On Thursday, March 18, 2013, Anna Sturrock from the University of California, Santa Cruz presented a Science Bytes lecture (including a live fish dissection!) on tracking fish.  While I love watching nature documentaries like Planet Earth (ahhhh David Attenborough's voice...), I had never really given any thought to how we track animals, especially fish. I hadn't questioned the science behind the media. 

Well thanks to Anna Sturrock's boisterous (the neighbors even knocked on the ceiling urging us to keep quiet because we were having so much) presentation, I started really questioning the methods by which we know what we know about the natural world. And in that questioning, I was amazed and inspired by the developments and shifts in thinking about tracking. 

First, I am not a scientist, I took no notes (in fact I was working behind the counter as the presentation was occurring), and I am one who would rather deal in truth rather than facts. So please take all of my comments with a grain of salt. And if something doesn't add up, well, please leave a comment and correct me. My ego isn't so big it can't take a hit every now and again. 

What struck me the most about tracking of fish was the huge room for error in our knowledge base. Tracking originally started with eyesight. Scientists go out into the world, count, map, and track on that map. This led to huge gaps in our understanding of fish migration as our eyes are imperfect, the frequency  with which we can observe is limited by time, and the depth or murkiness of water limits sight. These gaps create bias, which then informs understand. This loop can create great misunderstandings of our natural world and these misunderstandings start to influence policy. (Anna didn't mention this; it is something that struck me in reflection.)

Modes of tracking fish evolved over time and became more nuanced. These modes of tracking morphed from eyesight to putting tags on fish to satellite tags. With each new mode, more information was learned and our understanding of migration patterns deepened. Suddenly, scientists were able to understand that migration is dynamic and changing. What seemed so simple simply because our eyesight is limited became something complex. 

Still, the policies used to "govern" nature have not shifted with this new understanding, with this emergent complexity. 

To me, this seems analogous to our current reality. (Again, not something Anna mentioned, but something that strikes me as I write and reflect.) We are living in a time of incredible polarization. And in that polarization we are not letting new information help shape our understanding. We are stuck still only observing with our eyes. 

Now, I know this has little to do with the actual lecture. (You can check out Anna's slideshow below for more on that.) It does, however, play into why I do what I do, and specifically underscores what 14 Black Poppies is all about: building dynamic understanding that evolves and rooting that understanding in personal interactions. 

I would never have come to this realization without the aid of Anna's lecture. I have thought long and hard about what 14 Black Poppies does. Most of the time, I say "we produce community, arts, and wellness cultural events", and that is a fact. But the truth runs much deeper. 14 Black Poppies is dynamic and evolving. It is something that helps us see the talents in our neighbors. 


And I am incredibly lucky to have had Anna share her talents with the audience in attendance, which included me. I am glad to count Anna as my neighbor. 

WOW! Last night was off the hook incredible! The Bloom: Death + Taxes featured heartfelt, moving performances by Scott Andrew James, SF Mermaid, Lisa D. James, Adriana Camarena, Julia Mendel, and Antonio Caceras. 

What struck me the most as the night unfolded was the intimate feeling of space and place conveyed in each and every writers' words. Sitting in a cafe on the corner of 21st and Bryant Streets in the Mission District of San Francisco, I literally felt the corner come to life as Adriana Camarena recounted histories and stories of Norteños and Sureños, of boundary- and border-crossing. Julia Mendel took us to another place entirely, a door only found by a number scratched on a blank white card. Inside, her protagonist finds herself blindfolded and massaged, orgiastic spasms released with each pressure point touched. Lisa D. James read poetry of liberation and control bringing a pause to the audience as they clung to her words. Imagined waterways like flowing streams that captured wandering movements were illuminated by Scott D. James's preface poems to his novel Sidewalk Ritual complete with illustrations. San Francisco-born and raised SF Mermaid got everyone screaming "Taxes" as she spit words and licked wounds baring her soul in front of all. And lest I not forget Antonio Caceras. 

I met Antonio over a decade ago through working in after school programs. When I met him, his youthful, rebellious energy ignited words and memories. He has/had a way of drawing out from youth, San Francisco raised youth, their perspectives and stories, especially the ones from which non-San Franciscans try to hide. He helps/helped them find their truth and share it with the world. When I saw him in action, it was mesmerizing and inspiring. 

