As I set out to write an article entirely devoted to “Monomania,” the fantastic song from Deerhunter’s new rock album of the same title, I found myself remembering everything I hate about the kind of pretentious rock writing I had set out to do (and don’t worry, this article is still going to get pretentious soon enough). But then I remembered the greatest piece of music criticism I’ve ever heard, which is a remark my friend Bryan made regarding a song on Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: “Man, this is the kind of song you listen to on the way to work and on the way back.”

This comment applies to “Monomania:” I enjoy playing it, loudly and repeatedly, in my headphones both on the way to work and on the way back home from work. Other songs this comment has applied to relatively recently include “Evil Eye” by Heavy Cream, “Get Free” by Major Lazer, “Back Up Plan” by Big Boi, and “Shut Up I Am Dreaming of Places Where Lovers Have Wings” by Sunset Rubdown. I’m not sure what exactly makes a to-and-from-work song. Looking at this list, the tempos vary, although none are exceedingly fast or slow, and I would characterize the melodies and lyrics of each as infectious, but those are the only similarities, and they are vague and broad.

The song begins with an industrial groan and cymbals crashing, like something mechanical opening up underneath the rest of the album, no moment on which is nearly as dread-inducing as that single sound. From there, the song is basically just an intro and an outro, and I think that is what I love most about it. The lyrics in the first half are lovely and haunting: “Send my heart to the sea / Oh, the empty sea.” Cox’s voice is garbled and the instruments overpower it. The song slows down, the guitar mellows out, and suddenly Cox is just repeating “Mono, monomania” over and over — the second and only other section has kicked in before you’ve gotten a chance to appreciate the first. “The mono, monomania” segment begins about two minutes in and continues for another three minutes or so. The band eventually overpowers Cox’s vocals completely and the song devolves into noise for another thirty seconds or so.

My high school Music Theory teacher would squeal with pony-tailed rage if he knew how much of the subject I’ve forgotten, but I do remember that the final chord in the progression of the song’s second part resolves back up to the first chord, so you keep wanting to hear the progression over and over and ultimately begin writing articles about it. Therefore, it’s a perfect reflection of its speaker’s insane solipsistic obsessiveness, or monomania.

A monomaniac is obviously a solid choice for a literary character. Captain Ahab, Raskolnikov, and the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” are all monomaniacs. In a beautiful, very abstract and personal album review of “Monomania,” Thomas Moore recently described a first-person narrator’s sad and drug-addled trip to New York for most of the review. The song’s second section is also the point at which, in the Fallon performance above, Cox walks off stage and meanders around Studio 6B, so overcome by his character’s monomania. What is he so obsessed with? I submit it is obsession itself.

Monomania, the album, is available on iTunes and in record stores. Get it before you have to go to work.

Unless you live under a rock with no Internet access, you’ve likely seen dance moves like the Harlem shake and twerking making the rounds through memes and viral videos. We’re fairly certain that KQED Pop readers crush it on the dance floor, and we want to see your moves! Show us your signature dance move (or make one up) and give it a catchy name. Then capture it in a short video and send us the link via Vine, Twitter, or in the comments section below, and be sure to tag #DoNowDance. The most creative dances will be featured here on KQED Pop. Everybody dance now!

Video Produced by Kristin Farr and Matt Williams

Before Elton John, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Marilyn Manson, Lady Gaga and their epic stage and personal antics, there was Liberace, aka Mr. Showmanship, the original too-much celebrity, marinated in his own eccentricities.

Sunday, May 26 HBO premiers Behind the Candelabra (so titled because of Liberace’s trademark candelabra that he kept on his piano during shows), a film by Steven Soderbergh of Scott Thorson’s notorious, just re-released tell-all about his life as lover and plaything of the world famous pianist. The film, starring Michael Douglass as Liberace and Matt Damon as Thorson, took almost half a decade to produce but looks well worth the wait. The book is so filled with weird, jaw-dropping revelations about the over-the-top celebrity lifestyle Thorson shared with Liberace (matching fur capes and gold plated Rolls Royces to start… have I piqued your interest?) it’s almost not to be believed. Thankfully, our celebrity culture has evolved since the death of Liberace in 1987 to the point where we’ll believe just about anything (thank you, TMZ). Thorson met Liberace when he was 17 and was quickly brought into the 47 year-old entertainer’s entourage and personal life. Thorson quotes Liberace as saying he wanted to be “Father, brother and lover” to the younger man… guess which one took precedent? Here are some of the things we’re most looking forward to Sunday night when Soderbergh’s film premiers.

