Caitlin Donohue

Hej, creativity! 4 bonkers Stockholm art projects

Andrew Lam
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What creative forms would you expect at the near-ends of the earth? My recent trip to Stockholm, Sweden was weird in the way that travel usually is, more just-like-home moments than alien fears realized of winding up cold and frozen because I forget to transcribe the 17th letter in the name of the street I was staying on.

Honestly, I went for the close-to-the-North-Pole party (did you know you can swim just about anywhere in Stockholm? Sunrise after-afterparty dips abound), but surprise! I ran into artistic inspiration. That’s really having your herring burger and eating it too. Here’s four people and projects that really did it for me, Swedishly speaking.

Sweden has epic, resplendent design history that Ikea has made so common with its bastardized, disposable bedframes (I have a personal vendetta against a certain bedframe, pardon my vehemence.) Every time I walked into someone’s Stockholm apartment I felt like I’d happened onto what taste was like before the Martha Stewart magazine happened – colorful, but with the acknowledgment that life is better amid function and simple form. Things make sense here. Men and women get 16 months of paid leave from work when they have a baby. 

In contrast, the artists that most impressed me were all pretty bonkers. Call me contrary? 

THE SCANDAL 

I’ve been down this road before, but there was no way I would miss checking in with the now-infamous Makode Linde, baker of Racist Cakegate 2012, worldwide Internet meme, and Stockholm club kid forever, when I was in his hometown. (He also directs rad videos, like this one for ex-Lykke Li chorist and current hit single maker Zhala.)

I first ran into real-life Linde one blurry Sunday afternoon in Berlin at Berghain’s Panorama bar (the best place in the world for techno church hipster zombies.) In a sea of glassy eyes and black T-shirts, Linde had on a yellow plaid suit and a smile, which in my flair-adore book makes him artist enough to begin with. “Makode just gives it to you,” as a friend of mine put it regarding his penchant for exuberant party dress.

Linde invited me to his retrospective at Galleri Kleerup‘s new showroom just around the corner from the opera in old town Stockholm and I acquiesed, only to wind up there with all my luggage in tow en route to the flight that would take me away from Sweden. The only thing there to greet me was a sign saying “TILLBAKA 16:30.” I waited until 17:00 and no one was tillbaka and I had a flight to catch. So thank god for massive plate windows and Swedish acceptance of creepers smashing their nose to them, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to see the show. 

The Linde retrospective puts his howling cake performance in perspective. His famous cake-head (himself, actually poking his face through a hole in the cake-table) blackface makes since when, after viewing his body of work, you realize that he’s created an world that’s entirely blackface. Giraffes, Betty Boop, bunny rabbits, Jesus on the cross, a Chinese good luck cat, a taxidermied crow. On a stack of shipping pallets in the middle of the room sat a small, ready-to-offend army of these talismans, all from his “Afromantics” series. 

What are they warding off? Complacency, perhaps. In a country where the GDP continues to grow despite economic mushiness in other EU countries, it’s still totally cool among even young alternative types to refer to any illegal after-party venue in Stockholm as a “black club.” Stockholm’s not the whitest city I’ve ever been in (shout-out to my nonetheless beloved Portland!), but it’s pretty close — and casual racism still comes in a pretty raw form. 

Linde’s had some pretty heavy – and not at all misguided – accusations thrown at him. But standing in that pretty little cobblestone plaza in Stockholm, next to the Danish embassy in whose plate glass windows were displayed an immalculate and modest light pink ballerina gown from years past, I grokked him and his Rorschach test splotches of black faces with big red lips and wide white eyes.

I could understand how he was surprised when people said he couldn’t claim the African experience, because in some superficial ways he has to rep for it in this town.

THE INDIE ACTION-ADVENTURE-PRISON-BIKER-HAIR BAND QUEER FILM

There was only one room devoted to screening a single movie trailer, over and over again, at Konstfack, Sweden’s “second-best” (in the words of a friend) arts and design school. A few chairs sat complacently in front of a screen constantly counting down the seconds til the next screening of Dyke Hard. 

Could this film have been shot in San Francisco? Yes, and if director Bitte Andersen succeeds in getting her entry into the Frameline Film Festival it most certainly it will find a audience here. A wacky tale of dyke band gone wild, taking on the forces of evil in a world where Lycra makes some, if not all injustices better? It’s an SF no-brainer. Andersen, along with production team Alexi Carpentieri and Martin Borell, started the project as a series of trailers – a sci-fi movie, a prison movie, a biker flick, and a horror.

“I guess watching a very large amount of genre film for many years and being a queer woman inspired me to make some genre film that wouldn’t be alienating for myself and other queers and/or women,” Andersen told me. Eventually, she and her team decided to combine all the trailers into a single film, Dyke Hard.

Shooting is taking about a year (I narrowly missed being cast in a seminal scene in which the mayor – played by a prominent Stockholm queer club promoter – announces a venue conflict between a battle of the bands and a martial arts tournament. Sports fans and music fans attack each other, only to be reprimanded eloquently by a bighearted member of the protagonist band.) The Kickstarter for the project swings into gear next week, so holler at them if you want to ensure that we are indeed, dyked hard. 

DARK GLAMAZON

This is what public art looks like in Sweden: an emaciated giant propped up against (or propping up) the foyer of a luxury shopping mall. She’s got on platform lace-up Timberlands, a studded leather jacket, and of course: no pants. 

Her name is “Pretty Vacant,” and her name is Cajsa Von Zeipel, the artist that is. In person, Von Zeipel somehow succeeds in being more glamorous than her drugged-out fashion waifs. She moonlights in boyfriend Tobias Bernstrup‘s Italo disco act, standing behind a keyboard and a wind machine in a patent leather bustier, silky kimono, ass-length blonde hair, and vertiginous high heels that she pretty much never doesn’t wear.

The artist is from a tiny town of 3,000 in Sweden, where she told me for fun she tried out icecream as a beauty product (facials) and generally felt like the weirdest one in school. But if that was the case, then we’re talking a serious ugly duckling-swan situation.

Von Zeipel and Bernstrup’s shared studio feels like an ode to feminine beauty. He’s been known to perform in triple-breasted lingerie armor and is partial to equally dangerous heel heights.

And early awkwardness might also give a clue into Von Zeipel’s art. There are no creatures more high fashion than her sculptures, but at the same time there is a bite to them. Their faces are twisted, their height disorienting. Pretty beautiful, yes — but also pretty freaky.

FEMINIST BLING

Of late, much has been made of craftivism, a reaction to the diminution of women’s work and general aesthetic scorn for things that grandmas get up to around big round tables with their friends. The belittling depiction of craft has been addressed in a feminist takeback that’s seen the rise of knit graffiti, the resurfacing of Gee’s Bend quilts in fine art museums, and more. 

In Stockholm, queer feminist radio and TV host-DJ Kakan Hermansson is taking these lessons straight to the nail salon. Her graduate school exhibition at Konstfack is half video installation, half baroque still life – two-foot tall ceramic statues of fingers, capped with nail art erupting with My Little Ponys, Destiny’s Child collage, gems, sparkles, “GIRLS” spelled out in gold script. 

If you view the installation as I did through the fog of a mid-afternoon hangover and a bag of popcorn, Hermansson’s accompanying video is more than engaging — it’s important. Her mama bear voice soothes as hands (hers) confidently remove polish from, re-paint, and glitterize the paws of volunteers who spill personal trauma throughout their treatment. Sexual violence, drug dealing mishap, partnerships gone awry. This is a safe space, a place where women can go to recharge and strengthen bonds with each other. The ceramic statues call attention to the lushness that is art contained on the tips of our fingers, while the videos emphasize that not everything that goes on in beauty salons is superficial. 

Open Walls Baltimore: What the murals said, how the streets responded

Andrew Lam
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Most of you will know the neighborhood I was walking that early evening in from The Wire. In fact, the school where season four was shot was a few blocks away. That TV show is an eternal point of reference for Baltimore’s Greenmount West neighborhood, which Open Walls, the town’s first street art festival which I was in the hood to cover, was hoping to combat. The festival, going since March, will conclude with a closing party on May 25.

“Hey! I have a question for you!” Sometimes when you’re walking through half-vacant blocks at dusk you don’t turn around when people yell at you from across the street (you know white people), but this time the Argentines and I turned. A woman was walking towards us and pointing up at Jetsonorama’s massive, half-finished wheatpaste of a man’s face hovering in the dark above our heads.

>>RELATED READ: CAITLIN DONOHUE’S INTERVIEW WITH GAIA, THE 23-YEAR OLD STREET ARTIST-ORGANIZER OF OPEN WALLS

“What are you guys doing with that wall? Is that Mr. Tony?”

It should be noted that I have little to nothing to do with Open Walls, though I managed to secure a spot sleeping on a half-inflated mattress in 23-year street artist and festival organizer Gaia‘s cavernous live-work space for a week to watch the haphazard business of trucking half-cans of paint and open containers of paste across town in various station wagons by underpaid, incredibily dedicated staff and volunteers.

