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Vanishing city

Up against intense market pressure, longtime residents and community projects fade from SF

This Week's Paper

Evictions sweep the city. Plus, Björk, Black Watch, a guide to summer's best fairs and festivals, Southside Spirit House, community basketball, and more. Articles Online | Digital Edition

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politics

Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill Of The Lord God Oil

05.21.13 - 3:37 pm | Johnny Angel Wendell |
(24)

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, I take a brutal boot-camp type class at the Hollywood YMCA here in LA. 45 minutes of sheer hell, but as these things are measured, surely worth it. I've been going for the last year and a half at the prodding and urging of my friend Stacy "Beano" Johnson, a lively and lovely woman and an ex-pat Okie from outside Tulsa. Yesterday, I walked in to find her strecthing and she seemed, as you would imagine, distraught. Read more »

pixel_vision

No need to drop names: Freak City is the Internet's IRL cultural center

05.21.13 - 2:30 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
(0)

STREET SEEN I like LA because outfits don't have to be as functional. In San Francisco, you're always worrying about whether you'll flash someone disembarking from your single-speed, about what exactly is going to happen to those white platform sandals inside the Montgomery Street BART station. Oh lord, sandals in San Francisco?

In Los Angeles, you can wear whatever the hell you want. After all (just to be SF-bitchy about it), they don't dance down there, they certainly don't walk, and you probably won't broach the waterline at the beach, so the gold braid on your swimsuit? Appropriate, necessary. (Just take it off when you go in the pool.) In Los Angeles, you are allowed to dress like you are at the white-hot center of the hip universe, free of earthly fetters. Buy the dress in midriff.

And in this year of 2013 AD, Freak City is the place to shop for one's interstellar journey.  Read more »

Promo: Win Tickets to see Bjork at Craneway Pavillion

05.21.13 - 2:14 pm |
(0)

Win tickets to see Bjork on Wednesday, May 22 at the Craneway Pavillion in Richmond, CA.

Follow this link to enter!

politics

Senate goes after tax-cheating Apple

05.21.13 - 1:58 pm | Tim Redmond |
(6)

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks its an outrage that the world's most valuable company, with vast revenues and huge cash surpluses, is looking for ways to avoid paying federal taxes. Read more »

politics

Young, creative people who work hard

05.21.13 - 12:59 pm | Tim Redmond |
(63)

I almost don't know what to say, except: Finally, someone admits it.

Rebecca Pederson, writing in The Bold Italic, explains why she actually likes the idea that San Francisco is becoming so expensive that thousands of longtime residents are being forced out; see, if it's more expensive to live here, then young, creative people will work harder:Read more »

politics

New BART director wants to raise fares in San Francisco and end "A" Fast Pass

05.21.13 - 12:53 pm | Steven T. Jones |
(15)

Are BART passengers in San Francisco being subsidized by Muni riders and by BART customers from the suburbs? Or is it the other way around? And does it really matter, or should we just be thankful that people are choosing BART over clogging the roadways in this transit-first city?Read more »

pixel_vision

Family meal: 18 Reasons joins forces with neighbor Three Squares to extend reach of healthy eating

05.21.13 - 8:35 am | Cortney Clift |
(1)

Community food hub 18 Reasons has always had the back of the well-meaning kitchen newbie. With a cafe space, educational programming, and tasting events geared towards making a healthy, sustainable diet doable, since 2007 when the organization's co-founders brought in Bi-Rite Market, a happy partner for the little space located a block from the family grocery store's Mission digs. Read more »

politics

UCSF medical centers prepare for strike

05.20.13 - 3:55 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
(73)

On Tuesday morning at 4 a.m., a 48-hour strike will begin at University of California medical centers across the state.

The strike was called by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299, a union representing more than 13,000 UC patient care technical workers.Read more »

noise

A chance meeting with the Doors' Ray Manzarek, RIP

05.20.13 - 3:53 pm | Johnny Angel Wendell |
(3)

Ray Manzarek, co-founder and keyboardist of the Doors, died today at 74. Complications from bile duct cancer.

As the master of the spooky-sounding and creepy organ first heard in rock and roll in "96 Tears" or "She's About A Mover," Manzarek was both the embellishment and the bottom for Venice, Calif.'s most famous band. They had no bass (live, on records they did). The bass was Ray's left hand -- according to Manzarek, every time they tried to add a bass, the sound became leaden and useless. And so, that oddly springy feel the Doors made real owed as much to Ray as it did their colorful frontman or their jazzy guitarist and drummer. Read more »

politics

Housing for the rootless superrich

05.20.13 - 1:07 pm | Tim Redmond |
(58)

When San Francisco looks at building ultra-luxury housing -- places like 8 Washington -- and some city officials and "experts" say it's going to help meet the housing needs of the city, we ought to look at what's happening in Manhattan. There, high-end housing is being flooded with people who don't live in Manhattan, won't live in Manhattan, Read more »

noise

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

05.20.13 - 12:57 pm | Emily Savage |
(0)

Bjork is coming! She’ll bring Biophilia’s ambitiously in-the-round and touch screen app-filled show to Richmond, Calif. this week. Plus, the educational component of that tour will make its way to the Exploratorium via a handful of science and sound experiments.

The sparkly avant-pop star is the major music news this week in the Bay, however there also is the annual (and reliably well-curated) SF Popfest, plus a bunch of other shows you should be checking out as well, like Japanese doom masters Boris, Swedish indie popsters the Shout Out Louds, the gritty B-side soul goodness of the Detroit Cobras, and local rock'n'roller Mikal Cronin -- high on the release of a celebrated new solo album, MCII. Read more »

politics

"One powerful newsroom" pulls back from its San Francisco roots

05.20.13 - 12:53 pm | Steven T. Jones |
(21)

Locally focused journalism in San Francisco took another big hit today with the announcement that The Bay Citizen — which was founded by the late Warren Hellman in 2009 specifically to augment declining reporting on San Francisco and the Bay Area — is being folded into Center for Investigative Reporting [Updated below].Read more »

politics

Legalize it--All of it

05.20.13 - 12:51 pm | Johnny Angel Wendell |
(37)

Tomorrow is election day in Los Angeles and beyond the biggest race (for mayor between a pair of dull left of center bureaucrats of whom the less said is better), the most important ballot measures are three that, in varying degrees, are used to restrict the explosi Read more »

pixel_vision

Internet cats, in their own words: Henri le Chat Noir

05.20.13 - 12:26 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
(8)

As exhaustive and definitive as our cover story on the break-out fame of the Internet's Cat Pack was last month, still the masses clamored for more. Specifically, they wanted Henri le Chat Noir.

Who can blame them -- Seattle's existentially wracked feline inspires Christopher Walken to reference his videos mid-interview and whose short film Henri 2, Paw de Deux was declared the best of the Internet cat offerings by the dearly departed Roger Ebert. He figured prominently on our Cat Pack cover flirting with Luna the Fashion Kitty, but clearly, we would be remiss not to hear from the laconic cat himself, particularly now that he has a recently-released coffeetable book to shill. Read more »

politics

Do falling jobless numbers mean we're smart and focused, or rich and exclusive?

05.17.13 - 3:12 pm | Steven T. Jones |
(71)

The unemployment rate continues to drop in San Francisco and all over California, according to new numbers released today by the California Employment Development Department, which were trumpeted by Mayor Ed Lee as vindication for his economic development policies.Read more »