By Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

It’s difficult to call most films independent nowadays. But the Duplass Brothers’ 2005 Sundance sleeper The Puffy Chair is as Indie as an American feature film can be. Made for $15,000, it brought the grit of John Cassavetes and the introspection of Richard Linklater to a whole new generation. Now considered to be part of the godfathers of “Mumblecore,” a genre defined by this generation’s talkative nature, the Duplass brothers have returned with their follow-up. Baghead is a hilarious and often unsettling stalker film that delves into the personal relationship minutia and woes of two guys and two girls who are trying to write a screenplay together in remote cabin.

Um, Baghead

Both of the Duplass brothers, Mark and Jay, were recently in San Francisco for an interview on a windy summer afternoon.

Mark Duplass: There’s this book that someone sent to us once to maybe adapt into a movie about a couple who had a lot of trouble breaking up. They would break up, get back together, break up, and get back together. So they basically picked their 10 favorite things from the relationship that they loved to do, and they were gonna do all those things and then end the relationship after completing them. Great concept, but it ended up being really bad. I thought it would be great if, while they were trying to do those things, they came upon more obstacles. But the book ends with: since they can’t live with each other and they can’t live without each other, they do a double suicide in a poetic and oblique way.

SFBG: So you’d have to ruin the book if you adapted it into a film.

MD: Yeah, which we’ve done before.

LOCAL ARTIST Lauren DiCioccio
TITLE Mount Rushmore: The Four Presidents (hand embroidery on organza and pleather, 2008)
THE STORY “These embroideries are life-size sculptural re-creations of 35mm slides I have collected. I am drawn to slides as precious objects: the fragility of the translucent material and the intimacy of scale of a palm-size slide are particularly endearing. I hope to capture this tenderness in my sculptures. To make these little pieces, I embroider directly onto bridal organza, a delicate translucent material, and allow the excess threads to pour out the back and hang down the wall.
BIO DiCioccio’s current work employs tedious handiwork to investigate the beauty of commonplace mass-produced media objects (newspapers, magazines, office papers, writing pads, plastic bags, 35mm slides) in lamentation of their approaching obsolescence. She received a BA from Colgate University in 2002 and now lives in Woodside.
SHOW “Lauren DiCioccio, Aliza Lelah,” through Aug. 16. 11 a.m.–5:30 p.m., Mon.–Sat., Jack Fischer Gallery, 49 Geary, Suite 440, SF. (415) 956-1178, www.jackfischergallery.com
WEB SITE www.laurendicioccio.com

By Johnny Ray Huston

Every photo has a story, and the one behind Ace Morgan's in this week's Photo Issue is worth telling. "I was documenting and photographing my friend Chris in Detroit who was a male-to-female prostitute," Morgan tells Sara Seinberg in the first issue of Cutter Photozine, where the image is part of a section devoted to his work. "Chris' lover was this guy named Tony. And so Tony was in the pictures, too...Months down the road, the headlines in the Detroit Free Press said Tony was the Highland Park Serial Killer."

One of ten artists or groups in this year's Photo Issue, Cutter Photozine views San Francisco from the same candid, instinctive perspective that Morgan brought to Detroit's streets. Along with Seinberg, Alison O'Connell, Jesse Rose Roberts, and Cole Blevins, Heather Renee Russ is on Cutter's staff. I recently emailed her to ask about influences, experiences, pros, cons, and the future.

Photo of Jimmy Shotwell by Heather Renee Russ

SFBG: What zines and photo magazines do you like? How about favorite photographers?
Heather Renee Russ: Hamburger Eyes. Scam zine by Erick Lyle. The Fader. Ration zine by Arwen Curry. Sad Kids. Mega Words. Emergency by Ammi Emergency.

The cover image of this week's Photo Issue comes from Jessica Rosen. While it reflects Rosen's recent shift toward collage -- which she also is using to create one-of-a-kind handbags and books -- it only represents one facet of her work to date. Rosen's website presents sections devoted to some of her earlier projects. Her vivid portraiture is defined by a striking use of color and shadow, and by a cooperative, perhaps even collaborative, bond with her subjects. I asked her about all of these things recently via email.

From Jessica Rosen's series "The Beach," at www.jessicarosen.com

SFBG: Brazil is important to your photography to date. How did this come to be?
Jessica Rosen: To some degree, the location of my images is incidental. For about three years I was living between New York City and Rio de Janeiro. New York became my day job and Rio became my studio. Working in Brazil was simply a process that functioned really well for me.
Many of my photographs are rooted in a very specifically Brazilian setting, but I feel like I was exploring the same ideas that I had always been interested in. I was thinking a lot about cultural constructs of gender and sexuality and how those play out in the formation of subjective identity. I was also really interested in sex workers because I feel that this work becomes a very literal performance of sexual and gender stereotypes. And more importantly, the specificities of this performance are a reflection of more general cultural systems.
It's not that those ideas could be exemplified only using Brazilian subjects. I mean, I could have been working with American sex workers and created different images that would have addressed the same ideas. In fact I have done projects of this nature in New York City. But Brazil was a great place to explore my interests.

