Mission

Rep Clock: Sep 17-23, 2014

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Schedules are for Wed/17-Tue/23 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. “ATA Lives!”: •¡O No Coronado! (Baldwin, 1992) and Wild Gunmen (Baldwin, 1978), Fri, 7; Sonic Outlaws (Baldwin, 1995), Fri, 9. “Other Cinema:” “Anomalies From the Archive:” Technicolor N.G., performance and talk by artists and archivists Walter Forsberg and John Klacsmann, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $7.50-10. “Thursday Night Rock Docs:” Holding on to Jah (Hall, 2011), Thu, 7:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •Repo Man (Cox, 1984), Wed, 7:30, and The Return of the Living Dead (O’Bannon, 1985), Wed, 9:15. •Experiment in Terror (Edwards, 1962), Thu, 7, and Petulia (Lester, 1968), Thu, 9:25. “Midnites for Maniacs:” “Diegetic Odysseys Double Feature:” •Inside Llewyn Davis (Coen and Coen, 2013), Fri, 7:20, and Coal Miner’s Daughter (Apted, 1980), Fri, 9:30. “SF Silent Film Festival: Silent Autumn:” “Another Fine Mess: Silent Laurel and Hardy Shorts (1928-29),” Sat, 11am; The Son of the Sheik (Fitzmaurice, 1926), with a new score by the Alloy Orchestra, Sat, 1; “A Night at the Cinema in 1914,” short films with a World War I focus and with music by Donald Sosin, Sat, 3:30; The General (Keaton, 1926), with Alloy Orchestra, Sat, 7; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920), Sat, 9. For tickets and more info, visit www.silentfilm.org. Frozen (Buck and Lee, 2013), Sun, 1, presented sing-along style. This event, $11-16. •Los Angeles Plays Itself (Andersen, 2003), Sun, 6, and Model Shop (Demy, 1968), Sun, 9:05. “A Celebration of Arturo Galster (1959-2014),” Mon, 7:30. Free event. •The World According to Garp (Roy Hill, 1982), Tue, 7, and The Birdcage (Nichols, 1996), Tue, 4:45, 9:30.

CENTURY THEATERS @ PACIFIC COMMONS 43917 Pacific Commons, Fremont; www.theworldindiefilmfest.com. $15. “The World’s Independent Film Festival,” films raising awareness about global, cultural, and social issues, Sat-Sun.

“CINE+MAS PRESENTS: SAN FRANCISCO LATINO FILM FESTIVAL” Various venues including Opera Plaza Cinema, 601 Van Ness, SF; www.sflatinofilmfestival.org. Sixth annual festival celebrating work from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and other Latin American countries, plus the US, including documentaries, narratives, and short films. Sept 19-27.

COURTHOUSE SQUARE 2200 Broadway, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Russo and Russo, 2014), Thu, 8:45.

EXPLORATORIUM Pier 15, SF; www.exploratorium.edu. Free with museum admission ($19-25). “Off the Screen:” Technicolor N.G., performance and talk by artists and archivists Walter Forsberg and John Klacsmann, Thu, 8. “Saturday Cinema:” “Experimental Films by Kids from the Film-Makers’ Cooperative,” Sat, 1, 3.

GOETHE-INSTITUT SF 530 Bush, SF; www.goethe.de/ins/us/saf/enindex.htm. $5 suggested donation. “100 Years After WWI:” Majub’s Journey (Knopf, 2013), Wed, 6:30.

GRAND LAKE 3200 Grand Lake, Oakl; www.mecaforpeace.org. $10. Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? (Gondry, 2013), Wed, 7.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Critics’ Choice, Classic and Quirky Americana:” Bedside (Florey, 1934), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” “Films of James Broughton (1948-81),” Wed, 7. “Jean-Luc Godard: Expect Everything from Cinema:” Tout va bien (Godard and Gorin, 1971), Thu, 7; One P.M. (Pennebaker, 1971), Sun, 5; Letter to Jane: Investigation of a Still (Godard and Gorin, 1972), Sun, 7. “Eyes Wide: The Films of Stanley Kubrick:” Lolita (1962), Fri, 7:30. “James Dean, Restored Classics from Warner Bros.:” Giant (Stevens, 1956), Sat, 7. “Activate Yourself: The Free Speech Movement at 50:” “Pigs, Parks, and Protesters: Films by San Francisco Newsreel (1968-69),” Tue, 7.

PALACE OF FINE ARTS 3301 Lyon, SF. “Reel Rock Tour:” Valley Uprising (2014), Wed, 7. More info on this screening ($20) at http://reelrocktour.com. Days of My Youth (2014), Fri, 8. More info for this screening (tickets $16.25) at www.skimovie.com.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. God Help the Girl (Murdoch, 2014), Wed-Thu, 9:30. Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering (Merola, 2014), Wed-Thu, 7, 8:45. “Frameline Encore:” Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story (Herzog and Orabona, 2014), Thu, 7. Free screening. Memphis (Sutton, 2013), Sept 19-25, 7, 9 (also Sat, 2; Sun, 3; no 7pm show Sept 25). This Ain’t No Mouse Music (Simon and Gosling, 2013), Fri-Sat, 7, 9:30 (also Sat, 2:30, 4:30); Sept 21-25, 7, 9:15 (also Sun, 4:30). Musical performances and director in person Fri and Sat; visit website for details. Microbirth (Harman and Wakeford, 2014), Sat, 4:30. “Roxie Kids:” “Charlie Chaplin Shorts,” Sun, 2. Free admission for kids under 12.

SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. Take Me to the River (Shore, 2014), Wed-Thu, call for times. This Ain’t No Mouse Music (Simon and Gosling, 2013), Sept 19-25, call for times. “Alec Guinness at 100:” The Man in the White Suit (Mackendrick, 1951), Sun, 4:30, 7:30.

TANNERY 708 Gilman, Berk; lostandoutofprintfilms.blogspot.com. Donations accepted. “Berkeley Underground Film Society:” Queen of Burlesque (Newfield, 1946), Fri, 7:30; “LOOP presents:” “Cheap Thrills,” burlesque shorts, Sat, 7:30; The Blue Angel (von Sternberg, 1930), Sun, 7:30.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “Invasion of the Cinemaniacs:” Pietà (Kim, 2012), Thu, 7:30; Little Fugitive (Ashley, Engel, and Orkin, 1953), Sun, 2. *

 

Alerts: Sept 17-23, 2014

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Leather and Feathers: AIDS Emergency Fund’s Annual Gala

Temple Nightclub, 540 Howard, SF. 7pm, $125. For the second year, the San Francisco AIDS Emergency Fund is hosting its annual gala, Leather and Feathers, to raise money for clients. This year, the organization is proud to debut Fantasy Runway, where community members will strut their finest leather, fetish gear, and drag.

FRIDAY 19

 

League of Women Voters’ District 6 Candidate Forum

Golden Gate University, Room 2201, 536 Mission, SF. 6-8pm, free. Incumbent Jane Kim, and challengers Michael Nulty, David Carlos Salaverry, and Jamie Whitaker are invited to take questions from the San Francisco League of Women Voters and audience members regarding the race for the District 6 supervisor position. The forum is free and open to the public, with seating on a first-come, first-serve basis.

 

Dan Choi: Fight for City College

Barry’s Bootcamp, 236 King Street, SF. pro-choi.com. 9:00pm-midnight, $25 pre-sale, $50 at door. Dan Choi, a candidate for the City College Board and a key player in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t tell” repeal movement, will host this event and fundraiser for Fight for City College. That organization is fighting to save the threatened LGBT studies program at City College of San Francisco. Enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres by Skyy Cocktails, as well as musical entertainment, during the event.

SUNDAY 21

 

Transit History Bicycle Tour

Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics, 518 Valencia, SF. noon-3pm, $15–$50 suggested donation. Chris Carlsson, of Shaping San Francisco, will lead this bicycle tour of San Francisco’s transit history. He’ll highlight locations linked to San Francisco transit history, such as the Freeway Revolt in Hayes Valley, the creation of The Wiggle, Critical Mass and bicycle activism in San Francisco, the United Railroads Strike, and nostalgic F-line cars. The tour will wrap up at Pier 36 with a look at San Francisco’s first Clipper ships. NorCal People’s Climate Rally Lake Merritt Amphitheater, Lake Merritt Blvd and 12th St., Oakl. peoplesclimatemarch.org. 2-5pm, free. Join activists and community members in a family-friendly settling for a rally in solidarity with the People’s Climate Rally in NYC, which will bring together environmental organizations, trade unions, and social justice groups nationwide for a gathering just before the Sept. 24th UN Climate Summit of world leaders. The Oakland demonstration, in support of the larger movement in NYC, will feature “Climate Fair” with a host of Bay Area environmental organizations that are focused on climate change.

Events Listings: sept. 17-23, 2014

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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.

WEDNESDAY 17

“Black Widow Pulsars: Vengeful Star Corpses” Randall Museum Theater, 199 Museum Way, SF; www.randallmuseum.org. 7:30pm, free. Stanford University’s Dr. Roger Romani speaks — Gamma rays, black holes, neutron stars! — as part of the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers’ 2014 lecture series.

Novella Carpenter Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. The author (Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer) reads from her latest memoir, Gone Feral: Tracking My Dad Through the Wild. Carpenter also talks Feral Sat/20, 5pm, Green Arcade, 1680 Market, SF; www.thegreenarcade.com.

THURSDAY 18

“Hardly Strictly Warren Hellman” Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF; www.thecjm.org. Opens Thu/18, 11am-8pm. $5-12. Exhibit runs through Oct 2016 (daily except Wed, 11am-5pm; Thu, 11am-8pm). Celebrating the legacy of banker, philanthropist, musician, and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival founder Hellman, who died in 2011. Exhibit contains footage from HSB’s archive of live performances, and personal objects like Hellman’s banjo.

“The Magic City: Treasure Island’s Golden Gate International Exposition” 2 Bryant, Suite 300, SF; www.sfheritage.org. 6pm, $15. San Francisco Heritage hosts this lecture with authors Anne Schnoebelen and Therese Poletti, who will discuss the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, themed “the Pageant of the Pacific,” and for which Treasure Island was constructed.

Jason Segal JCCSF, 3200 California, SF; www.jccsf.org/arts. 7pm. $15. The actor and comedian shares his new book for kids, Nightmares!

FRIDAY 19

“Art/Act: Maya Lin” David Brower Center, 2150 Allston, Berk; www.browercenter.org. Opens Fri/19, 7-9pm. Free. Exhibit runs through Feb 4 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm; Sun, 10am-1pm). The acclaimed sculptor, architectural designer, and environmentalist displays abstract works inspired by the Bay Area’s natural environments, including the interactive What is Missing? project.

Eat Real Festival Jack London Square, Oakl; www.eatrealfest.com. Fri/19, 1-9pm; Sat/20, 10:30am-9pm; Sun/21, 10:30am-5pm. Free. Billed as a combo “state fair, street-food festival, and block party,” this fest offers sustainable, regionally-sourced eats (BBQ, ice cream, curry, and more) costing eight bucks or less.

Oktoberfest by the Bay Pier 48, SF; www.oktoberfestbythebay.com. Fri/19, 5pm-midnight; Sat/20, 11am-5pm and 6pm-midnight; Sun/21, 11am-6pm. $25-75 (Sat/20-Sun/21 day session, kids 13-18, $5; must be accompanied by parent). The Chico Bavarian Band returns to add oompah to your eating and, more importantly, drinking experience. Prost!

“A Taste of Greece” Annunciation Cathedral, 245 Valencia, SF; www.sfgreekfestival.org. Fri/19-Sat/20, noon-10pm; Sun/21, noon-8pm. Free. Greek-food connoisseurs won’t want to miss this annual festival, which rolls out spanakopita, gyros, wine, pastries, and other specialties, plus live music and dancing.

SATURDAY 20

“Among Dreams” LGBT Center, 1800 Market, SF; www.amongdreams.com. Opens Sat/20, 6-9pm. Free. Exhibit runs through Nov 11. Chelsea Rae Klein presents photographic portraits, collages, and other works honoring LGBTQI veterans and active-duty military members, based on archival materials as well as interviews conducted since the 2011 repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“Fertile Ground: Art and Community in California” Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak, Oakl; www.museumca.org. Opens Sat/20, 10am-6pm. $6-15. Exhibit runs through April 12 (Wed-Thu, 11am-5pm; Fri, 11am-9pm; Sat-Sun, 10am-6pm). Oakland Museum of California and SFMOMA collaborate on this exhibition, which focuses on local history and social movements that shaped California art. Communities include the artists who worked with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in SF in the 1930s; painters and photographers from the California School of Fine Arts in the 1940s and ’50s (Mark Rothko, Richard Diebenkorn); UC Davis students and faculty in the 1960s and ’70s (Wayne Theibaud); and the “new Mission” artists of the 1990s (Barry McGee, Chris Johanson).

Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival #58 Old Mill Park, 325 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; www.mvfaf.org. 10am-5pm, $5-10. Through Sun/21. Over 140 fine artists participate in this fair, which is held in a can’t-be-beat location (hi, majestic redwoods) and also features live music and children’s entertainment.

Sarah Waters Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. The award-winning novelist (Tipping the Velvet, Affinity) reads from her latest, The Paying Guests.

SUNDAY 21

Folsom Street Fair Folsom between Eighth and 13th Sts, SF; www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm, $10 donation requested (donation sticker entitles wearer to $2 off drinks). The leather and fetish fantasia returns with over 200 exhibitor booths, two giant dance floors, public play stations, erotic art, and more.

MONDAY 22

Patrick Hoffman Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. The author of The White Van discusses his work with Matt Gonzalez as part of the “New Voices, New Stories” series.

TUESDAY 23

“Primus, Over the Electric Grapevine: Insight into Primus and the World of Les Claypool” Doc’s Lab, 124 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free (tickets required, must be picked up at the front counter of City Lights at 261 Columbus; call 415-362-8193 to inquire about availability). Primus’ Les Claypool, Larry LaLonde, and others discuss Greg Prato’s new book, offering the definitive oral history of the band. *

 

This Week’s Picks: Sept 17-23, 2014

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WEDNESDAY/17

 

 

Multiple Mary and Invisible Jane

Flyaway Productions, the aerial dance company that aims to “expose the range and power of female physicality,” will use an 80-foot wall offered up by the UC Hastings College of the Law to perform its new, site-specific dance created for the Tenderloin. If you’ve never seen aerial dance before, get ready to hold your breath as you watch dancers careen, tumble, and pirouette some seven stories up into the stratosphere. But the social justice themes for this performance keep its spirit on the streets, while dancers Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, Alayna Stroud, Marystarr Hope, Becca Dean, Laura Ellis, and Esther Wrobel fly through the air: Multiple Mary and Invisible Jane was choreographed by Jo Kreiter to narrate the experience of homeless women in San Francisco, in a neighborhood where extreme privilege and poverty collide. This afternoon’s performance will also have tabling with housing activists from Tenants Together. (Emma Silvers)

Wed/17-Thu/18 at noon and 8pm; Fri/19-Sat/20 at 8 and 9pm; free

UC Hastings School of the Law

333 Golden Gate, SF

(415) 672-4111

www.flyawayproductions.com

 

THURSDAY/18

 

 

 

Quaaludes

Some know quaaludes as a sedative that was popular in the disco era for its dizzying side effects. Others more hip to San Francisco’s independent music scene know Quaaludes as an all-girl quartet from the city by the Bay. Combining elements of grunge, post-punk, and riot grrrl, the band is unapologetically fierce when it comes to its live shows and lyric matter. In the band’s latest conquest to conquer a primarily male-dominated scene, Quaaludes is releasing its newest 7″ EP, dubbed Nothing New, on Dollskin and Thrillhouse Records this week. In celebration of this and their upcoming tour, the band will be playing with Generation Loss, Bad Daddies and Man Hands at everybody’s favorite Bernal Heights’ dive bar, The Knockout. (Erin Dage)

With Generation Loss, Bad Daddies, Man Hands

10pm, $7

Knockout

3223 Mission, SF

(415) 550-6994

www.theknockoutsf.com

 

 

FRIDAY/19

 

 

Eat Real Festival

Do you like noshing on food that’s as tasty as it is wallet-friendly? (If the answer is negative, the follow-up is: Do you have a pulse?) Oakland’s Eat Real Festival lures some of the most tempting food trucks and vendors in the Bay Area to Jack London Square, none of which will charge more than eight bucks for whatever’s on the menu. Besides affordable, sustainable and local are other key buzzwords at play, but the loudest buzz of all will be emanating from the hungry as they feast on mac n’ cheese, tacos, BBQ, falafel, vegan delights, sweet treats, and more. (Cheryl Eddy)

Today, 1-9pm; Sat/20, 10:30am-9pm; Sun/21, 10:30am-5pm, free

Jack London Square

55 Harrison, Oakl.

www.eatrealfest.com

 

 

 

 

Cine+Mas 6th Annual SF Latino Film Festival

Filmmakers, young and old, parading their versions of the provoca-creative relationship between the eye behind the lens and the image in front of the camera. This 6th edition of the San Francisco Latino Film Festival not only highlights most genres and styles of cinematography but a substantial example of the new Latin American film current. The result might well outshine Hollywood. In El Salvador, there is still a lot to do to settle scores with one of its most prolific (and ignored) poets, and the film Roque Dalton, Let’s Shoot the Night! (Austria, El Salvador, Cuba) is one step forward. In Peru’s Trip to Timbuktu, teenagers Ana and Lucho use love to hide from the social unrest of the ’80s. The festival opens with LA’s Alberto Barboza Cry Now. Films will also be shown in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Jose. (Fernando A. Torres)

Through Sept. 27

7pm, $15 (prices and times vary)

Brava Theater

2781 24th St., SF

(415) 754-9580

www.sflatinofilmfestival.org

 

 

 

Beck

In case you hadn’t heard, the Nob Hill Masonic Center recently had a little work done — a nip here, a tuck there, the installation of 3,300 brand-new seats, a few new bars, food options, and a rather expensive state-of-the-art sound system. Kicking things off at the new-and-improved music venue that will henceforth be known as The Masonic is Beck, who seemingly never ages, and whom you can count on to christen the stage but good with his idiosyncratic blend of funk, rock, and melancholy blues (this year’s Moon Phase was on the mopier side of the spectrum, but in a darn pretty way). The last time we saw him we were freezing our butts off at the Treasure Island Music Festival, so we’re excited to see him moonwalk again (hopefully!) in slightly cozier pastures. (Silvers)

8pm, $85-$120

Masonic

1111 California, SF

(415) 776-7475

www.sfmasonic.com

 

SATURDAY/20

 

 

 

 

“Silent Autumn”

Good news, SF Silent Film Festival fans: The popular “Silent Winter” program is now “Silent Autumn,” and its movie magic (with live musical accompaniment) arrives at the Castro months earlier than usual. The day is packed with top-notch programming, but if you must narrow it down: The British Film Institute-curated “A Night at the Cinema in 1914” showcases newsreels (think votes-for-women protestors and World War I reports), comedies (early Chaplin!), a Perils of Pauline episode, and more; while the freshly restored, memorably creepy German expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) gets its US premiere. (Eddy)

First program at 11am, $15

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.silentfilm.org

 

 

 

Samhain

After the breakup of the original Misfits in 1983, Glenn Danzig built upon the horror punk foundation of his first band and added even darker lyrical content, and later on, a more metal sound to the mix, creating Samhain — a group that would go on to release three records before the singer re-tooled the lineup and adopted the eponymous moniker of Danzig. When original members Steve Zing and London May join Danzig on stage in San Francisco tonight — one of only seven gigs that the band is playing on this special reunion tour — you can be assured that “All Hell Breaks Loose!” (Sean McCourt)

With Goatwhore and Kyng

8pm, $30-$45

The Warfield

982 Market, SF

www.thewarfieldtheatre.com

 

 

 

SUNDAY/21

 

 

 

Berkeley World Music Festival

Telegraph Avenue is enough of a spectacle in and of itself on an average day, but on day two of this free fest — which marks the first time organizers have thrown a fall party in addition to the spring festival — the whole street will become a stage, as organizers have closed the Ave to cars between Dwight and Durant. Get ready to hear Zydeco and Canjun sounds, Klezmer tunes, Moroccan Chaabi pop, Zimbabwean dance numbers, Sufi trance, and just about every other kind of international music you can think of. A kids’ section will have puppet shows and street art, while a special beer garden on Telegraph at Haste serves to benefit Berkeley’s beloved Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center. No passport necessary. (Silvers)

Starts Sat/20, noon to 6pm, free

Telegraph between Dwight and Durant, Berk.

www.berkeleyworldmusic.org

MONDAY/22 The Raveonettes Grafting lush harmonies, catchy song structures, and timeless production values from 1950s rock ‘n’ roll pioneers such as Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers onto a modern indie approach, The Raveonettes have created an ethereal sound that is virtually all their own. Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo have added fuzz-tone guitars and more on top of their history-steeped musical foundation over the course of several records to great effect, including their latest, Pe’ahi, which hit stores in July. Based on tracks like “Endless Sleeper,” it appears that living in Los Angeles has added a ripping surf twang to their guitar sound — along with other welcome, varied instrumentation. (McCourt) 8pm, $28 Bimbo’s 365 Club 1025 Columbus, SF (415) 474-0365 www.bimbos365club.com TUESDAY/23 Robin Williams Double Feature: The World According to Garp and The Birdcage What is there to say about the beloved comedian that hasn’t already been said? Better to let him speak — rant, sing, preach — for himself, in any of the countless, ridiculous voices in which he spoke. The 1982 adaptation of John Irving’s novel sees Williams in the title role of Garp, alongside Glenn Close making her feature debut, plus John Lithgow’s Academy Award-nominated turn as a transgender jock. And The Birdcage, Mike Nichols’ classic, uproarious 1996 adaptation of La Cage aux Folles, pairs Williams with two of the other finest comedic actors of his generation, Hank Azaria and Nathan Lane, for the original Meet the Parents, so to speak. (Hint: It’s funnier when one of the couples owns a gay nightclub in South Beach.) Shoes optional? (Silvers) 4:45pm, 7pm, 9:30pm, $11 Castro Theatre 429 Castro, SF www.castrotheatre.com George Thorogood Celebrating 40 years of bringing blues and booze-fueled good times to fans around the globe, George Thorogood and The Destroyers continue to be the unabashedly best bar band in the world. Just hearing the first few notes or verses of songs like “Move It On Over,” “I Drink Alone,” “Who Do You Love,” and of course, “Bad to the Bone” transports listeners to a jumpin’ juke joint of yesteryear, where you forget all your daily troubles and just dance the night away — and you know what to order when the bartender asks. Of course, it’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer!” (McCourt) 8pm, $38.50 The Fillmore 1805 Geary, SF (415) 346-3000 www.thefillmore.com The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 835 Market Street, Suite 550, SF, CA 94103; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Polly’s sexual (r)evolution

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steve@sfbg.com

There’s been more than one Polly, the author and namesake of the new memoir Polly: Sex Culture Revolutionary. That may be true for each of us as we engage with different interests and identities during our sexual development, but Polly has distilled her psychosexual journey down to three distinct personas that she assumed along the way.

The Polly I’ve known for years is Polly Superstar, the fabulous hostess of Kinky Salon parties in her luscious and sprawling former Mission Control pad, community-minded sparkle pony in the Burning Man world, and a mindful feminist promoter of various sex-positive entrepreneurial ventures in San Francisco (including this independently published book, which took a massive Kickstarter campaign to get into print).

But the Polly I know passed through two previous Pollys — the Polly Whittaker she was born as in London in 1974 and the Polly Pandemonium that she became when she arrived in San Francisco 15 years ago on Folsom Street Fair weekend — on the way to becoming the woman she is today. And that woman was feeling very vulnerable as we met for lunch recently.

“I’m terrified,” she told me as she prepared to speak at Bawdy Storytelling that night and anticipated the general release of her book on Sept. 22. “I feel really exposed, I wonder what my motivation was to be so raw and open with this.”

A book that began four years ago as essentially a sassy guidebook for the Kinky Salon events that have now spread to another half-dozen cities around the world at some point turned far more serious and personal. Sure, we get to follow Polly through her crazy sexual antics, soaking in the sexy world of Mission Control.

“The crisp silhouettes of their bodies showed every detail: how the woman on all fours took his cock in her mouth, how the second guy traced his finger around his lover’s nipple, how the woman tucked underneath gently explored the body above her,” Polly wrote about a scene from Kinky Salon. “There were no wanted wandering hands, no staring eyes making me self-conscious. I became overwhelmed with a sense of pride. Fuck yes. This feels right. It feels good. These are my tribe — these crazy pleasure seekers. These brave pioneers of love.”

But those aren’t the “raw” bits that Polly referred to. No, as she wrote this book, Polly came to place her father’s slow and painful death from a brain tumor while she was a teenager at the center of the narrative, an event that propelled her subsequent sexual journey, for good or ill. She sought comfort and pleasure in the pain of the London BDSM scene, continuing that path here in San Francisco before morphing her fetish parties into sex parties that were more artsy and playful. Yet this sexual superstar still couldn’t achieve orgasms with her partners, a secret source of shame before she dealt with it more openly and honestly, helping other women along the way.

This memoir is less a wild tell-all by a high-profile libertine than intensely human story about a woman raised in a sexually liberated household (her mom was a sex therapist, her dad a hot-air balloonist, many of their friends swingers) who nonetheless struggles with her own sexual identity and ambitions against the backdrop of personal tragedy and smaller set-backs.

Polly relays and celebrates San Francisco’s storied history as the center of the American sexual revolution, from the old Barbary Coast days through the North Beach strips club, free love in the Haight-Ashbury, and gay liberation in the Castro, to the AIDS crisis, rise of BDSM, and creative ways of expressing sexuality.

But even for Polly and others who make their sexuality such a central part of their lives and personal identities, sexuality is still a nuanced, evolving continuum that regularly raises challenging questions and issues.

“It’s a complicated, really complicated, issue, and it’s at the core of the cultural shift that is happening around sexuality,” Polly said of the delicate balance between female sexual empowerment — which she’s all about — and sexual objectification, which this feminist strongly resists.

Growing up in the fetish scene and becoming a latex fashion designer, Polly can happily play the alluring sex kitten, as long as it feels playful and fun. But she’s quick to tear into scenes or situations that display women as sexual objects just to turn the boys on or sell products.

“I think one of the biggest problems on the planet is the sexual objectification of women,” she told us, noting the fine line she’s walking as she promotes a sex book with deeper themes. For example, at her book launch party, “We’re going to have a burlesque show, but you’re also going to get the lecture about sexual objectification.”

And even today, with her Kinky Salon community taking center-stage in her book, that community has been uprooted by the same forces of gentrification and displacement that are roiling the rest of the city (the monthly rent for their Mission Control space tripled after they got ousted).

“The sexual revolution didn’t happen in Oakland, it happened in San Francisco, and we are part of that lineage,” Polly tells us, noting that Kinky Salon, now rotating among temporary underground spaces, is still having a hard time finding a new home.

“If Kinky Salon has to move to Oakland, that will be telling of the state of San Francisco sex culture.”

UP THE REVOLUTION: LAUNCH PARTY FOR POLLY. With Porn Clown Posse, Trash Kan Marchink Band, DJ Fact50, and more Oct. 4, 9pm, Venue 550, 550 15th St., SF, www.pollysuperstar.com

Tenants face absurd lawsuits as “low-fault” evictions increase

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An annual report issued by the Eviction Defense Collaborative (EDC) highlights some of the outrageous reasons landlords use to evict tenants. Since 2009, EDC reported, there’s been a 62 percent increase in the number of breach-of-lease cases citywide.

Violations cited in the report included offenses such as “parking outside the parking lines,” or even cooking during nighttime hours.

One tenant, Clifton Reed, was evicted along with his young family after a sudden $1,000-per-month rent increase, which the landlord claimed was for storing construction equipment in the garage of their Bernal Heights home, something they’d previously done without a problem. “We were tenants living in the neighborhood for 20 years,” Reed told the Guardian.

The family sought assistance from EDC, who fought the eviction charges and negotiated a settlement with the landlord.

The drawn-out eviction case eventually ended with an $8,500 settlement and a 90-day timeframe for him and his family to move out, Reed said. After evicting the other tenants in the building following Reed’s eviction, the landlord eventually sold the property for approximately $1.8 million. 

Reed, who now lives in Vallejo but still commutes to the city, said the recent wave of evictions in San Francisco has particularly impacted artists and musicians from his old neighborhood. “They’re targeting income levels, and musicians don’t make a lot of money,” he said. “It’s really a shame.”

According to the EDC report, 20 percent of evicted households assisted by the nonprofit legal aid group – which represented 94 percent of San Francisco tenants facing just-cause eviction lawsuits in 2013 – had at least one child under 18 years old.

Families weren’t the only disproportionately impacted group, as 88 percent of total tenant households targeted with eviction lawsuits were also low-income, defined as making at or less than $36,950 per year for an individual. And 29 percent of the eviction cases concerned tenants housed in units owned by landlords who receive city funding, such as supportive housing in single-room occupancy hotels.

The EDC report also signaled that San Francisco’s communities of color remain at the forefront of the eviction crisis. According to the report, although San Francisco’s black population is only 6 percent, people who identify as African American represented 29 percent of those impacted by eviction in 2013. Additionally, 40 percent of tenants evicted from the Bayview neighborhood identified as black or African American.

Non-English speakers were also targeted, as 22 percent of evictions from the Mission District impacted households who spoke a language other than English.

The rise in “low-fault” evictions in 2013 occurred on a parallel track with no-fault evictions, which have received a great deal of media attention. Evictions that are based on an alleged action or violation by a tenant, as opposed to no-fault evictions initiated under the Ellis Act, for instance, grant less time for a tenant to vacate their unit. They’re easier on landlord’s wallets and don’t restrict subsequent use of a unit.

Low-fault evictions, or minor breach-of-lease cases, are providing the ideal platform for landlords to oust their tenants while still claiming some type of violation, the report indicates. The lengthy, complicated suits are often difficult for tenants to defend themselves against.

The EDC report showed an absence of court appearances in 38 percent of the 3,423 Residential Unlawful Detainers cases in 2013, demonstrating that tenants did not respond to the eviction notice in within the five-day deadline. 

“Tenants just miss this narrow window,” said Tyler McMillan, executive director of the EDC. “It’s one of the shortest timelines in the court system.”

Eviction notices have demanded tenants leave in as little as 10 days, as was the case of EDC client Joann Agnew-Porter. Agnew-Porter’s daughter, who lived in the unit, was laid off her job and scraping by on a fixed income. Their rental building, Friendship Village, an affordable housing community in the Western Addition, had been paying back-rent, when suddenly the mother and daughter pair received an eviction notice, giving them 10 days to come up with $2,100 of back-rent or leave the premises.

“I couldn’t come up with that,” Agnew-Porter said. “We’ve always been good tenants; we’re working people, we haven’t had loud music or people hanging out outside, none of that,” she added. After receiving assistance from EDC, a court determined that the apartment manager had mistakenly charged them that amount of back-rent.

“The story of increasing “low-fault” evictions is one that impacts some of San Francisco’s most vulnerable communities and ultimately threatens the diversity that makes San Francisco so unique,” the EDC report said.

The full report is available online at the EDC website here.

Viracocha is legit! Here are five things from the past five years that we wish we could’ve written about

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As you may have heard by now, Viracocha — everyone’s favorite Never-Never Land of a music venue/spoken word performance space/speakeasy/antiques store/beautiful place to stop and use the bathroom should you find yourself having to pee on Valencia — has gone legit.

After nearly a year of fundraising, inspections, and meetings with the city’s Entertainment Commission, the dreamily lit basement stage that has played host to so many awesome events will now be operating with an official venue permit.

No longer working under the veil of semi-secrecy, the folks who run the space (the tireless founder Jonathan Siegel, with help from new business partner Norah Hoover and a slew of local artists and musician employees) have spent the last six months renovating the space to meet city standards, and will now be free to actually publicize the venue’s shows. They’ll celebrate tonight with a free little gathering/party at Viracocha from 8pm to midnight — open to the public, legally, for the first time. [See a note Siegel sent to supporters early this morning at the end of this post.]

The booking process is also on the up-and-up, so bands, bookers — if you’ve always wanted to play that room but were unsure about the logistics of setting up a show you weren’t allowed to promote? Drop ’em a line.

Now, full disclosure: Roughly half the people I love in the SF arts scene have at one time or another played there, worked there, or lived there. I’ve watched Siegel give jobs to kids who arrived in San Francisco with very little, and then watched those kids make it a home. If employees or event attendees are there late and anyone seems drunk, he’ll order five pizzas. It’s been problematic, it’s seemed improbable, it has at times appeared to almost be a parody of itself and/or San Francisco. There’s a goddamn lending library in the back room that looks like it was built by whimsical 19th century fairies and chipmunks. But I adore Viracocha, and have wanted it to thrive the way you fall for the runt of any litter, the way you root for any underdog.

What this has meant, practically, as a music journalist, is that while the place is very close to my heart, it’s also been exceedingly frustrating to watch awesome shit happen there and not be able to write about it. Especially since the illegality meant that all things were basically equal and welcome — if that tame poetry reading you want to host is illegal, and so is the free workshop on tenants’ rights? Well, there’s nothing really more illegal about an aerial dance performance/dinner party/burlesque show. It was anything goes, and truly, anything went.

In closing: Congrats, Viracocha. And here are five-plus things that may or not have happened there that I really wish I could’ve written about.

1. The week after Amy Winehouse died, a bunch of local cats (many of whom normally command a pretty penny for live shows) got together to throw a last-minute tribute night revue of sorts. Folks dressed up. There was much sad drinking.

2. Jolie Holland played a week-long residency there, living in the tiny attic apartment attached to the store, and playing shows every night, lulling the packed room into a breathless trance.

3. That there video above (which is not great in visual quality I realize…but oh man, that voice) is also from a regular poetry/music/anything-goes revue called You’re Going to Die, started by writer Ned Buskirk, which continues to bring out some of the city’s finest writers and spoken word artists in addition to musicians. See SF writer and Rumpus film editor Anisse Gross reading at another one here:

4. A staged reading of an early, weird, rarely performed play by Louis CK, starring The Coup‘s Boots Riley as a dumb cop.

