One of the most consistent voices in the Bay Area radio sphere of the last three decades, Michael Krasny, has just announced that he will relinquish the program he hosts and retire in February.

Krasny has been a fixture in the local media going back to the 1970s, when he hosted a program on a Marin County station called "Beyond the Hot Tub" — as if a 1970s Marin County talk show could ever be called anything else. He later worked for KGO-AM and ABC 7, and took the job as the host of "Forum" on KQED in 1993. As the Mercury News notes, with his doctorate in English literature, he soon earned praise as "the thinking person’s talk-show host" among local journalists.

"Michael is a Bay Area jewel," said KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan, in a statement. "His is a model public service career and he has brought depth, compassion and the expertise of a literature professor to the airwaves on a daily basis. Forum shows how a regional public affairs program can serve listeners with reasoned and thoughtful dialogue that cuts across so many disciplines and important issues."

Krasny will retire on February 15, 2021, which is 28 years to the day that he started in the job at "Forum."

"I like the symmetry of going out on the anniversary of the day I started,” he tells the Chronicle today. "I’ve always liked Mark Twain’s comment that age is mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it shouldn’t matter. But I turned 76 in September and realized that age does matter."

Krasny is known for his cogent and thoughtful interview style, and a voice that expresses both the wisdom of his years and a particular type of West Coast intellectual engaged with many subjects. And his experience as a teacher likely helped in fielding calls from Bay Area residents on the call-in show — some of whom aren't always so calm, collected, or cogent.

Some of his notable interview subjects over the years include former President Jimmy Carter, President Barack Obama, Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Noam Chomsky, Francis Ford Coppola, Jerry Garcia, Allen Ginsberg, Werner Herzog, John McCain, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Bernie Sanders, and Camille Paglia.

In his 2007 memoir Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life, Krasny revealed that he still had not achieved his own personal dream of literary success. But over the years he established himself as an ace conversationalist with literary greats and political figures alike, both generous and always in control of the conversation — no small feat in itself.

As local author Michael Chabon said of him in a blurb on the book, "Michael Krasny sets the standard by which all public affairs and cultural radio is measured. He is a Bay Area institution."

"Forum" remains a popular program, drawing about a quarter million weekly drive-time listeners and another 70,000 online according to KQED. And the station says it will now conduct a "thorough national search" for Krasny's replacement.

Michael Krasny took on the Facebook IPO today on Forum (a morning talk show on NPR's Bay Area affiliate), and not surprisingly, the call-in audience had A LOT to say about how Facebook has affected — and ruined — their lives.

A mother of four called in, saying that she and three of her children use Facebook, but she now finds the whole thing "deceptive and intrusive" and "dirty." Regarding their strategy when it comes to using data and implementing privacy controls, she says "they continue to default to expose more and more of your information until you figure it out."

Another tech-saturated woman from the Peninsula calls in to say, "I don't get it — it's just one more thing I have to check... I don't understand how it's become a daily part of my life and the lives of everyone around me... What's happened to us??!?"

Some of the panelists and callers discussed the relationships people have on Facebook as being fairly flimsy and fake, but at least one person called in to say "you can connect amazingly with someone through posts and comments" and says these connections are "very real."

But when such a successful company goes public, there's bound to be backlash. There was plenty of national TV news coverage in the last day or two hating on Facebook, at least by privacy advocates, academics, and curmudgeons who want to judge you for having 800 "friends." The general gist, including from callers on Forum is that peoples' "virtual relationships" and fake friends on Facebook are starting to supplant real relationships. Of course, a Facebook "backlash" got some ink back in 2007 when social ads were first introduced. Clearly these backlashes and groups of paranoiacs are dwarfed by the billions on the site who don't give a damn about sharing their photos and personal information.

Listen to the whole show below:

CABARET: The Conservatory of Flowers presents The Fine Art of Poisoning, a night inspired by San Francisco's "femme fatale for the thinking man" Jill Tracy. "Vacked by members of her Malcontent Orchestra, she will weave a web of cautionary tales, lusty murderous obsessions, and shadowy stories of secretly-served revenge," amidst the spooky backdrop of the Conservatory's poisonous plants. (6 to 10 p.m., Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, 100 John F. Kennedy Drive)

FORUM: Donna Sachet will moderate tonight's HIV Community Mayoral Candidates Forum, featuring a panel of HIV+ community leaders who will discuss which of the Mayoral candidates would best represent the needs of people with HIV/AIDS in San Francisco. (5:30 p.m., State of California Building, 455 Golden Gate Avenue)

FILM/VIDEO: Artists' Television Access' annual Film & Video Festival kicks off tonight with an opening reception, featuring a chance to meet the filmmakers, along with a media installation and light refreshments. (7 to 9 p.m., Artists' Television Access, 992 Valencia Street)

Housse de Racket - 1234 from Disposable Film Festival on Vimeo.

FILM: In honor of SF Bike Week, the Disposable Film Festival presents the 2nd Annual Outdoor Bike-In, featuring the best of 2010's competitive shorts (including the above short) plus a few other gems. Feast on food from forage SF and enter the raffle before the screening. Be sure to bring a blanket or something else to sit on.

6 to 10 p.m. // 7th and Minna (parking lot across from the Good Hotel) // free

FORUM: At Inforum's The Urban Farming Movement, innovators in the local urban farming community will discuss its place in the world of organic, local-grown culture, and how they're bringing the farm to the city. Delicious bites from Mission Pie, Bella Viva Orchards, Back to Earth Catering and wine from Russian River Vineyards will be served during the networking reception.

6 p.m. // The Commonwealth Club (595 Market Street, 2nd fl) // $7-20

PHOTOGRAPHY: Photographer Joe Budd, whom SFist interviewed last August, will exhibit a new series, Our Glass, which focuses on abstract landscapes, portraits, and vignettes found along the Northern California, Bali, and African coastlines. Half of any artwork purchased will benefit nonprofit, Tipping Point Community. Photographer and filmmaker Patrick Trefz will also be projecting some of his short films.

6 to 9 p.m. // Design Within Reach (1913 Fillmore St) // free