History Archives — Page 42 of 155 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

East Bay Endorsements 2012

October 10, 2012

The East Bay ballot is crowded, with races for mayor, city council and school board in Berkeley and Oakland, plus a long list of ballot measures. We’re weighing in on what we see as the most important races.

OAKLAND CITY ATTORNEY

BARBARA PARKER

This one’s simple: Progressives on the council like Parker, who’s a pretty unbiased attorney. Her challenger, Jane Brunner, is a supporter of Ignacio De La Fuente. Vote for Parker.

OAKLAND CITY COUNCIL

AT-LARGE

REBECCA KAPLAN

In some ways, this is a replay of the 2010 mayor’s race, where Rebecca Kaplan and Jean Quan, running as allies in a ranked-choice voting system, took on and beat Don Perata, the longtime powerbroker who left town soon after his defeat. This time around, it’s Kaplan, the popular incumbent, facing Ignacio De La Fuente, a Perata ally, for the one at-large council seat.

De La Fuente, who currently represents District 3, would have easily won re-election if he stuck to home. But for reasons he’s never clearly articulated, he decided to go after Kaplan. The general consensus among observers: De La Fuente wants to be mayor (he’s tried twice and failed), thinks Quan is vulnerable, and figures winning the at-large seat would give him a citywide base.

It’s a clear choice: Kaplan is one of the best elected officials in the Bay Area, a bright, progressive, practical, and hardworking council member who is full of creative ideas. De La Fuente is an old Perata Machine hack who wanted to kick out Occupy Oakland the first day, wants curfews for youth, and can’t even get his story straight on cutting the size of the Oakland Police Department.

De La Fuente is all about law and order, and he blasts Kaplan for — literally — “coddling criminals.” But actually, as the East Bay Express has reported in detail, De La Fuente, in a fit of anger at the police union, led the movement to lay off 80 cops. And the crime rate in Oakland spiked shortly afterward. Kaplan opposed that motion, and tried later to rehire many of those cops — but De La Fuente objected.

Public safety is one of the top local issues, and Kaplan not only supports community policing (and more cops) but is working on root causes, including the lack of services for people released into Oakland from state prison and county jail. She’s also a strong transit advocate who’s working on new bike lanes and a free shuttle on Broadway. She helped write the county transportation measure, B1. She richly deserves another term — and De La Fuente deserves retirement.

BERKELEY MAYOR

KRISS WORTHINGTON

It would be nice to have a Berkeley person as mayor of Berkeley again.

The city’s still among the most progressive outposts in the country — and Mayor Tom Bates, for all his history as one of the leading progressive voices in the state Legislature and a key part of the city’s left-liberal political operation, has taken the city in a decidedly centrist direction. Bates these days is all about development. He’s a big supporter of the sit-lie law (hard to imagine the old Tom Bates ever supporting an anti-homeless measure). He didn’t even seek the mayoral endorsement of Berkeley Citizens Action, which he helped build, and instead hypes the Berkeley Democratic Club, which he used to fight. After ten years, we’re ready for a new Berkeley mayor.

Worthington is the voice of the left on the City Council. He’s an aggressive legislator who is never short of ideas. He’s talking about the basics (holding separate council meetings on major issues so people who want to speak don’t have to wait until midnight), to the visionary (a 21-point plan for revitalizing Telegraph Avenue). He’s against sit-lie and wants developers to offer credible community benefits agreements before they build. We’re with Worthington.

Alameda County ballot measures

MEASURE A1

ZOO TAX

YES

The Oakland Zoo does wonders with rescue animals; instead of bringing in creatures from the wild or from other zoos, the folks in Oakland often find ways to take in animals that have been abused or mistreated elsewhere. Measure A1 would impose a tiny ($12 a year) parcel tax to support the public zoo. Critics say the money could go for zoo expansion, but the expansion’s happening anyway. Vote yes.

MEASURE B1

TRANSPORTATION PROGRAMS

YES

Quite possibly the most important thing on the East Bay ballot, Measure B1 creates the funding for a long-term transportation plan. Almost half of the money goes for public transit and only 30 percent goes for streets and road. There’s more bicycle money than in any previous transportation plan. Every city in Alameda County supports it. Vote yes.

Berkeley ballot measures

PROPOSITION M

STREET IMPROVEMENTS BOND

YES

Not our first choice for a street improvement bond, it’s a bit of a hodgepodge that squeaked through a divided council. But the city’s deferred street maintenance is a major problem and this $30 million bond would be a modest step forward.

MEASURE N

POOLS BOND

YES

Berkeley has lost half its public pools in the past two years; the facilities are unusable, and it’s going to take about $20 million to refurbish and rebuild them. This bond measure would allow the city to re-open the Willard Pool and build a new Warm Water Pool — critical for seniors and people rehabbing from injuries. Vote Yes.

MEASURE O

POOL TAX

YES

Berkeley often does things right, and this is a perfect example: Instead of building new facilities that it can’t afford to operate (hell, SF Recreation and Parks Department), Berkeley is asking for two things from the voters: Bond money to rebuild the municipal pools, and a special tax to provide $600,000 a year for operations. We support both.

MEASURE P

REAUTHORIZING SPECIAL TAXES

YES

Measure P doesn’t raise anyone’s taxes. It’s just a housekeeping measure, mandated by state law, allowing the city to keep spending taxes that were approved years ago for parks, libraries, medical services, services for the disabled, and fire services. Vote yes.

MEASURE Q

UTILITY TAX

YES

Berkeley’s been collecting utility taxes on cell phones for some time now, but the law that allows it is based on federal language that has changed. So the city needs to make this modest change to continue collecting its existing tax.

MEASURE R

DISTRICT LINES

YES

The council districts in Berkeley were set when the city adopted district elections in 1986, with a charter amendment saying all future redistricting should conform as closely as possible to the 1986 lines. Nice idea, but the population has changed and it makes sense for the council to have more flexibility with redistricting.

MEASURE S

SIT-LIE LAW

NO, NO, NO

It’s hard to believe that progressive Berkeley, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending similar laws in court, wants to criminalize sitting on the sidewalk. It hasn’t worked in San Francisco, it won’t work in Berkeley. Vote no.

MEASURE T

AMENDMENTS TO THE WEST BERKELEY PLAN

NO

Council Members Kriss Worthington, Jesse Arreguin, and Max Anderson all oppose this plan, which would open up West Berkeley to more office development — with no guarantee of community benefits. Everyone agrees the area needs updated zoning, but this is too loose.

MEASURE U

SUNSHINE COMMISSION

YES

Berkeley has needed a strong sunshine law for years; this one isn’t the greatest, but it’s not the worst, either; it would mandate better agendas (and allow citizens to petition for items to be put on the agenda) for city boards and commissions, would create a new sunshine commission with the ability to sue the city to enforce the law, and would require elected and appointed officials to make public their appointments calendars.

MEASURE V

CERTIFIED FINANCIAL REPORTS

NO

This sounds like a great idea — mandate that the city present certified financial audits of its obligations before issuing any more debt. In practice, it’s a way to make it harder for Berkeley to raise taxes or issue bonds. Vote no.

Oakland ballot measures

MEASURE J

SCHOOL BONDS

YES

Measure J would authorize $475 million in bonds for upgrading school facilities. This one’s a no-brainer; vote yes.

Dog eat dog

October 10, 2012

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER Audiences arriving at Marin Theatre Company for director Timothy Douglas’ current, beautifully staged revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’ 2001 Pulitzer Prize–winning play, Topdog/Underdog, take in a shabby, dilapidated low-rent studio apartment with its meager and seedy furnishings. But looming overhead the whole time are the red-white-and-blue bunting of some half-forgotten political rally, depending from the flies amid three long strips sheared from the stars and stripes, hung equidistantly across the stage. These thin flags have tightened their belts, and look a bit dingy too, almost sepia-toned, and floating above the impoverished scene below somehow bring to mind that flag behind Ella Watson, the African American cleaning woman in Gordon Parks’ iconic Depression-era photograph, American Gothic, Washington, D.C.

If there’s thus a certain election-year ring to Mikiko Uesugi’s careful scenic design — present before the action even starts — it’s a sonorous and dissonant one, echoing back across a political past with a strange and disorienting nostalgia, a contaminated euphoria. What could be more appropriate?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Xll3eZJ8Y

At a time when mainstream political reality seems feverishly bizarre, almost surreal, Parks’ drama endures as a shrewd poetical remix of American history, an elucidating fever dream in a realistic mode: two African American brothers respectively named Lincoln (Bowman Wright) and Booth (Biko Eisen-Martin) by a runaway father who apparently found it funny, share a precarious perch and a tainted patrimony in a poor part of a nameless city — where they act out an overlapping series of fated roles. These mix race, class, sex, family, and money as equal facets of a brutally antisocial system — a racket, in fact, high above (but qualitatively the same as) the Three-card Monte scheme at center of the story.

But in the brothers’ tragic and absurd destinies, half-grasped at best by the protagonists themselves, the play plumbs a deeper understanding too, a historical current churning and moving below everything — and in that understanding opens a sense of possibility.

The apartment is younger brother Booth’s roost, but Linc, as he’s called, is bringing home the bacon (or Chinese food) in exchange for crashing on the La-Z-Boy. Linc has been kicked out by now ex-wife Cookie (an offstage character symbolizing perhaps a kind of standard “fortune” for a married man without economic prospects, something akin to the ambiguous forecast Linc gets with his Chinese takeout: “Your luck will change”). Booth’s offstage love interest is named, with even more symbolic resonance, Grace. Early on, it’s clear she’s pretty much unattainable.

Booth wants knowledge from his brother, more than anything else. Linc was once famous on the streets as a master of the Three-card Monte hustle — which itself has nothing to do with luck — but has given up the cards in the wake of a guilt-ridden incident. Eager brother Booth (played by Eisen-Martin with a nicely coiled energy, dangerous and comically hapless at once) is dying to become a hustler himself, but his efforts to learn the ropes meet with resistance from his jaded, wary older brother (whom Wright imbues with a perfect combination of wistful compassion and alpha-male contempt).

For his part, Linc’s guilty conscience finds a kind of half-bitter contentment in his current job: impersonating his namesake at a carnival sideshow, where he daydreams as sitting duck in white-face Honest Abe drag, before a ready line of customer-assassins. Indeed, Linc’s first appearance onstage comes in the Lincoln get-up, an eerily comic site that already loads the naturalistic performances with dreamy intensity.

If Parks’ drama (which premiered off-Broadway in the summer of 2001) preceded everything from 9/11, the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, Katrina, the financial crisis, worldwide protest movements against global capitalism and empire, and the advent of the country’s first African American president, MTC’s apt revival shows it more than keeps pace with the times as a gritty and gripping allegory of endemic, convoluted civil wars.

TOPDOG/UNDERDOG

Through Oct. 21, $36-$57

Marin Theatre Company

397 Miller, Mill Valley

www.marintheatre.org

Supervisors reinstate Mirkarimi, rejecting Lee’s interpretation of official misconduct

Sasha Cuttler

October 10, 2012

181

Supervisors reinstate Mirkarimi, rejecting Lee’s interpretation of official misconduct

The Board of Supervisors has voted to reinstate Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi and reject the official misconduct charges that Mayor Ed Lee brought against Mirkarimi for grabbing and bruising his wife’s arm during a New Year’s Eve argument, for now ending an ugly saga that has polarized San Franciscans.

The vote was 7-4, two votes shy of the nine needed to sustain the charges and remove Mirkarimi, who now resumes the position voters elected him to in November with back pay going back to March when Lee suspended him. Sups. Christina Olague, David Campos, John Avalos, and Jane Kim voted in Mirkarimi’s favor, condemning the domestic violence incident but saying that it didn’t meet what is and should be a high and clear standard for overruling the will of voters, a concern also voiced by Sup. Mark Farrell.

“I do take this job seriously, that we are public policy makers,” said Kim, a lawyer who emphasized their duty to set clear standards for officials during these unprecedented proceedings rather than being swayed by emotional responses to conduct by Mirkarimi that she called “incredibly egregious.”

But for most of the supervisors, that was enough. Sup. Eric Mar, who is in the middle of difficult reelection campaign against the more conservative and well-financed David Lee, said he thought is was important to have “zero tolerance” for domestic violence and his vote was “in the service of justice and a belief it will combat domestic violence.”

Earlier in the hearing, Kim had led the questioning of Deputy City Attorney Sherri Kaiser, whose broad interpretation of official misconduct standards and inability to set clear guidelines troubled Kim, just as it had earlier to Ethics Commission Chair Benedict Hur, the sole vote on that body against removal after it conducted six months worth of hearings.

“I agree with Chairman Hur, I think we need to take the most narrow view of official misconduct,” Kim said, echoing a point that had also been made by Campos, who quoted Hur’s comment from the Aug. 16 hearing where the commission voted 4-1 to recommend removal: “I have a lot of concern about where you draw the line if you don’t relate this to official duties.”

Farrell also shared that concern, which he raised in questioning Kaiser and during the final board deliberations almost seven grueling hours later.

“I worry a great deal about the potential for abuse in this charter section,” Farrell said, warning this and future mayors to use great caution and restraint before bringing official misconduct charges. Yet he still found that the “totality of the circumstances” warranted removal because Mirkarimi had compromised his ability to be the top law enforcement officer.

Each supervisor expressed what a difficult and joyless decision this was, and even those who supported Mirkarimi strongly condemned his actions and the efforts by some of his supporters to minimize the seriousness of his actions and the need for him to change.

“I have tremendous mixed feelings about Ross Mirkarimi,” Avalos said, noting his many proud progressive accomplishments but adding, “I’ve always seen Ross as someone who has deep flaws….[This saga] offers a chance for personal transformation and I think that’s something Ross really needs to do.”

Mirkarimi seems humbled by the hearing, and the stinging criticism of his former colleagues and his one-time allies in the domestic violence community, and he pledged to work on “regaining their trust” as he tries to embody the city’s long-held value on redemption.

“I appreciate all the comments of by the Board of Supervisors and I hear the message. The next step is mending fences and moving forward,” Mirkarimi said. Later, he told reporters, “We’re absorbing all the comments that were made by the Board of Supervisors. They are my former colleagues and I take it very seriously.”

That need to heal the deep and emotional divide between San Franciscans who see this case in starkly different ways – which was on vivid display during the hours of public testimony – was sounded by several supervisors. “We will need to come together as a city on this,” Board President David Chiu said.

Most of those who spoke during the nearly four hours in public comments favored Mirkarimi and condemned the efforts to remove him as politically motivated, overly judgmental, and setting a dangerous precedent rather than resorting to usual method for removing politicians after a scandal: recall elections.

“If anything happens to the man, it should come back to me to make that decision. Don’t do their dirty work for them,” one commenter said.

The most politically significant person to speak during public comment was former Mayor Art Agnos, who said he was a friend and supporter of Mirkarimi, but he was more concerned with the scary implications of this decision. “I respectfully urge that this Board protect all elected officials from the dangerous discretion used in this case and reinstate Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi.”

Most of those who spoke against Mirkarimi were domestic violence advocates, who were adamant that Mirkarimi be removed, casting it as a litmus test for whether the city takes their issue seriously. “This is a disciplinary proceeding, it is not election stealing,” said Beverly Upton, head of the Domestic Violence Consortium, who has lead the campaign to oust Mirkarimi since the incident was made public.

But the two sides seemed to be speaking past one another, each expressing righteous indignation that people didn’t see the issue like they did, indicating how polarizing these long-lingering proceedings have become and how difficult to heal that rift may be.

“It made my stomach turn to hear some of the comments that were made,” Sup. Carmen Chu said, condemning the actions of Mirkarimi supporters in vocally or visibly supporting one another. “That was wrong, this is not a joyous event.”

Yet Farrell said he was also concerned that Mirkarimi’s opponents would go after supervisors who made a principled stand against removing him. “I hope no one takes pot shots at the people who voted against this,” he said.

That principled stand – condemning Mirkarimi’s behavior but having a high standard for removing an elected official – was a trail blazed by Hur, who opened the hearing by presenting the Ethics Commission’s findings and a decision that he was the sole vote against. He noted the “challenge of my presentation” but made careful efforts to accurately represent the views of the commission majority.

Yet he ended up using almost half of his time at the podium — his allotted 10 minutes plus a few extra minutes to respond to questions from supervisors — to stress the danger of broadly interpreting the city’s official misconduct language and not requiring direct connection to an official’s duties.

“Public policy suggests we should interpret this more narrowly than proposed by the majority,” Hur said, later adding that his colleagues on the commission “did not provide a clear basis for how official misconduct is delineated.”

When Sup. Malia Cohen asked what he meant by the “public policy” interest at stake here, he replied, “The need to have policies that are clear…It does benefit the public when the laws are clear.” (Cohen later voted to remove Mirkarimi, stating with little explanation, “I believe the reading of the charter is narrow and appropriately applied in this case.”)

The issue of what qualifies as official misconduct — and whether there is a predictable way for officials to know where that line is drawn, or whether it’s entirely up to the discretion of mayors — was also highlighted by Kaiser’s long presentation, but probably not in the way she intended.

Kaiser appealed to people’s sense of outrage about the initial arm-grab and subsequent guilty plea — claiming Mirkarimi “attacked his wife” and “this conduct was serious!” — and seemed to think that was an adequate test of whether bad behavior by an elected official warrants his unilateral removal from office.

Kaiser took issue with Hur’s contention that a lack of clear, limiting standards gives too much power to future mayors to remove their political enemies for minor incidents.

“The mayor certainly does not agree with Hur’s argument for a bright line rule,” Kaiser said. She mocked the notion that mayors would abuse this expanded power. “The check on that is the Ethics Commission, and the check on that is this body.” Kaiser’s position was that the statute should be read as broadly as possible and that the process should be trusted to protect against political manipulations.

But Chiu also took issue with that standard, saying “having clarity in the law seems to make sense” and asking Kaiser how officials can know what standards they’re expected to meet.

“I don’t agree and I didn’t mean to convey the standard is murky,” Kaiser replied, but as she tried to elaborate, her standard began to seem ever murkier.

“It depends on the circumstance,” Kaiser said. “But that doesn’t make it too vague to apply. It makes it more nimble.”

A nimble standard might suit mayors just fine, but the idea seemed to bother the supervisors, even Farrell, who told Kaiser that her position “seems to me very contradictory.”

At the end of the hearing, Campos returned to Kaiser’s “nimble” comment as a reason for rejecting that argument and Lee’s charges: “I don’t think the analysis made me comfort. She said the interpretation was nimble, but I don’t know the difference between nimble and vague, and I think they are one in the same.”

“Most cases will be clear, but there are decisions on the periphery,” Kaiser told Farrell during the earlier questioning, not making it clear which category she’d put the Mirkarimi case into.

Kim was the next to try to pin Kaiser down on whether there’s a discernible standard for the city to apply to this and future cases, saying she’d like to see a “bright line rule or a test.” Kaiser said that it depends on the office, but that a law enforcement officer shouldn’t commit a crime.

“Then any misdemeanor the sheriff pleads to is official misconduct, is that right?” Kim asked.

No, she said, the conduct must be while someone is in office — seemingly contradicting her earlier point – and found to be so by the board and commission. But then she said, “It is true that any misdemeanor relates to the duties of a sheriff.”

Kim persisted: “This is where I get stuck. When does it fall below the standard of decency?”

“The charter doesn’t answer that question. It’s a case-by-case determination,” Kaiser said.

“What’s to guide us in the future?” Kim asked.

But again, there was no clear answer, it’s simply for mayors to decide. “It is a discretionary decision,” Kaiser said.

Kim, a lawyer, questioned whether the stance by Kaiser and Lee could lead the courts to strike down the city’s untested statute. “Does that open us up to the vagueness issue, which would make the clause unconstitutional?” Kim asked.

But Kaiser said San Francisco voters wanted to give the mayor wide power to interpret misconduct when they approved the broad new official misconduct language in 1995, part of a complete overhaul of the City Charter.

“Voters made a considered choice to put suspend and remove procedures in the charter,” she said, trying to counter the argument that recall elections should be used to remove elected officials. “These suspension and removal procedure is more nimble. It’s less expensive than a recall.”

Yet with a final price tag expected to be in the millions of dollars and proceedings lasting seven months, it’s debatable whether this process was really cheaper and more nimble.

Mirkarimi attorney David Waggoner began his presentation by saying, “There’s no question that on Dec. 31, 2011, Ross Mirkarimi made a terrible mistake.”

But it was a mistake that Mirkarimi admitted to, accepted the criminal punishment that followed his guilty plea, endured a forced six-month separation from his family, had his job and salary taken from him, was the target of a media and political campaigns that have deeply damaged his reputation, “his entire life’s work was destroyed almost in an instant.” All for pleading to a low-level misdemeanor.

“At the end of the day, the punishment does not fit the crime,” Waggoner said.

He noted that just three elected officials have been removed for official misconduct in the city’s history, each time for serious felonies. But now, it’s being applied to a misdemeanor with arguments that broaden a mayor’s ability to remove political adversaries.

“You must decide whether to uphold or overturn the will of the voters,” Waggoner told the supervisors.

He even took a swipe at the domestic violence advocates who have led the campaign to remove Mirkarimi: “Ironically, the very advocates who should be defending Eliana Lopez have been attacking her.”

Taking over from Waggoner, Mirkarimi’s other attorney, Shepard Kopp, said Mirkarimi had no official duties before taking the oath of office, and the charter makes clear there needs to be connection. “It says misconduct has to occur while an official is in office.”

Kopp also brought the focus back to the precedent in this historic case. “The other problem with the mayor’s position is it doesn’t give you any guidance or future mayors any guidance,” Kopp said, later adding, “To follow the mayor’s position is not workable policy and it doesn’t have any support under the law.”

Supervisors questioned Kopp and Waggoner, but it didn’t seem to reveal any new insights, simply reinforcing their points that official misconduct should be a rarely used tool applied only to serious crimes.

In her final five-minute final rebuttal, rather than letting her co-counsel Peter Keith speak or trying to mitigate some of the damage from her earlier testimony, Kaiser seemed to double-down on her tactic of using emotional arguments rather than addressing legal standards for removal.

She alleged Mirkarimi’s team offered “a theory that domestic violence doesn’t matter if you’re sheriff,” prompting an audible negative reaction from the crowd that Chiu gaveled down. That reaction was even louder and more outraged when Kaiser implied Mirkarimi “threatens the life of a family member.”

Those sorts of characterizations fed much of the crowd’s stated belief that this case was a “political witchhunt” designed to destroy a progressive leader, and the opposition expressed to some domestic violence advocates testimony could be used against the larger progressive community.

But Agnos, who sat in the audience throughout the long hearing, told us the frustration was understandable. “The crowd, after nine months of agony, expressed a lot of emotions, and that is inherent in mass crowds,” he said. “They didn’t mean ill will to the domestic violence community. There was no malevolent intent there.”

Supervisors who voted to reinstate Mirkarimi said they want to make clear their commitment to combating domestic violence. “I worry that this case has set us back because of the tensions around how we responded,” Avalos said.

“I think it’s important that no matter how we feel about this that we come together as a city,” Campos said. “People on both sides have legitimate viewpoints on this issue.”

Our Weekly Picks: October 10-16

October 9, 2012

WEDNESDAY 10

Happy Hour at 251 Post

Stumbling on 251 Post Street feels a lot like clicking on a square in Minesweeper that opens up an awesome chunk of mine-free space. The entrance is nudged between a designer sunglass shop and high-end French clothing store, but it leads to six floors full of innovate artwork. Granted, the art might be in the same price range as the surrounding stores, but hey, admission is a lot cheaper than a museum. The happy hour will feature artist talks at four of the six galleries, including the Bay Area painter Brett Amory, whose simple but beautiful paintings are evocative of my lonelier dream visions. His work, focused on figures and buildings he encounters in Oakland and San Francisco, reduces everything down to the essence, creating empty spaces where buildings and figures seem to recede and appear before your eyes. (Molly Champlin)

5pm, free

251 Post Street Art Galleries, SF

(415) 291-8000

www.artgalleryweek.com

Dinosaur Jr.

We don’t need to tell you that Dinosaur Jr was one of the most influential alternative rock bands of the 1990s or that these dudes can really shred. We’ll just let their 28-year career attest to that. What we will tell you is that their new album is not to be overlooked or underestimated. These Dinosaurs have aged well. I Bet on Sky, their 10th full-length, is a loudmouthed snarl of a record. It features all the best quirks of Dinosaur Jr’s extensive catalogue: frightening amounts of fuzz, weirdly engaging hooks, and deep dark lyrics in J Mascis’ disengaged nasal yowls. Don’t forget to bring earplugs. (Haley Zaremba)

8pm, $32.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-3000

www.thefillmore.com

FRIDAY 12

Lenora Lee Dance

The history of Chinese Americans in the Bay Area is not exactly a closed book. Over the years many artists — including dancers — have opened a few of its pages, but I can’t think of any choreographer who has taken an approach as simultaneously intimate and large scale as Lenora Lee. In her work, the personal and the political intertwine inextricably. As part of her fifth anniversary celebration she, and some very fine visual, musical and text collaborators, are presenting a triptych that is still in the making. “Passages: For Lee Ping To” is the most personal — based on Lee’s grandmother’s story; “Reflections” looks at conflicting ideas of maleness; and “The Escape”, a work on immigrant women. (Rita Felciano)

Fri/12-Sat/13, 8pm, $15–$25

Sun/14, 3:30pm

Dance Mission Theater

3316, 24th St., SF

www.dancemission.com

The Raveonettes

The collaboration of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo feels like 1950s and ’60s rock’n’roll overlaid with electric noise and coupled with darker, more introspective lyrics. Their sound recalls grunge and captures a shoegazy moodiness that’s both mysterious and lyrical. The Danish duo has been making music together as the Raveonettes since 2001, has developed a cult following along the way, and has been credited with spawning somewhat of an American indie rock renaissance. Wagner relates Observator, the group’s recently released sixth album, to “a heavenly dream that you slowly realize is actually taking place in hell.” (Mia Sullivan)

With Melody’s Echo Chamber

9pm, $25

Bimbo’s

1025 Columbus, SF?

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com

Morbid Angel

Time was that Morbid Angel could do no wrong. Tampa was bursting with bands in the later Reagan years, but few combined brutality with complexity as well as guitarist Trey Azagthoth, drummer Pete Sandoval, and bassist-vocalist David Vincent. With the release of 2011’s Illud Divinum Insanus, however, that time officially ended. Industrial and electronic textures alienated fans, leaving them uncertain about the band’s new direction. Thankfully, having missed the Illud… sessions while recovering from back surgery, Sandoval is now back in the fold, which bodes well for a return to death metal roots on the band’s current tour. (Ben Richardson)

With Dark Funeral, Grave

9pm, $31

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415)-255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

SATURDAY 13

Life is Living Festival

Even in the season of street fair, Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s Life is Living Festival stands out. The overarching theme for the fests — they take place in ‘hoods across the country, from Houston’s Emancipation Park to Chicago’s South Side to the Bronx — is bringing green to the black community, uniting the sustainability movement with a hip-hop sensibility. The fest overflows with hip-happenings: Oakland’s first youth poet laureate Stephanie Yun will take the stage, there’ll be a street art contest, a show by a local team of dunk artists, vegan Filipino food, free breakfast (a park tradition started by the Black Panthers), youth science exhibition, dancing, hip-hop cipher — oh, and Talib Kweli will DJ. The fest prides itself on being an uber-positive, multi-generational show of strength. You won’t go home frowning. (Caitlin Donohue)

10am-6pm, free Defremery Park 1651 Adeline, Oakl. www.lifeisliving.org

Alternative Press Expo

Besides, of course, the sweetly self-conscious parade of Optimus Prime, Misty from Pokemon, and Clockwork Android costumes, my favorite part of the dearly-departed Wonder Con was the sociology nerd comics panels. “Women in Comics,” “Social Justice in Comics,” the list goes on. Graphic novels present the perfect, neurosis-friendly media in which to delve into alternative culture, which is why the Alternative Press Expo will make you forget all those Hollywood blockbuster star panels. Go this year to delve into the best scribblers of alt culture, like the Hernandez brothers of Love and Rockets Latino punk fame, a queer cartoonist panel moderated by Glamazonia’s Justin Hall, and the chance to connect with a gajillion like-minded indie comic freaks. (Donohue)

11am-7pm; also Sun/14, 11am-6pm; $10 one day, $15 two day pass Concourse Exhibition Center 635 Eighth St., SF www.comic-con.org/ape

Yerba Buena Night

Art allies in the Yerba Buena district are rallying together for another installment of Yerba Buena Night. The neighborhood will be full of people getting their musing-spectator on during the gallery walk, rocking out at the three main performance stages, and chatting with class at the champagne reception hosted by Visual Aid. Be sure to stop by 111 Minna to see surreal graffiti and pen artist Lennie Mace, who operates in both America and Japan, as well as some of Mike Shine’s paintings and props from Outside Lands (minus the live carny folk, unfortunately). Or visit Wendi Norris Gallery for beautifully bright but often gruesome narrative paintings by artist Howie Tsui: think pop-surrealist Mark Ryden with a Chinese influence. (Champlin)

3pm, free

Yerba Buena District

701 Mission

(415) 541-0312

www.yerbabuena.org

MONDAY 15

David Byrne and St. Vincent

Old and young, man and woman, beauty and beast (albeit a hip beast with now slick, silver hair), David Byrne and St. Vincent make quite the unlikely pair. Despite, or maybe in light of these differences, their respective talents fit together like puzzle pieces in their joyously poppy and horn-laden collaboration, Love This Giant. The album, released in September, rings in like a call to action and touches on issues of wealth, prescribed and individual culture, love, and forgiveness. Aside from the fact that everyone loves a rock show backed with an eight-piece brass band, this is set to be a memorable night.(Champlin)

8pm, $63.50–$129

Orpheum Theater

1192 Market, SF

(888) 746-1799

www.shnsf.com

The Sheepdogs

If you’re itching for some classic rock nostalgia but aren’t in the mood for the full-on experience (i.e. Dark Star Orchestra), check out The Sheepdogs. This Canadian quartet looks like they were pulled straight out of the ’70s and has been sonically influenced by rock icons like The Grateful Dead, Credence Clearwater Revival, and Steely Dan. These guys released a self-titled, debut album with Atlantic Records last month. (They released their first three albums independently.) The Sheepdogs thrive on three-part harmonies, produce extremely catchy tracks, and have been rumored to put on fun, blissful shows. (Sullivan)

With Black Box Revelation

7:30pm, $15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

TUESDAY 16

Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin

Not quite nu-jazz, math-rock, or classical minimalism, Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin attacks Reichian time signatures with the borderline robotic technical skill of a group of Juilliard grads, the undeniable groove of an airtight funk band, and the Steely Dan-worthy production values inherent to ECM, the venerable European jazz label to which they’re signed. Bärtsch’s piano playing is remarkably dynamic, flowing between resonant, open tones and muffled, percussive hammering, while generously layered drums, agile bass-plucking, and exotic woodwinds (contrabass clarinet, anyone?) create a dark, steely backdrop. Considering the Swiss ensemble’s masterful ability to anchor soulful acoustic instrumentation with a relentlessly electronic pulse, Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin is as compelling, and unmissable, as any live ensemble currently working. (Taylor Kaplan)

8pm, $20

Yoshi’s Oakland

510 Embarcadero West, Oakl.

(510) 238-9200

www.yoshis.com/oakland

Vampyr with live score by Steven Severin

Get your Halloween on a little early this year with Steven Severin, founding member and bassist of Siouxie and the Banshees, who comes to haunt the city tonight with two special live performances of his new score to the classic 1932 horror film Vampyr. The third installment in Severin’s ongoing film accompaniment series “Music For Silents,” the darkly moody synthesizer score perfectly matches the surreal scenes on the silver screen, working in conjunction with the somewhat unorthodox style of filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer, who continued to use elements of the silent era, including dialogue title cards, even though the film was made at the advent of the talkies. (Sean McCourt)

7 and 9:30pm, $15

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

www.roxie.com

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Film Listings and Reviews

October 9, 2012

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Sara Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

OPENING

Argo See “The Rescuer.” (2:00) Four Star, Marina.

