"Static and squat," declares John King on the new residential tower, Soma Grand. And it only gets worse, beautifully so. [SFGate]Have a sumptuous yet refreshing woodchuck, raccoon, or squirrel recipe? Send it to Endless Summer and you could win a "guest blogging post." [Endless Simmer]Fashion on the 5-Fulton dazzles. [Nature abhors a vacuum]President George W. Bush is coming to the Bay Area tomorrow to make a cameo appearance in Milk, or something like that. [Oakland......

Above poster by Trudy L. Cole If the purple Impeach banner at Sunday's Giant's game got you all giddy with subversive glee, then tomorrow's opening of the Propaganda III World Tour at the Phoenix Hotel is sure to have you hyperventilating. Celebrate our country's {insert George W's voice here} "freedom" {end voice} by perusing hundreds of culture-jamming, political posters from around the globe, the act of which will make old Uncle Sam's hairy, gray......

We saw Iphigénie en Tauride last Wednesday, and the curtain fell not only on the last opening of this season, but on the Pamela Rosenberg era. There are still three more performances of Iphigénie to attend (including one tonight; plus three Rosenkavalier and two Don Giovanni), so it’s not yet time to look back. This season was the last that Rosenberg planned (before her successor at the helm, SF Opera general director David Gockley tweaked......

We usually keep things pretty simple around here -- so if you want something a little more literary, there's a plethora of clever, quirky, cute, smart, and wonderful writing at McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and associated publications (books, The Believer, and DVD-based magazine, Wholphin). Seems that the McSweeney's crew has fallen on some hard times financially, and needs to raise a few bucks and quick.They're letting interested parties know that every single item in their store is on sale....

Bay Area pianist Jon Nakamatsu was the last American to win the Van Cliburn prize, the Nobel prize for classical concert pianists. We would have said the Presidential Medal of Freedom for pianists, but Van Cliburn himself actually received that award in 2003 from fellow Texan George W. Bush, even though, unlike other Bush nominees, Van Cliburn did deserve it. Jon won the Van Cliburn gold medal in 1997 and that was the kick-off of......

Okay, this was a pretty cool event. Peter Morgan, the writer responsible for both Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren's Oscars this year (for The Last King of Scotland and The Queen) won the film festival's second annual Kanbar Award for excellence in screenplay writing -- so they had him up for an hourlong talk about his distinctive docudrama perspective on contemporary historical events and the flawed personalities behind them, and then they screened The Deal,......

As noted in this week's SF Weekly and SFist Rita's "We Read the Weeklies" column, the Bay Area's (and beyond) beloved Kitchen Sink—the magazine for people who think too much—is calling it quits this spring. Kitchen Sink is the latest of several independent publications to shut down due to the Independent Press Association's failure to fulfill its commitments before going under. Before Kitchen Sink's proverbial well runs dry, they will be producing one last issue. But they need your help to do it! Stop on by Edinburgh Castle this Saturday night for their fundraiser, which will feature lots of bands and a raffle with prizes from Amoeba, the Believer and local artisans....

This was not a very happy week for the -ist network as one of our own, Phillyist co-editor Star C. Foster, passed away early in the week. Her wit, intelligence, and good nature shone through the site, making Phillyist an immensely fun read. She was loved by many and will be missed by all. Phillyist paid tribute to her this week with a heartfelt letter to her and an obituary. And now, the awkward......

-Students at UC Santa Cruz clash with police during a visit by the UC Regents. At UC Santa Cruz? We thought that the only thing students did there is run around naked in the woods on mushrooms and do drum circles? -Hey, here's good news: the rental market is heating up. It's back to the days of rising rental prices and too many people looking. Yay!...

-Dick met Bush yesterday and in one of his speeches Bush talked about how he's going to end poverty and bring world peace. No, just joking, he talked a lot about terrorism, Iraq, 9/11 blah, blah, blah. But that's not the big thing. No, the big thing is, and we kid you not, there is an actual George W. Bush Elementary School in Stockton. And the library is the Laura Bush Library. We'll leave it up to you to make with the jokes, but if you want a starter joke, the obvious one is if the library carries "My Pet Goat?" ...

We here at SFist feel compelled to write about the latest outrage coming out of Crawford Texas these days. No, not the whole War on Terror thing, but the word on the street being that one of W's Summer Beach Reading Books is Albert Camus' "The Stranger." Apparently, he was so taken by it that he debated it with Tony Snow. We can only imagine the conversation too: "See, 'The Stranger' is a book about philosophy, which means the author, Cay-Moo, philosiphizes. He's a philosopher. I find what he says interesting."...

Jon was going to write up a blurb about the Giants taking 2 out of 3 from the D-Backs, but he was way-laid by a prawn quesidilla at Taco Bell. And yes, you might be thinking to yourself that Taco Bell doesn't serve prawn quesidillas but Jon forgot. He still isn't sure what he ate. Since the Giants' keys to victory were so easy to figure out, in his place and writing up today's Giants blurb will be the President of the United States of America, George W. Bush. See, what the Giants need to do is to win. You have to win to make it to the playoffs. And the Giants? They won. They beat the Arizona Diamondboys 8-2. They have now won two in a row. That's better than losing two in a row. ...

