Every once in a while there’s a truly stellar party where you get warm squigglies and have an unflinching love for SF. Yesterday, after an uneventful day going to the Presidio Y and enduring a false fire alarm in my apartment building, I joined up with another friend and went to the un-Holiday party for Laughing Squid. Good times. Folks were friendly and unpretentious, warm and inviting, and as it was a potluck it had a generally community feel to it. My friend had just come from an equally cool party- the “yes we can” house on 6th & Irving was having a Sunset neighborhood party. Hope this is a sign of good things to come.

I just watched KQED’s latest Gallery Crawl video (running time 13:43), and discovered that the show by “Lydia Fong” over at Ratio 3 is actually work by world-famous San Francisco native Barry McGee, who is still obviously keeping things cool. (If you don’t know about him yet, check out this great PBS feature page as well.) There is definitely a slightly different flavor to the work done under his pseudonym. In KQED’s video, he gives a fairly interesting tour of the exhibition, and it’s worth watching even if you’re not already a fan. Hi-res Quicktime is here, lo-res YouTube is here. If you have the time to get personal, the gallery is over on Stevenson at Duboce, a block west of Mission. The show will be up through October 18th, so you have just over one week left to see it.

The second half of KQED’s program is about Gallery 16‘s current show, a 15-year retrospective called “These Are the People in Your Neighborhood,” involving just about everybody the gallery has ever worked with. You can watch just the 7-minute segment devoted to that show by clicking here, and you definitely shouldn’t miss it. The (huge) retrospective runs through November 7th. In the past 15 years the gallery has come up a bit among commercial galleries; as interviewed artist Rex Ray put it, the gallery used to be on 16th, but now it’s on “glamorous 3rd Street,” at Bryant. But it has done so without losing any of its daring. Owner Griff Williams describes it as a place where artists are “free to fail.” And that’s a freedom that every artist needs.

[Images by the galleries named above; please click on them to visit their websites!]

Vive le Rock continues its run tonight at Mr. Smith’s (34 7th St) starting 8:00 PM, cover charge $7. The show will consist of music from the masterminds behind the series, Oakland’s own Gosta Berling, and the guest band will be The Sleepover Disaster from Fresno, an awesome group that has achieved a certain measure of recognition lately. The music is going to accompany a bunch of presumably funny, morbid films by Waylon Bacon, a local filmmaker who has shown at the San Francisco Underground Film Festival and The Fright Night Film Festival. Or maybe his films are going to accompany the music. Both statements are true. An event page with press release describing the series and tonight’s show in more detail is here on Yelp.

[Image by Carson Mell via KQED.]

Tonight at Mezzanine (seemingly the only club I go to these days) is a live appearance by an animator and writer loved by Wholphin subscribers everywhere — or at least loved by this one — Carson Mell. His self-published illustrated novel Saguaro and several of his short films concern the life and adventures of washed-up country-rock legend Bobby Bird (pictured above). One of my favorite episodes in that saga is Chonto, which contains the amazing line, spoken by Bobby Bird: “Sometimes a man needs a dog. Of course, being a big shot, I decide I need a big shot dog. I need a monkey.” So he adopts one from a South American zoo; the story is surreal, hilarious, and touching all at once. Hopefully we’ll see it on the screen tonight.

As usual, doors at 7, screen at 7:30 or so; tix $12 (or $8 if reserved in advance by emailing SF360@sffs.org with your request).

[Images above by the artists named below, respectively, from left to right. Montage by 111 Minna.]

The group show Common Descent, currently on view at 111 Minna, is set to close August 31st, so there’s only a short time left to check it out before it comes down for good. The four artists involved — Brett Amory, Seth Armstrong, Andrew Hem, and John Wentz (no website available) — have never shown at the gallery before, but each is an emerging talent with a strong body of work, and some really nice pieces in the show are still available, if you’re into collecting. All the artists but one are based in the Bay Area — but don’t let local pride put you off of Andrew Hem’s whimsically weird work, which I’m particularly fond of — all those distorted figures and faces set against such soothing pastels make for a viewing experience that’s simultaneously comforting and unsettling. Always a winning combination for me!

Plus, 111 Minna is a nice place to go for a drink after work, as Metblogger Anthony Riva pointed out here a few months ago.

[via Juxtapoz.]

[Ian Curtis, singer of Joy Division. Photo attribution unknown; I found it here.]

If you’re looking for something to do tonight and you’re into Joy Division, SF360 is running a program at one of our favorite clubs, Mezzanine, all about the late-70s rock group Joy Division. Remember Joy Division? Sure you do. After singer Ian Curtis committed suicide a few weeks shy of his 24th birthday, the group re-formed as New Order. If you don’t know either one … where have you been, anyway?

The program consists of two films and a musical interlude. The first film, which screens at 7:30, is a documentary about the band directed by Grant Gee, the same guy who did the Radiohead doc, Meeting People is Easy. The second film starts at 10:00; it’s a biopic about Ian Curtis, called Control. I’m not much for biopics, but I’ve heard good things about this one.

The musical interlude is going to be a Manchester-themed set spun by DJ Axelson.

Event page here; tix $12. Hope to see you there!

Being one of those crazy bike riders (of the fixed gear variety) I was pretty damn psyched to hear about the new Chrome store in SoMa. (yes I know you If you used to be able to swing by their warehouse and buy stuff before but this is like a store store for real and shit) If haven’t heard about it yet that’s because when I say new, I mean BRAND NEW – as in the grand opening is next week! We stopped by yesterday but unfortunately too late and they were already closed, hopefully today we’ll be more lucky. I’m only in town for a few days so I’m going to miss it, but for people who live here and ride bikes, or who live here and enjoy awesomely designed bags I highly recommend blocking off some time next Thursday (July 31) and swinging by the new store at 4th and Brannan and partaking in the festivities.

Maybe I went to Sunday’s Good Magazine party at 111 Minna with expectations that were too high. But last year’s subscriber event seemed to draw a bigger and more excitable crowd, not to mention a larger number of sustainable and creative companies. Nau was notably missing this year, but that could be part of their near-miss closing and upcoming restart.

Still, to be fair, the sidewalk party and its solar-powered stage are a fun excuse to spend an afternoon sipping Dark and Stormys (or chai if that’s more to your liking). I like the work the magazine is doing to make young people more aware of international affairs, even if it takes boxed wine vendors to get us to put our money where our mouths are.

THIS is one of the things I LOVE about living in San Francisco!

Right when I’m in a debate that has included some of the following items:

A) Public Health issues
B) Germs Spread by Humans
C) The EXTRA dirty things that happen IN San Francisco
D) Breaking the Law in San Francisco
E) Flyers posted on utility poles being illegal

…I’m walking to work… and while I’m following THE LAW (which is suddenly so important to some SFers) waiting for the light to change, I SEE THIS FLYER, POSTED TO A UTILITY POLE, illegally; detailing a beautiful example of the germ-spreading habits of humans.

In this case, someone else’s germs will be on someone else’s FACE for charity…

Ahh…. I love it…

** NOTE: For the record, I love that people are giving away their dirty jock straps for charity and have no problem with them posting their flyer. It is merely an absolutely perfectly placed example of some of the highlights of a previously posted blog. ***

The SF Opera’s free simulcast at AT&T park couldn’t have been on a more perfect night. As the opera ended near 11pm, it was still tank top weather! According to the Examiner, there were about 23,000 people there.

Here are some pix: