Cummings, whose ties to the Bay Area extend beyond Golden Gate, sat down with The Daily to discuss his collaboration with Seth, the innovative style of his composition and the opera’s “natural” home on the Farm.
When I was watching the NFC Championship game this past Sunday, as a Patriots fan I strangely found myself rooting for the San Francisco 49ers. So why did I root for the 49ers? Was it because of the sensational story of Colin Kaepernick, who was offered only one scholarship coming out of high school? Was it because of Jim Harbaugh’s hilarious temper tantrum when a call doesn’t go in his favor? Or was it just because I was being sucked into Bay Area sports after living here for a year?
The Stanford band ended up on the field all right, but 30 years after “The Play” gave Cal the win and college football one of its most exciting finishes ever, Stanford’s suffocating defense made the 115th Big Game almost anticlimactic with a dominating 21-3 win on Saturday afternoon.
The Pac-12 announced Monday that the 115th Big Game between Stanford and Cal will kick off at noon on October 20th, to be televised nationally on FOX. It will be the first Big Game not played in November or December since the rivalry’s inaugural matchup in March of 1892.
On April 30, the San Francisco Film Festival held its major Centerpiece screening of Lynn Shelton’s “Your Sister’s Sister,” starring Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt and Mark Duplass. The Centerpiece screening is, unsurprisingly, held right in the middle of the festival and showcases a promising new independent film. Past Centerpiece screenings include “Happythankyoumoreplease,” “500 Days of Summer” and “Terri.”
I’m seated across from acclaimed graphic novelist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi in a smoky (thanks to her) suite in San Francisco’s ritzy Fairmont Hotel. The author of the autobiographical “Persepolis” is every bit an extension of the outspoken, headstrong young heroine portrayed in the books, so I suppose it should be no surprise that our conversation, which began with her latest film “Chicken with Plums,” has gradually migrated into uncharted territory, encompassing death, creativity and, at the moment, the American Dream. Satrapi, as I quickly discover, has an opinion on everything.
California has a rich history of environmental activism. When an obscure easterner named John Muir arrived in San Francisco in March 1868, he immediately he asked a local carpenter how to get out of the city. “Where do you want to go?” asked the carpenter. “Anywhere that is wild” replied Muir. Muir proceeded to walk straight through the Central Valley and into the Sierra Nevada, where he would begin his long career as an environmental advocate and an important figure in the establishment and growth of the National Park System.
More than 40 percent of residents in the Bay Area’s five poorest neighborhoods live below the poverty line, according to a recent study by the Brookings Institution.