Final Tap:
An Unofficial History of Beer
The rise of microbrewers in American is preceded by a rich social and revolutionary history of beer and brewing, spanning from the Mayans to the Mayflower, from the Founding Fathers through Manifest Destiny, and from Prohibition to the corporatization of beer. Artists John Jota Leaños and Sean Levon Nash will consider this history of beer and invite regional microbrewers to talk about American brewer patriotism and the issues surrounding locally controlled beer production. Enjoy craft-beer samples while discovering the political realities and alternative histories of a largely misunderstood beverage.
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Art & Politics: Conscious Youth Media Crew
Join CounterPULSE and CYMC in a dialogue of Art and Politics featuring a screening of selected short films and a panel with the Bay Area's next generation of filmmakers. "No Justice No Peace" by Chantal Renous, 16, addresses the BART shooting of Oscar Grant that brought all kinds of people to the streets to protest police violence and racism in the Bay Area. "Be the Change, Change the Nation", a CYMC short segment that explores the making of a music video by Tha Faculty and the reasons behind why we need to "change the nation." "A Choice of Weapons" film trailer, CYMC 2009 examines the Bayview's redevelopment plan, thec hanging urban landscape of San Francisco, and the city's decreasing black population. In "Grind for the Green" by the CYMC Summer Youth Crew, young people speak out on what makes going green important, who's really going green in the hood and how you can make money behind it.
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From India to the Bay Area
Devendra Sharma (Performing Diaspora) and Vidhu Singh (playwright) discuss important issues surrounding the Bay Area Indian community. Topics include: immigration politics, women in forced marriage, Indian Invitro industry, political economy of Silicon Valley and Indian outsourcing industries.
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Ecology and Redevelopment in Bayview Hunter's Point 
(Nature in the City)
The City and Lennar Corporation are promulgating a redevelopment plan, but what about ecology, wildlife and the human community? Come learn about ArcEcology's recent report that illustrates brand new and exciting alternatives for the Bayview-Hunter's Point Redevelopment. How is Candlestick Point State Recreation Area affected? Isn't Bayview-Hunter's Point entitled to its own Crissy Field? How can (re)development benefit the current residents and be driven by their needs and wants? (Saul Bloom, ARC Ecology)
Photo: Fence at edge of former Navy Base, by Chris Carlsson
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The Politics of ‘Third Space’ in Global Videos and Installations
(co-sponsored by the Global Commons Foundation)
Michelle Dizon, Filipino-American artist from LA, screens her installation video comparing the 2005 riots in France and the 1992 riots in LA, illuminating political issues of marginal citizenships, migration and exile, media and the erasure of memories of historical violence. The discussion will be centered around a criticism of the current predominance of video realism—activism as a limited politics and poetics, mimicking mainstream media. By bringing examples of experimental forms of political installations we look for possibilities of reconfiguring political subjects and actions. Discussants: Dalida Maria Benfield, filmmaker, art educator and scholar, Laura Fantone, visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley, Beatrice Bain Research Group. Katherine Wallerstein will moderate the discussion.
Image: Michelle Dizon's "Civil Society". Her video work will be shown on Oct. 14 at CounterPULSE.
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 Bicycling in San Francisco
17 years of Critical Mass and 10,000 members of the Bike Coalition?… what’s right, what’s not with the way bicycling and bicycling politics is developing at the end of the first decade of the 21st century? A broad discussion of bicycle etiquette, transportation and urban design, equipment and safety (good engineering vs. "good shopping"), Stop-Roll, Bike Plan 04 vs. Copenhagen 1980, etc. Inside/outside, SF Bike Coalition/Critical Mass… Janel Sterbentz, Steve Jones, Andy Thornley and Chris Carlsson.
