SFBG Blogs Archives — Page 385 of 597 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

LISTEN/VISION 06 speaks

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May 7, 2009

By Johnny Ray Huston

In addition to making music, Christopher Willits is a guiding force behind the art and experimental music site Overlap (www.overlap.org). In conjunction with Overlap’s next event, I caught up with him by e-mail.

SFBG What was it like to collaborate with Ryuichi Sakamoto on Ocean Fire (12k, 2008)?

Christopher Willits It was surreal. We fell into an oceanic trance, and a bunch of music suddenly emerged. Then a Godzilla-like sea monster morphed out of his piano and he vaporized it with his max patch.

SFBG You’ve also worked with Brad Laner of Medicine. Are you an admirer of that (ahead-of-its-time) band?

CW Medicine [had] a mind-splittingly original sound — it was a soundtrack to many high school adventures. Now it’s an absolute joy to be friends with Mr. Laner. Together we are the varsity band members (guitar I and II) of the North Valley Subconscious Orchestra. We’re aiming for nationals next year.

SFBG What do you like about the Bay Area’s close proximity to the ocean?

CW The smell of fresh wind, and dreams of flying great white sharks.

SFBG I saw a fave list of yours once that had Magma, the Carpenters’ "Close to You" and Sun Ra’s Lanquidity on it. Who is inspiring or obsessing you at present?

CW That is a timeless list — can I say them again? Let’s add Morton Subotnick, Wild Bull (www.merlindarts.com), all Eliane Radigue, all Elvin Jones, John Coltrane, and that band that plays at El Rio on Sunday night.

SFBG You recently toured in China, including a performance with images on ice. What did you discover?

CW I discovered a resilient community of artists and experimental musicians pushing against the grain (and firewall) of this mammoth country or force. They understand my history and what I’m doing — another win for Chinese bootlegs? I also found some of the best food ever: huajiao (flower pepper) with asparagus! But hold the boiled big brains. Those I’m definitely not into.

LISTEN/VISION 06 With Christopher Willits, Taylor Deupree, and Classical Revolution. Sun/10, 8 p.m., $10. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016. www.overlap.org.

Dance: Emporer Norton, back as folk tale

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May 7, 2009

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By Rita Felciano

Andrew Wass as Emperor Norton. Photo by Andrea Flores

Two years ago Catherine Galasso appeared at the WestWave Dance Festival in Gnome Trouble, based on the Grimm brothers’ fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red. Freud would have loved to bite into that story of sibling rivalry. Even though Galasso’s piece wasn’t that successful, it somehow stayed in memory. Apparently she likes folk tales. She is back with another one, The Improbable Reign of Norton I, Emperor of the United States. In fact Norton was a 19th century San Franciscan, eccentric to say the least. He will be joined on stage by other semimythic Barbary Coast denizens, including Joaquin Murrietta, a Robin Hood type bandit. Sharing the bill with Galasso will be a kindred spirit, Seattle’s Salt Horse dance-sound company, with This Was a Cliff. Taking an entirely different perspective — improvisatory and nonnarrative — they also create imagistic dance-theater works in which reality and fantasy collide and cooperate. The double bill comes courtesy of SCUBA, the national touring network created by ODC Theater, Velocity Dance Center in Seattle, and the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. This small venture by cooperating presenters was founded in 2003 in a time of plenty. It seemed a good idea then. It’s an even better one today if small presenters and their artists are going to survive.

SCUBA WITH CATHERINE GALASSO AND SALT HORSE Sat/9, 8 p.m.; Sun/10, 7 p.m., $15–$18. ODC Theater, 351 Shotwell, SF. (415) 863-9834, www.odctheater.org

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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May 7, 2009

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SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Look: Oliver, McAllister and Hyde

Tell us about your look: “I’m wearing mostly hand-me-downs.”

