Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture

Ballin’

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Best known for her career as a documentarian (she won an Oscar for 1997’s Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien), Jessica Yu makes her narrative feature debut with Ping Pong Playa, an often gut-busting sports fable about a wannabe NBA star who becomes the unlikely hero of his ping-pong-crazed family.

Lead actor Jimmy Tsai’s performance as Christopher "C-Dub" Wang is so dead-on hilarious, I assumed he was a stand-up comedian. Nope: "I met Jimmy because he was the production accountant at [Ping Pong Playa production company] Cherry Sky Films," Yu explains. "I went to a screening of short films where he showed these humorous spots he had made for an online clothing company. I remember thinking this was a great character to use for something. So when [Cherry Sky’s] Joan Huang and Jimmy approached me about working on [a comedy] together, my first thought was we have to put this character C-Dub in it."

The first-time thespian was already a naturally funny guy (he cowrote the film with Yu), but he trained for six months to get his skills in line with the film’s ping-pong storyline. "There’s something inherently funny about the sport," Yu says. "Not to take anything away from it, but no matter how hard you hit a ping-pong ball, it still makes that smack! So the idea of putting somebody who was kind of bombastic into that world was ripe for opportunity."

Yu says her background as a champion fencer influenced her desire to make a sports movie. "I think there were certainly discussions about the kind of sports that Asians are known for being good at — whether it’s diving, or ping-pong, or to some extent fencing. I just think it’s interesting that a character like C-Dub has no interest in excelling at what he sees as marginalized sports — but that tends to be where you see a lot of Asians on the podium."

As for Yu, "My game’s pretty terrible! We had a ping-pong table on set at all times — and if it’s sitting there long enough you’re gonna play. I’m still not good at it, but I enjoy it a little more now."

PING PONG PLAYA

Opens Fri/5 in Bay Area theaters

Here Today

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

What the heck is going on with the Today contraceptive sponge? My wife and I have always used condoms, but when we saw the sponges a few months back, we figured, "Let’s try ’em."

Oh … my … god. Going bareback after years of condom use was absotively amazing for both of us. We also discovered that what my wife calls her "special trick" — which involves sliding the condomless head of my cock over her clit — worked OK for her with a condom on, but she describes it as "exquisite" without one.

So now, Synova, the company that was making the sponge, has declared bankruptcy, and sponges are going for $8 a pop on eBay. Do you know if Synova is going to come out of its reorganization and start making the sponge again?

Love,

Spongelover

Dear Lover:

I hate to be the one to break your heart, or rather to rebreak it after Synova — cads that they are — already treated you and yours so callously, but you will survive. Your heart will go on.

There’s something about the sponge (beyond the spermicide itself) that just makes people go all gooey. This is the second time sponge fans have loved and lost, and I’m afraid I do not know when, if ever, your beloved will return. Back in the ’90s, Seinfeld‘s Elaine coined the term "sponge-worthy" when she discovered the first shortage and had to start gauging whether or not a boyfriend rated a precious, hoarded sponge. That model was pulled from the market for safety and manufacturing problems, and didn’t come back until last year, along with a media blitz that attracted hordes of new fans. And yes, Synova, the new owner, has declared bankruptcy. The manufacturing rights have passed to yet another company, but I don’t think it’s saying when — or if — it will begin exercising them.

So what’s the big deal? The sponge is nothing but a … sponge, filled to the brim with Nonoxynol-9, the soapy, controversial spermicide that has been around forever. The big advantages are ease of application (pop it in) and forgetability (you don’t have to pop in another one for a day or so). Nonoxynol-9, though, can be some nasty stuff. A number of studies have demonstrated that it causes enough irritation to let in pathogens, including HIV, and it tastes horrible. Plus, I will forever bear a grudge against it since it caused a boyfriend to develop a huge bright red clown-mouth — a scarlet letter "O" — around his lips, just in time for Passover at my mother’s house, and people kept asking him about it all night until he was ready to die. So, um, none for me. But I do understand your dismay at the loss of a dear contraceptive.

There are other forms of spermicide — film or pellets or whatever — but they don’t work well without a diaphragm-y thing to hold them in place. In fact, even with such a device, they work just as poorly as the beloved sponge, which is very poorly indeed in women who have had children and only sort of OK in women who haven’t. The sponge was never a great form of birth control; it just allowed for great sex. Is your wife absolutely sure she wouldn’t like a nice NuvaRing or an IUD? I know, it’s not fair — I’d like to be able to recommend some sort of device to insert — but they’ve got to be better than condoms and eternal sorrow.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I’m on the pill and monogamous, so I’m not limited to water-based lubricants. Recently my partner and I got the idea to try vitamin E oil — it smells and tastes pretty good, it lasts longer than Astroglide, and if it’s edible, we figured, it must be safe. Well … a short while after we happily started lubing with E, I got a urinary tract infection and have since read numerous lists of suggestions for avoiding UTIs that all seemed to mention specifically using a water-based lubricant. I feel somewhat weird about asking my doctor this question, so I’m turning to you: are "natural" but non-water-based lubes such as vitamin E oil bad for one’s inner girly parts, or have I wrongly linked a few coincidental events?

Love,

Gimme an E?

Dear E:

You’re right that it could be a coincidence, but I’m betting it’s not. I don’t know what kind of carrier oil was used for the vitamin E, but whatever it is, your vagina probably doesn’t know how to get rid of it. I completely agree that water-based lubes are essentially unsatisfactory, but luckily one does not have to reach for weird, random substances off the supplement shelf. What you want is a nice silicone lube, of which there are many. You can get them flavored if that’s your scene, but most are taste- and scent-free, non-irritating, non-drying, and so slippery they are actually kind of dangerous — and you really want to watch where you prop the bottle between applications. You will love them and you will thank me.

Love,

Andrea

Got a salacious subject you want Andrea to discuss? Ask her a question!

Also, Andrea is teaching! Contact her if you’re interested in (sex)life after baby classes. Her new blog is at www.gogetyourjacket.com, but don’t look there for the butt sex. There isn’t any.

Death and the maiden

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

REVIEW Somewhat eclipsed by the mob scene upstairs at "Frida Kahlo," the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s "The Art of Lee Miller" abounds with riveting images — not least those of the late photographer herself, who was, at different times, a nude model for her father, a high fashion mannequin for Vogue, and a muse and collaborator for her onetime lover Man Ray. Many will fix in your mind long after this sizable show ends — the tattered window into an otherworldly Egypt of Portrait of Space (1937), the chorus line of dangling rat posteriors in Untitled (Rat Tails) (1930), and the persistently chic English ladies in wartime protective headgear of Women with Fire Masks, London (1941).

But two Miller images — sensational were they not so sober — bid you return to examine them further: The Suicided Burgermeister’s Daughter, Leipzig, Germany (1945) and Untitled [Severed Breast from Radical Mastectomy] (circa 1930). Both play morbidly within the haunted dreamscapes of surrealism, teasing out a certain tongue-in-cheek formalism, or, in the case of the portrait of the deceased fräulein, upend classical aesthetic values with a detachment that’s chilled to the bone and coolly black-humored.

Experimenting with architecturally focused abstraction, dadaism, and surrealism in the early ’30s, during her Parisian tryst with Man Ray, Lee said she was working as a medical photographer in the city when she managed to spirit away a breast amputated in a mastectomy operation from a local hospital. Back at the studio she photographed it two ways: once with its sagging skin-side exterior facing her camera, and again with its gory innards threatening to spill out like kidney pie. In both images the breast lies in an elegant ivory plate on a creased, innocuously striped, lightly grid-printed place mat, with a fork and knife laid out for an imagined meal. The two perspectives on print are displayed side by side, as if to ironically mimic the natural placement of these mammaries. If not for the card, one would mistake the slab on the plate for a somewhat unappetizing kidney pie or pig’s ear. Whitney Chadwick, the author of Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement (Thames & Hudson, 1991), described Miller re-envisioning this breast "not as an object of male desire, but as dead meat," and it does seem as if Miller sought to load these life-giving symbols of nurturance and desire with connotations of vulnerability and sacrifice. She takes the dismembered body part’s symbolism to its bitter end — while referencing the common surrealist obsession with those primal glands as well as the Catholic iconography of St. Agatha, who is often pictured proffering her plated breasts to devout viewers. The frequently and easily commodifiable body parts are served up for your visual consumption.

Exhibition catalog author Mark Haworth-Booth points to the surrealist notion of "convulsive beauty" and the movement’s general fascination with effigies in reference to Miller’s stunningly lit and composed The Suicided Burgermeister’s Daughter, shot during her tenure as the only female photojournalist allowed into combat during World War II. The body’s hair, skin, brow, pretty lids, and steepled nose evoke the eternal appeal of an angel aloft above a headstone. Her arms caress the front of her heavy wool Nazi nurse’s coat. Her lips, unnaturally pale and marble-like, are slightly parted, revealing perfect teeth with a whiff of inadvertent eroticism, and she lies on a leather couch — on which the one distended button and a small rip in the leather arm are the only hints of decay.

Most intriguing, Miller seems to have blurred the area above the body, making it appear as if a fine mist or fog is descending on the prone form. In the accompanying original dispatch for Vogue, the magazine she once posed for and later reported for, Miller writes of "the love of death which is the under-pattern of the German living caught up with the high officials of the regime," text that went unpublished in the magazine. The careful formality of Burgermeister’s Daughter‘s composition brings to mind and counterpoints those of more recently deceased Germans: Gerhard Richter’s paintings of the also-suicided members of the Baader-Meinhof gang. Yet, with Burgermeister’s Daughter and Untitled, it’s hard to imagine another artist so associated with the temporal flash of fashion making images as powerful and as fueled by the death urge.

THE ART OF LEE MILLER

Through Sept. 14.

Mon.–Tues., Fri.–Sun., 11 a.m.–5:45 p.m.; Thurs., 10 a.m.–8:45 p.m.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

$7–<\d>$12.50, free for members and 12 and under (free first Tues.; half price Thurs., 6–8:45 p.m.)

(415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

Curtain calls

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Fall arts resolution No. 1: have no faith in leaders. Obummer and McPain will only disappoint, or worse. (Probably worse.) If faith you must ooze, kindly direct it toward people who really care about you and have your interests at heart. Why did Gore Vidal write his play The Best Man (1960), for instance? Most likely it wasn’t to get elected (though he did try). And Frank Wedekind was even less enamored of the powers that be when he penned his way-pre-punk "tragedy of childhood," Spring Awakening, a late 19th-century cri de coeur against authority whose transition to Broadway and electric guitars has both an aptness and an irony going for it that might have amused old FW. As Tom Stoppard confirms, power is a compromised and compromising affair whatever side of history you happen to be on, but rock ‘n’ roll will save your soul. So will Teddy Pendergrass, for that matter, as soul-survivor and kinetic Philly memoirist Colman Domingo brilliantly attests. So this fall, remember who your real friends are. You can direct any remaining or follow-up questions to author-playwright Kobo Abe, as well as the other miscellaneous sage nonconformists referenced in the list below.

The Best Man A Broadway hit for Gore Vidal, this political comedy-drama remains fresh as a daisy, if such a sweet olfactory simile can apply to the mosh pit of electoral politics.

Now playing through Sept. 28. Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk. (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org

San Francisco Fringe Festival The mighty Exit Theatre turned 25 this year. The SF Fringe Festival, the annual small-theater smorgasbord the Exit serves up each fall, turns a sexy 17. Judging by this year’s lineup, that means stripped-down, butt-plugged, bare-bones, rock-hard, strap-on sexy.

Sept. 3–14. Various venues, including the Exit Theatres, 156 Eddy, SF. www.sffringe.org

A Boy and His Soul (Thick House) and A Bronx Tale (Golden Gate Theatre) If only it were a double bill. These two solo plays about growing up (in Philadelphia and the titular Bronx) take place on radically different Bay Area stages, and deal with radically different stages in the lives of what you might call radically different actors (Coleman Domingo and Chazz Palminteri, respectively). Both are masterful, and as long as you’re at it, throw in Carlo D’Amore’s own deft and hilarious family-centered solo, No Parole, coming to the Marsh in November (www.themarsh.org).

Sept. 3–14. Thick House, 1695 18th St., SF. www.thickhouse.org

Sept. 23–Oct. 19. Golden Gate Theatre, One Taylor, SF. www.shnsf.com

Spring Awakening Best of Broadway brings to town this rock musical makeover of Wedekind’s great drama.

Sept. 4–Oct. 12. Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF. www.shnsf.com

Rock ‘N’ Roll Here comes Tom Stoppard’s character-concentrated take on Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution, as well as on leftist politics across several decades of Cold War history. It’s a good play to argue about afterward, in your highest pinko dudgeon, over pinot and tartare de boeuf at the Grand Cafe.

Sept. 11–Oct. 12. American Conservatory Theatre, 415 Geary, SF. (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org

HyperReal Bay Area performance artist Sara Kraft’s low-key brilliance by now merits a neologism: krafty (with a k!). Krafty = shrewd, inventive, technically savvy, wry, playful, tuneful, eerie, unsettling, and, generally speaking, not to be missed.

Oct. 10–12. CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com/event/36251

War Peace: The One Drop Rule Living Word Festival 2008, titled "Race Is Fiction," features a new collaborative work by Youth Speaks alumni and Teen Poetry Slam champions Chinaka Hodge, Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs, and Nico Cary. Directed by festival curator Marc Bamuthi Joseph, War Peace imagines a drought-ravaged Bay Area as potential war zone.

Oct. 23–24. Theater Artaud, 450 Florida, SF. www.youthspeaks.org

Angry Black White Boy Felonious’ Dan Wolf and Tommy Shepherd unveil a poetical rap-fused remix of Adam Mansbach’s satirical and incendiary novel about race and identity in the United States, adapted by Wolf.

