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Week one

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Thurs/20

Perhaps Love (Peter Ho-Sun Chan, Hong Kong, 2005). The pan in pan-Asian here stands for panic: This meta–love story within a metamusical tries to please everyone and runs with damn near everything, except sparkly red shoes, and fails at almost all it attempts. Hong Kong director Peter Ho-Sun Chan (Comrades: Almost a Love Story) oversees players like Chinese actress Zhou Xun (Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress), Takeshi Kaneshiro (House of Flying Daggers), Bollywood choreographer Farah Khan, and cocinematographer Christopher Doyle, but is he really to blame? Only Kaneshiro manages to project a glimmer of real emotion in this pointless East-kowtows-to-West, torture-by-style exercise, glaringly poisoned by contempo-musicals like Chicago and Moulin Rouge. 7 p.m., Castro (Kimberly Chun)

Fri/21

Sa-kwa (Kang Yi-kwan, South Korea, 2005). In Oasis and A Good Lawyer’s Wife, Moon So-ri took on emotionally and physically daring roles, playing characters who flouted convention. She confirms her rep in Sa-kwa as a woman torn between a boyfriend who drops her while they are at a great height (a gesture she repays) and a husband who treats her like an acquisition. Director Kang Yi-kwan keeps the handheld camera up in Moon’s face, and she more than delivers, though the symbiosis between director and performer doesn’t quite match that between Lee Yoon-ki and Kim Ji-su in 2004’s less conventional This Charming Girl. 4:45 p.m., Kabuki. Also May 1, 8:45 p.m., Kabuki; and May 4, 4:30 p.m., Kabuki (Johnny Ray Huston)

Sat/22

*Circles of Confusion (various). This vaguely defined and stylistically varied program of shorts contains at least one first-rate local work, Cathy Begien’s Relative Distance, which expertly mines the humor and pain within family ties through a direct-address approach. There is absolutely no doubt which of the 10 movies here is the virtuoso mindblower: a strobing, percussive blast from start to finish — even if it stutters, stops, and restarts like a machine possessed by a wild spirit — Peter Tscherkassky’s Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine takes The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and makes it better, badder, and so ugly it’s gorgeous. 3:30 p.m., Kabuki. Also Mon/24, 4:15 p.m. Kabuki (Huston)

*Factotum (Bent Hamer, Norway, 2005). Unfortunately titled but cleverly plotted, director Bent Hamer’s paean to Charles Bukowski revels in the boozy textures of the author’s work. The movie’s meandering vignettes draw from various novels, which makes sense since old Chuck’s work can fairly be said to comprise one sprawling, bawdy picaresque. Matt Dillon is fine as the author’s fictionalized self, but Lili Taylor makes it — she uses her throaty whisper to excellent effect as the antihero’s sometimes lover. Beyond the performances, Factotum gives pause to the way Bukowski’s episodic, prose-poetry narration style has influenced indie cinema conventions, especially of the sort practiced by screenwriter Jim Stark’s longtime collaborator, Jim Jarmusch. 9 p.m., Kabuki. Also April 30, 3 p.m., Kabuki (Max Goldberg)

The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai (Mitsuru Meike, Japan, 2004). A hooker who titillates clients by acting like a naughty teacher winds down her workday with a froofy coffee drink. Suddenly, a pair of baddies exchange gunfire right in the middle of the café. Though she’s pegged between the eyes, the lass somehow survives; in short order, she’s humped by a cop, demonstrates Will Hunting–<\d>style math prowess, and quotes Descartes. So what’s up with that weird little object she’s got rattling around in her enormous handbag? This pink film’s weirdly unflattering sex scenes raise a different question: So who cares? 11:15 p.m., Kabuki. Also Tues/25, 1:15 p.m., Kabuki (Cheryl Eddy)

*Heart of the Game (Ward Serrill, USA, 2005). "Sink your teeth in their necks! Draw blood!" That’s no vampire, just Bill Relser, the tax professor turned girls’ basketball coach, rallying his team. Documentary filmmaker Ward Serrill clearly absorbed the lesson, grabbing us by the necks with his extraordinary saga of the Roosevelt High Roughriders. Over six seasons the team wins and loses, soaring to unimaginable victories and crashing into heartbreak. Serrill pays close attention, on court and off, and ultimately delivers a smartly paced chronicle that nails the socialization of girls, the costs of playing ball, and the perils of female adolescence. The spectacular basketball is an added bonus. Hoop Dreams, move over! Noon, Castro. Also Tues/25, 4 p.m., Kabuki (B. Ruby Rich)

In Bed (Mat??as Bize, Chile/Germany, 2005). Over the course of a single night, strangers Daniela (Blanca Lewin) and Bruno (Gonzalo Valenzuela) reveal themselves to one another in guarded conversation and periodic bouts of lovemaking. Director Mat??as Bize and writer Julio Rojas have trouble stirring up enough genuinely surprising (or moving) drama to break down the fourth wall of this dual portrait; unlike the similar but superior Before Sunrise, In Bed never transcends its own dramatic construct. 9:15 p.m., Castro. Also Mon/24, 3:15 p.m., Kabuki (Goldberg)

*Le Petit Lieutenant (Xavier Beauvois, France, 2005). Skinned of pop songs and even a score, decorated in grays and blues, and populated by more realistic gendarmes than one is likely to see outside le station, this clear-eyed, no-merde look at the career of an eager, recent police academy graduate (Jalil Lespert), his fellow cops, and his tough but vulnerable recovering alcoholic of a chief investigator (Nathalie Baye) is less a policier than an anthropologically minded character study. A student of Baye’s Detective commandant Jean-Luc Godard as well as Spielberg and Tarantino, director Xavier Beauvois mixes an almost clinical attention to detail with a genuine warmth for his characters and has a knack for tackling the knotty racial dynamics in today’s Paris. 3:30 p.m., Kabuki. Also Tues/25, 6:45 p.m., Kabuki; and April 26, 9:15 p.m., Kabuki (Chun)

*The Life I Want (Giuseppe Piccioni, Italy, 2005). Here is the engrossing meta–<\d>love story that fest opener Perhaps Love wants, or rather needs — though that film’s clumsy kitsch pageantry would have completely spoiled this refreshingly mature romance, which delicately references both Camille and Day for Night, Visconti and Laura Antonelli. At a screen test, all-too-established actor Stefano (Luigi Lo Cascio) is drawn in by the tremulous magnetism and churning emotions of the troubled, unknown actress Laura (Sandra Ceccarelli). Director Giuseppe Piccioni brings an elegant, hothouse intensity to the on-again, off-again, on-again tryst while speaking eloquently about the actor’s life, the hazards of the Method, and the pitfalls of professional jealousy — and giving both actors, particularly the impressive Ceccarelli, a layered mise-en-scène with which to work. 9:15 p.m., Kabuki. Also Mon/24, 8:30 p.m., Kabuki; April 27, 6 p.m., Kabuki; and April 30, 7 p.m., Aquarius (Chun)

Perpetual Motion (Ning Ying, China, 2005). Ning Ying explores the changes Western-style capitalism has brought to Chinese society in a gathering of four privileged, affluent, fictional ladies — played by some of the real-life republic’s best-known media personalities and businesswomen. They’ve assembled for tea at the posh home of Niuniu (Hung Huang), who’s got a hidden agenda — she’s invited these "friends" over to figure out which one is secretly boinking her husband. There’s some interesting political-cultural commentary around the edges here. But it’s disappointing that a female director would do what Ning soon does, reducing her characters to campy, bitch-quipping, weeping-inside gorgons in a pocket-sized variation on hoary catfight classic The Women. 6:45 p.m., Kabuki. Also Mon/24, 9:25 p.m., PFA; April 26, 3:30 p.m., Kabuki; and May 1, 9:30 p.m., Aquarius (Harvey)

*Taking Father Home (Ying Liang, China, 2005). In Ying Liang’s engrossing debut, urban decay and an impending flood follow protagonist Xu Yun (Xu Yun) around every turn of his doomed search for his absent father. The film — shot on video without the funding, or the approval, of the Chinese government — takes a no-frills approach, its only indulgences being Ying’s dark, quirky humor and obvious love of the long shot. Much of his action unfolds from afar, allowing the countryside and industrial wasteland of the Sichuan province to create a surprisingly rich atmosphere for this simple, effective story. 1:30 p.m., PFA. Also April 30, 3:30 p.m., Kabuki; and May 3, 6:15 p.m., Kabuki (Jonathan L. Knapp)

*Turnabout (Hal Roach, USA, 1940). Each convinced they’re on the low end of a marital totem pole, Carole Landis and John Hubbard say some hasty words in front of a Hindu deity’s statue. Voila! Husband and wife find themselves swapping bodies. This Freaky Friday precursor was a risqué surprise in the censorious climate of 1940 Hollywood and for that reason was denounced by the Catholic Legion of Decency as "dangerous to morality, wholesome concepts of human relationships, and the dignity of man." Why? ’Cause the guy acts femme and the girl acts butch, that’s why. Directed by comedy veteran Hal Roach, this seldom revived curiosity is too hit-and-miss to rate as a neglected classic, but it’s vintage fun nonetheless. 3 p.m., Castro. Also Sun/23, 6:15 p.m., PFA (Harvey)

*Workingman’s Death (Michael Glawogger, Austria/Germany, 2005). This five(-and-a-half)-chapter documentary examines manual labor of the most backbreaking variety: Ukrainian coal miners scraping out a dangerous living; Indonesian sulfur miners pausing from their toxic-looking quarry to pose for tourist cameras; Pakistani workers philosophically approaching the task of tearing apart an oil tanker ("Of course, this is a shitty job, but even so we get along well"); and, in the film’s most graphic segment, Nigerian butchers slogging through an open-air slaughterhouse. A Chinese factory and a factory-turned-park in Germany are also on the tour. Without narration, the film places emphasis on its images, which are often surprisingly striking. 3:45 p.m., PFA. Also April 30, 9 p.m., Kabuki; and May 4, 5:30 p.m., Kabuki (Eddy)

Sun/23

All about Love (Daniel Yu, Hong Kong, 2005). If you’ve got the fever for the flavor of Andy Lau, you can’t miss this melodrama, with the HK hunk in two roles: the clean-shaven doctor grieving over his dead wife, and the goateed fashion designer who realizes his true feelings after abandoning his sick wife, a heart-transplant patient. That the story lines intersect, bringing forth slo-mo shots of breaking glass and dripping tears, should surprise no one; Lau, of course, emerges as swoon-worthy as ever. 4:30 p.m., Kabuki. Also April 26, 5:15 p.m., Kabuki (Eddy)

*The Eagle (Clarence Brown, USA, 1927). Originally released in 1925, The Eagle is a spry star-vehicle for heartthrob Rudolph Valentino (that name!). Despite being set in decidedly unsexy 18th-century Russia, Valentino prances through as Vladimir, a dashing Cossack guard who disguises himself as the Black Eagle (as well as a French tutor) to exact justice upon a plundering landlord. In the process he finds romance with that same landlord’s daughter (Vilma Banky) and trouble with Russia’s queen (played with Garbo cool by Louise Dresser). The Alloy Orchestra performs a new score for this classic adventure story. 7 p.m., Castro (Goldberg)

*Live ’n’ Learn (various). You’ll find two excellent Bay Area–<\d>made movies in this program of short works. Tracing a heart-wrenching path away from — and yet toward — the stabbing at the end of Gimme Shelter, Sam Green’s painfully perceptive tribute to Meredith Hunter, Lot 63, Grave C is one of the best films at this year’s festival, period. The brightness of the cinematography in Natalija Vekic’s Lost and Found is as unique as its object-obsessed dive into memories of one Schwinn banana-seat summer — any kinks in the dialogue or narrative are trumped by the atmospheric potency of the visuals. 1 p.m., Kabuki. Also May 2, 1:30 p.m., Kabuki (Huston)
*Waiting (Rashid Masharawi, Palestine/France, 2005). A burnt-out Palestinian film director, an ex–TV journalist returned from abroad, and an unworldly local cameraman set out to audition actors at refugee camps in Gaza, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon on behalf of the National Palestinian Theatre (which promises, with relentless optimism, to open soon). "How can we really make films in this situation?" the director asks — a serious question when military occupation, dispossession, closed borders, broken families, and deferred dreams confront the impulses of human hearts and an art form premised on action. Filmmaker Rashid Masharawi (himself born in Gaza’s Shati camp) doesn’t always avoid staginess, but his acute sense of irony and his generous lens — opening onto a landscape of ordinary Palestinian faces — manage a persuasive emotional and thematic complexity. 3:30 p.m., Kabuki. Also Tues/25, 4 p.m., Kabuki (Robert Avila)

Mon/24

House of Himiko (Isshin Inudo, Japan, 2005). Young Saori (Kou Shibasaki) can’t afford to pass up a part-time job at a private old-age home. But she doesn’t have to like it: The residents are all gay men, and they include the father (Min Tanaka) whose abandonment long ago left Saori a grudge-keeping homophobe. But her prejudices eventually melt amid these aging queens’ wacky and poignant antics. This is the kind of movie that does soften up mainstream audiences’ attitudes, if only because it panders to them so carefully — the ol’ ’mos here are all cuddly, harmless, and postsexual, despite their occasional trash talk. For more sophisticated viewers, the cutesy stereotypes and maudlin moments may outweigh director Isshin Inudo’s good intentions and passages of low-key charm. 6:30 p.m., Kabuki. Also April 27, 5:45 p.m., Castro (Harvey)

*Runners High (Justine Jacob and Alex da Silva, USA, 2006). Inspirational sports movies are hard to beat, and this doc about Students Run Oakland, a group that trains high schoolers for the Los Angeles marathon, is particularly potent. Rough neighborhoods, unstable home lives, and plain old out-of-shapeness provide obstacles for the dedicated kids profiled here, but the training benefits nearly all who stick with it. "If you can accomplish a marathon, you can accomplish anything" would be a clichéd thing for a coach to say in a narrative film; in the context of this doc, the words feel truly sincere. 7 p.m., Kabuki. Also April 27, 10 a.m., Kabuki; April 29, 3:30 p.m., Kabuki; and May 2, 8:30 p.m., El Rio (Eddy)

Tues/25

Looking for Madonna (John de Rantau, Indonesia, 2005). Part potboiler romance, part quirky street-level character study, and part gritty message-movie about the fears that continue to surround HIV/AIDS — Looking for Madonna plays it multiple ways. In this, the gangly, freewheeling, and well-meaning feature debut of Indonesian director John de Rantau, Madonna is a pop star singing, "Don’t Cry for Me, Indonesia," as well as a local prostitute prized for her fair skin. The Virgin Mother, however, is nowhere to be found — although AIDS-infected Papua teen Joseph tries his best to reach a state of grace, aided by his cheeky, bawdy chum Minus. 7:15 p.m., Kabuki. Also April 29, 12:45 p.m., Kabuki (Chun)

*News from Afar (Ricardo Benet, Mexico, 2005). Just as Carlos Reygadas’s Japon gave viewers ample time to contemplate its maker’s talent and ponder his pretense, so does Ricardo Benet’s first feature as it turns a man’s relationship to landscape into an existential equation. When that landscape is as broke as a nameless saltpeter town or as forbidding as Mexico City, can it be anything else? Whether Benet will follow this movie with something as sublime and ridiculous as Reygadas’s Battle in Heaven is unclear, but there is no doubt that he is talented, and that News from Afar can slap a drowsy viewer upside the head with the full weight of fate gone bad. 7 p.m., PFA. Also April 29, 6 p.m., Kabuki; and May 2, 3 p.m., Kabuki (Huston)

Throwing the books, Pitney passes, Jew know what I mean?

