Top Story

Caption here (*required)
Vanishing city

Up against intense market pressure, longtime residents and community projects fade from SF

This Week's Paper

Evictions sweep the city. Plus, Björk, Black Watch, a guide to summer's best fairs and festivals, Southside Spirit House, community basketball, and more. Articles Online | Digital Edition

Listings

From the Blogs

Ennui and I

Pen-ek Ratanaruang's 'Thai Dreams' screen at YBCA

04.03.13 - 10:00 am | Cheryl Eddy |
(0)

FILM Thai filmmaker Pen-ek Ratanaruang's international breakthrough, Last Life in the Universe, came out 10 years ago, but its themes of isolation and loneliness still feel very much of the moment. Eternally cool Japanese star Tadanobu Asano plays librarian Kenji, whose Better Off Dead-style existential turmoil leads him to attempt suicide, or at least think long and hard about it, multiple times. Read more »

Conflicted dictator

'The Madness of the Elephant' uses music and dance to chart Guinea's political history

04.02.13 - 5:58 pm | Rita Felciano |
(0)

DANCE "Next door," you are told in the packed Senegalese restaurant in the heart of the Mission. "Back there," you hear, as a hand points in a very dark, very empty bar you enter through an unmarked door. What's "back there"? It's a large space, perhaps formerly used for storage, lit by blinking Christmas tree lights and two blinding spots. You wonder what a former African dictator would have thought about a celebration of his life being created in such circumstances. Read more »

politics

GOP 'dark wizard' and Occupy 'anti-leader' to speak in SF on the same day

04.02.13 - 4:32 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
(45)

This coming Thursday, a central intellectual figure of the Occupy Wall Street movement will give a talk on “Austerity and its Discontents.” And across the city, at the very same time, powerful anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist will mix it up with an elite group of San Francisco Republicans (yes, they really do exist).Read more »

politics

Tree-sitter shot, 70 feet up, by CHP rubber bullet

04.02.13 - 2:21 pm | Tim Redmond |
(55)

Tree-sitting is nothing new. It's happened all over California, going back decades. It's a dangerous, but often effective protest tool that stops logging in its tracks.

Nobody with any official sanction is going to cut down a tree while there's a human perched in it -- and it's been notoriously difficult for the authorities to remove people from platforms high above the forest.

And now, in Mendocino County, police response has entered a new phase.Read more »

noise

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

04.02.13 - 12:47 pm | Emily Savage |
(0)

Is everyone else emotionally and physically exhausted from the Easter/Passover-torrential hailing downpour-April Fool's Day (who can you trust on the Internet?) mess of the last few days? I certainly am, and I only participated in a few of those spiritual debacles.

No mind, I'm ready to strap on my wellies and/or sunglasses and embark on a week of Esben and the Witch, Mac DeMarco, Babysitter, Glam.I.Rock, Portland Cello Project, Future Twin, and Polkacide with Fuxedos.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end: Read more »

noise

Live Shots: Texas is the Reason at Bimbo’s

04.02.13 - 12:11 pm | Haley Zaremba |
(1)
Texas is the Reason at Bimbo's. Photo by Haley Zaremba.
Texas is the Reason at Bimbo's. Photo by Haley Zaremba.
Texas is the Reason at Bimbo's. Photo by Haley Zaremba.
Texas is the Reason at Bimbo's. Photo by Haley Zaremba.
Texas is the Reason at Bimbo's. Photo by Haley Zaremba.

Texas is the Reason’s show at Bimbo’s was not sold out, but it sure seemed packed as I struggled to find a good vantage point on Friday night. When I eventually got a clear view, I saw that the stage was hazily lit by dark blue-purple lights. The amplifiers and drum kit on stage were glowing, heavily draped with white Christmas lights. The visual, in its stark simplicity, was stunning.

