Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
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“So, hi there, Mission! Love what you’ve done with the place!”
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Bay Area farmer’s markets by the numbers.
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Discussion: Minor Hitchcock
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Bootsy Collins dishes on LSD and James Brown (h/t: boingboing):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZScoOkBENsQ
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
Greasy Russian sailors, unearthed ships, and shanghaied coppers: Chris Carlsson sails through tales of maritime transit from SF’s past.
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Today in sad local business news: Berkeley’s Reel Video to close. People love Ike’s too much. Facebook (hey, don’t they count as local?) navel-gazes about its growing unpopularity.
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Oh, honey don’t forget to stop in at Walgreens on your way home and pick up some shampoo, trash bags, and a DNA test.
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“There is a cynicism to this project that suggests that the producers did not feel much need to do it very well just because they have some terrific character actors in all the leading roles (save maybe for Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer), and even in some minor ones (Samuel L. Jackson, Jr., mails in his one scene as Nick Fury, making me wish they’d gotten Laurence Fishburne). Just fill it out with special effects & heavy metal music & take it to the bank. Getting the director of Elf to helm the project is just one index of how Marvel cut costs wherever it was felt they weren’t necessary. Like direction.” Poet Ron Silliman reviews Iron Man 2.
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People who say, “bleachedcarbsdairyanythingtoxinfilledeverything makes me feel ill,” please stop hyperventilating. You aren’t actually allergic.
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Honor the late, great fantasy painter Frank Frazetta by raising a horn of mead tomorrow at Mission Comics & Art’s “Memorial Drink and Draw.”
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Wake up Gary!
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
Forget the Double Down: Here’s a map of the Bay Area’s best fried chicken spots
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The privacy-scoffing overlords at Facebook have created a nefarious, new metric to measure the country’s emotions: it’s called the Gross National Happiness. Unsurprisingly, Americans seem most happy just before Christmas and very unhappy around Tax Day. Don’t like no privacy? Try this, maybe soon.
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Fry toys: Scientific American picks 169 best illusions
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“It’s not you, it’s me” : An insider explains why your favorite TV show was canceled.
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On-street bicycle parking on Valencia now a reality.
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RIP Doris Eaton Travis, last of the Ziegfeld Girls
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
Large, hairy gay men fashionably invaded Berkeley Art Museum on Mother’s Day in honor of large, hairy Belgian fashion designer. Did you go? We’d love to hear your on-the-scene reports. (Alas, we were dining with Mum).
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Welcome to Yuba County, SF’s rural dumping ground.
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Flashmobs: the new unions?
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Pop artists’ estate’s grasp on copyright loosened by artist’s “popular” source material: “Roy Lichetenstein’s estate has seen the light. After threatening copyright litigation against an indie band whose CD cover remixed the same comic book panel that the pop artist made famous, the estate has withdrawn the threat and no longer claims to own the rights to everything that rips off the same stuff that Lichtenstein copied.”
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SFMOMA has announced the shortlist of architects in consideration for its $250 million expansion. The final four are: Foster + Partners, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, David Adjaye Associates, and Snøhetta.
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Forget prostituting yourself for American Apparel. Can you make sexyface while wearing a messenger bag? Then Timbuk2 wants you!
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Sam McPheeters: I saw John Carpenter speak in 2002. He was 54 then, but he looked ten years older, and he talked for a while about his sagging energy levels. You’re the same age now, right?
Glenn Danzig: Give or take.
SM: Well, you look my age and it’s kind of weirding me out. Do you ever have problems with your energy levels?
GD: No.
SM: What’s your secret?
GD: I don’t know. I don’t eat shit food. I don’t do drugs. I don’t know what else to tell you.
SM: I’m 40. I don’t do any of those things. I eat salad for lunch. And I wake up almost every day feeling like a wet bag of sand.
GD: Salad is terrible if you put creamy crap on it.
SM: It’s low-fat creamy crap!
GD: There’s no such thing.
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Speaking of a comic Danzig:
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Today in “no, The Onion didn’t make this shit up” campaign ads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umTITWQuXwY
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
Don’t worry, San Franciscans: Your Internet friends don’t hate you and you will be followed once again
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Speaking of friends, whatever happened to N.W.A..’s posse?
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Me talk pretty one day, indeed. Do you speak Globish? You probably have. And so does the rest of the world.
