San Francisco Bay Guardian

Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond

“We offer a kind of grittiness you can’t find much anymore,” said Randy Shaw, a longtime San Francisco housing advocate and a driving force behind the idea of Tenderloin tourism. “And what is grittier than the Tenderloin?”

Now that San Francisco is going to court the tourist dollars of baby boomers descending upon the TL in search of reawakening the pleasure centers of their youth – the music! the drugs! the picturesque squalor! – perhaps City Hall should also consider starting up tourism franchises in other "gritty" parts of the city? 

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Today's Look: Kelly, Divisadero and California

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By Chhavi Nanda

The majority of mankind is under the misconception that an apocalypse is primarily associated with the end of the world – some sort of eschatological final battle. Perhaps it’s the slew of movies such as 2012 or The Road influencing our mind to veer into that territory. But an apocalypse doesn’t necessarily mean an ending -- even adherents of the Book of Revelations know there’s a next chapter. An apocalypse is defined as “the lifting of a veil or a revelation.”  Late last month, a fashionable veil was lifted: a new collective Web site of vintage fashion, entitled American Apocalypse, was exposed to the world.

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Since writing my article in this week’s Guardian on the state of street art in San Francisco, the definition of the term has been… not rankling me, but sitting in my head like things that can’t be resolved tend to do. But a recent conversation I had with the owner of White Walls and Shooting galleries, Justin Giarla gave me a good look at why street artists go indoors. He took me through his current exhibition of works by the legendary stencilist Blek Le Rat, Hush, and Above -- “street” artists all, who are finding brave new worlds through work on canvas. Read more »