Engineer's Daughter

ketchup

Through June 2 - The Office at the San Jose ICA

Through July 8 - Renegade Humor at the San Jose Museum of Art

Recently closed - Jonathan Runcio: Blue Turns to Grey at Ratio 3

Through tonight - C.R.E.A.M. at Art Micro Patronage

Jeremy Novak at Headlands Center for the Arts

Private Collections tour of the Niles/Pereira Collection

Bitter Seeds at the SF International Film Festival

Recently closed - Rapture Ready: Space Planning and Aesthetics at The Popular Workshop

The Secret Life of Mushrooms at Southern Exposure

Recently closed - Leigh Wells: Remains at Gregory Lind Gallery

Recently closed - Robert Arneson: Self-Portraits in Bronze at Brian Gross Fine Art

Through June 24 - Super 8 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Digital Inquiry: Forms of Knowledge in the Age of New Media presented by the Berkeley Center for New Media

I did just move to Oakland, but as you can see I've been up to a few other things besides.  I finally have internet in my new apartment and look forward to getting back to something resembling a reliable blogging pattern.  Here's to fresh starts and clean slates.

ani difranco | the fillmore | 03.27.2012

anticipate
splinter
lag time
promiscuity
present/infant
unworry
life boat
swan dive
coming up
j
reckoning
as is
see see see
if yr not
fire door
{radical feminist poetry interlude}
mariachi
garden of simple
untouchable face
which side are you on?
-----
both hands
overlap

under the covers

The very first mixtape I ever made was for a crush I had in junior high, where I had the tape sitting in my boombox and every time a sappy song came on the radio I would quick hit record and get as much of it as I could.  I genuinely hope to all the gods he never listened to that thing.  As the years went by my technique got a little more refined, and if you've known me for any length of time I've almost certainly made you a mix at some point.  I even think of my radio show as a giant three-hour weekly mix.  So I don't know why it took me two years to finally attend one of the quarterly sessions of the SF Mixtape Society at The Make-Out Room, but I sure had a lot of fun recently when I did.  Everyone who brings a tape (or CD or data stick or whatever) leaves with a stranger's mix as determined by raffle, and the audience and judges also vote on their favorites.  The Make-Out Room provides adult libations while the music geekery abounds.  The theme this time was "Under the Covers" in honor of Valentine's Day, and I put together a CD that traced a relationship from beginning to hopefully-not-end with a few random tunes thrown in for fun.  I'm afraid the CD I received in return took the "covers" part of the theme quite literally and was none too creative with it, but every aspiring mixtape master has to start somewhere I suppose.  I'll hope for better luck next time.

See also:

• San Francisco Mixtape Society

miscellany 12.12.11

Lena Wolff, from her current show at Traywick Contemporary

Stuff and things:

• The 2012 Headlands residents have officially been announced, and holy balls it's going to be a good year out there.  I'm sure most people will notice William Powhida's name on the list, but I'm actually most excited about local peeps like Emma Spertus, Zachary Royer Scholz, Christian Nagler, Dohee Lee, Chinaka Hodge, and more.  Next year is also Headlands' 30th anniversary, and they're promising many new programs and "celebratory moments" throughout the year.  Are you a member yet?
• Scout Niblett was raw female power at the Hemlock last week, hailing down the spirits with her voice.  See her video for "Kiss" with Will Oldham here and then buy her 2001 debut album Sweet Heart Fever if you don't already own it.
• I also highly recommend making an appointment to see Lena Wolff's show Another Country at Traywick Contemporary before it closes this weekend.  Her work references nature and the cosmos, geometry and crafting, and she uses cut paper to mesmerizing effect.  The exhibition space is one of the beautiful in-home galleries the Bay Area does so well, and while you're there also check out the Visitors group show co-curated by Wolff with pieces by the likes of Tammy Rae Carland and Amy Rathbone.  The gallery is conveniently located just off Solano so you can go get a burrito at Cactus afterward too.
• Errol Morris's latest documentary Tabloid is just as entertaining as I had hoped it would be, unfurling the tale of the infamous Joyce McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming who may or may not have kidnapped her Mormon missionary boyfriend, and the hullabaloo she kicked off in the British dailies.  McKinney tells her side of the story, the tabloids tell theirs, and then Morris leaves the viewer to decide where the truth lies.  Of course now McKinney is suing Morris over the film.
• And my live music pick for the upcoming week: the Scott Kelly shows at the New Parish Wednesday 12/14 and at the Brick & Mortar Thursday 12/15.  Jay Munly of Slim Cessna's Auto Club joins him on the bill both nights.

