Guardian video game reviewer Peter Galvin tests out technology designed to enhance the gaming experience.Product was provided for review purposes.
Someone once labeled current gaming headset star Astro Gaming the “Beats of gaming,” referring to the enormously successful Beats by Dre product line of consumer headsets. It’s a comparison Astro itself seems eager to encourage and, while aligning your company with such a ubiquitous brand name makes sense financially, more discerning audiophiles are quick to point out that most of the cash you shell out for a pair of Beats is for name-brand style rather than for sound.
However, Astro Gaming seems to be looking to the Beats phenomenon more as a guide to positioning itself at the top of the industry for premium gaming headphones. The market isn’t exactly teeming with game-specific headsets, so when I say the new Astro A50 (Astro Gaming, $299) headphones are some of the best money can buy in this category it doesn’t automatically mean they’re mind-blowing. It does suggest that Astro’s first big release in three years is conclusively about looking towards the future rather than playing catch-up.
A local San Francisco company, Astro has made a name for itself by selling headsets solely on its own website, and, with the release of the A50, it hopes to expand the web store into a downtown retail space. Gaming is in the process of legitimizing itself for mature players and Astro wants a place in that richer realm, not just for posterity’s sake but because we’re talking about a market that’s growing every day. As the average age of game players rises (currently somewhere between 30 and 35 years old), the industry has seen a rise in gamers and tech enthusiasts with considerably deeper pockets.
Linchpin to Astro’s success is the A50.The wireless A50 headset offers a 5.8 GHz upgrade to the A40s, the best currently on the consumer market. If you like having friends over to play, one base station supports up to 4 voice streams, and all with zero compression. Physically, the sets are heavier, so more padding makes them somewhat bulky. But the size helps comfort and noise reduction, on both sides of the velvety cups, and quality metal parts mean they don’t look or feel like cheap toys.
Set-up is simple. Plug the base station into your console (or audio tuner, and pass-through the TV, which allows you to watch movies and TV with the headset) and you’re synched and set. The set is fully rechargeable, a nice feature, though it charges via USB, so if it’s plugged into your TV or console, it won’t charge while those are off. The idea is that these headphones work right out of the box, offer few problems, and, outside of initial tinkering to get them just how you want them, you might not need to touch anything ever again.
As for sound, the set features a high number of volume stops, Dolby Digital 7.1 “surround” sound and 3 different, customizable sound modes. The faux-surround sound does a pretty good job of mimicking real surround speakers and the attached microphone turns on and off automatically when you bring it into position. There’s a lot of power in the set, a good sense of space, and I didn’t notice any distortion. The most important aspect is the quality of the wireless, something that can be tough to nail in a room increasingly packed with wireless devices. I have a lot of wireless junk, all running at the same time in the same room, and didn’t hear a single pop or click from my A50s, a problem that plagued my old Turtle Beach set.
One wireless snafu deserves mentioning: Microsoft has an exclusive deal with Tritton headsets for wireless chat, and all non-Tritton headsets require you to plug the headset into your controller. This lack of direct Xbox support may disappoint some users, but it’s not Astro’s fault and comes with the territory. Like past products, the A50 also sports detachable and customizable “tags.” The area of plastic that covers each ear is removable and replaceable with new tags that sport game logos, characters or original art. The customizable aspect of the headphones implies Astro intends the A50s to A) last, and B) be shown off.
You might say if it ain’t broke why fix it, but with three years since the Astro A40 debut, it was not unreasonable to expect something of a revolution. Perhaps the A50 isn’t for the truly discerning audiophile, but it is a refinement of everything Astro has become synonymous with: style, comfort, flexibility, and customization. As long as they continue to include quality in that list, Astro’s likely to come out on top.
In this city, you can’t walk, saunter, or sashay 50 feet without running into a drag queen. We are a queen-heavy city, and we love it. But ask the average Joe who their favorite faux queen is, and all you might get is a glazed look or a raised eyebrow.
Faux queens are drag queens stuck inside a woman’s body — women pretending to be men pretending to be women. A simple enough idea that got its due in 1995 when Diet Popstitute and Rooby Tuesday started the now-legendary Faux Queen Pageant. After a seven year hiatus, the tradition continued on September 16, bringing lashed lovelies from the deepest reaches of space who would give veteran drag queens a run for their money.
I got a chance to interview Bea Dazzler as she was briefly visiting earth from planet Faux Queen. I’ll be honest, I never met a extra-terrestrial who loved women and animals so much.
As-yet unreviewed due to various reasons (two being: aversions to PG-13 horror flicks, and Channing Tatum overload … seriously, guy, take a vacation!), but most certainly opening today, are House At the End of the Street(alas, not the House Hunters suspense thriller we’ve all been waiting for) and high-school reunion comedy 10 Years. I didn’t make it to my 10-year reunion but I feel confident saying that NOBODY in my class (go Tigers!) showed up with Magic Mike-style abs.
But wait, there’s more! Read on for the rest of the best (and meh-st) of the week.
Hello I Must Be Going Blindsided by her recent divorce, 35-year-old Amy (Melanie Lynskey) flees New York City for quaint Westport, Conn., where she nurses her wounds, mostly by sleeping and watching Marx Brothers movies. Amy’s protracted moping rankles her perfectionist mother (Blythe Danner, bringing nuance to what could have been a clichéd character) and concerns her workaholic father (John Rubenstein). Dad’s trying to land a big client so he can “make back some of the money we lost in the market” — a subtle aside in Sarah Koskoff’s script that suggests Amy’s parents aren’t as well-heeled as they used to be, despite the ongoing renovations to their swanky home, catered dinners, and expensive art purchases. Money woes are just one of Amy’s many concerns, though, and when a distraction presents itself in the form of 19-year-old Jeremy (Girls‘ Christopher Abbott), she finds herself sneaking out at night, making out in her mom’s car, smoking weed, and basically behaving like a teenager herself. As directed by indie actor turned director Todd Louiso (2002’s Love Liza), Hello I Must Be Going is a nicely contained, relatable (self-loathing: we’ve all been there) character study — and props for casting the endearing Lynskey, so often seen in supporting roles, as the film’s messy, complex lead. (1:35) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQbM4bb6Zpk
How to Survive a PlagueDavid France’s documentary chronicles the unprecedented impact political activism had on the course of AIDS in the US — drastically curtailing its death toll within a few years despite considerable institutional indifference and downright hostility. As the epidemic here first surfaced in, and decimated, the gay male community, much of Reagan America (particularly in religious quarters) figured the death sentence was deserved. The President himself infamously refrained from even saying the word “AIDS” publicly until his final year of office, after thousands had died. Both terrified and outraged, the gay community took it upon themselves to demand treatment, education, and research. Most of this urgent 1980s overview is concerned with the rise of ACT-UP, whose angry young men successfully lobbied and shamed corporate, academic, medical, and pharmaceutical bodies into action, with the result that by the mid-90s new drugs existed that made this dreaded diagnosis no longer a necessarily terminal one. France is a journalist who’s been covering AIDS practically since day one, and his first feature (made with the help of numerous first-rate collaborators) is authoritative and engrossing. Just don’t expect much (or really any) attention paid to the contributions made by SF or other activist hotspots — like many a gay documentary, this one hardly notices there’s a world (or gay community) outside Manhattan. (1:49) (Dennis Harvey)
Somewhere BetweenFive years ago, when filmmaker Linda Goldstein Knowlton adopted a baby girl from China, she was inspired to make Somewhere Between, a doc about the experiences of other Chinese adoptees. The film profiles four teenage girls, including Berkeley resident Fang “Jenni” Lee, whose American lives couldn’t be more different (one girl has two moms and attends a fancy prep school; another, raised by devout Christians, dreams of playing her violin at the Grand Ole Opry) but who share similar feelings about their respective adoptions. The film follows the girls on trips to London (as part of an organized meeting of fellow adoptees), Spain (to chat with people interested in adopting Chinese babies, and where the question “What does it feel like to be abandoned?” is handled with astonishing composure), and China (including one teen’s determined quest to track down her birth family). Highly emotional at times, Somewhere Between benefits from its remarkably mature and articulate subjects, all of whom have much to say about identity and personal history. Lee and filmmaker Goldstein Knowlton will appear in person at select opening shows; visit www.landmarktheatres.com for more information. (1:28) (Cheryl Eddy)
Trouble with the CurveBaseball scout Gus (Clint Eastwood) relies on his senses to sign players to the Atlanta Braves, and his roster of greats is highly regarded by everyone — save a sniveling climber named Sanderson (Matthew Lillard), who insists his score-keeping software can replace any scout. Gus’ skill in his field are preternatural, but with his senses dwindling, his longtime-friend Pete (a brilliant John Goodman) begs Gus’ daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) to go with him — to see how bad the situation is and maybe drive him around. Ultimately, the film’s about the rift between career woman Mickey, and distant dad Gus, with some small intrusions from Justin Timberlake as Mickey’s romantic interest. Trouble with the Curve is a phrase used to describe batters who can’t hit a breaking ball and it’s a nuance — if an incontrovertible one — unobservable to the untrained eye. While Mickey and Gus stumble messily toward a better relationship (with a reasonable amount of compromise), Curve begins to look a bit like The Blind Side (2009), trading the church and charity for therapy and baggage. But what it offers is sweet and worthwhile, if you’re tolerant of the sanitized psychology and personality-free aesthetics. But it’s a movie about love and compromise — and if you love baseball you won’t have trouble forgiving some triteness, especially when Timberlake, the erstwhile Boo-Boo, gets to make a Yogi Berra joke. (1:51) (Sara Vizcarrondo)
In a way, his first film, the experimental documentary Apparition of the Eternal Church (2006), did for Paul Festa what years of classical musical training and fiction writing never yet had: it put him squarely before the eyes and ears of the world as a serious artist. Ironically, he’d never trained as a filmmaker. He was following a musical muse, to be sure, but down an unfamiliar path.
