San Francisco Weekly August 1, 2012 : Page 12

sfweekly.com thu Page 12 City Scenes’ latest film screening/concert is a dream. fri Page 12 Comedian and SNL star Jay Pharoah performs at Cobb’s. Wed Page 15 Japanese textiles: These ain’t your Grandma’s quilts. lEttErs Night + Day ® Week of August 2-8 | coNtENts | Thu /8.2 [viSual arT] city Bug Off SF Weekly Israeli artist Tamar Assaf grew up on the edge of a small town, watching critters roam among wildflowers and orange groves. Quickly, though, Assaf’s natural wonder-land was overrun by asphalt and housing developments. She channeled her dismay into a B.A. in natural sciences, and moved to California to pursue her passion for art. However, her obsession with wildlife extinctions and synanthropic species like crows, pigeons, and cockroaches did not dis-sipate. In fact, it became the cornerstone of her work. With a scientist’s patience, Assaf researches her chosen subject, observing behavior and snapping hundreds of photos before rendering them in impasto. In “Bay Invaders,” Assaf asks young and old to join her in a provisional studio, where they can explore how non-native aquatic species — such as skeleton shrimp, carnivorous sea slugs, and Chinese mitten crabs, which ar-rive on cargo ships every day — are changing the Bay Area’s ecosystem. Each visitor will be given canvas and access to Assaf’s data-base. Within the last five years, the Nature Conservancy named San Francisco Bay the most invaded aquatic region in the world, so there are plenty of creatures to choose from. “Bay Invaders” starts at 1 p.m. (and con-tinues through Sept. 5) at the de Young Mu-seum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden (in Golden Gate Park), S.F. Admission is free; call 750-3600 or visit www.deyoung.org. SILKE TUDOR [TheaTer/film] sucka able! But one thing is for certain: There will be plenty of sword-fighting, romance, and sweet revenge in this fresh production of one of the hottest fairy tales ever told. Come as you wish. The Princess Bride: Live! starts at 8 p.m. (and continues through Aug. 25) at The Dark Room, 2263 Mission (at 18th St.), S.F. Admission is $20; call 401-7987 or visit www.darkroomsf.com. MATT SAINCOME [Glam] FrEE | Let Sleeping Diamond Dogs Lie When it comes to memorable movie lines, few can compare to The Princess Bride ’s “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” It’s a phrase that immediately makes us nostal-gic. Recite it, and little by little, piece by piece, everything comes flooding back. The fire swamps, the water-powered torture machine, the “mawwage” priest at the royal wedding, games of wit, and Andre the Gi-ant’s giant. The Princess Bride was rewound almost as many times as we recited the Inigo Montoya line growing up. So what could be more fun than watching it all play out live? Dark Room and Foul Play Produc-tions present The Princess Bride: Live! in honor of the film’s 25th anniversary. 12 Wait, the film is 25 years old? Inconceiv-Anybody Want a Peanut? If there’s one thing David Bowie’s personas have taught us, it’s that this could all be a dream. Dream-you could be real-you or vice-versa, sailing along the dreamscape with the same cast of characters reincar-nated nightly as glammed-out hybrids or golden ponies. FolkYEAH and CinemaSF host experimental pop musician John Vanderslice’s lucid dream in City Scenes, Installment 4, curated by Vanderslice him-self. He and his band are performing Bow-ie’s 1974 concept album, Diamond Dogs , followed by a screening of Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep . Deconstructed with Gondry’s phenomenal visual manipulation, the film follows a man whose imagination seeps into his everyday reality so thor-oughly that neither he, the girl next door, nor we can tell which is which. Gondry doesn’t dream of glitter-drenched societal apocalypse, but in between his blurred waking and dreaming worlds, his protago-nist creates a “disasterology” calendar and one-second time machine that should make navigating through Bowie’s ’70s ad-aptation of Orwell’s 1984 make even less sense, in the best possible way. City Scenes, Installment 4 starts at 8 p.m. at the Vogue Theatre, 3290 Sacramento (at Presidio), S.F. Admission is $15; call 346-2228 or visit www.voguesf.com. NEHA TALREJA | Music | Eat | FilM | Night+Day | A ugust 1-A ugust 7, 2012 Hoop, tHere it is: AcrobAt cHloe MArvel ligHt Axelrod Flying Tiger Circus See Sunday Fri /8.3 [Comedy] Bringing Down da “Great House” People react to turning 30 in different ways — denial, regression, despair. Cobb’s Com-edy Club enters its 30th anniversary like a witless divorcee chucking aside conven-tion for a year-long exploration on training wheels. The anniversary conquests lined up fall into two inevitable categories: the industry’s old standbys and hotter, younger acts. The club’s latest arm candy, Jay Phar-Seth Golub

