Volume 44 [2009–10]

Beauty lies

David Talbot
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Beauty lies

MUSIC Let’s get this out of the way: Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson writes beautiful music. His string sections shiver and swell, his melodies alternately soar and ache, and the electronic textures that he often weaves in amid the more traditional orchestral instruments are unobtrusively massaged into the mix. This is music that doesn’t take warming up to, but rather cocoons you with its immediate approachability and occasional familial resemblances to members of the classical canon as well as more modern film composers such as Nino Rota and Elmer Bernstein. (In fact, many of Jóhannsson’s albums started as original soundtracks, or have been used as such.)

“Prettiness is not something I strive for, even though I know that most people’s initial reaction to my work is to say that it’s beautiful,” Jóhannsson counters bluntly over the phone when I ask for his feelings on the subject. “I don’t think beauty is the main goal. I think it’s more a certain emotional quality. I work in a very visceral way and I try to make music that affects you viscerally and that affects you physically.”

This has certainly been my experience of Jóhannsson’s music, starting with Englaborn, his 2002 debut on the Touch label, and up through his most recent release, last year’s And In the Endless Pause There Came the Sound of Bees (Type), in spite of — or perhaps because of — its beauty. Listening to these classical-not-classical albums, it is hard not to feel that familiar tug inside — the affective prelude to either laughing or crying — that often occurs when one encounters something beautiful.

Composer Benjamin Britten once wrote that “It’s cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful.” Britten then cataloged the different types of cruel beauty music allows the listener to access: there is “the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom,” “the beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love,” and “the cruel beauty of nature and the everlasting beauty of monotony.”

The kinds of beauty described by Britten — beauty attenuated by pain or loss — are present in Jóhannsson’s music, enriched by the context of its conception. Englaborn’s icy and delicate arrangements were conceived as a compliment to the violence and emotional ugliness of the play it originally scored. Fordlandia (4AD), Jóhannsson’s monumental 2008 album, was inspired in part by Henry Ford’s abandoned prefabricated industrial town built in the Amazonian rainforest in 1928, itself a monument to failure. And In the Endless Pause … is an expanded soundtrack to Marc Craste’s animated eco-parable Varmints, a critique of the environmental costs of unchecked urbanization told with a cast of rodents. When asked who his ultimate fantasy collaborator would be, Jóhannsson immediately names the late, great depressive Belgian chanson specialist Jacques Brel.

Despite the unabashed emotionality of his music, with its darker spells of sturm und drang , Jóhannsson discusses his work matter-of-factly. “I think what I’m interested in is the clash of culture and nature, or of technology and nature,” he says. “I don’t write ‘absolute music.’ It always starts with a nonmusical idea.” Better to leave the gushing to the critics, I suppose — a charge that could certainly be leveled at this particular profile. But I know I won’t be the only one reaching for a handkerchief when Jóhannsson and his six-piece ensemble take to the Great American Music Hall’s stage. Yes, it is cruel that music can be so beautiful. But hearing it is nonetheless sublime.

JÓHAN JÓHANNSSON

With Christopher Willits

Fri/14, 9 p.m. (doors at 8 p.m.), $21

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

1(888) 233-0449

www.gamh.com

 

Secret agent “homme”

David Talbot
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0
Secret agent “homme”

NEW-OLD MOVIE The Cold War heated up a public appetite for spy adventures well before James Bond became a pop phenomenon. In fact, Ian Fleming hadn’t yet created 007 in 1949, when Jean Bruce commenced writing novels about Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, a.k.a. Agent OSS 117 — eventually more than 90 of them. When Bruce died (crashing his Jaguar — what a man!) in 1963, just as the screen Bond was taking off, his widow wrote another 143. Then her children wrote two dozen more, as recently as 1992.

Needless to say, this French superspy was ready-made to join the ranks of umpteen 007 wannabes, appearing in somewhere between six and 11 films (it’s unclear whether all involved de La Bath, or were just Bruce-based) through 1970, played by at least four actors. The series remained well-known enough to get a new life in 2006 when director Michel Hazanavicius and top French comedy star Jean Dujardin sought to spoof 1960s espionage flicks a la Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997).

That was a big hit, so now we’ve got a sequel. OSS 117: Lost in Rio isn’t as fresh or funny as the preceding Cairo, Nest of Spies. But it’s still a whole lot fresher and funnier than Austin Powers Nos. two (1999) and three (2002). Dujardin’s de La Bath is the very model of jet-set masculinity, twisting the night away at a ski chalet with umpteen soon-to-be-machine gunned “Oriental” lovelies in the opening sequence, flashing a pearly, superconfident smirk at the neverending stream of multinational babes elsewhere, wowing them poolside with his top-of-the-mid-1960s-line male physique (nice, but don’t expect visible abs). Of course such pleasure pursuits take place strictly between car chases, shootouts, and karate fights.

Posing (badly) as a reporter to root out Hitlerites hiding in Brazil, our lone-gun hero is distressed to discover he has help from Israeli Mossad agents, one a mere chick. “Hunt down a Nazi with Jews?” he exclaims, complaining the target villain “will recognize them … their noses, obviously.” Beyond its pitch-perfect recreation of swinging ’60s cinema clichés (Naugahyde-lounge muzak, slightly feverish Technicolor, etc.), these films’ main joke is how cluelessly, casually racist, sexist, and xenophobic de La Bath is. The joke is on him, but his charm is remaining blissfully unaware.

Agreeably silly, Lost in Rio doesn’t go for Hollywood-style slapstick and grossout yuks. Instead, its biggest laughs are usually droll throwaways, as when 117 explains a shocking sudden costume change with the unlikely declaration “I sew,” or during an LSD-dosed hippie orgy proves quite willing to go with the flow — even when that involves another guy’s groovy finger breaching security up the pride of French intelligence’s derriere.

OSS 117: LOST IN RIO opens Fri/14 in Bay Area theaters.

 

Southend Grill ‘N’ Bar

David Talbot
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2
Southend Grill ‘N’ Bar

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE If “i” comes before “e” except after “c,” then “bar” comes before “grill” … well, I would have said always, but recently I came across an exception to this rule. This would be Southend Grill ‘n’ Bar, which opened toward the end of March in a Valencia Street space long occupied by Café Arguello.

The flipping of these two words from their familiar, not to say ossified, positions is more than just a bit of wordplay or a flouting of some alphabetical-order rule. When “bar” comes before “grill,” the subtle implication is that drinking is the first order of business and that food, while not exactly an afterthought, is supplemental. Eating while drunk can mean that standards loosen as to what one is eating (and, for that matter, drinking). Putting “grill” first, on the other hand, advises us that a place isn’t serving food just to help move the booze — that while the feel might seem little different from a standard B&G, the emphases have shifted.

Southend doesn’t look much changed from Café Arguello. The long, high-ceilinged box of a dining room (which sits right at the corner of Valencia and 26th streets) still has a slightly formal, slightly hushed tone; the walls have been repainted, but they’re still hung with artwork, including an impressive piece by Rafe Mischel, and candles still flicker in the evening air.

And the bar still stands, in a far inward corner of the dining room, where perhaps it serves as a kind of magnet. At dinner one night we bore stoic witness as three raucous female police officers whooped their way through the dining room to the bar, where they whooped some more before departing (with yet more whoops) in the direction of Mission Pie.

The food is very different from the Spanish cuisine of Café Arguello days, of course. Southend’s kitchen takes its cues from around the world — though not from Spain. There is a certain amount of bar food, including firmly crispy onion rings ($4), a dish I dislike as a rule, but not here, and potato skins ($7) baked with cheese and bacon and served with sour cream. If there is a food more redolent of 1980s happy hours at boîtes in the suburban Midwest, I can’t think what it would be. These were slightly underseasoned but plush to the tooth and very satisfying. Also a bit underseasoned was a bowl of (meatless) pinto-bean chili ($5), although a skin of melted cheese and a strong cumin charge made up most of the deficit; I just had to add a sprinkle or two from the tabletop salt shaker to bring the chili into trim.

Little flaws permeate the cooking, but without seriously diminishing its pleasures. The ground beef in the Thai lettuce wraps ($7) was a tick or two past well-done, but it remained tasty and quite spicy. And because the lettuce leaves were fresh and moist (as if just sprayed by one of those sprinklers you see in supermarket produce sections), the meat’s lack of moisture wasn’t fatal.

We were told that spinach ravioli ($10) was dressed with what our server described as a “creamy” pesto sauce. (You can also get the ravioli with alfredo sauce.) The pesto might indeed have been creamy when made, but when tossed with the ravioli it turned soupy. Still, the dish remained flavorful. And we did find real creaminess, along with the dulcet breath of tarragon, in a side of cole slaw ($4). The crispness of the cabbage shreds (a mix of red and green) suggested that it had been made just recently.

Bigger appetites will be drawn toward the chicken milanese ($12), a full (not half) boned breast of chicken, breaded and sautéed until crisp and golden, then served on a bed of wilted arugula. Chicken is often quietly dissed as characterless, but, as this dish proves, it can sometimes stand on its own without high-powered sauces and rubs.

A salmon filet ($14) didn’t get the breading, but otherwise it was similar, with wilted spinach substituted for the arugula and a nice pool of spicy aioli as a further enhancement. Our only squawk here was that we’d ordered the salmon burger. Our server did acknowledge the mistake and took responsibility for it; she also said she would charge us only for the burger but only knocked 20 percent off the filet instead. The multiple stories irked me more than the few dollars, but it is probably a sign of how tight things remain that those few dollars matter.

Consolation: an ice-cream sandwich ($5.50) made with oatmeal-raisin cookies. We whooped, discreetly. *

SOUTHEND GRILL ‘N’ BAR

Dinner: Mon.–Thurs., 5–10:30 p.m.;

Fri.–Sat., 5–11 p.m.; Sun., 5–9:30 p.m.

