Christy Funsch is tiny, but she commands attention. During a run-through of her solo dance in the upcoming To Mifune, she filled CounterPULSE’s stage with a torrent of lanky, highly detailed movements, out of which tumbled a recognizable character not unlike the breeches-hoisting heroine in Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo. But Funsch’s cowgirl isn’t heading for a hoedown; her eyes are set on loftier horizons. She’s on her way to meet Toshiro Mifune, who played larger-than-life warrior heroes in Akira Kurosawa’s epic films.
Until now Funsch has primarily choreographed solos and duets, but for To Mifune, a work she describes as equally inspired by spaghetti westerns and samurai dramas, she has expanded her Funsch Dance Experience to eight members, including DJ K808, Chinese acrobat Glenn Curtis, and break-dancer Skorpio. As a performer with local companies (currently the Stephen Pelton Dance Theater, and as a duo with Sue Roginski), Funsch has been mesmerizing to watch: intense, incisive, but also often lyrical and a little mysterious. So perhaps her fascination with the great actor is not as surprising as it might seem.
Funsch says she admires the range of Mifune’s "intense command of a huge physicality" in such films as Seven Samurai (1954). Even more, she’s in awe of his "ability to pull back, to give with smaller gestures," the way he did in Yojimbo (1961), a film that was remade in Italy as A Fistful of Dollars (1964) with Clint Eastwood. Though she is taking a light-hearted approach in her tribute to Mifune, Funsch admits to a fascination with the figure of the morally ambiguous loner who only gradually reveals himself in the context of a film — whether that film was directed by Kurosawa or Sergio Leone.
Skorpio, with whom Funsch performed at the Live Worms Gallery in North Beach in March, interprets Mifune. Funsch and Skorpio hooked up by accident when their rehearsal schedules overlapped. Skorpio calls what he does "true skool," combining old-style break-dance moves with more contemporary dancing. Their Live Worms duet, at once relaxed and intense, showed that these so-different dancers are naturally congenial partners. "A lot of the breaking vocabulary is just as set as our ballet language is," Funsch says, explaining her admiration for Skorpio. "It was immediately apparent that he is about how you put things together and give it your own flavor. I never felt that I was watching a break-dancer." *
Kelly Michaels was following the San Francisco dream when she escaped her small Alabama hometown at 17 and hitchhiked westward. It was 1989.
"I had stars in my eyes," Michaels told the Guardian, sitting on the floor of her friend’s small single-room occupancy Tenderloin apartment, hints of a Southern drawl now paired with Tammy Faye mascara and bleached-blonde hair. "When you’re 16 or 17 and have dreams of being famous, you come to California — and you probably end up on Polk Street in drag."
Michaels arrived on Polk with little more than blue jeans, a bra, and rubber falsies to her name, making ends meet as a street sex worker. It wasn’t what she was looking for; the Polk was plagued with drugs and violence. But her dad was embarrassed by his transgendered daughter and didn’t her want her back. The neighborhood was a home.
She found a community at fierce Polk Gulch trans and boy-hustler bars like Q.T. and Reflections, where clientele included one "big, tall, black Egyptian transsexual hell-raiser" known to draw a gun. Scores of boy hustlers "coming in daily from the Greyhound station" danced naked on the bars. At the end of the night, Michaels’s new family members would pool their money and rent a hotel room for $30.
"The bars were the churches, the sanctuaries," Michaels’s friend Terri, an African American man in his 50s, told us. "You weren’t really going to be hassled there."
Not any more. "Polk Street is dead," Michaels told us. "Dead as fuck now."
THE NEW POLK STREET
The new kids on the block are calling it "revitalization."
After the three-decades-old gay bar Kimo’s is transferred to a new owner at the end of September, there will be only two queer bars left on a street that was San Francisco’s gay male center in the 1960s and a gritty, affordable home for low-income queers, trans women, and male sex workers in the following decades. Where scores of hustlers lined up against seedy sex shops and gay bars just a few years ago, crowds of twentysomething Marina look-alikes now clog the sidewalks in front of upscale clubs.
Polk’s queer residents and patrons are now being priced and policed out of their neighborhood — and their city — as business and tourism interests continue to eat away at the city’s center. Lower Polk Gulch, just blocks north of City Hall and one block east of Van Ness, has in the past few years succumbed to multimillion-dollar businesses, upscale lofts, increased rents at SRO hotels and apartments, and a new million-dollar city streetscape beautification plan. The related increase in policing and new efforts to clean up the street is making the area an unwelcoming place for the marginal queers who for so long called it home.
It has been the most down-and-out segments of the queer population — male sex workers, trannies, young people, poor people of color, and immigrants — who have often been the queer population’s boldest and most innovative actors, pushing the movement forward in new ways. What does queer San Francisco lose when our most marginalized members are pushed, policed, and priced out of the city?
HEART OF A COMMUNITY
Michaels stood under a neon purple Divas sign, advertising the three-story transgender club that has stood in Polk Gulch for more than three decades. Divas manager Alexis Miranda, a friend, stepped outside to chat, and a dozen characters from the neighborhood stopped by to shoot the shit. One man rubbed Miranda’s belly through her leopard bodysuit. "This is my baby," he told us jokingly.
Divas is as much a community center as it is a club. Girls from out of town and out of the country know to come to Divas when they step off the boat, plane, or bus. Many trans immigrants make a living as prostitutes, and while Miranda insists that she does not allow them to work inside the club, the close vicinity of San Francisco’s tranny prostitute district has meant tension for Divas.
Miranda told us the police have been targeting the club because of complaints from new merchants. "Some of the people who have new businesses don’t want the people who live here to stay. They want to close us down," she said. "They’re trying to gentrify the neighborhood."
Neville Gittens, a police spokesperson, told us that the San Francisco Police Department performs "regular enforcement in that area" but said any targeted operations cannot be discussed.
Theresa Sparks, a trans woman who chairs the Police Commission, said Miranda made the same claim at the commission meeting Aug. 15. "I don’t know if that’s true or not," Sparks told us. "My intent is to find out what is going on."
Sparks agreed that gentrification is driving trans people out of the Polk Gulch neighborhood: "It is very, very difficult for a transgendered person to survive in this city."
Miranda pointed to a bar across the street. Until 2000, the Lush Lounge was the cruisy trans and hustler bar Polk Gulch Saloon. Now, under a new owner, white twentysomething heterosexuals sip apple pie martinis.
Sonia Khanna, a 28-year-old trans woman with long, curly brown hair and mocha skin told us she doesn’t feel welcome there. "If you’re a tranny, they think you’re a whore," she said.
Miranda said the owner, Steve Black, ejected her when she went to welcome him to the neighborhood. Miranda, a former empress in San Francisco’s Imperial Court System, reported him to the Human Rights Commission. The inquiry was closed when the owner informed the commission that he allows transgendered people into the bar. He didn’t deny tossing out Miranda; he said he just disliked her personally.
The bigger problem may be the neighborhood’s increased property values. Divas owner and Polk Gulch resident Steve Berkey told us that rents have pushed out other established queer businesses on Polk. The only reason Divas stays open is that he owns the building. "It used to be that so many girls lived in the neighborhood," he said. "They packed the place. But now rents have driven them off."
CENTER OF THE STORM
The reasons behind the death of the queer Polk are complex, likely including the ascendance of the Internet as a social networking tool, rising property costs, and the aging of the bars’ core clientele and owners. But most of the community’s rancor has focused on the most visible manifestation of change: neighborhood associations representing new, upscale businesses working with police and the city to clean up the streets.
At the center of the storm is a glass-walled architecture studio at the bottom of Polk Gulch, around the corner from Divas. Two freshly planted palm trees in front of the studio are conspicuous on a site next door to a bleak, institutional homeless shelter outfitted with security cameras and across the street from a porn shop promising "Hot Bareback Action!"
Case+Abst Architects has been the workplace and home of husband and wife Carolyn Abst and Ron Case since they were lured by the area’s low cost in 1999. The trees were the first of 40 planted in a campaign they initiated last year as cofounders of Lower Polk Neighbors. Abst told the San Francisco Chronicle in September 2005 that she "wants a fruit stand [on Polk Street], and we’ll take a Starbucks too."
The group has had an impact: District Attorney Kamala Harris said at a recent community meeting organized by the LPN that she has responded to association agitation by having representatives of the District Attorney’s Office walk the neighborhood with police and installing high-tech surveillance equipment to gain more criminal convictions. Sup. Aaron Peskin has asked the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development to include the Lower Polk in its Neighborhood Marketplace Initiative, a program designed to revitalize neighborhood business districts. As part of this program, a part-time staff person now acts as a liaison between Lower Polk merchants and police. Another city program is scheduled to spend $1 million on installing new lights and planting trees later this year.
Activists say the LPN focus is not on outreach, therapy, or support for the Polk’s marginalized residents but on pushing undesirables out of the neighborhood and ejecting outreach programs like a local needle exchange.
Last year Abst was the subject of a "wanted" poster put up on Polk by the group Gay Shame. The group calls the LPN a "progentrification attack squad" whose goal is to "remove outsider queers and social deviants from our neighborhood in order to accelerate property development and real estate profiteering."
The hustler bar Club RendezVous lost its lease in 2005 after the property was bought and razed. Its co-owner, David Kapp, didn’t return our phone calls seeking comment, but he told the Central City Extra in February 2006 that a "smear campaign" by the LPN stopped him from relocating down the street. A First Congregational Church is now being constructed where RendezVous once stood. The church was designed by Case+Abst.
Case told us that the Planning Department wanted to see neighborhood support for the RendezVous move. The LPN asked that RendezVous provide security, but the bar’s owners refused. "They always had younger, underage boys hanging out," Case said. "There are a lot of families in this neighborhood. We wished them well, but it’s also a community." He told us he wants not to gentrify the neighborhood but to make it clean and safe.
But safe for whom?
Chris Roebuck, a medical anthropologist at UC Berkeley, told us that the increased policing has also meant increased harassment of trans women. Sex workers, many of them immigrants from Mexico, the Philippines, and Thailand, are "increasingly being pushed into the alleyways, into unsafe spaces," he said. He’s also noticed a criminalization of what he called "walking while trans" in the six years he has spent interviewing trans women on Polk Street.
At a community meeting with the district attorney earlier this month, two trans women said the police, despite sensitivity trainings, do not take them seriously when they report a crime.
"Getting rid of the public space for trans women and drug users is not safe for them," Polk resident Matt Bernstein Sycamore (a.k.a. Mattilda) told us. "Deportation [of immigrant sex workers] is not a safe space. The needle exchange actually does make people safer. Getting rid of it does not make people safer."
Sycamore, editor of the book Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write About Their Clients, is concerned with what he calls a "cultural erasure" in the area. "Polk Street has been the last remaining place where marginalized queers can come to figure out how to cope, meet one another, and form social networks," he told us. "That sort of outsider culture has been so dependent on having a public space to figure out ways to survive. That is the dream of San Francisco — that you can get away from where you came from and cope, and create something dangerous and desperate and explosive."
POLK VILLAGE?
When Kimo’s changes hands at the end of September, San Francisco will lose one of the last vestiges of a hustler culture housed on Polk Street since at least the early 1960s.
On a recent night, six gray-haired men sat chatting or reading the paper, relics of Polk Street’s heyday. A young man with a shaved head and black hoodie stood outside the front door and gave a suspicious look to a young blonde woman in bikini straps who breezed in with two friends, laughing, oblivious to him. A sign in front read "No Loitering In Front of These Premises."
The state’s Department of Alcohol Beverage Control mandated the warning, Kimo’s bartender John David told us. He said he thinks that was the result of pressure from the LPN. "Kimo’s is the new whipping boy," he told us. "RendezVous is out, and now it’s our fault that people are on the streets."
Case denies that his group had anything to do with the crackdown on Kimo’s.
A tall man with shaggy brown hair standing on the sidewalk near Kimo’s, who asked to be identified by his porn-actor name, Eric Manchester, complained that a way of life is coming to an end. Manchester said he started hustling on Polk at age 17 after leaving the "redneck, racist town" of Martinsville, Ind., in 10th grade and being stationed in San Diego by the Navy.
"It wasn’t just money for me," Manchester told us. "This was a good place to come and get advice, comfort, support. There are people that need people, and they’re going to take that all away. San Francisco is going down the tubes. All the heterosexual people are moving in. They like the police-state mentality."
Among the new arrivals is the owner of the $6.5 million O’Reilly’s Holy Grail Restaurant that stands just a few doors down Polk Street from Kimo’s. On a recent evening, a musician played soft jazz on a black grand piano, while men in starched pastel button-down shirts stood around on the hickory pecan floor.
Myles O’Reilly opened the restaurant two years ago, when he also transformed a low-rent residential hotel above the space into 14 European-style hotel suites. Neighbors point to the property as a tipping point in Polk’s transformation. But O’Reilly sounded almost defeated when he talked about his "multimillion-dollar jewel in the middle of the desert."
"We are only a couple blocks from City Hall and Union Square," he told us. "But tourism doesn’t come this way."
With the goal of transforming the area, he teamed up with John Malloy, the head of the recently founded Polk Corridor Business Association, who has also chaired the LPN.
One of their projects is on view outside the restaurant and along the street. Colorful banners read: "Welcome to Polk Village … working together to build a cleaner, safer, more beautiful community." The PCBA plans to circulate a petition to officially change the name of Polk Gulch to Polk Village in a few years, but O’Reilly isn’t waiting. He defiantly lists the restaurant’s address as 1233 Polk Village on his building.
That "village" will house a small army if these merchants have their way. "We need foot patrols up and down Polk Street," Malloy, who lives in the neighborhood, told us. "We’re going to get more police even if we have to go out there and hire them ourselves."
O’Reilly took out his cell phone and started showing me photos. "This is defecation on the sidewalk outside," he said, pointing to a smudgy image. "This is condoms on the sidewalk. You see this lovely photograph? That’s a condom in the flowerbed. That’s what my son had to see this morning. And nobody helps."
"There are 1,000 condos being built here," O’Reilly said. "Something has to be done to restrict the number of street people."
VANISHING NEIGHBORHOODS
The Tenderloin, and to a lesser extent Polk Gulch, risked being swallowed by the expanding downtown financial district and tourist industries in the late 1970s. But in the 1980s, community activism secured a moratorium on the conversion of residential hotel units, required luxury hoteliers to contribute millions of dollars in community mitigations, downzoned dozens of blocks of prime downtown property, and created a nonprofit housing boom.
It is these achievements that new merchants and residents point to when distancing themselves from the word gentrification. LPN cofounder Case told us that because apartments in the area are rent controlled, gentrification is "not possible."
Not so, said Tommi Avicolli Mecca of the Housing Rights Committee. "Look at the Castro," he told us. "It’s full of rent-controlled buildings. All you have to do is evoke the Ellis Act, or you buy out the tenants."
Or look next to the Congregational Church construction on Polk. There stands an almost-completed four-story building whose 32 units are being sold for up to $630,000. A large glossy poster in its window advertises the units’ "open living and dining areas," along with "stainless steel appliances, custom cabinets, [and] granite counters."
Brian Bassinger, cofounder of the AIDS Housing Alliance, told us that in one of the buildings where his organization houses people a few blocks south of Polk Gulch, rent is now $1,700 a month, up from $1,325 just a few years ago.
Gayle Rubin, a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan and a historian of South of Market leather cultures, told us that gay neighborhoods are disappearing across the country as the core of major cities are transformed into high-value areas. This puts pressure on the economic viability of queer neighborhoods, most of which — despite the stereotype of the wealthy gay — have taken root in marginalized, poor neighborhoods.
