June gloom increasing your sense of doom? Follow our nerdy beacon to the Rickshaw, where we’ll dig down through decades of fill to SF’s foundations, confound the flat-earthers by imagining a donut-shaped world, and watch cells do the splits. Just add music, alcoholic beverages, and Miss Arepita and boom–the gloom has left the room. Be there and be square!
Wednesday, 6/19/2019
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$10, all ages
Tickets
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“How Did We Get HERE?!?” by Chris Carlsson
Leveling sand dunes, blasting hills, and filling in the bay began a century-long city building project that literally expanded San Francisco’s presence on the Pacific Rim. Workers and employers battled through decades of economic booms and busts, culminating in an epic 1934 waterfront strike that deeply altered class relations before World War II. Bicycling erupted here at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries to alter urban lives everywhere. Countless thousands came here to reinvent themselves and to push the boundaries of politics, art, music, literature, sexuality, gender, technology, and more. Shaping San Francisco’s Chris Carlsson unpacks the city’s forgotten and flushed histories to illuminate the complicated and contested foundations that undergird our lives.
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“Out-of-This-World Geometry” by Emily Clader
We lead a three-dimensional life on the surface of a massive sphere, but with the help of mathematics, we can imagine an infinitude of other possible worlds. How would life be different if we existed in four dimensions? If rulers measured distance differently? If the Earth were a donut? We’ll shore up our imagination with a little topology to find out.
Emily is a professor of mathematics at San Francisco State University. Her research focuses on problems in algebraic geometry motivated by theoretical physics.
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“Cells Making Cells: How Cells do the Devil’s Dance” by Blake Riggs
The lights are low, the mood is set, the time is right. Slowly, cells start a ritualistic movement that indicates it is ready, time to divide. What does that moment, when cells make new cells, look like? We will explore how cells divide, what goes into making new cells and how the deed gets done. We will focus on some of the kinkier and bizarre aspects of cell division including some of the unanswered questions about the different bits and bobs involved in division and the generation of cell diversity.
Blake is an associate professor of biology at San Francisco State University and has been nationally recognized for his mentoring, including receiving the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award for excellence in teaching and research.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the set list on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Food: Miss Arepita – delicious Venezuelan street fare.