Decoding Deepak And you thought your dad was a hard nut to crack. Decoding Deepak, directed by the son of New Age guru Deepak Chopra, offers insight into what it’s like to be the son of a man who’s built a career on commodifying spirituality, thanks to a string of best sellers and an Oprah seal of approval. Though the thirtysomething Gotham Chopra seems focused on catching his father off guard, Deepak offstage is exactly what you’d expect: a bit entitled and narcissistic, as many famous folks tend to be; obsessed with Twitter, as all media people tend to be; and “a guy who turns any mundane question into a talking point for a new book.” In other words, there are no shocking revelations here — though Deepak does offer an up-close view of some exceptionally galactic father-son tension. (1:23) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Din Tao: Leader of the Parade When he grows tired of school in Taipei, a ne’er-do-well named Tai returns to his rural village, rocking spiky hair, a Throwdown tee, and a wallet chain. Far from a safe haven, however, the town is a place with problems both personal (Tai’s dad is of the opinion his son has been “useless since he was little”) and, uh, political, in the form of fierce competition between local folk dance and drumming troupes. Seems Pop isn’t as mean as he seems, since the group he manages is comprised of disadvantaged and special-needs kids. When the sneering local champs (who have emo haircuts and drive vans emblazoned with tribal tattoo designs) challenge the underdogs to a not-so-friendly competition, Tai joins his father’s group, and it’s not long before he injects tradition with a little rock ‘n’ roll flair, angering his deeply traditional father (in a subplot that gets pretty tiresome) even as the younger generations learn to put their differences aside. Based on a true story, Din Tao is the opening night film of the Taiwan Film Days series at New People Cinema, hosted by the San Francisco Film Society; visit sffs.org/cinema for complete schedule. (2:03) New People Cinema. (Eddy)

Excuse Me for Living When the going of indie filmmaking grows economically rough, the moneyed and well-connected enter the field, swinging enriched resumes. Writer-director Ric Klass seems to have garnered experience in many a lucrative field, founding a private equity firm and real estate development company, teaching entrepreneurship at Georgetown University’s School of Business Administration, and working as a financial consultant to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. How does that multipronged background help when it comes to this ungainly throwback comedy, a glance to Old Hollywood with a nod to both the Borscht Belt and sitcom? Spoiled Ivy League-schooled addict Dan (Tom Pelphrey), a smart-assed semi-charmer-in-his-own-mind straight out of a Bret Easton Ellis epic, is about to toss himself off a bridge when he’s pulled from the brink by a passing cop and pushed into posh rehab Live Free or Die. His doctor (Robert Vaughn) prescribes meetings with his temple’s men’s group, populated by an array of accomplished raconteurs, and there he meets his doc’s pretty, scribbling daughter (Melissa Archer). Attraction ensues, with tangential broad comic forays that aspire to the snappy chatter of My Man Godfrey (1936) but somehow get bogged down in the dalliances of Dan’s dad (Wayne Knight) and his mother’s man-eating divorce lawyer Charlotte Davidson (Ewa Da Cruz). And despite a few promising chuckles and a glut of cameos, micro and macro, by actors such as Jerry Stiller, Dick Cavett, and Christopher Lloyd, Excuse Me‘s cliched narrative, vaguely antiquated dialogue and score, and even staler hints of misogyny capsize this enterprise in dire need of an editor. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Fat Kid Rules the World It really does suck to be Troy (Jacob Wysocki from 2011’s Terri). An XXL-sized high schooler, he’s invisible to his peers, derided by his little brother (Dylan Arnold), and has lived in general domestic misery since the death of his beloved mother under the heavy-handed rule of his well-meaning but humorless ex-military dad (Billy Campbell). His only friends are online gamers, his only girlfriends the imaginary kind. But all that begins to change when chance throws him across the path of notorious local hellraiser Marcus (Matt O’Leary), who’s been expelled from school, has left the band he fronts, and is equal parts rebel hero to druggy, lyin’ mess. But he randomly decrees Troy is cool, and his new drummer. Even if he’s just being used, Troy’s world is headed for some big changes. Actor Matthew Lilliard’s feature directorial debut, based on K.L. Going’s graphic novel, is familiar stuff in outline but a delight in execution, as it trades the usual teen-comedy crudities (a few gratuitous joke fantasy sequences aside) for something more heartfelt and restrained, while still funny. O’Leary from last year’s overlooked Natural Selection is flamboyantly terrific, while on the opposite end of the acting scale Campbell makes repressed emotion count for a lot — he has one wordless moment at a hospital that just might bring you to the tears his character refuses to spill. (1:38) Metreon, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Here Comes the Boom Kevin James plays a teacher who ventures into the world of mixed martial arts. (1:45) The Other Dream Team Despite all of the baseball and football fever crackling around town lately, there are some of us who wonder, “How long ’till basketball season?” Tide over your longing with this engaging doc, which is named for Lithuania’s 1992 Olympic basketball team but is really about how the sport has shaped the culture of a nation, even during its decades spent under Soviet rule. It begins with the USSR’s defeat of team USA at the 1988 games — at the height of the Cold War, and when most Americans assumed all Soviet athletes were more or less variations on the ruthless man-machine played by Dolph Lundgren in 1985’s Rocky IV. Of course, what people didn’t realize was that four of the five starters were Lithuanians — NBA-level players who were not allowed to leave the USSR to pursue their careers. Four years later, times had changed (one of the men is former Warriors standout Sarunas Marciulionis; another is Hall of Famer Arvydas Sabonis), and the Lithuanian team that competed in 1992 (with the financial backing of the Grateful Dead, hoops fans who applauded their courage) became an emotional symbol for the newly-independent country. The end result is a tale that’s equal parts sobering, rousing, and funny — and tie-dyed. (1:31) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Seven Psychopaths Those nostalgic for 1990s-style chatty assassins will find much to love in the broadly sketched Seven Psychopaths. Director-writer Martin McDonough already dipped a pen into Tarantino’s blood-splattered ink well with his 2008 debut feature, In Bruges, and Seven Psychopaths reads as larkier and more off-the-cuff, as the award-winning Irish playwright continues to try to find his own discomfiting, teasing balance between goofy Grand Guignol yuks and meta-minded storytelling. Structured, sort of, with the certified lucidity of a thrill killer, Seven Psychopaths opens on Boardwalk Empire heavies Michael Pitt and Michael Stuhlbarg bantering about the terrors of getting shot in the eyeball, while waiting to “kill a chick.” The talky twosome don’t seem capable of harming a fat hen, in the face of the Jack of Spades serial killer, who happens to be Psychopath No. One and a serial destroyer of hired guns. The key to the rest of the psychopathic gang is locked in the noggin of screenwriter Marty (Colin Farrell), who’s grappling with a major block and attempting the seeming impossible task of creating a peace-loving, Buddhist killer. Looking on are his girlfriend Kaya (Abbie Cornish) and actor best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell), who has a lucrative side gig as a dog kidnapper — and reward snatcher — with the dapper Hans (Christopher Walken). A teensy bit too enthusiastic about Marty’s screenplay, Billy displays a talent for stumbling over psychos, reeling in Zachariah (Tom Waits) and, on his doggie-grabbing adventures, Shih Tzu-loving gangster Charlie (Woody Harrelson). Unrest assured, leitmotifs from McDonough plays — like a preoccupation with fiction-making (The Pillowman) and the coupling of pet-loving sentimentality and primal violence (The Lieutenant of Inishmore) — crop up in Seven Psychopaths, though in rougher, less refined form, and sprinkled with a nervous, bromantic anxiety that barely skirts homophobia. Best to bask in the cute, dumb pleasures of a saucer-eyed lap dog and the considerably more mental joys of this cast, headed up by dear dog hunter Walken, who can still stir terror with just a withering gaze and a voice that can peel the finish off a watch. (1:45) Piedmont. (Chun)

Sinister In which Ethan Hawke realizes it’s a good idea to make sure your new house isn’t haunted by an ancient demon before you move in with your wife and kids. (1:50)

Smiley This is a movie inspired by a website (specifically, 4chan’s /b/ discussion board) about a killer created by the internet (literally, formed as part of some kind of next-level, computers-are-becoming-self-aware shizz), starring a YouTube personality (Shane Dawson) — so the purposes of opening Smiley theatrically, which it’s probably better suited to online viewing, are mysterious. That’s about the only intrigue in Smiley, which is ostensibly about a college freshman (Caitlin Girard) coming off a nervous breakdown who believes she’s being targeted by the titular killer, who can be summoned by three-peating (like Bloody Mary or Candyman or Beetlejuice) the phrase “I did it for the lulz.” No real scares — just some gotcha! jumps and shrill music cues — or much else to recommend here, other than a weird performance by Roger Bart as a creepy philosophy prof, and Keith David, who cameos as a skeptical detective. (Almost worth watching just to hear David say “lulz” with those storied pipes. Almost.) (1:30) Mercado 20. (Eddy)

The Thieves The lure of a massive diamond with the theatrical name “Tear of the Sun” draws a ragtag crew of Korean and Chinese thieves — all of whom have shifty loyalties and motivations — to a casino in Macau, where the gem is hidden. Meanwhile, the local cops have their own angle, scheming to use the crooks to lead them to a mysterious master fence with a towering reputation for violence. It’s clear early on that this heist (complete with safecracking, gadgets, security-camera sabotage, gun battles, double-crosses, disguises, Spiderman-ing up and down building exteriors, etc.) won’t go off as planned — and payback for those who betray the others will be a bitch — but that’s part of the fun of this jazzy if derivative caper, already a huge hit in Korea. (2:16) Cupertino 16. (Eddy)

War of the Buttons Drama about kids in rural France banding together during the days of Nazi occupation. (1:40) Bridge, Shattuck.

ONGOING

Arbitrage As Arbitrage opens, its slick protagonist, Robert Miller (Richard Gere), is trying to close the sale of his life, on his 60th birthday: the purchase of his company by a banking goliath. The trick is completing the deal before his fraud, involving hundreds of millions of dollars, is uncovered, though the whip-smart daughter who works for him (Brit Marling) might soon be onto him. Meanwhile, Miller’s gaming his personal affairs as well, juggling time between a model wife (Susan Sarandon) and a Gallic gallerist mistress (Laetitia Casta), when sudden-death circumstances threaten to destroy everything, and the power broker’s livelihood — and very existence — ends up in the hands of a young man (Nate Parker) with ambitions of his own. It’s a realm that filmmaker Nicholas Jarecki is all too familiar with. Though like brothers Andrew (2003’s Capturing the Friedmans) and Eugene (2005’s Why We Fight), Jarecki’s first love is documentaries (his first film, 2006’s The Outsider, covered auteur James Toback), his family is steeped in the business world. Both his parents were commodities traders, and Jarecki once owned his own web development firm and internet access provider, among other ventures. When he started writing Arbitrage‘s script in 2008, he drew some inspiration from Bernard Madoff — but ultimately, the film is about a good man who became corrupted along the way, to the point of believing in his own invincibility. (1:40) Presidio, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Beasts of the Southern Wild Six months after winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (and a Cannes Camera d’Or), Beasts of the Southern Wild proves capable of enduring a second or third viewing with its originality and strangeness fully intact. Magical realism is a primarily literary device that isn’t attempted very often in U.S. cinema, and succeeds very rarely. But this intersection between Faulkner and fairy tale, a fable about — improbably — Hurricane Katrina, is mysterious and unruly and enchanting. Benh Zeitlin’s film is wildly cinematic from the outset, as voiceover narration from six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) offers simple commentary on her rather fantastical life. She abides in the Bathtub, an imaginary chunk of bayou country south of New Orleans whose residents live closer to nature, amid the detritus of civilization. Seemingly everything is some alchemical combination of scrap heap, flesh, and soil. But not all is well: when “the storm” floods the land, the holdouts are forced at federal gunpoint to evacuate. With its elements of magic, mythological exodus, and evolutionary biology, Beasts goes way out on a conceptual limb; you could argue it achieves many (if not more) of the same goals Terrence Malick’s 2011 The Tree of Life did at a fraction of that film’s cost and length. (1:31) Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Bitter Seeds Just what we all needed: more incontrovertible evidence of the bald-faced evil of Monsanto. This documentary on destitute Indian cotton farmers follows an 18-year-old girl named Manjusha, a budding journalist who investigates the vast numbers of farmer suicides since the introduction (and market stranglehold) of “BT” cotton — which uses the corporation’s proprietary GMO technology — in the region of Vidarbha. Before BT took over in 2004, these cotton farmers relied on cheap heritage seed fertilized only by cow dung, but the largely illiterate population fell prey to Monsanto’s marketing blitz and false claims, purchasing biotech seed that resulted in pesticide reliance, failing crops, and spiraling debt. It’s a truly heartbreaking and infuriating story, but much of the action feels stagy and false. Should Indian formality be blamed? Considering the same fate befell Micha X. Peled’s 2005 documentary China Blue, probably not. Still, eff Monsanto. (1:28) Roxie. (Michelle Devereaux)

The Bourne Legacy Settle down, Matt Damon fans — the original Bourne appears in The Bourne Legacy only in dialogue (“Jason Bourne is in New York!”) and photograph form. Stepping in as lead badass is Jeremy Renner, whose twin powers of strength and intelligence come courtesy of an experimental-drug program overseen by sinister government types (including Edward Norton in an utterly generic role) and administered by lab workers doing it “for the science!,” according to Dr. Rachel Weisz. Legacy‘s timeline roughly matches up with the last Damon film, The Bourne Ultimatum, which came out five years ago and is referenced here like we’re supposed to be on a first-name basis with its long-forgotten plot twists. Anyway, thanks to ol’ Jason and a few other factors involving Albert Finney and YouTube, the drug program is shut down, and all guinea-pig agents and high-security-clearance doctors are offed. Except guess which two, who manage to flee across the globe to get more WMDs for Renner’s DNA. Essentially one long chase scene, The Bourne Legacy spends way too much of its time either in Norton’s “crisis suite,” watching characters bark orders and stare at computer screens, or trying to explain the genetic tinkering that’s made Renner a super-duper-superspy. Remember when Damon killed that guy with a rolled-up magazine in 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy? Absolutely nothing so rad in this imagination-free enterprise. (2:15) SF Center. (Eddy)

Butter (1:32) 1000 Van Ness, Smith Rafael.

The Campaign (1:25) 1000 Van Ness.

The Dark Knight Rises Early reviews that called out The Dark Knight Rises‘ flaws were greeted with the kind of vicious rage that only anonymous internet commentators can dish out. And maybe this is yet another critic-proof movie, albeit not one based on a best-selling YA book series. Of course, it is based on a comic book, though Christopher Nolan’s sophisticated filmmaking and Christian Bale’s tortured lead performance tend to make that easy to forget. In this third and “final” installment in Nolan’s trilogy, Bruce Wayne has gone into seclusion, skulking around his mansion and bemoaning his broken body and shattered reputation. He’s lured back into the Batcave after a series of unfortunate events, during which The Dark Knight Rises takes some jabs at contemporary class warfare (with problematic mixed results), introduces a villain with pecs of steel and an at-times distractingly muffled voice (Tom Hardy), and unveils a potentially dangerous device that produces sustainable energy (paging Tony Stark). Make no mistake: this is an exciting, appropriately moody conclusion to a superior superhero series, with some nice turns by supporting players Gary Oldman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But in trying to cram in so many characters and plot threads and themes (so many prisons in this thing, literal and figural), The Dark Knight Rises is ultimately done in by its sprawl. Without a focal point — like Heath Ledger’s menacing, iconic Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight — the stakes aren’t as high, and the end result feels more like a superior summer blockbuster than one for the ages. (2:44) Metreon. (Eddy)

Detropia Those of us from Detroit, once-glamorous capital of American manufacturing and symbol of the triumph of capitalism, often feel like we were born with the history of the city in our bones. Another common feeling is that of dread upon hearing that yet another arty documentary (or brow-furrowing article, or glossy photo book) is coming down the pipe. The narrative arc of such things is usually this: remember Motown? Cars were amazing. Then there were scary riots, probably out of thin air. Then the jobs left. Isn’t Detroit sad now? Look how spooky this abandoned train station from the 1930s is! America is over. Wait! Some hipsters are starting a farm downtown! There may be hope after all. But who knows? Detropia, directed by Heidi Ewing, who grew up near Detroit, and Rachel Grady, doesn’t exactly deconstruct that crusty storyline (non-spoiler alert: the hipster-farmers become performance artists). But this important and beautiful film shows how much more of the Detroit tale takes on meaning and shape when told through the voices of people who actually live there, with a cinematic eye that doesn’t shy away from reality, even as it bends it to narrative ends. (1:30) Smith Rafael. (Marke B.)

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel The life of legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland is colorfully recounted in Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, a doc directed by her granddaughter-in-law, Lisa Immordino Vreeland. The family connection meant seemingly unlimited access to material featuring the unconventionally glamorous (and highly quotable) Vreeland herself, plus the striking images that remain from her work at Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Narrated” from interview transcripts by an actor approximating the late Vreeland’s husky, posh tones, the film allows for some criticism (her employees often trembled at the sight of her; her sons felt neglected; her grasp of historical accuracy while working at the museum was sometimes lacking) among the praise, which is lavish and delivered by A-listers like Anjelica Huston, who remembers “She had a taste for the extraordinary and the extreme,” and Manolo Blahnik, who squeals, “She had the vision!” (1:26) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Dredd 3D Cartoonishly, gleefully gruesome violence abounds in Dredd 3D, a pretty enjoyable comic-book adaptation thanks to star Karl Urban’s deadpan zingers. This is not a remake of the 1995 Sly Stallone flop Judge Dredd, by the way, though it might as well be a remake of 2011 Indonesian import The Raid: Redemption. The stories are identical. Like, lawsuit material-identical: supercop infiltrates (and then becomes trapped in, and must battle his way out of) a high-rise apartment tower run by a ruthless crime boss. Key difference is that Dredd has futuristic weapons, and The Raid had badass martial arts. Also Dredd‘s villain is played by Lena “Cersei Lannister” Headey, so there’s that. (1:38) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

End of Watch Buddy cop movies tend to go one of two ways: the action-comedy route (see: the Rush Hour series) or the action-drama route. End of Watch is firmly in the latter camp, despite some witty shit-talking between partners Taylor (a chrome-domed Jake Gyllenhaal) and Zavala (Michael Peña from 2004’s Crash) as they patrol the mean streets of Los Angeles. Writer-director David Ayer, who wrote 2001’s Training Day, aims for authenticity by piecing together much of (but, incongruously, not all of) the story through dashboard cameras, surveillance footage, and Officer Taylor’s own ever-present camera, which he claims to be carrying for a school project, though we never once see him attending classes or mentioning school otherwise. Gyllenhaal and Peña have an appealing rapport, but End of Watch‘s adrenaline-seeking plot stretches credulity at times, with the duo stumbling across the same group of gangsters multiple times in a city of three million people. Natalie Martinez and Anna Kendrick do what they can in underwritten cop-wife roles, but End of Watch is ultimately too familiar (but not lawsuit-material familiar) to leave any lasting impression. Case in point: in the year 2012, do we really need yet another love scene set to Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You”? (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Eddy)

Finding Nemo 3D (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

Frankenweenie Tim Burton’s feature-length Frankenweenie expands his 1984 short of the same name (canned by Disney back in the day for being too scary), and is the first black and white film to receive the 3D IMAX treatment. A stop-motion homage to every monster movie Burton ever loved, Frankenweenie is also a revival of the Frankenstein story cute-ified for kids; it takes the showy elements of Mary Shelley’s novel and morphs them to fit Burton’s hyperbolic aesthetic. Elementary-school science wiz Victor takes his disinterred dog from bull terrier to gentle abomination (when the thirsty Sparky drinks, he shoots water out of the seams holding his body parts together). Victor’s competitor in the school science fair, Edgar E. Gore, finds out about Sparky and ropes in classmates to scrape up their dead pets from the town’s eerily utilized pet cemetery and harness the town’s lightning surplus. The film’s answer to Boris Karloff (lisp intact) resurrects a mummified hamster, while a surrogate for Japanese Godzilla maker Ishiro Honda, revives his pet turtle Shelley (get it?) into Gamera. As these experiments aren’t borne of love, they don’t go as well at Victor’s. If you love Burton, Frankenweenie feels like the at-last presentation of a story he’s been dying to tell for years. If you don’t love him, you might wonder why it took him so long to get it out. When Victor’s science teacher leaves the school, he tells Victor an experiment conducted without love is different from one conducted with it: love, he implies, is a variable. If that’s the variable that separates 2003’s Big Fish (heartbreaking) from 2010’s Alice In Wonderland (atrocious), it’s a large one indeed. The love was there for 29 minutes in 1984, but I can’t say it endures when stretched to 87 minutes 22 years later. (1:27) Metreon, Presidio, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

Hotel Transylvania (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

House At the End of the Street Tight T-shirts, a creepy cul-de-sac, couples in cars on lonely lanes, and the cute but weird loner kid — all the stuff of classic drive-in horror fare, revisited in this ambitious tribute of sorts. Don’t mistake House at the End of the Street for genre-reviving efforts by super fans like Eli Roth and Rob Zombie; Mark Tonderai’s mash up of Psycho (1960) and Last House on the Left (1972) lacks the rock ‘n’ roll brio and jet-black humor of, say, Cabin Fever (2002) or The Devil’s Rejects (2005). Instead House reads like an earnest effort to add a thin veneer of psychological realism and even girl power sincerity to a blood-spattered back catalog. Teenage musician Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence) and her overwhelmed mom Sarah (Elisabeth Shue) have found themselves quite a deal of a new rental home — a bit too good, since their next door neighbors were both brutally killed by their brain-damaged offspring who was obviously afflicted with the same greasy hair issues as the ghoulish gal in The Ring. Ryan (Bay Area native Max Thieriot), the boy who continues to live in the house where his parents were murdered, is ostracized, attractive, and much like his home, a fixer — making him mighty attractive to Elissa. A hearty, artistic soul who likes to venture where others fear to tread, she’s drawn to him despite the fact that she feels like she’s being watched from the woods that separate their homes. Switching back and forth between various perspectives — like that of a sputtering, spasmodically edited psychopath-cam and the steady, thoughtful gaze of a rebellious yet empathetic girl — House manages to effectively throw a few curveballs your way, while toying with genre conventions and upsetting your expectations. Shoring up its efforts is a talented cast, headed up by Lawrence’s feisty heroine and Shue’s sad-eyed struggling mom. (1:43) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Looper It’s 2044 and, thanks to a lengthy bout of exposition by our protagonist, Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), here’s what we know: Time travel, an invention 30 years away, will be used by criminals to transport their soon-to-be homicide victims backward, where a class of gunmen called loopers, Joe among them, are employed to “do the necessaries.” More deftly revealed in Brick writer-director Rian Johnson’s new film is the joylessness of the world in which Joe amorally makes his way, where gangsters from the future control the present (under the supervision of Jeff Daniels), their hit men live large but badly (Joe is addicted to some eyeball-administered narcotic), and the remainder of the urban populace suffers below-subsistence-level poverty. The latest downside for guys like Joe is that a new crime boss has begun sending back a steady stream of aging loopers for termination, or “closing the loop”; soon enough, Joe is staring down a gun barrel at himself plus 30 years. Being played by Bruce Willis, old Joe is not one to peaceably abide by a death warrant, and young Joe must set off in search of himself so that—with the help of a woman named Sara (Emily Blunt) and her creepy-cute son Cid (Pierce Gagnon)—he can blow his own (future) head off. Having seen the evocatively horrific fate of another escaped looper, we can’t totally blame him. Parsing the daft mechanics of time travel as envisioned here is rough going, but the film’s brisk pacing and talented cast distract, and as one Joe tersely explains to another, if they start talking about it, “we’re gonna be here all day making diagrams with straws” —in other words, some loops just weren’t meant to be closed. (1:58) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The Master Paul Thomas Anderson’s much-hyped likely Best Picture contender lives up: it’s easily the best film of 2012 so far. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Lancaster Dodd, the L. Ron Hubbard-ish head of a Scientology-esque movement. “The Cause” attracts Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, in a welcome return from the faux-deep end), less for its pseudo-religious psychobabble and bizarre personal-growth exercises, and more because it supplies the aimless, alcoholic veteran — a drifter in every sense of the word — with a sense of community he yearns for, yet resists submitting to. As with There Will Be Blood (2007), Anderson focuses on the tension between the two main characters: an older, established figure and his upstart challenger. But there’s less cut-and-dried antagonism here; while their relationship is complex, and it does lead to dark, troubled places, there are also moments of levity and weird hilarity — which might have something to do with Freddie’s paint-thinner moonshine. (2:17) Albany, 1000 Van Ness, Opera Plaza, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Moonrise Kingdom Does Wes Anderson’s new film mark a live-action return to form after 2007’s disappointingly wan Darjeeling Limited? More or less. Does it tick all the Andersonian style and content boxes? Indubitably. In the most obvious deviation Anderson has taken with Moonrise, he gives us his first period piece, a romance set in 1965 on a fictional island off the New England coast. After a chance encounter at a church play, pre-teen Khaki Scout Sam (newcomer Jared Gilman) instantly falls for the raven-suited, sable-haired Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward, ditto). The two become pen pals, and quickly bond over the shared misery of being misunderstood by both authority figures and fellow kids. The bespectacled Sam is an orphan, ostracized by his foster parents and scout troop (much to the dismay of its straight-arrow leader Edward Norton). Suzy despises her clueless attorney parents, played with gusto by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand in some of the film’s funniest and best scenes. When the two kids run off together, the whole thing begins to resemble a kind of tween version of Godard’s 1965 lovers-on the-lam fantasia Pierrot le Fou. But like most of Anderson’s stuff, it has a gauzy sentimentality more akin to Truffaut than Godard. Imagine if the sequence in 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums where Margot and Richie run away to the Museum of Natural History had been given the feature treatment: it’s a simple yet inspired idea, and it becomes a charming little tale of the perils of growing up and selling out the fantasy. But it doesn’t feel remotely risky. It’s simply too damn tame. (1:37) Shattuck. (Michelle Devereaux)

The Oranges In director Julian Farino’s tale of two families, the Wallings and the Ostroffs are neighbors and close friends living in the affluent New Jersey township of West Orange. We meet David Walling (Hugh Laurie), his wife Paige (Catherine Keener), his best friend Terry Ostroff (Oliver Platt), and Terry’s wife, Carol (Allison Janney), during a period of domestic malaise for both couples — four unhappy people who enjoy spending time together — that is destined to be exponentially magnified over the Thanksgiving and Christmas festivities. We learn much of this in voice-over courtesy of stalled-out 24-year-old design school grad Vanessa (Alia Shawkat), a second-generation Walling whose narrative subjectivity the film makes plain. No one will fault Vanessa for editorializing, however, when her Ostroff counterpart, onetime BFF and present-day nemesis Nina (Leighton Meester), returns home after a five-year absence and, amid maternal pressure to date Vanessa’s visiting brother, Toby (Adam Brody), instead embarks on an affair with their father. The ick factor is large, particularly because it takes a while to keep straight all the spouses, offspring, and houses they belong in. But Farino works to convince us that the romantic spark between David and Nina should be judged on its merits rather than with a gut-level revulsion, a reaction we can leave to the film’s principals. To the extent that this is possible, it’s possible to enjoy The Oranges‘ intelligent writing and fine cast, whose sympathetic characters (perhaps excluding Nina, whose heedlessness regarding the feelings of others verges on sociopathic) we wish the best of luck in surviving the holidays. (1:30) Albany, Clay, SF Center. (Rapoport)

The Paperboy Lee Daniels scored big with Precious (2009), but this follow-up is so off-kilter in tone and story it will likely polarize critics and confuse audiences, despite its A-list cast. I happened to enjoy the hell out of this tacky, sweat-drenched, gator-gutting, and generally overwrought adaptation of Peter Dexter’s novel (Dexter and Daniels co-wrote the screenplay); it’s kind of a Wild Things-The Help-A Time to Kill mash-up, with the ubiquitous Matthew McConaughey starring as Ward Jansen, a Florida newspaper reporter investigating what he thinks is the wrongful murder conviction of Hillary Van Wetter (a repulsively greasy John Cusack). But the movie’s not really about that. Set in 1969 and narrated by Macy Gray, who plays the veteran housekeeper for the Jansens — a clan that also includes college dropout Jack (Zac Efron) — The Paperboy is neither mystery nor thriller. It’s more of a swamp cocktail, with some odd directorial choices (random split-screen here, random zoom there) that maybe seem like exploitation movie homages. As a Southern floozy turned on by “prison cock” (but not, to his chagrin, by the oft-shirtless Jack), Nicole Kidman turns in her trashiest performance since 1995’s To Die For. (1:46) California, Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Move over, Diary of a Wimpy Kid series — there’s a new shrinking-violet social outcast in town. These days, life might not suck quite so hard for 90-pound weaklings in every age category, what with so many films and TV shows exposing, and sometimes even celebrating, the many miseries of childhood and adolescence for all to see. In this case, Perks author Stephen Chbosky takes on the directorial duties — both a good and bad thing, much like the teen years. Smart, shy Charlie is starting high school with a host of issues: he’s painfully awkward and very alone in the brutal throng, his only friend just committed suicide, and his only simpatico family member was killed in a car accident. Charlie’s English teacher Mr. Andersen (Paul Rudd) appears to be his only connection, until the freshman strikes up a conversation with feline, charismatic, shop-class jester Patrick (Ezra Miller) and his magnetic, music- and fun-loving stepsister Sam (Emma Watson). Who needs the popular kids? The witty duo head up their gang of coolly uncool outcasts their own, the Wallflowers (not to be confused with the deeply uncool Jakob Dylan combo), and with them, Charlie appears to have found his tribe. Only a few small secrets put a damper on matters: Patrick happens to be gay and involved with football player Brad (Johnny Simmons), who’s saddled with a violently conservative father, and Charlie is in love with the already-hooked-up Sam and is frightened that his fragile equilibrium will be destroyed when his new besties graduate and slip out of his life. Displaying empathy and a devotion to emotional truth, Chbosky takes good care of his characters, preserving the complexity and ungainly quirks of their not-so-cartoonish suburbia, though his limitations as a director come to the fore in the murkiness and choppily handled climax that reveals how damaged Charlie truly is. (1:43) California, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Pitch Perfect As an all-female college a cappella group known as the Barden Bellas launches into Ace of Base’s “The Sign” during the prologue of Pitch Perfect, you can hear the Glee-meets-Bring It On elevator pitch. Which is fine, since Bring It On-meets-anything is clearly worth a shot. In this attempt, Anna Kendrick stars as withdrawn and disaffected college freshman Beca, who dreams of producing music in L.A. but is begrudgingly getting a free ride at Barden University via her comp lit professor father. Clearly his goal is not making sure she receives a liberal arts education, as Barden’s academic jungle extends to the edges of the campus’s competitive a cappella scene, and the closest thing to an intellectual challenge occurs during a “riff-off” between a cappella gangs at the bottom of a mysteriously drained swimming pool. When Beca reluctantly joins the Bellas, she finds herself caring enough about the group’s fate to push for an Ace of Base moratorium and radical steps like performing mashups. Much as 2000’s Bring It On coined terms like “cheerocracy” and “having cheer-sex,” Pitch Perfect gives us the infinitely applicable prefix “a ca-” and descriptives like “getting Treble-boned,” a reference to forbidden sexual relations with the Bellas’ cocky rivals, the Treblemakers. The gags get funnier, dirtier, and weirder, arguably reaching their climax in projectile-vomit snow angels, with Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins as grin-panning competition commentators offering a string of loopily inappropriate observations. (1:52) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Resident Evil: Retribution (1:35) 1000 Van Ness.

