Intern Candice Chan demystifies the holiday that confounded her as a kid.

While I was growing up on the Peninsula, Chinese New Year (CNY) was a time when I couldn’t have felt more out of place. Filial piety, family unity, serving others instead of yourself; all that fun cultural heritage comes together on this holiday meant for starting anew and being with the people that you love. But, for an American Born Chinese (ABC) girl who knew more about cooking spaghetti than about cooking bak choy, the whole experience was strikingly similar to driving through thick fog on the Golden Gate bridge. Intimidation, uncertainty, and a whole lot of “what the hell is going on?” ran rampant in my mind. I knew red packets had money and that you were supposed to receive them with two hands, but did they hold some mystical meaning? And why was I eating funky food that looked more like it belonged on a tree than in my stomach? Top it all off with an inability to coherently communicate with my Grandparents – coupling phrases that resemble “Gung Hay Fat Choy!” with what I assumed to be appropriate gestures, doesn’t count – and you have some of the most awkward smiled silences and head nodding of my life. But, there was a saving grace: my cousins. Having all been born in the States, the joy and wonder of the unfamiliar food and customs we were experiencing became exactly what they were intended to be – a unifying force. Every strange dish became a topic for discussion, or a dare that couldn’t be turned down. One cousin’s mistake was another cousin’s intellectual manna, and as time went by we learned to love and appreciate all that the table and culture had to offer. As a tried and true survivor of learning about CNY the hard way, here are some tips to help you enjoy one of my favorite holidays; loved ones in tow and chopsticks in hand. (CNY this year is February 7th, 2008.)

Spoiler alert: I was a wee bit disappointed in Teeth - sure, the dismembered penis count outdid, well, In the Realm of the Senses's, but the actual execution struck me as slightly gummy, somewhat misguided, and more than a little, er, unrealistic. And trust me, I wanted to believe! Hey, admit it, we're all secretly a little fascinated by the myth of fanged poonannie. The idea of the feared and fearless, anti-penetration sexual organ chomping at all comers - it's intriguing, no? And director Mitchell Lichtenstein - the 51-year-old son of pop artist Roy, and an actor who appeared in Robert Altman's 1983 movie, Streamers - is more than willing to please, with his relatively wholesome, coming-of-age fable, flaws or no.

SFBG: You wrote the screenplay for Teeth - why did you choose to make the movie?

Mitchell Lichtenstein: Well, I had learned about the myth years ago, and it stayed with me as something that could be fruitful territory: the myth really says something about men's attitudes toward women. And the pervasiveness of the myth does, too. as I found, the more I researched it. It had been referenced at a further remove in other movies and such, but not so much directly. And if you deal with it directly, it becomes clear that it's something men put on women. I just wanted to see a woman being the heroine in a story about it. Her teeth would never be - and she would never - be conquered.

How delightful! Staring this Wednesday (Ash Wednesday for all you Cathaholics), Noe Valley Bakery will quench your Fat Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras, hangovers by offering delicious-sounding hot cross buns ("Our version is made from nutmeg scented yeast dough filled with currants and almonds. Orange pastry cream decorates the top to resemble a cross.")

The NVB folks will be selling them until Easter Sunday (March 23), at which point you can use any leftovers to bean cute boys and girls at the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Easter celebration, hopefully during the raucous Hunky Jesus contest.

On a semi-related note: When I was a kid growing up in the Polish neighborhoods of Detroit, we used to have these great, incredibly saturated-fattening jelly donut bombs called Paczki (pronounced poonch-key) on Fat Tuesday.

If you've a yearning for the old country, here's a handy little DIY primer courtesy of KQED's Bay Area Bites. Fried! Yummy!

Yes, I'm a total fashion whore, but I live in SF -- land of lame Macy's Passports and a dowager-drenched SF Fashion Week. Thus, this is one of my long-distancest fashion-whoriest times around -- fab collection mania in the tents of Manhattan. Yep, it's New York Fashion Week -- oops make that Mercedes-Benz Fall Fashion Week 2008 -- be-nimbused by similar breathtaking events in Europe and beyond (RIP, Valentino).

Of course, I'm no high-class ass licker, and even though club and youth cultures have taken over the runways in the past two decades (fuck yeah I worked me some 1987 Gaultier, bitches), I'm not really into the celebrity car crash and knit cowl collision that fashion's become (far too many uppity students in really tiny glasses). What I really like to do is see what I like and then approximate it subtly with thrift store finds and a little Stitch Witchery. It's the way of my people.

