Restaurants

Carb your enthusiasm

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On a bright November afternoon, I ducked into Biondivino, a tiny but tremendously well-stocked Italian wine shop in Russian Hill, to meet John Pauley and Anna Li of Mattarello — an artisanal, handmade pasta pop-up.

Li, a Europe-raised, multilingual physician by day and tortellini-shaper by night, greeted familiar faces while pulling bundles of sage pappardelle, whole-wheat tagliatelle, parsley-garlic tagliatelle, squid ink spaghetti, saffron cavatelli, and the coveted tortellini al brodo from inside a cooler. Pauley, a former chef at several restaurants including the nearby La Folie, now works as a full-time sfoglini, or Bolognese-style pasta maker, for the couple’s two-year-old venture. If he was tired after spending five-and-a-half hours rolling out 50 pounds of dough (and subsequently stuffing and shaping it into 26 portions of thimble-sized, knotted nuggets), it didn’t show.

Walking me along the foldout table where pastas winked with specks of semolina, Pauley discussed their journey into la sfoglia. Five years ago while traveling in Bologna, a culinary capital known for parmigiano reggiano, prosciutto, mortadella, and tortellini, Pauley apprenticed with pasta makers Franco and Grazia Macchiavelli of Salumeria Bruno e Franco.

“In Bologna, pasta making is pretty much women’s work,” Pauley explained. Naturally, the women at the school were intrigued that a man would come all the way from San Francisco to learn their practice. “We all fell in love with each other,” said Pauley.

Mattarello maintains the same authentic spirit as the pasta made in Bologna. “Tortellini is as Bolognese as the Golden Gate Bridge is [San Franciscan],” said Pauley. Yet he was quick to point out that authenticity means different things to different people. In Bologna, tortellini is only eaten in broth. “To change something, you have to understand where it comes from. You start with a 450-year-old recipe for tortellini.”

In the US, Li and Pauley noticed, the bar for pasta has been set very low. Americans treat it as a vehicle for heaping on store-bought sauce and every vegetable in the pantry. On the other hand, explained Pauley, “the mistake other people make is that bringing a virgin olive oil or cheese back from Italy doesn’t make that food authentic. The spirit of cooking authentic Italian food here would mean, say, using great artisan prosciutto from Iowa.”

Pauley’s version of tortellini involves driving two hours to get the perfect farm eggs. “The hardest part is finding the right coloring. The egg yolks need to be orange to make the pasta really golden.”

He makes almost everything by hand in order to “get intimate with the pasta.” It’s not supposed to look perfect. The tortellini is stuffed with a mix of pork loin, eggs, parmesan, nutmeg, salt, and breadcrumbs; rolled; and sold the very next day.

That night I cooked the golden knots until they bobbed to the top of my boiling pot for several seconds, and slid a spoonful into my mouth. The texture alone was startling — the silk of the broth combined with an elastic, tender chew of pasta, creating a wholly new experience. The flavor came almost as an afterthought, in a delightfully grounding depth of meat, lift of nutmeg, and occasional bite of pepper, wrapped snugly between the sweet broth containing the brined memory of gently bruised vegetables. It only helped that the sky had turned dark and rainy.

The exception to Pauley’s handmade rule comes in the form of squid ink spaghetti, when he swaps the mattarello (or rolling pin, after which the pop-up was named), for the torchio, or “my torture device,” as he calls it. It began as a fun experiment after a trip to the Amalfi Coast, but customers can’t order enough, and La Folie has begun ordering it for its menu. “It’s too good of a product,” said Pauley, shrugging.

I leaned closer to the coiled ropes, noticing that they smelled strongly of the ocean in their pre-boiled state. I pinched one end of a beautiful black noodle, rubbed the Play-Doh-like string between my fingers, and took a bite. Raw, it contained an oddly tender chew. Cooked, it firmed up, yet remained fragile, pliable — I was seized with the desire to create a whole new adjective to describe these noodles, because the ones that came to mind couldn’t adequately capture what I tasted.

An epiphany: Fresh pasta is the dish. You need never wonder what you’re going to do with pasta — you’re not going to dress it, or drown it. You’re going to eat it. I ate these squid noodles in Mattarello tomato sauce for round one, which hid the essence of the sea more than I wished. I went lighter in round two, with a squirt of lemon juice, a plop of butter, a glop of olive oil, grated parmesan, and (this may sound strange) small chunks of avocado. Delectable, absolutely.

Amid San Francisco’s ultra-hip, ultra-now pop-up scene, Li and Pauley have witnessed friends turn their transitory trucks and tables into brick-and-mortar restaurants. They have business-savvy friends who tell them that now is the time to move forward.

“We know we’re at a fork, but we don’t know yet which prong we’re going to take,” said Pauley. He briefly pondered a larger pop-up, or expanding into more locations, but opening an eatery doesn’t appeal. “Anna is a doctor, and I don’t miss the restaurant scene, the appetizers, the entrées, the running around.” Pauley stops to say hi to friends entering Biondivino, then concludes, “I love making love to my dough. I love doing this.” *

Mattarello’s next pop-up is Dec. 22, noon-3pm at Biondivino, 1415 Green, SF. For future locations and pre-ordering, visit www.mattarellosf.com.

 

Rattlin’ bones and sugar plums

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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 *

On the veg

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arts@sfbg.com

LIT The first thing you need to know about Isa Chandra Moskowitz is that she’s a punky legend in the global vegan community. She started the DIY Post Punk Kitchen public access show in Brooklyn and (perhaps more importantly) created the vegan hub website of the same name exactly 10 years ago. While maintaining PPK she has authored or co-authored eight popular cookbooks, right up to this fall’s unfussy workday vegan cookbook, Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week (Little Brown, 320 pp., $30).

The second thing you need to know is that many people mispronounce her name (it’s “EE-sah” not “EYE -sah”), though it doesn’t seem to bother her much. I find myself profusely apologizing for flubbing her name when she picks up the phone — especially since I’ve been following her work, and making her delicious dishes, for the better part of a decade. I should know better.

From a hotel room in Minneapolis while on her book tour, the soft-spoken Omaha-based chef shrugs off the faux pas and we quickly get to work pinpointing her favorite recipes from Isa Does It: anything that’s creamy cashew cheese-based like the alfredo and the mac’n’cheese, along with a kale-lentil-quinoa stew, which she describes as the “classic vegan recipe” that she makes herself more than once a week, mixing up the spices as she goes.

She spouts an important note about preparation, something which is thoroughly dissected in the early sections of Isa Does It, with tofu butchery, and handy pantry tips for making cooking after work more streamlined: “I always have kale in the fridge; I always have lentils and quinoa in the pantry.”

There are also the recipes from Isa Does It that are featured in her newest video series, Make It Vegan, which has Moskowitz whipping up the Meaty Bean Chili and Cornbread, and the Nirvana Enchilada Casserole (“I like a lot of onions in this, and a lot of jalapeno; a lot of everything, really”) to the tune of “Salt” by Kelley Deal. The casserole is part of the “Sunday Night Supper” section of the book — a few more ambitious recipes, like many from her previous cookbooks such as Veganomicon (a must-have for any vegan), Appetite for Reduction, or Vegan Brunch.

That enchilada casserole is next on my list of Isa Does It dishes to tackle. I’ve so far tried the flavorful Tempeh Giardino, Kale Salad with Butternut Squash and Lentils, and the Cast Iron Stir-Fry With Avocado, Basil & Peanuts, which is a light yet super filling weekday stir fry. The avocado really gives it a fresh kick. I’m also now officially obsessed with cashew cheese, and have cashews soaking at all times, just like the author.

Moskowitz has been working on this particular cookbook for the past two years, concocting recipes in her Omaha home — the Brooklyn native moved there three years ago, mainly because she wanted a garden but also thanks to the local music scene. Her inspirations come from her pantry — “I have Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes, what can I make with that? — and sometimes she’s inspired to veganize something she saw on the Food Network. “Like, there might be some secret Guy Fieri recipes in there that I veganized.”

Like her previous cookbooks, each of the recipes went through rigorous testing. “I have like, 30 testers. One of the biggest things for people was ‘would you make this on a week night?'” Moskowitz explains. She asks each tester to make the meal and answers a series of questions. For this particular book, she wanted everything to be accessible as possible, so another important question was: Were any of the ingredients hard to find?

“I live in Omaha now — I’m in the middle of the country — and that really changed my views on what people have access to. So I just wanted it to be really accessible ingredients,” she says. “Another reason I wanted to write this book is because I was cooking more than ever because there were not that many places to go out to eat.”

It’s another world away from Brooklyn, where meat-free restaurants and offerings dot the streets, and markets have aisles full of items clearly marked “vegan.”

While there are meat-and-dairy free offerings at local sushi spots and coffee shops (and Whole Foods Markets) there’s no dedicated vegan restaurant in Omaha — yet.

When we spoke, Moskowitz had recently been handed the keys to her first restaurant, which will open in spring 2014. Attached to a bar owned by the members of Saddle Creek band Cursive, Moskowitz’s spot will serve a revolving menu of vegan comfort foods, all made from scratch. “All the mayo is from scratch, I’m going to make my own cheese, [there will] even be house-made sodas, and kombucha on tap.”

Although there have been some rumblings about Moskowitz’s restaurant for some time, she gives the Guardian an exclusive: The name of her new restaurant will be Modern Love. 

www.theppk.com

 

We give thanks

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EDITORIAL We offer a lot of criticism here on the Guardian’s editorial page, which is probably inescapable given the obvious failures of our political and economic systems to address the needs of the people and the planet and to uphold the progressive values that the Guardian and much of the Bay Area supports. We have so much potential, and it’s sometimes maddening when we fall short of realizing it.

So, this week, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, we’re going to put a positive spin on the civic scene and talk about some of the things that we’re thankful for.

We’re thankful to live in such a beautiful, vibrant place. San Francisco is one of the greatest cities in the world, both physically and culturally. And we’re thrice blessed to have Marin County and the East Bay — particularly the progressive and diverse cities of Oakland and Berkeley — just a short bridge ride away. Layer on top of that the nearby Sierras, Sonoma County, and the coastline from Point Reyes down to Santa Cruz and this is perhaps the best region on the planet.

We’re thankful to have a functional, modern transportation system that offers plenty of good alternatives to the automobile. While there’s certainly room for improvement, BART is an amazing transit system that closes the gap among the Bay Area’s many diverse communities, while Muni does a good job at ferrying huge numbers of people around this bustling city. Caltrain is a great link down the peninsula and we’re super excited to see it electrified and that transportation officials are working hard to connect downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles with a long overdue high speed rail line. And we love how San Franciscans have embraced bicycles as an important everyday transportation option.

We’re thankful that so many smart, interesting, creative people have been drawn to San Francisco and its environs. This is home to recognized global leaders in pursuits ranging from technological innovation to progressive and environmental organizing and advocacy. We’re proud of the political initiatives hatched here in the Bay Area, from marriage equality to criminal justice reform. We have a cornucopia of artists and musicians tucked into every little nook of the city, from the stage of Slim’s to the studios of surreal Hunters Point Shipyard. And the locals here cook up some of the world’s best culinary offerings, from a plethora of fancy restaurants to quickie taquerias to surprisingly bountiful food trucks.

And we’re really thankful for you, the person reading these words. The Guardian has been around since 1966 because of the support of our readers, our advertisers, and our community, and we’re grateful that you’ve all given us the opportunity to offer the news, views, and reviews that are helping to shape this wonderful place. Happy Thanksgiving.

 

Chef Michael Anthony talks ‘The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook’

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The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook (Clarkson Potter, 352 pp., $50) takes you on a restaurant tour, beginning with Danny Meyer’s initial conception of opening this New York establishment, continuing past the chief steward and his wheelbarrow of fresh spring produce from the Greenmarket, around the harvest table where the floral designer pairs yellow sprays of sunflowers with splayed summer squash, into the kitchen during the staff’s family meal, past the pastry station where Nancy Olson creates her autumn peanut butter semifreddo, and ending at the dining table with a winter dish of guinea hen prepared by James Beard Award-winning chef Michael Anthony.

By the time you’ve read through this serious and seriously exquisite cookbook, ogled the colorful photos, and closed the enormous, masculine-elegant back cover, you’ve spent a whole year eating inside the Tavern. Your appreciation for the minute mechanics that run a restaurant will have widened, and your list of must-try recipes? Exploded. (I’ve already checked off the curious “Cauliflower with Quinoa, Prunes, and Peanuts” with happy results). Chef Anthony, making his first trip to San Francisco in December, spoke to me about his vision behind the book.

SF Bay Guardian Who did you write this cookbook for?

Michael Anthony For the fans of Gramercy Tavern who’ve eaten at the restaurant and have fallen in love with it over the years. Or, eventually, people who have not yet discovered it, who have heard of the name and want to become insiders. We wrote this book to translate the rich history of the last seven years — the time that I’ve been in the restaurant — to share those recipes with home cooks.

SFBG What do you mean by “translate”?

MA A professional cook uses jargon, a technical language that’s not familiar to most people who have never worked in a professional kitchen. So, we reevaluated the kinds of tools that one would use at home, the way in which I described how to execute a dish, and took into consideration the careful way I cook at home. I have three daughters, so I cook a lot at home.

SFBG Do your girls have a favorite recipe that you make at home?

MA My three daughters are 14, 11, and three and a half. The mushroom lasagna is a particular favorite of the eldest. The zucchini soup is a favorite of Colette, the 11-year-old. And Adeline eats everything [laughs].

In the book I mention this one silly scenario where I’ll wear my Japanese chef outfit and set up an open kitchen, write out the menu, and I serve [my girls] à la carte vegetable sushi at our open window.

SFBG What’s your trick to having a restaurant and a family at the same time?

MA We make an enormous amount of sacrifices to be a part of this business. The great news is there’s an amazing team at Gramercy Tavern, which allows us all to take days off, including me. And during that time at home I enjoy being home, cooking, and shopping at the Greenmarket. It’s a regular part of our lives.

SFBG You pay a lot of attention to vegetables. Where does this influence come from?

MA We have a fascination with vegetables. They’re a way for us to literally stay connected to the changing seasons and the growers. And for our guests, who, in a big city like this, can feel insulated from the changing seasons.

We’d all be a little better off if we allow ourselves to be seduced by the role that vegetables play in our dishes. It’s not about self-deprivation, not veganism, not vegetarianism — I’m not promoting that particular alternative. I’m just saying that when the vegetable component of the dish preoccupies the creative process, and the protein plays a slightly different role in the story, we eat a healthier variety.

SFBG Do you have a favorite vegetable?

MA It’s always changing. We’re just coming out of our first week of very cool, cold weather, so it’s shifted our salads to include things like roasted winter squash. Our soups are made from potatoes and parsnips and turnips. We’re serving things like sunchokes and salsify.

SFBG Tell me about the “harmonious scatter.”

MA It describes the way in which we plate food with intent. It’s not as simple as, say, Alice Waters saying that food is simply beautiful so just put it on the plate, but it’s not as forced as trying to over-manipulate the food. It’s somewhere in between. Sometimes the imperfections of seeing the cook’s hand in the dish lets you know that it’s handmade.

SFBG How does seasonality affect Gramercy Tavern?

