Festival

IV to the floor

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"We do rockcations," says Hank IV vocalist Bob McDonald, "which is trademarked, I believe, by Anthony." McDonald knows of what he speaks. The San Francisco underground dynasty of a band that he cultivates — alongside guitarist-vocalist Anthony Bedard, guitarist Andy Oglesby, bassist Chris Portfolio, and drummer Scott Jones — has been to Bologna, Italy, and back on the grand notion that, yes, you too can hold down steady, life-giving, lease-holding employment and still rock hard, hither and yon. Today’s revolutionary road, it seems, means playing outta town in, say, five-day spurts with a side of out-of-pocket relaxation, "because no one wants to go on an extended tour," McDonald continues over the phone from his day job. "Because we’re too old, or we have jobs we can’t leave."

The bonus is the word-of-mouth equivalent of an anniversary Rolex. During HIV’s sound check in Bologna, where the band was visiting friend and Fuck founder Kyle Statham, McDonald says, "this guy came up after we were done and said, ‘Everyone is so soft or so techno here. Finally, someone with some balls-ah!’"

Who knew this bastard offshoot of McDonald and Bedard’s Mr. and Mr. and Mr. and Mr. and Mr. Evil combo would take off like it has — HIV released its second long-player, Refuge in Genre, recorded in all its "high-fidelity bombastic rock" splendor by Tim Green (the Fucking Champs) and mastered by Bob Weston (Shellac), on the shitgaze-cool imprint Siltbreeze — and find its balls-ah in the process? This, after HIV’s furtive beginnings: its first show happened at the Dunes in Portland, Ore., a teensy bar owned by Valet’s Honey Owen. "We wanted to play somewhere where our friends weren’t going to see us," Bedard confesses by phone. Since then all the "good energy and crazy momentum" this proudly balls-ah-to-the-wall outfit has generated — inspiring comparisons to Country Teasers and the Saints, and garnering invites to perform live on WFMU — has surprised its music insider-y members. (McDonald is a veteran of Denver hardcore unit Bum Kon and a product manager at music distributor Revolver; Bedard, the Hemlock Tavern booker and ex-member of groups like the Resineators and Icky Boyfriends.)

HIV came about following the departure of Mr. Evil’s old drummer, amid a spate of drinking and brainstorming "dumb ideas," says McDonald. "We thought, ‘Hank IV — we’ll cut the lineage,’ and we wrote notes on a bar napkin. It was easy because we just told the guys [Portfolio and Oglesby] we were playing with that they were in this band. That’s the best way to do it, because if you ask them they might say no."

A few Hank fans, however, haven’t been able to take the tease. The group’s name is "definitely an idea that makes some people angry!" Bedard exclaims. "Like that Hank Williams III fan who called up Amoeba when we were doing an in-store: ‘They should change their name!’ It’s an absurd idea — thinking that our music has as much to do with Hank Williams as Hank III’s music has to do with Hank Williams, family lineage aside."

Rather, HIV takes its cues from the mind-blowing qualities of early Butthole Surfers, Volcano Suns, and other bands instrumental in forming the musical sensibilities of Bedard, McDonald, and Jones, who are in their late 30s and early 40s.

"We’re trying to make noisy, fun, abrasive, fucked-up rock ‘n’ roll," explains Bedard, clearly pumped to return to Portland for its Slabtown Bender festival on Feb. 7. "There’s so much medium rock out there. People settle for stuff that kind of rocks or maybe rocks. So they get taken aback a bit by the force of Bob’s vocals and how in-your-face and assaultive Hank IV’s music can be." Too bad for them, though not for HIV, because as Bedard puts it, "these are older guys who come from a generation of bands that want to see things get a lot more over-the-top."

www.hankiv.com

>>MORE GARAGE ROCK ’09

‘Dance party

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PARK CITY REPORT A degree of relative tranquility settled on Sundance this year, as budget cutbacks among media outlets and distributors meant the customary frenzy was dialed down a notch or three. Of course most screenings were packed, but fewer people than usual got turned away; lodgings remained available during the festival, whereas normally they’d be booked months in advance. Still, what was onscreen remained as usual — a more or less even mix of good, bad, and indifferent. (Most likely in 2010 we’ll start to see a shrunken economy affect indie film production.)

The Bay Area was strangely underrepresented this year, particularly in the documentary realm where it often has a major presence. Instead, there were two dramatic features, each highly specific in local setting. Bratt Pack family project La Mission, directed by Peter Bratt, stars Benjamin Bratt as Che, an ex-con Muni driver and middle-aged lowrider whose macho veneer doesn’t get in the way of his love for a college-bound son (Jeremy Ray Valdez). When he discovers junior is gay, dad freaks out; the Castro District may be just a few blocks from their Mission District walkup, but it’s a world away from Che’s comprehension. This cable-ready exercise’s plot turns and social-issue pleadings can be predicted after 10 minutes. Yet it’s also got genuine warmth, easygoing humor, Benjamin B.’s charisma, and a fond grasp of the ‘hood.

Frazer Bradshaw’s starker Everything Strange and New focuses on young North Oakland couple Wayne (Jerry McDaniel) and Renee (sometime Guardian contributor Beth Lisick), neither of whom quite understand how they got to be saddled with a mortgage, two kids, her frazzled nerves, and his deadened ones. Meanwhile, Wayne’s work and drinking buddies (Luis Saguar, Rico Chacon Jr.) have domestic problems of their own. This is the kind of movie people walk out on at Sundance — too slow, uncommercial, etc. — but it’s a quietly original vision with nary a false emotional note.

Elsewhere, local luminary Robin Williams finally found an indie that suited his more restrained seriocomic abilities in The World’s Greatest Dad, an imperfect but clever black comedy about literary fraud and morbid personality cults from (no kidding) Bobcat Goldthwait.

I also particularly liked doc Prom Night in Mississippi, about a burg that finally held its first integrated high school prom last year; Israeli dysfunctional-slum-family drama Zion and His Brothers; amazingly detail-perfect recreation/spoof of 1970s blaxploitation flicks Black Lightning; and (at nearby Slamdance) Smile ‘Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story, about the Me Decade’s most alarmingly perky touring act. Imagine those song numbers in the satirical Brady Bunch movies performed by a couple hundred squeaky-clean young adults, sans irony. It’s enough to make a smiley face go postal.

Gloves on

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PREVIEW Leslie Seiters entered college as a visual artist — and left it as a choreographer. Or at least that’s what her MFA diploma from Ohio State University says. Seiters prefers to call herself a director. "I am allergic to ‘choreography,’<0x2009>" she says from her home in San Diego. "When something looks ‘choreographed,’ it turns me off."

Seiters, who lived and worked in the Bay Area between 2002 and 2007, has nothing against the craft of choreography, of course. In fact, her own works are exquisitely crafted. But she doesn’t want to see the hand of the maker because she feels it keeps her from entering a piece and having it speak to her in an unmediated manner.

Seiters left Ohio right after graduation and relocated to San Francisco, where she worked and performed with Jo Kreiter, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Jess Curtis, and Sarah Shelton Mann. All the aforementioned artists have a strong commitment to contact improvisation, which is characterized by its immediacy and the performers’ ability to remain present in the moment — an approach that has influenced Seiters’ own work. The physicality of things — an object, a move — continually fascinates her. Seiters differs, however, from her colleagues — and just about any other dancer working in the Bay Area — in her acute and exceedingly refined interest in using objects beyond their function in dance as props.

In a Seiters’ piece — she calls them installations — the edge between the animate and inanimate material is often blurred. She might have dancers double each other’s movements so precisely — as they did in such tiny danger (2003) and an attic/an exit, which premiered at last year’s San Francisco International Arts Festival — that they begin to look as if they had been set in motion by an outside force. Or they might appear like a single image that, for some mysterious reason, split in two only to merge again. "I love repetition," she explains. "This may go back to my visual background, where I would sculpt by wrapping and wrapping or cutting and cutting over and over again."

At the same time, the objects — all quite ordinary — often acquire a life of their own. Sometimes this can be quite disconcerting. When two dancers slide their arms into suspended jackets, the garments begin to manipulate the women. Dozens of suspended teacups keep up their clinking chatter long after their users have left them behind. Huge shoes move people who step into them. Dancers in paper dresses recede into and are swallowed by identically patterned wallpaper. And what about the woman on a swing, seen through a hallway, who never alters her trajectory? At what point does she become the pendulum of some unseen time machine?

Seiters’ work is both immensely playful and physically sturdy in the way she treads that thin line — she confesses to an affinity with magical realism — between the everyday and the fantastic. The process allows the familiar to become more so, even as it grows strange. For her, dance must not be pinned down, but kept open-ended. "I like it when dancers can take a movement, and turn it into a question," she says.

For the Bay Area premiere of Incidental Fear of Numbers at CounterPULSE this weekend, Seiters and her Little Known Dance Theater is partnering with Lux Borealis, a modern dance company from Tijuana, Mexico, whose "intelligence and physicality in the way they use weight and motion" Seiters admired. It’s her first full-evening performance and her most ambitious work yet. Included as part of the performance will be lots of tops and at least one very tall stack of yellow pages with a turntable on top. She also loves the sound of gloves on a cardboard floor.

INCIDENTAL FEAR OF NUMBERS

Fri/30–Sat/31, 8 p.m., $10–$15

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

www.counterpulse.org

Fill her up

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REVIEW In the late 1990s, Mary Alice Fry, artistic director of the now defunct Venue 9, found a hole. She has been filling them ever since.

The January performance calendars at her theater and many other local small venues, she noticed, were empty. At the same time her curatorial experience had shown that women artists still had a harder time getting noticed than their male counterparts. "So many of them," Fry said, "struggle with multiple responsibilities of mortgages, children, two or three jobs, keeping relationships going." So she started the Women on the Way Festival, now in its ninth year, to create "a stepping stone" for local women performers.

After Fry lost her lease on Venue 9, she moved the Festival to the Shotwell Studios and to Joe Landini’s Garage. For reasons of practicality and availability, WOW’s lineup changes every night. The performers seem to enjoy what, to an outsider, looks like a complicated format. "They like sharing the stage and seeing each other’s work," Fry explained. "For them it’s about standards and not competition. These women are pumped up and work and scramble and always want to do more."

While this year’s 17 performers working in theater, the circus, comedy, and dance are mostly up-and-coming, WOW also invited at least two highly experienced artists. Molissa Fenley and Nina Wise have each been working for more than three decades apiece. Each will present a world premiere.

On opening night, Jan. 15, the Garage hosted two soloists and a quartet. While none of the three pieces broke revolutionary ground, each had that spark of effervescence that makes one want to see where these artists are going. They deserve a bigger audience than they got.

Ara Glenn-Johanson’s based her earthstepper on a 10th-century English poem, "The Wanderer." As a choreographer for herself, she proved to be rather heavy-handed as soon as she moved beyond a rather basic gestural vocabulary. But she is a strong, expressive vocalist — both live and in duets with herself on tape — and her solo became an intermittently moving meditation on loneliness and perseverance.

Gretchen Garnett’s Edited for Time needs more editing for time, but impressed the audience with the ambition, if not quite the realization, of a rigorously conceived study in formal structure. With an extended duet for Garnett and the beautifully expressive Leah Samson, the piece started with simple swaying motions and quickly evolved into patterns of elastic tension that would snap, only to be picked up again. Edited looked full of contradictions, pre-ordained accidents, and surprising repetitions. The other committed dancers were Becca Rufer and Chad Dawson.

Despite having what must be one of dance’s more convoluted titles, Pfannenstiel Incision Marks the Spot, Lenora Lee’s solo was a stark, tightly choreographed portrait of one woman’s fear and anguish about her own body — Pfannenstiel was the surgeon who invented the so-called bikini cut. With her feet planted as if nailed to the ground and her hands veering between tendrils and claws, Lee pulled, yanked, spread, and hung her guts inside out. Performed in silence, Pfannenstiel was small in scale, but it resonated in a big way.

WOMEN ON THE WAY FESTIVAL

Through Feb. 1

Thurs-Sun., 8 p.m., at the Garage, 975 Howard, and Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St., SF

$15-$25

(415) 289-2000, 1-800-838-3006

www.ftloose.org

Wale watch

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If you went to the 2008 Rock the Bells festival at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, then you probably missed Wale Folarin. Barely an hour into the 12-hour-plus event, he was on the main stage, rocking back and forth in a half-crouch, spitting rhymes from his viral hit "W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E." to an arena that was one-quarter full.

Wale may be a padwan among hip-hop’s big dogs, but many of the genre’s tastemakers and fans call him a rising star. Though he has yet to release an official album, Wale has already graced the covers of several magazines. His most recent mixtape, The Mixtape About Nothing, landed on major 2008 year-end lists, including Pitchfork’s. Earlier in the year, the Roots, who have a history of recruiting hot prospects, gave him a guest spot on Rising Down (Def Jam, 2008).

Before dropping out to pursue a musical career in 2004, the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia) native bounced through three colleges on football scholarships. He has subsequently attacked the rap game like an offensive coordinator, eschewing offers from majors like Epic to sign a production contract with Mark Ronson’s Allido Records. In turn, Ronson negotiated a joint deal with Interscope to distribute Wale’s debut, tentatively scheduled for this year.

Everyone loves raw, unformed talent, and hip-hop fans are no exception. They love MCs who can freestyle for days, never mind that their stanzas flow with rhyme but with neither reason nor hooks. They venerate rappers who compile mixtapes chock full of half-ideas. Great American Songbook traditions like harmonic structure and verse-chorus forms are nonexistent or merely subtext to the rapper’s unyielding voice.

Wale’s Mixtape About Nothing is nominally built around samples from Seinfeld, punctuated by Jerry Seinfeld’s standup bits and Jason Alexander’s antics. But Wale, with his twangy Southeast accent, takes center stage. He mostly wanders around, offering flickers of insight amid heaps of undistinguishable lines. Then he "goes in," to use a hip-hop phrase that describes a moment of clarity.

On "The Kramer," he opens with a snippet from Michael Richards’ infamous 2006 standup routine at the Laugh Factory, when Richards’ shouted to a heckler in the audience, "He’s a nigger!" Wale uses it to launch a sprawling discourse on race. He begins by confessing, "And P said that I should stop saying nigga / But what’s the difference / I’d still be a nigga." But at the end, he declares, "Make sure everything you say / Can’t be held against you in any kind of way / And any connotation is viewed many ways / ‘Cause under ev’ry nigga there’s a little bit of Kramer / Self-hatred / I hate you / And myself."

Two years ago, Lil Wayne rocketed to superstardom on the basis of these kinds of rambling tone poems. Hundreds of his tracks fueled a cottage industry of Weezy mixtapes. As a result, everyone is flooding the Internet with rangy bedroom studio cuts, proclaiming their status as "the truth" to anyone who’ll listen. In 2008, Brooklyn MC Sha Stimuli issued 12 mixtapes in 12 months, basing one around the 2007 Jennifer Aniston comedy The Break Up. Charles Hamilton dropped eight mixtapes in two months. In most cases, all this sound and fury signifies nothing; worse, it makes it difficult for a talented artist such as Wale to stand out.

"Everybody’s doing blogs. Everybody’s doing freestyles. Everybody’s doing, like, way too much stuff on the Internet," Wale complains by phone. "It’s like, c’mon, we get it. It’s way overdone now." It’s the most provocative statement the 24-year-old makes during a brief interview. Otherwise, Wale keeps his answers amiable but bland. When I ask him about the dreaded "hipster rapper" tag, he claims not to know what I’m talking about. Even when I point out that XXL magazine asked him the same question for a cover story, he responds: "I’m not familiar with that term. Nobody’s said that about me."

Yet Wale is keenly aware of his atypical tastes. "I think it goes over a lot of people’s heads," he says. "By no means am I comparing myself with Leonardo da Vinci or nothing, but by no means do I understand the significance of the Mona Lisa. But there are millions of people who do, and appreciate that piece of work. So eventually you have to do stuff for the people who appreciate what you do." For the moment, his esoteric creative decisions seem to work, including his widely mimicked freestyles over rock hits like Lily Allen’s "Smile." As he says on his 100 Miles and Running mixtape, "Y’all believe me when I do it. Don’t sass me for doing it."

