Caitlin Donohue

Flair for the music in your head

Andrew Lam
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0

It’s happy hunting, this urban jungle. But leave the sounds of the flora and fauna to chance and you may be caught in the screeches and tweets of a tacky bird of paradise: who hasn’t had their morning quarry foiled by an ill-timed burst from a passing safari-mobile bumping last year’s Usher or – egads! – a morning DJ’s rehash of the latest hijinx on The Hills? Best to keep that trek through the underbrush sleek and soundtracked with some of the fierce headphones on offer at local J-pop mecca New People. After all, it don’t get much more wild than Tokyo fashion.

Exhibit A: headphones as jewelery. You want fly but functional, right? Ladeez… you got your choice of many little gems at New People, but my faves have gotta be the Elecom Rose Ear Drops ($44.95) , little red rose buds that fit in your canal just. So. Sweet. They’re cute, but not hit you over the head with it. You can peep Zumreed’s jewelery ‘phones in shiny blue bead style, too, if you’re more of a buy-my-bling-at-Sanrio kinda girl.

Exhibit B

Exhibit B: retro charm. Some of the style here wouldn’t look untoward attached to your Walkman, yeah I said it, Walkman. Zumreed comes strong in this category as well, with square phones, and a red and black color palette ($34.95). Back to the ’80s witcha, only with presumably better sound quality and debatably more commercial hip-hop in the zeitgeist. Or you can go Lucille Ball retro with dome candy colored or stripey ‘phones, again from Zumreed (above, $44.95-54.95). I see these being used to listen to a lot of The Shins. Early Beatles, maybe. 

FYI, the store also stocks a whole bunch of mini-speakers, perfect for when you and the rest of the food chain are chilling with nary a stereo to pump that jungle love.

ALL HAIL THE BURGER SPEAKER ($30)

Back to ‘phones… many of the models are be-tricked with noise canceling super powers – both for you to block out any possible ambient D-list punditry and so that the rest of your ecosystem doesn’t have to hear the bass beats of your carnivorous soul. After all, it just doesn’t do to let your prey know you’re coming for them, rawr.

 

New People

1746 Post, SF

(415) 525-8630

www.newpeopleworld.com

 

“Mission’s first farmers market” checks off its grocery list

Andrew Lam
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0

I watch as Theresa Alvarez painstakingly turns four year old Rolando Steinway-Raybon into a tiger with the palette of face-paints sitting in front of the Mission Beacon neighborhood organizer. Next to them, speakers bumped a hip hop song. Down the block of Bartlett Street where they sat, community members were buying and selling bags of salad greens and edible flowers, white peaches, homemade soaps, and pupusas that came with salad and salsa for the princely sum of $2. A lot going on at the first Mission Community Market, which Alvarez takes as a good sign.

“We’re not only giving out produce, but services people might need,” she told me between happily decorated children. Alvarez’s face-painting operation had set up shop behind a table full of literature about Mission Beacon, the local organization she works for whose mission is to empower youth by exposing them to new places and skills – a bike club and a gardening class are two of the programs that the group offers out of Everett Middle School.  

The presence of neighborhood nonprofits – Dolores Community Youth Alliance and volunteers from the Mission YMCA had joined Alvarez in organizing the kids play space and were also distributing information about their programs in the hopes of attracting new volunteers – was one sign that this is a market that’s trying hard to address the needs of local residents. 

Rolando Steinway-Raybon and sister Naijella show off their new facial flair, courtesy of the kid’s space at the first Mission Community Market

The concept was first dreamed up in November of 2009 at public planning meetings for the Mission Streetscape Plan, which is re-envisioning street usage in the neighborhood. One of the market’s head organizers, Jeremy Shaw, told me its implementation followed a three point plan; “one, the farmers market, which promotes healthy eating. Number two, supporting emerging businesses, people that don’t have the capital for a storefront. Number three, community programs. We’re saying, we’re going to provide this public space and you can do what you want with it. We can use this street for more than just cars.”

True that said the crowd yesterday evening; we can use it for veggies! And for playing four square! And the strumming tunes of a mini-orchestral group! As I strolled through in the early evening hours, the block was slowly filling up with shoppers and those who had paused on their way home to see what all the commotion was about. At 5:30 p.m., volunteers at both entrances told me that they’d already counted around 330 attendees, and expected the numbers to rise as more people got off work. The market raised money for this week’s opening at a fundraiser on Bartlett Street in June, and aims to close the block between 21st and 22nd Street every week at the same time, Thursdays from 4-8 p.m.

Entrepreneurs from the Women’s Initiative hawked wares alongside the produce farmers, including Rubber Ducky Soap Co. owner Kelly Smith. Smith, who stood cheerfully behind her table stacked with naturally made bath products in a green skirt and retro cateye glasses, joined the Women’s Initiative in 2000 to gather the “networking, support groups, and knowledge” she needed to make her enterprise profitable. She recently used her business acumen to help create a new farmers market herself, in a largely abandoned strip mall parking lot in her town of Marinwood. So how were Sharp, the Streetscape Plan, and the Mission District doing on their first market day? “I have to congratulate them,” Smith told me, smiling. “They’re already so tapped into the community, that’s the basic. Its a nice honor to be a part of opening day.”

That connection gives Alvarez hope that the Mission Community Market will meet the needs of its neighborhood beyond just its shopping lists. “It’s hard when people do this without community organizations and families. In the last several years, the neighborhood’s been transforming. I think us being a partner [in the market] will help preserve what’s special about this area.”

Update: 1500 attendees came to the market’s first week!

Mission Community Market

every Thursday, 4-8 p.m., free

22nd St. and Bartlett, SF

www.missioncommunitymarket.org

 

Trashy art: Recology’s 20 years of shoving artists into heaps

Andrew Lam
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4

One thing I learned yesterday about the artist in residence program at the Recology dump; Sirron Norris and other alums were not wading through the mountains of lightly used diapers and rotting carrots to cull the materials for the flights of foraged fancy they produce in the program, a 20-year retrospective of which opens today, Wed/21, at Intersection 5M. No no, they pick through the goods turned up by the city’s curb-side and drop-off recycling program, which you think would be a little cleaner. I mean, look at the art they made from it. But you’d be surprised…  

“That section anyone can drop something off is where you garbage pick,” artist Sirron Norris tells me when I called him up for comment on the sweet gallery show Recology’s assembled. He assured me that the dump’s program changed his artistic trajectory, and yet “You will come across rotting food — vegetables and rotting stuff. They’ll dump fish in the styrofoam cases, a lot of vegetables — a lot. Ive seen all kinds of stuff, nasty stuff and trippy stuff, a box full of stuffed animals; a box you could fit a loveseat in [note: here Norris commenced with a story about said box I don’t feel comfortable relating to my gentle readers. Ask him for details when you see him, dear ones]. Tons of pills, so many pills. Cough syrup.” 

“It’s up to them if they want to wear a respirator,” says dump advisory board member (and program director for Intersection for the Arts, who let us into the building even though I blatantly got the day wrong of the exhibit’s opening reception – thanks!) Kevin Chen. Artists, who spend up to eight hours a day at the recycling facility, are encouraged to wear not only steel toed boats, but also steel soled boots. Tre rugged, no?

But judging from the gems assembled at the Recology retrospective, the experience is more than worth the sanitary incursions. A kicky dress made from bottle caps and junk food wrappers by Remi Rubel hung next to Sandy Drobny’s intricately woven “Caution” tape apron. I wanted them for my own, just like I wanted to sit and finger Linda Raynsford’s saws carved to resemble their enemies in nature, the majestic fir tree, every day before I head to work. 

What I saw yesterday

The retrospective provides a lot to look at, nearly all of it made from things that otherwise would have been crushed into recycling. Packard Jennings created a “Terrorist Alert” board during his 2003 residency, which he installed on Division Street to warn post- 9/11 automobile drivers of threat levels approaching the ominous “pineapple” or “far-fetched” measure of urgency. David Hevel’s trio of bright fascinators – which he reverse-melts with a blowtorch in a video installation included in the gallery – baffled me with their preciousness until Chen cleared up their providence. “Sometimes a party store will drop off a whole bunch of stuff,” he said. Ah, streamers and sparkles, got it. 

Perhaps for obvious reasons, the residency program is an SF exclusive in this country. Chen says a similar program is being plotted for Portland, Oregon, but the set up – which allows artists free range in the recycling area in exchange for giving Recology temporary ownership of the pieces created, plus a few for their permanent collection – is mainly made possible here by a dump administration who, Chen told us, “really loves art.” Thanks guys! The whole thing left me stoked to check out the actual trash heap itself, where a sculpture garden lives and where regular gallery openings give people a chance to see their waste in a whole new light. 

Just like Norris did. “You’d see these piles and the piles would have these really great stories,” the artist told me, speaking as a man who knows the worth of another’s cast-offs. “I furnished my entire apartment from that place — cool stuff too, like old displays from Radio Shack.” 

 

Art at the Dump: 20 Years of the Artist in Residence Program at Recology

opening reception: Wed/21 6-8 p.m., free

through Sept. 25

5M

925 Mission, SF

www.sunsetscavenger.com

Hot sexy events July 21-27

Andrew Lam
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1

 

“What was that video about Eric? Wow! Girl’s butt in your face and everything!” I hope not too many of you are keeping tabs on FOX News, because in terms of sheer entertainment value we here at the SFBG simply cannot compete with Glenn Beck and his cronies’ 2009 commentary on the SF’s pervert art scene. Just watching him pump his blonde little eyebrows up and down while saying the words “the world’s only underground kinky art porno horror flick, complete with four men, three women and one gorilla,” – hey Beck, stay the hell away from my beat!

Yeah yeah yeah, what the hell am I talking about. So the National Endowment for the Arts kicks down some precious ducats from their $80 million stimulus pot to SF org’s like Cinematheque, Frameline Films, and CounterPULSE, whose series Perverts Put Out was honored with a name check on the fair and balanced news channel. What are they so tantalizingly riled over? Well my friends, check it out for yourselves when PPO hits the Center for Sex and Culture stage this weekend as part of its traditional, pre Dore Alley Fair show (Sat/24). 

