San Francisco is home to a breathtaking diversity of cultural events. Between our fair city’s world-class museums, restaurants, bars, art galleries, music scene, festivals, and clubs, between all that is weird and quirky and purely San Franciscan, there’s something going down, somewhere, every single day of the year. Check out our Flavorpill social discovery engine, where you can create and share events with friends, and follow our carefully curated editors’ picks. Below, you’ll find Flavorpill’s top picks for this week — just a little bit of help as you set out into this beautiful wide world of SF’s happenings.
Monday, August 26
PERFORMING ARTS: Air Sex Championships Air Sex is Air Guitar’s dirty, smutty cousin — think faked orgasms instead of faux riffs. The air sex performance concept was invented in 2006 by J-Taro Sugisaku, who decided to release his pent-up frustration at not having a girlfriend by boning an imaginary partner… in front of a live audience. The craze swept Japan and made it to the States a year later. At one recent SF championship, a school teacher simulating strap-on sex won out over a man dressed as a robot who air fucked a blender and a lava lamp. Check out the stiff competition at tonight’s contest. And if you decide to participate, just remember the only rule: the money shots are mimed, not real. — Joey Stevenson
BOOKS: 826 Valencia’s 826 Quarterly Launch
Tuesday, August 27
PERFORMING ARTS: The Moth StorySLAM: Interference No need to head down to LA anymore to get in a good dose of onstage storytelling. The Moth (you may have heard their radio hour and/or podcasts before) continues its newly established SF edition this month with stories about interference. $8 gets you ten stories from ten people, plus accompanying tears, laughs and deep thoughts. To tell your own story, come prepared to regale the audience for five minutes without paper, and drop your name in the hat at the front. — Nora Oppenheim
Wednesday, August 28
FOOD/WINE: Anchor Steam Five-Course Beer Dinner Anchor Steam Brewing Company teams up with Mission Bowling Club tonight to offer a one-of-a-kind fine dining experience. MBC’s Executive Chef Chris Kiyuna whips up a five-course dinner including such mouthwatering offerings as buttermilk poached chicken, shrimp and grits, beef short ribs, and chocolate mousse, all individually paired with five different Anchor Steam beers. And if you haven’t submitted to a food coma by dessert, you get free shoe rentals for some light after-dinner bowling. — Bonnie Chan
Thursday, August 29
MUSIC: Popscene’s 17th Anniversary Party feat. Washed Out
Friday, August 30
MUSIC: America’s Most Wanted Tour feat. Lil Wayne and T.I. Lil Wayne (aka Weezy F) delayed his stint at Rikers Island with eight root canals. He read his Bible every day locked up. He must be the greatest rapper alive if he’s still so hot after so much doctrine and dentistry. See Young Money Millionaire tonight at Concord’s Sleep Train Pavilion with T.I. and the rest of the America’s Most Wanted Tour crew, and come on point; Young Wayne skips refrains to drop more rhymes, and no one stacks punchlines, puns, and lounged-out diamond-sharp flows more densely. — Joshua Wyatt
Saturday, August 31
FESTIVAL: San Francisco Zine Fest More than 140 small-press and DIY publishers flock to the 12th annual SF Zine Fest this Labor Day weekend to exhibit, lead workshops and panels, sell wares, and mingle with fellow creators. This year’s special guest is cartoonist and massage therapist Justin Hall, a self-described “compulsive traveler” whose LGBTQ anthology No Straight Lines won the 2013 Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Best Anthology. Along with Hall, you can expect the fair to be packed to the rafters with talent from near and far, including husband-and-wife cartoonist/illustrator team Roman Muradov and Sophia Foster-Dimino, street art and graffiti advocates Endless Canvas and Groundscore Collective, and local illustrator Jen Oaks. Come celebrate the diversity of the DIY publication world with some of the heroes of the small press, and go home with some radical, witty, beautiful publications you won’t find at Barnes & Noble. — Bonnie Chan
Sunday, September 1
CITY GEM: Oakland Pride Pride celebrations in the East Bay have had a stop-and-start history. A decade ago, Peggy Moore noticed that many of her fellow revelers at SF Pride had commuted into the city from the East Bay, and she decided to start an Oakland pride event which grew into the venerable, grassroots-organized Sistahs Steppin’ In Pride dyke march; Sistahs Steppin’ took place annually until a couple of years ago, which Moore announced would sadly be the last. Meanwhile, East Bay Pride took place from 1997 until 2004, then petered out. A few years ago, Oakland City councilmembers took the lead to revive an East Bay pride tradition, and the current incarnation of Oakland Pride was born. Come celebrate and support the 4th Annual Oakland Pride event today, and dance to live music by inimitable performers like En Vogue and LaToya London. — Bonnie Chan
Ongoing
ART: Beyond Belief: 100 Years of the Spiritual in Modern Art