>> herb theatre,open rehearsal. listen to the rehearsal. i think it is fun for them, they see our work process, our discussions, the decisions we make. it is good for us. we kind of behavior little bit when we have people in the audience. msk (music) >> we are rehearsing for our most expensive tour; plus two concerts here. we are proud that the growth of the orchestra, and how it is expanded and it is being accepted. my ambition when i came on

as music director here -- it was evident we needed absolutely excellent work. also evident to me that i thought everyone should know that. this was my purpose. and after we opened, which was a spectacular opening concert about five weeks after that the economy completely crashed. my plan -- and i'm absolutely dogmatic about my plans --were delayed slightly. i would say that in this very difficult timefor the arts and everyone, especially the arts, it's phenomenal how new century has grown where many unfortunate organizations have stopped. during this period we

got ourselves on national radio presence; we started touring, releasing cds, a dvd. we continue to tour. reputation grows and grows and grows and it has never stopped going forward. msk(music) >> the bay area knows the orchestra. you maybe take things for granted a little bit. that is simply not the case will go on the road. the audiences go crazy. they don't see vitality like this on stage. we are capable of conveying joy when we play. msk(music) >> any performance that we do, that a program, that will be something on the program that you haven't heard before. string orchestra repertoire is pretty small.

i used to be boxed into small repertoire. i kept constantly looking for new repertoire and commissioning new arrangements. if you look at the first of the program you have very early, young vibrant mendelson; fabulous opener and then you have this fabulous concerto written for us in the orchestra. is our gift. msk(music) >> and then you have strauss, extraordinary piece. the most challenging of all. string orchestra work. 23 solo instrument, no violin section, now viola section;

everybody is responsible for their part in this piece. the challenge is something that i felt not only that we could do , absolutely could do, but i wanted to show off. i can't tell you how aware i am of the audience. not only what i hear but their vibes, so strong. i have been doing this for a long time. i kind of make them feel what i want them to feel. there is nobody in that audience or anywhere that is not going to know that particular song by the fourth note.

and that is our encore on tour. by the way. i am proud to play it, we are from san francisco. we are going to play that piece no matter where we are. >> bonnie banks. bonnie banks. my definition of noise is uncontrolled music. without format. pretty simple affair. pancakes, and you're -- people get up on sundays around noon, weekends or whatever. should not be too hard to walk into place.

have your audio alarm clock go off for two hours waking your up while you are eating breakfast with many interesting visuals once in a while. improvisation. listening or not to the person you're playing up against or people or machines. trying to get as many different people in as possible. different genres, experimental noise, electronics, dissonance some drums.a tiny bit of ambient -- the first noise pancake shows, 1999, the first waffle noise, 2001.

god-waffle noise, noise pancake came out of cubist art, place on mission street, brutallo, where the church -- opened up his house and saturday morning cartoons. a big space. you can have everybody set up and barely move equipment around; small room for an audience to move around, walkover and get pancakes without getting burned up in the kitchen. there's like people in their hard-core gabber; people into really fast death metal; black metal. people who don't listen to

music at all. guy like larnie bock (sounds like) set up huge, motor driven harp. i don't know how to explain it. 40 foot of motors that he had running over strings and wires. and then played each string individually with the mixer. there is a feeling of euphoria when somebody's really good at what they do. experiencing a buffer, pushing your bowels out your rear. different. a lot of noise.

you don't play clubs with a cleaning schedule, a guy coming in the morning emptying the beer bottles. you play the warehouse. if you travel around you will see the exact same kind of weirdos doing their own thing. it is like in the bay area it's even more absurd. there seems to be more people that in a place like new york or tokyo. we did a show in new york, i didn't think that anyone was at hardly, and people come up and said i saw the show. i wish they had some kind of breakfast noise going on over there. i think a lot of people were being, walking out of the shows. that was incredible.

i can't believe it's over already, after two hours. if you are reluctant to enjoy something like this it will probably take a mass of peers to sell you on it. it's fine if you stay away. most of the people that come to the shows are pretty happy to be here. you may not be one of them. which is fine. >> just a few steps away from union square is a quiet corner stone of san francisco's our community to the meridian gallery has a 20-year history of supporting visual arts. experimental music concert, and also readings.

