Shopping

Holiday shopping, anti-gentrification style

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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24

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A new holiday tradition: workers’ rights

Michael Redmond
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9

The holiday season has officially started, and if you’re any kind of American, you know what that means. Hordes of wild-eyed shoppers have descended upon us.

If early morning stampedes at chain retailers and other hallmarks of the Black Friday phenomenon seem like a peculiar tradition, recent offshoots of the trend may prove even more bizarre. One is business’ attempt to claim other Thanksgiving week calendar slots as holiday-shopping bonanzas in their own right. Cyber Monday is the busiest online shopping day of the year, we’re told, while a growing number of intrepid early-birds skipped out on Turkey Day altogether to go bargain hunting on the woefully titled “Brown Thursday.”

Then there are the growing ranks of cynics who’ve found creative ways to critique in-your-face consumerism as a cultural deficiency, a sort of anti-Black Friday tradition. There’s Buy Nothing Day, an alt standby appealing to the conscience of the thoughtful consumer.

The web-based Black Friday Death Count (www.blackfridaydeathcount.com), documenting six years of violent incidents stemming from holiday shopping frenzies, reads like a stark condemnation of petty greed. Viral YouTube videos of squabbling gift buyers, meanwhile, suggest that a mass audience of Internet viewers is reaching for the popcorn and taking it all in, perhaps with the glee of blood-sport spectators.

Yet a different aspect of Black Friday 2013 deserves a second look. This year, low-wage employees who generally make Black Friday profits possible got louder in their demands for better working conditions.

Look at Walmart. It’s the nation’s largest employer, but its employees earn notoriously low wages — a fact highlighted by Black Friday protests staged outside Walmart stores nationwide, including in the Bay Area. For low-wage retail workers who can barely make ends meet let alone leave gift-wrapped digital devices under the tree, momentum seems to be building. The National Labor Relations Board recently announced its intention to pursue complaints against Walmart for illegally threatening and firing employees who participated in last year’s Black Friday protests.

Further up the supply chain, the Port of Oakland saw a work stoppage from a group of truckers last week who have fallen into dire straits financially. Classified as owner-operators instead of employees and therefore unable to unionize, many face potential job loss because they can’t afford engine retrofits needed to comply with new environmental regulations. The timing of their quasi-strike, just as container ships were coming into port with cargo destined for Black Friday sales shelves, was no coincidence.

All of which begs the question: If Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Buy Nothing Day can all be incorporated as modern American traditions that directly follow Thanksgiving, why not claim a slice of the pie as well for workers putting themselves at risk in the name of better conditions? If these struggles are effective, it will be one more thing to give thanks for.

 

Heavy-duty problems

Michael Redmond
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2
Heavy-duty problems

rebecca@sfbg.com

As a kid, Turcilo Caldera would climb into his father’s big rig and accompany him on runs to the Port of Oakland. “He would sit me on his lap and show me how to drive,” he remembered.

Originally from Nicaragua, Caldera came to California at age 5 and grew up in San Francisco’s Excelsior District. Now 30, he too is a trucker.

Speaking by phone around 8:30pm on a recent Friday, on his way to Stockton to drop off a shipment, he recounted how he’d arrived at the port at 5am and waited in line until 8:30am, only to move to a different line to pick up a load. “I ended up leaving the terminal around 10,” he said. That’s when he started getting paid.

Companies pay by the load, regardless of the time it takes to wait in line. Caldera works 12 to 13 hours a day.

He recently became a member of the Port of Oakland Truckers Association. It’s not a union, since truckers are classified as owner-operators rather than employees of the companies that hire them. Nevertheless POTA, which represents several hundred owner-operators, reflects the truckers’ attempt to ban together for better working conditions.

Truckers never know what they’re hauling, but it’s safe to assume that major retailers — Walmart, IKEA — are expecting shipments in advance of a holiday shopping blitz. While some companies anticipate a bump in profits, POTA and hundreds of other port truckers are facing potential job loss come New Year’s Day.

At a Nov. 22 meeting, POTA membership voted unanimously to begin a work stoppage at the port, starting Wednesday (11/27). “We don’t want to stop working, we need to make a living,” said Roberto Ruiz, a POTA member. “But this is the only thing they respond to.”

On Jan. 1, 2014, when new clean air regulations go into effect, hundreds of independent truck drivers will lose work as their vehicles fall out of compliance. They can’t afford to pay out of pocket for trucks that are compliant with new emission control regulations. Many face a tough time getting loans, and those who have dodged the bullet by securing a loan now find themselves in a worse financial crunch than before.

Many could be forced out of jobs completely. By the Port’s estimates, around 80 percent of the roughly 6,000 registered to service the Port are set to be in compliance. POTA estimates 800 truckers could be impacted.

POTA’s vote to stop work followed a series of meetings with Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and Deputy Mayor Sandré Swanson, as well as representatives from the Port and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to try and hash out a solution.

In meetings, POTA asked city officials and CARB to identify funding to help those in danger of job loss retrofit their vehicles to comply with the clean-air regulations. They also proposed some solutions: They want fees billed to shipping customers for the time truckers must spend waiting in line for the loads they haul, to help offset the cost of buying and maintaining compliant trucks.

The Jan. 1 ban on older trucks is part of a broader effort to alleviate air pollution in surrounding West Oakland, where cancer and asthma rates are abnormally high. The Port’s system of loading cargo shipments results in long lines idling for hours, leading to a chronic congestion problem that has fouled the air. Before the problem was addressed, “Ports were where old trucks went to die,” explained Isaac Kos-Read, a Port of Oakland spokesperson. “Old trucks were the worst polluters on the road.”

West Oakland, known for its iconic shipping cranes, has traditionally been a majority African American neighborhood with lower income levels than the surrounding Bay Area. The demographic is beginning to change as comparatively well-heeled newcomers settle in, but it was an economically disadvantaged community of color who disproportionately bore the brunt of harmful air pollution for decades. Switching to low-sulfur fuel for shipping vessels has helped the port make drastic reductions in air pollution, but harmful emissions linked to asthma are still emanating from truck tailpipes.

The rule change will lead to what is indisputably an environmental improvement. But that benefit doesn’t have to come with the tradeoff of job loss. State funding was made available in 2011 to help financially strapped truckers afford new rigs or retrofits — but the funding has now vanished, and truckers who are late in pursuing compliance are finding doors shut all the way around.

In December of 2011, the California Air Resources Board made $58 million available to the owners of 2,100 trucks across California “to replace their retrofitted trucks with newer trucks,” Karen Caesar, a CARB spokesperson, explained in an email. About 1,700 of those could legally service the Port of Oakland.

The funding came from a $4.5 billion set-aside created by Proposition 1B, a transportation bond approved by voters in 2006. The $58 million was available for truckers who had installed filters to comply with an earlier regulation limiting diesel particulates.

In theory, the funding was enough to award all 2,100 trucks more than $25,000 apiece. That’s an amount that Frank Adams, an organizer with POTA, told the Guardian would be adequate for affected truckers to get compliant without going underwater.

But that’s not what happened. “Applications for 970 trucks were received,” Caesar explained, bringing the total funding request to $24 million. But in the end, CARB awarded grants to just 359 trucks, disbursing $10 million. The rest of the money was reallocated to other air-quality improvement programs, Caesar said.

And since the remaining funding is now gone, neither the city of Oakland nor CARB has come up with any other answers for the truckers. “We’ve been meeting with them on a regular basis to see if there are other funding sources,” Kos-Read said. “We want to help all the truckers.” But the meetings clearly haven’t been productive, since POTA’s staging a work stoppage during the busiest shopping week of the year.

CARB officials emphasize that truckers can still take road work even after they’re banned from ports, but Caldera says it’s not that simple. “If my dad were to decide to run up and down California, he wouldn’t be home like he is now,” he said. Road work means being away from home for possibly long stretches, and it’s unclear whether enough of those jobs exist to make up for the port jobs that will be lost.

The truckers represent a predominantly immigrant workforce, with many native speakers of Chinese, Punjabi, and Spanish. “Most of the truckers don’t speak English, let alone write good English,” Adams said. He guesses that’s why some didn’t apply for CARB funding.

Yet CARB officials say they sent out materials in various languages and held outreach events. As for those now trying to stave off job loss, “It’s not as if this blindsided anybody,” Caesar said.

Caldera’s truck is compliant, but only because he borrowed $50,000 from a relative to purchase the $72,000 rig, which replaced a 2006 truck purchased on loan. Today, “I’m still paying that loan, which is $680 a month,” he explained. “But it’s not as much as I’m paying for my new truck.”

Truckers’ financial problems go deeper. Caldera estimates that fuel costs eat up around 40 percent of his earnings. There are insurance payments, registration fees, maintenance and other associated costs, all borne by the truckers and not the companies that hire them.

As it turns out, selling cheap Chinese goods to American consumers is rather lucrative. Delivering said goods by truck is not, even though it’s integral to the business.

Then there’s the restroom problem. A Port a Potty was recently installed near the Port entrance, Caldera said, but it’s only a partial solution. Truckers aren’t supposed to exit their vehicles while they’re waiting. “If you decide to go to the bathroom you have to leave your spot in line,” but that just means more unpaid time sitting in line. “So we have to carry bottles in here,” he said. “These are awful conditions. This is something that I imagine in a third world country where people have no rights.”

Now, with a work stoppage looming, the truckers could also wind up entangled in legal problems since they have no union and no authority to strike. “It’s a complicated and unclear legal situation that they’re in,” said attorney Dan Siegel, who is advising POTA. “Because they’re ‘owners,’ they’re not considered workers under labor laws … they are subject to punishment for anti-trust violations.”

“They cannot illegally block streets,” said Kos-Read, the port spokesperson. “Our goal is to respect the trucker’s free speech rights and keep commerce flowing.”

