food

Si Se Puede: The legacy of Cesar Chavez

David Talbot
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(Scroll down for a personal note from Dick Meister)

March 31st is a special day in eleven states, including California, and in dozens of cities and counties nationwide– and should be. It’s Cesar Chavez Day, honoring the late founder of the United Farm Workers union on the 83rd anniversary of his birth.

Certainly there are few people in any field more deserving of such an honor, certainly no one I’ve met in more than 50 years of labor reporting.

I first met Cesar Chavez when I was reporting on labor for the SF Chronicle.  It was a hot summer night in 1965 in the little San Joaquin Valley town of Delano, California. Chavez, shining black hair trailing across his smooth brown forehead, wearing a red plaid shirt that had become almost a uniform, sat behind a makeshift desk topped with bright red Formica, deadly serious but quick to smile.

 “Si se puede,” he said repeatedly to me, a highly skeptical reporter, as we talked deep into the early morning hours there in the cluttered shack that served as headquarters for him and the others who were trying to create an effective farm workers union.  “Si se puede — it can be done!”

But I would not be swayed.  Too many others, over too many years, had tried and had failed to win for farm workers the union rights they had to have if they were to escape the severe economic and social deprivation inflicted on them by their grower employers.

Although they did the indispensable work of harvesting the food that sustains us all, farm workers typically were paid at or below the poverty level, had few fringe benefits and very little legal protection from employer mistreatment. Most lacked even such on-the-job amenities as toilets and fresh drinking water, and were regularly exposed to pesticide poisoning and other hazards. Their living conditions were generally as abominable.

The futile attempts to arm the workers with the essential weapon of unionization began with  the Industrial Workers of the World,  who stormed across western fields early in the last century. Next came Communists, socialists, AFL and CIO organizers. All their efforts had collapsed under the relentless pressure of growers and their powerful political and corporate allies.

I was certain Chavez’ effort would be no different.  I was wrong.  I had not accounted for the tactical brilliance, creativity, courage and just plain stubbornness of Cesar Chavez, a sad-eyed, disarmingly soft-spoken man who talked of militancy in calm, measured tones, a gentle and incredibly patient man who hid great strategic talent behind shy smiles and an attitude of utter candor.

Chavez grasped the essential fact that farm workers had to organize themselves.  Outside organizers, however well-intentioned, could not do it. Chavez, a farm worker himself, carefully put together a grass-roots organization that enabled the workers to form their own union, which then sought out — and won — widespread support from influential outsiders.

The key weapon of this United Farm Workers union was the boycott. The UFW’s boycotts against grape and lettuce growers and wineries in the late 1960s won the first farm union contracts in history.  That in turn led to enactment in 1975 of the California law — also a first — that requires growers to bargain collectively with workers who vote for unionization. That has brought  substantial improvements in the pay, benefits, working conditions and general status of the state’s farmworkers.

The struggle was extremely difficult for the impoverished workers, and Chavez risked his health — if not his life — to provide them extreme examples of the sacrifices necessary for victory.  Most notably, he engaged in lengthy, highly publicized fasts that helped rally the public to the farm workers’ cause and that may very well have contributed to his untimely death in 1993 at age 66.

Fasts, boycotts.  It’s no coincidence that those were among the principal tools of Mohandas Gandhi, for Chavez drew much of his inspiration from the Indian leader.  Like Gandhi and another of his models, Martin Luther King Jr., Chavez believed fervently in the tactics of non-violence. Like them, he showed the world how profoundly effective they can be in seeking justice from even the most powerful of opponents.

As Chavez explained,  “We have our bodies and spirits and the justice of our cause as our weapons.”

What the UFW accomplished, and how the union accomplished it, will never be forgotten — not by the millions of social activists who have been inspired and energized by the farm workers’ struggle, nor by the workers themselves.

The struggle continues, for despite the UFW’s successes, most farm workers are still mired in poverty. But because of the union, they have a genuine hope of bettering their condition.

The UFW won important legal rights for them.  But more than union contracts, and more than laws, farm workers now have what Cesar Chavez insisted was needed above all else.  That, as he told me so many years ago, “is to have the workers truly believe and understand and know that they are free, that they are free men and women, that they can stand up and say how they feel.”

Freedom.  No leader has ever left a greater legacy.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, is co-author of “A Long Time Coming: The Struggle to Unionize America’s Farm Workers (Macmillan). Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com.

Sidebar: Let’s truly honor Cesar Chavez

It’s way past time that Congress declared the birthdate of Cesar Chavez a national holiday. President Obama agrees. So do the millions of people who are expected to sign petitions being circulated by the United Farm Workers, the union founded by Chavez. And so do Democratic Rep. Joe Barca of California and 43 co-sponsors who have introduced a bill designating March 31st as Cesar Chavez Day nationwide.

President Obama says Chavez should be honored  “for what he’s taught us about making America a stronger, more just, and more prosperous nation” and for providing inspirational strength “as farm workers and laborers across America continue to struggle for fair treatment and fair wages.”

Like Martin Luther Jr., who’s rightly honored with a national holiday, Chavez inspired and energized millions of people worldwide to seek – and to win – basic human rights that had long been denied them, and inspired millions of others to join the struggle.  He, too, showed that the poor and oppressed can prevail against even the most powerful opponents – if they can organize themselves and adopt non-violence as their principal tactic.

A national holiday would be a well-deserved tribute, not only to Chavez, but also to Latinos generally, to organized labor and to all those who do the hard, dirty and dangerous work that puts food on our tables.

–Dick Meister

The Pets Issue

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The Pets Issue

Hooch with the pooch: Local bars that cater to the canine crowd

Bark if you like needles: Acupuncture and holistic medicine is a fast-growing trend in animal treatment — and the veterinary establishment is slowly catching on

 

Finding the right dog walker: Some tips from the pros


 

Is BARFing good for your pet? The raw food diet has devoted supporters — and harsh critics

PET STORES WE LOVE: ANIMAL CONNECTION

Animal Connection isn’t peddling short-lived hamsters or toilet-bound goldfish. The Sunset District store aims to provide customers with scaly roommates and feathered friendships that last. “We want to connect animals and people, and have them live happily and responsibly in a successful relationship,” says store manager Jennifer Grafelman.

Originally specializing in general pet supplies and birds, the store has since gone exotic, carrying everything from blood-fin tetras to cockatoos to fire-bellied salamanders to chinchillas.

The place has that pet store smell, a mix between grocery store bulk grain aisle and greenhouse aviary. Behind the register desk, assistant manager Joe Taylor has a chirping, green-feathered handful. “Tatter,” a rainbow lorikeet named for his fondness for sweet potatoes, is belly up in Taylor’s palm enjoying a stomach rub. Although he’s for sale, not just anybody can take the bird home; the staff discourages capricious purchases. “He’s super-playful, but that bird is not for everybody,” Taylor said. “He’s messy, has a real specific diet, and is loud.”

The employees at Animal Connection are specialists — something that sets the local business apart from chain stores. If your bearded dragon refuses to snap up crickets or your parakeet is losing plumage, they can provide advice or inform you a vet trip is necessary. 2550 Judah, (415) 564-6482 (Skyler Swezy)

 

PET STORES WE LOVE: AQUA FOREST

George Lo is trimming a field of grass that carpets a gently rising hill until it meets a vertical rock face; he’s using a pair of scissors. The picturesque landscape is submerged in an aquarium two feet long. A half dozen red-bee shrimp are scattered across the hill grazing on plankton in the grass. They resemble countryside cattle. Three cardinal tetras circle the rock like birds in flight.

At Aqua Forest Aquarium in lower Pacific Heights, Lo, 31, creates underwater gardens with imported aquatic plants. His was the first store in the United States to specialize in the “nature aquarium” style, which was invented by Japanese native Takashi Amano.

Aqua Forest sells souped up, hot-rod freshwater aquariums. A filtration system injects carbon dioxide into the water and specially designed fluorescent lights emit blue-spectrum light waves. The combination creates super-photosynthesis and a vivacious ecosystem.

Lo’s business is the result of a hobby turned profession. While a student earning his cell and molecular biology degree, he discovered a book of Japanese nature style aquariums. He decided to make his own, but struggled to find aquatic plants and suitable equipment. “I didn’t have the right kind of light required, so I had to build my own. I also built my own CO2 system using yeast and sugar,” Lo says.

The wall behind Aqua Forest’s cash register resembles a giant tray of surgical instruments. Stainless steel scissors and tweezers of various shapes and lengths hang in rows. A large-scale system can cost up to $20,000, but Lo can set you up with a basic starter tank for $200. He’s also got a kickass Web site. 1718 Fillmore, (415) 929-8883, www.adana-usa.com (Skyler Swezy)

 

PET STORES WE LOVE: PAWTRERO HILL BATHHOUSE & FEED

The last time my dog got sick, she really got sick — all sorts of fluids coming out of every orifice, dribbling all over her fur and her bed. Even after I wiped her down with wet towels, she still stunk. Like nasty, I-can’t-be-in-the-room-with-you stunk. The bed and the towels go in the washing machine, but the dog … well, the dog needed a bath — badly. And like most dogs, she wasn’t going to sit still in my bathtub, and I wasn’t looking forward to fighting a smelly wet dog in a shower/tub with glass sides.

No problem.: At the foot of Potrero Hill, there’s a great little pet store with a back room entirely set up for washing your stinky mutt. It’s so perfect it makes a damp and ugly chore fun.

Pawtrero specializes in raw food for your pet, and owner Susie Yannes has become something of an expert on canine and feline dietary needs. But her store is also popular for its self-service doggie bathhouse. The room has two large, stainless steel elevated tubs. You extend a ramp for the dog to walk up, slide the ramp back, lock the side door and slip a short leash attached to the back of the tub around your dog’s neck. Now poochie’s not going anywhere. You put on a large rubber smock, grab the spray hose, and start soaking.

Yannes provides a wide selection of organic, skin-sensitive doggie shampoos, treats to get reluctant pups up the ramp, fresh dry towels, blow-driers, brushes, combs, and even nail clippers. You can leave the towels behind, and take your clean, dry pal home with you.

And while you’re waiting, you get to watch all the other dogs get wet, get soapy, shake all over everything and look pathetic while their owners scrub away, chat, and laugh. And it’s just $15 199 Mississippi St., (415) 863-7279, www.pawtrero.com (Tim Redmond)

Is BARFing good for your pet?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Is BARFing good for your pet?

tredmond@sfbg.com

It’s called the BARF diet — and it’s the hottest thing in San Francisco pet stores these days. No, it’s not food that makes your pet throw up; BARF stands for biologically appropriate raw food. And its advocates are passionate about its advantages over old-fashioned commercial pet food.

“Dogs and cats in the wild would eat raw meat,” said Susan Yannes, who co-owns Pawtrero pet store and bathhouse on Mississippi Street. “They didn’t have doggie barbecues.”

The idea is to mimic as closely as possible what your pets would have eaten way back when — in the natural state, before they became so close to humans that they started eating the same sort of processed food (some would say processed crap) many of us eat.

And the trend is growing — fast. Matt Koss, who owns Primal Pet Foods, a supplier of frozen raw animal feed, reports 20 percent annual growth. He cites a massive pet food recall in 2007 as a spur to his business, adding that “there’s more and more consumer awareness about pet food.” Primal Pet supplies food to 2,000 pet stores nationwide, 15 in San Francisco.

But the BARF diet also has its critics — and not just in the multibillion dollar pet food industry.

 

A BETTER DOG IN JUST WEEKS

Yannes got into the raw food business when one of her dogs developed skin problems. “We were feeding him standard dry dog food, and the vet said it was fine,” she said. “His coat had all these bumps, so they gave him allergy medicine.”

Instead, she tried shifting the dog to an all-natural diet — “and a week later, he was fine.”

That’s a common story among some pet owners, who say that raw meat, combined with raw bones and some specially prepared grain and vegetable matter, makes dogs and cats healthier and happier. “Business is growing,” Yannes said. “People who try this don’t go back.”

The argument is similar to what you hear from people who have given up processed human food in favor of fresh fruits and vegetables and organic, free-range meat. It’s more natural; all that processing (and even heat) destroys essential nutrients.

A summary published on Pawblog that Yannes passed on to me sums it up: “When switching your pet to a raw food diet, there are many differences you will notice in a few weeks, including improved breath and white teeth, better digestion resulting in much smaller and firmer stools, less itching, scratching, and allergies, increased energy, healthy skin, and a shiner coat.”

The reason? “Dogs and cats stomachs are designed to digest raw meat and soft bones, utilizing the very strong concentrations of hydrochloric acid as well as the short length of their gastrointestinal tract. Any bacteria are taken care of with this acid.”

But some vets — including those that support and practice non-Western medicine — are more cautious.

“A raw diet is fine,” said Dr. Randy Bowman, a vet at Pets Unlimited. “Dogs were meant to eat raw food in the wild. But we’ve come far beyond that. Their gastrointestinal system has evolved, and they don’t need it.”

Adds Dr. Jeffrey Bryan, a veterinary oncologist who teaches at the University of Washington: “I think highly processed foods are problematic, but I wish we had more scientific evidence on the value of the raw diet.”

 

NOT FOR ALL

I think it’s safe to say that the raw food diet isn’t for everyone. For one thing, it’s more expensive — but if it winds up keeping our dog out of the vet’s office, it will more than pay for itself over time. More important, it requires a fair amount of work — and a lot of attention.

Raw meat has to be handled carefully. All the preparation surfaces have to be washed, and the pets’ dishes need to be washed with soap and water after every meal. That’s because raw meat — even organic, free-range stuff — contains bacteria that can carry diseases to pets and humans.

And according to Bowman, even the best grade of meat can carry diseases: “Even human-grade meat that’s processed and shipped distances carries bacteria, and it’s not meant for raw consumption.” Bowman suggests that pet owners at least sear the meat first, since the bacteria tend to be on the surface.

Dr. Rebecca Remillard, a veterinarian and pet nutritionist, is one of the harshest critics of the raw diet. “This is not a safe practice,” she writes on her Web site. “Dogs fed raw meat or eggs may develop mild to severe gastrointestinal disease from consuming products contaminated” with disease-causing bacteria.

Koss says that’s just misinformation. “Bacteria and pathogens are a concern in the entire food industry,” he said. “But if the food is handled properly, there is no danger at all to pets.”

Susan Lauten, who has a master’s degree in animal nutrition and a doctorate in biomedical science, runs a veterinary consulting business in Knoxville, Tenn. She agrees that, for the most part, healthy dogs and cats can safely eat raw food. But she’s less enthusiastic about comparisons to the diet these creatures ate in the wild.

“In the wild, dogs didn’t live very long,” she told me. “And one reason was that they got sick from eating contaminated meat.”

Lauten has a different concern about the raw diet. Animals that eat raw meat can release salmonella and other dangerous pathogens in their stool. “You don’t want that around if you have kids or immune-compromised people,” she said. “You can clean up after your dog, but you might not get everything.”

And she raised another issue: economics. “Do you tell people that they can’t have a cat unless they can afford the most expensive kind of food?”

Dr. Hannah Good, who practices holistic veterinary medicine in Santa Cruz, argues that “there’s a lot that can be accomplished by going in a different direction than kibble.” She noted that “a lot of diets are 100 percent garbage.”

But she also said that high-grade kibble diets are balanced to include all the nutrients an animal needs.

And what do the vets feed their pets? Good said her dog “eats whatever I eat”; she prepares a version of her own meals for her canine companion. Lauten’s dog has inflammatory bowel disease “and does very well on a commercial veterinary diet.”

Bryan, who thinks what a dog eats is an important factor in its health, doesn’t do the BARF thing either: “I give my dog Science Diet.”

Blink

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Blink

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS He was tapping a red-tipped cane, staying close to the buildings, and sometimes bumping into them. We greeted each other in passing. And the second person I saw that morning, walking to BART in the dark, was using a red-tipped cane too, but also holding onto her man’s arm. Her hat was tall and adorned with either fruit, flowers, or both. I took off my glasses and wiped them on my shirt.

The children have been wonderful. Boink, who started reading books to his little sister while I was away, says "I love you" about a million times a day now. One of the first things we did was make gnocchi, and now Popeye the Sailor Baby is old enough to help roll them too.

The Chunks de la Cooter remember all our songs and games, and Chunk II hardly ever lets go of me when I’m there. As if, more than even me, she can’t believe I’m back and ain’t lettin’ go this time.

I feel like I’ve just woken up from a really, really bad dream, rolled over in my sweat-soaked life, and blinked into the also-blinking eyes of my four True Loves, age two, two, three, and four. These four, they give my heart right back to me.

Boink thinks we should open a restaurant together. Inclined to believe him, I picture the boy 14 years from now, standing on a step-stool next to me, lightly dusted in flour from his fuzzy blond head to his pink tennis shoes — only I guess by then he’ll have flour in his beard too.

Maybe in the meantime — his parents and child labor laws willing — I can practice him in my imaginary guerilla Guerrero Street pastry war against Tartine. He can sell lemonade to the liner-uppers across the street while I learn to cook. Or better yet: limeade.

The burritos I have eaten have tended to be from Cancun, of course, with Earl Butter, and of course El Farolito with Dan-Dan the Fireman and Phenomenon. With one exception. That was El Buen Sabor, with Last Straw Sullenger, who is helping me to curtain and depression-proof my new hovel.

And she bought me a burrito for lunch.

Now I was never very fond of Good Taste during my previous stomps through the Mission, I forget why. But Earl Butter told me El Buen Sabor got better, and I trust him, as you know.

As you also know, if you’ve been reading Cheap Eats while I was out there getting my ass kicked, the buttery one just doesn’t venture beyond a two-block radius of his house at lunchtime or dinnertime. Or breakfast time, for that matter.

So what I think he likes about El Buen Sabor is that it’s the closest beans to home for him, and now me. Well, their two table-top squeezy-thingie salsas are excellent — both the red and the green. They both have some seriousness to them, and are good not only on chips and burritos, but back home poured over slightly stale and heavily buttered drop biscuits. I speak from first-hand leftover experience. But personally, I don’t think the place is any better than I think I used to think it was. That is: nothing special.

They do have brown rice and spinach tortillas, as Last Straw proved by asking for, and getting, both. With her vegetarian burrito.

Whereas I got my vegetarian burrito with as much unhealthiness as possible: white rice, refried beans, and carnitas. It was good, but honestly, unless you live one block away and are Earl Butter, or have recently eaten Mexican food in Regensburg, Germany … it’s nothing to write home about.

Let alone a restaurant review.

So now, if you’ll excuse me, I would like to go back outside again, before it gets dark again, and look into one of those stenciled sidewalk gems again, for a while longer.

This one:

I WOULD STEAL THE STARS FOR YOUR and then I can’t quite make out the last word but I believe it to be HAT.

There is more than one way to read this.

EL BUEN SABOR

Daily: 10 a.m.–10:30 p.m.

697 Valencia, SF

(415) 552-8816

D/MC/V

Beer & wine

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Art/S Global Tapas

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Art/S Global Tapas

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE You walk into a restaurant that offers “global tapas,” and you see a sushi chef standing behind a sushi bar, like an extra player who’s been thrown into some mammoth baseball trade to sweeten the deal, a utility infielder or the fabled “player to be named later.” Apart from this apparent anomaly, the restaurant is good-looking, with a long screen of dark wooden louvers to separate the bar from the dining room, halogen lamps like dangling stars, and plenty of green paint. The place is called Art/S, and the worst criticism that can be made of the physical layout is that the large front windows are filled with Lombard Street traffic.

A few years ago, an excellent restaurant called Sangha, in the Glen Park Village, offered a menu that mingled nuevo Latino and Japanese elements with surprising success (although it didn’t save it from closing late last spring). Still, the Sangha run suggested that Japanese cuisine was not necessarily insular and could sometimes be mixed and matched with other cuisines.

At Art/S, the riff is match, not mix. There is no overt cross-cultural pollination; the two-sided menu card offers a California hodgepodge, with Iberian and Mexican touches, on its front face, while the Japanese items are to be found on the other side. The twain do not meet. Over the head of the sushi chef is a long chalkboard — a kind of scoreboard for the food-involved — listing delicacies such as paella negra (made with squid-ink rice), but he can’t see it.

Paella is one of the few full-sized plates. Most of the dishes are smaller, though large enough to be shareable, and they range in tone from classic bar food to exercises in sophistication that would play well in the temples of haute cuisine downtown. We were especially impressed, in the latter vein, by the yellowtail crudo ($9), which arranged flaps of fish in the shallow wells of a long, narrow porcelain tray, thatched them with shredded radish and slices of jalapeño pepper, and gently doused them with a tart truffle ponzu sauce.

The bar-food angle is well-served by such shamelessly fatty crowd-pleasers as cheese croquette ($9), a blend of white cheddar and mozzarella cheeses like molten lava in a crust of fried breading and served with a ramekin of balsamic vinaigrette, as dark and viscous as used motor oil and quite tasty, though superfluous. Another small plate with similar visceral appeal is the Cali chili-fried potato ($5), spears of Yukon Gold sprinkled with chili flakes and presented with an addictive caesar aioli.