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RIP Ms. Horne
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Newsflash! Oversharing online can come back to bite you in the ass: “While participation in social networks is still strong, a survey released last month by the University of California, Berkeley, found that more than half the young adults questioned had become more concerned about privacy than they were five years ago — mirroring the number of people their parent’s age or older with that worry.”
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This brave, local blogger waited four and a half hours for a bowl of fancy “test ramen” so you wouldn’t have to.
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Today in corporate sponsorships: Wynnona Judd to shill for Cracker Barrel. I want a pair of the sunglasses. “I love the rocking chairs and I feel really good when I go to Cracker Barrel,” she says. Sparkle Winnie! Sparkle!
As Scopitone Week draws to a close on the Daily Blurgh, I wanted to save the best for last. Behold, the curvaceous wonder that is Joi Lansing, Queen of Scopitone.
As Wikipedia tells us, “A model and actress, Lansing was often cast in roles similar to those played by her contemporaries, Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren. She was frequently clad in skimpy costumes and bikinis that accentuated her attractive figure, but never posed nude.”
And what costumes they are! Here’s a double-shot of Miss Lansing to jump-start your weekend.
“Web of Love”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quzqSPT13-A&feature=related
and “The Silencer”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpbF9H0Taa0&feature=related
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
Today in fashion: Oakland lifts century-old ban on cross-dressing, Parisian women can now legally wear pants, and persons of any gender can express their displeasure at the state of Arizona with a t-shirt (American flag shirts, however, can get you into hot water).
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You’re never too young to violate California labor laws.
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Oil-sucking “brooms” made from stray pet hair help save the environment, resemble rotting salami.
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Is this MTV original series not child porn-by-proxy because someday its nerdy and extraordinarily hung protagonist will grow up to be a character in a Judd Apatow film? (Thanks WoW Report and Slog)
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This is why “No Substitutions” is totally fair game in a restaurant.
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Edith Wharton meets Choose Your Own Adventure
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Boob tube still bringing folks together, one couch potato at a time: “Like all social activities, television-watching demands compromise. People may have strong ideas about what they want to watch, but what they really want to do is watch together.”
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Scopitone Week continues! Click here to learn more about Scopitones. Continuing with our survey of the ladies of Scopitone, today’s clip returns us to France. Here’s the boysih Stella, with “Le Vampire,” one of her send-ups of the ye-ye style popularized by such other Scopitone cuties as France Gall. You know MJ totally bit this for the Thriller video. (Just like he bit another French classic.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5in8MdBTgI
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items (plus a lot about kitties) from around the Bay and beyond
“Scientists have discovered one of the smallest free-living life forms ever, with a genome that looks like a pamphlet compared to a human’s encyclopedia, living in a poison-soaked mine in Northern California.” Uh oh. Hasn’t anyone remembered the lessons of The Boogens? There will be blood.
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Brother can you spare a dime (or a couple thousand) for legendary punk club 924 Gilman?
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Deport New Jersey? (OMFG this Congressional candidate from Florida is for real)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgdALsV6AmI
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“Among the many contradictions and ironies of Mexican-U.S. relations is the curious case of Cinco de Mayo. It is a holiday in Mexico, yes, but not nearly as important to the national identity as say, Independence Day (Sept. 16). Yet Cinco de Mayo remains a stubbornly prevalent excuse to party in the U.S., perhaps, some argue, because it is more culturally “safe” than honoring Mexico’s independence. The phenomenon is similar to the affection Americans have for St. Patrick’s Day, where just about everyone is invited to don green and get in touch with their inner Irish.” Still, it’s as good an excuse as any to repost this bad-ass trailer-for-a-movie-inspired-by-a-trailer-for-a-movie-that-never-existed.
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MUNI, give this driver who threw a party for her unsuspecting passengers, simply out of the kindness of her heart, a raise because a) she is awesome and b) this is the sort of press you should be getting on a more regular basis.
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The other Guardian handicaps this year’s Turner Prize shortlist.
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Scopitone Week continues! Click here to learn more about Scopitones. Today we begin our focus on the true stars of Scopitones: the ladies. Today’s chanteuse is Kay Starr, who sings her 1952 hit “Wheel of Fortune” in this Scopitone from the early to mid ’60s. Even though this mature diva takes center stage, she has some fierce competition from all the scantily-clad back-up dancers attached to roulette wheels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_XFqjWjADY
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items (plus a lot about kitties) from around the Bay and beyond
Oakland residents may be able to Party, Karamu, Fiesta, forever starting this summer.
