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June 2008 Archives

June 02, 2008

Lit: The illustrated Magazinester

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This past week, Magazinester pledged its love for Edie Fake and Matt Furie, and threw a tomato at overpriced rags featuring the thin talents of Terence Koh. Somehow, it forgot to conclude with the message that Tila Tequila is on the cover of Blender -- are ya interested?

The beauty of Fake's and Furie's recent zines means it's time to expand Magazinester. It's time for annotated examples of imagery!

Let's start off with Furie's boy's club. Whenever I cross paths with a Bay Area-n stranger who has copious frazzled head and face hair -- you know, like every time I step outside -- I think of Furie's drawings and paintings. I especially like the ones where someone removes his or her sunglasses to reveal no eyes beneath. Furie's "Nature Freak" show at Jack Fischer Gallery this winter was like a fun version of The Ruins. More recently, he brought "Heads" to Adobe Books Backroom Gallery. Heads. Now there's a good-ass topic or theme for an art show!

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Some pages from boy's club

Though they're love at first sight as a viewing experience, I don't immediately understand Edie Fake's Rico McTaco and Gaylord Phoenix zines -- in other words, I'm looking forward to re-reading and re-re-reading them. They don't have many words, but they do have many worlds.

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A page from Edie Fake's Gaylord Phoenix

Edie Fake makes me happier than almost any SF artist right now. I'd long ago given up hope there'd be a gay feminist artist as talented as Edie Fake, and yet Edie Fake is here.

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Another page from Gaylord Phoenix, by Edie Fake

Some zine makers just find the right topic and the hard work is already done. So it is for the people who bring you the stories, drawings, photos and lists in Dead Pets Zine.

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Cover of Dead Pets Zine

What would a list of dead animal movies be without Gates of Heaven (back when Erroll Morris wasn't a pompous windbag) and Pet Sematary (back when Mary Harron was making videos for Madonna)? Fish float up to the surface on many pages, but pet rodents fare especially poorly in Dead Pets No. 1. Try out deadpetstories@gmail.com.

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A page from Dead Pets Zine

And yeah, Freddie Mercury deserves an illustrated book that celebrates almost every facet of his life. Until someone makes a Freddie Mercury book for 5-to-8-year-olds, Killer Queen: The Freddie Mercury Story will have to do. In fact, it'll do fine for people those ages and people ten times older.

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A page from Killer Queen

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June 04, 2008

It's pronouced "Oo-vuh:" Uwe Boll, Part Two

Postal is now playing at the Roxie -- and will be there until Wed, June 11. It hasn't exactly been taking the critical world by storm, but I enjoyed it, more or less. Still deciding? Read on for part two of my interview with director Uwe Boll and cast members Zach Ward and Larry Thomas.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: Do you think the fact that Postal makes light of terrorists and 9/11 will be a turn-off for audiences who would otherwise be into watching an over-the-top comedy?

Zach Ward: Why? I mean, why would you not make fun of terrorists? That's like saying you can't make fun of Nazis, or drug dealers. They're douchebags. Terrorists are douchebags. Are you gonna sit underneath your chair and be worried about their opinion of you? I've been told that other actors turned [my] part down because they were scared of the controversy. If I'm gonna live my life in fear, I'm not living my life. If you're gonna let a person in a foreign land with their own sets of values decide what you do on a daily basis, you might as well move there. South Park did this too -- the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Get off your fat fuckin' ass and stand for something. You can't have it both ways. You can't be the home of the free and then turn around and say, "Oh, we can't do the Mohammed joke, because then the Islamic fundamentalists will be upset." Well, fuck yourself. If you're an Islamic fundamentalist, you're not supposed to be watching fuckin' TV in the first place, so you can kiss my rosy red freckled ass. And if I'm supposed to sit here and apologize to you, you need to be in my house. This is my country. I'm not gonna kowtow to another opinion. This is where the government is supposed to be afraid of us, we're not supposed to be afraid of the government. We're supposed to stand up and create this country around our ideals, not by what Viacom thinks. Not by integrated vertical corporate fuckin' structure. No, that's ridiculous. And the fact that we've gotten to the point where we have to defend that? That's what made America great.

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Christophe Honoré on liberty and Love Songs

By Johnny Ray Huston

In this week's Guardian I write about Christophe Honoré's Love Songs. Honoré recently answered some questions about the film via email. Dive below for thoughts on cross-dressing and Jacques Demy, and also a contemporary booklist for young gay men who read.