The Iberian-tinged dishes, interestingly, caused some division of opinion. The pintxos chorizo ($7) sounded Spanish, even Basque (“pintxos” is the Basque equivalent of “tapas”), but the chorizo lengths in question were Mexican, made from fresh pork, with plenty of garlic and chile. (Spanish chorizo is air-cured, like prosciutto, and typically seasoned with smoked paprika.) Atop each sausage cylinder, a tab of sweet potato had been fastened with a toothpick, and I wasn’t sure why. The tabs were as pale as Monterey Jack cheese and didn’t add much flavor or texture — not that Mexican chorizo needs help in the flavor department.

The Galicia octopus ($9), an earthenware crock filled with octopus and potato chunks in a spicy dark tomato-based sauce, also left a hung jury. The sauce had the faintly bitter bite of smoked paprika, which perhaps is an acquired taste, and I long ago acquired it; I thought it made a handsome contrast with the faint sweetness of the octopus. Others disagreed. Further objections were raised (rather spuriously, I thought) against the potatoes. They weren’t exactly necessary, but they did add some ballast to the dish. On the other hand, everyone like the spiced chicken tacos ($6 for two), which were made with proper corn tortillas and enlivened with blue cheese.

Fish: several varieties are offered as “sizzling” plates, among them an excellent mahi-mahi filet ($10), dense, meaty, and juicy atop a jumble of bean sprouts, green peas, yellow zucchini, goji berries, and Meyer lemon in a garlic sauce. For unsizzling, flip the menu card and find an extensive list of nigiri, sashimi, and rolls, including spicy tuna — the “ultimate” ($7.50) — and Cancun ($9), with smoked albacore, roasted jalapeño peppers, avocado, and spicy radish. The Cancun struck me as a Californication (a quite nice one, though), while the former strongly appealed to a member of our party who’d never eaten a sushi-style dish before: an already small world growing a little smaller.

ART/S GLOBAL TAPAS

Dinner: Sun.–Wed., 5:30-10 p.m.; Thurs.–Sat., 5:30–11 p.m.

2353 Lombard, SF

(415) 931-7900

www.artsglobaltapas.com

Full bar

AE/DS/MC/V

Moderately noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Benefits: March 31-April 6

David Talbot
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Benefits: March 31-April 6

Ways to have fun while giving back this week

Wednesday, March 31

Wet Wednesday
Party for a great cause at this benefit for the Edgewood Center for Children and Families, a center that provides services for children, teens, and families. Enjoy free food, music by DJ Paul, a raffle for a $450 gift certificate to Las Olas Surfboards and other prizes, and Sierra Nevada beer who will donate $1 for every pint sold.
8 p.m., free
Riptide Cocktails
3639 Taraval, SF
www.riptidesf.com

Friday, April 2

Benefit for Ed Hannigan
Attend this WonderCon Weekend party where a portion of the proceeds will go to the currently exhibited comic book artist Ed Hannigan who suffers from multiple sclerosis. Featuring a silent auction and food and drink.
8 p.m., $10-35 sliding scale
Cartoon Art Museum
655 Mission, SF
(415) CAR-TOON
www.cartoonart.org

Saturday, April 3

Shoebox Studios
Help Shoebox Studios celebrate their recent move to a larger location, which will help them to offer their body positive, safe dance, art, and martial arts classes to more members of the community. Cocktail reception and silent auction of goods, services, and artworks followed by party featuring live music by Rhubarb Whiskey, dance performances, and more.
Cocktail reception and silent auction: 5 p.m., free
Party: 7 p.m., $5 donation
Shoebox Studios
864 Folsom, SF
(415) 861-5976

Monday, April 5

“Relief”
Attend this San Francisco Art Institute MFA candidate silent auction event, where all proceeds will be donated to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Work of painters, photographers, sculptors, designers, filmmakers, and more will be showcased. Featuring music performances and hors d’oeuvres.
5 p.m.
San Francisco Art Institute
Courtyard
800 Chestnut, SF
www.sfai.edu

Events listings

David Talbot
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0

Events listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THURSDAY 1

Last Gasp Anniversary Show 111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; (415) 974-1719. 6pm, free. Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Last Gasp, publisher of underground books and comics, at this party and art show featuring art by Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, Glenn Barr, Robert Crumb, and many more, and readings by local writers, including San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane di Prima.

St. Stupid’s Day Begins at Justin Herman Plaza, Embarcadero at Market, SF; www.saintstupid.com. Noon, free. Help bring color, music, and satire to the financial district’s "temples of the Free Market" at this parade featuring a "dead lottery ticket" offering at the Federal Reserve Bank headquarters, a penny toss at the "banker’s heart," a "sock exchange" at the old Pacific Stock Exchange building, and more. Brought to you by the First Church of the Last Laugh.

BAY AREA

"Book Smart" Oakland Public Library, Temescal Branch, 5205 Telegraph, Oak.; (510) 597-5049. Through April 30, free. Peruse the library while taking in a unique art exhibit of mixed-media paintings by Nancy Mizuno Elliott that will be scattered throughout the library to surprise people as they browse the stacks, exploring the interconnectedness of solitude and stimulation.

FRIDAY 2

Al-Mutanabbi Street San Francisco Zen Center, 300 Page, SF; (415) 255-6524. 7:30pm, free. Attend the first U.S. exhibition of the al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project, a collection of poetry and art commemorating the 2007 car bombing of Baghdad’s historic book-selling al-Mutanabbi Street, featuring a poetry reading by contributing authors. Donations will be accepted for Doctors Without Borders.

La Mesa Red Poppy Art House, 2698 Folsom, SF; (415) 826-2402. 8pm, free. Take part in this peer-to-peer salon featuring traditional musicians, dancers, and artists from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) Roundtable Series, which aims to strengthen Bay Area intercultural traditional arts networks and leadership.

SATURDAY 3

Big Idea Night Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787. 9pm, free. RSVP recommended: www.ybcafree.org. Celebrate the role we all play in the underground arts community at this event put together by the Oakland based art collective The People featuring DJs, dance demonstrations, live painting, participatory art, live dance videography, a local Caribbean food vendor, extended hours for current exhibits, and more.

"Consumed" Femina Potens Art Gallery, 2199 Market, SF; (415) 864-1558. 7:30pm, free. Sate your artistic hunger at the opening of a month long exhibit titled, "Consumed – Affairs with the edible," featuring artwork by Maria Kretschmann, Malia Schlaefer, Liz Maher, and Francesca Berrini that address women’s complex relationship with food. Meet the artists, rub elbows with fellow foodies, and enjoy refreshments and snacks.

Exploratorium Film Collection Exploratorium, McBean Theater, 3601 Lyon, SF; (415) 561-0360. 2pm; included in the price of admission, $15. Watch contemporary film works alongside classic experimental, documentary, and science films from the Exploratorium’s 16 mm collection as part if their 40th anniversary Cinema Arts Program.

Healthy Saturdays Golden Gate Park, JFK Drive between Tea Garden and Transverse, SF; www.sfbike.org/?ggp. All day every Saturday from April thru September, free. Enjoy the kick off of the season of car-free Saturdays in Golden Gate park weather you’re a skater, bicyclist, pedestrian, or onlooker.

Skate this Art Gallery 28, 1228 Grant, SF; (415) 563-6965. 6pm, free. Learn more about the art of skateboarding at the opening of this annual exhibit while helping to raise money for the North Beach Citizens (NBC) center, an outreach program for the disabled and homeless of North Beach. Reception to feature skateboard art auction, raffles, film screenings, poetry readings, and more.

Starchild on Sit Lie Magnet, 4122 18th St., SF; (415) 581-1600. 7pm, free. Hear Starchild, a bisexual, libertarian, activist, sex worker, and supervisorial candidate, discuss the proposed Sit/Lie law with Jon Sugar. The law proposes to ban sitting and lying on sidewalks in SF and will soon be voted on by the Board of Supervisors. Live music to follow.

West Coast Live San Francisco Ferry Building, Port Commission Room, second floor, 101 Embarcadero, SF; (415) 433-9500. 10am, $18. Attend a live broadcast of West Coast Live hosted by Sedge Thomson with special guests Anchee Min, Walter Mosley, and Olympia Dukakis, and featuring music by Dana Cooper and the Exceptional Mike Greensill. West Coast Live broadcasts from locations that convey the culture and sounds of the West to listeners.

SUNDAY 4

Spring Celebration and Easter Parade Union Street, Gough to Fillmore, SF; www.unionstreetsf.com. 10am-5pm, free. Catch the 2pm Easter parade, enjoy outdoor dining at temporary sidewalk bistros, listen to live music, compete in the Easter bonnet contest, and take part in some of the family oriented activities being offered at this local celebration of Spring.

MONDAY 5

Film Arts Forum Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF; (415) 625-8880. 7pm, $8. Join the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) for an arts forum titled, "Tales from Terror," an appreciation, dissection, and dismantling of the misunderstood horror genre and its ties to the Bay Area.

Music listings

David Talbot
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Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 31

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

"Blue Bear School of Music Band Showcase" Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-20.

Hugh Cornwell Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10-20. Benefit for victims of the Haitian earthquake.

Epiphanette Grant and Green. 9pm, free.

"Fundraiser for Precita Eyes 14th Annual Urban Youth Arts Festival" El Rio. 8pm, $5-20. With Genie, A-1, Orukusaki, Cio Castaneda, and more.

Laura Gibson and Ethan Rose, Emily Jane White, Garrett Pierce Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Ari Herstand, Brett Hunter Trio Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

Kidz in the Hall, 88 Keys, Izza Kizza, Donnis Independent. 8pm, $15.

Koalacaust, Ghost Town Refugees, Travis Hayes Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $7.

Never Shout Never, Cab, Hey Monday, Every Avenue, Summer Set Regency Ballroom. 6pm, $18.

Perfect Age of Rock n’ Roll Blues Band with guests Elvin Bishop, Tim Reynolds, and Ray Manzarek Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $30.

Radio Moscow, Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, Naam, Zodiac Death Valley Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Kevin Russell Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Rachel Wonder, Tiny Little Blackouts, Skyflakes, Golda and the Guns Rock-It Room. 8:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Kasey Anderson Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Gaucho, Michael Abraham Jazz Session Amnesia. 8pm, free.

Kami Nixon and Bill Spooner Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 441-4099. 7pm, free. Featuring Sharon Maher.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Greatest Hits Knockout. 9pm, $4. With DJs Sergio Iglesias and Omar.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

Machine Sloane, 1525 Mission, SF; (415) 621-7007. 10pm, free. Warm beats for happy feet with DJs Sergio, Conor, and André Lucero.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJ Carlos Mena and guests spinning afro-deep-global-soulful-broken-techhouse.

THURSDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Jonny Craig, Tides of Man, Eye Alaska, Honor Bright, Mod Sun Bottom of the Hill. 7:30pm, $12.

Cult of Youth, Veil Veil Vanish, Ssleeping Desiress Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

Destruments feat. Monophonic Horns Coda. 9:30pm.

Lesbian, White Mice, CCR Headleaner, Nuclear Death Wish Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Allison Lovejoy and Graves Brothers Deluxe, Brother’s Horse, Fuzzbucket, Ed, Atomic Lucy Paradise Lounge. 9pm, $7. Benefit for the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair.

Tim Reynolds and TR3, Alma Desnuda, Marcus Eaton Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $15-30. Benefit for victims of the Haitian earthquake.

Surfer Blood Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; (415) 831-1200. 6pm, free.

Steve Taylor Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Terror, Ignite, Hour of the Wolf, Crucified, Boundaries Thee Parkside. 8:30pm, $15.

Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt, Shakes, Blank Tapes, Pony Village Amnesia. 9pm.

Pat Wilder Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

*Zion I Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Habib Koite and Bamada Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $24.

Patrick Wolff Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Heather Combs, Austin Willacy, Stewart Lewis, Chi McClean Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-7. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Assemblage 23, Angel Theory, Savi0r DNA Lounge. 8:30pm, $16.

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Club Jammies Edinburgh Castle. 10pm, free. DJs EBERrad and White Mice spinning reggae, punk, dub, and post punk.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Electric Feel Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $2. With DJs subOctave and Blondie K spinning indie music videos.

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Good Foot Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. A James Brown tribute with resident DJs Haylow, A-Ron, and Prince Aries spinning R&B, Hip hop, funk, and soul.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

Holy Thursday Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Bay Area electronic hip hop producers showcase their cutting edge styles monthly.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Jorge Terez.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Lacquer Beauty Bar. 10pm-2am, free. DJs Mario Muse and Miss Margo bring the electro. Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

1320.SF Temple. 9pm, $10. With DJs David Murphy, David Phipps, Nalepa Dub Orchestra, Flying Skulls, Virtual Boy, and more spinning electronic music.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Represent Icon Lounge. 10pm, $5. With Resident DJ Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist and guest. Rock Candy Stud. 9pm-2am, $5. Luscious Lucy Lipps hosts this electro-punk-pop party with music by ReXick.

Studio SF Triple Crown. 9pm, $5. Keeping the Disco vibe alive with authentic 70’s, 80’s, and current disco with DJs White Girl Lust, Ken Vulsion, and Sergio.

FRIDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Astronautalis, Oona, Le Vice Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $10.

Larry Graham and Graham Central Station, Slave, DJ Harry D Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $46.

Honor Society, Just Kait, Ashlyne Huff Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $18.

Maria Muldaur Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Okmoniks, Touch-Me-Nots, Wrong Words Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Passenger and Pilot, Cola Wars, All My Pretty Ones El Rio. 9pm, $6.

Kally Price Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Scraping for Change, Solid State Logic, Cloverleaf Drive, Fever Charm Slim’s. 8pm, $14.

Texas Thieves, Sharp Objects, Ruleta Rusa, Bad Tickers Thee Parkside. 9:30pm, $7.

*Zion I Independent. 9pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Habib Koite and Bamada Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $22-26.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Miya Masaoka, David Wessel, Nils Bultmann Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; www.meridiangallery.org. 8pm, $10.

Shotgun Wedding Symphony Coda. 10pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Dead Dreams Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; (415) 552-4440. 10pm, $10.

Jesse Jay Harris, 77 El Deora, East Bay Greaser, Merle Jagger Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Left Coast Special Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Manicato, Palenke Soul Tribe, Funky C and Joya Elbo Room. 10pm, $15.

Rob Reich and Craig Ventresco Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Yonder Mountain String Band Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

"Ball of Justice" DNA Lounge. 7:30pm, $20. With live performances by Los Straightjackets and the Phenomenots, plus Fishnet Follies Burlesque Revue, DJ Melting Girl, and more.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

Brass Tax Amnesia. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Ding Dong, Ernie Trevino, and Lil’ Bear Hat spin house, breaks, electro, and hip-hop.

Braza! Som., 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, $10.

DatA Paradise Lounge. 10pm, $12. With DJs Jeffery Paradise and Ava Berlin spinning disco, funk, dance, and more.

Deeper 222 Hyde, 222 Hyde, SF; (415) 345-8222. 9pm, $10. With rotating DJs spinning dubstep and techno.

Dirty Rotten Dance Party Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. With DJs Morale, Kap10 Harris, and Shane King spinning electro, bootybass, crunk, swampy breaks, hyphy, rap, and party classics.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

*Golden Era Mighty. 10pm, $10. With DJs Apollo, Sake One, D-Sharp, Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist, Jah Yzer, Proof, Whooligan, and Vickity Slick spinning a tribute to the Golden Era of hip hop.

Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

Oldies Night Knockout. 9pm, $2-4. Doo-wop, one-hit wonders, and soul with DJs Primo, Daniel, and Lost Cat.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa "Samoa Boy" spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Strangelove: Vinyl Night Cat Club. 10pm, $6.

SATURDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Mark David Ashworth, Beehavers, Mira Cook Kaleidoscope, 3109 24th St, SF; www.kaleidoscopefreespeechzone.com. 9pm, free.

"Benefit for City of Hope Cancer Center of LA" Slim’s. 8:30pm, $20. With Mo’Fessionals, Fungo Mungo, Bang Data, and Butterscotch.

Contribution Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $20.

Damn Near Dead Abbey Tavern, 4100 Geary, SF; (415) 221-7767. 9pm, free.

Deadfall, Dean Dirg, Face the Rail El Rio. 10pm, $7.

English Beat, Impalers Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $22.

Five for Fighting, Matt Wertz Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $32.

Ghost Pepper, Fred Torphy, Sean Leahy Trio Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; www.theyankee.com. 9pm, $10.

John Lee Hooker Jr. Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Impediments, Danny James and Pear, Colossal Yes Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Inca Silver, Kalrissian Make-Out Room. 7:45pm, $7.

Love Dimension, Honey, Spyrals, Greg Ashley Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Jonah Matranga, Hours of Op Epicenter Café, 764 Harrison, SF; (415) 543-5436. 7pm, $10.

Murkin, J. Ward, Head Slide Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Scissors for Lefty, Hundred Days, Saint Motel Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Spandex Tiger Grant and Green. 9:30pm, free.

Tyrone Wells, Tony Lucca, Roy Jay Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $16.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Broun Fellinis Coda. 10pm, $10.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

"Filipino American Jazz Appreciation Month Celebration" San Francisco Main Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; (415) 557-4430. 1-5pm, free.

Habib Koite and Bamada Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $26.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $15.

Isaac Schwartz Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Gonzalo Bergara Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Jarrett Fenlon, Tenderloins Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

Yonder Mountain String Band Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.

*Bardot A Go Go’s Serge Gainsbourg Dance Party Knockout. 9pm, $10. With DJs Brother Grimm, Pink Frankenstein, and Cali Kid.

Crystal Method Ruby Skye. 9pm, $25.

Debaser Knockout. 9pm, $5. DJs Jamie Jams and Emdee spin 90s alternative.

Everlasting Bass 330 Ritch. 10pm, $5-10. Bay Area Sistah Sound presents this party, with DJs Zita and Pam the Funkstress spinning hip-hop, soul, funk, reggae, dancehall, and club classics.

Fire Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 9:30pm, free. Rare and outrageous ska, rocksteady, and reggae vinyl with Revival Sound System and guests.

Foundation Som., 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm.

Gemini Disco Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Disco with DJ Derrick Love and Nicky B. spinning deep disco.

Get Loose Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJ White Mike spinning dance jams.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Kontrol Endup. 10pm, $20. With resident DJs Alland Byallo, Craig Kuna, Sammy D, and Nikola Baytala spinning minimal techno and avant house.

Leisure Paradise Lounge. 10pm, $7. DJs Omar, Aaron, and Jet Set James spinning classic britpop, mod, 60s soul, and 90s indie.

New Wave City DNA Lounge. 9pm, $7-12. Eighties dance party.

Rebel Girl Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5. "Electroindierockhiphop" and 80s dance party for dykes, bois, femmes, and queers with DJ China G and guests.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. Sixties soul on 45s with DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.

So Special Club Six. 9pm, $5. DJ Dans One and guests spinning dancehall, reggae, classics, and remixes.

Social Club Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm. Shake your money maker with DJs Lee Decker and Luke Fry.

Soundscape Vortex Room, 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. With DJs C3PLOS, Brighton Russ, and Nick Waterhouse spinning Soul jazz, boogaloo, hammond grooves, and more.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

Tiefschwarz Mighty. 10pm, $15. Spinning techno and house.

White Party Trigger, 23 Market, SF; (415) 551-2582. 9pm, $10. With DJ Claksaarb. White attire required.

SUNDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Flatliners, Broadway Calls, Cobra Skulls, Longway Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.
*Grayceon, Lesbian, Hazzard’s Cure Knockout. 6pm, $5.
Music for Animals, Mata Leon, Links, Doll and the Kicks Rickshaw Stop. 7pm, $12.
Triclops!, Brent Weinbach and Alex Koll, Tubers, SF School of Rock, Peijman and Ben Kunin Bottom of the Hill. 5pm, $10.
U-Melt Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; www.theyankee.com. 8pm.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Brass Menazeri vs. Emperor Norton’s Jazz Band Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.
"Hot Air Music Festival" San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak, SF; www.hotairmusic.org. 2-10pm, free. Contemporary music marathon run by SFCM students.
Habib Koite and Bamada Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5 and 7pm, $5-26.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Tomorrow Men, Hurtinanny Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.
DANCE CLUBS
Afterglow Nickies, 466 Haight, SF; (415) 255-0300. An evening of mellow electronics with resident DJs Matt Wilder, Mike Perry, Greg Bird, and guests.
Call In Sick Skylark. 9pm, free. DJs Animal and I Will spin danceable hip-hop.
Dance-A-Thon Shoebox Studios, 864 Folsom, SF; (415) 861-5976. 10am-6pm, $10. Featuring dance classes all day to celebrate the opening of the new studio.
Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Goth, industrial, and synthpop with DJs Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.
DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.
Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Vinnie Esparza, and guest DJ Sun.
Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.
Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. "Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers." Got that?
Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.
Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.
Lowbrow Sunday Delirium. 1pm, free. DJ Roost Uno and guests spinning club hip hop, indie, and top 40s.
Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.
Shuckin’ and Jivin’ Knockout. 10pm, free. Jivers and stompers with DJs Dr. Scott and Oran.
Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.
MONDAY 5
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Angels and Airwaves, Say Anything Warfield. 9pm, $29.
Rocco Deluca Café du Nord. 9pm, $15.
"Felonious Presents: Live City Revue" Coda. 9pm, $7.
Dave Lionelli, Ben Fuller, Jon Ji Rock-It Room. 10pm.
Macabea, Ruinitas Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.
Owl City, Lights, Paper Route Fillmore. 6:30pm, $20.
Puddle of Mudd, Burn Halo, Veer Union Slim’s. 8pm, $25.
DANCE CLUBS
Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJs El Kool Kyle and Santero spinning Latin music.
Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!
M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.
Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with DJs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.
Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.
Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.
Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest Djs.
TUESDAY 6
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Church Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $30.
Adam Green, Dead Trees Café du Nord. 8pm, $15.
Jeepster, Build Us Airplanes, X-Ray Press, Aimless Never miss Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.
Owl City, Lights, Paper Route Fillmore. 6:30pm, $20.
DANCE CLUBS
Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJs What’s His Fuck, Taypoleon, and Mackiveli.
Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.
La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.
Mixology Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; (415) 441-2922. 10pm, $2. DJ Frantik mixes with the science and art of music all night.
Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.
Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.
Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

Appetite: It’s Passover — so come on over

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: It’s Passover — so come on over

As Passover begins tonight through next Monday, here’s a few places where you know you can eat quite well and stay quite kosher:

4/5 – SLOW FOOD Seder at Mission Beach Cafe
Heeb magazine teams up with one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants, Mission Beach Café for a Slow Food Seder. Yes, that’s slow food principles, modern cooking sensibilities, traditional Jewish dishes. In fact, with each course, you have the choice of traditional or California-style dishes, each made with local ingredients. Will it be smoked black cod with potato kugel or matzo flatbread with haroset, balsamic reduction, basil scallion pesto and messo seco cheese?

Braised Prather Ranch lamb shank with butter beans, oyster mushrooms, baby carrots and red pearl onions or roasted duck with Israeli couscous, Jerusalem artichokes, pea shoots and orange sabayon? Thankfully, Mission Beach’s wonderful pastry chef, Alan Carter, has dessert in hand.
$55 for four courses, excluding tax and tip
Monday, April 5
5:30-10:30pm
Mission Beach Café
198 Guerrero Street
415-861-0198
www.missionbeachcafesf.com

Firefly’s Eight Days of Passover menu
Right by my former home in Noe Valley, beloved Firefly does an “Eight Days of Passover” menu all week long, a bevy of Jewish greats made with Firefly’s usual homey, gourmet flair: chopped chicken livers, Grandma Rose’s matzo ball soup, owner, Brad’s housemade gefilte fish, vegetable matzo kugel, grilled lamb sirloin and beef brisket (or vegan brisket, if you so desire).
March 29–April 5
a la carte menu during regular hours
4288 24th Street, SF.
415-821-7652
www.fireflyrestaurant.com

TAKE-OUT at Sweet Jo’s
Jo and her best-there-is biscuits  are always available at Sweet Jo’s in the Jewish Community Center, but she also knows Passover foods and has plenty for you to take home to suppliment or be your complete Passover meal. Maybe braised Kobe beef brisket, felfite fish, potato kugel, mashed potatoes, rosemary broccoli, and a side of horseradish cream?
Available for pick-up a la carte or to eat in the cafe through Passover
Sweet Jo’s, inside the Jewish Community Center
3200 California, SF.
415-345-0090
www.sweetjoscafe.com

The cheeseman can

Andrew Lam
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The subtitle of Rainbow Grocery cheesemonger Gordon “Zola” Edgar’s new memoir (supertitled Cheesemonger, appropriately enough) would be enough for me to count the book a success; “Life on the wedge.” Ha! See, right there, he had me ready to head out to his Omnivore Books reading (Sat/3) fangirl style, washed rind Taleggio in hand, hounding for an autograph. Luckily, the rest of his book is pretty good too. 

Where Cheesemonger triumphs is its accessibility. Edgar covers a lot of ground within its pages — Bay area agricultural/urban history, the ins and outs and importance of worker collectives, food justice, and of course, the art and science that is cheese. But it is all tied together with that rare liberal ethos that is both positive, and commonsensical. 

A word about those first three topics. Edgar’s tome ties how we eat to how we live to how our world works, coherently and colorfully enough that it stays interesting even to the casual reader. Cheesemakers, unlike produce farmers or vintners, have yet to really have their day in the sustainable food mania’s sun. Here in Cheesemonger, we get a clear picture of how factory produced cheese differs from that which is made from the milk of grass-fed cows and handcrafted by sustainable methodologies- and an explanation of why many dairy farmers have been forced to turn to mass production methods. Edgar utilizes his middle-man status at Rainbow’s worker collective in the book to neatly connect the latter with the stomachs and wallets of SF’s working Joes. Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dillemma functions similarly — but Pollan’s got nothing on Edgar’s encyclopedic knowledge of the most delicious of all foods. 

Ah, cheese. On my journalist’s salary, most of the cheese I’m eating these days ranges between the gold standard “block” cheddar and whatever brie I can swipe off of art reception buffet tables, so this book’s vivid descriptions of handcrafted Telemes and Sainte-Maure de Touraines were awe inspiring. I now have a grocery list the length of one of my legs, full of fancy cheeses to try (thanks for that, Gordon).

I kid, because Edgar does a great job of acknowledging how fine cheese’s price tag can keep out of the mouths of most Americans. “When American foodies mock other Americans for not appreciating fine cheese, they should remember that the US equivalent to French Bried is a forty-pound block of commodity Cheddar,” he writes.

So milk thistle coagulated Serra de Estrela doesn’t often make it’s oozy, pungent way into your grocery basket- Cheesemonger still makes for great food porn. Edgar breaks down how cheeses are made, gives helpful information on basic categories, explains what makes a rind and why the hell cheese is aged in caves, and perhaps most importantly, what to look out for when you do decide to splurge on a wedge (tip: stay away from rBGH hormone). I learned things about how the dairy industry works that every milk-and-cheese consumer should know — particularly about our government’s regulations and how ridiculous allocations of subsidies affect the food that’s available on our shelves. As a self-identified “cheese punk,” Edgar convinces you that to try the raw milk, the stinky, the smaller portions of local, expensive stuff- when you can afford it, of course, is to fight the man’s influence over the standardization and control of our larders.

Now that is tasty radicalism. And now, pass the Roquefort.

Gordon Edgar

Sat/3 3 p.m., free

Omnivore Books

3885A Cesar Chavez, SF

(415) 282-4712

www.omnivorebooks.com

 

For Jim: Jim Marshall, 1936-2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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2
For Jim: Jim Marshall, 1936-2010

Legendary Bay-based rock photographer Jim Marshall, who was featured in a Guardian cover story on March 3, 2010, passed away in his sleep Tuesday night in New York at the age of 74. The people who worked with him on the cover story, Johnny Ray Huston and Mirissa Neff, remember him.

Johnny Ray Huston, writer: When someone dies it’s impossible not to think of the last time you saw them. With Jim Marshall, I wish that last time had been different. Jim had called me in the morning to see if I wanted to meet him at his favorite dinner spot. That night, I arrived about 15 minutes late, finding him alone at a table in the center of the place with a glass of wine. It was noisy, and I had to shout more than usual for Jim to hear what I said. I showed him some crummy digital shots I’d taken of a few Bay Area musicians I’d daydreamed about him really photographing, but he seemed distracted, quieter than usual. When we said goodbye later on the corner by his apartment, I assumed his mind was on the future. He was about to leave on a trip, first going to Texas for the monster that is South by Southwest, and then to New York, for a gallery show of his photography and the release of Match Prints, his latest book, a collaboration with Timothy White.

Jim was unfailingly generous. On the day the article I’d written about him was published, he called to say he wanted to give me a print, any print, from his body of work. This kind of offering was second nature for him, but overwhelming for me to contemplate considering the breadth of his vision. At a time when music photography is consumed and tamed by style, all one has to do is look to Jim’s photos for their untamed depth. When my boyfriend Cedar recently interviewed Nancy Wilson, he was amazed to hear her say she had always styled herself for album cover photos. Jim’s peak photos are of true musical artists who had been styling themselves for years. They stepped in front of Jim’s camera without some trite go-between in the way, and with a trust forged by their relationship to him and respect for what he did.

One night after some whiskey at my apartment, I coerced Jim to go to a birthday party for one of my friends, even though it was a Chinese restaurant and Jim hated Chinese food. Jim’s matter-of-fact profanity or vulgarity could be hilarious, as when crab rangoon was placed on the table in front of him and he suspiciously grabbed some, muttering under his breath, “This better not make me puke.” Jim took the tab, even though he had only met the birthday host an hour before. Jim always took the tab.

Jim loved Cadillacs. It was a pleasure to ride with him because of how well he knew his cars. In his newest model, it could also be funny — he didn’t wear a seat belt, so a drive with him meant listening to the incessant ringing of the seat belt alarm coupled with the instructive but useless voice of the GPS. He was blissfully oblivious to both, thanks to deafening encounters with the likes of Jimi Hendrix.

My best friend Corina works at the place where Jim most loved to eat, and while I’m forever grateful to Tim Redmond for encouraging me to meet Jim, I’d first heard about him from her. One Sunday Corina texted me that Jim was at the restaurant and wanted me to come over for drinks after dinner. Corina, Cedar, Corina’s boyfriend Nathan and I all wound up at Jim’s place, as well as a young woman visiting from another country who Jim was romancing when I first got to the restaurant. She had been eating at a different table, but he’d soon gotten her to sit with him. Back at Jim’s apartment, as we talked and drank, the woman put on a CD. It turned out she was a musician, and she wanted us to hear her band. They weren’t bad in an avant-folk 12-piece way, but Jim’s critique of their off-kilter noise was merciless and entertaining. (And it didn’t stop him from getting a kiss from her later.)

When Jim – “Jaguar Jim” back in the Beat era’s heyday – found out that Cedar was a poet with a book due from City Lights, he gave him some rare volumes, including one by David Meltzer. I remember standing on Jim’s front steps that night talking with Nathan about how great the young year was, and how glad I was to be getting to know Jim. At that moment, partly through Corina’s affection for him, I found myself alone with my boyfriend and two best friends in the city, something that wasn’t happening often enough.

Jim had lived in his apartment in the Castro for decades, and he liked to joke that they’d have to wheel him out of it, so it’s one of those deep ironies of life and death that he left this world in New York City. To have met Jim so late in his life is something I can’t fully understand right now. There are so many people I wanted Jim to meet and get to know. But he knew plenty, and many of the best, perhaps better than they could know him. Because of how well he saw them. I feel lucky to have met him, and am grateful he showed me the scrapbook he kept when he was first dreaming about owning a camera. More attention is going to be paid to Jim’s work in the coming months and years. He had a lot of famous admirers, but his day-to-day life in San Francisco was buoyed by people like his friend and assistant Amelia Davis, and Corina and the people at La Med. I can still hear Jim’s pirate-y laugh, and that craggy, lively voice that Corina and I loved to imitate. I can still see his photos.

Mirissa Neff, art director: I met Jim Marshall just a few weeks ago. Our senior arts editor Johnny Ray Huston was interviewing him for the cover story and thought I should meet Jim to go over images, saying “he’d love you.” We all met at his Castro apartment and then walked around the corner to his regular lunch spot, La Mediterranee. For a little guy of 74 Jim had an outsized personality, a gruff demeanor, and a nose that showed signs of his old coke addiction (he was happy to complain to anyone who’d listen that his doctor had made him quit a few years back).

Yet Jim remained completely endearing. As Johnny and I flipped through hundreds of Jim’s stellar portraits, attempting to choose a few images to run (which was no easy task), Jim centered the conversation around an art opening he wanted to attend that night. After describing the event he looked at me and said, “So I’ll pick you up in my Cadillac around 7?” It was less of a question than a directive. I couldn’t make it… which of course I now regret. But being in his presence for that afternoon was a gift.

Appetite: Dreaming of the islands …

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Appetite: Dreaming of the islands …

This weekend affords the last of a series of Hawaiian escapes here in San Francisco, especially Aloha Fridays at Gordon Biersch, which would be especially idyllic in the Spring gorgeousness we’ve been experiencing. 

 

But it’s also a time to dream of stealing away to the islands not just for drinks but for food. A recent event at Burlingame’s striking Sub-Zero & Wolf Showroom highlighted the locavore, farm-fresh movements infusing Hawaii’s culinary scene with new life.

 

It was a February night of island breezes and mai tais with three of Hawaii’s biggest chefs, Roy Yamaguchi (yes, that Roy of Roy’s restaurants), Alan Wong and D.K. Kodama, plus a mixologist, winemaker, Hawaiian products (like sweet and spicy Kilauea hot sauce), transforming Sub Zero’s kitchens into a Hawaiian luau.

 

 

Roy Yamaguchi serves us his latest

 

Fresh-flower leis were draped over our necks as we were handed shiso, ginger, and elderflower soju-based cocktails, then escorted to a three-course tasting in a back room before other guests joined us in the main areas. The table was laden with flowers and artistic fish dishes from all three chefs. I was pleasantly surprised at the range and quality of tastes. Proud of Hawaii’s recent resurgence in locally grown produce and sustainable, local seafood and animals (they’re even raising Maine lobsters on the islands), everyone from chefs to farm owners (brought together by Hawaii’s Visitors Bureau) talked of Hawaiian grass-fed cows and a new iPhone app, What Chefs Eat, which gives Hawaiian chefs’ recommends for the best in non-touristy food joints. Keep up with Hawaiian food news at Share Your Table, and head to Gordon Biersch this Saturday, transported to Hawaii via the Bay. 

 

La guerra de los Jarritos

Andrew Lam
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La guerra de los Jarritos

In the mid-Pacific Mexican state of Jalisco, jarritos, small earthenware pots, are used for many things– drinking and decoration of homes, primarily. But multi national corporation Novamex has claimed the word for itself — and is forcing small businesses, like Los Jarritos Restaurant on South Van Ness Avenue, to change their longheld names to accommodate that fact.

Dolores Reyes opened her family run Mission District restaurant in 1988, about the same year that Novamex began importing their popular fruit sodas into the United States. Though the Reyes initially stocked the drink, the decision to name their restaurant ‘Los Jarritos’ was based on their family’s heritage down south. Los Jarritos became a neighborhood fixture, famous for their breakfast chilaquiles.

“Jarritos are an important cultural item in Jalisco,” says Roy Gordet, the Reyes’ attorney. “By naming her restaurant after them, Dolores felt more connected to her family back in Mexico.” 

She could have hardly expected that, 15 years later, she’d be fighting her soda supplier over use of this cultural invocation. And they weren’t the only ones. Novamex targeted restaurants and taquerias with the name all over the country with legal action — approximately 30 by Gordet’s count.

“In my situation, I think they brought the lawyer because they move by money, not by anything else,” says Edith Marisol-Rivera. Marisol-Rivera’s own Los Jarritos taqueria in Eugene, Oregon, had been open for seven years when she received news from Novamex that she would have to change her businesses’ name- or else.

No one’s drinking soda with their late afternoon lunch at Los Jarritos Restaurant

“They were suing us for more than $50,000 if we didn’t change our name,” she says. “We are a small business, and we don’t have a lot of money, so I didn’t think there was a good reason to fight them.” Edith, whose mother had brought hundreds of jarritos when she moved from El Salvador, still decorates her taqueria with the jars- but the sign over the door now read El Jarro Azul. “We thought if they’re located in Texas, they should let people have their own name. But I guess not,” she gives a rueful laugh. “They’re thinking we’re going to steal their name and start making sodas or something like that.”

In contrast, Reyes decided to stand her ground. “We claimed some of their trademark registrations were invalid,” says Gordet. Reyes filed counter claims against Novamex’s, hoping to show that the restaurant had committed no legal infringement on the name Jarritos. The corporation’s case was thrown out by federal judge Jeffery White, but then reinstated by the Ninth Circuit Court. It had been a lengthy legal battle.

Dolores’ struggle resonated with other small business owners. “I talked to Dolores and she said she had the business for 18 years. I told her if she has the money she should fight,” says Marisol-Rivera. “It’s hard to fight these big companies, they’re everywhere now. I gave up because it was a lot of stress for me, but I was glad Senora Dolores kept doing it.”

But eventually, the wearing court battle was too much for Reyes. “The case has now been dismissed by the court,” says Gordet. According to the dismissal filed with the court, all claims have been dropped and the restaurant will change its name. “They didn’t expect Dolores Reyes to fight as valiantly as she did,” says Gordet. “But now everybody is going to move on. Generally, that’s considered a good thing.” Novamex refused to comment on the case for this article, saying they were under a confidentiality agreement to remain silent.

Times va cambiando for Los Jarritos Restaurant

On a recent sunny afternoon, a diverse crowd sat in Los Jarritos, enjoying a late lunch. Construction workers, Latino and White, sat at the lunch counter with plates of food and a beer (not surprising, the restaurant stopped carrying the Jarritos soda five or six years ago- around the time the legal battle began). Families lounged at tables, enjoying the sunny atmosphere imparted by the dining room’s colorful decorations- shelves upon shelves of traditional pottery, and strings of small jarritos looped around pillars.

But stuck to the front door, there is a bilingual sign that invokes Novamex’s legal challenge. “Los Jarritos restaurant will be changing its name… but we will be run by the same family members and owners. Thank you for understanding.”

Los Jarritos Restaurant (for now)

901 South Van Ness, SF

(415) 648-8383

www.losjarritos.com

 

Nihon Whisky Lounge

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Nihon Whisky Lounge

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE Among the stand-tall, manly-man libations, none stands taller than whiskey, or (for Caledonophiles) whisky. Caledonia was the Roman name for Scotland, of course, and in Scotland the manly men drink whisky. And wear kilts. What is the implication of all this for us fey, pampered, urban Americans? At the edge of our very own Mission District, a five-year-old restaurant called Nihon styles itself a “whisky lounge” and serves the small plates known to the Japanese as izakaya. So: take Japanese food, present it in a gorgeous, moody setting, sprinkle far and wide with Scotch whisky (including 400 varieties of single malt) as if watering your Chia Pet, and and lo! you get hipsters. Hipsters don’t wear kilts — yet — but they do like to wear their tight-fitting shirts untucked. Why?

Nihon’s whisky installation is impressive: a soaring architecture of bottles behind the bar. The bottle battlement dominates the main floor (which you enter through a set of huge, frosted-glass doors trimmed with wrought iron) and rises nearly as high as the mezzanine, the place to go if you seek some coziness. On your way up, note the porthole and, at the rear of the second floor, a semi-private lounge set with comfy chairs and a sofa under exposed roof joists. The only fly in this rich design ointment is the view: the windows gaze onto the unromantic intersection of Folsom and 14th streets and the immense, neon-glare parking lot of Foods Co. No wonder the panes are hung with screens of fine steel mesh.

Izakaya-style food reminds us that Japanese cuisine includes cooked as well as uncooked items, although it’s probably a stretch to call Nihon’s cooking Japanese in any purist sense. Evidence of California whimsy is laced throughout the menu, perhaps nowhere so plainly as in the rolls, which bear clever names and, like the fancier sorts of burritos, emphasize variety and plenitude. The thunderbird roll ($16) is a cornucopia of tempura soft-shell crab, gobo, and daikon sprouts, topped by a roof of eel, avocado, tobiko, and a glaze of tsume — a sweetish sauce made from boiled eel. A bit too sweet, I thought, like over-honeyed barbecue sauce. Better was the quite spicy samurai roll ($13) with spicy tuna, rounds of pickled jalapeño pepper the color of black olives, daikon spicy sesame sauce, and habañero tobiko. The chili heat here was measured but intense and sustained. The kamikaze roll ($15) resembled the thunderbird more than the kamikaze, with the chief difference being salmon instead of tuna. Salads abound. A familiar wakame edition ($5) mixed the blackish threads of seaweed with baby greens for a nice textural contrast; the salad looked like a small wig someone had plugged into an electric socket. We did find the dressing too salty. The Nihon salad ($8), by contrast, a tangle of somen noodles and cucumber slices within a ring of thin-sliced, nori-wrapped rice coins, benefited from a white miso dressing that, like ponzu sauce, found a balance among salt, sweetness, and acid.

You can go spicy or not. On the mild end of the scale, we found that a plate of broccoli and cauliflower florets ($5) had been roasted just enough to give them a hint of give and char while (as with a proper stir-fry) leaving them with plenty of snap. Not much else was done to them beyond a splash or two of ginger-soy sauce; they were left to speak for themselves. At the far end: Dr. Octopus ($10), a row of broiled octopus flaps seated on cucumber coins and squirted with some sort of fiery red chili paste. Red chili paste can be a doomsday weapon, obliterating every flavor around it — and that was pretty much the case here, although (also as here) such obliteration can be exhilarating. Notable was the tenderness of the octopus, which can toughen so quickly when cooked. If it’s beautifully tender, who cares about some chili overload?