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Don’t know what to cook for dinner tonight? Why not check out this fucking website?
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Recipes for Terrible Behavior:
5. jerks + alcohol
4. desire for thing – ability to get thing
3. humans ÷ love
2. (untrammeled state power + megalomania) x perceived internal threat
1. guitar-store dudes + sales commissions”
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Among the many creepy details concerning the case of Janis Thompson, a 44-year-old Martinez resident who has been arrested “for lewd and lascivious contact with minors and sexual exploitation of a child,” the fact that she contacted her victims through an Xbox 360 live gaming console is by the creepiest.
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Do you think Paxton Gate will host a traveling version of this rad exhibit of “organic art”?
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Scopitone Week continues! Click here to learn more about Scopitones. Today, we are graced by one-hit-wonder George McKelvey, who sings his satiric 1964 song “My Teenage Fallout Queen” in an outfit that would’ve made Sonny Bono proud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNHgmofOrrM
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items (plus a lot about kitties) from around the Bay and beyond
Make all the catty jokes you want about Uwe Mitzscherlich, the German man who married his asthmatic cat Cecilia to honor their decade of companionship. Seriously, though, if you’ve ever bonded with a pet, the whole thing is just heartbreaking. In happier animal news, the Bay Area’s baby peregrine falcons got tagged today.
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Totally un-cool headline of the day: “San Francisco may cut funding to transgender job center”
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Totally cool headline of the day: “Looking For Burritos in All the Wrong Places”
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“A group of Second Life users is suing Second Life’s creator over a virtual land dispute. They say their contractual property ownership rights have been changed and that this alteration of the terms of service constitutes fraud and violates California consumer protection laws.”
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1984-meets-Avatar: Berkeley computing professor’s vision of Earth sprinkled with “countless tiny sensors” becoming a reality thanks to tech juggernaut.
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This week is Scopitone week on the Daily Blurgh. “What’s a Scopitone?” you ask. The Scopitone was a type of jukebox popular in the ’60s that synced 16mm short films (also known as “Scopitones”) to magnetic soundtracks, effectively creating music videos long before MTV was around. To learn more, check out Robin Edgerton’s excellent history of the device, as well as the bountiful blog Scopitones.com. To start us off, here is handsome rogue Serge Gainsbourg singing “Le Poinçonneur Des Lilas” in one of the earliest Scopitones made in France (the clip is from 1958 and was shot in the Porte des Lilas Métro station):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7LVx-HeW10
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
The Internet has always been made of cats!
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An 82-year old Indian man has survived for 70 years without food or drink. Meanwhile, a 54 year-old Chinese man claims to have eaten 1,500 light bulbs over 42 years. We’ll just stick to popcorn, thanks (but only with real butter).
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“A witch hunt for men with tanned and muscular bodies on the beach is the last thing anybody wants.” Indeed.
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For African Clawed Frogs, is it easier being green knowing that they share at least 1,700 genes with humans?
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Bacon has not jumped the shark (at least in San Francisco).
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And on a more serious note, this brief profile of Peter B. Howard, owner of the renowned Serendipity Books in Berkeley, is a sobering must-read. It’s not just Howard’s bracing stoicism in the face of a pancreatic cancer diagnosis, that marks his store’s end as much as it does his, that gets you (“There’s nothing to say,” Howard is quoted as saying. “People die. We all die. Businesses end”). It is also the melancholy realization that the Bibliophile, is to some extent, becoming an endangered species as the dematerialization of the book continues.
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
Is the Tonga Room saved? A City Planning Commission report may indicate yes. The report concludes that San Francisco’s finest (imperiled) tiki bar is covered in enough irreplaceable tchotkes and gewgaws to make it a “historical resource.” That might not stop those same tchotkes and gewgaws from being removed, “for public information and education, and/or reuse in an alternate off-site location.” But what about the indoor rainstorm over the lagoon?!?!
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Discuss: Michael Bauer notes of his top 10 list of the best breakfasts in San Francisco that many of the restaurants that made the cut “include a woman’s name.” (Also: Boogaloo’s? Really?)