Hey hey, ho ho, George W. Bush is at Cisco. Yep, ol' 43 himself is in town, down in the South Bay. He's landing at Moffett Field this morning (where he fired all the NASA scientists earlier this year -- awkward!), then stopping by Cisco in San Jose and the Hoover Institute at Stanford, and then jetting off to a relaxing weekend at St. Helena. Our Napa speculators are guessing he'll be at Meadowood, where......

As we said earlier, making jokes about the President is easy. Making funny jokes isn't. Far too many comedians take the lazy way out and just resort to "George W. Bush is stupid" lines. Yeah, there might some truth to it and yeah, it's kind of liberating to say, but it's just not very witty or clever. As a result, a lot of political humor these days is way more rant than joke. And ranting is hardly ever as funny. The Second Annual George Bush Going Away Party comedy event on Saturday showed the difficulties in political humor. Especially political humor in San Franciso, where saying "Bush sucks" is greeted with the same sort of vigorous acknowledgement as saying "Yankees suck!" in Boston. There were way too many punch lines that were pretty much along the lines of "Bush is stupid" or "Cheney is evi"" or "red state voters are dumb" all greeted with thunderous applause. And the audience, about what you’d expect at such an event-- middle aged hippies from Marin with "Visualize Peace" bumper- were ready for some serious playa hatin'. The audience cheered when somebody just said "I hate SUVs." ...

Was it the Best Week Ever? Not so much. But that doesn't mean there wasn't enough good stuff to go around. First, more problems for the Orange and Black, a franchise in the midst of a drunken-late-night-pizza-slice of a nightmare type season. -KNBR broadcaster and occasional Examiner columnist Larry Krueger got himself into heap loads of trouble last week for comments he made concerning the men in Orange and Black. In the middle of a......

Well, the Chronicle has their watch-thingie to pick on small, local bay area officials about semi-trivial issues like broken signs, graffitti and potholes. Since we're small and local, we'll turn it around and pick on a big official on semi-trivial issues like journalistic ethics, campaign financing ethics and, well, potholes. Seems Skeletor Maria Shriver is kind of back to working on the Today Show, at least in the capacity of vetting guests that have......

So apparently everyone was shocked -- shocked! -- to hear that someone wanted to kill our dearest President George W. Bush. Of course, SFist's first thought was to call most of our friends to make sure it wasn't them. After all, George Bush probably doesn't come here very often (ever?) for a reason. Heck, if we got close enough, we might even take one for the team. We say 'might' because we don't want......

As football fades and a weary Bay Area turns to that moment when pitchers and catchers report, yet another reminder of baseball’s little steroid problem bobbed to the surface over the weekend as the publisher for Jose Canceco’s supposed tell-all book leaked some juicy little bits of gossip to the press. Canseco’s book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big, will be released on February 21, and the bits of gossip were in this Sunday’s New York Daily News. In the book, Canseco claims that he was sort of like the Pied Piper of steroids, turning on all his teamates to the wonders of synthetic drugs; so much so, he was called “the Chemist.” He claims to have personally injected Mark McGwire in the ass in a bathroom stall when both were rookies and sat around another men’s room stall watching McGwire inject steroid poster boy Jason Giambi in the ass another year. Canseco also claims to have introduced steroids to Texas Rangers’ stars Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez, and Rafael Palmerio when he was with the Rangers, an act which he claims was well-known by then-Rangers owner George W. Bush. And yes, it’s the same George W. we all know and love as our President. The very same President who famously called for a ban on steroids in a State of the Union speech....

So many people to thank! If we forget you, rest assured that a warm, fuzzy thanks is in our hearts. First, we'd like to thank our contributors, without whom this site would be just another anonymous pet blog project, devoid of people in bunny suits and Chris Daly anecdotes. We'd like to thank Gothamist Jake and Gothamist Jen for wasting their ivy league educations on publishing and editing pointless rehashes of stories in the local......

SFist considers ways to escape Bush!...

SFist had high hopes for a series sweep for the Giants throughout last night's game against the Astros, but the bullpen had different ideas. Taking a three-to-two lead into the ninth inning, the San Francisco relievers did their best early-August impression by allowing five ugly runs, costing Jason Schmidt a well-deserved victory and chipping away at his fading Cy Young chances. You have to wonder if the Giants let their emotions (or their testosterone) get......

While the New Yorkers and the nation are gearing up for the Repbulican National Convention in New York City this weekend, protesters are gearing up for what is likely going to be the largest public demonstration in a generation. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, will be in the street speaking out against what many feel is a dishonest if not outright corrupt administration - including a sizeable contingent from the Bay Area. For those......

Speaking of Ralph Nader, looks like his options in California are running out. Last night the state Green Party executive committee, in an 11-7 vote, rejected Nader's request that the party hold its own nominating convention, which may have led to Nader's being on the ballot for President under the Green banner rather than David Cobb, who took the nomination in the national party convention in Milwaukee two months ago....