MA When it gets warm in the spring it’s the perfect place to go for a carefully seasoned salad. Summertime when it’s sticky and hot, it’s a great place to come for a lightly grilled fish dish with a chilled cucumber garnish. In the wintertime, it’s an impressive use of the Greenmarket. It doesn’t mean the food is boring or dull, through the winter months, it just means that we have to be more creative with it.

SFBG I was drawn to the book’s Winter chapter the most, actually.

MA It’s a time when we can really draw a distinction between the way you guys [in the Bay Area] would be eating. People are always saying, “If only we had a growing season like in California.” But we don’t. So ultimately those are the times when we can really say that our food is the most distinctively different.

SFBG It’s like that moment where you think you think your fridge is empty, but you end up making something even tastier than you imagined for dinner.

MA I’m with you. Have you read Tamar Adler’s book, An Everlasting Meal?

SFBG I love that book.

MA Tamar’s a good friend, and she’s translated the notion that a meal is a continuation of a story, not the sum of a bunch of recipes. It’s how one meal forms the next. One season forms the next.

SFBG Can you interpret your term “American cooking”?

MA So, I think French food is all about harmony; there’s a very gentle feel, like looking at a wave. No sharp turns. Japanese food is actually more a state of mind. Like their language, there’s no intonation. It’s all about nature, the natural flavor with a very hidden hand of the chef.

American food is all about a lot of highs and lows. We use acidity, we use heat, as ways to make it exciting. In the same vein, we’re not bound by a lot of the traditions and rules that we learn, though we take great interest in them. We have a sense of freedom and openness to cooking … especially in a restaurant like Gramercy Tavern, anything and everything is permissible, in terms of sources of inspiration.

SFBG And American cooking at home?

MA I’ve demonstrated in the book how folks can take pleasure in cooking at home, without feeling trapped. “Oh, I can’t find that particular variety,” or “I don’t shop at the Greenmarket so I can’t do these recipes” — that’s not the case. The overriding message is cooking shouldn’t be a spectator sport. If you visit Gramercy Tavern and you like the dishes that we’re cooking, you can certainly easily find those ingredients at home.

SFBG What is the restaurant doing for Thanksgiving?

MA Well, Gramercy Tavern is closed for Thanksgiving, and that’s what we’re doing [laughs]. Everybody gets to go home and enjoy one of the few culinary holidays that we have in our culture. 

SFBG What are you doing?

MA I’m in charge of the turkey. I’m going to do one traditional slow-roasted bird, and I’ll serve that with a Swiss chard and mushroom stuffing. The other one is a spice-wrapped and apple-wood smoked turkey. With that one there’s never any leftovers. Just demolished. This year, since my in-laws are Jewish, it becomes Thanksgivingukkah. We’re including latkes, and the butternut squash soup with Brussels sprouts from The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook.

Chef Michael Anthony signs The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook Dec. 1, 11am-1pm, Blue Bottle Café, 300 Webster, Oakl; Dec. 2, he collaborates with Quince chef Michael Tusk on a special six-course dinner. For reservations call (415) 775-8500 or visit www.quincerestaurant.com/events.

Vegan idol Isa Chandra Moskowitz brings ‘Isa Does It’ to SF, reveals restaurant name

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The first thing you need to know about Isa Chandra Moskowitz is that she’s a punky legend in the global vegan community. She started the DIY Post Punk Kitchen public access show in Brooklyn and (perhaps more importantly) created the vegan hub website of the same name exactly 10 years ago.

While maintaining PPK she has authored or co-authored eight popular cookbooks, right up to this fall’s unfussy workday vegan cookbook, Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week (320 pps, Little Brown, $30). (She’s on a book tour that brings her to SF this Wed/13 at Book Passage in the Ferry Building, and there will be rosemary chocolate chip cookies there to share.)

The second thing you need to know is that many people mispronounce her name (it’s “EE-sah” not “EYE -sah”), though it doesn’t seem to bother her much. I find myself profusely apologizing for flubbing her name when she picks up the phone — especially since I’ve been following her work, and making her delicious dishes, for the better part of a decade. I should know better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4DOf4btp34

From a hotel room in Minneapolis while on her book tour, the soft-spoken Omaha-based chef shrugs off the faux pas and we quickly get to work pinpointing her favorite recipes from Isa Does It: anything that’s creamy cashew cheese-based like the alfredo and the mac‘n’cheese, along with the lentil-quinoa stew with kale, which she describes as the “classic vegan recipe” that she makes herself more than once a week, mixing up the spices as she goes.

She spouts an important note about preparation, something which is thoroughly dissected in the early sections of Isa Does It, with tofu butchery, and handy pantry tips for making cooking after work more streamlined: “I always have kale in the fridge; I always have lentils and quinoa in the pantry.”

There’s also the recipes from Isa Does It that are featured in her newest video series with production company Zero Point Zero, Make It Vegan, which has Moskowitz whipping up the Meaty Bean Chili and Cornbread, and the Nirvana Enchilada Casserole (“I like a lot of onions in this, and a lot of jalapeno; a lot of everything, really”) to the tune of “Salt” by Kelley Deal. The casserole is part of the “Sunday Night Supper” section of the book — a few more ambitious recipes, like many from her previous cookbooks such as Veganomicon (a must-have for any vegan), Appetite for Reduction, or Vegan Brunch.

That enchilada casserole is next on my list of Isa Does It dishes to tackle. I’ve so far tried the flavorful Tempeh Giardino, Kale Salad with Butternut Squash and Lentils, and the Cast Iron Stir-Fry With Avocado, Basil & Peanuts, which is a light yet super filling weekday stir fry. The avocado really gives it a fresh kick. I’m also now officially obsessed with cashew cheese, and have cashews soaking at all times, just like the author.

Moskowitz has been working on this particular cookbook for the past two years, concocting recipes in her Omaha home — the Brooklyn native moved there three years ago, mainly because she wanted a garden but also thanks to the local music scene. Her inspirations come from her pantry — “I have Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes, what can I make with that?” — and sometimes she’s inspired to veganize something she saw on the Food Network. “Like, there might be some secret Guy Fieri recipes in there that I veganized.”

Like her previous cookbooks, each of the recipes went through a rigorous testing process. “I have like, 30 testers. One of the biggest things for people was ‘would you make this on a week night?’” Moskowitz explains. She asks each tester to make the meal and answers a series of questions. For this particular book, she wanted everything to be accessible as possible, so another important question was: were any of the ingredients hard to find?

“I live in Omaha now — I’m in the middle of the country — and that really changed my views on what people have access to. So I just wanted it to be really accessible ingredients,” she says. “Another reason I wanted to write this book is because I was cooking more than ever because there were not that many places to go out to eat.”

It’s another world away from Brooklyn, where meat-free restaurants and offerings dot the streets, and markets have aisles full of items clearly marked “vegan.”

While there are meat-and-dairy free offerings at local sushi spots and coffee shops (and Whole Foods markets) there’s no dedicated vegan restaurant in Omaha — yet.

When we spoke, Moskowitz had recently been handed the keys to her first ever restaurant, which will open in spring 2014. Attached to a bar owned by the members of Saddle Creek band Cursive, Moskowitz’s spot will serve a revolving menu of vegan comfort foods, all made from scratch. “All the mayo is from scratch, I’m going to make my own cheese, [there will] even be house-made sodas, and kombucha on tap.”

Although there have been some rumblings about Moskowitz’s restaurant for some time, she gives the Bay Guardian an exclusive: the name of that new restaurant will be Modern Love.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz
Wed/13, 6pm, free
Book Passage
1 Ferry Building, SF
www.bookpassage.com

Hunky Vikings! Crusading Texans! And more new movies!

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Two big ‘uns this week: blockbuster-to-be Thor: The Dark World (review below), and the very fine drama Dallas Buyers Club, featuring standout performances by Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto (Dennis Harvey’s review here). If you seek a respite from Hollywood, check out San Francisco’s own South Asian International Film Festival (some recommendations from me, here), or read on for more short takes on this week’s new offerings.

The Motel Life Brothers (Stephen Dorff, Emile Hirsch) go on the run after a tragic accident. Kris Kristofferson and Dakota Fanning co-star. (1:25) Roxie.

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

Running From Crazy Can one ever escape one’s toxic genetic legacy, especially when one’s makeup, and even one’s genius, is so entangled with mental illness, the shadow of substance abuse, and a kind of burden of history? Actor, author, healthy-living proponent, and now suicide prevention activist Mariel Hemingway seems cut out to try, as, eh, earnestly as she can, to offer up hope. Part of that involves opening the door to documentarian Barbara Kopple, in this look at the 20th century’s most infamous literary suicide, Mariel’s grandfather Ernest Hemingway, and just one of his familial threads, one full of lives cut deliberately short. For Running From Crazy, Kopple generally keeps the focus on Mariel, who displays all the disarming groundedness and humility of the youngest care-taking, “good” child. Her father, Ernest’s eldest son, Jack, regularly indulged in “wine time” with his ailing wife and, according to Mariel, had a pitch-black side of his own. But we don’t look to closely at him as the filmmaker favors the present, preferring to watch Mariel mountain climb and bicker with her stuntman boyfriend, meet up with her eldest sister Muffet, and ‘fess up about the depression that runs through the Hemingway line to her own daughters. Little is made of Mariel’s own artistic contributions in acting, though Kopple’s work is aided immeasurably by the footage Mariel’s rival middle sister Margaux shot for a documentary she planned to do on Ernest. Once the highest paid model in the world, Margaux leaves the viewer with a vivid impression of her brash, raw, eccentric, and endearingly goofy spirit — she’s courageous in her own way as she sips vino with her parents and older sister and tears up during a Spanish bull fight. Are these just first world problems for scions who never hesitated to trade on their name? Kopple is more interested in the humans behind the gloss of fame, spectacle and sensation — the women left in the wake of a literary patriarch’s monumental brand of masculinity and misogyny. And you feel like you get that here, plainly and honestly, in a way that even Papa might appreciate. (1:40) (Kimberly Chun)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPHaLkd4J28

Spinning Plates Joseph Levy’s enjoyable documentary contrasts life at three widely disparate U.S. restaurants: the Martinez family’s modest enterprise La Cocina de Gabby, a Tucson showcase for a wife and mother’s Mexican cooking; Breitbach’s Country Dining in rural Iowa, a 151-year-old purveyor of all-American comfort food; and superstar chef Grant Achatz’s Chicago Alinea, where a 24-course meal of culinary art/science experiments can set you back $800 (yes, that’s for one diner). The latter is a global destination for serious foodies, acclaimed by the industry’s most prestigious observers. (Its nearly 24/7 supply deliveries are also a noisy nightmare for someone I know whose apartment is next door.) The teensy town that’s grown up around Breitbach’s has a population of 70; on a busy weekend, the business attracts up to 2,000, many driving long distances to get there. Yet the people we get to know the best here, the émigré Martinezes, illustrate another side of restaurant life — the side in which a majority of new eateries fail within three years, despite (as seemingly is the case at Gabby’s) all palate-pleasing, reasonable pricing and tireless labor. Tying together these three stories is … well, nothing, really, beyond some vague notion that good food is something that breeds “community.” (Yet high-ticket Alinea can hardly be said to reflect that, while Levy doesn’t actually bother interviewing any patrons to let us know whether the other two establishments’ food is anything special.) Still, and despite some rather bogus dramatic chronology-manipulation of events that happened several years ago, Spinning Plates is an entertaining sampler plate of a movie. And the Martinez family’s story lends it a bit of real gravitas. (1:32) (Dennis Harvey)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npvJ9FTgZbM

Thor: The Dark World Since any tentacle of Marvel’s Avengers universe now comes equipped with its own money-printing factory, it’s likely we’ll keep seeing sequels and spin-offs for approximately the next 100 years. With its by-the-numbers plot and “Yeah, seen that before” 3D effects, Thor: The Dark World is forced to rely heavily on the charisma of its leads — Chris Hemsworth as the titular hammer-swinger; Tom Hiddleston as his brooding brother Loki — to hold audience interest. Fortunately, these two (along with Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Idris Elba, and the rest of the supporting cast, most of whom return from the first film) appear to be having a blast under the direction of Alan Taylor, a TV veteran whose credits include multiple Game of Thrones eps. Not that any Avengers flick carries much heft, but especially here, jokey asides far outweigh any moments of actual drama (the plot, about an alien race led by Christopher Eccleston in “dark elf” drag intent on capturing an ancient weapon with the power to destroy all the realms, etc. etc., matters very little). Fanboys and -girls, this one’s for you … and only you. (2:00) (Cheryl Eddy)

Film Listings: November 6 – 12, 2013

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

OPENING

Dallas Buyers Club See “Life’s Work.” (1:58) Embarcadero.

The Motel Life Brothers (Stephen Dorff, Emile Hirsch) go on the run after a tragic accident. Kris Kristofferson and Dakota Fanning co-star. (1:25) Roxie.

Running From Crazy Can one ever escape one’s toxic genetic legacy, especially when one’s makeup, and even one’s genius, is so entangled with mental illness, the shadow of substance abuse, and a kind of burden of history? Actor, author, healthy-living proponent, and now suicide prevention activist Mariel Hemingway seems cut out to try, as, eh, earnestly as she can, to offer up hope. Part of that involves opening the door to documentarian Barbara Kopple, in this look at the 20th century’s most infamous literary suicide, Mariel’s grandfather Ernest Hemingway, and just one of his familial threads, one full of lives cut deliberately short. For Running From Crazy, Kopple generally keeps the focus on Mariel, who displays all the disarming groundedness and humility of the youngest care-taking, “good” child. Her father, Ernest’s eldest son, Jack, regularly indulged in “wine time” with his ailing wife and, according to Mariel, had a pitch-black side of his own. But we don’t look to closely at him as the filmmaker favors the present, preferring to watch Mariel mountain climb and bicker with her stuntman boyfriend, meet up with her eldest sister Muffet, and ‘fess up about the depression that runs through the Hemingway line to her own daughters. Little is made of Mariel’s own artistic contributions in acting, though Kopple’s work is aided immeasurably by the footage Mariel’s rival middle sister Margaux shot for a documentary she planned to do on Ernest. Once the highest paid model in the world, Margaux leaves the viewer with a vivid impression of her brash, raw, eccentric, and endearingly goofy spirit — she’s courageous in her own way as she sips vino with her parents and older sister and tears up during a Spanish bull fight. Are these just first world problems for scions who never hesitated to trade on their name? Kopple is more interested in the humans behind the gloss of fame, spectacle and sensation — the women left in the wake of a literary patriarch’s monumental brand of masculinity and misogyny. And you feel like you get that here, plainly and honestly, in a way that even Papa might appreciate. (1:40) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Spinning Plates Joseph Levy’s enjoyable documentary contrasts life at three widely disparate U.S. restaurants: the Martinez family’s modest enterprise La Cocina de Gabby, a Tucson showcase for a wife and mother’s Mexican cooking; Breitbach’s Country Dining in rural Iowa, a 151-year-old purveyor of all-American comfort food; and superstar chef Grant Achatz’s Chicago Alinea, where a 24-course meal of culinary art/science experiments can set you back $800 (yes, that’s for one diner). The latter is a global destination for serious foodies, acclaimed by the industry’s most prestigious observers. (Its nearly 24/7 supply deliveries are also a noisy nightmare for someone I know whose apartment is next door.) The teensy town that’s grown up around Breitbach’s has a population of 70; on a busy weekend, the business attracts up to 2,000, many driving long distances to get there. Yet the people we get to know the best here, the émigré Martinezes, illustrate another side of restaurant life — the side in which a majority of new eateries fail within three years, despite (as seemingly is the case at Gabby’s) all palate-pleasing, reasonable pricing and tireless labor. Tying together these three stories is … well, nothing, really, beyond some vague notion that good food is something that breeds “community.” (Yet high-ticket Alinea can hardly be said to reflect that, while Levy doesn’t actually bother interviewing any patrons to let us know whether the other two establishments’ food is anything special.) Still, and despite some rather bogus dramatic chronology-manipulation of events that happened several years ago, Spinning Plates is an entertaining sampler plate of a movie. And the Martinez family’s story lends it a bit of real gravitas. (1:32) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Thor: The Dark World The Avengers juggernaut rolls on as Thor (Chris Hemsworth) grabs his hammer for a stand-alone sequel. See review at www.sfbg.com. (2:00) Balboa, Presidio.