 

Alex Ironrod

The semi-retired leather champ-author talks about his Leather Masters and slaves series, which follows the adventures of Tarquin and Paul and their buddies in the L.A. leather scene.

Thurs/22 7:30 p.m., free

A Different Light bookstore

489 Castro, SF

(415) 431-0891

www.adl-book.blogspot.com


Bay of Pigs

For all the fun of the street fair without the gawkers and sunshine, head to the Bay of Pigs. This is the UYA’s official Saturday pre-party, and you can bet your well oiled, mid-shin-high boots that there’ll be enough visuals to keep you stimulated; dancers, demos, and spaces to cavort and carouse like you wouldn’t believe.

Sat/24 10 p.m.-4 a.m., $50

525 Harrison, SF

(415) 777-3247

www.folsomstreetfair.org


Perverts Put Out For Dore

As seen on FOX news! Philip Huang, Steven Schwartz, and Gina de Vries will leave their hangups at the door, and Dr. Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard host.

Sat/24 7:30 p.m., 

Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission, Suite 1

(415) 552-7399

www.sexandculture.org


Up Your Alley Street Fair

Swing your partner round and round! Take your kinks down to SoMa for an leather SF tradition: UYA has been rocking Dore to its very soul since 1987. Just be sure to walk that fine line of legality. Nudity’s no crime, but lewd behavior, the festival website says, will get you the boot. Well, after a couple verbal warnings… 

Sun/25 11 a.m.-6 p.m., $5 suggested donation

Dore between Folsom and Howard, SF

(415) 777-3247

www.folsomstreetfair.org


Sex Positive Sex Workshop

Dr. Carol Queen doesn’t sleep. In a good way. Today she’s hosting a class for all those considering, or currently delving into, sex work. She’ll be breaking down the inter-sniping that can too often occur between divisions of work (dancer vs. escort vs. street worker), and sharing the reasons for solidarity if you’re gonna be up on that pole or on your back for cash. Hint: they’re important.

Sun/25 6 p.m., $10

Femina Potens gallery

2199 Market, SF

(415) 864-1558

www.feminapotens.org


The Art of Female Ejaculation

“The Fountain of the Goddess” is the subtitle for Sheri Winston’s primer on how to get your favorite va-jay-jay (ugh, no props to your proto-linguistic ingenuity, Oprah) gushing that sweet, sweet Amrita. Oh yes, she goes there. Winston will take you back into ancient India’s reverence for the “Nectar of Life,” which sadly today has been reduced to fodder for Amsterdam sideshow-porn star shooting competition. Learn how to evoke your inner squirting goddess with her.

Tues/27 6- 8 p.m., $25-30

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0400

www.goodvibes.com 

 

Flash! Bang! Girl-on-girl aerial hula!: Scenes from the Fire Cabaret

Andrew Lam
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0

There are some who say that the Bay Area is the birthplace of modern fire arts. Regardless of the pedigree involved, we look damn good getting our sparks off.

Since we gave you a sneak peek of the fire safety measures behind this weekend’s HEAT: A Fire Cabaret at West Oakland’s Crucible, it only seemed right to share some of the night’s most sparkling backbends, hip thrusts, Tatu-like riffs on circus, and of course, skillful application of flameburst. Do enjoy. All photos by Erik Anderson



Huffing Internet: an indifferent review

Andrew Lam
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0

“Kelly, parents really need to listen up on this one,” says the somewhat stiff-jawed newscaster on News 9 Oklahoma City. Oh good, I hadn’t heard another blatant attempt to scare the bejeesus out of parents in a while. They’re talking about “I doser” videos, videos that cause Mountain Dew swilling adolescent nerds to approximate what they think drunk people do. But wait… free drugs? Can grownups play? Ever attentive to our readers’ needs, I have sifted through the rubble. Conclusions to follow.

 

Bad: Most of them are. Very bad, indeed. Apparently, the young childs largely equate hallucinogenic trips to Satan, terrible headaches, broken ear drums, and boredom. And strobe. Lots of strobe. I had to stop watching one because I was getting bad Power Ranger flashbacks. Go to hell in particular “Gates of Hades,” one of the most infamous of the free I doses, which felt a lot like tying my head to an amp experiencing persistent feedback problems. 

 

Good: Not much. But I found the “less I dosey” visual trips to a bit more entertaining, particularly when they involved dancing penguins. Actually, some super swirly clips made my eyes pleasantly wonky for a few seconds after. Giggles and compulsive link forwarding ensued.

 

Conclusion: Persuasive tools in keeping children away from actual drugs for all eternity. Buy your kid a Magic Eye book. They’ve got higher production values, and will distract them from huffing Internet for at least the length of a “Gossip Girl” episode. Of course, I didn’t shell out the big bucks for George Torrez’s mood-enhancing Binaural Beats. Any patrons out there?

 

Playing safe at the Fire Cabaret

Andrew Lam
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1

This from Michael Sturtz, creative director of the berth of the Bay’s fire community, the Crucible. This weekend (Fri/16 and Sat/17), HEAT: the Fire Cabaret, rises up like a sultry phoenix, an onstage imagining of a flame speakeasy during fire Prohibition at whose “height, lighters and matches were confiscated.” Involved in the production:

 

1 flaming entryway

4 large fire sculptures

30 fire safety staff each night

60 security staff (“for crowd management, and to make sure no photographers cross any lines”)

30-40 onstage fire sources

100 isolated fire sources in all

150 fire extinguishers (“maybe upwards of a few hundred, it’s hard to tell”)

 

“It’s kind of like our own fire department,” Sturtz told me this morning, still a little groggy from the Cabaret’s first and only dress rehearsal last night. But it’s not all about flames and iron. 

Last night at the run-through, which was the first time performers and live music had taken the stage together, I saw evidence enough that the production is hot to handle. The stage (made entirely of re-purposed steel crafted into an apocalyptic distillery by what Sturtz affectionately termed “the Crucible community”) was birthing speakeasy scenes that swerved between sexy and… well I guess I should get over calling what the circus folks do dangerous, it’s just a little nerve-wracking for us momma-type squares. Tracy Piper, straight out of an R. Crumb cartoon in denim Daisy Dukes and scuffed black playa boots, mixed acrobatic archings and seductive glass blowing, while performers Scarlett and Axelrod, Fleeky Flanco, and Jennings and Xiaohong hornily stalked around her in the first act, guiding ray guns of fire blasts, balancing on wooden blocks, seducing each other wildly. Corsets, fishnets, flame retardant costumes go! 

Off stage — there’s more? Damn, there’s more! The Crucible staff has cooked up all manner of sparks to light your fire between on stage acts. The usuals; torch wielding burlesque, dance welders, vintage cars, booze. Of the performer’s crossover between the technical and artistic, Sturtz was comfortably matter of fact, very apropos of the mind that founded the organization itself back in 1999; “It’s easier to teach a singer how to weld than a welder how to sing.”

Dig. See you there – in 1920s flapper wear, please. Just be careful with that fringe.

 

HEAT: A Fire Cabaret

Fri/16 and Sat/17 7 p.m., $43-48

The Crucible 

1260 7th St., Oak.

(510) 444-0919

www.thecrucible.org

SF’s sexy yoga cult of yore

Andrew Lam
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0

Sometimes a great yoga class can be a relief. Like, that kind of relief. A pelvic floor loosening, an unwinding, a drowsily loving feeling that usually comes after a pleasurable close (naked) encounter with a certain sexy someone. But I little imagined that American yoga got its limber legs in an elite tantric love nest — that is, until I read Robert Love’s The Great Oom: The Improbable Birth of Yoga in America. The book tells the story of the revered and reviled Dr. Pierre Bernard, who actually started the debaucherous deep breathing in that Sodom of the early 20th century – the city by the Bay.

I called up Robert – Bob to his friends – to get the inside scoop. “It was the great cosmopolitan center of the west,” Love told me of SF’s appeal to the young yogi. “The east was physically coming to the west; the swamis from India would land on the west coast, if not directly in San Francisco. It was a welcoming city to new ideas.” Those new ideas would eventually land Dr. Bernard, aka “the omnipotent Oom,” on the wrong side of the law, and secure for yoga a safe berth in the, admittedly expansive at that time, corrupting-to-young-ladies category in the minds of most Americans.

So yeah, new ideas indeed. Bernard (nee: Perry Baker), came from a poor family in Iowa and had already been studying with Sylvais Hamati, a “Vedic philosopher,” for many years before his triumphant arrival in San Francisco. The city was holding it’s Golden Jubilee, which marked the 50th anniversary of the Gold Rush, when Bernard staged a performance of the “Kali mudra.” Basically, he put himself in a trance that allowed assistants to run needles through his face, lips, and tongue. And the crowd goes wild!

No, truly, they did. That kind of deep meditation had rarely been seen before in the U.S. — and certainly Bernard’s performance was the first time that such Hindu learning had been exhibited by a honky. Impressed, a lot of the young richies decided to throw their lots in with Bernard to learn his lady-pleasing feats. The “tantrics,” as they were called, moved into penthouse (for “a little more privacy and unobstructed views of the night sky,” those devils) apartments on Ellis, Golden Gate, Pine and Jones Streets, where they had, like, the best life ever, studying yoga sometimes and holding mysterious rites always, which may or may not have — but according to Love’s research, probably did — include casual sex with other tantrics.

Love, who is quick to point out that he’s not himself a philosophy scholar and but a casual practicioner of yoga, told me “hatha yoga has a Tantric underpinning philosophically, which is really — what’s the word — welcoming in terms of bodily function. Its not Victorian. Sexuality is part of life, part of the Tantric philosophy in that it has the potential to be sacred. There’s a strong connection between the yoga that we practice today and the Tantric philosophy in India. Its not unlikely that [sexual rites] would come into play.”

