Event

Dancing with the dead at Día de los Muertos

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

Candles were lit, marigolds were trimmed, and white face paint was spread carefully over cheeks.

A large crowd gathered by sunset, meandering their way through Garfield Park to look at all the exquisitely decorated altars that honored friends and family who have passed on. The annual Día de los Muertos procession and display is always such a vibrant and colorful event, embracing the reality that eventually we’ll all disappear, to who knows where, but buoyed by the thought that we’ll never be forgotten. There is sadness, but that’s part of life — so why not have an amazing night party in the park to make things just a little happier!

¡Felíz Día de los Muertos mis amigos!

Start your day off dead: Your Dia de los Muertos events guide

Andrew Lam
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0

There is probably no more devastatingly beautiful day in San Francisco as today, Dia de los Muertos. It’s more neighborly than Burning Man Decompression, more colorful than a march on the Federal Building — and has more emphasis on colored tissue paper than even the Mission’s spectacular Carnival parade (see here for last year’s Guardian photo gallery). Peep the community altars at SOMArts Cultural Center (above) and read on for more on where you can let those skeletons out of the closet.

So who are you remembering this year? At SOMArts “Illuminations” altar exhibition (read our interview from last year with Rene and Rio Yañez, the father-son team that curates the event) this year’s artists have created homages to Martha Sanchez, deceased doyenne of the Casa Sanchez taqueria and brain behind everyone’s favorite cheap tortilla chips; friends who passed away in the San Bruno fires; victims of Hurricane Katrina; and Pablo Picasso. Rene Yañez’ 3-D art pops from one end of the maze of installations.

You still have ’til Saturday to check those out, but be sure you drop through the Mission tonight if you haven’t seen the explosion of creativity that goes into all the house parties, kids costumes, dance performances, and altars artistically lounging about Parque de los Niños Unidos this time of year. 

 

“Illuminations” altar exhibit

Through Sat/5

Closing party: Sat/5 6-9 p.m., $6-$10 suggested donation

SOMArts Cultural Center

934 Brannan, SF

(415) 863-1414

www.somarts.org

 

Day of the Dead procession

Join in with your still-living loved ones — contrary to popular belief, facepaint and costumes are not required — and march to the park where all the altars are set up. In prior years, the parade has been marked by paper mache puppetry on a massive scale, dance performances, and cross-cultural celebration.

7 p.m., free

22nd St. and Bryant, SF

www.dayofthedeadsf.org  

 

Day of the Dead Festival of Altars

Genuflect in front of the wall of Michael Jackson remembrances (one of last year’s efforts), or just kick back and take pleasure in a Mission District park full of happy families — and sure, partying — after dark. This is one of the neighborhood’s most special happenings of the year. 

6-11 p.m., free

Garfield Park

26th St. and Harrison, SF

www.dayofthedeadsf.org

 

SF Symphony Dia de los Muertos family performance

Mexican tenor David Lomelí will join the symphony’s world-class cast for this family day on Van Ness Street. “Besame Mucho,” “Granada,” and works by Mexican composers will stud the program, and from 1 p.m. traditional dancers strut their stuff in the lobby, right by the tables full of pan de muerto and Mexican hot chocolate drinks. 

1 p.m. procession, 2 p.m. performance, $15–$68

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

(415) 552-8338

www.sfsymphony.org

 

See listings for more dead head events

Anyone but Lee

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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198
Anyone but Lee

tredmond@sfbg.com

Two weeks ago, the race for mayor of San Francisco seemed in the bag. Mayor Ed Lee was so far ahead in most polls that everyone else looked like an also-ran. A Bay Citizen simulation of ranked-choice voting showed Lee getting enough seconds and thirds to emerge easily as the winner. His approval rating with voters was above 70 percent. The money was pouring in to his campaign and to the coffers of independent expenditure committees promoting him.

But that was before the voter-fraud scandals, OccupySF, Sup. John Avalos appearing on national TV, a controversial veto, Sup. David Chiu getting the endorsement of the San Francisco Chronicle, and an attack on City Attorney Dennis Herrera backfiring.

“It’s changing,” Corey Cook, a political scientist at the University of San Francisco, told us. “I don’t know whether it’s tightening up, but it’s certainly changing.”

One campaign consultant, who asked not to be named, was more blunt: “The Lee campaign is one bad news story away from free-fall.”

That’s not to say Lee is going to lose, or even that he’s anything but the clear front-runner. But over the past week, as Lee has taken a series of hits, supporters of the other candidates — particularly Herrera and Avalos — are starting to wonder: Could somebody else really win?

The answer, of course, is yes — anything can happen in the week before an election. But defeating Mayor Lee will take a confluence of events and strategies that starts with a big progressive turnout — and with voters who don’t like the idea of an incumbent with ties to a corrupt old political machine carefully allocating their three ranked choices.

 

NO SURPRISE

So far, there’s been no crushing “October surprise” — no single event or revelation that can change the course of the election. And the impact of anything that happens in the next few days will be blunted by the fact that 27,000 absentee ballots have already arrived at the Department of Elections.

By all accounts, Lee’s campaign and the somewhat sketchy independent expenditure groups that are working in parallel, if not in concert, have done an impressive job of identifying and turning out absentee voters. Local consultants from most of the campaigns agree that at least 20 percent of the final turnout will be Chinese voters — and Lee will get at least 75 and as much of 90 percent of that vote.

But as Cook notes, there are still “huge undecideds” for this late in a race. And while Lee was polling above 30 percent a few weeks ago, by most accounts his numbers have been dropping steadily. One recent poll shows him falling 10 points in the past two weeks, leaving him closer to 20 percent than 30 percent.

“If the election were held three weeks from now, he’d lose,” said one consultant who asked not to be identified by name.

What’s happened? A confluence of factors have put the incumbent in a bad light.

The voter-fraud allegations have made headlines and the district attorney is discussing a criminal investigation. Although Lee and his campaign weren’t directly involved — the possibly illegal efforts to steer voters to Lee were run by one of the IEs — the last thing a politician wants to see in the waning days before an election are the words “voter fraud” and “criminal investigation.”

And the allegation — that Lee supporters in Chinatown filled out ballots for absentee voters then collected them for later delivery — play right into Lee’s weakness. While voters generally have good impressions of his work at City Hall, the fact that he’s connected to sleazy operators and tied to the old discredited Brown machine continues to haunt him. And this sort of activity simply re-enforces that perception.

The Leland Yee campaign has taken direct advantage of that perception, releasing a parody of the hagiographic Lee biography written by political consultant Enrique Pearce. “The Real Ed Lee story,” which repeatedly talks of his connections to unethical power brokers, hit the streets this past weekend.

Lee also sided with the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce over a coalition of labor and consumer groups with his veto of legislation by Sup. David Campos that would have prevented employers from draining $50 million per year from health savings accounts set up to comply with city law. Many restaurants even tack a 3-5 percent surcharge onto customers’ bills, making it essentially consumer fraud.

“It’s important for us to take a stance on the issue and say that what the mayor did was wrong,” Campos told us. “It’s a defining issue for us in City Hall.”

Then there’s OccupySF. Nobody knows for sure, but it’s likely that a majority of San Franciscans are at least somewhat sympathetic to the group’s message. And Lee has so far avoided the public relations disaster of Oakland’s crackdown.

But the left is unhappy with Lee’s constant threats to clear out the encampment, and the right is unhappy that he hasn’t sent in the cops already — and even the San Francisco Chronicle has denounced his lack of decisiveness.

Lee put the police on high alert and had them moving around in buses, ready to move in — than at the last minute changed his mind. “What this shows,” said former Supervisor Aaron Peskin, “is that we don’t have a mayor with a firm hand on the tiller.”

Most observers expected that the Chronicle would join the San Francisco Examiner and endorse Lee. But the paper came down on the side of Supervisor David Chiu. Chiu is still running well behind in the polls, and not that many voters follow the Chron’s advice, but the endorsement was a huge boost to his campaign.

“Ed Lee’s had a bad couple of weeks, and some of the others have had a good couple of weeks,” Cooks said.

 

RANKED CHOICE

Ranked-choice voting puts an interesting twist into all of this. Several consultants and election experts I talked to this week said that Lee would be far more vulnerable in a traditional election. “He would lose a runoff against almost any of the top challengers,” one person said.

But every poll that’s tested the ranked-choice scenario — even recent polls that show Lee faltering — still put him on top after the votes are all tallied and allocated. That’s in part because supporters of candidates who are lower in the pack — Chiu, for example — tend to put Lee as a second or third choice. The Bay Citizen/USF poll showed that when Chiu was eliminated, most of his votes wound up going to Lee.

“Ranked-choice voting clearly favors incumbents,” Cook told me.

And, people walking precincts say, there are still some Herrera and even Avalos voters who put Lee second or third. And the only way Avalos — or anyone other than Lee — can win the election is if progressive and independent voters stick to a clear “anyone but Lee” voting strategy.

Avalos is doing well in recent polls; in fact, one shows him ahead of Herrera in first-place votes. Herrera does better when seconds and thirds are counted. Michela Alioto-Pier gets a fair number of first-place votes, which isn’t surprising since she’s one of only three women in the race, the only woman with citywide name recognition — and the only real credible conservative.

Yee and Chiu are both in the running, and Yee has come out strong attacking Lee and is running hard for progressive votes. He showed up at OccupySF the night a police raid was threatened and has been the leading critic of the alleged voter fraud.

Cook says a scenario where somebody beats Lee is still “an inside straight” — but it’s not at all impossible.

If Lee gets 30 percent of the first-place votes, most observers (including his opponents) agree that he’s going to cruise to victory. But if his first-place total is closer to 20 percent, and one or more of the other candidates are within five points, it’s going to be a lot closer.

Here’s the bottom line: If you don’t want to see a repeat of the late 1990s, when Willie Brown was mayor and City Hall was for sale to the highest bidder, vote for anyone but Lee — and use your three votes strategically. If you like John Avalos, put him first — but give your second-place vote to Herrera, who seems positioned right now to be the other strongest challenger. If you like Herrera, give your second to Avalos. If you like Leland Yee or David Chiu, make sure that Avalos and Herrera are also on your slate.

Fill out all three votes. And get your friends and family to the polls. Because turnout is projected to be low, which helps Lee — and the race may well be decided on the basis of who shows up November 8th.

On Guard!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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4
On Guard!

news@sfbg.com

 

VICTORY’S MUDSLINGING

Hit pieces are common in San Francisco politics. So, sadly, are negative mailers funded by outside independent expenditure committees that can raise unlimited money.

But it’s highly unusual for an organization devoted to electing queer candidates to fund an attack on a candidate who is endorsed by both leading LGBT organizations and is, by all accounts, an ally of the community.

That’s what happened last week when the Washington-based Victory Fund — the leading national organization for LGBT political candidates — sent out a bizarre mailer blasting City Attorney Dennis Herrera for taking money from law firms that do business with the city.

The Victory Fund has endorsed former Sup. Bevan Dufty, who is the most prominent LGBT candidate in the mayor’s race. That’s to be expected; it’s what the Victory Fund does.

But why, in a race with 16 candidates, would the fund go after Herrera, who has spent much of the past seven years fighting in court for marriage equality? Why try to knock down a candidate who has the support of both the Harvey Milk Club and the Alice B. Toklas Club?

It’s baffled — and infuriated — longtime queer activist Cleve Jones, who is a Herrera supporter. “I have long respected the Victory Fund,” Jones told us. “But I’ve never seen them do what they did here. And it’s going to undermine the fund’s credibility.”

Jones dashed off an angry letter to the fund’s president, Chuck Wolfe, saying he was “appalled that this scurrilous attack, in the waning days of a mayoral campaign, would go out to the San Francisco electorate under the name of the Victory Fund.

“You really screwed up, Chuck, and I am not alone in my anger.”

We couldn’t get Wolfe on the phone, but the fund’s vice president for communications, Denis Dison, told us that the mailer “is all about fighting for our endorsed candidates.”

So how does it help Dufty, in a ranked-choice election, to attack Herrera? (In fact, given the dynamics of this election, the person it helps most is probably Mayor Ed Lee). Dison couldn’t explain. Nor would he say who at the fund decided to do the attack mailer.

But there are a couple of interesting connections that might help explain what’s going on. For starters, Joyce Newstat, a political consultant who is working for the Dufty campaign, is active in the Victory Fund, sits on the board of the fund’s Leadership Institute, and, according to a March 24 article in the Bay Area Reporter, was among those active in helping Dufty win the Victory Fund endorsement.

But again: Supporting Dufty is one thing. Attacking Herrera is another. Who would want to do that?

Well, if there’s one single constituency in the city that would like to sink Herrera, it’s Pacific Gas and Electric Co. And guess what? PG&E Governmental Affairs Manager Brandon Hernandez chairs the Victory Fund’s Leadership Institute. PG&E’s corporate logo appears on the front page of the fund’s website, and the company gave the Victory Fund more than $50,000 in 2010, according to the fund’s annual report.

Dison insisted that neither Hernadez nor anyone else from PG&E was involved in making the decision to hit Herrera and said the money went to the Leadership Institute, which trains LGBT candidates, not directly to the campaign fund.

Maybe so –- but the folks at the private utility, who are among the top three corporate donors to the Victory Fund, have to be happy. (Tim Redmond)

 

 

HERRERA HIT BACKFIRES

Herrera was also the target of another attack on his LGBT credentials last week, this one by the San Francisco Chronicle, which ran a front page story on Oct. 26 in which anonymous sources said he raised doubts in private City Hall meetings about San Francisco’s decision to issue same-sex marriage licenses in 2004. It was entitled, “Fight turns ugly to win gay votes in mayor’s race.”

Despite trying to couch the hit in passive language, writing that ” a surprise issue has emerged” based on accusations “leveled by several members of former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration,” it was clear that it was the Chron that made it an issue, for which the newspaper was denounced by leaders of the LGBT community from across the political spectrum at a rally the next day.

“Those who are saying this now anonymously are as cowardly as Dennis and Gavin were courageous back then,” said Deputy City Attorney Theresa Stewart, the lead attorney who defended San Francisco’s decision in 2004 to unilaterally issue marriage licenses to same-sax couples, in defiance of state and federal law, which eventually led to the legalizing of such unions. “We can’t have our community turn on us for petty political gain.”

“WTF, Chronicle?” was how Assemblymember Tom Ammiano began his speech, going on to lay blame for the attack on surrogates for Mayor Ed Lee. Ammiano also called out the mayor for campaign finance violations by his supporters, for undermining the Healthy San Francisco program that was created by Ammiano’s legislation, and for repeatedly ordering police raids on the OccupySF encampment.

“How about some fucking leadership?!” Ammiano said.

Cleve Jones, an early gay rights leader who marched with Harvey Milk, also denounced Lee and his supporters for cronyism, vote tampering, money laundering, and the “fake grassroots” efforts of the various well-funded independent expenditure campaigns, which he said have fooled the Chronicle.

“To the Chronicle and that reporter — really? — this is what you do two weeks before the election? You should be ashamed of yourself,” Jones said. “How stupid do you think we are?”

Yet Chronicle City Editor Audrey Cooper defended the article. “Clearly, I disagree [with the criticisms],” she told the Guardian. “I personally vetted every one of the sources and I’m confident everything we printed is true.” She also tried to cast the article as something other than a political attack, saying it was about an issue of interest to the LGBT community, but no LGBT leaders have stepped up to defend the paper.

Beyond criticizing the obvious political motivations behind the attack, speakers at the rally called the article bad journalism and said it was simply untrue to suggest that Herrera didn’t strongly support the effort to legalize same-sex marriage from the beginning.

“I can tell you that Dennis never once shrank from this fight. I was there, I know,” Stewart said, calling Herrera “a straight ally who’s devoted his heart and soul to this community.”

Sen. Mark Leno, who introduced the first bill legalizing same-sex marriage to clear the Legislature, emphasized that he isn’t endorsing any candidates for mayor and that he didn’t want to comment on the details of the article’s allegations. But he noted that even within the LGBT community, there were differences of opinion over the right timing and tactics for pushing the issue, and that Herrera has been a leader of the fight for marriage equality since the beginning.

“I am here to speak in defense of the character and integrity of our city attorney, Dennis Herrera,” Leno said, later adding, “I do not appreciate when the battle for our civil rights is used as a political football in the waning days of an election.”

Molly McKay, one of the original plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit that followed San Francisco’s actions, teared up as she described the ups and downs that the case took, working closely with Herrera throughout. “But this is one of the strangest twists I can imagine,” she said of the attack by the Chronicle and its anonymous sources. “It’s ridiculous and despicable.”

Representatives for both the progressive Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club and fiscally conservative Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club also took to the microphone together, both saying they often disagree on issues, but they were each denouncing the attack and have both endorsed Herrera, largely because of his strong advocacy for the LGBT community.

Sup. Scott Wiener called Herrera, “One of the greatest straight allies we’ve every had as a community.”

When Herrera finally took the microphone, he thanked mayoral opponents Joanne Rees and Jeff Adachi for showing up at the event to help denounce the attack and said, “This is bigger than the mayor’s race. It’s bigger than me.”

He criticized those who would trivialize this issue for petty political gain and said, “It was my pleasure and honor to have been a part of this battle from the beginning — from the beginning — and I’ll be there in the end.” (Steven T. Jones)

 

 

BUYING REFORM

UPDATE: THIS ITEM HAS BEEN CHANGED FROM THE PRINT VERSION TO CORRECT INACCURATE INFORMATION DEALING WITH WHETHER PAST INIATIVES CAN BE CHANGED

October yielded tremendous financial contributions from real estate investors and interest groups for Yes on E, feeding fears that the measure will be used to target rent control and development standards in San Francisco.

Sup. Scott Wiener has been the biggest proponent for Prop E since May 2011. He argues that the Board of Supervisors should be able to change or repeal voter-approved ballot measures years after they become law, saying that voters are hampered with too many issues on the ballot. Leaving the complex issues to city officials rather than the voters, makes the most sense of this “common sense measure”, Wiener calls it.

But how democratic is a board that can change laws approved by voters? Calvin Welch, a longtime progressive and housing activist, has his own theory: Wiener is targeting certain landlord and tenant issues that build on the body of laws that began in 1978, when San Francisco voters first started adopting rent control and tenants protection measures. Yet the measure will only allow the board to change initiatives approved after January 2012.

“That is what the agenda is all about — roughly 30 measures that deal with rent control and growth control,” he said. Critics say  the measure will leave progressive reforms vulnerable to a board heavily influence by big-money interests. Although Wiener denies Prop E is an attack on tenants, who make up about two-thirds of San Franciscans, the late financial support for the measure is coming from the same downtown villains that tenant and progressive groups fight just about every election cycle. High-roller donations are coming straight from the housing sector, which would love a second chance after losing at the ballot box.

Contributions to Yes on E include $15,000 from Committee on Jobs Government Reform Fund, $10,000 from Building Owners and Managers Association of SF PAC, another $10,000 from high-tech billionaire Ron Conway, and $2,500 from Shorenstein Realty Services LP. Then — on Oct. 28, after the deadline for final pre-election campaign reporting — the San Francisco Association of Realtors made a late contribution of another $18,772, given through the front group Coalition for Sensible Government.

Prop. E is organized so that the first three years, an initiative cannot be subject to review. However after four years, a two-thirds majority vote by the board could make changes, and after sevens years, a simple majority could do so.

 (Christine Deakers)

Mood setters

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Mood setters

emilysavage@sfbg.com


MUSIC Water Borders, a gloomy beat-driven San Francisco band with a new release (Harbored Mantras) on Tri Angle Records, spent the past few weekends practicing the art of creating atmosphere for obscure vintage films.


The band was picked for the first San Francisco installment of Celluloid Salon, a multimedia series that also takes place in cities such as New York, Chicago, and Austin, Texas. At the event — Nov. 15 at Public Works — the trio will live score four silent shorts from the 1920s and ’30s. “We’re good at soundscapes,” explains the group’s singer Amitai Heller, sitting amongst pedals, synths, stacked TVs, and laptops in the band’s Tenderloin practice space. “It’s kind of what we do best, is create moods.”


He’s right. The textured tracks on Harbored Mantras creep from black velvet-swaddled eerie (“What Wiwant”) to veiled ethereal (“Waldenpond.com”). Moody synths and drum machine beats are layered with cinematic samples that recall snake rattles, dragging chains, even bird chirps. The album — which is the band’s first full-length release after putting out a CD-R, a cassette, and a few records on labels such as Disaro — also takes hints from post-punk and experimental industrial, most notably, Coil.


Heller’s doomed, swallowed vocals are the most startling. “There’s definitely a lot of studio tricks with the vocals,” says Heller’s partner-in-sound, Loric Sih. “Our music is generally dense and cavernous, the vocals have to be mixed in a specific way to sound right sitting on top of that. There was a lot of experimenting, a lot of trial and error, a lot of long nights in here.” Here meaning the practice space, where a nearby metal act’s muffled guitar bleeds through the walls.


While this project arose in 2009, the two met 10 years back at UC Santa Cruz when Heller was the “flamboyantly dressed” singer of Gross Gang. After Gross Gang ended, Heller started New Thrill Parade and asked Sih to join. With Water Borders, Heller says they had a plan: “everything in reverse from how we did things in the previous band.” In the other band, they “self-promoted aggressively, toured insane, and lost tons of money.”


Says Heller, “With this, [Loric and I] decided that we wanted to get everything in order first, have concise direction…and not show people the evolution as it unfolded. So it’s record it, perfect it, show it.” While that was the theory, the reality was a bit more complicated. They had to work at bringing the synth-and-machine music to the stage in an engrossing way. “It’s taken us about this long to understand how to make electronic sound good live. I think the [record release] show we just played at Amnesia was probably the first time that nothing went wrong.”


Part of that newfound live strength comes from the band’s newest member, Matt Rogers, a longtime friend and recent Seattle transplant. At shows, the multi-instrumentalist plays guitar, keyboard, and an electrical kalimba, among other pieces. The addition of Rogers, who joined in August, meant Heller could focus mainly on vocals. And those are important to him. While they’re murky, under a thick goth-y haze, the lyrics on Harbored Mantras touch on themes of dissatisfaction, systemic and institutional change, and colonialism. They come from Heller’s sociopolitical awareness; raised on a kibbutz in Israel, he’s now a volunteer counselor at the Tenants Union and frequents the Occupy SF grounds.


While likely not so in line with his personal politics, he once composed music for a documentary on the Seastedding Institute (which, he says, is basically an organization of rich libertarians who want to colonize the ocean by creating autonomous cities). The event at Public Works will be the first scoring for Water Borders as a band though. Sih and Heller seem stoked at the prospect. “I would be happy if this band was able to score films professionally,” enthuses Sih. The tones of the short films vary wildly, one even has a slapstick element — which seems worlds away from the Water Borders vibe. Says Heller, “It’s challenging in a good way.”


 


WATER BORDERS


Nov. 15, 7 p.m., free with RSVP


Public Works


161 Erie, SF


(415) 932-0955


www.myopenbar.com/celluloidsalon


www.publicsf.com

Homemade shaman

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Homemade shaman

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER A rare event for rare times: Robert Steijn comes to San Francisco. The visit — which included a workshop Oct. 31-Nov. 2, and comes courtesy of THEOFFCENTER, Zero Performance, and Jorge Rodolfo De Hoyos — marks the first Bay Area show by this somewhat unexpected but internationally acclaimed figure in contemporary dance-performance.

A onetime dance critic who made a mid-career leap into performance, Steijn is at 53 defiantly not young, nor especially sleek despite a close working relationship with his spirit animal, a deer. But a graceful, probing, witty, and intriguing artist he certainly is. Known to collaborate widely — most consistently with compatriot Frans Poelstra, with whom he forms United Sorry — he’s also the creator of a handful of idiosyncratic solo works, one of which he performs Thursday night at the new Joe Goode Performance Annex in the Mission.

“I am reborn a smoker/Allowing myself to get high in the clouds of imagination” is billed as “a performance in the form of a lecture/demonstration,” but that’s a misleadingly dry description for a euphoric foray into the “invisible” places Steijn — who counts among his influences Jack Smith, Korean shaman-performer Hi-Ah Park, and ayahuasca rituals — has long pursued with a playful earnestness.

“Every time I do it, it changes a little bit,” Steijn says of the piece. “In a way, it’s my introduction about what I can do onstage, but it’s also a kind of showcase of how we use imagination. It’s really about belief systems.”

It’s also a piece where he channels a deer to communicate with the dead. “I dance a lot with a deer, and also it comes into my mind sometimes.” Of the title’s reference to a reborn smoker, Steijn explains, “I was working on shamanistic power animals, and I manifested the deer, and the deer was smoking a cigar.”

Steijn, who divides much of his time between Vienna and Amsterdam, spoke by phone last week from New York City, where he was at work on a new collaboration with choreographer Maria Hassabi (with whom he made a splash last year in an eye-locking duet at New York’s Danspace). Genial, thoughtful, self-effacing, and prone to shy laughter, Steijn remembers that as a lonely child he fantasized a guardian angel. “And it really worked,” he chuckles. It led him to consider “how you can comfort yourself with imagination; how imagination can open up a certain structure for reality.”

“I found I was interested in how the mind works,” he continues, “how we can put our self in a certain mind state, or in a way of thinking, or in a way of perceiving reality, and how that could be very truthful for theater, to show what happens when you are in this state of mind. Because I feel sometimes we’re too rational — or not even rational, but we think too much in the patterns we are used to thinking in.

William Forsythe [showed how] we can change the center of movement in the body; it can be in every body part almost, and you can [put it] also outside the body sometimes. I like to think in that way about the mind: how can you perceive or analyze reality from another center than you are used to? I felt that in shamanism it was very playful to go there, to still a little bit your logical mind. What I found is that when I imagine [myself] into a state, I look at the world with much more compassion and love. It’s a strategy to relate differently to the audience and to movement in the body, to a different imagination.”

Steijn had been in New York only a few days, but said he’d already visited Occupy Wall Street several times. Waxing enthusiastic about what he found there, he spoke of the dialogue and imagination opened up in this re-appropriated public square, and it seemed to recall much of his own work with “intensifying” a space, setting it free of the usual constraints to imagination and experience.

“You know when Joseph Boeys said everybody has to be an artist? I think it would be nice if everyone has to be a poet,” he says. “Perhaps there’s not so much difference between the two. But I like to think you meet with a situation and then you have to create how you want to deal with it, how you want to change it. It’s not to adapt yourself to a situation but really to make it your own. I think this empowerment is important.”

ROBERT STEIJN

Thurs/3, 8 p.m., $10-$20

Joe Goode Performance Annex

401 Alabama St., SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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0

Schedules are for Wed/2-Tues/8 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. Yanqui Walker and the Optical Revolution (Ramey, 2010), plus works by Jesse Lerner and others, Sat, 8.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-20. Super Natural (2011), Thurs, 7:15. Big-wave surfing doc. The Bolshoi Re-Opening Gala, Moscow (2011), Sat-Sun, 10am.

CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM 678 Mission, SF; (415) 357-1848, www.californiahistoricalsociety.org. Free. “Manzanar Fishing Club: A New Film Documenting the Untold Story of the Largest Mass Detention in U.S. history,” select clips and discussion with filmmakers, Thurs, 5:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-15. •Rebel Without a Cause (Ray, 1955), Wed, 3, 7, and Bigger Than Life (Ray, 1956), Wed, 5, 9:05. •In a Lonely Place (Ray, 1950), Thurs, 3:10, 7, and Party Girl (Ray, 1958), Thurs, 4:55, 8:55. Warren Miller’s Like There’s No Tomorrow (2011), Fri, 8. This screening, $20; more info at www.warrenmiller.com.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (Star, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. The Bolshoi Re-Opening Gala, Moscow (2011), Sun, 1:30 and Tues, 7.

COUNTERPULSE CounterPulse, 1310 Mission, SF; www.sftff.org. $12-15. “10th Annual San Francisco Transgender Film Festival,” Thurs, 8 (performances); Fri-Sat, 8 (films).

EMBARCADERO One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level, SF; (415) 554-0525, www.americanindianfilminstitute.com. Free-$20. “36th Annual American Indian Film Festival,” Nov 4-9. Festival continues Nov 10-12 at the Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” The Unstable Object (Eisenberg, 2011), Wed, 7:30. “Jeanne Moreau: Enduring Allure:” Bay of Angels (Demy, 1962), Thurs, 7; Elevator to the Gallows (Malle, 1958), Fri, 7; The Lovers (Malle, 1958), Fri, 8:50. “Abbas Kiarostami: The Fragility of Life:” Where Is the Friend’s Home? (1987), Sat, 6 and Sun, 5. “Special Screening:” Red Desert (Antonioni, 1964), Sat, 8. “Kino-Eye: The Revolutionary Cinema of Dziga Vertov:” Kino-Eye (1924), Sun, 2; The Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Tues, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Mindglow (Wohl and Svedas, 2011), Wed, 7:30. With live performances by Bronze and Limosine. Gainsbourg: The Man Who Loved Women (Forneri, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. A Hard Day’s Nightmare, Thurs, 7, 9:30. “Not Necessarily Noir:” The Killers (Siegel, 1964), Fri, 6:15, 9:50; Play Misty For Me (Eastwood, 1971), Fri, 8; Brainstorm (Conrad, 1965), Sat, 3:15, 7:45; Blow Out (De Palma, 1981), Sat, 1, 5:40, 9:55; Johnny Guitar (Ray, 1954), Sun, 3:30, 7:30; Female on the Beach (Pevney, 1955), Sun, 1:45, 5:40, 9:40; Teenage Gang Debs (Johnson, 1966), Mon, 8; Girl Gang (Dertano, 1954), Mon, 6:40, 9:40; Jail Bait (Wood, 1954), Tues, 6; Glen or Glenda? (Wood, 1953), Tues, 7:30; Plan 9 From Outer Space (Wood, 1959), Tues, 8:45. Ed Wood screenings hosted by Johnny Legend.

SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY McKenna Theater, 1600 Holloway, SF. “Contact: The Reel and the Real: Humanity’s Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence:” Contact (Zemeckis, 1997), Wed, 6. With astronomer Jill Tarter, inspiration for Jodie Foster’s Contact character, in person; this event, free and more info at www.bayareascience.org. Knuth Hall, 1600 Holloway, SF. In the Wrong Body (Solaya, 2010), Thurs, 7. This event, $10 and more info at www.freethefive.org.

SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $12-20. “French Cinema Now:” The Screen Illusion (Amalric, 2011), Wed, 5; Le Havre (Kaurismäki, 2011), Wed, 7; Angèle and Tony (Delaporte, 2010), Wed, 9. “Cinema By The Bay:” I Think It’s Raining (Moore, 2011), Thurs, 9:30; “Baywatch!,” shorts program, Fri, 7; The Bat (West, 1926), with a live performance of a new score by Ava Mendoza, Fri, 9:30; “WeOwnTV: Freetown in the Bay,” shorts program, Sat. 2; “Essential SF: Canyon Cinema,” shorts program, Sat, 4:30; The Price of Sex (Chakarova, 2011), Sat, 6:45; Where’s My Stuff? (Burbank, 2011), Sat, 9 and Sun, 4:15; “Reel SF,” shorts program, Sun, 2; “SF360.org Presents: Essential SF,” shorts program, Sun, 7. VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $5 donation. “The Vortex Incarnate:” •Asylum of Satan (Girdler, 1975), Thurs, 9, and The Devil and Max Devlin (Stern, 1981), Thurs, 11. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Urbanized (Hustwit, 2011), Nov 4-10, 4, 6, 8 (also Sat/5-Sun/6, 2).

Our Weekly Picks November 2-8

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 2

“The Unstable Object”

The PFA hosts the West Coast premiere of The Unstable Object, a mysterious, precisely observed work by Daniel Eisenberg. Nearly wordless (but densely aural), the film surveys three work sites: a glassy Volkswagen plant in Germany which doubles as a tourist destination; a Chicago clock producer staffed by the blind; and the alchemical Zildjian Cymbal factory in Istanbul. Occasionally surreal and completely engrossing, the film poetically analyzes differing degrees of labor and manual reproduction. Tomorrow night Eisenberg visits Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to present his film Persistence (1997) and to continue a conversation with Jeffrey Skoller, a UC Berkeley scholar who has edited a new critical anthology on Eisenberg’s work. (Max Goldberg)

7:30 p.m., $11

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-1412

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

www.sfcinematheque.org


THURSDAY 3

Fruit Bats

Starting out life as a lo-fi project of Eric D. Johnson (who has stints behind him as a member of the Shins, among other bands) in the mid 1990s, the Fruit Bats came together as an working live band around the turn of the millennium, and has had somewhat of an open/revolving door of a lineup since — but its releases continue to get better and better. The group’s music is full of joyously simple , yet infectiously catchy folk-esque tunes, mixed with a touch of country-fried Southern rock and brightly sung sweet melodies — Johnson keeps the successful formula going on the group’s most recent release, Tripper (Sub Pop), which dropped earlier this year. (Sean McCourt)

With Parson Red Heads

9 p.m., $15

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

 

Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s eponymous debut has to be one of my favorite albums of 2011. The brainchild of Portland, Ore., via New Zealand rocker Ruban Nielson, Unknown Mortal Orchestra is like listening to a crate of dusty, warped ’60s psych and Motown records after ingesting a couple mind-altering substances. It may have originated in Portland, but I can’t imagine a place more suited to this fuzzy drugged out basement-pop than San Francisco. Come get weird. (Frances Capell)

With Gauntlet Hair and Popscene DJs 9 p.m., $12–<\d>$14 Rickshaw Stop 155 Fell, SF (415) 861-2011 www.rickshawstop.com

 

Mastodon

Mastodon didn’t please everyone with Crack the Skye, its astral-projecting 2009 concept album, but the band isn’t really in the pleasing business. Ever since mid-aughts underground success propelled the Atlanta quartet into the major label limelight, Mastodon has stuck to its wildly inventive, idiosyncratic guns. Pivoting away from Crack‘s epic song structures and complicated arrangements, The Hunter, released this fall, is an infectious smorgasbord of taut, focused songwriting, heavy on vocal hooks provided by the band’s three singers (guitarist Brent Hinds, bassist Troy Sanders, and drummer Brann Dailor). Lyrical topics range from meth-addled lumberjacks to lonely octopi, but the star of the show is Mastodon’s boundless, yet disciplined creativity. No note, no matter how unexpected or bizarre, feels out of place. (Ben Richardson)

With the Dillinger Escape Plan and Red Fang

8 p.m., $30

Warfield

982 Market, SF

(415) 345-0900

www.thewarfieldtheatre.com

 

San Francisco Transgender Film Festival

One of the greatest things about San Francisco is that there’s a film festival for everyone: green activists, dog lovers, anti-corporate crusaders, horror fiends, outdoor enthusiasts, kung fu fans, and dozens more. Basically, if you can’t find a festival that excites you, you probably don’t actually like movies. This week alone there’s “Not Necessarily Noir” at the Roxie, the San Francisco Film Society’s “Cinema By the Bay,” the American Indian Film Festival (see Fri/4), and the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. Step out tonight to check out a performance honoring the Transgender fest’s 10th anniversary, with artistic director Shawna Virago among those taking the stage. The films kick in this weekend, showcasing two shorts programs from across the globe; all have a transgender element in common, but topics range from boxing, boobs, and bunnies to the search for true love. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sat/5

8 p.m., $12–$15

CounterPulse

1310 Mission, SF

www.sftff.org


FRIDAY 4

American Indian Film Festival

Hollywood loves to depict indigenous people as creatures who exist only in the past, battling cowboys or stepping forth to offer solemn life lessons to the likes of Kevin Costner. The American Indian Film Festival, now in its 36th year, offers ample cinematic evidence to the contrary, with a jam-packed week of programming. Ok, there’s a Western — supernatural frontier tale Yellow Rock — but there are also documentaries (Wild Horses and Renegades, about the Bureau of Land Management’s controversial stance on wild horses), a thriller set in deepest Alaska (On the Ice, which won “Best Debut Film” at the Berlin International Film Festival), and opening night family drama Every Emotion Costs, a Canadian film making its US premiere. (Eddy)

Nov. 4-12, free–$20

Embarcadero Cinema

One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level, SF

Palace of Fine Arts

3301 Lyon, SF

(415) 554-0525

www.americanindianfilminstitute.com


FRIDAY 4

 

“Cat Lady”

Performance artist, writer, and serious prankster Kristina Wong has a way with stereotypes (cf. her mail-order-bride site, bigbadchinesemama.com), but her work defies categories by virtue of the brilliant wit, creative reach, and restless iconoclasm informing such acclaimed pieces as Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (about the high incidence of suicide among Asian American women) and Going Green the Wong Way (which made its Bay Area debut in July). The SF-born, LA-based Wong normally flies solo, but in her anticipated return to San Francisco this weekend, she unveils her first full-length ensemble piece, a work bringing together “animal psychics, aggressive pick-up artists and musty cat ladies” in a hilarious and unsettling exploration of connection at the social and sexual margins. (Robert Avila)

Fri/4-Sat/5, 8 p.m., Sun/6, 7 p.m.; $17–$20

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odctheater.org

 

Wild Flag

Wild Flag’s self-titled debut, released in September on Merge, is a breath of fresh air from the former members of Sleater-Kinney (Carrie Brownstein, Janet Weiss), Helium (Mary Timony), and the Minders (Rebecca Cole). As tested rockers from Portland, Ore. and Washington D.C. who’ve been playing in bands and listening to them for years (Brownstein also had a blog at NPR Music), Wild Flag’s tough pop rock feels decidedly different from other new bands out today — in other words, not esoteric indie rock awash in reverb. Wild Flag is vivacious, accessible, and catchy. It delivers a multifarious punch of classic hard rock, punk, and post-hardcore that’s downright fun to listen to. And if there’s ever been a great live band, it’s Wild Flag; these women grew up on stage.(James H. Miller)

With Drew Grow & the Pastors’ Wives

Through Sat/5

9 p.m., $19

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

 

Das Racist

Das Racist is a tough act to define. It’s weed rap; it’s social commentary. It’s catchy and fun; it’s edgy and subversive. Or, as Himanshu Suri (a.k.a. Heems) and Victor Vazquez (a.k.a. Kool AD) put it, they’re not joking — just joking — they are joking. Since the pair first broke into the hip-hop scene with silly cyber-hit “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell,” Das Racist has released two hugely successful mixtapes and an album, Relax (Greedhead). Suri and Vazquez may be joking, but with remarkably astute lyrics and a crazy amount of talent, Das Racist is taking over the rap game in a very serious way. (Capell)

With Boots Riley (sitting in with Das Racist), Danny Brown, and Despot

8 p.m., $25

Ruby Skye

420 Mason, SF

(415) 693-0777

www.rubyskye.com


SATURDAY 5

SF Symphony Dia de los Muertos

There is musically much more to Day of the Dead than the ominous-humorous beating of drums, the rustle of voluminous skirts through ofrenda-dotted parks, and the clackity-clack of dancing skeletons bumping knees. There is singing at the symphony! Mexican tenor David Lomelí will join the players in a festive, family-oriented afternoon of favorites like “Besame Mucho,” “Granada,” and works by Mexican composers. Starting at 1 p.m., the colorful Ensambles Ballet Folklórico de San Francisco and musical group Vinikai will lead a procession into Davies Symphony Hall, where musically themed altars will be on display. Plus, complimentary pan de muerto from Bay Baking Co and Mexican hot chocolate will be served, eliciting a few shouts of “Yum!” (Marke B.)

1 p.m. procession, 2 p.m. performance, $15–$68

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF.

(415) 552-8338

www.sfsymphony.org

 

DaM-Funk and Master Blazter

The last few times DaM-Funk was in town for shows — a DJ set at Som Bar; an incredible but barely remembered 45 party at Public Works to cap off Noise Pop — it wasn’t the full deal. Now the ambassador of boogie will cap off his fall tour with live accompaniment from Master Blazter, strapping on the shoulder synth to accomplish his main goal: throwing a party where everyone gets down. And there’s a good chance DaM-Funk has picked up some new old school tricks producing former Slave frontman Steve Arrington’s new album which comes out this month, Love, Peace, and Funky Beats. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Matthew David, Devon Who, and Sweater Funk DJs

9 p.m., $20

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com


SUNDAY 6

“Beyond This Place” with live soundtrack

It makes sense that Sufjan Stevens would compose the soundtrack for Kaleo La Belle’s documentary Beyond This Place. The two have been friends since childhood and the documentary is personal. After 30 years of estrangement, La Belle and his stubborn hippie father, Cloud Rock, embark on a 500-mile bike excursion where La Belle hopes he’ll learn whether there’s an inextricable bond between himself and Cloud Rock — a man without guilt, regret, or compassion. At the Castro Theater, Beyond This Place screens with a live soundtrack performance by Sufjan Stevens and Castanets’ Ray Raposa; a Q&A with La Belle follows. (Miller)

7:30 p.m., $25

Castro Theater

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheater.com


TUESDAY 8

North Sky Cello Ensemble

When the Yeah Yeah Yeahs burst onto the indie rock scene in 2003, singer Karen O and guitarist Nick Zinner were so fashionable and seductive that I couldn’t quite relate to the coolness of it all. I preferred Brian Chase, who looked like a 1980s tech guy by comparison. Besides, the classically trained drummer played phenomenally. All three members have been working on projects outside the Yeah Yeah Yeahs lately. O wrote a “psycho opera,” Zinner has been doing photography, and Chase? He’s been pounding at the drums with the North Sky Cello Ensemble, a collection of classical musicians whose players have supported the likes of Beyonce and Elton John. How would, say, Debussy sound with a killer rhythm section? (Miller)

8 p.m., free

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com 

 

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Stage Listings

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

THEATER

OPENING

Annapurna Magic Theatre, Bldg D, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; (415) 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Previews Wed/2-Sat/5, 8pm; Sun/6, 2:30pm; Tues/8, 7pm. Opens Nov 9, 8pm. Through Dec 4, showtimes vary. Magic Theatre performs Sharr White’s world premiere drama about love’s longevity.

More Human Than Human Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; (415) 401-7987, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Opens Fri/4, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 19. B. Duke’s dystopian drama is inspired by Philip K. Dick.

Oh, Kay! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; (415) 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $20-50. Previews Wed/2, 7pm; Thurs/3-Fri/4, 8pm. Opens Sat/5, 6pm. Runs Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Nov 20. 42nd Street Moon performs George and Ira Gershwin’s Prohibition-set comedy.

The Temperamentals New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/4-Sat/5 and Nov 9-11, 8pm; Sun/6, 2pm. Opens Nov 12, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 18. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Jon Marans’ drama about gay rights during the McCarthy era.

Two Dead Clowns Box Car Theatre Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Previews Thurs/3, 8pm (free preview). Opens Fri/4, 7pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 7pm. Through Nov 26. Ronnie Larsen’s new play explores the lives of Divine and John Wayne Gacy.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Opens Fri/4, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Nov 26. Brian Copeland (Not a Genuine Black Man) presents a workshop production of his new solo show.

*Working for the Mouse Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $22. Opens Thurs/3, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no performances Nov 24-26). Through Dec 17. It might not come as a surprise to hear that even “the happiest place on earth” has a dark side, but hearing Trevor Allen describe it during this reprise of 2002’s Working for the Mouse will put a smile on your face as big as Mickey’s. With a burst of youthful energy, Allen bounds onto the tiny stage of Impact Theatre to confess his one-time aspiration to never grow up — a desire which made auditioning for the role of Peter Pan at Disneyland a sensible career move. But in order to break into the big time of “charactering,” one must pay some heavy, plush-covered dues. As Allen creeps up the costumed hierarchy one iconic cartoon figure at a time, he finds himself unwittingly enmeshed in a world full of backroom politics, union-busting, drug addled surfer dudes with peaches-and-cream complexions, sexual tension, showboating, job suspension, Make-A-Wish Foundation heartbreak, hash brownies, rabbit vomit, and accidental decapitation. Smoothly paced and astutely crafted, Mouse will either shatter your blissful ignorance or confirm your worst suspicions about the corporate Disney machine, but either way, it will probably make you treat any “Casual Seasonal Pageant Helpers” you see running around in their sweaty character suits with a whole lot more empathy. (Note: review from the show’s recent run at La Val’s Subterranean in Berkeley.) (Gluckstern)

ONGOING

Almost Nothing, Day of Absence Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 450 Post, SF; (415) 474-8800, www.lhtsf.org. $43-53. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Nov 20. The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre christens its grand new home near Union Square with two well-acted one-act plays under sharp direction by artistic director Steven Anthony Jones. Almost Nothing by Brazilian playwright Marcos Barbosa marks the North American premiere of an intriguing and shrewdly crafted Pinteresque drama, wherein a middle-class couple (Rhonnie Washington and Kathryn Tkel) returns home from an unexpected encounter at a stop light that leaves them jittery and distracted. As an eerie wind blows outside (in David Molina’s atmospheric sound design), their conversation circles around the event as if fearing to name it outright. When a poor woman (Wilma Bonet) arrives claiming to have seen everything, the couple abandons rationalization for a practical emergency and a moral morass dictated by poverty and class advantage — negotiated on their behalf by a black market professional (Rudy Guerrero). Next comes a spirited revival of Douglas Turner Ward’s Civil Rights–era Day of Absence (1965), a broad satire of Southern race relations that posits a day when all the “Neegras” mysteriously disappear, leaving white society helpless and desperate. The cast (in white face) excel at the high-energy comedy, and in staging the text director Jones makes a convincing parallel with today’s anti-immigrant laws and rhetoric. But if the play remains topical in one way, its too-blunt agitprop mode makes the message plain immediately and interest accordingly pales rapidly. (Avila)

Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief Boxcar Theatre Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $15-35. Wed/2-Sat/5, 8pm. Written in 1979 by a 28-year-old Paula Vogel, Desdemona retells a familiar Shakespearean tragedy, Othello, through the eyes of its more marginalized characters, much as Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead did with Hamlet in 1966. In Vogel’s play, it is the women of Othello — Desdemona the wife, Emilia her attendant (demoted down to washer-woman in Vogel’s piece), and Bianca, Cassio’s lover, and the bawdy town pump — who are the focus, and are the play’s only onstage characters. Whiling away an endless afternoon cooped up in the back room of the governor’s mansion, the flighty, spoiled, and frankly promiscuous Desdemona (Karina Wolfe) frets over the loss of her “crappy little snot-rag,” while her subservient, pious, but quietly calculating washer-woman Emilia (Adrienne Krug) scrubs the sheets and mends the gubernatorial underpants with an attitude perfectly balanced between aggrieved, disapproving, and cautiously optimistic. Though the relationship between the two women often veers into uncomfortable condescension from both sides, their repartee generally feels natural and uncontrived. Less successfully portrayed is Theresa Miller’s Bianca, whose Cockney accent is wont to slip, and whose character’s boisterous nature feels all too frequently subdued. Jenn Scheller’s billowing, laundry-line set softens the harsh edges of the stage, just as Emilia’s final act of service for her doomed mistress softens, though not mitigates, her unwitting role in their mutual downfall. (Gluckstern)

Honey Brown Eyes SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-50. Wed/2-Thurs/3, 7pm; Fri/4-Sat/5, 8pm (also Sat/5, 3pm). Bosnia in 1992 is divided in a horrifying civil war, some characteristics of which play out in parallel circumstances for two members of a single rock band in SF Playhouse’s west coast premiere of Stefanie Zadravec’s new play. In the first act, set in Visegrad, a young Bosnian Muslim woman (Jennifer Stuckert) is held at gunpoint in her kitchen by a jumpy soldier (Nic Grelli) engaged in a mission of murder and dispossession known as ethnic cleansing. The second act moves to Sarajevo and the apartment of an elderly woman (Wanda McCaddon) who gives shelter and a rare meal to an army fugitive (Chad Deverman). He in turn keeps the bereaved if indomitable woman company. Director Susi Damilano and cast are clearly committed to Zadravec’s ambitious if hobbled play, but the action can be too contrived and unrealistic (especially in act one) to be credible while the tone — zigzagging between the horror of atrocity and the offbeat gestures of romantic comedy — comes over as confused indecision rather than a deliberate concoction. (Avila)

How to Love Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.pustheatre.com. $15. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Nov 20. Performers Under Stress Theatre presents Megan Cohen’s Plato-inspired world premiere.

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 13. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Making Porn Box Car Theatre Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-50. Thurs, 8pm; Thurs, 8pm; Fri-Sat, 9pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Nov 27. Ronnie Larsen brings back his crowd-pleasing comedy about the gay porn industry.

*”Master Harold” … and the Boys Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 601, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $18-40. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 19. Based loosely on personal history, Athol Fugard’s drama explores institutionalized racism in South Africa’s apartheid era ensconced in the seemingly innocuous world of a Port Elizabeth tea room. The play opens during a rainy afternoon with no customers, leaving the Black African help, Willie (Anthony Rollins-Mullens) and Sam (LaMont Ridgell), with little to do but rehearse ballroom dance steps for a big competition coming up in a couple of weeks. When Hally (Adam Simpson), the owner’s son, arrives from school, the atmosphere remains convivial at first then increasingly strained, as events happening outside the tea room conspire to tear apart their fragile camaraderie. The greatest burdens of the play are carried by Sam, who fills a range of roles for the increasingly pessimistic and emotionally-stunted Hally — teacher, student, surrogate father, confidante, and servant — all the while completely aware that their mutual love is almost certainly doomed to not survive past Hally’s adolescence, and possibly not past the afternoon. Ridgell rises greatly to the challenges of his character, ably flanked by Rollins-Mullens, and Simpson; he embodies the depth of Sam’s humanity, from his wisdom of experience, to his admiration for beauty, to his capacity to bear and finally to forgive Hally’s need to lash out at him. It is a moving and memorable rendering. (Gluckstern)

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 3pm. Extended through Dec 17. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. (Avila)

*The Odyssey Aboard Alma, Hyde Street Pier, San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, SF; www.weplayers.org. $160. Fri/4-Sun/6, Nov 11-12, and 18, 12:30pm. Heralding their hugely ambitious Spring 2012 production of The Odyssey, which will take place all over Angel Island, the WE Players are tackling the work on a slightly smaller scale by staging it on the historic scow schooner Alma, which is part of the Maritime National Historical Park fleet docked at the end of Hyde Street Pier. Using both boat and Bay as setting, the essential chapters of the ten-year voyage — encounters with the Cyclops, Circe, the Underworld, the Sirens, Aeolus, the Laestrygonians, and Calypso — are enacted through an intriguing mash-up of narration, choreography, sea chanteys, salty dog stories (like shaggy dog stories, but more water-logged), breathtaking views, and a few death-defying stunts the likes of which you won’t see on many conventional stages. High points include the casual swapping of roles (every actor gets to play Odysseus, however briefly), Ross Travis’ masked and flatulent Prometheus and sure-footed Hermes, Ava Roy’s hot pants-clad Circe, Charlie Gurke’s steady musical direction and multi-instrumental abilities, and the sail itself, an experiential bonus. Landlubbers beware, so much time facing the back of the boat where much of the action takes place can result in mild quease, even on a calm day. Take advantage of the downtime between scenes to walk around and face forward now and again. You’ll want to anyway. (Gluckstern)

*On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Dec 31. Teatro ZinZanni’s final production at its longtime nest on Pier 29 is a nostalgia-infused banquet of bits structured around an old-time radio variety show, featuring headliners Geoff Hoyle (Geezer) and blues singer Duffy Bishop. If you haven’t seen juggling on the radio, for instance, it’s pretty awesome, especially with a performer like Bernard Hazens, whose footing atop a precarious tower of tubes and cubes is already cringingly extraordinary. But all the performers are dependably first-rate, including Andrea Conway’s comic chandelier lunacy, aerialist and enchanting space alien Elena Gatilova’s gorgeous “circeaux” act, graceful hand-balancer Christopher Phi, class-act tapper Wayne Doba, and radio MC Mat Plendl’s raucously tweeny hula-hooping. Add some sultry blues numbers by raunchy belter Bishop, Hoyle’s masterful characterizations (including some wonderful shtick-within-a-shtick as one-liner maestro “Red Bottoms”), a few classic commercials, and a healthy dose of audience participation and you start to feel nicely satiated and ready for a good cigar. Smoothly helmed by ZinZanni creative director Norm Langill, On the Air signals off-the-air for the popular dinner circus — until it can secure a new patch of local real estate for its antique spiegeltent — so tune in while you may. (Avila)

*Pellas and Melisande Cutting Ball Theater, Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Thurs, 7:30; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 27. The Frog Prince, Rapunzel, the Swan Maiden: shimmering strands of each timeless tale twist through the melancholy tapestry of the Maurice Maeterlinck play Pelleas and Melisande, which opens Cutting Ball Theater’s 12th season. Receiving a lushly atmospheric treatment by director and translator Rob Melrose, this ill-fated Symbolist drama stars Joshua Schell and Caitlyn Louchard as the doomed lovers. Trapped in the claustrophobic environs of an isolated castle at the edge of a forbidding forest and equally trapped in an inadvertent love triangle with the hale and hearty elder prince Golaud (Derek Fischer), Pelleas’ brother and Melisande’s husband, the desperate, unconsummated passion that builds between the two youngsters rivals that of Romeo and Juliet’s, and leads to an ending even more tragic — lacking the bittersweet reconciliation of rival families that subverts the pure melodrama of the Shakespearean classic. Presented on a spare, wooden traverse stage (designed by Michael Locher), and accompanied by a smoothly-flowing score by Cliff Caruthers, the action is enhanced by Laura Arrington’s haunting choreography, a silent contortionism which grips each character as they try desperately to convey the conflicting emotions which grip them without benefit of dialogue. Though described by Melrose as a “fairy tale world for adults,” the dreamy gauze of Pelleas and Melisande peels away quickly enough to reveal a flinty and unsentimental heart. (Gluckstern)

Race American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-85. Opens Wed/26, 8pm. Tues-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm (also Sun/6, 7pm). Through Nov 13. ACT performs David Mamet’s wicked courtroom comedy.

The Rover, or the Banish’d Cavaliers, The American Clock Hastings Studio Theater, 77 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10 ($15 for both productions). Through Sat/5, performance times vary. American Conservatory Theater’s Masters of Fine Arts program presents plays in repertory by Aphra Behn and Arthur Miller.

Savage in Limbo Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 3. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs John Patrick Shanley’s edgy comedy.

“Shocktoberfest 12: Fear Over Frisco” Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; (415) 377-4202, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 19. In its annual season-scented horror bid, Thrillpeddlers joins forces with SF’s Czar of Noir, writer-director Eddie Muller, for a sharply penned triplet of plays that resurrect lurid San Francisco lore as flesh-and-blood action. In the slightly sluggish but intriguing Grand Inquisitor, a solitary young woman modeling herself on Louise Brooks in Lulu (an alluringly Lulu-like Bonni Suval) believes she has located the Zodiac killer’s widow (a sweet but cagey Mary Gibboney) — a scenario that just can’t end well for somebody, yet manages to defy expectations. An Obvious Explanation turns on an amnesiac (Daniel Bakken) whose brother (Flynn de Marco) explains the female corpse in the rollaway (Zelda Koznofski) before asking bro where he hid a certain pile of money. Enter a brash doctor (Suval) with a new drug and ambitions of her own vis-à-vis the hapless head case. Russell Blackwood directs The Drug, which adapts a Grand Guignol classic to the hoity-toity milieu of the Van Nesses and seedy Chinatown opium dens, where a rough-playing attorney (an ever persuasive Eric Tyson Wertz) determines to turn a gruesome case involving the duplicitous Mrs. Van Ness (an equally sure, sultry Kära Emry) to his own advantage. The evening also offers a blackout spook show and some smoothly atmospheric musical numbers, including Muller’s rousing “Fear Over Frisco” (music composed by Scrumbly Koldewyn; accompaniment by Steve Bolinger and Birdie-Bob Watt) and an aptly low-down Irving Berlin number — both winningly performed by the entire company. (Avila)

Sticky Time Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.vanguardianproductions.com. $15-40. Wed-Sat and Nov 14, 8pm. Through Nov 18. Crowded Fire and Vanguardian Productions present playwright-director Marilee Talkington’s multimedia science fiction about a woman running out of time in the worst way. The prolix and histrionic story is the real sticking point, however, in this otherwise imaginatively staged piece, which places its audience on swivel chairs in the center of Brava’s upstairs studio theater, transformed by designer Andrew Lu’s raised stage and white video screens running the length of the walls into an enveloping aural (moody minimalistic score by Chao-Jan Chang) and visual landscape. Thea (Rami Margron) heads a three-person crew of celestial plumbers managing a sea of time “threads,” an undulating web of crisscrossing lines (in the impressive video animation by Rebecca Longworth). The structure is plagued by a mysterious wave of “time quakes” that Tim (Lawrence Radecker) thinks he may have figured out. Coworker Emit (Michele Leavy), meanwhile, goofing around like a hyperactive child, spots some sort of beast at work in the ether. When Thea gets stuck by a loose thread, she becomes something of a time junky, desperate to relive the color-suffused world of love and family lost somewhere in space-time as reality starts to unravel (with a dramatic assist from cinematographer Lloyd Vance) and the crew seeks help from a wise figure in a tattered gown (Mollena Williams). A little like a frenetic, stagy version of Andrey Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), the story gets credit for dramatizing some confounding facts about time and space at the particle level but might have benefited from less dialogue and more mystery —just as the audio-visual experience works best when the house lights are low. (Avila)

Totem Grand Chapiteau, AT&T Park, Parking Lot A, 74 Mission Rock, SF; cirquedusoleil.com/totem. $58-248.50. Tues-Sun, schedule varies. Extended through Dec 18. Cirque Du Soleil returns with its latest big-top production.

BAY AREA

Annie Berkeley Playhouse, Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College, Berk; (510) 845-8542, www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-35. Thurs-Sat, 7pm; Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Dec 4. Berkeley Playhouse performs the classic musical.

Doubt: A Parable Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Nov 13, 2pm. Through Nov 19. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer-winning drama.

How to Write a New Book for the Bible Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no show Nov 18); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 7pm). Through Nov 20. An aspiring writer who later becomes a priest, Bill (Tyler Pierce) is the caregiver for his aging mother (Linda Gehringer) during her long bout with cancer. His father (Leo Marks), though already dead, still inhabits his mother’s flickering concept of reality, made all the more dreamlike by her necessary dependence on pain medication. His brother (Aaron Blakely), meanwhile, has returned from Vietnam with survivor guilt but lands a meaningful career as a schoolteacher in the South. The latest from playwright Bill Cain (Equivocation, 9 Circles) is a humor-filled but sentimental and long-winded autobiographical reflection on family from the vantage of his mother’s long illness. It gets a strong production from Berkeley Rep, with a slick cast under agile direction by Kent Nicholson, but it plays as if narrator Bill mistakenly believes he’s stepped out of an Arthur Miller play, when in fact there’s little here of dramatic interest and far too much jerking of tears. (Avila)

Rambo: The Missing Years Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs-Fri, 7pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Dec 10. Howard “Hanoi Howie” Petrick presents his solo show about being an anti-war demonstrator — while also serving in the Army.

*Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Wed-Sun, showtimes vary. Extended through Nov 12. The life of stage and screen legend Rita Moreno is a subject that has no trouble filling two swift and varied acts, especially as related in anecdote, song, comedy, and dance by the serene multiple–award-winning performer and Berkeley resident herself. Indeed, that so much material gets covered so succinctly but rarely abruptly is a real achievement of this attractively adorned autobiographical solo show crafted with playwright and Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone. (Avila)

Sam’s Enchanted Evening TheaterStage at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Nov 26. The Residents wrote the script and did the musical arrangements for this musical, featuring singer Randy Rose and pianist Joshua Raoul Brody.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through Nov 20. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

Potrero Hill History Night: a special occasion for a special neighborhood

Gen Fujioka
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Potrero Hill History Night: a special occasion for a special neighborhood

Scroll down for Potrero Hill History Night photos

And so Country Joe McDonald ambled on to the stage Saturday night at the International Studies Academy on Potrero Hill and told an full auditorium full of history night groupies  that since he was playing in a school he would open with a spelling lesson.

“Give me an F,” he roared,  and the audience roared back with an F.

“Give me a U, give me a C, give me a K,” and the audience roared back again and again  with knowledge of the lyrics of the anti-war song “I Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die” that Country Joe made famous during the Vietnam war and has been singing as his trademark song ever since.

He would pause and the audience would continue on with the words. Country Joe was in top form, the audience loved him, and it was a stunning beginning to the 12th annual Potrero Hill History Night.  And the fact that Occupy SF and Occupy Oakland were fixing to explode sooner or later in nearby neighborhoods  only gave some timely poignancy to the occasion.

But Country Joe wasn’t at History NIght to perform as a singer or political activist. He explained that he was there as a turnaround artist to interview Joel Selvin, the veteran San Francisco Chronicle pop culture reviewer and author of “Smart Ass,” a collection of 40 years of Selvin’s music journalism. Significantly, Selvin also happens to be a longtime Potrero Hill resident. The latter phrase is the key, because the point of History Night is to focus on the rich history and colorful personalities of Potrero Hill and put them together into a lively program. In this segment, Joe the performer interviewed Joel the reviewer/reporter who had been writing about Joe for years.

The two made a splendid team and it turned out that Joel was as good onstage in this format as Country Joe. It was good fun, instructive at times, particularly with the stories about Bill Graham’s antics and angry outbursts and how each dealt with him. The audience had fun trying to figure out through questions just how rock n’ roll and Country Joe from Berkeley connected to the hill. Well, one answer was that Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone magazine, claimed three different addresses on Rhode Island Street.

