SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Andrea, McAllister and Van Ness
Tell us about your look: “I always buy cheap clothes, but I try to make sure they’re unique.”
- No categories
Pixel Vision
Appetite: Hookahs on Mission, gnocchi deals, Midi in FiDi, and more
By Virginia Miller
A delicious-looking dish at Midi. See “Openings” below.
As long-time San Francisco resident and writer, I’m passionate about this city and obsessed with exploring its best food-and-drink spots, deals, events and news, in every neighborhood and cuisine type. I have my own personalized itinerary service and monthly food/drink/travel newsletter, The Perfect Spot, and am thrilled to share up-to-the minute news with you from the endless goings-on in our fair city each week on SFBG. View the last Appetite installment here.
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NEW RESTAURANT AND BAR OPENINGS
Whew! There are a slew of openings this week. Here’s a rundown of four and stay tuned for many more …
Missionites’ new all-day cafe-wine bar-resto combo: The Corner
Weird Fish, the Mission’s quirky, sustainable seafood joint, debuted a sister spot next door last week, The Corner, which should begin all day hours this week. Seeking to be all things to all people, it’s a cafe with wifi and Four Barrel coffee in the am, BLT Paninis at lunch, and at night, DJs, unique wines by the glass and dishes like duck and medjool dates or fennel-crusted pork chops.
2199 Mission, SF.
415-932-6939
Mission take two: Morak Lounge, a new Moroccan hookah bar
Sixteenth and Valencia has no lack of global eating options, all within a couple block radius. What it hasn’t had up till now is a chic, Marrakech-style lounge where you can smoke a double-apple flavored hookah while sampling Middle Eastern bites (the usual: hummus, baba ghanoush, skewers) or Cardamom-infused martinis. Enter Morak Lounge. Behind bronze doors, bright curtains and comfy cushions equal a sultry space to linger and puff away long into the night (open until big city hours of 3am on weekends).
3126 16th St., SF
415-626-5523
Midi: FiDi’s new French Asian restaurant
Joie de Vivre luxury hotels debuted a new restaurant this past weekend, open for lunch and dinner with a downstairs bar open all day for the Financial District set. Midi, with Chef Michelle Mah of Ponzu at the helm, has been in the works for two years but is finally open in the former Perry’s space. The French Asian fare reinvents classics like duck leg confit with a ginger-rhubarb jus, with Euro-Asian offerings from Hawaiian kampachi crudo to pork rillettes with Dijon mustard. It all goes down nicely post-work (or during a lunch break) with a Lavender French 75 cocktail or with one of seven craft beers or 15 wines by the glass.
185 Sutter Street
415-835-6400
www.midisanfrancisco.com
RIP, Parkway Speakeasy Theater
Say it ain’t so! Oakland’s Parkway Theater announced this week that its doors will close Sunday, March 22. According to the theater’s web site:
“After more than twelve years of serving the great cultural crossroad of Oakland, the Parkway Speakeasy Theater will be closing at the end of business day, Sunday March 22, 2009.
From African Diaspora to Thrillville to lesbian fashion shows and educational porn, the Parkway has offered an eclectic array of movies and events. It was the first theater in California to offer food, beer and wine service in a lounge style movie theater. With a nudge or a push from the community, there was little programming the Parkway theater would not try in order to better be a community center and a safe haven for diverse ideas. The Parkway brought Baby Brigade for the shuttered and abandoned parents of newborns, the first international black gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender film festival and Sunday Salon, a free event for cultural and community enhancement. We, at the Parkway Speakeasy Theater, are deeply proud of the Parkway and will profoundly miss serving its community. Thank you for your patronage.”
Fortunately, all is not entirely lost — the Parkway owners still have their Cerrito Speakeasy Theater, which, like the Parkway, has beer and pizza (and sandwiches with cheeky names: “The Zombie Cow,” anyone?) on the menu, along with new films and special events, including the ever-cool monthly B-movie celebration, Thrillville. It’s also very BART-friendly — literally just a handful of blocks and a Bed, Bath, and Beyond parking lot’s length from the station.