Samsara Samsara is the latest sumptuous, wordless offering from director Ron Fricke, who helped develop this style of dialogue- and context-free travelogue with Koyaanisqatsi (1982) and Baraka (1992). Spanning five years and shooting on 70mm film to capture glimmers of life in 25 countries on five continents, Samsara, which spins off the Sanskrit word for the “ever-turning wheel of life,” is nothing if not good-looking, aspiring to be a kind of visual symphony boosted by music by the Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard and composers Michael Stearns and Marcello De Francisci. Images of natural beauty, baptisms, and an African woman and her babe give way to the madness of modern civilization — from jam-packed subways to the horrors of mechanized factory farming to a bizarre montage of go-go dancers, sex dolls, trash, toxic discarded technology, guns, and at least one gun-shaped coffin. After such dread, the opening and closing scenes of Buddhist spirituality seem almost like afterthoughts. The unmistakable overriding message is: humanity, you dazzle in all your glorious and inglorious dimensions — even at your most inhumane. Sullying this hand wringing, selective meditation is Fricke’s reliance on easy stereotypes: the predictable connections the filmmaker makes between Africa and an innocent, earthy naturalism, and Asia and a vaguely threatening, mechanistic efficiency, come off as facile and naive, while his sonic overlay of robot sounds over, for instance, an Asian woman blinking her eyes comes off as simply offensive. At such points, Fricke’s global leap-frogging begins to eclipse the beauty of his images and foregrounds his own biases. (1:39) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

Searching for Sugar Man The tale of the lost, and increasingly found, artist known as Rodriguez seems to have it all: the mystery and drama of myth, beginning with the singer-songwriter’s stunning 1970 debut, Cold Fact, a neglected folk rock-psychedelic masterwork. (The record never sold in the states, but somehow became a beloved, canonical LP in South Africa.) The story goes on to parse the cold, hard facts of vanished hopes and unpaid royalties, all too familiar in pop tragedies. In Searching for Sugar Man, Swedish documentarian Malik Bendjelloul lays out the ballad of Rodriguez as a rock’n’roll detective story, with two South African music lovers in hot pursuit of the elusive musician — long-rumored to have died onstage by either self-immolation or gunshot, and whose music spoke to a generation of white activists struggling to overturn apartheid. By the time Rodriguez himself enters the narrative, the film has taken on a fairy-tale trajectory; the end result speaks volumes about the power and longevity of great songwriting. (1:25) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

Sleepwalk with Me Every year lots of movies get made by actors and comedians who want to showcase themselves, usually writing and often directing in addition to starring. Most of these are pretty bad, and after a couple of festival appearances disappear, unremembered by anyone save the credit card companies that vastly benefited from its creation. Mike Birbiglia’s first feature is an exception — maybe not an entirely surprising one (since it’s based on his highly praised Off-Broadway solo show and best-seller), but still odds-bucking. Particularly as it’s an autobiographical feeling story about an aspiring stand-up comic (Mike as Matt) who unfortunately doesn’t seem to have much natural talent in that direction, but nonetheless obsessively perseveres. This pursuit of seemingly fore destined failure might be causing his sleep disorder, or it might be a means of avoiding taking the martial next step with long-term girlfriend (Lauren Ambrose, making something special out of a conventional reactive role) everyone else agrees is the best thing in his life. Yep, it’s another commitment-phobic man-boy/funny guy who regularly talks to the camera, trying to find himself while quirky friends and family stand around like trampoline spotters watching a determined clod. If all of these sounds derivative and indulgent, well, it ought to. But Sleepwalk turns a host of familiar, hardly foolproof ideas into astute, deftly performed, consistently amusing comedy with just enough seriousness for ballast. Additional points for “I zinged him” being the unlikely most gut-busting line here. (1:30) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Taken 2 Surprise hit Taken (2008) was a soap opera produced by French action master Luc Besson and designed for export. The divorced-dad-saves-daughter-from-sex-slavery plot may have nagged at some universal parenting anxieties, but it was a Movie of the Week melodrama made on a major movie budget. Taken 2 begins immediately after the last, with sweet teen Kim (Maggie Grace) talking about normalizing after she was drugged and bought for booty. Papa Neeson sees Kim’s mom (Famke Janssen) losing her grip on husband number two and invites them both to holiday in Istanbul following one of his high-stakes security gigs. When the assistant with the money slinks him a fat envelope, Neeson chuckles at his haul. This is the point when women in the audience choose which Neeson they’re watching: the understated super-provider or the warrior-dad whose sense of duty can meet no match. For family men, this is the breeziest bit of vicarious living available; Neeson’s character is a tireless daddy duelist, a man as diligent as he is organized. (This is guy who screams “Victory loves preparation!”) As head-splitting, disorienting, and generally exhausting as the action direction is, Neeson saves his ex-wife and the show in a stream of unclear shootouts. Taken 2 is best suited for the small screen, but whatever the size, no one can stop an international slave trade (or wolves, or Batman) like 21st century Liam. Swoon. (1:31) Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

Trouble with the Curve Baseball scout Gus (Clint Eastwood) relies on his senses to sign players to the Atlanta Braves, and his roster of greats is highly regarded by everyone — save a sniveling climber named Sanderson (Matthew Lillard), who insists his score-keeping software can replace any scout. Gus’ skill in his field are preternatural, but with his senses dwindling, his longtime-friend Pete (a brilliant John Goodman) begs Gus’ daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) to go with him — to see how bad the situation is and maybe drive him around. Ultimately, the film’s about the rift between career woman Mickey, and distant dad Gus, with some small intrusions from Justin Timberlake as Mickey’s romantic interest. Trouble with the Curve is a phrase used to describe batters who can’t hit a breaking ball and it’s a nuance — if an incontrovertible one — unobservable to the untrained eye. While Mickey and Gus stumble messily toward a better relationship (with a reasonable amount of compromise), Curve begins to look a bit like The Blind Side (2009), trading the church and charity for therapy and baggage. But what it offers is sweet and worthwhile, if you’re tolerant of the sanitized psychology and personality-free aesthetics. But it’s a movie about love and compromise — and if you love baseball you won’t have trouble forgiving some triteness, especially when Timberlake, the erstwhile Boo-Boo, gets to make a Yogi Berra joke. (1:51) 1000 Van Ness. (Vizcarrondo)

V/H/S Hollywood hath spoken: between the Paranormal Activity series (now on part four), Barry Levinson’s The Bay (out next month), and current horror anthology V/H/S, found footage is still a viable scare tactic. V/H/S — an energetically exploitative take on the trend that reaches past 1999’s Blair Witch Project to high-five the granddaddy of them all, 1980’s legendarily nasty Cannibal Holocaust — sets up the action with a frame story in which hooligans film themselves behaving badly, then prowl a house in search of a mysterious VHS tape. Each tape contains material so shocking (a woman turns flesh-tearingly monstrous after a drunken hookup; a student Skyping with her boyfriend suspects her apartment is haunted; and a road trip, a camping trip, and a Halloween party all go very, very wrong) it unsettles even tough guys who, earlier in the day, were grabbing women on the street in service of their budding “reality porn” business. Each “tape” is directed by an up-and-comer — including Ti West (2009’s The House of the Devil) and Joe Swanberg (2007’s Hannah Takes the Stairs) — and though the film as a whole overindulges its bro-y tendencies, it also delivers frights and gore along with all that gratuitous boobage. (1:55) Shattuck. (Eddy)

Vulgaria (1:32) Metreon.

Won’t Back Down If talk of introducing charter schools into the public education mix tends to give you collective-bargaining-related hives, Daniel Barnz’s Won’t Back Down is unlikely to appeal, unless perhaps as the object of a boycott or a picket line. Two embattled mothers, Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Nona Alberts (Viola Davis), both with children at a failing Pittsburgh elementary school and the latter a teacher there, join forces to change the institutional culture by leading a parent-teacher takeover, with the goal of creating a charter school. As the bureaucratic process for doing so is described by a school district employee, it should take them three to five years to discover that they’ve been hurling themselves at a brick wall; Jamie, an efficient combination of fireball and pit bull, is determined to pulverize the wall in about two months. Watching her and Nona try to secure more than a third-rate, treading-water education for their kids, it’s hard not to root for the possibility of a transformation, and even an upper-level teachers’ union staffer played by Holly Hunter finds herself climbing the fence. The details of what lies on the other side (and inside Jamie and Nona’s 400-page proposal) stay fairly fuzzy, though. And while Barnz lets his warring factions—desperate mothers and educators, a union boss (Ned Eisenberg) watching the deterioration of the labor movement, a pro-union teacher (Oscar Isaac) ambivalently engaged in the chartering project—impassionedly debate their way through the film, a little more wonkiness might have clarified the arguments of those done waiting for Superman. (2:00) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

PROJECT CENSORED 2012

October 9, 2012

yael@sfbg.com

People who get their information exclusively from mainstream media sources may be surprised at the lack of enthusiasm on the left for President Barack Obama in this crucial election. But that’s probably because they weren’t exposed to the full online furor sparked by Obama’s continuation of his predecessor’s overreaching approach to national security, such as signing the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the indefinite detention of those accused of supporting terrorism, even US citizens.

We’ll never know how this year’s election would be different if the corporate media adequately covered the NDAA’s indefinite detention clause and many other recent attacks on civil liberties. What we can do is spread the word and support independent media sources that do cover these stories. That’s where Project Censored comes in.

Project Censored has been documenting inadequate media coverage of crucial stories since it began in 1967 at Sonoma State University. Each year, the group considers hundreds of news stories submitted by readers, evaluating their merits. Students search Lexis Nexis and other databases to see if the stories were underreported, and if so, the stories are fact-checked by professors and experts in relevant fields.

A panel of academics and journalists chooses the Top 25 stories and rates their significance. The project maintains a vast online database of underreported news stories that it has “validated” and publishes them in an annual book. Censored 2013: Dispatches from the Media Revolution will be released Oct. 30.

For the second year in row, Project Censored has grouped the Top 25 list into topical “clusters.” This year, categories include “Human cost of war and violence” and “Environment and health.” Project Censored director Mickey Huff told us the idea was to show how various undercovered stories fit together into an alternative narrative, not to say that one story was more censored than another.

“The problem when we had just the list was that it did imply a ranking,” Huff said. “It takes away from how there tends to be a pattern to the types of stories they don’t cover or underreport.”

In May, while Project Censored was working on the list, another 2012 list was issued: the Fortune 500 list of the biggest corporations, whose influence peppers the Project Censored list in a variety of ways.

Consider this year’s top Fortune 500 company: ExxonMobil. The oil company pollutes everywhere it goes, yet most stories about its environmental devastation go underreported. Weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin (58 on the Fortune list), General Dynamics (92), and Raytheon (117) are tied into stories about US prisoners in slavery conditions manufacturing parts for their weapons and the underreported war crimes in Afghanistan and Libya.

These powerful corporations work together more than most people think. In the chapter exploring the “Global 1 percent,” writers Peter Phillips and Kimberly Soeiro explain how a small number of well-connected people control the majority of the world’s wealth. In it, they use Censored story number 6, “Small network of corporations run the global economy,” to describe how a network of transnational corporations are deeply interconnected, with 147 of them controlling 40 percent of the global economy’s total wealth.

For example, Philips and Soeiro write that in one such company, BlackRock Inc., “The eighteen members of the board of directors are connected to a significant part of the world’s core financial assets. Their decisions can change empires, destroy currencies, and impoverish millions.”

Another cluster of stories, “Women and Gender, Race and Ethnicity,” notes a pattern of underreporting stories that affect a range of marginalized groups. This broad category includes only three articles, and none are listed in the top 10. The stories reveal mistreatment of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons, including being denied medical care and shackled during childbirth, and the rape and sexual assault of women soldiers in the US military. The third story in the category concerns an Alabama anti-immigration bill, HB56, that caused immigrants to flee Alabama in such numbers that farmers felt a dire need to “help farms fill the gap and find sufficient labor.” So the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries approached the state’s Department of Corrections about making a deal where prisoners would replace the fleeing farm workers.

But with revolutionary unrest around the world, and the rise of a mass movement that connects disparate issues together into a simple, powerful class analysis — the 99 percent versus the 1 percent paradigm popularized by Occupy Wall Street — this year’s Project Censored offers an element of hope.

It’s not easy to succeed at projects that resist corporate dominance, and when it does happen, the corporate media is sometimes reluctant to cover it. Number seven on the Top 25 list is the story of how the United Nations designated 2012 the International Year of the Cooperative, recognizing the rapid growth of co-op businesses, organizations that are part-owned by all members and whose revenue is shared equitably among members. One billion people worldwide now work in co-ops.

The Year of the Cooperative is not the only good-news story discussed by Project Censored this year. In Chapter 4, Yes! Magazine‘s Sarah Van Gelder lists “12 ways the Occupy movement and other major trends have offered a foundation for a transformative future.” They include a renewed sense of “political self-respect” and fervor to organize in the United States, debunking of economic myths such as the “American dream,” and the blossoming of economic alternatives such as community land trusts, time banking, and micro-energy installations.

They also include results achieved from pressure on government, like the delay of the Keystone Pipeline project, widespread efforts to override the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, the removal of dams in Washington state after decades of campaigning by Native American and environmental activists, and the enactment of single-payer healthcare in Vermont.

As Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed writes in the book’s foreword, “The majority of people now hold views about Western governments and the nature of power that would have made them social pariahs 10 or 20 years ago.”

Citing polls from the corporate media, Ahmed writes: “The majority are now skeptical of the Iraq War; the majority want an end to US military involvement in Afghanistan; the majority resent the banks and financial sector, and blame them for the financial crisis; most people are now aware of environmental issues, more than ever before, and despite denialist confusion promulgated by fossil fuel industries, the majority in the United States and Britain are deeply concerned about global warming; most people are wary of conventional party politics and disillusioned with the mainstream parliamentary system.”

“In other words,” he writes, “there has been a massive popular shift in public opinion toward a progressive critique of the current political economic system.”

And ultimately, it’s the public — not the president and not the corporations—that will determine the future. There may be hope after all. Here’s Project Censored’s Top 10 list for 2013:

1. SIGNS OF AN EMERGING POLICE STATE

President George W. Bush is remembered largely for his role in curbing civil liberties in the name of his “war on terror.” But it’s President Obama who signed the 2012 NDAA, including its clause allowing for indefinite detention without trial for terrorism suspects. Obama promised that “my Administration will interpret them to avoid the constitutional conflict” — leaving us adrift if and when the next administration chooses to interpret them otherwise. Another law of concern is the National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order that Obama issued in March 2012. That order authorizes the President, “in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States, to take actions necessary to ensure the availability of adequate resources and production capability, including services and critical technology, for national defense requirements.” The president is to be advised on this course of action by “the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council, in conjunction with the National Economic Council.” Journalist Chris Hedges, along with co-plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, won a case challenging the NDAA’s indefinite detention clause on Sept. 1, when a federal judge blocked its enforcement, but her ruling was overturned on Oct. 3, so the clause is back.

2. OCEANS IN PERIL

Big banks aren’t the only entities that our country has deemed “too big to fail.” But our oceans won’t be getting a bailout anytime soon, and their collapse could compromise life itself. In a haunting article highlighted by Project Censored, Mother Jones reporter Julia Whitty paints a tenuous seascape — overfished, acidified, warming — and describes how the destruction of the ocean’s complex ecosystems jeopardizes the entire planet, not just the 70 percent that is water. Whitty compares ocean acidification, caused by global warming, to acidification that was one of the causes of the “Great Dying,” a mass extinction 252 million years ago. Life on earth took 30 million years to recover. In a more hopeful story, a study of 14 protected and 18 non-protected ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea showed dangerous levels of biomass depletion. But it also showed that the marine reserves were well-enforced, with five to 10 times larger fish populations than in unprotected areas. This encourages establishment and maintenance of more reserves.

3. US DEATHS FROM FUKUSHIMA

A plume of toxic fallout floated to the US after Japan’s tragic Fukushima nuclear disaster on March 11, 2011. The US Environmental Protection Agency found radiation levels in air, water, and milk that were hundreds of times higher than normal across the United States. One month later, the EPA announced that radiation levels had declined, and they would cease testing. But after making a Freedom of Information Act request, journalist Lucas Hixson published emails revealing that on March 24, 2011, the task of collecting nuclear data had been handed off from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry lobbying group. And in one study that got little attention, scientists Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman found that in the period following the Fukushima meltdowns, 14,000 more deaths than average were reported in the US, mostly among infants. Later, Mangano and Sherman updated the number to 22,000.

4. FBI AGENTS RESPONSIBLE FOR TERRORIST PLOTS

We know that FBI agents go into communities such as mosques, both undercover and in the guise of building relationships, quietly gathering information about individuals. This is part of an approach to finding what the FBI now considers the most likely kind of terrorists, “lone wolves.” Its strategy: “seeking to identify those disgruntled few who might participate in a plot given the means and the opportunity. And then, in case after case, the government provides the plot, the means, and the opportunity,” writes Mother Jones journalist Trevor Aaronson. The publication, along with the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkeley, examined the results of this strategy, 508 cases classified as terrorism-related that have come before the US Department of Justice since the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001. In 243 of these cases, an informant was involved; in 49 cases, an informant actually led the plot. And “with three exceptions, all of the high-profile domestic terror plots of the last decade were actually FBI stings.”

5. FEDERAL RESERVE LOANED TRILLIONS TO MAJOR BANKS

The Federal Reserve, the US’s quasi-private central bank, was audited for the first time in its history this year. The audit report states, “From late 2007 through mid-2010, Reserve Banks provided more than a trillion dollars… in emergency loans to the financial sector to address strains in credit markets and to avert failures of individual institutions believed to be a threat to the stability of the financial system.” These loans had significantly less interest and fewer conditions than the high-profile TARP bailouts, and were rife with conflicts of internet. Some examples: the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served as a board member of the New York Federal Reserve at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed. William Dudley, who is now the New York Federal Reserve president, was granted a conflict of interest waiver to let him keep investments in AIG and General Electric at the same time the companies were given bailout funds. The audit was restricted to Federal Reserve lending during the financial crisis. On July 25, 2012, a bill to audit the Fed again, with fewer limitations, authored by Rep. Ron Paul, passed the House of Representatives. HR459 expected to die in the Senate, but the movement behind Paul and his calls to hold the Fed accountable, or abolish it altogether, seem to be growing.

6. SMALL NETWORK OF CORPORATIONS RUN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Reporting on a study by researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich didn’t make the rounds nearly enough, according to Censored 2013. They found that, of 43,060 transnational companies, 147 control 40 percent of total global wealth. The researchers also built a model visually demonstrating how the connections between companies — what it calls the “super entity” — works. Some have criticized the study, saying control of assets doesn’t equate to ownership. True, but as we clearly saw in the 2008 financial collapse, corporations are capable of mismanaging assets in their control to the detriment of their actual owners. And a largely unregulated super entity like this is vulnerable to global collapse.

7. THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF COOPERATIVE

Can something really be censored when it’s straight from the United Nations? According to Project Censored evaluators, the corporate media underreported the UN declaring 2012 to be the International Year of the Cooperative, based on the coop business model’s stunning growth. The UN found that, in 2012, one billion people worldwide are coop member-owners, or one in five adults over the age of 15. The largest is Spain’s Mondragon Corporation, with more than 80,000 member-owners. The UN predicts that by 2025, worker-owned coops will be the world’s fastest growing business model. Worker-owned cooperatives provide for equitable distribution of wealth, genuine connection to the workplace, and, just maybe, a brighter future for our planet.

8. NATO WAR CRIMES IN LIBYA

In January 2012, the BBC “revealed” how British Special Forces agents joined and “blended in” with rebels in Libya to help topple dictator Muammar Gadaffi, a story that alternative media sources had reported a year earlier. NATO admits to bombing a pipe factory in the Libyan city of Brega that was key to the water supply system that brought tap water to 70 percent of Libyans, saying that Gadaffi was storing weapons in the factory. In Censored 2013, writer James F. Tracy makes the point that historical relations between the US and Libya were left out of mainstream news coverage of the NATO campaign; “background knowledge and historical context confirming Al-Qaeda and Western involvement in the destabilization of the Gadaffi regime are also essential for making sense of corporate news narratives depicting the Libyan operation as a popular ‘uprising.'”

9. PRISON SLAVERY IN THE US

On its website, the UNICOR manufacturing corporation proudly proclaims that its products are “made in America.” That’s true, but they’re made in places in the US where labor laws don’t apply, with workers often paid just 23 cents an hour to be exposed to toxic materials with no legal recourse. These places are US prisons. Slavery conditions in prisons aren’t exactly news. It’s literally written into the Constitution; the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, outlaws “ slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” But the article highlighted by Project Censored this year reveal the current state of prison slavery industries, and its ties to war. The majority of products manufactured by inmates are contracted to the Department of Defense. Inmates make complex parts for missile systems, battleship anti-aircraft guns, and landmine sweepers, as well as night-vision goggles, body army, and camouflage uniforms. Of course, this is happening in the context of record high imprisonment in the US, where grossly disproportionate numbers of African Americans and Latinos are imprisoned, and can’t vote even after they’re freed. As psychologist Elliot D. Cohen puts it in this year’s book: “This system of slavery, like that which existed in this country before the Civil War, is also racist, as more than 60 percent of US prisoners are people of color.”

10. HR 347 CRIMINALIZES PROTEST

HR 347, sometimes called the “criminalizing protest” or “anti-Occupy” bill, made some headlines. But concerned lawyers and other citizens worry that it could have disastrous effects for the First Amendment right to protest. Officially called the Federal Restricted Grounds Improvement Act, the law makes it a felony to “knowingly” enter a zone restricted under the law, or engage in “disorderly or disruptive” conduct in or near the zones. The restricted zones include anywhere the Secret Service may be — places such as the White House, areas hosting events deemed “National Special Security Events,” or anywhere visited by the president, vice president, and their immediate families; former presidents, vice presidents, and certain family members; certain foreign dignitaries; major presidential and vice presidential candidates (within 120 days of an election); and other individuals as designated by a presidential executive order. These people could be anywhere, and NSSEs have notoriously included the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Super Bowls, and the Academy Awards. So far, it seems the only time HR 347 has kicked in is with George Clooney’s high-profile arrest outside the Sudanese embassy. Clooney ultimately was not detained without trial — information that would be almost impossible to censor — but what about the rest of us who exist outside of the mainstream media’s spotlight? A book release party will be held at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph, in Berkeley, on Nov. 3. You can listen to Huff’s radio show Friday morning at 8pm on KPFA.

Alerts

Andrew Lam

October 5, 2012

Thursday 4

Reject Cordileone St. Mary’s Cathedral, 1111 Gough, SF; tinyurl.com/cordileone. 1:30pm, free. The new San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has caused a stir. The guy was the major force behind Prop. 8, which banned gay marriage in California. As Bishop of Oakland, he led “pro-life boot camps” that trained hundreds of high school youth to fight against reproductive rights. And that was after he was Bishop of San Diego, a Diocese he left as they dealt with lawsuits following 150 claims from sexual abuse victims. Back in San Diego, the man was arrested for a DUI last month. Come on, The Pope! This guy? A group will be protesting his installment ceremony, letting him know right off the bat that he is bringing his hatred to the wrong city.

Friday 5

Upheavals in the Middle East South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis, Berk; speakout-now@gmx.com. 7pm, $5 requested donation. What caused the civil war in Syria, what’s happening with it now, and is intervention from the United States and other countries affecting the crisis? Learn the answers to these questions and more from- Dr. As’ad Abukhalil, professor of political science at Cal State Stanislaus and writer at angryarab.blogspot.com.

Feminist Vigilante March 19th St. and Telegraph, Oakl; Facebook: Feminist Vigilante Gangs. 7pm, free. As the Guardian feminism panel made abundantly clear, we’re in dire need of roving feminist gangs. As rapes go unsolved and sexual assault unpunished — by a justice system that is itself oppressive and police officers that, themselves, commit rape and sexual assault — it’s time to take back some power from the patriarchy. At the first feminist vigilante march in Oakland, people took that message to the streets. There was fearlessness, and there was glitter. Join them again Friday.

Saturday 6

Affordable housing day citywide, SF; www.affordablehousingdaysf.com. 1-4pm, free. We all love San Francisco, but with exorbitant housing prices that just keep rising, our neighbors keep leaving by droves. But many organizations love the city and its diverse residents so much that they’ve done something about this displacement, fighting for affordable housing throughout the city. What are affordable housing developments, what do they look like, and how can you learn more about obtaining it? Come to affordable housing day to find out. Neighborhood organizations throughout the city will be giving tours of affordable housing in their area, including SoMa, the Richmond, the Mission, the Excelsior, Bayview and the Western Addition.

United in Anger Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF; www.othercinema.com. 8:30pm, $6. It’s the West Coast debut of United in Anger, a documentary about the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP. The legendary group used fearless direct action tactics to put AIDS on the national agenda and support those surviving it. The documentary is based on an oral history project carried out to help preserve the stories of those who fought in the movement. This screening is presented by current local ACT UP chapter member Cyd Nova, and a portion of the proceeds go to the group.

Monday 8

My heroes have always killed colonizers Eric Quezada Center, 552 Valencia, SF; www.politicaleducation.org. 6-9:30pm, free. A night of celebration for Indigenous Peoples Day. The movement to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead of Columbus Day takes back the day for the Native Americans who lived in what is now the United States instead of the colonizers who perpetrated genocide against them. This night of poetry, music and storytelling is in the spirit of remembering and honoring the power of those who fought back against the genocide of Native Americans.

Shake, rattle, and read

October 3, 2012

LIT What do you get when you bring together a horde of ravenous bibliophiles in a city that’s known for the possibility of a future catastrophic event? No, not the zombie-nerd apocalypse: Litquake, the largest annual independent literary festival on the West Coast. This year’s nine-day festival runs from Fri/5 through Sat/13, ending with Lit Crawl, the infamous booklovers pub-crawl that words up the Mission. The festival’s venues are as diverse as its writers, ranging from theaters, coffee houses, bars to a barbershop, a bee-keeping supply store, even a parklet. The jam-packed program is expected to bring even more attendees than last year (a whopping 16,581), and features 850 authors in 163 events including hundreds of readings and a multitudinous array of panels and cross-media events.

Originally dubbed Litstock, the festival was conjured up by Jane Ganahl and Jack Boulware at the Edinburgh Castle pub in San Francisco, a watering hole where local authors had been doing readings of their work. Ganahl and Boulware’s idea was simple: get a bunch of writers together to read their work in Golden Gate Park, and see what happens. With the help of Phil Bronstein, then editor of the San Francisco Examiner, they got $300 for a sound system, and on July 16, 1999, Litstock was born. Twenty-five writers read from their work, and to the surprise of Ganahl and Boulware, 300 people came to hear them. In 2002, the festival acquired its new, quintessentially San Francisco moniker, Litquake, and has been growing exponentially — more than 3,650 authors have presented to more than 83,500 people.

(About this year’s installment, Boulware tells the Guardian, “”This year, the festival feels like the programming has more depth than in previous years. We’re including more events at museums, more events outside the city, in particular the Berkeley Ramble, more tributes to noteworthy authors — Lenore Kandel, Woody Guthrie, and Juan Rulfo — and much more diversity in our expanded Lit Crawl schedule. We’re overjoyed to help cement the Bay Area’s rightful place on the national and international literary map.”)

As the story goes, the renaming of the festival in 2002 was partly inspired by an article in USA Today reporting that San Franciscans spend more money on books and alcohol than the residents of any other major city in the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Added to the festival in 2004, Lit Crawl has becoming the living, breathing embodiment of San Francisco’s happy marriage of books and booze — more than 6000 scribes and fans take part in venues in the Mission. San Francisco’s Lit Crawl (this year on Sat/13) has been so successful that there are now Lit Crawls in New York, Austin, Brooklyn and, soon, Seattle.

As neighborhoods go, the Mission is the perfect setting for the event, given its noteworthy independent bookstores and Dave Eggers’s brainchild, 826 Valencia. Like North Beach and the Haight, the city’s former literary hotspots, the Mission has an inherited bohemian spirit (some would call it Beat) that gives life to the idea of literary community.

This year’s Liquake roster of readers is a hefty one, spanning various genres and including such notable participants as Christopher Coake and Daniel Alarcón, both among Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists, along with local legends like US Poet Laureate Robert Hass and poet D.A. Powell. A bound-to-be-popular panel featuring cartoonist Daniel Clowes and Eggers himself will surely to draw a crowd, as the two discuss everything from the creative process to their favorite comics, books, and movies.

And for history buffs, there will be panels on little-known and formerly censored poetry of Beat poet Kandel and a tribute to Jane Austen featuring Karen Joy Fowler, author of bestseller book The Jane Austen Book Club.

It’s a fitting testament to San Francisco’s rich intellectual heritage that, in a city known for its ballooning tech industry (the oft-feared culprit behind literature’s “imminent demise”), San Franciscans’ literary love affair shows no signs of waning. Our lust for books still causes the city to tremble.

