In looking to “systematically and mercilessly realign the world of cycling,” the once anonymous blogger Bike Snob NYC revealed himself this year–as amateur racer Eben Weiss–in preparation to hit the road on a book tour (fancy that). But SF will benefit from his willingness to grant seals of disapproval on everything from mismatched tires (“the rainbow suspenders of the aughts”) to not locking bike seats and wheels correctly (and having one’s bike “picked clean like a cheese plate at an art gallery.”) Weiss will be talking about the “Bike Snob” book published by Chronicle at the Bryant Street Sports Basement on Thursday night; should you have trouble spotting your fellow reading-goers by their Ironic Organic Julius frames, just look for the gold BS stickers that come with each of the books. Or meet them at 4 at Ritual for pre-ride coffee and a bike escort.
Archive for June, 2010
Bike Snob Book Tour
Picturing Power & Potential with IMOW & SF Arts Commission
After submissions for an international call for artistic work portraying women at work were whittled down to 20, this week the International Museum of Women will unveil Picturing Power & Potential, an exhibit that´s part of its larger online project Economica: Women and the Global Economy. The museum is collaborating with the San Francisco Arts Commission to present the juried photo exhibition online at IMOW.org and at San Francisco City Hall starting Tuesday. 
The selected work–and it´s striking, as evidenced by Selvaprakash Lakshmanan´s Working for Just Salt, above, and an image from Joanna Lipper´s series with seaweed farmers in Zanzibar–includes pieces by six artists from the Bay Area, four additional US artists, and artists from Japan, Kenya, Brazil, The Netherlands, China, India, Iran, and Canada. The subject matter ranges from teen community leaders in Richmond, California, to entrepreneurs in Ghana and opera singers in Brazil, for the purpose of celebrating women as global economic participants and agents of change.
Welcome California Northern
In promoting ¨a new regionalism,¨ California Northern Magazine is promising independent reporting and art in the essays, fiction, interviews, and photography it unveils this week in print (tis true–the physical publication hits ¨select newstands¨ Monday). The Sacramento-based magazine is looking to ¨balance its local emphasis with a level of sophistication and depth typically found in larger national publications¨ when it publishes biannually.
Jerry Brown´s governship and a recent proposal to construct the world’s largest solar plant of its kind in San Benito County will be analyzed with a history of eucalyptus trees (for good measure). Should any of it be of interest to you, you can join a reception and reading event at City Lights bookstore on June 14 at 7:00 p.m. A live presentation of a photo essay and discussion with the founders about the magazine’s mission will follow.
City Centered Festival at GAFFTA; MIT Meets the Tenderloin
While the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts isn’t a new addition to SF multimedia and art coverage (or to this site), I’m regularly stunned by the work they unveil, and this weekend’s launch of the SENSEable Cities series featuring exhibits and conversations around urban futures is no surprise. GAFFTA, a nonprofit dedicated to building social consciousness through digital arts, will be hosting a locative media and art exhibit as part of the City Centered Festival starting this weekend at their 55 Taylor Street gallery. The exhibition is said to “bring together technologists, artists, community leaders, and companies to explore how the confluence of art and technology can build social consciousness.”
SENSEable Cities is a retrospective show presenting 15 projects that illustrate the opportunities of pervasive computing for urban life. In collaboration with the SENSEable City Laboratory, a new research initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the work will focus on the implications that sustainable urban mobility, methods for data fusion, data mining, and various approaches to real time visualization can have on transportation, health, law, and commerce. more
SF Small Batch Denim Crafting >> The Bold Italic
I’m fortunate to be writing for the local Gannett pub The Bold Italic, a catalog of first-person stories that was created in collaboration with IDEO. In exploring whether jeans are even still made in the home of GAP and Levi’s, a few local indigo champions, including men’s brand Tellason and North Beach purveyor AB Fits, demonstrated manufacturing loyalty to SF that I find most admirable. Local design firm Chen Design Associates gave the accompanying art a turn-of-the-century feel, and a longer version of the story is below.
Should county production be of interest, industry group SF Made is kicking off their celebration of area brands (including Cordarounds and Rickshaw Bagworks) tonight at Ritual Roasters. As the organization says, “Local manufacturers understand there’s a certain ‘pride of place’ that comes from actually making a product within a defined geographic, social and historic region.” Support ‘em, even with your jeans choices.