Sweet! I mean, immoral! The powers-that-be didn’t dig their youngster tripping quite that light fantastic, so they scooted Bernard off and away, as in they ran him out of town real good. He and his eventually alit in Manhattan, where they again commenced wooing the handsome, supple, and financially well endowed, and where they were to get into even bigger trouble for the supposed abduction and pillage of unsuspecting young ladies. Love’s research turns up an interesting mix of intense devotion to Hindu principles and signs of careerism and profiteering on the part of Bernard and his inner circle. Plus, they always wore really form-fitting outfits to yoga class. Those heathens!

I predict yoga yuppies love this book. Really, when was the last time their favorite exercise class was considered subversive? And where, oh where, are these yoga love cults nowadays? Enquiring minds… 

The topic fell to Love in a rather occult manner itself. He had just moved into a cottage in South Nyack, New York, when he found mystical symbols engraved into his new home’s bones. An Egyptian ankh over the front door, a brass bell with Kali, the goddess of time and change, reclining erected on a wall of the abode. It turns out, he was living down the road from Bernard’s old “country club,” the pastoral setting where the troupe had wound up after being ejected from their more cosmopolitan digs on either coast. 

The writer found himself entranced by the connection, although even yesterday he still couldn’t give me an unequivocal answer on whether Love was playing it straight when it came to principled yoga teaching. He answers the “genius or fraud” question of Bernard’s legacy (one, in fact, posed by the book’s final chapter title) with “a resounding yes. [Bernard] was an American go-getter with a spiritual bent who thought that there was nothing wrong with being successful and enjoying life. You can’t really call somebody a fraud if they were teaching and standing up for something for 15 years in front of the slings and arrows of society. I think he put his flag in the ground for yoga, and stood by it. That’s a dopey phrase, I’m sure you’ll clean it up.”

Which should resonate with all you downward facing dog deviants out there; persevere in your eccentricity long enough, gang, and it’s bound to rub off on someone. And sorry Mr. Love, I’m no good at cleaning.

 

The Great Oom: The Improbable Birth of Yoga in America

Viking Press. 402 pages. $27.95

Hot sexy events July 14-20

Andrew Lam
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0
Hot sexy events July 14-20

Brooke Magnanti didn’t always appreciate the transformative power of writing about sex. As “the most famous call girl in the world,” she wrote an infamous blog in the UK about her life and times as a prostitute. She got famous – although she kept her true identity concealed – and a hit TV show was made of her life. Her frank sex talk kept everyone intrigued, titillated, and humanized sex workers for an online audience. And then the tabloids found out who she was. 

And she was poked, prodded, harassed via email, her parents were interrogated, her ex boyfriend started getting all threaten-y. Her other career as a research scientist was called into question. Sucks. But she’s better now, happy she voiced her sexual reality, and as found her relationships deepen on account of it. She’s looking to teach you how to seize the power of the pen (and Ipad) for the same means this weekend, in a talk (Sat/17) and writing workshop (Sun/18) at Femina Potens gallery. She’s ex-hooker, hear her roar. 

 

Cock Rings

Dr. Charles Glickman wants you to squeeze the very most out of your cock collar – what a nice feller! He’ll be breaking down the anatomical mysticalism behind base camp, make sure you’re being safe, and, of course, talk ’bout fun new tricks to spice things up between you and your ringbearer. You doooo.

Wed/14 6:30-7:30 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

2504 San Pablo, Berk.

(510) 841-8987

www.goodvibes.com


Novice Night

Part expert panel discussion, part hands-on play time, this class is perfect for the new comer to the BDSM scene. Canes, clips, hoods, and needles? You can find it all here. Women only, please.

Fri/16 8-10 p.m., $4 members, $10 non-members

Women’s Building

3543 18th St., SF

www.theexiles.org


Great America Takeover

The SF Citadel wants you to arrive early at the castle, unload all your toys there, then head out for a day of thrill-seeking – on the rides at Great America. Say what? No, really. Wear your tourist clothes, and if you get a terrible sunburn all the better. Rosy cheeks knocks $5 off your admission for the Citadel dungeon play party upon the group’s return to the city.

Sat/17 meet at SF Citadel 10 a.m. for carpools to amusement park, $54.99 park admission

SF Citadel 

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-1746

www.sfcitadel.org


Writing Workshop with Belle De Jour

There is a blogger out there even sexier than I. UK digital dime, Belle De Jour (aka, Brooke Magnanti) shares her secrets for getting allll of you all on paper, or digital page, in this writing workshop not to be missed.

Sun/18 3 p.m., $15-20

Femina Potens

2199 Market, SF

(415) 864-1558

www.feminapotens.org


Fabulous Fellatio/Petting the Kitty

Gotta love that give and take. And should you and your sweetie want a refresher course on all ways to put the puff back into each other’s privates (sorry, I don’t know where I was going with that one), Good Vibes is supplying you with not one, but two evenings of education with sex educator Megan Andelloux. Go the first night for a crash course on phallus lovin’, the second for a crash course of cunnilingus. Study hard, kids.

FF: Mon/19 6-8 p.m., $25-30

PtK: Tues/20 6-8 p.m., $25-30

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0400

www.goodvibes.com


Beginning Strip Class

Burlesque beauty Alotta Boutté brings her considerable, ahem, skills to the stripper pole in the dungeon basement of the Big Pink House. Wear clothing that’s comfortable — but not so comfortable you’ll mind leaving it on the floor.

Tues/20 7:30-9:30 p.m., $5

Big Pink House (contact for address)

(415) 292-3222

www.soj.org

 

Half-remembered kaleidescopes: the Jewish Film Festival’s youngest storytellers

Andrew Lam
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0

Could the past be a kaleidescope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze… and if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?

-Alan Lightman

If heritage remains constant, what changes is the inheritors. In a project that will live in interactive kiosks at the Jewish Film Festival (Sat/24), as well as in our own Internet devices, young artists are using websites to tell tales that only last year would have taken the shape of a movie. Modernity, man. Their theme? “Half Remembered Stories,” subject matter that lends itself to the nebulous, fragmentary nature of our online lives.

Zoe Pollak’s multimedia project “Memory Paths,” (which makes use of the above quote from Einstein’s Dreams (2004), explores this fluctuating notion of memory. Pollak set 12 videos from her tow-headed childhood to three different sounds ‘o thought – quotes from Einstein and other Jewish thinkers, nocturnes by Chopin, heady intellectual musings all of it – on a site that centers around the image of a clock. Her inspiration came from the sense of pending mortality that strikes most recent high school grads. 

“I’ve been getting nostalgic as it’s getting to be time for me to leave for college,” Pollak told me in a phone interview. “For my project, I wanted to look at individual memories I have, like the first day of preschool, and look at how my relationship to that memory has changed over time. Sometimes when I look back at that event, like when I have a lot of homework, I might be very nostalgic, but if I’m reading a very interesting article, I might notice how now I have the ability to process more complicated ideas.”

The project was organized through the New Jewish Filmmaking Project, which hosts documentary producers from Citizen Film helping 11 young digital bards to focus on gaps in recall. It segueways nicely with the panorama of stories invoked in the film festival as a whole, even if the divergent format seems to crown the young storytellers as the new generation.

Although the project did yield one bad ass reflection on the notion of zombie takedown, family history seems to have been a natural choice for many of the participants; a young uncle’s overseas death from Hepatitis C is explored, a grandfather’s gambling addiction, a great-grandmother that had refused to emigrate to the U.S. if it meant leaving her young lover. 

The latter was the vision of a NJFP participant from year’s past, Klaira Markenzon, who in 2004 directed a movie about her family’s prolonged stay in their native Ukraine, Leap of Fate. “Half Remembered Stories” sees Markenzon develop that film into an online choose your own adventure book. “I wanted it to be about how every decision can change the rest of your life,” says Markenzon. Elect to have Grandma take that long steerage boat ride to America in Markezon’s “game,” and players can find themselves sick, rejected at the gate of Ellis Island and forced to return to the Ukraine, or perhaps Palestine. Immense historical research went into the making of the project. 

“This format is outside of the tradition of beginning, middle, and end,” says Sophie Canstantinou, one of the project’s facilitators and co founder of Citizen Film. Her cohort, Sam Ball, told me that the new format of story not only gave young people the opportunity to create their own vision (in place of the collective product of years past), but that it also reflected the gyrations of information culture today. “What’s new this year is everything that’s going on in this online media, and that the population we’re working with spends so much on time engaging in stories – we wanted to see if we could harness that.”

But do the stories pack the same punch on our computer screens as they would have screened in a dark theater? Hard to say, really – but Ball is confident that they are indeed harbingers of a new kind of cultural experience. “Eighty years ago,” he told me “the only way you could see a movie was having a shared, communal experience in a theater. In this new medium you’re back to having a communal experience, but its a different one. It’s people sitting in environments of their own making, being able to communicate.” Perhaps the past is indeed a kaleidescope: one that calls up a different jewel tone image with each generation’s shake of it’s mirrors.

 

The New Jewish Filmmaking Project’s “Half Remembered Stories” 

Launch party Sat/24 (through Aug 9) 12:30 p.m., $12 (includes 1:30 p.m. screening of Te Extraño) 

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.njfp.org

 

Oliver Stone hits the spin cycle with South of the Border

Andrew Lam
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3

Gosh I love a good bite of propaganda. But maybe instead of “good” I should demur to “appealing”; it’s probably a bit redundant to say that I don’t brook with the smug-mongering on FOX, and even if it’s couched in concern for the personal safety of Americans, the advisories that our government puts out on the countries of our brothers and sisters in South American scared the dickens out of my mom when I decided to do Carnaval in Colombia.

Point being, we’re surrounded by propaganda. And I know Oliver Stone thinks so too. The fact appears to be the motivation behind his new movie South of the Border (opens Fri/16 in Bay area theaters), in which he travels down there to meet with Hugo Chavez and seven other leaders of what he believes to be the new Bolivarian movement. “I think that there has been so much unbalance [in American coverage of Latin America] that we are definitely a counter to that,” the director told the New York Times.