On Nov. 21, POTA members visited the International Longshore and Warehouse Union seeking support. Clarence Thomas, speaking as a rank-and-filer of the ILWU Local 10, said union or no, the truckers deserve to be treated fairly.

“For many years, trade unionists have looked at those workers as having a sweatshop on wheels,” Thomas said. “We don’t want to see anyone at the Port being exploited.”

 

Chef Michael Anthony talks ‘The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook’

Sue Vaughan
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2

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.

On the Cheap: November 20 – 26, 2013

Michael Redmond
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0

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

WEDNESDAY 20

“The Diversity of Habitable Zones and Their Planets” Randall Museum, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.randallmuseum.org. 7:30pm, free. San Francisco State astrophysicist Dr. Stephen R. Kane discusses, among other things, advancements in knowledge about “planets in highly eccentric orbits” and “super-Earths.” Geared for adults but all ages are welcome.

“Lyrics and Dirges” Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 649-1320. 7:30pm, free. Reading with a mix of prominent, emerging, and beginning writers, including Charles Kruger, Monica Wesolowska, Airial Clark, and others.

Michael McClure City Lights, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. The legendary Beat author reads from his recently reissued Ghost Tantras.

THURSDAY 21

Bay Street Tree Lighting Bay Street Emeryville, 5616 Bay, Emeryville; www.baystreetemeryville.com. 6-8pm, free. The shopping center ushers in the winter-holiday season with the lighting of its 34-foot tree, plus a light and sound show, photos with Santa, hot chocolate, and more.

Holiday Craft Fair Simple Family Health, One Rio Vista, Oakl; www.simplefamilyhealth.com. 6-9pm, free. Nine different craft artists — fleece hats, cute polka-dot items, fascinators and headbands, and more! — share their wares.

Paul Koudounaris Bone Room Presents, 1573 Solano, Berk; www.boneroompresents.com. 7pm, free. The author discusses and signs copies of his macabre, beautifully-photographed books The Empire of Death and Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs.

Karen Luk Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF; thirdthursdaysf.wordpress.com. 5-8pm, free. The author and illustrator discusses her new release, Steampunk ABCs, at an appropriately steampunk-y event (hint: costumes encouraged!)

“Survival Not Extinction: A Fundraiser for Tribal Rights” Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, 2323 Mission, SF; (415) 503-1254. 6pm, free. A gallery, short film, raffle, photo booth, and other activities highlight this happy-hour fundraiser for Survival International, an international rights organization working to assist the Awá tribe of Brazil. The bar will donate 10 percent of its proceeds from the evening, so show up thirsty.

FRIDAY 22

“Pancakes and Booze Art Show” Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; www.pancakesandbooze.com. 8pm, $5. Through Sat/23. Over 75 underground and emerging artists display their works — plus a performance by Xpander Xperience, a photo booth, body painting, and an all-you-can-eat pancake bar.

“Rude, Glued, and Screwed” Red Door Studios, 50-A Bannam Place, SF; www.collagemuseumsf.com. 7-10pm, free. Opening exhibition celebrating the launch of the Collage Museum of San Francisco, curated by Winston Smith.

SATURDAY 23

“Art and Ideas Day Festival” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Noon-9pm, free. In conjunction with its current “Dissident Futures” exhibit, YBCA hosts a festival aiming to inspire explorations of “possible futures,” with workshops, lectures, performances, interactive media and more presented by robotic experts, food activist, designers, environmentalists, and other experts.

“Magic Makers: The Bay Area’s Queer Art and Craft Fair” Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th Ave, Oakl; themagicmakers.wordpress.com. 1-8pm, free. A marketplace and showplace for Bay Area queer artists. Hey, the gift-giving season is approaching — and what better presents than jewelry, prints, body-care products, candles, and other items created by local makers?

“Operation: Fork 4!” Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph, Oakl; (510) 444-6174. 6pm-midnight, five cans of food or $10. Cobra 1st Legion hosts this costume party-dance party-food drive (with help from the Bay Area Ghostbusters). The Alameda County Community Food Bank benefits from donations, and Disastroid, Victoria and the Vaudevillians, MHA, and Maritime Wilderness provide the tunes. Costumes are encouraged.

“Ukranian Holodomer: Genocidal Famine of 1932-33 (80th Anniversary)” Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF; (650) 281-6927. 2pm, free. Speakers, including survivors and witness accounts; music; and a documentary screening highlight this historical commemoration of the Ukraine’s tragic famine.

SUNDAY 24

“Patchwork Indie Art and Craft Festival” Jack London Market Building, 55 Harrison, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. 11am-5pm. Over 140 local artists gather to sell handmade goods, including art, housewares, paper crafts, and clothing. Plus: food trucks, free DIY craft stations, a DIY gift-wrap booth, and more.

“Thangs Taken: Rethinking Thanksgiving” La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; www.lapena.org. 7pm, $10-25 sliding scale. Artists and activists come together to explore Thanksgiving’s complex history through music, dance, spoken word, and other avenues. Produced by the Free Land Project and curated and hosted by Ariel Luckey. *

 

Eviction epidemic spurs legislative solutions

Michael Redmond
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3

Tenants, organizers and residents impacted by Ellis Act evictions packed the Board of Supervisors Chambers at San Francisco City Hall Nov. 14 for a hearing on eviction and displacement in San Francisco. As more and more residents face ousters only to be priced out, lawmakers and advocates are floating legislative fixes to try and reverse the trend before it reaches the soaring levels of the displacement epidemic that impacted the city during the first dot-com boom.

“It seems to me that we have a tale of two cities,” Sup. David Campos, who requested the hearing, said at the start of the discussion, held at the Board of Supervisors’ Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee. “We must act urgently to address this crisis, which I believe is a crisis,” he added. “We are fighting, I think, for the soul of San Francisco.”

Fred Brousseau of the San Francisco Budget and Legislative Analyst’s office shared his recent analysis on eviction and displacement trends across the city.

Overall evictions in San Francisco rose from 1,242 to 1,716 over the past three years, he said, reflecting an increase of 38.2 percent. Ellis Act evictions rose by 169.8 percent in that same time frame.

Almost 42 percent of individuals impacted by eviction had some form of disability, Brousseau noted, while 49 percent had incomes at or below the federal poverty level. On the whole, a total of nearly 43 percent of San Francisco households are “rent-burdened,” a term that officially means devoting more than 30 percent of household income toward rent, the study found.

Ted Gullicksen of the San Francisco Tenants Union emphasized that tenant buyouts, frequently offered in lieu of an eviction, are also driving displacement, although those transactions aren’t reflected in city records. “There are about three of them for every Ellis Act eviction,” he said. “When you consider them in combination with Ellis, the numbers are very dramatic.”

Throughout the afternoon, tenants shared their stories and fears about getting frozen out of San Francisco by eviction. “I’m looking at shopping carts, and I’m terrified,” one woman told supervisors during public comment. “You have to do something. It might not be enough for me right now, but you can’t do this to any more people.”

Campos is working with Assembly Member Tom Ammiano on a proposal to grant San Francisco the authority to place a moratorium on Ellis Act evictions. He’s also pursuing legislation that would create a mechanism at the San Francisco Rent Board to allow tenants to register formal complaints about landlord harassment and other kinds of pressure.

“I am eager to introduce a bill in January,” Ammiano noted. “One option might be a law that will allow the local jurisdictions, like San Francisco, to suspend the Ellis Act or establish a moratorium, because of the emergency housing situation. Another possibility is working to make sure that landlords are not skirting Ellis eviction requirements by improperly pressuring tenants to leave. We must do something, but we have to work together to make it successful.”

Meanwhile, Mayor Ed Lee recently announced that he is working with Sen. Mark Leno on legislation to curb Ellis Act evictions by requiring additional permits or hearings before they proceed. They’re also contemplating floating more stringent regulations on the sale and resale of properties where tenants have been evicted under Ellis.

At the end of the day, it’s clear that housing advocates are gaining momentum as the spike in tenant ousters continues in pricey San Francisco, where rents are the highest in the nation.

 

Hundreds attend hearing to call for action on evictions

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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247

Tenants, organizers and residents impacted by Ellis Act evictions packed the Board of Supervisors Chambers at San Francisco City Hall today, Thu/14, for a hearing called by Sup. David Campos on eviction and displacement in San Francisco.

“It seems to me that we have a tale of two cities,” Campos said at the outset of the hearing, which was held by the Board of Supervisors Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee. “The vast majority of individuals are struggling to stay in San Francisco. We must act urgently to address this crisis, which I believe is a crisis.” He added, “We are fighting, I think, for the soul of San Francisco.”

Tony Robles of Senior and Disability Action, who showed up at the hearing wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with pobre (the Spanish word for “poor”) printed across the front, expressed his frustration with the surge of evictions taking place in the booming economic climate. “We have been overlooked – the workers, communities of color … it’s almost as if we are an afterthought,” he said.

Fred Brousseau of the San Francisco Budget and Legislative Analyst’s office delivered a report on his recent analysis of eviction and displacement trends across the city.

Overall evictions in San Francisco rose from 1,242 in 2010 to 1,716 in 2013, reflecting an increase of 38.2 percent, according to San Francisco Rent Board Data highlighted in Brousseau’s report. 

Ellis Act evictions in particular increased by 169.8 percent in that same time frame, he said, with the most recent data showing a total of 162 Ellis Act evictions over the twelve months ending in September 2013. That number reflects units evicted, not how many tenants were impacted.

Ted Gullicksen of the San Francisco Tenants Union emphasized that tenant buyouts, frequently offered in lieu of an eviction, are also driving displacement even though these transactions aren’t reflected in city records.

“We need to get in control of these buyouts,” he said. “There are about three of them for every Ellis Act eviction. When you consider them in combination with Ellis, the numbers are very dramatic.”

Brousseau also showed a slide profiling the people who’ve been impacted by evictions citywide. Almost 42 percent had some form of disability, the data revealed, while 49 percent had incomes at or below the federal poverty level.