"Polk Street is just one little battle in the war," Mecca told us. "The Mission was a working-class lesbian area. That whole lesbian culture got lost overnight. The bustling culture of queer artists in the Castro — all gone. The South of Market leather scene — gone. Parts of our culture, the very thing we came to San Francisco for, keep getting wiped out."
Kelly Michaels did develop a certain amount of celebrity as a performer at the famed club Finocchio’s and as a porn star; fans still post photos and gush over her online. And she remains drawn to the Polk, even if her relationship with the neighborhood is deeply ambivalent.
"It’s so evil, so dark, full of drugs and despair," she told us outside Divas. "But this is my home and my family."
"The people left here are going to fight for their home," she said. "Some people have been here forever. Their whole life is here. It’s impossible to get an apartment in other places of this city."
"This is a sanctuary," she said. "They’re taking the sparkle out of San Francisco."
No matter how you prefer to spell café — or caffe, or even cafe — you probably have a favorite one. Haunting a particular café is a prerogative of city dwelling, and in a coffee-involved city like ours, the possible forums for such socially acceptable loitering are vast, even including places that don’t have espresso machines. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Cafés, you see, don’t have to be about coffee, really, though most serve it in some form and some serve it in many forms. Cafés can also be about food, and in this sense we use the word in more or less the same sense the Parisians do, to describe the most casual sort of restaurant, the sort of place that doesn’t necessarily have full table service but does have tables where you are welcome to linger and discuss and rap your knuckles for emphasis even after you’ve finished eating whatever it was you were eating.
And what were you eating? Nacatamales? Have my typing fingers gone into spasm? Did I mean to type tamales but succumbed to overenthusiasm? No: I meant to type nacatamales because the nacatamal is the tamale of Nicaragua (and Honduras), and you can get them at Elisa’s Café, along with other Central American delicacies. Along with coffee — but not espresso.
Elisa’s opened late in the spring in the Excelsior space occupied for a number of years by Bistro E Europe, a restaurant that served the foods of Hungary and the Roma (a.k.a. the gypsies). The rather Spartan-looking space has been given a nice freshening, with peach paint and black furniture, and you no longer have that forgotten-city feeling while sitting in the window, watching the world go by.
Nacatamales ($5.50), as prepared by Elisa’s kitchen, are bigger and squarer than ordinary tamales. They’re about the size of a watch box and are steamed in plantain leaves, which are peeled away before the plate is presented to you. Otherwise, the similarities are manifest; we are talking about a squarish molding of masa (a close, corn-meal relation of polenta) in which potatoes, rice, tomatoes, onions, raisins, mint leaves, and possibly beef, pork, or chicken, have been cooked, as in a clafoutis or berry muffin. The boundary between the filling and the enclosure is indistinct, in other words.
The nacatamales are big. One is plenty for a single person and might even be splittable if you open your repast with, say, some soup. Soups vary according to the day of the week, and some are pricier than others. The least costly appears on Friday and is meatless: a black-bean soup ($4.50), whose namesake legumes are reduced to a thin purée in which bob peeled boiled eggs and coiled ropes of red pepper. Since the soup is basically mild, enlivenment is provided on the side in the form of a white salsa, a mince of onions steeped in vinegar. The sauce emits almost unbreathable fumes, but once in the soup it settles down to the general benefit.
Other dishes seem more familiar — the sorts of things you might find at other restaurants serving the foods of Mesoamerica — including bistec encebollado ($8.75), several pieces of beef sliced minute-steak thin, then pan-fried and finished with a tousled cap of sautéed onions. There’s also a salad on the side, iceberg lettuce with cucumber coins and quartered tomatoes. Quite American, I thought, as if the shock of Nicaraguan cooking must be buffered somehow for yanqui sensibilities.
When you are sitting in L’s Caffe, on 24th Street between Bryant and Florida, you are sitting in what I think of as the deepest heart of the Mission. And because the Mission is changeable and ever-changing, a café at its heart would almost necessarily be polyglot. The principals of L’s are all named Lozano — which is a Spanish name but also turns up occasionally in Italy. Italy and Spain, of course, have taken turns ruling bits of each other over the centuries.
As if to honor this long entwinement, the café offers a casually international menu, with definite Italian flourishes along with Spanish touches spoken in a New World accent. You can get bagels smeared with lox and cream cheese, or with hummus; you can get a PB&J or a sandwich with pepperoni, mozzarella, and pesto. You can get Chilean-style empanadas ($3 each), half-moon shaped pastry pouches filled with shredded chicken or just vegetables — which might mean mostly spinach.
There’s a minestrone soup ($4.50) whose thick, spicy tomato sauce and flotsam of white beans and pasta would do credit to many an Italian restaurant. The soup goes nicely with, perhaps, a turkey and Swiss sandwich ($5.95), which would be totally all-American if not for the swoosh of hummus on the top slice of whole-wheat bread. Even a five-bean salad ($3.25), a staple of midsummer picnics, features a broad constituency of legumes: black, pinto, lima, and green beans, along with chickpeas.
Not all recent changes in the Mission are awful, if we factor into our judgment L’s Caffe’s commitment to organic agriculture — all the coffee beans are organic, as is much of the food — and to reducing its waste stream through a conscientious program of composting and recycling. As someone who recently had a burrito at a long-beloved taqueria (also in the Mission) and was horrified to see a reckless flow of aluminum foil, Styrofoam, and other manufactured leavings into the garbage, I can tell you that this matters.
The early ’60s French new wave gets imitations and retrospectives and books galore, but in terms of homage, the British new wave of roughly the same era hasn’t been gifted with much more than a number of Smiths 7- and 12-inch singles covers and some Morrissey lyrics. Such tributes are nothing to sniff at, but an orange Shelagh Delaney on the cover of Louder Than Bombs or a picture of a pouty Rita Tushingham on the packaging of Sandie Shaw’s version of "Hand in Glove" don’t amount to the unanimous praise and canonical status given to, say, Jean-Luc Godard.
The subject of the new Pacific Film Archive series "Look Back at England: The British New Wave," "bedsit" or "kitchen-sink" British film drama of the early ’60s has often been a target for critics. Pauline Kael sneered at its emotions. The films of Tony Richardson and the acting of Tushingham have met no greater naysayer than Manny Farber, who devoted an entire essay, titled "Pish-Tush," to attacking Tushingham as the foremost example of a "megalomaniac star who can make the simplest action have as many syllables as her name." No doubt about it, Tushingham is mannered. But more than 40 years on from Farber’s essay, many and much worse offenses have been committed to celluloid and video, and it’s easy to see the merits of a movie such as 1962’s A Taste if Honey, written and directed by Delaney, whose dialogue and lead-colored riverside scenario provided Morrissey with an entire song ("This Night Has Opened My Eyes," far more doleful than A Taste of Honey) as well as a number of lines to steal for other lyrics.
"Look Back at England," which looks at nearly a decade of filmmaking, kicks off this week with Richard Burton abusing a Claire Bloom much wimpier than his future real-lire and onscreen wife in Richardson’s 1958 adaptation of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger and ends with the Stanley Kubrick–tinged Malcolm McDowell antics of Lindsay Anderson’s 1968 If… In between, you’ll find Tom Courtenay, madcap in 1963’s Billy Liar (sampled on Saint Etienne’s album So Tough) and haunted in 1962’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner; and Albert Finney, loutish in 1960’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Michael Caine posh loutish in 1966’s Alfie. Prototypical angry young men? Yes. But women had major roles as well — the period introduced us to the divine Julie Christie (in Billy Liar, her appeal later inspiring a song by Yo La Tengo, and in 1965’s Darling) as well as Tushingham, who meets her everything-and-the-kitchen-sink directorial match in Richard Lester in The Knack … and How to Get It, a 1965 film as narratively wild as Godard’s work of the era, if not wilder.
Yo La Tengo, Saint Etienne, the Smiths: funny how the seeming dreariness of British bedsit movies inspired maybe even more great pop acts than did the French new wave visions of and for the children of Marx and Coca-Cola. You can also find the seeds of the lurid extravaganzas of Derek Jarman in some of these pictures, if not the phallic frenzies (to borrow the title of Joseph Lanza’s new book) of Ken Russell and the hallucinations of Nicholas Roeg. The hyperextravagant Joseph Losey could find a home within the modest British new wave (his 1963 The Servant is a touchstone, thanks to Dirk Bogarde’s career peak performance). And while a contemporary director such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa loves his French new wave, he’s no stranger to the British corollary either. His Séance (2000) is based on Bryan Forbes’s 1964 Séance on a Wet Afternoon.
Speaking of Forbes, his excellent The L-Shaped Room (1962), starring a low-key Leslie Caron in a Tushingham-style unwed mother role, is one of the few links missing from "Look Back at England." But you can seek it out on video — and discover the source behind the opening moments of The Queen Is Dead. (Johnny Ray Huston)
If you’re looking for the future of hyphy, vocalist J.Nash is already there. Never mind that his versatile vocals link the two hottest Bay Area rap albums this year: Mistah FAB’s Da Baydestrian (SMC) and Turf Talk’s West Coast Vaccine (Sic Wid It). His own album, Hyphy Love (Soul Boy/Urban Life), is a genre unto itself, a fusion of hyphy and R&B that Nash calls R&Bay. Hailing from East Oakland’s Murder Dubs — otherwise known as the 20s and home to Beeda Weeda, who appears on Hyphy Love — Nash used to rap, but, he points out, "Everyone was rappin’, so I switched," employing skills learned primarily at church. Nonetheless, apart from a brief stint as a member of vocal group Rewind, he says, "I always messed with rappers, like Laroo and Keak."
Nash’s date with destiny, however, was meeting up-and-coming rapper FAB, who appeared on Nash’s 2005 out-the-trunk album, Real Man (Soul Boy), shortly before blowing up with Son of a Pimp (Thizz Ent., 2005). "I thought I was doing him a favor," Nash says with a laugh, acknowledging how much the association with FAB boosted his career.
FAB protégé Rob E also produced half of Hyphy Love, letting his hair down even more than on Baydestrian. These tracks are fleshed out with productions by heavyweights like Droop-E and Sean T, whose beat on "Hyphy Dancin’" transforms the sound with a throwback ’80s paint job, resulting in one of the disc’s most unique songs.
Lest anyone think Hyphy Love is all hyphy and no love, Nash delivers a number of excellent, more conventional slow-jam-style ballads, with a flexible tenor that moves up to alto and down to baritone. As an artist who writes his own material, Nash never suffers from the lyrical banality typical of contemporary R&B. Like R. Kelly, whose work he admires, Nash brings out the nasty. There’s something hilarious about hearing the line "I’m sucking on those big ol’ boobs" delivered with the agonized passion of a slow jam. It’s a much more realistic thought in a sexual situation than the usual "Hold you in my arms" crap.
Nash has already started to generate buzz thanks to a lo-fi video for his advance single, "Cupcakin," with J-Stalin, which has scored more than 35,000 hits on YouTube and has been cross-posted all over the Net. A second, more professional video for the more hyphy "Show You Love" has just debuted. Expect live shows in clubs around the Bay.
"Once you see me perform," Nash says with a rapper’s swagger, "it’s over. I got you. You’re going to become a fan." (Garrett Caples)
SONIC REDUCER As the summer squeezes out its last warmish days, we can safely say that we’re glad for one thing: that with the end of the season comes those last nagging reminders of the Summer of Love, all that was great and good about hippie Frisky, the perpetually remarketable, oh-so-remarkable boomer musical legacy, and how radical it was that so many acolytes drifted here four decades ago to gobble acid and find themselves. Yet are we in the clear to say that we’re all a bit weary of the free-floating miasma of hype? By Jerry’s beard, it happens only every five to 10 years, when the once anti-establishment boomer establishment turns on, tunes in, and pats itself on the back yet again as the 25th, 30th, or 45th anniversaries roll around. I know an overweening sense of self-importance seems to be an intrinsic part of one’s duty as an American citizen, but has there ever been a more self-congratulatory generation than the one that birthed the Summer of Love? Can we now unofficially rename it the Summer of Self-Love? Can I be excused from the creaky, walker-bound group grope that will accompany the big five-oh?
Yep, hippie-bashing, at this queasy, war-wracked juncture, is a tired, predictable, oft-rightie-instigated contact sport that’s far too easy to indulge in. Still, has there ever been a wave of so-called progressives so determined to look back, so intent in repackaging their relics for resale? You can stuff mewling protests against ageism in your tie-dyed Depends. Boomer rockers have been so busy crowing from the rooftops about their accomplishments for so many years that they’ve failed to notice how incredibly bored youngsters — and even not-so-young ‘uns — have become with Grandpappy’s zillionth sing-along to "Love Me Do." Indeedy, nothing can ever compare to your old-time rock ‘n’ roll, your first trip, orgy, no-nukes protest, Jell-O wrasslin’ bout, ad infinitum. But must we still hear about it? This from the same gen, captains helming a capsizing music industry, that turned the phrase “classic rock,” that has insisted on recognizing every anniversary of ’60s-era recording classics, from the Beatles to Sly Stone to Jefferson Airplane to brrrzzzzzzz …
Grrrzzzdhoooh-ha! Oh, were you saying? By the way, when the music’s over — turn off the light, OK? I know hippies weren’t the ones to self-aggrandizingly dub themselves the Greatest Generation. And perhaps we’ve all come to expect far too much from our self-promoting, self-obsessed, yet always self-critical forebears. Yet when word of bickering between competing SF Summer of Love events in August began drifting hither — rumors that Summer of Love 40th Anniversary producer Boots Hughston tells me are simply that: rumors (“We’d been promoting Summer of Love for a year and a half. They had been working on the Hope and Beyond AIDS project in other countries, but this year they decided to change the name of the event — we have a lot of respect for them”) — it seemed like a little peace was in order. After all, the entire purpose behind the Sept. 2 event, Hughston explains, is to “remind people there are other things rather than taking over other countries and going to war over oil — like compassion and understanding. Why not remind people where it all began in 1967?” That’s why Hughston says Country Joe McDonald, Taj Mahal, Canned Heat, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and others are performing free, in between the spiritual and political speakers.
Good intentions go far with even crankaholics like yours truly. But how did the event — which could have used some younger, relevant artists indebted to the San Francisco Sound in its lineup (look for a sampling at this weekend’s Ben Lomond Indian Summer Music Festival) — come to fall on the very day most of its younger demographic might be burning elsewhere? “There is a strong synergy between us and Burning Man, you’re right,” Hughston says. “But you can always go to Burning Man, and you can’t always go to the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love.” He believes some burners will be leaving early to return for his 40th event. Smokin’.
One of the most seriously wonderful folk-rock LPs to come down the pike of late has to be Marissa Nadler’s Songs III: Bird on the Water, out last year on UK’s Peace Frog label and recently picked up for US distribution by Kemado. It’s anything but a purist artifact — "The reverb probably gives it that haunting quality. It’s something I’ve always used in abundance on my voice to many people’s distaste," Nadler, 26, says with a laugh, speaking from outside Boston.
Alas, Nadler has often struggled with intense shyness in presenting her creations. "Maybe it’s a masochistic thing that I want to put myself through the pain of performing," the songwriter says. "But at no point is the first song easy." Ever considered Blues Brothers–style shades? "I’ve definitely thought about it," she confesses.
