Mission Mission

Our pal Becca has spent the last couple years traveling around Central American and India developing innovative new educational curricula that center around storytelling. Give the kids the tools they need to tell a story in an innovative way, and suddenly they’re teaching you.

Becca is a great storyteller herself; you might recall her Guatemalan bike machine story, her ocelot attack story, or her “Bill Clinton slept here” story, among others.

So now Becca has a pitch up on Spot.us, and it’s about halfway funded. She’s brought this new program to the States, beginning at the Mission elementary school where she worked before she headed abroad. (Here‘s the story of Becca’s return to her old classroom.) This time, she’s asking students to focus their storytelling efforts on their experiences with migration:

The collective voyages of these students compose a narrative of the way the Bay Area’s unique culture has emerged, and how it continues to evolve. I want students to step up and tell their stories in a way that an audience will understand across boundaries of language, class, and nationality. I’ll bring a good supply of pencils, cameras, colors, papers, scissors, books, songs, and ribbons; the goal is to figure out a universal language along the way.

She’ll document her findings, and we’ll all learn a thing or two.

Read all about Becca’s plan, and help fund it if you want to, here. There’s even a way to donate without actually donating any of your own money; just click the “Earn Credits” button.

One woman band on 19th and Valencia captured by blackcatbrigade.

Have you ever been to Mariachi’s on Valencia for fast, fresh, and healthy Mexican food?  Well, if not, you’d better hurry, because according to Grub Street, both it and its ten (10) different kinds of delicious vegetarian burritos will soon be gone and replaced by a Grandeho’s Kamekyo sushi bar.

Where will all of Mission mariachis go for dinner?  La Rondalla can’t open soon enough!

Photo by Jonn.Gordon

Oh, it’s a dog? F’real?

C’mon, it’s got to be at least 1/8 Brachiosaurus.

Photo by sleeping sam.

Okay. This year’s Treasure Island Music Festival Sunday lineup boasts headliners Belle & Sebastian, AND it takes place on TREASURE ISLAND. And Surfer Blood are playing too. You know you want to go. And now you can, for free!

Leave a comment below explaining why a particular song by any Treasure Island Music Festival 2010 Sunday artist is particularly special to you, and you will be in the running to win two tickets to Sunday’s festivities.  Mission Mission editors will pick the entry we like best, based on merit, so make ‘em sincere and fun to read. Contest ends two weeks from right this second.

If you’d rather just get tickets the boring way — by buying them — you may do so here.

UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: This contest is for tickets to Sunday only.

This is almost as cute as those cute kittens in a box! And their heads are all oriented in the same direction! Looking at the same out-of-frame mystery thing!

Photo by Lisa Tauber.

In the comments section of yesterday’s post about a community meeting regarding food carts in Dolores Park, reader C., at the end of a very astute analysis of the controversial situation, offered up this interesting position:

I think Dolores Park Café could be something, anything so much better…

Any thoughts? I’ve never been inside, but it looks sunny and friendly, and it’s always full of people. Do we like this place or what?

Photo by mikek.

The Mission Bicycle Festival commenced this past Sunday despite the efforts of concerned NIMBYs and was (as SF Citizen would proudly say) a huge success, thanks in part to the beautiful 80 degree weather and diligently organized volunteer corps.  Locally crafted bike gear by artisans and vendors such as Box Dog Bikes, Rickshaw Bagworks, and Mission Workshop were on full display in a friendly environment that was far less daunting than the massive Interbike convention I checked out in Vegas last week:

(BTW, way better Interbike photos can be found over at Box Dog Blog)

Thanks to the Mission Bicycle Company for organizing such a wonderful representation of velo-culture in the neighborhood (and the Women’s Building too, of course)!  While I wasn’t brave enough to enter the trackstand competition to compete for a brand new Valencia frameset, it was still cool to witness along with the bunny hop contest and unicycle basketball.

Also, I’m pretty sure Interbike didn’t have a S’mores-cycle!

See you next year!

“I could have sworn she said the corner of Guerrero and Dorland . . . ”

Is there something about a couch on the sidewalk that somehow easily becomes anthropomorphized and pitiful? Is it because they’re a place of comfort, but also a place that we sink into when we’re sad?

In case you somehow missed it, SFist did a cool piece a couple weeks ago with a Sofa Free master, Erik Wilson: The Abandoned Couches of San Francisco.

Think Blue Bottle should be allowed to sell coffee in the park? Think Blue Bottle should not be allowed to sell coffee in the park? Perhaps you should consider attending this community meeting tonight at 7:00pm and voicing your opinion, or clapping for someone with whom you agree.

Dolores Parks Works has all the details.

For a little background:

Blue Bottle Not Actually the New American Apparel?

Blue Bottle the New American Apparel?