Asking how we listen — why we listen — to music, Apparition gathered an eclectic assortment of interview-subjects (friends, drag queens, his Juilliard mentor Albert Fuller, even his old college prof, renowned critic-scholar Harold Bloom), had them strap on headphones, and then describe their reactions to Olivier Messiaen’s Apparition de l’église éternelle, the composer’s unrelentingly intense 1932 piece for organ. It was a simple notion that produced complex, and completely absorbing, results.
That unscheduled journey through film has been to the benefit of audiences literally around the world, as Apparition not only received awards and enthusiastic reviews but also toured widely in the lead-up to the centenary of Messiaen’s birth in 2008. In April of that year, it screened at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral as part of a larger program that included Festa on violin, performing the West Coast premiere of Messiaen’s 1933 Fantasy for violin and piano (only published in 2007).
It also marked a vital new turn in Festa’s career, which continues this weekend with the world premiere of Tie It Into My Hand, his new experimental documentary and a fascinating exploration of the artistic life, as rollickingly entertaining as it is insightful and stirring. The premise is again cunningly straightforward: ask a wide range of artists (but no violinists) to give the filmmaker a violin lesson. (After many years of serious study at Juilliard and elsewhere, Festa had retired from playing music in the wake of a hand injury. In the film, he attempts passages from Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.)
Going from the insular world of Juilliard, with its disciplinary rigor and institutional certitudes, to the wide-open prairie of independent filmmaking, is not a typical trajectory for an artist. Festa’s work both expresses and investigates precisely those tensions — between professionalism and amateurism, mentorship and independence, success and failure, glamor and alienation, opinion and taste, beauty and pain — stirred up in his own unconventional path through life and art. Among the film’s invariably interesting interlocutors are many local artists as well as prominent national figures, but the variety lies as much in the breadth of artistic disciplines represented: actors, drag queens, performance artists (including an uncompromisingly blunt but ever-precise Penny Arcade), poets, musicians (barring only violinists), writers (Daniel Handler, for instance, an old friend from middle and high school years in San Francisco), at least one historian, dancers, theater directors, and playwrights (ACT’s Carey Perloff and Theatre Rhinoceros’s John Fisher being examples in both categories), and painters (including the last recorded interview with the late William Theophilus Brown, for whom Festa had previously modeled and who, as part of the project, produced three color drawings of the violinist-filmmaker).
“It’s a combination of people with whom I’ve had a long acquaintance, some people I had just met at [the Yaddo] artist colony, or wherever else, and then people I was referred to. Apparition of the Eternal Church was really skewed more toward people in my circle. There were only two people in Apparition of the Eternal Church who I met for the first time at the interview.”
If Apparition of the Eternal Church asked questions about the perception of art, and specifically music, for different people, Tie It Into My Hand asks questions about the artistic impulse itself. But the conversations, culled from roughly 120 interviews, range widely, and Festa’s shrewd editing clusters the themes that arise in purposefully harmonic and dissonant clusters, while threading certain leitmotifs throughout. Tie It Into My Handscreens tonight and Sat/22 as part of a triptych of short films (the full program is discussed below), culminating Festa’s theater residency at ODC.
The filmmaker talked about his process, and his circuitous artistic career, while attending to some final color corrections at ODC a couple of days ago. Sitting in the control booth at the back of ODC’s theater, Festa admits he’s not gotten enough sleep of late, but speaks thoughtfully about the necessity of bridging strikingly different artistic terrains.
SFBGYou were saying how this project transitioned from a theater piece to a film?
Paul Festa How it went from a theater piece into this film. It’s funny. Carey Perloff has this wonderful line in the film about how men have their nervous breakdowns ten years earlier than women. Well, I had mine right on schedule, six months from my 40th birthday. It had to do with the theater piece, and it had to do with the death of three of four really central mentors to me. Three people died in a four-year period. The first one was George Dusheck, who used to be a reporter here in San Francisco and he dated my mother. He became a really central father figure and mentor. He moved up to Mendocino and introduced me to this whole group of amazing artists and musicians up there. And he died in 2005.
And then Albert Fuller, who you see in this film, who was also the star of Apparition of the Eternal Church, who was the great mentor whose philosophy and whose teaching about music, ostensibly about music, is really what created me as a filmmaker. His imagination about music, his harpsichord music — it had nothing to do with opera or ballet, it wasn’t like he was in the theater, but he had his own theater going on up here. Exposing that to us, he was the origin, and he was the first interview of Apparition of the Eternal Church. And in a sense that whole film is an expression or a crystallization of his teaching. And he died in 2007.
And then this woman Juliette died in 2009. And about three weeks later I had a conversation [about the proposed theater piece at ODC] with a guy who had helped me put on the Grace Cathedral evening. And he kind of looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “What are you talking about? First you did music, and you didn’t make a debut or cut a record. And then you were a writer and you didn’t finish the novel.”
He basically accused me of being a dilettante. He said, “Wow. You’re middle-aged. Do you know that? Are you aware that it’s difficult to get funders and audiences and everyone else to take you seriously?” He didn’t phrase it in quite such a judgmental way; that’s how I took it. He was more amazed that I had the nerve to do that. He’s very wealthy, and he said, “I would be concerned about my own security. Do you have no concern for your own security?”
Well, that’s how I had my nervous breakdown. I became morbidly concerned with my own security. “Holy shit. What have I been doing? Have I been asleep for the last 25 years?” And so at that point I stopped sleeping. There were a lot of practical things [concerning me]. One of the practical things was you can’t even apply to an artist residency or a lot of different things unless you have work that is less than four years old. And Apparition of the Eternal Church, my only film, was about to age-out of that system. So I’d lay awake just trying to think my way out of this disaster that I had somehow engineered for myself. You know, kind of the worst-case nervous-breakdown anxieties.
And I thought, “OK, I’ll make a film, and I’ll introduce the theater piece with this film, and I’ll sort of kill two birds with one stone or I’ll sort of rescue the theater piece and rescue my career with this movie. And it’ll be a silent film comedy, and I’ll accompany it live on the violin. So I’ll keep all the things in the air at once. Kind of like the Grace Cathedral thing, I’ll finally bring everything together. So that became this silent film called The Glitter Emergency, which is set to the second and third movement of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. So the idea was that that would be the prelude to the theater piece.
What wound up happening was that it ended up being the conclusion to a triptych of films called Three Short Films by Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky. The first of which is this thing. The second of which is a ballet fantasy, which we’ll watch a text-based storyboard of, with me playing live, on [Fri/21]. And then there’s The Glitter Emergency. So it’s one kind of enormous short film and two 20-minute short films.
So that’s how it all came about. And every step of the way, ODC was right with me. When I told [former ODC Theater Director] Rob [Bailis] the theater piece had really evolved and would now be a series of short films, he was totally down. ODC has been a really incredible partner for the last three years.
SFBG Tie It Into My Hand does have elements of self-examination of course, which resonates with the context you describe, but part of why it is so very approachable and compelling is the way it invariably goes much further in what it explores. Did you have a sense of what you’d find?
PF It was like Apparition of the Eternal Church in that it was this big experiment. I didn’t know what the hell was going to happen when I walked into these lessons. I mean, I had an idea: I wanted to accomplish what Apparition of the Eternal Church had accomplished, which was to get people to forget that there was a camera on them. When the headphones went on, I realized that’s why you can watch Apparition of the Eternal Church and just watch talking heads for 35 of those minutes: because they’re doing something, and responding to something.
When you get the download from people, usually they become very cerebral and very careful and they speak in measured tones — and these people were kind of losing it, and that was fun to watch. So I wanted to give them something to do, and that’s what the violin lesson did — and it involved music without the headphone conceit. But also I learned, from everywhere I’d been to music school, that the best way to get someone talking is to have them teach. I heard so many great stories from my teachers.
So I hoped, and I think I was right, it would turn out to be a really productive pretext or device for an interview.
SFBG I would agree. In addition to longer conversations, there are just so many wonderful lines in the film; some very funny, others very perceptive, and often both.
PFWhat are some you remember?
SFBG For instance, one question was, “Is that as painful to play as it is to listen to?”
