SFBG Blogs

Style Paige: h.Naoto’s Gothic glam (finally) makes it to the States

Andrew Lam
-
0
Style Paige: h.Naoto’s Gothic glam (finally) makes it to the States

For Nikki Azuma, Japanese fashion is a lifestyle. The 28-year-old  has been obsessing over Japanese fashion for years, admiring the clothing through fashion magazines and crafting outfits of her own. “It’s my identity,” Azuma said, dressed in a red and black striped tutu dress. 

It was Saturday and Azuma was attending the store opening of one of her favorite designer’s first U.S. store, in Japantown’s New People mall. Naoto Hirooka’s avant garde line h.Naoto is the leading Gothic brand for men and women in Tokyo. It’s worn by Japanese and American pop culture icons like X-Japan and Evanescence. The opening coincided with the brand’s 10th anniversary.

Azuma compared Hirooka’s brand to a good meal, one in which each bite works together to form a transcendent whole. “Everything about each piece [in his line] compliments each other. They’re not overworked,” she said.   

h.Naoto is a blend between Gothic, Lolita, and punk styles, mixing leather, lace, and chains. It’s a combination of hard and soft that might seem strange with those unacquainted with Japanese couture — but deeper inspection reveals a cohesive, original line. 

More blackness from the h.Naoto New People stock. Guardian photo by Paige A. Ricks

To commemorate the store opening on the second level of the New People mall – the space previously occupied by another Burton-esque line, Black Peace Now — there was an exhibit showcasing Hirooka designs once sported by celebrities. Mannequins were dressed quite strikingly; floor-length coats with large collars, pants held together with safety pins. 

Hirooka said he hopes San Franciscans feel inspired by his clothing. 

“When you wear my clothing, you can transform into someone else,” he said in the midst of his opening. “Each piece is unique and you can play a different character.” 

His designs do tend to encourage playacting – they’re structured and tailored, but splashed with white, pink, and turquoise, reflecting the current military and biker trends in Japan. Almost every piece in the store is black, but this colored edginess seems to most appeal to the designer’s young customers. 

Another of Hirooka’s admirers Susan Noh marveled at how the designer’s ability to take existing styles and subvert them into his own ideals. Noh used to order h.Naoto online, even traveling to Japan buy the clothing on occasion.

But now that there is a store in her backyard she’s excited to leave her suitcase empty. “I absolutely love everything,” she said of the New People collection.  

It’s cheaper than a ticket to Tokyo, but still not cheap. Because of the distinctiveness of h.Naoto, the clothing ranges from $100 to $300 for jackets, dresses, and blouses. (The store does sell less expensive items like t-shirts and tank tops.)

 

H.Naoto store

New People, second floor

1747 Post, SF 

www.newpeopleworld.com

 

Brown vetoes bicycle buffer zone

Sasha Cuttler
-
92
Brown vetoes bicycle buffer zone

Anyone who has ever ridden a bicycle knows how scary and dangerous it is when cars pass too closely at high speed. So the California Bicycle Coalition made its top legislative priority for the year a bill, SB 910, to require drivers to give bicyclists a three-foot buffer or slow down to 15 mph. And even though the Legislature overwhelmingly approved this reasonable traffic safety measure, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed it on Friday.

“His veto made no sense. We honestly can’t figure out why he vetoed the bill,” said CBC executive director Dave Snyder, a San Francisco resident who used to run the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and who founded Transportation for a Livable City (now known as Livable City). “It’s not based on logic or public policy, but just based on politics.”

The California Highway Patrol and California Department of Transportation opposed the measure on the grounds that it could impede the flow of automobile traffic, and Brown cited their stand in his veto message. Indeed, keeping cars moving at high speed has long been the central goal of these agencies, even when it has high economic, environmental, or public safety costs.

But Snyder is right that Brown’s veto message is confusing and contradictory. He expresses support for the three-foot buffer, but expresses concern about slowing traffic to 15 mph, seemingly confused about the meaning of the word “or,” meaning drivers can provide the buffer or slow down to a safe passing speed if they’re unable to give bicyclists that much room.

People who don’t ride bikes tend to forget that automobiles are deadly weapons, and that a bicyclist’s brief swerve to avoid a pothole, broken glass, or other hazard can have disastrous consequences if a car is passing too closely. This veto follows another illogical one – Brown’s rejection of Sen. Mark Leno’s local vehicle license fee bill, which would have pumped $75 million into SF’s coffers and was almost universally supported by this year’s mayoral field – that gave undue deference to automobile owners.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Police Department recently launched a crackdown on bicyclists in the city, issuing dozens of tickets on Market Street for running stop lights and on Townsend for briefly riding on the sidewalk en route to the Caltrain station – and ignoring the nearby cars parked in bike lanes and running those same red lights.

Now, before we get to the commenters’ tirade about scofflaws on bicycles – which come every time we write about bikes – let me note that people break the law on every form of transportation, everyday. Motorists speed, run stop signs and lights, and illegally edge past pedestrians (who themselves jaywalk with great regularity). And every Muni bus has several riders who haven’t paid. None of us are angels, so try not to get too worked up into a sanctimonious rage.

But if you want to truly understand why bicyclists can often be so flagrant in our disregard for the law, consider that we’re using a transportation system and abiding traffic laws that weren’t designed for us. Seriously, just ride a bike and you’ll quickly understand. We don’t need to stop at every stop sign or signal light to have a safe, smooth-flowing transportation system that doesn’t steal the right-of-way from drivers, who we can usually see and hear coming with plenty of time to stop. Idaho and other jurisdictions actually treat bikes differently than cars in this realm, with laws that don’t require cyclists to lose momentum by repeatedly coming to complete stops, and it works well.

The fact is, the bike buffer bill is the very minimum that we need to encourage cycling as a safe and appealing transportation option to more people, which would only help our environment, public health, and dependence on fossil fuels. And the fact that it was vetoed for petty, illogical reasons is incredibly frustrating.

Yet there may be a silver lining to this. Snyder said the CBC, which is just beginning to increase its reach and influence and to prepare a more ambitious agenda on behalf of California cyclists, will use this defeat as a launching pad for future efforts.

“The main benefit of the three-foot bill was the community organizing that we did to get is passed. So now we can leverage that for our next steps,” Snyder said. “California needs a lot more than a three-foot buffer to give people more safe transportation choices.”

The Performant: They Might be Giants

Andrew Lam
-
0

Stagewerx and SF Olympians Festival go big

It’s been a turbulent year for independent theatre and its venues. In truth, every year is. But there have been some notable successes too. Boxcar Theatre’s addition of a new studio space on Hyde Street. Bindlestiff Theatre’s move into a new permanent space. Pianofight’s acquisition of the old Original Joe’s in order to create a hybrid performance space-kitchen-bar right on the cutting edge of the downtown theatre district. 

And just in case you’d missed it, this is the month that Stagewerx, which has been occupying the literal theatrical underground in the basement of 533 Sutter since 2007, has opened the doors of its community-supported digs at 446 Valencia — the old Intersection for the Arts space. 

Following a big-ticket Kickstarter campaign* and months of hard labor, rebuilding one venue from scratch while running another, the Stagewerx crew’s labor of love has finally put down its expansive roots in the Mission District.

It was a low-key but convivial christening, a bevy of Stagewerx supporters and performers (and supporter-performers) poking around the nooks and crannies of the strangely familiar, yet revitalized space. The evening’s emcee, Mikl-em, presided over a variety show of musicians and comedians (and musician-comedians), including a special guest appearance from Carol Channing, as well as one by Sean Owens, who mysteriously often appears on the same bill as Channing. (It’s rumored they share a booking agent.) 