The Parkway closes down with a trio of standout films from 2008: The Wrester, Revolutionary Road, and Let the Right One In (your choice — five bucks!), plus a movie about Lucha Libre that looks pretty unmissable (seven bucks for this one). Head over and show your support Sun/22, or hit up the Cerrito in the coming months to make sure it keeps unspoolin’ films and pourin’ pitchers of PBR.
Blog Love: Every single holiday a lunch in a box
Juliette Tang shouts out to local bloggers. Read her last installment here.
I die. This is so cute that I’m literally having a heart attack on the floor right now. Someone call an ambulance.
The confection you see above is called a bento, which Wikipedia defines as “home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine… Bento can be very elaborately arranged… often decorated to look like people, animals, or characters and items such as flowers and plants.” It’s also the handiwork of Biggie, a San Francisco work-at-home mother to a 4-year-old pre-schooler, the envy-inducing devourer of her beautiful bento lunches.
Biggie writes about her adventures in bento boxing on the blog, Lunch in a Box, which has caused me to question the extent of my own mother’s devotion to me during my childhood years, as my lunches consisted of a brown-bagged cheese sandwich and a bag of Wise chips. What Biggie’s son gets, instead, are heart-shaped onigiri (rice balls flavored with salt) dyed with Hula Hana Ebi shrimp powder and decorated with little hearts made out of soy wrappers and nori seaweed. Biggie reveals on her FAQ page that her son is attending a Japanese immersion school here in San Francisco, where beautiful bento boxes are the norm. I have a word of advice to Biggie: keep your son in Japanese immersion programs for the rest of his life, or he’ll hit the 5th grade and realize he wants to be just like everyone else, demanding a ham sandwich, some Ritz crackers, and a packet of Gushers, washed down with a Capri-Sun, because Peter the culturally insensitive ADHD creature from Health called him a bad name for eating his mom’s lovely edible hearts. Avoid the untimely and callous intrusion of a mainstream culture taught to distrust the poignant cuteness in things!
Street Threads: Look of the Day
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Anna (and Kona), 20th Street and Valencia
Tell us about your look: “I always dress to be comfortable and by my mood. Sometimes it’s jeans, sometimes it’s a mini skirt … and some days it’s a clown suit.”
Deadstock deals on cool-kid kicks
By Laura Peach
Harputs has been keeping San Franciscans sneakered for three decades, and they are celebrating their anniversary (while doing quite the spring cleaning project) by selling off most of the store’s stock for $30. Yes, three 10-dollar bills can get you a pair of cherry red Adidas Powerphase high tops, sky blue Superstar shelltoes, or my favorite pair in the store: emerald green suede tennis classics.
Several of the pairs in the shop are one of a kind and hard to find. The top shelves of Harputs are lined with priceless vintage sneaks—not for sale. Glass cases keep the most prized (and pricey!) kicks from harm. The cased sneakers can cost upwards of $8000, like the ones that superstar designer Jeremy Scott teamed up with Adidas to create. If designer faux animal print and glitter are not your footwear fetish, though, the rainbow of bright colors that define several of the styles will add a happy splash of lighthearted fun to your winter wardrobe and skip you right into spring. Classic styles will let you set your right foot forward.
Street Threads: Look of the Day
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Kenya, 19th Street and Guerrero
Tell us about your look: “No comment.”
The Blender: What we’ve been eating
By the ravenous Guardian Staff
(1) Chicken noodle pho, Sunflower, SF
(2) Kshocolat Little Black Boxes: dark chocolate mintettes and milk chocolate black currants
(3) Fish tacos with mango salsa
(4) Lamb stew, salad, and injera, Club Waziema, SF
(5) Pumpkin pancakes, Fat Apple’s, Berk.
Local Artist of the Week: Renee Gertler
LOCAL ARTIST Renée Gertler
TITLE Instability collapses (gold leaf, acrylic paint, expandable foam, bass wood; 17 by 11 inches)
THE STORY "Modality Room" muses on the magnitude of nothingness, black holes, wormholes, and outer space. Building from the impossibility of fully understanding such complex concepts, Gertler constructs a domestic setting as the environment in which to explore these mysteries.