WALE

Jan. 31, 9 p.m., $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

www.mezzaninesf.com

It’s hard to be a man

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By Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

Midnites for Maniacs programmer Ficks is in Utah checking out the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Here’s what’s gotten his attention so far…

“We Live in Public” trailer

Paper Heart, directed by Nicholas Jasenovec
Early on in this semi-mock doc, the actor Michael Cera, who plays himself, responds to the overview of Paper Heart by saying, “Just what America needs, another quirky comedy.” Cera, who has reinstated the term “perfect comic timing” since he appeared as George Michael in Arrested Development , is yet again awkward and hilarious in this sweet but fairly clunky trek across America, which asks real couples how they met, reinacts them with paper cutouts a la Science of Sleep (2006), and if ponders the question if love truly exists. The film’s lead actress — Charlyne Yi, the stoner girl who hangs with all the dudes in Knocked Up (2007) — also co-scripted this sure-to-be crowd pleaser. If only certain scenes hadn’t felt so forced.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, directed by John Krasinski
Director Krasinski — better known as Jim on The Office — also adapted the screenplay from David Foster Wallace’s story. The tale follows Sara (Julianne Nicholson), a woman who’s been recently cheated on, as she interviews multiple subjects of the male gender about their honest fears, fantasies, and frustrations. Krasinski’s film pushes through its similarities to Paper Heart (getting to the bottom of love) by taking its “personal interviews” to impressive depths about the male psyche. It delivers some pretty powerful moments.

We Live in Public, directed by Ondi Timoner
Fascinatingly addictive, this follow up to Timoner’s cult classic Dig! (which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2004) follows the bi-polar exploits of Internet pioneer Josh Harris. This man predicted every single step of the internet and the jaw dropping footage of his “experiments” are here to prove it. In 1999 he created a quasi-cult community in the basement of New York, in which people were given pods to sleep in, free food, drugs, and all night raves while every move was being recorded and shared. Even now, the uncompromising footage has the power to warp the viewer into his Orwellian vision of the future. But wait — that’s not all: Harris then goes on to rig 32 motion-sensor cameras in his house, creating the first website to stream his and girlfriend’s every life moment. I can’t express enough how awesome this film is, or how horrifyingly revealing of where our own society has headed. You wanna talk about the film of Sundance ’09? Look no further.

The Hard Times Handbook

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We all have high hopes for the new administration. We’d all like to believe that the recession will end soon, that jobs will be plentiful, health care available to all, and affordable housing built in abundance.

But the grim reality is that hard times are probably around for a while longer, and it may get worse before it gets better.

Don’t despair: the city is full of fun things to do on the cheap. There are ways to save money and enjoy life at the same time. If you’re in trouble — out of work, out of food, facing eviction — there are resources around to help you. What follows is a collection of tips, techniques, and ideas for surviving the ongoing depression that’s the last bitter legacy of George W. Bush.

BELOW YOU’LL FIND OUR TIPS ON SCORING FREE, CHEAP, AND LOW-COST WONDERS. (Click here for the full page version with jumps, if you can’t see it.)

MUSIC AND MOVIES

CLOTHING

FOOD

CONCERTS

WHEELS

HEALTH CARE

SHELTER

MEALS

COCKTAILS

DATE NIGHTS

YOGA

PLUS:

HOW TO KEEP YOUR APARTMENT

HOW TO GET UNEMPLOYMENT

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FREE MUSIC AND MOVIES

For a little extra routine effort, I’ve managed to make San Francisco’s library system my Netflix/GreenCine, rotating CD turntable, and bookstore, all rolled into one. And it’s all free.

If you’re a books-music-film whore like me, you find your home maxed out with piles of the stuff … and not enough extra cash to feed your habits. So I’ve decided to only buy my favorites and to borrow the rest. We San Franciscans have quite a library system at our fingertips. You just have to learn how to use it.

Almost everyone thinks of a library as a place for books. And that’s not wrong: you can read the latest fiction and nonfiction bestsellers, and I’ve checked out a slew of great mixology/cocktail recipe books when I want to try new drinks at home. I’ve hit up bios on my favorite musicians, or brought home stacks of travel books before a trip (they usually have the current year’s edition of at least one travel series for a given place, whether it be Fodor’s, Lonely Planet, or Frommer’s).

But there’s much more. For DVDs, I regularly check Rotten Tomatoes’ New Releases page (www.rottentomatoes.com/dvd/new_releases.php) for new DVD releases. Anything I want to see, I keep on a list and search www.sfpl.org for those titles every week. About 90 percent of my list eventually comes to the library, and most within a few weeks of the release date.

And such a range! I recently checked out the Oscar-nominated animated foreign film, Persepolis, the entire first season of Mad Men, tons of documentaries, classics (like a Cyd Charisse musical or Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy’s catalog), even Baby Mama (sure, it sucked, but I can’t resist Tina Fey).

A music fanatic can find virtually every style, and even dig into the history of a genre. I’ve found CDs of jazz and blues greats, including Jelly Roll Morton, John Lee Hooker, Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, kitschy lounge like Martin Denny and singer Julie London, and have satiated rap cravings with the latest Talib Kwali, Lyrics Born, Missy Elliott, T.I. or Kanye (I won’t tell if you won’t).

Warning: there can be a long "holds" list for popular new releases (e.g., Iron Man just came out and has about 175). When this happens, Just get in the queue — you can request as many as 15 items simultaneously online (you do have a library card, right?) You’ll get an e-mail when your item comes in and you can check the status of your list any time you log in. Keep DVDs a full seven days (three weeks for books and CDs) and return ’em to any branch you like.

I’ve deepened my music knowledge, read a broader range of books, and canceled GreenCine. Instead, I enjoy a steady flow of free shit coming my way each week. And if I get bored or the novelty of Baby Mama wears off, I return it and free up space in my mind (and on my shelf) for more. (Virginia Miller)

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STYLE FOR A SONG

Shhh. The first rule about thrifting, to paraphrase mobsters and hardcore thrift-store shoppers, is don’t talk about thrifting — and that means the sites of your finest thrift scores. Diehard thrifters guard their favorite shops with jealous zeal: they know exactly what it’s like to wade through scores of stained T-shirts, dress-for-success suits, and plastic purses and come up with zilcherooni. They also know what it’s like to ascend to thrifter nirvana, an increasingly rarified plane where vintage Chanel party shoes and cool dead-stock Western wear are sold for a song.

Friendships have been trashed and shopping carts upended in the revelation of these much-cherished thrift stores, where the quest for that ’50s lamb’s fur jacket or ’80s acid-washed zipper jeans — whatever floats your low-budg boat — has come to a rapturous conclusion. It’s a war zone, shopping on the cheap, out there — and though word has it that the thrifting is excellent in Vallejo and Fresno, our battle begins at home. When the sample sales, designer runoff outlets, resale dives, and consignment boutiques dry up, here’s where you’ll find just what you weren’t looking for — but love, love, love all the same.

Community Thrift, 623 Valencia, SF. (415) 861-4910, www.communitythrift.bravehost.com. Come for the writer’s own giveaways (you can bequeath the funds raised to any number of local nonprofits), and leave with the rattan couches, deco bureaus, records, books and magazines, and an eccentric assortment of clothing and housewares. I’m still amazed at the array of intriguing junk that zips through this spot, but act fast or you’ll miss snagging that Victorian armoire.

Goodwill As-Is Store, 86 11th St., SF. (415) 575-2197, www.sfgoodwill.org. This is the archetype and endgamer of grab-and-tumble thrifting. We’re talking bins, people — bins of dirt cheap and often downright dirty garb that the massive Goodwill around the corner has designated unsuitable, for whatever reason. Dive into said bins, rolled out by your, ahem, gracious Goodwill hosts throughout the day, along with your competition: professional pickers for vintage shops, grabby vintage people, and ironclad bargain hunters. They may not sell items by the pound anymore — now its $2.25 for a piece of adult clothing, 50 cents to $1 for babies’ and children’s garb, $4 for leather jackets, etc. — but the sense of triumph you’ll feel when you discover a tattered 1930s Atonement-style poison-ivy green gown, or a Dr. Pimp-enstein rabbit-fur patchwork coat, or cheery 1950s tablecloths with negligible stainage, is indescribable.

Goodwill Industries, 3801 Third St., SF. (415) 641-4470, www.sfgoodwill.org Alas, not all Goodwills are created equal: some eke out nothing but stale mom jeans and stretched-out polo shirts. But others, like this Hunter’s Point Goodwill, abound with on-trend goodies. At least until all of you thrift-hungry hordes grab my junk first. Tucked into the corner of a little strip mall, this Goodwill has all those extremely fashionable hipster goods that have been leached from more populated thrift pastures or plucked by your favorite street-savvy designer to "repurpose" as their latest collection: buffalo check shirts, wolf-embellished T-shirts, Gunne Sax fairy-princess gowns, basketball jerseys, and ’80s-era, multicolored zany-print tops that Paper Rad would give their beards for.

Salvation Army, 1500 Valencia, SF. (415) 643-8040, www.salvationarmyusa.org. The OG of Mission District thrifting, this Salv has been the site of many an awesome discovery. Find out when the Army puts out the new goods. The Salvation soldiers may have cordoned off the "vintage" — read: higher priced — items in the store within the store, but there are still plenty of old books, men’s clothing, and at times hep housewares and Formica kitchen tables to be had: I adore the rainbow Mork and Mindy parka vest I scored in the boys’ department, as well as my mid-century-mod mustard-colored rocker.

Savers, 875 Main, Redwood City. (650) 364-5545, www.savers.com When the ladies of Hillsborough, Burlingame, and the surrounding ‘burbs shed their oldest, most elegant offerings, the pickings can’t be beat at this Savers. You’ll find everything from I. Magnin cashmere toppers, vintage Gucci tweed, and high-camp ’80s feather-and-leather sweaters to collectible dishware, antique ribbons, and kitsch-cute Holly Hobbie plaques. Strangest, oddly covetable missed-score: a psychiatrist’s couch.

Thrift Town, 2101 Mission, SF. (415) 861-1132, www.thrifttown.com. When all else fails, fall back on this department store-sized megalith. Back in the day, thrift-oldsters tell me, they’d dig out collectible paintings and ’50s-era bikes. Now you’ll have to grind deeply to land those finds, though they’re here: cute, mismatched, mid-century chairs; the occasional designer handbag; and ’60s knit suits. Hint: venture into less picked-over departments like bedding. (Kimberly Chun)

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FREE FOOD

San Francisco will not let you starve. Even if you’re completely out of money, there are plenty of places and ways to fill your belly. Many soup kitchens operate out of churches and community centers, and lists can be downloaded and printed from freeprintshop.org and sfhomeless.net (which is also a great clearinghouse of information on social services in San Francisco.)Here’s a list of some of our favorites.

Free hot meals

Curry without Worry Healthy, soul pleasing Nepalese food to hungry people in San Francisco. Every Tues. 5:45–7 p.m. on the square at Hyde and Market streets.

Glide, 330 Ellis. Breakfast 8-9 a.m., lunch noon-1:30 p.m. everyday. Dinner 4-5:30 p.m., M-F.

St. Anthony Dining Room, 45 Jones, Lunch everyday 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

St Martin de Porres Hospitality House, 225 Potrero Ave. Best bowl of oatmeal in the city. Tues.-Sat. breakfast from 6:30-7:30 a.m., lunch from noon-2 pm.. Sun. brunch 9-10:30 a.m. Often vegetarian options.

Vegetarian

Food not Bombs Vegetarian soup and bread, but bring your own bowl. At the UN Plaza, Mon., 6 p.m.; Wed., 5:30 p.m. Also at 16th and Mission streets. Thurs. at 7:30 p.m.

Mother’s Kitchen, 7 Octavia, Fri., 2:30-3:30. Vegan options.

Iglesia Latina Americana de Las Adventistas Seventh Dia, 3024 24th St. Breakfast 9:30-11 a.m., third Sun. of the month.

Grab and go sandwiches

Glide, bag meals to go after breakfast ends at 9 a.m.

St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, 666 Filbert. 4-5 p.m. every day.

Seniors

Curry Senior Center, 333 Turk. For the 60+ set. Breakfast 8-9 a.m., lunch 11:30 to noon every day.

Kimochi, 1840 Sutter St. Japanese-style hot lunch served 11:45 am (M-F). $1.50 donation per meal is requested. 60+ only with no one to assist with meals. Home deliveries available. 415-931-2287

St. Anthony Dining Room, 10:30-11:30 a.m., 59+, families, and people who can’t carry a tray.

Free groceries

San Francisco Food Bank A wealth of resources, from pantries with emergency food boxes to supplemental food programs. 415-282-1900. sffoodbank.org/programs

211 Dial this magic number and United Way will connect you with free food resources in your neighborhood — 24/7.

Low-cost groceries

Maybe you don’t qualify for food assistance programs or you just want to be a little thriftier — in which case the old adage that the early bird gets the metaphorical worm is apropos. When it comes to good food deals, timing can be everything. Here are a couple of handy tips for those of us who like to eat local, organic, and cheap. Go to Rainbow Grocery early and hit the farmers markets late. Rainbow has cheap and half-price bins in the bread and produce sections — but you wouldn’t know it if you’re a late-riser. Get there shortly after doors open at 9 a.m. for the best deals.

By the end of the day, many vendors at farmers markets are looking to unload produce rather than pack it up, so it’s possible to score great deals if you’re wandering around during the last half hour of the market. CAFF has a comprehensive list of Bay Area markets that you can download: guide.buylocalca.org/localguides.

Then there’s the Grocery Outlet (2001 Fourth St., Berkeley and 2900 Broadway, Oakland, www.groceryoutlets.com), which puts Wal-Mart to shame. This is truly the home of low-cost living. Grocery Outlet began in 1946 in San Francisco when Jim Read purchased surplus government goods and started selling them. Now Grocery Outlets are the West Coast’s version of those dented-can stores that sell discounted food that wasn’t ready for prime-time, or perhaps spent a little too long in the limelight.

Be prepared to eat what you find — options range from name brands with trashed labels to foodstuffs you’ve never seen before — but there are often good deals on local breads and cheeses, and their wine section will deeply expand you Two-Buck Chuck cellar. Don’t be afraid of an occasional corked bottle that you can turn into salad dressing, and be sure to check the dates on anything perishable. The Grocery Outlet Web site (which has the pimpest intro music ever) lists locations and ways to sign up for coupons and download a brochure on how to feed your family for $3 a day. (Amanda Witherell)

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LIVE MUSIC FOR NOTHING — AND KICKS FOR FREE

Music should be free. Everyone who has downloaded music they haven’t been given or paid for obviously believes this, though we haven’t quite made it to that ideal world where all professional musicians are subsidized — and given health care — by the government or other entities. But live, Clive? Where do can you catch fresh, live sounds during a hard-hitting, heavy-hanging economic downturn? Intrepid, impecunious sonic seekers know that with a sharp eye and zero dough, great sounds can be found in the oddest crannies of the city. You just need to know where to look, then lend an ear. Here are a few reliables — occasional BART station busks and impromptu Ocean Beach shows aside.

Some of the best deals — read: free — on world-class performers happen seasonally: in addition to freebie fests like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass every October and the street fairs that accompanying in fair weather, there’s each summer’s Stern Grove Festival. Beat back the Sunset fog with a picnic of bread, cheese, and cheap vino, though you gotta move fast to claim primo viewing turf to eyeball acts like Bettye Lavette, Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, and Allen Toussaint. Look for the 2009 schedule to be posted at www.sterngrove.org May 1.

Another great spot to catch particularly local luminaries is the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, which runs from May to October. Rupa and the April Fishes, Brass Menazeri, Marcus Shelby Trio, Bayonics, and Omar Sosa’s Afreecanos Quintet all took their turn in the sun during the Thursday lunchtime concerts. Find out who’s slated for ’09 in early spring at www.ybgf.org.

