Get off the couch and grab your keys. Leave work just a few minutes early, or travel just a stop or two further along your usual bus/BART/MUNI route. We chose to make San Francisco (and the Bay Area at large) our home for a reason — remind yourself of why by taking advantage of the awesome culture available to you on a daily basis. With the brand-new Flavorpill SF, you can find events in every genre, recommended by Flavorpill staffers, cultural curators, and even your friends. Yup, you can add your own events, save them to your calendar, and invite your buds right from the event listings. For a look at what we’re most excited about this week, read on!
Monday, March 4th MUSIC: Shannon and the Clams
Tuesday, March 5th
BOOKS: Joyce Carol Oates If you took Creative Writing 101, chances are you’ve read “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” that requisite short-story model of rhythmic economy, or “How I Contemplated the World…,” Joyce Carol Oates’ clinic on ridicule of type. They’re just the tip of Oates’ massive, singular bibliography, the best of which ascend to Flannery O’Connor’s Gothic throne with an unforgiving, moralistic eye — at times on par with the Russian heavyweights. Lofty comparisons, but after nearly 50 years and dozens of precise novels and short-story collections, entirely earned ones. We don’t know how City Arts & Lectures does it, but they do, and consistently — as part of their stellar lineup of intellectual and literary giants, tonight they present Oates in discussion with former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass. — Stephen Gossett
CITY GEM: The Bay Lights Grand Lighting
Wednesday, March 6th
ART: 6th Annual International Juried Plastic Camera Show This sixth annual exhibit at the respected photo center is composed entirely of images taken on cheap plastic cameras — you know, the kind where light leaks and cloudy lenses are just par for the course. What photographers get in return for showing love to the plastic camera: unpredictable, lo-fi, often hauntingly beautiful images. Just for now, put away your Hipstamatic iPhone app and appreciate the real deal of what the plastic camera can do. Just a little plastic and a little tape go a long way. — Bonnie Chan
Thursday, March 7th
PERFORMING ARTS: Tourettes Without Regrets Tourettes Without Regrets advertises itself as the “fight club of underground art.” On any given Tourettes night (on the first Thursday of every month), chances are good that you’ll see some onstage bondage, mind-blowing beatboxing, things being set on fire, a wet t-shirt contest, or competitive bouts of the dirtiest haiku you’ve ever heard. Curated and hosted by outrageous slam poet Jamie DeWolf (who happens to be the great-grandson of the Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard), Tourettes cultivates a take-no-prisoners approach to spoken word and performance. Tonight’s show features the unbeatable Caitlin Gill, a comedian and spoken word poet; the pole dance duet Cirquedelic; storyteller James Judd; burlesque, looped beatboxing, and more, with all of the acts sure to walk the fine line between profane obnoxiousness and rich satire — just your usual mayhem, no regrets to be had. — Bonnie Chan
Friday, March 8th
PARTY: 10 Years of Designing for Change For ten years now, the Design Action Collective has designed websites and print materials to further social change. The current staff of 11 people are responsible for such designs as the U.S. Social Forum’s posters and print materials, and have had a hand in a far-ranging list of causes including anti-Islamophobia, Not In Our Name and anti-war efforts, Shell Oil boycotts, divestment from Israel, campaigns against Tar Sands and Keystone XL, Occupy, and movements for women’s rights, immigrant rights, education, workers’ rights, reproductive rights, LGBT rights and marriage equality, and environmental and climate justice. Help Design Action celebrate ten years of justice and ruckus at tonight’s party and retrospective. The retrospective exhibit runs through March at SoleSpace in Oakland. — Bonnie Chan
Saturday, March 9th FILM: Peaches Christ and Latrice Royale present Paris Is Burning
Sunday, March 10th FASHION/STYLE: Saving Soles Shoe Swap Mixer
Ongoing
ART: China’s Terracotta Warriors The first emperor of China, Qin Shihuang, was a brilliant and brutal ruler; under his rule from 221-210 BC, he unified an expanse of warring states into the first centralized Chinese empire, undertook the construction of a national network of roads, burned books and killed scholars to ensure his iron-fisted rule. He also sought to achieve greatness even in his afterlife — and so, beginning in 215 BC, the emperor ordered construction of a vast underground tomb containing more than 7,000 terracotta mud warriors to protect him. The warriors, individualized by artists to depict different facial expressions and stances, lay hidden underground until they were discovered by Chinese farmers in 1974, along with terracotta horses, chariots, armor, and tens of thousands of bronze weapons. This unprecedented exhibit at the Asian Art Museum features ten of these ancient terracotta warriors — a pretty great deal for the $22 admission, considering the price of a plane ticket to China. — Bonnie Chan