For as long I recall, I’ve owned three pairs of jeans at a time: a go anywhere pair, a comfortable (read: fat) pair, and a nice pair. When I recently tried to upgrade the latter and found myself convinced into an expensive pair of jeggings (or “jean leggings”) and couldn’t recognize the place they were made, I figured it was time for a reset. more
We Own it Summit: Looking at Kid Sister’s (& Aunt’s) Potential
Today’s conference programming at the We Own It Summit had to be exceptional to get me out of sunny Washington Square Park and into NYU Law School, but I’m glad that the conference started with an impassioned discussion about what convening organization Astia has termed “the dearth of women entrepreneurs” in high growth businesses.
Vivek Wadhwa, whose coverage on a lack of female entrepreneurs following last year’s TechCrunch50 led to a slew of negative comments (to the tune of “are you concerned about the comparative lack of male strippers?”) moderated dialogue between panelists including Gilt Group founder Susan Lyne, Maria Pinelli of Ernst & Young, and Brad Feld, chairman of the National Center of Women in IT. The perceived fear of failure on the part of businesswomen that was briefly discussed doesn’t hold up for me, but it seems there’s a lot of merit in Pinelli’s argument for geography and problems of scale as the most limiting factors when women-owned businesses grow twice as fast but still account for only one fourth of businesses over 1 million dollars annually.
Evolving this ratio requires looking to younger women as future entrepreneurs, said Feld, who describes growth trajectory as the key differentiator between entrepreneurs and small businesses owners. “I’m obsessed with people between 10 and 25–the energy going into these people is where the entrepreneurial growth in the future will be,” Feld said. “We need to provide leadership for young people to change the arc of society over 20 years.”
Judah Gem
Blame too much fancy Texas toast at Outerlands, but by the time I walked into General Store in the Outer Sunset I wanted to hire a trailer to cart its new and vintage wares home. A carefully crafted selection of succulents, art books and letterpress cards is something to behold–but still second to the shop’s skateboard ramp-esque indoor structuring and backyard greenhouse. Wooden radios and fringe moccasins indicate that collaborators Serena Mitnik-Miller and Mason St. Peter have great taste, and when their site implores to “come out for a visit!,” I’m inclined to say “how soon?”
Rare Device Opens “Breaking the Spine”
As though you needed more reasons to spend moola on a Friday night, an exhibit opening party at Upper Market store Rare Device could have you bidding on pinned collages with cocktail in hand. The show of bound book-themed art coincides with a main room exhibit of ship work–a double celebration for being named “best new gallery” by 7×7. Bid for the piece “Four Aces” with pages cascading from a hardcover and a series of books stacked in the shapes of numbers on my behalf, won’t you?
Art, Startups & Innovation: Preview to Barcelona
As I get ready for the world innovation summit HIT Barcelona in mid-June, I spoke with Jerry Engel, professor and chairman of University of California’s Haas School of Business, as he prepares for his second year of judging the conference’s global entrepreneurship competition. Engel, who heads the university’s Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, is heavily involved with new venture creation and venture capital development both at Berkeley and internationally. “Government encouragement of tech ventures has been a passion of mine for the past five years,” Engel said in a conversation about art, returning to Barcelona and the core of his work, networks of innovation.
Q: What are you most looking forward to seeing in Barcelona this summer?
A: Barcelona is remarkable from the perspective of creative expression and great art going back hundreds of years. The home of Gaudi is a natural place for innovation. It’s the best host city I’ve ever seen between the community interaction and idea sharing. Barcelona is a transactions marketplace, and it’s a great privilege to be part of a competition that bring out the best in people interested in building companies and seeking community support.
Q: Are there major differences you’ve noticed between European and American students as far as perceptions and approaches to innovation?
A: I’m on the faculty of a business school that the Economist ranked number one but see Barcelona as a real cluster of innovation. Areas it’s showing leadership—and where Spain is a real leader and the US is a follower—are IT, media and clean tech. Government involvement has helped drive this growth, which has seen increases from user-generated content and ad-driven subscriptions on the media front.
Q: What separates the startups you’ve seen in Spain and Silicon Valley?
A: The thing about Spain is that it’s not different. It’s part of a global context. It’s rewarding innovation and venture development. I think the Silicon Valley model is dead. And now conferences like HIT help new companies be born global and think global.
Reposted from the Opinno blog in advance of HIT Summit starting June 16. España observations to follow.
Monoprints for your Thursday
I wish I had more willpower to resist Hotel Biron (just for the sake of diversity of nighttime spots), but its proximity to Hayes Valley and interesting ar
t curation has me claiming helpless wino. Tonight’s reception–this being the first Thursday of the month–will celebrate a new set of hand-printed posters by local designer Lil Tuffy, whose work you’re likely to have seen either promoting a band or at an area bike poster show. 
IMOW