All year around, shopkeeps support sounds further off the beaten path — music fans already know about the free, albeit usually shorter, shows, DJ sets, and acoustic performances at aural emporiums like Amoeba Music (www.amoeba.com) and Aquarius Records (www.aquariusrecords.org). Many a mind has been blown by a free blast of new sonics from MIA or Boris amid the stacks at Amoeba, the big daddy in this field, while Aquarius in-stores define coziness: witness last year’s intimate acoustic hootenanny by Deerhoof’s Satomi and Tenniscoats’ Saya as Oneone. Less regular but still an excellent time if you happen upon one: Adobe Books Backroom Gallery art openings (adobebooksbackroomgallery.blogspot.com), where you can get a nice, low-key dose of the Mission District’s art and music scenes converging. Recent exhibition unveilings have been topped off by performances by the Oh Sees, Boner Ha-chachacha, and the Quails.

Still further afield, check into the free-for-all, quality curatorial efforts at the Rite Spot (www.ritespotcafe.net), where most shows at this dimly lit, atmospheric slice of old-school cabaret bohemia are as free as the breeze and as fun as the collection of napkin art in back: Axton Kincaid, Brandy Shearer, Kitten on the Keys, Toshio Hirano, and Yard Sale have popped up in the past. Also worth a looky-loo are Thee Parkside‘s (www.theeparkside.com) free Twang Sunday and Happy Hour Shows: a rad time to check out bands you’ve never heard of but nonetheless pique your curiosity: Hukaholix, hell’s yeah! And don’t forget: every cover effort sounds better with a pint — all the better to check into the cover bands at Johnny Foley’s (www.johnnyfoleys.com), groove artists at Beckett’s Irish Pub in Berkeley (www.beckettsirishpub.com), and piano man Rod Dibble and his rousing sing-alongs at the Alley in Oakland (510-444-8505). All free of charge. Charge! (Kimberly Chun}

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THE CHEAPEST WAY TO GET AROUND TOWN

Our complex world often defies simple solutions. But there is one easy way to save money, get healthy, become more self-sufficient, free up public resources, and reduce your contribution to air pollution and global warming: get around town on a bicycle.

It’s no coincidence that the number of cyclists on San Francisco streets has increased dramatically over the last few years, a period of volatile gasoline prices, heightened awareness of climate change, poor Muni performance, and economic stagnation.

On Bike to Work Day last year, traffic counts during the morning commute tallied more bicycles than cars on Market Street for the first time. Surveys commissioned by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition show that the number of regular bike commuters has more than doubled in recent years. And that increase came even as a court injunction barred new bike projects in the city (see "Stationary biking," 5/16/07), a ban that likely will be lifted later this year, triggering key improvements in the city’s bicycle network that will greatly improve safety.

Still not convinced? Then do the math.

Drive a car and you’ll probably spend a few hundred dollars every month on insurance, gas, tolls, parking, and fines, and that’s even if you already own your car outright. If you ride the bus, you’ll pay $45 per month for a Fast Pass while government will pay millions more to subsidize the difference. Riding a bike is basically free.

Free? Surely there are costs associated with bicycling, right? Yeah, sure, occasionally. But in a bike-friendly city like San Francisco, there are all kinds of opportunities to keep those costs very low, certainly lower than any other transportation alternative except walking (which is also a fine option for short trips).

There are lots of inexpensive used bicycles out there. I bought three of my four bicycles at the Bike Hut at Pier 40 (www.thebikehut.com) for an average of $100 each and they’ve worked great for several years (my fourth bike, a suspension mountain bike, I also bought used for a few hundred bucks).

Local shops that sell used bikes include Fresh Air Bicycles, (1943 Divisidero, www.fabsf.com) Refried Cycles (3804 17th St., www.refriedcycles,com/bicycles.htm), Karim Cycle (2800 Telegraph., Berkeley, www.teamkarim.com/bikes/used/) and Re-Cycles Bicycles (3120 Sacramento, Berkeley, www.recyclesbicycles.com). Blazing Saddles (1095 Columbus, www.blazingsaddles.com) sells used rental bikes for reasonable prices. Craigslist always has listings for dozens of used bikes of all styles and prices. And these days, you can even buy a new bike for a few hundred bucks. Sure, they’re often made in China with cheap parts, but they’ll work just fine.

Bikes are simple yet effective machines with a limited number of moving parts, so it’s easy to learn to fix them yourself and cut out even the minimal maintenance costs associated with cycling. I spent $100 for two four-hour classes at Freewheel Bike Shop (1920 Hayes and 914 Valencia, www.thefreewheel.com) that taught me everything I need to know about bike maintenance and includes a six-month membership that lets me use its facilities, tools, and the expertise of its mechanics. My bikes are all running smoother than ever on new ball bearings that cost me two bucks per wheel, but they were plenty functional even before.

There are also ways to get bike skills for free. Sports Basement (www.sportsbasement.com) offers free bicycle maintenance classes at both its San Francisco locations the first Tuesday of every month from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Or you can turn to the Internet, where YouTube has a variety of bike repair videos and Web sites such as www.howtofixbikes.com can lead you through repairs.

The nonprofit The Bike Kitchen (1256 Mission, www.thebikekitchen.org) on Mission Street offers great deals to people who spend $40 per year for a membership. Volunteer your time through the Earn-a-Bike program and they’ll give you the frame, parts, and skills to build your own bike for free.

But even in these hard economic times, there is one purchase I wouldn’t skimp on: spend the $30 — $45 for a good U-lock, preferably with a cable for securing the wheels. Then you’re all set, ready to sell your car, ditch the bus, and learn how easy, cheap, fast, efficient, and fun it is to bicycle in this 49-square-mile city. (Steven T. Jones)

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LOW-COST HEALTH CARE

When money’s tight, healthcare tends to be one of the first costs we cut. But that can be a bad idea, because skimping on preventive care and treatment for minor issues can lead to much more expensive and serious (and painful) health issues later. Here is our guide to Bay Area institutions, programs, and clinics that serve the under- and uninsured.

One of our favorite places is the Women’s Community Clinic (2166 Hayes, 415-379-7800, www.womenscommunityclinic.org), a women-operated provider open to anyone female, female-identified, or female-bodied transgender. This awesome 10-year-old clinic offers sexual and reproductive health services — from Pap smears and PMS treatment to menopause and infertility support — to any SF, San Mateo, Alameda, or Marin County resident, and all on a generous sliding scale based on income and insurance (or lack thereof). Call for an appointment, or drop in on Friday mornings (but show up at 9:30 a.m. because spots fill up fast).

A broader option (in terms of both gender and service) is Mission Neighborhood Center (main clinic at 240 Shotwell. 415-552-3870, www.mnhc.org, see Web site for specialty clinics). This one-stop health shop provides primary, HIV/AIDS, preventive, podiatry, women’s, children’s, and homeless care to all, though its primary focus is on the Latino/Hispanic Spanish-speaking community. Insurance and patient payment is accepted, including a sliding scale for the uninsured (no one is denied based on inability to pay). This clinic is also a designated Medical Home (or primary care facility) for those involved in the Healthy San Francisco program.

Contrary to popular belief, Healthy San Francisco (www.healthysanfrancisco.org) is not insurance. Rather, it’s a network of hospitals and clinics that provide free or nearly free healthcare to uninsured SF residents who earn at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level (which, at about $2,600 per month, includes many of us). Participants choose a Medical Home, which serves as a first point-of-contact. The good news? HSF is blind to immigration status, employment status, and preexisting medical conditions. The catch? The program’s so new and there are so many eligible residents that the application process is backlogged — you may have a long wait before you reap the rewards. Plus, HSF only applies within San Francisco.

Some might consider mental health less important than that of the corporeal body, but anyone who’s suffered from depression, addiction, or PTSD knows otherwise. Problem is, psychotherapy tends to be expensive — and therefore considered superfluous. Not so at Golden Gate Integral Counseling Center (507 Polk. 415-561-0230, www.goldengatecounseling.org), where individuals, couples, families, and groups can get long- and short-term counseling for issues from stress and relationships to gender identity, all billed on a sliding scale.

Other good options

American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (450 Connecticut, 415-282-9603, actcm.edu). This well-regarded school provides a range of treatments, including acupuncture, cupping, tui ma/shiatsu massage, and herbal therapy, at its on-site clinics — all priced according to a sliding scale and with discounts for students and seniors. The college also sends interns to specialty clinics around the Bay, including the Women’s Community Clinic, Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, and St. James Infirmary.

St. James Infirmary (1372 Mission. 415-554-8494, www.stjamesinfirmary.org). Created for sex-workers and their partners, this Mission District clinic offers a range of services from primary care to massage and self-defense classes, for free. Bad ass.

Free Print Shop (www.freeprintshop.org): This fantabulous Webs site has charts showing access to free healthcare across the city, as well as free food, shelter, and help with neighborhood problems. If we haven’t listed ’em, Free Print Shop has. Tell a friend.

Native American Health Center (160 Capp, 415-621-8051, www.nativehealth.org). Though geared towards Native Americans, this multifaceted clinic (dental! an Oakland locale, and an Alameda satellite!) turns no one away. Services are offered to the under-insured on a sliding scale as well as to those with insurance.

SF Free Clinic (4900 California, 415-750-9894, www.sffc.org). Those without any health insurance can get vaccinations, diabetes care, family planning assistance, STD diagnosis and treatment, well child care, and monitoring of acute and chronic medical problems.

Haight Ashbury Free Clinics (558 Clayton. 415-746-1950, www.hafci.org): Though available to all, these clinics are geared towards the uninsured, underinsured "working poor," the homeless, youth, and those with substance abuse and/or mental health issues. We love this organization not only for its day-to-day service, but for its low-income residential substance abuse recovery programs and its creation of RockMed, which provides free medical care at concerts and events. (Molly Freedenberg)

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THE BEST HOMELESS SHELTERS

There’s no reason to be ashamed to stay in the city’s homeless shelters — but proceed with awareness. Although most shelters take safety precautions and men and women sleep in separate areas, they’re high-traffic places that house a true cross-section of the city’s population.

The city shelters won’t take you if you just show up — you have to make a reservation. In any case, a reservation center should be your first stop anyway because they’ll likely have other services available for you. If you’re a first-timer, they’ll want to enter you into the system and take your photograph. (You can turn down the photo-op.) Reservations can be made for up to seven days, after which you’ll need to connect with a case manager to reserve a more permanent 30- or 60-day bed.

The best time to show up is first thing in the morning when beds are opening up, or late at night when beds have opened up because of no-show reservations. First thing in the morning means break of dawn — people often start lining up between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. for the few open beds. Many people are turned away throughout the day, although your chances are better if you’re a woman.

You can reserve a bed at one of several reservation stations: 150 Otis, Mission Neighborhood Resource Center (165 Capp St.), Tenderloin Resource Center (187 Golden Gate), Glide (330 Ellis), United Council (2111 Jennings), and the shelters at MSC South (525 Fifth St.) and Hospitality House (146 Leavenworth). If it’s late at night, they may have a van available to give you a ride to the shelter. Otherwise, bus tokens are sometimes available if you ask for one — especially if you’re staying at Providence shelter in the Bayview-Hunters Point District.

They’ll ask if you have a shelter preference — they’re all a little different and come with good and bad recommendations depending on whom you talk to. By all accounts, Hospitality House is one of the best — it’s small, clean, and well run. But it’s for men only, as are the Dolores Street Community Services shelters (1050 S. Van Ness and 1200 Florida), which primarily cater to Spanish-speaking clients.

Women can try Oshun (211 13th St.) and A Woman’s Place (1049 Howard) if they want a men-free space. If kids are in tow, Compass Family Services will set you up with shelter and put you on a waiting list for housing. (A recent crush of families means a waiting list for shelters also exists.) People between 18 and 24 can go to Lark Inn (869 Ellis). The Asian Woman’s Shelter specializes in services for Asian-speaking women and domestic violence victims (call the crisis line 877-751-0880). (Amanda Witherell)

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MEALS FOR $5: TOP FIVE CHEAP EATS

Nothing fancy about these places — but the food is good, and the price is right, and they’re perfect for depression dining.

Betty’s Cafeteria Probably the easiest place in town to eat for under five bucks, breakfast or lunch, American or Chinese. 167 11th St., SF. (415) 431-2525

Susie’s Café You can get four pancakes or a bacon burger for under $5 at this truly grungy and divine dive, right next to Ed’s Auto — and you get the sense the grease intermingles. , 603 Seventh St., SF (415) 431-2177

Lawrence Bakery Café Burger and fries, $3.75, and a slice of pie for a buck. 2290 Mission., SF. (415) 864-3119

Wo’s Restaurant Plenty of under-$5 Cantonese and Vietnamese dishes, and, though the place itself is cold and unatmospheric, the food is actually great. 4005 Judah, SF. (415) 681-2433

Glenn’s Hot Dogs A cozy, friendly, cheap, delicious hole-in-the-wall and probably my favorite counter to sit at in the whole Bay Area. 3506 MacArthur Blvd., Oakl. (510) 530-5175 (L.E. Leone)

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CHEAP DRINKS

When it comes to free drinks I’m a liar, a whore, and a cheat, duh.

I’m a liar because of course I find your designer replica stink-cloud irresistible and your popped collar oh so intriguing — and no, you sexy lug, I’ve never tried one of those delicious-looking orange-juice-and-vodka concoctions you’re holding. Perhaps you could order me one so I could try it out while we spend some time?

I’m a whore because I’ll still do you anyway — after the fifth round, natch. That’s why they call me the liquor quicker picker-upper.

And I’m a cheat because here I am supposed to give you the scoop on where to score some highball on the lowdown, when in fact there’s a couple of awesome Web sites just aching to help you slurp down the freebies. Research gives me wrinkles, darling. So before I get into some of my fave inexpensive inebriation stations, take a designated-driver test drive of www.funcheapsf.com and www.sf.myopenbar.com.

FuncheapSF’s run by the loquacious Johnny Funcheap, and has the dirty deets on a fab array of free and cheap city events — with gallery openings, wine and spirits tastings, and excellent shindigs for the nightlife-inclined included. MyOpenBar.com is a national operation that’s geared toward the hard stuff, and its local branch offers way too much clarity about happy hours, concerts, drink specials, and service nights. Both have led me into inglorious perdition, with dignity, when my chips were down.

Beyond all that, and if you have a couple bucks in your shucks, here’s a few get-happies of note:

Godzuki Sushi Happy Hour at the Knockout. Super-yummy affordable fish rolls and $2 Kirin on tap in a rockin’ atmosphere. Wednesdays, 6–9:30 p.m. 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994, www.knockoutsf.com

All-Night Happy Hour at The Attic. Drown your recession tears — and the start of your work week — in $3 cosmos and martinis at this hipster hideaway. Sundays and Mondays, 5 p.m.–2 a.m. 3336 24th St., (415) 722-7986

The Stork Club. Enough live punk to bleed your earworm out and $2 Pabsts every night to boot? Fly me there toute suite. 2330 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 444-6174, www.storkcluboakland.com

House of Shields. Dive into $2 PBR on tap and great music every night except Sundays at the beautiful winner of our 2008 Best of the Bay "Best Monumental Urinal" award. (We meant in the men’s room, not the place as a whole!) 39 New Montgomery, SF. (415) 975-8651, www.houseofshields.com

The Bitter End. $3 drafts Monday through Friday are just the beginning at this Richmond pub: the Thursday night Jager shot plus Pabst for five bucks (plus an ’80s dance party) is worth a look-see. 441 Clement, SF. (415) 221-9538

Thee Parkside Fast becoming the edge-seekers bar of choice, this Potrero Hill joint has some awesome live nights with cheap brews going for it, but the those in the know misplace their Saturday afternoons with $3 well drinks from 3 to 8 p.m.1600 17th St., SF. (415) 252-1330, www.theeparkside.com

Infatuation. One of the best free club nights in the city brings in stellar electro-oriented talent and also offers two-for-one well drinks, so what the hey. Wednesdays, 9 p.m.–2 a.m. Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF. (415) 433-8585, www.vesselsf.com

Honey Sundays. Another free club night, this one on the gay tip, that offers more great local and international DJ names and some truly fetching specials at Paradise Lounge’s swank upstairs bar. Sundays, 8 p.m.–2 a.m. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, SF. (415) 252-5018, www.paradisesf.com (Marke B.)

