marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Wax up your handlebar mustache, dust off your stripy topcoat, burnish your steampunk petticoats, and oil those wheezy accordions: The Edwardian Ball, that phenomenal annual gathering of exquisitely decked-out freaks, is back for its 12th installment of mannered mayhem. This time it aims to quell any kvetching about crowding by stretching itself over five official local events (and a satellite ball in Los Angeles next month). But the Fri/20 World's Faire and the Sat/20 Ball itself will still be the main attraction for thousands of Friends of Ed.Read more »

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO The slightly "meh" body of 2011 isn't even cold and already we have two completely ridiculous yet ridiculously adorable, new deliberately manufactured subcultures to pretend argue on blogs about, because who blogs anymore? Seapunks and bronies, yep. I hope they fight, too, because it'd be the 2012 apocalypse in one cute, handy metaphor. Sparkly rainbow annihilation now!Read more »

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO And so it came to pass a few weeks ago that I found myself volunteering to chaperone a dance for 500 queer teens. I'm not ready yet to be a DILF! But these weren't just any queer teens. They were activists from Northern California Gay-Straight Alliance high school clubs (www.gsanetwork.org), gathered at Horace Mann Elementary in San Francisco to learn how to help their teachers understand the new California FAIR Act, which requires lessons about LGBT history and people with disabilities.Read more »

Below are our picks to ring in the new. Events are listed alphabetically. Parties end at 2 a..m. except where noted. For more New Year's parties, see This Week's Picks. For New Year's Day parties, click here. Lampshade hats not included.

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SUPER EGO This is gonna be one of those super-queeny "I do this, I do that" gossip-type columns because some of you schadenfreudanistas have been poking me relentlessly for that — and, well, happy Kwanzaa ladies! Here's the tea.Read more »

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Is it really such a bad thing that mainstream pop is riding the underground's ass so hard, assimilating alternative nightlife trends almost before they cycle off our freakish dance floors? I'd almost grown addicted to apoplectic pearl-clutching. Britney made a dubstep song! Kanye's using 808s! The Black-Eyed Peas are referencing JJ Fad! Skrillex in general!Read more »

SUPER EGO It was one of those nightlife experiences so magical it turned anthropological, so dreamlike it felt familiar — a long-awaited re-encounter, a foretold déjà vu, a pre-jà vu, if you will. (And I just know you will.) The dust-soaked Spanish heat, the rustle of pleated lace, the handclaps, the catcalls, the foot-stomps. Ancient, Roma-derived acoustic rhythms knotted together in the windowless tavern's charged air, its tiled, yellowed interior crowded with dark oak tables and heavily varnished paintings — and more than a few heavily varnished patrons, besides.Read more »

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SUPER EGO Good thing my decorative Honey Badger-skin leg warmers double as a fierce muff-scarf combo, because Saturday I was stumbling back from a bomb underground warehouse launch — peel your ears for "The New Black" — and it was colder than the all-pleather interior of a second-hand Kardashian. Of-a-sudden! I'm about to wear jeggings over thermies over two pairs of liquor store pantyhose and rap about it just to stay warm. She'll be serving you Sheer Energy undercover, burning up sidewalks at dawn with her layers of L'Eggs.Read more »