5. Hella music video shoots, with both local and big-name folks. Below: Wolf Larsen, and  Atmosphere.

6. Porn. (Supposedly.) (Did not see with own eyes.) (Unfortunately do not have video.)

Viracocha’s at 998 Valencia.

See you tonight?

Dear Steadfast Supporters, Family & Friends,

Viracocha is now open to the public, as a live venue in San Francisco!

Through many a trial — months of obstacles, pitfalls, setbacks, missteps, and hard choices — and by the unwavering energy, dedication and resolve of our staff & crew…we finally made it!

Five years ago, Viracocha began as space where creative people and their work could find advocacy. Our contributors arrived from many walks of life and varied circles within the local arts and performing community. That is, until December 2013, when we closed our doors, temporarily, to begin the process of legalizing our venue with the city. We created this underground space, despite the risk, because we felt that San Francisco needed a cultural anchor for its diverse artistic community  a place to gather and express who we are. There is a voice within each of us that yearns to be heard. In a city like ours, it’s easy to feel reduced to a face in a crowd, a point on a graph, a nameless number. We built our venue to become an intimate, welcoming place, where people can feel understood, connect, and feel less alone.

At times, Viracocha seemed to exist beyond the parameters of logic and pragmatism. We’ve had to be discreet when we talk about our space, and at times we’ve been misunderstood, misinterpreted, or misquoted.  When people asked “What is Viracocha, exactly? Who, actually, is behind it?” — the answers were as varied as the items in our shop.  Does secrecy create it’s own allure?  Perhaps so…but now’s the time to put secrets to rest, and open our doors to you! Come and meet the people who call Viracocha home — the poets, artists, and musicians who have worked and played here, laughed and cried, performed and shared. This place was built for you (yes you!) and for all of us — come on by!!

— Jonathan Siegel

The funkmaestro of Vulfpeck on gaming Spotify, German pronunciation mishaps, and Google search optimization

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By Jonathan Kirchner

Members of the band Vulfpeck describe themselves as a “half-Jewish German-American rhythm section.” Creators of severely catchy, mostly-instrumental grooves, the four-piece — who first met in a German literature class at the University of Michigan — have built a following with their quirky YouTube videos: Each album track is accompanied by a cleverly shot and edited video of its recording. The videos not only capture the band’s camaraderie, loose attitude, and sense of humor, but also their musical cohesion as a group. Each song is endlessly and effortlessly funky.

As we listened to their fourth EP, Fugue State, released last week, a passerby commented on how their music has a distinctly familiar quality. This makes sense, for a group modeled after the great rhythm sections of the ’60s and ’70s: tight-knit groups of studio players like those in Detroit (Motown), Memphis (Stax) and Muscle Shoals (Atlantic, Chess) that played on not only countless soul and R&B hits, but on classic pop and rock records as well.

The LA-based band created a bit of a stir earlier this year with their Sleepify album — a collection of 31-second-long silent tracks that they told their fans to stream on Spotify, on repeat, as they slept. (That’s the minimum song length after which the music streaming service pays bands a small fee.) The group promised to use the Spotify proceeds to fund a tour of free shows, booked around the cities where the album was streamed the most — and that’s just what they did, after raising about $20,000. (Spotify has since removed the album.)

We spoke over the phone with Jack Stratton, multi-instrumentalist, audio/video engineer, and mastermind for the band, ahead of their upcoming performance at Brick & Mortar Music Hall on Mon/15. It’s a free show, of course. Frequent Vulfpeck collaborator Joey Dosik opens.

San Francisco Bay Guardian Do you want to talk a little about Sleepify and how it came about?

Jack Stratton The first time we had talked about touring, we were trying to play live, because there’s somewhat of a demand from our fans of the YouTube videos. So we were just talking about ways to do that, and get information from other groups about what it costs, and it seemed like a losing-money venture.

So we were trying to think up ways for it to make sense, because really we enjoy playing live, and simultaneously we were talking about this demand-funded tour, where you say: If 100 people in any given place say they’ll go, we’ll show up. And we talk about Spotify all the time when we release stuff — whether it hurts sales or has no effect. It’s hard to judge. So all of those conversations kind of collided into this demand-funded Spotify tour.

SFBG Would you consider it a success so far?

JS Oh, absolutely, yeah. Especially since our last release, it’s hard to say how many fans came in from Sleepify. Probably the majority of people were just interested in the Sleepify part of it, but people did end up checking out the band and enjoying it. I think it almost doubled our fanbase since then, so there’s no way to spin it negative, really.

SFBG I know you’re based in LA. Are all the members there these days?

JS No, not right now; we’re all scattered.

SFBG How do you find time to get together and make music?

JS Vulfpeck is a strict Monday-through-Friday workweek, once a year. Our last album we did in a week in Ann Arbor, and definitely the eventual goal is to be doing that way more often, with other artists, like a classic rhythm section. That’s the vision.

SFBG Do you seek out freelance work backing up other singers? It seems like your records could serve as a great demo tape.

JS Yeah, we’ve done a little bit of that. That’s definitely the vision for it, because you can put out a lot more material. Like, you watch any documentary about [classic soul/R&B rhythm sections], and they played on so many hits. Because with any single artist, there’s just a limit to how much new material you want to hear in a year, [but a rhythm section] can just crank it out — and we’re very fast.

The larger concept to start a rhythm section was that — name a band. If you name any band, I could name their dramatic falling out, but all the rhythm sections, they just kinda do their thing. And then there’s a documentary 50 years later and they’re all still hanging out.

SFBG Fugue State is your fourth EP; how would you say the band’s sound has evolved?

JS Well, I’ve gotten better at mixing, we’ve all gotten better at playing, we’ve gotten better as an ensemble…so those are hard to quantify. The team is improving. We’ve had a mastering engineer since the second album, Devin Kerr, and that’s really helped the overall sound.

SFBG I saw that you and Devin released a Vulf compressor plugin for other musicians to use. Not a lot of bands can say that. How did that come about?

JS Yeah, I’m very excited about that. That was, man, a long time in the works. Not heavy duty work, but I was really into, at one point, this sound of Madlib and Flying Lotus and J Dilla. Whatever that sound was, that pumping, where the whole track pumps — I was like “What the hell is that?”

And I did some research, and the Internet is a magical thing, and I was directed to these late 90s/early 2000s digital samplers. And the compressors on those, certainly Madlib was using them, so I went to Devin and was like, “Check out these sounds I’m getting with these digital compressors.” And he was trying to replicate it with his plugins and he couldn’t do it at all, so he just did a ton of listening to these characteristics, that were not, I think, programmed.

SFBG Right, they might have been bugs or imperfections…

JS Yeah, and actually they were, because [the manufacturers] started phasing out certain effects that were classics. They just didn’t know. [Devin’s] a dangerous dude because he’s very good at DSP [Digital Single Processing] and he’s a mastering engineer, so he’s very musical and has this very technical side. So he did his thing and we would test it out and it was really thrilling. And then our friend Rob Stenson did the interface with Devin and now its in beta and eventually it’ll be out. 

SFBG Do you have a take on analog vs. digital recording?

JS We’re fans of both. We’ll do stuff to tape; we’ll use a nice mixing board and go into the computer or some funky cassette preamp. We’ll do it all — no hangups.

SFBG A lot of your videos are shot in living rooms and bedrooms and they look pretty impromptu. 

JS Yeah, I was kind of all about building a nice tricked-out studio for us. But Theo [Katzman, drummer-guitarist] mentioned part of the charm is all of these different locations and how rugged the setups are.

SFBG The last couple records have each featured a song with Antwaun Stanley [on vocals]. Do you envision more collaboration with him in the future?

JS Oh yeah, I mean, he rules. It’s really fun to work with him. Honestly, not many people could [with us]. It’s not just picking a good voice with us; the person has to be a really good improvisor, like Antwaun, because they have to make it happen on the spot, and there’s no overdubs or background vocals. It’s not just a nice timbre; you have to be a really talented singer and improvisor — a performer.

SFBG Did you write the lyrics or did he?

JS I wrote those. That is one of the greatest joys I wish everyone could experience is having Antwaun Stanley sing your lyrics. Because they go from, like, ridiculousness, to sounding like they were meant to be.

SFBG In general, do you write all of the parts for the band or is it more of a collaborative process as far as the arrangements go?

JS Depends on the tune. I like how versatile everyone is: We’ve done tunes where it’s completely arranged, we’ve done tunes where it’s like: “Do your thing.” Generally, one person comes in with the nugget and they’ll kind of be producer on that track and get to call the shots, but it’s collaborative within that.

SFBG You’ve got some multi-instrumentalists in the band. [Theo Katzman doubles on drums and guitar and Jack plays drums, various keyboards and guitar.] How do you choose who’s going to be on drums, and who’s on keys, etc., for each song?

JS It’s mostly a decision of who will be able to pick up the parts fastest, because it’s all on-the-spot — there’s no rehearsal. Theo’s got a really good ear harmonically. I don’t really, I can’t pick up tunes that quick. If I’ve written the tune on keyboards, I’ll play keyboards, but if it’s someone else’s tune and it’s difficult, he’ll play guitar [and I’ll play drums].

SFBG What does Vulfpeck mean?

JS That was kind of the earliest part of it: It’s “wolfpack,” pronounced by a German, but phonetically spelled out in English. So, if a German saw the word wolfpack, it would probably come out “vulf-pock,” which I screwed up at the time. I thought it would be “peck,” but apparently it’s “pock.”

But that’s the whole idea, and it’s endless joy, because I love the name and it’s great for the Internet, you know? Getting all the [web] addresses. I think there was one military dating profile — that was it — when I first Googled it. I was like “Alright, I think this is open.”

SFBG Search engine optimized…

JS Our Google splash page is — I mean you can’t control these things — but nice, man, it’s all us.

VULFPECK
With Joey Dosik
9pm, free
Brick & Mortar Music Hall
1710 Mission, SF
www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

Rep Clock: September 10 – 16, 2014

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Schedules are for Wed/10-Tue/16 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $7-10. “ATA Lives!”: “Mission Eye & Ear #6,” live music and film, Fri, 8. “Other Cinema,” works by Bryan Boyce, James T. Hong, and Sylvia Schedelbauer, Sat, 8. “Paper Circus,” animation by Luca Dipierro with a live soundtrack, Sun, 8.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. Duran Duran: Unstaged (Lynch, 2011), Wed, 7:30. “Thursday Night Rock Docs:” Under African Skies (Berlinger, 2012), Thu, 7:30. The 78 Project Movie (Steyermark, 2014), Fri, 10.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •If … (Anderson, 1968), Wed, 7, and The Chocolate War (Gordon, 1988), Wed, 9:05. •The Dog (Berg and Keraudren, 2013), Thu, 7, and Dog Day Afternoon (Lumet, 1975), Thu, 8:55. California Independent Film Festival, Fri, 1pm; Sat, 11am. For complete schedule, including screenings in Orinda and Moraga, visit www.caiff.org. Frozen (Buck and Lee, 2013), Sun, 1. Presented sing-along style. •The Fisher King (Gilliam, 1991), Sun, 7, and Good Morning, Vietnam (Levinson, 1987), Sun, 4:45, 9:30. •Alive Inside (Rossato-Bennett, 2014), Tue, 7, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Forman, 1975), Tue, 8:30.

COURTHOUSE SQUARE 2200 Broadway, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. Spaceballs (Brooks, 1987), Thu, 8:45.

FINNISH KALEVA HALL 1970 Chestnut, Berk; www.paratheatrical.com. $10. Dreambody/Earthbody (Alli, 2012), Thu, 8:30.

GOETHE-INSTITUT SF 530 Bush, SF; www.goethe.de/ins/us/saf/enindex.htm. $5 suggested donation. “100 Years After WWI:” The White Ribbon (Haneke, 2009), Wed, 6:30.

GRAND LAKE 3200 Grand Lake, Oakl; www.sf911truth.org. $15. “9/11 Truth Film Festival,” films and speakers, Thu, 1-11.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Critics’ Choice, Classic and Quirky Americana:” M (Losey, 1951), Fri, 6. With critic David Thomson in person.

NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; http://legacyfilmfestivalonaging.org. $12 (all-fest pass, $50). “Legacy Film Festival on Aging,” shorts, features, and documentaries from around the world that take on “the challenges and triumphs of aging,” Fri-Sun.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton (Silha, Slade, and Logsdon, 2011), Wed, 7. “Activate Yourself: The Free Speech Movement at Fifty:” Berkeley in the Sixties (Kitchell, 1990), Thu, 7. “Jean-Luc Godard: Expect Everything from Cinema:” Sympathy for the Devil (1968), Fri, 7. “James Dean, Restored Classics from Warner Bros.:” Rebel Without a Cause (Ray, 1955), Fri, 9:10. “Eyes Wide: The Films of Stanley Kubrick:” Spartacus (1960), Sat, 7. “Banjo Tales and Musical Holdouts:” Banjo Tales (Aginsky, 2014), Tue, 7:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. The Longest Week (Glanz, 2014), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. No No: A Dockumentary (Radice, 2014), Wed, 7, 9:15; Thu, 9:45. Forward 13: Waking Up the American Dream (Lovell), Thu, 5. Free screening. Metro Manila (Ellis, 2013), Thu, 7. God Help the Girl (Murdoch, 2014), Sept 12-18, 9:30 (also Fri-Sat and Mon-Tue, 7). Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering (Merola, 2014), Sept 12-18, 7, 8:45 (also Sat-Sun, 3:30, 5:15). All This Mayhem (Martin, 2014), Sun, 7.

SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. The Notebook (Szász, 2013), Wed-Thu, call for times. Take Me to the River (Shore, 2014), Sept 12-18, call for times. “Alec Guinness at 100:” Our Man in Havana (Reed, 1959), Sun, 4:30, 7:30.

TEMESCAL ART CENTER 511 48th St, Oakl; www.shapeshifterscinema.com. Free. Works by Tommy Becker, Sun, 8.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. San Francisco Cinematheque presents: “Life is An Opinion: Films by Mary Helena Clark and Karen Yaskinsky,” Sat, 7:30. Filmmakers in person. *

 

Racing for solutions

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rebecca@sfbg.com

Although there are five seats on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors up for reelection this fall, incumbents face few contenders with the requisite cash and political juice needed to mount a serious challenge. The one race that has stirred interest among local politicos is the bid to represent District 10, the rapidly changing southeastern corner of San Francisco that spans the Bayview, Hunters Point, Visitacion Valley, Dogpatch, and Potrero Hill neighborhoods.

Sup. Malia Cohen, who narrowly beat an array of more than a dozen candidates in 2010, has raised way more money than her best-funded opponent, progressive neighborhood activist Tony Kelly, who garnered 2,095 first-place votes in the last D10 race, slightly more than Cohen’s, before the final outcome was determined by ranked-choice voting tallies.

For the upcoming Nov. 4 election, Cohen has received $242,225 in contributions, compared with Kelly’s $42,135, campaign finance records show. But Kelly, who collected the 1,000 signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot and qualified for public financing, has secured key progressive endorsements, including former Mayor Art Agnos, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, Sups. David Campos and John Avalos, and the Potrero Hill Democratic Club.

Others who’ve filed to run for this office include Marlene Tran, a retired educator who has strong ties to families in the district, especially in Visitacion Valley, through her teaching and language-access programs (she’s known by kids as “Teacher Tran”); Shawn Richard, the founder of a nonprofit organization that offers workshops for youth to prevent gun violence; and Ed Donaldson, who was born and raised in Bayview Hunters Point and works on economic development issues. DeBray Carptenter, an activist who has weighed in on police violence, is running as a write-in candidate.

But the outcome in this dynamic district could be determined by more than campaign cash or political endorsements. That’s because the D10 supervisor faces the unique, unenviable challenge of taking on some of the city’s most intractable problems, which have disproportionately plagued this rapidly changing district.

Longstanding challenges, such as a high unemployment and crime rates, public health concerns, social displacement, and poor air quality, have plagued D10 for years. But now, fast-growing D10 is becoming a microcosm for how San Francisco resolves its growing pains and balances the interests of capital and community.

 

MIX OF CHALLENGES

While candidate forums and questionnaires tend to gauge political hopefuls on where they draw the line on citywide policy debates, such as Google bus stops or fees for Sunday parking meters, neighborhood issues facing D10 have particularly high stakes for area residents.

While other supervisors represent neighborhoods where multiple transit lines crisscross through in a rainbow of route markers on Muni maps, D10 is notoriously underserved by public transit. The high concentration of industrial land uses created major public health concerns. A Department of Public Health study from 2006 determined that Bayview Hunters Point residents were making more hospital visits on average than people residing in other San Francisco neighborhoods, especially for asthma and congestive heart failure.

Unemployment in D-10 hovers near 12 percent, triple the citywide average of 4 percent. Cohen told us efforts are being made on this front, noting that $3 million had been invested in the Third Street corridor to assist merchants with loans and façade improvements, and that programs were underway to connect residents with health care and hospitality jobs, as well as service industry jobs.

