Blogs

Harptallica, Saturn Returns, 9pm, $7
Elbo Room - 647 Valencia at 18th St.

If Heaven is full of happy cherubim strumming golden harps, then what do fallen angels listen to in Hell? Harptallica may have the answer. This Louisiana duo covers blackhearted Metallica thrash classics like “One” and “Master of Puppets” on a pair of giant classical harps, turning Kirk Hammett’s guitar leads and James Hetfield’s raw vox into tapestries of sinuous, chiming tones. Sure, it’s kinda hard to bang your head to such delicate strums. But it would be pretty sweet to sneak Harptallica’s version of “Ride the Lightning” onto the P.A. at your local Christian bookstore. Obeying your evil master has never been so seductively melodious. — John Graham

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The Ant Show's 4th Annual Boxer Rebellion, 8pm, $7-10
Red Devil Lounge - 1695 Polk at Clay

We had the privilege of sitting next to now-famous blogger Brock Keeling of SFist for a number of years when he was our clubs editor. So we can tell you authoritatively that he is stylish, sometimes cruelly so. Always subtle, sharp, and body-conscious, his clothing was better than ours, every day, as was his hair and skincare regime. We think he may attend the fourth annual Boxer Rebellion, since at least one of the designers at this underwear-focused fashion show has been known to use bare-crotched celebrities as a visual motif: This is right up Brock's alley. The designer, Improperazzi, also features "yes smoking" buttons (no diagonal line, just a picture of a cigarette), a generally slim fit, and blatant drug imagery — all very Brock. Other designers include Vintage Joy, owner of the half boring, half hilarious slogan "Changing the world of style, styling the world of change," Mei Lin, Dan Gallagher, and Cara Barnard. Murder of Lilies, the Catholic Comb, Ghost to Atom, and others provide the rock. --Hiya Swanhuyser

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Spike and Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation, 7pm, $10
Victoria Theatre - 2961 16th St. at Capp

People who take drugs are funny! Like that kid in Santa Cruz who police described as "gorked" on acid recently. Because get it? The cop knew drug lingo! Then there's the recent movie, Super High Me, in which a comedian gets all stoned. At Spike and Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation, you'll find a huge lineup of the fest's signature gross-out animated short films, including one about drugs, Home Honey, I'm High. This craaazy 1950s-style comedy looks hand-drawn, sketchily, and the premise is "Ozzie and Harriet get high, often, as do their children." The housewife keeps large jars marked "Hash," etc., on her kitchen counter, and the family enjoys watching the Donna Weed Show on T.V. They're gorked! But other things are funny at Spike and Mike's too, like death, especially being buried alive in fest favorite Happy Tree Friends' Can't Stop Coffin. Don't forget, these are the guys we have to thank for the existence of the Simpsons, and by extension, the ones to blame for American Dad. --Hiya Swanhuyser

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For the Record Dancers Debate the Body Politic, 8pm
Project Artaud Theater - 450 Florida at 17th St.

It's not just a rumor propagated by local dance devotees: The Bay Area really is home to the most happening dance community in the country outside of New York City. The scene here isn't nearly as centralized as Manhattan's, though, so artists tend to lack the same naturally occurring opportunities to pat each other on the back and talk art. Rather than whine about the situation (well, they've done that, too), a group of community-minded dance folk launched the Dance Discourse Project last fall. The goal was to host salon-style conversations about local dance on a rotating series of topics, with each installment featuring a panel of local artists. The refrain at the first installment was somewhat predictable: The SF dance community is "too fragmented." While the debate played out over how to create more dialogue among artists, the organizers sat back and smiled, knowing they'd done just that. . .