1. Matt Damon in a Speedo

The books details quite a lot of Thorson and Liberace’s sexual relationship; a more accurate title might actually be Beneath the Candelabra if you get my hint. The preview includes a few shots of Matt Damon, towheaded like we haven’t seen him since Good Will Hunting, getting out of one of Liberace’s Roman-bath-by-way-of-Palm-Springs pools in a very tiny speedo. So, clearly, let’s get more of that and I predict Emmy!

2. Debbie, Dearest

Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds (Singin’ in the Rain and mother of Princess Leia herself, Carrie Fisher) was a friend of Liberace’s in real life (they shared an agent for their Vegas engagements) and now plays his domineering, religious mother Frances in the film. The icon of old show business razzle dazzle is dramatically unrecognizable in the role sporting a frumpy gray wig, glasses and not a sequin in sight (we assume all sequins in North America were diverted to Douglass’s wardrobe). If Reynold’s role is anything like Mama Liberace is portrayed in the book the 81 year-old glamour girl has a great Faye Dunaway opportunity to chew scenery. As Thorson says of Mrs. Liberace: “when she died, Lee (Liberace) didn’t shed a single tear but went to pieces a few months later at the death of one of his many poodles.” Don’t even bother chewing, Debbie: just swallow the scenery whole.

3. Speaking of Sequins

No movie about Liberace would be complete without recreations of some of those famously understated costumes from his stage wardrobe (see also his collection of hairpieces). Beads, ruffles, feathers, velvet, satin, sequins, furs, jewels: the man made Cher look like a Shinto nun by comparison. Also, apparently the rule for men wearing capes is as follows: capes are only allowable if you are a superhero or a world famous concert pianist. Here’s the best part of the Liberace wardrobe: in a head-to-toe white satin and ermine ensemble bedecked with more mirrors than the a NASA telescope, the man insisted on publicly playing it straight until the day he died from AIDS complications. I fear that for an entire generation of women over 80 this movie will be a rude awakening about the private life of a man they may still be holding torches for.

4. Making an Entrance

Liberace was just as famous for his elaborate entrances (like the one above where he’s driven onstage by the real Scott Thorson in a rhinestone studded Rolls Royce) as he was for his befurred and bejeweled wardrobe. Also, we hear he played the piano! We’ve never exactly been sure what all this has to do with Chopin and Beethoven but we’re excited to find out!

5. Michael Douglass As We’ve Never Seen Him Before

The Academy Award winning actor hasn’t had a role this good in years (thanks for trying, team behind Wall Street sequel but no thanks) and has never played so far against type. Over-the-top antics aside, Liberace was an enormously talented musician and captivating personality and we’re looking forward to seeing how Douglass channels his own brand of charisma into the role. We’re also seriously hoping his wife, fellow Academy Award winner Catherine Zeta Jones, gave him some pointers on just how to do that diva strut across the stage to his piano bench.

6. The Soundtrack

Like I said, somewhere in all of this is the story of a gifted musician. For proof of the talent behind the tacky, listen to Liberace playing the “14th Hungarian Rhapsody” by Liszt; he never would have had the opportunity to get that tacky if he hadn’t been that talented.

7. Rob Lowe Unable to Blink

HBO/Behind the Candelabra screen grab of Rob Lowe

The very handsome Rob Lowe underwent migraine inducing makeup (lots of pulling and scotch tape, we imagine) for his role as plastic surgeon to the stars, Dr. Jack Startz. Seriously, take a look, that’s Rob Lowe in there. Startz plays an important role in the book and we hope to see a lot of him in the film version. Well, maybe not see… don’t look directly at him, children. Startz allegedly told a young Thorson that cocaine was not addictive and allowed him to trade expensive pieces of jewelry for painkillers. And you thought your prescription drug plan was bad.

