company-wide email urging employees to behave like good, righteous Apple employees.

“As Dr. Martin Luther King once said, the time is always right to do what’s right,” Cook proclaimed. “At Apple, we do the right thing. Even when it’s not easy. If you see something that doesn’t meet our standards, speak up. Whether it’s a quality issue or a business practice, if it affects Apple’s integrity, we need to know about it.”

Fletes said that when SEIU members protested outside an Apple shareholder meeting last February, Cook said he would look into job quality issues. The allegations of unfair treatment by SIS’ security officers have since continued. Apple did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment.

The actions will continue throughout the Bay Area throughout the summer, ending in San Francisco on August 28th.

On your mark, get set: The Music Video Race is off and running — and expanding

Steven T. Jones
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Everyone knows that true artists do their best work right before deadline. [Ed note: I may or may not be writing this an hour or so before mine.]

Now in its third year, the Music Video Race is an annual San Francisco tradition that takes this dictum to heart, pairing 16 different musical acts with 16 filmmakers for a challenge that makes that “find a flag in the middle of this big fake nose filled with green goop” thing on Double Dare seem like a cakewalk: Conceive, film, and edit an entire music video in 48 hours.

After accepting applications from both filmmakers and musicians for roughly two months, MVR organizers matched up pairs by random drawing at 7:30pm on Friday, July 11, turning the teams loose around the Bay Area, with a final deadline of 8pm on Sunday, July 13. This year’s bands include SF’s Rin Tin Tiger (which will cap their participation with a headlining spot at the video release party, held at The Independent Sun/20), Oakland’s Bill Baird (fresh from rocking Phono del Sol), Rich Girls, Lemme Adams, and bed. [Another ed note: Yours truly is in the middle of judging said videos, and they’re really freakin’ good.]

“We try to pick a diverse group of bands — we don’t want 20 garage bands or folk acts, etc. There’s so much variety in the Bay, and we really ant to respect that,” says Tim Lillis, an MVR founder, of how they select the participants. “But beyond that, we’re mostly just looking for flexibility, a willingness to roll with the punches, a sense of adventure.”

New this year: We Bay Area-dwellers aren’t so special anymore. The MVR is expanding to Austin and LA, over the weekends of Sept. 5-7 and Nov. 7-9, respectively.

“We’ve had a few really expansive years here, and I think this will help people understand that this isn’t just a San Francisco thing — we’re stoked to help local scenes build themselves,” says Lillis.


Last year’s winning video, from Ash Reiter. 

The Music Video Race got its start in 2011, when Lillis and a few friends were out having a beer at Lucky 13 before a Mister Heavenly show — featuring Michael Cera on bass. 

“I don’t know if subconsciously the worlds of music and film intertwined because of that, but that’s what happened,” says Lillis, who has a background in video production as well as having played in a few bands in the Bay Area. “I’d done a 48-hour film project before, which is fun, but a lot of times the results of those things are not the best, and I think it usually has to do with audio quality. With music videos, there’s pre-reocrded music, so you’re able to cut the film to the beat; there’s already a rhythm for the editing.”

The sped-up nature of the event isn’t just for fun, Lillis explains. “I’m a pretty firm believer in constraints,” he says. “Even in my work as an illustrator and graphic designer, I know that when you only have so much to work with, you have to just trust your gut and make decisions and go with them. Often your first instinct is valid, and there just isn’t time to waffle on stuff.”

And if he had any doubts about the race being good for the city’s music scene, last year’s event should have sealed the deal: A couple of musicians who met as MVR participants in 2013 — Alex Haager, then of the band Magic Fight, and Sierra Frost, then of Clintongore — fell in love, and are now married, and living in Portland, as co-owners of the Oakland/Portland-based Breakup Records. They’re also in this year’s Music Video Race, competing in their new band Bed. 

So, you know. Even if you don’t have a musical or filmmaking bone in your body, there just might be something at the finish-line party for ya. As “how we met” stories go, speed-music-video-making sounds way more punk rock than speed-dating. 

MUSIC VIDEO RACE PREMIERE PARTY W/ RIN TIN TIGER, BED.

July 20, 7pm, $14-$16

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

www.theindependentsf.com

www.musicvideorace.com

This Week’s Picks: July 16 – 22, 2014

Michael Redmond
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Brrrr-illiant!

