Engineer's Daughter

input july 2020

Books

The Three-Body Problem - Cixin Liu

I Don't Want to Die Poor - Michael Arceneaux

 

Movies

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - Joel and Ethan Coen

Tangerine - Sean Baker

The Vast of Night - Andrew Patterson

Between the Lines - Joan Micklin Silver

Hamilton - Thomas Kail

Frida - Julie Taymor

You Are Not I - Sara Driver

Sleepwalk - Sara Driver

When Pigs Fly - Sara Driver

The Bowery - Sara Driver

 

Streaming

Never Have I Ever

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

 

Virtual Theater

Lungs at the Old Vic

Les Blancs at the National Theatre

The Line at Public Theater

input june 2020

Books

I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz - Eve Babitz

The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life - Andrew Blauner, editor

Out of My Head: On the Trail of Consciousness - Tim Parks

Margery Kempe - Robert Glück

Marrow and Bone - Walter Kempowski

 

Movies

Dolemite - D'Urville Martin

The Watermelon Woman - Cheryl Dunye

The Owls - Cheryl Dunye

Pan's Labyrinth - Guillermo del Toro

Minding the Gap - Bing Liu

The Handmaiden - Park Chan-wook

But I'm a Cheerleader - Jamie Babbit

Return to Oz - Walter Murch

Mudbound - Dee Rees

Empty Suitcases - Bette Gordon

Variety - Bette Gordon

Luminous Motion - Bette Gordon

Apollo 11 - Todd Douglas Miller

Embrace of the Serpent - Ciro Guerra

Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson

20th Century Women - Mike Mills

Beach Rats - Eliza Hittman

The Central Park Five - Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon

Olivia - Jacqueline Audry

 

Streaming

Gentefied

The Midnight Gospel

Dark

 

Virtual Theater

Anno Domino at Stephen Joseph Theatre

State vs Natasha Banina at Arlekin Players Theater

Tartuffe at Moliere in the Park

input may 2020

Books

Stalingrad - Vasily Grossman

The Criminal Child: Selected Essays - Jean Genet

 

Movies

Booksmart - Olivia Wilde

Wadjda - Haifaa al-Mansour

Amazing Grace - Sydney Pollack, Alan Elliott

Down in the Delta - Maya Angelou

Avengers: Endgame - Joe Russo, Anthony Russo

It Felt Like Love - Eliza Hittman

Burning - Lee Chang-dong

Peppermint Soda - Diane Kurys

Entre nous - Diane Kurys

Children of the Century - Diane Kurys

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum - Chad Stahelski

Lovely & Amazing - Nicole Holofcener

Friends with Money - Nicole Holofcener

Please Give - Nicole Holofcener

 

Streaming

Hollywood

Upload

The Eddy

Spaceship Earth

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Homecoming

input april 2020

Books

The Corner That Held Them - Sylvia Townsend Warner

The Art of War - Sun Tzu, translated by Michael Nylan

 

Movies

The Last Black Man in San Francisco - Joe Talbot

Europa Europa - Agnieszka Holland

Meeting Gorbachev - Werner Herzog & André Singer

I Am Not a Witch - Rungano Nyoni

Rocketman - Dexter Fletcher

The Fits - Anna Rose Holmer

The Other Side - Roberto Minervini

Mikey and Nicky - Elaine May

 

Streaming

Risky Business

Tales from the Loop

Les Misérables

Brews Brothers

Run

The Innocence Files

Too Hot to Handle

We're Here

Defending Jacob

Never Have I Ever

input march 2020

Art

No More I Love Yous at Creative Growth

Feminizing Permanence at St. Mary's College Museum of Art

No Part Left Out at Interface Gallery

CTRL+SHFT Members Pop-Up Show at CTRL+SHFT Collective

 

Books

Cane - Jean Toomer

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne - Brian Moore

In a Lonely Place - Dorothy B. Hughes

Machines in the Head: Selected Stories - Anna Kavan

 