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Give a brother a book, won’t you? Xiu Xiu‘s Jamie Stewart performs solo and Guardian contributor Devin Hoff brings his Platform (his catchall name for solo projects) to a benefit for the Prisoners Literature Project. Hoff tells me he has friends who work at the project who say they’re in dire need of cash, and as luck would have it, his sometime collaborator Stewart also volunteers there when he’s in town.

Tuesday, April 11, 8 p.m., at the AK Press warehouse, 674-A 23rd St., Oakl., between MLK and San Pablo. It’s $8 or $7 if you bring a book in good condition. All proceeds go to PLP.

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It’s all about words and action with Xiu Xiu.

A TOWN WITHOUT PITNEY

Crooner Gene Pitney was a kind of Roy Orbison, only with more tears and more of that insurance-salesman style.

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Billboard/Reuters reports that Pitney died Wednesday, April 5, of natural causes:

An autopsy on singer Gene Pitney, who was found dead in a hotel room in the Welsh capital Cardiff on Wednesday morning, showed he died of natural causes, police said.

Pitney, 65, who shot to fame in the 1960s with hits including “Town Without Pity” and “Only Love Can Break a Heart,” died after having given a concert the previous night that had won him a standing ovation.

“The post mortem results show Gene Pitney died of natural causes and there will not be a police investigation,” a spokesperson for South Wales police said. He added the body of the singer had been released to relatives and will be flown to the United States.

Pitney was in the middle of a 23-show tour of Britain when he died.


MOST HILARIOUS DISC IN THE CD SLUSH PILE

Rob Tannenbaum wields an iron editorial hand at Blender but apparently he’s been spending his off hours productively, waxing wittily as part of the musical comedy duo What I Like About Jew. Tannenbaum and Sean Altman have been dubbed “the Bart Simpsons of the Yeshiva” by Time Out New York and hyped with a cover story on “The New Super Jews.” Astonishingly, this CD, chock full of ethnic humor [sample song titles: “Hot Jewish Chicks,” “They Tried to Kill Us (We Survived, Let’s Eat),” “JDate”], is actually funny.

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They play two HEEB Magazine-sponsored shows at 7:30 and 10 p.m., Tuesday, April 18, at Cafe Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. $15. (415) 861-5016.

Inside the belly of the dog

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I CARTOON DAZE

Homeland Security asked the usual dumb questions when I slapped my passport on the counter: what countries did you visit? Business or pleasure? The laser page did not trigger any alarms — yet. I advanced to the carrousel to pick up my luggage. My suitcase had burst apart in Mexico City, spilling incriminating documents all over the terminal floor. Now it came down the ramp swaddled in plastic. As I reached to pull it off, all hell broke loose — bells began to clang, buzzers burped jerkily, strobe lights flashed crazily on and off, and an automated voice on the intercom kept repeating “this is an emergency — walk do not run to the nearest exit.”

I did not walk, nor did anyone else in the San Francisco International arrivals terminal. We were under terrorist attack! The twin towers were coming down upon us! Young and old, some in wheelchairs even, stampeded for the sliding doors, luggage carts tipping, travelers stumbling, elbowing each other in their mad rush to escape as customs inspectors implored us to return to have our suitcases checked for contraband once the emergency had subsided. No one in his or her right mind ever did.

Meanwhile, the escapees kept jostling and tumbling and the bells and buzzers and whistles and lights kept yowling their siren song. Yow! Burrrp! Pow! It was like a Saturday morning kids’ cartoon.

Of course, in the end, the terrorist turned out be some poor schmuck caught smoking in the men’s room.

It was a prescient re-introduction to the land where my father croaked. My month inside the belly of the Dog was kind of like a perpetual cartoon. I often felt like poor Bob Hoskins surrounded by a world full of Roger Rabbits. Cartoons were, in fact, motoring worldwide mayhem. Bim! Baff! Boff! The irreverent Danish magazine Jyllns Posten had published a dozen blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad — in one, he wore a turban with a bomb in it, in another the Messenger of Allah was depicted as a pig (the magazine had reportedly turned down caricatures of Jesus Christ as being in poor taste.) The publication of the cartoons had opened the scab of Islamic wrath and the Muslim world was on a murderous rampage from Indonesia to well, Khartoum.

The religious leaders of 57 Islamic nations meeting in Mecca declared fatwa and jihad on the infidel Danes and their damned cheese. In Tehran, a smirking Ahmadinejad announced big-money competition for cartoons of the Holocaust (he doesn’t believe it happened) and spurious drawings appeared in Europe of Anne Frank in the sack with Adolph while she scribbles in her diary.

The Christian anti-Muslim cartoon backlash tumbled Muhammad’s rating to an all-time low in U.S. polls. The New York Times Style section reported that rebel youth were jumping out of the djalabahs and into “extreme Christian clothing.” In Nigeria, Christians slaughtered their Muslim brethren, daubing “Jesus Christ Is The Lord” on mosque walls in their victims’ blood.

Then came the anti-Christian, anti-Muslim cartoon backlash. Churches were neatly stenciled with icons equating the cross to the Swastika in Santa Cruz (Holy Cross) California. And to close the circle, three white boys in Alabama took the crusade a step up and just burned the tabernacles down to the ground.

If you don’t think our nation is being devoured by religious psychosis, consider two recent Supreme Court decisions. Just the other day, the Supremes voted unanimously, with Justice Roberts on board, to uphold the right of a religious cult to guzzle potions brewed from the hallucinogenic Amazonian root Ayahuasca while they gabbed with god. Last summer, that court, with Sandra Day O’Connor still in place, voted to deny brain tumor victims medical marijuana to ease their agonies.

The ultimate cartoon was Cheney plugging his hunting partner in the ticker just like good ol’ Elmer Fudd. Ping! Pong! Blamblam! Senator Lindsey Graham, who shares a similar war-mongering dementia with the veep, reports that Dick Cheney told him that killing small birds kept him “sane.” Blap! Splat! Shazam! The late night joke mongers had a ball with the caper: “This Just In! We’ve learned that Vice President Cheney tortured his hunting partner for an hour before he shot him!” Yuk! Yuk! Did you hear the one about the CIA agent caught rifling housewives’ panty drawers during working hours in Virginia (you could look it up)? Yok! Yok! The U.S. teaming up with Iran to keep Gays out of the United Nations? Tweet! Tweet! Bird flu in of all places, Turkey (and Iraq)? Kaplooey!

Elmer and Daffy Duck scoot off into the sunset and the screen rolls up into a little round porthole where Bugs is cackling, “th-th-th-the-that’s all folks!”

II SCOUNDREL TIME

The problem is that that’s not all folks, and this may be loony tunes but it certainly isn’t merry melodies. These bastards are for real and it’s not really very funny. The title of Lillian Hellman’s slim volume on how HUAC hounded her and Hammitt is an insufficient one to describe these scum and their perverted torture war.

Every day the Seattle Times runs a few inches slugged “Terrorism Digest.” Aside from the usual shorts on Moussaoui, a rumored attack during March Madness, and an elderly ice cream truck driver in Lodi California who is accused of planning to blow up skyscrapers in Hollywood, most of the news is not about terrorism at all but rather the torture of alleged terrorists, perhaps tens of thousands of them in secret torture chambers hidden away in U.S. client states like Bulgaria and Morocco.

Here’s one. Ali Shakal Kaisi was the hooded man on the box with the electric cables snaking from his limbs, the poster boy for the abuse at Abu Ghraib. The photo is now on his business card. Originally, he was arrested for complaining to occupation troops about throwing their garbage on a soccer field in his Baghdad neighborhood. The Pentagon, in a display of perhaps the most hideous chutzpah in the Guinness Book of Records, refuses to comment on Mr. Khaisi’s case because it would “a violation of his Geneva Convention rights.”

Connoisseurs concede that Bush et al (heretofore to be referred to as “the scum”) have added some innovative techniques to Torquemada’s little catalogue of horrors. The reoccurring sexual pathology is disturbing. One accused Jihadist at Gitmo was wrapped in an Israeli flag and forced to watch gay porn 24 hours a day by military interrogators who passed themselves off as the FBI. Sadistic commandants shove feeding tubes up the nose of hunger strikers and rip them out roughly as the men piss and shit all over themselves while restrained in what Rumsfeld euphemistically describes as “a rolling padded cell.”

Why are these men being tortured? We learn from 5,000 pages of heavily-blacked-out military depositions released on court order to the Associated Press that at least three were detained because they wore Cassio F91W watches that have compasses on their face pointing to Mecca. “But our chaplains here all wear the same watch” protested one detainee.

All of this pain and suffering is being orchestrated in the much shat-upon name of freedom, the “freedom” as Sub Marcos puts it, “to choose between the carrot and the stick.” You know, as in “free elections” — Iraq’s three fraudulent elections that have led to massive bloodshed in that benighted land being the role models. But elections are not “free” when the Bushwas don’t win, like Hammas and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez and most probably, Lopez Obrador in Mexico this July. Maybe free elections are not such a hot idea after all.

The third anniversary of this despicable war is only days away as I write these scabrous lines. Extrapoutf8g the Lancet study, it is probable that 150,000 Iraqis have been crucified in this infernal crusade. The 2,300 or so GIs who died with their boots on fill just a few slabs in the charnel house Bush has built in Iraq.

I suppose the up side is that two thirds of those Yanquis surveyed think he is a liar and a baby killer — but many more will have to fall before the infidels are finally run off. Clearly, the resistance is working on it. Blowing the Golden Dome sky-high was a malevolent stroke of genius by the terroristas to incite sectarian (not civil) war, a scenario designed to foil the White House’s scheme to pull out of this treacherous quicksand and start bombing before the body bags queer the November elections.

Will it work? Shia death squads operating out of the Interior ministry are kidnapping dozens of Sunnis every day now and hanging them for public consumption. We can expect roadside gibbets next. The imminent spread of Shia-Sunni hostilities into neighboring oil lands has Washington biting its nails. We’re talking $100 a barrel here.

Sasha has a Skype pen pal in Baghdad, call her Fatima. She is a medical-science professor at the University, a middle class, somewhat secular woman who lives in a high rise in a mixed neighborhood. She writes when there is power and an Internet connection — the last three generator operators on the block have been shot dead. Her absence on the screen is always a cause for alarm. Fatima says she no longer sits writing in her window to take advantage of daylight because she is afraid of being hit by a stray bullet. I am forever amazed how concerned she is for us. Last week, she wrote “I am sorry my dear for not writing. I am ok but I am more afraid than before. Things are going from bad to very bad.” If we never hear from Fatima again, the blood will be on George Bush’s hands.

Is George Bush impeachable? He has committed multiple felonies in spying on 350,000 unsuspecting citizens without a court order, a stain on the Constitution and way beyond the pale of even Nixonian paranoia. He sold the country an illegal war based on shameless perjury in collusion with oil barons and defense contractors who have grown obscenely fat on the blood of the Iraqi people.

And he sought to sell off vital U.S. ports to “Arab terrorists”! Or at least that’s what his fellow Republicans seem to perceive. Fanning the fumes of anti-Arab racism has come back to bite Bush and the corporate globalizers of the planet on the ass. Who does Bill Frist think was operating these ports up until now? The bloody Brits, that’s who! This is Globalization, Savage Capitalism, Dog eat Dog. It’s the American Way. What do you know about Sheik Mo? Vital elements of the food chain (Church’s Chicken and Caribou Coffee for example) have already fallen into the hands of “Arab terrorists.”

Where was I? The Bill of Particulars, right? I’m sorry — it’s my birthday and I’m on a vent fueled by the one good thing about this country, Humboldt County sinsemilla.

George Bush — guilty of nuclear proliferation! What else would you call giving India enough fissionable material to blow a hole in China and Pakistan?

George Bush — guilty of blatant racism and incalculable callousness, strumming his guitar while the levees were bursting down in New Orleans, an interval much like the goat story on 9/11 of which Osama has reminded us in a recent communique. J’accuse George Bush!

Will a mush-minded congress apparently dosed to the gills on Ambien, the new sleepwalking (and sleep voting) wonder drug, vote to impeach? “Que se vayan todos!” the cry of the 2002 Argentinazo, “that they should all be kicked out” is an anthem for our time.

III SLEEPING IN SEATTLE

I’ve spent the last month sleeping in Seattle. Daytimes, I’ve churned out tens of thousands of words on my soon-to-be-published-if-it-ever-gets-finished opus, “Making Another World Possible: Zapatista Chronicles 2000-2006.”

Seattle has spectral vistas but at heart, it is a city without a soul. It has been bitterly cold here, the wind whipping off Puget Sound like The Hawk off Lake Michigan. A sullen rain falls most days. When the sun comes out in Seattle, they say the suicide rate goes up because people can’t deal with the brightness.

I have been lucky to have had Sasha’s cozy room and half to hole up in. A lot of people in this city don’t even have a roof over their head. Old men sleep rough in Pioneer Square these freezing nights, young tramps camp out under the bushes up here on Cap Hill. There’s a Hooverville under the Viaduct.

The merchants don’t care much for all these deranged pariahs dragging around ragged sleeping bags like batman capes or curled up in fetal positions in one of Starbuck’s many doorways. Seattle has more pressing matters on its mind. Howard (Starbuck’s) Schultz is threatening to move the Sonics if he doesn’t get a new arena free of charge from the city. Then there is Bill and Melissa, the world’s wealthiest nation.

This is a smug city that has grown soft and wealthy on the backs of software billionaires, where no one gives a damn about anything that is not on a screen. The Stranger ran the Muhammad cartoons and no one flinched. The next week, the paper ran a feature on a man who was fucked to death by a horse. Again, no one flinched. Meanwhile, the homeless are dying out there in the street.

On Valentine’s Day, Sasha and I died in on the City Hall steps — she was the 50th victim to have died on the streets of Seattle in 2005. I was the 53rd. The Raging Grannies died in with us. I dedicated my dying to the spirit of Lucky Thompson, who recorded with Miles and Bird and spent his twilight years sleeping in Seattle parks. Seattle has a way of damaging its black geniuses. Octavia Butler, the towering writer of “conjectural fiction” whose work hones in on race and class like a laser, fell down the steps of her home here a few weeks ago. She lived alone — she always lived alone — and no one found her until she was dead. There is a statue of Jimi Hendrix right down the street.

