food Archives — Page 24 of 139 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Activists to governor: Please un-frack California

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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May 31, 2013

A statewide coalition of more than 100 environmental organizations has formed to pressure California Gov. Jerry Brown to ban fracking – an environmentally harmful oil extraction method technically known as hydraulic fracturing.

On May 30, environmental activists from the Center for Biological Diversity, Credo Action, Food and Water Watch, Environment California and other nonprofits rallied outside the state building on Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco to launch the campaign and hand-deliver stacks of petitions calling on Brown to put an end to the practice. The action coincided with a similar show of opposition to fracking at the state building in Los Angeles.

Fracking has already taken off in Pennsylvania and North Dakota, and has the potential to transform vast swaths of landscape in California, where a geologic formation known as the Monterey Shale is estimated to contain some 15 billion barrels of oil.

With chants of “Jerry Brown, take a stand, don’t let frackers ruin our land,” the activists waved signs proclaiming, “Don’t frack California.”

“In California, water is more precious than oil,” said Becky Bond, political director at Credo Action. “It’s not just a question of will this produce some jobs.”

Bond added that the activists were targeting Brown because “we know that special interests have so much more influence in the Legislature than they do in the governor’s mansion.” And besides, she added, “even if good legislation passes, it ends up on the governor’s desk.”

Earlier in the week in Sacramento, legislation that would have imposed an indefinite moratorium on fracking was scaled back, much to the dismay of environmentalists. AB 1323 was introduced by Assemblymember Holly Mitchell, and would have imposed a statewide moratorium on fracking until an independent evaluation of the health and environmental impacts of the practice could be completed.

However, changes to the language of the proposed bill did away with the independent evaluation process and called for a moratorium only until the California Department of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources finished hammering out a set of regulations around the practice. A similar piece of legislation to impose a fracking moratorium, AB 1301, was kept on suspense file and won’t move forward this year.

“It renders the moratorium essentially meaningless,” Food and Water Watch political director Adam Scow told the Bay Guardian shortly after the changes were made. “We have a bill that is inadequate for protecting Californians from fracking.”

And that’s partly why Brown is the new target for anti-fracking activists. Elijah Zarlin, a campaign manager at Credo, jumped on the megaphone during the rally. “We’ve seen what fracking has done in Pennsylvania,” he said. “Governor Brown has the power to not let that happen in California.”

Weekend watch: 2 ways to mark this SF moment in the Mission [UPDATED]

Andrew Lam

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May 31, 2013

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As of late, it seems as though the cries of anti-displacement activists and small business owners threatened with dramatic address changes have penetrated the city’s consciousness: San Francisco has woken up to the fact that the town is changing, and how. But amid the smashing of Google bus piñatas and — albeit hilarious — echo chamber of bloggers placing and sloughing off blame from the young tech royalty, there are community-based, heartfelt attempts being made at contextualizing soaring rents and shifting cultural majorities.

There’s two happening in the Mission, in fact. Regardless of your programming aptitude or discretionary budget, they’ll both provide moments to learn about where San Francisco is coming from, and a moment to reflect on where it’s going.

“La Llorona: A Public Lament on Ellis Act Evictions in the Mission”

A march to remember the working-class neighborhood that was, this processional open to all comers starts at a Mission home called the “Secret Garden” (coincidentally, hosting both events in this post) with a prayer by Jorge Molina and winds up at Adobe Books’ new location (3130 24th St., SF), where the bookshop is hosting “Layers of History: 40 Years of Resistance” curated by SF historian Chris Carlsson and artist Paz de la Calzada. “La Llorona” will be led by neighborhood chronicler Adriana Camarena. Check out this 2010 Mission Mission interview to read about her passion for the stories of the ‘hood.

UPDATE: The event is part of MAPP’s Sat/1 takeover of 20 businesses and other spaces in the Mission. More on that here

Here’s how author Benjamin Bac Sierra — who grew up on these streets in a much different time — summed up the event in his post on our Facebook page:

Every moment is an exact time. This is our time, one of our last opportunities to cry our voices out to the streets we always thought would be ours. Homeboys and Homegirls, this Saturday at 7:00 p.m. we need you to walk the Mission streets with us and cry out our emotions over all la gente that are being evicted and expelled from our San Francisco Mission district, from all of San Francisco itself. Why does this matter? Won’t they have cheaper, perhaps even bigger homes out in Modesto, Concord, San Quentin, or the Colma cemetery?! Gente, as we lose ground in international San Fran, we lose the opportunity of world class resources, education, economic opportunities, and cultural identity. Meditate on this: San Fran is the most powerful capital of class, business, and arts on the entire west coast. Are not brown grassroots people allowed into the doors of opportunity? Don’t just like this posting. Come out in full force with your homeboys, homegirls, and grandmas this Saturday, June 1 at 7:00 p.m. starting at 2710 Harrison and 23rd street. We need you; the gente need you for the future and for hope. Always your homeboy in amor!

Sat/1, 7-10pm, free

Starts at Secret Garden

2710 Harrison, SF

Facebook event

“Born n Raised in Frisco”

Over the past year and a half, POOR Magazine has sat down with 45 adults and 10 younger people, all born right here in the land of the Ohlones, to get their thoughts on displacement and fighting to stay in the city they grew up in in six-week cycles of creative storytelling classes. Today, in the sunny backyard of the Secret Garden, they’ll celebrate the publication of those conversations. Come check out the compilation, plus plant seeds, eat food, and help raise money for POOR’s Al Robles Living Library — an assemblage of works by working class people that is housed in the magazine’s headquarters.

Sun/2, 3pm, $1-10 donation suggested

Secret Garden

2170 Harrison, SF

www.poormagazine.org

UPDATE: Muralist Juana Alicia (whose mural “La Llorona” features in the image on this post) clarifies that the piece is a comment on the struggle for human rights. She also added, in the comments below:

I myself was evicted from the Mission, and moved to the East Bay 18 years ago because I could no longer afford to live in my neighborhood, the one I had worked so much to humanize and adorn. But our daughter, Lucia Ippolito, has just created a fantastic new mural on Balmy Alley: a witty and animated lampoon at gentrification and police brutality. Entitled “Mission Makeover”, it is an eloquent stitching together of many issues, like original sin, from the Garden of Eden to Wall Street. Please check out the “Mission Makeover” while accompanying Jorge Molina on his sacred pilgrimage.

Wal-Mart workers strike, rally outside Marissa Mayer’s SF penthouse

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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May 30, 2013

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Wal-Mart workers strike, rally outside Marissa Mayer’s SF penthouse

There are no Walmart stores in San Francisco. And yet, four members of the company’s board of directors are influential Bay Area residents. On May 29, a group of Walmart workers assembled outside the residence of Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, a Walmart director, who has a 38^th floor penthouse apartment above the Four Seasons on Market Street in San Francisco.

Donning bright green T-shirts and chanting, “Stand up, live better,” the workers were gearing up to join roughly 100 members of OUR Walmart, a nationwide organization of Walmart associates, in going on strike and caravanning to Bentonville, AR, where the retailer will hold its annual shareholder meeting June 7.

OUR Walmart’s stated concerns include things like giving employees the option of working full-time, and providing a level of wages and benefits that ensures employees aren’t forced to rely on government assistance to get by.

Dominic Ware, who works part-time at a Walmart in San Leandro, led chants on a megaphone and has been coordinating with OUR Walmart activists on a national level. Ware said he earns $8.65 an hour – 40 cents higher than the wage he started at a year ago – and stays with his grandmother, since his paycheck isn’t enough to cover rent and provide for his 7-year-old daughter. He estimated that roughly half his earnings go directly back to Walmart, where he purchases groceries and other basic items.

Ware said he was going on strike and caravanning to demand a higher level of respect for Walmart employees. He described the frustration of an elderly coworker who has been unable to have her work shift adjusted to make it possible for her to catch a bus home, instead of walking late at night.

John “JJ” Juanitas, another Walmart associate, said the amount he earns working part-time at the Fremont store isn’t enough to put food on the table — but he said he hasn’t been able to transition to working full time despite submitting requests to do so. Asked what had inspired him to join the strike, Juanitas responded that he wanted to stand with employees who faced retaliation for participating in OUR Walmart organizing. At the same time, he added, the lack of protection for Walmart workers has been a source of anxiety, and the night before the protest, “I didn’t get a good night’s sleep,” he said.

Mayer, widely regarded as one of the most powerful women in tech, isn’t the only well-connected Silicon Valley figure helping to steer the nation’s largest private employer. Bay Area billionaire Jim Breyer, an initial investor in Facebook and cofounder of venture capital firm Accel Partners, also serves on the board, as does Gregory Penner, son-in-law of Walmart board chair Rob Walton and an investor in dating website eHarmony. Aida Alvarez, another Wal-Mart board member, chairs the Latino Community Foundation of San Francisco, based at 225 Bush Street.

The protest outside Mayer’s penthouse was timed to coincide with the start of the strike and caravan, but some organizers with San Francisco’s chapter of Jobs with Justice were there to call attention to Walmart’s ties to a factory building that collapsed in Bangladesh last month, killing 1,100 workers.

Documents unearthed by Bangladeshi labor rights activists in the aftermath of that tragic event revealed that a Canadian Walmart contractor had produced jeans in that building, which was known as Rana Plaza. Now, activists with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity are calling on Walmart to sign onto a legally binding safety accord to ensure higher levels of maintenance at facilities similar to Rana Plaza. They’re asking Gap to do the same.

Stage listings

Andrew Lam

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May 28, 2013

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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

The Divine Sister New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/31-Sat/1 and June 7, 8pm; Sun/2, 2pm. Opens Sat/8, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. Charles Busch’s latest comedy pays tribute to Hollywood films involving nuns.

Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? Costume Shop, 1117 Market, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-30. Previews Thu/30-Fri/31, 8pm. Opens Sat/1, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through June 16. Theatre Rhinoceros performs Caryl Churchill’s play that asks, “Do countries really behave like gay men?” Included in the program are two one-act plays: Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza and Deborah S. Margolin’s Seven Palestinian Children.

Frisco Fred’s Magic and More Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $35-50. Opens Thu/30, 7pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 7pm. Through June 29. Performer Fred Anderson presents his latest family-friendly show, complete with magic, juggling, and “crazy stunts.”

Into the Woods Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.rayoflighttheatre.com. $25-36. Opens Fri/31, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (check website for matinee schedule). Through June 29. Ray of Light Theatre performs Stephen Sondheim’s fairy-tale mash-up.

Killing My Lobster Learns a Lesson Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. $10-25. Previews Thu/30, 8pm. Opens Fri/31, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Jun 9. The sketch troupe performs “comedy vignettes for the avid achievers.”

BAY AREA

Dear Elizabeth Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $24-77. Opens Wed/29, 8pm. Runs Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun and July 3, 2pm); Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and June 6, 2pm; no matinee June 8; no show July 4). Through July 7. Berkeley Rep performs Sarah Ruhl’s play in the form of letters between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.

ONGOING

Arcadia ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 9. American Conservatory Theater performs Tom Stoppard’s literary romance.

Birds of a Feather New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the San Francisco premiere of Marc Acito’s tale inspired by two gay penguins at the Central Park Zoo.

Black Watch Drill Court, Armory Community Center, 333 14th St, SF; www.act-sf.org. $100. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 16. American Conservatory Theater presents the National Theatre of Scotland’s internationally acclaimed performance about Scottish soldiers serving in Iraq.

Burqavaganza Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $20. Thu/30-Sat/1, 8pm; Sun/2, 3pm. Brava! For Women in the Arts and RasaNova Theatre present Shahid Nadeem’s Bollywood-style “love story in the time of jihad.”

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast. Sat/1, the production celebrates its 100th performance with an expanded cast of special guests and a post-show party.

Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no shows June 8); Sun, 5pm. Through June 16. Cutting Ball Theater performs Andrew Saito’s Howl-inspired portrait of San Francisco.

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

Sonia Flew Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; www.viragotheatre.org. $20. Fri/31-Sat/1, 8pm. Virago Theatre Company performs Melinda Lopez’s drama about a Cuban immigrant grappling with her son’s decision to enlist in the military after 9/11.

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through June 29. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Talk Radio Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 15. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs Eric Bogosian’s breakthrough 1987 drama.

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through June 29. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

Vital Signs: The Pulse of an American Nurse Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sun, 7pm. Through June 16. Registered nurse Alison Whittaker returns to the Marsh with her behind-the-scenes show about working in a hospital.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

The Beauty Queen of Leenane Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-52. Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also June 6, 1pm; June 15, 2pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 16. Marin Theatre Company performs Martin McDonagh’s award-winning black comedy about a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship.

By & By Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Opens Wed/31, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 23. Shotgun Players presents a new sci-fi thriller by Lauren Gunderson.

Hanging Georgia, a play with music about Georgia O’Keefe Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm (additional shows Sat/1 and June 8, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 9. Pear Avenue Theatre marks its 75th show with Sharmon J. Hilfinger and Joan McMillen’s world premiere, a co-production with BootStrap Theater Foundation.

The Medea Hypothesis Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through June 23. Central Works performs Marian Berges’ reconfiguration of the Euripides classic.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Bay Area Cabaret presents a Gala Birthday Tribute to Marvin Hamlisch” Venetian Room, Fairmont San Francisco, 950 Mason, SF; www.bayareacabaret.org. Sun/2, 8pm. $75-100. The late, legendary composer is honored by Broadway stars and award-winning musicians.

“Dancing Across Cultures” Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.presidiodance.org. Fri/31, 7pm. $40-120. The multi-generational Presidio Dance Theatre performs ballet and international dance as part of its 15th anniversary celebration.

“Desires and Desiderations” Theatre of Yugen, NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.apiculturalcenter.org. Fri/31-Sat/1, 7:30pm. $15-25. Theatre of Yugen and JypsyJays Productions present new works by butoh artist Judith Kajiwara and Kathak dancer Jaysi.

“Kunst-Stoff Arts Fest 2013” Kunst-Stoff Arts, One Grove, SF; www.kunst-stoff.org. Through June 7. Most events $10-15. Morning classes, afternoon workshops, and evening performances are the focus of this festival of dance, film, music, and more.

“Misery Index” Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; miseryindexsf.tumblr.com. Mon/3, 8pm. Free. Stand-up comedy hosted by Trevor Hill.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“San Francisco Ballet School Student Showcase” Lam Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.sfballet.org. Wed/29 and Fri/31, 7:30pm; Thu/30, 6pm. $35-40. Students from the official San Francisco Ballet school perform.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

“State: Not Anywhere Near to Now” CounterPULSE, 1013 Mission, SF; www.funschdance.org. Fri/31-Sat/1, 8pm. $15-20. New dances by Christy Funsch with guest artist Katherine Longstreth.

“Through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall” Herchurch Lutheran, 678 Portola, SF; www.sflgfb.org. Fri/31, 8pm. Free. The San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band performs a concert celebrating civil rights pioneers.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

“Viva Cuba!” Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.fortmason.org. Fri/31-Sat/1, 8pm. $12-20. American Theater Company performs a musical about post-revolutionary Cuba.

“Walking Distance Dance Festival” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Fri/31, 7-9pm; Sat/1, 4-6pm and 7-9pm. $20 (festival pass, $50). Three separate programs of contemporary dance highlight this fringe-style festival.

BAY AREA

“Peter” Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; www.marincenter.org. Sat/1, 7pm; Sun/2, 6pm. $18-23. RoCo Dance celebrates its 20th anniversary with a contemporary dance performance inspired by Peter Pan.

“Swearing in English: Tall Tales at Shotgun” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. Mon/3 and June 17, 8pm. $15. Shotgun Cabaret presents John Mercer in a series of three stranger-than-fiction dramatic readings.

“33rd Annual Planetary Dance” Mt. Tamalpais State Park, Marin County; www.planetarydance.org. Sun/2, 11am (main event; visit website for directions and related events). Free. Dance legend Anna Halprin leads this participatory event that honors the Earth through movement.

On the Cheap listings

Andrew Lam

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May 28, 2013

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For guidelines on how to submit your event for listings consideration, please see our Selector calendar section.

THURSDAY 30

Oakland Indie Awards Kaiser Rooftop Garden, 300 Lakeside, Oakl. www.oaklandindieawards.com. 6:30-10:30pm, $10-15. Sip wine and chow on chocolate while Oakland’s independent businesses are honored at this rooftop awards ceremony.

Bacon, Babes, and Bingo Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.baconbabesandbingo.com. 7-11pm, $5-20. Surely the title of this party is enough to convince you an appearance is in order, but just in case: bingo numbers will alternate with curve-shaking burlesque numbers, and pig meat prizes abound.

