Volume 42 [2007–08]

Take another letter

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Readers:

I’ve had a seemingly endless stream of these beginner S–M questions lately. So while I’m on break, I thought I’d run this one (originally printed 6/13/07), which could have been written in response to several of them. Carry on!

Love, Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I just saw Secretary yesterday, then read your column that mentions the same movie and similar sentiment ["Thwang," 5/30/07]. My situation is a bit different because I’ve known how I feel for a while but have never seen or experienced it. Also, I’m a stripper and rarely have sex, although I am extremely sexual. I’ve got a serious lust affair with the eroscillator, but I think I may have given up on a love that will be feminist but dominating and aggressive. In the movie, Maggie Gyllenhaal is looking through classifieds for a partner, and that is way too dangerous for me. How do I quiet the arguments between feminism and being truly submissive? Also, having to be seriously up-front about wanting some serious kink might kill the whole deal for me. Do these relationships actually happen in real life? How?

Love, Sub Grrrl

Dear Grrrl:

Right.

There was a moment when every other conversation, magazine article, and academic conference was devoted to exploring the conflicts and connections between radical feminism and radical sexuality. It was called "the ’80s." You probably missed it since you probably weren’t born yet, but that stuff is still in print, so whatever is or isn’t gathering dust in the sorts of used bookstores heavily populated by overweight cats should be easy to find. Most of the best-known pro-kink feminists of the time were very, very lesbian (see Gayle Rubin on the academic side and Pat Califia for "literotica"). But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have anything to say to straight women.

Of all the possible permutations, male dominant–female submissive is likely the most discomfiting to you. Happily, the flip side of the "this weird sex thing goes against every political, ethical, or religious principle I consider right and true" coin is frequently the Big Hot. Go to any upscale S-M party (yes, these really do exist) in San Francisco or Seattle, and at least half the women crawling around their master’s boots begging to be punished ’cause they’ve been very bad are in real life junior partners at onetime all-male law firms, or teach gender theory at small but prestigious liberal arts schools. In other words, they are quite fully "empowered," thank you very much, which doesn’t keep them from voluntarily surrendering said power come Saturday night. And that may in fact add to the appeal. The classic, even clichéd, old-style S-M enthusiast, after all, is a member of Parliament who reports like clockwork to the bawdy house every Thursday afternoon for a brisk caning …

Um, yes. Where were we? I’m not sure where you, who perform naked for sexually aroused strangers for a living, got the idea that playing the personals is particularly dangerous. Perhaps from the same episodes of Law and Order in which a few pieces of S-M gear stashed under a suspect’s bed signal that a severed head in a shoe box cannot be far off? I would never suggest that you meet someone for coffee and immediately go home with him to check out his cool dungeon. Far from it. But the meeting-for-coffee part is perfectly safe. After that you proceed as normal, which includes sharing your interests and aspirations … which is the next place we’re going to have some trouble, I see.

If being up-front about your weirditude is a potential deal-breaker for you, then I suspect you are a spontaneity freak. They are common, but many or most can have the need to proceed by whim or fancy beaten out of them by a stern application of reality. Spontaneity is fun and sexy, but it’s also responsible for most of your unwanted pregnancies, a vast number of STD transmissions, and who-all knows what other havoc.

It’s also inconsistent with S-M at any level more technically advanced than the (admittedly often completely satisfactory) bend-over-and-spank variety. If you do go ahead with this, and you do find someone worthy of your submission, you are going to have to talk about it, whether you want to or not. Not only is it unsafe to do S-M with people you know nothing about, it isn’t even fun. What if you want to wear a neat little skirt and heels while bending prettily over nearby furniture, while he wants you to be a bad puppy and sleep in a kennel in the kitchen? What if your idea of submission is saying, "Yes, sir" a lot, while his idea of domination includes branding irons and cattle prods? Can you see how this could get ugly?

In romantic fantasy, the heroine meets the rough but passionate and shirtless master of the manor when she fetches up at his door as a penniless et cetera. In real life, I’m sorry to tell you, she meets him online or at an S-M "munch" or through kinky friends or at a party. Then they talk. I’m sure you’d rather toss your hair tempestuously while a dark and stormy stranger bends you over his knee and yanks down your pantaloons — but you’ll get over it.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea is home with the kids and going stir-crazy. Write her a letter! Ask her a question! Send her your tedious e-mail forwards! On second thought, don’t do that. Just ask her a question.

The end of the line

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

"The film is called RR, but I like to call it ‘Railroad,’ because RR sounds like a pirate movie."

— James Benning

TRAINS A short stretch of celluloid is a representation of a train, one image following the other in rapid succession, connected by essential blocks of black, moving forward in time and space, and, when projected, rotating on a wheel. Cinema began with a train entering a station, shot with a fixed camera, chugging toward the screen. Barring a change of mind or circumstance, the masterful RR will be the last of James Benning’s works shot on 16mm, and how fitting that this 37-year phase closes with the image of a locomotive, pointedly stopped in front of a wind farm outside of Palm Springs, scrapped tires lying in the foreground, the end in a line of 43 trains shot across the United States (and the final frame of 34 extant films).

After a prolific three-year period that has seen Benning produce five crucial works — likely exhausting his stock of 16mm film — while teaching, driving across America, and building a full-scale replica of Thoreau’s Walden Pond cabin, technology has vanquished this last of the old-time filmmakers.

Those familiar with Benning’s landscape films will be comforted by RR‘s fixed camera and continental scope, but the film marks something of a crucial advance. As opposed to the awesome 13 Lakes (2006) — 13 individual lakes, each shot lasting the full 10 minutes of the 16mm cartridge — RR finds Benning adopting another structural principle: the signified (the train) takes over from the signifier (the camera).

Every shot is mesmerizing, yet the film builds, acquiring a cumulative power, as the simplicity of structure gives way to infinite experiences. To some, trains invoke nostalgia; to younger viewers, classical antiquity. To trainspotters, well, RR is Valhalla. And just as Benning’s California Trilogy (2000–01) concerns work and water, RR becomes a film "about" American overconsumption. Benning lets what’s on screen tell the story, with the tumultuous history of railroads and western development only alluded to by songs and words on the soundtrack. Filmed and recorded, as always, by a one-man band, all of its shots captured without permissions or permits, maybe RR is a pirate movie.

SFBG How far back does RR‘s genesis go? Were you into railroads as a kid?

JAMES BENNING Yeah, I like trains a lot. When I was a kid I had a little model train, an American Flyer. When I was a teenager we used to play in the train yards in Milwaukee, and that was fun, because we weren’t supposed to go there. We’d hop on slow freight trains and ride them for like a mile, and then jump off.

SFBG When you started making RR, was there a specific plan? Did you know the exact locations where you wanted to shoot?

JB I was pretty familiar with the major US lines. When I drive from Wisconsin to California, I pass by the lines that run through the Midwest. I know the lines that go up and down the [east] coast from New York to Washington. Other lines I knew through research, by getting a good railroad atlas. I wanted to film according to landscapes, too. I knew I wanted to do a shot across Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana, and a shot in Mississippi of a train going through the kudzu growth, and [a shot of] this famous park called the Rat Hole in Kentucky. I also used a Web site [www.railpictures.net] that says it has "the best railroad pictures on the Net." It has thousands of still photos by railroad fans.

SFBG Is it accurate to call RR a landscape film?

JB The initial idea was to use railroads to define landscape because they can only go up a 2 percent grade. But as it became apparent to me that the film was going to be about trains more than landscapes, I learned more about different kinds of engines. The second shot is of the only piggyback train — where you take semi trucks and load them onto cars — in the film. Later there’s a RoadRailer, the train that looks like a long white snake. I shot that in the Rat Hole, an area that used to be all tunnels. I was shooting from above, which was the best vantage point [from which] to film it.

For me, the film came to be about consumerism and overconsumption — I could feel the weight of the goods going by me. Especially the oil and automobiles, as I saw a lot of tanker cars and auto trains. They pass each other constantly.

SFBG The mathematical nature of RR is impressive. One comes to realize the number of variables at play — the size and expanse of the train, the number of cars, the colors, the speed, the landscape, the angle where the train comes into the frame and where it leaves. All of these factors pile up.

JB It’s the way I always work: I’ll set up a problem for myself. I basically collaborate with the train in that it’s going to suggest the length of the shot. I thought I could vary the distance the camera was from the train, vary the angle that the train approaches from, and change these angles from shot to shot to build rhythms. The variables make it possible to take this idea that is confining and make it grow. The same thing happens with earlier films like 13 Lakes, where I set up an idea — to shoot a lake with the same amount of sky and water — and the problem is how to show the uniqueness of the lake.

SFBG RR must have been a very different experience from shooting 13 Lakes.

JB That’s true, because in shooting 13 Lakes, I was waiting for the best moment to turn the camera on. In RR, I’m waiting for the train, and hopefully it will correspond with the best moment to turn on the camera.

SFBG One is more your choice, and the other is the train’s choice.

JB Yeah, I enter into this collaboration with the train. It’s going to choose the moment. Of course if I am on a line that has five trains an hour, then I can choose the time of the day. But if I’m at a line that has one train a week, then I’m at the mercy of the train. The one place I shot like that was at the causeway that crosses the spillway outside of Lake Pontchartrain — the Kansas Line. That train comes by once a week. I waited all day, and that train came by at 4 in the afternoon, on a day [when] it was 110 degrees with 100 percent humidity.

SFBG Is everything in RR there as you found it? That last shot with the tires strewn by the tracks seems too good to be true.

JB Yeah, it’s outside of Palm Springs. In the film that Reinhard Wulf made about me [James Benning: Circling the Image (2003)], we stop at the same wind farm. On the soundtrack I talk about going back to places I’ve filmed and seeing how the places change. That area is just littered with stuff, so it wasn’t hard to find a good frame with tires.

SFBG When I saw RR, the audience gasped at that final shot, like they do at the mirrored image of Crater Lake in Oregon in 13 Lakes. It isn’t comparable in beauty. But there is perfection to the composition: the colors of the train match up with the landscape, the blue of the sky and the white of the windmills.

JB The other thing is that as the train gets slower and eventually stops, the sound of the train gives way to the sound of the windmills. There is this slow dissolve between train noise and wind energy that somewhat suggests an alternative way of living, a cleaner energy. After [one] screening, an interviewer said that he found it to be hopeful, but I find it kind of ironic, as it seems too late. The tires lying there like the death of the automobile — the death of our culture, really — and the use of oil, all of that is in play.

SFBG The general perception of RR is that the film’s structure is precisely a function of the length of each train — the shot begins when the train enters the frame and ends when it leaves. But that’s not exactly the case.

JB Most of the time there’s an empty frame, the train enters, it leaves, and then there’s a cut. I would like to have drawn that out. For me the film is very much about time and about waiting, but I didn’t want waiting to become part of the film. I wanted you to realize through the absence of waiting that I had to wait.

SFBG Something else happens within RR. At least twice, maybe three times, there is an optical illusion. After the train leaves the frame what’s left behind seems to vibrate.

JB It happens a lot.

SFBG Were you aware that this would occur?

JB I wasn’t when I made the film, but when I started to project the work print, I was shocked. You don’t need a film to get that optical illusion — you can stand in front of a waterfall, follow the water down, then turn your head. [Likewise,] your eyes will follow the train so that when it’s gone, the effect remains and even kind of warps.

SFBG Most of the trains in the film are freight trains, there are maybe only one or two passenger trains.

JB There are two: one was a commuter train, one was a passenger train. The amount of commuter travel, at least on the West Coast, is minimal — you hardly ever see a train with people in it. Amtrak leases the right to use rails from the companies that operate the freight trains. I’ve taken most of the Amtrak train routes. They’re fun … and slow.