>> give us this day our daily bread at least three times a day. and lead us not into temptation to often on weekdays. [laughter] >> meridians' stands apart from the commercial galleries around union square, and it is because of their core mission, to increase social, philosophical, and spiritual change my isolated individuals and communities. >> it gives a statement, the idea that a significant art of any kind, in any discipline, creates change. >> it is philosophy that attracted david linger to mount a show at meridian. >> you want to feel like your work this summer that it can do some good. i felt like at meridian, it could do some good. we did not even talk about price until the day before the show. of course, meridian needs to support itself and support the community.

but that was not the first consideration, so that made me very happy. >> his work is printed porcelain. he transfers images onto and spoils the surface a fragile shes of clay. each one, only one-tenth of an inch thick. >> it took about two years to get it down. i would say i lose 30% of the pieces that i made. something happens to them. they cracked, the break during the process. it is very complex. they fall apart. but it is worth it to me. there are photographs i took 1 hours 99 the former soviet union. these are blown up to a gigantic images. they lose resolution. i do not mind that, because my images are about the images, but they're also about the idea, which is why there is text all over the entire surface. >> marie in moved into the mansion on powell street just five years ago. its galleries are housed in one of the very rare single family

residences around union square. for the 100th anniversary of the mansion, meridian hosted a series of special events, including a world premiere reading by lawrence ferlinghetti. >> the birth of an american corporate fascism, the next to last free states radio, the next-to-last independent newspaper raising hell, the next-to-last independent bookstore with a mind of its own, the next to last leftie looking for obama nirvana. [laughter] the first day of the wall street occupation set forth upon this continent a new revolutionary nation. [applause] >> in addition to its own

programming as -- of artist talks, meridian has been a downtown host for san francisco states well-known port trees center. recent luminaries have included david meltzer, steve dixon, and jack hirsch man. >> you can black as out of the press, blog and arrest us, tear gas, mace, and shoot us, as we know very well, you will, but this time we're not turning back. we know you are finished. desperate, near the end. hysterical in your flabbergastlyness. amen. >> after the readings, the crowd headed to a reception upstairs by wandering through the other gallery rooms in the historic home. the third floor is not usually reserved for just parties, however. it is the stage for live performances.

♪ under the guidance of musical curators, these three, meridian has maintained a strong commitment to new music, compositions that are innovative, experimental, and sometimes challenging. sound art is an artistic and event that usually receives short shrift from most galleries because san francisco is musicians have responded by showing strong support for the programming. ♪ looking into meridian's future, she says she wants to keep doing the same thing that she has been doing since 1989.

to enlighten and disturbed. >> i really believe that all the arts have a serious function and that it helps us find out who we are in a much wider sense than we were before we experienced that work of art. ♪ >> feel like it really is a community. they are not the same thing, but it really does feel like there's that kind of a five. everybody is there to enjoy a literary reading. >> the best lit in san francisco. friendly, free, and you might get fed. ♪

[applause] >> this san francisco ryther created the radar reading series in 2003. she was inspired when she first moved to this city in the early 1990's and discover the wild west atmosphere of open mi it's ic in the mission. >> although there were these open mics every night of the week, they were super macho. people writing poems about being jerks. beatty their chest onstage. >> she was energized by the scene and proved up with other girls who wanted their voices to be heard. touring the country and sharing gen-x 7 as a.

her mainstream reputation grew with her novel. theses san francisco public library took notice and asked her if she would begin carrying a monthly reading series based on her community. >> a lot of the raiders that i work with our like underground writers. they're just coming at publishing and at being a writer from this underground way. coming in to the library is awesome. very good for the library to show this writing community that they are welcome. at first, people were like, you want me to read at the library, really? things like that. >> as a documentary, there are interviews -- [inaudible] >> radar readings are focused on

clear culture. strayed all others might write about gay authors. gay authors might write about universal rice the host creates a welcoming environment for everybody. there is no cultural barrier to entry. >> the demographic of people who come will match the demographic of the reader. it is very simple. if we want more people of color, you book more people of color. you want more women, your book more women. kind of like that. it gets mixed up a little bit. in general, we kind of have a core group of people who come every month. their ages and very. we definitely have some folks who are straight. >> the loyal audience has allowed michelle to take more chances with the monthly lineup.

established authors bring in an older audience. younker authors bring in their friends from the community who might be bringing in an older author. >> raider has provided a stage for more than 400 writers. it ranges from fiction to academics stories to academic stories this service the underground of queer fell, history, or culture. >> and there are so many different literary circles in san francisco. i have been programming this reading series for nine years. and i still have a huge list on my computer of people i need to carry into this. >> the supportive audience has allowed michele to try new experiment this year, the radar book club. a deep explorationer of a single

work. after the talk, she bounces on stage to jump-start the q&a. less charlie rose and more carson daly. >> san francisco is consistently ranked as one of the most literate cities in the united states. multiple reading events are happening every night of the year, competing against a big names like city arts and lectures. radar was voted the winner of these san francisco contest. after two decades of working for free, michelle is able to make radar her full-time job. >> i am a right to myself, but i feel like my work in this world is eagerly to bring writers together and to produce literary events. if i was only doing my own work, i would not be happy.

