We were walking down Fillmore Street near the SFist Staff Writer Dickensian Workhouse just now, and in the time it took us to go from Page Street to Fillmore Street, we were passed by no fewer than five 22-Fillmore busses. The first was packed the gills, the last was predictably empty. more ›

It's almost exactly fifty years later, and it still smacks you upside your beret-wearing cool-cat bongo-beating head, man -- Allan Ginsberg debuted his classic poem "Howl" on Friday, October 7, 1955, at a jam-packed Six Gallery on Fillmore Street. His passionate reading brought tears to the eyes of the crowd, and is widely viewed as having kick-started the SF Beat Movement of the 1950s. On the actual day of (which coincidentally is also a Friday), Howl publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti's a href="http://www.citylights.com">bookstore and literary festival are sponsoring a Howl Redux, where they'll play film footage of Ginsberg himself reading Howl. Afterwards, contemporary San Francisco area writers will read the works of other revolutionary San Francisco area writers (so Daniel Handler is reading Gertrude Stein, Jerry Brown is reading Jack London, and Armistead Maupin is reading Mark Twain, among others. Pick up tickets here. more ›

Bundle up, ski bunnies -- looks like Jonny Moseley's 30th birthday Pacific Heights ski jump party, sponsored by Icer, is back on! After a contentious meeting of the SF Interdepartmental Staff Committtee on Traffic and Transportation, in which two hours of public comment were heard, the ISCOTT panel voted 8-0 in favor of the event, since all the permits had been obtained and all safety concerns met. There'll be 50 cops, a fully-staffed fire truck with 1000 feet of hose, and an ambulance nearby at all times. The party takes place Thursday the 29th -- jump practice starts at 10:30 a.m., the actual jumping goes from noon to 3:30 p.m., and the awards ceremony is at 4. Street closures will go into effect Wednesday at noon and run until 8 p.m. on Thursday. Picture of the Fillmore Street hill from the 1890s off the Fillmore Museum website more ›

This just in! Newsom cancelled Jonny Moseley's 30th birthday party. Look at bummed-out Jonny over there -- doesn't he look kind of like Matty Gonzalez at that angle? Just a little bit? Newsom, always hedging his bets, said he was cancelling the event despite his own personal enthusiasm for it, mostly because of community concerns. The community (i.e., the monks, the Pacific Heights homeowners' association, and that extremely stressed-out Flood Mansion bride) are probably thrilled. All's not lost, though -- they could still maybe move it to Potrero! Picture from ABC 7 News more ›

Boy, have we got some bad Cow Hollow ideas for you! Have you guys been following the whole "turning Fillmore Street into a ski slope" thing? So Icer Event Management has decided to shave enough ice (12,000 cubic feet of it) on Aug 27 to turn Fillmore Street from Broadway to Green Street (and Vallejo from Steiner and Webster) into ski jumps. (A 14 foot lane will be left open for emergency vehicles and for people who live there to get home.) This is all for Jonny Mosely's 30th birthday, and to film footage for a video game. Hilarious! But wait -- it gets even better! Wait until you hear how everyone's reacting! There's a Hindu temple on that stretch of Fillmore -- and right outside their meditation room, the event planners are setting up the apres-ski lounge, sponsored by Otis. What's more: the monks don't drink. The Pac Heights neighborhood association isn't very happy either, especially because the weekend right after the skiing one, the Grand Prix is coming into town next. "People are incredibly disrespectful of private property at these events. It's a real intrusion. We view this in the same class as street fairs," fumes the neighborhood associate president. (Aw, come on, everyone loves a street fair!) They've tried protesting to (hottest supervisor") Michela Alioto-Pier, but she's told them there's nothing she can do, because the ski people have already gotten all the necessary permits. The ski people are slightly confused by the reaction. "We really, really do not want to upset the neighborhood," the organizer told the Chron. "This thing is going to be done well and in a first-class way." And -- here's our absolute favorite part -- "We want to show San Francisco as an exciting place to visit, as opposed to a place with a lot of homeless." What goes on up there North of Market??? more ›

We first noticed Happy Shabu Shabu on our way to the Fillmore Street Jazz Festival. Since Kim Nalley was going to sing us the blues, shabu shabu happiness was not the state of mind we were looking for. It would have been rude to gloat, shining with satiety, when someone’s got a bad case of the blues. We blocked the idea of dipping some thinly sliced raw meat in a hot broth and then some sauce, and tried to get ourselves in the right mood. It did the trick to focus on our life’s little tragedies, when our lover was gone, our truck broken down, our appartment broken into, our cell phone battery ran out, our windows OS stopped booting. more ›

Passing along news about public figures in an attempt to distract ourselves from the pain of everyday existence: your Political Junkie gossip roundup for the day! Our soon-to-be-former first lady Kimberly made it official and filed for divorce in San Francisco Superior, asking, among other things, for her legal name of Kimberly Ann Guilfoyle back. Both parties are represented by the same lawyer, Max Gutierrez, from the law firm of Morgan Lewis and Bockius. Maybe Gavin and Eminem can compare Rot In Pieces Kim tattoos after this is all done. Now that Gavin's free to date again, two other ambitious ladies are now suddenly available -- both Mabel Teng and Fiona Ma have announced their divorces as well. Sorry, gals, he's Matt's now! And finally, it was a teary-eyed swearing-in for our new Board of Supes for Ammiano and Elsbernd (along with a Sandoval diatribe about the need to recycle batteries). Ruth Dewson, she of the hats on Fillmore Street, disparaged the man tears: "I'm so sick and tired of grown men crying." Ammiano brought the smack right back, responding, "Get a life. I have one," and citing his partner, Tim Curbo, who died of AIDS five days before Ammiano's first election in 1994. Oooooh, death. Score that one for Ammiano. Your dirt is always welcome here! more ›

EssEffist is frequently complimented on our glowing skin and healthy hair. Is it clean living? A healthy diet of fruits and vegetables? Yet another unplanned pregnancy? more ›