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Last-minute gifts: Social Justice T-shirts from Liberation Ink

Charles Russo
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1
Last-minute gifts: Social Justice T-shirts from Liberation Ink

Looking for a gift for the revolutionary who has everything? Liberation Ink is a great place to go for consciousness-raising apparel…

LIBERATION INK: Do you have a friend who has been dying for a “Brown and Proud” T-shirt ($24)? Perhaps they’re jonesing for an organic tote with a picture of Assata Shakur ($16)? Liberation Ink, an all-volunteer, worker-owned apparel printing and design collective, believes in a sustainable movement for social justice that is funded from within.

It prints revolutionary faces and sayings on shirts made organically and/or without the use of sweatshop labor. All profits go directly to support grassroots social justice organizations like the May 1st Alliance for Land, Work and Power, and the Deporten a la Migra Coalition. The brand’s comfy, stylin’ T-shirts will have your lucky giftee looking fly and spreading the word of social equality in one fell swoop.

www.liberationink.org

For more last-minute gift ideas check out the Guardian’s Holiday Guide.

 

Last-minute gifts: Terrarium, $10

Charles Russo
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0
Last-minute gifts: Terrarium, $10

Got loved ones in need of more green? Here’s a last-minute gift idea that’s sure to provide them with a respite from the concrete jungle…

MISSION STATEMENT: One of the three owners of this well-turned-out Mission boutique crafts these “air plants” in bulbous aquarium bowls. Rocks, sand, moss, and greenery coexist peacefully within the bowels of the terrariums – the perfect window sill companion for your buddy who longs for more nature in their life.

3458 18th St., SF (415) 244-7457, www.missionstatementsf.com

For more last-minute gift ideas check out the Guardian’s Holiday Guide.

 

Live Shots: ‘Yes Sweet Can’ at Dance Mission Theater

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

Sweet Can Productions puts on a gonzo circus show, but with a focus on quotidien, real-world concerns. For its upcoming “Yes Sweet Can” show, running for over two weeks at Dance Mission Theater, the performance is inspired by everyday chores — and actually makes them seem like fun.

Cleaning can be a blast, apparently, and making a cup of hot chocolate — while balancing a pot of hot milk on your head, of course — can also be rather exciting. The performers’ talents as acrobats are obvious, their flexibility undeniable. Whenever I see them do those super-exaggerated back bends, I always think “Man, that must feel sooo good!”

The storyline at moments can seem a little vague, but that didn’t really seem to matter since the show is always moving forward (sometimes actually flying forward) with aerial feats, high up in the rafters of the theater.

“Yes Sweet Can” by Sweet Can Productions
Dance Mission Theater
3316 24th Street
Thru Jan 1, check website for times and prices
www.sweetcanproductions.com

A different kind of holiday fair: POOR Magazine’s Mercado de Cambio

Andrew Lam
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5

“Welcome to the revolution,” says Mariposa Villaluna as she staffed a table at POOR News Network’s annual holiday market and knowledge exchange on Saturday, Dec. 17. “We’ve been doing this for centuries.”

Villaluna, who has worked with POOR on many of its community art, education, and journalism initiatives geared towards low and no-income San Franciscans, described Saturday’s “Po’ Sto” as an alternative to more widespread – and more consumerism-oriented – holiday sales. 

At the Po’ Sto’, which occupied the third floor of the Mission District’s Redstone Building, she trades her handmade earrings for radical talk and fellow artists’ wares. For barter or sale: cotton onesies boldly disseminate at 62 Occupy sites. 

Villaluna said the guide is a primer of sorts to sustaining an inclusive revolution and provides Occupy encampments with oft-neglected perspectives — those of the elderly, indigenous, and undocumented. 

POOR News Network, a response to corporate control of media, includes a magazine, offers training in alternative journalism, and stages community gatherings like Saturday’s holiday market. 

Twinkling strands of lights hung behind the young men rapping at the front of the market. A huge roast chicken slowly shrank in a corner. And those who hold POOR’s mission close to their hearts –from five-year olds to 60-year olds – called out to each other across the space. 

Next up for POOR, says the magazine’s co-editor Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, is the realization of a decades-long dream. It will be called Homefulness and it will entail a community-driven space in Oakland that will hold a garden, school, journalism training center, and yes, homes. 

“Poverty is an industry nowadays,” says Gray-Garcia. “Our purpose is to launch microbusiness economies, to collectivize our forces and our traditions.”

Last-minute gifts: My Mission Guidebook, $7

Charles Russo
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0
Last-minute gifts: My Mission Guidebook, $7

 

Continuing the countdown of 11th hour gifts, here’s a locally-made Mission-centric guidebook that clocks in well under $10…

MISSION LOC@L: Mission Loc@l’s guidebook lives up to the neighborhood news site’s name: their pocket-sized collection of various Missionites’ (from grade-schoolers to aging boho poets) favorite places in the ‘hood could open the eyes of the most seasoned South Van Ness dweller to hidden gems amidst the murals and taco shops.

Available in various SF locations. Order online at www.missionlocal.org

For more last-minute gift ideas check out the Guardian’s Holiday Guide.

The Performant: Please appropriate me

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

Bryan Boyce and Negativwobblyland pump up the culture jams at L@te

Nighttime at the Berkeley Art Museum. An undercurrent of glee emanating from the patrons, as with a roomful of children up past their bedtimes. Enhancing the playground vibe, a giant orange mountain of rippling wooden waves designed by Thom Faulders, squats in the middle of the room, serving as seating for the assembled crowd, as well as pre-show entertainment as we scramble up its sides.

