As West Fest approaches, Noise is showcasing some of the many different concert posters created for the 40th anniversary of Woodstock tribute, which takes place on Sunday, October 25 at Golden Gate Park. It’s free! Check out Johnny Ray Huston’s article about it all and take a gander …
Poster by Bob Masse
Poster by Burray Olson
Poster by Stanley Mouse
Text and photos by Ariel Soto
For once, taking Muni was actually a pleasure. This weekend saw the San Francisco Trolley Dances dip and twirl along Muni stops, which meant riders had their noses pressed against the glass as salsa dancers shimmied along the street, chasing the J-Church as it made its way from Dolores Park to Balboa Park Pool. The annual event featured dance companies from around the Bay Area as well as the young and talented swimmers of the SF Merionettes Synchronized Swim Club. The piece “Journey through time in no time because it is time” performed by the Deep Waters Dance Theater, was especially inventive and witty, mixing theater, poetry and dance in a piece that revolved around the ideas of more time and less time, and the time in between, ending with the audience pointing to the sky, looking up towards a new time of “infinite possibilities.” Oh, if only every ride on Muni could be quite as enjoyable and entertaining as this one.
Other participating dancers and companies included: Deborah Slater Dance Theater, Epiphany Productions Sonic Dance Theater, Kathleen Hermesdorf, and Rosamaria Garcia and Jorge Rodolfo De Hoyos
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Mark, 22nd Street and Valencia
Tell us about your look: “Making the old new again. Also a Russian spy.”
Now the Obama administration and congressional leaders — with Sen. John Kerry playing a starring role in recent days — are making a determined effort to legitimize the Afghan government as a prelude to further U.S. escalation of the war.
By Norman Solomon
(Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, is the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”)
Almost eight years after choosing Hamid Karzai to head the Afghan government, Uncle Sam would like to give him a pink slip. But it’s not easy. And the grim fiasco of Afghanistan’s last election is shadowing the next.
Another display of electioneering and voting has been ordered up from Washington. But after a chemical mix has blown a hole through the roof — with all the elements for massive fraud still in place — what’s the point of throwing together the same ingredients?
This time, the spinners in Washington hope to be better prepared.
By Juliette Tang
Saw this JolieLips lip enhancement kit on BoingBoing today (original article from MSNBC here). At first I imagined it to be a vulva pump until I realized it was for the other lips, the ones on the face, and then I wondered why anyone would go through all that trouble. Interested readers may purchase JolieLips from (where else) SkyMall, for a nominal sum of $27.95.
JolieLips, though trademarked, is not the first vacuum/pump device that turns regular lips into bruised and weird looking regular lips. An even more ludicrous product exists via Cyntha Rowland Beauty Systems called the “Luscious Lips pump,” ($59.95) that resembles nothing so much as an erectile dysfunction pump for the mouth? Infomercial below, replete with music that is worse than you can imagine.
Worth thinking about for 5 seconds: Why??
By Kimberly Chun
We got places to go, people to see, crazy sounds to hear — more for your show-going pleasure and more than we could fit in print.
BrakesBrakesBrakes
Cheney better watch himself when the Brighton, England, combo steps on it. With Ezra Furman and the Harpoons and Rachel Goodrich. Wed/21, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011.
Fu Manchu and Dirty Power
Heaviness is as heaviness does — with the added oomph of the SF-bred Power brokers. With the Solid. Wed/21, 8:30 p.m., $21. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.
By Rebecca Bowe
On Sept. 15, 500 certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and clerical workers with San Francisco’s Department of Public Health received pink slips informing them that they would be declassified out of their current jobs, and rehired at lower-paying positions.
The difference in terms of job responsibilities is slight, but money-wise, the downgrades represent a $15,000 annual pay cut on average for CNAs, and a $5,000 annual pay cut on average for clerical workers. Many of the people affected by the cuts are single moms who make less than $40,000 per year, so the income loss is significant.