Night & Day

Thu/8.2 [viSual arT] Bug Off Israeli artist Tamar Assaf grew up on the edge of a small town, watching critters roam among wildflowers and orange groves. Quickly, though, Assaf’s natural wonderland was overrun by asphalt and housing developments. She channeled her dismay into a B.A. in natural sciences, and moved to California to pursue her passion for art. However, her obsession with wildlife extinctions and synanthropic species like crows, pigeons, and cockroaches did not dissipate. In fact, it became the cornerstone of her work. With a scientist’s patience, Assaf researches her chosen subject, observing behavior and snapping hundreds of photos before rendering them in impasto. In “Bay Invaders,” Assaf asks young and old to join her in a provisional studio, where they can explore how non-native aquatic species — such as skeleton shrimp, carnivorous sea slugs, and Chinese mitten crabs, which arrive on cargo ships every day — are changing the Bay Area’s ecosystem. Each visitor will be given canvas and access to Assaf’s database. Within the last five years, the Nature Conservancy named San Francisco Bay the most invaded aquatic region in the world, so there are plenty of creatures to choose from. “Bay Invaders” starts at 1 p.m. (and continues through Sept. 5) at the de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden (in Golden Gate Park), S.F. Admission is free; call 750- 3600 or visit www.deyoung.org. SILKE TUDOR [TheaTer/film] Anybody Want a Peanut? When it comes to memorable movie lines, few can compare to The Princess Bride’s “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” It’s a phrase that immediately makes us nostalgic. Recite it, and little by little, piece by piece, everything comes flooding back. The fire swamps, the water-powered torture machine, the “mawwage” priest at the royal wedding, games of wit, and Andre the Giant’s giant. The Princess Bride was rewound almost as many times as we recited the Inigo Montoya line growing up. So what could be more fun than watching it all play out live? Dark Room and Foul Play Productions present The Princess Bride: Live! In honor of the film’s 25th anniversary. Wait, the film is 25 years old? Inconceivable! But one thing is for certain: There will be plenty of sword-fighting, romance, and sweet revenge in this fresh production of one of the hottest fairy tales ever told. Come as you wish. The Princess Bride: Live! Starts at 8 p.m. (and continues through Aug. 25) at The Dark Room, 2263 Mission (at 18th St.), S.F. Admission is $20; call 401-7987 or visit www.darkroomsf.com. MATT SAINCOME [Glam] Let Sleeping Diamond Dogs Lie If there’s one thing David Bowie’s personas have taught us, it’s that this could all be a dream. Dream-you could be real-you or vice-versa, sailing along the dreamscape with the same cast of characters reincarnated nightly as glammed-out hybrids or golden ponies. FolkYEAH and CinemaSF host experimental pop musician John Vanderslice’s lucid dream in City Scenes, Installment 4, curated by Vanderslice himself. He and his band are performing Bowie’s 1974 concept album, Diamond Dogs, followed by a screening of Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep. Deconstructed with Gondry’s phenomenal visual manipulation, the film follows a man whose imagination seeps into his everyday reality so thoroughly that neither he, the girl next door, nor we can tell which is which. Gondry doesn’t dream of glitter-drenched societal apocalypse, but in between his blurred waking and dreaming worlds, his protagonist creates a “disasterology” calendar and one-second time machine that should make navigating through Bowie’s ’70s adaptation of Orwell’s 1984 make even less sense, in the best possible way. City Scenes, Installment 4 starts at 8 p.m. at the Vogue Theatre, 3290 Sacramento (at Presidio), S.F. Admission is $15; call 346- 2228 or visit www.voguesf.com. NEHA TALREJA Fri/8.3 [Comedy] Bringing Down da “Great House” People