We’re here for the last L@te program of the year for a fanciful pairing between filmmaker Bryan Boyce and electronic noise ensemble Negativwobblyland, comprised of two parts Negativland (Mark Hosler and Peter Conheim) and one part Wobbly (Jon Leidecker). Pop culture appropriationists all, Boyce may be best known as the creator of the crassly hilarious political short “America’s Biggest Dick,” a tortured marriage of Dick Cheney and “Scarface,” while Negativland has been creating sonic mash-ups of samples and electronically-generated noise since 1979—including the infamous, legally-contested “U2” which combined a rude Casey Kasem rant with a casio-tone undercurrent of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and landed Negativland on the Fair Use frontlines.

As the lights dim, a brief burst of fanfare grabs attention, while on the projection screen the face of G.W. Bush superimposed on top of a cartoon sun, rises above the placid hills of Teletubbyland as a baby giggles offscreen. As cute little bunnies come out to play, the G.W. Bush sun firebombs them into oblivion with unexpected superpowers, smiling genially the whole time.

Terry Gilliam springs immediately to mind, and as more politically-pointed clips roll, so do the Yes Men, except instead of dressing up as politicians or corporate shills, the “characters” employed by Boyce is tweaked footage of actual politicians. “This is absolutely unbelievable,” boasts an “infomercial host” G.W. Bush with Jonathan Crosby’s “stunt mouth,” hawking macaroni and glitter “Election Collectibles” alongside Al Gore. Veering into more introspective ground, Boyce’s final two pieces ditch the politics for poetry-in-motion with “More is Always on the Way,” a series of quietly remarkable photographs of signs and billboards in their “native” urban habitat displayed with a spare, electronic soundtrack, and the other, “Whisper Hungarian Softly to Me,” a haunting blend of old Bela Lugosi footage and a trio of modern belly dancers with original music composed by Dan Cantrell. 

Negativwobblyland, clad in identical grey plaid shirts, take their places at a table set with piles of gear, in particular a series of five devices they call “boopers”—feedback devices inventively engineered from recycled radio and amplifier parts. The sonic onslaught created by these deceptively simple devices (and a few judiciously appended drum loops and samples of insect and animal noises) can be likened in some ways to the meandering of jazz improvisation, and inspires (in me, anyway) similar free-associations of image and impression. As the drone of an underwater sea creature, the loneliness of the long-distance trucker, a buzzing chainsaw disco, a teenage Atari foxtrot, the rumble of Tibetan long horns, and the high whine of a Himalayan mosquito swirl through my particular streams of consciousness, onstage, three fearless captains set a course for the opposite shore, jamming our earwaves with their slyly subversive, yet ultimately inclusive, collaboration.

 

Last-minute gifts: Vagabond Indie Craft Fair gems

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1

You may have missed the awesome Vagabond Indie Craft Fair this past Saturday in the backyard of Urban Bazaar, but luckily all the great, hecka-local vendors have shops online, so you still have time to snatch up some of their lovely wares for the holidays. And what do they have to offer you, you might ask? Check it out:

>>Dorklandia: Ridiculously cute and absurd, self-proclaimed “goofy little things.” Octopi that are fuzzy and loveable, a just-right gift for that clingy friend of yours.

>>Heathered: Super cool recycled wallets made out of those old vintage things we called the “fast pass.” Plus, ones made of maps, for your always-traveling auntie.

>>Art History Nerd: Edgar Allen Poe pendants and Picasso bracelets. Give one to that library school grad student in your life.

>>Yarrow Jewelry: Elegant dripping copper and crystal necklaces, and delicate pendant earrings. Your lady friend will love anything from this shop!

>>MzCreation: Penguin and giraffe felt hats. Wonderfully weird and so cozy. Your niece wants a panda one.

>>The Enchanted Square: Artist Ruth Tillman didn’t take a break and was busy at her stall crocheting cute aviator wool hats and adorable owl coin purses. Your brother will dig the aviator hat (crocheted goggles included).

>>Lady Alamo: Beautiful felt jewelery, plus super hip screen printed tote bags. Umm … I want one!

 

Last-minute gifts: Dick Vivian Mix CD, $10

Charles Russo
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2
Last-minute gifts: Dick Vivian Mix CD, $10

 

Need an 11th hour gift idea? Want to shop local and support Bay Area-owned businesses? Here’s a present that’s sure to please your music-loving loved ones…

ROOKY RICARDO’S: There is perhaps nothing more happy than a man with soul in his heart, as anyone who watches the YouTube video entitled “Dick Vivian cuttin’ the rug at Rooky’s!” can attest. Vivian is the owner and spiritual embodiment of the venerable Lower Haight record store, which he stocks with real-cheap 45s, vintage camera equipment, and a passel of witty lapel pins and magnets.

For real holiday majick, however, one must turn to Vivian’s lovingly-crafted mix CDs. There they sit, 10 bucks a pop with witty, retro-recreation packaging, a wonderland of ’60s soul, girl bands, and more. Many of the tracks, Vivian will attest, have never been captured in CD form before. Do you have a dad who still digs on the funky sounds of his youth? A buddy who is never more happy than when she’s doing the twist? You friend, have struck shopping list gold.

448 Haight, SF. (415) 864-7526, www.rookyricardos.com

For more last-minute gift ideas check out the Guardian’s Holiday Guide.

 

Gifted: A $25 three-course meal at the Cliff House

Andrew Lam
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0

Sure, the menu isn’t exactly on the cutting edge of cuisine. But I’ll tell you what, any buddy that turns down a three-course meal at the Cliff House? Clearly, the two of you need to have a talk. Preferably, over ocean views, cheese ravioli, baby spinach salad, and bread pudding.We consider the Cliff House one of SF’s premier destination restaurants. It clearly has one of the more epic locations. Perched on the crags overlooking the ruins of the Sutro Baths and that one creepy cave everyone walks through, it appears to be the gatekeeper to the roiling greyness that the Pacific usually is this time of year. It’s just about the perfect length of a bike ride down through the park (say hi to our freshly acquired baby bison, thanks Dick Blum, husband of Senator Diane Feinstein!), with a couple 100 feet of monster hill climb at the end, so you’re guaranteed to be hungry by the time you get there. 

And now you can take your roommate to the Cliff House’s fancy dining room, the Bistro, for 25 lousy bucks! (Just tell them in advance that they’re paying for their own drinks, unless you’ve been leaving your dirty dishes out recently) Every Wednesday, a different three-course meal beckons you out to where the avenues reach the sea, just north of where the Murphy Windmill’s vanes wait to turn, expensively. 

Hey, today is Wednesday! What’s on offer at the Bistro? Glad you asked… 

 

This week’s menu:

Course the first: Baby spinach salad with satsuma tangerines, candied walnuts, ricotta salata, and white balsamic vinaigrette

Course the second: Cheese ravioli with sautéed wild mushrooms in pomodora sauce and Parmesano-Reggiano

Course the third: Persimmon and white chocolate bread pudding with cinnamon crème anglaise

 

Incredible, yes? Scoop up your lucky holiday honey and celebrate not being at the mall. 

 

Cliff House

1090 Point Lobos, SF

(415) 386-3330

www.cliffhouse.com

Style Paige: Homeless youth show off their designing chops

Andrew Lam
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0
Style Paige: Homeless youth show off their designing chops

Five fashion-minded homeless youth – two men and three women  – had two hours to complete a fashion challenge using only donated clothing and street friendly supplies. That meant no sewing machines – more like dental floss, duct tape, and art supplies. The result? Find out by attending the Homeless Youth Alliance‘s screening of Project Runaway on Fri/16.

Some of the looks created in the series might come across as obvious – the streetpunk aesthetic of Haight-Ashbury’s homeless youth seems to have influenced a few of the garments. But not all. Other HYA participants went for more avant garde looks, like the “business pirate,” (as a HYA volunteer described one of the looks in a Guardian interview).

At Friday’s event, there will also be a fashion show at which a group of well-known fashion-forward judges will critique the garments and choose which DIY fashionista emerged victorious. The judging panel is still up in the air, but the center is hoping to land a former HYA participant who is now working in the fashion industry and a prominent fashion blogger.

Since the long-time haven for homeless youth has seen its funding recently cut by one-third, 100 percent of the ticket profits will go to the center – and in times like these, and particularly with the holidays fast approaching, a little bit of money can go a long way. Seven dollars will allow a youth at HYA the chance to get legal identification, and $30 will purchase 25 pairs of socks.  

The center hopes this is the first of many screenings of Project Runaway. So be an early adaptor –  come enjoy hors d’oeuvres and the inventiveness of young adults who are street and fashion savvy.

 

Homeless Youth Alliance screening of Project Runaway

Fri/16 7–8:30 p.m., $10-$30

Sports Basement

1590 Bryant, SF

(415) 437-0100

www.homelessyouthalliance.org

 

The Balboa is here to stay — fundraiser tonight!

Sue Vaughan
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The Balboa is here to stay — fundraiser tonight!

With all the bad news in the world, the recent announcement that the Richmond District’s historic Balboa Theatre would be keeping its doors open — thanks to a partnership between the non-profit San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation and the theater’s veteran operator, Gary Meyer — is cause for cinematic celebration. (Full release here.)

Under president Alfonso Felder, the SFNTF (which also owns the Vogue on Sacramento Street and oversees the “Film Night in the Park” series) will lease the Balboa through 2024 — taking the built-in-1926 landmark nearly to its 100th birthday. A fundraiser tonight offers the public a chance to step up and show support for this new partnership and help raise some dough for Balboa repairs and upgrades.

The event features a “Then and Now Presentation of San Francisco Theatres” (presumably, focusing more on the pre-multiplex days), plus an Oscar season preview (get a head start on your office pool!), and live and silent auctions, with items contributed by such local luminaries as the Film Noir Foundation‘s Eddie Muller. Some ticket levels include chances to “name” one of the brand-new seats in the auditorium and copies of Jack Tillmany’s Theatres of San Francisco, filled with historic photos of venues — some gone long ago, others shuttered only recently (remember the Coronet? Sigh). Fortunately, the Balboa looks set to thrive for years to come.