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IMPRESS A DATE WITH DINNER UNDER $50

You’ve got a date this weekend, which you’re feeling pretty good about, but only $50 to spend, which feels … not so good. Where should you go?

You’ll appear in-the-know at the underrated Sheba Piano Lounge (1419 Fillmore, www.shebalounge.com) on lower Fillmore Street, right in the middle of the burgeoning jazz revival district. Sheba was around long before Yoshi’s, offering live jazz (usually piano, sometimes a vocalist) and some of the best Ethiopian food in the city in a refined, relaxed lounge setting. Sure, they’ve got Americanized dishes, but skip those for the traditional Ethiopian menu. Sample multiple items by ordering the vegetarian platter ($13) or ask for a mixed meat platter, which is not on the menu ($16 last time I ordered it). One platter is more than enough for two, and you can still afford a couple of cocktails, glasses of wine or beer, or even some Ethiopian honey wine (all well under $10). Like any authentic Ethiopian place I’ve eaten in, the staff operates on Africa time, so be prepared to linger and relax.

It’s a little hipster-ish with slick light fixtures, a narrow dining room/bar, and the increasingly common "communal table" up front, but the Mission District’s Bar Bambino (2931 16th St., www.barbambino.com) offers an Italian enoteca experience that says "I’ve got some sophistication, but I like to keep it casual." Reserve ahead for tables because there aren’t many, or come early and sit at the bar or in the enclosed back patio and enjoy an impressive selection of Italian wines by the glass ($8–$12.50). For added savings with a touch of glam, don’t forget their free sparkling water on tap. It’s another small plates/antipasti-style menu, so share a pasta ($10.50–$15.50), panini ($11.50–$12.50), and some of their great house-cured salumi or artisan cheese. Bar Bambino was just named one of the best wine bars in the country by Bon Apetit, but don’t let that deter you from one of the city’s real gems.

Nothing says romance (of the first date kind) like a classic French bistro, especially one with a charming (heated) back patio. Bistro Aix (3340 Steiner, www.bistroaix.com) is one of those rare places in the Marina District where you can skip the pretension and go for old school French comfort food (think duck confit, top sirloin steak and frites, and a goat cheese salad — although the menu does stray a little outside the French zone with some pasta and "cracker crust pizza." Bistro Aix has been around for years, offering one of the cheapest (and latest — most end by 6 or 7 p.m.) French prix fixe menus in town (Sunday through Thursday, 6–8 p.m.) at $18 for two courses. This pushes it to $40 for two, but still makes it possible to add a glass of wine, which is reasonably priced on the lower end of their Euro-focused wine list ($6.25–$15 a glass).

Who knew seduction could be so surprisingly affordable? (Virginia Miller)

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FREE YOGA

You may be broke, but you can still stay limber. San Francisco is home to scores of studios and karmically-blessed souls looking to do a good turn by making yoga affordable for everyone.

One of the more prolific teachers and donation-based yoga enthusiasts is Tony Eason, who trained in the Iyengar tradition. His classes, as well as links to other donation-based teachers, can be found at ynottony.com. Another great teacher in the Anusara tradition is Skeeter Barker, who teaches classes for all levels Mondays and Wednesdays from 7:45 to 9:15 p.m. at Yoga Kula, 3030a 16th St. (recommended $8–$10 donation).

Sports Basement also hosts free classes every Sunday at three stores: Bryant Street from 1 to 2 p.m., the Presidio from 11a.m. to noon, and Walnut Creek 11 a.m. to noon. Bring your own mat.

But remember: even yoga teachers need to make a living — so be fair and give what you can. (Amanda Witherell)

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HOW TO KEEP YOUR APARTMENT

So the building you live in was foreclosed. Or you missed a few rent payments. Suddenly there’s a three-day eviction notice in your mailbox. What now?

Don’t panic. That’s the advice from Ted Gullicksen, executive director of the San Francisco Tenants Union. Tenants have rights, and evictions can take a long time. And while you may have to deal with some complications and legal issues, you don’t need to pack your bags yet.

Instead, pick up the phone and call the Tenants Union (282-6622, www.sftu.org) or get some professional advice from a lawyer.

The three-day notice doesn’t mean you have to be out in three days. "But it does mean you will have to respond to and communicate with the landlord/lady within that time," Gullicksen told us.

It’s also important to keep paying your rent, Gullicksen warned, unless you can’t pay the full amount and have little hope of doing so any time soon.

"Nonpayment of rent is the easiest way for a landlord to evict a tenant," Gullicksen explained. "Don’t make life easier for the landlady who was perhaps trying to use the fact that your relatives have been staying with you for a month as grounds to evict you so she can convert your apartment into a pricey condominium."

There are, however, caveats to Gullicksen’s "always pay the rent" rule: if you don’t have the money or you don’t have all the money.

"Say you owe $1,000 but only have $750 when you get the eviction notice," Gullicksen explained. "In that case, you may want to not pay your landlord $750, in case he sits on it but still continues on with the eviction. Instead, you might want to put the money to finding another place or hiring an attorney."

A good lawyer can often delay an eviction — even if it’s over nonpayment or rent — and give you time to work out a deal. Many landlords, when faced with the prospect of a long legal fight, will come to the table. Gullicksen noted that the vast majority of eviction cases end in a settlement. "We encourage all tenants to fight evictions," he said. The Tenants Union can refer you to qualified tenant lawyers.

These days some tenants who live in buildings that have been foreclosed on are getting eviction notices. But in San Francisco, city officials are quick to point out, foreclosure is not a legal ground for eviction.

Another useful tip: if your landlord is cutting back on the services you get — whether it’s a loss of laundry facilities, parking, or storage space, or the owner has failed to do repairs or is preventing you from preventing you from "the quiet enjoyment of your apartment" — you may be able to get a rent reduction. With the passage of Proposition M in November 2008 tenants who have been subjected to harassment by their landlords are also eligible for rent reductions. That involves a petition to the San Francisco Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board (www.sfgov.org/site/rentboard_index.asp).

Gullicksen also recommends that people who have lost their jobs check out the Eviction Defense Collaborative (www.evictiondefense.org).

"They are mostly limited to helping people who have temporary shortfalls," Gullicksen cautioned. But if you’ve lost your job and are about to start a new one and are a month short, they can help. (Sarah Phelan)

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OUT OF WORK? HERE’S STEP ONE

How do you get your unemployment check?

"Just apply for it."

That’s the advice of California’s Employment Development Department spokesperson Patrick Joyce.

You may think you aren’t eligible because you may have been fired or were only working part-time, but it’s still worth a try. "Sometimes people are ineligible, but sometimes they’re not," Joyce said, explaining that a lot of factors come into play, including your work history and how much you were making during the year before you became unemployed.

"So, simply apply for it — if you don’t qualify we’ll tell you," he said. "And if you think you are eligible and we don’t, you can appeal to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board."

Don’t wait, either. "No one gets unemployment benefits insurance payments for the first week they are unemployed," Joyce explained, referring to the one-week waiting period the EDD imposes before qualified applicants can start collecting. "So you should apply immediately."

Folks can apply by filling out the unemployment insurance benefits form online or over the phone. But the phone number is frequently busy, so online is the best bet.

Even if you apply by phone, visit www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment beforehand to view the EDD’s extensive unemployment insurance instructions and explanations. To file an online claim, visit eapply4ui.edd.ca.gov. For a phone number for your local office, visit www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/telephone_numbers.

(Sarah Phelan)

We’ll be doing regular updates and running tips for hard times in future issues. Send your ideas to tips@sfbg.com.

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PREVIEW One of the most exciting and unusual theatrical events of 2008 came from a small San Francisco–spawned, now Brooklyn-based company: the curiously named Banana Bag and Bodice. It almost sounds unexpected, but in fact BBB, which retains close ties to the Bay Area, has been doing shrewd, highly imaginative, often startlingly designed songplays — their preferred term — with practically no budget for about a decade. Habitués of the San Francisco Fringe Festival, most of the company’s work has appeared there in one form or another — almost invariably garnering Best of Fringe honors — beginning with 1999’s debut outing, The Bastard Chronicles, and running through such memorable encounters as the dadaist delight and vegetarian horror show, Sandwich (2004), or the haunted viscera and satirical apocaly-poesis of The Sewers (2007).

Nonetheless, last spring’s world premiere of Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage — a slick, rousing performance-arty rock operetta-cum-English-lit-seminar that ran at the Ashby Stage in Berkeley — raised things to a new level for the company, especially in terms of production values. And thanks to the support of commissioning company Shotgun Players, BBB’s well-honed minimalist aesthetic, sardonic humor, enveloping musical designs, and performance rigor all proved more than capable of expanding to fill the bigger space and budget. It’s otherwise impossible — and still somewhat awesome — to imagine a BBB performance being mounted at a top-of-the-line venue like the Berkeley Rep. But that’s just where Beowulf will be reprised Jan. 8, expanding to fill the Rep’s cavernous Roda stage, in a single benefit performance ahead of the show’s New York City premiere in April at the Henry Street Settlement’s Abrons Arts Center. A sign of things to come.

Since co-founding Banana Bag and Bodice in 1999, writer-actor Jason Craig and actor Jessica Jelliffe have led the extremely resourceful, highly collaborative ensemble — which includes stalwarts composer-actor Dave Malloy and actor-director Rod Hipskind — in far-flung productions that regularly straddle NYC, SF, and Craig’s hometown of Dublin, Ireland. While dazzling audiences with works as conceptually unconventional as they are hilariously clever, behind the scenes they take a tough-minded and committed approach that serves them well in the lean and unforgiving environment of NYC’s alternative theater scene, and the group’s recent productions there have gained enthusiastic audiences and reviews as well as plenty of street cred with their peers.

Meanwhile, nurturing longstanding ties to the Bay Area has helped ensure a consistent output as well as momentum. When Shotgun’s artistic director Patrick Dooley held out the offer of a commission for an opera, Craig says they took the plunge without hesitation, telling him they’d like to do something with Beowulf. The idea apparently came more or less out of a hat. "I didn’t read it until Shotgun agreed to do it," he confesses alongside Jeliffe and Malloy at Craig and Jeliffe’s comfortable roost in a warehouse in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood. "It’s just really not my cup of tea. Honor and machismo." But Dooley immediately agreed, providing BBB with what was, for them, unprecedented support.

Malloy — as composer, musical director, and actor in the role of King Hrothgar — reveled in the creative possibilities: "To be able to have an eight-piece orchestra — I’ve never been able to have that before, and it’s so rich and rewarding." For the NYC production he’s even adding two more musicians. "I’ve been rewriting all the music, making it thicker and denser," he says. "It’s just a real treat, because I’m so used to doing black box theater where it’s like, ‘oh, this actor plays violin — great.’<0x2009>"

Craig’s script, meanwhile, ended up brilliantly channeling his reluctance and skepticism toward the epic poem itself, turning his own discovery and questioning of the text into a set of theatrical subjects and productive dichotomies: a panel of seemingly empty academic experts — two of whom, including Jelliffe, double as Beowulf’s monster adversaries — and the titular hero, played by Craig, as an unlikely he-man gone slightly to seed, in addition to a showdown with monsters who are also a mother and son, and the sly morphing of Beowulf’s medieval warrior mythos with its 21st-century rock-god counterpart. The latter concept was already honed in BBB’s 2007 show, The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen, which birthed a mock-legendary band with a life beyond the play. The results have shown BBB playing at the top of their game.

"It’s working with Shotgun that’s ramped up everything," confirms Jelliffe. "Not that we have to match that every time, but it has upped the ante, definitely. Usually we make whatever we can with whatever we can. With The Sewers, we made this incredible $20,000 set with no money because of the resources we are able to draw from in New York.

"We still do that, and will continue to do that," she continues. "But with Shotgun, I mean, having a budget?" It’s a modest one to be sure, but for now, without a doubt, as Craig says, "It’s cool."

BEOWULF: A THOUSAND YEARS OF BAGGAGE

Thurs/8, 8 p.m., $30

Roda Theatre

2025 Addison, Berk.

www.shotgunplayers.org

Don’t look back

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Cinephilia is a malady that affects the imagination above all. As 2008’s year-end pieces roll across the blogosphere, one encounters the alluring titles and stills of films which won’t reach the Bay Area for months. Against this tempting tide, I turn to the faint echoes of those undistributed movies which lingered in mind long enough after their festival screenings to become pliable to memory. To take one powerful example, the earthiness of John Gianvito’s still frames of the monuments and graves marking American radicalism’s many resting places inflected my own perception of Obama’s soaring rhetoric. Months after seeing it, Profit motive and the whispering wind‘s contemplative chronology kept returning to me as a visual counterpoint to the "long march" of the campaign season. Abel Ferrara’s Go Go Tales, on the other hand, provided the punch lines to the economic meltdown before the fact. The two films have nothing in common except for prescience, but then prescience is no small thing in a year in which the news outpaced the dream factory for twists-of-fate.

An elegiac documentary like Profit motive is a tough sell in any climate, but I fully expected Go Go Tales to score theatrical distribution after catching it at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Asia Argento slobbering a Rottweiler, Sylvia Miles rasping poetic about Bed Bath and Beyond, miles of dialogue, and a depth of staging which rewards concentration and intoxication in equal kind: Ferrara’s nightlife ballad is ripe for a cult following. At the center of film’s enclosed universe is Ray (Willem Dafoe), a small-time dreamer who runs his Manhattan club on less than a shoestring. The strippers are threatening a work stoppage, the landlady (Miles) is waving her pocketbook around about turning the lease over, and Ray’s brother — a hairstylist from Staten Island known at Ray’s Paradise Lounge as the "king of coiffeuse" — is pulling his financial support from the club. Drawing together all his business acumen, Ray invests in a crooked lotto racket.

After-hours in a threadbare nightclub is an ideal stage for waning fortunes, and it does seem that Ferrara was after a certain timeliness with Go Go Tales: gadfly Danny Cash (Joseph Cortese) spins a Jersey-size yarn about a pastrami projectile hitting "Hillary ‘I Might Be Your Next President’ Clinton," a headstrong cook hawks free-range hot dogs, and the staff grouses over the new Chinese customer base. But there’s no way the director could have known what Go Go Tales augured: Lehman Brothers shareholders left holding their own equivalent of "Ray Ray Dollars," budget cuts, drunk real estate agents, Ponzi schemes, and murmurs of the sinking ship.

A comedy of teetotaling fortunes, a musical with a touch of Beckett, Go Go Tales is every bit a Depression movie. Ferrara’s style is steeped in ’70s playbacks — Robert Altman’s wandering long takes, Woody Allen’s softness for showbiz, and John Cassevetes’ own strip-club serenade, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) — but as long as we’re talking about filmmakers who love talkers, let’s not overlook the original screwball savants. The Ray’s crowd bubbles over with the same provincial clamor as Preston Sturges’ stock company in Hail the Conquering Hero (1944). In Go Go Tales‘ climactic scene, Ray uncorks a brilliantly obfuscating speech before finding the winning lottery ticket in his front pocket. It’s delirium on the edge of despair and a worthy successor to Sturges’ Christmas in July (1940). Thinking about what Sturges would have done with a world in which "bailout" is Merriam Webster’s "word of the year" makes me want to cry laughing — but there I go imagining things again.

