Berkeley Archives — Page 76 of 96 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

“Chinatown” revisited. Electronically.

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May 14, 2009

In March, when the Guardian reported that the Society of Professional Journalists had honored MAPlight.org with a James Madison Award for Electronic Access, folks at the Berkeley-based non-profit told me that they were about to launch MAPLight.org Los Angeles to reveal campaign contributions to L.A. politicians.

And, as you’ll see if you click the MAPLight.org Los Angeles link, this new public, web-accessible database, which provides citizens with key campaign finance data including industry, interest group, company and individual campaign contributions, is up and running, as of today. Check it out—and dream how much easier it will be to follow the money, if and when the group launches MAPLight.orgSanFrancisco—something, they tell me, is entirely doable.
And imagine how much easier it would have been for Chinatown‘s private investigator JJ “Jake” Gittes to unravel the web of money and deceit wrapped round Los Angeles’ water supply, if he’d had access to MAPlight’s online tools.

“Where’s Gavin?”

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May 13, 2009

1

By Rebecca Bowe

Question mark face.JPG

In an article last month about how Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates has decided to trade in his car for a bus pass, the Chronicle reported an interesting transportation tidbit about San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom:

“[Newsom] rides Muni incognito, disguised in a baseball cap, and walks when he can, said his spokesman Nathan Ballard.”

In the wake of recent drama over the Muni budget, a group of anonymous city transit riders has apparently banded together to kick off a contest dubbed “Where’s Gavin?”

In a letter posted today by the N-Judah Chronicles, the contest organizers explain: “We don’t think that Gavin actually gets it on transit or gets on transit, contrary to the comment in the Chronicle that said he goes incognito. We’d like him to ride more, perhaps to get a feeling for what riders go through even on days when the budget hasn’t been cut.”

To wit, they promise to buy a Fast Pass for the first person to get a picture of Newsom riding incognito on Muni. (Cable cars don’t count.) They also say they’ll buy beer for any others who present a photo, subject to a “verification of authenticity.” Here’s a snippet from the contest Web site: “Only you, the riders of our beloved San Francisco Municipal Railway, can find Gavin going incognito. And to get you excited, check out the sidebar to see what prizes you could win! The deep and resounding question of our time is not ‘Where’s Waldo?’ It’s ‘Where’s Gavin?’”

The world stage

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May 12, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

Recently I was lucky enough to land at an international theater festival in Wroclaw, Poland, jostling elbows with a transnational mix of theater folk on the occasion of the 13th annual European Theatre Prize, this year awarded to the great Polish director Krystian Lupa. It was an eye-opening glimpse at some awesome theatrical muscle rarely if ever seen in the Bay Area, or even the United States. Globally-renowned powerhouses like Italy’s Pippo Delbono and Belgium’s Guy Cassiers were there with some extraordinary work, not to mention that of Lupa, whose utterly brilliant and plotless eight-hour fantasia on Andy Warhol’s Factory, Factory 2, proved an absolute highlight of my theatergoing career thus far.

While dreaming of the day Factory 2 takes its local bow, I can only appreciate all the more what places like UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall or San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts do in bringing us news of the theatrical world — or news of the world, theatrically. Another local presenter of exceptional international work has been the San Francisco International Arts Festival, whose sixth season begins this week. SFIAF and executive director Andrew Wood have increasingly made world theater a vital part of the fest’s eclectic performance mix. This year is no exception, with three must-sees in the lineup.

First, South Korea’s Cho-In Theatre makes its U.S. debut with The Angel and the Woodcutter, an original physical theater piece reutf8g the Korean folk tale in a wordless, poetical drama as uncompromising as it is unexpected. Then, Russia’s famed, immensely creative performance ensemble, the Akhe Group — proponents of what they call "Russian Engineering Theatre" and favorites at SFIAF in 2005, where they presented White Cabin — return with the U.S. premiere of Gobo.Digital Glossary, a wild and captivating conglomeration of video projections, animation, ambient music, lasers, clowning, and trompe l’oeil.

Also receiving its Bay Area premiere is Beyond the Mirror, an unprecedented collaboration between New York’s Bond Street Theatre and Afghanistan’s Exile Theatre. The description of this first American-Afghani theatrical outing might ring a bell: Mirror had been slated to open Brava’s theatrical season in fall 2008, when the U.S. government’s inexplicable delays in processing visas for the Afghan performers forced its last-minute cancellation. That disappointment will happily be rectified by SFIAF when Mirror opens at Cowell Theater. (A second San Francisco appearance follows as part of foolsFURY’s Fury Factory festival in June.)

The two companies began crafting the play after meeting by chance in 2002 among the refugee camps outside Peshawar in northern Pakistan, where the activist, physical-theater–based Bond Street went after 9/11 to develop links to the Afghan people and work with a German NGO building schools in the devastated country. Exile, meanwhile, had formed as a group of refugee playwrights, actors, and other performance professionals committed to keeping Afghan arts alive and reflecting the concerns of the Afghani population living as second-class citizens in Pakistan.

Never more timely, the play ranges over the last three decades of Afghanistan’s history, using an expressive mélange of theatrical forms and techniques — including oral history, mythology, live music, traditional dance, drama, acrobatics, puppetry, and film — to tell a story of war and hope at the cusp of yet another turbulent chapter in the country’s unfolding story. Notably, the eight-member half-American, half-Afghani cast includes Afghanistan’s most famous actress, Anisa Wahab, who grew up in happier times on camera as a child star and has continued to act despite its still dangerous implications for women.

Communicating partly with some mutual English, and largely in terms of both distinct and shared physical vocabularies, the artists developed what became Mirror in a nonlinear, highly abstract way, according to Bond Street artistic director Joanna Sherman, who codirected it with Exile’s Mahmoud Shah Salimi. That in no way diminishes its rootedness or poignancy.

"We went around the countryside and interviewed different people, and videotaped them as they would allow," Sherman explained by phone from New York. "Our challenge was to portray these terrible stories in a way that was not gruesome or impossible to watch. We used our physical techniques in a way that it would be watchable and compelling but not exactly ‘realistic.’"

Since Mirror‘s premiere at the second Kabul Theatre Festival in 2005, much has happened in the U.S. and Afghanistan, prompting a small but significant revision, a new final scene, according to Sherman. "We do leave on a thought of hope," she stressed. "But [we’re] doing some interviewing again and getting some additional video. We’ll see what happens."

SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL

May 20-31, various venues

www.sfiaf.org

Aerosol melodies

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May 12, 2009

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marke@sfbg.com

Ah, Le Poisson Rouge — how I yearn for you. The edgy New York City club and performance space has become a golden nexus for the current rich collision of the indie, electronic, and contemporary classical worlds. Zing go the avant-garde, filter-bent strings in the Bay often enough, of course, especially through the out-there provenance of sfSound (www.sfsound.org), the biannual Soundwave Series (www.projectsoundwave.com), and Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (cnmat.berkeley.edu). But it took last August’s sold out Herbst Theater one-off by Wordless Music, the Poisson-based org that brings big indie names to the new music stage, to finally hold SF’s flannel-clad fixie pixie population enraptured by the freakier side of symphonica, with the white-noise-drenched West Coast premiere of “Popcorn Superhet Receiver” by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and soul-loosening pieces by Bay boys Fred Frith (“Save As”) and Mason Bates (“Icarian Rhapsody”).