But even though – alongside season four’s Primary School No. 42 – hundreds of young artists lived in a massive ex-cork factory just a few blocks from where we had our exchange, it struck me the woman that evening saw us (some white and Latino scruffy-types) as a big enough anomaly on her block that she knew we had to be associated with the steet art festival.  

“You know Mr. Tony?” I asked. “Yeah,” she replied, with something that sounded like worry in her voice. “Why is he up on the wall?” “You’ll have to ask the artist,” I said. “Do you like it?” “Oh yeah, it’s really nice,” she told us, walking away, back into the night.

Around the corner in an alleyway, I’d seen Jetsonorama’s mirror-image pasting on either side of the narrow corrdor; a black kid on his bike. It seemed like he was reflecting the neighborhood back at itself, in stark contrast with the neon triangles and backwards wording of Baltimore artist Josh Van Horn’ previously-completed building-sized piece or even Argentine Jaz‘s corner park, which he’d lined with regal, painterly drawings of big cats. 

So that night, back at Gaia’s paint-covered live-work circus, Jetsonorama and I found a quiet place to talk about street art. Of course, I set my Android up wrong and none of the video footage of our epic, enlightening interview recorded, so I’ll steal his quotes from an epic and enlightening blog post he later wrote on his trip to Bmore. 

Jetsonorama, a.k.a. 50-something family physician Chip Thomas, lives on a northeastern Arizona Navajo reservation. He initially came for a four-year engagement to pay back his medical school loans, but, he tells me, “I loved the land, loved the people. So I decided to stay on.” His street art career began in 2009 on a trip to Brazil where he was struck by the sense of community that had arisen among the street artists he met there. 

And so upon his return to the rez, he began printing and posting images from photos he’d taken of people and animals there in the community. Jetsonorama saw them as an expression of the hip-hop culture he’d grown up in, love letters to the beleagured reservation he adored. He called the series Big. His next project was the Painted Desert Project, started with a friend. The work started earning props from those omnipresent street art blogs, and Jetsonorama began an online correspondence with Gaia, another artist who does “site-specific” (often a code word for “something the neighborhood will like”) wheatpastes.

The decision of what to paint is a defining aspect of street artists. Many of the artists at Open Walls like Rome’s Sten and Lex, Argentina’s Jaz, and Capetown’s Freddy Sam, create works that follow a specific artistic canon — like gallery painters, their inspiration can be culled from all over. Others, like Gaia, Jetsonorama, Chris Stain — even the New York artist LNY who dropped through Baltimore for a night to put up his wheatpaste of a boy astride a halo-ed horse — will often choose themes that reflect the geographic location of their work. This approach can often lead to a sense that a piece was created for neighborhood residents, avoiding the fate of pieces like Swoon’s Open Walls wheatpaste of an ancient woman (an Aborigine elder she met in Australia, though that fact was apparent in the finished piece.) The neighborhood, it was said around among the street artists, didn’t really get that piece, found it “creepy.”

Freddy Sam comments on his wall’s reception in Baltimore

To date, Jetsonorama is the only African American artist that is part of the Open Walls, which made his exchanges with neighborhood residents particularly meaningful. 

Indeed, they shaped his time in Baltimore. When Jetsonorama’s first attempt at pasting up Mr. Tony — a neighborhood legend, by the way, known for raising pigeons and wearing quarters in the stretched holes in his earlobes, which Tony will tell you is his change for the payphone — failed on an unprepped wall, he tried again. As he and street artist-festival organizer Nanook worked into the wee hours of the morning on the first draft, the block turned out to support them, telling them how much they liked the piece. So when the wheatpaste refused to stick to the wall, Jetsonorama extended his eight-day trip, eventually staying for two weeks and turning out a second version of Tony and a few other pieces. 

Open Walls Baltimore was all about balancing art and neighborhood – an apt reflection of the city’s plan for those blocks, given that Greenmount West and adjoining Charles North are both parts of the planned Station North arts district. In addition to the half-vacant blocks, Greenmount West is marked by old factories that have been filled with hundreds of working artists. Artists plus low-income renters: an age-old recipe for gentrification.

Those involved with Open Walls are well aware that their project may be a harbinger of higher rents in the neighborhood. “There’s a latent fear of this being one aspect of a changing neighborhood,” festival organizer and 23-year old wheatpaste artist Gaia told me when I interviewed him in his live-work studio space, the chaotic center of Open Walls. 

“Not all developers are totally evil, despite what people may say,” says Ben Stone, executive director of Station North, the area’s arts advocacy organization that is playing a large role in the implementation of Open Walls. Our interview took place at a sidewalk cafe in front of Cafe Bohemian on Charles Street, the bustling center of the North Charles neighborhood that was once the commercial center of the city in addition to being its geographic hub (the bus and train station is a few blocks away.) Stone told me that neighborhood associations envision a future for the area that includes the same number of low income units – but no more. That means that all the infill of those abandoned buildings can be more expensive housing, even “30-story buildings,” Stone says.

Stone tells me that the aim behind Open Walls is to attract real estate developers to the area so more of the empty properties can be turned into housing and other businesses. It also looks to make visible the art scene that is going on in Greenmount West behind the doors like those of the famous Copy Cat, an ex-factory megalith of artist housing. Doing murals out on the street inspires conversation between the street artists and the other residents of Greenmount West. 

Jetsonorama certainly found that to be true. He tells me a handful of stories of neighbors taking pride in the fact that a black man was participating in an endeavor that was seen as being controlled by forces outside the neighborhood. He recounts an exchange that happened while putting up a piece for Open Walls in the Station Village area. A woman stopped at a light, rolled down her car window, and yelled at him the following: 

“That’s nice! I like that. Thank you for sharing your art with us. Be sure to put your name on it when you’re done because if you don’t, the white man will come along and say he did it.”  

The capital of cannabis?

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The capital of cannabis?

HERBWISE A few days after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi finally voiced her displeasure that federal agencies were making moves to curtail medical marijuana access, I was touring the hallway outside her offices in Washington DC.

“Access to medicinal marijuana for individuals who are ill or enduring difficult and painful therapies is both a medical and a states’ rights issue,” said Pelosi in a statement released on May 2.

And though Pelosi was surely spurred to speak on behalf of her federally-beleaguered California, she gets good reminders of cannabis’ import in her adopted home in Washington. Here, the fight for medical marijuana is finally coming to a head: six cultivation centers have been given final approval and four preliminary approval to open.

“It seems likely that patients will have access to medicinal marijuana later this fall,” said DC councilperson David Catania. Catania is a primary figure responsible for penning DC’s cannabis regulations. He is also — in the words of one local cannabis activist who shall remain nameless — “a gay, Republican-leaning Independent corporate lawyer-type. He is both bright and brash, bordering on arrogant. He is so adamantly anti-California medical cannabis laws that most of the tight restrictions here are driven by his stark dislike for what California’s laws have become.”

Well! Since I was darting about our nation’s capital anyway, an interview seemed to be in order so that councilperson Catania could let us know just how DC regulations worked — and what is was like working on marijuana issues in an office situated less than a mile from the Capitol Building and a block or two from the White House. I spoke to him via email last week.

SFBG You played an integral role in setting up cannabis rules and regulations in DC. Were you drawing on things that work or didn’t work in any specific areas of the United States?

David Catania We set out to implement a well-regulated system that was still accessible for those who need the medication. As we are the nation’s capital, we knew the spotlight would be on the program. We set out to create a system that worked for patients in need and I believe we are well on our way to accomplishing that goal.

SFBG What would you like to see happen with dispensaries in DC?

DC The four dispensaries that have been given preliminary approval are in various neighborhoods throughout the District, each with its own needs and concerns. The District Department of Health is doing extensive community outreach and work to involve residents nearby both dispensaries and cultivation centers, to educate them on the program and ensure open lines of dialogue between cultivation center and dispensary owners and their neighbors. Ensuring that positive relationship between the various parties is going to be a vital component of the program’s success. [note: in DC, dispensaries have been regulated as separate from cultivation centers, which are allowed up to 95 plants per location, an amount which was designated as to avoid harsher punishment in the case of federal action.]

SFBG What is it like setting up regulations regarding a federally illegal substance here in the shadow of the White House?

DC It’s interesting. We were very intentional in how we established the program, as we realized we needed to be extra-sensitive to the fact that we are the home of the federal government.

A teachable moment

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A teachable moment

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE On the occasion of leaving our gentle green bubble in the Bay, I often find myself in the position of explaining what it is I write about. Sometimes I am satisfied with focusing on my federally legal interests as the Guardian’s culture editor. But other times I am compelled to stretch the limits of my extended family’s imagination, which usually leads to some pretty interesting conversations.