MAX GOLDBERG’S TOP 10 (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER):

Actresses (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, France, 2007)

Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao-hsien, France, 2007)

Foster Child (Brillante Mendoza, Philippines, 2007)

Go Go Tales (Abel Ferrara, Italy/USA, 2007)

The Last Mistress (Catherine Breillat, France/Italy, 2007)

Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, Sweden)

Myth Labs (Martha Colburn, USA)

Profit motive and the whispering wind (John Gianvito, USA, 2007)

Still Life (Jia Zhangke, China/Hong Kong, 2006)

The Witnesses (André Téchiné, France, 2007)

>>More Year in Film 2008

Top tendencies

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1. Sarabande (Nathaniel Dorsky, USA, 2008)

A masterful film was made in San Francisco by someone who doesn’t just live for the city, but does the city know it? Dorsky’s latest (along with the superb companion piece Winter) screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and was part of a retrospective at New York’s Anthology Film Archive, but as far as I know it has yet to have a public screening in his hometown, where he resides on the avenues that separate the filmmakers and film lovers of SF’s streets, and the Film Society in the Presidio. This summer, along with kino21’s Konrad Steiner, I put together a program devoted to Dorsky’s one-time peer and brother filmmaker of sorts, the late Warren Sonbert, whose revelatory explorations of editing and direct vision lead up — in far more frenetic and sprawling sense — to what Dorsky is doing today. Sarabande is the time and place where Dorsky’s devotional cinema reaches the sublime. This country priest of a film critic may be misreading the signs, once again, in making such a claim — but so be it.

2. The Exiles restoration (Kent MacKenzie, USA, 1961)

This night in the life of urban American Indians occupies a one-of-a-kind place and time. The title renders any description superfluous — what form of exile is stronger than the one discovered while drifting through a stolen home? MacKenzie’s movie, with the life-and-death tunnel vision of its gorgeous Weegee-inflected vérité cinematography, revealed a lost United States. Today it’s a haunting marker of a moment before this country’s commercial independent cinema went in countless stupid and phony directions, and of an area of Los Angeles that has vanished. People are rendered disposable. Lonely spirits continue to gather.

3. Wimbledon Men’s Final 2008: Rafael Nadal def. Roger Federer, 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7 (8-10), 9-7

If you believe what you read and what you see, Raise the Red Lantern and Hero director Zhang Yimou’s production of the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony was the spectacle of the year — so dazzling it erased the torch’s troubled travels from what’s left of a collective memory. Television networks have it on rerun, art publications like Artforum can’t stop parsing and usually praising it. (It also garnered an excellent lengthy "movie review" in the magazine Cinema Scope.) Yet Zhang’s endlessly-rehearsed and prefabricated festivities paled in comparison to the marathon drama and dazzling finale of this year’s last match at Wimbledon. The spine-tingling aspect came from fate, not machination, as night crept into a stadium that doesn’t use lights, and the victor’s triumph gave way to an outrageous spontaneous ovation of flashbulbs. It didn’t hurt that Rafael Nadal is the sport’s version of his idol, Zinedine Zidane. Lil Wayne said it best: "I love his motivation and his heart is so big. He leaves it on the court."

4. The Juche Idea (Jim Finn, USA, 2008) and Light is Waiting (Michael Robinson, USA 2007)

Convulsive cinema is radical cinema, one of the reasons the gut-busting aspects of these two movies are vital. Finn’s look at Kim Jong-Il’s film theories (yes, "Dear Leader" is a film theorist with publications to his name) is uncannily timely, from its clips of North Korean stadium parades — shades of Zhang Yimou’s Beijing bombast — to its satirical insight that little separates dreaded (and oft-ridiculous) socialism from the broken-down ghost of late capitalism. Also, best use of ski jumps, rodents, and fly-face sculptures this year. Robinson finds a Satanic kaleidoscope within the fractured pixels of an episode of Full House, making the discovery roughly around the time one of the Olsen twins re-manifested as an angel of death. His statement for the movie still might be the definitive one: "Tropes of video art and family entertainment face off in a luminous orgy neither can survive." Dying of laughter has rarely felt better.

5. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, Sweden, 2008)

The growing wave of top 10 raves and critic’s awards for Alfredson’s deeply subversive eternal preteen romance is a rare heartening aspect of this year’s feature film malaise.

6. California Company Town (Lee Ann Schmitt, USA, 2008), Viva (Anna Biller, USA, 2007), Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, USA, 2008), and When It Was Blue (Jennifer Reeves, USA, 2008)


The heart of American cinema in 2008 is as wild and strong as these directors’ visions. Schmitt’s scorched-earth exploration of California’s abandoned past, closing with a final chapter on Silicon Valley that refreshingly breaks its own rules and throws down the gauntlet, is the timeliest movie in a year of ever-accumuutf8g economic disaster. Biller’s tribute to the bodaciously vivid soft-core fantasies of Russ Meyer and Radley Metzger couples enthusiasm with smarts with kinky results. It also features a character whose incessant cackling laughter practically becomes hallucinogenic. Reichardt starts off what could have been just another shaggy dog story by paying tribute to the Polaroid Kidd (she’s also sussed out the new depression), and allows her lead actress’s offscreen back story to silently color in a thousand shades of loss. In sync with Skuli Sverrisson’s incandescent score, Reeves’ movie makes love to nature. The past-tense in the title proves she’s looking ahead.

7. Wild Combination (Matt Wolf, USA, 2008)

In his feature debut, the talented 25-year-old Wolf chooses a documentary subject he has an affinity for, and Russell’s still-blooming musical legacy automatically gives the film a unique soulful beauty. While the pastoral and waterfront imagery is expected, Wolf’s humane insight as an interviewer is a wonder to behold. It results in one of the year’s most emotionally powerful films, when following the reticent Russell could have been futile. The final 10 minutes are a complete rebuke to all the idiotic discourse that rails against (and perhaps even for?) gay marriage.

8. Hunger (Steve McQueen, UK/Ireland, 2008) and Milk (Gus Van Sant, USA, 2008)


Is hunger sated by milk? Can milk alone get rid of hunger? Steve McQueen is the last art star with film director aspirations, and Gus Van Sant is a movieland auteur who always seems to look longingly at the art world’s white cubes. Both have made bio-dramas about political icons: McQueen speculates about the life and death of IRA leader Bobby Sands, while Van Sant, in case you haven’t heard, has realized his fascination with a certain trailblazing gay San Franciscan. Funny, then, that McQueen makes a riveting experimental work that devolves into a standard heroic final passage, while Van Sant crafts a traditional film in drag. In interview, McQueen told me that he thought of Hunger‘s standout confrontational scene as a bit like the 1982 Wimbledon final. (See, tennis is uniquely cinematic.) But his visceral perspective is most effective early on, when scarcely any words are spoken, and his oblique references to everyone from Jean Genet to Van Sant’s old love Alfred Hitchcock don’t seem merely precocious.

9. The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, USA, 2008)

I may have enjoyed this movie because I know next to nothing about (and don’t give a damn about) Mickey Rourke’s misadventures. He arrived in my frame of vision as a modern-day American version of Jean Cocteau’s Beast, blinking out some perfectly round tears when he isn’t pulling staples out of his leathery salon-tanned hide. Look no further than the corrupt endgame of Hulk Hogan — better yet, try to avoid looking at it — for proof that such a figure suits the late-Bush era, though of course Rourke’s brawler has true working-class heart. A working class hero is something to be.

10. Manny Farber, 1917-2008

A lot of critics, ranging from musty well-off bores to young upstarts, wrote tributes to Farber upon his passing. But I have to wonder, who in the current era’s echo chamber of Web-bound opinion has actually learned from him? Ten years ago, there were at least a few voices (Chuck Stephens, Edward E. Crouse) whose writing carried traces of Farber’s spiky structures and wonderfully disorienting shifts in point-of-view. Now, I don’t see hear anyone with a voice like his, but more troubling, I don’t see newer generations of film critics picking up on the fact that he approached the medium as something other than a passive "entertain me" observer. Farber’s vision of film was anything but literal. He was, and is, an artist.

>>More Year in Film 2008

Between Oakland soul and the ‘Black Sea’: A top 10 from Jeff Ray of Mission Creek Music Festival

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Itchy and scratchy: Tomutonttu’s Ultra Eczema art.

‘Tis the season – here’s another in a series of top 10s from Bay Area musicians, writers, and scenesters.

JEFF RAY’S TOP 10

– Favorite album: Fennesz, Black Sea (Touch)
Should be renamed Endless Winter. So incredibly lush and can warm up any long Ukrainian winter night.
– Favorite band: MGMT
Fun, danceable, catchy but not stupid.
– Favorite music series, “Relay” at the Lab, Oct. 22–Nov. 15
Great experimental music series hosted by the Lab. Folks from Finland and Fonal Records, Tomutonttu, Thuja, and Loren Chasse all performed, along with others. The sonic works were inspiring to listen to and watch. The Lab is awesome: www.thelab.org.

Steps that impressed

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Looking back over the past year always entails a look forward, and perhaps the best part of 2008 is that in 2009 there is at least the possibility of the arts becoming part of the national dialogue. Two reasons warrant such optimism: during the Great Depression, people still wrote books, went to the theater and movies, and created canvasses. Modern dance went through its most crucial development in that time.

Furthermore, President-elect Barack Obama actually has an arts agenda — the first president to have one in a long while. That alone is encouraging. As for 2008, out of dozens of experiences, some inevitably have imprinted themselves more than others.

**If I had to choose the single most important event of the year, it would have to be the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s two-week residency at Cal Performances, culminating with Craneway Event at a former Ford auto plant in Richmond. It was a quiet, luminous, and utterly unforgettable Sunday afternoon of being in the presence of genius.

**San Francisco Ballet’s commissioning of 10 works by 10 choreographers in honor of its 75th anniversary could have been more adventuresome. Still, it signaled a commitment to the future. Margaret Jenkins’ and Julia Adam’s pieces were not critically acclaimed, but both choreographers dared to go outside the conventionally balletic.

**Ballet San Jose impressed with first-rate programming. Just Balanchine, Swan Lake, The Firebird, and The Toreador highlighted just how fine a group of dancers they are — with an excellent repertoire the South Bay can call its own.

**Shelley Senter set Trisha Brown’s 1979 hauntingly beautiful Glacial Decoy before the professionals and graduate students of Mills College dance department, titling it Glacial Decoy Redux. Adapted for a smaller stage, the 30-year-old piece looked as pristine and daring as ever.

**Joe Goode Performance Group made Wonderboy after a sabbatical spent recharging batteries with travel. With its touching tenderness and poignant exploration of loneliness and community, Wonderboy was vintage Goode, though in its use of the material — dance in particular, but also text, music, and puppetry — it was as fresh and imaginative as anything he has created.

**Former Joe Goode dancer, Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People’s edgy and audience-challenging Retrospective Exhibitionist asked the year’s most intellectually trenchant questions about the nature of performance, perception, and theatrical manipulation.

**Hip-hop artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s the break/s: a mixtape for stage proved to be another of his meditations on what it means to be an African American, a man, a father, and a human being. Using a travel diary approach, he integrated language, music, and movement into a self-effacing monologue that was as freewheeling yet formally cogent.

**Certainly the most intriguing, but least promising, collaboration happened between Janice Garrett and Dancers and the Del Sol String Quartet. The idea was to have dancers and musicians physically interact with each other. The result was the sparkling StringWreck, a spirited entertainment with musical as well as choreographic substance.

**Jess Curtis/Gravity’s imagistic Symmetry Study #7 for Curtis and Maria Francesca Scaroni paired the two nude dancers in a structured contact improvisation in which their interlocking bodies became a piece of sculpture trying to find its form. They used the body at its most basic: weight, mass, and skeletal structure.

**The San Francisco International Arts Festival brought the year’s best surprise: Berkeley’s Art Street Theater’s US premiere of Yes, Yes to Moscow, a wistful and beautifully imaginative dance theater work that picked up where Chekhov’s Three Sisters left off. If you have ever wondered what would have happened if Olga, Masha, and Irina had made it Moscow, go and see Yes — if it ever returns.

Picks, pans, and a top 10

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CHUCK MOBLEY, CURATOR AT SF CAMERAWORK


Pan: SF Art Institute’s furlough

A humble proposal to those laid off for a month: exchange your individual voice for a collective one and begin intervening by employing the crafty tools of activism as an artful device of communication in order to effect positive change for your institution. As culture workers you are bound to succeed.
Pick: The Size Queens, Magic Dollar Shoppe (Bitter Stag)

A lineup of Bay Area all-stars have produced a multi-layered disc of anti-globalization, anti-pop culture anthems filled with pathos and wit. By turns literary, cheeky, melancholic, and celebratory, this music is the perfect accompaniment to a protest or a Naomi Klein lecture.

XYLOR JANE, ARTIST


Pick: P&H 2 (Behemoth), 2007, oil on canvas, 84" x 92", from "Amy Sillman: Third Person Singular,"

at Tang Museum, Saratoga, NY

This painting stares you down and sizes you up. I lock a gaze. I’m a little scared. I can hear and smell every single thing near me. IT makes you bristle, puff, straighten and square the challenge, feet planted for a tussle. The hot center smokes and glows blood fire, breathes through clamped jaws, "What the fuck are you?". Turns a thick neck and swings an armored tail. THWACK. Hit, jolted, burnt? Part of me melts away, Oh, just my outers, clothes and skin. Hair.

LAWRENCE RINDER, DIRECTOR OF BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE


1. Odetta at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
2. Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri’s documentary film October Country
3. Conspiracy of Venus at Adobe Books
4. "Ajit Chahuan: Milky Way of Breeding Stallions That Roll, Ejacuutf8g By Themselves," at Adobe Books Backroom Gallery
5. "Paul Schiek: the thing about you is that you will end up like me," at Stephen Wirtz Gallery
6. Leah Marks’ senior show at California College of the Arts
7. Jennifer Blowdryer
8. Andy Goldsworthy’s The Spire in the Presidio
9. Brontez at Dog Eared Books
10. Frederic Rzewsky, solo piano at Mills College

WILLIAM E. JONES, FILMMAKER


Pick: Odires Mlászho

At São Paulo’s Galeria Vermelho this fall, I saw the sexy and cerebral, disciplined and dissipated work of Mlászho for the first time. He juxtaposes ordinary mortal faces and Roman portrait sculptures with geometric rigor in his collage series "A Fossil Dig Full of Hooks." He cunningly cements pages of reference books together in his sculpture Enciclopédia Britânica. His most powerful works (from a series called "Butchers and Master Apprentices") involve elaborate collage rearrangements of male nudes that manage to look at once disemboweled and bloodless. Diaphanous yet strong, a body becomes a deconstruction of a flesh-colored Herman Miller lamp.

AVA JANCAR, CO-OWNER OF JANCAR JONES GALLERY


Pick: The current Berkeley Art Museum

A few months ago I found a pamphlet-like publication at an antique shop in Alameda, its cover austere, reading simply University Arts Center. Detailed within were the elevation plans of the elegantly modern yet utilitarian Mario Ciampi design for the Berkeley Art Museum’s current site. Opened in 1970 and constructed in a brutalist manner, with fanning interior cantilevers around an airy core, the concrete building is to be replaced soon with a design by international architect Toyo Ito. My past year of visits to the museum has been colored by this knowledge, and I’ve begun to mourn its impending loss. In spite of the current structure’s seismic instability, it remains baffling to me that a community is so quick to dispose of this local icon, not yet 50 years old. "The richness of this building will arise from the sculptural beauty of its rugged major forms," an awards jury wrote in 1966 regarding Ciampi’s plan. "We believe [it] can become one of the outstanding contributions to museum design in our time."

HENRY URBACH, CURATOR OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN AT SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART


Pick: "Lautrec in Leather: Chuck Arnett and the Birth of the San Francisco Scene," at the GLBT Historical Society

If you missed the show, you can still see Arnett’s rendition of Michelangelo’s David in full leather gear (on view in the Historical Society’s exhibition on 18th and Castro), or you can make an appointment to visit the organization’s extensive queer archive.

Pick: The Federal Office Building by Morphosis, Renzo Piano’s Academy of Sciences Building, and Toyo Ito’s design for the Berkeley Art Museum

These buildings point the way to a new civic architecture.

Pick: The Hunky Jesus contest in Dolores Park on Easter Sunday

Street theater at its finest.

Pick: Nice Collective’s "Voix de Ville" Collection

How fortunate we are to have these brilliant designers among us.