“Celebrating the Balboa Theatre: SFNTF Fundraiser”

Tues/13, 7-9 p.m., $35-$1000

Balboa Theatre

3630 Balboa, SF

www.sfntf.org

www.balboamovies.com

 

The Hangover: Dec. 8-11

Andrew Lam
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1

**Environmental concerns aside, there is something satisfying about delving into the lost art of film photography. Or maybe I was thrilling to analogue on account of all the pretty cameras that were on sale at the opening of Union Square’s new Lomography store on Thursday, Dec. 8. Pretty patterns, candy colors — coupled with the hand-infused vodkas in flavors like sasparilla, orange peel, and bayleaf being churned out by experimental mixers Cocktail Lab, the creative possibilities were intoxicating. The store specializes in cameras that produce Instagram-esque shots, check out the thousands of color-soaked photos that have been uploaded to its website by film freaks around the country. (Caitlin Donohue)

**A couple words used (and possibly made up) to describe Jose James’ show at New Parish on Friday night: swoontastic and babymakingmusic. The rising neo-crooner gigged in San Jose and SF the preceding two  evenings, but for our money it’s hard to beat the intimacy of the small Oakland venue. Whereas James’s previous shows in the Bay Area featured more traditional jazz with restrained piano accompaniment, on this tour he was backed up with a full band capable of illustrating his range. It made for a super talented quintet including keyboardist Kris Bowers (who appeared on Kanye and Jay Z’s Watch the Throne album), bassist Solomon Dorsey, trumpet player Takuya Kuroda (a familiar collaborator of James’s), and standout drummer Nate Smith. (Ryan Prendiville) 

**If there was one cohesive thread linking the entirety of the sold-out Tycho show at the Independent on Saturday night, it would be water. Basic H20. Though, more to the truth, water spruced up with rolling waves, psychedelic cuts, vintage surfers, and a hazy orangeish moon on the horizon — the latter a constant in the current Tycho aesthetic, gracing the cover of the recently released album, Dive (Ghostly International). Behind the live three-piece, there was a running stream of visuals with a few shots that appeared to be out of surfer-cinematographer George Greenough’s groundbreaking 1975 surf film, Crystal Voyager. Tycho’s ebb and flow rose with its backdrop; there was silvery synth and acid-popped live drum hits laced together with smooth, wandering guitar and rippling bass. With shots of giant kohl-rimmed eyes and warming balls of sun, the performance was complete. And what better night to see Tycho (a.k.a. SF’s Scott Hanson, a.k.a graphic designer ISO50) than the evening of the blood-red lunar eclipse? (Emily Savage)

**It’s been over a year since Dave Portner – the yelping member of Animal Collective better known as Avey Tare – released his crocodile-inspired solo debut Down There (Paw Tracks). Maybe Tare needed to spend some time away from the songs that dealt with divorce, death, and illness, as he only recently set out on tour in support of the album. He finished his brief solo tour on Sunday night at Oakland’s New Parish, and I couldn’t wait to finally check him out. The dismal grey weather was well-suited to Tare’s dark and murky debut. A youthful crowd clad in an unsettling amount of lumberjack plaid filled the venue. Onstage was a creepy Yoda skeleton and a white sequined cloth-draped table with a few baby crocodiles placed around several electronic instruments. (Frances Capell) 

Kenneth Patchen centennial: poetry that still resonates

Sue Vaughan
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1
Kenneth Patchen centennial: poetry that still resonates

Poet Kenneth Patchen was born in Niles, Ohio, 100 years ago on December 13, 1911. He died in Palo Alto in 1972. Due to a ruptured spinal disk that was never properly treated, Patchen produced some 30 volumes of poetry and prose largely from the confines of his bed — work, nonetheless, that fiercely engaged the modern world that raged on outside. In his words, “I speak for a generation born in one war and doomed to die in another.” For this, the Beats were deeply indebted to his work. Patchen however, who lived in Telegraph Hill in the 1950s, referred to “Ginsberg and Co.” and the media hype surrounding them as a “freak show.”

Patchen had a broad range — he could be political, tender, devotional, and surreal — and unlike the Beats, he vehemently opposed being labeled as one kind of poet or another. Kenneth Patchen: A Centennial Selection (Kelly’s Cove Press, paperback, $25), edited by Patchen’s friend Jonathan Clark, marks the 100th birthday of the indefinable poet. Clark first met Patchen in the 1960s as a teenager living in the same Palo Alto neighborhood as him. He describes the collection as “a personal selection of some poems in which I hear most clearly the voice of the man I remember…those seeking perfection had best look elsewhere…” Fair enough. However, the collection is also a reasonable review of the poet’s scope. And, if indeed modest, it’s still the only book that has observed the centennial.

Although he wrote poems of all kinds, Patchen was always an adamant pacifist with a social conscience. He could be blunt and unsparing in this regard. In an essay from 1946, novelist Henry Miller described Patchen with slight terror and open-mouthed awe as “the living symbol of protest:” “He is a fizzing human bomb ever threatening to explode in our midst.” It’s a disputed description of the man. But if one had been reading Patchen’s work and nothing of his life, it would sound befitting enough. In one poem alone, “What I Want to Know Is,” he refers to politicians as “filthy lying lice,” “foul bastards,” “lousy bastards,” and “frauds and fakers.” Patchen’s pacifism is closely tied to what he sees as the loss of innocence in society, the corrupted human spirit, and is often expressed with animals. Such is the case with the forbidding “The Lions of Fire Shall Have Their Hunting:”
 
The lions of fire
Shall have their hunting in this black land
 
Their teeth shall tear at your soft throats
Their claws kill
…………………………………..