You will most guaranteed see this hotness Patrik Ervell look on the children -- as soon as we scrap all the teflon off our popcorn bags. (photo from NYTimes)

Anyway, if you're not glued right now to Cathy Horyn's Runway blog on NYTimes (or, somewhat conversely, Cintra Wilson's feel-my-pain coverage in Salon), let alone the zillions of little bloglets covering every blouson swag and belled neck, then you are dead to me right now. Now excuse me, I have to figure out how to squeeze my shamelessly ethnic boot into even more stovepipe pants, dammit.

Not feeling the traditional Chinese New Year thing? How about Raindance’s version? The folks responsible for one of the Bay Area’s favorite annual campouts are also behind the one annual DJ event in the city that partygoers make sure they don’t miss: Chinese New Year at 1015 Folsom, which you know means multiple rooms of dance-tastic goodness.

This year features a midnight procession with White Crane Lion Dancers, Santa Cruz Circus, and many surprise performers.

Featured DJs include Raindance favorites Little John and Mozaic, Glitch Mob darlings Kraddy, Edit, Boreta, and Ooah, who all are famous for mixing recognizable tunes in innovative, infinitely danceable ways), my personal favorite DJ Ripple (and that says a lot, considering I don’t listen to much electronica), and LOTS more. Check out the full line-up here.


RAINDANCE 9TH ANNUAL CHINESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION
Friday, Feb. 8, 10pm, $25 presale, $30 at door
1015 Folsom, SF
info at www.raindancepresents.com
tickets at going.com/chinesenewyear

No more coveting thy neighborhood blogger’s togs … now you can own ‘em. Jennine Tamm, the fabulous fashionista behind The Coveted blog, is leaving us – and not just San Francisco “us,” but America “us.” Yup, she’s packing up and following her Liebe to Deutschland, where she’s sure to add all sorts of cute vintage coats and plenty more gray shoes to her wardrobe. But first she’s got to pare down her impressive collection of wearables so she can pack ‘em all. Bad news for Ms. Tamm, but great news for the rest of us, who can purchase her barely-used hand-me-downs here.

The starting bid for this Bebe silk corseted dress is $9.99. Which means you wouldn’t even be hearing about it if I could fit into an XS. Miss Tamm, Sie sind ein kleines Mädchen!

Gleeful under gray skies: Brendan Gleeson, Martin McDonagh, and Colin Farrell.

Anyone who caught Berkeley Rep's recent production of The Pillowman will be familiar with the dark, searching, yet weirdly witty and enthralling world of playwright Martin McDonagh. Strange to think that a London-born Irish writer who's been so widely toasted as the stage's unpredictable young turk has always wanted to work in film instead. Tellingly perhaps he's been nominated for Tonys four times - for The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Lonesome West, The Pillowman, and The Lieutenant of Inishmore - but never brought home the coveted door-stopper. Instead he won an Oscar in the Live Action Short Film category in 2005 for his Brendan Gleeson-starring debut short, Six Shooter. The great Gleeson also stars in McDonagh's first feature, In Bruges, which opens in the Bay Area on Friday, Feb. 8, and won't disappoint those hungry for yet another dose of the 37-year-old director-writer's bleak humor and thoughtful digressions.

SFBG: So here you are - your first film and you've always wanted to make movies.

Martin McDonagh: Yeah, I did one short film first. It was always kind of a dream that I never thought I'd be able to fulfill as a working-class kid in London, so yeah, I got offered this kind of track with the plays, got some kind of degree of success from them, wrote a couple film scripts and had some people interested.

Blimey, I'm in a lot of movies right now: Colin Farrell.

I mean, I was kind of terrified going into it - not knowing if I'd be able to do it well, or if I'd be sort of breaking down in tears every morning. But, uh, it turned out good. I worked with Brendan Gleeson before, and I met Colin Farrell, and he was really into the script and was, y'know, interested in a new challenge, I guess, because it’s a different character than the ones he's played before.

SFBG: Different from Alexander the Great.

By Colleen McCaffrey

Female erotica, wine and vegan cookies: no, not a perfect first date, although it would be good a place to take one. It’s that time of the month again: second Saturday, when female and trans literary talents – both well-established and up-and-coming - congregate at Femina Potens for the Award-Winning literary erotic event, Sizzle.