“Reverse Reversals” closing reception Southern Exposure, 3030 20th St., SF. www.soex.org. 7-10pm, free. Six visual artists and seven writers interpreted each other’s work multiple times to create this exhibit, which examines turning the storytelling process, inside-out.

FRIDAY 31

OMCA’s Gallery of California Natural Sciences reopening Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak, Oakl. www.museumca.org. 5pm-midnight, $6. Wear your favorite cat suit, get your face painted as a mountain lion, and you just may take home the top costume contest prize today. Win or lose, you’ll still be able to enjoy the museum’s brand new look at our fair state, Off the Grid food trucks, and booze after-hours.

World Goth Day Cat Club, 1190 Folsom, SF. www.sfcatclub.com; www.worldgothday.com. 9:30pm-2:30am, $3 before 10pm, $7 after. Batcave, death rock, darkwave, synth-pop — this party in honor of the international day of goth culture features tarot readings and jewelry sales in addition to beats by DJs Xander, Tomas Diablo, Sage, and Death Boy.

Mugsy and Gratta pop-up wine tasting El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com. 5:30-8:30pm, $7-8 glasses of wine. Berkeley’s Gratta Wines just won a vaunted prize for its Sonoma Cabernet, so queer-owned Mugsy is bringing them through for a guest turn at their cozy regular wine tastings. There may be salumi available as well, say rumors.

SATURDAY 1

Maddie’s Pet Adoption Days SF SPCA, 243 Alabama, SF. adopt.maddiesfund.org. Also Sun/2. Free adoptions offered all day at the animal shelter, a pet-owner match-making attempt funded by philanthropists Dave and Cheryl Duffield.

Latino Comic Expo Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF. www.latinocomicsexpo.com. 11am-5pm, free with $7 museum admission. In its third year, the popular convergence of Latino panel-makers is dedicated to the memory of underground scribbler Spain Rodriguez.

Chocolate and Chalk Art Festival 1400-1800 Shattuck, Berk. www.anotherbullwinkelshow.com/chocolate-chalk-art. 10am-5pm, free entry, 20 chocolate tickets $20. Picante habanero chocolate chunks gelato? Chocolate ricotta pizza? Discover the possibilities of gourmet cacao and create a sidewalk chalk masterpiece at this fest, which also features live tunes.

Union Street Festival Union between Gough and Steiner, SF. www.unionstreetfestival.com. Also Sun/2. 10am-6pm, free. Union Street pops with its 37th annual street fair. Browse craft vendors, cruise your neighbors, and snack to the tunes of live jazz from local bands.

Moana Nui teach-in Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, 1781 Rose, Berk. www.mnaa-ca.org. Also Sun/2. Sat/1, 10am-10pm; Sun/2, 10am-6pm, one-day pass $10-15, two-day $20. Climate change, the US’ economic policy — the cards are stacked against the Pacific Islands these days, which makes teach-ins like this that revolve around issues that affect the region and include time for learning, for rallying, and for celebrating all the more important.

Babylon Salon Cantina, 580 Sutter, SF. www.babylonsalon.com. 7pm, free. Occupy and Other Love Stories author Dan Cohnear and bestselling scribe Glen David Gold of Carter Meets the Dead and Sunnyside are among the talent at this edition of the Babylon Salon reading series.

SUNDAY 2

“Mary Magdalene in Text and History” Gresham Hall, Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF. www.gracecathedral.org. 9:30-10:30am, free. University of Manchester ancient history professor and BBC contributor Kate Cooper researches women’s lives in early Christianity. Today, she joins other female religious scholars in discussing the Bibical sex worker’s place in the world that came before.

Planetary Dance Santos Meadow, Mt. Tamalpais State Park, 2799 Muir Woods, Mill Valley. www.planetarydance.org. 11am, free. Hundreds run in co centric circles to commemorate the deaths of six woman hikers on Mt. Tam in a healing ceremony that has grown to encompass global concerns like climate change.

“Bukowski Reads” Bender’s Bar, 806 South Van Ness, SF. www.bendersbar.com. 4pm, free. Lisa Mendelson is an artist who prints vintage slips with the prose of Charles Bukowski. Tonight, Pam Benjamin MCs this line-up of special guests and bar regulars, each of whom will read a passage from the work of the prolific American poet and writer.

“Poetry Unbound” Art House Gallery, 2905 Shattuck, Berk. berkeleyarthouse.wordpress.com. 5pm sign-up, 5:30pm event, $5 donation suggested. This Shattuck gallery begins its new first Sunday series, which unites readings by seasoned writers with a brief open mic — meant to strengthen the writing community.

TUESDAY 4

“The Promise of Stem Cells: Hope or Hype?” SoMa StrEat Food Park, 428 11th St., SF. www.askascientistsf.com. 7pm, free with purchase of food or drink encouraged. Uta Grieshammer and Kevin Whittlesey of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine discusses what’s just around the corner in the innovative field of stem cell research.

The Blob eats Quebec

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May 28, 2013

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culture@sfbg.com

THE BLOB If you thought the first thing you’d see when you landed in Quebec City, Canada, was a mime in a black mock turtleneck playing “My Heart Will Go On” on an accordion, you’d be almost right. Almost, because the Blob promptly devoured him — chewy! — and went on to enjoy a brief culinary tour of one of the most charming, clean, and friendly cities she’s visited.

Also surprisingly diverse: waves of Canadian immigration have gently streaked “traditional” Canadian cuisine (yes there is such a thing, from the “meat pie” pork tortierre of the Blob’s maternal grandmother to Canadian bacon, berry jams, sweet pickles, and caribou steaks) with global flavors. Quebec being heavily French, there’s also an attention to detail and service that boosts its current restaurant boom to another level — without stinting on any creamy richness.

Chefs here have dived into experimenting with local St. Lawrence Seaway ingredients like meaty Îles de la Madeleine sea scallops, tender green saltwort, smoked Kamouraska eel, late spring fiddleheads and asparagus (all experienced at the superior L’Échaudé in the stonewalled Vieux-Port area, www.echaude.com). Blackberry cassis and cider, made in the bright, tin-roofed farmhouses on Île d’Orléans across the river, boutique chocolate galore, and ubiquitous maple delights from Quebec’s interior sweeten the pot.

“Smoked meat,” a.k.a. molasses-cured pastrami, piled on a plate with a pickle (Joe Smoked Meat, www.joesmokedmeat.com) or tucked deliciously beneath cheese and a layer of butter spread on a pizza (Pizzeria TM in nearby Thetford Mines) fattens up, as does that ubiquitous Quebecois staple, poutine, in a panoply of forms. Let’s eat.

RABBIT PIE AT LE LAPIN SAUTÉ

Holy leaping quaintness. This cozy joint in the Lower Town, tucked amid shops selling Inuit art and hip-mom scarves, is a true Quebec experience. Pretty waitstaff offer the house specialty, rabbit, in a dazzling variety of formats: juicy in white bean cassoulet, dipped in honey-rosemary sauce, roasted with “two mustards,” even plated with a hefty side of duck. Simplicity is best, the Blob may have learned from some Beatrix Potter book. So a slice of rabbit pie ($21.95) it was, savory-sweet, with currants and potatoes, atop a splash of balsamic sauce. Paired perfectly with a local Boréale Rousse beer? Mais oui!

52, rue du Petit-Champlain, www.lapinsaute.com

NEIGE RECOLTÉ D’HIVER FROM LA FACE CACHÉE DE LA POMME

Ice cider, who knew? The Blob has been put off by ice wines before — too sweet, too supermarket-y — but this premier line of Quebecois ciders ($47 per 375 ml, less expensive versions available), distilled from frosted apples, has changed her life. Wonderful after a spicy meal, the chilled-syrup, full-bodied sweetness lingers in your mouth like a very good port, but without the sting.

www.lafacecachee.com

DUCK POUTINE AT LE COCHON DINGUE

Le Cochon Dingue is a Denny’s-like restaurant chain (but better), and poutine — fries smothered in gravy and cheese curds — is a French Canadian staple that’s become popular in the US. Poutine is available everywhere, from fast food versions to ones with foie gras or hunks of venison. The measure to which all poutine is held? The squeakiness of its curds. And this affordable version ($10) with shredded duck in a sweet gravy has incredibly squeaky curds. It’s squeaky curdlicious.

www.cochondingue.com

BOUDIN NOIR AT CLOCHER PENCHE

This is the place: a former bank on a corner in the neat Saint-Roch district, transformed into a magnet for foodies (there are some gentrification issues here, yes). The innovative menu doesn’t show its hand too much — you’re getting deeply thought-through, hyperlocal fare, but that fact’s not treated like a showy gimmick, plastered everywhere. One stand-out: blood pudding sausage ($23.95), melting with rich, dark pork and accompanied by pineapple (OK, not so local always) chutney and hearty fresh vegetables. Desserts are a must — tiny chocolate squares as dense as black holes dot caramelized bananas in rum sauce with sticky popcorn; érable (maple) flavor erupts in a warm fritter crusted with sweet pecans.

203, rue Saint-Joseph Est, www.clocherpenche.ca

San Francisco Green Film Festival

Maria Poblet

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May 28, 2013

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The San Francisco Green Film Festival returns for a week-long event May 30 through June 5, with 50 new films from around the globe on environmental topics including clean energy, food, water, housing and art in the environment.

It opens with Rebels with a Cause, the new award-winning documentary from local filmmakers Nancy Kelly and Kenji Yamamoto, celebrating the compelling and epic story of those who fought to save the Marin County coast.

Other Festival highlights include the SF Premiere of Mark Decena’s Watershed with special guest Jamie Redford in attendance and La Source, which follows the story of a Haitian Princeton janitor who returns home after the 2010 earthquake to bring clean water to his village. Filmmaker Patrick Shen will be in attendance for Q&A after the show.

In the USA premiere of Because I Live Longer than You, we meet 9-year-old Felix Finkbeiner, who inspired youth to plant one million trees in each country.

Also, in Big Boys are Bananas!, filmmaker and muckraker Fredrik Gertten takes on the Dole Food Company in 2009 and has since experienced the PR and legal battles that inevitably followed. A discussion on media censorship follows the screening.

Tickets are $12 per screening, $100 for a weekend pass, and $200 for a full pass to the festival. Or, buy a six-pack and get six regularly priced tickets for the price of 5!

For more information please visit sfgreenfilmfest.org.

Gopi and the Yoglers

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May 28, 2013

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culture@sfbg.com

ON THE OM FRONT Seven years ago, Gopi Kallayil, currently the Chief Evangelist for Google+ (there is indeed such a position), started a program at the Mountain View Google office called Yoglers: members go beyond merely practicing yoga in the office to participating more fully in its potential. It’s kind of like Google+ circles for yogis, where employees become teachers rather than just lunchtime practitioners. I recently spoke with Gopi, a force of nature himself who speaks often on such topics as “Envisioning the Conscious Corporation” and once engineered an online hangout with Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, about this program and his life’s passion: merging business and technology with mindfulness practices like yoga and meditation.

SFBG OK, so what exactly is a “Yogler”?

Gopi Kallayil There are communities of Googlers that self-organize themselves into doing different things. For instance, there is a group for LGBT Googlers (and their straight allies) called Gayglers, a group for Jewish Googlers called Jewglers, and a group for Carpooling Googlers called Carpoolglers. Self-organizing yoga practitioners are called Yoglers.

SFBG Is this different than the corporate yoga program at Google?

GK Yes. Google does a lot of things to keep employees fit and healthy—there are gyms in many offices, and we have group exercise programs that include yoga instruction with contracted yoga teachers to lead these classes. But the Yoglers classes are led only by people who work for Google. They could be product managers or engineers, but they will take a break periodically and not just take a yoga class, but actually teach a yoga class.

SFBG Are Yogler instructors trained yoga teachers or just yoga enthusiasts?

GK They are trained teachers. People who work here are intensely intense about the things that they do. They are very passionate about all aspects of their lives.

SFBG How did you first become involved with yoga?

GK I grew up in India, and became a yoga teacher as a teenager. I was taught yoga by Swami Vishnudevananda, who is one of the people who first brought yoga to America. He taught it as a path to self-realization, but also as a practice that brings joy, peace, and happiness to the world. He wanted us to go and teach it to other people. Since then, I’ve always taught, and I’ve always taught for free.

SFBG What inspired you to start Yoglers?

GK When I joined Google, one of my colleagues here encouraged me to teach a yoga class. So I started teaching a class in a conference room to one student and called it Yoglers. It was a way I could bring yoga to my community at work and pass on this great tradition that I was blessed to have received. Word of mouth spread and years later it’s become a big movement across Google offices worldwide. I had no idea that something I started with one student would evolve to this level.

SFBG Do you think the location of the Mountain View office helped to launch Yoglers?

GK Without question, something like this could happen more easily in the Bay Area. This is a very awakened, conscious place. People are curious about these traditions and don’t look at them suspiciously. People have studied yoga here, they welcome it.

SFBG Why is it important to bring yoga into the workplace in society today?

GK It’s not just today. It has always been important. It was important 50 years ago, 100 years ago, as long as there have been human beings. Yoga and meditation help to create a higher quality, more conscious human being. And any organization—whether it’s a corporation or educational institution—is staffed and run by human beings. If we incorporate these practices into our working life, we get along with each other better, make better products, and make choices that will better serve our customers.

SFBG It’s great that tech companies are embracing yoga, but isn’t technology part of what’s making us scattered and stressed?

GK: Technology, if not used properly and consciously, has the capability to completely distract us and make us unproductive and frenzied. But it’s no different than many other innovations. It’s like fire. Ever since we’ve discovered it and known how to harness it, we’ve found it exceptionally useful. You can cook your food with it, you can melt and blow glass with it. But if you misuse it, you can burn yourself or raze an entire city to the ground. I only check email certain times a day — I’m not constantly looking at it. Technology is a powerful tool. But whether you use the tool to be productive or destructive is up to you.

SFBG How does yoga help people in stressful work environments stay focused and calm?

GK When you practice yoga, you’re asked to bring your complete, 100 percent awareness to your body and your breath. If you practice regularly, it makes you more aware and conscious, and you make choices driven by that. The quality of your interactions improves. You stop checking your email when someone is talking to you. At Google, we’re building amazing technologies like self-driving cars, Google Glass, and Google+. And yet, the most important technology that every human being has access to is right within us: our body, our mind, our consciousness.

SFBG Any advice on how people can start a yoga or meditation program at work?

GK It’s simple. Go book a conference room. Sit, close your eyes, start meditating. Put up a sign that says, “Random acts of meditation.” It doesn’t matter if only one person shows. If you just sit there for 60 seconds and watch your breath, you have just started a meditation program. You don’t need a budget or resources. Someone just needs to step forward and do it.

This Ain’t The Summer Of Love

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May 26, 2013

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Recently, I came across this great series from 1995 on YouTube, “Dancing In The Streets–the History of Rock and Roll”. Ten episodes from the R/B meets Country birth of the music all the way to hip hop. Really well done, excepting some glaring errors (whomever wrote the Ramones segment knew nothing of the band) and omissions (not an Elton John fan, but the guy was a recording artist of enormous success, ditto Rod Stewart and no MC5 or New York Dolls). As it is television and not music, the colorful parts of rock’s history got a lot of play.

One entire segment was devoted to psychedelia. Was great, too–bookended by the Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” and “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”. Naturally, there was a lot of attention devoted to San Fran and its bands and the importance of the City in rock and roll. Which can’t be denied. San Francisco–from the mid 50’s to the mid 60’s–was America’s creative crucible. The Beats of North Beach and the hippies of the Haight are now cultural signifiers and as the program pointed out, they didn’t happen in San Francisco by accident.

As the Airplane’s Paul Kantner points out, San Fran is a seaport and seaports tend to be where the collision of disparate ideas from around the world makes new ones. What’s not in the piece is the real reason the Beats flourished in SF. In New York, cabaret licenses were hard to obtain in the 50’s, in SF, they weren’t. Therefore, a city with a population 1/10th the size of New York’s could compete with New York. As is also said in the show, all of SF’s old ballrooms were ideal for Kesey’s acid tests and the laissez faire attitude of the City wasn’t entirely due to its open-mindedness, but simply that San Fran had no idea what was coming in 1966 and 1967.

At the end of the show (which featured Jerry Garcia’s last interview and he was good naturedly hilarious in it), I wondered if in this day and age, San Francisco could ever be the giant of the zeitgeist again. Took me less than a half a minute to realize that the answer is a resounding “no”.

