Guardian photos by Paula Connelly

Art Basel is not the only show in Miami's town this weekend. In addition to every gallery, boutique, and busy streetcorner hosting its own opening of varying degrees of importance, there are approximately 2,100 smaller art fairs going on (give or take). One of these is SCOPE, which I heard about first because urban art trendsetter SF gallery White Walls was trucking some canvases of ABOVE's stenciled hip-hop dancers-- and street artist ROA's drawings of animals in capitivity, etched on wooden crates -- down to show. (CORRECTION: ROA's publicist has informed us that his installation is not wood etchings. His mediums are enamel, charcoal, China ink, aerosol and acrylic on found wood....no crates.) 

But to get into SCOPE, I first had to make it past the Alpine climber. Read more »

All I did was program in the coordinates of a wall my friend was painting in the midst of Miami's mega Art Basel weekend and all of a sudden I'm in mural heaven. Going traffic snail-slow down the Wynwood neighborhood's Second Avenue (at one time a Puerto Rican enclave, now a place where corner restaurants are popping up with floor-length windows that display spindly humanoid statues clad in multi-colored sweater), all I could see were flood light-illuminated muralists in the finishing stages of turning the street into the most painted lane I've ever seen. Read more »

Last week, the IRS' two year audit of Harborside Health Center ended poorly for the medical marijuana industry. The federal government agency decided that the dispensary (Oakland's largest, as the Bay Citizen reported in its coverage of the craziness -- check out our story in today's paper about the additional threats that have been made) couldn't deduct standard business expenses, a move that left Harborside in the hole for $2 million and the rest of its industry in need of a joint. 

Such was the setting for the West Coast Cannabis and Music Festival this weekend (Fri/7-Sun/9). Things got a little weird. Read more »

Every once in awhile, an festival comes along that seems so seamless, so positive, and so needed that it's like it sprang from the Bay Area gods. Such an event is the Life is Living Festival, which took over West Oakland's De Fremery Park last Sat/8 in big, happy puppy pile of art and kids and music. Read more »

As far as the planet is concerned, it's probably a good thing that Morgan Fitzgibbons is adept at guilt trips. Consider the Huffington Post editorial the SF neighborhood activist and founder of Western Addition's Wigg Party wrote earlier this year. You know our descendents? "They will either remember you as someone who fought for life against the greatest odds, or someone who simply neglected your most fundamental responsibility -- to pass the world on to the next generation," wrote Fitzgibbons. 

In the same editorial he promised to "see you in the streets." Well ready your street-walking shoes, because that day has come: Sat/24 is Moving Planet Day, which will see 2,000 events in more than 168 countries, promises to be one of the largest global manifestations for the environment to date. People across the Earth will be speaking out, massing up, and getting loud about the need to stop our fossil-fueled ways before it's too late. Read more »

Bayview native Meaghan Mitchell first started working in the neighborhood as a hostess at 1300 on Fillmore. Not anymore – now she co-owns a pop-up neighborhood art gallery across the street from the restaurant and is organizing an entire week of events geared towards filling the historic neighborhood's streets again (Independent Artists Week, now through Sun/11).

The Fillmore's the kind of neighborhood that inspires creative growth, famous for its days as a cultural hub where African Americans celebrated the arts, succeeded in the business arena, and solidified community. This week's lineup of IAW events hopes to highlight that legacy, with speed networking for creative types, free art walks, and more. 

Because right now, the area definitely needs some shine. Read more »

Outside on Post Street and in the Japantown Peace Plaza, pastel-colored babydoll dresses flounce past homemade space-samauri hoods. Everyone's wearing really long turquoise wigs (they're clones of the Vocaloid character Hatsune Miku, try to stay with us here), gaudy plastic baubles glued to their fingernails. A judge at the Baby The Stars Shine Bright runway contest is pleased with one contestant's canny use of a plush llama as accessory. "I like how you incorporated alpaca -- that's really 'in' in Japan these days."

Whimsy was a central characteristic at the heart of this year's J-Pop Summit Festival. But it wasn't all eye-popping plastic and the gluing of themed objects to your pigtail hairpiece. Inside the welcome cool of the New People mall's top-floor Superfrog Gallery, a more sober form of fashion was being explored. Sou Sou's Takeshi Wakabayashi was explaining his brand's commitment to blending traditional forms of Japanese clothing with modern textiles. Read more »