ONGOING

About Time Richard Curtis, the man behind 2003’s Love Actually, must be enjoying his days in England, rolling in large piles of money. Coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of that twee cinematic love fest comes Curtis’ latest ode to joy, About Time. The film begins in Cornwall at an idyllic stone beach house, as Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) describes his family members (Bill Nighy is dad; Richard Cordery is the crazy uncle) and their pleasures (rituals (tea on the beach, ping pong). Despite beachside bliss, Tim is lovelorn and ready to begin a career as a barrister (which feels as out of the blue as the coming first act break). Oh! And as it happens, the men in Tim’s family can travel back in time. There are no clear rules, though births and deaths are like no-trespass signs on the imaginary timeline. When he meets Mary (Rachel McAdams), he falls in love, but if he paves over his own evening by bouncing back and spending that night elsewhere, he loses the path he’s worn into the map and has to fix it. Again and again. Despite potential repetition, About Time moves smoothly, sweetly, slowly along, giving its audience time enough to feel for the characters, and then feel for the characters again, and then keep crying just because the ball’s already in motion. It’s the most nest-like catharsis any British film ever built. (2:03) Marina, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

All Is Lost As other reviewers have pointed out, All Is Lost‘s nearly dialogue-free script (OK, there is one really, really well-placed “Fuuuuuck!”) is about as far from J.C. Chandor’s Oscar-nominated script for 2011’s Margin Call as possible. Props to the filmmaker, then, for crafting as much pulse-pounding magic out of austerity as he did with that multi-character gabfest. Here, Robert Redford plays “Our Man,” a solo sailor whose race to survive begins along with the film, as his boat collides with a hunk of Indian Ocean detritus. Before long, he’s completely adrift, yet determined to outwit the forces of nature that seem intent on bringing him down. The 77-year-old Redford turns in a surprisingly physical performance that’s sure to be remembered as a late-career highlight. (1:46) Albany, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Big Sur (1:21) 1000 Van Ness, Smith Rafael.

Blue is the Warmest Color The stars (Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux) say the director was brutal. The director says he wishes the film had never been released (but he might make a sequel). The graphic novelist is uncomfortable with the explicit 10-minute sex scene. And most of the state of Idaho will have to wait to see the film on Netflix. The noise of recrimination, the lesser murmur of backpedaling, and a difficult-to-argue NC-17 rating could make it harder, as French director Abdellatif Kechiche has predicted, to find a calm, neutral zone in which to watch Blue is the Warmest Color, his Palme d’Or–winning adaptation (with co-writer Ghalya Lacroix) of Julie Maroh’s 2010 graphic novel Le Blue Est une Couleur Chaude. But once you’ve committed to the three-hour runtime, it’s not too difficult to tune out all the extra noise and focus on a film that trains its mesmerized gaze on a young woman’s transforming experience of first love. (2:59) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

Blue Jasmine The good news about Blue Jasmine isn’t that it’s set in San Francisco, but that it’s Woody Allen’s best movie in years. Although some familiar characteristics are duly present, it’s not quite like anything he’s done before, and carries its essentially dramatic weight more effectively than he’s managed in at least a couple decades. Not long ago Jasmine (a fearless Cate Blanchett) was the quintessential Manhattan hostess, but that glittering bubble has burst — exactly how revealed in flashbacks that spring surprises up to the script’s end. She crawls to the West Coast to “start over” in the sole place available where she won’t be mortified by the pity of erstwhile society friends. That would be the SF apartment of Ginger (Sally Hawkins), a fellow adoptive sister who was always looked down on by comparison to pretty, clever Jasmine. Theirs is an uneasy alliance — but Ginger’s too big-hearted to say no. It’s somewhat disappointing that Blue Jasmine doesn’t really do much with San Francisco. Really, the film could take place anywhere — although setting it in a non-picture-postcard SF does bolster the film’s unsettled, unpredictable air. Without being an outright villain, Jasmine is one of the least likable characters to carry a major US film since Noah Baumbach’s underrated Margot at the Wedding (2007); the general plot shell, moreover, is strongly redolent of A Streetcar Named Desire. But whatever inspiration Allen took from prior works, Blue Jasmine is still distinctively his own invention. It’s frequently funny in throwaway performance bits, yet disturbing, even devastating in cumulative impact. (1:38) Metreon, Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Vogue. (Harvey)

Captain Phillips In 2009, Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by Somali pirates who’d hijacked the Kenya-bound Maersk Alabama. His subsequent rescue by Navy SEALs came after a standoff that ended in the death of three pirates; a fourth, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, surrendered and is serving a hefty term in federal prison. A year later, Phillips penned a book about his ordeal, and Hollywood pounced. Tom Hanks is perfectly cast as Phillips, an everyman who runs a tight ship but displays an admirable ability to improvise under pressure — and, once rescued, finally allows that pressure to diffuse in a scene of memorably raw catharsis. Newcomer Barkhad Abdi, cast from an open call among Minneapolis’ large Somali community, plays Muse; his character development goes deep enough to emphasize that piracy is one of few grim career options for Somali youths. But the real star here is probably director Paul Greengrass, who adds this suspenseful high-seas tale to his slate of intelligent, doc-inspired thrillers (2006’s United 93, 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum). Suffice to say fans of the reigning king of fast-paced, handheld-camera action will not be disappointed. (2:14) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Carrie Is the world ready for a candy-covered Carrie? It’s a sad state of affairs when the best thing about a movie, particularly a wholly superfluous remake like this, is its creepy poster. That’s the closest thing this Carrie has to offer next to that retina-scorching, iconic 1976 image of blood-saturated Sissy Spacek that continues to lend inspiration to baby Billiths everywhere. Nonetheless, like a shy violet cowering in the gym showers, this Carrie comes loaded with potential, with Boys Don’t Cry (1999) director Kimberly Peirce at the helm, the casting of Julianne Moore and Chloe Grace Moretz in the critical mother-daughter roles, and the unfortunately topical bullying theme. Peirce makes a half-hearted attempt to update the, um, franchise when the tormented Carrie (a miscast Moretz) is virally videoed by spoiled rival Chris (Portia Doubleday), but the filmmaker’s heart — and guts — aren’t in this pointless exercise. We speed through the buildup — which unconvincingly sets up Carrie’s torments at home, instigated by obviously mentally ill, Christian fundamentalist mom Margaret (Moore), and at school, where the PE teacher (Judy Greer) pep-talks Carrie and Sue Snell (Gabriella White) is mysteriously hellbent on paying penance for her bullying misdeeds — to the far-from-scary denouement. Let’s say mean-spirited reflexive revenge-taking is no real substitute for true horror and shock. Supposedly drawn to Carrie for its female-empowerment message, Peirce nevertheless isn’t cut out to wade into horror’s crimson waters — especially when one compares this weak rendition with Brian De Palma’s double-screen brio and high-camp Freudian passion play. (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (1:35) Metreon.

The Counselor The reviews are in, and it’s clear Ridley Scott has made the most polarizing film of the season. Most of The Counselor‘s detractors blame Cormac McCarthy’s screenplay, the acclaimed author’s first that isn’t drawn from a prexisting novel. To date, the best film made from a McCarthy tale is 2007’s No Country for Old Men, and The Counselor trawls in similar border-noir genre trappings in its tale of a sleek, greedy lawyer (Michael Fassbender) who gets in way over his head after a drug deal (entered into with slippery compadres played by Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem) goes wrong. Yes, there are some problems here, with very few unexpected twists in a downbeat story that’s laden with overlong monologues, most of them delivered by random characters that appear, talk, and are never seen again. But some of those speeches are doozies — and haters are overlooking The Counselor‘s sleazy pleasures (many of which are supplied by Cameron Diaz’s fierce, feline femme fatale) and attention to grimy detail. One suspects cult appreciation awaits. (1:57) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Diana The final years of Diana, Princess of Wales are explored in what’s essentially a classed-up Lifetime drama, delving into the on-off romance between “the most famous woman in the world” (Naomi Watts) and heart surgeon Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews). Relationship roadblocks (his Muslim family, back home in Pakistan, is hesistant to accept a divorced, Christian Brit as their son’s partner) are further complicated by extraordinary circumstances (Diana’s fame, which leads to paparazzi intrusions on the very private doctor’s life), but there’s real love between the two, which keeps them returning to each other again and again. By the third or fourth tearful breakup — followed by a passionate reunion — Diana‘s story becomes repetitive as it marches toward its inevitable tragic end. Still, director Oliver Hirschbiegel (2004’s Downfall, another last-days-in-the-life biopic, albeit of a slightly different nature) includes some light-hearted moments, as when a giggling Diana smuggles Hasnat through the palace gates (past guards who know exactly what she’s up to). As you’d expect, Watts is the best thing here, bringing warmth and complexity to a performance that strives to reach beyond imitation. (1:52) SF Center. (Eddy)

Don Jon Shouldering the duties of writer, director, and star for the comedy Don Jon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has also picked up a broad Jersey accent, the physique of a gym rat, and a grammar of meathead posturing — verbal, physical, and at times metaphysical. His character, Jon, is the reigning kingpin in a triad of nightclubbing douchebags who pass their evenings assessing their cocktail-sipping opposite numbers via a well-worn one-to-10 rating system. Sadly for pretty much everyone involved, Jon’s rote attempts to bed the high-scorers are spectacularly successful — the title refers to his prowess in the art of the random hookup — that is, until he meets an alluring “dime” named Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), who institutes a waiting period so foreign to Jon that it comes to feel a bit like that thing called love. Amid the well-earned laughs, there are several repulsive-looking flies in the ointment, but the most conspicuous is Jon’s stealthy addiction to Internet porn, which he watches at all hours of the day, but with a particularly ritualistic regularity after each night’s IRL conquest has fallen asleep. These circumstances entail a fair amount of screen time with Jon’s O face and, eventually, after a season of growth — during which he befriends an older woman named Esther (Julianne Moore) and learns about the existence of arty retro Swedish porn — his “Ohhh&ldots;” face. Driven by deft, tight editing, Don Jon comically and capably sketches a web of bad habits, and Gordon-Levitt steers us through a transformation without straining our capacity to recognize the character we met at the outset — which makes the clumsy over-enunciations that mar the ending all the more jarring. (1:30) Elmwood, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Ender’s Game Those entering Ender’s Game in search of homophobic threads or politically unsavory themes will likely be frustrated. After all, Orson Scott Card — once a board member of the National Organization for Marriage, and here serving as a producer intent on preserving the 1985 novel that netted him acclaim — has revisited what was initially a short story multiple times over the years, tweaking it to reflect a new political climate, to ready it for new expedient uses. Who knows — the times are a-changin’ fast enough, with the outcry of LGBT activists and the growing acceptance of gay military members, to hope that a gay character might enter the mix someday. Of course, sexuality of all sorts is kept firmly in check in the Ender‘s world. Earth has been invaded by an insect-like species called the Formics, and the planet unifies to serve up its best and brightest (and, it’s implied, most ruthless) young minds, sharpened on first-person-shooters and tactical games, to the cause of defeating the alien “other.” Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) is the knowing hybrid of his sociopath brother Peter (Jimmy Pinchak) and compassionate sister Valentine (Abigail Breslin) — of the trinity, he’s “the One,” as Han Solo, I mean, Harrison Ford, cadet talent-spotter and trainer Colonel Graff, puts it. Ender impresses the leather off the hardened old war horse, though the Colonel’s psychologically more equipped cohort Major Anderson (Viola Davis) suspects there’s more going on within their chosen leader. Director-screenwriter Gavin Hood demonstrates his allegiance to Card’s vision, valorizing the discipline and teamwork instilled by military school with the grim purpose and dead serious pleasure one might take in studying a well-oiled machine, while Ender is sharpened and employed as a stunningly effective tool in a war he never truly conceived of. This game has a bit more in common with the recent Wii-meets-Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Godzillas of Pacific Rim than the winking, acidic satire of Starship Troopers (1997), echoing a drone-driven War on Terror that has a way of detaching even the most evolved fighter from the consequences of his or her actions. The question is how to undo, or rewrite, the damage done. (1:54) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Enough Said Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a divorced LA masseuse who sees naked bodies all day but has become pretty wary of wanting any in her bed at night. She reluctantly changes her mind upon meeting the also-divorced Albert (James Gandolfini), a television archivist who, also like her, is about to see his only child off to college. He’s no Adonis, but their relationship develops rapidly — the only speed bumps being provided by the many nit-picking advisors Eva has in her orbit, which exacerbate her natural tendency toward glass-half-empty neurosis. This latest and least feature from writer-director Nicole Holofcener is a sitcom-y thing of the type that expects us to find characters all the more adorable the more abrasive and self-centered they are. That goes for Louis-Dreyfus’ annoying heroine as well as such wasted talents as Toni Colette as her kvetching best friend and Catherine Keener as a new client turned new pal so bitchy it makes no sense Eva would desire her company. The only nice person here is Albert, whom the late Gandolfini makes a charming, low-key teddy bear in an atypical turn. The revelation of an unexpected past tie between his figure and Keener’s puts Eva in an ethically disastrous position she handles dismally. In fact, while it’s certainly not Holofcener’s intention, Eva’s behavior becomes so indefensible that Enough Said commits rom-com suicide: The longer it goes on, the more fervently you hope its leads will not end up together. (1:33) Albany, Piedmont. (Harvey)