SFBG How long did you shoot?

JB I shot for two and a half years, probably. I had so much fun that I didn’t really want to stop. I still miss it. Sometimes I go back to those same sites and wait for trains, just to have that feeling again.

Obligatory video game outrage

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› annalee@techsploitation.com

TECHSPLOITATION At this point, the outraged response to the latest installment in the Grand Theft Auto series of video games, GTA4, is pretty much obligatory. Mothers Against Drunk Driving is lobbying to get the video game rated "adults only" (effectively killing it in the US market, where major console manufacturers won’t support AO games) because there’s one scene in the game where you have the option to drive drunk. Apparently none of the good ladies of MADD have ever played GTA, since if they had they might have discovered that when you try to drive drunk, the video game informs you that you should take a cab. If you do drive, the cops immediately chase you down. Which is exactly the sort of move you’d expect from this sly, fun game, which hit stores last week.

GTA, made by edgy Rockstar Games, is basically a driving game franchise packed inside an intriguing, disturbing, elaborate urban world where you become a character whose life options are all connected to the ability to drive around in various cities. Usually you’re some kind of bad guy or shady character. Think of it as the video game equivalent of a TV show like The Wire or an urban gangster flick. What has made GTA so popular among gamers is the way it combines the fun of a driving game with the sprawling possibilities of gamer choice. And I think that’s what nongamers find so confusing — and therefore threatening — about it.

When you jump into a car in GTA, you aren’t rated on your driving skill. You don’t have to stay on a predetermined track. Sure, you have to complete a mission, but you can choose to just drive around insanely, exploring the big worlds of the GTA games, beating up cops and murdering people at random if you want. You can take drugs and get superspeedy or ram a truck into a building.

GTA4 is set inside an alternate version of New York City and takes the player even further into a world of narrative choices. You play a character named Niko, a Serbian war vet who comes to Liberty City to get revenge — or to make peace with his past. Along with several other characters, he’s just trying to get by in a huge city, but gets sucked into a world of crime and murder along the way. As you get deeper into the game, you realize that your interactions with characters are just as important as running your car missions. You can’t get anywhere without making friends, connections, and plunging deeper into Niko’s troubled past.

If GTA4 were a movie, it would have been directed by Martin Scorsese or David O. Russell, and we’d all be ooohing and aaahhing over its dark, ironic vision of immigrant life in a world at war with itself. But because GTA4 is a video game, where players are in the driver’s seat, so to speak, it freaks people out. Earlier installments of GTA-inspired feminist and cultural-conservative outrage (you have the option to kill prostitutes!), and concern over moral turpitude from Hillary Clinton (you can beat cops to death! Or anybody!).

And yet there are other video games out there, like the family-friendly role-playing game The Sims, where players can torture people to death in ways far more disturbing than those in GTA. I was just talking to a friend who told me gleefully how he’d taken one of his Sims characters, stuck him in a VR headset, and walled him into a room that only contained an espresso machine. The character kept drinking coffee and playing the headset, pissing in the corners of the room and crying until he died. Other players have reported that you can stick a bunch of characters in the swimming pool, remove the ladder, and drown them. Then you can decorate your yard with their tombstones. That’s not the point of the game, but people can do it.

The reason these horrible things can happen in The Sims is exactly the same reason they happen in GTA: these are cutting-edge video games defined by player freedom rather than locking the player into a prescribed narrative loop where veering off the racetrack means "lose" rather than "find a new adventure." When you give players the option to explore their fantasies, you’re going to get some dark stuff. Yes, it’s disturbing. But it’s also the foundation of great art.

Annalee Newitz (annalee@techsploitation.com) is a surly media nerd who has just started playing GTA4 but has already read all the spoilers for it.

We stand with Carole Migden

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OPINION As longtime fans of the Guardian and as allies in almost every fight, including the struggles for public power, affordable housing, people-focused land use policy, and clean and open government, we do not like finding ourselves on the opposite side of an issue as important as this year’s state Senate race. Respectfully, we must say that we believe the Guardian‘s failure to endorse Carole Migden in that race was a colossal mistake — not unlike the decision to endorse Angela Alioto over Tom Ammiano and Matt Gonzalez for mayor in 2003.

Both Leno and Migden are good votes in Sacramento. But the simple reality is that Carole Migden has been there for the local left in ways that make her the only choice for progressives willing to take on the establishment. Certainly Migden has made herself vulnerable to political attacks. Her failure to retain a professional treasurer for her campaign finance filings was clearly an error of judgment. But for us, none of this outweighs her incredible record of achievement in Sacramento or her far more reliable support of progressive candidates and causes in San Francisco.

Guardian readers should by now be familiar with Migden’s long record in Sacramento: the California Clean Water Act, saving the Headwaters Forest, community choice aggregation (CCA), a series of domestic partnership laws that have established a viable alternative to marriage in California while setting the stage for extending marriage rights to same-sex couples, a remarkable package of foster care reforms, and cosmetics safety legislation.

But it is Migden’s role locally that makes her so important to San Francisco progressives. Migden is the only candidate in the race who has been there for progressives in difficult political battles. As candidates for the Democratic County Central Committee, we are grateful that the Guardian endorsed our entire slate. But we wonder if the Guardian considered the fact that the vast majority (indeed, almost unanimous) of Hope Slate candidates are Migden supporters, because they are the leading progressive candidates to retain a progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors in November. It is not coincidental.

Few politicians who have risen as high in the establishment food chain as Carole Migden have done so retaining a willingness to fight for the underdog. Guardian readers should be familiar with the litany: she supported Aaron Peskin and Jake McGoldrick in 2000; reached out to Chris Daly soon thereafter and stood strongly with him against subsequent challenges; never, ever supported Gavin Newsom; attended the Progressive Convention; and financed progressive campaigns from the Affordable Housing Bond to Muni reform.

Migden is a scrappy street fighter who helps other scrappy street fighters. As one of the very first queers and one of the first women to take political power at these levels, she had to be. Someday progressive politics may not need scrappy street fighters (and someday maybe women will be better represented in public office) — but not yet.

We are proud to stand with Carole Migden, as she has stood with us. She is the candidate in this race who we can count on to fight when it really counts.

Bill Barnes, Chris Daly, Michael Goldstein, Robert Haaland, Joe Julian, Eric Mar, Rafael Mandelman, Eric Quezada, and Debra Walker

The writers are Hope Slate candidates for the DCCC.

No peace, no work

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› news@sfbg.com

Workers, students, immigrants, and antiwar activists came together in historic fashion on May Day in San Francisco, but it was hard to tell from the next day’s mainstream media coverage, which adopted its usual cynical view of the growing movement to end the war in Iraq.

Sure, there were articles in newspapers from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times about how the International Longshore and Warehouse Union shut down all 29 West Coast ports for the day, with far more than 10,000 workers defying both their employers and the national union leadership to skip work.

But each article missed the main point: this was the first time in American history that such a massive job action was called to protest a war.

“In this country, dock workers have never stopped work to stop a war,” Jack Heyman, the ILWU executive board member and Oakland Port worker who spearheaded the effort, told the Guardian.

The ILWU’s “No Peace, No Work” campaign and simultaneous worker-led shutdowns of the Iraqi ports of Umm Qasr and Khor Al Zubair are part of a broader effort, called US Labor Against the War, that labor scholars agree is something new to the political landscape of this country.

Steven Pitts, labor policy specialist at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center, told the Guardian the effort was significant: “It wasn’t simply a little crew of San Francisco radicals. It has a breadth that has spread out across the country.”

In fact, USLAW has about 200 union locals and affiliates with a detailed policy platform that calls for ending war funding, redirecting resources from the military to domestic needs, and boosting workers’ rights — including those of immigrants, who staged an afternoon march in San Francisco following the ILWU’s morning event.

Traditionally labor unions have been big supporters of US wars. But Pitts said the feelings of rank-and-file workers have always been more complex than the old “hard hats vs. hippies” stories from the Vietnam era might indicate.

Blue-collar workers have always been skeptical of war, Howard Zinn, a history professor and author of the seminal book A People’s History of the United States (HarperCollins, 1980), told the Guardian.

“Working people were against the [Vietnam] War in greater percentages than professionals,” Zinn told us, referring to polling data from the time. “There is always a tendency of organizations to be more conservative than their rank and file.”

This time, union members and the public as a whole have more aggressively pushed their opposition to the Iraq War, winning antiwar resolutions among the biggest unions in the country and in hundreds of US cities and counties.

“I think it’s a reflection of how far the nation as a whole has come in our anger at the continuation of this war,” Zinn told us.

The media coverage of the May Day event belittled its significance, noting that missing one day of work had little practical impact to the economy or war machine, while playing up comments by spokespeople for the Pacific Maritime Association and National Retail Federation that the strike was insignificant and perhaps more aimed at upcoming contract talks than the war.

Heyman wasn’t happy about that bias.

The strike “was totally for moral, political, and social reasons. It had nothing to do with the contract,” Heyman told us.

A big factor for the ILWU was the newfound solidarity between dock workers in the United States and those in Iraq, who were prohibited from organizing in 1987 by the Baathist regime, an edict that the US has continued to enforce.

The Iraqi dock workers issued a May Day statement that detailed the horrors of their situation: “Five years of invasion, war, and occupation have brought nothing but death, destruction, misery, and suffering to our people.”

In fact, the banner leading the ILWU procession down the Embarcadero and into Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco read, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” That theme of solidarity — among all workers, American and Iraqi, legal and illegal — was laced through all the speeches of the day.

Joining labor leaders on the podium were antiwar movement stalwarts such as Cindy Sheehan, who is running an independent campaign to unseat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, now a target of the movement for continuing to fund the war.

“Nancy Pelosi wants to give George [W.] Bush more money [for the Iraq War] than he even asked for,” Sheehan said, drawing a loud, sustained “boo!” from the crowd. At the afternoon rallies at Dolores Park and Civic Center Plaza, which focused on immigration issues, the war was also a big target, with signs such as “Stop the ICE raids, Stop the War,” and “Si se puede, the workers struggle has no borders.”

Even for protest-happy San Francisco, it was an unusually spirited May Day, with more than 1,000 people appearing at each of the four main rallies and two big marches. There were lots of smaller actions as well, including demonstrations at the ICE offices and Marine recruiting center, and activists from the Freedom From Oil Campaign disrupting a Commonwealth Club speech by General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner.

But it was the port shutdown that was unique. Annually the 29 West Coast ports process 368 million tons of goods, averaging more than 1 million tons a day moved by 15,000 registered ILWU workers and a number of other “casuals.” Eight percent of that comes in and out of Oakland, but West Coast trade affects business throughout the country — as many as 8 million other workers come in contact with some aspect of that trade.

Mike Zampa, spokesperson for APL — the eighth-largest container shipping company in the world, with ports in Oakland, Los Angeles, and Seattle — told us, “Over a long period of time a shutdown like this does have an impact on the US economy.”

More port shutdowns are possible, Heyman said. But he hopes the action inspires other workers and activists to increase the pressure for an end to the war.

“We are taking action to swing the pendulum back the other way,” Heyman told us during the march. “We are stopping work to stop the war.”

Growing up

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Arguments about urban sprawl and the need to drastically improve transit services at the Transbay Terminal are driving plans for massive new skyscrapers in the SoMa District. Although the project is still in its initial phase, as many as seven towers — some higher than the Transamerica Pyramid — would surround the centerpiece Transbay Tower.

At an April 30 public hearing on the project at Golden Gate University, about 150 people, mostly developers and architects, voiced their opinions as they listened to the city’s updates on the proposal. For the most part, the business community audience wanted buildings as high as possible and felt that even the city’s most ambitious proposal, to build a Transbay Tower more than 1,200 feet high — almost twice the height of One Rincon Hill — was insufficient.