react to turning 30 in different ways — denial, regression, despair. Cobb’s Comedy Club enters its 30th anniversary like a witless divorcee chucking aside convention for a year-long exploration on training wheels. The anniversary conquests lined up fall into two inevitable categories: the industry’s old standbys and hotter, younger acts. The club’s latest arm candy, Jay Pharoah, returns after a year hiatus. Pharoah is a talented performer and impressionist whose cadre of celebrity impersonations includes Jay-Z, Denzel Washington, Eddie Murphy, Will Smith, and Barack Obama. The comedian is a featured player on Saturday Night Live and one of the show’s youngest cast members. Given the recent departures of Andy Samberg and Kristen Wiig (and rumors of Jason Sudeikis following suit), Pharoah is slated to make an even bigger splash in the show’s upcoming 38th season. Catch the laughmaster while he’s still booking the smaller venues. Jay Pharoah starts at 8 and 10:15 p.m. at Cobb’s Comedy Club, 915 Columbus (at Taylor), S.F. Admission is $22.50; call 928- 4320 or visit www.cobbscomedyclub.com. JESSICA HILO [THEATER] Doolittle, Too Late The most salient status symbols in the London of My Fair Lady aren’t walking sticks and pocket watches but diphthongs and fricative H’s. In the Lerner and Loewe musical, norms of speech are so codified by class that phonetics professor Henry Higgins (Johnny Moreno) can guess a Londoner’s origins down to the very street by eavesdropping on a few vowel sounds. Flower-peddler Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen) is easy to peg, with Cockney that makes an “oh” into an “aaaaaaah-ow-ooh.” But is she as easy to teach? Higgins bets his colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) that, with six months of elocution lessons, he can transform the “draggletailed guttersnipe” into a duchess. The musical, which is based on Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, seethes with the vitriolic social critic’s rage, but it also features two of the sweetest love songs ever written — “I Could Have Danced All Night” and “On the Street Where You Live” — as well as one of the most understated: “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” Bill English’s spirited ensemble makes songs immortalized by the 1964 film emphatically their own. Hafen, in particular, shows Eliza as self-possessed yet misunderstood by her world. When she sings “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” she’s wishing for much more than just “lots of chocolate for me to eat,” or, as she says it, “aite.” My Fair Lady starts at 8 p.m. (and continues through Sept. 29) at SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter (at Powell), S.F. Admission is $30-$70; call 677-9596 or visit www.sfplayhouse.org. LILY JANIAK SAT/8.4 [FILM] 90 Years Young Masterful director Howard Hawks had a simple strategy: Craft great scenes; string enough of ’em together, and you have a great movie. The Big Sleep (1946), starring Humphrey Bogart as smart-mouth punching bag Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as spoiled thoroughbred Vivian Rutledge, executes the formula to timeless perfection. Raymond Chandler’s sordid saga of addiction, blackmail, beatings, and murder, adapted for the screen by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman, crams more ugly truths about human nature into 114 minutes than is healthy. It’s on our all-time top 10 list, needless to say, and is a brilliant choice for the opening weekend of the Castro Theatre’s 90th anniversary. The bounty of riches includes a set by vocalist Monique Argent Gannon, an introduction by noir savant Eddie Muller, plus the rumpled king of cool, Robert Mitchum, in Where Danger Lives (1950). The first program of the day, if your heart can take it, begins with banjopickin’ Jack Convery and Blackie Norton’s Paradise Club Band warming up the crowd for the Mary Poppins sing-along. Sunday is even more daunting, er, impressive, with the gluttonous double bill of Gone with the Wind and Citizen Kane. Save room, somehow, for birthday cake. The Castro Theatre’s 90th anniversary festivities start at 1 p.m. and The Big Sleep begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro (at Market), S.F. Admission is $8.50-$15; call 621-6120 or visit www.castrotheatre.com. MICHAEL FOX [THEATER] Love’s Grimm Outlook There are pills for being sad, pills for being