The program this year was the best ever. A barbecue outside the building serviced by a platoon of History Night  groupies on a warm and wondrous Potrero Hill evening. And a program featuring a formal presentation of a chunk of goat hoofprints embedded in concrete, an interview with the woman who tended the goats decades ago, a surprise appearance by the lady who found and preserved the hoofprints for years, and a starring role by Phillip DeAndrade of Goat Hill Pizza who was given the goat hill hoofprints as a surprise gift because he once had goats in the back of his Goat Hill pizza parlor and because, well, he’s Phil DeAndrade.

DeAndrade is a Potrero Hill version of the Scarlett Pimpernel (he’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere). For this evening, he was doing triple duty as the worthy receiver of goat hoofprints in concrete, as master of ceremonies, and as the Hot Interviewer of the Colorful Potrero Hill Veteran, the key finale of every history night event.

DeAndrade was specially eloquent in explaining the importance of history night. It is, he said, a special event (nobody else in town has one) that showcases Potrero Hill.as a special place and its people as special people who live in a special neighborhood with a special culture and a special history and such institutions as the Neighborhood House built in the 1920s  with Julia Morgan as the architect.

The goat hoofprints in cement  made his special point. The artifact dates from 1925 or so and was found and preserved by Rose Marie Ostler, a Potrero Hill native. She kept the hoofprints for years and then decided they should go to DeAndrade of Goat Hill for his historic connection with goats.  She presented them at the ceremony, with help from Dr. Frank Gilson, a local chiropractor wearing a Halloween type goat hill mask.

This year’s Potrero Hill veteran was Josephine Firpo Alioto, who was born on Potrero Hill 90 years ago, and now lives in San Jose.  She married Frank Alioto, son of Police Capt Calogero and Vincenza Alioto.  The Alioto family moved to 755 Carolina St. around 1930, just around the corner from Josephine’s house. There were no houses on the cornerin those days,  so they had a clear view of one another’s houses. Josephine and Frank were friends for 80 years and married for 65 and a half years.  They were married at nearby St. Theresa’s Church.  With expert coaching from DeAndrade, she was most articulate and provided the details of life and times of growing up on the hill in the 1920s and 1930s.

Perhaps the most “newsworthy” comment came when she took the audience by surprise when she mentioned that her cousin, Luis  Firpo, known as the Raging Bull of the Pampas in Argentina, knocked Jack Dempsey out of the ring in a  championship fight. (My google check showed she was right. Firpo did knock Dempsey out of the ring in the  famous 1923 heavyweight championship fight at the Polo Grounds in New York City and Dempsey’s head hit a reporter’s typewriter. But Dempsey got back in the ring on a contested long count and won the fight in the third round in what many think is the greatest fight of all time. It was Dempsey’s last successful defense of his title. The fight is on UTube and googleable under Firpo.)

As is the history night custom, there were lots of Firpos and Aliotos in the audience to help fill in Josephine Alioto’s story and answer questions from the audience and provide the evidence of a very special neighborhood.

All in all, it was a most memorable event and all to the credit of Peter Linenthal, the founder and impresario of Potrero Hill History Night. His event even got a nice writeup in Leah Garchik’s Chronicle column. UCSF at Mission Bay was the sponsor of the event and the Parkside, Chat’s Coffee, and Bottom of the Hill donated to the barbecue.  Linenthal  is also the curator of the Potrero Hill Archives project, assisted by Abigail Johnston. The two co-authored an excellent book on Potrero Hill.  For more on the archives project, go to potreroarchives.com.  You may find out more about Potrero Hill than you need to know.

I think Linenthal has done what every impresario dreams of doing:  making his event so special and so memorable that it will live on and on.  B3

history night 2

Rose Marie Ostler formally  presents the goat hoofprints in cement to Goat Hill Phi.

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The audience of History Night groupies.

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Selvin expands, Country Joe listen.

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Josephine and Phil,  a dynamic duo, 

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Josephine and Phil, getting ready for prime time.

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The Apollo  jazz group in concert at History Night.

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A student from the International Studies Academy selling tickets for the barbecue.  The money goes to the ISA student travel program.


 

 

LGBT leaders denounce attack on Herrera by the Chronicle

Sasha Cuttler
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LGBT leaders denounce attack on Herrera by the Chronicle

Leaders of the LGBT community from across the political spectrum yesterday denounced the San Francisco Chronicle and the anonymous sources it relied on to question City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s early support for legalizing same-sex marriage, calling the paper’s front page article a thinly veiled political hit piece designed to hurt Herrera’s mayoral campaign.

That strong showing of support in the LGBT community and the view offered by many that the attack came from supporters of Mayor Ed Lee – including top former Newsom Administration officials, some of whom now work for Lee – could not only mitigate damage from the article but further sully a Lee election effort that is already marred by allegations of vote tampering, money laundering, and deceptive campaign tactics.

“Those who are saying this now anonymously are as cowardly as Dennis and Gavin were courageous back then,” said Deputy City Attorney Theresa Stewart, the lead attorney who defended San Francisco’s decision in 2004 to unilaterally issue marriage licenses to same-sax couples, in defiance of state and federal law, which eventually led to the legalizing of such unions. “We can’t have our community turn on us for petty political gain.”

“WTF, Chronicle?” was how Assemblymember Tom Ammiano began his speech, going on to lay blame for the attack on surrogates for Lee. Ammiano also called out the mayor for campaign finance violations by his supporters, for undermining the Healthy San Francisco program that was created by Ammiano’s legislation, and for repeatedly ordering police raids on the OccupySF encampment.

“How about some fucking leadership?!” Ammiano said.

Cleve Jones, an early gay rights leader who marched with Harvey Milk, also denounced Lee and his supporters for cronyism, vote tampering, money laundering, and the “fake grassroots” efforts of the various well-funded independent expenditure campaigns, which he said have fooled the Chronicle.

“To the Chronicle and that reporters – really? – this is what you do two weeks before the election? You should be ashamed of yourself,” Jones said. “How stupid do you think we are?”

Yet Chronicle City Editor Audrey Cooper defended the article and disputed the political motivations of its sources. “Clearly, I disagree [with the criticisms],” she told the Guardian. “I personally vetted every one of the sources and I’m confident everything we printed is true.”

Beyond criticizing the obvious political motivations behind the attack, speakers at the rally called the article bad journalism and said it was simply untrue to suggest that Herrera didn’t strongly support the effort to legalize same-sex marriage from the beginning.

“I can tell you that Dennis never once shrank from this fight. I was there, I know,” Stewart said, calling Herrera “a straight ally who’s devoted his heart and soul to this community.”

Sen. Mark Leno, who introduced the first bill legalizing same-sex marriage to clear the Legislature, emphasized that he isn’t endorsing any candidates for mayor and that he didn’t want to comment on the details of the article’s allegations. But he noted that even within the LGBT community, there were differences of opinion over the right timing and tactics for pushing the issue, and that Herrera has been a leader of the fight for marriage equality since the beginning.

“I am here to speak in defense of the character and integrity of our city attorney, Dennis Herrera,” Leno said, later adding, “I do not appreciate when the battle for our civil rights is used as a political football in the waning days of an election.”

Ammiano also noted that even if Herrera raised doubts in early meetings, that was entirely appropriate given his role as city attorney. “Even if there are some questions, they’re about helping, not hurting,” he said, expressing disgust at the Newsom Administration officials for turning on someone who was instrumental to defending the decision: “In my day, you valued your friendships.”

Molly McKay, one of the original plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit that followed San Francisco’s actions, teared up as she described the ups and downs that the case took, working closely with Herrera throughout. “But this is one of the strangest twists I can imagine,” she said of the attack by the Chronicle and its anonymous sources. “It’s ridiculous and despicable.”

Representatives for both the progressive Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club and fiscally conservative Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club also took to the microphone together, both saying they often disagree on issues, but they were each denouncing the attack and have both endorsed Herrera, largely because of his strong advocacy for the LGBT community.

Sup. Scott Wiener called Herrera, “One of the greatest straight allies we’ve every had as a community.”

When Herrera finally took the microphone, he thanked mayoral opponents Joanne Rees and Jeff Adachi for showing up at the event to help denounce the attack and said, “This is bigger than the mayor’s race. It’s bigger than me.”

He criticized those who would trivialize this issue for petty political gain and said, “It was my pleasure and honor to have been a part of this battle from the beginning – from the beginning – and I’ll be there in the end.”

Spellbound

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Spellbound

Harry Houdini: the name conjures up a multitude of images and ideas about what a magician and escape artist should be. The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco is currently celebrating that rich and long-lasting legacy with Houdini: Art and Magic, a new exhibit featuring a collection of vintage photographs, event posters, archival film, original props, art installations, and more, focusing on the world’s most famous magician — who died in 1926, on Halloween.

“The genesis for the show was just really seeing how Houdini’s relevance still remains today in popular culture, and how despite being born in 1874, he still is so visible in the culture, visible in contemporary art. His celebrity has really transcended three centuries,” says CJM curator Dara Solomon.

The exhibition was originally put together by the Jewish Museum in New York, with the CJM also getting involved early on in the process, as local organizers felt that there would be a strong interest in Houdini from the Bay Area — after all, the legendary icon had performed in San Francisco several times; he appeared at the Orpheum Theater, broke out of locked box lowered into the bay at Aquatic Park, and hung off the side of the Hearst Building to perform his famous straitjacket escape stunt.

Tracing Houdini’s life from his birth as Erich Weiss in Budapest in 1874 and following his family’s immigration to the United States, his upbringing as the son of a rabbi, and the eventual evolution of his performing talents and ascension to the world stage, the exhibit tells Houdini’s story through displays of rarely-seen personal photographs, handwritten journals, and what may be the biggest draws for fans — a trunk, milk can, straitjacket, and handcuffs that actually belonged to the magician and were used in his shows.

What visitors to the exhibit won’t see are any explanations or descriptions revealing Houdini’s secrets — something that organizers wanted to avoid.

“It would be seen as the ultimate sort of betrayal if the exhibition set out to reveal Houdini’s tricks,” says Solomon. “He worked so hard at making his body this sort of instrument to do these performances, he was in such amazing physical shape — that was what really allowed him to do these amazing feats of strength.”

Another aspect to the exhibit is the exploration of the impact of Houdini and his mystique on contemporary artists — paintings and other installations from artists such as Deborah Oropallo and Raymond Pettibon add to the survey of his legacy.

“So many artists in the past 20 or 25 years have really been taken by Houdini as inspiration and as a model for how an artist works; they find this real connection with the art of the magician and the art that they make, that they are both illusionists,” says Solomon.

For 10 years after his death, Houdini’s widow Bess conducted séances on Halloween attempting to contact and communicate with him from beyond the grave — with his ever-growing popularity, and a new fan base with each new generation, somebody, somewhere in the world will undoubtedly be trying to do the same on Monday night.

“I think that there has been nobody else like him — he was such a master of communications and a marketing genius that he ensured that he left this incredible legacy,” says Solomon. “When people think of the world of magic, he is still the one and only.”

 

HOUDINI: ART AND MAGIC

Through Jan. 16, 2012

Thurs., 1-8 p.m.; Fri.-Tues., 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

$5–<\d>$12 (18 and under free)

Contemporary Jewish Museum

736 Mission, SF

(415) 655-7800

www.thecjm.org

Bronc busting: Allegations of cruelty to animals at this year’s Grand National Rodeo

Andrew Lam
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When the Grand National Rodeo was in town Oct. 14-15 and 21-22, we wrote about the presence of animal rights advocates lofting signs in the parking lot of Cow Palace outside the vernerable event. But it turns out the activists got to catch the show too — the Guardian has been sent videos from a local animal advocate that suggest that animals were in fact being mistreated at the event. The video shows a man prodding a bronco that’s waiting to be ridden with a long, angular object. Broncs are also shown having their tail twisted and at one point, being touched with a black object by a cowboy that Andrew Zollman of animal rights group LGBT Compassion says the video is “clearly showing two instances of electric shocks administered to animals” — and that’s illegal.

But when contacted for comment Lindsay Branquinho, press liasion for the Grand National stuck by what she had told this reporter on the sidelines of the very event in the video.

“For these animals their quality of life far exceeds that of most. They are fed the highest quality feeds, given frequent regular medical attention (i.e., check-ups, vaccinations, etc). The amount of time, money, and love that is wrapped up in these animals is huge and the people that own them do all that they can to protect them. These animals are their livelihood, and they would not jeopardize that.” She denied that the black object seen in the video was an electric prod, and said she’d get back to us about what it really was.

But Zollman wasn’t surprised by the contents of the video at all. He says that abuse from the kinds of offenses he sees in it — in addition to “painful caustic ointments” and stabbing, all which he says are violations of California’s penal code section 597(b) which bars tormenting, needless suffering, and unnecessary cruelty towards animals with the exception of slaughter for food — is endemic to all rodeos. He leads a campaign against the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association as well. A history of the Grand National Rodeo’s past offenses can be found here. 

The official response from the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association was as follows (yawn): 

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) is committed to the proper care and handling of all animals that participate in our sanctioned rodeos.  There are 60 rules governing the treatment of the livestock are enforced by on-site rodeo officials.  A veterinarian is in attendance at all rodeo competition.  In addition to the PRCA rules, we are aware that the Grand National has additional standards for livestock care. 

The PRCA and the management of the Grand National were contacted regarding videotapes taken by those who wish to ban many uses of animals, including rodeo.  The videotapes have been reviewed by officials at the Grand National, the PRCA  as well as experts on the care of livestock and upon initial review the overall opinion is that the livestock were properly handled in accordance with standard livestock practices and PRCA rules.  There were, however,  a few instances where the care and handling of the livestock was not up to Grand National standards.  In one case, a livestock handler’s actions did not meet Grand Nationals standards for livestock care and was dismissed from working the remainder of the show.  

 The PRCA will continue to work with local officials, rodeo judges, on-site rodeo veterinarians, rodeo livestock owners and our members to insure that the livestock at PRCA sanctioned events is afforded proper care and handling. 

Calls for comment from the SFPD Mounted Unit (who ride at the Grand National and were also forwarded Zollman’s emails) and the Peninsula Humane Society, the organization who handles animal cruelty law enforcement for San Mateo County Animal Control, have so far gone unanswered. We’ll update when they get back to us. 

But is tail twisting inexcusable abuse? Akin to a horseback rider’s spurs? This reporter attended the rodeo and was standing quite close to the bronco pit as the above video was being taken — the tail twisting seemed a little harmful, but it’s hard to say with animals this large how much permanent damage that could cause to a 1,700 pound bull. Of course, some would say that any abuse to animals, regardless of severity, counts as cruelty. And the cattle roping — in which calves are lassoed around the neck as they run at top speed through the ring and thrown to the ground — definitely gave me pause. How much discomfort should animals have to endure to lead cushy lives (as doubtless the broncs’ are, bred as they are for generations to be in top form for the events). 

Thoughts from the cowpokes?

 

Mayor Lee still moving toward showdown with OccupySF

Sasha Cuttler
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22
Mayor Lee still moving toward showdown with OccupySF

Mayor Ed Lee continues to insist that OccupySF break down its encampment in Justin Herman Plaza and threaten to send in riot police if that doesn’t happen, even as this week’s violent police raid on Occupy Oakland has sparked international outrage, condemnation, and solidarity with other occupations.

Reporters packed into the Mayor’s Office for a photo op with a good samaritan who recently helped rescue an injured truck driver, clearly waiting for the chance to interview Lee and Police Chief Greg Suhr about last night’s aborted police raid on the OccupySF encampment, asking repeated questions seeking to clarify Lee’s confusing political doublespeak before his communication staff shuffled him out of he room after about 10 minutes.

