Berkeley

Rep Clock

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Schedules are for Wed/5–Tues/11 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-12. Tron: Legacy (Kosinski, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 1:30, 4:15, 7:00, 9:30. “Midnites for Maniacs: Swords and Sorcery Triple Feature:” •The Princess Bride (Reiner, 1987), Fri, 7:30; Time Bandits (Gilliam, 1981), Fri, 9:30; Deathstalker (Sbardellati, 1983), Fri, 11:59. All three films, $12. “Hitchcock:” •The 39 Steps (1935), 2, 5:35, 9:05, and The Lady Vanishes (1938), Sat, 3:45, 7:15; •I Confess (1953), Sun, 2, 5:30, 9:05, and Rope (1948), Sun, 3:55, 7:30; •Torn Curtain (1966), Mon, 2:15, 7, and Stage Fright (1950), Mon, 4:45, 9:25; •The Trouble With Harry (1955), Tues, 3, 7, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941), Tues, 5:05, 8:55.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. “Short Films from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival,” Wed-Thurs, call for times. “San Francisco Grand Opera Cinema Series:” Lucia de Lammermoor, Thurs, 7 and Sat, 10am. Bhutto (Baughman and O’Hara, 2010), Jan 7-13, call for times.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the World (Gibney, 2005), Wed, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: New Year’s Revolutions:” Viva Zapata! (Kazan, 1952), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. Closed until Jan. 13.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (Gibney, 2010), Wed, 2, 7, 9:15. Enter the Void (Noé, 2009), Thurs-Sat, 7, 9:45 (also Sat, 2). The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Alfredson, 2009), Sun, 2, 5, 8 and Mon-Tues, 7:30. ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. The Strange Case of Angelica (de Oliveira, 2010), Jan 7-13, call for times.

Coming attractions

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Coming attractions

arts@sfbg.com

HAIRY EYEBALL Welcome to 2011. It’s a new dawn, it’s a young decade, and I’m feeling good about the following shows worth eyeballing now or further down the line.

 

JOB PISTON: “WE TOOK A FAMILY PORTRAIT”

On a recent trip back to Taiwan, Job Piston took pictures of his grandfather’s garden, the former backdrop for many a family portrait. In Piston’s crisp C-prints, the garden stands as a verdant, almost-threatened exception to the urban sprawl that has sprung up around it. Standing in contrast to these landscapes are Piston’s photograms of the city that has grown beyond the walls of his grandfather’s compound. Created by exposing photographic paper to images on a computer screen originally shot by Piston using his cellphone, these are second-generation copies: photographs of pictures. Much like the now depopulated garden, the blurred, imprecise photograms are reminders, both beautiful and sad, that even through pictures one can never go back. Through Jan. 29. Silverman Gallery, 804 Sutter, SF. Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. (415) 255-9508, www.silverman-gallery.com.

 

GEOFF CHADSEY: “SHIFT, RETURN”

Seemingly summoned from online backwaters of amateur gay porn sites, the men in Geoff Chadsey’s watercolor pencil portraits are turned on, tuned out, and chopped and screwed. An Abercrombie & Fitch-clad stud poses contrapposto in his underwear, his African American face standing in stark contrast to his blond tresses and white appendages. A shirtless bro in a trucker hat, his eyes squinting somewhere between sexy face and catatonia, has an extra set of arms. The lurid flush of Chadsey’s color palette — blues like Drano, pink flesh that crawls with green — only adds to the discomfiting mix of the banal and the extraordinary in his work. Through Feb. 12. Electric Works, 130 Eighth St., SF. (415) 626-5496, www.sfelectricworks.com.

 

RUTH HODGINS AND KIT ROSENBERG: “ALTERED STATES”

Ruth Hodgins and Kit Rosenberg are a collaborative duo who met as MFA students at the SF Art Institute. While they are by no means the first artists to re-present everyday objects and materials, the “all bets are off” approach their work takes play very seriously, extending visual puns into more complicated thought experiments. In Theseus, for example, cooking twine is spun around nails hammered into on a board to create a wall-mounted labyrinth, as if to say that which forms the prison is also the means of escaping it. Through Feb. 19. WE Artspace. 768 40th St., Oakl. www.weartspace.com.

 

“ENTER SLOWLY”

David Cunningham’s excellent gallery space at 924 Folsom may be no more, but the man with the golden eye is still actively curating. Case in point: this group show at The Lab, which brings together work by six European artists operating at the intersection of architecture, sculpture, and installation. Of particular note is Cath Campbell’s second full scale realization of her ongoing installation 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, which uses the titles of sentimental pop songs as blueprints for drawings, video, and models of imagined spaces. Jan. 14-Feb. 19. The Lab, 2948 16th St., SF. (415) 864-8855, www.thelab.org.

 

EVA HESSE: “STUDIOWORK”

A belated coda of sorts to the large Hesse retrospective SFMOMA held back in 2002, this show focuses on the small, makeshift pieces that the sculptor would use as test runs or sketches of her larger works-in-progress. A friend once described Hesse’s amalgams of latex, wire-mesh, wax, fiberglass, and cheesecloth as “sad sacks,” but I don’t think that designation covers the range of effect her work elicits. There’s exuberance, playfulness, and even eroticism, to be found in her manipulation of the above industrial materials; all qualities I hope shine through in even these self-consciously “minor” works of an artist who was anything but. Also on tap at BAM for August is a retrospective of the stunning collage work of another German, painter Kurt Schwitters. Pencil it in. Jan. 26-April 10. Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft, Berk. (510) 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.

 

“THE STEINS COLLECT”

Gertrude Stein famously wore Balmain and had her portrait painted by Picasso. Lady knew how to live. So too, apparently, did her brothers Leo and Michael, and Michael’s wife, Sarah, who also collected art, held salons, and became important linchpins in Paris’ avant-garde circles in the early 1900s, after they expatriated from the family seat in Oakland. I hope this exhibit shines as much light on the Steins’ formative role in helping bringing modern art to the Bay as it does on the Matisses, Cezannes, Renoir, Picassos, and Bonnards they fervently acquired. May 21-Sept. 6. SFMOMA, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org.

Stage Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

THEATER

ONGOING

*Candid Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St; 273-4633, www.sweetcanproductions.com. $15-60. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 9. Sweet Can’s cosy pocket-circus at Dance Mission holds plenty of big-tent talent in its five-person cast (Jamie Coventry, Natasha Kaluza, Kerri Kresinski, Nobutaka Mochimaru, Matt White), backed by the ample multi-instrumental musicianship of Eric “EO” Oberthaler. This fleet 60-minute charmer (directed with strong ensemble choreography by Zaccho Dance Theatre’s Joanna Haigood) finds opportunities for creative expression and dazzling feats with whatever comes to hand (including using hands as feet). Performers dance around in trashcans, make hay with newspaper, or get seriously Fred Astaire with a broom (in White’s wowing solo). Goofy, family appropriate, but widely appealing and frequently eye-popping (Kaluza rocking 20 hula hoops, for inst, or Kresinski’s powerful aerial dance), Candid is can-do entertainment. (Avila)

Cavalia: A Magical Encounter Between Horse and Human White Big Top, 4th St at China Basin; 9866) 999-8111, www.cavalia.net. $69-144. Call for dates and times. Through Tues/4. A show with horses, aerial performers, actobats, and more.

Dirty Little Showtunes! A Parody Musical Revue New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 16. Tom Orr’s adults-only holiday show returns, with direction by F. Allen Sawyer and musical direction by Scrumbly Koldewyn.

*Forever Tango Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter; 771-6900; www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com. $45-100. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 12. Luis Bravo’s atmospheric showcase is a slick, showy mélange of music and dancing whose fluid precision and assemblage of talent make it hard to resist. Cheryl Burke heads up an amazing 13-member ensemble of very stylishly draped dancers (exquisite costuming by Argemira Affonso) who singularly, all together, and of course in dramatic couplings, blend supreme control and dramatic restraint with unabashed sexual allure and volcanic energy. The orchestra, meanwhile, under direction of Eduardo Miceli, creates the intoxicating ether that sets everything in motion. (Avila)

Joyful Noise: A Gospel Celebration of Christmas Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center; 345-7575, www.LHTSF.org. $25-50. Call for dates and times. Through Fri/31. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre presents a rechristened version of their Black Nativity production.

The Lion in Winter Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.ticketweb.com. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Jan 15. Actors Theatre of SF presents James Goldman’s play of palace intrigue.

Mr. YooWho’s Holiday NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-18. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/2. European clown Moshe Cohen returns to SF for a third run at NOHspace.

Party of 2 – The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Sun, 3pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through April 9. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

Santaland Diaries Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-30. Nightly, 8pm. Through Thurs/30. David Sinaiko returns as Crumpet in Combined Artform’s ninth annual production of the David Sedaris play.

Shrek The Musical Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market; (888) SHN-1799, www.shnsf.com. $30-99. Tues, 8pm, Wed, 2 and 8pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no performance Fri/31). Through Sun/2. Eric Petersen stars in the stage version of the animated blockbuster.

Siddhartha, the Bright Path The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 9. Marsh Youth Theater presents a holiday celebration, directed by Lisa Quoresimo.

BAY AREA

Arabian Nights Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2549, www.berkeleyrep.org. $34-73. Call for dates and times. Through Thurs/30. Tony-winning Mary Zimmerman’s production makes a return to Berkeley Rep.

Becoming Julia Morgan Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (510) 984-3864, www.brownpapertickets.com. $24-30. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 9. Janis Stevens stars in Belinda Taylor’s play about the trailblazing architect.

East 14th – True Tales of a Reluctant Player The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Call for times. Through Feb 13. Don Reed’s one-man show continues its extended run.

Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 15. Berkeley Rep premieres the new musical, written by Lemony Snicket, with music by Nathaniel Stookey.

Naughty and Nice: A Meg and Billy Christmas Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $23-25. Call for dates and times. Through Thurs/30. Bay Area husband and wife cabaret duo Meg Mackay and Billy Philadelphia return with a holiday show.

Of the Earth – The Salt Plays: Part 2 Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 30. Shotgun Players present the second half of writer and director Jon Tracy’s Odyssey-inspired tale, with music by Brendan West.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Wed-Thurs, 11am). Through Thurs/30. The Amazing Bubble Man’s show presents flying saucer bubbles and other wonders.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Cheapest and Greatest New Year’s Eve Stand-Up Show Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Thurs/30, 7pm; Fri/31, 7 and 9:30pm. Stand-up comedy by W. Kamau Bell, Janine Brito, and Dwayne Kennedy.

Clown Cabaret TJT The Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida; 522-0786, www.climatetheater.org. Mon/3, 7 and 9pm. $15. The Clown Conservatory and others gather to perform.

Forking II: A Merry Forking! Christmas Off-Market Theatres, 965 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.pianofight.com. Call for dates and times (through Thurs/30). PianoFight presents a holiday-themed choose-your-own-adventure play.

Frisco Fred’s Magic and More New Year’s Eve Show Actors Theater, 855 Bush; 646-0776, www.comedyonthesquare.com. Fri/31, 7:30pm. $40. The comedian-juggler presents a New Year’s show.

Mr. Nifty’s News Year’s Eve Vaudeville Extravaganza USF Presentation Theater, 2350 Turk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/31, 9pm. $25. Trainwreck Riders, Dr. Science, and others ring in 2011.

New Year’s Eve Mayhem with Michael Meehan and His Merrymakers Actors Theater, 855 Bush; 646-0776, www.comedyonthesquare.com. Fri/31, 10pm. $40. The stand-up comedian leads the countdown to midnight.

Not Your Normal New Year’s Eve Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness; 392-4400, www.NYNYE.com. Fri/31, 8-10pm. Stand-up comedy from Brent Weinbach, Moshe Kasher, and others.

Romane Event Comedy Show Make Out Room, 3225 22nd St; 647-2888, www.pacoromane.com. Wed/29, 8pm. $7. The comedian hosts Joe Tobin and others.

BAY AREA

Big Fat Year End Kiss Off Comedy Show XVII Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding, Alameda; (510) 865-5060, www.rhythmix.org. Fri/31, 7 and 10pm. $25-35. Will Durst, Johnny Steele, and others perform.

Striking 12 TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. Call for dates and times (through Fri/31). $56-75. Indie pop group GrooveLily ushers in the new year a rewired version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl.

Rep Clock

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

Schedules are for Wed/29–Tues/4 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-12. Check website for program information.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. “San Francisco Grand Opera Cinema Series:” Tosca, Thurs, 7. “Short Films from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival,” Dec 31-Jan 6, call for times.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. Closed until Jan. 13.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. Check website for program information.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Hadewijch (Dumont, 2009), Wed-Thurs and Sat-Tues, call for times.<\!s>*

Stage Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

THEATER

ONGOING

*Candid Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St; 273-4633, www.sweetcanproductions.com. $15-60. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 9. Sweet Can Productions presents an acrobatic holiday circus extravaganza.

Dirty Little Showtunes! A Parody Musical Revue New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 16. Tom Orr’s adults-only holiday show returns, with direction by F. Allen Sawyer and musical direction by Scrumbly Koldewyn.

Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission; www.ticketfly.com. $25. Thurs, 7 and 9pm. Through Thurs/23. Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, and Pollo Del Mar return with their stage tribute to the sitcom.