Because you are sick with the dirt of your money
Because you are pigs rooting in the swill of your war
Because you are mean and sly and full of the pus of your
     pious murder
 
Clark has also included a selection of Patchen’s artwork in the book (though the cover and back images are not the poet’s best). Patchen first started painting in 1942 to make cover illustrations for his book The Dark Kingdom, and it eventually led him to reimagine all his subsequent volumes. Larry Smith, Patchen’s biographer, notes that Patchen pioneered “the painted book, the concrete poem in which type set is used to paint the poem on the page, the drawing-and-poem form, the poetry-prose experiments of his anti-novels, and finally the picture-poem form.”

In A Centennial Selection, the artwork ranges from animals reminiscent of Chagall with words floating around them, such as “peace now for all men or amen to all things,” to an untitled work that would have been in line with Patchen’s New York School contemporaries. The latter is proof that Patchen was a painter in his own right, not simply a poet with a paintbrush. Franz Kline, upon seeing his art, called Patchen “more of an artist than most artists today.”
 
Patchen’s poems, especially those with a political edge, are as relevant as they ever were. It’s an appropriate coincidence that the Occupy Movement — and more recently, Take Back the Capitol — should correspond with Patchen’s 100th birthday. From his first volume of poetry in 1936, Before the Brave (which the New York Times categorized as Marxist), Patchen wrangled with the same questions that many people are weighing today — questions of power and greed, corruption, accountability, and of course, war. Patchen, who was invariably poor his whole life, saw things as a collective human struggle, and he placed himself squarely in that struggle with his poetry.
 
As Clark admits, A Centennial Selection has its shortcomings. But it’s a nice way to revisit Patchen’s poems and artwork and to see how both continue to work and be relevant today. Newcomers to Patchen, however, best refer to The Collected Poems.

Here are two of Kenneth Patchen’s best recordings, poems which are included in A Centennial Selection: the droll “State of the Nation” and the unusual “The Origin of Baseball.” Here you can pick up on Patchen’s dark and uncanny sense of humor.

Kenneth Patchen “The State of the Nation” by jmill116

Kenneth Patchen, “The Origin of Baseball” by jmill116

The Performant: Cheap thrills

Andrew Lam
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Bargain Basement Mondays and Amoebapalooza

The upside to living in a city as notoriously pricey as San Francisco is that despite the myriad opportunities to blow too much cash on a mediocre time out, there are plenty of options for cheaper entertainments, keeping the broke-ass among us from being eternally housebound. This weekend in particular, a couple of low-budge music showcases offered those too skint to make it to Iggy Pop a way to afford more beer by charging less cover, and one even threw in the pizza! Sure, rocking out with the godfather of punk would have been quite a bang for its buck, but at least Bottom of the Hill and Café du Nord offered economical alternatives to hanging out in a drafty San Francisco flat Google-stalking Mike Watt. Not that I’d know anything about that.

If free’s your price, then Bargain Basement Mondays at Bottom of the Hill is your place. A once-monthly showcase of local musicians with no cover charge, the attitude is chummy and freewheeling. This week’s lineup was intriguing in that it was not just a random assortment of strangers, but instead a loose coalition of one-man bands gathered together to put on a show subdued only in decibels, but certainly not in invention.

I made it just in time to catch Andrew Goldfarb “The Slow Poisoner” halfway through a cluster of bug-themed songs, such as the instrumental “Spastic Maggot” (a personal fave). Goldfarb’s musical sensibility is one part Southern Gothic, one part B-movie creature feature, and one part swampy psychobilly, and in addition to accompanying himself on the electric guitar and kick drum, he also provides a visual “slideshow” of oversized flashcards with the names of each song painted in Goldfarb’s distinctive cartooning style, deceptively simple lines, skewed perspectives, and boneless, Piraro-esque physiology.     

Sean Lee’s 1manbanjo act followed, in which he led a spontaneous conga line of oddience members around the dance floor, beating time on a snare drum strapped to his back while strumming his mandolin-sized banjo, a hobo pied piper in a rumpled suit. A member of Thee Hobo Gobbellins, about half of Lee’s set was comprised of songs from their Alice in Wonderland-themed “Cheshire Rock Opera”—next slated to play the Oakland Metro on Jan 27, 2012. Last but certainly not least, Jordan B. Wilson debuted his very interesting music-making machine, which the other musicians kept referring to as a “squid”. An elaborate array of cables , computers, mixing boards, and drumsticks snaked around an entire drum kit’s worth of percussion, additionally Wilson played a double-necked guitar with keys, and sang, a triumph of multi-tasking, to say nothing of the three-year creation process of his singular contraption. 

Sunday’s Amoebapalooza, the annual open-to-the-public holiday party of Amoeba Music employees, was as quirky and varied as the music selection at our favorite converted bowling alley, during which the employees rocked the stage, and the aforementioned pizza was distributed like the modern equivalent to a Dickenson turkey. With a couple of exceptions (Vanishing Breed being one), most of the bands gave the impression of being hastily assembled for the purpose of playing this one show, but for five bucks, and all-you-can eat, it basically paid for itself, which was ultimately the desired effect..

Give The Performant a reason to Twit. Follow @enkohl for of-the-minute updates from the underground

 

Style Paige: Be funneled

Andrew Lam
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Style Paige: Be funneled

Well-dressed men always make me a little weak in the knees. What can I say; I’m a sucker for fashion. But in a city like San Francisco, where men’s clothing stretches from one end to the style spectrum to the other, it is the simplest of styles that catch my eye.  

