Arts & Events

FRIDAY, MARCH 17 -more-

Sistah Kee, aka Kito Gamble, will bring her original music to Yoshi’s on Jack London Square Monday night, March 20, for shows at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., rapping and singing at the keyboard to celebrate her debut CD on Gamble Girls Records, Represent. She’ll be backed by a full horn section, guitar and rhythm section, violin and cello, plus three backup vocalists and her mother, noted jazz singer Faye Carol, deploying her celebrated scatting style. -more-

Alexander Bulkley’s The Zodiac is opening this week in limited release, and for good reason: it’s terrible. The distributors are probably just cutting their losses, sneaking the film in and out of theaters quickly and quietly, conceding the story and its audience to the upcoming big-budget version starring Robert Downey, Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo, due for release this September. -more-

“The California earthquake stands between eight and ten at points of greatest disturbance; from which we may trust our senses to the extent of believing that it was no small affair,” wrote Stanford scientist John C. Branner about April 18, 1906. -more-

“I hope this cheese comes from happy cows,” I overheard the customer ask at the Marin French Cheese Company. He’d just purchased pounds of Rouge and Noir in several varieties and was perhaps double-checking his investment. The cows and I were equally cont ent as I cruised country roads, tasting locally produced cheeses, gathering picnic goodies and basking in nature’s bounty. -more-

Today was a good day. I started it off with the inspection of a gorgeous house. Did I say gorgeous? No, glorious. It was so true to the aesthetic of the period as to be a sensorial feast. It was actually a very simple house. Built in 1912, a “classic box,” aka, Classic Revival. One of those simple, almost-but-not-quite boxy designs that usually has a little bay front and almost always has a porch on one corner punctuated by a single classical column. There are thousands in the our area so I’m sure you know the one I mean. -more-

All right, up and at ’em. The only cure I know for the March Muddy Blues is time spent with eager green plants, and since it’s still too wet to mess in the mid in most of our gardens, the place to mingle is the neighborhood nursery. -more-

We recently had a call from a woman who wanted some advice about her current home loan and whether we would recommend a refinance. After investigating her circumstances, hearing her story, and questioning her about the process she had gone through, I understood why there are consumer-rights groups wanting to regulate the mortgage industry. Her story spoke not only about a mortgage professional who was more interested in their own paycheck than the best interests of their client, but to a very popular loan program, that in my opinion, should be regulated very carefully. -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 17 -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 14 -more-

You can buy a toy helicopter at the Dollar Store, but Ten Red Hen Productions has beaten that price and delivered the goods in the form of The 99-cent Miss Saigon at the Willard Middle School Metalshop Theater, with much, much more (although the program c over displays a tiny ‘copter propelled by big chopsticks into a wide-open mouth as its proud logo). -more-

This year’s SFJAZZ Spring Season 2006, which jumps the gun on spring this Friday, March 17 and continues through June 17, offers nearly 50 imaginatively conceived programs in venues all over San Francisco. The events take place at beautiful locations like the Palace of the Legion of Honor’s Florence Gould Theatre where admission to the museum is included in the ticket price, Grace Cathedral, the War Memorial Opera House, the Masonic Center, the Great American Music Hall, the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, and Herbst Theatre with its magnificent autumnal (thus Herbst) murals by Sir Frank Brangwyn. Besides straight ahead musical performances that range through mainstream, New Orleans, avant-garde, Latin, African and Bulgarian music, there are also classes, pre-concert talks, jam sessions, films and cartoons that can broaden and enhance the experience of the music. The following eight shows are just the cream of a consistently great festival: -more-

A passion for beauty impels Changming Meng to create his ink paintings on paper, 20 of which are on view in the public areas of UC’s Institute of East Asian Studies through March 24. The overall effects of these expressive reductive works—in the artist’s 51st solo exhibition!—are twofold. They free viewers of their preconceptions, cleansing their eyes and spirits, and they nourish them with a fresh energy, not just for confronting art, but life, as well. -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 14 -more-