Joyful Noise: A Gospel Celebration of Christmas Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center; 345-7575, www.LHTSF.org. $25-50. Call for dates and times. Through Dec 31. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre presents a rechristened version of their Black Nativity production.

The Lion in Winter Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.ticketweb.com. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Jan 15. Actors Theatre of SF presents James Goldman’s play of palace intrigue.

Mr. YooWho’s Holiday NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-18. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 2. European clown Moshe Cohen returns to SF for a third run at NOHspace.

Party of 2 – The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Sun, 3pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through April 9. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

Santaland Diaries Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-30. Nightly, 8pm (also Thurs/23, 5pm). Through Dec 30. David Sinaiko returns as Crumpet in Combined Artform’s ninth annual production of the David Sedaris play.

Shrek The Musical Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market; (888) SHN-1799, www.shnsf.com. $30-99. Tues, 8pm, Wed, 2 and 8pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no performances Fri/24, Sat/25, and Dec 31). Through Jan 2. Eric Petersen stars in the stage version of the animated blockbuster.

Siddhartha, the Bright Path The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 9. Marsh Youth Theater presents a holiday celebration, directed by Lisa Quoresimo.

A Tale of Two Genres SF Playhouse, Stage Two, 533 Sutter; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Wed-Thurs, 8pm. Through Thurs/23. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs an improvised musical in the style of Charles Dickens.

BAY AREA

Arabian Nights Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2549, www.berkeleyrep.org. $34-73. Call for dates and times. Through Dec 30. Tony-winning Mary Zimmerman’s production makes a return to Berkeley Rep.

Becoming Julia Morgan Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (510) 984-3864, www.brownpapertickets.com. $24-30. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 9. Janis Stevens stars in Belinda Taylor’s play about the trailblazing architect.

A Christmas Memory TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-67. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm (also Dec 23, 2pm; Dec 24, 7pm). Through Sun/26. TheatreWorks presents the seasonal tale by Truman Capote.

East 14th – True Tales of a Reluctant Player The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Call for times. Through Feb 13. Don Reed’s one-man show continues its extended run.

Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 15. Berkeley Rep premieres the new musical, written by Lemony Snicket, with music by Nathaniel Stookey.

Naughty and Nice: A Meg and Billy Christmas Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $23-25. Call for dates and times. Through Dec 30. Bay Area husband and wife cabaret duo Meg Mackay and Billy Philadelphia return with a holiday show.

Of the Earth – The Salt Plays: Part 2 Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 30. Shotgun Players present the second half of writer and director Jon Tracy’s Odyssey-inspired tale, with music by Brendan West.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am (also Wed/22-Thurs/23 and Sun/26-Tues/28, 11am and 2pm; and Dec 29-30, 11am). Through Dec 30. The Amazing Bubble Man’s show presents flying saucer bubbles and other wonders.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

American Pop Parable The Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St; 647-2888, www.makeoutroom.com. Mon/27, 8pm. $5. The Cat’s Pajamas presents an evening of storytelling and song, with MamaCoAl, DeCoy Gallerina, Alan Kaufman, Jelal Hyler, Julie Indelicato, and Cameron Ochs Band.

Flow (The Winged Crocodile)/Trains ODC Theater, 3153 17th; 863-9834, www.odcdance.org. Wed/22, 8pm. $18. The Relationship presents a piece with text by Leslie Scalapino and music by Jean Jeanrenaud.

Forking II: A Merry Forking! Christmas Off-Market Theatres, 965 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.pianofight.com. Call for dates and times (through Dec 30). PianoFight presents a holiday-themed choose-your-own-adventure play.

Kung Pao Kosher Comedy New Asia Restaurant, 772 Pacific; 522-3737, www.koshercomedy.com. Thurs/23, 5 and 8:30pm; Fri/24-Sat/25, 6 and 9:30pm; Sun/26, 5 and 8:30pm. $42-62. The 18th annual celebration of Jewish comedy in a Chinese restaurant.

Texas Chainsaw Yuletide Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed/22-Thurs/23, 9:30pm). $15. Combined Artform presents a one-man show by comedian Will Franken.

BAY AREA

The Coverlettes Cover Christmas 2020 Addison, Berk; (510) 644-2020. Wed/22-Thurs/23, 8pm. $18.50-19.50. The fictitious girl group presents a Christmas cabaret concert.

Striking 12 TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. Tues/28, 7:30pm (through Dec 31). $56-75. Indie pop group GrooveLily ushers in the new year a rewired version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl.

Curtain calls

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Curtain calls

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER Freud called dreams wish fulfillment; or reality, disguised, but basically as we’d like it to be. If you asked the Buddha and Heisenberg about reality, you’d get pretty much the same answer. Not that any of these guys went to the theater a lot in 2010. This year oscillated between quasi-documentary fidelity to facts and burrowing hallucinations like those induced by Gysin and Sommerville’s spinning stroboscopic Dreamachine. (A facsimile of one even graced The Burroughs and Kookie Show, Christopher Kuckenbaker’s Fringe Festival winner and definitely a peak stage encounter in 2010.) But it all amounted to an assault of some kind on the sleepwalking world outside. Dreaming in the theater can be much more lucid.

Best political theater riffs: In the Wake (Berkeley Rep) was not a perfect play, but Lisa Kron’s slightly lopsided new political dramedy had a way of upsetting some fundamental and suspect assumptions of mainstream liberals that was at times electrifying. Dan Hoyle’s The Real Americans, while not as politically provocative, also ventured outside the “liberal bubble” into red state territory, bringing back reportage in the form of deft rapid-fire characterizations, comedy, and music by the young but prodigious solo performer–playwright of Tings Dey Happen and Circumnavigator. And finally, the 51-year-old San Francisco Mime Troupe’s reaffirmed that its brand of agitprop is still a going concern. Posibilidad, or the Death of the Worker, set partly in the USA but inspired by the recent factory takeovers by workers in Argentina, was a shrewd, funny, tuneful plea for cooperatives against the grinning, co-opting tendencies of “capitalism with a human face.”

The most hyped production: Terrell Alvin McCraney’s trilogy, The Brother/Sister Plays. The only one that really worked for me was the second, The Brothers Size, which got a very strong production at the Magic under Octavio Solis. It was lean, focused, a small story with subtle, far-reaching reverberations. The other two plays reached consciously for the grandiose without finally grasping much. Nevertheless, the precedent-setting coordination between the Magic, Marin Theatre Company, and American Conservatory Theater in introducing these plays to the Bay Area was an exciting development.

Boldest venture: Berkeley Rep’s London import, Afghanistan: The Great Game, a seven-hour marathon of short scripts by 12 playwrights on the history and politics of this current critical object of U.S. imperial desire. A mixed bag theatrically, though impressively produced, but the historical perspective — boiling down to a dismal pattern of imperial design and hubris, infamy, and failure — was a point well taken. Indeed, the antiwar protest outside the White House on Dec. 16, where 131 arrests were made ahead of President Obama’s declaration of “progress” in Afghanistan, seemed its logical conclusion.

Best solo performances behind a large desk: Paul Gerrior in Krapp’s Last Tape (Cutting Ball); Joel Israel in Reluctant (Brava).

Best Pas de Donut: Howard Swain and Lance Gardner in Superior Donuts at TheatreWorks.

Best mise-en-scène as meaningful, mindful mess: This Is All I Need by Mugwumpin.

Best visiting productions: Japan’s Zenshinza Theatre Company at Zellerbach (Cal Performances); West Side Story at the Orpheum; Jane Austen Unscripted at BATS’ Bayfront Theater.

Best indefinable night in a theater: Dan Carbone at the Dark Room.

Best experiential fare: Etiquette by London’s Rotozaza (hosted by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts at the Samovar Tea Lounge).

Best extraterrestrial fare: Cynthia Hopkins’ The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success) at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Best all-around design: The Tempest at Cutting Ball.

Best productions with death references in the title: Don’t Feel: The Death of Dahmer by writer-performer Evan Johnson; and when i die, i will be dead, a pair of dance/theater pieces by Alicia Ohs. Both Don’t Feel and when i die were nurtured and staged at the now-shuttered queer performance incubator Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory. Until some hoped-for resurrection, R.I.P. Mama Calizo’s.

Best (deconstruction of) Shakespeare: Juliet, directed by Mark Jackson at San Francisco State.

Best Bill Murray: Jody Frandle in Caddyshack Live! at the Dark Room.

Best debut by a new company: Symmetry Theatre with Show and Tell at the Thick House.

Best ensemble casts in a comedy: Learn to Be Latina (Impact Theatre); Shotgun Players’ production of The Norman Conquests (with a special nod to Richard Reinholdt in the title role); Man of Rock (Climate Theater); Scapin (ACT).

Best ensemble cast in a drama: Aurora Theatre Company’s Trouble in Mind (with a special nod to Margo Hall).

Best non-singing lead in a comic opera: Patrick Michael Dukeman in Jerry Springer, the Opera (Ray of Light Theatre).

Page street

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Page street

Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (University of California Press, 158 pages, $24.95) is one of the best ideas a writer has come up with in a long time. By combining private and public support, Solnit was able to give away portions of the atlas in full-color, full-spread map handouts. (My favorite tracked both famous/infamous queer public spaces and the migration of butterflies throughout the city.). In the process, she also gave lectures in public spaces, providing a public service in the name of history and inclusion before dropping this tome on the book-buying masses. Gent Sturgeon’s version of a city-fied Rorschach alone is worth the price of the ticket. From insect habitats to serial killers, Zen Buddhist centers to the culture wars of the Fillmore and South of Market that some call redevelopment; Solnit and her cadre of artists, writers, cartographers, and researchers — Chris Carlsson, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Mona Caron among them — give us the infinite depths and limitless potential that can be found in 49 square miles. (D. Scot Miller)

A lot of good and even great books came from the Bay Area this year, but one stands out: a book of poetry, Cedar Sigo’s Stranger in Town (City Lights, 100 pages, $13.95). He is a young writer who improves dramatically each time I hear him read, and his poetry and critical writing are among the wonders of our age. And of the age before, since through him speak the dead poets David Rattray, John Wieners, Robert Creeley, Denton Welch, Philip Whalen, Salvador Dali, Jean Cocteau, Eartha Kitt, Raymond Roussel, Lorine Niedecker, and Cole Porter. When new writers come to San Francisco, they ask me if I’ve met Cedar Sigo. If they don’t know Sigo’s work, then I hand them a copy of the new collection. Don’t have to say much, I just step back a little to avoid the stars and diamonds and apples popping out of their eyes like toast from a toaster, because this crazy work is that crazy good. (Kevin Killian)

Compared with the prosaic grind of the inner city, the Sunset can seem like a — albeit foggy — vacation. Wide streets, surf breaks, dunes fit to get lost in: the neighborhood is just right for an offbeat bohemian getaway. But maybe those are just the reverberations of the past, which western neighborhood historian Woody LaBounty has dug up in Carville-by-the-Sea (Outside Lands Media, 144 pages, $35). This coffee table book illustrates the lives of the Sunset’s first modern-day inhabitants, who constructed a seaside village of retired street cars to inhabit back in the days before the N-Judah. Colorized at times for an Oz-like effect, the photos LaBounty digs up to illustrate “Cartown” reveal a community of artists, families, and enthusiasts — even a women’s cycling club — amid an untamed, oscillating sandscape. Those converted SoMa warehouse apartments suddenly don’t seem quite so rugged, do they now? (Caitlin Donohue)

In a city that boasts literally hundreds of theatrical world premieres per year, it’s astounding how few make it to the printed page. Bravo, then, to EXIT Press, new publishing arm of the venerable EXIT Theatre, for helping to ensure that at least some of our local play-writing talents will be preserved for posterity. And who better to inaugurate the series than Mark Jackson, whose professional development has been closely tied to the EXIT, and to the San Francisco Fringe Festival, which it produces? Far from being merely a collection of “Fringe-y” experimentation, Ten Plays (EXIT Press, 492 pages, $19.95) is a testament to the tenacity of vision. From reimagined Shakespearean classics (R&J, I Am Hamlet) to Jackson’s breakout hit The Death of Meyerhold, the bleakly comedic American $uicide, and the stirring Kurosawa-esque epic The Forest War, what these plays have in common is an audacious commitment to the illimitable possibilities of live theater. Of which, giving these works an opportunity to reach a wider audience is but one. (Nicole Gluckstern)

By any good political standard, John Lescroart’s Damage (Dutton, 416 pages, $26.95) is awful. It’s all about how a criminal uses the technicalities of law to get released (damn liberal judges) and how his family — newspaper publishers with ties to the (damn liberal) political establishment — protects him even as he continues to rape young women. Reminds me of that atrocious movie Pacific Heights, which is supposed to convince you that eviction protection and tenants rights are unfair to the poor landlords. But Lescroart writes about San Francisco, and does a pretty good job describing the city, and his characters are so real and well-crafted that I’m able to set aside the politics. In this case, Ro Curtlee, the rapist, is such an evil, evil bad guy — but a plausible, privileged evil bad guy — that he comes to life in a way that makes you want to kill him yourself. And makes you understand why a cop might feel the same way. And in the world of crime fiction, making you feel pain is half the game. It’ll be out in paper this spring. (Tim Redmond)