Every factor that figures in to a locale becoming a spawning ground for the arts no longer exists in SF. Artists need two things above all else–lots of space and cheap rent. An “artist” that works a 50 hour a week day job to pay the bare bones of rent, food and heat hasn’t got much left by way of time and energy. If the same artist is in a Mission one bedroom (and shared), there’s no elbow room. Nowhere to rehearse one’s craft and nowhere to paint or draw without getting up in someone else’s space.

That’s to say nothing of a “night life scene” where the price of two drinks and a cover could buy lunch five days a week in another city.

Don’t hand me the idea that the young software and PNS developers are somehow the same as Jack Kerouac, Jerry, Janis and Grace. Yeah–they’re all young (not now, of course). But conflating commerce with art that no one thought would make any money in the first place because “that’s what kids do now” is jive. They’re opposites. Artists and their fans are messy and free and by their nature hard to control, businessmen and politicians are soulmates. Catering to the very wealthy is a slam dunk to the Ed Lee’s and Nancy Pelosi’s of the world because the wealthy contribute to them.

Don’t get me wrong–the 60’s weren’t utopia and the hordes of homeless people that have flocked to SF since have become an almost intractable problem.

San Francisco is the country’s mosy physically beautiful city. It has a long history of upheaval (culturally and seismically). But in our time, Detroit, Erie or Buffalo are becoming just as likely if not more so to be where the arts boom next. They’re cheap and with the Internet, an artist’s work can go anywhere when he or she don’t have to. Fact is, plain old venality is doing SF in. Pandering to the few at the expense of the many means that the fertile underside of the (actual) creative class gets priced right off the peninsula. All that’s left is the safe and staid that San Fran has thumbed its nose at forever. Sad.

Vanishing city

Andrew Lam

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May 21, 2013

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rebecca@sfbg.com

On a recent Tuesday night, some of the city’s most influential developers, architects, and land-use lawyers gathered in a conference room at the ritzy W Hotel for a panel discussion, titled, “San Francisco’s Housing Crisis: Can the Tech Boom Help Us?”

It was a provocative question by any measure, but equally intriguing was the lack of even a hint of objection to the dead-serious framing of increasing unaffordability as a “crisis.”

Even among well-heeled property brokers at the event, which was hosted by San Francisco Magazine and the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition, there appears to be universal acceptance that the city stands at a crossroads.

“The question asks itself: Who gets to live in San Francisco?” Tim Colen, HAC’s executive director, stated by way of introduction.

To break it down into extremely simplified terms: High-salaried professionals easily make the cut, while tenants of modest means who lack stable rent control are more hard-pressed to find housing they can afford. Opinions on how to approach this problem differ sharply.

Colen and other panelists posited that the solution is to build as the city has never built before, aiming for the construction of 100,000 units in the next two decades. But panelist Peter Cohen of the San Francisco Council of Community Housing Organizations countered that today’s development projects aren’t being constructed for people who actually live in the city, 61 percent of whom make less than 120 percent of the Area Median Income.

The city’s real-estate market is invariably described by those who closely track it as “hot,” or “bubbly,” bringing to mind a cappuccino, perhaps, that induces a jittery feeling. Speculation abounds.

The ripple effect extends beyond residential units. All across the seven-by-seven peninsula that once represented a haven for misfits and iconoclasts, stories abound of arts organizations, nonprofits, and community gathering spaces getting priced out, pressured to move, or otherwise swept away due to economic circumstances beyond their control.

From 2009 to 2013, UC Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti noted, explosive job growth coincided with San Francisco bearing the third-largest spike in rental prices on average, nationwide. In 2011, San Francisco rents were 34 percent higher than they had been 2003; by 2012, they had jumped to 53 percent higher, according to a market analysis prepared by The Concord Group. According to San Francisco Rent Board data, 1,757 eviction notices were filed from March of 2012 to February of 2013, reflecting a 12-year high.

“The problem has serious social consequences,” Moretti said at the event, sounding for an instant like a tenant advocate. “There is a serious amount of displacement.”

Every upheaval is messy, every tenant-landlord rift is complicated, and circumstances vary case by case. But taking a broad view, the overwhelming consequence of San Francisco’s gale-force property market pressure is a cultural shift; the fabric of a longstanding community is unraveling. Below are a few stories of the people and projects that are finding they won’t be able to stay in the San Francisco spaces they occupy for much longer.

THE CORNER OF HAIGHT AND RESENTMENT

Jon Zuckman, better known as Jon Sugar, showed up for a May 15 court appearance on his pending eviction proceeding with an entourage in tow. He was flanked by LGBT housing activist Tommi Mecca, perennial political candidate and sex worker Starchild, and radical activist Jerry the Faerie, among others, all longtime characters of the city’s lefty, radical LGBT scene.

Judge James Robertson, citing a letter he’d received from Zuckman’s doctor, agreed to grant a 60-day continuance, “for the purpose of allowing the defendant to try and locate alternative housing.”

A former KPFA radio personality, comic, writer, and DJ, Zuckman moved to San Francisco in his early 20s and lived in the Haight for 40 years. He’s now 63. He played in a band, ran an underground sex venue called the Mini Adult Theater, helped organize against a Republican-led 1978 proposal to ban gay teachers from California schools, supported AIDS benefits and battered-women support groups, and founded GAWK, the Gay Artists and Writers Kollective. He’s getting evicted from the Stanyan Street apartment building he’s lived in for 25 years, and has no idea where he’ll go after that.

Officially, he’s being evicted for violating the terms of a legal stipulation hashed out with landlord Al DeLorenzi pertaining to a bedbug infestation treatment. Zuckman claims he notified his landlord about the pest problem two years ago and no action was taken until he phoned the Department of Public Health.

DeLorenzi told the Bay Guardian that Zuckman is to blame for the bugs and that he’s just trying to keep the infestation in check. “There is no comment, he can say what he wants to say about this and that,” DeLorenzi said when reached by phone.

Complaints filed with the city’s Department of Public Health reveal a host of issues associated with the property over the years, from mice to broken light fixtures to a malfunctioning door buzzer.

Zuckman lives with a roommate in a rent-controlled unit, paying considerably less than tenants who pay market rate to live in the building. “I live,” he tells people, “on the corner of Haight and resentment.”

Zuckman is disabled, and says he’s undergone seven surgeries on his foot, plus a knee replacement. Asked if he’s on a fixed income, he responds, “It’s broken. I am on disability. It’s $869 a month. My rent is $600. My phone and Internet is like $55 to $60. And the rest is like, party, party, party.”

Tony Robles, of the elder advocacy organization Senior Disability Action, submitted a letter to the court in support of Zuckman. Robles said his office has experienced a spike in demand for services lately. “We’ve been having a large increase in calls, and people walking in and wanting to know if there’s available housing,” he says, adding that most clients are seniors grappling with eviction. “A lot of these folks, they’re scared.”

For his part, Jon Sugar is trying to maintain his sense of humor. “If I curl into a ball and let out with great heaving sobs, it’s not going to help,” he says. He doesn’t know of any good answers for stemming the tide of evictions currently sweeping San Francisco. “There’s got to be other ways than throwing crippled old DJs out into the street,” he says. Then he lets out a laugh. “I crack me up.”

URBAN FARMS AND CIRCUS ARTS: MAKE WAY FOR DEVELOPMENT

On a recent Saturday, the collective that started Esperanza Gardens hosted an event at its tiny fenced-in San Francisco garden plot, billed as a “be-in.” Ukulele music floated in the air as several people painted sweeping brushstrokes onto a mural. Volunteers dished up organic pizza with donated ingredients, cooked in a handcrafted cob oven. A dreadlocked gardener named Ryan Rising was preparing to host a permaculture workshop. The sun was hot, and flowers bloomed in vibrant hues.

Esparanza Gardens was started four years earlier, and the suntanned gardeners gathered under the shade of a 20-foot high cypress that had been a wee sapling when they first started out. But the afternoon gathering was bittersweet; this was a farewell ceremony.

They’d always known the project would be temporary. “We definitely understood what we were getting into,” explained Jonathan Youtt, an urban farmer clad in purple overalls and a straw hat, who’s recently been devoting more time to an urban farming project in Oakland.

The landlord, Lloyd Klein, had granted rent-free use of the space to the underfunded farmers with the stipulation that they’d have to clear out when the time came. He’s since secured entitlements for an ultra-green, four-unit building for that lot and told the Guardian he hopes to break ground by July, if he can secure building permits in time. “We’re trying to accomplish a net-zero energy usage building,” Klein told the Guardian in a telephone interview. “It will create its own energy from solar.”

None of the gardeners seemed to harbor bitter feelings toward Klein, who sanctioned their all-volunteer effort, but all those interviewed expressed concern that the loss of Esperanza coincides with the loss of two other urban farming plots in San Francisco. This was a space where they’d raised bees, harvested produce together, and led workshops with groups of at-risk youth from the surrounding area.

“The loss of space to teach farming is what the issue is,” Youtt says. “Without that, we’re going to have a void. It’s tragic in light of what’s happening simultaneously.”

The Hayes Valley Farm, at Fell and Octavia streets, is also on its way to being cleared to make way for housing, an outcome that was anticipated from the start of the project. Another urban agriculture project on Gough and Eddy, called the Free Farm, also has to vacate by the end of the year, when a development project goes up on that lot.

For years, the produce grown at Esperanza and Free Farm has supplied the nutritious bounty that is freely distributed every Sunday at a Mission intersection via the Free Farm Stand. An urban farmer, who goes simply by Tree, spearheaded the all-volunteer project in 2008. “We wanted to make sure that low-income people have access to fresh, locally grown produce,” Tree explained when reached by phone. “Everywhere I look in the Mission, there’s new restaurants. But wherever there’s affluence, there’s always people thrown in the cracks.”

The loss of a sliver of urban farms is just one change that could dramatically transform that Mission District parcel, located on Bryant between 18th and 19th streets. The Esperanza garden plot is sandwiched up against an arts venue called Inner Mission, which has been hosting events like circus and burlesque shows and aerial arts performances in its recently renovated space since January. Inner Mission is located in the same building that previously housed CELLspace (“CELL” stood for Collective Exploratory Learning Lab), a famed underground San Francisco arts collective launched in the 1990s.

An online “obituary” penned for CELLspace by caretaker Devin Holt offered a glimpse into what it was like in the early days: “It was 1996 in San Francisco. A time when you could still find a room in the Mission for $300, and the dotcom boom hadn’t turned empty warehouses into prime real estate. When the screen printing business moved out, the dreamers moved in. … The early years at Cell were marked by chaos and construction. Dave X was known to test his flamethrowers behind the building on Florida St., Jojo La Plume created an open craft loft in the homemade mezzanine, and the Sisterz of the Underground offered free break dancing lessons for aspiring b-girls on the main space floor.”

On March 14, the Nick Podell Company, a development firm, submitted a project review application to the San Francisco Planning Department, city records show. The developer has initiated talks about a proposal to raze the warehouse where Inner Mission operates and erect a six-story, 166-unit apartment complex in its place, with parking for 141 vehicles. The company is under contract to purchase the property, according to company representative Linsey Perlov, but it has not yet changed hands. Klein declined to discuss the sale or development proposal at this stage, saying, “I’m not at liberty to speak about it.”

A statement distributed at the “be-in” noted that a group called Mission of the Commons envisions a crowd-funding project that would raise enough funds to purchase the warehouse, though details are sketchy on how exactly this would be accomplished. “Selling off this block to a developer will deeply disable our community, displace many,” the notice reads, “and perpetuate these very issues [of gentrification] we seek to mitigate and stop.”

MISSION BUILDING IS NO PLACE FOR RADICAL ACTIVISTS

The thwack of a stick against a Google-bus piñata at the 16th Street BART station attracted considerable attention on Twitter a few weeks ago during a May 5 event billed as a Mission Anti-Gentrification Block Party. It was organized in part because a 5,200-square feet collective space run by a group of activists is facing eviction from 3265 17th Street. Sometimes called the 17 Reasons building, the property houses Thrift Town, Discount Fabrics and several other businesses at Mission and 17th streets.

The activists signed a four-year commercial lease on the space in August of 2011. Since then, they’ve been using it as a Food Not Bombs cookhouse, where volunteers prepare giant vats of food for the homeless using donated ingredients, and serve it up weekly at the 16th and Mission BART station. The Food Not Bombs collective and two other collective groups, known as In the Works and Rincon, have used the space to host political events, fix bicycles, and provide a place where penniless activists can get projects off the ground.

“The whole point was to make an accessible space,” explained Chema Hernandez Gil, who is involved with the In the Works collective. “We don’t have that in the Mission anymore.”

Now, their idealistic endeavor is quickly spiraling toward a messy legal clash. This past April, Rick Holman, a managing partner at Asher Insights Inc. whose background is in investment banking and corporate finance, purchased the property. On April 10, leaseholders received a three-day notice to quit, the first step in an eviction, charging they’d subletted the space in violation of their lease terms.

In the Works collective members told the Guardian that the building’s locks were changed and they still haven’t been issued new keys, although they are able to gain access using a keypad. They’ve hired an attorney and are exploring their legal options. They view their plight as part of a wider trend of Mission gentrification.

“Every legitimate tenant who was asked has been issued keys,” Holman said when reached by phone. He declined to answer questions about the eviction, saying, “I’m respectful of these people and their privacy.”

TIME’S ALMOST UP FOR BOOKSTORE OF 41 YEARS

On May 8, Modern Times Bookstore Collective sent out an email blast inviting supporters to a town hall meeting to address the loaded question of what their future holds.

“For 41 years, Modern Times has had its doors open to activists, educators, rabble-rousers, queers, and scholars of all stripes,” the collective members of the bookstore wrote. “We’ve maintained our position as a progressive resource, stocking thousands of titles and collections that you’d be hard-pressed to find at most bookstores: queer theory, sex/uality, disability justice, well-curated and left-leaning section of libros en espanol, critical race studies, anarchy, radical retellings of US history, political economy, socialism, Raza studies, African American and Asian American history and analysis, criticisms of the Prison Industrial Complex, and global activism (just to name a few).”

There are myriad reasons why the bookstore is facing challenges, one being the declining market for print books. But there’s also been an erosion of the store’s membership and customer base; so many of the former shoppers have been priced out.

Collective member Lex Non Scripta described the collective’s community as “politically radical, rabble-rousing activists, artists, and a variety of just total weirdos.” But a lot of them “just can’t afford to be in San Francisco anymore,” they went on, singing a familiar tune. “There’s just been a huge shift over to the East Bay.”

On May 16, the bookstore held a town hall meeting with supporters to hash out possible future scenarios. “We don’t want to close. We’re all very attached to it,” they said. But at the same time, “we want a more sustainable model, and it’s hard to figure out what it looks like for books.”

The future of Modern Times remains unclear, and Non Scripta chalked it up to this: “Capitalism and community don’t really mix well.”

Growth potential

Andrew Lam

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May 21, 2013

8

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE For all of the hype about the communicative power of social media, the energy that flows from one body to another has yet to be beat. Dancers know that. That’s why they keep searching for new ways to make this silent language speak.

The Garage on Folsom is one place where they do it; the studio is run on a first-come, first-served basis with a compulsory performance component, so a lot of what you will see there is unfinished. Yet the other night, two Finnish-born choreographers presented pieces as refined and polished as anything shown in bigger venues.

Another venue that fosters innovation is Yannis Adoniou’s Kunst-Stoff Arts, above a Burger King across from the San Francisco Main Library. It takes a more focused approach by inviting similarly-minded artists (who don’t care about the occasional whiff of fried food making its way upstairs). The recent opening of Kunst-Stoff Arts Fest 2013 showcased three choreographers who pushed the dancing body to the edge of what seems humanly possible.

But first, back to the Garage — where Raisa Punkki’s punkkiCo world premiere, Other Space, took command. Some lengths could be edited to keep the trajectory better on track. Also, the image of a dancer emerging from a kind of subterranean existence in the shape of a raincoat didn’t ring true. But overall, this quartet (for three women and one man) was finely crafted dance making that explored states of being with a rich, multi-faceted vocabulary and formal controls that allowed for flux and even spontaneity.

Other is designed along the concept of making connections that could be in unison pirouettes or jumbled limbs of labyrinthine complexity. Densely layered encounters gave way to stillness or something as simple as a walk or sitting quietly. The spatial thinking pulsated against the stage’s perimeter, enlarged in a couple of places by mirrors. For the most part the dancing was fierce and full out, yet still had room for small gestures: hands that turned into claws, fists that pushed the dancers into relevé and down again. The idea of balance — and lack thereof — lay below much of Other, sharply brought to life by Jennifer Meek, Sarah Keeney, Meegan Hertensteiner, and Derek Harris.