8. The Couple that Facelifts Together…

Well, in the case of Liberace and Thorson they do not actually stay together. Apparently, the relationship went sour around the time Thorson underwent some surgery by Dr. Startz at Liberace’s insistence that was supposed to make Thorson more closely resemble a young Liberace. I’m just going to repeat that so it can sink in: Liberace made his lover get plastic surgery on his face so he would look like him. I know, it doesn’t get any less weird the more you say it. Terrible to live through (I can only imagine) but fabulous to read about and hopefully see on screen! How fame and wealth corrupt and pervert even the gentlest of souls; and how the scorned heart seeks vengance, especially when the scorned is half of a celebrity coupling. Let’s just hope that Soderbergh’s film takes us on as wild a ride as its source material. I’ve got my sequined cape all ready for Sunday night!

Behind the Candelabra premiers Sunday, May 26 on HBO

Behind the Candelabra: My Life with Liberace by Scott Thorson is available through Tantor Media online and in stores now

You know how I know data visualization has gone mainstream? Because it’s only a matter of time before someone starts saying he was into it before it was cool.

No, wait, that happened. In San Francisco, as you’d expect.

“That would be me,” laughs Eric Rodenbeck. He points out that if you’ve looked at a weather map, you’ve used a data visualization. Really, even my dad can check his commute traffic on Apple’s Maps app, and this is a man who until recently dealt with email by dictating to his secretary. Mainstream.

graffiti archaeology

Rodenbeck isn’t posing as a hipster; he really was into it. In 2001, he co-founded and still is the creative director and CEO of Stamen, which has built data visualizations for clients from the ACLU to Yahoo, on topics ranging from Crimespotting to Graffiti Archaeology.

That’s not to say the visual representation of data can’t be data first and science last. ScienceOnline Bay Area holds monthly discussions on using visuals to present science findings online; the pretty pictures that NASA and other astronomers build not only sell space in a sexy way but help uncover real discoveries easy to miss in a data stream of numbers. Want to inspect the Firefox codebase? There’s a visualization for that. But did you understand it? Me neither. There’s a lot of serious cogitating going on.

But independently, in the wider world, data visualization has become data viz which has become #dataviz; the contraction traces the medium’s infiltration into our lives. Driving this is what drives most media: narrative. Narrative is the potent virus embedded in data viz that helps it spread and replicate in pop culture.

Lee Sherman, co-founder of SF-based Visual.ly, has bet heavily that data viz is the next form of storytelling, of narrative. How sure is he? The first line of his professional bio says that that “visual storytelling will save media.” Data visualization, when done well, is a story.

The linking of story and data was something Rodenback was learning in the days before broadband, before mobile, before most kids pitching at Y Combinator were able to ride a bike. When at Quokka Sports, he was trying to “embed the internet” into coverage of the ’97-’98 Whitbread Round the World yacht race. It was new. It pushed the state of technology, and it was cool: you could track racing sailboats automatically by GPS data, with video and images pushed from mast-mounted satellite dishes.

They’re joined in this crusade by Alberto Cairo, who says in his book The Functional Art that good visualizations tell a story, or at least allow us to discover one. “An illustration with a few figures,” he recently tweeted, “… not the same thing.” Or, as Sherman says, “nobody’s going to read a spreadsheet,” but a visualization with color and shapes and maybe motion? “All these things are looking to engage all our human senses.” Data suggest that readers eat up data viz: the Knight Foundation saw that “Data visualizations are 30x as likely to be shared as traditional text articles.”

This is leading major media outlets such as the New York Times to advertise for an “Interactive Storyteller” position; much of the Times’ data viz efforts are powered by hires from the Berkeley-based Center for Investigative Reporting and the SF locals behind D3.js. And recently, the media think tank Knight Digital Media Center at UC Berkeley ran a data viz symposium attended by designers and writers from around the world.

Inequality & Mass Transit in the Bay Area

SF was, and is, definitely a hub of this new medium, say both Rodenbeck and Sherman (and not just because their companies are based here, though you can’t ignore Visual.ly’s Giants visualization). Check the number of data viz Meetups in the Bay Area; look at the mapping of income inequality along local mass transit; see Sha Hwang’s use of local company Trulia’s data to show commute times; read Wired’s Tim Leong’s recounting of Vertigo comics.

And, ultimately, it seems that data viz is becoming what most people think of when they think of visual design. Of course, everyday objects such as street signs and shoes are designed, but as more and more news and entertainment is propagated this way, and the more and more we turn to interactions to find our route, or connect with others, or figure out where to live, it’s going to be an infographic or data viz that pops to mind when people think, “design.” It’s kind of their own damn fault for making data so pretty.

James Franco at a recent book signing in Palo Alto. Image courtesy of Laura Soriano

Sometimes famous people are not satisfied just being famous for one reason. When this happens they often call in some reinforcements and decide to dip their toes in the lapping author-y waters. Since being an actor, reality star or celebutaunt comes so easily to them, becoming an author is the next logical career choice. Many choose to write what they know, which means they, usually along with a ghostwriter or two, pen their own autobiography. Some of these, life Keith Richard’s story Life or Betty White’s If You Ask Me (And I’m Sure You Won’t) make for compelling reading. While many others, including Vanilla’s Ice’s 1991 memoir Ice by Ice, are not as well received by the public. Lucky for us the is no shortage or ego amongst celebrities and this simple fact let’s us know that the insane celeb autobiography will never go out of style. If celebrities want to write but don’t have it in them to go for a full chapter-book, they tend toward children’s stories. John Lithgow, Jamie Lee Curtis, Julianne Moore and Billy Crystal have all enjoyed success as children’s authors. However, a few brave celebs have taken the plunge into full-blown fiction writing often times with hilarious consequences. With Goodreads.com as our guide, we take a look at some of the worst (best?) in celebrity-penned fiction.

9. Hilary Duff: Elixir

Rating: 3.59/5 stars

Released in June 2011, Duff’s debut novel is a real page-turner. This 334 page thriller follows photojournalist/daughter of rich people Clea Raymond as she and a mysterious, handsome stranger, bond and attempt to solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance. The New York Post proclaimed ”It has everything: romance and the supernatural; a globe-trotting Hillary Clinton-esque mom; characters with names like Sage and Clea…and a shout-out to Page-Six!” Sounds like this former child star took the good news in stride releasing Devoted, the second book in the Elixir series, in Novemeber 2012.

8. Lauren Conrad: L.A. Candy

Rating: 3.37/5 stars

Reality star/fashion designer/blonde girl Lauren Conrad decided to test her storytelling chops in this June 2009 release L.A. Candy. The first of a trilogy (oh boy!), L.A. Candy chronicles the tale of Jane Roberts, a young, beautiful woman who moves to LA and is cast in a reality TV show. I’m sure she had to dig deep to find the inspiration for this one. ”I didn’t take anything specifically that happened to me,” Conrad told MTV News in 2009. ”The only thing that I did was … it was a way to show not necessarily me but just the other side of being on a show like ours.” For her efforts, Conrad briefly earned a spot on the New York Times Best Seller list.

7. Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi: A Shore Thing

Rating: 3.21/5 stars

Everyone’s favorite pouf-head, Snooki, took her deep love for the Jersey Shore to the pages of her first novel, A Shore Thing, in 2011. Not surprisingly, the story details a wild summer at the Jersey Shore shared by two cousins with super Italian-sounding names. Most plot-summarizing quote from the book: “[The girls] soak up all that Seaside Heights, New Jersey, has to offer: hot guidos, cool clubs, fried Oreos, and lots of tequila.”

6. Macaulay Culkin: Junior

Rating: 3.21/5 stars

The party monster himself takes a crack at the novel. Here, Culkin surprises his readers when instead of a linear, coherent story, they receive a dizzying tumble through a wild mind. Clearly, Culkin doesn’t stray too far from his own life’s experience with childhood mega-stardom and family dysfunction when creating his character, Junior. Kirkus Reviews says, “With this audaciously empty mishmash of poems, letters, comics, etc., former child star Culkin (of Home Alone fame) has managed to lower the already low bar set for celebrity fiction.” Better luck next time, Mack.

5. Fabio: Wild

Rating: 3.00/5 stars

Though he’s normally accustomed to adorning the cover, male model/goose target Fabio took at stab at authoring with this 1997 novel, Wild. Set in sizzling hot Miami, Wild  chronicles the sexy exploits of A.J. Sutton, a maid who falls in love with the ruggedly handsome (and undoubtedly bronze-skinned) businessman Marcos Esteves. However, a shocking murder causes A.J. to flee in order to survive and forces her to choose between love and her fears. I’d go with love, if I were her. Unfortunately, most people agree that Fabio is better half-smiling on the covers of romance novels or selling faux butter than he is at writing. His amazon reviews are hilarious.

4. Nicole Richie: The Truth About Diamonds: A Novel

Rating: 2.97/5 stars

On the heels of former bestie Paris Hilton’s self-indulgent 2004 book Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose, wild child Nicole Richie penned her first novel The Truth About Diamonds: A Novel, in 2006. I like that the title feels it’s necessary to mention that this is in fact a novel. Perhaps it was included to remind people since the entire book reads like a memoir of the rocker-celebutaunt’s real life. She includes a character named Nicole Richie. She seems really down to Earth.

3. Pamela Anderson: Star Struck: A Novel

Rating: 2.93/5 stars

Centerfold/Canadian Pamela Anderson released her first novel Star Struck: A Novel in May of 2005. Pam also felt the need to mention that her book was a novel in the title because, surprise, surprise, this “fictional” story reads a lot (identically) like Pam’s life with rocker Tommy Lee. If you’re in the market for a trashy page-turning modern romance, this could be the book for you. Put this in the “beach book” pile for summer reading, why dontcha.

2. James Franco: Palo Alto

Rating: 2.825 stars

I was really pulling for Yale PhD candidate and overall babe James Franco. I wanted his collection of short stories to be the best. Sigh. Alas, his 2010 collection of stories about misfit teens in Palo Alto reads a bit more like a sanctimonious memoir; a mesh of Jim Carroll and Bret Easton Ellis mixed with a dash of gore. The New York Times’ Joshua Mohr wrote, “As a writer, Franco needs to harness the skills he’s cultivated as an actor, mainly the ability to inhabit a consciousness independent of his own.” Sounds like this Jimmy F should heed that advice before he writes another book, or a tweet. At least he’s easy on the eyes.

1. Naomi Campbell: Swan

Rating: 2.67/5 stars

In an astonishing turn of events a short-tempered supermodel writes a fictitious novel about a mega-successful supermodel. I guess we can’t blame Naomi Campbell for writing (or convincing someone to write for her) what she knows. If we did, she’d probably throw a phone at us or something. Swan has a plot, I think. Critics are torn. Many loathe it for being a rambling stream of incoherent events while others see it as an inspiring look at the world of modeling. It’s basically a foggy, fictional version of America’s Next Top Model written in 1994.

Naomi is going to be tough to beat but I’m certain countless more celebrities will inadvertently throw their hat in the ring for the Most Entertainingly Terrible Celebrity Author. Who is your favorite or least favorite celebrity author? Bonus points if you say Danica McKeller.

Book cover photos via Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

Prom, 1900.

Whatever details exist in our story of prom; heartbreak, rebellion, awkwardness, ambivalence, fun, or indifference, we all partook of this ritual experience, even if through rejection. A promenade is the formalized entering of the ballroom, a staging ground for the magic culmination (or anti-climactic punctuation) of our alleged best years. First mentioned in a diary well over 100 years ago, prom emerged as an odd middle-class version of the already bizarre debutante ball. This glittery rite of passage was vital to our teenage cultural experience; as a structure to hold certain charged memories within, dark vague hours to cultivate amnesia toward, or something else entirely, of which we’re still not entirely certain.

So then let’s examine the artifacts of prom night:

You went to a Chinese restaurant that didn’t card and ordered a Flaming Volcano with eight straws, the center engulfed in actual flames. Cameras followed you to make a documentary about prom. You were the inner-city kids to be contrasted against suburban counterparts. You posed for photos with an acquaintance who later died when you were in your 20s. Those photos showed up in memorials for him. You smoked on balconies. You thought it was going to be fun. You snuck away to the lake. You made fun of the theme: A Night To Remember. What you remember is your date’s tongue ring hitting your teeth, sitting bored at card tables with sequins poured on top, your English teacher flirting with you. You wore a feather boa, flip-flops and flowers glued to your dress. You wore a motley suit of burgundy and a dandy’s hat. You got your date her corsage at 7-11. It was the last one, bright orange, and in poor condition. You went in a group with a lesbian couple, one of whom was your school’s first openly gay student. After 20 minutes you left and went to a cavernous gay nightclub (with a volleyball court) where you lied about your age to get in. You skipped prom and went to a music festival. It didn’t occur to you to save your virginity for prom night. Prom wasn’t a big deal at your school like in the movies. You were raised on Sweet Valley High and She’s All That and considered prom to be a landmark moment you’d remember forever. You think prom brings up some interesting gender issues. Boys are told prom night means getting laid. Girls are told it’s a night to indulge their princess fantasies. But no one you knew was actually like that.