Is this where today’s summer lovers are really headed? Bay Area and Los Angeles creatives like Entrance, Paula Frazer, and Mammatus converge. Fri/31–Sun/2, $12–$18 per show; $40–$45 three-day pass. Henfling’s Tavern, 9450 Hwy. 9, Ben Lomond. www.myspace.com/benlomondindiansummer
Sweetwater stemmed? The Bay Area singer-songwriter bids farewell to the historic club with its last show, the day before it shutters due to a drastic rent increase. Fri/31, 9:30 p.m., $15. Sweetwater Saloon, 153 Throckmorton, Mill Valley. www.ticketweb.com.
POLAR GOLDIE CATS
Paws for LA’s feral chamber post-punkers. Fri/31, 9:30 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com.
FILM On any given day, on any given Muni, you’re likely to hear John Carpenter’s Halloween theme trilling out of some kid’s cell. Sprung from one gloriously terrifying, terrifyingly simple idea (in a word: babysitters!), the seminal horror series welcomes its ninth installment with Rob Zombie’s remake of the 1978 original. I can hear you, horror snob: "Ninth installment? Remake? Why the fuck would I wanna see that?" Well, really, it’s simpler than a razor-bladed Snickers bar:
1) Halloween sequels are generally enjoyable — and I’m not even talking about the attempts to hipsterfy the series with entries starring Josh Hartnett (1998) or a webcam (2002, which also featured Busta Rhymes delivering the immortal line, "Trick or treat, motherfucker!") I’m talking the shit that nobody ever watches, except us late-night cable addicts: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) and Halloween 5 (1989), i.e. the Danielle Harris–as–Michael Myers’s–long-lost-niece era; and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), starring a pre-Clueless Paul Rudd. Don’t get me started on Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), or I’ll be singing about Silver Shamrock long past Oct. 31.
2) The Carpenter universe allows for remakes. One of the director’s best efforts is The Thing (1982), a most righteous reimagining itself. In recent years, The Fog (1980) and Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) have been snatched up by a Hollywood that thinks nobody remembers the early ’80s. Halloween is his most sacred product, but it’s also his most unusual, taking on a life beyond the Carpenter canon. Michael Myers is a universally recognized movie monster, sharing Halloween Superstore costume-rack space with Freddy, Jason, and Austin Powers. If Tinseltown was molesting They Live (1988), we might have words. But Myers’s kill-crazy, supernatural blankness lets him roam different landscapes (Haddonfield, private school, the Internet) for different directors and remain reliably menacing.
3) Which brings me to Zombie. He’s a huge horror fan anyway, and if you’ve seen The Devil’s Rejects (2005) or House of 1000 Corpses (2003), you know he’s all about paying homage to terror cinema past. But he’s got his own style too — gruesome, jump-cutty, and nihilistic. He’s also inspired enough to cast Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis (and Danielle Harris as Annie Brackett) in his remake. Hell, even Danny Trejo is in this thing. Is Zombie’s Halloween any good? Am I steering you wrong? I can’t even say, man. I’m seeing it the day before you do — right after I interview Zombie. Ass-backwards, yes. But it’s Halloween, a remake of my all-time favorite movie, not to mention my all-time favorite holiday. I’ll eat some razor blades myself if I have to. (Cheryl Eddy)
Sewdown took place at the Temple Nightclub, a place that does indeed look like a temple, for a religious sect worshipful of art galleries: the place is all white with high-ceilings and cold columns on the inside. The perfect place for a fashion show!
Me and my partner in finery, writer/filmmaker Tara Jepsen, grabbed some Cokes (no Diet Cokes? at a fashion show?) and started posing. Tara had raided the closet of an employee of Danielle Steel who gets to go on shopping jaunts to Paris, and as a result was wearing a Behnaz Sarafpour dress of silkscreened black lace and a mesh heart that framed her cleavage in a sweetly pornographic style. She also scored a knit Dolce & Gabbana purse, which we entertained ourselves with by speculating on its original price. Tara confirmed that yes undeed it does make you feel like a better person to wear amazingly fancy clothes, and I believe her because I felt like a better person just standing next to her. But this is not about me and Tara, this is about Sewdown.
Philip Glass fans are getting ready to camp out in San Francisco this fall.
The most influential composer of the late 20th century, Glass marked his 70th birthday Jan. 31, but the celebration continues throughout the fall in the Bay Area with concerts presented by SF Performances, Stanford University’s Lively Arts, the OtherMinds Festival, the SF Conservatory of Music, and the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz in what has essentially become an ad hoc Glass festival.
At the center of this pan-Bay series of performances, recitals, lectures, and seminars will be the world premiere of Glass’s Appomattox, a major new commission by the San Francisco Opera. Set to a libretto by British playwright Christopher Hampton, the two-act Appomattox dramatizes the eponymous historical battle of the American Civil War and the events leading to the surrender of Confederate general Robert<\!s>E. Lee to US general Ulysses<\!s>S. Grant.
With a loss of 600,000 lives, the Civil War is easily the most devastating event in US history — but what have we learned? "The issues that were raised at the time are very much at the heart of social change in our country today: states’ rights, racism, you name it," Glass said recently from his home in Nova Scotia. "On the good side, we are still engaged in resolving these issues. That is one of the great things about our country, that we haven’t shied away from the issues. We embraced the difficulties as we tried to find solutions. We had some measures of success and some not. But [these issues] never stopped being relevant, because they were never resolved."
Glass’s previous operas, such as Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, and Akhnaten, exude brilliant ideas and a sense of innovation, and in tandem with multimedia and experimental projects such as the high-profile cinematic Qatsi trilogy, they earned him a place among the 20th century’s great iconoclasts — not to mention a spot in the punch line to a joke on The Simpsons.
Yet Glass continues to evolve. With Appomattox, the composer has chosen a historical topic that lends itself to an arched yet linear narrative leading to a well-defined climax. And judging from his newer works, his compositional style has acquired a surprisingly lush lyricism. One might suspect Appomattox of being Glass’s first opera in grand 19th-century style, although the composer reassured those who fear he might be softening with age, "It is going to be a very confrontational piece. Some of the elements will be quite difficult for some people."
One such element is Appomattox‘s score, which integrates Old Testament hymns sung by black Southerners to welcome Abraham Lincoln during his visit to Richmond, Va.; military songs by the Arkansas First Brigade; and civil rights ballads.
"I wanted to include in the musical language the feeling and the musical culture of that time and of the present time," Glass explained. "While this was written for voices skilled in operatic singing, there are other kinds of music in this opera as well. This was for me one of the most interesting things, to try to bring together different music that would normally not be heard at the same time."<\!s>*
SELECTED PHILIP GLASS EVENTS
"Music of Philip Glass" Joined by cellist Wendy Sutter, Glass takes to the ivories in a recital of his chamber music, including the local premieres of "Songs and Poems for Cello," Etudes nos. 2 and 10, and "The Orchard for Piano and Cello."
Book of Longing Glass collaborated with singer-songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen on this multimedia work, staged by choreographer Susan Marshall, with the composer on keyboards at this West Coast premiere.
Oct. 9. (650) 725-ARTS, livelyarts.stanford.edu
OTHER TOP CLASSICAL AND OPERA PICKS
Il Rè Pastore Philharmonia Baroque opens the new season with a rare performance of this dazzling gem, written when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a mere teenager. Though the plot is a bit silly, the thrilling score is full of vibrant, infectious energy and includes a fabulous string of showstoppers that foretell the genius of the composer’s mature operas.
New Esterhazy String Quartet As part of a multiyear, comprehensive survey of Franz Joseph Haydn’s string repertoire in anticipation of the composer’s bicentennial in 2009, the local string quartet offers a fascinating exploration of Haydn’s quartets against a backdrop of early American history, finding unexpected associations linking the Old and New Worlds.
Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela The appointment of 26-year-old Venezuelan conductor Dudamel to the top post of music director of the LA Philharmonic shocked the American symphonic establishment, but Dudamel is the next great thing. He has proved his mettle as the guest conductor of major European orchestras and as the artistic director of the excellent Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, which recruits and grooms students from the poorest barrios in the country. They’ll perform works by Dmitry Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein, and Latin American composers.
Nov. 4. (415) 864-6000,www.sfsymphony.org
For more Glass events and classical picks, go to Noise, the Guardian‘s music blog, at www.sfbg.com/blogs/music.
Forget that catchy monster musical Avenue Q anthem "Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist" (isn’t there a dance remix yet?) — here’s something really tickly-tacky. Last month my inverse fabuloid, anti–drag queen amigo Downy (think hairy white Whitney with nylons over her head) threw a huge party in Manhattan called "9/11 in July." Business-suited patrons were doused with baby powder on entry, to the strains of Enrique Iglesias’s "Hero" and the post-tragedy oeuvre of Mr. Bruce Springsteen. Flyer tagline: "Too early?" It was packed.
Here in the Bay, our benchmark of club-style civic self-critique is still the slew of "Fuck Burning Man" parties that spring up right about now. (What, no Muni-meltdown tunnel takeovers? And how ’bout all those unguarded downtown construction-boom sites? IMHO, jes’ sayin’.) Still, autumn is smokin’ for clubbers, with enough sassy subversion and genre-bending events to make nighttime terrors of us all. Fall’s buzz: neon laces, wine cocktails, big scarves, duck rock, blinking LEDs, and cutoffs with fishnets. Party!
Start big — and in the daylight, when both the out-rave-ous San Francisco Love Fest (Sept. 29, www.sflovefest.org) and the fetish-fantastic Folsom Street Fair (Sept. 30, www.folsomstreetfair.com) converge on San Francisco in an — eek! — angel-winged orgy of fun fur and leather. This year the intertwined events have pulled a surprise musical switcheroo. The usually local-oriented and charmingly low-tech Love Fest goes steroidal, with a lineup of international ’90s kinda supastar dance acts: Chemical Brothers, the Crystal Method, Paul van Dyk, and almost a hundred more. Then Folsom — renowned for its circuit techno overkill — injects itself with some indie dance-pop cache, with live performances by Imperial Teen, Cazwell, and the Ladytron DJ Tour. The other giant, hideously glamorous switcheroo of the season, of course, will be the Miss Trannyshack Pageant, where fun fur and leather get drenched in competitive drag queen guts. But you’ll have to watch the Trannyshack Web site (www.trannyshack.com) for the date and location; it’s like a virtual game of hide the salami!
The clubs keep pumpin’ it out too. The promoters of the huge, fabled, much-delayed Temple Nightclub (www.templesf.com), with its three dance floors, six bars, and attached restaurant, assure me it’ll be ready for its Sept. 7 grand opening party — it’s already hosted a Hilary Duff meet and greet! Prepare for an onslaught of ginormous parties to fill the cavernous space. In the meantime, you can check out the club-oriented big time of Mezzanine (www.mezzaninesf.com), with night owls screeching for dyke punk-funk-crunk rappers Yo Majesty (Sept. 12), DJ Jefrodesiac and friends’ Robot Rock party featuring Kentucky’s (only?) house rockers VHS or Beta (Sept. 14), "Do the Bartman" remixer Diplo (Sept. 22), and Christ-obsessed French techers Justice (Oct. 10). And the powerhouse musicologists of Blasthaus (www.blasthaus.com) present, at various locales, the ambient mindfunk of Bonobo (Sept. 9), Argentina–via–Los Angeles global groove heartthrob Federico Aubele (Sept. 21), and post-punk techno god Superpitcher (Oct. 19).
Too big for you? Head down any night this fall to 222 Club (www.222club.net), which just revamped its system to become the hottest little tech-dance venue in the city. Also hottt, but newer: too-fab hotel haunt Bar Drake (www.bardrake.com), awesome Latino-tinged hang Cantina (www.cantinasf.com), and drunken queer craziness at Truck (www.trucksf.com). What to drink at all of these places? Hit up Camper English’s new, comprehensively tipsy Alcademics blog (www.alcademics.com). He says tequila bottle signings are in. That’s important.
Aesop Rock, None Shall Pass (Def Jux) We’ll see if ‘Sop has lost his edge livin’ in ol’ Frisky. Blockhead and Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle take a pass on the nervy rhymes.
Akon, Konvicted (Konvict/Upfront/SRC/Universal Motown) Konvinced? Or just plain a-korny?
Evelyn Champagne King, Open Book (RNB/Jaggo/Fontana) The disco queen who was discovered while cleaning the offices of Philly International brings “Shame” into the 21st century.
Ledisi, Lost and Found (Verve Forecast) The local singer’s debut for the true diva cathedral of all jazz labels has been three years in the making.
Liars, Liars (Mute) Work that skirt.
Noreaga, Noreality (Babygrande) Wake me up when Noreality TV has finished its broadcast day. Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, Jadakiss, Three 6 Mafia, David Banner, and a cast of thousands trade off on enabling duty.
Scorpions, Humanity — Hour 1 (New Door/UME) Oh, the inhumanity; Billy Corgan scorps out new turf.
Yung Joc, Hustlenomics (Block/Bad Boy South) Joc’ed up on java with the first single, “Coffee Shop,” off this Neptunes-, Fixxers-, and Gorilla Zoe–produced disc.
SEPT. 4
Calvin Harris, I Created Disco (Almost Gold) The brazen Scot is irreverent enough to lay claim to inventing the big D, the buzzword of this year and the year before.
SEPT. 11
Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam (Domino) Helmed by frequent Sun City Girls producer Scott Colburn, their eighth album’s nine songs include one dedicated to Al Green.
B5, Don’t Talk, Just Listen (Bad Boy) Diddy’s answer to the Backstreet Boys unknowingly use the favorite phone phrase of the Weepy-Voiced Killer as the title for their album.
Dirty Projectors, Rise Above (Dead Oceans) Another punk machismo-reclamation project? Queerific art rockers team with Grizzly Bear playas to rewrite Black Flag’s Damaged — from memory and with a hearty helping of cracked experifolk whimsy.
50 Cent, Curtis (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope) The artist also known as a form of VitaminWater that tastes like grape Kool-Aid continues his marketing onslaught.
Go! Team, Proof of Youth (Sub Pop) Will their first single, “Grip Like a Vice,” hook till it hurts?
Jenny Hoyston, Isle Of (Southern) The Erase Errata guitarist finds paradise far from the dashboard blight.
Modeselektor, Happy Birthday! (BPitch Control) Genre-hopping Berlin duo go the celebrity cameo route, enlisting the vox of Thom Yorke and others.
Pinback, Autumn of the Seraphs (Touch and Go) Will this top Pinback’s last album, Summer in Abbadon, which sold more than 80,000 copies? Indie music sellers wanna know!
Qui, Love’s Miracle (Ipecac) Jesus Lizard David Yow’s quid pro quo — with covers of Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” and Frank Zappa’s “Willie the Pimp.”
Simian Mobile Disco, Attack Decay Sustain Release (Interscope) I got my pulverizing bass in your acid keyboard scrunchies!
Kanye West, Graduation (Roc-A-Fella) West’s mom has been caught saying that this is his best album ever. Making or breaking the case: West has said that Lil’ Wayne will rap over a song titled “Barry Bonds.”
SEPT. 18
Babyface, Playlist (Mercury) The onetime close, personal friend of Bill just wants do covers, like “Fire and Rain,” “Time in a Bottle,” and — hoo boy — “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”
James Blunt, All the Lost Souls (Custard/Atlantic) U-g-l-y, this ain’t got no alibi.
Chamillionaire, Ultimate Victory (Chamillitary/Universal Motown) The H-town star’s long-delayed sophomore effort has a mammoth supporting cast even by commercial-rap standards; it kicks off with a single featuring Slick Rick.
The Donnas, Bitchin’ (Purple Feather/Redeye) Named after the fluffy puppies overrunning their studio?
Eve, Here I Am (Aftermath/Interscope) Had anyone been looking? Listening in are producers Dr. Dre, Timbaland, Swizz Beatz, and Pharrell Williams.