Delish peas in a pod, tucked into Pal’s Take Away

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May 7, 2009

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Pal, please: You’ll want your own sandwich and salads at Pal’s Take Away. Photo by Kimberly Chun.

By Kimberly Chun

I love Dynamo Donut’s newest neighbor – nestled in Tony’s Market, at 2751 24th St. and Hampshire – ’cause he’s absolutely delish.

Pal’s Take Away – essentially a stand within the corner bodega across the way from DD – sources its sparkling fresh food stuffs from Acme, Marin Sun, Dirty Girl, Riverdog, Full Belly, Knoll, etc., as well as chums’ fruit trees – and it keeps a concise menu, focusing on sandwiches made to order and two or three salads, tops.

Pal also likes mango on his homemade strawberry jam and almond butter offering – but I’ll forgive him for that because my spring peas salad – with fresh shelling, sugar snap, and snow peas and a blissful dose of mint and champagne vinegar – kind of made my day. I don’t care what some cooks say about frozen peas being a perfectly acceptable substitute for fresh: you can tell the difference, and this salad is the ideal way to relish these tiny-tailed babies.

When dinos go wild: Dengue Fever scores ‘Lost World’ at the Castro

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May 6, 2009

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By Kimberly Chun

Surprise: no theremins in earshot at the Castro Theatre on May 5 when Dengue Fever unleashed its new score for the 1925 silent adventure film, The Lost World, as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Instead the seemingly sold-out audience got plenty of laughs, the compelling Wallace Beery as the seemingly mad Professor Challenger, herky-jerky yet still marvelous stop-motion dinosaurs, shameful black-face in the form of Sambo sidekick (Jules Cowles), and the fab scene of an astonishingly resilient Brontosaurus crashing through London city streets before plummeting from the famed bridge. The latter moment clearly evoked King Kong – and no wonder: the special effects were produced by Willis O’Brien, who also coaxed Kong to life.

Supervisors seem primed to reject MTA budget

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May 6, 2009

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By Steven T. Jones

While the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee hearing on President David Chiu’s proposal to reject the Municipal Transportation Agency’s disastrous budget is just getting underway, the fact that Chiu has six co-sponsors (giving him the seven votes required to reject it) seems to indicate that this budget is going down.

“If people have to pay more for less, they will stop taking Muni,” Chiu said at the hearing, referring to an MTA budget that closes a $126 million budget deficit mostly with Muni fare increases and deep service cuts.

Chiu and Sup. David Campos also took issue with the $66 million that the MTA is planning to pay out to other city agencies, most notably the police and health departments and the 311 call center, a pet project of Mayor Gavin Newsom. “Whatever money riders of Muni pay into the system should be used for public transportation,” Campos said, adding that his Mission District constituents are angry that the MTA is being used as a piggy bank by other city departments. “I’m very troubled by that and I believe the voters of my district are troubled by that.”

While this saga will take at least another week or two to play out at the board level, if Chiu’s co-sponsors remain supportive, the board is going to make the MTA come up with a fair, smart budget that doesn’t subsidize unrelated services or discourage public transit use when we need it most.

Beauty and Body: Cocoon Urban Day Spa

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May 6, 2009

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By Molly Freedenberg

My Dad was one of those people who cared about money and the success he thought it implied. The doctor son of an East Coast Jewish family, he seemed to think his red BMW, sprawling SoCal house, and ski cabin timeshare in mammoth proved he was, indeed, the golden child his (almost entirely female) family always told him he was.

Me? I never cared much for the trappings (and pressure) of upper class society. I just hoped to one day earn enough income to pay for the basics — plus a weekly spa treatment and really nice sheets. I somehow always felt that it was experiences, not stuff, that made life feel full and rich. And every experience is enhanced by a happy, healthy body. Unfortunately, at age 31, I still find myself scrambling just to pay rent. Thanks to my Mom and her indulgent Christmases, my bedclothes are awesome. But regular facials, massages, and body wraps are still painfully out of reach (and shockingly ignored by health insurance companies, though I whole-heartedly believe that if we all had more of such treatments, we’d need less trips to the doctor, dermatologist, and chiropractor later on).