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Heil Bieber!
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Conscientious objection is not an option: “During his tenure as Archbishop of San Francisco, Cardinal William Levada chose not to inform police about a priest who admitted molesting an adolescent boy, an AP story reports. Cardinal Levada is now prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles disciplinary cases involving sexual abuse by priests.”
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Today in unicorns: Unicorn corn holders, ‘Cornz II Men, and a unicorn’s cornhole (SFW).
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“[Gary] Gilmore, the notorious spree-killer, uttered the words “Let’s do it” just before a firing squad executed him in Utah in 1977. Years later, the phrase became the inspiration for Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign.”
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The ever-awesome Ubuweb has uploaded some of the animated films of local artist Kota Ezawa. Here is his rendition of the delivery of the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial.
The Black and White Ball: Not just for the city’s elite anymore.
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The Prop 8 trial could wrap in time for Pride, causing either waves of rainbow-colored jubilation to ripple across the LGBT populace or a massive flashback to the bummer November of ’08.
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“Just because David Morales Colón is dead doesn’t mean he can’t also be stylish. According to Primera Hora, the 22-year-old Puerto Rican man was murdered in his San Juan neighborhood last Thursday. As a tribute to the young man, the Marin Funeral Home treated the body and then dressed him up in his typical riding outfit complete with helmet on top of the Honda CBR600 F4 the man’s uncle had given to him.” (h/t Slog)
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Today in local, misguided attempts to legislate the well-being of children: making it illegal for fast food restaurants to pass out toys in kiddie meals.
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“Child pornography is great. It is great because politicians understand child pornography. By playing that card, we can get them to act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that, we can get them to start blocking file sharing sites.” (So, people, can we please create an equivalent to Godwin’s Law for egregious (mis)uses of “child porn” as a rhetorical trump card?)
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Will hearing classic children’s books read aloud in the manner of Werner Herzog ever get old? No.
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
Shocker! San Francisco-based company set to profit off of humans willing to pay for amorous companionship.
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I Live Here: SF to live at SomARTS this fall.
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Google Maps gets you where you want to go (without going through Arizona).
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The gist: Breaking down the five, big legal questions in the iPhone case
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Which staple city would you rather live in: Ephemicropolis
or The Big Apple?
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I’ll see your KFC Double Down and raise you a cheesecake-stuffed pancake. (Offer very valid in Qatar.)
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But even if you’re only scarfing down the sprouted wheat bread, you’re still gonna die.
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Once-local, now big-in-France melancholy chanteuse Emily Jane White gets some love from NPR for her new album Victorian America.
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And speaking of sadness: “It is such a secret place, the land of tears.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond.
Today in refried beans: from ingredient of burrito indulgence, to bane of the greenhouse, to weapon of protest. Even Dennis Herrera is (rightfully) pissed. Arizona goddam!
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In “Calfornia lawmakers with no grip on reality” news: this again? When will you learn, Maude Flanders of Sacramento? Whatever kids won’t be able to glean from Left 4 Dead 2 because of your “good intentions,” they can easily pick up in any one of the Saw films (or the evening news). What you gonna do when the zombies come, anyway?
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Debate: If a street artist who has already sold out (but is hip to that fact, so “selling out” becomes a meta-commentary on selling out), goes shopping for pricey, “heritage” jeans spun from the souls of kodama on looms built from the remnants of the true cross, is he still a sell out?
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“Walter Benjamin, or rather, the now-beloved figure of Benjamin — shuffling, myopic, mustachioed, fat, unhealthy, small round glasses glinting like flashlights — was largely unattractive in his own lifetime.” I smell an Oscar-in-waiting for Richard Dreyfuss.
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98 years ago: man in drunk-tank saved from fiery death by boozy ways, Providence.
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Yes, but what, exactly, is she getting political about? (Besides swiping that riff from Suicide — sampling kills!) NSFW, unless W is Xe.
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
Sarcasm fail at Canada’s National Post?
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When a Furry marries a Juggalo you get…
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It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Banksy (Again. And this time, it’s apparently legit)
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Hey, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer: Fuck you very much.
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One of this week’s Guardian cover stars, Peaches Christ, dishes (as her boy alter-ego, Joshua Grannell) about his new film, All About Evil, and why the Victoria Theater is San Francisco’s unsung movie palace.