Green tea might offer many health benefits, but it’s problematic as a dessert player, with a tendency to be pale and bitter at the same time. Green tea ice cream? Wake me up when it’s over. So when our attentive, smiling server mentioned green tea cheesecake, I saw a set of lips across the table crinkle with distaste. But the cheesecake ($4 for a slender slice) turned out to be sublime, with the tea’s edge wrapped in creaminess and sweetness, like a chef’s knife in a handsome leather sheath. Across the way, those skeptical lips smacked with pleasure.

NIHON WHISKY LOUNGE

Dinner: Tues.–Sat., 5:30 p.m.–2 a.m.

1779 Folsom, SF

(415) 552-4400

www.nihon-sf.com

Full bar

AE/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

 

Shit show

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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5
Shit show

By Brady Welch

 

news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Food safety groups complain that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has until recently been dumping its crap in the backyards and gardens of any residents who unwittingly asked for it.

The city calls this crap “biosolids compost,” and for Mayor Gavin Newsom and the SFPUC, it seemed like a green dream come true. But it turns out that putting processed human excrement into people’s vegetable gardens might not be the elegant — if somewhat gross — reuse strategy it once seemed to be.

The vexing sewage sludge left over after treatment and separation of the city’s wastewater was being treated, combined with woodchips and paper waste, and labeled compost so it could, according to the SFPUC’s Web site, “provide essential plant nutrients, improve soil structure, enhance moisture retention, and reduce soil erosion.” Not bad for the ultimate human waste product.

The problem, say groups including the Center for Food Safety and Organic Consumers Association, is that the SFPUC’s compost contains a host of other toxins and hazardous materials not necessarily originating with what the city’s granola-munching denizens flush down the toilet. In fact, a January 2009 Environmental Protection Agency study of sewage sludge from 74 treatment plants found, in nearly every sample, “28 metals, four polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, two semi-volatiles, 11 flame retardants, 72 pharmaceuticals, and 25 steroids and hormones.” Yikes.

“You name it, it’s in there,” John Mayer, said spokesperson for the Organic Consumers Association. The compost “is hazardous waste, and it’s absurd to claim that it’s safe to consume. No matter what the sludge processing industry claims, it is by definition dangerous.” The EPA report would certainly seem to support Mayer’s claim, except that it expressly stops short of doing just that, stating that the results “do not imply that the concentrations for any [substance] are of particular concern to EPA.”

Then again, it was the EPA that started promoting the use of biosolid compost in the first place, back in 1978. The only safety thresholds the agency sets for biosolids compost concern nine heavy metals and the elimination of pathogens — none of the flame retardants, steroids, semi-volatiles, and carcinogens found in their study — a standard that has remained largely unchanged for a decade.

But that’s only part of the story, because as it turns out, San Francisco’s sewage sludge isn’t that contaminated compared to the shit generated in other regions. “We found in our tests that it’s really low for all the emerging pollutants,” SFPUC spokesperson Tyron Jue told us, citing data listed on its Web site indicating that testing goes beyond what the EPA requires, and even beyond more stringent European Union standards. Jue even said that the SFPUC’s biosolids compost has “metal limits lower than in a daily vitamin, and lower or comparable to store-bought compost.”

Yet Paige Tomaselli of the Center for Food Safety understands the data differently. “San Francisco may test above and beyond the national standards. They may think their testing is green. But the truth of the matter is that that the compost they’re giving away is not generated here in San Francisco.”

Indeed, the sewage sludge the SFPUC tested is not the same stuff it was handing out for three years as “organic biosolids compost.” After the organic food industry complained, the utility recently dropped the “organic” designation, offering the admittedly sheepish defense that the label was meant to imply “carbon-rich,” a definition that would make, among nearly everything else, the Guardian you hold in your hands organic.

Jue told us that the utility spends over $3 million annually on its biosolids program, $500,000 of which last year went to contracts with Synagro, “the largest recycler of organic residuals in the United States,” according to its Web site. The compost in the SFPUC’s giveaways came from the corporation’s Central Valley Composting Facility in Merced County, where it was mixed with sludge from at least eight other counties, including municipalities whose safety requirements are nowhere near as stringent as San Francisco’s.

“The vast majority [of sludge] comes from Fresno,” Tomaselli said, adding that the SFPUC continues to cite its own numbers, “completely ignoring the fact that this sewage sludge comes from a city with agricultural and industrial toxins that may be going into the waste stream.”

Many of those toxins remain in the “compost” San Franciscans have been applying to their tomato plants. “You can cook it all day,” Mayer told us. “Those things aren’t going anywhere.”

Both OCA and CFS say that, given such a broad avenue by which toxic material could enter the SFPUC’s compost, the SFPUC is violating San Francisco’s environmental standards. For example, the opening chapter of the Environment Code for the City and County of San Francisco explicitly states that all members of the city’s government should employ the “precautionary principle” in conducting its affairs, requiring the city to err on the side of caution in environmental policy.

One sentence in particular would seem to address biosolids and the 2009 EPA study specifically: “Any gaps in scientific data uncovered by the examination of alternatives will provide a guidepost for future research, but will not prevent the city from taking protective action.” And in the case of so-called biosolids, protective action would seem to call for keeping this shit away from food.

Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA and founder of the Superfund program, flatly stated to us over the phone that “there’s no scientific consensus that this stuff is safe. They test less than 1 percent of the stuff that has been tested to be in it.”

The health effects of even that 1 percent can be alarming. Of the nine heavy metals the EPA tests for, chromium is a known carcinogen and mercury can cause permanent nervous system and kidney damage. But if that stuff doesn’t kill you, prolonged exposure to low levels of arsenic, another heavy metal, “can cause a discoloration of the skin and the appearance of small corns or warts,” according to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration Web site.

Considering that Kaufman works in the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (as apposed to the Office of Water that oversees biosolids), we asked him how and why his own employer is encouraging the land application of something so potentially hazardous.

“I think it’s very similar to the reason why the government doesn’t ban naked credit-default swaps. You’ve got a situation here where the cheapest way to dispose of the sludge is land application,” he said. By giving away the sludge as compost, as San Francisco has been doing, “you can transfer liability from the government to the public where the stuff is ultimately dumped. There is tremendous economic pressure to keep the ball rolling in the same direction.”

A February 2008 ruling of 11th Circuit Court of Appeals would seem to bear this out. The case involved the McElmurrays, a family of farmers that allowed the city of Augusta, Ga., to apply biosolids on their land from 1979 to 1990. The sludge eventually poisoned their crops and even the cows who fed on them.

Citing Augusta’s lack of disclosure about the noxious effects of the sludge, the McElmurrays sought compensation subsidies under a 2002 Farm Bill, going first to the county, then the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, a state-level agency. After a number of back-and-forth denials and delays, the matter was appealed to the national USDA, which then sought the EPA’s advice for their ruling.

The court found that the series of opinions the EPA subsequently issued were unrelated to the case before the USDA and were nevertheless based on Augusta’s faulty land application data. “In short,” the ruling’s conclusion states, “it appears that the only persons to consider [the McElmurrays’] applications ended up ruling in their favor…. The USDA’s decision to accept a contrary decision, based on no review of the applications by the EPA, was arbitrary and capricious. The conclusions of the EPA were not based on substantial evidence.”

As for SFPUC’s biosolids giveaway, “They wanted a program that would green-wash this dangerous substance,” Mayer told us. “And they participated in this ruse for the benefit of Synagro. Even the mayor got pulled in.”

Tony Winnicker, the spokesperson for the SFPUC before becoming Newsom’s press secretary in January, told us the idea behind the program was a good one. “The spirit behind this is right, in terms of reuse and sustainability,” he said. “This was one of the PUC’s environmental initiatives from the beginning, and the mayor supports the agency’s efforts at environmental sustainability.”

But Winnicker said he was not aware that San Francisco’s well-tested biosolids were being mixed with those of other areas, and that Newsom would defer to SFPUC experts on how to handle the situation.

“I have no doubt that they tell people it’s biosolids compost,” CFS’s Paige Tomaselli told us. But she echoed the 11th Circuit court’s findings when she added, “On the other hand, I don’t think people know what that entails.”

This could be why SFPUC recently suspended the compost giveaways. “We’re reevaluating,” Jue told us. “What we’re trying to do is take a step back. We’re always looking at all the new information presented in front of us.” As for the utility’s record of disclosure, “We’ve always been very transparent with everyone coming to pick up compost. This is bringing awareness to an issue people don’t want to think about. [Sewage] doesn’t disappear. We have to think about it.”

So what’s to be done? Newsom has pushed San Francisco to the national forefront in sustainability and generating zero waste. Unfortunately, “they’re part of the wrong side of the sludge game,” said EPA’s Kaufman. “Is it possible to manage it better? Yes. Is there a black box to spin gold out of hay? No. Can one be invented in the future? Maybe.”

Kaufman found quite a bit of potential in the city’s successful green-bin composting. “San Francisco collects biodegradable waste material, good waste material, that can make very good compost,” he noted. “It’s not made from industrial waste; it’s made from real organic material. That’s not what the giveaway compost is made from. If San Francisco had taken what homeowners had put in for recycling and composted that and given that away, that would be fantastic.”

It would certainly have been better than the shit it has been giving away.

Music listings

David Talbot
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0

Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Acid Mothers Temple, OGOD Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $12.

Asteroids Galaxy Tour Independent. 8pm, $15.

Bridez Knockout. 10pm, $5.

Keith Crossan Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

High Places, Mi Ami, Protect Me Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Nadas, Blue Bonfire Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

No Captains, Black Sails Western Shores, Why I Hate, Singularity Thee Parkside. 8pm, $5.

*Pentagram, Ludicra, Slough Feg, Orchid DNA Lounge. 8:30pm, $22.

Power Solo, Chris Jones, Chief Nowhere, Federale, DJ Neil Martinson Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

*Rainbow Arabia, Sutekh, K. Flay, Shlohmo, Oy Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Somerville and Keehan Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Gaucho, Michael Abraham Jazz Session Amnesia. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

Machine Sloane, 1525 Mission, SF; (415) 621-7007. 10pm, free. Warm beats for happy feet with DJs Sergio, Conor, and André Lucero.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Shutter Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Goth with DJs Nako, Omar, and Justin.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJ Carlos Mena and guests spinning afro-deep-global-soulful-broken-techhouse.

THURSDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Al Qaeda, Nondor Devai and Ben Wolcott, Bank of Christ Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Cymbals Eat Guitars, Bear In Heaven, Freelance Whales Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Deeper, Socialized, Scar Pink Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Enne Enne, Rad Cloud, Sexx Act Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Flakes, Hot Lunch, Silver Skies Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

Garotas Suecas, Lumerians, Greg Ashley Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Phil Gates Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Swann Danger, Monozid, Bootblacks, DJ Nako Knockout. 9:30pm, $6.

"Thursday Night Live" Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; thursdaynightnow@gmail.com. 9pm, free. With Holly Saucy, EyeZon, Serendipity Project, and Isis Genesis.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"Full Moon Concert Series: Storm Moon" Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market, SF; www.luggagestoregallery.org. 8pm, $6-10. With Joshua Churchill and Paul Clipson, and Peter Kolovos.

Hauschka and Dustin O’Halloran with MagiK*MagiK String Quintet Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café du Nord). 7:30pm, $16.

"Music at Large: The Rites of Spring" Velma’s, 2246 Jerrold, SF; (415) 824-4606. 7pm. With Lewis Jordan and more.

Najee Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $20-26.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bautista Cigar Bar and Grill, 850 Montgomery, SF; www.cigarbarandgrill.com. 9pm, $7.

Bluegrass and Old Time Jam Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Christopher Dallman Dolores Park Café. 7:30pm, free.

Eric Maskol Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

Montana Slim, Greensky Bluegrass, Nat Keefe Independent. 8pm, $15.

Tipsy House Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-7. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Apoptygma Berzerk, Anix, Dismantled DNA Lounge. 9pm, $16.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Dirty Dishes LookOut, 3600 16th St., SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $2. With DJs B-Haul and Gordon Gartrell spinning electric-hop, bassy-house, indielectronica, and more.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Good Foot Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. A James Brown tribute with resident DJs Haylow, A-Ron, and Prince Aries spinning R&B, Hip hop, funk, and soul.

Gymnasium Matador, 10 Sixth St, SF; (415) 863-4629. 9pm, free. With DJ Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, hip hop, and disco.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Jorge Terez.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Represent Icon Lounge. 10pm, $5. With Resident DJ Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist and guest.

Swedish Invasion Club Six. 9pm, $10. With live performances by Looptroop Rockers, Timbuktu and Chords, Adam Tensta, and more and DJ Platurn spinning hip hop.

FRIDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Chatmonchy Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight, SF; (415) 831-1200. 6pm, free.

Chatmonchy, Red Bacteria Vacuum, Omodaka, Okamotos, JinnyOops! Independent. 8pm, $15.

Coathangers, Spencey Dude and the Doodles, Aerosols Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Fall of Troy, Envy on the Coast, Twin Atlantic Slim’s. 7:30pm, $16.

Field Music, Old-Fashioned Way, Sands Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

*Hammerfall, Powerglove, Ruffians Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $28-60.

Jeremy Goodfeather Band, Sioux City Kid, Stow Aways, Jeff St. John Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Kite Operations, XYZR_KX, Gold Medalists, Jack Tung Retox Lounge. 10pm, $5.

Life in 24 Frames, Loaded for Bear, Myonics El Rio. 9pm, $5.

Low Anthem, Timbre Timber, Barr Brothers Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $15.

Money Mark, Tommy Guerrero, and Marc and the Casuals Gallery 16, 501 3rd St., SF; (415) 626-7495. 7pm, $20. Part of Soulfood No. 2.

Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

*Midnight Bombers, Get Dead, My Life in Black and White, Rockfight Thee Parkside. 9:30pm, $7.

Think About Life, Heavenly States, Kill Moi Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Najee Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $22-32.

Trombone Trio Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Blind Willies Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Culture Canute Grant and Green Saloon. 9:30pm. With the Rockstone Players and the Realization Crew.

Jeffery Halford and the Healers, Tom Heyman Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Jeremy Goodfeather Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Toshio Hirano Mercury Café, 201 Octavia, SF; (415) 252-7855. 7:30pm, free.

Kathryn Jenson Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Lagos Roots Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; (415) 552-4440. 10pm, $10. With members of Fela Kuti and the Afrika 70, and more.

Paper Raincoat Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez, SF; (415) 454-5238. 8:15pm, $17. With Vienna Teng.

Rob Reich and Craig Ventresco Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Rumbache Cigar Bar and Grill, 850 Montgomery, SF; www.cigarbarandgrill.com. 9pm, $7.

"Sila Presents Sahara" Coda. 9pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

Blow Up Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10. With rotating DJs.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

4OneFunktion Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Hip-hop and turntablism with Apollo and Shortkut.

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Gymnasium Stud. 10pm, $5. With DJs Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, disco, rap, and 90s dance and featuring performers, gymnastics, jump rope, drink specials, and more.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

House of Voodoo Medici Lounge, 299 9th St., SF; (415) 501-9162. With DJs voodoo, Purgatory, and Stiletto spinning goth, industrial, deathrock, and eighties.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

Psychedelic Radio Club Six. 9pm, $7. With DJs Kial, Tom No Thing, Megalodon, and Zapruderpedro spinning dubstep, reggae, and electro.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa "Samoa Boy" spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Suite Jesus 111 Minna. 9pm, $20. Beats, dancehall, reggae and local art.

Teenage Dance Craze Party Knockout. 10pm, $3. With DJs Sergio Iglesias, Russell Quann, and dX the Funky Gran Paw.

Trannyshack DNA Lounge. 10pm, $12. Bowie tribute night with David J, Ejector, and more.

Underground Expression Club Six. 9pm, $10. Live performances by Bicasso, Z-Man, Dregs One, and Sound Earth and DJ BeatsMe spinning hip hop.

SATURDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

"Area Codes: The Bay Area’s Regional Hip-Hop Monthly" Etiquette Lounge, 1108 Market, SF; (415) 863-3929. 10pm, $10. With guest DJs Platurn and Doc Fu.

Big Sam’s Funky Nation Independent. 9pm, $15.

Burmese, Mayyors, Arms and Leg Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Copeland, I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody’s Business, Person L, Deas Vail Slim’s. 8pm, $17.

"Dear Companion Tour" Swedish American Hall. 8pm, $15. With Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore.

Dead Meadow, Imaad Wasif, Upside Down Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $15.

Quinn Deveaux Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

*Fleshies, Classics of Love, Tubers El Rio. 10pm, $8.

Heavy Liquid and friends Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Chrisette Michele, Laura Izibor Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $35.

Moccretro, Feie, Thee Landlords Epicenter Café, 764 Harrison, SF; (415) 543-5436. 7pm, free.

Sacred Profanities, Fiver Brown and the Good Sinners, Jeff Cotton’s Gin Joint Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

Neil Schon Fillmore. 9pm, $35.

Sex With No Hands, Minks, Antioquia Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

"Slumberland Records 20th Anniversary Party" Rickshaw Stop. 5pm, $20. With Boyracer, Go Sailor, Henry’s Dress, the How, Brilliant Colors, and more.

Earl Thomas and the Blues Ambassadors Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Tobacco, Hood Internet, New Slave Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Tumbledown, Famous, Andrew Anderson, Jesse Morris and the Man Cougars Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

*Weedeater, Black Tusk, Gates of Slumber, Struck By Lightning Elbo Room. 9pm, $13.

Wizzard Sleeve, Andy Human, Steeples Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

"Jazz Mafia Presents Remix: Live" Coda. 10pm, $10.

Josh Jones Cigar Bar and Grill, 850 Montgomery, SF; www.cigarbarandgrill.com. 9pm, $7.

Marlina Teich Quintet Savanna Jazz. 8pm.

Najee Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $32.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Big Bad Wolf, Bell Tower Amnesia. 6pm, $5. Part of the Songbird Festival.

Debbie Friedman Congregation Emanu-El, 2 Lake, SF; (510) 451-8874. 8pm, $36.

Toshio Hirano Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

Lagos Roots Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; (415) 552-4440. 10pm, $10. With members of Fela Kuti, the Afrika 70, and more.

Ralph Towner with Paolo Fresu Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30-50.

Whiskey Richards Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Y La Bamba, Sean Flinn and the Royal We Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.

Barracuda 111 Minna. 9pm, $5-10. Eclectic 80s music with Djs Damon, Phillie Ocean, and Javier, plus free 80s hair and make-up by professional stylists.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups with Kleptones, Adrian and Mysterious D, Dada, and more.

Flying Lotus, Kode 9 Mezzanine. 9pm, $16.50.

Go Bang! Deco SF, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025. 9pm, $5. Dress up as your favorite superhero or villain and enjoy some disco beats with DJs Steve Fabus, Nicky B., Sergio and more.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

OG Productions In the Darkroom, Club Six. 9pm, $5. With DJs Capp St. Girls, Evergreen Dub, Angel Island, and more spinning house.

Reggae Gold Club Six. 9pm, $15. With DJs Daddy Rolo, Polo Mo’qz, Tesfa, Serg, and Fuze spinning dancehall and reggae.

Social Club Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm. Shake your money maker with DJs Lee Decker and Luke Fry.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

SUNDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Caspian, Arms and Sleepers, Silian Rail Hotel Utah. 8:30pm, $8.

Paper Chase, Generalissimo, Kiss Kiss Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

*Bone Cootes, San Similar Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

Titus Andronicus, Let’s Wrestle Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

Washed Out, Small Black, Pictureplane, Young Prisms Knockout. 7pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cyril Guirand Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 441-4099. 6pm, free.

Hapa Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5 and 7pm, $5-30.

NY Hard Bop Trio Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; (415) 826-6200. 4:30pm, $10.

"Switchboard Music Festival 2010" Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.switchboardmusic.com. 2-10pm, $10-40. Genre-defying, eight-hour marathon concert.

Tord Gustavsen Quintet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-40.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bodice Rippers, Gilded Rooks Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Krishna Das, Deva Premal and Miten, Manose Warfield. 7:30pm, $40.

Modal Kombat Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Ol’ Cheeky Bastards, Howlin’ Houndog Plough and Stars. 4pm.

"Salsa Sundays" El Rio. 4pm, $5. With Andy y Callao.

"Te Gusto Musical" Coda. 8pm, $10. With John Calloway.

Ten Foot Tall and 80 Proof Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Ludachris, and guest Mexican Dubwiser.

45Club the Funky Side of Soul Knockout. 10pm, free. With Dx the Funky Gran Paw, Dirty Dishes, and English Steve.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. "Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers." Got that?

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Lowbrow Sunday Delirium. 1pm, free. DJ Roost Uno and guests spinning club hip hop, indie, and top 40s.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

MONDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Agent Orange, Gutwrench, Fukm Kimo’s. 9pm, $10.

"Blue Bear School of Music Band Showcase" Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-20.

"Felonious Presents Live City Revue" Coda. 9pm, $7.

Greg Ginn and the Texas Corrugators, Guella, Barney Cauldron Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

Nellie McKay, Howard Fishman Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $21.

Photo Atlas, Rouge, Rival Parties Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Red Light Mind Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 441-4099. 8pm, free.

Tempo No Tempo, World’s Greatest Ghosts Knockout. 9pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJs El Kool Kyle and Santero spinning Latin music.

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with DJs Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest Djs.

Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.

TUESDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

"Blue Bear School of Music Band Showcase" Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-20.

Michael Burks Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $20.

Congress with Valerie Troutt and Mic Blake Elbo Room. 9pm, $8.

Art Elliot, Comeuppance El Rio. 8pm, free.

*Hank III and Assjack, Kyle Turley Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $30.

Moonbell, Sea Bright, Heavy Hills Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Morning Benders, Miniature Tigers, Mumlers Independent. 8pm, $15.

Otep, Bury Your Dead, Through the Eyes of the Dead, Destrophy, Arise DNA Lounge. 7pm, $22.

Pierced Arrows, Lullaby Arkestra, Only Sons Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Story of the Year, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, After Midnight Project, Terrible Things Slim’s. 7:30pm, $17.

Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights Boom Boom Room. 9:45pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

AJ Roach, Evie Ladin, Sweetwater Revolver Amnesia. 9pm, $5.

Dawn Oberg Rite Spot Café, 2099 Folsom, SF; (415) 552-6066. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. "Stump the Wizard" with DJs What’s His Fuck and the Wizard.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

Film listings

David Talbot
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0

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Erik Morse, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. The film intern is Peter Galvin. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide.

OPENING

Chloe See "Moore and Less." (1:36) Elmwood, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

Greenberg Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is 40, and you might think he’s going through a midlife crisis — if he hadn’t been in pretty much this same crisis for 15 years or more. Still very edgy and fragile after a nervous breakdown-sparked institutional stay, he’s holing up at the comfortable Hollywood home of a big-deal brother while the latter and family are on vacation in Vietnam. (The implication being that Roger is most welcome here when no one else actually has to endure his prickly, high maintenance company.) While in residence he reconnects with old friends including the ex-girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) he dumped yet never quite got over — though clearly she did — and the ex-bandmate (Rhys Ifans) he burned by wrecking their one shot at a major-label deal. He also gets involved, kinda-sorta, with big bro’s personal assistant Florence (mumblecore regular Greta Gerwig), whose passivity and low self-esteem make her the rare person who might consider a relationship with someone this impossible. Like all Noah Baumbach films, especially the slightly overrated Squid and the Whale (2005) and vastly underrated Margot at the Wedding (2007), his latest pivots around a pathologically self-absorbed and insensitive protagonist who exasperates anyone unlucky or blind enough to fall into his or her orbit. Working from a story co-conceived by spouse Leigh, Baumbach’s script sports his usual sharp dialogue, penetrating individual scenes, and narrative surprises. But it also gets stuck in dislikable Roger’s rut, finding conflict easily but stubbornly resisting even the smallest useful change. For all its amusing and uncomfortable moments, Greenberg emerges a dual character slice with no real point. Neither Roger or Beth reward long scrutiny (least of all as a hapless potential couple), while the few screen minutes Ifans and Leigh get make you wish their roles had hijacked the focus instead. (1:40) Piedmont, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Hot Tub Time Machine At last, Crispin Glover returns to his time-travel movie roots! (1:55) California.

How to Train Your Dragon Yet another 3D cartoon for the kiddies. At least this one is about Vikings. (1:38)

*The Sun It may have taken five years for Alexander Sokurov’s The Sun (2005) to reach local theaters, but then the Russian master’s contemplation of Emperor Hirohito’s last days as Godhead is decidedly out of time. Painterly and slow like all Sokurov’s work, the film specifically follows his estranged reconstructions of Hitler’s retreat with Eva Braun (1999’s Moloch) and Lenin’s demise (2000’s Taurus). In August 1945, Hirohito broke with tradition by making a direct appeal to the Japanese people to end military operations; soon thereafter he renounced his divine rights. The Sun‘s elliptical narration intuits the emperor’s paled existence, and Issey Ogata’s lead performance, centering on a fish-out-of-water puckering of the lips, amply conveys the shuttered hours of a man who, in experience if not in fact, is not quite human. The muted use of available light and a disquieting sound design (faraway air-raid sirens yield to the barest brush of a finger) eschew historiography’s harsh glare, instead returning primal scenes of power to a dreamlike state of unknowing. Sokurov’s most hallucinatory effects are reserved for ashen views of firebombed Tokyo which float free from perspective or clear boundary; a brief fantasy in which fish-like warplanes spew apocalyptic destruction suggests the emperor’s childlike imagination and set the stage for his historical date with General MacArthur, realized by Sokurov less as a diplomatic breakthrough than a leaden twilight. (1:50) Shattuck. (Goldberg)

Waking Sleeping Beauty Hollywood history is full of epic rivalries, juicy scandals, multi-million-dollar mistakes, and triumphant comebacks. Sometimes, all of the above and more can be contained within a single studio, or even a single studio division, or even a single studio division during a finite number of years, as illustrated by this insidery peek at Disney’s animation division. The doc gives a bit of background, but focuses its attentions on 1984-1994, a ten-year span that saw the floundering department struggle through post-Walt, identity-crisis blues before blossoming into a rejuvenated powerhouse. Waking Sleeping Beauty director Don Hahn was a producer on the Oscar-nominated Beauty and the Beast (1991), so he’s uniquely positioned to tell the story as it unfolded, using home movies and countless interviews. High points include a glimpse of late composer Howard Ashman introducing his demo for the iconic Little Mermaid (1989) tune "Under the Sea" (it was Ashman’s idea to give the crab character a Jamaican accent), and plenty of dish on the legendary Jeffrey Katzenberg-Michael Eisner feud. (1:26) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

ONGOING

Ajami You may recognize the title of Yaron Shoni and Scandar Copti’s debut collaboration as one of five films nominated for a 2010 Academy Award in the Foreign Category. Though it didn’t bring home the grand prize, Ajami remains a complex and affecting story about desperation and its consequences in a religiously-mixed town in Israel. As we follow the lives of four of Ajami’s residents the narrative shifts perspective almost maddeningly, switching characters seemingly at the height of each story’s action. But once all of the stories fully intersect, the final product has the distinction of feeling both meticulously calculated and completely natural. I was most impressed to learn that Shani and Copti prepared their actors with improvised role-playing rather than scripts. By withholding what was going to happen in a scene before shooting, we are treated to looks of surprise and emotion on actor’s faces that never feel unnatural. Attaining such a level of realism may be Ajami‘s crowning achievement; it can’t have been easy to make a foreign world feel so familiar. (2:00) Shattuck. (Galvin)

Alice in Wonderland Tim Burton’s take on the classic children’s tale met my mediocre expectations exactly, given its months of pre-release hype (in the film world, fashion magazines, and even Sephora, for the love of brightly-colored eyeshadows). Most folks over a certain age will already know the story, and much of the dialogue, before the lights go down and the 3-D glasses go on; it’s up to Burton and his all-star cast (including numerous big-name actors providing voices for animated characters) to make the tale seem newly enthralling. The visuals are nearly as striking as the CG, with Helena Bonham Carter’s big-headed Red Queen a particularly marvelous human-computer creation. But Wonderland suffers from the style-over-substance dilemma that’s plagued Burton before; all that spooky-pretty whimsy can’t disguise the film’s fairly tepid script. Teenage Alice (Mia Wasikowska) displaying girl-power tendencies is a nice, if not surprising, touch, but Johnny Depp’s grating take on the Mad Hatter will please only those who were able to stomach his interpretation of Willy Wonka. (1:48) Castro, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*The Art of the Steal How do you put a price on something that’s literally priceless? The Art of the Steal takes an absorbing look at the Barnes Collection, a privately-amassed array of Post-Impressionist paintings (including 181 Renoirs) worth billions — and the many people and corporate interests who schemed to control it. Founder Albert C. Barnes was an singular character who took pride in his outsider status; he housed his art in a specially-constructed gallery far from downtown Philadelphia’s museum scene, and he emphasized education and art appreciation first and foremost. But he had no heirs, and after his death in 1951, opportunists began circling his massive collection; the slippery political and legal dealings that have unfolded since then are nearly as jaw-dropping as Barnes’ prize paintings. Philly documentarian Don Argott has a doozy of a subject here, and his skillful, even suspenseful film does it justice. (1:41) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

The Blind Side When the New York Times Magazine published Michael Lewis’ article "The Ballad of Big Mike" — which he expanded into the 2006 book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game — nobody could have predicated the cultural windfall it would spawn. Lewis told the incredible story of Michael Oher — a 6’4, 350-pound 16-year-old, who grew up functionally parentless, splitting time between friends’ couches and the streets of one of Memphis’ poorest neighborhoods. As a sophomore with a 0.4 GPA, Oher serendipitously hitched a ride with a friend’s father to a ritzy private school across town and embarked on an unbelievable journey that led him into a upper-class, white family; the Dean’s List at Ole Miss; and, finally, the NFL. The film itself effectively focuses on Oher’s indomitable spirit and big heart, and the fearless devotion of Leigh Anne Tuohy, the matriarch of the family who adopted him (masterfully played by Sandra Bullock). While the movie will delight and touch moviegoers, its greatest success is that it will likely spur its viewers on to read Lewis’ brilliant book. (2:06) Oaks. (Daniel Alvarez)

Brooklyn’s Finest "Really? I mean, really?" asked the moviegoer beside me as the final freeze-frame of Brooklyn’s Finest slapped our eyeballs. Yes, that’s the sound of letdown, despite the fact that Brooklyn’s Finest initially resembled a promisingly gritty juggling act in the mode of The Wire and Cop Land (1997), Taxi Driver (1976) and Training Day (2001). Bitter irony flows from the title — and from the lives, loves, bad habits, pressure-cooker stress, and unavoidable moral dilemmas of three would-be everyday cops, all occupying several different rungs on a food chain where right and wrong have an unpleasant way of switching sides. Eddie (Richard Gere) is the veteran officer just biding his time till he gets his pension, all while comforting himself with the meager sensuous attentions of hooker Chantel (Shannon Kane). Sal (Ethan Hawke) is the bad detective, stealing from the dealers to fund a dream home for his growing family with Angela (Lili Taylor). Tango (Don Cheadle) is the undercover detective who has cultivated friendships with dealers like Caz (Wesley Snipes) and sacrificed his marriage for a long-promised promotion from his lieutenant (Will Patton) and his superior (Ellen Barkin, in likely the most misogynist portrayal of a lady with a badge to date). You spend most of Brooklyn’s Finest waiting for these cops to collide in the most unfortunate, messiest way possible, but instead the denouement leaves will leave one wondering about unresolved threads and feeling vaguely unsatisfied. In any case, director Antoine Fuqua and company seem to pride themselves on their tough-minded if at times cartoonish take on law enforcement, with Hawke in particular turning in a memorably OTT and anguished performance. (2:13) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

The Bounty Hunter There’s a real feeling of impotence in reviewing a movie whose ad was pasted on the side of the bus you took to the screening. This thing is determined to be seen, and that’s a true shame. Those who heed the call of the ubiquitous marketing campaign will have to sit through a dull parade of contrivances concerning a bounty hunter (Gerard Butler) whose latest catch is his court-skipping ex-wife (Jennifer Aniston). She’s a hotshot city journalist who’s forced to continue her investigation of a police cover-up while handcuffed to a car door and bickering with her old flame. The trajectory of the plot is obvious enough, but there’s so little chemistry between the two actors that the inevitable reconciliation practically constitutes a twist ending. Aniston saw fit not to whine her way through this role, which is something, but nothing nearly as complimentary can be said about Butler. He emotes in lurches, with the presence of a guy who’s not sure acting is the right direction for his life but still really wants to give it a go. If "This. Is. Sparta!" weren’t burned into my brain I would swear the man had never been in front of a camera before. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Jason Shamai)

The Crazies Disease and anti-government paranoia dovetail in this competent yet overwhelmingly non-essential remake of one of George A. Romero’s second-tier spook shows. In a small Iowa hamlet overseen by a benevolent sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) and his pregnant wife (Radha Mitchell), who’s also the town doctor, a few odd incidents snowball into all-out chaos when a mysterious, unmarked plane crashes into the local water supply. Before long, the few residents who aren’t acting like homicidal maniacs are rounded up by an uber-aggressive military invasion. Though our heroes convey frantic panic as they try to figure out what the hell is going on, The Crazies never achieves full terror mode. It’s certainly watchable, and even enjoyable at times. But memorable? Not in the slightest. (1:41) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Crazy Heart "Oh, I love Jeff Bridges!" is the usual response when his name comes up every few years for Best Actor consideration, usually via some underdog movie no one saw, and the realization occurs that he’s never won an Oscar. The oversight is painful because it could be argued that no leading American actor has been more versatile, consistently good, and true to that elusive concept "artistic integrity" than Bridges over the last 40 years. It’s rumored Crazy Heart was slotted for cable or DVD premiere, then thrust into late-year theater release in hopes of attracting Best Actor momentum within a crowded field. Lucky for us, this performance shouldn’t be overlooked. Bridges plays "Bad" Blake, a veteran country star reduced to playing bars with local pickup bands. His slide from grace hasn’t been helped by lingering tastes for smoke and drink, let alone five defunct marriages. He meets Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), freelance journalist, fan, and single mother. They spark; though burnt by prior relationships, she’s reluctant to take seriously a famous drunk twice her age. Can Bad handle even this much responsibility? Meanwhile, he gets his "comeback" break in the semi-humiliating form of opening for Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) — a contemporary country superstar who was once Bad’s backup boy. Tommy offers a belated shot at commercial redemption; Jean offers redemption of the strictly personal kind. There’s nothing too surprising about the ways in which Crazy Heart both follows and finesses formula. You’ve seen this preordained road from wreckage to redemption before. But actor turned first-time director Scott Cooper’s screenplay honors the flies in the windshield inherited from Thomas Cobb’s novel — as does Bridges, needless to say. (1:51) Piedmont, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Spoiler alert: nothing happens in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. That was OK when it was just a book—author Jeff Kinney’s illustrated novel works due in large part to his whimsical drawings and tongue-in-cheek humor. It’s a kids’ book, but it’s fun for adults, too. The same can’t be said for the film adaptation: Diary of a Wimpy Kid sticks close to its source material without the creativity necessary to make it work on the big screen. As in the book, Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) navigates the treacherous terrain of middle school, struggling to cope with an awkward best friend, a brutal older brother, and parents who just don’t understand. All the actors turn in solid performances — Gordon is a particularly good find. But there’s so little here to work with. The best that can be said about Diary of a Wimpy Kid is that it’s cute and mostly harmless: a pleasant diversion for young’uns, and a tolerable bore for the parents they drag along. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

*An Education The pursuit of knowledge — both carnal and cultural — are at the tender core of this end-of-innocence valentine by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig (who first made her well-tempered voice heard with her 2000 Dogme entry, Italian for Beginners), based on journalist Lynn Barber’s memoir. Screenwriter Nick Hornby breaks further with his Peter Pan protagonists with this adaptation: no man-boy mopers or misfits here. Rather, 16-year-old schoolgirl Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a good girl and ace student. It’s 1961, and England is only starting to stir from its somber, all-too-sober post-war slumber. The carefully cloistered Jenny is on track for Oxford, though swinging London and its high-style freedoms beckon just around the corner. Ushering in those freedoms — a new, more class-free world disorder — is the charming David (Peter Sarsgaard), stopping to give Jenny and her cello a ride in the rain and soon proffering concerts and late-night suppers in the city. He’s a sweet-faced, feline outsider: cultured, Jewish, and given to playing fast and loose in the margins of society. David can see Jenny for the gem she is and appreciate her innocence with the knowing pleasure of a decadent playing all the angles. The stakes are believably high, thanks to An Education‘s careful attention to time and place and its gently glamored performances. Scherfig revels in the smart, easy-on-eye curb appeal of David and his friends while giving a nod to the college-educated empowerment Jenny risks by skipping class to jet to Paris. And Mulligan lends it all credence by letting all those seduced, abandoned, conflicted, rebellious feelings flicker unbridled across her face. (1:35) Oaks, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*The Ghost Writer Roman Polanski’s never-ending legal woes have inspired endless debates on the interwebs and elsewhere; they also can’t help but add subtext to the 76-year-old’s new film, which is chock full o’ anti-American vibes anyway. It’s also a pretty nifty political thriller about a disgraced former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) who’s hanging out in his Martha’s Vineyard mansion with his whip-smart, bitter wife (Olivia Williams) and Joan Holloway-as-ice-queen assistant (Kim Cattrall), plus an eager young biographer (Ewan McGregor) recently hired to ghost-write his memoirs. But as the writer quickly discovers, the politician’s past contains the kinds of secrets that cause strange cars with tinted windows to appear in one’s rearview mirror when driving along deserted country roads. Polanski’s long been an expert when it comes to escalating tension onscreen; he’s also so good at adding offbeat moments that only seem tossed-off (as when the PM’s groundskeeper attempts to rake leaves amid relentless sea breezes) and making the utmost of his top-notch actors (Tom Wilkinson and Eli Wallach have small, memorable roles). Though I found The Ghost Writer‘s ZOMG! third-act revelation to be a bit corny, I still didn’t think it detracted from the finely crafted film that led up to it. (1:49) California, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo By the time the first of Stieg Larsson’s so-called "Millennium" books had been published anywhere, the series already had an unhappy ending: he died (in 2004). The following year, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo became a Swedish, then eventually international sensation, its sequels following suit. The books are addicting, to say the least; despite their essential crime-mystery-thriller nature, they don’t require putting your ear for writing of some literary value on sleep mode. Now the first of three adaptive features shot back-to-back has reached U.S. screens. (Sorry to say, yes, a Hollywood remake is already in the works — but let’s hope that’s years away.) Even at two-and-a-half hours, this Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by necessity must do some major truncating to pack in the essentials of a very long, very plotty novel. Still, all but the nitpickingest fans will be fairly satisfied, while virgins will have the benefit of not knowing what’s going to happen and getting scared accordingly. Soon facing jail after losing a libel suit brought against him by a shady corporate tycoon, leftie journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) gets a curious private offer to probe the disappearance 40 years earlier of a teenage girl. This entangles him with an eccentric wealthy family and their many closet skeletons (including Nazi sympathies) — as well as dragon-tattooed Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), androgynous loner, 24-year-old court ward, investigative researcher, and skillful hacker. Director Niels Arden Oplev and his scenarists do a workmanlike job — one more organizational than interpretive, a faithful transcription without much style or personality all its own. Nonetheless, Larsson’s narrative engine kicks in early and hauls you right along to the depot. (2:32) Albany. (Harvey)

Green Zone Titled for the heavily-guarded headquarters of international occupation in Baghdad, Green Zone reunites director Paul "Shaky-Cam" Greengrass with star Matt Damon, the two having previously collaborated on the last two Bourne films. Instead of a super-soldier, this time around Damon just plays a supremely insubordinate one as he attempts to uncover the reason why his military unit can’t find any of Saddam’s WMDs. With the aid of the CIA, a Wall Street Journal reporter and a friendly Iraqi, Damon goes rogue in order to suss out the source of the misinformation. The Iraq War action is decent if scarce, but an overindulgence in (you guessed it) shaky-cam and political jargon cannot hide the fact that Green Zone‘s plot is simplistic and probably light on actual facts. Damon makes a fine cowboy-cum-hero, but the effectiveness of the mix of patriotism and Pentagon paranoia will vary based on your penchant for such things. Still, Green Zone moves fast enough that it remains worth a matinee for conspiracy thriller aficionados. (1:55) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Galvin)

The Hurt Locker When the leader of a close-knit U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad is killed in action, his subordinates have barely recovered from the shock when they’re introduced to his replacement. In contrast to his predecessor, Sgt. James (Jeremy Renner) is no standard-procedure-following team player, but a cocky adrenaline junkie who puts himself and others at risk making gonzo gut-instinct decisions in the face of live bombs and insurgent gunfire. This is particularly galling to next-in-command Sanborn (Anthony Mackie). An apolitical war-in-Iraq movie that’s won considerable praise for accuracy so far from vets (scenarist Mark Boal was "embedded" with an EOD unit there for several 2004 weeks), Kathryn Bigelow’s film is arguably you-are-there purist to a fault. While we eventually get to know in the principals, The Hurt Locker is so dominated by its seven lengthy squad-mission setpieces that there’s almost no time or attention left for building character development or a narrative arc. The result is often viscerally intense, yet less impactful than it would have been if we were more emotionally invested. Assured as her technique remains, don’t expect familiar stylistic dazzle from action cult figure Bigelow (1987’s Near Dark, 1989’s Blue Steel, 1991’s Point Break) — this vidcam-era war movie very much hews to the favored current genre approach of pseudo-documentary grainy handheld shaky-cam imagery. (2:11) Shattuck. (Harvey)

