The to-do list

FOOD & DRINK

Attn: Drinky McDrinkington. Let’s not mess around here. You know wine. You know food. So let’s get right to the highlights of the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival: Five days (Wednesday through Sunday, Nov. 18 through 22); 170 wine, beer and spirit producers; 70 local restaurants; plus classes, tastings, dinners and silent auctions. Things get going from 7 to 10 p.m. Wednesday with the San Diego Wine Rave at the W Hotel (25 “edgy” wines plus food). Winemaker dinners happen Wednesday and Thursday around town, and cooking and tasting classes happen Thursday and Friday. But the big show—the Grand Tasting Event—goes down from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21, at Embarcadero Marina Park North, behind Seaport Village. The least expensive ticket to the main event is $125 (in advance), but there’s lots of different prices for the various events, so go to www.worldofwineevents.com for the details.

ART

The fine print: If you’ve seen Artemio Rodriguez’s gigantic “The Triumph of Death” mural at the San Diego Museum of Art’s Mexican Gallery, chances are you were as blown away as we were. The Mexican artist is becoming one of his country’s biggest up-and-comers for his work in woodcuts and black-and-white linocut prints, many of which are on display at Life, Women and Politics at Noel-Baza Fine Art (2165 India St. in Little Italy) with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13. Bonus: The artist himself is flying in to talk about his work in the Mexican Gallery at SDMA (1450 El Prado, Balboa Park) at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15. www.noel-bazafineart.com. 

Run for the border: The art lovers over at Gallery a.k.a. (3830 30th St. in North Park) certainly know what it’s like to be a struggling artist in a border town, so for their new show, Border to Border, they’re bussing in some of El Paso’s biggest underground names to show off their goods, from 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14. The Texas city might not be as well-known as other burghs, but judging by some of the talent showcased—from Vanessa Michel’s haunting portraiture to Lorena Romero’s surreal paintings—it doesn’t seem like it’ll be ignored for long. There will also be free Stone beer at the opening, and any donations will go to Classics 4 Kids. www.artkillsartists.com.

MUSIC

Strings and things: A cornerstone of modern classical performance, the string quartet has remained one of the most popular ensemble formats since its genesis in the late 18th century. Part of the latest generation of top-tier foursomes, the Israeli-founded AVIV String Quartet has won several prestigious awards and consistently plays works from its repertoire of more than 100 pieces to audiences around the globe. At 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, the quartet hits UCSD’s Conrad Prebys Music Hall to perform three Beethoven opuses, featuring 25-year-old violist Nathan Braude. The concert is preceded by an optional tapas and wine-tasting event ($30) at 6 p.m., as well as a free pre-concert discussion with the artists at 7 p.m., both at The Loft @ UCSD. $46. www.artpwr.com.

DANCE

Round-a-boot: Cowboys have always been fans of dancing—you know, when they shoot at people’s feet in old cartoons and yell, “Dance! Dance!” Now Patricia Rincon, local choreographer and head of the Patricia Rincon Dance Collective, is using dance to explore the history and myth behind these American icons in Cowboys: The American Heroes. She uses various portrayals of the American cowboy in film, history, pop culture and music, as well as dancers from the PRDC, to tell their tale. Mosey on down to SUSHI Performance and Visual Arts (390 11th Ave. in East Village) at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 13 and 14. $16 in advance, $20 at the door. Now, draw! www.rincondance.org 

SPECIAL EVENTS

Voices carry: Anyone who’s ever been to one of Walk the Walk Presents’ Sight and Sound events in North Park knows that the t  guys behind it know how to throw a party. Now, half of the duo is taking that spirit Downtown with Voices at Onyx Room, a music, art and performance hullabaloo set to be held every second Saturday of the month at Onyx (852 Fifth Ave.). The inaugural soirée, from 7:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, will include art projection from Jono, caricatures by True DeLorenzo and body painting by Xompany, as well as music from Heavy Glow, This is Manic and DJ Cris Herrera. The Gaslamp just got a little cooler. $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after. www.jonblockcreations.com.

FILM

Where the heart is: Though she’d lived in San Diego for five years, it wasn’t until a snowstorm-plagued trip home to Nebraska in December 2006 that Megan O’Connor, a filmmaker, realized the extent of her homesickness. “So that is the beginning of the story,” she writes on her blog. She spent the next two years working on a documentary exploring the concept of home—is it defined by place, or is it something more abstract? Is there some universal definition, or is the idea of home a uniquely personal construct? Check out the product of O’Connor’s work—Finding Home—at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, at cool new Downtown art space Suture (655 10th Ave.). Jackson Milgaten (Vision of a Dying World, The Paddle Boat) kicks things off with an acoustic performance. www.findinghomefilm.com.

BOOKS

Playing the field: After winning two Pulitzer Prizes (many of us at CityBeat are still waiting for our first) and publishing stories in The New York Times and Rolling Stone, Jesse Katz doesn’t really have much to prove at this point. But his new book, The Opposite Field, just might be his most personal story yet. A memoir of much of his adult life, Field details the author’s relationship with his son Max against the backdrop of a baseball field in east Los Angeles. A troubled marriage and a family tragedy strike, but the story is ultimately one of father-son bonding through the love of sport. Katz will discuss and sign copies of the book at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16, at Warwick’s (7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla). http://www.warwicks.com/.

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