Escape Plan It’s fascinating how ruined faces and silvered goatees can lend an air of, uh, gravitas to even the most muscle-bound action-movie veterans. The logic: Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have been around so long that they must possess more than a few brain cells to rub together. And rub they do — to surprisingly pleasing effect in this cut-above-the-next-Expendables-sequel meeting of blockbuster behemoths. Stallone’s Ray Breslin is a prison security specialist so nerdily devoted to his work that he gets himself locked up to test his clients’ jails. He gets in over his head when he’s thrown into the most secure private prison in the world, which happens to be run by former Blackwater mercenaries. It’s essentially the next, rather permanent-looking step after your not-so-friendly rendition flight. Breslin befriends security man Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger), who’s in the clink on behalf of his “digital Robin Hood” boss. Menaced by warden Hobbs (Jim Caviezel) and brawny Drake (Vinnie Jones), the two prisoners kick off a changeable game, Muslim prisoner Javed (Faran Tahir) in tow. Director Mikael Håfström lays out the plans with geeky enthusiasm by way of zippy point-of-view shots that are supposed to let you into Breslin’s noggin. Shockingly, after Stallone’s recent brain-dead exercises (2012’s Bullet to the Head), it’s not an unhappy experience in this smarter-than-it-looks post-9/11 prison-break drama that wears its complicated feelings about War on Terror-era crime and punishment — and torture — on its sleeve. Still, matters never get too bleeding-heart liberal here, at the risk of alienating the stars’ audiences. Sly obviously embraces this opportunity to play smarter than usual, while the ex-Governator sinks his choppers into his role with glee, trotting out a Commando-style slo-mo gun-swinging move that will have his geek brigade cheering. (1:56) SF Center. (Chun)

Free Birds (1:31) Elmwood, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

God Loves Uganda Most contemporary Americans don’t know much about Uganda — that is, beyond Forest Whitaker’s Oscar-winning performance as Idi Amin in 2006’s The Last King of Scotland. Though that film took some liberties with the truth, it did effectively convey the grotesque terrors of the dictator’s 1970s reign. But even decades post-Amin, the East African nation has somehow retained its horrific human-rights record. For example: what extremist force was behind the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which proposed the death penalty as punishment for gayness? The answer might surprise you, or not. As the gripping, fury-fomenting doc God Loves Uganda reveals, America’s own Christian Right has been exporting hate under the guise of missionary work for some time. Taking advantage of Uganda’s social fragility — by building schools and medical clinics, passing out food, etc. — evangelical mega churches, particularly the Kansas City, Mo.-based, breakfast-invoking International House of Prayer, have converted large swaths of the population to their ultra-conservative beliefs. Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, an Oscar winner for 2010 short Music by Prudence, follows naive “prayer warriors” as they journey to Uganda for the first time; his apparent all-access relationship with the group shows that they aren’t outwardly evil people — but neither do they comprehend the very real consequences of their actions. His other sources, including two Ugandan clergymen who’ve seen their country change for the worse and an LGBT activist who lives every day in peril, offer a more harrowing perspective. Evocative and disturbing, God Loves Uganda seems likely to earn Williams more Oscar attention. (1:23) Roxie. (Eddy)

Gravity “Life in space is impossible,” begins Gravity, the latest from Alfonso Cuarón (2006’s Children of Men). Egghead Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is well aware of her precarious situation after a mangled satellite slams into her ship, then proceeds to demolition-derby everything (including the International Space Station) in its path. It’s not long before she’s utterly, terrifyingly alone, and forced to unearth near-superhuman reserves of physical and mental strength to survive. Bullock’s performance would be enough to recommend Gravity, but there’s more to praise, like the film’s tense pacing, spare-yet-layered script (Cuarón co-wrote with his son, Jonás), and spectacular 3D photography — not to mention George Clooney’s warm supporting turn as a career astronaut who loves country music almost as much as he loves telling stories about his misadventures. (1:31) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Inequality for All Jacob Kornbluth’s Inequality for All is the latest and certainly not the last documentary to explore why the American Dream is increasingly out of touch with everyday reality, and how the definition of “middle class” somehow morphed from “comfortable” to “struggling, endangered, and hanging by a thread.” This lively overview has an ace up its sleeve in the form of the director’s friend, collaborator, and principal interviewee Robert Reich — the former Clinton-era Secretary of Labor, prolific author, political pundit, and UC Berkeley Professor of Public Policy. Whether he’s holding forth on TV, going one-on-one with Kornbluth’s camera, talking to disgruntled working class laborers, or engaging students in his Wealth and Poverty class, Inequality is basically a resourcefully illustrated Reich lecture — as the press notes put it, “an Inconvenient Truth for the economy.” Fortunately, the diminutive Reich is a natural comedian as well as a superbly cogent communicator, turning yet another summary of how the system has fucked almost everybody (excluding the one percent) into the one you might most want to recommend to the bewildered folks back home. He’s sugar on the pill, making it easier to swallow so much horrible news. (1:25) California. (Harvey)

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (1:32) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Kill Your Darlings Relieved to escape his Jersey home, dominated by the miseries of an oft-institutionalized mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and long-suffering father (David Cross), Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) enters Columbia University in 1944 as a freshman already interested in the new and avant-garde. He’s thus immediately enchanted by bad-boy fellow student Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), a veteran of numerous prestigious schools and well on the road to getting kicked out of this one. Charismatic and reckless, Carr has a circle of fellow eccentrics buzzing around him, including dyspeptic William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) and merchant marine wild child Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston). Variably included in or ostracized from this training ground for future Beat luminaries is the older David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), a disgraced former academic who’d known Carr since the latter was 14, and followed him around with pathetic, enamored devotion. It’s this last figure’s apparent murder by Carr that provides the bookending crux of John Krokidas’ impressive first feature, a tragedy whose motivations and means remain disputed. Partly blessed by being about a (comparatively) lesser-known chapter in an overexposed, much-mythologized history, Kill Your Darlings is easily one of the best dramatizations yet of Beat lore, with excellent performances all around. (Yes, Harry Potter actually does pass quite well as a somewhat cuter junior Ginsberg.) It’s sad if somewhat inevitable that the most intriguing figure here — Hall’s hapless, lovelorn stalker-slash-victim — is the one that remains least knowable to both the film and to the ages. (1:40) SF Center, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Last Vegas This buddy film may look like a Bucket List-Hangover hybrid, but it’s got a lot more Spring Breakers in it than you expect — who beats Vegas for most bikinis per capita? Four old friends reunite for a wedding in Vegas, where they drink, gamble, and are confused for legendary men. Morgan Freeman sneaks out of his son’s house to go. Kevin Kline’s wife gave him a hall pass to regain his lost sense of fun. Kline and Freeman trick Robert De Niro into going — he’s got a grudge against Michael Douglas, so why celebrate that jerk’s nuptials to a 30-year-old? The conflicts are mostly safe and insubstantial, but the in-joke here is that all of these acting legends are confused for legends by their accidentally obtained VIP host (Romany Malco). These guys have earned their stature, so what gives? When De Niro flings fists you shudder inside remembering Jake LaMotta. Kline’s velvety comic delivery is just as swaggery as it was during his 80s era collaborations with Lawrence Kasdan. Douglas is “not as charming as he thinks he is,” yet again, and voice-of-God Freeman faces a conflict specific to paternal protective urges. Yes, Last Vegas jokes about the ravages of age and prescribes tenacity for all that ails us, but I want a cast this great celebrated at least as obviously as The Expendables films. Confuse these guys for better? Show me who. (1:44) Four Star, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Vizcarrondo)

Man of Tai Chi (1:45) Metreon.

Muscle Shoals Hard on the heels of Dave Grohl’s Sound City comes another documentary about a legendary American recording studio. Located in the titular podunk Northern Alabama burg, Fame Studio drew an extraordinary lineup of musicians and producers to make fabled hits from the early 1960s through the early ’80s. Among them: Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman,” a slew of peak era Aretha Franklin smashes, the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar,” and those cornerstones of Southern rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird” and “Sweet Home Alabama.” Tales of how particular tracks came about are entertaining, especially when related by the still-lively likes of Etta James, Wilson Pickett, and Keith Richards. (Richards is a hoot, while surprisingly Mick Jagger doesn’t have much to say.) Director Greg Camalier’s feature can be too worshipful and digressive at times, and he’s skittish about probing fallouts between Fame’s founder Rick Hall and some long-term collaborators (notably the local in-house session musicians known as the Swampers who were themselves a big lure for many artists, and who left Fame to start their own successful studio). Still, there’s enough fascinating material here — also including a lot of archival footage — that any music fan whose memory or interest stretches back a few decades will find much to enjoy. (1:51) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

12 Years a Slave Pop culture’s engagement with slavery has always been uneasy. Landmark 1977 miniseries Roots set ratings records, but the prestigious production capped off a decade that had seen some more questionable endeavors, including 1975 exploitation flick Mandingo — often cited by Quentin Tarantino as one of his favorite films; it was a clear influence on his 2012 revenge fantasy Django Unchained, which approached its subject matter in a manner that paid homage to the Westerns it riffed on: with guns blazing. By contrast, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is nuanced and steeped in realism. Though it does contain scenes of violence (deliberately captured in long takes by regular McQueen collaborator Sean Bobbitt, whose cinematography is one of the film’s many stylistic achievements), the film emphasizes the horrors of “the peculiar institution” by repeatedly showing how accepted and ingrained it was. Slave is based on the true story of Solomon Northup, an African American man who was sold into slavery in 1841 and survived to pen a wrenching account of his experiences. He’s portrayed here by the powerful Chiwetel Ejiofor. Other standout performances come courtesy of McQueen favorite Michael Fassbender (as Epps, a plantation owner who exacerbates what’s clearly an unwell mind with copious amounts of booze) and newcomer Lupita Nyong’o, as a slave who attracts Epps’ cruel attentions. (2:14) California, Embarcadero, Marina, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Wadjda Hijabs, headmistresses, and errant fathers fall away before the will and wherewithal of the 11-year-old title character of Wadjda, the first feature by a female Saudi Arabian filmmaker. Director Haifaa al-Mansour’s own story — which included filming on the streets of Riyadh from the isolation of a van because she couldn’t work publicly with the men in the crew — is the stuff of drama, and it follows that her movie lays out, in the neorealist style of 1948’s The Bicycle Thief, the obstacles to freedom set in the path of women and girls in Saudi Arabia, in terms that cross cultural, geographic, and religious boundaries. The fresh star setting the course is Wadjda (first-time actor Waad Mohammed), a smart, irrepressibly feisty girl practically bursting out of her purple high-tops and intent on racing her young neighborhood friend Abudullah (Abdullrahman Algohani) on a bike. So many things stand in her way: the high price of bicycles and the belief that girls will jeopardize their virginity if they ride them; her distracted mother (Reem Abdullah) who’s worried that Wadjda’s father will take a new wife who can bear him a son; and a harsh, elegant headmistress (Ahd) intent on knuckling down on girlish rebellion. So Wadjda embarks on studying for a Qu’ran recital competition to win money for her bike and in the process learns a matter or two about discipline — and the bigger picture. Director al-Mansour teaches us a few things about her world as well — and reminds us of the indomitable spirit of girls — with this inspiring peek behind an ordinarily veiled world. (1:37) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

Zaytoun It’s 1982 in war-torn Beirut, and on the semi-rare occasion that streetwise 12-year-old Palestinian refugee Fahed (Abdallah El Akal) attends school, he’s faced with an increasing number of empty desks, marked by photos of the dead classmates who used to sit there. His own father is killed in an air strike as Zaytoun begins. When an Israeli pilot (Stephen Dorff — a surprising casting choice, but not a bad one) is shot down and becomes a PLO prisoner, Fahed’s feelings of hatred give way to curiosity, and he agrees to help the man escape back to Israel, so long as he brings Fahed, who’s intent on planting his father’s olive sapling in his family’s former village, along. It’s not an easy journey, and a bond inevitably forms — just as problems inevitably ensue when they reach the border. Israeli director Eran Riklis (2008’s Lemon Tree) avoids sentimentality in this tale that nonetheless travels a pretty predictable path. (1:50) Smith Rafael. (Eddy) *

 

The Selector: October 23-29, 2013

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WEDNESDAY 23

Nederlands Dans Theater

With this program, Nederlands Dans Theater is sticking its neck out. For the last 33 years, the company’s bone-deep identity, its very soul and the refined contemporary perspective on ballet, was associated with one man, Jiry Kylian, the choreographer and artistic director who took his troupe around the world to highest acclaim. He recently turned the reins over to resident choreographers, the British-born Paul Lightfoot and Spain-native Sol Leon, who as artistic partners have co-choreographed for Nederlands for the last 20 years. Though Kylian’s rep will not be neglected, we’ll get an inkling of how the two of them will shape the company’s future. No Kylian on this visit, but two contrasting West Coast premieres: Lightfoot’s Sehnsucht (Longing), to Beethoven, and Leon’s Schmetterling (Butterfly) to a score by the Magnetic Fields. (Rita Felciano)

Also Thu/24, 8pm, $30–$92

Cal Performances

Zellerbach Hall, Berk.

(510) 642-9988

www.calperformances.org

 

THURSDAY 24

CitiesAlive NightLife

Once, long ago, Earth was covered in green grass, shrubs, moss, and trees, with not a roof or window to be seen, and plenty of oxygen to get around. One day in the future, land could look the same from above, and it’ll happen sooner than later through the educational efforts of CitiesAlive, a green roof and wall conference, which will host this week’s Nightlife at the Cal Academy of Sciences. Thump and bump to DJ Sep, cocktail in hand, through the festivities, which include mastering tricks to grow your own living things — herbs, fungi, you name it — from your urban flat with Gudrun Ongania and Wanda Keller of VEG and the City, eating flowers with rooftop garden blogger Kristin McArdle, tasting Terry Oxfords of Urban Bee SF’s city-bee honey, and going on a virtual tour of the greatest green buildings to currently grace Earth. (Kaylen Baker)

6pm, $12

California Academy of Sciences

55 Music Concourse, SF

(415) 379-8000

www.calacademy.org

 

Forest Fringe SF

There’s the Edinburgh Fringe and then there’s Forest Fringe. A mini-fest roaming the outskirts of the world’s largest arts festival, Forest Fringe started in 2007 as a platform for more experimental work and has become an itinerant force in its own right. This week it comes to the Bay Area, as part of an exhilarating ongoing artistic exchange between the UK and the Bay, initiated two years ago by the theater department of the University of Chichester in collaboration with local artists and organizations. CounterPULSE hosts this week’s varied four-night program of UK-based artists, including returning duo Action Hero, as well as Andy Field, Brian Lobel, Lucy Ellinson, and Sam Halmarack and the Miserablites. There’s also an evening devoted to work by both UK and local artists — a set of hothouse collaborations devised entirely within the preceding week. (Robert Avila)

Through Sun/27, 8pm, $10–$30

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

www.counterpulse.org

 

FRIDAY 25

Abstract Alchemist of Flesh

GRAHHR! Opening night of the Berkeley Video and Film Festival premieres Abstract Alchemist of Flesh (55 min), the Colin Still-directed documentary on the Bay Area’s literary lion, Michael McClure, with the poet himself on hand. Featuring new and archival footage of such friends and fellow travelers as Allen Ginsberg, Dennis Hopper, Ray Manzarek, and Terry Riley, Abstract Alchemist provides an extended glimpse into the poetry and collaborative methods of a countercultural figure from the days when they built ’em to last. Also on the bill is The Party in Taylor Mead’s Kitchen, a short documentary on everyone’s favorite (and recently deceased) Warholian dadaist; the William Burroughs-based experiment One Night at the Aristo; and a second premiere, Moment of the Making, focusing on the sculpture of McClure’s partner, the artist Amy Evans-McClure. (Garrett Caples)

7:15pm, $8–$12

East Bay Media Center

1939 Addison, Berk.

(510) 843-3699

www.berkeleyvideofilmfest.org

 

