Live Archives — Page 28 of 254 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

SF Sketchfest posted its schedule today! (Spoiler: it’s awesome)

Sue Vaughan

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December 13, 2013

SF Sketchfest posted its schedule today! (Spoiler: it’s awesome)

Dudes! Nerds! Pedro-voters! SF Sketchfest 2014 posted its complete schedule today, unveiling over 200 shows to be held in 20 venues from Jan. 23-Feb. 9. Over the past 13 years, the fest has exploded from humble local offering to one of the most popular comedy events in the country, luring the biggest names in the biz — as well as cult comedy heroes — to town.

Tickets go on sale Sun/15 at 10am, and since SF Sketchfest is P.O.P.U.L.A.R., you won’t want to delay if something in the line-up catches your eye. (Pro-tip: though the festival does contain sketch shows, it also has music, film screenings, live recordings of pod casts, panel discussions, lots of tributes, and more.) You want guidance? Highlights? Best bets and sleeper hits? Read on!

Opening night (Jan. 23), there’ll be a tribute to the tenth anniversary of Napoleon Dynamite, with Jon “Napoleon” Heder, Efren “Pedro” Ramirez, and Diedrich “Rex” Bader in person at the Castro Theatre. Later that night, also at the Castro, Jack Black and Kyle Gass attend a celebration of all things Tenacious D, which promises “an evening of conversation, clips, and songs.” Better get it on in the party zone, if you know what I’m sayin’.

Other highlights include:

* SF Sketchfest’s tribute to Key and Peele (Jan. 25), whose Comedy Central show is provocative, smart, and hilarious (exhibit A, below)

* a “Farewell, Futurama!” (also Jan. 25) chat sesh with cast and crew members of the beloved animated show

* a Feb. 2 spotlight on HBO’s Enlightened, with Laura Dern, Mike White, Luke Wilson, and others in conversation

* a tribute to THE ALAN ARKIN with a 35th anniversary screening of The In-Laws (Feb. 6)

* a 30th anniversary screening of Revenge of the Nerds, with cast and crew in person (Feb. 8)

Plus so much more: Tim Heidecker! Allison Brie! Maya Rudolph! Amy Schumer! Comedians I’m not cool enough to know about, but you probably are! Hustle over to SF Sketchfest’s website and feast your eyes.

Bus riding tech workers respond to national spotlight on evictions

Erica Hanna

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December 13, 2013

191

Bus riding tech workers respond to national spotlight on evictions

Evictions are rippling through San Francisco. Tensions are high. Tech workers with gobs of cash are driving up the rental market in what may be the newest tech bubble — or the city’s new reality. Protesters took to the street earlier this week, blocking a Google bus to draw attention to gentrification, and our video of a union organizer posing as a Google employee shouting down those protesters lit up the Internet.

In the wake of that national spotlight on San Francisco’s outrage, the Bay Guardian decided to talk to the bus-riding techies themselves and ask how they felt about the new tech revolution. Are they at fault for displacing long time San Franciscans? What did they make of Monday’s outrage?

We returned to the scene of the protest, 24th and Valencia streets, where workers from Yahoo, Genentech, Google, and others line up at Muni stops to be whisked away in mammoth private buses. Most had hands in their pockets, turning away when asked questions. Others decided to talk, but none would go on the record with their names.

“We’re very aware of the sentiment in the city against us,” one tech worker with grey hair and glasses told us. “But hopefully this (protest) leads to a positive conversation.”

He said that the envy was understandable. Public transit in the city “isn’t the best,” he said, but pointing to any one company to be at fault isn’t productive.

“Our economy lacks upward mobility, and the haves and have-nots are divided all over the country,” he said, not just in San Francisco.

But some of the techies themselves are “have nots,” as one tech worker, a middle-aged Java programmer sitting in Muddy Waters cafe, could attest to. As we watched the tech buses ride by, he told the Guardian he’s been out of work for a few months now. He used to work for a computer sketch software company called Balsamiq.

He’s lived in the city for 22 years. When he first moved into town, he lucked into renting a room for $175 a month. Now his rent is much, much higher, though he wouldn’t say by how much.

This is not the viral video of the staged argument, but from the same day. A protester enters the Google bus, and a bus rider shouts her out.

“I’m sympathetic,” he said, of the discord on rising rents. “But getting rid of tech isn’t the solution.” He pointed to a need for more affordable housing.

A blonde haired Apple employee told us that although he makes more money than the average San Franciscan, he can’t afford to buy a home here. He’s lived in the city three years, and worked at Apple for four. He took a balanced view of the protest, saying the stunt started a national look at inequality.

“It’s keeping (the conversation) at the front and center. You could argue it’s not fair to target one company, but I see both sides,” he said.

Tech should do its part to pay its fair share, the 19-year cafe owner of Muddy Waters said. Hisham Massarweh said he likes the tech folk, who are great for business. But the transit issue needs to be worked out, he said. He once got a $250 ticket for parking in the same bus stop outside his store that the tech buses park in every day — ticket and permit free.

Across the street, Jordan Reznick, a PhD student and teacher at California College of the Arts, said she’s seen many of her friends displaced. “I feel a lot of animosity towards Google and Google workers,” she said, as we sat just behind a line of Google employees waiting for their bus.

“I live in a small place with a family of four,” she told us, as it’s the best she could find in this market.

As she ran off to catch her ride to work, the Guardian approached a man who sat waiting for the same Google bus that was protested earlier in the week.

“San Francisco doesn’t have its shit together,” he said. The protest was about housing, but San Francisco needs to address that fast. And as for the Google buses, there’s no framework for Google to pay the city, yet. “If they could (pay) they would, going forward I’m sure they will.”

We asked him point blank if he felt guilty watching longtime San Franciscans lose their homes.

He took a drag of his cigarette, looked me in the eye, and said, “Every day. I love San Francisco with all my heart, and I feel tremendously guilty. Every day.”

As the bus pulled up he hopped on and headed to Mountain View.

Personal archives: CAAM’s home-movie project Memories to Light

Sue Vaughan

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December 12, 2013

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Personal archives: CAAM’s home-movie project Memories to Light

For as long as I can remember, my family has spent New Year’s Day at my aunt and uncle’s house in Campbell. As we had our fill of sushi and kamaboko, watched football, and, in more recent years, entertained my little cousins, my Uncle Hiro would walk around the house with his video camera, getting everyone on tape. He would focus in on my brother and me, narrating in Japanese so I could only catch our names and how old we were that year. It was just a thing Uncle Hiro did on New Years Day. I never thought of it as recording history.

But that’s exactly what home movies are – a largely untapped source of our histories from an intimate and personal perspective. Recognizing this, the Center for Asian American Media has developed Memories to Light, an initiative that collects, digitizes, and shares the home movies of Asian American families. Advances in digital media and discussions between CAAM executive director Stephen Gong and archivist and filmmaker Rick Prelinger gave way to the project, which has now gained over a dozen family collections and somewhere between 30 and 50 hours of footage.

“I think Asian-American communities are becoming more relevant and more engaged and more deeply embedded in the American story and making our presence felt,” said Gong. “It’s a good time for a lot of good stories.”

Given today’s technology, it’s never been a better time to share these stories recorded on early film. Memories to Light takes donated home movies, digitizes them, and returns the original copy and a digital copy to the family. That way, the original footage doesn’t just sit in an archive and collect dust. And all it costs is the family’s willingness to share their little slice of history.

“One of the tenants of this project is not to treat these like they’re copyrighted materials that we need to monetize,” Gong explained. “That it is with a new ethos of saying that like a participatory society and culture that we can have greater effect in the culture if we do our best to make this stuff as widely accessible as possible.”

By having such an open transaction with donators and leaving the task of preserving the original film in their hands, Gong can focus on gathering, editing, and presenting collected content. CAAM’s mission to show the richness and diversity of Asian Americans, and Memories to Light achieves that by showcasing real, everyday life as important history.

“For communities of people that don’t have a sort of rich, moving image history, who have been depicted in mainstream media in stereotyped ways, articulated by someone else to someone else’s ends and needs, there is something that is amazingly liberating just by saying, ‘Let’s go right to the material that people themselves decided to shoot,’” said Gong.

The footage collected spans from as early as the 1930s all the way up to the 1970s. Though this medium is usually considered more personal than educational, there is a lot to be learned by these moments captured by various families. Mark Decena of Kontent Films, who originally got involved with Memories to Light to produce a trailer for the project, unearthed his own family’s films and had them digitized. He did not expect the onslaught of emotions that came with viewing the footage, which he ended up editing together into a film called The War Inside.

“The War Inside came about from the very implausible and ultimately ill-fated union of my Mom and Dad,” said Decena. “My mom is Japanese and my dad is Filipino. Not a common coupling, especially after Japan’s brutal imperialistic binge and World War II defeat. I always bemused that I was at war with myself by having such different racial and cultural mix.”

With a script he wrote in a day after viewing the footage, along with editing work by Blake Everheart and soundtrack by CAAM’s program manager Davin Agatep, Decena shared his film for the first time with an audience that included his entire family.

“Since it’s basically a story of a family breaking up, it was emotional for everyone,” he said. “In some ways, you could see it as an indictment of certain people, but it’s as much about the circumstances that brought them to make the choices they made.”

Decena’s film is just one form of presentation that has come out of this initiative. Another collection of footage, presented in September at the Asian Art Museum, was accompanied by live performances by DJ Deeandroid and Lady Fingaz. Given that much of this footage is silent, there are many creative options for screenings.

So when you head home for the holidays this year, ask your family about old home movies they might have hiding in a closet somewhere. Though videotapes like the ones my uncle recorded aren’t what Memories to Light is looking for, the project is currently accepting more 16mm, 8mm, and Super 8mm film to digitize and add to the collection.

Take a look at The War Inside on the Memories to Light website, as well as the Gee and Udo family collections, and perhaps you too will be inspired to dig into your own home archive for family history to share. Check out Memories to Light at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose on Dec. 18 and at CAAMFest in March 2014.

Memories to Light
Dec 18, 7pm, free
Japanese American Museum of San Jose
535 N Fifth St, San Jose
(408) 294-3138
www.jamsj.org

SFUSD gifts city 115 affordable housing units for the holidays

Erica Hanna

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December 11, 2013

18

The San Francisco Board of Education last night (Tue/10) approved a land swap with city government, gifting San Francisco an empty lot that it will use to build new affordable housing. That’s 115 units of living space for low income San Francisco renters, wrapped in a bow for the holidays.

The proposal was the brainchild of board members Hydra Mendoza-McDonnell and Sandra Lee Fewer, who worked on the measure with the Mayor’s Office of Housing for over two years. The district will trade a lot on 1950 Mission street and another on Connecticut in exchange for a property it currently rents from the city of San Francisco. The city will also pay SFUSD $4.5 million, according to district data.

Last night was the culmination of that work, which Fewer said was the right thing to do.

“Could we get more money from [selling] this property with a private developer? I’m sure. But would we get the value? No,” Fewer said at the meeting.

But it’s a mixed win for San Francisco, as the original intent was to pioneer ways to provide affordable housing for the school district’s employees. Project proponents said school district workers have been priced out of San Francisco in droves. The affordable housing project will be general use, with no specific provisions for teachers or other SFUSD workers.

Though the teachers’ union supports the land swap, United Educators of San Francisco President Dennis Kelly warned that this would not help district workers directly.

“It’s more than an oversight, it’s an insult, felt very deeply, and very bitterly,” Kelly said at the podium. “Affordable housing will not house a single teacher, not a single one, because of where the dollar breaks are.”

Fewer told the Guardian that in the coming months the board will explore new ways to help fund housing for teachers, but Kelly told us that’s the same old song he’s heard for ten years.

It’s a progressive advocate who’s who here, w/a plan to provide public housing for teachers on the agenda for vote pic.twitter.com/LpEaLd53XE

— Joe Fitz Rodriguez (@FitzTheReporter) December 11, 2013

That said, the use of SFUSD’s abundant excess property for affordable housing could spark a new trend, and commissioners on the board said they may explore ventures like this in the future. And the need is stark.

At an SFUSD meeting just a few weeks ago (covered here by Guardian News Editor Rebecca Bowe), the district asked families “what do you need?”

The answer wasn’t more field trips, school books, or even for better school lunches. Families cried loud and clear that they need one thing: affordable housing.

At last night’s board meeting, children and families echoed those sentiments.

“I lived downtown in the SoMa district and we were kicked out for a few months when I was in high school,” said San Francisco Youth Commissioner Luisa Sicairos, who is now 22 years old. “We had to live with my dad’s friends. I had no light to do homework. That’s the problem without affordable housing.”

Other students described living in SROs in horrible conditions, with families bunched together in spaces meant only for one. It impacts their homework, their school performance, and their lives.

@SupeJaneKim asks community members in support of affordable housing from SFUSD, to stand. Lots here! pic.twitter.com/m9RQuul5dB

— Joe Fitz Rodriguez (@FitzTheReporter) December 11, 2013

Supporters of the measure packed the board room, and the public comment period went close to an hour. Supervisors John Avalos and Jane Kim showed up to back the measure, as well as aides from Sup. Norman Yee and Eric Mar’s office. The need for housing justice from those in attendance was palpable.

It was emotional for the commissioners as well. Mendoza-McDonnell seemed to be near tears. She and Fewer both said they felt lucky to be in a position to help families in need.

When it passed, unanimously, the room erupted into cheers. Superintendent Richard Carranza rang a school bell with a smile on his face.

Olson Lee, director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing, told the Guardian that the use of the land now has to go through several Board of Supervisors committees, and construction would not start immediately. The 115 units is an initial estimate, he said, but if height limits were circumvented the number could grow.

After the vote passed, Fewer had only one thing to say to Lee: “Build it quick.”

Music Listings: December 11-16, 2013

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 11, 2013

0

WEDNESDAY 11

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. The Bruises, Lovers, Upstairs Downstairs, 9 p.m., $10.

Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Tommy & The High Pilots, The Lower 48, Will Weston, 8:30 p.m., $8.

The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Lee Ranaldo & The Dust, Bill Orcutt & Jacob Felix Heule, 9 p.m., $15-$17.

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Fates Warning, Artizan, Bay Rum, Field of Stones, 7:30 p.m., $20-$25.

El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Hyper Buzz, Heart of the Whale, Not Sure. Not Yet, 8 p.m., $10.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Jagwar Ma, Fascinator, 8 p.m., $15.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Disorder,” w/ Screature, CIVC, Circuit Slave, DJ Nickie Tilsner, 10 p.m., $5.

DANCE

The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “Sticky Wednesdays,” w/ DJ Mark Andrus, 8 p.m., free.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Bondage A Go Go,” w/ DJs Damon, Tomas Diablo, & guests, 9:30 p.m., $5-$10.

Clift Hotel, Redwood Room: 495 Geary, San Francisco. “Sessions 004,” w/ Kiwi Time, plus DJs Richard Habib, Jamal Targa, Marija Dunn, Seven, Amber Reyngoudt, and Max Gardner, 6 p.m., free.

Club X: 715 Harrison, San Francisco. “Electro Pop Rocks,” 18+ dance night with the Disco Fries, Aston Shuffle, Harris Pilton, Sychosis, Sonny Daze, Chaos, Slo Mo, Budzak, 9 p.m., $10-$20.

Edinburgh Castle: 950 Geary, San Francisco. “1964,” w/ DJ Matt B & guests, Second and Fourth Wednesday of every month, 10 p.m., $2.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. Powwoww, Witowmaker, Light Echo, Phntm Club, Popgang DJs, 9 p.m., $5.

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Tainted Techno Trance,” 10 p.m.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Housepitality,” w/ Jozif, Pattern Drama, Sharon Buck, Johnnie Walker, 9 p.m., $5-$10.

Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “Qoöl,” 5 p.m.

Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Indulgence,” 10 p.m.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “What?,” w/ resident DJ Tisdale and guests, 7 p.m., free.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Rock the Spot,” 9 p.m., free.

MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Reload,” w/ DJ Big Bad Bruce, 10 p.m., free.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Booty Call,” w/ Juanita More, Joshua J, guests, 9 p.m., $3.

HIP-HOP

Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Mixtape Wednesday,” w/ resident DJs Strategy, Junot, Herb Digs, & guests, 9 p.m., $5.

Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “Special Blend,” w/ resident DJs LazyBoy & Mr. Murdock, 9 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Paige Clem, Fiver Brown, Ben Shaw, 7 p.m.

Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod, 7 p.m., free.

Club Deluxe: 1511 Haight, San Francisco. Happy Hour Bluegrass, 6:30 p.m., free.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Ryan Montbleau, Witchdream Mansion, 8 p.m., $12-$15.

Johnny Foley’s Irish House: 243 O’Farrell St., San Francisco. Terry Savastano, Every other Wednesday, 9 p.m., free.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Gann Brewer, 9 p.m.

JAZZ

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session, The Amnesiacs, 7 p.m., free.

Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6 p.m., free.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Charles Unger Experience, 7:30 p.m., free.

Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. The Cosmo Alleycats featuring Ms. Emily Wade Adams, 7 p.m., free.

Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. “Cat’s Corner,” 9 p.m., $10.

Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Ricardo Scales, Wednesdays, 6:30-11:30 p.m., $5.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Tuck & Patti, 8 p.m., $22.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Sherri Roberts, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. Timba Dance Party, w/ DJ WaltDigz, 10 p.m., $5.

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. “Bachatalicious,” w/ DJs Good Sho & Rodney, 7 p.m., $5-$10.

Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Diana Arbenina & The Night Snipers, DJ Ze’ev, 8 p.m., $50.

BLUES

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Kim Wilson All Stars, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $30.

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Dr. Mojo, 9:30 p.m., free.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Little Jonny & The Giants, 9:30 p.m.

EXPERIMENTAL

Meridian Gallery: 535 Powell, San Francisco. Cheryl Leonard: New Natural Sounds, 7:30 p.m., $8-$10.

FUNK

Vertigo: 1160 Polk, San Francisco. “Full Tilt Boogie,” w/ KUSF-in-Exile DJs, Second Wednesday of every month, 8 p.m.-1:30 a.m., free.

SOUL

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Freddie Hughes & Chris Burns, 7:30 p.m., free.

THURSDAY 12

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. City Tribe, Sea Lioness, Travis Hayes, Snow Angel, 8:30 p.m., $8.

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Sixth Annual Silicon Valley Rocks, Benefit for Music in Schools Today featuring live music by South Hero, Blues Deluxe, The Funkery, Peter Chung Band, Regime, nSLASHa, Open Source Band, Coverflow, and Rainbow Party., 7 p.m., $25-$65.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. moe., Dec. 12-14, 9 p.m., $30.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Cocktails, Blood Sister, Happy Diving, 9 p.m., $5.

Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Split Screens, The Dandelion War, Heavy Color, Jared Padovani, 8:30 p.m., $5.

DANCE

1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. RJD2, Om Unit, Sweatson Klank, DJ Dials, Mophono, Ernie Fresh. Mr. Vos, 10 p.m., $15 advance.

Abbey Tavern: 4100 Geary, San Francisco. DJ Schrobi-Girl, 10 p.m., free.

Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. “Phonic,” w/ Borgeous, 9:30 p.m., $10 advance.

Aunt Charlie’s Lounge: 133 Turk, San Francisco. “Tubesteak Connection,” w/ DJ Bus Station John, 9 p.m., $5-$7.

The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “¡Pan Dulce!,” 9 p.m., $5.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursdays,” ‘80s night with DJs Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests, 9 p.m., $6 (free before 9:30 p.m.).

The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “XO,” w/ DJs Astro & Rose, 10 p.m., $5.

Club X: 715 Harrison, San Francisco. “The Crib,” 9:30 p.m., $10, 18+.

Danzhaus: 1275 Connecticut, San Francisco. “Alt.Dance,” Second Thursday of every month, 7 p.m., $7, 18+.

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “8bitSF,” w/ Super Soul Bros, Vicereine, Owlbear, DJ Tracer, 8:30 p.m., $8-$11.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Afrolicious,” w/ DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, and live guests, 9:30 p.m., $5-$8.

Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “I Love Thursdays,” 10 p.m., $10.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Night Fever,” 9 p.m., $5 after 10 p.m.

Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. Blaus, on the downstairs stage, 10 p.m. continues through Dec. 26, free with RSVP.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursday,” w/ DJ Jay-R, 9 p.m., free.

Raven: 1151 Folsom St., San Francisco. “1999,” w/ VJ Mark Andrus, 8 p.m., free.

Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. “Awakening,” w/ Ørjan Nilsen, 9 p.m., $20-$30 advance.

The Tunnel Top: 601 Bush, San Francisco. “Tunneltop,” DJs Avalon and Derek ease you into the weekend with a cool and relaxed selection of tunes spun on vinyl, 10 p.m., free.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Bubble,” 10 p.m., free.

Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. “Base,” w/ Sasha, Gabriel I, Quinn Jerome, 10 p.m., $15 advance.

HIP-HOP

Eastside West: 3154 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursdays,” w/ DJ Madison, 9 p.m., free.

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Cypher,” w/ resident DJ Big Von, 10 p.m., $5-$10.

John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “Party with Friends,” w/ resident DJs IllEfect, GeektotheBeat, Merrick, and Delrokz, Second Thursday of every month, 9 p.m., free.

Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. iStandard Producer Showcase: Bay Area Edition, 8 p.m., $10 advance.

Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Peaches,” w/lady DJs DeeAndroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, Umami, Inkfat, and Andre, 10 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Emily Bonn & The Vivants, Arann Harris & The Farm Band, Supermodal, 9 p.m.

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Acoustic Open Mic, 7 p.m.

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Jamestown Revival, Lonesome Locomotive, Keyan Keihani, 8 p.m., $9-$12.

El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. “Strung Out,” w/ Teja Gerken, Joe Gore, Eric Skye, 7 p.m.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Small Town Therapy, The T Sisters, Indianna Hale, 9 p.m., $10-$20.

The Lost Church: 65 Capp St., San Francisco. The Lady Crooners, 8 p.m., $10.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Tipsy House, 9 p.m.

JAZZ

Blush! Wine Bar: 476 Castro, San Francisco. Doug Martin’s Avatar Ensemble, 7:30 p.m., free.

Bottle Cap: 1707 Powell, San Francisco. The North Beach Sound with Ned Boynton, Jordan Samuels, and Tom Vickers, 7 p.m., free.

Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Vijay Anderson Quartet, 7:30 p.m., free.

Exploratorium: Pier 15, San Francisco. Resonance: Angel City, w/ Roscoe Mitchell, James Fei, William Winant, Sarah Cahill, 7 p.m., $10-$15.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Clifford Lamb, Mel Butts, and Friends, Second Thursday of every month, 7:30 p.m., free.

Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Judy Hall, 7 p.m., free.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Charlie Siebert & Chris Siebert, 7:30 p.m., free.

Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Savanna Jazz Jam with Eddy Ramirez, 7:30 p.m., $5.

SFJAZZ Center: 205 Franklin St., San Francisco. “Hotplate,” w/ Robert Stewart & Chester Thompson (playing Jimmy Smith’s Back at the Chicken Shack), 8 & 9:30 p.m., $15-$20.

Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Stompy Jones, 7:30 p.m., $10.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Tuck & Patti, 8 p.m., $23.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Barbara Ochoa, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Pa’Lante!,” w/ Juan G, El Kool Kyle, Mr. Lucky, 10 p.m., $5.

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Vibrasón, El DJ X, 8 p.m., $12.

Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. “Jueves Flamencos,” 8 p.m., free.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Gary Flores & Descarga Caliente, 8 p.m.

Verdi Club: 2424 Mariposa, San Francisco. The Verdi Club Milonga, w/ Christy Coté, DJ Emilio Flores, guests, 9 p.m., $10-$15.

REGGAE

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Festival ‘68,” w/ Revival Sound System, Second Thursday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

Pissed Off Pete’s: 4528 Mission St., San Francisco. Reggae Thursdays, w/ resident DJ Jah Yzer, 9 p.m., free.

BLUES

50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. Bill Phillippe, 5:30 p.m., free.

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Mike Keneally, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $20-$24.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. T-Wrex & The Primitive Rhythm, 4 p.m.; Cathy Lemons, 9:30 p.m.

COUNTRY

Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Jinx Jones & Jessica Rose, 8 p.m., free.

The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. “Twang Honky Tonk & Country Jamboree,” w/ DJ Little Red Rodeo, 7 p.m., free.

EXPERIMENTAL

50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. Tri-Cornered Tent Show, Feral Luggage, White Pee, 10 p.m., free.

The Luggage Store: 1007 Market, San Francisco. Ti Femme, Roro, Jack Hertz, 8 p.m., $6-$10.

SOUL

Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Holiday Party with Big Blu Soul Revue, 7:30 p.m., free.

FRIDAY 13

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. 20 Sided Records Holiday Party, w/ Trainwreck Riders, Tartufi, Cannons & Clouds, Couches, 9 p.m., $10.

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Cool Ghouls, Santoros, The Spyrals, Unstrung, DJ Al Lover, 9 p.m., $7.

Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Federation X, Tweak Bird, Feral Ohms, Peace Creep, 9 p.m., $8.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Rue ‘66, Handler Brothers, Consolidated Electric, 9 p.m., $8.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. moe., Dec. 12-14, 9 p.m., $30.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. O Presidente, Pancho-san, 7:30 p.m., $8.

Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Surf Bored, Lemme Adams, Mr. Kind, 8:30 p.m., $8.

Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. El Ten Eleven, Slow Magic, 9 p.m., $16.

Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Slick’s Bash #100 with Poison Idea; Attitude Adjustment; Moses; I, Madman, 9 p.m., $12.

DANCE

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. “Indie Slash,” w/ DJs Danny White and Rance, 10 p.m., $5.

Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. Juan MacLean (DJ set), Pacific Disco, Papa Lu, 9:30 p.m., $10-$15 advance.

BeatBox: 314 11th St., San Francisco. BeatBox Holiday Party with DJ Russ Rich, 9 p.m., free.

Cafe Flore: 2298 Market, San Francisco. “Kinky Beats,” w/ DJ Sergio, 10 p.m., free.

The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “Boy Bar,” w/ DJ Matt Consola, 9 p.m., $5.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Dark Shadows: The Nightmare Before Christmas,” w/ DJs Daniel Skellington, Melting Girl, Joe Radio, and Skarkrow, 9:30 p.m., $7 ($3 before 10 p.m.).

The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “F.T.S.: For the Story,” 10 p.m.

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Fever,” 10 p.m., free before midnight.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Trap City,” w/ Loudpvck, UltraViolet, Napsty, WolfBitch, The Whooligan, Teleport, Meikee Magnetic, Mixtress Shizaam, 10 p.m., $15.

The Grand Nightclub: 520 4th St., San Francisco. “We Rock Fridays,” 9:30 p.m.

Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “The Animal Party: Reindeer Unleashed,” w/ Traviswild & Thomas Jack, 9 p.m., $10-$20 advance.

Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Escape Fridays,” 10 p.m., $20.

Lone Star Saloon: 1354 Harrison, San Francisco. “Cubcake,” w/ DJ Medic, Second Friday of every month, 9 p.m.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “HYSL,” 9 p.m., $3.

Manor West: 750 Harrison, San Francisco. “Fortune Fridays,” 10 p.m., free before 11 p.m. with RSVP.

MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “F-Style Fridays,” w/ DJ Jared-F, 9 p.m.

Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. Mighty 10-Year Anniversary, w/ Hernan Cattaneo, Naveen G, 9 p.m., $20-$30 advance.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Smoke N’ Mirrors: A Winter Holiday Soirée,” w/ Crazy P, Climbers, Shiny Objects, Lisbona, Trev Campbell, 9 p.m., $10.

OMG: 43 6th St., San Francisco. “Release,” 9 p.m., free before 11 p.m.

Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. “Friday the 13th, Part IV,” w/ Zebra Katz, House of LaDosha, 10 p.m., $10-$15.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Pump: Worq It Out Fridays,” w/ resident DJ Christopher B, 9 p.m., $3.

Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. Simon Patterson, John Beaver, 9 p.m., $20 advance.

Showdown: 10 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Electric WKND,” w/ The Certain People Crew, Second Friday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

Slide: 430 Mason, San Francisco. “E2F,” Second Friday of every month, 9 p.m.

Supperclub San Francisco: 657 Harrison, San Francisco. “F*ck It’s Free-zing,” w/ Michael Anthony, Be Smiley, Jimmy Bell, Didje Kelli, 10 p.m., free.

Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. The Les, DJ Enfo, DJ E-20, Mikey Tan, DJ Rufio, 10 p.m., $15.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Bionic,” 10 p.m., $5.

Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Bridge the Gap,” w/ resident DJ Don Kainoa, Fridays, 6-10 p.m., free.

HIP-HOP

EZ5: 682 Commercial, San Francisco. “Decompression,” Fridays, 5-9 p.m.

John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “Heartbeat,” w/ resident DJ Strategy, Second Friday of every month, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 11 p.m).

Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, 9 p.m., $25-$45.

Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “The Hustle,” w/ DJs Sake One & Sean G, Second Friday of every month, 9 p.m.

ACOUSTIC

Dolores Park Cafe: 501 Dolores, San Francisco. Secret Town, 7:30 p.m.

The Sports Basement: 610 Old Mason, San Francisco. “Breakfast with Enzo,” w/ Enzo Garcia, 10 a.m., $5.

JAZZ

Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Tom Lander, 7:30 p.m., free.

Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant: 1000 Great Highway, San Francisco. Johnny Smith, 8 p.m., free.

Bird & Beckett: 653 Chenery, San Francisco. Jimmy Ryan Quintet, Second Friday of every month, 5:30 p.m., free.

Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Alex Conde Trio, 7:30 p.m., free.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Charles Unger Experience, 7:30 p.m., free.

The Palace Hotel: 2 New Montgomery, San Francisco. The Klipptones, 8 p.m., free.

Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Soul Sauce, 8 p.m., free.

Red Poppy Art House: 2698 Folsom, San Francisco. Rob Reich Trio, 7:30 p.m., $10-$15.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Steve Lucky & Carmen Getit, 7:30 p.m., free.

Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Jim Butler Group, 7:30 p.m., $8.

Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Black Market Jazz Orchestra, 9 p.m., $10.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Joyce Grant, 8 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Paris-Dakar African Mix Coupe Decale,” 10 p.m., $5.

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Taste Fridays, featuring local cuisine tastings, salsa bands, dance lessons, and more, 7:30 p.m., $15 (free entry to patio).

Cliff House: 1090 Point Lobos, San Francisco. Orquesta Conquistador Quartet, 7 p.m.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. Lagos Roots, 10 p.m., $10.

The Emerald Tablet: 80 Fresno St., San Francisco. Flamenco del Oro, 8 p.m., $15 suggested donation.

Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Cuban Night with Fito Reinoso, 7:30 & 9:15 p.m., $15-$18.

Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. La Gente, La Misa Negra, 8 p.m., $10-$13.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Sheila E. Birthday Celebration, 8 & 10 p.m., $34-$39.

REGGAE

Gestalt Haus: 3159 16th St., San Francisco. “Music Like Dirt,” 7:30 p.m., free.

BLUES

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Elvin Bishop, 7:30 & 10 p.m., $40.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Jinx Jones & The KingTones, Second Friday of every month, 4 p.m.; T.C. Riders, 9:30 p.m.

EXPERIMENTAL

Artists’ Television Access: 992 Valencia, San Francisco. “Other States,” w/ Evan Caminiti, Danny Paul Grody, and Trevor Montgomery, plus films by Paul Clipson, 8 p.m., $6-$10.

FUNK

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Steppin’, DJ K-Os, 9:30 p.m., $10.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Loose Joints,” w/ DJs Centipede, Damon Bell, and Tom Thump, 10 p.m., $5-$10.

SOUL

Edinburgh Castle: 950 Geary, San Francisco. “Soul Crush,” w/ DJ Serious Leisure, 10 p.m., free.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Nightbeat,” w/ DJs Primo, Lucky, and Dr. Scott, Second Friday of every month, 10 p.m., $4.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Yo Momma: M.O.M. Weekend Edition,” w/ DJ Gordo Cabeza, Second Friday of every month, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 10 p.m.).

SATURDAY 14

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Kitten, The Hot Toddies, Dog Party, 9:30 p.m., $15.

Connecticut Yankee: 100 Connecticut, San Francisco. Sad Bastard Book Club, Waning, Balms, 9:30 p.m., $10.

Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. The Loyalists, Cinder Cone, Mosshead, 9:30 p.m., $6.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. The Comet Empire, The Suborbitals, Akale, 9 p.m., $8.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. moe., Dec. 12-14, 9 p.m., $30.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. The Fucking Buckaroos, Buffalo Tooth, The Parmesans, A Million Billion Dying Suns, 3 p.m., $7.

Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Pedal Revolution Benefit Show with Clamhawk Manor, Twinsect, Jamaged Goods, Joe Sikelianos, 4 p.m., $5; The Weirdos, VKTMS, The Re-Volts, DJ Aya Papaya, 9 p.m., $18.

DANCE

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. “2 Men Will Move You,” w/ DJs Primo & Jordan, Second Saturday of every month, 9 p.m.

Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. Solidisco, Chordashian, MyKill, Sunwoo, 9:30 p.m., $10 advance.

BeatBox: 314 11th St., San Francisco. “I Just Wanna F*ckin Dance: First Annual Battle of the Beats,” 10 p.m., $15-$25.

Cafe Flore: 2298 Market, San Francisco. “Bistrotheque,” w/ DJ Ken Vulsion, 8 p.m., free.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Club Gossip: New Order vs. Erasure,” w/ DJs Damon, Shon, Low-Life, Daniel Skellington, and Panic, 9 p.m., $5-$8 (free before 9:30 p.m.).

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Bootie S.F.,” w/ Smash-Up Derby, A+D, DJ Dada, Myster C, Mr. Washington, Keith Kraft, more, 9 p.m., $10-$15.

S.F. Eagle: 398 12th St., San Francisco. “Sadistic Saturdays,” Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Maxwell Powers, Date Nite, Pixel Memory, 9 p.m., $6-$12.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Tormenta Tropical: 6-Year Anniversary,” w/ Max Glazer, Oro11, Deejay Theory, 10 p.m., $5-$10.

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Eclectricity,” Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m.

The Grand Nightclub: 520 4th St., San Francisco. “Love Generation,” w/ The Fancy Cats, 10 p.m., $20.

Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “Freak ‘n’ You,” w/ Philipp Jung (of M.A.N.D.Y.), Nick Williams, Dan Sherman, 9 p.m., $10 advance.

The Hot Spot: 1414 Market, San Francisco. “Love Will Fix It,” w/ DJ Bus Station John, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $5.

Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “One Way Ticket Saturdays,” w/ Eric D-Lux, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $20.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Galaxy Radio,” w/ Matrixxman, Lel Ephant, Smac, Emils, PlaZa, Holly B, 9 p.m., free.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Bounce!,” 9 p.m., $3.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Music Video Night,” w/ DJs Satva & 4AM, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $5.

Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. Gorgon City, 10 p.m., $12.50-$20.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “No Way Back,” w/ Mudd, Felix Dickinson, Conor, Solar, 10 p.m., $10-$20.

Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. French Horn Rebellion, Carousel, on the upstairs stage, 9 p.m., $12-$15.

OMG: 43 6th St., San Francisco. “Fixup,” Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $5 (free before 11 p.m).

Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. “Cockblock: The Holiday Party,” w/ DJs Niki-C & Natalie Nuxx, 10 p.m., $10.

Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “The KissGroove S.F.,” w/ DJ Vinroc & The Whooligan, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. “Frolic: A Celebration of Costume & Dance,” w/ resident DJ NeonBunny, Second Saturday of every month, 8 p.m., $8 ($4 in costume).

Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. Frenchy Le Freak, Pheeko Dubfunk, Lorentzo, 10 p.m., $20.

Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “All Styles & Smiles,” w/ DJ Tom Thump, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

HIP-HOP

111 Minna Gallery: 111 Minna St., San Francisco. “Back to the ‘90s,” Second Saturday of every month, 9:30 p.m., $10.

Double Dutch: 3192 16th St., San Francisco. “Cash IV Gold,” w/ DJs Kool Karlo, Roost Uno, and Sean G, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “Second Saturdays,” w/ resident DJ Matt Cali, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

Showdown: 10 Sixth St., San Francisco. “The Shit Show,” w/ resident DJ Taurus Scott, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., two for $5.

Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Jake Miller, Action Item, Air Dubai, 9 p.m., sold out.

ACOUSTIC

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Small Souls, Old Pals, 7 p.m., $5-$7.

Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod, Saturdays, 4-6 p.m., free.

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Jordan Singh VanderBeek, 7 p.m.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. The Shelby Foot Three, 9 p.m.

The Riptide: 3639 Taraval, San Francisco. Dark Hollow, 9:30 p.m., free.

JAZZ

Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Belinda Blair, 7:30 p.m., free.

Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Josh Jones Latin Jazz Ensemble, 8 p.m.

The Emerald Tablet: 80 Fresno St., San Francisco. Madeline Eastman & Her Trio, 8 p.m., $20 suggested donation.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bill “Doc” Webster & Jazz Nostalgia, 7:30 p.m., free.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Wil Blades & Jack Tone Riordan, 7:30 p.m., free.

San Francisco Golden Gate Rugby Club: 725 California Ave., San Francisco. S.F. Bal Fest: Treasure Island Hop, 9 a.m., $5; S.F. Bal Fest: Aloha Swing Dance, w/ Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, 7 p.m., $15-$20 ($5 off with costume).

Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. David Byrd Group, 7:30 p.m., $8.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. The Robert Stewart Experience, 9 p.m.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Barbara Ochoa, 8 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Pura,” 9 p.m., $20.

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. Misión Flamenca, Monthly live music and dance performances., Second Saturday of every month, 7:30 p.m. “Paris-Dakar African Mix Coupe Decale,” 10 p.m., $5.

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Makrú, Las Cafeteras, DJ Izzy*wise, 9 p.m., $12-$15.

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Orquesta Borinquen, DJ Luis Medina, 8 p.m., $15.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “El SuperRitmo,” w/ DJs Roger Mas & El Kool Kyle, 10 p.m., $5 before 11 p.m.

Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Dança Makèzú’s Kizomba, Semba, and African Rhythms Mega Party, 9:30 p.m., $10.

Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Peña Eddy Navia & Pachamama Band, 8 p.m., free.

Red Poppy Art House: 2698 Folsom, San Francisco. John Calloway and the New Riders of the Clave Maze, 7:30 p.m., $15-$20.

Space 550: 550 Barneveld, San Francisco. “Club Fuego,” 9:30 p.m.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Sheila E. Birthday Celebration, 8 & 10 p.m., $39.

BLUES

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Maria Muldaur, 7:30 & 10 p.m., $22.

Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Bobbie Webb, 8 p.m., free.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Dave Workman, Second Saturday of every month, 4 p.m.; Delta Wires, 9:30 p.m.

COUNTRY

The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Swinging Doors, 9 p.m., free.

FUNK

Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. SantaCon Funk Night, w/ DJs Gordo Cabeza, Timoteo Gigante, Malachi, Señor Oz, Pleasuremaker, Motion Potion, and Phleck, 6 p.m., $5.

SOUL

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Wicked Mercies, Kelly Rock, DJ K-Os, 9:30 p.m., $10-$15.

SUNDAY 15

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. San Francisco Rock Project’s 2013 Festive Festival of Bands, 5:30 p.m., $10+.

Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Little Claw, Death Valley Girls, SFPD, 8:30 p.m., $6.

DANCE

The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “Replay Sundays,” 9 p.m., free.

The Edge: 4149 18th St., San Francisco. “’80s at 8,” w/ DJ MC2, 8 p.m.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Dub Mission,” w/ Timoteo Gigante, DJ Sep, J-Boogie, 9 p.m., $6 (free before 9:30 p.m.).

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “T.Dance,” 6 a.m.-6 p.m.; “Elements of House,” w/ Mozaic, David Gregory, Dan Sherman, 10 p.m.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Stamina,” w/ Bachelors of Science, Jamal, 10 p.m., free.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Sweater Funk,” 10 p.m., free.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Jock,” Sundays, 3-8 p.m., $2.

MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Bounce,” w/ DJ Just, 10 p.m.

Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. Paul Kalkbrenner, Bells & Whistles, 7:30 p.m., $20-$30.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Black Magic Disko,” w/ Mind Against, Brian Bejarano, Star Kommand, 9 p.m., $10-$15.

Otis: 25 Maiden, San Francisco. “What’s the Werd?,” w/ resident DJs Nick Williams, Kevin Knapp, Maxwell Dub, and guests, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 11 p.m.).

The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. DJ Marc deVasconcelos, 10 p.m., free.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Gigante,” 8 p.m., free.

Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “She Said…: A Queer Affair,” Third Sunday of every month, 4 p.m., $3-$5.

The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. “No Parking on the Dancefloor,” w/ resident DJs Dutchboy & Gehno Aviance, 11 p.m., $5.

HIP-HOP

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Return of the Cypher,” 9:30 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. A Very Shut-Ins Xmas, 6 p.m.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Her Electric Fur, El Joe of the River, Axel Mansoor, Sean Simerly, 8 p.m., $7.

The Lost Church: 65 Capp St., San Francisco. Misner & Smith, Justin Farren, 8 p.m., $10.

The Lucky Horseshoe: 453 Cortland, San Francisco. Bernal Mountain Bluegrass Jam, 4 p.m., free.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Spike’s Mic Night,” Sundays, 4-8 p.m., free.

Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. “iPlay,” open mic with featured weekly artists, 6:30 p.m., free.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Seisiún with John Sherry & Kyle Thayer, 9 p.m.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church: 1755 Clay, San Francisco. “Sunday Night Mic,” w/ Roem Baur, 5 p.m., free.

JAZZ

El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. The Emergency Ensemble, 8 p.m., free.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bill “Doc” Webster & Jazz Nostalgia, 7:30 p.m., free.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Sunday Sessions,” 10 p.m., free.

Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. Jazz Revolution, 4 p.m., free/donation.

The Riptide: 3639 Taraval, San Francisco. The Cottontails, Third Sunday of every month, 7:30 p.m., free.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Chris Siebert, 7:30 p.m., free.

San Francisco Golden Gate Rugby Club: 725 California Ave., San Francisco. S.F. Bal Fest: Prohibition Party Swing Dance, w/ The Kally Price Trio, 7 p.m., $15-$20 ($5 off with costume).

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Lisa Lindsley, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Atmosphere: 447 Broadway, San Francisco. “Hot Bachata Nights,” w/ DJ El Guapo, 5:30 p.m., $10 ($18-$25 with dance lessons).

Balancoire: 2565 Mission St., San Francisco. “Tardeadas Tropicales,” 3 p.m.

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Brazil & Beyond,” 6:30 p.m., free.

Thirsty Bear Brewing Company: 661 Howard, San Francisco. “The Flamenco Room,” 7:30 & 8:30 p.m.

REGGAE

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. Titan Ups, Franco Nero, The Tritonics, 7:30 p.m., $8.

BLUES

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. HowellDevine, Third Sunday of every month, 8:30 p.m., $7-$10.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Blues Power, 4 p.m.; Spencer Jarrett, 9:30 p.m.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Bohemian Knuckleboogie, 8 p.m., free.

Swig: 571 Geary, San Francisco. Sunday Blues Jam with Ed Ivey, 9 p.m.

SOUL

Delirium Cocktails: 3139 16th St., San Francisco. “Heart & Soul,” w/ DJ Lovely Lesage, 10 p.m., free.

MONDAY 16

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Midlake, Sarah Jaffe, 7:30 p.m., $12-$14.

DANCE

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Death Guild,” 18+ dance party with DJs Decay, Joe Radio, Melting Girl, & guests, 9:30 p.m., $3-$5.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Wanted,” w/ DJs Key&Kite and Richie Panic, 9 p.m., free.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Vienetta Discotheque,” w/ DJs Stanley Frank and Robert Jeffrey, 10 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Windy Hill, Third Monday of every month, 9 p.m., free.

The Chieftain: 198 Fifth St., San Francisco. The Wrenboys, 7 p.m., free.

Congregation Sherith Israel: 2266 California, San Francisco. Andrew Bird Gezelligheid, Tift Merritt, Dec. 16-17, 8 p.m., $45.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. The Highway Poets, The New Thoreaus, 9 p.m., $6.

Fiddler’s Green: 1333 Columbus, San Francisco. Terry Savastano, 9:30 p.m., free/donation.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Open Mic with Brendan Getzell, 8 p.m., free.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Sad Bastard Club,” Third Monday of every month, 7:30 p.m., free.

Osteria: 3277 Sacramento, San Francisco. “Acoustic Bistro,” 7 p.m., free.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Peter Lindman, 4 p.m.

JAZZ

Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Rob Reich, First and Third Monday of every month, 7 p.m.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Eugene Pliner Quartet with Tod Dickow, 7:30 p.m., free.

Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Le Jazz Hot, 7 p.m., free.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. City Jazz Instrumental Jam Session, 8 p.m.

The Union Room at Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. The Session: A Monday Night Jazz Series, pro jazz jam with Mike Olmos, 7:30 p.m., $12.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Nora Maki, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Havana Reunion with Jimmy Branly, Carlitos del Puerto, and Iván “Melón” Lewis, 8 p.m., $24.

REGGAE

Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Skylarking,” w/ I&I Vibration, 10 p.m., free.

BLUES

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. The Bachelors, 9:30 p.m.

COUNTRY

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Whiskey River,” w/ DJ Handlebars & Pretty Ricky, Third Monday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

SOUL

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “M.O.M. (Motown on Mondays),” w/ DJ Gordo Cabeza & Timoteo Gigante, 8 p.m., free.

TUESDAY 17

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Warm Soda, The Herms, POW!, 9 p.m., $12.

S.F. Eagle: 398 12th St., San Francisco. Eric Himan, Zbörnak, 9 p.m.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Dispel, Midnight Sons, King Kong Zilla, 9 p.m., $10.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Shadowhouse, Crimson Scarlet, 2084, Gone to Ground, DJ Laurgactyl, 9:30 p.m., $7.

Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Pere Ubu, 8 p.m., $16.

DANCE

Aunt Charlie’s Lounge: 133 Turk, San Francisco. “High Fantasy,” w/ DJ Viv, Myles Cooper, & guests, 10 p.m., $2.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Soundpieces,” 10 p.m., free-$10.

Otis: 25 Maiden, San Francisco. “Vibe,” w/ Binkadink, Third Tuesday of every month, 6 p.m., free.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Switch,” w/ DJs Jenna Riot & Andre, 9 p.m., $3.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Shelter,” 10 p.m., free.

Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Tight,” w/ resident DJs Michael May & Lito, 8 p.m., free.

HIP-HOP

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. “S.F. Connects,” w/ Children of the Funk, Telli Prego, Heat, Big Vic, Shark Sinatra, Cole, Jedi, Dreidel, 8 p.m., $5-$8.

ACOUSTIC

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Songwriter in Residence: Kate Kilbane, 7 p.m. continues through Dec. 31.

Congregation Sherith Israel: 2266 California, San Francisco. Andrew Bird Gezelligheid, Tift Merritt, Dec. 16-17, 8 p.m., $45.

Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Kathryn Anne Davis, Soft Shells, 8:30 p.m., $6.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Seisiún with Autumn Rhodes, Pat O’Donnell, and Sean O’Donnell, 9 p.m.

JAZZ

Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant: 1000 Great Highway, San Francisco. Gerry Grosz Jazz Jam, 7 p.m.

Blush! Wine Bar: 476 Castro, San Francisco. Kally Price & Rob Reich, 7 p.m., free.

Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6 p.m., free.

Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Chris Amberger, 7 p.m.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Clifford Lamb, Mel Butts, and Friends, 7:30 p.m., free.

Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, 7 p.m.

Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. West Side Jazz Club, 5 p.m., free; Panique, Third Tuesday of every month, 8:30 p.m., free/donation.

Verdi Club: 2424 Mariposa, San Francisco. “Tuesday Night Jump,” w/ Stompy Jones, 9 p.m., $10-$12.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Tommy Igoe Big Band, 8 p.m., $22.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Brenda Reed, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. “Descarga S.F.,” w/ DJs Hong & Good Sho, 8 p.m., $12.

The Cosmo Bar & Lounge: 440 Broadway, San Francisco. “Conga Tuesdays,” 8 p.m., $7-$10.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Porreta!,” all night forro party with DJs Carioca & Lucio K, Third Tuesday of every month, 9 p.m., $7.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Underground Nomads,” w/ rotating resident DJs Amar, Sep, and Dulce Vita, plus guests, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 9:30 p.m.).

REGGAE

Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. “Bless Up,” w/ Jah Warrior Shelter Hi-Fi, 10 p.m.

BLUES

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Twice as Good, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $15.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Lisa Kindred, Third Tuesday of every month, 9:30 p.m.

FUNK

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Boogaloo Tuesday,” w/ Oscar Myers & Steppin’, 9:30 p.m., free.

SOUL

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Lost & Found,” w/ DJs Primo, Lucky, and guests, 9:30 p.m., free. 2

Band practice

Michael Redmond

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December 10, 2013

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arts@sfbg.com

THEATER We meet above the waterfall in Yerba Buena Gardens. It’s cold, getting dark. Everyone seems relieved to get inside the YBCA theater next door. We’ll talk here for the next hour, standing around a worktable with a gold lamé circle spread over it, before the band heads downstairs to a windowless rehearsal space in the deep well of the building.

Nicole Kidman Is Fucking Gorgeous is the band formerly known as the artists John Foster Cartwright, Maryam Rostami, and Mica Sigourney. In fact, NKIFG is more and less than a band — it’s a conceit, a project title, a series of performances, maybe a forthcoming album? (They don’t know yet.) None of its members actually plays an instrument, as far as I can tell. But they do compose songs, choreography, and objects that they employ in an unfolding series of situations they as readily call parties as performances. And they will have live music infusing their show this weekend at CounterPULSE, courtesy of ongoing collaborator and perennial inspiration Deep Teens.

Embracing a loopy goth spirit, the triumvirate, which has its origins in a performance two years ago at dancer-choreographer Liz Tenuto’s apartment during the Home Theater Festival, takes its send-ups of contemporary dance and performance art tropes seriously. And for all its insouciance and nonchalant humor, the project is at some level equally as much about the crisis of three artists (two of them well-known drag queens, the other a DJ and videographer) finding a way to live and work in today’s severely stratified San Francisco. It also draws eagerly, if obscurely, from their own private lives.

As for the name, its members like to say what they do is defined by both the presence and absence of someone or something called Nicole Kidman. To hear them talk about it, Kidman starts to sound like a key swallowed by a red herring.

“Who cares about Nicole Kidman?” notes Sigourney, with paradoxical delight. “But people do care about her! She’s the perfect vessel.”

What else should you know about Nicole Kidman Is Fucking Gorgeous? The answer to that question took a rambling, circuitous form. It was ultimately put to a Tarot deck set in the middle of the table.

Mica Sigourney So the frame of this reading is around getting at the truths and dispelling the illusions around this project for you. [The first card is] the Seven of Cups, which is about illusion [versus] reality, and picking out the truth. Right now, all of us are [experiencing] an abundance of emotions, an overwhelming amount.

Maryam Rostami Cups are heart energy, heart chakra, love, emotions.

[skipping ahead]

MS So what we need to manifest in our next step in this project — see, I don’t know if this is telling us what to tell Rob.

MR No, I think it is, I think this is great.

MS We are students of creativity…

MR And magic…

MS So we’re not masters of this yet. We’re still learning. Page of Wands is also about adventure and following bliss really. And our final outcome is the Ten of Swords. So it means we’re being stabbed in the back!

MR The Ten of Swords looks like this: It’s all of our fears pointing toward one single spot. The Ten is when the next step is coming. We’ve reached the end of something and it’s the next thing. The Moon, I feel, has to do with a difficult birthing process. The Moon is about traversing these murky emotional territories, which we have done together and we continue to do. I think this represents our fear.

MS Can I give it a reading too?

MR Yes.

MS Ten being the overabundance of the suit, and Tens being about communication and intellect: The outcome is an overabundance of ideas that sometimes feel like a burden, and are sometimes painful because there are just too many ideas happening. So we’re going to end up with too many ideas. Coupled with the Moon, I’m going to say our final outcome will actually be knowledge that is not measurable by the intellect and is much more intuitive and based in mystery, that is, not easily described by the mind.

MR We’re going to have to dig deeper from all of this. The Ten makes us need to take the next step.

MS And that next step is toward the dark. Well, toward intuition.

MR It is toward intuition. I think that moving toward the more Moon aspects will maybe then inform the next piece.

MS Oh, the moon…

MR Oh, the moon, duh! But this is perfect!

MS The moon is in our piece a lot.

MR Like the actual physical moon.

MS So basically, to clarify things for Rob: The Tarot reading says that we need to dispel some illusions for you. What we need to tell you is that we are about to have a moment of reckoning at this show at which we realize our values and our worth, and our sins. And what’s driving us as a collective is to reap the benefits of a good harvest, as well as learn from each other, and continue to be students of creativity, passion, and magic.

MR Ultimately, not to let our fears get us down and to know that we’re going in the right direction.

MS And this being our final outcome makes me think that maybe you should just know: “The moon.”

John Foster Cartwright The moon.

MS We need to shut up with all our ideas and just be like, the moon.

MR I’m with that. *

NICOLE KIDMAN IS FUCKING GORGEOUS

Thu/12-Sun/15, 8pm, $20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

www.counterpulse.org

Mexican dude

Michael Redmond

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December 10, 2013

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culture@sfbg.com

CHOW NOW

There’s a new hangout in town, with a kitchen that wants to stay open until 1am to feed you. And I’m not talking about cardboard-crusted pizza, or greasy tacos, or coagulated tikka masala (ew). Wipe all those thoughts away. How about housemade pastrami and bialys, or a cheeseburger (which comes with bacon) on a house-baked bun? Doesn’t a homey bowl of cracked wheat with hen of the woods mushrooms sound good? Confit chicken leg? Yes. Yes. Yes. You’ll find all this and more at the brand-new Alta CA (1420 Market, SF. www.altaca.co), which just joined the percolating Mid-Market scene, kitty-corner to the new Twitter building.

It’s the latest space to open in the Daniel Patterson Group of restaurants (Coi, Plum, Haven), with chef Yoni Levy leading the charge. You can come by for lunch or dinner, and there’s also a full bar, at which you can order a barrel-aged cocktail to go with your dill-pickled deviled eggs. (The wine list is also pretty killer, and there are some local beers on draft, too). Whether you’re on a date or dining solo, the stylish place has a fun vibe that isn’t overbearing or too quiet — much like the third bed in the three bears, it’s just right. There are 65 seats and a very cool floor-to-ceiling shelving system that separates the kitchen from the dining room, but still allows you to peek into the busy kitchen (you voyeur you). Open Mon–Fri 11am–2am and Sat–Sun 5pm–2am.