What Carl Rakosi was to Objectivism — a significant poet who dropped out of sight only to reemerge an old master — Richard O. Moore is to the SF Renaissance. The 90-year-old Moore was active in Kenneth Rexroth’s libertarian-anarchist circle in the 1940s, but abandoned poetry publishing for the more efficacious mass media of radio and TV, cofounding both KPFA and KQED in the process (and shooting the only footage of Frank O’Hara to boot). But Moore never stopped writing, and his debut volume Writing the Silences (University of California Press, $19.95) offers a brief but tantalizing introduction to more than 60 years of poetic activity. Moore’s diction is spare but memorable; a hawk’s wings, for example, “balance on the blind/ push of air.” Yet his low-key tones are wedded to an experimental sensibility; witness 1960’s “Ten Philosophical Asides,” which might be the first poem in English riffing on Wittgenstein, more than a decade before language poetry. Writing the Silences is thus belated yet ahead of its time. (Garrett Caples)

I commissioned three of the works in Veronica De Jesus’s Here Now From Everywhere (Allone Co. Editions, 130 pages, $26). Her portraits of Michael Jackson and Jay Reatard ran in the Guardian, while I paid out of pocket for her to render a tribute to the poet John Wieners for my boyfriend. Along with just-announced SECA Award winner Colter Jacobsen, who published this book, De Jesus is my favorite creator of drawings in the Bay Area. Like Jacobsen, she delves into memory — her memorial portraits can be seen for free on the windows of Dog Eared Books, where this book is for sale. The charm and value of Here Now From Everywhere is immediate, but the book reveals more of its multfaceted personality with each return visit. De Jesus’ illustrated dictionary of inspirational icons ranges from superstars to half-forgotten pop heroes, from cultural figures to obscure female athletes. It’s a gift. (Johnny Ray Huston)

“I told Micah last night that my new book would be a haunted house.” Berkeley-based poet Julian Poirier’s El Golpe Chileño (Ugly Duckling Presse, 128 pages, $15) is filled with the ghosts of past and present. Essentially a bildungsroman, it tracks Poirier’s protagonist’s growth from youthful journeyman into adulthood though a kind of mixed-genre Theatre of the Absurd. Vaudeville, comics, memoir, film pitch, epistolary, failed novel, poetry, the carnival, and travelogue are all wielded brilliantly in the hands of Poirier, making for a phantasmagoric reading experience where the whole emerges defiantly greater than the sum of its parts. Poirier writes, “I turned my whole brain into a city and wrote down everything I saw happening there.” And indeed it certainly feels that way — the book is ripe with the names of places, of friends living and dead; with lists of dates and years; and with drawings and photographs, making up what Poirier somewhat obliquely labels “The Stolen Universe.” El Golpe Chileño is truly a success of form and content, of the high and low, of pop and elegy. (John Sakkis)

Look forward in anger

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Look forward in anger

arts@sfbg.com

HAIRY EYEBALL/YEAR IN ART The year in art is ending on a note both sour and defiant. On Nov. 30, Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough, caving to criticism voiced by conservative politicians and religious groups, ordered the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s 1987 video A Fire in My Belly from the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.” It was a cowardly decision; one that ultimately has undermined the credibility of Clough and his institution.

It’s unfortunate that it took an act of censorship to get art — specifically, art by an openly gay artist responding to the darkest hours of the AIDS crisis — back into the national conversation, but the chorus of condemnation coming variously from journalists and critics, art museum associations, and even The New York Times editorial page, has helped to do just that.

Additionally, Wojnarowicz’s piece, which was uploaded to Vimeo by his estate and New York’s PPOW Gallery soon after it had been taken down in Washington, D.C., has undoubtedly been seen by more viewers in the past month than it had at the Smithsonian, or perhaps even in past installations (as of writing this column, the uploaded version has received more than 18,000 views).

This will probably continue to be the case as more galleries and museums across the country, in an impressive show of institutional solidarity, screen and/or install A Fire In My Belly. Locally, SF Camerawork and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts held screenings earlier this month. Southern Exposure will continue to show the piece through mid-February, and SFMOMA is scheduled to screen the full-length version of the video in early January.

While I agree with Modern Art Notes’ Tyler Green that SFMOMA’s commitment to screen A Fire in My Belly is “a turning point” in this whole debacle (New York’s four biggest art museums have remained silent on the matter), I find his characterization of SFMOMA as “America’s most conservative, play-it-safe modern-and-contemporary art museum” a bit harsh. Certainly, this year’s recently revealed SECA winners — three of whom, it must be noted, have been past Goldie recipients, including 2010 winner Ruth Laskey — attest to the fact that, for every groaner of an exhibit (“How Wine Became Modern,” anyone?), SFMOMA is also committed to supporting artists whose work cannot be dismissed as “play-it-safe.” For starters, the memory drawings of Colter Jacobson, one of this year’s SECA winners, certainly fall along the continuum of queer portraiture displayed in “Hide/Seek.”

This is not to encourage wishful thinking. While it’s hard to imagine a San Francisco art institution doing something along the lines of the Smithsonian, I don’t think anyone expected a reignition of decades-old culture wars, let alone in the very city where the Corcoran Gallery infamously canceled a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit in 1989. The shorter our cultural memory, it seems, the greater is our propensity to repeat the lowest moments of our history.

So, over the past few weeks, I’ve been going over the works, exhibits, and events that I was thrilled did happen here, all glorious reclamations of our Convention and Visitors Bureau’s tagline, “Only in San Francisco.” Here is an in no way complete rundown of some of the art I didn’t cover in this column for a variety of reasons (scheduling conflicts, in-the-moment preference, critical laxity), save for the works themselves.

 

L@TE, BERKELEY ART MUSEUM, MOST FRIDAY NIGHTS

Turning staid-by-day museums into hip nightspots for hip young folks has been the hip thing for institutions to do for some time now. Thankfully, the Berkeley Art Museum knows how to do it right. Skip the catered canapés and light show, and focus on programming that is truly varied and more often than not, locally-minded — from Terry Riley celebrating his 75th to Xiu Xiu frontman Jamie Stewart improvising film soundtracks, from performance artist Kalup Linzy singing dirty love songs to outré Mexican B cinema— all for next to nothing.

 

CARINA BAUMANN, UNTITLED (2) (2008-09), 2ND FLOOR PROJECTS, JAN.–FEB.

At first I couldn’t see the woman’s face in Carina Baumann’s Untitled (2). I stared into the slate-like surface (actually, translucent white film developed on aluminum), incrementally adjusting my height, until the blackness stared back. The effect was not one of shock, as with the mirrors at the end of Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride, in which the holographic undead crowd in with your reflection. Baumann’s art asks for patience and slow adjustment, and in return, regifts your sense of sight.

 

“SUGGESTIONS OF A LIFE BEING LIVED,” SF CAMERAWORK, SEPT.–OCT.

Perhaps most germane to the issues about queerness, identity politics, and representation now being raised (again) by Wojnarowicz-gate and the “Hide/Seek” exhibit, this group show put together by Chicago-based curator Danny Orendorff and SF native Adrienne Skye Roberts took “queerness” out into the desert, helped it cast off the much-tattered coat of identity politics, and asked a group of artists, activists, and filmmakers to record its unfettered visions of things to come (many of which, as the resulting work testified to, are being lived out right now).

 

MATT LIPPS, “HOME,” SILVERMAN GALLERY, APRIL-JUNE; R.H. QUAYTMAN, “NEW WORK,” SFMOMA, THROUGH JAN. 16, 2011

Although Matt Lipps is a photographer and R.H. Quaytman is a painter, they tweak their respective mediums in these unrelated shows to arrive at a similar kind of flat sculpture, which flickers between abstract prettiness and representational heavy-lifting. Lipps’ densely layered photographs of assemblages — in which variously colored photographs of domestic interiors, cut into facets and taped back together to form the original image, become backdrops for cut-out reproductions of Ansel Adams landscapes — collapse foreground and background, personal space and photographic history. Quaytman, working in dialogue with the poetry of Jack Spicer and SFMOMA’s photo archive, silk-screens images from the museum’s holdings onto beveled, wooden panels of various sizes, augmenting them with flashes of Easter eggs-like color and glittering crushed glass.

 

ERIK SCOLLON, “THE URGE,” ROMER YOUNG (FORMERLY PING PONG), JULY–AUG.

Although nothing will top his porcelain casts of assholes that littered Ping Pong Gallery like so many discarded sand dollars for the 2009 group show “Live and Direct,” Eric Scollon’s more recent solo exhibit at the gallery, “The Urge,” continued to queer form and function. The 50 or so small porcelain works, painted in the blue and white style of Dutch Delftware and arranged in pun-laden groupings, smartly played off ceramics’ dual cultural status as both a “fine art” and kitsch object, while throwing shade at modern art’s conflicted relationship to ornament. Speaking of which, if only I had a Scollon for my tree.

 

ANDY DIAZ HOPE, “INFINITE MORTAL,” CATHARINE CLARK GALLERY, THROUGH JAN. 1, 2011

Diaz Hope’s dazzling sculptures owe as much to his engineering background as to, as he puts it in an e-mail, a “revisiting of childhood thoughts about mortality and infinity.” Their mirrored, crystalline exteriors yell “Gaga!” but once immersed in their kaleidoscopic guts, they are, much like Yayoi Kusama’s infinity boxes, meditation chambers built from carnival ride components. Simply beautiful stuff.

The next district attorney

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The next district attorney

sarah@sfbg.com

By the time District Attorney Kamala Harris declared victory in the razor-close California attorney general race, two candidates had already filed to replace her. And their candidacies further complicate the delicate process of appointing a new district attorney when Harris gets sworn in Jan. 3 as the first woman and racial minority to become attorney general of California.

David Onek, a senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice and a former police commissioner, filed in July and has raised $130,000 and collected 1,000 signatures.

Paul Henderson, a veteran prosecutor whom Harris tapped in 2007 as her chief administrator, filed Nov. 22 when his boss’ victory in the attorney general’s race looked assured.

And now Alameda County Assistant D.A. Sharmin Bock, a human trafficking expert, is reportedly mulling a bid.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has said that if Harris resigns before him, he’ll heed her recommendation for her successor. But whoever Newsom, or his successor, appoints will have a major advantage as the incumbent if he or she runs in November 2011.

Unlike the interim mayor, who will have to make unpopular cuts to balance the budget, the person who fills out Harris’ term will have a strong presumption of holding onto the office.

So far Harris has been silent on the topic of a replacement to the post she held since 2003, when she defeated two-term incumbent District Attorney Terence Hallinan.

A possible reason for Harris’ silence is that until recently San Francisco Superior Court Presiding Judge Katherine Feinstein, the only daughter of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, was thought to be a front-runner for the post. This perception was based on the assumption that Sen. Feinstein wanted her daughter appointed, that Newsom would obey the senator’s wishes, and that no one in Democratic circles would dare to challenge Judge Feinstein in November given her mother’s political influence.

But it turns out that Feinstein, 53, whose peers unanimously elected her to succeed James J. McBride for a two-year term effective Jan. 1, 2011 as the Superior Court’s presiding judge, couldn’t legally accept an appointment anyway and would have to run in the November race.

And Superior Court spokeswoman Ann Donlan told the Guardian that Feinstein does not intend to give up her position as presiding judge. “Judge Feinstein has told court employees and her judicial colleagues that she has no intention of relinquishing her judicial duties in San Francisco,” Donlan stated.

 

THE HEIR APPARENT

That leaves Henderson as Harris’ presumptive heir; Onek, who is married to the daughter of Michael Dukakis, is a political force to be reckoned with; and former prosecutor Bill Fazio and police commissioner and former prosecutor Jim Hammer are possible appointments.

District Attorney’s Office spokesperson Erica Derryck would say nothing on the record about the appointment other than that it’s the mayor’s decision to make. But former D.A. Office spokesperson Debbie Mesloh noted that Harris has outlined the qualities she is seeking.

“Kamala has mentioned publicly that she is looking for someone with integrity who understands how the office works and will take over in such a way that allows people to continue their work,” Mesloh said. “That may sound like small potatoes, but it’s a big deal given how many folks work in the D.A.’s Office.”

Public Defender Jeff Adachi told us he finds it interesting that neither Harris nor Newsom has issued an endorsement in favor of anyone. “The silence is deafening,” Adachi said, “But what’s absolutely missing is a process to select a new district attorney. The D.A’s job involves major responsibilities in terms of running and managing a large law office, so I think there should be some kind of process.”

Adachi said the most important qualification is an understanding of how the D.A.’s Office operates and the respect of line staff. “That’s where trial experience comes in. You want someone with experience of homicide trials and serious cases. You’re overseeing a staff of trial attorneys, investigators, and their support staff — who are all litigators.”

Adachi warns that having a caretaker in that office for 11 months would create havoc. “The best choice would be someone who would allow for a smooth transition and have the qualifications and interest in running for office,” he said.

Sup. David Chiu, who became the first Chinese-American Board of Supervisors president in January 2008 and previously worked as a criminal prosecutor in the D.A.’s Office, has often been mentioned as a candidate. He told the Guardian that he enjoyed his time as a prosecutor but wants to stay put, for now.