Pan: Proposition 8

MATT FURIE, ARTIST


Pick: "One-Thousand Twenty-Six Eyes," at Hamburger Eyes Photo Epicenter

One thousand twenty-six eyes is a lot of eyes and it’s also the name of an awesome group show I saw this year at Hamburger Eyes. I like eyes. The show featured a ton of cool photos from the kids at Space 1026 in Philly. The best thing there was a large glowing geodesic dome with tie-dyed pillows all around it. I sat on a pillow and discovered a little peephole with a tiny photo inside. Turned out this structure was lined with tons of little viewfinders and each hole had a different pic! They also had a great merch booth in the back with a bunch of handmade prints, zines, t-shirts and stuff. I bought an awesome hamburger-with-eyes t-shirt there by artist Chris Kline. He rules.

DARIN KLEIN, PROGRAMS COORDINATOR AT THE HAMMER MUSEUM AND CURATOR


Pick: Fag School #3

Naked men (Jewish Jason, Bob the Handyman, and My Best Friend’s Weiner), hilarious cruising reviews, mortifying blackout reviews, advice columns by Telfar and Allison Wolfe, interviews with New Bloods and Billy Cheer. All of this and more, created with scissors, markers, glue, and a manual typewriter. Nothing fancy, experimental or tricky about this project. Just rants, raves, and snapshots, served up hottt by San Francisco’s very own Brontez in glorious black and white photocopy. The price is right at just $3.50. Warning: Playing the weird Lovewarz DVD that comes with this zine could ruin a preppy gay birthday party!

SFJAZZ announces the lineup of its 10th Anniversary Spring Season

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This in from SFJAZZ’s people (a total aside: I’m looking forward to Brad Mehldau, Jenny Scheinman, pictured below, as well as Seun Kuti, pictured above. And you know Allen Toussaint and Tinariwen are going to be awesome):

“Randall Kline, the Executive Artistic Director of SFJAZZ – the leading non-profit jazz organization on the West Coast and the presenter of the San Francisco Jazz Festival today announced the complete artist lineup for the 10th Anniversary SFJAZZ Spring Season. The unique and spectacular four-month-long concert series begins on March 6 and continues through June 21. The season will present some of the most illustrious names in jazz, world, and related music including McCoy Tyner, Branford Marsalis, Madeleine Peyroux, Bill Frisell’s Disfarmer Project, Ahmad Jamal, Jenny Scheinman, John Scofield and the Piety Street Band, Kayhan Kalhor and Brooklyn Rider, Tinariwen, Chris Potter Underground, Will Bernard, Mariza, CéU, Mingus Dynasty with John Handy, Allen Toussaint, Karrin Allyson, Idan Raichel, Michael Feinstein: the Sinatra Project, Brad Mehldau, Richard Bona and Lionel Loueke, Roy Hargrove, James Carter, Kenny Burrell, Michael Wolff, Hiromi’s Sonicbloom, and many others.

“’For 26 years, SFJAZZ has been guided by a simple principle: we absolutely love music—and we want to present it in the best possible context for all those who share our passion,’ said Kline. ‘In 2000, we took a huge step forward in that mission by launching the SFJAZZ Spring Season, marking our expansion into a year-round concert presenting organization. Over the last 10 years, the Spring Season has grown exponentially. This year we will present nearly 40 concerts over four months, purposefully matching each artist with the ideal venue for a high-quality listening experience. Our aim is to reflect the tighter, more culturally close-knit nature of today’s world, and the positively open-minded, “multi-culti” city that we call home – San Francisco.’

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Broken but not broke

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Replife, a.k.a, Daniel Gray Kontar, leads a well-balanced life. How else can one describe a man who in one breath casually mentions that he’s a Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley’s School of Education and in the next brags that the parties at his pad in the North Berkeley Hills "are off the meat rack"? The Cleveland transplant has a lot going on, including a new album for London label Futuristica, The Unclosed Mind, which includes tracks produced by the cream of the broken beat crop, from New York’s Arch-Typ to New Zealand’s Mark De Clive-Lowe.

Like many rappers, Kontar got his start in a breakdancing crew where he evolved into an MC for local DJs and beatmakers. From there he stretched his lyrical talents beyond music, stepping into the realm of the written word, where he wrote for Cleveland newspapers and edited and published the underground monthly magazine Urban Dialect, and wrote poetry, climbing through the spoken word ranks until he was National Poetry Slam co-champion in 1994.

Almost 15 years later, Kontar is excited, yet a little bemused, by the release of his first album, which boasts production by the likes of Dego and Kaidi Taitham, of 4 Hero and Bugz in the Attic fame. "It was a case of being in the right place at the right time," Kontar recalled when asked how he lined up such in-demand producers. After he recorded some raps at a minute’s notice for Mark De Clive-Lowe on his Politik project, De Clive-Lowe suggested he ring up Dego, who lived around the way. "When you record with Mark de Clive-Lowe and Dego in the span of two days," he said, "things just kind of happen after that, y’know?" The favors have been returned, with the piano-and-cymbal bursts of the De Clive-Lowe-produced "Emerald City" and the robotic synth stutter of Dego and Taitham’s "Spirit," slotting in nicely next to tracks crafted by lesser-known artists.

From the bossa sway of "Pangea" to the sultry slap of "Put It Down," The Unclosed Mind shows an MC exploring the limits of broken beat, and Kontar said that, unlike some pundits, he doesn’t see the scene dying off, due in part to a recent wave of emigration. "Daz-i-Kue is in Atlanta; Mark de Clive-Lowe is in Los Angeles; and Dego is in Brooklyn. So I think that having these kinds of folks who are the foundation of the movement now in the states is going to increase people’s knowledge of the broken philosophy," he explained. "I call it the broken philosophy because it’s not necessarily a style of music as much as a state of mind or a feeling." (Peter Nicholson)
AFROTEK FESTIVAL
With Replife, Blaktroniks-, Jaswho?, and Douglas Pagan
Dec. 20, 9 p.m., $5
The Dark Room at Club Six
60 Sixth St., SF
(415) 863-1221
www.clubsix1.com

Super Ego: Cassy takes Kontrol

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By Marke B.

Clubwise, this is an absoschmutely luverly weekend to catch up on your real house music education. Representing the actual, incredible old school is the Godfather of House (and the sqwonky inventor of acid) himself, Marshall Jefferson, moving your body at the steamy B.O.D.Y.H.E.A.T. party at Elbo Room on Friday, Dec. 5. Marshall recently brought it into the new a little with his smash Mushrooms, remixed by SF’s own goofy-minimal darling Justin Martin — which was nice after what seemed too many years of silence from the master.

But he didn’t bring it exactly up to the minute, into the realms of underground German microhouse — for that, I gaily urge you to hit up one of my most favorite minimal techno clubs, Kontrol at the Endup, to catch perennially poignant Perlon records’ Cassy at work this Saturday, Dec. 6.

cassy1208a.jpg
Cassy, oh! Photo by Marietta Kesting

I still don’t know if I believe in microhouse — which to my fuzzy, broken ears often just sounds like minimal techno with a very few softer sounds and soul samples thrown in. But I get that it’s the proud polar opposite of the usual overproduced house bombast, even if it can sometimes lean dangerously close to trance at times, albeit barebones, non-carnival trance. Not that there’s anything wrong with trance, but there kind of is.

In any case, Berlin native Cassy’s on it with some fierce sets of deep-cutting suavity, and Kontrol’s booth will see some much-appreciated female power. Its dance floor, however, will be as dark and fantastic as always. The Berlin invasion continues!

Cassy at Hamburg’s Camp 77 party

Cassy at the 2008 Detroit Electronic Music Festival

Hear ye: Global Headphone Fest happens Saturday

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A very-last-minute dispatch from the deletist, “deleting elitists since 2003”:

San Francisco’s Fourth Annual Global Headphone Festival
Sat/6, 4 p.m.- 4 a.m., free and all ages and BYOH (bring your own headphones) and 1/4-inch headphone adapters will be available for a small returnable deposit
5lowershop
992 Peralta, SF
(415) 762-3616
More info and live stream at www.deletist.info/plug4.html

Performances by
MICHAEL MANTRA [dronecore]
STRANGELET [noise/improv/buffonery]
MOSB [square recovery]
SONDERKOMMANDO [glitchy industrial noise]
ROGER MILLS [trumpet drones : streaming from AUSTRALIA]
FILTHMILK [cavernous electronics]
SABRETEETH [tesla death ray]
CORVETTE SUMMER [antidoom]
MNEMOTH [deconstructivism]
SKULLCASTER [blackened folk]
MR. CLUCK [circuit bent toys]
SHARKIFACE [hex breaker]
CATSYNTH [ambient]
RUIDOBELLO [processed field recordings]
VSLS [antisonique]
CONFIGURATION AND FUNDAMENTAL GROWTH [experimental]
OZMADAWN [noise and drones]
DANCIN BABY [soundtrack from hell]
MIXILE [ambient/field recordings : streaming from IRELAND]
MOISTURE [electronics]
DESPICABLE ALIEN [electroacoustic duo]
DUBTAIL [electronics]
WELTSCHMERZ [cellos of doom]
JOHN M. BENNETT [sound poetry : streaming from FRANCE]
FOREST ZOMBIE [textured computer noise]
PEREID [electro carnage]
NICOLAS CARRAS [sound art/concret music : streaming from FRANCE]
DELETIST [cover songs gone wrong]
CEREBRAL ROIL [industrial grindcore]
DARPH/NADER [villainy]
A FASHIONABLE DISEASE [noise ass jazz glitch fuck metal]
MOISTURE FARMER [sitar fx]
HORAFLORA [psychoacoustics]
DJ CRACKHOUSE [noisehop]
HEARTWORM [mechanically separated]

Cue the clowns

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› steve@sfbg.com

The circus doesn’t come to San Francisco, but its performers do, sexy and talented dreamers who bring a creative energy that has transformed the city’s nightlife and counterculture. Spinning aerialists and dancing clowns now proliferate at clubs and parties, and their number has more than doubled in recent years.

They come from towns across the country — often via Burning Man, where they discover their inner performers, dying to burst out, and other kindred spirits — to a city with a rich circus tradition, which they tweak and twist into something new, a hybrid of the arts and punk sideshow weirdness. It’s the ever-evolving world of Indie Circus.

One of the biggest banners these performers now dance and play under is Bohemian Carnival, which draws together some of the city’s best indie circus acts, including Vau de Vire Society, the clown band Gooferman, and Fou Fou Ha, acts that fluidly mix with one another and the audience.

Last Saturday, as families across the country shopped and shared Thanksgiving leftovers, this extended family of performers rehearsed for that night’s Bohemian Carnival. Fou Fou Ha was in the Garage, a SoMa performance space, working on a new number celebrating beer with founder/choreographer Maya Culbertson, a.k.a. MamaFou, pushing for eight-count precision.

"Do it again," she tells her eight high-energy charges, who look alternatively sexy and zany even without the colorful and slightly grotesque clown costumes they don for shows. I watch from the wings as they drill through the number again and again, struck by how the improvised comedy at the song’s end changes every time, someone’s new shtick catching my eye and making me smile.

"That’s what we love the most, the improv element to it," Culbertson tells me. "We see how far you can take it and not break character."

As Fou Fou Ha wrapped up and headed home to get ready for the show, Gooferman and Vau de Vire were just starting to rehearse and set up over at the party venue, DNA Lounge. Reggie Ballard was up a tall ladder setting the rigging, the dancers stretched, Vau de Vire co-founder Mike Gaines attended to a multitude of details, and Gooferman frontmen Vegas and Boenobo the Klown played the fools.

"I feel like I’m on acid," Vegas said evenly, his long Mohawk standing tall.

"Are you?" Boenobo said, perhaps a little jealous.

"No, I wish," Vegas replied. "But that’s why it’s weird."

"Huh," Boenobo deadpanned. "Weird."

Fucking clowns. I decide to chat up a dancer, Rachel Strickland, the newest member of Vau de Vire, who stretched and unabashedly changed into her rehearsal clothes as she told me about why she moved here from North Carolina in July 2007.

"I waited a long time for this. I always knew I wanted to come to San Francisco and work on the stage, doing something in the line of Moulin Rouge, with the costumes and that kind of decadence and debauchery," Strickland said, oozing passion for her craft and the life she’s chosen, one she said has met her expectations. "I danced as much as I could my whole life and I have an overactive imagination, so it’s hard to shock me."

Not that Vau de Vire hasn’t tried. Shocking people out of their workaday selves is what the performers try to do, whether through vaudeville acts, dance routines, feats of skill, or just sheer sensual outlandishness. Vau de Vire choreographer Shannon Gaines (Mike’s wife of 19 years) also teaches at the local indie circus school Acrosports and, with beatboxer and performance artist Tim Barsky, directs its City Circus youth program, which combines hip hop and other urban art forms with circus.

Gaines has been a gymnast and dancer all her life, skills that she’s honed into circus performances she does through five different agencies, often doing corporate events "that involve wearing a few more clothes" and other more conventional performances.

"The other seems like work to me. But this," she said, a wry smile coming to her lips, "is like dessert. This is what excites me."

She’s not the only one. With their growing popularity, San Francisco’s indie circus freaks are juggling an increasingly busy schedule and developing even bigger plans for the new year, including a national tour and an extravaganza called Metropolus that would reinforce San Francisco’s reputation as the best Big Top in the country.

As Boenobo told me, "It’s a moment in time when there’s something big developing in San Francisco."

MIMES AND PICKLES


The circus arts are ancient, but San Francisco’s unique role in morphing and perpetuating them trace back to the 1970s when Make-a-Circus arrived here from Europe — where circus traditions are strong — and the local, organic Pickle Family Circus was born.

Wendy Parkman, now a board member at San Francisco Circus Center, the circus school she helped develop in conjunction with the Pickles and legendary performer Judy Finelli, worked for both circuses and described how they derived from San Francisco’s vibrant arts scene and its history of grassroots activism.

"It was just a wonderful, spontaneous bubble, a renaissance of circus activity," Parkman told the Guardian. "It was an outgrowth of the fabulous ’60s and the involvement of people with community and politics and art."

Parkman and many others trace the local lineage of a renaissance that came to be known as New Circus back to the San Francisco Mime Troupe, which in 1959 started doing political theater that incorporated comedy (or more specifically, Commedia dell’Arte), music, farce, melodrama, and other aspects of clowning.

"It really started with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and it flourishes here because of the rich arts culture that we’ve always had here," Jeff Raz, a longtime performer with both original SF troupes who started the San Francisco Clown Conservatory and recently had the title role in Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo, told the Guardian.

"San Francisco felt like a place where things could happen that were socially and politically relevant," Parkman said. "Circus has always been a people’s art form. It’s a great way of getting a lot of people involved because it takes a lot of people to put on a show."

Perhaps even more relevant to the current indie circus resurgence, both Make-a-Circus and the Pickle Family Circus reached out to working class neighborhoods in San Francisco, where they would do parades and other events to entertain the people and generate interest in the circus.

"It was happy, healthy, and accessible to people of all ages, classes, and backgrounds," said Parkman said, who noted that things began to change in the 1980s as funding for the arts dried up and Pickle hit hard times.

"The Pickle Family Circus was a grassroots circus that was part of a real renaissance. Unfortunately, it didn’t go very far," Dominique Jando, a noted circus historian who has written five books on the circus and whose wife teaches trapeze at the Circus Center, told the Guardian.

Still, the Pickle legacy lives on in the Circus Center and Acrosports, making San Francisco and Montreal (birthplace of Cirque du Soleil, whose influence has also propelled the indie circus movement) the two major hubs of circus in North America. Unlike Europe, Russia, and China, where circus training is deeply rooted and often a family affair passed from generation to generation, Jando said, Americans don’t have a strong circus tradition.

"We are really the poor children of the circus world. There is not the same tradition of circus here that there is in Europe," said Jando, a native to France who now lives in San Francisco. "Learning circus is like ballet, and it’s not really in the American psyche to work and train for seven years for a job that offers modest pay."

Homegrown spectacles like Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus commercialized the circus and transformed it into the three-ring form that sacrificed intimacy and the emphasis on artistry and narrative flow. Traditionally in Europe, the clowns and music structured a circus performance, with the punctuation and interludes provided by the acrobats and other performers of the circus arts.

