The Blog

Last Saturday, April 20, The Bold Italic and ForageSF decided to celebrate this iconic "holiday" doing what we all – stoners or not – love doing best: eat. But instead of plain ol' snacks, ForageSF decided to do it up extra fun by making this party an all-out, literal sausage fest. Our 4.20 Meat Up, hosted at Avocados and Coconuts in the Mission, was a perfect springtime fiesta for guests to enjoy meaty goodness, locally foraged ingredients, (lots of!) cocktails, and fun times.

Aside from fancy sausages, ForageSF and Jameson, the official liquor sponsor, created a special ginger syrup to craft delicious whiskey and ginger cocktails. 

Thanks to the lovely folks at Workshop, StudioNico provided DIY screenprinted beer koozies. After the paint dried, these babies did a lovely job of keeping your beer cold. 

The 29th Street Swintet provided amazing tunes throughout the evening. There was even one who knew all the moves. 

SnapFiesta set up an amazing photobooth to make sure that every silly moment was captured. 

Guests stayed comfy in the easily transported Alite Monarch Chair while they enjoyed an amazing film from Avocados and Coconuts with footage from The Goodwin Project. 

Each year, the San Francisco International Film Festival presents a daunting array of wonderfully written and beautifully directed films. Although it was difficult to dwindle down almost 150 films into a viewing list that is a touch more manageable, here are my top 10 picks showing at this year's SFIFF. If my opinions aren't quite what you fancy, check out highlights from a few iconic directors and public figures like John Waters, Alice Waters, and five local celebrities. The 56th San Francisco International Film Festival runs from April 25-May 9 at various venues in SF and at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Stories We Tell

Actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley’s mother Diane died when she was only 11, leaving her with many unanswered questions, including the identity of her biological father. This documentary dives deep into who her mother was and the quest for the man who lent his genes but disappeared into the background of Diane Polley’s life. 

Good Ol' Freda

Freda Kelly was the secretary and right-hand man (er, woman) for The Beatles throughout their entire career. She was the ultimate fangirl, who landed her dream job, helping the gents travel from gig to gig, managing their schedule and responding to their fan mail. If there was something she could do for a fan she would do everything in her power to make it happen, because she knew where they were coming from.

Frances Ha

Noah Baumbach has a way of crafting characters filled with nuance and wit and placing them into the most relatable of worlds. That is exactly what he has done with Frances Ha, his new film starring Greta Gerwig and Mickey Sumner about two friends, one a modern dancer and the other a book editor.

God Loves Uganda

The evangelical Christian movement and the religious and political system in Uganda are the focus of this moving documentary from Roger Ross Williams. The causes of homophobia in Uganda are explored through interviews with Lou Engle, founder of the prayer program TheCall, and Scott Lively, anti-LGBT activist and author of The Pink Swastika. 

Leviathan

Both visually and aurally intense, Leviathan follows the lives of the many fishermen who set sail from the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Shot with a number of portable video cameras handled by both director and fishermen alike, the result is a beautiful representation of what life at sea is truly like. 

Rent A Family Inc. 

In a world where it's your job to hide everyone else's secrets, what do you do with your own? That is the question that Kaspar Astrup Schröder explores in Rent a Family Inc., a documentary about Ryuichi Ichinokawa, a proprietor of an unusual business that rents out actors to portray different roles in people's lives, such as a cousin visiting from out of town or a boyfriend at a family dinner. So what's to become of the man who is hiding the lives of the public?

The East

In The East, anarchist vigilantes that target fictitious big businesses are infiltrated by a corporate spy. Director Zal Batmanglij has taken the beliefs of the group Anonymous and melded that with the Bourne Identity to create a psychological thriller that may actually apply to our American lives today. 

And to end things on a considerably lighter note: 

Ernest & Celestine

An adorably animated film about a little orphaned mouse who befriends a much-feared "Big Bad Bear" and their adventures together. Based on the tales and beautiful watercolor illustrations of the late Belgian artist Gabrielle Vincent, Ernest & Celestine tells the story of how two friends can work together to overcome anything. 

Editor's note: The blog post title mistakenly stated that this project was created as a reaction to the recent events in Boston. This was incorrect. SF72 is a longtime project by the SF Dept. of Emergency Management and had soft-launched in January 2013. 

As amazing as the internet is, sometimes it can feel like a hot mess. Realizing this, the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management is collaborating with IDEO to create SF72, a new social network specifically designed for clarity in emergencies. The app gets its name from its goal of preparedness for the first 72 hours after an emergency. SF72 will allow people to register their resources, including their homes, batteries, and trained hands. 

In an emergency, SF72.org will become an organized place for live updates, missing persons lists, and specific ways to help. And since this is SF, this thing is really good looking. The project is currently reaching out to established social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and TaskRabbit has also expressed an interest in helping connect skilled people.

Aside from being a nontraditional social network, SF72 will have tutorial videos to give people emergency tips. SF72 is still in beta, so the project is still evolving. Check it out, sign up for a launch email notification, and if you haven't taken this super cool earthquake quiz, do it now!

Call me biased, but I think that San Francisco is the most beautiful place on Earth. So in honor of Earth Day, I rounded up some of the most stunning places in the city for you to spread out your picnic blanket, soak in the sunshine, and appreciate the splendor. 

After all, Earth Day was invented here so we might as well celebrate SF's beauty. 

1. Lands End

Photo by irene 

2. The North Windmill, Golden Gate Park 

Photo by Sarah Rosado

3. Sutro Baths 

Photo by Jonathan Dinh

4. Baker Beach

Photo by Angela May Chen

5. John McLaren Park 

Photo by ejbSF

And just in case those didn't convince you, check out this stunning photograph of SF from space. Can you imagine anything better? Yeah, we can't either. 

Photo André Kuipers 

Check out these other gorgeous patches of country in SF and nature getaways in Oakland, and let us know your favorite Bay Area nature spots in the comments section.

On March 27th, EpicenterSF celebrated its launch at KUNST-STOFF Arts, a dance studio above the Burger King where Market, Hyde and Grove Streets converge. EpicenterSF, a community calendar and directory website for San Francisco's Central Market, Civic Center, and Tenderloin neighborhoods, had a lot to celebrate: those three parts of the city boast a huge number of galleries and frequently host special programs and community meetings. It was about time that someone was keeping track and promoting all of these important events. 

EpicenterSF was developed through three community benefit districts with support from the San Francisco Arts Commission and Office of Economic and Workforce Development last year. Together they've created an environment that draws the three areas of the city together. The launch event brought together a diverse crowd of neighborhood stakeholders, business owners and staff, residents, city officials, artists, and others. Local businesses donated refreshments and attendees enjoyed a preview of Bonjour M. Gauguin, a collaborative dance and musical performance with KUNST-STOFF Arts and WestEdge Opera of Berkeley.

In order to keep EpicenterSF an ongoing conversation, they invite those in the community to post events to the calendar ensuring that all of the neighborhoods are represented equally.