Culture + Travel

Newly Opened SF Bay Area Fashion Brand Location Finally Apologized for Stealing BART’s Logos and Typeface
Culture + Travel, Hyperlocal News + Stories

Newly Opened SF Bay Area Fashion Brand Location Finally Apologized for Stealing BART’s Logos and Typeface

After stealing and reusing BART's design work for some of its products, which were given out for free, Baggu recently hinted at a potential collaboration between the two ... sans the controversy. BART has continued its upswing lately with additional cars deployed on some lines, fewer slip-through gates, and a host of other welcome updates. Recently, Baggu, a fashion brand synonymous with its reusable vegan bags and other products, opened at 911 Valencia Street last week to long lines and eager patrons. But shoppers were quick to point out an unexpected collaboration: the Bay Area Rapid Transit Agency (BART) had its recognizable logos and typefaces printed on some Baggu products, like reusable water bottles. The discovery was a delight … until it wasn’t. According to BART officia...
Big Ol’ Tree Falls on San Francisco Muni Bus Amid Strong Winds
Culture + Travel, Hyperlocal News + Stories

Big Ol’ Tree Falls on San Francisco Muni Bus Amid Strong Winds

A large tree collapsed onto a San Francisco Muni bus at Otis and McCopin streets Sunday morning, causing service delays and route changes. Warm, windy conditions kicked off San Francisco’s Indian Summer this weekend with temperature highs in the low-70s and open blue skies that filled the city with sunshine. Strong wind gusts of up to 20mph also accompanied this pleasant weather, blowing autumn leaves off and onto sidewalks. But not just foliage fell at Gough and McCopin streets — a large tree tumbled, too. And it fell right on top of an operating Muni bus. A post uploaded to Instagram by local artist and gallery owner Cabure Alejandro Bonugli shows a towering tree toppled over, its limbs and branches resting on San Francisco MUNI bus number 7261-7293. The electric trolleybus, w...
Someone Is Leaving Transphobic Flyers and Stickers at a Popular San Francisco Bookstore
Culture + Travel, News to Know

Someone Is Leaving Transphobic Flyers and Stickers at a Popular San Francisco Bookstore

Noe Valley Bookstore at 3957 24th Street in San Francisco has been bombarded by anti-trans letters being left inside unsold books.  2025 hasn’t exactly been a banner year for LGBTQIA+ rights. Since President Trump took office in January, anti-queer legislation has budged across the country at the local and state levels; at the federal level, the reframing or outright erasure of queer history continues. But amid all the gay hate, San Francisco’s bookshops remain steadfast in their support of gay rights, specifically condemning all transphobia. Booksmith (now famously) banned the sale and purchase of any literature authored by serial transphobe J.K. Rowling; Fabulosa Books in The Castro would later mirror the same action. However, Noe Valley Books is under a different, more hyperlo...
The First Burning Man and Its (Controversial) Legacy
Culture + Travel, Nature + Climate Crisis

The First Burning Man and Its (Controversial) Legacy

Burning Man, a once modest beach get-together, has grown into a gigantic congregation on federally managed land that attracts some of the wealthiest people on the planet. On a clear, mid-60-degree day in late June over three decades ago, a small function was held at Baker Beach; an exercise in community engagement, mental and physical well-being, and, above all else, boundless acceptance. Songs were sung. Art was created. Human connections were nurtured. And an eight-foot effigy of a man was set ablaze.  Welcome to what would become the global spectacle, the temporal metropolis of experimental art installations, the touchstone for left-of-center innovators, makers, and burgeoning artists that is Burning Man as we know it today.   With a gaggle of 35 bystanders, friends, ...
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Get Engaged … But It’s San Francisco Core
Culture + Travel, Feature Pieces

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Get Engaged … But It’s San Francisco Core

Swift and Kelce — "your English teacher and your gym teacher" — are engaged to be married after more than two years of dating (and NFL jumbotron pandering). Your favorite climate criminal and blase white boy got engaged this week. In case you threw your iPhone into a large body of water before sailing across the Pacific, vinyl-terrorist Taylor Swift announced her engagement to rumored-to-be-retiring NFT tight end Travis Kelce on Wednesday, August 26th. The five-picture Instagram post shows Kelce and Swift swallowed inside a pastel wonderland of fresh flowers; the ring, a supposed 10-carat cushion-cut diamond valued at north of $550,000, looks uncomfortably (and unsafely) supersized; given what we know about Swift’s ongoing climate crimes, we’d wager it's not lab-grown, but mined … perhaps...
ICYMI: New Independent SF Bay Area News Outlet Gets Official Launch Date
Culture + Travel, Hyperlocal News + Stories

