As promised, here’s your social calendar reminder (for tonight and the rest of the week).

San Francisco Cocktail Week kicks off tonight with a heavenly event at Harry Denton’s Starlight Room at the Sir Francis Drake. Tony Abou-Ganim, noted mixologist and former Starlight Room barman, will return to his old stomping grounds for another round of Cable Cars and well-heeled company. If you’re going to tax your liver anyway, you might as well do it with masterfully mixed cocktails overlooking The City at sunset.

The event runs from 6 pm to 9 pm. More importantly, admission is not only free but includes a complimentary cocktail upon arrival.

In just one short month from now… plenty of lead time being provided here, the BYOBW crew is starting BYOWB! Remember, no big wheels, just waterballoons.

Date: June 11th, 2008 (The Duke’s Birthday)
Time: 6pm
Place: Alamo Square in San Francisco, CA

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If you’re siding with the Mexican’s, wear blue shirts.
If you’re siding with the Texans, wear brown shirts.

Last week, Jason Bond (interesting mashup of Jason Bourne and James Bond) a researcher at East Carolina University named a newly identified species of trap door spider after peninsula celebrity and rock legend Neil Young. The spider is named Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi, and was discovered in Alabama last year.

“There are rather strict rules about how you name new species,” Bond said. “As long as these rules are followed you can give a new species just about any name you please. With regards to Neil Young, I really enjoy his music and have had a great appreciation of him as an activist for peace and justice.”

Photo of spider, ECU News Services. Photo of Neil, Cover Lay Down.

Other famous namings of new species? Any suggestions out there?

Periodically, Opium Magazine hosts their signature event, the Literary Death Match, and from time to time it doubles as a release party for their latest issue. Such will be the case tonight at 7:00 PM, at the Rickshaw Stop (located at Fell St & Van Ness).

What is a Literary Death Match? It works like this: there are four contenders and a panel of judges. Two contenders are allotted ten minutes each to stun, enchant, and delight the judges and audience with their deathless prose. Subsequently, the judges have an open panel on these readings, and judge them on literary merit, as performance, and on “intangibles” — then they vote to choose the winner of the first round. Repeat with the other two.

In the final round, the two survivors face off. Not with further readings, but rather in some kind of gladiatorial combat: the Death Match Challenge!

Like, for instance, a miniature basketball contest.

Usually by then, audience and contestants alike are somewhere between “kind of tipsy” and “probably-if-not-definitely drunk,” which of course just makes everyone funnier, smarter, and better-looking.

Doors open at 6:00; admission $10, but you get a free copy of Opium 6: Go Green once you’re in there. If past performance is indicative of future results, the show will be great entertainment: you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll order one drink too many. Don’t miss it!

This is a series. Earlier ones: Coit Tower, & St. Francis glass elevators

You’re on a slim budget, and have guests in town. What to do? Chinatown, baby! (pedometer link here)

Enter at Bush & Grant, and take the requisite dorky tourist photo of your arm in the Lion’s jaws. Next off: walk up Grant to Sacramento, take a left, and halfway up take a right onto Waverly alley, where most of Joy Luck Club took place. Stop at Uncle’s for some duck-egg joe like Mama makes, or go for the cheapest eggs & hash browns anywhere in town. Walk up Stockton and witness the craziness that is the open produce market hell. Either shop for some gai lan (chinese broccoli) or grab an apricot to munch and freak out your tourist friends by live fish in the open meat & seafood markets near Broadway. Walk over to Pacific and walk up halfway to the large & boisterous Y Ben, for some cheap & greasy dim sum and endless tea. Walk off the grease by heading farther downhill, take a right 2 blocks over to Washington & Walter Lum, where you can checkout some intense Go games. Walk 1/2 block North on Washington, take a right on the alley WentWorth to see mahjong gambling dens, then at Jackson, walk up the hill past Grant 1/2 block to loop back on a parallel alley- Ross- and check out the fortune cookie factory. The guests might need a snack, so get bubble tea at the edge of Chinatown at Grant & Columbus. If they’re still up for more, and resisted the lure of North Beach, walk through the labyrinthine hardware stores on Pacific & Columbus, and puzzle over the funeral items for sale near the doorway. They should be tired and full by then.