Oct. 23–Nov. 16. Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia, SF. www.theintersection.org

Continuous City Last year’s work-in-progress is this year’s full-fledged multimedia outing as New York City–based boundary pushers, the Builders Association, returns with a three-pronged narrative (incorporating much Bay Area–derived material) negotiating the ever-more permeable membrane between the global and the local, and our networked and unplugged experience.

Nov. 6–8. Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

Friends Brava! For Women in the Arts’ new artistic director Raelle Myrick-Hodges carries forward the spirit of its founding mission with offerings eclectic and unexpected. The revival of Woman in the Dunes author Kobo Abe’s play Friends promises to be a timely and potent production, though Abe penned his scathing absurdist take on gentrification some four decades ago.

Nov. 6–17. Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St., SF. (415) 647-2822, www.brava.org

Diverse moments

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

The sheer quantity of advance notices piling up over the summer could overwhelm even a committed dance observer. But then come the aha! moments where you grab your pencil to fill in one more slot on the calendar. The Bay Area is still an exceptional place to watch dance, whether you do it at the prestigious Zellerbach Hall or the Mission District’s humbler CounterPULSE. By including four local choreographers who have risen to the forefront in recent years, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’s Bay Area Now 5 (BAN5) series just may be the most noteworthy shows of the fall season. The works of the Erika Shuch Performance Project (After All, Part 1, Sept. 12–14), Robert Moses’ Kin (Toward September, Sept. 18–20), Dohee Lee (Flux, Oct. 16–18), and Keith Hennessy (Delinquent, Nov. 13–15) couldn’t be more different from one another. So these world premieres, supported and — at least partially — commissioned by the YBCA, are a vote of confidence in the health of local dance (check www.ybca.org for performance details). Read on for more notable dance dates.

Courage Group When longtime dancer and arts activist Todd Courage started his own company some six years ago, his work immediately stood for the breadth of its references and its theatrical savvy. Pinpoint, an evening of three world premieres, is his most ambitious endeavor yet.

Sept. 11–13, Project Artaud Theater, 450 Florida, SF. (415) 863-9834, www.odctheater.org

Shawl-Anderson 50th Anniversary Gala With dancers flying in from across the nation, this event is a huge celebration of the lives and works of Frank Shawl and Victor Anderson, who have run Shawl-Anderson Modern Dance Center — the Bay Area’s oldest dance studio — for the past five decades. The gala is preceded by two performance salons Sept. 19.

Sept. 20, St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College, Berk.; www.shawl-anderson.org

Keyhole Dances Erin Mei-Stuart is a smart, witty, idiosyncratic choreographer. For this series of matinee performances, she takes her EmSpace ensemble to the third floor of a Victorian flat in the Fillmore neighborhood. Buy a ticket and find out location details.

Sept. 20–28. private home, SF. www.emspacedance.org/keyhole

Mark Morris Dance Group Romeo and Juliet without a balcony scene, but with a happy ending? If anyone can bring this off, MM can. His Romeo and Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare, is based on the old standby’s recently discovered original libretto and score, and is said to reflect Prokofiev’s initial vision for the piece.

Sept. 25–28. Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 642-9988, www.calperformances.org

Chitresh Das Chitresh Das has managed to popularize Kathak, one of India’s most rhythmic dance forms. For these performances, Das and his musicians will challenge each other to ever-greater heights. It’s dance in which improvisation and structure go hand in hand.

Sept. 27–28. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.kathak.org

Nâ Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu Patrick Makuakane is master showman but also a deeply serious practitioner and student of hula. He has gorgeous dancers, and the "Hula Show 2008" promises to be spectacular, witty, and fun. Includes a family show on Sunday.

Oct. 11–19. Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF. www.cityboxoffice.com

Kirov Ballet A superb company (and orchestra) — but why such a conservative repertory for an ensemble that these days performs George Balanchine and William Forsythe in addition to the story ballets?

Oct. 14–19. Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 642-9988, www.calperformances.org

Merce Cunningham Dance Company This four-program series is superb overview of half a century of dancemaking by a giant of an artist. The Nov. 7 performance includes colloquia and a conversation with Cunningham.

Nov. 7–15. Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 642-9988, www.calperformances.org

Axis Dance Company Over the years Axis has redefined long-cherished ideas about who can and who cannot dance. They are true revolutionaries. This 20th anniversary concert includes works by Sonya Delwaide, Joe Goode, Alex Ketley, and Kate Weare.

Nov. 14–16. Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice, Oakl. www.axisdance.org

Diablo Ballet With "An Evening on Broadway," featuring the work of George Balanchine, Lynn Taylor Corbett, and Christopher Stowell, Diablo takes a very welcome step away from in-house choreography.

Nov. 21–22. Dean Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek. www.diabloballet.org

Forecast: blackout

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› superego@sfbg.com

Midtempo is the new uptempo, FGGT is the new AZN, and I just adore your hot ass plumping through that tight pair of Evisu No. 13 Lazy S Lefts, no homo — which is the old yay homo. Other topsy-turvy pre-fall clubland updates: drag goes glitch, DJs quit dressing like twins, and everyone drops their Marvel masks and flocks to the last great summer blockbuster, Final Destination: Kanye Glasses.

That smell you hear ahead is the slow-burn return of PLUR. Best new shriek from the stalls: "Whose line is it anyway?!" Five fantasy dance-floor jams: Rondenion’s drrrty D-house groove, "The Beautiful Memory," laidback dip-step to heaven "Stellar Way" by Acos Coolkas, Shy Child’s hyperactive meta-smackdown, "Astronaut," any remix by and of Flying Lotus, and deliriously simple rave-hop looper "Slave 1" from Mark E. (no relation). Relapses don’t count if they’re properly scheduled. You’ll be so over Cazwell’s "I Saw Beyoncé at Burger King" by the time you read this.

What else do you need to know? Oh, the below:

Ellen Allien If you missed the Berlin DJ queen of full-on old-school techno vibe’s triumphal appearance earlier this year at Mighty, complete with Fantastic Planet projections and water bottles squirted over the mushroom-shuffling crowd, you punched yourself in the blunder pants. Do not do this again. It hurts. With multigenre cut-ups Modeselektor, fresh from starring in your Burner headphones.

Sept. 5. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. (415) 626-7001, www.mighty119.com

BLOWOFF If this fall you choose to go to one giant party full of shirtless, hairy, gay musclemen (and straight friends!) put on by an alternative music superstar — no, not Perry Farrell — let Blowoff be it. Why? It’s not your normal circuit-lousy-techno mess: rock and electro are there in the mix, as Bob Mould, formerly of Hüsker Dü and Sugar, and cheeky producer Richard Morel bring their enormously successful traveling to-do to Slim’s, of all places. Weird, but true.

Sept. 6. 10 p.m., $12. Slim’s, 333 11th St., (415) 255-0333, www.myspace.com/blowoffevents

Digitalism No more rock, no more techno, only electro — I love that T-shirt! Gimme three in puce, and turn up Digitalism, the laptop-heroic duo of Hamburgers who in any other era but our electro-dominated own would be filed under "New Orderish" but, happily, give us kids DJ sets to die for, including chiming guitar lines, naff Brit-accented vocal lines, and enough buzz in the speakers to rise above contemporary genre bed-death. They perform with glammy stompers Midnight Juggernaut and kooky the Juan Maclean.

Sept. 12. 103 Harriet, SF. www.blasthaus.com

Black Market Techno A secret: the Black Market techno parties, every third Saturday at Oasis in Oakland, are one of the cutest all-around joints going right now for aurally adventurous fanboys and fangirls. I hope they’re legal, or I just fucked it up. September’s installment is superstacked with all-day and all-night edgy DJ delights, including Rich Korach of Detroit’s Paxahau club, Craig Kuna of local banging monthly Kontrol, and EO of Mouth to Mouth recordings. Yes, it is also free, so get on the damn BART already.

Sept. 19. Oasis, 135 12th St., Oakl. (510) 763-0404, www.myspace.com/blackmarkettechno

Ron Carroll Geez, I miss house. There are so many places in the city right now to jerk around ironically, wig out dub-steppingly, or punch the air like an American Apparel hesher. Yet the list of smooth-groove, soul-drenched dance-floor opportunities is thinner than, well, an American Apparel hesher. So is it true that Chicago legend Ron Carroll has somehow been convinced to do a residency at Temple? Could the man behind a wealth of ’90s orchestral house hits be at the vanguard of an SF house regeneration? Whether he’ll be a regular or not, his turntable domination on Sept. 13 promises to be a sweet revival meeting for househeds and fans of golden tunes.

Sept. 13. Temple, 540 Howard, SF. www.templesf.com

Dirty Bird Lovefest Pre-Party The enormous and consistently lovely Lovefest (Oct. 4) is no longer the same weekend as the Folsom Street Fair (Sept. 28) — farewell, gorgeous sight of hirsute leathermen in bunny ears! — and this year it’s really pumping its kind-of yawny Dutch trance headliner, Armin Van Buuren. But it’s still a primo time for our local lights to shine. If you can’t wait for the endearingly handmade floats to parade your favorite Bay beatmakers down Market Street, why not let your freak feathers fly early with SF’s current reigning dance label kings, minimal-goofy Dirty Bird Records, including Claude Von Stroke, Justin Martin, Worthy, and the aptly named Hookerz and Blow.

Oct. 3. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880, www.mezzaninesf.com

Frisco Freakout Can we catch a break from all the gadgets, please — the Ableton–whatnots and Pro Tools paraphernalia? Fab. The all-ages psychedelic rock dance party Frisco Freakout is a whole day’s worth of swirl and twirl at the city’s "premiere dive venue" (their words, not mine), Thee Parkside. Unpack your wavy caftan, tie-dye your Converses, and jack the tab with a zillion chiming howlers like the Bad Trips, Wooden Shjips, Crystal Antlers, Earthless, and Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound.

Oct. 11. Parkside, 1600 17th St., SF. (415) 252-1330, www.myspace.com/friscofreakout

>>More Fall Arts Preview

‘Daughter’ goes to the opera

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

The most successful Asian American novelist of her generation, Amy Tan tests her penmanship as an opera librettist this fall, when the San Francisco Opera presents the world premiere of The Bonesetter’s Daughter, the operatic adaptation of the Oakland native’s 2001 Putnam bestseller with a score composed by Stewart Wallace.

While holding the utmost respect for the polish and clarity of Tan’s voice as a novelist, I have always been a bit skeptical of her writings. These often read suspiciously close to the admonitions and remembrances of parents and elder Chinese relatives, repackaged with great skill for maximum melodramatic impact. Most Chinese children raised by parents who survived the Sino-Japanese wars and the Cultural Revolution will tell you that they are keenly familiar with the gestalt of these tales — carrying unspeakable tragedy and suffering — which the aforementioned aged deploy with a numbing frequency as a tool to awe, preach to, strike fear in, and taunt offspring.

Still, Tan is decidedly correct when she points out that, melodramatic or not, the unarticulated truth of these stories is intensely evident in the endemic presence of depression and the dysfunctional intergenerational relationships that afflict the transplanted expatriate Chinese community of the war generation. "There are lots of tragedies in people’s lives," observes the Sausalito resident by phone from New York City. "Especially in [those of] people who decided to leave their country behind."

Local audiences have been exposed to Wallace’s music — most notably when his opera, Harvey Milk, premiered locally with the SF Opera in 1996 — but for Tan, The Bonesetter’s Daughter commission provided her with an in-depth exposure to the creative process of an entirely new medium. "When I was asked to do this opera, I was happy to turn over the story," Tan says. "I wasn’t thinking that I would be committing myself to doing a libretto."

Initially intimidated by the technical aspects, she soon found herself immersed in the process. "It’s a very free form, as a matter of fact," she explains. "It wasn’t about cutting back the novel, but rather to find the heart of the story and recreate it all over again."

At its core, The Bonesetter’s Daughter is the story of three generations of Chinese women whose secrets and unspoken traumas are carried forth between grandmothers, mothers, and daughters. In preparation for the work, Wallace and Tan traveled together to remote villages in China, attending religious ceremonies, and collecting inspiration in traditional folk music and rituals.

As a result, Wallace created a score — which will be conducted by Steven Sloane and performed by Zheng Cao, Ning Liang, Qian Yi, Hao Jiang Tian, Wu Tong, James Maddalena, and Catherine Cook — that is at times percussive and at other moments hauntingly lyrical, according to Tan. It also includes music written for the suona, a high-pitched, reedy Chinese oboe, as well as some fire-breathing drama. "We will see acrobatics," she adds. "In the beginning prologue there will be dragons: a water dragon and a fire dragon. I am a water dragon, and my mother is a fire dragon, and together we make steam." Far from the typical Chinatown parade dragons, "these will be beautiful, flying dragons made of light paper," she says, "and inside are these flying acrobats."

With martial arts and acrobatic elements integrated into the staging by director Chen Shi-Zheng, will Bonesetter carry close resemblance to a Chinese opera? "Not at all," Tan said. "There are parts of my life, which are based in China, that have been transformed into my American life. Stewart’s music includes, in the same way, those references. But they are part of Stewart’s voice now — and he has a very strong voice."

THE BONESETTER’S DAUGHTER

Sept. 13–Oct. 2, various times, $15–$290

War Memorial Opera House

301 Van Ness, SF

(415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com

CHING CHANG’S TOP CLASSICAL AND OPERA PICKS

KATIA AND MARIELLE LABEQUE


Like Madonna, the Labeque sisters are past 50 now, and showing remarkable artistic longevity and re-invention. The virtuoso French pianists offer a rare performance of Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos at the San Francisco Symphony’s season opener. Sept. 4–7. (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org

PYGMALION


Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra opens its fall program with a gem of French baroque, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pygmalion. Paired on the program will be the Thomas Arne’s Comus, based on a masque by John Milton. Sept. 13–20. (415) 392-4400, www.philharmoniabaroque.org

ISABEL BAYRAKDARIAN AND THE MANITOBA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA


Overachiever Bayrakdarian has an engineering degree and speaks five languages, yet it is in singing that this freakishly talented young Canadian shines most brightly. The soprano perform works by Bartók, Ravel, Gideon Klein, Nikolaos Skalkottas, and Gomidas Vartabed. Oct. 4. (415) 392-2545, www.performances.org

MARSALIS BRASILIANOS


Saxophone virtuoso Branford Marsalis’ love affair with Brazilian music shows no signs of waning. Here he forges a vibrant musical dialogue across the Americas, joined by members of Gil Jardim’s Philarmonia Brasileira to perform works by Villa-Lobos, Stravinsky, Bach, and Milhaud. Oct. 5. (650) 725-ARTS (2787), livelyarts.stanford.edu.