ICYMI: New Independent SF Bay Area News Outlet Gets Official Launch Date

Since debuting in June, COYOTE Media has raised nearly $150,000 — funds that go directly toward getting the independent outlet off the ground. We’re (obviously) big fans of independent journalism (again, hello, us). And with the ongoing corporatization of legacy media, indie pubs remain one of the few touchstones where big money does not affect authentic reporting. In the case of COYOTE Media Collective — the bootstrapped independent news outlet teased earlier this summer — a groundswelling of support has meant the group behind it, many of whom are seasoned San Francisco journalists, could successfully get it off the ground. Now, COYOTE has an official launch date for the free-to-read platform. “We’ve been a little quiet here because we’re super busy getting ready to LAUNCH,” re...
Of Course San Francisco Is Getting a Labubu-Themed Rave
Culture + Travel, Hyperlocal News + Stories

Of Course San Francisco Is Getting a Labubu-Themed Rave

Get your paws (and Labubus) up, little monsters — 'cause SF's Castro neighborhood will be bumpin' with all things demonic plushies next month.  Labubus are everywhere. The popular demonic plush toys — (which perfectly fit inside the late-stage capitalism model of overconsumption with its dopamine-soaked blind box selling points, Millennial nostalgia, and rare special editions) — are truly a recession indicator. They’re also primed to push us further into the climate crisis.   Nevertheless, people can’t get enough of them (i.e. Pop Mart, the billion-dollar Chinese toy company, has enmeshed both gamification and gambling psychologies with familiar novelty to create a product that tickles every dopamine receptor in our micro-plastic-ridden brains). Pop Mart is set to open a lo...
Popular SoMa Culture Hub To Close This Month, Making Way for Affordable Senior Housing
Culture + Travel, Food + Drink

Popular SoMa Culture Hub To Close This Month, Making Way for Affordable Senior Housing

Kapwa Gardens, which opened in SoMa in 2020 amid the pandemic lows, will close next Saturday, July 26th, before reopening at a second location sometime in the future. Kapwa Gardens, the Filipino multi-purpose space in San Francisco’s South of Market Neighborhood,  was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic. The culture and community incubator Kulitvate Labs financially sponsored the project, which has hosted many viral events (read: San Francisco’s first festival dedicated to all things ube) and served as a touchstone for Filipino culture. Alas, the Filipino hub is set to close on July 17th, going out with a bang (read: one last Ube Festival). Announced in a blog post by the nonprofit, Kapwa Gardens will close after five years, though the shuttering is neither permanent nor without p...
California Will Soon Have World’s Largest Wildlife Crossing, Theoretically Easing Rescue Efforts for SF Bay Area Zoos
Culture + Travel, Nature + Climate Crisis

California Will Soon Have World’s Largest Wildlife Crossing, Theoretically Easing Rescue Efforts for SF Bay Area Zoos

The expansive bridge (meant for animal crossing) will connect open space on both sides of US Highway 101 in Agoura Hills. Collectively, the San Francisco Zoo and Oakland Zoo aid hundreds of animals a year in rescue and rehabilitation efforts, some of which remain permanent rescues at either zoological facility. A massive number of these cases are caused by vehicle collisions … due to animals crossing California’s massive network of highways. Oakland Zoo has famously offered rescue and rehabilitation to mountain lion cubs — the zoo took in three young mountain lions in January after their mother was found dead, hit by a vehicle trying to cross a road in San Mateo County — but the opening of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing (and structures like it) could help reduce the number of orph...
Yes, Reader: That San Francisco Corpse Flower Has Officially Bloomed
Culture + Travel, Nature + Climate Crisis

Yes, Reader: That San Francisco Corpse Flower Has Officially Bloomed

Those looking to see Chanel’s IRL terracotta-colored bloom will only have a few days to do so before it withers away. Whenever a corpse flower blooms, be it in San Francisco or elsewhere in the country, the event makes for widely popular news. Bay Area folks are fortunate to have enough resident corpse flowers — San Francisco alone has six Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) examples — that blooms happen every two or three years. Waiting a thousand days for a natural event that only lasts for about 48 hrs is a rare phenomenon … and one that usually attracts tens of thousands to San Francisco’s Conservatory of Flowers. And with the recent blooming of Chanel, one of the greenhouse’s cultivated corpse flowers, long lines are expected to wrap the place for the next few days. “Chanel is Bl...