Other acts included Circus Finelli, Tom Sway from Undergroud Sound, Joe Klocek from Previously Secret Information, Tom Jonesing, Don Seaver, and Gerri Lawlor. No sooner was the party over, Stagewerx hit the ground running with a Monday performance of the Picklewater Clown Cabaret and a four-weekend whirlwind of sketch comedy dubbed PanderFest 2011, co-starring Pianofight’s Mission CTRL and Crisis Hopkins. 

Meanwhile downtown, another theatre festival of quietly epic proportions. The SF Olympians Festival, opened with staged readings of new full-length plays by Thunderbird Theatre Company and Megan Cohen and a veritable constellation of shorts, kicking off a four-weekend run of its own on the EXIT Theatre mainstage. 

In its second year, the SF Olympians Festival uniquely fuses ancient Greek mythology with modern-day theatre-making, with each play featuring a different mythological figure—from Andromeda to Zephyrus—and a different local playwright (there are 29 represented in this festival of 32 plays). 

On Friday, a three-play bill of two shorts and one full-length work debuted, thematically clustered around Orion, one of the most recognizable of all constellations. Claire Rice’s very short, “Dog Day”, starred Benji Cooper as Canis, who morphed into the narrator of stage directions for Megan Cohen’s full-length “Hunter and Hunted,” which turned the Orion myth into an updated crime noir. 

Starring Matt Gunnison as the beleaguered “Joe Ryan,” an old-school detective on the trail of the Scorpio gang, Cohen’s often humorous play turned the otherwise familiar streets of San Francisco, from North Beach to the Panhandle, into a giant playground for the infamous Scorpio gang. 

Rounding out the evening with a case of constellation envy was “Scorpio,” a short penned by Seanan Palermo, starring an exasperated John Lennon Harrison as the titular character, fruitlessly pursuing Orion across the deserts of Arizona. There’re still three weekends left of the festival, each night more ambitious than the last, and at just ten bucks a pop, repeat visits are not only possible, but recommended.   

*Full disclosure, the author of this piece made a kickstarter donation to the Stagewerx campaign.


PanderFest 2011

Through Oct. 29

Various times, $20

Stagewerx

446 Valencia, SF

www.stagewerx.org/446.html

www.panderexpress.com

 

SF Olympians Festival

Through Oct. 29

 Various times, $10

Exit Theatre

156 Eddy, SF

www.sffringe.org

www.sfolympians.com

 

 

Lee’s talking points sound familiar

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
15
Lee’s talking points sound familiar

Interim Mayor Ed Lee released a 17-point jobs plan last week as part of his bid for mayor, prompting City Attorney Dennis Herrera to accuse the interim mayor of “plagiarism” since Herrera, also a contender for mayor, issued a 17-point jobs plan himself earlier this year.

Herrera’s campaign also criticized Lee for ending his plan with Herrera’s signature slogan, “a city that works.”

But Herrera isn’t the only mayoral candidate for whom Lee’s campaign rhetoric rings a bell. Board President David Chiu, who attracted a great deal of attention earlier this year for his statement that supervisors are elected not to take positions but to “get things done,” seems to have served as a muse to the campaign consultants who thought up Lee’s campaign slogan: “Ed Lee Gets it Done.”

(Which — is it just me? — or does having that phrase plastered everywhere bring to mind something more like this?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnDO5VTge6w

Lee’s “new era of civility in City Hall,” meanwhile, closely echoes language Chiu has used on the campaign trail. At a campaign stop in June, Chiu told a room of supporters that before civility was restored this year, “City government was frankly pretty dysfunctional.” Politicians from different political factions bickered with one another, he said, and “they literally couldn’t even sit in the same room.”

At an Aug. 11 rally, Lee told supporters, “We have changed the tone in which we run government,” and added, “I still have in my mind the screaming and the yelling” that the city family used to engage in. 

A few more striking similarities, taken from the candidates’ respective campaign websites:

*  David Chiu says he’ll “Prioritize hiring of local residents.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Hire San Franciscans.”

*  David Chiu says he’ll “Invest in community institutions and infrastructure.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Invest in infrastructure jobs.”

*  David Chiu says he’ll “Support the continued growth of the technology sector.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Attract & grow the jobs of the future.”

*  David Chiu says he’ll “[Expand] the impact of SFMade.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Revive local manufacturing – ‘Made in San Francisco.’”

*  David Chiu says he’ll “Fill vacant storefronts.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Improve blighted areas.”

*  David Chiu says he’ll “Reform our broken business tax. San Francisco is the only city in California that levies a tax on businesses exclusively on payroll.”
*  Ed Lee says he’ll “Reform the Payroll tax  … Mayor Lee knows that San Francisco’s current business tax structure punishes job creation when it should reward it.”

Asked to comment on the remarkable similarities in campaign materials, Lee spokesperson Tony Winnicker told the Guardian, “It’s just another baseless attack from Dennis Herrera’s campaign, only this one sounds like he’s in the third grade.

“Mayor Lee has been giving small business loans and recruiting new jobs to San Francisco from his first days as Mayor,” Winnicker continued. “His economic plan builds on the good work and projects underway and includes many genuinely new ideas to create even more jobs for the future.”

Winnicker added, “As for President Chiu, it’s no surprise that he and Mayor Lee would share many views on how to create jobs for our City as they’ve worked together closely on many issues throughout the year. He thinks President Chiu has many good ideas in addition to Mayor Lee’s own new proposals in our 17-point economic plan. Mayor Lee looks forward to continuing to work with Board President Chiu to create jobs for every neighborhood of our City.”

Localized Appreesh: Waterstrider

Tony Robles
-
0
Localized Appreesh: Waterstrider

Localized Appreesh is our weekly thank-you column to the musicians that make the Bay. Each week a band/music-maker with a show, album release, or general good news is highlighted and spotlit. To be considered, contact emilysavage@sfbg.com.

They seem a plucky bunch: Nate Salman, Alex Siegel, Clayton Ernst, Sean Suess, Brijean Murphy, and Walker Johnson – a.k.a Berkeley’s Waterstrider. The group, which somewhat formed in 2010 (but really got together this year), blends Afro-pop and synthesizers – and yet manages to sound authentic. Perhaps the intimacy of the Berkeley co-ops helped shape the sound; this is a six-person collective that is in-tune with itself, though the current lineup has only been together about a month. What they’ve accomplished in such a short amount of time is the main reason they’re here in Localized Appreesh.

Check out “Midnight Moon” off Waterstrider’s recently released EP, Constellation. There are so many audio-treats: delicate shaker, hand-drumming, floating synths, Fools Gold-reminiscent guitar, and lovely vocals, yet it feels inclusive, tight – when it spreads across cultural landscapes, it always spins around back to the core. You have a chance to hear it all live this Thursday, Oct. 13 at Bottom of the Hill – the band opens for pals Gardens & Villa. (If you need more convincing: Gardens & Villa bassist  Shane McKillop described Waterstrider as “Afro-beat meets Fleet Foxes.”)