THE COAL-SELLER’S CONCERT


The Bay Area early music ensemble Musica Pacifica recreates a typical concert by coal-seller Thomas Britton, who presented the world’s first known public concert series in London around 1678. Oct. 31. (510) 528-1725, www.sfems.org


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Stage names

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SEPT. 2

Estelle The British soul femme gets a chance to sing to the subjects of “American Boy.” Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1421, www.theindependentsf.com

SEPT. 8–9

Built to Spill Pulling off Perfect from Now On (Warner Bros., 1997) from start to finish. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. (415) 522-0333, www.slims-sf.com

SEPT. 10

Robert Forster Two years on from Grant McLennan’s unexpected death, the dandified half of the Go-Betweens’ now-fabled songwriting duo returns to the stage with an album that includes three songs cowritten with his old bandmate. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750, www.musichallsf.com

SEPT. 19–20

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Mellow with age? No way, say the Grinderman and crew. Warfield, 982 Market, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.ticketmaster.com

SEPT. 19

Al Green and Gladys Knight The Reverend is riding high on the acclaim for his latest recording, Lay It Down (Blue Knight), while Aaliyah’s aunt has kept her voice healthy and powerful in a manner that certain other divas must envy. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Rd., Concord. Also Oct. 7, Mountain Winery, 14831 Pierce, Saratoga. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 19

My Morning Jacket Southern men channel their Evil Urges (Ato). Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 809-0100, www.anotherplanetent.com

SEPT. 20

Herbie Hancock Loved the fusion maestro’s bon mot to Joni Mitchell. Nob Hill Masonic Center, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

This Land Is Your Land Songsmiths and word slingers Sheryl Crow, Cat Power, Henry Rollins, Mike Ness, and Son Volt pay homage to John Steinbeck, who’s been dubbed “the Woody Guthrie of American authors,” and Woody Guthrie, who has been described as “the soundtrack to Steinbeck.” Guthrie’s granddaughter Sarah Lee and husband (and Steinbeck nephew) Johnny Irion round out the bill of this event — a portion of the proceeds go to the Steinbeck and Guthrie family foundations. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Rd., Concord. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 20–21

Treasure Island Musical Festival Stunning views, equally awesome sounds — who could ask for anything more? Try a full day of dance beats (Justice, TV on the Radio, Goldfrapp, Hot Chip, et al.) followed by another of all-out indie rock (the Raconteurs, Tegan and Sara, Vampire Weekend, and the gang). Treasure Island, SF. www.treasureislandfestival.com

SEPT. 22–24

Spoon Can’t get enough of Britt Daniel and company? Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 24

Journey, Heart, and Cheap Trick Feathered-hair flashbacks in full effect. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Rd., Concord. Also Sept. 27, Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com. Also Oct. 7, Mountain Winery, 14831 Pierce, Saratoga. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 25

Silver Jews With a likely gentle assist from Why?’s Yoni Wolf, David Berman flashes his sterling songwriting once more. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 26–27

Mission of Burma The Boston life-changers play 1982 post-punk classic Vs. (Ace of Hearts/Matador, 1982) in its entirety. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1422, www.theindependentsf.com

Rancid Up from Gilman and back on the ginormous Warfield stage, alongside the Adolescents and the Aquabats! Warfield, 982 Market, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.ticketmaster.com

SEPT. 26–28

San Francisco Blues Festival The 36th annual throwdown kicks off with a blues film series at the Roxie Theater and continues at the Great Meadow with Hot Tuna, the Delta Groove All Star Blues Revue, Johnny Winter, and Gospel Hummingbirds. Various locations. www.sfblues.com

SEPT. 28

Beach House Baltimore’s Alex Scully and Victoria Legrand — the niece of Michel — rewards the devotion of listeners who’ve discovered that the endlessly resplendent Devotion (Carpark) is a contender for album of the year. Swedish American Hall, 2174 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016, www.swedishamericanhall.com

Earth, Wind & Fire, Angie Stone, and Michael McDonald A slab of ’70s soul fantasy, a little stab at post–Celebrity Fit Club redemption, and a whole lotta distinctive yacht-rock vocalization, all under one roof. HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara, San Jose. (415) 421-8497, www.hppsj.com

SEPT. 30

My Bloody Valentine The moment has finally arrived for MBV fans. Will they stretch the distorted bridge of “You Made Me Realize” into infinity? Here’s hoping the answer is yes. Concourse, 620 Seventh St., SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 3–5

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 8 Dang, bluegrass, country, and roots fans are in for one of the most diverse lineups yet: Earl Scruggs, Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with T Bone Burnett, Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, Hazel Dickens, the Gourds, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Tift Merritt, and Greg Brown mix it up with Gogol Bordello, Odetta, Elvis Costello, Iron and Wine, Richard Thompson, the Jayhawks’ Mark Olson and Gary Louris, Heavy Trash, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and MC Hammer. A free downhome massive in every sense. Golden Gate Park, SF. www.strictlybluegrass.com

OCT. 3–NOV. 9

San Francisco Jazz Festival Lovers of singing can go straight to the source: the indomitable Jimmy Scott. Lovers of song can sit by the piano of one of the American songbook’s best-known authors: Randy Newman. Lovers of soul can pick up their prescriptions when Dr. Lonnie Smith leads a groove summit. Lovers of revolution can break free from election propaganda with the Brecht-tinged jazz of Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. And lovers of the late Alice Coltrane can pay respects to the music of her son and bandmate Ravi. Various venues, SF. 1-866-920-JAZZ, www.sfjazz.org

OCT. 3

Sigur Rós All hail the Icelandic etherealists. Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 809-0100, www.anotherplanetent.com

OCT. 4

Lovefest The dance music massive and procession is a-twirl with beatmakers à la Armin Van Buuren, Above and Beyond, Kyau and Albert, Deep Voices, Colette, Hil Huerta, and Green Velvet. Various locales, SF. www.sflovefest.org

OCT. 5

Cut Copy The spirit of ELO is a living thing that chugs through the stadium disco of these DFA-affiliated Aussies, and the swoon of OMD isn’t too far away. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880, www.mezzaninesf.com

OCT. 11–12

Santana The pater familias teams with his scion’s Salvador Santana Band. Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, and Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Road, Concord. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 13

The Black Kids The Wizards of Ahhhs initiate the Virgins. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 14–15

Brightblack Morning Light For those about to rock in a manner that makes Spiritualized seem like meth heads, we salute you. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016, www.cafedunord.com

OCT. 18

Mary J. Blige Mary, Mary, quite contrary to … smoothie opener Robin Thicke. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Road, Concord. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 23–26

Budget Rock Seven Magnifico garage-rock from folks who mean it — and love it. Don’t you dare miss Mummies’ Russell Quan’s 50th birthday with Hypstrz and the Rantouls; Ray Loney and the Phantom Movers with Apache; Hank IV with the Lamps and Bare Wires; and Thee Makeout Party with the Pets. Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph, Oakl. www.storkcluboakland.com.

OCT. 27–28

Girl Talk Master of megamix mayhem Gregg Gillis returns to SF, albeit without the pay-what-you-like system offered to those who purchase his latest album. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 31

Yelle The French electro vixen pops up again. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880, www.mezzaninesf.com

NOV. 1–2

Madonna Break it down, New York magazine-style. Tabloid sensation dissipates, while ageless sex appeal, hardcore show-womanship, and — please remember, your Madge-sty — good songs are a girl’s real best friend. Oracle Arena, 7000 Coliseum, Oakl. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

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Olympic disc toss

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SEPT. 2

Theresa Andersson, Hummingbird, Go! (Basin Street) Could this be the latest hair — or rather, heir — to Dusty Springfield’s not-so-dusty blue-eyed soul diva throne, aided by Allen Toussaint, Ane Brun, and Sweden’s Tobias Froberg?

Apollo Sunshine, Shall Noise Upon (World’s Fair) Bad album titles happen to even imaginative psych-poppers.

Lila Downs, Shake Away (EMI/Manhattan) New York-Oaxaca singer-songwriter doffs the Frida drag and bares some Shakira-style midriff along with a lively pop sound.

Donnie Klang, Just a Rolling Stone (Bad Boy) Making the Band 4′s broom-topped answer to Jon B and Justin T paraphrases Bobby D for the TRL set.

New Kids on the Block, The Block (Interscope) Old manager Lou Pearlman is going to prison, Donnie is headed for divorce court, and there are even rumors that one member is — gasp — nonheterosexual.

Underoath, Lost in the Sound of Separation (Tooth & Nail/Solid State) Rock me, sexy screamo Jesus-freaks.

UNKLE, End Titles … Stories for Film (Surrender All) Say “UNKLE” like Black Mountain and Josh Homme want you to.

Brian Wilson, That Lucky Old Sun (Capitol) He reunites with Van Dyke Parks and takes a trip down memory’s drag strip, covering Louis Armstrong and paying homage to SoCal.

Young Jeezy, The Recession (Def Jam) True dat. Producers like Eminem and Jazze Pha and contributors such as Kanye West and T-Pain feel Jeezy’s, erm, pain.

 

SEPT. 9

Calexico, Carried to Dust (Touch and Go) Dusted but darn pretty. Whispery. Poppy.

Cornelius, Sensurround (Everloving) Keigo Oyamada, 3-D sound specialist, returns with a video-and-remix DVD/CD, aptly titled after a quake-imitating movie gimmick.

Kimya Dawson, Alphabutt (K) Everyone poops.

Michael Franti and Spearhead, All Rebel Rockers (Anti-/Epitaph) The SF activist stalwart spit-shines a spunky-fresh blend of dub and funk.

Fujiya and Miyagi, Lightbulbs (Deaf, Dumb & Blind) Fresh from car and Miller Lite commercials, the English kraut-rockers with the Japanese name(s).

Gym Class Heroes, The Quilt (Decaydance/Fueled by Ramen/Atlantic) I hate gym.

Hatchback, Colours of the Sun (Lo) Dfa- and Prins Thomas–approved Sorcerer-buddy Sam Grawe sets the controls beyond cosmic into hypnotic with epic instrumental jams such as “White Diamond” and “Horizon.”

Okkervil River, The Stand Ins (Jagjaguwar) The sweet sequel to last year’s novelistic The Stage Names.

Kardinal Offishall, Not 4 Sale (Geffen) The Clipse dispenses financial advice on “Set It Off.”

Jessica Simpson, Do You Know? (Columbia Nashville) Huh?

The Sound of Animals Fighting, The Ocean and the Sun (Epitaph) A dreamy Animal Collective meets a mathier-than-thou Dillinger Escape Plan?

Emiliana Torrini, Me and Armini (Rough Trade) In The Two Towers (2002), the Icelandic songbird serenaded the gruesome-cute ring-a-ding-dinger with “Gollum’s Song.”

Tricky, Knowle West Boy (Domino) The 40-year-old boy sings the body eclectic.

 

SEPT. 12

Metallica, Death Magnetic (Warner Bros.) When they weren’t pissing off neighbors, the music biz titans and longtime friends of Bugs Bunny were recording — with Rick Rubin — outside of SF for the first time in a dozen years.

 

SEPT. 16

George Clinton, George Clinton and Some Gangsters of Love (Shanachie) The gang — Carlos Santana, Sly Stone, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and RZA — is all here, maggot brains.

Faith Hill, Joy to the World (Warner Bros.) The initial single off the C&W-pop vocalist’s first Xmas album: “A Baby Changes Everything.”

Ill Bill, The Hour of Reprisal (Uncle Howie/Fat Beats) Bad Brains and Raekwon the Chef cook up mischief with “La Coka Nostra.”

Musiq Soulchild, On My Radio (Atlantic) The spirit of Philadelphia, from behind soulful shades.

Nelly, Brass Knuckles (Derrty/Universal) Fergie, Ciara, and Lil Wayne get derrty right herre.

Ne-Yo, Year of the Gentleman (Def Jam) We’re waiting for “Year of the Ice Road Trucker.”

Raphael Saadiq, The Way I See It (Columbia) Oakland will come out for its boy.

Alexander Tucker, Portal (ATP Recordings) Acclaimed UK fingerpicking maestro of murk-folk returns with a dissonant, symphonic mix of vibes, cello, and electric mandolin on his third album.

The Veronicas, Hook Me Up (Sire) The Aussie twins hope to hook up the Jonas Brothers’ tweeny audience with their sassy pop.

 

SEPT. 23

Blitzen Trapper, Furr (Sub Pop) The wild-eyed Northwesterners focus on a janky old piano found outside their studio.

Cold War Kids, Loyalty to Loyalty (Downtown/Atlantic) Chilly times call for tunes with titles like “Golden Gate Jumpers.”

Common, Invincible Summer (Geffen) Last sighted orbiting will.i.am’s Obama ad and now rotating with the Neptunes.

Charlie Haden Family and Friends, Rambling Boy (Decca) The jazz genius gets back to his Iowa-bound country-music roots with help from offspring Petra and Josh, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, and Pat Metheny.

Kings of Leon, Only By the Night (RCA) Brothers by day.

Jenny Lewis, Acid Tongue (Warner Bros.) Elvis Costello really does get around, guesting here alongside She and Him and Lewis manfriend Johnathan Rice.

Mogwai, The Hawk Is Howling (PIAS/Wall of Sound) The Scottish instrumentalists move on from making music for Zinedine Zidane. Song titles include “I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead,” and “I Love You, I’m Going to Blow Up Your School.”