Kisses

Boy-girl duo Kisses is some kind of weird fun. Its poppy sound incorporating analog keyboards, simple percussion, and pleasant harmonies is easy listening at its finest. But the pair isn’t afraid to employ negative space in its tracks, and often places simple beats next to minimal lyrics, creating a sound that falls somewhere between pop and a ’70s tribute group. The dream pop enthusiasts released their second full-length album Kids in LA this past September and have been touring the US with the Blow since the beginning of October. Singer Jesse Kivel embodies a somber nostalgic romantic behind the mic, and keyboard-soundboards Zizi Edmundson, tinkering nonchalantly and occasionally oozing vocally into the mic, makes apathy cool again. (Hillary Smith)

With the Blow and the Ian Fays

9:30pm, $16

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

SuicideGirls: Blackheart Burlesque Tour

After six tour-less years, the SuicideGirls are back with their Blackheart Burlesque Tour, presented by Inked Magazine. Redefining ideas of female beauty through sexy and silly performance, seven talented SuicideGirls take the country by storm on a tour full of gorgeous stripteases and nods to popular culture, including favorites such as Star Trek, The Avengers, Game of Thrones, The Big Lebowski, Pulp Fiction, Planet of the Apes, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Choreographer to the stars Manwe Sauls-Addison has assembled only the best for this raunchy and riotous show. (Kirstie Haruta)

9pm, $25

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

Deer Tick

In 2013 Deer Tick is proving that the only constant is change. The Providence alt-country outfit has always been reliable and consistent in its consistent touring, heavy drinking, and all-around debauchery. But that was before frontperson and primary songwriter John McCauley dealt with an imploded engagement, a father gone to prison, and the realization that maybe it was time to start drinking responsibly. Deer Tick has scaled back its usual 200+ shows per year schedule, and its penchant for escapism, focusing instead on showmanship and honest, personal songwriting. Negativity, its newest studio album, is almost entirely autobiographical. But don’t worry, it’s still Deer Tick — the shows will still be a riotous, sweaty mix of originals and covers, and despite the band’s clean-up act, audience drunkenness and hooliganism is still highly encouraged. (Haley Zaremba)

With Robert Ellis

9pm, $21

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

 

SATURDAY 26

Por-Trai-Ture

Lindsey Renee Derry likes to go it alone. You can’t blame her. One could almost pity anyone having to share the stage with her, even though she worked with Jon Navas/Compagnie Fracas in Montreal for five years. At Kunst-Stoff, earlier this year, she proved herself a mesmerizing soloist whose power, range and fearlessness is strongly ballet-based but whose approach to dance ranges beyond what her training would have implied. For Por-Trai-Ture, she is reaching to back to a piece that José Navas set on her but expanding it by working with excellent choreographers. No doubt Sidra Bell from New York, Alex Ketley from SF, and Iratxe Ansa from Spain will challenge her in unexpected ways as will video designer Erin Malley. (Felciano)

Also Sun/27, 8pm, $10-$15

Kunst-Stoff Arts

1 Grove, SF

portraiture.brownpapertickets.com

 

Haunted Hoedown IV

Local folk favorite Rin Tin Tiger hosts its fourth annual Haunted Hoedown at Bottom of the Hill tonight. Celebrate Halloween a few days early by donning your coolest costume and heading out for a night of music and spooky fun. Riding on the recent release of its new album, Splinter Remedies, headliner Rin Tin Tiger is joined by fellow San Francisco rockers Vandella and the Moxie Kids. And what would a Halloween show be without the chance to indulge your sweet tooth? While you’re picking up your CDs and T-shirts, trick-or-treat at the merch tables and enjoy some free candy! (Haruta)

8:30pm, $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

SUNDAY 27

Chef Boulud

Where does a celebrity chef, that god-like being in a starched and double-buttoned smock worshipped by a lucky few behind foaming duck terrine, go for a good time? When not looking after 10 award-winning restaurants, writing a seventh cookbook, or winning more Michelin stars and James Beard awards, Lyon-born Chef Daniel Boulud comes to San Francisco, assurément. As part of the JCCSF’s Food For Thought series, Boulud talks to Lucky Peach’s Chris Ying about his new cookbook, Daniel: My French Cuisine (Grand Central Life & Style, 2013), which will feature 75 Daniel-worthy recipes and 12 made-by-the-hearth French classics. Don’t miss the man who’s influenced American cuisine with his edible je-ne-sais-quoi for the past 20 years. (Baker)

7pm, $25

Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

3200 California, SF

(415) 292-1200

www.jccsf.org

 

MONDAY 28

CocoRosie

Bianca and Sierra Casady — nicknamed Coco and Rosie by their mother — grew up under unusual circumstances, bouncing around from city to city with their nomadic mother, doing “vision quests” with their Iowa farmer father who had a fascination with Native American religion, and being encouraged to practice art and creativity rather than worry about finishing school. The sisters eventually became estranged, reuniting in Paris in 2003, where they formed their wonderfully weird and experimental indie pop duo. Always unexpected and startlingly beautiful, the sisters’ music is unlike anything you’ve heard, and the live performance, never skimping on spontaneity or costume changes, endeavors to match their twisted whimsy. (Zaremba)

8pm, $28

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

theregencyballroom.com

 

TUESDAY 29

Noise Pop’s “Musical Pursuit” Trivia Night

Show off your musical know-all at Noise Pop’s monthly “Musical Pursuit” trivia night! With sonic trivia covering contemporary and vintage tunes, it could be anyone’s game. Prizes change monthly and could include anything from gift certificates, to concert tickets, to your bar tab. This month, the prize is a biggie: Everyone on the winning team will win a badge to next year’s Noise Pop fest. And the second place prize is tickets to the Flaming Lips on Halloween. So come prepared, your head crammed with musical knowledge. Enjoy drink specials, eats by SF Burger Brawl winner Wes Rowe, and music by Jamie Jams of Debaser. (Haruta)

6pm, free

1772 Market, SF

(415) 371-9705

www.noisepop.com

 

Horror double features with HobGoblin

For those of us who prefer to stretch out anticipation of the best holiday of the year into a week-long (or month-long) affair, there’s no better way to ramp up to the Big H than checking out a horror-film double feature. Over two nights, the Balboa Theatre and November Fire Productions unspool a trio of silent horror classics with brand-new soundtracks performed live by HobGoblin, plus other aural enhancements, including spooky sound effects. Tonight, it’s OG vamp Nosferatu (1922) and the sleepwalking stalker of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920); tomorrow, 1920’s don’t-play-with-black-magic tale The Golem screens with a tribute to Bob Wilkins, the late, great host of TV’s Creature Features. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Oct. 30

7:30pm, $10

Balboa Theatre

2630 Balboa, SF

www.cinemasf.com/balboa

Best of the Bay 2013: BEST CULINARY GEPETTO

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Powerful chrome and polished enamel parts, operated by hand, executing a series of swift cuts and swooping motions. Classic design masterfully crafted, all building to — gasp! — the perfect slice of salami. Welcome to the world of Emilio Mitidieri, the man who brings the Bay Area’s venerable Emiliomiti “culinary toys” to life. Though his company is playfully named, Mitidieri’s creations mean business — wood fire and gas brick ovens that yield perfectly cooked pizza pies, pasta machines that extrude dreamy strands of fettuccini, and specimens like the Slicer Mito 300, an elegantly crafted meat slicer that mimics the classic designs of the deli of yesteryear. Mitidieri has been supplying restaurants and dedicated chefs with the tools needed for success for decades now, so chances are you’ve already sampled some of his playful perfection topped with marinara or nestled in a hoagie roll.

www.emiliomiti.com

Best of the Bay 2013 Editors Picks: Shopping

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SHOPPING

EDITORS PICKS

Editors picks are chosen by Guardian editors for special recognition for brightening the Bay Area experience.


BEST PLACE TO PARK YOUR CARD

Get that paper, paper, paper — printed. Holed up in a cozy garage with a cute dog and a hunky Vandercock proof press (a rare specimen last produced in the 1960s), the letterpress-loving ladies of Western Editions create and design paper goods for all occasions and situations, from badass business cards with handmade charm to colorful and direct wedding invites that may just get your flaky San Franciscan friends to actually attend the soirée. “Letterpress is magic,” is the motto of Western Addition residents Taylor Reid and Erin Fong, two friends turned business partners who are down to customize and open to suggestions, meaning you can make all the cute shit your ambitious heart desires, or purchase some one else’s great idea from their online store. Oh, hey, and they offer supercool DIY workshops, too — just in time for the holidays.

555 Rose, SF. www.westerneditions.com


BEST BE-SPOKED FASHION

We’re constantly on the hunt for the perfect outfit that will make it through our daily transition from work serf to night owl. Reversible scarves, tear-away skirts, all black outfits — those work OK. But what about then shoes? What pair of hoofers can glide us from the workbound bike lane to the underground dance floor? Welp, a local company has the solution to our woes: DZR Shoes, an SF-based (though they manufacture overseas) outfit that creates sneakers that can clip to all manners of pedal types, but look fly as all getout. Whether you go for high or low top, fully vegan design or whole grain leather, knee-high lace-up or slip-in, chances are you can find the kicks to complete your Lycra-free lane look in style. Our current favorite? The sleek, all-black Minna, designed by artist-DJ Jeremiah Bal.

www.dzrshoes.com

 

BEST FLORAL HUNTRESS

Her eyes scanning the abandoned lots and hillsides of the Stinson area and East Bay, Louesa Roebuck of Louesa Roebuck Flora isn’t afraid to snoop, sneak, or hustle in the name of foraging for flowers. Her mission: fetch that wild flora and arrange it in ways that exemplify the plant’s natural majesty. Gleaning armloads of budding branches, floppy magnolias, brilliant poppies, sweet mallow, bright berries, and sharp citrus from both public and secret locations, Louesa finds beauty in imperfection, a sublime bouquet in nature’s fantastic mistakes. She lets the blooms and leaves curl, crawl, and droop as they will, showcasing the fascinating juxtaposition between life and slow, dreamy decay. Visit her tiny Hayes Valley shop to see the day’s treasures and meet some of the gorgeous plants living right beside you.

597 Hayes, SF. (415) 686-5482, www.louesaroebuck.com


BEST ONE-STOP SCOTCH SHOP

Like a sweater for your insides, the names warm your gray matter: Broichladdich, Glayva, Mackillop’s, Benriach, Balvenie, Glenmorangie. Standing in the sweetly crammed back bottle room of downtown’s Whisky Shop can be a meditative experience for scotch lovers — the selection of malts and blends vies for the city’s best, with employees as helpful as their kilts are fetching. And should the Whisky Shop staff’s sartorial motif inspire, the front portion of the store is stocked with a rainbow of tartan, wool, and waxed fabric wardrobe. Score kilts and genuine, betasseled fur sporrans you’ll use to stash your new perfectly heart-shaped silver flask. And possibly a novelty gift or two — the Whisky Shop is also flush with crest-adorned coasters, canned haggis, and artisan lotions from the United Kingdom.

360 Sutter, SF. (415) 989-1030, www.whiskeyshopusa.com

 

BEST COMMUNITY BOARDS

While there can be no debate that surf shops, in general, are selling a lifestyle, few are hawking a way of living as healthy as Mill Valley’s beloved Proof Lab. Need proof? The nine-year-old store (whose owners used reclaimed and reused materials wherever possible in its construction) stocks the best in sustainable men’s and women’s clothing, surfboard brands, and skateboard fixins, of course. But it also hosts a passel of community-minded offerings: sustainability workshops, toddler art classes, a native plant nursery, a biodiesel fuel station. On the lot next door you’ll find a teaching garden co-founded by Proof where one can take the occasional canning seminar, and buy fresh local produce. Plus: a new Equator coffee bar, to keep you up for those waves.

244 Shoreline Highway, Mill Valley. (415) 380-8900, www.prooflab.com

 

BEST CLAWS CARTEL

We bow down to the business acumen and sharp eye for trends possessed by Floss Gloss duo Aretha Sack and Janine Lee. These two California College of the Arts grads eschewed inward-looking artistic exploration, instead embarking on a mission to paint the world with the sizzling neons and kick-ass, vintage-inspired shades that haunt their minds eye. Their canvas? The fingernails of the Bay Area’s young, hip, and gifted. How did they take their line of animal cruelty-free nail polishes from late-night study sessions to indie and corporate retailers around the globe? (All while remaining 100 percent free of DBPs, formaldehyde, and other harmful chemicals — these colors may scream “heavy metal,” but contain none.) Let us count the ways: perfect nacho cheese orange and bikini coral lacquers; irresistibly chic tones like Party Bruise, Dimepiece, Black Holy, Faded, Pony, and Blood, Suede, and Tears; endless pop-up nail salons, hard work … and the knowledge that you can do anything when you’ve got a perfect 10 to point the way.

www.flossgloss.com

 

BEST BLADE RUNNER

It is a satisfying, luxurious — if fundamental — satisfaction, settling in to make dinner with a hiss-sharp passel of well-honed knives. Fans of cutting-edge pleasures will want to slip into Nob Hill’s Town Cutler, a well-hewn, immaculately organized shop of blades both wildly fabulous (a $1,050 Wilburn Forge Japanese chef knife, its silver nickel sharp marbled and lovely) and craftily utilitarian (a $100 handleless Takeda Kogotana meant for woodworking). Owner Galen Garretson will sell you these, sharpen the utensils you already own, teach you to work your own knives in a sharpening tutorial or informative class, and even help you get a handle on blunter culinary objects — the back of Town Cutlery is an elegantly hung array of those most-unsharp kitchen friends: spoons.

1005 Bush, SF. (415) 359-1519, www.towncutler.com

 

BEST BOOKS FOR THE BROKE

These are the facts: Reading is cool, books are rad, free books are even radder, and the best combo of all of these is the Bay Area Free Book Exchange. At any given moment, the space — run cooperatively by a cadre of indie booksellers and printed-page junkies — houses some 10,000 books, all free for the taking. (“It’s like an ever-changing treasure hunt among thousands of books,” its website declares, and we have to agree.) Since opening in May 2009, the Exchange has given away over 350,000 books during its weekend hours, with an ultimate goal of handing out a million, and beyond! Since it survives on donations, consider adding your own previously-read tomes to the stacks proudly bearing this stamp: “Not for Resale, This is a Free Book.”

10520 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 705-1200, www.bayareafreebookexchange.com

 

BEST ROUNDABOUT OF FOUND GEMS

A compellingly curated combination of artwork by some of San Francisco’s eye-catching countercultural artists — with noteworthy post-industrial tinge courtesy of the Burning Man diaspora — and intriguing flea market finds by diligent shoppers with an eye for the urban aesthetic, Carousel Consignment SF is an oasis of great pre-found finds. This welcoming and decidedly funky Mission whirl, set in motion by co-owners Kelley Wehman and Illy McMahan (who bonded over their passion for all things circus and vintage), can turn a quick fly-by into an afternoon-long exploration. Furniture, toys, lighting, textiles … Its quirky assemblage of wares preserves its surroundings’ penchant for the wacky and weird.