SFBG: Gaël Morel has a brief Hitchcock-like cameo early on in Love Songs. Was this born from your experience working together?
Christophe Honoré: Gael and I regularly meet to talk about cinema and life. I co-wrote two of his movies, including Après lui. I found it funny to have him appear in the waiting line of a theater because he’s an avid filmgoer. Après lui is a film that keeps Gaël’s particular lyrical style, but this time and perhaps for the first time, it’s a more “adult” story, focused on Catherine Deneuve’s character. The script was closer to a thriller but I guess Gaël fell in love with Deneuve while shooting and made it more of a melodrama.

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Louis Garrel and Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet in Love Songs

SFBG: Love Songs is structured like Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but elsewhere the similarities of spirit may not be obvious (or even exist). There is, to me, a bisexuality to Jacques Demy's vision that one could say is extended or updated in your film. Would you agree?
CH: I do agree about the underlying homosexuality in Demy’s work. You could even say that his films deal mostly with cross-dressing. He always cast very handsome actors and filmed them in a way that made them look like icons. Love Songs is not an homage to Demy’s films but it definitely inherited something from them. And, of course, I can handle male sexuality as a filmmaker in a much more straightforward manner than what was possible in Demy’s time.

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Another Hole in the Head: another couple of reviews!

The San Francisco Independent Film Festival's sci-fi, horror, and fantasy offshoot Another Hole in the Head kicks off tomorrow! Read Trash's take on HoleHead's offerings here; intrepid film intern Amber Humphrey chimes in below with mini-reviews of two fest flicks that just happen to be made by local filmmakers. Check HoleHead's website for screening information.

Circulation In writer-director Ryan Harper's unique vision of the afterlife, Gene, a retired American truck driver, and Ana, a Mexican waitress, meet while traveling through a desert purgatory where the dead gradually develop animal-like instincts. The story moves at a very deliberate pace and though there is an enjoyable sense of menace from start to finish — Ana's jealous ex-husband stalks her, even in death — the film feels unnecessarily elusive. Gene seems like a pretty decent guy; so why is he turning into a blood-thirsty spider? This being said, Circulation may be worth watching simply for those oddly entertaining moments of fly regurgitation.

Homeworld When a race of telepathic aliens threaten to destroy mankind, a military strike team equipped with a deadly virus is sent to the alien home world to exterminate them. Down on the planet, what first appears to be a simple enough task is quickly complicated as the boundaries between reality and illusion and right and wrong are blurred. Homeworld primarily focuses on the crew's psychological journey — which I suppose is to be expected when facing telepathic aliens—but the characters rarely seem to be in any kind of physical peril. Though the film is often visually impressive, there isn't much action—which I would be willing to forgive if the dialogue had a little more punch.

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A touch of Warren Sonbert

Over the past month, Konrad Steiner of Kino 21 and I have presented two programs of films by Warren Sonbert. For me, it isn’t an overstatement to say the experience has been a revelation, and not just because opportunities to see this SF filmmaker’s work are rare.

The third and final night of our Sonbert series takes place Thursday, June 5, and it unites the complex montage and silent focus of the first program (Sonbert’s 1971 magnum opus Carriage Trade, which screened at SF Camerawork) with the musicality of the second program (“Pop Witness,” which connected Sonbert’s early Warhol- and Anger-inspired ‘60s films to his magnificent and distinctive return to sound over 20 years later).

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Warren Sonbert

“Narrative Vertigo” has two parts. The first half belongs to the 1983 silent work A Woman’s Touch, where Sonbert takes inspiration from two mainstream Hollywood directors he especially loves, Douglas Sirk and Alfred Hitchcock. The second half brings 1991’s Short Fuse, a sound film completed four years before Sonbert’s AIDS-related death in 1995 at the age of 47. Sonbert had a flair for two-word titles, and Short Fuse is a poignant example: he crams a life more vibrant than most people’s dreams into 37 minutes.

Come see it with me if you’re free.

Kino 21 presents
Films of Warren Sonbert: “Narrative Vertigo”
Thursday, June 5, 8 p.m.; $6
Artists’ Television Access
992 Valencia, SF
www.kino21.org

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June 05, 2008

Hola, Maria! Alternaqueer Latinos get arty

Queer queer queer season is heating up -- the monthlong National Queer Arts Fest is in full swing, Frameline Film Fest is set to explode -- and the exuberant, popper-fueled alternaqueer-Latino arts subculture is ready to blow your mind this friday eve:

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Featuring some of my fave art-intellects on the scene -- Robert Guzman, Leo Herrera and Allan Herrera of HomoChic, and Jody Jock -- this subversive Latin free-for-all is all about "how gay culture survives." Plus, the reception tomorrow will be bursting with who's-who hotties on the hoof. Incendiary artist statement after the jump.