Wearing a wool trenchcoat, dark blue jeans, and tassel loafers, Rolando Brown was waiting for his BART train to arrive when I interrupted him mid-text message.

Making his outfit edgy and modern, Brown wore his funnel collar coat with a black hoody tucked underneath. Designers Richard Chai for Penguin and John Varvatos have created similar looks recently — trenchcoats in tweeds, camel, cashmere, and solids that make it easy for men to be trendy when bad weather arises. 

My be-styled traveler was also wearing brown leather loafers, footwear that you really can’t go wrong with regardless of the decade. I once read in GQ that if Michael Jackson can rock loafers with white socks, then there’s no reason why everyone else can’t follow his lead. 

 

All will be revealed!

Sue Vaughan
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The art of storytelling took a hit the day Johannes Gutenberg began fucking around with moveable type (on or around Tuesday, 1450), but stoking a good story by firelight or halogen lamp hangs on as a cultural desideratum in places like Ireland or San Francisco. Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick figured that out a long time ago, of course, with their Porchlight series (nine years running and going strong). But “Previously Secret Information” has lately proved there is plenty more storytelling worth accommodating in this chatty town.
 
Produced by stalwart stand-up comic Joe Klocek and impresarios Bruce Pachtman and Ty Mckenzie, “PSI” slants toward the comic and happens on the odd Sunday at Stage Werx Theatre — including this Sun/11, oddly enough. The new installment features well-known pop music critic Joel Selvin, with consummate insider dish about Bill Graham back in the day; the Dursts (political satirist Will and partner in comedy Debi), recounting an understandably bizarre White House wedding they attended (I’m guessing probably not in the Bush years); and Sammy Obeid, a former UC Berkeley honor roll student turned stand-up comic (it must have been one of those funny majors), relating the story of how a teetotaler gets a DUI.

It’s already an impressive bill. But there’s more: Klocek joins the lineup with his own account of how “Barney the Dinosaur Got My Butt Kicked.” I don’t know if this tail tale can match Klocek’s last “PSI” offering — a near-death experience that changed the course of his life that was at times predictably hilarious, at times surprisingly moving, and always genuine — but I’d be keen to find out.
 
“Previously Secret Information (PSI)”
Sun/11, 7 p.m., $15
Stage Werx Theatre
446 Valencia, SF
www.stagewerx.org

No more Scrooge: A list of nonprofits that still have holiday volunteer slots

Andrew Lam
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No more Scrooge: A list of nonprofits that still have holiday volunteer slots

Mincemeat, Christmas goose, Hannukah gelt, lush sprays of holly bedecking the proverbial halls – traditionally, the December holidays are all about richness, overeating, and expense. But — especially these days — not everyone will be blessed with bounty over the holidays. In trying economic times, the number of San Franciscans struggling to put food on the table let alone buy their loved ones presents is steadily growing. 

So volunteer. San Franciscans have a long-standing tradition of helping out come the holidays, and many of the traditional community meals and grocery hand-outs have filled up their guest lists like a Big Freedia show during Pride Week. Nevertheless, a bunch of opportunities remain for those looking to lend a last-minute hand.

San Francisco Food Bank

Given recent funding cuts to the organization, the San Francisco Food Bank is taking all the help it can get in its quest to feed an ever-growing number of hungry San Franciscans. An enviably efficient volunteer system relies on interested helpers to sign up on an online calendar before showing up for their shift of repackaging food for community distribution.

900 Pennsylvania, SF. www.sffoodbank.org


Glide Memorial Church

Signing up to volunteer with Glide is a bit like jockeying for the last square of fudge. But luckily the organization – a superpower of Samaritan spirit – has a few spots left for December. Chose between an early-morning grocery bag distribution gig or a toy sorting task.

330 Ellis, SF. www.glide.org


St. Anthony’s

Packed to the gills with volunteers for its main events, St. Anthony’s is still calling out for help with two upcoming items: managing curbside drop-offs on December 23rd and 24th and clothing collection throughout the month. Both duties require the volunteer to be at least somewhat physically fit and able to lift 25 pounds of goodies. Shifts are four to five hours long and can be signed up for via a voicemail message to the volunteer hotline (see below). 

150 Golden Gate, SF. (415) 592-2829, www.stanthonysf.org


Tenderloin Tessie

If you’re looking to participate in a volunteer-run, community-oriented holiday dinner, this is one of  the best bets as better-known options are already staffed out the wazoo. Tenderloin Tessie provides holiday meals to homeless, low-income, disabled, and elderly San Franciscans – and has a wide-open sign-up sheet for volunteers. December 24th shifts involve loading and unloading food from the truck while shifts on Christmas Day are dedicated to decorating the dining room, preparing and serving dinner, and cleaning up afterwards. 

First Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin, SF. Call Michael Gagne at (415) 584-3252 to register, www.tenderlointessie.com


Meals on Wheels San Francisco

The nationwide organization that delivers healthy meals to homebound seniors is peddling its Chefs of the Bay Area calendar for the next few weeks at various locations throughout the city. Individual volunteers are needed to staff the tables and promote the calendars, the proceeds from which eventually translate into someone’s hot holiday dinner.

1375 Fairfax, SF. Contact Danie Belfield at dbelfield@mowsf.org or call (415) 343-1311, www.mowsf.org


Habitat For Humanity

Habitat Greater San Francisco holds an ongoing inter-faith build on one of their largest projects to date, a 36-unit condominium at 7555 Mission.  No construction experience is necessary, and December 21 marks the start of their Winter Solstice Build, a community-driven effort to get the Daly City residence available to low-income tenants as soon as possible.