Nate Salman (lead vocalist fellow):
Year and location of origin: Fall 2010 in Berkeley, but we went through a lot of evolution (and had a lot of changes in instrumentation and members). It really started taking shape around March or April of 2011. Almost all of us met in the co-ops and attended UC Berkeley. Walker, our drummer, is a friend of my older brother and a Cal graduate as well. The current lineup is only about a month old though.
Band name origin: It was a nickname and/or spirit animal that a friend from Santa Barbara started calling me.
Band motto: All we ever need is energy…
Description of sound in 10 words or less: Heavily rhythmic ethereal melodies steeped in surreal, romantic imagery.
Instrumentation: Nate Salman on Lead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Ukulele. Alex Siegel on Harmony Vocals, Electric Guitar. Clayton Ernst on Bass. Sean Suess on Harmony Vocals, Synth, Flute, Sax. Brijean Murphy on Congas, Percussion. Walker Johnson on Drums.
Most recent release: Constellation on August 1, 2011
Best part about life as a Bay Area band: The people are wonderful! We make some really fantastic friends wherever we play.
Worst part about life as a Bay Area band: We’re pretty optimistic people, so hopefully we will never have much of a problem with the music scene here.
First record/cassette tape/or CD ever purchased: Ray J Everything You Want — It was probably when I was nine-years-old or so. I think I got that cassette after watching Ray J performing a couple songs on an old Nickelodeon show. However, I just looked it up after completely forgetting what it sounded like… some of the production on that album is pretty sweet! Surprisingly funky.
Most recent record/cassette tape/CD/or Mp3 purchased/borrowed from the Web: Little Dragon Ritual Union.Their grooves are fantastically beautiful and Yukimi Nagano’s voice melts my soul.
Favorite local eatery and dish: We frequent Taqueria La Familia. It is the best Mexican food in Berkeley. Their veggie burritos or chile rellenos do the trick for me.

Waterstrider
With Gardens & Villa and Young Man
Thurs/13, 9 p.m., $10
Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th St., SF
www.bottomofthehill.com

Really living at the Life is Living Festival (and now there’s a stage show too!)

Andrew Lam
-
0

Every once in awhile, an festival comes along that seems so seamless, so positive, and so needed that it’s like it sprang from the Bay Area gods. Such an event is the Life is Living Festival, which took over West Oakland’s De Fremery Park last Sat/8 in big, happy puppy pile of art and kids and music. “We began this, but as you can see, it’s expanded so that it’s kind of everyone’s thing now,” says Marc Bamuthi Joseph, the founder of the Life is Living organization which has overseen the event’s growth into yearly happenings in Harlem, Houston, and Harlem. Bamuthi, who helped start the Bay’s pioneering spoken word nonprofit Youth Speaks, seemed as gleeful to be out in the Oakland sunshine as the kids flipping head over heels at the padded beginner’s parkour course set up in one side of the park.

In another corner, a spoken word stage pedal-powered by the velo-minded geniuses of Rock the Bike. In another, a simple floor set up on the grass where drummers pounded away for an all-are-welcome dance show-and-tell. A woman in her forties gyrated joyously in precisely free African patterns. A kid that didn’t go up to my waist breakdanced to thunderous applause, finally sitting down in a folding chair just offstage, rubbing the spot on the back of his head that had just been supporting his entire body in an upside-down spin. 

In between stellar sets by Panamanian-cum-Oaklanders Los Rakas and Questlove, a man took the stage to vocalize what it seemed like many in the crowd were already feeling — that this day, with its serenity and family-friendly vibes, was a big deal for West Oakland. He talked about how we were all standing on a corridor of public land. Across the street was a senior citizen’s center. It was a Saturday and its doors were locked. Was this, the man asked the crowd, acceptable? He encouraged us all to utilize public land as something that could nurture community, not to let it lie fallow. 

Such was the overall message of Life is Living — doing stuff with what we have, while we strengthen our voices to ask for more. What we had wasn’t too shabby — a food justice information area, a health and wellness zone that offered free HIV testing, shows from local hip-hop duo the Coup and Haitian dance troupe Ra Ra Loumen. 

Not to mention another of the festival’s major draws: the Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle. Around the country, Bay Area graff legend Estria Miyashiro has been organizing themed graffiiti contests. Competitors hear the word of the day’s showdown (Saturday’s was “proud”) and create vivid works of aerosol cleverness in an alloted time. When the panel of expert street artist-judges had tallied up their impressions Los Angeles artist Vyal received the day’s top honors for the second year in a row. 

The feel-good event of the year, I’m calling it. And community organizers are in luck: Life is Living directors and artists have come together to produce a performance piece about the festival that will combine its environmental agency, a call to arms for members of underserved communities across the country, and the festival’s graffiti art for visual punch. It starts on Thursday at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Especially if you missed the message on Saturday, it’s a production that demands attention. 

 

“Red Black and Green: A Blues”

Thu/13-Sat/15 and Thu/20-Sat/22 7:30 p.m., $25 ($5 on Thursdays)

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-ARTS

www.ybca.org

 

Louise Renne’s confused history

Zelda Bronstein
-
6
Louise Renne’s confused history

Wow, the Chron found a way to take a swipe at Dennis Herrera for getting involved in politics — and guess who the expert source is? Former City Attorney Louise Renne — who politicized her office so dramatically that the voters approved a measure barring city attorneys from endorsing candidates.

The Chron piece goes back and forth on whether Ed Lee properly disclosed city contracts. Then it quotes Tony Winnicker from Lee’s campaign:

They must get exhausted over there at that campaign throwing stones out of their glass house all day long,” Winnicker said. ”What’s really too bad is we can’t actually look to our legal counsel to get guidance on this. .. because the mayor’s only legal counsel is too busy attacking him.

Which apparently disturbed Renne:

“I think the city attorney has to be particularly careful  in what he or she says and in what he or she does,” Renne said. “I don’t know if that line has been crossed here. I’m trying to stay out of the mayor’s race. I’m extremely troubled that these questions are even being raised.”

Please, Louise.

First, Renne ran for mayor herself while she was city attorney, in 1987, against Art Agnos and John Molinari (who, as a supervisor, was her client). She didn’t get far. Over the next few years, she regularly supported candidates and took stands on propositions, even when her office was involved in evaluating those measures or giving advice to elected officials. In 1995, she endorsed Willie Brown for mayor — even though he was running against her client, incumbent Mayor Frank Jordan.

It was exactly that sort of conflict that led to the city law that now prevents the elected city attorney from making endorsements in local elections. And now she’s worried about Dennis Herrera?

The drama and the fantasy: Stevie Nicks at the Fillmore

Tony Robles
-
12

By Ann Edwards
arts@sfbg.com

The Stevie Nicks show at the Fillmore on Sunday night was like a time warp to an early 1980s high school. Although most of the women in the audience were in their 40s and 50s, they were competing for “Best Dressed” like girls more than half their age. They paid tribute to their Queen Stevie in dark velvet, shimmering shawls, and long skirts. If I didn’t know better, I would say they’d kept those clothes in their closets for 20 years just for this occasion. But shopping with my mom has taught me that they sell it all at Chico’s.

When the lights went down all the fashion, pretense, and iPhone surfing ceased. Nicks walked onstage to the roar of an adoring crowd. We were screaming, waving our hands, jumping up and down, and squealing. She was beautiful, charismatic, sexy. Nicks gave us a shy nod then put her game face on: ready to rock.

Over the next two hours we were transfixed, willing to go wherever she took us. She started with her ’80s hit “Stand Back.” We danced and sang the lyrics back to her, pumping our arms in the air with every repetition of “Stand back!” She announced that she’d be playing some of her new songs because they’re “some of (her) best work. This is not a greatest hits show.” Fine with us, Stevie. We just wanted to hear you sing.

She knew what we wanted and drew us hungrily along, panting and begging for it. She waited a few songs before revealing her signature, winged sleeves and spinning around to the music. We roared. She announced “Landslide” as the “song that everyone keeps paying to hear” with irony, but without sarcasm. We cried and sang through our tears: “I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills.” She gave us a knowing smile: “I’m getting older, too.”