“Kamala Harris did a good job in terms of her prosecutorial approach, and I understand she is anxious to make sure her legacy is not repealed,” Chiu said. “I’m happy to serve wherever to further the public interest, and the board is in a fragile and unstable place.”

 

IT WON’T BE SUP. ELSBERND

Former D.A. Terence Hallinan, who served two terms as a supervisor before being elected D.A., thinks it’s a big advantage to come from the board. “I knew how to use the budget process to get what I needed,” he said. “I held the key to that door.”

But a city insider who asked to remain anonymous said that if Chiu is thinking D.A., he’d be setting his sights too low. “The brass ring is right there for Chiu as mayor,” the source said.

According to the city charter, the D.A. must be a San Francisco resident who has been licensed to practice law in all California courts for at least five years. Sup. Sean Elsbernd, who qualified for the bar in 2000, has been mentioned in some circles. But Elsbernd told us that the rumors that Newsom would appoint him as D.A. and Newsom’s Chief of Staff Steve Kawa as D7 supervisor are baseless.

“They are just saying that because I’m an attorney,” said Elsbernd, who worked as a law clerk with Nielsen, Merksamer, Parinello, Mueller, & Naylor and with the D.A.’s Office prior to his August 2004 appointment to the board by Newsom and his November 2004 election.

So now the money remains on Newsom to appoint Henderson, who is a gay African American. “It’s important to take the diversity of the city into account,” our City Hall source said. “And Henderson can do the job. He’s extremely capable; the lawyer types like him; he reaches out to all groups and political factions; and his appointment would be a signal to the Democratic Party that whoever appoints him takes diversity seriously.”

Hallinan said he thinks Henderson will get the nod. “I think Kamala wants to keep a hand in that office,” Hallinan said. “And Paul is a nice guy, very competent, a good administrator — though not real experienced at trying cases.”

The D.A. doesn’t have time to try cases because there are administrative matters to deal with every day, Hallinan noted. “But trial experience is good because, although the job is administrative, you are selecting who should try what case,” he said. “So unless you have experience, it’s hard to judge what resources you have to be devoted.”

Fazio, who lost to Hallinan in the D.A.’s race in the 1990s, says he wants Henderson to get the appointment. “Henderson has been a loyal deputy. Onek has never been in a courtroom, and he doesn’t even work in San Francisco,” Fazio said.

Fazio doesn’t think Henderson’s bid will be hampered by ongoing crime lab and prosecutorial scandals in the D.A.’s Office since he wasn’t directly involved in the crime lab and police misconduct cases. “The biggest challenge for Paul will be turning all that around and running for office,” Fazio said. Insiders agreed that unless something highly unusual happens, an incumbent Henderson would get widespread political support in November.

But Onek sounds like he’s in the race for the duration, and he downplayed his lack of trial experience. “The bottom line is that I’m not going to be the chief trial attorney,” Onek said. “The role of the D.A. is to set policy, have a vision for the office, manage the office, work collaboratively with the community and law enforcement agencies, and finally, bring resources in from outside.”

“I’m spending my time building a criminal justice movement and not focusing on the politics of it all,” he added. “It’s speculation and the winds change every day.”

Onek observed that his entire career has been about criminal justice reform. “Kamala Harris did a great job of starting on that reform, and we need someone who can step in and continue the reform.”

Rep Clock

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Schedules are for Wed/15–Tues/21 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $3-6. “Videocracy,” works from the film department at City College, Thurs, 7. La Vendedora de Rosas (Gaviria, 1998), Fri, 8. “Other Cinema: New Experimental Works,” Sat, 8:30. “Altered Statehood,” shorts program, Sun, 8.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-12. “Noir City Xmas:” •Remember the Night (Leisen, 1940), Wed, 7:15, and Mr. Soft Touch (Douglas and Levin, 1949), Wed, 9:15. “San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus 21st Annual Home for the Holidays Concert,” Thurs, 8 (this event, $20; tickets at www.sfgmc.org). Tron: Legacy (Kosinski, 2010), Dec 17-23, 1, 4, 7, 9:45 (also Fri/17, 12:01am).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. Inside Job (Ferguson, 2010), call for dates and times. Today’s Special (Kaplan, 2009), call for dates and times. “San Francisco Grand Opera Cinema Series:” La Bohème, Thurs, 7 and Sat, 10am. “Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010,” Wed-Thurs. These shows, $12. Remembering Playland (Wyrsch, 2010), Sun, 4:15. Director Tom Wyrsch in person. Ghost Bird (Crocker, 2010), Sun, 6:30.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. The Mind is a Liar and a Whore (Alli, 2003), Wed, 7:30.

OAKS 1875 Solano, Berk; (510) 526-1836. $7. Power Trip: Theatrically Berkeley (Tomeoni), Sat, noon.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. Closed until Jan. 13.

PIEDMONT 4186 Piedmont, Oakl; www.landmarktheatres.coom. $8. The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Sat, midnight.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. The Triplets of Belleville (Chomet, 2003), Dec 14-15, 7:15, 9:15 (also Dec 15, 2). Vincent: A Life in Color (Burns, 2010), Thurs, 7:15, 9:30. Howl (Epstein and Friedman, 2010), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:30 (also Sat, 2, 4). The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Sat, midnight. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954), Sun-Mon, 7:30 (also Sun, 2). The Nightmare Before Christmas (Selick, 1993), Dec 21-22, 7:15, 9:15 (also Wed, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. No Tomorrow (Weisberg and Roth, 2010), Wed, 7, 9:15. Ghost Bird (Crocker, 2010), Thurs, 7, 9. Modus Operandi (Latina, 2010), Fri-Sat, 11.

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART 151 Third St, SF; www.sfcinema.org. $10. “Nathaniel Dorsky: Winter Light,” Thurs, 7. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “International Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010:” Lucia Rijker: Boxer, Buddhist (Schouten, 2005), Thurs, 7:30; Seeing Searching Being (Burns, 1992-99), Sun, 2. “Go to Hell for the Holidays:” •Night Train to Terror (Schlossberg-Cohen, 1985), Fri, 7, and A Night to Dismember (Wishman, 1983), Fri, 9; Life and Death of a Porno Gang (Djordjevic, 2009), Sat, 7:30.

Tiny Bones breaks out

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Tiny Bones breaks out

Elise-Marie Franklin, a.k.a. Tiny Bones, breezes into Four Barrel Coffee in the Mission, turning several heads in her wake, and it’s like, “Wow, dayum, star power!” (She declines a cup of slow-drip because, “I have so much natural energy, I’d probably explode.” I can see that.)

The gorgeous young singer and musician looks destined to be the first pop star graduate of San Francisco’s storied hardcore electro scene, utilizing her various talents to combine underground and mainstream elements into a bewitching and surprisingly unique style. Together with her partner in music, local fameball Topher Lafata, a.k.a. Gold Chains, she’s finally started releasing tracks on their label New California Music (www.newcaliforniamusic.com) after a long gestation period.

“We’ve been working for three years on all of this and have dozens of songs ready to go, but we wanted everything to be just right — the music, the website, the label. It’s fantastic, because now we can do things our own way.”

Tiny Bones spent her childhood in Carmel and France, training from an early age in vocal techniques and multiple instruments. But she came of punk-rock age in the famous pit of Berkeley’s 924 Gilman and, later, the electro-styley, camera-ready world of club Blow Up. Add to all that a music appreciation that runs from the Ronettes to Eazy-E (with stops at Deniece Williams and Depeche Mode), and you’ve got a powerhouse of influences.

“I love so many different kinds of music that for me it’s less about the style than the fact that something’s authentic,” she told me. “I aim for that authenticity with my own music — I put all of myself into my songs and performance, I don’t believe in holding back.”

That perfect lack of restraint comes through in her stage persona, which mixes sexiness (“Sexuality is huge in my life, and I don’t shy away from it”) and smarts (Tiny Bones is a psychology grad student at UC Berkeley). Those two sides meld to humorous-hot effect in the video for her first single, a slow-building, tropical-tinged banger called “Heat.” It starts in a boardroom, with Tiny Bones setting feminist boundaries for her marketing campaign — no bikini-clad sexploitation, no oil, no fans in the hair — and then demolishing those boundaries in a tight gold tube top, owning her hotness and slaying the fanboys.

Tiny Bones has just released her second track, “Parley,” an epic hardcore electro breakup-party ballad that expertly hits an aching sweet spot between build and release around the two-minute mark and holds you there for the rest of the six-minute track. It’s pretty breathtaking in its ballsiness, and the video is a love letter to San Francisco, with guest spots from nightlife stars HOTTUB, the Tenderlions, Monistat, Merkeley???, Richie Panic, and more.

Tiny Bones is going to soon bring that San Fran ballsiness to the world, with a tour in the works, a full album, and a lot more partying (and studying). “This has always been my dream, to be a singer and make people happy and maybe inspire someone. Now I’m ready to go for it.”

Ammiano wants to change bike laws

Zelda Bronstein
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Ammiano wants to change bike laws

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano wants to change the way bicycles and cars are treated under state traffic laws.


He’s responding in part to the furor over the bike crackdowns in Berkeley, but it’s nothing new for Ammiano — he also tried to get bicycle traffic legislation through last year. This time, though, he told me, “I think we’re going to be able to pass something.” And incoming Gov. Jerry Brown ought to be willing to sign it.


Matt Bunch, an Ammiano staffer, told me that the bill isn’t final, but will certainly address the penalty for cars hitting bicycles. “A lot of these are preventable, but they’re treated as accidents,” he said. “They aren’t punished adequately.”


The measure could also address the wide disparity in traffic fines that bicyclists face in different cities and take on the Berkelely problem. “The fine you get depends on what they charge you with, and it’s all over the map,” Bunch said.


Bunch also suggested that Ammiano might be looking at the way some police officers in some jurisdictions charge bicyclists with vehicle-code violations that were written to apply to cars. “The vehicle code isn’t specific to bikes,” he said. “There’s a clear deficiency in law, and we’re going to look at it.”


One of the things they ought to be checking out: Why is it okay to make a biker get a point on his or her drivers license when he or she isn’t driving a motor vehicle?


Go, Tom. I’ll keep you posted when the bill is introduced.


 

‘Nutcracker’ and beyond

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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‘Nutcracker’ and beyond

You don’t have to be into winter solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa celebrations to realize that there’s something about December — the end of another decade this time around, the darkest part of the year — that calls out for treats either for yourself or a friend or two. Here are a few dance-related suggestions between now and the end of the year that won’t bust your budget.

Born in Imperial Russia, The Nutcracker has become a peculiarly American institution. Almost against my will, it pulls me in every time. Though bifurcated, the masterful music — no matter its commercialization — pulls together the story of a brave little girl and her adventures. Reasonably priced options exist. San Francisco Ballet’s (through Dec. 27; War Memorial Opera House, SF) starts at $32. Take binoculars, you’ll be fine. The Oakland Ballet Company’s highly acclaimed version by new Artistic Director Graham Lustig (Dec. 23-26; Paramount Theater, Oakl.) starts at $15. Berkeley Ballet Theater’s (Dec. 10-12 and 17-19; Julia Morgan Theater, Berk.) has a one-price ticket for $26. After 20 years, this will be former ODC dancer Brian Fisher’s last Fritz.

If you like your Nutcracker to have sharp edges, the Dance Brigade’s mashup of politics and fun, The Revolutionary Nutcracker Sweetie (Dec. 11-12; Brava Theater, SF; $15–$17), has been reimagined by another generation of grrrl dancers and friends. The Dance Along Nutcracker (Dec. 11-12; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF; $16–$50) was a hoot the first time around and continues to be a splendid mix of circus, dress-up, and community celebration. This year the revelers have invited the Twilight Vixen Revue. The SF Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band does the musical honors — fabulously.

Stepping outside of Nutcracker territory into original holiday fare, Kirstin E. Williams’ all-female Strong Pulse company hooks up with CCSF students for Be Cool, (Dec. 10-11; CCSF Performance Theater, SF; $10–$15) a jazz/ modern dance/hip-hop concert that is guaranteed to resonate all over the Phelan Avenue campus.

If you have never seen ShaSha Higby work her magic with phantasmagoric concoctions of human-made and natural materials, be prepared to being pulled into a world as dreamlike as it is tangible. In Folds of Gold (through Dec. 10-11; Noh Space, SF; $12-20) examines deep winter issues surrounding life, death, and rebirth.

The circus-based Sweet Can Productions newest show, Candid (Dec. 17-Jan. 9; Dance Mission Theater, SF; $15–$60), is sweet but not saccharine-sweet. These performers juggle and subvert cherished concepts as well as objects — brooms, dinner plates, hula hoops — to stretch credulity and the imagination. It’s what happens when life meets art.

With Lo Clásico, (Dec. 17-19; Cowell Theater, SF; $15–$35), Caminos Flamencos — 22 dancers and musicians — are performing Spain’s two major historical dance forms. There is, of course, flamenco, including Yaelisa’s breathtaking Soleares, but also examples of lesser-known Spanish classical dance choreographed to Ravel and de Falla.

WestWave Dance (Dec. 13; Cowell Theater, SF; $22–$68) closes its season with another quintet of new choreography by Pam Gonzales (from L.A.), Alyce Finwall, Christy Funsch, Carolé Acuna, and Ingrid Graham. The festival curates promising work by artists who can’t on their own afford the professional production values WestWave offers.