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M.I.A ghost rides Suicide
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This is Spinal Tape!
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In honor of the Internet’s great black hole (aka YouTube) turning five, here is that compilation of the site’s 100 greatest hits crammed into just 4 minutes from last year (so, pardon the missing memes).
If you don’t feel like sitting through four minutes — or forever times infinity squared in Internet years — of wrap-up, here’s really what YouTube has meant in the past half-decade:
(It has been viewed 268,000 268,0001 times)
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
Gay! Archie gets a gay (as opposed to “Archie is a gay,” a fantasy you can live out through this NSFW-ish Choose-Your-Own Adventure wiki). Lesbian lawyers defend “not gay enough” softball players. Texas doesn’t want to let gays divorce. And Jet Blue goes pink.
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He’s not here: Banksy tags SF.
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“People are terrified of drugs. Drugs are linked to inner cities and crime – not mystical states. But with diligent and serious science, we can learn about all the wonderful ways that these compounds can help a stressed and troubled species.” Dropping therapeutic acid in San Jose.
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Have you parked your keester in one of the city’s “parklets” yet? It’s lovely outside right now. Go! Editor’s recommendation: Totally hot biker parklet action at Mojo.
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If that constant hacking cough wasn’t enough of a warning about air pollution, you can always rely on your phone to tell you.
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“It refers to the sex act conducted in front of the Eucharist involving myself, as the role of Adam, and a female follower, who plays the role of Eve by her own free will. The Lord does not wish for anybody else to engage in this ritual. I was inspired to perform this ritual because I believed that there was no other way to prove Mr. Little Pebble’s innocence and the wrongful convictions of sexual assault made against him. Just a few days ago, God sent me a message saying that the woman who sued Mr. Little Pebble will confess that it was all a lie.” And there’s a whole lot more WTF where that came from.
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SFFD disaster drill mannequins: now more “P.C.” thanks to pants.
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Heads up: Remembering Playland, the full length documentary that tells the history of San Francisco’s famous 10-acre seaside amusement park, Playland at the Beach, starts a week-long run at the Balboa Theater tomorrow night.
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
If a tree falls in San Francisco will anyone hear it? Probably. But more importantly, concerned citizens will be able to track the felled arbor online thanks to the Urban Forest Map.
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Get out your Legos: Berkeley Art Museum/PFA is looking for new architectural proposals.
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“If I could give back those last five beers, I would do it in a heartbeat. I don’t know why I let that girl look at it. That was a total disregard of our phones before hos mantra.” McSweeney’s imagines Gray Powell’s mea culpa to his Apple coworkers.
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Rent a Cable Car or an F-Market street car for your next drunken spectacle/flashmob. It’s cheaper than you think.
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First, the bad news: Gonorrhea, like Nickelback fandom, becoming more incurable, sayeth Science.
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Now, the good news: it’s hump day!
oh!
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
Oaktown Art (via Eye on Blogs) takes us on a tour of “one of the largest rooftop gardens in the world” paid for with insurance premiums (we’re only kidding with that last bit).
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“Talk about defining deviancy down. What beige days we live in, when mentioning Rilke, Warhol, and David Bowie are proof positive of edgy intelligence. Rilke isn’t exactly obscure, and Warhol and Bowie are two of the best-known brands in pop history. Gaga isn’t all that weird, despite her revisionist accounts of growing up feeling “like a freak,” as she told Barbara Walters.” Thank you, Mark Dery, for articulating (albeit, rather longwindedly) my 99 problems with Lady GaGa.
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William T Vollmann as a lady. ‘Nuff said.