By Marianne Moore

Delirium Tremens is the name of a Belgian beer. It’s also a condition that results from severe alcohol withdrawal—its symptoms are convulsions and hallucinations, and untreated, it’s quite deadly*. At nine percent alcohol by volume, the Belgian pale ale could be said to be both the cause and the cure of the syndrome it’s named for (Oh no! He’s got delirium tremens; quick! Give him some Delirium Tremens). Like most beers with a high alcohol concentration, DT on draft is served in an itty bitty little glass—about six to eight ounces. In reference, no doubt, to the visions brought on by the rum fits, the glass has tiny pink elephants all over it.

After a couple of those at Luka’s taproom in Oakland last week, plus one or two of their signature Green Hornets (think margarita, only strangely gritty and awesome), my friend and I were getting ready to pack it in. As we were giggling and scraping bacon-sprinkled mac & cheese into a cardboard box, I casually mentioned to my friend that it’d be pretty cool if she could manage to swipe her pink elephant DT glass. Without a word, she snapped the box closed and grabbed the glass.

Instinctively, I headed for the door. Once outside, thinking she was right behind me, I gave a victory whoop and practically ran past the 300 pound bouncer. I got about 50 feet from the door before I realized I was alone—my friend still had to untie her bike, which happened to be locked up right next to the security walrus. If I’d been a little more casual about it, we might have been able to slip past without him noticing, but as it was we got a lecture and I was forced to shuffle back into the bar and replace the glass. As we headed towards 19th Street BART, my friend turned around and yelled, “You know you get those for free, right?”

Ah, my drunk, delirious hero.

*Python straight man Graham Chapman was suffering from delirium tremens while shooting Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Imagine if you had to stare at Terry Gilliam for hours on end while tripping balls…

Finally, a publication is recognizing the recent(ish) explosion of independent circus art as a movement in its own right (rather than a bastardization of “real” circus or an extension of Burning Man culture). Yup, that’s right. I’m talking about Best of the Bay winner Big Top, the online mag dedicated to highlighting, promoting, and supporting indie circus culture. (For the record, we did talk about the trend in early 2007 – we just haven’t devoted a whole damn magazine to it.)

So why am I talking about Big Top so soon after we featured ‘em in last week’s issue – and hung with ‘em at our badass Best of the Bay party on Thursday? Because they’re awesome. And because they hosted their own incidiary event the next night at Fat City.

Fat City headliners Fou Fou Ha! Photo from Big Top Magazine.

Photo by Molly Decoudreaux

It's hopeless to ignore the incredible explosion of nightlife photography that's happened on the Web and in art schools these past few years. And what better time than now, with our Photography Issue on the stands, to examine it a little?

For those of us who clung desperately in our '80s Midwestern teens to every month's Details (back when it was a nightlife zine and Michael Musto didn't pee on celebrity legs) or took i-D as our lifeline to street fashion and personality-inversion in the outer world, the big bang's been both exciting and a bit disconcerting. On the one hand, there's incredible creativity being documented instantaneously and available to all -- even in Djibouti, fantastic weirdos need never feel alone. On the other, there's the sense that mere dressing up for the ever-present cameras has replaced actual self-expression. Misshapes! Cobra Snakes! Blue States Lose! And then there's just the pure horrificality of sites like this one, which are about boobs. Par-T&A!

The upside: Club kids from the '80s

The downside: Hoochies from last week

And yet, and yet. The dancefloor snappers here in SF are giving the nightlife bulbs a spin of their own, by focusing on the more artistic aspects of Clubland's odd-wonderful players -- and taking off in thoughtful directions, not restricting themselves to mere sublebrity paparazzi.

Case in point -- the fab Molly Decoudreaux, a well-known nightlife gadabout who's just published a fine new book, Here and There: Portraits.

The Oakland native got her start snapping pics of her hot dyke and faggot friends in blackout res, and has worked on projects for the Lexington Club, Big Top, and Lusty Lady.

Along the way, she's developed a fierce photographic aesthetic that positions Clubland's outsized personalities into a meditation of place. Her photos take in these club kids with admiring eyes, yet also deepen their glorious showboating with examinations of their daytime surroundings and situations. "My primary interest is portraiture," she told me last week by phone. "Also gender representation and presentation -- I started college as a gender and queer studies major -- but captured in a way that looks at the layers through which we reveal or transform ourselves. Little cracks can show a lot."

The shit flies fast and furious. Photo courtesy of Anorak News.

This is far too weird to pass up - "Turd on the Runs" headlines et al. Behold www.artforum.com's take on Paul McCarthy's "Complex Shit" piece, which caused, well, a great deal of shit on July 31 (details emerged yesterday, reports the Guardian UK) :

"A giant inflatable dog turd created by the artist Paul McCarthy was blown from its moorings at the Paul Klee Center in Bern, Switzerland, bringing down a power line and breaking a window before landing in the grounds of a children's home, reports the Guardian’s Jenny Percival. The work, titled Complex Shit, is the size of a house. It has a safety system that is supposed to deflate it in bad weather, but it did not work on this occasion. Juri Steiner, the director of the center, told Agence France-Presse that a sudden gust of wind carried it 650 feet before it fell to the ground, landing in the yard of the children's home. The accident happened on July 31, but the details only emerged yesterday. Steiner said McCarthy had not yet been contacted and the museum was not sure if the piece would be put back on display. The installation is part of an exhibition called “East of Eden: A Garden Show.” The exhibition opened in May and is due to run until October.