LITQUAKE

Fri/5-Sat/13

Various times, venues, and prices, SF.

www.litquake.org

Cheap basics, side of rainbow magic: Uniqlo’s full-size store opens this week

Andrew Lam

October 3, 2012

“We’re trying to impress you with the amount of colors we have for socks,” says Aldo Liguori, Uniqlo global director of corporate PR as he guides us through his Japanese clothing brand’s soon-to-be-open San Francisco store. There are indeed, a lot of sock colors. The three-story Union Square space is home to many wonders, however. Walls of affordably-priced cashmere sweaters, a magic mirror, color-shifting staircases, heat-generating clothing, and — perhaps most compelling to your reporter — a $9.90 special on “Japanese engineered denim.”

They have eggplant, dark gold, forest-colored jeans. An autumn palette rainbow. Grab them while they last. “They are manufactured in ChIina,” said Liguori in a reserved cadence befitting a person whose office is in the Minato ward of Tokyo. “But to Uniqlo Japanese standards.”

Not even $10. Elbows out on Friday, shoppers.

Sure, I spent the morning touring a chain clothing store. But Uniqlo is an exciting chain clothing store, way more exciting than Target, although maybe not as exciting as Top Shop. Te Powell Street location is the fifth full-fledged US location, although a San Francisco pop-up shop has been open since August a few blocks away. Would you believe New Jersey got a full-sized Uniqlo before the Bay Area? It did 🙁

Nonetheless, Uniqlo’s been busy at the hype game here in SF — promotional gambits have included online games involving Japanese cult cat Maru, and panel discussions held in the pop-up with Goapele and Mission Chinese Food’s Danny Bowein.

Those $9.90 jeans are one of a few opening days sales — you can also get their heavily-promoted, weirdly-lightweight down jackets for $49.90, and no less than six pairs of socks for $9.90. Uniqlo’s big on basics, but a lot of the basics come with twists, like aforementioned Heatech line of heat-producing long underwear, tank tops, etc. I swooned at the SF store over the wool cocoon coats and Double Standard by Masahisa Takino line of solid, Helmut Lang-like pieces. Slouchy sweatshirt shrugs, futuristic-looking rain trenches, etc.

But maybe you’re in it for the majick. You’ll find it here — like I said the staircases breathe rainbow. There are rotating army of fedora-wearing rainbow-clad mannequins, LOOK:

… and a mirror that, with the touch of a button, will change the color of the reflection of the fleece or down jacket you are wearing, so that you can see whether you’re more of a rose or a silver.

DISCLAIMER: By popular demand, we’d like to remind you that clothes produced in China are not subject to the same labor laws as clothes produced here in the United States (love you, Guardianistas.) Please note, Uniqlo has a mediocre history when it comes to these issues.

Uniqlo San Francisco store opening

Fri/5

Store hours: Mon.-Sat., 10am-9pm; Sun., 10am-8pm

111 Powell, SF

www.uniqlo.com

Feminist vigilante gangs to march on Oakland Friday

October 3, 2012

Oakland’s last feminist vigilante gangs march was a demonstration promoting offensive feminism in response to rape, assault, and murder of “women, queers, gender rebels and allies.” It was also a birthday party.

“The first march basically came about because it was my 30th birthday,” said Lauren, one of the organizers of that march and a second feminist vigilante gangs march, which will take place in Oakland on Friday.

“I had been talking a big game about feminist vigilante gangs and calling attention to the need for people to form affinities for a long time. When I was asked what I wanted for my 30th birthday I said, I want a feminist vigilante gangs march, as a joke. But people were into it.”

Last time, a group, equipped with and radical queer and feminist literature, banners, and glitter, marched from the “fake neighborhood” of uptown Oakland to downtown Oakland, Lauren said, ending with a dance party in “Oscar Grant Plaza,” Occupy Oakland’s longtime home base outside City Hall.

Along the way, organizers “stopped at some places to talk about things have had happened there,” said Lauren. “For instance, the place where Brandy Martell was killed.”

Brandy Martell was transgender woman who was shot April 29. Her murder remains unsolved. Martell’s is a “a high-profile case of transgender bashing. She died, and so we know about. But these types of things happen everyday on the streets in Oakland,” said Lauren.

The next feminist vigilante gangs march begins Friday at 7pm from 19th and Telegraph. It will also stop at the spot where Martell was killed, as well as other spots where queer bashing, rape and assault have taken place.

Lauren says the march is a few things. It’s a call-out “encouraging women, queers, gender outlaws in the Bay Area to start thinking offensively about the abuse that we’re on the receiving end of.”

It’s also “a way for us to practice discipline in the streets. Because we live in a culture that’s so abusive towards women, queers, gender variant people, its really hard for us to form affinities.”

The group plans for a tightly organized march. A security team and a league of bike scouts to protect the march have already begun training, and before the march begins a generalized security training is planned. Anyone who arrived alone will be given the chance to hook up with a marching buddy. Street medics and “emotional medics” from the Occupy Oakland safer spaces working group– “people who have some training to interact with people who are experiencing PTSD or who are experiencing emotions that are making it difficult for them to participate”– will be on hand.

“We have a bloc that is set up for people with limited mobility, that’s wheelchair users, cane users, people using walkers,” Lauren said.

Community self-defense

Organizers of the march hope that its spirit and practice of community building and self-defense can extend to the everyday lives of participants.

One way is by connecting demonstrators “with the resources to begin things like self-defense training, especially in a feminist and collective environment,” Lauren said. Groups like the Offensive Feminist Project, the Suigetsukan Dojo, and Girl Army.

“Something that we should be creating in marginalized communities is community self-defense. That’s something that the Black Panthers worked on. It’s not a new concept, in Oakland we have a lot of history with that,” said Lauren.

Community self-defense, of course, is supposed to be unnecessary; crime prevention and retribution is supposed to be relegated to the police and the criminal justice system. But Lauren said that these institutions are not working.

“I don’t believe that the criminal justice system is just, or serving anyone. And I think that’s a perspective shared by the people who are organizing the march, and probably by most of the people who will attend it,” she said. “I say this as someone who’s watched the police interrogate a rape victim and– interrogate is the correct word. There’s no justice in the criminal justice system for victims of rape and assault. So we want to talk about extra-legal methods of dealing with these issues.”

Extra-legal means of dealing with violence, she says, is “what feminist vigilante gangs is all about.”

After the march, organizers plan to continue this conversation at “a series of plenaries and salons in the East Bay” where participants will discuss questions like “What does feminist vigilantism look like?” Lauren said.

“As these conversations continue we will be spending a lot of time focusing on issues like race, and things like the history in the United States of falsely accusing men of color of assaulting white women so that they can be imprisoned or abused or killed,” Lauren said.

The group also has an open call for entries for a feminist vigilante gangs zine, for those who want to continue the discussion on paper. “People have been writing about bashing back. The Bash Back book Queer Ultraviolence just came out this year,” she noted.

Still, many people have not been exposed to the ideas and practices behind the feminist vigilante gangs march. On Friday, a lot of people will be– the march will coincide with Art Murmur, and downtown Oakland’s streets will already be crowded. A contingent from GLITUR, aka the Grand Legion of Incendiary and Tenacious Unicorn Revolutionaries, is coming down from Seattle. This march might get big.

But never fear, Lauren assured: “We should have enough glitter bandanas for everyone who comes.”

Film Listings

Andrew Lam

October 3, 2012

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, and Lynn Rapoport. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL

The 35th Mill Valley Film Festival runs Oct. 4-14 at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; Cinéarts@Sequoia, 25 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; and 142 Throckmorton Theatre, Mill Valley. For additional venues, full schedule, and tickets (most shows $13.50), visit www.mvff.com. For commentary, see Film.

OPENING

Bitter Seeds Just what we all needed: more incontrovertible evidence of the bald-faced evil of Monsanto. This documentary on destitute Indian cotton farmers follows an 18-year-old girl named Manjusha, a budding journalist who investigates the vast numbers of farmer suicides since the introduction (and market stranglehold) of "BT" cotton — which uses the corporation’s proprietary GMO technology — in the region of Vidarbha. Before BT took over in 2004, these cotton farmers relied on cheap heritage seed fertilized only by cow dung, but the largely illiterate population fell prey to Monsanto’s marketing blitz and false claims, purchasing biotech seed that resulted in pesticide reliance, failing crops, and spiraling debt. It’s a truly heartbreaking and infuriating story, but much of the action feels stagy and false. Should Indian formality be blamed? Considering the same fate befell Micha X. Peled’s 2005 documentary China Blue, probably not. Still, eff Monsanto. (1:28) Roxie. (Michelle Devereaux)

Butter Jennifer Garner, Olivia Wilde, and Hugh Jackman star in this Iowa-set satirical comedy about competitive butter carving. (1:32)

Frankenweenie Wee Victor Frankenstein brings his dog back from the dead in Tim Burton’s black-and-white, 3D animated tale. (1:27) Presidio.

The Mystical Laws As The Master gathers Oscar buzz for its Scientology-inspired tale, another movie based on the teachings of a similarly-named religion, Japanese fringe sect Happy Science, opens this weekend. But that analogy is incorrect, for The Mystical Laws way more resembles 2000’s Battlefield Earth, demonstrating and preaching its source material’s tenants rather than questioning them. Visit Happy Science’s website and you’ll find a New Age mix of Christianity and Buddhism, with woo-woo about truth and love. Its founder, Ryuho Okawa, claims to the reincarnation of "El Cantare," sort of an über-god who controls all spiritual activity on Earth. Anyway, now there’s an anime flick based on one of Okawa’s hundreds of books; it’s about an evil overlord with planet-ruling aspirations who gets smacked down by the powerful combo of aliens, a guy who realizes he’s humanity’s "light of hope" (basically a Jesus-Buddha combo, with psychic powers to boot), and an eight-headed flying dragon. There is Nazi iconography; there are Star Wars-inspired plot points. At one point, the hero preaches directly to the camera. It’s all very heavy-handed. A far more amusing use of your time would be to go to Happy Science’s website and click the tab marked "Astonishing Facts" to learn the spiritual fates of historical figures: "Currently Beethoven lives in the lower area of the Bodhisattva Realm of the 7th dimension in the Spirit world, and aims to transcend the sadness evident in parts of his music and become an expert in the music of joy," while proponent o’ evolution Darwin "is now serving a penance in Abysmal Hell." Hey, wait a minute! Isn’t science supposed to be "happy?" (2:00) New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.newpeopleworld.com. (Eddy)

The Paperboy Lee Daniels scored big with Precious (2009), but this follow-up is so off-kilter in tone and story it will likely polarize critics and confuse audiences, despite its A-list cast. I happened to enjoy the hell out of this tacky, sweat-drenched, gator-gutting, and generally overwrought adaptation of Peter Dexter’s novel (Dexter and Daniels co-wrote the screenplay); it’s kind of a Wild Things-The Help-A Time to Kill mash-up, with the ubiquitous Matthew McConaughey starring as Ward Jansen, a Florida newspaper reporter investigating what he thinks is the wrongful murder conviction of Hillary Van Wetter (a repulsively greasy John Cusack). But the movie’s not really about that. Set in 1969 and narrated by Macy Gray, who plays the veteran housekeeper for the Jansens — a clan that also includes college dropout Jack (Zac Efron) — The Paperboy is neither mystery nor thriller. It’s more of a swamp cocktail, with some odd directorial choices (random split-screen here, random zoom there) that maybe seem like exploitation movie homages. As a Southern floozy turned on by "prison cock" (but not, to his chagrin, by the oft-shirtless Jack), Nicole Kidman turns in her trashiest performance since 1995’s To Die For. (1:46) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

V/H/S See "Gruesome Discovery." (1:55) Bridge, Shattuck.

Taken 2 It’s kidnapping season again, and Liam Neeson is pissed. (1:31) Marina.

ONGOING

Backwards Athletic disappointment is not a new feeling for Abi (Sarah Megan Thomas, who also wrote the script), who has just learned she’s been named the alternate for the Olympic crew team — a bench warming role she was also relegated to in the last Olympics. But after she quits the team in a huff and moves home, it’s not long before she realizes that her life off the water is pretty depressing, too. Enter former boyfriend Geoff (James Van Der Beek), now the athletic director at the high school where Abi honed her rowing talents, who gives her a job coaching the talented but undisciplined girls who make up the current team. Will this new venture help Abi finally grow up and regain her self-confidence? Will she re-ignite her spark with Geoff? Will there be a last-act conflict involving yet another chance at the Olympics? Will there be multiple training montages? As directed by Ben Hickernell, Backwards hits all of the expected themes about following one’s heart and Doing the Right Thing. Thomas, a former rower herself, has an ordinary-girl appeal, but even Backwards’ attention to authenticity can’t elevate what’s essentially a very predictable sports drama. (1:29) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Beasts of the Southern Wild Six months after winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (and a Cannes Camera d’Or), Beasts of the Southern Wild proves capable of enduring a second or third viewing with its originality and strangeness fully intact. Magical realism is a primarily literary device that isn’t attempted very often in U.S. cinema, and succeeds very rarely. But this intersection between Faulkner and fairy tale, a fable about — improbably — Hurricane Katrina, is mysterious and unruly and enchanting. Benh Zeitlin’s film is wildly cinematic from the outset, as voiceover narration from six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) offers simple commentary on her rather fantastical life. She abides in the Bathtub, an imaginary chunk of bayou country south of New Orleans whose residents live closer to nature, amid the detritus of civilization. Seemingly everything is some alchemical combination of scrap heap, flesh, and soil. But not all is well: when "the storm" floods the land, the holdouts are forced at federal gunpoint to evacuate. With its elements of magic, mythological exodus, and evolutionary biology, Beasts goes way out on a conceptual limb; you could argue it achieves many (if not more) of the same goals Terrence Malick’s 2011 The Tree of Life did at a fraction of that film’s cost and length. (1:31) Four Star, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Beauty is Embarrassing You may not recognize the name Wayne White offhand, but you will know his work: he designed and operated many of the puppets on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, including Randy (the blockheaded bully) and Dirty Dog (the canine jazzbo). Neil Berkeley’s Beauty Is Embarrassing — named for a mural White painted on the side of a Miami building for Art Basel 2009 — charts the life of an artist whose motto is both "I want to try everything I can!" and "Fuck you!" The Southern-born oddball, who came of age in the early-1980s East Village scene, is currently styling himself as a visual artist (his métier: painting non-sequitur phrases into landscapes bought from thrift stores), but Beauty offers a complex portrait of creativity balanced between the need to be subversive and the desire to entertain. (1:27) Roxie. (Eddy)

The Bourne Legacy Settle down, Matt Damon fans — the original Bourne appears in The Bourne Legacy only in dialogue ("Jason Bourne is in New York!") and photograph form. Stepping in as lead badass is Jeremy Renner, whose twin powers of strength and intelligence come courtesy of an experimental-drug program overseen by sinister government types (including Edward Norton in an utterly generic role) and administered by lab workers doing it "for the science!," according to Dr. Rachel Weisz. Legacy‘s timeline roughly matches up with the last Damon film, The Bourne Ultimatum, which came out five years ago and is referenced here like we’re supposed to be on a first-name basis with its long-forgotten plot twists. Anyway, thanks to ol’ Jason and a few other factors involving Albert Finney and YouTube, the drug program is shut down, and all guinea-pig agents and high-security-clearance doctors are offed. Except guess which two, who manage to flee across the globe to get more WMDs for Renner’s DNA. Essentially one long chase scene, The Bourne Legacy spends way too much of its time either in Norton’s "crisis suite," watching characters bark orders and stare at computer screens, or trying to explain the genetic tinkering that’s made Renner a super-duper-superspy. Remember when Damon killed that guy with a rolled-up magazine in 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy? Absolutely nothing so rad in this imagination-free enterprise. (2:15) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Eddy)

The Campaign (1:25) 1000 Van Ness.

Celeste and Jesse Forever Married your best friend, realized you love but can’t be in love with each other, and don’t want to let all those great in-jokes wither away? Such is the premise of Celeste and Jesse Forever, the latest in what a recent wave of meaty, girl-centric comedies penned by actresses — here Rashida Jones working with real-life ex Will McCormack; there, Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks), Zoe Lister Jones (Lola Versus), and Lena Dunham (Girls) — who have gone the DIY route and whipped up their own juicy roles. There’s no mistaking theirs for your average big-screen rom-com: they dare to wallow harder, skew smarter, and in the case of Celeste, tackle the thorny, tough-to-resolve relationship dilemma that stubbornly refuses to conform to your copy-and-paste story arc. Nor do their female protagonists come off as uniformly likable: in this case, Celeste (Jones) is a bit of an aspiring LA powerbitch. Her Achilles heel is artist Jesse (Andy Samberg), the slacker high school sweetheart she wed and separated from because he doesn’t share her goals (e.g., he doesn’t have a car or a job). Yet the two continue to spend all their waking hours together and share an undeniable rapport, extending from Jesse’s encampment in her backyard apartment to their jokey simulated coitus featuring phallic-shaped lip balm. Throwing a wrench in the works: the fact that they’re still kind of in love with each other, which all their pals, like Jesse’s pot-dealer bud Skillz (McCormack), can clearly see. It’s an shaggy, everyday breakup yarn, writ glamorous by its appealing leads, that we too rarely witness, and barring the at-times nausea-inducing shaky-cam under the direction of Lee Toland Krieger, it’s rendered compelling and at times very funny — there’s no neat and tidy way to say good-bye, and Jones and McCormack do their best to capture but not encapsulate the severance and inevitable healing process. It also helps that the chemistry practically vibrates between the boyish if somewhat one-note Samberg and the soulful Jones, who fully, intelligently rises to the occasion, bringing on the heartbreak. (1:31) Shattuck. (Chun)

The Dark Knight Rises Early reviews that called out The Dark Knight Rises‘ flaws were greeted with the kind of vicious rage that only anonymous internet commentators can dish out. And maybe this is yet another critic-proof movie, albeit not one based on a best-selling YA book series. Of course, it is based on a comic book, though Christopher Nolan’s sophisticated filmmaking and Christian Bale’s tortured lead performance tend to make that easy to forget. In this third and "final" installment in Nolan’s trilogy, Bruce Wayne has gone into seclusion, skulking around his mansion and bemoaning his broken body and shattered reputation. He’s lured back into the Batcave after a series of unfortunate events, during which The Dark Knight Rises takes some jabs at contemporary class warfare (with problematic mixed results), introduces a villain with pecs of steel and an at-times distractingly muffled voice (Tom Hardy), and unveils a potentially dangerous device that produces sustainable energy (paging Tony Stark). Make no mistake: this is an exciting, appropriately moody conclusion to a superior superhero series, with some nice turns by supporting players Gary Oldman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But in trying to cram in so many characters and plot threads and themes (so many prisons in this thing, literal and figural), The Dark Knight Rises is ultimately done in by its sprawl. Without a focal point — like Heath Ledger’s menacing, iconic Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight — the stakes aren’t as high, and the end result feels more like a superior summer blockbuster than one for the ages. (2:44) Metreon. (Eddy)

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel The life of legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland is colorfully recounted in Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, a doc directed by her granddaughter-in-law, Lisa Immordino Vreeland. The family connection meant seemingly unlimited access to material featuring the unconventionally glamorous (and highly quotable) Vreeland herself, plus the striking images that remain from her work at Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Narrated" from interview transcripts by an actor approximating the late Vreeland’s husky, posh tones, the film allows for some criticism (her employees often trembled at the sight of her; her sons felt neglected; her grasp of historical accuracy while working at the museum was sometimes lacking) among the praise, which is lavish and delivered by A-listers like Anjelica Huston, who remembers "She had a taste for the extraordinary and the extreme," and Manolo Blahnik, who squeals, "She had the vision!" (1:26) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Dredd 3D Cartoonishly, gleefully gruesome violence abounds in Dredd 3D, a pretty enjoyable comic-book adaptation thanks to star Karl Urban’s deadpan zingers. This is not a remake of the 1995 Sly Stallone flop Judge Dredd, by the way, though it might as well be a remake of 2011 Indonesian import The Raid: Redemption. The stories are identical. Like, lawsuit material-identical: supercop infiltrates (and then becomes trapped in, and must battle his way out of) a high-rise apartment tower run by a ruthless crime boss. Key difference is that Dredd has futuristic weapons, and The Raid had badass martial arts. Also Dredd‘s villain is played by Lena "Cersei Lannister" Headey, so there’s that. (1:38) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

End of Watch Buddy cop movies tend to go one of two ways: the action-comedy route (see: the Rush Hour series) or the action-drama route. End of Watch is firmly in the latter camp, despite some witty shit-talking between partners Taylor (a chrome-domed Jake Gyllenhaal) and Zavala (Michael Peña from 2004’s Crash) as they patrol the mean streets of Los Angeles. Writer-director David Ayer, who wrote 2001’s Training Day, aims for authenticity by piecing together much of (but, incongruously, not all of) the story through dashboard cameras, surveillance footage, and Officer Taylor’s own ever-present camera, which he claims to be carrying for a school project, though we never once see him attending classes or mentioning school otherwise. Gyllenhaal and Peña have an appealing rapport, but End of Watch‘s adrenaline-seeking plot stretches credulity at times, with the duo stumbling across the same group of gangsters multiple times in a city of three million people. Natalie Martinez and Anna Kendrick do what they can in underwritten cop-wife roles, but End of Watch is ultimately too familiar (but not lawsuit-material familiar) to leave any lasting impression. Case in point: in the year 2012, do we really need yet another love scene set to Mazzy Star’s "Fade Into You"? (1:49) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Eddy)

Finding Nemo 3D (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

For a Good Time, Call&ldots; Suffering the modern-day dilemmas of elapsed rent control and boyfriend douchebaggery, sworn enemies Katie (Ari Graynor) and Lauren (Lauren Miller) find themselves shacking up in Katie’s highly covetable Manhattan apartment, brought together on a stale cloud of resentment by mutual bestie Jesse (Justin Long, gamely delivering a believable version of your standard-issue young hipster NYC gay boy). The domestic glacier begins to melt somewhere around the time that Lauren discovers Katie is working a phone-sex hotline from her bedroom; equipped with a good head for business, she offers to help her go freelance for a cut of the proceeds. Major profitability ensues, as does a friendship evoking the pair bonding at the center of your garden-variety romantic comedy, as Katie trains Lauren to be a phone-sex operator and the two share everything from pinkie swears and matching pink touch-tone phones to intimate secrets and the occasional hotline threesome. Directed by Jamie Travis and adapted from a screenplay by Miller and Katie Anne Naylon, the film is a welcome response to the bromance genre, and with any luck it may also introduce linguistic felicities like "phone-banging" and "let’s get this fuckshow started" into the larger culture. The raunchy telephonic interludes include cameos by Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen (Miller’s husband) as customers calling from such unfurtive locations as a public bathroom stall and the front seat of a taxicab. But the two roomies supply plenty of dirty as Katie, an abashed wearer of velour and denim pantsuits, helps the more restrained Lauren discover the joys of setting free her inner potty mouth. (1:25) SF Center. (Rapoport)

Hotel Transylvania (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

Lawless Lawless has got to be the most pretentiously humorless movie ever made about moonshiners — a criminal subset whose adventures onscreen have almost always been rambunctious and breezy, even when violent. Not here, bub. Adapting Matt Bondurant’s fact-inspired novel The Wettest County in the World about his family’s very colorful times a couple generations back, director John Hillcoat and scenarist (as well as, natch, composer) Nick Cave have made one of those films in which the characters are presented to you as if already immortalized on Mount Rushmore — monumental, legendary, a bit stony. They’ve got a crackling story about war between hillbilly booze suppliers and corrupt lawmen during Prohibition, and while the results aren’t dull (they’re too bloody for that, anyway), they’d be a whole lot better if the entire enterprise didn’t take itself so gosh darned seriously. The Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Va. are considered "legends" when we meet them in 1931, having defied all and sundry as well as survived a few bullets: mack-truck-built Forrest (Tom Hardy); eldest Howard (Jason Clarke), who tipples and smiles a lot; and "runt of the litter" Jack (Shia LeBeouf), who has a chip on his shoulder. The local law looks the other way so long as their palms are greased, but the Feds send sneering Special Deputy Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce), it’s an eye for an eye for an eye, etc. The revenge-laden action in Lawless is engaging, but the filmmakers are trying so hard to make it all resonant and folkloric and meta-cinematic, any fun you have is in spite of their efforts. (1:55) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Harvey)

Liberal Arts Against his better judgment, 35-year-old Jesse (How I Met Your Mother‘s Josh Radnor, who also wrote and directed) falls for 19-year-old Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen), a student at the leafy Ohio university he graduated from years before (never named, but filmed at Kenyon College, Radnor’s own alma matter). The two meet when Jesse, now a jaded Brooklynite, visits to celebrate the retirement of Professor Hoberg (Richard Jenkins). Letter-writing, classical-music appreciation, a supremely awkward follow-up visit, and much white-boy angst follows. Liberal Arts is at its best when delineating a specific type of collegiate experience — as safe, privileged bubble where, as Jesse explains, you can announce "I’m a poet!" without anyone punching you in the face. It can also be an oppressive space, as illustrated by a cranky prof who feels trapped by academia (a razor-sharp Lucinda Janney), and a morose classmate of Zibby’s who identifies a little too closely with David Foster Wallace. And it’s stuff like the Wallace references (again, never named — just identified via heavily dropped hints, for all the cool viewers to pick up on) that’re ultimately Liberal Arts‘ undoing. Radnor explores some interesting themes, but the film is full of indie-comedy tropes — the friendly stoner (Zac Efron) who randomly appears to dispense life lessons; an anti-Twilight rant that’s a bit too pleased with itself; the unusually attractive character who appears in the first act and is obviously destined for inclusion in the inevitable happy ending. (1:37) Shattuck. (Eddy)

Looper It’s 2044 and, thanks to a lengthy bout of exposition by our protagonist, Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), here’s what we know: Time travel, an invention 30 years away, will be used by criminals to transport their soon-to-be homicide victims backward, where a class of gunmen called loopers, Joe among them, are employed to "do the necessaries." More deftly revealed in Brick writer-director Rian Johnson’s new film is the joylessness of the world in which Joe amorally makes his way, where gangsters from the future control the present (under the supervision of Jeff Daniels), their hit men live large but badly (Joe is addicted to some eyeball-administered narcotic), and the remainder of the urban populace suffers below-subsistence-level poverty. The latest downside for guys like Joe is that a new crime boss has begun sending back a steady stream of aging loopers for termination, or "closing the loop"; soon enough, Joe is staring down a gun barrel at himself plus 30 years. Being played by Bruce Willis, old Joe is not one to peaceably abide by a death warrant, and young Joe must set off in search of himself so that—with the help of a woman named Sara (Emily Blunt) and her creepy-cute son Cid (Pierce Gagnon)—he can blow his own (future) head off. Having seen the evocatively horrific fate of another escaped looper, we can’t totally blame him. Parsing the daft mechanics of time travel as envisioned here is rough going, but the film’s brisk pacing and talented cast distract, and as one Joe tersely explains to another, if they start talking about it, "we’re gonna be here all day making diagrams with straws" —in other words, some loops just weren’t meant to be closed. (1:58) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

The Master Paul Thomas Anderson’s much-hyped likely Best Picture contender lives up: it’s easily the best film of 2012 so far. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Lancaster Dodd, the L. Ron Hubbard-ish head of a Scientology-esque movement. "The Cause" attracts Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, in a welcome return from the faux-deep end), less for its pseudo-religious psychobabble and bizarre personal-growth exercises, and more because it supplies the aimless, alcoholic veteran — a drifter in every sense of the word — with a sense of community he yearns for, yet resists submitting to. As with There Will Be Blood (2007), Anderson focuses on the tension between the two main characters: an older, established figure and his upstart challenger. But there’s less cut-and-dried antagonism here; while their relationship is complex, and it does lead to dark, troubled places, there are also moments of levity and weird hilarity — which might have something to do with Freddie’s paint-thinner moonshine. (2:17) Albany, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

ParaNorman (1:32) Metreon.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Move over, Diary of a Wimpy Kid series — there’s a new shrinking-violet social outcast in town. These days, life might not suck quite so hard for 90-pound weaklings in every age category, what with so many films and TV shows exposing, and sometimes even celebrating, the many miseries of childhood and adolescence for all to see. In this case, Perks author Stephen Chbosky takes on the directorial duties — both a good and bad thing, much like the teen years. Smart, shy Charlie is starting high school with a host of issues: he’s painfully awkward and very alone in the brutal throng, his only friend just committed suicide, and his only simpatico family member was killed in a car accident. Charlie’s English teacher Mr. Andersen (Paul Rudd) appears to be his only connection, until the freshman strikes up a conversation with feline, charismatic, shop-class jester Patrick (Ezra Miller) and his magnetic, music- and fun-loving stepsister Sam (Emma Watson). Who needs the popular kids? The witty duo head up their gang of coolly uncool outcasts their own, the Wallflowers (not to be confused with the deeply uncool Jakob Dylan combo), and with them, Charlie appears to have found his tribe. Only a few small secrets put a damper on matters: Patrick happens to be gay and involved with football player Brad (Johnny Simmons), who’s saddled with a violently conservative father, and Charlie is in love with the already-hooked-up Sam and is frightened that his fragile equilibrium will be destroyed when his new besties graduate and slip out of his life. Displaying empathy and a devotion to emotional truth, Chbosky takes good care of his characters, preserving the complexity and ungainly quirks of their not-so-cartoonish suburbia, though his limitations as a director come to the fore in the murkiness and choppily handled climax that reveals how damaged Charlie truly is. (1:43) Albany, California, Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Pitch Perfect As an all-female college a cappella group known as the Barden Bellas launches into Ace of Base’s "The Sign" during the prologue of Pitch Perfect, you can hear the Glee-meets-Bring It On elevator pitch. Which is fine, since Bring It On-meets-anything is clearly worth a shot. In this attempt, Anna Kendrick stars as withdrawn and disaffected college freshman Beca, who dreams of producing music in L.A. but is begrudgingly getting a free ride at Barden University via her comp lit professor father. Clearly his goal is not making sure she receives a liberal arts education, as Barden’s academic jungle extends to the edges of the campus’s competitive a cappella scene, and the closest thing to an intellectual challenge occurs during a "riff-off" between a cappella gangs at the bottom of a mysteriously drained swimming pool. When Beca reluctantly joins the Bellas, she finds herself caring enough about the group’s fate to push for an Ace of Base moratorium and radical steps like performing mashups. Much as 2000’s Bring It On coined terms like "cheerocracy" and "having cheer-sex," Pitch Perfect gives us the infinitely applicable prefix "a ca-" and descriptives like "getting Treble-boned," a reference to forbidden sexual relations with the Bellas’ cocky rivals, the Treblemakers. The gags get funnier, dirtier, and weirder, arguably reaching their climax in projectile-vomit snow angels, with Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins as grin-panning competition commentators offering a string of loopily inappropriate observations. (1:52) Metreon. (Rapoport)

The Possession (1:31) Metreon.

Resident Evil: Retribution (1:35) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Samsara Samsara is the latest sumptuous, wordless offering from director Ron Fricke, who helped develop this style of dialogue- and context-free travelogue with Koyaanisqatsi (1982) and Baraka (1992). Spanning five years and shooting on 70mm film to capture glimmers of life in 25 countries on five continents, Samsara, which spins off the Sanskrit word for the "ever-turning wheel of life," is nothing if not good-looking, aspiring to be a kind of visual symphony boosted by music by the Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard and composers Michael Stearns and Marcello De Francisci. Images of natural beauty, baptisms, and an African woman and her babe give way to the madness of modern civilization — from jam-packed subways to the horrors of mechanized factory farming to a bizarre montage of go-go dancers, sex dolls, trash, toxic discarded technology, guns, and at least one gun-shaped coffin. After such dread, the opening and closing scenes of Buddhist spirituality seem almost like afterthoughts. The unmistakable overriding message is: humanity, you dazzle in all your glorious and inglorious dimensions — even at your most inhumane. Sullying this hand wringing, selective meditation is Fricke’s reliance on easy stereotypes: the predictable connections the filmmaker makes between Africa and an innocent, earthy naturalism, and Asia and a vaguely threatening, mechanistic efficiency, come off as facile and naive, while his sonic overlay of robot sounds over, for instance, an Asian woman blinking her eyes comes off as simply offensive. At such points, Fricke’s global leap-frogging begins to eclipse the beauty of his images and foregrounds his own biases. (1:39) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

Sleepwalk with Me Every year lots of movies get made by actors and comedians who want to showcase themselves, usually writing and often directing in addition to starring. Most of these are pretty bad, and after a couple of festival appearances disappear, unremembered by anyone save the credit card companies that vastly benefited from its creation. Mike Birbiglia’s first feature is an exception — maybe not an entirely surprising one (since it’s based on his highly praised Off-Broadway solo show and best-seller), but still odds-bucking. Particularly as it’s an autobiographical feeling story about an aspiring stand-up comic (Mike as Matt) who unfortunately doesn’t seem to have much natural talent in that direction, but nonetheless obsessively perseveres. This pursuit of seemingly fore destined failure might be causing his sleep disorder, or it might be a means of avoiding taking the martial next step with long-term girlfriend (Lauren Ambrose, making something special out of a conventional reactive role) everyone else agrees is the best thing in his life. Yep, it’s another commitment-phobic man-boy/funny guy who regularly talks to the camera, trying to find himself while quirky friends and family stand around like trampoline spotters watching a determined clod. If all of these sounds derivative and indulgent, well, it ought to. But Sleepwalk turns a host of familiar, hardly foolproof ideas into astute, deftly performed, consistently amusing comedy with just enough seriousness for ballast. Additional points for "I zinged him" being the unlikely most gut-busting line here. (1:30) Opera Plaza, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Solomon Kane Conceived by Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard, this 16th-century hero is cut from the same sword-and-sorcery cloth, being a brawny brute of slippery but generally sorta-kinda upright morals. Solomon (James Purefoy) is slaughtering his way to a North African treasure trove when demons swallow up his likewise greedy, conscience-free cohorts and damn his soul for a lifetime of bad deeds. Suddenly committed to the greater good, he returns homeward to cold gray England, where Jason Flemyng’s evil sorcerer soon imperils both our protagonist and the Puritan family (complete with love interest) he’s befriended. This movie has been around a while — since 2009, to be exact, yet barely beating director Michael J. Bassett’s new Silent Hill: Revelation 3D to U.S. theaters — and is a good illustration of what can happen when you make a fairly expensive ($45 million) fantasy-action adventure without major stars nor any marketable novelty. Which is to say: not much. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the good-looking, watchable but generic-feeling Solomon Kane, save that nothing about it feels remotely original or inspired. It’s the perfectly okay, like-a-thousand-others mall flick you’ll forget you saw by Thanksgiving, despite being peopled with such normally interesting actors as Max Von Sydow, Alice Krige, and the late Pete Postlethwaite. (1:54) Metreon. (Harvey)

Somewhere Between Five years ago, when filmmaker Linda Goldstein Knowlton adopted a baby girl from China, she was inspired to make Somewhere Between, a doc about the experiences of other Chinese adoptees. The film profiles four teenage girls, including Berkeley resident Fang "Jenni" Lee, whose American lives couldn’t be more different (one girl has two moms and attends a fancy prep school; another, raised by devout Christians, dreams of playing her violin at the Grand Ole Opry) but who share similar feelings about their respective adoptions. The film follows the girls on trips to London (as part of an organized meeting of fellow adoptees), Spain (to chat with people interested in adopting Chinese babies, and where the question "What does it feel like to be abandoned?" is handled with astonishing composure), and China (including one teen’s determined quest to track down her birth family). Highly emotional at times, Somewhere Between benefits from its remarkably mature and articulate subjects, all of whom have much to say about identity and personal history. (1:28) Shattuck. (Eddy)

"Stars In Shorts" Outside of the festival circuit, it’s an uncommon feat for shorts to make it to the big screen, so it can’t hurt to make name recognition a prerequisite for selection. In writer-director Rupert Friend’s Steve, Keira Knightley plays an embattled Londoner under siege by her lonely, pathologically odd neighbor (Colin Firth). Written by Neil LaBute, Jacob Chase’s After School Special sets up a semi-flirtation between two strangers (Sarah Paulson and Wes Bentley) at a playground, only to deliver the kind of gut-level punch you might expect from the writer-director of 1998’s Your Friends and Neighbors. LaBute’s own Sexting is an entertaining exercise in stream-of-consciousness monologuing by Julia Stiles. As with most shorts programs, "Stars" is a mixed bag. Robert Festinger’s The Procession, in which Lily Tomlin and Modern Family‘s Jesse Tyler Ferguson play reluctant participants in a funeral procession, sounds promising, but the conversation palls during the 10-plus minutes we’re stuck in the car with them. Benjamin Grayson’s sci-fi thriller Prodigal, starring Kenneth Branagh, reaches its predictable crisis points several minutes after the viewer has arrived. More successful are Jay Kamen’s musical comedy Not Your Time, starring Seinfeld‘s Jason Alexander as an old Hollywood hand whose writing career has stalled out, and Chris Foggin’s Friend Request Pending, which treats viewers to the sight of Dame Judi Dench gamely wading into the social network in search of a date. (1:53) Opera Plaza. (Rapoport)

Vulgaria (1:32) Metreon.

The Words We meet novelist Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper) as he’s making his way from a posh building to a cab in the rain; it’s important the shot obscures his generally shiny exterior, because we’re meant to believe this guy’s a sincere and struggling novelist. Jeremy Irons, aged with flappy eye makeup, watches him vengefully. Seems Rory fell upon the unpublished novel Irons’ character wrote in sadness and loss — and feeling himself incapable of penning such prose, transcribed the whole thing. When his lady friend (Zoe Saldana) encourages him to sell it, he becomes the next great American writer. He’s living the dream on another man’s sweat. But that’s not the tragedy, exactly, because The Words isn’t so concerned with the work of being a writer — it’s concerned with the look and insecurity of it. Bradley and Irons aren’t "real," they’re characters in a story read by Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid) while the opportunistic, suggestive Daniella (Olivia Wilde) comes onto him. She can tell you everything about Clay, yet she hasn’t read the book that’s made him the toast of the town — The Words, which is all about a young plagiarist and the elderly writer he steals from. "I don’t know how things happen!", the slimy, cowering writers each exclaim. So, how do you sell a book? Publish a book? Make a living from a book? How much wine does it take to bed Olivia Wilde? Sure, they don’t know how things happen; they only know what it looks like to finish reading Hemingway at a café or watch the sun rise over a typewriter. Rarely has a movie done such a trite job of depicting the process of what it’s like to be a writer — though if you found nothing suspect about, say, Owen Wilson casually re-editing his 400-page book in one afternoon in last year’s Midnight in Paris, perhaps you won’t be so offended by The Words, either. (1:36) SF Center. (Vizcarrondo)

Tetris of awesome

October 3, 2012

MUSIC “We’ve done the ISAM show in venues as big as the Sydney Opera House and as small as a local rock venue, but we’re basically holding our breaths every time. Someone could plug in their iPhone charger and blow the whole thing. In Coachella, the act on the field opposite had the idea of turning on floodlights for half their set, which washed us out for a good part with the ambient light.”

Brazilian electronic music legend Amon Tobin is on the phone, recounting some of the mundane worries that come with operating one of the most brilliant stage concepts in years, ISAM Live. The show is a marvel of cutting-edge technology that bathes a towering tetrominal assemblage of stacked cubes in digital projections, while — like the pilot of a Tetris spaceship, clad in his trademark baseball cap, hoodie, and jeans, ensconced in one of the glowing cubes — Tobin performs tracks from ISAM, his seventh studio album, and several other sonic treats. The tour is now in its second, completely revamped conceptual leg, ISAM Live 2.0, coming to Berkeley’s Greek Theatre on Fri/5. Tobin promises that ISAM 2.0 is “totally different … not connected to the album as much at all” from the first version, which played at the Warfield last year. Perhaps he’ll be wearing a spacesuit this time, too:

The visual illusions conjured up by Tobin and collaborators and mapped on the sculpture, made real with the help of a crack team of production designers headed up by Alex Lazarus of local art-tech collective Blasthaus, recall everything from early 20th century Constructivist art and colorform animation to tomorrow’s Xbox 360 game. Some of the effects are absolutely lovely, as when the structure “shatters” to crystalline pieces or a flood of winged creatures take flight across the stage. Some are vertigo-inducing, as when the whole thing acts as a flight simulator, or a slightly different version of the structure is projected onto the structure itself, and then begins revolving: meta! It’s all a sort of hyperreal 3-D, as shapeshifting as Tobin’s ever-elegant and booming compositions. (The music on ISAM itself is typical technopoetic Tobin — what makes the album standout is really how much the rest of the music world has caught up to his signature style, which contains elements of moody ambient, classic drum and bass, squonky electro, and crunchy dubstep without ever falling wholly into any of those genres.)

“What drove me to this idea was trying to find my way around the universal problem of presenting electronic music,” Tobin told me. “How do I make an engaging experience out of an album when I’m really just pushing buttons and twisting dials — it’s what we all do as electronic musicians. I don’t make dance music — I don’t think I even can — so the challenge becomes the concert presentation. And then the unusual situation becomes how to integrate myself into the proceedings. I didn’t just want to go out there and hang about.”

The waving hands and bobbing heads at the Warfield last year may prove that “I don’t make dance music” remark incorrect, but the show certainly succeeds at bridging the rapt audience vs. some arty dude’s knob-twisting divide. Tobin’s projects have lately been as much about technological expression as producing music — although one could argue, especially in his case, that these are one and the same at this point in history. Previous album Foley Room was a mosaic of found sounds recorded on the street (“from neighbours singing in the bath to ants eating grass”), that was accompanied by a gorgeous interactive website called “Field Recording” that featured morphological subaquatic creatures and a night-goggle feel.

This time around, Tobin’s technological adventurousness is helping to pique new interests. The crowd at the Warfield was not composed of the typical intelligent dance music, underground glitch, and scruffy turntablism fans I know from previous Amon Tobin shows. Rather, the “oohs,” “aahs,” and “this is fucking amazings” were coming from what looked to be a distinctly tech crowd. With Industrial Light and Magic, Pixar, and countless other digital animation studios located in the Bay Area, is ISAM Live introducing a new wave on enthusiasts to somewhat challenging electronic music through geek-candy visual technology?

“Well, electronic music is inherently tech-y to begin with,” Tobin says, “but even when I was just starting out, I was never interested in scenes. I’m too wrapped up in what I’m trying to do. I’m just hoping people will be into it, no matter who they are or how they got there.”

Tobin’s known for being laidback almost to the point of reclusivity, and his recent relocation to the Bay Area — “I live a little north of San Francisco, in the middle of the woods: I can walk around or go for a drive and do what I like” — has helped contribute to to both his secluded genius image and access to tech opportunity. Once he had the inspiration for ISAM Live, it wasn’t like he put an ad out on Craisglist to find designers, he told me. But a serendipitous encounter with Lazarus and the ease of putting together an adventurous, California-based design team got things going pretty easily. It’s also helped him firm up connections with local musicians he admires like SF’s Kronos Quartet, who were featured on Foley Room and will open for his concert at the Greek, and incredible live-sample collagist Eskmo, who opened for him early in the ISAM tour.

But the mind of Amon Tobin is ever-restless, and ISAM has been around for more than as year — despite the 2.0 relaunch, our conversation perks up when we begin to talk about his new release as Two Fingers called Stunt Rhythms, a beats and bass album that also belies his claim not to make dance music.

“Stunt Rhythms is a tribute to the amazing electro and breakdance music that actually saved me, growing up in a shitty town called Hastings in England. Things like Cybotron’s ‘Clear’ or Man Parrish, JVC Force’s ‘Strong Island.’ My relationship to that sound is so deep. It’s music that keeps me pushing for something further off, pushing me through drum and bass, and making my own persona.

“It’s working my way toward that thing just over the horizon that keeps me going.”

AMON TOBIN: ISAM LIVE 2.0

with Kronos Quartet and Holy Other

Fri/5, 8pm, $39.50

Greek Theatre

2001 Gayley Way, Berk.

www.ticketmaster.com

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

Schedules are for Wed/3-Tue/9 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARBOR 4210 Telegraph, Oakl; www.shapeshifterscinema.com. Free. "Shapeshifters Cinema: Tommy Becker," Thu, 8.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.othercinema.com. $6. "Other Cinema:" United in Anger: A History of ACT UP (Hubbard, 2012), plus shorts, Sat, 8:30.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. $10-100. Operation Terror (Cross, 2012), Sun, 7. Benefit for No Lies Radio.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. Berlin and Beyond Film Festival," Wed-Thu. Films from German-speaking countries; more info at goethe.de/ins/us/saf/prj/bby/enindex.htm. "Midnites for Maniacs: Fuck Urban Sprawl:" •Candyman (Rose, 1992), Fri, 7:30; District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009), Fri, 9:45; and Attack the Block (Cornish, 2011), Fri, 11:45. One or all three films, $13. •Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (Burton, 1985), Sat, 1:30, 5:10, 8:50, and Beetlejuice (Burton, 1988), Sat, 3:20, 7. •Frankenstein (Whale, 1931), Sun, 7, and Spirit of the Beehive (Erice, 1973), Sun, 8:25. Moonrise Kingdom (Anderson, 2012), Mon-Tue, 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:05.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Arbitrage (Jarecki, 2012), call for dates and times. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Zeitlin, 2012), call for dates and times. Detropia (Ewing and Grady, 2012), call for dates and times.

ELLEN DRISCOLL PLAYHOUSE 325 Highland, Piedmont; www.diversityfilmseries.org. Free. The Education of Shelby Knox (Lipschutz and Rosenblatt, 2005), Wed, 7.

EXPLORATORIUM 3601 Lyon, SF; www.exploratorium.edu. $19-25 (includes museum admission). "Exploring Canyon Cinema: Play," family-friendly films from the Canyon archives, Sat, noon, 2, 4.

"FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK" This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. The Hunger Games (Ross, 2012), Fri, 8; Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Stuart, 1971), Sat, 8.

NINTH STREET INDEPENDENT FILM CENTER 145 Ninth St, SF; www.zincgraff.com. Free. Zincgraff (Brown, 2012), Sun, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Alternative Visions:" "Universal, Unique, Untouched: Bay Area Student Film Festival 2012," Wed, 7. "Rebel Without Applause: The Films of Alex Cox:" Highway Patrolman (1991), Thu, 7; Death and the Compass (1996), Fri, 9; Walker (1987), Sat, 6; Searchers 2.0 (2007), Sun, 4. Alex Cox in person at select screenings. "An Army of Phantoms: American Cinema and the Cold War:" The Next Voice You Hear (Wellman, 1950), Fri, 7; The Steel Helmet (Fuller, 1951), Sat, 9; Fort Apache (Ford, 1948), Sun, 6. Introduced by J. Hoberman. "Grand Illusions: French Cinema Classics, 1928-1960:" The Italian Straw Hat (Clair, 1928), Tue, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. Beauty is Embarrassing (Berkeley, 2012), Wed, 9. Detropia (Ewing and Grady, 2012), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. "By + About Cindy Sherman:" Office Killer (Sherman, 1997), Thu, 7, 8:45. "Presidential Election Debate," presented by the Good Ol’ Girls (www.goodolgirls.org), Wed, 6. Bitter Seeds (Peled, 2011), Oct 5-11, 7, 9:15 (also Sat-Sun, 3, 5).

TANNERY 708 Gilman, Berk; berkeleyundergroundfilms.blogspot.com. Donations accepted. "Berkeley Underground Film Society:" Topper Returns (Del Ruth, 1941), Sun, 7:30.

UCSF Cole Hall, Medical Sciences Building, 513 Parnassus, SF; www.pnhpcalifornia.org. Free. The Healthcare Movie (Simons and Sterrenberg, 2012), Sun, 3.

UNITY CHURCH OF MARIN 600 Palm, Hamilton Center, Novato; www.unityinmarin.org. Donations accepted to benefit Unity in Marin and Bread and Roses. Music from the Big House (McDonald, 2010), Fri, 7:15.

VICTORIA THEATER 2961 16th St, SF; www.sfindie.com. $8-10. "Shnit International Short Film Festival," nearly 200 short films from around the world, Thu and Sat-Sun.

VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; Facebook: The Vortex Room. $7. "Don’t Fear the Vortex:" •Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (Newland, 1973), Thu, 9, and Alone in the Dark (Sholder, 1982), Thu, 11.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. Never Stand Still: Dancing at Jacob’s Pillow (Honsa, 2012), Thu-Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2.

Our Weekly Picks: October 3-9

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

WEDNESDAY 3

Spring Standards

The musicians who comprise the Spring Standards got their start playing small folk festivals and around the campfire back in high school. After a break from their collaboration, Heather Robb, James Cleare, and James Smith found themselves in Brooklyn, inspired to pick up where they left off. It’s difficult to pin a genre on this trio. “We’re accessing old school harmony-driven folk rock music that was big in the 1970s,” Robb explains, “but sometimes we’ll play a heart wrenching ballad or a really loud White Stripes song.” The Spring Standards released double EP yellow//gold in May. (Mia Sullivan)

With Dylan Champagne, Ed and the Red Reds

8pm, $8

Hotel Utah

500 Fourth St., SF

(415) 546-6300

www.hotelutah.com

THURSDAY 4

Pierrot 2012

It’s been 100 years since poet Albert Girard’s eternally moonstruck clown Pierrot first took to the stage to sing about sex, love, death, and religion in composer Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal masterwork Pierrot Lunaire. The score, full of crepuscular squiggles and elegant mood swings, made Pierrot the 20th century’s resident existential harlequin, both the hero and the fool of those violently artistic times. Lively sextet Nonsemble 6, composed of recent graduates of the SF Conservatory of Music, will help revive that indelible clown for a new era – he’s even on Facebook! – with new video, art, and staging and costumes by Brian Staufenbiel (and possibly clown makeup. You’ve been warned). Two other pieces, Dan Becker’s 1996 “S.T.I.C. (Sensitivity to Internal Conditions)” and Hans Eisler’s Hanns Eisler’s “14 Ways of Describing Rain, Op. 70” from 1941, are also on the program. (Marke B.)

8pm, $15-$20

SF Conservatory of Music Concert Hall

50 Oak, SF

(415) 864-7326

www.nonsemble6.com

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Alone in the Dark

The Vortex kicks off an October of cinematic frights with two seldom-revived but golden oldies. First up is the original Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a 1973 TV movie that’s still creepier than the disappointing, Guillermo del Toro-produced 2010 remake. Kim Darby plays a housewife whose fears that something is very wrong with her new house are dismissed as neurosis by the husband (Jim Hutton) she’s having problems with. Then 1982’s seriocomic slasher Alone in the Dark features the inimitable Jack Palance and Martin Landau amongst a quartet of asylum escapees who make life very hairy for their new therapist’s family. (Dennis Harvey)

9 and 11pm, $7 (suggested donation)

Vortex

1082 Howard, SF

Facebook: TheVortexRoom

Mount Eerie

Phil Elverum’s output as Mount Eerie doesn’t flow like the vast majority of indie rock; it moves like the weather. Erratically structured songs about the moon, the ocean, the meaning of life, and the universe are recorded into precarious analog equipment, creating an ambiance of fog, mildew, and tape hiss that evokes the misty Pacific Northwest with Twin Peaks-ish potency. On Clear Moon and Ocean Roar, both released this year, Elverum weaves meditative acoustic folk, buzzy quasi-metal, tribal drums, and Lynchian drone with a coherence and sense of purpose he hasn’t shown since his acclaimed recordings as the Microphones. Yet, when performed solo with just voice and guitar, the Mount Eerie songbook somehow retains every ounce of its existential weight. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Bouquet, Tortured Genies

9pm, $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

Niki and the Dove

Sweden is exporting a lot more than bedframes and meatballs. Stockholm’s Niki and the Dove is an electro duo giving a dark depth to pop music. Vocalist Malin Dahlström and keyboardist Magnus Böqvist met when writing music for the theater, giving their recorded music and their live shows a dynamic, dramatic quality that pop so often lacks. Dahlström’s sugary voice soars above the churn and chime of Böqvist’s catchy and sometimes unsettling beats. Their 2012 debut album Instinct was nominated for BBC’s Sound of 2012 poll, which seeks to highlight each year’s best new artist. Though they finished fifth, Niki and the Dove are just getting started. After all, pop never really goes out of style. (Haley Zaremba)

With WOLF GANG, Popscene DJs

9:30pm, $15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

FRIDAY 5

Mix Master Mike

Continually evolving and rising to the top of his game before, during, and after his time with the Beastie Boys, Mix Master Mike is keeping his act fresh by fusing hip-hop with dubstep. His latest album, Napalm Rockets, mixes global dubstep, new electronic, and classic hip-hop samples, aggressively organizing and layering them with “hardcore psychedelic scratching” to keep the signature hip-hop attitude. Still quick at the tables as he works up a sweat, changing records and ripping his famous tweak scratch, he’ll be performing alongside the Low End Theory residents to welcome back the equally innovative Gaslamp Killer from his summer tour. Come prepared for a night of psychedelic, glitch, IDM, and avant-rap. (Molly Champlin)

Low End Theory with Daddy Kev, Nobody, the Gaslsmp Killer

10pm, $20

1015 Folsom, SF

(415) 742-1015

www.1015.com

Laetitia Sadier

French singer-songwriter Laetitia Sadier’s deep, velvety voice may sound familiar to you. I’m not referencing the fact that she sometimes sounds deliciously similar to Nico. You’ve probably heard her before as the voice of British post-rock band Stereolab or as the French vocals in Blur’s radio hit “To the End.” Though Stereolab entered the dreaded “indefinite hiatus” in 2009, Sadier has been far from dormant. 2012’s Silencio is her second solo album in two years. The album is a politically charged collection of protest songs with perfect timing for an election year. Never before has political commentary sounded so gentle. (Zaremba)

With Orca Team, Pageants

9:30pm, $14

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

SATURDAY 6

Pancakes and Booze Art Show

Curator and cameraman Tom Kerlin understands exactly what is missing in the gallery art scene: fun. And he is serving it up by the plateful. This is the antithesis of your high-end, half empty art gallery opening. Kerlin’s brainchild, “Pancakes and Booze,” began in LA and has traveled to cities across the country, drawing out crowds for all-you-can-eat pancakes and walls full of raw, up-and-coming, local artists. But the art doesn’t end there; bodies are canvases for live art and will portray the living dead in Friday night’s Zombie Fashion Show. Pair this with DJs and drinks and you’ve put the fun back into art function. (Champlin)

8pm, $5–$10

Gallery and Bar 4N5

863 Mission, SF

(415) 522-2440

www.Gallery4N5.com

www.pancakesandbooze.com

Jenny Lewis

Jenny Lewis doesn’t mess around. At 36 years old, the LA singer-songwriter has acted in over a dozen films (mostly in her teens) fronted indie rock band Rilo Kiley for a decade, formed a duo with her boyfriend called Jenny and Johnny, and released two solo albums. She’s also provided a stunning amount of backing vocals for rockers such as Elvis Costello and Bright Eyes, and shines as the female voice in many of the songs on the Postal Service’s beloved one-and-done album Give Up. Her most recent solo release, 2008’s Acid Tongue is an Americana tour-de-force that only improves in concert. If you don’t catch her at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass this weekend, make sure to catch her night show. (Zaremba)

9pm, $21

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

TUESDAY 9

“Two Guys from Chicago”

Is there such a thing as simultaneously humble and sardonic humor? Maybe it’s the self-awareness of their cynical tendencies or a shared belief in challenging the status quo, but it seems like both Daniel Clowes and Dave Eggers have mastered it. Both authors are creative minds who never cease to find new outlets for their love of literature. Eggers takes his passion for writing beyond the novel with his free-thinking publishing company, McSweeney’s, and nonprofit projects promoting literacy while Daniel Clowes upset his Pratt Institute art teachers and the whole comic book genre with his seriously literary graphic novels. Together they have quite the story to tell about letting creativity run rampant through all that you do. (Champlin)

8pm, $15

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

(415) 626-0453

www.litquake.org

Radio Ambulante LIVE!

In a country where we’re still fighting for our children’s right to even learn about Latino culture and history (major side eye, Arizona), the idea of a public radio show featuring stories from the Latin American diaspora — en español no less — is tragically radical. But local writer, Lima-born Daniel Alarcón and his partner Carolina Guerrero aren’t worried about Fox News readying the cannons. The two head up a team spread over the Americas that will be bringing to the airwaves important stories that won’t lose an ounce of potency due to translation. Join the two and ZYZZYVA managing editor Oscar Villalon for a live taping of the show, presented through those intrepid Litquake types. (Caitlin Donohue)

7pm, $12-15

Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

2868 Mission, SF

www.missionculturalcenter.org

Grizzly Bear

In a globalizing music world, where the cross-pollination of genres and influences has become the norm, Grizzly Bear’s multifaceted approach still sounds quite strange. Over a foundation of shaggy, dusty indie-rock, the Brooklyn four-piece blends elements of Yes-style prog wankery, anachronistic glee-club vocal arrangements, and heady, spacey production values, with an old-school, album-rock continuity. Whereas Yellow House (2006) was defined by its ambiance and sense of space, and Veckatimest (2009) presented itself as a straightforward song-cycle, this year’s Shields displays a deft balance between these tendencies, emboldened by the most dextrous musicianship and airtight hooks of Grizzly Bear’s tenure thus far. Sharing the bill is Baltimore’s Lower Dens, whose Lou-Reed-meets-Autobahn zen-rock generated sizable buzz on this year’s Nootropics. (Kaplan)

8pm, $33

Fox Theater

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

(510) 302-2250

www.thefoxoakland.com

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

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

THEATER

OPENING

The Fifth Element: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Opens Fri/5. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 27. Comedic adaptation of the 1997 Luc Besson sci-fi epic.

Geezer Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $30-100. Opens Sat/6, 8pm. Runs Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 18. Geoff Hoyle’s popular solo show about aging returns.

Of Thee I Sing Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Previews Wed/3, 7pm; Thu/4-Fri/5, 8pm. Opens Sat/6, 6pm. Runs Wed, 7pm; Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (also Oct 13, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 21. 42nd Street Moon performs George and Ira Gershwin’s classic political satire.

BAY AREA

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Thu/4, 8pm. Runs Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Nov 24. Lynne Kaufman’s new play stars Warren David Keith as the noted spiritual figure.

Sex, Slugs and Accordion Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $10. Opens Wed/3, 8pm. Runs Wed, 8pm. Through Nov 14. Jetty Swart, a.k.a. Jet Black Pearl, stars in this “wild and exotic evening of song.”

33 Variations TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Previews Wed/3-Fri/5, 8pm. Opens Sat/6, 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 28. TheatreWorks performs Moisés Kaufman’s drama about a contemporary musicologist struggling to solve one of Beethoven’s greatest mysteries, and a connecting story about the composer himself.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Opens Sun/7, 11am. Runs Sun, 11am; Nov 23-25, 11am. Through Nov 25. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl brings his lighter-than-air show back to the Marsh.

ONGOING

Elect to Laugh Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race “so you don’t have to.” No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

Family Programming: An Evening of Short Comedic Plays Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 13. Left Coast Theatre Company performs short plays about gay and alternative families.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Previews Fri/5, 8pm. Opens Sat/6, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 17). Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Normal Heart American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $25-95. Wed/3-Sat/6, 8pm (also Sat/6, 2pm); Sun/7, 2pm. Three decades after the onset of the AIDS epidemic — today affecting and killing millions across the globe — playwright and ACT UP founder Larry Kramer’s 1985 autobiographical docudrama of the first years and victims of the crisis in New York City proves still relevant and powerful in this spirited 2011 Tony Award–winning Broadway revival, under direction by George C. Wolfe, now up at American Conservatory Theater in an ACT-Arena Stage co-presentation. Centering on the grassroots response to official inaction amid the homophobic status quo — in particular, the founding of a small but determined HIV advocacy group by Ned Weeks (Kramer’s stand-in, played brilliantly by Patrick Breen) and others — The Normal Heart also roots itself in a set of characters and fraught personal relationships as Weeks’s brash, confrontational style progressively alienates him from his brethren and more accommodating (or closeted) allies. It’s a play that really shouldn’t work so well, given its message-driven and inevitably self-serving structure, but it nevertheless does — in part because the urgency behind it remains, and the eerie confusion and unforgivable official neglect of those early years carry even more weight with tragedy-laden hindsight. Kramer also crafts some affecting scenes and some rousingly fiery monologues (not just for Weeks, and all expertly delivered by the sharp cast) that underscore a time when history, as it is wont to do, put forward fervent loudmouths and nonconformists as the necessary agents of resistance and change. (Avila)

The Other Place Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $22-62. Wed/3-Sat/6, 8pm (also Wed/3, 2:30pm); Sun/7, 7pm. A middle-aged scientist named Juliana (Henny Russell) finds herself marooned inside her own rapidly unraveling mind in the West Coast premiere of this occasionally intriguing but finally unconvincing psychological drama of madness and grief by Sharr White (Annapurna). Describing an “episode” she suffered while presenting a major new dementia treatment to an audience of doctors and sales reps in the Bahamas, Juliana soon proves an unreliable narrator, as estranged husband Ian (Donald Sage Mackay) challenges her on some basic facts — including her claim to be in phone contact with their long-lost daughter (Carrie Paff) and Juliana’s disgraced former post-doc (Patrick Russell). The mystery here has to do with another “episode” altogether, one that took place at the couple’s Cape Cod summer home years before, which has left Juliana and Ian bereft and now on the verge of divorce. As Juliana slides back and away to “the other place,” we understand the mistakes this supposedly brilliant but also flawed woman has made, and the emotional logic of her mind’s drift. Not a bad premise, but it also feels contrived, with dialogue straining after tension and wit that are too often not there. Helmed by artistic director Loretta Greco, the action unfolds at almost too regular a clip, leaving little room for rumination — no doubt a stylistic choice but one which undercuts what modest force there is in the play’s dynamics, which anyway serve a rather sentimental storyline about loss and forgiveness. (Avila)

The Real Americans Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Oct 27. Dan Hoyle’s hit show, inspired by the people and places he encountered during his 100-day road trip across America in 2009, continues.

