Beat poet and Buddhist Allen Ginsberg inspires "The Worst Horse," a Fri/27 program of multidisciplinary work at the San Francisco Zen Center curated by acclaimed SF author and RADAR founder Michelle Tea.

If Ginsberg’s definition of poetry as “making the private world public” is one starting point, the other is the Buddhist parable of the fourth horse, related by Zen Center founder Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in his famous Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. In the story, the mere shadow of the whip causes the first horse to run swiftly away, while it’s the first touch of the whip that induces the flight of the second, and the whip’s tearing of the flesh that provokes the third horse’s flight. But the fourth horse does not run until it’s repeatedly lashed.

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Iran's authoritarian regime still gets away with locking up artists and intellectuals for their opinions. (The renowned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi spent three months in prison this year for speaking his mind in public.) The contours of this system of political persecution come to the fore in the most personal and riveting of terms as longtime Iranian dissident, journalist, and author Houshang Asadi talks about (and reads from) his new memoir, Letters to My Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran, in conversation with journalist and author Jonathan Curiel (Al’ America: Travels Through America’s Arab and Islamic Roots) at Berkeley Arts and Letters. The event is co-sponsored by the National Iranian American Council, Amnesty International, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley.

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Sure, sure — you love your Prius. Or your fixie-skateboard-rollerblades-scooter-Clipper pass. But there's something awfully rock n' roll about a muscle car, especially one that's been lovingly restored to roarin'-around-town condition.

Sat/7, local auto fanatics Chiselers Car Club host their first annual Chiselers Car Club Blowout — "blowout" in this context referring to a raucous party, of course, not a tire gone haywire. Revelers are encouraged to "bring your pre '75 pimped-ass ride" (bikes are also welcome); the carless can gawk all they want. Arrive during the daytime hours (starts at 4 p.m., free) to check out the cars, scarf some barbecue, and listen to classic tunes by the Ramshackle Romeos, a two-man group incorporating an array of strange instruments, including the ever-haunting musical saw.

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By Sam Stander

Down a little side street branching off the Piedmont Ave. shopping area in northern Oakland, two locals have combined the fine art of the well-stocked newsstand with the high-class vibe of an artsy boutique. Just past its third birthday, Issues offers and expansive selection of magazines and periodicals, as well as an array of t-shirts, buttons, books, and music, all couched in a warm, welcoming atmosphere. Events held at the store often incorporate other local businesses, and on Sat/26 they'll play host to the East Bay Vegan Bakesale, with sure to be yummy goods on offer from various local purveryors, to benefit Walk Oakland Bike Oakland and the recently fire-ravaged Berkeley East Bay Humane Society. Details after the jump.

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It’s a big weekend for celebration. May 1st is International Worker’s Day, it's the day when winter has finally left the Northern Hemisphere building, and marks the dawn dances of the pagan Beltane. All in all, it’s an apt time for rejoicing in the people and places what that make our world beautiful.

And given that we’re in the Bay, one of the Earth’s great cradles of populist art, there may be no better place to do that than CounterPULSE, the community art performance space that is celebrating 20 years (five in their current location) of helping cool artist do what they do. CounterPULSE has been sponsoring classes, performances, and residencies for some of our most progressive and exciting artists over the past decades -- and they're making it easy for you to throw some dough their way with three days of diverse, exciting programming that could really only happen here in San Francisco Read more »