However, I still find my way into a spa whenever I can: to celebrate friends’ birthdays or weddings, to take advantage of sales, or, sometimes, just because I can’t stand waiting anymore. Most recently, it was for an eyebrow wax at Cocoon Day Spa, which happens to be my friend on Facebook. I noticed a message advertising half off any waxing service, as a way to train a new aesthetician. I calculated quickly: I couldn’t afford a leg or bikini wax, even half off, but the eyebrow wax would be $9 after the discount. And I hadn’t had someone else shape my brows since 2003, so it seemed about time. I was on the phone half an hour later, and in a cab two hours after that.

Open wide: Polyamory reconsidered

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May 6, 2009

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By Molly Freedenberg

Illustration from Salon.com story on polyamory.

I used to say the word “polyamory” is just shorthand for “really slow break-up.” Though I know two couples who manage to have successful, committed, loving partnerships both within and outside of their marriages, most cases I’ve witnessed have ended in disaster. And even more common, I’ve noticed, is that the people who discuss or consider polyamory are in unhappy relationships already. For polyamory to work, all partners involved must be good communicators, secure in themselves and each other, and, above all else, compassionate. But unhappy couples tend to be none of these. For them, opening the relationship is a way to get needs met without having to address difficult issues, including the idea of actually breaking up. Instead, opening the relationship intensifies existing problems, introduces new ones, and, usually, ends in a break-up anyway.

I used to be one of the latter. I was in a long-term, exclusive relationship that was satisfying in many ways. But our sex life was dismal. Neither of us wanted to break up, and none of our attempts to remedy our sexual problems seemed to work. So we began to discuss the possibility of finding sexual fulfillment outside our otherwise (mostly) happy home. But the mental gymnastics required to consider such a possibility always led to the same injurious conclusion: our relationship’s inevitable demise. Neither of us thought we could manage the jealousy. And even worse, both my boyfriend and I feared that if one of us were to find fulfillment outside each other, we might realize we didn’t want each other at all. The final decision? We didn’t do it. I decided I’m not cut out for open relationships, and neither are most people. Within a year, my boyfriend and I broke up, and I stayed almost entirely — and blissfully — single for the next two years.

Fast forward to the present.

Bike Coalition honors Sunday Streets

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May 6, 2009

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By Steven T. Jones

Proponents of Sunday Streets accepting their award. Photo by Orange Photography courtesy of the SFBC.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition honored the proponents of Sunday Streets – the temporary closure of San Francisco roads to cars that was created by a partnership of groups ranging from Livable City to the Mayor’s Office – at its annual Golden Wheels awards event, held last night in the War Memorial Building across from City Hall.

Sunday Streets, part of an international trend toward adopting the ciclovias popularized in Columbia as a means of expanding public space and promoting fitness and recreation, started last year in San Francisco with two events and there are six planned for this year, with the second coming this Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. from AT&T Park to the Bayview Opera House.

“The streets belong to us, they are the public spaces of the city, but they don’t feel like they belong to us,” said Livable City director Tom Radulovich, who praised the unlikely coalition that brought these events together. “I don’t get a chance to thank the mayor for very many things…But the mayor was committed to this.”

Loitering outside clubs banned

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May 6, 2009

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Text by Sarah Phelan

Asking for change outside local nightclubs could end up costing you $100 or a stint in the county jail, thanks to a newly enacted loitering ban that’s aimed at making clubbing safer but threatens First Amendment rights.

Google the phrase “we met outside the club” and you’ll get all sorts of interesting hits, mostly involving luscious bands, lascivious strippers and a crazy story titled “Getting laid Brazilian style.”

