Chris Sollars shaving himself with an axe, from his art project "Hairy"

It was Renoir who said that a work of art "must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, and carry you away." Interviews with artists should have a similar effect. With "Artist's Statement," our weekly interview series with prominent and upcoming visual artists in San Francisco, SF Weekly speaks to the people behind the art you see in the galleries, in the museums, and in the streets.

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Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg returned to Zellerbach Hall Rodin May 10-12 at Zellerbach Hall with Boris Eifman's 2011 ballet Rodin, about the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. In contrast to other choreographers after Balanchine, who have practically made abstraction synonymous with contemporary dance, Eifman often returns to stories and refers to his works as "stage psychoanalysis." Yet the idea of abstraction hovers beneath a piece like Rodin, which, though ostensibly about the love triangle between Rodin, his wife, Rose, and his mistress and muse, the sculptor Camille Claudel, is also l'art pour l'art: an ekphrasis of sculpture, an aesthetic transformation of ugly feelings.

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There are at least two things we simply cannot resist here at SF Weekly: sweets and a good show. Indulge! provides them both. A benefit for ODC Theater, Indulge! in-vites the community onto the ODC stage for a night of sweets, savories, spirits, and dance performances. The treats come courtesy of Anthony's Cookies, Schulzie's Bread Pudding, and the Three Babes Bakeshop, with drinks provided by Bluxome Street Cellars and Square One Vodka, among others.

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Barney Frank is a liberal's liberal. He called Bill O'Reilly "boorish," on live TV, dismissed Michelle Bachmann as "an odd lady," and famously responded to a woman who compared Obama to Hitler with, "Arguing with you is like arguing with a dining room table. I have no desire to do it." During his 30 years in Congress, Frank opposed the war in Iraq, encouraged efforts to legalize marijuana, and always advocated for stricter regulation of Wall Street firms.

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Spring is special in San Francisco. In a city where we spend most of the year wrapped up in sweaters and scarves to fend off the harsh ocean winds, the sun peaking out from behind a perpetual fog bank is music to our eyes. Smuin Ballet, one of our homegrown dance companies, understands this. Their Spring Bouquet is an on-stage tribute to everyone's favorite season.

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Despite modern burlesque's associations with elegantly taking one's clothes off before a live audience of hooters and hollerers, burlesque is an art form that was originally intended to make us laugh.

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Here in the Bay Area, we aren't lacking for opportunities to watch the wildly popular cult musical, The Rocky Horror Picture Show -- there's a screening pretty much every week. That's why drag superstar and longtime fan Joshua Grannell, aka Peaches Christ, wanted to do something different. "Rocky Horror truly saved my life," says Grannell. "Back in the '80s when I first discovered it, as little closeted queen, it was my 'it gets better' video."

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Nicholas Carr

By Alyssa Jaffer

Information technology expert Nicholas Carr reveals how the rapidly developing technology around us encourages fragmented, scattered thinking. In short, our superficial thinking amounts to superficial relationships.

Carr first experimented with information technology when he worked as a writer at a management consulting firm Oliver Wyman (then called Mercer Management) in the mid '80s. There, he learned about computers and economics. He describes how he fell in love with his first computer, a 1985 Mac Plus, and became and became fascinated with the concept of information technology.

At the time of the dot-com boom, about a decade later, Carr worked as an editor at Harvard Business Review, where he wrote articles about the effect of the Internet on business and its economical impact. His 2003 article, "IT Doesn't Matter" spurred more than a book deal, it shifted Carr's interest. He became more invested in discovering the social and cultural implications of social media and Internet -- particularly how technology is changing our perceptions of the world and the way we think.

And what he found will surprise you.

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When you move to San Francisco and ask about the literary scene, Writers With Drinks is likely the first thing people tell you about. For one thing, most of us can get behind drinking as a social activity, especially when it's being done by the witty and verbose. But the real reason is host Charlie Jane Anders, who is a pioneer and master of free-form and fictitious biography.

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Some people work their whole lives as entertainers, but their acts never live up to the purity that is a cat-related pratfall. The Great Wall of Oakland is hosting an Internet cat video festival Saturday to benefit the East Bay SPCA. The highlight will be a showing of a 70-minute Internet cat video compilation, projected onto the great 100-foot wall.

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