Peppered in among her hits were the aforementioned new songs, including “Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream),” which she wrote after seeing Twilight: New Moon. I seemed to be the only audience member who knew this connection (maybe because I was one of few under the age of 30) and tried to jump up and down as quietly as I could. Nicks also gave a lengthy intro to her new song “Soldier’s Angel,” which took her four years to write and was inspired by her work with the Wounded Warriors Project. These new songs fell a little flat on the album, but when performed live by Nicks, they became rocking, sweeping epics. The new hits.

It was a night of drama, with a flashy light show and three costume changes. But what else would we expect from Stevie Nicks? She’s drama and fantasy and old school rock. All the guys want to be with her and all the girls want to be her, even when they’re 50-plus.

The Hangover: Oct. 7-9

Andrew Lam
-
0

Jounce with us, if you will, through the Guardian staff’s frenzied weekend. Here’s our live reviews, hot raging, random sightings.

***Blow Up is reputed to be the best party in the city. I’ll say it’s almost certainly the best regular event for the 18+ crowd. But rule number one of going to a 18+ club event: don’t wear your nice shoes, even if the code does say “dress to impress.” It was only thanks to sheer luck and repeat viewings of The Matrix that I managed to avoid a geyser of projectile vomit in The Factory’s overcrowded men’s room Saturday night at Blow Up Forever II. “You go here.” I said, guiding the poor kid to the urinal I was about to use. “I’ll wait for the stall.” Click here for full story. (Ryan Prendiville) 

***Stationary bikes snuggled into the corners of Public Works’ sweaty cavern of a first floor, but the realness of the Bikes and Beats party on Friday was onstage. The event was billed as J Boogie’s album release party and the DJ spent the night doing what he does best: orchestrating sick collaborations. At one point he had Jazz Mafia (including emcee Aima the Dreamer) and Duece Eclipse sharing the stage with him simultaneously. That’s a lot of local live luminaries to look at. (Caitlin Donohue)

***Overt-sweetness ran emboldened through Twin Sister’s set opening for Pains of Being Pure at Heart on Friday at Slim’s, leaving a trail of cotton candy kisses in its wake. Lead singer Andrea Estella, hugging herself tightly, laid out tender and girlish vocals over the band’s funked out disco’d-Cardigans tone. The Long Island band, spread across stage in a perfect line at the front, pulled through decorated versions of “Bad Street” and other tunes off its highly enjoyable, recently released album, In Heaven. The only misstep, in my mind, is the oddly nasally pop tune “Saturday Sunday.” It’s too cutesy, the call and response of weekend days is at times cloying. By contrast, Pains of Being Pure at Heart kept it moody, with songs like “Heart in Your Heartbreak” recalling the darkened club scenes from Nic Cage classic, Valley Girl, when the Plimsouls’ thrust into “A Million Miles Away.” Quick tip: Slim’s has a pretty decent hummus plate. (Emily Savage)

***Completely inappropriate for a blog feature called the Hangover, but nonetheless we must give props to the Life Is Living Festival on Saturday in West Oakland’s De Femery Park for being the Bay’s feel-good event of the year. Was it the way the breakdancing children spun blithely on their heads? Maybe the youth parkour obstacle course, spoken word stage, or arts and crafts tables? Probs an amalgamation of it all. Plus, Los Rakas and ?uestlove made for a slammin’ live block party soundtrack. Click here for full story. (Donohue)

***(See accompanying photo) Someone had to make a statement at this weekend’s West Coast Cannabis and Music Festival — the medical marijuana industry is in absolute turmoil after last week’s forboding ruling by the IRS about Harborside Health Center’s tax status. Speaker Senator John Vasconsellos spoke to a multitudinous crowd at one stage (perhaps the free joints that promoters promised to anyone willing to take a seat upped number a little), and outside in the sunshine Rock the Bike bravely endeavored to keep the music stage pedal-powered, despite a location off the festival’s beaten track and corresponding dearth of volunteers.  

***Emotions ran high for the second consecutive sold-out Girls show at the Great American Music Hall last night. Chris Owens, JR White, and their talented ensemble were perfectly in sync as they treated us to a lengthy set highlighted by a trio of charismatic female vocalists. A powerful solo from one of the ladies made for an especially moving rendition of “Vomit.” Girls played nearly every song from Father Son Holy Ghost as well as old favorites like “Heartbreaker,” “Hellhole Ratrace,” and “Lust For Life.” The high point for me was the tender encore of “Jamie Marie,” which began with just Owens and his guitar on the flower ornamented stage before the rest of the band stepped out to resounding applause. The rapport between band members was palpable and I couldn’t help feeling a little bummed to be witnessing the closing chapter of their national tour. (Frances Capell)

***”This is the only mayoral candidate that’s doing drag events!” The woman at the door was, of course, wrong — just last week Lil Miss Hot Mess coupled with Queers for John Avalos to through the high school-themed Homo Homecoming at the Verdi Club. But last night’s Bevan Dufty’s “Politics is a Drag” campaign fundraiser was staged by the mayoral race’s only gay candidate, which was good enough reason to attract a Florence and the Machine-themed number from La Monistat and a return to the Sarah Palin costume that Anna Conda donned for a Work More! event — a reprise of a number she choreographed with the help of Guardian Managing Editor Marke B. (Caitlin Donohue)

***The Stevie Nicks show at The Fillmore on Sunday night was like a time warp to an early 1980s high school. Although most of the women in the audience were in their 40s and 50s, they were competing for “Best Dressed” like girls more than half their age. They paid tribute to their Queen Stevie in dark velvet, shimmering shawls, and long skirts. If I didn’t know better, I would say they’d kept those clothes in their closets for 20 years just for this occasion. But shopping with my mom has taught me that they sell it all at Chico’s. Click here for full story. (Ann Edwards) 

Jeb Bush, Rupert Murdoch bound for S.F.

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
39
Jeb Bush, Rupert Murdoch bound for S.F.

The Foundation for Excellence in Education, a Florida-based nonprofit led by Jeb Bush, will host its National Summit on Education Reform at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco Oct. 13 and 14.

Bush, former Florida governor and the brother of former President George W. Bush, will deliver a welcome address Thursday. Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire head of News Corporation who came under pressure in recent months as the News of the World phone-hacking scandal erupted, will deliver a keynote address Friday.

Washington Post columnist Valerie Strauss sums up the irony of having Murdoch as the guest of honor at the conference here:

“Yes indeed, the Rupert Murdoch set to speak on technology’s power to transform education is the same Rupert Murdoch recently hauled before a British parliamentary committee to explain why a newspaper he owned had used technology to hack the phones of thousands of British citizens for years — including the phone of a murdered 13-year-old girl, thus interfering with the police investigation. (Murdoch closed the newspaper.)”

Panelists at the event will include News Corporation executives, CEOs of for-profit schools, state senators from Florida, Arizona, and Oklahoma, and the author of a book titled School Boards in America: A Flawed Exercise in Democracy.

The conference will feature a number of “strategy sessions,” and one is actually called, “Don’t Let a Financial Crisis Go To Waste.” The session will focus on education funding formulas and purports to explain “just what lawmakers and policymakers can do to get a better return-on-investment for their education dollars,” according the conference agenda. It will be moderated by a director of education policy at the George W. Bush Institute, which “champions change” based on the educational policies of No Child Left Behind.