But meeting band members, picking up strippers and getting laid San Francisco style by people you met outside clubs here just got potentially harder, thanks to loitering legislation that the Board of Supervisors passed yesterday, in an effort to make clubbing safer. And then there are the usual questions about how this legislation impinges on people’s First Amendment rights and how it will most likely end up netting a bunch of homeless folks rather than hardened criminals.

“The areas outside nightclubs have become the site of robberies, assaults, stabbings and shootings” states the loitering ban that the Board passed in a 9-2 vote, with Sups. Chris Daly and John Avalos dissenting.

Why does the Potrero power plant operate with an expired water permit?

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May 6, 2009

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By Rebecca Bowe

choking fish.gif

On Dec. 31, 2008, Mirant’s wastewater-discharge permit expired — but the gas and diesel-fired power plant still runs an average of nearly 20 hours a day, according to figures released by the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO).

One unit at the facility uses a system called once-through cooling, which means it takes in huge quantities of water from the bay to cool the machinery, then dumps it all back at temperatures high enough to impact surrounding ecosystems. This process is regulated by a permit issued by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. A spreadsheet on the agency’s Web site shows that more than five months into 2009, a hearing to outline the terms of a new wastewater-discharge permit still hasn’t been scheduled. The water board is waiting on a state policy decision regarding once-through cooling before it acts, a note explains.

The man in “Control:” Jim Jarmusch interview

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May 6, 2009

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By Erik Morse

Poster for Jim Jarmusch’s latest film, The Limits of Control.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: I was trying to think how to go about this interview and present something slightly different to you than the same old questions you’ve been asked a hundred times over. I kept going back to various anthropology texts I’ve been reading recently. Have you heard of James Clifford’s essay “Traveling Cultures”?

Jim Jarmusch: No.

SFBG: Would you mind if I read a bit of it to you? I think it could be very relevant to our discussion.

JJ: Sure.

SFBG: “To begin, a quotation from C.L.R. James in Beyond a Boundary: ‘Time would pass, old empires would fall and new ones take their place. The relations of classes had to change before I discovered that it’s not quality of goods and utility that matter, but movement, not where you are or what you have, but where you come from, where you are going and the rate at which you are getting there.’”

“Or begin again with hotels: Joseph Conrad, in the pages of Victory: ‘The age in which we are encamped like bewildered travelers in a garish, unrestful hotel.’ In Tristes Tropiques, Levi-Strauss evokes an out-of-scale concrete cube sitting in the midst of the new Brazillian city of Goiania in 1937. It’s his symbol of civilization’s barbarity, ‘a place of transit, not of residence.’ The hotel as station, airport terminal, hospital: a place ou pass through, where the encouters are fleeting, arbitrary.”

It’s a very long and incredible essay and I thought of it immediately after seeing your latest film.

Hot sex events this week: May 6-12

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May 6, 2009

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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

Femina Potens curator, international award winning Bondage Model and Feminist Porn Star Madison Young hosts this month’s “Sizzle.”

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>> Sizzle
Femina Potens celebrates Masturbation Month with an auto-erotica reading and open mic extravaganza, featuring writer and sexologist Carol Queen, porn performer and BDSM professionalDusty Horn, queer porn producer and bondage model Madison Young, and Xicana burlesque mistress Chica Boom. (Also check out the benefit for Femina Potens at The Lex on Saturday.)

Fri/8, 8pm. $10-15.
Femina Potens
2199 Market, SF
www.feminapotens.org

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>> School of Shimmy
Learn to shake it on the stage or in the bedroom with Dottie Lux and guest teachers in this two-hour workshop. Includes history of burlesque, how to create a character, and basic choreography. All ages, genders, and experience levels welcome.

Thurs/7, 7:30pm. $30.
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
www.sexandculture.org

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>> Sex Work on Wheels Tour
The Bike Coalition combines two of our favorite things – bikes and sex – with this two-wheeled tour of San Francisco’s sexy side, including stops by streets named for Gold Rush-era madams, sites of 19th century parlor houses, and discussion of labor struggles in the sex industry..