Flash forward more than ten years. Antonio and I drifted apart. It's just how things happen. Then, a mutual friend came back to town and got us all together for Happy Hour. Antonio and I reconnected, swapped info, and connected on Facebook. Over the months that followed, I read his updates and liked his poetry. 

For this particular The Bloom, it was incredibly important to me to also feature native San Franciscan writers. Too often, San Francisco spotlights migrants to this city through its institutions and cultural venues. In fact, San Francisco is notorious for looking outside its own native population for talent and vision. Sure, there are institutions that feature residents of San Francisco, but those folks are not necessarily the same as the native San Franciscan population. 

I have come to realize over my past 15 years in this city that there is a voice that comes from San Francisco that only native San Franciscans can capture. It is a voice that evokes place and people and culture while never having to mention any of those words or their synonyms. Antonio embodies that voice. 

I reached out to Antonio via Facebook message and simply recalled a memory. 

"Hey Tony:

"If memory serves me correctly you do some writing. I could be wrong. But I do believe you write.

"If so...I run a monthly reading series called "The Bloom". (www.14blackpoppies.com/the-spring-bloom.html) And I am looking for readers."

I waited for his response. It came. He said yes within two minutes of me hitting send. 

He closed The Bloom last night reading works past and present, which filled Progressive Grounds. I saw pasts and presents and futures collide in one single space. It was magic. And I was humbled by words and force and perspectives shared. 

I sit here typing this review, this summary, contemplating the power of bridging communities, narratives, identities, and stories. This is not necessarily easy work, and it certainly does not happen quickly. It took over a decade to sieze an opportunity to bring these writers together in a single space.

It is legacy work, work that requires sustained intention over time. I feel honored, blessed, and humbled to build a legacy of intersectionality, intention, and inspiration. And I look forward to all that will bloom in return. 

And take a listen to Jason Wyman on Latenite Bubbles with Bernadette from Sunday, April 7th, as he speaks about 14 Black Poppies and The Bloom! 

The Context:
I like to spend my New Year reflecting. Sometimes it happens on New Year's Eve. Other times on New Year's Day. This year, I worked both days, so it came just a little later. Thankfully, I had something happen yesterday that reminded me to reflect.

The Scene:
It is New Year's Day, and I am working. I also worked Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. It's fine as I don't really celebrate the holidays all that much, and I would prefer to give folks who do celebrate the holidays the day off. Plus, it is only about a half day anyway. I will be out by 3ish.

The Event:
A man in his 20s walks into the cafe. He is chatting loudly on his cell phone as he walks up to the register. It's busy, and I am trying to catch up on some cleaning. He continues to increase the volume of his phone conversation so everyone can hear him. It is something inane, and something others do not really want to hear about.

I stare hoping he gets the message to bring the volume down just a tad. He doesn't. Instead, the volume continues. He is obviously excited about something, which I cannot begin to make out even though he is clearly talking loud enough for me to hear the entirety of his side of the conversation.

He hangs up the phone, looks directly at me, and says, "I simply asked my mother for some grammar advices on something I wrote and all she can say is, 'It's lovely darling.' I mean, COME ON! You cannot count on your mother for honest advice about ANYTHING."

"Mmm...hmmm," I reply as I continue wiping down tables. "Can I get you anything?"

He loudly paces across the cafe picking everything up and then setting it back down. His hands act as if they NEED to touch everything, as if he needs to mark his territory like a male cat.

I swing behind the counter and saunter up to the register thinking that maybe being on the other side might make him place his order. "So, how can I help you," I ask.

"Really, can you believe it," he continues. "Mothers! They want to be supportive but don't know how."

"Mmm...hmmm....," I reply. "Would you like a coffee?"

He picks up items he has already examined as if something new would reveal itself upon picking it up a second time.

"You see, I am a very religious Jew, so asking me if I want coffee is complicated. I mean I cannot have both milk and meat at the same time, and I am thinking that tonight I would like to eat some beef. That means I can't have a milk based drink right now. Like I said, my diet is incredibly complicated."

"Ok," I reply knowing that all people have very complicated food "issues". This is nothing new for me, so I offer, "Well, there are lots of options if you need any suggestions please let me know."

"Like I said, I am religious Jew, so if you don't know all the nuances of eating Kosher, I am not sure that you would be able to help. I mean there are rules to my eating that I have to follow."

