Arts+Events: October 2009 Archives

      

It's that time of year, when creepy kids (and a few scary adults) invade Belvedere Street in Cole Valley and show those amateurs who used to haunt the Castro how it's really done. Or as one wag put it: "It's Burning Man for kids." But whatever comparisons you want to make, it's a lot of fun. A few highlights above and more pictures here.

DRAG: Trannyshack and Midnight Mass host Halloween: A Party, starring Heklina as "Dracula" and Peaches Christ as "Tran Hesling," with a special performance by guest star Jackie Beat and a whole line-up of other performers, including a midnight drag show by the darkest divas of Trannyshack. There will also be a costume contest judged by a celebrity panel.

What do you get when a liberal, obviously embittered playwright sets out amidst the second term of the second Bush Administration to write a political satire about a conservative, buffoon-ish, sitting president whose poll numbers rival "Ghandi's cholesterol numbers" and a lesbian speech writer who wants to marry her partner? You get "November," an already dated-feeling and minor play by the whip-smart David Mamet that plays for mostly cheap laughs and a handful of clever one-liners. [Spoiler alert: We're now going to reveal several of the play's plot points.]

LIT: It's another installment of Muni-inspired entertainment at Muni Diaries Live! Under the Influence, with BART tales added to the mix, too. Entertainment includes the Cock-Ts, Shane Papatolicas, the winning Muni Erotic fiction post, and more. Prizes from Muni Shirts and Routesy will be given away. Costumes encouraged!

If crowded bars and flashmobs aren't your thing, check out this short list of fun events taking place on Saturday, brought to us by FuncheapSF. FuncheapSF also recommends perusing Haunted Bay for even more Halloween activities.

FOOD: Local street cart chefs will discuss their food, their big plans, their permit status and how the new street-eats scene is changing ideas about dining out during the Commonwealth Club's The Street Food Movement: SF Hearts the Cart discussion. There will also be an after-party at 111 Minna, where limited samples will be offered by Bacon Potato Chips, Bike Basket Pies, Creme Brulee Cart, Gobba Gobba Hey, Magic Curry Kart, Mission Street Food, Soul Cocina, Sweet Constructions, and Smitten Ice Cream.

THEATER: It's the first night of Ghosts of the River at Brava Theater, which runs through November 8. Incorporating actors, shadow puppets, and music with the epic writing of Octavio Solís, the play presents vignettes of those who have encountered the Rio Grande throughout time, from both sides of the divide. The performance will be bilingual with Spanish/English translation provided through subtitles.

Russian violin superstar Vadim Repin chatted with us from Helsinki, quite appropriately, since he'll perform the violin concerto from Finnish composer Jean Sibelius this week with the San Francisco Symphony. He'll partner with another Finn, conductor Osmo Vänskä, who came a week earlier, and already garnered rave reviews for his lead in Tchaikovsky and Bruckner.

No, not this. Nor this. And certainly not this.

Thursday is the final installment of this season's Matcha series at the Asian Art Museum, and the theme is Thai River Festival, a very special Loi Krathong celebration.

FASHION: Witness a live, Project Runway-type fashion show at the ongoing Fashion Feud SF. Designers will create their "garments" on stage within an hour, the models will have a "walk-off," and the audience will vote for the winner. This month's participants are Chanel Rosales and Julia Meeks.

WALKING TOUR: It's that time of year again! It's the annual Ghost Walk at City Hall. Learn all about the "disinterred remains, assassinations, and other ghostly lore" surrounding city hall. If you can't make tonight's walk, there's also the Ghost Walk at The Palace on the 30th and the Ghosts, Sinners and Secret Places on the 31st.

This week's concert preview is being brought to you by Kevin Meenan of Epicsauce, providing detailed concert listings for the Bay Area every week. Follow them on Twitter.

THEATER: There are two more preview nights for David Mamet's over-the-top comedy, November, which takes a satirical stab at American politics. The play was a Broadway success, and critics describe it as "one of the first breezy and intelligent comedies of substance we've seen in a long time" and "a hilarious, timely, decidedly un-Mamet-like laughfest." The play officially opens on Wednesday, and there are several nights this week with $10 seats available, including tonight. What a deal!