And like any good propaganda, the movie’s raised a tidy amount of hullabaloo. Maria Conchita Alonso is raising a stink at Stone appearances, and Larry Rohter wrote a scathing piece on the film’s inaccuracies for the NYT (see the film’s rebuttal to his points here). Even that astute analyzer of Western Hemisphere policy, Perez Hilton “weighed in.”

So why then did our friendly neighborhood center for Latino arts care to show such a piece of inflammatory rhetoric? I hollered at Jason Wallach, who was the evil mastermind behind a recent showing of South of the Border at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. Jason, you crazy commie red, what gives?

“It’s like this,” said Wallach, cheerfully disregarding my hate speak. “The cultural center for many years has taken it upon itself to be the outlet for news and critical analysis in Latin America, and helping the community stay up to date on development.” Wallach told me that the Latino activist community has taken issue with Washington’s trade policies, which “are only there so that the U.S. can have access to new markets and have nothing to do with those countries. We never hear that in the U.S.”

Somewhere between Evo Morales supplying Oliver Stone with amphetamines and what happens next in this scene with Hugo and some kid’s bike lies the genius of South of the Border. Photo by Jose Ibanez

Wallach noted that although MCCLA does not endorse everything said in the film, and that even though the left also has its concerns about Chavez (see in particular his sorry record on freedom of the press) “our job is to create a space for open debate.”

And so it came to be that the other night I turned off Hannity and Colmes for a moment, and had the pleasure of watching the Bay area premiere of the film at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, where it was screened for an assemblage of political activists and alternative press (meaning for once I was the most mainstream journalist in the room, ha!). 

It was a highly amenable audience. In one Stone-Chavez interview scene, the two discuss the aftermath of the 2002 attempted coup on the president (that many have found similar to CIA interventionist operations in the past). Chavez described his version of non-violence, the art of being “pacífico, pero armado” (peaceful, but armed). Seated behind me, a man breathed a sigh of relief. “Exacto,” he whispered. Like I said, every once in awhile we all need a shot of the propaganda that tastes good to us. 

South of the Border opens Fri/16 at the Sundance Kabuki (1881 Post, SF. (415) 929-4650, www.sundancecinemas.com) and Rialto Cinemas Elmwood (2966 College, Berk. (510) 433-9730, www.rialtocinemas.com) )

 

Caution! Don’t miss Very Be Careful’s next SF gig

Andrew Lam
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0

Who do you drink to? I guess it really depends on what you’re drinking. Moonshine: The Devil Makes Three. Thug Passion: Tupac. Shot of a Patron, beer back: Very Be Careful. And hell no I’m not getting mom on you — that’s the vallenato five-piece from Los Angeles that’s ready to party with you next week at The Rickshaw Stop (Thurs/15). VBC, formed by brothers Ricardo (accordian) and Arturo (bass) Guzman, sticks pretty close to the sounds that originated in their hard-partying parents’ homeland in the sun-soaked Colombian Caribbean coast. Their music sticks close to the tunes from down south, but something in that onstage swagger – that’s all Californian. I interviewed the two the other day over the phone, and I must say, I like the cut of their jib. Anyone whose professed purpose in life is to play about getting “the most out of life and love” while everyone boozes and lights up the dancefloor is very okay con esta chica.

 

San Francisco Bay Guardian: Your shows are meant to be real, real fun. What are the key ingredients to a good party?

Arturo Guzman: Dancing and drinking is always fun.

 

SFBG: Well, yeah. What do you like to drink?

Ricardo Guzman: You mean during the show or during the day? I like Sapporo, that’s my favorite beer. At the show, it’s Patron with a beer back. We go through phases. And about your last question, I think at the shows, people enjoy our enthusiasm, and we really enjoy theirs.

 

SFBG: Who writes your songs?

RG: My mom writes a good number of our songs, and I write the lyrics for many. The band itself writes the music … I don’t even know how, Sometimes at the show.

 

SFBG: Wait, your mom writes your songs?

RG: Her name’s Daisy Guzman. She was inspired by us playing this music and she said songs started coming to her, so she’d pass them on to me. Some of our best songs are by her. She’d write songs about her experiences and imagination – she has quite a few now, she really enjoys them. 

 

SFBG: Does the music come to her? Just the lyrics?

RG: She’ll sing [what she’s come up with] sometimes and I’ll work with that. It’s awesome. Everybody loves those songs, they’re special to us. 

 

SFBG: Very Be Careful has been around for awhile, what’s your secret of longevity?

RG: We started in ’97, so [we’ve been together for] 12 years I believe. But those are secrets that we can’t really reveal. We’re like a family, you know what I mean? I would say that’s one of the biggest things that keeps us together. Like a family you have your ups and down. There’s no weird, deep things going on. Well I guess there is, we’re like a family. It’s like a survival thing

VBC also enjoys props. And sunsets. 

SFBG: What do you see in the future of Very Be Careful?

AG: We’ve already seen it. It looks great!

 

SFBG: Where are you getting your musical influences from?

RG: the music comes from Colombia, a town called Valledupar in Northern Colombia. It’s spread through the coastal town — and through the world. It started with accordian, guacharaca — a scratching instrument typical to Colombia – and the caja. That’s the drum. That’s of course our main influence, but there’s a lot of influences that maybe people don’t see in our music, but maybe they will in our performance. We all like hip hop, rock, jazz music. 

 

SFBG: What draws you to vallenato, besides your cultural heritage?

RG: I think it was luck. We started hearing records, and it kind of fell in our laps in a way. I was drawn to it because a lot of the accordion music I heard when we were younger I didn’t like. But now I see, wow, this is really up my alley.

AG: It’s local, village sort of music that is a part of other styles of music that we like. It’s music of the working class. What its like to be poor, but still get the most out of life and love.

RG: When we first started playing it we noticed the reaction people had to it from all walks of life, I was astonished – I had found what I want to do in life. 

 

SFBG: What’s the message that people are going to take away from a Very Be Careful show?

RG: I want people to remember as much as possible the next day. And to remember that they’ve had a great time, and hopefully their feet are tired from dancing.

AG: Yeah, but I don’t know how anyone’s gonna remember. The thing about the live show we do, everyone surrenders to it. We work together on this abandoning and surrendering. It’s an in-the-moment thing, all you can say to people is, this is amazing. And besides that, we just want people to look into the roots of this music. It’s not really into the radio, even on the Internet. And, you might also meet someone nice on the dance floor.

 

SFBG: Any other words for your San Francisco audience?

RG: We hope that since our time up there is limited that everyone comes out and support Very Be Careful.

AG: Don’t worry about working on Friday. That should be the least of your worries. Take the day off. Whatever you need to do, get your groove on. We might not even make it to Friday.

 

Very Be Careful 

feat. Franco Nero and Intl Freakout Djs Special Lord B, Ben Bracken, and Phengren Oswald

Thurs/15 8 p.m., $10

The Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

Levi Strauss imprints on Valencia

Andrew Lam
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15

It would appear they got in under the radar. After all, the Mission Mission blog post on the Levi’s pop-up store on Valencia didn’t hit until today, stirring up an American Apparel-sized storm of anti-capitalist harrumphs and hurrahs. There was even a press embargo on mentioning details about the space until yesterday.

But here it was, and here I was getting a tour of the store with various superlatively attractive employees, who were quick to remind me that the space is “not just a multi-national corporation opening up a store in a community.”

This according to Josh Katz, whose official title at Levi’s is Head of Collaborations, Partnerships, and Creative Concepts. I prefer to refer to him more succinctly as “hot man with shockingly blue eyes in striped cardigan and tie made of interesting material who had the controversial idea of opening up a corporate entity in the thick of indie-rama Valencia land.”

But where the devil were the clothes? Katz chuckles, adorably. “It’s a good question – we make clothes, don’t we?” Yes. But apparently that’s not all that sets Levi’s heart aflame. “Whether it’s providing products or not, it’s important to create physical manifestations of the brand,” says Katz. 

The company is pushing its association with American hard work – its 1900s Valencia Street denim factory, after all, was one of the first sites of workclothes manufacturing. Riffing on this image of industrial creativity, its stocked the 17th and Valencia storefront with all manners of vintage letterpresses and printers. Although there’s a rack of work clothes up for sale, the space is not meant so much as a point of purchase as much as a branded community art “hub.” Every Sunday, budding local artists can screenprint on free cardstock, churn out a zine on the cheerfully supplied Xerox machine, even cobble together a rack of words that a friendly staffer (some of them straight from their day gigs at the Center for the Book) will stick through the ancient letterpress on hand. As part of  a tie-in with its Go Forth ad campaign, the company’s planning another photography based pop up space in New York, due to open Sept 18.

You’d be hard pressed (ha!) to find a more attractive print shop staff

“This allows us to sustain an engagement with the community. We’ve maintained strong relationships with every aspect of San Francisco,” Katz tells me. Knee jerk reaction: scoff scoff scoff. But it gets “tricky,” as Mission Mission’s Ariel Dovas puts it, when you consider that the “printshop” is providing the Mission use of some pretty serious art equipment and space free of charge, and that those are both hot commodities in this neck of the woods. Plus, Katz and the company have scheduled workshops and other partnerships with a shockingly legitimate lineup of Bay area creative types, from Aaron Rose (who as far as I can tell is not really a Bay Area creative type, but I suppose that’s getting hung up on semantics) and Alice Waters to Craig Newmark, the most famous list maker in the world, and a slew of nonprofits who you wouldn’t think would throw in their lot with an evil company set to commodify and pablumize the Mission.

Right? I called Courtney Fink, who is the executive director of Southern Exposure, and whose community art-funding organization is one of the three to benefit from the proceeds generated at 580 Valencia (the other two are Plaza Adelante and the Women’s Building). I asked her if she was surprised that Levi’s sought out such locally rooted groups as partners for this venture. “I guess I’m not surprised,” she told me. “I feel like it’s a strategy that a lot of big companies are taking, forming these creative partnerships to support what they’re doing.” Fink said that Levi’s was backing Southern Exposure’s new postcard guide to the 45 art venues in the neighborhood, which they had been unsure where to find funding for. “As long as we can maintain our integrity, we’ll do what we can,” she said, pragmatically. Fink also noted that Levi’s had refurbished a building that otherwise might have sat empty, though she could see how there’d be numerous different opinions on their presence in the neighborhood. 