“I, like all of you, were watching in somewhat of very big deep concern as I saw things unveiled in Oakland, certainly in constant communication with not only our chief of police, Chief Suhr, but also all of our departments to say that’s not what we want to happen in San Francisco,” Lee began. “We’re trying to enforce all the laws here, and of course it’s public health stuff that we’re emphasizing. We need to make sure our public spaces are clean and healthy, and to protect their First Amendment rights. But we didn’t want to get into a situation where we’re just busting heads because then it’s all lost.”

Yet neither Lee nor Suhr could articulate why they think Oakland’s raid turned so violent or how to guard against a similar fate here in San Francisco, particularly because they reiterated their position that the encampment must go and held open the possibility that another police raid – there have been two so far, the second more violent than the first, and the camp has only grown in size since then – could come at any moment.

They also offered shifting explanations for last night’s massing of SFPD troops in riot gear in buses on Treasure Island, which protesters believe was turned back only because of the huge presence in the camp, which included five members of the Board of Supervisors and various labor leaders, a group that Lee says he would be meeting with shortly after the event (“We’re seeing if they’d like to propose some additional solutions,” Lee said).

When asked about plans for yesterday’s raid, Suhr initially said it was simply a normal Wednesday evening training exercise. “There were that many police amassed last Wednesday, there will be that many police amassed next Wednesday. Wednesday is a standard training day for the Police Department,” Suhr said.

But when reporters expressed skepticism – many aware of the busloads of police in riot gear massing on Treasure Island, the last minute changes in police staffing schedules, and the notices of possible police activity sent to businesses around Justin Herman Plaza – Suhr said police were preparing to either assist in Oakland or deal with trouble from OccupySF.

“Out of deference for what was going on in Oakland, we felt that the more pressing need was whether we needed to assist Oakland and/or whether that situation was going to come to us,” Suhr said. “I didn’t say it was a training exercise, we took advantage of the presence on what was training day and to train to what we may have to do down the line.”

Lee also raised the concern that violent agitators might come to San Francisco: “They had to get ready for what they saw in downtown Oakland. They had to get ready for hundreds of people coming to San Francisco, either walking over the bridge or coming through the BART system. So they were trying to get ready for that particular activity because we didn’t know what was going to happen. We saw a lot of anger and a lot of frustration by people who wanted to come over to San Francisco and we didn’t know what their intention was.”

But reporters noted that Lee ordered OccupySF to take down its encampment two weeks ago, that he told reporters this week that they must do so “within days,” and that Suhr circulated a memo in the camp yesterday entitled “You are Subject to Arrest” if they didn’t heed city codes regarding overnight camping. Given all that, we again asked if there was any intention to go into the camp last night?

“That was not our intention, but I’ve always asked the chief to be ready. I’ve been insistent that we have to be ready to enforce our laws so he’s been under that instruction for quite some time. But the tactical decisions are the chief’s responsibilities,” Lee said.

Yet later in the press conference, after Lee had left the room, Suhr made it clear that the decision about if and when to stage another raid on OccupySF is the mayor’s. “Make no mistake about it, Mayor Lee is in charge of this situation,” Suhr said.

In fact, when we asked Suhr about this constant threat of a violent police raid in the middle of the night hanging over the protesters – which is a wearying distraction from the main economic justice purpose at best, and at worst what some protesters told us was akin to psychological warfare – Suhr said that even he didn’t know when a raid might come.

“There’s nobody more anxious that I am because I don’t know when the raid is coming either, so I can attest to the fact that it makes me anxious. We are working painstakingly and patiently to make sure that area is safe and sanitary,” Suhr said.

But while Lee insists that dialogue and compromise could still avert another crackdown, he refuses to accept that occupation is a tactic that protesters aren’t likely to abandon anytime soon. So Lee’s insistence that the camp be broken down seems to be putting the city and OccupySF on a collision course that most members of the Board of Supervisors – including those sponsoring resolution urging the city to allow overnight camping – fear could be a disastrous stain on the city.

“Our message to OccupySF is we’re still wanting you to comply,” Lee said. “That’s been the consistent message we’ve been sending clearly these last couple weeks…We’re trying to ensure that [the ban on] overnight camping is still enforced, but also respecting their rights to protest.”

I and other reporters tried to push Lee on the potentially harmful standoff he was creating, and he tried to make it sound as if the OccupySF movement could avoid another police crackdown, something he said depends on protesters submitting to his demands.

“It’s optimistic on our part that we would get some sensible minds who want to help us find a way to clean up the area, because that ultimately what we want to do,” he said.

But for all his statements of support for the Occupy Wall Street movement and stated desire to avoid the violent confrontation in Oakland, he refuses to allow tents on the site.

“There’s a fine line between occupying public space within your First Amendment rights and sleeping overnight and causing health conditions that we’ve been very concerned about. So we’re going to take it step by step,” Lee said. When asked about whether tents would still be allowed if the camp was clean and otherwise compliant, he said, “We’re still saying no tents.”

So then when and how will you be enforcing that, reporters kept asking.

“Let’s see what can voluntarily be done through the dialogue that trying to establish. We’ve given them a lot of notices. I want to be sure that if we have to do things to enforce our laws, that we’re quite justified and that everybody knows,” Lee said.

Yet that was the same stance that Oakland Mayor Jean Quan took, and it’s one that she is reportedly backtracking on in the wake of the violence and international condemnation. And Lee couldn’t explain how a crackdown might go differently in San Francisco, particularly none that OccupySF has grown larger and more empowered by defying Lee’s edict for so long.

“Everyone agrees that we don’t want to Oakland situation to happen here,” Lee said, at which point Press Secretary Christine Falvey said he would take only two more questions.

“We’re putting a responsible burden on the occupiers to work with us so we can avoid situations like Oakland,” Lee said. “They have to take responsibilities for what they’ve done.”

“Frankly, it sounds like you’ve said nothing, and I think some other reporters are feeling the same way,” KCBS reporter Barbara Taylor, the senior journalist stationed at City Hall, said with a tone of exasperation. “So can you just outline, when you say to do the right thing, what is the right thing? Do you expect them to voluntarily take down the tents, clean up the camp, only be there within certain hours?”

“Yes. The right thing for them to begin showing responsibility,” Lee responded.

“But what does that mean?” Taylor persisted.

Lee said they need to clean up the camp, saying that “cleanliness has been our number one concern….They have to show signs that they’re willing to work with us.” But the protesters have been diligent about regularly cleaning the camp, and they have complied with other city requests such as no open flames. And when the city refused to make porta-potties available at night, supporters of the camp rented four of their own after the city and its daily newspapers complained about public urination and defecation.

“I’ve said all along that public safety is our number one concern,” Lee said.

Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White reinforced Lee’s point, complaining about open flames, car batteries, and generally “unhealthy and unsafe conditions.” When we noted that the protesters have already addressed and abated many of these issues in recent days, she admitted that she hasn’t been to the site recently, but said, “The tarps and the tents are not something we’re going to tolerate.”

Suhr made it clear that police action would be done in support of other city departments who ordered hazards to be abated. As for when and how officers would do so: “If we believe we could go into the camp safely, if we think we can go in and support the agencies that will be doing the cleanup, without having to go past a measured response, we would do that,” Suhr said. “That opportunity did not present itself last night.”

And so the standoff continues.

Hot sexy events: October 27-November 1

Andrew Lam
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0

Friday evening of the Folsom Street Fair saw a throng gathered in a second-story SoMa apartment for an art opening. The space was owned by a one Mark I. Chester, a man who counts as one of the city’s many hubs of sex culture. Chester tends towards the art side of rough sex — regularily hosting drawing sessions where men pose in various states of disarray — a harness here, a dog mask there, and not much else. But tonight, the crowd was more diverse. It was there to witness the opening of “Fear No Art,” the sex and power exhibition that you watch close its doors on Sun/30 this week.

Black-and-white photographs hung densely on Chester’s walls, but the opening party was 3D. On”stage” (the front of the living room), a man in a gold lamé thong performed comedic showtunes describing his life as a D-List porn star. Soliciting audience interaction, he neatly displayed his aptitude for deep-throating. Lucky banana. 

Any lingering effects of his levity was appreciated for the next act (at least, your hemophobic reporter appreciated them). Next up was Leland of the San Francisco girls of Leather, who announced to the crowd that she’d be etching the exhibition’s name onto the back of the helper she’d brought to the front of the cramped room with her. 

“Don’t be afraid to move in closer, it’s actually really quite beautiful,” she counseled the audience. A handful of art lovers obliged, pushing in for a closer look at her razor-thin lines that blossomed into strips of blood before their eyes as the woman who the back belonged to squirmed in agony — particularly when Leland went back over the lines for a more pronounced look. 

“Fear No Art” advises you in a similar manner — not to be afraid to look at sex in all its forms, and to consider what every kind of eroticism says about us as humans. It closes Sun/30, an excellent chance to take in 2D representations of human beauty, lust, and love. 

 

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman edition

So lit-sexy it’s scary, this regular reading event — hosted by the area’s hottest female sex activists in their alltogether — welcomes to its featured artist slot Rain DeGrey, professional bondage rigger, Kink.com star, and sex educator. She and the regular crew of NGR will be reading from the works of Neil Gaiman, a novelist whose children’s book featured a young orphan being raised by a graveyard, if that gives you any idication of the creepiness of his canon of work. C. Theodore Walker will perform a “half play, half ritual” based on the works of Aleister Crowley.

Thu/27 8-10:30 p.m., $15

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

 

Steam’s one-year anniversary party

Powerhouse kicks off Halloween weekend with the 12-monther of its bathhouse revival shindig, Steam. It’ll be garaunteeing that the ghouls drop their sheets with a wet towel contest (winner gets $100, which will buy a zombie Amy Winehouse-sized load of vodka-Red-Bulls. Go-gos, power showers, hot boys — oh, boo. 

Fri/28 10 p.m.- 2 a.m., $5

Powerhouse

1347 Folsom, SF

www.powerhouse-sf.com

 

XXX Haunted Fun House

Halloween at Mission Control is like Christmas Day in Santa’s Workshop — all the work from around the year pretty much leads up to this one big spectacular. Do these swingers have mad flair game? Obviously. Pack more than a sheet with holes in it when you go to this two-night extravaganza featuring performances to fuck to from DJs Jocelyn and Cyril Noir, seances, zombie strippers, and virgin sacrifices (yeah right). 

Fri/28 10 p.m.-late, $25-$35 free membership required

Mission Control

www.missioncontrolsf.org

 

“Building Our Own White Picket Fences”

In a sex events column gone by we talked about Femina Potens’ plans for an art exhibit that re-envisioned what family and home meant in the alt sex-LGBT community. It’s opening on Fri/28, a multi-media presentation featuring artists Midori, Monica Canilao, Harrison Bartlett, Mev Luna, Amelia Reiff Hill, and Madison Young. Go to reflect on your own notion of what the future holds, and be inspired by the imaginings of others. 

Fri/28 7:30 p.m., free

Michele O’Connor gallery

2111 Mission, SF

www.feminapotens.org


“Fear No Art” closing party

“Things I Have Fucked Someone With: An Incomplete Collection” is photographic round-up of just those things by Patti Beadles. It looks like one of those kitchen posters that show you all the different kinds of chili peppers, and at this sex art exhibition she also displays a similarly-configured of things she has not fucked anyone with (shape seems to be the defining factor between the two). Pair this with Jim Duvall’s BDSM romance novel cover of a woman being used as a harp by a lover, Shilo McCabe’s pussy-baring fetish art, and others and you have yourself a panoramic view of human sexuality at local sex luminary Mark I. Chester’s SoMa apartment. 

Sun/30 2-5 p.m., donations suggested

1229 Folsom, SF

www.markichester.com

Big victory for OccupySF, Occupy Oakland reconvenes after crackdown (VIDEO)

Sasha Cuttler
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36

(UPDATED/CORRECTED AT 11:30 AM)The Occupy movements in San Francisco and Oakland reportedly scored big victories last night, with huge numbers of people overcoming police crackdowns and the shutdown of public transit stations, turning back city efforts to clear the OccupySF encampment and voting in the General Assembly in Oakland to call a general strike for Nov. 2.

We’ll have a full reports later today. Occupy Oakland protesters showed up outside a cordoned-off Frank Ogawa Plaza to figure out how to respond to the previous day’s aggressive police raid, which made national news and left Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen in the hospital with a fractured skull after apparently being hit by a tear gas canister or some other projectile fired by police.

In San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee and the SFPD threatened to shut down the OccupySF encampment over alleged public health problems – which the movement tried to address by bringing in their own porta-potties because the city refused to provide them at night – but the camp swelled with supporters. Among them were mayoral candidates John Avalos, Leland Yee, Jeff Adachi, and David Chiu, as well as Sups. Jane Kim, Eric Mar, and David Campos.

Video by Rebecca Bowe

They spoke to the crowd around 2 a.m., expressing their support and saying that neither police nor Lee had responded to requests for information about the city’s intentions. Other notables on the scene included writer Rebecca Solnit, SF Democratic Party Chair Aaron Peskin, Shawn San Liu of the Chinese Progressive Association, and local labor leaders Tim Paulson, Gabriel Haaland, and Mike Casey. Spirits were high, and protesters were ready to link arms and form a human blockade in the event that police showed up.

SF police reportedly massed nearby in the early morning hours, preparing to clear Justin Herman Plaza, and there were rumors that hundreds more were on the way. BART stations in the area were shut down to prevent more arrivals, while police in Oakland also reportedly stopped protesters there who tried to cross the bay to support OccupySF. But the raid was then reportedly called off because police were outnumbered and possibly to avoid a repeat of the violence and mass arrests that have plagued Oakland since the decision to clear the encampment there, and protesters sent out jubilant messages of victory.

Check back later for video and eyewitness details of what went down, from the the Guardian’s Rebecca Bowe (who contributed to this report) and Yael Chanoff, as well as information on what comes next. Or follow the Oakland live stream here or San Francisco live stream here.

Boo ya!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Boo ya!

culture@sfbg.com

Hell’s bells, our very own high unholy day approaches — and the fact that Halloween’s on a Monday this year means an entire weekend of insane. Oh, why not just make it a whole week. Surely you have a week’s worth of slutty Rick Perry toupee costumes in your closet? Tape ’em on crooked and check out some of the eee-vil events below, from fiendishly family friendly to naughtily “adult.”

WEDNESDAY 26

“Death in Parallel” fundraiser and preview Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF. (415)821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org. 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m., $50. Get your dead on a little early at this sneak preview of the epicenter of SF’s Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Dream Queens Revue: Halloween Spooktacular Show Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF. www.dreamqueensrevue.com. 9:45 p.m., free. The dreamy weekly drag show goes ghoulish with SF’s sole goth queen, Sophilya Leggz.

THURSDAY 27

“Ann Magnuson plays David Bowie and Jobriath, or, the Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org. 6 p.m.-9:45 p.m., free with museum admission. Fierce hero of the 1980s New York performance underground (and familiar face as sitcom television sidekick-boss-neighbor), Magnuson returns to her fabulous roots in this piece that include incorporate “dreams, Jung, human sacrifice, Aztec shamanism, and all things dark, bloody, and beautiful.” And it’s a costume party! In the SF MoMA! Creativity abounds.

“Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. www.counterpulse.org. 8 p.m., also Fri/28-Sun/30, $20. Gear up for a drag-studded slasher musical taking cues from “Heathers” and “The Facts of Life,” starring the perfectly horrific Raya Light. She’s a-scary!