Photo by Chris Carlsson, Critical Mass descending Lombard, July 2007
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Climate Change/Climate Justice (Nature in the City)
What is going to be accomplished by "cap-and-trade?" How is global warming being co-opted by corporate power? What are equitable approaches involving local communities? How are the effects of climate change already appearing on the planet's and the Bay Area's ecosystems? What is the relationship between climate change and ecological restoration? Tom Athanasiou (Eco-Equity), Jon Christensen (Exec. Dir., Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University), Dan Gluesenkamp, (Director of Habitat Restoration at Audubon Canyon Ranch), Laura Castellini (GGNRA and Nature in the City)
Photo: Chris Carlsson—August 15, 2009 march to Chevron Refinery in Richmond, California, demanding Climate Justice among other things. Oct. 28 Talk will be on politics of Climate Change.
sorry, no podcast: technical failure
History & Politics Alcatraz
40th anniversary of Indigenous occupation
AIM-West and friends will revisit the historic occupation of Alcatraz, show video clips, tell stories, and most importantly, connect this important historic event with the decades of organizing and political resistance since that time.
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Philippines: Immigration Politics and the Body
This panel brings artists and scholars together who work in the areas of Filipino history, colonization, decolonization and the creation of cultural forms. It will evoke and address our diasporic, transnational and shifting identities as Filipinos/Filipino-Americans and political relationships historically and today between the Philippines and the United States. Aimee Suzara, Aimee Espiritu, and Jorge Emmanuel.
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Art & Politics: Keith Hennessy, revisiting Saliva
a 1988/89 performance by Keith Hennessy. Twenty years ago Keith Hennessy created Saliva, an interdisciplinary dance-performance-ritual under a freeway in downtown San Francisco. Deep within the rage and grief of the AIDS crisis, Hennessy performed a ritualistic reclamation of the body, the queer male body, as holy. Video excerpts, live performance, historical context, and audience discussion combine to recreate this AIDS-era work of queer performance
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Prelinger Archive Lost Landscapes of the East Bay
Continuing our annual holiday excursions through lost films of the Bay Area, Rick Prelinger this year takes us across the water to the East Bay. Rarely seen clips, recently rediscovered home movies, and more surprises are in store. As always, come ready to call out what you see. It’s an evening of participatory film and history investigation! Bring your grandparents and your kids!
Prohibition: Then and Now
Comparing the alcohol Prohibition of the 1920s-30s to the contemporary prohibition on marijuana. With Dick Boyd, author of "Broadway, North Beach, The Golden Years: A Saloon Keeper's Tales" and former owner of Pierre's, a bar in North Beach from 1960-65, Sean Lavon Nash, and Michael Whitson, a marijuana prohibition expert. (image: Bootleg whiskey still in San Francisco is dismantled)
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Art & Politics: Patricia Rodriguez, Mujeres Muralistas and former Mission Cultural Center curator
Rodriguez has been involved in San Francisco’s public art movement as an original member of Mujeres Muralistas and as an anchor from her home on Balmy Alley during the 1970s and 1980s to that remarkable flowering of public art, of which she was a major participant. She’s a window into the Chicano art and politics of decades past but also the present! (below: Latinoamérica, by Mujeres Muralistas.)
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Urban Forest (Nature in the City)
, 7:30pm, Free
Not only are trees and "urban forests" the most prominent features of the city's "natural" landscape, they are the city’s biggest biomass. Tree choices influence habitat resources for countless less obvious, but no less important species of flora and fauna. What are the facts about trees, "forests" and woodlands in San Francisco? A debate on the benefits and drawbacks of specific tree species and issues in the city, as they relate to habitat, aesthetics, and the human experience of nature in the city. with Doug Wildman (FUF), Josiah Clark, Peter Ehrlich.
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Queer Workers:
Class, Gentrification and Struggle in San Francisco
Join queer organizers from Pride at Work/HAVOQ and other community organizations to discuss gentrification, how the economy affects queer workers, and redefining the gay agenda. Reexamine what is seen as a queer issue in San Francisco, as we dig into our ongoing struggles for justice around issues that daily affect our lives and those in our communities. In a departure from the usual arrangement at the Talks series, we'll be sitting in 3 facilitated circles to discuss together.
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Art & Politics: Jesus Barraza, Melanie Cervantes, and Zachary Karnazes
Favianna Rodriguez hosts a panel of up-and-coming young political artists: 
Melanie Cervantes is an artist trained by library books, family, peers and experimentation. She produces her work in various mediums including pen and ink, acrylic, screenprinting, embroidery, fiber arts, and spraypainted stencils. Melanie infuses her indigenous internationalist worldview, spirituality and politic into all her art. Following the tradition of such artists as Juana Alicia, Malaquias Montoya, Judy Baca, Emory Douglas, La Mujeres Muralistas and Diego Rivera- Melanie has made a life long commitment to being an artist for the people. Dignidad Rebelde is a project created by Bay Area activist-artists Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantes.
Image: Falda de Serpientes, An Inheritance from My Mother
 Jesus Barraza is an activist printmaker and digital artist based in San Leandro, California. Using bold colors and high contrast images his prints reflect both his local and global community and their resistance in a struggle to create a new world. Barraza’s work continues the tradition of graphic art in the spirit of Jose Gaudalupe Posada, OSPAAAL and Juan R. Fuentes.
In 1998 Barraza was a co-founder of ten12, a collective of digital artists. He has also worked as Graphic Designer for the Mission Cultural Center/Mission Grafica, where Calixto Robles, Juan R. Fuentes and Michael Roman mentored Barraza in various screen printing methods. In 2003, he co-founded the Taller Tupac Amaru printing studio.
Zachary Karnazes was born and raised in the bay area. He is very active in local community and politics designing original artwork for The Really FREE Market, Food Not Bombs, SF Bay Area Community Exchange, Haiti Action Committee, CCSF Green Corps, and other progressive organizations.
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Nature in the City: Golf Courses, Parks, Natural Areas
Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica (owned by the city of San Francisco) has become a point of sharp controversy, pitting golfers against endangered species. Meanwhile the city's budget is strained by the impossibility of maintaining a failing, moribund golf course while recreational needs go unmet, and threats of endangered species and habitat lawsuits further jeopardize the city's strained resources. Come and talk about it! Casey Allen will give a thorough presentation.
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Socially Engaged Printmaking Today
A dozen political print and poster makers gather to discuss Josh
MacPhee's new book Paper Politics, as well as the current state of
political graphics making: What are we doing? Why? And is it working?
Short presentations by a couple of the artists will be followed by a
large roundtable discussion. Audience participation is encouraged. Co-sponsored by PM Press.
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Crime in the City: Crime/Noir writers
"Crime fiction is almost like a product of capitalism. It's about social
inequality" --Ian Rankin, best-selling crime novelist
Join four of the finest exponents of crime and noir as they discuss how
fiction is not just a mirror to the seamier sides of life, but the
proverbial hammer with which to shape it.
Owen Hill is the author of two novels and many books of poetry. Of his
latest, The Incredible Double, David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times said,"...here we have the essence of noir, a life lived at the edges". He
lives in Berkeley, where he works as a bookseller and curates a reading
series.
Jim Nisbet, long regarded as one of fiction's best kept secrets, is about
to claim 2010 as his own, with the publication of two new novels, and the
reissuing of ten of his previous classics!
Summer Brenner's novel of sex-trafficking, I-5 made numerous book of the
year lists for 2009, and is an underground best-seller.
Peter Maravelis is the best-selling editor of San Francisco Noir and San
Francisco Noir 2. He has worked at City Lights bookstore for many years as
the readings co-ordinator.
Co-sponsored by PM Press.
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Science Fiction and the Struggle for Justice
From H.G. Wells to Octavia Butler, from New Wave to Cyberpunk
to the Slipstream of today, SF has been a tool to agitate, organize
speculate and explore utopian alternatives. Join a panel of working
SF pros in a lively discussion of the perils and possibilities--
JOHN SHIRLEY Bram Stoker award winner, cyberpunk pioneer, author of
Bleak History , Black Glass ...
LISA GOLDSTEIN, American Book Award winner, charter member of SF's "Brazen Hussies,"
author of The Red Magician, The Divided Crown ...
AMELIA BEAMER, Locus magazine editor, critic, author of The Loving Dead.