7555 Mission, Daly City. Sign up online at www.habitatgsf.org


Little Brothers San Francisco

Not everyone has family around for the holidays, and older San Franciscans can be especially in need of some care and affection. Little Brothers organizes several opportunities for volunteers looking to befriend community elders, from Christmas Day house visits to phone check-ins to help at the office. 

Various locations, SF. Sign up online or at (415) 771-7957, www.littlebrotherssf.org


AIDS Emergency Fund

Unlimited slots for volunteers pretty much guarantees a perfect present of a Christmas Eve dinner for San Franciscans with HIV/AIDS and their families. Last year, more than 1,000 people ate; this year (the 24th such dinner), a similar turnout is expected. Load-in of supplies begins at 10 a.m. on December 23rd and shifts run all day on Christmas Eve, starting at 8 a.m.

War Memorial Veterans Building, 401 Van Ness, SF. www.aef-sf.org, sign up at aefxmas@aol.com.


Jewish Family and Children’s Services

Gather and deliver holiday treats to those who might not otherwise celebrate the holidays on December 16th and 18th at the JFCS. Individuals and groups of volunteers are both welcome; sign up by December 9.

2150 Post, SF. Call (415) 449-3832 or email loril@jfcs.org to sign up. 


SF SPCA

A sprinkling of volunteer spots remains (especially post-Christmas) at the SPCA’s annual window display at Macy’s Union Square. Staff the windows – full of then-and-there-adoptable creatures – to raise money for future SPCA programs. 

Email windowsvolunteer@sfspca.org, use the online calendar, or call (415) 554-3008 to register, www.sfspca.org 


Hayes Valley Farm

Always open to volunteers, Hayes Valley Farm, an off-ramp-turned-urban-ag-oasis, holds special holiday hours for those looking to weed away end-of-year poundage or just engage with some of the happiest plants and gardeners in San Francisco. December 27 marks the first post-holiday gardening session and is sure to host droves of veterans and newbies alike.

450 Laguna, SF. www.hayesvalleyfarm.org

 

Lit shorts: Cocker, on paper

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Lit shorts: Cocker, on paper

Mother, Brother, Lover
By Jarvis Cocker
Faber and Faber
208 pp., hardcover, $17
 
Books of lyrics — words uprooted from the music and set down naked on the page — are traditionally published with either self-congratulation or doubts by songwriters. Jarvis Cocker has some doubts.

“Lyrics are not poetry: they are words to songs,” he writes in the reluctant and faintly self-conscious introduction to Mother, Brother, Lover: The Selected Lyrics of Jarvis Cocker. But the former Pulp front man doesn’t give himself enough credit. His persona as a sexual fantasist makes for devilishly entertaining stories — scotched lovers, adultery, watching someone’s sister from the bedroom closet — all of which become more vivid here. Pulp classics like “Do You Remember the First Time?” are plain funnier when you can pick up on the subtleties in punctuation and position of words. Notes in the back are similarly revealing. The title of the misfit anthem “Mis-shapes” comes from chocolates called by the same name that are too malformed to fit in boxes.

Read more reviews in our Books Issue, on stands now

Lit shorts: ‘Beck’ by the book

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Lit shorts: ‘Beck’ by the book

Beck
By Autumn de Wilde
Chronicle Books
176 pp., hardcover, $35
 
For more than a decade and half, pop culture photographer (and video director) Autumn de Wilde has chronicled Beck, the iconic songwriter and her personal friend, on tour, in the studio, and as he’s posed before the camera — the latter especially.

Indeed, in Wilde’s photos we find Beck looking as impenetrably cool as ever. Incorporating fewer candid shots and plenty of showy staged ones — Beck in a white suite; Beck lifting an enormous red egg; Beck surrounded by loosely clad dancers — the collection has few insights into the mythologized songwriter and too many into his eclectic wardrobe. Wilde is a fine photographer, but her photos evoke the same Beck we’ve been looking at for decades. For real insights, look to the front of the book at the conversations between Wilde and Beck, where the two are finishing each other’s sentences and looking back on their collaboration. 

Read more book reviews in our Books Issue, on stands now

Style Paige: Does this go together?

Andrew Lam
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Style Paige: Does this go together?

Don’t you wish there was a how-to-guide on how to mix and match patterns properly? How do you really know if that leopard and that floral look good together? There should some kind of chart online you can download that tells you if seesucker pants and a neon T-shirt is an okay fashion combo. Let’s just come to terms with it: true style doesn’t come from pat answers.

When I stopped Alexandra Haag on 18th Street and Mission, she was wearing a red and black leopard-spotted vintage top and a blue and black tribal-print skirt. For her, mixing and matching is easy. “Just put it on. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, find something else.” she said.

Simple logic: think less. Brands like Dolce and Gabbana have already embraced this winter trend with its floral print top-leopard print bottom dress. But you don’t have to go to Nordstrom to purchase such an outfit. You probably have the essentials in your closet, say a plaid shirt and paisley pants, or a polka dot blouse and striped leggings. 

Remember, there are no rules.

