Last week, we heard some talking head comment that all Sarah Palin had to do to beat expectations was come out of her VP debate without losing a limb. That's how we felt going to the last performance of the Bonesetter's Daughter, especially after reading some excruciating reviews. OK, there were some mildly favorable reviews (as well as a a comprehensive review list.) And while our natural inclination is to be indulgent with operatic......

Stewart Wallace's previous effort with the SF Opera was the very successful Harvey Milk, which was about San Francisco's most famous city supervisor. His latest opera, The Bonesetter's Daughter, uses yet another famous Bay Area icon, this time a work by writer Amy Tan on a lady with Alzheimer. Gay guys and old ladies, we can't deny that Wallace knows his core opera audience. The Bonesetter's Daughter, which opens this Saturday at the War......

Your Black Muslim Bakery women treated like "slaves." (Hot fish sandwiches don't make themselves, ladies.) [Oakland Tribune]Dan Noyes sticks it to Muni again, and not in a good way. Be sure to check it out. [ABC7]Well. Somebody thinks they're too good to shoplift. [Spotswood]Free Jameth! He turned into a reform school girl over the weekend. [Nature abhors a vacuum]How many real estate agents does it take to post an ad on Craigslist? [Curbed]TED, a......

This was the scene the other day on everybody's favorite piece of landfill, San Francisco's Marina District. Larger version here Of course SUPER-visor Chris Daly took action to keep Segways off of our sidewalks about a half decade ago, but our law doesn't appear to stop folks from just driving around in bike lanes. (It doesn't seem to stop people from riding on sidewalks either, but oh well.) Anyway, you'll be seeing these things in......

Serialized gem / siren song Tales of the City drew many folks to SF. Well, it brought us here, anyway. And the character of Mary Ann Singleton acted as a temporary stand-in until many of us arrived. To wit: Mary Ann Singleton was twenty-five years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time. She came to the city alone for an eight-day vacation. On the fifth night, she drank three Irish coffees......

SFist Rita is out of town for work, so we are donning our tiara and gown for this weeks Swells analysis. Tra-la-la! Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 57. Total number of people pictured whom we recognize/know: 23. This high number is because of the SF Library event with lots of writers, including Amy Tan, Vendela Vida, Dave Eggers, Stephen Elliot, Ben Fong-Torres, Michael Lewis, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Sam Barry,......

Fist Rita is on a well-deserved holiday break so we apologize ahead of time for this week's suckage. Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 48...

As avowed book lovers SFist was thrilled to see Kepler's com back and they're (almost) better than ever. We'll remove that bracketed condition when they open online ordering because we always get our book jonesing while we're stuck at our desks and they can't yet take advantage of that. But what we think marks the real return of Kepler's is the slate of author events they have booked in the coming months. Saturday night......

Wow, so much interesting list stuff has hit our inbox this week that we've barely had time to read our online reserves from the SFPL. Well, we've learned that if we're running behind on our reading, that booksfree, (which should just give up and call themselves the Netflix of books, because that's what they are) is there to help save us from late fees on borrowed books. Then again, if we have some cash......