Of course, not everyone’s stoked. I got an email from one Elle Ko, who is launching a guerrilla assault on this corporate infiltration. Quoth she: “that evening i decided to graffiti the storefront. i wrote ‘SCAM’, ‘BUY USED’, and other similar wording on the storefront. the graffiti was promptly removed the next morning.  the following evening i wrote ‘UNEMPLOYED? KEEP SHOPPING’ on the pavement in front of the entrance of the building, also ‘LOCAL FARTISTS’ [author’s note: double ha!], ‘PLAGUE’ and a large red X across the door. i then dumped a pile of old clothes and rags in front of the entrance.” She says her actions led to the installation of a round-the-clock security guard at the site.

“Levi’s has been on Valencia for over 100 years,” Katz told me as we moseyed about his new to-do, bustling with a whole team of fresh-faced creative-type staffers. The company maintained a presence at Valencia and Brosnan (now the site of the SF Friends School) up until 2002. But to its assertion that they’ve maintained relationships with the area, I offer a hearty, resounding, whatever. Levi Strauss moved those jobs to countries with cheaper labor forces awhile ago. They haven’t had a single factory in the US, in fact, since 2003. But their corporate offices are still in the city…

Let’s go printin’ now, everyone is learnin’ how

I’m hollering at you though, Elle — all that talk about “American workmanship” and “community values” is a little problematic coming from a company that moved all their production not only out of the neighborhood and metro area, but our entire country, seven years ago. But hell, who am I to harsh on a good time? Not to mention a powerful benefactor for organizations that kick ass in our neighborhoods. So if you’re down, go and try out the toys, check out the admittedly cool workshops they’ve got coming. You might as well get some enjoyment out of it. It’s like digging the aesthetics of a cool-looking national ad campaign. Oh wait, that’s what it is.

 

Levi’s Workshop

public events and Sunday studio hours through Aug 28, free

580 Valencia, SF

www.workshops.levi.com

 

Festie lovin’ up in the High Sierra

Andrew Lam
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0

All photos by Allen David 

Keyboard and organ player Dave Faulkner didn’t have to think too hard about the most golden moments of this year’s High Sierra music festival (although he did say that the Black Crowes “nailed it” at their Saturday evening main stage performance). “I love it when you’re just walking around, and you see a random jam that’s totally rocking. I think High Sierra attracts a lot of musicians – it’s like a sample platter of bands.”

But not like one of those intestinal spiderwebs of fried appetizer nuggets you get at T.G.I. Friday’s. Were I to liken the 4th of July weekend’s four day Tahoe-area campout to a culinary adventure, it’d probably take on the form of a potluck dinner amongst good, if disparate friends. Everybody — from Fela’s Afro-disco son Femi Kuti, to the late night burlesque acrobatics of March Fourth Marching Band, Trombone Shorty‘s New Orleans-inflected prodigy, and the awe-inspiring spoken word consumerism take downs of Al Lesser — brought it (most on multiple consecutive days), and the result was fly. And unexpected. Even though South Carolina native Zach Deputy played a taxing total of three scheduled shows throughout the weekend, I still happened across the red-bearded friendly giant in Saturday’s blazing sunshine getting crazy with the guitar for a throng that had assembled in the pathway to watch him play on top of an RV. The metal top bounced merrily along to his enthusiastic strums, clearly only a nerve-wracking sight to those who had not worked their way into the High Sierra mellow yet. 

In a only a slightly more whimsical mood was the Banana Slug String Band, the absolute be-all end-all for itty-bitty Northern Cali music fans. The group plays a kid’s version of the Grateful Dead shows that they spent their own younger days following. Their songs touched on such epic themes as getting to know your watershed and the astonishing physical strength of certain insect communities, and I’ll tell you what, on day four of partying balls there’s nothing quite like jumping into a congo line of festival rugrats while you all pound the air shouting “ants!” to make you never want to leave the Kidzone stage. Not to mention the table where you could make egg carton eye goggles. Super score.

Faulkner was playing the keyboard for the Slugs at that show, marking his sixth year onstage at the festival, where he’s also tickled the jam band ivories with his Dead cover band, Shady Groove (who plays Moe’s Alley in Santa Cruz Aug. 13th if you’re down for a coastal highway road trip). “One of my favorite parts of High Sierra is that a lot of the artists camp in the festival,” he tells me in our post-party phone rehash. “I think the fact that it’s in such a remote location, the ticket price, the selection of bands — it makes it a real niche festival. The support is amazing, people are just there to watch music and get down.”

He weren’t foolin’. Faulkner had clearly prepped for a lot more than just straight concert watching with the 460 Ford V8-powered Winnebago that he mainly uses as festival finder — he used it to transport five of his buddies up from their home in Santa Cruz to High Sierra, and has rocked the Burning Man playa in the same LED-lit, subwoofer-equipped vehicle for the past three years.

Like most everyone else in the High Sierra groove, Camp Millennium found the time in between concerts to roll a beach cruiser to one of the scheduled yoga classes at Shady Grove, buy organic produce from the dude at food court shakedown alley that was hawking on the cheap the last day of the festival, nap in a hammock, catch a Javanese puppet show, test out their festie stamina in preparation for August’s week-long Burning Man, and of course, cover themselves in glitter and facepaint on top of the MF as the sun set, a lone guitarist kicked out fine tunes, and the 8,500 (an early estimate by festival staffers) souls who’d made the drive up into the piney flush of the Plumas County mountains took a breather before the chaos of late night concerts and carousing.

By 11 p.m. on Sunday, most everybody had seen the bands they’d come to see, and the camp (plus extended family) had made it back to the RV for a kind of ridiculously lovey dance fantastic amidst the empty whiskey bottles and tousled bins of the clothes they’d packed to wear. No one was exactly comparing notes on the bands they’d caught, how the sets they’d seen measured up to the last time they’d caught the same bands in San Jose, or Portland, or New York City — which kinda makes you think this festival thing plays more tunes than the ones that rocket out of the bandshell mega-amps. “To love is to live,” Zach Deputy said when he was asked to sum up the weekend in a single sentence. Man I’ll tell ya, when it comes to how to spend your long summer weekends, those hippies might have been on to something after all. 

Out of work techies, let’s get sexy!

Andrew Lam
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1

The message came into City Editor Steve Jones’ voicemail box, but we all figured I should probably follow up on it. Sex conference! Well, kind of. We’re looking for webmasters for sex sites! said the excited publicist on the phone. I thought you might be interested in this exciting event! he said (please note; no quote marks. I do not take good notes on publicists’ voicemails). Well hell yes publicist, I said. Get it girl. I trusted in this so-called Cybernet Expo – which, incidentally, starts Thurs/8 – to yield visions of nerds chasing tail, gettin’ cray-zay, gettin’ jobs. You know, happy, hearty pastimes.

Tell me, oh iconoclastic publicist (tech convention publicists rarely contact us for help for promotion, go fig), who can best illustrate this fabulous phenomenon of randy code writers? Well Caitlin, he says, he says to me, let me track you down someone! A colorful interview, publicist friend of mine? Clearly, he says to me. Have you heard, Caitlin, about Saturday night’s convention-capping Armory party? My god, I had not! Well there’s that, says he the publicist. And you are invited. Well let’s get crazy! I thought contentedly, to myself.

Which is how we come to the part where I made the telephonic acquaintance of a one Terry Mundell, business development manager. Of Kink.com! Gotta be an oversexed, whip-cracking dervish of a man, right? How do you usually find webmasters, Mundell – set up a laptop in the dungeon, see who bites?

“We use Craig’s List, newspaper listings, referrals, conferences,” sayeth the man, who may or may not have been wondering about why he was talking to me about this. Are your techies… sexy techies? Sorry, sorry — sex positive techies? “Typically yes. For the people in production,” Bundell allows me. Well yeah, I’d guess that, because porn directors and cameramen tend to like watching sex. But “for web people, we do stuff in Java. We’ve always just been a dot com, because we’re a technology company,” Bundell sums up. 

Not sure how to caption this one from Cybernet Expo 2009 — hey look like they’re having a successful networking event? Fill in blank, shanks. Photo by J.Kedvessy

Wait, so – but things get wacky at Cybernet Expo, riiight? “There may be some models around, but I don’t think it will be a sexual atmosphere.” K. But the Armory party! You’re having a party at the Armory for the convention! Don’t tell me – “I’m organizing the party. Oh yeah, its going to be a fun. Drinks, appetizers, DJs, local area webmasters will be there, representatives from Hustler and Playboy.” 

So here’s the thing. Well, two things. First, I am an ignorant sensationalist. Second, Cybernet Expo is a job fair more or less like any other. There will be speed networking events, many seminars for learnin’ stuff entitled with things like “Wordpress: Not Just for Blogs” and the (probably?) deceptively titled “Adult Traffic: Where to Get It.”

No, no wait! “Representatives from Hustler and Playboy,” he said; what the hell is that? Money’s on a bunch of naked chicks who will do naughty things if you can code the html on their Myspace pages. Oh, and their keynote speaker is the semi-sleazy – I mean facilitator of the sex positivity of 18-year old women — Steve Lightspeed. Party on, computer guys and gals!