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Never trust anyone over-beardy? (h/t The Slog)
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“Performance journalism” isn’t Anderson Cooper flexing his biceps in a hurricane. In fact, it happened just this last weekend here in SF when Pop-Up Magazine presented its third, live “issue” at the Herbst Theater for a sold-out audience. Boing Boing’s Elisabeth Soep attended, and took away “five things Pop-Up does better than print.” Now, I’m all for Pop-Up’s attempts to invigorate journalism by thinking beyond the written word by reconfiguring the “publication” as an actual salon. And Soep has a point. Print media has often had difficulty putting across the qualities she admired about the event – its ephemerally, spontaneity, draftiness (a slightly awkward word choice which describes how some presenters shared works in progress or pieces that had been rejected by other publications, not the temperature in the Herbst), and its seamless, thematic segue into the after-party – relying on online content, blogs (heeeey!), coordinated parties or tie-in events, and a whole bunch of other Web 2.0 tricks to offset the time lag inherent to old school publishing. However, I would counter that the flipside to Pop-Up’s in-the-moment uniqueness is its lack of accessibility. Not everyone who is interested in “reading” Pop-Up is able to. Would recording the proceedings and putting them up on online really ruin the moment? I don’t think that the “unexpected shift from media to live” Soep recounts as being a highlight of one the presentations would lose all of its unexpectedness if I were able to watch it at a remove. Besides, most people know that watching a concert on Youtube isn’t the same as being there. But more to the point: I want to hear the stories that are being told at Pop-Up. Would I love to hear Aimee Mullins speak in person? Of course. But I’m grateful that TED made what she had to say at their fancy thinking fest available to the public. Also, regarding “draftiness,” all I will say is that sometimes all one wants for dinner is a delicious stir fry, and that, at other times, only a slow-roasted pork shoulder will do.
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And speaking of local journalism: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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Happy day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB6rHRpuWz4
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
Finally, a true case of teabagging? Yes, Virginia, it IS possible to be the spokesperson for a new “right-wing TV network” while starring in “La Cage Aux Folles” on Broadway. Kelsey — he is what he is.
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“Since many San Franciscans seem to work on a freelance, contract, or they don’t work basis they have plenty of time to spend posting pithy narratives about their experiences, or pictures of things in the Mission, or pictures of things outside of the Mission that they can write funny or nonsensical captions for. Often nonsensical things are the funniest or vice versa and San Franciscans have totally picked up on this.” Does linking to this damn me as part of the punchline? I’m feeling a little meta right now. Please excuse me.
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This NY Times article does a nice job discussing the increased visibility of LGBT comic fans, as well as LGBT characters in comics, when it’s not fawning over the cosplay-themed sausage party where, “the muscle-cuddling garb often leaves little to the imagination.” Of course nothing, neither gay nor super, could possibly ever surpass this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0kUeQDPaGU
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Shocker: Pope’s lawyer is actually ex-dirty hippy, Berkeley resident (maybe he and John Yoo should do a power lunch?)
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San Francisco has a new art publication, titled in a no-nonsense fashion, The San Francisco Arts Quarterly. In addition to running a listings calendar, the Art Quarterly will also, according to the magazine’s manifesto (because what is an art publication without a manifesto?), “direct a dialogue with a highlighted neighborhood in San Francisco, rotating to different areas of the city with every issue. Each edition will consist of interviews with individuals and collectives who are showing an interest in the advancement of the San Francisco arts community and thus helping to further stimulate the city’s progressive nature.” The inaugural issue, which can be viewed online or downloaded as a pdf file, focuses on up-and-coming arts district the Tenderloin (aka San Francisco’s gritty, new tourist destination).
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All I have to say to this is no shit, SFGate:
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
The 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival takes place next week, but over in France preparations are being made to reset the international festival circuit clock when Cannes ’10 kicks off in May. The full-line up has been announced, and I am already curious about the new titles from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Godard, Gregg Araki, Hong Sangsoo, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and many more. Here’s to some of these being snatched up for SFIFF 54. And yes, there were movies 54 years ago.
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Pot without THC: O’Douls for stoners or scientific breakthrough?
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Phil Bronstein pushes for journalist Fight Club: “But it’s much more lively to measure breath on the mirror of our business by its deathmatches, where our history is rich and passionate. In the 1800’s, San Francisco rivals in the newspaper world were shooting each other on the street. Charles de Young, a Chronicle founder, popped a cap in politician Isaac Kalloch. De Young’s brother, M.H., was shot by businessman Adolph Spreckels over an article in the paper. And James King, editor of the Daily Evening Bulletin, was killed right downtown on Montgomery.”
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We completely surrender to Sugar & Sassy — and will beg them to join our electroclash-revival band. Or at least lend their names.
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Did you notice the Angry Americans today in Union Square (and I’m not talking about the moms who narrowly snatched that pair of Burberry mules at Lohman’s)?
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No one told us there would be a BLOOD CANNON!!!!!