Roseanne: Live! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm (no shows Oct 31). Through Nov 14. Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and more star in this tribute to the long-running sitcom.

Shocktoberfest 13: The Bride of Death Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Thrillpeddlers’ annual Halloween horror extravaganza features a classic Grand Guignol one-act and two world premiere one-acts, plus a blackout spook show finale.

The Strange Case of Citizen de la Cruz Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun/7, 2pm. Through Oct 13. Bindlestiff Studio presents Luis Francia’s political thriller.

Twelfth Night San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF; www.weplayers.org. $30-80. Fri/5-Sun/7 and Oct 13, 5:30pm. After spending the summer on Angel Island with their epic-scale production of The Odyssey, the We Players have scaled back with a lo-key rendition of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on Hyde Street Pier. Of course when it comes to the We Players, “scaled-back” still means a two-and-a-half hour long participatory jaunt taking place mainly along the length of the pier and aboard the historic ferryboat, the Eureka, which serves primarily as the residence of the grieving Illyrian Countess, Olivia (Clara Kamunde) around whose favors much of the plot revolves. Highlights of the experience include the opportunity to visit historic Hyde Street Pier, a gypsy-jazzy score directed by Charlie Gurke (who also plays the lovelorn Duke Orsino), and the rascally quartet of the prankish Maria (Caroline Parsons), jocular drunk Toby Belch (Dhira Rauch), clueless doofus Andrew Augecheek (Benjamin Stowe), and wise fool Feste (John Hadden). But as We Players productions go, this one feels less inspired in its staging, and much of the action merely shuffles back and forth on the Eureka without incorporating many of the intriguing nooks and views the Hyde Street Pier offers, despite a promising opening scene involving a beach and a rowboat. Also, uncharacteristically for We, the comic timing seemed to be off the evening I saw it, although both Stowe and Hadden ably conveyed their wit without a flaw. Dress warmly, carry a big flask, and you’ll be fine. (Gluckstern)

The Waiting Period Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Oct 27. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Assassins Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/3-Thu/4, 7pm. Opens Fri/5, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 11. Shotgun Players performs the Sondheim musical about John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and other famous Presidential killers (and would-be killers).

Chinglish Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-99. Wed/3 and Sun/7, 7pm (also Sun/7, 2pm); Thu/4 and Sat/6, 2 and 8pm. Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) delivers this inconsistent but generally lively and fascinatingly au courant comedy about a down-on-his-luck American businessman (Alex Moggridge) who visits China hoping to win a contract for English-language signage. Hiring a British expat (Brian Nishii) to smooth the way for him, he enters negotiations with a local official (Larry Lei Zhang). Although things seem to be going well (across some hilarious scenes of half-assed simultaneous translation), he finds the deal running inexplicably aground, then finds unexpected help from a hard-nosed, initially hostile, and beautiful Party official (a standout Michelle Krusiec), with whom he soon begins an extramarital affair. But the American (who has a past of his own that eventually comes to light with surprising consequences) has no idea of the machinations taking place behind the formal business meetings and other confused cross-cultural encounters. What unfolds is a sometimes stretched but generally shrewd and laugh-out-loud funny assessment of has-been American delusions through the prism of rising Chinese ambitions and clout, cultural and otherwise. If the central dynamic between the lovers is not always convincing on the individual or metaphorical level, Leigh Silverman directs for Berkeley Rep a super slick production, complete with rotating sets and precisely timed entrances, featuring an enjoyable cast rounded out by Vivian Chiu, Celeste Den, and Austin Ku. (Avila)

Hamlet Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $35-71. Tue-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 4pm. Through Oct 14. Liesl Tommy directs this season closer for Cal Shakes, a decidedly uneven and overall surprisingly bland production of one of Shakespeare’s most fascinating, affecting, and endlessly rich works. The best part of Tommy’s less-than-inspired hodgepodge production (summed up by the dry and cluttered swimming-pool set, albeit very nicely designed by Clint Ramos) is lead Leroy McClain, whose Hamlet is a vibrantly intelligent and charismatic force most of the time. He gets some fine support from Dan Hiatt as a comically pedantic but still sympathetically paternal Polonius, but there is precious little chemistry with either Ophelia (a nonetheless striking Zainab Jah) or faithless queen mother Gertrude (Julie Eccles). The rest of the cast is rarely more than dutiful. Meanwhile, the staging comes laden with some awkward and/or tired conceits: a small fish tank-like landscape inset into the back wall for an unraveling Ophelia; a gore-covered zombie-esque ghost (a flat Adrian Roberts, who also plays Claudius); or guards sporting submachine guns, which always looks ridiculous. Moreover, the language comes awkwardly modernized in places —substituting “dagger” for “bodkin” in a rather famous soliloquy, for example, seems unnecessary and is definitely distracting. Why not “submachine gun”? (Avila)

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Oct 14. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Topdog/Underdog Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/6 and Oct 20, 2pm; Oct 11, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 21. Marin Theatre Company performs Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize winner about a contentious pair of brothers.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Comedy Bodega” Esta Noche Nightclub, 3079 16th St, SF; www.comedybodega.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. No cover (one drink minumum). Stand-up comedy.

“Comedy Returns to El Rio” El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/8, 8pm. $7-20. With Maureen Langan, Sammy Obeid, Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, Bobby Golden, and guest host Nick Leonard.

Dance Elixir Kunst-Stoff Arts, One Grove, SF; www.danceelixirlive.org. Thu/4-Sat/6, 8:30pm. $10. Performing Destroy// with Tiberius and Ava Mendoza.

“Hot Mess 3: Third Time, No Charm” New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. Thu/4-Sat/6, 8pm. $15. San Francisco’s newest sketch comedy group performs.

Shazia Mirza Punchline, 444 Battery, SF; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. Wed/3, 8pm. $15. The British comedian performs, with opening acts Kevin Camia and Samson Koletkar.

Smuin Ballet Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.smuinballet.org. Fri/5-Sat/6 and Oct 11-13, 8pm (also Oct 13, 2pm); Oct 14, 2pm. $25-65. The company performs its fall program, including West Coast premiere Cold Virtues.

“Spaceholder Festival” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/5-Sat/6, 8pm; Sun/7, 7pm. $25-45. Choreographer Morgan Thorson spearheads this evening-length performance that transforms the stage into “an archeological dig, an auction block, and a museum.”

“The Spooky Cabaret” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. Sun/7, 5:30pm; Oct 8-10, 7:30pm. $10. ‘Tis the season for this fest of three full-length and five one-act plays with horror themes.

“Theatecture on UN Plaza” Civic Center, UN Plaza, Seventh St at Market, SF; www.ftloose.org. Tue, noon-2pm. Through Oct 16. Free. Outdoor performance of Mary Alice Fry’s Honeycomb Zone as part of the “24 Days of Central Market Arts Festival.”

Northern promises

October 2, 2012

On the Road (Walter Salles, US/France/UK/Brazil, 2012) Walter Salles (2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries) engages Diaries screenwriter Jose Rivera to adapt Jack Kerouac’s Beat classic; it’s translated to the screen in a streamlined version, albeit one rife with parties, drugs, jazz, danger, reckless driving, sex, philosophical conversations, soul-searching, and “kicks” galore. Brit Sam Riley (2007’s Control) plays Kerouac stand-in Sal Paradise, observing (and scribbling down) his gritty adventures as they unfold. Most of those adventures come courtesy of charismatic, freewheeling Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund of 2010’s Tron: Legacy), who blows in and out of Sal’s life (and a lot of other people’s lives, too, including wives played by Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst). Beautifully shot, with careful attention to period detail and reverential treatment of the Beat ethos, the film is an admirable effort but a little too shapeless, maybe simply due to the peripatetic nature of its iconic source material, to be completely satisfying. Among the performances, erstwhile teen dream Stewart is an uninhibited standout. Thu/4, 6:30 and 6:45pm, Smith Rafael. (Cheryl Eddy)

Road North (Mika Kaurismäki, Finland) Mika Kaurismäki’s films are generally much more broadly accessible than the dryly minimalist ones of his brother Aki, yet the latter has by far the larger international audience. That might change a bit with this likable seriocomic road trip. Emotionally recessive concert pianist Timo (Samuli Edelmann) is less than delighted one day to find an uninvited guest slumped outside his apartment: the father who abandoned him 30-odd years earlier. Far from having improved himself in the interim, Leo (Vesa-Matti Loiri) is a corpulent slob, convenience store robber, and car thief. But he is insistent in dragging his son on a journey whose full purpose he won’t reveal until its end. Actually, you can guess where it’s headed — but getting there is full of surprises, some touching and some very funny. Fri/5, 9pm, Smith Rafael; Sun/7, 6pm, Sequoia. (Dennis Harvey)

Fat Kid Rules the World (Matthew Lillard, US) It really does suck to be Troy (Jacob Wysocki from 2011’s Terri). An XXL-sized high schooler, he’s invisible to his peers, derided by his little brother (Dylan Arnold), and has lived in general domestic misery since the death of his beloved mother under the heavy-handed rule of his well-meaning but humorless ex-military dad (Billy Campbell). His only friends are online gamers, his only girlfriends the imaginary kind. But all that begins to change when chance throws him across the path of notorious local hell raiser Marcus (Matt O’Leary), who’s been expelled from school, has left the band he fronts, and is equal parts rebel hero to druggy, lyin’ mess. But he randomly decrees Troy is cool, and his new drummer. Even if he’s just being used, Troy’s world is headed for some big changes. Actor Matthew Lillard’s feature directorial debut, based on K.L. Going’s graphic novel, is familiar stuff in outline but a delight in execution, as it trades the usual teen-comedy crudities (a few gratuitous joke fantasy sequences aside) for something more heartfelt and restrained, while still funny. O’Leary from last year’s overlooked Natural Selection is flamboyantly terrific, while on the opposite end of the acting scale Campbell makes repressed emotion count for a lot — he has one wordless moment at a hospital that just might bring you to the tears his character refuses to spill. Sat/6, 3pm, Sequoia; Oct. 11, 7pm, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Central Park Five (Ken Burns, US) Acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns takes on the 1989 rape case that shocked and divided a New York City already overwhelmed by racially-charged violence. The initial crime was horrible enough — a female jogger was brutally assaulted in Central Park — but what happened after was also awful: cops and prosecutors, none of whom agreed to appear in the film, swooped in on a group of African American and Latino teenagers who had been making mischief in the vicinity (NYC’s hysterical media dubbed the acts “wilding,” a term that became forever associated with the event). Just 14 to 16 years old, the boys were questioned for hours and intimidated into giving false, damning confessions. Already guilty in the court of public opinion, the accused were convicted in trials — only to see their convictions vacated years after they’d served their time, when the real assailant was finally identified. Using archival news footage (in one clip, Gov. Mario Cuomo calls the crime “the ultimate shriek of alarm that says none of us are safe”) and contemporary, emotional interviews with the Five, Burns crafts a fascinating study of a crime that ran away with itself, in an environment that encouraged it, leaving lives beyond just the jogger’s devastated in the process. Sat/6, 3:30pm, Smith Rafael; Mon/8, 3:15pm, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Rebels with a Cause (Nancy Kelly, US) The huge string of parklands that have made Marin County a jewel of preserved California coastline might easily have become wall-to-wall development — just like the Peninsula — if not for the stubborn conservationists whose efforts are profiled in Nancy Kelly’s documentary. From Congressman Clem Miller — who died in a plane crash just after his Point Reyes National Seashore bill became a reality — to housewife Amy Meyer, who began championing the Golden Gate National Recreation Area because she “needed a project” to keep busy once her kids entered school, they’re testaments to the ability of citizen activism to arrest the seemingly unstoppable forces of money, power and political influence. Theirs is a hidden history of the Bay Area, and of what didn’t come to pass — numerous marinas, subdivisions, and other developments that would have made San Francisco and its surrounds into another Los Angeles. Sat/6, 6:15pm, Sequoia; Tue/9, 4pm, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

The Sessions (Ben Lewin, US) Polio has long since paralyzed the body of Berkeley poet Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes) from the neck down. Of course his mind is free to roam — but it often roams south of the personal equator, where he hasn’t had the same opportunities as able-bodied people. Thus he enlists the services of Cheryl (Helen Hunt), a professional sex surrogate, to lose his virginity at last. Based on the real-life figures’ experiences, this drama by Australian polio survivor Ben Lewin was a big hit at Sundance this year (then titled The Surrogate), and it’s not hard to see why: this is one of those rare inspirational feel-good stories that doesn’t pander and earns its tears with honest emotional toil. Hawkes is always arresting, but Hunt hasn’t been this good in a long time, and William H. Macy is pure pleasure as a sympathetic priest put in numerous awkward positions with the Lord by Mark’s very down-to-Earth questions and confessions. Sat/6, 7pm, Smith Rafael; Sun/7, noon, Sequoia. (Harvey)

Flicker (Patrik Eklund, Sweden) The provincial HQ of behind-the-times, inept telecommunications company Unicom is locus to a whole bunch of weirdness during the eventful work week chronicled by Swedish writer-director Patrik Eklund’s first feature. To wit: sterility by electrocution, tarantula therapy, grade-school performances of Frankenstein, Ted Danson fixations, workplace application of dunce caps, blind dates, domestic terrorism cults, and scented candle making. If you only see one Scandinavian comedy this year, make it Klown. If you only see two, however, this is definitely the other one. It’s a goofy, lightly surreal delight. Sat/6, 9pm, Smith Rafael; Mon/8, 3:15pm, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Jayne Mansfield’s Car (Billy Bob Thornton, US) Billy Bob Thornton’s first directing gig in over a decade is an ensemble piece set in small-town 1969 Alabama — like every U.S. town at the time, a hotbed of generational conflict over the Vietnam War and the generally changin’ times. Particularly defining that gap is the squabbling relationship between hawkish patriarch Jim Caldwell (Robert Duvall) and youngest son Carroll (Kevin Bacon), who — though a World War II veteran, like brother Skip (Thornton) — has appointed himself a sort of elder to the local hippie population. That alone is enough to set Jim’s teeth on edge; he’s put in an even crustier mood upon hearing that his ex-wife has died, and her corpse is being brought back from England by the new family (John Hurt, Ray Stevenson, Frances O’Connor) she’d acquired after leaving him. The awkward meeting between two very different clans quickly thaws in various ways, however, some sexual, some comradely. Dismissed as a garrulous mess in its other festival showings to date, this Car is indeed one rusty, leaky, wayward vehicle at times, with some forced situations and way too much speechifying in the director’s script (co-written with Tom Epperson). But the thematically over ambitious, structurally clumsy movie is watchable nonetheless, with some real strengths: most notably strong performances (especially Thornton’s own) and a real feel for a particular high-Southern Brahmin milieu that hasn’t changed much more in the last 40 years than it did in the prior 40. Thornton will receive the MVFF Award and be interviewed onstage at the film’s screening. Sun/7, 6:30pm, Smith Rafael; Oct. 14, 5pm, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Ricky on Leacock (Jane Weiner, France/US) Shot over the last 40 years, since she was her subject’s student, Jane Weiner’s film about globe trotting director-cinematographer Richard Leacock is a fond tribute that pays due respect to the latter’s innovations in the documentary form. Dismayed by the lack of spontaneity that cumbersome equipment forced on the genre, he began devising a series of lightweight, synch-sound cameras that could unobtrusively travel with and capture events as they occurred. While his own mostly TV-targeted fruits of that labor are relatively little-known today, their impact on nonfiction cinema was enormous — and Leacock, who died last year at 89, was clearly charming company. Sun/7, 7pm, Smith Rafael; Mon/8, 9:15pm, 142 Throckmorton. (Harvey)

In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo, Korea) This latest bit of gamesmanship from South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo (2000’s Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors) has Isabelle Huppert playing three Frenchwomen named Anne visiting the same Korean beachside community under different circumstances in three separate but wryly overlapping stories. In the first, she’s a film director whose presence induces inapt overtures from both her married colleague-host and a strapping young lifeguard. In the more farcical second, she’s a horny spouse herself, married to an absent Korean man; in the third, a woman whose husband has run away with a Korean woman. The same actors as well as variations on the same characters and situations appear in each section, their rejiggered intersections poking fun at Koreans’ attitudes toward foreigners, among other topics. Airy and amusing, In Another Country is a playful divertissement that’s shiny as a bubble, and leaves about as much of a permanent impression. Tue/9, 4:15pm, Sequoia; Oct. 12, 9:45pm, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

To Kill A Beaver (Jan Jakub Kolski, Poland) Furtive, paranoid, solitary Eryk (Eryk Lubos) returns from places unknown to prepare his dilapidated farmhouse for a mission that, for a long time, remains equally unclear. Veteran Polish director Jan Jakub Kolski’s enigmatic drama takes its time unfolding the mysteries of Eryk’s traumatic past, unstable present, and future purpose. He’s all suspicion when he finds local teen Bezi (Agnieszka Pawelkiewicz) trespassing on his property, but her brazen come-on and hidden vulnerabilities chip away at his ample defenses. This intricate character study in the guise of a thriller puzzle is offbeat and absorbing, thanks in large part to Lubos’ prickly performance as a man as damaged as he is dangerous. Oct. 10, 6:30pm, Smith Rafael; Oct. 11, 9:30pm, Sequoia. (Harvey)

Holy Motors (Leos Carax, France) Holy moly. Offbeat auteur Leos Carax (1999’s Pola X) and frequent star Denis Lavant (1991’s Lovers on the Bridge) collaborate on one of the most bizarrely wonderful films of the year, or any year. Oscar (Lavant) spends every day riding around Paris in a white limo driven by Céline (Edith Scob, whose eerie role in 1960’s Eyes Without a Face is freely referenced here). After making use of the car’s full complement of wigs, theatrical make-up, and costumes, he emerges for “appointments” with unseen “clients,” who apparently observe each vignette as it happens. And don’t even try to predict what’s coming next, or decipher what it all means: this wickedly humorous trip through motion-capture suits, graveyard photo shoots, teen angst, back-alley gangsters, old age, and more (yep, that’s the theme from 1954’s Godzilla you hear; oh, and yep, that’s pop star Kylie Minogue) is equal parts disturbing and delightful. Movies don’t get more original or memorable than this. Oct. 11, 6pm, Sequoia; Oct. 12, 3:15pm, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 3

Humpday Happy Hour! Good Vibrations Lakeshore Store, 3219 Lakeshore, Oakl. (510) 788-2389, www.goodvibes.com. 6:30-7:30pm, free. We’ve all faced the post-work dilemma: gym or happy hour? Stress no more because the good folks at Good Vibrations would like to invite you to come and work out those PC muscles by doing Kegel exercises. Remember, strong PC muscles are very beneficial regardless of age, gender and, sexuality.

Venus and Mars reading J. Paul Leonard Library, Room 121, 1600 Holloway, SF. (415) 338-2408, www.library.sfsu.edu. 4pm, free. SFSU professor of cinema Jan Millsapps reads from her new novel Venus and Mars, a story about the discoveries of a 20th century astronomer.

THURSDAY 4

“The Art of Conservation” The Bone Room, 1573 Solano, Berk. (510) 526-5252, www.boneroom.com. 7-9pm, free. Artist Jane Kim’s passion for the environment is her raison d’etre. Her environmental consciousness will be on display at this upcoming event hosted by Berkeley’s Bone Room. Featured will be life size murals of the endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep, meant by Kim as a reminder of our own fragile ecosystem.

Hendrix on Hendrix Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 649-1320, www.pegasusbookstore.com. 7:30pm, free. Jimi Hendrix historian and author Steven Roby will be a giving an audiovisual presentation on the storied and tragic career of one of rock’s most talented guitarists. This unique presentation will feature interviews with reporters in which Hendrix discusses his fraught childhood and his legacy. A cannot-miss for Hendrix enthusiasts.

“Circular Motion: Subverting Circumscription” Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF. (415) 398-7229, www.merdiangallery.org. Through Nov.24. Opening reception: 5:30-8:30pm, free. Seven video installations from contemporary Cuban female artists will be display at the Meridian Gallery. The pieces of art each with its own distinct circular aspects form together to symbolize the much-troubled relationship between Cuba and United States.

FRIDAY 5

Pancakes and Booze Pop-Up Art Show Gallery 4n5, 863 Mission, SF. (415) 522-2440, www.galiara.com. Also Sat/6. 8pm-1am, free. If the name of this art show doesn’t convince you to show up then nothing will. But then again, don’t be that person and show up just for the food and beer — in addition to art from over 75 local and emerging artists, there will be a zombie fashion show, live music, and body painting.

SATURDAY 6

Frank Moore; Risk For Deep Love Temescal Art Center, 511 48th St., Oakl. (510) 526-7858, www.temescalartcenter.org. 8pm, free. Lauded and controversial shaman performance artist Frank Moore’s event at the Temescal Art Center will be sure to baffle your mind. Moore will attempt to reimagine human emotion through the use of musicians, actors, dancers, and members of the audience. It’s experimental performance art at its most experimental.

Garden Party White Walls, 835 Larkin, SF. (415) 931-1500, www.whitewallssf.com. Through Nov.5. Opening reception: 7-11pm, free. Artist Casey Gray will debut new works in his third exhibition with White Walls. This time around, the focus will be on paintings of 17th century Flemish life.

Cheeses of France Pop-Up Café Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF. (415) 974-1719, www.111minnagallery.com. 10am-5pm, free. Calling all cheeseheads! Famed chef Jason Fox of Commonwealth will be putting on a cheese dish clinic courtesy of the SOMA Pop-up Café. Five different French cheese producers will also be on hand to let you sample their delectable goods. Oh and there’ll be cheese art too.

SUNDAY 7

Japan Center Anime Fair: Sailor Moon’s 20th Anniversary Japantown Peace Plaza, Post and Buchanan, SF. www.japancentersf.com. 12:30-4:30pm, free. Bust out that Sailor Mercury ‘fit and head on over to Japantown to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Sailor Moon anime classic series. There will be a performance that consists of a battle between Super Sentai and Kamen Rider and singing and dancing by Mari Watanabe, Yukie Dong, Ti@Mi, and Angel Hearts.

UCSF Taste for the Cure: A Taste of Science Jewish Community Center, 3200 California, SF. (415) 353-7672, www.jccsf.org. 11am-4pm, free. It’s nutrition meets education in UCSF’s popular event on how diet can have a significant effect on breast health. Breast cancer doctors from the university will be conducting presentations numerous breast cancer-related topics. Unique to this year’s event will be a demonstration of DNA extraction — after the strands have been extricated you’ll be able to view them via microscope on the spot.

MONDAY 8

Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off IDES Grounds, 735 Main, Half Moon Bay. www.miramarevents.com/weighoff. 7-11am, free. Cartoonishly fat pumpkins will be battling it out for the heavyweight title (no pun intended) at this year’s Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off. Defending champion Leonardo Urena of Napa will have to bring his A game if he’s going to break the state record that he set at last year’s competition. For the first time in the history of outlandish contest there will be a mega-prize of $25,000 offered to the pumpkin grower that can grow the world’s first one-ton pumpkin.

Panther medicine

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE The night before our interview, Elder Freeman spoke alongside Peace and Freedom Party presidential candidate (and beloved sitcom sassmouth) Roseanne Barr, 2008 Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney, and others about the political possibilities of marijuana at a panel discussion held inside Oaksterdam University.

As Black Panther History Month begins, commemorating the 46th anniversary of the party’s founding by Freeman and his peers — see info on events at the end of this article — it seems only fitting that the cannabis movement and the Panthers’ struggle for social justice and the right to control our own communities be connected. For Freeman, the two have become inextricably linked.

The morning of the day we met at West Oakland’s Revolution Cafe, the 67 year old original member of LA’s Black Panther Party had two doctors appointments. Freeman has colon cancer. Three years ago, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He smokes marijuana to improve his appetite — he’s used to eating a single meal a day, but that’s not enough to keep up his strength during treatment. As a long-time 215 card-carrier, the last year’s federal crackdown on cannabis dispensaries threatens to send him back to buying pot on the streets.

Is access to marijuana a Black Panther issue? Freeman thinks so. He tells me why over a cup of coffee (cream, no sugar), and between interruptions by well-wishers — the entire neighborhood knows him, it seems, they all want to pay their respects.

“It’s all connected. The simple fact is that the judicial system is inadequate. The whole idea that they want to keep it in an illegal state is so that they can criminalize people.” He became aware of cannabis, he says, when Bob Marley started talking about its connection to non-violence. “I identified with the Rasta community for awhile,” he tells me.

Freeman’s been told that this current bout of cancer is incurable. But he’s also been told that the Watts uprising in 1965 that was responsible for his political awakening was actually riots and that he deserved to spend those seven years in jail alongside many of his Panther cohorts on a laundry list of mostly trumped-up charges. He didn’t buy those things either.

In fact, at Oaksterdam he shared with the crowd that he plans on going to Cuba for a second opinion on his medical treatment. “There’s something about American medicine that seems to be lacking,” he says.

Last night’s event was actually the first time Freeman spoke as a cannabis activist. He spends most of his time as an advocate these days working for inmate rights — not surprising when you consider he spent the better part of a decade as a political prisoner. He works with All of Us or None (www.allofusornone.org), a national organization that works to “ban the box” — remove questions about past incarceration from employment applications — promote inmate voting rights, and build awareness in the communities most affected by mass incarceration. So although personally, access to cannabis is clearly a health concern, he tends to speak about it with more a law and order focus.

“People are doing a lot of time for something that they shouldn’t even be in jail for.” He wonders out loud to me about why we don’t lock up cigarette producers. “They got it backwards. But that’s capitalism.”

BLACK PANTHER HISTORY MONTH RALLY

Oct. 13, noon

Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakl.

BLACK PANTHER HISTORY MONTH EXHIBIT

Oct. 13, 2pm, free

Geoffrey’s Inner Circle

410 14th St., Oakl.

www.itsabouttimebpp.com

‘Fire’ insight: talking with David Wojnarowicz biographer Cynthia Carr

Sue Vaughan

October 2, 2012

‘Fire’ insight: talking with David Wojnarowicz biographer Cynthia Carr

The following interview took place with Cynthia Carr, author of Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz (Bloomsbury USA, 624 pp., $35), on an early fall afternoon at the old Odessa Restaurant on Avenue A in the Lower East Side, New York City — one of the few places left where you can still pretend you’re in the LES of Wojnarowicz’s day. Carr will be at the San Francisco Art Institute Wed/3 to discuss her book. Read Erick Lyle’s review of the book here.

San Francisco Bay Guardian Your book is the first real biography of David Wojnarowicz. Up until now, the best book on him I thought was that Semiotext(e) book, David Wojnarowicz: A Definitive History of Five or Six Years on the Lower East Side. Your book has a lot of that same feel, the layers and layers of neighborhood detail. But, of course, your book has the advantage of having all of David’s thoughts and perspective on the same events because you have his journals and his correspondence. How were you able to access all of that material?

Cynthia Carr All of his papers are at Fales Library at NYU — all of his journals and the letters he kept. And I did get letters from quite a few other people, like his boyfriend in Paris, Jean-Pierre. At the beginning of the relationship, David wrote to JP at least every other day and later at least once a week.

When I went to Paris I took a scanner with me and back home I printed them out. The stack was like four inches thick! It was filled with information about what he was doing or working on every day. While the journals from those times are mostly about him going to the piers for sex, which he didn’t tell his boyfriend too much about! [Laughs.] The letters, though, are all about where he was living or where he was working, or … really, most of the time, he was looking for work… I was very fortunate to get that.

SFBG How long have you been working on this?

CC Five years. I started in ’07.

SFBG One of the things I think is really great about the book is how you break down the reporter objectivity and place yourself into the narrative. And I think it works because it’s really a story in a way that only you could tell, because it has the rich detail that could only come from an observer who was really here in this place the whole time. What led you to take this on? What was your inspiration to tell the story of David or of the neighborhood through him?

CC Well, David’s last boyfriend, Tom Rauffenbart, actually mentioned to me that he would really like there to be a book about David and that he thought I should be the person to write it. I had written another book and when that came out in 2006, I wasn’t at the [Village] Voice anymore. I was freelancing, which is rough, as you know. And Tom had mentioned this to me, and I thought maybe I should give it a try, writing a book about David.

I wasn’t sure of all the details of David’s life, but I thought it seemed like a compelling life story. Over the years, too, people had questioned “the mythology,” — I mean, people didn’t believe his childhood stories, so I thought maybe there was a mystery there I could figure out. It was a period of time when I had lived in the same neighborhood as David and this would give me a chance to write about the East Village arts scene, the AIDS crisis, and the culture wars of the 80s all in one book, because he was a central player in all of those things.

SFBG In the end of the book, David approaches you and starts to tell you things about his life before he dies. Do you feel like in some way he knew you were a reporter and he was choosing you to do this book?

CC That might be a little too mystical to get credence, but he did open up to me and reach out. He started calling me to come over a lot. He also chose Amy Scholder who will be on stage with me in San Francisco. She was an editor at City Lights and he got to know her and chose her to edit his journals.

SFBG Those last couple years of his life — even though we know how it ends, that part of the book is so full of suspense Because it was amazing to see someone be so driven to do everything they wanted to die before they died and to actually almost do it all! It was really amazing to see how much art he was able to make across so many different media in such a short time.

CC David had tremendous inner strength and very solid will power that got him through all of this stuff. For the last year or really eight or nine months of his life he actually wasn’t really able to work, but he always talked about it. He always wanted to. I describe him as workaholic who had trouble holding a job. He worked constantly.

There was a trip he went on with Tom and their friend, Anita, near the end of his life that I describe in the book. One day, they find David just lying contentedly in a hammock and Tom says, “Look! He’s not working!” Because David was always working. Like, if he was walking with you on the beach, he’d also the whole time be picking up twigs or shells or driftwood that he thought he could use in a piece. It was like that.

SFBG So obviously you were already pretty far along with this when the latest controversy with David’s art happened at the “Hide/Seek” show at the Smithsonian. What were you thinking when that happened?

CC In a way, I liked that it happened because it drew attention to David and a lot of people didn’t know who he was, so I thought it would be helpful for the book. But in another way, it was shocking that he would get back into the news in this absurd way, which was for about 11 seconds of a film that he didn’t even finish that was completely misinterpreted by everybody. I mean, even the art world people who defended David by saying that the film was about AIDS didn’t have it right.