 

Cybernet Expo

Thurs/8-Sat/10, $149-$199

Golden Gateway Hotel

1500 Van Ness, SF

www.cybernetexpo.com 

 

Demon amulets and building codes: a sound installation that’ll “bowl” you over

Andrew Lam
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0

At a recent sunny day preview of The Bowls Project at YBCA, I was very confused. I had spoken with Jewlia Eisenberg of the group Charming Hostess a few days earlier on the phone, and she had given me the impression her new sound installation at the gallery was about ancient Babylonian incantation bowls used to summon demons for help in the domestic arena. “I refer to it as apocalyptic intimate,” she told me, “they’re things from the home, but they have angels and demons, things you have to deal with.” She read to me from wild inscriptions she’s found through research on these bowls, which serve as some of our only records of female voices from the era. They include curses against gossips that their “tongue should cling to the roof of their mouths,” calls for Anwar next door to become “inflamed, heated” for the commissioner of the bowl – even an ode to the overthrow of the heavens. It was rad. But there I was, at the YBCA, listening to the description of — a sustainable architecture project?

Michael Ramage is a muscular, clean cut man in an orange Cambridge University sweatshirt. He looks roughly approximate to his profession, which is teacher of architecture and structural engineering at aforementioned school. How he and Jewlia Eisenberg, who is the theatric, charismatic creator of an experimental music ensemble, came together is perhaps testament to the mesmerizing pull of the past.

The two met at MIT, where Ramage was studying the construction of  masonry domes using traditional methods and non traditional materials. Eisenberg was taking part in an artist residency program at the university, and had just discovered the bowls’ existence in a “fusty dissertation from 1972.” She wanted to recreate the bowls’ magic for a modern day audience – how amazing would it be to stage the exhibit in a bowl-like space on which actual inscriptions could be etched? She says she “told [Ramage] about the project, and four years later we’re doing it.”

Many art installations involve some sort of structure to stage the work within, but none I’ve ever seen can match the forethought, and fortitude of The Bowl Projects’ domes. Ramage specializes in a style of building called Catalan vaulting, a school of building perfected thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, and used well into the approximate modern day by architects like Rafael Guastavino and Gaudi. It requires little by way of materials; the bricks in Catalan vaulting are held up largely by the pressure they exert on each other.

Charming Hostess (Jewlia Eisenberg second from right) is laying down the welcome mat at the Bowls Project. Photo by Robin Hultgren Esprite Photographie

Of course, that was a bit difficult to describe to the Department of Building Inspection, who allowed the structure to be built on two conditions; it be reinforced, somehow, and it be earthquake ready. These seem to have been but piddling roadblocks for Ramage – the architect hit upon a light, sustainably produced mesh to reinforce the air bubble filled concrete bricks, and set the structure atop a remarkable system of bowls (natch) and ball bearings so that, should the big one hit, the whole thing will just roll around and surf the tremors out. The two connected domes form an elegant mix of low-tech, lightweight, and environmentally sound; nearly all the energy expended on the project was powered by human muscle. Prince Charles, Eisenberg told me, wants Ramage to build one like it in the Prince of Wales’ own garden.

Which is all really cool. But what exactly will be happening inside this fabulously produced space (which is for sale after The Bowl Project is packed up in August for what one of the project’s engineers pinned at “a low, low price of we’ll talk about it.” Incidentally, he thought it’d make a great winery tasting room – any takers?) once it opens to the public? Bring it back to the demon bowls. Much as women back in the day would endow the amulets with their domestic secrets, Eisenberg is currently collecting hidden truths from the public on her website and hotline. These will be projected as a 360 degree sound experience within the domes.

But that’s not all. The bowls represent “that ecstatic exploration of sex and magic,” says Eisenberg, and to that end, she hopes they’ll be used for self-reflection and celebration by the community. She’s planned a full slate of musical performances, art workshops, meditation days, and public rituals by such local holy people as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for the space. 

So, all kinds of cool stuff. But the truly amazing thing about the Bowl Project may just be that it was made at all. Architects, engineers, union masonry workers who have been contributing their labor pro bono, museum folk; a new band of partners-in-crime for this concept musician. “The collaboration has been intense, and amazing, and I’ve learned a ton,” says Eisenberg. A sentiment which begs for a bowl inscription of its own.

 

The Bowls Project

Opening night ceremony: 

Tues/6 6-8 p.m., free

(through Aug 22, $7 YBCA gallery admission)

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Sculpture Court

700-701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Kelly Malone crafts up a new kind of SF playspace

Andrew Lam
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0

I’m going to venture a thought that may prove controversial, but it bears saying. San Francisco is not a crafter’s wonderland. Now, certainly it is fertile ground for artistic genius. But craft? Such a small, persnickety pastime thrives better in towns with worse weather, or less going on, or in ones with an idyllic beach or field where no one asks you if you’d like a weed infused peanut butter and jelly sandwich every god damn twenty minutes. Perhaps this explains the widespread popularity of Workshop, a crafting social space where you can zone out for an evening of PBRs and careful make-time.

Workshop co-founder Kelly Malone grew up with a functional notion of craft. Her dad’s a carpenter and her mom a part time seamstress. The couple would sit in the garage and sewing room, respectively, “and I was like, well that’s kind of lame,” Malone tells me one morning at Workshop, after we have gotten coffee across the street at Matching Half Cafe and I had managed to spill it on my dress, twice. Malone’s mom would try to teach her stitches back then, but “I’d get all goth on her, and tell her to piss off with the sewing.” It wasn’t until college that Malone got into crafting, after which she nabbed New York creative gigs for Victoria’s Secret and Betsy Johnson before moving to San Francisco.

Once here, she assembled her crafty friends in her backyard for Indie Mart, a hip DIY craft fair where Malone would cram in 25 vendors, stick a DJ in the bushes and was the funnest thing ever until the bathroom line got too long. So they moved it out to larger venues like the blocks outside Thee Parkside bar, and The Independent (it’s still going strong). Malone battled ovarian cancer (three rounds of chemo, but in remission as of last month), and decided that she wanted a permanent spot to capitalize on the SF craft mania that Indie Mart seemed to tap into.

So she sold nearly everything she owned, and got a Western Addition space that had lived previously as a T-shirt company, and as a dry cleaner for thirty years previous. Her vision paid off. Nowadays, she can’t post the one-off classes to the website quick enough – they sell out, nearly every one of the 13 the center usually offers a week. When Workshop opened, Malone had expected to teach no more than four a week.

“I didn’t realize that home ec doesn’t exist anymore – no one knows how to sew,” she tells me. “We all used to make things, but now we don’t create our own things anymore. I don’t nerd out on the politics of it too much, but I like seeing people make their own commerce.” 

Workshop classes do seem to attract their fair share of aspiring professionals eager to beat their cyclical unemployment. A recent screen-printing course I took played host to a girl in a homemade dress that seemed intent on learning the functionality of making prints, even though we shared the space that night with a sweethearted pack of leftover Pride tourists that came for the good times that Malone’s affable instructors provide. Some students have become Indie Mart vendors, even gone on to sell their wares to stores, and an Indie Business class at Workshop has found an eager audience.

But crafting is still clearly the source of much amusement here. My screen-printing instructor, Nicole Schwieterman, seemed equally concerned with the amount of fun students were having as their grasp of the technical skills involved. “It’s supposed to look like that, right?” she smiled when I sheepishly showed her the excessive mess my paint slops had made. Most people left with a finished product, of sorts, but I’m guessing only half will ever avail themselves to Workshop’s open studio hours.

 

The Workshop team’s votives of their space’s patron saints. Holla, Mr. Wizard, Martha Stewart, Bob Vila, and Shepard Fairey! Photo by Caitlin Donohue

Popular classes include glass terrarium making and rock ‘n roll sewing (for beginners), from which participants walk away with a homemade beer cozie. Examples of these lovely floral and/or screen-printing specimens lie piled in a basket in a corner of Workshop’s front room in accordance with a house rule that all drinks must be drunk thusly, well insulated. It’s good times — I liked the teacher ladies so much that when the three hour class had finished, I wanted to crack another beer, nest into the lounge area by the front door, and suck in more of the fun-productive ambience.

I can’t decide which of my three visits to Workshop I enjoyed most. The first was my initial stumble-upon when I caught their Divisadero Art Walk party. The same room I learned to screen-print in was packed with alterna-looking young people, and a girl headed up a punk band whose instruments were hooked up to more amps than seemed strictly necessary for a space so small. “We have our fair share of social events,” Kelly told me when I came back to chat with her on my second trip to figure out how this place came to be. And of course, there was the third time, making owl print T-shirts and killing beers with my roommate and a bunch of nice strangers. 

I take it back, I’m obviously going with the third time. You can hear a cute little indie band any day of the week, and hanging with successful creatives is cool, but a night on the town just making stuff? Totally San Francisco — or at least now we can pretend that it is.

 

Workshop

1798 McAllister, SF

(415) 874-9186

www.workshopsf.org

 

Hot sexy events June 30-July 6

Andrew Lam
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0

Thank god for this column, which allows me a great forum to come out of the closet. Some people may judge, but fuck em, right? I’m totally, one hundred percent Team Jacob. Yup. I just saw Twilight: Eclipse (the third installation in the “saga”) and I’m gonna go with the NYT on this one, werewolf is the new vampire. Who will the wan protagonist choose, her perma-shirtless Native American werewolf childhood best friend (played by 18-year old eek hottie yay Taylor Lautner), or the near-omnipotent, beyond the grave love of her alabaster vampire betrothed? I’m hella going for Jacob the werewolf, if only on the basis that he is a. alive, b. connected with the earth (all Native Americans are, right?) and c. smoking hot.

Literally! When Bella was freezing to death waiting in her alpine tent, Edward the cold fish vampire could only look on in horror as Jacob the werewolf climbed into her sleeping bag for body temp restoring snuggle time. That being said, if in the next chapter it behooves Edward to get in that sack too… but now we’re talking hypotheticals. Better to get onto this week’s sex events, shall we?

 

Twilight: Eclipse

Why do we make fun of all the Twi-fan teenage girls in the world? There are perhaps less empowering mass marketed fantasies they could obsess over than a young woman teasing two supernatural hotties along at the same time. For example: any of the Britney Spears videos. Sorry, girl. Anyways, get hot and bothered at this innuendo-y bubblegum good time.