It’s been a massive year for 32-year-old Virginia native Bates, who told me over the phone that he moved from NYC to North Oakland four years ago because he “wanted a house and a short commute to a great city.” In March the Julliard grad debuted a six-movement work, Sirens, commissioned by local vocal greats Chanticleer, right after he wrapped up a three-season young-composer-in-residence program with the California Symphony. Perhaps his biggest break came last month, when the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, assembled via audition vids and led by San Francisco Symphony conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, made its debut at Carnegie Hall, playing a portion of Bates’ latest orchestral suite, The B-Sides. Like many other professional cynics, I had my nails sharpened and painted Jungle Red for this dreadful-seeming Internet marketing buzz-blast, but the inclusion of Bates’ forward-thinking work helped rescue the affair from maudlin crowd-pleasing.

Speaking of gimmicks, here’s what many perceive as Bates’: he plays a laptop onstage with the orchestra. Good heavens! Mere gimmickry’s a sad assumption — sure enough, his YouTube gig has reignited that tired technology vs. “true” classical debate that has periodically raged ever since the theremin took the Paris Opera stage in 1927. But Bates, who has toured clubs in his DJ Masonic guise for years, rises above all that with a deep knowledge of dance music history, which itself claims a long and fruitful entanglement with contemporary classical, and a mission of sonic integration.

“The laptop is a piece of the enterprise, a means of augmenting the texture of an orchestral arrangement and adding a richness that evokes new sonic landscapes,” says Bates, who considers his keyboard a “specialized extension of the percussion family.” As for snap judgments about technology, “it actually goes both ways,” he says. “Of course, some traditional symphony-goers can’t really go there. But it’s important for people from the club world to know that I’m not just orchestrating techno” — like the Balanescu Quartet’s version of Kraftwerk or the Williams Fairey Brass Band’s take on acid house. “I’m not Richie Hawtin for woodwinds and booming tubas. I’m coming from a more ambient, electronica place — I’m always aware that I’m playing off something while delving into unique textures and expanded sonari.”

The B-Sides, which will have its full debut for three nights with the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall, consists of five movements inspired by archetypal ambient moods — from the buzzing insects and tropical evocations of “Aerosol Melody Hanalei” to astronautical voice transmissions and blankets of static in “Gemini and the Solar Winds.” “Wharehouse Medicine,” which the YouTube Symphony debuted, is like a nifty bit of Leonard Bernstein pumped up with chattering clicks and back-ear bass that energetically summons up the chillout rooms of yore. If it seems odd that Bates references vinyl in his title, while combining laptop rumination and live orchestration, don’t sweat it. “I was thinking back to the experimental freedom that B-sides once afforded to groups like Pink Floyd — surgical strikes into trippy terrain.”

Bates will also be bringing his outstanding Mercury Soul project (www.mercurysoul.org), conceived with conductor Benjamin Shwartz and visual artist Anne Patterson, to Davies after the May 22 symphony performance and to Mezzanine (www.mezzaninesf.com) on May 28. Mercury Soul “is almost a negative image of what I do with an orchestra,” Bates says, “where I DJ and we create a club atmosphere interspersed with live performances of contemporary works by the likes of Steve Reich and John Luther Adams.”

“Look, I know a laptop is never going to be as expressive as a fiddle,” Bates says, a twang of his Virginian upbringing coming through. “And a CD installation pack may never rival the power of a written score. But if I can expand and screw around with orchestral space that way, then it definitely meets my intent.”

THE B-SIDES

With the San Francisco Symphony

Wed/20, Fri/22, and Sat/23

8 p.m., $35–$130

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness

(415) 552-8000

www.sfsymphony.org

Hall of Shame on torture includes Bay Area notables

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May 8, 2009

7

By Steven T. Jones

It’s shameful that the Bay Area is home to so many of the top people implicated in creating this country’s torture program. They include the former White House lawyers who created the legal justification for the program, Jay Bybee (who is now a justice at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, located on 7th Street) and John Yoo (who teaches law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall); top Bush Administration enablers Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, who are down at Stanford’s Hoover Institute; and our own Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who was reportedly briefed on the program when it began back in 2002 as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

While Pelosi has so far (inexplicably) escaped serious scrutiny of the issue (just as she did about her foreknowledge of Bush’s illegal wiretapping program), there’s a budding impeachment movement against Bybee, Rice and Rumsfeld reportedly need to consult lawyers before traveling (they should really visit Spain, which I hear is lovely this time of year), and regular protests calling for Yoo’s removal continue next week when World Can’t Wait plans to have a large protest outside Boalt’s commencement ceremonies on May 16 at the Greek Theater.

Justice is coming slowly, but it is coming.

On the rise

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May 6, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

Even when times are shaky in San Francisco, it’s a fine time to head to PlayGround. At the upcoming 13th annual Best of PlayGround festival — which rides into the Thick House on steadily mounting popularity for an unprecedented four-week run beginning May 7 — a ticket will get you a lot of theater, in terms of quantity, quality, and novelty.

Since 1996, the annual festival has drawn from the best work presented in PlayGround’s signature short play contests — a monthly challenge (from October through March) to develop a 10-minute script in four days around a given theme ("When Pigs Fly" served one time), with winning scripts getting staged readings by leading Bay Area acting and directing talent in Monday Night performances at Berkeley Repertory Theater. The festival, meanwhile, gives the cream of the yearly crop (those earning PlayGround’s Emerging Playwright Award) fully staged productions, again with the collaboration of the finest Bay Area directors, actors, and designers.

This unusual mix of fresh, untested (or just emerging) talent on the page and seasoned professionals on and off the stage means there’s really nothing else quite like it in Bay Area theaters, and it remains a crowd-pleaser. Attendance at Monday Night performances broke all records this year, notes artistic director Jim Kleinmann, who founded PlayGround in 1994 with colleagues Brighde Mullins and Denise Shama.

But it’s also been a marked success in the underlying mission of developing new theatrical voices and strengthening the theater community as a whole in the Bay Area. (A recent Theatre Bay Area Magazine article listing the region’s 13 top emerging playwrights included no less than eight PlayGround alumni.) Kleinmann says the inspiration for PlayGround came from a playwriting exercise developed by his old teacher at Brown University, renowned playwright Paula Vogel, but has steadily expanded to include several commissions for full-length work from PlayGround writers. This year’s five commission winners will have their work presented in staged readings as part of the festival. The thrust throughout has been to nurture craft in the context of encouraging ties between new and seasoned theater makers.

"It certainly has evolved," Kleinmann says. "As the number of writers increased over time and the writers started to have longer-term relationships with PlayGround a couple of years into the Monday Night format, we added the festival, [which] became a really important showcase." These festival playwrights would have their works published too in a PlayGround anthology, making them available to readers and theater companies elsewhere. Still, a few years later Kleinmann and colleagues began work on new avenues of support.