At yesterday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Sups. John Avalos and Chris Daly each pitched ideas that could bump those public health workers’ salaries back up. Avalos’ proposal would bolster the front-line workers’ salaries by skimming some excess from higher-ranking city jobs.
“Before cutting vital city services, if the city is going to reduce the wages of city workers, we should first look to those who have the most, not those who have the least,” Avalos said.
“Last year, a Controller’s report revealed that the city has become increasingly management-heavy, and revealed that over the last few years, MEA [Municipal Executive’s Association] has grown from around 700 positions to nearly 1,100 positions. After some scrutiny, it became clear that most of those new positions were actually mid-managers being promoted up from Local 21 to MEA positions. Many of these mid-managers received substantial wage increases, ranging from as much as $20,000 to $40,000 annually. In short, they were reclassified up.”
He then announced his request to the city controller to draft an annual salary ordinance, which would reclassify top management positions to free up enough funding to stop the demotions and wage reductions for the lower-paid Department of Public Health employees.
What happens when members of Congress get post traumatic stress syndrome and see blue, blue, blue
By Jess Brownell
(Jess Brownell is our Voice of the Heartland, a freelance writer who lives in Milwaukee.)
I know this was a while ago now in Andy Warhol Time, but good old Joe Wilson keeps popping into my mind. For me, the most interesting aspect of his “You lie” shout during the Obama speech to congress was its timing. To be fair, there are moments in any presidential speech when a shout of “You exaggerate,” or “You embellish,” or maybe even “You prevaricate” would be understandable, if out of order. But in this instance, Rep. Wilson chose a moment when the President was obviously telling the truth. Obama has advocated no health plan that would cover illegal immigrants, and the legislator from South Carolina must have known that.
By Tim Redmond
I was arrested once for “Conspiracy to Loiter.”
Think about that, for a second. Try to figure out what that exact crime entails. Then consider that it took place in the Federal Building in San Francisco, and under federal law, conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor can be charged as a felony. So my crime, as it were, could have landed me in a federal pen, serving five years hard time.
I was actually just a reporter, wearing an press pass issued by the SFPD, covering a demonstration that involved some activists chaining themselves to the front door of the Federal Building. Most of the reporters were outside, trying to do interviews as the cops blocked off access to the protesters. So I walked around to the side door, walked into the (public) building and started doing interviews as the chain gang was broken up and taken into custody.
An infuriated member of the Federal Protective Service pointed to me and told his assistant to “arrest that man.” When the younger cop asked what the charge would be, the red-faced officer blurted out “uh, conspiracy to loiter.”
So that’s what went down on the paperwork, and as a suspected felon, I was chained to a radiator in the FPS office while they figured out what to do with me next. It took an hour or two for some U.S. attorney to get involved and realize that there was no such crime as conspiracy to loiter, and if there was I hadn’t committed it, and eventually I was unchained and released. I still had to get a lawyer to get the charge formally dismissed.
All these years later, it’s just a funny story — but if I had been a young person with brown skin who had arrived in the United States with his parents at age two and never attained proper legal status, I could have been deported, to a country I’d never known where I had no ties or connections and might not even speak the language.
That’s one of the problems with deporting people just on the basis of an arrest — sometimes people get arrested by mistake. Sometimes they turn out to be not guilty.
That’s why the Examiner’s front page headline — “Commit a crime, stay in The City” — is so crazy. You don’t have to commit a crime to get arrested. Any young man with black or brown skin in this country knows that.
There’s a reason why people have the right to a preliminary hearing and a trial before they have to pay for a crime. Maybe they didn’t do it.
All that David Campos’ legislation does is move the time when you refer someone for potential deportation (which, frankly, is worse punishment than most of the sentences most people will get for the crimes in question) from the arrest period to the conviction period.
It’s pretty simple, really. And I remain convinced that the only reason Mayor Newsom opposes it is that he’s running for governor and doesn’t want to look soft on crime.
Text and images by Sarah Phelan
Sups. David Campos, Ross Mirkarimi and Bevan Dufty shortly after they joined Board President David Chiu and Sups. John Avalos, Eric Mar, Sophie Maxwell and Chris Daly in amending the city’s sanctuary policy. Dufty has said that Mayor Newsom threatened not to endorse Dufty’s bid for mayor, if he supported the amendment.
Yesterday’s celebration of the Board’s veto-proof amendment of the sanctuary ordinance felt similar to the joy that surrounded the city’s decision to start marrying same-sex couples. Only this time, instead of leading the civil rights charge, Mayor Gavin Newsom appears to be opposing it, citing fears that the city could be sued.
Following the supervisors’ vote, supporters of the Campos amendment poured out of the Board Chambers, chanting “Yes we can,” in Spanish and English, and into the second-floor rotunda, joined by Sup. David Campos.
Campos and immigration attorney Francisco Ugarte celebrate the Board’s historic Oct. 20 vote.
But even as Campos talked to the crowd about the importance of fighting for civil rights and against the slippery slope of a two-tiered system of justice, mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard appeared to be belittling the work of Campos and numerous civil and immigration rights experts, while vowing to ignore the Board’s amendment.
“The Campos bill isn’t worth the paper it’s written on—it’s unenforceable and he knows that,” Ballard told the Chron.
‘We are not going to put our law enforcement officers in legal jeopardy just because the Board of Supervisors wants to make a statement.”
Ana Perez the director of CARECEN SF, shares her thoughts on the Board’s vote with the media.
But can Newsom selectively ignore laws that have been passed by a veto-proof majority of the Board, and have been vetted as being legally tenable by the City Attorney?
“I don’t know,” Campos told the Guardian. ” I’m still trying to figure out whether the mayor can do that. We’re going into uncharted legal territory.”
A crowd of supporters, including civil rights experts, immigration attorneys and community leaders, gathered in the rotunda to celebrate, even as the Mayor’s Office announced it intends to ignore the Board’s sanctuary amendment.
Compiled by Molly Freedenberg
Missing Persons are among the impressive number of bands, live acts, and special appearances at Saturday’s Exotic Erotic Ball.
————-
>> Underwear Party
Every Thursday this month, Powerhouse hosts this panty-themed event, featuring a wet underwear contest, drink specials, and a chance to exchange your old underwear for a free drink.
Thurs/22, 10pm
$5
Powerhouse
1347 Folsom, SF
(415) 52-8689
www.powerhouse-sf.com
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>> Exotic Erotic Expo and Ball
The two-day Expo celebrating flesh, fetish, and fantasy has lots of sexy exhibits, great food, interesting lectures, and previews of Saturday night’s Ball, which is part Mardi Gras, part burlesque, and part rock concert. Live acts include Impotent Sea Snakes, Coolio, Missing Persons, Minikiss, Unauthorized Rolling Stones, and many more.
Fri/23-Sat/24
$20-$185
Cow Palace, SF
www.exoticeroticexpo.com
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>> Hubba Hubba Revue: Oktoberfest!
SF’s favorite burlesque show brings a bit of Deutschland to DNA with this tassel-twirlin’, hip-shakin’ Bavarian party. Featuring Vienna La Rouge, SF Boylesque, Wiggy Darlington, The Baron Meatball von Tease, and more Bay Area favorites.
Fri/23, 9pm
$10
DNA Lounge
375 11th St, SF
www.dnalounge.com
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By Steven T. Jones
The politics of parking in San Francisco has always been intensively visceral, particularly among those who assert a right to park their cars on public property at little or no cost (and who often have a hard time finding a spot). So yesterday’s San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency hearing on its proposal to extend parking meter hours was bound to get heated.
MTA chief Nat Ford anticipated the high emotions to come when he said in his introductory remarks, “It’s not easy to find parking in San Francisco, and it’s not easy to talk about parking in San Francisco…We know this study is creating a lot of discussion and feedback from elected officials and the general public.”
And just as predicted, representatives from the business community, landlords, westside residents, and other conservative interests decried the parking proposal as an unfair tax on motorists and an unnecessary intrusion of government do-gooders.