“We like co-presenting those [because] two people can learn a lot by sharing the stage with a hero and then having the same attention and soapbox for emerging artists still developing their own voice,” says host Madison Young, who is currently working on her memoir, The Tale of a Bondage Model, due out this spring.

By Jennique Mason

“She has the boobs and brains of a queen, she’s every man’s dream ..." When have truer words been spoken? As sung by Monkees heartthrob Davy Jones in the film's theme, Sexina: Popstar, P.I. is the long-awaited answer to critically renowned films like Austin Powers and Legally Blonde.

Directed by Erik P. Sharkey, this East Coast production -- complete with villain Adam West (TV's Batman) -- goes inside the pop music machine, literally! On the surface, Sexina may appear to be your average pop star singing sensation, but undercover she’s hot on the trail of a kidnapped scientist manufacturing cyborg boy bands. That sort of crime stopping clearly speaks for itself, but what I wanna know is, where did co-star Allyn Rachel come from? I want her to be in my movie. She may get overshadowed by Sexina (played by Lauren D'Avella), but Rachel's lezzie publicist was sensational. As for the rest of the movie -- chock full o' elements like high school girls with brigades of vibrators, Paula Abdul fans, some unicorns, and oblique Britney references ("Kevin Tenderloin," “I did what again?”) -- Sexina is like totally crunk. I know that I won’t soon forget the film's message (delivered in song!) that “having a vagina rules.” Indeed.

Sexina: Popstar, PI screens at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, Feb 14 and Feb 16, 9:30 p.m., Roxie Film Center. For additional Guardian coverage of this year's IndieFest, check out reviews here and here and right here -- on upcoming PixelVision posts.

Intern Candice Chan test drives a seatbelt bag -- and decides to stick with the old model.

It goes without saying that seatbelts in cars are all about promoting safety before comfort, and after a weekend with a pink polka dot seatbelt bag by Harveys, that philosophy seems to apply even when the belts have been reincarnated into tote form.

While carrying my happy pink polka dotted seatbelts last weekend, I walked with an undeniable sense of security; if someone tried to bring hurt my way, I’d take them down first with a deftly placed swing of my indestructible purse to their groin. Conceived by Dana and Melanie Harvey while they were installing new seatbelts in their Buick, the bags are an intriguing alternative in a sea of leather bags. They are, without question, sturdy and well-made, but the contentious issues for me lie in their comfort and style.

After my field test, during which I asked several ladies if they would consider carrying a similar purse, it seemed that there was universal agreement: everyone could see how someone else would wear it. Not the kiss of death, but definitely not overwhelming enthusiasm.

They didn't ask to be made into bags! It's not their fault!

How long have I been waiting for this moment? Long enough to start fearing it would never come. But today my MySpace bulletins gave me the best belated Christmas present I could've hoped for: the next installment of Planet Unicorn (and yes, this one's legit).

And while we're on the subject of bizarre internet TV shows featuring talking unicorns, am I the only person who hasn't seen Candy Mountain yet?

I'm waiting for some college kid to write a paper on how one "informs" the other. Hmmm?

By Vanessa K. Carr

Yes, the SF IndieFest is about great independent film, but let's be real: it's also about theme parties and free booze.

The opening party last night at Cellspace did not disappoint. What better way to follow two hours in a dark theater than with a rowdy mechanical bull, enough free beer and lychee martinis to loosen the hips and morals of everyone in the place, a live alt-bluegrass band in the back, and Dolly and Burt presiding over the whole affair as Best Little Whorehouse in Texas rolled on the big screen?

By Erik Morse

Few comedians can leave me in complete stitches the way John Witherspoon can. He is quite simply a legend of the giggle, the guffaw, and the frustrated wince.

Although he’s best known as the grouchy father Mr. Jones in Ice Cube’s Friday trilogy and as Pops on the WB comedy series, The Wayans Brothers, Witherspoon has had a long and eclectic career since his earliest days as a fashion model in Detroit.

He’s also blessed with the dulcet tones of Johnny Mathis if you can ever convince him to hum a few bars. Now the bow-tied curmudgeon is coming to the Bay Area for a four-night showcase to spread a bit more of his charm. The Guardian caught him on the phone just as he was packing up for his trip to the East Bay.

SFBG: So did you follow the election at all on Tuesday?