Starts Wed/30 in Bay area theaters


Beginner’s Dungeon Class

Just getting into the BDSM scene? This is the 101. Learn how to dress, what you’ll see, how to stay safe, and just what the hell all that leathery code word action could possible mean. Trust me, you don’t want to be caught holding your whip wrong. Que faux pas!

Thurs/1 7:30-10:30 p.m., $10-20

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

www.edukink.org 


How to Choose a Vibrator

Gosh, there’s just so many options. Pearls, shapes, sizes, cost levels, which animal you want your vibrator to look like. Eek! So! Instruct your clitoris’ well being to a doctor. That’s what Good Vibes wants you to do at their “Ask a Doc” free class series. No proof of insurance required!

Thurs/1 6:30-7:30 p.m., free

Good Vibrations 

603 Valencia, SF

(415) 522-5460

www.goodvibes.com


 

Locker Room

Locker Room is abandoning its Wednesday shift, so that’s the bad news. The good news is, that it’s moving to Thursday night – and, if you check your clothes at the door save your jockstrap, your entry in is on the house! So get on someone in the house – and make up for those not-so-fun days of gym class with a sexy, sexy evening.

Thurs/1 9 p.m., free when you strip to your jock

Chaps Bar

1225 Folsom, SF

(415) 225-CHAP

www.chapsbarsanfrancisco.com

 

 

 

 

Threshold 

Getting a little bit rougher than most Mission Control sex parties, but still focusing on the softer side of BDSM, Threshold will feature the tie-me-up, tie-me-down talents of Stefano, Chey, and Nefarious1. Enjoy Mission Control’s various horizontal play structures – maybe even put that stripper pole to use as  a hitching post.

Fri/2 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $20

Mission Control

www.missioncontrolsf.org


Trailer Trash

You know when the hosts suggest you look at www.peopleofwalmart.com for costume suggestions, you’re heading out to a different kind of BDSM bash. What kind of scene will you concoct? A BBQ gone bad? Naughtiness in the camps on NASCAR weekend? Hey wait, I’m not trying to give away all my ideas… 

Sat/3 8 p.m.-1 a.m., $25

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-1746

www.sfcitadel.org

Let us entertain you

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Let us entertain you

caitlin@sfbg.com

STAGE It’s not every day that I have a circus all to myself. And it’s making me exceedingly nervous. Mark Wessels, one of Circus Bella’s veteran clowns, is being installed by his coworkers on a unicycle whose dizzying height — which already recalls that of a vintage penny-farthing — is further exacerbated by its position on a five-foot platform. “I’ll be fine if I fall,” Wessels says. “I’ll try not to fall.”

It’s the professional-grade Circus Bella’s first full rehearsal of the year, one month before its July 3 performance in Yerba Buena Gardens, and I’m the lucky audience of one to its beautiful madness. Between superhuman feats, the affable Bellas come up to introduce themselves. Contortionist Ariana Ferber Carter rearranges her vertebrae in a lung-constricting backbend at my feet. “I can’t keep my back warm all the time,” the 18-year-old cheerfully deadpans after telling me she “only” stretches three hours a day, max.

“We try to run a tight ship here, but have fun. We use the word ‘delight’ a lot,” Abigail Munn tells me during a break. She’s the fetching aerialist and costume designer who cofounded the troupe in 2008 with slack-wire walker David Hunt. The two had noticed a dearth of traditional circus in the Bay Area. Everyone was all into the “Montreal thing,” as Hunt puts it — Cirque du Soleil-type concept theatrics. He recalls the moment when we said “What the hell is wrong with the ring?”

As veterans of the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, Zoppé Family Circus, and New Pickle Family Circus, Munn and Hunt wanted to take the circus experience back to the days when women wore sequins and the juggling was done by people with big red noses — not faceless cerulean orbs. Bella performers each develop their own acts separately, taking a page from classic troupes. Band director Rob Reich composes original scores after viewing the performers practice. The whole show takes place in a single ring, demarcated by a big blue ground covering splashed with gold stars. Best of all, Bella keeps prices accessible; indeed, most shows are free.

But running a circus, unsurprisingly, is somewhat of a balancing act. The cost of costumes, three new troupe members, the full band … on closer inspection it seems as if Circus Bella’s most awe-inspiring feat is its very existence. Munn acknowledges that retaining the troupe can be challenging, but that the circus game is the same one all struggling artists play. “We try to maintain a medium level of starving,” she tells me, only half joking. The group is accepting charitable donations as we speak, and about half the troupe’s nine in-ring members have day jobs teaching kids’ classes at places like the Circus Center near Kezar Stadium or have their own solo act side hustles.

After meeting the gang, I realize that I caught the Bella show last fall at the Yerba Buena Gardens by happenstance one cloudy day, not long after I moved back to the city. I like to think it was a uniquely San Francisco moment — to be walking through downtown’s concrete megaliths and suddenly run across a trapeze aerialist. Munn flipped high above my head in a sparkling blue unitard. The clowns alternated physical comedy that tickled the little ones in the audience with balancing tricks of the oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit persuasion. I don’t know, maybe that happenstance magic arise elsewhere in the world. Vegas, maybe. Still …

CIRCUS BELLA AT THE YERBA BUENA GARDENS FESTIVAL

Sat/3 12, 2:15 p.m., free

Yerba Buena Gardens

Mission between Third and Fourth streets, SF

(415) 205-8355

www.circusbella.com

Hear the call for East Oakland community paparazzi

Andrew Lam
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When Oacia5804 (her screen name) was asked on the Our Oakland website to contribute an image that told a story about her East Oakland home, she didn’t rip her shot off of the TV news. The mother of two sent in an amazing shot of her kids pointing up at a rainbow looping perfectly over a neighborhood street. “Even tho [sic] the streets of East Oakland seem dark at times, There is Always a ray of light that will shine and inspire Greatness,” writes the photographer in the shot’s caption. That’s exactly the kind of alternative narrative that Our Oakland, a non profit that is gathering stories for incorporation into a public arts project, hopes to publicize. They’re calling for submissions for a photo contest (submissions accepted until Thurs/8) that want to challenge our perceptions of what East Oakland looks like. 

 “Each contest photo reshapes the image of East Oakland,” states Rene Yung in the press release for the competition. And it does need a certain amount of retooling, that image. What do you think about when you think East Oakland? Unfortunately, we’ve been somewhat programed with a negative answer. It’s detrimental to the reasoning skills of people who have to listen to an endless reel of news about drug deals and prostitution outside of the neighborhood, but what does that negative imaging mean to the people that live on those streets that are so often pictured behind yellow caution tape, or gone “wild” with gang activity?

Yung created the website as part of a project she’s doing for the East Oakland Community Library, in which she’s integrating art with community voice. The finished product will include a digital archive of stories about the neighborhood as told by residents, and a 64-foot bank of etched glass windows that are meant to invoke the interconnectedness of the community. At the moment, the website includes user generated written narrative — but the photo contest is Our Oakland’s big deal at the moment. “Each photographer is taking charge of what the public gets to see and hear about the community, and, in the process, is changing the conversation about East Oakland,” says Yung.

To build awareness about the  photo contest (and the prizes, natch — whooo wants some schmancy electronics?), Our Oakland has been staging a series of events that focus on building story telling skills and technological expertise in taking photos. It’s spread the news about the project at Lao Family Community Development, an organization that promotes social self-sufficiency in Southeastern Asian families, Our Oakland’s booth encouraged kids and families to write down and illustrate their stories on big, fun pieces of construction paper. Our Oakland has also conducted photo workshops for the kids at the Allendale Recreational Camp and the Tassafaronga Recreation Center.

But shooting’s open to all, so tell your mamma, tell a friend, get those photos in. We can widen that running commentary we all have to hear about East Oakland — and maybe even change some minds on what a strong community looks like.

For more information on the My East Oakland photo contest, go here. Entries are due by Thurs/8.

Charlie Murphy: So funny, even Juggalos can dig

Andrew Lam
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0

Charlie Murphy does not want to hear another “Fuck yo couch!” Though the comedian talked his way into fame with his cult favorite skits on the Chappelle Show, in which he shared the stories of hanging with Prince and Rick James back in the days he was brother Eddie’s security detail, that was then, this is now. Or, as he put it to me in a recent phone interview, “that was the Dave Chappelle show. This is the Charlie Murphy show.” Indeed. Murphy’s moved into his own spotlight, headlining his own stand up tour (coming to Cobb’s for a four night run beginning Wed/30) , and sassing up supporting roles in a whole slew of black ensemble comedies on the silver screen. God dammit, he’s a big deal. And even if he’s not gonna punch you in the face for not laughing at his act anymore (see below if that doesn’t make any sense), something tells me it behooves you to be amused anyway. Plus, he killed it at the Gathering of the Juggalos. Charlie Murphy’s on the way!

 

San Francisco Bay Guardian: You’ve got a lot of projects coming out now, a whole lot of movies opening soon.

Charlie Murphy: Yeah I have this movie with Bow Wow, The Lottery Ticket, that’s coming out in August, and also the Cookout 2. And right now, I have my DVD [Charlie Murphy: I Will Not Apologize] out, and my book, Charlie Murphy: The Making of a Stand Up Guy. It’s all about me keeping people aware of the fact that I’m here and I’m doing this. You got to put your best foot forward at all times.

 

SFBG: Definitely. That’s a lot of stuff. Is there one project that you were particularly excited about?

CM: My DVD. When I first started doing stand up, no one took me seriously. It was like, he can go on stage and he can make the crowd laugh, but you really think he’s going to stick around with that? Like, this guy, he’s not really one of us. But I did stick around, and I did extremely well. If someone else won’t toot your horn for you, you’ve got to toot your own horn, you know what I mean? You don’t just show up and start doing stand up comedy, and go on a world tour and sell out everywhere, and don’t have bad shows. I did that. And I’m not bragging about it. 

 

SFBG: Uh huh. 