Sat/9, 11am-2pm, free.
Main Library at Fulton Street steps, SF
www.sfbike.org

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>> Girl Girl Tricks for Men, Part 2
Ever suspect lesbians have secrets about sex with women that would make you a better lover? Dig deeper into the world of lesbian sex with this sexy and intellectual romp through lesbian bedsheets with bisexual dyke and sex educator Kristy Lin Billuni. Men only.

Tues/12, 8pm. $25-30.
Good Vibrations
1620 Polk, SF
www.goodvibes.com

Gov opens door, a bit, on legal pot

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May 6, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

Well, Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t actually admit that he favors legalizing marijuana, which he once referred to (after taking hit on camera) as “not a drug, it’s a leaf,” but he did say that the state ought to have a debate on the issue. That’s possibly good news for Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, who has a bill to legalize pot that’s not exactly moving forward fast. Some of the Democrats in Sacramento are more afraid of the Demon Leaf than the guv is.

I don’t know if Arnold still does the 420, but I know he realizes that his budget plan is heading for defeat. And legalizing and taxing the state’s biggest cash crop would do wonders to boost state revenue.

UPDATE: Just talked to Ammiano, who told me that “I’m predicting something pretty good comes out of this.” WIth polls showing more than half the state supports legal pot, even the Democratic leadership, which has been loathe to move the Ammiano bill foward, may be ready at least to discuss the issue.

“The opposition is shrinking and the proponents are growing,” he said.

So it will be interesting to see how the Democratic candidates for governor shake down on this. “Gavin Newsom has trapped himself by saying no,” Ammiano noted. Can’t wait to hear what ol’ Jerry Brown has to say.

Guardian wins Maggie Award

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May 6, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

Congratulations to City Editor Steven T. Jones, who won a presitigous Maggie Award from the Western Publishing Association. Jones won in the category of “Best Signed Editorial or Essay” for his March 19, 2008 report on the state of the antiwar movement, “Resistance is futile — or is it?”.

Live review: Kreator and Exodus deliver the quality bangover

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May 6, 2009

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By LC Mason

Kreator at a German fest earlier this year

Quality bangover: the gloriously painful aftermath that results after a night of heavy headbanging to brutal bass drum runs and diabolic guitar solos, characterized by roaring tinnitus, aching neck muscles, bruises and scrapes from slamming and stomping into others, as well as stiff hands from gratuitous handing and devil horn-throwing.

This was my condition when I woke up the next morning, ringing ears and all, after witnessing the merciless onslaught of the Kreator and Exodus show at Slim’s on Tuesday, April 28. Except I wasn’t brave enough to enter the roiling whirlpool of 200-pound man-bodies, because a lot more than bruises and scrapes would have gone down, especially as Kreator vocalist-guitarist Mille Petrozza repeatedly and ravenously commanded the audience to “kill each other in the mosh pit.”

In a rhapsodic homecoming performance that surely sated the entire pantheon of thrash metal gods, San Francisco’s legendary sons Exodus played faster and harder than any band half their age and challenged their fans, both young and old, to act accordingly.