To choose just one photo by Sean McFarland for this year's Guardian Photo Issue was tough. Ultimately, we went with one from 2005 that looked best within the issue's layout. McFarland's more recent work was markedly different, but just as impressive. The interview below is interspersed with some of these more recent photos, and some interesting background information about their mysteries.

Sea, by Sean McFarland

At the moment, McFarland is part of the survey of Bay Area photography on display at City Hall (through Sept. 19), but that isn't his only current show with a strong local element. He's also a contributor to "Let Us Now Praise San Francisco," at the 77 Geary space Marx and Zavattero Gallery. Up through this Saturday, it brings together select writers and photographers for a SF-specific 21st-century answer to James Agee's and Walker Evans' famous combo of word and images, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

Tornado, by Sean McFarland

SFBG In the last year or two, your work has shifted away from urban views to elemental images: sky, sea, vast land. What has set you off in that direction?
Sean McFarland: I've been thinking a lot about the ways in which the earth changes. In an urban environment, we build buildings, roads, and parks, changing the landscape. These are immediate and obvious alterations of our environment. Our actions also change the landscape as we alter the climate - more frequent and powerful storms, rising seas. By focusing on making images of the natural world, of the landscape, I'm interested in making pictures of us. How we change the earth and how the earth effects us.

Blogger Justin Juul ponders high-end street gear in a time of economic crisis. Read his saga of American Spirits here, and his sassy deconstruction of the Nike and American Apparel connection here.

Here’s a bunch of shit I bought because I thought I was the only person in San Francisco tuned into the world of supercool urban fashion. Most of these items cost hundreds of dollars and almost nothing fit straight out of the box. So, genius that I am, instead of re-selling my stuff on Ebay for a profit, I took everything to a tailor for resizing. Which, most times, wound up costing almost as much as the actual item.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been right, if indeed I could ever hope to know more about “high-end streetwear” than your average 15 year-old skater thug. But I don’t. By the time most of this stuff got my to house you could buy knock-off versions at any store on Sixth Street. And besides, look at it! I’m almost thirty years old, man. I can’t go outside in this shit. Still, even though I never wear any of the stuff I buy, and even though I’m fully aware that the whole street wear industry is a marketing sham that preys on the ridiculous aspirations of clueless suburban kids, I’m insanely proud of my ghetto-fab wardrobe.

I mean, whatever, right? These clothes may not be worth the money I spent on them, and they may not make me cool, but I have them and you don’t, so there. You can call me shallow and you can call me crazy, but you can’t deny that if you could get your hands on my gear you’d be happy for life. I win.

Here Are the Top Five Coolest Garments in my Collection:

LOCAL ARTIST Aurie Ramirez
TITLE Untitled
STORY Aurie Ramirez’ sophisticated, delicately rendered compositions create an ever-expanding fantasy world where fragments of 18th-century dandyism, neo-Victorian decorum, psychedelia, Venetian masquerade, glam-rock sex, and punk fetishism are repeated and transformed. Aurie’s work has been inspired by her interest in The Addams Family and KISS.
BIO Born in 1962 in the Philippines, Aurie Ramirez has exhibited her work at White Columns in New York, Jack Hanley Gallery in Los Angeles, ABCD in Paris, and Collection l’Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland.
SHOW “Estacion Odesia,” through Aug. 30. By appointment. Queen’s Nails Annex, 3191 Mission, SF. (415) 202-3199. www.queensnailsannex.com
WEB www.creativegrowth.org

Blogger Justin Juul weighs in -- just in time for Slow Food Nation this weekend -- on the contradictions of fashion and philosophy. Read his thoughts on high-end street gear in a time of economic crisis here, his saga of American Spirits here, and his sassy deconstruction of the Nike and American Apparel connection here.

I became a vegetarian the year my father moved the family from Southern California to a ranch in North Carolina, right across the street from a cow farm. My dad had just retired from the Marine Corps and was on a mission to return to the farm-life he’d abandoned when he enlisted 20 years before. It was totally normal for him, but that shit freaked me out. I’d grown up in small cities on the fringes of military bases across the country and here I was at seventeen years old, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but my two little dogs and a giant herd of cows to keep me company.

Needless to say, I got out of there quick. I jumped on a greyhound bus back to California the day I turned 18 and I haven’t looked back since. But the image of those peaceful cows never left me. Watching them play with my dogs made me realize that animals were pretty similar across the board. I would never eat Burny or Katy, I rationed, so I probably shouldn’t eat the cows either. And so it went. I became a vegetarian because I realized that eating animals is cruel, but wearing them? Well, that’s another story.

You see, although I hate to admit it, I’m sort of a hipster.