*The Last Station Most of the buzz around The Last Station has focused on Helen Mirren, who takes the lead as the Countess Sofya, wife of Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer). Mirren is indeed impressive — when is she not? — but there’s more to the film than Sofya’s Oscar-worthy outbursts. The Last Station follows Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), hired as Tolstoy’s personal secretary at the end of the writer’s life. Valentin struggles to reconcile his faith in the anarchist Christian Tolstoyan movement with his sympathy for Sofya and his budding feelings for fellow Tolstoyan Masha (Kerry Condon). For the first hour, The Last Station is charming and very funny. Once Tolstoy and Sofya’s relationship reaches its most volatile, however, the tone shifts toward the serious — a trend that continues as Tolstoy falls ill. After all the lighthearted levity, it’s a bit jarring, but the solid script and accomplished cast pull The Last Station together. Paul Giamatti is especially good as Vladimir Chertkov, who battles against Sofya for control of Tolstoy’s will. You’ll never feel guiltier for putting off War and Peace. (1:52) Albany. (Peitzman)

*The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers For many, Daniel Ellsberg is a hero — a savior of American First Amendment rights and one of the most outspoken opponents of the Vietnam war. But as this documentary (recently nominated for an Academy Award) shows, it’s never an an easy decision to take on the U.S. government. Ellsberg himself narrates the film and details his sleepless nights leading up to the leak of the Pentagon Papers — the top secret government study on the Vietnam war — to the public. Though there are few new developments in understanding the particulars of the war or the impact the release of the Papers had on ending the conflict, the film allows audiences to experience the famous case from Ellsberg’s point of view, adding a fresh and poignantly human element to the events; it’s a political documentary that plays more like a character drama. Whether you were there when it happened or new to the story, there is something to be appreciated from this tale of a man who fell out of love with his country and decided to do something about it. (1:34) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Galvin)

*Mother You can guarantee that a movie titled Mother is not gonna be a love fest, ever. And through the lens of The Host (2006) director-writer Bong Joon-ho, motherly love becomes downright monstrous — though altogether human. Much credit goes to the wonderful lead actress Kim Hye-ja as the titular materfamilias, who’s frantically self-sacrificing, insanely tenacious, quaintly charming, wolfishly fearsome, and wildly guilt-ridden, by turns. On the surface, she’s a sweetly innocuous herbalist and closet acupuncturist — happily, and a wee bit too tightly, tethered to her beloved son Yoon Do-joon (Won Bin). He’s a slow-witted, forgetful, and easily confused mop-top who flies into deadly rages when taunted or called a "’tard." When Do-joon is quickly arrested and charged with the murder of schoolgirl Moon Ah-jung (Mun-hee Na), Mom snaps into action with a panic-stricken, primal ferocity and goes in search of the killer to free her boy. But there’s more to Do-joon, his studly pal Jin-tae (Ku Jin), and Moon Ah-jung than meets the eye, and Mother discovers just how much she’s defined, and twisted, herself in relation to her son. Bong gives this potentially flat and cliched noirish material genuine lyricism, embedding his anti-heroine in a rural South Korean landscape like a penitent wandering in an existential desert, gently echoing filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman and Abbas Kiarostami and beautifully transcending genre. (2:09) Shattuck. (Chun)

Our Family Wedding America Ferrera and Lance Gross play a couple of lovebirds who must jump through some serious family hoops before they get married in the mostly serviceable Our Family Wedding. What begins as a dual Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, with the differences in each family’s traditions forcing complications and compromises, soon loses sight of its matrimonial plot as the focus steers towards a childish rivalry between the fathers. While it’s being marketed as a goofy comedy, the final product seeks a relatively sentimental tone, which makes the few slapstick moments — like a goat trying to rape Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker — seem pretty inappropriate. Still, for some audiences the well-tread plot will act as comfort food: they fight, they make up, and it all ends in a big wedding where we watch the characters dance for damn near ten minutes. (1:41) 1000 Van Ness. (Galvin)

*A Prophet Filmmaker Jacques Audiard has described his new film, A Prophet, as "the anti-Scarface." Yet much like Scarface (1983), A Prophet bottles the heady euphoria that chases the empowerment of the powerless and the rise of the long-shot loner on the margins. In its almost-Dickensian attention to detail, devotion to its own narrative complexity, and passion for cinematic poetry, A Prophet rises above the ordinary and, through the prism of genre, finds its own power. The supremely opportunistic, pragmatically Machiavellian intellectual and spiritual education of a felon is the chief concern of here. Played by Tahar Rahim with guileless, open-faced charisma, Malik is half-Arab and half-Corsican — and distrusted or despised by both camps in the pen. When he lands in jail for his six-year sentence, he’s 19, illiterate, friendless, and vulnerable. His deal with the devil — and means of survival — arrives with Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi), temporarily locked up before his testifies against the mob. Corsican boss Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup) wants him dead, and Malik is tagged to penetrate Reyeb’s cell with a blade hidden in mouth. After Malik’s gory rebirth, it turns out that the teenager’s a seer in more ways than one. From his low-dog position, he can eyeball the connections linking the drugs entering the prison to those circulating outside, as well as the machinations intertwining the Arab and Corsican syndicates. It’s no shock that when Cesar finds his power eroding and arranges prison leaves for his multilingual crossover star that Malik serves not only his Corsican master, but also his own interests, and begins to build a drug empire rivaling his teacher’s. Throughout his pupil’s progress, Audiard demonstrates a way with Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment, and when Malik finally breaks with his Falstaffian patriarch, it makes your heart skip a beat in a move akin to the title of the director’s last film. This Eurozone/Obama-age prophet is all about the profit — but he’s imbued with grace, even while gaming for ill-gotten gain. (2:29) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Remember Me Ominously set in New York City during the summer of 2001, Remember Me, starring Robert Pattinson (of the Twilight series) and Emilie de Ravin (of TV’s Lost), pretty much answers the question of whether it’s still too soon to make the events of September 11 the subject of a date movie. Or rather, not the subject so much as the specter waiting just off-camera for its walk-on while brooding 21-year-old Tyler Hawkins (Pattinson) quotes Gandhi, gets into brawls, gets drunk, writes letters to his dead brother, and otherwise channels despondency and rage into various salubrious outlets. One of these is romancing (under circumstances severely testing the viewer’s credulity) de Ravin’s Ally Craig, grappling somewhat more constructively with her own familial tragedy. Ally is the sort of self-possessed, strong-willed young woman whose instincts, shortly after she’s been backhanded by her drunk father (Chris Cooper), tell her to placate and have sex with her drunk boyfriend when he comes home enraged after battling his own father (Pierce Brosnan). She is there to teach Tyler, through quirky habits like eating dessert first, what director Allen Coulter (2006’s Hollywoodland) wishes to teach us: that time is short and one must fill one’s life with meaningful actions — like throwing a fire extinguisher through a window to convince a classroom of tweens to stop bullying one’s little sister. The film is seeded with allusions to an impending catastrophe that feels less integrated than exploited. And it’s uncomfortable seeing the fall of the towers used to make the ground shake under a sweet, fairly depthless depiction of love and grief. (2:08) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Repo Men If you are considering going to see Repo Men you’ll need to go ahead and turn off your brain first — the guy who wrote it sure did. The script is jam-packed with contrivances and tonal inconsistencies, which is a shame because the plot had potential. In a near future when mechanical replacement organs are a reality, Jude Law plays Remy, an ex-soldier hired by the Union to find recipients that cannot afford their bills and repossess their artificial organs to return to the manufacturer. After a freak accident, Remy needs a replacement organ himself and when he can’t pay, the Union sends his childhood friend and ex-partner Jake (Forest Whitaker) to retrieve it. Repo Men is at its best when it embraces its cartoonishness, when the film is so stupid that it transcends the hodge-podge story and glows with goofy grotesque action. If you can, stick around ’til the climax that includes an Old Boy (2003) homage (rip-off) and one of the more laugh-out-loud ridiculous endings I’ve seen in a long time. But high-art, this ain’t. (1:53) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Galvin)

The Runaways In Floria Sigismondi’s tale of the rise and fall of a 1970s all-girl band, LA producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) proclaims that the Runaways are going to save rock and roll. It’s hard to gauge the sincerity of this pronouncement, but you can certainly hear, in songs like "Cherry Bomb" and "Queens of Noise," how the band must have brightened a landscape overrun by kings of prog rock. Unfortunately, a handful of teenagers micromanaged by a sleazy, abusive nutcase proved not quite up to the task, though the band did launch the careers of metal guitarist Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) and, more famously, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart). Sigismondi’s film entertainingly sketches the Runaways’ beginnings in glam rock fandom and gradual attainment of their own rabid fan base. We get Currie lip-synching Bowie to catcalls at the high school assembly, Jett composing "Cherry Bomb" with Fowley, glamtastic hair-and-wardrobe eye candy, pills-and-Stooges-fueled intra-band fooling around, and five teenage girls sent off sans chaperone on an international tour with substantial quantities of hard drugs in their carry-on luggage. What follows is less pretty: a capsule version of the band’s disintegration after the departure of bottoming-out 16-year-old lead singer Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning). In a film darkened by Currie’s trajectory, Jett’s subsequent success is a feel-good coda, but it’s awkwardly attached and emblematizes one of The Runaways‘ main problems. When the band begins to fall apart, the film doesn’t know which way to turn and ends up telling no one’s story well. (1:42) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Rapoport)

She’s Out of My League From the co-writers of the abysmal Sex Drive (2008), She’s Out of My League could be another 90-minute assemblage of gross-out humor, dick jokes, and unabashed homophobia. As it turns out, the latest offering from Sean Anders and John Morris is legitimately funny — far better than the trailer (and that half-assed title) would have you believe. The adorkable Jay Baruchel stars as Kirk, a hapless loser who finds himself dating bonafide hottie Molly (Alice Eve). Once you get past the film’s silly conceit — Kirk’s only "movie ugly," and personality goes a long way — you’re left with a surprisingly charming comedy. The characters are amusing and the wit is sharp. Not to mention the fact that She’s Out of My League offers a downright heartfelt message. There’s a sincerity here that feels genuine instead of just tacked-on: yeah, yeah, it’s about what’s inside that counts, but there’s more to it than that. Ignore the dreadful "jizz in my pants" scene, and the movie’s almost an old-fashioned romcom. (1:44) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Peitzman)

Shutter Island Director Martin Scorsese and muse du jour Leonardo DiCaprio draw from oft-filmed novelist Dennis Lehane (2003’s Mystic River, 2007’s Gone Baby Gone) for this B-movie thriller that, sadly, offers few thrills. DiCaprio’s a 1950s U.S. marshal summoned to a misty island that houses a hospital for the criminally insane, overseen by a doctor (Ben Kingsley) who believes in humane, if experimental, therapy techniques. From the get-go we suspect something’s not right with the G-man’s own mind; as he investigates the case of a missing patient, he experiences frequent flashbacks to his World War II service (during which he helped liberate a concentration camp), and has recurring visions of his spooky dead wife (Michelle Williams). Whether or not you fall for Shutter Island‘s twisty game depends on the gullibility of your own mind. Despite high-quality performances and an effective, if overwrought, tone of certain doom, Shutter Island stumbles into a third act that exposes its inherently flawed and frustrating storytelling structure. If only David Lynch had directed Shutter Island — it could’ve been a classic of mindfuckery run amok. Instead, Scorsese’s psychological drama is sapped of any mystery whatsoever by its stubbornly literal conclusion. (2:18) California, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Appetite: The shots heard (and tasted) ’round the world

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: The shots heard (and tasted) ’round the world

It’s fast approaching: the 11th Annual Whiskies of the World — happening on Sat/27 — is a must for all whisk(e)y lovers. Four full hours in the Hotel Nikko (dress respectably: no T-shirts or shorts, in keeping with the level of fine imbibements) are dedicated to sampling as much fine whisky or whiskey, scotch, and bourbon as you can. Check out the vendor list and strategize ahead of time or you might find yourself adrift in this whiskey wonderland.

It will be my first time at WOW, as it’s called, though the similar Whiskyfest is one of my favorite events all year. There are seminars on the brown stuff, small batch distillers (like Oregon’s excellent Bend Distillery) offering a break from and contrast to all that whisk(e)y with everything from grappa to eau di vie, plenty of buffet-style food to soak it up, chocolate and fudge pairings, mixologist booths if you want it in a cocktail, and live music from Bushmills Pipe and Drum Band, with raucous Irish bagpipes.

Line-up early for your seminar/s of choice, happening in three different rooms simultaneously, you might choose to engage in The Great Whisk(e)y Debate on the merits of bourbon vs. scotch vs. Canadian, or sit in with the wonderful Steve Beal, who’ll walk you through Classic Malts of Scotland (loved his class at Whiskyfest and he says this is essentially the same class). Moonshine Renaissance is a timely topic from the perspective of Joe Michalek, founder of Piedmont Distillers in NC, and the Craft Panel Discussion is fine lineup of four distillers, like Brian Ellison of Death’s Door to the great Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing, discussing craft distilling across the country.

There are parties (Occidental Cigar Bar and Bourbon & Branch) and dinners (Nihon Lounge) the two nights before, though note some are for WOW’s Dram Club members only, which anyone can sign up for. Sip, discover and enjoy, adhering to the old Irish proverb: “What whiskey will not cure, there is no cure for.”

Sat/27
VIP: 5:15pm, $120
General: 6-10pm, $110
Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF
(408) 225-0446
www.hotelnikkosf.com
www.whiskiesoftheworld.com

Uproot: Feminism and the food movement

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Uproot: Feminism and the food movement

By Robyn Johnson

Peggy Orenstein’s essay “The Femivore’s Dilemma” has caused a bit of a dither, but then gender issues never make for easy conversation. Some light mocking has arisen over Orenstein’s coinage of the term femivore, which, as has been pointed out in innumerous blog comments, means one who eats women. But yes, I think we can agree it’s intended as a portmanteau of feminist and locavore. And it’s the relationship that she draws between these two movements as a way to redefine homemaking that has many people talking.


Orenstein writes:

“Femivorism is grounded in the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove women into the work force in the first place. Given how conscious (not to say obsessive) everyone has become about the source of their food — who these days can’t wax poetic about compost? — it also confers instant legitimacy. Rather than embodying the limits of one movement, femivores expand those of another: feeding their families clean, flavorful food; reducing their carbon footprints; producing sustainably instead of consuming rampantly. What could be more vital, more gratifying, more morally defensible?”

And this had been troubling for both feminists and food movementists. Do homemakers need to be legitimized by raising their own chickens instead of shopping at Safeway? Do these gender roles even matter anymore for third-wave feminism? Is this just useless “hand-wringing” over what is really a non-issue in terms of food politics?

I, myself, am a little uncomfortable at drawing a more feminist-than-thou distinction between the urban homesteader and the regular Walmart-patronizing stay-at-home mom. But I understand the anxieties that Orenstein discusses, and I would lying if I said that never experience doubt time to time when I do traditionally sanctioned “women’s work.” The legacy of the previous waves runs deep for a lot of us.

I also agree that this conversation needs to happen as more and more dialogue, like this NYT piece by Michael Pollan, addresses the problems of processed food by imploring both sexes to return to the kitchen, a place, still very symbolically loaded for many women, that will need redefinition.

What do you think?

Film listings

David Talbot
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Erik Morse, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. The film intern is Peter Galvin. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide.

SF INTERNATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL

The 28th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival runs through Sun/21 at the Sundance Kabuki, 1881 Post, SF; Viz Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; Clay, 2261 Fillmore, SF; Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk; and Camera 12 Cinemas, 201 South Second St, San Jose. Tickets (most shows $12) available at www.asianamericanmedia.org. All times pm.

WED/17

PFA Agrarian Utopia 7. Mundane History 9:20.

Sundance Kabuki "Classic Filipino American Shorts" (shorts program) 4:15. God is D_ad 4:30. "FutureStates" (shorts program) 6:45. Wo Ai Ni Mommy 7. You Have Been Weighed and Found Wanting 9:15. Aoki 9:30.

Viz "Memory Vessels and Phantom Traces" (shorts program) 4:45. Ninoy Aquin and the Rise of People Power 7. Dear Doctor 9:15.

THURS/18

PFA Hana, Dul, Sed… 7. Bayan Ko: My Own Country 9.

Sundance Kabuki Mundane History 5. "Wandering, Wondering" (shorts program) 5. "Blueprints for a Generation" (shorts program) 5. Au Revoir Taipei 7. "FutureStates" (shorts program) 7:15.

Viz "Sweet Dreams and Beautiful Nightmare" (shorts program) 5. Tehran Without Borders 7:30.

FRI/19

Camera Au Revoir Taipei 7.

PFA What We Talk About When We… 7. The Forbidden Door 9:10.

SAT/20

Camera Dear Doctor noon. "3rd I South Asian International Shorts" (shorts program) 2:45. Aoki 3. The People I’ve Slept With 4:45. A Village Called Versailles 5:30. Make Yourself at Home 7:15. Like You Know it All 7:45. Prince of Tears 9:15.

PFA Manila in the Claws of Neon 6. About Elly 8:30.

SUN/21

Camera "Wandering, Wondering" (shorts program) noon. Talentime 2. State of Aloha 2:15. Cooking With Stella 4:30. Fog 4:45. In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee 6:45. The Forbidden Door 7. The Message 9.

OPENING

The Bounty Hunter Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston play a formerly married couple who … zzzzz. Huh? Oh, whatever. (1:50)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid The agonies of middle school come to life in this kid-friendly comedy. (2:00)

The Girl on the Train André Téchiné’s beautifully photographed, ripped-from-the-headlines film explores the events that led a young Parisian girl to lie about being the victim of an anti-semitic attack. Téchiné’s dramatization fails as an account of the incident, but the film manages to evoke a powerfully mysterious tone due largely to two stellar performances, by Émilie Dequenne as the 20-something Jeanne and Catherine Deneuve as her persistent mother. Much of the running time follows Jeanne’s experiences before the fabrication, as she falls for (and moves in with) a young wrestler named Franck, before a tragic event causes Jeanne to invent the famous lie. An arty exploration into the psychology of victimization that happens to be anchored by a real-life event, The Girl on the Train may disappoint those looking for easy answers but is undeniable as a showcase for some outstanding acting. (1:42) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Galvin)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo See "Life After Death." (2:32) Albany, Embarcadero.

Mother Bong Joon-ho’s latest is a crime drama about a mentally challenged murder suspect and his formidable mother. See review at www.sfbg.com. (2:09) Clay, Shattuck.

*Neil Young Trunk Show As loose as Jonathan Demme’s prior Neil doc Heart of Gold (2006) was tidy, with a taste for rave-ups where that film emphasized the mellower country-rock side, this neck-deep wade into Young’s four-decade-plus songbook is pretty dang nirvanic. Shot at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, PA —exactly the kind of funky old midsized venue you’d want to see him at — it’s assembled via camera and editorial choices as seemingly random yet astute as Young’s grab bag of tunes. The latter range from historic hits ("Cinnamon Girl," "Harvest," "Cowgirl in the Sand") to more recent compositions ("The Believer," "No Hidden Path") and some real obscurities from the bottom of that trunk, including a few acoustic heartbreakers. Even shown out of concert order — there’s never any sense just where we are in the audience’s evening — they meld seamlessly, the epic half-hour oceanics of "Path" just as well as something small and plaintive like "Sad Movies." Never in better voice (qualify that as you will) at age 65, surrounded by an assured band of five plus scattered oddball props and one live canvas painter, Young is the eye of this particular hurricane — even if "Like a Hurricane" is the one performance that feels a tad uninspired. If you’re a fan, this will be pretty close to sheer ecstasy. If not … well, frankly, I have absolutely no idea whether
you’ll be converted, mildly entertained, or bored to death. (1:22) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Repo Men Nope, not a sequel to the 1984 cult classic. Jude Law and Forest Whitaker will, however, relieve you of your futuristic mechanical organs if you can’t pay for them post-transplant. (1:53) Shattuck.