PF[Laughs] And the answer to that question is, actually, yes. Thank you, Mink Stole.
Originally built as an airport for flying boats, Treasure Island’s man-made four square kilometers went on to house the Navy, and now is home to wineries, environmental hazards, electronic music from time to time, 2,500 people — most of them low-income, many of them college students — and tons of unused, abandoned buildings that capture the imagination of artists (check out this video from Tiny Town Productions we posted last year.)
The latest creative type to get inspired is Matt Fisher, a photographer who captured the isle’s luminous creepiness in his shots. Now that there’s plans to build more housing on the isle, Fisher is working on turning the images into a book to capture a moment in time and structures that may not be around much longer. We caught up with him about his tangles with pollution, ghosts, and about why he didn’t shoot any of Treasure Island’s living inhabitants.
San Francisco Bay Guardian: What inspired you to take on Treasure Island?
Matt Fisher: About six years ago, a friend of mine started working for the Treasure Island Development Authority, which oversees all the properties on the island. Through visits out there and seeing some of the buildings left over from the Navy’s occupation, I became intrigued with the story behind the island. I ended up doing a short-form documentary for Current TV on the island and the location has been lingering with me ever since. I watched it become more populated with residents and businesses, and about two years ago, I finally started taking my camera out there. Current plans for redevelopment to turn Treasure Island into an eco-friendly city had me wondering what would happen to these tarnished old remnants of the island’s past. Would they be forgotten like so many other things? That was when I decided to document the island and the remaining structures as thoroughly as I could.
SFBG: There are thousands of people living out there and I don’t see any of them in your shots — why didn’t you shoot the inhabited portions of the island?
MF: I have always been fascinated by the phenomenon when a human is added to the landscape of a picture, whether it is a painting, video, or photo. Immediately, it seems like your attention is directed at the figure. Humans love to look at other humans. Take the human out of the picture and you start realizing elements of the landscape again, the buildings and the objects. I really tried to keep people out of many of these photos for that reason. The landscape on Treasure Island is so bizarre, I really tried to portray that desolate and eerie feeling to the viewers.
SFBG: I know the island is crazy polluted — did you run into any dicey situations involving waste out there?
MF: I personally didn’t run into any problems out there but most of the pollution problems come from invisible culprits, so maybe I did and just don’t know it yet. Asbestos is running rampant out there and taking out a lot of buildings. Low levels of radiation are also a factor and now the recent news of a botched radiological assessment from the past has the Island’s future looking sketchy again. I really felt like this was a critical time to do this project with all the uncertainties swirling around its growth over the last five years. My hope is that this book can serve as a historical reference to immortalize this mysterious landmass before it’s too late.
SFBG: Ghosts?
MF: I am sad to report I experienced no ghosts. The attached Yerba Buena Island may have a few lurking around though. Indian burial artifacts and other human remains have been found out there while building the Bay Bridge back in the late 1930s. They found a mammoth’s tusk as well!
Placas: The Most Dangerous Tattoo explores the numerology of loyalty
“What’s in a number,” asks the man onstage, a former gang elder undergoing a laser tattoo-removal procedure. He is middle-aged, weary-looking, and sports a huge number one emblazoned down one forearm. Americans believe in being number one. A three down the other, reference to the holy trinity. Taken together, the number thirteen—a denotation of his gang affiliation. Numerous other tattoos covering his arms, chest, back, even his neck.
“My placas are my history,” he explains, somewhat ruefully. Removing them, a condition of his parole, is an arduous process, a physical equivalence to the mental challenge of rebuilding a life free from criminal activity.
“It’s not the laser that hurts,” he’ll assert later in the play. “It’s the memories.”
Played by Ricardo Salinas of Culture Clash, himself a former Missionite of Salvadoran extraction, the character of Fausto is as tormented as his German counterpart. True, he’s made no visible deal with the devil, but the demons of his past refuse to stay away, and those that tempt his son Edgar (Ricky Saenz) to follow his footsteps into a life of crime are all too present. In a mean twist, Edgar’s solidarity lies not with the Sureño gang of his father’s misspent youth, but rather with the Norteños in whose neighborhood he has grown up, and when he receives his first placa, it’s a bold Roman numeral XIV.
Angry with his father for his abandonment of his nuclear family (due to a nine-year prison term), eager to embrace the “family” of the neighborhood gang, Edgar embodies the contradictory petulance and naïve optimism of adolescence, a likable youth with a wobbly sense of consequence. Meanwhile his strong-willed mother Claudia (Cristina Frias)—herself a former chola who still favors tight jeans and leopard-print blouses cut low to reveal her Virgen de Guadalupe tattoo on her chest — attempts to broker kinship between them despite her own reservations about Fausto as a role model.
Focusing mainly on the dynamics of family, in and out of the gangs, Mission District-based playwright Paul S. Flores spent months interviewing former and current gang members, capturing the cadence of their speech, the fierceness of their loyalties. With Placas: The Most Dangerous Tattoo, he limits the scope of the complex historia to a small circle of characters: Fausto’s extended family, Edgar’s gang familia, a smattering of officials in charge of managing various aspects of Fausto’s rehabilitation.
Flores mostly avoids politicizing his characters, though shades of illegal immigration and exile color their everyday struggles, and he also studiously avoids passing moral judgment on his fallible protagonists, choosing instead to explore their often overlooked decency and sense of personal responsibility. The play ends on a downbeat note which feels somewhat rushed, unsatisfying, but does leave open the possibility of a companion piece or sequel, while illuminating and illustrating some of the shadowy complexities of gang influence in the Mission with stage lights and temporary tattoos.
Stanza Coffee is expanding past its Haight Street, hole-in-the-wall roots and into the competitive SF coffee scene, with a badass, Bay Area exclusive espresso machine and a new location in the caffeinated-cool Mission district opening next month.
Part-owner and general manager of Stanza, young Aaron Caddel approached the vacant Haight Street building almost a year ago. Stanza Coffee opened in April, serving Redlands-based roaster Augie’s Coffee to a less-than-frenzied reception. A new coffee place in San Francisco isn’t exactly anything to write home about, after all. However, the quickly increasing business developments indicates good news for the little coffee bar that could.
While the shop’s decor has a unique dose of rustic glam more akin to a wine bar, featuring heavy red curtains, burnt red walls, wood floors, and a series of wine barrel cafe tables positioned next to the window, Caddel envisions a battalion of interior, exterior, and branding changes for a more comfortable environment. He foresees a lighter, more cohesive color scheme for the dark walls, tables that are more conducive to laptop work, a brighter outside sign, window art with Stanza’s new logo, and maybe even some couches for meandering coffee shop chit-chat.
Perhaps the most dramatic of developments is Stanza’s upcoming addition of a new, Mission district location at 3126 16th Street by early October. While Stanza’s Haight location stocks both roasts and a wine tasting room, Caddel assures me that the store is really “a coffee shop, not a wine bar.” Indeed, it seems that the rack of locally-sourced MJ Lord’s wines lining the back wall of the shop is merely a pleasant afterthought. The coffee bar menu, including a steaming cup of Ethiopian pour-over accompanied by a Mission Beach Cafe golden raisin-stuffed, vegan bran muffin, or the sweet, slow-drip-cold-brew iced coffee is enough. Luckily for self-proclaimed “coffee purist” Caddel, the Mission front will be more concentrated on the caffeine.
In fact, the Stanza team recently purchased the sole Bay Area distribution rights to the infamous Slayer espresso machine, a hulking, expensive, and wholly badass piece of coffee instrumentation manufactured in Seattle. Caddel tells me this new location will be much more focused on hosting a comfortable (think couches and a back patio) and community-oriented environment: while Haight Ashbury’s combination of hippie-punks and tourists make for a fairly transient customer base, the excited manager can barely contain his enthusiasm when describing the steady clientele he anticipates at the new location.
Caddel recently closed down a potentially lucrative Union Square pop-up cart due to the fast-paced business’ quick turnover time and ensuing lack in presentation and quality, a product degradation that he says simply “hurt [his] soul.” The vision for the new storefront focuses equally on product and presentation in order to give coffee the contemplation and appreciation the Stanza team believes it’s due.
Crafting DIY-style is already pretty punk rock — but combine it with actual live tunes, and you’ve got yourself the Rock Make Street Festival, a street celebration of music and art.
This past Saturday, 9/15, the Indian Summer sunshine rays beamed down on Capp and 18th street in the Mission, as festival par-tay goers munched on Indian burritos from the Kasa Indian food truck, ogled handmade wood ties by Wood Thumb and of course, listened to music by local bands like Permanent Collection, a punk pop band that took the stage and added some seriously rocking moments to the festival. Rock Make: a true indie celebration of what makes the Bay Area so downright beautiful.
No lines? Space to move and breathe? This can’t be a San Francisco street festival, can it?
But it was. I made a dramatic entrance at last weekend when I was shooting the 55-year old Armenian Food Festival. I floated in like a cartoon character, led by the nose. Yes indeed, I defied all laws of gravity and let my senses guide me to the sizzling kebab meats and free-flowing draft beer, not to mention the whirling dancers and, of course, Armenian eye candy.