ART: Women's Art Movement (W.A.M.) explores the scary and sweet sides of pop-surrealism in their latest group show, Dollhouse Monsters invade Polk Gulch. The participating artists of W.A.M. will be disguised in pre-Halloween costumes for the festivities, and encourage attendees to dress in costume as well. Everyone who stops by the gallery will be entered in a costume contest to win an iPod. The exhibition runs through November 7.

Saturday marks the SOMA/downtown installment of SF Open Studios. All of the open galleries will be in the Eastern SOMA/Yerbua Buena area near SF MOMA -- the Yerba Buena neighborhood, if you will. Fourteen art galleries in the hood will open their doors for free art and free refreshments. Contemporary, emerging, and established artists will be featured at these galleries:

ART: It's the first annual Passport, in which the SF Arts Commission invites the public to stroll through one of San Francisco’s neighborhoods to create their own limited edition art book by collecting “passport stamps” made by local artists. This year's featured event is located in the Mission. Tonight is the Kick-Off Party, and the main event is tomorrow from Noon to 4 p.m., with Mission Playground as home base, Valencia between 19th & 20th. (Passports for tomorrow's event are $25 and are available for purchase at various locations. Check the SF Arts Commission Gallery's site for more info.) Tonight's Kick-Off Party will feature live music by The Old Fashioned Way and tunes by DJ Sharbaugh.

MUSIC: The eccentric, musical genius of Daniel Johnston takes some getting used to, but his sincerely sweet and simple vocals and arrangements win his fans over for life. The melodic Hymns open.

Something called "Take Back Halloween: Part One" will go down at the Embarcadero this year. Brought to you by the same folks behind FlashDance and Black Rock Roller Disco, the All Hallow's Eve party is, we assume, a non-city-sanctioned event, thus it should promise to be a fun one. (Though, this could be a clever ruse by the city to get people to a locale other than the Castro. Hm. Crafty.)

Fans of the Star Wars prequels can get their pictures taken with some Clone Troopers tomorrow at Parkmerced from 4 to 7 p.m. The first 500 guests will get free prints of their pictures, and the first 50 people to arrive in costume and sign up for the Costume Contest will win free lightsabers. There will also be a raffle for Star Wars giveaways.

COMEDY: Margot Leitman and Giulia Rozzi present Stripped Stories, a touring night of sex-themed stories. Each show features a comedian, a non-comedian, and a musical act revealing hysterically honest stories about their sex lives plus an interactive jaw-dropping game of "never-have-I-ever" and an audience interview. Tonight's line-up is Chris Garcia (SF Sketchfest, The Onion Comedy Series), Sara Faith Alterman (Author, My Fifteen Minutes, Rooftop Comedy), and music from Mark Silverman (NPR, Dr. Demento)

Hmm. We're not sure where most of you stand on Lady Gaga. Many of you claim to loathe her, some of you secretly love her. Why, it was just a few months ago in March that she was performing at Mezzanine and 715 Harrison. Now she's canceling her tour with Kanye West, wearing bubbles, and hanging out with Madonna.

              

As many an art theory professor will tell you, painting is dead. Everything that one can do with paint on canvas or a wall, arguably, has been done. But maybe that's not so with the glorious art of sidewalk tagging. Freshly dumped and smoothed concrete has the power to release creative juices in the unlikeliest of passersby. See, you can't just approach the sidewalk with a sharpie with your teen buddies in the wee hours of the night and start going at it. No, with cement engravinig, if you will, being nimble and cunning is a must -- qualities most modern graffiti artists don't possess.

Once more of a locals/dyke bar -- though "Mango" still keeps the ladies coming (and coming) in droves -- over the years El Rio has turned into a popular spot for the PRB-swilling set who flock there night after night to see choice local bands and DJs ease them into the wee hours of the morning. Tonight, El Rio 31 years of keeping the Mission alive and thumping. The place will get packed quickly, so you might want to head over there, like, now. Right now.

MUSIC: The 27th Annual Jazz Festival presents living jazz legend Omara Portuondo. Portuondo, who is dubbed the “la novia del filin” (fiancée of feeling), will perform the romantic Afro-Cuban boleros and Brazilian-inspired jazz that first made her a star six decades ago, which are featured on her latest release, Gracias.

This is another NSFV (Not Safe for Vegans) post, so consider yourselves warned. SF Weekly food blogger Meredith Brody snapped the pic at right of a whole steer that spit roasted and then butchered before an audience at a event Saturday night celebrating a week of events at the museum focusing on Futurism. We, ourselves, are simultaneously grossed out and drooling over the photo and this write-up by Brody, which describes how the meat slices were sent onto a conveyor belt around the room, slathered in mole, and served atop Tartine bread along with a bunch of yummy cocktails.