"It’s the superhuman and the supremely human, who are the clowns," is how Raz defines circus. "Clowns are becoming more central to the circus, the supremely human part, and that has a lot to do with our times."

Raz, Jando, and Parkman all pointed to the sterile excesses of the televised, digitized, Twittering, 24/7 world we live in as feeding the resurgence of circus. "It points to a demand by the audience to see something more down to earth and real," Jando said. "There is a need to go back to basics."

"It’s a response to the overly technological world we’re living in. People want to go back to what the human body can do and be in the same place as the performers," Parkman said. "One of the concepts of the Pickles was that it was drawing on the European model. I’d say what’s going on now in San Francisco is an offshoot of what the Pickles did."

Raz said the rise of Indie Circus and its influence on the local arts scene is consistent with his own experiences as an actor and clown. He used to keep two resumes, but performers today are often expected to be steeped in both disciplines, letting one inform the other and opening up new forms of creative expression.

"That melding that you’re looking at, from the club scene to Burning Man, is seeping into a lot of the world," Raz said. "Circus is very much a living art form."

Somehow," Jando said, "it has become a sort of counterculture on the West Coast."

INDIE, THE NEW NEW CIRCUS


Boenobo and Vegas haven’t done any real training to become clowns. They’re performers who use the clown shtick to build a fun and fantastical world off their solid musical base.

"There has to be whimsy. People take themselves so seriously," Boenobo said, noting that it was in response to the serious-minded Winter Music Conference in 2001 where he had the idea of having the members of his new band, Gooferman, dress as clowns. It was a lark, but it was fun and it stuck, and they’ve been clowns ever since.

"The clown thing floats my boat. It is a persona I really dig. And the band kicks ass. We’re all just super tight. The Bohemian Carnival is just a bunch of friends, like a family ejected out of different wombs," he said.

The band does kick ass. Setting aside the clown thing, their tunes are original and fun, evoking Oingo Boingo at its early best, particularly since the summer, when Boenobo and Vegas brought in a strong new rhythm section. But it’s the collaboration with Vau de Vire and the other groups that round out Bohemian Carnival and really bring it to life.

"People say it just blew my mind, and that is the immortality of it," Boenobo said. "It’s super-fucking gratifying, really. It’s just stupid."

They performed last month at the Hillbilly Hoedown inside a giant maze made of hay bales in Half Moon Bay, with the clowns and circus performers creating a fantastical new world for the partygoers. As Gooferman played, Shannon broke the rules and danced atop a hay bale wall behind the band, conveying pure danger and backwoods sex appeal.

"The Gooferman character is called Bruiser or Shenanigans," Shannon said of her performer alter egos. "She does the things that you’d get kicked out of a party for, but I can get away with it."

She considers herself more of a "fluffer" than a dancer, and while Gooferman plays, she gets the band and crowd charged up by pushing the limits of silliness and composure herself and seeing if they’ll follow. "So they’re thinking, wow, if she can do that, I can do all kinds of things."

Their world not only includes practitioners of circus arts (contortionists, aerialists, trapeze artists, clowns, and the like), but also the fashion scene (including outlandish local designers such as Anastasia), painters, sculptors, dancers, actors, fire artists, and DJs like Smoove who bring a certain zany flair to the dance parties.

"It’s hybridized. So it’s not just circus arts with some musical backing," Boenobo said. Instead, it creates a fun and whimsical scene that makes attendees feel like they’re part of something unusual, fun, and liberating. "Immersion is very important."

That’s why the Bohemian Carnival and its many offshoots try to break down the wall between the performers and the audience, who often show up in circus or Burning Man styles, further blurring the borders.

"When you break down that big third wall, there’s no pretense," Mike Gaines said. "It’s really about the party and the community."

Clowns circulate in the crowd, interacting with the audience while aerialists suddenly start performing on ropes or rings suspended over the dance floor. It draws the audience in, opens them up, makes them feel like they’re part of something.

"All of the sudden, people get to realize the dream of running away with the circus, but they get to leave it at the end of the night," Boenobo said with a wink, "which they generally like."

"The line of where circus starts and ends has been blurred," said kSea Flux (a.k.a. Kasey Porter), an indie circus performer who earlier this year started Big Top Magazine (www.bigtopmagazine.com) to chronicle the growing culture. "I love the old-school circus, but as with everything, it needs to be able to evolve to continue to grow."

When he joined the indie circus movement five years ago, performing with the Dresden Dolls, Flux said it transformed his life. He quit his corporate job and started developing his art and trying to make a living in the circus arts, including promoting the culture through the magazine.

"I found the circus and was completely filled with a new life," Flux said, noting that it was through his long involvement with Burning Man that he was exposed to the circus scene. "I think Burning Man gives a platform for it. People get stuck in their jobs and there’s this great week when you can let go and be what you want to be."

That’s also how the talented aerialist and hooper who calls herself Shredder got into this world, which she’s now explored in both the traditional circus and the indie variety, preferring the latter.

"I didn’t even know it was possible, but I just love it," said Shredder, who worked as a firefighter, EMT, and environmental educator before getting into performing through Burning Man, where Boenobo set up the Red Nose District in 2006 for all the many offshoots of the indie circus world that attend the event.

Shredder developed hula hoop and aerial routines, training hard to improve her skills and eventually was hired by the Cole Brothers Circus in 2006 to do aerial acrobatics and hooping. Founded in 1882, Cole is a full-blown circus in the Ringling Bros. tradition, with a ringleader, animals, and trained acrobats. Shredder toured 92 cities in 10 months until she felt the creativity and joy being snuffed out by the rote repetition of the performances.

"We did the exact same show everyday. It was like Groundhog Day but worse; same show, different parking lot," said Shredder, who later that Saturday night did a performance with more than a dozen hula hoops at once. "Then I heard about Vau de Vire through some fellow performers and I just heard they were doing really well and I wanted to be with a group like that … I was just so happy that they were willing to help me design my vision as an artist."

COMING TOGETHER


The Bohemian Carnival name and concept was actually an import from Fort Collins, Colo., where Mike and Shannon Gaines created the Vau de Vire Society as part of the performance and party space they operated there in a 100-year-old church that they purchased.

Mike’s background was in film; Shannon was a dancer; and the world they created for themselves was decidedly counterculture. So was their space, the Rose Window Experimental Theater and Art House, which they operated from 1997 to 2001 and lived in with 20 of their bohemian friends.

"It allowed us to really get to know ourselves. We had all day to just rig up any kind of performance we could imagine," she said. "If you had a crazy idea, you could just come on over at 3 a.m. and do it."

Their signature events were themed parties that would open with performances of about 30 minutes, usually combining music, dance, and performance art, followed by a dance party that was essentially an all-night rave. Initially the performances just drew off of the creativity of their friends, including those Shannon danced with. The themes were often risqué and sometimes included nudity.

The performances evolved over time, bringing in talent such as Angelo Moore of the band Fishbone, who is still a regular part of their crew. They were all attracted to the freaky side of performance art, which drew them toward sideshow, vaudeville, and circus themes and expanding what was technically possible. "We ended up getting a rigger in and just flying around the theater," Mike said.

In 2000, they did their first Bohemian Carnival event. "That’s when we started dabbling in the circus," Mike said.

While the events gained regional acclaim in newspapers and were supported by notables figures, including the town’s mayor, there was a backlash among local conservatives, including some who objected to how a traditional church was being used for raves by these bohemian freaks.

In 2001 they decided to search for a new home. "We looked around for the place that would be most accepting of what we were doing," Mike said.

San Francisco was known to be accepting of their kind, and there were groups here that were edging toward similar kinds of parties, including Infinite Kaos and Xeno (and its predecessor, Awd), as well as the band Idiot Flesh, not to mention the more serious circus being done at the Circus Center and Teatro Zinzanni.

"San Francisco, in this country, is a real hotbed for circus. So we were like, ‘Now we can bring in legitimate circus performers," Mike said. Shannon got a job teaching at Acrosports, allowing her to be immersed full-time in her art and to help grow her community.

Serendipitously, in August 2001, indie rocker Boenobo of the band Chub — a funky ska outfit whose members would wear different costumes to each of their performances — formed Gooferman, which wasn’t originally the clown band it is today: "The idea was you had to be in a costume and you had to be stoned." They morphed into a full-blown clown band, and began collaborating with circus performers.

"But it never coalesced until recently," Boenobo says.

That process probably began around Halloween 2004 at the Vegoose Festival in Las Vegas, when Vau de Vire Society was asked to fill eight hours’ worth of programming and turned to their San Francisco brethren for help, Mike said. They drove or flew about 100 people to the event.

It was also the year Boenobo staged the GoofBall in San Francisco, drawing together a variety of entertainment that helped change the nature of the traditional dance party. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was also the year that reviled President George W. Bush won a second term and when longtime Burning Man artists staged their ill-fated revolt against the event (see "State of the art," 12/10/04).

"When people get too serious, they need this shit even more," Boenobo said of the increasingly irreverent, naughty, and participatory parties he was throwing.

Meanwhile Fou Fou Ha was developing its act. Culbertson and Raymond Meyer were waiting tables at Rose Pistola in 2000 and decided to put their big personalities to work for them, bringing in other performers such as Slim Avocado and setting up routines to perform at CellSpace and other venues.

"We’re sort of like the children of Cirque du Soleil in a way, but we wanted to give it an edge," Culbertson said. "It’s sort of like the second wave vaudeville … now with more of a rock edge."

Fou Fou Ha’s shows play off the dark and surreal kind of performance that is more European than American, a style Culbertson was exposed to while studying choreography during her Fulbright scholarship in Holland in the late 1990s. When she returned to the United States in 2000, "I wanted to form a [dance] company." But she wanted it to be fun. "People really like the idea of serious dance combined with comedy, where you can fall out of your pirouette," she said.

"We’re kind of like guerilla circus," Slim, a trained ballerina, said. "It’s a whole new movement. It’s like ’30s cabaret, but edgier."

Boenobo started the Red Nose District on the playa at Burning Man in 2006, drawing together his Bohemian Carnival friends, a local group of stilt- walkers known as Enhightned Beings of Leisure, installation artist Michael Christian’s crew from the East Bay, the Cirque Berserk folks from Los Angeles, and others from the growing circus world.

"It’s a safe environment to be and do what you want," Gaines said of Burning Man, noting how those breakthroughs on the playa then come back home to the city. And that ethos carries into Vau de Vire, which is truly a collective of like-minded friends, one that eschews hiring outside performers for their shows. "They’re all just part of it," he said.

What they’re all part of — Vau de Vire, Gooferman, Fou Fou Ha, and the rest of the Indie Circus folk — has begun to make a strong imprint on San Francisco nightlife and counterculture. From a performer’s perspective, Boenobo said, it feels good. "Our local family is super comfortable with one another," he said, something he’s never felt before after 25 years as a indie rocker. "It’s rare to not have a lot of ego to deal with, and it’s super rare with this kind of high-quality performance."

But they want more. As Flux said, "We want to take over the world."

WHAT’S NEXT


Slowly, the circus collective members are moving toward becoming full-time freaks. Already, Mike Gaines said most of the 12 to 15 regular Vau de Vire performers practice their art full-time, subsidizing their performances by being instructors in dance or the circus arts.

That’s not to say the parties, with their large number of performers, are lucrative. "With circus, you get a million more people on your guest list, so circus is complicated from a promoter’s perspective," Joegh Bullock of Anon Salon, which incorporates circus acts into its parties, including the upcoming Sea of Dream party New Year’s Eve. "But we love it and wouldn’t do a show without it."

To pay the bills, "we also do a lot of corporate gigs," Gaines says, not proudly. Fou Fou Ha does as well, including performing at the Westfield San Francisco Centre this holiday season. They’re all dying to take their show on the road, but that, too, takes money. "Sponsorship is the key if we’re going to tour with 60 people," said Mike, who’s been working hard on a deal and said he feels close.

Boenobo’s latest plan is Metropolus, a circus-style extravaganza he’s planning (along with Bullogh and Gaines) for next Halloween, hoping to ferry guests (using buses or perhaps even art cars from Burning Man) among several venues in town (such as Mighty, 1015, Temple, and DNA Lounge) and a huge circus tent he wants to erect in Golden Gate Park.

In addition to circus-style entertainment drawn from across the country, he wants to precede the Saturday night finale with three days and nights of workshops and smaller-scale performances. His goal is for Metropolus to because a signature event for San Francisco and the indie circus scene, the equivalent of the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas; the Winter Music Festival in Miami; or the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

The time seems right, with the current financial meltdown creating opportunities even as it makes funding their world domination plans difficult. "Each time you have a crisis like we’re having now, it’s a ripe time for circus," Jando said, noting that circus boomed during the Great Depression and after each of the two World Wars.

And after going through years of pure absurdity in Washington, DC, and on Wall Street, Raz said the clowns of the world — from Stephen Colbert’s conservative television character (who Raz says employs clown techniques in his comedy) to a singer named Boenobo — now have a special resonance with people. As he said, "One of the things clowns do is they live the folly large."

———–

CLOWN’S EYE VIEW

I’ve been following Indie Circus for years, intending to add it to the profiles of various Burning Man subcultures (see www.steventjones.com/burningman.html) that I’ve written for the Guardian, but my reporting on this story began in May. And at the suggestion of Gooferman frontman Boenobo the Klown, I decided to start from the inside and let him turn me into a clown.

As makeup artist Sharon Rose transformed me into a happy clown backstage at DNA Lounge, I asked Boenobo what I should do (besides interview people). We just needed to clown around, keep the drunks from crowding the performers, help clear the stage between acts — whatever needed doing. "We’re the scrubs," he told me, clown-to-clown.

As we spoke, the acrobats stretched, a corpse bride goofed off as she prepared for her aria, members of the Extra Action Marching Band started to slink in, clowns applied their makeup, and female performers occasionally came back from the stage and whipped off their tops.

When Gooferman went on, I still didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing, so I stood next to the stage, watched, and awkwardly tried to be a little goofy in my dancing. A tall, beautiful blond woman stood next to me, catching my eye. She was apparently alone, so after a couple songs, during a lull, I asked her, "So, do you like clowns?"

"I am a clown," she said with a grin.

"Really?" I said. "You don’t look like a clown."

"But I am," she said. "I even do clown porn."

She turned out to be 27-year-old porn star Hollie Stevens, who told me she "grew up as a clown" in the Midwest before moving to California and getting into porn seven years ago. She even starred in the film Clown Porn and still sometimes dons the red nose and face paint for her public appearances, usually just for her own amusement. Stevens once appeared on the Jerry Springer Show as a clown, even getting into the requisite fight on stage with a friend.

"Clowns, you either love them or you hate them," she said, and she loves them.

I asked why she was there and she said that she’d come to see Boenobo. They had talked but never met, and shared a sort of mutual admiration. It was a clown thing. Clowns … they get all the hot chicks.

While we talked, an acrobat worked the pole on the stage, followed by an aerialist performing above the dance floor, one scene woven seamlessly into the other. The clowns of Gooferman puttered around the stage, removing equipment to get ready for the next act, flirting with the girls, trying to scam more drink tickets, or simply entertaining others and themselves.

The life of a clown is rarely dull.