Food and Drink

De Afghanan Kabob House

 

Hikes

George Miller Regional Trail at Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline

Point Pinole/Cooks Point/Marsh/Owl Alley/China Cove/Pinole Point/Bay View Trails at Point Pinole Regional Shoreline

 

Movies

Charlie Says - Mary Harron

Holy Smoke - Jane Campion

In the Cut - Jane Campion

Fat Girl - Catherine Breillat

Daughters of the Dust - Julie Dash

The Hole in the Ground - Lee Cronin

Mustang - Deniz Gamze Ergüven

Border Radio - Allison Anders, Dean Lent, and Kurt Voss

The Biggest Little Farm - John Chester

Gas Food Lodging - Allison Anders

5 short films by Mati Diop - Atlantiques, Snow Canon, Big in Vietnam, A Thousand Suns, Liberian Boy

Too Late to Die Young - Dominga Sotomayor

Pokémon Detective Pikachu - Rob Letterman

Orlando - Sally Potter

The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy - Kathleen Collins

Losing Ground - Kathleen Collins

Robin and Marian - Richard Lester

Women of the Resistance - Liliana Cavani

The Night Porter - Liliana Cavani

The Skin - Liliana Cavani

 

Performance

Ethan Philbrick: 10 Meditations in an Emergency at BAMPFA

 

Theater

Gloria at A.C.T.'s Strand

input february 2020

Art

Rashaad Newsome: To Be Real at SFAI Fort Mason Campus

Jamil Hellu: Together at SF Camerawork

Simon Denny: Security Through Obscurity at Altman Siegel

Orlando at McEvoy Foundation for the Arts

女 Nǚ: Other Half of The Sky at B4BEL4B

Harvest the crust from your eyes at /

Life Hacks (and Other Embodied Technologies) at Telematic

Anthony Discenza: No 3: Variations at Et al.

Tomorrow Is Already Here at Headlands

Don't Shoot: An Opus of the Opulence of Blackness at MoAD

Lydia Ourahmane: صرخة شمسية Solar Cry at the Wattis

Lindsey White at Premiere Jr.

Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI at the de Young

Sean McFarland: 4.5 billion years a lifetime at Casemore Kirkeby

Terry Berlier: I am what I am not yet at Stanford Art Gallery

 

Books

Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny - Edward J. Watts

Green - Sam Graham-Felsen

Short Letter, Long Farewell - Peter Handke

The Word of the Speechless - Julio Ramón Ribeyro

Doppelgänger - Daša Drndić

 

Food and Drink

That's My Jam

 

Hikes

Sobrante Ridge/Manzanita/Manzanita Loop/Sobrante Ridge at Sobrante Ridge Botanic Regional Preserve

Antioch Community Park/East Shore/West Shore/Ridge/Lake View Trails at Contra Loma Regional Park

 

Movies

Shazam! - David Sandberg

She-Devil - Susan Seidelman

The Taste of Others - Agnès Jaoui

Look at Me - Agnès Jaoui

The Souvenir - Joanna Hogg

Songs My Brothers Taught Me - Chloé Zhao

Two Friends - Jane Campion

Sweetie - Jane Campion

Missing Link - Chris Butler

An Angel at My Table - Jane Campion

The Piano - Jane Campion

The Portrait of a Lady - Jane Campion

Shadow - Zhang Yimou

 

Music

Ani DiFranco and Jesca Hoop at the Rio

 

Talks

Vietnamese Women Writers of the Diaspora: She Who Has No Masters at the Asian Art Museum

Trinh T. Minh-ha and Isaac Julien at the Wattis

Sadie Barnette at the de Young

 

Theater

Macbeth at Ubuntu

Gatz at Berkeley Rep

input january 2020

Art

Lisa Reihana: in Pursuit of Venus [infected] at the de Young

Chanell Stone: Natura Negra at MoAD

Negative Capabilities at Bass & Reiner

Leilah Babirye: Gwe Is Ye Nze, Lekka Mbele Nze (You Are Not Me, Let Me Be Me) at Rebecca Camacho Presents

 

Books

A King Alone - Jean Giono

Solar Bones - Mike McCormack

Agathe; or, The Forgotten Sister - Robert Musil

Rock, Paper, Scissors: And Other Stories - Maxim Osipov

Black No More - George Schuyler

 

Hikes

Stream View Trail/Red Tail Hawk Trail/Grey Fox Trail at Bishop Ranch Regional Open Space

 

Movies

Water Lilies - Céline Sciamma

Hail Satan? - Penny Lane

Tomboy - Céline Sciamma

Girlhood - Céline Sciamma

The Juniper Tree - Nietzchka Keene

Dumbo - Tim Burton

Who's That Knocking at My Door - Martin Scorsese

Smithereens - Susan Seidelman

Desperately Seeking Susan - Susan Seidelman

Cookie - Susan Seidelman

Long Shot - Jonathan Levine

 

Music

Charles Amirkhanian at the David Brower Center

Jennifer Koh/Vijay Iyer/Tyshawn Sorey at the Herbst

 

Talks

Lily Sloane – A Shelter for the Psyche & tamara suarez porras – eclipsis, or a line of totality: the solar eclipses of 1979, 2017, and 2024 at the Prelinger Library

 

Theater

Noura at MTC

How to Transcend a Happy Marriage at Custom Made

 

Travel

Death Valley

the week that was

Things worth sharing:

1. Helen Thorpe spends a year in a Denver classroom with students learning English as a second language in her remarkable book The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in America, and she paints a vivid picture of the United States I still believe in, where we welcome and support the weary.
2. Rose B. Simpson's sculptures are already magical as individual pieces and only grow more powerful in the pairings and groupings in her current show at Jessica Silverman.
3. Speaking of pairings, Drew Heitzler finishes up his year curating two-person shows at slash with a fascinating juxtaposition of Kota Ezawa's Merzbau wallpaper with a capsule of irradiated seeds Sean Raspet will plant in Michigan. Forests of the past, forests to be.
4. Kimberley Acebo Arteche uses technology to beautiful effect to explore her Filipina heritage in the curved body of a pixel, currently on display at Incline Gallery.
5. Craving tea leaf salad or paratha whilst in Noe Valley? Inle Burmese will sort you out, deliciously.
6. Anything at the Recombinant Festival is always worth checking out, and this year they outdid themselves by bringing in Morton Subotnick for a live performance of "Silver Apples of the Moon" with accompanying visuals by Lillevan. I tuned in, I blissed out.
7. Julien Faraut's film John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection is more New Wave punk poem than strict documentary, but any movie that bookends its soundtrack with Sonic Youth and Black Flag is going to be all right by me.
8. I've also been enjoying a surreal journey through the animations of Suzan Pitt thanks to the Criterion Channel. See also this essay about her work by Haden Guest.
9. Stephanie Syjuco gave a great lecture at Mills Wednesday evening on the politics of imaging and representation, and how she's been addressing said topics in her work. Always always love hearing what she's up to.

the week that was

Things worth sharing:

1. Anyone who has read King Leopold's Ghost knows that Adam Hochschild excels at making even the most difficult and tragic events of history eminently readable, and his superb essay collection Lessons from a Dark Time illuminates some dark corners indeed but covers some hopeful subjects as well. Related, from The New Yorker: When America Tried to Deport Its Radicals.
2. For the collaborative show How To Fall In Love In A Brothel by Sunhui Chang, Ellen Sebastian Chang, and Maya Gurantz currently on display at Catharine Clark, the viewer is invited to engage with the exhibition at the level of intimacy that feels right to you. Watch a video in the media room, poke a hole in the shoji screens that form the central gallery installation, or schedule an "intimacy hour" to spend time inside said installation.
3. Guerrero Gallery is filled to bursting right now with art from three very exciting local artists: photography from Marcela Pardoa Ariza, paintings and installations from Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, and paintings and sculptural work from Troy Chew.
4. Saturday evening I was at ODC for Signals from the West, a breathtaking amalgam of dance, video and performance art, sound, and more, envisioned by curators Claudia La Rocco, Hope Mohr, and Julie Potter. From their program intro: "Signals from the West is a multi-disciplinary conversation within the international celebration of the Merce Cunningham centennial. We invited ten Bay Area artists from the visual, literary, and performing arts to be in workshop with each other and with the choreographers and former Cunningham dancers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener: an experiment for everyone." More experiments like this please!
5. Meanwhile back in Oakland, more excellent curation last weekend in the form of the film program Unruly Alliances organized by Amanda Nudelman and Rosa Tyhurst at Royal NoneSuch. I caught a screening Sunday afternoon that featured work by Patrick Staff, Connie Zheng, and Yetunde Olagbaju, and the group discussion afterward with Zheng and Olagbaju gave me much food for thought. Much love and restful energizing thoughts to Royal NoneSuch too as they close for a year-long sabbatical.
6. High Life (aka Robert Pattinson in Space) is not without its flaws, but personally I love it when Claire Denis fucks with my head. Other positives include solid black hole science, a spaceship designed by Olafur Eliasson, and a Tindersticks soundtrack.
7. I also did a rewatch of Clio Barnard's fascinating 2010 film The Arbor, in which actors lip-sync to interviews with friends and family of playwright Andrea Dunbar alongside newsreel footage and stagings of Dunbar's work.
8. And if you can squeeze a play into your busy schedule today or tomorrow, I highly highly recommend Nassim at Magic. Just don't read too much about it ahead of time, all of the fun is in the discovery.

the week that was

Things worth sharing:

1. If you haven't already read Jan Morris's "travel" book Hav boy are you in for a mind-bending treat, and I also highly recommend Conundrum, her account of her transition, originally published in 1974(!).
2. Taro Hattori worked with a whole host of collaborators for his current show at Kala, Exinclusivity - Space of Inclusion, creating an immersive experience in the gallery that makes (literal) space for stories of migration.
3. Meanwhile Creative Growth also has a spectacular show in its gallery right now, Meeting Places: Mangkaja and Creative Growth, that juxtaposes Creative Growth artists with Aboriginal artists from Western Australia. Their upcoming Holiday Studio Sale is always a must-shop as well.
4. OMCA is running a series of community conversations as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations, and the first one on Saturday afternoon featured inspiring thoughts from local heroes musician/activist/filmmaker Boots Riley, animator Rosana Sullivan, and CAAMFest's Stephen Gong. Related: Sullivan's short film "Kitbull" is one of the best animated works I've ever seen, and I'm not just saying that because it features a black cat.
5. Christian Petzold creates a world unfamiliar and at the same time way too familiar in Transit, a film based a 1942 novel by Anna Seghers but set in present-day France. Also: read Seghers's extraordinary novel The Seventh Cross, which captures how terrifying it must have been to live in Nazi Germany.
6. Oakland's own CTRL+SHFT Collective once again shows the work that needs to be seen in their current group exhibition Black and brown bodies will forever dream & exist, featuring art by Sequoya Akosua Lee, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Samantha Maria Xochitl Espinoza and Malaya Tuyay.
7. After another week of "planned" Bay Area blackouts it was restorative to visit Headlands on Sunday afternoon for the close of the 2019 season, and to see beautiful work by Anna Fitch & Banker White and Kelly Akashi. Already looking forward to 2020.
8. Ana Lily Amanpour's stylish 2014 debut film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was shot in black-and-white in Bakersfield but all of the characters speak Persian, including the titular character who also happens to be a chador-wearing skateboard-riding vampire. Absolutely perfect for the end of spooky season.
9. Happiness on a cold SF night is a hot pizza pie from Square Pie Guys in SOMA. Save some room for the monkey bread for dessert too.