"We’d always hoped that if we could discover these writers and worked to nurture them, midsize theaters would take them under their wings," he says. "That wasn’t happening as quickly as we might have hoped. So we found there was a need to bring writers to another level [with the commissions], where they would be able to be supported in their full-length work."

It’s a formula that has paid off with writers and audiences for more than a decade. Among the other enticements of new work in this format, there’s a serious vicarious thrill that goes with seeing actors of the caliber of a Stacy Ross or Jim Carpenter, under direction of a Barbara Oliver or Chris Smith, assay work by a gifted but still-developing or even unknown voice. In addition, "there’s no question it creates a dialogue about their work and [the actors and directors] become champions for their work," Kleinmann says. "What you [end up having] is a stronger community."

"BEST OF PLAYGROUND FESTIVAL"

May 7–31 Thu–Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun, 7 p.m., $28-$40

Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF

(415) 401-8081, www.playground-sf.org

Less sex at Dore? SFPD gets hot over crappy muck-monger

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April 30, 2009

2

By Marke B.

Hurray, we’re back in the 50s again! Hot on the heels of the SF Weekly’s “alternative” take on the BDSM community comes this report from the Bay Area Reporter that the SFPD plans to get hard and tough on public nudity and consensual sex acts at that hallowed gay Bay tradition, July’s Up Your Alley Fair on Dore Alley, operated by the Folsom Street Fair folks.

Due to the complaints, the police are requiring the fair organizers to develop a more stringent security plan to deal with people who break the law at the event. [SFPD Lieutenant Nicole M.] Greely said simply because someone is attending an enclosed street fair does not mean that laws regarding public nudity and lewd behavior do not apply.

“There is no public sex allowed, that is illegal. Nudity laws still apply and laws against urinating in public still apply,” said Greely. “Sometimes things gradually get out of hand and that is what happened here. Last year it got out of control.”

….

It is the first time that the police have demanded the Up Your Alley Fair organizers to address public sex acts and lewd behavior in their security plan for the event, said Greely.

Ho hum, doesn’t this happen every year around the time the police want to ask for more fair fees? But here’s the kicker:

Police also point to the Web site http://www.zombietime.com that documented numerous photos of men performing oral sex, urinating in public, and masturbating from second floor windows overlooking the fair as another reason for their increased vigilance. The site, created by an anonymous local photographer, also questions why the police took no action against the public nudity and sexual behavior at the fair.

Those frankly beautiful pics caused a shit-storm a couple years ago after the Berkeley-based zombietime published the pics and ones of Folsom. They were used to fan anti-gay flames by such organizations as “Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.” (Yeah, here’s a truth — YOU’RE GAY) .

7 Spring flings

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April 22, 2009

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Casual dating: it’s hilarious. Who the hell knows what to expect when you’re getting together for the first, or even fourth, time with a prospective mate over eats and conversation? You may just want to order the briefest appetizer you can spot and split — either to rip each other’s clothes off in the sanctity of your apartment hallway or delete each other’s numbers from your iPhones without appearing rude. And, on the basis of any vibes from various text-message/voicemail/drunken bar encounters beforehand, you might desire an array of date-dining alternatives at your fingertips, from light and breezy to fancy and invested. Below is my hit list of options to help you plan your onslaught of spring-fever suitors. You’re just that slick.

ARIZMENDI BAKERY

Why am I kicking off this list with a bakery? Because the Inner Sunset’s Arizmendi — an organically-minded cooperative descended from Berkeley’s lovely Cheeseboard — is a splendid spot to score some of the city’s yummiest pastries and pizza slices before a sunlit afternoon jaunt into Golden Gate Park together. Snag a bleacher on the baseball diamond near Ninth Avenue, sink your teeth into a scrumptious poppy-seed bialy, and root for romance.

1331 9th Avenue, SF. (415) 566-3117, www.arizmendibakery.org

THE BUTLER AND THE CHEF

Brunch is the perfect date meal — not only can you mimosa the previous night’s dating triumph or disaster right out of your mouth, but you also get to check out your current wooer in the daylight. Up your savvy quotient by suggesting this relatively untrammeled, brunch-oriented French gem in South Park, where you can croque your monsieur if he dares touch your niçoise prematurely. Bonus: real champagne!

155 South Park, SF. (415) 896-2075, www.thebutlerandthechefbistro.com

B44

If you’ve already checked your date for cooties, why not venture into participatory dining territory by sharing a deep, delicious paella at this Spanish treat? One order of this traditional oven-cooked rice, seafood, and meat dish from the voluminous menu should satisfy your needs, and maybe when your forks cross there’ll be sparks. If you sit outdoors on the slightly seedy yet romantically-lighted Belden Place, the ambience advances exponentially — and if you need to flee, well, it’s all the easier.

44 Belden Place, SF. (415) 986-6287, www.b44sf.com

CHAPEAU!

The interior may look like Laura Ashley tripped and spilled her potpourri basket, but this Richmond District delight is one of those magical places where the food is so fine (and the prix fixe options so reasonable) that the pastel walls soon fall away and the world opens up into a universe of companionable possibilities. Yes, it’s fancy French, yet not stuffy or pompous at all — the only part of the out-of-the-ballpark menu that seems slightly inflexible is the wine list. Lemme tell ya, though, after a couple of glasses of classic Bordeaux and the fabulously rich basil Napoleon dessert, you’ll be anything but.

1408 Clement, SF. (415) 750-9787

LA CICCIA

Italian on a date — hello, cliché. Most people forget that when the noodle-slurping pooches’ lips met in The Lady and the Tramp, it was over a trashcan. For lovers not so deep in the new Depression yet, give your taste buds a twist and dive into the fantastically rich, seafood-focused cuisine of Sardinia at this cutie in Noe Valley. Keep your eye on the waitstaff, though, because most of them are gorgeous. For those who balk at trying items like tuna hearts, wild boar, or octopus stew — hey, the octopus may have been smarter than your date! — awesome thin-crust pizzas are available.

291 30th St., SF. (415) 550-8114, www.laciccia.com

LA MAR

La Mar offers a gorgeous view of the Bay, a mellow vibe despite the crowds, and an enormous selection of Peruvian favorites and mouthwatering cocktails that’ll make you want to dash below the equator once your plate is clean. This new hotspot is an all-around dating wonderland — order a stunning cebiche sampler and tart pisco sour for a quickie get-to-know-you or settle in for robust entrees, anticuchos, causas, and sopas if you want to deliciously delay the adios.

Pier 1 1/2, SF. (415) 397-8880, www.lamarcebicheria.com

SHABUSEN

I’m not sure what your list of priorities looks like when it comes to promising soulmate candidates, but, for me, that person better damn well know how to cook. Here’s my nifty little trick for finding out if the person across the table can adequately steam my beef — schedule a shabu-shabu date. The Japanese cuisine requires you to cook your own thinly sliced meats and veggies in a hotpot-type device at the table. It’s quite a lot of fun once you get the hang of it — and the results are incredibly tasty. Shabusen in Japantown is one of my faves because it’s got an authentic atmosphere and a klutz-patient staff. And if your companion happens to be a butterfingers, you can always satisfy yourself with the ample homemade pickles provided.

