It was my fault for working on my laptop behind the plate glass window of a 24th Street cafe when the Niners won… whatever game that was, last Sunday. But it is entirely your fault for spitting at my face through the plate glass window, you sad little hag of a Mission District twenty-something (sup George, remember when I interviewed you about your art a few years ago?) after screaming “DIE YUPPIES” or whatever in the door of said cafe.
So yeah, I’m not so stoked on Super Bowl (or as my friend Kelly Lovemonster put it, “the football game during the Beyonce concert.”) The amount of aggression generated by even a victory for our home team is mind-blowing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pumped for the Niners and for adorable, positive football fans — like novelty rapper and six-year old Sarah Redden — but I’m not trying to catch a burning bus about it. If you’re not either, come hide with me here:
Smell the magnolias at the SF Botanical Garden
Bury yourself in these in-season pink-and-white blooms, sure solace for the streets of shoulder-checking outside the park. Check out the Garden’s daily, free 1:30pm docent-led tour, or just wander about the gorgeous vegetation, liberated from half-time hullabaloo and lines at the bar. Check out the Garden’s full line up of magnolia-themed entertainment for other things that will make you happy.
Open 9am-5pm (last entry 4pm), free. Ninth Ave. and Lincoln, SF. www.sfbotanicalgarden.org
Swell with pride for your city in a non-sports-related way with our new poet laureate
We love San Francisco’s sixth poet laureate Alejandro Murguia more than many things — we even gave him a Guardian column! — so we’re stoked for his inaugural address this week. He plans to address the state of the Latino community in San Francisco, lyrically no doubt.
Sun/27, 1-3pm, free. Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF. www.sfpl.org
Drift away with young East Bay classical musicians
As far as you can get, perhaps from the Tracy Morgan Kraft ad (or the teaser of said ad, that’s a thing now) — the 75 young players of the Oakland Youth Orchestra will take you away on the wings of their percussion, wind, and brass steeds. Get your Dimitri Shostakovich, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Sergei Rachmaninov fix here, at the group’s winter concert.
Sun/27, 3pm, free. Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain, Oakl. www.oyo.org
Cry, laugh, drink with the queens
In the middle of it all — the red and gold beach towels, the cops pouring out champagne into the gutters on 16th Street — you will feel sad. Luckily, doorperson-like-you-wouldn’t-believe Dee Dean Leitner has assembled a passel of drag divas to belt out the shittiest odes to amore tonight at the Stud for a show lovingly dubbed “Worst. Song. Ever.” It starts early for drag, so you will be able to go more or less directly from whatever hole you’ve been hiding from, long before the last rowdies have hopped home on CalTrain.
Sun/27, 7-10pm, $5. The Stud, 399 Ninth St., SF. www.studsf.com
Stay in bed with cats
Win or lose, fireworks, and the pussies may be scared. You can help.
Every day, all the time, your rent. thekittencovers.tumblr.com