Maria
Opening reception Fri/6, 7:30pm
Galleria De La Raza
2857 24th St.
(415) 827-8009
www.homochic.com

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Local Artist of the Week: Ryan Alexiev

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LOCAL ARTIST Ryan Alexiev
TITLE Postcard invite for “The Land of a Million Cereals”
THE STORY Cereal is the most popular breakfast food, and the third most popular product in American supermarkets. Currently there are more than 400 cereals, primarily distinguished by their ad campaigns. The substance of cereal is, in this light, ideology. Through prints, sculpture, video, and drawings, “The Land of a Million Cereals” explores cereal’s history and importance as a paradigmatic consumer product. In the role of a Bulgarian peasant, Alexiev does battle with Frankenberry, who wields a powerful golden spoon — free in every box!
BIO Ryan Alexiev was born in Los Angeles and raised in Alaska by Bulgarian immigrants. He received a BFA in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004 and an MFA from California College of the Arts in 2007. He currently lives and works in San Francisco.
SHOW “The Land of a Million Cereals,” Fri/6 through July 12. Wed.–Sat., 1–6 p.m. or by appointment. Opening reception Fri/6, 6–9 p.m. Mission 17, 2111 Mission (Suite 401), SF. (415) 861-3144, www.mission17.org.
WEB SITE www.ryanalexiev.com

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Built by Wendy causes pocket wriggles

By Dona Bridges

I could have sworn that my credit card wriggled in my pocket as I was walking along Valencia the other day in the glorious Mission sunshine. I figured it was a Pavlovian response to the red and white awning of Minnie Wilde, a frequent stop for me (and source of many, many free airline miles courtesy of United Visa). I shrugged off the supernatural tremor and walked on determinedly: later for you, my plastic frenemy.

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June 06, 2008

CupcakeCamp: Pastry Potlucking 2.0

By Susie Cagle

Nearly ten years after boutique New York bakeries and Carrie Bradshaw brought the lil' cupper into the spotlight, it's probably safe to say cupcakes have jumped the shark. Now you can find a cupcake novelty T-shirt in every clothing store, but you're lucky to spot a nice simple brownie in the bakery case at the local coffee shop. If anyone would be sensitive to this overexposure, I'd think it would be trend-obsessed tech taste-makers, which is why CupcakeCamp -- last Sunday's bake-off for the 2.0 crowd -- came as something of a surprise. This isn't exactly the crowd I'd think of when I think of "cupcake people."

So when I decided to go, I had an inkling of what I was getting into. But I truly wanted to believe that CupcakeCamp was just the sort of thing an earnest cupcaking socialist like me would like.

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The real way to lick McCain

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Courtesy of Bay Guardian production designer Jason Arnold

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June 07, 2008

Fashion bug: Prada, Built by Wendy sale it up

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Cool and collected in Built by Wendy.

Shopping Spy eyes two lil' sales that should be on all fashion-trawling bargain hunters' radar.

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One: fashionista staple Prada's painterly, juicy-cute spring/summer line is now on sale - don't the models look like Karen Kilimnik waifs lost in a Oskar Kokoschka dreamscape? Love those crazzzeee-awesome tulip-heeled, jewel-hued shoes. I haven't checked the sale out, but for those who wanna beat Shopping Spy to it, the SF store is at 140 Geary, SF. (415) 391-8844.

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Is that actress Robin Tunney modeling the fall '07 Built by Wendy line?

Two: Longtime coolster NYC label Built by Wendy is ushering in its new SF store with a neat lil' sample sale. It started Friday - and lordy, the lines to the two dressing rooms were long. Not as bad as the windy queues for the Xbox or iPhone, but Shopping Spy thinks the new store can use more o' those and full-length mirrors. Oh well, it's a work in progress, much like your toils over those fab Built by Wendy sewing patterns.

The boutique is set to officially open on June 15, and in the meantime you can pick up bargains on their recent collections: mini-trenches, safety-pinned sweaters, striped shorts, cute jumpers, blouson-ish silk party frocks, and flower-strewn sexy-secretary blouses. No guitar straps in sight. Designer Wendy Mullins' coats and jackets come in at around $140 on sale, the silk dresses are about $70, the tops are around $45-$60, T-shirts are $20, and bare, tied-strap cotton play-tops clock in at $10. Hey, there's men's stuff, too. The sample sale continues Saturday, June 7, noon-7 p.m., and Sunday, June 8, noon-6 p.m., at the new Built by Wendy San Francisco, 3520 20th St. between Valencia and Mission, SF. (415) 824-1582.