2391 Mission, SF. (415) 821-9848, www.carouselsf.com

 

BEST SOLO STARTUPS

You know how it goes: surfing the www.aves of one’s sleek laptop, a stray image distracts. Suddenly, you’re no longer typing that return email — your mind has fixed on a different kind of click entirely. For you, sweets, SoMa brand Crave‘s line of tech-happy sex toys. Designed and produced by Ti Chang and Michael Topolovac, and assembled in the land of SF startup, each of the company’s gorgeous, whisper-quiet specimens have all the design and functionality of your favorite Apple toy. Our favorite is the Duet, a vibe with a double-pronged, silicone clitoral approach available in gold plating and with the option of eight or 16 GB of data storage thanks to a USB charging battery. That’s right: there is a USB port up in this vibrator. Adventurous souls can wear their pleasure out in public: Crave’s “Droplet” lariat necklace doubles as discreet nipple vibrators.

www.lovecrave.com


BEST HORROR HOUND DECOR

To some, a house full of Alex Pardee visual art would reap naught but disturbed sleep and missed meals. A living dream catcher made of exposed sinew and dripping eyeballs dangling from tendons, ready to snatch a soul; a roaring “Sharkasus” with razor teeth, four legs, and wings; an endless parade of your favorite horror icons rendered somehow even more terrifying by his spindly, precise strokes. But given the fact there are now two Bay Area shops stocked primarily with his prints, originals, and tees — in addition to the unnerving yet painterly work of other artists like Dave Correia — plenty of us are digging it. While shopping for the creep-craver in your life, you’ll do no better than the Oakland or Lower Haight location of Zero Friends, which has become a ground zero of sorts for the street art marketing scene.

419 Haight, SF. (415) 418-9912; 489A 25th St., Oakl. (510) 735-9405 (open first Fridays of the month or by appointment only); www.zerofriends.com

 

BEST REPAIR GRAND CENTRAL

Should you need a custom cabinet, a staircase rehab, perhaps a new cupola on your clock tower, you can turn to Clipper Construction’s Mathieu Palmer. But 501 Waller, the storefront Palmer owned and used as storage space — as he told local blog Haighteration — wasn’t the best use of a neighborhood-facing corner shop. Enter Palmer’s friend Dan Daniel, who created Clipper Repair from this clutter, a friendly place for fixing up, designing, or refurbishing anything you could imagine: lamps, cabinets, antique furniture, electrical things. The interior is a gorgeously organized wonderland of screws, nails, tools, gears, and random curiosities. And then! Garret Peters turned Clipper’s back storage room into a bike shop called Wiggle Bikes, conveniently located off the Wiggle, our crosstown thoroughfare for the two-wheeled. Could there be a more useful stop-off for lovers of sustainable transportation and reuse than the Clipper Repair-Wiggle Bikes complex?

501 Waller, SF. (415) 621-4733, www.clipper-construction.com

 

BEST GIVING FACE, FLAWLESSLY

You could find no better brand rep than Swagger Cosmetics‘ Blake Karamazov. The tiny club kid (who came to us a few years ago fresh from the female drag-friendly land of Seattle) rarely leaves the house without her face immaculately, fantastically done — think ruby red 4mm glitter lips, sherbet orange eyebrows, or an exaggerated, smoky cat eye. The woman lives for everyday drag queen. But as a vegan, Karamazov bridled at many heavily pigmented makeup lines. Lucky us, because the Sanrio-obsessed entrepreneur started designing her own one-woman line of glitters, lipsticks, eye shadows — and most recently, fake eyelashes — manufactured 100 percent sans animal cruelty. Having recently made up one of her genderbending idols James St. James, there’s no question this babe’s got swag. Check her wares online, and don’t miss her wildly popular, glam inspiring Instagram game.

www.swaggercosmetics.com


BEST WAY TO THROW SHADE, PART I

You don’t care if they work from home or not — the neighbors are taking too much pleasure from your lax approach to towels on the post-shower strut from the bathroom, and you sense an overeager, extra pair of peepers when you and your sweet are snuggled up watching Jessica Lange chew the scenery on American Horror Story: Coven. Thank goodness for Christine and Jeff Vidall, whose Art Shade Shop has been keeping neighborly boundaries firm in a densely-packed city since 1934. Wood slats, pleated blinds, sunbrellas, fabric coverings — this Castro couple has it all, perfect for the moment you need more privacy than those gorgeous bay windows will afford on their own. The basement shop (nook, really) also offers bead and reel clutch mechanisms, bottom-up lock pulleys, and Hauser roller shades. If you don’t know what any of that is, they’ll gladly install it all for you anyway.

698 14th St., SF. (415) 431-5074, www.artshadeshop.com

 

BEST WAY TO THROW SHADE, PART II

And then there are times when you just need a retreat from harsh illumination. Perhaps the fluorescent bars at the office seared your retinas too deeply today, or maybe you wish to give your date a softly lit, haloed-in-shadow version of ever-romantical you. These are the moments in which you’ll be grateful for Lamp Shades SF and its colorfully appointed showroom, ready to shield you from the ever-burning light. A leopard topper for that candlestick fixture? Modern puce shades for the chandelier in the foyer? A pair of matching onyx horse head bedside numbers? You will find them all here. Bring the base or bulb for which you need a topper, ring the doorbell to be allowed entrance, and let the decidedly unshady staff help you select the level of lighting best suited for your look.

199 Potrero, SF. (415) 431-6720

 

BEST RIFFS KEPT REAL

If you’re looking for a vintage instrument with a personal touch, Panhandle Guitar hits all the right chords. Rock fiends will swoon for the intimate, nicely overstuffed shop’s collection of prime and shiny vintage guitars, basses, amps, and effects. Panhandle buys old instruments too — on consignment, or trade-in — and offers on-site repairs. Owner Robert Williams is known for his encyclopedic knowledge, and there’s a laid-back and welcoming vibe we dig, charmed by store windows cluttered with neon signs and a child mannequin in an oversized Panhandle Guitar T-shirt. Guitar Center this is not; the stated store hours seem more like vague suggestions of when it might be open, and Mondays are simply listed as “some times” open with a smiley face. This kind of store is sadly uncommon these days — a unique, owner-run vendor of rare instrumental goods, tuned into the needs of fellow artists.

1221 Fell, SF. (415) 552-1302, www.panhandleguitarsf.com

 

BEST RING-A-DING STYLE

When Cable Car Clothiers — venerable haberdasher to dashing gents since 1946 — announced it was vacating its Sansome and Bush location in 2012, our hearts sank. Was this incredible emporium of all things Mad Men-Rat Pack-Nautical Chic-Dressy Preppy about to vanish, like so many other San Francisco institutions? Where, oh where, would we get our crushable Trilby fedoras, handsomely polka-dotted navy blue ascots, and elaborate cherry-handled horsehair brush sets? Never fear: the relocation a few blocks away signaled a snazzy revamp. Jonathan Levin, grandson of original Clothier Charles Pivnick, had returned to the family business, determined to pump some classy 21st Century zazz into the joint. The large, handsome new showroom retains all the charm of the former space — but decks it out in voluminous racks and shelves of exquisite menswear treasures. Another reason to spend your entire afternoon here: the in-store barbershop with master barber Nicky and associates providing hot lather and straight razor shaves, hot toweling, scissor hair cuts, and more. You want full-service swank? This is the place, my man.

110 Sutter, SF. (415) 397-4740, www.cablecarclothiers.com


BEST DREAMY DRESSMAKER

Wiggle your bike down to this sweet little corner shop near Duboce Park for lessons in fine and lovely things. Aline’s Closet is the three-year-old queendom of a one Aline Dazogbo, a seamstress whose French-inflected takes on dresses, skirts, and blouses may just lead you to the customized wardrobe item of your dream. Dazogbo designs and creates nearly everything in the shop: yoga pants, handbags, column skirt-tube top combos, and more. Though many items are ready-to-wear, a rack along one wall of the sunny store showcases the garments she can tailor-make just for you: a lace-paneled velvet slip, a clingy, cap-sleeved onesie. Should her sweet, sassy patterns stray even one iota from your fantasy outfit, don’t fret: Dazogbo loves to help customers concoct one-of-a-kind wearables based out of nothing more than their own visions.

101 Pierce, SF. (415) 312-3468, www.alinescloset.com

 

BEST CULINARY GEPETTO

Powerful chrome and polished enamel parts, operated by hand, executing a series of swift cuts and swooping motions. Classic design masterfully crafted, all building to — gasp! — the perfect slice of salami. Welcome to the world of Emilio Mitidieri, the man who brings the Bay Area’s venerable Emiliomiti “culinary toys” to life. Though his company is playfully named, Mitidieri’s creations mean business — wood fire and gas brick ovens that yield perfectly cooked pizza pies, pasta machines that extrude dreamy strands of fettuccini, and specimens like the Slicer Mito 300, an elegantly crafted meat slicer that mimics the classic designs of the deli of yesteryear. Mitidieri has been supplying restaurants and dedicated chefs with the tools needed for success for decades now, so chances are you’ve already sampled some of his playful perfection topped with marinara or nestled in a hoagie roll.

www.emiliomiti.com

 

BEST HAVEN FOR HEARTS OF GLASS

Bolivian-born David Forte’s SoMa workshop has one mission: to light up your life, and colorfully at that. Opened in 1971, Forte’s San Francisco Stained Glass Works is the place to go for those who would have blooming lilies twinkling above a front door, or an Art Deco Emerald City to enliven the upper strata of one’s workspace. The shop turns out devotional works for pane-minded churches and synagogues and extravagantly lovely flatware sets. Others flock to learn the craft themselves. A course on glass fusing and a stained glass 101 are both offered by Forte’s staff, not to mention monthly space rentals for artists in need of a communal glass grinder, firing kiln, and place to indulge a penchant for transcendent translucents.

1246 Howard, SF. (415) 626-3592, www.sfsgw.com

 

BEST SF TO A TEE

Local artist Amos Goldbaum hand-draws and hand-prints some of the most recognizable, SF-centric t-shirts (and hoodies, tanks, and baby onesies) available on the streets — literally, on the streets, since he also hand-sells his wares from wire racks on Valencia, near the Ferry Building, at street fairs like the recent Castro Street Fair, and other open-air spots. Goldbaum’s complete repertoire goes far beyond the familiar tourist-friendly landscapes he’s known for: his web portfolio is packed with psychological, fantastical illustrated scenes you’d spot immediately in a gallery — but probably never witness out a Muni window. When it comes to uniquely Bay gifts, though, you won’t want to miss his quirky, amazingly detailed and vibrant line-drawing takes on local landmarks like Dolores Park, with old-school playground intact, and Bernal Hill — or his illo of the old-timey Sutro Baths, complete with Cliff House aflame in the background.

www.amosgoldbaum.com

 

BEST JUNK BONDS

Inside the massive American Steel building, a relic of Oakland’s industrial past repurposed and managed mostly for the Burning Man art world, there’s a beautifully intricate two-story Western saloon made from recycled materials, originally built as the Dustfish Bordello for Black Rock City in 2009. In the intervening years, the structure has matured into what is now known as American Steel’s Oaktown Hall, an art gallery and event space that became a hub this year for a variety of ventures within what its organizers call the salvage and reuse arts. Skate ramps! Haitian art tours! Crazy, old-timey auctions! The hall is a gathering place and focal point for those who would find creative reuses for so-called junk, and build relationships among West Oakland’s diverse communities.

1960 Mandela Parkway, Oakl. (415) 794-1827, www.oaktownhall.com

 

BEST TIP-TOP SPIFF UP

It has been remarked that West Portal is quite the happy village in the middle of this teeming city. We concur. Tucked into the side of a hill topped by a Twin Peak, slung happily along a leafy central promenade, the neighborhood is not the worst model for Main Street, USA. Tip and Top Vacuum & Shoe Service, particularly seen in this light, is an all-American gem. Bring in your dirt sucker for a fix-me-up and the capable staff will get it back to dirt bunny-busting in two shakes of a dusty rug. And like any good member of a small community, Tip and Top is a multitasker, as evident from the boots in the window. The shop also repairs shoes, and will even custom-cobble you a boot or slipper. To recap: Tip and Top fixes vacuums and shoes, it’s cute as a button, and you kind of need to check it out.

173 W Portal, SF. (415) 664-9320

 

BEST FRESH FLOWERS

All over the news last year: Medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco and other cities were being shut down by a spasm of overzealous and anachronistic enforcement by the federal government (see “Why?” 8/14/12). But a wave of young clubs were undaunted by the headlines. Indeed, many went through the entirely navigable local approval process for cannabis clubs and threw open their doors, come what may from Kamala Harris, Eric Holder, and the rest of the “drug warriors.” Among the best of the bunch? Bloom Room, an elegant establishment just a stone’s throw from hoity-toity Mint Plaza and the Chronicle Building in the heart of downtown. “Where medicine blooms wellness follows” is its somewhat logically fuzzy yet totally cromulent motto. Bloom Rooms got great weed — strains like Grape Romulan (I), Girl Scout Cookies, Chem Dawg, Pink Lemonade, and a special Bloom Blend — at decent prices, weighed out by super-nice and knowledgeable employees, in a classy, exposed brick interior. Here’s hoping Bloom’s given enough room to put down some roots.

471 Jessie, SF. (415) 543-7666, www.bloomroomsf.com

 

BEST 78S OFF HAIGHT

“I’ve had it with these cheap sons of bitches who claim they love poetry but never buy a book,” SF literary legend Kenneth Rexroth once supposedly said. Many share his sentiment when it comes to music — especially as our city rapidly empties itself of neighborhood record stores (and book stores, too, for that matter). Rexroth himself used to live above Jack’s Record Cellar, one of our longest-operating vinyl concerns — since 1951! — and also one of the most poetic spots in the city. Packed with the rarest of 33s, 45s, and, miraculously, stacks of so-desirable-we-can’t-stand-it 78s, Jack’s has all the jazz you want — plus soul, opera, country, doo-wop, standards, and classic pop. Memorabilia papers the walls, and piles of records spill out onto the aisles. Like many spots in the area, it’s more of a relaxed hangout than a capitalist venture. Conversation is prized over cash receipts. Open hours are spare and unpredictable. Saturday afternoons are a good bet, proprietor Wade Wright might be there to let you in. Unlike Rexroth, he values the love over the sale.

254 Scott, (415) 431-3047

 

BEST READING REVIVAL

After a 25-year stint on 16th Street in the now-teeming Valencia Corridor, and years of rumors of impending closure, a steep rent increase nearly caused literary, cultural, and artistic hub Adobe Books to shut its doors for good. But supporters launched a fundraising campaign using crowd-funding platform Indiegogo and succeeded in raising $60,000, enough to secure a new home on 24th Street — which, along with the re-situated Modern Times Bookstore, has become somewhat of a haven for gentrification-fleeing libraries. “Adobe has been such an important part of our lives as artists, writers, book lovers, and Mission dwellers,” the bookstore and gallery’s boosters wrote, in what turned out to be a wildly successful pitch. “We couldn’t see the Mission without it.”

