See a movie at the Red Vic

While not nearly as cheap as the $2 shows at the Super Saver Cinema (RIP, Super Saver--sniffle) of your youth, the Red Vic Movie House is cheaper than most of the chain theaters around San Francisco. Run by a collective--it's a "worker owned and operated movie house"--it shows a mix of first- and second- (or thirtieth- and fortieth-) run movies.

The Red Vic is the place to see classic or cult movies, the SF premieres of new documentaries or other smaller films, and good mainstream movies that you wanted to see a couple of months ago when they first came out but didn't (go see them).

Cheap popcorn, candy and organic baked goods are for sale and clean bathrooms are available. You can choose to sit in well-worn examples of the standard movie theater seat or on wood-and-cushion "couches" perfect for snuggling up to your boyfriend or mother.

Around the theater are numerous food places, giving you a good one-two, dinner-movie punch on the first date, before heading home after the movie for the knockout.

Of special note is the 4:20PM, 4/20 showing of The Big Lebowski,


which comes projected through a haze of pot smoke and accompanied by a smattering of random coughing fits around the small theater. An anti-smoking public service announcement from John Waters precedes the film.

Regular admission to the Red Vic is $8.50, not counting the change you feel compelled to give to the gutter punk staring at your bike as you lock it to a parking meter (though if you ask most any employee nicely, they may let you park your bike in back).


The Red Vic is located on Haight, between Cole and Shrader. A calendar of movies and show times is available on the website; you can find a paper version, handy for tacking to your bathroom wall, at the box office.

See a movie at the Castro Theater

Contrary to what you might think, the pink neon CASTRO sign that is visible from higher points around the city is not, or at least was not originally intended to be, a homing beacon for lost homosexuals separated from the queen mother ship. While it may occasionally serve this purpose, its principal function is to advertise a movie house built in the grand style of a bygone era.

The cavernous auditorium seats a total of 1400 people on the ground level and in the balcony, and is crowned by an Art Deco chandelier that resembles a jellyfish, a missile or an alien ship from Star Trek: The Next Generation.


A Wurlitzer pipe organ--the city's only regularly played theater organ, according to the American Theater Organ Society--plays before most shows, with the player and console popping up from beneath the floor in front of the stage and screen.

The Castro Theater was designed by Timothy L. Pflueger and built in 1922. Pflueger, who was raised in the Mission, designed a number of other movie houses in the Bay Area, including the amazing Paramount Theater in Oakland.



He also designed a number of other buildings, including the first major skyscraper in San Francisco (140 New Montgomery)


and the Medical and Dental Building at 450 Sutter.



The Castro Theater is located on Castro Street, between Market/17th and 18th. A program schedule is available on the theater's website. (Thanks to Jim at thedude.com for the interior pics of the Paramount.)

Eat a weekday lunch at SFAI

Spectacular views of the city and the bay. A mural by Diego Rivera. Exhibits of student art that rotate on a weekly basis. Great, cheap, healthy food. There are few better places to eat lunch in San Francisco.

Half Italian/Spanish monastery and half poured-cement Modernist angularity, the school building itself is pretty great. You first enter a quiet courtyard with a fountain at its center, trees providing shade, and student art hanging on the walls along the periphery. A bell tower looms overhead. To the left is the Diego Rivera Gallery, home of the eponymous mural as well as year-round student-run exhibitions of student artwork. To the right are various classrooms and administrative offices. If you continue straight through the courtyard and up the ramp you enter the modern addition to the original building. A curated gallery exhibiting the work of professional artists is on the left. Past that is the cafe.

They've got all the coffee drinks, bagels and other similar snacks, a full sandwich menu and heartier specials--e.g., roast 1/4 chicken, dal and rice, Thai curry, different salads and flatbread pizzas--that change daily. There are always at least a couple veggie options. I've not seen anything over eight bucks, and you can usually eat something delicious that will fill you up for about five. Eat your lunch inside at one of the tables, or, even better, up on the roof, where you can enjoy the food and the view at the same time.


The San Francisco Art Institute is located at 800 Chestnut, a block and a half west up the hill from Columbus. The cafe is open for lunch, on weekdays only, until 2pm. Your best bet is to bike, though the 20 and the 30 buses both service Columbus. It might even be worth the cab fare. For more information about the architectural history of SFAI, go here.

Go to Burning Man

Your neighbor, your boss, two of your college friends and the girl you hooked up with on Saturday night are all going. Everywhere you go these days--from the Marina to the Mission--you hear talk of camps and costumes and rides out there. Sure, you may think you're not be "that kind of person", but you'll never know until you try.

