Spring 2011
WonderCon 2011 marks its 25th anniversary
“In case you were wondering, Ryan Reynolds is in the next room over,” jokes Robert Kirkman, referring to the Green Lantern star and promotional panel somewhere else in San Francisco’s Moscone Center. He seats himself in one of the half dozen empty chairs for his panel at WonderCon 2011, as the next hour of sarcastic banter and sneak peaks at his authored titles, as well as those under his new imprint, Image-Skybound, gets underway. Since 2003, the success of Kirkman’s landmark series, The Walking Dead, has propelled him up to and...
read moreFilm Society supports media education and aspiring young filmmakers
Mid-afternoon on April 30, a small group of children with their parents and a few volunteers gather in the lounge area of the Press Office for the San Francisco International Film Festival. Two tables covered with construction paper, an assortment of markers, scissors and piper cleaners lay neatly waiting to be used. A slightly eccentric brunette sporting a delicate pixie cut and a bright orange ensemble leads the group of two boys and three girls in an a puppet workshop. The workshop uses the 2009 film, Jillian Dillon, which she directed and produced, as an example to introduce puppetry to the children. This is one of the many events that the San Francisco Film Society hosts to encourage media education with the youth.
read moreA Love Supreme
Like a quiet storm, she enters the café silently wearing a shy smile. The sun is peaking through the heavy windows on one of the warmest days of spring in Oakland, illuminating her freckled cheeks, each freckle resembling a speck of light. She offers a warm hug and a long, threadlike braid falls from her part-coifed and part-shaved head, down the left side of her face. The aroma of grinding coffee beans hangs in the air. After she sucks her iced coffee through a straw, Marisa Manriquez pauses and says, “Polyamory highly threatens the way...
read moreReality Itself is Too Twisted
By the end of 1971, the Democratic presidential primaries were well underway. Governor George Wallace, and Senators Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey, and George McGovern were the front-runners by 1972, and the latter would ultimately get the ticket. It was a contentious election, as the South Dakota senator would go up against incumbent President Richard Nixon in the fall. Ideologically, the race was bookended by McGovern on the Left, and Wallace on the Right, leaving the rest battling for the coveted Center. Caucuses and press events...
read moreJodie Foster presents The Beaver
photos | staff photographer | set on Flickr authored by Grace Dulce & Meghan Dubitsky On A drizzly Wednesday afternoon inside the swanky Ritz Carlton in downtown San Franciso, two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster walks in the room barefoot with her black Manolo Blahnik pumps dangling from her hand. Dressed in all black, the blue-eyed star commands the room as she drops her shoes and takes her seat front and center. “Hi guys,” she says with the same bright smile you see on the silver screen. Alicia Christian “Jodie” Foster...
read moreThe Brazilian Wax- A Painful and Popular Trend
Andrea Low, 22, a student at SF State, walks up the stairs of an old Victorian building to a small room offering $25 Brazilian waxes. Below the room is an old and dingy tattoo parlor. The first thing she sees is a small bed located in the corner of the room and a tray containing the necessary beauty supplies such as warm wax, baby powder and paper strips. The room is hot and stuffy and she immediately wonders if she should turn around and run. She knows people who have come here before and survived the wax, besides how could one pass up a...
read moreExploring the Science of Skateboarding
Through the entrance, past a myriad of experiments and underneath a skylight appearing to be a hole in the ceiling sits, a crowd of children and their parents packed together on small bleachers. They are here to watch the experienced skateboarders fly around the volunteer-built obstacles. A section of floor is separated by barriers, like those police use to block streets when there is a parade. Inside that thirty-by-one hundred foot space a number of ramps are set up to allow the skaters to gain speed and provide the crowd with marvels of...
read moreLife on Octavia Boulevard
It is the spring semester of 2010 at SF State. As the clock ticks ten minutes past 2 p.m. all the journalism students that are on time grab a seat in the computer lab room on the third floor of the Humanities building, waiting for Professor Yvonne Daley to come in and start the reporting class. At the far end of the classroom, some students are busy on the computers, typing last minute edits on their articles, others wait patiently, ready for the professor. Daley always enters with a stack of papers and a smile. Her colorful ensembles give a...
read moreCan’t Miss Film Festival Comes To Town
Around one hundred journalists gather at the prestigious Alexandra room on the 32nd floor of the Westin Hotel. Men and women dressed in business attire talk excitedly as they pour coffee before settling into a chair for the press conference. The energy in the air might make one think this crowded event is the Oscar awards unraveling. It is not. All the commotion is for a much-anticipated event, the 54th International Film Festival that ran from April 21 through May 5. This distinguished festival took place at theatres throughout San Francisco...
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