This perfect, quiet kickoff was the reassurance I needed to prove that this wouldn’t be the gaudy, overwrought reunion that I had feared, but the graceful, tasteful gathering that I had hoped for. Read more »

politics

Behind the decision to accept cuts to in-home support services

04.02.13 - 10:49 am | Steven T. Jones |
(25)

For the last four years, advocates for those with disabilities have successfully fought to stave off the 20 percent cut in In-Home Support Services that then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had proposed to help balance California's budget, each year winning legal injunctions preventing the cuts while the case wound it way through the federal court system.Read more »

noise

Major Lazer showers the Independent with cash, vuvuzelas, dead memes, and a giant bubble

04.02.13 - 9:38 am | George McIntire |
(1)

It comes as a surprise to me that Diplo didn’t at least have a cameo in Spring Breakers — the film that takes place in his home state of Florida – considering his penchant for egregious hedonism.

His quest for indulgent nirvana was on full display last Thursday at the Independent, when he and his Major Lazer crew lead a 90-minute uber-bash of trap, electro, dancehall, moombahton, and dubstep. Read more »

pixel_vision

Boooooooooooks: 2 spots to buy 'em cheap

04.02.13 - 9:26 am | Caitlin Donohue |
(0)

Since you might be having a hard time finding the funds for your 1. your ticket to Phu Quoc and 2. the Opening Ceremony-Spring Breakers mall trash collection you'll need for those white sand beaches, you should at least let us help you out with the third essential component of your hypothetical spring escape: books!

You'll need them for those hypothetically long hours in the sun, and lucky you, two epic sales are going on shortly so you can save your ducats for neon logo cropped tees and duty-free Toblerones. You might also hit up Adobe Books, which has been served its final eviction notice in the face of incoming yuppie muck *sad face* Read more »

politics

DA’s office makeover may have skirted the rules

04.01.13 - 5:20 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
(25)

In a San Francisco Chronicle article published March 31, District Attorney George Gascon was quoted as saying he would not “even bother to defend” his decision to accept payments and in-kind donations for office furniture, valued at $26,445, from a roster of influential donors.Read more »

politics

The Guardian drone

04.01.13 - 5:03 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
(1)

The Bay Guardian today unveiled a plan to take Bay Area journalism “to the next level,” by offering readers an up-close look at local politics through the use of disruptive, innovative, crowd-sourced, cutting-edge technology that was inspired by the sharing economy. Read more »

politics

Scholarship fund for poor college reject

04.01.13 - 2:49 pm | Tim Redmond |
(17)

The Bay Guardian Family Foundation has announced a special scholarship fundraising program to help Suzy Lee Weiss attend the college of her dreams.

Weiss, who slacked off four four years in High School watching The Real Housewives, revealed her plight in the Wall Street Journal, announcing that the elite schools of the US lied to her.Read more »

politics

Pope announces evolution

04.01.13 - 1:25 pm | Steven T. Jones |
(1)

Reflecting the growing political acceptance of same-sex marriage around the world, Pope Francis has unexpectedly announced that God's position on the issue is “evolving.”

Speaking to reporters in the Vatican following Easter services, the recently installed Pope acknowledged his own personal history of expressing opposition to same-sex marriage as Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio.Read more »

politics

Wiener to star in porn flick

04.01.13 - 12:13 pm | Tim Redmond |
(20)

Supervisor Scott Wiener has signed a contract to star in a new porn film satirizing the city’s ban on nudity.

Variety reports that Wiener accepted a deal “in the mid three figures” to play the fictitious Supervisor Scott Cox in “Cover Up,” a film by the legendary Naked Sword productions.

Wiener replaces porn star Dale Cooper, who has left the film “to pursue other interests.”

The film, shot on location in the Castro, would violate the ban on public nudity that Wiener sponsored – but since the producers obatined permits, Wiener said, wieners are permitted.Read more »

politics

Archbishop announces nuptials

04.01.13 - 11:53 am | Tim Redmond |
(1)

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone announced today that he would wed his longtime lover, Lupe, a tennis pro at the Bay Club.

“It will be a simple ceremony, as befits two humble servants in the eyes of our Lord,” George Wesolek, spokesman for the Archdiocese of  San Francisco, told us. Read more »