We were super-excited when we got the chance to talk with Alex Ross, the New Yorker's resident classical music critic (and blogger). Ross's writing has profoundly affected the way we think about music and music writing in all its genres and forms, and his twin enthusiasm for new classical music of the 21st century along with his deep love of the profoundly musical Icelandic pixie that is Björk always liven up our weekly periodicals reading......

Get that gigantic backpack and sleeping bag and trek on over to Cody's Books on Fourth Street, as Tony and Maureen Wheeler, the founders of Lonely Planet, read from their new books, Unlikely Destinations (the story of Lonely Planet) and Bad Lands (Tony's trips to dangerous countries). If you can't make tonight's reading (7 p.m.), they're in town through Friday, reading at Get Lost in SF tomorrow night and Book Passage in Corte Madera on......

Got your ruching done? Better hope so, because Tim Gunn's coming to town! Everybody's favorite Project Runway mentor is in the area on Friday and Saturday to promote his new book Tim Gunn: A Guide To Quality, Taste, And Style, which covers topics like: how to shop (broken down into designer, chain, and vintage), creating your own personal style, and even how to improve your posture. ("I don't know. I just don't love it," we......

Last Saturday, a fight broke out at the "Hyphy High School Bash" at the Marin County Corte Madera Recreation Center. The police raced to the scene upon hearing reports of gunshots and a Golden Gate Transit bus being blocked on Tamalpais Drive by 80 teenagers. They couldn't confirm whether shots had been fired, but someone had sprayed pepper spray into the crowd and around the same time, someone broke into a nearby elementary school. Hilariously,......

-San Francisco is only the 41st most expensive city in the world. -The Parrots of Telegraph Hill get their tree back, still pine for the fjord....

More shopping It's the 'In the Black' Art Sale at Triple Base Gallery (3041 24th Street at Treat). This special sale features affordable works of art by the talented artists featured in past exhibitions and the Triple Base Flat Files (e.g. unframed works on paper). Sales from the Flat Files are the main source of funding for the experimental exhibitions that unfold on a monthly basis in the project space. (7-11pm) Theater Just added......

Around the Bay Area, especially with mountain bikers, the name Skeggs is spoken in the hushed, reverent tones usually reserved for a place of worship, which is fitting, because Skeggs is a church of nature that provides sanctuary and solace from the ever-encroaching anxiety of the modern world.

--The US Attorney's office is going to monitor the SF elections, like we're East Timor or Florida or something. --Courtney Love was 50 minutes late to her book signing in Corte Madera. --District 6 candidate Manuel Jimenez confirms neither confirms nor denies that he's Latino (see comments!), with a picture of his baptism. --The cops get back the discretion to press pot charges. --Stanford students don't really care about the election. --Does the Bayview need......

It doesn't appear that there's anything planned to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake, so we'll just slurp oysters and go flyfishing. No, really, this evening at the Ferry Building Marketplace Grand Hall, Hog Island Oysters, Cakebread wine and fly fishing. (5:30-7:30pm) Proceeds from the event will benefit CalTrout—an organization that started in the mid-1960s with a dozen avid trout fishermen disgruntled with the State of California's management of lakes and......

Everyone's thought about it, but this kid went ahead and did it! You kind of have to respect that. Burlingame High was evacuated on Tuesday afternoon when someone set a pile of clothes on fire in a locker in the boys' locker room. The 40 male froshlings and sophomores who had gym that period will all be interrogated. (Obligatory caveat: We're glad no one was hurt, and kids, fire is never the answer.) Customer service really does make a difference! A man who went to the Oakland Workers' Comp office with a gun and a plan to shoot up the place and take hostages, out of frustration with the way they were handling his claim, told the cops that he decided not to go through with it after having a nice conversation with the staff. He was still arrested, though (felon in possession of a gun and entering a building with the intent to commit a crime). ...and doh! A mail delivery service in Corte Madera got a package dropped off with no destination address marked on the front. Following company policy, they opened the package to see if the label was inside. Doh! Big bag of pot! Making matters worse, the sender had carefully put his return address on the package, making it a snap for the local authorities to stop by his place and bust his ass. They don't know if the label fell off or if the sender (heh-heh) forgot to put it on in the first place. ...

It's like the 49 Mile Drive, only with squealing tires! Around midnight Saturday morning, cops reported to a double shooting on Mission and 18th Street, only to see a Honda peeling away. The cops put on the woo-oooh woo-oooh sirens and set chase, but lost him near Alameda and Utah. Other cops then found him and chased the guy all the way down to SoMA, where the suspect crashed the car at Fourth and Bryant.......

Paula Kamen has a headache. We can say that with some assurance because she's had a headache for over a decade now. For most of us, the idea of suffering from a headache for more time than it takes for a couple of Advil to kick in sounds unbelievable, but after reading All in My Head, Kamen's book about her battle with chronic daily headache, (and dealing with some daily headache issues of our......

San Francisco's favorite but least read Q&A columnist, the Essefficist, answers a question about where to watch the new Star Wars movie....