"I support raising the heights. By increasing density, we’re taking better care of our environment," Rincon Hill resident Jamie Whitaker told the room.

The original plan called for a 550-foot Transbay Tower, but the city wants to double its height to ensure sufficient funds for the Transit Center, the Caltrain extension, and other infrastructure improvements. The project’s environmental impact report will study three height options: 850, 1,000, and 1,200 feet. The addition of a couple of hundred feet would raise revenue from about $150 million to between $310 million and $410 million, according to the San Francisco Planning Department.

Although increasing the height of the planned office buildings will bring in more money for other improvements, the increased density comes with transit and quality of life costs. Some worry that the higher population will create an unlivable space.

"Mission Street is turning into a canyon," Jennifer Clary, president of the urban environmental group SF Tomorrow, told the Guardian. "Already there are virtually no parks in this side of the city. They’re creating a demand for more open space, but they’re not fulfilling it."

Although a new park will extend about 11 acres on the roof of the Transbay Terminal, some existing open spaces may be in jeopardy. If the Transbay Tower is higher than 1,000 feet, it will cast a shadow for part of the day over Justin Herman Plaza and possibly Portsmouth Square.

Even though Proposition K, which passed in 1984, states that new buildings cannot cast shadows on public parks, the city’s planning department has the ability to waive that rule. "The law says no new ‘significant’ shadows, so it’s really a judgment call and can be interpreted in a variety of ways," Joshua Switzky, project manager for the San Francisco Planning Department told the Guardian.

For example, the city allowed the Asian Art Museum, remodeled in 2003, to cast a small shadow over Civic Center Plaza. "Shadow impacts can be precisely calculated, and we’re working to mitigate the impact on parks," Switzky said.

In addition to thoughts on how to keep parks sunny, several ideas to ease congestion were introduced at the meeting, including changing one-way streets, restricting terminal access to public vehicles, installing more bike lanes, and increasing curb width.

According to a 2004 Planning Department study, 70 percent of downtown workers commute using public transit, 17 percent drive, and the rest walk or bike. Sufficient funding has yet to be secured to connect Caltrain tracks to the Transbay Terminal, instead of its present end at 4th and King streets. Either way, the planning department hopes to increase commuters using transit by 6 percent, according to the April 2008 Transit Center District Plan.

"Right now all we have is a huge skyscraper for a bus terminal, and it’s not clear if the city will invest the extra money from taller buildings to improve transit," Clary told us.

The planning department estimates it will need an additional $1.9 billion to connect Caltrain, and if it doesn’t reach that goal, SoMa may be inundated by even more cars since there will be no direct commute route from the Peninsula to the new Transbay Terminal offices. In November, California voters will decide on a $10 billion bond measure to create a high-speed rail line linking Los Angeles to San Francisco at the new Transbay Terminal, the centerpiece of the planned project.

The next public meeting will be held at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Thursday, May 8 at 5:30 p.m.

Newsom axes sunshine

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EDITORIAL Shortly before he left on a trip to Israel last week, Mayor Gavin Newsom quietly vetoed a bill that would have greatly expanded public access to the workings of San Francisco government. The supervisors need to override that veto as quickly as possible.

The measure, by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, seems so simple that it’s hard to imagine why it would be controversial. Mirkarimi wants the city to audiotape or videotape any meeting of any public agency at City Hall, and post that tape on the Web within 72 hours.

That would make it much easier for people following local government actions to see or hear the actual testimony and discussion at board and commission meetings, most of which take place during the day when people with jobs can’t attend. The Board of Supervisors meetings are televised, as are most board committee meetings, but dozens of other agencies meet regularly with few people attending and virtually no press coverage. And there’s no easy way to find out exactly what went on at those meetings.

Posting the recordings on the Web is part of a larger agenda promoted by sunshine advocates who want to see the city use easily available and inexpensive modern technology to promote open government (see Sunshine in the digital age, 3/12/08). Among their proposals: at the very least, post and stream the audio portion of all meetings on the Internet. Most meetings are already recorded anyway, and all the meeting rooms are equipped with recording gear. But those recordings aren’t easy to access. The only way to get a copy of the proceedings is to send $10 for a DVD and $1 for an audiotape to the city, then wait a week for your media to arrive in the mail. How hard could it be to put that material on the Web?

Sunshine activists want to go a lot further. They suggest, for example, that every document and e-mail created by a city employee be sent automatically to a public server where it can be viewed over the Internet. And if there was adequate wi-fi service at City Hall (there isn’t), bloggers could post video of the meetings themselves.

Mirkarimi’s bill didn’t go anywhere near that far. All he asked was that the meetings that take place in rooms equipped for audio or video taping be recorded and that the files be placed on the Web. The total cost was pegged at $131,000 per year, but the city’s cable-TV franchise deal would require Comcast to pay $55,000 for the necessary new equipment. So the final tab would be only $72,000 a year. That’s such a minuscule percentage of the city’s $5 billion budget that it fits into the category of what Mirkarimi calls "decimal dust."

And yet in an April 30 veto message, Newsom said he found the cost too high. "I would urge the Board of Supervisors to hold off on new spending initiatives" until the next budget cycle, he said.

That’s crazy. We recognize that money is tight, but Newsom has pushed all sorts of new programs and initiatives that cost more than $72,000. In fact, he spent almost twice that much ($139,700) gussying up his office back in January.

Four supervisors voted against Mirkarimi’s bill: Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd, Jake McGoldrick, and Michela Alioto-Pier, so Mirkarimi appears to have seven votes to override the veto. It will take one more — one more supervisor willing to stand up for open government — to make this program happen. It’s embarrassing to see neighborhood supervisors voting against sunshine. Call the four and demand they vote to override. Chu: 554-7460. Elsbernd: 554-6516. McGoldrick: 554-7410. Alioto-Pier: 554-7752.

The feds raid San Francisco

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EDITORIAL On May 2, the day after thousands demonstrated for immigrant rights — exactly one month after Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Tom Ammiano stood in front of the cameras and announced a new initiative to promote the city’s sanctuary policy for undocumented residents — federal agents swept into the city and arrested workers at El Balazo restaurant as part of an immigration enforcement raid.

It was bitterly ironic: much of the excitement of the large May Day rallies in San Francisco came from the diversity of the crowds and the connections among labor, antiwar activists, and immigrant-rights groups. The raid reflects the ongoing disaster that is US immigration policy under President George W. Bush — arresting and deporting restaurant workers tears up families and communities, is a colossal waste of money, does nothing about the economic issues driving immigration, and damages the San Francisco and California economies. But it’s tough to get leading Democrats to take a strong stand on the issue: both Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have ducked tough immigration questions during the presidential campaign.

And while San Francisco’s Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, was against the fence and called it a "terrible idea," she hasn’t said a word in public about last week’s immigration raid in her home city. Neither has Sen. Dianne Feinstein or Sen. Barbara Boxer.

There’s only so much San Francisco can do to block the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. The local sanctuary law bars city officials from in any way assisting ICE in apprehending undocumented immigrants, and Newsom and the Police Commission should direct Police Chief Heather Fong to investigate and ensure that there were no San Francisco law enforcement resources used, directly or indirectly, in the raid.

But local activists can do a lot to stop this insanity, using the sorts of political alliances we were encouraged to see forming at the May Day events. For starters, the antiwar, labor, and immigrant rights groups should call on Pelosi, Feinstein, and Boxer to denounce the raids and demand that ICE stop terrorizing California workers.

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

Early in January 1992, with Bill Clinton poised to win the crucial New Hampshire primary, a woman named Gennifer Flowers came forward with a sordid tale of a 12-year affair with the young Arkansas governor.

Pundits proclaimed that the allegation by Flowers, a former TV reporter who later posed nude for Penthouse, would sink the Clinton campaign. Instead, Bill and Hillary appeared on 60 Minutes right after the Jan. 26 Super Bowl and, in a stunning performance, the candidate diffused the damage and went on to win the primary and the White House.

Years later, a political operative I know offered a bizarre story: Clinton’s senior advisors not only knew that Flowers would go public; they were happy she did it.

See, back then, my source said, polling showed that Bill Clinton was popular among women and educated liberals. His only problem was with the so-called working class white-ethnic men, the blue-collar guys who were Democrats but voted for Ronald Reagan. Those voters thought Clinton was weak, and that his wife was pushing him around.

The Flowers affair was bound to come out eventually, the operative told me. So the strategists figured that sooner was better. Of course, the morality voters and the sanctity-of-marriage crew would be aghast, but they weren’t going to vote for Clinton anyway. The blue-collar guys wouldn’t be offended at all; in fact, some would think a guy who had a Penthouse centerfold on the side wasn’t such a chump after all. And the women had nowhere else to go.

So why not control the release, let Bill and Hillary deal with it, put it behind them, and defuse its potential as an October surprise?

If that account is true, the strategy worked brilliantly.

I thought about Flowers when I saw the video of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright speaking to the National Press Club.

The news media and a lot of Obama supporters say Wright, after talking about the oppression of African Americans, derailed the campaign of the only African American ever to get close to the presidency.

But let me offer a strange but plausible thesis here: what if the Obama campaign not only knew what Wright was going to do, but quietly approved of it?

Think about it: Obama is about two whiskers from being the most powerful person on Earth. If he really wanted Wright to shut up, he could have made a few calls, and I suspect the guy would be cloistered behind closed doors for months. But no: the fiery minister went and attacked America and insulted Obama in a way sure to make huge headlines.

The result: Obama gets to denounce and distance himself from a guy who was going to be a problem in the fall. The damage was done early enough that it will be old news by October. Obama will still win North Carolina, be close in Indiana — and Clinton simply won’t have the numbers to win the nomination.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the story I was told all those years ago was a total fabrication. Maybe Gennifer Flowers and Rev. Wright acted alone. But I’ve watched enough presidential campaigns to know it’s entirely possible they didn’t.

Small Business Awards 2008

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When Jean Dibble and I founded the Guardian in 1966, we came with the values of the Midwestern small business, the family farm, and the small-town community. We like to say that the Brugmann and Dibble families have been continuously in small business for more than l00 years.

My grandfather was the eighth child of a German immigrant farmer who homesteaded on 160 acres of prairie grass in northwest Iowa, near Spencer. He picked nearby Rock Rapids as the place to set up a general store-type drugstore, and he and my father spent their entire lives in the store, which was known throughout the territory as "Brugmann’s Drugs, where drugs and gold are fairly sold, since l902." I started in the store at age l2, selling peanuts and stamps.

My wife Jean’s family members were small-business people. Her father had lumberyards in Nebraska, and later a hardware store in Iowa.

Jean and I were delighted to find that San Francisco was a city rich in small, locally owned, independent businesses, and rich in a wide swath of neighborhoods bristling with distinctive small businesses, backed up by vigorous neighborhood small business associations.

Small business, we found, was the leading job generator in the city and the key player in building a sustainable local economy. After the l906 earthquake, it was the entrepreneurs and small businesses who lifted the city from the ashes. After the dot-com bust, it was the small-business community and vibrant neighborhoods that cushioned the blow. Today, it’s up to small business again.

And so the Guardian is pleased to salute the small-business community with our fourth annual Small Business Awards. We proudly announce our seven winners, who are each in their own way working to transform the city into a green, sustainable, local economy and pulling the city out of the recession.

They struggle valiantly against daunting odds to keep their business going, their neighborhoods lively, and San Francisco an incomparably great city. Let us salute them. (Bruce B. Brugmann)

Click below to read more about this year’s winners:

>>Small Green Business Award
Luscious Garage

>>Die-Hard Independent Award
Hazel’s Kitchen

>>Small Business Activist Award
Scott Hauge

>>Community Business Award
El Rio

>>Big Box Alternative Award
Cole Hardware

>>Chain Alternative Award
Books and Bookshelves

>Arthur Jackson Diversity in Business Award
WAGES

Endorsements

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Summer 2008 fairs and festivals

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Grab your calendars, then get outside and celebrate summer in the Bay.