BIO Gertler was born in Santa Barbara and currently lives and works in San Francisco. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2007. She is participating in upcoming group shows at Ping Pong Gallery and Southern Exposure.
SHOW "Modality Room," Sat/21 (reception Sat/21, 7–10pm) through April 17. Sat.–Mon., noon–5 p.m.; first Fridays, 7–10 p.m. Blank Space, 2208 San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 547-6608. www.blankspacegallery.com.
Burning Man season in San Francisco
By Steven T. Jones, aka Scribe
Burning Man is more than an annual event popular with San Franciscans: it is a year-round culture, one that really comes into season right around now as the art projects take shape and the myriad theme camps starting fundraising. And recently, there have been some fun and inspiring manifestations of this festive season.
Opulent Temple, Burning Man’s biggest and most enduring large-scale sound camp (and my former camp), threw a massive March 6 fundraiser in a Treasure Island warehouse, featuring legendary DJ Carl Cox (and a long list of other spinners) and mind-blowing art pieces by the Flaming Lotus Girls and Peter Hudson. The NBC news clip above insightfully focuses on how the Bay Area’s art communities help each other during hard economic times.
Then last week, there was the benefit party for Hollis Hawthorne, a friend of the Guardian and Burning Man families who is in coma. The event at Slim’s turned out a wide range of talented acts and community-minded burners that raised a staggering amount of money for a one-night event to bring Hollis home to the Bay Area.
The Burning Man story itself came to the stage in San Francisco in January as “A Burning Opera: How to Survive the Apocalypse,” and after receiving critical acclaim for this talented production’s limited engagement, the crew will hold two fundraisers this week to stage another run: Wednesday at the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence “Burning Bingo” event and this Saturday evening at Café Flore.
There’s also the release of a film about the event, “Dust & Illusions” (an early version of which I reviewed here) by Oliver Bonin (who was embedded with the Flaming Lotus Girls at the same time I was). Among other showings is one at Chicken John’s place on March 28.
Meanwhile, the company that stages Burning Man, Black Rock LLC, is about to be homeless. That well-entrenched crew is getting bounced out of its Third Street headquarters to make way for a massive new UC hospital on the Mission Bay site. Word is they’re still looking for the right digs and only have until next month to find them.
Ladita: Sweet as an organic gluten-free cupcake
Quaintly nestled in San Francisco’s dreamy Bernal Heights district at 827 Cortland Avenue, Ladita is a darling little eco-boutique in that could be described as “similar to Anthropologie, but much better for the environment.” Even for someone whose overtly girly side is as repressed as mine, it will prove impossible to resist Ladita’s quiet charm. On my visit, scented (soy) candles bouqueted the store with the abstract but pleasant aroma of wildflowers, the soft, fuzzy sound of old folk LPs purred on the vintage record player and, in an almost suspiciously perfect touch, a lazy cat (the owner’s pet) napped under the cash register in a swath of warm afternoon sun. If a shopping experience could be distilled to a soothing cup of tea, this would be it.
There is no shortage of the lovely and the whimsical at Ladita, but Christine, the owner, is also a practical businesswoman, and her store is stocked with crowd-pleasing brands like James Jeans and Ella Moss, which complement more specific, eco-oriented labels like Stewart + Brown, Taxi CDC, and Sworn Virgins. Ladita offers a comprehensive and well-edited baby department, which includes Kicky Pants and Speecees, both favorites with eco-leaning moms and dads, as well as Erbaviva, a wonderful line of bath and body products for babies and moms-to-be.
Street Threads: Look of the Day
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Charlotte, 18th Street and Valencia
Tell us about your look: “My friends call me a trendsetter.”