Peter Bjorn and John, Seaside Rock (Almost Gold/Star Time International) The trio from Sweden veer away from lyrical pop to lyric-free — and whistle-free, one hopes — compositions inspired by childhood.

TV on the Radio, Dear Science (Interscope) Shining with radioactive adorableness.

 

SEPT. 29

Marianne Faithfull, Easy Come, Easy Go (Naive, UK) The queen of the nicotine rasp reunites with Hal Wilner to cover Dolly Parton, Neko Case, Judee Sill, Randy Newman, and Morrissey.

 

SEPT. 30

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue: 50th Anniv. (Columbia/Legacy) In marriage, the 50th anniversary is golden. In the music industry, the 50th anniversary is a two-CD plus DVD plus LP plus book plus poster.

Dungen, 4 (Sublimininal Sounds) The fourth studio album by Swedish foursome is divided into two sounds: raw guitar rock and jazz-inflected cinematic orchestration\

El Guincho, Alegranza! (Young Turks/XL) Born with the zestful zing! of an Esquivel sample, Pablo Diaz-Reixa’s irresistible 10-track burst of Barcelona beach boy 21st-century Tropicalia finally gets a US release — and, one hopes, a tour to go with it.

Jennifer Hudson, Jennifer Hudson (Arista) After an Oscar, various red carpet misfires, and the Sex and the City movie, her debut arrives, taking the s, the o, the l, and the o out of “solo“ via guest appearances or production by Diane Warren, Timbaland, Ne-Yo, T-Pain, Cee-lo, Pharrell, Ludacris, Akon, John Legend, and duet partner R. Kelly.

Mercury Rev, Snowflake Midnight (Yep Roc) Melting the heels of the band’s seventh studio album is Strange Attractor, a companion collection of 11 free downloadable tracks.

Barbara Morgenstern, BM (Monika Enterprise) The operator behind effervescent bursts of multilayered electronic pop presents her fifth album and — attention SF club promoters! — hopes to the tour the states.

Nina Simone, To Be Free (Sony Legacy) A three-CD, one-DVD retrospective that spans more than four decades, from Dr. Simone’s earliest recordings with Bethlehem to her final recordings for Elektra.

Taj Mahal, Maestro (Heads Up) Forty years after his recording debut and five years after his last US release, he covers Otis Redding and works with Ziggy Marley.

T.I., Paper Trail (Grand Hustle/Atlantic) His house arrest album, narrowed down from 50 songs, includes production by all the usual big names, and cameos by Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, John Legend, Usher, and the dreaded Fall Out Boy.

XX Teens, Welcome to Goon Island (Mute) I see Paris, I see Toulouse, I see someone’s green and blue boobs.

 

OCT. 7

Black Sabbath, Paranoid (Deluxe) (Universal) The band’s biggest-selling album gets a quadraphonic update, along with instrumental versions of six songs.

Deerhoof, Offend Maggie (Kill Rock Stars) A pencil drawing by Tomoo Gokita of a half-naked mystery man graces the cover, and the first single has been released in the form of sheet music.

Jolie Holland, The Living and the Dead (Anti-/Epitaph) Norman Mailer wouldn’t be able to attract guests like M. Ward and Marc Ribot.

Morgan Geist, Double Night Time (Environ) In the wake of contributing cellist Kelley Polar’s second album, one member of Metro Area presents his own new romantic bouquet of Detroit techno-tinged disco pop, with guest crooning by Jeremy Greenspan of Junior Boys.

Gregory and the Hawk, Moenie and Kitchi (FatCat) Sweetly twee indie-folk prepares its latest world-domination campaign.

Lambchop, OH (ohio) (Merge) Chop, chop — Nashville rocks.

MSTRKRFT, title to be announced (Dim Mak) Isis brings the “Bounce.”

Of Montreal, Skeletal Lamping (Polyvinyl) Do be a drag — with plenty of confetti.

Rise Against, Appeal to Reason (Geffen) Tried to reason with them about playing up the pirate metal.

Senses Fail, Life Is Not a Waiting Room (Vagrant) So why are we waiting for our hearing to fail?

Michele Williams, Unexpected (Columbia) The Destiny’s Child vocalist, not the actress, stops going gospel in favor of pop.

Women, Women (Jagjaguwar) Hope they get to hang out with Lesbians.

 

OCT. 14

The Alps, III (Type) Local music heads Scott Hewicker, Jefre-Cantu Ledesma, and Alexis Georgopoulos makes the leap from CD-R to “proper” album release, paying homage to the hallucinatory sides of Serge Gainsbourg, Ennio Morricone, and Terry Riley along the way.

I’m From Barcelona, Who Killed Harry Houdini (Mute) The Swedish — not Spanish — mega-band returns with 10 new songs, including at least one by the ill-fated famous illusionist.

Ray LaMontagne, Gossip in the Grain (RCA) And buzz in the barn.

Queen and Paul Rodgers, The Cosmos Rocks (Hollywood) We know guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May finally completed his doctorate, but that title will have Freddy Mercury’s ghost hitching it to the next galaxy.

T. Pain, Thr33 Ringz (Jive) After producing most of Ciara’s upcoming full-length, Faheem Najm recruits Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West for his own — if it doesn’t go putf8um, I’m gonna buy you a drank and fall in love with a stripper.

 

OCT. 21

Hank III, Damn Right, Rebel Proud (Curb/Bruc) The disc has been described as a “Jekyll and Hyde mix of disturbingly dark stuff and good ol’ country.”

Labelle, Back to Now (Verve) Their first full-length in 33 years brings Gamble and Huff, Lenny Kravitz, and Wyclef Jean out of the woodwork.

Lee Ann Womack, Call Me Crazy (MCA Nashville) She sang at the 2004 Republican National Convention, but redeemed herself as much as possible a year later with the “20 Years and Two Husbands Ago.” Now, unfortunately, she’s borrowing titles from Anne Heche.

 

OCT. 28

Cradle of Filth, Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder (Roadrunner) The grimy tots say they were inspired by Joan of Arc’s aristocratic compatriot.

Cynic, Traced in Air (Season of Mist) The proggish metal outfit issues its first studio album since 1993.

Warren G, The G Files (Hawino) Quick, regulate before G notices.

It’s a Musical, The Music Makes Me Sick (Morr) Guitar-free Berlin duo craft harmonic pop in the key of Bacharach, with trumpets, vibraphones, and canonical choirs.

Grace Jones, Hurricane (Wall of Sound, UK) The most anticipated comeback of the season, since Glass Candy, the Chromatics and every other nu-disco act offering pale versions of her fabulous robot chick chic — includes contributions by Brian Eno and Sly and Robbie and a song called “Corporate Cannibal.”

John Legend, Evolver (G.O.O.D Music/Columbia) Kanye West, Andre 3000, and Estelle join the high-minded proceedings.

Pink, title TBA (LaFace/Zomba) She attempts to get the party started — yet again.

 

NOV. 4

Big Boi, Sir Luscious Leftfoot … Son of Chico Dusty (LaFace) Ouch, don’t hurt yourself on that title. The OutKast insider finds support in Andre 3000, Mary J. Blige, and Too $hort.

Dido, title TBA (Arista). “Thank You,” multi-instrumental wiz and producer Jon Brion for overseeing this long-time-coming album.

 

NOV. 11

Missy Elliott, Block Party (Atlantic) Was it really over a decade ago that the late Babygirl gave her a boost to fame? Keyshia Cole is a likely guest, and Timbaland is just one of many co-producers.

 

NOV. 18

Kelly Clarkson, title TBA (RCA) Everybody loves the Rachael Ray of American Idol pop! Don’t they?

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Notes of a dirty old man.

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"YOWWWWWWW!"

I was having visions in those days. They came mostly when I was drying out, not drinking, waiting around for money or something to arrive, and the visions were very real — Technicolor and with music — mostly they flashed across the top of the ceiling while I was on the bed in a half-slumberous state. I had worked in too many factories, had seen too many jails, had drunk too many bottles of cheap wine to maintain any sort of cool and intelligent state toward my visions —

"OH, GO AWAY YOU BASTARDS! I BEG YOU! GET THE HELL OUT! YOU’RE GOING TO FLAKE ME FOR SURE! OH MY GOD OH MY JESUS, MERCY!"

It was San Francisco. Then I’d hear a knock on the door. It was the old woman who ran the place, Mama Fazzio.

"Mr. Bukowski?" she said through the door.

"AAAAAAAAKKKK!"

"What?"

"Ulll. Ummph…."

"Are you all right?"

"Oh, sure."

"Can I come in?"

I’d get up and open the door, sweat now cold behind my ears.

"Say …"

"What?"

"You need something to keep your wine and beer cold, you don’t have a refrigerator. Even a pan of water with ice in it would help. I’ll get you a pan of water with ice in it."

"Thanks."

"And I remember when you were here two years ago you used to have a phonograph. You’d play symphony music all the time. Don’t you miss your music?"

"Yeah."

Then she left. I was afraid to lie down on the bed or the visions would come again. They always came just the moment before sleep. Or the moment before one would have slept. Horrible things: spiders eating fat babies in webs, babies with milk-white skin and sea-blue eyes. Then came faces, 3 feet across with puss-holes circled with red, white, and blue circles. Things like that. I sat in a hard wooden chair and peered at the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Then I heard a rumbling sound on the stairway. Some giant beast crawling toward me? I opened the door. There was Mama Fazzio, 80 years old, pushing and twisting an ancient stand-up green wooden Victrola, the wind-’em-up kind, and the thing must have been twice her weight and clumsy up that narrow stairway and I stood there and said, "Jesus Christ, hold it, don’t move!"

"I can get it!"

"You’re going to kill yourself!"

I ran down and grabbed the thing but she insisted on helping me. We took it into my room. It looked good.

"There. Now you can have some music."

"Yes. Thanks very much. As soon as I get some records."

"You had breakfast?"

"Not hungry."

"Come on down to breakfast any day."

"Thanks."

"And if you don’t have the rent, don’t pay it."

"I’ll try to have the rent."

"And excuse me, but my daughter was helping me clean your room when she found some papers with writing on them. She was very fascinated with your writing. She and her husband want you to come to dinner at their place."

"No."

"I told them that you were funny. I told them that you wouldn’t come."

"Thanks."

After she left I walked around the block a few times and when I came back there was a huge pan of ice with 6 or 7 quarts of beer floating in it plus 2 bottles of good Italian wine. Mama came up 3 or 4 hours later and had a beer.

"You goin’ to dinner at my daughter’s?"

"You’ve bought my soul, Mama. Name the night."

She fooled me. She named the night.

The rest of that night I drank the stuff and wound up the old Victrola and watched the empty felt-covered wheel run at different speeds, and I put my head down to the little wooden slits in the belly of the machine and listened to the humming sound. The whole machine smelled good, holy, and sad; the thing fascinated me like graveyards and pictures of the dead, and the night went well. Later in the night I even found a lone record in the belly of the machine and I put it on:

"He’s got the whole world

in His hands

He’s got you and me, brother

He’s got the little babies

in His hands

He’s got everybody

in His hands….."

This scared me so much that the next day, hangover and all, I went out and got a job as a stock boy in a department store. I started the day after. Some old gal in cosmetics (she seemed to be at the bad age for women — 46 to 53) kept hollering that she had to have the stuff RIGHT AWAY. I think it was the insistent shrill insanity in her voice. I told her: "Keep your pants on, baby, I’ll be along soon to relieve you of your tensions…." The manager fired me 5 minutes later. I could hear her screaming over the phone: "If that isn’t the damndest SNOTTIEST STOCK BOY I ever heard!!! Who the hell does he think he is?"

"Now, Mrs. Jason, please calm yourself …"

At the dinner it was confusing also. The daughter looked real good and the husband was a big Italian. They were both communists. He had a fine fancy night job somewhere and she just laid around and read books and rubbed her lovely legs. They poured me Italian wine. But nothing made sense to me. I felt like an idiot. Communism didn’t make any more sense to me than democracy. And the thought often did come to me as it came to me at the table that night: I am an idiot. Can’t everybody see that? What’s this wine? What’s this talk? I’m not interested. It had no connection with me. Can’t they see through my skin, can’t they see that I am nothing?

"We like your writing. You remind us of Voltaire," she said.

"Who’s Voltaire?" I asked.

"Oh Jesus," said the husband.

They mostly ate and talked and I mostly drank the Italian wine. I got the idea that they were disgusted with me but since I had expected that, it didn’t bother me. I mean, not too much. He had to go to work and I stayed on.

"I might rape your wife," I told him. He laughed all the way down the stairway.

She sat in front of the fireplace, showing her legs above the knees. I sat in a chair, watching. I hadn’t had a piece of ass in two years. "There’s this very sensitive boy," she said, "who goes with my girlfriend. They both sit around and talk communism for hours and he never touches her. It’s very strange. She’s confused and …"

"Lift your dress higher."

"What?"

"I said, lift your dress higher. I want to see more of your legs. Pretend I’m Voltaire."

She did show me a little more. I was surprised. But it was more than I could stand. I walked over and pulled her dress back to her hips. Then I pulled her to the floor and was on top of her like some sick thing. I got the panties off. It was hot in front of that fire, very hot. Then when it was over I became the idiot again:

"I’m sorry. I’m out of my mind. Do you want to call the police? How can you be so young when your mother is so old?"

"It’s grandma. She just calls me ‘daughter.’ I’m going to the bathroom. Be right back."

"Sure."

I wiped off with my shorts and when she came out we had some small talk and then I opened the door to leave and walked into a closetful of overcoats and various things. We both laughed.

"Goddamn," I said, "I’m crazy."

"No, you’re not."

I walked on down the stairway, back over the streets of San Francisco, and back to my room. And there in the pan was more beer, more wine, floating in water and ice. I drank it all, sitting there in that wooden chair by the window, all the lights out in the room, looking out, drinking.