How about insight into dancers’ thought processes? For free? Chime Live (Dec. 11; Margaret Jenkins Dance Lab, SF; free) offers conversations and showings of work from Margaret Jenkins Dance Lab’s mentoring program. In the monthly program “2nd Sundays” (Dec. 12; CounterPULSE, SF; free), artists show pieces-in-progress and invite feedback. “Dancemaker’s Forum” (Dec. 19; SF Conservatory of Dance, SF; free) workshops new choreography by Manuelito Biag.

Contact improvisation has become a valued tool for choreographers, but it’s also a glorious performance art that redefines the concept of being “in the moment.” One of its originators, the masterful Nancy Stark Smith (Dec. 18; Eighth Street Studios, Berk.; $10–$20) is in town to connect with local and guest practitioners.

The connection between the Odette and Odile characters has puzzled Swan Lake lovers forever; the roles used to be danced by two different performers. SF Ballet’s recent production hinted at one interpretation. For another take, you might want to go to the movies and see Natalie Portman in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (now playing; Bay Area theaters; prices vary).

Hot sexy events: December 8-14

Andrew Lam
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So how’s this for weird: rich folks get freaky too! Yes indeed, according to our friends at the Bay Citizen, upon the launch of an investigation into her and her husband’s possible involvement in an inside trading ring (don’t they just always want to get into those things?) Pac Heights lady-who-lunches Annabel McClellan was discovered to be working on the gosh darn kinkiest iPhone app we’ve ever heard of: My Nookie. 

The app allows users to dish down to the nitty-gritty about their super hot hookups, right down to the positions, location of consummation, and partner used and abused. Share the info with your friends and even send de-personalized My Nookie messages to potential partners with purple anonymous avatars performing the sex event you’d like to try with them. Says McClellan (whose lawyer denies her involvement with the app)’s business partner Milly Hanley to the Bay Citizen, “we are housewives, our kids are older now. We were looking for something to do.” Consider your wealth-induced ennui assuaged, ladies! Now onto the sex events.

Women’s Community Clinic benefit

What’s really, really sexy? A capable, respectful place to nurture your reproductive health, that’s what. Join the women of Pin Up Clinic for live tunes and readings by Carol Queen, Lorelei Lee, and Tina Horn, plus a chance to get your 2011 copy of their frisky sexy lady calendar. All proceeds go to the Women’s Community Clinic, a place that’s more than worthy of your oooh’s and aaah’s. 

Wed/8 6-8 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com


Little Minksy’s Burlesque

For six years, Douglas Good has been holding an SF burlesque show every week – do you know how many pasties that is? His event, Little Minksy’s (named after the banned shows that rocked NYC at the turn of the 20th century) features this week talent from Alotta Boutte, Dottie Lux, Kentucky Fried Woman, Bitter Waitress, and more. It packs Club Deluxe every time – so get there early for a good shot of these lady lumps and attentive bar service. 

Thurs/9 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $5

Club Deluxe

1511 Haight, SF

(415) 552-6949

www.sfclubdeluxe.com


Kinky Holiday Fantasia

Just your typical holiday party here folks, nothing to see: ornament hanging (on bare skin), (living) tree and menorah lighting, jingle bell (boobs), and seasonal (bondage) fashion. More than enough fodder to keep you snickering through your family’s sit-down to watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the 800th time. 

Thurs/9 7:30-10:30 p.m., $15-25 sliding scale

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org


“Modern Love: A Panel About Open Relationships”

Are we still swinging, San Francisco? Smart money’s on hell yeah, particularly if you ask the speakers at this panel on polyamory: Ethical Slut author Dossie Easton will be there, as well as Carol Queen (She. Is. Everywhere.), and Sarah and Chris, creators of Mission Control’s KISS play party. Perfect for the seasoned spouse-swapper, or any couples looking to open up their loving arms in the future.

Fri/10 6-8 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com


Whobilation

Dr. Suess was due for a kinky overhaul, wasn’t he? Attire yourself in your Whoville best for this holiday play party, where the pinks and purples of the Mission Control harem rooms will try their best not to clash with all the green and red (let’s face it, Judaism has inspired a lot less easily-mimicked pop culture characters, Hanukkah Harry notwithstanding). Like all the other Kinky Salon parties, Whobilation features super sexy talent onstage during the mayhem. On this night of nights, Berkeley’s Burley Sisters Burlesque and Ophelia Coer de Noir take to the fore and Skanky Claus will lead all in a resounding session of dirty carols. 

Sat/11 10 p.m.-late, $25-35 members and allies only

Mission Control 

www.missioncontrolsf.org


“Abuse in Kinky Relationships: How to Reveal, Deal, and Heal”

It can be tough to distinguish love’s good and bad pain – particularly in the world of BDSM. But peer facilitator-in-training Jocelyn is a veteran of both, and is holding this class to teach about how to identify, fix, and recover from abusive relationships — in and out of the dungeon. 

Tues/14 8-10 p.m., $20

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org

 

Stage Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Joyful Noise: A Gospel Celebration of Christmas Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center; 345-7575, www.LHTSF.org. $25-50. Previews Fri/10, 8pm. Opens Sat/11, 8pm. Call for dates and times. Through Dec 31. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre presents a rechristened version of their Black Nativity production.

Siddhartha, the Bright Path The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Previews Sat/11-Sun/12, 3pm; Thurs/16, 7:30pm. Opens Dec 17, 7:30pm. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 9. Marsh Youth Theater presents a holiday celebration, directed by Lisa Quoresimo.

BAY AREA

Arabian Nights Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2549, www.berkeleyrep.org. $34-73. Opens Sat/11, 8pm. Call for dates and times. Through Dec 30. Tony-winning Mary Zimmerman’s production makes a return to Berkeley Rep.

A Christmas Carol Center REPertory Company, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek; (925) 943-7469, www.centerREP.org. Previews Thurs/9, 8pm; Fri/10, 11am and 7:30pm. Opens Sat/11, 2pm and 7:30pm. Call for dates and times. Through Dec 19.Center REP presents the holiday classic.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Phoenix Theater Annex, 414 Mason, 4th floor; 433-1235, www.absolutelysanfrancisco.com. $28. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Karen Hirst’s one-person musical about lost love.

Babes in Arms Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $24-44. Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 19. 42nd Street Moon presents John Guare’s adaptation of the musical by Rodgers and Hart.

Christmas in Hell: The Real and True Story About the Guys Who Saved Christmas Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. An original holiday play, written and directed by Jim Fourniadis.

Caligari Studio 385, 385A Eighth St; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-30. Fri, 8pm. Through Fri/10. Promising new company HurlyBurly stages its adaptation of the 1920 German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in a Soma bondage club with productive and not-so-productive results. Production values are enjoyably thoughtful (including lighting designer Amanda Ortmayer’s moody use of small portable lights, laser pointers, and snatches of pure, delicious darkness) as the audience mills around a cement room in which actors stand or lie frozen, and in some cases encased, like some macabre wax museum. Daniel Korth’s script makes up in clever, fluid dialogue what it can lack in narrative coherence. But the doom-clouded storyline, featuring a fated romance between an ardent young man (a likeable Eddie Barol) and his somewhat aloof object of desire (a nicely detached yet powerful Shay Wisniewski), is familiar enough in sporadic outline that this isn’t a big deal. The play demands a certain over-the-top performance style, however, which few of co-directors Korth and Mikka Bonel’s otherwise capable actors really carry off (Gerri Lawlor is one of the more notable exceptions). The freedom to walk around the space as action unfolds on surrounding stages (or inaction in cages) is a visual and atmospheric plus. The production’s real limit is that its neo-expressionist dark-carnival invention comes across at times as too borrowed, as when a late-era Tom Waits song is heard. At least it wasn’t one from The Black Rider. (Avila)

Cavalia: A Magical Encounter Between Horse and Man White Big Top, adjacent to AT&T Park; www.cavalia.net. $39.50-239.50. Check website for shows and times. Through Sun/12. Over 100 performers, including 50 horses, take the stage in this circus-like show from Montreal.

Christian Cagigal’s Obscura: A Magic Show EXIT Cafe, 156 Eddy; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Magician Christian Cagigal presents a mix of magic, fairy tales, and dark fables.

Cinderella African American Art & Culture Complex, 762 Fulton; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-30. Fri/8pm; Sat, 3 and 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 19. African-American Shakespeare Company presents the classic fairytale, starring Velina Brown.

Cora Values’ Christmas Corral Exit Cafe, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Fri-Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sat/11. There are Christmas Carol’s and then there are Christmas Carol’s. There are the no-expenses spared varieties with clever rigging and fabulous costumes and larger-than-life characterizations of those classic Christmastide archetypes—the lonely bastard, the beatific poor man, the lovable child. There are the more modest productions, community theatre affairs, with A-for-effort, fun-for-the-whole-family, casual appeal. And then there’s the Cora Values treatment, which throws the whole silly notion of family togetherness out the window and instead throws a party for the orphans of the holiday season—the bah-humbuggers and true unbelievers. In this rock-bottom budget “illiterary

adaptation” of Dickens’ classic in “the most authentic form we know how” a ragtag crew from the Gas ‘N’ Gulp in Rectal, Texas, bumble through a singular interpretation of the tale, punctuated by original comic songs penned by Cora (Sean Owens) and Emmett Cornpike (Don Seaver). Sticklers for textual authenticity or political correctness may cringe at the chorus of the solo song by Tiny Tim (Amanda Ortmayer), “This Won’t Be Another Lame Holiday,” but Dickens wrote a few head-scratching lines himself. Take this description of Marley’s face appearing in Scrooge’s doorknocker: “It&ldots;had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.” “Charles Dickens’ immortal text” Cora remarks dryly. You said it sister. (Gluckstern)

Dirty Little Showtunes! A Parody Musical Revue New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 16. Tom Orr’s adults-only holiday show returns, with direction by F. Allen Sawyer and musical direction by Scrumbly Koldewyn.

Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission; www.ticketfly.com. $25. Thurs-Sat, 7 and 9pm. Through Dec 23. Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, and Pollo Del Mar return with their stage tribute to the sitcom.

The Lion in Winter Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.ticketweb.com. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Actors Theatre of SF presents James Goldman’s play of palace intrigue.

Match Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa; 1-866-811-4111, www.matchonstage.com. $12-28. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Expression Productions presents Stephen Belber’s new suspense drama.

The Oddman Family Christwanzaakuh Spectactular! Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Guerrilla Rep and Beards Beards Beards present a new twisted musical farce.

Party of 2 – The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Sun, 3pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through April 9. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

A Perfect Ganesh New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 19. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the Terrence McNally play, directed by Arturo Catricala.

Ruth and the Sea Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter; www.ruthandthesea.com. $18-24. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Wily West Productions presents Gwyneth Richards in a kooky holiday show, directed by Stuart Bousel.

Shrek The Musical Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market; (888) SHN-1799, www.shnsf.com. $30-99. Tues, 8pm, Wed, 2 and 8pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no performances Dec 24, Dec 25, and Dec 31). Through Jan 2. Eric Petersen stars in the stage version of the animated blockbuster.

A Tale of Two Genres SF Playhouse, Stage Two, 533 Sutter; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm; additional shows Dec 20-23). Through Dec 23. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs an improvised musical in the style of Charles Dickens.

The Tempest Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Dec 19. In Cutting Ball’s latest foray into Shakespearean realms, three entangled subplots and eleven characters are enacted by just three actors, in order to explore the relationships between the principle characters by representing their internal characteristics through the actions of the more minor roles. Set on an enchanted island (or, in Cutting Ball’s interpretation, at the bottom of a swimming pool) The Tempest begins with stormy weather, but quickly grows into a full-blown hurricane of shipwrecked nobles, nymphs, and drunks, plus the turbulent awakenings of a teenage daughter’s libido, and the rumblings of her over-protective papa. The most effective dual-character is Caitlyn Louchard’s Miranda-Ariel, as both characters are quite under the stern control of Prospero (David Sinaiko) and equally deserving of release. Less affecting yet somehow equally congruous is Sinaiko’s comic turn as the buffoonish Stephano, who stumbles through the forest in his boxer shorts, yet somehow maintains an air of mock dignity that does parallel Prospero’s. Donell Hill’s Caliban-Ferdinand endures his lust-love for Miranda and servitude to Prospero alternating between raw physicality and social ineptness. But since “The Tempest” is littered with characters even more minor, the game cast is stretched too thinly to fully inhabit each, and the entire subplot involving King Alonzo, Gonzalo, and Antonio in particular suffers from this ambitious over-extension. (Gluckstern)

The Tender King Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr; www.secondwindtheatre.com. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sat/11. The current firestorm over leaked diplomatic cables and exposed government lies and imperial machinations are nothing new in The Tender King. Second Wind’s debut of Bay Area playwright Ian Walker’s new drama takes audiences back to 1945, a critical period in the structuring of the postwar world as dominated ever since by the American Empire. Walker explores the tensions and contradictions attendant on the countdown to American global hegemony in three characters, two rooms, and one fateful decision. President Harry Truman (Brian O’Connor), newly ensconced in office after FDR’s death, sits drinking in a darkened room (mood-inducing lighting by Rob Siemens) as an ambitious young functionary named Will (Stephen Muterspaugh) arrives to get his John Hancock on the order to drop the new A Bomb on two Japanese cities. In shades of Schiller’s Mary Stuart, Truman delays and evades cunningly, filled with the exuberant knowledge and burden of power. Meanwhile, a semi-romantic, semi-sadistic relationship between Will and a French-German prostitute (Natalie Palan) unfolds in a parallel scene—a complex echo of the shock-doctrine advantage Will advocates to Truman in the face of a stunned and helpless European population. Directed by Walker, the production relies not ineffectively on heightened vernacular language and performances, although the latter while sturdy can feel more rote than in-the-moment, and the neat narrative framework and effervescent dialogue strays into formulaic conceits. Nevertheless, the play’s well-researched and articulated detail as well as forceful conviction make it both worthwhile and generally engaging—not to mention as politically au courant as anything on stage just now. (Avila)

The Velveteen Rabbit Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Novellus Theater, 700 Howard; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Call for dates and times. Through Sun/12. ODC/Dance presents Margery Williams’ holiday favorite.