Appetite: Caffeinated Comics, Chocolate Salon, Masa’s at a discount, and more
By Virginia Miller
Chocolate time! See “events” below
As long-time San Francisco resident and writer, I’m passionate about this city and obsessed with finding and exploring its best food-and-drink spots, deals, events and news, in every neighborhood and cuisine. I started with my own service and monthly food/drink/travel newsletter, The Perfect Spot, and am thrilled to share up-to-the minute news with you from the endless goings-on in our fair city. View the last installment of Appetite here
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NEW RESTAURANT & CAFE OPENINGS
Caffeinated Comics, the breakfast of champions
Four Barrel coffee, free wi-fi, comic books and donuts? Could this possibly all be in one place? It is now with Caffeinated Comics, SF’s first comic book/coffee shop rolled into one. The Outer Mission shop is a bright red, orange and yellow space where you can sift through superhero memorabilia or check out DC or Marvel’s latest comic books, all while sipping a high-quality espresso. (Note: there’s also affogatos using neighbor, Mitchell’s, legendary ice cream). CaffCom’s applied for green certification with green lighting, building materials and energy efficient freezers and fridges. Holy caffeinated geekdom, Batman.
Caffeinated Comics
Weekdays 7am-6pm
Weekends 9:30am-5pm
3188 Mission Street
415-829-7530
www.caffcom.com
Livin’ La Dolce Vita at Pizzanostra
Jocelyn Bulow of the Chez Papa and Chez Maman restaurant group and Italian chef, Giovanni Aginolfi (who was cooking pizzas in Nice, France, prior to coming to SF), join forces for a new pizzeria/osteria on Potrero Hill called Pizzanostra. Aginolfi placed sixth in the World Pizza Championship and now we can get ’em right here. There are two themes to this restaurant: a pizzeria serving Aginolfi’s famed pies, and an osteria with a menu of antipasti, foccacias, salumi, pastas, gelatos and Italian wines. The outdoor sidewalk terrace will be a huge hit on sunny days for filling up on bruschetta topped with eggplant, prosciutto, mozerella and tomato, a salad of celery hearts and fennel, or pizzas covered in lamb sausage and egg or clams and prawns. This is la dolce vita realized.
Pizzanostra
300 De Haro Street
415-558-9493
www.pizzanostrasf.com
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EVENTS
March 17: Screening and Iyemon Cha Tea Reception as part of the Asian American Film Fest
Asian film screening and tea tasting sound good? Iyemon Cha is a one-of-a-kind organic bottled green tea made at the historic Fukujuen tea house in Kyoto, Japan. Only recently available in our city, the tea and complimentary appetizers will be served at an exclusive pre-screening reception you have to sign up for online. At the reception you’ll meet the director, Dave Boyle, and cast of that night’s film, “White on Rice.” Consider it a culturally fun education in tea and Asian film.
5:30pm reception at Bar Bistro; 6:45pm Film Screening
Free for pre-screening reception but must register on website ahead of time
Film screening, $10: www.festival.asianamericanmedia.org/2009.
Sundance Kabuki Theatre
1881 Post Street
www.iyemonchaevents.com
Objects of Obsession: Branch out
SFBG’s Laura Peach rounds up local items and experiences to die for. See her last installment here.
As a girl, I would spend summers wandering through island woods at my grandparent’s house. I always loved the birch tree bark, and would peel pieces off the trees to make little dresses of white and pale pink for my dolls, always wishing that there was a big enough section of bark to create a skirt my size.
Although I was never able to wear the wood of my childhood, recently I’ve been on the lookout for ways to bring the forest alive in my everyday urban home life. Here are a few of my favorite finds, wooden through and through. They just may bring out a different type of tree hugger in you.
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1. Wooden Wallet
A real slab of wood is not the best thing to have in your pocket. No one wants slivers in their behind. But the thoughtful, science geek designers at San Francisco’s Hlaska were enamored by the beauty and grace of wood grain. They reproduced the patterns found in a real pine tree onto Italian leather for their Evergreen wallet ($125).
Hlaska, 2033 Fillmore, SF. (415) 440-1999, www.hlaska.com
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2. Log Life
This watering can ($16) is the sweetest stump I’ve ever seen. Hydrate thirsty plants using the log pitcher and they may be inspired to grow grander and greener. Made from recycled plastic, so no trees were harmed and you can hold the branch handle guilt free. Oh, it also makes for a nifty vase.
