San Francisco Review of Whatever
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San Francisco Review of Whatever
@sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
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In print only ⚫️ Issue Two is here ⚫️ Subscriptions are available at the link below 🌝 Everyone is a critic ⚫️

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Sophia Wang is a mother, a mammal, and a person who knows about bioengineering human breast milk. In “Mama Mammalian” she examines breastfeeding as work, as pleasure, and as a beautiful supply chain of two. Featuring Summoners Cards by Craig Calderwood (@craigcalderwood.bsky.social).
Photograph of an artwork by Craig Calderwood: blue and lavender puffy paint overtop a fully-obscured Magic the Gathering card. The top half looks like a crystal, and the bottom half reads "Mommy Milky," "14," and features a drip of sparkly milk. Tomato pink background with black outlined rectangles and black and blue text within: “For me, pumping is a fun, weird activity. I’m getting milked! With the milking contraption attached to my nipples, I am the scientist-farmer observing myself as experimental subject or dairy animal, operating a pump to extract one of the most fundamental foods on the planet, so elemental they call it liquid gold.” SOPHIA WANG, MAMA MAMMALIAN
September 30, 2025 at 5:34 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
In “We Portrait Together,” Anne Walsh (A) reviews IF AN ELSEWHERE (The Burrow), a layered, allegorical collaboration between artist Cybele Lyle (C) and poet Jocelyn Saidenberg (J). Walsh’s idiosyncratic and loving tactics demonstrate that “there are so many ways to write and read.”
Photograph showing a car dashboard with a phone attached to it. On the phone screen is a playlist by Anne Walsh titled IAE. On the dash screen behind it is more information about the track that's playing. Tomato pink background with black outlined rectangles and black and blue text within: “A reads IF AN ELSEWHERE (The Burrow) out loud to her phone. She doesn’t rehearse. J’s enjambment is its own inside-outside problem, an ontological straddle, she realizes. A word belonging to those preceding it doesn’t any more, it jumps context, it unbelongs itself, then togethers with the next.” ANNE WALSH, WE PORTRAIT TOGETHER
September 25, 2025 at 5:50 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
In “The Magic Is Here, I Saw It,” poet Christina Svenson delivers an efflorescent review of Soft Core, the novel by performer and local hero, Brittany Newell.

To read SAN FRANCISCO REVIEW OF THREE BOOKS SO FAR, order Issue Two here: sfrw.square.site/product/issu...
Photo of a cluster of white and magenta flowers. Their outer petals look like velvet and the inner ones look wet Tomato pink background with black outlined rectangles and black and blue text within: “Soft Core is devotional in its attention to the Bay Area’s nooks and crannies, turning them over and over like beads on a rosary. In this process, San Francisco becomes a place for looking and never finding, because there was never an object to discover in the first place.” CHRISTINA SVENSON THE MAGIC IS HERE, I SAW IT
September 23, 2025 at 6:42 PM
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“I Feel Safe in San Francisco” is a delicate, ranging, topographic memoir by skateboarder-poet Rod Roland, featuring photography by Reggie Guerrero (@meadowy.bsky.social) and a new poem by Tenaya Nasser-Frederick and Rod Roland.
Street scene: An empty sidewalk with a pink vertical bollard, a building with two doors behind it, and black and peach checkerboard tiling. Tomato pink background with black outlined rectangles and black and blue text within: I don’t think skateboarding is a cure for anything. It’s more a do or don’t thing. I feel self-conscious writing about it instead of doing it. That’s just how it’s done. If you aren’t trying, then you’re not skating. I’m not so worried about being judged by other fifty-year-old skateboarders reading this. Fuck you. No, I’m kidding. But seriously, why don’t you try and write a review of San Francisco and skateboarding. Rod Roland, I Feel Safe in San Francisco
September 18, 2025 at 6:38 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
SFRW’s resident Ad Reinhardt (if he were more Ohioan), Kate Rhoades (@katerhoades.bsky.social) made another cartoon about the kinds of objects you might encounter in an art gallery.

To read SAN FRANCISCO REVIEW OF ART, order Issue Two here: sfrw.square.site/product/issu...
A part of a larger cartoon. There’s a bull in a suit holding a beverage and saying “Lars, the show is a hit! Why so grouchy?” And an unseen Lars replies “Nobody gets it, man!”
September 16, 2025 at 4:19 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
SFGATE has the Issue Two party report! www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/a...
川 SFGATE CA MINI CROSSWORD A new San Francisco magazine about whatever Two weeks ago, 100 literary-minded San Franciscans gathered in a stark all-white room in the Mission to hear about ... whatever.
September 15, 2025 at 8:11 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
By way of A Streetcar Named Desire and The Simpsons, Beatrice Kilat (@beatrick.bsky.social) weighs the risks and chances for love in her debut column: “Ask Bea.” She also considers the chihuahua.