"Ok. Well, since you know what they are, is there anything I can get for you?" I smile despite the complete waste of time he is creating.

He picks the pacing back up again this time almost to the point of bumping in to other customers. "Well," he continues, "It all depends on what I want to eat for dinner. I need to make that decision so that I can figure out what I am going to do right now. So let me think about that for a moment."

He proceeds to think out loud letting me hear his debate about dinner and whether or not he is going to eat out or make something, whether he is going to have only vegetables or have some meat as well. This monologue becomes louder than the conversation with his mother.

"Well, let me know if I can help you out with anything," I say as I move away from the register to get back to doing some of the cleaning that needs to be done.

"Oh wait," he yells. "I know! I have figured out dinner."

"Ok. So what can I get for you today?"

"Nothing," he responds. "Have a great new year." He then prances out of the cafe.

My Reflection:
In the moment, I was incredibly frustrated. I wanted nothing more than to celebrate the new year with graciousness, and the manifestation of this man's unchecked privilege irked me. It tested my ability to be gracious. Instead, I found myself drawing on the depths of my "Minnesota nice", which really means sarcasm and passive agressiveness done with a smile. There is nothing gracious about it.

Most see "Minnesota nice" as pleasant. They get confused by the smile and warm eyes. They don't understand the nuance of tone or the fact that the warm eyes symbolize the pits of anger rather than the warmth of a campfire. But I do know all about "Minnesota nice". I was raised there.

So I know that beneath my veneer of nicety, I was not being very gracious. I was not starting out the new year the way I wanted to. It left me feeling a little dissonant without really understanding why.

As I reflect, I now understand the dissonance: there was a mismatch between who I want to be and who I was in that moment.

We all have these moments. We all have times when the person we want to be is not the person that we are.

It is in these moments that reflection becomes crucial. We must hit the pause button and look not at others but at our selves. We must find where the dissonance is and ask, "who am I; who do I want to be; are they the same person?"

Upon doing so, I am realizing that I could do better in listening to the stories of all people. For decades, I have found myself honoring and listening to those who have been historically marginalized. I get frustrated and angry at the behaviors of people whom I perceive to be privileged. I make quick assumptions about a person based on their immediate behaviors, especially behaviors exhibited by the customer mentioned above.

My resolution for 2013, though I am normally loathe to do so, is to become more gracious, to hit the pause button more, and to continue to align who I want to be with who I am.

I have learned, especially recently in regards to the growing polarization here in the United States, that we need more people to hit the pause button and reflect. We need to see people not as the behaviors they exhibit. Rather, we need to model the behaviors we wish to embody.

A Conclusion:
I opened Facebook momentarily amidst writing this post. The post at the top was by my friend Starr Britt. Here is what it said:

"Jesus said 'the meek shall inherit the earth.'

"Meek: The aligned, non-agitated, non-resistant, the patient, the mild, submissive, moderate, those who stay in there own lane, those who find unconditional love in all and are grateful for the gift of life. #beeasy #stayfocused"

In my moment of pause while typing, I came face to face with who I want to be, and I will carry this with me through 2013.

Yesterday, December 16, 2012, my life long dream of performing with a band came real. I collaborated with Sadie Sonntag and Jesus Contreras of The Vespertine Orchestra to create a musically literary performance of my original poem, "the unfinish line". It took us about three months for the collaboration to come to fruition, and it included creating the music, rehearsing, refining the music, more rehearsal, and lots of bacon and eggs (Thanks Sadie!).

I was a nervous wreck before the show, which I am fairly certain folks couldn't perceive. I am good at hiding my nerves behind a smile and friendliness. Nevertheless, it was there underneath everything and diverted my attention to detail. It also made eating impossible.

As I sidled up to the mic and took center stage, the butterflies flew away. I was left with a fairly empty shell from which the performance could emerge. It was a strange feeling literally witnessing this transformation of self from somewhere outside of my body. For but a moment, I was in the audience looking back at me, and I saw in my eye a glint of sadness.

It wasn't the kind of sadness that overwhelms or overtakes. It wasn't the sadness of loss or grief. It wasn't the sadness of nostalgia. Rather, it was the sadness that can only come from art; the kind of sadness that is expressed by the transcendence words and music and performativity. It was the sadness of being.

I became that poem in that moment and within me was all of the conflict and despair and turmoil and hope contained within "the unfinish line"'s words, music, and theatricality. It was a moment of transformation of space, time, audience, and performer.

As I looked out at the audience, I saw people absorbed, clinging to every moment, closing eyes to feel that transformation. This was a completely new experience for me. While I have been an educator, a facilitator, a writer, a producer, a curator, an emcee, and a reader of my words, I have rarely identified as a performer. In fact, I have shunned that label fearing its power.

I thought "performer" were those drag queens, those musicians, those spoken word artists, those actors, those dancers, those performance artists of whom I have seen on stages big and small, in private and public spaces. They were always larger than life, embodying something different than just self. And really good performers always found ways to inspire and transcend. They were also something to be feared.

For me, I was afraid of the disconnect between the image of performer and who the person really was. I have spent a lot of time, energy, and work on aligning pieces of my self. For many, many years, I felt like different people given my varied interests, my ADHD, my plural identities. These different people while manifest in one physical body were jarring and often made for cycles of depression and mania. I wasn't bi-polar. But I did have high peaks and deep valleys. It became exhausting.

I watched some friendships deteriorate from my constant cycles. I even stopped talking to my family for a number of years as a result of needing to find "me". It was painful to lose friends, good and dear friends, and it was even more gut-wrenching to not speak to my parents. Still, these were necessities on my path of seeking balance, finding peace, and ultimately healing. And I still mourn the loss of those friends, and I can never reclaim those lost years when not speaking to may parents.

Now, as I become more a performer, I fear disconnecting from my self in order to "perform". I don't want to lose the ground I have made in integration, in becoming me. I fear falling back into cycles of peaks and valleys.

Over the last month, I have performed four times. It is a record for me. I have read and revealed an Ex Libris De Corpus story, performed a Ritual of Scripture, read a piece about Passing Midnight, and performed "the unfinish line". This last performance (on Sunday with The Vespertine Orchestra) was the most risky as it was the most out of my comfort zone. It combined elements of which I have never worked, mainly music. It was also the most authentic to my self.

The person I saw with sadness in his eyes wasn't a disconnection as in my youth. Rather, it was a realization of the person I am: a complex, multi-faceted, pluralistic, interdisciplinary artist/writer/PERFORMER. And contained within that person is a range of emotions, perspectives, beliefs. All I need is spaces for manifestation.

Sunday (and all of December) has been a manifestation of my self as performer. And I have realized in a very bodily way that the performers that I have admired over the years also perform from that place of authentication and alignment. It's taken years for me to realize and manifest this. I am still unsure and scared and hopeful about where I am going. I also feel the most alive I have ever felt. And that is in large part thanks to taking the risk of become a performer.

And best of all? I have a whole slew of friends who are supporting this manifestation. Without them, I couldn't be me.

On this World AIDS Day, I feel more reflective than in years past. Maybe it is the sound of the rain hitting cement that is calling forth history. Or maybe it is the cool breeze blowing through the apartment that stirs my first memories of HIV/AIDS. Maybe it is opening Facebook and seeing reminders and tributes to World AIDS Day peppered throughout my feed. In the end, it doesn't matter for the act of reflection simply occurs.

I cannot imagine a life without the presence of HIV/AIDS. It has always been around, and at 36 HIV/AIDS played a formative role in the politicization of my coming out at 18. Seeing that in writing is kind of shocking as I am now realizing that I am finally at an age where I have lived half of my life as an out queer man.

My first memory of HIV/AIDS is seeing photos of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt laid out on The Mall in Washington DC in October 1992. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran a front page story about the quilt, and I remember wondering what exactly it was about. I was too young and removed from the personal impact of HIV/AIDS to truly understand its significance. 

About six months later, another front page story was run about the March on Washington for LGBT Rights. Featured on the cover was a young woman who went to my high school. She traveled to DC to participate in the March, and the Star-Tribune ran her story. She was the first out person I ever knew, and I only knew her through the paper. (She transferred schools shortly after the article ran.) I remember reading her say something about how the March is for human rights for all LGBT people, and that HIV/AIDS is one of the biggest issues of our community. While not out quite yet, it started to hit home: if I come out I will have to deal with HIV/AIDS.