The Bay Area premiere of Alpo Aaltokoski’s 2004 astounding Deep showed a dancer who seemed to exist simultaneously inside and outside his body. Gaunt with a shaven head, he whipped himself into a tornado, engaged in turns that layered his body horizontally, and stretched his frame beyond his height only to squat again and again. Crawling, he looked pre-human; howling, he became Everyman. At one point, he was on all fours and sucked in his spine to turn his shoulder blades into wings. Yet none of these physical feats were self-serving; there were stories aplenty in them. Mila Moilnan’s subsequent video, based on Deep, felt like an afterthought.

First-week performances at the Kunst-Stoff Arts Fest included three works, two of them in progress, and clearly presented as such. What I saw made me want to follow them because both choreographers seemed to think intriguingly about time.

Christina Bonansea’s Floaters #2, set on identical twin dancers Michaela and Liane Burns with excellent live music by Zachary Watkins, started as an installation in the basement. At first resembling statues of saints, the silver-gowned women came to life, slithering and scraping. Upstairs, they ripped into waves of frenzy that threatened to tear them inside out.

For Portraiture, the forbiddingly prodigious Lindsey Renee Derry, as much a gymnast as a dancer, assembled a linear structure from thematically distinct solos that ranged from lyrical to ferocious. In the future, she wants to extend this trajectory by inviting other choreographers, perhaps to evoke something like Andy Goldsworthy’s Wood Line installation in the Presidio.

Adoniou and the gorgeous Constantine Baecher, a former Royal Danish Ballet dancer, paired up for The Excruciating Death of St. Sebastian. One is dark and older, the other blond and tall, so the tracing of their relationship started on a note of difference. Their give and take began intertwined, as if they were asleep, and grew into teasing and tenderness, shot through with exploration and exuberance. Finally, with the help of a cane, the piece moved into darker territory. My tolerance for watching pain — real or pretend, received or given — is just about zero. Still, this was fine work.

KUNST-STOFF ARTS FEST 2013

Through June 7, most events $10-$15

Kunst-Stoff Arts

One Grove, SF

www.kunst-stoff.org

NATIONAL QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL

May 31-July 3 (various curated events)

Garage

715 Bryant, SF

www.715bryant.org

Visit queerculturalcenter.org/NQAF for NQAF events at different venues.

So many summertime festivals

Andrew Lam

-

May 21, 2013

6

caitlin@sfbg.com

MAY 25-26

Carnaval Parade: Starts at 24th St. and Bryant, SF. Sun/26, 9:30am, free; Festival: Harrison between 16th and 24th Sts., SF. Sat/25-Sun/26, 10am-6pm, free. www.carnavalsf.com. The Mission’s most colorful processional and music fest had to change hands this year to avoid financial ruin. Show your delight at its survival by showing up in force for the samba, sequins, and spectacle.

MAY 30-JUNE 5

Green Film Festival Various locations, times, prices, SF. www.sfgreenfilmfest.org. An outdoor screening of a documentary on the tiny house movement is one highlight of this year’s 50 film-program exploring environmental issues today.

JUNE 1

Latino Comic Expo Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF. www.latinocomicsexpo.com. 11am-5pm, free with $7 museum admission. In its third year, the popular convergence of Latino panel-makers is dedicated to the memory of underground scribbler Spain Rodriguez.

Chocolate and Chalk Art Festival 1400-1800 Shattuck, Berk. www.anotherbullwinkelshow.com/chocolate-chalk-art. 10am-5pm, free entry, 20 chocolate tickets $20. Picante habanero chocolate chunks gelato? Chocolate ricotta pizza? Discover the possibilities of gourmet cacao and create a sidewalk chalk masterpiece at this fest.

JUNE 1-2

Union Street Festival Union between Gough and Steiner, SF. www.unionstreetfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. Union Street pops with its 37th annual street fair. Browse craft vendors, cruise your neighbors, and snack to the tunes of live jazz from local bands.

JUNE 6-23

SF Doc Fest Various locations, times, prices. www.sfindie.com. Burning Man and Bettie Page flicks mark the program for this real-life film fest.

JUNE 8-16

San Mateo County Fair San Mateo County Event Center, 2495 South Delaware, SF. June 8, 9, 11 and 14-16, 11am-10pm; June 10, 12-14, noon-10pm, $7–$10 single day, $17-22 season pass. www.sanmateocountyfair.com. Morris Day, an Aerosmith cover band, and Three Dog Night perform alongside a youth piano competition, bareback pony riding, floral art displays, and more at this traditional county fair.

JUNE 9

Haight Ashbury Street Fair Haight between Stanyan and Masonic, SF. www.haightashburystreetfair.org. 11am-5:30pm, free. The groovy posters don’t lie — this classic, hippie-flavored street fair is great place to watch a battle of the band in the sun and ruminate on whether you can ever really have too much tie-dye.

JUNE 14-16

Queer Women of Color Film Festival Brava Theater, 2789 24th St., SF. www.qwocmap.com. From Hawaiian to Navajo culture, this festival of 55 shorts in five programs shows the QWOC experience from a global perspective.

JUNE 15-16

North Beach Festival North Beach neighborhood, SF. www.sresproductions/north_beach_festival.html. 10am-6pm, free. Harken back to North Beach’s days as a close-knit Italian community with this venerable street fair, featuring a traditional blessing of the animals at the National Shrine of St. Francis de Assisi, street painting, music, and snacks galore.

Marin Art Festival Marin Civic Center, 95 Buena Vista, Mill Valley. www.marinartfestival.com. 10am-6pm, $10. This showing of 350 fine artists is a fine excuse to ramble in the sun by the UFO-esque, Frank Lloyd Wright-built Marin Civic Center.

Crystal Fair Fort Mason Festival Pavilion, SF. www.crystalfair.com. June 15, 10am-6pm; June 16 10am-4pm, $6. Over 40 vendors of crystals, jewelery, metaphysical well-being make this the place to get your woo on.

JUNE 16

SummerStruck Monterey Fairgrounds, 2004 Fairgrounds Rd, Monterey. www.summerstruckfestival.com. 11am-6pm, $22.50-40. Twangers unite — this debut year lineup of Jason Michael Carroll, American Young, Buck Ford, and more promises to be stocked with multi-gallon headwear and boots like you wouldn’t believe.

JUNE 16-AUGUST 12

Stern Grove Festival Stern Grove, 19th Ave. and Sloat, SF. www.sterngrove.org. Every Sunday, 2pm, free. Deltron 3030 with Kid Koala and Del the Funky Homosapien, Boz Scaggs, and the Symphony and Ballet’s yearly performances are all phenom draws at our favorite, free park ‘n’ picnic weekly summer concert soiree.

JUNE 20-30

Frameline 37 Various locations, times, prices. www.frameline.org. SF’s premier LGBT film festival surges back hard with historical docs, animated features, and more. The opening night gala features Concussion, a head trauma-driven sexy drama. Fest closes with GBF, an at-times comical look at coming out and getting popular in high school.

JUNE 21-23

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival Mendocino County Fairgrounds, 14480 Highway 128, Boonville. www.snwmf.com. $60-75 one-day festival pass, $170 three-day festival and camping pass. Those looking for a music fest with camping to which to bring their brood would be well-advised to choose SNWMF — a lineup headed by Damian Marley features sounds from across the world and a more mellow crowd.

JUNE 22

Berkeley World Music Festival People’s Park, 2556 Haste, Berk., 1-6pm, free; Telegraph Avenue businesses, 1-9pm, free. www.berkeleyworldmusicfestival.org. Amble along and around Telegraph Avenue for a plethora of free shows, from Tunisian MC Rai at People’s Park to Vukani Mawethu Choir’s South African harmonies at the Berkeley Art Museum, with smaller concerts at businesses in between.

Mt. Tam Jam Mountain Theater, Mount Tamalpais State Park. www.tamjam.org. Noon-7pm, $50-100. After-party, 10:30pm, $30. Galactic, Cake, Taj Mahal Trio, and more rock this fundraiser for Mount Tam State Park — at a venue that hasn’t housed a rock concert since 1967.

Summer Sailstice Encinal Yacht Club, 1251 Pacific Marina, Alameda. www.summersailstice.com. 10:30am-8pm. Join the boating set to celebrate this worldwide day of sailing culture. In the Bay, view America’s Cup boats, guest ride a vessel, take in live tunes, and more.

JUNE 22-AUGUST 10

Stanford Jazz Festival Various venues, times, prices. www.stanfordjazz.org. Lil’ ones can learn more about this venerable American music genre at a special kids concert series and educational offerings. Older fans will get their fix at a plethora of concerts featuring up-and-comers (like Taylor Eigsti and Julian Lage), offbeat geniuses (Savion Glover), and legends (hey, Herbie Hancock).

JUNE 29-30

San Francisco Pride Various venues, times, prices. www.sfpride.org. Should the year’s champion-level PR idiocy of naming, then reneging on Bradley Manning as grand marshal leave you with a bad taste, check out the many, amazing unofficial queer parties, readings, and exhibits that rock the city the last week in June.

JUNE 29-SEPTEMBER 22

Shakespeare in the Park Various times and Bay Area venues. www.sfshakes.org. Why you live in the Bay Area: exquisite cultural offerings like the 30th year of free Bard offerings in peaceful park settings.

JULY 6-7

Burger Boogaloo Mosswood Park, Broadway and West Arthur, Oakl. www.burgerboogaloo.com. Noon-9pm, $40 weekend pass. Burger Records just keeps outdoing itself. It has fests around the country that bring together an elite mix of sloppy, legendary, and up-and-coming surf, garage, fun punk, and slack doo-wop acts.

Fillmore Jazz Festival Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, SF. www.fillmorejazzfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. Kim Nalley, Bayonics, Crystal Money Hall typify the wide-ranging sounds heard at this free, three-stage celebration of Fillmore’s jazztastic past.

JULY 18-21

Silent Film Festival Various times and prices. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. www.silentfilm.org. Spend the weekend immersed in loaded looks and dialogue cards at this lineup of classic quiets.

JULY 18-28

Midsummer Mozart Various venues, times, prices. www.midsummermozart.org. Churches, missions, wineries, and the Legion of Honor all host concerts of Mozart’s genius for this fest’s 2013 season.

JULY 19-21

Sunset Campout Belden Town, Calif. www.sunsetcampout.com. Germany’s Dixon and Robag Wruhme are the early announced performers at party crew Sunset’s stellar camping trip — perfect for dancefloor stalwarts who can’t stomach the crowds at larger music fests.

JULY 25-AUGUST 12

Jewish Film Festival Various venues, times, prices. www.sfjff.org. “Rebels, rabbis, and reubens” seems about as amazing a descriptor as you need for this yearly celebration of the Chosen on film.

JULY 26-28

Gilroy Garlic Festival Christmas Park, Gilroy. www.gilroygarlicfestival.com. 10am-7pm, $17. Fear not having pungent breath at this classic small-town fest. Garlic-inflected free ice cream, cook-offs, and celebrity chef appearances make it the order of the day.

JULY 27-28

Berkeley Kite Festival Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. www.highlinekites.com. 10am-6pm, free. World record-sized kites, flying lessons, aircraft crafting, and more at this celebration of soaring craft.

Renegade Craft Fair Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion, SF. www.renegadecraft.com. 11am-7pm, free. Bring your ducats and splurge on DIY presents for all your 2013 birthdays, anniversaries, and plain old “I appreciate you” moments.

JULY 28

Up Your Alley Dore between Howard and Folsom, SF. www.folsomstreetfair.com/alley. 11am-6pm, $7 suggested donation. Hey daddy, cruise the local talent at this leather fair before the happy chaos of big sister Folsom Street Fair hits in September.

JULY 28-AUGUST 4

SF Chefs Union Square, SF. www.sfchefsfoodwine.com. Various times and prices. Sample the city’s best eats and learn from the best in expert demos and classes at this food festival.

AUGUST 3-4

Aloha Festival San Mateo County Event Center, 1346 Saratoga, San Mateo. www.pica-org.org. 10am-5pm, free. No booze allowed at this celebration of Pacific Islands culture, but you won’t miss it: tasty plates, infotaining activities for the little ones, and lots of music and performance rock.

Oakland Art and Soul Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakl. www.artandsouloakland.com. Aug. 3, noon-8pm; Aug. 4, noon-6pm, $10-15. The line-up will be announced in June for this East Bay music and food fest, where the tunes range from R&B to jazz and indie.

AUGUST 3-4

Nihonmachi Street Fair Post between Laguna and Fillmore, SF. www.nihonmachistreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. We’re down for a fair whose intended mission is to provide jobs for a neighborhood’s youth, and Nihonmachi always delivers community power-building and more – go to 2013’s edition for a doggie section, Asian artisans, and street cuisine.

AUGUST 4

Jerry Day Jerry Garcia Amphitheater, McLaren Park, 45 John F. Shelley, SF. www.jerryday.org. 11:30am, free, donate to reserve seats. A forgotten Excelsior playground was converted into the music venue for this annual celebration of the Dead’s godhead, who grew up nearby.

AUGUST 9-11

Outside Lands Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.sfoutsidelands.com. Three-day tickets now on sale, $249.50. Sway to Paul McCartney, grind to D’Angelo – and then get all those calories back at the superlative, locavore-oriented beer, wine, and food sections at this hip-kid SF music fest.

AUGUST 16-18

Tattoo Body Art Expo Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva, SF. www.bodyartexpo.com. Aug. 16, 2-11pm; Aug. 17, 11am-11pm; Aug. 18, 11am-8pm, $20. Babely bros and bro’d out babes gather to show off their ink, get tatted by visiting masters, and compete for body art superlatives.

AUGUST 17

Festa Coloniale Italiana Stockton between Union and Filbert, SF. www.sfiacfesta.com. Check website for details on time and price. Go beyond red sauce at this decadent convergence of Italian food trucks, artists, crafters, gluttons, more.

Street Food Festival Folsom and 24th St. and surrounding streets, SF. Check website for details, www.sfstreetfood.com. Alcoholic artisan Jello shots, fried grasshoppers, snacks from restaurants high and low — food entrepreneur incubators La Cocina throw a damn good street party that’ll leave you stuffed. We recommend making an appearance early in the day to avoid lines.

Stumptown Brewery Beer Revival and BBQ Cook-off Stumptown Brewery, 15045 River Road, Guerneville. www.stumptown.com. Check website for time, $75-100. Unlimited tastings with 30 breweries and 30 BBQ teams out in the summer glory of Guerneville. More information, we think, is unnecessary here.

AUGUST 24-25

Gem and Mineral Show SF County Fair Building, Ninth Ave. and Lincoln, SF. www.sfgemshow.org. Aug. 24, 10am-6pm; Aug. 25, 10am-5pm, check website for prices. Revel in sparkle and shine at this expo of glittering gewgaws – bring in your own to stump on-site classification experts.

Bodega Seafood, Art, and Wine 16885 Bodega Highway, Bodega. www.winecountryfestivals.com. Aug. 25, 10am-6pm; Aug. 26, 10am-5pm, check website for price. Sea breeze, fresh crab, hay bales – good times await at this food, art, and beer fest.

First City Monterey County Fair and Event Center, Monterey. www.firstcityfestival.com. $149.50-279.50 two-day passes. Did you know this seaside hamlet was the Golden State’s first capital? In a bid to recapture our hearts, the city is hosting a two-day musical line-up of big time acts like Modest Mouse, Passion Pit, MGMT, Neko Case, Beach House, Toro y Moi, and Devendra Banhart.

SEPTEMBER 9

EcoFair Marin Marin County Fairgrounds, Civic Center, San Rafael. www.ecofairmarin.org. 10am-6pm, $5. Green jobs guru Van Jones headlines Marin’s second annual celebration of sustainability. Eat locally made bites, learn how to make butter and raise chickens, and browse the wares of enviro-retailers from pet shops to biodegradable casket makers.

SEPTEMBER 12-15

Ceramics Annual of America Fort Mason Festival Pavilion, SF. www.ceramicsannual.com. Various times; $10 one-day pass, $20 two-day. Sculpt your mind with the vast, globally sourced panorama of ceramics art at this fest. Artist demos abound if you’d like to throw your own pot in the ring next year.

SEPTEMBER 15

Comedy Day Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.comedyday.org. Noon-5pm, free. Yucks galore at this outdoor stand-up fest. Take in a Will Durst solo show, open mics, and local showcases.

SEPTEMBER 13-15

Armenian Food Festival St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Apostolic Church, 825 Brotherhood Way, SF. facebook.com/annual-armenian-food-festival-bazaar. Check website for times, free. Sarma, sou-beoreg, spices – this homey community fest is great for kids, Armenian culture addicts, and hungry people.