To read SOME GOOD ADVICE, order Issue Two here: sfrw.square.site/product/issu...
Tomato pink background with black outlined rectangles and black and blue text within: Williams kept waiting to wake up feeling different and instead kept waking up as himself. In his wigged-out state, he drank and ate too much, behaved poorly, leaned into cynicism, withdrew from friends and the world at large. Taunted by the now frictionless experience of his success, he left his home and found friction out in the world. You know, the joys and bothers and ‘stuff’ that happens when we let other people into our lives. Which is what reminded me of you. Beatrice Kilat, Ask Bea Do you need help? Ask Bea. Bea’s areas of expertise (ongoing): dogs money life, death closet space ceramics utensils kitchens time management having a drink putting it down want vs. need upkeep (general) Email: whoever@sfreview.org Subject line: Please Advise
September 11, 2025 at 6:32 PM
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In “Escolar: Creation of Space,” Cole Hersey visits an art gallery in a shipping container in the suburbs. Our penchant for shipping container topics carries on.

To read SAN FRANCISCO REVIEW OF LAND USE, order Issue Two here: sfrw.square.site/product/issu...
Photograph of a yard: in the foreground is a cactus, behind that, a shed and a house, and behind that, a green shipping container with the letter S visible. Tomato pink background with black outlined rectangles and black and blue text within: A sprawling and quiet vision of the American Dream is being built here. In other words, it’s the suburbs—a place built for single families, not communities. And yet, heading deeper into the neighborhood, up the street on the left, with no fence or barrier to obstruct one’s view, there is Escolar: a garden, a home, and a white-walled gallery inside an old green shipping container. Cole Hersey, Escolar: Creation of Space
September 9, 2025 at 5:38 PM
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Robert Glück is a poet, essayist, and novelist who co-founded the New Narrative movement. Emily Harter is a painter, printmaker, and sometimes-tattooist whose images are “ruled by cartoon logic.” Forget all that because in Issue Two they’re in conversation about ceramics.
Photo of a black, blue, and white ceramic vessel with the image of a face on it and the word GENIE Tomato pink background with black outlined rectangles and black and blue text within: Bob: “I usually sketch a piece before I start. As John Ashbury said, when asked if he discards a lot, I’m lazy and ambitious. I usually know from the beginning what I’m after. In any medium, my big question is, can I actually do this? Do I know enough, do I have enough experience?” ROBERT GLÜCK AND EMILY HARTER IN CONVERSATION Photo of a porcelain sculpture of a dog humping a log Tomato pink background with black outlined rectangles and black and blue text within: Emily: “Studying art from the past helps organize my thoughts and feelings about the unfolding moment, which, when one is reading the news, seems to be characterized by greed, cruelty, and carelessness. Often, my inner response to these events is to try to imagine a thought process different from my own. What might motivate someone to, say, buy a Tesla Cybertruck ...” ROBERT GLÜCK AND EMILY HARTER IN CONVERSATION
September 4, 2025 at 6:49 PM
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In “Vaillancourt Fountain,” skateboarder and art historian Ted Barrow situates everyone’s favorite fountain, currently under threat of redevelopment, on the past and future Embarcadero.

