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Reupholstering "Defenestration"

04.30.10 - 12:25 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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 all photos by Erik Anderson

“Can you wait about fifteen minutes?” Brian Goggin asks as he climbs into the harness that will lift him up to the fourth floor of the abandoned building on Sixth and Howard. Out of respect for this remarkable artist (and rapt awe his elevation has on the observer), we wait, standing to the side on the pavement below. Goggin’s restoration of his iconic piece of public art, “Defenestration,” bears witnessing. Read more »

Fun with political ads

04.30.10 - 11:17 am | Tim Redmond |
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Wowee wow, the political ads are getting strange.Read more »

Local superhero vs. evil plastic bag

04.30.10 - 11:11 am | Rebecca Bowe |
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One unintended, positive side-effect of San Francisco's plastic bag ban: Fewer opportunities for free-floating bags to lodge themselves into cylcists' derailleurs, as happened to me this morning on my way to work. It's still two weeks before the official Bike to Work Day, but I thought I'd share today's bike-commute anecdote, which belongs in the Restoring Faith in Humanity department. Read more »

Take me out to the ball game (just not in Arizona)

04.30.10 - 10:04 am | Sarah Phelan |
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City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Supervisor David Campos are asking Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to seek an alternative to Phoenix, Arizona to host the 2011 All-Star Game, unless that state's controversial immigration law is repealed. Read more »

Welcome to Elm Street: The Remake

04.30.10 - 9:18 am | Louis Peitzman |
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I’ll say this about the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street: it could have been worse. Yes, it’s pointless and unimaginative and producer Michael Bay should still be ashamed, but I didn’t hate every minute of it. I can’t say the same for Rob Zombie’s dreadful take on Halloween (2007) or the unholy mess that is 2009’s Friday the 13th. Read more »

Let's talk

Sandra Bernhard goes off wonderfully. Plus: Queensday, Devotion, and a goth-industrial bacchanal

04.29.10 - 6:22 pm | Marke B. |
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SUPEREGO The last time I got on the horn with scaldingly hilarious comedian Sandra Bernhard — one of the few people who can make me blush without pulling down their pants — it was the tail-end of that heady year, 2007. Remember then? Read more »

Appetite: 3 coffee table books with expert cocktail recipes

04.29.10 - 4:34 pm | Virginia Miller |
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Aesthetics matter. Beyond quality recipes, fine photography and presentation can make one cocktail recipe book stand out over another. Whether you are a cocktailian who interprets measurements for the modern day from Jerry Thomas' 1800's standard-setter, formerly known as The Bon Vivant's Companion, or a cocktail appreciator who wants to make more than Lemon Drops (or anything "tini"), here are three books with recipes to please a novice or cocktail expert alike... and they're beautiful to thumb through. Read more »

The Daily Blurgh: Drop that cornhole, Bieber!

04.29.10 - 4:08 pm | Matt Sussman |
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Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond

Is the Tonga Room saved? A City Planning Commission report may indicate yes. The report concludes that San Francisco's finest (imperiled) tiki bar is covered in enough irreplaceable tchotkes and gewgaws to make it a "historical resource." That might not stop those same tchotkes and gewgaws from being removed, "for public information and education, and/or reuse in an alternate off-site location." But what about the indoor rainstorm over the lagoon?!?!

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Meet the proponents of sit / lie

04.29.10 - 2:59 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
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It’s easy to find opponents of the city’s proposed sit /lie ordinance in San Francisco. This past Saturday, April 24, dozens of them organized over Facebook, inviting people to join in on events like drag shows, barbecues, and board game matches, all out on the sidewalk. The law’s proponents, meanwhile, haven’t been quite as visible since the great sit/lie debate began. But yesterday, April 28, the Guardian attended a press conference at the Tenderloin Police Station hosted by citizens who back the controversial law against sitting or lying down on the sidewalk.  Read more »

Newsom's puppet show

04.29.10 - 2:47 pm | Tim Redmond |
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Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has been doing exactly what Pacific Gas and Electric Co. wants at City Hall, is complaining that some of the supervisors are Bay Guardian puppets.Read more »

Big package in the Castro

04.29.10 - 1:51 pm | Amber Schadewald |
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While walking through the Castro I was pleasently surpised (well, sort of surprised) to catch a glimpse of this big, hard package chillin' in the middle of the street. Read more »

Supes try applying pressure to urge CCA contract

04.29.10 - 1:38 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
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At the April 27 Board of Supervisors meeting, Sup. David Campos made a motion to push back board approval for San Francisco Public Utilities Commission infrastructure improvement projects until a contract was in hand for the city’s Community Choice Aggregation program. If a contract isn’t signed by June 8, when voters will decide on Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s Prop 16 in the June election, the city could be vulnerable to a legal strike against its green municipal power program from PG&E. Read more »

Welcome to Elm Street (and Crystal Lake): Part Eight

04.29.10 - 1:36 pm | Cheryl Eddy |
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In honor(?) of the new A Nightmare on Elm Street, we're recapping all of the Elms so far. Find more on the Pixel Vision blog.

The stage was set for Freddy vs. Jason (2003) long before Freddy’s glove made a cameo at the end of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) — yet another in a long line of misleadingly-titled films promising the last stand of the boogeyman in question (lest ye forget, Jason X came out in 2001). Who didn’t want to see the wisecracking scourge of Springwood go glove-to-machete with Camp Crystal Lake’s burly maniac? Truly, it would be a grudge match for the ages, with two of the most franchise-able movie monsters (combined total in 2003: 17 films) poised to lure both long-standing loyalists and new blood into the theaters. (And even if the entire film was simply a canny marketing tactic, it worked -- Freddy vs. Jason was a huge hit, earning $82 million in the United States alone.)

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SPJ's Journalism Innovations conference starts Fri/30

04.29.10 - 1:20 pm | Bruce Brugmann |
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Now in its third year, Journalism Innovations is the West Coast’s premiere showcase for groundbreaking journalism ideas, media innovation and community networking. Produced by the Society of Professional Journalists-Northern California, Independent Arts and Media, The University of San Francisco, and the G.W. Williams Center for Independent Journalism, Journalism Innovations is playing a vital part in shaping the next phase of the industry.

This event, combined this year with the SPJ Region 11 Spring Conference, will bring in hundreds of working journalists, educators, advocates, citizen media-makers, inventors, recruiters, students and job seekers.  Join the leaders shaping the future of news. Register today, or sponsor to gain high-profile exposure for your organization! Visit the conference website or join our Facebook group for the latest details.

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Keep watching the skies! "Birdemic" is coming!

04.29.10 - 12:21 pm | sfbg |
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By Peter Galvin

Birdemic: Shock and Terror: it's heeeere! This underlit, out-of-focus and erratically-edited independent film is America’s newest cult obsession, recently booking a West Coast theater tour (including Fri/30-Sat/1 at the Roxie) on the back of some impressive press coverage and a thumbs-up from Adult Swim superstars Tim and Eric. It’s the story of a freak eagle attack on Half Moon Bay, and there’s no pussyfooting around the reality that Birdemic is an amateur work. If it weren’t for the awkward fades between scenes, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the film was cut entirely in-camera. With all the fuss building around the picture, the allure must be in laughing at it, and setting out to laugh at a bad film can be a tricky endeavor. Searching for whimsy in a poorly-made film can be an infuriating struggle of highs and lows, a pitfall Birdemic avoids by being laughably inept in every frame.

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