Sing those blues, Sita

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May 6, 2009

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By Dennis Harvey

Sita Sings the Blues

A few years ago, independent animator and comic strip artist Nina Paley left San Francisco for India, where her boyfriend had found employment. A while later, during a visit home, she received a surprise, brusque communication from the bf informing her she need not return — the relationship was over. Just what the bf ultimately got out of this episode is unknown. But Paley got posterity: her first feature film, inspired by both the breakup and the ancient Sanskrit epic the Ramayana, is artistic therapy that also happens to be just about the most delightful movie in eons, cartoon or otherwise. Utilizing very different animation techniques, she cuts between a blatantly autobiographical tale of romantic woe and the mythological travails of Sita, beloved of the noble Rama. He rescues her from an amorous, abducting rival, but his chivalry dies when false accusations about her "purity" threaten to tarnish his image. Then, as now, men are pigs. Sita wriggles through her fate like a Bollywood Betty Boop, frequently crooning vintage 78 tracks by Jazz Age blues chanteuse Annette Hanshaw, and the visual wit on display is akin to Max Fleischer’s antics plus intellectual gamesmanship, grotesque streaks, and eye-popping color. Paley breaks the fourth wall in umpteen ingenious ways. Sita Sings the Blues is so full of fun and invention you may start looking forward to seeing it again after it’s barely started.

Sita Sings the Blues trailer

SITA SINGS THE BLUES runs Fri/8–Tues/12 at the Red Vic..

The Blender: What we’ve been eating

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May 6, 2009

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By the hungry hungry Guardian staff

(1) Cabernet and oysters, Bistro St. Germain, SF

(2) Strawberry shortcake with vanilla ice cream and honey

(3) Five kinds of Pyramid Ale with beer-soaked mussels, Pyramid Brewery and Alehouse, Berk.

(4) Bacon-wrapped sausage, bacon-wrapped marshmallows, and bacon-wrapped bacon, Trout Camp, Shasta Springs

(5) Herradura chicken with red chili pesto

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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May 6, 2009

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SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Look: Shanti, Charles J. Brenham and McAllister

Tell us about your look: “I like wearing lots of color and today it was lots of gold.”

Oops: DirtyBird Pajama Jam this Friday

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May 6, 2009

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By Marke B.

What can I say? I’m cute and often clueless — and as attested below I’m perpetually on Spring Break. In the print edition of my Super Ego column in this week’s Guardian I mistakenly put the DirtyBird Pajama Jam down for Saturday, when in fact it’s Friday at Mezzanine. Full and correct preview below. Somebody spank me!

Wig out to J. Phlip on Friday night, download her 2008 !@#$%^& mix (which I’m still wrapping my head around) here.

DIRTYBIRD PAJAMA JAM

Ha ha ha, I feel so spring break. Famed local techno label Dirty Bird matches its goofy sensibility with a no-slumber party, bunny slippers and all. DJs Claude VonStroke, Worthy, Justin and Christian Martin, and up-and-comer J. Phlip bring the post-minimal hijinks, you bring the stripy drawers and stuffed E.T. dolls.

Fri/8, 10 p.m., $15, Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

Claude VonStroke at 2007 DirtyBird Picnic in Golden Gate Park

Obama meets Mantis in Lace!

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May 5, 2009

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The blogosphere and cable television got more heated than fried cheese in Paula Dean’s kitchen about President Obama’s and Vice-President Biden’s recent trip to Ray’s Hell Burger.

Peeping the footage at a corner store, I didn’t give a damn about the story’s culinary focus. I was thrilled to see the most famous man in the world sharing the frame with a huge poster for Mantis in Lace! Now this is the kind of juxtaposition that makes life worth living. In fact, I think I’ll call it a day as soon as I finish posting this item.

Look over your shoulder, Biden. Mantis in Lace‘s Lila has a cleaver for you.

Psychotronic maniacs will tell you that Mantis in Lace is the tale of Lila, a loner stripper chick who doses herself with copious LSD as she seduces men back to her beatnik lair and kills them. It has a theme song, lots of mod wackiness, and one of the best movie titles ever. It’s also a favorite of the artist and zine inventor G.B. Jones.

It’s great to see our leader eating next to this archival treasure from Times Square’s heyday. But I won’t be fully satisfied until we see Obama eating a vegetarian meal next to a lobby card for Deadly Spawn.

