From the tallest skyscraper in the City of Brotherly Love to Canadian tourism copywriting brilliance, here's what you should know from our -ist cities: This week, Phillyist took a gleeful listen to the White Stripes' exciting new release, watched in awe as their new tallest skyscraper was finally completed, found a cheaper way to get to Gothamist, invented a tasty new dessert, and brought back their Craigslist Round-Up feature with a bang. Bostonist watches......

Okay, so nobody ever accused us of being especially observant, but we only recently recognized that "Naia", at 451 Castro Street, was a gelateria. See, the sign only says the name, and there's no logo of an ice cream cone or anything . . . we'd always assumed it was some sort of minimalist modern art gallery. On Sunday, we saw a few people outside eating frozen treats, and the lightbulb went off. We went in, and made pigs of ourselves. The first thing that hit us was the presentation: dozens of flavors of gelato, sorbretto, and soy gelato, vividly displayed in a glass case--a visual treat....

Tonight at the California Modern Art Gallery don't miss the opening of what promises to be a stellar show, Constructions. Guest curated by Matthew Frederick who brought together 10 Bay Area artists he feels have completely unique and inspiring construction processes used in their production. The show features over 60 pieces including gallery worthy recycled wood furniture by artist Thomas Jenkinson, a haunting parlor game created by Molly Meng titled Phobophobia, Mosaic sculptures by public installation artist Laurel True-- whose work can be found through out the city including the giant mosaic mural which graces a building on the corner of 16th and Harrison, and Blair Bradshaw's beautifully assembled canvases which often transform complex chemical structures into common human experience. The established group also includes work from, Sidnea D'Amico, Randall Heath, Mark Paron, Sarah Smith, William Wareham and Matthew Frederick. California Modern Art Gallery 1035 Market Street (btw 6th & 7th) Opening reception from 5-8pm tonight! Show runs from 4/12-5/10 ...

A reader of SFist sends word that another great SF place will close, that place being Canvas, the coffe shop/art gallery/what have you in the Iinner Sunset. Word has it that like the John Barylecorn, the lease was up and the landlord sold it to the Pacific Catch, a seafood chain. ...

You think Gavin Newsom'll shave off all his hair next, just like rehabbing Britney Spears? Okay, so where were we the last time we checked in with the Ruby Rippey-Tourk sick leave investigations? So the mayor's office and the Tourk family spokesman were taking the position that Rippey-Tourk got the city to cover her salary as paid sick leave during the time she was in rehab through the city's catastrophic-leave program, where people can......

For those of you who felt left out of the whole Alqueda Teen Hunger Force terrorist plot, don't you worry, we weren't left out. It turns out twenty of those things were scattered throughout the city. Unlike those idgits in Boston, nobody seemed to think anything of it. So no complaints were filed and no press conferences were held with people trying to explain why something that looks like one of those Lite Brite things was some nefarious plot hatched by people hiding in caves. In fact, one of the ones that was found was found over the weekend on a sign above an art gallery on Clement Street and not only did nobody call it in, but the person who found it thought it was cool. When the batteries went out, he just took it down. ...

At the Roxie, (3117 16th St. between Valencia & Guerrero) it's FARMCORE, a documentary about punk rock's 1980s home in the Mission, The Farm. The screening is a benefit for San Francisco Indybay Media and Oaxaca Indymedia. The film documents the punk scene (Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, and Black Flag played there, to name a few) and the staff’s struggles to keep the doors open while battling a greedy landlord and hostile police, until the......

First, the swanky: The MoAD Vanguard presents Preview at the Clift Hotel, (495 Geary St. at Jones) an evening of art, music and dance for a cause - the cause being MoAD and the arts of the African Diaspora. From the PR: groove to the global sounds of DJ Cecil (Relevant Sound, Bembe) while taking in the artwork of Amanda Williams, April Banks, Rah Crawford, Rosalind McGary, Emmanuel Pratt and Sydney James. Preview is......

Last night we featured the cross bay rivalry of Taste events, and tonight, we've got two art auctions. When we see things like this, we wonder whether the organizers of said events check each others' calendars, as we have learned through painful experience that we can't be everywhere at once. Perhaps an evite is called for in these circumstances. First, in the East Bay, The Oakland Art Gallery's DRAWN, a fundraiser sale and art......

SFist interviews John Ringhofer of Half-handed cloud on the Asthmatic Kitty label...

In case of Wednesday, this car will be unoccupied. Tonight! The group NetSquared is holding its monthly get-together at Varnish Art Gallery at 77 Natoma Street (at 2nd). NetSquared's mission is effecting social change through the Internet, and tonight's topic is how blogs can save the world (really!). 6-8 p.m., free admission, RSVP required. Thursday: We are so psyched for the Asian-American Film Fest this year! We're (seriously) thinking about taking the whole week of March 16-23 off from work! Help kick off the festivities at their launch party, running from 9-12 at 111 Minna. Music from DJ AJAX from NRG 92.7 and they'll be showing film clips. Oooh, show something from Chinese Restaurants!! $5 admission, free for Center for Asian-American Media members. and Friday: The San Francisco Chamber Orchestra is dedicated to free performances of chamber music for the public. Tonight's theme: "Valentines to a Cello." Acclaimed cellist Matt Haimovitz will be performing an unaccompanied Bach suite (you know, the famous ones, like Yo-Yo Ma played on the West Wing) and one of Schoenberg's last tonal pieces before he went all serialist screeek-schronk-schreek on us. Free! ...

We all acknowledge that as the Warriors' feel their way toward the playoffs this year, there will be some stumbles. Well, there are stumbles and then there are the kind of STUMBLES that make you realize this may have been the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. Last Wednesday against the defending NBA champeen San Antonio Spurs, the Warriors were stripped buck naked and exposed as pretenders. The Spurs absolutely had their way with the shell-shocked tribe. Can you say "low bridge"? It's pronounced Spurs 113 Warriors 89. ...

Tonight: Admit it, you only read the SF Weekly for Savage Love. Well, cranky Dan Savage is finishing up the Bay Area leg of his book tour tonight at Booksmith in the Haight, reading from his new memoir, The Commitment, about his partner, his family, raising his son, and gay marriage. Bring all your embarrassing questions about liaisons gone wrong; we're sure he'd be as thrilled to mock you in public as he is in print! Thursday: Hey, need any sports equipment? Sports Basement at 16th and DeHaro is sponsoring a fundraiser for the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, which offers youth programs for low-income families. Everything in the store is 10% off, and 5% of all sales go to the Neighborhood House's afterschool programs. There's also a raffle -- win a baseball autographed by JT Snow! And hey! An emergency preparedness kit! (take chances on not taking chances -- we love it!) The reason for the benefit? To help close the $100,000 funding gap caused by city budget cuts. Thanks to SFist pal Mike for the tip! Friday: The art gallery the Luggage Store presents the 11th annual In the Street festival in the 'Loin, featuring street performers of all stripes (capoiera dancers, the Extra-Action Marching Band, a fire arts troupe, among others.) It's as free as a bird, on Ellis Street between Hyde and Leavenworth, and goes from 5-10 p.m. Picture from the Luggage Store Gallery site...

Watch out for that lady in the delivery room! A pregnant woman in San Mateo county, enraged at her baby daddy's constant exhortations to prenatal nutrition, stabbed him in the stomach with a serrated knife. The DA says she's had plenty of criminal cases with a pregnant victim, but never one with a pregnant perp. People in SF are wondering if a browned-out fire station on Market and Sanchez might have been able to save some of the people who died in the fire on Capp Street were it not for the budget cuts. Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White notes that the other fire stations responded within 2-4 minutes of the call and that the people who died had died immediately, but other firefighters are calling for a repeal of the brownouts policy. And glug, glug, glug -- a boat sank off the dock of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, leaving only an oil slick where the 30 x 80 foot barge used to be. The barge probably sank because it was constantly being banged around by its neighbor, the so-called "Artship," which had previously been moored in Oakland as an art gallery. The Artship's current caretakers have taken responsibility for the barge's sinking, and will take the appropriate steps to clean up any pollution caused. ...

No word yet on if they'll be suspending mail delivery or if we don't have to go to work tomorrow, but July 14, 2005 has been declared "Embarcadero Center Cinema" Day in San Francisco by your Mayor Gavin Newsom. The theater is turning 10 years old (appropriate gifts for this age might include a Choose Your Own Adventure book or a science set) this year (hence the holiday), and for only 15 bucks you......

SFist has a complicated relationship with spell checking programs. Without giving you too many of the gory details, we'll just say that spelling is NOT our strong point, and while we'd be in serious trouble without spell checking, we also hate its soul-less little guts. That being said we've never felt that spell check was out to get us personally. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Mike Arcega, whose name is hated and......

When SFist was a bookish little girl, with pigtails and coke-bottle glasses, we spent what might have been too much time in our room drawing. Mostly, we drew houses. Houses with dozens of rooms, for every conceivable purpose. Rooms we thought were so fantastical, though now many of them could probably be found in Woodside. We never had a fog machine though. Clearly, we lacked imagination. Of course, we could do this and imagine these......

Ach. Is it Monday already? Where's the coffee? If you're in the Mission, you're in luck. Holy crap, man -- pass the sweetener! Straight up, before anything else is mentioned about Cafe Macondo, it must be known that this is a super dark, wickedly bitter cup of coffee. This is a good thing. Cafe Macondo, located in the Mission District at 3159 16th St. (between Valencia and Guerrero), was just bumped to the top......