>Click here for a full-text version of this article.

ONGOING

United States of Asian America Arts Festival Various locations, SF; (415) 864-4120, www.apiculturalcenter.org. Through May 25. This festival, presented by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, showcases Asian Pacific Islander dance, music, visual art, theater, and multidisciplinary performance ensembles at many San Francisco venues.

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Yerba Buena Gardens, Third St at Mission, SF; (415) 543-1718, www.ybgf.org. Through Oct, free. Nearly 100 artistic and cultural events for all ages take place at the Gardens, including the Latin Jazz series and a performance by Rupa & the April Fishes.

MAY 10–31

Asian Pacific Heritage Festival Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 Ninth St, Oakl; (510) 637-0462, www.oacc.cc. Times vary, free. The OACC presents hands-on activities for families, film screenings, cooking classes, and performances throughout the month of May.

MAY 15–18

Carmel Art Festival Devendorf Park, Carmel; (831) 642-2503, www.carmelartfestival.org. Call for times, free. Enjoy viewing works by more than 60 visual artists at this four-day festival. In addition to the Plein Air and Sculpture-in-the-Park events, the CAF is host to the Carmel Youth Art Show, Quick Draw, and Kids Art Day.

MAY 16–18

Oakland Greek Festival 4700 Lincoln, Oakl; (510) 531-3400, www.oaklandgreekfestival.com. Fri-Sat, 10am-11pm; Sun, 11am-9pm, $6. Let’s hear an "opa!" for Greek music, dance, food, and a stunning view at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension’s three-day festival.

MAY 17

Asian Heritage Street Celebration Japantown; www.asianfairsf.com. 11am-6pm, free. The largest gathering of Asian Pacific Americans in the nation features artists, DJs, martial arts, Asian pop culture, karaoke, and much more.

Saints Kiril and Methody Bulgarian Festival Croatian American Cultural Center, 60 Onondaga; (510) 649-0941, www.slavonicweb.org. 4pm, $15. Enjoy live music, dance, and traditional food and wine in celebration of Bulgarian culture. A concert features special guests Radostina Koneva and Orchestra Ludi Maldi.

Taiwanese American Cultural Festival Union Square, SF; (408) 268-5637, www.tafnc.org. 11am-5pm, free. Explore Taiwan by tasting delicious Taiwanese delicacies, viewing a puppet show and other performances, and browsing arts and crafts exhibits.

Uncorked! Ghirardelli Square; 775-5500, www.ghirardellisq.com. 1-6pm, $40-45. Ghirardelli Square and nonprofit COPIA present their third annual wine festival, showcasing more than 40 local wineries and an array of gourmet food offerings.

BAY AREA

Cupertino Special Festival in the Park Cupertino Civic Center, 10300 Torre, Cupertino; (408) 996-0850, www.osfamilies.org. 10am-6pm, free. The Organization of Special Needs Families hosts its fourth annual festival for people of all walks or wheels of life. Featuring live music, food and beer, a petting zoo, arts and crafts, and other activities.

Enchanted Village Fair 1870 Salvador, Napa; (707) 252-5522. 11am-4pm, $1. Stone Bridge School creates a magical land of wonder and imagination, featuring games, crafts, a crystal room, and food.

Immigrants Day Festival Courthouse Square, 2200 Broadway, Redwood City; (650) 299-0104, www.historysmc.org. 12-4pm, free. Sample traditional Mexican food, make papel picado decorations, and watch Aztec dancing group Casa de la Cultura Quetzalcoatl at the San Mateo County History Museum.

MAY 17–18

A La Carte and Art Castro St, Mountain View; (650) 964-3395, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. The official kick-off to festival season, A La Carte is a moveable feast of people and colorful tents offering two days of attractions, music, art, a farmers’ market, and street performers.

Bay Area Storytelling Festival Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area, El Sobrante; (510) 869-4946, www.bayareastorytelling.org. Gather around and listen to stories told by storytellers from around the world at this outdoor festival. Carol Birch, Derek Burrows, Baba Jamal Koram, and Olga Loya are featured.

Castroville Artichoke Festival 10100 Merritt, Castroville; (831) 633-2465, www.artichoke-festival.org. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm, $3-6. "Going Green and Global" is the theme of this year’s festival, which cooks up the vegetable in every way imaginable and features activities for kids, music, a parade, a farmers’ market, and much more.

French Flea Market Chateau Sonoma, 153 West Napa, Sonoma; (707) 935-8553, www.chateausonoma.com. Call for times and cost. Attention, Francophiles: this flea market is for you! Shop for antiques, garden furniture, and accessories from French importers.

Hats Off America Car Show Bollinger Canyon Rd and Camino Ramon, San Ramon; (925) 855-1950, www.hatsoffamerica.us. 10am-5pm, free. Hats Off America presents its fifth annual family event featuring muscle cars, classics and hot rods, art exhibits, children’s activities, live entertainment, a 10K run, and beer and wine.

Himalayan Fair Live Oak Park, 1300 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 869-3995, www.himalayanfair.net. Sat, 10am-7pm; Sun, 10am-5:30pm, $8.This benefit for humanitarian grassroots projects in the Himalayas features award-winning dancers and musicians representing Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Mongolia. Check out the art and taste the delicious food.

Pixie Park Spring Fair Marin Art and Garden Center, Ross; www.pixiepark.org. 9am-4pm, free. The kids will love the bouncy houses, giant slide, petting zoo, pony rides, puppet shows, and more at this cooperative park designed for children under 6. Bring a book to donate to Homeward Bound of Marin.

Supercon San Jose Convention Center, San Jose; www.super-con.com. Sat., 10am-6pm; Sun., 10am-5pm, $20-30. The biggest stars of comics, sci-fi, and pop culture — including Lost’s Jorge Garcia and Groo writer Sergio Aragonés — descend on downtown San Jose for panels, discussions, displays, and presentations.

MAY 18

Bay to Breakers Begins at Howard and Spear, ends at the Great Highway along Ocean Beach, SF; www.baytobreakers.com. 8am, $39-59. See a gang of Elvis impersonators in running shorts and a gigantic balloon shaped like a tube of Crest floating above a crowd of scantily clad, and unclad, joggers at this annual "race" from the Embarcadero to the Pacific Ocean.

Carnival in the Xcelsior 125 Excelsior; 469-4739, my-sfcs.org/8.html. 11am-4pm, free. This benefit for the SF Community School features game booths, international food selections, prizes, music, and entertainment for all ages.

BAY AREA

Russian-American Fair Terman Middle School, 655 Arastradero, Palo Alto; (650) 852-3509, paloaltojcc.org. 10am-5pm, $3-5. The Palo Alto Jewish Community Center puts on this huge, colorful cultural extravaganza featuring ethnic food, entertainment, crafts and gift items, art exhibits, carnival games, and vodka tasting for adults.

MAY 21–JUNE 8

San Francisco International Arts Festival Various venues, SF; (415) 399-9554, www.sfiaf.org. The theme for the fifth year of this multidisciplinary festival is "The Truth in Knowing/Threads in Time, Place, Culture."

MAY 22–25

Sonoma Jazz Plus Festival Field of Dreams, 179 First St W, Sonoma; (866) 527-8499, www.sonomajazz.org. Thurs-Sat, 6:30 and 9pm; Sun, 8:30pm, $40+. Head on up to California’s wine country to soak in the sounds of Al Green, Herbie Hancock, Diana Krall, and Bonnie Raitt.

MAY 24–25

Carnaval Mission District, SF; (415) 920-0125, www.carnavalsf.com. 9:30am-6pm, free. California’s largest annual multicultural parade and festival celebrates its 30th anniversary with food, crafts, activities, performances by artists like deSoL, and "Zona Verde," an outdoor eco-green village at 17th and Harrison.

MAY 25–26

San Ramon Art and Wind Festival Central Park, San Ramon; (925) 973-3200, www.artandwind.com. 10am-5pm, free. For its 18th year, the City of San Ramon Parks and Community Services Department presents over 200 arts and crafts booths, entertainment on three stages, kite-flying demos, and activities for kids.

MAY 30–JUNE 8

Healdsburg Jazz Festival Check Web site for ticket prices and venues in and around Healdsburg; (707) 433-4644, www.healdsburgjazzfestival.com. This 10th annual, week-and-a-half-long jazz festival will feature a range of artists from Fred Hersch and Bobby Hutcherson to the Cedar Walton Trio.

MAY 31

Chocolate and Chalk Art Festival North Shattuck, Berk; (510) 548-5335, www.northshattuck.org. 10am-6pm, free. Create chalk drawings and sample chocolate delights while vendors, musicians, and clowns entertain the family.

Napa Valley Art Festival 500 Main, Napa; www.napavalleyartfestival.com. 10am-4pm, free. Napa Valley celebrates representational art on Copia’s beautiful garden promenade with art sales, ice cream, and live music. Net proceeds benefit The Land Trust of Napa County’s Connolly Ranch Education Center.

MAY 31–JUNE 1

Union Street Festival Union, between Gough and Steiner, SF; 1-800-310-6563, www.unionstreetfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. For its 32nd anniversary, one of SF’s largest free art festivals is going green, featuring an organic farmer’s market, arts and crafts made with sustainable materials, eco-friendly exhibits, food, live entertainment, and bistro-style cafés.

JUNE 4–8

01SJ: Global Festival of Art on the Edge Various venues, San Jose; (408) 277-3111, ww.01sj.org. Various times. The nonprofit ZERO1 plans to host 20,000 visitors at this festival featuring 100 exhibiting artists exploring the digital age and novel creative expression.

JUNE 5–8

Harmony Festival Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa; www.harmonyfestival.com. $30-99. One of the largest progressive-lifestyle festivals of its kind, Harmony brings art, education, and cultural awareness together with world-class performers like George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Jefferson Starship, Damian Marley, Cheb I Sabbah, and Vau de Vire Society.

JUNE 7–8

Crystal Fair Fort Mason Center; 383-7837, www.crystalfair.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm, $6. The Pacific Crystal Guild presents two days in celebration of crystals, minerals, jewelry, and metaphysical healing tools from an international selection of vendors.

BAY AREA

Sunset Celebration Weekend Sunset headquarters, 80 Willow Road, Menlo Park; 1-800-786-7375, www.sunset.com. 10am-5pm, $12, kids free. Sunset magazine presents a two-day outdoor festival featuring beer, wine, and food tasting; test-kitchen tours, celebrity chef demonstrations, live music, seminars, and more.

JUNE 8

Haight Ashbury Street Fair Haight and Ashbury; www.haightashburystreetfair.org. 11am-5:30pm, free. Celebrate the cultural contributions this historical district has made to SF with a one-day street fair featuring artisans, musicians, artists, and performers.

JUNE 14

Rock Art by the Bay Fort Mason, SF; www.trps.org. 10am-5pm, free. The Rock Poster Society hosts this event celebrating poster art from its origins to its most recent incarnations.

BAY AREA

City of Oakland Housing Fair Frank Ogawa Plaza; Oakl; (510) 238-3909, www.oaklandnet.com/housingfair. 10am-2pm, free. The City of Oakland presents this seventh annual event featuring workshops and resources for first-time homebuyers, renters, landlords, and homeowners.