Rogue Wave, Asleep at Heaven’s Gate (Brushfire/Universal) Just don’t drift off around Marshall Applewhite while wearing black-and-white Nikes. A new bass player — Patrick Abernathy — and a new label for the locals.
Angie Stone, The Art of Love and War (Stax/Concord) The road back from VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club may yet be one to salvation, since it’s passing through the holy land of Stax.
SEPT. 25
Devendra Banhart, Smokey Rolls down Thunder Canyon (XL) Gael García Bernal sings on one track, and Vashti Bunyan sings on two; Noah Georgeson produces a collection that is supposed to flit from Gilberto Gil breezes to Jackson 5–style pop.
The Cave Singers, Invitation Songs (Matador) Pretty Girls Make Graves–Murder City Devils, Hint Hint, and Cobra High grads calcify in intriguing country-folk shapes.
Keyshia Cole, Just like You (A&M/Interscope) Two years on, it’s clear that Oakland girl Cole’s The Way It Is was the best R&B debut since What’s the 411? Through the sheer intense focus of her singing, she rescues overexposed Missy and Lil’ Kim on the first single here.
José González, In Our Nature (Mute) Yes way, José. The long wait for the follow-up to Veneer is over. González recorded this in his hometown over a three-week period after obsessing about today’s religion and (lack of) ethics.
PJ Harvey, White Chalk (Island) Peej draws in longtime collaborator Eric Drew Feldman and Jim White of the Dirty Three.
Iron and Wine, The Shepherd’s Dog (Sub Pop) Here’s hoping three’s the charm for Sam Beam.
Jagged Edge, Baby Makin’ Project (So So Def/Island) Yet another case for population control.
Mick Jagger, The Very Best of Mick Jagger (Rhino UK) It’s semiofficial: the best of Mick Jagger is worse than the worst of the Rolling Stones.
Bettye LaVette, The Scene of the Crime (Anti-) A singer who can bring out the black-and-blue tone of that title, especially because the scene of the crime is Muscle Shoals, Ala., where she returned to record this album. She’s backed by Drive-by Truckers.
Matt Pond PA, Last Light (Altitude) Neko Case and Kelly Hogan hold a candle.
Múm, Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, Let Your Crooked Hands Be Holy (Fat Cat) Mum’s the word?
Meshell Ndegeocello, The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams (Decca) Connecting her MySpace page to the gender-bending edges of her cover of Bill Withers’s “Who Is He (and What Is He to You?),” you might say the man of her dreams is Miles Davis.
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand (Rounder) Why does my mouth fill with sand when I think about this project?
Queen Latifah, Trav’lin’ Light (Verve) Latifah steps to a song that will always be owned by Billie Holiday — and sings some other songs as well — on her debut album for one of Lady Day’s main labels today.
Scott Walker, And Who Shall Go to the Ball? (4AD UK) The enigma returns more quickly than usual, albeit with a four-movement instrumental mini-LP composed for a dance piece.
Will.i.am, Songs about Girls (Interscope) The Black Eyed Pea with the lamest name loves the ladies, egged on by Snoop Dogg.
OCT. 2
Cassidy, B.A.R.S. (Full Surface/J) The Philly battle rapper rebounds from injury and lockup and leans on Bone Thugs, John Legend, and others for faith.
Annie Lennox, Songs of Mass Destruction (Arista) No doubt about it, “Why?” can be very irritating. But this title suggests she’s really amped up the damage inflicted by her tunes.
OCT. 9
Band of Horses, Cease to Begin (Sub Pop) Ben Bridwell expresses his love for YouTube video directors on this Phil Eks–produced second LP.
Dengue Fever, Untitled (M80 Music/NAIL/Allegro) On recordings, they’re sometimes glorious, sometimes not — will the third time be a charm for the group led by Chhom Nimol’s dynamic voice?
The Fiery Furnaces, Widow City (Thrill Jockey) The prolific sibs thrust forth their sixth full-length, emboldened by engineer John McEntire of Tortoise.
The Hives, The Black and White Album (Interscope) The ebullient Swedes will be donning black after a dozen or so shows opening for Maroon 5.
Jennifer Lopez, Brave (Epic) Are listeners courageous or is she?
Robert Pollard, Coast to Coast Carpet of Love and Standard Gargoyle Decisions (Merge) Two releases in one day — guided by bipolar voices?
She Wants Revenge, This Is Forever (Geffen) Let’s hope not.
Amy Winehouse, Frank (Island) Pre–US juggernaut album by the singer in rehab, for anyone who doesn’t think she’s overexposed or wouldn’t rather look at Ronnie Spector and listen to Ruth Brown.
OCT. 16
Nicole Scherzinger, Her Name Is Nicole …(Interscope) …and she’s the Pussycat Doll whom you can tell apart from the other Pussycat Dolls — I think. She falls in seconds-long love at first sight with prospective members of her group during auditions, if the trashiest TV show in recent memory is to be believed.
OCT. 23
Ashanti, The Declaration (The Inc.) I’ll flabbergast many by saying that Ashanti has served up more quality hit singles than the other R&B diva releasing an album this week.
Alicia Keys, As I Am (J) She can sing, she can play, she can sell Proactiv Solution like few others. But will she ever truly let that voice loose?
OCT. 30
Backstreet Boys, Unbreakable (Jive) Do we really want it that way again? Can they give it to us that way? One thing’s for sure — this should give Chelsea Handler months of comedy material.
Chris Brown, Exclusive (Jive) Yeah, he’s cuter than kitten posters. But his appearance in a tribute to the Godfather of Soul at last year’s Grammy Awards verged on sacrilege.
NOV. 13
Wu-Tang Clan, The 8 Diagrams (Street Recordings) Their first album in six years — thus their first post-ODB recording — takes its title from the Shaw brothers’ film Eight Diagram Pole Fighter; in tune with the George Harrison revival, it includes a cover of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
NOV. 20
Six Organs of Admittance, Shelter from the Ash (Drag City) The Redwood Curtain’s guitar-wielding heir to John Fahey breaks out a new LP, said to be smokin’.<\!s>*
Summer may technically be on the outs, but don’t put away your baggies, huarache sandals, and that bushy, bushy blond hairdo just yet, all you Gidgets and Big Kahunas out there: it’s still Surfin’ USA in the Bay. Hell, summer doesn’t even start in San Francisco until September at the earliest. You can wax up the board and get busy, stuff the kidlets into the Woody, and hit one of the bevy of cool fiestas listed below, or maybe just lay out on a towel in Dolores Park, waiting for a wayward Lothario or Lothariette to rub cocoa butter on your fleshy hind regions. Ah, how good do we have it in the Sucka Free City?
AUG. 25
Jazzy Tomatoes Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center at MLK Jr. Way, Berkeley; (510) 548-3333, www.ecologycenter.org. 10:30am-3pm. Free. This collaboration between the Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival series and the Berkeley Farmers’ Market features the sounds of local mandolinist Mike Marshall and Brazilian pianist Jovino Santos Neto, plus the flavors of Venus Restaurant’s Ann Murray.
AUG. 25-26
Bodega Seafood Art and Wine Festival Watts Ranch, 16855 Bodega Ave, Bodega; (707) 824-8717, www.winecountryfestivals.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm. $8-12. The sleepy village where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds hosts this celebration of the best beer, wine, and seafood California has to offer. Sip on a Cline Cellars pinot noir and enjoy albacore wrapped in bacon while taking in the sounds of Marcia Ball’s Texas-style roadhouse blues.
Golden Gate Renaissance Festival Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; (415) 354-1773, www.sffaire.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm. $5-15. Stilt walkers, fire-eaters, jesters, jousters, knights, peasant wenches, and Shakespeare fetishists abound in the fourth installment of this medieval fair. Amid the feasting and storytelling, you’ll get a chance to practice your chivalry and maybe ride a horse.
AUG. 26
Arab Cultural Festival County Fair Building, Ninth Ave and Lincoln, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.arabculturalcenter.org. 10am-7pm. $2-5. Hikayatna (Our stories) is the theme for this year’s Arab Cultural Festival, featuring a bazaar with jewelry, henna, and Arab cuisine, as well as assorted folk and contemporary musical performances.
Taste of Marin St. Vincent’s School for Boys, 1 St. Vincent Dr., San Rafael; (415) 663-9667, www.marinorganic.org. 4-10pm. $150. Dedicated to supporting and promoting the exquisite food that is grown and produced in Marin, this event features a silent auction, chances to meet the farmers and chefs, and an elaborate sit-down dinner. Soulstress Maria Muldaur provides the musical entertainment.
AUG. 31-SEPT. 2
Monterey Bay Reggae Fest Monterey County Fairgrounds, 2004 Fairground Road, Monterey; (831) 394-6534, www.mbayreggaefest.net. The sprawling Monterey County Fairgrounds plays host to this annual festival featuring the liveliest of modern reggae acts. Eek-a-Mouse, Mighty Diamonds, and you-know-who’s brother, Richard Marley Booker, are just a sample of this year’s lineup.
SEPT. 1-3
Art and Soul Oakland Frank Ogawa Plaza and City Center, 14th St. and Clay, Oakl; (510) 444-CITY, www.artandsouloakland.com. 11am-6pm. $5. The seventh incarnation of this annual downtown Oakland festival includes dance performances, lots of art to view and purchase, an expanded Family Fun Zone, and a notably eclectic musical lineup: big-name performers include Lucinda Williams, Against Me!, the Legendary Fillmore Slim, Johnny Rawls, and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.
Sausalito Art Festival Army Corps of Engineers-Bay Model Visitor Center and Marinship Park, Sausalito; (415) 331-3757, www.sausalitoartfestival.org. Check Web site for times. $5-20. The Sausalito waterfront will play host to hundreds of artists’ exhibits as well as family entertainment and top-notch live music from the likes of Jefferson Starship and the Marshall Tucker Band.
SEPT. 1-23
Free Shakespeare in the Park Presidio parade ground, SF; (415) 558-0888, www.sfshakes.org. Sat, 7:30pm; Sun and Labor Day, 2:30pm. Free. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream gets a brilliant rendition under the direction of Kenneth Kelleher on the outdoor stage. Families fostering budding lit and theater geeks should take note.
SEPT. 3
Cowgirlpalooza El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com. 3-9pm. $10. This sure-to-be-twangy evening on El Rio’s patio features music by the most compellingly country-fried female musicians around, including Kitty Rose, Starlene, Axton Kincaid, Burning Embers, 77 El Deora, and Four Year Bender.
SEPT. 5-9
San Francisco Electronic Music Festival Project Artaud Theater, 450 Florida, SF; www.sfemf.org. 8:30pm. $12-16. The seventh in an annual series of weeklong electronica parties. Fred Frith, Annea Lockwood, Univac, and David Behrman round out this year’s lineup.
SEPT. 8
911 Power to the Peaceful Festival Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park, SF; (415) 865-2170, www.powertothepeaceful.org. 11am-5pm. Free. This event calling for international human rights and an end to bombing features art and cultural exhibits and a talk with Amy Goodman, as well as performances by Michael Franti, the Indigo Girls, and DJ Spooky.
SEPT. 8-9
Bay Area Pet Fair Marin Center, 10 Ave of the Flags, San Rafael; (415) 229-3174, www.bayareapetfair.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm. $5-7. This event does double duty as a celebration of companion animals and a venue for a massive pet adopt-athon, so bring the kids and the dog.
Brews on the Bay Jeremiah O’Brien, Pier 45, SF; www.sanfranciscobrewersguild.org. 12-4:30pm. $8-40. Beer tasting, live music, and food abound at the San Francisco Brewers Guild’s annual on-deck showcase.
Chocolate Festival Ghirardelli Square, 900 N Point, SF; www.ghirardellisq.com. 12-5pm. Free. An indisputably fun weekend at the square includes chocolate goodness from more than 30 restaurant and bakery booths, various activities for kids and families, and a hands-free Earthquake Sundae Eating Contest.
SEPT. 9
Solano Avenue Stroll Solano between San Pablo and the Alameda in Berkeley and Albany; (510) 527-5358, www.solanoavenueassn.org. 10am-6pm. Free. The long-running East Bay block party features a clown-themed parade, art cars, dunk tanks, and assorted artsy offerings of family fun, along with the requisite delicious food and musical entertainment.
SEPT. 15-16
Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival Old Mill Park, Mill Valley; (415) 381-8090, www.mvfaf.org. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm. $7. Dig this juried show featuring original fine art, including jewelry, woodwork, painting, ceramics, and clothing.
Wisdom Festival Fort Mason Center, SF. (415) 452-0369, www.wisdomfestival.com. Sat, 10am-8pm; Sun, 10am-7pm. $8-$55. This fest features interactive panels, workshops, symposiums, and lectures, all geared toward your inner Shirley MacLaine.
SEPT. 22-23
Autumn Moon Festival Grant between California and Broadway and Pacific between Stockton and Kearney, SF; (415) 982-6306, www.moonfestival.org. 11am-6pm. Free. At one of Chinatown’s biggest annual gatherings you can see an acrobatic troupe, martial artists, street vendors, and, of course, lots of moon cakes. I like the pineapple the best.
SEPT. 28-30
A Taste of Greece Annunciation Cathedral, 245 Valencia, SF; (415) 864-8000, www.sfgreekfoodfestival.org. Call or check Web site for time. $5. Annunciation Cathedral’s annual fundraising event is an all-out food festival where you can steep yourself in Greek dishes, wine tasting, and the sounds of Greek Compania.
SEPT. 29-30
World Veg Festival San Francisco County Fair Building, Ninth Avenue and Lincoln, Golden Gate Park, SF; (415) 273-5481. www.sfvs.org. 10am-6pm. $5. For those afraid of hamburgers, this event features speakers, live entertainment, and local cuisine of the meatless variety.
SEPT. 30
Folsom Street Fair Folsom between Seventh and 12th streets, SF; www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm. Free. The world’s largest leather gathering, coinciding with Leather Pride Week, features a new Leather Women’s Area along with myriad fetish and rubber booths. Musical performers include Ladytron and Imperial Teen, and comedian Julie Brown also will appear.
OCT. 3
Shuck and Swallow Oyster Challenge Ghirardelli Square, West Plaza, 900 North Point, SF; (415) 929-1730. 5pm. Free to watch, $25 per duo to enter. How many oysters can two people scarf down in 10 minutes? Find out as pairs compete at this most joyous of spectacles, then head to the oyster and wine pairing afterward at McCormick and Kuleto’s Seafood Restaurant, also in Ghirardelli Square.
OCT. 4-9
Fleet Week Various locations, SF; (650) 599-5057, www.fleetweek.us. Cries of “It’s a plane!” and “Now there’s a boat!” shall abound at San Francisco’s impressive annual gathering. Along with ship visits, there’ll be a big air show by the Blue Angels and the Viper West Coast Demonstration Team. And for the lonely among us, North Beach will be assholes and elbows with horny sailors and jarheads.
OCT. 4-14
Mill Valley Film Festival CinéArts at Sequoia, 25 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; 142 Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley; Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (925) 866-9559, www.mvff.com. Check Web site for times and prices. Documentaries and features of both the independent and international persuasion get screen time at this festival, the goal of which is insight into the various cultures of filmmaking.
OCT. 5-6
San Francisco Zinefest CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; (415) 750-0991, www.sfzinefest.com. Fri, 2-8pm; Sat, 11am-7pm. Free. Appreciate the continuing vitality of the DIY approach at this two-day event featuring workshops and more than 40 exhibitors.
