Damon, Jon and I will present Project PlaceSite and discuss wi-fi cafe fun in San Francisco next week at Where 2.0, O'Reilly's new conference about location-aware tech.
If you're there, come say hi.
Unless this is one of Chicken John's pranks, the Odeon is closing.
What a blow to San Francisco. If I learned the Golden Gate Bridge will be dismantled at the end of the month, that news wouldn't strike me any harder.
No joke. Many, many of the people and things I love most about San Francisco are somehow associated with this place.
Thanks Chicken John, for this fantastic creativity-magnet called the Odeon. It was too good to last. I can't wait to witness your next project.
Help supercharge wi-fi public places in the San Francisco Bay Area!
For my final Masters project at U.C. Berkeley I'm exploring new ways in which online social interaction can move into the offline ("real") world -- and learning what online services can add to face-to-face conversation.
An important part of our research is to learn how people here interact and use wi-fi (wireless Internet) in public and semi-public places.
If you're 18 or older, live or work in the Bay Area and use wi-fi, you can help us immensely by taking a few minutes to answer the following brief survey. Your responses will be kept completely anonymous.
Here's the survey: http://www.seansavage.com/survey
We need all the responses we can get, so it would be great if you could spread the word by pointing your Bay Area friends to the survey.
This summer we'll post a report about what we learn; I'll link to the report from here when it's available.
Thanks!
I love the dark postmodern vaudeville/caberet/circus/sideshow performances that are becoming popular on the West Coast. I thought that San Francisco and Black Rock City lead the way for this genre, but I was wrong. A Seattle troupe called Circus Contraption blows the polka-dotted pants off the other twisted circus shows that I've seen, they've been doing it for many years, and this week they're coming to San Francisco.
Circus Contraption serves up clever and astounding performances set to an entrancing live soundtrack. Each member of the troupe excels in a circus/erotic/dance specialty or two, and each doubles as a talented musician in a freakish, unforgettable band. The music doesn't take a back seat; I'd still rush to see these people if they were just a band, and I happily bought one of their CDs.
If you haven't seen this nonprofit troupe, don't miss them. I loved their Seattle performance on a recent Sunday night, but Bunny Lamonte told me afterwards that Friday midnight shows are best. On Fridays the performers and the crowd are at their peak energy levels and things get wild and raunchy.
Circus Contraption's latest show, "Grand American Traveling Dime Museum," is coming to San Francisco starting this Friday, August 6. They're playing at CELLspace in the Mission; tickets are $15 (or "pay what you can" on opening night.) Take it from a grad student -- it's worth the $15. But show up on a Friday night. And buy tickets early. (They kept selling out in Seattle -- that's why I went on a Sunday).
Urban photologger Mike from satanslaundromat just visited San Francisco; have a look at the city through his eyes:
SF sidewalks, stencils, and Brooklyn 24th and Potrero
16th Street Balmy Alley Colors
Tonight you're in for a good show at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco. Elbow your way through the smarmy clots of hipsters in the front room and pay $10 to enter the grittier back room, where you'll see old-school French electronica punks Metal Urbain. I checked out last night's show and I loved their unique sound: angry punk anthems screamed in French, backed by dirty guitars, a laptop and what seems to be a weird old drum machine.
I didn't know a thing about this band until I heard one of their tracks on KUSF a couple of days ago. A little Web and liner-note research reveals that they started out in 1976. They were big influences on the Jesus & Mary Chain and on Big Black (including Steve Albini who later produced the Pixies and Nirvana).
Hypnotic lead singer Eric Debris cites Oscar Wilde (!) and "anti-naturalistic" philosophy as major inspirations. The liner notes say they were the first punk band to use synth percussion, and they were the sole punk band to adopt Brian Eno's approach to electronica (that is, using electronics for unique sonic potential, rather than just to replicate real instrument sounds).
I wish I could find the lyrics and figure out what Debris was shouting about... It definitely involved sex and Fascism.
UPDATE 5/31/04:Jason Harlan reports that Metal Urbain played a set on kickass indy radio station WFMU; you can listen to a RealAudio-format recording of it here.
A new Reclaim The Streets movement is underway in San Francisco. Participants hope to replace the usual glut of automobiles near the intersection of Haight and Stanyan Streets with a flood of pirate-attired, partying pedestrians on Valentine's Day 2004 from noon until 9 pm.
The original Reclaim The Streets groups coalesced to form massive London street disruptions in the 1990s, including a 1996 event in which thousands reappopriated a 3/4 mile stretch of highway to form a giant street party.
See details of the San Francisco RTS movement, and plans for the February 14 event, at http://www.rts-sf.org. And spread the word.