SFBG It was such a weird déjà vu … I first encountered Wojnarowicz as a teen during the era of that culture war controversy. There was his work, the Piss Christ, Karen Finley, Mapplethorpe, of course. That’s when I first heard about a lot of cool art! But I couldn’t believe it was happening all over again. Like, “Are we still HERE?” Not really, I guess, but they are. It’s really incredible.

CC It shows that David still has the power to be a lightning rod.

SFBG Why do you think that is?

CC David was very blunt in both his imagery and his feelings about things. He didn’t pull any punches. He used powerful symbols that are hard to explain as sound bites, so it’s easy for the Right to pick them up and take them out of context.

SFBG Personally, I’ve always felt like David’s writing is more timeless than his art. Some of the art is so linked to the time and place of the AIDS/culture war era that it sometimes seems dated to me, whereas the writing is this beautiful, timeless narrative of the outlaw in America, the outsider. But it was interesting that those artworks from that time and place are still so triggering, so perhaps they are timeless after all.

CC There are certain themes of his that really live on. His work is in major museums, of course.

SFBG You’re doing this panel tomorrow at the Brooklyn Book Festival. What is it? “The Creative City”?

CC Yeah, I think it’s about the 70s and 80s in NYC…

SFBG Here’s the notice: “The Creative City: The 70’s, 80’s, AND BEYOND”! [Laughs] Beyond? That must be like a blank, white space on the map…

CC Right! [Laughs]

SFBG In the past couple years there has been so much nostalgia for the NYC of the 70s and 80s in books and films. It’s coming from all sides. What do you think accounts for all of the interest in this lost time and place?

CC Well, the city has changed so much and the culture has changed so much. I think people look back to the freedom of that era when there was so much more uncolonized space, even in Manhattan, and it was cheaper to live here so people could just come here and try things. There was room to experiment. You didn’t have to make a lot of money immediately. You could just, say, go to a vacant lot between Avenue B and C and put on a performance with a cast of 30 or 40 people and no one would bother you. I saw many things like that then but there’s no way that could happen today. It’s starting to feel like everything has a stricture on it.

Not everybody looks back with longing for those days, of course. And when I look back with longing, I try to remember how dangerous it was then, because it really was very dangerous here. There was more crime, more rats, more garbage…

SFBG The price of freedom!

CC [Laughs] Right! But it starts to look like this golden age of Bohemia because there’s nothing like it now. Everyone’s so spread out. Williamsburg is completely gentrified. There are artists living all over the city from Red Hook, Brooklyn, all the way up to the Bronx. Also, people are starting out in MFA programs and artists are going to graduate school, so it’s a different way of coming up in the art world. David was so uneducated. I was thinking tomorrow on the panel I would read something about the piers. Not just the sex piers but the two art piers where David sometimes painted and took photos. There you had people making this art in this abandoned space with a total freedom and also working with the knowledge that it was not going to last, that it would be destroyed. David loved that part of it.

SFBG That’s one of the most poignant things about the book. David really identified with this idea that the Empire was falling, that the civilization was in ruins. Like the painting he titled, Some Day All of This Will Be Picturesque Ruins. But then it turned out that it was really just his own civilization or community that would soon crumble and disappear. And now a generation later, the inhabitants of this new Lower East Side are walking around on top of this lost civilization that has disappeared without a trace and is buried just under their feet. Could anyone at that time have imagined that the neighborhood would turn into what we have here today?

CC Oh, I think not. It was clear from as early as 1990 that the neighborhood was undergoing changes. The galleries had to leave because the rents were going up. I lived between Avenue A and B and I heard about someone buying an apartment for $250,000 on my block! I couldn’t believe it. But now you have luxury hotels up in the LES and every old parking lot has a high-priced condo on it. But when you’re younger, I guess, you don’t really think about what things will turn into.

SFBG Do you still live in the neighborhood?

CC Yes, I do. I can’t afford to move! I have a rent-stabilized apartment and have been there since the 70s. When I moved in there was only one bodega between Houston and 14th street on Avenue A – that and the Pyramid Club. Before that I lived between Avenues C and D, and people wouldn’t come over to visit me.

SFBG Where do you think your book fits into this flow of books full of nostalgia for that era, then? To me it’s almost a corrective to the nostalgia, since it’s not romantic at all. It shows the struggle and loss that happened from there to here.

CC I don’t know that those other books really went into what happened in the AIDS crisis. The AIDS epidemic is a shadow that was behind the East Village arts scene the entire time right from the beginning and no one knew it. I found news stories about people coming down with Kaposi’s Syndrome as early as the late 1970s. It was starting to spread then and no one knew it. And the people that died from AIDS were the biggest risk takers, the people who were most creative… the people who had the biggest impact on the arts scene. Losing all those people changed the world for the worse.

SFBG So, the building where David lived his last few years and where he died was his late best friend, Peter Hujar’s loft. Am I right that Hujar’s loft is now that multi- screen movie theater on Second Avenue at 12th?

CC Yeah.

SFBG Have you been to see movies there?

CC Oh yeah! It’s really weird! I haven’t seen a movie there in a few years, but I do think about, about David dying right upstairs. I’ve been told that the loft is now an office space. The first time I went to the theater part of the building was for Charles Ludlum’s memorial service. It was still being converted then from an old Yiddish theater into the cinema multiplex. It’s been a couple years, and I can’t remember what I saw there last, but, sure, I’ve gone to see films there.

SFBG Where was David’s room in the building? It’s such a strange layout for a theater.

CC Well, he was up on the Third floor. There are windows shaped like Old West tombstones that face 12th street and that was where his kitchen table was, where he sat and worked. Recently, I was thinking that out of all of us who were there taking care of David in those last months, none of us took a picture of the place. I wish now I could remember what all the piles of stuff were, because David was just such a pack rat. There were piles not just of art projects and supplies, but piles of paper, The NY Post — he liked using the tabloids in his collage pieces…

SFBG That Nan Goldin photo in the book is so great. What is he sitting with here? Like are those giant sperm?

CC Yeah, they are sperm — homemade props from his In the Shadow Of Forward Motion performance. And there is his baby elephant skeleton. And some movie posters he must have brought back from Mexico…

SFBG Well, let’s talk about David and San Francisco. For such a noted queer artist and activist, he seems to have surprisingly limited connection with San Francisco. But he did make it to the city a couple of notable times, right?

CC One of his early goals in life was to go to City Lights Books and he actually took a bus all the way across the USA just to go there.

SFBG Well, he’s not the only one. That’s so great!

CC And when he took this early hitchhiking and rail-riding trip in 1976, he went to SF and stayed there at the YMCA in the Tenderloin for awhile. He liked San Francisco.

SFBG Did he also appear at the SF Arts Institute?

CC I believe he performed In the Shadow Of Forward Motion there. But he also did a reading for Close To The Knives in SF at the bookstore, A Different Light. That was the only reading he did for that book tour. His first idea was to drive across the country and do readings here and there, but he just wasn’t feeling well enough. So he decided he would only do one reading and it would be in San Francisco. That same day, he joined in a march about AIDS awareness in SF.

SFBG What do you think is next for you?

CC It might be time for me to move my work out of the East Village. My first book was a collection of my Village Voice articles and now there’s this book, so maybe I’ve told all of my story here. I got so exhausted with this. I really worked every single day except Christmas Day, working around the clock, and I got really depleted. So I’m recovering from all of that work.

SFBG Well, that work really paid off! This book is very special. Is there anything you want to add to this?

CC Well, one thing I’ve noticed is that reviewers tend not to talk about the love stories in the book. The importance of Peter Hujar and Jean Pierre to David. And Tom Rauffenbart. And maybe it’s natural that people focus on the art and the AIDS crisis. But the love stories are to me really important.

SFBG I got that from the book. His life was so improvised. He never reached a place of safety or security where he had the luxury of saying, “OK, here’s what I’m going to do next.” It was like he was reacting all of the time to whatever came up. He had difficulty trusting in the future or in relationships with other people. I think all of that is common with people who have abuse histories and I think you got that across.

CC Yes, he always reacted to stuff. Like he found an obscene drawing on the street where someone had scrawled “Fuck you, faggot fucker!”. So he used it in a painting and based a whole work around the drawing and called it Fuck You Faggot Fucker! He was always responding. The things that troubled him became the subject of his work. That is what inspired him.

David Wojnarowicz: Cynthia Carr and Amy Scholder in Conversation
Wed/3, 7:30pm, free
Lecture Hall
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut, SF
www.sfai.edu/event/CynthiaCarr

Endorsements 2012: San Francisco races

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

San Francisco races

BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

DISTRICT ONE

ERIC MAR

In the fall of 2011, Supervisor Eric Mar introduced legislation banning the sale of toys as part of a fast-food meal promotion — and instantly, Mar and his colleagues became the target of national jokes. Right-wing radio went nuts. The Chronicle lampooned him. Even the Daily Show did a segment teasing him and suggesting that parents could control their kids’ nutritional intake just fine.

Lost in the media furor was the fact that a lot of parents — and much of the activists fighting the epidemic of childhood obesity — loved the law. And McDonald’s responded by ending free toys in its San Francisco happy meals. Also lost was the fact that Mar was, generally, a hard-working, serious-minded supervisor who has pushed for tenant and senior protections, better transit, and help for small independent businesses. He’s been a leader in the fight against chain stores and the malling of San Francisco.

His race for re-election is also one of the defining contests in San Francisco this fall.

We endorsed Mar with enthusiasm four years ago, and for most of his term, he’s done a fine job. But in the past few months he’s started to waver on key issues. He voted the wrong way on 8 Washington (condos for millionaires on the waterfront), and it was a struggle to get him to support Mike Hennessey over Ed Lee for mayor. He went completely south on the Sept. 25 vote giving the mayor complete control of the successor to the Redevelopment Agency. He voted in favor of a ban on recreation vehicles parking on city streets — a direct attack on homeless people. He’s been less-than dynamic on promoting new revenue sources. He’s siding more and more with the mayor and is no longer the reliable progressive vote he once was. And guess what? All of those pro-development, pro-mayor votes are now paying off for him — we hear Rose Pak, a key supporter of 8 Washington, is now out raising money for Mar. Ick.

But so far, Mar’s still rock solid on tenant issues — he helped create owner-move-in eviction protections for families with kids. He’s a strong support of bus rapid transit on the Geary corridor. He supports Clean Power SF (and eventual municipal ownership of the power grid). He has the support of every progressive elected official and organization and, for all his occasional bad votes, his re-election in a district that is not by any means the most left-leaning in the city is a high priority.

Mar’s opponent, David Lee, is the candidate of downtown, the landlords, and the cops. He has the support of Senator Dianne Feinstein, former Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Police Officers Association, Plan C, and just about everyone else in town who has sought to undermine progressive politics and legislation.

As executive director of the Chinese-American Voter Education Project, Lee has taken millions of dollars (including huge contributions from downtown interests, while refusing to provide a full breakdown) and used about a third of it on his $90,000 annual salary and that of his wife, Jing, according to federal disclosure records. While he claims to have registered 100,000 voters — claiming to highly value voting while sometimes failing to do so himself, according to election records — Lee’s more public role has been to repeatedly and deceptively go after the ranked-choice voting system and take other moderate stands in media interviews.

Lee served as a member of the Recreation and Park Commission since 2005, presiding over the controversial privatization schemes that have alienated so many San Franciscans that there is an unprecedented level of opposition to this year’s proposed parks bond.

Lee refused to come into the Guardian for an endorsement interview, or even to respond to our repeated calls with questions about his background and the false charges he’s been leveling at Mar.

They include the accusation that Mar is being backed by well-funded “special interests” because he has the support of labor.

With David Campos and John Avalos unopposed, and District 5 a fractious mess, much progressive energy is focused on Mar’s re-election. If Lee wins, it will be a huge setback to the progressive movement. We’re nervous about Mar, given his recent votes—but we’ll endorse him for another term.

DISTRICT 3

1. DAVID CHIU

We haven’t always been happy with David Chiu. After being elected as a progressive — and getting elevated his first week in office to board president — he started slipping into the moderate, sometimes squishy center. He supported the Twitter tax break (approving it before the company even presented a community benefits plan). He helped put Ed Lee in the Mayor’s Office, and was the swing vote approving the Parkmerced overhaul that drew strong opposition from tenant groups. He’s tried to water down efforts by Sup. David Campos to close loopholes in the city’s health-care law. He allowed the mayor to escape the real debate that was part of the voter-approved “question time.”

In his second term as president, he appointed some of the more conservative supervisors as committee chairs. In our endorsement interview, Chiu said he doesn’t believe those appointments have effected legislation — but Sups. Mark Farrell and Elsbernd have been actively sabotaging progressive appointments and initiatives on the Rules Committee, and Chu chairs the powerful Budget and finance Committee.

But on some issues, he’s been not only a good vote but a leader. He played a key role in trying to stop the 8 Washington project. He’s raised concerns about other waterfront development. He’s also in the forefront of the fight to make sure that neighborhoods get their fair share in the CPMC deal and that St. Luke’s remains a viable health-care option in the southeast part of the city.

Chiu has passed good environmental legislation, including streamlining the process to start urban agriculture projects and saving paper by limiting distribution of telephone books. He fought for the language access ordinance and the rights of immigrant parents in school board elections.

We wish Chiu weren’t so quick to compromise, particularly with the mayor. But none of his competition, including opera singer and perennial candidate Wilma Pang, have presented a stronger alternative. Chiu’s not perfect, but we support him for District 3 supervisor.

DISTRICT 5

1. JULIAN DAVIS

2. JOHN RIZZO

3. THEA SELBY

WE HAVE WITHDRAWN OUR ENDORSEMENT OF JULIAN DAVIS. MORE INFO HERE.

We hold this truth to be self-evident: District 5 is the heart of progressive San Francisco, the most left-leaning district in the city. The supervisor who represents the Haight, Western Addition, and Inner Sunset has to be a reliable part of the progressive community, someone who can be counted on to vote the right way pretty much 100 percent of the time.

That’s what we’ve had since the return of district elections in 2000. Matt Gonzalez was a Green Party member who (other than one unfortunate vote on school funding) held down the board’s left flank. Ross Mirkarimi, who on occasion clashed with his progressive colleagues, never went south on a single issue. We’re looking for a strong, progressive leader here, someone who can break new ground and launched dramatic new programs and ideas. But just as important, we’re looking for someone the left doesn’t have to worry about, someone who, when John Avalos or David Campos proposes a good piece of legislation, will always be in the yes column, and who, when the conservative supervisors propose something awful, will always be voting no. This isn’t a swing district; when the tenants and labor and the environmentalists and the people who support taxes on the rich and the housing advocates and the human-services community and the rest of the often-fractious but generally together progressive coalition are trying to count to six votes, they shouldn’t have to worry about where the D5 supervisor falls.

The supervisor from this district needs to be ready to defy the mayor when he’s wrong (which, sadly, is a lot of the time).

We wanted that person to be Christina Olague. A longtime community activist appointed by Gonzalez to the Planning Commission, Olague was for years part of the coalition that fought against the brutal displacement and economic cleansing that was the administration of Mayor Willie Brown. She was one of the most reliable voices on the commission, a rare vote for sanity in a time of madness.

We were pleased Mayor Ed Lee appointed her for Mirkarimi’s seat. And then she quickly let us down.

Olague voted in favor of the 8 Washington project. She worked with Sup. Mark Farrell, probably the most right-wing member of the board, to undermine ranked-choice voting. She voted to reappoint Mike Antonini, a Republican who is downtown’s best friend, to the Planning Commission. You can argue any of those votes, but the fact is, the two strongest progressive on the board — Avalos and Campos — were on the other side every time.

She’s also aligned herself with Brown, Lee, and Rose Pak, who have raised more than $50,000 for her re-election. She seems not to recognize that, as the next tech boom rolls in, city politics will be defined by a profound class struggle — and Brown, Lee, and Pak will be on the wrong side. It’s sad to say this after all of her history, but Olague isn’t the person to represent District 5 for the next four years.

There are a wide range of strong challengers — and while none of them are perfect, they present credible alternatives to Olague. Our choices are Julian Davis, John Rizzo and Thea Selby.

John Rizzo, as a leader in the local Sierra Club, has been part of the progressive coalition for years. As the president of the Community College Board, he’s been one of the reformers trying to keep that institution alive after more than a decade of corruption and mismanagement. He’s particularly strong on environmental issues, and would be a worthy successor to Mirkarimi, who engineered bills like the ban on plastic bags that put San Francisco in the forefront of the urban green movement.

Rizzo has to deal with the fact that he was at the helm when City College faced the greatest crisis in at least half a century. In retrospect, it’s hard to believe that even the reformers didn’t realize how much trouble was at hand and didn’t take greater steps to head off the crisis.

But Rizzo’s got the seasoning and the agenda to be a solid supervisor.

Thea Selby’s not as much of a lefty as Rizzo, but she’s a neighborhood and small-business advocate who got involved in politics organizing the Lower Haight after a spate of shootings outside her doorstep. She’s good on land-use issues and, while she unlikely to win, could have a political future if she stays active.

The other strong candidate in the race is London Breed, director of the African American Art and Culture Complex. She’s the only major candidate born in the district; she grew up in a housing project, living with her grandmother while many of those around her wound up in prison or dead. She’s a smart, compelling candidate with a tremendous amount of personal charm. She served on the Redevelopment Commission, voting the wrong way on the Lennar project, and is now on the Fire Commission.

The problem with Breed is that she’s too conservative for the district. She supported the ridiculous sit-lie law (and still defends it). She has the support of the Police Officers Association. She’s raised a ton of money, in part because the landlords like her. We do, too — but not as the D 5 supervisor.

The mayor has made the re-election of his appointee a high priority, and the outcome of this race will be in part a referendum on the power structure at City Hall. We’re going with Rizzo, and Selby.

SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT 7

1. NORMAN YEE

2. F.X.CROWLEY

3. JOEL ENGARDIO

You don’t expect to get a left-leaning supervisor from D.7, which is almost certainly the most traditionally conservative part of the city. For eight years, it’s been represented by Sean Elsbernd, a smart, effective, and honest advocate for homeowners and businesses who was wrong on most of the issues but trustworthy and accessible.

This time around, there’s a chance that D7 could move into the swing column; two candidates who would vote with the progressives at least some of the time are in strong contention.

Our first choice is Norman Yee, president of the school board and executive director of Wu Yee Children’s Services. Yee already has eight years experience in local government, and — while he, like all the D7 candidates, talks about public safety and quality-of-life issues, he also told us he’s “not opposed to taxes.” He’s supporting the City College parcel tax, Prop. A, and is open to looking at other revenue measures, including possible parking-lot taxes to pay for Muni.

He’s a little shaky on housing. While he called for an audit of all vacant city land to seek sites for new affordable housing, he supports tenancies in common and has no idea how the city can meet its General Plan housing goals. He’s working with campaign consultant Enrique Pearce, who is part of the more sleazy side of the mayor’s operation, and that gives us cause for serious concern. But on balance, he’s our first choice.

Crowley, who just stepped down as the head of the Theatrical Stage Employees Union, is an old-San Francisco kind of guy, a graduate of St. Ignatius who’s lived his entire life on the West side of town. He served on the Public Utilities Commission, where he was never much of a supporter of public power, is still dubious on Clean Power SF, doesn’t want to support much in the way of increased density west of 19th Avenue (except at ParkMerced) and is hardly going to be a progressive leader on the board.

He has a strong labor background, which cuts both ways: He’s likely to be horrible on development issues and will listen to the building trades people, but will also listen to SEIU on the city budget. Not our first choice — but he’s far better than Mike Garcia, who was a bad vote on the Ethics Commission and the Board of Appeals and is much more of a traditional pro-business, cut-taxes-and-regulations candidate. Garcia’s got the support of Elsbernd and will have plenty of downtown money, so we’re willing to go with Crowley as an alternative.

Engardio, a former writer for SF Weekly who once worked for the ACLU, is surprisingly conservative — he’s a low-tax, high-police-presence candidate whose positions, on paper, are as far to the right as almost anyone in the race. But he’s independent, is unlikely to win, and listing him as number three might help one of the other candidates edge out Garcia.

DISTRICT 9

DAVID CAMPOS

We could easily argue that Campos is the best member of the Board of Supervisors. He’s hard-working, pays attention to details, understands policy and politics and is one of the two most reliable progressives on the board. (It’s interesting that Campos and John Avalos, the two supes who refused to moderate their stands or compromise with the likes of Rose Pak, are now running unopposed; their constituents seem to like consistency and honesty.)

Campos is respected by his political opponents and trusted by his allies. He’s shown considerable legislative skill, managing to guide Clean Power SF through the board with a veto-proof majority. He’s been a strong advocate for Healthy SF and is trying to close the loophole some businesses use to exploit it. He’s been an outspoken voice for immigrants. We see a bright future of Sup. Campos, and we’re happy to endorse him for another term.

DISTRICT 11

JOHN AVALOS

At a time when the progressive movement of San Francisco has been hobbled by self-inflicted wounds and downtown’s divide-and-conquer strategy, John Avalos has stepped into an important leadership role. When we needed a mayoral candidate last year to represent progressive values in a large field of political moderates, Avalos was there, leading a strong second-place finish that showed the San Francisco Left is still a force to be reckoned with.

Earlier this year, it appeared that Avalos might have to endure a tough challenge by moderate union rep Leon Chow, who ended up dropping out of the race after media reports showed that he didn’t really live in the district. With a walk to reelection, Avalos was freed up to represent progressive San Francisco interests at the bargaining table opposite the Mayor’s Office and business community on two of this year’s highest profile struggles: reforming the city’s business tax and creating an Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

In both cases, Avalos needed to play political hardball and practice some risky brinksmanship, threatening to place competing measures on the ballot right up until the end. The resulting compromises that he helped forge, Propositions C and E, include tens of millions of dollars in new revenue that Mayor Ed Lee opposed, which will help save city programs and keep working class San Franciscans from being forced out of the city.

Avalos is a classic district politician, focusing much of his energy on advocating for the needs of Excelsior and other District 11 residents. But he has also become an important citywide leader, and he has our full support.

COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD

CHRIS JACKSON

RAFAEL MANDELMAN

STEVEN NGO

AMY BACHARACH

Every one of the 11 people running for Community College Board trustee — incumbents and challengers alike — agrees that the system is a godawful mess. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges has warned San Francisco’s largest educational institution that it will withdraw accreditation in 2013 if City College doesn’t make dramatic changes in its financial and governance structures. A school that serves 90,000 people and is critical to the city’s immigrants, job-seekers, and business community is facing the worst crisis in its history, with the unthinkable prospect of shutting down looming on the horizon.

That said, we need to add a bit of perspective here: City College is going to survive. The board has already hired an outside trustee to monitor its compliance with WASC’s recommendations, and by next spring, WASC is going to approve the school’s accreditation.

But along the way, the district is going to have to make some major changes that could shift its essential mission and alter the role City College has played in the community. Put simply, WASC and the state agency that oversees community colleges want City College to become more of a traditional junior college, designed to prepare students for transfers to four-year institutions, at the expense of adult education, English as a second language, and job training. The people who will decide the district’s fate want fewer teachers, fewer campuses, more administrators, and higher financial reserves — even if that means serving a smaller number of students.

It’s going to be tricky: School officials will have to thread a sharp political needle to emerge without lasting damage. And the question for the voters is simple: Who is best qualified to make sure that the school meets the WASC requirements — without gutting everything that’s important about the San Francisco Community College system?

We approach this with a couple of observations. The problems at City College aren’t new — they’re the result of many years of incompetence, malfeasance, corruption, secrecy, and lack of accountability that was driven by the elected board and infected every aspect of college operations, culminating in a scandal that resulted in felony charges against the chancellor. For more than a decade, a board majority that at best ignored and at worst empowered bad administrators and worse decisions ruled the college like a private fiefdom. Natalie Berg, who is running for re-election, was neck-deep in the sleaze. Milton Marks, who died in August, was often the only voice for honesty and sanity.

In the past few years, Marks found some allies as John Rizzo, Chris Jackson, and Steven Ngo joined the board, and since 2009, the reformers have had a clear majority. They haven’t been perfect, by any means — and it’s hard to deny that they were at the helm when the crisis hit, and could and should have move earlier to avert it. But they’ve at least made a credible effort to dig the school out of its mire.

Along the way, they’ve had to cut the budget by 20 percent — and made conscious decisions to preserve a professional teaching force and a broad mission, even if that meant laying off administrators and accepting lower-than-normal levels of reserves. Right or wrong, those were honest policy moves — ones that happen to conflict with what the state and WASC currently want.

It’s tempting (particularly when WASC complains about board dysfunction, which actually means that the members sharply disagreed, for very good reasons, on a lot of issues) to call for throwing out all the incumbents. But that’s a mistake; two incumbents are on the right side of the reform battles and have a vision for the school’s future. We’re also endorsing two challengers who offer a valuable fresh perspective.

Chris Jackson, a researcher with the San Francisco Labor Council, is running for his second term. He’s the only board member who voted against hiring a special trustee to oversee the districts WASC compliance — and he raised valid points about the trustees role and authority. He’s been a strong supporter of the reform agenda, and while he needs to understand that resisting the WASC demands entirely is a recipe for disaster, and that the board needs to accept greater fiscal discipline even if it means cutting programs he supports, Jackson’s voice is needed as the board moves forward.

Rafael Mandelman is a lawyer who’s been involved in progressive politics in the city for years. He’s an honest, principled activist respected by people across the political spectrum. He told us he has no illusions about the challenges ahead — or about challenging everyone, including his allies on the board, if that’s what it takes to save City College. “Short term,” he told us, “it’s all bad” — and he has the clear eyes and integrity to make the painful decisions. In a bitterly divided board, he may be something of a peacemaker, since nobody on any side doubts his intentions.

Steven Ngo, a civil rights lawyer, has been an exceptional board member, someone who respects and supports the district’s broad mission but has no illusions about the financial problems. He’s been complaining for years about the lack of centralized accounting systems, about the district’s lack of control over employee health spending — and about absenteeism among some board members, which has been a serious problem. He’s talking about fixing the basic problems first, including a system of internal governance that is so diffuse it often seems nobody knows who’s in charge.

Amy Bacharach, a policy researcher for the state court system, knows the value of education — she went from high school dropout to Ph.D. in 20 years. She agrees that the district shouldn’t abandon its commitment to adult education, ESL, and non-credit classes, but also agrees with WASC that the governance system is far too loose and that the board needs to centralize decision-making. She has progressive values and a clear head for what needs to be done, and would be a strong ally for Jackson, Mandelman and Ngo.

We also liked William Walker, the current student trustee, who has lots of great ideas and knows more about the district than almost anyone but as a student with a job and a role on the board, he isn’t running much of an effective campaign; he has a future in local politics, and ought to run again in two years when he has less on his table. Hanna Leung offered some solid ideas and was also a strong candidate.

But right now, in this race, at this time, we’re backing Jackson, Ngo, Mandelman, and Bacharach.

BOARD OF EDUCATION

SANDRA FEWER

JILL WYNNS

SHAMANN WALTON

MATT HANEY

It’s safe to say that nobody else in town is endorsing this particular slate of candidates. But it reflects our complicated and nuanced perspective on the state of the San Francisco public schools.

It’s important — critically important — to recognize that the local schools have improved dramatically over the past few years. When you see the actual data, it’s almost a miracle — at a time when the district has lost almost 20 percent of its state funding, when schools are begging parents to donate pencils and paper because there aren’t enough basic supplies to make it through the year, student achievement is up by almost metric. SFUSD is the best performing large urban district in California. There are more good schools and fewer failures. Test scores continue to creep upward. The racial achievement gap, while still unacceptable, is narrowing. Enrollment at the elementary level, once in sharp decline, is growing as faith in the schools improves.

The administration of outgoing Superintendent Carlos Garcia was refreshingly open; the gag orders and repressive programs of his predecessor, Arlene Ackerman, are gone. Garcia’s anointed successor, Richard Carranza, is following the same track. And the often fractious board is working together remarkably well.

That said, there are serious issues facing the district. The bitter fight over layoffs this spring has left the board, the administration, and the teachers union on terrible terms. The student assignment process, the budget, school transportation, the meal programs, the future of honors tracking, and immersion programs all present massive challenges. And in the middle of all of this are 55,000 students and their families, who can’t afford to wait around while the elected officials and administrators figure out what to do.

That’s why we’re endorsing a mix of veterans and newcomers, people who aren’t always on the same page politically but who share a commitment to public education and who offer both institutional memory and new ideas.

For the record: We have immense respect for the teacher’s union, the United Educators of San Francisco, and we (properly) take what the union says very seriously. It’s rare that we disagree. But the union has taken one issue — the vote to skip seniority and preserve the jobs of 70 lower-seniority teachers in a handful of underperforming schools — as the single litmus test for this election. That’s meant opposing all the incumbents — even if it means endorsing candidates who have opposed much of what the union stands for and who are otherwise unqualified for the job. We recognize the importance of seniority and the problems with that vote, but it’s only one of the many factors we considered in our decisions.

There’s nobody in this race we consider a flawless advocate for progressive school policies and reform. But four people are going to win, and we’re going with the best four.

Sandra Fewer was elected four years ago as the consensus candidate of the entire San Francisco left, and in some ways, she’s lived up to her promises. She’s been a leading advocate for restorative justice in the school disciplinary system, got ethnic studies added into the high school curriculum, and has made LGBT issues a priority (including training for gym teachers on trans youth). She was on the right side of the JROTC vote and is a strong advocate for students of color. She’s well informed and does her homework.

She also led an embarrassing and unproductive effort to keep Margaret Brodkin, an eminently qualified candidate, off the board two years ago, hurting her credibility in a lot of circles. She infuriated the teacher’s union by joining the majority on the skipping vote. Still, Fewer’s been a valuable voice on the board and deserves another term.

Jill Wynns is often at odds with Fewer and other progressives. She was utterly wrong on JROTC, pushing to preserve a military recruitment program in the public schools. She supported the horrible superintendent Arlene Ackerman all the way to the bitter end, damaging the district’s reputation (and her own). She’s been on the board for 20 years and there are a lot of people, many of them our friends and allies, who say it’s time for her to retire and make room for new blood.

If this were a one-person job, we wouldn’t be supporting her.

But Wynns has immense institutional memory, she cares deeply about the district and its students, and she represents a PTA-parent constituency that deserves a voice on the board. She’s serving as the president of the California School Boards Association, and has moved that conservative organization a few millimeters to the left. We don’t always agree with Wynns, but we’re supporting her re-election.

There are a number of credible challengers this year. Shamann Walton and Matt Haney are our favorites.

Walton, who runs a workforce-development agency in Bayview Hunters Point, is a product of the public schools in San Francisco and Vallejo, a former public school teacher in Vallejo, and a parent of kids who went through public schools. He told us he wants to see if the district can leverage state and federal job-training money to expand educational opportunities. He supports restorative justice and would be a voice for African American kids. He would need to learn more about the district budget and district operations, but he’s a bright, engaging person who can quickly come up to speed. He has the support of the Coleman Action Fund, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and Sups. Eric Mar, David Chiu and John Avalos.

Haney, the executive director of the UC Students Association, has a Masters Degree in education and a strong background in educational policy issues. He’s focused on bringing more resources into the district, talking about new parcel taxes and fees on big private developers to fund the schools. He’s familiar with a wide range of district issues, from the core curriculum requirements to the honors-track debate as well as transportation and school food and would have a short learning curve.

We also liked Sam Rodriquez, Gladys Soto and Kim Garcia-Meza, who offer creative ideas and would probably make fine board members. And we recognize that incumbent Rachel Norton has been a powerful and effective advocate for special-needs kids and a proponent of healthier school food.

But our four choices reflect the balance we see as the best hope for continuing the progress the district has made while making the dramatic improvements the students and teachers still badly need.

San Francisco ballot measures

Downtown development

October 2, 2012

LIT/VISUAL ARTS The term “Mission School” was coined in these pages by Glen Helfand in 2002 to describe a loose-knit group of artists based around the Mission District who were then just beginning to break through into international art world success. These artists — including Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Chris Johanson, Alicia McCarthy, Rigo 23 and others — made use of found materials and shared an informal aesthetic that was influenced as much by the low rent streets of the city around them as a relaxed, collective Bay Area vibe.

A decade later, it seems safe to say that the Mission School was probably the last major art movement of its kind in this country, and itself the end of an era. For over three decades, significant art and music breakthroughs in this country were linked to specific urban neighborhoods (hip-hop to the South Bronx; Warhol’s Factory to downtown Manhattan, riot grrrl to Olympia, Wash.; grunge to Seattle; Fort Thunder in Providence, RI, etc.) Today, with the rise of the importance of MFA programs as a means to enter the art world, and the lack of locality fostered by the internet, the era of geographic specificity as arts incubator has perhaps passed us for good.

Two new books take us back to those freer, more experimental days at the inception of the SoHo and East Village arts scenes of New York in the 1970s and 80s. 112 Greene Street: The Early Years (1970-1974) (Radius Books, 192 pp., $50) is a brief, but invigorating oral history from the early years of what we now know as SoHo. This just-released catalog to last year’s exhibition at Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea brings to life the sense of discovery and improvisation of the nascent neighborhood scene that centered around the legendary pioneering alternative arts space and its north star, the late Gordon Matta-Clark.

In October 1970, when Jeffrey Lew and Matta-Clark opened 112 Greene Street in the storefront of a “rundown former rag picking factory,” the area south of Houston Street was a wasteland of abandoned former textile factories known as Hell’s Hundred Acres. The space, with its lack of heat, and its raw walls, uneven floors, and poor artificial lighting resembled the city then falling apart all around it. The ruins of the city not only influenced the work; sometimes they literally became work.

Alan Saret remembers walking near Canal Street with Matta-Clark one night when a cornice simply fell off a building right in front of them. Saret found some other cornices on the ground nearby and paid the crew of a passing city garbage truck to haul them back to 112 Greene where they became part of a sculpture piece he called Cornices.

Far from the uptown galleries where Manhattan art world power then was consolidated, 112 Greene’s isolation and state of decay fostered a certain kind of “anything goes” artistic freedom and collaborative spirit. For the first opening at 112 Greene, Matta-Clark jackhammered a hole in the basement floor and filled the area with dirt, where he planted a cherry tree that he kept alive all winter with grow lamps. For a later exhibition, George Trakas wanted to do a two-story sculpture, so he simply cut a hole in the floor so his piece could rise up out of the basement into the main floor. The only rule seemed to be that work had to be created on site and could not be made for sale.

Perhaps predictably, with this last rule, the space could barely keep its doors open. Yet, there is a timeless lesson here for those running arts spaces today: the downfall of 112 Greene came ironically only after it finally achieved financial stability. When Lew landed a big NEA grant in 1973, pure art experimentation and spontaneity gradually gave way to formal scheduling and programming guidelines from the funders in DC, who demanded more and more say in the operation of the space. “The excitement that anything could happen waned as paperwork and schedules were enforced,” remembers Lew. The core group of artists slowly drifted away from 112 Greene, just as the original SoHo, too, was beginning to change all around them into the high-end shopping district it is today.

The SoHo model has become a cynical real estate gentrification strategy, as developers create prefab arts — and shopping — neighborhoods in empty warehouse districts across the country from Miami to Portland, Ore. to Brooklyn. But if, say, Bushwick’s art scene feels less like a real place than the shores of a desert island where hundreds of young artists have been randomly washed up by the storms of the global economy, 112 Greene Street reminds us that the first art neighborhoods were formed organically around genuine community. In 1971, Matta-Clark and artist Carol Goodden started an artist-run collective restaurant in SoHo called Food. By all accounts, Food was not some relational aesthetic stunt; it was a well loved and sincere attempt to provide cheap meals, a gathering place, and jobs to artists in the scene.

112 Greene Street ends before Matta-Clark’s untimely death from pancreatic cancer at age 35 in 1978, and before the artist would famously take the work he developed in the ruins of 112 Greene out into the ruins of the city with a practice he dubbed “Anarchitecture.” He took the city as his canvas, transforming raw space by sawing dramatic cuts in the floors and facades of abandoned buildings in the South Bronx and industrial parts of New Jersey. But the charm and dreamy freedom of the era 112 Greene Street depicts comes through in Matta-Clark’s film, Day’s End. In it, Matta-Clark works calmly with a blowtorch, cutting holes in the steel ceiling of an abandoned city pier on the Hudson River (with no apparent fear of getting caught) as the space slowly fills with radiant light.

A decade later, another artist who would die too young, David Wojnarowicz, would also find a wide-open playground in the rotting piers along the river. Wojnarowicz would spend hours at the piers, writing about what he saw there, having sex with strangers, and drawing murals or writing poetry on the crumbling walls. Wojnarowicz delighted in the ruins and saw the piers as a sign that America’s empire was fading away before his eyes. That today we know it was actually only Wojnarowicz’s world that was about to disappear is just one of the many poignant aspects of Cynthia Carr’s beautiful new book, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz (Bloomsbury USA, 624 pp., $35), the first comprehensive biography to date of the artist, writer, and activist who died of AIDS at the age of 39 in 1992.

On the run from an abusive father, Wojnarowicz started sleeping with older men for money while living on the streets in his teens. Drawn to other criminals and outlaws, his first published writings were based on interviews he did with street hustlers, travelers, and homeless people he met in skid row waterfront diners and on hitchhiking trips. In the works of Jean Genet, he found a literary moral universe that helped him make sense of his own worldview. One of his earliest surviving works, a collage entitled St. Genet, depicts the French writer wearing a halo in the foreground while in the background, Jesus is tying off to shoot up. While Wojnarowicz would continue to use such blunt religious imagery in his work, the collage resonates in other ways. Carr reports that it was Kathy Acker who first called Wojnarowicz “a saint” when she appeared with him at his final public reading in 1991. The identification of Wojnarowicz’s life and work with the tragic loss of so many daring, outlaw artists to AIDS is so complete that Wojnarowicz has become a patron saint to young queer and activist artists today, his life story surrounded by an aura of myth.

Carr, a former arts reporter for the Village Voice, carefully picks apart myth from fact: Wojnarowicz didn’t actually start selling his body for money at age nine as he often claimed and he also wasn’t a founding member of ACT UP as many people suppose (though he did participate in some ACT UP protests). Yet, the complex and more human Wojnarowicz that Carr leaves us with is no less inspiring a figure — a self-taught artist whose lifelong struggle to make meaningful art out of his own experience, sexuality, and ultimate diagnosis with an incurable disease would almost by chance place him front and center in the story of the AIDS crisis and the great culture wars of the late 1980s and early ’90s.

Carr, a resident of the East Village now for four decades, became friends with Wojnarowicz late in his life, and she refreshingly breaks journalistic “objectivity” to insert her own eyewitness perspective into the narrative at many key junctures. One senses Fire in the Belly is so good precisely because it is a story only Carr could personally tell. Built on years of observation, Fire in the Belly has the ambitious scope and rich detail of a novel, and, more than a biography, is the story of a fabled East Village scene now irrevocably lost.

Wojnarowicz arrived in a gritty East Village where whole blocks had been abandoned to heroin dealers and bricked up tenements. A nihilistic neighborhood arts scene embraced the decay of the streets as an aesthetic, and galleries like Civilian Warfare Studios presented a giddy cocktail of downtown punk and queer culture mixed with the freshly born graffiti and hip-hop scenes of the South Bronx. Carr relates now-famous events like Gracie Mansion’s “Loo Division” show (mounted in the bathroom of her E. Ninth Street walkup), Keith Haring painting on the snow on the street in front of his show at Fun Gallery, and the exploits of the Wrecking Crew — a team including Wojnarowicz and other artists who would binge on acid and stay awake for days, filling galleries with creepy and crazed collaborative installations.

The artists’ isolation would not protect them from the art world for long. Soon, limos were disgorging passengers at openings on the heroin and rat-filled terra incognita east of First Avenue. East Village stalwarts like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Haring became rich and internationally famous, and even Wojnarowicz became a fairly established up-and-coming art star. The rags-to-riches story of the East Village scene might be the same kind of innocent tale of lost Bohemia as that of 112 Greene, were it not for the AIDS crisis shadowing it the whole time. Carr skillfully juxtaposes the narrative of openings and parties with chronological news reports of the then-unknown new disease. Carr describes a party on Fire Island in July 1981: writer Cookie Mueller read a story from the New York Times out loud to the room about a strange, new “gay cancer”. Photographer Nan Goldin, who was present, remembers today, “We all just kind of laughed.”

Carr’s tale picks up suspense after Wojnarowicz himself is diagnosed with AIDS. Over a breathtaking two-year period, Wojanrowicz embarks on an urgent mission to complete every single art project he’d ever hoped to accomplish in the time left to him in life. In the process he almost reluctantly becomes the fiery AIDS activist we remember today. While working on his career retrospective, he also battles the harassment of his landlord who is determined to evict Wojnarowicz and convert his loft in the gentrifying East Village into a cinema multiplex. He struggles to complete his memoir, even as his work becomes the focus of battles over government funding of art. Soon, Republicans denounce the dying man’s work as obscene and anti-Christian on the floors of Congress, and Wojnarowicz becomes a target of conservative Mississippi preacher Reverand Donald Wildmon’s public attacks. Wojnarowicz absorbed these attacks and the era’s stunning homophobia and turned them into what became the most powerful work of his career, the myth of his own life.

Carr’s book stands along with recent work like Sarah Schulman’s Gentrification of The Mind as a corrective to the uncritical nostalgia for the lost New York City of the 1970s and 80s that seems to have flowed like a river from Patti Smith’s 2009 memoir, Just Kids. These works unromantically detail what has been lost and then lovingly describe exactly how painfully it was all lost. Yet, perhaps all is not lost. While arts neighborhoods like the ones described in 112 Greene Street and Fire in the Belly seem like a thing of the past, the towering myths left behind by figures like Matta-Clark and Wojanrowicz still bring young artists against all odds to the rehabbed neighborhoods of San Francisco and New York today. Everytime Sara Thustra serves a meal at an opening at Adobe Books on 16th Street or Homonomixxx shuts down a Wells Fargo bank, we walk, if just for a short time, the streets of our old familiar city.

David Wojnarowicz: Cynthia Carr and Amy Scholder in Conversation
Wed/3, 7:30pm, free
Lecture Hall
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut, SF
www.sfai.edu/event/CynthiaCarr

Endorsements 2012: State and national races

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

National races

PRESIDENT

BARACK OBAMA

You couldn’t drive down Valencia Street on the evening of Nov. 4, 2008. You couldn’t get through the intersection of 18th and Castro, either. All over the east side of the city, people celebrating the election of Barack Obama and the end of the Bush era launched improptu parties, dancing and singing in the streets, while the cops stood by, smiling. It was the only presidential election in modern history that create such an upwelling of joy on the American left — and while we were a bit more jaded and cautious about celebrating, it was hard not to feel a sense of hope.

That all started to change about a month after the inauguration, when word got out that the big insurance companies were invited to be at the table, discussing health-care reform — and the progressive consumer advocates were not. From that point on, it was clear that the “change” he promised wasn’t going to be a fundamental shift in how power works in Washington.

Obama didn’t even consider a single-payer option. He hasn’t shut down Guantanamo Bay. He hasn’t cut the Pentagon budget. He hasn’t pulled the US out of the unwinnable mess in Afghanistan. He’s been a huge disappointment on progressive tax and economic issues. It wasn’t until late this summer, when he realized he was facing a major enthusiasm gap, that he even agreed to endorse same-sex marriage.

But it’s easy to trash an incumbent president, particularly one who foolishly thought he could get bipartisan support for reforms and instead wound up with a hostile Republican Congress. The truth is, Obama has accomplished a fair amount, given the obstacles he faced. He got a health-care reform bill, weak and imperfect as it was, passed into law, something Democrats have tried and failed at since the era of FDR. The stimulus, weak and limited as it was, clearly prevented the recession from becoming another great depression. His two Supreme Court appointments have been excellent.

And the guy he’s running against is a disaster on the scale of G.W. Bush.

Mitt Romney can’t even tell the truth about himself. He’s proven to be such a creature of the far-right wing of the Republican Party that it’s an embarrassment. A moderate Republican former governor of Massachusetts could have made a credible run for the White House — but Romney has essentially disavowed everything decent that he did in his last elective office, has said one dumb thing after another, and would be on track to be one of the worse presidents in history.

We get it: Obama let us down. But there’s a real choice here, and it’s an easy one. We’ll happily give a shout out to Jill Stein, the candidate of the Green Party, who is talking the way the Democrats ought to be talking, about a Green New Deal that recognizes that the richest nation in the history of the world can and should be doing radically better on employment, health care, the environment, and economic justice. And since Obama’s going to win California by a sizable majority anyway, a protest vote for Stein probably won’t do any harm.

But the next four years will be a critical time for the nation, and Obama is at least pushing in the direction of reality, sanity and hope. We endorsed him with enthusiasm four year ago; we’re endorsing him with clear-eyed reality in 2012.

UNITED STATES SENATE

DIANNE FEINSTEIN

Ugh. Not a pleasant choice here. Elizabeth Emken is pretty much your standard right-wing-nut Republican out of Danville, a fan of reducing government, cutting regulations, and repealing Obamacare. Feinstein, who’s already served four terms, is a conservative Democrat who loves developers, big business, and the death penalty, is hawkish on defense, and has used her clout locally to push for all the wrong candidates and all the wrong things. She can’t even keep her word: After Willie Brown complained that London Breed was saying mean things about him, Feinstein pulled her endorsement of Breed for District 5 supervisor.

It’s astonishing that, in a year when the state Democratic Party is aligned behind Proposition 34, which would replace the death penalty with life without parole, Feinstein can’t find it in herself to back away from her decades-long support of capital punishment. She’s not much better on medical marijuana. And she famously complained when then-mayor Gavin Newsom pushed same-sex marriage to the forefront, saying America wasn’t ready to give LGBT couples the same rights as straight people.

But as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Feinstein was pretty good about investigating CIA torture and continues to call for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. She’s always been rock solid on abortion rights and at least decent, if not strong, on environmental issues.

It’s important for the Democrats to retain the Senate, and Feinstein might as well be unopposed. She turns 80 next year, so it’s likely this will be her last term.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DISTRICT 8

NANCY PELOSI

The real question on the minds of everyone in local politics is what will happen if the Democrats don’t retake the House and Pelosi has to face two more years in the minority. Will she serve out her term? Will her Democratic colleagues decide they want new leadership? The inside scuttle is that Pelosi has no intention of stepping down, but a long list of local politicians is looking at the once-in-a-lifetime chance to run for a Congressional seat, and it’s going to happen relatively soon; Pelosi is 72.

We’ve never been happy with Rep. Pelosi, who used the money and clout of the old Burton machine to come out of nowhere to beat progressive gay supervisor Harry Britt for the seat in 1986. Her signature local achievement is the bill that created the first privatized national park in the nation’s history (the Presidio), which now is home to a giant office complex built by filmmaker George Lucas with the benefit of a $60 million tax break. She long ago stopped representing San Francisco, making her move toward Congressional leadership by moving firmly to the center.

But as speaker of the House, she was a strong ally for President Obama and helped move the health-care bill forward. It’s critical to the success of the Obama administration that the Democrats retake the house and Pelosi resumes the role of speaker.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DISTRICT 9

BARBARA LEE

Barbara Lee represents Berkeley and Oakland in a way Nancy Pelosi doesn’t represent San Francisco. She’s been a strong, sometimes lonely voice against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a leader in the House Progressive Caucus. While Democrats up to and including the president talk about tax cuts for businesses, Lee has been pushing a fair minimum wage, higher taxes on the wealthy, and an end to subsidies for the oil industry. While Oakland Mayor Jean Quan was struggling with Occupy, and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was moving to evict the protesters, Barbara Lee was strongly voicing her support for the movement, standing with the activists, and talking about wealth inequality. We’re proud to endorse her for another term.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DISTRICT 12

JACKIE SPEIER

Speier’s an improvement on her predecessor, Tom Lantos, who was a hawk and terrible on Middle East policy. Speier’s a moderate, as you’d expect in this Peninsula seat, but she’s taken the lead on consumer privacy issues (as she did in the state Legislature) and will get re-elected easily. She’s an effective member of a Bay Area delegation that helps keep the House sane, so we’ll endorse her for another term.

State candidates

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 13

TOM AMMIANO

Tom Ammiano’s the perfect person to represent San Francisco values in Sacramento. He helped sparked and define this city’s progressive movement back in the 1970s as a gay teacher marching alongside with Harvey Milk. In 1999, his unprecedented write-in mayoral campaign woke progressives up from some bad years and ushered in a decade with a progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors that approved landmark legislation such as the universal healthcare program Ammiano created. In the Assembly, he worked to create a regulatory system for medical marijuana and chairs the powerful Public Safety Committee, where he has stopped the flow of mindless tough-on-crime measures that have overflowed our prisons and overburdened our budgets. This is Ammiano’s final term in the Legislature, but we hope it’s not the end of his role in local politics.

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 19

PHIL TING

Phil Ting could be assessor of San Francisco, with a nice salary, for the rest of his life if that’s what he wanted to do. He’s done a good job in an office typically populated with make-no-waves political hacks — he went after the Catholic Church when that large institution tried to avoid paying taxes on property transfers. He’s been outspoken on foreclosures and commissioned, on his own initiative, a study showing that a large percentage of local foreclosures involved at least some degree of fraud or improper paperwork.

But Ting is prepared to take a big cut in pay and accept a term-limited future for the challenge of moving into a higher-profile political position. And he’s the right person to represent this westside district.

Ting’s not a radical leftist, but he is willing to talk about tax reform, particularly about the inequities of Prop. 13. He’s carrying the message to homeowners that they’re shouldering a larger part of the burden while commercial properties pay less. He wants to change some of the loopholes in how Prop. 13 is interpreted to help local government collect more money.

It would be nice to have a progressive-minded tax expert in the Legislature, and we’re glad Ting is the front-runner. He’s facing a serious, well-funded onslaught from Michael Breyer, the son of Supreme Court Justice Breyer, who has no political experience or credentials for office and is running a right-wing campaign emphasizing “old-style San Francisco values.”

Not pretty. Vote for Ting.

SENATE DISTRICT 11

MARK LENO

Mark Leno wasn’t always in the Guardian’s camp, and we don’t always agree with his election season endorsements, but he’s been a rock-solid representative in Sacramento and he has earned our respect and our endorsement.

It isn’t just how he votes, which we consistently agree with. Leno has been willing to take on the tough fights, the ones that need to be fought, and shown the tenacity to come out on top in the Legislature, even if he’s ahead of his time. Leno twice got the Legislature to legalize same-sex marriage, he has repeatedly gotten that body to legalize industrial hemp production, and he’s twice passed legislation that would give San Francisco voters the right to set a local vehicle license fees higher than the state’s and use that money for local programs (which the governor finally signed). He’s also been laying an important foundation for creating a single-payer healthcare system and he played an important role in the CleanPowerSF program that San Francisco will implement next year. Leno will easily be re-elected to another term in the Senate and we look forward to his next move (Leno for mayor, 2015?)

BART BOARD DISTRICT 9

TOM RADULOVICH

San Francisco has been well represented on the BART Board by Radulovich, a smart and forward-thinking urbanist who understands the important role transit plays in the Bay Area. Radulovich has played leadership roles in developing a plan that aims to double the percentage of cyclists using the system, improving the accessibility of many stations to those with limited mobility, pushing through an admittedly imperfect civilian oversight agency for the BART Police, hiring a new head administrator who is more responsive to community concerns, and maintaining the efficiency of an aging system with the highest ridership levels in its history. With a day job serving as executive director of the nonprofit Livable City, Radulovich helped create Sunday Streets and other initiatives that improve our public spaces and make San Francisco a more inviting place to be. And by continuing to provide a guiding vision for a BART system that continues to improve its connections to every corner of the Bay Area, his vision of urbanism is helping to permeate communities throughout the region

BART BOARD, DISTRICT 7

ZACHARY MALLETT

This sprawling district includes part of southeast San Francisco and extends all the way up the I-80 corridor to the Carquinez Bridge. The incumbent, San Franciscan Lynette Sweet, has been a major disappointment. She’s inaccessible, offers few new ideas, and was slow to recognize (much less deal with) the trigger-happy BART Police who until recently had no civilian oversight. Time for a change.

Three candidates are challenging Sweet, all of them from the East Bay (which makes a certain amount of sense — only 17 percent of the district’s population is in San Francisco). Our choice is Zachary Mallett, whose training in urban planning and understanding of the transit system makes up for his lack of political experience.

Mallett’s a graduate of Stanford and UC Berkelely (masters in urban planning with a transportation emphasis) who has taken the time to study what’s working and what isn’t working at BART. Some of his ideas sound a bit off at first — he wants, for example, to raise the cost of subsidized BART rides offered to Muni pass holders — but when you look a the numbers, and who is subsidizing who, it actually makes some sense. He talks intelligently about the roles that the various regional transit systems play and while he’s a bit more moderate than us, particularly on fiscal issues, he’s the best alternative to Sweet.

Horizons expand for the e-book with new literary app

Andrew Lam

October 2, 2012

When you think about it, e-readers haven’t done much to change the reading experience. Besides their portability and the easy access they provide to catalogues of titles, the level of interaction, font, even the physical motion involved with turning pages are pretty much identical to “brick and mortar” books. E-readers and their e-books, especially compared to the world of apps, can seem downright ordinary. But bored tech-novel enthusiasts have cause to rejoice. An app-literary project launched yesterday, from the minds behind McSweeney’s — and backed by everyone’s favorite radio nerd, Ira Glass — named The Silent History aims to change up the e-reading experience.

The cohort behind this undertaking is comprised of the former publisher of McSweeney’s Eli Horowitz, McSweeney’s alum Russell Quinn, and authors Matthew Derby and Kevin Moffett, all of whom have had many a fancy byline. Inspired by Charles Dickens, The Wire , Studs Terkel, and Lawnmower Man, the four banded together to create an app that we found on a Guardian test run to be an intriguing and lively combination of GPS-based storytelling and serialized fiction. (Glass is said to be a fan of the app, he and twee filmmaker Miranda July lend their narration to the app’s promotional trailer.)

The idea for Silent History originated from Horowitz’s refusal to believe that digitized technology and print are naturally adversarial.

“It seemed like people were viewing technology and novels as enemies,” Horowitz told us in an email interview. “As if books had to surrender to some wave of progress —- but actually these new devices should open up new possibilities. We wanted to take an early step down that path.”

Users of Silent History can dive into prose in two ways. The app’s “testimonial” section is a nod to the serialized fiction series of magazine past. The app’s testimonials are organized into volumes in which characters deliver 15 minutes of storytelling, with a new testimonial uploaded daily to the user’s device so that the story unfolds as it is read. The first novel on the new app will be an eponymous-titled 160,000-word work written by all four of the authors.

GPS-linked “field reports” are another way to explore — browse the globe for user-generated storylines connected to spots on Silent History’s global map. As of this writing there are 20 of these reports in San Francisco.

Unfazed by the fact that he and his group are not among the first to attempt to remake the e-book, Derby predicted that his team’s take is the one that will stick.

“Our ambition was to go as big as possible with the project. We’re certainly not the first people to do location-based storytelling or serialized digital fiction, but I think one reason that the existing attempts haven’t gotten a ton of traction has been the lack of depth. We’ve written an entire novel. And that’s just part of the project — it doesn’t take into account all of the field reports spread throughout the world. If this project tanks, it won’t be because we sacrificed narrative richness to achieve some technical goal. It’ll be because of something else we obviously didn’t think of when we were making this thing.”

Download the app at www.thesilenthistory.com

SFBC keeps its distance from Critical Mass anniversary ride

Sasha Cuttler

September 28, 2012

SFBC keeps its distance from Critical Mass anniversary ride

Today’s 20^th anniversary Critical Mass ride has received overwhelming media coverage in the last few days, including a surprisingly laudatory editorial in yesterday’s Examiner, so people are expecting the ride to be huge. But the talk of last night’s CM20 birthday celebration at CELLspace was about Quintin Mecke’s widely circulated letter blasting the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition for refusing to even put the event on its calendar or in its newsletter.

By contrast, even the San Francisco Planning & Urban Research Association (SPUR) – founded and funded by downtown players with little love for Critical Mass – listed today’s “special anniversary ride” and related events throughout the week in its calendar and on its newsletter, recognizing this “monthly bicycling event that began in San Francisco and inspired similar events throughout the world.”

As I wrote in this week’s cover story, SFBC and Critical Mass grew up together on a similar, symbiotic trajectory, effectively working an outside/insider strategy (think MLK/Malcolm X) that has won cyclists a recognized spot on the roadways. But SFBC always warily kept its distance from Critical Mass, worried about offending politicians, the mainstream media, or the driving public.

That’s an understandable strategy, given the persistent resentment many feel toward Critical Mass. But when considered in combination with SFBC’s increasingly corporate culture and sponsorships and its controversial recent decision to allegedly overrule its member vote in its District 5 supervisorial endorsements, SFBC is in danger of losing the allegiance of much of the cycling community (which remains a minority of road users, and thereby political outsiders almost by definition).

David Snyder — SFBC’s executive director through its biggest growth period, SPUR’s former transportation policy director, and currently the executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition — is reluctant to wade into the current controversy, but he does acknowledge the important role Critical Mass played in winning political acceptance for cyclists in San Francisco.

“In the mid-’90s, when the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition was a couple thousand members, the brouhaha around Critical Mass [particularly the crackdown in ’97] increased our membership by 50 percent at one point,” Snyder told us. “At that time, we benefitted hugely form the attention Critical Mass paid to safe streets for bicycles. And I don’t think we need Critical Mass to do that anymore…The Bicycle Coalition’s goal these days isn’t to develop an awareness of unsafe streets, it’s to develop a bold agenda to fix them.”

I spoke with Mecke, who finished second in the 2007 mayor’s race, at last night’s event, and he was frustrated by his follow-up conversations with SFBC leaders, who seem to have taken a very defensive posture instead of welcoming this interesting conversation. I called SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum to discuss these issues, and I’m waiting to hear back from her and I’ll update this post when I do.

But in the meantime, to feed the discussion, here’s the full text of Mecke’s letter, followed by another letter to SFBC on the endorsement issue:

Dear Bike Coalition:

Sadly, I can’t say I was surprised when I read this week’s SFBC Newsletter and found absolutely zero mention of the 20th Anniversary of Critical Mass. According to your own newsletter, apparently the only thing happening in the San Francisco bike world that is worthy of your 12,000 members knowing about on Friday, Sept. 28 is SFBC’s Valet Bike Parking at the DeYoung Museum. Seriously?

This is the San Francisco Bike Coalition and you couldn’t even bring yourselves to stick a small mention of Critical Mass in your newsletter or on your website (or god forbid you actually celebrate/acknowledge CM and show some pride), a cycling event created here in San Francisco which has spread across the globe to multiple continents since its inception & inspired thousands of cyclists to take to the street? It’s truly amazing that Critical Mass was on the cover of the Guardian this week and even SF Funcheap listed the event but SFBC wouldn’t even put a mention at the bottom in the “Upcoming Events” section, hidden away amongst all the SFBC sponsored events? Not even a listing of the critical mass website or the community events going on all week long? Your website lists the celebration of the 15th anniversary of TransForm but not Critical Mass?

Wow. I’m truly speechless. How embarrassing but more to the point, how sad. Are you afraid of offending Chuck Nevius or Mayor Lee? I don’t know how, why or what SFBC has become as an organization at this point but it’s disappointing as a long time cyclist to see the city’s only (?) organized bike advocacy organization which continually touts how many members you have to not even show the smallest amount of solidarity to your fellow cyclists and to the city’s own cycling history. That being the case, history will march on without you.

Contrary to our “biking” Supervisor David Chiu’s comments in today’s Chronicle (I always enjoy politicians running from anything deemed controversial), it’s actually SFBC that is simply one tiny part of a much larger movement made up of a variety of cyclists from all walks of life whose decision twenty years ago to ride freely in the street once a month for just a few short hours has laid the groundwork for cycling reforms, political action and transformative experiences across the country and the world.

What a shame that instead of celebrating all parts of the cycling community, SFBC has decided to distance itself from the historic roots of its own community in the name of moderation, families on bikes and political expediency.

Enjoy Bike Valet night at the DeYoung Museum, it sounds like an awesome event.

thanks,
Quintin

Dear Leah:

My name is Gus Feldman. I am an avid bicyclist, a Bike Coalition member, and the President of the District 8 Democrats.

I’m in receipt of a letter from you, dated September 12, 2012, requesting that I renew my SFBC membership. I am writing to inform you that I will only renew my membership if the SFBC Board of Directors publicly releases the results of the SFBC member vote for the District 5 supervisor race.

While it is clear that the membership vote is one of several factors used by the SFBC Board of Directors to determine endorsements, the refusal of the Board to grant SFBC members the ability to see the results of their votes demonstrates an unacceptable degree of secrecy. By withholding this information, the Board is publicly stripping SFBC members of all agency in the endorsement process.

If in fact the popular suspicion is true – that Julian Davis won the most votes from SFBC members, but the Board decided to grant Christina Olague the top endorsement in the interests of expediting the construction of separated bike lanes on Oak & Fell streets – we would greatly appreciate the Board publicly declaring and explaining the decision. Such a decision is certainly logical, as the Oak/Fell bikes lanes are a key priority for many SFBC members. The fact that the Board has elected to conceal the vote results, as opposed to explaining to SFBC members why and how Olague received the number one endorsement, is highly insulting as it insinuates that the Board does not have faith in SFBC members’ capacity to understand the rationale by which the Board arrived at their determinations.

Please understand that if the Board elects to depart from the current practice of concealing the vote results, and transitions to one of transparency, I will promptly renew my membership.

Respectfully,
Gus Feldman

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