On the whole, Brousseau said, a total of nearly 43 percent of San Francisco households are “rent-burdened,” a term that officially means devoting more than 30 percent of household income to monthly rental payments.

Throughout the afternoon, tenants shared their stories and fears about getting frozen out of San Francisco by eviction. “I’m looking at shopping carts, and I’m terrified,” one woman told supervisors during public comment. “You have to do something. It might not be enough for me right now, but you can’t do this to any more people.”

Hene Kelly noted that elderly tenants are being disproportionately impacted by Ellis Act evictions. “They don’t have the reserves, they don’t have the jobs, and they don’t have the money to be able to move if they are evicted,” she said. Referencing landlords and speculators who are driving displacement, she added, “It makes me think of cabaret. Money, money, money, money, money makes the world go round.”

Campos noted that he is working with Assembly Member Tom Ammiano on a proposal to grant San Francisco the authority to place a moratorium on Ellis Act evictions.

He’s also working toward legislation that would create a mechanism at the San Francisco Rent Board allowing tenants to register complaints of harassment or other forms of pressure from landlords seeking to drive them out.

His proposal also envisions doubling the amount of relocation assistance that landlords would have to provide to tenants, in the case of no-fault evictions. He also mentioned the possibility of regulating buyouts, by requiring landlords to record these transactions with the rent board, and possibly prohibiting property owners from charging market-rate rent directly after completing a tenant buyout.

Meanwhile, Mayor Ed Lee recently announced that he is working with Sen. Mark Leno on legislation that is meant to reduce Ellis Act evictions. That proposal would require additional permits or hearings before an Ellis Act eviction could go forward, and place more stringent regulations on the sale and resale of properties where tenants have been evicted under the state law.

Just a couple weeks ago, a coalition of housing advocates proposed a sweeping package to turn the tide on evictions.

At the end of the day, it’s clear that housing advocates are gaining momentum as the spike in tenant ousters continues in pricey San Francisco, where rents are the highest in the nation.

“We’ve never been late on our rent,” noted Beverly Upton, executive director of the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium, who is battling an Ellis Act eviction. “We’ve paid for every improvement ever done in 25 years. And now we have to leave.” She appealed for legislators to take action for the sake of the city’s future, asking, “Once the advocates and the organizers and the people who care are gone, who will be left in our city?”

Film listings and reviews Oct. 30-Nov.5, 2013

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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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

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) (Vizcarrondo)

A.K.A. Doc Pomus “All greatness comes from pain.” The simple statement comes from Raoul Felder, brother of legendary R&B songwriter Doc Pomus, in the beautiful, crushing mediation on his brother’s life, A.K.A. Doc Pomus, opening theatrically this week after serving as the closing-night film of the 2012 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Doc wrote some of the greatest music of a generation: R&B and early rock’n’roll standards such as “This Magic Moment,” “A Teenager in Love,” “Save the Last Dance For Me,” and “Viva Las Vegas” — songs made famous by the likes of Dion, the Drifters, and Elvis Presley. Jewish, debilitated by polio, and vastly overweight, Doc defied expectations while struggling with a lifetime of outsider status and physical pain. William Hechter and Peter Miller’s doc offers a revealing look at his remarkable life. (1:38) Vogue. (Emily Savage)

Blue is the Warmest Color See “Hot and Cool.” (2:59) Embarcadero.

Diana Naomi Watts stars in this exploration of the last two years in the life of Princess Diana. (1:52) Shattuck.

Ender’s Game Asa Butterfield (star of 2011’s Hugo), Harrison Ford, and Ben Kingsley appear in this adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi novel. (1:54) Presidio.

Free Birds Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson lend their voices to this animated turkey tale. (1:31)

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)

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) 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) Presidio. (Vizcarrondo)

Let the Fire Burn In 1985 a long-simmering conflict between Philadelphia police and the local black liberation group MOVE came to a catastrophic conclusion. Ordered to leave their West Philly building after numerous neighborhood complaints about unsanitary conditions, incessant noise, child endangerment and more, the commune refused. An armed standoff came to a halt when a helicopter dropped two FBI-supplied water gel bombs on the roof, killing 11 MOVE members (including five kids) and creating an uncontrollable fire that destroyed some 60 nearby homes. It’s hard to deny after watching Jason Osder’s powerful documentary that MOVE then looked like one crazy cult — its representatives spouting extreme, paranoid rhetoric in and out of court; its child residents (their malnutrition-bloated stomachs nonsensically explained as being due to “eating so much”) in visibly poor health; its charismatic leader John Africa questionably stable. But whatever hazards they posed to themselves and the surrounding community, it’s also almost undeniable here that city law enforcement drastically overreacted, possibly in deliberate retaliation for an officer’s shootout death seven years earlier. The filmed and amply media-reported trials that ensued raised strong suspicions that the police even shot unarmed MOVE members trying to escape the blaze. This outrageous saga, with numerous key questions and injustices still dangling, is an American history chapter that should not be forgotten. Let the Fire Burn is an invaluable reminder. (1:35) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Man of Tai Chi Keanu Reeves directs and plays a supporting role in this contemporary Beijing-set martial-arts drama. (1:45) Metreon.

The Pin Canadian film about a romance between two Eastern European youths, in hiding during World War II. (1:23) Opera Plaza.

12 Years a Slave See “To Hell and Back.” (2:14) California, Embarcadero.

The Visitor Barbara (Joanne Nail) Directed by “Michael J. Paradise” (aka Giulio Paradisi), this 1979 Italian-US. co-production is belatedly starting to acquire a cult following. Joanne Nail is Barbara, mother of Katy (Paige Conner), a seemingly normal little girl with a disconcerting tendency to swear like a longshoreman when out of ma’s earshot. Also unbeknownst to mom is that her boyfriend (Lance Henriksen, no less), as well as characters played by Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, John Huston, Sam Peckinpah, and the inimitable Shelley Winters are all very interested — on the good and the evil side — in Katy, a “miracle of nature” with “immense powers.” Those powers apparently include making Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s basketball explode at the hoop, and sending teenage boys through plate glass at an ice rink. Some of the adults nosing around Katy really, really want Barbara to give her a similarly gifted baby brother, others do not. It all involves some kind of interplanetary conspiracy to … well, beats me, frankly. Its utter senselessness part of the charm, The Visitor includes any number of bizarre moments, including Winters’ evident enjoyment of slapping some sense into Katy (the child thesp later confirmed that the Oscar winner went a little too Method in that scene), and crusty old Huston intoning the line “I’m, uh, the babysitter.” This glossy sci-fi horror mess. which is the Roxie is showing in a new digital transfer, borrows elements freely from 1977’s Exorcist II: The Heretic (a fiasco that inspired very little imitation), 1976’s The Omen (or rather 1978’s Damien: Omen II) and, strangely, Orson Welles’ 1947 The Lady from Shanghai (directly ripping off its famous hall of mirrors scene). Yet there’s a certain undeniable originality to its incoherence. (1:48) Roxie. (Harvey)

ONGOING

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)

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) Clay, Metreon. (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, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, 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. (Chun)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (1:35) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

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) Four Star, Marina, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (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) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Rapoport)

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) Balboa, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Escape From Tomorrow Escape From Tomorrow acquired cachet at Sundance this year as a movie you ought to see because it probably wouldn’t surface again. The reason was its setting, which composites two of the most photographed (and “happiest”) places on Earth. They’re also among the most heavily guarded from any commercial usage not of their own choosing. That would be Disney World and Disneyland, where Escape was surreptitiously shot — ingeniously so, since you would hardly expect any movie filmed on the sly like this to be so highly polished, or for its actors to get so little apparent attention from the unwitting background players around them. That nobody has pulled the fire alarm, however, suggests Disney realized this movie isn’t going to do it any real harm. While its setting remains near-indispensable, what writer-director Randy Moore has pulled off goes beyond great gimmickry, commingling satire, nightmare Americana, cartooniness, pathos, and surrealism in its tale of 40-ish Jim (Roy Abramsohn), which starts on the last day of his family vacation — when his boss calls to fire him. What follows might either be hallucinated by shell-shocked Jim, or really be a grand, bizarre conspiracy, with occurrences appearing to be either imaginary or apocalyptic (or both). Lucas Lee Graham’s crisp B&W photography finds the grotesquerie lurking in the shadows of parkland imagery. Abel Korzeniowski’s amazing score apes and parodies vintage orchestral Muzak, cloying kiddie themes, and briefly even John Williams at his most Spielbergian. All the actors do fine work, slipping fluidly if not always explicably from grounded real-world behavior to strangeness. But the real achievement of Escape From Tomorrow is that while this paranoid fantasy really makes no immediate sense, Moore’s cockeyed vision is so assured that we assume it must, on some level. He’s created a movie some people will hate but others will watch over and over again, trying to connect its almost subliminal dots. (1:43) Roxie. (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) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

The Fifth Estate After being our guide through the world of 1970s Formula One racing in Rush, Daniel Brühl is back serving that same role — and again grumbling in the shadows cast by a flashier character’s magnetism — for a more recent real life story’s dramatization. Here he’s German “technology activist” Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who in 2007 began collaborating with the enigmatic, elusive Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) on WikiLeaks’ airing of numerous anonymous whistleblowers’ explosive revelations: US military mayhem in Afghanistan; Kenyan ruling-regime corruption; a Swiss bank’s providing a “massive tax dodge” for wealthy clients worldwide; ugly truths behind Iceland’s economic collapse; and climactically, the leaking of a huge number of classified U.S. government documents. It was this last, almost exactly three years ago, that made Assange a wanted man here and in Sweden (the latter for alleged sexual assaults), as well as putting US Army leaker Chelsea (née Bradley) Manning in prison. The heat was most certainly on — although WikiLeaks was already suffering internal woes as Domscheit-Berg and a few other close associates grew disillusioned with Assange’s megalomania, instability, and questionable judgment. It’s a fascinating, many-sided saga that was told very well in Alex Gibney’s recent documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, and this narrative feature from director Bill Condon (2004’s Kinsey, 2006’s Dreamgirls, the last two Twilights) and scenarist Josh Singer feels disappointingly superficial by contrast. It tries to cram too information in without enough ballasting psychological insight, and the hyperkinetic editing and visual style intended to ape the sheer info-overload of our digital age simply makes the whole film seem like it’s trying way too hard. There are good moments, some sharp supporting turns, and Estate certainly doesn’t lack for ambition. But it’s at best a noble failure that in the end leaves you feeling fatigued and unenlightened. (2:04) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