The Runaways In Floria Sigismondi’s tale of the rise and fall of a 1970s all-girl band, LA producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) proclaims that the Runaways are going to save rock and roll. It’s hard to gauge the sincerity of this pronouncement, but you can certainly hear, in songs like "Cherry Bomb" and "Queens of Noise," how the band must have brightened a landscape overrun by kings of prog rock. Unfortunately, a handful of teenagers micromanaged by a sleazy, abusive nutcase proved not quite up to the task, though the band did launch the careers of metal guitarist Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) and, more famously, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart). Sigismondi’s film entertainingly sketches the Runaways’ beginnings in glam rock fandom and gradual attainment of their own rabid fan base. We get Currie lip-synching Bowie to catcalls at the high school assembly, Jett composing "Cherry Bomb" with Fowley, glamtastic hair-and-wardrobe eye candy, pills-and-Stooges-fueled intra-band fooling around, and five teenage girls sent off sans chaperone on an international tour with substantial quantities of hard drugs in their carry-on luggage. What follows is less pretty: a capsule version of the band’s disintegration after the departure of bottoming-out 16-year-old lead singer Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning). In a film darkened by Currie’s trajectory, Jett’s subsequent success is a feel-good coda, but it’s awkwardly attached and emblematizes one of The Runaways‘ main problems. When the band begins to fall apart, the film doesn’t know which way to turn and ends up telling no one’s story well. (1:42) Bridge. (Rapoport)

ONGOING

Ajami You may recognize the title of Yaron Shoni and Scandar Copti’s debut collaboration as one of five films nominated for a 2010 Academy Award in the Foreign Category. Though it didn’t bring home the grand prize, Ajami remains a complex and affecting story about desperation and its consequences in a religiously-mixed town in Israel. As we follow the lives of four of Ajami’s residents the narrative shifts perspective almost maddeningly, switching characters seemingly at the height of each story’s action. But once all of the stories fully intersect, the final product has the distinction of feeling both meticulously calculated and completely natural. I was most impressed to learn that Shani and Copti prepared their actors with improvised role-playing rather than scripts. By withholding what was going to happen in a scene before shooting, we are treated to looks of surprise and emotion on actor’s faces that never feel unnatural. Attaining such a level of realism may be Ajami‘s crowning achievement; it can’t have been easy to make a foreign world feel so familiar. (2:00) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Galvin)

Alice in Wonderland Tim Burton’s take on the classic children’s tale met my mediocre expectations exactly, given its months of pre-release hype (in the film world, fashion magazines, and even Sephora, for the love of brightly-colored eyeshadows). Most folks over a certain age will already know the story, and much of the dialogue, before the lights go down and the 3-D glasses go on; it’s up to Burton and his all-star cast (including numerous big-name actors providing voices for animated characters) to make the tale seem newly enthralling. The visuals are nearly as striking as the CG, with Helena Bonham Carter’s big-headed Red Queen a particularly marvelous human-computer creation. But Wonderland suffers from the style-over-substance dilemma that’s plagued Burton before; all that spooky-pretty whimsy can’t disguise the film’s fairly tepid script. Teenage Alice (Mia Wasikowska) displaying girl-power tendencies is a nice, if not surprising, touch, but Johnny Depp’s grating take on the Mad Hatter will please only those who were able to stomach his interpretation of Willy Wonka. (1:48) Castro, Cerrito, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*The Art of the Steal How do you put a price on something that’s literally priceless? The Art of the Steal takes an absorbing look at the Barnes Collection, a privately-amassed array of Post-Impressionist paintings (including 181 Renoirs) worth billions — and the many people and corporate interests who schemed to control it. Founder Albert C. Barnes was an singular character who took pride in his outsider status; he housed his art in a specially-constructed gallery far from downtown Philadelphia’s museum scene, and he emphasized education and art appreciation first and foremost. But he had no heirs, and after his death in 1951, opportunists began circling his massive collection; the slippery political and legal dealings that have unfolded since then are nearly as jaw-dropping as Barnes’ prize paintings. Philly documentarian Don Argott has a doozy of a subject here, and his skillful, even suspenseful film does it justice. (1:41) Elmwood, Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Avatar James Cameron’s Avatar takes place on planet Pandora, where human capitalists are prospecting for precious unobtainium, hampered only by the toxic atmosphere and a profusion of unfriendly wildlife, including the Na’vi, a nine-foot tall race of poorly disguised cliches. When Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic ex-marine, arrives on the planet, he is recruited into the "Avatar" program, which enables him to cybernetically link with a part-human, part-Na’vi body and go traipsing through Pandora’s psychedelic underbrush. Initially designed for botanical research, these avatars become the only means of diplomatic contact with the bright-blue natives, who live smack on top of all the bling. The special effects are revolutionary, but the story that ensues blends hollow "noble savage" dreck with events borrowed from Dances With Wolves (1990) and FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992). When Sully falls in love with a Na’vi princess and undergoes a spirit journey so he can be inducted into the tribe and fight the evil miners, all I could think of was Kevin Bacon getting his belly sliced in The Air Up There (1994). (2:42) 1000 Van Ness. (Richardson)

The Blind Side When the New York Times Magazine published Michael Lewis’ article "The Ballad of Big Mike" — which he expanded into the 2006 book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game — nobody could have predicated the cultural windfall it would spawn. Lewis told the incredible story of Michael Oher — a 6’4, 350-pound 16-year-old, who grew up functionally parentless, splitting time between friends’ couches and the streets of one of Memphis’ poorest neighborhoods. As a sophomore with a 0.4 GPA, Oher serendipitously hitched a ride with a friend’s father to a ritzy private school across town and embarked on an unbelievable journey that led him into a upper-class, white family; the Dean’s List at Ole Miss; and, finally, the NFL. The film itself effectively focuses on Oher’s indomitable spirit and big heart, and the fearless devotion of Leigh Anne Tuohy, the matriarch of the family who adopted him (masterfully played by Sandra Bullock). While the movie will delight and touch moviegoers, its greatest success is that it will likely spur its viewers on to read Lewis’ brilliant book. (2:06) Elmwood, Oaks. (Daniel Alvarez)

Brooklyn’s Finest "Really? I mean, really?" asked the moviegoer beside me as the final freeze-frame of Brooklyn’s Finest slapped our eyeballs. Yes, that’s the sound of letdown, despite the fact that Brooklyn’s Finest initially resembled a promisingly gritty juggling act in the mode of The Wire and Cop Land (1997), Taxi Driver (1976) and Training Day (2001). Bitter irony flows from the title — and from the lives, loves, bad habits, pressure-cooker stress, and unavoidable moral dilemmas of three would-be everyday cops, all occupying several different rungs on a food chain where right and wrong have an unpleasant way of switching sides. Eddie (Richard Gere) is the veteran officer just biding his time till he gets his pension, all while comforting himself with the meager sensuous attentions of hooker Chantel (Shannon Kane). Sal (Ethan Hawke) is the bad detective, stealing from the dealers to fund a dream home for his growing family with Angela (Lili Taylor). Tango (Don Cheadle) is the undercover detective who has cultivated friendships with dealers like Caz (Wesley Snipes) and sacrificed his marriage for a long-promised promotion from his lieutenant (Will Patton) and his superior (Ellen Barkin, in likely the most misogynist portrayal of a lady with a badge to date). You spend most of Brooklyn’s Finest waiting for these cops to collide in the most unfortunate, messiest way possible, but instead the denouement leaves will leave one wondering about unresolved threads and feeling vaguely unsatisfied. In any case, director Antoine Fuqua and company seem to pride themselves on their tough-minded if at times cartoonish take on law enforcement, with Hawke in particular turning in a memorably OTT and anguished performance. (2:13) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

The Crazies Disease and anti-government paranoia dovetail in this competent yet overwhelmingly non-essential remake of one of George A. Romero’s second-tier spook shows. In a small Iowa hamlet overseen by a benevolent sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) and his pregnant wife (Radha Mitchell), who’s also the town doctor, a few odd incidents snowball into all-out chaos when a mysterious, unmarked plane crashes into the local water supply. Before long, the few residents who aren’t acting like homicidal maniacs are rounded up by an uber-aggressive military invasion. Though our heroes convey frantic panic as they try to figure out what the hell is going on, The Crazies never achieves full terror mode. It’s certainly watchable, and even enjoyable at times. But memorable? Not in the slightest. (1:41) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Crazy Heart "Oh, I love Jeff Bridges!" is the usual response when his name comes up every few years for Best Actor consideration, usually via some underdog movie no one saw, and the realization occurs that he’s never won an Oscar. The oversight is painful because it could be argued that no leading American actor has been more versatile, consistently good, and true to that elusive concept "artistic integrity" than Bridges over the last 40 years. It’s rumored Crazy Heart was slotted for cable or DVD premiere, then thrust into late-year theater release in hopes of attracting Best Actor momentum within a crowded field. Lucky for us, this performance shouldn’t be overlooked. Bridges plays "Bad" Blake, a veteran country star reduced to playing bars with local pickup bands. His slide from grace hasn’t been helped by lingering tastes for smoke and drink, let alone five defunct marriages. He meets Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), freelance journalist, fan, and single mother. They spark; though burnt by prior relationships, she’s reluctant to take seriously a famous drunk twice her age. Can Bad handle even this much responsibility? Meanwhile, he gets his "comeback" break in the semi-humiliating form of opening for Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) — a contemporary country superstar who was once Bad’s backup boy. Tommy offers a belated shot at commercial redemption; Jean offers redemption of the strictly personal kind. There’s nothing too surprising about the ways in which Crazy Heart both follows and finesses formula. You’ve seen this preordained road from wreckage to redemption before. But actor turned first-time director Scott Cooper’s screenplay honors the flies in the windshield inherited from Thomas Cobb’s novel — as does Bridges, needless to say. (1:51) Lumiere, Piedmont, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

*An Education The pursuit of knowledge — both carnal and cultural — are at the tender core of this end-of-innocence valentine by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig (who first made her well-tempered voice heard with her 2000 Dogme entry, Italian for Beginners), based on journalist Lynn Barber’s memoir. Screenwriter Nick Hornby breaks further with his Peter Pan protagonists with this adaptation: no man-boy mopers or misfits here. Rather, 16-year-old schoolgirl Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a good girl and ace student. It’s 1961, and England is only starting to stir from its somber, all-too-sober post-war slumber. The carefully cloistered Jenny is on track for Oxford, though swinging London and its high-style freedoms beckon just around the corner. Ushering in those freedoms — a new, more class-free world disorder — is the charming David (Peter Sarsgaard), stopping to give Jenny and her cello a ride in the rain and soon proffering concerts and late-night suppers in the city. He’s a sweet-faced, feline outsider: cultured, Jewish, and given to playing fast and loose in the margins of society. David can see Jenny for the gem she is and appreciate her innocence with the knowing pleasure of a decadent playing all the angles. The stakes are believably high, thanks to An Education‘s careful attention to time and place and its gently glamored performances. Scherfig revels in the smart, easy-on-eye curb appeal of David and his friends while giving a nod to the college-educated empowerment Jenny risks by skipping class to jet to Paris. And Mulligan lends it all credence by letting all those seduced, abandoned, conflicted, rebellious feelings flicker unbridled across her face. (1:35) Oaks, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*The Ghost Writer Roman Polanski’s never-ending legal woes have inspired endless debates on the interwebs and elsewhere; they also can’t help but add subtext to the 76-year-old’s new film, which is chock full o’ anti-American vibes anyway. It’s also a pretty nifty political thriller about a disgraced former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) who’s hanging out in his Martha’s Vineyard mansion with his whip-smart, bitter wife (Olivia Williams) and Joan Holloway-as-ice-queen assistant (Kim Cattrall), plus an eager young biographer (Ewan McGregor) recently hired to ghost-write his memoirs. But as the writer quickly discovers, the politician’s past contains the kinds of secrets that cause strange cars with tinted windows to appear in one’s rearview mirror when driving along deserted country roads. Polanski’s long been an expert when it comes to escalating tension onscreen; he’s also so good at adding offbeat moments that only seem tossed-off (as when the PM’s groundskeeper attempts to rake leaves amid relentless sea breezes) and making the utmost of his top-notch actors (Tom Wilkinson and Eli Wallach have small, memorable roles). Though I found The Ghost Writer‘s ZOMG! third-act revelation to be a bit corny, I still didn’t think it detracted from the finely crafted film that led up to it. (1:49) California, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Green Zone Titled for the heavily-guarded headquarters of international occupation in Baghdad, Green Zone reunites director Paul "Shaky-Cam" Greengrass with star Matt Damon, the two having previously collaborated on the last two Bourne films. Instead of a super-soldier, this time around Damon just plays a supremely insubordinate one as he attempts to uncover the reason why his military unit can’t find any of Saddam’s WMDs. With the aid of the CIA, a Wall Street Journal reporter and a friendly Iraqi, Damon goes rogue in order to suss out the source of the misinformation. The Iraq War action is decent if scarce, but an overindulgence in (you guessed it) shaky-cam and political jargon cannot hide the fact that Green Zone‘s plot is simplistic and probably light on actual facts. Damon makes a fine cowboy-cum-hero, but the effectiveness of the mix of patriotism and Pentagon paranoia will vary based on your penchant for such things. Still, Green Zone moves fast enough that it remains worth a matinee for conspiracy thriller aficionados. (1:55) California, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Galvin)

The Hurt Locker When the leader of a close-knit U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad is killed in action, his subordinates have barely recovered from the shock when they’re introduced to his replacement. In contrast to his predecessor, Sgt. James (Jeremy Renner) is no standard-procedure-following team player, but a cocky adrenaline junkie who puts himself and others at risk making gonzo gut-instinct decisions in the face of live bombs and insurgent gunfire. This is particularly galling to next-in-command Sanborn (Anthony Mackie). An apolitical war-in-Iraq movie that’s won considerable praise for accuracy so far from vets (scenarist Mark Boal was "embedded" with an EOD unit there for several 2004 weeks), Kathryn Bigelow’s film is arguably you-are-there purist to a fault. While we eventually get to know in the principals, The Hurt Locker is so dominated by its seven lengthy squad-mission setpieces that there’s almost no time or attention left for building character development or a narrative arc. The result is often viscerally intense, yet less impactful than it would have been if we were more emotionally invested. Assured as her technique remains, don’t expect familiar stylistic dazzle from action cult figure Bigelow (1987’s Near Dark, 1989’s Blue Steel, 1991’s Point Break) — this vidcam-era war movie very much hews to the favored current genre approach of pseudo-documentary grainy handheld shaky-cam imagery. (2:11) Cerrito, Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*The Last Station Most of the buzz around The Last Station has focused on Helen Mirren, who takes the lead as the Countess Sofya, wife of Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer). Mirren is indeed impressive — when is she not? — but there’s more to the film than Sofya’s Oscar-worthy outbursts. The Last Station follows Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), hired as Tolstoy’s personal secretary at the end of the writer’s life. Valentin struggles to reconcile his faith in the anarchist Christian Tolstoyan movement with his sympathy for Sofya and his budding feelings for fellow Tolstoyan Masha (Kerry Condon). For the first hour, The Last Station is charming and very funny. Once Tolstoy and Sofya’s relationship reaches its most volatile, however, the tone shifts toward the serious — a trend that continues as Tolstoy falls ill. After all the lighthearted levity, it’s a bit jarring, but the solid script and accomplished cast pull The Last Station together. Paul Giamatti is especially good as Vladimir Chertkov, who battles against Sofya for control of Tolstoy’s will. You’ll never feel guiltier for putting off War and Peace. (1:52) Albany, Opera Plaza. (Peitzman)

*The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers For many, Daniel Ellsberg is a hero — a savior of American First Amendment rights and one of the most outspoken opponents of the Vietnam war. But as this documentary (recently nominated for an Academy Award) shows, it’s never an an easy decision to take on the U.S. government. Ellsberg himself narrates the film and details his sleepless nights leading up to the leak of the Pentagon Papers — the top secret government study on the Vietnam war — to the public. Though there are few new developments in understanding the particulars of the war or the impact the release of the Papers had on ending the conflict, the film allows audiences to experience the famous case from Ellsberg’s point of view, adding a fresh and poignantly human element to the events; it’s a political documentary that plays more like a character drama. Whether you were there when it happened or new to the story, there is something to be appreciated from this tale of a man who fell out of love with his country and decided to do something about it. (1:34) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Galvin)

*North Face You’ll never think of outerwear the same way again — and in fact you might be reaching for your fleece and shivering through the more harrowing climbing scenes of this riveting historical adventure based on a true tale. Even those who consider themselves less than avid fans of outdoor survival drama will find their eyes frozen, if you will, on the screen when it comes to this retelling/re-envisioning of this story, legendary among mountaineers, of climbers, urged on by Nazi propaganda, to tackle the last "Alpine problem." At issue: the unclimbed north face of Switzerland’s Eiger, a highly dangerous and unpredictable zone aptly nicknamed "Murder Wall." Two working-class friends, Toni Kurz (Benno Fürmann of 2008’s Jerichow) and Andi Hinterstoisser (Florian Lukas) — here portrayed as climbing fiends driven to reach summits rather than fight for the Nazis — take the challenge. There to document their achievement, or certain death, is childhood friend and Kurz’s onetime sweetheart Luise (Johanna Wokalek, memorable in 2008’s The Baader Meinhof Complex), eager to make her name as a photojournalist while fending off the advances of an editor (Ulrich Tukur) seeking to craft a narrative that positions the contestants as model Aryans. But the climb — and the Eiger, looming like a mythical ogre — is the main attraction here. Filmmaker Philipp Stölzl brings home the sheer heart-pumping exhilaration and terror associated with the sport — and this specific, legendarily tragic climb — by shooting in the mountains with his actors and crew, and the result goes a way in redeeming an adventure long-tainted by its fascist associations. (2:01) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Our Family Wedding America Ferrera and Lance Gross play a couple of lovebirds who must jump through some serious family hoops before they get married in the mostly serviceable Our Family Wedding. What begins as a dual Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, with the differences in each family’s traditions forcing complications and compromises, soon loses sight of its matrimonial plot as the focus steers towards a childish rivalry between the fathers. While it’s being marketed as a goofy comedy, the final product seeks a relatively sentimental tone, which makes the few slapstick moments — like a goat trying to rape Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker — seem pretty inappropriate. Still, for some audiences the well-tread plot will act as comfort food: they fight, they make up, and it all ends in a big wedding where we watch the characters dance for damn near ten minutes. (1:41) 1000 Van Ness. (Galvin)

*Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief It would be easy to dismiss Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief as an unabashed Harry Potter knock-off. Trio of kids with magic powers goes on a quest to save the world in a Chris Columbus adaptation of a popular young adult series — sound familiar? But The Lightning Thief is sharp, witty, and a far cry from Columbus’ joyless adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001). Logan Lerman stars as Percy Jackson, the illegitimate son of Poseidon and Catherine Keener. Once he learns his true identity at Camp Half-Blood, he sets off on a quest with his protector, a satyr named Grover, and potential love interest Annabeth, daughter of Athena. Along the way, they bump into gods and monsters from Greek mythology — with a twist. Think Percy using his iPhone to fight Medusa (Uma Thurman), or a land of the Lotus-Eaters disguised as a Lady Gaga-blasting casino. A worthy successor to Harry Potter? Too soon to say, but The Lightning Thief is at least a well-made diversion. (1:59) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

*A Prophet Filmmaker Jacques Audiard has described his new film, A Prophet, as "the anti-Scarface." Yet much like Scarface (1983), A Prophet bottles the heady euphoria that chases the empowerment of the powerless and the rise of the long-shot loner on the margins. In its almost-Dickensian attention to detail, devotion to its own narrative complexity, and passion for cinematic poetry, A Prophet rises above the ordinary and, through the prism of genre, finds its own power. The supremely opportunistic, pragmatically Machiavellian intellectual and spiritual education of a felon is the chief concern of here. Played by Tahar Rahim with guileless, open-faced charisma, Malik is half-Arab and half-Corsican — and distrusted or despised by both camps in the pen. When he lands in jail for his six-year sentence, he’s 19, illiterate, friendless, and vulnerable. His deal with the devil — and means of survival — arrives with Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi), temporarily locked up before his testifies against the mob. Corsican boss Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup) wants him dead, and Malik is tagged to penetrate Reyeb’s cell with a blade hidden in mouth. After Malik’s gory rebirth, it turns out that the teenager’s a seer in more ways than one. From his low-dog position, he can eyeball the connections linking the drugs entering the prison to those circulating outside, as well as the machinations intertwining the Arab and Corsican syndicates. It’s no shock that when Cesar finds his power eroding and arranges prison leaves for his multilingual crossover star that Malik serves not only his Corsican master, but also his own interests, and begins to build a drug empire rivaling his teacher’s. Throughout his pupil’s progress, Audiard demonstrates a way with Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment, and when Malik finally breaks with his Falstaffian patriarch, it makes your heart skip a beat in a move akin to the title of the director’s last film. This Eurozone/Obama-age prophet is all about the profit — but he’s imbued with grace, even while gaming for ill-gotten gain. (2:29) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Remember Me Ominously set in New York City during the summer of 2001, Remember Me, starring Robert Pattinson (of the Twilight series) and Emilie de Ravin (of TV’s Lost), pretty much answers the question of whether it’s still too soon to make the events of September 11 the subject of a date movie. Or rather, not the subject so much as the specter waiting just off-camera for its walk-on while brooding 21-year-old Tyler Hawkins (Pattinson) quotes Gandhi, gets into brawls, gets drunk, writes letters to his dead brother, and otherwise channels despondency and rage into various salubrious outlets. One of these is romancing (under circumstances severely testing the viewer’s credulity) de Ravin’s Ally Craig, grappling somewhat more constructively with her own familial tragedy. Ally is the sort of self-possessed, strong-willed young woman whose instincts, shortly after she’s been backhanded by her drunk father (Chris Cooper), tell her to placate and have sex with her drunk boyfriend when he comes home enraged after battling his own father (Pierce Brosnan). She is there to teach Tyler, through quirky habits like eating dessert first, what director Allen Coulter (2006’s Hollywoodland) wishes to teach us: that time is short and one must fill one’s life with meaningful actions — like throwing a fire extinguisher through a window to convince a classroom of tweens to stop bullying one’s little sister. The film is seeded with allusions to an impending catastrophe that feels less integrated than exploited. And it’s uncomfortable seeing the fall of the towers used to make the ground shake under a sweet, fairly depthless depiction of love and grief. (2:08) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

