Along with the crisp November (now December — I know, we lag) weather, and falling colored leaves came a refreshing perspective from the Bay, in the form of the new Jeremy Fish exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum. Weathering the Storm is the San Francisco artist’s premiere museum showing, and an impressive one at that, including a boatload of new paintings and a smattering of hand-carved dark wood pieces filling the stairwell and the mezzanine level of LAM.
Best known for his whimsical woodland creature/skull hybrids, Fish reveals a successful transition in the show: His familiar forms become sculptural works, including myriad bas-relief frames, a fully functional couchette, and several individual sculptures such as the F-Unicorn (my personal favorite; pictured immediately below). Fish also created a large mural engulfing several walls, overlaid with cutout paintings bearing rainy day themes referencing current world crises and struggles. Having followed his work since my San Francisco salad days, this show seems more reactionary than anything I’ve viewed previously, presenting substantial commentary throughout.
The long hallway of the mezzanine was adorned with a series of smaller cutout paintings. Reflecting on Fecal Face’s earlier coverage of Fish’s studio pre-opening, I vividly imagined how each piece came jigsawed to life in his North Beach space. These cutouts maintained the strongest link to his previous work, providing comedic and lighthearted subjects in bright colors.
The crowds came out in full force, with many from the action sports industry, established Laguna Beach art-types, and families with small children in attendance. LAM’s evolving programming is bolstered significantly by shows such as this, which appeal to patrons beyond the institution’s Sunday-afternoon-luncheon base — as evidenced by the number of youthful bodies roaming the halls.
BONUS: Upon approaching the bar, I excitedly realized that my favorite bartender-about-town, Armando, was manning the buckets. He majorly hooked a sister and her brother up. Armando, you’re “Our-Man…do” (doh.)
Today’s SF Chronicle carries a front-page article on the San Francisco Panorama, the ambitious forthcoming publication from SF publishing house McSweeney’s. Blatantly self-serving motives aside (the piece offers Chron readers “the chance to preorder the one-time product” through its sfgate.com website and announces plans to run excerpts from the Panorama in the coming weeks), Julian Guthrie’s overview neatly profiles a literary endeavor that is anything but concise: The Panorama clocks in at 320 pages. The pub’s centerpiece comes in the form of a 112-page broadsheet newspaper comprising investigative and feature news writing as well as substantial arts, sports, food and comics sections. A 112-page magazine and a 96-page books section round out the epic.
As one would expect of an endeavor of such staggering length, McSweeney’s employed an army of creative types for the project — 150 of them, to be inexact. As the broadsheet’s name implies, the Panorama is heavy on the Bay Area/NorCal slant, and the contributors’ page is accordingly representative (Michael Chabon, Robert Hass, Peter Orner, Sean Wilsey and other notable locals, as well as “dozens of working and laid-off Bay Area journalists,” provided words). But the scope of Panorama’s literary and artistic haul is equally impressive from a national perspective: Stephen King, Chris Ware, Junot Díaz, George Saunders, Art Spiegelman and Matt Klam lend their names to the project. So breathtaking is the collection, in fact, that the Chronicle deems it deserving of a quote from one of its own editors, Ward Bushee, who asserts that “the Panorama may be the biggest, most creative and famously bylined edition of a newspaper ever printed.”
Justifiably gushing praise for the literary collaborgy aside, let’s get real: Dave Eggers’ latest altruistic project, slated for release on Dec. 8th, looks to be brilliant in many, many ways, but it will not save newspaper. The Panorama is a one-off several months in the making. It costs $16 (though Bay Area readers can cop it for just $5 the day it debuts). And the prospect of the publication realizing a profit appears dubious at best.
Wisely, McSweeney’s stops short of issuing any delusionally grandiose proclamations, instead implying that the Panorama is intended to display to the public and What Remains of Newspaper that there are alternatives to reining it in. Explains the publisher: “We think that the best chance for newspapers’ survival is to do what the internet can’t: namely, use and explore the large-paper format as thoroughly as possible. To that end, we opted for a huge and luxurious broadsheet — 15” x 22”. Then we unleashed artists and designers to show exactly how much the format can do.”
The newspaper section of the Panorama, then, should serve as an experimental blueprint — an idea, or rather, a collection of ideas, for purveyors and readers of newspaper to examine and consider. Many, if not most, major newspaper publishers and owners will dismiss the Panorama as a fantastic and fiscally nonviable exercise in “alternative” journalism. These are people whose ideas — or, more accurately, lack of such — haven’t served their publications particularly well in recent times.
Newspaper needs an overhaul if it is to survive in any physical form; the time for tender tweaks to the business model has passed. In an industry whose only recent innovative success is championed chiefly by a fossil intent on reeling back civil rights to 1952, the Panorama may serve as the radical catalyst newspaper needs to avoid a meek descent into utter irrelevance.