anxious, hungry, scared, dysfunctional in the bedroom, perpetually awake, perpetually asleep, and so on. Why not tend to the root of all distress and just vaccinate ourselves against heartbreak? In this romantic comedy, it seems the only way to manage looming tragedies is to keep your heart safe. In StageWerx’s production of Believers, Rockwell Wise stays holed up inside a remote lab hard at work developing a love vaccine as the world teeters on environmental collapse. As his company faces a crisis in dystopia, his ex-lover Grace Wright is hired to lead his drug development team, intent on creating a love activator that will reintroduce passion and romance to the world. Playwright Patricia Milton says she wrote the play as an adaptation of “The Frog Prince,” in which the princess doesn’t turn the frog into a prince with a Disney kiss, but instead throws him against the wall. In a world of unintended side effects, the violent act represents the necessity to love completely and sometimes uncomfortably in order to renew the human psyche. Believers starts at 8 p.m. (and runs through Aug. 25) at StageWerx, 446 Valencia (at 16th St.), S.F. Admission is $15-$25; visit www.stagewerx.org. NEHA TALREJA SUN/8.5 [ACROBATICS] There Will Be Blood Tattoo and piercing shop Body Manipulations recently turned 23. It’s celebrating, naturally, with a night of acrobatic feats, Russian trapeze, body suspensions, contortion, and an exceptionally high pain tolerance. How does a piercing shop run off and join the circus, you might ask? “I had been training at the circus center in Chinese acrobatics and teeterboard on my days off from work,” says Director Paul Stoll. “I discovered very quickly that the physical challenges in circus arts were even greater than those faced in piercing or suspension.” Faint-hearted folks, take note: This ain’t your average acrobatic show. Flying Tiger Circus, an annual ordeal, has been known to incorporate flesh hook trapeze, hot metal, straight razors, nails, rope, and skewered biceps, along with more benign (but no less impressive) aerialist and hand-balancer acts. Stoll promises, however, that the show is more art than gore. “It has to be something pretty and amazing to watch.” Performers include Manasaurus Rex, Iron Monkey and Snow Ape, and the dizzyingly dazzling Chloe Marvel Light Axelrod, with a special appearance by pancake juggler Scot Nery. Flying Tiger Circus starts at 9 p.m. at DNA Lounge, 375 11th St. (at Folsom), S.F. Admission is $20; call 626-2654 or visit www.dnalounge.com. ANNA PULLEY MON/8.6 [FILM] French Ennui It was a very punk year, 1977. Bands like the Germs, Crass, Bad Brains, and Black Flag were freaking out parents everywhere, and new albums by the Sex Pistols and Richard Hell and the Voidoids crystallized the angst of a generation. These were the kids who wondered where the promise of the ’60s had disappeared to as they lived in a world threatened by environmental destruction and nuclear warfare. In France, a certain 70-something filmmaker named Robert Bresson tapped into these exact worries of his much younger contemporaries in The Devil, Probably. Bresson is renowned for his sparse style that refuses to play to either human feelings or the traditional conventions of cinema, and here he cast non-actor Antoine Monnier as Charles, a teenage student whose unease with contemporary society is not cured by dabbling in sex, drugs, or psychoanalysis. Charles and his friends barely let emotion flicker across their faces as they wander around Paris and discuss deep philosophical concepts in an oh-so-French manner, and his apathy (not to mention fashion sense) could give today’s hipsters a run for their money. That is precisely why the film maintains its power. Here we are again in a world that seems to teeter on the brink of collapse, where opportunities for escapism are plentiful but ultimately unsatisfying. Bresson already nailed it 35 years ago. The Devil, Probably screens at 3, 5, 7, and 9 p.m. (and continues through Aug. 9) at S.F. Film Society Cinema, 1746 Post (at Webster), S.F. Admission is $9-$11; call 561-5000 or visit www.sffs.org. HEIDI DE VRIES TUE/8.7 [ART] Sinsational For most people, prayer and meditation, even in a group setting, is a singular and solitary experience, and public confession would be unthinkable, but that is exactly what artist Victor Cartagena invites us to do with Confesiones y Hostias. Step up to