The luck was mine. A hundred dollar piece of ass and ten bucks worth of drink. It could go on and on. I could get luckier and luckier. More fine Italian wine, more fine Italian ass; free breakfast, free rent, the flowing and glowing of the goddamned soul overtaking everything. Each man was a name and a way but what a horrible waste most of them were. I was going to be different. I kept drinking and didn’t quite remember going to bed.

In the morning it wasn’t bad. I found a half empty and warm quart bottle of beer. Drank that. Then I lay down on the bed, started to sweat. I laid there quite a time, became sleepy.

This time it was a lampshade that turned into a very evil and large face and then back into a lampshade again. It went on and on, like a repeat movie, and I sweated sweated sweated, thinking that each time, that face would be the unbearable thing to me, whatever that unbearable thing was. There it came AGAIN!

"AAAAAAAAKKKKK! AKKKKK! JESUS! JESUS EAT PUSSY! SAVE ME, OH LORD JESUS!

The knock on the door.

"Mr. Bukowski?"

"Ummph?"

"Are you all right?"

"Yowp?"

"I said, ‘Are you all right?’"

"Oh fine, just fine!"

In came old Mama Fazzio. "You drank all your stuff."

"Yes, it was a hot night last night."

"You got records yet?"

"Just ‘He’s got the little babies in His hands.’"

"My daughter wants you to come to dinner again."

"I can’t. Got something going. Got to clear it up."

"What do you mean?"

"Sacramento, by the 26th of this month."

"Are you in trouble of some sort?"

"Oh no, Mama, no trouble at all."

"I like you. When you come back, you come live with us again."

"Sure, Mama."

I listened to the old woman going down the stairs. Then I threw myself down on the mattress. How the wind howls in the mouth of the brain; how sad it is to be alive with arms and legs and eyes and brain and cock and balls and bellybutton and all the else and waiting waiting waiting for the whole thing to die, so silly, but nothing else to do, nothing else to do, really. A Tom Mix life with a constipation flaw. I was almost asleep.

"AAAAHHHHHHHHKKKKK! WHEEEEE! MOTHER OF MARY!"

"Mr. Bukowski?"

"Glaglaa$$$"

"What’s wrong?"

"Wha’?"

"Are you all right?"

"Oh, fine, jus’ fine!"

I finally had to get out of San Francisco. They were driving me crazy. With their free wine and free everything. I’m in Los Angeles now where they don’t give anything away, and I’m feeling a little bit better…

HEY! What was THAT??? …

Reprinted from National Underground Review, May 15, 1968, courtesy of David Stephen Calonne.

From the forthcoming City Lights collection Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook: Uncollected Stories and Essays 1944-1990, edited by David Stephen Calonne.

Cinemania

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› johnny@sfbg.com

Mock Up on Mu Craig Baldwin’s latest opus, on rocket science and Scientology in California, with the director in person.

Sept. 2. Pacific Film Archive

Obscene A new documentary about Evergreen Review and Grove Press publisher Barney Russet and his many battles on behalf of free speech and real art.

Sept. 5–11. Roxie Film Center

Lost Indulgence and In Love We Trust A pair of films by up-and-coming Chinese directors Zhang Yibai and Wang Xiaoshuai.

Sept. 6–20. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Wattis Theater, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

"History Stutters: Found Footage Films" Bruce Conner’s John F. Kennedy–assassination film Report (1965) and Ken Jacobs’ Malcolm X. assassination response Perfect Film (1984) is on the same bill; program also includes a movie with Ed Henderson.

Sept. 9. Pacific Film Archive

Leave Her to Heaven The 1947 Technicolor noir — and ultimate swimmer’s nightmare — returns with a demonstration of film restoration.

Sept. 12. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org

"MilkBar International Live Film Festival" Three days of experimental cinema, including more than 20 local short works.

Sept. 12–14. Noodle Factory Performing Arts Center, 1255 26th St. #207, Oakl. (510) 289-5188, www.milkbar.org

"Unknown Pleasures: The Films of Jia Zhangke" At last, China’s vanguard contemporary filmmaker gets an extensive Bay Area retrospective.

Sept. 12–Oct. 17. Pacific Film Archive

"The People Behind the Screen" Local programmers contribute to "Bay Area Now": Jesse Hawthorne Ficks presents girl rock; Stephen Parr of Oddball Films shares a giddy taste of his mega-montage project Euphoria; and kino21 puts together performance cinema; Peaches Christ, Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project, and DocFest also have nights.

Sept. 13–Oct. 18. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Shatfest Thrillville’s tributes to the one and only William Shatner continue with his 1968 spaghetti western White Comanche.

Sept. 18. El Cerrito Speakeasy Theater, 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 814-2400, www.thrillville.net

"Taylor Mead: A Clown Underground" The legendary wit Mead visit for screenings that showcase his best starring roles (1960’s The Flower Thief and 1967–68’s Lonesome Cowboys).

Sept. 18–21. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Forbidden Lies The Roxie is distributing this look at con artist Norma Khouri, which gets a theatrical run after a successful trip through the festival circuit.

Sept. 19. Roxie Film Center

MadCat Women’s International Film Festival Ariella Ben-Dov’s fest turns 12 with eight archival greats (including one by Samara Halperin) and silent films with live rock scores.

Sept. 19 and 23. Various venues. (415) 436-9523, www.madcatfilmfestival.org

"Psychotic and Erotic: Rare Films by Tinto Brass" Ass-fixated erotica that includes talking animals and naked cannibals.

Sept. 24. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

"How We Fight: Iraqi Short Films" Kino21 kicks off a series with Argentine director Mauro Andrizzi’s feature-length compilation of short videos shot by US or British soldiers, Iraqi militia members, and corporate workers.

Sept. 25. Artists’ Television Access

"James Dean Memorial Weekend" Come back to the five and dime, or failing that, the Castro, and be sure to wear your red windbreaker.

Sept. 26–28. Castro Theatre

Film in the Fog Gene Kelley is singing in the rain — and the Presidio fog.

Sept. 27. Main Post Theatre, 99 Moraga, SF. (415) 561-5500, www.sffs.org

The World’s Largest Shopping Mall The debut or preview of a film by Sam Green and Carrie Lozano is at the heart of a program devoted to psychogeography.

Sept. 27. Other Cinema

Deathbowl to Downtown Coan Nichols’ and Rick Charnoski’s look at the history of NYC street skateboard culture, narrated by Chloë Sevigny.

Sept. 29. Castro Theatre

"Bette Davis Centennial" She’ll tease you, she’ll unease you — all the better just to please you.

Sept.–Oct. Castro Theatre

Dead Channels You can never get enough weird horror and fantasy.

Oct. 2–5. Roxie Film Center

Mill Valley Film Festival The major fall Bay Area festival turns 31.

Oct. 2–12. Various venues. (415) 383-5256, www.mvff.org

Rosemary’s Baby and The Devils Double the demonic hysteria!

Oct. 3. Castro Theatre

"No Wave: The Cinema of Jean Eustache" The series includes 1965’s Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes, his 215-minute masterpiece The Mother and the Whore (1973), his hog-slaughtering documentary — shades of Georges Franju? — The Pig (1970), and a 1997 doc portrait of him.

Oct. 4–22. Pacific Film Archive

"Rediscovering the Fourth Generation" The post-Mao cinema that laid groundwork for directors such as Jia Zhangke gets a SF showcase.

Oct. 4–30. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Wattis Theater, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

Vertigo The greatest San Francisco movie ever — maybe greatest movie ever — gets the outdoor screening treatment from Film Night in the Park.

Oct. 4. Union Square, SF. (415) 453-4333, www.filmnight.org

"Spirit of ’68" and "Know Your Enemy" A pair of programs compiled by Jack Stevenson

Oct. 5. Oddball Films, 275 Capp, SF. (415) 558-8117, www.oddballfilm.com

Manhattan and Muppets Take Manhattan Mariel Hemingway, meet Miss Piggy.

Oct. 7–9. Red Vic Movie House, 1727 Haight, SF. (415) 668-3994. www.redvicmoviehouse.com

"French Cinema Now" A new minifestival from the San Francisco Film Society.

Oct. 8–12. Various venues. (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org

"Superstars Next Door: A Celebration of SF Amateur Sex Cinema from the ’60s" Stevenson looks at that time in SF when everyone would take off their clothes for a camera — with film in it.

Oct. 9–11. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

"Midnites for Maniacs: Back to School … in the ’90s" Jesse Hawthorne Ficks serves up Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1991), Romeo and Juliet (1995), and Starship Troopers (1997).

Oct. 10. Castro Theatre

"Envisioning Russia: A Century of Filmmaking" The expansive 16-film program extends across eight decades.

Oct. 10–30. Pacific Film Archive

"Protest-sploitation" A lecture-demo by Christian Divine looking at six "youth" films made in 1970, along with a screening of that year’s The People Next Door.

Oct. 11. Other Cinema

RR James Benning’s train film finally reaches a Bay Area destination.

Oct. 14. Pacific Film Archive

Arab Film Festival The festival turns 12 this year.

Oct. 16–Nov. 4. Various venues. (415) 564-1100. www.aff.org

DocFest IndieFest’s doc extension turns seven this year with a slate of at least 60 films.

Oct. 17–Nov.6. Roxie Film Center and Shattuck Cinema, 2230 Shattuck, Berk. (415) 820-3907, www.sfindie.com

Leslie Thornton A three-program SF Cinematheque series devoted to the director behind Peggy and Fred in Hell (1985–present) and other experimental works, with Thornton in-person.

Oct. 19–26. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

United Nations Association Film Festival Environmentalism is the focus of the festival’s 11th year.

Oct. 19–26. Various venues. (650) 724-5544, www.unaff.org

"I Love Beijing: The Films of Ning Ying" Ning and her acclaimed Beijing trilogy — which spans from the Peking Opera to dogs, cops, and taxi drivers — visit the Bay, capping things a screening of her 2005 "Chinese Sex and the City" feature Perpetual Motion.

Oct. 23–27. Pacific Film Archive

The Werewolf of Washington The president’s speechwriter is a lycanthrope in this Nixon-era flick.

Oct. 31. Pacific Film Archive

"The New Talkies: Bollywood Night" Kino21 presents six works of live narration to Bollywood film scenes.

Nov. 1. Artists’ Television Access

"Occult on Camera" Erik Davis charts out the Aleister Crowley–Kenneth Anger–Led Zeppelin triumvirate-of-evil — what does Jimmy Page’s appearance in the closing ceremony of the Olympics mean?

Nov. 1. Other Cinema

Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine The SF premiere of a new documentary devoted to the sculptor.

Nov. 2–3. Red Vic Movie House, 1727 Haight, SF. (415) 668-3994, www.redvicmoviehouse.com

Ghosts Nick Broomfield’s excellent first non-documentary feature, about the abuse of Chinese immigrants in the United Kingdom.

Nov. 7–13. Roxie Film Center

San Francisco International Animation Festival The burgeoning fest and showcase turns three with a program that includes the Cannes favorite Waltz with Bashir.

Nov. 13–16. Various venues. (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org

Luther Price New works by one of the more scathing and harrowing filmmakers on the planet, presented by SF Cinematheque.

Mid-November. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

New Italian Cinema Will it include Matteo Garrone’s Cannes critic’s fave Gomorra?

Nov. 16–23. Various venues. (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org

"Films by Martha Colburn" A night of kinetic works by the collage creator, presented in conjunction with a show at Berkeley Art Museum.

Dec. 2. Pacific Film Archive

Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy Thrillville stuffs your stocking with a gem from 1957.

Dec. 11. El Cerrito Speakeasy Theater, 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 814-2400, www.thrillville.net

James Hong A sneak peek at the local director’s expose on Japan’s rewriting of history, Lessons in the Blood.

Dec. 13. Other Cinema

"At Sea" Peter Hutton’s At Sea (2004-7), about the life and death of a colossal container ship, is the centerpiece of an oceanic SF Cinematheque program.

Dec. 14. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS/OTHER CINEMA

992 Valencia, SF

(415) 824-3890

www.othercinema.com

CASTRO THEATRE

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE

2575 Bancroft Way, Berk.

(510) 642-5249

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

ROXIE FILM CENTER

3317 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS

701 Mission, screening room, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

>>More Fall Arts Preview

Autumn reels

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

As summer dwindles into, well, Indian summer (this is San Francisco, after all), film fans are all asking the same thing: will The Dark Knight be nominated for Best Picture, or what? Like, what other 2008 release has even come close? As the temperature tries to make up its mind between freezing fog and freaky heat, the only thing to do is haul ass to the movieplex and let Hollywood deplete your brain cells as painlessly as possible. Who knows, there might be some awards-season contenders in the following list of fall movie picks. There’s at least one talking chihuahua, anyway. All dates subject to change.

Sept. 26: Seems like just yesterday that Shia LaBeouf was giving interviews about how he wasn’t going to be a show biz cliché — you know, keeping his head down, concentrating on his career, and avoiding scandalous run-ins with the law. Maybe Eagle Eye, in which the erstwhile spawn of Indy Jones plays a ne’er-do-well mysteriously targeted by terrorists, will make it into theaters before he has his first tabloid-fodder romance. Tick-tock, Us Weekly!

Oct. 3: Weirdly, there aren’t many horror flicks primed for October releases this year. Guess Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which stars the voices of nearly every known Latino actor in Hollywood (Edward James Olmos, how could you?), is gonna have to fit the bill. Director Raja Gosnell also helmed both Scooby-Doo movies. Far more promising is Ed Harris’ Appaloosa, a Western about two lawmen (Harris and Viggo Mortensen) whose friendship is tested by, natch, a dame (Renée Zellweger). Those of us for whom "Viggo on a horse" is box-office draw enough can work around the Zellweger.

Oct. 10: Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, and William Monahan, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Departed, join forces for Body of Lies, a political thriller worth seeing based on the above pedigree alone. So what if Leo has a weird Southern accent in the trailer, and Ridley and Russell’s last collaboration birthed the 2006 bomb A Good Year?

