Results tagged “lights”

In an effort to conserve energy, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu introduced legislation yesterday that "would prohibit downtown commercial buildings from leaving the lights on after hours," according to reports. If passed, Chiu's idea would "require commercial building owners to phase in the darkened skyline over one year," which would make San Francisco the only city in North America to shut off their office building lights at night to converse energy. If your recall, Aaron Peskin introduced similar legislation last year, which failed after the Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco gave it a thumbs down.

Free bicycle lights will be handed out at five service stations throughout San Francisco tonight. This is all a part of "Light Up the Night," a darkness awareness event, if you will, brought to you by SFMTA and the SF Bicycle Coalition. Since December is the darkest month of the year and bike commuters must deal with an earlier nightfall, volunteers will install front and back bicycle lights at Market Street at Duboce Avenue, Howard Street at 8th Street, Valencia Street at Cesar Chavez Street (St. Luke's Hospital), McAllister Street at Webster Street (Ella Hill Hutch Center), and Polk Street at California Street. Remember: it happens from 6 p.m. - 7 p.m. tonight.

Tomorrow, March 29, from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. millions of people will turn of their lights to make a statement about climate change. It's all a part of Earth Hour, a green event conceived by the World Wildlife Fund. Over 100 U.S. cities are participating in the do-goodery, including Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix, and, of course, San Francisco. While this won't do much insofar as saving the planet--which is doomed!--it will make a dark and profound statement about conservation and the environment.

Just some random scribbling on a game that is still reverberating through our hungover, overstuffed brains....

(Check out the actual chin scratching occurring, lower right, at an intelligentsia event. Har!)

Here's todays sports news

-- Red Meat: God bless the Rickshaw Stop. And if (s)he existed, he totally would. Why? For many reasons. Take, for example, the fact that they often have extraordinary talent gracing the stage on Monday nights. (Mondays are, after all, the new Fridays.) Red Meat blends honky-tonk, bluegrass, country, and western swing with hints of gospel harmony. Mmm. Eilen Jewell (read more about her here), Axton Kincaid, and DJ Lenny & Squiggy (hee) also bring on the music starting at 8 p.m. at Rickshaw Stop; $5.

News of a new law expanding the requirements for bicycle lighting.

Prints + good tunes = the Pipettes

-- Laura Gibson: We'd hate to genre-ize her lovely sounds, but neo-folk songstress Gibson -- who uses such tools as trumpet, viola, and musical saw in addition to her sublime vocal cords-- sings delicate siren songs that will have you crashing at her feet. She performs along with Musee Mechanique (Portland) and Snowblink starting at 8 p.m. at Rickshaw Stop; $8.

The mathematics of the Lights Out San Francisco event.

That "Lights out SF" bullshit was a huge success! A couple of local landmarks switched off some lights for a few hours, one night out of the year, so now the whales are all saved. Hooray!

-- Gay Geeks Saturday Night Social: "Fucking faggots," you scream? Ah, correction: "fucking nerd faggots," is more like it. Queers (not just Marys) who like to "geek out on the arts or science, study old plane crashes,... the myth of the American cowboy or how to make graphs more efficient for displaying data," this is the night for you. Come! Starts at 8 p.m. at Muddy's Coffeehouse, 1304 Valencia; free.

-- Plumpjack caves in to Lights Out SF. [CurbedSF]

-- Oh noes: local homes sales are in the crapper. [SJ Merc]

Of course. We should have known better. Lights Out SF -- happening this Saturday from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. -- is of an energy conservation movement, not a low-lighting aesthetic one. To wit:

-- Have you seen this man? (Also, we think that we have that same shirt in our closet. Yipes!) [Chron]

The season premiere of "Friday Night Lights" comes to NBC tonight at 9 p.m. and since it first aired we've hoped that it would eventually get moved to Fridays. Not because we think it's a good night for the show (or any show, for that matter) but because we're slightly anal and it annoyed us that a show with "Friday Night" in the title did not, in fact, air on Friday nights. But we're going to admit something else here: we aren't actually big fans of the series. Yeah, yeah, it's basically blasphemy to admit that since almost every TV fan or critic out there were basically falling all over themselves with praise for it last season. So let us explain. Firstly, the show is shot in an exceedingly annoying jerky-cam style that they tried to pass off during the first episode as being the result of a "documentary film crew" following the football coach around all year; they basically dropped this notion by the second episode, and yet, the shaky-cam remains. And it remains extremely distracting.

November 2004 - September 2007

There are no less than three fantastic music festivals all taking place over the weekend of September 14-16. What gives? And how do we choose? Since we live in the bay area, perhaps our decision has been made for us: we're heading to the inaugural Treasure Island Music Festival presented by the fine folks at Noise Pop and Another Planet. The two day festival features 14 bands each day on two stages with mostly hip hop and electronica on Saturday (Theivery Corporation, DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist, M.I.A.) and a great lineup of indie rock on Sunday (Modest Mouse, Built To Spill, Clap Your Hands). And it all takes place on Treasure Island, that scrap of land you've seen a thousand times but likely have never set foot on. Getting there is sure to be an adventure! Check out the full lineup and get your tickets. We've got a pair of tickets for one lucky winner to go to one day of the Treasure Island Music Festival. (We're not sure which date yet but will update this post as soon as we hear back from our contact! But both days are really good so you can't go wrong. Contest ends 8/22; winner will be notified via email.)

John Vanderslice is someone you can truly count on. Aside from his incredible talent, we're always impressed with his indie rock work ethic. He keeps his studio Tiny Telephone open as an incubator for top quality recordings, he's always good for a genuine smile and a hug when we run into him, and about once every 18 months or so he releases another incredible album through Seattle-based indie Barsuk Records. His latest release Emerald City offers a somewhat gentler take on his always-unique melodies and music and a move towards even more intricate and adventurous lyrics. In the first song alone, he sings about the kookaburra tree, frangipane, bundestag and terabytes. He builds and inhabits fantastical tales and delivers them in such a convincing way as to make you believe he lived through them. In honor of John playing a free show at Amoeba Records at 2pm on Saturday, we're giving away a copy of Emerald City to two lucky winners. Listen to "White Dove" and enter to win. (Contest ends 8/14; winner will be notified via email.)

-- 756. [SFist for links]

Sorry we missed this story the first time around -- the cops are still looking for the assailants in a stabbing on 19th and Castro back in June. Two gay men were walking down 19th Street when three young Hispanic men got out of a car following them. One of the young men asked them for a cigarette, and then stabbed both men repeatedly. The men managed to make it to 18th Street before one of them collapsed and the other one managed to get help. The less-injured victim, an art director for the Chron, was back at work within three weeks, but the other victim was in an induced coma for almost a month to recover from the stab wounds in his kidney. The police arrested someone in the case last week, but released him for lack of evidence. It's unclear whether the men were targeted for their sexual orientation or whether the assailants were in a gang.

The shows coming to San Francisco this week give us an excuse to talk about some of our favorite music of 2007.

The lovely local ladies in Von Iva are gearing up to release a brand new CD called Our Own Island. They're doing their part to heat up the chilly San Francisco summer by having a special CD release party on August 4th at 12 Galaxies (in addition to tomorrow's party at the Blank Club in San Jose). They promise a bikini bonanza (use your imagination) so risque that you have to be over 18 to get in. Don't worry, they'll make sure your beer stays chilled by offering special "I Partied with Von Iva" cozies, which is possibly the best merch item we've heard of all year. We're giving one lucky winner a copy of the brand new CD and a beer cozy of their very own. Listen to the new single "Lala" and enter to win (contest ends July 31st; winner will be notified via email.)