SEPTEMBER 14-15

Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival Ghirardelli Square, 900 North Point, SF. www.ghirardelli.com. Noon-5pm, $20-125. Your tasting tickets to this fest go towards Project Open Hand. That should add to the glow you’ll cull from sampling fine chocolates and wine, and watching local chefs demo their concoction skills.

SEPTEMBER 20-21

Taste of Greece Annunciation Cathedral, 245 Valencia, SF. www.annunciation.org. Spit-grilled meat, fetching circular dances – SF’s only Greek food festival is a great place for a day of cultural meal-planning.

SEPTEMBER 21

Super Hero Street Fair Islais Creek Promenade, Cesar Chavez and Indiana, SF. www.superherosf.com. 2pm-midnight, $10-20. It’s your time Diana Prince – whip out that golden lasso and head to this goofy celebration of Lycra and defeating evil. It all culminates in a street side dance party for the costumed and plain clothes alike.

SEPTEMBER 21-22

Polk Street Blues Festival Polk between Pacific and Union, SF. www.polkstreetbluesfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. Laze with the fam listening to this fest’s two stages of music, complimented nicely by an array of tasty street foods.

SEPTEMBER 27-29

Eat Real Fest Jack London Square, Oakl. www.eatrealfest.com. Sept. 27, 1-9pm; Sept. 28, 10:30am-9pm; Sept. 29, 10:30am-5pm, free. One of our favorite food fests puts the emphasis on local foodcraft, wine, and beer. Three days of live entertainment and classes in DIY foodieism 4 U.

SEPTEMBER 29 Redwood City Salsa Festival Redwood City Courthouse Square. www.redwoodcity.org. Noon-8pm, free. Yes, the tomato-based spicy flavor agent. And yes, the hip-swiveling hot beats. Both, and more, at this small town’s downtown celebration.

Folsom Street Fair Folsom between Seventh and 12th Sts., SF. www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm, $10 suggested donation. Its impressive donations to local charities makes this fetish and leather fair – the largest in the world – a community favorite and global center of BDSM culture with demos and sidewalk runways like you wouldn’t believe.

Stage listings

Andrew Lam

-

May 21, 2013

0

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

The Beauty Queen of Leenane Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-52. Previews Thu/23-Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 7pm. Opens Tue/28, 8pm. Runs Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also June 1 and 15, 2pm; June 6, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 16. Marin Theatre Company performs Martin McDonagh’s award-winning black comedy about a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship.

By & By Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/22-Thu/23 and May 29-30, 7pm; Fri/24-Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 5pm. Opens May 31, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 23. Shotgun Players presents a new sci-fi thriller by Lauren Gunderson.

Hanging Georgia, a play with music about Georgia O’Keefe Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Previews Thu/23, 8pm. Opens Fri/24, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Sat/25; additional shows June 1 and 8, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 9. Pear Avenue Theatre marks its 75th show with Sharmon J. Hilfinger and Joan McMillen’s world premiere, a co-production with BootStrap Theater Foundation.

ONGOING

Arcadia ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Opens Wed/22, 8pm. Runs Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm; May 28 show at 7pm); Sun, 2pm (additional show Sun/26, 8pm). Through June 9. American Conservatory Theater performs Tom Stoppard’s literary romance.

Birds of a Feather New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the San Francisco premiere of Marc Acito’s tale inspired by two gay penguins at the Central Park Zoo.

Black Watch Drill Court, Armory Community Center, 333 14th St, SF; www.act-sf.org. $100. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 16. American Conservatory Theater presents the National Theatre of Scotland’s internationally acclaimed performance about Scottish soldiers serving in Iraq.

Boomeraging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue/28, 8pm. Comedian Will Durst performs his brand-new solo show.

Burqavaganza Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through June 2. Brava! For Women in the Arts and RasaNova Theatre present Shahid Nadeem’s Bollywood-style “love story in the time of jihad.”

Dirty Dancing: Live! Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; dirtydancinglive-fbe.eventbrite.com. $20. Fri/24-Sat/25, 8pm. Watermelons will be carried, lifts will be attempted, eyes will be hungry, and nobody better put Baby in a corner.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Opens Thu/23, 7:30pm. Runs Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no shows June 8); Sun, 5pm. Through June 16. Cutting Ball Theater performs Andrew Saito’s Howl-inspired portrait of San Francisco.

The Merry Wives of Windsor Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; www.african-americanshakes.org. $10-35. Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 3pm. They might be two of the town’s most respectable matrons, but Mistresses Page (Safiya Fredericks) and Ford (Leontyne Mbele-Mbong), the titular Merry Wives of Windsor, at the African-American Shakespeare Company, are nobody’s fools. When the bawdy, ne’er-do-well Falstaff (a cross-dressing Beli Sullivan) tries to woo the two at the same time (as much for money as lust), they easily turn the tables on his plotting, and further dampen his ardor by having him tossed in a ditch. Their husbands, in particular the suspicious yet constantly flummoxed Master Ford (Armond Edward Dorsey), fare not much better against the wonder-twin powers of their BFF wives, and for anyone keeping score, the entire female population of Windsor generally makes out better than their slow-on-the-uptake menfolk, and they do it in style thanks to Linda Tucker’s astute, 50s-era costume design. Under Becky Kemper’s direction, the attitude skews sassy, and each character — from the befuddled town elite to the simplest servant — is a broadly-painted stroke of buffoonery, one part Desperate Housewives melodrama and one part Marx Brother’s farce. Kemper calls her rowdy take on this battle-of-the-sexes comedy “a guilty pleasure,” reminding us that however hallowed the name of Shakespeare might remain in posher circles, a good portion of his canon was written not for the austere glory of posterity, but for the base enjoyment of the general populace. (Gluckstern)

“PlayGround Festival of New Works” Various venues, SF and Berk; www.playground-sf.org. $15-40. Through Sun/26. The long-running short-play contest and development lab marks its 17th season with an evening showcasing the best of the previous year. The six plays come from six (familiar and new) playwrights out of a pool of 36 new short plays developed by PlayGround since October (and those were drawn from over 190 new original scripts created). The best of the best receives a rotating cast of strong Bay Area actors under six accomplished directors (including PlayGround founder Jim Kleinmann) but is a mixed affair, nevertheless. Katie May’s The Spherical Loneliness of Beverly Onion is a sometimes funny but generally tepid short story about a lonely mortician’s assistant (Carla Pantoja) who confronts her handlers, the natural forces of Fate (Jomar Tagatac) and Luck (Anne Darragh). Simple and Elegant, by Evelyn Jean Pine, is an ocean-side fairytale whose themes don’t sound too deeply, about the titular pair of sisters (Rebecca Pingree and Pantoja) who have a near-fatal falling out over a gold coin salvaged from the belly of a fish (Dao) who may be a handsome prince for one of them or just a nice hideaway bed. In Ruben Grijalva’s Value over Replacement, a major league player (Tagatac) confronts a career-jeopardizing accusation from a journalist-guest (Delzell) on his talk radio show in a somewhat prosaic but dramatically compact, carefully written and well-acted piece. Significant People, by Amy Sass, follows two docents (Darragh and Delzell) through the preserved home of two significant others who seem to be the same people. It’s a quirky conceit that doesn’t quite produce the necessary dramatic tension, the stakes feeling too low. In My Better Half, by Jonathan Spector, quirkiness goes full-bore as a wife (Pingree) with a justifiable complaint against her obliviously self-centered, what-me husband (Dao) looks to have him rubbed out by a reluctant hit man (Tagatac) and his couples-therapist colleague (Darragh). Finally, Symmetrical Smack-Down is William Bivins’ funny and nicely orchestrated foursome, in which the dynamic between two antagonists in the wrestling ring (Tagatac and Delzell) overlaps (literally and dramatically) with that between a long-term lesbian couple (Pingree and Pantoja) on the brink of a break-up and/or rumble. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through June 29. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Talk Radio Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 15. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs Eric Bogosian’s breakthrough 1987 drama.

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through June 29. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

Vital Signs: The Pulse of an American Nurse Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sun, 7pm. Through June 16. Registered nurse Alison Whittaker returns to the Marsh with her behind-the-scenes show about working in a hospital.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

The Medea Hypothesis Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Central Works performs Marian Berges’ reconfiguration of the Euripides classic.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Wed/22 and Sun/26, 7pm (also Sun/26, 2pm); Thu/23 and Sat/25, 2 and 8pm. Mark Wing-Davey directs Berkeley Rep’s take on the Bard.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Acting Out — For the Health of It” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; bcaction.org/events/actingout/. Wed/22, 7pm. $35-75. Breast Cancer Action benefits from this evening of comedy, author readings, bluegrass tunes, and more.

“Alonzo King LINES Ballet Training Program Spring Showcase” ODC Dance, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.odcdance.org. Fri/24-Sat/25, 7pm; Sun/26, 2pm. $20. Dancers in training (ages 17-24) perform works by Kara Davis, Gregory Dawson, and others.

“Dionysian Festival” Mary Sano School of Duncan Dancing, 245 Fifth St, Studio 314, SF; www.duncandance.org. Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 5pm. $20. Celebrating the 136th anniversary of Isadora Duncan’s birth with works by the pioneering choreographer.

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/22, 9:30pm. free. Drag with Collette LeGrande, Diva LaFever, Sophilya Leggz, and more.

“Improvised Murder Mystery” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Sat/25, 8pm. $20. BATS Improv performs one of its most popular shows.

“Kunst-Stoff Arts Fest 2013” Kunst-Stoff Arts, One Grove, SF; www.kunst-stoff.org. Through June 7. Most events $10-15. Morning classes, afternoon workshops, and evening performances are the focus of this festival of dance, film, music, and more.

Lady Rizo Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.ladyrizo.com. Sat/25, 8pm. $20. The NYC cabaret star performs.

Lily Cai Chinese Dance Company Lily Cai Dance Studio, 301 8th St, SF; lilycaidance.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/24-Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 3:30pm. $15. The company’s 2013 studio concert includes three works, including 2013’s Xing.

“Love and Taxes” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Wed/22-Thu/23, 8pm. $25-70. Josh Kornbluth performs his hit stage show as a benefit for Z Space.

“Mariko Passion’s Whorrific Popcorn Theatre Bus and Cabaret” Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF; www.sexworkerfest.com. Fri/24, 7pm (cabaret); 9:30pm (bus tour). $15-30. Performance followed by a bus tour “visiting the haunts and landmarks or SF whoredom.” Part of the SF Sex Worker Fest.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Performance Research Experiment #2: Paradox of the Heart (Phase 1)” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/24-Sun/26, 8pm. $15-20. Jess Curtis/Gravity presents a “performance/science experiment” in collaboration with French-German dance and circus artist Jörg Müller.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

Shaping Sound Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.shapingsoundco.com. Wed/22, 8pm. $30-85. This touring company includes dancers featured on reality competitions All the Right Moves and So You Think You Can Dance.

“Tickled Pink!” Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 441-4099. Thu/23, 8pm. Free. Comedy showcase with Mike Cappazola, Nina G., Greg Asdourian, and more; this month’s theme is “Grown Up.”

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

Wasatch Collective Dancers Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri/24-Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 7pm. $12. The Utah company makes its Bay Area debut with “Aggregate,” an evening of original and commissioned work.

“When You’re In Love, The Whole World is Jewish” Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter, SF; www.worldisjewishtheplay.com. Fri/24-Sat/25, 8pm (also Sat/25, 2pm); Sun/26, 2pm. $45-66. Seinfeld‘s Jason Alexander directs this musical comedy revue.

“You Killed Hamlet, or Guilty Creatures Sitting at a Play” Main Street Theatre, 915 Cayuga, SF; youkilledhamlet.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/24, 8pm. $15-25. Naked Empire Bouffon Company and the International Home Theatre Festival present an even more outrageous version of their Best of the Fringe-winning show.

BAY AREA

Big Moves Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.bigmoves.org. Sat/25, 8pm; Sun/26, 2pm. $17. The company performs En Masse, a new music and dance spectacular featuring resident dance company emFATic DANCE.

“City Ballet School Spring Showcase” Showcase Theater Marin Civic Center, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; www.cityballetschool.org. Sat/25, 1-5pm. $25. Student dancers ages 6-19 perform.

“Jewish Chronicles” Cabaret at the Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Shattuck; www.themarsh.org. Wed/22, 8pm. $15-50. Songwriter and storyteller David Canier performs.

Smuin Ballet Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.smuinballet.org. Wed/22-Sat/25, 8pm (also Sat/25, 2pm); Sun/26, 2pm. $52-68. Also May 31-June 1, 8pm (also June 1, 2pm). $54-70. Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek. The company presents the West Coast premiere of Helen Pickett’s Petal and Darrell Grand Moultrie’s JAZZIN’, among other works.

“Swearing in English: Tall Tales at Shotgun” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. June 3 and 17, 8pm. $15. Shotgun Cabaret presents John Mercer in a series of three stranger-than-fiction dramatic readings.

On the Cheap listings

Andrew Lam

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May 21, 2013

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Listings compiled by Cortney Clift. For additional information on submitting events, see our Selector calendar section.

WEDNESDAY 22

Harvey Milk Day GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th St., SF. www.glbthistory.org. Celebrate the birthday of San Francisco hero Harvey Milk with free admission and special Milk-related displays and tours at the GLBT History Museum. Brief docent tours of the museum highlighting the would-be airport namesake will be offered hourly. There will also be rare video clips screened in the main gallery and exhibit featuring Milk’s personal belongings in the front gallery.

THURSDAY 23

"Demystifying Dementia" AlmaVia, 1 Thomas More, SF. www.corecubed.com. 6-7:30pm, free. Dealing with a parent with dementia can leave you with an endless array of questions. Elizabeth A. Landsverk M.D. is here to help. Dr. Landsverk will shed light on common concerns this evening such as: how to prevent dementia, symptoms to look for, how it is diagnosed, common medications, and useful resources to turn for help.

Yerba Buena Gardens free concert Annie Alley, New Montgomery and Mission, SF. www.artsanddialogue.org. 6-7pm, free. RSVP at info@ybcbd.org. As part of the Yerba Buena Gardens’ "Art and Dialogue" series, acoustic rock and funk artist Curt Yagi and the People Standing Behind Me will be performing. The evening’s free concert is part of a weeklong celebration of events and beautification project sponsored by San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) and Yerba Buena Community Benefit District.

FRIDAY 24

Bites Off Broadway 45th St. and Lawton, Oakl. facebook.com/bitesoff. 5:30-8:30pm, free. Grab a blanket and some friends and sample bites from over 15 food trucks including local favorites like Tina Tamale, Fist of Flour, and Two Mama’s Vegan Kitchen. While you satisfy your taste buds, amuse your eyes with entertainment that changes weekly. Past events have consisted of live music, lawn games, and movies.

SATURDAY 25

"Successful Interviewing" 100 Larkin, SF. www.sfpl.org. 10am-noon, free. Oh the stress of the job interview: What to wear? What to say? Mangala Meridian, an adult education instructor of vocational and job search skills will be at the Main Library today to help you land that job you’re after. Meridian will speak on how to boost pre-interview self-esteem, tell you what employers are looking for, and even provide you with practice questions.

Zombie Prom Elbo Room, 657 Valencia, SF. www.sfzombiebar.com. 9pm-2am, $10. So your high school prom experience wasn’t great? Give it a second go — as a zombie. Back for its second year, this Zombie Prom benefiting the AIDS Life Cycle has all the fixings of a traditional prom: prom photos and a king and queen crowning. Except you know… you’ll look pretty deathly. Also at the Elbo Room tonight will be a silent auction featuring local businesses, a zombie drag show, and zombie burlesque.

SUNDAY 26

Forbidden Island luau Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge, 1304 Lincoln, Alameda. www.forbiddenislandalameda.com. 2-10pm, $5. No need to book a flight to Hawaii when you can have a tropical vacation right here in the Bay Area. Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge is hosting its annual luau today that’s almost as authentic as anything you’ll find west of California. Scarf down on a pig roast, shake your hula hips at dance lessons led by Aloha Polynesia, and sip on rum cocktails.

K-12 Grand Slam Poetry Reading SF Public Library, 100 Larkin, SF. www.sfpl.org. 1-4pm, free. As part of a yearlong project, students from classrooms, juvenile halls, and hospital programs have written poems about baseball history, the SF Giants, their own lives, and their aspirations for the future. This afternoon will include a reading by the students, a musical performance by hip-hop-rock group the Boondock Squad, and a reception.