BAY AREA

Becoming Julia Morgan Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (510) 984-3864, www.brownpapertickets.com. $24-30. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 9. Janis Stevens stars in Belinda Taylor’s play about the trailblazing architect.

A Christmas Carol: The Musical Novato Theater Company Playhouse, 484 Ignacio, Novato; 863-4498, www.novatotheatercompany.org. $10-18. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 17. Novato Theater Company presents a new adaptation of the holiday classic.

A Christmas Memory TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-67. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm (alos Thurs/23, 2pm and Fri/24, 7pm). Through Dec 26. TheatreWorks presents the seasonal tale by Truman Capote.

East 14th – True Tales of a Reluctant Player The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Call for times. Through Dec 19. Don Reed’s one-man show continues its extended run.

Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. Call for dates and times. Through Jan 15. Berkeley Rep premieres the new musical, written by Lemony Snicket, with music by Nathaniel Stookey.

Loveland The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri, 7pm; Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/11. Ann Randolph’s hit one-woman comic show continues its extended run.

Of the Earth – The Salt Plays: Part 2 Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (beginning Dec 19). Through Jan 30. Shotgun Players present the second half of writer and director Jon Tracy’s Odyssey-inspired tale, with music by Brendan West.

*The Play About the Naked Guy La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Impact Theatre presents an off-Broadway hit, written by David Bell and directed by Evren Odcikin.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am (also Dec 20-23, 11am and Dec 26-30, 11am). The Amazing Bubble Man’s show presents flying saucer bubbles and other wonders.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Club Chuckles Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk; 923-0925. Wed/8, 9pm. $7. Club Chuckles turns seven with standup by David Liebe Hart and others.

Comedy Returns to El Rio! El Rio, 3158 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/13, 8pm. $7-20. Lisa Gedulgig hosts a monthly comedy night.

Double-Wide White Trash Christmas Show Martuni’s, 4 Valencia; 241-0205, www.dragatmartunis.com. Sun/12, 7pm. $5. A holiday edition of the “Bijou” cabaret showcase.

FoolsFURY 12th Anniversary Gala Theater Artaud, 450 Florida; www.foolsfurygala.eventbrite.org. Sat/11, 7:30pm. $30-60. The local theater ensemble celebrates a birthday.

Forking II: A Merry Forking! Christmas Off-Market Theaters, 965 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.pianofight.com. Call for dates and times (through Dec 30). PianoFight presents a holiday-themed choose-your-own-adventure play.

A Funny Night for Comedy Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.NatashaMuse.com. Sun/12, 7pm. Natasha Muse and Ryan Cronin host an evening of comedy.

Ironic/NOT Ironic! Viracocha, 998 Valencia; 374-7048, www.viracochasf.com. Thurs/9, 9pm. Harmon Leon performs.

Literary Death Match – Holiday Bloodbath Special Elbo Room, 647 Valencia; www.literarydeathmatch.com. Fri/10, 7pm. $7-10. An evening of yuletide literary mayhem.

Mischievous Maidens Christmas Skylark Bar, 3089 16th St; 621-9294. Fri/10, 8pm. Free. A Christmas-themed burlesque night.

Project. B. The Garage, 975 Howard; 518-1517, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm. $10-20. Tanya Bello’s company presents Triquetra, a work from this year.

Doug Stanhope Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell; 861-2011, www.rickshawstop.com. Wed/10, 8pm. $20. The vulgar comedian hits the Bay.

Touring Cast of Shrek Theater 19, Pier 39; 273-1620, www.HelpIsOnTheWay.org. Mon/13, 7:30pm.$35-65. A one-night-only cabaret to raise funds for the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation.

Trashina Cann The Garage, 975 Howard; 518-1517, www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed/8-Thurs/9, 8pm. $10-20. The company presents a new queer dance theater wok titled Legacy.

On the Cheap Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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On the Cheap listings are compiled by 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 8

k11 Craft Sale 2260 Adeline, Berk.; www.knitoneone.blogspot.com 10am-4pm, free. Awash in holiday shopping events? Us too. Let’s retire to this year-round knit and craft sale. This month gathers 12 creative souls who’d like to stuff your stockings – from cheery note cards, vintage-looking totes, bright dish towels, and more.

“This is Art! Live!” live cable access broadcast Steven Wolf Fine Arts, 2747A 19th St., SF; www.stevenwolffinearts.com. 5:30pm, free. A special viewing party for BAVC show “This is Art! Live!” will give participants a chance to get up all in the quirky program, which consists of home-made commercials, dramatic interludes, and thought-provoking queries like “why are women artists hot?” Weigh in, then stick around for a runway fashion show and libations.

THURSDAY 9

Golden Gate Park holiday tree lighting McLaren Lodge, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.sfrecpark.org. 5pm, free. Bundle up and head to the picturesque McLaren Lodge, the (Golden) gate-keeping chalet off of Stanyan, for the 81st annual lighting of the massive pine in front. The kids will be all rosy-cheeked and distracted by train rides, caroling, and a visit from the portly Claus himself.

FRIDAY 10

Lights on Market Street celebration Procession starts at 1119 Market; reception at The Luggage Store, 1007 Market, SF; www.sfartscommission.org. 5-7pm, free. The three light installations funded by Mid-Market’s recent $250,000 NEA grant ignite one by one tonight in a procession headed by members of Sixth Street’s Bayanihan Community Center, and their traditional Filipino parol lanterns. Come bedecked in your own culture’s style of illuminations and enjoy a reception after at community gallery The Luggage Store.

SATURDAY 11

Bazaar Bizarre Fort Mason Center, SF; www.bazaarbizarre.org. Noon-5pm (Also Sun/12 noon-6pm), free. The Boston-spawned crafteria makes its way across the country to bring Bay Area-ites its hearty dose of DIY communitarianism. Come for 150 booths worth of the city’s best hand-crafties and sate your browsing-induced hunger with a crème brûlée or taco from Off the Grid’s fabulous ambulatory food carts.

Creative Arts Craft & Book Fair Creative Arts Charter School, 1601 Turk, SF; (415) 749-3509, www.creativeartscharter.org. 10am-4pm, free. Throw some ducats towards your local student-centered K-8 school at their annual bazaar, home to handmade crafts and a little sustenance for your holiday season – hot soup, cider, and book readings by the Winter Fairy on the hour.

Glamazonia: The Uncanny Super Tranny Mission Comics and Art, 3520 20th St., SF; (415) 695-1545, www.missioncomicsandart.com. 7-10pm, free. Justin Hall reads from the solo comic book debut of his blonde beehived, body rockin’ super tranny. She’s got Superman in a trance! Bruce Lee’s down on his knees! He’s joined by a swath of other pulp fiction luminaries and oh yes, they’ll have copies for signing.

Hawaiian Holiday Craft and Bake Sale St. Patrick’s Parish Center, 409 Magnolia, Larkspur; 10am-4pm, free. Perhaps you are not destined for a beach-side lounge chair and awkward lei tan lines this winter. Undoubtedly, sweets, you’re not the only one. Also, you can get your plate lunch and island treats all the same at this 11th annual fundraiser for Hula On Productions — the snacks and crafts have been cooked up by members of the Halau Hula Na Pua O Ka La’akea, Hula On’s dance contingent.

Spark! Circus benefit show Vagabond Ballroom, 830 Isabella, Oakl.; (415) 816-4620, www.sparkcircus.org. 8pm-midnight, $10-20 sliding scale. It takes a village to blow a kid’s mind – spend an evening with this one to help fund Spark!’s mission to send 15 members of their fire spinnin’, jugglin’, rappin’, and joke crackin’ troupe to perform for kids in refugee camps, migrant schools, hospitals, and orphanages along the Thai-Burmese border.

MONDAY 13

Lemony Snicket Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk.; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. 7pm, free. The dreadful, beleaguered children’s book hero sends his “stand-in,” author Daniel Handler to speak for him as part of Berkeley Rep’s always-free “Page to Stage” series.

The Monthly Rumpus The Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. 7-9:30pm, $10. The month’s theme, “Ladies Night,” draws some XX luminaries to the literary reading series stage, including Lusty Lady union organizer Antonia Crane, Michelle Tea, and indie folksters The Yellow Dress.

Rep Clock

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

Schedules are for Wed/8–Tues/14 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $7. “Other Cinema: Dead Media,” innovative works using repurposed material, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Pink Smoke Over the Vatican (Hart), Thurs, 7.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF; www.peacheschrist.com. $15. “Midnight Mass:” Christmas Evil (Jackson, 1980), Sat, midnight. With director Lewis Jackson in person.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-12. La Strada (Fellini, 1954), Wed, 2:30, 7. “Holiday Horrors:” Gremlins (Dante, 1984), Thurs, 7; Black Christmas (Clark, 1974), Thurs, 9:05. “Midnites for Maniacs: Push It to the Limit Triple Feature:” •Just One of the Guys (Gottlieb, 1985), Fri, 7:30; Point Break (Bigelow, 1991), Fri, 9:30; Maniac: The Restored Director’s Cut (Lustig, 1980), Fri, midnight. With director William Lustig in person. •Cabaret (Fosse, 1972), Sat, 2:35, 7, and Xanadu (Greenwald, 1980), Sat, 5, 9:30. The Nightmare Before Christmas (Selick, 1993), Sun, 2, 3:45, 5:30, 7:15, 9. “San Francisco Film Society Presents:” Sir Arne’s Treasure (Stiller, 1919), Tues, 8. With live score by the Mountain Goats; tickets for this event ($22.50) at www.sffs.org.

CERRITO 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito; www.rialtocinemas.com. $7. “Cerrito Classics:” White Christmas (Curtiz, 1954), Thurs, check website for showtime.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. Inside Job (Ferguson, 2010), call for dates and times. Today’s Special (Kaplan, 2009), call for dates and times. “San Francisco Grand Opera Cinema Series:” The Elixir of Love, Thurs, 7 and Sat, 10am. “Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010,” Wed-Thurs. These shows, $12. Remembering Playland (Wyrsch, 2010), Sun, 4:15. Director Tom Wyrsch in person.

FORBIDDEN ISLAND TIKI LOUNGE 1304 Lincoln, Alameda; www.forbiddenislandalameda.com. Free. “Forbidden Thrills: Creepy Crazy Christmas Classics!:” •Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (Webster, 1964), and Santa Claus (Cardona, 1959), Mon, 7:30.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. “More Bay Area Culture and Performance Art,” presented by video activist Steve Jacobson, Wed, 7:30.

ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE 814 Montgomery, SF; (415) 788-7142. $3. “Giallo:” Deadly Sweet (Brass, 1967), Tues, 6:30.

LUMIERE 1572 California, SF; www.landmarkafterdark.com. Free. Thurs, 7. “Anime Club:” “Space and Wolf,” Thurs, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Days of Glory: Revisiting Italian Neorealism:” Il grido (Antonioni, 1957), Wed, 7; Accattone (Pasolini, 1961), Fri, 8:45; Bandits of Orgosolo (De Seta, 1961), Sun, 3. “Grin, Smile, Smirk: The Films of Burt Lancaster:” Birdman of Alcatraz (Frankenheimer, 1962), Thurs, 7; A Child is Waiting (Cassavetes, 1963), Sat, 6:30; The Swimmer (Perry, 1968), Sat, 8:40. “Carl Theodor Dreyer:” Two People (1944-45), Fri, 7; Gertrud (Dreyer, 1964), Sun, 5.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie (Esrick, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 7:15, 9:15 (also Wed, 2). Machete (Maniquis and Rodriguez, 2010), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:30 (also Sat, 2, 4:15). Breathless (Godard, 1959), Sun-Mon, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sun, 2, 4). The Triplets of Belleville (Chomet, 2003), Dec 14-15, 7:15, 9:15 (also Dec 15, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Howl (Epstein and Friedman, 2010), Wed, 7:15. The Temptation of St. Tony (Ounpuu, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. “NorCal FreeFly Film Festival,” Thurs, call for times. Bad Santa (Zwigoff, 2003), Fri, 7:15, 9:15. “An Evening with John Waters,” Sat, 7:30. Fundraiser for the Roxie; tickets $250. Home Alone (Columbus, 1990), Sun, 4. Permanent Vacation (Jarmusch, 1980), Mon, call for times. Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch, 1984), Tues, call for times.