What’s been good is watching Sasha blossom as an organizer. She’s been busy 25 hours a day putting together the visit of Eman Khammas, a courageous Iraqi journalist who speaks to the plight of women in Bush’s genocidal war. I saw Khammas last summer at the Istanbul War Crimes Tribunal and she is a firebrand speaker. Eman is part of the Women Say No To War tour put together by Global Exchange, two members of the delegation who had lost their families to the occupation, were denied visas because they did not have enough family left to “compel” their return to Iraq.

On the third anniversary of this madness March 18th, Eman Khammas will be a speaker at the march and rally set for the Seattle Federal building. That evening, she will talk at greater length at Trinity Methodist Church in the Ballard district. The kick-ass rebel singer Jim Page will open. No one turned away. Some of the moneys raised will go to the Collateral Repair Project (www.collateralrepairproject.org) which Sasha and her pal Sarah have created to help out the family of Mahmoud Chiad, an ambulance driver in al-Qaim who was gunned down by Bush’s crusaders October 1st, the first day of Operation Iron Fist in al-Ambar province, as he raced to aid victims of the massacre. There’s a widow and six kids, and Collateral Repair hopes to buy them a piece of land and some goats.

So I’m in the air back to Make Sicko City. The globalphobes are acting out at the World Water (Privatizers) Forum, which kicks off this week and when last heard from, Sub Marcos was trying to break into a prison in Guanajuato. I’ve got to finish this damn book in the next six weeks.

And Sasha and I? Who knows? I wear her name on a grain of rice around my neck and her door key is still wedged deep in my pocket and maybe it will open her heart to me again someday. We met in Baghdad with Bush’s bombs on the way and the bottom line is that we continue to fight this heinous war together. That’s good too.

John Ross has landed. But these articles will continue to be issued at 10-day intervals until “Making Another World Possible” is done. The deadline is May 1st. “Making Another World Possible” will be available at cost to Blindman Buff subscribers this fall.

 

 

 

Un certain regard

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Like Bresson and Renoir did before them, the Dardenne brothers tend to inspire reviews using vaguely Christian words like transcendence from critics trying to describe the way a transparent film style can result in such fully formed, singular movies. At least one such reviewer has already referred to their newest masterpiece, L’Enfant, as a miracle, but, alas, it is not so. Like the Dardennes’ previous pinnacles — La Promesse, Rosetta, and The Son — L’Enfant handles weighty themes like guilt and redemption with awesome grace. But to liken the film to an act of God surely takes something from the technical precision and artistic concentration that so informs cinema Dardenne.

While their breakthrough may have come on the stage at Cannes, Luc and his brother Jean-Pierre cut their teeth on a decade of vérité-style documentary work before making their first fiction film, 1987’s Falsch. Much has been made of the way the fly-on-the-wall documentary technique has informed the Dardennes’ fiction work, and, indeed, it’s hard to think of anyone exploring the tension between realism and reality as fruitfully. L’Enfant‘s camera isn’t as doggedly shaky as in the earlier films, but the general long-take style is still present: Conversations and characterizations are mediated by constant reframing instead of by cuts. The Dardennes’ ability to narrate with single takes, conveying information and drama via performance, framing, and an impeccable, Bressonian use of sound, means the brothers belong in any discussion of cinema’s long-take masters (a table that many, including Gus Van Sant and Richard Linklater, wish to eat at). Had he been alive to see L’Enfant, celebrated French critic and letting-the-camera-run aficionado André Bazin would surely have turned in a sparkling review.

Described as a sketch, L’Enfant‘s story is the stuff of melodrama. A penniless teenage mother (Déborah Francois) wanders with her baby in search of the father. Played by a ravaged Jérémie Renier (La Promesse), père Bruno is a decidedly small-time crook. Always looking for a score, he sells the newborn to back-alley adoption agents when mother Sonia isn’t around. As with all Dardenne stories, though, there is redemption: The baby is recovered, and Bruno ends up assuming responsibility for an unrelated theft to spare an underage accomplice.

If this sounds like a nail-biting character study, though, the story plays more mutedly than one might expect. Like much art cinema, the Dardennes use an oblique film style to distance us from characters and de-emphasize narrative spectacle. For the brothers, this strategy isn’t used for the sake of vague artiness but rather to convey their filmed stories as moral parables. One of the key sequences of L’Enfant is the one in which Bruno sells his baby. There is a sort of tension that builds as he rides the bus toward a rendezvous point in a single long take, but it’s of an infinitely quieter and more reflective sort than the kind produced by a comparable scene in Oscar-winner Tsotsi. A couple of cuts and a few rings of Bruno’s cell phone later, our protagonist is waiting in a barren apartment while the baby’s “adopter” operates next door — a climax narrated entirely by offscreen sound. The scene conveys an outrageous misdeed, but any judgment or repulsion has been sucked out by the Dardennes’ removed perspective; as such, Bruno’s betrayal seems less a crime against humanity than an action, an inevitable result of his role as the thief.

In the end, the Dardennes aren’t concerned with why their characters do what they do (the thing that occupies the vast majority of narrative filmmakers) but rather are taken with charting the moral implications and consequences of their characters’ actions. Someday a wise DVD distributor is going to package the Dardennes’ fiction films as a set, and the result will rival Kafka’s collected short stories in its parabolic riches. L’Enfant‘s protagonist thief may spend much of the film running to stand still, but the Dardenne brothers are nothing if not directed — toward greatness, that is.

L’ENFANT

Opens Fri/7 in Bay Area theaters.

For showtimes go to www.sfbg.com.

www.sonyclassics.com/thechild

Heart of glass

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One way to temper the shock of the new is to leaven it with bits of the old. The Europeans are expert at this, though they are more likely to do it the other way around: fluffing the old with bits of the new. On a long-ago visit to Oxford, England, in the first gray days of 1989, I was startled to find a Benetton, slick with plate glass and multicolored neon, installed along the high street in a sooty medieval building. We did not go in — for what would be the point? — but continued on to Christ Church College after a brief pause for fish and chips in a hotel pub.

If Bushi-tei is the most beautiful restaurant to open in San Francisco for a long while — if it is, in fact, arrestingly beautiful — it is because its designers understood that the present and the past are having a long conversation about the future. Bushi-tei (the name is said to mean "samurai with a big heart") is ultramodern and at the same time rustic; it is plate glass, frosted glass, a table for 16 topped with glass, and it is aged lumber salvaged from a mid-19th-century building in Nagano, Japan, and strategically placed around the dining room so that one moment you think you are south of Market, the next in the dining hall of a medieval monastery, and the moment after that in a ski lodge, with winter whistling beyond the log-cabin walls.

The main floor of the dining room is dominated by the huge glass-top table, laid with a long row of flickering votive candles as if it were part of the set for a Brother Cadfael mystery on PBS, or in the sanctuary of some Anglican church at Advent. Was the restaurant expecting some huge party? I asked our server. I was full of apprehension, for huge parties tend to grow festive and then raucous, which can have a swamping effect on parties of two.

She shook her head. No, no big party, she said. I asked what the big table was for, then, and she explained it was sometimes used to accommodate lone, stray diners, as was done at inns in the days of Chaucer. Town Hall, in SoMa, has used a similar communal table to great effect while at the same time smoothly accommodating walk-ins and other slipshod planners.

Town Hall does not have food like Bushi-tei’s, however. The executive chef, Seiji "Waka" Wakabayashi (one of his recent gigs: Ondine, in Sausalito), is fluent in the high culinary idiom of France as well as the varying dialects of the Orient, and the result is an extraordinary and stylish melding of East and West, presented on gorgeous white ceramic tableware (from Tak and Wak) that perfects the interior design.

As at the fancier sorts of French places, the sequence of courses is punctuated by little grace notes that don’t appear on the menu, starting with an amuse-bouche of, say, tuna paté in a little pastry buttercup and scattered with minced chives, and ending with petits fours, about which more anon. In between are dishes of greater substance in which disparate elements are often artfully mingled, as in a carpaccio of golden beets ($12), sliced into thin coins and overlaid with bolts of fluke (a remarkably tasty white-fleshed fish), some mizuna for shrubbery, and red dots of raspberry-ume sauce. (Ume is a Japanese plum variety noted for its tartness.)

When the food is not a mingling of East and West, it tends to be Western. A quiver of grilled asparagus spears ($6), for instance, is simply dressed Mediterranean style with some verjuice and sea salt and topped with shavings of parmesan cheese, while pan-seared Sonoma duck breast ($22), finely carved into carpaccio-like slices, each with a heart of rose, is accompanied by braised spinach, a crème-fraîchey whip of mascarpone and mustard, and dried chutney.

Not all the fusing, meantime, is flawless. It should be back to the drawing board for the seared blue-fin tuna belly ($28), a slim filet of doubtless pricey fish — in sushi bars, tuna belly is prized for its fattiness and commands a high price — that does not respond well to heat. Fish fat might be highly desirable when uncooked, but when cooked, it develops a strong, acrid scent and flavor I found dislikable despite the camouflage of celery-root puree, bean sprouts, and lime-herb sea salt. Since it takes all kinds to make a world, it did not entirely surprise me that my companion liked the tuna belly as much as I deplored it; he is, after all, a tireless eater of crackly, crinkly, aromatic bronze skin, whether of chicken or salmon. There was something deeply atavistic going on here, some ghost conjured from the hunter-gatherer past whose presence I could sense but not see, something about smoky, fatty flesh. I traded for the remains of the duck, gamy but still civilized.

The petits fours — an intense chocolate tart the size of a half-dollar and an orange financier of about the same size, glazed with Cointreau or some other orange liqueur — make a nice postprandial nibble. Sweet tooths of a harder core will want something more substantial, though, and among the more interesting of the larger choices is a black-sesame blancmange ($6.50), essentially a kind of pudding served in a nifty little capped pot and topped with pineapple dice: sweet but not too sweet, and interesting, though not shocking. *

BUSHI-TEI

Tues.–Sun., 5:30–10:30 p.m. (Fri. until 11:30 p.m.)

1638 Post, SF

(415) 440-4959

www.bushi-tei.com

Beer, wine, sake

AE/MC/V

Not noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Latter daze

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In playwright Dominic Orlando’s Juan Gelion Dances for the Sun, Latin American peasant Juan Gelion (a charismatic Johnny Moreno) abandons a promising career in the church to found a new one — or is it the old one reborn? Even Juan doesn’t seem sure. But he renounces material wealth, goes about healing the sick — beginning with beloved cousin Mariana (Juliet Tanner), who lies dying from a botched abortion — and collects a band of unlikely followers, including his cranky atheist brother (Hector Osorio) and a chipper but mentally unstable American (Alexandra Creighton).

Following a half-understood inner voice, Orlando’s hesitant messiah takes his band to the United States. Once landed in Florida, they go toe to toe with America’s military-industrial Christ complex, personified by a secretive rapture-hastening group of three Beltway fundamentalist power brokers and their golden boy, up-and-second-coming governor of Arizona Arn Darby (Nick Sholley). These four asses of the apocalypse, convinced their rich, war-making selves constitute God’s chosen, latch onto Juan Gelion as the false messiah, or adversary, prophesied in Revelations. They arrest and interrogate him, leading to a showdown of supernatural proportions and a surprising denouement. Along the way, more mundane and metaphysical concerns get an airing, along with a smattering of songs from, or accompanied by, the story’s narrator-chorus, a sardonic guitarrista played by composer Deborah Pardes.

Unlike the millennial millionaires it lambastes, Crowded Fire’s world premiere has both style and soul. Artistic director Rebecca Novick’s crisp pacing and appealing cast make it relatively easy to forgive the story’s thinner patches and loose ends, and the production strikes a fine balance of humor and drama throughout. Moreover, its fanciful story line contains both a well-grounded critique and a sincere spiritual question at its core. James J. Fenton’s lovely scenic design, meanwhile, with its graceful parabolic arches and delicate branches (combined with Heather Basarab’s lambent arboreal lighting) makes compellingly manifest Juan Gelion’s antiauthoritarian "church without walls." Delivering sass to the sanctimonious carries a bit of its own presumption, especially if your own thoughts on religion tend towards HL Mencken’s. But bucking the budding American theocracy is a timely subject. These people really are the living end.

MAKING HAY

Last Planet Theatre, never a company to shrink from a challenge (or to foist one on its audience), has pulled off a startling production of Franz Xavier Kroetz’s Farmyard, a difficult but quietly compelling exploration of love and suffering amid a bleak, isoutf8g landscape of rural poverty. The unflinching and idiosyncratic Kroetz, who not long ago was Germany’s most performed living playwright, may be far less well-known here, but his work finds kindred spirits in artistic director John Wilkins and his cast.

The story unfolds with a kind of aggressively stylized naturalism on a humble American family farm, where Beppi (Heidi Wolff), the retarded teenage daughter of the farmer (Richard Aiello) and his wife (Emma Victoria Glauthier), falls in love with an aging, randy farmhand named Sepp (Garth Petal), who has seduced her with stories. When Beppi becomes pregnant, the farmer takes retribution on Sepp’s beloved black shadow of a dog (Hilde Susan Jaegtnes, effectively swaddled in rags and shoe polish) before turning to his wife for help in solving the problem of their daughter.

The plot is bone simple, but its reverberations are subtle, strange, and unsettling — just as Kroetz’s stunted characters prove remarkably present while rarely managing more than a few brusque words or phrases. Whole scenes come wrapped in silences, long pauses measuring the distance between characters while binding them together. In a way, silence is the play’s principal subject: the silence of moral judgment, the absence (despite the swift trade here in the Commandments and the passing of sentences) of any voice or say beyond the inexorable force of life itself.

In that emptiness opened up so effectively in Farmyard — and echoed in the gentle bleakness of the surrounding country (beautifully evoked in James Flair and Paul Rasmussen’s scenic design, as well as Alex Lopez’s radiant lighting scheme) — it’s life that finally defines and bridges the void. And life converges in Beppi, whose name seems to mark her perpetual child status even in the midst of sexual awakening and motherhood, with all the innocent and anarchic force any farmyard could hope to contain. Wolff’s supple, perfectly assured performance is the natural standout in a cast composed of strong, focused portrayals all around.

Wilkins’s sharp staging adds a unique contribution to the play’s unsettling ambiguity by disrupting its heavy silences with a jarringly lush, sophisticated set of Shirley Horn torch songs. For all its in-your-face effect, the music makes a subtle point in the precise way it both works and doesn’t work: We can’t help aligning the words and ambience with the action, even while recognizing the absurdity of the match. But then what exactly is so absurd? In the end the songs perfectly measure, manipulate, and throw back our own programming, and still — it’s impossible not to add — how fitting that out of absolute darkness comes this beautiful, seemingly otherworldly paean to life. *

JUAN GELION DANCES FOR THE SUN

Through April 8

Thurs.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.