miscellany 12.05.11

Leslie Shows, from her current show at Haines Gallery

I've been taking some time to recover after spending the week of Thanksgiving in Copenhagen, but soon I should have my pictures sorted out and then will do a proper post about the trip besides (sneak peek a video here).  In the meantime I wanted to post a few quick links from some of my recent art and culture intake.

• Leslie Shows: Split Array at Haines Gallery.  Shows is already one of my favorite local artists, and she pushes herself forward into another dimension in this exhibition of new work, creating paintings on reflective metal with complex geological layers.  Next Wednesday 12/14 she and BAM/PFA director Lawrence Rinder will be discussing her work at the gallery.
• Tania Bruguera's Immigrant Movement International.  Bruguera is in the midst of this ongoing project that explores the rights and identity of contemporary immigrants.  She spoke at the Kadist Foundation Wednesday night and encouraged everyone to participate in the actions that are being planned for International Migrants Day on Sunday 12/18.  She was joined by Adriana Camarena, who read from her essay "The Geography of the Unseen" (included in Rebecca Solnit's book Infinite City) as well as from newer stories she has been collecting on the streets of the Mission.
• Thea Farhadian.  I saw Farhadian perform at the Luggage Store New Music Series Thursday night, beautiful looped violin compositions that merged classical Arabic music with noise and electronica.  No upcoming shows are listed on her website, but you can check out some documentation of a collaborative project she did with artist Silvina Der-Meguerditchian here.
• Frances Stark: the whole of all the parts as well as the parts of all the parts at the Mills Art Museum.  Block out an hour and go spend it with Stark's confounding, moving, and very funny video piece, which as it progresses leads you from screen to screen through the length of the whole museum.  Major bonus points for including an homage to Lady Gaga's "Telephone" as well as use of online avatars and chat conversations.  Stark will be speaking at Mills this Wednesday 12/7, and I would wager she'll incorporate PowerPoint somehow.
• Like Crazy.  Drake Doremus gives us a film not so much about how inextinguishable love is but rather about how it would often be better if we just got over it when it ends.  Move the fuck on, embrace real life instead of fantasy.  That's what I took away from it anyway, in between enjoying the scenery shot in London and Santa Monica.

Want more?

• The Headlands First Look party Wednesday 12/7 is going to be killer, cocktails and yummy bites aplenty plus the chance to be the first to hear who next year's residents will be.
• Scout Niblett is in town this week, playing Vitus in Oakland Wednesday 12/7 and the Hemlock in SF Thursday 12/8.
• And if you don't feel like going out: Errol Morris's Tabloid is available to rent from iTunes and Netflix has about a hundred episodes of No Reservations.

eucalyptus quartet

Saturday evening I had that rare opportunity to saunter through the Mission in a dress with no jacket at night it was so warm, all the way up to Noe Valley Ministry for sfSound's last concert of the year.  The program was a really fun one, featuring brand new pieces by sfSoundGroup members John Ingle, Matt Ingalls, and Christopher Burns as well as older compositions by Stefan Wolpe, Iannis Xenakis, and Luciano Berio.  The real treat for me however was Dan Joseph's Eucalyptus Quartet, written a mere month earlier for the sfSoundGroup and performed on clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, violin, and cello.  It is a beautifully layered piece and (as Joseph puts it) "a kind of instrumental version of a mashup audio collage."  Joseph is also a talented performer and sound artist in his own right, his instrument of choice being the hammer dulcimer which he runs through some choice audio processing.  He has a new CD coming out later this year, but in the meantime please enjoy the clips from his Dreams of Seven album embedded above.

See also:

• sfSound
• Dan Joseph

fall open house

 

Michael Dumanis

 

Faye Driscoll

Rikard Fåhraeus

Laurie Frick

Suzanne Husky

Lukasz Jastrubczak

 

Dan Joseph

Ho-Tzu (Son) Ni

Chris Ritson

Amanda Trager & Erik Moskowitz

Andy Vogt

This is just a taste of current and past work by the fall Artists in Residence at Headlands; for more detail please watch the videos above or click on the links.  On a side note: I'm totally still fantasizing about the shells with white cheddar I had for lunch out there Sunday afternoon.  Holy moly.

the unlearning

The Unlearning by Theresa Wong

I've been listening to Theresa Wong's new CD The Unlearning, her first for John Zorn's Tzadik label, pretty much nonstop for the last week or so.  She beautifully bends her cello and her voice around original compositions inspired by Goya's war etchings (a few of which I coincidentally just saw in Chicago) accompanied by the always-amazing Carla Kihlstedt.  The two women's voices alternately blend and fray, and Kihlstedt contributes her virtuosity on the violin to help create a sparse and unsettling environs that evokes the Hannah Arendt quote inside the CD booklet: "Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent."  It is my fervent hope that Wong and Kihlstedt will at some point perform this suite in its entirety somewhere in the Bay Area, even though I know they're both busy working on a million other projects.

See also:

• Theresa Wong
• Tzadik
  

agenda 10.04.11

Thursday, October 6:

• Fast in Solidarity with Prisoner Hunger Strike + 10/7 Rallies
• San Francisco Olympians Festival II: Heavenly Bodies at The Exit Theater

Friday, October 7:

• Art Walk Featuring: Brice Bischoff, Tabitha Soren, Ellen Black at Johansson Projects
• Random Rotations at Berkeley Art Museum
• Time: Opening Reception at The Lab
• Heller, Curtains, War Of Aggression, Assumptions, Dead Set at 924 Gilman
• 120 Minutes: Sleep∞Over (Live) w/ S4NtA_MU3rTE, GuMMy†BeAR, Nako at the Elbo Room

Saturday, October 8:

• “Don’t Be Upset—I’m Only Crying in English” - Kevin Killian & Ajit Chauhan at Sight School
• Nuclear Rabbit at 924 Gilman

Sunday, October 9:

• Make Art with Veronica de Jesus at the Berkeley Art Museum

Monday, October 10:

• Monday Night Live at East Nile

agenda 09.28.11

Thursday, September 29:

• Retromania: Simon Reynolds In Conversation With The Alps' Scott Hewicker at The Booksmith
• Unwoman: Uncovered Live Show and Release Party at the Uptown

Friday, September 30:

• Gutwrench, Fukm, Spracta Snut Skallar, Mental Disaster, Skin & Bonez at 924 Gilman
• Nun Un / Hole In My Head / T.I.T.S. / Swimsuit Issue at LoBot Gallery
• International Freakout A Gogo at First Church of the Buzzard

Saturday, October 1:

• Bar-B-Q, Beer, Birthdays, Bands & Bass at East Nile
• Bum City Saints, Chump Change, Decent Criminals, Otro Desperdicio, Corporate Cancer & Moderate Excess at 924 Gilman
• 10.01.11 at Terminal
• Saturday Night Soul Party at the Elbo Room

Sunday, October 2:

• Paul Baribeau, Acid Fast, Joyride at 924 Gilman

Monday, October 3:

• In Mind and Memory Symposium on Artistic Research at 102 Wurster Hall

Tuesday, October 4:

• Deep Teens// No Babies// Uzi Rash// Whitman (LA) at Jam City