2) Come evening, the girls of SFC Double Dutch delight in providing an opportunity for drunk concertgoers to hurt-slash-embarass themselves.
3) Pirates on stilts bring the creep hard.
4) As a friend noted, hipsters are all closeted fans of Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone,” as proven by Girl Talk’s set.
5) Grizzly Bear are wimps: They complained incessantly about the cold while playing on Sunday, and then complimented L.A. on their warm climate at the Palladium on Tuesday. More like Panda Bear, boys. P.S.: Aren’t you from Brooklyn??!?
6) Poem Guy Zach Houston commands a way longer line when the sun is shining.
7) Music can be organized as a family tree of increasing edginess, e.g.: Gin Blossoms —> Dinosaur Jr. —> Hüsker Dü. Noted during Bob Mould’s set.
8) Local graf artist Robert D Harris is adept at creating lovely works despite the damp and salty bay air.
9) Dan Deacon makes everyone smile — no matter how tough you want to look — with his dance contests and human tunnels.
Bay Area hip-hopper The Clap may or may not have perished in one of the myriad natural disasters that have struck Southeast Asia and Oceania in the past three weeks. Composing one-third of seminal San Fran provocateurs Dead Horses, The Clap and his misogynistic, drug-riddled hedonism will be missed by many dozens of people should he fail to return of good health and spirit. He also owes DCQ $31.50, so there’s that, too. Clap, please come back and kill ‘em all, preferably before rent’s due on the 1st.
(Warning: Video and lyrical content therein completely devoid of moral fiber).
When we were wee bitty Dunces growing up in the Bay Area, we idolized our 49ers. This was before we knew (or cared to know) about collective bargaining, steroids, domestic violence and salary caps (or even ‘salaries,’ for that matter). They were Niners, and they kicked most everyone all over the field, and they were awesome.
We knew them all — even the offensive lineman. We had Joe and Jerry and Roger and John and Harris and Guy and Jesse and Steve (Wallace) and Steve (Young) and Charles and Eric and Ronnie and Keena and Brent and Tom and even Mike Fucking Cofer. The only question was whether we’d beat the Vikings, then the Giants, then later the Cowboys, and finally the Packers, in the NFC Championship Game. Sometimes we would and sometimes we wouldn’t, but we’d almost always get close (I vividly remember winning ‘only’ 10 games and missing the playoffs in 1991). Either way they’d riot in the Mission, which, though only a mile and a half from where I grew up (which wasn’t a perfect place, either), might as well have been present-day Juarez for all I knew (though it looked OK from the Laidlaw bus on the way school every morning).
The Niners, good guys that they were, played a charity basketball game in Kezar Pavilion every offseason. This was your chance to see these heroes in the flesh, up close and without all their armor. We were there. With much trepidation I approached John Taylor and asked for an autograph. He asked, “You got 10 bucks?” I said “N-noo” and started retreating to the bleachers. He hollered out something and I turned around and he signed my ticket stub. I still don’t know if he was messing with me or actually trying to extort 10 bucks out of an unemployed, half-grown person, but I’ve since concluded that this was the moment when I realized not all athletes were as great as I’d previously assumed they were.
Years passed and we grew somewhat and saw the Niners in a different light: They were still very good — not dominant, but very good — every year. But the cast had changed: Where there had been Joe, there was now Steve. We were OK with that because he, like Joe, tore up defenses without fail, which was nice. We also had Charles and Deion and Richard and Rickey and Ricky and William as new complements to Steve. It was this year — 1995 — when I became aware of the concept of ‘buying championships.’ But we were still the Niners, and kicked everyone’s asses, and it was awesome. A precocious tween with no bills, job, nagging wife or serious work ethic, I had all kinds of time to absorb every number in the Chronicle’s sports section. And soon it was decided: Ricky Watters was the new BEST PLAYER EVER. He scored five — FIVE! — touchdowns in one playoff game. He could run, catch, spin, high-step…the Man. Like Taylor, he came to the local basketball gym to play a charity game with other Niners, and we all got him to sign stuff and he was the coolest. I think he even threw down a dunk, though maybe not.
But Ricky, like the Niners of the mid-to-late 90s, never achieved greatness, though he was consistently very good, and occasionally spectacular. Then he bolted for Philly and had a couple decent seasons there and places beyond before retiring after, according to the omniscient and infallible Wikipedia, reportedly turning down Cleveland’s contract offer out of fear that terrorists would blow up the next plane he boarded (this being the age of 9/11 hysteria, and he being a man not paid for his intellect).
Recently, our thoughts returned to the guy. An extensive Google search followed. His modest personal website indicates he does promotional speaking, helps run football camps, and bankrolls a positive-vibe rap label.
But he also proffers up a glimpse into his personal life:
