COMING UP THIS WEEK:

Popping Up: Animated Books and Their Stories
The Book Club of California is a hidden gem, a lovely library with fascinating programs for book-lovers. In this pop-up about pop-ups, collector Mike Jacobsen will take you into his world of kinetic tomes that leap from their pages, from the first-known pop-ups of the 13th century(!) to the present.
AUGUST 1 – WEDS. 5:00-6:30PM. Free.

Shipwreck: Winnie the Pooh
If The Book Club of California is too high-brow for you, then Shipwreck — SF’s “premier literary erotic fanfiction event” — will lower the bar, immensely. This month they are ruining Winnie the Pooh. And your childhood.
AUGUST 2 – THURS. 7:00PM. $12-15.

GameVibes @ Folsom St Foundry
A lot of the time when putting together these lists, I’m thinking about how Bay Area peeps can find their special weird tribe. For someone out there, their tribe is in a giant bar filled with people crowded around dozens of screens and giant projections, cheering over deftly executed Smash Bros combos and playing everything from MarioKart to this thing called “Fortnite” (which my nephew tells me is popular).
AUGUST 3 – FRI. 8:00PM-1:00AM. $5.

Playland on Balboa Music Festival
Hey, the neighborhood that I grew up in is throwing a great festival, with live music, art, local history, and more. Special shout-out to the Balboa Theater’s screenings of “Sutro’s: The Palace at Land’s End” and “Playland at the Beach”, two special documentaries on these lost treasures.
AUGUST 4 – SAT. 12:00-4:00PM. Free.

Brutal Sound Effects Festival #83
The title is pretty apt. This long-running (23 years?) concert series is an institution in the experimental electronic music scene. It will take you into a world of noise, of strange sounds that have maybe never been heard before, and aural gold (that’s some Latin wordplay, for you nerds). If you prefer your noise with breakfast, check out Godwaffle Noise Pancakes at Noisebridge on 8/11, too.
AUGUST 4 – SAT. 8:00-11:00PM. $15ish.

SF Archers: One Million B.C. Shoot
Adorable 3D models of dinosaurs and mammoths are set up on this archery range in Pacifica, and hundreds of archers turn out for this rare opportunity to shoot fake prehistoric animals. The science pedant in me is kinda peeved that neither dinosaurs nor woolly mammoths were around in 1MM B.C.E., but this otherwise sounds amazing.
AUGUST 4-5 – SAT. & SUN. 6:45AM-6:30PM? Payment required, but I can’t find the amount on the site.

Biergartenfest
Don your lederhosen and join The Oakland Nature Friends for an outdoor festival of Germanic culture, food and drink, and being in nature. Nearly 100 years ago, a community of German, Swiss and Austrian immigrants started this club for nature enthusiasts. Today, the lovely clubhouse of “Die Naturfrende” is generally not open to the public, except for a handful of special occasions like this one.
AUGUST 5 – SUN. 12:00-5:00PM. $15. (Pro-tip: Bring cash.)

Conversation and Presentation with Mark Krawczuk (Lost Horizon Night Market)
SF is home to a lot of great immersive theather, augmented reality games, puzzle hunts, and whatnot and there’s a community – The Adventure Design Group – dedicated to making them. They’re hosting Mark Krawczuk to talk about creating the Lost Horizon Night Market (an ephemeral experience inside several large trucks) and other shenanigans.
AUGUST 6 – MON. 7:00-9:00PM. Free.

Odd Salon: Contraption
Grab a cocktail and join The Anglerfish’s own Annetta Black at the aptly-named Odd Salon. A delightful lecture-in-a-bar series, this show’s theme promises “stories of mad makers & ingenious inventors; marvelous machinery, implements of wonder & infernal devices”! The audience is half the charm, too – they are loud, friendly, and definitely odd in all the right ways.
AUGUST 7 – TUES. 6:30-10:00PM. $15.

Ars Technica Live: How to Write a Novel with Machine Learning
Annalee Newitz, another co-curator of The Anglerfish, will be chatting with author Robin Sloan at one of my favorite bars, Eli’s Mile High Club, about Machine Learning. Ars Technica Live is such a wonderful opportunity to hear from brilliant people at the intersection of technology and culture, in about as down-to-earth a joint as you can get.
AUGUST 8 – WEDS. 7:00-8:30PM. Free.

DIY Taxidermy Jackalope Class
While the Jackalope is not quite as cool as Harvey Wolpertinger, the Odd Salon mascot, it’d still be pretty amazing to have a Jackalope hanging above your mantelpiece. Or your Ikea TV stand, I’m not judging. This all-day taxidermy class will let you make your own!
AUGUST 9 – THURS. 10:00AM-6:00PM. $325.

The Interval: Is Reflecting Sunlight from the Atmosphere a Bridge to the Future?
One of my favorite lecture events (and favorite cocktail bars) is The Interval. But we rarely get to highlight their events because they basically sell out instantly. So I’m taking a chance – this one goes on to sale to their members today and then, if there are any tickets left, they’ll become available to the general public at some point. This event discusses some of the potential risks and rewards of geoengineering.
AUGUST 14 – TUES. 6:30-8:30PM. $25.

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Caveat Eventor: just because we mention an event here, does not mean it won’t be terrible. The Anglerfish curators are looking for events that sound like fun to them – your mileage may vary.