Traveling Jewish Theatre

470 Florida, SF

$18–$30

(415) 255-7846

www.crowdedfire.org

FARMYWARD

Through April 1

Thurs.–Sat., 8 p.m.

Last Planet Theatre

351 Turk, SF

$10–$18

(415) 440-3050

www.lastplanettheatre.com

Don’t deregulate cabs

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It’s not a great time to be a San Francisco taxi driver. High gas prices are taking cash directly out of drivers’ pockets, and fares haven’t kept pace. The only thing that seems to be solid is industry profits: According to a December 2005 city controller’s office report, cab companies have been making healthy returns even in bad economic times.

The way the companies make money, of course, is by leasing cabs to drivers, who are independent contractors. The "gate" — the cash the driver has to pay for the right to use a legal, properly permitted cab — runs about $91 for a 12-hour shift. That’s a lot of money to collect in fares before the driver makes a single penny, and it’s one of the reasons why driving a cab is less attractive today as a long-term occupation. Each year, the United Taxicab Workers union says, up to 25 percent of the city’s drivers turn over, meaning that one out of every four drivers has less than a year’s experience.

It’s possible the situation will take a turn for the better this spring, if the city moves forward with a plan to require cab companies and permit holders — who have the lucrative license to lease out their cabs to other drivers for profit — to help pay for health insurance for the drivers. It’s also possible things will get substantially worse, if Sup. Fiona Ma manages to win approval for legislation completely abolishing city controls on gate fees and allowing cab companies to charge drivers whatever the market will bear.

What the cab industry needs is more regulation, not less. In fact, it’s astonishing to see a San Francisco supervisor who is running for state assembly propose such a Bush-style deregulation plan that would enrich a few at the expense of many.

The Taxi Commission is slated to discuss the health insurance plan March 28. There are several options for how payment would be allocated; ideally, the drivers, permit holders, and cab companies would all pick up a share. But the Health Department has concluded that a working plan is possible — and the commissioners and supervisors should make sure one is put into action as soon as possible. *

Noise: The Guardian’s new music blog

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March 24, 2006

Tapes ‘N Horses ‘N Ladyhawks ‘N more

Weekend’s here and I’m hoping to keep it hail-free this time around. There are some heated hip-hop shows this weekend: Ghostface with M1 from Dead Prez at Mezzanine tonight and that massive Andre Nickatina and Equipto at Studio Z Saturday. Arab Strap are strapping the groovy boys on tonight and tomorrow at Cafe du Nord — with much excitement about His Name Is Alive. I’m psyched to see Islands with Metric at the Fillmore (along with the Strokes and Eagles of Death Metal at the Concourse) — and that’s all tonight. My ears are already starting to smart.

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Whoa, it’s Band of Horses.
Credit: Robin Laananen

And Sub Pop breakout beasts Band of Horses are playing with Earlimart tonight at the Independent (and if you miss them, the Horseys also play a free show at Amoeba Music in SF on — fooled ya — April 1, 2 p.m.). Remember these guys from onetime Bay Area indie rock band Carissa’s Wierd? Very wierd how what comes around goes around — and gets reincarnated as equine musicmakers. Nice beards, dudes. Couldn’t bother to shave, could you? S’OK — I didn’t either!

And then it’s open season on Noise Pop starting Monday. Yeehaw.

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Whoa, it’s Tapes ‘N Tapes at Cafe du Nord

Last night I went to du Nord to see Minneapolis band Tapes ‘N Tapes play their hearts out and praise SF (and diss LA, complaining about the dreary cold down south — we got lucky, I think). They rocked, all over the place — still forming their sound, no doubt. Twas a strong one.

OBLIGATORY MP3-RELATED QUASI-NEWS TIDBIT

Your pals at Jagjaguwar (www.jagjaguwar.com) e-mailed, ever so personally, to say they signed Vancouver band Ladyhawk, who are touring with Magnolia Electric Co. Wasn’t that also the title of a cheesy Mists of Avon Ladies-style fantasy flick in the ’80s? Anyway, said band’s self-titled CD/LP debut is due June 6.

The label writes that the band’s album is "a stomping and sweaty ride through the Vancouver streets that they all know well, as viewed from the seats of a bruised and doorless Astro Van. In this ride, you can’t help but feel that you will fall out and you will fall down, and your joints will all be sore at the end of the trip. Ladyhawk’s core is bracing rock. Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night is the hailstorm on the hood of the Replacement’s Let It Be, while distorted guitars invoke the thread and swerve of Silkworm and Dinosaur Jr."

I write that the ’90s are back and there’s nothing you can about it. Except to bury your combat boots in a small hole in the backyard and then pile dog manure gathered from Dolores Park trash cans all over it. It — the ’90s, that is — will probably still come back — but at least you tried.

If you embrace the grunge revivalism, listen to the MP3 for "The Dugout" from Ladyhawk’s debut at www.scjag.com/mp3/jag/dugout.mp3

Posted by Kimberly Chun at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 23, 2006

NOISE: SXSW, fantasy softball, part 3

OK, I swear, this is it. Enough SXSW, already. We gotta move on. So let’s get it out of our system, down on blog, and tricycle out to greener, sunnier pastures.

First off, the homo-happenin’ Ark may not have as good a name as their fellow Malmo, Sweden, rockers Quit Your Dayjob, but they managed to evoke the gods of candy-colored pop-rock good times not witnessed since Andrew WK headlined Bottom of the Hill. These guys work hard for their money. So hard for it, honey.

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Manic vocalist Salo was shaking that sheckel-maker, telling the SXSW sloggers they embodied his song title, "Rock City Wankers," and leading the crowd in a chant of "Tonight, one of us is gonna die young." Someday the sassy singer is gonna be a "Father of a Son," indeed — as long as those white hot pants don’t cramp his style. "It’s Saturday and no one wants to hear any more music!" he yelled, echoing the thoughts of so many wandering Austin like zombies with a blood hangover. This superfun Emo’s IV day showcase with the Gossip, Wooden Wand, and the Giraffes was one of my faves at SXSW.

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Most sighted celebrity, according to Akimbo (who I bunked down with in the Alternative Tentacles flophouse, a.k.a. George Chen’s Super 8 motel room): J. Mascis. "He was everywhere."

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Not J. Mascis’s ass

Oh look, wait, that’s Andy Gill in the middle, doing a crotch-block dance move, with fellow Gang of Four member Dave Allen and Peaches. This party happened earlier in the week at a smoke-filled, Camel-sponsored V2/Dim Mak thing. Weirdest moment: Peaches shakes a Dos Equis and hands it to Gill to spray on the audience, and he, looking befuddled, opens the can and pours it all over her CDs.

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I didn’t get to catch nearly as many SXSW panels as I wanted to, but the ones I did were incisive and low on bull dookie.

Best quips from the conference panel “Rolling Down the River: Revenue Streams Artists Should Know About”: International Artist Agency’s Stephen Brush on album sales: “Fuck the record. It helps. But at the end of the day, you’re building the audience one day at a time.” JSR Merchandising’s Brad Hudson on merch: “In the 26 years I’ve been doing this, the black T-shirt has been the staple. A lot of artists come up with great ideas but you’ll find the majority of the revenue coming from that T-shirt. Three T-shirts and a hoodie.”

Most Guardian-friendly soundbyte from Damian Kulash of OK Go at the surprisingly well-attended “Ten Things You Can Do to Change the World” panel: “It’s easy to say ‘Everyone vote!’ onstage. It’s hard to say, ‘There’s a media consolidation problem in this country, especially if you’re trying to get your single on Clear Channel station.”

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Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla, Steve Earle, and Jenny Toomey at the "Ten Things You Can Do to Change the World" panel. Earle: "How many Republicans are here?"

Word had it that the city of Austin was cracking down on singer-songwriter and former Kurt Cobain squeeze (and focus of mad Courtney jealousy) Mary Lou Lord, according to Austinist. She called them to say that the cops shut her down for busking in the street "citing a new law banning "amplification."

Yeesh, this after attending and playing on Sixth Street during SXSW for 11 fucking years. Anyway, she managed to hold this spot next to a late-night convenience store, across the posh, supposedly haunted Driscoll Hotel. Her pal Jason and his gorgeous falsetto deserve to be snapped up by some lucky label.

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SF’s Boyskout got the rock out at a Lava Lounge Patio show with IMA, Faceless Werewolves, Knife Skills, Happy Flowers, Skullening, and Die! Die! Die! Tight.

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The lady — namely Lady Sovereign — looks scary. Here she is at La Zona Rosa. (After losing my way to the Anti- Hoot with Billy Bragg and Jolie Holland, I managed to catch her, as well as Bauhaus-soundalikes She Wants Revenge and the snarksome We Are Scientists down the street at Fox and Hound.) LS’s beats were harsh, and the vibe was, yes, brattay. (She likes to throw down…that microphone.)

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Ghostface made a Wu-Tang face right after the Lady — very fun. GK commanded the stage, the crowd went nuts over the Wu tunes, and I appreciated the sound of gunfire that gently segued between the songs. Whoo.

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The official SXSW-closer softball game/barbecue was called for rain. But hadn’t we had enough white bread by then?

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 01:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 22, 2006

Noise: SXSW, too many bands

Dennis Cabuco of the Guardian and Harold Ray Live in Concert!, signing in for a final SXSW posting. I had a blast during the final days of SXSW, so here’s a quick account of my wanderings through Austin, Texas:

Friday afternoon

The North Loop Block Party took place in North Austin with three stages set up in parking lots between vintage shops, a record store, and a kink boutique. I had a few beers with friends and saw the following bands:

The Time Flys — I see these guys often, but they definitely have tightened up since the time we all got drunk for a Cereal Factory show together.

The Cuts — I also see these guys often. Gotta say, they still remind me a lot of the Cars. Yeah, I could see these guys and the Time Flys in SF, but there were a lot of other good bands (whose names I didn’t get) at the block party as well, and with three stages, there was no wait between bands. The audience was composed of nice, well-dressed people. I took some time out to check out all the cool shops and relax from the frantic urgency of seeing bands downtown.

The Nice Boys — I didn’t know they were from Portland, and I didn’t know that one of the guys was in the Exploding Hearts either.

Dazzling King Solomon — This band has a couple of members from the Nervous Exits. Awesome ’60s rock. Crunchy.

I had lunch at Stubbs where I saw We Are Scientists, a threepiece that sounds a lot like the Killers.

Friday night

Ponderosa Stomp — I went to the Continental Club, which was packed, to see Barbara Lynn tearing it up on guitar, playing a leftie strat. She is amazing player, and sings with a soul-stirring voice. I was very moved by her performance. Afterward, I saw Eddie Bo. I say again, Eddie Bo! No, he didn’t do “Check Your Bucket” or “the Thang”, perhaps because they didn’t have the original band to do it, but it was cool to hear him backed bt Little Band of Gold anyway. Archie Bell came up to school us on how to do the “Tighten Up”, which I never know how to do.

OK Go — I watched most of their set on the big screen from outside of the Dirty Dog. It was at capacity, and they weren’t letting anyone else in. If only the industry dorks drinking by the window would leave so the fans could get in. They were oblivious to the amazing show taking place right behind them. I got in just before the last song and the “encore,” the "Million Ways" dance. If you wanna know what that is, you can watch the video on the OK Go website.

On my way up to the Fox and Hound to see Animal Collective, I took Fourth Street, which was blocked off for a St. Patty’s spring-break meat-market hoedown — a block party packed with homogenous, drunken college folks. The good that came of that jaunt: I found out Brandi Carlile was playing at Cedar St. Courtyard, an outdoor patio with good sound. I’ll get back to that.

I made it to the Fox and Hound, which had a long line for Animal Collective. I was still in line when they started their set. The first number lasted about 10 minutes and went nowhere. It was the kind of music I’d hear at a club — a beat, some record scratching, and no discernable melody. I just couldn’t get into it, so I took off in the middle of their second song, out to seek something with melody and harmony.

I fought the St. Patty’s revelers once more to get to the patio where Carlile was playing. She was getting a lot of praise from a pop music station in Austin, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. With a new album just out, she kicks off her first major tour with SXSW in Austin, and if the crowd was any indication of the response she’ll get on tour, it will be a success. It took a while to get the sound worked out as the crowd grew anxious, but we were rewarded with a professional show, and the sound was the best anywhere that evening. She did a couple of songs with a cello player. The bass and guitar players are twins. Brandi is a natural on stage and sings with a sweet sincerity that you can’t help but love. Her songs have universal themes with broad appeal, and it’s a pleasure to watch her perform.

When I left the Courtyard at about 2:00 a.m., the college crew had disappeared, leaving only the canopies, bad leprechaun decorations, and plastic cups littering the street. I walked along Sixth Street to find that the spring-breakers had spilled out to mix with the SXSW crowd, and it was mayhem. People were yelling into their cell phones looking for parties. I witnessed some groping, some drama, and a girl sporting red flashing LEDs on her nips, highlighting her 38D bustline. She should meet up with the guy who had a scrolling LED belt buckle.

Saturday afternoon

I went to Cream Vintage for a show in their back parking lot. The fans were undaunted by the rain as petite blonde Annie Kramer played her set. She was joined by A FirJu Well, who backed her up for a few songs. We sang along to “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” as the PA cut out because of the rain. If the Grateful Dead kept playing ’60s stuff throughout their career, they might’ve sounded like this. These guys obviously hang out and play music all the time — they were so comfortable backing others and improvising through technical difficulties.

Saturday night

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I got to Zona Rosa to see Morningwood midset, and they were excellent. See them live if you get a chance. I was convinced to stay and see the Stills by a fan named Rene. She gave me a quick rundown on the band’s background and their songs as they played. They had great energy, keyboards, harmonies, and danceable songs. I couldn’t tell what was old or new, but I liked it all. Emily from Metric made an appearance to do a new song with them, which she had just learned in their tour bus on the way fom Canada.

I took a cab over to the Continental Club to see Andre Williams. It was nice to see him, but most of the good tunes, like "Rib Tips," are practically instumentals. For this, the band makes all the difference. The Continental Club was packed, and it had a party atmosphere, but the music was nothing like what I heard on the recordings. I know Williams is also a good keyboardist, so I was disappointed that he didn’t strut his stuff on organ. I left after about five songs and took a cab back to Red River Road.

I ran into my new friend Rene while at at Emo’s Annex to see a fun indie band called I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness. One song, “Your Worst Is the Best” reminded me a bit of Death Cab for Cutie. I went to the Velvet Spade for a drink and to say hi to the Nervous Exits (whom I had missed at 10 p.m.). I went upstairs to see the stage where my band played our first SXSW two years ago. They had a tent around the outdoor patio this time. I heard some good R&B and looked up to see a guy who looked like he should be in a ’70s rock band singing and shaking his head while hammering a Hammond XB2 and a Fender Rhodes. John and the drummer Van make up the Black Diamond Heavies from Nashville belting out some heavy blues rock with no guitarist!

