Six days of eclectic documentaries, biopics, comedy and drama: The Palo Alto leg of the S.F. Jewish Film Festival features more than two dozen films. Take the Israeli-made Golda, the kind of honest discussion of Israeli history rarely permitted in American media. Golda Meir was the Kiev-born, Milwaukee-raised woman who served as prime minister of Israel from 1969-74. The documentary shows not just Meir's toughness but the suspiciousness and intractability that permitted both international assassinations and a questionably prosecuted war. She also refused to do much for the North African Jews known as the Mizrahi. By the time Meir died, a political relic, she'd set the stage for the ineffable Benjamin Netenyahu, the subject of the » Read More

San Francisco is nothing but a series of steep hills that people cling to until the gravity gets them. The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a remarkable film in the way it evokes that downward pull. It's all about a dispossessed young man and the best friend who lives with him and studies him. Jimmie Fails (played by Jimmie Fails) was homeless for half his life. He's obsessed with a Victorian house on the edge of the Fillmore; he surreptitiously tends to it, lovingly painting the windowsills even as the current tenants pelt him with fruit from Whole Foods. He's crashing in Hunters Point, sharing a small house on a hill underneath the Sunnydale projects with his close friend, Mont (Jonathan Majors), and Mont's blind grandad (Danny » Read More

At the same time that Mary leaves George, he and Emma are in the midst of a new project. They're recording Resten (Francis Jue) and Alta (Kuroda), the last speakers of a dying language. But things don't go according to plan. Resten and Alta, a long-married couple, start arguing in English. Their marriage mirrors George's back to him, except for that their disagreement is temporary. Alta tells Emma that in her native language, the words "I love you" don't exist. What people in love say to one another is, "Don't leave me." Kuroda expresses this thought in such a way that it modifies both phrases. "Don't leave me" becomes a tender endearment while the inherent need in saying, » Read More

Assyrian culture dates back to around 2500 BCE. In the ensuing millennia, war, regime change and environmental shifts have led to mass exodus. Today, the Assyrian diaspora covers the globe. Northern California is host to a strong community of Assyrian peoples, some of whom are working tirelessly to preserve the traditions of their ancestors. Tony Khoshaba is one such individual. Since 2007, he has curated a yearly event called Mesopotamian Night, which celebrates Assyrian culture by showcasing ancient traditions and championing the preservation of one of the world's oldest surviving languages through an evening of music and performing arts. » Read More

Dalia Rawson, who performed and worked for Ballet San Jose, founded the New Ballet in 2016. She says the new partnership with the Hammer represents a milestone for the troupe. "The return of a full dance season to downtown San Jose fills a longtime void in our cultural landscape," Rawson says, adding that the New Ballet represents a new model for a ballet company—one that differs significantly from older and more established groups. New Ballet's studio company is structured as a two- or three-year incubator for young dancers. "Part of the program is providing a lot of career setting and counseling," Rawson says. Unlike major ballet companies, where dancers must work for years as part of the corps before even getting a chance to audition » Read More

Science has always made its greatest strides when spurred by powerful forces. Capitalism and global trade pushed the innovations of the Industrial Revolution. Global war efforts have led to advancements in food storage, aviation and communications systems. As it turns out, there are fewer forces greater than humanity's thirst for beer. By way of example, Danish brewing company Carlsberg first established a laboratory in 1876 in order to advance the science of beer. One of the lab's first major breakthroughs came in the development of a purified yeast that is still used by many industrial brewers to this day. Another scientific breakthrough--the development of the pH scale--has found applications that stretch far beyond the brewing world. » Read More

This Friday evening, Montalvo Arts Center will launch an exhibit of textile and fiber art installations, "Threads: Weaving Humanity," to kick off its annual outdoor summer program, "Art on the Grounds," embroidering a powerful array of social and global themes, both literally and metaphorically. In most cases, works of textile art are sensitive to the elements, so they tend to be presented indoors, in highly controlled environments rather than be subjected to the weather outside, but with "Threads," this is not the case. Each international artist designed his or her work to interact with Montalvo's natural surroundings. The works weave, stitch, mend, braid and embroider the threads of our collective humanity, highlighting the practices of » Read More

Put on 10 pounds recently? No problem! There's surely an app that'll stick your head on the bod of some 22-year-old who works out 13 hours a day and subsists on gum and bottles of air. Social media is often seen as Satan with cat memes. It gets blamed for everything from eating disorders to the decline in the bee population. But consider that how a person uses social media can shape how it affects them. Psychologist Sarah Hanley and her colleagues note that there are two different kinds of social media users: active and passive. Active social media users create content and communicate with others. Passive users browse newsfeeds and posts without commenting. » Read More

An Aries reader sent me a boisterous email. "I was afraid I was getting too bogged down by my duties," he said, "too hypnotized by routine, too serious about my problems. So I took drastic action." He then described the ways he broke out of his slump. Here's an excerpt: "I gave laughing lessons to a cat. I ate a spider. I conducted a sneezing contest. I smashed an alarm clock with a hammer. Whenever an elderly woman walked by, I called out 'Hail to the Queen!' and did a backflip. I gave names to my spoon (Hortense), the table (Beatrice), a fly that was buzzing around (Fallon), and a toothpick (Arturo)." According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Aries, you'd be wise to stage a comparable uprising. » Read More