Go to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival is usually held on the first weekend in October. (This year it's 10/5, 10/6 and 10/7.) It's a free, three-day outdoor show in Golden Gate Park attended by a few hundred thousand people.

While it started out as a blue grass-only affair, it has now grown to include other types of music (which don't stray too far from bluegrass, e.g., folk, country, alt-country, and so on).

Notaries this year include Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), Los Lobos, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch and Neko Case.

Important details:

1. Free
2. Blankets, short-back chairs and coolers are allowed.
3. Bike parking will be available (see map).
4. Free


A schedule of acts, as well as a map and other pertinent information, is available on the event's website. Here is a short NPR article about the festival. Here is an SF Bay Guardian interview with Warren Hellman, the guy who personally funds the whole thing.

Read part of Oh the Glory of It All

Written by the stepson of the high-society queen most notable for spearheading the fund-raising drive responsible for the construction of the new de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, this sometimes-funny tell-all is worth a read for those who follow the local gossip columns.

But in the interest of saving you fifteen bucks that might otherwise go towards the overweight-suitcase fee on your flight out of town, I recommend going to your nearest book store and reading pages 313-320 of the paperback edition with the white cover, black lettering and pretty gray-image overlay. It looks like this:


This 8-page snippet is a great account of the 1906 earthquake and resulting fire written in a style weaving the lives of the book's characters int0 the context of greater historical events (sort of like Midnight's Children).

Remember, it's never too late to learn something about the town you're leaving.


Oh the Glory of It All is written by Sean Wilsey, who's the stepson of Dede Wilsey, who sounds like a real bitch if you read the whole book. The de Young Museum is the copper-clad building in Golden Gate Park. Here is an article about the lady and the book.

Get a slice of the pizza of the day at Arizmendi Bakery

You're lying in bed at noon on a Saturday. You realize that there's no position into which you can put your head that will fully extinguish the pounding reminder that you were surely overserved the night before. The rumbling in the tum is beginning to rival the hammer in your head, but you've no food with which to sate the beast below.

Solution:
Pull yourself onto your bike, ride to Arizmendi in the Inner Sunset and get a piece (or three) of the thin-crust pizza of the day. Sweating it out on the way will help the head, and a $2 slice (or three) consumed on the bench in the sun across the street will satisfy the angry tum.


Arizmendi Bakery is a worker-owned cooperative on 9th, between Irving and Judah, that is open every day except Monday and sells many baked goods in addition to pizza. It has been open since 2000 and is loosely affiliated with the bakeries of the same name in Oakland and Emeryville, as well as with the Cheeseboard Collective in Berkeley. It is named after the Basque priest and labor organizer José Maria Arizmendiarrieta.