The first strategy session is called “The Teaching Profession 2.0,” and hints of an anti-union agenda: “During the last two years, states across the country have ushered in the most sweeping reforms of the teaching profession in our nation’s history,” according to the workshop description. “More meaningful evaluations. An end to tenure and destructive last-in, first-out policies. Salaries that reflect student learning rather than seniority. Learn how lawmakers and policymakers from states around the nation are changing the paradigm of the teaching profession.”

Another segment will focus on digital learning, or teaching through technology, which the Foundation for Excellence in Education seems dedicated to advancing. A video on a newly launched website touted by the foundation features Tom Vander Ark, CEO of Open Education Solutions, explaining, “Our mission is to advance digital learning in every classroom, in every school, in every state in America.” But Vander Ark’s recent vision for opening charter schools in New York City did not go so well, according to this New York Times story. Murdoch delivered an address at the e-G8 in Paris last year titled, “Digital’s Next Frontier: Education.”

In any case, San Francisco — famed for its left-leaning politics — seems an odd choice for Bush and Murdoch, especially during a week when the streets are likely to be filled with protesters marching in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. 

Live Shots: The Rapture play Blow Up Forever II at the Factory

Tony Robles
-
0

Blow Up is reputed to be the best party in the city. I’ll say it’s almost certainly the best regular event for the 18+ crowd. But rule number one of going to a 18+ club event: don’t wear your nice shoes, even if the code says  “dress to impress.” It was only thanks to sheer luck and repeat viewings of The Matrix that I managed to avoid a geyser of projectile vomit in the Factory’s overcrowded men’s room Saturday night at Blow Up Forever II. “You go here.” I said, guiding the poor kid to the urinal I was about to use. “I’ll wait for the stall.”

When it was time for its performance, headlining ‘dunk’ (if the lead singer wants it to be called that, he’s got it) outfit the Rapture generally kept things upbeat and moving, going with tracks like “How Deep Is Your Love,” “Roller Coaster,” and the title cut off of the new album In the Grace of Your Love, while not slowing down to the point of the wonderfully plodding “It Takes Time to Be a Man.” Given the club context, and the need to keep people dancing, it made sense. Singer Luke Jenner worked the audience from the front of the stage and at one point strolled out into the sweaty throng thanks to a roadie and a very long microphone cord; but special credit for effort goes to Gabriel Andruzzi. Resembling the spawn of Jeff Goldblum and Kramer (in the best way possible) Andruzzi was on at least triple duty, regularly taking breaks from the keyboards to bust out a saxophone or deliver extremely animated overdoses of cowbell to the crowd.

 

All photos by Ryan Prendiville.

City Lights celebrates a vital, veteran publisher

Sue Vaughan
-
1

The avant-garde publisher New Directions was founded in 1936, but the idea was borne two years earlier when Ezra Pound gave some fairly harsh advice to James Laughlin, a 22-year-old aspiring poet and Harvard undergrad. In 1934, Laughlin was ambitious enough to travel to Rapallo, Italy, to meet and study under Pound, who was by that time a fascist and outspoken anti-Semite, but still respected by young writers as the force behind Eliot, Joyce, and Hemingway, as well as Imagism, the movement he helped shape. After two months, though, Pound didn’t think Laughlin possessed enough talent, and told him to return to the states and “do something useful.”
 
Three quarters of a century later, “useful” hardly describes New Directions (which will be celebrated Tues/11 at City Lights Books) and its dedication to publishing eccentric and groundbreaking work, beginning with the likes of Dylan Thomas, Denise Levertov, Tennessee Williams, and Marianne Moore, and continuing today with contemporaries like László Krasznahorkai and Javier Marías.

Birds, Beasts, and Seas: Nature Poems from New Directions (New Directions Publishing, 191 pages, $14.95) testifies to that dedication. Published to commemorate its 75th anniversary this year, and edited by the poetry editor, Jeffrey Yang, the anthology draws from the New Directions’ exhaustive archive, piling together over 140 poets of every nationality, period, and style into a handsome little book. Arranged chronologically by date of birth, and spanning from antiquity to the present, the anthology explores the vastly different ways poets have responded to nature: worshipping it, vilifying it, and bemoaning its loss. As luck would have it, four contributors to the anthology will read at City Lights to commemorate New Directions’ anniversary: Michael Palmer, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Nathaniel Tarn.
 
As conventional or even dry as an anthology of nature poems may sound, Birds, Beasts, and Seas is impressive simply because New Directions’ specialty has always been renegades, rejects, and intransigents. It’s an anthology of nature poems, of course, but the poems are by no means characteristic of the genre. They are, however, characteristic of New Directions. Several of the poets here are rarely anthologized at all, and stumbling onto them is like bumping into old friends suddenly back from oblivion. William Bronk, for instance, whose poem “Aspects of the World Like Coral Reefs” dismantles science and asserts “It is absurd to describe the world in sensible terms;” or French poet Saint John Perse, Chilean poet Vincente Huidobro, and some of the very poets reading at City Lights on Tuesday, like Nathaniel Tarn whose brooding poem from “The Fire Season” wouldn’t appear in your typical nature anthology:
 
Our pines continue to die and continue to die—
funeral carpets of needles around their base.
You could sleep there, you could suffocate
soundly and be in harmony with all of nature.
 
Editor Yang writes in the preface that nature poems could change our way of thinking about the environment, and while Yang’s faith in the poem is admirable (however naive), the most anyone can really expect from Birds, Beasts, and Seas is an anthology that, at its finest moments, is new and invigorating.

New Directions Publishing 75th Anniversary
Tues/11, 7 p.m., free
City Lights
261 Columbus, SF
www.citylights.com

The Performant: Cinéma contradictoire

Andrew Lam
-
2
The Performant: Cinéma contradictoire

While I spent a good deal of time out of doors last weekend taking in, among other things, an obligatory pilgrimage to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a jaunt on the historic schooner Alma with the WE Players, the 30-year anniversary of the Sea Chantey Sing, and Chicken John’s book release party, it was the introspective medium of the cinema that captured my attentions most of all. From the Star of Tyche at ATA, to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg at Lost Weekend’s “Offline In-Store” Film Festival, I devoured a sumptuous visual feast the satiating effects of which still linger days after.

The expertly-crafted, surrealistic films of Nara Denning have a decidedly ephemeral quality about them. Soaked in sepia tone and fantasia, they appear to be both of this world but adamantly not tied to it, flitting around the edges of stark reality like moths ready to plunge into a deadly yet strangely compelling fire. Her deeply-compelling yet minimal storylines tend to feature quixotic protagonists who have somehow lost their way, treading unworn paths through incongruous scenery, from jungle islands to funhouse rides to oceanic squalls, while trapped in the dubious limbo between waking and dreaming.

Scored by Stoo Odom, and featuring a slew of talented guest musicians, the films sound as good as they look-which is to say, exquisite. Over the weekend at ATA Denning presented five new films, each more haunting than the next, collected together on one DVD entitled Under the Pavement. 

The first film of the new series, The Pendulum Heart, starring Christine Bonansea and Christopher Comparini, is set in a tangled, wooded area where a masked Bonansea dances, struggling, against a backdrop of branches and darkness before encountering a hybrid tree-man (Comparini) with whom she makes a connection. The tormented and hilarious Dogmatique, starring Will Franken, opens with a Monty Python-esque sequence of feet walking in place on a treadmill of giant gears accompanied by an effervescent Allison Lovejoy composition: “Dog Rag”.

Surrounded with a city full of men who have turned into dogs (literally), Franken struggles to retain his humanity, a battle he is increasingly in danger of losing. Sentenced in court to “the bone mine,” forced into a ring to face off against a suited canine opponent (one “Peter Bones”), Franken eventually gives himself over to the soothing jazz of the full moon (sung by the Blue Fairy, Momo Cheeskos). 

Two nightmare-tinged vignettes Narcissus and The Nun (presented together as Still Life), starring Nirmala Nataraj and Emi Stanley respectively, plumb the depths of violence and regret shrouded in Denning’s characteristic sepia tones and billowing fabrics and featuring an especially mournful sax solo played by Willy the Mailman.

The last film of the evening, the Odyssey-inspired Star of Tyche, floats on an ocean of unease, as Julia Zeffiro steers her fragile craft on an increasingly treacherous voyage. Encountering goddesses (Margaret Belton), mercenaries (Wylie Huey), and spirits of the dead, Zeffiro never makes it to shore, exiled to endless navigation of the unsympathetic waters and other-worldly obstacles. An ending one suspects is occasionally entertained by Denning herself, but if the quality of this latest batch of films is an indicator, it is a fate she will handily avoid.

 

Low-income tenants face possible eviction at Parkmerced

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
106
Low-income tenants face possible eviction at Parkmerced

At least nine eviction proceedings have started at the Parkmerced housing complex, the site of a controversial new housing development, in response to an effort by the property management company to collect back payments on rent and utility bills, the Guardian has learned.

In recent months, nearly 200 residents received official notices warning that they would face eviction if they did not take steps to bring their accounts current within three days, according to Sara Shortt, executive director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco. About 80 three-day notices were issued to tenants who are on Section 8, a federal low-income housing assistance program that subsidizes rental payments using public funds provided by the local housing authority.

“They’re extremely low-income renters, and they’re suddenly being asked to pay large balances,” Shortt explained. “It’s blood from a turnip.” Most of the amounts owed ranged between $600 and $800, she added.

Shortt said that while some tenants were being allowed to set up payment plans, this measure wasn’t guaranteed for every tenant attempting to address the problem within the three-day timeframe. And she was skeptical that the payment-plan arrangements being presented by management were realistic in every case.

“I don’t know if Parkmerced is doing anything illegal,” Shortt said, acknowledging that she was receiving conflicting accounts of the situation. “But they’re executing something about legitimate recovery of money in an unfair manner. To allow people to slide for years and suddenly come at them for back bills is a one-way ticket for eviction.”

The Guardian was unable to reach Stellar Management, the real-estate management company at Parkmerced, but Shortt said she had spoken with Stellar representatives on behalf of tenants who were contacting the Housing Rights Committee in a panic.

Stellar representative Bryce Boddie explained the situation to her by saying a previous property management company had left billing records in disarray, and the company was finally getting around to straightening out its books by demanding payments that had long since been owed. “Their contention was that they basically decided it was time to clean house and recoup payments,” she said. Shortt said she’d also been told that Stellar had come under pressure from Fortress Investment Group, a firm that took ownership of the property last year, to get payments in order.

But P.J. Johnston, a public relations representative for Parkmerced, rejected that account, saying, “We absolutely follow up with residents who are not paying their bills.” Johnston said the number of three-day notices served this year were in keeping with last year, indicating that there had been no drastic changes in policy since the approval of the new housing project. He did not know how many Section 8 tenants received the warning notices in 2010. “Whether someone is a Section 8 certificate holder or just a regular resident, everybody’s got to pay their rent,” he said.

Johnston bristled at the criticism that renters were being asked to fork over unrealistically high sums on the spot for payments that had lapsed for long periods, saying, “If we had moved swiftly to evict residents sooner, we’d be hearing that we didn’t give them a chance.”

The issue comes on the heels of Board of Supervisors approval for a controversial housing development project at Parkmerced that tenant groups opposed because they felt it didn’t go far enough to protect renters. A development agreement negotiated between Parkmerced Investors and the city guarantees that rent-controlled tenants will be able to move into brand-new units at the same rent-controlled rate once the old units are demolished. Some residents are suspicious that management’s decision to issue three-day notices and take steps to evict tenants who cannot pay is a strategy for skirting these requirements.

Shortt said she couldn’t be sure that this was the case, but worried nevertheless that low-income tenants could wind up being tossed out of Parkmerced, which is just the scenario that tenant advocates had feared. “The end result really is in clear conflict with the spirit of negotiations and tenant protections,” she said.

Protesters blast Wall Street and war; support OccupySF

Sasha Cuttler
-
93

Story by Nena Farrell, photos by Ariel Soto-Suver

“We’re mad as hell, and we’re not taking it anymore!” was Tanya Dennis’s cry yesterday (Thurs/6) afternoon at a march and rally that drew from the Occupy San Francisco/Occupy Wall Street and the anti-war movements. It began at the Federal Building at Mission and 7th streets, where protesters will return today at 4:30 pm for a march marking the 10th anniversary of the war against Afghanistan.

Dennis got the crowd to scream the words with her, chanting it. Because it’s true—they’re not taking it anymore. She was one of the many featured speakers at the protest, along with representatives from OccupySF, the California Democratic Party, the American Indian Movement, and so many more. There were also sections of open microphones, where people could stand up to make a proposal, or usually just to make a point.

One of the open speakers proposed we free people. She had the entire gathering call it out with her: “Free people, free people.”

That’s one of the four demands that the 99 percent – the people that the occupiers say they represent – is making. One, to protect the environment. Two, to care for the people. Three, to tax the rich. And four, to end the wars. These are the four demands of the movement. At the protest, these four demands were posted on multiple signs.

The protest was in solidarity with the anti-war action in Washington DC. And from DC, the event had Dick Cheney – or rather, an impersonator of the former vice president – here to open the event. Upon his arrival, he was booed, but Cheney himself seemed fairly pleased with the entire situation. He joked that he brought three virgin hearts with him in case he was shot.

After the speakers, the protest moved to march down to 101 Market Street, where Occupy San Francisco has its movement encampment. The group moved down the blocks, chanting “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!” Each time they came to a bank along Market Street, the entire group would stop and cry together “Make banks pay” and “Tax the rich.”

It was the speakers, overall, that brought the real power to the event. They described the madness the working class was facing, the entire country and our state, and even the outside countries that we have both declared and undeclared wars on. And not just by the selected featured speakers, but also the ones like Sheila Gun Cushman, a blind woman who spoke up during the open speakers, saying “We have wanted this for years, it’s about bleepin’ time!”

Janet Weil, a Code Pink activist, was moved by the speakers as well: “[The] testimony of people at open mike was very powerful and important.”

Ed Lee’s funny money

Zelda Bronstein
-
33
Ed Lee’s funny money

The break on the big campaign news of the week goes to the Bay Citizen’s Gerry Shih, who tracked down a couple of employees of GO Lorrie’s and got them to admit that they had no idea who Ed Lee was and had given him $500 because their boss had agreed to reimburse them in cash. Now the other candidates are making an issue of it — Dennis Herrera has called for a criminal investigation, David Chiu has issued a somewhat weaker statement and Jeff Adachi’s campaign is calling the whole thing sleazy.

What makes this so interesting is not just that someone at GO Lorrie’s may have been laundering contributions — the airport shuttle company has been lobbying the city to try to change the rules around where the shuttle vans get to park. So it’s not just a funky operation to push money to the mayor — it’s money from a company that has a big financial stake in a decision made by city officials (and by the way, the airport commissioners are appointed by the mayor).

Matt Dorsey, a spokesperon for Herrera’s campaign, told us that “there’s a point where campaign activities stop being cute and questionable and become illegal.” He noted that Mayor Lee, while vowing to return the tainted money, hasn’t called for a further inquiry.