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I left on my way to Stubbs to see the Pretenders, but was distracted by some good music coming from Club DeVille. The doorperson told me it was the Cribs. I walked up to the stage and ended up staying for their whole set, riveted by their performance. Hailing from England, this threepiece reminds me of the Jam and early Green Day. It’s refreshing to see a young band so into their music. They were also tight and well-rehearsed. The guitarist knocked over his Orange amp during their final song, the drummer knocked over his set, and the bassist left his amp oin to feedback as they exited the stage. I missed the Pretenders, but heard it was a great show.

My last hoorah was the super-exclusive, invite only, no-getting-in-without-a-special-pass, Vice Magazine Party, attended by hundreds. I arrived at the Blue Genie in East Austin just in time to see Wolfmother, who were amazing. Where do they get all that energy after playing (at least) four shows at SXSW? I stood right in front of the keyboard player to watch him use all his effects, which were duct-taped to the top of his XB-2, which of course had to be duct-taped to the stand for all that dancing around. This show was way loud, and they ended with the keyboard player leaving his rig sideways, effects looping with his amp on.

Probably the coolest people I met there were Sara Liss from Now magazine http://www.nowtoronto.com/minisites/sxsw/2006/
and her friend Melanie. We compared notes of our SXSW experiences while we sipped mixed drinks made with Phillips vanilla whiskey. Wierd! Yummy though.

My last, last hoorah was Fuzz club for a pcyched out 60’s night at Beerland on Sunday night where the Mojo Filters played a tight set.

Sunday evening, I saw a much more subdued Austin, catching its breath from the biggest party of the year. Besides SXSW, there were also roller derbies and a rodeo. This is the most hectic week Austin experiences, and I’m sure a lot of the natives are glad it’s over. It was raining as a thunderstorm pulled in, but still relatively warm. I will miss Austin and will likely come back next year.

With an overwhelming number of bands playing at the same time, it was inevitable that I would not get to see everyone I wanted to see, so here’s a partial list of other bands I wish I saw:

The Noisettes
Mates of State
Of Montreal
Metric
Film School
Allen Toussaint
Rock and Roll Soldiers
Persephone’s Bees
DMBQ
Seventeen Evergreen
The Nervous Exits
Gris Gris
Drunk Horse
Morrisey
the Pretenders
the Charlatans

Thanks, Amy for being such a gracious host, and for taking me to the best Mexican restaurant in Austin.

Posted by Dennis Cabuco at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NOISE: SXSW, the final fantasy, part 2

SXSW — oh, that old thing? That was sooo…last Saturday. Before it fades from memory, only to be replaced by the latest whiskey bar, here are a few more toasts.

On Friday, we swung by the Band of Gold (featuring Archie Bell, DJ Fontana, and Barbara Lynn) but drove on by Club De Ville, daunted by the early line-formations. We saw the chalk outlines of a very long wait and checked in on Bettye LaVette at La Zona Rosa to see she cancelled. Oh well, Fatcat Records, Pawtracks, Bubblecore, and Motormouthmedia.com hosted an avant-art-hippie-core hoedown right down the street at Fox and Hound, featuring the Mutts, Tom Brosseau, and headliners Animal Collective. That brought out the girls with dyed black hair in tiered skirts and, natch, the boys with beards. I was wondering where they all were. Great merch table, by the way — a righteous free CD with every purchase.

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The lady-centric First Nation disappointed with their low energy musicmaking, but man, Storsveit Nix Noltes from Reykjavik, Iceland, worked those accordions, trumpets, cellos with lovely Eastern European folksong abandon. "Dance, dance!" yelped the cellist leader. We hear and try to obey — but the beards are screwed on too tightly. I hate when that happens.

Earlier Friday eve, I stepped into Yard Dogs, near Club De Ville, to glimpse the finale of the Bloodshot Records party. Nice music-related folk art inside, including Mekon Jon Langford’s faux-weathered works in tribute to Hank Williams and other country and American idols and icons (he was throwing down an opening the next night), and Jad Fair’s whimsical, colorful ink and paint pieces. "Folk" art here means art by music folk or about music folk — got it? Get it. The best buy had to be Rev. Howard Finster’s wood cutouts of musical legends (I know I was tempted by a Merle Haggard piece with very defined teeth).

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Stepped into Ba Da Bing/Leaf’s showcase at Blender Balcony at the Ritz (just had to fight the lines for Brakes, the Kooks, Editors, KT Tunstall, and the Feeling for the Blender Bar space at street level). Early on, Utrillo Kushner of Comets on Fire played songs in the key of "solo project" alongside Garrett Goddard of the Cuts on drums. Dig the ironic Magnum PI shirt!

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The Ba Da Bing showcase closed with a rare show by London’s Th’ Faith Healers, one of my pre-grunge post-punk faves from back in the early ’90s day. Thrilling. Regained faith. Was healed. Went home and fondled the flannel.

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Another awesome, somewhat unappreciated aspect of the SXSW music conference (which Guardian contributor Kurt Wolff had to remind me about): Flatstock Poster Convention, usually held simultaneously on the groundfloor of the Austin Convention Center. The denizens of one booth silkscreened T-shirts as you waited, and most artists also designed a poster for the exhibit. Drool over the splashy graphics. Be pleasantly surprised by the reasonable prices. Reach for your wallet. Shield your precious new piece of art from the rain.

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Philadelphia’s Pushmepullyou Design boss lady Eleanor Grosch; www.pushmepullyoudesign.com

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Boss Construction from Nashville, TN; www.bossconstruct.com

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Matt Daly of the Bird Machine, Inc., Chicago; www.thebirdmachine.com

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The Decoder Ring Design Concern, Austin, TX; www.thedecoderring.com

Posted by Kimberly Chun at 02:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NOISE: Go Bats

Who drunkenly referred to New Zealand band the Bats as the "Hobbit’s Go-Betweens?" Were they cracked out on ethereal pop?

Judge for yourself when the Bats attempt to cement last year’s comeback long-player, At the National Grid, in your consciousness — with, of course, a tour. They stop at Amoeba Music, SF today at 6 p.m. for a free show, then wing over to Rickshaw Stop at 8 p.m. (then on to the Starry Plough March 23). Essential for NZ popsters — you know who you are. You love the guano.

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 01:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 20, 2006

NOISE: SXSW, the final days, part 1

So much has happened and so little blogging has gotten done. Could there be a connection? Yep. So here’s a little more on SXSW, the final days, revolving around what photos I could take before my camera died a horrible death –like all the other electronic devices around me.

The Nice Boys from Portland, Ore., tapped a fun Cheap Trick/Faces vein of pure ’70s-era gold. Rawk at the Birdman Records Showcase.

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Power rock with extreme volume and lots of melody — all from a lil’ ole threepiece called the Evangelicals. Very fun — and worth checking into when not studying Bay Area DJ Mike Relm’s DVD scratch technique next door at the Blind Pig.

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Shows at houses, record stores, boutiques, garages — one thing you gotta love about SXSW is the way the entire city seems filled with music. Music is oozing out of every corner of its mouth, dripping sloppily all over its chin and into its crotch. And it doesn’t care! (Though of course it does care, deeply, about music) These shows were strictly for locals on South First Street — I came to see Palaxy Tracks.

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Ran into John Vanderslice, who only wanted to talk about how much he wanted to get back to SF after touring Europe with Death Cab for Cuties (where they were treated, if not like kings, then well-regarded "court jesters," he chuckled). He performed with Matt from Nada Surf and Rocky Votolato, fellow Barsuk artists, at End of the Ear, a cool vinyl store on South First.

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Palaxy Track’s guitar player’s other project, Octopus Project, headlined in the backyard of Bella Blue boutique nearby. Boys in tights and hot pants played basketball in the driveway.

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The music just couldn’t stop — it didn’t matter if you couldn’t play an instrument and just wanted to play 7-inches on your battery-powered turntables. "Sit and spin" takes on yet another meaning.

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 18, 2006

NOISE: SXSW’s Peach-y keen naked ladies

Stealth "special" appearances by Jane’s Addiction/Perry Farrell, Norah Jones, and Flaming Lips? Those SXSW events were one-upped by a spontaneous session of the itty bitty titty club (and prominent potbelly chapter) when Peaches teamed with Dave Allen of Gang of Four for a DJ set at Friday night’s V2/Dim Mak party, charmingly titled "Clusterfuck." That was sort of the vibe as Peaches and Allen spun Suicide-like beats, hard-edge dance numbers, and the Rezillos — the most screwy aspect was all the endless Camel advertising/product placement going on. (And what was with all the cigarette giveaways at this year’s fest?)

In any case, I confess I like Mistress P’s style: She basically yelled at the crowd, ordered them to dance, and then jumped into the audience and moshed into me. It was like bouncing into a big, fluffy cinnamon bun — Peaches smells just fine! And that’s enough to make anyone dance.

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Later a slew of burlesque dancers got onstage and shook it like a Polaroid land camera. Entertaining — too bad it seemed to drive half the crowd away. Maybe Suicide Girl-style go-go schtick’s moment has passed. Or perhaps the culture vultures would have stuck around if the ladies stripped and threw Camels… Now that would be a sight to see.

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 03:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tapes ‘N Horses ‘N Ladyhawks ‘N more

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Weekend’s here and I’m hoping to keep it hail-free this time around. There are some heated hip-hop shows this weekend: Ghostface with M1 from Dead Prez at Mezzanine tonight and that massive Andre Nickatina and Equipto at Studio Z Saturday. Arab Strap are strapping the groovy boys on tonight and tomorrow at Cafe du Nord — with much excitement about His Name Is Alive. I’m psyched to see Islands with Metric at the Fillmore (along with the Strokes and Eagles of Death Metal at the Concourse) — and that’s all tonight. My ears are already starting to smart.

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Whoa, it’s Band of Horses.
Credit: Robin Laananen

And Sub Pop breakout beasts Band of Horses are playing with Earlimart tonight at the Independent (and if you miss them, the Horseys also play a free show at Amoeba Music in SF on — fooled ya — April 1, 2 p.m.). Remember these guys from onetime Bay Area indie rock band Carissa’s Wierd? Very wierd how what comes around goes around — and gets reincarnated as equine musicmakers. Nice beards, dudes. Couldn’t bother to shave, could you? S’OK — I didn’t either!

And then it’s open season on Noise Pop starting Monday. Yeehaw.

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Whoa, it’s Tapes ‘N Tapes at Cafe du Nord

Last night I went to du Nord to see Minneapolis band Tapes ‘N Tapes play their hearts out and praise SF (and diss LA, complaining about the dreary cold down south — we got lucky, I think). They rocked, all over the place — still forming their sound, no doubt. Twas a strong one.

OBLIGATORY MP3-RELATED QUASI-NEWS TIDBIT

Your pals at Jagjaguwar (www.jagjaguwar.com) e-mailed, ever so personally, to say they signed Vancouver band Ladyhawk, who are touring with Magnolia Electric Co. Wasn’t that also the title of a cheesy Mists of Avon Ladies-style fantasy flick in the ’80s? Anyway, said band’s self-titled CD/LP debut is due June 6.

The label writes that the band’s album is “a stomping and sweaty ride through the Vancouver streets that they all know well, as viewed from the seats of a bruised and doorless Astro Van. In this ride, you can’t help but feel that you will fall out and you will fall down, and your joints will all be sore at the end of the trip. Ladyhawk’s core is bracing rock. Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night is the hailstorm on the hood of the Replacement’s Let It Be, while distorted guitars invoke the thread and swerve of Silkworm and Dinosaur Jr.”

I write that the ’90s are back and there’s nothing you can about it. Except to bury your combat boots in a small hole in the backyard and then pile dog manure gathered from Dolores Park trash cans all over it. It — the ’90s, that is — will probably still come back — but at least you tried.

If you embrace the grunge revivalism, listen to the MP3 for “The Dugout” from Ladyhawk’s debut at www.scjag.com/mp3/jag/dugout.mp3

NOISE: SXSW, fantasy softball, part 3

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OK, I swear, this is it. Enough SXSW, already. We gotta move on. So let’s get it out of our system, down on blog, and tricycle out to greener, sunnier pastures.

First off, the homo-happenin’ Ark may not have as good a name as their fellow Malmo, Sweden, rockers Quit Your Dayjob, but they managed to evoke the gods of candy-colored pop-rock good times not witnessed since Andrew WK headlined Bottom of the Hill. These guys work hard for their money. So hard for it, honey.

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Manic vocalist Salo was shaking that sheckel-maker, telling the SXSW sloggers they embodied his song title, “Rock City Wankers,” and leading the crowd in a chant of “Tonight, one of us is gonna die young.” Someday the sassy singer is gonna be a “Father of a Son,” indeed — as long as those white hot pants don’t cramp his style. “It’s Saturday and no one wants to hear any more music!” he yelled, echoing the thoughts of so many wandering Austin like zombies with a blood hangover. This superfun Emo’s IV day showcase with the Gossip, Wooden Wand, and the Giraffes was one of my faves at SXSW.

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Most sighted celebrity, according to Akimbo (who I bunked down with in the Alternative Tentacles flophouse, a.k.a. George Chen’s Super 8 motel room): J. Mascis. “He was everywhere.”

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Not J. Mascis’s ass

Oh look, wait, that’s Andy Gill in the middle, doing a crotch-block dance move, with fellow Gang of Four member Dave Allen and Peaches. This party happened earlier in the week at a smoke-filled, Camel-sponsored V2/Dim Mak thing. Weirdest moment: Peaches shakes a Dos Equis and hands it to Gill to spray on the audience, and he, looking befuddled, opens the can and pours it all over her CDs.

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I didn’t get to catch nearly as many SXSW panels as I wanted to, but the ones I did were incisive and low on bull dookie.

Best quips from the conference panel “Rolling Down the River: Revenue Streams Artists Should Know About”: International Artist Agency’s Stephen Brush on album sales: “Fuck the record. It helps. But at the end of the day, you’re building the audience one day at a time.” JSR Merchandising’s Brad Hudson on merch: “In the 26 years I’ve been doing this, the black T-shirt has been the staple. A lot of artists come up with great ideas but you’ll find the majority of the revenue coming from that T-shirt. Three T-shirts and a hoodie.”

Most Guardian-friendly soundbyte from Damian Kulash of OK Go at the surprisingly well-attended “Ten Things You Can Do to Change the World” panel: “It’s easy to say ‘Everyone vote!’ onstage. It’s hard to say, ‘There’s a media consolidation problem in this country, especially if you’re trying to get your single on Clear Channel station.”

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Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla, Steve Earle, and Jenny Toomey at the “Ten Things You Can Do to Change the World” panel. Earle: “How many Republicans are here?”

Word had it that the city of Austin was cracking down on singer-songwriter and former Kurt Cobain squeeze (and focus of mad Courtney jealousy) Mary Lou Lord, according to Austinist. She called them to say that the cops shut her down for busking in the street “citing a new law banning “amplification.”

Yeesh, this after attending and playing on Sixth Street during SXSW for 11 fucking years. Anyway, she managed to hold this spot next to a late-night convenience store, across the posh, supposedly haunted Driscoll Hotel. Her pal Jason and his gorgeous falsetto deserve to be snapped up by some lucky label.