The SF Opera production of La Fille du Regiment definitively put to rest the notion that opera is not the proper format for comedy: who needs agonizing arias when you can get a wild, fun party. We do not recall have laughed that much in an opera house, ever.

by Amy Crocker

Hurry, tonight's event is sold out, but tickets to tomorrow night's edition of w00tstock at Cafe Du Nord are still available (as of this posting). W00tstock is a special event for geeks of every stripe, celebrating the dawning of the Age of Geekdom.

FILM: SF DocFest is going strong! Waiting for Hockney profiles Baltimore artist Billy Pappas, who has spent the past eight and a half years creating a portrait that requires drawing for seven hours a day using a 20x magnifying glass. Now that the masterpiece is finally completed, Pappas is on a mission to find reclusive modern artist David Hockney, the one person whom Pappas believes can justify his decade of work.

                                          

Saturday was sunny and electronic; Sunday was chilly and leaned more toward back-to-basics rock. Also thrown in was some gypsy music, hip-hop, and whatever you want to call this new rock operetta thing The Decemberists can't keep themselves from playing, as well as several cupcake hovercrafts, and a steampunk sideshow with old-timey games hosted by Mister Gnogiurzauchshoff's Traveling Midway of Curiosities and Delights. And both days sold out! Weather shifts aside, the Treasure Island Music Fest was once again the swellest and most human-scaled festival we've ever been to -- and as Thao, she of the Get Down Stay Down, put it, it's simply "the bestival."

This SFist weekly concert preview is brought to you by Kevin Meenan of Epicsauce. Rely on Epicsauce for concert listing updates, and follow them on Twitter.

MUSIC: Enjoy a night of hypnotic post-punk at the Hemlock. Lumerians' "other-worldly synthesizers layer amidst ambient post-rock stretches" and Grass Widow "braids apparitional vocals over distorted post-punk riffs." Clipd Beaks opens.

           

The 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake was also the 10th anniversary of Litquake's Lit Crawl through the Mission. Here are a few pictures from the festivities, with more here.

ART: Southern Exposure is celebrating their new location Grand Opening and Inaugural Exhibition, Bellwether, "multi-layered speculative projections on our ever shifting and uncertain future." Projects include a time capsule triptych, a large-scale installation of a flood in stasis, an electric camper pod, and more.

This heads-up comes to SFist directly via Johnny Funcheap himself. Seventy-four artists have collaborated to create sixteen site-specific art installations throughout the Tenderloin District (from Geary to Market, Larkin to Mason) in the month-long Wonderland exhibition.

La Liberazione di Ruggiero is arguably the first opera written by a woman, and features strong feminist themes and a challenge to patriarchal society, but honestly, they had us at Puppet Opera. And not just any kind of puppets: three foot tall, forty pound puppets from Sicily, getting into sword fights and romance. It is actually quite common that your opera singers act stiff and wooden, and these puppets are no exception.

Put on your Spidey-suit, it’s time to get nerdy! The Alternative Press Expo will be held this weekend the Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco.

ART: Artist Jacqueline Gordon's solo work, Our Best Machines are Made of Sunshine, merges contemporary folk aesthetics with the emergent technology of sound imaging, exploring patterns recurrent in nature and collected sounds "synthesized to create inhabitable sculptures that alter one’s physical experience to evoke feelings of intimacy and connectedness or confinement and isolation."

In addition to marking the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta quake, Saturday also marks the annual Litquake Lit Crawl, a three-phase bar crawl through the Mission featuring a great many writer types reading while others listen and drink. Herewith, we give you a few highlights to check out, assuming you won't be checking out the headliners who'll be going on right about then at Treasure Island.

NYC-based band The Walkmen will be playing at 6:20 p.m. on Sunday of the Treasure Island Music Fest (see our preview here), and this rather dark song, "On the Water," is off their 2008 release "You and Me," and they are currently working on their sixth studio album. The video was directed by Nir Ben Jacob.

ART: The LightHouse and the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery's Art at City Hall program present Insights 2009: 20 Years of Creative Vision, an exhibition of 118 works in a variety of media by 38 blind and visually impaired artists. A free audio tour with voiceovers provided by local celebrities accompanies the show, as well as Braille and large print versions of all Insights materials.

