Events - Modern Times Bookstore

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Tede Matthews Initiative Special Events The Tede Matthews Initiative (TMI) is a new project of Modern Times Bookstore. Honoring the fierce cultural legacy of founding collective member Tede Matthews’ queer literary cultural activism, TMI partners with Mission District community cultural organizations, schools, artists, and educators to launch a series of performances, workshops and free to low cost cultural events to support the Bay Area's activist, artistic, and literary communities. To support us or find out more, click here.

Herbs 101 Joshua Muscat - Tuesday May 4, 11, 18 - 7 PM - $25 Spring getting you curious about how to heal yourself using local, native herbs? San Francisco Botanical Medicine Clinic Director Joshya Muscat and learn about wildcrafting, making tinctures and salves, and much more. top of page

Toxic Loopholes a talk by Craig Collins - Monday, May 10 - 7 PM presented in cooperation with the Institute for the Critical Study of Society Craig Collins’ vividly illustrated PowerPoint presentation will provide us with an insightful glimpse into his new book, Toxic Loopholes. Instead of a dry treatise on environmental policy, Collins de-mystifies the “environmental protection racket” through dramatic accounts of contaminated communities standing up to corporate polluters and corrupt EPA officials in their quest for environmental justice. Toxic Loopholes blatantly reveals how weak laws, legal loopholes, political collusion and regulatory negligence have rigged a system of bureaucratic barriers to protect polluters from the wrath of their victims. top of page

Rad Dad zine party in conjunction with the first Harvey Milk Day! - Saturday, May 22 - 3-5 PM Come join parents Tomas Moniz, writer/editor of Rad Dad zine, Rahula Janowski of Joybringer zine, Jeremy Adam Smith, author of The Daddy Shift and others as they read about the pleasure, politics, and pain of radical parenting and radical families. Kid friendly event! All welcome! top of page

Spanish Book Club/ Circulo de Lectoras/ es de Literatura en Espanol *Book of the Month: Manana en la Batalla Peinsa en Mi* de Jaiver Marias** - Tuesday, May 25 - 7 PM A mix of native speakers and advanced level hablantes, the group has been meeting in the Mission District on a monthly basis for nine years. Participants receive a 10% discount on their book purchases. Los libros estan en la seccion de libros en espanol. Las personas que participan en el grupo reciben 10% de descuento al comprar los libros. top of page

Queer Open Mic - Friday, May 28 - 7 PM sign up, 7:30 PM show A mix of native speakers and advanced level hablantes, the group has been meeting in the Mission District on a monthly basis for nine years. Participants receive a 10% discount on their book purchases. Los libros estan en la seccion de libros en espanol. Las personas que participan en el grupo reciben 10% de descuento al comprar los libros. top of page

The Burger Queen Social By the minds of Gay Shame & Ships in the Night - Saturday, May 29 - 5:30 PM From the minds that brought about Gay Shame and Ships in the Night comes the Burger Queen Social—a fun and exciting opportunity to meet other radical queer, trans, and genderqueer folks to hook up with for political witchery and discussion. With free vegan eats and a wildly engaging DJ! top of page

Low-Cost Activist Spanish Classes Taught by Francisco Jimenez - Saturdays in May - 2-3:30 PM - $15-20 Francisco strives to teach effective, useful spanish to all, no matter your proficiency. The focus is on spanish for activists and polticial organizers. Classes are small (often one-on-one) and tailored to your needs. A necessary foundation for any one doing political work in the Americas. top of page

Gay Shame Weekly Meetings - Every Saturday - 5:30 PM Gay Shame seeks nothing less than a new queer activism that foregrounds race, class, gender and sexuality, to counter gay consumerism and the increasingly hypocritical left. Come to a general meeting: all are welcome. top of page


	Launch Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War Grace M. Cho - Saturday, May 1 - 3 PM Cosponsored by HABOK (Hella Organized Bay Area Koreans) Since the Korean War—the forgotten war—more than a million Korean women have acted as sex workers for U.S. servicemen. More than 100,000 women married GIs and moved to the United States. Through intellectual vigor and personal recollection, Haunting the Korean Diaspora explores the repressed history of emotional and physical violence between the United States and Korea and the unexamined reverberations of sexual relationships between Korean women and American soldiers. top of page

	Launch Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political Judy Rebick - Wednesday, May 5 - 7 PM Presented by the Global Commons Foundation and Shaping San Francisco Canadian leftist writer Judy Rebick takes us from participatory budgetting in Europe to the U.S. Social Forum to the rise of democracy in Bolivia, exploring how globalization and mass communication technology are revolutionizing our understanding of power and creating profound new ways to change the world. top of page