JUNE 14–15

North Beach Festival Washington Square Park, 1200-1500 blocks of Grant and adjacent streets; 989-2220, www.sfnorthbeach.org. 10am-6pm, free. Touted as the country’s original outdoor arts and crafts festival, the North Beach Festival celebrates its 54th anniversary with juried arts and crafts exhibitions and sales, a celebrity pizza toss, live entertainment stages, a cooking stage with celebrity chefs, Assisi animal blessings, Arte di Gesso (Italian street chalk art competition, 1500 block Stockton), indoor Classical Concerts (4 pm, National Shrine of St. Francis), a poetry stage, and more.

BAY AREA

Sonoma Lavender Festival 8537 Sonoma Hwy, Kenwood; (707) 523-4411, www.sonomalavender.com. 10am-4pm, free. Sonoma Lavender opens its private farm to the public for craftmaking, lavender-infused culinary delights by Chef Richard Harper, tea time, and a chance to shop for one of Sonoma’s 300 fragrant products.

JUNE 7–AUG 17

Stern Grove Music Festival Stern Grove, 19th Ave and Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. Sundays 2pm, free. This beloved San Francisco festival celebrates community, nature, and the arts is in its with its 71st year of admission-free concerts.

JUNE 17–20

Mission Creek Music Festival Venues and times vary; www.mcmf.org.The Mission Creek Music Festival celebrates twelve years of featuring the best and brightest local independent musicians and artists with this year’s events in venues big and small.

JUNE 20–22

Jewish Vintners Celebration Various locations, Napa Valley; (707) 968-9944, www.jewishvintners.org. Various times, $650. The third annual L’Chaim Napa Valley Jewish Vintners Celebration celebrates the theme "Connecting with Our Roots" with a weekend of wine, cuisine, camaraderie, and history featuring Jewish winemakers from Napa, Sonoma, and Israel.

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival Mendocino County Fairgrounds, 14480 Hwy 128, Boonville; (917) 777-5550, www.snwmf.com.Three-day pass, $135; camping, $50-100. Camp for three days and listen to the international sounds of Michael Franti & Spearhead, the English Beat, Yami Bolo, and many more.

JUNE 28–29

San Francisco Pride 2008 Civic Center, Larkin between Grove and McAllister; 864-FREE, www.sfpride.org. Celebration Sat-Sun, noon-6pm; parade Sun, 10:30am, free. A month of queer-empowering events culminates in this weekend celebration: a massive party with two days of music, food, and dancing that continues to boost San Francisco’s rep as a gay mecca. This year’s theme is "Bound for Equality."

JULY 3–6

High Sierra Music Festival Plumas-Sierra Fairgrounds, Quincy; (510) 547-1992, www.highsierramusic.com. Ticket prices vary. Enjoy four days of camping, stellar live music, yoga, shopping, and more at the 18th iteration of this beloved festival. This year’s highlights include ALO, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Built to Spill, Bob Weir & RatDog, Gov’t Mule, and Railroad Earth.

JULY 4

City of San Francisco Fourth of July Waterfront Celebration Pier 39, Embarcadero at Beach; 705-5500, www.pier39.com. 1-9:30pm, free. SF’s waterfront Independence Day celebration features live music by Big Bang Beat and Tainted Love, kids’ activities, and an exciting fireworks show.

JULY 5–6

Fillmore Jazz Festival Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy; www.fillmorejazzfestival.com.10am-6pm, free. More than 90,000 people will gather to celebrate Fillmore Street’s prosperous tradition of jazz, culture, and cuisine.

JULY 17–AUG 3

Midsummer Mozart Festival Various Bay Area venues; (415) 392-4400, www.midsummermozart.org. $20-60. This Mozart-only music concert series in its 34th season features talented musicians from SF and beyond.

JULY 18–AUG 8

Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival Menlo School, 50 Valparaiso, Atherton; www.musicatmenlo.org. In its sixth season, this festival explores a musical journey through time, from Bach to Jennifer Higdon.

JULY 21–27

North Beach Jazz Fest Various locations; www.nbjazzfest.com. Various times and ticket prices. Sunset Productions presents the 15th annual gathering celebrating indoor and outdoor jazz by over 100 local and international artists. Special programs include free jazz in Washington Square Park.

JULY 26, AUG 16

FLAX Creative Arts Festival 1699 Market; 552-2355, www.flaxart.com. 11am-2pm, free. Flax Art and Design hosts an afternoon of hands-on demonstrations, free samples, and prizes for kids.

JULY 27

Up Your Alley Dore Alley between Folsom and Howard, Folsom between Ninth and 10th Sts; www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm, free. Hundreds of naughty and nice leather-lovers sport their stuff in SoMa at this precursor to the Folsom Street Fair.

AUG 2–3

Aloha Festival San Francisco Presidio Parade Grounds, near Lincoln at Graham; www.pica-org.org/AlohaFest/index.html. 10am-5pm, free. The Pacific Islanders’ Cultural Association presents its annual Polynesian cultural festival featuring music, dance, arts, crafts, island cuisine, exhibits, and more.

AUG 9–10

Nihonmachi Street Fair Japantown Center, Post and Webster; www.nihonmachistreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. Japantown’s 35th annual celebration of the Bay Area’s Asian and Pacific Islander communities continues this year with educational booths and programs, local musicians and entertainers, exhibits, and artisans.

AUG 22–24

Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival Golden Gate Park; www.outsidelands.com. View Web site for times and price. Don’t miss the inaugural multifaceted festival of top-notch music, including Tom Petty, Jack Johnson, Manu Chao, Widespread Panic, Wilco, and Primus.

AUG 25–SEPT 1

Burning Man Black Rock City, NV; www.burningman.com. $295. Celebrate the theme "American Dream" at this weeklong participatory campout that started in the Bay Area. No tickets will be sold at the gate this year.

AUG 29–SEPT 1

Sausalito Art Festival 2400 Bridgeway, Sausalito; (415) 331-3757, www.sausalitoartfestival.org. Various times, $10. Spend Labor Day weekend enjoying the best local, national, and international artists as they display paintings, sculpture, ceramics, and more in this seaside village.

AUG 30–31

Millbrae Art and Wine Festival Broadway between Victoria and Meadow Glen, Millbrae; (650) 697-7324, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-5pm, free. The "Big Easy" comes to Millbrae for this huge Mardi Gras–style celebration featuring R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, and soul music, as well as arts and crafts, food and beverages, live performance, and activities for kids.

AUG 30–SEPT 1

Art and Soul Festival Various venues, Oakl; (510) 444-CITY, www.artandsouloakland.com. 11am-6pm, $5-$10. Enjoy three days of culturally diverse music, food, and art at the eighth annual Comcast Art and Soul Festival, which features a Family Fun Zone and an expo highlighting local food and wine producers.

SEPT 1–5

San Francisco Shakespeare Festival Various Bay Area locations; www.sfshakes.org. This nonprofit organization presents free Shakespeare in the Park, brings performances to schools, hosts theater camps, and more.

SEPT 6–7

Mountain View Art and Wine Festival Castro between El Camino Real and Evelyn, Mountain View; (650) 968-8378, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. Known as one of America’s finest art festivals, more than 200,000 arts lovers gather in Silicon Valley’s epicenter for this vibrant celebration featuring art, music, and a Kids’ Park.

SEPT 20–21

Treasure Island Music Festival Treasure Island; treasureislandfestival.com. The second year of this two-day celebration, organized by the creators of Noise Pop, promises an impressive selection of indie, rock, and hip-hop artists.

SEPT 28

Folsom Street Fair Folsom Street; www.folsomstreetfair.com. Eight days of Leather Pride Week finishes up with the 25th anniversary of this famous and fun fair.

Listings compiled by Molly Freedenberg.

Pizza Place on Noriega

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› paulr@sfbg.com

Surfer dudes are people too, and they get hungry just like the rest of us. Surprisingly, San Francisco has such dudes; unsurprisingly, they tend to cluster at the city’s western edge, a land whose great highway is the Great Highway. Just beyond the Great Highway is the beach, pounded by surf, and surfer dudes (of any and all sexes) love the surf. Fog? This is irrelevant. Surfers have other issues to contend with, such as great whites.

The far Sunset District has its mild and fogless days, anyway — a blessing for those of us who sometimes bumble in from more sheltered corners of town, expecting the worst and swaddled in woolens — and the prosaically named Pizza Place on Noriega has been laid out with such beatific weather in mind. Although the restaurant’s glassy face peers north, its huge windows (including transoms) are filled with the light of the westering sun on spring evenings, and the woody interior (rather ski-lodgey, I thought) glows at this golden hour. Of course it rains in the Sunset too, and is foggy, and in these abysmal conditions we would have to trust to the warmth and perfume of the pizza oven, which dominates the unconcealed kitchen in its far corner of the double-width storefront space.

In my increasingly remote youth, pizza meant a visit to Shakey’s, whose amusements included a player piano. PPoN doesn’t have a player piano, but it does seem to attract small children — evidence that the city’s baby belt now extends well beyond Noe Valley. Despite the abundance of little ones, the restaurant doesn’t offer a kiddie menu; the tone throughout, in fact, seems pitched for young adults, from the jokey sign (courtesy of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer) just inside the front door — "I only eat pizza on days that end in ‘Y’" — to the huge cardboard profile of a Chevy Caprice mounted on the rear wall, with spinning tires that happen to be pepperoni pizzas.

Pabst is available on tap, which isn’t something you see too often out here, as opposed to in Milwaukee. And while the menu doesn’t offer pepperoni pizza per se, such a pie can be created from the list of DIY toppings. Pepperoni does turn up as a member of the ensemble in several of the house specialty pies, among them the Dimitri (with sausage, garlic, and mushrooms) and the Meathead (with sausage, salami, ham, and red onion).

We, however, could not resist the Spicoli ($15.99 for a 14-incher), topped with sausage and double cheese and named for — no, not an obscure pasta shape or a type of cured pork, but Jeff Spicoli, king of the surfer dudes and high priest of stoned slackerdom, as brilliantly depicted by Sean Penn in the 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The Spicoli is the simple declarative sentence of pizzadom: a nicely crisp crust that’s a bit thicker than vogue, plenty of fennel-scented sausage chunks, and a lava flow of melted cheese. I love cheese as a birthright and hesitate to say that there can be such a thing as too much of it. But, post-Spicoli, I wonder.

The kitchen also turns out some interesting side dishes, including cauliflower florets ($5) roasted with black olives, orange zest, chili flakes, and parsley for a real Mediterranean, even Sicilian, flair. Then there are the sweet potato steak fries ($7), their faint sweetness resembling the fried yucca root you sometimes find in Brazilian restaurants. To broaden their appeal, PPoN presents the fries with little cups of blue cheese dressing and buffalo sauce (tomato-based and sweet-hot, though more hot than sweet), along with piles of baby carrots and celery stalks. A family of dunkables.

And since even pizzas less cheesy than the mighty Spicoli can be overwhelming, the midday snacker can find an attractive array of sandwiches to choose from. These are called grinders and are available from noon until four in the afternoon. Perhaps their best characteristic is the bread they’re served on: torpedo-shaped, wonderfully soft rolls from Amoroso Bakery in Philadelphia.

The rolls are like focaccia rolls except not olive-oily. They’re also discreetly absorbent, an important consideration if one’s grinder is the housemade meatball version ($6.50). The meatballs themselves are veal-inflected, to judge by their subtle texture, and they’re bathed in plenty of tomato sauce, which could easily get all over everything but doesn’t because most of it settles into the bread. Some melted provolone provides an additional seal.

More complex is the uncomplex-sounding roast turkey grinder ($6.25). Plenty of meat here, along with mayo, mustard, and provolone — but also a puckery zing provided by slivers of red onion and chunks of pepperoncini. We’re a long way from sandwiches made from Thanksgiving leftovers.

As for the crowd: surfer-dudish, though a little older than Jeff Spicoli, and no sign of Sean Penn, but plenty of the aforementioned kids, dangling like chimps from chairs and the edges of tables. The surfer-dude community has discovered family values, apparently.

