Night+Day

wednesday
february 14
Blondes Have More Fun? When Marilyn Monroe starred in Some Like It Hot, she was still playing breathy blondes. But Sugar Kane -- her character in the film -- has a sadness and vulnerability absent from gold diggers like Gentleman Prefer Blondes' Lorelei Lee. Monroe herself was unhappy during filming; she needed up to 40 takes to deliver simple dialogue. Still, as director Billy Wilder said, "Anyone can remember lines, but it takes a real artist to come on the set and not know her lines and give the performance she did." Like Gentleman Prefer Blondes, Some Like It Hot upends the oppressive gender roles associated with '50s America (and Monroe). See a romance that begins with a St. Valentine's Day Massacre at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at the Lark Theatre, 549 Magnolia, Larkspur. Tickets are $4-6; call 924-3311.

Fight for Your Love Rights "Some Enchanted Evening" pays tribute to Hawaii, where same-sex marriage may soon become a legal reality. A benefit for the Hawaiian Equal Rights Marriage Project, the indoor luau features limbo dancing (to Martin Denny and Don Ho), fruity drinks, and a roast suckling pig. The fun lasts from 6 to 11 p.m. at Eichelberger's, 2742 17th St., S.F. Tickets are $50; call 863-4177. Also on the homo beat, "Love Fest" offers a night of lesbian/gay love stories by Justin Chin, Kris Kovick, and others. The yarns begin at 8 p.m. at New College Theater, 777 Valencia, S.F. Tickets are $7-10 ($20 with catered pre-show reception); call 641-7285.

Funny Face Silk-screen artist Jim Winters has a new medium: stickers. "Stuck Up!" showcases Winters' Day-Glo portraits of smiling faces. An opening reception for the exhibit spans 7 to 10 p.m. at Little Frankensteins, 3804 17th St., S.F. Free; call 864-6543. "Stuck Up!" continues through March 17.

Fancy Feet The first of two Bay Area programs by the Dance Theatre of Harlem includes works both classic (Balanchine's The Prodigal Son) and contemporary (The Joplin Dances by Robert Garland; Signs and Wonders by Alonzo King). Mixing traditional African music with compositions by Prokofiev and Joplin, the show starts at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft & Telegraph, UC Berkeley campus. Tickets are $18-32; call (510) 642-9988. Dance Theatre of Harlem performs through Feb. 18.

thursday
february 15
(Un)Orthodox Jews A caffeinated, less academic Tikkun, the S.F.-based Davka highlights spoken word, fiction, visual arts, and music by Jewish artists. Issue No. 1 features poems by Marge Piercy, Julia Vinograd, Alan Kaufman, and Allen Ginsberg; longer pieces include a temp tale by Josh Kornbluth and an interview with critic J. Hoberman (about Yiddish cinema). Kornbluth, Kaufman, Sara Felder, and others will perform at a bash for the fledgling mag; called "Challahpalooza," the party starts at 7 p.m. at 330 Ritch, S.F. Tickets are $10-12; call 567-6689.

Leslie's Inferno A cycle of films and videos made between 1985 and 1995, Peggy and Fred in Hell watches two children of the future as they create a nonsense world from fragments of 20th-century U.S. culture. Peggy and Fred was a hit at last year's Whitney Biennial; filmmaker Leslie Thornton appears at the Bay Area premiere (presented by S.F. Cinema-theque) at 7:30 p.m. at Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, S.F. Tickets are $3-6; call 558-8129.

On Shaky Ground How do earthquakes affect the creation of buildings? That's the question behind The Bay Area Project, a series of drawings by N.Y. experimental architect Lebbeus Woods, currently on view at SFMOMA. Woods presents a lecture at 6 p.m. at SFMOMA's Phyllis Wattis Theater, 151 Third St., S.F. Tickets are $4-8; call 776-1999.

Dancing on the Edge A multisite forum for experimental dance and performance works, "The Edge Festival" celebrates its 10th birthday this year. The event opens with Eros, a collaboration between playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) and dance artist Maureen Fleming. In Eros, Fleming (whose work physically and thematically responds to a childhood accident that left a bone spur in her vertebrae) performs her distinctive style of butoh, while projected texts by Hwang appear and disappear behind her. The show starts at 8 p.m. at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida, S.F. Tickets are $12-15; call 621-7797. Eros continues through Sunday.

The Harder They Fall "Tear Down the Walls" is a film/lecture series examining the current climate of public hysteria and political cynicism about crime. It begins with documentaries about embattled '70s radicals: Attica! captures (and comments on) the 1971 New York prison rebellion; Geronimo Pratt portrays the incarcerated Black Panther. Dennis Cunningham (one of the original attorneys for the Attica Brothers) and Muhjah Shakir will speak; the benefit (for Prison Activist Resource Center and other groups) begins at 7:30 p.m. at Artists' Television Access, 992 Valencia, S.F. Tickets are $5; call (510) 845-8813.

friday
february 16
They're Grrreat! Fine-art fans can feast (visually) upon a city constructed from burned Cheerios and Rice Krispies at "Morphology." The group show features caustic breakfast artist Gordon Simpson, Michael Damm (who uses hardware to create "engineered" versions of the male body), Teresa Smith, Daniel John Stingle, and Robert G. You. Simpson will present a multimedia performance -- Cereal and Sugar-Coated Ideology, featuring 200 slides and 50 commercials-- at the show's opening-night shindig; the reception lasts from 6 to 9 p.m. at the LAB, 2948 16th St., S.F. Free; call 864-8855.