Mission Mission

In light of an unsubstantiated rumor that Molly Ringwald’s favorite local restaurant is Range, it’s time we noted that Valencia’s only Michelin star (true?) has been consistently making great and varied cocktails since long before you moved here from Santa Rosa and started bitching about how yuppies are ruining the neighborhood. The Gold Spike is my current favorite, which combines a good amount of tequila, several dashes of bitters (housemade, of course,) and Cynar, Italy’s premier artichoke liqueur. I usually try to sneak in between 6 and 7 and get one of the ten or so seats at the bar before the dinner crowd floods in.

Drink of the week is brought to you by Poachedjobs.com.

Sirron Norris brings us these curious digits over the Mission:

Is this a new song (perhaps a follow-up to Jenny)? Or is it the next SF police chief’s salary? Maybe Craigslist’s new Missed Connections format?

None of the above – it’s π!

An artistic presentation of sky calligraphy, called Pi in the Sky, the world’s largest ephemeral art installation, will occur on Wednesday, September 12, 2012 between 11:45am and 1:30pm PT (weather permitting). At 10,000 feet above the skies of the San Francisco Bay Area, five synchronized skywriting planes will draw the first 1000 digits of the infinite sequence of pi (π) – the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. The event is a community-building civic art experience, yet it also underscores the importance of math and science in our lives.

Now I’m hungry, and Pi Bar doesn’t open until 3:14, dammit.

Local filmmaker Jay Francisco Lopez recently completed his first feature, Sin Padre, which premieres this Friday at the opening night of the San Francisco Latino Film Festival.

I first met Jay on the set of Peter and Benjamin Bratt’s 2009 film, La Mission. He was a background actor and I was doing the behind-the-scenes. Since then he starred in a short feature that I co-wrote at BAYCAT, The Invisible City, about a group of friends in Hunters Point. After that he raised funds himself to write, produce and direct his own feature film about a Honduran teenager getting by in the Mission, where Jay himself was born to Honduran immigrants.

Jay’s film screens at The Victoria Theater (on 16th at Capp) on 9/14. The show is sold out, but according to Sin Padre’s Facebook page:

Due to popular demand and the high ticket sales Just added a 2nd screening of SIN PADRE this Sunday Sept 16 5:15pm at the Opera Plaza Cinema Theater 601 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, CA 94102 you can buy tickets at http://sinpadre2.bpt.me/

Before Sunday screening there well be a meet and greet with the director and the cast from 2pm to 4pm at the Verizon Wireless store [at] 2654 Mission St.

Jay’s film looks good, check it out when you can.

P.S. I also have a film in the SF Latino Film Festival, Miles Away, a short I co-directed with Jose Alfaro, will be screening at the Opera Plaza Theater this Saturday at 1:00pm.

Jealous?

Apparently this evening while I was stuck inside (ugh, buildings, who needs ‘em?) we were graced with some amazing skies that included some rainbows. Thanks to the readers who sent in these pics.

[Thanks, Matthew!]

[Thanks, Amar!]

UPDATE: Here’s one from Alicia!

UPDATE 2: This one from Dana may just be the most spectacular yet!

With more still coming in through the comments.

You already knew that the housing situation in SF and the Mission in particular was so bad that people have resorted to paying for Facebook ads in order to find a place to live, but this utterly amazing Craigslist room vacancy post is sure to depress even the most optimistic apartment seeker:

I have a shitty room available that no other people in the house want, hence the ad on CL.
I figure I can charge you more so the existing roommates can all pay less. I’ve actually been here for 8 years, so I’ll be making money off your rent.
It’s about 8×6, has a window facing a brick wall, and has no closet. The closet is down the hall, down a flight of stairs, … ah hell it’s in the garage.
Also, the room is not really a room, it’s half of a double parlour and your door is a sliding one that doesn’t close all the way. You can hear your roommate on the other side think.
We’re having an open house, so if you really like talking about yourself and giving us your life story while other strangers are present, you’ll be in your element.
One of our roommates is out of town, we would like you to skype with him a few days from now when we’ve picked some people out. Then after that we will narrow it down again to a select few (10) and meet next week for round two. We don’t have a life so we welcome the chance to have people over that show interest in us and praise our wonderful abode and everything about us, whether it’s sincere or not. Hey, a couple of us guys are single, so this could be a chance for us to score some dates. I don’t think that’s creepy at all.
We’d like your facebook and linkedin info. We feel that we can tell what kind of person you are and what you’ll be like, just from looking at how many friends you have online. There’s never been a better way to get to know someone.
Send us an email or go buy a lottery ticket – chances of getting the room are roughly the same.

Obviously it’s not real (I hope), but having gone through the soul-crushing Mission housing search on Craigslist myself a while back, I can tell you with complete confidence that it is extremely close to the truth.

(Thanks Jason!)

Somebody stop that U-Haul!

I mean, just look at these gems!  Joy Division, New Order, Erasure, Depeche Mode, and even some BOOTLEG PRINCE (written on the back of that cassette is DNA LOUNGE ’94–haven’t listened to that one yet but it is sure to be epic).  The only reason I picked up the Alison Moyet is because the album was named ALF, although I am discovering that it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with my favorite alien.

Isn’t sidewalk music the best?  What’s some of the best discarded stuff that you’ve ever found just lying around here?

Photo credit: The Detox Market Facebook page

I’ve been meaning to go into the Detox Market since they opened between 21st and 20th on Valencia. Our friends at Vegansaurus said nice things about them and they have some lovely window displays advertising vegan products. But let me be honest here: the word “detox” grosses me out. It makes me think of those embarrassing friends of friends (we all have them) who go on a weekend drinking and taco binge and show up to Sunday brunch only to order a side of fruit and proclaim that they’re “detoxing.” Fuck that. I hate that! They’ll spend that whole day eating fruit and drinking some sort of filtered lemon water and cayenne concoction talking about how it does “wonders” to their “system.” It is gross, but I digress.

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If you ever feel like you’re gonna explode, this spot on Mission Street might be the best place to stand.