To read SAN FRANCISCO REVIEW OF A FOUNTAIN, order Issue Two here: sfrw.square.site/product/issu...
Image from around 1970 of the fountain flowing. Tomato pink background with black outlined rectangles and black and blue text within: In skate videos and magazines of the late eighties and early nineties, the fountain looked otherworldly—an enigmatic relic from some radical civilization. That is what it was! What city but San Francisco could have built something so bold? Ted Barrow, Vaillancourt Fountain
September 3, 2025 at 6:41 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
Thanks for being there! More photos, more details about issue two, and magazines in the mail 🔜
Audience shot in a gallery
August 29, 2025 at 5:03 PM
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The pizza of the day for tomorrow c/o Arizmendi!!!
Thursday August 28. Nectarine, wild arugula, mozzarella, feta, lemon olive oil
August 28, 2025 at 1:01 AM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
SAN FRANCISCO REVIEW OF WHATEVER ISSUE TWO RELEASE PARTY REMINDER! TOMORROW, Thursday, August 28, at 6 p.m. onward, at Et al., 2831A Mission Street. There will be readings with an element of chance! And pizza and beers, and whatever else turns up. See you tomorrow! Looking forward. xx
SFRW • Issue Two Release Party • Thursday, August 28 at Et al. • Readings with an element of chance Featuring Sophia Wang Michael Walker • Ted Barrow • Amanda Guest • Craig Calderwood • Anne Walsh Rose Linke • Christina Svenson • Rod Roland
August 27, 2025 at 7:10 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
That said! The first chance to get your copy is at the PARTY next Thursday, Aug 28 at Et al. Readings with an element of chance. Pizzas and bevs. Buy SFRWs for your friends and their friends. Doors at 6:00 pm, program around 6:30 pm. Subscribers can pick up their copy if desired.
Photograph of a little dog splayed out on the tiled sidewalk. The tiles mark it as a Mission sidewalk. White overlaid text reads: Come celebrate the release of San Francsico Review of Whatever Issue Two on Thursday, August 28, at Et al. in the Mission, San Francisco. Doors at 6:00 p.m.
August 21, 2025 at 7:45 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
Issue Two has arrived from the printer! Featuring work by @beatrick.bsky.social, @craigcalderwood.bsky.social, @katerhoades.bsky.social, @meadowy.bsky.social, @quonky.bsky.social, and many others. Orders will go out 🔜 sfrw.square.site
Photograph of a magazine on a rough wood surface. The magazine cover is gray-blue with black handpainted text that reads San Francisco Review of Whatever. Red text reads Issue Two, 2025. A red angled line contains and divides these texts. Tomato pink background overlaid by the handpainted text again. Over that is a lighter pink box with red and black text: Issue Two features writing and art by Ted Barrow, Craig Calderwood, Robert Gluck, Reggie Guerrero, Emily Harter, Cole Hersey. Beatrice Kilat, Kate Rhoades, Rod Roland, Christina Svenson, Michael Walker, Anne Walsh, Sophia Wang, and Katherine Ross Ward In the same style, this text reads: Issue Two also features fragmentary reviews, events that unfolded, ways of looking, and reasons for optimism by Amanda Guest, Aaron Harbour, Rose Linke, Amanda Nadelberg, and Theadora Walsh
August 21, 2025 at 7:33 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
It's here 🌝
Photo of San Francisco review of whatever issue two! It's blue with red and black text
August 19, 2025 at 6:33 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
By the way here is an upcoming opportunity to hang out and think good thoughts about each other. Issue Two Release Party, Thursday, August 28, at Et al., 6 p.m. onward 🌝
Picture of a little dog on the tiled sidewalk, clearly in the mission. Text reads: come celebrate the release of San Francisco review of whatever issue two on Thursday, August 28, at et al. In the mission, San Francisco. Doors at 6 p.m.
August 11, 2025 at 8:50 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
It's happening! It's going to look like this! More on the inner aspects 🔜
Blue magazine cover with off kilter red rectangular line and hand painted text "San Francisco review of whatever" over a pink background with black dot grid
August 5, 2025 at 6:33 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
Issue Two is coming this summer! San Francisco reviews many things, like skateboarding, art in the suburbs, ceramics, advice, everyone’s favorite fountain, tomatoes, and not one but TWO books. And more! Subscribe anytime at the link in our bio.
Green background, with painted text over that which reads San Francisco review of whatever, and a pink box over that, with text that reads Issue Two features writing and art by Ted Barrow, Craig Calderwood, Robert Glück, Reggie Guerrero, Emily Harter, Cole Hersey, Kate Rhoades, Beatrice Kilat, Rod Roland, Christina Svenson, Michael Walker, Anne Walsh, Sophia Wang, and Katherine Ross Ward
June 24, 2025 at 7:48 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
We cohosted a party last week to celebrate The Back Room, Small Press Traffic's online publication that just wrapped up. Camille Roy read her long poem that is the final TBR commission, and Katherine Ross Ward previewed SFRW Issue Two (tomatoes, pictured). Thanks everyone who came! That was fun!
Katherine opening wine! Hand reaching for Katherine's tomato tartlets! Camille reading to a rapt audience! The audience!
June 17, 2025 at 11:50 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
We have a new contributing editor! You may remember her essay in Issue One about Donald Judd’s rectangles, the shipping container fortress in Berkeley, bird nets, Running Fence, and more. Welcome Kelly Pendergrast (@kellypendergrast.bsky.social).
Photo of kelly standing in front of some Greek statuary. One of the figures is behind her to the left, like an echo.
June 4, 2025 at 6:34 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
We're co-hosting a party to celebrate The Back Room, Small Press Traffic's online publishing project. June 9 at Cushion Works! See you 🔜 www.smallpresstraffic.org/event/the-ba...
The Back Room Party Monday, June 9 Doors at 6:00pm Readings and Remarks at 6:30 pm Cushion Works 3320 18th Stree5, SF
May 6, 2025 at 5:30 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
Classified ad submissions for Issue Two are due on May 20! Are you looking for love? To share important information? Do you have or need something? Submit a classified 🌝

airtable.com/appEhjxTGPsR...
Photo of a mad cat behind a window in the background. Overlaid text states "Submit your classified for issue two"
April 25, 2025 at 5:17 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
Do you need help? Ask @beatrick.bsky.social. Areas of expertise: dogs / money / life, death / closet space / ceramics / utensils / kitchens / time management / having a drink / putting it down / want vs need / upkeep (general).

Send your question to: whoever@sfreview.org
Subject line: Please Advise
Background of clouds at dusk. Hot red text over it asks "Do you need help?" "Ask Bea" Background of clouds at dusk. Gray text overlaid: "Bea’s areas of expertise (ongoing): dogs / money / life, death / closet space / ceramics / utensils / kitchens / time management / having a drink / putting it down / want vs need / upkeep (general)" Background of clouds at dusk. Tilted pink and hot red text over states: "Email: whoever@sfreview.org. Subject line: Please Advise"
April 4, 2025 at 4:34 PM
sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social
Another nice sentence made it to @lifewinning.com's Perfect Sentences :) Yes SFRW is for dads
I was at the Bay Area Discovery Museum wondering why I felt so angry, when I looked down and it hit me: all the other dads were wearing the same shoes. Charlie Macquarie in the "Views" section of the San Francisco Review of Whatever
March 16, 2025 at 7:46 PM