The Uptown Almanac inbox was set ablaze this morning with hot information that at THIS THURSDAY'S Mission Community Market will feature Photo Opportunities!  Thank God.  But seriously, you've already heard about this Market from the 500 other San Francisco virgins with keyboards, so I'll just cut to the chase and highlight what will be there tomorrow:

• Deliciously prepared foods from La Cocina and the Mission Market
• Fresh produce from farms such as Blue House, Tomatero, Twin Girls, Hidden Star and Organic Pastures
• Collaborative youth mural project led by Chris Treggiari of Root Division Arts Collective. Youth from YMCA Mission Girls and the Mission Beacon will be in attendance. All are invited.
• Activities and play space hosted by the Mission Beacon and the Dolores Community Youth Alliance
• Live Music from Porto Franco records
• Capoeria from Abada Capoeira
• Crafts and artisans from the Women’s Initiative and MiSBA
• Health resources and information from CARECEN, Rec and Parks, Shape Up SF


Sounds like they'll actually have fresh food there, which is basically the only thing I care about because biking 7 blocks to Rainbow is hard.  Can't wait!

Thursdays 4pm-8pm.  22nd and Bartlett.

John Waters, Hollywood Smile Train, 2009. C-prints, edition of 5, 26 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches framed. Courtesy of Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA

John Waters' fourth solo exhibition at Rena Bransten Gallery entitled, Rush, is now on view through July 10th. The exhibition, aptly titled after Rush liquid incense, the alkyl nitrites inhaled for recreational purposes (more commonly referred to as “whip-its” by the kids I roll with) gives you just that. 

Rush boasts a comical fiberglass mixed-media sculpture of Ike Turner forcing his puppet, a fur coat and pink dress clad Tina Turner to perform a sassy dance. Other memorable works are the film stills of Hollywood stars appropriated onto butts, poking fun at the filmie technique of Rear Projection (the works title) and appropriately finishing the sequence of photographs with “the end,” a perfect double entendre! The piece, Hollywood Smile Train, is composed of images of Tom Cruise, Hitchcock, Meryl Streep, and other celebs with harelips, and not in that hot Joaquin Phoenix kind of way.

The exhibition also incorporates a series of photographs taken from the movie set of Pecker, the 1998 comedy written and directed by Waters about a young photographer plucked from Baltimore and promised to become a New York art star. The stills challenge the contemporary idea of the art worlds relationship with celebrity, its obsession with the next big thing, and the excitement and sadness it all incorporates. 

The exhibition is an insiders peek into the film and art world as seen by Waters, but manages to keep outsiders in on the joke too. The exhibition ends July 10th.

And by gay, I mean awesome. 

Considering the lack of easy access to my roof and my relative fear of heights, I don't often get to enjoy the view from the top.  Luckily Clark has a ladder going up the back and I have a new camera to play with.