1726 Buchanan, SF. (415) 440-0466

Sex-children of the Throb

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April 22, 2009

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By Marke B.

Throbbing Gristle, “Discipline” live at Kezar, 1981

“Like always I persuaaa-aade you.” My audiophile pals have been burbling for weeks about Throbbing Gristle’s return to the Bay Area — an event of enormous sonic-historical magnitude that both Brandon Bussolini and Nicole Gluckstern write about in this week’s issue. And they’ve mostly been taken by the series of vids recorded at Kezar Stadium (“the stadium of dead souls”) in 1981 that documents the raw, uninhibited mind-warp of the group at the time — a perfect tonic for our still-obsessed post-punk indie-bop era. It’s pretty amazing, and I’m loving the obvs tripped-out audience. Also, it looks to have much more in common with composer John Adams‘ Berkeley music-concrete happenings than the overloaded, multimedia Wax Trax spectaculars that industrial would soon veer into, livewise.

The above extended cataclysm, plus this one below by Germany’s Liaisons Dangereuses from 1982, tells a seedy, sweaty, and dirty-sexy industrial story, with a space for women even (“are you ready boys, are you ready girls?”), that I wish had been pin-patched and bedazzled onto Haight Street kids’ jackets rather than the hypersteroidal/paranoid-pop Skinny Puppy-Nitzer Ebb-Ministry one (and hey, doesn’t Depeche Mode have a new album out?)

Liaisons Dangereuses, “Los Niños Del Parque”

It’s a wonder to me how all those macho mid-80s big-time industrial acts could simultaneously be so testosteronal and yet so castrated. Maybe it was all the trying too hard (and it kind of happened again in the 90s with, ew, rap-rock). But, you know, I shaved off my devil lock and fled the industrial dance floor once KMFDM’s “Control” became inescapable. Now that was torture, even though now I find them quite adorable. It’ll be very interesting to see what kind of crowd shows up at the TG show on Thursday, to say the least, and whether they’ll have the spikes to ride the experimental thrust into polysexual purgatory, industrial’s true Valhalla (not hell at all), with barest, brief release.

From the LA Times Coachella blog: “I think I’ve had three orgasms already,” Genesis P-Orridge said after the first song of Throbbing Gristle’s set. All right, so we know it was good for the fair-haired, transgendered leader of the British industrial act, but how was it for us?

NorCal nuggets

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April 21, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Now playing: Locals Only II (see part one here). You can’t stop it from happening, even if you crumble to the ground like Keanu, fire your pistol in the air, and scream, "Nooo!" NorCal bands gotta make some noise, Bay-bies.

Hey, what gives? The Fresh and Onlys promised to release their self-titled Castle Face debut in May, yet last week I spied the CD, prominently displayed, twinkling brightly on an Amoeba Music endcap. Could it be an inside job, being that Fresh and Onlys Tim Cohen and Shayde Sartin have passed through the store’s payroll? Whatev, Kev, be happy it’s there, polishing off rough gems like "Endless Love": "Why don’t we live forever /inside this little mirror /so that your eyes and my nose /and your ears and my mouth /and your chin and my beard /they all fit together? / Na-na-na-na-na-na-na!"

Just as you turn to dismiss "Endless Love" as another joke song — albeit one tuned to a staticky channel of surf and ’60s-style garage rock by way of Flying Nun novitiates and Jonathan Richman’s post-punk pop naifs — the group unleashes a mini-nugget of "A Man Needs a Maid" wisdom: "Don’t you know you gotta give yourself / to get somebody else." Happily tucked into an echo chamber of passion-first rock ‘n’ roll, and armed against the apocalypse with a here-to-help sincerity that could stand the test of time ("The Mind Is Happy." "Feelings in My Heart"), the Fresh and Onlys pull off the seemingly impossible: discovering a clunky sweetness and lo-fi grace in a very singular rock primitivo.

"Snap back like a bungee chord — Lord!" Watch yourself, Raw Deluxe. The Bay Area group’s flow is as satisfyingly smooth and substantive as classic Del tha Funkee Homosapien times three on "Can You Spend It," off its new Raw Communication (Reel Deal). MCs Lexxx Luthor and Mic Blake of Alphabet Soup and Soulati of Felonious are unstoppable and at the top of a mix that showcases the sheer delight of word-slingers riding the exact same wavelength. There’s nothing particularly uncooked about the smokily intoxicating old-school jazz-funk gumbo on Raw Deluxe’s third long-player: keyboardist Matt Fleming, saxophonist Tony Jurado, bassist Christ Arenas, and drummer Chris Spano are on point on "Something to Build Upon" — a celebration of the band’s actual music-making process — which would chart in a better world and provide the foundation for a more maximalist hip-hop.

On the post-rock-cum-math side of the spectrum is the far-too-scarce From Monuments to Masses, now SF-NYC bicoastal and back with a new mostly instrumental full-length, On Little Known Frequencies (Dim Mak), possibly the most powerful recording yet by Francis Choung, Matthew Solberg, and Sergio Robledo-Maderazo. Mars Volta and Minus the Bear — MTB keyboardist Matt Bayles coproduced, engineered, and mixed the disc — are obvious referents. though neither band finds its voice via fragments of sampled dialogue like FMTM does, as if tapping directly into the culture’s transmissions. Almost monochromatic in its clear-eyed devotion to alt-rock propulsion, FMTM’s music has the closed-circle urgency and internal fury of a sonic dialectic. Are these frequencies to be plumbed with increased frequency?

THE FRESH AND ONLYS

Thurs/23, 10 p.m., $5

Knockout

3223 Mission, SF

www.theknockoutsf.com

RAW DELUXE

Fri/24, 10 p.m., $10

Club Six

60 Sixth St., SF

www.clubsix1.com

————
UPCOMING:

FLIPPER

The punk legends are turning over a new leaf in honor of their new 4 Men With Beards vinyl reissues, including 1982’s Generic Flipper. The battle continues with Flipper’s new Love/Fight albums on May 19. Fri/24, 6 p.m., free. Amoeba, 2455 Telegraph, Berkeley. www.amoeba.com. Also Sat/25, 9 pm $10. El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com

AUTOLUX

The L.A. combo veers toward the dark, detuned, and deliciously distorted, judging from the music released from its long-awaited, forthcoming second disc, Transit Transit. With Odawas and Mini Mansions. Sat/25, 9 p.m., $18. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

THE GROUCH AND ELIGH

Is three the magic number for the West Coast indie MCs? Check for lofty concepts on the new Say G&E (Legendary). With Exile and DJ Day and Afro Classics. Sat/25, 9 p.m., $18. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. Also Mon/27, 6 p.m., free. Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF. www.amoeba.com

Don’t blame it on Onek

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April 21, 2009

2

Text by Sarah Phelan

David Onek is a San Francisco Police Commissioner and founding executive director of the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice.

When the Board voted to support due process for all youth, a few weeks ago, the ever irascible h. brown went off on one of his infamous rants, this time targeting the SFPD in general and San Francisco Police Commissioner David Onek, in particular.