If you ask me, I think you should delay the flight to London and join the 44,000 others in making the trek into the Nevada desert. At the very least, the extra week of warmth will do you good.


Burning Man officially starts on August 27 and lasts till September 3. It's located in the temporary metropolis of Black Rock City, NV. Information about tickets, which currently cost $280, can be found here. To quote the event's website: "Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind." Cliché, but essentially true.

Watch the movie The Conversation

It's a little late to be delving into the history of the city, seeing as you're moving and all, but why not take a break from packing and go rent The Conversation?


Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, it stars a young-ish Gene Hackman as a paranoid surveillance expert hired for a job that quickly takes over his life. An even younger Harrison Ford makes an appearance as the creepy inside guy.

Released in 1974, it provides glimpses of '70s-era San Francisco. See how many landmarks you can spot!


The Conversation was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. You can find it at your local video store--I recommend Lost Weekend. Check out this interesting article on the movie and its strange path to release. Here is the (spoiler!) trailer for the movie. (My dad says that the '70s comprised the best decade in American cinema.)

Check out Saint Mary's Cathedral...

...also known as The Most Un-Catholic-looking Of Churches, Ever.



You've sped past it many times, either on Geary on your way out to the Richmond or when timing the lights on Gough after a weekend spent north of the city. On a couple of occasions while drunk at a random party at some apartment that is clearly more expensive than yours, you've stumbled out onto the north-facing balcony and, taking care to ignore the sound the arc of urine makes as it splatters on the windshield of the Audi parked four stories below, squinted at the skyline in confusion.

"What the hell is that white thing doing there? Whatever it is, it looks like a huge fucking washing machine agitator has alighted in Japantown. Should we be worried?"

No need to be worried, I assure you--unless, of course, you leave the city without taking a close-up look at this strange, strange San Francisco landmark. Be sure to report back on what's inside, as I've yet to visit (though I'm not the one who's leaving).


The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption is located on the corner of Geary and Gough. It was designed by Pier Luigi Nervi in 1971 and was evidently controversial from Day One.

Check out the Richard Serra sculpture at UCSF Mission Bay

For those that don't know who Richard Serra is, here is a bit of a primer.

My quick synopsis, though, is that he's an artist who is best known for making these mammoth metal sculptures that are usually intended for some specific outdoor site. Eli Broad, some really rich dude who really loves LA, likes his work, as does whoever organized the retrospective currently going on at MOMA in New York.

In the case of UCSF Mission Bay, you've got two 50-foot-tall, 80-ton slabs of steel facing each other in the middle of a dirt courtyard and tilting slightly in opposite directions.

(un-justice-doing picture)

Beyond the easternmost slab is Third Street, China Basin and the East Bay. Benches are conveniently placed for enjoying a tall boy of Tecate while watching the setting sun inflame these rust-colored hulks.

Also, be sure to check out the chain netting partially enshrouding one of the parking garages on the campus--specifically, how it can also appear to be a solid indigo-colored panel, depending on where you're standing. It's hard to describe, but is cool in person.


UCSF Mission Bay is located at the corner of Third Street and 16th, and is accessible by, among other things, bicycle and the T Third Street. The sculpture in question is visible from Third Street and is located in a plaza, evidently called Gene Friend Way, located between Third and Fourth. The plaza and the parking garage--the latter labeled Community Center Garage--are on this map. Here is an article about the rather difficult installation of the piece.

Check out the murals in Balmy Alley

One of the great things about living in the Mission is the number and quality of the murals that you stumble by in the midst of your daily routine. Depending on where you live, that might happen while biking past the Women's Building to Dolores Park, scavenging for clean needles in Clarion Alley or vomiting on the ground on Clinton Park after an afternoon-that-turned-into-night at Zeitgeist. Worth a special trip, though, is Balmy Alley.

Make it an afternoon, perhaps. Get huevos rancheros or tacos at Taqueria Vallarta--located right at the 24th-Street mouth of Balmy--grab a tall boy or two from the corner store across the street and then head into the alley. You will find a block-long stretch of garages and the backs of houses painted in all manner of styles by a number of different artists. (If you're really good, you'll probably recognize the work of a few artists who have done other murals around town.) And once you pop out at 25th, make sure to keep an eye out for another Mission icon: the passed-out drunkard pissing himself in Garfield Square.


Balmy Alley connects 24th and 25th Streets and is between Treat and Harrison. The Women's Building fronts 18th Street between Valencia and Guerrero. Clarion Alley connects Valencia and Mission, between 17th and 18th. Clinton Park is a tiny street off Valencia that smells like hell. If you really dig murals and want the whole shebang, check out the walking tour offered every Saturday morning by the community arts organization Precita Eyes.