I don’t get to use the word “festooned” very often, so I’m going to take this opportunity. The lovely gardens at Filoli are positively festooned with holiday lights, starting this Friday.
This week’s Curator: Bart Bernhardt of Nerd Nite SF:
‘Tis the week to be thankful, and boy howdy are we thankful for the rain! Having a roof over your head and clean-ish lungs is plenty enough reason to be thankful this year, it seems, but we’re also grateful for generous fundraisers for those less fortunate, festively opulent gardens, wonderful walking tours, and of course, my favorite thing, drinking while learning.
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COMING UP THIS WEEK:
Indigenous Peoples’ Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering
Sail to Alcatraz in the inky darkness before dawn and look east for the rising sun to push through the rain clouds. A ceremony with indigenous presenters, performers, and guests will mark the occasion. This is no ordinary Alcatraz visit – no tours, no roaming the island – but special nonetheless. Advanced tickets are sold out, you’ll want to get to Pier 33 very early (like, 3am early) to get tickets at the gate.
THU NOV 22: 4AM Pier 33, SF; $14
Holidays at Filoli – Garden Lights
Filoli is lovely year round, but in the winter it is transformed into a scintillating jewel, adorned with holiday lights. The magnificent estate was originally built for a mining and infrastructure magnate in the early 1900s, then passed to the heiress of a shipping fortune, before being donated to the National Trust for Historic Preservation so that we plebs can bask in its glory. And just how glorious is it? Well, it was the mansion in the opening credits of Dynasty for a reason.
FRI NOV 23 – DEC 22: Filoli; $25/$35, Advanced tickets encouraged for evening visits
The Monkey House – Benefit for Fire Victims
The Monkey House is a fantastic and unorthodox performance space for fantastic and unorthodox songwriters, comedians, and others. That community is coming together with a great lineup for a great cause, featuring Chris Chandler, Dawn Oberg, Frank Olivier, Imran G, Ira Marlowe, Jenna Mammina, Jhene Canody, Jill Rogers/Myles Boisen, Laura Benitez, Leftover Dreams, Maurice Tani, Rachel Efron, Teja Gerken, Three Drink Circus, Willa Mamet.
SAT NOV 24, 7PM: The Monkey House, Berkeley; Sliding scale donations from $10-$100
SF Neon Tour: Cow Hollow
I know it’s a bummer that the sun sets so early these days, but there is one major perk: It’s perfect for wandering the streets of SF espying vintage neon signs and learning local architectural history with two of our city’s most delightful tour guides and neon experts, Al & Randall Ann. And if you’re interested historical preservation, check out their new best practices guidebook, Saving Neon.
SAT NOV 24, 4:30PM: Cow Hollow, SF; $25
Edible & Medicinal Oaks of CA Workshop: Harvesting Processing, & Preparation Methods
This gives me flashbacks to elementary school field trips spent leaching and grinding acorns to make a less than appetizing gruel. This two-day intensive workshop promises to be far more comprehensive than my little school outings — covering IDing, ethnobotany, processing, medicinal uses, and more — and hopefully more palatable.
SAT NOV 24-25: Ukiah; $200
Nerd Nite East Bay: Grand Canyon Mapping, Saving Seeds, Election Hacking
My colleagues at the Nerd Nite in Oakland have their next event on Monday. If you haven’t been to a Nerd Nite, we get three smart people from all kinds of disciplines and give them lots of beer, and then they give talks in a local bar with hundreds of people turning out to laugh, learn, and cheer. This lineup looks particularly awesome (not least because Betsy Mason’s new book on on the stories behind maps across history is fascinating) and they are donating all proceeds from this show to support the Camp Fire relief effort.
MON NOV 26, 7PM: Oakland; $8/$5 in advance
Wonderfest: Revolution in Genome Editing
You’ve probably heard of this newfangled technology called “CRISPR” that is transforming genome editing. Learn more about it from a UC Berkeley biophysicist over beers at HopMonk Tavern.
MON NOV 26 6PM; HopMonk Tavern, Novato; Free
Recombinant Festival – Transmissions from the Seismic Stations
Six days of cross-sensory installations and performances of ambient sound and visual compositions, music and noise and light. It’s hard to make a single recommendation – there’s a whole lot of spectacle to choose from.
MON NOV 26 – DEC 2: Various locations, SF; $22 for most shows
Big Screen Science: Planes, Trains, & Automobiles
Fellow Anglerfisherman, Kishore Hari, and Jeff Silverman co-host this movie+science night at the Alamo Drafthouse. They’ll parse this Thanksgiving classic in ways that John Candy and Steve Martin could never have imagined, like trying to mathematically optimize the quickest route from Wichita to Chicago. This is what happens when you give two scienticians a movie theater.
MON NOV 26, 7PM; Alamo Drafthouse, SF; $15.50
Historic Libations, Back to the Future: A History of Bay Area Food and Drink Innovation
Now in its 10th year, this is a night at the Old U.S. Mint focused on our culinary history, present, and future. Featuring drinks and tastings aplenty, tours, and talks on chocolate, wheat, distilling, agave, rice-a-roni, sourdough, and other Bay Area edible lore.
TUES NOV 27, 6PM; Old U.S. Mint, SF; $50 (make sure you’re going to the Old Mint downtown and not the current one. If there’s barbed wire and a surly guard, you’re at the wrong one.)
You Should Know This! DNA Nanotechnology
YSKT is a game show with a guest lecturer and a panel of comedians all wrapped up into one smart, good time, aided and abetted by the fine cocktails at PianoFight. This show’s guest, Shawn Douglas, runs a lab at UCSF doing amazing work creating molecular machines out of DNA.
TUES NOV 27, 8PM; PianoFight, SF; $15