If you swing by Comstock Saloon (155 Columbus, SF. www.comstocksaloon.com) in North Beach, no, you aren’t seeing double. Actually, you kind of are (boozehound!). The dining room has a new second bar that’s been added — woohoo, more room for thirsty people! — and the dining tables have been replaced with high-top marble tables, so the feeling in the dining room is now more casual and easygoing.

In keeping with Comstock’s vintage Gold Rush feel, the new bar is actually an oldie: a restored old-growth redwood and mahogany slab, with an antique tap handle that dates all the way back to 1880. Yeah, that’s fricking old.

To go with all this old-new coolness is a fresh menu from the new chef, conveniently named Ronnie New. He was previously at Magnolia, and is bringing a bit of his New Orleans roots to the table (think peel-and-eat Louisiana Gulf shrimp and an andouille Scotch egg with mustard aioli). He’s also showcasing a Comstock burger, rabbit currywurst with fries, and squash fritters. Bonus: the full menu is now served Mon–Sat 4pm–12am and Sun 4pm–10pm (the bar is open daily 4pm–2am). One last tidbit: Comstock is continuing its Saloon’s Free Lunch Friday, which means if you purchase two boozy beverages, you receive a free lunch, how sweet is that? (The dish changes weekly.)

Two new brunches for your neverending list o’ brunchy options in this town. First up, La Urbana (661 Divisadero, SF. www.laurbanasf.com) has juuuuuust started weekend brunch, with menu items like eggs with grilled chorizo and a Manchego quesadilla; chilaquiles with grilled steak and over-easy eggs; an omelette with Manchego, bacon, onion, rajas puree, and pea tendrils; and tamales de chile con queso. While the brunch plates will cost more than a visit to San Jalisco (think $12–15), you’ll be able to pair a nice mezcal bloody Mary with them. Pro tip: ask to order the Mexican Dude off the nighttime cocktail menu (housemade horchata, vodka, mezcal, and espresso coffee liqueur). If that isn’t one of the best hangover helpers you’ve ever had, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Serving 11am–2:30pm.

You live on Russian Hill? You can stumble over to the new Sunday brunch at Stones Throw (1896 Hyde, SF. www.stonesthrowsf.com), with soft-scrambled eggs and mushrooms, butter-fried pancakes (well then!), butternut squash and duck confit hash, and great beers. And bubbly. And doughnuts. Served 11am–2pm.

Marcia Gagliardi is the founder of the weekly tablehopper e-column; subscribe for more at www.tablehopper.com. Get her app: Tablehopper’s Top Late-Night Eats. On Twitter: @tablehopper.

This Week’s Picks: December 11 – 17, 2013

Michael Redmond

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December 10, 2013

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Make the yuletide gay!

WEDNESDAY 12/11

Jagwar Ma

Discussing the lead track off Howlin’, Jagwar Ma’s Jono Ma has described time spent in two Berlin clubs: Club Bassy, which “only played vinyl from the 40s, 50s, 60s,” and Panorama Bar, the oft-mentioned, house-dominated portion of ultra-hip Berghain. It’s a nice hat-tip to Jagwar Ma’s influences, which have inspired clear-voiced pop and soul vocals that follow a swirl of programmed beats and sequenced arpeggios, with enough looseness in the groove to engender no shortage of Happy Mondays references. This sound — part Madchester acid trip and part Balearic episode — has fittingly led to remixes by Andrew Weatherall, Matthew Dear, and Pachanga Boys. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Fascinator

8pm, $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

www.theindependentsf.com

THURSDAY 12/12

“Holiday Bazaar NightLife”

There is a science to holiday gift shopping. Like most experiments, it begins with an unsettling question: What should I get for Ma? And Pa? Olivia? Your hypothesis states that some friends will like their gifts, and some will fake it. But when more than 40 local merchants gather for NightLife at the Academy and set up stalls full of treasures curated by Bazaar Bizarre (think handmade ceramics, silk-screened T-shirts, letterpress stationery, and superhero bowties), the chances of expected yield matching actual yield of purchases are high. Add principal elements to the equation, such as bass music collective Slayers Club, DJ Mark Farina, and spiked snow cones (NightLife is a 21-and-over event), and the chemical reaction creates an explosion greater than the Earthquake planetarium show. (Kaylen Baker)

6pm, $12

California Academy of Sciences

55 Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, SF

www.calacademy.org

“Drag Queens On Ice: An Eleganza Extravaganza!”

Figure skaters and drag queens have a lot in common: a flair for performing, an affection for sequins, a deep love of cheesy music. Now in its fourth year, “Drag Queens on Ice” makes the most of these shared affections by bringing hostess Donna Sachet and a bevy of costumed, skate-wearing divas to Union Square’s Holiday Ice Rink. Spreading even more cheer, event presenter Visit Mendocino County partners with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence this year to benefit the Sisters’ partner charities, matching donations made by skate fans who get their picture taken with the Order’s own Sister Roma. (Cheryl Eddy)

8-9:30pm, $7-$11 (skate rentals, $5; rink hours, 10am-11:30pm daily)

Holiday Ice Rink

Union Square, SF

www.unionsquareicerink.com

FRIDAY 12/13

X and The Blasters

The members of legendary Los Angeles punk rockers X have always distinguished themselves from other bands of their time and genre, with the rock-solid drumming of DJ Bonebrake, the guitar virtuosity of Billy Zoom, and the poetic lyrics and intimate vocal interplay of John Doe and Exene Cervenka. The iconic group, whose early catalog was recently released in deluxe digital sets via Rhino Records, is hitting the West Coast this month for a special “X-mas 2013” tour with friends the Blasters. Fans of both outstanding acts won’t want to miss this rare chance to see the two groups together at one sensational show. (Sean McCourt)

9pm, $35

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

www.thefillmore.com

Asomnia

Sixty hours, no winks, of continual performance are what Mugwumpin promises, beginning 9am Friday and running (or wobbling) nonstop until 9pm Sunday. The 10-year-old company, needless to say, refuses to slow down, and looks to be keeping pace with the times, as it embarks on the three-day marathon as research into its yearlong exploration of exhaustion (to culminate in a final performance in 2014). The performers will make themselves available along the way to guest choreographers Laura Arrington (Sun, 2pm) and Erika Chong Shuch (Sat, 2pm). Crazy? Probably, yeah. But having consulted with at least one herbalist (Sheila Devitt, who offers a primer on herbal adaptogens as part of the proceedings), the members of the intrepid theater company are going into this, anyway, with their eyes open. (Robert Avila)

Starts today, 9am; ends Sun/15, 9pm, $10-$30 (weekend pass, $40)

CIIS’s Area 5

1453 Mission, SF

www.mugwumpin.org

El Ten Eleven

Silver Lake’s El Ten Eleven defies the odds. Its music is instrumental, but starkly unpretentious. Its musicianship and songwriting is mind-bogglingly complex, but extremely listenable. It consists of only two people, but creates a full band’s worth of sound, with the insanely gifted Kristian Dunn often playing the guitar and bass lines on his double-necked instrument simultaneously. The music the band creates is not just technically impressive, it’s also graceful, intensely melodic, and deeply emotional. El Ten Eleven’s talent and intricate songwriting translate beautifully to its live presence, where the duo will loop, vamp, shred, and cymbal-crash its way right into your heart. (Haley Zaremba)

With Slow Magic

9pm, $16

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

www.slimspresents.com

“Two Evenings of Deborah Hay Solo Adaptations”

Deborah Hay has never stopped rethinking the dancing body, a practice she started as a member of the Judson Dance Theater in the 1960s. She has become something of shaman for choreographer-performers, who experience her workshops as a stripping-away of preconceptions about their own work. For each residency, Hay creates one solo — actually a series of written instructions and descriptions — which the artists gradually make their own by continuing to work on it for at least three months. It’s a process which is both disciplined and freeing. “Two Evenings of Deborah Hay Solo Adaptations” presents five artists and their versions of these solos: Aura Fischbeck and Gry Bech-Hanssen with pieces from 2012; Manfred Fischbeck from 2011; and Megan Nicely and Ronja VerAura from 2010. (Rita Felciano)

Fri/13-Sat/14, 7pm, $15

NOHspace

2840 Mariposa, SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

SATURDAY 12/14

“An Unnerving Look at the Holidays”

Lemony Snicket, the grief-stricken satirist of the best-selling A Series of Unfortunate Events, would warn you not to attend this family-oriented holiday jazz concert. He’d say that Christmas, with all its blaring jingle, is an atrocious way to celebrate the uncomfortable birth of a man cursed with the inexplicable talent of curing sickness and doomed to youthful death by jealous townsmen and very heavy planks. He’d mention that Marcus Shelby’s mesmerizing jazz music is a gloomy reminder that all merriment must end, and that the earnest chords of the SFJazz High School All-Stars will make you cry. He’d add that Snicket himself has no knowledge of jazz, lacks the joy to cheer children, and will probably sport an unflattering disguise. Luckily, I’m not Lemony, and I’m telling you not to miss “An Unnerving Look at the Holidays.” (Baker)

11am, $5-$15

SFJazz Center

201 Franklin, SF

www.sfjazz.org

SUNDAY 12/15

Homo for the Holidays

Procrastinating your holiday shopping could pay off this year: El Rio’s Homo for the Holidays queer craft bonanza is your one-stop shop for gifts for all your friends, plus plenty of goodies and entertainment for yourself, too! The back patio hosts more than a dozen crafters selling all sorts of adorable creations: upcycled bike tire jewelry, stick and poke tattoo kits, queer home décor, and more. Shop to the tunes of performers GAYmous, Thunder Thighs, and DJ Jerry Lee, as well as words by the Lady Ms. Vagina Jenkins and dance performances by the Tartletts and the emFATic Dancers. Door proceeds go to the Larkin Street Youth’s holiday gift drive; bring an unwrapped gift for the drive and receive raffle tickets to win prizes from featured vendors. Get your photo taken in the “Sleazy Santa” photo booth, and make the yuletide gay! (Kirstie Haruta)

3-8pm, $5

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF

www.elriosf.com

MONDAY 12/16

Andrew Bird’s Gezelligheid

Andrew Bird reprises his special holiday shows, expanding his run for the first time to the best coast. The title Gezelligheid is a Dutch word that translates to coziness or togetherness, and in order to live up to the name, Bird is hosting his two-night performance inside of Congregation Sherith Israel, one of the city’s most breathtaking places of worship. Playing with special guest Tift Merritt, Gezelligheid will mostly consist of Bird’s spectacular violin pieces, amplified through his trademarked Victoria horns. Designed, in Bird’s words, for the audience to be “lifted and comforted as we head into another cold and dark winter,” the show promises to be a unique, enchanting experience. (Zaremba)

Mon/16-Tue/17, 8pm, $45

Congregation Sherith Israel

2266 California, SF

www.sherithisrael.org

TUESDAY 12/17

“Historic Libations”

San Franciscans have long enjoyed a romance with alcohol — from the debauchery of the Barbary Coast era to the modern renaissance of the craft cocktail, the city by the bay knows how to knock ’em back. Celebrate this high-proof history at “Historic Libations,” a party inspired by the drinking culture of yesteryear, where revelers will be able to sample a variety of uniquely San Francisco cocktails, including the Pisco Sour and the Martinez. The price of admission to the fete will include drinks, hors d’oeuvres and dancing to live music from The Cosmo Alleycats — and don’t forget to check out the always fascinating exhibits on display. (McCourt)

6-9 p.m., $30-$75 California Historical Society 678 Mission, SF facebook.com/californiahistoricalsociety

Theater Listings: December 11 – 17, 2013

Michael Redmond

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December 10, 2013

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

THEATER

OPENING

Crones for the Holidays: The Sequel Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.crackpotcrones.com. $20 (first weekend shows, free). Opens Sat/14, 3 and 8pm. Runs Sat-Sun, 3pm (also Sat, 8pm). Through Dec 29. Vignettes, improv, songs, and more, written by and starring Terry Baum and Carolyn Myers.

It’s Christmas, Carole! Creativity Theater, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.itschristmascarole.com. $10-20. Opens Thu/12, 7pm. Runs Thu-Fri, 7pm; Sat-Sun, 2 and 5pm. Through Dec 22. Thrillride Mechanics performs the world premiere of Michael Phillis’ “human cartoon” that puts an Office Space-style spin on the Dickens classic.

Too Many Tamales: A Holiday Story for the Whole Family Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-35. Previews Sat/14-Sun/15, 2pm. Opens Dec 21, 2 and 8pm. Runs Dec 22-23, 27-30, and Jan 2-4, 2pm. Through Jan 4. Marsh Youth Theater and author Gary Soto collaborate on this high-energy holiday show — complete with puppets and Mexican music — based on Soto’s picture book.

ONGOING

Amaluna Big Top at AT&T Park, Third Street at Terry A. Francois Blvd, SF; www.cirquedusoliel.com. $50-175. Check website for schedule, including special holiday showtimes. Through Jan 12. Cirque de Soleil is back in town, this time bringing its Tempest-inspired Amaluna to the big top set up outside AT&T Park. Touted for being a celebration of “women [sic] power,” it seems initially odd that the design elements are so focused on the male peacock feather — all greens and blues and graceful, with curving “fronds” rising up from the stage. Jungle sounds chirp in the background as a bevy of Amazonian women in bejeweled headdresses and a mischievous lizard-man circulate the room until the show starts with the lovely abstraction of a floating red cloud of translucent fabric dancing in a single beam of light. The flimsy plotline is forgettable, a coming-of-age and courtship tale between the island’s young princess, Miranda (Iuliia Mykhailova) and a shipwrecked young Romeo (Evgeny Kurkin), though the parallel courtship between the two comic figures of Jeeves (Nathalie Claude) and Deeda (Shereen Hickman) provides a bit of levity and a novel use for footballs. The most realized character is probably Cali (Victor Kee), the half-lizard, whose prehensile tail and neon body paint give him an otherworldly allure, but it’s the aerialist goddesses and fierce embodiments of the storm that are most memorable from an acrobatic point-of-view, and Lara Jacobs’ unique balancing act from a meditative one. (Gluckstern)

Avenue Q New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/13, 8pm. Opens Sat/14, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 12. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the Tony-winning comedy.

The Barbary Coast Revue Stud Bar, 399 Ninth St, SF; eventbrite.com/org/4730361353. $10-40. Wed, 9pm. Through Dec 18. Blake Wiers’ new “live history musical experience” features Mark Twain as a tour guide through San Francisco’s wild past.

The Book of Mormon Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com. $60-120. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 1 and 6:30pm. Through Jan 19. When approaching the oeuvre of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, it’s best to check your political correctness at the door. That’s certainly no less true of their 2011 Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, co-penned with Robert Lopez (of Avenue Q fame), despite the clean-scrubbed appearance of their fumbling albeit well-intentioned missionary protagonists. Sent to Uganda for two years, top mission pupil Elder Price (Nic Rouleau) and his clumsy but affable partner Elder Cunningham (A.J. Holmes) are faced with a village oppressed by a scenery-chewing warlord, a demoralized coterie of fellow missionaries who have yet to have a successful conversion, and their own fraught, odd-couple dynamic. Rouleau’s Price is an appropriate blend of smarm, charm, and secret self-doubt while Holmes excels in his portrayal of a perennial-loser-turned-prophet (his power ballad-esque solo in “Man Up” is one of the show’s best). Of their hosts, the wry Mafala (James Vincent Meredith) and his sweet but strong-willed daughter Nabulungi (Syesha Mercado) get the most stage time, but it’s the crude and caustic General (David Aron Damane) who grabs the most attention. The gleefully profane “Hasa Diga Eebowai,” a Forbidden Zone-style “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”, and the deliriously blasphemous “Joseph Smith, American Moses,” round out the entertaining, and strangely informative, score. Though it’s (very) unlikely to convert you to the Church of Latter-Day Saints, there’s a good chance you’ll want to convert to the church of Parker and Stone, if you haven’t already. (Gluckstern)

BoomerAging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue/17, 8pm. Will Durst’s hit solo show looks at baby boomers grappling with life in the 21st century.

A Christmas Carol Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Wed-Sat, 7pm (no evening shows Dec 24, 26, or 28; also Wed/11, Sat/14, Dec 21, and 23, 2pm; Dec 24 and 26-28, 1pm; Dec 27 evening show at 5:30pm); Sun, 5:30pm (also Sun/15 and Dec 22, 1pm). Through Dec 28. American Conservatory Theater mounts its annual production of the Dickens classic, with James Carpenter as Scrooge and Ken Ruta as Jacob Marley’s ghost.

Cinderella Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; www.african-americanshakes.org. $12.50-50. Sat, 8pm (also Dec 21, 3pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 22. African-American Shakespeare Company presents this fairy-tale production for the holidays.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Golden Girls: The XMAS Episodes Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th, SF; www.trannyshack.com. $30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 22. Plastic Christmas tree, 80s TV jingles, men in muumuus — it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Two new (old) episodes from the classic television sitcom enliven this year’s staging of the seasonal favorite, starring drag luminaries Heklina, as Dorothy; Cookie Dough, as Sophia; Matthew Martin (who also directs), as Blanche; and Pollo Del Mar, as Rose. Decked to the halls in frighteningly festive outfits courtesy of costumers Landa Lakes and Van Hedwall, the ladies bring out the geriatric within, while proving over and over again that nobody ever really grows up anyway. Laurie Bushman, Manuel Caneri, Peter Griggs, and Jordan Wheeler round out the cast, along with a rotating roster of special guests (including opening night’s appearance by Donna Sashet). Yule laugh, Yule cry, mostly Yule laugh. (Avila)

The Jewelry Box: A Genuine Christmas Story The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-40. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Dec 28. Brian Copeland performs the world premiere of his new, holiday-themed work, an Oakland-set autobiographical tale that’s a prequel to his popular Not a Genuine Black Man.

My Beautiful Launderette New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. In this stage adaptation of the 1985 Hanif Kureishi-Stephen Frears film, SF newcomer Javi Harnly takes on the role of Omar, a British-Pakistani youth with an eye for business opportunity, while Robert Rushin portrays his former schoolmate and eventual lover Johnny, a working-class tough and erstwhile fascist whose navigation of Thatcher-era London is fraught with poverty and violence. While the play sticks to much of the original’s plot, the cast is reduced to a chamber septet, with the perhaps unintended consequence of creating an extra layer of isolation for Johnny, whose former “mates” remain offstage, leaving him to be defined almost solely by his relationships to Omar and Omar’s family. Director Andrew Nance’s pacing errs on the side of sedate, subduing the more passionate responses of many of the supporting characters: Omar’s restless cousin Tania (Radhika Rao); his widowed, alcoholic father (Ravi Bhatnagar); his mercurial entrepreneur uncle Nasser (Keith Stevenson); and Nasser’s kittenish mistress (Cat Luedtke). Only Daniel Redmond as the unrepentantly shady Salim gets to fully embody his character’s extremist views and actions, while the sweetly awkward chemistry between the two protagonists does produce a nice bit of heat, their refreshingly matter-of-fact relationship encompassing a full spectrum of emotion and circumstance. (Gluckstern)

The Oy of Sex Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Jan 18. Comedian Alicia Dattner performs her solo show, based on her stories from her own life and love addiction.

Peter/Wendy Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $15-33. Thu/12-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 7pm. J.M. Barrie’s familiar and much-revisited children’s story, about a boy who refuses to grow up, has always had its darker aspects, including the violent streak in its hero, forever-child Peter (Sam Bertken). Unfortunately, any underlying social or psychological complexity in the story — originally published in 1902 in The Little White Bird — is of no consequence in adapter-director Jeremy Bloom’s relentlessly cheerful and quickly monotonous retelling. The production, which narrates and acts out the story in somewhat condensed form, says it’s designed for adults of all ages and children over 12, but it seems pitched to an audience much younger still. Custom Made Theater’s lackluster staging does little to make the time go faster. There’s a mischievous energy in Bertken’s Peter and a bright intelligence in Anya Kazimierski’s Tinker Bell that together produce the play’s only emotional heat, but it’s fleeting. As Wendy, Elissa Beth Stebbins is generally solid but too mild to elicit much sympathy for her unrequited affections for Peter. Clad exclusively in striped jammies, the uneven ensemble (which also includes Terry Bamberger, Jessica Rudholm, Kim Saunders, and Jeunee Simon in multiple roles) rarely encourages focus on the finer points of character and plot, which anyway come with a soporific dose of trifling detail amid generally awkward physical choreography. Indeed, any “happy thoughts” one walks in with would risk vanishing entirely, were it not that the cast harvests them immediately and writes them down for future reference on the stage floor. (Avila)

Snoopy!!! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Wed/11-Thu/12, 7pm; Fri/13, 8pm; Sat/14, 6pm; Sun/15, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon performs the sequel to You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Storefront Church San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St, Second Flr, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm (no shows Dec 24-25 or Jan 1); Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); Sun, 2pm (also Dec 22, 7pm). Through Jan 11. A modern-day Scrooge finds redemption in San Francisco Playhouse’s production of John Patrick Shanley’s uplifting comedy.

The Vixens of Broadway Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. $50-80. Thu/12-Fri/13, 8pm; Sat/14-Sun/15, 7pm. A recipe for beating the cold outside: A few Sazeracs and this intimate cabaret-style show featuring Broadway star Betty Buckley, interpreting iconic and unusual songs from Broadway’s “other women” — characters who inhabit the darker, naughtier, or at least more complex side of musical-theater femininity in germinal gems like Kander and Ebb’s “When You’re Good to Mama” (from Chicago) or Cole Porter’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” (from Leave It To Me!). Arranged by pianist and accompanist Christian Jacob (heading up a smooth jazz trio), the set includes amusing parodies, and comes sprinkled with stories that include its star’s own Fort Worth, Texas roots and earliest showbiz memories. Delivered with personality as well as consummate skill by Buckley (whose remarkable career includes at least 15 records as well as legendary roles in shows like Cats or TV’s Eight Is Enough), The Vixens of Broadway is a warm, playful, lightly mischievous class act. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat/14, 8:30pm; Sun/15, 7pm. Don Reed’s new show offers more stories from his colorful upbringing in East Oakland in the 1960s and ’70s. More hilarious and heartfelt depictions of his exceptional parents, independent siblings, and his mostly African American but ethnically mixed working-class community — punctuated with period pop, Motown, and funk classics, to which Reed shimmies and spins with effortless grace. And of course there’s more too of the expert physical comedy and charm that made long-running hits of Reed’s last two solo shows, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel (both launched, like this newest, at the Marsh). Can You Dig It? reaches, for the most part, into the “early” early years, Reed’s grammar-school days, before the events depicted in East 14th or Kipling Hotel came to pass. But in nearly two hours of material, not all of it of equal value or impact, there’s inevitably some overlap and indeed some recycling. Reed, who also directs the show, may start whittling it down as the run continues. But, as is, there are at least 20 unnecessary minutes diluting the overall impact of the piece, which is thin on plot already — much more a series of often very enjoyable vignettes and some painful but largely unexplored observations, wrapped up at the end in a sentimental moral that, while sincere, feels rushed and inadequate. (Avila)

Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Previews Wed/11-Thu/12, 7pm. Opens Fri/13, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 11. Shotgun Players performs Anthony Neilson’s comic romp set in “a sensual Edwardian world of top hats, fantastical puppets, and flash powder.”

Harvey Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $10-22. Thu/12, 7:30pm; Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 2pm. Ross Valley Players perform the Pulitzer-winning play by Mary Chase.

Little Women Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-79. Tue-Wed and Dec 30, 7:30pm (no shows Dec 24-25; Dec 31, show at 2pm only; no show Jan 1); Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and Dec 26 and Jan 4, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Jan 4. TheatreWorks performs the musical adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott tale.

Mame Hillbarn Theatre, 1285 East Hillsdale, Foster City; www.hillbarntheatre.org. $19-40. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/14 and Dec 21, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. Hillbarn Theatre performs Jerry Herman’s classic musical.

The Pianist of Willesden Lane Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no shows Dec 24 or 31); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; matinees only Sun/15, Dec 22, and Jan 5; no show Dec 25). Extended through Jan 5. Mona Golabek stars in this solo performance inspired by her mother, a Jewish pianist whose dreams and life were threatened by the Nazi regime.

Troilus and Cressida La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-25. Thu/12-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 7pm. One of Shakespeare’s more difficult and under-produced plays, Troilus and Cressida does wax in popularity during protracted times of war, so it’s about the right time for Impact Theatre to tackle it. Set during the seventh year of the Trojan War, the players are all either soldiers or spoils of war, and both morale and morals are at a low ebb. So-called heroes hide in their tents, the fair Helen (Julie Kuwabara) is a callow bawd, and everyone just wants the war to be over. Troilus (Eric Kerr), a Trojan, and Cressida (Sarah Coykendall), a Greek, meet-cute thanks to the machinations of the flamboyant Pandarus (Shawn J. West), only to be quickly separated by circumstances beyond their control, and thrust abruptly to the sidelines of their own tragedy, their eventual betrayal of each other lost within the greater treacheries of the battlefield. It’s a problematic script, not least of all because the only truly moral character is the very innocent, very mad Cassandra (Akemi Okamura), whose prophecies are written off as mere ravings, subtly mirrored by the nihilistic fool, Thersites (Miyaka Cochrane), who delivers his frontline ravings as prophecies. Director Melissa Hillman makes some bold choices, however, including casting Lauren Spencer as the level-headed Ulysses, and father-son team Jon Nagel and Jonah McClellan as Aeneas and Antenor, turning the walk-on role of a pawn into a tragic symbol of war’s all too-human cost. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Attractive Camp” Lost Weekend Video, 1034 Valencia, SF; lostweekendcinecave.eventbrite.com. Sun/15, 7pm. $10. Featuring work by stand-up comedians, sketch writers, and short filmmakers.

“Aura Fischbeck Dance presents: Two Evenings of Deborah Hay Solo Adaptations” NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/13-Sat/14, 7pm. $15. Choreography by Deborah Hay, presented as part of the Solo Performance Commissioning Project.

“Broadway Bingo” Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. Wed, 7-9pm. Ongoing. Free. Countess Katya Smirnoff-Skyy and Joe Wicht host this Broadway-flavored night of games and performance.

“Christmas in San Francisco” Pa’ina Lounge and Restaurant, 1865 Post, SF; www.christmasinSF.com. Fri/13-Sat/14, 7:30pm. $25-45. Singer Russ Lorenson performs jazz standards with guests Wesla Whitfield, Mike Greensill, and Veronica Klaus.

“Cirque Dreams Holidaze” Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. Wed/11-Sat/14, 7pm (also Fri/13-Sat/14, 1pm); Sun/15, 1 and 6:30pm. $45-160. Energetic, acrobatic fantasy set in a winter wonderland.

“Color Dance” a.Muse Art Gallery, 614 Alabama, SF; facebook.com/ranghouseproductions. Sat/14-Sun/15, 8pm. $12 suggested donation. Non-profit dance theater company Rang House Productions presents its debut performance.

“Comedy Bottle with Eddie Brill” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. Fri/13-Sat/14, 7pm. $10 plus one-drink minimum. Stand-up with headliner Brill and opener Red Scott.

“Cozzie Maurice” Mariposa Studio, 2808 Mariposa, SF; www.mariposastudio.org. Wed/11-Sat/14, 7pm; Sun/15, 3pm. Donations accepted. Music, poetry, and stories of “the weird West.”

“Dance-Along Nutcracker: Nutcrackers of the Caribbean!” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.dancealongnutcracker.org. Sat/14, 2 (preview) and 7pm (gala); Sun/15, 11am and 3pm. $10-50. The beloved Bay Area tradition, with music performed by the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, returns, with shows aimed at both kids and grown-ups (this year: the nautical theme includes a piratical “Captain’s Ball Gala”).

“Dolores: The Temporary Life of a 220-Year-Old Bionic Woman” Stage Werx Theater, 446 Valencia, SF; www.stagewerx.org. Wed/11, 7:30pm. $15-20. On a bare floor, physical theater maker Carolina Duncan, as her Colombian grandmother, pops opens her cranium like a steamer trunk and retrieves the scrapbook of a boundless life. Here memory and imagination exist in equal measures, as Duncan traces key moments and fleeting images from an arc of days defined by family, romance, and at least one titanic battle between an Amazonian dinosaur and a new secret-agent boyfriend. Combining mime, scattered dialogue, physical comedy, and a live soundscape, this loving and whimsical homage comes gracefully delivered and almost always vividly expressed. All the while, Duncan (a graduate of SF’s Clown Conservatory and James Donlon and Leonard Pitt’s Flying Actor Studio) exudes an infectious enthusiasm for her subject, who proves as alive in a passing but concrete image of first childhood steps as she does in her final outing, a prolonged spacewalk into the familiar and unknown. Note: review from an earlier run of this show. (Avila)

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/11, 9:30-11:30pm. Free. With Collette LeGrande, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, and more.

“Fiesta Navidena” Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/15, Dec 21-22, and 27-28, 6:15pm. $15-21. Carolina Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco performs a holiday show.

“G. Scott Lacy’s Holiday Cabaret” Society Cabaret at Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.societycabaret.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. $20-40. A seasonal blend of music and song.

“Global Dance Passport Showcase” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm (also Sat/14, 5:30pm). $10. World dance sampler, with styles from across the globe.

“House of Matter” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.embodimentproject.org. Fri/13-Sun/15, 8pm. $18-38. Embodiment Project performs its latest multi-media street dance drama, with live music by Valerie Troutt and MoonCandy.

“Hysterical Historical San Francisco, Holiday Edition” Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 29. $30-40. Comic Kurt Weitzman performs.

“Killing My Lobster Winter Follies” Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. Thu/12-Sat/15, 8pm (also Sat/15, 10pm). $20. Sketch comedy for the season.

“Making Spirits Bright” St. Matthew’s Lutheran, 3281 16th St, SF; www.ggmc.org. Thu/12-Fri/13 and Tue/17, 8pm; Sun/15, 3pm. $25-35. The Golden Gate Men’s Chorus performs its annual holiday program.

“Mark Foehringer’s Nutcracker Sweets” Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/14-Sun/15, Dec 20-24, 11am and 2pm (also Sat/14-Sun/15 and Dec 21-22, 4pm). $18-28. Contemporary ballet company Mark Foehringer Dance Project SF performs its fifth annual production of this Nutcracker-inspired work aimed at families with young children.

“Max and Nicky” Merchants of Reality, 285 Ninth St, SF; maxandnicky.wordpress.com. Sat/14, 8pm. $10. “Music and comedy variety hour spectacular” from twins Max and Nicky Weinbach.

“Mine” Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; www.rawdance.org. Wed/11-Sun/15, 8pm. $21-25. RAWdance performs a world premiere by company founders Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein.

“Mortified” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.getmortified.com. Fri/13, 7:30pm. $21. Also Sat/14, 7:30pm, $20, Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl. First-person storytelling, of the extremely cringe-inducing variety. This month’s show has a “Best of 2013” theme.

“Nicole Kidman is Fucking Gorgeous” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu/12-Sun/15, 8pm. $20. Mica Sigourney, John Foster Cartwright, and Maryam Rostami perform.

“NSA Comedy Tour” Internet Archives, 300 Funston, SF; blog.archive.org. Wed/11, 6pm. $10-250. A night of comedy and ethics and technology discussion with comedian Will Durst and “a lively panel of nerds.” Benefits a variety of organizations including CodePink, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and EthicsInTech.

“Okeanos Intimate” Aquarium of the Bay, Pier 39, SF; www.capacitor.org. Sat, 8pm. $20-30 (free aquarium ticket with show ticket). Extended through Dec 28. Choreographer Jodi Lomask and her company, Capacitor, revive 2012’s Okeanos — a cirque-dance piece exploring the wonder and fragility of our innate connection to the world’s oceans — in a special “intimate” version designed for the mid-size theater at Pier 39’s Aquarium of the Bay. The show, developed in collaboration with scientists and engineers, comes preceded by a short talk by a guest expert — for a recent Saturday performance it was a down-to-earth and truly fascinating local ecological history lesson by the Bay Institute’s Marc Holmes. In addition to its Cirque du Soleil-like blend of quasi-representational modern dance and circus acrobatics — powered by a synth-heavy blend of atmospheric pop music — Okeanos makes use of some stunning underwater photography and an intermittent narrative that includes testimonials from the likes of marine biologist and filmmaker Dr. Tierney Thys. The performers, including contortionists, also interact with some original physical properties hanging from the flies — a swirling vortex and a spherical shell — as they wrap and warp their bodies in a kind of metamorphic homage to the capacity and resiliency of evolution, the varied ingenuity of all life forms. If the movement vocabulary can seem limited at times, and too derivative, the show also feels a little cramped on the Aquarium Theater stage, whose proscenium arrangement does the piece few favors aesthetically. Nevertheless, the family-oriented Okeanos Intimate spurs a conversation with the ocean that is nothing if not urgent. (Avila)

“One-Minute Play Festival” Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.playwrightsfoundation.org. Sat/14-Sun/15, 8pm (also Sun/15, 3pm). $25. The Playwrights Foundation presents this fourth annual fest of 70 one-minute plays.

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Jan 3, Feb 7, March 7, and April 4, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Dude, Point Break Live! is like dropping into a monster wave, or holding up a bank, like, just a pure adrenaline rush, man. Ahem. Sorry, but I really can’t help but channel Keanu Reeves and his Johnny Utah character when thinking about the awesomely bad 1991 movie Point Break or its equally yummily cheesy stage adaptation. And if you do an even better Keanu impression than me — the trick is in the vacant stare and stoner drawl — then you can play his starring role amid a cast of solid actors, reading from cue cards from a hilarious production assistant in order to more closely approximate Keanu’s acting ability. This play is just so much fun, even better now at DNA Lounge than it was a couple years ago at CELLspace. But definitely buy the poncho pack and wear it, because the blood, spit, and surf spray really do make this a fully immersive experience. (Steven T. Jones)

“Queen of Knives” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.sharpandfine.com. Thu/12-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 2pm. $30. Sharp & Fine performs an evening-length dance adaptation of a Neil Gaiman poem.

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

“Sing You A Merry Christmas” Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF; www.gracecathedral.org. Sat/14 and Dec 21, 11am. $5-25. A sing-along for younger children and their families

“The Velveteen Rabbit” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.odcdance.org. Thu/12-Fri/13, 11am; Sat/14, 1 and 4pm; Sun/15, 2pm. $20-75. ODC/Dance performs its popular holiday show, directed with fresh perspective this year by ODC founder Brenda Way.

“A Very Merry Murder Mystery” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 21. $20. BATS Improv performs a holiday-themed murder tale.

BAY AREA

“A Chanticleer Christmas” Cathedral of Christ the Light, 2121 Harrison, Oakl; www.chanticleer.org. Fri/13, 8pm. $30-65. The Grammy-winning vocal ensemble performs profound and joyous seasonal tunes. Visit the group’s website for additional concerts in Berkeley, SF, and other NorCal locations through Dec 23.

“Following the Wrong God Home” Osher Studio in the Arts Passage of Berkeley Central, 2055 Center, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/16, 8pm. $15-25. Company 212 presents a physical theater piece choreographed and directed by MaryBeth Cavanaugh that imagines six Shakespeare characters on alternate journeys beyond the plays they appear in.

“Home, Holidays and Harmony” First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St, Oakl; www.uuoakland.org. Sat/14, 7-9pm. $5-25. Songs from various holiday traditions with the Crescendo Choir, Joyful Noise, and other groups and soloists.

“Hungry for Yiddish: A Mitzvah Project” Subterranean Arthouse, 2179 Bancroft, Berk; www.subterraneanarthouse.org. Thu/12, 8pm. $10-20 donation. With Heather Klein’s Inextinguishable Trio, performing lost works of the Yiddish art song repertoire, and other Jewish music acts.

“Let Us Break Bread Together: A Holiday Celebration” Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakl; www.oebs.org. Sun/15, 4pm. $15-50. Unconventional holiday concert with new gospel works commissioned by OEBS and the James Irvine Foundation and performances by the Oakland Symphony Chorus, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, klezmer band Kugelplex, Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, and others.

“The Marsh’s Third Annual Holiday Bash” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Sat/14, 7pm. $20-100. Holiday tales recounted by notable local solo performers: Marga Gomez, Don Reed, Josh Kornbluth, and more.

“Shirly’s Variety Show Extraordinaire” Studio Quercus, 385 26th St, Oakl; www.studioquercus.com. Sat/14, 8pm. $12. Entertainment for audiences 18 and up with clown antics and Tin Pan Alley songs.

“A Swell Noël” Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. Dec 17-21, 7:30pm; Dec 22, 5pm. $25-32. Cabaret star Craig Jessup performs songs by Noël Coward, Jacques Brel, Stephen Sondheim, and other composers.

“The World of Webber: A Cabaret Tribute to the Songs of Andrew Lloyd Webber” Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; (925) 943-SHOW. Sun/15, 2:30pm. $25-30. Musical theater stars perform songs from Cats, Evita, Phantom of the Opera and other shows, performed to benefit the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano.

“XXmas: The Christmas Ballet, 2013 Edition” Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.smuinballet.org. Wed/11-Sat/14, 8pm (also Sat/14, 2pm); Sun/15, 2pm, $49-65. Also Dec 18-28, $24-64, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF. Smuin Ballet’s annual holiday show boasts festive ballet, tap, and swing-dance numbers. *

Rattlin’ bones and sugar plums

Michael Redmond

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December 10, 2013

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arts@sfbg.com

TOFU AND WHISKEY The tuba comes quickly, bubbling over excitedly at the start of the wildly entertaining “That’s It!” — the title track off the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s first record of all original compositions. The vivacious New Orleans jazz album, released earlier this year, was a long time coming. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band has been a staple of Louisiana for 50 years, and in its different variations has released more than 20 previous albums of covers, tributes, and reworked classics.

And there’s a reason the tuba stands out: It’s tooted by creative director Ben Jaffe, whose father and mother, Allan and Sandra Jaffe, created the revolutionary Preservation Hall jazz venue in the French Quarter in 1961. Allan organized the first incarnation of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in 1963 and was the group’s first tuba player. Ben and his brother grew up around the corner from the venue and spent most of their time there, hanging out at the venue with the greats. “We literally grew up at the Preservation Hall at the feet of these pioneers of New Orleans jazz,” Ben tells me from his current home (he still lives just minutes from the hall). He seems still in awe of it all, genuinely impressed and appreciative of his past with the venue.

He took over the group and the venue in the early ’90s after graduating from college (Allan passed away in ’87). Along with managing the day-to-day operations of the hectic venue, he also plays tuba along with bass, and produces the band’s albums. This newest release was co-produced by Jim James from My Morning Jacket. The core group of eight musicians recorded That’s It! last year, blasting out Dixieland and New Orleans jazz tracks like spooky “Rattlin’ Bones” and slowing down for twinkly songs like “Sugar Plum” on percussion, banjo, piano, trumpets, tenor sax, clarinet, tubas, and the like. “All combined, out of eight guys, we probably play something like 300 instruments.”

The band will play select tracks off its original record this weekend at the Davies Symphony Hall, but there’ll be another tradition taking over most of that performance: peppy, jazzy holiday selections. The band’s on-and-off again (but mostly annual) Creole Christmas touring show lands in SF Sun/15 (Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF. www.sfsymphony.org).

The selections will include songs culled from the band’s storied past repertoire, holiday classics, and ditties that have a special meaning to the outsized group. The band’s “spry, charming” 81-year-old clarinet player, Charlie Gabriel, suggested one of the songs, “We Wish You,” which he heard in church as a young boy. The rest of the song list is under wraps for now, but don’t expect a gaudy Xmas spectacular.

“We’re not bringing the Rockettes, and we don’t have a light show. It’s really going to be an intimate evening of music,” says Jaffe.

But he knows the drill for upping the holiday charm, having performed a variation of Creole Christmas for the better part of a decade. Plus, he’s crazy for the holiday season — he loves to decorate and celebrates both Christmas and Chanukah.

“These Creole Christmas shows started at Preservation Hall and that’s when we decided it was something we should take on the road,” says Jaffe. “New Orleans music is a reflection of our community, and we have such a wonderful community of musicians and artists in New Orleans. Every time we play a concert, it feels like a family gathering.” And when they’re home from the road — they tour most of the year — the members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band play the venue that bears their name two to three times as week.

They’ve long been the buzzing heart of venue, and the holidays are just another reason to celebrate with wailing horns.

When the boys were younger, Allan used to bring Ben and his brother around to different churches, senior homes, banks, and restaurants to perform live holiday songs, instead of sending out gift cards. “I still do it,” says Jaffe. “I wake up early on Christmas morning and go out with my horn and walk around the French Quarter to really remind me of my childhood.”

He adds, “Any reason to have a party in New Orleans, you know? If the wind blows we’re going to have a parade.”

COCKTAILS AND HAPPY DIVING

San Francisco’s Happy Diving has that mid-’90s Weezer thing going for it, certainly, but there’s a fuzzier, punkier edge than anything off Pinkterton, like a lazier Rivers Cuomo on a slacker punk bender. The band plays this weekend with fellow Bay Area pack Cocktails, which features members of Dirty Cupcakes. It describes its sound as “slop-punk” but sounds closer to power pop on tracks like “No Blondes (in California)” off this year’s Father/Daughter Records-released debut EP, which Matthew Melton of Warm Soda recorded. Also cool to note: The opener for this grand occasion is Blood Sister’s first show. Thu/12, 8pm, $5. Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. www.theknockoutsf.com.

THE WEIRDOS

Early LA punks the Weirdos (first active in that gritty hotspot ’76-’81) matched swagger to wit, chugging along thundering guitars and those gravelly, growly, depths-of-hell vocals and song titles like “We Got the Neutron Bomb.” They played with all the bands you might expect, given the time and place: Germs, Dead Boys, Middle Class. And more so, the legacy of the band and its ilk clearly influenced later SoCal bratty punks and snarling weirdos alike. And now, after a few revivals an oh-so-many decades later, that band of Weirdos is back again, arriving at Thee Parkside with VKTMS and the Re-Volts. Sat/14, 9pm, $18. Thee Parkside, 333 11th St, SF. www.theeparkside.com.

SARAH JAFFE

No relation to those Preservation Hall Jaffes we met earlier in Tofu and Whiskey (that I know of), Sarah Jaffe is indeed her own lady. Yet the Texas-bred singer-songwriter, who’s collaborated with Eminem, has the delicate whisper of Cat Power and the wild-woman howls of Fiona Apple. That’s just a longwinded way of saying her vocals are lovely and textured and worthy of live listening. She’ll make you feel something deep on songs like “Satire,” off 2012 release, The Body Wins. With Midlake. Mon/16, 7:30pm, $14. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St, SF. www.bottomofthehill.com.

PERE UBU

Experimental Cleveland post-everything art rock group Pere Ubu only has one original member. That person, warbly singer David Thomas, gives the band its backbone of avant-garde oddness. Thomas’ vocals and the band’s echoing, effects-heavy guitars make Pere Ubu sound at once like it’s hovering in outer space and being shot down into the deep, dark, muddled waters of unexplored oceans. It’s always a trip, either way. Tue/17, 8pm, $16. Slim’s, 333 11th St, SF. www.slimspresents.com *

Don’t shoot!

Michael Redmond

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December 10, 2013

0

joe@sfbg.com

YEAR IN GAMER This list is for all the gamers sick of blasting your last alien, zombie, or oppositional soldier of the moment (Nazis, Soviets, snore). That’s it. Done! As indie games grow in popularity, games that eschew the “shoot everything” mentality are becoming easier to find. Get your joystick thumbs ready and enjoy this list of 2013’s “top games where you don’t shoot things.”

PLANT CAT: FIRST BLOSSOM

There are treasures to be found, and Quince the Plant Cat will snag them all with his ability to create ridiculously long vines that curve and bend off cliffs and walls. It’s a game as cute as Kirby’s Dream Land, with a heavy Game Boy esthetic, a nod to the annual Game Boy Jam coding contest the game was made for. A side scrolling adventure à la Mario, the game (and soundtrack) is pure retro goodness. Though mouse and insect enemies abound, Plant Cat deals with them by feeding them vines, leading one to wonder if maybe all the evil Goombas in Mario are just hungry. flashygoodness.com/games/plant-cat

NIHILUMBRA

You are Born, a scrap of darkness that separated from “the Void” and formed sentience. Now the Void wants you back. Nihilumbra is a deeply atmospheric, side-scrolling puzzle game; playing as Born you discover different colors, which you magically paint around levels in order to escape the Void’s teeming, mysterious black mass. Colors help you escape the traps of the world: Blue is ice, speeding your runs; brown sticks enemies (and puzzle objects) in their places; red burns things away; and green turns surfaces into trampolines.

Throughout your travels, the Void questions your right to live, and solving the mystery of your existence is half the fun. Nihilumbra is a heady game that first debuted on iOS and Android last year, but only recently was released on the computer — with vocal performances and HD graphics. Now available on Steam and as a web browser demo online, Nihilumbra will have you hooked. www.nihilumbra.com

DUMB WAYS TO DIE

Quick! Clean the puke! Bat the piranhas away from the guy dancing underwater! Dumb Ways to Die is a hyperactive mobile game tasking the player with protecting cute jellybean creatures from eminent death in new ways every 10 seconds or so. Failure to save the adorable smiling beans leads to all manner of hilarious deaths: bears chomping half their bodies off, trains flattening them into bean paste, pythons biting them in the eyeball, etc. It surprised the bejesus out of me to find out this was a Public Service Announcement game made by Melbourne, Australia’s Metro Trains network. The lesson? Rail safety. Why can’t more municipalities create games revolving around cute bean people? San Francisco, get on it! www.dumbwaystodie.com

WAKING MARS

Waking Mars is one of those games that makes you want to explore its every nook and cranny. The year is 2097, and playing as Dr. Liang, an astronaut and research scientist, you land on Mars and discover a cave under ancient ruins. That’s when you meet Martian life for the first time, only the aliens aren’t monsters — they’re plants. The game quickly becomes part exploration, part horticulture simulator. Armed only with a jetpack and his science skills, Dr. Liang must experiment with and breed the “Zoa” to help solve the mystery of how the red planet turned to dust. Waking Mars is the very opposite of shooter games, as growing ecosystems and creating life are the axis of gameplay (instead of, ya know, killin’ stuff). Technically speaking, this game squeaked onto Steam in December 2012, but it’s still notable enough to include here. tigerstylegames.com/wakingmars *

Fieldwork

Michael Redmond

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December 10, 2013

4

marke@sfbg.com

After two more hours of hiking, we stop in a dry creek. One of the younger men enlists help pulling large cactus spines from one of his legs. We sit in a circle sharing food. The tastes link us to loved ones and Oaxaca…

After we have hiked again through blisters for many miles and I have shared all my ibuprofren with the others, we stop to rest. We fall asleep, using torn-open plastic trash bags as blankets. Our coyote leaves to talk to his contact on a nearby Native American reservation about giving us a ride past the second boarder checkpoint to Phoenix….

Suddenly, our guide runs back, speaking quickly in Triqui. Two Border Patrol agents — one black and one white — appear running through the trees, jump down in our creek bed, and point guns at us.

— Seth M. Holmes, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies

According to the US Public Health Service, there are, on average, an estimated 3.5 million migrant farmworkers in the United States, the majority of whom are undocumented immigrants. At harvest season, most of them perform the backbreaking work of picking our fruits and vegetables for an average $12,500 annually; at other times, they share slum-like apartments or live out of cars looking for odd jobs — 68 percent of them wondering if they should return home to Mexico and risk another border crossing to the US when picking time rolls around again. Only 5 percent of migrant workers have health insurance, and what happens to the rest if they get injured or fall ill doing the work the rest of us won’t is an eye-opening American tragedy.

To many Americans, this cheap, legally and socially vulnerable population is a faceless brown mass in the fields somewhere, maybe receiving a noble thought at Cesar Chavez Day or inducing the occasional twinge of guilt in the produce aisle, if thought of at all. But a provocative, important new book by UC Berkeley Assistant Professor of Public Health and Medical Anthropology Seth M. Holmes, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States (University of California Press), which is picking up awards and has been featured on mainstream news outlets, is helping to re-personalize migrant farmworkers and move their health care situation into the media spotlight.

As the US finally addresses the facts that it spends the most money on health care for the worst outcomes, that a huge chunk of its population has no health care at all (and is severely underpaid for its work), and that we’re dependent on undocumented immigrants to harvest our produce and keep food costs down, we’re only just starting to realize the irony in giving the people who devastate their bodies to provide our healthiest foods perhaps the lousiest health care deal of all.

COMPLEX VOICES

Part heart-pounding adventure tale, part deep ethnograhic study, part urgent plea for reform, Fresh Fruit starts off with Holmes embedded in an ill-fated group of border-crossers from the mountains of Oaxaca: he gets arrested, they get deported after a harrowing stay in a detention center. Holmes then writes about his 18 months spent picking fruit alongside hundreds of others at a large family-owned farm in Skagit Valley, Wash., living in a closet with a dozen farmworkers in a rundown apartment while they look for work on the off-season, returning to Mexico to spend time with workers and their families, and shadowing the medical professionals in the publicly and privately funded clinics that serve migrant populations. Throughout, Holmes saw people “give premature birth, develop injured knees and backs, suffer from extreme stress, experience symptoms of pesticide poisoning, and even have farm trucks run over and crush their legs,” as he told Farmworker Justice magazine.

Holmes, a medical doctor as well as a doctor of anthropology — the book resulted from his thesis work — brings an enlightening complexity to the issue of migrant workers. (Including the label “migrant worker” itself, which, he notes piercingly at the end of the book, has been ossified with classist and racial overtones. If this group of people were flying over every summer from Europe or Hong Kong to secure investments on Wall Street, they would be called “international businesspeople.”)

He’s especially concerned not just with the grueling minutae of trying to receive treatment for the aches and pains that come with stooping to pick strawberries 12 hours a day, struggling to meet ambitious quotas in order to get paid very little, but also the larger, physically devastating effects of the structural violence visited upon a whole population by neoliberal economic policies that continue to widen the global income gap and entrench the wealthy in power. His “participant observation” method of studying migrant farmworkers means he writes about his own experiences in the field, and he brings his sophisticated anthropological knowledge to bear on the way contemporary society ensures that migrant farmworkers stay on the bottom rung of the economic ladder, building on the work of Pierre Bordieu, Philippe Bourgois, and others who’ve studied power relationships and structural violence in terms of workers’ health.

But, although there are scholarly footnotes and personal interjections, Holmes avoids an icky “anthropological tourism” vibe by providing the workers themselves with room to tell their histories, talk about their bodies, and react to the way they’re treated. People like Abelino, who falls victim to a series of misunderstandings over his severely injured knee, or Crescencio, who suffers acute headaches whenever he’s called racist names or ordered around degradingly, but is labeled a potential domestic abuser by one caregiver and resorts to drinking up to 24 beers per night to soothe his pain. We also hear from Marcelina, who talks to a Skagit Valley community gathering about low wages and high quotas.

And Holmes lets the owners and operators on all levels of Skagit’s Tanaka Brothers Farm — a pseudonym to protect his sources — speak as well, about the need for cheap labor in an increasingly competitive global agribusiness environment, among other concerns. (One especially interesting tidbit: organic distributors pressured Tanaka Brothers Farms to sign a machine-pick contract, which relegates farmworkers to the pesticide-ridden fields, despite the growing market for organic produce.) The Japanese-descended Tanaka family is deeply embedded in the Skagit Valley community, with roots stretching back before the Japanese internment period. The farm has seen different waves of migrant workers from poor white to Asian to Mexican. The Valley community itself has a fascinating relationship with the migrant community, emerging from it while reacting to it, developing its own social hierarchy as each generation “graduates” from farmworker to resident.

ANOTHER GENERATION

A lot has changed from Chavez’s day. For one thing, the previous generation of field workers, mostly from Guadalajara and northern Mexico or from Central America, has gained a toehold on American society — like the Asian workers that preceded them, many Hispanic workers’ children, placed in American schools, have grown up, providing their parents with a path to citizenship or work visas that allow them access to better jobs.

Today, a lot of workers are not mestizo Mexican, but of indigenous Mixtec descent, from increasingly violent mountain villages of Oaxaca in southern Mexico like San Miguel and San Pedro. Bloody land disputes, ethnic tension, the collapse of the local agriculture market that was exacerbated by the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s and continued through the recent global recession, and the rowdy and malevolent presence of US-funded anti-drug military forces (strange since no major drug cartels operate there) have isolated this area, forcing its men, women, and children to look for work in America.

Triqui, not Spanish, is their native language — just one of the major hurdles when it comes to delivering healthcare to this population. Another hurdle comes with the specific cultural record of Triqui and general Mexican healthcare. Many Triqui workers rely on native healers, even in American farmworker camps, whose methods of consulting cards and drawing evil spirits from bodies using oils surely provide some psychosomatic respite. But reliance on native healers — out of a combination of tradition, availability, and fear of discovery or of health institutions in general — often prevents workers with deeper problems from receiving a wider range of appropriate treatments. Self-medication through alcohol is common (Holmes observed no drug use), and in one case a man named Bernardo took to the habit mashing his abdomen with soda bottles to ease a chronic stomache ache.

The migratory nature of these workers — and their shifting relationship to the law — all but insures disruptions in preventative and prescriptive care, lack of access to medications, frustratingly spotty medical records, and the inability to form a valuable personal bond with a trusted physician. But the major hurdle is that the system put in place by the government to serve migrant populations hasn’t been revisited since 1962, when a wave of media concern spotlighted the plight of migrant workers — most of whom, at that time, were white Oakies descended from the great Dustbowl diaspora of the ’30s and ’40s. The system has been only slightly adapted and enlarged since then, with dozens of clinics and organizations competing for limited grants, and nonprofits charging as little as they can (often still a steep fee on a farmworkers’ wage).

The picture Holmes paints of the clinics he visits and the doctors, nurses, and caseworkers he encounters is a mostly warm one — most health workers are hard-working and well-intentioned, stymied by cultural and linguistic differences, lack of funds and proper medical records, and racist attitudes from the surrounding communities. Some are prone to misinterpretation, and there are a couple outbursts of frustration that borders on stereotyping.

Still, most migrant worker health care providers are dedicated to their patients’ welfare. As one doctor, a mountaineer who serves the Tanaka Brothers Farm workers, put it: “It’s a very difficult problem. We have a bad situation where citizens cannot really afford health care. And the migrant workers, I truly believe they should have at least the same access as the others. I mean, this work that they are doing is something that nobody else is willing to do. That’s the truth. That’s probably the only reason why we are able to go to the supermarket and buy fruit for a fair price. So this is a group of people that really deserves our attention.”

That group will most likely be left out of the Affordable Care Act’s initial implementation, with possible implications for other, growing fields of migrant work, like software coding or childcare. Holmes’ book will hopefully inspire other investigations into this critical area of the nation’s health care gap — and concerted action to bridge it.

Morphenomenal ‘Struggled Reagans’ will possibly give universe an STD

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 9, 2013

2

We’ve been fans of Gregg Golding, aka hyperreal rapper Odynophagia, for years. We’ve also been waiting for his epic movie Struggled Reagans to be released for years. And now it’s gonna be! “Taking inspiration from Power Rangers, decaying tokusatsu, & nightmares of ’90s children,” the film will debut at New People, Wed/11, 9pm as part of the Another Hole in the Head fest.

Golding told us:

“Ok: This film is off brand dollar store knockoff action figures from Asia, and the nightmares that followed. There is a tumor in the collective unconscious. In our myth of deluded comfort, we call upon the Reagans to pierce a laser beam through the core of Samsara. It’s a movement. #struggledreagans #VaginalCucumberReagan #TeamAntoine #StruggledReagansClitTattoo

Don’t just see the movie, live it. The chemical burns of your past fears are a mutagen; igniting the sacred trauma tumor. It’s morphin’ time! Bask as a cosplay spandex mmmmmm (The sound when spandex thighs rub. Helmet visor fogs, dodging a fireball.) When you come to the screening….in a giant robot. See you Wednesday. Meet the first 6 Struggled Reagans to become the next 6 billion.”

On displacement, journalism, and the Guardian’s fake Google-buser video

Sasha Cuttler

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December 9, 2013

56

On displacement, journalism, and the Guardian’s fake Google-buser video

It’s been a whirlwind morning here in the Guardian newsroom. First our coverage of the surprise Google bus blockade and protest, along with a video that appeared to show a Google bus rider shouting at protesters, went viral (congratulations to getting onto our site now, it’s been hard to keep it up). Then we discovered the guy was actually protester Max Alper, who staged this intriguing bit of street theater on the spot, unbeknowst to protest organizers who had tipped us off to their event in advance.

As the editor of the Guardian, it’s tempting to second guess how we handled this incident, but I believe that we did everything right, with full transparency at every stage in the process. For better or worse, we live in an age of Internet immediacy, and sometimes stories unfold in unexpected ways right before readers’ eyes.

We were clear in our original post that we couldn’t confirm his identity as a Google employee, noting only that he had been on the bus and got off to confront the protesters. And as we pushed to confirm who he was and authenticate the video, we were the first to learn and report that he was actually a protester. We also got and ran the first interview with him. So we maintained a proper journalistic skepticism and diligence throughout the process.

Besides, this is still a good and telling story about the current San Francisco moment. First of all, in the long and proud history of political theater in San Francisco, this is a great video. Sure, in retrospect, perhaps his comments were a little over the top, but they resonated because they seemed to represent a persistent attitude among some who want to let market forces determine who gets to live here.

“This is a city for the right people who can afford it, and if you can’t afford it, it’s time for you to leave,” Alper said, a comment that echoes posts regularly made on the Guardian website in reaction to our coverage of gentrification, eviction, and displacement issues.

As a protest tactic, I think this stunt is open to interpretation about whether it helps or hurts a housing rights movement that has caught populist fire in recent months, quickly altering this city’s political dynamics and making politicians scurry to address these issues.

But I think it does point to the need for San Franciscans to have a serious public conversation about who we are, what we value, and where we’re headed, as we’re calling for our house editorial this week. And because print deadlines are immutable compared to the online world, I’d better turn my attention back to the paper now, thanks for reading.

Joe Bulgo: The neglected hero of Pearl Harbor

Maria Poblet

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December 8, 2013

5

Joe Bulgo: The neglected hero of Pearl Harbor

By Bruce B. Brugmann

(B3 note: reprinted from last year and to be reprinted every year by me for reasons that will become apparent upon reading this story.)

This is the incredible story of the neglected hero of Pearl Harbor.

His name is Joe Bulgo and he lived across the street from our family for years on 14th Avenue in the West Portal area. I knew him as a neighbor, and our daughter and son played with his two daughters. His wife Val for decades has sold and still sells fine jewelry in a downtown department store. Daughter Linda played the star Snow White for years in Beach Blanket Babylon and now has her own show in Las Vegas. Daughter Dianne is the catering director at the St. Francis Hotel. And our families shared a wonderful domestic helper, Rose Zelalich.

But neither our family nor any of his neighbors had any idea of his Pearl Harbor heroism until his daughter Linda gave me a copy of a story on Joe in the December issue of the 1990 Readers Digest.

The story, “No Medals for Joe,” started when the reporter on the story, Mayo Simon, was asked to do a television script about the sinking of the battleship Oklahoma on December 7, 1941. Simon tracked down the phone number of a sailor who was believed to be an eyewitness to the Oklahoma disaster. When Simon called, Joe said in his Hawaiian accent, “Nobody knows this story. Not my wife, not my children. Come on up, I tell you everything. I remember everything.”

So Simon came to Joe’s house, sat on the living room couch, and got Joe’s first and only interview on the Oklahoma disaster. Joe laid out the story of how he, a 21-year-old shipyard worker, and his “chipping” gang of 20 worked for four days and nights to save 32 sailors who had been locked in their compartments amidst the pandemonium, floating bodies, trapped air, and rising water.

“Joe worked tirelessly, opening bulkhead after bulkhead, only to find himself in a maze of compartments filled with debris,” Simon wrote. “Sometimes he came upon smashed bodies of sailors in passageways, but he had to keep going. Whenever Joe paused, he could hear desperate tapping reverberating through the ship. Save me, save me, the terrified sailors were saying. Give me life…That sound would live in Joe’s marrow forever.

“Night fell, and the clatter of the chipping guns continued. Fully expecting another Japanese attack, the workers could not use lights on the hull. Instead, they relied on the grisly illumination from the burning Arizona. Toward midnight, when Joe cut into the hull, water bubbled out. He tasted it: sweet. He hit a fresh water tank…They drilled open its bottom and a shout went up: inside was a dry, white shaft. A way in!”

He kept on going and “suddenly the ship began to sway and groan. Joe’s stomach tightened in terror. If it starts to settle, I’m gone. Fighting the urge to turn back, he tried to catch his breath in the choking stench of oil and sewage. Then he heard the tapping. Faint. Steady. Joe tapped back with his chisel on the sweating metal bulkhead. Come on, he thought. Tell me where you are. Finally, answering taps.

“Joe’s chipping gun dug into the steel, the trapped air came out with a whoosh, water was rising to Joe’s waist, but he refused to be distracted. “Keep on going, he told himself. Get them out!” Finally he was able to pry open the steel and “immediately the sailors came out in a huge rush of water—kids smeared with oil, hardly able to move or breathe after being trapped for more than 20 hours. None had the strength to get up to the hatch. So Joe said, ‘Here, up on my back!’

“One by one they climbed on his broad back, and he lifted them to the hatch, where other workers pulled them to safety. By the time the last sailor got out, the water was up to Joe’s neck.” Joe scrambled up the hose line and the hatch was sealed behind him. “Joe blinked in the sunlight, filling his lungs with fresh air. The sailors, wrapped in their blankets, were already in the launch that was taking them to the hospital ship. Joe shouted and waved, but they were too far away to hear. He watched them disappear across the gray harbor.” They were gone and he didn’t know who they were and knew he would probably never see them again.”

More than 400 men died in the Oklahoma, but Joe Bulgo and his chipping crew saved 32 men. And Joe, miraculously, carried l0 of them to safety on his back as the water kept rising dangerously.

Simon reported that later that year the Navy gave citations to Joe and his crew “for heroic work with utter disregard of personal safety.” After the war, Joe married, joined the merchant marine and came to San Francisco during the Vietnam War to work on a chipping gang at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard.

His most valuable possession, his citation, was lost when his suitcase was stolen in a bus station. He wrote letters to Washington and finally got a copy of the citation with a note that he might someday get a medal. But Joe never got a medal and “it seemed the rescue was a forgotten episode about a forgotten ship.”

Simon said kept thinking to himself. “This man deserves a medal. Well, if nothing else, the film will give him and his fellow shipyard workers the recognition they merit.” But the film was never made and he put away his interview notes and script.

A year later, Simon was asked to speak at the next convention in San Jose of the U.S.S. Oklahoma Association, an organization of all who had ever served on the ship. He almost declined but then remembered that Joe had lamented the fact that he had never seen any of the men he had saved. “It was all in the dark and so quick. I wish I could have talked with them once.”

On May 16,1987, Val and Linda Bulgo and Linda’s husband Matt wheeled Joe into the big convention room. Joe was in a wheelchair, his once powerful body shrunken, his eyes filled with the pain of bone cancer. The Bulgo family was seated in front at the head table. Simon told Joe’s story and how Joe had finally cut through the bulkhead and released the trapped sailors and told them in his island accent, “Here, on my back” and then lifted each one to safety.

“I know three of those men are here tonight,” Simon said. “And I also know you never got a chance to thank him. So if there’s something you would like to say to that Hawaiian kid who risked his life to save yours 46 years ago—well, he’s right over there.”

Simon wrote that it was “impossible to describe the emotions that swept the hall as I pointed to Joe, and 200 people rose to their feet and cheered. He covered his face with his napkin. He didn’t want them to see him crying. Three elderly veterans embraced the man who could no longer stand, even to acknowledge the applause, but on whose broad, strong back they had once been carried.”

Joe Bulgo died two months later. The San Francisco Examiner called Simon and he gave them the story that the hometown daily paper had missed all those years. The obituary started: “Joseph Bulgo, Jr., a neglected hero of Pearl Harbor…”

Simon supplied Joe’s epitaph in the conclusion to his own story: “Well, yes, there hadn’t been any medals for Joe. But, I thought to myself, in the end we made things right. We said thank you, at last, to an American hero.”

Linda Bulgo told me, as her dad lay dying in the hospital, that she asked him how why he risked his life to rescue the sailors. “I just knew I had to do it,” he told her. She has never forgotten those eight words.

For my tribute to my old neighbor, I will do the story of Joe Bulgo, the neglected hero of Pearl Harbor, on every Pearl Harbor anniversary. Click here for the full Readers Digest story.

Holiday shopping, anti-gentrification style

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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December 6, 2013

24

Anti-gentrification isn’t just a hot-button issue in San Francisco. It’s core-of-the-sun hot.

And that’s why Prensa POBRE/POOR Magazine, a magazine dedicated to giving marginalized populations a voice, is hosting the “Anti-Gentrification Arts Market in the Gentrified Mission District of San Francisco” on Saturday (12/7).

The event, taking place at POOR Magazine (2940 16th Street in San Francisco) from 4-7pm, is prominently featuring a lineup of artists that have been directly affected by the rapid gentrification of San Francisco.

The idea is to support folks who have been hard hit by evictions, displacement and gross speculation that has been plaguing Mission District, said Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, of the PoorNews Network.

“There has been a war on poor black and brown folks, and for us to even be here as artists and as poor folk is an act of resistance in itself,” said Tiny. “All of us artists are poor mommy’s and daddy’s and young people and it takes a lot to get us off the hustle even for a day to be here.”

The event will begin with a prayer said by Ohlone First Nations People of the Bay, then transition into a combination of live performances and a gallery-style art exhibition.

The featured art will be for sale, and in addition to the diverse collection of artwork, there will be performances by Fly Benzo, a local rapper/mentor, and a play put on by the Youth Skolaz Revolutionary Puppet Theatre.

There will also be food, which promises to be both diverse in origin and healthy in content. It will be available on a sliding scale, which, according to Tiny, essentially means, ‘Pay what you can.’ “If you can afford to pay for it, then sure,” said Tiny. “But if you can’t, then don’t worry.”

But the featured event-within-the-event will undoubtedly be a lengthy reading from Born N’ Raised in Frisco, a book compiled and workshopped in part by Tiny and Tony Robles. The book, chronicling the lives of native San Franciscans, tells the stories that, according to Tiny, are always talked about, but rarely are they told from the actual perspective of those who lived it.

“It’s a power thing for us poor people, many of us who have been gentri-fucked out of our own communities, to be able to share our voices, our artwork and our stories,” said Tiny.

“It’ll be a really good time, with some really good food and really great art.”

Music Listings: December 4-10, 2013

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 4, 2013

0

WEDNESDAY 4
ROCK
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Odd Owl, James Leste, Andrew Blair & Graham Patzner, Ghost Parade, 9 p.m., $8.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Alabaster & The Original Bastards, Devon McClive & Sons, Tall Fires, 8 p.m., $10.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Sea Knight, Moon Honey, Build Them to Break, 8:30 p.m., $6.
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Vandella, Lee Gallagher & the Hallelujah, Fritz Montana, 8:30 p.m., $5.
Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Crash Kings, The Struts, King Washington, 8 p.m., $10.
DANCE
The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “Sticky Wednesdays,” w/ DJ Mark Andrus, 8 p.m., free.
Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Bondage A Go Go,” w/ DJs Damon, Tomas Diablo, & guests, 9:30 p.m., $5-$10.
Club X: 715 Harrison, San Francisco. “Electro Pop Rocks,” 18+ dance night with Terravita, 9 p.m.
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Tainted Techno Trance,” 10 p.m.
F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Housepitality,” 9 p.m., $5-$10.
Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “Qoöl,” 5 p.m.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Indulgence,” 10 p.m.
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “What?,” w/ resident DJ Tisdale and guests, 7 p.m., free.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Rock the Spot,” 9 p.m., free.
MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Reload,” w/ DJ Big Bad Bruce, 10 p.m., free.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Booty Call,” w/ Juanita More, Joshua J, guests, 9 p.m., $3.
HIP-HOP
Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Mixtape Wednesday,” w/ resident DJs Strategy, Junot, Herb Digs, & guests, 9 p.m., $5.
ACOUSTIC
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Kapali Long, 7 p.m.
Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod, 7 p.m., free.
Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. The Gundersen Family Holiday Special featuring Le Wrens, 8 p.m., $10-$12.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Brendan Canning, Holly Miranda, 8 p.m., $15.
Club Deluxe: 1511 Haight, San Francisco. Happy Hour Bluegrass, 6:30 p.m., free.
Fiddler’s Green: 1333 Columbus, San Francisco. Terry Savastano, Every other Wednesday, 9:30 p.m., free/donation.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Jamie Kent, Cyndi Harvell, 8 p.m., $10.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Jeanie & Chuck’s Bluegrass Country Jam, First Wednesday of every month, 9 p.m., free.
JAZZ
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session, The Amnesiacs, 7 p.m., free.
Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6 p.m., free.
Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Charles Unger Experience, 7:30 p.m., free.
Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. Michael Parsons Trio, Every other Wednesday, 8:30 p.m., free/donation.
Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. “Cat’s Corner,” 9 p.m., $10.
Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Ricardo Scales, Wednesdays, 6:30-11:30 p.m., $5.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. The Wee Trio, 8 p.m., $17-$21.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Anne O’Brien, First Wednesday of every month, 7:30 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. Timba Dance Party, w/ DJ WaltDigz, 10 p.m., $5.
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Cha-Ching, First Wednesday of every month, 9 p.m., $5.
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. “Bachatalicious,” w/ DJs Good Sho & Rodney, 7 p.m., $5-$10.
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Aguabella, 8 p.m., $10-$12.
Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. David Correa & Cascada, 6 p.m., free.
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Chris Cain, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $20.
SOUL
Lexington Club: 3464 19th St., San Francisco. “Secret Lovers,” w/ DJs Ponyboy, Lil MC, Katie Duck, and Durt, First Wednesday of every month, 9 p.m., free.

THURSDAY 5
ROCK
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Guy Fox, Bonnie & The Bang Bang, Growwler, Benefit show for Public Arts Workshop., 9 p.m., $7-$10.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Escondido, Young Moon, 8 p.m., $12-$15.
S.F. Eagle: 398 12th St., San Francisco. The Intelligence, Dylan Shearer, 9 p.m.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. The New Mummies, Books on Fate, Kristian Rodriguez, 8:30 p.m., $5.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. The Long Winters, Sean Nelson, 8 p.m., $15.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Cash Pony, Surplus 1980, BreakArts, 9 p.m.
Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. “Club NSSN,” w/ Portugal. The Man, Chvrches, NoNoNo, The Colourist, Aaron Axelsen, Miles the DJ, 7:30 p.m., $30.
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Li Xi, Little Sister, Momotaro, Mashi Mashi, 8:30 p.m., $5.
Red Devil Lounge: 1695 Polk, San Francisco. Dishwalla, Oceanroyal, 9 p.m., $15-$20.
Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Penguin Prison (DJ set), Double Duchess, The Frail, DJ Nick Williams, 9 p.m., $15.
Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Rock Bottom, Chrome Eagle, Sweet Chariot, Cop Out, 9 p.m., $5.
DANCE
1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. “A Light in the Attic,” w/ Kaminanda, Kalya Scintilla, Birds of Paradies, Alia, Kitty-D, VNDMG, Balance, Boats, more, 10 p.m., $10 advance.
Abbey Tavern: 4100 Geary, San Francisco. DJ Schrobi-Girl, 10 p.m., free.
Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. “Phonic,” w/ Designer Drugs, Non Sequitur, 9:30 p.m., $10 advance.
Aunt Charlie’s Lounge: 133 Turk, San Francisco. “Tubesteak Connection,” w/ DJ Bus Station John, 9 p.m., $5-$7.
Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Hi Fashion, Bright Light Bright Light, 8 p.m., $10-$12.
The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “¡Pan Dulce!,” 9 p.m., $5.
Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursdays,” ‘80s night with DJs Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests, 9 p.m., $6 (free before 9:30 p.m.).
The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “XO,” w/ DJs Astro & Rose, 10 p.m., $5.
Club X: 715 Harrison, San Francisco. “The Crib,” 9:30 p.m., $10, 18+.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Afrolicious,” w/ DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, and live guests, 9:30 p.m., $5-$8.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “I Love Thursdays,” 10 p.m., $10.
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Fluff: A Queer Night of House,” w/ DJs Sissyslap & Dr. Sleep, First Thursday of every month, 9 p.m., $3.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Night Fever,” 9 p.m., $5 after 10 p.m.
Pork Store Cafe: 3122 16th St., San Francisco. “Back & Forth,” w/ Ryury & Mr. Rise, 10 p.m., free.
Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. “Black Magic Disko,” w/ Trickski, Shiny Objects, Trev Campbell, Hi-Tem (in the OddJob Loft), 9 p.m., $10-$15.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursday,” w/ DJ Jay-R, 9 p.m., free.
Raven: 1151 Folsom St., San Francisco. “1999,” w/ VJ Mark Andrus, 8 p.m., free.
The Tunnel Top: 601 Bush, San Francisco. “Tunneltop,” DJs Avalon and Derek ease you into the weekend with a cool and relaxed selection of tunes spun on vinyl, 10 p.m., free.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Bubble,” 10 p.m., free.
Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. “Base,” w/ Tone of Arc, Ean Golden, 10 p.m., $5-$10.
HIP-HOP
Eastside West: 3154 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursdays,” w/ DJ Madison, 9 p.m., free.
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Cypher,” w/ resident DJ Big Von, 10 p.m., $5-$10.
John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “The Premiere,” video hip-hop party with VDJ T.D. Camp, First Thursday of every month, 9 p.m., $5.
Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Peaches,” w/lady DJs DeeAndroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, Umami, Inkfat, and Andre, 10 p.m., free.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. KRS-One, Duckwrth, 10:30 p.m., $25.
ACOUSTIC
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Misisipi Mike & The Midnight Gamblers, Mipso, 9 p.m., $7.
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Acoustic Open Mic, 7 p.m.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Highway Hymns, Willy Tea Taylor, Jason Eady, 9 p.m., $10.
The Lost Church: 65 Capp St., San Francisco. Mr. Andrew, J.J. Schultz, 8 p.m., $10.
Musicians Union Local 6: 116 Ninth St., San Francisco. San Francisco Singer-Songwriters’ Workshop, hosted by Robin Yukiko, First Thursday of every month, 6:30 p.m., $25 (free for AFM members).
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. The Shannon Céilí Band, First Thursday of every month, 9 p.m., free.
Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Gaby Moreno, David Garza, Cazadero, Irene Diaz, 8 p.m., $15.
Swedish American Hall: 2174 Market, San Francisco. Kaki King, Jerome Holloway, 8 p.m., $15-$17.
JAZZ
Blush! Wine Bar: 476 Castro, San Francisco. Doug Martin’s Avatar Ensemble, 7:30 p.m., free.
Bottle Cap: 1707 Powell, San Francisco. The North Beach Sound with Ned Boynton, Jordan Samuels, and Tom Vickers, 7 p.m., free.
Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Jimmy Grant Quartet, First Thursday of every month, 8 p.m., free.
Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Eugene Pliner Quartet with Tod Dickow, First and Third Thursday of every month, 7:30 p.m., free.
Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Dick Fregulia Band, 7 p.m., free.
Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Savanna Jazz Jam with Eddy Ramirez, 7:30 p.m., $5.
Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Stompy Jones, 7:30 p.m., $10.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. NaJe, in Yoshi’s lounge, First Thursday of every month, 6:30 p.m., free; Aga Zaryan: “Remembering Nina & Abbey,” 8 p.m., $19-$25.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Barbara Ochoa, 7:30 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Pa’Lante!,” w/ Juan G, El Kool Kyle, Mr. Lucky, 10 p.m., $5.
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. “Jueves Flamencos,” 8 p.m., free.
Red Poppy Art House: 2698 Folsom, San Francisco. The Nightingale Trio, Tre Sisters, 7:30 p.m., $10-$15.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Gary Flores & Descarga Caliente, 8 p.m.
Verdi Club: 2424 Mariposa, San Francisco. The Verdi Club Milonga, w/ Christy Coté, DJ Emilio Flores, guests, 9 p.m., $10-$15.
REGGAE
Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. Natural Vibrations, Native Elements, on the upstairs stage, 9 p.m., $15-$20.
Pissed Off Pete’s: 4528 Mission St., San Francisco. Reggae Thursdays, w/ resident DJ Jah Yzer, 9 p.m., free.
BLUES
50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. Bill Phillippe, 5:30 p.m., free.
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Greg Nagy, 8 & 10 p.m., $18.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Chris Ford, First Thursday of every month, 4 p.m.
COUNTRY
The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. “Twang Honky Tonk & Country Jamboree,” w/ DJ Little Red Rodeo, 7 p.m., free.
EXPERIMENTAL
The Luggage Store: 1007 Market, San Francisco. Cartoon Justice, The Pascucci-Oppenheim Duo, Cloud Shepherd, 8 p.m., $6-$10.
SOUL
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. West Grand Boulevard, 9:30 p.m., $5.

FRIDAY 6
ROCK
50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. Turn Me On Dead, Staring@Stars, Mary Jones’ Lights, Ultra Violent Rays, Waiting Room, 8 p.m.
Amoeba Music: 1855 Haight, San Francisco. Toad the Wet Sprocket, 6 p.m., free.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Patterson Hood, 9 p.m., $22-$25.
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Everything Goes Cold, Sorrow Church, Roadside Memorial, DJ Decay, Crashfaster, 9 p.m., $8-$13.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Friday Live: Boats!, DJ Emotions, 10 p.m., free.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Steel Cranes, Oceanography, Turtle Rising, 9:30 p.m., $6.
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. High Cliffs, The Wave Commission, Little Smoke, 9 p.m., $8.
Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. The Aquabats, Kepi Ghoulie, Mike Park, 8 p.m., $20.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. The Tubes, 10:30 p.m., $29-$33.
DANCE
1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. Oliver, Classixx, Shy Girls, Lando Kal, Richie Panic, J-Boogie, DeeJay Theory, Justin Milla, Shawn Steele, 10 p.m., $17.50 advance.
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. “Brass Tax,” w/ resident DJs JoeJoe, Ding Dong, Ernie Trevino, Mace, First Friday of every month, 10 p.m., $5.
Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. Nitin, Silky, J. Remy, 9:30 p.m., $10 advance.
Cafe Flore: 2298 Market, San Francisco. “Kinky Beats,” w/ DJ Sergio, 10 p.m., free.
The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “Boy Bar,” w/ DJ Matt Consola, 9 p.m., $5.
Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Strangelove: Germany Calling,” w/ DJs Tomas Diablo, Joe Radio, Xander, and Unit 77, 9:30 p.m., $7 ($3 before 10 p.m.).
The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “F.T.S.: For the Story,” 10 p.m.
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Fever,” 10 p.m., free before midnight.
The Grand Nightclub: 520 4th St., San Francisco. “We Rock Fridays,” 9:30 p.m.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Escape Fridays,” 10 p.m., $20.
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “HYSL,” 9 p.m., $3.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Dirty Rotten Dance Party,” w/ Kap10 Harris, Shane King, guests, First Friday of every month, 9 p.m., $5.
Manor West: 750 Harrison, San Francisco. “Fortune Fridays,” 10 p.m., free before 11 p.m. with RSVP.
MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “F-Style Fridays,” w/ DJ Jared-F, 9 p.m.
Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. “Throwback,” Mighty 10-year anniversary party with DJ Rooz, Tyrel Williams, Miguel Solari, Jayvi Velasco, Lance DeSardi, DJ Gunz, Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist, 9 p.m., free before midnight with RSVP.
Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “As You Like It,” w/ George FitzGerald, J.Phlip, Galen, Bells & Whistles, 9 p.m., $15-$20 advance.
OMG: 43 6th St., San Francisco. “Release,” 9 p.m., free before 11 p.m.
Powerhouse: 1347 Folsom, San Francisco. “Nasty,” First Friday of every month, 10 p.m., $5.
Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. “Haçeteria,” w/ Cherushii, Glenn Jackson, Ben Deploy, Jason P, Smac, Tristes Tropiques, and Nihar, 9 p.m., $5-$10.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Pump: Worq It Out Fridays,” w/ resident DJ Christopher B, 9 p.m., $3.
Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Trapeze X, Featuring music by DJs Delachaux, The Klown, and The Speakeasy Syndicate, plus burlesque by Vienna La Rouge, Kara La Fleur, Fou Fou Ha, and Ze SexBombe Danzeurs., 9 p.m., $10-$15.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Bionic,” 10 p.m., $5.
Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Bridge the Gap,” w/ resident DJ Don Kainoa, Fridays, 6-10 p.m., free; “Depth,” w/ resident DJs Sharon Buck & Greg Yuen, First Friday of every month, 10 p.m., free.
HIP-HOP
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Nate the Great, The Kid Rated R, Supreme, plus DJs West Kraven, Beatknoxx, and Okeefe, 9 p.m., $10.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Swagger Like Us,” w/ Cakes Da Killa, Queens D. Light, plus DJs Lady Ryan, DavO, and Boyfriend, 10 p.m., $8.
EZ5: 682 Commercial, San Francisco. “Decompression,” Fridays, 5-9 p.m.
F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Some Type of Way,” w/ MicahTron, Nanosaur, Sean G, Kool Karlo, Roost Uno, 9 p.m., $9.99 (free before 11 p.m.).
Nickies: 466 Haight, San Francisco. “First Fridays,” w/ The Whooligan & Dion Decibels, First Friday of every month, 11 p.m., free.
Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. Big K.R.I.T. (DJ set), DJ D-Sharp, 9 p.m., $10 advance.
Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “Remix,” w/ Lando 1, 9:30 p.m.
ACOUSTIC
Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Zach Hing, 7:30 p.m., free.
Dolores Park Cafe: 501 Dolores, San Francisco. StringQuake, 7:30 p.m.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Danielia Cotton, RonDre., Venetia Pristavec, Johnny Marnell, 9 p.m., $8-$10.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Avery County, 9 p.m.
The Sports Basement: 610 Old Mason, San Francisco. “Breakfast with Enzo,” w/ Enzo Garcia, 10 a.m., $5.
St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church: 2097 Turk, San Francisco. First Fridays Song Circle, First Friday of every month, 7 p.m., $5-$10; Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas, 8 p.m., $19-$22.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. An Acoustic Evening with Al Stewart, 8 p.m., $24-$28.
JAZZ
Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant: 1000 Great Highway, San Francisco. Johnny Smith, 8 p.m., free.
Bird & Beckett: 653 Chenery, San Francisco. Don Prell’s SeaBop Ensemble, First Friday of every month, 5:30 p.m., free.
Cafe Royale: 800 Post, San Francisco. Wrapped in Plastic, First Friday of every month, 9 p.m.
Center for New Music: 55 Taylor St., San Francisco. Festivus 2013: Night One, w/ Rent Romus’ Life’s Blood, Adam Shulman & Katy Stephan, The Klaxon Mutant Allstars, Patrick Cress’ Telepathy, 7 p.m., $8-$10.
Cliff House: 1090 Point Lobos, San Francisco. John Kalleen Group, 7 p.m.
Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Charles Unger Experience, 7:30 p.m., free.
The Palace Hotel: 2 New Montgomery, San Francisco. The Klipptones, 8 p.m., free.
Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Savanna Jazz Trio, 7 p.m., $8.
SFJAZZ Center: 205 Franklin St., San Francisco. Giulia Valle, 7 & 8:30 p.m., $15-$20.
Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Black Market Jazz Orchestra, 9 p.m., $10.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Joyce Grant, 8 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Paris-Dakar African Mix Coupe Decale,” 10 p.m., $5.
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Taste Fridays, featuring local cuisine tastings, salsa bands, dance lessons, and more, 7:30 p.m., $15 (free entry to patio).
Croatian American Cultural Center: 60 Onondaga, San Francisco. “Beyond the Borders,” w/ Galbeno Band, 8 p.m., $15.
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Cuban Night with Fito Reinoso, 7:30 & 9:15 p.m., $15-$18.
Red Poppy Art House: 2698 Folsom, San Francisco. Camille Mai Trio, Blind Willies, 7:30 p.m., $10-$20.
REGGAE
Gestalt Haus: 3159 16th St., San Francisco. “Music Like Dirt,” 7:30 p.m., free.
Showdown: 10 Sixth St., San Francisco. “How the West Was Won,” w/ Nowtime Sound, First Friday of every month, 10 p.m., free.
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Greg Nagy, 8 & 10 p.m., $20.
Tupelo: 1337 Green St., San Francisco. Jinx Jones & The KingTones, First Friday of every month, 9 p.m.
COUNTRY
Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Eddie Spaghetti, The Gravel Spreaders, Benjamin Brown, 9 p.m., $10.
FUNK
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Swoop Unit, First Friday of every month, 6 p.m., $3-$5.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Dragon Smoke (featuring Stanton Moore, Ivan Neville, Eric Lindell, and Robert Mercurio), Mike Dillon, DJ Matt Haze, 9 p.m., $35.
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Loose Joints,” w/ DJs Centipede, Damon Bell, & Tom Thump, 10 p.m., $5.
SOUL
Edinburgh Castle: 950 Geary, San Francisco. “Soul Crush,” w/ DJ Serious Leisure, 10 p.m., free.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Oldies Night,” w/ DJs Primo, Daniel, Lost Cat, friends, First Friday of every month, 10 p.m., $5.

SATURDAY 7
ROCK
50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. Chronic Town, Gang of Forty, 9:30 p.m., $6.
Bender’s: 806 S. Van Ness, San Francisco. Swiftumz, Violent Change, Tony Molina, 10 p.m., $5.
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Roem & The Revival, Kingsborough, Steven Roth Band, 9:30 p.m., $10.
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. The Flatliners, Living with Lions, Culture Abuse, 9:30 p.m., $12-$15.
Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. The Hundred Days, Dangermaker, Bang Bang, Aaron Cuadra, 9 p.m., $8-$10.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Vulturegeist, Secrets of the Sky, Broken Cities, 9 p.m., $6-$10.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Primitive Hearts, Big Tits, Adam Widener, The Shanghais, 9 p.m., $6.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. That Ghost, Golden Drugs, Dante Elephante, Crime Novels, 9 p.m., $8.
The Lost Church: 65 Capp St., San Francisco. Castles in Spain, The Unfortunate Bastard, Stella Royale, 8 p.m., $10.
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. Benefit for Alan Forbes with Harderships, Hot Lunch, The Freeks, Ethan Miller, DJ Jello Biafra, 5 p.m., $10.
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. The Bad Jones, Super Adventure Club, The Stages of Sleep, 9 p.m., $10.
Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. People Get Ready, The Trims, Conquistador, on the downstairs stage, 9 p.m., $12.
Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. The Mowgli’s, Blondfire, Hunter Hunted, 8 p.m., $16.
DANCE
Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. Bixel Boys, Tropicool, 9:30 p.m., $10 advance.
Cafe Flore: 2298 Market, San Francisco. “Bistrotheque,” w/ DJ Ken Vulsion, 8 p.m., free.
Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Leisure,” w/ DJs Aaron, Omar, & Jetset James, First Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $7.
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Bootie S.F.: Hubba Hubba Revue Holiday Show, 9 p.m., $10-$15.
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Play: 1-Year Anniversary Party,” w/ Danny Howells & Nikita, 10 p.m., $15-$20.
Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. Lauren Lane, Bones, Troy Kurtz, Shae B, Burn Unit, 9 p.m., $10.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Volume,” First Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $10-$20.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Debaser,” w/ resident DJs EmDee, Jamie Jams, and Stab Master Arson, First Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $5 (free before 11 p.m. if wearing flannel).
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Bounce!,” 9 p.m., $3.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “The Prince & Michael Experience,” w/ DJs Dave Paul & Jeff Harris, First Saturday of every month, 9 p.m., $5.
Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. “Wonder-Full S.F. X,” w/ DJ Spinna, Proof, Hakobo, King Most, 9 p.m., $25-$35.
Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. Mighty 10-Year Anniversary, w/ 2manydjs, Eug, 9 p.m., $25 advance.
Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Lights Down Low,” w/ Deniz Kurtel, Pictureplane, Tyrel Williams, Richie Panic, Marco de la Vega, 10 p.m., $15-$20.
Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. Distrikt: Holidaze – The Koktail Edition, With DJ Kramer, John Early, and more., 9 p.m., $10-$15.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Homo Erectus,” w/ DJs MyKill & Dcnstrct, First Saturday of every month, 9 p.m., $5.
Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. Project 46, Carl Kennedy, 9 p.m., $20 advance.
The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. “Go Bang!: Celebrating Five Years of Atomic Dancefloor Disco Action,” w/ DJs Ken Vulsion, Nicky B, Steve Fabus, and Sergio Fedasz, 9 p.m., $7 (free before 10 p.m.).
Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. D:Fuse, Tall Sasha, Vodka Soda, Ks Thant, Self Destrukt, Mr. Kitt, Jai Unda, Babymuah, 10 p.m., $20.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Push the Feeling,” w/ residents Yr Skull & Epicsauce DJs, First Saturday of every month, 9 p.m.
Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. “Swank,” w/ Pheeko Dubfunk, DJ Nile, Lorentzo, 10 p.m., $10-$30.
HIP-HOP
John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “N.E.W.: Never Ending Weekend,” w/ DJ Jerry Ross, First Saturday of every month, 9 p.m., free before 11 p.m.
Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “Touchy Feely,” w/ The Wild N Krazy Kids, First Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $5 (free before 11 p.m.).
ACOUSTIC
Amoeba Music: 1855 Haight, San Francisco. Lissie, 3 p.m., free.
Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod, Saturdays, 4-6 p.m., free.
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Jamie Purnell, 7 p.m.
Great Star Theater: 630 Jackson, San Francisco. One Man Band Extravaganza, w/ Jordan B. Wilson, 1 Man Banjo, Shovelman, The Slow Poisoner, Cello Joe, 8 p.m., $5.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Lissie, Kopecky Family Band, 9 p.m., $18-$20.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. “Americana Jukebox,” w/ The Naked Bootleggers, Kemo Sabe, 9 p.m., $6-$10.
Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. Seth Augustus, First Saturday of every month, 9 p.m., free/donation.
The Riptide: 3639 Taraval, San Francisco. The Low Rollers, 9:30 p.m., free.
Swedish American Hall: 2174 Market, San Francisco. Pomplamoose, Steve Poltz, Griffin House, 8 p.m., $20-$25.
JAZZ
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Broken Shadows Family Band, 6 p.m.
Center for New Music: 55 Taylor St., San Francisco. Festivus 2013: Night Two, w/ John Shiurba’s 5×5, Lisa Mezzacappa’s Bait & Switch, Noah Phillips, Michael Coleman’s Enjoyer, 7 p.m., $8-$10.
Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bill “Doc” Webster & Jazz Nostalgia, 7:30 p.m., free.
Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Savanna Jazz Trio, 7 p.m., $8.
SFJAZZ Center: 205 Franklin St., San Francisco. Giulia Valle, 7 & 8:30 p.m., $15-$20.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. The Robert Stewart Experience, 9 p.m.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Mike Stern Band featuring Randy Brecker, Anthony Jackson, and Keith Carlock, 8 & 10 p.m., $22-$28.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Lisa Lindsley, 8 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL
1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Pura,” 9 p.m., $20.
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Fanfare Zambaleta, Broken Shadows Family Band, 9 p.m.
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Paris-Dakar African Mix Coupe Decale,” 10 p.m., $5.
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “El SuperRitmo,” w/ DJs Roger Mas & El Kool Kyle, 10 p.m., $5.
Old First Presbyterian Church: 1751 Sacramento, San Francisco. Veretski Pass, 8 p.m., $14-$17.
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Peña Eddy Navia & Pachamama Band, 8 p.m., free.
Roccapulco Supper Club: 3140 Mission, San Francisco. Jowell & Randy, 8 p.m., $40 advance.
Space 550: 550 Barneveld, San Francisco. “Club Fuego,” 9:30 p.m.
REGGAE
Red Devil Lounge: 1695 Polk, San Francisco. One Drop, Midnight Raid, Dewey & The Peoples, 9 p.m., $10.
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Karen Lovely, 7:30 & 10 p.m., $22.
AMERICANA
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. “Americana Jukebox,” First Saturday of every month, 9 p.m., $6-$10.
FREE
Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Danilo y Universal, 8 p.m., free.
SOUL
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Kendra Morris, Binky Griptite, Jordan & The Ritual, DJ heyLove, 9 p.m., $12-$15.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. “Hard French,” w/ DJs Carnita & Brown Amy, First Saturday of every month, 2 p.m., $7.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Saturday Night Soul Party,” w/ DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, & Paul Paul, First Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $10 ($5 in formal attire).

SUNDAY 8
ROCK
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Rio Rio, Coo Coo Birds, Mission Bells, Koruscant Weekend, Jared Cohen & The Future Proof, 7 p.m., $10.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Benefit for San Francisco Community Land Trust with Future Twin, Annie Girl & The Flight, Baby Alpaca, 8 p.m., $10-$15 suggested donation.
Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. My Jerusalem, Know Secrets, High Water, 8 p.m., $10.
DANCE
The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “Replay Sundays,” 9 p.m., free.
The Edge: 4149 18th St., San Francisco. “’80s at 8,” w/ DJ MC2, 8 p.m.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Dub Mission,” w/ King I-Vier, DJ Sep, Maneesh the Twister, 9 p.m., $6 (free before 9:30 p.m.).
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “T.Dance,” 6 a.m.-6 p.m.; “Sunday Sessions,” 8 p.m.; “The Rhythm Room,” Second Sunday of every month, 8 p.m.
F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Stamina Sundays,” w/ DJs Lukeino, Jamal, and guests, 10 p.m., free.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Sweater Funk,” 10 p.m., free.
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Jock,” Sundays, 3-8 p.m., $2.
MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Bounce,” w/ DJ Just, 10 p.m.
Otis: 25 Maiden, San Francisco. “What’s the Werd?,” w/ resident DJs Nick Williams, Kevin Knapp, Maxwell Dub, and guests, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 11 p.m.).
The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. DJ Marc deVasconcelos, 10 p.m., free.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Gigante,” 8 p.m., free.
The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. “No Parking on the Dancefloor,” w/ resident DJs Dutchboy & Gehno Aviance, 11 p.m., $5.
HIP-HOP
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Return of the Cypher,” 9:30 p.m., free.
ACOUSTIC
Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Ed Kowalczyk, Callaghan, 8 p.m., $30-$35.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Rust & Whiskey, Pirate Radio, The Tough Brothers, 8 p.m., $6.
The Lucky Horseshoe: 453 Cortland, San Francisco. Sunday Bluegrass Jam, 4 p.m., free.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Spike’s Mic Night,” Sundays, 4-8 p.m., free.
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. Carolyn Mark, Peter Case with Deep Ellum, Happy Family Singers, 7:30 p.m.
Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. “iPlay,” open mic with featured weekly artists, 6:30 p.m., free.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Dave Cory & Friends, 9 p.m.
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church: 1755 Clay, San Francisco. “Sunday Night Mic,” w/ Roem Baur, 5 p.m., free.
JAZZ
Chez Hanny: 1300 Silver, San Francisco. Noel Jewkes Quintet featuring Steve Heckman, 4 p.m., $20 suggested donation.
Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bill “Doc” Webster & Jazz Nostalgia, 7:30 p.m., free.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Sunday Sessions,” 10 p.m., free.
Martuni’s: 4 Valencia, San Francisco. Madame Jo Trio, second Sunday of every month, 4-6 p.m., free.
Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. Jazz Revolution, 4 p.m., free/donation.
The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Chris Siebert, 7:30 p.m., free.
SFJAZZ Center: 205 Franklin St., San Francisco. SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Orchestra & Combo, 2 p.m., $5-$20.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Mike Stern Band featuring Randy Brecker, Anthony Jackson, and Keith Carlock, 7 & 9 p.m., $20-$25.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Brenda Reed, 7:30 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL
Atmosphere: 447 Broadway, San Francisco. “Hot Bachata Nights,” w/ DJ El Guapo, 5:30 p.m., $10 ($18-$25 with dance lessons).
Balancoire: 2565 Mission St., San Francisco. “Tardeadas Tropicales,” 3 p.m.
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Brazil & Beyond,” 6:30 p.m., free.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. “Salsa Sundays,” Second and Fourth Sunday of every month, 3 p.m., $8-$10.
New Dehli Restaurant: 160 Ellis St., San Francisco. Bollywood Dance Party, Benefit for the Tenderloin After-School Program with DJ Amar, Dholrhythms dance troupe, Indian food buffet, and more., 6-9 p.m., $50 suggested donation.
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Georges Lammam Ensemble, 8 p.m.
Thirsty Bear Brewing Company: 661 Howard, San Francisco. “The Flamenco Room,” 7:30 & 8:30 p.m.
REGGAE
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Black Uhuru, Mike Pinto, Revival Sound System, 9 p.m., $25.
BLUES
Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. HowellDevine, 8:30 p.m., free/donation.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Blues Power, 4 p.m.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Bohemian Knuckleboogie, 8 p.m., free.
Swig: 571 Geary, San Francisco. Sunday Blues Jam with Ed Ivey, 9 p.m.
COUNTRY
The Riptide: 3639 Taraval, San Francisco. Joe Goldmark & The Seducers, Second Sunday of every month, 7:30 p.m., free.
EXPERIMENTAL
Musicians Union Local 6: 116 Ninth St., San Francisco. Daniel Pearce/Teddy Rankin-Parker Duo, Lasqo/Adams/Bennett, 7:30 p.m., $8-$10.
SOUL
Delirium Cocktails: 3139 16th St., San Francisco. “Heart & Soul,” w/ DJ Lovely Lesage, 10 p.m., free.
Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Gavin Turek, Midtown Social, DJ Carnita, 8 p.m., $10-$12.

MONDAY 9
ROCK
The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Basia Bulat, Haunted Summer, 9 p.m., $13-$15.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. Capsula, City of Women, 9 p.m., $8.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. American Authors, The Royal Concept, Misterwives, 8 p.m., $13-$15.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Wooden Indian Burial Ground, 9 p.m., $5.
DANCE
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Death Guild,” 18+ dance party with DJs Decay, Joe Radio, Melting Girl, & guests, 9:30 p.m., $3-$5.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Wanted,” w/ DJs Key&Kite and Richie Panic, 9 p.m., free.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Vienetta Discotheque,” w/ DJs Stanley Frank and Robert Jeffrey, 10 p.m., free.
ACOUSTIC
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. The Pick Bluegrass Jam, Second Monday of every month, 6 p.m., free; Toshio Hirano, Second Monday of every month, 9 p.m., free.
Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Hayden, DonCat, 8 p.m., $15.
The Chieftain: 198 Fifth St., San Francisco. The Wrenboys, 7 p.m., free.
Fiddler’s Green: 1333 Columbus, San Francisco. Terry Savastano, 9:30 p.m., free/donation.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Open mic with Brendan Getzell, 8 p.m., free.
The Lost Church: 65 Capp St., San Francisco. The Royal Oui, Big Eagle, 8 p.m., $10.
Osteria: 3277 Sacramento, San Francisco. “Acoustic Bistro,” 7 p.m., free.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Peter Lindman, 4 p.m.
JAZZ
Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Eugene Pliner Quartet with Tod Dickow, 7:30 p.m., free.
Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Le Jazz Hot, 7 p.m., free.
Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Terry Timberlake, 6 p.m., free.
SFJAZZ Center: 205 Franklin St., San Francisco. Monday Night Band Showcase with Adam Theis, 7:30 p.m., free.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. City Jazz Instrumental Jam Session, 8 p.m.
The Union Room at Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. The Session: A Monday Night Jazz Series, pro jazz jam with Mike Olmos, 7:30 p.m., $12.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Kitt Weagant, 7:30 p.m., free.
REGGAE
Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Skylarking,” w/ I&I Vibration, 10 p.m., free.
BLUES
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. The Bachelors, 9:30 p.m.
SOUL
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “M.O.M. (Motown on Mondays),” w/ DJ Gordo Cabeza & Timoteo Gigante, 8 p.m., free.

TUESDAY 10
ROCK
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. 3 Leafs, American Cream, 8:30 p.m., $5.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Va Va Blume, Watch for Rocks, Worth, 8 p.m., $8.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Tender Buttons, Scraper, Silver Shadows, DJ Grody Cody, 9:30 p.m., $7.
DANCE
Aunt Charlie’s Lounge: 133 Turk, San Francisco. “High Fantasy,” w/ DJ Viv, Myles Cooper, & guests, 10 p.m., $2.
Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “Tutu Tuesday,” w/ resident DJ Atish, Second Tuesday of every month, 9 p.m., $7 ($2 in a tutu before 11 p.m.).
Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Soundpieces,” 10 p.m., free-$10.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Switch,” w/ DJs Jenna Riot & Andre, 9 p.m., $3.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Shelter,” 10 p.m., free.
Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Tight,” w/ resident DJs Michael May & Lito, 8 p.m., free.
HIP-HOP
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. “The Show: Holiday Edition,” w/ Smoovie Baby, Show Banga, Troy, Symba, Deltrice, Lyrical Tone, Tonka Boy Dre, more, 8:30 p.m., $10-$15.
Double Dutch: 3192 16th St., San Francisco. “Takin’ It Back Tuesdays,” w/ DJs Mr. Murdock & Roman Nunez, Second Tuesday of every month, 10 p.m., free.
ACOUSTIC
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Songwriter in Residence: Kate Kilbane, 7 p.m. continues through Dec. 31.
Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Erin McKeown & Her Anti-Holiday Spectacular, 9 p.m., $18-$20.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Aiofe O’Donovan, Evie Ladin, 8 p.m., $12-$15.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. The Lone Bellow, Ivan & Alyosha, 8 p.m., sold out.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Seisiún with Barry O’Connell & Vinnie Cronin, 9 p.m.
JAZZ
Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant: 1000 Great Highway, San Francisco. Gerry Grosz Jazz Jam, 7 p.m.
Blush! Wine Bar: 476 Castro, San Francisco. Kally Price & Rob Reich, 7 p.m., free.
Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6 p.m., free.
Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Chris Amberger, 7 p.m.
Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Clifford Lamb, Mel Butts, and Friends, 7:30 p.m., free.
Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, 7 p.m.
Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. West Side Jazz Club, 5 p.m., free.
Verdi Club: 2424 Mariposa, San Francisco. “Tuesday Night Jump,” w/ Stompy Jones, 9 p.m., $10-$12; “Tuesday Night Jump,” w/ Johnny Boyd, Stompy Jones, Victor & Penny, 9 p.m., $15.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Tommy Igoe Big Band, 8 p.m., $22.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Amanda King, 7:30 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. “Descarga S.F.,” w/ DJs Hong & Good Sho, 8 p.m., $12.
The Cosmo Bar & Lounge: 440 Broadway, San Francisco. “Conga Tuesdays,” 8 p.m., $7-$10.
F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Underground Nomads,” w/ rotating resident DJs Amar, Sep, and Dulce Vita, plus guests, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 9:30 p.m.).
REGGAE
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. “Bless Up,” w/ Jah Warrior Shelter Hi-Fi, 10 p.m.
FUNK
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Boogaloo Tuesday,” w/ Oscar Myers & Steppin’, 9:30 p.m., free.
SOUL
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Soul Mechanix, 9:30 p.m., free.
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Lost & Found,” w/ DJs Primo, Lucky, and guests, 9:30 p.m., free. 2

Eat your heart out

Michael Redmond

-

December 3, 2013

0

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER Crowd-pleasing can sometimes sound like a put-down — hey, sometimes it is — but it becomes a virtue in Kneehigh’s Tristan & Yseult. The Cornwall-based company (already known locally for Brief Encounter at ACT in 2009 and The Wild Bride at Berkeley Rep last winter) has returned to Berkeley Rep with a remounting of its 2003 hit. And it proves as accomplished and intelligent as it is shamelessly entertaining.

Adapted and directed by Kneehigh’s joint artistic director Emma Rice from the triangular love story of Tristan, Yseult, and Mark (a medieval courtly love tale that may well have been the inspiration for the fraught triangle of Lancelot, Guinevere, and Arthur as well as numerous works of art on down, including one of Wagner’s operas), this rousing and continually resourceful production (written by Carl Grose and Anna Maria Murphy) uses the multiple versions of the legend as an excuse for a music-fueled formal mélange of influences and references that plumb the wider seas of love in all its forms.

The basic storyline is as follows: Cornwall’s wise King Mark (Kneehigh’s founder and joint artistic director Mike Shepherd) defeats an invasion by Irish interloper Morholt (Craig Johnson) with the help of a mysterious French-speaking knight, Tristan (a dashing Andrew Durand). Charmed by the young man, Mark sends Tristan to find Morholt’s sister, Yseult (a smoldering, violin-wielding Patrycja Kujawska), so that the king might marry her and make amends with Ireland. But Tristan has sustained critical wounds in the battle that leave him fading away on a faraway shore, until he is nursed back to health by a smitten healer — the aforementioned Yseult, naturally. Their mutual attraction turns to discord when Yseult learns she’s just fallen for the man who murdered her beloved brother. But a little love potion, and equal parts sweet wine, solve that issue soon enough.

No longer a virgin, however, Yseult must substitute on the royal wedding night her hymen-ready servant Brangian (Craig Johnson again, hilarious and surprisingly sympathetic in drab drag and sparkling comic timing). The ruse works, and Mark remains happily ignorant of Tristan and Yseult’s liaison until the king’s obsequious servant, Frocin (Giles King), offers proof of the lovers’ deceit and Mark has them (and the nosey, needy Frocin) banished. Too in love with both of them to have them killed yet still too hurt to forgive them, Mark leaves his dagger near where he finds the lovers sleeping in the forest. They awake soon after and reflect on the hurt they’ve caused. They decide to part ways, Tristan taking to the sea and Yseult returning to Mark, whom she has grown to love (if in a mellower way). But the lovers promise to be there for each other when needed.

Years later, as Tristan lies dying from his old wound beside his unloved wife — significantly, also named Yseult but known to the chorus as Whitehands, our mysterious narrator (Carly Bawden) — he asks if the ship sailing into port has a white or black sail (the former means Yseult is aboard, the latter that she is not coming). Consumed with hurt and jealousy, the second Yseult answers negatively, with tragic consequences all around.

That may sound like too much information, but the joy of the production rests in the telling (and the deft performances doing the telling) more than in the tale itself. This is best left a surprise. Suffice to say that the production, set on Berkeley Rep’s large Roda stage with full use of the aisles and other parts of the house, takes supreme advantage of an open aesthetic in which the presence of the audience and the mechanics of the staging are both readily acknowledged and built upon.

Indeed, Rice’s direction is so skillful and subtle that objects, characters, and actions can seem to pop out of nowhere despite an aesthetic that largely does away with hidden stagecraft, preferring to revel in what it reveals — as when, for example, the two lovers down their love potion and sweet wine and drink themselves silly, literally feet-off-the-floor high, dangling from aerial bands hoisted by members of the chorus of the unloved. (The latter is a comical Python-esque troupe of “lovespotters” dressed as proverbial birdwatchers or trainspotters in matching rain ponchos and wool headgear). Meanwhile, a live band (under musical director Ian Ross) casts a deliciously forlorn nightclub atmosphere throughout, including pre-curtain and entr’acte.

That sad-sack chorus, and various supporting characters who get their due here, also flags the thematic breadth of the play: Tristan & Yseult is about love in all its elusiveness and inconstant variety; love that alternately supports and belies the romantic ideal represented by the title characters. At the same time, the serious charm offensive underway points to another, complimentary end: the successful wooing of an audience through the sheer bliss of theatrical virtuosity. *

TRISTAN & YSEULT

Through Jan 6, $17.50-$81

Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre

2025 Addison, Berk

www.berkeleyrep.org

Theater Listings: December 4 – 10, 2013

Michael Redmond

-

December 3, 2013

0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Avenue Q New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/6-Sat/7 and Dec 13, 8pm; Sun/8, 2pm. Opens Dec 14, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 12. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the Tony-winning comedy.

A Christmas Carol Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Opens Fri/6, 7pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 7pm (no evening shows Dec 24, 26, or 28; also Sat/7, Dec 11, 14, 21, 23, 2pm; Dec 24 and 26-28, 1pm; Dec 27 evening show at 5:30pm); Sun, 5:30pm (also Sun/8, Dec 15, and 22, 1pm). Through Dec 28. American Conservatory Theater mounts its annual production of the Dickens classic, with James Carpenter as Scrooge and Ken Ruta as Jacob Marley’s ghost.