WEDNESDAY 16

 

 

Jessica Hernandez

Since Jessica Hernandez & The Deltas recorded a full set of tunes for an album two years ago, long stints of touring, writing, and other facets of life delayed their complete release. An excellent EP, Demons, came out last year, and gave fans a taste of what is to come when their new full-length album Secret Evil (Instant Records) is finally released next month. The Detroit-born band plays a tasty blend of blues, jazz, soul, rock and more retro-roots goodness, all building a perfect foundation for Hernandez’ gorgeous and powerful vocals. (Sean McCourt)

With Hungry Skinny, The Tropics

9pm, $12

The Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com

 

 

THURSDAY 17

 

 

Summer Slaughter

While there are plenty of outdoor music festivals and tours crisscrossing the country this summer, metal fans with an aversion to the sun can rejoice that there is one such touring package that hits indoor venues — so you don’t have to worry about a searing sunburn on top of your ringing ears. The promoters of Summer Slaughter 2014 are billing it as the “Most Extreme Tour of the Year,” and it may well be, with death metal legends Morbid Angel headlining the day-long session of debauchery. Joining them will be Dying Fetus, The Faceless, Thy Art Is Murder, Goatwhore, Origin, Decrepit Birth, Within The Ruins, Fallujah, Unhailoed, and Boreworm. (Sean McCourt)

3pm, $29.50-$32

The Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com

 

 

 

San Francisco Symphony: Pixar In Concert

While the films of Pixar Animation Studios may have revolutionized the way movies and cartoons are made with their innovative use of computer animation and their resulting reputation for gorgeous visuals, music also plays an important part in the company’s artistic arsenal. Pixar director Lee Unkrich, CCO John Lasseter and writer-director Brad Bird will act as hosts this weekend as the San Francisco Symphony performs parts of the scores from fan favorite films live, including the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, A Bug’s Life, Wall-E, Cars, Up, The Incredibles, Monsters, Inc., Brave, and Monsters University. (Sean McCourt)

Through Sun/20

7:30pm Thu-Sat; 2pm Sun, $35-$150

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

(415) 864-6000

www.sfsymphony.org

 

 

 

 

Dark Entries 5th Anniversary

Labels like Josh Cheon’s Dark Entries exist to remind us that no matter how much (or how little) good music might be coming out presently, there are always gonna be underappreciated gems from the past to discover. With this digger’s mentality and assistance from prolific mastering master George Horn, the San Francisco label has been attentitively re-releasing ’80s dance obscurities. Hi-NRG, Italo disco, minimal, post-punk, etc: If it’s avant, analog, and (obvs) dark, it’s perfect. Starting off on a anniversary tour, Cheon will be joined by some of the label’s contemporary artists including REDREDRED (Michael Wood) and Bézier (the live synth project from Cheon’s Honey Soundsystem collective-mate, Robert Yang.) (Ryan Prendiville)

With Max+Mara

July 17, 9pm-2am, $8

The Eagle

398 12th St, SF

www.sf-eagle.com

 

July 19 +Flora Palmer

9pm, $7

Terminal

3957 San Leandro St, Oakl.

 

FRIDAY 18

 

 

 

Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Movie Festival

The name says it all: Pretty much any mode of transport — even, probably, roller-skating or Segway-ing, though maybe leave your team of draft horses back on the farm — is acceptable conveyance to the Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Movie Festival. Once you arrive, settle in (BYO lawn chair or blanket) for an old-school drive-in experience, with films projected on a big screen and sound provided by FM radio as well as amplified speakers. What’s not old-school is the programming: genre-spanning shorts and the occasional feature (this year: a Bollywood pick!), mostly of the “underground” variety, which means you might not catch ’em anywhere else. (Eddy)

Fri/18-Sat/19 and July 25-26, $12

NIMBY

8410 Amelia, Oakl.

www.brainwashm.com

 

 

Erk tha Jerk with Kev Choice

June was a busy month for Erk tha Jerk, the Richmond rapper and producer known for his clever wordplay and catchy, often intensely sexual hooks. On the 12th, he dropped a new video produced by frequent collaborator Fly Commons called “Blast Somebody.” A smooth beat finds Jerk getting existential about his stresses while a near-nude woman gyrates on his bed. The video premiere was bolstered by the announcement that the duo’s upcoming EP, Food and Vegetables comes out on July 15th — the gig doubles as a release party. Fellow East Bay MC Kev Choice opens for Erk. Where Erk often embraces an id-driven and autobiographical style, Kev is far subtler and more socially conscious. A prodigious pianist and bandleader, his set should provide a soulful introduction to Erk’s intensity and bombast. When two of the most idiosyncratic and up-and-coming Bay Area rappers come together, sparks will inevitably fly. (Kurlander)

8pm, $15

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

 

 