My foodie senses were tingling, and I wasn’t the only one. The event began as a get-together for the Armenian community, but more and more people come every year to visit the festival, which is tucked away in Ingleside Heights. And bonus: the event is a benefit St. Gregory’s Church and the KZV Armenian School.
While I did most of my socializing with the kebab stand and beer truck, I did get festival board members VJ Darakjian and Zareh Sarkissian on-camera for an interview. They were big on the fact that “first and foremost, we have something for everyone.” I think they’re right — the night was pretty much summed up when I ran into an old co-worker.
It’s no surprise that we have days and weeks and months that are specifically designated to honoring things, like MLK day or Breast Cancer Awareness Month. To honor something, you have to name it and then give it some space in your life.
Sometimes we forget to give things space. I used to think days like Mother’s Day were just crafty inventions of the greeting card industry, but that’s too simplistic a view. Mother’s Day reminds us to show our mothers some love, and the sad — or maybe just practical — truth is that most of us need that reminder. Sure, we should be doing that every day, but we get all caught up in whatever it is that we get caught up in. If we want to say anything about the greeting card (and mega-billion-dollar gift) industry, we can say it capitalizes on our lack of day-to-day presence with the ones we love.
But it’s ok. We’re human, we need reminders. And if we’re smart, we’ll remind ourselves of lots of things, and often.
So here’s a big one: September is National Yoga Month. No, really.
A few years ago, the Department of Health and Human Services made this declaration to raise awareness around yoga and get people hip to the practice. This means we get to honor the practice of being present by being present to the practice for an entire month. (Say that 108 times fast.)
Even when we are passionate about something in our lives, whether it be a craft, an activity, or a contemplative practice, we can do it so much that we forget to honor it. Then, things lose luster, they lose oomph. If you’re already a regular practitioner — of yoga or anything, really — it’s a good time to consider what you do to honor your practice on a regular basis. Do you set a specific time aside for the thing you love each day or each week? Do you have a place in your home that you designate to it, an altar or bookshelf or a small strip of floor between the sofa and the wall heater?
Yoga, origami, calculus … honor the thing you love this month by naming it and giving it some extra space.
If you’re a celebrant of yoga month, there’s plenty to keep you on your toes. Check out the new listings section below.
Around the Bend Upcoming yoga and conscious living events
**The yoga clothing store Athleta is offering a bunch of free classes this month, including two this weekend: Core Vinyasa with Debbie James and Chi Walk-Run Technique (OK, that’s not yoga, but it sounds cool). Check out the schedule here.
**Did you love Wanderlust in Tahoe? Did you never make it there? Either way, the Wanderlust folks are bringing their yoga love to the city this weekend. The one-day benefit (for Yoga Aid) event features a host of local talent including MC Yogi, Les Leventhal, Pete Guinosso, and Sianna Sherman. Sat/23, 12:30-4:30, free (but donations to Yoga Aid requested), Little Marina Green, SF. sf.wanderlustfestival.com
**If you want to work hot springs into your celebration plan, head to Harbin for a sweet and affordable retreat with Pedro Franco and Chrisandra Fox. The theme of the weekend: connecting with your inner peace and calm. Oh, yes. Fri-Sun, $480, Harbin Hot Springs, Middletown. Info here
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Have an event, story, or suggestion? Just want to say hi? Send me a note at OnTheOmFront@gmail.com
Karen Macklin is a yoga teacher and multi-genre writer in San Francisco. She’s been up-dogging her way down the yogic path for over a decade, and is a lifelong lover of the word. To learn more about her teaching schedule and writing life, visit her site at www.karenmacklin.com.
This year’s Toronto International Film Festival showcased 289 films. I attended 32. Mark down any titles that sound interesting, because this upcoming year is gonna be one to remember.
Outrage Beyond (Takeshi Kitano, Japan) The sequel to Takeshi Kitano’s return-to-gangster-form Outrage (2010) sports the same no-nonsense editing that matches extreme violence with perfectly primed pauses. Kitano’s knack for offbeat crime films began almost 25 years ago with his nasty neo-noir classic Violent Cop (1989). Since then, he’s found a perfect blend of humor and artistry over the years, with such masterpieces as Sonatine (1993) and Hana-Bi (1997). Even his more eccentric deliveries, such as the sentimental Kikujiro (1999) and Brother (2000) — his American crossover, co-starring Omar Epps — have the power to make fans out of first-time Takeshi viewers. Outrage Beyond methodically introduces (then destroys) main characters, creates tons of twists and turns that mangle the melodrama, and will either hypnotize you to all its inverted genre glory or leave you completely cold, confused, and unaffected. Either way, Takeshi is his own boss and I will watch everything he touches.
Rhino Season (Bahman Ghobadi, Iraq/Kurdistan/Turkey) This beautifully political narrative is a terrifying tribute to outspoken Iranian artists who find themselves threatened with decades of prison if they dare to question the contradictions around them. Ghobadi himself had to leave Iran a few years ago just so this film could actually be made; fellow film festival fave Jafar Panahi, director of The White Balloon (1995), Crimson Gold (2003), and Offside (2007), is still incarcerated under house arrest and is banned from writing and directing for what looks like 20 more years.
Panahi’s situation brings an extra importance to Ghobadi’s Rhino Season. The casting of Italian superstar Monica Bellucci and Behrouz Vossoughi (one of Iran’s most popular and prolific actors) could make this Ghobadi’s most accessible film since his 2004 Turtles Can Fly. This is cinema of the now — and combined with Ghobadi’s lyrical images, it solidifies him as a leading cinematic voice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqqgrUna28w
Dredd 3D (Pete Travis, US/UK) The new and improved Judge Dredd adaptation (which was presented in the Midnight Madness category, and opens in Bay Area theaters Fri/21) takes a much different approach than the uneven (yet under appreciated) 1995 Sylvester Stallone vehicle by making the obvious choice to darken the mood (and not to take Dredd’s helmet off.) By bringing in the screenwriter of 28 Days Later (2002) and 28 Weeks Later (2007), Alex Garland, the story kicks into absolute overdrive, saving an origin script for the already much-anticipated sequel.
While the special effects are spectacular and the deadpan one-liners are delivered with an enjoyable amount of irony, Dredd’s voice (which is quite reminiscent of a certain superhero in Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster franchise) reminds you that every decade has its own dated elements. Perhaps Danny Cannon’s 1995 Judge Dredd is just as representational of its own era as this rambunctious Escape from New York-meets-The Raid homage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI3uhHh3DgM
To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, US) For those who were wishing Terrence Malick would explore relationships sans dinosaurs and throbbing solar systems, look no further. Utilizing recognizable techniques like a glorious Steadicam shot gliding through golden fields at dusk, To the Wonder is in fact much more spiritual and even overtly religious than anything else at TIFF.
Especially after 2011’s polarizing The Tree of Life, Malick has become a loaded name for haters and lovers alike — bringing unfair expectations to a filmmaker who is clearly attempting to create ethereal art. To the Wonder features a stunning performance by Rachel McAdams and a curiously perfect, Robert Bresson-esque role for Ben Affleck. This film has to been seen in an actual movie theater.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0sxqycgYNA
The Lords of Salem (Rob Zombie, US) When Rob Zombie took the stage for the world premiere of his fifth feature film (also a Midnight Madness selection), audience members greeted him with a standing ovation. “Are you guys ready to see a bunch of sexy dancing naked witches?” Zombie yelled. When the audience erupted with “YES!” he replied, “Well … this movie doesn’t have any of that!” and humorously walked off the stage.
What followed was hands-down the most terrifying opening sequence of Toronto (much less 2012). It literally left the entire audience dumbfounded. And when the title The Lords of Salem appeared, you could feel the subconscious collective bracing themselves for what going to be yet another disturbingly brilliant Zombie horror classic.
Let’s take a step back to remember Zombie’s debut House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and sequel The Devil’s Rejects (2005). Both films caught both horror critics and music fans by surprise with how powerful his filmmaking aesthetics are. He arrived on the horror scene smack dab in the middle of the “torture porn” craze; in my opinion, Zombie was tops in the “Splat Pack” (amid Eli Roth, James Wan, Alexandre Aja, etc.) due to his Tarantino-style cinephilia (casting horror icons of the past in major roles; paying homage to genre classics like the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre series), but more importantly his contemporary understanding of music. With his remakes of the Halloween series (2007 and 2009), which many horror fans may need to revisit, Zombie further proved himself a filmmaker who has a lot to say to his audiences.
Which brings us to The Lords of Salem, a contemporary witch tale influenced by Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973). Showcasing serious suspense, a psychotic soundtrack, and purposeful pacing, the film also boasts one of the most deliciously diabolical denouements in years. Avoid all spoilers and add this creepfest to your must-see list. All hail Salem!
Jesse Hawthorne Ficks is the Film History Coordinator at the Academy of Art University and hosts Midnites for Maniacs, a film series devoted to underrated, overlooked, and dismissed cinema.