Cinderella Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; www.african-americanskaes.org. $12.50-50. Opens Sat/7, 3pm. Runs Sat, 8pm (also Dec 21, 3pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 22. African-American Shakespeare Company presents this fairy-tale production for the holidays.

The Golden Girls: The XMAS Episodes Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th, SF; www.trannyshack.com. $30. Opens Thu/5, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 22. Inspired by the classic sitcom, Miami’s feisty seniors (portrayed by Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, and Pollo Del Mar) return to spread holiday cheer and cheesecake.

BAY AREA

Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Previews Thu/5 and Dec 11-12, 7pm; Fri/6-Sat/7, 8pm; Sun/8, 5pm. Opens Dec 13, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 11. Shotgun Players performs Anthony Neilson’s comic romp set in “a sensual Edwardian world of top hats, fantastical puppets, and flash powder.”

Little Women Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-79. Previews Wed/4-Fri/6, 8pm. Opens Sat/7, 2 and 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed and Dec 30, 7:30pm (no shows Dec 24-25; Dec 31, show at 2pm only; no show Jan 1); Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and Dec 26 and Jan 4, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Jan 4. TheatreWorks performs the musical adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott tale.

Mame Hillbarn Theatre, 1285 East Hillsdale, Foster City; www.hillbarntheatre.org. $19-40. Previews Thu/5, 8pm. Opens Fri/6, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Dec 14 and 21, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. Hillbarn Theatre performs Jerry Herman’s classic musical.

ONGOING

Amaluna Big Top at AT&T Park, Third Street at Terry A. Francois Blvd, SF; www.cirquedusoliel.com. $50-175. Check website for schedule, including special holiday showtimes. Through Jan 12. Cirque de Soleil is back in town, this time bringing its Tempest-inspired Amaluna to the big top set up outside AT&T Park. Touted for being a celebration of “women [sic] power,” it seems initially odd that the design elements are so focused on the male peacock feather — all greens and blues and graceful, with curving “fronds” rising up from the stage. Jungle sounds chirp in the background as a bevy of Amazonian women in bejeweled headdresses and a mischievous lizard-man circulate the room until the show starts with the lovely abstraction of a floating red cloud of translucent fabric dancing in a single beam of light. The flimsy plotline is forgettable, a coming-of-age and courtship tale between the island’s young princess, Miranda (Iuliia Mykhailova) and a shipwrecked young Romeo (Evgeny Kurkin), though the parallel courtship between the two comic figures of Jeeves (Nathalie Claude) and Deeda (Shereen Hickman) provides a bit of levity and a novel use for footballs. The most realized character is probably Cali (Victor Kee), the half-lizard, whose prehensile tail and neon body paint give him an otherworldly allure, but it’s the aerialist goddesses and fierce embodiments of the storm that are most memorable from an acrobatic point-of-view, and Lara Jacobs’ unique balancing act from a meditative one. (Gluckstern)

Arlington Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Wed/4-Sat/7, 8pm (also Wed/4, 2:30pm); Sun/8, 2:30pm. Magic Theatre performs Victor Lodato and Polly Pen’s world-premiere musical.

The Barbary Coast Revue Stud Bar, 399 Ninth St, SF; eventbrite.com/org/4730361353. $10-40. Wed, 9pm. Through Dec 18. Blake Wiers’ new “live history musical experience” features Mark Twain as a tour guide through San Francisco’s wild past.

The Book of Mormon Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com. $60-120. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 1 and 6:30pm. Through Jan 19. When approaching the oeuvre of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, it’s best to check your political correctness at the door. That’s certainly no less true of their 2011 Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, co-penned with Robert Lopez (of Avenue Q fame), despite the clean-scrubbed appearance of their fumbling albeit well-intentioned missionary protagonists. Sent to Uganda for two years, top mission pupil Elder Price (Nic Rouleau) and his clumsy but affable partner Elder Cunningham (A.J. Holmes) are faced with a village oppressed by a scenery-chewing warlord, a demoralized coterie of fellow missionaries who have yet to have a successful conversion, and their own fraught, odd-couple dynamic. Rouleau’s Price is an appropriate blend of smarm, charm, and secret self-doubt while Holmes excels in his portrayal of a perennial-loser-turned-prophet (his power ballad-esque solo in “Man Up” is one of the show’s best). Of their hosts, the wry Mafala (James Vincent Meredith) and his sweet but strong-willed daughter Nabulungi (Syesha Mercado) get the most stage time, but it’s the crude and caustic General (David Aron Damane) who grabs the most attention. The gleefully profane “Hasa Diga Eebowai,” a Forbidden Zone-style “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”, and the deliriously blasphemous “Joseph Smith, American Moses,” round out the entertaining, and strangely informative, score. Though it’s (very) unlikely to convert you to the Church of Latter-Day Saints, there’s a good chance you’ll want to convert to the church of Parker and Stone, if you haven’t already. (Gluckstern)

BoomerAging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue, 8pm. Extended through Dec 17. Will Durst’s hit solo show looks at baby boomers grappling with life in the 21st century.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Golden Gate Theatre, One Taylor, SF; www.shnsf.com. $60-210. Wed/4-Sat/7, 8pm (also Sat/7, 2pm); Sun/8, 2pm. The Tony-winning Broadway revival launches its national tour in San Francisco.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast.

Ideation Tides Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $10-20. Fri/6-Sat/7, 8pm (also Sat/7, 3pm). Next up in the San Francisco Playhouse “Sandbox Series” is this dark comedy from Aaron Loeb.

The Jewelry Box: A Genuine Christmas Story The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-40. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Dec 28. Brian Copeland performs the world premiere of his new, holiday-themed work, an Oakland-set autobiographical tale that’s a prequel to his popular Not a Genuine Black Man.

My Beautiful Launderette New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Andy Gram and Roger Parsley’s adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s award-winning screenplay.

The Oy of Sex Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Jan 18. Comedian Alicia Dattner performs her solo show, based on her stories from her own life and love addiction.

Peter/Wendy Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $15-33. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 15. J.M. Barrie’s familiar and much-revisited children’s story, about a boy who refuses to grow up, has always had its darker aspects, including the violent streak in its hero, forever-child Peter (Sam Bertken). Unfortunately, any underlying social or psychological complexity in the story — originally published in 1902 in The Little White Bird — is of no consequence in adapter-director Jeremy Bloom’s relentlessly cheerful and quickly monotonous retelling. The production, which narrates and acts out the story in somewhat condensed form, says it’s designed for adults of all ages and children over 12, but it seems pitched to an audience much younger still. Custom Made Theater’s lackluster staging does little to make the time go faster. There’s a mischievous energy in Bertken’s Peter and a bright intelligence in Anya Kazimierski’s Tinker Bell that together produce the play’s only emotional heat, but it’s fleeting. As Wendy, Elissa Beth Stebbins is generally solid but too mild to elicit much sympathy for her unrequited affections for Peter. Clad exclusively in striped jammies, the uneven ensemble (which also includes Terry Bamberger, Jessica Rudholm, Kim Saunders, and Jeunee Simon in multiple roles) rarely encourages focus on the finer points of character and plot, which anyway come with a soporific dose of trifling detail amid generally awkward physical choreography. Indeed, any “happy thoughts” one walks in with would risk vanishing entirely, were it not that the cast harvests them immediately and writes them down for future reference on the stage floor. (Avila)

Snoopy!!! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (family/student matinee Sat/7, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 15. 42nd Street Moon performs the sequel to You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Urge For Going Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.goldenthread.org. $10-45. Thu/5-Sat/7, 8pm; Sun/8, 3pm. Jamila (Camila Betancourt Ascencio) is a bright student desperate to pass her college entrance examination — an unexceptional proposition in many places, but Jamila is a Palestinian raised in a Lebanese refugee camp. For her, even the right to take such an exam is in no way guaranteed and must be fought for. That Jamila’s struggles don’t end at the front door of her crowded home provides the basis for the drama in Mona Mansour’s 2011 play, Urge for Going, now receiving an uneven but sometimes moving West Coast premiere from Golden Thread (which last year produced The Letter, a short play co-written by Mansour, as part of its ReOrient Festival). Amid the makeshift walls, mismatched furniture, and exposed wiring of Kate Boyd’s evocative scenic design, Jamila lives with her austere father (Terry Lamb), a onetime literature scholar with a passion for Wordsworth; her supportive mother (Tara Blau); her father’s effusive loose-canon of a brother (Julian Lopez-Morillas); her mother’s brother (Munaf Alsafi); and her own big-hearted but haunted older brother (Wiley Naman Strasser), a once brilliant math student who suffered brain damage at the hands of a Lebanese soldier. But front and center is her father, whose barely cloaked disappointment and despair turn to recalcitrance and outright antagonism in the face of Jamila’s too-pointed desire to flee this hobbled world of exile for a wider world of possibilities. Directed by Evren Odcikin, the play’s sentimental naturalism (broken through at times by didactic direct address to the audience by the entire cast) makes what follows both too predictable and somewhat artificial. At the same time, Mansour carefully and revealingly couches her story in the political and existential limbo of multiple generations of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, deprived for over half a century of basic rights amid cramped poverty and deprivation. (Avila)

BAY AREA

A Bright New Boise Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-50. Wed/4-Sat/7, 8pm; Sun/8, 2 and 7pm. Faith can be a touchy subject among true believers and skeptics alike, and as long as the topic of religion is avoided (as it often is) you might not even know that your bus driver is Buddhist, or your checkout clerk born again. In Samuel D. Hunter’s A Bright New Boise, now playing at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre, the line blurs between public face and private faith, as mysterious stranger Will (Robert Parsons) rolls into Boise and takes up employment at the Hobby Lobby, ostensibly to reconnect to his long-lost, given-up-for-adoption son, Alex (Daniel Petzhold). But when Will is revealed to be a former member of a disgraced Evangelical sect from “up North,” his sudden reappearance in Alex’ life appears to be motivated not by a long-standing remorse, but by a recent unmooring. Under Tom Ross’ direction, the other characters — a foul-mouthed store manager (Gwen Loeb), a painfully shy stock clerk (Megan Trout), and a confrontational sales associate (Patrick Russell) — appear similarly unmoored, careening into each other like jittery, neurotic pinballs, with about as much consideration. Only Parsons’ Will appears calm and deliberate in his actions, until he startlingly demonstrates otherwise. It’s an abrupt end to both the play and Will’s charade of normalcy, and neither Hunter nor Ross seem to know how to build up to his eventual fall naturally, ultimately allowing him to be defined only by his fanaticism rather than his humanity. (Gluckstern)

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 15. Don Reed’s new show offers more stories from his colorful upbringing in East Oakland in the 1960s and ’70s. More hilarious and heartfelt depictions of his exceptional parents, independent siblings, and his mostly African American but ethnically mixed working-class community — punctuated with period pop, Motown, and funk classics, to which Reed shimmies and spins with effortless grace. And of course there’s more too of the expert physical comedy and charm that made long-running hits of Reed’s last two solo shows, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel (both launched, like this newest, at the Marsh). Can You Dig It? reaches, for the most part, into the “early” early years, Reed’s grammar-school days, before the events depicted in East 14th or Kipling Hotel came to pass. But in nearly two hours of material, not all of it of equal value or impact, there’s inevitably some overlap and indeed some recycling. Reed, who also directs the show, may start whittling it down as the run continues. But, as is, there are at least 20 unnecessary minutes diluting the overall impact of the piece, which is thin on plot already — much more a series of often very enjoyable vignettes and some painful but largely unexplored observations, wrapped up at the end in a sentimental moral that, while sincere, feels rushed and inadequate. (Avila)

Harvey Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $10-22. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 15. Ross Valley Players perform the Pulitzer-winning play by Mary Chase.

A Little Princess Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Thu/5-Fri/6, 7pm; Sat/7, 1 and 6pm; Sun/8, noon and 5pm. Berkeley Playhouse opens its sixth season with Brian Crawley and Andrew Lippa’s musical adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett story.

110 in the Shade Douglas Morrison Theatre, 22311 N. Third St, Hayward; www.dmtonline.org. $10-29. Thu/5-Sat/7, 8pm (also Sat/7, 2pm); Sun/8, 2pm. Douglas Morrison Theatre performs N. Richard Nash’s romantic musical, adapted from his classic play The Rainmaker.

The Pianist of Willesden Lane Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Thu/5 and Sat, 2pm; no shows Dec 24 or 31); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; matinees only Dec 15, 22, and Jan 5; no show Dec 25). Extended through Jan 5. Mona Golabek stars in this solo performance inspired by her mother, a Jewish pianist whose dreams and life were threatened by the Nazi regime.

Troilus and Cressida La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 15. One of Shakespeare’s more difficult and under-produced plays, Troilus and Cressida does wax in popularity during protracted times of war, so it’s about the right time for Impact Theatre to tackle it. Set during the seventh year of the Trojan War, the players are all either soldiers or spoils of war, and both morale and morals are at a low ebb. So-called heroes hide in their tents, the fair Helen (Julie Kuwabara) is a callow bawd, and everyone just wants the war to be over. Troilus (Eric Kerr), a Trojan, and Cressida (Sarah Coykendall), a Greek, meet-cute thanks to the machinations of the flamboyant Pandarus (Shawn J. West), only to be quickly separated by circumstances beyond their control, and thrust abruptly to the sidelines of their own tragedy, their eventual betrayal of each other lost within the greater treacheries of the battlefield. It’s a problematic script, not least of all because the only truly moral character is the very innocent, very mad Cassandra (Akemi Okamura), whose prophecies are written off as mere ravings, subtly mirrored by the nihilistic fool, Thersites (Miyaka Cochrane), who delivers his frontline ravings as prophecies. Director Melissa Hillman makes some bold choices, however, including casting Lauren Spencer as the level-headed Ulysses, and father-son team Jon Nagel and Jonah McClellan as Aeneas and Antenor, turning the walk-on role of a pawn into a tragic symbol of war’s all too-human cost. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Broadway Bingo” Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. Wed, 7-9pm. Ongoing. Free. Countess Katya Smirnoff-Skyy and Joe Wicht host this Broadway-flavored night of games and performance.

“Buddy Club Children’s Shows” Randall Museum Theater, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun, 11am-noon. $8. “The Bubble Lady!” performs.

“Comedy Bottle with Kurtis Matthews” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. Fri/6-Sat/7, 7pm. $15. Stand-up comedy.

“Comedy Returns to El Rio!” 3158 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/9, 8pm. $7-20. Stand-up with Marga Gomez, Sammy Obeid, Bob McIntyre, Kevin Young, and Lisa Geduldig.

CounterPULSE 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Wed/4, 8pm: Risa Jaroslow’s NYC and the Bay: Dancers and Dances from Then and There and Here and Now, free. Fri/6-Sat/7, 8pm: Keith Hennessy, Hana Lee Erdman, and Jassem Hindi’s ALMOST, Enemy in the Figure, and These children singing in stones, $15-20. Dec 12-15, 8pm: Mica Sigourney, John Foster Cartwright, and Maryam Rostami’s Nicole Kidman is Fucking Gorgeous, $20.

“Dolores: The Temporary Life of a 220-Year-Old Bionic Woman” Stage Werx Theater, 446 Valencia, SF; www.stagewerx.org. Dec 10-11, 7:30pm. $15-20. On a bare floor, physical theater maker Carolina Duncan, as her Colombian grandmother, pops opens her cranium like a steamer trunk and retrieves the scrapbook of a boundless life. Here memory and imagination exist in equal measures, as Duncan traces key moments and fleeting images from an arc of days defined by family, romance, and at least one titanic battle between an Amazonian dinosaur and a new secret-agent boyfriend. Combining mime, scattered dialogue, physical comedy, and a live soundscape, this loving and whimsical homage comes gracefully delivered and almost always vividly expressed. All the while, Duncan (a graduate of SF’s Clown Conservatory and James Donlon and Leonard Pitt’s Flying Actor Studio) exudes an infectious enthusiasm for her subject, who proves as alive in a passing but concrete image of first childhood steps as she does in her final outing, a prolonged spacewalk into the familiar and unknown. Note: review from an earlier run of this show. (Avila)

“Encuentro de Canto Popular” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; accionlatina.org/Encuentro2013. Sat/7, 7pm. $19. Music festival dedicated to the nuevo canción movement; this year’s theme, “Pasado y Futuro,” pays tribute to artists who have passed away, as well as artists on the rise.

“Fiesta Navidena” Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/7, Dec 15, 21-22, and 27-28, 6:15pm. $15-21. Carolina Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco performs a holiday show.

“Get Your Life Unity Mini Ball” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Sat/7, 7pm. $10. Dancing, vogueing, and other aspects of ballroom culture take the stage.

“Glide Annual Holiday Festival: Celebrate50” War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.glide.org. Wed/4, 7pm. $65-250. Maya Angelou, Judith Hill, Tom Johnston, and other luminaries lead this evening honoring Janice Mirikitani and Rev. Cecil Williams’ 50 years at Tenderloin community beacon Glide.

“Hand to Mouth Comedy” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.handtomouthcomedy.com. Fri/6, 10pm. $8. Comedians Kellan Erksine, Kelly Anneken, Jules Posner, and others join host Trevor Hill in presenting all-new material on one specific topic: “fantasy.”

“Hysterical Historical San Francisco, Holiday Edition” Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 29. $30-40. Comic Kurt Weitzman performs.

“I Eat People Like YOU For Breakfast!” Marsh, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. Wed/4, 7:30pm. $10-15. Comedian Steven Alan Green performs his solo show inspired by Jerry Lewis.

“The Jewish Nutcracker” Theater at Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.jewishnutcracker.com. Fri/6-Sun/8, 2pm (also Fri/6-Sat/7, 6:30pm). $18-32. The Hanukkah story is interpreted via authentic cultural dance from Spain, India, China, Russia, and more.

“Mark Foehringer’s Nutcracker Sweets” Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/7-Sun/8, Dec 14-15, Dec 20-24, 11am and 2pm (also Dec 14-15 and Dec 21-22, 4pm). $18-28. Contemporary ballet company Mark Foehringer Dance Project SF performs its fifth annual production of this Nutcracker-inspired work aimed at families with young children.

“The Metrics of Intimacy” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed/4-Thu/5, 8pm. $10-20. Contemporary dance performers Hope Mohr and Christian Burns collaborate with visual designer David Szlasa.

“Mine” Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; www.rawdance.org. Fri/6-Sun/8 and Dec 11-15, 8pm. $21-25. RAWdance performs a world premiere by company founders Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein.

“Okeanos Intimate” Aquarium of the Bay, Pier 39, SF; www.capacitor.org. Sat, 8pm. $20-30 (free aquarium ticket with show ticket). Extended through Dec 28. Choreographer Jodi Lomask and her company, Capacitor, revive 2012’s Okeanos — a cirque-dance piece exploring the wonder and fragility of our innate connection to the world’s oceans — in a special “intimate” version designed for the mid-size theater at Pier 39’s Aquarium of the Bay. The show, developed in collaboration with scientists and engineers, comes preceded by a short talk by a guest expert — for a recent Saturday performance it was a down-to-earth and truly fascinating local ecological history lesson by the Bay Institute’s Marc Holmes. In addition to its Cirque du Soleil-like blend of quasi-representational modern dance and circus acrobatics — powered by a synth-heavy blend of atmospheric pop music — Okeanos makes use of some stunning underwater photography and an intermittent narrative that includes testimonials from the likes of marine biologist and filmmaker Dr. Tierney Thys. The performers, including contortionists, also interact with some original physical properties hanging from the flies — a swirling vortex and a spherical shell — as they wrap and warp their bodies in a kind of metamorphic homage to the capacity and resiliency of evolution, the varied ingenuity of all life forms. If the movement vocabulary can seem limited at times, and too derivative, the show also feels a little cramped on the Aquarium Theater stage, whose proscenium arrangement does the piece few favors aesthetically. Nevertheless, the family-oriented Okeanos Intimate spurs a conversation with the ocean that is nothing if not urgent. (Avila)

“One Man Band Extravaganza” Great Star Theater, 636 Jackson, SF; www.jordanbwilson.com. Sat/7, 8pm. $5. One-man bands, including Jordan B. Wilson, One Man Banjo, Shovelman, Slow Poisoner, and Cello Joe, perform.

“La Posarela” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.sfcmc.org. Sun/8, 1 and 5pm. $7. Community Music Center presents a Mexican Christmas musical tailored to the Mission.

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Fri/6 and Jan 3, Feb 7, March 7, and April 4, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Dude, Point Break Live! is like dropping into a monster wave, or holding up a bank, like, just a pure adrenaline rush, man. Ahem. Sorry, but I really can’t help but channel Keanu Reeves and his Johnny Utah character when thinking about the awesomely bad 1991 movie Point Break or its equally yummily cheesy stage adaptation. And if you do an even better Keanu impression than me — the trick is in the vacant stare and stoner drawl — then you can play his starring role amid a cast of solid actors, reading from cue cards from a hilarious production assistant in order to more closely approximate Keanu’s acting ability. This play is just so much fun, even better now at DNA Lounge than it was a couple years ago at CELLspace. But definitely buy the poncho pack and wear it, because the blood, spit, and surf spray really do make this a fully immersive experience. (Steven T. Jones)

“A Renaissance Christmas” St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal, 500 De Haro, SF; www.baychoralguild.org. Sat/7, 8pm. $5-25. Bay Choral Guild performs “familiar and unusual” Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany music.

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

“she’s near she’s now she’s nowhere” Margaret Jenkins’ Dance Lab, 301 Eighth St, Studio 200, SF; www.funschdance.org. Thu/5, 7pm. Free. Also Fri/6, 8pm and Sat/7, 2pm, free, Studio LP, ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; and Sun/8, 3pm, Feintech Studio, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. Christy Funsch’s trio/quintet “reveals the impact of a mover on spaces by playing with her presence and absence from them.”

“Shine! Our Brightest Holiday Show Ever!” War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfgmc.org. Fri/6, 8pm. $25-75. The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus performs season favorites and “outrageous surprises.”

“Soul+Mates” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Wed/4-Sat/7, 8pm (also Sat/7, 2pm). $22-25. Printz Dance Project presents the world premiere of an immersive dance performance, photography exhibit, and short film exploring the concept of soul mates.

“The Velveteen Rabbit” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.odcdance.org. Thu/5-Fri/6 and Dec 12-13, 11am; Sat/7 and Dec 15, 1 and 4pm; Sun/8 and Dec 15, 2pm. $20-75. ODC/Dance performs its popular holiday show, directed with fresh perspective this year by ODC founder Brenda Way.

“Zambomba Gitana!” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.bayareaflamenco.org. Fri/6, 8pm. $25-65. Also Sat/7, 8pm, $25-45, La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; and Sun/8, 6pm, $25-45, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320 Cedar, Santa Cruz. Traditional flamenco holiday celebration, with artists from Jerez de la Frontera, Spain.

BAY AREA

“Buddy Club Children’s Shows” JCC of the East Bay Theater, 1414 Walnut, Berk; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun/8, 11am-noon. $8. Comedy improv with Kenn Adams Adventure Theater. Also Sun/8, 11am-12:30pm, $8, Kanbar Center for the Performing Arts Theater, 200 North San Pedro, San Rafael; www.thebuddyclub.com. The Juggling Genius, Daniel DaVinci, performs.

“Following the Wrong God Home” Osher Studio in the Arts Passage of Berkeley Central, 2055 Center, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/7 and Dec 16, 8pm; Sun/8, 5pm. $15-25. Company 212 presents a physical theater piece choreographed and directed by MaryBeth Cavanaugh that imagines six Shakespeare characters on alternate journeys beyond the plays they appear in.

“Noel, Noel” First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing, Berk; www.cityboxoffice.com. Fri/6, 8pm. $18-65. The San Francisco Girls Chorus performs “Carol of the Bells” and other holiday favorites.

“Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir 28th Annual Holiday Concert” Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakl; www.oigc.com. Sat/7, 7:30pm. $12-42. The choir performs its popular annual concert, led by director Terrance Kelly and featuring guests Tuck and Patti, and Imani Ya Watume Liturgical Dance Company.

“Once Upon a Christmas” Lesher Center for the Arts, Hoffman Theatre, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; www.leshercenter.org. Fri/6-Sat/7, 7:30pm (Sat/7, 2pm). $20-25. Lareen Fender’s Ballet Joyeux performs.

“The Shout: Life’s True Stories” Grand Lake Coffee House, 440 Grand, Oakl; www.theshoutstorytelling.com. Mon/9, 7:30pm. $5-20. Live storytelling event featuring 10-minute true tales.

“XXmas: The Christmas Ballet, 2013 Edition” Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.smuinballet.org. Dec 11-14, 8pm (also Dec 14, 2pm); Dec 15, 2pm, $49-65. Also Dec 18-28, $24-64, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF. Smuin Ballet’s annual holiday show boasts festive ballet, tap, and swing-dance numbers. *

Reassemblage

Michael Redmond

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December 3, 2013

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arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Fans of the Dismemberment Plan may have found initial listens to Uncanney Valley (Partisan Records), the group’s new post-breakup album and first original material in a dozen years, a little jarring. For a band that built its reputation upon jittery post-punk freakouts and raw, cathartic lyrical output, the more streamlined approach could take a little getting used to.

But from the nervous angst of 1999’s Emergency & I, to the more somber and reflective comedown of 2001’s Change, the four-piece has always managed to hold a mirror to the time and place its members were in at the time. Now, they’re in (or approaching) their 40s, and are spread all over the East Coast with marriages and full-time jobs occupying their time. The new material is a flawed but ultimately rewarding reflection of the Dismemberment Plan, now.

Formed in 1993 and steeped in the Washington, DC post-hardcore and art-punk traditions of bands like Fugazi and Jawbox, the Dismemberment Plan’s success came slowly but surely over the following decade. The band’s signatures — including its inventive rhythm section (propelled by the manic drumming of Joe Easley), injection of synthesizers, and erratically sharp vocals of frontperson Travis Morrison — came into perfect alignment on Emergency & I, one of the finest indie rock albums of the 1990s. When the band called it quits soon after touring to support its follow-up, Change, it all felt a little premature — though there certainly weren’t any expectations by fans or the band itself for an eventual reunion. That all changed in 2010, when the group got back together for a brief tour to commemorate Barsuk Record’s reissue of Emergency & I.

Though the band had previously reunited for a couple of one-off shows in 2007, something about the lead-up and aftermath of this tour was different.

“In rehearsals we started jamming more and more, and we really liked what we were coming up with,” Morrison said. “That led us to continue getting together to play when we didn’t have any shows booked, where we’d have to be rehearsing old songs, making sure we know them and stuff like that. So that was the impetus.”

That this led not only to more touring, but also to an album full of new material was extra surprising, considering Morrison, after a couple of post-Plan solo albums, claimed to have “retired” from music in 2009. With a move to New York City, a full-time gig at the Huffington Post, the co-founding of a music start-up (called Shoutabl), and a marriage all coming within the past five or so years, some time off from music definitely made sense, though Morrison has obviously since backed off of the finality that retirement represents.

“I just wanted to take a year off after moving to New York where I didn’t have any shows, didn’t have any bands, no records coming out … I just wanted to live,” he said. “I wanted a sabbatical — but ‘retired’ is so much more fun to say than sabbatical.”