 

 

Skew your perceptions: Lomography’s new gallery store opens Thursday

Andrew Lam
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Almost as cryptic as some of their warped, blurred, color-drenched photos is the Lomography Society’s 10th rule: “Don’t worry about any rules.” For an artistic movement as commercially successful (the fantastically cheap cameras sell at Urban Outfitters worldwide) and historically important (the LOMO LC-A, the first lomographic camera, was mass produced in Soviet Russia for the enjoyment of the proletariat masses) as Lomography, it sure is hard to pin down.

The term at this point encompasses a photographic style, loose and experimental, centered upon the  purposely faulty cameras that produce wildly unexpected results. But Lomography is also a broad, inclusive movement that hosts a massive website on which “Lomographers” can display their work – not to mention a magazine emphasizing the “analogue lifestyle” and gallery stores the world over.

San Francisco gets its own hub of lomographic activity December 8 with the opening of a gallery store at 309 Sutter. 

Our city is already home to quite a bit of Lomogramania; any foray into the geotagged-recesses of the expansive website yields glimpses of our bridge pillars and telephone wires, delightfully skewed. 

The new gallery store will serve as as a kind of colorful, artistically-bent Apple store, chockful of products, sure, but just as much about the tactile, try-out experience. Veterans and the uninitiated alike can participate in workshops, snag items from the entire Lomography product line, and check out local work on display. 

The gallery store, the latest of more than 30 from Guangzhou to Cologne, opens Thu/8 with a party that seems fittingly eclectic, featuring barbeque, moonshine punch, bluegrass, and the soul stylings of Hard French’s DJ Carnita. The store’s regular hours will be Mon.-Sat., 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

 

Lomography San Francisco gallery store opening

Thu/8 7 p.m., free

309 Sutter

(415) 248-0083

RSVP to shopsf@lomography.com

www.lomography.com

 

Burning Man attendees anxious over new ticketing system

Sasha Cuttler
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Burning Man attendees are feeling anxious over a new lottery-based ticketing system set up this year to address the growing popularity of the event, so much so that an unprecedented number of them are now registering for pre-sale tickets – which were originally intended as holiday gifts – that are being sold at the top-tier price of $420.

Black Rock City LLC, the San Francisco-based company that stages the annual late-summer event in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, announced the new system last month, setting off a cascade of online denunciations and expressions of anxiety over whether burners will be able to secure enough tickets for their friends, family, and project partners.

“There’s been a strong reaction for all the reasons we thought would happen,” said Marian Goodell, one of six LLC board members responsible for the decision, who said they searched in vain for a better label for the new system. “The word ‘lottery’ is highly charged and unfortunately people equate a lottery with one in a million odds to win a fortune.”

But she said they needed to try something new after last year’s problems, when strong demand for tickets on the first day of sales repeatedly crashed the online ticketing system, and when the event sold out in late July for the first time in its 25-year history, causing scalpers to sell tickets for double-face-value in many cases.

The first round of ticket sales aren’t likely to ease people’s concerns – it could make them more nervous. As in previous years, the LLC is selling 3,000 tickets in December, and their high prices have previously kept demand at around that level. But not this year, as several thousand people have already registered for a lottery-based sale whose registration period ends Dec. 11.

“If 10,000 people apply for 3,000 tickets, I’ve got more unhappy people than I want,” Goodell said.

Those who don’t get tickets will automatically be registered for the main ticket sale in January, when everyone else will register at either the $240, $320, and/or $390 tiered pricing levels to buy up to two tickets from the 40,000 being sold then (10,000 at the lowest tier and 15,000 each at the next two). Notifications will go out on Feb. 1.

Then, in March, about 10,000 more tickets will be sold on a first come, first served basis. Goodell said the exact number of tickets sold then will depend on the permit that is issued by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for next year’s Burning Man. The LLC has been seeking the negotiate a five-year permit that will allow the event to gradually grow up to 70,000 people.

“We’re looking at a five-year permit and the five-year permit has the potential to grow bigger. What that looks like in the first year isn’t clear yet,” Goodell said.

There are mixed views in the Burning Man community to growing Black Rock City far beyond its current size of just over 50,000 people. It would open the event to more people, but that presents challenges to acculturation and the logistics of getting people to and from a far-flung locale accessed only by a narrow highway with one lane in each direction.

Earlier this year, the LLC moved into a more high-profile headquarters space on mid-Market and set up a nonprofit called the Burning Man Project, which will eventually supplant the LLC in running the event and which is intended to pursue more projects off the playa.

“We’re all for Burning Man culture continuing to grow, and fortunately we have other avenues to grow, including the nonprofit and the regional events,” Goodell said. “The city has all kinds of other constraints.”

Critics last year complained about scalpers reselling Burning Man tickets at high prices, something frowned on in the community and discouraged by the LLC, although it did little to address the problem. An analysis done by the online ticket site Seat Geek found that the average resale price of $350 before the sellout increased to almost $700 afterward, with the highest price ticket going for $1,120.

Goodell said that the only way to minimize the scalping of Burning Man tickets would have been to create a system in which all buyers were identified by name and after-market ticket sales were regulated by the organization, “and that’s more than we were willing to do.” Instead, the LLC will be creating an online system for reselling tickets and guarding against counterfeits, with details to be announced later.

But she predicted the new system will work better than the old one and that most people’s anxieties are unfounded.

“Most people who think ahead are going to get a ticket,” Goodell said, later adding, “It’s a lot less scary than people think.”

 

Bay Guardian City Editor Steven T. Jones is the author of The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture (2011, CCC Publishing)

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