This week, check out the offerings at Cine+Mas, the San Francisco Latino Film Festival, plus reviews of quirky docs Beauty is Embarrassing and Cane Toads: The Conquest, in my overview here. Also, Los Angeles-based underground superstar Damon Packard visits Other Cinema Sat/15 with his latest, Foxfur; he chats about it here.
A pair of interview-reviews, as well: Dennis Harvey talks to Ira Sachs about dark relationship drama Keep the Lights On, and Kimberly Chun talks to Nicholas Jarecki about financial-world thriller Arbitrage. Harvey also writes up doc Girl Model, a devastating look at the global modeling industry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HitH8qJxCg
Oh, and Hollywood? They’re banking on you wanting to go under the sea (again) with Finding Nemo 3D. Shaaaaaark!
I kind of adore that Laura Schara is not just the fashion director who oversees the annual Macy’s fall fashion kickoff show and fiesta, Glamorma (a valuable fundraiser for AIDS Emergency Fund, Glide, and Project Open Hand), she’s also the offical Macy’s “trend correspondent,” responsible for “translating emerging fashion trends for the department store.” I did not know this position could exist! And while I doubt we’ll be seeing much Hood by Air or RHLS appearing on the couture floor any time soon (maybe I’m wrong), I’m sure she gets to translate a lot of intriguing things.
Like Britain! And Nicole Richie! Glamorama is tonight, Fri/14, the theme is “The British Invasion.” Below, Laura shared a few quick words about the theme, the designers, and the glamour that is SF.
SFBGCould you tell us a little about the British Invasion theme — did you have a hand in its development? And what specific appeal do you think the theme has for our moment?
LAURA The British seem to be invading pop culture and fashion recently, so that combined with the Olympics and the 50th Anniversary of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles made this seem like the right fit for the theme of Glamorama this year.
Also, Duchess Kate has definitely become a fashion icon herself and I think she has influenced some of the current fashion trends. We are seeing classic dressing make a comeback not only for women but also men. So that also makes this theme the perfect fit this year.
SFBGHow did you choose the designers to work with, and how (if applicable) did you tailor their specific strengths to fit within the theme?
LAURA Each year we chose the designers based on a few things, and we always want to showcase a variety of designers that will appeal to everyone in the audience. We’ll show everything from classic lines, to avant garde and modern, to those contemporary designers. Also we take into consideration of what is new at Macy’s and of course Glamorama being Macy’s fall fashion kick off event, we will launch new lines at this show. This year we are excited to launch Nicole Richie for Macy’s Impulse. SFBGDo you have overall thoughts about the state of fashion in the Bay Area? What excites you or makes you think?
LAURA I can tell you I have traveled to many destinations working on fashion events and this city always has some of the best shopping in the world. You can find anything here from talented local designer merchandise to whatever is hot off the runway. It’s one of my favorite cities to shop in.
SF Cocktail Week is here once again, drawing out cocktail geeks, spirits aficionados, and those seeking a memorable event or a fine drink.
For those of you who attended last year’s San Francisco Cocktail Week, you know it was jam-packed with some downright magical events, celebrating our city’s rich cocktail heritage and talent that has influenced the cocktail renaissance globally. There’s another strong line-up this year, in keeping with the memorable highlights from last year and the year prior.
To name a few, the annual party at St. George’s WWII hangar and distillery is always one of the highlights of Cocktail Week. This year the theme is cops and robbers with bartenders serving drinks behind bars, squirt gun target practice, live music from funky-fun Hot Pocket, and food from Tacolicious, Breads of India and Five Ten Burger.
The second annual Legends Awards http://sfcocktailweek.com/legends-awards.html honors legends in the drink world, including a lifetime achievement award for Miles Karakasevic, 13th-generation master distiller at Charbay. Best of the West assembles top bartending talent from cities of the West Coast, and for the first time this year, food carts and cocktails gather at Spirited Food Trucks in the new SoMa StrEat Food Park, heated patio and all. Another new event this year? Jupiter Olympus’ California Altered State Fair, a raucous event of games, fried food, contests in a state fair theme with drinks like a Salt-Water Taffy Old Fashioned or a Manhattan Sno-Cone.
There are dinners, after parties, and nightly events… a little something for everyone in a city that has long known how to craft a fine cocktail. Tickets and schedule here. — Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot
If someone is willing to put in the time, effort, and money into putting on a convention, common sense would hold that this someone believes strongly in said cause. I mean, if the adage wasn’t true, Comic-Con wouldn’t exist, or maybe it would, but it’d be a neutered, unrecognizable version of its current self.
But such presuppositions don’t apply to the creator of this weekend’s UFO Con at the Santa Clara Marriott, Brian William Hall. Hall “does not believe in UFOs and aliens,” as he remarked in a recent phone interview with the Guardian.
In fact, Hall (who, not surprisingly, is also the lead organizer of Santa Clara’s yearly Conspiracy Con) doesn’t even believe in the word “believe.” According to him, “what we believe has absolutely nothing to do with the truth”. He and co-producer Lorien Fenton, – whose first name sounds like a constellation – aren’t staging the convention to speculate over Area 51 and blurry photos of circular objects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxbtQDUBiMs
Rather, they are utilizing UFO Con as a means in exploring and investigating the questions that have dogged humankind since the time of the first cave paintings. Why are we here? Where have we been? Where are we going? Perhaps you can uncover the answers via the convention’s packed schedule of speakers expounding on such topics as cosmic mythology, abductions, and ufology. Below, we presented to you five mind-bending talks aim to place your consciousness on a higher level, though there is the possibility they will leave you with more questions than answers.
Basiago’s speech will mainly touch on the CIA’s secret Mars project that supposedly had agents “jumping” through the space-time continuum. CIA conspiracy check.
Colorful in name and in content, the UFO Magical Mystery Tour will take you on an stirring ride through the subject of ufology. Case by case, Schratt will debunk the misinformation surrounding such events as the flying pyramid, the army helicopter incident, and the Hudson Valley boomerang.
Sat/15, 10:15-11:30am
Les Velez: “OPUS: The Organization For Paranormal Understanding and Support”
It’s hard out here for UFO conspiracists ain’t it? If you’ve had any “extraordinary states of consciousness, fortean, spiritual, or parapsychological phenomenon, close encounters with non-human entities, and/or UFO activity” and are feeling pretty shook about it then OPUS is there for you.
Sat/15, 9:00am-10:00am
Kim Carlsberg: “My Secret Life: One Woman’s Account of Eight Years of Alien Abduction”
Hey it wouldn’t be UFO Con if there wasn’t someone talking about being abducted by aliens. Carlsberg, a heavy hitter in the literary genre of “contact literature” will be enlightening the audience about her encounters of the third kind which first started in 1988 on a beach in Malibu.
Richard Dolan could be considered one of the headliners of UFOSpaceCon seeing how he is one the most prominent and respected researchers when it comes to UFOs and the like. Dolan will dutifully explain that despite all the peril our modern world faces, UFOs are just as relevant today as they were last century because when faced with climate change and economic depression people lose sight of the bigger cosmic picture. Highly recommended for forward-thinking types.
You’re either on the bus, or you’re off the bus at Popcorn Anti-Theater’s Fringe Festival revival
As lovers of art, adventure, and reckless shenanigans might recall, the monthly Popcorn Anti-Theater bus shows last rolled about eight years ago, and while plenty of other groups have used buses as vehicles to drive a performance since, none have managed it with the same regularity and broadness of scope.
The aggressively anything-goes vibe of Popcorn events of yore combined theatrics, live music, dance, poetry, gibberish, urban exploration, and plenty of oddience participation into a series of unpredictable occurrences. Since the shows were pulled together by different collaborators each month, it wasn’t always necessarily “good” art (a specious qualifier at best), but it was almost always good fun, so when I hear that Popcorn is making a rare appearance at the San Francisco Fringe Festival, I immediately resolve to check it out.
Although the pristine white rent-a-bus is only half full as we pull away from the EXIT Theatre, the morale is high. As we settle into our seats, an attractive young woman in a lab coat, Assistant J (Crystelle Reola) passes out index cards and pens and instructs us to write down our deepest desires as the grey-wigged Professor Murnau (V.N. Von Boom Boom) introduces herself as dead. As the bus noses along, en route to our secret destination, we are treated to video footage of a group of cute kids undergoing a test of their willpower ala the 1972 Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. We also receive marshmallows of our own, which some folks eat immediately, and others save for later.
We wind up on Treasure Island where we encounter the rest of the cast who, according to the script, were mysteriously instructed to show up at a secret location for undisclosed reasons. An unlikely trio, a wealthy businessman, a self-important socialite, and an aging radical, they fuss and squabble, their action framed by a bright string of distant city lights. Gradually they come to realize that they were all part of the original Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, and that the dead professor and the beguiling Assistant J. have brought them back together to “conclude” the experiment. The world, it seems, is divided into “Gobblers” and “Resisters”. The marshmallow still tucked warm in my pocket attests to my abilities in impulse control, but *what does it all mean?*
Written and directed by Patricia Miller, “Sugar High: The Four Marshmallows of the Apocalypse,” heralds Popcorn’s return to the (very) small stage and monthly social calendar. Originator and ringleader Hernan Cortez promises to roll out the bus rides every first Friday of the month, with an emphasis on unconventional performance structure and scenic site-specificity, or what he calls “the diesel-driven processional spirit of adventure.”