San Ramon Art & Wind Festival San Ramon Central Park, 12501 Alcosta, San Ramon. www.artandwind.com. Also Mon/27. 10am-5pm, free. If you’re a Bay Area resident, chances are you have dealt with your fair share of windy days. Make the most of this sometimes-annoying element today at an art fair that fully embraces the breeze. Kites are the main attraction this afternoon — join a demonstration or make your own for free. Come back Monday to watch a hot air balloon launch, check out art from over 150 vendors, and enjoy entertainment happening on four different stages.

MONDAY 27

Nerd Nite The New Parkway, 474 24th St., Oakl. Doors open at 7pm, show starts at 8pm, $8. Fully nerd out this evening with lectures sure to stir up your brain cells. Kate Poirier will speak on topology — the study of spaces and spaces — and relate it to securing your bike from sneaky thieves. Bioengineer Terry Johnson will discuss how and why we build new DNA from scratch, and Megan Elizabeth Carlsen will talk about color theory. If all this info gets to be too much, grab a drink and just watch nerds in their element.

TUESDAY 28

Summer of Art UN Plaza, Market and Hyde, SF. facebook.com/summerofart. Noon-1pm, free. Soak up some sun and add some music and dance to your lunch break. This free, weekly series features different dancers, musicians, and theater shows each week for your entertainment while you chow down on some goodies from the Off the Grid food court.

No need to drop names: Freak City is the Internet’s IRL cultural center

Andrew Lam

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May 21, 2013

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No need to drop names: Freak City is the Internet’s IRL cultural center

STREET SEEN I like LA because outfits don’t have to be as functional. In San Francisco, you’re always worrying about whether you’ll flash someone disembarking from your single-speed, about what exactly is going to happen to those white platform sandals inside the Montgomery Street BART station. Oh lord, sandals in San Francisco?

In Los Angeles, you can wear whatever the hell you want. After all (just to be SF-bitchy about it), they don’t dance down there, they certainly don’t walk, and you probably won’t broach the waterline at the beach, so the gold braid on your swimsuit? Appropriate, necessary. (Just take it off when you go in the pool.) In Los Angeles, you are allowed to dress like you are at the white-hot center of the hip universe, free of earthly fetters. Buy the dress in midriff.

And in this year of 2013 AD, Freak City is the place to shop for one’s interstellar journey.

Freak City hosts Rye Rye concerts. Also, it’s a clothing store.

If you can find it. This is not a store that deals much with walk-in traffic. Located in a dilapidated old department store on Hollywood Boulevard amid stripper stores and concrete stars, a few blocks from a combination health food store-spa where one can buy raw juice and a B12 injection in a single high-powered errand, Freak City encourages the art of the shopping appointment.

After spotting the Day-Glo-tagged interiors in the latest Gucci Mane-Wiz Khalifa spot directed by Video God, we were thrilled to bits when FC co-owner Justin Time responded in the affirmative to our Sunday morning voicemail pleas.

Soon enough, he was leading us past FC’s Internet-famous club space to the chainlink fence that marked the start of the retail area.

“I think that was in a Miley video.”

Full-length fleece hoodie dresses, digital garden wear, frenetic usage of charm bracelet motif. These are the markings of LA Rap!, the in-house Freak City brand designed by Time’s co-owner and partner-in-crime Vally Girl. She sits at the cash register answering our questions politely in front of a short white mock turtleneck dress bedazzled by a hundred plastic toys hanging on the chain-link. She tells us Queen Cyrus picked it up for a video not too long ago.

You get used to those throwaway references to pop culture domination here — the marijuana leaf lab coat you’re crusing on the LA Rap! website is shown modeled by Lady Tragik, sitting on a car hood with a “GURL” beanie-wearing Kreayshawn. The list of in-house performers in the Freak City club is long: Rye Rye, Mykki Blanco, Peaches, M.I.A.

Vally has styled Nicki Minaj on tour. Diplo told Mix Mag back in 2011 that the ramshackle department store, retrofitted with troll doll-decorated fitting rooms and terrifying mannequins that loom over us on our Sunday afternoon visit, was his favorite club in the world.

Freak City is a cultural center for the Internet generation — check the ski masks emblazoned with the arcing wi-fi symbol above the eyesockets that, retailing at $100 a pop, probably show up in more Tumblr feeds than closets.

Things I cruised at Freak City: a lime green, tightly-knit shirt with strips of mesh an inch wide down the center, side seams, and breastbone. A deadstock purple ‘90s swimsuit, again with mesh where mesh should not be, and duh gold braid. I bought some cross-strap white platform sandals, which have against the odds insinuated themselves in my San Francisco wardrobe.

Later, I hit up Vally Girl YEP ON THE INTERNET to figure out how hype that hot comes about.

San Francisco Bay Guardian Tell me how Freak City got started.

Vally Girl It all started when this lil’ school girl met this street boy … fast-forward three years — after living in Hollyhood, playing warehouse shows, throwing underground parties, making artwork and creating a line — to Justin convincing me to go in on a commercial space in East Hollywood off Melrose, which was found accidentally and was offered to us with no credit check due to the poor economy and we set up shop.

We threw a few events there and the space served as our store, gallery, and music studio.

Our psycho neighbor next door hated us for rehearsing for our shows, for beatboxing, rapping, and playing our 808. He “hated hip hop.” How Freak City actually got it’s name is pretty random … Justin wanted to do a party with his friend, and had doodled the logo “Freak City” (which was one of the first of our logos) on a Post-It note that I had seen. At the time we were calling our space the Lipstick Gallery, but when I saw the Post-It note, a light bulb went on, and I announced to everyone, “why don’t we call this place Freak City?” We all agreed and ran with it.

SFBG What was in your building before you guys? It’s so creepy.

VG This is the third location that we’ve been in, which is also the creepiest. This place was an old department store-fashion graveyard. It was full of old merchandise, alien-like mannequins, men’s ’90s fancy suits and silk shirts, Calvin Klein fixtures, cross-colors displays, tons of Timberlands, and really, really baggy Phat Farm jeans and Ralph Lauren ads. There was also a bunch of tacky club girl and quinceanera dresses.

SFBG Had you two collaborated on past projects?

VG Our first collaboration was music, our bedroom band The Keyishe. We also worked on art together and painted a few murals. One was with Raven Simone for an orphanage. Then we started the clothing line LA Rap! We also started working on music videos together, music production, set design, and art direction.

SFBG Describe the Freak City aesthetic. What artists or brands do you see as part of the same school of style?

VG Freak City is Ghetto Tech Hood Couture, bridging the past, present, and future of the underground. There are freaks all around the world, no need to drop names 🙂

SFBG Please tell me about shooting the Gucci Mane video in the Freak City space.

VG Naked video vixens, a lot of body paint, Ferraris, black lights, and blunts … It was fun, Gucci showed us a lot of love. He was freestyling over some Freak City beats and chilling with his posse. Even his girl copped some custom pieces from the shop. The director Video God is the homie, so it was all love that night.

SFBG What other kinds of events have you used the space for?

VG We hosted a Fader magazine party with Lil B, had Peaches perform here, Egyptian Lover live, Limelight movie screening, tons of other underground nights, and some baller birthday parties.

SFBG Who would you want to dress who you haven’t yet?

VG I’d actually like to design some pieces for Bjork.

Freak City 6363 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles. freakcity.la. To schedule a shopping appointment email freakcityla@gmail.com

Family meal: 18 Reasons joins forces with neighbor Three Squares to extend reach of healthy eating

Andrew Lam

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May 21, 2013

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Community food hub 18 Reasons has always had the back of the well-meaning kitchen newbie. With a cafe space, educational programming, and tasting events geared towards making a healthy, sustainable diet doable, since 2007 when the organization’s co-founders brought in Bi-Rite Market, a happy partner for the little space located a block from the family grocery store’s Mission digs. Now, the reach of 18 Reasons has grown even more. The non-profit working to create social change through food has merged with Three Squares, a neighbor food organization with a happily congruent mission to feed.

Both 18 Reasons and Three Squares aim to slow things down when it comes to the way we eat. Both non-profits serve through nutrition lessons and cooking classes with a healthy planet bent. Major difference? Three Square’s offerings, up until this point, have been free, focusing more closely on the low-income families who want to learn about eating well.

Three Squares’ founder — the now-executive director at 18 Reasons Sarah Nelson tells the Bay Guardian, “our goal is to teach people — no matter what neighborhood they live in — how to maximize their food resources. We believe the best way to fix our food system is by building skills and forging relationships among people across the economic spectrum.”

The idea for the merge arose after the companies began working on a few projects together. “I realized we had a very similar mission but were reaching out to difference audiences,” Nelson says. “I didn’t want to leave Three Squares – it is my baby. So I proposed merger.”

The merged companies will operate under 18 Reasons’ moniker, stay at its 18th Street location, and continue to hold its signature classes which include: cooking courses, urban gardening school, and various other workshops.

Three Squares will bring the group’s “Cooking Matters” course to the table. The six-week course – with different sections designed for adults, kids, and teens – includes an hour of nutritional education followed by an hour of hands-on cooking. The courses, designed for adults and teens, focus on cooking, while the kid’s section is aimed more towards getting young’ns to taste and appreciate new foods. Graduates of “Cooking Matters” walk away with a free bag of ingredients so they can go home and practice what they’ve made in class.

Recipes taught in Cooking Matters vary from class to class, but Nelson tells me dishes like veggie quesadillas, tilapia with cilantro sauce, and English muffin mini-pizzas have been students’ past favorites.

“Our classes target home cooking,” says Nelson. “We are not teaching professional cooking skills. Our courses are for people who want to cook at home with their family.”

If you need to up your own kitchen skills but don’t frequent the Mission, don’t worry. “Cooking Matters” courses are conducted in community health centers, schools, food pantries, social services offices, and other sites all over the Bay Area.

18 Reasons, 3674 18th St., SF. (415) 568-2710, www.18reasons.org

Do falling jobless numbers mean we’re smart and focused, or rich and exclusive?

Sasha Cuttler

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May 17, 2013

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The unemployment rate continues to drop in San Francisco and all over California, according to new numbers released today by the California Employment Development Department, which were trumpeted by Mayor Ed Lee as vindication for his economic development policies.

“San Francisco’s steady economic recovery is the result of our continued focus on job creation, education and training residents for the demands of the 21^st century workforce. San Franciscans are getting back to work across the spectrum of job sectors – from hospitality to construction to technology to service industry jobs and we will continue to help these sectors grow in our City,” Lee said in a press release.

But are Lee’s neoliberal policies of promoting technology and other corporations with tax breaks and city-subsidized training programs and financing mechanisms really creating the rosy economic picture he’s painting? And even if it is helping to promote boom times, at what point have we essentially reached full employment, the point at which we should maybe turn our focus and resources to addressing the rising cost of living here?

After all, San Francisco’s unemployment rate of 5.4 percent is third only to Marin County (4.6 percent) and San Mateo County (5.1 percent). Those three counties also just happen to be the three counties with the highest per capita incomes in the state, a fact that explains our jobless rate more than the mid-Market payroll tax exemption and other taxpayer giveaways.

“Unemployment rates tend to be lowest in areas with high education attainment,” Ruth Kavanagh, EDD’s labor market consultant for this area, told us when we called to discuss the disparties among counties.

What about the rising cost of living in San Francisco? Clearly, this is becoming a much more difficult city for the unemployed and marginally employed to remain living in. How much are gentrification, evictions, and the exodus to the East Bay (Alameda County’s rate is 7 percent, still better than the statewide rate of 8.5 percent) and other locales a factor in our low jobless rate?

Kavanagh said the EDD doesn’t directly track that and so she couldn’t address the question. But she did say that the Bay Area was indeed experiencing the fastest job growth in the state, driven largely by the tech industry. In the last year, this three-county area has added 9,600 jobs in Professional Business Services (which includes tech) and 4,600 each in Leisure & Hospitality and Construction.

Indeed, in his State of the City speech in January, Lee touted the 23 construction cranes on the city skyline as the best gauge of the state of the city. And if counting jobs is one’s only measure of success, San Francisco is doing as well as can be expected. Kavanagh said most economists consider “full employment” within the capitalist system to be somewhere between 4-5 percent.

Yet Lee says he’s not backing off from his full-throttle focus on economic development. “San Francisco’s unemployment rate today stands at a five-year low and I will continue to pursue policies that get people back to work, support San Francisco families and invest in our City’s future,” he said. “This Summer through San Francisco Summer Jobs +, we are setting an aggressive goal of putting 6,000 youth to work in paid jobs and internships, and I will continue working hard to make sure all San Franciscans have access to good paying jobs.”

Now if only we all had access to reasonably priced housing, health care, food, entertainment, and a transportation system built to handle a growing population.

-sigh-

Now get back to work!

The “Do Nothing” Solution to “Illegal Immigration”

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May 17, 2013

114

Both sides of the political aisle have made a major issue out of the problem of the 11 million people inside the US illegally or presently undocumented. The president has said this is a priority and Florida senator Marco Rubio has agreed. They are theoretically opposed to each other, yet Rubio’s proposals entailed in the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 don’t differ a great deal from Obama’s. In a nutshell, Rubio has suggested that the wholesale eviction of 11 million people is impossible and that the bill offers them an opportunity for legalization and permanent residence and citizenship. Naturally, the “jump through hoops” process begins here: Fines and background checks and no federal bennies.

Sounds completely reasonable, but you’d think Rubio had suggested that the government was handing out lollipops and bon-bons, making Spanish the new “official language” and changing the “Star Spangled Banner” to “Guantanmera” by the reaction of his “conservative” peers. A cursory Google reveals an enraged base represented by such intellectual heavweights as Townhall.com and Ann “To Hell With Palin, I Was Here First” Coulter. Any concessions to the teeming masses of south of the border is treasonous amnesty and in their hardly humble opinions, this will lead to “de-Europeanization” (ie less white).

As far as what the generally pitiful Democrats are offering, it is only marginally different than Rubio’s idea. Which is also reasonable, but overlooks the crux of the issue, because no one anywhere has to unmitigated gall (until now) to say it: “Illegal Immigration reform” is a solution in search of a problem, because in reality, it isn’t a problem at all!

The way I see it, a problem means an aggrieved party and in this instance, there isn’t one. People want to hire help for whatever the task is, other people agree to do it for a price, end of story. The idea that “illegal immigrants are stealing American workers jobs” sounds fairly solid on its face unless you happen to live in the American Southwest and notice that wherever day laborers congregate, there aren’t a whole hell of a lot of white folks. As far as “taking away jobs that union carpenters/plumbers/electricians do”, isn’t it the union’s job to protect their own for one and for two, a skyscraper isn’t built and wired with dudes from the Lowe’s parking lot. It is not worth a major contractor’s license to screw with E-Verify (I passed an E-Verify check myself a few months ago for my radio show!).

Assuming you “legalized” every man, woman in child in the US tomorrow, what happens? The working person’s price rises. Which means that they will be replaced by new people from Central America or Asia that will remain invisible. See, we are a free country with open borders–people can come and go as they please, this isn’t a gulag (yet) (The irony of the most virulent anti-USSR voices being the loudest for a border fence is astounding). Not only is there no way to stop it, there isn’t even a real reason to stop it–as China and Japan might tell you, an aging and shrinking worker base is starting to hurt them and hard.

Fact is, both major political parties support and oppose it for a pair of reasons of their own. Democrats love this, as it accelerates the “Bluing” of the Southwest with millions of new voters beholding and grateful to them, making a Republican national electoral victory mathematically impossible. The other reason they love it is because it replenishes their most loyal and organized base, labor. Republicans hate it for two reasons as well–newly legal workers will have more rights, bargaining power and higher pay, which means that a new cheap labor era is gonna take a while. The other reason is the one they vehemently deny but is as obvious as the honkers on their maps–their base’s great unifier isn’t economics or even social issues, but race. That the Dixiecrats of the last century are now almost entirely Republican. The glue that holds them intact, whether they’d care to admit it or not, is white supremacy. And a sea of legal Americans that are a deeper shade of soul galls them to the cores of their rancid selves. Were they serious about “sending all of these people back to where they came from”, they’d boycott every and any business that employs them, which means they’d pretty much have to stop eating. I’ve seen what the average reactionary looks like--that ain’t happening.

In fact, when the “illegals” are white, they say nothing.

Obama and Rubio both cry out that the system is “broken” but it isn’t. Undocumenteds pour billions into the coffers of state and federal and don’t get it back and whatever their costs are to health or schools, they’re balanced off by what the public saves in lower food and service costs. They’re a wash. Which means that any changes to the laissez-faire system only make everyone’s life harder and more complex. If there is a solution, the easiest one would be a “seven year rule”–you prove you’ve actually been here 7 years, no criminal record, you take a citizenship test, that’s it.