If you see local photog of note Troy Holden (formerly Plug1) walking around the streets of San Francisco with his camera, you might be $2 richer. He's started something called The $2 Portrait Project. In his words, he explains just what it is:

It's the music fest that all the hip kids and true indie and indie-ish music fans have been waiting all year for, and it's finally here. The two-day long Treasure Island Music Festival kicks off on Saturday, and the line-up is pretty swell -- with the likes of Passion Pit, The Streets, Girl Talk, Brazilian Girls and MGMT on Saturday; and Grizzly Bear, Beirut, The Decemberists, The Walkmen, Yo La Tengo, and The Flaming Lips on Sunday. ALSO, the 12-2pm slots both days are filled with fun local acts like Murs, The Limousines, Crown City Rockers, Sleepy Sun, and Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, so show up early and represent.

It's time for all you non-fiction junkies out there to get your fix. The 8th Annual SF DocFest, "the film festival that provides a manageable amount of the truth," will showcase over 50 documentaries from around the world. The fest starts Friday and runs through October 29 at Roxie Theater. All tickets are $11, and DocPasses can be purchased for $180.

Tomorrow evening, October 15, SF Weekly will hold their annual music award bash, honoring local artists for their aural talent in 10 distinct categories -- rap/hip hop, dance/electronic, international, soul/R&B/funk, indie rock/pop, metal/psych funk, jazz/blues, experimental, alt-country/folk, and club night.

One of the local acts we're most looking forward to seeing at this weekend's Treasure Island Music Festival (one-day and two-day passes still available!) is Thao with the Get Down Stay Down. They're playing on Sunday at 1:15 p.m., and know this fest that should be a nice, mellow time to plop down your blanket and enjoy the music before the whole crowd pour over the bridge. This cute video for 2008's "Bag of Hammers," has some nice shots of SF, and the song reminds us a bit of Rickie Lee Jones, no?

LAUNCH PARTY: Who says print is dead? We Still Like is defying this statement by releasing their very first issue, Manifesto Destiny, a manifesto-themed collection of prose, poetry, reviews, rants, and raves. The celebratory event will feature soapbox-style pontificating, manifesto-ing, and poem-ing by writers featured in the current issue. Then attendees will be invited to take a test drive in the patented Hyperbolic Chamber, outfitted to encourage all their grandiose statements and wildest dreams, courtesy of Bradford Earle.

BENEFIT: Bay Area poets and musicians will join together for The Monica Storss Benefit and Silent Auction to help Storss, who is uninsured, pay for the expensive new chemotherapy she needs to fight her terrible autoimmune disease.

FILM: Check out a night of handmade personal cinema at Luminous Triptych. Angelina Krahn sews onto the surface of the film in order cover up and obscure images of her own body, Karen Johannesen uses masterful editing and single-framing techniques as a study in quantum mechanics, and Rick Bahto’s utilizes in-camera edited works to capture the people and places of his everyday life.

Once again, this week's concert preview is being dutifully provided to you by Kevin Meenan of Epicsauce, on which you should rely for your Bay Area concert listings. Always.

THEATER: A new production of the Pulitzer and Tony Award Winning play The Heidi Chronicles is back at Custom Made through October 24. Heidi Holland, a successful art historian and essayist, "is driven to find joy and satisfaction, but always on her terms, trying to maintain what makes her a person as others try to make her what they want her to be."

We enjoyed two performances at SF Opera, the 2nd cast of Il Trovatore in the last performance of that run, and Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio, which continues for three more performances.

COMICS: Shitty Kitty is still abroad, but Telephone & Soup will be showcasing their latest Shitty Kitty work at Mission: Comics, which was inspired by their recent relocation to Rabat, Morocco. There will be an after-party at Shotwell's Bar immediately following the show, where Telephone & Soup will be video skyping in from Morocco.

A few concerts for the week-end: Stanford Lively Arts presents the West Coast premiere of Uri Caine's The Othello Syndrome, based upon Verdi's opera Othello. We have tried to get into Uri's reinterpretation of Gustav Mahler, and we admit we struggled. But we're sure it's better live, and we appreciate effort to bring in new life and new audiences to Verdi. And when your singers are named Josefine and Bunny, it can't go wrong.