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 8 p.m., $15. Costumes and masks are encouraged at this semi-participatory, all-but-traditional reading of Sandman creator Gaiman’s darker work.

TheaterPop SF: SuperNatural, Red Poppy Arthouse, 2698 Folsom, SF. www.redpoppyarthouse.org. 7 p.m., $10. Local performers skip the tacky underchin flashlights and dry ice for carefully composed, intricate explorations of the macabre.

“Unmasked! The 2011 GLBT Historical Society Gala” Green Room, San Francisco War Memorial, 401 Van Ness, SF. www.unmaskedgala.org. 6 p.m.-9 p..m., $60/$100. A star-studded affair featuring fabulous (of course) entertainment, yummy food, and some of the most revered names in the queer community, including Phyllis Lyon, Jose Sarria, and Armistead Maupin.

Zombie Nightlife with Peaches Christ California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $12. The undead are by no means unfashionable — get a zombie makeover, dance with similarly festering folks, sample the latest zombie video games, and listen to a presentation by the Zombie Research Society at the ever-popular, always good-looking weekly Nightlife event at the Cal Academy of Sciences. With Peaches Christ as hostess, it’s a zombie no-brainer.

FRIDAY 28

The Big Nasty: 10th Anniversary Party with Too $hort Mezzanine, 444 Jesse, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com. 8 p.m., $30. A $1000 best costume prize is sure to put the kibosh on those perennially popular nurse get-ups. As if legendary Bay legend Boo $hort, er, Too $hort weren’t enough of an incentive to ditch tired costumes and go as your favorite classic rapper.

Haunted Hoedown, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com, 9 p.m., $10. Rin Tin Tiger and Please Do Not Fight headline the second annual hoedown at this live rock showcase; expect a barn-burner.

Jason Webley’s Halloween Spectacular Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. 9 p.m., $14. After once faking his own death at a Halloween show and then disappearing for six months, accordionist Webley’s full-band show this year promises excitement, to say the least.

Night of the Living Shred Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com. 9 p.m.-4a.m., $10. This hip-hop and electro throwdown is one where we’ll let the WTF press release speak for itself: “four rooms, five bands, five of the Bay’s best DJs including The Whooligan and Richie Panic, a Paradise Wheels half-pipe and best skate trick contest” — all catered by Mission Chinese Food and Bar Crudo and hosted by two of our favorite people ever, Kelly Kate Warren and Parker Day.

“Rhythm of the 90s” Ultimate Halloween Party Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.fivestarunited.com. 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $45. Break out the Clueless costume and the ketchup bottle; Café Cocomo’s massive dance floor has plenty of room to turn back the clock. Macarena, anyone?

Salem 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com, 10 p.m., free. The biggest and scariest name in the witch house dance music movement swoops in from Michigan for a free show, with Tearist, Pfang, Gummybear, Dials and Whitch providing gallows support.

Scaregrove, Stern Grove, 2750 19th Ave., SF. www.sfrecpark.org. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., $8. ‘Tis the season for bouncy castles — bring the kids out for hayrides, carnival activities, a haunted house, and (fingers crossed) funnel cake at the park.

Speakeasy’s Monsters of Rock Halloween Festival Speakeasy Ales and Lagers, 1195 Evans, SF. www.goodbeer.com. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., free. Parties centered upon the theme of good beer never really get old — especially when there are food trucks, live music, and heady costumes.

Sugar Skull Decorating Workshop Autumn Express, 2071 Mission, SF. www.autumnexpress.com. 5 p.m.–6 p.m., $20. Sugar skulls are provided (so you can keep licking away at last year’s) at artist Michele Simon’s decorative exploration of the Dia de los Muertos tradition.

Third Annual Zombie Prom Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF. www.zombiepromsf.com. 9 p.m., $20. Costume contest, coffin photo booth, live music, and a scary thought: the dancers on the floor tonight may have been doing that move for hundreds of years. Hey, our prom was kind of like night of the living dead, too.

SATURDAY 29

BiBi SF: Queer Middle East Masquerade 4 Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.bibisf.org, 9 p.m., $10. The charitable and extremely sultry BiBi SF throws a great party that combines Arabic, Persian, Pan-African, and Latin sounds with hip-shaking belly dancers, lovely drag performances, and an unbelievably hot crowd. All are welcome to this fourth installment of marvelous masquerading.

Club 1994 Halloween Special Vessel, 85 Campton Pl., SF. www.vesselsf.com. 9 p.m.-3 a.m., $18.50 advance.  Sexy electro glamour throwdown for Halloween, anyone? The gorgeous crew behind Blow Up is resurrecting its super-popular, Nintendo-rrific tribute to the pop sounds of the early ’90s (oh yes boy bands and TERL classics!) for a Halloween dress ’em up. With Stretch Armstrong, Jeffrey Paradise, and Vin Sol. The awesome Ava Berlin hosts.  

Circus Center’s Haunted House Circus Center, 755 Frederick, SF. www.circuscenter.org. Tours from 6-7 p.m., show at 7:30. Putting your body in the hands of a practicing student is sometimes not the best idea (see: haircuts, dental exams), but the Circus Center’s students have thrown together an extensive haunted house sure to turn your stomach in only the best way.

Dark Room does Halloween Hot Spot, 1414 Market, SF. 10 p.m., $5. “It’s like Debbie Does Dallas for freaks!” Quoth the undead hosts of this cute monthly queer goth and industrial party at a the little-known but awesome Hot Spot club on Market. Throw on your sheet and twirl. 

Ghost Ship IV: The Afterlife Treasure Island. www.spacecowboys.org. 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $50 tickets (extremely limited) on site. A massive, Halloween-themed arm of Burning Man, Ghost Ship mashes together DJs, art cars, food trucks, a stroboscopic zoetrope, and thousands of people.

GO BOO! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com, 9 p.m.-late, $5. If you want to experience some really sexy underground disco energy with a fantastically diverse crowd, the monthly Go Bang! Party is one of your best bets — this Halloween edition brings in DJ Glenn Rivera and Mattski to join residents Sergio and Steve Fabus of the storied Trocadero Disco. Pop on a costume and hustle on down.

Halloween Freakout with Planet Booty Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.planetbooty.org. 9 p.m., $12. It’s hard to imagine a more extreme Planet Booty, but this would be the night for it: swap your standard neon unitard for a black velvet version.

Halloween Masquerade with Zach Deputy The Independent, 628 Divisidero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com. 8:30 p.m., $20. Deputy’s “gospel-ninja-soul” provides the soundtrack to an unorthodox masquerade, followed by a free (with ticketstub) Boom Boom Room afterparty.

Halloween 2011: A Red Carpet Runway Massacre Jones, 620 Jones, SF., www.juanitamore.com. 9 p.m., $35. “I prefer the glamour to the gore on Halloween,” quoth ever-poised (even while double-fisting shots) drag ruler Juanita More. Join her at recently opened rooftop bar Jones for dancing and fashionable fun with Djs Delachaux and Sparber, club Some Things hilarious Project Runtover amateur design contest, treats from farm:table and Gimme Shoes, and More, More, More.

“Hallowscreen” cartoon screening Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery, Presidio, SF. www.waltdisney.org 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m. Also Sun/30, Mon/31. $7 adults, $5 children. Catch “Hell’s Bells” and other early, strange Disney shorts that show Walt’s more uncanny side. If you haven’t been to the excellent museum yet, here’s a great occasion.

Horror Costume Party, SUB-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF. www.sf-submission.com. 9 p.m., $4 in costume. Get your gore on with Meat Hook and the Vital Organs; after an earsplitting set, zombiewalk down the street for a taco at Cancun.

Foreverland Halloween Ball Bimbos 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com. 9 p.m., $22. The Thriller dance is only the beginning at this costume-intensive, 14-piece tribute to M.J. himself.

Jack O’Lantern Jamboree Children’s Fairyland, Oakl. www.fairyland.org. 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., also Sun/30. $10. From juggling and puppets to rides and parades, Oakland’s Fairyland puts on a gentle All Hallow’s weekend.

Lights Down Low Halloween SOM Bar, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com. 9:30 p.m., $10 advance. One of the city’s finest, wildest parties brings in bass music star Pearson Sound a.k.a. Ramadanman with DJ Christian Martin, Manaré, Sleazemore, and Eli Glad.

Mansion Madness: Official Playboy Halloween 2011 Mist Ultra Club, 316 11th St., SF. 9 p.m., $40-$80 Find your haunted honey bunny among the bodacious playmate hostesses at this hoppin’ Slayboy event.

Monster Bash on the U.S.S. Hornet 707 W. Hornet, Pier 3, Alameda. www.uss-hornet.org. 7:30 p.m., $25. What better place to celebrate spooks than among the 300 ghosts haunting the crannies of Alameda’s ancient aircraft carrier?

Spooktacular Japantown Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treat Japantown Peace Plaza, Post at Buchanan, SF. www.sfjapantown.org. 12 p.m.–4 p.m., free. Uni-nigiri and candy corn: the perfect combination. Trick-or-treat in the light of day through the Japan Center Malls.

32nd Annual Spiral Dance, Kezar Pavilion, 755 Stanyan, SF. www.reclaimingspiraldance.org. 7:30 p.m., $10–$20 (sliding scale). The witches of San Francisco gather for a huge participatory dance honoring those who have passed.’

Trannyshack Presents: Halloween: A Party DNA Lounge, 375 11th, SF. www.dnalounge.com. 11 p.m., $25. Anything but the traditional drag, the 5th incarnation of Peaches Christ and Heklina’s annual costumed throwdown features a fantastically horrific secret (and “big!”) guest judge. Oh, and the usual genius-creative bevy of outré drag performers, including Fauxnique, Becky Motorlodge, Toxic Waist, and Exhibit Q.

Wild Side West Costume Contest and Party Wild Side West, 424 Cortland, SF. 8 p.m., free. Try not to get your t.p. body cast caught on a shrub in the Bernal hotspot’s beer garden.

Wicked Gay! Halloween Bash Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF. www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The happily hectic Mission dyke bar holds a costume party and contest with live beats.

SUNDAY 30

All Hallow’s Eve DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com. 9 p.m.-afterhours, $13, 18+. Great goth and industrial music parties Meat and Death Guild form an unholy alliance with the gorily titillating Hubba Hubba revue burlesque dancers for what’s sure to be a night to dismember. DJs Decay, devon, Joe Radio, Netik, and more tear you apart on the dance floor

Ceremony Halloween Tea, City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF. www.industrysf.com. 5 p.m.-midnight, $40. The name sounds genteel; the shirtless gay dancing to Freemasons and others will likely be raucous.

Fruitvale Dia de los Muertos Festival Fruitvale Village, Oakl. www.unitycouncil.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free. Oakland’s Day of the Dead festival, falling a bit before SF’s, features dancers, gloriously fragrant food, huge crowds, and, of course, compelling tributes to loved ones who have passed.

Halloween Family Dance Class, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. www.odcdance.org. 1 p.m-2 p.m., $5/person, $20/family. Britt Van Hees allows kids and folks who’ve already mastered the Sprinkler to add the Thriller dance to their repertoire.

The Holy Crow Holy Cow, 1535 Folsom, SF., www.honeysoundsystem.com. 8 p.m.-2 a.m., $5. Quaffingly queer electronic music collective Honey Soundsystem throw one of the best weekly parties in the city — the Halloween edition of Honey Sunday should be a total scream, queen. 

Midnight Monster Mayhem, Rockit Room, 406 Clement, SF. www.rock-it-room.com. 9 p.m., $10 before 11 p.m. The live hip-hop dance party (costumed, of course) may well be the perfect nightcap to pumpkin pork stew at nearby Burma Superstar.

PETNATION 5 Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 9 p.m., $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after. Dance to Fido’s memory — Public Works honors deceased pets with soul-shaking beats, a DDLM art exhibit and a commemorative altar (plus, proceeds go to OccupySF).

MONDAY 31

Classical at the Freight Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison, Berk. www.freightandsalvage.org. 6:30 p.m., $10.50 for adults, under 12 free. The Bellavente Wind Quintet breathes chilling strains to a kid’s costume parade and candy-filled celebration.

Halloween at El Rio El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $7. Two Ohioans under the stage name “Mr. Gnome” take over the inclusive, ever-popular dive for Halloween.

Teatro ZinZombie, Teatro ZinZanni, Pier 29, SF. www.love.zinzanni.org. 6 p.m.-11 p.m., tickets start at $117. Tonight might be the one to finally catch SF’s cabaret mainstay, which for a few precious hours transforms into a zombie-laden spectacle.

Viennetta Discotheque: Halloween! UndergroundSF, 424 Haight, SF. 10 p.m., free. One of SF’s cutest underground queer Monday weekly parties will claws you to reel in horror at the frightful fantasticity of its drag denizens. Your body hits the floor with DJ Stanley Frank, Alexis Blair Penny, and Jason Kendig on the decks.

 

Parking it

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

CHEAP EATS So they have that classic car show every year in Alameda. It’s a pretty big deal, and Park Street is closed to traffic. The classic cars park in the parking spots, and the people walk down the middle of the road and look at them, and into them, and under the hood.

My own personal interest in classic cars would best be described as D) Nonexistent. But Boink and his dad like to go. They have a whole tradition around it, which ends in pizza. They look at the cars, they eat the pizza. It’s a boy thing. I wouldn’t know.

Except that this particular Saturday I didn’t have any football or soccer or even necessarily baseball to play. And there was an apartment to look at on Park Street, in Alameda. (This was a couple weeks ago, back when Hedgehog and me were still relatively homeless.) So, OK, so, we went.

Hedgehog looked at the apartment without me. We had by this time begun to start to feel almost a little bit paranoid about the fact that no one seemed to want to sublet to us. Not in Berkeley, not in Oakland, not in San Francisco. The day before, we had looked at a shithole in the Tenderloin and, out of desperation, loved it!

But the guy decided to rent to someone else, for no real reason.

“Why?” I asked him on the phone. We had seen the place first. Our credit is perfect. We are clean, upstanding, even accomplished citizens.

“I don’t know,” he said, after a long pause. “No real reason.”

“Oh,” I said. “OK.” Because what else can you say?

This much we knew: it couldn’t possibly be because we are a gay couple, this being San Francisco. So, we decided, it must be me. To wit, that I am too witty. That I am intimidatingly charming, classy-looking, and well-spoked. Technically, I decided this. But Hedgehog agreed to go see the next place by herself. And that was in Alameda. On Park Street. During the car show.

While she was scoping the place out I wandered aimlessly, people watched, car watched, and just generally sat down on a manhole cover. I was hoping to see Boink and his dad, and/or Popeye the Sailor Girl and her mom. I hadn’t seen any of them all since early summer, so was quite unreasonably excited about the possibility of seeing them.

But mostly I saw legs.

Which made me hungry. Then Hedgehog came back and said the apartment was ours for the taking.

Well, hers. But: no tub, no natural light, no me (technically), and it smelled like dude.

“Let’s eat,” I said, standing up.

And then, as if by some sort of cartoon magic, there was Popeye the Sailor Girl, holding her mom’s hand, the both of them looking about as cute as some buttons. What’s more, they were hungry too!

Then Boink and Dad came by, and they were looking cute too, but not hungry, not like us’ns. They just wanted cars and pizza.

Popeye the Sailor Girl and her mom being both gluten free, their favorite restaurant is Burma Superstar. Hedgehog loves Burmese food.

Ergo: our decision was easy. It’s the same place as the one in the city, on Clement Street, only no lines! Not even at exactly lunch time on a beautiful special-event weekend.