OCT. 5-7
Berkeley Juggling and Unicycling Festival King Middle School, 1781 Rose, Berkeley; www.berkeleyjuggling.org. Fri, 5-10pm; Sat, 9am-10pm; Sun, 9am-5pm. Check Web site for prices. More balls than hands. More feet than wheels.
Pacific Pinball Exposition Marin County Civic Center Exhibition Hall, San Rafael; www.nbam.org/ppexpo. Fri 2-10pm; Sat-Sun, 10am-12am. $20-35. Focusing on vintage machines, this inaugural festival promises to extol all things pinball. I think you get in free if you’re a deaf, dumb, and blind kid who can play a mean pinball.
OCT. 6-13
Litquake Various locations, SF; www.litquake.org. San Francisco’s annual literary maelstrom naturally features Q&As and readings by a gazillion local authors, including Daniel Handler, Jane Smiley, Dave Eggers, and Ann Patchett. The gang is honoring local writer Armistead Maupin with a lifetime achievement award.
OCT. 11-14
Oktoberfest by the Bay Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.oktoberfestbythebay.com. Check Web site for times. $25. One of the few places your lederhosen won’t look silly is the biggest Oktoberfest left of Berlin, where the Chico Bavarian Band will accompany German food and a whole lotta beer.<\!s>*
George “Naked Yoga Guy” Davis started to take off his clothes the minute he filed for the Mayor’s Race, but last night he gave us the full scoop, beginning with the apron he wore during the mayoral debate that featured a full frontal shot of Michelangelo’s David, then getting down to his birthday suit inside City Hall around 7 PM, outside R. 200, which is the Mayor’s Office. Only this time, he struck a pose in the style of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.
Mayor Gavin Newsom, of course, was nowhere to be seen, having been whisked off hours earlier, presumably through a side door, since no one saw him leave the building. It was, for sure, a handy escape, since that way Newsom didn’t have to face Davis’ body, or other naked truths like the unflattering realities about Gavin’s San Francisco that emerged from the statements made by the eleven mayoral candidates who did show up outside City Hall. Lke the inimitable h.brown.
Blogger H. Brown: “The city is being run as a developmental jewel for rich people.”
Or the words of former D7 supervisor Tony Hall.
“The Mayor is not representing people but special interests, his high dollar donors. The City is being sold to highest donors piece by piece, whether its Hunters Point Shipyard, Candlestick Point, Laguna or Harding Park.”
Then there was Juvenile Probation program manager Lonnie Holmes:
“I’m a working class person looking for working class solutions. You will get more demonstration and less conversation out of a Holmes administration.”
GREEN CITY For sisters Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners, the last possible moment to lessen humanity’s impact on the environment — the 11th hour, from which the new documentary they cowrote and codirected aptly takes its name — has come upon us. But unlike other doom-and-gloom envirodocs that engulf viewers with guilt about how we are tearing apart our only planet, this movie is supposed to demonstrate that it’s not too late to shift old habits.
The 11th Hour "really helps you understand what’s happening," Conners Petersen told the Guardian about the Warner Brothers Independent release, which opens in theaters Aug. 17. The movie places the often oxymoronic combination of pragmatism and idealism hand in hand: "You feel a better sense of control in that way," she says.
Conners Petersen and Conners spent three years conducting lengthy interviews with 71 top thinkers and activists, ranging from physicist Stephen Hawking to Paul Hawken, the Marin author of TheEcology of Commerce (Collins, 1994). In their film, they juxtapose 91 minutes of the ecoexperts’ wisest words with quick-paced, music video–<\d>style montages of both environmental destruction and at least partially counteracting ideas and innovations like biomimicry.
And unlike 2006’s An Inconvenient Truth, this film — narrated and produced by seasoned ecoactivist Leonardo DiCaprio — spends only about seven minutes covering global warming. "Our film contextualizes global warming as being part of a larger problem," Conners says.
The codirectors emphasize this holistic, all-part-of-a-larger-puzzle approach, which they say the mass media seldom takes when examining any environmental problem.
The environment "isn’t a single-article issue," Conners says. "When Leo’s on camera, he says it’s a convergence of crises. It’s all of it together that’s making it a tipping point. And all of it includes our behavior."
It’s our habits of "disconnect, denial, and laziness," she adds, that keep people from bothering to examine — or change — their impact on the Earth. "It’s like you’re sick with a disease with a known cure, and the medicine’s right there, and you look at it and say, ‘I’m not taking that.’<\!s>"
Environmental action, they say, does not necessarily have to extend to planting trees in Kenya, as Nobel Peace Prize winner and 11th Hour interview subject Wangari Maathai did through the Green Belt movement, or running a scientific radio series, as did interviewee David Suzuki. It’s about being aware of organic peaches that are shipped to the supermarket from Chile and drinking water that may not be from the finest geyser.
"Once you start connecting the detergent under your sink to a dead zone, you start seeing the world as a whole, and your relationship with this planet and life on it will deepen," Conners Petersen says.
The sisters created the Web site 11thhouraction.com to allow individuals and communities to discuss ways to bring the film’s broad-scale ideas and innovations to the local level, whether those efforts involve sharing the most energy-efficient household appliances (compact fluorescent light bulbs, anyone?) or putting solar panels on a high school.
Conners Petersen stresses her "Why wait for the federal government to take action?" mentality by pointing out that nearly 600 mayors in the United States have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol without permission from President George W. Bush.
"If you fight against these things that are so big and immovable, you’ll give up," Conners says. "So if you start locally, [ask] what’s the position of your city council person and the mayor?"
The sisters are no amateurs on the environmental-media scene. Conners Petersen is the founder and codirector of the Tree Media Group and executive editor of Global Viewpoint. They’ve produced two documentaries — Global Warming (2001) and Water Planet (2004) — for DiCaprio’s Web site, and Conners will soon be directing her first narrative feature, Earthquake Weather.
The 11th Hour used 150 hours of stock footage, more than any other documentary in history. The lofty quotes that didn’t make it into the film have found a home on YouTube and the movie’s official Web site, wip.warnerbros.com/11thhour.
"Even though there’s a lot of information, it’s an emotional film," Conners says. "Rather than just telling you information that you intellectually take into the world, I feel like the film is done in such a way that you feel the world in a different way."<\!s>*
Comments, ideas, and submissions for Green City, the Guardian‘s weekly environmental column, can be sent to news@sfbg.com.
You won’t find kimchee mousse on the menu at Jang Soo BBQ, but that’s not a criticism, since you probably won’t find it on any menu in town. Korean cooking, despite its many charms — could it be the most winning of the spicy cuisines? — has so far resisted the dressing-up that has given a Cali-French gloss to food traditions from around the globe. If you’re eating Korean food here, you’re almost certainly in a traditional Korean barbecue joint, with a grill (charcoal or gas, lighted or not) in the middle of your table. And if you’re lucky, you’re at Jang Soo, which is one of the most attractive such places, if not the most attractive, in the city.
Let’s start with the simple matter of aesthetics. At more than a few Korean spots, even some of the best-known ones along Geary in the inner Richmond, the décor situation can range from the indifferent downward to the downright harsh, with overhead fluorescent lighting worthy of a black-site interrogation room being a particularly noisome likelihood. Jang Soo, by contrast, gleams gracefully with spot and sconce lighting. And I like the panel of checkerboard-style tiles along the wall at each table; the black and white ceramic squares serve as a kind of backsplash in case your adventures in grilling start to get out of hand. (Since the grills are gas fired and heat up very quickly, this is not a far-fetched scenario.) Most and best of all, the place seems clean. If you could know only one fact about a restaurant’s physical plant, this is the fact you would value the most.
The food suggests that the kitchen, while invisible to the clientele, is in equally good order. There are no big surprises on the menu — except, perhaps, for a greater number of seafood dishes than experience has conditioned one to expect in Korean restaurants — and plenty of familiar faces, among them bul go gi (slices of broiled beef) and bibimbab (beef salad). But the freshness of the ingredients and the care with which they’ve been handled is palpable. A small dish of pickled cucumber coins, for example, had the satisfying crunch of the homemade kind and would have been good even without the accompanying red chili-garlic paste.
The cucumbers, of course, were presented as part of that cavalcade of small dishes (banchan is the Korean word) that give the flavor of a banquet to meals in Korean barbecue restaurants, even at lunchtime. Jang Soo’s portfolio of treats includes (in addition to the cukes) bean sprouts, marinated tofu strips, seaweed dressed with spicy sauce, pickled threads of carrot and daikon radish, geutf8ous bricks of rice paste, hot scallion fritters, and of course kimchee — excellent, with nonsoggy cabbage and plenty of garlic and chiles in harmony. Dinnertime adds a fix of dried sardines in spicy sauce, and of course, noon or night, there is soup, perhaps seaweed or tofu.
These preliminary spreads can have much the same effect in Korean restaurants that plates of chips and salsa do in Mexican restaurants: be so addictively tasty and so filling that the main courses, when they finally arrive, can seem anticlimactic or superfluous — unless you are starving, and we were. Over the noon hour, the tabletop grills seemed to be in hibernation, and plates of food emerged fully cooked from the kitchen: pork bul go gi ($9.95), a pile of marinated, broiled meat shaved into strangely shaped ribbons, like scorched rubble from a house fire, and o jing au bokum ($8.95), chunks of sautéed calamari in spicy sauce. I found the calamari’s "spicy" sauce to have a notable, not quite ideal sweetness, while the seafood itself was a little tough — always a risk with calamari, which overcooks quickly and unforgivingly. The pork, on the other hand, was exemplary.
At dinner, our server lighted the grill with her little sparking wand, switched on the vent hood, and a few minutes later appeared with a platter of uncooked flesh: dak gui ($18.95), or marinated boneless chicken thigh meat, on one side, and hae san mul gui ($20.95) — squid, octopus, shrimp, and clams — on the other. She spooned half the seafood onto a sheet of aluminum laid atop the grate, while half the chicken went straight onto the grate. And now a word to the wise: you have to turn stuff yourself, when you think it’s cooked long enough on one side or your seafood medley needs tossing. That’s why you’re given a set of tongs. We waited rather innocently for our server to come flip the chicken flaps for us, even as they began to smoke ominously, and we ended up with some fragrant cinders. Luckily the larger pieces of meat resisted scorching, and we cooked the remainder of both chicken and seafood ourselves, turning often.
The restaurant’s clientele appears to be heavily Korean or at least Asian, certainly not Anglo. If they or you are lucky, walking to the restaurant, or maybe taking one of the innumerable Geary buses, is feasible. Certainly it is preferable, since parking in the neighborhood is hellishly difficult. The exceptions to this hard rule are work-week middays, when the streets are empty and all you have to do is feed the increasingly voracious parking meters. Does everyone who lives on the West Side drive downtown to work? Dang.<\!s>*
Joel Kotkin, the widely known urban writer and thinker, has a fascinating piece in the Sunday L.A. Times called “Why the Rush to Manhattanize L.A.?” I don’t entirely agree with his argument for L.A.; he writes about New York-style density and says:
It’s not so clear, however, that L.A., which has been expanding outward for more than 100 years and is famously sun drenched, car crazy, blessed with natural beauty and earthquake prone, should follow a similar course.
I think it’s clear that L.A. can’t continue to expand outward, and that it’s far too car crazy, and that future growth should be driven by transit, not freeways.
But his larger point is that we are so enamored these days of “new urbanism” and a rush to build tall buildings that we aren’t thinking about the long-term impacts:
Ultimately, it comes down to whether Los Angeles will have a serious debate about where it is headed. Jumping blindly on the Manhattan express, without considering the implications for the city and its many great neighborhoods, is not a promising first step.
Ah, the end of summer. A time to wake back up to reality – be it the impending school semester, a new work opportunity, or simply the realization that you’ve been lying face down in a pile of your own dirty laundry for the past few months. It’s the year’s second wind, a time for renewal and our last chance to come out on top.
It’s also, as you may have noticed, as great time for stuff in general. From movies trying to land their way onto Roger Ebert’s goo-rag to a flurry of albums being unleashed on an unsuspecting public, our wallets never seem too deep. Here’s just a few things to salivate over in the coming weeks.
Liars, Liars (Aug. 28): Every guy I know loves the Liars, and each guy’s respective girlfriend seems to hate them. What’s the deal with that? These guys are heavy, though, and this new one proves that Drum’s Not Dead was no fluke. In addition to the face-melting stuff, you get a couple of nice melodic tracks, including the bouncy “Houseclouds,” which is everything Beck wishes The Information was.
Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam (TBA): This band came back on my radar in a big way earlier this year with Panda Bear’s terrific Person Pitch, so there’s plenty of expectation surrounding this release. While not quite as joyously blissful as that album (or even Feels), Strawberry Jam is an adventurous album that further expands Animal Collective’s range (wait til you hear “Unsolved Mysteries,” which sounds like it was pulled straight of Super Mario Sunshine).
Thurston Moore, Trees Outside the Academy (Sept. 18) Good old Thurston Moore is going unplugged on this one. Gasp! Does that mean he’s winding down, getting ready for his golden years John Denver style? No, it pretty much sounds like Sonic Youth, with some nice folkly flourishes. And a gem of a recording of Thurston at age 13, experimenting with a tape recorder, hitting random objects, and narrating for your listening pleasure.
Throughout its history, the Soviet Union felt like the final frontier to many Americans. What was happening on the other side of that iron curtain? The Russians wondered too. Since travel between the countries was so limited, their inhabitants often had to turn for information to the cultural products that made it — both ways — past Russia’s gatekeepers. How better to hide meaning than in fairy tales and outer space? The Pacific Film Archive celebrates an age of anxiety and this age of information with its marvelous series "From the Stars to the Tsars: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema."
The films of "From the Stars to the Tsars" span the period from the 1912 short The Cameraman’s Revenge and Aelita, Queen of Mars — the 1924 silent classic that inspired Guy Maddin’s The Heart of the World — to 2005’s First on the Moon. The series’s other notable traversal is between high and low culture. Some entries were partly seen at drive-ins in the 1960s thanks to Roger Corman, who bought the rights to The Heavens Call (1959) and Planet of Storms (1961) and scavenged their footage; To the Stars by Hard Ways (1982; reedited 2001) made an appearance as Humanoid Woman on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Then there are the films more familiar to art house patrons; the two by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972’s Solaris and 1979’s Stalker, cemented his reputation, and the former was hailed as the Soviet response to 2001: A Space Odyssey. The rest of the series falls between these poles. Although their politics and plots vary, all the films share a joy in the medium’s magic and an affinity for dazzling and provocative visual effects, whether they be ridiculous, sublime (the signal that Stalker‘s mysterious Zone is ready for its visitors is a marvel of quiet beauty), or both.
Another obvious draw is these films’ Russian-ness. Ruslan and Ludmila (1972) is based on an Aleksandr Pushkin epic, and Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (1961) is an adaptation of a story by Nikolay Gogol. There is no Soviet Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but some movies manage to work in anti-Western views. The Amphibian Man, shot in Cuba in 1962, offers a damning critique of capitalism in the person of its villain (Mikhail Kozakov), a dishonest, slave-driving, anything-for-a-pearl bastard who wants to marry the girl our hero loves — against her will, of course. Zero City, filmed at the height of perestroika, includes a speech by the town prosecutor (Vladimir Menshov) against European ideas, which he says are all the more fatal for their rationality and practicality.