“If laundered campaign contributions came to the attention of the Herrera campaign, the first person to call for an investigation would be Dennis Herrera,” Dorsey said.

Chiu’s statement: “These revelations raise deeply troubling questions that merit a full investigation by state authorities.  City Hall cannot be for sale.  Pay-to-play politics has no place in San Francisco, and will have no place in a Chiu administration – you can count on that.”

More: “Incidents like these are a reminder of the backroom deals and crony politics that San Franciscans are sick of,” said Colin Dyer, field director for Jeff Adachi. “This is just another in a long line of questionable activities surrounding Ed Lee and his powerful special interest backers. He promised to be a different sort of mayor, Ed Lee is just more of the same.

The big question, of course, is whether this will finally start to take the edge off the Ed Lee Teflon. And that depends in part on the San Francisco Chronicle — which put a far less relevant story about Dennis Herrera (one that didn’t involve illegal money laundering) right on the front page in the lead space above the fold.

The Chron, weakened as it is, still helps define the daily news cycle in this town. But guess what? The Chron didn’t break this story. The Bay Citizen did. And it there’s one thing I’ve found to be consistent about the ol’ Chron over the years is that the paper tends to ignore stories broken by the competition.

But this ought to be front-page news everywhere, not just because it’s a potential felony but because it represents the side of Ed Lee that we’re all worried about. In the Bad Old Days, Willie Brown’s operation did stuff like this all the time. Money went in and out of shadow committees and independent expenditure groups and it was almost impossible to keep track of who was giving how much to Brown — except that anyone who wanted to do business with the city had to pay up.

If Ed Lee’s folks are starting to play those same games, then it’s a very bad sign.

SFBG Radio: Abolish the sales tax?

Zelda Bronstein
-
21
SFBG Radio: Abolish the sales tax?

Today Johnny offers a remarkable sensible economic proposal: What if California got rid of sales taxes entirely — putting almost 10 percent more money in the pockets of consumers — and replaced that revenue with higher income taxes on the wealthy? Now, why do you suppose this isn’t going to happen? Listen after the break.

AbolishTheSalesTax by endorsements2011

Lovefoxxx makes SF love her at the Fillmore

Tony Robles
-
1

By the end of last night at the Fillmore, CSS’s dynamic lead vocalist-party rioter Lovefoxxx was stripped down to a black tank top and ripped up jean shorts over fishnets, her raccoon eye makeup smeared across her face, fluffed pink hair electrified out of its sockets.

She had cartwheeled, stage-dove, danced through the crowd trailing the mic, spit liquids like a fizzing fountain across the stage/herself/the audience, and told us all  “I love you” a half dozen times, requesting that we should shout “I love you” back in manly intonations. For what started out as a calmer evening, with rumored low ticket sales, the show grew into a massive all-out punk rock dance party by evening’s close. My cheeks hurt from smiling.

Even openers MEN, who unfortunately had to work with a far smaller and less worked up audience in the early stages of the show, were working it it overtime, lead vocalist-electronics-shifter JD Samson hopped from mic to synth to laptop, and raised her tattooed arms, sporadically jumping into high-kicks to get the crowd going.

10 great bits about CSS and MEN at the Fillmore:
1. Lovefoxxx screaming “Fuck Everything” in a faux-growl before kicking off the jam, aptly titled “Fuck Everything” off the Brazilian rave-punk band’s new release, La Liberación, an album that takes one tiny baby step away from electro and one towards reggae-beat.
2. Before jumping in to (arguably, its biggest hit) “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex” off its self-titled debut, Lovefoxxx telling the crowd she’s single, and introducing her slightly-embarrassed guitarist-cowbellist Luiza Sá as also single.
3. The revelation that “Let’s Reggae All Night” is CSS’s least requested song. The band then ripping it open and tearing it apart, cementing its place as a future live request.
4. Before MEN’s song “Make Him Pay,” JD explaining “It’s about feminism and the economy.”
5. JD asking,  “Who here has eaten a burrito today?” Then seeing a show of hands. We do love our burritos, San Francisco.
6. Lovefoxxx grabbing the glasses of a toe-headed stranger (?) and trying them on for show.
7. The audience and artist call and response during MEN’s “Who Am I?” — “Who am I to feel so free?” “Who am I?”
8. The life-sized cartoon cut-outs of cute-dressed people (presumably odes to other collective members, including Johanna Fateman) on stage with MEN.
9. The kindergarten pink construction paper hearts attached to CSS’s amps, keyboards, and affixed to guitarist Ana Rezende’s shirted boobs.
10. Lovefoxxx. All of her. The glittered fox mask, stripping to fishnets and ripped shorts, constant mic swinging, drink-swilling, cartwheeling, butterfly-dancing, crowd-surfing punk princess goodness. She’s the electro-Brazilian Wendy O. Williams.

Fire it up: Checking out works at this weekend’s Ceramics Annual of America

Andrew Lam
-
0

Clay is one of the most expressive forms of art. It can be pushed and pulled and molded into any sort of creation — given that the artist knows what they are doing, since clay can turn finicky in a flash. This weekend (Fri/7-Sun/9), the gigantic festival pavilion at Fort Mason will open its doors for the Ceramics Annual of America, which will be filled with a smorgasbord of wonderfully creative and delicate pieces of art, all hailing from the mediums of mud, fire, and glaze. I wandered around for almost two hours last night sucking on eye candy that ranged from intricate sculptures to modified pots that reminded me of sea creatures.

Two artists were especially memorable. If you end up at the show this weekend, make sure to scout them out. The first was Carmen Lang, whose sculptures ranged from doggies chilling on a mini couch to lovers wrapped up in a rather intimate embrace. Her choice in glazes was reminiscent of colors used in the 1960’s, giving the pieces a vintage flair. The were cute, a bit silly, and I wanted to take one home.

And then there was the work by Gail Ritchie. Her pieces bring together birds and chairs and are pure whimsy — they take you to a dream world. There, a girl holding an acorn is perched on the back of a docile pelican. An origami bird, stretching it’s neck, sits on a chair made of “recycled materials” (it’s all made of clay!). Ritchie’s work is truly beautiful, and paired with her incredible talent as an artist, her pieces really got me fired up. 

 

Ceramics Annual of America

Fri/7-Sun/9, $10 one day/$20 weekend pass

Festival Hall, Fort Mason

Buchanan and Marina, SF

www.ceramicsannual.org

 