We have undocumented people in this very neighborhood. They want the same things we do. That’s good enough for me.

JAW

New designers show their stuff at this weekend’s Asian Heritage Street Celebration

Andrew Lam

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May 16, 2013

2

The annual Asian Heritage Street Celebration and fashion fever may not be automatically associated in the brains of Bay Areans. But then, most Bay Areans probably are unacquainted with the work of Runway Couturier — the group behind this year’s festival finale, featuring local designers from all across the SF fashion world, on Sat/18.

The show is what Runway’s executive producer Fritz Lambandrake dubs a “little fashion show that could.” But in actually, this is one catwalk that’ll help small-scale fashionistas to realize large-scale dreams. Presenting various Bay Area designers, Runway Couturier promotes young hopefuls free of charge — and even supplies them with fabric, courtesy of sponsor Linda Blake of Discount Fabrics. It is Lambandrake’s goal to “to use fashion as a bridge between cultures and communities”, as he told the Guardian, which explains the show’s presence at this weekend’s Asian Heritage Street Celebration. The fair will also feature cooking demos, live musical performances, a car show, craft market, a blessing by Thai monks, and food galore.

Although Lambandrake’s heritage lies elsewhere than the Asian continent, he says he feels honored to be a part of the event. San Francisco supervisor Jane Kim was the one responsible for hooking up Lambandrake and Asian Week Foundation, who produces the yearly street fair. “You should see her stiletto heels!” says Lambandrake of his well-shod politician connection.

Making their debut at the show three new designers: Sam Shan, Tina Maier, and Huab Vue. Shan, a 21-year-old Burmese political refugee, shows a collection inspired by the folktales of his homeland. Maier, a self-educated fiber artist, is a master manipulator of materials, and her collection is sure to be high-minded yet grounded, with a mishmash of thrift store finds, unique textiles., and re-purposed upholstery. Check out the AHSC site for a full list of designers.

A preview of Tomboy Tailors‘ highly anticipated genderqueer debut collection will stalk the catwalk, and there will be a competition for the best designs of the day, judged by a discerning panel including drag mistress Donna Sachet and Supervisor Kim.

Runway Couturier at the Asian Heritage Street Celebration

Sat/18, 3:30pm

Larkin and Eddy, SF

www.runwaycouterier.com

Googlass: Gatecrashing Google I/O

Andrew Lam

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May 16, 2013

5

It would be foolish to turn down the offer of cost-free Billy Idol on a Wednesday night, but I could have remembered that I live in San Francisco and high profile rock ‘n’ roll will like as not, come served with a side of goober.

This is to say, that I went to the Google I/O developer’s conference last night. The buffet’s waffle fries were not great and I heard the mini-chicken pot pies were worse, but I did get a chance to watch DJ Steve Aoki give shout-outs to “technooooology!”, allowing a techie or two who promised to get him a Google bus to clamber on stage and flop about next to his set-up.

Through a complicated and unexplained series of events, my date at Dave’s with a man who owns a VW van turned into a trip to the Moscone Center for what I would later learn was a $900 opportunity to hear about Big Goog’s new answer to Spotify in the yearly conference’s three-hour keynote speech.

Sadly, our posse got there too late to see Idol (Rolling Stone was on time.) But we managed to catch Aoki’s triumphant remixes of Kid Cudi and Kendrik Lamar, and the bitter end of the after-hours portion of the conference, which Google characterized thusly:

Google I/O After Hours will be a hyper-visual, heart pounding journey, providing hands-on interactive experiences and sophisticated recreation and featuring awe-inspiring technology and live musical performances like no other. We’ve teamed up with the best global visionaries to present to you their dynamic experiments, heightened realities, and magical experiences.

There was a mechanical hand that mimicked its user’s motions (these largely entailed “pointing a gun” at Steve Aoki and vaguely heil-like salutes as I watched), fake living room sets you could digitally manipulate from a touchscreen, light-up lilypads, photobooths, IPA on tap, and food offerings that would have made the house cook at any college fraternity mildly proud (three bean salad!) Many people were wearing Google Glasses. At a concert?

I was not prepared for all the Burning Man in evidence (did that woman wear those chaps for the entire conference or was that special for Idol?), including this man yes, wearing Google Glasses. He also owns a glowing fur company. “It’s called Electro Fur,” he told me, handing me a card. “So, www.electrofur.com?” I asked politely. “You know it.” Check out his “Elegance” collection, and don’t forget a tail to top it all off. If anyone wants to buy me the $250 furkini top promising “a ridiculous amount of fun”, I’m with it.

www.electrofur.com

Party raft, set sail for white guys!

Introspection abounds, as instructed. What color Google Glasses would be best for me?

Also, peep SFist’s Andrew Dalton, who has a Vine of the Googlass

Small Business Awards 2013: It’s-It

Andrew Lam

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May 14, 2013

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What’s been San Francisco’s go-to cold ‘n creamy treat for the past 85 years? No, its not Dianne Feinstein. It’s It’s-It, that native warm weather snack, created on a deliciously fateful day in 1928 when George Whitney squished a scoop of vanilla ice cream between two big oatmeal cookies and dipped the resulting sandwich into dark chocolate. For more than four decades, Whitney sold his It’s-Its at Playland-at-the-Beach, until that legendary local amusement park was demolished in the 1970s. Fortune intervened, and the brand was reinvigorated — soon to travel beyond the Bay, throughout California, and into pretty much every western state, spreading yumminess up and down the coast.

The Shamieh family now operates It’s-It (the company, based in Burlingame, is headed by Charles Shamieh) and continues to uphold the tasty tradition of “the official food of San Francisco.” (Take that, cioppino!)

“Sure it’s always a tough to be the little guy — when you’ve got your Nestles and your Unilevers out there as competition,” vice president of sales Jim Shamieh told us. “But we have an amazing built-in fan base that includes parents, grandparents, great-grandparents … it’s the best kind of loyalty. And we keep it current by introducing different flavors.” (Those flavors include the Big Daddy — a “chunk of ice cream between two chocolate wafers” — and the Super Sundae, an ice cream dipped in dark chocolate and rolled in roasted peanuts). “And we distribute to Denver, Seattle, Portland … pretty much everywhere this side of the Rocky Mountains.” Sweet.

www.itsiticecream.com

Small Business Awards 2013: La Victoria Bakery

Andrew Lam

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May 14, 2013

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Small Business Awards 2013: La Victoria Bakery

When Jaime Maldonado’s dad Gabriel opened the family’s corner bakery in 1951, it was the only Latino-owned business on 24th Street. In the years since, the story of La Victoria and its famous pan dulce has become, more or less, the story of the Mission District.

That’s never been more true than today, when the bakery’s plate glass windows are filled with Mexican classics, but also dulce de leche scones, Mexican chocolate brownies, and prickly pear beignets that reflect the neighborhoods changing palate — in addition to the conchitas, elotittos, and maranitos that made the place a favorite.

Soon, La Victoria will include a full-service restaurant that Jaime tells the Guardian will “skip over the burrito phase and to straight to original La Victoria. It’ll be the food your grandma would cook for special occasions.”

Few businesses have been able to surf the Mission’s changing demographics like La Victoria. The Maldonados found a way to thrive amid racial slurs in the ’50s. The restaurant became a gathering place and haven for Mexicans when the blocks became carved up along the gang lines delineating close-knit immigrant communities, and a training ground for bakers who brought La Victoria’s recipes to panaderias across the neighborhood. In the ’70s, the fern-filled restaurant in the back room was a habitué for SF’s movers-and-shakers — Dianne Feinstein and Cesar Chavez were known to grab tables.

Hippies, Brazilians, and Argentineans were added to La Victoria’s clientele over the years. In 1992, when Jaime took the reins from his aging pop, he was ready to make the business adjustments needed to keep La Victoria relevant. That meant focusing on the joint’s strengths — no more groceries, less reliance on wholesale business.

Maldonado survived the “cherry bomb in an ant farm,” as he refers to the late ’90s dot-com boom, and the business slowdown after 9/11. He made the kitchen available for rent, and has since attracted an impressive list of alumni through his work with Soul Cocina’s Roger Feely: Hapa SF, Sour Flour, Wholesome Bakery, Venga Empanadas. La Victoria started hosting pop-up dinners, and now looks forward to expanding into different kinds of Latin coffee drinks, and a full sit-down menu.

All in keeping with La Victoria’s Mission to connect with the ‘hood’s new techie residents, stay true to the neighborhood’s history, and connect with the “hybrid kids,” as Maldonado dubs his generation of Latinos who grew up in SF’s foodie scene, but can still appreciate a traditional Mission burrito.

“This corner is dying for someone to stand up and say ‘I’m going to show you how,'” he says. “And we’re going to do that — with Latin flair.”

2937 24th St., SF. (415) 642-7120, www.lavictoriabakery.com

Selector: May 15-21, 2013

Andrew Lam

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May 14, 2013

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WEDNESDAY 15

Appleseed Cast

Change seems to be the only constant for Lawrence, Kansas’ meandering Appleseed Cast. Chris Crisci’s 14-year-old band has produced eight albums, dabbled in about as many different genres, and has a revolving-door lineup that would exhaust any frontperson. But Crisci shows no signs of tiring. In fact, the lyrics for the band’s most recent album, this year’s Illumination Ritual, were written over the course of three nights, between the hours of midnight and 4am. Though the band’s career has arced far from its oldschool emo beginnings, the vespertine Illumination Ritual gets back to its moody roots. With a fresh lineup and a nostalgic new sound, the Appleseed Cast’s tender instrumentals and Crisci’s earnest vocals have never sounded so good. (Haley Zaremba)

With Hospital Ships, the Dandelion War

8:30pm, $14

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

THURSDAY 16

ArtPad

Here’s an idea for a surrealist film: enter one hotel room and find metal hands that respond to their viewers, enter another and find a strange light sculpture, then cut to a performance of a synchronized swimming team in a pool in the courtyard. This is no film plot, but a description of ArtPad, the arts fair that will take over the entire Phoenix Hotel for three days. With galleries from the Bay Area and beyond filling every room with experimental exhibitions, while food, drink, and performances contribute to the festive vibe, the event promises to be surreally epic. (Laura Kerry)

Through May 19

$15–$40

Phoenix Hotel

601 Eddy, SF

www.artpadsf.com

Liss Fain

It was almost exactly a year ago that Liss Fain Dance premiered her luminous The Water is Clear and Still at Z Space. It’s perhaps her must successful collaboration with her longtime designer Matthew Antaky, who created a translucent multi-level space that welcomed Fain’s choreography and her fine dancers. It was one of those wondrous installation pieces that you could walk around in, but most of us stayed glued to our spots in an attempt to catch everything. Water is steeped in Jamaica Kincaid’s lyrical memories of a Caribbean childhood, both painful and exotic. Fain now has added a prologue. Solid Ground, based on Kincaid’s latest book, in which she revisits those childhood memories from a mature woman’s perspective. The piece is also moving from Z Space to YBCA’s Forum, which has successfully hosted other Liss Fain Dance installations. (Rita Felciano)

Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 5pm forum, $15–$30

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

700 Howard, SF

www.lissfaindance.org

Sandra Bernhard

It’s hard to pinpoint the moment when one learned that Sandra Bernhard was amazing. The stand-up comedian has been doing the damn thing for so long (since the ’70s), that she’s always just — been around, a fixture of the alternative culture firmament. A foulmouthed, straightforward, erudite queer back when they never made it network TV, she languidly lent cameos to Isaac Mizrahi’s Stripped and Madonna’s Truth or Dare, turned in seam-busting rants for her epic performance art-concert films like 1990’s Without You, I’m Nothing, and yes, was the first regular-appearing gay character on a network sitcom on Roseanne. To miss Bernhard’s first run in San Francisco in two years would be a revocation of your cool card, don’t do it. (Caitlin Donohue)

Also Fri/17

9pm, $45

Bimbo’s 365 Club

1025 Columbus, SF

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com

Big Boi

Any lingering notions of Big Boi as the “conventional” half of legendary Atlanta hip-hop duo Outkast should be dispelled by his two solo albums, including his most recent effort Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, released last November. Aided by cameos from Phantogram and Little Dragon in “Vicious,” Big Boi dives into rock guitars, female vocalists, and electronic bass to present a fearless, kaleidoscopic vision of rap. Track “Objectum Sexuality” sees Big Boi wax lyrical about women in between Phantogram’s Sarah Barthel’s floating vocals, a French interlude, and samples of atmospheric harp plucking. And just when you think he has slipped too far into moody, indie-fusion territory, Big Boi snaps you back with a devastating, horns-laden, proudly Atlantan club banger “In the A” with T.I. and Ludacris. (Kevin Lee)

With Killer Mike, Fishhawk, Goast

8:30pm, $35

Mezzanine

444 Jessie

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

Janelle Monae at the SF Symphony

“Is it peculiar that she twerk in the mirror?” You can’t really blame her if you’ve caught R&B andro-angel Janelle Monae’s newest single with Erykah Badu “Q.U.E.E.N.” — the ode to iconoclasm, with its simple, catchy bass line is the perfect soundtrack to strutting and popping in front of reflective surfaces. Catch the singer’s turn with the SF Symphony tonight — the musicians have prepared original arrangements for her songs, and you’ll get tunes from her new album to boot. The ticket price is fairly astronomical, but the evening is a fundraiser for the Symphony’s educational programs, so there’s that. Plus attendees are granted access to a pre-show sparkling wine reception and after-party at City Hall. (Donohue)

7pm reception, 8pm concert, $90-$275

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

www.sfsymphony.org

FRIDAY 17

Midi Matilda

The first time I was confronted with local pop duo Midi Matilda, I was not-so-patiently waiting for Starfucker to take the stage at the Regency Lodge last September. Not expecting much from an electronic duo that was playing one of its very first shows, I was dumbstruck by the second song. Midi Matilda is the embodiment of everything that’s missing from contemporary twee-pop. It has a sense of intimacy, soul, and joy, embodied by great hooks and hilarious choreographed dances that are absolutely infectious. Operating backward from most bands, Midi Matilda wrote and recorded music before it ever established a live presence, gaining attention on the web with its “Day Dreams” music video. The duo’s catchy, dreamy pop songs make for a nice listen, but it is its goofy antics and blissful onstage presence that make a great new addition to the San Francisco music scene. (Zaremba)

With OONA, holychild

8:30pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

“You’re Supposed To Roll Your Hips In Time/ You’re Supposed To See Your Age Rewind” intones Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. on the bright electronic pop track “If You Didn’t See Me (Then You Weren’t On The Dancefloor),” off its new Patterns EP. On its albums, the Detroit duo of Daniel Zott and Joshua Epstein alternate between aw-shucks folksiness and the party-hearty synth-and-rock of MGMT and Phoenix. While firmly rooted in the here and now, DEJJ have shown respect to its musical inspirations with covers to classics by Madonna and the Beach Boys. The duo paid homage to Gil-Scott Heron with a shimmering, upbeat take on his funk classic “We Almost Lost Detroit,” resplendent with a video showcasing authentic locals and establishments from the Motor City. (Lee)

9pm, $16

Independent

628 Divisadero

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

SATURDAY 18

Disappears

A 16-minute song has to do a lot of work to keep its listeners invested, but the strange thing about Disappears’ “Kone” off of the band’s April EP is that it is compelling because it doesn’t seem to make too much of an effort. An experiment in Kraut and psych-rock, the song harkens back to the very beginnings of proto-punk; though it involves less muddy intensity, it recalls those stretches in some Velvet Underground songs that don’t feel the need to arrive anywhere, but simply relish the ride. And isn’t that the aim of any good concert? It certainly will be at the Disappears’ Bottom of the Hill show. (Kerry)

With LENZ, the Tambo Rays

10pm, $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

Exrays and Mwahaha

Going to the Lab is like a weekly, weekend celebration of “the other.” You might see any combination of drag, performance art interludes, or Sunday’s ritual Godwaffle Noise Pancakes, but should definitely count on some underground, experimental shit. Hidden among the crowded club corridor along 16th and Mission, at times it becomes a mini-rave cave. This Sat/18 should be no exception to those guidelines when Exrays (members of THEMAYS and Maus Haus) bring their old-school Atari-sounding glitchiness. The band hangs on to fun melodies while the frontperson delivers mopey vocals (it could just be that his voice is deep). Oakland’s Mwahaha headlines and goes for more of a sensory overload approach. It’s collaborated with tUnE-yArDs and will open for Sigur Ros in London this summer. (Andre Torrez)