San Francisco Frozen Film Festival

Foggy days, windy nights — yep, it’s summer in San Francisco. No need to the seek air-conditioned comfort of a movie theater in this town, unless the films on offer are as tempting as this year’s San Francisco Frozen Film Festival lineup. The two-day fest offers a stack of shorts by indie, international, and youth filmmakers, grouped into thematic programs: dramatic shorts, animated shorts, LGBT shorts, experimental shorts (including at least one music video), documentary shorts, and the sub-category of short environmental docs, spanning locations as close as Mt. Tam and as far as Antarctica. Brrrr-illiant! (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sat/19, $12 (fest pass, $20)

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St, SF

www.frozenfilmfestival.com

 

 

SATURDAY 19

 

 

Sara Lautman at the Cartoon Art Museum

Macrogroan, Sara Lautman’s ongoing booklet series and accompanying blog, is remarkably diverse. Lautman, July’s cartoonist-in-residence at the Cartoon Art Museum, deconstructs tiring pop culture trends (one illustration includes a speech bubble by a young woman sitting a desk with a computer: “If you heard Matthew Sweet in some bar he’d fit right in but you’d be like Holy Fuck!” Near the bottom right corner of the same illustration: “Gross. I sound like Marc Maron.”) and larger societal issues (“Clothes People We Are Afraid of Becoming” is made up of four sketches of archetypes Lautman fears, with corresponding labels that describe their respective outfits). Her self-referentiality and distinctive, often experimental drawing methods — she has created entire comic books using a crude drawing program on a flip phone — has earned her spots in publications as varied as Bitch Magazine and The Hairpin. Lautman will present her work and discuss her process with visitors to the museum. She sums up her vision of the experience on her site: “Come see me yammer for a while, then hang out.” (Kurlander)

1pm, free

Cartoon Art Museum

655 Mission, SF

(415) 227-8666

www.cartoonart.org

 

 

Jimmy Cliff

Bob Marley may adorn more stoner dens with his smiling face, but the credit for bringing reggae to a worldwide audience goes first and foremost to Jimmy Cliff. As the star and main soundtrack composer of the 1972 Jamaican film The Harder They Come, Cliff brought the once-obscure Caribbean pop style to national attention and broke open the door for the genre’s success in the 1970s. But he couldn’t have done it without a set of killer songs — the film’s title track included —and a voice that puts nearly every stateside soul singer to shame. At 66, he’s still a respected live performer, appearing frequently at festivals — as well as at the Fillmore, where he’ll play on the 19th. (Bromfield)

9pm, $39.50

The Fillmore

1805 Geary, San Francisco

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

 

 

SUNDAY 20

 

 

The Hole

Sometimes landlords just refuse to openly admit that they’re renting you a dilapidated apartment. On the surface, the similarities between modern life and the 1998 Taiwanese film The Hole end there — unless you think our tenacity for lining up in the rain for day-old bagels imported from New York is a sign we’d prosper in a post-apocalyptic world. The screening is the first in this summer’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts series comprised of obscure movies selected by local cinema aficionados. There’s just something about the renter’s dilemma (a modern twist on the prisoner’s dilemma) and a fondness for hoarding toilet paper that resonates with viewers. (Amy Char)

2pm, $8-$10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF (

415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

TUESDAY 22

 

Say Anything

Like many pop-punk bands, Say Anything caught their big break with a completely ridiculous, comically sexual earworm. “Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too,” a song about phone sex that includes zombie references and the word “interweb,” is still the band’s most popular track and a mainstay in teenage bedrooms, but Say Anything’s catalog is anything but shallow and kitschy. Through a decade and a half of mental health issues, drug habits, and music crit’s endless ridicule of pop-punk, Max Bemis and company have continued to turn out catchy and lyrically sharp and funny records. It is perhaps their distinctly un-hip and unapologetically self-aware musical style (they released a record called In Defense of the Genre) that makes the band most earnest and entirely loveable. (Haley Zaremba)

With The Front Bottoms, The So So Glos, You Blew It!

7pm, $23

The Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

(415) 673-5716

www.theregencyballroom.com


White Lung

Who said music writers can’t make music? When Mish Way isn’t busy freelancing as one of America’s most passionate and hilarious music writers, she’s rocking harder than any other architecture-dancer since Patti Smith as the leader of punk outfit White Lung. After making a splash in Vancouver’s punk scene with its debut It’s The Evil, the band found its profile substantially increased when Rolling Stone included sophomore effort Sorry in their top 10 albums of the year — no small feat for a punk album, least of all one that barely runs 20 minutes. They’ve added Wax Idols member and Bay Area native Hether Fortune on bass for album number three, Deep Fantasy, whose hearty reception should secure the band’s footing in both the critical and the die-hard punk worlds. (Bromfield)

7pm, $12

The Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, San Francisco

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

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