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UPCOMING INDIE CIRCUS EVENTS

DEC. 5–6


Acrosports Winter Cabaret

639 Frederick, SF

8 p.m., $5–$15

www.citycircus.org

DEC. 12


Auditions for Acrosports’ City Circus

Call (415) 665-2276, ext. 103 for appointment

DEC. 12-14


Frolic: CircusDragBurlesque Festival

Featuring Fou Fou Ha, Anna Conda, and more

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

8 p.m., $100

www.counterpulse.org

1-800-838-3006

DEC. 20


Open House and Holiday Carnival

San Francisco Circus Center

755 Frederick, SF

10 a.m.–4 p.m., free

Pratfalls and Rising Stars

7 p.m., $12 adults, $8 children

San Francisco Circus Center

Tickets and info at www.circuscenter.org

DEC. 20


Storytime Festival, featuring Vau de Vire Society

4–7 p.m., "Tales of Enchantment," (G-rated show) 8–11 p.m., "Storytime for the Inner Child," (R-rated show)

$30–$50

Palace of Fine Arts

3301 Lyon, SF

www.storytimefestival.org

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>>More: Read Marke B.’s club review of Bohemian Carnival

Little Joy

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PREVIEW Few had a clue about Little Joy as we watched them gather on the outdoor stage at Big Sur’s Fernwood campground this fall. The Los Angeles band had slipping onto the Festival in the Forest bill the weekend before it was to perform at the Independent alongside Devendra Banhart side project Megapuss, and the ramshackle crew — which included vocalist-guitarist Binki Shapiro, multi-instrumentalist Rodrigo Amarante (Los Hermanos), and drummer-multi-instrumentalist Fabrizio Moretti (the Strokes) as well as Banhart and producer Noah Georgeson — took its time setting up. And why not? The sky was clear, the nightmarish Big Sur fire was behind us (though the Henry Miller Library was preparing to close for fear of mudslides), the green and gold mountains above the stage were a fantastic, organic distraction, and there was plenty of spectacular autumnal parkland to wander

As the group began to fiddle with its instruments in earnest, hipsters hailing from the Bay, Monterey, and LA suddenly materialized — like headbanded, bejeweled elves in designer sandals — from woods. Something special was going down. Yet little did we realize how sweet it would be: behind those scenester shades onstage came the most dulcet pop tunes, lightly scented with classic Brill Building songwriting and a whiff of Cali languor. Sounding for all the world like louche, beachbound Dion and the Belmonts, Little Joy sported an El Lay too-cool-for-you exterior that was simultaneously attractive and off-putting, but their songs — now collected on a self-titled Rough Trade debut — bid you to come closer, closer.

LITTLE JOY With the Dead Trees and Red Cortez. Tues/9, 8 p.m., $13. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. (415) 522-0333, www.slims-sf.com

The oldest story in the book

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REVIEW It’s the oldest story in the book — and no, I’m not talking about Adam and Eve. Eden is yet another addition to the familiar marriage-in-trouble genre, with no real twist to speak of: after 10 years together, Breda (Eileen Walsh) feels unloved by her husband Billy (Aidan Kelly). Meanwhile, Billy finds himself tempted by the forbidden fruit of infidelity. Rather than stunt the film, this well-trodden subject matter makes Eden’s success all the more impressive. Without reinventing the wheel, director Declan Recks has crafted one of the most captivating films of the year. It helps, of course, that he has two consummate performers. Kelly captures the subtle nuances of his character, who struggles to balance his selfish desires with his familiar obligations. And Walsh, winner of the Best Actress award at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, is nothing short of heartbreaking. Both actors look — for lack of a better word — real, and their presence enhances the film’s ability to produce a genuine empathetic response. Taken as a whole, there is a beauty in this quiet Irish drama rarely found in the glossiest of Hollywood blockbusters, with each frame thoughtfully composed. Despite the otherwise mundane story, Eden emerges as downright idyllic.

EDEN opens Fri/5 in Bay Area theaters.

Let the rhythm hit ’em

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> a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW The exuberance bouncing off the walls of the Palace of Fine Arts at the Nov. 22 opening of the 10th annual San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest probably kept the audience in a buoyant mood well beyond the theater. These young dancers — and hip-hop is still primarily a young person’s art — presented a show that was sassy, skilled, and a hoot to boot.

Artistic director Micaya has developed a dual approach to programming, and it works. She showcases local hip-hop schools that are worthy of exposure and that bring in audiences, and features them with professionals who, increasingly, may come from abroad. This year, in its infinite wisdom, the US Department of Homeland Security denied visas to dancers from Russia and the Netherlands.

Still, the DanceFest carried on. By their very nature, the school performances are ensemble-oriented. To watch these dancers is to be drawn into the sheer joy of what they are doing. Split-second timing and constantly shifting relationships within the group compensate for the relative simplicity of the individual steps. The whole, with its sense of interlocking gears, is held together by a sometimes almost militaristic discipline. Yet the format is flexible enough to showcase individual talent.

The DanceFest also gauges hip-hop’s ongoing evolution. Having started in the ’70s as a popular expression — urban folk dancing rooted in African and African American practices — hip-hop has been moving from the streets to the theater, from the community center to the concert hall. Whether that means that hip-hop will lose its grounding in pop culture remains to be seen. It probably has already. But there are gains.

Returning to this year’s festival with their mesmerizing HipHop/Beebop was the first-rate MopTop Music and Movement from Philadelphia. Two years ago they took on the founding fathers. Last year it was The Wizard of Oz. This time they brought a fabulously slinky vision of a hot night on the town. With Buddha Stretch and Mr. Valentine in zoot suits and rakishly tilted hats, and Uko Snowbunny and B-girl Bounce in flouncing minis, they were a marvel of strutting control, flashing showmanship, and barely contained heat. Flawless’ Manipulation was indeed flawless in the way its two ingenious dancers — dressed in metallic hats and jackets under black lights — sent currents of energy into each other’s bodies, both to support and to control. It’s no surprise that they were the UK’s World Hip Hop Dance Champions in 2006. Another champion was one-man wonder, veteran hip-hopper Popin Pete from Electric Boogaloos. With appropriate wigs on hand, he unfolded popping’s history in one smooth take — from a vibrating ’70s style, to raucous ’80s moves, to today’s elegant, dinner-jacket-clad incarnation.

Breaksk8 Dance Crew from Indiana, on rollerblades, disappointed. While somewhat impressive for their technical skills, they performed This Is How We Roll with a studied nonchalance that was off-putting. Also new to the festival was the all-male Formality group from San Diego. Their well-performed Players Club had the energy of a traffic jam and stood out in its fresh use of arm gestures. SoulSector turned out to be the only company interested in exploring hip-hop’s capacity to delve into deep issues: their Reinvention: Headhunters was a tough examination of militarism and war.

There was much to enjoy in the studio-based ensembles — the clean and swift U.F.O. Movement among them. Sunset’s smartly staged and hilarious Toonz dressed its dancers as Looney Tunes characters. Its smallest elementary-school-age dancers, of course, got the biggest applause. If this year’s DanceFest proves one thing, it’s that the artists have barely begun to scratch the surface of the genre’s potential for entertaining and thought-provoking dance. Now if we can just get Homeland Security off their backs …

Green and black

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news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY The 2008 San Francisco Green Festival, held Nov. 14-16 at the Concourse Exhibition Center, is a well-established environmentalist event that featured more 1,000 vendors and was overseen by 1,600 volunteers, all united in promoting a greener future.

Yet the event’s keynote speaker, Cornel West, along with Van Jones of the Oakland-based Green Jobs for All and San Francisco-based Muslim minister the Rev. Christopher Muhammad, all conveyed an expanded definition of environmentalism that emphasized social justice and concerns specific to African American communities.

The idea behind this fusion of black and green is that our traditional view of environmentalism, with its focus on the health of ecosystems, needs to be expanded to social systems as well. In that context, Muhammad’s long fight against Lennar Corp.’s reckless approach to developing Bayview-Hunters Point (see "Question of intent," 11/28/07), in which his Muhammad University of Islam was exposed to toxic asbestos dust, takes on new dimensions.

As the first speaker of the day Nov. 15, Muhammad’s speech was geared toward local issues of concern. Muhammad continued to shed light on the "environmental racism" taking place in the Bay Area communities of Bayview-Hunters Point, North Richmond, and West Oakland, referring to the injustice as San Francisco’s "dirty little secret." Environmental racism ranges from citing polluting industries in poor communities of color to inequities in who has access to healthy food and preventive medical care.

Muhammed brought to light the issue of San Francisco’s declining middle class and minority populations, citing rising crime rates and housing costs as culprits. He also commended the Green Festival for bringing people together to hear about an expanded scope for environmentalism. "It’s a place where people can come and be informed about issues that impact them that have historically been left out in terms of this whole [green] movement," Muhammed said.

The last scheduled speaker of the day was prominent social critic and Princeton professor Cornel West, author of the new book Hope on a Tightrope (Hay House). Muhammad has worked with West in the past and praised him as a fellow advocate for social justice: "I’ve met with him on a number of occasions and worked with him on various projects. He’s an ally."

West stressed the importance of addressing social justice by saying, "There’s a need to target [environmental racism]. You need a coalition in order to bring hard pressure to bear, so it can become more of a national issue."

In many ways, the people are showing signs of resistance to change, as with the passage of Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage in California, a result he calls "catastrophic." Still, he said, now, after a historic presidential election, is the moment to begin the transition. "It’s the end of an era. Thirty years of a country sleepwalking is over," West proclaimed to the cheering crowd.

He warned everyone not to believe that change will come overnight, reminding the crowd that it is ultimately up to us to push the change that we so desperately crave. "It’s not just about one messianic figure on his way to the White House," West said.

Green energy is the future of this country, West said, and one of the many ways we can foster positive change. The potential to lift up communities of color as part of the transition to new energy sources has been a big focus for Van Jones of Oakland’s Green for All, who spoke Nov. 16 about his new book, The Green Collar Economy (HarperCollins). He said we must "invent and invest our way" out of our current "gray economy" and into the new "green economy."

West also said the American people are still coming to understand the nature of the problems we face. "America has grown old, we’ve grown wealthy, but we have yet to grow up." But he ended his speech on an upbeat note, saying this age of conservation and greater awareness will create what Sly Stone called the "age of everyday people."

This year’s Green Festival exposed attendees to nontraditional environmental problems that pollute our social environment. The take-away from this new focus was that "going green" involves more than just driving a hybrid car and shifting to compact fluorescent lights — it means truly transforming our communities.

Hot flash gallery

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> johnny@sfbg.com

It was the summer of 1974, when shy, skinny, cute Daniel Nicoletta first stepped through the doors of Castro Camera into adulthood and history. His parents were snapshot enthusiasts. In his words, he had grown up "surrounded by Instamatic moments." But he was about to enter the time of his life. "I stopped in to determine where I would be developing my Super 8 film," he remembers. "I couldn’t get over how friendly the two guys [Harvey Milk and Scott Smith] were. I was 19 years old — I had no idea what cruising was at that point. Of course, within two months I was completely up to speed."

Nicoletta immediately captured the speed of life. His vérité photos of Milk, Smith, and San Francisco from the mid-1970s onward are often great and sometimes iconic. He soon sold his first photo out of Boys in the Sand (1971)and Bijou (1972), filmmaker Wakefield Poole’s hair salon-toy store-art gallery Hot Flash. A regular "Mr. Multimedia," Nicoletta was as interested in half-inch Portapak video as he was in still photography. In 1977, using Castro Camera as one of his chief meeting spots, he worked with David Waggoner and Marc Huestis to found the Gay Film Festival of Super 8 Films, an event now popularly known as the Frameline festival.

Nicoletta’s role in Milk’s life and role in queer film history provide some of the subtler facets of Gus Van Sant’s new film Milk. Those viewers familiar with Van Sant’s earlier work know of his focus on the photographic process: for example, a significant sequence within his 2003 film Elephant is spent in the darkroom, observing the efforts of a young photographer who may as well be a 21st century version of the young Nicoletta. "Even though I don’t say a lot, Lucas [Grabeel, who plays Nicoletta in the film] is a constant presence throughout Milk," Nicoletta notes, when asked about the interplay between his life and Van Sant’s moviemaking. "Gus keeps me there in the film as a cultural observer. In life, Gus has an eye for the role of still photography in culture, and he used my entity as a way of cross-referencing that."

Some of Nicoletta’s photos of Milk and Smith inform or inspire the look of particular scenes in Milk, such as a pie fight between Smith and Milk. "The art department was immersed in stills of all kinds," says Nicoletta, who switched to digital photography to document the making of the film. "I was impressed with all the things pinned up to their walls — the checkerboard analysis was lovely to look at." Nicoletta also lent his copy of the August 1974 San Francisco issue of the barely-subtextual gay culture magazine After Dark — a publication partly defined by the studio portraiture of East Coast gay photographers such as Ken Duncan and Jack Mitchell — to Milk‘s costume designer, Danny Glicker. "He [Glicker] creamed himself over that," Nicoletta says with an affectionate laugh. "There’s a postage stamp-sized photo of Victor Garber [who plays George Moscone in Milk] in it. I’d never noticed, but it took Danny Glicker a second to zero in on that. It was hilarious."

The Milk crew’s devotion to verisimilitude extended to Nicoletta’s camera — and to one of Milk’s two main cameras, one of the first Nikons ever made, which Nicoletta now owns. "They literally had me take jpgs of my camera and Harvey’s camera so they could cast those instruments to the letter," he says. "Harvey’s camera has his name engraved on the bottom. Scott’s [Smith] mom gave it to me when Scott passed away. It’s a real treasure. I never use it, but I saw him use it. Harvey and Scott also had a second Nikon that was their primary camera, and I did use that one quite a bit. We both passed film through the same camera, which was kind of cool — kind of incestuous."

This radical sense of brotherhood informed both Nicoletta and Milk’s photography. "Harvey took great joy in photographing people," Nicoletta observes, noting that a chance to take aerial photos of Christo’s Running Fence was one of Milk’s artistic and free-spirited moments as his political duties increased. "If you look at Harvey’s body of work, one thing that comes through with political potency is that a presiding aesthetic in his life was male-to-male love. You can then zoom out even further and say that the stimulus for his political activism was the sanctification and preservation of male-to-male love."

It’s characteristically modest of Nicoletta to turn an interview about his photography into a discussion of Milk’s endeavors with a camera — everything he says about Milk’s photos is true of his own work, which captures Milk and Smith’s relationship, for instance, with great warmth. He gives vivid background to some of his best-known Milk photos, such as an image of the inaugural walk to City Hall in January 1978. "We were just arriving at the steps," he remembers. "What’s great about that photo is that it’s just one of so many details of the history of the queer community that have unfolded on those very steps. I think I could do a whole book on the steps of City Hall at this point."

The prospect of a Nicoletta monograph is something to savor, even if he jokes that his friends "all roll their eyes to the back of their head and say, ‘There she goes again about her book’," whenever he mentions the prospect. As a documentarian of history, Nicoletta understands the necessity and gravity of a book of his work. He has other excellent ideas, such as an era-based collection that would bring in stylized images by Steven Arnold — like him, one of the chief people to visually capture queer artistic forces such as the Cockettes and Angels of Light. "I loved working with Reggie [of the Cockettes] because the first photo I ever saw of him was in Gilles Larrain’s [1973] Idols," Nicoletta says. "That book just rocked my world. I thought, ‘Who are these people, and where can I find them?’ And I found them."

Nicoletta found those people — the evidence is in books such as Gay by the Bay and Adrian Brooks’ new Flights of Angels (Arsenal Pulp Press, 224 pages, $24.95), and in the photo collection of the San Francisco Public Library. As a chronicler of gay life, he can be seen as a West Coast public counterpart to East Coast photographers such as Peter Hujar, Mark Morrisroe, and David Armstrong, and Nan Goldin. "In a sense I’ve sort of stayed provincial. That’s a little bit self-preservationist," he says, after mentioning the direct influence of the Bay Area studio photographer Crawford Barton on his work. "It’s so great to have a 30-year arc and be mindful of where you are and grateful for things like the mentorship of people like Harvey Milk and Scott Smith, and the inspiration of people like the Angels of Light. I’m for slow growth."

>>Back to the Milk Issue

Pics: Green Festival grows wild and free

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Text and photos by Ariel Soto

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It’s quite inspiring to spend the morning walking through what seems like miles and miles of booths, all dedicated to sustainability, green living, and creating a better future for our beautiful planet. The San Francisco Green Festival, which took place this past weekend, is a perfect opportunity for novice greenies to learn about eco-investment companies, sample fair trade chocolate, learn about natural menstrual pads, dance to some local bands and to try on clothing dyed with everything from beets to onion skins. The event is held every year at the Concourse Exhibition Center and also travels throughout the country, so if you missed its stop in San Francisco, there’s always a chance to catch it later in some other greening city.

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