On the Cheap listings are compiled by Lucy Schiller and Caitlin Donohue. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.
WEDNESDAY 18
Pinball tournament Vitus, 201 Broadway, Oakl. www.vitusoakland.com. 6:50 p.m., $5. Those adept at flipping the bird may discover an easy crossover into the dexterous world of pinball. Vitus hosts a tournament chock-full of raffle prizes.
A Negotiated Landscape discussion University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft, Berk. www.universitypressbooks.com. 6-7:30 p.m., free. Urban studies professor Jasper Rubin follows and examines the political wranglings over the San Francisco waterfront in his latest book, detailing grassroots activism against major development projects.
Stand-up comedy showcase Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California, SF. (415) 831-5620, www.dannydechi.com. 7 p.m., free. Bizarro winter germs got you feeling a little under-the-fog-cover? Head out to this yuckfest, featuring Danny Dechi and a passel of his funny buddies: Jill Bourque, Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, Mike Capozzola, and Rebecca Arthur, to name a few.
THURSDAY 19
Inside Story Time Café Royale, 800 Post, SF. www.caferoyale-sf.com. 6:30-8:30 p.m., $3-5. Local authors doing readings that match tonight’s theme, “aspirations.” Hopeful readings, at that.
Eric Shanower’s Road to Oz Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF. www.cartoonart.org. 7-9 p.m., $5 suggested donation. Accomplished cartoonist Eric Shanower has made it his life’s work to convert L. Frank Baum’s Oz books into Marvel Comics graphic novels. He details his journey down his own yellow brick road as a struggling artist.
FRIDAY 20
Fullmetal Alchemist: the Sacred Star of Milos screening Film Society Cinema, 1746 Post, SF. www.sffs.org. 2, 4:30, 7, 9:15 p.m. $9-11. The latest installment in an anime series which explores Europe’s industrial revolution, alchemy, and popular resistance comes to the SF Film Society.
SF Dump artist-in-residency art opening Environmental Learning Center Gallery, 503 Tunnel, SF. www.recologysf.com. 5-9 p.m., free; Also Sat/21 1-5 p.m., free. There can be no cooler artist-in-residency program than that of Recology, which sets up its creative types to craft art from the detritus found in the dump itself. Great works have sprung from this collaboration, and this weekend Ethan Estess, Donna Anderson, and Terry Berlier will surely add to that canon.
SATURDAY 21
Gina Osterloh lecture Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. www.ybca.org. 2-4 p.m., $7. Osterloh’s latest work Anonymous Front, created in conjunction with a massage therapy school for the blind in the Philippines, explores blindness and identity with eye-deceiving photographs.
Ikebana demonstration Ortega Branch Library, 3223 Ortega, SF. www.sfpl.org. 2 p.m., free. Chizuko Nakamura gently coaxes flowers into sophisticated submission in a demonstration of the traditional Japanese arranging art.
Kulinarya: A Filipino culinary showdown Carnelian by the Bay, 1 Ferry Plaza, SF. www.kulinarya2.eventbrite.com. 4 p.m., free. Featuring a cornucopia of Filipino edibles and goods, this second annual event showcases the pili nut, which according to one expert is pretty much the next macadamia.
SUNDAY 22
Seasonal plant sale Hayes Valley Farm, 450 Laguna, SF. www.hayesvalleyfarm.com. Noon-5 p.m., free. Windowbox chard beats out the six-dollar variety any day. Hayes Valley Farm provides sturdy seedlings, hardy fruit trees (including pluots!), and those ever-prolific seedbombs, perfect for those whose personal green space is constrained to a crack in the sidewalk.
MONDAY 23
Ben Ehrenreich and Robert Arellano reading The Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF. www.booksmith.com. 7:30 p.m., free. Ehrenreich’s dystopian novel Ether has been likened to “Bambi directed by Quentin Tarantino,” while Arellano’s Curse the Names is the story of an apocalypse-to-be deep in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
TUESDAY 24
“The Language of Flowers” lecture San Francisco Library, 100 Larkin, SF. www.sfpl.org. 6 p.m., free. Never send an ill-timed chrysanthemum again! Author Vanessa Diffenbaugh is doing a reading from her new book about the Victorian art of figuring out what severed dead blooms can say about you and the object of your affection.