“The idea is to be short, sweet, and mobile,” he explains of the hit-and-run style of Popcorn’s “thea-tours”. “Most performance (can be) executed in less than five minutes, seven tops. Basically if you can’t communicate in a short time span, you can’t communicate.” But he emphasizes that almost any artistic discipline can be a part of Popcorn. “If anyone musician, comedian, actor, scientist , cook, burlesque , variety act has had a hard time finding a stage to perform on, you may find a home here.”
As we pull back up to the EXIT Theatre, left to ponder the concepts communicated to us during our brief sojourn to a parallel universe, I realize I still have my marshmallow and look forward to my reward. Sadly it appears that the reward for not eating my marshmallow early is only the opportunity to eat it late. Fair enough, I suppose. Marshmallows don’t grow on trees. But I’m not entirely sure the experiential portion of the show can be called complete without the possibility to win a second. Maybe next time.
Local yoga teacher and writer Karen Macklin’s new weekly column on SFBG explores yoga, meditation, and conscious living in the big city.
Let’s talk about yoga. Ten years ago, when it was starting to gain momentum in the US, lots of people predicted it would be a passing fad, like Richard Simmons or the Moonies. No way this thing of stretching, breathing, chanting, meditating could stick in modern society. Remember Cabbage Patch Kids? Rollerblading? Reliable health insurance? Yeah, me neither. That’s the way Western yoga was supposed to go.
But something happened. Text messaging was invented, and Coca Cola bought Odwalla, but despite these setbacks to global consciousness, the yoga momentum didn’t die, it grew. What was once a small trend became a vibrant movement filled with people trying to better themselves and the world around them. Today, it’s estimated that 15 million people in the US practice yoga, and that this number is steadily increasing. Despite the fact that no one across the globe can agree on what exactly yoga is (physical exercise? a spiritual discipline? a therapeutic practice?) , this thing of stretching-breathing-chanting-meditating is quickly being woven into the fabric of our society. The country has become yogafied, and San Francisco led the charge.
This is what I was thinking about last Wednesday, at 8am, when I gathered on the grass with several hundred other people in winter coats and stretchy pants to lengthen our hamstrings and chant to Ganesh.
Yoga instructor Janet Stone leads the class as Michael Franti (right) and Jay Bowman (left) accompany her with bouncy tunes.
And it wasn’t just any grass—it was the freshly manicured outfield of the San Francisco Giant’s baseball stadium, where boho-reggae-peacenik-pop star Michael Franti was onstage with his signature naked feet singing “The Sound of Sunshine” while Janet Stone instructed a yoga-partner acrobatics-dance session in honor of Yoga Day at AT&T Park. People were moving and smiling and jumping (except me—I don’t jump until after noon), and the sun actually did come out after Franti sang that sunshine song. But even more surprising was the amount of people that came — paid to come — to this event at 8 in the morning on a work day.
That’s because we love yoga in San Francisco. If there was a contest for the nation’s best yoga town, we’d be top of the list. We know that a city that practices yoga is a city that gives a shiznit about society, a city in which inhabitants walk the juicy but daunting path to some kind of liberation, whether it’s liberation from the cycle of rebirth or just from that damned Iphone for 90 minutes. In San Francisco, there’s someone moving chi, balancing a chakra, or spreading shakti on practically every corner. And most of these people are actually sane.
San Francisco attracts the energetically curious, so when it comes to mystical and contemplative practices, there is a lot happening here. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was one place to go to find out what’s good and glorious each week without checking 17 different Facebook pages while trying to eat lunch, finish a work call, and find the elusive green compost bin? That’s the essence of On the Om Front, this new weekly column about yoga and conscious living in the city. Here you’ll get info about local events, musings on yoga culture and urban consciousness, interviews with local luminaries doing crazy cool things, and who knows what other kinds of goodies. Ultimately, this column is a way to stay connected. And we all know that yogis love connection, so it really doesn’t get any better than this.
Let’s talk about the name. Om is a Sanskrit seed syllable that symbolizes the universal sound in which all sounds reside, and it is often said to represent the creation, existence, and dissolution of every moment. So it’s basically everything. It’s you and it’s me. It’s the heart, it’s the song, it’s the word. It’s so big that we definitely need to be in it together.
Have an event, story, or suggestion? Just want to say hi? Send me a note at OnTheOmFront@gmail.com
Karen Macklin is a yoga teacher and multi-genre writer in San Francisco. She’s been up-dogging her way down the yogic path for over a decade, and is a lifelong lover of the word. To learn more about her teaching schedule and writing life, visit her site at www.karenmacklin.com.
Let the photos above serve as a reminder that your humpday muck-ups really aren’t the cataclysms they seem to be.
The shots are from an exhibit that opens today at Intersection for the Arts called “(re)collection: Family Photos Swept By the 3/11 Japan Tsunami”. They’re representative ofa massive collection of photographs salvaged from crushed homes in the wake of the 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquake offshore from the island nation. That’d be the one that caused the devastating tsunami, flattening coastal towns like Tohoku, where massive numbers of lives were lost and where these images were collected by rescue workers.
It started organically, the effort that later came to be know as the Memory Salvage Project. People — police officers, military troops, firefighters — just started bringing the damaged photos to the gymnasium of a Tohoku elementary school.
750,000 were collected, if you can believe it or not. And now, on display on the somber walls of Intersection, are men wearing 3D glasses, babies riding grandpas, formal shots of kimono and stiff-looking, suit-clad groups. There’s some images that have been destroyed as completely as the lives they were meant to document. Unintelligible photos are on display as well.
“It’s really one of the most profound things I’ve worked on in my 14 years here at Intersection,” Kevin Chen, the art organization’s program director for visual arts, told us in an email that accompanied the images for this post. The show serves as a reminder of the blanketing tragedy of natural disaster, and should clarify that the GChat blowout you just had with your boyfriend truly does not qualify as the end of the world.
“(re)collection: Family Photos Swept by the 3/11 Japan Tsunami”
The recent outcry over a “Team Supermodel” strut showing off British fashion during the Olympics’ closing ceremony underlined a dichotomy: as much as people want the conventional glamour of the moment, they don’t want to feel guilty about it, i.e. have it exposed by direct comparison to the purportedly natural physical beauty of athletes.
Yet there are parallels between these two groups, particularly in the realm of concerns about weight and drugs. Plus, being a sports star and a model are both roles that allow the performer to actually merit being “entitled.” Everyone wants to be special — though of course that only works if other people aren’t.
The disturbingly instructive new documentary Girl Model (opening Fri/14) makes a good case for not encouraging such desires in your child, because the likelihood is that someone will come along to exploit that desire, convincingly promise them fame, then leave them worse off than before, with debts accrued from the dream that didn’t come true. “The first secret to a successful modeling career is to start modeling at five or ten years old,” says an emcee at a cattle-call showcase early on in David Redmond and Ashley Sabin’s film. It’s Russia, where the relatively new capitalism trickles down even less than here, so the families are even more eager to turn little Svetlana into a moneymaker. But that way lies madness, or at least deceit and disappointment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHWDLkkOk4Y
Plucked from a couple hundred pretty, rail-thin girls — the lucky ones are reassuringly told, “We’ll put you on a diet” — 13-year-old wide-eyed blonde Nadya Vall is yanked from her rural Siberian village and mother and sent to Japan, where she fits a general type sought there. One that is willowy, “innocent,” but mostly just plain young. The younger the better, as talent scout Ashley Arbaugh tells us, qualifying that it’s not her taste, but she’s learned to see through the clients’ eyes. An ex-model herself (who “hated it,” and is seen in footage she videotaped of that career years earlier when she was 18), Ashley gives off disillusioned, compromised vibes. She constantly seems on the verge of confessing some horrible truth about the business, but is held back by good taste or the Russian mafia or her own maternal instincts toward her charges. It takes a while for us to realize that she’s a user and a hypocrite — not a buffer between the girls and harsh reality but a key part of the problem herself.
Nadya has never traveled abroad and speaks no languages but her own. She arrives in Tokyo (an overwhelming place for even the best-prepared visitor) alone; no one shows up to meet her. Of course she’s homesick — she’s a child. But worse than her fast, unkind education and personal sacrifice is that there appears to be no reward. A Japanese agency admits that there’s little use for such “new faces” sans portfolio here, even though he and the Russian agency (whose flamboyant chief simpers “Just like Noah saved all the animals, I’m trying to save these girls … in a way for me it’s a religious matter,” sounding about as convincing as a Fox pundit) promise their young recruits exactly the opposite.