For all of its shimmery pop leanings and at times perhaps overly-comfortable grooves, Uncanney Valley isn’t without many of the strengths and idiosyncrasies that make the Dismemberment Plan the Dismemberment Plan. Synths are expertly layered throughout, Easley’s drumming and Eric Axelson’s bass playing are as locked in as ever, and Morrison can still surprise you with odd little one-liners that wind up rattling around in your head for days. Lyrically, the album is all over the map and ventures into a lot of uncharted territory for the band: the sacrifices of fatherhood (“Daddy Was A Real Good Dancer”); the comfort found in long-term, post-infatuation relationships (“Lookin'”); the anxiety and loneliness of moving to a new city (“Invisible”). This is grown-up shit, being explored admirably. Still, you have to wonder how this will juxtapose in a live setting with all the older material, which feels like a lifetime away from where the band is now. Morrison for one, isn’t worried.

“There aren’t too many of our older songs that are solely based on adolescence or adolescent issues,” he said. “There are very few songs where we accused someone of not understanding us, which is a very young thing to do. I think there’s a lot of philosophical distance or perspective, where when I sing those songs now, I think, ‘Wow, we must have been little old men when we were like 23.’ The fact that there aren’t many accusatory songs makes it easier to convey the older stuff now at 40 years old.”

Whether Uncanney Valley represents an official final chapter in the Dismemberment Plan’s career or the first in a series of new band happenings remains to be seen. The group is taking it all one day at a time, and Morrison certainly wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Someone told me once that Bill Murray tells everyone that he’s retired, but then just comes out of retirement whenever there’s something exciting or interesting to do and I really like that attitude,” he said. “So whatever Bill Murray does, I do.” *

DISMEMBERMENT PLAN

Tue/10, 8pm, $28

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

www.thefillmore.com

Events: December 4 – 10, 2013

Michael Redmond

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December 3, 2013

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Listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

THURSDAY 5

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz City Lights Books, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. The author reads from The Great Sioux Nation: Sitting in Judgment on America.

IlluminArts Walk North Beach to Embarcadero/Pier 15 via Filbert Steps, SF; www.blackrockarts.org. 5:30-8:30pm, free. Grab some glow sticks and put on your finest illuminated gear, and bam! You’re part of this “strolling light-up installation.”

Jack London Square Lights Up for the Holidays! Jack London Square, Broadway at Embarcadero, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. 5-7:30pm, free. Jack London Square lights up its 55-foot Christmas tree — with entertainment by tap-dancing Christmas trees, among other luminaries.

Playland at the Beach: The Golden Years Books Inc., 2251 Chestnut, SF; www.booksinc.net. 7pm, free. California historian James R. Smith shares rare historic photos from his new book about the legendary San Francisco amusement park.

Zarina Zabrisky Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck, Berk; www.pegasusbookstore.com. 7:30pm, free. The author and special guests read from her debut novel, We, Monsters.

FRIDAY 6

Holiday Art Sale at Creativity Explored Creativity Explored Gallery and Studio, 3245 16th St, SF; www.creativityexplored.org. Opening reception tonight, 6-9pm, free. Exhibit runs through Dec 30. Support artists with developmental disabilities and add some unique artwork to your home at this popular annual sale. As a bonus, Creativity Explored celebrates its 30th anniversary this year by offering 30 percent discount off all original works.

SATURDAY 7

Babylon Salon Cantina SF, 580 Sutter, SF; www.babylonsalon.com. 6:30pm, free. Reading with authors Steve Almond (Candyfreak), Tom Barbash (Stay Up With Me), and others.

Holiday Crafts Day Randall Museum, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.randallmuseum.org. 10am-2pm, craft activities (prices vary); 2pm, performance by Daniel DaVinci Comedy Circus Show, $3. Learn how to roll beeswax candles, make scented soaps, and other crafts that make great gifts. A kid-friendly comedy performance follows. Suitable for all ages, through children must be accompanied by an adult.

Jingletown Winter ArtWalk Between Park and Fruitvale, Oakl; www.jingletown.org. 11am-6pm. Open studios event featuring over 50 artists who live or work in the Jingletown neighborhood, near the estuary separating Oakland and Alameda.

Mexican Museum events Mexican Museum, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.mexicanmuseum.org. Free. The museum hosts La Tienda Holiday Sale (today, 10am-4pm), featuring handmade crafts made from ceramic, copper, and wood; and a Family Sunday celebration in honor of what would have been artist Diego Rivera’s 127th birthday (Sun/8, noon-3:30pm).

Middle East Crafts Bazaar Middle East Children’s Alliance, 1101 Eighth St, Berk; www.mecaforpeace.org. 10am-5pm, free. Also Sun/8. Handcrafted gifts from the Middle East, including Palestine, Lebanon, and Turkey.

San Francisco Bazaar Concourse Exhibition Center, East Hall, 635 Eighth St, SF; www.sanfranciscobazaar.org. 11am-6pm, free. Also Sun/8. Featuring a large selection of handmade gifts made by local artists who live and work in the Bay Area.

SFMade’s Annual Holiday Gift Fair Fleet Room, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.sfmade.org. 10am-5pm, free. Also Sun/8. Every item at this gift fair is guaranteed made in San Francisco.

Union Street Fantasy of Lights Union between Van Ness and Steiner, SF; www.unionstreetsf.com. 3-7pm, free. Union Street lights up at this neighborhood holiday festival, with cupcake decorating, pony rides, jugglers, face painting, and other kid-friendly fun. Future Union Street events include the Ugly/Creative Holiday Sweater Contest (Dec 21, 2-4pm), and holiday caroling (Dec 21, 1pm); check out the online calendar for details.

Winter Faire Golden Gate Spiritualist Church, 1901 Franklin, SF; facebook.com/spiritualistchurch. 11am-4pm, free. Holiday gifts for sale including pottery, canned fruits and jams, gently used books, baked goods, and more.

SUNDAY 8

“Snow Day in the Gourmet Ghetto” Parking lot, 1673 Shattuck, Berk; www.anotherbullwinkelshow.com. 10am-3pm, free. Pony rides, craft projects, holiday vendors, and, yes, actual snow.

MONDAY 9

Holiday Toy Drive Bayview YMCA, 1601 Lane, SF; www.urbanedacademy.com; www.ymca.net. 5pm, free. Bring books, games, and sneakers to brighten the holidays for kids at this drive hosted by San Francisco 49er Navorro Bowman. *

Suspending judgment

Michael Redmond

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December 3, 2013

40

joe@sfbg.com

The Guardian is publishing only the first names of minors and their relatives named in this story, to protect their privacy.

In San Francisco public schools students can be sent home for talking back to a teacher, wearing a hat indoors, or sporting sagging pants. These infractions sound like the daily life of a kid, but the state calls them “willful defiance,” a category of suspensions that are nebulous to define at best.

Like the old saying about pornography, teachers say they know it when they see it, but students and parents alike are now calling foul on the practice.

The suspensions are so abundant in the San Francisco Unified School District that a movement has risen up against it. Sending kids home not only is an ineffective punishment, opponents say, it also can lead youth into the criminal justice system.

Now San Francisco Board of Education Commissioner Matt Haney is proposing a resolution that would ban willful defiance suspensions in San Francisco schools altogether.

“There will still be situations where we need to send a student home, but willful defiance will not be one of those reasons,” he told the Guardian. “Change is hard, complicated, and messy. But we can no longer deal with discipline or interactions with our students in that sort of way.”

He plans to introduce the resolution at the Dec. 10 Board of Education meeting, and if it passes, he said full implementation may take until the next school year.

There’s a fight to ban willful defiance suspensions statewide as well, but so far it’s been stymied. Just last month, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed Assembly Bill 420, a bill mirroring aspects of Haney’s proposal. Those advocating for such a ban say it’s an issue of racial justice.

San Francisco’s African American and Latino students together suffer 80 percent of willful defiance suspensions, according to SFUSD data. The nonprofit student group Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth decried this statistic as an injustice, supporting the ban.

The San Francisco Board of Education took tentative steps to reduce suspensions as a whole in 2010, voting to introduce a new disciplinary system called Restorative Practices district wide. It’s complex, but basically asks students to talk things out in what are called “restorative circles” that include everyone involved in an incident, like a fight.

It’s also about changing the culture around discipline. It encourages teachers and students to establish a rapport, turning around the way some schools have practiced authority for decades.

At the time, there was hope. Fast forward three years, and that hope has dwindled.

Early evidence shows that Restorative Practices work better than suspensions, and prevent behavioral problems down the road, too. But out of SFUSD’s more than 100 schools, less than half of them started to implement the new reform.

Few schools have fully integrated the change, officials told us. Haney’s resolution addresses this with a mandate: SFUSD must implement Restorative Practices throughout the San Francisco school district.

The program is important, proponents say, because the majority of the 55,000 students a year moving through San Francisco schools still face school discipline that can set them way back in school and later may lead to incarceration. And suspensions can be levied for the smallest of infractions.

Cupcakes and justice

Xochitl is a 15-year-old SFUSD sophomore with long brown hair. She watches the TV show Supernatural (Dean is cuter than Sam) and yearns to one day live with her relatives in Nicaragua. Years ago on her middle school playground, she once faced a hungry child’s ultimate temptation: Free cupcakes.

The baked goods sat in a box on the cement by the playground, unattended. The frosting sat un-licked, the wrappers unwrapped.

She and her friend looked around, searching for a possible pastry owner nearby. Runners circled around the track in the distance, but no one else was around. The cupcakes met a satisfying fate inside Xochitl’s belly. The next morning went decidedly downhill.

As she walked into school, the counselor told her to go home: she was suspended.

“The cupcakes belonged to this girl because it was her birthday,” Xochitl said, something she found out only once she was being punished. “They went straight to suspension, they didn’t even let me speak.”

Restorative practices would have sat her with the birthday girl to explain her mistake and apologize. Maybe she would’ve bought the girl new cupcakes. That wasn’t what happened.

Suspended, Xochitl spent the day at her grandparents’ house. Not every suspended student has a safe place to go. Some turn to the streets.

In October a group of mostly black young students marched to the Board of Education to protest willful defiance suspensions. The group, 100 Percent College Prep Institute, formed in the ashes of violence.

“I drive a school bus for a living, and I had a boy on my bus who was not bad, but not good,” said 100 Percent College Prep Institute co-founder Jackie Cohen, speaking with the Guardian as she marched with her students. “When we got back from Christmas break, he wasn’t back on the bus. Turns out he decided to ‘live that life.’ Three days later, I found he was shot and killed.”

In some communities the jaws of crime and drugs are forever nipping at their children’s heels. A child inside school is safe. Suspensions throw the most vulnerable students into the wild.

“Preventing crime in San Francisco begins with keeping children in the classroom,” SFPD Chief Greg Suhr wrote in a letter to the SF Examiner last year. “Proactive policies, such as the ‘restorative practices’ implemented by the SFUSD, emphasize the importance of building positive relationships while holding kids accountable for their actions.”

Black students make up about 10 percent of SFUSD’s population, but they represented 46 percent of SFUSD’s total suspensions in 2012, according to SFUSD data. Latino students represented about 30 percent of suspensions.

The racial disparity of suspensions mirror the disparity of incarceration. A study by nonprofit group The Advancement Project found that in 2002, African American youths made up 16 percent of the juvenile population but were 43 percent of juvenile arrests.

Xochitl sees that with her own eyes every day.

“Some kids turn to the streets, you know. I’ve seen people younger than me go to jail,” Xochitl said. “I was on Instagram and saw a friend locked up. I knew that girl, she’s in my PE class.”

It’s one of our country’s many shameful open secrets. Nearly half of all adult men in the United States serving life sentences are African Americans, and one in six is Latino, according to data from the nonprofit group the Sentencing Project.

Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, all trapped in a cycle of poverty to prisons that for some starts at school.

“As a school district, when that’s staring us in the face, we can’t not do something about it,” Haney said.

Sometimes it begins when students are still learning their ABC’s.

Bruises inside and out

Restorative Practices are implemented from kindergarten to high school.

“If [students] don’t have a sense of belonging… that’s going to prevent schools from addressing behavior,” Kerry Berkowitz, the district’s program administrator of Restorative Practices, told us. The seeds of mistrust are planted when students are young.

Desamuel could not yet spell the world “police” when he first met them.

He was five years old, and as kindergartners sometimes do, he threw a temper tantrum. In the school’s desperation to contain him, officials called the SFPD.

“The police only came one time,” Desamuel, now seven, told the Guardian. Sitting in his San Francisco home with his uncle Lionel, Desamuel sounded ashamed. “But I didn’t go to jail because they only put kids in jail for being bad, like kids taking guns to school.”

The memory angers Desamuel’s uncle, who feels restorative practices would have prevented the misunderstanding. His home is a testament to bridge building.

Lionel, his brothers and mother all pitch in to take care of Desamuel while the boy’s father makes what he calls “a transition.” The home is large by San Francisco standards. Drawings of Spiderman and Batman line the wall, equal in number only to the portraits of their family, most of whom live in the city. There’s a lot of care in Desamuel’s life. That hasn’t stopped his tantrums, though.

The family tried to get him therapy, psychological analysis, anything to help. But as any parent can tell you, sometimes a child just needs love.

Lionel struggled with the school’s administration, and asked them to try less punitive ways of handling his nephew. “I told them to just hug the boy. Their response was ‘it’s hard to hug someone swinging at you.'”

The last time Desamuel fought a student he was tackled to the ground by a school security guard. The now-second grader came home with a bruise on his face.

“When I was bad I hurted the children. I wasn’t supposed to get up, and couldn’t get up off the ground. He took me by the arms and legs,” Desamuel said.

The problem with outsize use of suspensions and punitive action, Berkowitz said, is that it breeds a fear of school that shouldn’t exist. Desamuel is no different.

“I got sent to the office and I had to go to the principal’s office and they talked about me being bad,” Desamuel said. “I think because I make too much trouble I have a lot of problems and they don’t want me to be there.”

Cat Reyes is a history teacher who is now a Restorative Practices coach at Mission High School. She said transformation in behavior is the whole point.

She told the Guardian about a student recorded a fight on film. The two fighting teenagers tried to let the incident go, but with the video online for all to see their pride came between them. If the school suspended the girl who recorded the fight there may never have been resolution. The wounds would fester.

But now the girl will join a restorative circle and explain her actions to those involved in the fight, and their parents. That’s far more daunting to kids than simply going home for a day, Reyes said. It doesn’t just stop at the talk though. “On one end she has to say sorry,” Reyes said. “But now she may go to the media center and create a [movie] about it on our closed circuit TV. The consequence fits the crime.”

As students talk out their differences enemies can become friends, she said. After all, the goal is to correct bad behavior and break destructive cycles. Yet less than half of the schools in SFUSD are employing Restorative Practices.

Slowly but surely

One of the biggest critiques of Restorative Practices is that it removes consequences. That’s the wrong way to look at it, Berkowitz said: “When people say consequences, they mean punishment. We want to work with students to find root causes.”

The numbers back her up: 2,700 SFUSD staff members have trained in Restorative Practices, according to data provided by the district. This consequently led to a strong reduction in suspensions, the district says, from more than 3,000 in 2009 to about 1,800 last year.

SFUSD recognized a good thing when it saw it, growing the Restorative Practices budget from $650,000 in 2009 to $900,000 in 2013.

But only about 25 schools started measurable implementation, Berkowitz said. She put it plainly, saying the program is in its infancy. “Are they ‘there’ yet?” she said. “No.”

“Our team is pretty maxed out,” she said. “To really bring this to scale and implement Restorative Practices, there’d need to be a lot of discussions around that.”

Asked how much she’d need to fully fund the program across all schools, she was evasive. Haney was more direct. When asked if his resolution tied funding to the mandate of implementing Restorative Practices district-wide, he admitted that a funding source hadn’t yet been identified.

“Mostly we hear there needs to be more: more support, more social workers, more people in schools to make this functional,” he said. “It’s a longer term challenge.”

That solution may emerge as the resolution goes through the approval process, but the program faces other problems besides funding.

Teachers have depended on suspensions as a tool for years. Money is one thing, but changing educators’ minds about discipline is another.

The “R” word

Martin Luther King Jr. fought for the integration of schools, but in a speech about Vietnam he said something that could apply to the SFUSD today.

“Life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides,” the southern preacher said in one of his last speeches before his death.

There is one issue simmering under this entire debate, festering, unspoken. Why are black and Latino students suspended more than other groups? Is this system inherently racist?

It’s a tough question. Teachers are notoriously underpaid, overworked, under supported, and asked to enforce the newest policies at the drop of a hat. The teachers the Guardian spoke to all described a packed year filled with new methods to learn, all with a common purpose — a love of their profession and a love of their students.

“There’s a hesitancy to talk about race with this,” said Kevin Boggess, civic engagement leader for Coleman Advocates, the group leading the charge for the willful defiance ban.

Nevertheless the question of racism permeates the discussion. Xochitl felt persecuted as one of the few Latinas in a mostly Asian middle school.

In the case of Desamuel, the young black child who had the police called on him at age five, his uncle stressed the need for culturally aware teaching. Lionel said Desamuel was well-behaved when he had an authoritative, elderly black female teacher, but acted up in the hands of substitutes who weren’t black and whom he characterized as “young and new” to teaching. Then again, the principal who called the police to handle Desamuel was herself black.

Norm “Math” Mattox is a former James Lick Middle School math and science teacher, and he said from his perspective as an African American he’s seen the issues Haney’s resolution addresses clear as day.

“My sense is that teachers might be blowing the alarm a little bit too soon as far as their brown and black students are concerned, especially the boys. They don’t know how to manage them,” he said. In his experience, misbehaving children are sent out of the room too soon.

In the short term, suspensions are an expedient tool, but punishment without communication does long lasting damage. “The dynamic between teacher and student did not get resolved inside of the class,” he said.

One SFUSD school tackled the specter of racism head on. Mission High School is at the vanguard of what its principal calls “anti-racist teaching.”

Mission High has a higher African American student college placement rate than many SFUSD schools, a group that struggles to perform elsewhere. And as a designated “newcomer pathway” for new immigrants, the school has 40 percent English language learners.

Mission High’s principal, Eric Guthertz, is energized by the challenge. He revamped the way the school teaches to address race and ethnicity directly.

The geometry teachers use Bayview district planning data to illustrate mathematical lessons, and teachers look at grades by ethnicity and address disparities directly.

Guthertz credited Restorative Practices with lowering the school’s suspensions. SFUSD data shows Mission High’s steady suspension decline, with a 14 percent suspension rate in 2009, before the program started, and down to a 0.4 percent suspension rate by 2012.

Mission High School Principal Eric Guthertz. Guardian photo by Brittany M. Powell

“We’ve deeply embraced Restorative Practices,” he said.

Next week San Francisco will see if the Board of Education will take the same leap Gutherz did. As he is quick to point out, shifting the culture at Mission High School took years.

The Guardian contacted members of the school board, but did not hear back from them before press time to see how they may vote.

Either way, it’s time for SFUSD to change its ways, Haney said. But no matter what side of the matter you fall on, he said, it’s important to remember one thing.

“Everyone involved in this conversation wants to do better by these students,” he said.

The San Francisco Board of Education will vote on the ban of willful defiance suspensions and full implementation of Restorative Practices at their Dec. 10 meeting.

Mantra from the Milk/Moscone memorial march: “Fight back!”

Michael Redmond

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December 3, 2013

10

Hundreds of activists and progressive San Franciscans marked the 35th anniversary of the Mayor George Moscone and Sup. Harvey Milk assassinations on Wednesday night in the Castro with fiery speeches urging the crowd to “fight back!” against displacement and gentrification, conjuring the words and spirit of those slain leftist leaders.

“Gotta have hope just to stay alive,” the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus sang of Milk and his message on the 35th anniversary of that chorus’ first performance, on the steps of City Hall on the day of the tragedy, belting out the refrain, “Gotta give ’em hope.”

Despite the onslaught of evictions triggered by real estate speculators and the city’s current economic development policies, such as the tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks extended to Twitter alone, the defiant message from this podium did have an undercurrent of hope.

But that hope was predicated on people’s willingness to organize and engage in “a fight they started,” Tom Temprano, president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, said of Milk and Moscone, “a fight against gentrification and displacement.”

Yet Temprano also said that people have to feel stable and secure to really have hope: “You can’t have hope without a roof over your head. You can’t have hope without affordable housing. And that’s why we’re marching today.”

Temprano then played an old news clip of Milk talking about his own eviction from the camera store and apartment where he lived on Castro Street, the result of similar economic forces that are overtaking the city today.

Milk explained how San Francisco’s economy relies on local residents being able to earn a living wage and not pay too much of their incomes in rents. But when landlords gouge their tenants, they have less to spend in local businesses, “and sooner or later, that’s going to crunch the economy locally.”

One of the more fiery speeches of the evening came from Brian Basinger of the AIDS Housing Alliance, who used one of Milk’s signature lines when he said, “I’m Brian Basinger and I’m here to recruit you. I’m here to recruit you into a movement for housing justice that goes back decades.”

He cited the recent successes of that movement, from suing to stop CitiApartments from abusing and exploiting its tenants to stopping the 8 Washington luxury condo project when the voters overwhelmingly defeated Props. B&C this month.

“Housing rights are human rights,” Basinger said.

Housing activist Tony Robles, a board member of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation, recalled being a student at Mission High School when the news of the assassinations was announced, an event that profoundly affected him. He said they represented “the spirit of community and the spirit of fighting for what is right.”

Robles called out Sup. Scott Wiener, a Milk successor representing the Castro, calling Wiener unworthy of that legacy, citing his legislation allowing more apartments to be converted to condos and with closing the parks at night. “You were no Harvey Milk when you made that move, brother,” Robles said, closing with this hope: “Let the poetry of Harvey Milk’s struggle live on in the streets of San Francisco.”

Wiener and other politicians, including Mayor Ed Lee, Sen. Mark Leno, Board President David Chiu, and state Democratic Party head John Burton, spoke earlier in the day at a City Hall memorial. But they pointedly weren’t invited to the more raucous evening event (although Sup. David Campos, whose Assembly race against Chiu the Milk Club has endorsed, did show up to offer his silent support).

“Fuck you, we are staying!” was the message Shannell Williams, a San Francisco native and a rising young activist who came from the Save City College movement, had for the city’s landlords and those who say low and middle income earners should just move to Oakland.

She and others recalled the message of love and inclusion that were hallmarks of Milk and Moscone’s political philosophy, as well as their belief in building coalitions to defeat powerful economic interests.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca of the SF Housing Rights Committee cited recent successes the movement has had in fighting back against evictions and said, “It’s because of the power we have as tenants when we unite and we fight back.”

He said that was Milk’s central message: “If we unite and fight, we can win.” And Mecca said San Francisco “doesn’t belong to greedy landlords, it belongs to all of us.”

Cleve Jones, an longtime LGBT activist who was an intern for Milk at the time of the assassinations, noted, “There are some who will question our desire to raise political points tonight,” recognizing this occasion has usually been a solemn memorial march.

But he said that using this occasion as a vehicle for political organizing is the best way to honor the legacy of Milk and Moscone, who Jones said would be appalled by what’s happening in this city. Jones told the story of an aging gay activist who was recently depressed about being displaced from the city, and Jones tried to comfort him by saying, “It’s hard to get old in this town and see all the changes.”

It didn’t help: Days later, Jones said his friend committed suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge.

“It’s not rhetoric and it’s not hyperbole. This destroys lives,” Jones said. It was a message repeated on a large banner carried by those leading the march to City Hall, which read, “Eviction=Death.”

The rally was closed out by members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who cited a long list of “weird, kooky artistic innovators” from San Francisco’s past, and said, “They never could have afforded to live here today.”

Then the Sisters offered an invocation they called the “Rosary of Housing Evils,” asking the crowd to repeat the mantra “Save us from the speculators” between each of their prayers and observations for the city, which included:

“Harvey Milk was evicted from his home.”

“Extend rent control to all residential and commercial units.”

“Forty percent of queer seniors cannot afford their rents.”

“Rent has risen 21 percent this year.”

“We all need to stay together or they’ll pick us off one by one.”

Development must protect the arts

Michael Redmond

-

December 3, 2013

139

By Stephanie Weisman

OPINION Recently, the Bay Guardian ran an article critical of The Marsh theater’s position on the condo development proposed for 1050 Valencia St. (see “Street Fight: Driving us crazy,” 11/12). It incorrectly claimed that we oppose the project. Thank you, Guardian, for now giving us the opportunity to set the record straight.

The Marsh does not oppose a proposal to develop condominiums and commercial space next door to us at 1050 Valencia St. Rather, we are trying to get conditions attached to the project’s building permit — for both during and after construction — that reflect that this developer chose to build up against a world-renowned, community-based theater. We believe it is reasonable to expect the developer to be a good neighbor.

For almost 25 years, The Marsh has developed solo performances, presenting nearly 700 performances annually with 400 in our Mission location alone. We also offer solo performance workshops and year-round after-school classes and camps for youth where no child — toddler through teen — is turned away because of lack of money. We foster risk-taking and diverse artists from novices to those with worldwide acclaim, giving voice to the vital stories of our times.

The construction plans for 1050 Valencia directly affect our theater space and our ability to continue to host live performance. As currently designed, the plans for both construction and occupancy could mean noise that would drown out unamplified solo performance. The project will also reduce theater lighting and ventilation.

We’ve seen the history of new affluent residents in fancy SoMa live/work lofts who didn’t like living next to the loud music and milling crowds they chose to move near. These wealthy newcomers could afford to hire lawyers and fight expensive legal battles, and they successfully closed down entertainment venues that had defined SoMa for decades. We seek conditions to prevent this from happening to us.

We are requesting the large open deck adjacent to our building be moved behind a sound barrier. We are concerned that when residents have a party or open their windows with music blaring, the sound will disrupt our performances. This endangers our existence. We are also asking for conditions prohibiting the commercial space next to us from having live entertainment that would impact our performances.

Without specific legally enforceable conditions attached to the permits, we have no recourse if the developer or subsequent property owners lack good faith. To date, based on developer Mark Rutherford’s treatment of us, we have no reason to believe in his good faith. San Francisco’s development history shows that only legally enforceable conditions really protect the public interest over the “lifetime” of a building’s construction and use.

The Marsh is a metaphor for the current displacement of people and culture in the Mission District. Miraculously, we were able to purchase our building in 1996, a market low, with the support of our artists, patrons, board, and forward-looking foundation and nonprofit and commercial loan entities. Otherwise, The Marsh would not exist today. We would never have been able to afford today’s market-rate rent.

We are now a safe house for artists to develop their work at our space, for the children who take our affordable classes, and the audiences who attend our critically-acclaimed shows. But we are not indestructible. If protective conditions are not written into the building permit, and we end up with disrupted programs and performances, we will not survive artistically or financially.

Will The Marsh go the way of our neighbors? Will we be developed into a bunch of two-bedroom condos selling for $1.75-2.25 million, like the ones at 19th and Valencia? With maybe two below-market rate units set aside, as planned for 1050 Valencia, where “below market” could mean $1 million. But where will the artists go? Where will young aspiring performers go? The audiences?

Please join us and stand up for The Marsh at the Board of Appeals Hearing, City Hall, Dec. 11, 5pm.

Stephanie Weisman is the founder and artistic director of The Marsh