Two months before I officially came out, I snuck away from my Catholic seminary to go to the LGBT Student Center at the University of Minnesota to do research on HIV/AIDS for a presentation for my speech class. I was nervous. It was my first time stepping in to a queer space, and I was terrified someone would confuse me for being gay. I was just not ready to acknowledge my queerness or to face the possibility that HIV/AIDS would become a major decision-making factor in my life. Still, I had to do "research", so I swallowed my anxiety and stepped inside.

The sheer number of safer sex posters adorning the walls told me immediately that HIV/AIDS was the LGBT communities number one issue. Things like workplace equality, gay marriage, gays in the military, and bullying were on the back burner. We were literally fighting for our lives, for our survival as a people. And we were doing it with an unparallelled urgency as the generations before me witnessed the death toll of AIDS.

On one level, it was overwhelmingly frightening. I was faced with mortality at 18, and I didn't want to confront what death meant for it also meant looking at how I lived. I was living a closeted life. I was hiding in the seminary. I was denying a whole piece of my self, compartmentalizing it until I thought it was suppressed and wouldn't show its face.

It was also liberating. Here I was in an office with other students that bravely confronted their own selves, their own lives, their own deaths. And they were laughing, studying, researching, supporting. They were living. It gave me hope and strength for my own coming out. I came out two months later after a few more trips to the LGBT Center, more conversations and research, and my final presentation to my speech class, of which I got an A.

The first question I was asked by a friend when I came out was, "Aren't you scared of getting AIDS?" I burst into tears on the phone. I couldn't carry on the conversation, so I hung up the phone. I knew I would have to face these questions, that they would be central to how people now viewed me. I also was fragile, broken, tempestuously young. I vacillated between crying and screaming each time I was asked that question, which was all too frequent.

I learned how to deal with that question in large part thanks to activism. I educated myself on safe sex practices, policies affecting LGBT lives that went beyond HIV/AIDS, roots of oppression and discrimination. I unearthed both through research and from living my life the interconnection between the numerous and deep layers of oppression. I found solidarity with other outsiders, with people on the margins, with those who have been the victim of American policy. It healed me.

On this World AIDS Day, the ocean wind carries these memories back to me. I cannot imagine a world without HIV/AIDS for HIV/AIDS is integral to my healing. As I reflect, a new wish emerges: I wish for others to find the healing they need and deserve.

by Jason Wyman

Jason. My name means "healer" or "he that cures". It is a name that I have tried many times to deny wishing instead it meant educator or writer or some other signifier that speaks more to who I am and how I view myself. Healer has always terrified me. To me, healer requires power.

When I was a child, I had a plaque above my bed that reminded me daily of my future (complete with a bible verse I can't remember). I was constantly reminded of my destiny by fellow church goers. Even at an early age, they saw something in the way I showed up in the world that made them believe I would heal. Mostly, they didn't use the word "healer". Rather, thanks to a shared cultural history/legacy of Catholicism, they said I would be a priest. For most, healer and priest were interchangeable.

I tried that destiny. I followed it vigorously all throughout my childhood teaching bible camps and Sunday school, dedicating many hours to service (especially service in homeless shelters, psychology wards, and food pantries), and even ending up in seminary to be a priest. That destiny, when unquestioned, felt righteous and purposeful and bodily.

Then, the questions poured in. How can I be a priest if I am actually queer? How can I practice celibacy when all I want to do is fuck? How can I heal when I feel so damaged and disconnected?

Questions led to coming out and a revocation of my Catholicism. In turn, that created a great distance between me and the meaning of my name until, finally, I no longer remembered that Jason means "healer" or "he that cures".

***
I had a dream that a spider was on my right shoulder. It crept there when I brushed through its web trying to find a clearing so I could get my bearings. I needed to know north, south, east, west. I wanted to feel the sun warm my eyelids and know that it was not a dream.

I couldn't find that opening. I kept racing and racing pushing past branches and tall grasses, snaking over streams too wide to jump and deep enough to soak shoes. Urgency compelled what was believed to be forward movement.

The entire time, the spider rode on my right shoulder and made its presence known as an itch. I would scratch where it sat. Yet, my hand missed it for the spider quickly dodged my inattentiveness. I never looked back.

This dream lasted almost ten years. And it made its black-ink physical mark upon my shoulder.