John Witherspoon: Yeah, my wife is an avid Obama fan. I voted but I never tell her who I voted for or she’d go crazy. I tell her it’s the only thing I got that I don’t have to give anyone. It’s my vote.

Friday: Classic 'Spoon.

Lost Art Salon, winner of a 2007 Best of the Bay award, and one helluva neato gallery, is having another of its delightfully star-studded openings on Valentine's Day in honor of its "Modern Love" show, featuring heartfelt artwork chosen from its library of 3000+ pieces. Lost Art proprietors Rob and Gaetan spelunk the globe for masterpieces by little-known or unacknowledged modernist artists -- their finds somehow transcend kitsch and expand the definition of modernism. Anyhoo, with champagne, cupcakes, and :little songs of love by Uni," this could be the start of a perfect date evening, no? You might even fall in love with one of their lost artists.

"Modern Love" opening party
Feb 14, 5:30-8:30pm, Free
Lost Art Salon
245 S. Van Ness, #303
415-861-1530
www.lostartsalon.com

By Colleen McCaffrey

The last time I attended an opening at the ATA gallery I saw an enlightening documentary by Kami Chisholm, FtF: Female to Femme, which I almost missed entirely because the gallery entrance was so obscure, furthered by a dark velvet curtain hanging between the door and the packed auditorium.

But the current exhibit, Katie Bush’s provocative pixel exhibition of genital intercourse animation “Unremarkable People Having Sex,” was much easier to spot, as it was being displayed in the right window gallery amidst red velvet drapes and boas. The display was reminiscent of a Christmas-themed striptease gone awry, but who could notice as animated images of penis, vagina and intercourse flashed across the screen?

Back when I was a young girl, we didn’t have fancy things like condom paperweights. We grew our own food. We walked to school. Barefoot. Uphill both ways. And we carried our goddamned condoms in our pockets. Like normal people. Next thing you know they’re going to let women start wearing pants.

If you're going to spend $16.95 for one condom, I'm thinkin' you'd better either be rich, or not expect to get laid very often.

Any movie that kicks off with a warning to epileptics -- high strobe content ahead! -- is gonna attract a certain lurid interest. Adam Wingard's Pop Skull follows a small-town drug addict (co-writer Lane Hughes) as he lurches from hallucination to barely-tolerable reality; his flash-happy mind often seems garbled from the ghosts of experimental films past. The film's jarring sound design, in particular, owes a lot to the avant-garde. Disturbing imagery and a sense that the things we're seeing may or (more likely) may not really be happening to our scruffy hero adds to the film's overall sense of creepy unsettlement. I watched it on DVD in my living room and it made me jumpy -- catch it tonight at the Roxie and the effect will no doubt be amplified to freakish degrees. And yeah, that's a recommendation.

Pop Skull screens tonight, 9:30pm, at the Roxie. Visit the IndieFest web site for more info.

By Erik Morse

"Berlin means depravity” begins noted performance scholar Mel Gordon in his Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. “Moralists across the widest spectrum of political and spiritual beliefs have condemned by rote this chimerical metropolis as a strange city built on strange soil.” With its iconography of leather ‘n' lace, absinthe, and smarmy zither scores, the early 20th century world of Weimar may seem as far removed as a Grimm fairy tale. But with all of tomorrow’s lusting and boozing, who among us doesn’t become a bit German on Valentine’s Day? Ich bin ein Berliner.

If you’re yet to determine plans for this most debauched of holidays, then consider San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s homage to Berlin’s fabled era of cabarets and intoxicants. Brooklyn artist Earl Dax and his NYC company will present With Weimar New York: A Golden Gate Affair. Avant-impressario Dax is debuting a cadre of dancers, burlesque acts, and gender-bending provocateurs whose influences lie equally in the iconoclastic East Village no-wave scene and the decadent Germania of Christopher Isherwood. Slated to appear are post-Warholian legend Penny Arcade and performance artist Ann Magnuson, latter-day raconteur Holcombe Waller and others, with MCs Justin Bond – of Kiki and Herb - and Ana Matronic – of Scissor Sisters fame.

Marlene Dietrich’s screentest for Der Blaue Engel, c. 1930

By Megan Ma

The depiction of war can seem alarmingly passé to the generation removed from it. Death and destruction are a given, and we glibly accept them through the linear narrative of documentaries or the History Channel. Of course, what we choose to reflect in art can sometimes, as Roland Barthes wrote, also reflect memories of past and present that coexist.

SF Camerawork's latest show, "Katsushige Nakahashi: Depth of Memory," achieves a fusion of the historic and/or collective memory of what has been and the personal memories that seem to counter the former. Nakahashi makes a full-scale replica of the Kaiten, a Japanese torpedo used in the last days of WWII as a final, desperate resort by the Imperial army.

A literal death trap, kamikaze pilots delivered themselves to a horrible death in these steel machines. But there's nothing solid about Nakahashi's interpretation: it's made up of thousands of glossy square photos of the actual thing, all taped and bound together into an imperfect replica. The 48-foot long surface of the Kaiten is deflated and somewhat baggy, a receptacle for our own interpretations and memories. True to his vision, Nakahashi asked hundreds of volunteers to arrange his photos, re-living together their own memories of war and swapping stories.

By Candice Chan

In the (likely?) event that you forgot yesterday was, you know, that big romantic day, then be your own savior and invite your lady friend out on Sunday, February 17th for a night at Poleng Lounge. In all their glam and glory, the designers of MADE Jewelry – Debbie Sheen and Abigail Rivamonte – will be debuting their handmade feminine designs at a reduced price for all the event’s attendees.

Zeebos will save you!

With two lines of earrings (AM and PM) and a separate necklace line (Wrap), there’s likely to be at least one dangly item, if not many, that appeal to women who are constantly on the go. Each of the pieces has their own unique story – like the PM line’s Zeebos; a striped sequined homage to women who have paid their dues, earned their stripes and worked their way to the top – and are meant to represent the journeys of the ladies who don them.

If the film director Terence Davies didn’t qualify as a master in his own medium (albeit one who has made only a handful of features), it would be tempting to compare him at length with musicians who have made a career out of either discovering nostalgic melodic magic in every corner and cranny of England’s cities, such as Saint Etienne, or ones who never pass up an opportunity to lament the passing of a country that once was unique, such as Morrissey. Any fan of those iconic soundsters who doesn’t know the work of Davies should dive into his Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes (1992) as soon as possible, and then journey from them into The House of Mirth (2000) to see that Davies is also capable of creating classic films set in other countries. On the occasion of his upcoming appearance at Pacific Film Archive, I recently rang him up for a chat that began by the Pacific Ocean and ended in New York society, touching upon Noel Coward, Edith Sitwell, vile bodies, vain gay men, Char Ladies and Hottentots along the way.

Still from the Terence Davies Trilogy

Terence Davies: Are you looking at some wonderful view of San Francisco?
SFBG: There’s a freeway, and some industrial buildings slightly blocking my view of the Bay.
TD: I was expecting you to say it was a view of the clear blue Pacific and you could see Japan.
SFBG: If I was on that part of the coastline, the side Hitchcock loves, I’d at least be able to see the ocean below me in a manner that would completely terrify me.

Gird your loins, beautiful nerds like me. It's time again for comic cornucopia WonderCon, at the Moscone Center this weekend -- and Glamazonia, our favorite Uncanny Tranny superhero, is bustin' loose!

Who could doubt her power, her glamour, her sheer ... syntheticism? This Saturday, Feb 23, 7-10pm, for FREE at the Three Dollar Bill Cafe in the LGBT Center on Market, you can meet the boy-man behind Glammy, Justin Hall of All Thumbs Press, and a gaggle of other really wonderfully gay cartoonists (Brian Andersen, Paige Braddock, MariNaomi, Tommy Roddy, Andy Hartzell, reading and signing their work in conjunction with the giant fest. It's an extravaganza.

But wait -- there's more!

By Erik Morse

The iconic French author and “phenomenologist” Alain Robbe-Grillet died Monday, Feb.18, at the age of 85 in Caen. His most lauded works include Le Voyeur (1955), La Jalousie (1957) and the critical essay Pour un nouveau roman (1966), which ushered in the titular literary movement synonymous with fellow authors Marguerite Duras, Claude Simon, and Nathalie Sarraute.

Alain Robbe-Grillet on Jean Genet, 2002

His very cinematographic style of writing also led to collaborations with noted French auteur Alain Resnais and the 1961 art-house classic L'Année dernière à Marienbad. Though he was not as celebrated - or as simultaneously vilified - in America as he was in his native France, Robbe-Grillet’s influence is immeasurable in the literary postmodernity he helped to engender.

A clip from L'Année dernière à Marienbad, 1961

Le Monde’s obit can be read here.