“Isn’t there a police commissioner named David Onek who created a half million dollar program to milk this cow, then resigned from the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice so that his firm could grab a third of it?” brown ranted. “Write about Onek. Too hot a potato?”

I don’t normally reply to Brown’s comments, but this time they got my attention because I recently unearthed communications in a public records request related to an investigation into the city’s criminal justice department that show that Brown’s claims—namely that Onek created a MOCJ grant program and benefited financially from it—are not only false, but also resemble unsourced claims in a August 2008 Chronicle article.

As such, these claims deserve to be addressed, even if some pieces of this particular MOCJ puzzle are still missing.

So, I went back, reviewed the MOCJ records again, and tried to piece together what really happened—for the sake of brown, Onek and anyone else involved in this saga, which appears to have been driven by anti-immigrant hate mongers, has harmed countless immigrant families, and lead to the Board’s support of due process for all.

Should the state bar investigate torture lawyer Yoo?

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April 17, 2009

10

By Tim Redmond

Protests are going to continue at UC Berkeley over John Yoo, the lawyer who wrote memos authorizing CIA torture. I’m generally an academic-freedom purist, and I hate to suggest that anyone be fired from a university position because of his or her political statements.

On the other hand, the California bar does have rules of professional conduct, and one of them goes like this:

Rule 3-210. Advising the Violation of Law

A member shall not advise the violation of any law, rule, or ruling of a tribunal unless the member believes in good faith that such law, rule, or ruling is invalid

Would that include international law? Would that include advocating torture? I’m not a lawyer or an expert on legal ethics, but perhaps the state bar ought to look into this.

Locals only

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April 15, 2009

0

a&eletters@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER April showers, worried world powers, CD towers — it’s tough to keep the kite-high ebullience, party vibes, and gotta-jet wings in flight during tough times. Bands come and go, move to Brooklyn (otherwise known as Break-Up-Land), and wither away in day jobs. So dole out a few propers to locals who brave the unofficial buy-nothing year of 2009 with new shiny plastic discs as they bid to become, erm, the next "secret show"-happy Green Day, revving up for Berkeley Rep, or Guitar Hero-hooked Metallica, currently gathering massive TV exposure via that goofy prime-time commercial.

Even the least likely to hunker down and deliver — namely the hard-smokin’ party hearties of Still Flyin’ — are casting aside the bakin’ dog lethargy and finally issuing a first album, Never Gonna Touch the Ground (Ernest Jenning). Love ’em or hate ’em, the brazenly silly 15-plus supergroup has finally found its footing amid the current wave of indie rock fun-seekers, a phenom (the Polyphonic Spree, Of Montreal, Tilly and the Wall, Broken Social Scene) characterized by collective-minded sprawl, theatricality, audience-friendliness, and dance jams (Still Flyin’ likes to call theirs HAMMJAMMS, but never mind that). Is "happy gang-bang Muzak" too raw a phrase to lay on it?

Headed by Athens, Ga., refugee Sean Rawls and boasting such members as ex-Aisler Set-ees Yoshi Nakamoto and Alicia Vanden Heuvel and former Architecture in Helsinki-ite Isobel Knowles, Still Flyin’ flies in the face of perceived indie elitism with a sound that fuses group-vocal pale-faced two-tone and lilting, ’80s-era Haircut 100 and Tom Tom Club lite tropi-pop. It’s present on the band’s title theme, on the anthemic ska workout "Forever Dudes," and on the bubbly vaca-rock of "Following the Itinerary." Yes, Still Flyin’ has an antidote to the economic woes that ail ya — the oughta-be-a-pop-hit "Good Thing It’s a Ghost Town Around Here" embraces the darkness that the Specials once dreaded. Ignore throwaways like the self-mocking "Act of Jamming," and you start to believe that the infectious Never Gonna just might achieve liftoff, especially if the group continues to get live crowds onto its party bus.

Never Gonna was partly recorded on weekends by Jason Quever at his Excelsior District home studio, Pan American, and it shows: the disc sounds just as toasty warm as the new You Can Have What You Want (Gnomonsong) by Quever’s Papercuts. Thanks to its Clientele-like mid-’60s folk pop, 2007’s Can’t Go Back promised to be Quever’s breakout recording, landing on Devendra Banhart and Andy Cabic’s Gnomonsong imprint with a hushed splash. You Can Have is a new mode of dreaming — one prone to bouts of levitation. Helped by Beach House’s Alex Scally, Lazarus’ Trevor Montgomery, Skygreen Leopards’ Glenn Donaldson, artist-filmmaker David Enos, and Helene Renaut, Quever conjures haunted carousels and the drift of spooked spaceships on tracks like "Once We Walked in the Sunlight," "A Peculiar Hallelujah," and "Jet Plane." Obsessively analog-centric and bewitched by dream pop, yé-yé, Floyd, and an earthbound breed of Krautrock, he makes it impossible to resist the surprisingly light-hearted charms of "A Dictator’s Lament" and You Can Have‘s overall stately high. Papercuts, we are floating in space …

The rock ‘n’ roll rave-ups and in-the-red rawness of the Sir Lord Raven’s new Please Throw Me Back in the Ocean (Happy Parts) tap into a whole ‘nother brand: screw-it-all naughty snotty. "Maybe I’ll jump in the river /Maybe I’ll cut out my liver … I’m tryin’ /I keep on tryin’," sneers frontman Eric Von Ravenson, once of the Time Flys, on — yeah, you got it — "I Keep on Tryin’." Recorded by indispensable organ and guitar pinch-hitter Greg Ashley, with producer Jay Bronzini on drums, Please Throw Me slices the cheesiness thickly, with a sense of cut-and-run fun. It’s throwback — hence a cover version of Fats Domino’s "I’m Ready" — but not necessarily throwaway. I like a band unafraid to pay tribute to its true, unlovely loves, but I prefer originals like "Take It or Leave It," "Spit on Your Grave," and "PC Action," the latter two of which intentionally subvert the garage rock, allowing glitter to seep in. How many times can these zombie riffs rouse themselves and return to life? A little spit, piss, and vinegar should do ya.

PAPERCUTS

April 24, 9:30 p.m., $10

Cafe du Nord

2170 Market, SF

www.cafedunord.com

STILL FLYIN’

May 9, 10 p.m., $10

Cafe du Nord

DAY ‘N’ NIGHT

TIPPY CANOE

Iron oar: check the rosy-cheeked, country-cabaret charm on Tippy Canoe and the Paddlemen’s Parasols and Pekingese (self-released, 2008). With Blue Rabbit and Chelsea Wolfe. Wed/15, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern,1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

CROOKERS

Italians do it better — meaning, play their way to Coachella. With Bloody Beetroots and Congorock. Wed/15, 9 p.m., $18 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

ZODIAC DEATH VALLEY

The vitality of the SF psych-rockers’ "cactus flower romanticism" (as Todd Lavoie once put it) is evident on their self-released, self-titled EP. With Golden Animals and Broads. Thurs/16, 9 p.m., $6. Thee Parkside, 1600 17th St., SF. www.theeparkside.com

CHAIRLIFT

Indie slow jams that include a dose of Morodor-esque synth seduction, anyone? With Sebastien Tellier. Fri/17, 9 p.m., $15. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

JAMIE STEWART

Expect mega intensity when the Xiu Xiu mastermind ventures out for his first solo tour in five years, drawing from 80-plus tunes including rarely-heard older numbers and new songs from 2010’s Dear God, I Hate Myself. And get ready to pose for Stewart and artist David Horvitz as they photograph every person at every show for their blog-book project. With Dark Holler and Lady Genius. Fri/17, 9:30 p.m., $12. Cafe du Nord.