1499 Valencia, SF

(415) 648-8623

www.southendsf.com

Beer and wine

MC/V

Not as noisy as you might expect

Wheelchair accessible

 

Original’s sin

David Talbot
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0
Original’s sin

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS This Cheap Eats column is going to be the most carefully researched and least relevant Cheap Eats column I ever wrote, just to warn you.

I woke up early.

I threw some clothes into a bag. I threw a half a stick of salami, a chunk of cheese, a knife, and a couple of leftover bagels into another bag, and put it into the same bag with my clothes.

I walked to BART, took BART downtown, a bus to Oakland, a train to Bakersfield, and another bus to Los Angeles, where I have spent the last 24 hours flicking poppy seeds off of my arms and legs, picking them out of my belly button, brushing them out of my hair, and grinding them out of my butt crack.

For the latter I did have help. Ladies and gentlemen, of all the straight men and German posers I have ever befriended and/or bebonked, never have I ever once been treated with more sweetness and chivalry, or fucked harder, than I was by this L.A. lesbian chick I was trying to tell you about.

Problem: I like it soft, and slow.

And there was some of that too, but I knew from the moment she picked me up at the train station with a big colorful bouquet of flowers, then raced me real fast around town in her cool, dark green sports car, talking beautifully with me and laughing and gesticulating, meanwhile receiving and responding to text messages with her other hand … I knew. I was in for a ride, a wild one, and would not be sorry I came.

Her cozy, cool Hollywood apartment was filled with tulips, my favorite — she’d asked! In fact, she’d gotten me more flowers than all my previous lovers (in this millennium) ever got me, combined. In the bathroom there was a towel and washcloth, a fresh bar of soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, all piled neatly under a cute card with my name on it, and three more tulips.

Hollywood drew me a bubble bath, and I washed all those trains and busses off of me, dried, and dressed in my favorite new brown skirt and cool lacy brown print shirt, plus 2 million, 500,000 poppy seeds.

Then, as promised, she took me to Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles.

But I forgot to mention that when I came out of the bathroom, she greeted me with a file folder full of information about Roscoe’s in particular, and chicken & waffles in general. Which was not only unnecessary but impressive, considering she’d never been to Roscoe’s, or had chicken and waffles together on the same plate, and would clearly have preferred to take me to Animal, or any of about a hundred other shall-we-say higher-brow L.A. eateries she’d mentioned in her e-mails and in conversation.

No, but I had to know about the legend, the original, the Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles, which — I am sad, sorry, and chagrinned to report — sucks.

The waffle was mush and the fried chicken was dead-dry — and I’m talking about the juiciest of jucies, the thigh. The worst chicken and waffles I’ve ever had in the whole history of the San Francisco Bay Area was 10 times better than the legendary original Roscoe’s in Hollywood, proving yet again that authenticity is overrated, or that we do everything pretty much better than pretty much everyone else in the world, give or take pizza.

As if she needs another workout, my new friend and new favorite lover is with her personal trainer and I am sitting at her desk in my underwear, writing real fast so when she comes back we can go eat at five or six better L.A. restaurants.

Which I promise not to write about.

Tomorrow early I will wake up before it’s light out, make her bacon and coffee, make her French toast, make her drive me back to Union Station, then bus, train, bus, BART, and walk back home. And next week, I promise, you will read about at least one of San Francisco’s recent rash of chicken-and-waffle spin-offs. *

ROSCOE’S HOUSE OF CHICKEN’N WAFFLES

Daily: 8 a.m.–12 midnight

1514 N. Gower St., L.A.

(323) 466-7453

MC/V

Beer and wine

Immigrant rights – in Arizona and at home

David Talbot
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Immigrant rights – in Arizona and at home

By Angela Chan


Mayor Gavin Newsom and City Attorney Dennis Herrera have publicly opposed the anti-immigrant bill, SB 1070, in Arizona. A diverse coalition of civil rights organizations — including the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Asian Law Caucus, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, Central American Resource Center, Community United Against Violence, Equal Justice Society, La Raza Centro Legal, National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, POWER, and Pride at Work SF — applauds both city officials for taking a strong stand against the Arizona bill. At the same time, we urge Newsom and Herrera to firmly and unequivocally support the implementation of a local policy that protects the due process rights of immigrant youths in San Francisco.

As with SB 1070 in Arizona, the mayor’s policy of requiring juvenile probation officers to report young people to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) before they receive due process has opened the door to racial profiling and torn many innocent youth from their families.

Since July 2008, pursuant to Newsom’s draconian reporting policy, more than 160 youth have been reported to ICE right after arrest, before they even have had a chance to be heard in juvenile court. That means that youth who are completely innocent of any crimes and youth who are overcharged have been reported to ICE.

Despite the veto-proof passage of a policy by the Board of Supervisors last fall that moves the point of reporting from the arrest stage to after a youth is found to have committed a felony, Newsom has insisted on ignoring the new city law. Herrera, in turn, has yet to advise implementation of the new law.

Like the Arizona bill, Newsom’s policy requires reporting to ICE when local officials — in this case juvenile probation officers — merely have "reasonable suspicion" that an individual is undocumented. The factors that probation officers are required to use to determine reasonable suspicion have come under fire for codifying racial profiling into law.

In March, a year and a half after the mayor’s policy went into effect, Chief Probation Officer William Siffermann admitted before the Rules Committee of the Board of Supervisors that the latter factor could lead to racial profiling. A few days later, Herrera stated that this factor had been removed from the policy. However, if any changes have been made to the written policy, they have not been made available to the public.

Another similarity with the Arizona bill: probation officers in San Francisco have not been properly trained and do not have the expertise in immigration law to accurately determine which youth are actually undocumented. Rather, these officers rely on race, ethnicity, language ability, surnames, and accent as a basis for assuming immigration status.
Much like the Arizona bill, Newsom’s policy goes well beyond any obligations under federal law by requiring that probation officers report suspected undocumented youth to ICE. Finally, as with the Arizona bill, the mayor’s draconian policy only compounds the harm to immigrant families caused by an already flawed federal immigration system, which is in drastic need of comprehensive reform. We need humane reform at the federal level. But in the meantime, Newsom and Herrera need to take swift action to restore due process and protect family unity by ending San Francisco’s draconian policy. *

Angela Chan is a staff attorney with the Juvenile Justice and Education Project at the Asian Law Caucus.

Editor’s Notes

David Talbot
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1
Editor’s Notes

Tredmond@sfbg.com

San Francisco has a lot of streets. Take a look at an aerial picture, or just look at the land-use statistics. More of this city is devoted to paved roads — pathways used largely and designed primarily for private automobiles — than any other single use. Parks, for example, don’t even come close.

That’s partially a matter of urban density. In more suburban-type cities like Berkeley or Portland or Seattle, the lots are bigger, yards are bigger, houses are bigger, and there’s more space between the strips of pavement.

But that density gives us a choice other cities don’t have. Maybe we don’t really need that much pavement.

I know it’s kind of a crazy thought, but imagine what some San Francisco neighborhoods would look like if we closed down, let’s say, one out of every four streets. I don’t mean open that land up for development, either — leave it as a passageway, a thoroughfare — but not for cars. Tear up the concrete, plant grass, make pathways for walking and biking … make the streets places where people can gather, kids can play, stores can enjoy the kind of traffic that only comes with a pedestrian mall, and restaurants can have outdoor seating in what would amount to a strip of mixed-use urban parkland.

Closing streets to cars creates plenty of problems, but I don’t think they’re insurmountable. Seniors and disabled people might have trouble with eliminating bus routes and parking in front of their houses, and that’s a legit concern. (Of course, the number of pedestrian seniors and disabled people killed or maimed by cars might go down too.) So maybe some streets could be turned into one-lane strips, and only people with disabled placards could use them. And ambulances and police and fire vehicles can already drive on car-free pathways in parks. And Muni could run a fleet of electric golf carts to ferry people with mobility issues up and down the grassy lanes.

Those of us who have cars would give up a certain amount of convenience; people without cars would get more of the benefits. That might discourage car use, which is good.

But even for drivers, I wonder. Would I be willing to give up the relative ease of parking near my house in exchange for letting my kids just open the front door of the house and run out and play in a safe, vehicle-free park that used to be a street? Would you?

The world is changing; the days of car culture driven by cheap oil are almost over. More and more people are going to be living in cities (that particular demographic trend is one of the most consistent in modern history). When we talk about the Streets of San Francisco, let’s stop for a moment and ask: does it all have to be about cars?

Muni reform that might actually work

David Talbot
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0
Muni reform that might actually work

EDITORIAL The 2007 ballot measure that was supposed to give Muni more political independence and more money has failed to provide either. It’s time to say that Proposition A, which we supported, hasn’t worked — in significant part because the administration of Mayor Gavin Newsom hasn’t allowed it to work. It’s time for a new reform effort, one that looks at Muni’s governance structure, funding, and the way it spends money.

There are several proposals in the works. Sup. David Campos has asked for a management audit of the Municipal Transportation Agency, which runs Muni, and that’s likely to show some shoddy oversight practices and hugely wasteful overtime spending. Sup. Sean Elsbernd wants to change the way Muni workers get paid, and Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and David Chiu are talking about changing the way the MTA board is appointed. There are merits to all the reform plans, but in the end, none of them will work if they don’t address the fundamental fact that Muni doesn’t have enough money to provide the level of transit service San Francisco needs.

The basic outlines of what a progressive Muni reform measure would look like are pretty obvious. It ought to include three basic principles: work-rule and overtime reform; a change in the way other departments, particularly the police, charge Muni for work orders — and a sizable new source of revenue.