(PARANOID WARNING: The RTS-SF Web site includes a mysterious sign-up form that requests your e-mail address. I'm not saying the people behind this site aren't who they claim to be, but it's best to assume the worst -- that spammers and/or John Ashcroft are on the receiving end of that form. Use a junk e-mail account, or just don't register.)
UPDATE 2/14/04: See phonecam shots of the event on cheesebikini cam.
Brace yourself for breathtakingly belated coverage from San Francisco SantaCon 2003. Yet another conference hits the City by the Bay.
Who's Trudy?
Who will pay you $300 to find her?
Nobody will pay you, if this is a hoax.
[ Click a photo strip to see the full-size version. ]
These are snapshots from Flam Chen's fire circus last night. It was an impressive outdoor show on a spectacular evening in San Francisco.
After the show I spent most of the night just cruising all around town with my housemate Cheu, hitting the best hillside viewpoints like a wide-eyed tourist. The whole city was out playing, because in San Francisco we rarely see a night like last night: it was clear and warm enough to wear shorts, even on top of Twin Peaks. Last night, this town was Heaven.
UPDATE: Derek Powazek took better photos of the fire circus.
Today, on the 100th anniversary of George Orwell's birth, his masterpieces really are more important to us than ever.
If you live near San Francisco, come out for the George Orwell Centenary Festival at Edinburgh Castle in San Francisco. The festival runs tonight, tomorrow night and Saturday night. It includes readings from Orwell's most important works, film screenings, and "Free Victory Gin."
Show up tonight and tell them "cheesebikini is doubleplusgood." You'll get free admission to the Thursday and Saturday night shows; normal cover charge for those shows will be $6 and $7 respectively. And remember: four legs good, two legs bad.
Illegal Art is coming to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Artist Gallery at Fort Mason next month (July 2 through July 25).
Yum. I can hardly wait.
From the exhibition Web site:
...copyright was originally intended to facilitate the exchange of ideas but is now being used to stifle it.The Illegal Art Exhibit will celebrate what is rapidly becoming the "degenerate art" of a corporate age: art and ideas on the legal fringes of intellectual property. Some of the pieces in the show have eluded lawyers; others have had to appear in court.
Loaded with gray areas, intellectual property law inevitably has a silencing effect, discouraging the creation of new works.
The last time I was at Fort Mason, a security guard kicked me out for photographing portions of the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit which I pieced together that afternoon in my own bit of illegal art.
(By the way -- we were good tenants; we were evicted because the house was sold and the new owner was moving in.)
UPDATE: Here's an intriguing column that reflects Creative Commons' take on this exhibit.
Last night a drunken Fez-wearing turtle came to me in a dream and said:
"You won't know Jack about Experience Design until you visit Attaboy at his Yumfactory."
Strange dream, no?
Attaboy art is featured at a free show that will take place March 15 though the end of the month at Culture Cache gallery, 1800 Bryant Street, San Francisco. New Yorkers can check it out in April at CBGB's 313 Gallery.
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[Also see the cheesebikini map of free Berkeley wi-fi cafes] Here are a map and a list of San Francisco cafes that offer free wireless Internet access. If you have a laptop or other device with Wi-Fi (wireless Internet) capability, turn it on in one of these places to enjoy a free high-speed connection. 
UPDATE 3/2/05: A four-block zone of Chestnut Street in San Francisco's über-gentrified Marina District is now immersed in free wi-fi, courtesy of AnchorFree. The wi-fi zone covers Chestnut between Fillmore and Scott Streets, according to MacWorld. Thanks to Denis Hiller for the tip -- and the wi-fi! Why certain cafes disappeared from the list and map: In late 2003, ZRNet, a company that outfitted many cafes with wi-fi hot-spots, withdrew free wi-fi service from all of these cafes, so I removed ZRNet cafes from the list. These cafes include: Atlas Cafe (ouch!), Cole Valley Cafe, Cafe XO, Tart to Tart, Cafe International, Brainwash Cafe and Laundromat, the Muddy Waters cafes, most of the Royal Grounds cafes, Cafe La Taza, Java on Ocean, Java Beach and Simple Pleasures. - Sean, 11/7/03 2 H Cafe: 380 17th Street, at Sanchez. Jason Harlan reports that now an employee here "forces you to share tables with other laptop users... and he's rude." map | site
Czech this out: Lloyd Nebres spent a day bouncing from one wi-fi cafe to another across San Francisco, posting photos and dispatches along the way to create a little travelogue. The folks at Beast Blog are putting together a list of free wi-fi locations in the East Bay. Here's another list of free Wi-Fi hot spots throughout the Bay Area and the world: wififreespot.com. And here's a list of open wireless nodes that Bay Area people have set up, mostly in their homes. Join the free networks movement! Details: freenetworks.org, and the Bay Area Wireless Users' Group. February 14, 2003
Sushi Freakshow
Last night I went with housemate Dav to my new favorite restaurant: a crazy, cozy, wonderful sushi joint called Country Station. It was a bizarre meal, indeed. A strange drunk woman told Dav she was entranced by his "look." She immediately began photographing Dav, and she continued to snap shots and compliment him for about an hour, until we paid our bill and headed out. Then she stumbled along after Dav, babbling and snapping photos on the street. Later we headed to a bar a few blocks away, and guess who was there? His new groupie lurched over and happily began a new photo session. Then I started photographing her photographing him. Things became interesting as the other bar patrons tried to figure out who this celebrity was. A smarmy yuppie sidled up next to me and said, "Yo bruh. Who's your friend? Oh come on bruh, tell me his name."