Green living resource guide

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April 15, 2009

0

Living green is not just about buying organic vegetables and riding a bike. It’s about making conscious choices about where you shop, what you buy, and how you interact with your environment. Here are some resources that can help you align your lifestyle with your values.

Down at Home: Greening your domestic life starts with revising your habits, but the next step is revising your actual surroundings. A consultation from the folks at Sustainable Spaces (1167 Mission, SF. 415-294-5380, www.sustainablespaces.com) will identify the areas where you can make the most substantial difference. You can pick up green building supplies, like bamboo flooring or zero-VOC paint, from the savvy staff at Berkeley’s Eco Home Improvement (2169 San Pablo, Berk. 510-644-3500, www.ecohomeimprovement.com). Also consider leasing a solar panel from Solar City (2245 Quesada, SF. 800-765-2489, www.solarcity.com), a company that will come out and install a solar panel on your house. (You don’t have to put any money down and the lease may be less then your monthly utility bill.)

In the Bag: Shopping is a fact of life. We all need to clothe and feed ourselves. Opt organic where you can. For green threads, from jeans and tees to sexy slipdresses, shop crisp Russian hill boutique EcoCitizen (1488 Vallejo, SF. 415-614-0100, www.ecocitizenonline.com). Fill the fridge with locally sourced and organic food from eco-thoughtful co-op Rainbow Grocery (1745 Folsom, SF. 415-863-0620, www.rainbowgrocery.org) or natural market Real Foods (2140 Polk, SF. 415-673-7420; 360 Fillmore, SF. 415-567-6900, www.realfoodco.com).

On the Street: We live in a bike-friendly city, and the folks at Valencia Cyclery (1077 Valencia, SF. 415-550-6600) are stoked to put you on spokes. If you still drive, drive green. Take your car to the friendly mechanics at clean, inviting Luscious Garage (429 Clementina, SF. 415-875-9030, www.lusciousgarage.com), where broken auto parts are recycled and all invoices are digitized to save paper. Fill the tank with locally produced biofuel at Dogpatch Biofuels (765 Pennsylvania, SF. 415-643-3435, www.dogpatchbiofuels.com).

Skin and Soul: Stock up on health and wellness info, vitamin supplements, and chemical-free skincare products at Clary Sage Organics (2241 Fillmore, SF. 415-673-7300, www.clarysageorganics.com). If facials are your beauty indulgence of choice, go for an organic option at Epi Center MedSpa (450 Sutter, Ste 800, SF. 415-362-4754, www.skinrejuv.com), which is housed in a lovely, LEED certified space. Find focus and balance—and at mat made of recycled materials—at The Yoga Loft (321 Divisadero, SF. 415-626-5638, www.theloftsf.com).

Out and About: You don’t have to eat at Café Gratitude to dine green. Check out Thimmakka (www.thimmakka.org), an organization which helps restaurants and bars — most of them small, independently owned, and ethnic — become more eco-friendly. Thimmakka maintains a list of places they’ve certified, including San Miguel’s (3263 Mission, SF. 415-641-5866) delicious Guatamalan cuisine and Elixir’s (3200 16th St., SF. 415-522-1633, www.elixirsf.com) organic cocktails. Then shake your booty on the dance floor at Temple (540 Howard, SF. www.templesf.com), where the owner is so committed to being environmentally friendly that he’s working on a way to harness dancers’ energy to power the place. Catch a flick at Red Vic Movie House (1727 Haight, SF. 415-668-3914, www.redvicmoviehouse.com) a co-op that offers organic snacks.

Giving back: Support small businesses who are trying to be greener by using a Viv sticker (sign up at www.doyouviv.com). Every time you show it to a participating local shop or eatery, you’ll push the business to shift to greener cleaning products or energy efficient lights.

Crossroads: Take a shot

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April 13, 2009

0

By Juliette Tang

Crossroads Trading Company, the Berkeley-based clothing retailer that deals in used and recycled threads, wants you to submit your fashion photos for a $1,000 prize, plus the inclusion of your photo in an upcoming Crossroads ad campaign. The details: you style your own fashion shoot, snap some pictures, and upload them to the Crossroads website before May 31. Once your snaps are uploaded, judges from Crossroads will pick their favorites on the basis of originality, creativity, composition, and overall quality. “We can’t wait to see this year’s entries,” said Jerry Block, founder of Crossroads Trading Company, “We receive hundreds each year, with some from as far away as Germany and Sweden. The winning photos clearly express our customer and our customer’s love of all things fashion.” So, photogs, what are you waiting for? Hurry up and start snapping away! People have already started submitting. Look at what Crossroads

Hot sex events this week: April 8-14

-

April 8, 2009

0

Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

Let Mistress Tatiana teach you the ropes at her “Spanking and Paddling” class.

————-

>> RADAR reading series featuring Lorelei Lee
Michelle Tea’s reading series featuring emerging, underground writers and artists gets even hotter this week when Renee Hahn, Patrick O’Neil, and Bucky Sinister are joined by porn performer Lorelei Lee.

Wed/8, 6pm
Free
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin, SF
www.myspace.com/radarreading

———-

>> Taoist Energetic Healing & BDSM
Expand your knowledge and expertise in sensation, energy, and Eros with information, education, dialogue, and demonstration by Tahil Gesyuk.

Fri/10, 7pm
$20 sliding scale
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF.
sexandculture.org

———-

>> Spanking and Paddling
Learn one of the most basic and versatile skills in the S&M repertoire with Mistress Tatiana Belodyne (of Fantasy Makers Academy), including different positions, pacing, safety tips, and demonstrations with models.

Mon/13, 8-10pm
$25
Good Vibrations Berkeley
2504 San Pablo, Berk.
(510) 841-8987
www.goodvibes.com

———-

>> Ink & Metal
Hot men with tattoos and piercings get special discounts at this weekly bar night.