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) Balboa, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Eddy)

Informant Local filmmaker Jamie Meltzer’s complex, compelling Informant makes its theatrical bow at the Roxie a year and a half after it premiered at the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival (it’s been playing festivals nearly nonstop since). The doc explores the strange life of Brandon Darby, a lefty activist turned FBI informant turned Tea Party operator who helped send two 2008 Republican National Convention protestors to jail. He’s a polarizing guy, but the film, which is anchored by an extensive interview with Darby, invites the audience to draw their own conclusions. (Side note: if you conclude that you want to yell at the screen and give Darby a piece of your mind, chances are you won’t be alone.) (1:21) Roxie. (Eddy)

Insidious: Chapter 2 The bloodshot, terribly inflamed font of the opening title gives away director James Wan and co-writer and Saw series cohort Leigh Whannell’s intentions: welcome to their little love letter to Italian horror. The way an actor, carefully lit with ruby-red gels, is foregrounded amid jade greens and cobalt blues, the ghastly clown makeup, the silent movie glory of a gorgeous face frozen in terror, the fixation with 1981’s The Beyond — lovers of spaghetti shock will appreciate even a light application of these aspects, even if many others will be disappointed by this sequel riding a wee bit too closely on its financially successful predecessor’s coattails. Attempting to pick up exactly where 2011’s Insidious left off, Chapter 2 opens with a flashback to the childhood of demonically possessed Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), put into a trance by the young paranormal investigator Elise. Flash-forward to Elise’s corpse and the first of many terrified looks from Josh’s spouse Renai (Rose Byrne). She knows Josh killed Elise, but she can’t face reality — so instead she gets to face the forces of supernatural fantasy. Meanwhile Josh is busy forcing a fairy tale of normalcy down the rest of his family’s throats — all the while evoking a smooth-browed, unhinged caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. Subverting that fiction are son Dalton (Ty Simpkins), who’s fielding messages from the dead, and Josh’s mother Lorraine (Barbara Hershey), who sees apparitions in her creepy Victorian and looks for help in Elise’s old cohort Carl (Steve Coulter) and comic-relief ghost busters Specs (Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson). Sure, there are a host of scares to be had, particularly those of the don’t-look-over-your-shoulder variety, but tribute or no, the derivativeness of the devices is dissatisfying. Those seeking wickedly imaginative death-dealing machinations, or even major shivers, will curse the feel-good PG-13 denouement. (1:30) Metreon. (Chun)

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

Machete Kills Herewith we have the first sequel to a film (2010’s Machete) spawned from a fake trailer (that appeared in 2007’s Grindhouse). Danny Trejo’s titular killer has been tasked by the POTUS (Charlie Sheen, cheekily billed by his birth name, Carlos Estevez) to take down a Mexican madman (Demian Bechir) who’s an enemy of both his country’s drug cartels and the good ol’ USA. But it’s soon revealed (can you have plot spoilers in a virtually plotless film?) that the real villain is weapons designer Voz (Mel Gibson), a space-obsessed nutcase who’d fit right into an Austin Powers movie. The rest of Machete Kills, which aims only to entertain (with less social commentary than the first film), plays like James Bond lite, albeit with a higher, bloodier body count, and with famous-face cameos and jokey soft-core innuendos coming as fast and furious as the bullets do. As always, Trejo keeps a straight face, but he’s clearly in on the joke with director Robert Rodriguez, who’d be a fool not to continue to have his exploitation cake and eat it too, so long as these films — easy on the eyes, knowingly dumb, and purely fun-seeking — remain successful. (1:47) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Metallica: Through the Never The 3D IMAX concert film is lurching toward cliché status, but at least Metallica: Through the Never has more bite to it than, say, this summer’s One Direction: This is Us. Director Nimród Antal (2010’s Predators) weaves live footage of the Bay Area thrash veterans ripping through hits (“Enter Sandman,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” etc.) into a narrative (kinda) about one of the band’s roadies (The Place Beyond the Pines‘ Dane DeHaan). Sent on a simple errand, the hoodie-wearing hesher finds himself caught in a nightmarish urban landscape of fire, hanging bodies, masked horsemen, and crumbling buildings — more or less, the dude’s trapped in a heavy metal video, and not one blessed with particularly original imagery. The end result is aimed more at diehards than casual fans — and, R-rated violence aside, there’s nothing here that tops the darkest moments of highly personal 2004 documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. (1:32) Metreon. (Eddy)

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. (Harvey)

Runner Runner Launching his tale with a ripped-from-the-headlines montage of news reports and concerned-anchor sound bites, director Brad Furman (2011’s The Lincoln Lawyer) attempts to argue his online-gambling action thriller’s topicality, but not even Anderson Cooper can make a persuasive case for Runner Runner‘s cultural relevance. Justin Timberlake plays Richie Furst, a post-2008 Wall Street casualty turned Princeton master’s candidate, who is putting himself through his finance program via the morally threadbare freelance gig of introducing his fellow students to Internet gambling. Perhaps in the service of supplying our unsympathetic protagonist with a psychological root, we are given a knocked-together scene reuniting Richie with his estranged gambling addict dad (John Heard). By the time we’ve digested this, plus the image of Justin Timberlake in the guise of a grad student with a TAship, Richie has blown through all his savings and, in a bewildering turn of events, made his way into the orbit of Ben Affleck’s Ivan Block, a shady online-gambling mogul taking shelter from an FBI investigation in Costa Rica, along with his lovely adjutant, Rebecca (Gemma Arterton). Richie’s rise through the ranks of Ivan’s dodgy empire is somewhat mysterious, partly a function of the plot and partly a function of the plot being piecemeal and incoherent. The dialogue and the deliveries are also unconvincing, possibly because we’re dealing with a pack of con artists and possibly because the players were dumbfounded by the script, which is clotted with lines we’ve heard before, from other brash FBI agents, other sketchily drawn temptresses, other derelict, regretful fathers, and other unscrupulous kingpins. (1:31) Metreon. (Rapoport)

Rush Ron Howard’s Formula One thriller Rush is a gripping bit of car porn, decked out with 1970s period details and goofily liberated camera moves to make sure you never forget how much happens under (and around, and on top of) the hood of these beastly vehicles. Real life drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda (played by Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl, respectively) had a wicked rivalry through the ’70s; these characters are so oppositional you’d think Shane Black wrote them. Lauda’s an impersonal, methodical pro, while Hunt’s an aggressive, undisciplined playboy — but he’s so popular he can sway a group of racers to risk their lives on a rainy track, even as Lauda objects. It’s a lovely sight: all the testosterone in the world packed into a room bound by windows, egos threatening to bust the glass with the rumble of their voices. I’m no fan of Ron Howard, but maybe the thrill of Grand Theft Auto is in Rush like a spirit animal. (The moments of rush are the greatest; when Lauda’s lady friend asks him to drive fast, he does, and it’s glorious.) Hunt says that “being a pro kills the sport” — but Howard, an overly schmaltzy director with no gift for logic and too much reliance on suspension of disbelief, doesn’t heed that warning. The laughable voiceovers that bookend the film threaten to sink some great stuff, but the magic of the track is vibrant, dangerous, and teeming with greatness. (2:03) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Vizcarrondo)

Torn An explosion at a mall throws two families into turmoil in this locally-shot drama from director Jeremiah Birnbaum and scenarist Michael Richter. Maryam (Mahnoor Baloch) and Ali (Faran Tahir) are Pakistani-émigré professionals, Lea (Dendrie Taylor) a working-class single mother. Their paths cross in the wake of tragedy as both their teenage sons are killed in a shopping center blast that at first appears to have been caused by a gas-main accident. But then authorities begin to suspect a bombing, and worse, the principals’ dead offspring — one as a possible Islamic terrorist, another for perhaps plotting retaliation against school bullies. As the parents suffer stressful media scrutiny in addition to grief and doubt, they begin to take their frustrations out on each other. An earnest small-scale treatment of some large, timely issues, the well-acted Torn holds interest as far as it goes. But it proves less than fully satisfying, ending on a note that’s somewhat admirable, but also renders much of the preceding narrative one big red herring. (1:20) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Trials of Muhammad Ali If you’ve seen an Ali doc before (or even the 2001 biopic), a lot of the material in The Trials of Muhammad Ali will feel familiar. But Bill Siegel’s lively investigation, which offers interviews with Louis Farrakhan and Ali’s former wife Khalilah, among others, does well to narrow its focus onto one specific — albeit complicated and controversial — aspect of Ali’s life: the boxing champ’s Nation of Islam conversion, name change, and refusal to fight in Vietnam. And as always, the young, firebrand Ali is so charismatic that even well-known footage makes for entertaining viewing. (1:26) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (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. (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)

 

New movies! Including a few scary ones (no thanks to Hollywood)!

Sue Vaughan
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0
New movies! Including a few scary ones (no thanks to Hollywood)!

Incredibly, Hollywood is allowing this hallowed weekend to pass without releasing a single horror movie. (Unless you count Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, which I don’t.) Frights galore exist in local rep houses, however (right this way for a calendar), and for those who’d simply like turn off the lights, pretend nobody’s home, and eat all the Fun Size Snickers themselves, there’s some non-seasonal fare worth checking out (plus, two of those rep-house chillers!) in the below reviews.