When I woke, I noticed the orb weaver in the mirror. It sat there still and unchanging. It would not move. It still itched.

I did not know what it meant. Only, I knew that someday I would. I just needed it to stop itching.

Maybe my destiny would be found if I let the orb weaver be.

***
I started working in a cafe recently in San Francisco. I wash a lot of dishes, and the repetition of water and soap and the circular movements of the sponge have brought forth memories trapped in ancestry. Memories of labor, of burnt and gashed hands, of climbing electric poles, of butchering meat, of cultivating trees. These memories flood my entire body, and I imagine myself part of a long legacy of labor.           

Somehow, though, I ended up in the realm of art and intellectualism for most of my career, which is  odd as I dropped (as I like to name it)/flunked (as my college counselor liked to name it) out of university. In fact, formal educational settings and models drain the life right out of me. I end up bored or extremely stressed or disengaged if I can't find the real world/physical manifestation or application of the knowledge/theory/skill being taught.

Yet still, I found my way into working in schools, training intermediaries, YMCAs, community centers, literacy organizations, community theater doing youth development, education reform, mental health service allocation, strategic planning, workforce development, adult education, arts enrichment, community engagement. These jobs had some physicality to them, but mostly the brain was the muscle most used. (Second, the heart.) I loved this work and found incredible passion in its machinations and outcomes.

But there was something missing. Something that I quietly yearned for within my bones. Something I only found when stuck behind the stove whipping up a meal over the course of hours (if not days) for chosen family. I told myself that the joy and ease and release I found in cooking for family was my meditation, my prayer, my self-care. I told this story so often that I didn't understand its true implications: maybe food/food service was my destiny?

***
I think I now know what that spider was telling me and continues to tell me: that what is woven will become undone and what is undone will be woven again and again and again, that it is in the cycle that destiny is revealed and made and destroyed and resurrected, that the cycle is healing.

Over 15 years later, I am revisiting my name and its meaning. I am wondering what it really means for a queer who has spent his life running from his name to finally embrace his power as healer. I do not know, and I am still unsure of whether I am running towards or away.

The only thing I do really know is that the only way to understand and to feel and to be "healer" is to resurrect it. Who knows? It may die again. And I may resurrect it once more.

For now, though, I live in the ambiguity of what-is-yet-to-be. And maybe, just maybe, that is my destiny.

AND...PLEASE JOIN US for our next 14 Black Poppies Workshop, RESURRECTING DESTINY, where we use recycled materials, sculpture, destruction, and critical response to imagine and re-imagine personal destinies. It is on SAT, April 21 from 10am to 12:30pm in San Francisco. For more information, including registration, please email Jason Wyman.

by Jason Wyman

On Friday, February 24, 14 Black Poppies hosted Haiku You with poet, writer, activist, and journalist Tara Dorabji. The workshop, held at The Happiness Institute in San Francisco, brought a diverse, intergenerational group together to create beautiful, poignant haikus.

The workshop walked participants through a variety of sensory perception exercises that empowered participants to tap into their inner wisdom and discover aspects of life that are often overlooked such as the sense of smell and its power to recall memories. Additionally, participants brought personally meaningful natural objects with which to inspire observations and personal reflection. All in all, the workshop helped participants tap into their creative core.

At the end of the workshop, participants wrote their final haikus on origami paper and presented them to the entire group. Through listening to others' haikus, participants found both mirror and window moments where either their own perspectives were reflected in others' haikus or they discovered a new perspective previously hidden behind closed curtains.

ABOUT TARA DORABJI
Tara Dorabji is a San Francisco-based writer, movement maker, arts educator, mother and radio journalist.  Her rants, articles, poems and stories have been published in journals, blogs and anthologies including Las Girlfriends, Chinquapin, Midwifery Today and Project Censored's Blog (http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/kashmir-the-untold-story-of-indian-occupation/). As a writer, she focuses on the stories waiting to be told. Her ambitions include: crafting the written word to serve as a container for human emotion, going right for the jugular and letting the truth tell itself.

AND...PLEASE JOIN US for our next 14 Black Poppies Workshop, RESURRECTING DESTINY, where we use recycled materials, sculpture, destruction, and critical response to imagine and re-imagine personal destinies. It is on SAT, April 21 from 10am to 12:30pm in San Francisco. For more information, including registration, please email Jason Wyman.