The annual week-long Litquake festival starts tonight, featuring a daunting line-up of events. Below is a list of our picks featuring one event per day (otherwise this post would take us all weekend). Check out SF Weekly, SF Appeal, and Mercury News for their highlights.

SF ARTS COMMISSION GALLERY: Recipients of the 2009 Murphy and Cadogan Fellowships in the Fine Arts will showcase their recent works in Immediate Future, the SFAC Gallery's biggest event of the year. The exhibition provides Bay Area MFA students with an opportunity to share what they have been developing in their studios with a wider audience. Media represented in the exhibition include drawing, film & video, installation, mixed media, painting, fiber art, performance art and photography. The exhibition runs through December 12.

The recent hate crime legislation coincides with the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death after he was robbed and beaten outside of Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998.

ART: For their new Echo exhibit, Frey Norris Gallery suggested a painting or sculpture by eight important Surrealists to eight Bay Area artists, asking them to respond or invent a piece around the "resonances between their own interests and the content and ideas in the historical piece," which will be paired together in the gallery. A wide range of objects, including paintings, drawings and mixed media sculptures will be included in the exhibition.

And this time, it’s with original Broadway cast member Gwen Stewart, the Seasons of Love soloist who belts out that ridiculously high note at the end of said song. Oh, and Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp also reprise their OBC roles as Roger and Mark, respectively. While these two are heralded as the stars of the show - and yes, they do deliver with the electric performances that helped to turn RENT into the most exciting Broadway production 13 years ago - this incarnation of the show, as is always the case, finds its strength in the ensemble.

This weekend 's event will be located in the Bernal Heights, Castro, Duboce, Eureka Valley, Glen Park, Mission, Noe Valley, and Portola neighborhoods, and each of the next three weekends will take place in a different geographic location. Download the Weekend 1 map, and hit the pavement Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

FILM: Punk at the library? Who would've thought. As part of their ongoing exhibit, Punk Passage: San Francisco First Wave Punk 1977-1981, the SF Public Library will screen three films celebrating San Francisco's legendary early punk scene: Louder, Faster, Shorter, Deaf/Punk, and Insect Lounge Sally RemiX 1978. An audience Q & A with filmmaker Mindy Bagdon and photographer Ruby Ray will follow the screening.

FILM: Filmmaker Ken Jacobs is making a rare Bay Area appearance to present Shocked by Existence, a series of his new works in digital video format, some of which feature animated stereographs of family and friends, as well as improvised performance, experimental narrative, personal documentary, and found footage. The screening will also include Jacobs' small-gauge “chamber works” -- his term for the 8mm and 16mm shorts he made in the '60s.

                 

We would have taken some more closups of the artists, but you know what? It was pretty goddamn crowded out there at HSB this year! It was especially crowded come around 5:30 p.m. when Neko Case went on in Lindley Meadow, which was perhaps too small a venue for her when the show's free. We think maybe Mr. Hellman should consider just taking over the polo field next year, or not inviting such big names. But it was, if you could stake out a few feet of grass to call your own, a lovely couple of days. (Photos by SFist/Joey DeRuy and Generik11 on Flickr.)

FILM: The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, which consists of women from all four corners of the world who joined together out of concern for the planet, will be honored tonight with The Courage Of Conscience Award And Film Screening of For the Next 7 Generations. The documentary about this unique alliance took four years to make and was shot on location in the Amazon rain forest, the mountains of Mexico, and at a private meeting with the Dalai Lama in India. There will be a reception preceding the film screening and award ceremony.

                      

Yesterday, in addition to being Day 3 of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and the serotonin hangover day for LovEvolution attendees, was also the 36th annual Castro Street Fair -- a tradition started by Harvey Milk which has come to represent, one week later, the anti-Folsom Street Fair. Non-leather-wearing gays, neighborhood drag queens, lesbians, trans folks, and a smattering of nudists gathered in the streets of the Castro to enjoy funnel cakes, random tent vendors and multiple stages of live entertainment. It was, in essence, the last big occasion for day-drinking in the gay calendar until next Saturday Pride. Here, a few pics.

This SFist weekly concert preview is brought to you by Kevin Meenan of Epicsauce. Rely on Epicsauce for concert listing updates, and follow them on Twitter.

