Snohetta

The proposed 235,000-square-foot expansion of SFMOMA

​SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra describes himself as having a missionary's zeal, with modern art as his religion.

"There's a misapprehension that contemporary art is difficult, that it's only for certain people," Benezra says. "I don't believe that. I believe it's for everyone."

So Benezra is particularly excited about the expansion to the museum, which was unveiled Wednesday, that he believes will go a long way to bringing art to the masses. The project will break ground in summer of 2013 and is due to open in early 2016. Plans include the construction of a new 235,000-square-foot building that will run along the back of the current Mario Botta building, extending from Minna to Howard. It will have more public entrances, free ground-level galleries, new outdoor spaces -- including a sculpture garden -- and educational spaces connected to the galleries.

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nancyesmith

The Bay Bridge on Twitter: 20,000 feet across but only 140 characters

​Used to be, if you talked to buildings, you were automatically crazy. These days, locals talk to San Francisco landmarks all the time - and the landmarks talk back, thanks to Twitter users giving voice to everything from perky cable cars to gritty, raunchy Folsom Street.

They also talk amongst themselves. Buildings and hills bicker like siblings about who's taller, while the fog gets friendly with just about everyone. Often, their chatter lends extra levity to current events, like the earthquake that rattled the Bay Area Tuesday night:

@SF_Cablecar: You know what earthquakes make? Hills! :-D I like hills!

@SFBayBridge: O.O YEAH I AM NOT RESTING TONIGHT. #shakenandstirred

@Waves_SF: @SFBayBridge I'll hold you! at least your feet anyway

@SFBayBridge: @Waves_SF Aw, thank you. You're SO much nicer than seismic waves!

@Waves_SF: @SFBayBridge well, except for all that erosion and corrosion. but that's slow and keeping your workers gainfully employed!

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The furniture will have to find a new home.

​The chairs, sofas, and lamps crawling up the walls of the defunct Hugo Hotel on Sixth Street might be destroyed when the building is demolished next year. The developer of the affordable housing complex that will replace the Hugo's footprint has no plans to reinstall the quirky furniture.

San Francisco artist Brian Goggin installed the iconic public art known as Defenestration in the 1990s to liven up the abandoned building in the Tenderloin. Goggin told SF Weekly last year that he planned for the art to come down with the building, but then he raised enough money to restore the pieces so they could be moved to another location.
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​ I know it will be hard to believe, but as I said before, I was not born wearing a skirt. That, my dear readers, was something that tranifested itself much later in life.

Michael Williams

Maybe she's born with it. Maybe not.

​ I don't even recall being that much interested in fashion, and my childhood fascination with Barbie was only due to her fabulous 3-story townhouse. That's not gay, that's just architecture. Mr Brady was an architect, and he wasn't a gay ... hmm ... wait a minute!

So how does it start? Well, it wasn't a Halloween excuse, for sure. I will leave that one for the insecure man (gay or straight) who needs the excuse to escape what they feel are the confines of masculine behavior. Why would you crossdress if it wasn't for a costume, right?

That's probably not too far off from what I originally thought, although to be honest, I probably never thought of it at all before I moved to S.F. and met a couple of seasoned performers.

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​ In my never-ending quest to let you know what's afoot (not that thing at the bottom of your leg) within the performing community, this week I'll enlighten you about Toolbox.

Amber Gregory

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​Well, dear readers, I had intended to write about the Oscars for this posting, but did anyone else watch and have a total snore of a time? I mean seriously, you know it's a total snoozefest when you find yourself checking your recent Facebook updates to laugh at all your friends' better jokes.

So even though I learned a new writing technique this week, of NOT including everything in one column, I fear I won't have anything meaningful to say about the awards show, so I'll leave that until the end of the post and tell of some of the other things going on in our fair city.

Thursday night, IN THE RAIN, I hoofed it to Cookie Dough's Monster Show at the Edge Bar in the Castro. To honor my new tradition of trying to see a new drag show or hit a new venue at least once a year (ok, maybe once a month...once a week?...you bitches are really trying to kill me, aren't you?) I figured this would be a good introduction to what the kids are doing.

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It's All Drag ...

Here it is, my third post and I already feel like Carrie Bradshaw! Except my column would be called "Third Sex in the City."

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​ Are you Godzilla? Most people are, at least some of the time. The nice people at the Cardboard Institute of Technology understand this, and in the past, they've created huge miniature (not an oxymoron) cities for you to dominate, roar in, and ultimately destroy, most of which were named Cardburg. The group's new huge miniature goes up at the Exploratorium, is called Sub-Terrain, and needs you to help build it, you big lizard. From now until March 5, go to the Tinkering Room and glue cardboard into subways, catacombs, sewers, tunnels, basements, Bob Dylan, and we're just making shit up off the top of our heads on the theme of subterranean, which is what you're supposed to do when you get there.

​Where does one even begin in introducing oneself to what I can only assume will soon be a legion of adoring fans? That's not to say I don't have a legion already, but when you add to a legion, does it become legioner? More legion? Legionest?

Kind of judgmental

​Let's begin with the name, LeMay. Yes, it really is my name. It's my last name, but everyone knows nowadays that if you can't make it with just one name, you're screwed! No one can remember anything more, anyway, and when you're shouting in a noisy club or bar, you could easily introduce yourself as Albert Einstein and people would just nod and smile. When pronounced, everyone assumes it is in reference to the fabric, lamé. It's often misprinted that way, and then sadly misspelled without the accent, and we all know that without the accent ... it's just lame!
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