3130 24th St, SF. (415) 864-3936, www.adobebackroomgallery.com

 

Best of the Bay 2013: BEST COMMUNITY CENTERING

0

As San Francisco’s Mission District undergoes rapid rent increases and neighborhood demographic change, spaces like the Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics become fewer and farther between. We need spaces like this, where artists and activists come together to share stories of their fights for economic and social justice, or deliver stirring performance through music, poetry, art, and dance. Named for beloved Mission dweller and Guatemalan activist Eric Quezada, who lost his battle with cancer in 2011, the space seeks to be a cultural gathering spot that is both affordable and accessible — just blocks from 16th Street BART, and in the middle of a stretch of Valencia more known for spendy restaurants and hipster bars than progressive candidate forums and multicultural celebrations. An apt setting for those seeking to retain their sanity in a shifting SF.

518 Valencia, SF. www.518valencia.org

Endorsements 2013

125

We’re heading into a lackluster election on Nov. 5. The four incumbents on the ballot have no serious challengers and voter turnout could hit an all-time low. That’s all the more reason to read up on the issues, show up at the polls, and exert an outsized influence on important questions concerning development standards and the fate of the city’s waterfront, the cost of prescription drugs, and the long-term fiscal health of the city.

 

PROP. A — RETIREE HEALTH CARE TRUST FUND

YES

Note: This article has been corrected from an earlier version, which incorrectly stated that Prop A increases employee contributions to health benefits.

Throughout the United States, the long-term employee pension and health care obligations of government agencies have been used as wedge issues for anti-government activists to attack public employee unions, even in San Francisco. The fiscal concerns are real, but they’re often exaggerated or manipulated for political reasons.

That’s one reason why the consensus-based approach to the issue that San Francisco has undertaken in recent years has been so important, and why we endorse Prop. A, which safeguards the city’s Retiree Health Care Trust Fund and helps solve this vexing problem.

Following up on the consensus pension reform measure Prop. B, which increased how much new city employees paid for lifetime health benefits, this year’s Prop. A puts the fund into a lock-box to ensure it is there to fund the city’s long-term retiree health care obligations, which are projected at $4.4 billion over the next 30 years.

“The core of it says you can’t touch the assets until it’s fully funded,” Sup. Mark Farrell, who has taken a lead role on addressing the issue, told us. “The notion of playing political football with employee health care will be gone.”

The measure has the support of the entire Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Labor Council. Progressive Sup. David Campos strongly supports the measure and he told us, “I think it makes sense and is something that goes beyond political divides.”

There are provisions that would allow the city to tap the fund in emergencies, but only after it is fully funded or if the mayor, controller, the Trust Board, and two-thirds of the Board of Supervisors signs off, a very high bar. So vote yes and let’s put this distracting issue behind us.

 

PROP. B — 8 WASHINGTON SPECIAL USE DISTRICT

NO, NO, NO!

Well-meaning people can arrive at different conclusions on the 8 Washington project, the waterfront luxury condo development that was approved by the Board of Supervisors last year and challenged with a referendum that became Prop. C. But Prop. B is simply the developer writing his own rules and exempting them from normal city review.

We oppose the 8 Washington project, as we explain in our next endorsement, but we can understand how even some progressive-minded people might think the developers’ $11 million affordable housing and $4.8 million transit impact payments to the city are worth letting this project slide through.

But Prop. B is a different story, and it’s something that those who believe in honesty, accountability, and good planning should oppose on principle, even if they support the underlying project. Contrary to the well-funded deceptions its backers are circulating, claiming this measure is about parks, Prop. B is nothing more than a developer and his attorneys preventing meaningful review and enforcement by the city of their vague and deceptive promises.

It’s hard to know where to begin to refute the wall of mendacity its backers have erected to fool voters into supporting this measure, but we can start with their claim that it will “open the way for new public parks, increased access to the Embarcadero Waterfront, hundreds of construction jobs, new sustainable residential housing and funding for new affordable housing.”

There’s nothing the public will get from Prop. B that it won’t get from Prop. C or the already approved 8 Washington project. Nothing. Same parks, same jobs, same housing, same funding formulas. But the developer would get an unprecedented free pass, with the measure barring discretionary review by the Planning Department — which involves planners using their professional judgment to decide if the developer is really delivering what he’s promising — forcing them to rubber-stamp the myriad details still being developed rather than acting as advocates for the general public.

“This measure would also create a new ‘administrative clearance’ process that would limit the Planning Director’s time and discretion to review a proposed plan for the Site,” is how the official ballot summary describes that provision to voters.

Proponents of the measure also claim “it empowers voters with the decision on how to best utilize our waterfront,” which is another deception. Will you be able to tweak details of the project to make it better, as the Board of Supervisors was able to do, making a long list of changes to the deal’s terms? No. You’re simply being given the opportunity to approve a 34-page initiative, written by crafty attorneys for a developer who stands to make millions of dollars in profits, the fine details of which most people will never read nor fully understand.

Ballot box budgeting is bad, but ballot box regulation of complex development deals is even worse. And if it works here, we can all expect to see more ballot measures by developers who want to write their own “special use district” rules to tie the hands of planning professionals.

When we ask proponents of this measure why they needed Prop. B, they claimed that Prop. C limited them to just talking about the project’s building height increases, a ridiculous claim for a well-funded campaign now filling mailers and broadcast ads with all kinds of misleading propaganda.

With more than $1 million and counting being funneled into this measure by the developer and his allies, this measure amounts to an outrageous, shameless lie being told to voters, which Mayors Ed Lee and Gavin Newsom have shamefully chosen to align themselves with over the city they were elected to serve.

As we said, people can differ on how they see certain development deals. But we should all agree that it’s recipe for disaster when developers can write every last detail of their own deals and limit the ability of professional planners to act in the public interest. Don’t just vote no, vote hell no, or NO, No, no!

 

PROPOSITION C — 8 WASHINGTON REFERENDUM

NO

San Francisco’s northeastern waterfront is a special place, particularly since the old Embarcadero Freeway was removed, opening up views and public access to the Ferry Building and other recently renovated buildings, piers, and walkways along the Embarcadero.

The postcard-perfect stretch is a major draw for visiting tourists, and the waterfront is protected by state law as a public trust and overseen by multiple government agencies, all of whom have prevented development of residential or hotel high-rises along the Embarcadero.

Then along came developer Simon Snellgrove, who took advantage of the Port of San Francisco’s desperate financial situation, offered to buy its Seawall Lot 351 and adjacent property from the Bay Club at 8 Washington St., and won approval to build 134 luxury condos up to 12 stories high, exceeding the city’s height limit at the site by 62 percent.

So opponents challenged the project with a referendum, a rarely used but important tool for standing up to deep-pocketed developers who can exert an outsized influence on politicians. San Franciscans now have the chance to demand a project more in scale with its surroundings.

The waterfront is supposed to be for everyone, not just those who can afford the most expensive condominiums in the city, costing an average of $5 million each. The high-end project also violates city standards by creating a parking space for every unit and an additional 200 spots for the Port, on a property with the best public transit access and options in the city.

This would set a terrible precedent, encouraging other developers of properties on or near the waterfront to also seek taller high-rises and parking for more cars, changes that defy decades of good planning work done for the sensitive, high-stakes waterfront.

The developers would have you believe this is a battle between rival groups of rich people (noting that many opponents come from the million-dollar condos adjacent to the site), or that it’s a choice between parks and the surface parking lot and ugly green fence that now surrounds the Bay Club (the owner of which, who will profit from this project, has resisted petitions to open up the site).

But there’s a reason why the 8 Washington project has stirred more emotion and widespread opposition that any development project in recent years, which former City Attorney Louise Renne summed up when she told us, “I personally feel rich people shouldn’t monopolize the waterfront.”

A poll commissioned by project opponents recently found that 63 percent of respondents think the city is building too much luxury housing, which it certainly is. But it’s even more outrageous when that luxury housing uses valuable public land along our precious waterfront, and it can’t even play by the rules in doing so.

Vote no and send the 8 Washington project back to the drawing board.

 

PROP. D — PRESCRIPTION DRUG PURCHASING

YES

San Francisco is looking to rectify a problem consumers face every day in their local pharmacy: How can we save money on our prescription drugs?

Prop. D doesn’t solve that problem outright, but it mandates our politicians start the conversation on reducing the $23 million a year the city spends on pharmaceuticals, and to urge state and federal governments to negotiate for better drug prices as well.

San Francisco spends $3.5 million annually on HIV treatment alone, so it makes sense that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is the main proponent of Prop. D, and funder of the Committee on Fair Drug Pricing. Being diagnosed as HIV positive can be life changing, not only for the health effects, but for the $2,000-5,000 monthly drug cost.

Drug prices have gotten so out-of-control that many consumers take the less than legal route of buying their drugs from Canada, because our neighbors up north put limits on what pharmaceutical companies can charge, resulting in prices at least half those of the United States.

The high price of pharmaceuticals affects our most vulnerable, the elderly and the infirm. Proponents of Prop. D are hopeful that a push from San Francisco could be the beginning of a social justice movement in cities to hold pharmaceutical companies to task, a place where the federal government has abundantly failed.

Even though Obamacare would aid some consumers, notably paying 100 percent of prescription drug purchases for some Medicare patients, the cost to government is still astronomically high. Turning that around could start here in San Francisco. Vote yes on D.

 

ASSESSOR-RECORDER

CARMEN CHU

With residential and commercial property in San Francisco assessed at around $177 billion, property taxes bring in enough revenue to make up roughly 40 percent of the city’s General Fund. That money can be allocated for anything from after-school programs and homeless services to maintaining vital civic infrastructure.

Former District 4 Sup. Carmen Chu was appointed by Mayor Ed Lee to serve as Assessor-Recorder when her predecessor, Phil Ting, was elected to the California Assembly. Six months later, she’s running an office responsible for property valuation and the recording of official documents like property deeds and marriage licenses (about 55 percent of marriage licenses since the Supreme Court decision on Prop. 8 have been issued to same-sex couples).

San Francisco property values rose nearly 5 percent in the past year, reflecting a $7.8 billion increase. Meanwhile, appeals have tripled from taxpayers disputing their assessments, challenging Chu’s staff and her resolve. As a district supervisor, Chu was a staunch fiscal conservative whose votes aligned with downtown and the mayor, so our endorsement isn’t without some serious reservations.

That said, she struck a few notes that resonated with the Guardian during our endorsement interview. She wants to create a system to automatically notify homeowners when banks begin the foreclosure process, to warn them and connect them with helpful resources before it’s too late. Why hasn’t this happened before?

She’s also interested in improving system to capture lost revenue in cases where property transfers are never officially recorded, continuing work that Ting began. We support the idea of giving this office the tools it needs to go out there and haul in the millions of potentially lost revenue that property owners may owe the city, and Chu has our support for that effort.

 

CITY ATTORNEY

DENNIS HERRERA

Dennis Herrera doesn’t claim to be a progressive, describing himself as a good liberal Democrat, but he’s been doing some of the most progressive deeds in City Hall these days: Challenging landlords, bad employers, rogue restaurants, PG&E, the healthcare industry, opponents of City College of San Francisco, and those who fought to keep same-sex marriage illegal.

The legal realm can be more decisive than the political, and it’s especially effective when they work together. Herrera has recently used his office to compel restaurants to meet their health care obligations to employees, enforcing an earlier legislative gain. And his long court battle to defend marriage equality in California validated an act by the executive branch.

But Herrera has also shown a willingness and skill to blaze new ground and carry on important regulation of corporate players that the political world seemed powerless to touch, from his near-constant legal battles with PG&E over various issues to defending tenants from illegal harassment and evictions to his recent lawsuit challenging the Accreditation Commission of Community and Junior Colleges over its threats to CCSF.

We have issues with some of the tactics his office used in its aggressive and unsuccessful effort to remove Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi from office. But we understand that is was his obligation to act on behalf of Mayor Ed Lee, and we admire Herrera’s professionalism, which he also exhibited by opposing the Central Subway as a mayoral candidate yet defending it as city attorney.

“How do you use the power of the law to make a difference in people’s lives every single day?” was the question that Herrera posed to us during his endorsement interview, one that he says is always on his mind.

We at the Guardian have been happy to watch how he’s answered that question for nearly 11 years, and we offer him our strong endorsement.

 

TREASURER/TAX COLLECTOR

JOSE CISNEROS

It’s hard not to like Treasurer/Tax Collector Jose Cisneros. He’s charming, smart, compassionate, and has run this important office well for nine years, just the person that we need there to implement the complicated, voter-approved transition to a new form of business tax, a truly gargantuan undertaking.

Even our recent conflicts with Cisneros — stemming from frustrations that he won’t assure the public that he’s doing something about hotel tax scofflaw Airbnb (see “Into thin air,” Aug. 6) — are dwarfed by our understanding of taxpayer privacy laws and admiration that Cisneros ruled against Airbnb and its ilk in the first place, defying political pressure to drop the rare tax interpretation.

So Cisneros has the Guardian’s enthusiastic endorsement. He also has our sympathies for having to create a new system for taxing local businesses based on their gross receipts rather than their payroll costs, more than doubling the number of affected businesses, placing them into one of eight different categories, and applying complex formulas assessing how much of their revenues comes from in the city.

“This is going to be the biggest change to taxes in a generation,” Cisneros told us of the system that he will start to implement next year, calling the new regime “a million times more complicated than the payroll tax.”

Yet Cisneros has still found time to delve into the controversial realm of short-term apartment sublets. Although he’s barred from saying precisely what he’s doing to make Airbnb pay the $1.8 million in Transient Occupancy Taxes that we have shown the company is dodging, he told us, “We are here to enforce the law and collect the taxes.”

And Cisneros has continued to expand his department’s financial empowerment programs such as Bank on San Francisco, which help low-income city residents establish bank accounts and avoid being gouged by the high interest rates of check cashing outlets. That and similar programs are now spreading to other cities, and we’re encouraged to see Cisneros enthusiastically exporting San Francisco values, which will be helped by his recent election as president of the League of California Cities.

 

SUPERVISOR, DIST. 4

KATY TANG

With just six months on the job after being appointed by Mayor Ed Lee, Sup. Katy Tang faces only token opposition in this race. She’s got a single opponent, accountant Ivan Seredni, who’s lived in San Francisco for three years and decided to run for office because his wife told him to “stop complaining and do something,” according to his ballot statement.

Tang worked in City Hall as a legislative aide to her predecessor, Carmen Chu, for six years. She told us she works well with Sups. Mark Farrell and Scott Wiener, who help make up the board’s conservative flank. In a predominantly Chinese district, where voters tend to be more conservative, Tang is a consistently moderate vote who grew up in the district and speaks Mandarin.

Representing the Sunset District, Tang, who is not yet 30 years old, faces some new challenges. Illegal “in-law” units are sprouting up in basements and backyards throughout the area. This presents the thorny dilemma of whether to crack down on unpermitted construction — thus hindering a source of housing stock that is at least within reach for lower-income residents — look the other way, or “legalize” the units in an effort to mitigate potential fire hazards or health risks. Tang told us one of the greatest concerns named by Sunset residents is the increasing cost of living in San Francisco; she’s even open to accepting a little more housing density in her district to deal with the issue.

Needless to say, the Guardian hasn’t exactly seen eye-to-eye with the board’s fiscally conservative supervisors, including Tang and her predecessor, Chu. We’re granting Tang an endorsement nevertheless, because she strikes us as dedicated to serving the Sunset over the long haul, and in touch with the concerns of young people who are finding it increasingly difficult to gain a foothold in San Francisco.