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SF’s Boyskout got the rock out at a Lava Lounge Patio show with IMA, Faceless Werewolves, Knife Skills, Happy Flowers, Skullening, and Die! Die! Die! Tight.

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The lady — namely Lady Sovereign — looks scary. Here she is at La Zona Rosa. (After losing my way to the Anti- Hoot with Billy Bragg and Jolie Holland, I managed to catch her, as well as Bauhaus-soundalikes She Wants Revenge and the snarksome We Are Scientists down the street at Fox and Hound.) LS’s beats were harsh, and the vibe was, yes, brattay. (She likes to throw down…that microphone.)

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Ghostface made a Wu-Tang face right after the Lady — very fun. GK commanded the stage, the crowd went nuts over the Wu tunes, and I appreciated the sound of gunfire that gently segued between the songs. Whoo.

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The official SXSW-closer softball game/barbecue was called for rain. But hadn’t we had enough white bread by then?

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NOISE: SXSW’s Peach-y keen naked ladies

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Stealth “special” appearances by Jane’s Addiction/Perry Farrell, Norah Jones, and Flaming Lips? Those SXSW events were one-upped by a spontaneous session of the itty bitty titty club (and prominent potbelly chapter) when Peaches teamed with Dave Allen of Gang of Four for a DJ set at Friday night’s V2/Dim Mak party, charmingly titled “Clusterfuck.” That was sort of the vibe as Peaches and Allen spun Suicide-like beats, hard-edge dance numbers, and the Rezillos — the most screwy aspect was all the endless Camel advertising/product placement going on. (And what was with all the cigarette giveaways at this year’s fest?)

In any case, I confess I like Mistress P’s style: She basically yelled at the crowd, ordered them to dance, and then jumped into the audience and moshed into me. It was like bouncing into a big, fluffy cinnamon bun — Peaches smells just fine! And that’s enough to make anyone dance.

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Later a slew of burlesque dancers got onstage and shook it like a Polaroid land camera. Entertaining — too bad it seemed to drive half the crowd away. Maybe Suicide Girl-style go-go schtick’s moment has passed. Or perhaps the culture vultures would have stuck around if the ladies stripped and threw Camels… Now that would be a sight to see.

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Native son

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The John Smith-Pocahontas romance has long been a cornerstone of America’s mythical landscape. He being the original Man Who Knows Indians (an archetype sealed by James Fenimore Cooper in The Last of the Mohicans), and she standing in for the land itself: Embodying equal parts purity and promise, Pocahontas represents an ideal, a paradise. The myth of their doomed love speaks to how this paradise was won and then lost. It is a story that Terrence Malick – a writer-director whose work has always sloped toward myth and, in The Thin Red Line, epic poetry – has wanted to tap for decades and finally does in his strange new film, The New World.

The New World is the departure and even, perhaps, the failure that many critics were expecting from Malick’s comeback film, The Thin Red Line. Despite Line’s 170-minute running time, the writer-director’s take on James Jones’s panoramic World War II novel was every bit as entrancing as his revered earlier films (Badlands, Days of Heaven). The New World runs 135 minutes (the version I saw was actually 150 minutes: The movie was recut after already screening across the country), and, this time, Malick does seem to have sacrificed clarity and control for the sake of spectacle. Still, the movie is certainly an important addition to a powerfully coherent filmography. He retains his formidable talent for grounding his characters in a specific geography, and he remains refreshingly concerned with their interiority: Few movie characters have souls as deep as Malick’s.

The writer-director’s movies are all marked by a stark tension between hyperrealism and voice-over-laden stylization (a muted style being no less a style than a flashy one). Much has been made of Malick’s heavily researched, no-artificial-lighting depiction of Jonestown, and, indeed, the naturalistic, cinema verité rendering of America’s first colony is reminiscent of Werner Herzog’s lightning-bolt Aguirre: The Wrath of God (though Colin Farrell’s John Smith doesn’t have a hundredth the intensity of Klaus Kinski’s Aguirre). The film’s opening, which conveys the initial landing with Wagner-fueled bombast, is suitably revelatory and exemplary of Malick’s talent for lyricism.

With that said, there can, of course, be too much of a good thing. The depiction of Pocahontas and Smith’s courtship is almost insane in its unrelenting camera movements, flashes of elegiac sunlight, and impressionistic footage of plants – the scenes almost seem a parody of lyricism. The real problem here is that Malick’s aesthetic isn’t reigned in by a tight narrative construction (despite its expansive running time, The Thin Red Line never erred from a carefully plotted narrative mechanism). This Pocahontas is more human than her Disney counterpart (both because of Q’Orianka Kilcher’s performance and because the character receives a voice-over), but not enough to direct Malick’s labored gaze. By the time the story moves her to England with eventual husband John Rolfe (Christian Bale) and picks up some melodramatic heft from the heroine’s tragic arc, our attention has wavered too far for too long; the film’s many digressive passages fail to materialize into a whole.

Given how slippery The New World is, the film is set to solicit strong critical reactions. It’s indulgent and difficult to classify and will therefore push critics to extremes. In actuality, The New World really is what it seems: a fascinating failure with brilliant flourishes weighing against strained seriousness and muddled lyricism. As far as mythic American lovers in recent movies go, I think I’ll take Johnny and June over John and Pocahontas, but Malick’s vision still makes The New World worth a trip to the big screen. If the writer-director has finally stumbled, it proves what one might have guessed all along: that a Terrence Malick failure is many times more interesting than an average filmmaker’s success. While Malick might be misguided in trying to coax poetry out of a form – prestige Hollywood filmmaking – hardly known for being uncompromised, it’s difficult not to admire the ambition.

THE NEW WORLD  Opens Fri/20  Selected Bay Area theaters  For theater and show time info, go to www.sfbg.com www.thenewworldmovie.com

Third time’s a charm

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It says so right there in the bio: A rock album that all others will be judged against this year was recorded in the same spot where Lionel Ritchie created "Dancing on the Ceiling."

Bear Creek Studios no longer has so much to answer for. To others, that name may conjure visions of an ex-Commodore tripping the light Astaire-style on some drywall. To me, it’s now known as the birthplace of Standing in the Way of Control (Kill Rock Stars).

In my household, up until now, the word on the Gossip has been that their recordings don’t catch the wildfire of their live shows. When Beth Ditto and company first toured the United States with Sleater-Kinney, Ditto was already hinting she could make punk’s great siren of the ’90s sound small, but you wouldn’t find proof in the pinched, monochromatic quality of the 2001 debut album, That’s Not What I Heard, on which each track largely resembled the one before or after it.

The first big hint of a difference came with 2003’s Movement. Some people think its songs aren’t as strong, but the first things I noticed were that the drums had more kick, Ditto’s voice didn’t sound like it had been shrunk by a cramped studio and crappy mic, and the ballad "Yesterday’s News" showed her blues were getting deeper and darker. C’mon, I thought. Bring it.

Then, early last fall, I walked from Bimbo’s 365 Club’s lush lobby into the main room and saw and heard the Gossip that you’ll find on their amazing new album. Ditto had ditched the swirl ’do and basic black fashions for shoulder-length straight hair and a striped, strapless dress. Together with guitarist Nathan Howdeshell and excellent new drummer Hannah Blilie, Ditto launched into what I now know is the title track, and it was obvious from the bumptious hooks and beats that the Gossip were communicating with post-punk disco’s rawest queer spirits, both alive (ESG) and dead (Arthur Russell). This was a band reborn.

Except "born again" doesn’t quite fit the Gossip, who’ve been true believers in a lot of great things — like the power of a woman who says what she wants to say and does what she wants to do — from day one of their life in the Arkansas swamplands. Strong enough to initially work over both Olympia labels that begin with a K, their guitar-drums-voice approach may have owed some spare change to the Spinanes, or come across as the fun flipside of Heavens to Betsy’s extreme angst, but when it first hit town, you best believe it scorched Fifth Avenue, Washington Street, and the heartless Martin.

Standing in the Way of Control isn’t rocket science — just a recording by Guy Picciotto, of Fugazi, that finally captures the sweaty, untamed energy of Ditto and company in concert, letting you start your own dance party whenever and wherever. With a band this great — this alive — that’s no small feat. The strut of Ditto’s voice is lighter and there’s more snare happening in the rhythms. On "Listen Up!" a cowbell kicks in behind her as she schools children: "There’s some people that you just can’t trust … on the playground, you learn so much."

Ditto’s awesome voice is a source of pure energy and uplift — there’s something wonderful about the way it acquires a razor’s edge as it reaches higher on a ferocious anthem like "Yr Mangled Heart." Yet while she sounds upbeat, her words on these songs are haunted. The title track’s stance of defiance amid the everyday-and-endless brainwash bullshit of the Bush era is typically stressed-out.

One song later, on the somewhat Romeo Void–<\d>ish "Jealous Girls," Ditto’s wrestling with a feeling that kills girl love and doing so in way that goes beyond sloganeering — she explores the pain of the emotion, and the paths that lead to and away from it, before tacking a declaration of independence ("No matter what the price, they can’t take me") to a chugga-chugga finale.

"Coal to Diamonds" could almost be a ballad by the Soul Queen of New Orleans, Irma Thomas — from its empty nighttime atmosphere to its sudden, bereft ending. Even if the instrumentation doesn’t move beyond thrift-punk sparseness to include a string arrangement, Ditto is still more than equipped to carry the song on her own. One thing is for sure: There isn’t a more powerful or charismatic frontwoman — frontperson — in rock these days. Karen O? Please. Frankly, Ditto could teach most of today’s slick R&B ladies — with the exception of Mary J. and Keyshia — how to go rage as they race up and down the scales.

At the moment, the Gossip have 4,305 friends on MySpace. That number is about to grow. Listening to Standing in the Way of Control, I can only back up what one of those friends has to say: "It even got the little hair on the back of my neck dancin’."

THE GOSSIP CD-RELEASE SHOW

With Numbers, Tussle, and Dynasty Handbag

Jan. 27, 9:30 p.m.

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

$12

(415) 474-0365

Eat the old

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THERE’S NOTHING LIKE  in-the-moment enthusiasm to make you lose critical perspective. I can think of a hundred albums that have excited me to the point of thinking, "This is the best band ever." That a handful of those albums belong to early-’70s-era Funkadelic makes it that much harder to be unbiased, especially since the recent reissues of their Westbound Records catalog have been parked in my disc changer for the past month.

 So when I call Funkadelic the best rock band of the early ’70s, I’m aware of the possible hyperbole – but I still think I’m right. Yet the recent reissue of their first seven studio albums – with liner notes, original artwork, remastered sound, and bonus tracks – is the first time these records have been given the archival treatment they deserve. Funkadelic and Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow (both 1970), Maggot Brain (1971), Cosmic Slop (1973), and Standing on the Verge of Getting It On (1974) are all start-to-finish classics in my book, with the transitional, uneven America Eats Its Young and the more casual, jam-oriented Let’s Take It to the Stage just a notch below them.

 Taken together, these albums represent an amazing progression of sounds and styles, from acid rock, Detroit soul, and studio-based psychedelia on the earlier ones to heavy funk-rock, sicko novelty songs, and soaring R&B ballads on the next few. There are also hints – especially on America and Stage – of the anthemic funk style that sister band Parliament and the later, slicker version of Funkadelic made famous, but not as many as newcomers or casual P-Funk fans might expect. After all, I remember how surprised and blown away I was when I heard Maggot Brain’s proto-metal masterpiece "Super Stupid" for the first time. I had only heard a Parliament greatest-hits CD before, and I somehow thought I knew e xactly what this whole P-Funk business was all about. Boy, was I wrong.

 One of the remarkable aspects of the Westbound-era Funkadelic is the sheer variety of their music. Commercially, this variety probably worked against them – as if there weren’t enough strikes already against an acid-dropping, guitar-wielding black rock band with a bunch of uncredited vocalists and no true lead vocalist. But the range encompassed in these albums is part of what gives them depth and makes them so interesting to listen to over and over. Funny songs, angry songs, sad songs, uplifting songs – they did ’em all equally well, thanks to leader, producer, and chief songwriter George Clinton’s casting instincts as well as the vast pool of talent he had on hand.

 It’s true of the much-lauded Maggot Brain as well as the purposefully slicker Cosmic Slop. In addition to Clinton’s grim Vietnam War monologue on "March to the Witch’s Castle," Slop includes a tasteless recounting of a transvestite groupie encounter ("No Compute") followed by an old-school R&B tearjerker ("This Broken Heart") – a remarkable contrast that gives both songs a resonance they wouldn’t have just on their own. Such contrasts are one reason why you can’t just buy a greatest-hits album and get what Funkadelic were about. They were an albums band, not a singles band – in contrast to Parliamen t, which made several fine albums but excelled more at making concise, catchy dance-floor anthems.

 The liner notes to these reissues do a helpful job of sorting out the group’s confusing, on-again, off-again personnel changes. After Maggot Brain, the lineup changed so much that Funkadelic was less a "band" than a conglomerate (although not nearly as loose a conglomerate as the P-Funk All-Stars touring act). This revolving-door cast included legends such as guitar shredder Eddie Hazel and keyboardist-arranger Bernie Worrell, as well as lesser-known heroes like drummer Tiki Fulwood and vocalist-guitarist Gary Shider, a VIP on the post-Maggot Brain albums. America Eats Its Young alone includes some 40 musicians and vocalists, while the others average around 10. (Yes, bass icon Bootsy Collins is one of them, but he wasn’t a major player until later, beginning with Let’s Take It to the Stage.)

If you’re an old fan who’s just interested in bonus tracks, Funkadelic, with its many alternate versions and B-sides, and Maggot Brain, with its alternate, full-band mix of the monumental title track, are the standouts. If you haven’t heard these albums, just start with the first and go in chronological order from there, skipping America Eats Its Young and saving it until after you’ve heard Cosmic Slop and Standing on the Verge. (America is less of an a rchetypal Funkadelic LP and more of a hodgepodge of various P-Funk ideas.) I love ’em all, though, and  will continue to generate hyperbole on the band’s behalf until stations like the Bone drop the Guess Who and Grand Funk Railroad and start playing "Super Stupid" and "Funk Dollar Bill," or until journalists quit perpetuating the booty-shaking party-band aspect of Clinton and company’s legacy at the expense of all the other incredible music they made. Don’t hold your breath.