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Happy tax day from Motorhead:
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And so, courtesy of Wonkette, does “A Walt Disney Donald Duck” — guns! guns! guns!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr9qpeOjmuQ
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise: “Years ago, when San Francisco was called Yerba Buena, a lake covered parts of the Mission. Washerwoman’s Lagoon flowed through the Marina. The Sans Souci Creek traced a path now known to bicyclists as The Wiggle.
Hayes River flowed beneath City Hall, delaying an election in the 1980s by flooding the Registrar’s Office. Arroyo de los Dolores ran down to 18th Street past Dolores Park. Mission Creek flowed to the bay, and is now only visible in brief glimpses such as a pool in the basement of the Armory.” Matt Baume guides us through SF’s buried creeks in part two of his three part series for Streetsblog SF.
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“Any person in a leadership position today has to be a hopeless optimist.” Kenneth Baker interviews Jay Xu, director of the Asian Art Museum.
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Do we live inside a wormhole’s neck?
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There is, indeed, a Dutch Cartman — and a bit of NSFW salad-tossing. Amster-DAMN!
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Perhaps the only reason to go to Coachella this weekend (pace, Specials fans) — unalloyed zef-ness.
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Take a deep breath. It’s only hump day. You won’t die.
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
“Call before you come over, I need to shave my ShoCha.”
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That breathless traipse around Land’s End really is about (re)fighting the Battle of the Bulge
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All I found in my college dumpster was some stale ciabbatta and empty beer bottles: “Students at Cal State Stanislaus have discovered evidence that documents related to an upcoming speaking engagement by Sarah Palin were shredded and dumped after the university claimed that no public documents existed, a state senator said on Tuesday.” Willful destruction follows her everywhere.
Maybe part of that cool $12 million Sarah Palin has reportedly raked in since quitting her governorship is hush money from venues too embarrassed to admit they’ve booked her.
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Attention dude-seeking-dudes with iPhones: “Grindr is pretty much just for Victorian ladies now,” sayeth Rod Townsend. (Everyone’s moved on to other “games of chance.”)
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Shocker: actress actually talented at something other than acting.
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And finally, every cat looks better in boots.
Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond
“We offer a kind of grittiness you can’t find much anymore,” said Randy Shaw, a longtime San Francisco housing advocate and a driving force behind the idea of Tenderloin tourism. “And what is grittier than the Tenderloin?”
Now that San Francisco is going to court the tourist dollars of baby boomers descending upon the TL in search of reawakening the pleasure centers of their youth – the music! the drugs! the picturesque squalor! – perhaps City Hall should also consider starting up tourism franchises in other “gritty” parts of the city?
(But gawking humorously at the poor, addicted, and metally challenged makes for such a sensational blog post! –Ed.)
Also: Drubbing! This headline is the second Google hit that comes up for the search: “slumming San Francisco.” Take that, spendy New York Times (which seems to have a long history of reporting on slumming in other cities).
There are too many golden nuggets to choose from in Roger Ebert’s account of working on the Russ Meyer-directed Sex Pistols film that never was, but this exchange is one of them:
Meyer opened up by informing Johnny Rotten that with his stovepipe arms he wouldn’t have survived one day in the army.
“What do I want with the fucking army?” Rotten said.
“You listen to me, you little shit. We won the Battle of Britain for you!”
I reflected that America had not been involved in the Battle of Britain, and that John Lydon (his real name) was Irish, and therefore from a non-participant nation. I kept these details to myself.
The anxiety of influence: The debate going on in the comments on this Fecal Face interview with local artist Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch is heated. Holyoke-Hirsch doesn’t seem to lack faith in his abilities (he is quoted as referring to himself as, “the hardest working illustrator and artist based in San Francisco, California”), although irony is sometimes lost in transcription. Hubris aside, there is still the question of whether or not his art, as some comments posit, swagger-jacks Chris Johansson and Barry McGee. But kids, it’s OK. Put down those rocks! Didn’t you know street art has already jumped the balaclava’d shark?
(Kidding!)
We love our cat
for her self
regard is assiduous
and bland
Congrats to personal fave Rae Armantrout for winning this year’s Pulitzer Prize in poetry. Cat people, this may be finally be your salve for the incredibly raw wounds from our canine-centric Pets issue.