But the real surprise of the hearing was the angry opposition from a handful of leftists – self-described socialists, poor students, and other young members of the anti-war ANSWER Coalition – who blasted the proposal as a tax on working class motorists and called for the city to tax the rich and big corporations instead.
By Steven T. Jones
My cover story on bicycling in May provoked strong reactions, both positive and negative. I called out motorists for their oversized sense of entitlement to such a damaging and heavily subsidized transportation choice, and was called out for being self-righteous and admitting to routinely breaking traffic laws.
I never apologized for my position and I intend to push it even further tonight at CounterPULSE when I’ll be on a panel talking about bicycling politics in San Francisco, along with author/activist Chris Carlsson, transportation planner Janel Sterbentz, and San Francisco Bicycle Coalition program director Andy Thornley. The free event starts at 7:30 pm, is co-sponsored by City Lights Foundation, and goes down at 1310 Mission Street at 9th.
So, all you haters out there (and hopefully a few lovers as well), you know where to find me. Bring it on.
By John Ross
MEXICO CITY — Monday morning, Oct. 12, broke broodingly over Mexico City. The headlines on a score of newspapers hanging from Vicente Ramirez’s kiosk were universal loas for Calderon’s heroic seizure of Luz y Fuerza del Centro. As usual, La Jornada, the capital’s left daily, was the exception. Political columnist Julio Hernandez noted that on the eve of the centennial of the Revolution of 1910-1919, Mexico stood at a decisive moment: if Calderon was allowed to validate the takeover of the company and destroy the SME, the left’s goose was cooked.
Around the counter at the Café La Blanca, sullen faces were buried in their newspapers. Isidro Zuniga talked about putting 34 years in at a box factory before being shown the door – “I gave them my youth for a handful of pinche lentils. This is how the bosses fuck us. Chinga su Madre Senor President! We will stand with the SME…”
Benito Ruiz, the driver at the hotel where I’ve lived for 25 years, was steaming. Calderon was like the dictator Porfirio Diaz who was dumped by the Revolution, like the president Gustavo Diaz Ordaz who had ordered the massacre of hundreds of students on the eve of the Olympics in 1968. “Watch your back, Senor John,” he warned, “these bastards will stop at nothing…”
Others had less sympathy for the workers. Don Juanito Lopez, a tailor here in the old quarter, was dismissive of Luz y Fuerza which he thought rotten to the core with corruption. When you complained about your light bill or wanted to get something fixed, employees demanded a “stimulus” bribe. Sky-high electric bills have driven a wedge between Luz y Fuerza workers and the general public.
I walked over to the neighborhood Luz y Fuerza office on Carranza Street. It was locked up tight but the Mexican flag was still flapping from the roof. Handwritten signs (“Listen up people! The SME is fighting for you!”) were taped to the dusty windows. A young woman who said she was the daughter of an electricista, handed me a leaflet that explained what Calderon had done “is called fascism just like under Hitler and Mussolini and Pinochet and Diaz Ordaz.”
Every week, Virginia Miller of personalized itinerary service and monthly food, drink, and travel newsletter, www.theperfectspotsf.com, shares foodie news, events, and deals. View the last installment here.
11/4 Cliff House Centennial Celebration
Cliff House is one of our San Francisco classics, surviving fires and decades with seaside dining over crashing waves and sunset vistas. In 1909, the third “fire-proof” incarnation was built by Adolph Sutro’s daughter, Dr. Emma Merritt, after the original two locations burnt to the ground. There have been numerous renovations, the last in 2004, two restaurants, the Bistro and more upscale Sutro’s, and George Morrone came on as chef for a time, raising menu offerings commensurate with the views.
Cliff House’s centennial celebration is coming up on November 4. Though it does cost a lofty $175, there’s no other party quite like it. Benefiting Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, there will be an intriguing auction of period ball gowns made from recycled Cliff House menus, memorabilia and photographs, by 3D designer, Mari O’Connor. Fashion buffs, check out sketches of the gowns representing various eras throughout the century – sure to be a highlight of the night.