Film: Critic’s Choice: ‘San Francisco’s Broken Promise’

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Thurs/29, Delancey Street Screening Room

WHEN A GROUP  of Modesto Junior College students began looking into what Bay Guardian editor and publisher Bruce B. Brugmann calls "the biggest scandal in American history involving a city," most of them knew nothing about Hetch Hetchy Valley, and none of them had ever heard of the Raker Act. But spurred by a series of Bay Guardian stories and led by their instructor, Carol Lancaster Mingus, a veteran public television producer, they spent 17 weeks researching the story, doing interviews, and putting together archival footage. The result, San Francisco’s Broken Promise, is a remarkably clear, cogent account of how Pacific Gas and Electric Co. kept public power out of San Francisco. In just half an hour, the documentary summarizes one of the great stories in the city’s history, hitting all the major points. It describes how the fight over the damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley was the first major nationwide environmental battle, how the Sierra Club and John Muir fought to save the spectacular twin of Yosemite Valley twin, and how Congress agreed to let San Francisco build the dam, but only with a very specific condition: The dam had to generate electricity, and that cheap, public power had to be used to keep PG&E’s monopoly out of town. Obviously, the Bay Guardian (and its editor-publisher) play a key role in the doc. But the real star is Joe Neilands, the retired UC Berkeley biochemistry professor who first got onto the story in 1969. Neilands describes in his calm, soft-spoken way how the entire premise behind the Raker Act has been actively violated for more than 80 years. In the end, the film is a bit soft on the "restore Hetch Hetchy" movement, which wants to tear down the dam (a move that would be a deadly blow to public power in the city). And I would have loved to see some Michael Moore-style confrontations of PG&E executives and key public officials (like US senator, and former SF mayor, Dianne Feinstein, who figures prominently in the story but gets away with simply "declining comment." But Mingus and the student crew do a fine job of telling a complex tale without the use of a narrator, just splicing together a series of interviews. The film provides a wonderful public service: It gives a solid primer on the immensely complicated story of a scandal involving hundreds of millions of dollars – and does it in a way that’s entertaining, understandable, and wrapped up in a 30-minute package. Screening this week as part of the San Francisco World Film Festival, San Francisco’s Broken Promise ought to be aired on KQED, on local cable, and in classrooms and meeting rooms all over the city, and it ought be considered a mandatory part of any local activist’s basic political education. Thurs/29, 5 p.m., 600 Embarcadero, SF. $10. Festival runs Thurs/29-Sun/2; call (415) 725-0009 or go to www.sfworldfilmfestival.com/festival.html for a complete schedule. (Tim Redmond)

Street fairs and fall festivals

Staff
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IF YOU’VE been wondering where all the headline acts and theater companies go in that long gloomy stretch before the fall season, take a look at some of the entertainment featured in the following fairs and harvest festivals. Not only do Bay Area late-summer and autumn celebrations provide space for artists, craftpeople and nonprofit organizations to peddle their wares, many feature performers like Maxine Howard, Modern Jazz Quartet, the Asian American Dance Collective and many, many more. In part two of our third annual guide to Bay Area street fairs, we’ve listed TK celebrations from the beginning of August through October. Unless otherwise noted, the fairs — and the entertainment — are free. For more information, or in case you’d like to participate, call the telephone number listed at the end of each festival description.

August 1-2

Nihonmachi Street Fair The streets of Japantown come to life with live entertainment, food booths, arts and crafts and games. Headliners on Saturday include the top-40 group Desire, while Sunday features jazz recording artist Deems Tsutakawa. On both days, Spirit of Polynesia, the Asian American Dance Collective and the Chinatown Lion Dance Collective perform ethnic dances. The event also features Children’s World, with activities and arts and crafts designed especially for two-to 12-year-olds. 11 am-5 pm in Japantown, Post and Buchanan, SF. 922-8700.

Aug 7-???

Festiva Latino ALL FURTHER INFORMATION TO COME ON MONDAY BECAUSE I LOST THE FOLDER THAT HAD ALL THE STUFF IN IT. I DON’T KNOW HOW I LOST IT BUT WE NEED AT LEAST TO MENTION ALL THE STARS THAT WILL APPEAR. PHONE NUMBER: 543-3030.

August 7-9

ACC Craft Fair From custom-made saddles and porcelain lamps to cedarwood desks and ornamental jewelry, this fair highlights the distinctive work of 300 artists from across the nation, including 75 from Northern California. All of the artists are chosen on the basis of integrity of design and excellence of execution, and the show’s organizers say they hope to elevate crafts into a major industry and an important art form. Adults, $4; children under 12 free. Fri., 11 am-8 pm; Sat., 11 am-6 pm; Sun., 11 am-5 pm. Fort Mason Center, Piers 2 and 3, Bay and Laguna, SF. 526-5073.

August 15

Reggae Explosion, ’87 Presented in the style and tradition of Jamaica’s famous annual Sun Splash concert, this event features Haitian art, Caribbean crafts and Jamaican cuisine, as well as dance, poetry, raffles and prizes. Musical artists include the internationally known Don Carlos and his Freedom Fighters Band, Strictly Roots and the sweet steel drums of Val Serrant. $8 in advance; $10 at the door. 1-11 pm, Fort Mason Center, Pier 3. Sponsored by the Western Addition Cultural Center. 921-7976.

August 22-23

Palo Alto Celebrates the Arts Festival Wine tasting and dancing in the streets will bring even more sunshine to Palo Alto’s University Avenue. Wares include high-quality ceramics and pottery ranging from dinnerware and stoneware as well as paintings, prints and one-of-a-kind furniture to decorate and distinguish the home. 10 am-6 pm, University Ave., Palo Alto. Sponsored by the Downtown Palo Alto Arts Fair Committee. 346-4446.

August 22-September 27

The Renaissance Pleasure Fairs A large grove of live oaks provides the setting for spirited pageants and merry parades that attempt to recreate a 16th-century Elizabethan country village. The Northern California Renaissance Fair is an autumn harvest festival, with music and dancing, hearty foods and rare hand-made crafts. Queen Elizabeth and her court are among the more than 1,000 costumed entertainers. Visitors are encouraged to arrive in period dress and join the fun. Adults, $10.50; seniors, $8.50; children under 12 free. Weekends and Labor Day, 10 am-6 pm. Located at the Blackpoint Forest in Novato, Hwy 37 to the Blackpoint exit. Sponsored by the Living History Center. 620-0433.

August 27-30

San Francisco Fair and International Exposition This year’s fair has an international flavor with its theme “San Francisco: Gateway to the Pacific.” San Francisco’s sister cities of Manila, Osaka, Shanghai, Sydney, Taipei and Hong Kong each have their own pavilion, to exhibit the individuality and heritage of each city and country, and highlight San Francisco’s thriving relationship with her sister cities. The fair also features a wine pavilion, a San Francisco history exhibit and, of course, the famous contest program, featuring such past favorites as the “Financial District Strut,” the “Impossible Parking Space Race,” the winners of the Bay Guardian Cartoon Contest and new additions including the “SF Safe Sex Button,” and “Freeways to Nowhere.” Adults, $5; seniors, $3; youth aged 5-15, $2; children under 5, free. Aug. 27th is “Youth Day” (all youth 15 and under admitted free); Aug. 28th is “Senior Day” (seniors admitted for $1.50). 11 am-9 pm, Civic Auditorium, Brooks Hall, Civic Center Plaza, SF. 557-8758.

September 4-6

122nd Annual Scottish Gathering and Games Come join 40,000 Scots for three days of music, dancing, food and contests. Highlights include the Highland Dancing Championships and the Caber Tossing Championship (a caber is a log the size of a telephone pole tossed end-over-end for accuracy). More than 50 clans are expected to set up tents and display their family tartans and coats of arms. Tickets for the Friday night Musical Pageant and Twilight Tattoo are $5 grandstand; $6 box seat, 8 pm, at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. Sat. and Sun., adults, $11 one day, $16 both days; youth 11-16, $6 each day; seniors, $5 each day; children under 11, free. Sponsored by the Caledonian Club of San Francisco. 897-4442.

September 5-6

A la Carte, a la Park Here’s your chance to picnic with more than 60 top Bay Area restaurants — De Paula’s, Firehouse Bar-B-Q, Vanessi’s Nob Hill and Hunan, among others — presenting their specialties at special prices to benefit the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s Free-Shakespeare-In-The-Park program. Sample the great cuisines of the world while enjoying a series of classical and jazz performances and samplings from the drama of William Shakespeare. $2.50 voluntary donations encouraged. 11 am-6 pm, in Golden Gate Park’s Sharon Meadow on JFK Drive across from McClaren Lodge, SF. 441-4422.

September 5-7

Concord Fall Fest This fourth annual Labor Day weekend festival, held in Todos Santos Park, features grape stomps, chili cook-offs and a 10K run. Less energetic fairgoers can enjoy an open-air marketplace of arts and crafts, food booths and live music. 10 am-6 pm, Concord (take Willow Pass Road exit from 689). Sponsored by the Concord Chamber of Commerce. 346-4446.

September 5-7

Sausalito Art Festival One of Northern California’s largest outdoor fine arts exhibitions, the 35th annual art festival is held along the beautiful Sausalito waterfront. More than 100 artists and craftsmen from around the world exhibit a total of 4,000 works of art. A variety of non-stop entertainment will be provided, along with 26 international food booths. Festivities begin Friday night, Sept. 4th, with fireworks and a black-tie party. The Breakers to Bay run begins along the Pacific at Fort Cronkhite in Marin at 8:30 am (register by August 18th). Adults, $3; children 6-12, $2; under 6, free. 10 am-6 pm, Bridgeway and Litho, Sausalito. Sponsored by the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce. 332-0505.

September 7

Arts Explosion This Labor Day festival celebrates the end of summer with a bang (fireworks) and launches the fall arts season. Complementing the showcase of outstanding Bay Area musicians and dance companies will be original performance works; “art by the yard” and a sculpture “glue booth” for children of all ages; an “Arts Row” with a variety of opportunities to interact with local arts organizations. Children under 12 free; adults, $1. 11 am-9 pm, Estuary Park on Embarcadero West, Oakl. Sponsored by the Oakland Festival of the Arts. 444-5588.

September 12-13

Russian River Jazz Festival Bring your suntan lotion, beach chairs, blankets and swimsuits, and swing to the sounds of the legendary Nancy Wilson, Maynard Ferguson and High Voltage, the Wayne Shorter Quintet and a host of others. This year, the festival features two stages set at the river’s edge, with a spectacular backdrop of redwood-covered mountains. Food and crafts will also be available. $23 single day; $42 for both days. Located at Midway Beach near Guerneville. (707) 887-1502.

September 12-13

15th Annual San Francisco Blues Festival The oldest ongoing blues festival in the U.S. offers two days of performances by blues greats from around the country, an unmatched view of the Bay and a superb array of New Orleans and Louisiana cuisine. Saturday’s music lineup includes Johnny Winter, Lonnie Brooks and Oakland’s own Maxine Howard, and on Sunday Roomful of Blues, Albert Collins and Memphis Slim play. $10 in advance; $12 at the door; $16 for a special two-day ticket available in advance only. Noon-6 pm at the Great Meadow, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF. 826-6837.

September 13

24th Street Merchants’ Cultural Festival The 24th Street Fair celebrates Latin American Independence as well as creating a community gathering for artists, residents and merchants. Visitors can enjoy Latin American food and arts and crafts with a Latin theme. A plethora of information booths provides literature on community activities and five stages continuous entertainment by local groups. 11 am-6 pm, 24th St. from South Van Ness to Potrero, SF. Sponsored by the Mission Economic and Cultural Association. 826-1401.

September 18-20

30th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival Monterey Jazz Festival swings again, this year featuring more than 25 superstars, including Ray Charles, The Modern Jazz Quartet, B.B. King, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Etta James and Bobby McFerrin. The event also features food and merchandise booths, and the sponsor, MCI Communications, offers visitors the opportunity to call anywhere in the U.S. free of charge. Although the main stage events are sold out, grounds admissions tickets are still available and allow the bearer access to the outdoor Garden Stage and the indoor Nightclub, which host many of the headliners. $15 a day. Fri., 5 pm-midnight; Sat., noon-midnight; Sun., noon-10 pm. 775-2021.

September 19-20

Mill Valley Festival More than 100 artists, selected by a jury, exhibit their wares at this arts-and-crafts fair set in a beautiful redwood grove. Food, continuous on-stage entertainment and activities for children make this one of the premiere fine arts festivals in the country. Voluntary donations requested. 10 am-6 pm, Old Mill Park, Throckmorton and Old Mill, Mill Valley. 381-0525.

September 19-20

Pan-Pacific Exposition Art and Wine Festival This city-wide festival is held on the site of the 1915 World’s Fair. Horse-drawn carriages and vintage cars transport visitors to the glories of bygone days as the festival celebrates the highlights of San Francisco history. Enjoy ragtime music, a historic fashion show and pennyfarthing bicycle races. Several wine gardens offer premium wines from select California vineyards. 10 am-6 pm, Marina Green, Lyon and Marina, across from the Palace of Fine Arts, SF. Sponsored by the San Francisco Council of District Merchants. 346-4446.

September 20

Folsom: Dimension IV! Now in its fourth year, this fair has established itself as the “End of Summer” celebration. Staged on the equinox of 1987, the fair again features the mascot “Megahood,” who breathes fire and smoke over the crowds. Entertainment includes the Folsom All Stars, the Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra and Viola Wills. Expect high-energy performances and technological innovations and one of the most diverse display of local artistry and crafts. The fair is a benefit for the San Francisco Aids Emergency fund and the South of Market Community Association. 11 am-7 pm, Folsom between 7th and 12th St., SF. Sponsored by Budweiser Corporation. 863-8579.

September 26-27

The Pacific Coast Fog Fest Visitors to the Pacific coastline are treated to historical and humorous displays at the Fog Fest. Diners may feast on seafood and of course fogcutters are the featured cocktails. Vintage cars, arts, crafts, continuous entertainment and fog-calling contests make this a welcome new Bay Area event. 10 am-6 pm. Located on Palmetto Ave., between Shoreview and Santa Rosa in Pacifica, Hwy 1 to Paloma exit. Sponsored by the City of Pacifica. 346-4446.

October 2-4

Fiesta Italiana A weekend family event, this year’s fair promises to be the “Besta Festa.” The celebration of Italian-American culture features Italian cooking demonstrations, wine tasting and grape stomping. Mayor Dianne Feinstein is scheduled to cut the pasta ribbon to open the ceremonies, Sergio Franchi will headline with two shows a day and the Italian design Ford Concept Car is on display. Fireworks are scheduled for the end of each day. Adults $8; children $1.50; Seniors and disabled $5 (free from noon-6 pm on the 2nd). Noon-midnight, noon-10 pm on Sun. Pier 45, Fisherman’s Wharf, Shed A and C, SF. Sponsors include Pepsi, Ford Motor Co., Budweiser, Sony, Lucky Stores, EFS Savings and the Port of San Francisco. 673-3782.

October 4th

Castro Street Fair Started in the back room of Harvey Milk’s camera store in 1974, this neighborhood fair has become a city-wide event. Musicians, bellydancers and jugglers appear with prom queens, urban cowboys, visitors from outer space and the Gay Freedom Day Marching Band and Twirling Corps. A variety of music, comedy acts and more than 200 arts and crafts displays are also scheduled. Castro between Market and 19th, SF. Sponsored by the Castro Street Fair. 346-2640.