Booker T. and Bettye LaVette punch up the soul

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May 5, 2009

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By Andre Torrez

In the 1960s Booker T. and the MG’s served as Stax/Volt’s house band, much like the Funk Brothers were for Motown. Playing alongside Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and the Staple Singers, among others, they beat Love and also Sly and the Family Stone to the racially-integrated rock-band punch. It was 1962’s "Green Onions" on the Memphis-based soul label that put them on the map. The song’s recent omnipresence at sporting events has given it a bit of a "jock jam" tag, but it isn’t tarnished completely.

Today Booker T. Jones is letting his signature Hammond organ sound sing alongside "the Great Lady of Soul," Bettye LaVette. After hearing her humbling rendition of the Who’s "Love Reign O’er Me" at that group’s Kennedy Center Honors, I knew LaVette’s tag was legit. Even Barbra Streisand — in attendance that night — recognized it. She turned to Pete Townshend in disbelief, asking if he’d really written that song.

Bettye Lavette, “Love Reign O’er”

LaVette gives the rock opera ballad a gut-wrenching, soulful treatment. She owns it.

For most of her career, the Detroit native has struggled, but she’s steadily built an audience, touring with late legends including James Brown and a young Mr. Pitiful along the way. LaVette’s had one-off singles released by Atlantic and Motown. It seems she is finally getting her due, having had the honor of dueting on a song at President Obama’s inauguration ceremony — even if it was with Jon Bon Jovi.

Now LaVette’s career has paralleled Booker T’s. Both are signed to Anti- Records. Booker’s new album for the label, Potato Hole, features Neil Young and includes a playful version of Outkast’s "Hey Ya," Expect covers aplenty — and some surprises, too — from this bill’s soulful one-two punch.

BOOKER T. AND BETTYE LAVETTE Fri/8, 8 p.m. Independent, 628 Divisadero, 415-771-1421. www.theindependentsf.com

Highbrow smut: local literary porno for book lovers

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May 5, 2009

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By Juliette Tang

Why Kindle when you can burn?

Sometimes, it really is sexier to close your legs and open a book. Especially in the case of good erotic fiction. While porn gives you a balls-in-the-face visual overload, the pleasures of erotica are subtler, more cerebral. A book of erotica is something you can take with you into the bathtub with a glass of wine, candles lit, and jazz on the radio. Or, put the dust jacket of Ulysses on your copy of Hot-N-Naughty: Extreme Erotica and you’re totally safe to read while MUNI-ing to work in the morning.

Always known as a bookish city, San Francisco does not disappoint bibliophiles whose tastes lean toward the more sensational. Who knew there were so many different words for “penis”? Like “bald-headed butler”? This Friday (May 8, 6:30PM) at the Good Vibrations on Polk (1620 Polk Street), treat yourself to a free session of “Erotica and Wine” with a special reading by writer John Thursday. More of an “erotic philosopher,” Thursday has introduced some truly necessary terms to our sexual lexicon, like zen penis, dong perch, and shirt cocking.

Not an example of “shirt cocking”

If you’ve got the urge for some sizzling stories but can’t make it out to Good Vibes on Friday, check out some of these progressive San Francisco bookstores for some literary hardcore!

“Hellish grammar safer”: Artist Kevin P. Mosley patterns his instructors

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May 5, 2009

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By Marke B.

Jeff Linder

I’m a big admirer of SF (by way of Kansas and NYC) artist Kevin P. Mosley‘s work. The bright, flickering patterns of his aplique-on-found-glass output somehow convey to me a feeling of camp guignol: vibrantly psychedelic yet rigidly hallucinogenic — kind of like what I imagine pill-popping housewives from ’50s movies might see when the high kicks in and the children are screaming from the solarium. On Easter. If those housewives were trapped in gay men’s bodies.

Rosa Jimenez-Vasquez

Strangely, the works are also almost soothing to get lost in — they register any changes in light impeccably; I especially like them on golden-sunny late afternoons — and they’re pretty like a little girl’s hat. His latest batch of works, which Mosley calls “portraits,” is receiving a monthlong showing at Magnet in the Castro.