Needless to say, Nadya ends up owing rather than making money. Meanwhile Ashley lounges around the immaculate, expansive, coldly all-white house her job as middleman has earned (and which she’s about to sell at a profit). She has two plastic baby dolls she keeps around, and shows off snapshots she’s surreptitiously taken of models’ extremities. She is creepy, never more so than when she visits Nadya and a roommate at their flat and is as uneasy playing the best-friend-slash-minder as they are having her there. At one point we learn she has two stomach growths that must be operated on, and rather than feeling sympathy, we wonder if this is some cancerous manifestation of her having exchanged the role of exploited for exploiter.
At the end she’s straight-facedly telling a new group of parents “Every model has success in Japan, unlike other markets where they might go into debt. They never do in Japan.” She’s even picked another 13-year-old protegee from the crowd — one that, like Nadya, will probably be fired once she’s been snagged in debt for gaining as little as a centimeter in waist, hips, or bust. This is the point in a Harry Potter movie or other fantasy where the wicked witch would be surrounded by tell-tale black smoke, or reveal her true ugly face. But this is the real world, and Ashley stays pretty on the outside.
There’re a lot of ways to while away 72 hours in Portland, Oregon, so I shrewdly place myself in the hands of a capable buddy who knows the ropes and we embark on a whirlwind bicycling tour of the five quadrants, from Sellwood to St Johns (yes, there are five quadrants, not four, go figure). We don’t really have a focus, and you could easily spend 72 hours just crawling from coffeeshop to bookstore to food cart to brewpub. While there’s plenty of all of the above on our itinerary, the theme that soon reveals itself during our pedal-powered perambulations is Portland’s obvious fervor for the DIY life, extending even to their entertainment options. Here’re a few of my favorite examples.
1) Marry-it-Yourself at the 24 Hour Church of Elvis. Although this dilapidated window display and coin-operated wedding ceremony has seen brighter days in other locations over the years, this quirky art installation will still pronounce a simple set of vows via an ancient Commodore 64 over any couple lucky enough to have a quarter on them. Apparently about to undergo a facelift of sorts, the 24 Hour Church of Elvis may be upgrading its technology, but one hopes it won’t lose its cluttered, junkyard charm or old-school video arcade aesthetic. 408 NW Couch, Portland, OR. www.24hourchurchofelvis.com
2) Eat-a-Bug-Yourself at the Peculiarium. Anyone excited about insectavorism will want to make a trek over to The Peculiarium, where in addition to a staggering selection of novelty packaged bug treats (tequila lollipops with worms, etc), they offer two very exclusive toppings for their ice cream sundaes and hot dogs: freeze-dried meal worms and scorpions. Customers who survive their culinary adventure get their photo taken and exclusive membership in the “Insectarian Club,” and even non-bug-eaters will get a kick out of the Fortean ephemera, gag gifts, and B-movie props that constitute much of the Peculiarium’s inventory and decor. 2234 NW Thurman St, Portland, OR. www.peculiarium.com
3) Homestead-It-Yourself at Portland Homestead Supply Company. This homey, welcoming, artfully-curated store leaves no possible outlet for creative homesteading energy unrepresented, with essential supplies for every kind of project from soap-making to chicken incubating, pickling to cider pressing, seed starting to grain grinding. Where else can you grab a one-pound slab of pure beeswax, a packet of kefir starter, the pasta maker of your dreams, and a 25-pound sack of worm castings and take a workshop on coffee roasting or candle-making in the same trip? Truly worth a pilgrimage, even for the most dedicated urbanite. 8012 SE 13th Avenue , Portland, OR. www.homesteadsupplyco.com
4) Act-it-Yourself at Shakespeare Surprise Party. For times when even the redoubtable SF Theater Pub barroom shows feel over-produced, Surprise Party Theatre steps in with an even more audacious free-for-all concept, one that recruits roughly half the of its attendees onto the stage to perform, rehearsal-free. I see a rowdy adaptation of *As You Like It* in the basement confines of the Jack London Bar which lasts a good 40 minutes longer than it has a right to, but certainly doesn’t lack in sheer spunk and off-the-cuff inventiveness. A hilarious wrestling match between pre-cast Orlando (Joel Durham) and Charles (Matt Haynes), goofy improvisation by Jesse Graff as Touchstone, live music by musical duo Sound Semantics performing as Amiens, and plenty of dance breaks for all, infuse the Shakespearean comedy, to say nothing of the Jack London Bar, with lusty life. surprisepartytheatre.tumblr.com
Essential life skills surely include knowing how to tie a bow tie, or how to saber champagne. Ok, maybe the second one is more like a glorified party skill, but it’s probably one worth having, just for shits and giggles.
If you were at the Skill Exchange Launch Party last night at Store Front Lab then you learned how to do BOTH of those things. And for the next three days, you can feast on a smorgasbord of other wonderful instruction, including urban chickenry, the basics of wiring a lamp, letterpress printing, and bike mechanics.
Think of how smart you’ll be after all these workshops?! Well worth checking out. Here’s a list of all the class options, although some of them might already be sold out. Tickets can be purchased here. Check out the lineup:
Friday
31 RAX 3:00-4:30PM Vintage Clothing: Styling, Care and Mending $8 TOWN CUTLER 5:00-5:45PM Essential Knife Skills: Safety, Slicing and Knife Sharpening $5 ALMANAC BEER 6:00-8:00PM 21 and over only Home Brew and the Beer Industry $12
Saturday
URBAN CHICKEN NETWORK 10:00AM-12:00PM Backyard Flocks: Urban Chicken Keeping $8 DAVID HARD 12:30-1:30PM Nuts and Bolts of Lamp Making: Wiring Basics $8 PASTORAL PLATE 2:00-3:30PM The Whole Chicken: Butchery, Carving and Making Stock $12 SPICEHOUND 6:30-7:45 PM An Introduction to Artisan Salts $8
Sunday
PUNK DOMESTICS 10:00AM-11:15AM Making Piadina: Traditional Italian Flatbread $12 MARGO MORITZ 3:30-6:00PM How to Shoot in Manual: The Basics of Photography $8 PUBLIC BIKES 6:15-8:00PM Basic Bicycle Mechanics and Maintenance $8
Models and mannequins started to blend together. Downtown SF was abuzz with fashion frenzy on Thursday for Fashion’s Night Out — a multi-store extravaganza taking place in urban areas across the country.
The streets were filled with wonderfully-outfitted fashionistas and all the fancy department stores were filled with up-do stations, makeover fun, nibbles, and bubbly — and even a little local indie love. Holy Stitch, a custom denim/hem and repair company who “assists denim lovers of the most passionate and exacting breed,” and was on location to bedazzle shoppers’ jeans, as part of a pop-up fashion shop curated by the Bold Italic at Macy’s.
There were also iPad portrait sketches and fall lines on display by SF fashion students, including the chunky and luxurious sweaters by Jeanette Au. Fun for all those with a love for fashion!