She’s Out of My League From the co-writers of the abysmal Sex Drive (2008), She’s Out of My League could be another 90-minute assemblage of gross-out humor, dick jokes, and unabashed homophobia. As it turns out, the latest offering from Sean Anders and John Morris is legitimately funny — far better than the trailer (and that half-assed title) would have you believe. The adorkable Jay Baruchel stars as Kirk, a hapless loser who finds himself dating bonafide hottie Molly (Alice Eve). Once you get past the film’s silly conceit — Kirk’s only "movie ugly," and personality goes a long way — you’re left with a surprisingly charming comedy. The characters are amusing and the wit is sharp. Not to mention the fact that She’s Out of My League offers a downright heartfelt message. There’s a sincerity here that feels genuine instead of just tacked-on: yeah, yeah, it’s about what’s inside that counts, but there’s more to it than that. Ignore the dreadful "jizz in my pants" scene, and the movie’s almost an old-fashioned romcom. (1:44) Elmwood, Oaks, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Peitzman)

Shutter Island Director Martin Scorsese and muse du jour Leonardo DiCaprio draw from oft-filmed novelist Dennis Lehane (2003’s Mystic River, 2007’s Gone Baby Gone) for this B-movie thriller that, sadly, offers few thrills. DiCaprio’s a 1950s U.S. marshal summoned to a misty island that houses a hospital for the criminally insane, overseen by a doctor (Ben Kingsley) who believes in humane, if experimental, therapy techniques. From the get-go we suspect something’s not right with the G-man’s own mind; as he investigates the case of a missing patient, he experiences frequent flashbacks to his World War II service (during which he helped liberate a concentration camp), and has recurring visions of his spooky dead wife (Michelle Williams). Whether or not you fall for Shutter Island‘s twisty game depends on the gullibility of your own mind. Despite high-quality performances and an effective, if overwrought, tone of certain doom, Shutter Island stumbles into a third act that exposes its inherently flawed and frustrating storytelling structure. If only David Lynch had directed Shutter Island — it could’ve been a classic of mindfuckery run amok. Instead, Scorsese’s psychological drama is sapped of any mystery whatsoever by its stubbornly literal conclusion. (2:18) California, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

A Single Man In this adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel, Colin Firth plays George, a middle-aged gay expat Brit and college professor in 1962 Los Angeles. Months after the accidental death of Jim (Matthew Goode), his lover for 16 years, George still feels worse than bereft; simply waking each morning is agony. So on this particular day he has decided to end it all, first going through a series of meticulous preparations and discreet leave-takings that include teaching one last class and having supper with the onetime paramour (Julianne Moore) turned best friend who’s still stuck on him. The main problem with fashion designer turned film director Tom Ford’s first feature is that he directs it like a fashion designer, fussing over surface style and irrelevant detail in a story whose tight focus on one hard, real-world thing — grief — cries for simplicity. Not pretentious overpackaging, which encompasses the way his camera slavers over the excessively pretty likes of Nicholas Hoult as a student and Jon Kortajarena as a hustler, as if they were models selling product rather than characters, or even actors. (In fact Kortajarena is a male supermodel; the shocker is that Hoult is not, though Hugh Grant’s erstwhile About a Boy co-star is so preening here you’d never guess.) Eventually Ford stops showing off so much, and A Single Man is effective to the precise degree it lets good work by Goode, Moore and especially the reliably excellent Firth unfold without too much of his terribly artistic interference. (1:39) 1000 Van Ness, Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*Sweetgrass Recorded between 2001-03 by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash, Sweetgrass immerses us in sheep farming before taking off after a pair of latter-day cowboys on a 150-mile drive through Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth range — a journey with deep historical roots and no practical future. As its rugged scenery beggars (but ultimately unseats) projections of the pastoral, so too do its mild sheep trigger myriad symbolic associations. Sweetgrass is finally about the relationship between farmhands and their flocks, and in this, it is notably unsentimental. During long takes of shearing and birthing, the correspondent displays of violence and tenderness, much of it erotic and seemingly reflexive, speaks to the human-animal encounter Berger eulogized in 1977. The lonesome cowboys whisper sweet nothings to the dogs and hurl fantastically mismatched streams of curses at the sheep (the absence of women being the common link). Through it all, Castaing-Taylor’s camera is an embodied presence, and hard work at that. Compared with Planet Earth‘s impossible views and spectacular displacements, Sweetgrass has its feet planted on the ground. (1:41) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Goldberg)

REP PICKS

The Female Bunch Al Adamson was the Ed Wood Jr. of the late 60s and 1970s, albeit a version without any delusions of grandeur — in it for the money, he knew his ultra-cheap films were crap. This one, titled to cash in on The Wild Bunch and made the same year (though there were no distribution takers until 1971, two years later), is closer to an unacknowledged, soporific remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ great ’68 She-Devils on Wheels, with the deadly dames on horseback rather than motorcycles. When Sandy (Nesa Renet) is dumped by her faithless Vegas lounge singer boyfriend — and no wonder, since she behaves like a Velcro doormat — her showgirl friend Libby (peroxide-blonde perennial Adamson star and subsequent spouse Regina Carroll) recommends she join a "club" of women on a secret ranch. They smuggle drugs, have soft-core orgies (with Mexican men and each other), abuse the local "wetbacks," and enforce a strict "no men" rule on ranch property whose violation can lead to the poor sod getting branded, dragged to death, or worse. One such unfortunate is Russ Tamblyn, who sure fell hard and fast from being third-billed in Best Picture winner West Side Story just eight years prior; another is pathetic ranch hand Lon Chaney, Jr. in one of his last roles, seeming even more pathetic than called for because he was undergoing debilitating cancer treatments at the time. The "she-devil" here is serious man-hater Grace, whose thespian Jennifer Bishop also appeared in such greats as 1970’s Bigfoot (as one of the pretty girls it keeps chained in its cave), 1974’s Impulse (imperiled by William Shatner), 1969’s The Maltese Bippy, and two Hee Haw episodes. The Female Bunch was advertised with slogans including "Hot Pants — and a Fast Draw! They Treat Their Horses Better Than Their Men!" It was partially shot at the Spahn Ranch, also home at the time to Charlie Manson and company. This grade-Z opus is preceded at the Vortex Room by the very big-budget Candy (1968), an abysmal stab at Terry Southern’s porn satire whose all-star cast included everyone from Brando and Burton to Ringo Starr, Sugar Ray Robinson, John Huston, and Anita Pallenberg. Thurs/18, 9 p.m., $5, Vortex Room, 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. (Harvey)

Music listings

David Talbot
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Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 17

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Astral Force, DC/AC El Rio. 7pm, donation. Benefit for AIDS/LifeCycle.

Epiphanette, Great Girls Blouse, Miriam Speyer and New Blend Retox Lounge. 9pm, free.

Filthy Thieving Bastards, Blag Dahlia, Zander Schloss Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.

Gomez, Buddy Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $28.

Kegels, Jokes for Feelings, Mitchell Experiment Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Kim Wilson Blues Revue Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $24.

Camaron Ochs, Spooky Flowers, Ayla Nereo Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Razorhoof, Iron Witch, Hazzards Cure Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Undead Boys, Love Songs, Dope Charge, Keeners Elbo Room. 6pm, $8.

Zoo Station, Stung Slims. 8pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

Machine Sloane, 1525 Mission, SF; (415) 621-7007. 10pm, free. Warm beats for happy feet with DJs Sergio, Conor, and André Lucero.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St., SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St., SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJ Carlos Mena and guests spinning afro-deep-global-soulful-broken-techhouse.

THURSDAY 18

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Common Eider King Eider, Raccoons, Das Blut, Hiss and Hum, Marigold Crowns Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Willie G Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Gomez, One Eskimo Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $28.

Groove Armada, Lilofee Fillmore. 8pm, $30.

HIJK, Love is Chemicals, Rademacher Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Hurry Up Shotgun, Victory and Associates, Genius and the Thieves Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

*Jucifer, Grayceon, Serpent Crown Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Static Thought, Spawn Atomic, Step Up! El Rio. 8pm, $7.

Tokyo Raid, Pan Demon, Bitch Be Cool, Housecoat Project, Red Penny One Paradise Lounge. 9pm, $7.

Trifles, Cheetahs on the Moon, Bodice Rippers Hotel Utah. 9pm, $6.

Victims Family, Bar Feeders, Polar Bears Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Babatunde Lea Quintet Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $20.

Dred Scott Quartet Coda. 9pm, $7.

Pepe Jacobo Cigar Bar and Grill, 850 Montgomery, SF; www.cigarbarandgrill.com. 9pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bassekou Kouyate, Ngoni Ba Slims. 8pm, $25.

Dime Store Dandy Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-7. DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, and guest Earthrise Soundsystem spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Club Jammies Edinburgh Castle. 10pm, free. DJs EBERrad and White Mice spinning reggae, punk, dub, and post punk.

DJ Key Bump and Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 5-9pm. With a performance by Mestiza.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Echo-A-Gogo Knockout. 10pm, free. Vintage dub reggae with DJ Lucky and friends.

Electric Feel Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $2. With DJs subOctave and Blondie K spinning indie music videos.

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Good Foot Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. A James Brown tribute with resident DJs Haylow, A-Ron, and Prince Aries spinning R&B, Hip hop, funk, and soul.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Jorge Terez.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Meat DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $2-5. Industrial with DJs BaconMonkey, Netik, Sage, and Unit 77.

Nightvision Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; (415) 777-1077. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Danny Daze, Franky Boissy, and more spinning house, electro, hip hop, funk, and more.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Represent Icon Lounge. 10pm, $5. With Resident DJ Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist and guest.

Rock Candy Stud. 9pm-2am, $5. Luscious Lucy Lipps hosts this electro-punk-pop party with music by ReXick.

Solid Club Six. 9pm, $5. With resident DJ Daddy Rolo and rotating DJs Mpenzi, Shortkut, Polo Mo’qz and Fuze spinning roots, reggae, and dancehall.

FRIDAY 19

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Joe Bagale, Oona, Thrill of It All Independent. 9pm, $14.

Blasphemous Rumours, Cured Slims. 9pm, $15.

Con Funk Shun Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $26-30.

Deceptikon, Captain Ahab, Twin Crystals, Tik/Tak Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Gomez, Little Ones Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $28.

Groove Armada, Fenech-Soler Live Fillmore. 8pm, $30.

Horse Operas, Goldie Wilson House of Shields. 10pm, $5.

Kaptron, James Lanman, Kit, Kat and the Suitcase Brothers Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Voodoo Glow Skulls, Hub City Stompers, Compton SF Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Yung Mars, Get Back Crew Coda. 10pm, $10.

Z-Trane Electric Trio, Justin Ancheta, Con Brio Pier 23. 9:30pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Emily Anne’s Delights Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Equinox Trio Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Keith Jarrett Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30-95.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Harlem Gospel Choir Kanbar Hall, 3200 California, SF; www.jccsf.org. 8pm, $40-45.

"Jewish Music Festival" Congregation Sherith Israel, 2266 California, SF; www.jewishmusicfestival.org. 6pm, free. "Journey to Shabbat" performance with Rita Glassman, Yuval Ron, and Jamie Papish. See website for complete festival schedule.

Mazacote Cigar Bar and Grill, 850 Montgomery, SF; www.cigarbarandgrill.com. 9pm, $7.

Nell Robinson, Henriettas Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez, SF; www.noevalleymusicseries.com. 8:15pm, $18.

Bassam Saba Arab Cultural and Community Center, Two Plaza, SF; www.arabculturalcenter.org. 8pm, $15.

Smiley Mountain Band Plough and Stars. 9pm, $6-10.

Zoyres Eastern European Wild Ferment Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-15.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Alcoholocaust Presents Riptide Tavern. 9pm, free. DJ What’s His Fuck spins old-school punk and other gems.

Bridges: Brooklyn to the Bay and Beyond Elbo Room. 9pm, $8. With DJs Concerned and Jimmy Love, and live performance by Andy Allo.

Deep Fried Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. DJs jaybee, David Justin, and Dean Manning spinning indie, dance rock, electronica, funk, hip hop, and more.

Dirty Rotten Dance Party Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. With DJs Morale, Kap10 Harris, and Shane King spinning electro, bootybass, crunk, swampy breaks, hyphy, rap, and party classics.

DJ Jeremiah and Friends Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. Afrobeat, ju ju, and tribal funk.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk. This week’s guest is QDUP Foundation.

Hubba Hubba Revue DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-15. Burlesque show.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

Loose Stud. 10pm-3am, $5. DJs Domino and Six spin electro and indie, with vintage porn visual projections to get you in the mood.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

Oldies Night Knockout. 9pm, $2-4. Doo-wop, soul, and one-hit wonders with DJs Primo, Daniel, and Lost Cat.

Radioactivity 222 Hyde, SF; http://222hyde.com. 6pm, free. Low-budget synthesizers and Eastern European cold war beats.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St., SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa "Samoa Boy" spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Tingel Tangel Club Second Anniversary Blowout Celebration Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $20. With Veronica Klaus, Joey Arias, Basil Twist, Todd Almond, Fauxnique, Marga Gomez, and DJs Juanita More and Bus Station John.

SATURDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Airfix Kits, Housecoat Project, Teutonics, DJ the Wizard, DJ Phil Lantz Knockout. 5-9pm, free. Crime record signing from 5-6pm.

Tim Barry, Possessed by Paul James, Fire Whiskey Thee Parkside. 8:30pm, $10.

Con Funk Shun Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $30.

Shane Dwight Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Foreverland, Barely Manilow Mezzanine. 9pm, $15.

Inferno of Joy, Reaction, Dutch Windmill El Rio. 9pm, $7.

Lilan Kane Blues Band Lou’s Pier 47, 300 Jefferson, SF; www.louspier47.com. 8pm.

Octomutt, Dandeline Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

Rosin Coven, George Cole Quintet, Kim Boekbinder Café du Nord. 9pm, $15.

Ron Silva and the Monarchs, Franco Nero Ska Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Slipstream Sparrows, Headshear, Richard Bitch, Anhata Sound Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

Small Change Romeos, Mavalour, Midway Delta, DJ unk’l funk’l El Rio. 3pm, $8.

Uzi Tattoo, Prik Flower, Economen Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Xiu Xiu, tUne-YaRdS, Noveller Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Alphabet Soup Coda. 10pm, $10.

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Hiromi, Robert Glasper Experiment Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-55.

Loveseat Trio Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Albino!, Alma Desnuda Independent. 9pm, $17.

Mark Levine and the Latin Tinge Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-15.

Marara Music Store, 66 W. Portal, SF; www.shelbyashpresents.net. 2pm, free.

Pine Box Boys, Earl Brothers, Last Men on Earth, Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit Slims. 8:30pm, $15.

Fito Reinoso Cigar Bar and Grill, 850 Montgomery, SF; www.cigarbarandgrill.com. 9pm, $7.

Sila, Meklit Hadero, DJ Jeremiah Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $14.

Marcus Tardelli, Carlos Oliviera, Ricard Peixoto Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; (415) 242-4500. 8pm, $34.

DANCE CLUBS

Bootie: Donner Party DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups with John! John! and the Wagonistas.

Booty Bassment Knockout. 10pm, $5. Hip-hop with DJs Ryan Poulsen and Dimitri Dickinson.

Cockfight Underground SF. 9pm, $7. With DJs Earworm and Matt Hite.

Fire Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; 885-4788. 9:30pm, free. Rare and outrageous ska, rocksteady, and reggae vinyl with Revival Sound System and guests.

Fringe: An Indie Rock Dance Party Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. With DJs Blondie K and subOctave.

Full House Gravity, 3505 Scott, SF; (415) 776-1928. 9pm, $10. With DJs Roost Uno and Pony P spinning dirty hip hop.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Road to Ultra Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF; info@santrancecisco.com. 10pm, $15. With Javi Cannus, Sheff, Dutch, Michael Anthony, Jeff Richmond, and Hil Huerta.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. With DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.

Sharam 1015 Folsom. 10pm, $10. With DJ Rooz, Taj, and more.

Social Club Lookout, 3600 16th St., SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm. Shake your money maker with DJs Lee Decker and Luke Fry.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

SUNDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

B-Stars, Hi Rhythm Hustlers, Royal Deuces, Karling Abbeygate Band Knockout. 9pm, $8.

*Blowfly, Clarence Reid, Knights of the New Crusade, Awesome Party DNA Lounge. 6:30pm, $15.

David Matthew Daniels, Robert Meade, Sean McArdle Brainwash Café, 1122 Folsom, SF; www.brainwash.com. 6pm, free.

Fat Tuesday Band Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

*Kreator, Kataklysm, Evile, Lightning Swords of Death Slims. 8pm, $24.

Massive Moth, Your Cannons, Here Come the Saviours Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Janelle Monae Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Ralph’s World Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café du Nord). 3pm, $18.

Rollercoaster, Watch it Sparkle, Sweet Nothing Kimo’s. 9pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Terry Disley Washington Square Bar and Grill, 1707 Powell, SF; (415) 433-1188. 6pm, free.

"Jazz Jam Session" Epicenter Café. 6pm, free.

Sunday Sessions Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With Wil Blades.

Kenny Washington Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; (415) 826-6200. 4:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Motel Drive, Clay Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

"Salsa Sundays" El Rio. 4pm, $5. With Danilo y Universal.

Jake Shimabukuro Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7 and 9pm, $18-24.

"Te Gusto Musical" Coda. 8pm, $10. With Anthony Blea and friends.

DANCE CLUBS

Call In Sick Skylark. 9pm, free. DJs Animal and I Will spin danceable hip-hop.

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Maneesh the Twister, and guest DJG.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. "Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers." Got that?

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

MONDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

American Studies, Ash Reiter, Mark Matos and Os Beaches Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

*Karine Denike, Dina Maccabee Band, Upstairs Downstairs Knockout. 9pm, $7.

"Felonious Presents Live City Revue" Coda. 9pm, $7.

Mama Lion, Eighteen Individual Eyes, Heated El Rio. 7pm, $5.

Janelle Monae Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

DANCE CLUBS

Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St., SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJs El Kool Kyle and Santero spinning Latin music.

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more.

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic and industrial with DJs Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Motown on Mondays Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests.

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

TUESDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Axe, Terroritmo, Foga Na Roupa Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Devendra Banhart and the Grogs, Dorothy and the Originals Warfield. 8pm, $27.50-32.50.

Bias Tape, AJ Rivlin El Rio. 8pm, free.

Jason Collett, Bahamas, Zeus Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $15.

Jamie Cullum, Imelda May Fillmore. 8pm, $35.

Fell Voices, Addaura, Elk, Necrite, DJ Rob Metal Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Bleached Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $17.

Serena Maneesh, Depreciation Guild, Veil Veil Vanish Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Savoy Brown Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $20.

Stagger and Fall, Hollowbodys, Idle Threats, Hounds and Harlots Knockout. 9:30pm, free.

Thralls, All Time High, Hollow Earth Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJs Corruptor Ref, Sebastian Twot, and What’s His Fuck.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

Hydrolyzed vegetable protein paste — now with more salmonella!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Hydrolyzed vegetable protein paste — now with more salmonella!

By Robyn Johnson

If you love hydrolyzed vegetable protein paste and/ or powder — you know, that savory flavoring that is nearly ubiquitous in processed foods — then you might want to check out this list just put out by the FDA. It’s a growing product recall for possible salmonella contamination. 

Basic Food Flavors, the Nevada-based manufacturer of the bad-batch HPV in question, recently issued the recall and its extensive client list has begun to follow suit, including PepsiCo Inc., Pringles, Proctor and Gamble, and Nestle, (and a whole host to come). As of right now the FDA lists 149 products, with a wide range of foods from dressing mix to corn bread stuffing, but Business Week is reporting that the number could soon reach 10,000 — making it the one of, if not the, largest recall of processed foods in history.

Before we panic, the same article also reports that the risk to the consumer is low considering most foods using HPV are cooked before consumption. No illnesses have been reported, but you still might want to hedge your bets and over-microwave those Jose Ole taquitos or refrain from eating ready to eat products, like Taco Night-flavored Pringles.

And while it’s all very fine and well that the consumer will probably not be subjected to mass salmonella-poisoning, people, including well-regarded people like Marion Nestle, are taking a very dim view that Basic Food Flavors waited approximately one month after FDA testing found the potentially fatal bacteria in their processing plant to issue the recall. Is it time to expand the FDA’s power in the face of a less than conscientious corporate food culture?

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