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) (Cheryl Eddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ML50I0mVHY

The Counselor Ridley Scott directs Cormac McCarthy’s script about a lawyer (Michael Fassbender) who gets involved in the drug underground. The supporting cast includes Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz, and Brad Pitt. (1:57)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_O2OATk97k

I Am a Ghost In local director H.P. Mendoza’s latest, a young woman named Emily (Anna Ishida) wanders the claustrophobic corridors of a sumptuously decorated Victorian house, repeating her actions in each room in a perfunctory loop: frying eggs, flipping through old photographs, dusting the furniture, stretching in bed. Besides herself, the place initially appears to be uninhabited, until the house begins to creak and groan restlessly around her, and a disembodied voice begins to address her by name. It doesn’t give too much away to reveal at this point that Emily is a ghost, and the voice purportedly that of a professional medium (Jeannie Barroga) who has been hired to assist her out of the house and “into the light.” Unraveling who Emily is and what is keeping her from ascending to the next level takes up most of the rest of the film, and the eerie tension that builds as Emily’s memories return, filling in the unpleasant blanks, explodes at the end with a brutal chaos only otherwise hinted at in earlier scenes. Ishida’s Emily is full of complexity and confusion, and much of the movie’s real “horror” stems from her own sense of powerlessness and realization that the world that she’s inhabiting doesn’t appear to be one rooted in reality, or at least in other people’s realities. Experimental musician and Fringe Festival performer Rick Burkhardt makes a terrifying cameo as the presumed source of Emily’s inability to move on — and speaking of experimental music, the movie’s score, penned by Mendoza, does a lot to create the sense of creeping unease that characterizes most of the film. (1:14) Castro. (Nicole Gluckstern)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTlnlam8ZYM

Informant Local filmmaker Jamie Meltzer’s complex, compelling Informant makes its theatrical bow at the Roxie a year and a half after it premiered at the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival (it’s been playing festivals nearly nonstop since). The doc explores the strange life of Brandon Darby, a lefty activist turned FBI informant turned Tea Party operator who helped send two 2008 Republican National Convention protestors to jail. He’s a polarizing guy, but the film, which is anchored by an extensive interview with Darby, invites the audience to draw their own conclusions. (Side note: if you conclude that you want to yell at the screen and give Darby a piece of your mind, chances are you won’t be alone.) (1:21) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MSrAwfagG4

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa Hidden-camera pranks with Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville, and other Jackass alums. (1:32)

Space Battleship Yamato The year is 2199, five years after mysterious aliens began bombarding Earth with radiation. The scrappy humans who’ve managed to survive by living underground are rapidly dying out — so a crew assembles for a deep-space “journey of hope” to a planet where a “radiation elimination device” might be acquired. Based on a 1974 Japanese anime series (it aired in the US under the name Star Blazers), this live-action adventure contains plenty of CG-enhanced battles and a cast stuffed with stock characters: the gifted, brash young pilot who’s haunted by a dark past (Takuya Kimura, whose flowing locks betray his teen-idol origins); the tough chick who gradually softens (Meisa Kuroki); the grizzled, wise captain (Tsutomu Yamazaki of 2009’s Departures), etc. Fans of the original series may gobble this up, but the casual viewer might find there’s not much to distinguish the overlong Space Battleship Yamato — saddled with a score that vacillates between bombastic and sentimental — from space operas (particularly Battlestar Galactica) that’ve come before. (2:18) Four Star. (Cheryl Eddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg5nvnUMbbg

Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story Other Cinema anticipates Halloween in vintage style with Jeffrey Schwarz’s 2007 documentary about the late, beloved Hollywood schlockmeister. After a mostly undistinguished early career in programmer mysteries, Westerns, and 3D features, William Castle found his métier in the late 1950s making horror thrillers with B budgets (and C scripts) but A-plus marketing gimmicks. Macabre (1958) offered life insurance policies to patrons who might die of fright; the next year’s The Tingler infamously gave patrons in select theater seats slight electric shocks; the same year’s House on Haunted Hill had ushers yank a plastic skeleton over the audience’s heads; Mr. Sardonicus (1961) gave ticket buyers a chance to vote on its title character’s fate. (It was so predictable that they’d vote for mortal punishment, an alternative “happy ending” never actually existed.) Straight-Jacket (1964) had Joan Crawford as a battle-ax axe murderess, a concept that could sell itself. Castle’s perpetual hopes to gain respect and make a “serious” picture were somewhat rewarded by Rosemary’s Baby, even if he wound up merely producing that 1968 smash. (He’d hoped to direct, but was smart enough to realize Roman Polanski was the more inspired choice.) This fond portrait includes input from various Castle collaborators, admirers and family members, as well as plenty of priceless clips. Guest host Christian Divine will offer additional retro horror goodies during this evening of cheap thrills. (1:22) Other Cinema at Artists’ Television Access. (Dennis Harvey)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjyJI2YTOm4

Torn An explosion at a mall throws two families into turmoil in this locally-shot drama from director Jeremiah Birnbaum and scenarist Michael Richter. Maryam (Mahnoor Baloch) and Ali (Faran Tahir) are Pakistani-émigré professionals, Lea (Dendrie Taylor) a working-class single mother. Their paths cross in the wake of tragedy as both their teenage sons are killed in a shopping center blast that at first appears to have been caused by a gas-main accident. But then authorities begin to suspect a bombing, and worse, the principals’ dead offspring — one as a possible Islamic terrorist, another for perhaps plotting retaliation against school bullies. As the parents suffer stressful media scrutiny in addition to grief and doubt, they begin to take their frustrations out on each other. An earnest small-scale treatment of some large, timely issues, the well-acted Torn holds interest as far as it goes. But it proves less than fully satisfying, ending on a note that’s somewhat admirable, but also renders much of the preceding narrative one big red herring. (1:20) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Dennis Harvey)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF_jh3_p_gw

The Trials of Muhammad Ali If you’ve seen an Ali doc before (or even the 2001 biopic), a lot of the material in The Trials of Muhammad Ali will feel familiar. But Bill Siegel’s lively investigation, which offers interviews with Louis Farrakhan and Ali’s former wife Khalilah, among others, does well to narrow its focus onto one specific — albeit complicated and controversial — aspect of Ali’s life: the boxing champ’s Nation of Islam conversion, name change, and refusal to fight in Vietnam. And as always, the young, firebrand Ali is so charismatic that even well-known footage makes for entertaining viewing. (1:26) (Cheryl Eddy)

Film Listings and Reviews

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

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. For complete film listings, see www.sfbg.com.

OPENING

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)

The Counselor Ridley Scott directs Cormac McCarthy’s script about a lawyer (Michael Fassbender) who gets involved in the drug underground. The supporting cast includes Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz, and Brad Pitt. (1:57) Marina.

I Am a Ghost In local director H.P. Mendoza’s latest, a young woman named Emily (Anna Ishida) wanders the claustrophobic corridors of a sumptuously decorated Victorian house, repeating her actions in each room in a perfunctory loop: frying eggs, flipping through old photographs, dusting the furniture, stretching in bed. Besides herself, the place initially appears to be uninhabited, until the house begins to creak and groan restlessly around her, and a disembodied voice begins to address her by name. It doesn’t give too much away to reveal at this point that Emily is a ghost, and the voice purportedly that of a professional medium (Jeannie Barroga) who has been hired to assist her out of the house and “into the light.” Unraveling who Emily is and what is keeping her from ascending to the next level takes up most of the rest of the film, and the eerie tension that builds as Emily’s memories return, filling in the unpleasant blanks, explodes at the end with a brutal chaos only otherwise hinted at in earlier scenes. Ishida’s Emily is full of complexity and confusion, and much of the movie’s real “horror” stems from her own sense of powerlessness and realization that the world that she’s inhabiting doesn’t appear to be one rooted in reality, or at least in other people’s realities. Experimental musician and Fringe Festival performer Rick Burkhardt makes a terrifying cameo as the presumed source of Emily’s inability to move on — and speaking of experimental music, the movie’s score, penned by Mendoza, does a lot to create the sense of creeping unease that characterizes most of the film. (1:14) Castro. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Informant Local filmmaker Jamie Meltzer’s complex, compelling Informant makes its theatrical bow at the Roxie a year and a half after it premiered at the 2012 San Francisco International Film Festival (it’s been playing festivals nearly nonstop since). The doc explores the strange life of Brandon Darby, a lefty activist turned FBI informant turned Tea Party operator who helped send two 2008 Republican National Convention protestors to jail. He’s a polarizing guy, but the film, which is anchored by an extensive interview with Darby, invites the audience to draw their own conclusions. (Side note: if you conclude that you want to yell at the screen and give Darby a piece of your mind, chances are you won’t be alone.) (1:21) Roxie. (Eddy)

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa Hidden-camera pranks with Jeff Tramaine, Johnny Knoxville, and other Jackass alums. (1:32) Presidio.