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June 09, 2008

White tigers: Your fierce queer arts week at a glance

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Pride is a rock! Whether a diamond or a millstone depends on which side of the Miller Lite bottle you view the whole dang sprawling homolicious mess from. HOWEVER, as usual, there's a plethora of amazing performances and events happening -- not only the gargantuan upcoming Frameline and Queer Women of Color Film Fest (of which I and the fab Johnny Ray Huston write about in this Wednesday's Guardian) but also the citywide 11th Annual National Queer Arts Festival, that started at the beginning of June and continues throughout. Here's a few choice choices from the NQAF coming up this week.

BUT FIRST -- bonus pics! did you know that Seigfried of Seigfried and Roy was in town on Saturday (at the the Castro's Lookout Bar) to celebrate his 250th birthday with his "protege" Darren Romero, "The (Gay) Voice of (Twink) Magic"? See his wizardly wizened face below, with fab girl about town Miss Kate and kind-of-bitchy Gloss Magazine columnist Pollo Del Mar. (Photos by Darwin Bell.) Roy did not attend.

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Now, out with the claws, and check here for more NQAF info and great events:

>>Kirk Read, This is the Thing

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Kirk Read, photo by Ed Wolf

450 pound sex work clients, surly Guitar Center employees, teenage Satanism, and touring through rural Alabama with strippers -- what else would you want an evening of spoken performance to deliver? Perennial SF literary hotshot Kirk Read takes on sex work, hallucinations, and the apocalypse in this multinight odyssey, with musical accompaniment by Jeffrey Alphonsus Mooney.
June 10-14, 8pm, $12-$15
The Garage
975 Howard
Tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/32515

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Is it me or the Marina?

Today, while walking down Union Street in the Marina in my green She-Bible mini dress, I got hit on twice in one block. And not just a whistle or a “damn, girl, you look good,” or even a “that’s a great dress,” (which I got earlier at the SFMTA office on Van Ness), but honest-to-god pick-ups. A tall guy in a baseball hat sitting outside a bank told me I was beautiful and asked where I was headed. “Working,” I said, and smiled as I walked quickly away.

Half a block later, a man on a motorcycle with an orange Mohawk helmet stopped his bike and asked where he was taking me to dinner.

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I blame it on She-Bible, the local design team who made my badass green version of this dress.

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June 10, 2008

Yelp is on the way

By Dona Bridges

Sometimes I want to give you my heart, Yelp.com. I want to praise you in typo-ridden prose and give you that highest of all honors, the five star rating. You are a star, a soapbox, a great leveler of the playing field, where the voices of the people at last ring loud and clear, audible above advertisers and bullshit merchants.

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Sure, some of my friends talk shit about you. They say that you're too influential, and we now have to live and die by the sharply worded textual swords wielded by Laura B. or other (less hilarious) Yelp members. My restaurant co-workers click through your reviews and say, "What if I came to your workplace, then wrote about it on a highly trafficked website? While not bothering to fact check?" I might agree sometimes, especially when there's a new review of my workplace that uses words like "slow," "annoying," or – how 'bout this —"bitch."* I might roll my eyes, get all red in the face, and join the hating party: "Yeah! You come in here and do my job! Then I'll yelp you until you cry!"

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Happy birthday, pardner ... splash!

This Wednesday at 6pm: Is there any better way to celebrate both John Wayne and the warm weather?

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June 11, 2008

Lit: Beautiful Children and what doesn’t stay in Vegas

By Todd Lavoie

The notion that Las Vegas is a playground for complete id-indulgence certainly holds resonance for a nonstop onslaught of tourists. But what is the city like for folks who work and live in such an environment?

It’s a question worth considering. Unfortunately, many answers are prone to the hypocritical grandstanding trotted out by self-described moralists such as William Bennett (whose fondness for Vegas' betting tables, once it became public, ultimately proved more than a bit inconvenient for such posturing). Truth be told, one could probably gain more meaningful insight from the storylines of CSI: Las Vegas than from the wild-eyed Sodom and Gomorrah depictions of the city whipped up by preachers and political pundits. At least the TV show explores motives and surrounding circumstances rather than summarily damning everyone to hell.