the microphone, declare a sin over the loudspeaker, and win a communion host. Taken seriously, one might expect a lot of dead air, but as the audio installation Radio With Sin Us suggests, divulgence in the era of reality TV is hardly spectacular, even if it pushes your buttons. Both pieces can be investigated at “Sin and Redemption,” a large exhibition that asks local artists in all mediums to contemplate spiritual rites, religious history, and sacred symbols. Here, among others, desert temple-builder David Best creates an altar and invites people to leave notes about their loss and longing to be burned along with the structure later this year; Donald and Era Farnsworth tackle the hidden meaning of geometry in their large tapestry Mythos 5; and opera’s favorite photographer John Martin interprets Stravinsky’s morality tale The Rake’s Progress. Art has often been likened to a mirror for the soul; prepare to get an eyeful. “Sin and Redemption” starts at 10:30 a.m. (and continues through Aug. 23) at SFMOMA’s Artists Gallery at Fort Mason, (Laguna and Buchanan), S.F. Admission is free; call 441-4777 or visit www. Sfmoma.org. SILKE TUDOR WED/8.8 [VISUAL ART] Knitty Gritty Leave it to the country that invented origami to completely transform how we view fabric. “Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers” explores the mind-bending world of extreme textile-making, an emergent aesthetic movement that combines artisanal craft with modern developments such as microfilaments and recycled materials. In general, the mediums are remarkable — snippets of antique paper, cocoons taken directly from silk factories, delicate gauzes spun from stainless steel fibers — but it is the arresting structures and observable flights of fancy that make this young art form worthy of two distinct shows. “Fiber Futures x2,” which begins in the fall, promises to highlight achromatic subtleties, while the recently opened “x1” is an explosion of color: Chemical pulp forms yolk-yellow chrysalides that cling to a wall, a small hemp temple endeavors to teach us the architecture of red, a pale blue cascade gives body to the spirit of mulberry fiber, a curtain of silk sea flowers undulates with shifting light, a golden screen of aluminum and polyphenylene sulfide holds fire captive, and a torrent of cotton waffle-weave elicits a craving for whipped cream. If you’re looking for the easy comfort of quilts, this is not your textile show. “Fiber Futures” opens at 11 a.m. (and continues through Oct. 6) at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, 51 Yerba Buena (at Fourth St.), S.F. Admission is $5; call 227- 4888 or visit www.mocfa.org. SILKE TUDOR Calendar submissions can be mailed or delivered to 55 Francisco, Suite 710, San Francisco, CA 94133; or emailed (no attachments please) to calendar@sfweekly.com at least three weeks in advance of your event. Earlier is, as always, better than later. We make every effort to include all appropriate events in our online listings, available at www.sfweekly.com. [LIT] MAD to the Bone This may be the best year for MAD magazine since it debuted 1952. Not only is it MAD’s 60th anniversary, but there have been a great number of new publications and events in the last year that finally give serious thought to the vast influence of this un-serious publication. They include a beautiful four-volume collection of Al Jaffee’s legendary MAD fold-ins, a hardcover portfolio of contributing artist Jack Davis’s work, the relaunch of DC’s MAD Archives series, and a retrospective exhibition of original MAD artwork going on now. Tonight, the museum hosts master cartoonist Tom Richmond for a discussion and demonstration to celebrate the release of his latest book, The MAD Art of Caricature. The winner of the National Cartoonists Society’s 2011 “Cartoonist of the Year” Reuben Award, Richmond has contributed to MAD for over a decade, where he carries on the publication’s long tradition of celebrity caricature as practiced by artists like Davis, Mort Drucker, and Angelo Torres. Tonight’s event includes Richmond’s own tips on cartooning, plenty of behind-the-scenes MAD stories, and a book-signing. Tom Richmond starts Friday at 7 p.m. at the Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission (at New Montgomery), S.F. Admission is $5; call 227-8666 or visit www.cartoonart.org. CASEY BURCHBY

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