Text and images by Sarah Phelan
Civil rights groups celebrated today, as the Board of Supervisors amended the city’s sanctuary policy to ensure that immigrant youth get their day in court before being handed over to the feds for deportation.
Under the new policy, which Sup. David Campos, Eric Mar, Ross Mirkarimi, Sophie Maxwell, Chris Daly, John Avalos, Bevan Dufty and Board President David Chiu co-sponsored, juveniles won’t be handed over to federal immigration authorities unless they are found guilty of a felony.
That marks a shift from the draconian olicy that Newsom ordered last year, the day after he announced his gubernatorial run. Under that policy, kids were referred to the feds at booking, meaning US citizens and immigrants who hadn’t committed a felony could be wrongly deported.
A huge crowd, including immigrants, civil rights experts, teachers and local high school kids, cheered when Board President Chiu announced that the Campos amendment (so-called because Sup. David Campos spearheaded the effort to move this legislation) passed on its first reading
“This is really for our youth, for our kids, because they deserve nothing more, nothing less, than just full equality when it comes to how the law treats them,” Campos said after the vote.
“The fact that you’re undocumented doesn’t mean you’re not a person under the United States Constitution,,” he said. “ If we can’t stand up for the Constitution in San Francisco, then where can we stand up for it in this country?”
Campos worked for over a year to fashion today’s amendment, working with civil rights experts and immigration lawyers to come up with a proposal that City Attorney Dennis Herrera has deemed legally tenable.
Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office vowed today to ensure that probation officers aren’t forced to break federal law in order to abide by the Campos legislation.
But Campos said the city’s CEO can’t pick and choose which city laws to follow.
“We expect the mayor’s office to follow the laws of the city and county of San Francisco – that’s his job,” Campos said. . “If he refuses to do that, the board will have to figure out what our options are.”
Meanwhile, Juvenile Probation Chief William Siffermann said he can’t prohibit officials from reporting instances where there’s a reasonable belief that civil immigration laws have been violated.
By Andrea Nemerson: andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com. Read more of Andrea’s columns here.
Dear Andrea:
I read an article (I think it was in Redbook) that listed six little known erogenous zones or "hot zones." One was big toes, which they said has a direct connection to the genitals. And one was tip of the nose, which they said it is an erotic area because people get stuffy noses sometimes when they have sex. I don’t know. Is there really such a thing as an erogenous zone? What would it take for something to be a real erogenous zone? And is it worth learning these to turn my husband on? We have a good sex life, but sometimes it does seem like we just touch the same places the same way all the time.
Love,
Looking
Dear Look:
Well, don’t do that. You don’t need a list of unlikely or downright unerotic body parts (I have allergies; don’t touch it if you don’t want to get sneezed on) to inspire you to branch out a little. In the event that you do need such a list, here are some nongenital, sexually responsive spots for your perusal: nipples, necks, ears, armpits, lower backs, inner thighs, backs of knees, feet. Some of these are "erogenous" simply because they are adjacent to more traditionally eroticized areas (by the time someone’s got to your inner thigh, it’s a pretty good bet he’s going to keep going) and/or because the skin there is thin and well-supplied with both blood vessels and nerve-endings. Some do seem to have their own independent set of erotic responses (fingers, toes). And while we’re at the toes, some body parts seem to have sex lives all their own, quite divorced from any nearby genitals. Feet have their own admirers and magazines and special party nights at the sex clubs and more than 4.7 million Google hits. They don’t need a good address near the genitals to throw a party.
I think I found your article. It’s by Judy Dutton, who is, not at all coincidentally, the author of the book Redbook’s 500 Sex Tips. I guess I had Redbook filed as a "ladies’" magazine, but on closer examination, it’s more Cosmo (Dutton was an editor there too) than McCall’s. I found more "Six filthy things men want you to know" and "16 essential sex techniques you’ve never heard of" and "the top 26 mistakes you’re making in bed" articles from Redbook than I could count, though it appears the Redbook editors would have no trouble totting them up. There was even a "Top 40: excerpts from our steamiest sex articles." And in addition to what I think was our article, there were six other Redbook offerings on erogenous or "hot zones."
By Spencer Young
GAFFTA marquee. All photos by Spencer Young.
I encountered a man lost in a solo dance-trance when I walked into Grey Area Foundation for the Arts on Thursday, Oct. 1. GAFFTA is a newly-opened “nonprofit organization dedicated to building social consciousness through digital culture,” and this was their GAFFTAhours Preview Celebration for their inaugural exhibition, “OPEN.” This guy really seemed to be enjoying the event — he hunched and vibrated to a well-worn house track in front of the gallery’s main feature, a video art projection by C.E.B Reas. I halfway understand why he was doing this: Reas’s ornate visual fractals spiral, ebb and flow like magic on the screen. Using the open-source program Processing, he creates morphing crystalline structures that mimic natural processes. Walking around the rest of GAFFTA’s quirky yet beautiful space-turned-temporary-nightclub, I found the rest of Reas’s works: another projection, and a series of prints hanging like traditional art objects. They don’t convey much, but they sure are pretty.
C.E.B. Reas video still
C.E.B. Reas print
A saunter to the cozy nook upstairs revealed Stamen Design‘s heavy display of information graphics that plastered the walls, hung in negative space, and covered the low slab of concrete in the middle of the room apparently used for sitting. Working with crime and cab data and Craigslist rental listings specific to the Tenderloin, Stamen’s largest piece attempts to draw geographical connections between these three phenomena.
By Nicole Gluckstern
For reasons I shall never quite fathom, the majority of the year’s horror films will inevitably be released closer to Christmas than to All Hallows Eve, thwarting my autumnal desire to have the holy bejeebus scared out of me over popcorn and stale nachos. Fortunately for my seasonal predilection, a number of Bay Area theatre companies are staging live performances of creepshow classics, serving up shock, splatter, and suspense — though probably not nachos – for the rest of October (and beyond).
Zombie Town
Zombies run amok at the EXIT Theatre! “Zombie Town” and “Zombie: A New Musical”. SF Fringe favorites Sleepwalkers Theatre present “Zombie Town”—”a documentary play”—by Tim Bauer directly across the hall of the EXIT Theatreplex from Anthony R. Miller’s Heavy Metal Zombie musical extravaganza. How can you possible go wrong? Flip a coin, or heck, go two nights in a row. “Zombie Town” ($14-$20) plays through Nov 7, “Zombie: A New Musical” ($15) will close Halloween Night. It’s Zombieriffic! EXIT Theatre, 8 p.m., 156 Eddy, SF, www.sffringe.org.
Brain-Dead Alive
Primitive Screwheads: “Brain-Dead Alive.” Wear your oldest clothes to this performance, the Primitive Screwheads are firm believers in blood, lots and lots of blood. Buckets of it. All over the place, themselves, you. It’s a beautiful thing. This year’s adaptation of Peter Jackson’s “Dead Alive” promises blood, flying limbs, horror, hilarity, more blood, and a bonus lineup of spooky opening bands, including a rare performance by Fringe Festival favorites and “Mortified” house band LIVE EVIL who play on Halloween Night. Now that’s entertainment! Through October 31, 7:30 p.m., Great Star Theatre, 636 Jackson, SF, $20, www.primitivescrewheads.com.
The Torture Garden
Thrillpeddler’s Shocktoberfest: “The Torture Garden”. Shockingly naturalistic, turn-of-the-previous-century, Grand Guignol theatre was the great-grandparent of slasher flicks and racy peepshow farces, and San Francisco’s premiere Grand Guignol devotees, the Thrillpeddlers, have been dishing up both every Halloween for ten years strong. This year they’re presenting a brand new translation of Grand Guignol master playwright Andre de Lorde’s “The Torture Garden,” plus another modern original, “The Phantom Limb,” penned by Thrillpeddler’s regular Rob O’Keefe. An up close and all too personal intermission demonstration of their working model of an 18’th century guillotine will give you more bang for your buck than any snoozy Friday the Thirteenth marathon ever will. Thursdays and Fridays through Nov 20. 8 p.m. The Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF. $25, www.thrillpeddlers.com
By Marke B.