The pizzeria is just about a year old: a whippersnapper with sharp new wood flooring and, over the roof, a tell-tale curvy exhaust flue, in a faded part of town. It’s not yet the equal of the Richmond’s Pizzetta 211 and maybe it doesn’t mean to be. But friends and acquaintances of mine who live in the western Sunset (some surfer dudes, some regular dudes) are certainly eager for renewal in the restaurant scene — if not fast times, at least ambulatory ones.

PIZZA PLACE ON NORIEGA

Wed.–Thurs., Sun.–Mon., noon–10 p.m.

Fri.–Sat., noon–10:30 p.m.

3901 Noriega, SF

(415) 759-5752, www.pizzaplacesf.com

Beer and wine

MC/V

Cheerfully noisy

Wheelchair accessible

The yard sticks

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I hopped my first freight train in the spring of 1993, outside a small central Florida town. My first train sat behind a drive-in theater along old Highway 301, among the pines sometimes seen in old photos of turpentine camps and prison work crews. Under a Southern moon, I battled mosquitoes and listened to a chorus of swamp frogs that must have been heard by the very men who built the railroad. I waited impatiently on the porch of a grainer car, as if it were the threshold of adulthood, for the train to carry me somewhere else.

As the ’90s ushered in a new era of gentrified, cookie-cutter, chain-store cities, I crisscrossed the country several times on freight trains. Today, I still think about that place in Florida outside of time, and when I’m sick of computers and phones and NPR news, I find myself heading to the train yard. In recent works that seem eerily timed to headlines announcing an impending US financial collapse, the writer William T. Vollmann and the photographer Mike Brodie have headed there too. This resurgence of interest in train-hopping stories might be a barometer of public dissatisfaction.

The somewhere else I thought I wanted to go on that first train ride probably looked a lot like the romantic universe encapsulated in the Polaroid photos of train-hopping friends taken by Mike Brodie, a.k.a. the Polaroid Kidd. Brodie’s photos, posted on his Web site, Ridin’ Dirty Face (www.ridindirtyface.com), depict a hobotopia where packs of grubby kids (and dogs!) play music, share food, and forage in the ruins of postindustrial America, traveling from town to town on freight trains and homemade river rafts. Everyone’s good looking and no one appears to be over 25.

As my first train left the yard that long-ago day, I sang some words by Johnny Cash because at 19 I wished my life were an epic country song. Similarly, the subjects of Brodie’s pictures wear suspenders and fedoras and patched-up oversize suit coats, as if they’ve walked out of newsreels from the Great Depression. In Brodie’s version of somewhere else, though, the Depression is glamorous. One of the most charming — and possibly most emblematic — photos in his current show at SF Camerawork depicts a young woman standing in the doorway of a rickety shack, a yard full of chickens pecking at her feet. At first glance, the image seems lifted straight from Walker Evans’ classic photos of 1930s austerity in his 1941 collaboration with James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. But in Brodie’s photo, the light is sensual, the mood somehow humid — it’s summertime — and the woman is, incongruously, wearing a beaded ballroom gown.

Brodie’s photos might depict a wish for a world uncomplicated by money or its absence — an aesthetic nostalgia for a time when no one had any money, and everyone had, perhaps, more integrity without it. Yet these images of romanticized destitution have, quite ironically, become high-priced art objects. Frankly, I find it creepy that art collectors will pay top dollar for highly aesthetic portraits of cute — and apparently penniless — teenage punk waifs staring guilelessly from dirt-smudged faces into the camera. Brodie’s photos have become valuable just as the country stands on the edge of the kind of Great Depression they romanticize. The winner at age 22 of the 2008 Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers, Brodie is highly talented. But the buzz about his subjects suggests that the weary art world is willing to go to as great lengths as the train-hopping kids in a search for authenticity. The Great Depression to come is on some level longed for.

Brodie seems motivated by a sincere desire to celebrate his community. "I just want to spend the next couple of years traveling around, following the warm weather, and documenting the train-hopping youth of America," he said in one recent interview. The joy of young friendship and the camaraderie of the road come through in his work. One soon-to-be-classic photo captures three train-hoppers from the waist down on a moving train: three sets of rolled-up trousers exposing dirty legs hang off the train, with the gravel rail bed and tracks below a blur. Near the center of the image, a can of beans with a spoon sticking out of it is being passed to someone whose hand reaches down from the upper right. It’s sort of a tramp reenactment of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, and the meeting of the hands on the can gives the photo an emotional punch. Though the young legs look straight out of The Little Rascals, the image is timeless, as poignant and enduring as summer itself.

When Brodie photos like this one escape from the self-consciousness of staged portraiture, they effortlessly capture the exhilaration of being young and on a freight train with your whole life seemingly ahead of you. The picture in this show of the kid hanging off the back of a moving train by one tattooed arm may be bought, but the middle-finger salute he triumphantly gives to the camera says the joke is on the collector who pays for it.

That the kid giving the finger will likely one day resemble William T. Vollmann in the new train-hopping memoir Riding Toward Everywhere (Ecco Press, 288 pages, $26.95) is a joke — played by time — on all of us. As the book begins, Vollmann finds himself nearing 50, recovering from a broken pelvis, and too hobbled to catch moving freights. Without even a fedora, he humbly cowers around the perimeter of a train yard carrying his only fashion accessory, a trusty orange bucket ("One could sit on it, carry things in it, and piss into it"), while contemputf8g his life’s narrowing options: "I hope that as what I get diminishes thanks to old age, erotic rejection, financial loss, or authority’s love taps, I will continue to receive it gratefully."

Like a veteran pitcher who has lost some zip on his fastball, Vollmann gets by on guts, his vitality flowing from an ornery and uncompromising hatred of authority that isn’t matched by young Brodie. "The activities described in this book are criminally American," he states in a disclaimer. In an increasingly controlled and uptight America, where "year by year the Good Germans march deeper into (your) life," Vollmann holds onto the hope that a freight train can still help him find a hole in the net.

Riding Toward Everywhere includes 20 or so pages of photos by Vollmann. In sharp contrast to Brodie’s, none feature anything you could really call pretty — except perhaps a snapshot of a friendly waitress in Wyoming, whose inclusion here only underscores the loneliness and desperation he finds on the rails. Vollmann’s camera finds cardboard camps in the weeds, toothless tramps, stern rail cops, and racist graffiti under rail bridges. For him, the train yard represents a collection of failed possibilities. In a boxcar heading from Salinas to Oakland, he finds an old hobo moniker from La Grande, Ore., written on the wall and spends the long boxcar night contemputf8g a woman from there whom he’d loved — and what might have been if they’d stayed together. In the morning light through the boxcar doors, looking out over "cornfields and the half-constructed houses of our ever-swarming California," he mourns "not merely my past but the vanished American West itself, where I would have homesteaded with my pioneer bride."

Well versed in the lore of rail-hopping, Vollmann goes to such places as Spokane, Wash., and Laramie, Wyo., in search of the hobo jungles of today’s American West. However, where proud Wobblies and tramps once cooked up a mulligan stew and waited to catch out, he finds a police lineup of blown-out drunks and SSI recipients. Though free to roam the rails under that big Western sky, they seem as herded and docile as those last few sad bison living out their days at the end of Golden Gate Park.

As in his last book, Poor People (Harper Perennial, 464 pages, $16.95), Vollmann records somewhat incoherent interviews with these subjects, an approach that stands in for sociology. While the elliptical conversations do give a somewhat impressionistic take on what life on the rails is like, Riding Toward Everywhere‘s subjects are hardly representative. Like Brodie, Vollmann is in thrall to a particular aesthetic. He’s committed to sensationalizing the ugliest aspects of the rails, to obsessing over swastika tags and crude drawings of women’s genitalia scrawled by bums on boxcar walls.

While spending much of Riding Toward Everywhere looking for the Freight Train Riders of America, a half-mythical hobo gang whose members supposedly will "kill you for $5 in food stamps," Vollmann fails to mention possibly the largest population on the West Coast train lines — undocumented Latino farmworkers. In my own experience hopping trains, I’ve shared food, water, and a sweet sense of humanity beyond language with such laborers. (Just last October, when I got off a train that stopped at the bridge over the American River in Vollmann’s hometown, Sacramento, I looked back to see five Latino guys carrying their belongings in Safeway plastic bags, scurrying up the embankment to get on the train before it started moving again toward Stockton.) Their presence on the rails is so great that I’d venture to say that if train cops actually tried to stop them from riding, an apple would cost five bucks, because there’d be no one left to pick them.

Still, despite self-consciously labeling himself a "fauxbeau," the 2005 National Book Award winner gets most details of train hopping right. Insider safety tips — don’t forget to put a rail spike in the boxcar door so it can’t slam shut on you! — are well represented, and Vollmann is especially good on the sights, sounds, and feelings of actually being on a train. He captures perfectly that indescribably victorious moment when your train is finally leaving the yard and it starts to accelerate just as you pass the cursed patch of weeds and litter where you’ve been hiding from the yard bull for 24 hours. Riding Toward Everywhere is most enlivening when this old pro simply lies back and describes what he sees out of his boxcar door.

Unfortunately, it turns out Vollmann doesn’t have even a relatively short book’s worth of train-hopping stories. After the excitement of a handful of train rides described early in the book, he pads the page count by dusting off other writers from the past and their takes on the road. Jack Kerouac, Jack London, and Ernest Hemingway are, predictably, quoted at length. Mark Twain’s raft on the Mississippi makes a guest appearance. Riding Toward Everywhere, it turns out, is a lot like a freight-train ride itself: in the beginning it’s really exciting and feels like it could lead anywhere, but after a while it starts moving so slowly that you can’t wait to get off!

Yet Vollmann’s book still has something to say about the search for real freedom — about its elusiveness and the price of trying to find it. "And we flee in search of last summer or next summer," he writes, "but there’s no harm in it if we know all the time it’s only a shadow show." Somewhere between the eternal search for next summer and the eternal search for last summer is the real ache Vollmann feels in his bones as he struggles to climb aboard a boxcar. In the years between the kid that Brodie photographs hanging off the back of a speeding freight train and the incoherent drunk living by the tracks that Vollmann interviews, there are cherished bits of freedom. They’re snatched from razor-wired train yards and robot train cops: a view through a boxcar door of elk at sunrise, or the taste of cold water from a trackside creek in the middle of nowhere Montana. These experiences are so rare and true that mere images of them are worth thousands in galleries.

The holes in the net are rare these days. I think often of my first train ride from that place out of time. It is a place seen in my favorite photo from Brodie’s exhibition at SF Camerawork. Through a rear window, it catches seven kids in the back of a pickup truck rolling down a flat Middle American prairie road at dusk. Hair is blowing all around in the wind, but one guy on the left is bent over in cool concentration, rolling a smoke, as warm yellow sunlight the very color of nostalgia floods the image. Whether you’re Mike Brodie, 22, or William Vollmann, 48, or myself, just now 35, you can’t help it; you want to live in this photo forever.

MIKE BRODIE: THE 2008 BAUM AWARD FOR EMERGING AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHERS

Through May 24

SF Camerawork

657 Mission, second floor, SF

(415) 512-2020

www.ridindirtyface.com, www.sfcamerawork.org

More train hoppin’ in this issue:

>>The end of the line
Trainspotting America with James Benning’s RR

>>Time travel ticket
Excerpts from a book that is Mostly True

>>What is Who is Bozo Texino?
“I hear you callin’, baby, but you ain’t gettin’ me. Not today, anyhow.”

Dandelion Dancetheater

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PREVIEW The San Francisco Ballet closes its season this week, but Bay Area dance keeps pulsing. Across town in the Mission’s modest CELLspace, Dandelion Dancetheater is starting its own rather remarkable program of new dance. The two-week run — which heads to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for the third week — features the company’s own performers plus guest artists from Montreal and Madrid. Collectively these performers and choreographers call what they are doing "physically integrated dance," the moniker folks who have long been expanding the concept of who is a dancer seem finally to have settled on. It’s a movement pioneered by Oakland’s AXIS Dance Company, so it should be no surprise that these programs draw heavily on former AXIS dancers Jacques Poulin-Denis, who has returned to Canada, and Nadia Adame, who has gone back to Spain. Eric Kupers, Dandelion’s codirector and a former AXIS collaborator, initially became interested in working with nontraditional dancing bodies for the challenges it poses to his own creativity. Kupers has investigated ideas of identity, body image, beauty, intimacy, loneliness, ability, and disability. In The Undressed Project series (2002 to present), he asked his very diverse group of dancers to perform in the nude, challenging their vulnerability and our willingness to look. In his Physically Integrated Dance Program at California State University-East Bay, he works with performers with emotional and physical challenges. They will perform in one program with his newest company dancer, a young man with a learning disability. Kupers’ work-in-progress, oust, and Adame’s 9 días y 20 horas a la deriva look at issues of displacement, particularly surrounding immigration. Poulin-Denis, with Mayday Dance, will bring Les Angles Morts (2007), while his DORS investigates sleeplessness.

Dandelion Dancetheater Fri/9-S0un/18, 7 (Program A) and 8:30 p.m. (Program B), CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, SF. $10–$20. (510) 885-3154, www.brownpapertickets.com

Afrolicious Anniversary

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PREVIEW One of my favorite movie moments involves a big-ass cup of orange soda. It’s the opening scene of Undercover Brother (2002), when an Afro-clad Eddie Griffin navigates his drop top, burnt orange Caddy with one hand while holding his Big Gulp cup of orange soda in the other. He’s driving with the confident swag of someone who cruises the strip, filled with fruit-inspired sugar water, often. Mid-cruise, he swerves to avoid hitting something and loses control of the car. Or does he? While the car spirals in the middle of the intersection and he strong-arms the steering wheel to regain control, he holds up the orange soda to avoid any spillage. The camera pans to the miraculous survival of the soda — and the rest is history. You might wonder: what does this have to do with the one-year anniversary of Afrolicious at the Elbo Room? Nothing. Except that when I think of things that are Afrolicious and still surviving, I think of that scene, and that cup of orange soda. Alas, the weekly get-down of the African diaspora’s plethora of musical innovations is celebrating a full year of existence. Headlining the celebration is Miami’s popular Spam All Stars, whose live sets kick off the two-night party. The band is joined by DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz, and their live percussionists. Celebrate birth, revival, and the joys of springtime in the city at Afrolicious. Too bad the Elbo Room doesn’t have orange soda.

AFROLICIOUS ANNIVERSARY With Spam All Stars. Thurs/8 and Fri/9, 10 p.m.–2 a.m., $10. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. (415) 552-7788, www.elbo.com

Sci-fi campsterpiece

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PREVIEW OK, so 2007’s Transformers was Michael Bay’s best movie — which is sort of like saying "best strep throat experience," but let it go. Still, he will never, ever equal the achievement of Starslyderz (2005), an intergalactic adventure made with about 1/7,500th of Transformers‘s budget (yes, I used a calculator) and several megatons the awesomeness. Premiered here two years ago at the Another Hole in the Head film festival, Garrin Vincent and Mike Budde’s homemade epic is the poignant tale of Capt. Johnny Taylor (Brandon Jones), dashing and horny leader of the United Planets of America’s elite crime-fighting force. When the evil Gorgon kidnaps the president’s daughter, Princess, Johnny and his mates must pursue, ending up on the prison planet Zoopy, where they are forced to fight gladiator-style for the amusement of bloodthirsty puppets and stuffed animals. Song interludes, heavy-metal twins, gleefully cheesy FX, and a whole lot more are thrown into this giddy campsterpiece, which pays snarky homage to everything from Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers (natch), the Power Rangers, anime, TV commercials, 1980s video games and … er, Biography. Writer-director Vincent, producer-cinematographer Budde, and some furry pals will be on site for a Dead Channels–presented multimedia extravaganza that encompasses a screening of Starslyderz‘s new-to-SF final cut, "live hyphy Japanimation" by the Zoopy Show, production numbers, reckless acts of audience wetting, and action-figure sales. Perhaps if we are very lucky, an excerpt from Vincent’s original Star Wars: The Musical, which was performed at Palo Verdes Peninsula High long, long ago. If not, you can sample that magic in excerpts on YouTube.

THE STARSLYDERZ EXPERIENCE Wed/7, 8 p.m., $5. Hypnodrome, 575 10th St., SF. www.starslyderz.com

“Broken Promised Land”

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REVIEW "Broken Promised Land" is a distracting title for Israeli photographer Shai Kremer’s exhibit at the Robert Koch Gallery. Though broken dreams and bombed-out promises are certainly present in the 11 color photographs on display from Kremer’s seven-year project shooting Israel’s militarily disfigured landscapes, it’s ultimately the subtlety of his work that defines its wide-ranging resonance.

Kremer also has shown works from this series at New York City’s Julie Saul Gallery. They grabbed the title "Infected Landscape," part of the name of Kremer’s forthcoming monograph from Dewi Lewis Publishing, advance copies of which are available for perusing at Robert Koch. That name is fine but "Broken Promised Land" might have been more potently called "Earth" — or in Hebrew, "Eretz." Kremer’s exquisitely lit land of riddled targets, separation walls, and military training centers with their sad, flimsy, make-believe villages appears simultaneously abandoned by humanity and swarming with energy, spiritless and ghostly. The edges of the landscapes feel as if they’re about to swallow up entire scenes and spit them out, dispensing with the human elements. Burned Olive Trees and Katyusha Crater, Lebanon War (2006) combines the beauty and timelessness of a Mediterranean hillside village with a scar in the landscape so severe that every glance reveals something different in the foreground: a controlled burn; a clean photograph of an olive grove, mounted on a dirty one; or the destruction wrought by a rocket. Shooting Defense Wall, Gilo Neighborhood, Jerusalem, Israel (2004) displays a wall strangely painted to blend in with the street and landscape.

Kremer, born in 1974, shares a broad affinity with younger Middle Eastern artists such as Oraib Toukan, whose interest in cultural memory is returning significant results. "My goal is to reveal how every piece of land has become infected with loaded sediments of the ongoing conflict," Kremer has stated about the series. Unfortunately, he’s immensely successful.

BROKEN PROMISED LAND Through May 31. Tues.–Sat., 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. Robert Koch Gallery, 49 Geary, fifth floor, SF. (415) 421-0122, www.kochgallery.com

Children of the (pop)corn

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Must be summer — every movie I want to see in the next three months is either a sequel, a superhero movie, or a superhero movie sequel. Granted, I’m girly enough to want to see Sex and the City (May 30), snarky enough to eagerly anticipate M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening (June 13), and arty enough to get excited about Werner Herzog’s Antarctica doc Encounters at the End of the World (June 27). But extra-butter cinema is the season’s stock in trade, and if you can’t squeal like a teenage boy over the following, you might as well go live in a cave till fall. All dates subject to change.

Iron Man (May 2) He’s smart, rich, and glamorous, with a built-in Black Sabbath theme song. What’s not to love? Robert Downey Jr. is an inspired choice to play Marvel’s billionaire inventor, and if the movie is half as good as the trailer suggests, Iron Man‘s gonna have theaters full of believers even before the Stan Lee cameo.

Speed Racer (May 9) Normally I don’t care for kid’s movies, but if those wacky Wachowski brothers are involved, I’m curious. Burning question, though: is Chim Chim gonna get the crucial role he deserves?

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (May 22) If you’re not excited about this movie, you might want to seek professional help.

The Incredible Hulk (June 13) Will the sour taste of Ang Lee’s Hulk (2003) be erased by this new take, featuring Edward Norton as the big green guy? Though Internet snipers have fussed over the film’s über-emo poster, Marvel’s other summer beefcake still looks intriguing — and it’s hard to deny the inherent radness of "Hulk smash!"

Hancock (July 2) I didn’t like I Am Legend. Win me back, Will Smith.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (July 11) Guillermo del Toro is one of the most imaginative directors working today. Ron Perlman is a cool cat no matter how many prosthetics he happens to be wearing. The first movie (2004) ruled. How can Hellboy II miss?

The Dark Knight (July 18) Heath Ledger’s death cast an instant pall over this one — but Batman was always a melancholy fellow, and Christopher Nolan’s first Caped Crusader flick (2005) still rules as one of the best comic book adaptations ever. Plus, in this sequel: no Katie Holmes!

The X-Files: I Want to Believe (July 25) I’d pretty much follow Fox Mulder anywhere, even to a movie that arrives way, way past the X-Files sell-by date.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Aug 1) I actually liked the first two movies. I even liked that spin-off prequel, or whatever it was, with the Rock. I just like mummies, OK? Anyway, this one is set in China and co-stars Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, and the ever-cool Anthony Wong, in addition to Brendan Fraser, that annoying British guy, and an inevitable army of CG beasties.

Tropic Thunder (Aug 15) To borrow a line from The X-Files, I want to believe this Hollywood spoof–war movie mélange from Ben Stiller and company will make me laugh my ass off.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Aug 15) George Lucas finally does away with those pesky flesh-and-blood actors once and for all in this animated series entry, about which little is known other than when (a long time ago) and where (a galaxy far, far away) it takes place.

Loss leader

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The head of a team of HIV researchers (Lauren Grace) tries to safeguard what may be a breakthrough — a concoction they have been testing on monkeys seems, albeit mysteriously, to inhibit transmission of the virus in The Monkey Room. Meanwhile, a fallen fellow researcher turned funding hatchet man (a slickly imposing Robert Parsons) acts as proverbial wolf at the door. Time and money are running out; desperate measures must be taken.

Unfortunately, despite sharp performances by director Mark Routhier’s cast (which includes Jessica Kitchens and Kevin Rolston), the nature and impact of these measures seem artificially flavored in Magic Theater’s world premiere of The Monkey Room. This is a little surprising, given that Monkey Room playwright Kevin Fisher’s background in epidemiology and HIV diagnosis research make him something of an insider. If Fisher’s laboratory drama doesn’t go very far, it has less to do with the play’s familiarity with the subject — including, one assumes, the sexual and bureaucratic politics of the lab, which here get respectively physical and fiscal. In its lightly comic mode, the play credibly suggests how such politics (especially the latter) push the pace of research, often unreasonably and recklessly. But this is no great revelation.

INKBOAT STRIKES A CREATIVE C(H)ORD


The opening notes of inkBoat’s c(H)ord were struck forcefully by a tall man with a shorn head and a microphone (Sten Rudstrøm): "Every picture requires a frame," he intoned, pointing to the stage. "Tonight, this is your frame. But I’m not here to explain things," he continued. "This is a warning. At one time this place was ruled by dinosaurs. Now all we have is birds. Get out. Get out while you still have a chance."

Of course, it’s a little late for that. But the sense of life’s transitory, muddled magic was distilled so wonderfully here that for a time we glimpsed an aboriginal point of entry: when the first humans were a loose-knit tribe of sensuous, wondering wanderers arriving from nowhere.