Your parents hated your boyfriend who was a high school dropout and a jerk, a skater punk with long hair and a pierced nose. You told your parents you were going to prom and instead parked behind the church, hoping to lose your virginity. It didn’t happen and you went home. After prom you slept in tents in someone’s yard. You ended up at a cabin in the redwoods where everyone cuddled. You got a foot rub. You didn’t ask the girl you liked. Your date made her dress out of a burlap sack and brought you a corn boutonnière. It was one of the tamest nights of high school. You attended Art School Prom in graduate school. It had the same mix of irony and disappointment as the original. You wore a tiara and declared yourself prom queen, though you weren’t. The real prom queen’s boyfriend told you that you made a great prom queen. You went to satisfy your parents and part of you wished to have a movie-like experience. You played cards most of the night. You wore a red petticoat, trying for some Madonna ’80s look. You left to go to a party at the beach. Your boyfriend wouldn’t go because he was 19 and said it was weird. You spent the most you ever have, before or since, on shoes. It ended up being like any other night. You made fun of people who took the whole thing seriously and scoffed at the thought that this was going to be a defining moment in your life.

Your boyfriend showed up wearing cut-off slacks, a sleeveless shirt, a tie and Converse. It was the night you and he broke up. You showed up to the after-party drunk, in sweat pants. You and your friend left as the sun was coming up, stumbled down the street smashing bottles. It was a mess of a night but one of your favorite memories with her. Your boyfriend wouldn’t take you so you asked an older boy you’d had a crush on for years and he said yes. You wore a floor length, long-sleeved black velvet gown. You found it at a thrift store and were pretty smug since all of the other girls were going to Jessica McClintock to buy new, hideous dresses. You’d grown up going to the beach every day, but turned into an Amish woman covered from wrist to ankle. Your mom took you to a local hair salon to have your hair and makeup done. You took in an ad, which showed a very white woman’s face with smoky eyes, wine red lips, and pale skin. The makeup artist said, as diplomatically as possible, that your skin was too dark to make you look like that. You said you wanted to look Goth. She did you up in peaches and mauves. You went home and wiped it all off, doing your usual cat eyes with liquid eyeliner, and burgundy lips. You felt badly for wasting your mom’s money.

Your date was a deviant. He had an undercut with a long ponytail. You’d rather not have gone, but the foolishness of prom is something that needs to be experienced. The art kids took over the dance floor in full, raucous, awkward force. You got milkshakes the next day. A boy you didn’t know well hung a banner in front of the school asking you to prom. You went home, pretending to be sick and wrote him a letter saying no, which your friend delivered. Your date couldn’t find your house so you had to pile your dress into your car and meet him. You wore your French teacher’s dress. You wore a green bridesmaid’s dress of your sisters. Prom was boring. Prom was awesome. You wore a blue tux. You had a drawer of vintage dresses that outfitted both you and your friends. You had a 2am fight barefoot on the street with the boy who was going to be your date. You’d promised yourself you wouldn’t have any drama about prom. Just because something was “once in a lifetime” didn’t mean you needed to do it.

Your friend’s dad dressed as a chauffeur, and a bunch of parents chipped in for a limo. You didn’t go but all your friends said yes to elaborate “promgagements”. Maybe it’s a rehearsal for another overpriced mating ritual, the wedding? You kissed a boy who wasn’t your date. You floated around on a boat in Lake Michigan until 4am and talked to people who never talked to you at any other point during high school. You were ambivalent about school, functions like prom, and life in general. You were full of contradictions, wanting to be good and do well while simultaneously wanting to give your parents and the Catholic school administrators the middle finger. You’re glad you got to share the experience with the person who was your best friend at the time. You went because you were supposed to. You got to dress up, go out into the world and play grown-up. You admit that you sometimes think back on that time and wonder why it was all such a big deal. *

*Compiled from twenty anonymous sources, ages 17-60. 