Tue/14, open-close
Powerhouse
1347 Folsom, SF
(415) 552-8689
www.powerhouse-sf.com

The passion of Agnes

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April 8, 2009

0

Director commentaries are de rigueur in the DVD age, but few filmmakers possess the élan to warrant a feature length auto-exegesis. Agnès Varda is one, and her most recent memory piece — she claims it’s her last — cheerfully dissolves the boundaries between memoir, retrospective, and installation. The film caps the Pacific Film Archive’s month-long series, "Agnès Varda: Cinécriture," and faithful attendees will be rewarded by its recollections of earlier works from La Pointe Courte (1954) to The Gleaners and I (2000). The Beaches of Agnès begins with the 80-year old Varda spryly instructing her devoted assistants. These are people willing to enter a reverie on the placement of various mirrors. "If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes," she explains of her motivation for filmmaking, before setting off on an unclassifiable daisy chain of reenactment and reminiscence. The film moves at the leisurely pace of the flaneur’s walk, the better to relish Varda’s joie de vivre and sweet bawdiness. Where to begin? With her color-bending bowl cut or Chris Marker’s grinning cat cameos? With the ephemera of Varda’s innumerable home movies or her defense of the so-called "Manifesto of the 343 Bitches"? With the many things she adores — blurry foregrounds, ancient frescoes, heart-shaped potatoes, neighbors — or her W.G. Sebald-like resuscitation of photographs? "All the dead lead me back to Jacques," she says, referring to her great love, Jacques Demy. Their life together loops Beaches with enough beautiful images to warrant several viewings. A must.

THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS

Fri/10, 8:40 p.m.; Sat/11, 6 p.m., $5.50–$9.50

Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk

(510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Green-collar heat

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April 1, 2009

0

› sarah@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Local residents, workers, and businesses are anxious to learn who and what will be stimulated by the billions of dollars that President Barack Obama authorized for release when he signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Since January 2008, unemployment in the Bay Area has risen from 4.9 percent to 8.4 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, and house prices and consumer spending are down.

Despite all the anxiety, representatives from local low-income community groups hope to turn Obama’s stimulus package into an opportunity to make local government accountable for creating decent green-collar jobs. And Sups. Eric Mar, John Avalos, Sophie Maxwell, and Board President David Chiu seem happy to help further the community in this environmentally friendly cause.

Mar scheduled a March 23 hearing of the board’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee "to obtain community input on the creation of jobs, particularly green-collar jobs, in San Francisco as the city positions itself for federal investment dollars."

"The hearing was the first step toward building a grassroots coalition to hold government accountable," continued Mar, who worries that the Mayor’s Office is not sharing enough information related to the stimulus package. "Labor and community groups, not just department heads and City Hall, should be at the table."

At the hearing, representatives from the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development said that a substantial part of the first wave of stimulus package dollars has already been allocated, mostly to shovel-ready projects such as the Doyle Drive rebuild and massive development projects at Treasure Island and the Hunter’s Point Shipyard.

OEWD representatives also indicated that more waves of formula funding are expected, for which San Francisco must compete with other cities, and that the city’s Department of Technology is constructing a Web site to track all local money from Obama’s $787 billion package.

OEWD deputy director Jennifer Entine Matz says community-based organizations, unions, and community colleges need to work together to ensure that people are successfully brought through any work program. "In many cases, green collar jobs are existing jobs," Matz said. "If we are successful in training people with green power technology, they will be more marketable here and beyond. We can also train and modify people in existing programs."

But representatives from the Chinese Progressive Association, PODER (People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights), and POWER (People Organizing to Win Employment Rights) expressed their belief that stimulus package funds should go to help low-income communities, not rich corporations.

"Let’s make sure we stimulate quality to make sure we stimulate the economy," said PODER’s Oscar Grande, who warned against using the funds on low-paid jobs with few advancement opportunities. He and others suggested tracking what communities receive funding. "We want to go past the green hype, the green-washing, and the green lifestyle marketing," Grande said.

Raquel Pinderhughes, an urban studies professor at San Francisco State University who helped Berkeley’s Green Business Council and Oakland’s Green Jobs Corp program, defined green-collar jobs as "blue collar jobs in green businesses.

"Green collar jobs can function to get more people out of poverty," Pinderhughes said. "They can provide living wages. They have low barriers to entry. They provide an opportunity for occupational mobility. They are inherently dignified, and they have a shortage of entry-level workers, so there is room for people."

But Pinderhughes warned that cities must link improving environmental quality to social justice to avoid creating temporary jobs and preserve industrially zoned lands for green-collar jobs. She also said that cities must fund case management services "so folks don’t quickly drop out."

The Land Use Committee has scheduled an April 6 continuation to address a plethora of outstanding issues like how much money is going to specific corporations and departments, the division of funds between public transportation and freeway projects, and how much Lennar Corp. is getting for its Hunters Point Shipyard/Candlestick Point redevelopment project.

Ang Lee: Let’s talk about sex?

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March 26, 2009

0

By Danica Li

Ang Lee and James Schamus have, in tandem, produced and directed nearly a dozen movies. They count between them a trio of Taiwanese family dramas, a civil war epic, an Austen-derived austerely British comedy of manners, an encounter with the Hulk, and a Chinese-language film about flying warriors and a green sword of destiny that grossed a whopping 200 million bucks worldwide. The duo took the stage at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall recently, in conversation with the Berkeley English Department’s Professor Jeffrey Knapp. The premiere topic of conversation for the first half-hour? Sex.

I diagnose this as program coordinators On the Same Page‘s gesture at edginess and being “with it” — or at least as an effort at warding off the buttoned-up stodginess and rehearsed, by-rote deliveries that have plagued past presentations (see: Stephen Hawking, Garry Wills). For starters, the audience was treated to a presentation clip in which a series of explicit splices from 2007’s Lust, Caution were cross-cut with characters from Lee’s other films expressing distaste and affecting grimaces, a dynamic that ended with a raunchily symbolic big bang (taken from 2003’s Hulk). It was enough to provoke a smattering of laughs from the audience, and was an easy enough segue into the first question: Why do so many of Lee’s films involve sex, as it were?

An unguarded moment from Ang Lee’s 2007 film Lust, Caution

Dirty duo

-

March 25, 2009

0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

In what maybe can only be considered a sign of the times, bad attitudes abound in two lean productions on either side of the Bay this week. The first comes courtesy of Dostoevsky, badass of 19th-century Russian literature, whose rascal Raskolnikov (an excellent Tyler Pierce) stalks feverishly across Berkeley Rep’s Thrust Stage in a bracingly focused new adaptation of Crime and Punishment by Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus. The 90-minute intermission-less crime-and-punishment spree — which marks the return of director Sharon Ott, the Rep’s artistic director from 1984 to 1997 — is largely psychological in nature. It takes place after the fact of the double homicide at the novel’s heart without any doubt about the perpetrator or the motive — although Inspector Porfiry (a charmingly avuncular but cunning J.R. Horne), playing smooth cat to Raskolnikov’s bumptious mouse, would have his only suspect believe otherwise for now. (Delia MacDougall rounds out a fine cast as the prostitute Sonia and others in the immediate orbit of Raskolnikov’s fervid, convoluted designs.)

No, this is a man already caught; he just hasn’t realized it yet. In the play’s shrewdly concentrated vantage on the novel, it’s Raskolnikov’s slow dawning grasp of his actions and fate that matters. And even then it’s only, for Dostoevsky the Christian existentialist, the beginning, as evinced by the echoing question, "Do you believe Lazarus rose from the dead?" To this end, Christopher Barreca’s inspired scenic design evokes the reclusive and open-ended nature of his predicament at once: so daunting the difference between inside and out, but so many ready passages spring open too through these thin partitions, as a mind "unhinged by theories" contemplates what separates itself from the other.