Dig those delicious vintage issues of Omni magazine out of your ma’s closet and crack back open that copy of Cosmos — from melodysheep on YouTube comes this lovely, trip-hoppy musical exploration of Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking’s popular scientific output.
PS: I am starting a club called OMNI immediately:
As West Fest approaches, Noise is showcasing some of the 18 different concert posters created for the event, which takes place on Sunday, October 25 at Golden Gate Park. Take a gander …
Poster by D. Hughston and G. Johnson
Poster by Mike Dolgushkin
Poster by Michael V. Rios
Poster by Pat Ryan
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Leah, 19th Street and Mission
Tell us about your look: “Wear what you like. You don’t have to stick to just a certain
store’s clothes.”
By Molly Freedenberg. Photos by Michael Rauner.
Time is running out on the beloved (and only a bit controversial) Burning Opera: How to Survive the Apocalypse, the Mark Nichols/Erik Davis vehicle that attempts to both explain and capture the ethos of SF’s favorite (and favorite to ridicule) festival: Burning Man. The wildly popular show that opened October 5 at Teatro Zinzanni ends its three-week run (extended an extra week due to demand) tomorrow (Wed, Oct 21) night, with a limited number of tickets still available for tonight and tomorrow’s shows.
Librettist Erik Davis opens the Burning Opera by transforming from middle-aged geek to heckling dessert bunny “Bulldada,” whose commentary throughout the show is not only funny, but accurately captures one element of playa culture: irreverence for everything, including Burning Man itself.
Despite some technical difficulties (sound is hit-or-miss, and some lyrics are hard to decipher) and occasionally coming off as unpolished, the show has been delighting audiences with its remarkable range, combination of history and present-day culture, inside jokes, and a surprising mix of earnestness and irony.
Of course, most of those delighted are burners – people who get the jokes. If Burning Man were a summer camp (and in many ways it is), this opera would be what the counselors do for each other at the end of the year talent show – if the counselors were trained in musical theater. Which is exactly what makes it fantastic and hilarious, but potentially off-putting to non-burners, jaded old-schoolers, and anyone who doesn’t genuinely enjoy musicals and satire. I’d also argue that the longer one has gone to Burning Man and the more one knows about it, the more you’ll get from the show. (In particular, even my veteran burner friends had questions about historical references, most of which I could answer because I’d read Brian Doherty’s fantastic book This is Burning Man.)
By Steven T. Jones
In a couple hours, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors will consider a controversial proposal to extend parking meter hours to evenings and Sundays, but it’s still unclear whether that body is inclined to take any action.
Alternative transportation and urban planning activists are excited about the chance to weigh in on a proposal that would raise nearly $9 million per year and begin to balance out the fare hikes and service cuts that Muni riders absorbed this year, while some motorists and business owners are likely to express their opposition.
Mayor Gavin Newsom has been expressing opposition to the item through the San Francisco Chronicle, but an item buried in yesterday’s Matier & Ross column seems to indicate that he’s backing off a bit, although they don’t seem to understand that this is a decision for the MTA board, not the Board of Supervisors.
As I’ve written before, this proposal will be a big test of whether the MTA board, whose seven members are all appointed by Newsom, is actually the independent agency capable of making tough decisions without regard to political consequences that the intent of 2007’s Proposition A, which gave them full authority over parking and public transit in San Francisco.
The meeting starts at 2 p.m. in City Hall’s Room 400, and the parking meter proposal follows a discussion of the agency’s deficit-plagued budget, appropriately enough.
P.S. Streetsblog SF has an excellent discussion of the proposal with parking guru Donald Shoup, who makes it clear why this study is so different for the meter rates increases in Oakland that caused such controversy.