FILM: The San Francisco Zen Center hosts an evening of food, literature, and film with Alix Lambert. Lambert's new book, The Silencing, is a bi-lingual case account of six murdered Russian journalists, paired with photos of the murder sites and first-person accounts of the journalists' work and life. Her documentary, The Mark of Cain, details the role of tattoos in Russia’s criminal world, using them as a device by which to examine the role of prisons and of crime in Russia.

                   

Speaking of fuzzy hats... It's been dubbed LovEvolution this year, but it's all the same shit. Nostalgia for 90s-rave-era fashion, combined with deep house beats and nostalgia for 60s-era peace, love and body paint -- all reveled in by teenagers who are too young to remember either. Well, them and at least A DOZEN fully naked, middle-aged men who looked like they just wandered out of the dungeon they've been in since Folsom Street Fair just to get their picture taken with some kids. Seriously, guys -- half of these girls and boys are, like, twelve! Put some clothes on! We couldn't even stomach taking pics of the nudists, but here's some general sense of the day-drinking, dancing, and drugging that paraded up Market Street toward the afternoon rave at Civic Center.

Those who have attended Coachella are probably familiar with the Empire Polo Club in Indio. And those who are avid Phish heads (or those who pay attention to our advertisers here on SFist) probably know about Phish Festival 8, which is happening on those same hallowed and well-stomped grounds -- this year over the 3-day Halloween weekend.

ART: It's the bi-monthly Mission Arts and Performance Project (MAPP), in which 100 artists transform garages, cafes, studios, gardens, street corners, and local businesses into makeshift arts and performance spaces. The event occurs in two parts, The Family MAPP from 1 to 4 p.m., a full afternoon of activities for youths, including mural and sidewalk art, and Evening MAPP from 7 p.m. to Midnight, includes art exhibits, music, poetry, dance and film in multiple locations. Check the schedule for the list of galleries.

What a great music tradition that brings all walks of [shirtless] fans together. We hope the weather is great for you all in the park today and tomorrow! (See our preview here.)

Yes, it's that time of the college football season when those bronzed, militaristic brutes from the University of Spoiled Children come play our sweet, gentle Cal Bears. As part of their presumptuous triumphal march through the city, the hundreds-strong USC Marching Band took over Union Square this evening for a pep rally. Rumor has it that later in the evening they'll be headed to (where else) the Marina. And it looks like you can still scalp some tickets for the game.

THEATER: Foul Play presents The Bride of Frankenstein: Live on Stage as part of their Attack of the Killer B-Movie Series. Performed entirely in black and white, the play will feature the original Franz Waxman score from the 1935 classic, and combines puppetry, shadowplay and myriad other theatricalities of a bygone era.

Are you of the gay persuasion? Do you have a family? Do you like old roller coasters? Do you like Dipping Dots? Well, you're in luck. The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, a seaside attraction usually filled with vile teenagers and gang members, is having Gay Family Day this coming Saturday, 10/3.

Val Diamond, the gorgeous "oak tree-like icon " behind Beach Blanket Babylon's big hat, will be leaving. Over there for more than 30 years, Diamond is best known for "channeling Ethel Merman to the delight of princes, queens and generations of tourists." Why she's leaving is unclear. Phil Bronstein reports:

      

Well, would you look at that. SFist landed an invite to a VIP party at the Contemporary Jewish Museum for a fete honoring Spike Jonze's re-telling of Where the Wild Things Are. Actually, it was also a benefit for 826 Valencia, the Mission district nonprofit that makes people feel good via honing the writing skills of those less fortunate. Or, it's a pirate store. Anyway, last night's festivities, in the end, were all about honoring Hollywood ilk.

It's going to be a semi-warm weekend and just possibly (though we can't promise anything) it will be sunny in Golden Gate Park at least on Friday and Sunday, so the ninth annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass promises to be as jammed packed with free music seekers as ever. The annual roots music fest is sponsored by local billionaire and banjo-player Warren Hellman, and once again this year features some big acts that fall into the "hardly strictly" area, like Aimee Mann, MC Hammer, Okkervil River and Marianne Faithfull as well as a whole bunch of down-home American banjoin' and fiddlin'. It takes place in the Speedway and Lindley Meadows (basically the same grounds as Outside Lands, minus the Polo Field). And did we mention it's completely free? Below, a few quick recommendations.

Arse Elektronika 2009, the annual conference on sex, technology and the future, kicks off tonight. Here's how this year's kinky conference (“Of Intercourse & Intracourse”) is being described.