TERRY BISSON (moderator) Hugo-winning author of "They're Made out of Meat,"
Fire on the Mountain ... biographer of Mumia Abu Jamal. Co-sponsored by PM Press.
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Special Benefit Program: Songs To Enemies And Deserts
A Film About Rebellion In Darfur
My dear friends Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal, have been in jail in Tehran for over seven months now. We hope there will be an end to this situation soon but we are still trying to keep up awareness of the issue and raise money, both for the mothers of the three to travel to Iran if they are allowed to, and for the financial support of the three prisoners themselves when they are released.
To this end we will be screening the film that Shane and I made in Sudan, called "Songs To Enemies And Deserts". We will start the evening at 8 p.m. with an update on the hikers' situation and then begin the film promptly at 8.30. It is only 35 minutes long so please arrive in time. The screening will be followed by a discussion about the current situation in Darfur and all of Sudan, with the independence vote for South Sudan looming next year, and one Darfuri rebel group, the Justice And Equality Movement or JEM, having recently signed a peace agreement with the Sudanese government.
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U.S. Social Forum: Detroit, June 2010
Join us for an information and strategies session on the subject of the upcoming US Social Forum, to be held in Detroit in June. Discussion will include a brief history of the Social Forums and a discussion of the role and uses of the US Social Forum in particular by members of groups from the Bay Area planning to participate. Local student movement politics will also be in the mix. Please check back for list of participants.
Co-sponsored by The Global Commons Foundation.
Women's rights discussion at World Social Forum, Belém, Brazil, Jan. 2009
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Ten Years That Shook the City: 1968-78
Chris Carlsson and LisaRuth Elliott will give a wide survey of the politics of 1968-78 by going through the forthcoming book
"Ten Years That Shook the City: 1968-78," covering everything from Los Siete de la Raza to the housing and redevelopment politics of the era, the San Francisco State Strike to the lesser known strikes among rank-and-file activists in the local labor movement. Posters, lost murals, unknown ecological treasures, the Farm, and much more! The book won't be out until 2011 so this is your chance for sneak preview!
 photo: Stephen Rees
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Considering urbanization as a global crisis/an opportunity. Understanding the restorative, regenerative, and imaginative possibilities of a new integration of urban and rural through local agriculture, human-powered transport (e.g. walking, biking), etc. with Peter Berg (Planet Drum Foundation), Miya Yoshitani (Asian Pacific Environmental Network),
Jason Mark (Earth Island Journal, Alemany Farm)
 poster by Mona Caron
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Circle The Food Wagons: Local Food Economies
Gardens, farmer's markets, urban farms, gleaning, free food stands, community supported agriculture, micro-farming, and much more! Learn about the nuts and bolts of how San Francisco gets fed now, and how it might become more self-reliant in the years to come, thanks to the experiments and projects already under way. The politics of local food with gardeners, farmers, and you.
Folks will be here from the Hayes Valley Farm, Little City Gardens,
The Free Farm, and Far West Fungi from The Heart of the City Farmers' Market.
audio recording failed, sorry! Blog summary here.
History of the Mission's Carnaval
Willy Lizarraga gives an incredible one-man performance of the history of San Francisco's Carnaval. Fast-changing hats and voices, accompanied by a slide show of historic images from Lou Dematteis and others of those early days.
Carnaval, 1980, looking easterly on 14th Street. (Photo: Lou Dematteis)
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Twin Peaks Bioregional Park
The Twin Peaks Bioregion is the hilly heart of San Francisco—the top of the city's watersheds—from the oak woodlands of Golden Gate Park to Glen Canyon, and from Hawk Hill to Buena Vista Park. Nature in the City has been talking for a couple of years about the heart of the city as a special place to which we should pay attention. Our vision for a Twin Peaks Bioregional Park would consolidate 10-12 different City jurisdictions into one management entity for the protection, restoration and connectivity of one of the most open space and biodiverse rich parts of San Francisco. Peter Brastow, Nature in the City; Claire Beyer, Master of Landscape Architecture and author of Revisioning Open Space: A Framework for Designing a Recreation and Habitat Corridor Across San Francisco, CA. co-sponsored by Nature in the City.
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