Doe SF, 629 A Haight, SF. (415) 558-8588, www.doe-sf.com
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3. Pink Poison
The bright, bold berries bursting off the black branch on this t-shirt ($28) are supposedly poisonous. But such a pretty pink color makes them hard to resist. I might be tempted to pop one in my mouth.
Designed by San Francisco contemporary art golden boyTucker Nichols exclusively for Richmond’s hippest object/art/book shop Park Life, this berried branch shirt is a catchy closet addition for sure.
Park Life, 220 Clement, SF. (415) 386-7275, www.parklifestore.com
Street Threads: Look of the Day
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Zoe, 18th Street and Valencia
Tell us about your look: “I wait for my friends to try out new looks and then I try them myself.”
Street Threads: Look of the Day
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Janice, 19th Street and Valencia
Tell us about your look: “I dress for comfort, always.”
SFIAAFF: “All Around Us” and “The Chaser”
By Natalie Gregory
Some movies do not need to be so long. Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s All Around Us feels a little like that. One of the installments in this year’s San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, it’s mainly about a couple in the 1990s who aren’t all that in love, but come to care for one another. A few key things happen that guide the story: they have a baby who dies in infancy, which sparks a depression in Shoko, the wife. Kanao, the husband, gets a job as a courtroom sketch artist, witnessing the real life trials that occurred in the nineties. The crimes are bizarre and fucked up.
As far as representing the progression of a relationship, this film nails it. There’s a moment mid-way through the film where Shoko breaks down and expresses her frustration with Kanao’s inability to communicate. It’s a semi-climactic scene. Before this, they truly don’t communicate very much. At least not very well. Anyway, the argument ends with a better understanding between the two. Kanao says he wants to kiss her, but instead he wipes the snot from her face (she’s been crying). It’s actually pretty romantic. It feels like we are witnessing an intimate moment, something real and connected.
Irony for sale!
By Juliette Tang
For the next three days, everything at the McSweeney’s store will be marked at $1, $5, $10, or $15. If you weren’t the type of person inclined to buy All Known Metal Bands, a book that “contains the names of over fifty thousand metal bands” for the lofty sum of $22, it’s yours for the less lofty sum of $5, this week only. Baby Do My Banking, a “12-page vibrantly colored instructional board book is suitably scaled and captivating for parents and babies alike” is $3.50, and worth it at that price for all the hours you will save once you teach your toddler how to balance your checkbook and withdraw money for you from the ATM. Unfortunately, the sale does not extend to the combo subscription to The Believer, McSweeney’s, and Wholephin. But it does include Michael Chabon, Nick Hornby, Art Spiegelman, Dave Eggers, and more, all at discount prices.
Second Annual Poetry Luchador Battle of ALL of the Sexes winners
Editor’s note: The Second Annual Poetry Luchador Battle of ALL of the Sexes on Valentines Day was a multi-generational, multi-lingual, multicultural ash-up of art, gender, poetry, wrestling, language, and theatre brought to you by the favorite revolutionary poets, media-makers, poverty scholars and cultural workers at POOR Magazine. As cosponsors of the event, we’re proud to run the winning poem. We published the first-place winner in the paper this week — here are the second- and third-place winners of the contest.
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Second place: “Queer Boi and his HIStory with Biological Males”
By Queer Boi aka William Romero
The first one
Bought me Suszy Q’s, cherry cokes, and let me pick the Fantasy Five on Fridays.
He would wake up at 4 a.m. five days a week to go shine-up new cars so I wouldn’t have to
He carried me asleep in his arms, up the stairs to our two-bedroom apartment
His actions spoke his affection
Especially on nights when he would blast Vicente Fernandez while
drinking his Budweiser
Doors slamming, vases flying, his screaming, my mother’s crying
I’m not enough, was the feeling my seven-year-old lips sobbed onto my pillow
The second one
Made me lunches and fruit punch Kool-Aid during our summers at home alone
Beat the S-H-I-T out of any boys who made fun of me
And let me be Laserbeak to his Soundwave on our Cybertron
Unlike the one before him, whom we both called father, he let his
words speak to his affections
I would rather you be a criminal than turn out to be gay
I’m not enough was the thought that crept into my head as I fled home
Street Threads: Look of the Day
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Brandon, 21st Street and Guerrero
Tell us about your look: “I like to put on clothes. I get most of my clothes at thrift stores.”
