Play the GoGame for SonicSF

Come play the Go Game for SonicSF! What’s the Go Game? It’s a mini-Amazing Race for a neighborhood in San Francisco! We’ll meet on Saturday, March 24 in a central location in North Beach and compete against different teams, all for the sake of fun. Each team will have 4/5 members and will be given phones, maps and cameras. Then the game begins! Live actors will serve as prompts and decoys, as teams work to solve clues throughout one of San Francisco’s most historic neighborhoods.

After, we’ll congregate at one of North Beach’s local watering holes to eat, drink, and compare our wacky adventures and deem only one team victorious! So, round up some pals, and put on your detective caps, and see if you can outrace the competition!

To register, go to www.sonicsf.org and make a donation of $50 per player. Then email us at relay@sonicsf.org. We’ll send you all the details the week of the event! This is a great way to support a new public radio show and have fun at the same time! The races begin at 2pm on Saturday March 24th! See you there!

Salon Bleue

Last Thursday, we held SonicSF’s initial launch dinner and salon at Leftovers Home Furnishings, produced in conjunction with Blair Warsham of graffEats.  Frequently overheard was “I had the best table!” or “I loved my table!” coming from all corners of the room, which would suggest that mixing and matching interesting yet unacquainted guests makes for some great conversation.  Of course, the table topics and ice breaking game (and open bar) helped to stir up a bit of the friendly debater in all of us.]

At one point Adam Savage was out of his chair enthusiastically engaged in a discussion about Roman Polanski (related to our table topic about an artist’s personal and professional history and its relationship to their work).  Others seemed to most enjoy absorbing the heated conversation around them, as Sean Hayes commented afterwards.  His table included SonicSF Illustrator Patrick Rossetti and Producer Dana Laman, who were excited to spread the word about our new project. Fellow table-mate Mary Ray wrote a whole column for the SFGate Blog about her experience!

Our deepest thanks to sponsors Francis Ford Coppola Winery, Broadside Winery, Bill Russell Shapiro, Arlequin Wine Merchants, The Thirsty Bear Brewery, America SCORES: Bay Area, Mike Kirk Toast Events, Dickerman Prints, Cowboys & Angels, and Leftovers Home Furnishings.

We would also like to thank our special guests Adam Savage, Ayelet Waldman, Chris McCaw, Jim McKee, Justine Gubar, Mark Lukach, Mark Taylor, Mary Hodder, Mary Roach, Michelle Tea, Sanjay Patel, Sean Hayes, and Tim Olson.

Stay tuned to our blog, or join our mailing list HERE to find out about future events!

Perplexing Polling Places

Naan 'N Curry on Election Day

As a newly deigned citizen of this fair city, I recently participated in my first municipal election.  There were a few differences from my last polling experience in Texas – no Voter ID card required, only a single early voting location at City Hall, etc. – but none quite so noticeable as my designated polling place: Naan ‘N Curry.  This eatery is a quick service, low frills Indian/Pakistani establishment that some locals stand by as their favorite buffet in San Francisco, though I heard their operations were shut down recently by city health department inspectors and all old buffet equipment had to be replaced.  My roommate said he gagged as he passed their old setup sitting on the curb for days.

I was delighted to find that I would be required to drop in at Naan ‘N Curry to vote in last Tuesday’s city election, and couldn’t resist making some snarky comments to our  election volunteers.  “We love it,” they chimed, “and it smells so much better than a garage.”  Huh.  At 9:30am the warm spiced curry scents wafting from the main restaurant next door seemed just a little odd to me, but I guess a cold, gasoline tinged garage would be a bit worse.  But who votes in a garage?

A good friend who’s been in the city about a year said the same thing when I mentioned my excitement about my voting location: “Yeah, well I had to vote in a garage.”  So I did a little bit of online investigation and found this list of 2006 SF polling places which includes around eight million garages.  Now I can’t stop hearing the sad mechanical echo of those ballot-reading R2D2s echoing off the concrete walls of garages all across these lovely hills…

- Hunter Oatman-Stanford

View #2 From the Micro Newsroom

Have you ever seen this film?  The Conversation?  It’s amazing and it’s about sound.  It’s also set in 1970’s San Francisco, which is just more evidence of it’s awesomeness, no?

The larger themes of the film involve surveillance and eavesdropping, perception and misperception, disengagement and disconnection — as well as the isolation that can result from an over commitment to (or excessive reliance on) professional ideals.

As we toil away in the “micro newsroom” preparing to launch SonicSF (after quite a few years of unsuccessfully trying to get grant funding for the show) it feels good to be here. No, I mean HERE, like RIGHT here. Specifically. The micro newsroom is located on the sixth floor of the Sentinel Building – the historic San Francisco landmark that became the eventual home of American Zoetrope.

Earlier this year a creepy little piano loop from the soundtrack of “The Conversation” drifted repeatedly down the sixth floor hallway towards us. Finally we followed it, and discovered audio pro Jim McKee remastering sound for the re-release of the film’s DVD.

Director/Screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola was passionate about making this film.  He took on assignments within the Hollywood studio system in order to garner funding and support for “The Conversation,” despite having already determined that working within the system snuffed (blammo!) his creativity.  Just five-years earlier, in a warehouse on Folsom Street, he had founded Zoetrope Studio, a production company committed to unconventional approaches to filmmaking.

Anyway, this is just a roundabout way of saying we’re working away, and we can’t wait (!) to bring you SonicSF — a completely innovative public radio show about the magic of San Francisco.

Not Your Modern Day Food Truck

On the morning of April 18, 1906, a massive earthquake hit San Francisco.  Although the shaking lasted less than a minute, fires sprang up around the city which burned for three days and destroyed around 500 city blocks.  The damage left nearly half of the population of San Francisco homeless and authorities encouraged people to cook outdoors so as to prevent any additional fires from occurring.  Many people slept in tents in city parks and gathered to eat at temporary food stands like this one.

View #1 from the Micro Newsroom

Credit: Stacy Bond

As we start SonicSF’s new blog from our miniscule newsroom in the beautiful and quirky neighborhood of North Beach in San Francisco, we snapped this photo while partaking in the death defying act of leaning far out of our sixth floor window to show you the beauty we get to see every day.  It’s been a long time in the making, but we are finally getting ready to launch SonicSF and could not be more delighted!

We <3 you San Francisco!!!