This is not to say that the Soviet Union escapes its directors’ indignation. The clearest examples come at its end points, the start and finish of the great people’s experiment. Aelita shows class conflict and housing shortages; made more than 60 years later, 1988’s Zero City depicts the denunciation and rehabilitation of rock ‘n’ roll and its partisans as caprices all the worse for their life-destroying results. But the most transparent criticism comes in 2005’s First on the Moon. Made well past the fall of the USSR, the film is a look back, documentary style, at its country’s space program, which in this version beat the Americans’ to the earth’s natural satellite. There are winks to the fictionality of this exercise via sometimes too-cinematic shots, but the most obvious touches are images such as that of a group of children saluting with straight faces "the cause of Stalin and Lenin," then breaking into laughter. The government appears at its worst when it covers up the successful trip and spends years trying to contain the cosmonaut who made it, but the fact that the Soviets never did get to the moon — let alone first — is the movie’s strongest critique.<\!s>*
SONIC REDUCER Drifting into a coma at last week’s lethargic Oakland A’s–<\d>Los Angeles Angels game, I suddenly woke with a snort, dropped my bag of peanuts, and realized what was missing. No, not some bargain-price rookie flamethrower, though that wouldn’t hurt. It was too quiet. I needed some screeching Queen songs to drown out the deranged A’s fans screaming behind me.
But it wasn’t just me — the A’s and their fans were suffering from a dearth of head-bobbing, fist-punching at-bat music, in addition to a real game. One lousy Nirvana snippet does not inspire high confidence or achievement, making it hard for the team to compete with the sleek multimedia machine of, say, the Giants, the Seattle Mariners, or heck, any other ball team out there blasting tunes at top volume to work up the crowd into a bubbling froth whenever a hometown hitter saunters to the plate or whenever the action lags. Of course, the selections have fallen into predictable patterns: Barry Bonds has tended to favor Dr. Dre minimalist power hooks to usher in his home-run hits. There are the inevitable Linkin Park, Metallica, and T.I. tunes as well as "Crazy Train," "Yeah!" and, naturally, DJ Unk’s "Walk It Out," beloved of so many athletes and audio staffers — although sometimes musicians have their say, as when Twisted Sister asked John Rocker and the Atlanta Braves to stop playing "I Wanna Rock" after the player’s racist, homophobic, and sexist mouth-offs back in 2000.
Maybe we’re just damaged, in need of a perpetual soundtrack to go with our every activity and our shrinking attention spans — though some might argue that baseball, like so many sports, needs an infusion of new but not necessarily performance-enhanced energy. We can all use some style to go with our substance, which might explain why presidential candidate John Edwards was said to be pressing flesh at the still-unfolding, long-awaited Temple Nightclub in SoMa last week. And why it wasn’t too surprising to get an invite on a bisected bowling pin to Strike Cupertino, a new bowling alley–<\d>cum–<\d>nightclub down south in Cupertino Square, a withering mall off 280 where the venue has planted itself on the basement level. Its neighbors: a JC Penney, a Macy’s, a Frederick’s of Hollywood, an ice-skating rink, an AMC 16-plex, and lots of darkened store spaces. I stopped to admire the wizard-embellished pewter goblets and marked-down Kill Bill Elle Driver action figures at the sword-, knife-, and gun-filled Armour Geddon — still open for all your raging goth armament needs.
Strike, however, was raging all on its own, without the skull-handled dagger it never knew it needed. In a wink toward the Silicon Valley work-hard-play-hard crowd Strike’s owners hope to attract, Angela Kinsey from The Office threw out the first ball in the black-lit, modish alley. A luxe bar dreamed up by Chris Smith, one of the team that designed Nobu, was swarming with guests clamoring for free Striketinis.
Apparently Strike Cupertino isn’t original: the first one sprung, after a full makeover, from Bowlmor Lanes in Greenwich Village, New York City, in 1997, and went on, according to the press literature, to become the highest-grossing bowling alley in the world. Others are located in Bethesda, Md., Long Island, and Miami. But what, no Vegas? Strike seems perfectly suited for Sin City, with its bright, flash, well-upholstered decor — equal parts retro ’50s and ’60s, both American Graffiti and Goldfinger — and multiple massive plasma screens distractingly flickering the Giants game, ESPN, any game, above the lanes, the lounge, and every surface. Peppy, poppy ’80s rock and R&B — "Hey Mickey" and "Little Red Corvette" — coursed from the DJ booth next to the raft of pool and air hockey tables and the game arcade as upscale clubbish figurines, blue-collar bowling diehards, and Asian and Latino kids tried out the lanes and tables and some fair American and Asian finger food.
I stuck a kiwi into a chocolate fountain and spurted sticky brown stuff all over my white shoes and shirt and wondered, could this be the future of clubbing — or sports? Amusement parks for adults, lubricated with fruity but muscley cocktails? Or maybe this is as hellacious as it gets in drowsy Cupertino.
Still, I thought Strike was worth swinging by, if only to play on a sparkling, well-waxed, seemingly nick-free lane for the first time, in fresh, BO-free shoes, with immaculate, grimeless balls. Also, knowing how many miles per hour your ball is traveling is a trip, if somewhat discouraging for featherweights like yours truly. Yes, I know the $5 cover after 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays seems excessive for, well, a bowling alley, but Monday evening seems a deal with all-night unlimited play for a flat $14. Word has it that the nightspot also enforces a dress code — and that even Bonds would have to leave his cap at home — but I say perhaps just cut back on the supershort bowling-shirt dresses and fishnet stockings on the teenagey waitresses. We’re not in Vegas yet, Toto.
The Los Angeles buzz band generates scratchy, acidic melodic rock with plenty of post-punk seasoning. With Boy in the Bubble and 8 Bit Idiot. Wed/8, 9 p.m., $7. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com
ROBBERS ON HIGH STREET
Veering from tree cities to familial familiars, the NYC combo come with Grand Animals (New Line). With the Wildbirds and the Old-Fashioned Way. Thurs/9, 9:30 p.m., $8. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com
GREAT NORTHERN
Melodic pop for modern-rock romantics. With Comas and Twilight Sleep. Sat/11, 9 p.m., $13–<\d>$15. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com
MIKAELA’S FIEND AND SEXY PRISON
Driving punk tumult meets salacious death disco. With Mika Miko and Twin. Sun/12, 8:30 p.m., call for price. 21 Grand, 416 25th St., Oakl. www.21grand.org
PELICAN
The Windy City instrumentalists skew shorter — seven minutes at most — and focus on songs on their new City of Echoes (Hydra Head). With Clouds and Garagantula. Sun/12, 8:30 p.m., $13–<\d>$15. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.musichallsf.com
Oaxaca, Mexico — Those of us who report from the front lines of the social-justice movement in Latin America share an understanding that there’s always a bullet out there with our name on it. Brad Will traveled 2,500 miles, from New York to this violence-torn Mexican town, to find his.
Throughout the summer and fall of 2006, the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca was on fire. Death squads, the pistoleros of a despised governor, rolled through the cobblestoned streets of this colonial capital, peppering with automatic weapon fire the flimsy barricades erected by masked rebels. Hundreds were killed, wounded, or imprisoned.
Will, a New York Indymedia videojournalist, felt he had to be there. Xenophobia was palpable on the ground when Will touched down. Foreign journalists were attacked as terrorists by the governor’s sycophants in the media: "Si ves un gringo con cámara, matanlo!" the radio chattered — if you see a gringo with a camera, kill him!
For much of the afternoon of Oct. 27, Will had been filming armed confrontations on the barricades just outside the city. He was trapped in the middle of a narrow street while gunshots boomed all around him, but he kept filming, looking for the money shot.
And he found it: on his final bits of tape, two clearly identifiable killers are perfectly framed, their guns firing. You hear the fatal shot and experience Brad’s shudder of dismay as the camera finally tumbles from his hands and bounces along the sidewalk.
By all visible evidence, Brad Will filmed his own murder. But this is Mexico, where justice is spelled impunity — and Will’s apparent killers continue to ride the streets of Oaxaca, free and, it seems, untouchable.
Curiously, this egregious murder of a US reporter in Mexico has drawn minimal response from US Ambassador Tony Garza, an old crony of President George W. Bush. Why this lack of interest? Can it be that Washington has another agenda that conflicts with justice for Will — the impending privatization of Mexican oil?
HEADING SOUTH
Will was once a fire-breathing urban legend on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Whether perched atop the Fifth Street squat where he had lived for years and waving his long arms like Big Bird as the wrecking ball swung in, or being dragged out of City Hall dressed as a sunflower while trying to rescue the neighborhood’s community gardens, this child of privilege from Chicago’s wealthy North Shore was a legitimate street hero in the years before the World Trade Center towers collapsed and the social-change movement in New York City went into deep freeze.
Will hosted an incendiary weekly show on the New York pirate station Steal This Radio and was an early part of Indymedia, the Web publishing experiment born during the "Battle of Seattle," the World Trade Organization protests that rocked that city in 1999.
With his long hair neatly tied back and parted down the middle, with his granny glasses and fringe beard, and with his fierce commitment to building community, Will seemed to have emerged whole from a more utopian time in America.
He was an independent journalist, one of the growing number of people, such as Josh Wolf in San Francisco, who use the Internet and their video cameras to track and report on social moments and injustice. He wore no credential from any major news organization. But using outlets like Indymedia, he — like Wolf, who spent seven months in prison to avoid giving the police a copy of his video outtakes — represented part of the future of journalism.
Will’s journey to the land where he would die began right after Sept. 11, 2001. Dyan Neary, then a neophyte journalist, met Will in a South Street skyscraper elevator coming down from the WBAI studios from which Amy Goodman broadcast soon after the terrorist attacks.
"We walked down the piles. They were still smoking," Neary remembered in a phone call from Humboldt County. "We were both really scared. We thought this was not going to be resolved soon. Maybe never. So we thought we should go to Latin America, where people were still fighting."
Will and Neary spent most of 2002 and 2003 roaming the bubbling social landscape of Latin America. In Fortaleza, Brazil, they confronted the director of the Inter-American Development Bank during riotous street protests. They journeyed to Bolivia too and interviewed Evo Morales, not yet the president. They traveled in the Chapare rainforest province with members of the coca growers’ federation. They hung out in Cochabamba with Oscar Olivera, the hero of the battle to keep Bechtel Corp. from taking over that city’s water system. Everywhere they went, they sought out pirate radio projects and offered their support.
In February 2005, Will was in Brazil, in the thick of social upheaval, filming the resistance of 12,000 squatters at a camp near the city of Goiânia in Pernambuco state, when the military police swept in, killing two and jailing hundreds. On his videos, you can hear the shots zinging all around him as he captured the carnage. Will was savagely beaten and held by the police. Only his US passport saved him.
Undaunted by his close call, Will picked up his camera and soldiered back through Peru and Bolivia, and when the money ran out, he flew back to New York to figure out how to raise enough for the next trip south. He was hooked. In early 2006, drawn like a moth to flame, he was back, tracking Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatistas’ Other Campaign through the Mayan villages on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
In the spring of 2006, Will was back in New York as he tracked the Other Campaign and the incipient rebellion in Oaxaca on the Internet from his room in Williamsburg. (The rent gougers had forced him out of the Lower East Side.) He was poised to jump south again, friends say, but was worried that he would just be one more white guy getting in the way.
In the end, the lure of the action in Oaxaca pulled him in. He bought a 30-day ticket, caught the airport shuttle from Brooklyn to John F. Kennedy International Airport, and flew south Sept. 29. His return was set for Oct. 28. He never made that flight.
THE COMMUNE OF OAXACA
A mountainous southern Mexican state traversed by seven serious sierras, Oaxaca is at the top of most of the nation’s poverty indicators — infant mortality, malnutrition, unemployment, and illiteracy. Human rights violations are rife. It’s also Mexico’s most indigenous state, with 17 distinct Indian cultures, each with a rich tradition of resistance to the dominant white and mestizo overclass. Oaxaca vibrates with class and race tensions that cyclically erupt into uprising and repression.
The Party of the Institutional Revolution, or PRI, ruled Mexico from 1928 to 2000, the longest-running political dynasty in the world. The corrupt organization was dethroned by the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) and its picaresque presidential candidate, Vicente Fox, former president of Coca Cola México.
But in Oaxaca, the PRI never lost power. While voters were throwing off the PRI yoke all over the rest of the country, in Oaxaca one PRI governor had followed another for 75 years. The latest, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, a protégé of party strongman and future presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo, won a fraud-marred election over a right-left coalition in 2004.
In the first 16 months of his regime, Ruiz proved spectacularly unresponsive to the demands of the popular movements for social justice. When, on May 15, 2006, National Teachers Day, a maverick, militant local of the National Education Workers Union known as Section 22 presented its contract demands, Ruiz turned a deaf ear. Then, on May 22, tens of thousands of teachers took the plaza and 52 surrounding blocks and set up a ragtag tent city. Each morning the maestros would march out of their camp and block highways and government buildings, which were soon smeared with anti-Ruiz slogans.
Ruiz retaliated before dawn June 14, sending 1,000 heavily armed police officers into the plaza to evict the teachers. Low-flying helicopters sprayed pepper gas on the throng below. Ruiz’s police took up positions in the colonial hotels that surround the plaza and tossed down concussion grenades from the balconies. Radio Plantón, the maestros’ pirate radio station, was demolished and the tent city set afire. A pall of black smoke hung over the city.
Four hours later a spontaneous outburst by Oaxaca’s very active community, combined with the force of the striking teachers and armed with clubs and Molotov cocktails, overran the plaza and sent Ruiz’s cops packing. No uniformed officers would be seen on the streets of Oaxaca for many months. And on June 16, two days after the monumental battle, 200,000 Oaxacans marched through the city to repudiate the governor’s "hard hand." The megamarch was said to extend 10 kilometers.
John Gibler, who closely covered the Oaxaca uprising as a human-rights fellow for Global Exchange, wrote that the surge of the rebels June 14 soon transformed itself into a popular assembly. The Oaxaca Peoples Popular Assembly, or APPO, was formally constituted June 21. The APPO had no leaders but many spokespeople, and all decisions had to be made in assemblies.
A CITY PARALYZED
For the next weeks, the actions of the APPO and Section 22 paralyzed Oaxaca — but the rest of Mexico took little notice. Instead, the nation was hypnotized by the fraud-marred July 2 presidential election in which a right-wing PAN-ista, Felipe Calderón, had been awarded a narrow victory over leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the candidate of a coalition headed by the Party of the Democratic Revolution. López Obrador was quick to cry fraud, pulling millions into the streets in the most massive political demonstrations in Mexican history. Oaxaca still seemed like small potatoes.
But Oaxaca is an international tourist destination, and the APPO and Section 22 protests had closed down the tourist infrastructure, blocking the airport and forcing five-star hotels to shutter their doors. On July 17, Ruiz was forced to announce the cancellation of the Guelaguetza, an indigenous dance festival that has become Oaxaca’s premiere tourist attraction, after roaming bands of rebels destroyed the scenery and blockaded access to the city.
Ruiz began to fight back. By the first weeks of August, the governor launched what came to be known as the Caravan of Death — a train of 30 or 40 private and government vehicles rolling nightly, firing on the protesters. Ruiz’s gunmen were drawn from the ranks of the city police and the state ministerial police.
To keep the Caravan of Death from moving freely through Oaxaca, the APPO and the union threw up barricades; 1,000 were built in the working-class colonies throughout the city and its suburbs. The rebels piled up dead trees, old tires, and burned-out cars and buses to create the barricades, which soon took on a life of their own; murals were painted using the ashes of the bonfires that burned all night on the barriers. Indeed, the barricades gave the Oaxaca struggle the romantic aura of the Paris Commune uprising of 1871 and attracted droves of dreadlocked anarchists to the city.
An uneasy lull in the action gripped Oaxaca on Oct. 1, when Will arrived at the bus terminal, then found himself a cheap room for the night. The break wouldn’t last long.