Few surprises in Examiner endorsements

Sasha Cuttler
-
15

The San Francisco Examiner – a paper with a generally conservative editorial stance, and one that endorsed John McCain for president in 2008 – has endorsed a slate of Establishment candidates for citywide office: Ed Lee for mayor, George Gascon for DA, and Chris Cunnie for sheriff.
That’s not really surprising, but its second and third choices for mayor were: Dennis Herrera second and Bevan Dufty third. Herrera was also the Guardian’s second choice and Dufty was someone we considered for third, choosing instead to go with Leland Yee. As the Examiner wrote, there are lots of qualified candidates in this race, and there were a lot more worrisome ones the paper could have picked.
For a newspaper that often takes ridiculous right-wing stances, such as its editorial last year denying global warming, the mayoral endorsement actually reads fairly reasonably. I don’t agree with its conclusion that Lee’s aversion to politics and business-friendly focus are good things, but I was happy to see the Examiner call out Lee’s cronyism and uncritical praise for bad corporate actors like PG&E.
“We do have some concerns about his ties to former power-brokers and off-the-cuff comments that are now being blasted in negative campaign ads. We implore Lee to work harder to separate himself from those who claim responsibility for his success, for they are just as likely to be responsible for any downfall. We ask that Lee, as we would any mayor to be open and honest about his relationships,” the paper wrote.
And its comments about the other candidates it liked were also pretty much on target. The only real criticism I would offer – and it is a significant one – is that progressive favorite John Avalos didn’t even get mentioned among the eight it discussed. WTF?
Now I’m sure they wouldn’t have had great things to say, given their conservative leanings. But to simply leave Avalos out shows the paper has a disregard and disdain for the left that is a big part of what’s wrong in San Francisco. It’s why our mayor and police chief can make this the first city in the country to launch an aggressive midnight raid on the Occupy Wall Street movement. It’s why the Chamber of Commerce can so shamelessly demand that businesses be allowed to drain the employee health funds that a hard-won city law requires them to provide.
San Francisco is not a progressive city, although a large number of San Franciscans are progressive and they have helped usher in a number of important progressive reforms, from worker and tenants protections to environmental initiatives, often through battles that Avalos helped wage on the people’s behalf.
So to ignore Avalos is to ignore progressives in this city. And they can steal our money or our tents, but we aren’t going away.

Duck! It’s the Blue Angels!

Zelda Bronstein
-
54
Duck! It’s the Blue Angels!

My poor dog will be hiding under the table when I get home, hyperventilating. I’m trying to make phone calls — and I feel like I’m in a war zone. I know, I know — it’s fleet week and we support the troops and an expensive, dangerous, ostentatious display of military might should make us all feel better.

But I’m not feeling it.

I like a noisy event as much as anyone else. I’m all for street fairs, music in the parks, random shouting … it’s all good. This is a big city.

But do we really have to have Navy jets buzzing over us for several days? Is this a good way to spend our tax dollars? Does a city where JROTC is a huge issue need to celebrate what’s really primarily a military recruiting event?

Or am I just jealous because they won’t let me fly one?

 

“Victorian Visions” at Vesuvio Cafe

Sue Vaughan
-
0
“Victorian Visions” at Vesuvio Cafe

Somewhere between a dollhouse and a photo portrait are the works of Brent Johnson and Jo Cyrus. Now on display (through Oct. 15) at North Beach’s Vesuvio Café, the artists create 3-D renderings of the facades of San Francisco’s trademark Victorian homes.


With meticulous attention to detail (as anyone who lives around here knows, no two Victorians are alike, with unique paint jobs, doorways, windows, ornamental additions, and architectural florishes), the pieces are made using reclaimed wood sourced from remodeling and restoration projects on actual, life-sized local Victorians. Swing by legendary beat haunt Vesuvio to check out the exhibit for a latte bowl-sized dose of San Francisco history, in miniature.


“Victorian Visions of San Francisco by Brent Johnson and Jo Cyrus”
Through Oct. 15
Vesuvio Café
255 Columbus, SF
www.vesuvio.com

Lee backs crackdown; Avalos: “I stand with Occupy SF”

Sasha Cuttler
-
136
Lee backs crackdown; Avalos: “I stand with Occupy SF”

Mayor Ed Lee has just released a statement on last night’s police raid of the Occupy San Francisco encampment – claiming to basically support the movement but also support the harsh police crackdown and seizure of tents, food, and other personal property – that offers a sharp contrast to the position of his mayoral rival, John Avalos, who is condemning the SFPD’s actions.

Once again, as Lee also did this week in defending businesses that seize money set aside for employee health care costs, our “consensus and civility” mayor is showing that if you try to stand for everything, you end up standing for nothing. Yet Avalos understands that there are times when one side is simply wrong and that supporting the people means being willing to fight for them.

On both issues, Lee mouthed the meaningless “jobs” defense, claiming that he was trying to help working people by letting their employers raid their health care funds, allowing restaurants to fraudulently jack up their bills, or directing the police to seize their tents and food. That’s not just pandering, it’s insulting.

I’ve tried unsuccessfully to get Lee’s office to offer more detailed explanations of his positions, but they’re so far sticking to prepared statements that are riddled with contradictions. So we’re just going to run the full statements by Lee and Avalos and let you decide who makes more sense and best reflects San Francisco values.

Lee wrote:

“I understand and sympathize with the anxiety and frustration felt by so many in our country caused by a lingering recession and joblessness. That’s why I am doing everything I can to create jobs, get people back to work and make our families stronger here in San Francisco. I support the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street movement that calls for peacefully assembling to protest and bring national attention to disparity issues in our country.
“In San Francisco, protesters are acting within their First Amendment right to free speech and freedom to assemble. While allowing for peaceful protests, we also must ensure that our streets and sidewalks remain safe and accessible for everyone. I will continue to work closely with our Police Chief to ensure San Francisco responds appropriately to these demonstrations.  
“San Francisco is a city that embraces free speech and freedom to assemble like no other city.”

Indeed, no other city among the 60 or so that have followed the Occupy Wall Street example of occupying public spaces has sent police and trucks in to raid encampments in the middle of night, so San Francisco is indeed alone in its treatment of the movement that Lee shamelessly claims to support.

And now Avalos:

“Last night I gathered in solidarity with the protesters Occupying San Francisco. Like many people all over the country, I have been watching this protest gather strength and grow as more and more of us, more of the 99 percent, demand accountability from the corporations and people who are responsible for the destruction of our economy and devastation of our families.

“I came to down to observe the protest last night in response to summons from protesters and a notice from the police accusing their encampment of a number of minor infractions, ranging from open flames on a city street or sidewalk to serving food without a permit. I observed and negotiated with police in good faith to keep the peace and allow the encampment to remain, only to hear of a crackdown shortly after I left.

“This is not the San Francisco that I know. This is not the San Francisco I love. This City has served as a sanctuary for free speech and assembly for generations, and we must protect that legacy. With our unemployment rate nearing 10 percent, we have a responsibility to be a sanctuary for the 99 percent.

“Instead, last night we witnessed that 99 percent being detained, arrested, and intimidated with force.

“My vision is of a true sanctuary city – one that protects our right to free speech and assembly, and one that holds real criminals accountable. This should be a city for the rest of us – for the 99 percent. I stand with Occupy SF.”

Appetite: Two tastings to watch for

Andrew Lam
-
0

Two excellent yearly reasons to wet your whistle are coming to town this week. Whiskey and wine, anyone?

WhiskyFest

WhiskyFest happens tomorrow, a whisk(e)y university, extravaganza, and shit show rolled into one. Though the Marriott ballroom settings feel corporate, most of the world’s best distillers, brand ambassadors, and whisk(e)y experts are on hand with classes, offering pours and chatting with guests. I go every year to taste untasted whiskies, revisit favorites, and meet the world’s great whisk(e)y makers.

Fri/7 6:30 – 9:30 p.m., sold out

San Francisco Marriott Marquis

55 Fourth St., SF

www.maltadvocate.com

 

Wine and Spirits Top 100

Every year Wine and Spirits Magazine throws an annual large tasting honoring the 100 wineries that had the best showing in the publication. I’ve gone the last few years, finding it to be an event that’s more focused on sampling a honed list of wines from around the globe — including sparkling — than most tastings. There will also be bites from favorites like Dosa, Piccino, and Txoko, and historically there’s live jazz. I will miss the event being in the striking SF Design Center Galleria this year, but the City View space is dramatically engulfed by downtown high rises and should be memorable.

Wed/12 6:30 p.m., $105

City View at Metreon

101 Fourth St., SF

www.wineandspiritsmagazine.com/top100 

— Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot

1...177178179...597Page 178 of 597

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org