With Seventeen Evergreen, Mohani

9pm, $7–$15 (sliding scale)

Lab

2948 16th St., SF

(415) 864-8855

www.thelab.org

Hunx and His Punx

It was a dark day here in the Bay when Seth Bogart, a.k.a Hunx, packed up his bags and moved to Los Angeles, leaving the city’s burgeoning garage rock scene a little less gay in every way. Despite this tragic loss, Bogart hasn’t slowed down at all since his relocation, with a variety web TV show (Hollywood Nailz), his own novelty record label (Wacky Wacko), a new solo album, and a brand new Hunx and His Punx record on the way. Despite the 2011 dissolution of the Punkettes, Hunx still rocks a deliciously genderqueer persona and is backed by some truly kickass ladies. This intimate show, featuring bandmate Shannon Shaw’s own group Shannon and the Clams as well as fellow SF ex-pat Ty Segall’s Fuzz is like a big, happy Bay Area reunion — and everyone’s invited! (Zaremba)

With Shannon and the Clams, Fuzz, Peach Kelli Pop, Twin Steps

8pm, $15

New Parish

579 18th St, Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com

SUNDAY 19

Gothic Tropic

For a band that has released so little music — only the 2011 EP Awesome Problems — Gothic Tropic has a developed sense of itself. Part of it is in frontperson Cecilia Della Peruti’s tendency to perform shoeless so as not restrict her dance moves. Another aspect arises in her nickname for the trio, “the Sacred Three.” The primary feature, though, is the band’s sound. As its name suggests, Gothic Tropic plays sunny and exotic psych-pop tinted with some grit and darkness, and it plays it well. See the band in all of it’s fully-formed glory at Brick and Mortar. (Kerry)

With Seatraffic, Cruel Summer

9pm, $10

Brick and Mortar

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

TUESDAY 21

“Eating Nose-to-Tail: The Whole Animal Movement”

Let’s face it, Americans loves meat. But everyday consumers and informed connoisseurs are grappling with an increasing number of unanswered health and environmental questions with their meat, questions that an increasingly centralized food industry has left mostly unanswered. Unsatisfied with the growing gaps along the production chain, farmers, butchers, and chefs have banded together under the Whole Animal movement, which emphasizes using all of an animal for preparation and consumption. At this talk, four of the Bay Area’s meat authorities slice into how the movement stresses conservation and connects local producers, preparers, and eaters. After the talk, Dave the Butcher gives a whole animal butchery lesson while diners delve into delectables at the Ferry Building, with proceeds going to the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture. (Lee)

With Chris Cosentino, Ryan Farr, John Fink and Tia Harrison

6:30pm program, $12–$20; 8pm butchering demo, $80–$100

Commonwealth Club

95 Market

(415) 597-6700

www.commonwealthclub.org

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Stage listings

Andrew Lam

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May 14, 2013

0

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Arcadia ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Previews Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm (also Sat/18, 2pm); Sun/19, 2pm. Opens Wed/22, 8pm. Runs Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm; May 28 show at 7pm); Sun, 2pm (additional show May 26, 8pm). Through June 9. American Conservatory Theater performs Tom Stoppard’s literary romance.

Birds of a Feather New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/17-Sat/18, 8pm (also Sat/18, 2pm); Sun/19, 2pm. Opens Fri/24, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the San Francisco premiere of Marc Acito’s tale inspired by two gay penguins at the Central Park Zoo.

Burqavaganza Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $20. Opens Thu/16, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through June 2. Brava! For Women in the Arts and RasaNova Theatre present Shahid Nadeem’s Bollywood-style “love story in the time of jihad.”

Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Previews Fri/17-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 5pm. Opens May 23, 7:30pm. Runs Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no shows June 8); Sun, 5pm. Through June 16. Cutting Ball Theater performs Andrew Saito’s Howl-inspired portrait of San Francisco.

ONGOING

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri/17, 8pm; Sat/18, 5pm. Playwright Lynne Kaufman invites you to take a trip with Richard Alpert, a.k.a. Ram Dass (Warren David Keith), as he recounts times high and low in this thoughtful, funny, and sometimes unexpected biographical rumination on the quest for truth and meaning in a seemingly random life by one of the big wigs of the psychedelic revolution and (with his classic book, Be Here Now) contemporary Eastern-looking spirituality. Directed by Joel Mullennix, the narrative begins with Ram Dass today, in his Hawaiian home and partly paralyzed from a stroke, but Keith (one of the Bay Area’s best stage actors, who is predictably sure and engagingly multilayered in the role) soon shakes off the stiff arm and strained speech and springs to his feet to continue the narrative as the ideal self perhaps only transcendental consciousness and theater allow. Nevertheless, Kaufman’s fun-loving and extroverted Alpert is no saint and no model of perfection, which is the refreshing truth explored in the play, but rather a seeker still, ever imperfect and ever trying for greater perfection or at least the wisdom of acceptance. As the privileged queer child of a wealthy Jewish lawyer and industrialist, Alpert was both insider and outsider from the get-go, and that tension and ambiguity makes for an interesting angle on his life as well as the complexities of his relationships with a homophobic Leary, for instance, and his conservative but ultimately loving father. Perfection aside, the beauty in the subject and the play is the subtle, shrewd cherishing of what remains unfinished. (Avila)

Black Watch Drill Court, Armory Community Center, 333 14th St, SF; www.act-sf.org. $100. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 16. American Conservatory Theater presents the National Theatre of Scotland’s internationally acclaimed performance about Scottish soldiers serving in Iraq.

Boomeraging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue, 8pm. Through May 28. Comedian Will Durst performs his brand-new solo show.

Dirty Dancing: Live! Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; dirtydancinglive-fbe.eventbrite.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through May 25. Watermelons will be carried, lifts will be attempted, eyes will be hungry, and nobody better put Baby in a corner.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Last Love Mojo Theatre, 2940 16th St, SF; www.mojotheatre.com. $17-30. Thu/16-Sun/19, 8pm. Will the apocalypse save us from ourselves? Mojo Theater again raises that question as it presents the second installment in director-playwright Peter Papadopoulos’ Love-Gone-Wrong-at-the-End-of-the-World trilogy, the follow-up to last season’s fertile and funny Lost Love. The story centers on a George and Martha-esque couple, Charles (Jonathan Bender) and Lucida (Kimberly Lester), who on the eve of their fifth wedding anniversary declare all-out war, lobbing younger lovers at each other only to find their new partners (played by an increasingly endearing Michael Saenz and an unexpectedly powerful Gloria McDonald) have a past together and unresolved issues of their own. The grimly romantic comedy returns to, without greatly elaborating on, a familiar fantasy: blowing away the haze of our fractious, insecure, and muddled love lives in the clarifying immediacy of disaster. That this may be more than pure fantasy — that the seemingly discrete realms of personal and political trauma may be in some subtle and profound way connected — is an animating dimension of the trilogy, but here in a more superficial and perfunctory fashion than in Lost Love. The strength of the production lies less in its premise than in the penetrating humor and emotional veracity in Papadopoulos’ sure, heightened dialogue, which is played generally well by the cast and exceptionally so by a vibrantly intelligent Lester, Mojo’s co–artistic director. The staging also benefits, albeit inconsistently, from a stylized approach that revels in self-conscious artifice (including a trio of stage managers from “Command Center Communications,” a video-backdrop by Micah Stieglitz, and some light choreography by Lester). These strengths lend a restless, occasionally inspired production a slow-burning charm, but leave one wondering what might be left when all the dust settles. (Avila)

Little Me Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstreetmoon.org. $25-75. Wed/15, 7pm; Thu/16-Fri/17, 8pm; Sat/18, 6pm; Sun/19, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon performs Neil Simon’s outrageous musical.

The Lost Folio: Shakespeare’s Musicals Un-Scripted Theater, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs a fully-improvised, full-length musical inspired by Shakespeare.

The Merry Wives of Windsor Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; www.african-americanshakes.org. $10-35. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 26. They might be two of the town’s most respectable matrons, but Mistresses Page (Safiya Fredericks) and Ford (Leontyne Mbele-Mbong), the titular Merry Wives of Windsor, at the African-American Shakespeare Company, are nobody’s fools. When the bawdy, ne’er-do-well Falstaff (a cross-dressing Beli Sullivan) tries to woo the two at the same time (as much for money as lust), they easily turn the tables on his plotting, and further dampen his ardor by having him tossed in a ditch. Their husbands, in particular the suspicious yet constantly flummoxed Master Ford (Armond Edward Dorsey), fare not much better against the wonder-twin powers of their BFF wives, and for anyone keeping score, the entire female population of Windsor generally makes out better than their slow-on-the-uptake menfolk, and they do it in style thanks to Linda Tucker’s astute, 50s-era costume design. Under Becky Kemper’s direction, the attitude skews sassy, and each character — from the befuddled town elite to the simplest servant — is a broadly-painted stroke of buffoonery, one part Desperate Housewives melodrama and one part Marx Brother’s farce. Kemper calls her rowdy take on this battle-of-the-sexes comedy “a guilty pleasure,” reminding us that however hallowed the name of Shakespeare might remain in posher circles, a good portion of his canon was written not for the austere glory of posterity, but for the base enjoyment of the general populace. (Gluckstern)

“PlayGround Festival of New Works” Various venues, SF and Berk; www.playground-sf.org. $15-40. Through May 26. The long-running short-play contest and development lab marks its 17th season with an evening showcasing the best of the previous year. The six plays come from six (familiar and new) playwrights out of a pool of 36 new short plays developed by PlayGround since October (and those were drawn from over 190 new original scripts created). The best of the best receives a rotating cast of strong Bay Area actors under six accomplished directors (including PlayGround founder Jim Kleinmann) but is a mixed affair, nevertheless. Katie May’s The Spherical Loneliness of Beverly Onion is a sometimes funny but generally tepid short story about a lonely mortician’s assistant (Carla Pantoja) who confronts her handlers, the natural forces of Fate (Jomar Tagatac) and Luck (Anne Darragh). Simple and Elegant, by Evelyn Jean Pine, is an ocean-side fairytale whose themes don’t sound too deeply, about the titular pair of sisters (Rebecca Pingree and Pantoja) who have a near-fatal falling out over a gold coin salvaged from the belly of a fish (Dao) who may be a handsome prince for one of them or just a nice hideaway bed. In Ruben Grijalva’s Value over Replacement, a major league player (Tagatac) confronts a career-jeopardizing accusation from a journalist-guest (Delzell) on his talk radio show in a somewhat prosaic but dramatically compact, carefully written and well-acted piece. Significant People, by Amy Sass, follows two docents (Darragh and Delzell) through the preserved home of two significant others who seem to be the same people. It’s a quirky conceit that doesn’t quite produce the necessary dramatic tension, the stakes feeling too low. In My Better Half, by Jonathan Spector, quirkiness goes full-bore as a wife (Pingree) with a justifiable complaint against her obliviously self-centered, what-me husband (Dao) looks to have him rubbed out by a reluctant hit man (Tagatac) and his couples-therapist colleague (Darragh). Finally, Symmetrical Smack-Down is William Bivins’ funny and nicely orchestrated foursome, in which the dynamic between two antagonists in the wrestling ring (Tagatac and Delzell) overlaps (literally and dramatically) with that between a long-term lesbian couple (Pingree and Pantoja) on the brink of a break-up and/or rumble. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu/16, 8pm; Sat/18, 8:30pm. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Talk Radio Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 15. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs Eric Bogosian’s breakthrough 1987 drama.

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through June 29. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

The Waiting Period Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri/17, 8pm; Sat/18, 5pm. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. Note: review from an earlier run of the same production. (Avila)

Vital Signs: The Pulse of an American Nurse Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sun, 7pm. Through June 16. Registered nurse Alison Whittaker returns to the Marsh with her behind-the-scenes show about working in a hospital.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

The Dead Girl Avant Garde, 1328 Fourth St, San Rafael; www.altertheater.org. $25. Wed/15, 7:30pm; Fri/17-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 3pm. AlterTheater performs 90-year-old playwright Ann Brebner’s new family drama.

A Killer Story Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm (pre-show cabaret at 7:15pm). Dan Harder’s film noir-inspired detective tale premieres at the Marsh Berkeley.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and May 23, 2pm; no show May 24); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2). Through May 26. Mark Wing-Davey directs Berkeley Rep’s take on the Bard.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

ACT Master of Fine Arts Program performances ACT’s Hastings Studio Theater, 77 Geary, SF, and ACT’s Costume Shop Theater, 1117 Market, SF; www.act-sf.org. $30 (two shows for $40; three shows for $50). American Conservatory Theater’s acclaimed grad program presents Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9 (Wed/15 and Fri/17, 7:30pm; Sat/18, 2pm); Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo (Thu/16-Sat/18, 7:30pm); and August Wilson’s Seven Guitars (Thu/16 and Sat/18, 7:30pm; Sun/19, 2pm) in repertory.

Ananta Project Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.theanantaproject.org. Fri/17-Sat/18, 8pm. $20. The dance company presents its spring season performances, including two world premieres: The Hush Hush Chronicles and Kittleslip.

“Asia on Stage” SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF; gapashow@yahoo.com. Sat/18, 7pm. $20. Performance program featuring LIKHA Pilipino Folk Ensemble’s Pilgrim, a dance theater work about gay Asian immigrants.

Sandra Bernhard Bimbo’s 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF; www.bimbos365club.com. Thu/16-Fri/17, 8pm. $45. The comedian performs her latest show, I Love Being Me, Don’t You?

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/18, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Cirque de l’Arc” Arc San Francisco, 1500 Howard, SF; cirque2013.eventbrite.com. Thu/16, 6-9pm. $100. Help raise money for the Arc San Francisco, serving adults with developmental disabilities, at this circus-themed party featuring an all-star drag performance and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus.

“The Fantasticks” Mission Dolores Academy Auditorium, 3371 16th St, SF; www.16thstreetplayers.org. Sat/18, 7:30pm; Sun/19, 3pm. Free. The 16th Street Players perform the classic musical.

“The Gospel of Mary Magdalene” Kanbar Hall, JCCSF, 3200 California, SF; www.jccsf.org. Sun/19, 7pm. $25. Live musical excerpts from a San Francisco Opera world premiere by Mark Adamo.

“Improvised Murder Mystery” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Sat/18 and May 25, 8pm. $20. BATS Improv performs one of its most popular shows.

“Kunst-Stoff Arts Fest 2013” Kunst-Stoff Arts, One Grove, SF; www.kunst-stoff.org. May 15-June 7. Most events $10-15. Morning classes, afternoon workshops, and evening performances are the focus of this festival of dance, film, music, and more.

Lenora Lee Koret Auditorium, de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, SF; www.deyoungmuseum.org. Fri/17, 7pm. Museum admission $6-10.The multi-disciplinary dance artist and de Young Artist fellow presents a live performance by composer Frances Wong (Miyoshi Sketches) and an excerpt from her own The Escape.

Liss Fain Dance Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.lissfaindance.org. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 5pm. $15-30. The company presents an encore showing of The Water is Clear and Still, a performance installation that combines dance, music, and spoken text from stories by Jamaica Kincaid.

Ross Matthews Regency Ballroom, 1300 Van Ness, SF; www.theregencyballroom.com. Thu/16, 8pm. $32.50. The TV personality performs stand-up and celebrates the launch of his new book, Man Up! Tales of My Delusional Self-Confidence.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Mutant Creatures and Unlikely Teachers: Short Plays by Short People” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.stagewright.org. Thu/16, 6:30pm, $10; and Fri/17, 7pm, $50 (fundraiser for StageWright program). StageWright presents plays by fifth graders at Starr King Elementary School, performed by professional actors and museums.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

Smuin Ballet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.smuinballet.org. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm (also Sat/18, 2pm); Sun/19, 2pm. $24-65. Also May 22-25, 8pm (also May 25, 2pm); May 26, 2pm. $52-68. Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View. Also May 31-June 1, 8pm (also June 1, 2pm). $54-70. Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek. The company presents the West Coast premiere of Helen Pickett’s Petal and Darrell Grand Moultrie’s JAZZIN’, among other works.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission between 3rd and 4th Sts, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Through Oct 15. Free. This week: “Let’s Go Salsa@Jessie” with Anthony Blea y su Charanga (Thu/16, 6-7:30pm); Gamelan Sekar Jaya (Sat/18, 1-2pm).

BAY AREA

“Swearing in English: Tall Tales at Shotgun” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. June 3 and 17, 8pm. $15. Shotgun Cabaret presents John Mercer in a series of three stranger-than-fiction dramatic readings.