“The mantra is that the needle hasn’t moved at all,” Cohen noted, but she said things are getting better. “We are moving in the same downward trend with regard to unemployment.”

Nevertheless, the high unemployment is also linked with health problems, food insecurity — and violence. In recent months, D10 has come into the spotlight due to tragic incidents of gun violence. From the start of this year to Sept. 8, there were 13 homicides in D10.

Fourth of July weekend was particularly deadly in the Bayview and D10 public housing complexes, with four fatal shootings. Cohen responded with a press conference to announce her plan to convene a task force addressing the problem, telling us it will be “focused on preventing gun violence rather than reacting to it.”

The idea, she said, is to bring in expert stakeholders who hadn’t met about this topic before, including mental-health experts and those working with at-risk youth.

“I think we need to go deeper” than in previous efforts, Cohen said, dismissing past attempts as superficial fixes.

But Cohen’s task force plan quickly drew criticism from political opponents and other critics, including Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who dismissed it as empty rhetoric.

“How many people are cool with yet another task force?” Kelly said in a press statement challenging the move. “We can’t wait any longer to stem the deadly tide of violence in District 10. Supervisor Cohen’s task force won’t even propose solutions till 2017. We can’t wait that long.”

Kelly told us he’s formulated a five-point plan to tackle gun violence, explaining that it involved calling for a $10 million budget supplemental to bolster family services, reentry programs, job placement, and summer activities aimed at addressing poverty and service gaps. Kelly also said he’d push for a greater emphasis on community policing, with officers walking a beat instead of remaining inside a vehicle.

“How do you know $10 million is enough?” Cohen responded. “When you hear critics say $10 million, there is no way to indicate whether we’d need more or less.” She also took issue with the contention that her task force wouldn’t reach a solution soon enough, saying, “I never put a timeline on the task force.”

Cohen also said she wanted to get a better sense of where all of the past funding had gone that was supposed to have alleviated gun violence. “We’ve spent a lot of money — millions — and one of the things I am interested in doing is to do an audit about the finances,” she said.

She also wants to explore a partnership with the Guardian Angels, community volunteers who conduct safety patrols, to supplement policing. Cohen was dismissive of her critics. “Tony was not talking about black issues before this,” she said. “He hasn’t done one [gun] buyback. There’s no depth to what any of these critics are saying.”

Tran, who spoke with the Guardian at length, said she’d started trying to address rampant crime in Visitacion Valley 25 years ago and said more needs to be done to respond to recent shootings.

“There was no real method for the sizable non-English speaking victims to make reports then,” Tran wrote in a blog post, going on to say that she’d ensured materials were translated to Chinese languages to facilitate communication with the Police Department. “When more and more residents became ‘eyes and ears’ of law enforcement, community safety improved,” she said.

Richard, whose Brothers Against Guns has been working with youth for 20 years and organizing events such as midnight basketball games, said he opposed Cohen’s task force because it won’t arrive at a solution quickly enough. He said he thought a plan should be crafted along with youth advocates, law enforcement, juvenile and adult probation officers, and clergy members to come up with a solution that would bolster youth employment opportunities.

“I’ve talked with all 13 families” that lost young people to shootings this year, Richard said, and that he attended each of the funerals.

 

CHANGING NEIGHBORHOOD

Standing outside the Potrero Terrace public housing complex at 25th and Connecticut streets on a recent sunny afternoon, Kelly was flanked by affordable housing advocates clutching red-and-yellow “Tony Kelly for District Supervisor” campaign signs. The press conference had been called to unveil his campaign plan to bolster affordable housing in D10.

Pointing out that Cohen had voted “no endorsement” at the Democratic County Central Committee on Proposition G — the measure that would tax property-flipping to discourage real estate speculation and evictions — Kelly said, “This is not a time to be silent.”

While Cohen had accepted checks from landlords who appeared on the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project’s list of worst offenders for carrying out Ellis Act evictions, Kelly said he’s pledged not to accept any funding from developers or Ellis Act evictors. Asked if any had offered, Kelly responded, “Some. They’re not knocking down my door.”

Cohen told us that she hadn’t supported Prop. G, a top priority for affordable housing advocates, because she objected to certain technical provisions that could harm small property owners in her district. As for the contributions from Ellis Act evictors, she said the checks had been returned once the error was discovered. Her formal policy, she said, is not to intentionally take money from anyone involved in an Ellis Act eviction.

Speaking outside Potrero Terrace, Kelly said he thought all housing projects built on public land should make at least one-third of their units affordable to most San Franciscans. He also said renovation of public housing projects could be accelerated if the city loaned out money from its $19 billion employee retirement fund. Under the current system, funding for those improvements is leveraged by private capital.

Mold, pests, and even leaking sewage are well-documented problems in public housing. Dorothy Minkins, a public housing resident who joined Kelly and the others, told us that she’s been waiting for years for rotting sheetrock to be replaced by the Housing Authority, adding that water damage from her second-floor bathroom has left a hole in the ceiling of her living room. She related a joke she’d heard from a neighbor awaiting similar repairs: “He said, Christ will come before they come to fix my place.”

Lack of affordable housing is a sweeping trend throughout San Francisco, but it presents a unique challenge in D10, where incomes are lower on average (the notable exceptions are in Potrero Hill, dotted with fine residential properties overlooking the city that would easily fetch millions, and Dogpatch, where sleek new condominium dwellings often house commuters working at tech and biotech firms in the South Bay).

Home sale prices in the Bayview shot up 59 percent in two years, prompting the San Francisco Business Times to deem it “a hot real estate market adorned with bidding wars and offers way above asking prices.”

One single-family home even sold for $1.3 million. Historically, the Bayview has been an economically depressed, working-class area with a high rate of home ownership due to the affordability of housing — but that’s been impacted by foreclosures in recent years, fueling displacement.

Although statistics from the Eviction Defense Collaborative show that evictions did occur in the Bayview in 2013, particularly impacting African Americans and single-parent households, Cohen noted that evictions aren’t happening in D10 with the same frequency as in the Tenderloin or the Mission.

“When it comes to communities of color in the southeast, it’s about foreclosure or mismanagement of funds,” explained Cohen.

She said that a financial counseling services center had opened on Evans Street to assist people who are facing foreclosure, and added that she thought more should be done to market newly constructed affordable units to communities in need.

“There’s an error in how they’re marketing,” she said, because the opportunities are too often missed.

But critics say more is needed to prevent the neighborhood from undergoing a major transformation without input from residents.

“This district is being transformed,” Richard said. “A lot of folks are moving out — they’re moving to Vallejo, Antioch, Pittsburg. They don’t want to deal with the issues, and the violence, and the cost.”

At the same time, he noted, developers are flocking to the area, which has a great deal more undeveloped land than in other parts of the city.

“The community has no one they can turn to who will hold these developers accountable,” he said. “If the community doesn’t have a stake in it, then who’s winning?”

 

A firsthand account of the 5-alarm blaze in the Mission

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Editor’s note: We received this firsthand account from Ben Rosenfeld, who lives in close proximity to the site of yesterday’s [Thu/4] 5-alarm fire. Read more about the blaze in the San Francisco Examiner.

By Ben Rosenfeld

For those who don’t know, we were lucky our building survived a 5-alarm fire yesterday, almost directly behind us (feet away). Fortunately too, there were no serious injuries.

“Fire watch” crews stayed through the night in the back yard dousing flare ups, and are still here now keeping an eye out. Supervisors, inspectors, and news crews have come in and out. [Department of Building Inspection] inspectors came to confirm the obvious: that the building that burned would be condemned. And AT&T showed up and concluded that their engineering department will need to rewire, as our wires come off the building which burned and which undoubtedly will be demolished. Remarkably, though, my phones still work.

There’s no question that the SFFD’s swift and overwhelming response (and decision to “go defensive” and contain the fire in the unit it broke out in) saved this building and the neighbors’. It was amazing to watch them in action and talk to them about their craft.

I saw the smoke when it was little wisps coming out the back (I happened to be in the back room looking out the window while on the phone), and ran out with a fire extinguisher (absurdly as it turned out), calling 911, and yelling “fire,” and reporting that 911 advised us to evacuate.

I think we banded together really well as residents, working to make sure everyone was alerted and accounted for. We want to help the neighbors rebuild their garden with a neighbor solidarity party in which we also discuss disaster contingencies.

This was a good lesson in the meaning of the phrase, “we’re all in this together,” and in how dependent for our safety we are on one another – especially in SF, where we’re almost literally stuck together.

Photos by Ben Rosenfeld

Joel Daniel Phillips illustrates the overlooked in ‘I Am Another Yourself’

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Joel Daniel Phillips draws people. He draws them with charcoal and pencil and is known for his life-sized renderings of eccentric, seemingly homeless men and women he meets on the corner of Sixth and Mission Streets in San Francisco.

His debut solo show with Hashimoto Contemporary, “I Am Another Yourself,” opens Sat/6 (opening reception 6-9pm; the show runs through Sept. 27). I met up with Phillips to talk about his work and to see his 14 pieces in person.

As we hung out in his roomy studio in East Oakland, the BART train lumbering by every so often, Phillips’s towering life-sized pieces captured my awe and attention. The details he emphasizes in his work  whether it’s a wrinkled pant leg, a takeout container, lines on a face, or a waning pack of Newport Lights  illustrate the attitude and honesty of his subjects. 

“I think of [my work as] a bit like journalism in that the goal is for me to honestly understand something else or someone else and then show it to my audience,” Phillips says. 

Phillips moved to San Francisco three years ago. Not knowing a whole lot about the city, he accepted a live-work studio space on Sixth and Mission. Once he arrived in the neighborhood, he realized it was — well, different. So he started his own artistic exploration of the street corner, which involved approaching people he found particularly intriguing, asking if he could take their photographs, and creating life-sized drawings of them.

When considering whom to approach for a photo, Phillips looks for “people who carry their story on their face” or demonstrate their story in the way they dress. These types of people embody the honesty and vulnerability he aims to capture in his pieces. 

 “I’m fascinated with vulnerability,” Phillips says. “If I approach most people in the street and ask them, ‘Can I take your photograph? I’m an artist,’ they’ll stand in a certain way, pose in a certain way, and have a projected sense of how they want to be perceived. But this particular subset of society doesn’t do that. They allow me into a deeper sense of who they are.”

While people may look at Phillips’s work and assume his drawings are of homeless men and women, that’s not necessarily the case. “A lot of people assume they are all homeless, but I have no idea if any of them are homeless,” Phillips says. 

And he doesn’t care to ask his subjects about their living situations, either. “Part of the reason I isolate my subjects from their backgrounds is because I want to remove certain information,” Phillips says. “I want you to take each person out of context and see them as an individual, rather than place them in a certain box.”

A unifying attitude that links Phillips’ subjects seems to be that “these people are in a place, for whatever reason, where they don’t really give a shit. They’ve gone through a lot of things  maybe hard, maybe just different than your average suburban white kid’s experiences  that have put them in a place where they are comfortable,” Phillips says.

He describes his goal as building an emotional and mental bridge between two disparate cultural groups and allowing people to see themselves in these individuals, who are often from a completely different world than their viewers.

Phillips motions toward Spaceman, who’s sporting Ugg boots, a motorcycle helmet, and a creatively tied tie, and is holding a broom in a way that makes it look like a badass accessory. “I’ve drawn Spaceman several times,” he says. Tinesha, another subject of a life-sized drawing, wears dramatic eye shadow along with a puka shell necklace and is holding a to-go container. Phillips speaks highly of Tinesha and says she is incredibly sweet. 

Then he shows me Billy, one of his smaller drawings. Billy has a long beard and contemplative eyes. His shirt is tucked into his baggy cargo sweatpants, the cuffs of his light button-down shirt are undone, and his crossed arms frame his layered beaded necklaces. “This is Billy the Prophet,” he says. “I’m not sure if anyone other than me calls him that, but he’s definitely a prophet.”

After perusing his pieces, you might think Phillips is trying to impart some type of social justice-driven message or a call to action against poverty or homelessness. But Phillips says his goal is more about perception than social change. His hope is that if you see these pieces and grapple with this idea of how and why you treat certain people a certain way, then “hopefully the next time you walk by someone on the street you might think about this work and say, ‘Hey, I might not be able to fix shit, but I can at least smile; I can at least say hi.’”

After spending almost three years living at the corner of Sixth and Mission, cheaper rent lured Phillips out to East Oakland in April. He still comes back to his street corner, though. Not just for the next photo, but to continue his friendships with the people he’s photographed. He routinely runs into his subjects – now friends – and buys them lunch or art supplies.

“They know who I am on the street corner now. I’m that guy who draws people. And sometimes people even ask me to draw them,” he says.

Being the guy who draws people has allowed Phillips to become a part of the community. “I’m no longer this gentrifying white presence; I’m not the person who’s trying to change Sixth and Mission from what it’s been. I’m somebody who’s trying to understand what Sixth and Mission is,” Phillips says.

 

“I Am Another Yourself”

Through Sept. 27

Opens Sat/6, 6-9 pm

Hashimoto Contemporary

804 Sutter, SF

www.hashimotocontemporary.com

For inquiries, contact Hashimoto Contemporary: hashimotocontemporary@gmail.com

Follow Phillips on Instagram here

No place like home

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arts@sfbg.com

THEATER Out at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin, just after sunset, the darkness and the silence are real presences in themselves, not just a context for something else. They’re right now pressing their respective noses against the windowpanes of the large, beautifully-worn army barrack–turned–artist studio in which Saya Woolfalk is pouring some dark red concoction from a squat glass jug.

She begs her guests not to try to translate the hokey Portuguese label on the bottle, brought back from Brazil by her husband, an anthropologist, as she hands each of us a crimson thimbleful in a plastic dentist cup. Looking like NyQuil but tasting more like some berry-based moonshine, it gives me an almost instantaneous headache but is otherwise kind of nice. Anyway, it does the trick. We’re now prepped to enter the mandala.

Standing there with me are Marc Mayer and Annie Tsang, both of the Asian Art Museum, as well as Brian Karl, the Headlands’ program director. The mandala corresponds, for now, to a tape mockup on the floor next to us. It’s a circular shape about four feet in diameter, with concentric and crisscrossing lines. At four equidistant corners outside the circle are small freestanding pieces of heavy paper representing alcoves, on the outside of which a slide projector illuminates a colorful figure in exotic garb. Behind each alcove, Woolfalk explains, a dancer will be tucked away.

Also standing around are two department store mannequins, each draped in a careful clash of fabrics and traditions: a skirt of pink-and-gold-striped glitter cloth from the Mission, a tourist version of a Chinese vest from Grant Street, a batik shoulder wrap brought back from Africa.

It’s all just the smallest hint of the Brooklyn-based artist’s elaborately extensive portfolio and practice, which blends visual design, sculpture, textiles, film, live performance, original musical soundscapes, ethnographical narratives, and invented ritual into playful, extraordinarily vivid and enveloping explorations of the limits and promise of hybrid identity.

Woolfalk’s dance-performance installation — the scale model of which was still being toyed with and adjusted when I visited her temporary studio — has been developed during a residency at Headlands under a commission from the Asian Art Museum, where it will run Thu/4 in the AAM’s capacious upper chamber in conjunction with the exhibition Enter the Mandala: Cosmic Centers and Mental Maps of Himalayan Buddhism (ongoing through Oct. 26). The piece, called ChimaTEK: Hybridity Visualization Mandala, culminates a seven-year project by Woolfalk that has received exhibitions and rapt attention around the country.

It began in No Place, which Woolfalk describes as “a utopian paradise in which hybrid identities flourish in tolerant communities with elaborate cultural rituals.” Its alternative narratives and reconfigured systems of representation took multiple forms across an integrated set of media, an environment unto itself, including a six-chapter ethnographic film documenting No Place made in collaboration with anthropologist Rachel Lears.

In the second iteration of the project, the narrative of No Place advances in time. Now its inhabitants have evolved into beings called the Empathics, who have developed a way of sharing their hybrid consciousness with others, while conducting research through their own nonprofit, the Institute of Empathy.

In this third and final stage, the Empathics have redirected their technology into a for-profit model, namely a corporation called ChimaTEK, a virtual world enterprise in which customers buy access to different Chimeric identities and consciousness through their own personalized virtual avatars. The chimera (which here refers simultaneously to the mythological she-monster made up of different body parts and to an organism with two or more genetically distinct tissues) ends up the repository and agent of corrupted utopian impulses.

As a tool for spiritual guidance, the mandala represents the universe, while helping to train the mind on essential insights and untapped potentialities. Made in collaboration with four local dancer-choreographers working in disparate ethnic traditions — with essential input from DJ Dr. Sleep (Melissa Maristuen) and a “virtual” DJ (none other than Paul D. Miller, or DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid, who composed the original score) — ChimaTEK will be a kind of contemporary mandala, manifesting a chimeric state of being in which participants remix identities through virtual avatars in a virtual space. Fact and fiction blend so freely here that the distinctions between them might be called into question. So might the degree to which this virtual space is coextensive with the universe itself, or at least our tangled and conflicted corner of it. *

CHIMATEK: HYBRIDITY VISUALIZATION MANDALA

Thu/4, 6-9pm, free with museum admission ($5 after 5pm)

Asian Art Museum

200 Larkin, SF

www.asianart.org