Space Battleship Yamato The year is 2199, five years after mysterious aliens began bombarding Earth with radiation. The scrappy humans who’ve managed to survive by living underground are rapidly dying out — so a crew assembles for a deep-space “journey of hope” to a planet where a “radiation elimination device” might be acquired. Based on a 1974 Japanese anime series (it aired in the US under the name Star Blazers), this live-action adventure contains plenty of CG-enhanced battles and a cast stuffed with stock characters: the gifted, brash young pilot who’s haunted by a dark past (Takuya Kimura, whose flowing locks betray his teen-idol origins); the tough chick who gradually softens (Meisa Kuroki); the grizzled, wise captain (Tsutomu Yamazaki of 2009’s Departures), etc. Fans of the original series may gobble this up, but the casual viewer might find there’s not much to distinguish the overlong Space Battleship Yamato — saddled with a score that vacillates between bombastic and sentimental — from space operas (particularly Battlestar Galactica) that’ve come before. (2:18) Four Star. (Eddy)

Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story Other Cinema anticipates Halloween in vintage style with Jeffrey Schwarz’s 2007 documentary about the late, beloved Hollywood schlockmeister. After a mostly undistinguished early career in programmer mysteries, Westerns, and 3D features, William Castle found his métier in the late 1950s making horror thrillers with B budgets (and C scripts) but A-plus marketing gimmicks. Macabre (1958) offered life insurance policies to patrons who might die of fright; the next year’s The Tingler infamously gave patrons in select theater seats slight electric shocks; the same year’s House on Haunted Hill had ushers yank a plastic skeleton over the audience’s heads; Mr. Sardonicus (1961) gave ticket buyers a chance to vote on its title character’s fate. (It was so predictable that they’d vote for mortal punishment, an alternative “happy ending” never actually existed.) Straight-Jacket (1964) had Joan Crawford as a battle-ax axe murderess, a concept that could sell itself. Castle’s perpetual hopes to gain respect and make a “serious” picture were somewhat rewarded by Rosemary’s Baby, even if he wound up merely producing that 1968 smash. (He’d hoped to direct, but was smart enough to realize Roman Polanski was the more inspired choice.) This fond portrait includes input from various Castle collaborators, admirers and family members, as well as plenty of priceless clips. Guest host Christian Divine will offer additional retro horror goodies during this evening of cheap thrills. (1:22) Artists’ Television Access. (Harvey)

Torn An explosion at a mall throws two families into turmoil in this locally-shot drama from director Jeremiah Birnbaum and scenarist Michael Richter. Maryam (Mahnoor Baloch) and Ali (Faran Tahir) are Pakistani-émigré professionals, Lea (Dendrie Taylor) a working-class single mother. Their paths cross in the wake of tragedy as both their teenage sons are killed in a shopping center blast that at first appears to have been caused by a gas-main accident. But then authorities begin to suspect a bombing, and worse, the principals’ dead offspring — one as a possible Islamic terrorist, another for perhaps plotting retaliation against school bullies. As the parents suffer stressful media scrutiny in addition to grief and doubt, they begin to take their frustrations out on each other. An earnest small-scale treatment of some large, timely issues, the well-acted Torn holds interest as far as it goes. But it proves less than fully satisfying, ending on a note that’s somewhat admirable, but also renders much of the preceding narrative one big red herring. (1:20) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Trials of Muhammad Ali If you’ve seen an Ali doc before (or even the 2001 biopic), a lot of the material in The Trials of Muhammad Ali will feel familiar. But Bill Siegel’s lively investigation, which offers interviews with Louis Farrakhan and Ali’s former wife Khalilah, among others, does well to narrow its focus onto one specific — albeit complicated and controversial — aspect of Ali’s life: the boxing champ’s Nation of Islam conversion, name change, and refusal to fight in Vietnam. And as always, the young, firebrand Ali is so charismatic that even well-known footage makes for entertaining viewing. (1:26) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy) *

 

The Performant: Cheers for fears

Sue Vaughan
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0
The Performant: Cheers for fears

If you consume the news at all you’ll find a lot to be afraid of that seems endemic to the modern age: swine flu, restless leg syndrome, Ellis Act evictions, terrorist sleeper cells, compromised data privacy, zombie attacks. But despite its almost constant presence in our lives, this kind of fear merely creates a continuous low-grade malaise, an emotional state which appears to benefit only the evolution of pharmaceutical companies and the self-help book publishing trade.

So it’s no wonder that in our search for “real” sensation, we often turn towards a more primal state of fear. The sort of fear that compels us to skydive out of airplanes, ride roller coasters, and surf giant waves, activities designed to trigger that survivalist fight or flight instinct that we then harness for our own adrenaline-generating, sensation-seeking purposes. The kind of fear that compels us to visit that most seasonal of attractions: the haunted house.

There are haunted houses designed to make you laugh and haunted houses designed to make you scream, and ideally a bit of each, a giddy state of being which San Leandro’s Fear Overload makes a considered effort to provide.

Conveniently located just steps away from the Bayfair BART, in an innocuously suburban shopping center, the R-rated Fear Overload contains two separate labyrinths for its patrons to struggle through: “Ward 9” (a supposed asylum for the criminally insane), and the macabre Abusement Park. Both are equally blood-drenched and disorienting, and are welcome throwbacks to the glory days of haunted houses where the highest-tech prop on display was a guillotine, and the real scares came from the all-too human element lurking in the shadows ready to pounce. Let’s just say ironic detachment won’t get you very far in Fear Overload, and thank goodness for that.

At the door to Ward 9, my companion T and I are handed an almost completely useless flashlight and bid a hearty farewell, the door slamming behind us like a butcher’s cleaver. To navigate the dark and claustrophobically narrow corridors with a pencil-thin beam of intermittent light proves both unnerving and hilarious, and as each twist of the path leads to room after room of blood-splattered furniture, swinging doors and rattling cupboards, rotting corpses with dramatically gory headwounds and severed limbs, dungeon walls lined with bodies in straitjackets, oh, and living monsters who delight in leaping out of random corners our anticipation grows into a kind of delightful dread.

I’ve chosen the right partner for this foray into fear. T’s suspension of disbelief is willing and open, her cool quotient, like mine, hovers close to zero, and she is more than happy to let me hold the flashlight, which I figure could at least serve as a makeshift bludgeon should it come to that. In the FAQ comes the promise that the actors won’t touch you, at least not intentionally, but there’s no promise that won’t get in your face, and we wind up getting pretty close and personal with a lot of great makeup jobs and mask designs. Their timing, I have to say, is mostly impeccable. We scream every time.

From a theatrical standpoint, both haunted “houses” are a scenic designer’s wet dream, full of intricately-conceptualized nooks and crannies filled with scenes of extreme splatter gore. In Ward 9 we find the disturbingly shambolic nursery and the “morgue” inhabited by a double-jointed creature that slithers as much as crawls into our path to be especially evocative, and in the Abusement Park, our theatre-geek hearts are filled with admiration for the atmospheric boiler room and the horrifyingly stark and bloody women’s room, which also proves the hardest room to find our way out of (tip: ask a monster for help).

Sure, there’s not a lot of character development per se, or at least not enough to compel us to stick around and hunt for backstory, but as the protagonists of our own survival story, we make it through to the final xit relatively intact, which is really the only storyline that matters when confronting fear as a means of accessing fun.

Through Nov. 2, $19.50-35

Fear Overload Scream Park

Bayfair Center

15555 East 14th St., San Leandro

(510) 730-2221

www.fearoverload.com

“Suspicious package” found at Union Square did not contain a bomb

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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8

Police closed off Union Square this afternoon, Thu/17, while the San Francisco Police Department’s bomb squad investigated the contents of a “suspicious package” located there just before noon.

At 1:49 pm, police sent an update, saying: “The suspicious package at Union Square has been secured. There was no merit to a hazardous device. Streets are being reopened.”

The package was discovered on the Stockton Street side of Union Square, police spokesperson Albie Esparza said as he stood behind a police line. The officer found it independently rather than in response to a tip, Esparza said, and made the decision to notify the bomb squad.

Esparza declined to offer more details about the package, but explained, “The bomb squad has special devices that can examine packages to see the contents.”

Police tape had been strung across all surrounding streets, Muni buses were being re-routed, and a shelter-in-place was put into effect for people inside surrounding buildings.

All around the area, pedestrians walked up to the police line to ask what was going on, and many expressed disappointment that they would be unable to get to their hair appointments or go shopping at Nieman Marcus. They texted loved ones to say there was a bomb threat. Even Frank Chu was on the scene, holding his signature sign. Helicopters circled overhead and fire trucks were parked inside the closed-off area.

“It’s better to be safe than sorry,” Esparza said, noting that bomb threats happen from time to time. “We don’t want to have a tragedy just because of complacency.”

 

 

Best of the Bay 2013: BEST HORROR HOUND DECOR

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Best of the Bay 2013: 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 of the Bay 2013: BEST OUT-THERE GROCERIES

Michael Redmond
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Best of the Bay 2013: BEST OUT-THERE GROCERIES

Houses in the Sunset may be built on dunes, but make no mistake, the neighborhood is no food desert. The flagship of the snacktastic stretch of outer Judah Street (see also: locavore haven Outerlands, beloved Mexican resto Celia’s by the Beach) is without a doubt grocery co-op Other Avenues, about to round the bend on year 40 in the western neighborhood. This is world-class healthy food: happy-making bulk bins, raw milk, vivacious produce, with a thoughtful wine selection and holistic med shelves so complete you’ll never have to trek into neighborhoods that look down on wearing sandals to re-up on herbs and tonics. Plus it’s cute, friendly, and neatly crammed into a smallish storefront, you’ll never lose the gist of your shopping list after giving your neighborhood a hearty “howdy.”