Designer Dish: Pop Junkie’s spring sugar rush
By Laura Peach
Old West meets Studio 54 retro with Pop Junkie’s “Disco Roosters” Tee.
This week, we chatted up local master printmakers Aaron Feiger and Ashley Marcinczyk about the sugary sweet, super sexy San Francisco-inspired designs they’ll be pulling off the press in the next few weeks. Their whimsical T-shirts sprouted into screenprinting project Pop Junkie. The funky, fun tees and totes are popping up not only on the streets of our fair city, but also across the country and in fashion forward, graphic-obsessed Japan. Here’s what the design duo had to say about their work, life, and love of San Francisco style.
SFBG: So… what are you working on right now? Tell us about the new spring line you’re currently cultivating.
Aaron: This season we’ve done our own take on a Barberella theme. I watched it over and over as a kid—I was only 7 or 8 years old. Looking back I can’t believe my mom let me watch something with so many sexual references. We’re adding some geometric shapes into these designs too.
Ashley: I’m making some re-usable beer bags. Everyone’s out at Dolores Park brownbagging it, and I thought it would be great to have an attractive, eco-friendly option. Our homewares will be expanding: we’ll be making more pillows and bags, and coming out with some laser-cut candleholders.
Artists sue over La Contessa arson
By Steven T. Jones
Almost three years after La Contessa – an authentic Spanish galleon built on a bus for Burning Man by members of the Extra Action Marching Band – was deliberately burned to the ground by Nevada rancher Mike Stewart, the artists have filed a civil lawsuit seeking more than $900,000 in damages.
A 2007 Guardian cover story told the tale of this unique artwork, its colorful builders, and the man who admitted torching it. Stewart and his attorney claimed he had a right to destroy La Contessa because it had been left on property he purchased. “I was forced to clean it up,” Stewart told Washoe County Sheriff’s Deputy Tracy Bloom.
But the suit is based the federal Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, which makes it illegal to destroy artwork even if it is no longer in the artist’s possession. “It’s right on point with the facts of this case,” attorney Paul Quade told the Guardian.
Stewart is a major landowner in the region around Gerlach, where Burning Man has been held since 1989 after it moved from San Francisco’s Baker Beach, and he has a history of battling both the organization and its attendees. Although Bloom considered the fire arson, he opted not to recommend criminal charges because he thought Steward lacked criminal intent. As he told us at the time, “Chances are this is something they will pursue civilly.”
Street Threads: Look of the Day
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Jessica Lanyadoo, writer of Psychic Dream Astrology, 23rd Street and Valencia
Tell us about your look: “I dress according to my mood, always, and I believe in glasses.”
Lingerie Shopping 101
The SFBG’s Laura Peach helps her roomie take the fear out of shopping for sexy underthings.
A few weeks back, my roommate Gina and I sat in our living room, chatting about life and drinking cheap red wine as had become our custom since we’d both broken up with our significant other, when she dropped the bomb: she had never been lingerie shopping.
I was aghast.
She named off her reasons: She was a tom boy at her core and didn’t know how to buy things like that. She was trying to live fairly simply and could certainly get by fine without lingerie. And most of all, she was simply too intimidated and afraid to go lingerie shopping.
“Oh Gina, you don’t even know what you’re missing,” I said. I vowed to take her out.
It was a while before we could find a time when our schedules coincided. When we finally set out on a drizzly Monday morning, I wouldn’t let anything — not mising keys, a flat tire, or a forgotten credit card — get in our way.
We started with Haight Street’s best vintage and modern underthing outpost, Dollhouse Bettie . Gina was wide-eyed and nervous at first, but then became seduced by a purple babydoll slip. Soon her ooohhh’s and aaahhh’s and light fingertips on corners of fabric gave way to pulling hangers off the rack, and before she knew it, Gina had a dressing room stocked full of lingerie.
Photo from Dollhouse Bettie.