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Quarter Century
Creativity Explored - 3245 16th St. at Dolores

Something in us rebels; we love to see mistreated people get up and tell power where to shove it. This is why we like to see Johnny Cash angry, this is the cause of our undying admiration for the Black Panthers, and this is the reason it felt so joyous to learn about an exhibit of art made by adults with developmental disabilities titled "Don't Call Me Retard." It was a production of San Francisco's famous Creativity Explored, which does nothing but teach art to people often overlooked and called names. At "Quarter Century," the gallery and studio celebrates its vast successes by pulling together work from its own amazing permanent collection, including pieces by artists who have since become superstars of the art world, including our own fave, Fears of Your Life author and text-based art guru, Michael Bernard Loggins. Other widely collected artists appearing here include John Patrick McKenzie, Douglas Sheran, and Vincent Jackson. But mostly, the art center and its artists are about courage, and being fabulous, and self-expression, not about money or fame. A gala event on May 15 at Foreign Cinema features clips from Ben Wu's Academy Award-winning film about the place, Cross Your Eyes, Keep Them Wide, in addition to a silent auction, live music, and treats. --Hiya Swanhuyser

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The Master's Tools (Decay Goes Both Ways)
Little Tree Gallery - 3412 22nd St. at Guerrero

Last year, artist Lacey Jane Roberts blocked Clarion Alley in the Mission with a chain-link, barbed-wire-topped fence, which was pink. It was pink because she covered every single hard, unyielding surface with "crank knit" yarn, resulting in just the most adorable industrial barrier you've ever seen in your life. She also knits her own colorful graffiti (using the name "Tink"), which she hangs on graffiti-strewn walls. Probably the cheekiest thing she's done, however, was her guerilla restoration of the California College of the Arts sign. Some of you recall the school used to be called California College of the Arts and Crafts, a name it had held since 1934. It was shortened in 2003, which caused a lot of people to think, My God, are you freaking kidding me with that? Of course you can imagine what Roberts did to her alma mater: "& Crafts," in bright red yarn, hung atop the building for a week in 2005.

For her solo exhibit "The Master"s Tools (Decay Goes Both Ways)," she raises another fence, nearly 10 feet tall and covered in silver yarn, which spills out from the installation like overgrown weeds. Also appearing is an unsteady antique spinning wheel, deformed nearly beyond recognition and use. --Michael Leaverton

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Waiting For Godzilla, 8pm - $10
Theatre of Yugen - 2840 Mariposa at Alabama

Waiting for Godzilla is less absurdist angst than its Beckett namesake and more operatic B-movie fantasy. In fact, the piece, by famed composer and singer Randall Wong, is billed as a "miniature opera in three parts," which means lots of enchantment and baroque flourishes rather than empty vistas pulsing with sad apathy. There's no monster-movie mayhem here; the performance seeks to render Godzilla in his original incarnation in the 1954 Gojira, a skillful meditation on the horror of post-war society and anxiety over the destruction of Japan's very infrastructure. The performance presents itself as a tell-all from the dinosaur hybrid's perspective. Rather than presenting him as an otherworldly behemoth intent on wreaking vengeance, Waiting for Godzilla casts our scaly protagonist as a tragic hero pining for the love of the indifferent Mothra (his fluttery erstwhile adversary). It may sound like pure kitsch, but the addition of live instruments, an originally composed libretto, puppeteers in the Japanese bunraku tradition (which means you get to see them moving their puppets rather than just imagine the shadowy manipulators), and stunning visual stagecraft in the form of intricate screens and stages enable the piece to transcend its seemingly twee constraints. --Nirmala Nataraj

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Stop Waiting For Lefty, 7:30pm - $12
First Unitarian Universalist Church - 1187 Franklin at Geary

The literary who's-who at "Strike! Igniting the Fuse of Possibility," includes accomplished and lauded poets like Jack Hirschman, Diane di Prima, and Michael McClure, as well as hard-to-label writers like Guillermo Gomez-Peña and Bucky Sinister. Then there's your standard amazing local authors such as Charlie Anders and Justin Chin, and finally, 23 other loudmouths. The occasion is May Day, the traditional International Workers Day, and the attitude is practical: How can regular people fight injustice? Thirty intellectuals give you three minutes each of their ideas about resistance to a phrase we've never heard before --"disaster capitalism." In light of the private armies and defense contractors freaking us out recently, though, the term makes perfect sense. --Hiya Swanhuyser

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