3930 Judah, SF. (415) 661-7475, www.otheravenues.coop

Best of the Bay 2013 Editors Picks: Shopping

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Best of the Bay 2013 Editors Picks: Shopping

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 Readers Poll: Shopping

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Best of the Bay 2013 Readers Poll: Shopping

BEST OF THE BAY 2013: READERS POLL

SHOPPING

 

BEST OVERALL BOOKSTORE

GREEN APPLE BOOKS

506 Clement, SF

www.greenapplebooks.com

 

BEST USED BOOK STORE

AARDVARK BOOKS

227 Church, SF

(415) 552-6733

 

BEST COMIC BOOK STORE

ISOTOPE COMICS

326 Fell, SF

www.isotopecomics.com

 

BEST MAGAZINE SELECTION

ISSUES

20 Glen, Oakl

www.issuesshop.com

 

BEST RECORD STORE

AMOEBA MUSIC

Multiple locations

www.amoeba.com

 

BEST VIDEO STORE

LOST WEEKEND VIDEO

1034 Valencia, SF

www.lostweekendvideo.com

 

BEST GROCERY STORE

RAINBOW GROCERY

1745 Folsom, SF

www.rainbow.coop

 

BEST FRESH PRODUCE

GOLDEN PRODUCE

172 Church, SF

 

BEST CLOTHING STORE (WOMEN)

AMBIANCE

www.ambiancesf.com

 

BEST CLOTHING STORE (MEN) (TIE)

SUI GENERIS CONSIGNMENT

2231 Market, SF

www.suigenerisconsignment.com

UNIONMADE

493 Sanchez, SF

www.unionmadegoods.com

 

BEST CLOTHING STORE (KIDS)

CHLOE’S CLOSET

Multiple locations

www.chloescloset.com

 

BEST SHOP FOR PARENTS-TO-BE

NATURAL RESOURCES

1367 Valencia, SF

www.naturalresources-sf.com

 

BEST VINTAGE CLOTHING STORE

RELIC VINTAGE

1605 Haight, SF

 

BEST LOCAL DESIGNER

COLLEEN MAUER

www.colleenmauerdesigns.com

 

BEST FLEA MARKET

ALAMEDA POINT ANTIQUES FAIRE

2900 Navy Way, Ala.

www.alamedapointantiquesfaire.com

 

BEST THRIFT STORE

THRIFT TOWN

2101 Mission, SF

www.thrifttown.com

 

BEST SHOE STORE

SHOE BIZ

Multiple locations

www.shoebizsf.com

 

BEST FURNITURE STORE

COMMUNITY THRIFT STORE

623 Valencia, SF

www.communitythriftsf.org

 

BEST HARDWARE STORE

COLE HARDWARE

Multiple locations

www.colehardware.com

 

BEST TOY STORE

THE ARK

Multiple locations

www.thearktoys.com

 

BEST BIKE SHOP

VALENCIA CYCLERY

1077 Valencia, SF

www.valenciacyclery.com

 

BEST PET SHOP (TIE)

BERNAL BEAST

509 Cortland, SF

www.bernalbeast.com

PAWTRERO

Multiple locations

www.pawtrero.com

 

BEST GIFT SHOP

HEARTFELT

436 Cortland, SF

www.heartfeltsf.com

 

BEST PLACE TO BUY EYEWEAR

VEO OPTICS

Multiple locations

www.veooptics.com

 

BEST CANNABIS DISPENSARY

THE GREEN CROSS

4218 Mission, SF

www.thegreencross.org

 

BEST STORE STAFF

CHOCOLATE COVERED

4069 24th St, SF

www.chocolatecoveredsf.com

 

BEST QUIRKY SPECIALTY STORE

PAXTON GATE

824 Valencia, SF

www.paxtongate.com

 

BEST SPORTING GOODS STORE

SPORTS BASEMENT

Multiple locations

www.sportsbasement.com

 

BEST FLOWER SHOP

NOB HILL FLORIST

1396 California, SF

www.nobhillflorist.com

 

BEST PLACE TO BUY LINGERIE

PINK BUNNY

1772 Union, SF

www.pinkbunny.biz

 

BEST PLACE TO BUY SEX TOYS

GOOD VIBRATIONS

Multiple locations

www.goodvibes.com

 

BEST PLACE TO BUY FETISH GEAR

MR. S LEATHER

385 8th St, SF

www.mr-s-leather.com

 

Illustration by Robert Trujillo

The procrastinator’s Treasure Island Music Festival to-do list

Tony Robles
-
0

From snatching that perfect pair of tolerably uncomfortable shoes to sourcing stamina-inducing party favors, pre-music festival preparations are key.

Unfortunately I’m a procrastinator to the highest degree  — a gal who thrives on the thrill of a deadline and thereby ends up highly caffeinated on Saturday morning, buzzing between projects: weaving flower crowns with foliage from the backyard, trying on all my bras in search of the one that will best cozy my flask, baking sugary snacks that minimize long line-induced irritation, taking shots, doing lunges, and yelping with excitement.

I am also a big fan of the to-do list. And since the Treasure Island Music Festival is a personal favorite fully laced with woozy, mushy memories, I’m getting a few-day head start on this year’s to-do list to make sure the fest goes swimmingly. (Treasure Island Music Festival takes place this Sat/19-Sun/20. www.treasureislandfestival.com.)

My Treasure Island To-Do List

1. Cool it — I ain’t makin’ no schedule.

Treasure Island is the perfect babysitter for indecisive music-lovers. I’m gonna shuffle between stages, passing beer tents and high-fiving neighbors, co-workers, and awkward exes along the way. I’m confident in my ability to mosey into just the right kind of trouble.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPaA4HVISLo

2. Valet that bike — make someone else worry about parking.

No lock means I can save the room in the mini backpack for a burrito (aka tallboy wrapped in a tortilla).

3. Booze on the way — duh.

Whisky pulls during the 15-minute bus ride make for happy islanders.  

4. Sail away — time to flirt starboard side.

People have boats. Companies are chartering boats. All I’m saying is that there are boat rides to be had. There’s also rumor that one of said vessels will have the boys of Lord Huron on deck. Time to swoon in my stripes.

5. Show up early — fashionably late isn’t fashionable.

I always foolishly take my damn time and land on the island mid-afternoon, sorta sour and wishing I had just packed a bag brunch and picnicked on the grass. Quit pretending like there are better things to do — it’s an island, with music, and sunshine. Done.

6. Pack smart — not light.

Is that sandwich too heavy? Is that trail mix hurting my back? No it’s not because it’s in my belly and I’m happy. The food on site provides a nice array of local fare, but there’s no rule against brining some of your own treats, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIjVpRAXK18

7. Convince the HAIM sisters to be my bffs — get crafty.

I sincerely think we’d make great friends. We could braid each other’s long locks, listen to records while drinking milkshakes, and swap leather jackets. The plan: make friendship bracelets these girls can’t refuse. Camp DIY will have all the supplies and badass crafter, Kelly Malone of Workshop SF will be on island to make sure things are just as charming as they are rock and roll.
 
8. Track down the balloon chain guy. Just because.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zCoCa6b6cU

9. Be sunset ready — no bathroom line or trinket shopping during the ball drop.

The sun will set at approximately 6:25 both evenings, meaning I’ll be feeling some sky love during Major Lazer’s set Saturday and James Blake come Sunday. Take a puff and make a thoughtful toast to that beautiful Bay called home.

10. Make-out on the 60-foot Century Ferris Wheel — no excuses.

11. Watch Nelson Loskamp cut people’s hair…from afar.

He tapes you down, covers your eyes and mouth, and sonically hacks at your hair with sound-wired scissors. I don’t understand what this means but I’m terrified and beyond curious.
 
12. Throw down — then stretch.

“When a fire starts to burn, right? And starts to spread? She gonna bring that attitude to halt…”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9saLEZlKEU

13. Get weird with strangers — we’re all smashed together anyway.  

A few dirty lyrics, pulsing bass, and silky voices — acts like Antwon and Little Dragon could encourage a few folks to get fresh. I’ll be sure to provide encouragement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QS10B4k_9g

14. Be observant — and/or some light stalking.

Where or where will the Atoms For Peace crew be hanging out post show? How about Animal Collective? Beck? I probably wouldn’t be able to speak if I find them, but I’m not ashamed to drool in their presence.

15. Solid prep — Monday is for recovery.

Start that fake cough on Friday in order to avoid all work, responsibilities, and obligations come Monday. Sleigh Bells is sure to have me wrecked and amped for hooky. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr-ahiFDkts

Chess-in defies SFPD crackdown

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
28

By Christina Aanestad

More than 50 people crowded Market Street with tables, chairs, chess and other board games Sunday for a “Chess-in,” a response to the San Francisco Police Department’s closure of a decades-long San Francisco tradition of sidewalk chess.

“We had no say in the decision,” said Marvin Boykins, a 35 year veteran chess player.

Last month, police ended the open and public chess games at Fifth and Market Streets, citing crime as the reason. A nearby shopkeeper, who declined to provide their name, told the Guardian that drug dealers sometimes use the chess tables to conceal their business dealings. There’s no doubt crime occurs around the neighborhood, which marks the intersection of the Tenderloin and SoMa. Just three doors down from the chess games, a woman stood in the doorway of a closed business holding a crack pipe. Nevertheless, chess players like Boykins say crime happens in all neighborhoods—and it’s no reason for the police to stop a decades-old tradition.

“SFPD made a very grave mistake in their administrative capacity not acknowledging the true problem—that we have nothing to do with nor do we condone [crime],” he said.

Other shopkeepers, like Phil Gatdula, manager of sustainable soul food restaurant Farmer Brown on Market Street, said he enjoyed the chess players, who encompass people from all walks of life including business owners, youth, and elders.

Many attendees of the Chess-in voiced concerns about gentrification in the city, pointing to sidewalk chess as its latest casualty. Activists with the Coalition on Homelessness said blaming the removal on crime is merely a cover for an underlying agenda.

“To suggest that a long-time community of elder chess players engaging in a fun, public event is creating a public safety issue is a thinly veiled move to push poor people from public space,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the Coalition On Homelessness.

Just days after the police kicked the chess players off Market Street, a new rent-a-bike station with gleaming identical bikes took their place. Bay Area Bike Share is a newly launched program that rents out bicycles, with nearly three dozen locations in San Francisco. Having opened in August, it’s a partnership with San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Valley transportation authorities, offering “access to shared bicycles 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for use in the cities of San Francisco, Redwood City, Palo Alto, Mountain View and San Jose,” according to the company’s website.

Lisa Alatorre, another staff member with the Coalition on Homelessness, sees the chess crackdown as part of a larger plan to appeal to techies and tourists in the area. It’s also no coincidence that a new shopping mall and condo development are going in right across the street from where chess players gathered for decades before the recent displacement, she said.