I had me some mint chickeny thingy without mint and Hedgehog had duck garlic noodles without hardly any garlic. But to illustrate what a super restaurant Burma Superstar is, both dishes were still good.

And we had the chicken coconut noodle soup, which was especially tasty, of course. It’s kind of like the Thai classic Tom Ka Gai, only eggs instead of mushrooms, which is trading up in my book. Oh, and noodles — which I always thought Tom Ka Gai should have, anyway.

It was so nice to catch up with Popeye the Sailor Girl, and to play Steal Mommy’s Purse with her while her mom was in the restroom.

A delightful time.

A new favorite old favorite restaurant.

And I don’t know about the classic car show but, hey, I like Alameda.

BURMA SUPERSTAR

Lunch: Tue.-Sat. 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Sun. 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.; Dinner: Tue.-Thu., Sun. 5-9:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5-10 p.m.

1345 Park, Alameda

(510) 522-6200

AE/D/MC/V

Beer & Wine

Blowback

Andrew Lam
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0
Blowback

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE A throng of reporter types had gathered in the lobby of the State Building to listen to State Senator Mark Leno and State Assemblymember Tom Ammiano badmouth the feds.

“It is not the purview of the federal government to upset the will of the people,” said Ammiano, to the grunted affirmations of the patients, advocates, and cannabis business owners who had also assembled for the event.

Leno called the recent steps taken against the medicinal cannabis industry — which provides California each year with somewhere between $50 million and $100 million in taxes according to a 2010 estimate by the state’s Board of Equalization — “the exact wrong policy for a deep recession.” And then there’s the patients themselves. The two gay politicians commented that the issue of patient access is especially salient for the LGBT community, given that group’s increased incidence of HIV and AIDS.

Ammiano and Leno announced plans to push for federal regulatory guidelines that would clear up inconsistencies in the way medicinal cannabis works at the state level. As of press time for this article, Ammiano had scheduled another panel to discuss the matter on Tuesday, October 25 where he’ll be joined by marijuana advocates, labor leaders, Steve DeAngelo — founder of Harborside Health Center, which the IRS recently announced owes millions in back taxes because the business cannot legally write off standard expenses — and Matthew Cohen, who was handcuffed for hours along with his wife when the DEA raided his legal Mendocino County grow-op Northside Organics earlier this month. The event is being timed to coincide with President Obama’s visit to San Francisco this week.

When the politicos were done with their spiels, they trotted out Charlie Pappas, the owner of Divinity Tree Patients’ Wellness Cooperative. The landlord of Pappas’ 3,000-member dispensary was served with a cease and desist notice from the DEA that threatened property forfeiture and jail time if he continued to let Divinity Tree operate in his building.

Pappas approached the podium in a wheelchair, a patient himself. As he was introduced, it was noted that here we had one of the little guys, not a tycoon turning millions of dollars of profit as dispensary owners have been portrayed by unsympathetic media and government officials. It’s illegal to turn a profit off of medical marijuana — and who would want to get rich off of sick people anyway?

The controversy over the issue is understandable, but also mind-blowingly hypocritical. You know who turns a profit off of making and distributing medicine? The pharmaceutical industry, to the tune of billions of dollars, in fact. Makes the $1.7 billion national market that constitutes the medical marijuana industry look like shake.

The sound of money talking rendered unsurprising the words of a one Bruce Buckner, who has been a patient “since the laws passed” and who came down from his home in Sonoma County to attend Ammiano and Leno’s press conference. Buckner shared his suspicions about why the federal government turned its eyes to dispensary operations this autumn. Slightly grizzled and wearing a straw hat, Buckner had sat patiently though the event, hooked up to a respirator.

“It’s real obvious why Obama is doing it,” he said. “The pharmaceutical industry is afraid of how potent this medicine is.”

Events Listings: Halloween edition

Andrew Lam
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0

culture@sfbg.com

Hell’s bells, our very own high unholy day approaches — and the fact that Halloween’s on a Monday this year means an entire weekend of insane. Oh, why not just make it a whole week. Surely you have a week’s worth of slutty Rick Perry toupee costumes in your closet? Tape ’em on crooked and check out some of the eee-vil events below, from fiendishly family friendly to naughtily “adult.”

WEDNESDAY 26

“Death in Parallel” fundraiser and preview Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF. (415)821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org. 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m., $50. Get your dead on a little early at this sneak preview of the epicenter of SF’s Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Dream Queens Revue: Halloween Spooktacular Show Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF. www.dreamqueensrevue.com. 9:45 p.m., free. The dreamy weekly drag show goes ghoulish with SF’s sole goth queen, Sophilya Leggz.

THURSDAY 27

“Ann Magnuson plays David Bowie and Jobriath, or, the Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org. 6 p.m.-9:45 p.m., free with museum admission. Fierce hero of the 1980s New York performance underground (and familiar face as sitcom television sidekick-boss-neighbor), Magnuson returns to her fabulous roots in this piece that include incorporate “dreams, Jung, human sacrifice, Aztec shamanism, and all things dark, bloody, and beautiful.” And it’s a costume party! In the SF MoMA! Creativity abounds.

“Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. www.counterpulse.org. 8 p.m., also Fri/28-Sun/30, $20. Gear up for a drag-studded slasher musical taking cues from “Heathers” and “The Facts of Life,” starring the perfectly horrific Raya Light. She’s a-scary!

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 8 p.m., $15. Costumes and masks are encouraged at this semi-participatory, all-but-traditional reading of Sandman creator Gaiman’s darker work.

TheaterPop SF: SuperNatural, Red Poppy Arthouse, 2698 Folsom, SF. www.redpoppyarthouse.org. 7 p.m., $10. Local performers skip the tacky underchin flashlights and dry ice for carefully composed, intricate explorations of the macabre.

Zombie Nightlife with Peaches Christ California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $12. The undead are by no means unfashionable — get a zombie makeover, dance with similarly festering folks, sample the latest zombie video games, and listen to a presentation by the Zombie Research Society at the ever-popular, always good-looking weekly Nightlife event at the Cal Academy of Sciences. With Peaches Christ as hostess, it’s a zombie no-brainer.

FRIDAY 28

The Big Nasty: 10th Anniversary Party with Too $hort Mezzanine, 444 Jesse, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com. 8 p.m., $30. A $1000 best costume prize is sure to put the kibosh on those perennially popular nurse get-ups. As if legendary Bay legend Boo $hort, er, Too $hort weren’t enough of an incentive to ditch tired costumes and go as your favorite classic rapper.

Haunted Hoedown, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com, 9 p.m., $10. Rin Tin Tiger and Please Do Not Fight headline the second annual hoedown at this live rock showcase; expect a barn-burner.

Jason Webley’s Halloween Spectacular Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. 9 p.m., $14. After once faking his own death at a Halloween show and then disappearing for six months, accordionist Webley’s full-band show this year promises excitement, to say the least.

Night of the Living Shred Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com. 9 p.m.-4a.m., $10. This hip-hop and electro throwdown is one where we’ll let the WTF press release speak for itself: “four rooms, five bands, five of the Bay’s best DJs including The Whooligan and Richie Panic, a Paradise Wheels half-pipe and best skate trick contest” — all catered by Mission Chinese Food and Bar Crudo and hosted by two of our favorite people ever, Kelly Kate Warren and Parker Day.

“Rhythm of the 90s” Ultimate Halloween Party Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.fivestarunited.com. 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $45. Break out the Clueless costume and the ketchup bottle; Café Cocomo’s massive dance floor has plenty of room to turn back the clock. Macarena, anyone?

Salem 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com, 10 p.m., free. The biggest and scariest name in the witch house dance music movement swoops in from Michigan for a free show, with Tearist, Pfang, Gummybear, Dials and Whitch providing gallows support.

Scaregrove, Stern Grove, 2750 19th Ave., SF. www.sfrecpark.org. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., $8. ‘Tis the season for bouncy castles — bring the kids out for hayrides, carnival activities, a haunted house, and (fingers crossed) funnel cake at the park.

Speakeasy’s Monsters of Rock Halloween Festival Speakeasy Ales and Lagers, 1195 Evans, SF. www.goodbeer.com. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., free. Parties centered upon the theme of good beer never really get old — especially when there are food trucks, live music, and heady costumes.

Sugar Skull Decorating Workshop Autumn Express, 2071 Mission, SF. www.autumnexpress.com. 5 p.m.–6 p.m., $20. Sugar skulls are provided (so you can keep licking away at last year’s) at artist Michele Simon’s decorative exploration of the Dia de los Muertos tradition.

Third Annual Zombie Prom Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF. www.zombiepromsf.com. 9 p.m., $20. Costume contest, coffin photo booth, live music, and a scary thought: the dancers on the floor tonight may have been doing that move for hundreds of years. Hey, our prom was kind of like night of the living dead, too.

SATURDAY 29

BiBi SF: Queer Middle East Masquerade 4 Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.bibisf.org, 9 p.m., $10. The charitable and extremely sultry BiBi SF throws a great party that combines Arabic, Persian, Pan-African, and Latin sounds with hip-shaking belly dancers, lovely drag performances, and an unbelievably hot crowd. All are welcome to this fourth installment of marvelous masquerading.

Circus Center’s Haunted House Circus Center, 755 Frederick, SF. www.circuscenter.org. Tours from 6-7 p.m., show at 7:30. Putting your body in the hands of a practicing student is sometimes not the best idea (see: haircuts, dental exams), but the Circus Center’s students have thrown together an extensive haunted house sure to turn your stomach in only the best way.

Ghost Ship IV: The Afterlife Treasure Island. www.spacecowboys.org. 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $50 tickets (extremely limited) on site. A massive, Halloween-themed arm of Burning Man, Ghost Ship mashes together DJs, art cars, food trucks, a stroboscopic zoetrope, and thousands of people.

GO BOO! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com, 9 p.m.-late, $5. If you want to experience some really sexy underground disco energy with a fantastically diverse crowd, the monthly Go Bang! Party is one of your best bets — this Halloween edition brings in DJ Glenn Rivera and Mattski to join residents Sergio and Steve Fabus of the storied Trocadero Disco. Pop on a costume and hustle on down.

Halloween Freakout with Planet Booty Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.planetbooty.org. 9 p.m., $12. It’s hard to imagine a more extreme Planet Booty, but this would be the night for it: swap your standard neon unitard for a black velvet version.

Halloween Masquerade with Zach Deputy The Independent, 628 Divisidero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com. 8:30 p.m., $20. Deputy’s “gospel-ninja-soul” provides the soundtrack to an unorthodox masquerade, followed by a free (with ticketstub) Boom Boom Room afterparty.

Halloween 2011: A Red Carpet Runway Massacre Jones, 620 Jones, SF., www.juanitamore.com. 9 p.m., $35. “I prefer the glamour to the gore on Halloween,” quoth ever-poised (even while double-fisting shots) drag ruler Juanita More. Join her at recently opened rooftop bar Jones for dancing and fashionable fun with Djs Delachaux and Sparber, club Some Things hilarious Project Runtover amateur design contest, treats from farm:table and Gimme Shoes, and More, More, More.

“Hallowscreen” cartoon screening Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery, Presidio, SF. www.waltdisney.org 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m. Also Sun/30, Mon/31. $7 adults, $5 children. Catch “Hell’s Bells” and other early, strange Disney shorts that show Walt’s more uncanny side. If you haven’t been to the excellent museum yet, here’s a great occasion.

Horror Costume Party, SUB-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF. www.sf-submission.com. 9 p.m., $4 in costume. Get your gore on with Meat Hook and the Vital Organs; after an earsplitting set, zombiewalk down the street for a taco at Cancun.

Foreverland Halloween Ball Bimbos 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com. 9 p.m., $22. The Thriller dance is only the beginning at this costume-intensive, 14-piece tribute to M.J. himself.

Jack O’Lantern Jamboree Children’s Fairyland, Oakl. www.fairyland.org. 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., also Sun/30. $10. From juggling and puppets to rides and parades, Oakland’s Fairyland puts on a gentle All Hallow’s weekend.

Lights Down Low Halloween SOM Bar, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com. 9:30 p.m., $10 advance. One of the city’s finest, wildest parties brings in bass music star Pearson Sound a.k.a. Ramadanman with DJ Christian Martin, Manaré, Sleazemore, and Eli Glad.

Monster Bash on the U.S.S. Hornet 707 W. Hornet, Pier 3, Alameda. www.uss-hornet.org. 7:30 p.m., $25. What better place to celebrate spooks than among the 300 ghosts haunting the crannies of Alameda’s ancient aircraft carrier?

Spooktacular Japantown Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treat Japantown Peace Plaza, Post at Buchanan, SF. www.sfjapantown.org. 12 p.m.–4 p.m., free. Uni-nigiri and candy corn: the perfect combination. Trick-or-treat in the light of day through the Japan Center Malls.

32nd Annual Spiral Dance, Kezar Pavilion, 755 Stanyan, SF. www.reclaimingspiraldance.org. 7:30 p.m., $10–$20 (sliding scale). The witches of San Francisco gather for a huge participatory dance honoring those who have passed.’

Trannyshack Presents: Halloween: A Party DNA Lounge, 375 11th, SF. www.dnalounge.com. 11 p.m., $25. Anything but the traditional drag, the 5th incarnation of Peaches Christ and Heklina’s annual costumed throwdown features a fantastically horrific secret (and “big!”) guest judge. Oh, and the usual genius-creative bevy of outré drag performers, including Fauxnique, Becky Motorlodge, Toxic Waist, and Exhibit Q.

Wild Side West Costume Contest and Party Wild Side West, 424 Cortland, SF. 8 p.m., free. Try not to get your t.p. body cast caught on a shrub in the Bernal hotspot’s beer garden.

Wicked Gay! Halloween Bash Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF. www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The happily hectic Mission dyke bar holds a costume party and contest with live beats.

SUNDAY 30

Ceremony Halloween Tea, City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF. www.industrysf.com. 5 p.m.-midnight, $40. The name sounds genteel; the dancing to Freemasons and others will likely be raucous.

Fruitvale Dia de los Muertos Festival Fruitvale Village, Oakl. www.unitycouncil.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free. Oakland’s Day of the Dead festival, falling a bit before SF’s, features dancers, gloriously fragrant food, huge crowds, and, of course, compelling tributes to loved ones who have passed.

Halloween Family Dance Class, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. www.odcdance.org. 1 p.m-2 p.m., $5/person, $20/family. Britt Van Hees allows kids and folks who’ve already mastered the Sprinkler to add the Thriller dance to their repertoire.

Midnight Monster Mayhem, Rockit Room, 406 Clement, SF. www.rock-it-room.com. 9 p.m., $10 before 11 p.m. The live hip-hop dance party (costumed, of course) may well be the perfect nightcap to pumpkin pork stew at nearby Burma Superstar.

PETNATION 5 Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 9 p.m., $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after. Dance to Fido’s memory — Public Works honors deceased pets with soul-shaking beats, a DDLM art exhibit and a commemorative altar (plus, proceeds go to OccupySF).

MONDAY 31

Classical at the Freight Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison, Berk. www.freightandsalvage.org. 6:30 p.m., $10.50 for adults, under 12 free. The Bellavente Wind Quintet breathes chilling strains to a kid’s costume parade and candy-filled celebration.

Halloween at El Rio El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $7. Two Ohioans under the stage name “Mr. Gnome” take over the inclusive, ever-popular dive for Halloween.

Teatro ZinZombie, Teatro ZinZanni, Pier 29, SF. www.love.zinzanni.org. 6 p.m.-11 p.m., tickets start at $117. Tonight might be the one to finally catch SF’s cabaret mainstay, which for a few precious hours transforms into a zombie-laden spectacle.

 

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