Oct. 17: Do we really need to see Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush biopic, W., having just suffered through eight years of the worst president ever to take office? Is it too soon to point and laugh? Judging from the hilarious (and scary-because-it-might-actually-be-true) trailer, the performances of Josh Brolin and others cast as real-life newsmakers will make W. well worth it. Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice may be a stretch, but Toby Jones as Karl Rove is particularly inspired.

Oct. 24: Two cunning linguists, Brick writer-director Rian Johnson and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind writer Charlie Kaufman, have new flicks out today. Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom follows the entanglements of con men played by Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo; Kaufman makes his directorial debut with Synecdoche, New York, in which a dying theater director played by Philip Seymour Hoffman aims to create one last great work of art.

Nov. 14: James Bond (extra-buff Daniel Craig version) returns in Quantum of Solace. In Australia, Baz Luhrmann, Nicole Kidman, and Hugh Jackman combine their home-country superpowers for a sweeping epic set you-know-where.

Nov. 21: I realize I already foamed over Viggo Mortensen above, but The Road — directed by The Proposition‘s John Hillcoat and adapted from the postapocalyptic Cormac McCarthy novel — absolutely gets my vote for most-anticipated 2008 release.

Nov. 26: The Castro Theatre gets a two-day exclusive on Milk before it opens wide Nov. 28. Don’t know what Milk is? What kind of a San Franciscan are you?

Dec 12: Keanu Reeves stars in The Day the Earth Stood Still remake. Insert your own Klaatu/Keanu joke here.

Dec. 25: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button reunites Fight Club director David Fincher with star Brad Pitt. Based on a 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the film explores the curious-indeed life of a man (Pitt, with copious CG assistance) who ages in reverse.

>>More Fall Arts Preview

Vizzy with the possibilities

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KATIE KURTZ PICKS


•"The Wizard of Oz" Not much has changed since L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz debuted over a century ago and gave Americans something we still crave: escape to a fantastical land free of wicked witches. These days it’s not the Emerald City that Dorothys everywhere are tripping toward but a place called "hope." The works in this group show curated by Jens Hoffmann, including more than 20 artists (Clare Rojas, Raymond Pettibon, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, et al.), were made either in response to the classic tale or relate to the story’s many layered meanings.

Sept. 2–Dec. 13. Reception Sept. 2. CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, 1111 Eighth St., SF. (415) 551-9210, www.wattis.org

•"Vocabularies of Metaphor: More Stories" In this group show of works on paper highlighting deconstructed narratives, all but two of the 16 artists included are women — one of Henry Darger’s Vivian Girls drawings makes an appearance. "Vocabularies" is a chance to see how women are considering the figure — female, male, and animal — in a postnatural world, though this idea is not the exhibit’s emphasis. Of note are Rachelle Sumpter’s gauzy gouaches, Canadian Yuka Yamaguchi’s dismembered turtles, and Pakistani Shahzia Sikander’s nature-inspired pattern-making.

Sept. 6–Oct. 18. Reception Sept. 6. Hosfelt Gallery, 430 Clementina, SF. (415) 495-5454, www.hosfeltgallery.com

•California Academy of Sciences The mothership of scientific and sustainable nerdiness finally opens! This Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified facility includes a planetarium, swamp, rainforest, and a living roof. If you prefer your nature virtual, you can always hang out with the PenguinCam.

Big Bang opening gala Sept. 25; free to the public all day Sept. 27. 55 Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, SF. (415) 379-8000, www.calacademy.org

•"Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900" Scientific photography of yesteryear is a healthy reminder of just how long we’ve been trying to discover everything that can possibly be discovered and recording it for posterity. More than 200 photographs, American and European, scientific and pseudoscientific.

Oct. 11–Jan. 4, 2009. SFMOMA, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

•"The Gatherers: Greening Our Urban Spheres" Co-curated by Berin Golonu and independent curator Veronica Wiman of Sweden, this activist exhibition is intended to further the green dialogue through collaborations between artists and organizations, conversations with the public, and urban interventions.

Oct. 31–Jan. 11, 2009. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-ARTS, www.ybca.org

KIMBERLY CHUN PICKS


•"Barbara Holmes and Casey Logan" What a dump! The two artists’ four-month residency climaxes with 3-D work inspired by and composed of salvaged material. Sculptor Holmes worked with wooden lattice to create a series of kaleidoscopic forms in assorted states of weatheredness, while Logan morphed musical gear and other detritus into pieces that meld with his fascination with science and fiction.

Sept. 26–27. SF Recycling Art Studio, 503 Tunnel, SF. www.sfrecycling.com/AIR

•"Nikki McClure" The graphic rep of Olympia, Wash.’s riot grrrl scene is undoubtedly best known for her bold, iconic paper cuts revolving around nature, motherhood, activism, and community. Music cover-art, illustrations, and books have all found a place in a vision grounded in simple gestures, uncontrived pleasures, and everyday labors.

October–November. Needles and Pens, 3253 16th St. SF. (415) 255-1534, www.needles-pens.com

•"Outpost" Exploding the imaginary and futuristic dimensions of architecture, "Outpost" collects the apocalyptic planes and jagged rubble of Bay Area sculptor David Hamill and the dazzling grids and Spirograph-esque constructs of New York City artist Jeff Konigsberg.

Sept. 5–Oct. 18. Reception Sept. 5. Johansson Projects 2300 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 999-9140, johanssonprojects.net

•"Hilary Pecis" Folktronica, meet your maker: the SF artist creates her downright psychedelic panoramas by layering drawings with fragments sliced from glossy magazines. Pecis was also recently named as a recipient of the 2008 Murphy and Cadogan Fellowships in the Fine Arts and will be showcased at SF Arts Commission Gallery.

Sept. 6-26. Reception Sept. 6. Receiver Gallery, 1415 Valencia, SF. (415) 550-RCVR, receivergallery.com. Also "Immediate Future: the 2008 Murphy and Cadogan Fellowships in the Fine Arts," Sept. 6-Oct. 18. SFAC Gallery, 401 Van Ness, SF. (415) 554-6080, www.sfacgallery.org

•"Yves Saint Laurent" Viva le smoking! The beloved groundbreaker may be dead, but Yves Saint Laurent has never been hotter, judging from this autumn’s many attempts at rich-hippie/gypsy folklorico, highly sexed men’s wear for women, and silky Parisian-lady drag. This major retrospective’s single US turn showcases more than 120 accessorized ensembles in addition to drawings, photos, and videos.

Nov. 1–March 1, 2009. De Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, SF. (415) 750-3600, www.famsf.org/deyoung

JOHNNY RAY HUSTON PICKS


• "I Feel I Am Free But I Know I Am Not" See “Connect four,” this issue

Sept. 4–Nov. 1. SF Camerawork, 657 Mission, 2nd floor, SF. (415) 512-2020, www.sfcamerawork.org

• "Double Down: Two Visions of Vegas" Olivo Barbieri looks at Vegas as toy town.

Sept. 18–Jan. 4, 2009. SFMOMA, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

•"Bayete Ross-Smith: Pomp & Circumstance" and "Jonathan Burstein: Visage" Ross-Smith’s prom portraits are fresh, and Burstein’s paintings of museum guards trampoline off the humor present in his handsome past portraits of himself.

Sept. 4–Oct.11. Patricia Sweetow Gallery, 77 Geary, mezzanine, SF. (415) 788-5126, www.patriciasweetwogallery.com

• "Lutz Bacher: ODO"

Oct. 31–Dec.31. Ratio 3, 1447 Stevenson, SF. (415) 821-3371, www.ratio3.org

• Open Studios A step outside the galleries, museums, and art fairs — for better, for worse, and for real.

Oct. 11–Nov. 2. Various locations, SF. (415) 861-9838, www.artpsan.org

• "Dustin Fosnot: Simmons Beautyrest" Fosnot’s comic inventiveness should be a relief.

Oct. 14–Nov. 15. Steven Wolf Fine Arts, 49 Geary, suite 411, SF. (415) 263-3677. www.stevenwolffinearts.com

• "LA Paint" A survey of 11 painters, sure to fan a variety of Bay-and-LA flames.

Oct. 4–March 8, 2009. Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak, Oakl. (510) 238-2200, www.museumca.org

• "These are the People in Your Neighborhood" Mr. Rogers is quoted for this 15th birthday celebration including work by Libby Black and Xylor Jane, among others.

Sept. 12–Oct. 17. Gallery 16, 501 Third, SF, www.gallery16.com

•"Artists Ball Seven: The New Party" Stanlee Gatti and Mos Def, together at last.

Oct. 3. YBCA, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2700, www.ybca.org

•"Warhol’s Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered" A prelude to "Warhol Live," which hits the de Young next year.

Oct. 12–Jan. 25, 2009. Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF. (415) 655-7800, www.thecjm.org

>>More Fall Arts Preview

Sino the times

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

If the world-class flash of the Beijing Olympics isn’t enough of an example of China’s rising international cultural power, we’ll have continued reminders at Bay Area museums and galleries in the coming months. It’s perhaps a tipping point: Pace Beijing, a big outlet for a major western gallery, just opened, signaling a market vetting of art currently being made in China. In fact, a wide swath of Asia will the focus of the international art world this fall with a confluence of biennials — and a triennial — that rival the 2007 European "grand tour" of the "Venice Biennale," "Documenta," and "Münster Sculpture Project." This September sees the opening of biennials in Singapore; Taipei, Taiwan; Yokohama, Japan; Guangzhou and Shanghai in China; and Busan and Gwangju in Korea, the latter organized by Okwui Enwezor, dean of the San Francisco Art Institute.

So it does seem fitting, given our Pacific Rim position, that we at least reflect this activity. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art got a jump-start in the Sino-surveys, as "Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection," opened prior to the Olympics and continues through Oct. 5. It’s a lively crash course in its subject, though the museum did give us one in 1999 — the pivotal "Inside Out: New Chinese Art," which included most of the artists on view now. The current show has the opportunity to provide scope — with newer works augmenting some classics — and the mix seems particularly smooth, no doubt because we have become far more familiar with China in general and with at least some of the cultural conditions that fuel the work.

"Half Life" satisfies with 50 pieces of painting, sculpture, and installations, but it seems modest in comparison to "Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection," a show that will fill almost the entire UC Berkeley Art Museum from Sept. 10–Jan. 4, 2009, with 141 works by 96 artists. Both exhibitions provide the opportunity to bring artists here and generate public dialogues, panel discussions, artist talks, and film screenings, which will play out in various venues around town. Berkeley’s show brings Ai Weiwei, a breakout international art star with intellectual buzz, out for a Bay Area residency.

One can’t help but notice that both these shows have "collection" in the title revealing a troubling sense of western ownership — a scenario suggesting that such works wouldn’t come to our attention without patronage. In this case, the collectors take on a passionate, fact-filled advocacy role: Swiss collector Uli Sigg has been supporting art in China for two decades, while Kent Logan, who has acquired works with his wife Vicki, writes extensively on his collection in the SFMOMA show’s catalog. Apparently it takes vision — and packaging — to float this work into a western context.

Other shows continue the focus on Asia, including Chinese sculptor Zhan Wang’s solo turn at Haines Gallery (Sept. 4-Oct. 4). His supershiny metal scholar’s rock is a highlight in the de Young’s sculpture garden, and that museum has organized a historical show with themes that may prove to be an interesting counterpoint: "Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900–1970" (Oct. 25-Jan. 18, 2009), which surveys work by Asian and Asian American artists who worked in the United States — albeit at a time when the art world was less heated and international than it is today. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Mills College Art Museum expand the geographic scope with, respectively, Manila-Bay Area exchange show "Galleon Trade: Bay Area Now 5 Edition" (Sept. 4–Oct. 19) and "The Offering Table: Women Activist Artists from Korea" (Sept. 6-Dec. 7). The Asian Art Museum opens another can of cultural worms — and dazzling artifacts — with the historical "Arts of the Islamic World from Turkey to Indonesia," Sept. 5–March 1, 2009. One hopes that such exhibits expand on what we ordinarily think of as Asian art, contextualizing the current fascination with the contemporary Chinese art scene.

GLEN HELFAND’S PICKS FOR FALL VISUAL ART

•"Andrew Schoultz: In Gods We Trust," Sept. 4–Oct. 25. Reception Sept. 4. Marx and Zavattero, 77 Geary, SF. (415) 627-9111, www.marxzav.com

•Renzo Piano’s California Academy of Sciences building opens Sept. 27. 55 Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, SF. (415) 379-8000, www.calacademy.org

•Teddy Cruz and Pedro Reyes, Oct. 17–Dec. 13. Reception Oct. 16. Walter and McBean Galleries, San Francisco Art Institute, 800 Chestnut, SF. (415) 749-4563, www.waltermcbean.com

•"Lutz Bacher: ODO," Oct. 31–Dec. 13. Ratio 3, 1447 Stevenson, SF. (415) 821-3371, www.ratio3.org

•"The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now," Nov. 8–Feb. 8, 2009. SFMOMA, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

>>More Fall Arts Preview

Connect four

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Photos by Jeffery Cross

GUILLERMO GÓMEZ PEÑA

SFBG Who is inspiring — or revolting — to you, in terms of art and performance, including political performance?

Guillermo Gómez-Peña The best and — most inspiring performance I’ve experienced took place in the Mexico City zocalo. A group of 100 indigenous men from the Coordinadora de los 400 pueblos, tired of waiting for the mayor to listen to their claims, decided to take off their clothes, each drink a liter of water, and pee in unison against the walls of the Palacio Nacional. The power of this action was not in the collective pissing ritual but rather in the exposure of the nude indigenous body, marked by the scars of hard labor and history. The image has been haunting me.

SFBG What do you hope will happen in the US presidential election?

GGP In the realm of symbolic politics, the best thing that can happen is for the United States to elect an articulate mulatto president, the son of a Kenyan immigrant, whose second name is Hussein. But in reality, it worries me that Obama’s project of hope sounds more and more like Hallmark humanism.

SFBG What is your favorite time of year in seasonless San Francisco?

GGP I love it when the sun comes out in earnest and tropicalism hits the streets for a few days. I love to bar hop in the Mission and watch the myriad subcultures show off their self-styled fashion, muscles, tattoos and nalgas palidas. But I also love certain neighborhoods under heavy fog. I feel I am walking in the middle of a British gothic novel. My worry is that this gorgeous city is slowly becoming a bohemian theme park.

I FEEL THAT I AM FREE BUT I KNOW I AM NOT

Oct. 2, 5–8 p.m.; Oct.11, 3–5 p.m.; and Oct. 21, 5–8 p.m.; free, $5

SF Camerawork

657 Mission (second floor), SF

(415) 512-2020

www.sfcamerawork.org

MAPA/CORPO 3

Oct. 23–25; times and prices TBD

Project Artaud Theater

450 Florida, SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odctheater.org

www.litquake.org

———-

MATTILDA BERNSTEIN SYCAMORE

SFBG What are your plans for this fall?

MATTILDA BERNSTEIN SYCAMORE I’m going on a crazy cross-country book tour, starting with the book launch Oct. 8 at City Lights — check my Web site (www.mattildabernsteinsycamore.com) for details.

SFBG Your novel, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly, is published by City Lights. A recent review in Publishers Weekly seems to think the book’s protagonist is a woman. What did you learn from that review?

MBS I learned most people are even more confused about gender than me. But guess what — the book is already available in Bay Area stores, so readers can rush to figure it out, just like the latest John Grisham.

SFBG So, are you allergic to oxygen?

MBS These days, who isn’t?

SFBG Where’s your favorite sex place in SF, or maybe better, where in SF needs to be turned into a sex spot?

MBS City Hall would be fun. So much elegance and charm, as long as they get rid of everyone who’s usually there. The 38 Geary would be perfect: I always get horny on that bus. Anywhere on my late-night walks — I usually walk up Leavenworth and Hyde from O’Farrell to Bush or so. Feel free to stalk me!

SFBG What do you want to happen in the presidential election?

MBS Do we still call that an election?

SFBG What is your favorite time of year in seasonless San Francisco?

MBS Anytime when the fog rolls in and I can breathe.

SO MANY WAYS TO SLEEP BADLY RELEASE PARTY

Oct. 8, 7:30 p.m.

City Lights Bookstore

261 Columbus, SF

(415) 362-8193

www.citylights.com

———–

JOANN SELISKER

SFBG Your new show, Off Leash: Who’s a Good Girl?, ponders the canine-human continuum. What have you learned?

JoAnn Selisker In terms of interspecies relationships, I find human behavior and motivation to be much more strange and unfathomable (and sometimes disturbing) than that of the canine. I speak human, so I ought to understand where humans are coming from. If dogs weren’t so helpless, misunderstood, disregarded, and maltreated, I would prefer to be a dog.

SFBG What do you think of Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer?

JS I think he makes some nice dog beds. You can get anything he thinks your dog needs with his "brand" on it. You could call him the Martha Stewart of the dog world. She reaches us through Wal-Mart, and he reaches us through PETCO. They both give us simple how-to instructions and affordable, quality products. All we have to do is buy the videos, magazines, supplies, and accessories, follow step-by-step instructions, and … voilà! The perfect dinner party; the well-mannered pet.

SFBG In your earlier show, Begin with a Box, you put creative instructions by Twyla Tharp to the test. What did you discover?

JS Well, how interesting — Twyla Tharp is a lot like the Dog Whisperer and Martha Stewart! Each of these masters generously shares secrets to success, in simple, step-by-step format. We can all become Twyla Tharp, the Dog Whisperer and/or Martha Stewart.

I discovered that I will never become Twyla Tharp. I started the Begin with a Box project with a box, just like she says, and proceeded step-by-step to completion. I should now be a MacArthur genius, with name recognition and a project with Prince.

OFF LEASH: WHO’S A GOOD GIRL?

Oct. 8, 8 p.m.; Oct. 9, 7:30 p.m.; $15–$18

Project Theater Artaud

450 Florida, SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odctheater.org

www.litquake.org

———-

TIM SULLIVAN

SFBG What are your plans for this fall?

TIM SULLIVAN I traveled all summer, so I’m going to try my best to stay put. I have two shows opening this fall, one at SF Camerawork and one in Dallas. I’ll be teaching a class at San Francisco Art Institute and continuing to make things.

SFBG Your contribution to SF Camerawork’s fall exhibition, "I Feel I Am Free But I Know I Am Not," involves a rowboat. What should people expect if they step into the boat?

TS Everyone who gets into the boat will be instantly transformed into a movie star in a recreation of Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat (1944). I really need people to come out and participate to make this work.

SFBG You’ve collaborated with George Kuchar before. Do you have a favorite Kuchar quote, or Kuchar story?

TS A few years back I was in Kuchar’s class film, Kiss of Frankenstein. On the first day he handed us the script, I was rolling on the floor laughing. The entire script is hilarious and quote-worthy! It was definitely the best reading I did in graduate school. The last line (spoiler alert!) always gets me: "Kiss me sloppy."

SFBG What is your favorite time of year in seasonless San Francisco?

TS Fall is always my favorite season. In my home state of Wisconsin I love it because the leaves fall off the trees. Here in SF I love it because the tourists leave and the streets thin out.

I FEEL I AM FREE BUT I KNOW I AM NOT

Sept. 4, 5–8 p.m., free; Sept. 13 and 27, 2–5 p.m., $5

SF Camerawork

657 Mission (second floor), SF

(415) 512-2020

www.sfcamerawork.org


>>More Fall Arts Preview

A yikely story

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I am a 26-year-old good-looking male living in New Jersey. I am very fond of scat play with females. I used to play with my own scat, but I always wish some female would play with me. Can you help me with that, please?

Love,

Scatman Wannabe

Dear Man:

Yeah, probably not.

I was changing the baby this morning when she started to whimper and fuss. "What’s the matter," I asked her, "Don’t like poop?"

"No," she said firmly. "Don’ yike it."

Let’s be honest; I don’t yike it either. The truth is, hardly anybody does yike it, and of those who do, most appear to be men. So every six months I get some variant of your question and every year or so I answer it. Like this: "Chances are you’re S.O.L. Sorry!"

There are a few women who will actively seek out scat play. They are, in both the Rick James sense and the strictly demographic one, superfreaks. If you moved to a major metro area and became involved with the S-M community, behaved well, and got invited to parties you might hear of one such woman, or perhaps — if you approach very carefully and are vewwy vewwy quiet — glimpse one in the wild. I can’t even promise that you’d meet her, and I certainly cannot guarantee that anyone you did meet would want to do her thing with you. This is not the sort of thing people just indiscriminately do with anyone who comes along. It’s kind of — and it pains me to say this, or to think about it in too much detail — intimate.

As with many other very rare, widely despised subspecialties, this is the sort of thing you’re probably going to have to pay for. You could find yourself a Strict German Goddess or some such who might consent to shit on you. On her terms. That just might have to be good enough for you, and it is surely going to cost you. Like I said: sorry!

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

My boyfriend says his old girlfriend used to let him pee on her. I’m wondering why, and also if it’s safe. He says it’s sterile. Is it really? And what’s the deal with this? I can look it up, but I’m not sure I want to see what happens if I Google "pee on me."

Love,

Not Sure About This

Dear Sure:

Good thinking! Especially if it’s your work computer. Either way, Googling "piss play" or similar is probably a bad idea unless you’re quite sure you want to see what you’d see. Of course, it’s safer than "goatse" or "tub girl" or that guy who … never mind. Those sites kind of scarred me for life, and I wouldn’t wish similar on the unwary reader, so let’s just drop it.

I can’t answer "why" without knowing more about what the boyfriend and the ex were up to. You can piss on somebody with much sneering and attitude and be all dominant about it, but two people can also just play with pee because it’s there, with no greater meaning. You can splash it around, or aim it, or drink it, or make somebody else drink it — but there’s no way to tell which they were doing without more info. On the subject of drinking it, though, it really is pretty clean, although I hesitate to use the word "sterile" since I’m a stickler and anything that’s touched the outside of somebody’s body is going to pick up some "body ash" (is there a skeevier phrase?) or dust or something. Plus there are many reasons that a spare blood cell or so might be floating around in there. But basically, yes, pee is remarkably clean.

Poo, of course, is remarkably dirty — it defines "dirty," really — and right there is your difference. It’s extremely unlikely you’re going to catch anything from pee. It doesn’t stain. If you’re healthy and hydrated and have avoided certain obvious food groups, it barely even smells. Social taboos aside, it’s pretty innocuous. The taboos are there, though, so in a way pee is a cheap thrill: it feels really dirty without being any dirtier, really, than a glass of drinking water, and in many cases it’s cleaner. The big thrill/low actual disgustingness quotient explains its relative popularity among "weird sex" types. It’s weird but not that weird.

None of this means, of course, that you have to let him pee on you. I’m not at all comfortable with a system where if Andrea says it’s not going to hurt you, you have to do it! You’re going to want to ask exactly what he and the ex were up to, what he got out of it, and, if possible, what she got out of it. As long as he’s willing to drop it if you’re not into it, though, what the heck? Maybe you’ll yike it, maybe you won’t.

Love,

Andrea

Got a salacious subject you want Andrea to discuss? Ask her a question!

Also, Andrea is teaching! Contact her if you’re interested in (sex)life after baby classes. Her new blog is at www.gogetyourjacket.com, but don’t look there for the butt sex. There isn’t any.

CONTRA-TIEMPO

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PREVIEW For one reason or another, you still need to have a pipeline into the "ethnic" dance community to find Latino choreographers, and so far few contemporary choreographers have emerged from their midst. That said, the first San Francisco performance by Los Angeles–based CONTRA-TIEMPO, at the very least, promises a glance at how young Latinos see themselves in a contemporary urban context. Like her older counterpart Merian Soto on the East Coast, Ana Maria Alvarez is fascinated with salsa as an expression of Latino identity. A 2005 performance of the company’s signature piece Against the Times/CONTRA-TIEMPO, inspired by salsa’s inherent rhythmic contradictions, presented an ensemble in which the women were as likely to lead as the men. This signature piece is both an edgy examination of what Alvarez has called a look at "the complexity of resistance and struggle for Latinos in the United States" and a joyous celebration of community. Included in the sound score are voice-over quotes by the likes of César Chávez, Che Guevara, José Martí, Pablo Neruda, and Gabriela Mistral. The show opens with CONTRA-TIEMPO’s newest company work, I Dream America (2007), a 40-minute "movement opera" inspired by Langston Hughes. The piece looks at tensions between African Americans and Latinos. Also included is a pure salsa piece, Alba Ache (2007), for two couples: one on screen, one on stage.

CONTRA-TIEMPO Fri/29–Sat/30, 8 p.m., $25. CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. (415) 626-2060, www.counterpulse.org

Punk pisses off

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PREVIEW I don’t know how you can call yourself punk rock and not love the Urinals. OK, I know, you bought your punk credentials at Hot Topic and had them validated at last year’s Warped Tour ’cause you managed to sit through the baby-faced oldsters of Sum 41. But, hey, you haven’t lived — nor have you ever truly visited a urinal — till you’ve heard the now-30-year-old influential unit’s muy-primitivo "Salmonella" or "You Piss Me Off." This is punk before it got shoved into a uniform.

It’s apt then that the 100 Flowers alter ego project headlines the first annual Your Flesh Invitational. Never you mind that the mag — resurrected three years ago as an online pub — was birthed in 1981 in Minnesota, of all places, by Californians Peter Davis and Ron Clark, Ferret Comix’s Dave Roth, and Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould, no less. Silly Mouldie decided to dü the music dü instead of the musical journalism dü, and the bristly, bustling, cantankerous rock rag subsequently moved to Chicago in 1999 and ceased regular print production in ’04. Yet why produce a show there when this city is ripe for plundering and rich with like-minded souls. Remember, it’s YOUR Flesh — not the man’s — and hence the presence of stellar local fleshpots like Nothing People and the Traditional Fools, capering and cavorting beside the Northwestern angular-rock scions of Intelligence and the Chicago snot-rockers of Mannequin Men.

YOUR FLESH INVITATIONAL With Urinals, Intelligence, Mannequin Men, Nothing People, and the Traditional Fools. Sun/31, 8 p.m., $12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455, www.bottomofthehill.com

Gnarls Barkley

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PREVIEW Many a gnarly happening has occurred since I last spoke with Danger Mouse, né Brian Burton. If memory serves, at that time in 2004, around the time he remixed The Beatles ("The White Album") (EMI, 1968) and Jay-Z’s The Black Album (Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam, 2003) into The Grey Album, the grounded DM was easily forthcoming about his standard-setting, electronic civil disobedience–inspiring endeavor and waxed rhapsodic about art house cinema. The years — and, no doubt, experience as a prolific collaborator (Gorillaz, Van Dyke Parks, and rumored future projects with Sparklehorse and Black Thought) and producer (Beck, the Rapture) — have left Burton more reserved. Regarding Gnarls Barkley — DM’s project with Cee-Lo Green, which recently released the acclaimed The Odd Couple (Atlantic) — Burton chooses to simply rough out the partnership as that of hometown buds from the Atlanta area. "We knew a lot of the same places growing up," Burton says from Athens, Ga., where Gnarls Barkley concluded a recent tour. "I’d try to sneak in with people, and I’m sure he was already walking right in the front door."

But affection for late rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Ike Turner brings the Mouse out of his shell. Burton wanted to produce Turner and enlisted the Black Keys to serve as the backing band and songwriters. "We did some demos for some of the songs, but it didn’t quite go in the direction we wanted," Burton says. "Ike’s voice was so deep and so heavy — it didn’t really fit as much as Dan’s." So instead DM agreed to produce the Keys’ kudo-clad Attack & Release (Nonesuch). Turner even got to hear the finished product, and plans were in the works for the Keys to write fitting songs in varied styles for the musical elder before he died. Now Burton tells me he’ll try to work with some of the Turner-Keys tracks, and he’ll remember the man, who "randomly" stepped in to play on the last Gorillaz release, as a longtime friend who was "very honest. I don’t know what he was like when he was younger, even though he told me many stories. But he made you humble."