The work orders are, in many ways, the easiest issue. Last year, the San Francisco Police Department charged Muni more than $12 million in work orders. For what? Well, for doing what the Police Department gets paid to do anyway: patrolling Muni garages, putting cops on the buses, and dealing with Muni-related traffic issues. And a lot of that $12 million is police overtime.

The labor and revenue issues are trickier — mostly because they’re being addressed separately. Elsbernd, for example, wants to Muni workers to engage in the same collective bargaining that other city unions do, which makes a certain amount of sense. But he’s wrong to make it appear that the union and the workers are the major source of Muni’s financial problems — and that approach won’t get far. The bus drivers and mechanics didn’t make millions on large commercial developments that put a huge strain on the transit system — and the developers who profit from having bus service for the occupants of their buildings have never paid their fair share. Nor is it the fault of the union that car traffic downtown clogs the streets and makes it hard for buses to run on time.

We agree that the transit union needs to come to the table and talk, seriously, about work-rule changes. Every other city union, particularly SEIU Local 1021, whose members are among the lowest-paid workers in the city, has given something up to help the city’s budget problems.

But any attempt to change Muni’s labor contract needs to be paired with a serious new revenue program aimed at putting the transit system on a stronger financial footing — and traffic management plans that give buses an advantage over cars. The city can add a modest fee on car owners now, and if a Democratic governor wins in November, it’s likely that state Sen. Mark Leno’s bill to allow a local car tax will become law. That’s part of the solution, as is expanded parking meter hours. (And someone needs to talk about charging churchgoers for parking in the middle of the streets on Sundays.) But Muni also needs a regular stream of income from fees on developers.

And a seven-member MTA appointed entirely by the mayor does nothing for political independence; at the very least, the supervisors should get three of the appointments.

The city badly needs Muni reform — and the elements are all in place. But it can’t be a piecemeal approach.

LAST DAY TO VOTE! OUR 2010 BEST OF THE BAY READERS POLL

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
LAST DAY TO VOTE! OUR 2010 BEST OF THE BAY READERS POLL

It’s that time again! In 1974 we blazed a trail by being the first paper to present “best of” awards. Every year since then we’ve given Best of the Bay recognition to the people, places, and things that make the Bay Area great.

Our 2010 Best of the Bay issue hits stands July 28 and will include our annual Readers Poll. This is your chance to give a shout-out to what you love best about the Bay Area. Categories this year are: Food and Drink, Arts and Nightlife, Shopping, City Living, and a special section where you can tell us about your very own “Best of the Best.” Voting ends at 5 p.m. on June 23. One entry per person, please. Have fun!

>>CLICK HERE TO BEGIN VOTING FOR BEST OF THE BAY 2010

 

Save the date: You are invited to celebrate with all the winners who make the Bay the best! Join us August 5, 2010, at 9 p.m. at Mezzanine.

 

All email submissions will be added to our weekly Eblast.

Appetite: 3 culinary gifts for mom

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: 3 culinary gifts for mom

Last minute Mother’s Day gifts needed? Here are a few delectable possibilities:

WINE OF THE MONTH CLUB
There’s nothing like having Mom reminded of your thoughtfulness and love all year… no, not a Christmas Vacation disappointment like the Jelly of the Month Club. Something better: wine. This is the “original” (family-owned since 1972) Wine of the Month Club with a slew of gift options from 1 red/1 white per month for four months to one year of reds or whites only. The club averages $29 a month for the Classic Series or upgrade your wine selections to Vintners Series ($39) or Limited Series ($49). With hand-selected wines from literally all over the globe, the biggest plus if Mom doesn’t like one of the wines is that they promise to send out another selection, no questions asked. In trying out the club for a short time, I can say the Classic level is not for the wine expert as the red in any given month might be a 2007 Frosted Cake Merlot from Napa or a 2006 Gerard Bertrand Syrah/Mourvedre from France. So upgrade your membership if Mom is a wine snob, or if not, she’ll enjoy a broad cross-section of solid wines for every day imbibement, with descriptions, tasting notes and stories behind each region, winery and wine itself. All gift memberships come nicely wrapped so your Mother will feel like it’s Mother’s Day all over again every month.

CLARINE’S FLORENTINES
First trying local (Berkeley) Clarine’s Florentines at the Chocolate Salon, I was impressed… trying them again later, I was hooked. I think your Mom will be, too. This buttery, crispy, golden Almond Brittle on Guittard bittersweet chocolate, is a recipe from Clarine and her Mother, so even the roots of the product have special meaning for Mother’s Day. You can buy a bag at shops around town like Bi-Rite or order directly from Clarine’s to have it shipped.

KUSMI TEA
A favorite of late has been Kusmi’s luxurious teas. Founded in St. Petersburg in 1867, these Russian-style teas have been Paris-based since 1917, so there’s an Old World elegance and refinement with modern sensibilities (even Lady Gaga is a big fan, though that may not be as much of a selling point for Mom!) They’re offering Mother’s Day blends, like Rose Green Tea, though there are crowd-pleasers everywhere, from a lovely Moroccan Spearmint to Sweet Love, a blend of Black China tea, pink pepper, licorice roots, guarana seeds and spices. If Mom’s on a health kick, their Detox mate/green tea with lemongrass is particularly popular… and a rich antioxidant.

Pantheistic party

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Pantheistic party

caitlin@sfbg.com

CULTURE “I get asked by friends and family constantly about what pagan means,” says JoHanna White, president of the Pagan Alliance’s board of directors and parade coordinator for Berkeley’s Paganfest. So, hey, what does pagan mean? “I always tell them the Alliance’s definition: earth-based, nature- and justice-centered, and observant of polytheistic faiths and traditions.”

That’s a lot to wrap one’s brain around. But be it Wicca, Hellenism, shamanism, or adherence to traditional indigenous faiths, more and more people are turning to paganism these days, evidenced by soaring attendance at events like Pantheacon, an annual gathering of rituals and healing circles that has regularly outgrown venues since its inception 16 years ago. White’s colleague, Alliance cofounder Arlynne Camire, attributes the growth to “people’s awareness of what’s happening to the Earth,” concerns over climate change, and other worrisome trends.

Camire helped start Paganfest in 2000 as a way to raise public awareness about the pagan faith, to render themselves visible. That first year involved a fair in People’s Park and a procession down Telegraph Avenue. These days the fair includes several pavilions (druid storytelling, green, arts and crafts) and a dazzling array of community altars. A ritual is usually conducted and there are prizes for best kids’ costumes and artworks. “There are pagans in every walk of life,” says Camire, a Hayward city planner. “Paganfest is essentially a pride festival.”

Public manifestations are important for any minority — especially one like paganism, a belief system that many come to in solitude, not knowing that a welcoming community of believers awaits. Festival organizers regularly provide masks to pagans who haven’t yet made the decision to share their faith publicly, a process the community has dubbed “coming out of the broom closet.”

As White tells me about the anxiety that can be associated with becoming an “out” pagan, I remark that it sounds a lot like coming to terms with one’s alternative sexuality. “You should talk to this year’s Keeper of the Light, Joi Wolfwomyn. She’s a radical faerie and knows a lot about this stuff,” she counsels. I take her up on the advice. Days later, I sit in a coffee shop in Oakland awaiting Paganfest 2010’s parade marshal, realizing I neglected to ask Joi what she looks like. I needn’t have worried. In walks a person with green dreadlocks down to the small of the back, piercings galore, and leaves tattooed over a bearded face, carrying a wooden staff and a fuzzy rainbow backpack. Joi, is that you?

It is. We talk for more than an hour and, by the end, the articulate trans person STET has taught me a lot about paganism: its inclusiveness (“To me, paganism just means you honor the earth.”), its presence in pop culture (“Avatar was a very pretty piece of paganism propaganda.”), and the advantages of embracing one’s beliefs and values publicly(“By creating myself as I have, all people have to do is be within 100 feet of me to think.”)

Of course, not all pagans have etched their faith on their epidermis. Wolfwomyn is emphatic about the community’s diversity in this respect. “There are pagan Republicans, there are pagan anarchists, there are pagan everything — but we all honor the earth.” It’s inspiring to meet a person so open to the possibilities of belief. In an instant, the possibilities of such an expansive faith dawn on me. A new kind of acceptance beckons. What has monotheism ever done for our society, anyway? 

PAGANFEST 2010

Sat/8 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m., free

Civic Center Park

Martin Luther King Jr. and Allston, Berk.

(510) 872-1188

www.thepaganalliance.org

 

Are you experienced?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Are you experienced?

THEATER José Sarria is many things: performer, activist, trailblazer, legend, Latino, diva, tenor … So just how many José Sarrias are there? In the latest meta-theatrical reclamation-and-floorshow from playwright-director John Fisher (Medea: The Musical, Combat; Ishi: The Last of the Yahi) you’ll meet several but get no strict count. That’s part of the point and much of the charm in SexRev: The José Sarria Experience, a production of Theatre Rhinoceros, currently ensconced in residency at queer performance incubator Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory.

First, there’s the Sarria of memory, in the mind of our ingenuous, ebullient narrator (Donald Currie), a gay man in middle age reminiscing about his precocious sexual awakening via “the Nightingale of Montgomery Street” in a certain storied postwar/Beat-era bar known as the Black Cat Café. At one point in this fourth-wall–smashing show, staged in the round as the invitingly sleazy Black Cat itself, audience members are invited to share their own first-hand impressions of the pioneering San Francisco drag performer and gay rights activist.

Then there are the Sarrias we meet on stage, played to the hilt by Tom Orr and Michael Vega. Each actor is responsible for an aspect of the Sarria “experience,” but in the insouciant critical consciousness of Fisher’s play, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will go unchallenged. “But José Sarria was brown!” shouts a “heckler” at Orr. “You’re not brown.” The contradiction and ensuing kerfuffle provide Fisher and the audience one way into the continuing political relevance and volatility of his subject matter, of course, and some productive laughs come out of it too. Add to this the real possibility of the “real” José Sarria showing up in the audience one night, and you get a sense of the tangled politics of art, and art of politics.

Frenetically staged, often very funny, endlessly self-referential, and indeed — as one character doesn’t hesitate to complain — a bit long, “SexRev” moves fitfully back and forth across the last several decades of San Francisco queer life and politics. But as a history lesson, a widening of horizons, and a spur to political vigilance on behalf of freedom for everyone, it’s a hell of a lively night out.

“Chronic” 2010

David Talbot
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“Chronic” 2010

arts@sfbg.com

LIT/NCIBA Because poetic subjectivity is by and large an exclusive undertaking

in which the poet attempts to impress upon the reader, via the use of poetic conventions, his fundamentally unknowable immanence, it often results in complete discursive failure. Those who’ve ever experienced a poetry workshop surely recall the gentle "make it more concrete" euphemisms directed at those well-meaning but misdirected poets brave enough to tackle personal catastrophe with verse — the results of which are usually a mire of intimations, associations, and abstractions that in no way resemble poetry or even, on a basic level, communication.

"If it were that easy, we’d all be doing it" is, in this case, true. Few poets can convey complex interiority with such deftness, originality, and precision as D. A. Powell. He can rework what would otherwise be affective sentiment into a lucid and devastating articulation.

With his latest and fourth collection, Chronic (Graywolf Press, 64 pages, $20), Powell offers his best work to date, the winner of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Award in poetry. Its cavalcade of lyricism keeps tempo with phonic and syntactical playfulness (Powell is often compared to Gerard Manley Hopkins. Framing the poems in the collection is Powell’s epigraph, taken from Virgil’s Ecologues (itself a reworking of Theocritus’ Bucolica): Time robs us all, even of memory: of as a boy I recall/That with song I would lay the long summer days to rest./Now I have forgotten all my songs.

The result is a brilliant use of Virgilian source material as a formal element that provides a frame of reference for Powell’s own subjective experience. Among the book’s best pieces is a "redux" of Virgil’s second Ecologue, which tells of love and erotic longing between two male shepherds:

what was his name? I’d ask myself, that guy with the sideburns

and charming smile

the one I hoped that, as from a sip of hemlock, I’d expire with him

on my tongue

silly poet, silly man: thought I could master nature like a misguided

preacher

as if banishing love is a fix. as if the stars go out when we shut our

sleepy eyes

("corydon & alexis redux")

Even readers unaware of the fact that Powell is gay and living with HIV will not miss the dark subtext of the hemlock reference. The same themes, deeply personal to the author, are present in the book’s title poem. In "Chronic," Powell’s idiosyncratic verse structure — its syntactical breaks, lilting and elliptical sounds, lines that are unpunctuated yet entirely expressive — are employed to great effect in a lengthy, but quickly moving, rumination on ecological devastation:

and so the delicate, unfixed condition of love, the treacherous body
the unsettling state of creation and how we have damaged—
isn’t one a suitable lens through which to see another:
filter the body, filter the mind, filter the resilient land

and by resilient I mean which holds
which tolerates the inconstant lover, the pitiful treatment
the experiment, the untried & untrue, the last stab at wellness

("chronic")

No matter the overarching topic, each poem in Chronic is watermarked with Powell’s distinctive voice, one that his previous books Tea, Lunch, and Cocktails (things that, along with chronic, make for a satisfying afternoon) helped establish. The homoeroticism, pop culture references, adroitly inserted colloquialisms that lent charm and personality to past works are all present, but the scope has become more expansive and more complex. I am greatly looking forward to the next stopping points on Powell’s poetic horizons.


THE 2010 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLER ASSOCIATION (NCIBA) BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNERS


FICTION

Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese (Knopf)


NONFICTION

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (McSweeney’s)


POETRY

Chronic by D.A. Powell (Graywolf Press)


FOOD WRITING

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter (Penguin)


CHILDREN’S ILLUSTRATED (award to illustrator)

Zero is the Leaves on the Tree illustrated by Shino Arihara (Tricycle)


CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko (Penguin Young Readers)

TEEN LIT
Andromeda Klein by Frank Portman (Delacorte Young Readers)

REGIONAL
Tamalpais Walking by Tom Killion and Gary Snyder (Heyday Books) *

Pigs in Oakland

David Talbot
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0
Pigs in Oakland

arts@sfbg.com

LIT/NCIBA One gets the sense that Novella Carpenter can do anything. A girl from rural Idaho, she knows how to hack it in "scruffy, loud, and unkempt" Oakland, the murder capital of the United States, amid the drug deals, gun fights, and open prostitution on the urban fringe. She also maintains a healthy, active relationship with her auto mechanic boyfriend (described as "a love sponge"), her many friends, and her local community.

On top of these already impressive competencies, she probably knows as much as Laura Ingalls Wilder about farming: she can grow more types of vegetables than most of us have eaten or even heard of; harvest rainwater; keep bee colonies; make honey; and raise and slaughter chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, goats, and — Jesus Christ! — pigs. You learn all this and more in Carpenter’s urban farming memoir, Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer (Penguin, 288 pages, $16), winner in the Food Writing category of this year’s Northern California Independent Bookseller Awards. Unlike many others who’ve published books on their stellar accomplishments, Carpenter is bitingly funny, an immensely gifted storyteller, and likeable throughout.

Carpenter always knew that farming made her happy. But recalling the solitude she felt as a child growing up on a farm in Idaho, "a place of isolation, full of beauty — maybe — but mostly loneliness," she "chose to live in the city." At first she couldn’t decide which city she wanted to live in, despite the dearth of progressive cities to choose from. Portland was out of the question for being "too perfect." Austin was "too in the middle of Texas," and in Brooklyn there was "too little recycling." San Francisco was "filled with successful, polished people." So she chose to move to Oakland, which was "just right." In Farm City, Carpenter points to Oakland’s "down-and-out qualities" — the music scene, the scruffy citizenry "who drove cars as old and beat-up as ours" — that made it feel most like home.

Moving to Oakland was the first leg of Carpenter’s journey. The next was to turn her small part of the city into a "modified, farm animal-populated version." Indeed, it is Carpenter’s relationship with her fellow animals that provides the biggest, most startling revelations in Farm City. If you’re an animal lover at heart, as Carpenter is, it seems nothing short of barbaric to raise your own animals, grow to love them, and then stoically kill them one day. But Carpenter thinks the matter through in philosopher’s terms, describing animal husbandry as "a dialogue with life." Raising her animals to be eaten is not a matter Carpenter takes lightly — she recalls the many hours spent Dumpster diving for enough food to feed her ravenous pigs — and, part and parcel, she assumes their slaughter as her responsibility. To render the experience is one of her duties as a writer.

But turning her Oakland habitat into a farm was not an easy process. Farm City, which begins with a cheeky nod to Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa ("I have a farm on a dead-end street in the ghetto"), chronicles the obstacles, frustrations, fumbles, and profound satisfactions of achieving a major accomplishment through innumerable and successive trials and errors. Carpenter may have a clucking henhouse today, but at one point she had to use Q-Tips and, when they failed, her own fingers to remove backed-up fecal matter from the "blocked buttholes" of her baby chicks (when you have them shipped, they tend to develop digestion problems). In her learning process, Carpenter leaves no stone unturned and no detail — not even baby chicken butts — unexamined.

“Cell” out

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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“Cell” out

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction

(Ubisoft/Ubisoft Montreal) PC, Xbox360

GAMER Sometimes you play a game like Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction and think, “Did the people who made this even bother to play it?” Questions begin to boil over. Why would you make a game in which you can skip some cutscenes and not others? If it’s really necessary to include unskippable cutscenes, why must they precede the three parts of the game most likely to cause the player to die and reload? My fingers got tired while playing the game, but not from the controller — from scratching my head in angry confusion.

Conviction has its satisfying moments, to be sure, nice visuals, and a distinguished pedigree of stealth-based, third-person titles. But the overall impression it leaves is of a game that is frustrating, uneven, and short. For every ambitious step that Ubisoft Montreal takes forward, it takes two in the opposite direction, mimicking the actions of the game’s protagonist, grizzled superspy Sam Fisher as he tries to creep up on a unsuspecting henchman. Clever set-pieces, like the one in which Fisher must eavesdrop on two villains with a remote-control surveillance array, are quickly overshadowed by the game’s profusion of sour notes, including a truly wretched take on the timeless “dodge the laser beam of instant death” mechanic.

The Splinter Cell series has always been about sneaking around in the shadows, and Conviction mostly hews to this dogma. Except when it doesn’t, and you’re suddenly expected to gun down enemies by the bushel while running at a full sprint. The developers seem to take a perverse pride in forcing you to unlearn the lessons of completed gameplay. Getting used shooting enemies in the head? Wait until you come up against their magical, bulletproof helmets as the game limps toward a conclusion.

Michael Ironside is a gem as the voice of Fisher, and he growls his way doggedly through a plot full of Clancyite conspiracy gibberish. Another amusing touch is the Zombieland-style floating text that shows up on the walls when the game is trying to get you to do its bidding. Less appealing, as far as pop culture goes, are the creepy, 24-style “torture is cool” minigames. We all play video games to be empowered. But if your idea of fun is bashing an unarmed prisoner’s face into the wall using the B button, please, seek help. At the very least, I can hope to avoid partnering you in the Conviction‘s entertaining co-op modes.

Space is the place

David Talbot
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Space is the place

LIT/FILM “I’m a lifelong space fan old enough to remember the Apollo era and grow up on Star Trek — when I was little, the Apollo missions and Star Trek merged in my mind,” says Megan Prelinger. “I lived my life, but kept one eye on space, watching and waiting to see what would happen. As I got older I realized that the general public is disenfranchised from having an opinion about or experience of space. I thought I could make an intervention — an intervention into space.”

Prelinger’s intervention has taken the form of Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962 (Blast Books, 240 pages, $29.95) a flat-out awesome full-color collection of illustrations of American aerospace coupled with a historical critique of a time when the sky wasn’t definied by fear and terror and the outer reaches were aligned with ideas about potential. Prelinger’s book is a work of Bay Area dedication and intellectual independence, akin to everything from Jacques Boyreau’s and Jenni Olson’s published collections of movie poster art to Trevor Paglen’s books on the hidden machinations of U.S. forces. It couldn’t arrive at a better time, with Carl Sagan warning us that aliens won’t be friendly, and President Obama demonstrating a marked lack of faith in the space program.

“The Obama administration wants things both ways,” says Prelinger, when the President’s most recent statements on the subject are broached. “They want to be committed in the long run but cancel everything in the short run to reformulate. The plans he’s laid out are too general. They’re almost hard to interpret. In the short run, he wants to stop spending money, and I can understand that, but the long term plans are underfunded and underarticulated. The jury is out.”

The jury may be out, but for the time being, the curious are invited to see a space-related film program that includes vintage short films selected by Prelinger. This weekend, “Atomic Age Artifactuality” brings Prelinger’s-choice archival treats such as Birth of the Orbis Electronic Computer and All About Polymophics to the screen, along with Laura Harrison and Beth Federici’s new documentary Space, Land and Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm. The ideas in the program should ricochet interestingly off of the recent Cold War treatise Double Take, by another Other Cinema regular Johan Grimonprez. “There’s a really complex interaction between tech and society in the Cold War, where it’s used to express utopian and dystopian possibilities,” Prelinger observes. “Those two dissonant possibilities exist side by side through decades.”

As for today, Prelinger’s vision is clear. “Our space program belongs to all of us,” she says. “We should think about what we want from it, and ask for it.”

(Johnny Ray Huston)

ANT FARM AND MEGAN PRELINGER: “ATOMIC AGE ARTIFACTUALITY”

Sat/8, 8:30 p.m., $6

Other Cinema

992 Valencia, SF

(415) 824-3890 www.othercinema.com

New York story

David Talbot
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New York story

FILM The central characters in Nicole Holofcener’s new film, Please Give, Manhattan couple Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt), display a fluency in the language of large round numbers that is occasionally disturbed by bouts of self-inflicted sticker shock. The proprietors of an up-market vintage furniture store — the hunting ground of interior designers and affluent nesters with a taste for midcentury modern — they troll the apartments of the recently deceased, redistributing the contents at an astonishing markup that occasionally leads to soul-searching exchanges like this: “How come you feel OK about this?” “Because it’s OK.” “OK.” Whether or not it’s OK, clearly it’s a living, since the couple has purchased the entire apartment of their elderly next-door neighbor (Ann Guilbert). Waiting for her to expire so they can knock down a wall, they try not to loom in anticipation in front of her granddaughters, the softly melancholic Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) and the brittle pragmatist Mary (Amanda Peet).

Holofcener has entered this territory before, examining the interpersonal pressures that a sizable income gap can exert in 2006’s Friends with Money. Here she turns to the pangs and blunderings of the liberal existence burdened with the discomforts of being comfortable and the desire to do some good in the world. Kate’s hand-wringing, while reflexive, keeps her up at night, and as she ably acquires the furnishings of the dead, she suffers crises of conscience about preying on the ignorance of their bereaved but busy adult children. Unfortunately, her penance is often embarrassingly misdirected. While her teenage daughter (Sarah Steele) suffers the less-abstracted agonies of bad skin and low self-esteem, Kate offers her leftovers to a black man waiting outside a restaurant for a table, mistaking him for a homeless person, and presumptuously weeps over a group of developmentally disabled teenagers playing basketball.

In scenes such as this, the film capably explores the unexamined impulses of liberal guilt, though the conclusion it reaches is unsatisfying. Like Holofcener’s other work, Please Give is constructed from the episodic material of mundane, intimate encounters between characters whose complexity forces us to take them seriously, whether or not we like them. Here, though, it offers these private connections as the best one can hope for, a sort of domestic grace accrued by doing right, authentically, instinctively, by the people in your immediate orbit, leaving the larger world to muddle along on its axis as best it can. (Lynn Rapoport)

PLEASE GIVE opens Fri/7 in Bay Area theaters.

Seasonal, effective

David Talbot
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0
Seasonal, effective

johnny@sfbg.com

FILM In taking on the subject of family in the documentary October Country, co-directors Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher face some imposing specters, and I’m not just talking about the varied stories of the Mosher family, who step in front of the camera. If there’s any micro-genre within documentary that has become embattled over the past decade, it’s the family portrait, thanks to controversial or contentious works such as Andrew Jarecki’s Capturing the Friedmans and Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation (both from 2003), son-of-Gray Gardens freakouts which incited claims of exploitation and sensationalism on their paths to a larger public profile.

Palmieri’s and Mosher’s movie is a quieter work, yet it isn’t folksy in a complacent Sundance manner, either. (It’s worth noting that October Country has picked up its fest-circuit awards outside of Park City.) The list of the maladies plaguing the Mosher clan — physical abuse, drug abuse, war trauma, custody battles, and abortion, to name a handful — would provoke an ambulance-chasing impulse in some filmmakers, blood ties be damned. But Palmieri (who edited and did cinematography) and Mosher (a former San Francisco resident whose photo essays on his family were shown at Artists’ Television Access) realize these are common American problems, and their treatment of them is at once deeper and more ephemeral. They use the passage of a year from one Halloween to the next to reveal the changes wrought — or evident — on a person’s face, and when they can, a person’s life.

While volatile men have left a mark on the Mosher women, October Country makes a quiet case for the family as an enduring matriarchy by beginning with introductions of its female generations: grandmother Dottie, daughter Donna, granddaughters Daneal and Desi, and infant great-granddaughter Ruby. (Wiccan sister-in-law Deniece soon hovers at the fringes of the domestic drama, in semi-alignment with co-director Donal’s Halloween framework.) Tweenage Desi is the film’s chief scene-stealer, through gruff observation rather than cutesy antics. "Videogames don’t really make you smarter, but they make your hands move faster," she observes minutes into the film, describing the hobby as "education for your fingers." The stoic and sole father of the house is Vietnam vet Don. Foster son Chris deploys his callow charm while nursing penchants for pill popping, weed dealing, and shoplifting. By film’s end his masculine good looks show signs of giving way to gauntness and gender ambiguity.

October Country has a light touch, rarely giving way to easy associations, and avoiding the reality television ploy of inciting arguments in all but one scene. Its look at Daneal’s young motherhood is just a side of a many-sided die, yet more perceptive than whole hours devoted to the subject by MTV documentaries. Cigarettes in hand, Dottie, Donna, and Daneal hold forth on life, while the camera lights upon abandoned GED books and other forms of abandonment signified by clutter. If this sounds grim, the beauty of the cinematography — attuned to the colors of fall and winter and the beauty of these people and their home — offsets the futility and depression. The structure of the story is loose enough to allow the filmmakers to sync up with Desi’s playful creativity and droll truths ("Nobody is fighting for anything" in the war, she notes later on) and the harsh American irony within Don’s fear of 4th of July fireworks.

This is the kind of documentary that looks closely enough to notice the sensitivity on a person’s face after she has been forced to break one of her creeds. Yet Mosher and Palmieri are selective as to when they allow their point-of-view to merge with that of the person on camera, only allowing this to happen once the family has become more familiar to the viewer. The story comes to a close where it began, on another Halloween, but with most everyone dressed up in costumes that hint at their true spirits, some more repressed than others. The moment brings one back to the film’s beginning, and its dedication to the Mosher family. A movie that might help its subjects understand and appreciate one another better, October Country also manages to look good in the process. All praise queer sensibility.

OCTOBER COUNTRY

Opens Fri/7

Roxie Cinema

3117 16th St, SF

(415) 863-1087
www.roxie.com

Slightly off-key

David Talbot
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0
Slightly off-key

superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO "I was just in the bathroom splashing water on my knob," my excitable amigo Scottish Andy breathlessly dished at a mid-Market bathhouse-disco club last Saturday night. (You have to imagine this entire anecdote related in a hyper Scottish-Californian brogue. Like Highlander on poppers.) "And I heard someone majorly tooting in the stall. Snort. Snoooort. Like that. I thought, ‘someone is really sniffing the fuck out of their baggie in there.’ But then my friend came in and swung open the stall door and no one was in the stall.

"Marke! There’s a ghost doing coke in the bathroom!"

Perhaps that’s a metaphor for what dance floors around the world have sounded like for the past three years? Not just the whole disco-house-electro-wave-whatever revivalism thing, but a kind of ectoplasmic Hoovering of all of dance music’s past into a digital flush of half-heard echoes?

I drifted, boozily, from that club up to Triple Crown to check out Boston’s Soul Clap (www.soulclap.us), for my trick money the most rewarding DJ-production duo on the planet. The pair perfectly embody the now sound — ranging in reference from Motown to French electro, early blues to micro-house (with a special emphasis on late-’80s R&B) they smoothly discombobulate retro-fetishism to the point where you suddenly realize you’re throwing down hardcore to Chris Issak. Or are you? Soul Clap’s mid-tempo, ahistorical edits are cheeky sleight-of-ear. "There’s that wobbly brass blast from that early Heaven 17 12-inch floating over that Boyz II Men bass line," you think. But when you finally track it all down, you realize your self-satisfied trainspotting was slightly off. Soul Clap is making sounds that only sound like those sounds. Simulacrum disco. They have that now, on computers.

BONER FIESTA

Look, there are gonna be a lot of Cinco de Mayo parties — right now the thought of a shit-ton of drunk Americans celebrating Mexico seems, frankly, a relief. But only one party takes a sequin-sombreroed Alf as a mascot. That is electro-rock god Richie Panic’s weekly Wednesday Boner Party, and it will truly squeeze your lime and pop your piñata.

Wednesdays, 10 p.m., free. Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF. www.beautybar.com

AYBEE

DJ Said’s soulful afro-house We & the Music monthly was off-the-chain at its April premiere (get there early) and shows no sign of stopping, this time around bringing in the fantastic Aybee of Deepblak Recordings. If you’re in the mood for dancing with a grin, I can’t recommend this enough.

Fri/7, 9 p.m., $7. 222 Hyde, SF. www.222hyde.com

SHOWNUFF

"I wanted to provide a remedy for music lovers who don’t usually catch live music late at night, a location that suits them, and prices that are easy on the pocket book," says promoter Conrad Schuman of his new Friday live-music happy hour, this week pumping with 11-piece funk explosion Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra, DJ Chris Orr, and Phleck. Don’t argue!

Fri/7, 5 p.m.-9 p.m., free. 111 Minna, SF. www.111minnagallery.com

THE TWELVES

Another intriguing duo, this time focusing on new electro from Brazil. I’m sweetly humming their new poppy-cowbell redo of Two Door Cinema Club’s "Something Good Can Work," which shows their range extends quite a bit beyond the "Rio de Janeiro’s answer to Daft Punk" descriptor they’ve been tagged with.

Fri/7, 10 p.m., $15. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

CHROME

The boys behind queer punk-rock extravaganzas Trans Am and Sissy Fit have revived their monthly nightlife ode to fixed-gear hotties (or whatever that new thing all the bike kids are into, I forget its name, I walk). DJs Pickle Surprise and Le Perv pump the rock and roll disco faggotry, while live electronic whiz SamuelRoy tunes the tranny.

Sat/8, 10 p.m., $5. Club 93, 93 Ninth St., SF.

Little Chihuahua

David Talbot
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2
Little Chihuahua

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE On the hunt for the Little Chihuahua one unsettled April evening, we came upon … a little cockapoo, or maybe a Tibetan terrier. The dog, wrapped in a coat of shaggy fur the color of milky coffee, was moored to the façade of a Lower Haight storefront and had been provided a stainless-steel water dish, which seemed superfluous. Since the storefront was occupied by the Little Chihuahua, a Mexican restaurant opened by Andrew Johnstone two years ago, we naturally wondered whether the dog was just waiting for its person (or persons) to finish eating within or was a mascot of sorts. Did Little Chihuahua’s chihuahua take the day off? The dog lay on the sidewalk, staring intently through the open door, which I interpreted as a clue that a vigil was being patiently held. Or maybe the smell of the food appealed.

Mexican food gets my vote as one of the world’s most underappreciated cuisines. Recently I made this claim to a health-nut friend, who scoffed at first but gradually warmed to the evidence. This includes: the dominance of whole-grain corn (in many varieties and cultivars), the omnipresence of beans, a light hand with red meat, a wide range of vegetables, herbs, and spices, many of them indigenous, and of course salsa, whose flavor-to-calories ratio is unmatched among condiments I can think of.

Little Chihuahua lays out an impressive salsa bar to enhance the chip-dipping experience, although the chips are pretty good naked — warm, with just enough salt to make the corn flavor pop. The salsas themselves range from a rather mainline version (tomatoes, garlic, chili, cilantro, lime), to a spicy tomatillo kind that looks like melted emeralds, to a chipotle-charged concoction with the innocent face of ketchup.

A small irony of pozole, the wonderful soup-stew of hominy in chili broth, is that it traditionally features pork, a meat brought from the Old World by the conquistadores. La Chihuahua’s pozole ($7.95) deploys pork, in the form of a small semi-slab of baby back ribs, but its most striking elements are the rich, slightly viscous guajillo-chile broth and an abundance of hominy kernels and pinto beans. It’s more stew than soup and very sustaining.

If Mexican food’s reputation has suffered on this side of the border, a good part of the blame must be attributed to the burrito, a neither-here-nor-there hybrid that emphasizes mass at the expense of just about everything else and, worse, comes wrapped in a flour tortilla. The flour tortilla must have its virtues — I’ve never seen burrito-sized tortillas made from masa — but we eat more than enough wheat flour in this country already. Having said that, the quesadilla with shrimp ($8.95) is lovely, with a blistering like that of a good pizza crust and a pronounced melody of marine sweetness proclaiming itself through the cheesy murk. For a bit of refreshing balance, the spicy cabbage salad ($3) makes a good choice; it’s basically like cole slaw without the mayonnaise (and fat) and is a bowlful of virtue, though we didn’t detect much spiciness, just plenty of lime juice.

There is a slight party atmosphere to the Little Chihuahua. Seating is mostly at long communal tables, and the clientele is young. So it’s no surprise that the nacho plates pack some real throw-weight. Even the meatless one ($7.95) will keep three or four hungry people busy for quite a few minutes. Of course it isn’t quite meatless if you get it with the refried pinto beans, which are spiked with chorizo and bacon. But there is a wealth of avocado, salsa, and sour cream, along with enough melted white cheese to make it seem like somebody spilled a bottle of Elmer’s Glue all over the chips.

The one element of Mexican authenticity the Little Chihuahua seems to lack is the presence of actual Mexicans. The crowd is heavily Anglo, and somewhere in this detail is a story about a hipster neighborhood that simultaneously resembles and differs from the city’s great hipster neighborhood — the hipster superpower — the Mission. It might also help explain why the Little Chihuahua will soon be expanding, not to 22nd and South Van Ness streets but to 24th and Castro streets — the heart of Noe Valley. That’s as dog-friendly a neighborhood as there is in this town. *

THE LITTLE CHIHUAHUA

Continuous service: Mon.–Wed., 11 a.m.–10 p.m.; Thurs.–Fri., 11 a.m.–11 p.m.;

Sat., 10 a.m.–11 p.m.; Sun., 10 a.m.–11 p.m.

292 Divisadero, SF

(415) 255-8225

www.thelittlechihuahua.com

Beer and wine

MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

 

Human, nature

David Talbot
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0
Human, nature

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE If Deborah Slater had not grown up into an artist, she might have tried her hand at science. She bases her dance theater pieces on extensive studies of physical reality. Her inspiration can come from concrete objects like furniture (Hotel of Memories) and paintings (The Desire Line) or less tangible phenomena like sleep (The Sleepwatchers), perception (Passing as … The Mathematics of Being), and death (A Hole in the World). Accessing Slater’s works can take patience, but her creations stay with you because they are formally inventive, finely crafted, and engage the mind and heart long after you leave the theater. But rarely have the many strands she weaves together resulted in a piece as sprawling, ambitious, and poetic as her 20th anniversary premiere Men Think They Are Better than Grass.

Seen at a preview performance, Men — the title is not anti-male, but refers to humankind — takes on nothing less than the destruction of the environment that started probably as soon as humans were given "dominion" over the earth. Instead of reiterating well-rehearsed arguments, evidence, and position papers, Slater and codirector/dramaturge Jayne Wenger went to poet W.S. Merwin. Excerpts of his writings provide the backbone and scenario for this evocative, richly textured canvas of sound, color, language, and movement. The poetry, heard on tape and — helpfully — reprinted in the program, was recorded by a number of well-known Bay Area artists.

Men explores human alienation from nature in a series of imagistic episodes that, though loosely structured, build momentum. They are dark (dancers rushing about in increasing desperation), funny (Justin Flores transforming himself into a man made of briefcases), and dreamy (people trying to dig up the firm ground of history that proves to be unexpectedly porous). Perhaps most remarkable was the way Men deepened its sense of entropy, barely alleviated at the end by something, at least, suggesting a way out. As the piece darkened, the confrontations between the dancers, who had stripped off their business black to reveal battle fatigue greens, became increasingly agitated. They intensified to the point where they had a Lord of the Flies aspect to them. You also wanted to gasp for air every time the dancers crushed themselves into an ever-smaller piece of terrain.

Still, at this point, the choreography worked best in the small units: Travis Rowland heaving one woman after another, Private Freeman on a "war path" to protect his potted plant, and the fierce Kerry Mehling in anything she lent her regal body to. Some of the ensemble sections, particularly the unisons, needed more of a profile; they sometimes looked tense and rushed beyond what I think the intention was. All the dancers — Natalie Green, Kelly Kemp, Wendy Rein, Breton Tyner-Bryan, Shaunna Vella, and the others already mentioned — contributed to the choreography.

Men was a collaborative enterprise in other ways as well. Thom Blum and Floor Vahn’s soundscape of natural and animal sounds beautifully evoked the natural world, so increasingly absent in the lives of these depraved-deprived people. Elaine Buckholtz’ videography added its own poetry. Allen Willner designed the dramatic lighting, Laura Hazlett the fine costumes. What did not work was Mikiko Uesugi’s metaphoric use of plastic sheets for chopped-down trees. *

MEN THINK THEY ARE BETTER THAN GRASS

Thurs/6-Sat/8, 8 p.m.; Sun/9, 5 p.m., $25

Z Space at Theater Artaud

450 Florida, SF

www.deborahslater.org

Color forms

David Talbot
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0
Color forms

arts@sfbg.com

VISUAL ART It’s not immediately apparent walking around Catharine Clark Gallery’s four white, well-manicured rooms, but the space’s three current shows — by two white men and one Asian woman, from diverse locales — share some attributes. Visually, they go by the name Red No. 40, Yellow No. 6, and Blue No. 2; and conceptually, by the terms artifice and appropriation. Together they make for pleasant artificial coloring and sweetening for the eye and brain. Yet as conscious consumers know, that shit leaves traces of guilt, and worse, carcinogens.

Yes, the metaphor is slight and out of context, but so is the entirety of the work at hand. This is intentional, as both solo exhibits — Charles Gute’s "The Corrections" and John Slepian’s "the phenomenology of painting" — and the walk-in-closet-sized-room containing Stephanie Syjuco’s "Beg/Borrow/Steal" function via recontextualization.

For Slepian, whose exhibit sits at the back of the gallery as well as a semi-hidden curtained room in the front, this involves pulling from the dustbins of modernism to reframe staid paintings as video projections that pop, puff, and pivot. One such piece draws from Josef Albers’ Interaction of Color series and puts those famous static colored squares into action to irritating sounds not unlike those found in Fisher-Price toys. This lazy analogy is actually quite apt since the entirety of "the phenomenology of painting" looks and sounds cheap. The projections, while pretty, look like 20-second looped .mpegs you might expect to find in a Introduction to Flash tutorial. And the sounds, well, the young woman working the gallery’s front desk said they weren’t driving her sane. These qualities are surely intentional, as Slepian used the words "silly" and "playful" more than a few times to describe his work during a walk-through discussion on April 10. But the cool tech component doesn’t wow beyond the room’s exit.

In the adjacent room, despite being tucked awkwardly along the gallery’s hallway, Stephanie Syjuco’s works do work. Presented as an introduction, as opposed to a proper solo exhibition (Catharine Clark Gallery promises that early next year), the small survey "Beg/Borrow/Steal" packs a polemical punch. These pieces use their cheapness — sweatshop-aesthetic woven fabrics, rasterized jpgs, blocked and blobbed-out text and pics — for inventive political provocation.

Compared to Slepian’s position of playfulness, Syjuco’s work is disturbingly heavy, physically and conceptually. One of the room’s safety hazards — the other being the "black market goods" buried in black rock and lined precariously along a shelf — is a thick stack of newspapers titled Towards a New Theory of Color Reading (El Dia, Houston, Forward Times, Manila Headline). It illustrates its point through nonillustration: blocking out and color-coding all the content in Houston’s local ethnic newspapers, Syjuco cogently politicizes ad, editorial, and pictorial space via swaths of gaudy red, yellow, and blue.

Charles Gute’s "The Corrections" resides near the gallery’s entrance, and somewhere between Slepian and Syjuco on the heavy-to-playful scale. An art publication proofreader by day and artist by night, Gute wondered what would happen if he were to blur these two roles. The result: copyediting marks derived from, but in lieu of, an original art text context. In other words, circles and squiggles as art in and of themselves.

On paper, Gute’s pieces look swell. The cute and clean abstract shapes might make little to no sense, but they at least appear perceptive. In concept, they balloon — questions surface regarding what is and isn’t art, especially when extracted from within an art industry context, as alienated labor is made visible much to the embarrassment of the original authorial content. The proofs, like those blocks found on Syjuco’s newspapers, politicize the source material, making those sweet, colored marks difficult to ignore. *

CHARLES GUTE: "THE CORRECTIONS"

JOHN SLEPIAN: "THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF COLOR PAINTING"

STEPHANIE SYJUCO: "BEG/BORROW/STEAL"

Through May 15, free

Catharine Clark Gallery

150 Minna, SF

(415) 399-1439

www.cclarkgallery.com

All the young Turks

David Talbot
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1
All the young Turks

arts@sfbg.com

HAIRY EYEBALL Welcome to Hairy Eyeball, a bimonthly rundown of visual art. We don’t aim to be comprehensive, just opinionated. First Thursday is tomorrow, so enough with the introductions. On with the shows.

CCA is unleashing a new batch of Fine Arts MFA students into the wild Thursday night. With 66 artists total, this year’s MFA show (which runs at the San Francisco campus through May 15) is one of the largest in recent memory. The cream from CCA tends to rise to the top pretty quickly, so here are some names worth looking out for in white cubes, near and far, in the future.

Llewelynn Fletcher’s interactive sculptures aren’t aiming to take a particular pulse, but will probably slow yours down. For Please Lie Down, she has created several enclosures of lead, ceramic, wood, and felt that completely cover the head, forcing you, per the piece’s title, to lie down on the floor (thankfully, she’s also constructed camping-style palettes for comfort). The mini-meditation huts, evocative of beehives as well as certain medieval torture implements, have the additional effect of transforming the wearer into something of a sculpture.

Maggie Haas’ mixed-media pieces could easily be mistaken for installations-in-progress. But her arrangements and treatment of construction site detritus — sawhorses, wooden slats — cannily gut minimalism, This Old House-style, by preferring to hang out in the workshop with Donald Judd et al., turning the means of production into the piece itself. Endless Escape in particular performs a neat rope trick that yokes Robert Smithson and Yayoi Kusama with the ease of an Eagle Scout.

Hilary Wiedemann’s installations, which frequently combine sculptures and projection, are far more elusive — and unsettling. In Untitled, a plaster cast of what looks to be a bullet hole-riddled surface (glass, perhaps?) leans against the wall; on the floor, laminated sheet glass has been contorted to resemble discarded tissue. Both components record the violence of the transformational processes that have brought them to their current states. It’s not comfortable viewing — as if you’ve stumbled on a crime scene before the police tape has gone up.

Someone put Doron Fishman in touch with a textiles manufacturer, stat. His gorgeous ink-on-paper works, all black tendrils of liquid smoke, let it bleed. They’re begging to be transferred to chiffon. The witchy Mulleavy sisters, of Rodarte fame, would be smart to look him up.

Well worth the trek to the other side of Potrero Hill is Ping Pong Gallery, which is currently showing Gwenael Rattke’s dark, hypnogogic collages (through May 14). The collection’s title, “Oktogon,” refers to a street intersection in Budapest and also to the Ottoman-style “Kiraly” baths built during the Turkish occupation in the 16th century. These layers of history, architecture, exposed flesh, and power are not wholly self-evident in the psychedelic grandeur of Rattke’s straight-razor wizardry — which recalls, among many associations, the graphic punch of Tadanori Yokoo and Keiichi Tanami’s 1960s poster designs, the homo-plagiarism of Jess’ massive Narkissos (1978/91), and the profondo rosso beloved by Dario Argento. Rather, they form the deep structures to these mandala-like works in which Op-Art geometrics collide with Art Nouveau scrollwork and leather daddies are refracted into Busby Berkeley chorines. The corner in which 14 of these pieces have been hung draws you in, like some black hole. Proceed with caution, and awe.

Also closing toward the end of the month (May 22 to be exact) is Beverly Rayner’s “Accretion” at Braunstein/Quay, an elongated housecoat covered in the day-to-day paper ephemera — greeting cards, bills, receipts, inspirational quotes, correspondences — that one accumulates over the course of a lifetime. “Go paperless” is one takeaway. That such a load is too much to bear — psychically as much as environmentally — is another. *

CCA GRADUATE THESIS EVENTS

Through May 14, free

California College of the Arts

1111 Eighth St., SF

(415) 703-9500

www,cca.edu

GWENAEL RATTKE: OKTOGON

Through May 14, free

Ping Pong Gallery

1240 22nd St., SF

(415) 550-7483

www.pingponggallery.com

BEVERLY RAYNER: ACCRETION

Through May 22, free

Braunstein/Quay Gallery

430 Clementina, SF

(415) 278-9850

www.bquayartgallery.com

Our 2010 Small Business Awards

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Our 2010 Small Business Awards

culture@sfbg.com

The mallification of America continues apace, with faceless conglomerates training new generations of shoppers to look for the cheapest deals at bland big box outlets, regardless of what “cheap” might actually mean in terms of pollution, transportation, labor, and the local economy. (For starters, out of every $100 dollars spent at a big box, only $43 remains in the local economy, compared to $68 if you buy local.) But in San Francisco at least, the little guys keep on swinging, maintaining unique shops and service companies with a vibrant local feel and contributing to the patchwork of optimism, individuality, and community effort that make the city great. Each year, we honor several of them for sticking to their guns and pursuing their visions.

 

WOMEN IN BUSINESS AWARD

DEENA DAVENPORT, GLAMA-RAMA SALON

“The higher the hair, the closer to God,” a wise Southern drag queen once said. Here in San Francisco, one of our own heavenly salons, Glama-Rama, is about to get a whole lot more divine, expanding from its homey kitsch digs in SoMa to a new 2500 square foot space on Valencia Corridor, creating 16 new jobs. The driving force behind that expansion is owner Deena Davenport, who combined her hairdressing talent, natural business acumen, and deep connection to the local arts scene into a formula for sheer success when she opened Glama-Rama 11 years ago.

“My dream was not to have a business, but a community space,” Davenport told me. “I wanted a place for all my gifted friends to express themselves. Not just our excellent stylists, but artists, designers, musicians, event producers — we all came together to make this happen. I think that’s the key to our success. We work with all kinds of styles and we don’t price ourselves out of the nonprofit sector. That allows a great mix of clientele, and an element of comfort for everyone.”

Davenport, a creative blur, plans to kickstart a Valencia Corridor merchants association once she gets settled in, and dreams of a future in politics. (She currently hosts a show on Pirate Cat Radio and appears onstage in local productions.) “I’m fortunate to have always had great friends and great landlords — and to be in a business the Internet can’t compete with,” she says.

“By the way, the new space will be two shades of cream with gold accents,” Davenport adds, ever the stylish professional. “We’re taking off our Doc Martens and putting on some heels.” (Marke B.)

GLAMA-RAMA

304 Valencia, SF

415-861-4526

www.glamarama.com

 

GOLDEN SURVIVOR AWARD

CAFÉ DU NORD

It’s no secret that nightlife in San Francisco has taken a big hit lately. A combination of economic woes and persistent crackdowns by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and local police, a.k.a. the War on Fun, has taken its toll — even on 100-year-old live-venue mainstays like Café Du Nord.

“It’s been tough for us and for everyone out there,” says Guy Carson, who took over the space with Kerry LaBelle in 2003. “They don’t call it ‘hard times’ for nothing. But we love what we do, and we know how to run a quality business. I’ve been promoting live shows since I was nine years old, so you know it’s what I love. You have to be willing to weather the storms.”

The intimate basement space retains its speakeasy vibe and velvet-curtained, cabaret-like setting, while playing host to mighty big names and burgeoning local upstarts. As a “venue with a menu” that serves food and puts on all ages and 18+ shows, Café Du Nord has been specifically targeted by the city and ABC for what Carson calls “differing interpretations of the law.” He looks forward to the upcoming launch of the new California Music and Culture Association, which will bring together several local venues and nightlife activists to fight the tide of local nightlife repression. “When we all work together, we can return the city’s nightlife to its former glory,” Carson says. (Marke B.)

CAFÉ DU NORD

3174 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

GOOD NEIGHBOR AWARD

OPPORTUNITY FUND

Eric Weaver put his first nonprofit loan package together in 1995. His small startup, called Opportunity Fund, helped brothers who wanted to expand their pet shop borrow $17,000 for aquariums and fish. The deal worked out well; the pet store prospered, the money got repaid, and Opportunity Fund was on its way to becoming one of the most successful microlending outfits in California.

Weaver, a Stanford MBA and the fund’s CEO, now oversees a staff of 35 that makes loans to small businesses, most of them minority owned, that might have trouble getting financing from a traditional bank. And the nonprofit continues to grow by helping entrepreneurs in the Bay Area get the financing they need to create jobs and build community businesses. “We just made our 1,000th loan,” he told me. “We’re on target to make 200 loans this year, more than ever.”

Unlike most banks, Opportunity Fund sees its clients almost as partners. The staff takes time to help borrowers work up a successful business plan and learn how to manage their finances. “We do one-on-one business counseling with almost all of our clients,” Weaver said.

The group also helps finance affordable housing developments and offers individual development accounts (IDAs)— special savings accounts that come with financial training and grants — for everything from education to home purchases to putting aside the cash it now takes to become a U.S. citizen.

A recent study showed that Opportunity Fund has created or retained 1,200 in the Bay Area. “With a median loan size of $7,000, and a focus on making loans to people who have historically been underserved by banks, Opportunity Fund has been a particularly valuable resource for women, minority, and low-income entrepreneurs,” Weaver noted. He added that 73 percent of Opportunity Fund borrowers are members of an ethnic minority, and 90 percent of borrowers have incomes at or below 80 percent of area median income.

Imagine a traditional bank making a statement like that. (Tim Redmond)

OPPORTUNITY FUND

785 Market Street, Suite 1700, SF

408-297-0204

opportuityfund.org

 

CHAIN ALTERNATIVE AWARD

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS ASSOCIATION

Independent booksellers are a wonder. Up against giant chains like Wal-Mart, facing technological changes like Kindle and online behemoths like Amazon.com (which doesn’t even have to pay state sales taxes), it’s hard to believe they can even survive. Yet they do — in fact, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association keeps growing.

“The mainstream press wants to write about bookstores closing,” Calvin Crosby, NCIBA’s vice president, told me. “But actually, stores are opening. We have two new members this year.”

The booksellers group keeps the small, community-based stores in the public eye, with promotions, events like the annual NCIBA awards (see page 28) and political lobbying (NCIBA is a big supporter of a bill by Assembly Member Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, that would force Amazon to pay sales tax).

One of the group’s biggest tasks is education — reminding the public that local bookstores serve a critical function. “I was at a book-signing recently with a major author, and a bunch of people showed up with books they bought on Amazon and they wanted to trade them for signed copies,” Crosby, who is community relations director at Books Inc., recalled. “I had to explain to all of them that Amazon doesn’t pay taxes and hurts the locals.”

And with 300 bookseller members, NCIBA is helping preserve the notion that buying a book from someone who actually cares about books is an idea whose time will never pass. (Redmond)

NCIBA

1007 General Kennedy, SF.

415-561-7686

www.nciba.com

 

SMALL BUSINESS ADVOCATE AWARD

KEITH GOLDSTEIN

“Money spent in a small business — far, far more of it stays here in the neighborhood than with a chain store,” says Keith Goldstein, president of the Potrero Hill Association of Merchants and Businesses. A Potrero Hill resident since 1974, and owner of Everest Waterproofing and Restoration, Inc., Goldstein has spent the last six years with the merchant’s association promoting a sense of community in the inclined blocks of Potrero.

He’s overseen the growth of the Potrero Hill Festival from what he calls “a small affair” to a yearly event that’s “great for residents and businesses,” and also serves on the Eastern Neighborhood Advisory Committee, where he works on issues, like new transit plans, that affect local businesses.

Somehow he has found the time to start SEEDS (www.nepalseeds.org), a group that provides infrastructure and health support to underserved Tibetan villages, and is involved in Food Runners (www.foodrunners.org), an organization that links homeless shelters to food sources.

The superlative community member incorporates the ‘buy local’ mentality into every aspect of his life, even placing the administration of the health care plan for his 50 employees into the hands of a fellow Potrero Hill Merchant’s Association member. “It’s all richly rewarding,” Goldstein says of his hands-on role in his neighborhood’s economic viability. “I like to walk around the hill and be able to chat with my neighbors about quality of life issues.” (Caitlin Donohue)

KEITH GOLDSTEIN

Potrero Hill Association of Merchants and Businesses

1459 18th St., SF.

(415) 341-8949

www.potrerohill.biz

 

EMPLOYEE-OWNED BUSINESS AWARD

RED VIC MOVIE HOUSE

“Once it got going, it was like a perpetual-motion machine. And I have to say, I think it was the collective nature of the thing that’s kept the Red Vic going this long,” says Jack Rix, long time worker and cofounder of the Red Vic Movie House, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.

The Red Vic’s employees put a lot into the neighborhood theater’s showings of unique and classic flicks. Each worker-owner does a little of everything, from sweeping the lobby floor to washing dishes. “We’re all utility players here, this is very much a labor of love,” Rix says. Launched in 1980 by community organizers, the theater’s focus has not only been on providing great movies but doing it sustainably, installing solar paneling on the roof and eschewing paper products. “Back then I don’t think the phrase ‘green’ existed,” Rix recalls. “We were trying to be ‘green’ and we didn’t even know it!”

The Red Vic’s workers aren’t the only ones with a certain affection for the theater’s bench seating, environmentally friendly ceramic coffee mugs, and wooden popcorn bowls. Rix says some Upper Haight residents will wait for blockbusters to make their way out of “corporate” movie cinemas to the Red Vic’s second-run screen. “We’re very much a community theater,” he says proudly. (Donohue)

RED VIC MOVIE HOUSE

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com

 

CHAIN ALTERNATIVE AWARD

OTHER AVENUES

Nestled in a part of the city best known for its tiny pastel homes and bracing sea breezes, Ocean Beach’s Other Avenues is everything you could desire in a neighborhood grocery store: Warm atmosphere, vast swaths of bulk food bins, and a well-edited health food selection, including vitamins, medicines, and cheery shelves of produce. Plus health insurance for all its knowledgeable employees.

Trader who? No need for big box stores near Other Avenues, which has earned a loyal clientele in the 36 years since it first opened its doors. “Since we’re a co-op, I like to think of us as a giant organism,” says Other Avenues worker Ryan Bieber. “Occasionally we lose parts and regrow them. A lot of customers have been coming here for 10, 20 years.” Their loyalty might be in response to Other Avenues’ commitment to keeping its beachside clientele healthy and well. “The aim is to make sure that people have access to things like this,” says Bieber.

Asked what he thinks would happen if one of the chain grocery behemoths encroaches on the shop’s territory, Bieber is unconcerned. “I think people will come here regardless. [We] have been doing this forever and we take pretty good care of ourselves. I think our customers really respond to that. We wouldn’t want a world where there was only Whole Foods — that’d be too boring!” (Donohue)

OTHER AVENUES

3930 Judah, SF

(415) 661-7475

www.otheravenues.coop

 


ARTHUR JACKSON DIVERSITY IN SMALL BUSINESS AWARD

RAYMOND OW-YANG

Raymond Ow-Yang tends to downplay the impact he’s had on the North Beach-Chinatown artistic landscape. The owner of New Sun Hong Kong restaurant, Ow-Yang put up the funds to have the iconic Jazz Mural painted on the Columbus and Broadway walls of his Chinese restaurant. The artist Bill Weber approached him in 1988 — securing an approximately $70,000 aesthetic gift to the community that Ow-Yang has never sought public recognition for.

“Back then you’re young, you have no brain. I thought, this is nice — it’s something you do because you feel like it,” Ow-Yang recalls dismissively.

“Nice”is an understatement. The mural, which depicts famous San Francisco figures and scenes, has become one of the neighborhood’s visual joys, stopping tourists in their photo-snapping tracks. The gift reflects Ow-Yang’s commitment to the streets he grew up on

He immigrated to Chinatown from Canton in 1962, at age 13. A lifelong entrepreneur, Ow-Yang owned a photo studio, a floral shop, and a restaurant in Oakland’s Chinatown (the original Sun Hong Kong) before opening at 606 Broadway in 1989. The restaurant is open until 3 a.m. every day — a timetable residents can appreciate for more reasons than just Ow-Yang’s post-bar won ton soup. “Before, people were afraid to walk through this area,” says the businessman. “Now there’s a lot more foot traffic — the city even put up traffic lights. With the bright lights [from New Sun Hong Kong], it’s a lot safer in this area.” (Donohue)

RAYMOND OW-YANG

New Sun Hong Kong

606 Broadway, SF

(415) 956-3338

 

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