ON THE BARRICADES
Like most non-Mexicans who style themselves as independent reporters, Will had no Mexican media credential and therefore was in the country illegally, working on a tourist visa and susceptible to deportation. To have some credential other than his Indymedia press card to hang around his neck, he got himself accredited with Section 22 and wore the rebel ID assiduously.
On Oct. 14, APPO militant Alejandro García Hernández was cut down at a barricade near Símbolos Patrios, a downtown plaza. Will joined an angry procession to the Red Cross hospital where the dead man had been taken.
In the last dispatch he filed from Oaxaca, on Oct. 16, Will caught this very Mexican whiff of death: "Now [García Hernández lies] waiting for November when he can sit with his loved ones on the day of the dead and share food and drink and a song … one more death — one more martyr in a dirty war — one more time to cry and hurt — one more time to know power and its ugly head — one more bullet cracks the night."
The dynamic in Oaxaca had gotten "sketchy," Will wrote to Neary. Section 22 leader Enrique Rueda Pacheco had cut a deal with the outgoing Fox government and forced a back-to-work vote Oct. 21 that narrowly carried amid charges of sellout and payoffs. If the teachers went back to work, the APPO would be alone on the barricades and even more vulnerable to Ruiz’s gunmen. But backing down was not in the assembly’s dictionary, and the APPO voted to ratchet up the lucha (struggle) and make Oaxaca really ungovernable.
Mobile brigades were formed — young toughs armed with lead pipes and nail-studded boards who hijacked buses still running in the city, forced the passengers off, and rode around looking for action. Later the buses would be set afire. Charred hulks blossomed on the streets of the old colonial city. The barricades were reinforced to shut down the capital beginning Oct. 27.
The escalation proved to be a terrible miscalculation. In Mexico City the postelectoral turmoil had finally subsided, and PAN was ready to deal with the PRI; bailing out the governor of Oaxaca was the PRI’s price of admission.
It wasn’t a good time for inexperienced foreigners. Ruiz’s people were checking the guest lists at the hostels for "inconvenient" internationals. Immigration authorities threatened extranjeros with deportation if they joined the protests. The local US consul, Mark Leyes, warned Americans that he would not be able to help them if they got caught up in the maelstrom.
Adding to this malevolent ambiance, a new pirate station popped up Oct. 26. Radio Ciudadana (Citizens’ radio) announced it was broadcasting "to bring peace to Oaxaca" and to celebrate the honor of "our macho, very macho governor." The announcers seemed to have Mexico City accents. Wherever they had been sent from, they let loose with a torrent of vitriolic shit — stuff like "We have to kill the mugrosos [dirty ones] on the barricades." The extranjeros, the radio said, were stirring up all the trouble: "They pretend to be journalists, but they have come to teach terrorism classes."
More frightening was this admonition: "Si ves un gringo con cámara, matanlo!" — "If you see a gringo with a camera, kill him!"
This poison spewed out of local radios all day Oct. 26 and 27, but whether Will heard the warnings — and if he did, whether knew what they meant — is unclear. He didn’t speak much Spanish.
SHOT IN THE CHEST
On Oct. 27, Will went out to do interviews on the barricade at Santa María Coyotepec, about 20 kilometers from the city. The three barricades at Coyotepec, Cal y Canto, and La Experimental were crucial to closing down Oaxaca the next day. The broad Railroad Avenue where the barricade was stacked was empty. Nothing was moving. Will walked on to the next barricade at La Experimental to check out the action.
Soon after the Indymedia reporter left, all hell broke loose at Cal y Canto. A mob of about 150 Ruiz supporters stormed down Railroad Avenue, led by what witnesses thought was a Chevy Blazer. The vehicle was moving very fast. "We thought it would try and crash through the barricade," Miguel Cruz, an activist and witness, recalled. But the SUV stopped short, and several men jumped out with guns blazing. The APPO people hunkered down behind the makeshift barrier and moved the women and kids who were with them into a nearby house. Then they went on the counterattack with Molotov cocktails, homemade bazookas that fired bottle rockets, and slingshots. Most of the mob had melted away, and with the gunmen retreating, the rebels torched their vehicle.
Will heard about the gunfire and hurried back to Cal y Canto with a handful of other reporters. They arrived a little after 3 p.m.
Will climbed under a parked trailer to film the shooters. He focused on a man in a white shirt. When an APPO activist (who is not seen on the videotape) came running by, Will indicated the shooter — "Camisa blanca." While all this was going on, the camera captured a bicyclist peddling dreamily through the intersection. Soon after, a large dump truck appeared on the scene, and the group on the barricade used it as a mobile shield as they chased the gunmen down the avenue.
Suddenly, the pistoleros veered down a narrow side street, Benito Juárez, and took refuge in a windowless, one-story building on the second block. The only access to the building was through a large metal garage door, and the reporters followed the APPO militants, many of whom were masked, as they tried to force their way in. Will stood to one side of the door for a minute, poised for the money shot. Then the compas tried unsuccessfully to bust down the big door by ramming the dump truck into it.
In the midst of this frenzy, five men in civilian dress — two in red shirts (the governor’s color) and the others in white — appeared at the head of Benito Juárez, about 30 meters away, and began shooting at the rebels.
Two of the gunmen were later identified by Mexican news media as Pedro Carmona, a cop and local PRI political fixer, and police commander Orlando Manuel Aguilar Coello. One of those in the white shirts, crouched behind Carmona, was Abel Santiago Zárate, a.k.a. El Chino. Santiago Zárate and Aguilar Coello were reported to be the personal bodyguards of municipal president Manuel Martínez Feria of the PRI. The other two would later be fingered as Juan Carlos Soriano, a.k.a. El Chapulín (the grasshopper), and Juan Sumano, both Santa Lucía del Camino police officers. All five are eminently identifiable in the film Will shot just moments before the bullets hit him.
When the shooting erupted, Will took cover on the opposite side of the narrow street from the rest of the media. He was crouched against a lime green wall when the first bullet came. On the video soundtrack, you can hear both the shot and Will’s cries of dismay as it tore through his Indymedia T-shirt and smashed into his heart. A second shot caught him in the right side and destroyed his innards. There was little blood spilled, the first slug having stopped his heart.
In footage that witness Gustavo Vilchis and others filmed, the entrance wound of the first shot looks like a deep bruise. The second shot was not recorded on the soundtrack and may have been fired simultaneously with the first.
Others were shot in the pandemonium. Oswaldo Ramírez, filming for the daily Milenio, was grazed. Lucio David Cruz, described as a bystander, was hit in the neck and died four months later.
As Will slid down the wall into a sitting position, Vilchis and activist Leonardo Ortiz ran to him. Will’s Section 22 credential had flown off, and no one there knew his name. With bullets whizzing by, the compas picked Will up and dragged him out of the line of fire and around the corner to Árboles Street, about 35 paces away. Along the way, his pants fell off.
"Ambulance! We need an ambulance! They’ve shot a journalist!" Vilchis, a tall young man with a face like an Italian comic actor’s, shouted desperately. Gualberto Francisco, another activist, had parked his vochito (Volkswagen Bug) on Árboles and pulled up alongside Will, who was laid out on the pavement in his black bikini underwear.
Ortiz and Vilchis loaded the dying Will into the back seat. They thought he was still breathing, and Vilchis applied mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. "You’re going to make it … you’re all right," they kept telling him. But Will’s eyes had already turned up — he was perdido (lost), as they say in Mexico.
The vochito ran out of gas, and while the frantic young men ferrying Will were stuck in the middle of the Cinco Señores crossroad, it began to rain hard. They tried to stop a taxi to take them to the Red Cross, but the driver supported the government and wanted to argue. Finally, they flagged down a pickup truck and laid Will out in the bed. He was dead when he arrived at the hospital, according to the report by the coroner, Dr. Luis Mendoza.
THE OUTRAGE BEGINS
Oct. 27 was the bloodiest day of the Oaxaca uprising. Four people were killed besides Will: Emilio Alonso Fabián, Esteban Ruiz, Esteban López Zurita, and Audacia Olivera Díaz.
Unlike their murders, Will’s death triggered international outrage. Because he was so connected — and because much of the episode was recorded on film —the shot of the mortally wounded Indymedia reporter lying in the middle of a Oaxaca street went worldwide on the Web in a matter of minutes.
There were instant vigils on both coasts of the United States. On Oct. 30, 11 of Will’s friends were busted trying to lock down at the Mexican consulate off Manhattan’s Park Avenue, where graffiti still read "Avenge Brad!" in December. Anarchists splattered the San Francisco consulate with red paint. Subcomandante Marcos sent his condolences and called for international protests. Goodman did an hour-long memorial.
On March 16, 2007, at its midyear meeting in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, the Inter-American Press Association, an organization devoted to freedom of speech and the press in the Americas, passed a resolution calling for action on the Will case.
"The investigation into the killing has been plagued by irregularities and inconsistencies, and no arrests have been made," the group said in a statement. IAPA called for the federal attorney general to take over the investigation, "in view of the lack of confidence in state authorities and the lack of progress in the case, so that it may apprehend the culprits, who, according to one theory of the investigation, may be indirectly linked to state authorities."
The official reaction to Will’s death was more cautious. "It is unfortunate when peaceful demonstrations get out of hand and result in violence," a US spokesperson told the media, seeming to blame the APPO for Will’s killing. After once again warning Americans that they traveled to Oaxaca "at their own risk," Ambassador Garza commented on the "senseless death of Brad Will" and how it "underscores the need for a return to the rule of law and order."
"For months," he said, "violence and disorder in Oaxaca have worsened. Teachers, students, and other groups have been involved in increasingly violent demonstrations."
Garza’s statement sent Fox the signal he had been waiting for. Now that a gringo had been killed, it was time to act. The next morning, Oct. 28, 4,500 officers from the Federal Preventative Police, an elite force drawn from the military, were sent into Oaxaca — not to return the state to a place where human rights, dignity, and a free media are respected but to break the back of the people’s rebellion and keep Ruiz in power.
On Oct. 29 the troops pushed their way into the plaza despite massive but passive resistance by activists, tore down the barricades, and drove the commune of Oaxaca back into the shadows.
In Mexico the dead are buried quickly. After the obligatory autopsy, Brad’s body was crated up for shipment to his parents, who now live south of Milwaukee. After a private viewing, the family had him cremated.
SHAM ACCOUNTABILITY
Killing a gringo reporter in plain view of the cameras (one of which was his own) requires a little sham accountability. On Oct. 29 the state prosecutor, Lizbeth Caña Cadeza, announced that arrest warrants were being sworn out for Santiago Zárate and Aguilar Coello, two of the five cops caught on film gunning Will down, and they were subsequently taken into custody.
The scam lost currency two weeks later when, on Nov. 15, Caña Cadeza dropped a bombshell at an evening news conference: the cops hadn’t killed Will, she said; he was shot by the rebels.
Will’s death, she insisted, had been "a deceitful confabulation to internationalize the conflict" and was, in fact, "the product of a concerted premeditated action." The mortal shot had been fired from less than two and a half meters away, Caña Cadeza said — although there is nothing in the coroner’s report to indicate this. The real killers, she said, were "the same group [Will] was accompanying."
In the state prosecutor’s scenario, the order of the shots was reversed: first Will had been shot in the side on the street, then rematado (finished off) with a slug to the heart on the way to the hospital in Francisco’s vochito.
The prosecutor’s plot was immediately challenged by the APPO. "The killers are those who are shown in the film," Florentino López, the assembly’s main spokesperson, asserted at a meeting that night.
And in fact our detailed investigation shows that there is very little evidence to support Caña Cadeza’s theory. Photos from the scene, some published in the Mexican media, show Will’s body with a bloody hole in his chest on the street near where he fell — indicating that his fatal heart wound occurred well before he was dragged into the car where he was supposedly shot.
There’s another problem with the prosecutor’s suggestion: nobody on the scene saw any APPO members, or anyone except the authorities, carrying guns. This reporter has talked to numerous eyewitnesses, and all told the same tale: the rebels at the barricade that day had no firearms with which they could have shot Will.
Miguel Cruz, who spent much of Oct. 27 with Will, first at the Council of Indigenous People of Oaxaca, of which he is a member, and then on the barricade at Cal y Canto and on Juárez Street, is a soft-spoken young Zapotec Indian, but he pounded vehemently on the kitchen table when he addressed Caña Cadeza’s allegations.
"The compañeros had no guns. What gun is she talking about? They had slingshots and Molotovs but no guns. The PRI-istas and the cops had their .38s, and they were shooting at us," he said. "We were trying to save Brad Will’s life, not to kill him."
And if Caña Cadeza had any proof of her allegations, she likely would have filed charges. But none of the protesters or Will’s companions has been formally charged with the killing. Prosecutors have never publicly presented the alleged murder weapon.
But by the time Caña Cadeza told her story, of course, the only way to determine for sure the order of the bullets and the distance from which they had been fired would have been to exhume Will’s body. And there was no body; he had been cremated the week before.
On Nov. 28, Santiago Zárate and Aguilar Coello were released from custody by Judge Victoriano Barroso because of "insufficient evidence," with the stipulation that they could not be rearrested without the presentation of new evidence.
Caña Cadeza, who is now running as a PRI candidate for the state legislature, collaborated closely on the case with Oaxaca secretary of citizen protection Lino Celaya. Both reported to Ruiz’s secretary of government, Heliodoro Díaz, who in turn reported directly to the governor. There seems little doubt that the prosecutor’s accusations of murder against Will’s comrades — and the determination of innocence for the apparent killers — came straight from the top.
ON THE EVIDENCE TRAIL
Dr. Mendoza was occupied when I stopped by the Oaxaca city morgue to ask for a copy of the autopsy report on which the state has based its allegations.
"Will died eight months ago," Mendoza complained testily. "Do you know how many others have died since? How many autopsies I’ve performed?" He gestured to a morgue room where cadavers were piled up.
The coroner was scrunched over his desk, filling out the paperwork for one of the dead. He didn’t have any time to look for the autopsy report. I was not the first reporter to ask him about the document. "What paper are you from anyway?" he asked suspiciously, and when I showed him my media card, he told me that it didn’t sound like a real newspaper to him. "I know what I’m doing. I worked as a coroner in your country," he snapped defensively and waved me out of the office.
But Mendoza might not be quite as cocksure as he sounded. A senior agent for the US government in Oaxaca, who asked not to be named in this article, told me later that Mendoza confided to him that he was no ballistics expert, nor could he determine from how far away the bullets were fired.
I walked into the police commissary under the first-floor stairs of the Santa Lucía del Camino Municipal Palace. The small room was crowded with cops and cigarette smoke. Three of the officers were in full battle gear, and the rest were plainclothes. I had been warned not to ask for Carmona, the most prominent red shirt on Will’s film. Carmona is described as a prepotente — i.e., a thug with an attitude who is always packing.
Instead, I asked the desk clerk if I could get a few minutes with Santiago Zárate and Aguilar Coello. For all I knew, the two were sitting in the room behind me. The desk clerk studied my card. "Qué lástima!" he exclaimed — what a shame. Santiago Zárate had just left and wouldn’t be back until after six. Aguilar Coello was off that day. When I called back after six, Santiago Zárate was still not available. Nor were he and Aguilar Coello ever available the dozen or so times I called back.
This sort of stonewalling is not terribly unusual for Mexico, where killer cops often sell their services to local caciques (political bosses) and go back to work as if nothing had happened. Those who direct this sort of mayhem from their desks in the statehouses and municipal palaces — the "intellectual assassins," as they are called — are never held accountable for their crimes.