Bachelorette A movie called Bachelorette is inevitably going to be accused of riding Bridesmaids‘ coattails, even if — as it happens — Bachelorette‘s source-material play was written years before the 2011 comedy hit theaters. (That said, there are inevitable similarities, what with the shared wedding themes and all.) Playwright turned scriptwriter-director Leslye Headland does a good job of portraying women who are repulsive in realistic ways: a decade ago, Regan (Kirsten Dunst), Gena (Lizzy Caplan), Katie (Isla Fisher) were the popular “B-Faces” at their high school and haven’t matured much since. Competitive Regan is a Type A blonde; Gena’s the queen of one-night stands; and Katie’s a self-destructive party girl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4U_kt2h-Sc
All of them are pushing 30, and though Regan’s the most functional among them, she’s the hardest-hit when she learns that Becky (Bridesmaids‘ Rebel Wilson), always treated as a second-tier B-Face by virtue of being plus-sized, is engaged. “I was supposed to be first,” Regan wails via three-way cell call to Gena and Katie, who’re sympathetic to this sense of entitlement. The wedding is a fancy New York City affair, so the B-Faces reunite for what they think will be a bachelorette party for the ages. Most of the film takes place during that single night, a madcap, coke-fueled, mean-spirited spiral into chaos. It’s raunchy and funny, but every character is utterly unlikable, which becomes more of a problem and less of an amusement as the movie trundles onward toward the expected happy ending. Bachelorette would’ve been better served by sticking with its rallying cry — “Fuck everyone!” — to the bitter end. (1:34) (Cheryl Eddy)
Chicken With PlumsSteeped in whimsy — and a longing for love, beauty, and home — this latest effort from brilliant Persian-French cartoonist-filmmaker Marjane Satrapi and director Vincent Paronnaud flaunts the odd contours of its eccentric narrative, enchants with its imaginative tangents, sprawls like an unincapsulated life, and then takes off on aching, campy romantic reverie—a magical realistic vision of one Iranian artist’s doomed trajectory. Master violinist Nasser Ali Khan (Mathieu Amalric) is seeking the ineffable — a replacement for his destroyed instrument — and otherwise he’s determined to die. We trace the mystery of his passing, backward, with wanders through the life of his family and loved one along the way in this playful, bittersweet feast. Despite Amalric’s glazed-eyed mugging, which almost spoils the dish, Satrapi’s wonderfully arch yet lyrical visual sensibility and resonant characters — embodied by Maria de Medeiros, Jamel Debbouze, Golshifteh Farahani, and Isabella Rossellini, among others — satisfy, serving up so much more than chicken with plums. (1:31) (Kimberly Chun)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXUzG6YKuvo
Kumaré Just as there was a certain bullying pride of snark that made Bill Maher and Larry Charles’ Religulous (2008) more mean-spirited than necessary, Kumaré leaves a sour, smug aftertaste. Raised in New Jersey by a first-generation immigrant family of Hindus, Vikram Gandhi proclaims himself a skeptic who started out wanting to make a documentary about the opportunistic charlatans one can find passing as spiritually enlightened gurus in both India and around the booming US yoga industry. “I wanted to prove to others looking for answers that no one is more spiritual than anyone, that spiritual leaders are just illusions,” he tells us. A noble impulse. Yet somehow this took the form of growing his hair and beard out, wearing saffron robes, and posing as Sri Kumaré, a fresh-off-the-boat guru who arrives in Phoenix, Ariz. to open up shop as a one-stop spiritual guide for the gullible. He asks “Could people find the same peace in a made-up religion that they would in a real one?” But too often the real question here seems to be “How silly can I make these chumps look while starring in my very own nonfiction version of The Love Guru?” The comedy Kumaré has been primarily compared to is 2006’s Borat, another Larry Charles joint. As unhappy as their portraiture in Borat made its duped participants, it was hard to feel sorry for them — given enough rope they gladly hung themselves expressing racism, homophobia, sexism, and sheer Ugly Americanism. But those who fall under Kumaré‘s farcical spell don’t deserve to be exposed and ridiculed; they’re just people with real-world issues — financial struggles, low self-esteem, empty-nest loneliness, etc. — looking for somebody to tell them what to do. (1:24) Roxie. (Dennis Harvey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0xVp3N-M84
SamsaraSamsara is the latest sumptuous, wordless offering from director Ron Fricke, who helped develop this style of dialogue- and context-free travelogue with Koyaanisqatsi (1982) and Baraka (1992). Spanning five years and shooting on 70mm film to capture glimmers of life in 25 countries on five continents, Samsara, which spins off the Sanskrit word for the “ever-turning wheel of life,” is nothing if not good-looking, aspiring to be a kind of visual symphony boosted by music by the Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard and composers Michael Stearns and Marcello De Francisci. Images of natural beauty and African women cradling their babies give way to the madness of modern civilization — from jam-packed subways to the horrors of mechanized factory farming to a bizarre montage of go-go dancers, sex dolls, trash, toxic discarded technology, guns, and at least one gun-shaped coffin. After such dread, the closing scenes of Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist spirituality seem almost like afterthoughts. The unmistakable overriding message is: humanity, you dazzle in all your glorious and inglorious dimensions — even at your most inhumane. Sullying this handwringing, selective meditation is Fricke’s reliance on easy stereotypes: the predictable connections the filmmaker makes between Africa and an innocent, earthy naturalism, and Asia and a vaguely threatening, mechanistic efficiency, come off as facile and naive, while his sonic overlay of robot sounds over, for instance, an Asian woman blinking her eyes comes off as simply offensive. At such points, Fricke’s global leap-frogging begins to eclipse the beauty of his images and foregrounds his own biases. (1:39) (Kimberly Chun)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjmrDDD9o_k
The WordsWe meet novelist Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper) as he’s making his way from a posh building to a cab in the rain; it’s important the shot obscures his generally shiny exterior, because we’re meant to believe this guy’s a sincere and struggling novelist. Jeremy Irons, aged with flappy eye makeup, watches him vengefully. Seems Rory fell upon the unpublished novel Irons’ character wrote in sadness and loss — and feeling himself incapable of penning such prose, transcribed the whole thing. When his lady friend (Zoe Saldana) encourages him to sell it, he becomes the next great American writer. He’s living the dream on another man’s sweat. But that’s not the tragedy, exactly, because The Words isn’t so concerned with the work of being a writer — it’s concerned with the look and insecurity of it. Bradley and Irons aren’t “real,” they’re characters in a story read by Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid) while the opportunistic, suggestive Daniella (Olivia Wilde) comes onto him. She can tell you everything about Clay, yet she hasn’t read the book that’s made him the toast of the town — The Words, which is all about a young plagiarist and the elderly writer he steals from. “I don’t know how things happen!”, the slimy, cowering writers each exclaim. So, how do you sell a book? Publish a book? Make a living from a book? How much wine does it take to bed Olivia Wilde? Sure, they don’t know how things happen; they only know what it looks like to finish reading Hemingway at a café or watch the sun rise over a typewriter. Rarely has a movie done such a trite job of depicting the process of what it’s like to be a writer — though if you found nothing suspect about, say, Owen Wilson casually re-editing his 400-page book in one afternoon in last year’s Midnight in Paris, perhaps you won’t be so offended by The Words, either. (1:36) (Sara Vizcarrondo)
Special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen had to invent unconventional techniques to bring his movie magic to the big screen when he revolutionized the world of fantasy film making in the 1950s and 1960s. His work on Jason and the Argonauts (1963), Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers (1956), It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955), and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), among many others, has influenced several generations of filmmakers that grew up watching his stop-motion creatures.
Harryhausen’s life and incredible career are celebrated in a new documentary, Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan, an expansive look not only at the man and his work, but also the huge influence he continues to have in modern movie magic. Featuring interviews with Harryhausen (now 92), alongside Hollywood heavyweights like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg, the film is having its United States premiere Sat/8 at San Leandro’s Historic Bal Theatre thanks to Bay Area Film Events.
BAFE has put on a variety of great classic film screenings and parties over the past several years. “The main reason we got into doing these events is to have fun and present the films and subjects we love. Ray Harryhausen is a big part of that, our first show featured Ray’s work, so this brings us full circle,” says BAFE’s Bob Johnson.
While Harryhausen himself will not be in attendance, two local special-effects luminaries will be: Dennis Muren of Industrial Light and Magic and Phil Tippett of Tippett Studio. Both have publicly shared their admiration of the effects pioneer, and will discuss his influence on their work, which between them has included iconic imagery and characters from the original Star Wars trilogy, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), The Abyss (1989), RoboCop (1987), and many more.
“We would have loved to have Ray here as well, but unfortunately at 92, Ray is not traveling as he used to and feels that at this stage in his life, the documentary says everything he wants to say and he considers it the final word on his career,” says Johnson.
Documentary producer Tony Dalton, who put the film together with the cooperation of the Harryhausen family, will also be participating in the event via Skype from London.
“I spoke to Tony and he graciously agreed to be part of the show via Skype — and I say graciously because he will be doing this at about 3:30am his time in the UK,” says Johnson. “Since this is the U.S. premiere and the focus of the event is the documentary, we thought it was important that someone from the film be on hand to discuss how it came about, what it took to bring together many of Hollywood’s major producers, directors and special effects artists and just how everything came to be.”
The evening will also feature a screening of the classic Harryhausen film The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), rare shorts, prizes, and more, all part of an event that will benefit the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation.
“Ray has an immense collection of original props, materials, and film from the movies he worked on. This is amazingly rare in the motion picture industry where studios let props rot in storerooms or put them up for auction or just let them walk. It is even more rare for films the industry may not consider to be ‘A’ pictures,” says Johnson. “Ray and his wife Diana have set up a foundation whose main goals are to preserve, house and display these items, as well as make them available to share with the public. These funds are going direct to the foundation, so they will not be filtered through any other third party organization.”
“So, you can enjoy a celebration of Ray’s work, see a brand new documentary, relive Ray’s work with one of his films, meet two Academy Award-winning industry professionals, and be a part of preserving a part of motion picture history. Not too bad for a night out at the movies.”
John Stanley, who reported on the Bay Area entertainment scene for 33 years at the San Francisco Chronicle and spent five years hosting KTVU’s beloved late-night show Creature Features, has interviewed Harryhausen multiple times.
“On each occasion Harryhausen was like an enthusiastic youth, a child waiting in line outside a theater to see the latest Star Wars extravaganza. Ask him about the joy of creativity and he would sprinkle in the reality too — the long, difficult days of single-frame exposure that would stretch into weeks that would stretch into months,” says Stanley, who’s now an author.
“In the case of [1981’s] Clash of the Titans, it was going to be his last major stop-motion animation feature, as computerized special effects were just starting to take over the motion picture industry at that time. It was the end of an era for Harryhausen, but his enthusiasm for his specialized art carried through. Given the neverending life of film, as long as we continue to preserve it, Ray Harryhausen and stop-motion animation will live on forever; sweeping us into other dimensions and faraway worlds with its unique way of capturing the movements of what would have been mere figments of our imaginations without his devoted efforts to give them breathtaking life.”
Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan Sat/8, 7 p.m., $15 Historic Bal Theatre 14808 East 14th St., San Leandro www.bayareafilmevents.com
