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Saturday 6/ 9 @ Various
Parkour is hardcore. The sport where you utilize your body to bound and vault through urban landscapes has been popularized in the opening chase scene of James Bond film Casino Royale and is also performed by the dancers in Madonna's video for "Jump." It was invented in 1988 by French teenagers David Belle and Sébastien Foucan, and the name stems from the French term for a military obstacle course, parcour du combattant. Parkour's obstacle-overcoming discipline may have roots in France, but it's exploding in popularity around the globe. There's even a monthly SF/Berkeley meetup, or "jam," where parkour practitioners (known as traceurs) teach you how to do monkey vaults and cat leaps with fluidity and agility around SFSU, Civic Center, and UC Berkeley. This jam's guaranteed to be off the wall. No, literally.
Coming Up
Golden Gate Bridge 75th Anniversary Festival
Today @ Various San Francisco locations
The official opening festivities for the Golden Gate Bridge began on May 27, 1937, and lasted a whole week. During that celebratory bacchanal (which included an official motorcade, beauty pageant queens, and a small riot due to inadequate crowd control), over 200,000 pedestrians crossed the new bridge on the day before the bridge was opened to traffic. On the 50th anniversary of the bridge in 1987, the number of pedestrian celebrants exceeded 300,000 — a near-catastrophe that has prompted bridge officials to state that pedestrian access on this 75th anniversary will be restricted. The number of commemorative events celebrating the 75th birthday of this world-famous landmark, however, are near limitless. Ongoing Golden Gate Bridge exhibitions, bike trips, tours, and film screenings abound throughout 2012. And today, the all-day Golden Gate Festival is marked by festivities in Crissy Field and all along the waterfront, ending with a spectacular fireworks show....
The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier
Today @ de Young Museum
Long before Gaga, there was Gaultier. Since his debut in 1976, Jean Paul has been trotting out S&M-inspired lace masks and ball gowns made of wild grass and, you know, just generally putting the "mad" in "Madonna/Whore Complex." His gloriously irreverent, semi-terrifying, viscerally-architectural costumes have clad the likes of Helen Mirren, Marilyn Manson, and, of course, the Material Girl. And now Gaultier's gritty-glam gender-blending couture is paying a visit to a city that can really (no, really) appreciate it. Between now and August, the De Young Museum is home to The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. The exhibit, which kicks off with an extravagant fête on Friday, March 23, displays over 130 haute couture and prêt-a-porter designs in truly dramatic fashion — think animated mannequins and elaborate scenic tableaux. Whether you're a couture junkie or merely a fan of all things outrageous, this spectacle is not to be missed....
Today @ Harrison St btwn 16th and 22nd Sts
Grab your finest feathered tail-piece, some timbales and chains of plastic beads, and get ready to shake your coconuts for Carnaval. The two-day street party features a nonstop lineup of the Bay Area's top Latin and Afro-Caribbean musical ensembles dishing out more soca, calypso, salsa, samba, hip-hop, and cumbia than your feet can possibly handle. But the main event is Sunday's Grand Parade, which transforms Mission Street into a movable feast for the eyes, with enough rainbow colors and gyrating, bared flesh to give next month's Pride festivities a run for their money.
Today @ Oakland Museum of California
1968: The year the Tet Offensive and the My Lai Massacre shook public opinion on the ongoing, endless Vietnam War. The year Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. The year Johnny Cash played at Folsom Prison, Mr. Rogers began airing nationally, and Jimi Hendrix released Electric Ladyland. The year of the Fair Housing Act, the American Indian Movement, riots at the Democratic National Convention, protests at the Miss America pageant, student strikes at San Francisco State, and Black Power salutes at the Olympic Games. The 1968 Exhibit, an ambitious, state-of-the-art traveling exhibit that comes to the Oakland Museum this week, attempts to capture all of the frivolity, violence, and social forces of this watershed year in history — from Yippies and hippies to war and protest. It's a fascinating visit back in time, both for those who were there and those who wish to know what it was like to be there.
