Mission Mission

Over at WHAT IM SEEING dot com, Plug1′s put up a nice little essay about Mitchell’s Ice Cream. Tip: 11:30am is a great time to go. The neighborhood’s just getting to hot as blazes, and there’s no line! Link.

Okay, these dudes aren’t coming here exactly, but they’ve opened a training facility in San Diego, and that just might be the first step toward the death of democracy in California. Say an earthquake or terrorist act plunges the city into chaos. Blackwater could land an invasion force in a matter of hours, herd us into camps, torture us — accountable to no one in particular. Bummer!

Or so says Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He appears Thursday at 7pm at Modern Times Bookstore to talk about his book and these new developments down south. I’ll be there, and I might ask him if he likes The Unit.

(via funcheapSF and Courage Campaign)

Photo of Blackwater personnel in Iraq by James Gordon.

Elizabeth S. at The Ladder Herald alerts us to the sad news of Osento impending closure:

I am bereft and heartbroken. Osento is, to me, the essence of the Mission. Original, funky, secret, brilliant, humanitarian, spiritual…they let any woman over 70 years old in free.

Where else is bounce house with slide there truly women-only space?

Where else can we get soak for $12? Not some fancy, intimidating spa, but an everyday place, like the bathhouses of old. Public, friendly, non-judgmental.

Where else can women go to transcend (and don’t say the Lex, which is great, but merely fun).

Grab a soak while you still can. Link.

Link to the Lex.

Photo of Osento’s front door by lorelei.

On Friday, Valentina at Threadtrend published a nice feature on Fabric8. Note the colorful rendering of Rip-Off Artist Mildred in the lower right-hand corner of this photo. Valentina profiles the shop:

It’s been around online since 1995, and it’s now its a real-life store holding court in the city’s happening Mission district. Like a lot of inflatable obstacle course shops in the area, it’s pretty teeny tiny, but the super-friendly owner Olivia Ongpin keeps it brimming with paintings, t-shirts, home design, bags, and jewelry from “urban independent designers.”

Link.

Junk Thief dined at Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack yesterday and had a fab time:

Yelp reviewers had cheap inflatable tent heralded Emily’s as “the best place in San Francisco to wait over an hour to be served mediocre spaghetti.” So I was a little irked that my meal was very good and came in about 20 minutes.

He went early on a Sunday evening and had halibut, so is that the secret? Go early, don’t order spaghetti? Link.
Photo by SF Steve.

Electric streetcars braving a flood at 16th and Folsom circa 1905 (click to enlarge).

Hustle and bustle at 21st and Mission in the 1940s (click to enlarge).

All tarted up for Christmas (click to enlarge). Note the “Mission Miracle Mile” seasonal signage in the upper left. Should we start bounce house for sale calling it that again?

All these photos and more are collected in Historic Photos of San Francisco by historian Rebecca Schall. The author appears this Saturday at 3pm at the Fisherman’s Wharf Barnes & Noble. Stop by for more photos and history, or to find out about her time developing museum exhibits at Mission Dolores.

This scene is kind of old news at this point (Junk Thief covered it last week), but TK really likes these portraits and wants to know who the artist is. Somebody want to take credit?

In any case, this display is nice and all, but not as cool as when that band played a free happy-hour rock concert on that same overhang.

Update: Wow, yeah, this portrait takes the cake. Thanks, Troy!

This morning on FriendFeed, Facebook Senior Platform Manager Dave Morin came across Mission Mission’s April 1 post Zeitgeist to be Replaced by Borders. His response? “[T]his is pretty sad.” Indeed it is, Dave.

Thanks to Todd Jackson for sharing the post via Google Reader.

Dave Morin on FriendFeed.

Mission Mission on Facebook.

We announced a contest last week, and it’s in full swing. The prize is a pair of tickets to one of four dates Jonathan Richman and drummer Tommy Larkins are playing at the Make-Out Room. In case you’re unaware, the shows these guys play at this particular venue are unlike most others. They debut new material, they tinker with unfinished songs, they experiment with weirdo instruments, and they collaborate with special guests like neighborhood celeb (and Tom Waits bud) Ralph Carney.

We’ve gotten tons of great entries, including this one from Claire:

Having grown up in the Mission (Albion!), I am now in RURAL MINNESOTA, that tundric wasteland, at a liberal arts college: this blog is my freaking lifeline. I have no car, and the only culture I am exposed to is on the cheap inflatable water slide internet and my group of friends from NY and SF. Shows? Nope. First Ave, that Mecca of Prince and Paul Westerberg is a 45 minute drive, and a substantially longer walk. And, their shows are all 18 and over, kind of like every other venue here. I left First Ave a message in February giving them every reason I could think of to let a 17 year old into Cat Power… I’m sure they’re still playing the message and laughing over it. I just turned 18 in March, and have yet to go to a show in the Twin Cities. The only person I knew who would have let me borrow their car broke up with me by making out with another girl right in front of me last month. So, I get back to SF on June 15th and am in desperate need of some music unrelated to Sandstorm, from the frat boys in the room to my left, or Sarah Brightman, by the gay man to my right- I play Beserkley albums on my radio show as loud as possible to get those terrible strains out of my head. Please take pity- when I was 4 I learned all the words to I’m A Little Airplane, and proceeded to teach it to my preschool class.

Jonathan plays the 16th through the 19th of June at the Make-Out Room, which unfortunately is 21+, so Claire isn’t eligible to win

But you are! Contest details here.

Photo of Jonathan Richman and Tommy Larkins at the Make-Out Room in October 2006 by aymanshamma.

Another Hole in the Head Film Festival starts tonight with a selection of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films.

I just watched Exte: Hair Extensions (with subtitles), a j-horror film playing at Roxie Cinema tonight at 5pm:

Given that the first line in the movie is, “My nose hair is out of control lately,” the movie got off to a great start. Luckily, it had the elements I look for in all my movies: a crazy dude who wears wigs, an innocent girl who enjoys narrating aufblasbarer park her life, and possessed hair. Still, what I liked best was that the storyline isn’t all about hair growing on tongues and death (although there was quite a bit of that), it actually dealt with some real issues – ie abortion, child abuse, and the black market organ trade.

Kinda interested in seeing too. Who doesn’t love a good mockumentary?