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The glitter-glue cover of Charles Bock's Beautiful Children

A more valuable contribution to the dialogue has arrived with Charles Bock's debut novel Beautiful Children (Random House, 417 pages, $25), a sweeping portrait of the author's home town which strips away the city's glittering veneer to reveal a degraded core. At the epicenter of Bock's troubled Las Vegas landscape sits twelve-year-old Newell Ewing, a coddled, almost joyless boy -- comic books are his chief source of comfort -- who suddenly disappears from his affluent suburban home. Newell’s parents, Lincoln and Lorraine, are both haunted by personal compromises. They also have never bridged an understanding with their only child.

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Local Artist of the Week: Tara Tucker

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LOCAL ARTIST Tara Tucker
TITLE Double Trouble
THE STORY “My work is about natural history and human psychology. All the animals in Double Trouble are from Africa. The secretary bird eats snakes. The snake in Double Trouble is a green mamba, a really dangerous part of the cobra family. The baboon is ‘me,’ and I’m hanging with my friend that is a bit of a user, but eats snakes.”
BIO Tara Tucker lives in Berkeley and teaches at Creative Growth in Oakland. She has an MFA in sculpture from California College of the Arts and is represented by Rena Bransten Gallery, where she had a solo show in 2007.
SHOW “Resisting Dominion: Nature and New Political Narratives,” Thurs/12 through August 16. Wed.–Sat., noon–5 p.m. Opening reception: Thurs/12, 6–8 p.m. San Francisco Arts Commission Art Gallery, 401 Van Ness, SF. (415) 554-6080. www.sfacgallery.org
WEB SITE www.taratucker.blogspot.com

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Lit: Interview with Favianna Rodriguez

By Liam O’Donoghue

Favianna Rodriguez is from Oakland and she lives there today. She is the co-editor, along with Josh MacPhee, of Reproduce and Revolt: A Graphic Toolbox for the 21st Century Activist (Soft Skull Press, 192 pages, $19.95). On the eve of the book's release party, she recently spoke about the project's origins, forging connections between groups and the Bay Area's role in activist art.

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Cover of Reproduce and Revolt

SFBG: Even in the socially conscious art world, it’s usually men who get the most spotlight.So, first of all, I want to give you props for raising the profile of so many radical womyn artists with this book. Can you tell me about any challenges or goals specifically related to gender issues that you had with this project?

Favianna Rodriguez: I’m a first generation woman of color. My parents were immigrants. So it was very important to me for the book to represent not just women, but women of color. We’ve got lots of artists from Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Argentina in this book.
My co-editor, Josh MacPhee, is a white male – he’s cool, very anti-racist – but he understood that with a project like this, which involves getting global artists to submit royalty-free art, it was very important to have a woman of color in a leadership position. Of course, the political art world is male-dominated, so some of the sections, especially the “war and peace” chapter, were overwhelmingly male, and we really had to work on creating the balance of perspectives that we wanted [throughout the book].
But women of color aren’t the only ones that are generally under-represented – black men are another example. This book is just the first phase. We’re just getting started, because we’ve got a good selection of Latin American artists [featured in the book], but we want to expand to include more Asian and African artists with the next editions. It’s all about building networks.

SFBG: What inspired you to start this project?
FR: Josh was collecting graphics and I’d been talking with Bay Area women artists about doing something like this, so we decided to merge our projects. I wanted to make it a multilingual project and I brought in tech people so we could make this all happen online. This book was totally compiled and edited online. We did artist authorization documents and design and had political discussions online.
The book has over 300 images from 12 countries, and the Web site that will launch on July 1 is also going to be bilingual. It’s going to have all the graphics in high-resolution, available for download, because nobody wants to scan images anymore if they don’t have to.

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June 12, 2008

Treasure Island welcomes vinyl dildos and tankers of lube

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We honestly thought the Exotic Erotic Ball would be the last event to leave the beleaguered Cow Palace. But sure enough, we've just learned that the 28th annual "celebration of flesh, fetish and fantasy," in fact, won't be held at the legendary Daly City venue. Instead, organizers have moved it this year to Treasure Island. The ball's operator says the event simply outgrew Cow Palace, but it may also have been Daly City's campaign to get rid of the convention center and replace it with a massive development project to include a grocery store, condos and some chain retail outlets.

In announcing the move, Treasure Island's director of operations, Mirian Saez, tried to get all hip and claim that the all-but-deserted sliver of land out in the middle of the Bay that developers are currently planning to build a small city on has a long history of hosting sordid celebrations of sin. During the 1939 World's Fair held at Treasure Island, for instance, one of the most popular attractions was a strip show known as Sally Rand's Nude Ranch where women wore cowboy hats, gun-belts, boots and not a lot else, according to a statement.

So, Treasure Island officials reasoned, why not have the Exotic Erotic Ball there, too? I mean, apparently they've been naked and banging each other out there for years anyway. Maybe that's why Willie Brown had a particular fondness for sending patronage hacks out to Treasure Island's administrative offices. Okay, that's totally unfair.

The show's producer, Howard Mauskopf, said in the statement that he loved Cow Palace, but the island will be a logistical improvement:

“We had big fun at the Cow Palace and threw some of our best parties ever at that site. But, on Treasure Island, we will have greater flexibility, and all the space we could possibly want. Plus, it's one of San Francisco's most idyllic and scenic waterside locations with unparalleled panoramic Bay views, and it has its own spicy and salacious past, just like the ball.”

According to the ball's official history, it began in 1979 when Perry Mann hosted the shindig in his San Francisco penthouse apartment to collect campaign money for a presidential candidate running on the Nudist Party ticket at the time. His slogan? "I have nothing to hide."

*Image courtesy Breaktaker.com.

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June 13, 2008

Fashion bug: Minnie Wilde puts wind in our sidewalk sales

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Shopping Spy casts a gimlet eye upon yet another delectable little bargain extravaganza this weekend: local girly fave Minnie Wilde will be throwing a "Sunsational Sidewalk Sale," Saturday, June 14, 11 a.m.-7 p.m., and Sunday, June 15, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Word has it that spring styles will be 25%-30% off, seasonal samples will go for $30 and up, and previous season’s backstock will be marked down to $20-$75. You just have to get on down to Minnie Wilde, 3266 21St. at Valencia, SF. (415) 642-wild.

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Semi-conscious consumerism: Nike + American Apparel = what, exactly

By Justin Juul

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I know I’m not supposed to buy Nike shoes because they’re made by starving children in developing countries -- unlike Converse, New Balance, and Reebok shoes which are all made by high-paid workers right here in San Francisco -- but holy shit has Nike made an awesome sneaker. Their new Free-Everyday line has a super-streamlined look with a custom-colorway option, which is what really sealed the deal for me (mine are all grey with brick-red highlights).

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But that’s not all. They also come with a little microchip you can slide into the sole. The chip pings to a bracelet (or an iPod) so you can monitor your progress. Also, if you’re a nerd, you can personalize the back of your new shoes with a two-word phrase. I was going to get “America Rules” emblazoned on mine, but there was a copyright issue so I chose “Manifest Destiny” instead. * Come on! Starving children are great and all, but really, how could I not buy a pair of these things?

You see, I’m a runner, but until I got my Nikes I was just a casual nighttime runner, a secretive runner if you will. Now, I’m a machine. I’ve already clocked 50 miles on my new kicks and I’ve got my sights set on running the first half of the SF marathon in August. Why the sudden change? Well, it sucks to admit, but I’ve never publicly expressed my love for running because runners are fucking dorks. Have you seen their shoes!? Before the Nike Free-Everyday was released, the only running shoes you could get –good ones, I’m talking about—looked like they’d been designed by colorblind robots from the planet Zorton. This isn’t 1986, guys. This isn’t Back to the Future II. Mismatched neon, totally useless plastic ridges, and air bubbles may have been cool at some point, but this is the nineties, man. I need my kicks to look fresh! And now they do. But compromising my morals wasn’t as easy as I thought it’d be. And soon, other problems began to surface

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June 17, 2008

Local Artist of the Week: Julie Chang

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LOCAL ARTIST Julie Chang
TITLE Riding Home
THE STORY This is part of a series of 10 paintings interpreting the early Buddhist “Ox-Herding Pictures” describing the path to enlightenment. While the first depictions can be traced to the 12th-century Chinese zen master Kuoan Shiyuan, Chang’s translation is rooted in her experience as a first generation Chinese American growing up in Orange County. Recycled imagery — from family photos, textile designs, pop culture, and logos on Chinese takeout bags — forms the basis for much of the work.
BIO Julie Chang received her MFA from Stanford in 2007 and is currently an artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts.
SHOW “Summer Reading: Artists Interpret Literature.” Thurs/21 through August 9; Tues.–Sat., 11 a.m.–5:30 p.m. Hosfelt Gallery SF, 430 Clementina, SF. (415) 495-5454. Solo show at Hosfelt Gallery in New York in April 2009. www.hosfeltgallery.com
WEB SITE www. juliewchang.com

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