CM: I’m humble about the fact that I was given the opportunity to live up to the opportunity I was given. But at the same time, no one else was acting like what I did was an accomplishment. So that’s why I put the book together, that’s why I put the DVD together, because everyone was talking about that Chris Rock went over to Europe, to South Africa, to all that. That was supposed to be the biggest comedy tour ever, it was international. Little did everybody know that Charlie Murphy did the same thing. The same year. But I didn’t have a deal with HBO, you know what I’m saying? 

 

SFBG: You had the advantage of having people in your family that had made that jump into international celebrity before you. The moment that you realized that Eddie was going to be super famous, how did that compare to the moment that you realized that hey, you were going to be famous, too?

CM: There’s no comparison because I can’t feeling another person’s feelings, so I don’t know what that felt like for him. I was proud of him, but I can’t eat his bread. There’s no meal in that for me. 

 

SFBG: Did I see a Youtube video of you performing at an Insane Clown Posse concert? Did that happen?

CM: Yeah, yeah, I was with the Juggalos, and I would love to do another one.

 

SFBG: How did that happen?

CM: It was in the woods at night. How it happened — to this day I couldn’t answer your question 100%. I didn’t think it was going to work out the way it did.

 

SFBG: But they loved you. You could see from the video.

CM: It was mad love, mad love. That was an experience for me because I was told to expect the exact opposite.

 

SFBG: They have that reputation of being kind of belligerent.

CM: But what I did was I was belligerent with them. So we had a great time.

 

SFBG: Got along great, then.

CM: Got along just great.

 

SFBG: I do want to ask you one question about the Chappelle Show. When you heard that he was leaving the show – first of all, how did you hear about it, and second of all, what were your thoughts when you heard he was… taking off?

CM: Disbelief. Didn’t no one believe it when it first took place. I didn’t believe — or understand why. But looking back, it was probably the best thing because I wouldn’t have done all the stand up I have done, and I wouldn’t have been around as many people that I’ve been around had that show kept going, because that was the Dave Chappelle Show, not the Charlie Murphy show. This is the Charlie Murphy show. I’d much rather be at the Charlie Murphy show than anybody else’s show. 

 

SFBG: You said at one point you moved away from bodyguarding because you became a little too zealous with how you were carrying out –

CM: No no no no. The point I was trying to say was that I’m not a bodyguard, in the sense of a professional. I’m a bodyguard in the sense of, if you mess with anybody in my family I better not be around to hear about it. With my brother, all this stuff was happening, he was being heralded and hyped up as this special person, and we were very proud of him. And as a byproduct of that, if you see somebody going against that, you get very animated. You know, this person is personally threatening your family member, and a special one at that. So I would get extra hyped, and it was very easy to get me to jump on somebody. Several things like… you’re not laughing. Everybody’s laughing, and one person’s not laughing. They might be sitting there with a stomachache. I don’t even think about that. It’s like, what’s your face like that for? And I wanna beat you up. And I would jump on it.

 

SFBG: Would you go out into the audience?

CM: We’d be in the audience! We’d be walking in the audience, [if] somebody had an attitude, we’d give them a whip.

 

SFBG: Is getting punched in the face something we should be concerned about if we go to your show in San Francisco? 

CM: No. I’m a professional, and everyone that travels with me is as well. We focus on one thing, living up to the hype, doing a great show, and making sure people want to see us again. Period. So I’m trying to make friends. Make love not war, that’s how it go.

 

SFBG: Cool. Anything else you want us to know?

CM: Just tell them I’m getting ready to come there and tear it down! Charlie Murphy’s on the way.

 

Charlie Murphy

Wed/30 (through Sat/3) 8 p.m. (also 10:15 p.m., Fri and Sat), $28.50-32.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

 

 

 

So ya wanna be in pictures? Two calls for onscreen lovemakers

Andrew Lam
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0

Has your lover ever gazed at you over a post coital puff, coughed, and whispered through a cancer-wracked, husky voice (sorry, those damn cigs have me all riled today) “baby, we should be in pictures,”? Of course, right? Like, this morning, probably! Well, fire up that Gchat and ready your Flip on its charger, because you and and he-she-it have a date with destiny — times two! — this Pride weekend. That’s because Good Vibes is running two calls for submissions of homemade/independent sex films, both due Wed/30.

 

Numero uno: The Independent Erotic Film Festival 

Everyone’s always dreaming of the day when Dr. Carol Queen and Peaches Christ dissect your lovemaking onstage in front of the audience of the Castro Theater! Right? Right? “There’s nothing like discussing film criticism with a bunch of drag queens,” Queen told me in a recent phone interview. Queen, SF’s resident sexpert, one-time Lusty Lady peep show tease, and founder of the Center for Sex and Culture, said the 4th year of the IXFF (which will take place Sept. 23) will be great because “we can see things that aren’t in the genre expectations of porn — it expands peoples’ ideas of what a sex movie is. If people are only looking at porn on cable TV, they’re only seenig a little bit of what sexuality can be.”

And you, gentle reader, can be part of that sexuality expansion! Of course, not everyone’s entry needs to be hard core. Says Dr. Queen, some past films could have made it as a documentary. “Some are different,” she told me. “They’re artier, they’re more personal.” Whatever’s sexy to you, mmkay?

Entries can be up to seven minutes long (keep it short and more of your randy peers can air their nasty bits at the festival). Good Vibes chooses the shorts they air based on how “good” they are, as well as in the spirit of fostering diversity of sexual representation. Oh, and the People’s Choice award winner gets $1,500 — that’ll keep you condoms for days! You can send it in until midnight on Wed/30, which by my count means you have about 5 days and 10 hours to get it up.

 

Numero dos: “The G-Spot Does Exist” challenge

“We decided to make this film after after all the press about the G-spot not really existing,” said Dr. Queen about Good Vibes and Je Joue‘s new project, Gush: The Official Guide to the G-Spot and Female Ejaculation, the third in the Good Releasing “Pleasure Ed” series (for which she writes and hosts). “It was this ridiculous study they did — they weren’t sex researchers! They asked a lot of dumb questions, got dumb answers.”

The companies will be tapping porn performers to act in G-spot stimulating scenes — with real life partners, and favored co stars, as has been the series’ wont in the first “Pleasure Ed” movies, of which the first two installations focused on cunnilingus and fellatio. “We want people to learn seeing genuine sexual energy,” said Queen.

But they’re also seeking a regular gal who just really likes her spongey mass of pleasure.

“We wanted to see who out there wanted to represent her own skills and knowledge,” Queen told me. They’re accepting submissions in the form of videos, or even an essay and photos. Once you have won the G-spot crown, your next task is to find out who you want to share it with; like the pros, you’ll be performing for Gush with a partner of your choice — even if that’s a Je Joue G-Ki.

 

For salacious details on how to submit to the The Independent Erotic Film Festival (entries due Wed/30), go to www.gv-ixff.org

For all the gushing glory of “The G-Spot Does Exist” challenge, send videos to: Good Releasing G-Spot Video, 934 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. Or or or! Just join the rest of the world by digitizing, and sending a link, photo and/or essay to casting@goodreleasing.com

Tripping angles at the Exploratorium’s “Geometry Playground”

Andrew Lam
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0

“We had to create something that never has been done before, but that people can use in an instant, and provides a transformative educational experience.” Peggy Monahan, project director at the Exploratorium, is taking me through the “Geometry Playground” two days before the exhibit opens to the public. Its an interactive math learning wonderland that her team has been working on for the past three years. I hate math, but the exhibit, which opens Fri/25, seems to have the power to make me think about geometry without that irritating urge to put my head on my desk and sleep that math tends to compel in the less numerically inclined among us.

Of course, it helps that there’s a big ass structure to play on. “This is the gyroid,” Monahan tells me. There’s no need to explain, actually, because her cohort has been hyping me about this 10 foot by 10 foot by 10 foot thing since before I arrived at the exhibit. “The gyroid is an unexpected, almost maze-like structure,” says Thomas Rockwell, an ex-playground designer who helped to mastermind the concept of the exhibit. “Two people can enter it next to each other, climb through it, and emerge on the other side without every having been in the same space.”

Sound like an acid trip? It looks like one, too. The Gyroid was made by Exploratorium “math genuis” (according to Monahan) Paul Stepahin, and exhibit developer Eric Dimond from a shape defined by a NASA scientist looking for structurally sound forms.

An exhibition technician puts the final touches on “Geometry Playground.” Photo by Caitlin Donohue

It’s a single surface, just whorling and swirling and segmented into tesselated “chips,” dubbed thusly by the Exploratorium ladies and gents because of the way they arrived at the museum, stacked in boxes like so many Pringles. It’s also super fun to climb in and on – its height makes for a perfect spot to sit and contemplate the museum’s buzzy air of science discovery.

Also on the scene; a play structure of stellated rhombic dodecahedrons, an anamorphic hopscotch court and chair that, though skewed crazily when viewed by the human eye, form perfect right angles in warped mirror columns placed nearby. A gear cube with eight interlocking components grinds toothily, improbably, when you turn the crank, the whole configuration forming a perfect cube once in a cycle.

“Geometry Playground,” on the whole, leaves a pretty wild impression. And that’s the point; it’s supposed to reawaken our natural interest in problem solving. “We all are natural geometers,”  Rockwell tells me over the phone. He sought funding for the exhibit from the National Science Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Fund when he decided he wanted to make something “beautiful with mathematics,” like the Moorish architecture he saw when he was younger in Grenada, Spain. 

“I think geometry is something people naturally like to do. People love things like solving puzzles, building things, making dresses, knitting things.” Rockwell hopes the exhibit will also inspire educators to capitalize on students’ natural awe of shapes and angles. “When we teach [geometry] in school, we teach with numbers and problems,” Rockwell says. “We want educators to realize that there’s math education potential in all kinds of activities.” Like messing with hallucinatory playthings three years in the making. I’m not going to be doing better on my taxes any time soon, but that’s a good time on my abacus.

 

“Geometry Playground”

opens Fri/25 (through Sept. 6), $15

Exploratorium

3601 Lyon, SF

(415) 561-0360

www.exploratorium.edu

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