San Francisco is home to a breathtaking diversity of cultural events. Between our fair city’s world-class museums, restaurants, bars, art galleries, music scene, festivals, and clubs, between all that is weird and quirky and purely San Franciscan, there’s something going down, somewhere, every single day of the year. Check out our Flavorpill social discovery engine, where you can create and share events with friends, and follow our carefully curated editors’ picks. Below, you’ll find Flavorpill’s top picks for this week — just a little bit of help as you set out into this beautiful wide world of SF’s happenings.
Monday, July 15
PERFORMING ARTS: The Lit Slam feat. Dominque Ashaheed We credit slam poetry as engaging us with a medium we never really “got” in high school. From there, we’ve only fallen more in love with poetry. SF’s monthly Lit Slam brings together lyrical rhythm, people with passion, and ol’ fashioned love of print — Lit Slam also publishes an annual anthology comprised of some of the best poems performed on their stage throughout the year. This month, catch world-renowned Dominique Ashaheed, National Poetry Slam Champion (2011), Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion (2012), and former Olympian (no, really) as she takes the stage and blows us all away. — Nora Oppenheim
Tuesday, July 16
ART: Paint the City You Love: A Casual, Artsy Night with SF Lovers Sometimes a mid-week evening is the perfect time to get artistic. Head to Makeshift Society, a “clubhouse for creatives,” where with the guidance of illustrator/author Megan Eckman, you can get busy drawing your favorite San Francisco scenes with pen, ink, and other creatives. Familiarity with drawing and painting are a plus, but certainly not required; all you need is a willingness to set aside a few hours to draw and look at the city with fresh eyes. — Bonnie Chan
Wednesday, July 17
CONFERENCE: Nerd Nite SF Nerd Nite SF has curated the most perfect of topics for their monthly brainiac, TED-like lectures: Beer. GigaYeast, Inc. founder Jim Withee, who has a Ph.D in yeast genetics and has worked on the first DNA sequencing of brewer’s yeast, will speak on the 5,000 year history of fermentation and alcohol and its influence on several aspects of our culture. Withee is also joined by Brian Hermannsson, owner and head brewer of Pacific Brewing Laboratory, and a panel of suds experts, to present you with a sampling of three different beers that have been altered only by their yeast content, of which you’ll get to decide which goes into full production this fall. The evening concludes with Rich Ridlen, senior games user researcher at Game Lab, EA’s usability department, and a look into video game user research. Video games and beer… sounds like a good night out. — Joshua Wyatt
Thursday, July 18
GETAWAY: Wanderlust Festival The four-day Wanderlust Festival is where yoga retreat meets rock concert. It was founded in 2009 by husband-and-wife team Jeff Krasno and Schuyler Grant, a music exec and a yoga teacher, respectively. Each year, Wanderlust takes over the epic vistas of North Lake Tahoe’s Squaw Valley for an event where acts like Moby and renowned vinyasa flow teacher Shiva Rea share top billing in the lineup. Whether you choose to shake your asana to MC Yogi beatboxing over the om chant, get your hoop dancing on with Shakti Sunfire, kick back to an evening film with a glass of wine, take a hike up a mountain trail, sit down to a farm-to-table dinner, or opt for all, you’re sure to find your center here. — Bonnie Chan
Friday, July 19
PARTY: F3 at the Cotton Mill: Happy BirF3day The booming Oakland art scene oft unfolds itself in nook-n-cranny habitations. Maybe you’ve seen the Cotton Mill off of Interstate 880 in industrial Oakland, the seemingly dilapidated brick behemoth with the outdated analog clock tower and smudgy, layer after rush hour layer facade. This was for a long time the largest textile mill west of the Mississippi before being sliced in half, samurai-style, by the construction of the Nimitz Freeway. Now the Cotton Mill has become a maze of artists’ live-work studios and hosts a quarterly speakeasy-ish Friday art happening called F3. Cross the threshold from grit and concrete to art and fine taste, champagne, food trucks, spoken work and live music bliss. — Joshua Wyatt
Saturday, July 20
FESTIVAL: Pedalfest Celebrate the power of the pedal in the East Bay with Pedalfest, an all-day festival of everything bicycle. Featuring an exposition of handmade and vintage bikes, live music, BMX demos, a timed bike-folding contest, and even a miniature velodrome, there’s a little bit of everything for everyone, from the curious observer to the die-hard gear junkie. There are bicycle-themed activities for kids too, and, if you’re a little older — beer! Let’s just hope they bring enough; bike messengers are notoriously thirsty. — Cooper Berkmoyer
PARTY: 4th Annual GLIDE Legacy Gala
Sunday, July 21
MUSIC: David Byrne and St. Vincent David Byrne has bounced his artistic impulses — angular and insular, warm and expansive — off of a number of collaborators and mediums over the years: Talking Heads, Brian Eno, PowerPoint, books, and film. St. Vincent’s Annie Clark is Byrne’s latest muse and accomplice on the new album Love This Giant, and her crystalline songbird voice proves a fine compliment to Byrne’s neurotically funky wavering and the album’s surprising brass band arrangements. — Eric Grandy
Ongoing
FILM: San Francisco Silent Film Festival The San Francisco Silent Film Festival has always known what was proven by last year’s Best Picture Oscar winner The Artist: that there’s a wide audience for silent film, if audiences are given an opportunity to experience it. Playing to sold-out audiences every year, the SF Silent Film Festival returns with an outstanding selection of films set to live musical accompaniment. The festival kicks off with Prix de Beauté (1930), starring Louise Brooks in her last starring role in a feature; and closes on Sunday with Safety Last! (1923), starring iconic silent-era funnyman Harold Lloyd, and accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. — Annie Lo