In this ambitious new work, which enjoyed its world premiere April 24-26 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a low wooden mound bathed in ochre light functioned as a perch and refuge to these wanderers, an appropriately international cast of excellent modern dancers. The costumes shared a uniform tone while suggesting a mishmash of cultures and periods, a feeling underscored by the polyglot dialogue that came in snatches, whispers, wails, shrieks, and songs alternately delicate and boisterous. The dynamic vocabulary of movement on display, the pantomime, the raucous drum line, the insubstantial yet gracefully human shadows against the wall, the outbursts of absurdist humor and surrealist provocation, the sudden solo flights and incandescent duets — all of these added up to a deft, often exhilarating continuation of inkBoat founder and choreographer Shinichi Iova-Koga’s hybrid, internationally collaborative explorations over the past decade.

MONKEY ROOM

Wed/30–Sat/3, 8 p.m.; Sun/4, 2:30 and 7 p.m., $20–$45

Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg. D, Marina and Buchanan, SF

(415) 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org

Classical, remixed

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Ten world premieres in three days is a huge deal, even for a troupe as accomplished as the San Francisco Ballet. Even so, it was disappointing that the choreographic choices for the New Works Festival — the culmination of a season-long celebration of SFB’s 75th anniversary — were, for the most part, so extraordinarily conservative. Artistic director Helgi Tomasson has been far more adventurous in the past in challenging audiences and dancers alike. Despite these limitations, the performances were a festive end to an important company milestone. That four of the 10 anointed choreographers were homegrown added a special luster. Generally, ballet companies are not known for fostering in-house talent; this one does. Val Caniparoli, Julia Adam, and Yuri Possokhov, who all have international careers now, started choreographing while still dancing with the company. Margaret Jenkins, who taught modern dance at SFB for years, could not be farther removed from being a ballet choreographer. Hers was Tomasson’s single most daring commission.

Even within the conventions of the ballet medium, the four pieces were worlds apart. Ballet, after all, is a language that can be modulated and used for poetic, dramatic, humorous, and narrative purposes, just like English or French. Though not totally successful — due to issues of timing and some musical disconnects — the originality of the concept and of its realization made Adam’s A rose by any other name the festival’s winner for me. A sly yet ever-so-elegant take on the apogee of 19th-century classicism, The Sleeping Beauty, A rose tweaked conventions thoughtfully and charmingly.

Jenkins’ Thread translated her free-flowing approach to movement onto a ballet company. She explored the myth of Ariadne, who spun a thread to keep her lover Theseus safe from the Minotaur and was later betrayed by him. Though Jenkins kept the story on the metaphoric level, using language both balletic and individualized, it was as clear a narrative as she has worked with in a long time. Caniparoli’s enthusiastically acclaimed portrait of repressed womanhood in Ibsen’s House appealed because of his proven ability to create easily flowing phrases, but his character delineations needed to be much sharper. SFB resident choreographer Possokhov’s fine Fusion put the spotlight on styles of male dancing and included three sparkling pas de deux. There would be many more of them to come in the following week.

SAN FRANCISCO BALLET’S "NEW WORKS FESTIVAL"

Through May 6

See Web site for schedule, $20–$265

War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF

(415) 553-4655, www.sfballet.org

Cover me

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Cover albums — critics stuck on music-maker-as-auteur theories, singer-songwriter elitists, and band-as-prime-mover rockists have long believed them the easy way out. Cat Power has succumbed twice, Dirty Projectors once, Scarlett Johansson completely surrendered to the mix of her forthcoming Tom Waits covers long-player — only to be upstaged by the production of TV on the Radio’s David Sitek. Still, despite the presence of so many tuneless, karaoke-jacked wannabes ready to grab their 15 minutes, even the talented are tempted to linger in the shadows of giants, bringing their own ideas and sound to a few of the many great, perhaps forgotten, songs and stories swirling in the ether. Why look down on the cover disc?

San Francisco songsmith Andy Cabic, who plays Great American Music Hall with his band Vetiver on May 6 for the first time since August, dusts his shoulders of such snobbery. "I don’t know why there would be a critical bias against cover records," he opines outside Sacramento at the Hanger studio where he’s three days into the next Vetiver album of original numbers. "Maybe a critic should try to do a covers record and see how good it comes out before they say there’s something wrong with it."

Cabic’s not ashamed to point out that "throwback is all over" Vetiver’s new collection of offbeat covers, Thing of the Past (Gnomonsong). The retro album art depicting a pretty girl studying old vinyl was shot at Cabic’s Inner Richmond flat, highlighting just a fraction of his impressive stash of records — and the music was made by the band a group of old friends from North Carolina that Cabic assembled to tour Vetiver’s To Find Me Gone (Dicristina Stair, 2006).

Wasn’t it Bob Dylan and the Beatles who triggered so many critics to privilege songwriters over interpreters? "I was just having a conversation with someone about what caused it," Cabic says. "I think you’d have to attribute it to Bob Dylan. The Beatles’ first two records had covers. I still love those records that were put together by the whole machinery of an A&R person, a singer, and songs by the great writers of that moment. But I chose songs that weren’t of the moment — songs that were timeless or not easily heard today, songs I thought we could do well." Well is an understatement: Thing is a lovely, tenderly rendered amalgam of the band’s distinctive sound, Cabic’s hushed voice, unusual covers — which run the gamut from Biff Rose’s "To Baby" to David Brock and Hawkwind’s "Hurry on Sundown" to San Jose mystery songwriter Dia Joyce’s "Sleep a Million Years" — and guest turns by underground folk luminaries like Michael Hurley and Vashti Bunyan. "The interesting aspect of doing covers is that there’s a mixture of restraint and freedom in doing them," Cabic muses.

Another recent notable cover project is Shelby Lynne’s sensuous dust-up with Dusty Springfield’s catalog, Just a Little Lovin’ (Lost Highway). Lynne, who plays the Fillmore on May 1, has caught her share of acclaim for this spare collection — sans the plush arrangements of Springfield’s versions and teeming with Lynne’s tremulous, haunted soul. So why covers, apart from the fact that Lynne’s chum Barry Manilow suggested it? "I think people want to hear good stuff," she says from her Houston tour stop, with sharpshooter directness and the twangs of a tempestuous girlhood spent in Alabama. "Not a lot of good out there. I’m talking about if you wanna listen to classic music, you always reach back."

What Lynne loved about Springfield was "the song selection — and she was a great honest singer. The production I love — it was Jerry Wexler and the Memphis sound," though she quickly adds, "I was trying to stay away from that. That’s why I left it bare."

The woman who played Johnny Cash’s mother in Walk the Line isn’t a vocalist to be trifled with. A survivor to the core (her father shot her mother and then killed himself when she and sister Allison Moorer were teenagers), she may have been, in her words, "too young to understand the heaviness" of duetting with George Jones on the same mic when barely 19 with producer Billy Sherrill behind the board, but she does know "it doesn’t hurt to have a Grammy," as Lynne says of her 2001 Best New Artist award.

And she knows she doesn’t want to collaborate with her sister — yet. "We have two very different kinds of things — I tell her maybe when she’s an old lady," Lynne drawls firmly. So listen closely to her turn on Springfield because next, Lynne says, "I’m gonna be writing songs. I’m not going to be doing covers again for a long time — if ever. This is it. I think you should be allowed one cover record per career." *

SHELBY LYNNE Thurs/1, 8 p.m., $25. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. www.ticketmaster.com

VETIVER Tues/6, 9 p.m., $16. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

PETER BJORN AND JOHN’S PETER MORÉN BREAKS FROM THE PACK

The Last Tycoon, the title of the new solo full-length by Peter Morén, one leg of Peter Bjorn and John, is only that — not a way of life, despite the omnipresent whistle of the group’s "Young Folks" last year. Morén swears that he’s no mogul — he just wants to gently mock the solo project conceit while referencing the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. "I thought it would be funny to have a grandiose, pretentious title for a homey album," he tells me from Montreal. Tycoon, which Morén describes as "low-key and folky," came about when he brought a song, "Le Petit Guerre," to the rest of his longtime band. "The other guys wanted to take it in a more German kraut-rock direction, but obviously with the French refrain I thought it should be more melancholy, chanson-like, dreamy, like it is on the record now. That’s what started the project." And the rest of the band approved. "I needed another outlet," says Morén, "because I’ve been playing with the boys since I was 15. So it’s nice when you have to make all the decisions yourself, even though it can be a little bit scary."

PETER MORÉN With Tobias Frobert and Big Search. Thurs/1, 7 p.m., $15. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com

Chefs that go crunch

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Watching people cook provides its share of voyeuristic pleasures while also, in theory, offering bits of edification. It’s far easier to learn how to make a dish by watching somebody else make it than by tip-toeing your way through a recipe’s thicket of words, and this is true whether you’re watching in person or via television. In the 1980s I was a faithful viewer of Jacques Pépin’s cooking shows on public TV, and I still use several recipes he demonstrated offhandedly.

But those were the old days, when the point of putting chefs on the tube was to transmit knowledge, skills, and confidence to the viewing public. Today’s chef shows are quite different. Recently I spent a long, not-quite-voluntary interval watching several episodes of Bravo’s "Top Chef," and was reminded not so much — or really, not at all — of Jacques Pépin but of "The Real World" and "Survivor." The themes are pressure, ruthlessness, panic, and triumph, leavened with desire. Ancient Rome had its gladiators, and we have this. And is this, I wondered, any way to treat food and the people who make it? You scorch your broccolini and are voted off the island by a celebrity tribunal to the strains of Wagnerian doom music? And what about your crush on one of the judges, not to mention some of the other tasty chefs? Emotional confusion and torment must make for high ratings, if "Top Chef" is any indication. Still, I’m not sure they conduce to a better world, or even a better-fed world.

It isn’t surprising that cooking has become an occasion for competition in America. We turn all subjects, no matter how inappropriate — even poetry! — into competition. We hallow competition and competitive people, particularly when televised, and don’t seem to recognize that civilization is, at its core, a cooperative venture. Competition is no better than a necessary, well-regulated evil in a civilized regime, and the unthinking American exaltation of it is, possibly, part of the reason we are a warrior society rather than a civilized one.

What happens to the dismissed? I wondered. Do they fall on their knives, one by one, alone and unmourned, off camera? Or do the survivors conspire to cook the lost a send-off meal, in which food is a gesture of love rather than a commodity?

Paul Reidinger

› paulr@sfbg.com

Sara Shelton Mann

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PREVIEW Only a few seasons into a more extensive performance schedule, ODC Theater began an extensive remodeling of its well-appointed building on 17th Street at Shotwell — and found itself without a space to showcase its work. What to do? Artistic director Rob Bailis seized the opportunity to move a few blocks up the street to the much beloved but lately much neglected Theater Artaud. For the rest of the year, ODC Theater plans to take advantage of the cavernous space, decent technical equipment, and stadium seating with a series of mini-festivals. "For the Record," the first in the series, examines the relationship between the body dancing and the body politic with three separate programs.

Few in the Bay Area dance world have examined this nexus more extensively than Sara Shelton Mann, whose works make up the second week of the festival. Founder of the highly praised Contraband, she revolutionized multi-disciplined dance theater, launching the careers of original thinkers and artists as Kim Epifano, Jess Curtis, and Keith Hennessy. Shelton Mann is working with fewer dancers these days but is no less committed to digging into the flesh. For proof, watch her dance/video trilogy Inspirare, three years in the making. In Telios/Telios, two couples — Kathleen Hermesdorf and Yannis Adoniou, and Hana Erdman and Alex Zendzian — reprise their passionate give-and-take roles of 2006. In Inspirare, Hermesdorf and Maria Francesca Scaroni expand notions of the body’s physicality. The triptych opens with its newest section, the ensemble piece RedGoldSky, which Shelton Mann describes as a "stream of consciousness ramble that touches on the absurd."

SARA SHELTON MANN Thurs/1-Sat/3, 8 p.m., Theater Artaud, 450 Florida, SF. $20–$25. (415) 626-4370, www.odctheater.org

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