SUNDANCE KABUKI 1881 Post, SF; www.eggsploitation.com. $20. Eggsploitation (Lahl), Thurs, 7.

VICTORIA 2961 16th St, SF; www.sfcinema.org. $15-25. “Cinematheque Benefit:” Face (Warhol, 1965) and The Velvet Underground In Boston (Warhol, 1967), Wed, 6:30.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10-12. Cast Me If You Can (Ogata, 2010), Dec 10-19, check website for times. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “International Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010:” Shugendo Now (Abela and McGuire, 2009), Thurs, 7:30; •Dream Window: Reflections on the Japanese Garden (Junkerman, 1991), and Inland Sea (Carra, 1992), Sun, 2. “Luminous Darkness,” transgressive videos focusing on erotic ritual and performance, curated by Daniel McKernan, Fri, 9pm-2am (screening continuously during YBCA’s “Noel Noir” fundraiser; tickets $25). “Go to Hell for the Holidays:” Meat Grinder (Moeithaisong, 2009), Sat, 7:30.<\!s>

Ducking the cold

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Ducking the cold

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I know I’m not the only one. December rubs a lot of people the wrong way. This year, to combat my usual seasonal depression, I am moving to Norway. Oh, I’m sure I’ll be back to the Bay Area to visit, now and agin, but just in case I’m underestimating the inherent cheerfulness of Oslo and wind up coming back to live, I will of course continue to write Cheap Eats from abroad, no worries.

Then when I have finished unlocking the secrets of Norwegian cuisine, in general, and of Oslo’s burgeoning restaurant scene, in particular, I will write letters to Earl Butter again, or Cheap-Eats-length poems about how happy I am, whaling, playing Scrabble on the beach, eating lutefisk until the wee hours, and running with the moose, or whatever it is that people in Norway do for happiness.

I’m kidding of course. I would never in a million years go whaling! Didn’t you ever read Moby Dick? I did! There’s a guy in it named Queemquack, or something like that, and in the end they all get eaten to death by a whale.

Oy, my poor father, a Melville scholar, would be rolling over in his grave right now if he were 1) still reading my column and 2) dead, but he is neither, that I know of. Why, I just talked to him on the phone a little bit ago and he didn’t mention anything at all about Cheap Eats or having died.

Man, I love my dad! Happy birthday to him. When I was eight, I helped him write his dissertation. No lie, he had underlined all the participial phrases in Melville’s major works, and it was my job to tally them up — my first quantitative analysis of a major literary figure, give or take Dr. Seuss.

It’s uncanny. First I became a writer like my dad, then I became a musician like my dad, and don’t look now but I believe a couple paragraphs ago I may have established myself as a Melville scholar in my own right. Anyway, I read Moby Dick twice. Twice! (Technically I read it once as a literate adult, and leafed through it the other time, as a literary scholar who also pretty much knew how to count.)

From my mother I inherited my athleticism (which is no less dear to me than all-of-the above) and my peculiar knack for migrating north in winter and living in the woods, literally and figuratively.

You have to have good, strong legs, like mine and mom’s, to run with moose, don’t you know. And you have to be at least a little bit crazy, as I understand it, to eat lutefisk. Especially when you can just stay here and have burritos.

Or, actually, I’m kind of stuck on duck noodle soup now. Again. It being cold season. And I was house- and dog-sitting for Crawdad for a while in Berkeley, where there are a lot more duck soups to be had than here in the Mission. Not to mention Oslo.

All kidding aside, although I did briefly consider going home for the holidays this year, I’ve decided to weather them here where my turntable is. I don’t have any records anymore, but I do have my kitten, Stoplight. And if I turn my turntable on, with Stoplight on top of it, the result is more entertaining than Merle Haggard or anything.

It should be enough to get me through the darkest time of year.

But I wonder if old Merle ever had duck noodle soup with three scoops of hot sauce in it, or hung around with lesbians. For the former, my current recommendation is Your Place on University Avenue.

It’s on the lunch menu, for like $7, but probably they’ll give it to you any time of day. And it’s a big bowl, with rice noodles, no-bone roast duck, celery, green onions, cilantro, and maybe even a few spinach leaves.

Very very very good. Nice place, friendly service.

Then you can always go to last week’s new favorite restaurant, Lao Thai, for a bowl of sweet duck soup for dessert. In this very way, I will hop, skip, and waddle my way to March, and warmth, and happiness, and hopefully I hope a li’l love.

If we make it through December …

YOUR PLACE THAI CUISINE

Daily 11:30 a.m.–10 p.m.

1267–71 University, Berk.

(510) 548-9781

MC,V

Beer and wine

 

Shroomin’ at the Fungus Fair

Andrew Lam
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All photos by Erik Anderson

“See, it’s starting to smell.” It’s day two of the Mycological Society of San Francisco‘s winter Fungus Fair at Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science this weekend and the ‘shrooms are getting a little funky. MSSF member Peter Wegner is showing us around the caps and stems and he sounds a little apologetic for the earthy musk that has descended on us as we enter the fair’s specimen room. 

But he needn’t be – the sight of the room’s fungi, collected by society volunteers in the Bay Area over the past few days from 25 forage sites, more than makes up for any scent it emits. Not to mention the fair’s culinary offerings, educational bonanza, and the ‘shroom gnome hats so delicately worn by gung-ho clan members – this is the cardinal event of the country’s largest amateur mushroom society. 

Fungus Fair, I think I love you.

Wegner himself has been a MSSF member for eight years. His mushroom mania began on a trip to Italy, incensed by the delectable array of edible fungi that lined dinner tables in the area. He is now  happy to tell Fungus Fair newbies that his favorite mushroom is the black chanterelle (“they’re mysterious,” he says). 

Delicious meals are but one type of draw to the study of mycology – other members we spoke with yesterday expressed interest in the taxonomy of the fungi kingdom, in dyeing clothes from the mushroom’s natural pigment, and in the sheer camaraderie that’s inherent in finding roughly 800 others with an atypical attraction to fine fungal growth. 

“There’s a lot of mentoring that goes on,” says Norm Andresen, MSSF member and conductor of the society’s beginner’s forays into the wilds of McLaren Park and other damp corners of the Bay. A Brobdingnagian, white-haired man, Andresen towers above the tables of the specimen room, keeping his distance from a particularly pungent stand of growths as he answers questions on their providence, properties, and shelf life (“you probably wouldn’t want to eat any of these display ones, they’ve been getting touched by little kids all weekend.”)

In a lecture room a few halls down from Andresen’s post, a man introduced as “the best mushroom photographer in the world” by fair chair person J.R. Blair is playing the music video to his self-penned ode to the fungus among us, “Mushroom Fever.” On repeat. “Hopefully we don’t scare anybody away!” he announces blithely into his microphone as he readies his presentation on his recent mushroom-finding jaunt around the Americas.

Such is the intro to the glory that is Taylor Lockwood, who has achieved a near-godlike status in my eyes by having cobbled together a living off of traveling, digging around in the dirt, and hoisting himself up tree-supported ladders to get the best shot of aerially-inclined mysterious mushrooms. The man flips through a Power Point presentation of some of his best clips, which include squishy mushrooms (“good for the kids!”), fungi resembling tropical purple coral (“probably just convergent evolution”), and Brazilian ‘shrooms he captured on illicit night-time jaunts through a nature preserve.

Lockwood’s pitch for his calendars and assorted publications concluded, we wander past the sold-out mushroom soup kitchen and into the realm of Pat George, the society’s culinary chair. George, set up at at a table kitty-corner from an impressive display of psilocybin, is distributing recipes and information on the group’s regular potluck dinners. She explains that the events feature a carefully planned barrage of  the mushroom’s power to sate — mushroom ragus, mushroom desserts flavored by candy cap mushrooms (“cheesecake, biscotti, there’s all kinds of stuff you can make with a candy cap,” she ventures), even the rare bottle of mushroom beer. 

It’s all very tasty, as is the prospect of the MSSF’s other fare for the nascent mycological enthusiast. Beginners are welcome also to the group’s regular forays into the not-quite-wild for ‘shrooms, many of which are located here in the city for extreme accessibility. For the lazy, Far West Fungi has set up a stand in the vendor hall that stocks the farm’s “mini-farms” in oyster and shiitake — simply uncover the germinated logs and let the fungal growth loose in a shady corner of your bedroom. 

Why so much mushroom mania here in the Bay? The answer, says SF State mycology lecturer Thomas Jenkinson, who is stationed at the fair’s “Introduction to Mushrooms” booth, lies in the ubiquity of fungi throughout the year in our fair glens and dales. “The Bay Area’s a real center of mycology,” he tells me. San Francisco State is the site of the West Coast’s longest study of mycology, as well as what he calls “the most prolific mycology professors.”

And mushrooms lend themselves to a real community notion of life in our natural world. “Fungus is a whole other kingdom – we don’t think about it that much because it’s underground, but microscopic threads of it are just everywhere,” says Jenkinson. The ‘shrooms are getting real neighborly down there, due to these interconnected systems. “The concept of individuality that we have – they just don’t have that underground.” Lack of individuality: a trait hardly shared by the mycological aficionados of Fungus Fair.

 

Rites of nude math professors and Berkeley

Andrew Lam
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0

“Frankly, I’m a bit baffled by all this,” Frenkel told us in an email follow-up to a phone interview conducted later this week. The UC Berkeley math professor was referring to the fact that the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, who had announced they would sponsor today (Wed/1)’s US premiere of his sensual math film, Rites of Love and Math, decided to pull their support earlier this week.

They had us at “sensual math film.”

“I don’t look at it as an erotic film, but there are some erotic elements,” says Frenkel. After meeting with some filmmakers in Paris, where he was on a research trip, Frenkel teamed up with Reine Graves to produce a 26-minute short that is shot on a Japanese kabuki set in a vivid palette of reds, whites, and blacks. He and co-star Kayshonne Insixieng May appear naked on a bed throughout most of the piece.

The film was inspired by a Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima, whose movie Yukoku (its English title: Rites of Love and Death, get it?) follows an army lieutenant faced with his friends’ planned coup ‘d état against their emperor. The lieutenant makes love to his wife for the last time before they ritually disembowl themselves. Years later, Mishima committed a similar suicide.

Frenkel’s version, though it borrows heavily from the aesthetics of Yukoku, has been called slightly more “Dan Brown.” In his film, a mathematician finds the formula of love, precious information he realizes might be harnessed by the powers of evil. Sensing impending doom, the brave calculator arrives at his lover’s house to etch the formula onto her stomach – preserving it. It is meant to be commentary on the dilemmas that scientists face when they discover life-changing findings – think Robert Oppenheimer of the Manhattan Project.

We asked Frenkel whether he expected that his nude scenes the movie would change his students’ view of math (and their professor) and he replied “to me, the ideas expressed in this film aren’t far from what I teach [students] in my class. Although, when I do it in the classroom, I do it in a much more conventional way.” Missionary? We kid. He expects the film to make the connection between math and the humanities, math and the world around us.

Frenkel also wrote the script in an effort to combat the strident negative stereotyping of mathematicians in the media as anti-social mad scientists. “A formula could be beautiful, like a piece of music, or a poem, or a painting,” he says.

Which seems like something the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute would be on board with. The organization’s stated mission is “to foster the genuine interest in mathematics held by people of all ages.” What better than a temperature-raising ode to the power of plus, minus, and divide? (For the record, the short’s unrated, though Frenkel somewhat optimistically estimates it would be deemed PG-13.)

Robert Bryant, the MSRI’s director, did have this to say in a letter published on the group’s website: “Early in the week of November 22, I began to get emails from distressed and upset colleagues who had viewed the trailer and found it disturbing, offensive, and/or insulting to women.” Though Bryant himself has seen both Frenkel’s version and the Mishima original, and found a screening of the two together “at first glance, to be a natural fit for MSRI,” he eventually caved to pressure from those for which Frenkel’s trailer “was revealing deep-seated gender issues in the mathematics community.” Another of MSRI’s stated goals are the advancement of women in all levels of the study of math.

Frenkel, who grew up in a small town near Moscow is surprised at the response to his film in his adopted community, home of such a storied free speech movement. 

“It appears that the criticism came mostly from people who have not seen the film!” he says in his email response. “I think one shouldn’t jump to conclusions about any film after watching a two-minute trailer. I think some will view this as a form of prior censorship, because those who have criticized the film and put enormous pressure on MSRI to pull out have in effect tried to suppress the film before it was shown.” 

He adds that his co-director Graves is “herself a woman director in a male dominated field,” and that the film has been screened on three different continents and featured positively in a number of publications including Science magazine. “The film is not a commentary of gender issues in science, and it should not be interpreted this way.”

At any rate, it all should make for a thrilling Q and A at the end of the free screening, which will be attended by Frenkel himself.

Marginalizing women? Or celebrating their role in truth and integers?

Rites of Love and Math and Rites of Love and Death (Yukoku)

Wed/1 7 p.m.; 

Free with tickets available at East Bay Media Center (1939 Addison, Berk.)