A VISIT FROM HOME
In March, Brad’s parents, Kathy and Howard Will, and his older brother and sister paid a sad, inconclusive visit to Oaxaca. They had hired Miguel Ángel de los Santos Cruz, a crackerjack human rights lawyer who has often defended Zapatista communities in Chiapas. Gibler, the Global Exchange human-rights fellow, was the translator.
The Wills, upper-middle-class Americans, had little experience with the kind of evil that lurks inside the Mexican justice system; the trip was a traumatic, eye-opening experience.
The federal Attorney General’s Office had taken over the case from the state in December, but rather than investigating police complicity and culpability, it was pursuing Caña Cadeza’s dubious allegation blaming Will’s companions for his killing.
Gustavo Vilchis, Gualberto Francisco, Leonardo Ortiz, and Miguel Cruz were summoned to give testimony, with the Wills in attendance. Testifying was a risky venture, as the witnesses could have been charged with the murder at any moment, but out of respect for the family, the compas agreed to tell their story to the federal investigators. During the hearing they were repeatedly questioned about and asked to identify not the cops who appear on Will’s film but their own compañeros, some masked, who appeared on tape shot by Televisa, the Mexican TV giant. They refused.
When Los Santos accompanied the Wills to a meeting with Caña Cadeza, she touted her investigation and promised them a copy of its results. But she refused to allow the family to view Will’s Indymedia T-shirt and the two bullets taken from his body. They were, she explained, under the control of Barroso — the judge who had cut loose the cops.
THE POLITICS OF OIL
There are larger geopolitics at work here.
The US Department of State has a certain conflict of interest in trying to push first-year Mexican president Calderón to collar Will’s killers. The crackdown in Oaxaca was all about a political deal between Calderón’s PAN and Ruiz’s PRI: if PAN saved the governor’s ass, the PRI would support the president’s legislative package.
Indeed, the PRI’s 100 votes in the lower house of the Mexican Congress guarantee Calderón the two-thirds majority he needs to alter the constitution and effect the change that’s at the top of his legislative agenda — opening up Petróleos Mexicanos, or PEMEX, the nationalized petroleum corporation and a symbol of Mexico’s national revolution, to private investment, a gambit that requires a constitutional amendment.
Since then-president Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated Mexico’s petroleum industry from Anglo and American owners and nationalized it in 1938, the United States has been trying to take it back. "Transnational pressure to reprivatize PEMEX has been brutal," observed John Saxe Fernandez, a professor of strategic resource studies at Mexico’s autonomous university, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
During the run-up to the hotly contested 2006 presidential elections, candidates Calderón and López Obrador debated the privatization of Mexico’s national oil corporation before the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico City; former US ambassador Jeffrey Davidow moderated the debate. When the leftist López Obrador insisted that he would never privatize what belonged to all Mexicans, the business leaders stared in stony silence. The conservative Calderón’s pledge to open PEMEX to private investment drew wild applause. Calderón was, of course, Washington’s horse in the fraud-marred election.
In order to accommodate Washington, Calderón needs a two-thirds majority in the congress — and the PRI’s votes in the lower house are crucial to guaranteeing passage of a constitutional amendment. "Without the PRI’s votes, PEMEX will not be privatized. That is why Calderón has granted Ruiz impunity," Saxe Fernandez concluded.
Washington is eager to see PEMEX privatized, which would create an opportunity for Exxon Mobil Corp. and Halliburton (now PEMEX’s largest subcontractor) to walk off with a big chunk of the world’s eighth-largest oil company. Pushing Calderón too hard to do justice for Will could disaffect the PRI and put a kibosh on the deal.
It is not easy to imagine Brad Will as a pawn in anyone’s power game, but as the months tick by and his killing and killers sink into the morass of memory, that is exactly what he is becoming. 2
John Ross is the Guardian‘s Mexico City correspondent. This story was comissioned by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and is running in about 20 alternative papers this week.
There’s a curious but significant distinction between a job and a career. A job is something that we (usually) spend a third of our life doing, (usually) in exchange for financial compensation. While a job is inherently meritorious, it also connotes trading time for wages: an eternally losing proposition. Unless it’s paired with "hand" or "blow," there’s a modicum of doom in our breath when we utter the word.
A career, however, seems to hold aloft our daydreams and aspirations. Careers are crafted, built, and achieved. And yet, if we work for too long without keeping focus on our passions, our career sometimes becomes that trap we fall into before we know it, the thing people associate with us but we don’t associate with ourselves. At that point, our career can become the dark mirror that reflects our failure to take a risk. It is our soul death.
So there’s nothing more inspiring than meeting someone who loves what he or she does and gets paid for it. Ultimately, it’s not about getting a high-paying job; it’s about having a career that makes you happy. Lars Larson, master brewer of Trumer Brauerei in Berkeley, is one of those lucky schmucks who are making it on their own terms.
Larson’s path to Berkeley and brewing Trumer Pils has been a long and rewarding one, and it seems to be the result of his paying attention to his instincts. It’s doubtful that any child sets out to oversee an artisan beer operation, but Larson admits he can’t recall a single beer he’s disliked, "even sips of beer I snuck from my dad’s glass as a kid."
Larson spent part of his high school years studying in Germany, where the legal drinking age is 16. Around the time he graduated from college with a history degree in the late 1980s, he became interested in what was then a burgeoning craft-beer movement. Inspired by the energy of artisan beer making and the chance to return to Germany, he relocated to Berlin to get a degree in fermentation sciences. It was 1990, right after the Berlin Wall came down. After participating in the historic events that followed, Larson accepted a job at a brewery in Argentina, where the light lager style of German pilsner was popular.
"The principles of brewing are the same worldwide, but culturally [Argentina] was a phenomenal experience," Larson says. "I wouldn’t trade those years for anything."
When he returned to America four years later, he landed in Longview, Texas, working for Stroh’s, which produces such beers as Schlitz and Lone Star. The company had a four-million-barrel capacity and more than 400 employees working in three shifts for an around-the-clock industrial operation. That was by far the most commercial beer-making environment he’d ever been in.
"There’s really a limited set of actions that occurs in the brewing process itself," he says. "But learning different aspects of the business was a great experience."
When the Stroh’s factory closed, Larson took a few interim jobs before accepting his master brewer post at Trumer. Now he’s part of the international team that’s helping to develop the Trumer Pils brand regionally and beyond.
Trumer’s roots are far from the Bay Area. Founded in Salzburg, Austria, in 1601, the artisan brewery established a second location in Berkeley in 2003 because of one thing the two cities share: soft water, an important component in brewing pilsners.
There’s also a historic connection between Berkeley and beer. "The mayor of Berkeley [Tom Bates] just came for a tour," Larson mentions. "He was the guy in the 1970s who helped push legislation to enable brewpubs in California, so in part he’s the reason why we’re here today."
And Larson is glad Trumer is here. Calling this part of the country a great place to live, he says, "People love good food and drink here, and we enjoy being part of that local movement."
But what does Larson actually do? Does a master brewer job entail what we think it does? "I work with great people, and it is great fun, but it isn’t just a frat party," Larson cautions. "It’s not slugging beer all day long."
Actually, it’s the variety in his job that makes it interesting for him. "I work on plants, foodstuffs, chemicals, and machines," he says. "There are different tasks to do each day, and because our original brewery is in Austria, I get to travel to Europe and speak German."
And though beer making is an ancient art, Larson says his work is more rooted in technology and the modern age than one might expect — though it also involves plenty of hard labor.
"It’s really an industrial operation, and there are a lot of safety considerations," Larson says. "There are chemicals, gases, steam, and fast-moving machinery. It’s hot, sweaty, dirty work, and a lot of times you’re beat at the end of the day. It’s quite physical work and not for everybody."
Larson says brewing’s future seems bright. It’s a rapidly growing profession, which means there will be more jobs like his in the years ahead. But since "it’s a job that’s pretty high up on the list," newcomers will need to get in on the ground level, where they can learn more aspects of the business. It also wouldn’t hurt to have a strong background in chemistry, biology, and microbiology; to combine a food sciences degree with a fermentation sciences degree from a school such as UC Davis; and to learn to make beer at home.
As far as Larson is concerned, such work is worth the result: in his case, a great job doing something he loves.
"You meet a lot of great people in this business," he says. "And we love that we get to do something that we enjoy and that we can also share with others."*
Trumer Brauerei offers tours Mondays, 4 p.m. Private group tours can be arranged.
The mayor continues to push forward with his wifi plans, but check out this Mercury News piece on how Newsom-style programs aren’t working out so well in other places.
OPINION California’s secretary of state, Debra Bowen, has released a landmark report showing what all honest brokers admitted long ago: electronic voting systems are completely vulnerable to hackers. "The independent teams of analysts [hired by the state] were able to bypass both physical and software security measures in every system tested," her report states.
A report on accessibility for disabled voters found that none of the direct recording electronic (usually touch screen) voting systems met federal disability standards.
And yet US House Democrats and People for the America Way are busy hammering out a deal in Congress to institutionalize in federal law the continued use of such disastrous voting systems.
Out of touch much? Which part of a transparent, counted, paper ballot (not a "trail" or a "record") for every vote cast in America do these guys not understand?
Late Friday, as Bowen’s report was being released, US House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) finally came to terms, reportedly, on a deal for a revision of Holt’s House Resolution 811, dubbed the Federal Election Reform Bill, which allows for the use of DREs — as preferred, almost exclusively, by People for the American Way, elections officials, and voting-machine companies. Saturday’s New York Times confirmed that it was "Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way, [who] helped broker the deal" between Holt and the House leadership.
And though Christopher Drew’s reporting at the New York Times is getting slightly better with each new story, it would be nice if the "paper of record" could learn enough about our voting systems to accurately report and help Americans understand what’s really at stake here and how the technology actually works.
Drew reported — misleadingly — that "the House bill would require every state to use paper records that would let voters verify that their ballots had been correctly cast and that would be available for recounts."
That’s just plain wrong. The fact is that adding "cash-register-style printers to … touch-screen machines," as Drew describes it, does not allow a voter to verify that his or her "ballots had been correctly cast." It allows voters only to verify that the paper record of their invisibly cast electronic ballot accurately matches their intentions, if they bother to check it (studies show most don’t) and if they’re able to notice errors on the printout (studies also show that most do not). The fact is, there is no way to verify that a person’s vote is correctly cast on a DRE touch-screen voting machine. Period.
Unless, of course, it’s me who is out of touch in presuming that if a ballot is cast, it means it will actually be counted by someone or something. Paper trails added to DRE systems are not counted; instead, only the internal, invisible, unverifiable ballots are. A "cash-register-style" printout prior to the ballot being cast and counted internally does nothing to change that. *
Brad Friedman
Brad Friedman writes on elections and political integrity for the Brad Blog at www.bradblog.com. A version of this piece first appeared as a post there.
Imagine a restaurant situated inside a bottle of sparkling water, and you will have a working sense of Farina Focaccia and Cucina Italiana, the latest entry along 18th Street’s burgeoning food row in the Mistro. The Italians, in their inimitable way, refer to sparkling water as con gas, and Farina is an Italian restaurant — a Ligurian-influenced restaurant, to be precise, which means it’s not quite a head-on rival to Delfina, a few steps away. Delfina’s food tends toward the Tuscan, and the heart of Tuscany is Florence, a storied city well away from the sea. Tuscan cuisine makes ample use of grilled beef and also maiale (wild boar) and porcini mushrooms — the latter a pair of delicacies taken from nearby forests in the Apennines.
Liguria, by contrast, is a maritime region, a slender boomerang of littoral country whose center is the ancient port city of Genoa and whose long shoreline on the Tyrrhenian Sea runs from the French Riviera in the west nearly to Livorno in the east. We would expect then that Ligurian cuisine would emphasize seafood (other staples include lemons, olive oil, and pesto), and that is indeed what we find at Farina. (Farina, incidentally, means "wheat meal" in Italian; it was also the name of a creamy hot cereal I preferred as a child to oatmeal, which tended to be lumpy. And … it sounds vaguely like Delfina — coincidence?)
The sparkling-water effect has largely to do with a half wall of wine goblets that separate the bar from the main dining room. There are also expansive plate-glass windows along both 18th and Dearborn streets, and these blur the boundary between outdoors and indoors. Passersby are constantly peering into the restaurant, while the people inside peer right back, at least when not peering at one other. Although Farina is just a few months old, the see-and-be-seen, watch-zone factor has already reached Los Angeles–<\d>like levels. All this represents a radical change from the space’s previous life as the home of Anna’s Danish Cookies. Noise, interestingly, is under control, despite plenty of hard surfaces, including a slate gray concrete floor and a passage of gleaming white tiles high above the food bar near the back of the dining room. The high ceilings, with joists painted hospital white, must help.
The early word on Farina was that it was overpriced, and while the serving-size-to-price ratio is indeed rather stringent, the food itself is superior. Excellence at a high price is the Wolfgang Puck formula for success. The first promising hints are given by the house-baked breads: squares of plain and cheesy focaccia, along with slices of whole wheat and white country breads and a walnut bread, some of them still warm from the oven. The goodness of the breads prefigures that of the pizzata di Recco ($16), a large rectangle of pizza-like crust topped with garlicky tomato sauce, oregano, capers, anchovies, and gooey white melted cheese. The pie’s name refers to the Ligurian town of Recco, renowned for its cheese focaccias.
Another classic Ligurian-style dish is house-made tortellini ($17), stuffed with sea bass and served in an earthenware crock. The crock holds a shallow pond of white-wine-and-parsley sauce dotted with heirloom tomato quarters, mussels, clams, and rose-colored bits of calamari. The sauce was underseasoned — the only such example we came across. Salted up a bit, it made a nice match with a Ligurian white wine from the Cinque Terre ($9 for a glass), a seaside district famous for its five villages perched on cliffs. The wine had a grassiness I associate with American sauvignon blanc and tasted a little odd on is own, but it merged comfortably with the mollusk-heavy sauce.
The Catalana salad ($13) captured the magic of so much Italian cooking, regardless of region. It was so simple — tuna confit on a bed of onion and fennel slivers, with a light showering of pitted black olives, minced anchovies, and heirloom tomato chunks — as to sound boring, but it turned out to be a beautiful concertina of sweet, salty, sour, and rich effects.
We did feel, over a noontime visit, that portions were almost too small and starkly plated. The insalata di giorno ($9) turned out to be quite similar to the Catalana, and while it cost less, it was worryingly slight, although cannellini beans provided some ballast. We ended up ordering a panino ($9) of prosciutto and fontina cheese, and this soon arrived as an appealing golden square of pressed bread, tastily filled though presented with nothing more than a heaplet of mixed greens. Only the torta verdure ($9), a slice of spinach pie made with flaky pastry, seemed to carry real weight.
As for the dessert menu: the roving eye of the sweet tooth quite quickly found the panna cotta ($8). If Farina means to unseat Delfina as the king of Italian cooking on 18th Street, then panna cotta will be central to the strategy. Delfina’s buttermilk version has been on the menu from the beginning and is now legendary. Farina’s pastry chef has wisely chosen not to copy it. Instead of a geutf8ous cylinder, Farina’s panna cotta takes the form of a martini-glass parfait, a layering of cooked cream — softer than Delfina’s — atop a blackberry compote itself topped with a dollop of blackberry whipped cream.
But perhaps an unseating is neither necessary nor possible. Perhaps Farina and Delfina will turn out to be complements to each other, not watchful rivals. It’s not every two-block segment of street in town, after all, that can offer us a pair of Italian restaurants like these, alike and dissimilar but both sparkling.<\!s>*