Legal foes invited to weigh in on healthcare policy

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A few years ago, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association lost a legal battle it waged over the employer mandates in the city’s landmark Health Care Security Ordinance, a universal healthcare program that has provided safety-net services for the city’s uninsured since its passage in 2006, partially through the Healthy San Francisco program.

Composed of San Francisco restaurant owners, GGRA took issue with a mandatory employer spending contribution designed to help employees cover healthcare costs. While the city’s flagship healthcare program ultimately emerged unscathed, the lawsuit went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and consumed city staff time and legal expenses.

Now that the federal Affordable Care Act is poised to begin, with enrollment in low-income programs starting in October, a new debate has surfaced over whether current employer requirements should stay the same under Obamacare. While ardent supporters of HCSO have urged the city not to make any drastic policy changes because the existing system can help low-wage workers take advantage of federally subsidized healthcare options, local business interests have signaled that they think it’s time to scale back employer contributions.

In late August, representatives from the city’s Department of Public Health sent out invitations to various stakeholders to join an advisory body called the Universal Healthcare Council, which will be charged with “reviewing local policies against the backdrop of the federal law.” Despite the failed, messy legal battle that nearly undermined Healthy SF just a few years ago, and the more recent scandals involving restaurants fraudulently using customer surcharges and still stiffing employees (see “Check please,” April 23), an invitation was sent to Rob Black, executive director of GGRA. For the sake of uninsured employees throughout San Francisco, let’s hope the restaurant association doesn’t have another lawsuit up its sleeve.

Put the Warriors Arena atop CalTrain

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OPINION Numerous problems with the proposed location of a new Warriors stadium and surrounding complex are obvious. What we need is a better solution, not just laments about the folly of it all. Is there a better solution for everyone?

We can take a page from Warriors co-owner Peter Guber’s book, “Tell To Win.” He explains how a business proposal lives or dies in terms of the story it embodies. The story trumps piles of statistics or litanies of problems. This is what tries men’s souls and glazes eyes. But there is an alternative story to tell in this case, one that is win-win for everyone.

Let’s create a great sports complex at the heart of our public transportation system. We don’t need to clog the waterfront when we can build a great sports mecca elsewhere. Let’s take a cue from New York City and how Madison Square Garden perches directly above Penn Station.

Right now CalTrain has an ideally located terminus in the core of the city, but it’s unsightly. Why not put the new stadium directly above the CalTrain station? The same solution is being applied right now to the new Time Warner headquarters at Hudson Yards on the west side in New York: several skyscrapers will rise on platforms above an existing rail yard.

Consider the advantages: CalTrain passengers can walk upstairs to see a game! Muni and BART riders can take a short walk to the stadium. Soon they’ll be able to ride the Central Subway to it as well. It’s the perfect place for a major indoor arena that could host diverse events.

AT&T Park is just a block away and already lends enormous appeal to this entire area. The train yard extends from 4th to 7th St and the space above this great expanse could house a sizeable parking garage, less than a block from the 280 access ramp, as well as a hotel, restaurants, condos, offices and perhaps a shopping complex.

It’s everything Peter Guber and his partners dream of, that the city needs, and that we can embrace, now that it’s in the right place.

Let’s welcome the Warriors by all means. But do we want a Titanic on the waterfront when we can have a jewel above the CalTrain station that will simultaneously overcome the gulf that now exists between the western part of SOMA and Mission Bay?

This location could establish a sports complex the rival of any in the country. An essential, but dreary space turns into a great sports oasis, like Cinderella at midnight but in reverse. Perhaps the city will even want to include a large, well-equipped community recreation center for all of us who like to play as well as watch.

Bill Nichols is a consultant for documentary filmmakers and has published a dozen books related to the cinema. He lives in San Francisco.

North Beach conflict-of-interest zone

It’s been over a year since North Beach’s Piazza Market closed its doors – but nothing has come along to take its place. The property, boasting 12,000 square feet at $4 per square foot, has attracted plenty of interest yet still remains empty.

“There’s been strong activity on the space – we’ve had several offers,” notes realtor Jeremy Blateis. “If there were less restrictions this place would have been sold already.”

According to Blateis, the place has not been leased to prospective renters because of zoning issues. Though the ad for the building says that it’s zoned for retail and restaurant use, potential owners would have to go through “lots of red tape” to have it used as a restaurant – which North Beach doesn’t have a shortage of.

This is where Claudine Cheng, recently resigned member of the Treasure Island Authority Board, comes in. According to a San Francisco Chronicle report, as a public figure she was paid money to influence decisions of city officers. And a company by the name of 627 Vallejo LLC – the owners of 627 Vallejo – paid Cheng $10,000 in hopes that she would smooth out the zoning situation.

According to the same report, she had been emailing Board of Supervisors President David Chiu seeking amendments to existing legislation in order to change the zoning of the area. Former Board President Aaron Peskin authored that legislation to prevent North Beach retail stores from being transformed into restaurants and chain stores.

Asked whether Chiu would have been open to a possible legislative amendment, legislative aide Judson True responded, “Supervisor Chiu would be open to making legislative changes that have community support,” but added that “the issue was whether or not Claudine Cheng was a lobbyist.” Judson noted that Chiu “also understands that there are laws that should match particular circumstances in neighborhoods like North Beach.”

Peskin, who filed complaints against her with the Ethics Commission and Fair Political Practices Commission, didn’t mince words.

“What she did was illegal,” Peskin said of Cheng’s decision to accept the $10,000. “What should fill 627 Vallejo is something that would further serve the community. Not another restaurant.”

The Selector: August 21 – 27, 2013

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God is dead?

WEDNESDAY 8/21

 

“German Summer Films”

Though the Goethe Institut’s latest film series is dubbed “German Summer Films,” it offers a refreshingly loose interpretation of the theme. For example, the first film, Color of the Ocean (2010), is from German director Maggie Peren, but it’s set in Spain’s Canary Islands, and features an international cast in its tale of a border patrol officer (Alex González) who meets a German woman (Sabine Timoteo) entangled with a Congolese refugee (Hubert Koundé). (That said, the second film in the series, 2005’s Summer in Berlin, is more or less the quintessential “German summer film.”) The rest of the series includes acclaimed German-Turkish director Fatih Akin’s 2000 In July; and a 2009 made-for-TV adaptation of Jack London’s Sea Wolf starring Sebastian Koch (2006’s The Lives of Others). (Cheryl Eddy)

Wednesdays through Sept 18

6:30pm, $5 donation

Goethe Institut San Francisco

530 Bush, Second Flr, SF

goethe.de/sanfrancisco

THURSDAY 8/22

 

Cool Ghouls

Bay Area natives Cool Ghouls are fun, reckless, rude garage-rock goofballs and they know it. It’s virtually impossible to attend one of their live shows and not feel the same chill vibes they give off. The group released its self-titled full-length debut album in April of this year, and has been playing shows on it locally since. The Ghouls’ scratchy-screamy vocals backed by playful guitar riffs and tumbling percussion resonated with the young SF crowds and landed them gigs most recently at Bottom of the Hill, the Chapel, Hemlock Tavern, Brick and Mortar, and the summery Phono del Sol fest. Their enjoyably sunny sound was the perfect match. If they get much bigger, their house-party image might have to expand. So catch them while you can, and while they’re still cool. (Hillary Smith)

With Lemme Adams, Black Cobra Vipers

9pm, $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

THURSDAY 8/22

 

Melvins

And they said a stoner metal cover of Roxy Music’s “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” couldn’t be done. Well, sludge metal veterans the Melvins are here to prove them wrong. The longstanding band is making a voyage to Slim’s to play its 2013 cover album, Everybody Loves Sausages. Get ready for things to get a little weird and campy, as a bunch of middle aged dudes play a diverse selection of tunes throughout the ages. Embarking on their 30th anniversary tour, the Melvins will be playing songs by artists such as freak folk band the Fugs, the dear and departed drag queen Divine (John Waters’ muse), Queen, David Bowie, and the Jam. In short: don’t miss this hit parade. (Erin Dage)

With Honky

9pm, $22

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

FRIDAY 8/23

 

No Age

The newest album from LA noise-punks No Age, An Object, seems almost restrained compared to the bombast of previous records like 2010’s Everything in Between. With An Object, there’s a sense of tense build-up without release, tightly coiled guitar lines over paranoid drumming, and faraway hollers on the Sub Pop record, which comes out Aug. 20. Like much arty post-punk, it makes you feel like you’re holding your breath for the entirety of the tracks, unable to unclench. Relax and settle in: the experiment of An Object is a success, and the album is worthy of passionate intake. Continuing down the experimental route, the duo takes its live show to a more unexpected location this time: the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. And if you miss this stop, No Age will be back in Oakland Sept. 28 for the Station to Station fest at 16th St. Station. (Emily Savage)

With Devin Gary and Ross, Sun Foot

7:30pm (doors at 5pm), $7

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

2625 Durant, Berk.

www.bampfa.berkeley

FRIDAY 8/23

 

Nahko and Medicine for the People

Aptly named, Nahko and Medicine for the People seem like some sort of sonic cure. Nahko Bear’s versatile vocals range from a howling, soulful croon to a bouncing, jovial talk-sing. The indefinable quality of the group is further pushed in lyrics “I am a killer whale, I am a lion, I am a panther, I am coyote, I’m just a human being on another fuckin’ journey,” in “Warrior People.” According to their website, Bear is joined on stage by “truth seekers for whom Nahko’s story resonates with their own.” Nahko himself was born a mix of Apache, Puerto Rican, and Filipino cultures and adopted into an American family. Consequently, he suffered from an identity crisis at a young age. The mission of the band is simply to make people feel good, and to give solace to the culturally alienated. They do all that and then some. (Smith)

With Saritah

9pm, $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF (415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

FRIDAY 8/23

 

The Parmesans

Local countrified indie-folksters the Parmesans released their full-length debut, Wolf Eggs, this week. The record’s full of swoony multipart harmonies, plucky instruments, and a chipper sense of hot-sauced humor. All of that is on fine display in track, “Load Up on Eggs and Bacon,” which begins with a solo voice, “when I wake up/I feel shaken” then layered barbershop quartet-style with additional harmonies, “load up on eggs and bacon,” and the sound of an egg cracking. Add to that the strings of guitars and mandolins and banjos, bellowing trumpet, and a light and tight rhythm section. Then bake on high. Oh, and be sure to check the new video for “JuJaJe,” also off Wolf Eggs; there’s no food involved, unfortunately, but the sparse little vid does feature the boys clowning around in various states of lounge. Perhaps there’ll be egg on their faces in the next one. (Savage)

With Before the Brave, Garden Party, Greg Downing

9pm, $10

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St, SF

www.theeparkside.com

SATURDAY 8/24

 

“Sneak Peek at the Fringe”

The colorfully creative chaos that is the 22nd San Francisco Fringe Festival is mere weeks away (it runs Sept. 6-21), but diehards and early birds can check out excerpts from works by eight local companies tonight. Among them: Amy K. Kilgard’s multi-character solo performance, Triskaidekaphobia: 13 Consumer Tragedies; Sean Andries and Siouxsie Q’s tale of a love affair between a mermaid and a tourist, Fish-girl; Maria Grazia Affinato’s autobiographical ode to her Italian family, Eating Pasta Off the Floor; and Genie and Audrey’s Dream Show!, featuring Genie Cartier, Audrey Spinazola, and a “cat piano.” For all the deets — and complete info on the upcoming full fest, visit the Fringe’s website. (Cheryl Eddy)

8pm, free

Exit Theatre

156 Eddy, SF

www.sffringe.org

SUNDAY 8/25

 

San Francisco Bacon and Beer Festival

For the first time ever, San Francisco will host an almighty bacon and beer fest. The Boston version of the event has sold out in under 10 minutes the past three years. Chefs from more than 25 Bay Area companies presenting their best bacon dishes and local craft breweries bringing out their finest for the $50 event are reasons enough to attend the unique gathering. If you’d like one more reason to spend the cash, take comfort in the fact that all admission proceeds will be donated to Sprouts Cooking Club. The club is a Bay Area organization that strives to teach children of all socio-economical backgrounds how to cook hands-on with real chefs, using real ingredients, in real restaurants. (Smith)

2:30pm, $50

Fairmont San Francisco Hotel

950 Mason, SF

(415) 772-5000

Facebook: San Francisco Bacon and Beer Festival

 

MONDAY 8/26

 

Deerhunter

Many who have flirted with musical greatness have also teetered on the fine line between eccentricity and insanity, and Deerhunter frontperson Bradford Cox is no exception. While the Atlanta band’s garage rock albums continue to receive glowing reviews and growing numbers of dedicated fans, Cox’s mental (in)stability has also been featured center stage in the group’s evolution. His charming eccentricities — rambling and semi-incoherent stage banter — are shadowed with more off-putting stunts, as when Cox responded to a fan’s snarky request for “My Sharona” with an hour-long cover of the song in Minneapolis. A Deerhunter show is many things — insane, beautiful, confusing, and frequently very moving — but there is one thing it will never manage to be. Bradford Cox will never be boring. (Haley Zaremba)

With Lonnie Holley, Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks

8pm, $21

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

MONDAY 8/26

 

Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie

A trashy pop-culture icon, a chain smoker, a right-wing maniac, a finger-jabbing screamer so notorious his fans were called “Loudmouths:” Morton Downey Jr. was one of a kind, and that’s probably for the best. New documentary Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie screens tonight in San Rafael and opens August 28 at the Roxie; it looks at his legacy through clips of Downey’s train-wreck-in-progress talk show and features interviews with the likes of Pat Buchanan, Alan Dershowitz, and Sally Jesse Raphael. (Eddy)

7:15pm, $6.50–$10.75

Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center

1118 Fourth St, San Rafael

www.cafilm.org

MONDAY 8/26

 

Black Sabbath

Before reality television and famous flame-haired wives, even before that bloody bat-biting incident, Ozzy Osbourne was simply a wild-eyed young boy from a hardscrabble town who, together with guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward, formed the world’s first heavy metal group. Black Sabbath has become a hardened, bellowing legend, though in recent years was mostly relegated to playing metal fests like Mayhem, or Ozzy solo at Ozzfest. This year, however, the original group released its first new album together in decades, 13, a lumbering return to form produced by Rick Ruben. With it came instantly timeless first single, “God is dead?” an eight-minute metal epic. Beyond all the hype, myth, and druggy tabloid brouhaha, a vital band still stands before us, wicked as it ever was, and willing to crowd-please with old tracks mixed in with the new. According to live reviews of this headlining non-fest tour, the band has been opening with “War Pigs.” (Savage)

7:30pm, $40–$149.50

Shoreline Amphitheatre

One Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View

www.livenation.com

TUESDAY 8/27

 

The Breeders

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of their breakthrough album Last Splash, ’90s favorites the Breeders released a special deluxe version of the record earlier this year on CD (a seven-disc vinyl version is set to drop next month on 4AD), featuring a host of bonus live tracks, demos, a photo booklet, and more. The classic lineup of the band — Kim and Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim MacPherson — has reunited and is promising Bay Area fans it will perform Last Splash, which was recorded right here in San Francisco, in its entirety, along with its seminal debut effort, Pod. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $30

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com