it is, like throwing a party or a dinner party. i can match that person with that person. it is really fun for me. it is nerve wracking during the actual readings. i hope everyone is good. i hope the audience likes them. i hope everybody shows up. but everything works out. at the end of the reading, everyone is happy. ♪

. >> so we're here at town hall restaurant in san francisco at the corner of fremont and howard and mitch rosenthal, one of the three coowners and what is your job here? . >> i don't know any more. >> you do everything. you cook and do the menus and

mitch and his brother stevie and i hope we'll meet all these people during the course of today, most people aren't really comfortable when they have a bunch of inspectors come take bunc h of inspe ctors come ta ke pars 3bunch of inspectors comea walk through their restaurant . >> they are all flaking out in there. >> we use this as an opportunity to try to educate the public. what do we look at when we inspect a restaurant. of course when i go into a restaurant with my wife and i sit down and say, well, let's check the exits when we sit down she goes, dear, you're not on the clock right now. so we're on the clock. we have with us captain hardy of the fire department is going to walk through with us, we'll have the health department joining us in a few minutes and we will have a tour around the inside of the restaurant looking at the kitchen, looking at the food prep areas, looking at the dish wash and the cold

storage. so this will be really fun. and looking of course at fire and life safety issues in restaurants. there are particular issues regarding safety in restaurants because you get a lot of people together. basically they are considered assembly occupancy. any place you get 50 or more people together are considered assembly occupancy. the rules go way up. we're outside town hall restaurant. this is a historic building and we believe when the building was built it was installed with a fire sprinkler system and of course you need to maintain the equipment that was installed when the building was built. what do we have here? . >> what we would do on the inspection is start with the outside of the building, take a look at it. this is the automatic sprinkler connection for our fire engines to hook up to so we want to make sure it's clear, it has covers on the inlets so nothing could be put in there to block it. this is a little unusual that

we have the fire control panel location noted out here because it's not at the immediate front entrance of the building, so it gives direction to our fire companies where the fire alarm control panel is so we can take a look at it next. >> fire control panel at rear entrance. why don't we walk around to the rear entrance, see if we can find it. so here we are at the back of the town hall restaurant. they take the first two floors and the third floor is marin day school and the top floor is day space. they share an exit. here we have the control panel and the light is in the green and the system is normal. so that's one of the things we look at first, that the fire alarm system is working as it should be. >> the fire alarm system is connected to what, smoke detectors up in the ceiling? . >> initiating devices, there's a full station here and we have

notification devices, strobe type visual alarm devices. >> this will also let us know if the flow alarm is going off, like if water is flowing through the system we get an alarm as well. >> if a sprinkler head activated we would get an alarm. it is monitored off site and the off site company would notify the fire department to respond. >> i am encouraged that there was a sprinkler head that went off in the restaurant when they were doing some construction work. it's amazing how much water comes out of one head. apparently it made a big mess. flooded through. >> most systems are designed with about 10 to 14 heads would be able to activate. that's the water supply expected for hydraulic calculations. when one head goes off there's a lot of water that goes through. >> i assume restaurants are required to have fire

extinguishers. >> there's two types, within 75 foot of travel and kitchens would require their own set of extinguishers there also. >> what type of extinguishers would they have now. >> one for combustibles. this one is a bit oversized for the area, the 4a80bc and what we are looking for, the pressure is in the green. so this is a pressurized extinguisher and it's been serviced within the last year and this one has been and all the extinguishers in the restaurant have been. >> we're going to look in the kitchen at the so-called ancill system. . >> it has the same type of tag that the system needs to be serviced every 6 months. >> we'll take a look at that.

one of the really big issues with restaurants, any place we have an assembly, is letting people know that there's a reason to evacuate a building and being able to get out of the building. we are here looking at a couple things. the first thing we're looking at, tom, is signage. >> we would be looking for their exit signs and that their emergency lighting is maintained. . >> we have an illuminated exit sign and right above the exit sign you have lights that go on in the event of power failure in the building. we have this little device that is a visual alarm and a very loud -- people who have hearing impairment, there is very very bright lights as well. >> we always walk to the final end of the exit and