	Reading Venezuela Speaks! Voices from the Grassroots Carlos Martinez - Thursday, May 6 - 7 PM While Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez continues to capture headlines, a much larger story involving a wider cast of characters has gone largely ignored. From community media to land reform, cooperatives to communal councils, from the labor movement to the Afro-Venezuelan network, Venezuela Speaks! sheds light on the complex realities within the Bolivarian Revolution. top of page

	Workshop 99 Californias Later: Where We Are Jeff Chang • Guillermo Gómez-Peña • Rebecca Solnit Moderated by Malcolm Margolin, founder and publisher of Heyday Books - Wednesday, May 12 - 7 PM - OFF-SITE: Mechanics’ Institute Library at 57 Post St. Three California writers (Rebecca Solnit, Jeff Chang, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña) reveal the unique complexities, vibrant cultures, and ever-changing beauty that characterize this place. From Chang's look at the hip-hop generation in his book, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, to Gómez-Peña's performance art and writing on borders culture, to post-disaster communities in Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell, these three authors analyze place, not just geographically, but culturally and artistically. top of page

	Walking Tour write/walk Charles Andrews - Wednesday, May 12 - 7 PM presented by WritersCorps and the San Francisco Arts Commission write/walk is a walking tour of youth poetry and Mission businesses. Join us Wednesday May 12th for an inaugural tour and launch reading at Modern Times, featuring young writers from Mission High School. For more information please visit writerscorps.org. top of page

	Reading Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus Anna Maria Spagna - Thursday, May 13 - 7 PM Winner of the 2009 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus chronicles the story of an American family against the backdrop of one of the civil rights movement’s lesser-known stories. In January 1957, Joseph Spagna and five other young men waited to board a city bus called the Sunnyland with a simple but dangerous plan: ride the bus together-three blacks and three whites-get arrested, and take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Fifty years later, Ana Maria Spagna sets off on a journey to understand what happened and why. top of page

	Reading Ripe Fruit - Friday, May 14 - 7 PM Ripe Fruit School of Creative Writing has been training Bay Area writers in all genres for more than 18 years. Tonight Ripe Fruit brings together a variety of dynamic new writers of poetry, prose poetry and fiction for a debut performance of their most recent work. Readers: Elizabeth Lian,Clay Pace, Steve Lovato, Jordan Shields, Kate Newton, David Price, Jen Rubinstein and Veronica Reilly. top of page

	Launch To Teach: The Journey, In Comics Bill Ayers - Wednesday, May 19 - 7 PM Modern Times welcomes Bill Ayers to launch his graphic novel! To Teach is a vivid, honest portrayal of the everyday world of teaching and what it means to be a “good” teacher—debunking myths perpetuated on film and in starry-eyed hero/teacher fictions. To Teach follows William Ayers and his class as they navigate the kindergarten year, handles the “weird” people with clipboards who stop by to check his actions against the Regional and National Curriculum. top of page

	Launch Low Bite Sin Soracco - Tuesday, May 20 - 7 PM Low Bite is Sin Soracco’s prison novel about survival, dignity, friendship and insubordination inside a women’s prison. Morgan - white, female, 26, convicted of breaking and entering with force, works in the prison law library, giving legal counsel of more-or-mostly-less usefulness to other convicts. And she has plenty of enemies--like Johnson, the lesbian-hating warden, and Alex, the “pretty little dude” lawyer who doesn’t like her free legal advice. Then there’s China: Latina, female, 22, holding US citizenship through marriage, convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. They’re all trying to get through without getting caught or going straight, but there’s just one catch--a bloodstained bank account that everybody wants. top of page

	Release Party Ripe Fruit - Friday, May 21 - 7 PM Join us for Ripe Fruit’s second reading of their Spring 2010 writers. Readers: Paul Godwin, Henry Matallana, Susan Zerner, Tish Momirov, Nina Zumel, Lauren Adorno-Weatherford, Donna La Flamme, Roma Guy, & Glenn D’Mello will read their most recent work. top of page

	Launch Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience Alice Rothchild - Sunday, May 23 - 3 PM Broken Promises, Broken Dreams explores the complexities of Jewish Israeli attitudes and the hardships of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza through personal narratives based on work with medical delegations in the region. ”Ultimately this powerful book is about healing festering wounds and narrowing irreconcilable differences.”-Bernard Lown, MD, co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. top of page

	Launch Remaking Citizenship: Latina Immigrants and New American Politics Kathleen Coll and 20th Anniversary Party for Mujeres Unidas y Activas!! - Thursday, May 27 - 7 PM Weaving the stories of Mexican and Central American women with history and analysis of the anti-immigrant upsurge in 1990s California, Remaking Citizenship examines the impact of legislation on Latina women’s lives and their engagement in grassroots political organizing- from MUA’s domestic workers’ rights campaign to fights against domestic violence and immigrant-bashing. Come celebrate Latina resistance and resilience! 10% of all Remaking Citizenship sales will benefit MUA. top of page