Dimitra Skandali, one of our favorite SFAI grads

Every spring art schools around the Bay have final shows to highlight the work of the year’s graduating Masters of Fine Arts (in visual arts). If you live here, you know there are a LOT of Masters and a lot of art projects. In San Francisco alone there are shows for the San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts and San Francisco State University, not to mention Mills across the Bay in Oakland and don’t forget Stanford and Berkeley.

This means a lot of work, a lot of artist statements and a whole lot of nervous grads entering a pretty competitive job market. KQED Pop had the chance to head to the Old Mint where SFAI’s final show, Currency, is being held from May 15 to 19. While the grads installed their work, we walked around and talked to some of them about why they make art and why we should care. Spoiler: we were impressed and we are hard to impress. Watch the video below and regain a bit of hope for the future of art in America.

The Office/NBC

Time is basically irrelevant without markers to let you know it’s passing. You go along, day to to day, doing jobs, eating dinner and then suddenly, BOOM! something happens to remind you that you are getting old and that someday, you are going to die.

So it is with tomorrow’s series finale of The Office, a show that has been on since my last semester of undergrad, April 2005–so in a way, my whole adult life. That’s nine seasons and eight years. In Lizzy-time, that’s five baby cousins born into my family who aren’t babies anymore. Three states, six bedrooms, two degrees, two surfboards, eight roommates, five bikes, one book, six jobs, one real-life boyfriend and three pairs of glasses.

“The American Version of The Office,” which those of us just returning from abroad trips in Britain in 2005 continued to call it for at least the first four seasons, never really reached the insanely painful heights of its British predecessor. The genius of Ricky Gervais in his original production of The Office on BBC 2 was that he was able to create characters just on the edge of believable, that made you so uncomfortable you almost had to turn away, precisely because you knew they could be real people. The America Office could never quite achieve that; its characters were always just a bit too silly. But after awhile, the show became its own thing. As apposed to sitcoms that defined previous eras, filled with leisure time and absurd apartments, it was about the daily grind, spending the majority of your hours with people you didn’t choose, in front of computers and trying to work the copy machine. The Pam and Jim romance kept us hopeful; the antics of the various bosses made us feel like our bosses weren’t so bad and also weren’t so good. I don’t know if this is necessarily a good thing, but The Office helped a whole generation of us Millennials romanticize normalcy and lowered expectations. And it helped goofy tall guys everywhere get some action.

Anyone who cares at all about TV will tell you that in the last few years, (last handful of years?), The Office has lost some of its original magic. New shows like Parks and Recreation took its mockumentary style and did it better, with more laughs and a more purpose. It’s characters, especially Dwight, became too ridiculous. Pam and Jim proved that no one wants to actually see the happily ever after. But in this final season, it has come back to being meaningful. Pam and Jim hit the rocks, like all married couples (I am told) and the characters final became aware of the fact that they were in a documentary, which feels strangely satisfying. Tomorrow, the whole story will get wrapped up. Maybe Pam and Jim will leave Dunder Mifflin. Maybe they won’t. Either way, it will be a little bittersweet but not so bad. Everything has its time and maybe tomorrow the people who will really be quitting the paper company will be us. Time marches on. And now it is time to find another job–something a little more interesting maybe?– and a new TV show to define the next stage of our lives.

The third annual San Francisco Green Film Festival, which starts May 30 and ends June 5 this year, will be presenting a series of environmentally-conscious films, mostly at the New People Cinema in Japantown. Here is a selection of pretty stunning trailers for films being screened at the festival this year:

1. The Ruffalo-studded Dear Governor Cuomo, directed by Jon Bowermaster. Man, turns out “fracking” does not mean the same thing in real life as it does on Battlestar Galactica:

2. & 3. Breathing Earth and Garden in the Sea, both directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer, who also made Rivers and Tides, a hypnotic documentary on the artist Andy Goldsworthy:

Here is a link to Garden in the Sea, because it can’t be embedded.

4. Markus Imhoof’s film on the mysterious and terrifying decline of the bee population, More Than Honey:

5. And finally, Andrew Garrison’s film Trash Dance, which probably needs no explanation:

Tickets to the festival are on sale now. See you there?