So I said, "Come on now, leave him alone. He never goes out anymore because people harass him like this wherever he goes. Do you know what I had to go through to drag him out tonight? I promised not to answer any questions about him; if you want his name you'll have to ask him." "Fine. My girlfriend will know anyway," he said. "She knows who all the celebrities are." Five minutes later, just as Groupie Number One wrapped up her final photo shoot, the girlfriend showed up and began interrogating Dav. "I know you're someone famous, who are you? Are you David Morrow? Seriously, you are David Morrow aren't you?" (Incidentally, who the hell is David Morrow?) Dav -- who emphasizes now that he did not adore the attention -- had to escape eventually, so I hailed a cab and we headed to one of those oddball San Francisco parties where a naked woman lies on a table, and chefs carefully cover her body with freshly prepared sushi for the guests. Yes indeed. Last night, sushi was the magic word.
February 08, 2003
Snapshots from Glen Canyon
Glen Canyon is one of San Francisco's little-known gems, and it's less than a mile from my doorstep. The last few days have been unseasonably sunny. The wildflowers seem to think it's spring already... January 19, 2003
Kai 2003
Meet my new housemate, Mr. Kai Jettmar. Here's the scoop: Kai's mother Eva is an old friend who was one of the first tenants in the house. Kai, Eva and Eva's mother Elfriede usually live in Austria. But all three moved to the U.S. temporarily because Eva took a teaching-assistant gig at Stanford that will last several months. The Jettmars are living with us for a couple of weeks while they seek longer-term housing. Now fasten your seatbelt: Dav, who lives in the downstairs room, is Eva's old ex-boyfriend. But Dav isn't Kai's father. There's no need to watch TV here in San Francisco, where we cultivate a surplus of real-life slapstick and drama. But I've never had a cuter housemate. January 17, 2003
Snapshots from The Mission
January 16, 2003
Trustworthy mechanics in San Francisco?
I was tired of being ripped off so I asked my friends whether they could recommend a mechanic they're satisfied with. Several friends said they were very happy with their mechanics. I find this hard to imagine, but they actually said they trusted their mechanics too. I summarized the recommendations below for everyone else who has to deal with a car in this town. (I promise I'm not getting any kickbacks for this!) Cesar: Bug and Hare Repair: "...decent, but they do mostly VW's (new and old)." Cooper: Manolo Auto, 2831 Cesar Chavez just West of 101, (415) 695-0755 "he runs the 76 station on army at the 101 freeway. someone turned him on to me and he has always been fair if not the cheapest. he's also really good and usually does the work the same day. Gal, Sarah and Jessica all recommend Carlos, 1970 Mcallister St. near Lyon, (415) 567-8420 Gal: "I love my mechanic, and he was referred by Dana in our crew. And he's very honest. His name is Carlos, and he has a shop called Car-Los Automotive on McAllister Street around Lyon. Not sure of the number, but I know he's listed in 411. Tell him I sent you." Lani: "Henry Chin in Berkeley. He's worth the trip." Miles: "I've been very satisfied with my (former) mechanic. The place is called 'The Garage'; it's on Juniper south of market. The whole team is freaks, which makes me feel at home." [Note: Miles moved to Southern California; that's why he has a new mechanic.] December 16, 2002
Santarchy in the USA
Find the bunny here. And there. And here. And there.
December 12, 2002
The Red Coats Are Coming
Word on the street says he'll return this weekend. So you'd better not pout. July 19, 2002
San Francisco Salmonella
Thanks to Dav for writing the script that build the list -- it pulls the business names from a Department of Public Health database. |
Skip this entry unless you live near San Francisco.
Nervous about that hot date? If it includes dinner in San Francisco, look up the restaurant