This division comes back in an aggressively funny, coolly insouciant piece of theater terrorism now up in a laser-focused, captivating production (and I mean captivating — you don’t dare budge for the 60-minute duration) from Cutting Ball Theater. The Bay Area premiere of Will Eno’s Thom Pain (based on nothing) is nothing you want to miss, or a nothing you want very much to see, especially if you ever wondered what might have happened if Groucho Marx had postponed his birth until he might be cast in Reservoir Dogs (1992). Bay Area audiences were introduced to Eno’s blazing wit and word play last year in Berkeley Rep’s local premiere of Tragedy: A Tragedy, but Thom Pain, a tortuous and wonderfully hostile-hospitable monologue exploring that same thin membrane between a Me and a You, achieves a kind of ideal setting and performance in this intimate production executed to the hilt by a very impressive Jonathan Bock, under admirable direction by Marissa Wolf. The less you know going in, the better. Just go, dig a finger into your collar, clench you buttocks, a try not to laugh for an hour.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Through Sun/29, see stage listings for schedule

$16.50–$71

Berkeley Repertory Theater, 2025 Addison, Berk.

www.berkeleyrep.org

THOM PAIN (BASED ON NOTHING)

Through April 5, Thurs–Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun, 5 p.m.

$15–$30

Cutting Ball Theater

Exit Theater, 277 Taylor, SF

www.cuttingball.com

Monopoly money

-

March 24, 2009

0

sarah@sfbg.com

Employees at the San Francisco Chronicle are anxiously awaiting the March 31 deadline that its owner the Hearst Corp. has set for accepting buyout offers, after which the ax could fall on any employee at any time. The California Media Workers Guild has voted to accept 150 layoffs and to end seniority considerations at the city’s major daily.

Hearst claims that amendments to the union’s contract are essential to avoid closing or selling the 144-year-old paper, although the company refuses to open its books, making it impossible to verify claims that the Chronicle is losing $1 million a week. Rather than challenging that corporate prerogative, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wants to explore allowing a local monopoly like MediaNews to buy the Chronicle, the last major Bay Area newspaper MediaNews doesn’t already own through its Bay Area News Group subsidiary.

In a March 16 letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Pelosi wrote: "I am confident that the antitrust division, in assessing any concerns that any proposed mergers or other arrangements in the San Francisco area might reduce competition, will take into appropriate account, as relevant, not only the number of daily and weekly newspapers in the Bay Area, but also the other sources of news and advertising outlets available in the electronic and digital age, so that conclusions reached reflect current market realities."

Holder responded March 18, telling reporters, "It’s important for this nation to maintain a healthy newspaper industry. So to the extent that we have to look at our enforcement policies and conform them to the reality that the industry faces, that’s something I’m going to be willing to do."

Sara Steffens, chair of the Guild’s Bay Area News Group East Bay unit, recently raised her concerns about that strategy. "Consolidating some or all Bay Area News Group operations with the Chronicle could prove the financial salvation for our struggling newspapers, potentially guarding against bankruptcies or outright shutdown," she wrote on the union’s Web site. "But it could also pave the way for further job loss and erosion of standards."

Justice department lawyers have in the past ruled against mergers that created newspaper monopolies, but media analyst Alan Mutter believes times have changed. "It’s just a question of who is going to qualify," Mutter told the Guardian.

Retired UC Berkeley journalism professor Ben Bagdikian, author of books critical of media monopolies, said the Chronicle‘s "surprising announcement" that it might have to shut down could be a scam. He notes that this news comes "not long after Hearst and [MediaNews owner Dean} Singleton, who owns all the East Bay dailies, formed a partnership to buy media in other parts of the country.

"Hearst a few years ago — granted, in boom times — gifted the Examiner to the Fang family along with a stunning gift of $56 million to the Fangs to take it and make it into a daily," Bagdikian said. "I think it has never before happened in the news business or any other business to pay someone else to compete with them. It was clearly part of a larger plan to get rid of this operating agreement for exemption from antitrust [laws]."

Other critics believe that large newspapers, which are tied to huge printing presses and gas-guzzling delivery trucks, could become extinct, and that nimbler prototypes that deliver news by mobile phone and integrate social networking on their Web sites could assume the old media’s traditional role as public watchdogs.

Jeff Elder, who is studying the newspaper industry as a Knight fellow at Stanford University, told the Guardian, "You either see a daily newspaper as an old railroad station, a really cool part of the city’s history that you maybe can’t afford to save, or an at-risk public school whose continuance is fundamental to democracy."

Elder, a columnist for the Charlotte Observer, was one of a wide variety of media professionals (including Guardian publisher Bruce B. Brugmann), who gathered March 17 in the San Francisco Public Library to discuss the Chronicle‘s future.

"There is no minimizing that it’s a real sad situation for the people being laid off," Elder said. "But there is a real danger in propping up print products by strengthening monopolies. You’re draining off resources while propping up a business model that is becoming increasingly irrelevant."

Oakland activist critically wounded in West Bank

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March 15, 2009

2

By Rebecca Bowe

Oakland activist Tristan Anderson, 38, was critically wounded March 13 in the village of Ni’lin in the West Bank, when he was shot in the head with a high-powered tear-gas canister fired by Israeli forces.

The shooting occurred during a protest over the separation barrier that Israel is erecting between itself and the West Bank, according to a press release from the International Solidarity Movement.

Anderson is a dedicated activist who has traveled to conflict zones in Oaxaca, Iraq and other conflicted regions and reported on the struggles there. He was also among a group of tree-sitters who fought to save a grove of oaks and redwoods next to UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium.

He was taken to an Israeli hospital, Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv, where he underwent brain surgery and is in critical condition. In-depth reports, including a graphic video filmed just after the shooting took place, can be found here, here and here.

The Israeli army began using to use a high velocity tear gas canister in December 2008, according to ISM. The black canister can shoot over 400 meters.

On March 16, at 4 p.m., a protest will be staged in front of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco, according to a post on IndyBay.org.

1...757677...96 Page 76 of 96

Berkeley

“Chinatown” revisited. Electronically.

“Where’s Gavin?”

The world stage

Aerosol melodies

Hall of Shame on torture includes Bay Area notables

On the rise

Less sex at Dore? SFPD gets hot over crappy muck-monger

7 Spring flings

ARIZMENDI BAKERY

THE BUTLER AND THE CHEF

B44

CHAPEAU!

LA CICCIA

LA MAR

SHABUSEN

Sex-children of the Throb

NorCal nuggets

Don’t blame it on Onek

Should the state bar investigate torture lawyer Yoo?

Locals only

TIPPY CANOE

CROOKERS

ZODIAC DEATH VALLEY

CHAIRLIFT

JAMIE STEWART

Green living resource guide

Crossroads: Take a shot

Hot sex events this week: April 8-14

The passion of Agnes

Pics: Habib Koite and Bamada have ’em dancing in aisles

Green-collar heat

Local Artist of the Week: Dean Smith

Ang Lee: Let’s talk about sex?

Dirty duo

Monopoly money

Oakland activist critically wounded in West Bank