GNARLS BARKLEY with Ozomatli, the New Pornographers, Medeski Martin and Wood, and Lebo at Slow Food Rocks. Sat/30, 11 a.m.–7 p.m. (Festival continues Sun/31 with Phil Lesh and Friends, G Love and Special Sauce, John Butler Trio, and London Street.) $10–$160. Great Meadow, Fort Mason, SF. 1-877-655-4849, www.festivalnetwork.com/sfr

“Riot on Sunset Strip” film series

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PREVIEW Break out your go-go boots for this four-day flashback to Los Angeles’ 1960s experience hosted by Dominic Priore, author of Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood and Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson’s Lost Masterpiece. It kicks off with the 1968 counterculture grab-bag You Are What You Eat, a freeform documentary encompassing both the LA and San Francisco hippie scenes, plus appearances by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, David Crosby, Tiny Tim, Paul Butterfield, the Hells Angels, the Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls Too (an actual place), and notorious (and soon to be killed) SF dealer Super Spade. Next up: Roger Corman’s ’67 chestnut The Trip, in which Peter Fonda takes a heavy ride through the windmills of his mind. That same year’s lesser-remembered Riot on Sunset Strip, produced by the inimitable Sam Katzman (1967’s Hot Rods to Hell, 1953’s Killer Ape), tells the shocking story of reckless youth Andy (Mimsy Farmer), looking for kicks you-know-where to escape her broken home. Bummers ensue, not helped by a surreptitious acid-dosing freakout and the fact that Andy’s dad is an LAPD chief! Two great garage bands, the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband, perform onscreen in this epic about those daring (as the advertising put it) "teenyboppers with their too-tight capris." Finally, Chris Hall’s 2006 Love Story documents the brief rise and long fall of Arthur Lee’s Love, the cult-adored psychedelic pop band.

"RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP" film series runs Thurs/28–Sun/31 at the Red Vic Movie House. See Rep Clock for showtimes.

“Japanese Wolf”

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P>REVIEW When was the last time you chatted on your cell in a crowd of yaks? Or honored the dewy lavender morning with a steaming cup of green tea and a goat friend? Or crouched with a pack of sunset wolves howling on your back?

No offense, but I bet your social circle isn’t this diverse. For the girl-woman at the center of Yumiko Kayukawa’s paintings, though, communing with nonhuman creatures is typical. Born in the small town of Naie in Hokkaido, Japan, Kayukawa found her muses amid the land’s sweeping beauty and native fauna. Her connection with those elements runs throughout her body of work: the giant tiger perched atop the earth, enjoying the company of three lounging pop-tart girls in Sekai De Ichiban Neko (The World’s Biggest Cat); the wide-eyed tarsiers helping to hang wishes for stars on bamboo in Tanabata (Star Festival); and the contented whales cuddling a pink scuba-suited underwater heroine in Oshizukani (Quiet Please). Kayukawa makes such intimate relationships with the wild animal kingdom look effortless.

And seductive. Kayukawa’s humans are young and pouty-lipped, with bright eyes, suggestively bent backs, and painted nails that are never chipped — even when keeping a frothing bear at bay. Saturated hues and pastels — sea green, cantaloupe, camellia, pale yellow — heighten this playfulness, as do the requisite kanji, floating in space like manga dialogue and titling each curious scene. Kayukawa’s eroticized pop vision is imbued with a fearless openness, evident in her decisive lines but even more so in the intention embedded in these paintings. When was the last time you had a tiger by the tail, much like her protagonists, and got away with it?

JAPANESE WOLF Through Sept. 6. Tues.–Sat., noon–7 p.m. Shooting Gallery, 839 Larkin, SF. (415) 931-8035, www.shootinggallerysf.com

Vamp camp

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STRAIGHT-TO-DVD REVIEW These are dark and bloody times for vampires. The Mormon-made young adult series Twilight goes multiplex in December. Next month brings the premiere of True Blood, an HBO drama about our fanged frenemies, created by Six Feet Under‘s Alan Ball. And at the vanguard of the iron-deficient-creatures-of-the-night revival is Lost Boys: The Tribe (Warner Premiere), a long-delayed sequel to 1987 teen vampire classic The Lost Boys.

Twenty years have passed since the Emerson family moved to Santa "Santa Cruz" Carla, when young Sam (Corey Haim) tacked up that sexy poster of Rob Lowe and met the Frog brothers (Haim ex-BFF Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander); older bro Michael (Jason Patric) partied down and pounded blood with overbite sufferer David (Kiefer Sutherland); and the mulleted, steroidalicious dude from Tina Turner’s band with the oily slip ‘n’ slide torso hoisted his sax aloft, sang "I Still Believe," and forever ruined the good name of Santa Cruz’s music scene. The back cover of The Tribe refers to the sequel as a "modern remagining" of the original. Does she mean to imply an imagined TV show or film name? Given how far downhill the national culture has slid over the past two decades (think, oh … The Two Coreys), it should come as no surprise that the straight-to-DVD sequel is figuratively as well as literally a suckfest.

A new pair of Emerson siblings, orphaned brother and sister Chris and Nicole (progeny of Michael? Sam?), move to a beachside town called Luna Bay and soon begin knocking heads and other body parts with a gang of meathead surfer vamps (the Poison look: definitely out). Having left behind his parents’ comic book shop, mysteriously solo vampire slayer Edgar Frog (Feldman) has taken up residence in a creepy trailer. A talentless half-brother to Kiefer Sutherland named Angus has been dredged up to play head bloodsucker Shane, who takes a shine to Nicole and slips blood in her drink, roofie-style, at a party.

Saddled with a mind-boggling script and actors of ill or no repute, the filmmakers attempt to distract us by upping the trash quotient. Picture a Dumpster after a six-week Sunset Scavenger strike. Or rather, picture a crapstorm of severed heads, entrails, impalements, fountains of blood, tits, alcoholic beverages poured on tits, ass, not one but two girl-on-girl makeout scenes, and many, many money shots of vampires mid–feeding frenzy. Suffer through the closing credits for The Two Coreys reunion as painful as anything you’ve seen on the A&E Television Network or YouTube. Suffer through the extras for a pair of equally Corey-tastic alternate endings, an Edgar Frog featurette on the tools of the trade (carbon fiber stakes, holy water balloons), and a depressing video in which a "Cry Little Sister" remix is performed for an audience of downmarket extras taking a stab at vampire chic.

Collage boys

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

As we enter the intoxicatingly rich world of Zona, we encounter a deceptively simple melodrama. It unfolds in shadow play on a gold-hued screen fronting a kind of rectangular tent at the back of the stage. We see the silhouette of a mother cradling her newborn infant, swaddled in a blanket, as an old recording of an Italian operatic duet comes seeping through. The woman sets the baby down and briefly retires from the scene, giving opportunity to a snarling beast which promptly swoops in and snatches up the child. Returning to find the babe gone, she collapses in a fit of grief and anguish as the music swells to its climax, her gently unduutf8g hand rising from her swooning body in a kind of unconscious farewell.

This same gesture, delicate and precise, returns later as another woman, played by the same male actor (a deft Stephen Lawson, now out in front of the curtain in another of several consecutive female guises), finally greets the beast that has been pursuing her — a naked male figure with the head of a bear — with a frightened reflex that suddenly transforms into a come hither call.

In its straightforwardness, the shadow play at the start of Zona is anything but straight. It sets up a number of complex tensions that will wend their way through a layered 55-minute multimedia collage of drag performance, lip-synch, camp iconography, and dark revelry presented by Montreal cabaret performance duo 2boys.tv (Lawson and Aaron Pollard). These tensions include the art form itself, as Zona recycles the tropes of queer cabaret in a focused reclamation of an intensely dark strain in midcentury American film and theater brooding on madness, desire, and loss.

Not that Zona isn’t also immediately rewarding and funny. A scene in which Lawson repeatedly mimes a looped sample of Elizabeth Taylor’s screams in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) is as hysterical as it is, frankly, hysterical. But it’s less an excuse for knowing camp humor than part of an attempt to push the queer cabaret form in a more dramatically serious direction, while allowing it more self-reflexivity than ever. Enveloped in an often breathtaking series of video-based images and a haunting soundscape, Zona traces a somber, troubled mood throughout, while eschewing any easy resolution of its themes.

Although originally created for a 2006 theater festival in Calgary, Canada, rather than a bar or cabaret, Zona‘s design stays true to its roots in underground queer theater, and is so intimate and compact it almost makes the modest stage at New Conservatory Theatre Center look overly roomy. At the same time, Pollard’s video and audio direction add greatly to the show’s ingenious layering of textures, cultural references, and associations. In one achingly lovely movement, a reclining Lawson, as the actress whose love has led her to the brink of madness, opens a large book toward the audience from the lip of the stage. On its blank pages appear two small video projections: one of the naked beast with bear’s head, and the other of the actress’ character herself, both dynamic images subtitled in halting phrases of pain, regret, and remembered passion. Lawson’s mesmerizing performance, meanwhile, strikes an eerie balance between human emotion and jagged masquerade.

Zona marks the West Coast debut for the Canadian duo, with thanks due to NCTC’s artistic director Ed Decker for bringing the denizens of Montreal’s vibrant scene out to the Bay Area. Here’s looking forward to the next time the boys are back in town.

ZONA

Wed–Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun, 2 p.m., $22–$34

New Conservatory Theatre Center

25 Van Ness, SF

(415) 861-8972

www.nctcsf.org

Raphael’s “Way”

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Who can turn the Dogfather’s head with a tune, bring a melody to Mary J. Blige’s lips, and get Stevie Wonder out of bed in the wee hours? Raphael Saadiq, that’s who. And with good reason: the Oakland-born-and-raised vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer not only found substantial fame back in the day singing alongside bro Dwayne Wiggins and cousin Timothy Christian in Tony! Toni! Toné!, he’s kept his chops honed over the years by lending his ear for stellar R&B and soul. He’s produced Joss Stone, 2Pac, the Roots, John Legend, Kelis, Mos Def, D’Angelo, and the Isley Brothers, among others. He’s collaborated with a who’s who of pop putf8um, including Blige, Snoop Dogg, Whitney Houston, the Bee Gees, Ludacris, and John Mellencamp.

Damn. Little wonder a legend like Wonder will rouse himself at short notice to assist on Saadiq’s fab, hip-shaking old-school soul disc, The Way I See It (Columbia). The way Saadiq, né Charlie Ray Wiggins, tells it — over the phone during a late-morn breakfast in Los Angeles — his protege CJ had just finished singing his part on the sinuous, ready-made hit "Never Give You Up," when he announced, midtrack, "I’d like to invite Stevie Wonder to my album." So Saadiq decided to call Wonder and ask for a harmonica solo: "[Wonder’s] usually traveling around the country, and he asked, ‘When do you need me?’ I said, ‘An hour.’ He goes, ‘An hour?’ And he showed up an hour and a half later at one at night."

Easy for him to ask since Saadiq had already worked with the rock ‘n’ soul icon and Beyoncé on a Luther Vandross tribute, but it’s clearly Saadiq’s down-to-earth charm, disarming ease, and all-too-evident talent that keeps those friendships alive. Oh yes, and Wonder is "his Taurean brother" — born May 13 to Saadiq’s May 14.

That casual vibe runs throughout Saadiq’s immaculately assembled, long-awaited followup to 2004’s Ray Ray (Pookie). "For the most part, I kind of played everything myself on the whole album, but I bumped into certain people," he says. He plucked Rocio Mendoza, the sensuous lead vocalist for "Calling," from his favorite LA breakfast spot and gave her a star turn. Stone — to whom Saadiq has been linked romantically, though he demurs, "We’re just friends" — also guests, on the creamy, dreamy, string-stung mélange "Just One Kiss." But star turns aside, what fully emerges from Way is its sweet, sweet soul songs — living, breathing throwbacks to ’60s Motown, as fleshed-out and vital as anything by current soul revivalists like Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson, and Duffy, and crafted by a luminary of the genre’s last resurrection. The cover image of Way, with a besuited, Marvin Gaye–like Saadiq, for instance, was taken two years ago at Oakland’s Sweets Ballroom.

The new album — out Sept. 16 on the heels of Saadiq’s Sept. 11 appearance at KMEL’s House of Soul show at Ruby Skye — began to come together two years ago. "Being away from home so long, on an island [the Bahamas, where he was producing Stone] — the next thing you know, you look down, and the album is done," Saadiq drawls. "But I’ve always heard music like that, since I was seven years old. Some of the first music that ever really opened me up was that music, so it wasn’t a stretch for me."

The R&B vet can also step back and break down why a new gen has gravitated toward old-school bounce. "For artists it’s coming back because a lot of DJs spin a lot of vinyl, and that’s all they’re really listening to," he explains. Nonetheless, he continues, "it never really went away. It’s the only thing that don’t leave the shelf. It’s always been in my player." And that’s the player without and within: "I hear music all day and all night," Saadiq says. "I hear music in my dreams." To get the songs out of his head, he says, "You go through the chords and progressions, play drums. I jump on all the instruments until I hear something I like."

Such mental agility — and such a work ethic — must come from his now-70-something guitar-player father, speculates Saadiq. "He was working two or three jobs since he was 10," says the songwriter, who regularly gets back to East Oakland to see family. "Now he owns some buildings, and he’s always trying to work on them and be helpful to tenants. He’ll say, ‘I gotta get back to Oakland, so I can take out the garbage,’ and I’ll say, ‘What garbage? Are you crazy!?’ He’s a different kind of guy." It goes without question that his pops must be able to relate to Way‘s sound? "It’s music," Saadiq comes back, "that anyone who lives under the sky can relate to right now."

RAPHAEL SAADIQ

Wed/20, 8 p.m., $22

Bimbo’s 365 Club

1025 Columbus, SF

www.bimbos365club.com

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