October 9-25

Harvest Festival For three weekends, the nation’s largest touring festival of handmade crafts, fine art, music, theater and cooking transforms Brooks Hall into a colorful 19th-century village. The event features bluegrass and country bands, continuous stage entertainment, jugglers, acrobats and wandering minstrels, as well as the hundreds of unique shops that line the walkways. Center Stage headliners include Riders in the Sky, and the famed musical comedians the Brass Band, winners of the top prize at the Edinburgh, Scotland Performing Arts Festival. Adults $5; children 6-11, $2.50; children under 6, free. Fri., noon-10 pm; Sat., 10 am-10 pm; Sun., 10 am-7 pm, Brooks Hall, Civic Center. 974-4000.

October 10-11

Art and All That Jazz on Fillmore A second-year revival in remembrance of Fillmore Street’s heyday of music, known in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s for its hot jazz and blues clubs. Two days to celebrate San Francisco’s jazz roots with fine arts, fine food and fine wine in outdoor cafes. 10 am-6 pm, Fillmore between Post and Clay, SF. Sponsored by the Fillmore Street Merchants’ Association, the Pacific Heights Homeowners’ and Merchants’ Association. 346-4446.

October 11

Montclair Village Fair The winding streets of Montclair Village provide a charming locale for this neighborhood fair, where 50 artisans sell crafts and local schools, business and nonprofit organizations sell food. This year’s fair has a circus theme, with strolling flutists and meandering mimes helping to create a carefree atmosphere. A pancake breakfast kicks things off and is followed by hayrides in Montclair park. 11 am-5 pm, LaSalle at Mountain, Oakl. Sponsored by the Montclair Business Association. 339-1000.

October 17-18

Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival Artists and craftspeople from across the United States display wares in more than 250 booths and all-day entertainment features blue grass to rock-and-roll at this “something for everyone” festival. As you might expect, pumpkin goodies abound and the fair kicks off with two pie-eating contests. Other events include a Pumpkin Festival Run and a pumpkin-carving contest. 10 am-5 pm, Main Street in Downtown Half Moon Bay. Sponsored by the Coastside Chamber of Commerce. 726-5202. *

Critic’s Choice

Staff
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CRITIC’S CHOICE/Music

Suzanne Vega

Mix Leonard Cohen’s lonely passion together with Laurie Anderson’s hypnotic flow, add part shy Joan Armatrading with word-conscious, whispy, youthful Joni Mitchell, and you’ve got the complex, vulnerable Suzanne Vega, who defies the insensitive ’80s angst with her thoughtful, sensitive style. With characteristic individualism, Vega’s tone is that of an isolated New Yorker, socially distanced but perceptively open. Her applauded 1985 debut album Suzanne Vega is delightfully followed by her recent Solitude Standing, on which she continues with sensual lyrics, mystical observances and resonous harmonies to make an uncategorizable blend of rock, jazz, folk and new age music.

— David Shaw

Suzanne Vega, Thurs/6 at 8 pm, Warfield Theater, 982 Market, SF. $16.50. 762-BASS.

CRITIC’S CHOICE/Film

Samuel Beckett, Silence to Silence

Samuel Beckett, one of the 20th century’s most intriguing and reclusive novelists and playwrights, is spotlighted in this insightful and thought-provoking documentary. Through a backdrop of still photographs and excerpts from many of Beckett’s works, including Murphy, Watt and Waiting for Godot, director Sean O Mordha traces Beckett’s childhood in Ireland, early years with the Surrealists in Paris, subsequent friendship with James Joyce, and later activity in the French resistance during WWII. Ultimately, myths of Beckett’s bleakness are dispelled, leaving us with a warm and honest vision of the man, and exposing the underlying simplicity in his complex and often misinterpreted work.

— Kate Kelly

Samuel Beckett, Silence to Silence. Fri/31-Sun/2 at 6:15, 8, 9:45 pm, with Sat. and Sun. matinees 2:45 and 4:30 pm. Roxie Cinema, 3117 16th St. $4.50; $3.50 members. 863-1087.

CRITIC’S CHOICE/Events

National Pipe Collector’s Expo

More than 60 collectors, dealers and craftsmen are scheduled to set up their wares at the National Pipe Collector’s Expo in Burlingame. Among them are Frank Burla, probably the foremost antique pipe collector in the U.S. and Michael Butera, a Texas craftsman whose classic-shaped pipes start at $150 at San Francisco’s Grant’s Pipe Shop. Pipe lovers can spot the exotic finds, the antiques and a whole range of meerschaums, the clay pipes that start out white and, as they’re smoked, slowly turn to pink, amber and rich ochre by absorbing the tobacco oils. Rick Hacker, author of The Ultimate Pipe Book, emcees the Saturday night awards banquet.

— Jean Field

The National Pipe Collector’s Expo. Sat/1 and Sun/2, 10 am-5 pm, Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, 600 Airport Blvd., Burlingame. $3. 965-4773.

So much flesh, so little personality

Staff
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Madonna. At Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, Monday, July 20th.

During the encores of the first of her two spectacular shows at Shoreline Amphitheatre last week, Madonna, the fantasy idol of American youth, finally asked the musical question lurking in the shadows of her extravagant performance. When the saucy Ms. Ciccone sang “Who’s That Girl?,” the title song of her forthcoming movie and just-released soundtrack album, she made the riddle of her career explicit. But after more than 90 minutes of relentless razzle-dazzle, after Madonna had revealed so much of her flesh and so little of her personality, the question should have been, why do so many people care?

Clearly they care a lot. Over two nights, nearly 40,000 people trekked to Mountain View for their close encounter of the absurd kind. This “Material Girl” made them willing to part with huge chunk of their disposable income for the privilege of watching her cavort through 16 entertaining but uninspiring production numbers masquerading as songs. The largely post-teen concertgoers paid up to $22.50 for an unscalped ticket, before service charges, and had the chance to fork over ten bucks for a slick program, $16 for a T-shirt and untold pocket change for food and drink from Shoreline’s amusement park-style concession. Scores even hired limousines to carry them to the show.

The power of Madonna’s appeal should be the envy of movie and pop stars alike. Even the most charismatic screen idols don’t attract so many people to one place at one time, and only a relative handful of music performers ever develop such commercial appeal. By successfully straddling both pop culture realms, Madonna doubles her draw. She is no ordinary icon.

How does she pull it off when she’s such a transparantly ordinary talent? The quick answer is that she sells sex, but her current show is remarkably unsexy. Nearly every song was punctuated by lacivious moves, from bumps and grinds with her male dancers (including salacious routines with a boy who looked less than half her 28 years) to teasing masturbatory gestures. And the foundation of her costuming — the black merry widow corset with gold sequined breast tips and twirling tassels — was part Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot and part Gypsy Rose Lee. But Madonna’s precisely programmed dancing was little more than a second-rate rehash of Flashdance (from the same choreographer) and her attire came off like a dress-up game, not a seduction. Nor was the secret of her appeal in the music. The seven-piece band and three back-up singers, under the direction of Madonna’s co-producer Patrick Leonard, was loud and punchy, rhythmically sharp and note perfect. But the musicians, shunted to the sides of the elaborate staircase set, were beside the point. Their routine neo-disco grooves varied little throughout the night and only a few of Madonna’s songs, such as “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Like A Virgin” and “Holiday,” get beyond the busy beats with catchy melodic hooks.

No, Madonna must send other kinds of messages to her fans. In “Papa Don’t Preach,” her big hit from True Blue, she seemed to be picking up a social cause, defending a pregnant teenage girl’s freedom of choice. Presented in concert, however, the song became an overcrowded bandwagon for a mishmash of socio-political themes. Giant projected images of clouds in a blue sky gave way to those of thunderstorms, the menacing face of a surgeon, the entrance to a giant cathedral. A nightmarish Monty Python-style slide montage hinted at the horrors of abortion and careened through bizarre juxtapositions culminating in a giant blowup of the White House, then Reagan’s face, the faces of happy, healthy children and, finally, the words, SAFE SEX.

Whatever Madonna was trying to say in “Papa Don’t Preach,” her fourth song in concert, was quickly forgotten in the onslaught of MTV-style production numbers that followed. Indeed, the show was little more than an overblown “live” music video, full of silly props and simplified physical interpretations of the songs.

At the center of it all was a vaguely attractive young woman who projected nothing of her real self yet represented a kind of between-the-cracks liberation from the creeping conservatism of the 1980s. After all the dressing up and stripping down, nothing of the performer’s inner nature was revealed. But “Madonna” represented the freedom to act out the most outrageous fantasies without fear or guilt. During “Like A Virgin,” a New York Post front page was projected on the huge screen with the headline “Madonna: I Am Not Ashamed.”

She can be a material girl, a party girl, an innocent harlot in red lace undies and a black leather jacket, a rebel without a cause clothed by Frederick’s of Hollywood. She takes a stand against post-feminism by strutting, leaping and groveling on the stage, declaring that if there’s going to be any exploitation in her career, she’s going to control it. She confounds the objectification of womanhood by adding more layers. One of the few female role models that the mass media has coughed up in pop music during this regressive decade, Madonna is merely making the most of it, and making over her image in as many ways as she can within the narrow range of options. She leaves it to her fans to create their own answers to the question, “Who’s that girl?”*

Curchack returns to the roost

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For nine years experimental performance artist Fred Curchack lived in Sebastapol and toiled away just above the obscurity line. As a part-time drama instructor at Sonoma State University he was known for creating daringly original student productions. Bay Area reviewers celebrated him as a theatrical sorcerer whose solo shows — Kathakali Hamlet, Invocation, Stuff as Dreams Are Made On — were magical hybrids of Shakespeare and South Indian dance, Balinese shadowplay and vaudeville ventriloquism, puppetry and poetics. And local audiences could catch him his act at fringy venues like San Francisco’s Intersection and Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theatre — though he was never what you’d call boffo at the box office.

During the last year, however, the 39-year-old Curchack has hit it big on the international festival circuit, and accepted an out-of-town job offer he couldn’t refuse. As a tenured professor of Art and New Performance at the University of Texas in Dallas, he now has a measure of financial security and plenty of off-time to tour his work throughout the U.S. and Europe. Ironically, his new status has allowed him to return to San Francisco this summer for a Victoria Theatre run of The Inquest for Freddy Chickan, a recent piece described by Curchack as a “sci-fi/horror/romance mystery/musical comedy.”

Though he was doing his innovative thing here for years, the increased interest in Curchack has a lot to do with the enthusiastic reception he has received in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Berlin, Germany. Curchack’s break-through show was Stuff as Dreams Are Made On, a spectacular one-man interpretation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which he premiered here in 1984 and has been touring extensively ever since. In Dreams he plays all the major characters from The Tempest while creating dazzling low-budget effects with masks, a flashlight and a cigarette lighter, among other items. And he frequently breaks away from the text to talk candidly to the audience about the perilous, schizoid nature of the actor’s art, a feat one reviewer likened to “a show-down between Shakespeare and Artaud.”

Freddy Chickan is a departure from Curchack’s usual mode of “deconstructing” existing texts by Shakespeare, William Blake, Eugene O’Neill and other writers. His original script probes the darker corners of pop-culture by investigating the sinister disappearance of a comedian named Freddy Chickan. In a further attempt to narrow the gap between viewer and actor, Curchack addresses his audience as if they were the murder suspects. The show was inspired, in part, by a scientific analogy. “I was reading The Black Hole: The End of the Universe, a very rhapsodic theoretical physics book that postulates what would happen if we were all sucked into a black hole,” Curchack told the Bay Guardian in a recent conversation. “One of the descriptions of a black hole is that it’s a star that has burned out and used up all its material. It collapses inward at the speed of light, sucking up everything in sight. For me this has something to do with the way a performer sucks up all the attention of the audience.”

With a technique he calls “multiphasic ventriloquism,” Curchack again transforms himself into numerous characters: a slow-witted detective, a Hollywood producer, a female German-Japanese performance artist, a pushy agent and the elusive Freddy. He also pours on the special effects: “light stunts, shadow projections, masks — my usual banquet of theatrical shenanigans.”

But Freddy also poses some exciting new acting challenges for Curchack. For one thing, it marks the first time he has impersonated a woman onstage. “There’s a big taboo there and I had never gotten down with it,” he says. “It’s an incredibly liberating experience to play a woman. I resisted it at first, but now I want to do it more.”

He also involves the audience more intimately than before by urging them to answer some tough philosophical questions. He asked Dallas viewers whether they felt powerless or powerful at the prospect of nuclear obliteration. When someone yelled, “Powerful!” he responded, “Oh, Dallas! I love you! What a can-do city!”

For Curchack, such exchanges are high points. “I’ve always talked to the audience, but it’s a very tenuous and dangerous thing to ask them to talk back. They’ve paid their money and they want to sit and listen. I don’t confront them for sensational purposes at all, or to attract attention to myself. It’s done in the tradition of the jester, the buffoon, in order to get beyond acceptable, civilized limits and awaken a kind of questioning of who we really are. Artistically, politically and perhaps spiritually our culture is at a moment of crisis. If individuals don’t take tremendous responsibility we face the end of the world, just for starters.”

The confrontational style of Freddy has alienated some viewers. Curchack recalls that when he performed the piece at the Theatre of Nations Festival in Baltimore last year several fellow actors found it “so dark and demonic that they walked out.” A German critic who saw it at the National Academy of Art in Berlin also admitted to mixed feelings: “He told me that during the first half he was wondering how the guy who made Stuff as Dreams Are Made On could do anything so shitty. By the end he thought it was the most exciting piece he’d seen that year.”

With all his onstage soul-baring, it’s no surprise to Curchack when people call his work self-indulgent. “I am self-indulgent, to the max!” he crows with pleasure. “I give my self license to indulge in every aspect of myself. I don’t need a defense as long as such cosmic narcissism can be of value to all the other wonderful narcissists sitting in the auditorium. I want to reach into those places which are really frightening in their luminous and dark aspects.”

Curchack is eager to find out how Bay Area theatergoers will respond to Freddy. “In other places even little children have been howling at it,” he contends. “Though it has a very serious and dense level of inquiry it’s actually intended to be quite accessible.”

After the three-week Victoria Theatre run, Curchack heads back to Dallas to a schedule crammed with intruiging projects. In the fall he’ll embark on a month-long performance tour of Norway, Poland and Bulgaria. Next year he’ll be directing an experimental production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at the big-budget Dallas Theatre Center. He’s excited about teaching in the new multi-disciplinary arts graduate program at the University of Texas, and talks about bringing in “some outrageous San Francisco theater people like John O’Keefe to infiltrate academia.”

The fact that he has become a lot better paid and better known since leaving the Bay Area bemuses Curchack, but he seems to take the paradox in stride. “This is still home,” he declares. “That’s what my wife and I said when we pulled into town: “We’re home.’ It’s funny that there’s ten times as much interest in my work here now than when I actually lived here. But maybe that’s just the way things go. If you want a place to become home maybe you should move away.”*

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