I’m sure I’m not the only person interested in demystifying cannabis issues to their loved ones. Which is why I’m happy to introduce you to a 2011 documentary that might prove useful: Lynching Charlie Lynch, a DVD release you can find on Amazon or director Rick Ray’s website (www.rickrayfilms.com). The film even starts with a world history of cannabis usage: look guys, early Mormons used the stuff!

Charlie Lynch is a total goober (a word I use lovingly.) A suburbanite from Arroyo Grande, Calif., Lynch takes pleasure in winning stuffed animals from claw machines and rocking out to self-penned anti-drunk driving ballads in his DIY home studio. When he began medicating for his atrocious migraines with cannabis, Lynch decided to open a dispensary close to his home town, eventually starting one in 10,000-person Morro Bay. It was the only dispensary in San Luis Obispo County.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzFsSx84EE4

Ray shows us Lynch’s adorably earnest and thorough process of setting up shop. Lynch goes so far as to call the DEA office, and is directed to four different numbers before an agent gruffly tells him that cities and counties are tasked with “dealing” with such enterprises. Thus enthused, Lynch obtains proper permitting from city and county administrations and holds a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The mayor and other city officials attend, the chamber of commerce is represented in cheerful photos from that day.

At this point one might pause the film and explain to friends and family that the California medical marijuana industry is not without its complicated issues, and that despite his phone calls, Lynch might have expected trouble from the federal government. But these caveats aside, what happens next is awful enough that “might-haves” and “could-dos” will probably dissipate from their minds.

A San Luis Obispo sheriff’s RV surveils patients and staff coming and going from Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers until sufficient evidence is gathered to obtain a federal search warrant. Your educational audience will cringe as law enforcement raids not just Lynch’s dispensary, but his home. He is taken into federal custody and released only when his family posts $400,000 in bail. There’s a media storm, the feds threaten his landlord, the business is ruined, and finally, Lynch puts his house — the same one where he once warbled cautionary notes to drunk drivers — on the market.

It is worthwhile to note that the Morro Bay raid occurred in 2007, and as an update to the fam you might want to mention the Oaksterdam debacle last month. (A scene from the Oakland cannabis school is included in Lynching Charles Lynch — prophetically, it is an in-class roleplay meant to teach students how to interact with federal agents.)

We say in the Bay Area that we are the epicenter of the cannabis movement, which in some senses may be true. But in some ways it’s not. Regardless of how conscious we are in Oakland, Marin, and San Jose of the hypocrisy of the federal government, national change is not going to take place until awareness of the issue is raised nationally.

Or maybe I’m just trying to justify that post-Lynching joint with my aunt in Maryland. Meh!

A street art festival in Baltimore?

Andrew Lam
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Ever since I visited the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami during the shock and awe of Art Basel 2011, the concept of street art as an agent of neighborhood change has been loitering around my brain space. What does it mean that an art that was once deemed outsider is now on the radar of bankers and real estate brokers alike as a means of increasing property value?

Perhaps no one has looked more into the matter than Gaia, sociological wheatpaste artist and 23-year old organizer of Baltimore’s first large-scale public arts festival Open Walls. Since March, Gaia has coordinated walls by over 23 artists in his neighborhood of half-vacant blocks of row houses and factory buildings, Greenmount West (and the adjacent, less economically-depressed Charles North.) The area has been pegged as an arts district by Baltimore’s cultural organizations – and perhaps more importantly, the bank sponsors of Open Walls. The festival culminates in a Final Friday celebration on May 25.

Gaia thinks a lot about where his murals are placed. For a wheatpaste series he called his Legacy Project, he installed the faces of developers throughout history — Robert Moses, Le Corbusier — often alongside their most damning quotes, on the very urban areas they irrevocably altered with slum clearance. 

I sat down with him to talk in his studio and festival mission control, a ramshackle converted factory space where the bulk of Open Walls’ artists bunk on air mattresses and sometimes – I can personally attest – in the building’s freight elevator. We talked about what the murals would mean to Baltimore, and geeked out on social contradiction.

SFBG: Tell me about Open Walls.

G: It’s not very community involved. It is more of a street art, public art situation where a lot of material for the work is being generated from the neighborhood. But a lot of it is not specific, it’s just about mural-making. I’ve been trying to find a balance as a curator of site-determined work and work that’s not generated by the context of Baltimore.

SFBG: Why is site-specific street art important for a festival like this?

G: One, it provides more access to the artwork for the initial introduction of the piece to the neighborhood. Advertising and street art, we utilize the same signifiers and tools. The difference being, the artwork attempts to communicate beyond the place of sale. The less specific your work is, the closer to guerrilla branding it is, rather than street art or genuine public art. So by working with the history of a place in a manner that’s determined by the space you’re working in, you circumvent the problem of promoting yourself. You’re not just plastering a single image all over the city – that’s a graffiti mentality that is more like straight advertisement.

SFBG: Why do you like living in Baltimore?

G: I like how tough this city is. It feels almost human in scale. You can be on a first name basis with the neighbors. Plus, I can make a living and not have to work two jobs or be a barista rather than focusing on my art. And it has all these secrets that take a million years to find. All the cutty neighborhoods, all the cutty streets…

SFBG: Do you think that there’s any way current residents will be able to keep their space here in Greenmount West, what with all the arts and revitalization movement?

G: Most of the vacant buildings are owned by the government. It all depends on the government. A significant portion of the neighborhood is subsidized housing. When the government decides to flip this neighborhood, that’ll change everything. Most everything you see that is vacant is vacant for a reason – it’s not this mysterious, mystical, organic situation. A lot of them are being held by speculators, Many public, private organizations are responsible for holding onto them so that something could be done to them. For the most part, it’s decades of the waiting game.

SFBG: Did you talk to neighborhood groups before painting started?

G: We talked to the New Greenmount West Community Association. There was a plan that was presented to them, there was an idea of these are the artists and this is where we want to paint. We worked on lining up landlords with an artist that they dig. Balancing that local aesthetic and the more spectacular aesthetic. We’ve definitely had a little negative feedback and a lot of positive feedback. I think people are wary of it because its the most visible aspect of this process of gentrification. People never walk up to a contractor and say ‘Hey you cant build this building,’ but people walk up to murals all the time. It becomes a lightning rod. There’s a latent fear of this being one aspect of a shifting neighborhood.

SFBG: What does Open Walls mean for Baltimore?

G: We’re coming at this project from a lot of different angles. We want to put Baltimore on the map, at least give it some shine. We want to fuel more interest in the local art scene and make visible what happens invisibly inside. Putting it out on the streets, so you know exactly where you’re at. Really it’s just about pushing the envelope in Baltimore. You know, we have so many vacant properties. But this is also about cooperation between stakeholders in this neighborhood.

A year and a half ago my block was two rows of vacant buildings, the abandoned coat factory, and an abandoned green space in front of my house. Now there’s City Arts, which is subsidized living for artists. There’s a lot going on in the neighborhood, a lot of reinvestment.

There’s so many abandoned buildings in Baltimore. I mean it’s suburbanization fueled by the flow of capital and racism. The city went from one million people to a city of 640,000 so there’s a lot of empty space and not much to do with it. The flow of capital comes back around. We have this aesthetic conjuncture of people moving back to the city. We’ve been experiencing divestment for sixty, seventy years now, so its about time.

SFBG: Is that the goal of the festival, to reverse suburbanization?

G: The goal is to make good art work. The goal is to find a balance between interesting, really inspiring, and also intriguing art on the walls – but also to find a balance between that and something that speaks to the neighborhood. I’ve been [placing] the more spectacular, flashy murals on Charles Street. The theater is there, that’s where all the nightlife is. I’ve been keeping it more local on the west side. It’s all about trying to understand the sliding scale of subjectivity. I try to shy away from artwork “by consensus” if you will. 

Watch this space for Caitlin Donohue’s continued coverage of Open Walls including — duh — shots of the actual murals

Something to chew on

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Something to chew on

caitlin@sfbg.com

FOOD Veganism isn’t just for rich people. It’s okay to care about what you eat. It doesn’t diminish your commitment to social issues — in fact, it is one.

He just wrote a cookbook that I love, but in his modest home in hills above Fruitvale, food activist and vegan chef Bryant Terry is telling me about class struggle.

“So often, I think that the stories that are told are from young, privileged white kids,” says Terry.

He’s not a young white kid, but he is the epitome of health. Terry’s clean house smells like incense and when I rolled up to the front yard he was gardening in cargo shorts in raised beds of greens. He tells me his beds started a trend — indeed, many of the houses on the block now have a similar vegetal presence.

“Part of my goal is to shed light on other communities that haven’t had much of a voice,” he tells me. If broadening the appeal of healthful cooking is Terry’s goal, then his new book The Inspired Vegan (Da Capo Lifelong Books, 240 pp, $19) is a step in the right direction. Each chapter holds a complete menu with a social justice-related theme. Informative introductions teach about the plant-based, whole food recipes, but the most exciting features are complimentary play lists and reading suggestions that go along with each chapter’s theme. The Inspired Vegan advises you on a lifestyle, not just a shopping list.

Weeks after meeting Terry, I helped host a dinner through the Urban Eating League, a social sustainability project started within the folds of the hyper-educated, environmentally-geared Wigg Party group in the Western Addition. Hosts serve locally-harvested meals, and choose themes to help eaters remember them when it comes time to vote on winners of various honors.

We decided to base the dinner around Terry’s suggestion, his “Detroit Harvest” menu. The recipes pulled their flavor cues from the work of a Motor City nonprofit, Detroit Summer, which started connecting high school students with senior citizens in the early 1990s, young helping old grow produce in their gardens.

My co-hosts and I played the recommended tracks during our meal: Detroit classics like J Dilla, Motown sounds, Aaliyah (yeah, she’s from there). We chatted with the other participants about where they learned about sustainable food systems, what they thought needed to be done to strengthen the good food movement. Few mentioned poor and minority families, but all staunchly believed that the way we eat today will play a big role in what our future will look like tomorrow.

Terry learned about food from his family, from a grandpa whose rows covered a sideyard so large that Terry is reluctant to call it a garden — maybe farm would be a better term for it. He learned early on that growing food could be the basis of independence for African Americans. “Once they decide to stop feeding you, you’re going to starve,” he says simply. He quibbles with the definition of food deserts, saying oftentimes they overlook the DIY kitchen gardening tradition in minority communities.

After going to cooking school “with the express goals of starting a project to help young people,” Terry started b-healthy!, a New York City program that taught kids in poor neighborhoods about healthy eating habits. He counts Edible Schoolyard founder and Chez Panisse icon Alice Waters as a role model. Like Waters, he’s become a national figure, drawing decent crowds across the country to events.

Terry is a realist — he doesn’t believe that everybody needs to be vegan, or a raw foodist, or follow any one nutritional track necessarily. “I’m not that guy. This is someone who understands that we have diverse nutrition needs. To just say that fixing food is going to help resolve issues in these communities — it’s not looking at the bigger picture. If we do have access to healthful foods, that would address a lot of other issues, but we can’t look at food to fix everything.”

It’s not like those raised beds in the front yard are going to save the world. But as far as the sustainable food movement goes, it could do worse than have a mind like Terry’s at its forefront.

We had a party

Andrew Lam
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We had a party

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE As excited as I was for our Guardian Stoned Soul Picnic 420 party, not everyone in our office was convinced the afternoon at El Rio on Friday, April 20 would pass without incident.

“I’m a little bit worried about getting raided,” said my publisher Bruce Brugmann, towering over my cubicle earlier that day.

Well we weren’t, although swirling rumors of federal agents in the crowd did culminate in slight rudeness directed towards the buzzcutted and be-khakied among us. We celebrated 420 with a free, public party, no one got arrested, and we raised over a thousand dollars for marijuana patient advocacy — $1,092, drummed up through a raffle featuring prizes from all kind of local businesses and El Rio’s generous bar charity. Owner Dawn Richardson says the total was the most money for charity ever generated in the bar during that particular time period.

>>STAY TUNED FOR A STONED SOUL PICNIC PHOTO GALLERY SHOT BY NARK MAGAZINE

This had to be the weirdest party ever — reggae and soul music both, from Mr. Lucky of I&I Vibrations and Carnita of Hard French, respectively. Then there was the pickled apples and bacon lovingly stacked in Hot Bike’s grilled cheese sandwiches. The boys from Roughneck Skateboards self-started to create a limbo game made out of paper mache joints. And four stand-up comedians bravely assumed the stage towards the end of the afternoon. We even had free pastries.

There were old folks in motorized wheelchairs, tough guy stoners on the side, a ton of pretty people that showed up just to dance and be stoned on a sunny patio in 70-degree weather. If ere there was an advertisement for the broad swath of San Franciscans that support medical marijuana, this was it. And we did good — look Bruce, no handcuffs!

Fixie freaks, this weekend’s for you

Andrew Lam
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0

If riding fixed gear bikes on BMX-style ramps and structures sounds like something you’d think up after a half-case of energy drink, take heart oh palpitation pal — it was in fact dreamed up by Red Bull. Also, you’ll be able to check out the absolute chaos on Thu/26 and Sat/28 sans worries of smashing your own over-caffinated brain box all over the asphalt.

Oh yes, this is the Red Bull Ride + Style event, the second year of the taurine queen’s atypical sport biking event. I checked it out last year and was blown away not only by the fact that competitors were catching air on their fixed gears, but also by the art — the main event’s structures were tricked out by some of SF’s finest illustrators. This year, Apex, Jet Martinez, Chor Boogie, and Max Ehrman will try their hand at beautifying the madness.

One thing that’s different about this year’s festivities is that it would appear that a year has stoked the interest of more riders — 2012 will feature a qualifying event on Thu/26 at Mezzanine that will serve as gauntlet for those looking to flip about Justin Herman Plaza on Saturday. 

Track qualifying heats

Thu/26 7pm-midnight, free

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

www.redbull.com/ridenstyle


Red Bull Ride + Style

Sat/28 noon-6pm, free

Justin Herman Plaza

Market and Embarcadero, SF

www.redbull.com/ridenstyle

 

Attention: Tiny book in your newspaper (Feast is here!)

Andrew Lam
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0

Our bi-yearly Feast food and drink magazine hit newsstands today, so strap up your sneaks and step out because you have a lot of dining around to do. Marke B. went on a tapas tour of the city’s sabrosos Spanish spots, Virginia Miller did a neat breakdown (sauce-by-sauce, no less!) of authentic Southern barbecue spots in the Bay Area, and surprising spring cocktail trends. Emily Savage makes it easy for limited-diet types with her exploration of tasty vegan and gluten-free dishes, and I took advantage of flu season to discover the many styles of the city’s tea houses. And special web-only bonus: Ali Lane gets bowled over by the best dishes… in bowls. 

And click here to see the mag in all its printed glory. And bon appetit, of course.

 

 

7 pretty tea parties

Andrew Lam
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0
7 pretty tea parties

caitlin@sfbg.com

Unbeknownst to those whose primary haunt is dingy dive bars and the bottom of a margarita glass, there are as many kinds of tea houses in San Francisco as one-night stands.

There are the futsy Anglo types: all frill, pastel snack-treats, and delicate china. The hippie tea shacks, where you can order “half of an avocado” without going off the menu. There are borscht-and-herring Russian places, like Katia’s in the Richmond (600 Fifth Ave., SF. (415) 668-9292, www.katias.com). Of course, the real-deal knowledgeable Chinatown shops with blends to spare and free tastings like Red Blossom Tea Company (831 Grant, SF. (415) 395-0868, www.redblossomtea.com).

But none will leave you with a hangover, or linger awkwardly as you get ready for work — and most provide a slow-paced, table service setting perfect for making sober-eyes at the hottie you may be lugging home afterwards. 

OM SHAN TEA

This cozy Mission room may just have the healthiest meal options in the neighborhood — salads to rice bowls and the aforementioned avo half. If you come on Mondays from 7 to 10pm you’ll find yourself in the womb of Open Heart Poetry night, a soul-searching open mic with featured poets that draws a packed house (there’s also weekly temple dancer and live music evenings.) Like the other shops on in this roundup, the menu of teas here can be a little intimidating to a newbie, but in this hand-holding environment an ask for guidance to your server will go a long way.

233 14th St., SF. (415) 747-8327, www.omshantea.com

LOVEJOY’S

Nuzzled into the bosom of Noe Valley, Lovejoy’s can at first be overwhelming — my god, the doilies! Just embrace the chintz, you’ll be glad you did. This is the most perfect pinky-up spot in town, and it stocks the traditional menu of sweets and scones in addition to heartier fare like shepard’s pies and the Ploughman’s Lunch — a platter of artichoke hummus, fruit, greens, and vinegar crisps. Suggestion: go for afternoon tea and order the tallest multi-tier tray of petit fours you can manage. And don’t mind the flocks of MILFs.

1351 Church, SF. (415) 648-5895, www.lovejoystearoom.com

TASTE

Had a rough weekend? Taste awaits to aide in your detoxification and mental clarification. A serene spot in Hayes Valley where one orders at the counter, Taste prides itself on serving tea the traditional Chinese way. That means a tableside lesson on how to drink your brew, pouring out the first cup onto the slotted platform provided before decanting and then tipping the hot liquid into your teeny-tiny cup. Side dishes to all the Zen-like ceremony include dim sum-style buns filled with red bean paste and vegetable curry. Like many tea rooms, you’re also welcome to buy your favorite blend to take home.

535 Octavia, SF. (415) 552-5668, www.tasteteasf.com

TAL Y TARA

It is testament to the misty wonder of the Richmond District that such a place as Tal Y Tara is not overrun with fashionistas seeking authentic British ridingwear and a picturesque place to Instagram themselves drinking a cup of PG Tips. Actually a clothing store hawking everything from longer-in-the-back pastel polo shirts to horse bridles, the back of Tal Y Tara houses a handful of tables with polo-patterned coverings. Snack on a Picadilly (a toasted crumpet with a slice of tomato and Dubliner cheese) while you sip your cuppa and stare at the vintage show pony photos on the walls.

6430 California, SF. (415) 751-9275, www.talytara.com

SECRET GARDEN TEA HOUSE

There are so many bric-a-brac shelves in Secret Garden that some of them are brac-less: they exist only to be shelves. Such is the décor reasoning at this parkside parlor, where pastel-colored church hats hang from the walls for insta in-house cred. Upon my visit to Secret Garden I sipped lemon chiffon tea and consumed the Sweet Surrender plate: an ungodly amount of lady fingers, French macaroons, petit fours, and powdered sugar-dusted fruit slices. I also heard the next table over in raptures over glimpsing the royal family on a recent London vacation. Bring your grandma, or a small royal-watcher: there is an ample kid’s menu here.

721 Lincoln, SF. (415) 702-0398, www.secretgardenteahouse.com

DARTEALING

You will undoubtedly be distracted by the fetching jars of pink malt balls and rooster-decorated Sriracha truffles that greet you upon entry into this hideout from the bustling tech world of SoMa. But push on past the retail space: rewards await in the form of comfy sofas be-pillowed with intricately embroidered soft things. Once settled in the space, choose a tea service (blends include cheekily named flavors like “Cabana Boy,” with a sweet tropical fruit taste) that includes options from the sandwich menu: Dartealing has a vast array of crustless wonders, the tofu-and-citrus ginger-soy glazed option being a favorite. Just make sure you leave room for dessert — the lavender-dusted scones that arrive with a ramekin of clotted cream are the dreamiest.

470 Third St., SF. (415) 644-0142, www.dartealing.com

Talking with Etgar Keret (supposedly)

Andrew Lam
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0

You can’t imagine the writerly crisis I experienced typing up the questions for my Etgar Keret interview. What responses could I possibly elicit from Israel’s most prominent fabulist that would rival the odd, sparkling stories of his latest, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door (FSG Originals, 208pp, $14)? Better just to publish one of his pieces, perhaps the titular account of a man forced at gunpoint to overcome writer’s block or the story of the guy who falls (via a buried gumball machine) into a world populated by characters from the fibs he’s told over the year.

But running through the — dare I say — whimsy of his work, there is a metallic vein of reality about life in the Middle East. Far be it for me to deprive Guardian readers of the chance to hear original thought from Keret. And so I wrote, and he wrote back, and I wrote again, and he wrote back again, and so it went until we had fashioned a call-and-response that just nearly did justice to his books. He’ll be in town, in conversation with Michael Chabon at the Jewish Community Center on Mon/23. That’ll be a fun thing to hear, also.

>>Ira Glass reads the titular story from Suddenly, a Knock on the Door. For more information on the book’s star-studded audio release featuring Willem Dafoe, Ben Marcus, Gary Shteyngart, Michael Chabon, and others, click here

SFBG: Hi Etgar. We’re conducting this interview via email, can you please tell me how my readers and I know it’s really you answering the questions?

EK: Well, to be honest, it isn’t really me answering this. It is the same guy who writes my stories. He is really good and hardworking and starting June 1 he’ll start walking the dog and playing with the kid too.

SFBG: Speaking of language boundaries. Do you ever chat with the folks who translate your work before they start? What advice do you give them?

EK: I always try to have a dialogue with my translators. Some of them are happy with it, others openly admit that they prefer translating dead authors who are not trying to befriend them or send them 15 consecutive emails about a story’s title. The bottom line is that translator is the boss but I’m very happy to help if they are willing to let me. 

SFBG: How do Israeli and United States audiences react to the work? Can you sense a national difference in its reception?

EK: There is something very intimate with a Israeli audience, the most common Israeli question I get is if a certain story is about a guy that served in the army with them. It is fun to be close to your readers but it is also very rewarding to have a dialogue with readers who come to my stories tabula rasa and who don’t personally know your mom.

SFBG: You went through a spate of writer’s block before writing Suddenly, a Knock on the Door that you once attributed to the change in lifestyle you underwent when you became a family man. How did that writer’s block feel?

EK: Most of the time I didn’t feel it. But there were those moments when I thought I had a story to write but when I sat down in front of the computer I found out I didn’t, which felt very much like a phantom pain.

SFBG: How did you pull out of it?

EK: I’m not sure. After a very long time thinking that I have a story to tell and then discovering I don’t know how to tell it, I sat down next to a computer and a story did come out.

SFBG: Have you gone through spates since in which you weren’t inspired?

EK: I hardly wrote any fiction in the past 18 months. But know, after I’ve overcame a block, it feels slightly less fatal. (But it is still very scary.)

SFBG: Do we get the full experience of your stories when we read them in English?

EK: They read very differently in any language which isn’t Hebrew. The thing I like the most about Hebrew colloquial speech is that it allows you to switch between registers mid-sentence. A typical Hebrew slang sentence would be reconstructed both from ancient biblical words and from Russian, English, Arabic, or simply made-up ones. There is something about this tension between the ancient and the traditional on the one hand and the chaotic and the contemporary on the other that creates an amazing and explosive energy in almost any random sentence. Many times my stories intentionally and unintentionally tap into that energy and this is one thing that inherently doesn’t pass translation. I couldn’t wish myself for better translators to English but there are times in which the only thing that we can all do after looking together at some Hebrew sentences is to start crying or to bang our head into a wall.    

SFBG: Tell us about your writing routine. Has it changed over time?

EK: For me, the term “writing routine” sounds like an oxymoron. It is a bit like saying “having-a-once-in-a-lifetime-insight-which-makes-you-want-to burst-into-tears routine.” There has never been anything routine-like about writing for me. I sit down and start writing only when I have a story in mind. In my 20s this could have happened three times a week, these days it happens much less often but when it does, it feels much more like getting an unexpected present than like something I actually initate.

Etgar Keret in conversation with Michael Chabon

Mon/23 7pm-8:30pm, $17-$25

Jewish Community Center

3200 California, SF

(415) 292-1200

www.jccsf.org

Hot sexy events: April 13-19

Andrew Lam
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0
Hot sexy events: April 13-19

Kink.com is getting its star turn in the mainstream media – everyone’s favorite historic-building-cum-porn-palace served as the shooting locaiton for the movie that Stephen Elliott and Kink star Lorelei Lee penned, Cherry (trailer here). The flick, which makes its San Francisco debut at the SF International Film Festival (April 24, 27, 28) stars James Franco and Heather Graham, who plays a female director at a porn company.

It isn’t Kink in the movie, exactly — it’s not a BDSM company, for one. And I met up with Lee at Thieves Tavern this week and she told me that despite the vocation of Cherry‘s protagonist, she didn’t consider it a movie based in sex-positive activism.

“You can really destroy a movie by making it too political,” said the NYU student and star of multiple Kink sites, over a glass of red wine. Lee says she and co-writer Elliott wanted to write a story with a happy ending (er, spoiler alert.) “I think it’s a complicated story that doesn’t try to sell you on anything.” Of course, showing happy, functioning sex workers should be considered activism in and of itself these days.

Theirs isn’t the only project that uses the Armory as a backdrop for for an upcoming non-NSFW film. Filmmaker Simone Jude has been shooting a documentary on the lives of Kink’s women – Lee, Isis Love, and Princess Donna primarily — for the last four years. The trailer looks fucking awesome, and Jude needs your Kickstarting help funding the final editing process. 

The three women portrayed are total badasses, and it’d be great if this film could recieve the same kind of exposure that Cherry, which picked up IFC as its distributor and is being slated for a limited-city release, is enjoying. With all the sex-negative politicking going on these days, we could use some more high profile looks at women who refuse to let conservative social norms guide their views of fucking. People need to be exposed to that kind of stuff. Or at least, as Lee told me “I hope that they leave the theater feeling like they’ve watched a movie about real people.”

And now for your week in sex events.

“A Taste for Brown Sugar: The History of Black Women in American Pornography”

Rad lecture alert: University of California Santa Barbara professor Mireille Miller-Young will be giving a talk about her much-needed manuscript examining the history of black women in porn this afternoon. Miller-Young’s work tends to focus on race, gender, and sexuality as it appears in sex work and popular culture and she is also currently collaborating with sex-positive author Tristan Taormino and others on The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure. 

Fri/13 4-7 p.m., free

California College of the Arts

1111 Eighth St., Room GC7, SF

(415) 703-9500

www.cca.edu

Writers With Drinks with Rachel Kramer Bussel and Curvy Girls

Rachel Kramer Bussel is the editor of Curvy Girls: Erotica For Women, which I recently had the pleasure of reading and is real hot. The stories are all about voluptuous women getting it on – in restaurant kitchens with the head chef, with the house sittee’s relative, with the guy that sold them those hot boots. The erotica follows curves like a racecar, and is a phenomenal piece of work for anyone who is looking for a re-up on body image – no matter what their measurements. Tonight, Bussel is reading at the much-loved Writers With Drinks event, so expect to get nicely liquored and hear her talk about sexy, body-positive couplings. 

Sat/14 7:30 p.m., $5-$10 sliding scale

The Make-Out Room

3225 22nd St., SF

www.writerswithdrinks.com

“A Taste of Rope”

The perfect opportunity to sample wines from around the globe while training your obedient submissive, this Femina Potens event has an value-added feature: different models from rope companies Maui Kink, Twisted Monk, Bind Me, Lover’s Knot, and Jugoya will be on hand, and wrist, and ankle, and ribs so that you can see the difference that quality and texture can make in your play. There’s limited space available here, so you should get on this quick-like.

Sat/14 9-10:30 p.m., $40-99 per couple

Location disclosed upon purchase

www.feminapotens.org

Bawdy Storytelling: Master and Servant

The pervy storytelling series goes on a power trip, with six kinky souls going on the record about their BDSM power play good-times. 

Thu/19 7-10:30 p.m., $12-$15

The Uptown 

1928 Telegraph, Oakl.

www.bawdystorytelling.com

More Easter! I must have more Easter!

Andrew Lam
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0
More Easter! I must have more Easter!

You were a bad, bad bunny if you missed the killing-it three-tiered Easter egg hats and rampant stigmata injuries at the yearly Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Dolores Park takeover last Sunday. But even if you did make it, Broke Ass Stuart is bringing a free Easter-themed Saturday night pregame event your way. Won’t you drink free Pabst, do some (bouncy) foxy boxing, and hunt for Easter eggs with him?

Why’d he plan this wildness? Well, there’s a startup involved. More specifically, UpOut, which also put together this infographic (bottom of page) announcing there are 62 COFFEESHOPS currently operating in the Mission. It also calls the neighborhood “the last party before the suburbs,” which makes absolutly no sense whatsoever to me. Unless they are referencing this March Wall Street Journal article, and we already know how I feel about that.

But I digress. Because while we all still live here we should be drinking as much free Pabst Blue Ribbon as possible, hunting for plastic eggs in an indie gallery space, and knocking the crap out of each other with massive foam gloves. Before hitting the town!  

“Eggs, Beer, and Bouncy Boxing”

Sat/14 7:30pm-11pm, free

Zspace Gallery

450 Florida, SF

www.brokeassstuart.com

 

Oh high!

Andrew Lam
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1
Oh high!

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE Say “cannabis,” not “weed.” Couch discussion in the language of medicine, not intoxication. There are a lot of rules when it comes to talking about marijuana — and the country’s most beloved cannabis publication breaks most of them.

That’s because at High Times magazine, the general take is that herb should be legal across the board, not just for consumption by the verifiably sick. “Until it’s legal for all adults, medical marijuana patients are going to be regarded as second class citizens,” said Elise McDonough, who besides having worked as a graphic designer with the magazine for 10 years is the author of the brand-new-for-420 Official High Times Cannabis Cookbook (Chronicle Books, 160pp, $18.95).

>>Join the Guardian and a stellar lineup this Friday 4/20 at El Rio for the Stoned Soul Picnic party!

In her Guardian phone interview, McDonough pointed out that eating may be the first way human beings consumed cannabis. She’s certainly done her part to give us options beyond the basic brownie — the book includes recipes for “psychedelic” spanikopita, tamales, cocktails, holiday feasts, and a host of canna-bases, from dosed butter to olive oil. McDonough wrote many, but also gets help from other High Times luminaries, like the dearly departed Chef Ra, who contributed to the rag’s recipe column for 15 years.

Interest, ahem, sparked? The following recipes from the book will make a stellar foundation for next week’s holiday festivities, medicinal or not. 

 

SIMPLE CANNABUTTER

Makes 1/2 cup

1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter*

1/4 ounce cannabis buds, finely ground

*To make cannamargarine, simply substitute margarine for butter in this recipe

1. Melt the butter on low heat in a saucepan. Add the ground buds, and simmer on low heat for 45 minutes, stirring frequently.

2. Strain the butter into a glass dish with a tight-fitting lid. Push the back of a spoon against the plant matter and smash it against the strainer to squeeze out every drop of butter available. When you’re done, discard the plant matter.

3. Use your cannabutter immediately, or refrigerate or freeze until it is time to use. You can easily scale this recipe up for larger batches of cannabutter. One pound of butter (4 sticks) can absorb 1 ounce of cannabis, but you may want to simmer for up to 60 minutes.

Drizzle this cannabutter over freshly cooked pasta or popcorn for instant satisfaction. Reserve large batches in the fridge or freezer for use in recipes.

 

GREEN GANJA GARLIC SMASHED POTATOES

Stones 4

1 1/2 pounds potatoes, unpeeled and cut into chunks (Yukon Gold potatoes are great)

1 pound parsnips, peeled and cut into chunks

1 head garlic, cloves separated and peeled

1 1/2 tablespoons salt, plus more as needed

4 tablespoons Simple Cannabutter

Black pepper

1. Put the potatoes, parsnips, and garlic in a large pot and cover them with water. Bring to a boil over high heat and then add the salt. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for about 15 minutes. The potatoes, parsnips and garlic should be tender and easy to smash. Drain the vegetables and reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water.

2. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the cannabutter.

3. Return the vegetables to the pot or a large serving bowl, and begin to smash them with a potato masher, slowly adding the melted cannabutter a little at a time. Use spoonfuls of the reserved cooking water to thin the mixture if the smashed veggies are too thick. Season with black pepper and more salt and serve.

 

If I could do it all over

Andrew Lam
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2
If I could do it all over

If had to re-start your academic career today, what would you study? In this era of budget cuts to education and general economic miasma, some Bay Area academics would be reconsidering their options, some would stay their course — and some have important advice for today’s budding scholars. 

MELINDA STONE, UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

FILM STUDIES

I would first take some time off from school, jump into the world, and try it out for a year or two. I would WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) around the country and around the world. Once I had some out of school experience, I would be ready and willing to pursue a higher education — not just because my parents or society said it was the thing to do, but because I was excited and eager to learn more. I would study urban agriculture — funnily enough, my colleagues and I just created an urban agriculture program at USF. We need to be thinking and engaging critically and creatively to shape our urban spheres into sustainable systems. Programs like urban agriculture are doing just that.

JAMES MARTEL, SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR

POLITICAL SCIENCE

I’d ideally do exactly what I am doing now: studying political theory. I really love my job and feel very grateful that I get paid to do this. However, I don’t think that I could have had the career I had if I was starting out today.

What I’d probably do is to bolster my study of political theory with more courses in continental philosophy and critical thinking, that way I could present myself to more kinds of jobs and broaden my reach. I also think it would help to focus on something concrete — an area study, a specific tradition, a specific thinker, because I think generalists don’t do so well these days. In graduate school I would concentrate more on publishing and going to conferences than I did when I was getting my own Ph.D.

When I was in grad school, the belief was that we lived in a meritocracy and good work would get good jobs; even then (the mid-’90s), the profession was changing, but I didn’t pay any attention and got lucky. Not that I had it that easy, I was a visiting professor at three universities before I got a tenure track job. Even so, I don’t think a newly minted Ph.D. can have the same luxury anymore. Today you can’t hide in your ivory tower. My younger peers are much less starry-eyed about academia than I was at their age. Maybe that is one small silver lining to the horrendous academic job market.

VINCENT BARLETTA, STANFORD UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

IBERIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN CULTURES

At the end of Don Quijote, the eponymous main character emerges from his book-induced delirium, renounces chivalry, and dies. I’m not ready to die, so I’m reluctant to imagine a career course other than the wholly quixotic, book-filled one that I chose over two decades ago. The Quijote teaches us that all imagining has consequences. If I begin to imagine another less difficult life, what will become of me? Will this life begin to crack and splinter? While I’m not simple enough to believe that flirtations and daydreams can hasten death, why tempt fate?

If imagination is a lethal pin, history is a cushion. When I was a kid growing up in the East Bay, an aluminum bat under my bed and a stack of bootlegged Elvis Costello cassettes in a shoebox, I dreamed of being lots of things: a private eye in Honolulu, a blade runner, the president. I dreamed of a playing guitar like Marc Ribot. Of being rich. Does Barack Obama play guitar? If so, he’s realized all of my adolescent dreams, and I hope they make him happy. As for my life, Don Quijote was born only for me, and I for him.

DINA IBRAHIM, SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

BROADCAST AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION ARTS

If I were starting my career all over again, I would still get a bachelor’s degree in journalism with a minor in international relations. I would also get a master’s degree in Middle East studies, followed by a Ph.D. in journalism. The only thing I would change is making up my mind a little faster. I was undeclared during my freshman year, with no clue what I wanted to study. I met a bunch of cool kids who were working at the college newspaper and as I began hanging out in the newsroom, suddenly it all made sense. I was naturally nosy, I love writing, and get a huge kick out of talking to strangers and telling stories. Journalism was the perfect career for me. I always had a fascination with global politics so I looked forward to attending every IR class. I’m glad I didn’t get a master’s in journalism, because I don’t think that would have advanced my career at all. But the Middle East studies degree gave me an in-depth understanding of the region’s history, societies, economies and political systems. It was an excuse to read a lot about subjects I was passionately interested in, and being required to read and write papers kept me in line and gave me the discipline I needed. I got the Ph.D. because I wanted to teach at the university level, and I enjoyed learning to do research. 

I tell my students all the time that it is really important to study what you love, but I know it isn’t easy to figure out what that is, and whether they can actually make a decent living out of it. I often begin advising sessions by asking my student “what’s your dream job?” and if they give me a specific answer, it makes it much easier to help them pick the right classes that they are paying a lot of money for. I knew I wouldn’t necessarily get rich as a journalist, but I knew it would be fun and rewarding. My parents are both medical doctors and wanted me to be a physician as well. I have no regrets whatsoever, because I know I would have made a great doctor, and definitely made more money than I do now, but I would have been miserable. A college degree is increasingly expensive, and it is crucial that a lot of thought and consideration goes into choosing a field of study that is a good investment. A good degree of study should train you to acquire actual skills that you can use to market yourself in today’s competitive job market.

Heading East: The photographer

Andrew Lam
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7
Heading East: The photographer

This week’s Guardian takes a look at San Francisco versus Oakland — and asks whether the big city may have lost its caché to the East Bay

caitlin@sfbg.com

Sasha Kelley grew up in the East Bay. The 22-year old photographer moved to San Francisco for the love of art — but she moved back East for the same reason.

“I was expecting [SF] to be this free-loving, accepting, encouraging place where anything can happen and everything would be welcomed.” Kelley told the Guardian through a series of phone and email interviews. “But it’s a place that is already established, the different art scenes have been formed and branded. Unless you are fortunate enough to have your own space, you are almost forced to fall into line with the given formula.”

That wasn’t the kind of artistic guidelines Kelley was looking for when she moved to the Tenderloin to study at the Academy of Art. While in San Francisco, she started C Proof (c-proof.org), a site she uses to explore African American life.

But she was having trouble finding the black arts community in the city. Besides MoAD, “the big exception,” as she put it, “the voice of the black artist just wasn’t there.”

And the call of home was a BART ride away. After three years in SF, Kelley decided to move away from the cramped studio she shared with two other people to Oakland in the summer of 2011.

“Right now in Oakland there is a little more wiggle room for experimentation,” she said. “There is still a lot of room to grow, to hold space, and establish new norms.”

One day, attending a general assembly meeting of Occupy Oakland, she met artist Githinji Mbire, who was opening up Omiiroo, a community gallery just one block from the 12th Street BART station (400 14th St., Oakl.) Kelley spent eight hours there the first time she visited.

“We just talked about art,” Kelley said. “A vision of a community space where people could just be and where it’s not about the formal aspects of it, it’s just really the work and reaching out to people.”

Now, Kelley hosts Sunday dinners at Omiiroo to bring together local artists. It’s become a drop-in creative space where Mbire crafts his multimedia maps of Africa. Local vegan food activist Bryant Terry stops by to sell his tea and talk to passers-by during the neighborhood’s thriving monthly Art Murmur. Kelley thinks such a space is possible in SF, but it would depend on finding an investor. “It’s a lot easier to sustain yourself in the East Bay,” she said.

The shape is turning me on! See the Apple-rejected “Geometric Porn”

Andrew Lam
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In a world where iFart is an acceptable product, you would think that pretty little abstractions of bodily functions would pass muster. But multimedia visual artist Luciano Foglia encountered resistance in Appleland when he tried to make his “Geometric Porn” app available via iPhone — it was rejected on the grounds of being “excessively objectionable or crude content.” Check out this preview video of GP to see the shapes Apple deemed too hot for your phone screen. And rejoice: the controversy hasn’t stopped Foglia from making T-shirts. Or you from buying them, you sleekly dirty dog, you. 

Hot sexy events April 5-11

Andrew Lam
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Oh sweet, fluffy bunny rabbit. In other, less frisky climes, your ilk is heralded as the perfect harbinger of spring. And also though we respect your frenetic rates of copulation, we humbly suggest a more apropos sign of the season: radical faerie Cobra’s new art show at gay health center Magnet, featuring both carvings and tapestries devoted to that (second)most fertile of creatures, the penis. 

Yay or nay? Whatever your response to this humble re-branding suggestion, this week brings just the exultant sex event for you. Hunky Jesus contests? Drinking til you barf with your fellow leathemen? Read on, bunny dearest, for this week’s sex events.  

Act Up Resurrection March

Happy Good Friday! It’s time to storm the oldest Catholic Church in town, deliver the ashes of AIDS victims to its doorstep, and have a bunch of queer nuns exorcise them of the evils the Pope has commited by restricting access to condoms! Today’s march, a commemoration of 25 years of AIDS advocacy rebels Act Up, will start at the Wells Fargo by the 16th Street BART station to highlight the bank’s predatory role in gentrification (a phenomenon that regularly unhouses AIDS patients), then go by the church en route to the Castro, where a list of the names of activists who died during the AIDS era will be read.  

Fri/6 4pm-7pm, free

March start: 16th St. and Mission, SF

www.thesisters.org

“Sacred Cocks: Cobra’s Erotic Nature Based Carvings & Tapestries”

Word on the street is that Cobra has been whittling away at willies since he was but a babe, all part of an effort to bring to light “ancient faggot history, which is intertwined with nature,” says the artist himself. Come for looks at lustful satyrs, and a break from all the hard body party flyers that blanket the Castro.

Opening reception: Fri/6 8pm-10pm, free

Magnet

4122 18th St., SF

www.magnetsf.org

“Pretending to be Free of Time: Phyllis Christopher”

… Or really take a break from the hard body party flyers that blanket the Castro at this exhibit of erotic photographer Phyllis Christopher’s work. The well known shutterbug will be showing her close-up snippets of the heavy-breathing BDSM life. A flexed wrist here, a drop of blood there — when the act itself left up to the imagination of the beholder, Christopher is lucky that this show is taking place at one of the centers of SF perv culture. 

Through April 29

Opening reception: Fri/6 6pm, free

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

Easter Bunny beer bust

Someone oughta do a study on condom sales during Catholic holidays. We’re just saying. At any rate, one of Folsom Street’s finest is having this all-you-can-drink booze-a-thon in the hopes that your altar boy guilt will translate into titillating party repartee. 

Sun/8 3pm-7pm, $8

KOK Bar

1225 Folsom, SF

www.kokbarsf.com

Pumps and Circumstance

They’re 33 years old and still hanging out at Dolores Park — so what’s there to commemorate? This isn’t your crusty roommate we’re talking about, this is the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The purveyors of white face majick, radical queer protest, and lotsa yucks want to celebrate 33 years of troupe-dom with their “traditional” performance at Hipster Beach, and damned if we’re not going to humor them to the best of our abilities. The presentation will be marked by the ever-fresh “Hunky Jesus” contest, so even that roommate of yours has something to celebrate. 

Sun/8 11am-4pm, free

Dolores Park

Dolores and 18th St., SF

www.thesisters.org

Salacious Underground 

After the success of the alternative live sex show Cum and Glitter, it’s clear that the Bay is ready for some onstage hijinx past the standard offerings at the Penthouse Club, or even our foxy babes over at the Lusty Lady. Enter Salacious Underground, a brand-new neo-burlesque event. What does neo-burlesque entail, you ask? Dial up the darkness and the daring on a standard Burly Q tassel-twirl — for more specifics, you’ll just have to head to Brick and Mortar on Sunday.

Sun/8 7 p.m., $7-$15

Brick and Mortar Music Hall 

1710 Mission, SF

Facebook: Salacious Underground

“Bawdy Storytelling: Geeksexual”

Everyone’s trying to cash in on the tech dollar these days, including the sexy storytelling shows. Or maybe Bawdy’s not taking that big of a leap from its typically scheduled programming — after all, as one Bawdy bard said: “I really think there’s a lot of overlap between geeks and perverts. Most of the geeks I know are pretty pervy and most of the pervs are pretty geeky.” At any rate, tonight’s stories will revolve around the art-science of dildonics and an engineer’s view of sex. 

Wed/11 7pm-10:30pm, $12

Verdi Club

2424 Mariposa, SF

www.bawdystorytelling.com

Cherry bombs away: Write up your first time for a good cause

Andrew Lam
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Cherry bombs away: Write up your first time for a good cause

Today I wrote a story about my sexual initiation. I forwarded my story to my friends, we discussed, they wrote down theirs. Turns out one of my loved ones did the deed over half an ecstasy pill on Staten Island. Another’s first time was with a boyfriend so unmemorable that she couldn’t remember identifying characteristics. Apparently they had a hard time getting it in.  

Is there a moment in life that is as important, yet less talked-about than the dismissal of one’s virginity? Hardly. So few things equaled the cheap thrill I got from handing over my own story to local author turned filmmaker Laura Goode to publish on her film’s new fundraising website.

“Society just doesn’t talk about the importance of that first time,” Goode says during her Guardian interview, artfully angling her words around a can of Trader Joe’s beer while sitting in her improbably awesome, rundown-cute Mission District carriage-house-cum-studio. She’s an author, recently having penned last year’s Sister Mischief, a kickass young adult novel about a bunch of high school girls from a elite Christian Minneapolis suburb who bust rhymes in a hip-hop collective, start a queer-straight alliance at their straight-laced campus, and come out of the closet with flair.

Goode’s work tends to have a political plotline with a sex-positive subtext, which explains the next paragraph well enough. 

She and co-editor Neelanjana Banerjee created Cherry Bomb as a companion to Farah Goes Bang, a movie that they’re working on with a crack production team. The script – written by Goode and co-writer Meera Menon — follows four young women who take to the road during the John Kerry 2004 presidential campaign, a magical moment (ahem) in United States history if ere there was one. The titular Farah is one of the four, and is hellbent on — as the title neatly references — getting laid for the first time. Cherry Bomb is, essentially, a reward for people who donate to Farah Goes Bang‘s Kickstarter page. 

And so, partly as a gift for those who donate to the cause of their movie-to-be, the women have created Cherry Bomb. The forum hopes to be a sex-positive secret space  – you can only view the seduction stories after donating to the movie or by speaking your piece yourself. The idea, Goode says, is for the site to be a safe zone to talk about that time in your life when you’re hovering on the brink of sexual activity. Why did you make the decision to become sexually active? How did it feel? What do you remember from that act?

“There aren’t a lot of orgasms, even for the dudes,” says Banerjee. “Which is to say, I think people are being really honest and real about the event. The great thing about this topic is that it swings from the nostalgic to the tragic, and everywhere in-between.”

There is just not enough real talk about sex and sexuality,” Banerjee continues. “There is so much posturing on all sides, so I thought a forum dedicated to diversity would be amazing: stories of girls who couldn’t wait to lose it next to stories of girls who wanted to lose it but didn’t really care that much, side-by-side with stories about guys who still think about the girl who took theirs when they were 15 or guys who waited until they were almost 30, etc.”

It’s worth joining in, and not just to support a film that sounds like it’s going to be an empowering storyline for young women. Writing out the story of how you lost your v-card (and then posting to a semi-public website) is a great way to reclaim your sexual narrative. Especially if you have a bone to pick with that dick who jumped you in dirty (no pun intended, no pun intended, no pun intended.)

For more info on Goode’s film and accompanying cherry-picking website, head to www.farahgoesbang.com

We and Mr. Jones

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We and Mr. Jones

caitlin@sfbg.com

THE GREEN ISSUE No one can accuse Van Jones of being a one trick pony. In the early days of his activist career he monitored police violence in the Bay Area, and from there gradually widened the frame of his activist efforts. Jones formed the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland in 1996, then became a green jobs pioneer, promoting environmentally-friendly work in low income communities — a revolutionary tactic that eventually landed him a short-lived adviser position within President Obama’s Council on Environmental Quality.

In his new book Rebuild the Dream (Nation Books, 278pp, $25.99) Jones has expanded his talking points to include the ways in which the financial sector has let us down, how Obama only did what we forced him to do (we gotta yell louder, Jones says), and how we can help fix the economy by focusing on “collaborative consumption.” Call it holistic activism. He’s launched a national junket to talk Rebuild that will bring him to the Commonwealth Club on April 16.

It is perhaps this kind of nuanced approach that scared the bejeezus out of the conservative demagogues whose smear campaign convinced Jones to resign from his White House post in 2009. Leave it to Glenn Beck to shame someone for saying he wanted “a whole new system” (as Jones proclaimed in a speech at a youth climate change conference.) The conservative media accused Jones of a communist past — which was accurate enough — and of signing a 9/11 truther petition that said that George Bush had prior knowledge of the World Trade Center attacks. He was innocent of this last point, the organization in question admitted months later, to a deafening media silence.

But Jones hasn’t retracted his call for a new system. In fact, in the pages of Rebuild the Dream he seems to step into a post-resignation hybrid role, in which he is no longer an outsider activist, but still has no formal role in Washington, D.C. Accordingly, he seems less fired up by the actions of national politicians as the agenda-pushing energy of the Tea Party and Occupy movements, which his new book spends entire chapters analyzing and critiquing. Even certain innovative businesses get a shout-out.

“You have Kiva, Kickstarter, Airbnb, and Zip Car already beginning to point to a future economy where more people are sharing fewer things,” Jones told the Guardian in a phone interview last week. “That’s good for people and the planet. You are also are saving money and you’re relying on people and relationships rather than dollars, you’re refinancing your social capital.”

He calls this economic ethos “collaborative consumption,” and it’s a heady idea for proponents of self-sustaining communities. Building a new economy on this business model, however, will take some tweaking that’s not covered in Rebuild — the city-level debate on whether SF Airbnb users should be subject to the city’s 14 percent hotel tax is one current-day example of how things can get complicated.

Rebuild offers a fairly honest critique of Obama’s successes and failures during the president’s first year in office. Nonetheless, the timing of the book, with it’s underlying message that we need to stay engaged in the political system to achieve real change, seems somewhat cagily timed. Is Rebuild the Dream part of Obama’s re-election campaign?

“The answer is no,” Jones is quick to reply. “We’re a non-partisan organization, we don’t endorse political candidates.”

But the election year publication is no coincidence: he wants all candidates to start talking about fixing the institutional reasons behind inequality.

“The two factors once used to pull people out of poverty were home ownership and education,” he says. “Those have now become the two factors by which people are being pulled into poverty because of the underwater mortgage problem and the fact that kids are coming away from college with massive debt and no ability to get a job. We think that these are issues that the politicians need to be forced to respond to and rethink.”

VAN JONES

April 17, 7pm, $20

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, second floor, SF.

(415) 597-6700

www.commonwealthclub.org

 

Oaksterdam University gets a Monday morning federal raid

Andrew Lam
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Oaksterdam University gets a Monday morning federal raid

Good morning cannabis patients. Hopefully you weren’t planning on attending horticulture classes at Oaksterdam University today. The cannabis school in the heart of downtown Oakland is being raided by IRS and the DEA with support from US Marshals right now. 

At this point, little is known about the motivations behind the raid. The Huffington Post reports that an IRS spokesperson could only say that the incursion was authorized by a federal search warrant. There are reports that Oaksterdam owner Richard Lee was also detained and then released early today. 

A throng of protesters have gathered around the taped-off entrance to Oaksterdam, holding signs, heckling official vehicles for lacking valid license plates. Andrew Deangelo, brother of founder of Harborside Health Center Steve Deangelo, pleaded with law enforcement guarding the doors to Oaksterdam to refuse similar assignments “to arrest sick and suffering people” in the future. The federal agents have so far removed documents, safes, and cannabis plants from Oaksterdam. 

Oaksterdam University was founded in 2007 by Richard Lee as a place where patients and caregivers could learn the necessary skills to grow quality cannabis. The syllabus now includes courses in cannabis politics, history, and the legal rights of patients. Lee was one of the primary forces behind the 2010 California ballot measure Proposition 19 that would have legalized marijuana for use across the board. One of the central figures in the cannabis community, this raid is a bold move in a creeping movement by the feds that is curtailing patient access of late. 

A call this morning to Anne Campbell Washington, Quan’s chief of staff, yielded little information regarding the city’s response. “We don’t have information on it yet, because it wasn’t our operation,” Washington said. 

The Guardian will have a reporter on the scene shortly, so check back here and in this week’s Herbwise print column for updates on the fate of the University. 

UPDATE: The LA Times has reported that Richard Lee’s house was also raided today. 

Look got took? Hi Fashion has your anthem

Andrew Lam
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The other day I saw this woman was walking down the street, spitting image of Rose from the Golden Girls. Excuse?! Lady, I know you didn’t get the glimmer for those high-waisted purple pants all by yourself. Leave it to LA electro pop duo Hi Fashion to debut a video (featuring luks crafted entirely by the group itself) today that speaks to this exact situation. So that I don’t have to. Because no one wants that mess. If you wanna get Hi live and in person, check out the group’s May 11 gig at Rickshaw Stop when it opens for JD Samson. 

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