Landmark Shattuck Cinemas

2230 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 464-5980

www.ritesofloveandmath.com

 

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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0

Schedules are for Wed/1–Tues/7 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. “Radical Lights: San Francisco Lines of Sight,” Wed, 7:30. Co-presented by San Francisco Cinematheque, Pacific Film Archive, and Prelinger Archives. “Other Cinema:” •D Tour (Granato, 2008) and Sleeping Nights Awake (Albright, 2010), Sat, 8. Calvin and Sweetpea (Fletcher, 2007), Sun, 8.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF; (415) 668-6384. Free ($4 suggested donation). “Cowboy Bebop Appreciation Society and Landmark’s Bridge Theatre present Bebop Nights: Everybody Dies Edition” Fri, midnight.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $10-15. The Sound of Music (Wise, 1965), Wed-Sun, 7 (also Sat-Sun, 1). Presented sing-a-long style.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. Inside Job (Ferguson, 2010), call for dates and times. Leaving (Corsini, 2009), call for dates and times. Today’s Special (Kaplan, 2009), call for dates and times. Vision: From the Life of Hildegard Von Bingen (von Trotta, 2009), call for dates and times. “San Francisco Grand Opera Cinema Series:” Lucia de Lammermoor, Thurs, 7; Sat, 10am. “Buddhist Film Festival Showcase 2010,” Dec 2-9. These shows, $12.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. “Bay Area Culture and Performance Art,” presented by video activist Steve Jacobson, Wed, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100 (reservations required). $10. “CinemaLit:” Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Winterbottom, 2005), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area:” Tribulation 99 (Baldwin, 1999) with ‘Disaster” (Millner, 1975-76), Wed, 7:30. “Carl Theodor Dreyer:” The President (1918), Fri, 7; Vampyr (1931), Fri, 8:40. “Grin, Smile, Smirk: The Films of Burt Lancaster:” The Crimson Pirate (Siodmak, 1952), Sat, 6:30; Sweet Smell of Success (Mackendrick, 1957), Sat, 8:40; Elmer Gantry (Brooks, 1960), Sun, 4:45. “Days of Glory: Revisiting Italian Neorealism:” Voyage in Italy (Rossellini, 1953), Sun, 3.

PARAMOUNT 2025 Broadway, Oakl; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $25. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928), Thurs, 7:30. An oratorio with silent film featuring Mark Sumner’s Voices of Light libretto, performed by UC Berkeley’s Perfect Fifth and conducted by Mark Sumner.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Animal Kingdom (Michod, 2010), Wed, 2, 7, 9:25. Polack (Kenney, 2010), Thurs, 8. Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie (Esrick, 2009), Dec 3-9, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sat-Sun, 2, 4; Wed, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Prince of Broadway (Baker, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. California Tango (Togliatti, 2010), Fri, 8. The Temptation of St. Tony (Ounpuu, 2010), Dec 3-9, call for times.

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART 151 Third St, SF; www.sfcinema.org. Free with museum admission ($9-18). Rara (film) (Bussotti), Thurs, 7. Presented with live piano accompaniment by Sylvano Bussotti. “Bussotti: Concert-Restrospective,” post-screening concert with Bussotti and sfSoundGroup, Thurs, 9.

SHATTUCK 2230 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 843-3699. Free. “Mathematics, Love, and Death:” “Rite of Love and Death” (Mishima, 1965) and “Rites of Love and Math” (Graves and Frenkel, 2010), Wed, 7.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10-12. Kamu Gaidan (Sai, 2009), Wed, 4:45. “8x8x8 Film Fest,” eight short films presented by the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Thurs, 8. For info on this event, visit www.jccsf.org. “China Underground,” seven new films from China, Fri-Sun. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Go to Hell for the Holidays:” Red White & Blue (Rumley, 2010), Thurs, 7:30; Feast of the Assumption: BTK and the Otero Family Murders (Levitz, 2008), Sat, 7:30; Wolf Creek (Maclean, 2005), Sun, 2.

Our Weekly Picks: December 1-7

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 1

MUSIC

Good for the Jews

The last time this parodic-Hebraic duo made it to this city, they were greeted by a protesting Nazi who had posted up in front of their show. “He felt that we were representative of the Jewish-owned media. But I want to know: if we’re representing Zionist power, why am I staying at a Holiday Inn?” says group member Rob Tannenbaum. Honestly, the two (the other member is David Fagin) could probably care less about the crazies. Their Xmas alternative songs, which include “Reuben the Hook-Nosed Reindeer,” poke fun at the schmaltz of Christianity and Judaism — secular, and less so — alike, a perfect side dish for your holiday Chinese takeout. (Caitlin Donohue)

8 p.m., $15

Café Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

THURSDAY 2

FILM

The Passion of Joan of Arc

One of the great meteors of film history, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent elegy literalizes the adage that the eyes are the mirror of the soul. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) charges religious iconography with the erotic fluency of moving images, paving the way for subsequent generations of film transcendentalists who have sought the sacred in the profane. Once you’ve witnessed Maria Falconetti’s Joan, your sense of what’s possible in film acting is forever marked. Seeing the movie at the Paramount accompanied by an orchestral performance of Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light score promises to be an awesome treat — the cinematic equivalent of a purification ritual. (Max Goldberg)

7:30 p.m., $25

Paramount Theatre

2025 Broadway, Oakl.

(510) 642-5249

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu


THEATER

“San Francisco’s Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes”

Picture it: San Francisco, 2010. Overcome by their affection for The Golden Girls and a tidal wave of holiday spirit, a quartet of drag superstars (Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, and Pollo Del Mar), plus one legendary rocker (Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s), join forces to present two full-length episodes of the immortal sitcom live on stage. (For GG experts, because I know you’re out there, the eps are “Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Long Day’s Journey Into Marinara.”) Heklina and company earned raves for The Golden Girls: The Play, and this jolly twist offers an ideal, cheesecake-fueled opportunity to greet the season. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Dec. 23

Thurs.–Sat., 7 and 9 p.m., $25

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

www.ticketfly.com

 

MUSIC

Mister Heavenly

Mister Heavenly is the result of a long-rumored collaboration between top-flight indie rock songwriters Nick Thorburn (Islands, Unicorns) and Honus Honus of Man Man. Originally slated to be little more than a tossed-off sidestep, the project picked up steam with the addition of drummer Joe Plummer (Modest Mouse, Shins). No recordings have surfaced yet, so it’s tough to tell what Mister Heavenly is actually gonna sound like. But with Thorburn on record describing it as a low frequency, slowed down version of doo-wop — appropriately dubbed “doom-wop” — I think it’s at least safe to bank on it being awesomely strange. (Landon Moblad)

9 p.m., $12

Café Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com EVENT

 

EVENT

Left Coast Leaning Festival

Pin it on whatever factor you like, but the fact remains that the Best Coast whoops that other coast’s ass, wraps it up nicely, and drops it in the mail marked “Return to Sender.” For reals, it’s nice out here. You already knew that, and so do the wonderful young-person spoken word artists at Youth Speaks, who along with the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts are putting together this homage to the Wild West’s cultural diversity and its many happy mutations of hip-hop culture. Tonight alone you can check out the modern fusion dance stylings of Adia Tamar Whitaker and a dreamy, beautiful animated piece by Los Angeles’ Miwa Matreyek. (Donohue)

Thurs/2–Sat/4, 8 p.m., $20

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

FRIDAY 3

DANCE

Liss Fain Dance

Choreographer Liss Fain presents The False and True are One, which plays with the notion of how an event can be perceived differently by various people. Fain breaks up the common proscenium presentation of dance by creating a series of galleries on the stage that audience members can meander through at their leisure. Fain’s talented dancers (Jennifer Beamer Fernandez, Private Freeman, Megan Kurashige, Shannon Kurashige, Alec Lytton, and Bethany Mitchell) will perform throughout Matthew Antaky’s architecturally designed performance space while actor Jeri-Lynn Cohen enacts short stories by Lydia Davis. The result will be many different perceptions and viewings of the same performance. (Emmaly Wiederholt)

Fri/3–Sat/4, 8 p.m., $25

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

www.lissfaindance.org

 

VISUAL ART

“Stella Luminosa”

Electric Works’ new group show “Stella Luminosa” is like a much-needed shot of bourbon to steady oneself against the already advancing avalanche of holiday-themed treacle. Brining together such guiding lights as Dave Eggers, Matt Furie, Ian Huebert, Jason Jägel, Keegan McHargue, Clare Rojas, and Gina Tuzzi, “Stella Luminosa” presents these artists’ highly idiosyncratic winter wonderlands (with extra emphasis on “wonder”) and the odd ducks who inhabit them. Why settle for good cheer when there is plenty of weird cheer to go around? (Matt Sussman)

Through Dec. 24

Reception tonight, 6–8 p.m.

Electric Works

130 Eighth St., SF

www.sfelectricworks.com

 

MUSIC

Mr. Oizo

Who is the elusive Mr. Oizo? Here’s what we know for sure: French. Reportedly born Quentin Dupleux, although it’s specious. Electro DJ and producer. On the notorious Ed Banger record label with Justice, SebastiAn, and Cassius. Frequent collaborator with additional label-mate and proto Ke$ha, Uffie. Double identity as a film director. The subject of most recent film, Rubber, involves a homicidal tire with psychic powers. First infiltrated the U.S. in 1999 with seemingly harmless yet ubiquitous “Flat Eric” Levi’s ad campaign, the soundtrack from which may have been used to indoctrinate domestic sleeper agents. Current developments in sound are more nefarious and possibly deadly. Further surveillance required. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Boyz IV Men

10 p.m., $19.50

103 Harriet

103 Harriet, SF

(415) 431-1200

www.1015.com

 

DANCE

Human Creature and Jessica Damon

Human Creature shares the bill with Jessica Damon and Dancers in this performance presented by Resident Artist Workshop (RAW). With four new works choreographed by codirectors Derek Harris and Meegan Hertensteiner and music by composer Mark Hertensteiner, Human Creature’s witty and dark subject matter includes sleep, a postapocalyptic beginning, and the subconscious. Choreographer Jessica Damon’s piece Coated investigates how it must feel to be coated in oil and addresses the environmental problems associated with innovation and the unconsidered costs of technological growth. Stick around for beer and wine at the post-show party in the basement with DJ K-Real. (Wiederholt)

Fri/3–Sat/4, 8 p.m., $10–$20

Garage

975 Howard, SF

(415) 518-1517

www.975howard.com

 

SATURDAY 4

DANCE

“Pilot 57: Pilot Light”

Twenty years and 27 programs later, ODC’s Pilot series one reason young dancers continue flocking to the Bay Area, cost of living be damned. Pilot participants are not beginners; they have a professional, though usually small, track record. What they want and get from Pilot are 11 weeks of working with equal-minded colleagues in a supportive environment that provides feedback. Practical advice on how to make it in a competitive field is thrown in. Artists Nathan Cottam, Amy Foley, Daria Kaufman, Elizabeth McSurdy, Raisa Punkki, and Charles Slender bring wide perspective to their projects, which should make for appealing shows — and probably had sparks flying during the working sessions. (Rita Felciano)

Sat/4–Sun/5, 8 p.m., $12

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odctheater.org

 

SUNDAY 5

MUSIC

Jonathan Richman

Some know him as the leader of 1970s pre-punk trailblazers, the Modern Lovers. Others recognize him as the wide-eyed crooner known to pop up in Farrelly brothers comedies. But it’s the 30 years’ worth of quirky solo albums that have made Jonathan Richman one of the finest cult singer-songwriters of his era. Combining early rock ‘n’ roll songwriting strummed out on a clean Telecaster; a surplus of world music influences; and sparse, tasteful accompaniment from his longtime drummer Tommy Larkins, Richman is a hilarious and charming performer whose live show is not to be missed. (Moblad)

With Gail Davies

8 p.m., $15

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

 

DANCE

Mary Sano Dance Collaborations

Mary Sano is a passionate advocate for the work of Isadora Duncan. In Japan she was a modern dancer until she encountered the work of the great California dance pioneer. Her programs usually feature Duncan and Duncan-style dances, but she often brings in actors, musicians, and poets for intriguing salon-type evenings. For Ship of Dreams: Kanrin Maru — 150 Years of Hope, Struggle and Friendship, her first evening-length piece, she dipped into all of these resources. Everybody has heard of Commodore Perry, who is credited-blamed for “opening” Japan to wonders of Western civilization in 1851. But does anybody know the story of the Kanrin Maru, which — against incredible odds — carried the first Japanese emissaries to the U.S. in 1860, landing of course in San Francisco? Sano “recreates” this journey with four dancers, seven actors, and five musicians, including Native American singer Dennis Banks. (Felciano)

7 p.m., $28

Brava Theater

2781 24th St., SF

(415) 647-2822

www.brava.org

 

MUSIC

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

Is it possible that Owen Ashworth has cheered up? For more than a decade Casiotone for the Painfully Alone has been an appropriately descriptive title for his brand of subdued, introspective, keyboard-infused indie pop. But now it’s over. He announced in suitably emo fashion (via LiveJournal): “After nearly 13 years of being the dude from Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, I’m ready for a fresh start and a new challenge. So, after Dec. 5, 2010 (the 13-year anniversary of my first show), I’m throwing out the old songs and I’m trying something new.” Expect this show to be especially bittersweet. (Prendiville)

With Donkeys and Ian Fays

9 p.m., $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com 


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