I’ll be posting a reminder on the 13th, but since you can never have too much prior notice…

The second annual San Francisco Cocktail Week is coming. Running from May 13th - 19th, SFCW celebrates, as the name suggests, cocktails and “the dynamic beverage culture of our community.”

From the Opening Gala at Harry Denton’s Starlight Room to the Closing Party at Absinthe, attendees will be able to learn more about the history of cocktails, observe San Francisco’s bar illuminati in action and, more importantly, sample the essence of their labors. Select restaurants will offer tasting menus with specially paired cocktails. Neighborhood-favorite Elixir will celebrate its 150th anniversary with a tribute to the Sazerac. On the 14th, you’ll even be able to imbibe with the best — renowned guest bartenders from across the country will display their craft at bars around The City.

So put on your drinking shoes (closed-toe highly recommended) and come celebrate San Francisco’s hallowed place at the altar of fine drinkables. Just don’t forget to designate a driver or MUNI navigator.

Just a reminder… the 51st Annual San Francisco Film Festival comes to a close tomorrow, May 8th. Fellow Metblogger Jeremy and I have featured a handful of films here on SF Metblogs, but there are certainly more films to be appreciated!

For your convenience, here is a link to tomorrow’s film lineup. Films at the Kabuki include:

• Children of the Sun
• American Teen
• Secrecy
• All is Forgiven
• Glasses (see my entry)
• Big Man Japan (see Jeremy’s recent entries: 1, 2)
• Flower in the Pocket
• The Secret of the Grain
• The Man from London
• Shadows in the Palace
• Umbrella

There are also select films playing at the Clay and Castro Theatres, as well as a couple over at Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley.

For more information on these and SFIFF films, see the the SFIFF website and buy your tickets here!

In case you couldn’t get to the Late Show screening of Big Man Japan last Friday (see my earlier post about it here), I just noticed that you can catch it today at the Clay Theater at 4:15 PM, and tomorrow at 5:15 at the Kabuki.

It’s one of the most hilarious movies I’ve seen in a long time: it simultaneously sends up giant-monster movies like Godzilla, superhero stories, profile documentaries, athletic endorsements, anime series, and even the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. “Future cult classic” is actually a spot-on description. It’s well worth seeing.

Here’s the festival page about it. Tickets for today’s show are available at the Clay; a limited number of rush tickets will be available just before tomorrow’s show, at the Kabuki. Get in line early for the best chance at getting in.

Dust is a part of our everyday lives, whether we like it or not. We mostly look at it as a nuisance and a symbol of uncleanliness. What we often forget is what important role dust has had in the creation of our universe and our planet, and the importance of it in everyday life. There is so much more to dust than meets the eye, and we must look past its dingy reputation in order to realize this.

These ideas are explored in the German/Swiss documentary Dust, by director Hartmut Bitomsky. Different circumstances of dust are explored, as well as the people that are affected by, study, and work with dust… some seemingly to the point of obsession. There are some fascinating interludes between the presentation of facts and interviews, including the reality that dust will never go away… it is omnipresent and will always leave a trace.

Dust has its final SFIFF showing tomorrow, May 7th, at 4:15pm. For more information on this and other SFIFF films, see the the SFIFF website and buy your tickets here! The festival ends this Thursday, so catch these films while you can!

This is a series- the first one was on Coit Tower

I had another visitor in town- from Belgium, and we were walking around Post St. on a Thursday night. She didn’t drink- and wanted to see something odd/unexpected, so I navigate to the front of St. Francis on Powell at Post St. entered the lobby, walk past Michael Minna, past the first set of elevators to the rotating door, and take a right before the door.

Description & but alas, no photos, after the jump