Josh Shadlen, 28, moved to San Francisco a few years ago as part of the second dot-com wave. Despite working within the tech industry that critics like Alatorre say is the cause of high rents in San Francisco, Shadlen spent his day sitting on the sidewalk, playing chess in the sun to support reclaiming public space. He said that while 90 percent of his colleagues don’t care about impacts they are having on the local community, he does.

Josh Shadlen, a tech dude who’s siding with the chess players.

“It seemed basically like an attack on the residents of this neighborhood and part of a plan to turn this neighborhood into fancy office buildings where maybe I might work at some point, but I don’t want that to happen here or anywhere,” he said.

Shadlen said the police should do a better job at policing rather than throwing out chess players.

Organizers like Alatorre say it’s unlikely chess will return to Fifth and Market Streets. For now, the players have moved to Yerba Buena Park. Alatorre and others are still hopeful that things could change—but they believe the political will doesn’t exist among current members of the Board of Supervisors. Asked whether she thought people would continue to gather at Fifth and Market streets to play chess next Sunday, she said, “I hope so.”

555 Fulton project moves forward with exemption to formula retail ban

Sasha Cuttler
-
14
555 Fulton project moves forward with exemption to formula retail ban

The San Francisco Planning Commission yesterday approved a plan to build a mixed-use five-story building on the hotly debated 555 Fulton St. property. The plan includes a grocery store measuring 32,400 square feet in addition to 139 apartments and townhouses that would be built above and around the designated shopping area.

It wasn’t a unanimous vote, but the Western Addition is inching toward the affordable grocery store that many in the neighborhood says it desperately needs. The 4-2 vote to exempt the project from the area’s formula retail ban — Commissioners Kathrin Moore and Hisashi Sugaya voted for a continuation instead — was reached after nearly two and a half hours of deliberation, presentations, and local testimonials.

The commission’s decision moves on to the Board of Supervisors, where the discussion of affordable food and whether that can only be provided by a national supermarket chain will likely continue.

In May of 2010, the Planning Commission approved a similar project to the one currently proposed: The then-developers had secured a Special Use District (SUD) called the Fulton Grocery Store SUD back in 2008 —a distinction which lifted the restriction on large-footprint retail outlets in the Hayes-Gough Neighborhood Commercial Transit District — as well as a Conditional Use Agreement (CUA) that lifted the ban on “formula retail outlets” only for the proposed tenant of the specific unit.

But the developers could finance the project and its entitlements expired on April 3, 2013. Renewing the SUD and CUA were key to yesterday’s discussion. Without the SUD, the neighborhood’s current zoning policy would state that the grocery store’s footprint alone would be too large to permit. But with the SUD, the developer is not just obliged but rather forced to seek a tenant that will build a grocery store “larger than 15,000 square feet.” That means that the outlet would finally be the full-service grocery store the neighborhood has called for.

The SUD, however, isn’t the contested item. Both the Western Addition residents and the members of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association (HVNA) and the Hayes Valley Merchant’s Association (HVMA) agree that a grocery store at 555 Fulton is ultimately a good thing, but that is where the similarities end.

The HVNA/HVMA want to uphold the Hayes-Gough NCT’s outright ban on formula retail that’s been in effect since 2004, a move that would effectively force the developer into trying to find an independently owned suitor for the 32,400 square foot space, claiming that “independent” and “affordable” aren’t mutually exclusive.

The residents of the Western Addition want a store that falls under the “formula retail” umbrella, citing fair hiring practices and affordability of goods often found at those outlets among other reasons for the preference.

According to developer representative Jessica Zhou, however, of the City’s 31 independent grocery stores, just two measured over 15,000 square feet (the minimum size allowed in the SUD), and of those two, exactly zero had expressed interest in the location.

On the other hand, according to Zhou, a tidy list of “formula” stores have expressed interest in the site, among them Grocery Outlet and The Nugget, which means that the HVNA/HVMA are now holding out for something that isn’t even on a theoretical horizon.

Commissioner Richard Hillis agreed, and he even joked about his own troubles with the affordability at independent grocery stores, a joke that Zhou’s statistics supported, citing a study that found the average shopper in California saves 35 percent more money when shopping at a formula retail grocery outlet over of an independent one.

The public support might have been strong, but the project hasn’t been approved yet. Even with the support of the Planning Commission, the Western Addition neighborhood and the developers, nothing can happen until the Board of Supervisors approves the same plan, and that means that both sides have time.

“We believe that this project will help two-fold: One, economically [by providing] jobs and opportunities for our young residents — individuals from the neighborhood — but also, it will provide access for our seniors to have the opportunity to walk to the store and get out of their homes and be able to be a part of the community,” said Gary Banks, a Fillmore resident.

Or as Dirk Butler said, ” The reality is an affordable grocery store is the best fit for our community. We have seniors, low-income immigrants that are within a half a mile of a grocery store that they have to trek in order to buy groceries for their family. This is a good move.”

 

Mexican summer

Tony Robles
-
1

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC There was no reason for me to be awake at 7:31am, since I’d flown into Mexico City the day before. Losing two hours of sleep from the time change left me dazed. Exactly 10 minutes later my hotel room started to shake. I sat up, alarmed, and assessed the commotion I heard in the hallway before I realized I was experiencing a 6.2 earthquake from the fifth floor. I clicked on the TV and saw structured evacuations of buildings that could have easily been near me. I wondered if I should be doing the same, but the shaking stopped. It was like my welcoming jolt — “Get ready, you’re with us now. You do what we do.”

I’d trekked to this monster of a city before, but only spent three days last time. I loved it on a touristy level and knew I wanted more, so I planned a return this summer. Coincidentally, SF’s Alcoholocaust Presents (which books punk shows) had Los Headaches and Los Vincent Black Shadows slated for some Bay Area appearances shortly before my trip, as part of both Mexico City bands’ West Coast summer tour. Intrigued, I spent two consecutive nights at the Hemlock Tavern checking out the bands, which were bouncing off the walls with energy (even when the musicians weren’t playing). Bob Log III and the Okmoniks headlined to a hot and crowded club the second night.

I bought Los Headaches’ CD, Never Ending Hunger, the night before from Twist!, the bassist [Ed. note: All last names are omitted to protect the band members from immigration]. At the time I didn’t realize he’s really not a member of the band (I figured they had interchangeable members since he is in Los Vincent Black Shadows) and that US Immigration, some weed in a guitar case, and those pesky work visas had marred the tour plans of two Headaches; granting them deportations and a five-year ban on US entry. Alcoholocaust would put me in touch with Twist! He’d be my point of contact for a week of strangers showing me kindness, sharing music, and letting me in on parts of the city I may have not otherwise seen.

 

“IT’S LIKE JEEEZ“

“Ever had Mezcal?” Twist! asked. I’d been off the sauce for nine months, but before I arrived an itinerary email suggested plans to infiltrate an invite-only VICE party (where the Growlers played), record shopping (my request), seeing some venues where local bands play or a house show (ultimately my goal), and the problematic hint of grabbing some beers.

We ate a salmon and caper pizza and I was introduced to chimichurri at a restaurant in the trendy Condesa neighborhood. His wife and 5-month-old joined, along with Carlos (one of the deported Headaches). Everyone but me had a beer. “Yes,” I answered. “What about pulque?” he retorted. The concoction of fermented agave sap evaded me on my previous trip. In the spirit of trying new things and rather than be a slave to any rules about substance (yet cautious not to be enslaved by the bottle), I decided the next day to alleviate my anxiety and imbibed.

“It’s like Jeeez” Fosi said, joking about the drink’s suspect consistency in a thick accent. (They told me they don’t normally speak English, but since my Spanish is limited they made an exception). He’s the other deported Headache, a guitarist who faced tough questioning and an invasive search from immigration officers who threatened him with up to 20 years in jail if he didn’t adequately cooperate. One mango, one pistachio: down the hatch. Both were delicious and I had no regrets, body buzz and all.

Hell bent on finding an in to the VICE party, a barrage of texts and phone calls flew across the table. Pepe (Twist!’s brother and Los Headaches’ drummer) met us at the bar. I envisioned the lost home video mentioned of the two brothers taking turns throwing themselves into a drum set, honing their Nirvana impersonations as kids.

Their conversations lapsed into Spanish as another stressful development arose when a band showcase they organized at the last minute for Friday night was suddenly jeopardized by greed (the person who was going to lend the art space was now asking $300. It wasn’t clear to me if that meant pesos or US dollars). For a moment my stomach sank and I thought there might be a shakedown, but a house was secured. They’d throw a party, free of charge.

Despite the free hors d’oeuvres and Dos Equis we stumbled upon at a Volcom party for a new shoe line, it probably paled compared to any exclusive party. I passed on the Growlers (a few of the band members snuck in) since Friday’s showcase would be the main event.

 

“THIS IS ALL FOR YOU, MAN”

Nico called my name to join him for a walk to the liquor store. Bleached-blond with shades, there’s no way he’s not in a band. He plays guitar and sings (they all sing) and was the final Headache I met in Mexico City. He described the common response from girls when they ask what he does and he tells them he plays rock’n’roll: they’re not interested. I said freelance music writing doesn’t pay well either. “We are losers,” he joked.

They don’t often get paid to play, but the determination to simply do what they love with their lives seemed to be the core of their existence. The showcase came together in a series of sweaty, passionate, punk-rock performances. Grandma Boys, Suca Suca, and Los Reverse demonstrated spirited, supportive roles for the aforementioned bands.

“This is for you. This is all for you, man,” Twist! said, almost staring through me with intensity. Party mode had climaxed, but the profundity of what transpired didn’t sink in until later. The day before I left, Fosi asked, “Did you get what you came for?” I told him “And then some.” Humbled, lucid, and feeling alive, I left fulfilled. My reward is that I remember everything.

 

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