ROCK: Over at Edinburgh Castle, the aptly-titled indie-punk band Cupids headlines tonight along with Levator (Seattle) and Dazzling Strangers. *FILM: The film you all had to sit through in English Lit class goes up on the big screen, Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet. In addition to the gorgeous Shakespearean tragedy, KRON 4's Jan Wahl interviews Olivia Hussey ("Juliet") and the divine Connie Champagne performs. (Psst, Connie Champagne will be the highlight of the night.......

One of the most effervescent, most joyously infectious things we heard last year, was Ian Bostridge and Kate Royal in a duet from Handel's Acis and Galatea, Happy We (excerpt here). We streamed it on-line from the BBC-Proms coverage, and it made us so fuzzy inside, that if it were legal, we totally would have installed a streaming audio capture software to make a copy on our computer (that and, oh say, John Adams' Dr......

We caught Phil Setzer, the violinist for the Emerson String Quartet, being driven down between performances in Santa Barbara and Orange County. We hope it was in a stretch limo, as these guys have won eight Grammy awards and critical acclaim everywhere they go. They are the only chamber music group to ever win a best classical album grammy, and they even got two. So they better travel like the rock stars they are. They'll......

SFist interviews Glenn Kotche about his collaboration with the Kronos Quartet as part of the SF Jazz Fest...

More bad puns on Philip Glass’ name! Appomattox, which we rose our Glass to, was not the end of our wall-to-wall Glass coverage. The Glass is not full, we haven’t hit the Glass ceiling yet, ha. Take tonight. There’s a cool concert at Herbst Theater, presented by Other Minds, an organization devoted to new music: Dennis Russell Davies and his partner, Maki Namekawa, playing music for two pianos from Philip Glass, but also J.S Bach......

-- Black Francis: Hefty former lead signer of the Pixies gets the Gen Xers up on their feet tonight, along with Eastern Conference Champions, starting at 9:30 p.m. at Cafe Du Nord; $20. -- Push It!: Rock 'n' roll aerobics care of DJ Spike. Starts at 6 p.m. at Thee Parkside; $5. -- Mulholland Dr. (2001): This different kind of love letter to Hollywood is one of the best moves made, ever. Yes huh.......

SFist interviews Jason Poranksi of Beirut, who are performing two nights at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco...

As a prelude to the big event, the world premiere of Appomattox next Friday at the opera house, composer Philip Glass was hosting a night of chamber music at Herbst Theater last night. It was also the opening concert for SF Performances's 28th season (the official Dolce Vita-themed kick-off Gala happens October 12th). We are as excited as anyone about the upcoming opera, so we were pleased to see Glass not only introduce the......

San Francisco and the Bay Area are getting ready to throw a big (albeit somewhat belated) celebration for Philip Glass’ 70th birthday with concerts all over the place and, of course, the premier of Glass’ new opera Appomattox. And the kick-off is this Friday night with a very special and rare intimate recital courtesy of San Francisco Performances. Mr. Glass will be playing several of his pieces with cellist Wendy Sutter and percussionist Mick Rossi at Herbst Theater....

It has been documented, in Nature no less, that listening to Mozart makes you smarter. Only for spatial reasoning, though. Only for 15mn afterwards. And the results got disputed later. Damn. And even worst, the same effect was observed with music from, hold on one second while we regain our composure, Yanni. Yanni!...

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......

As part of the National Queer Arts Festival, graphic artist and memoirist Alison Bechdel is speaking at Michelle Tea's Radar Reading Series at the SF Public Library tonight! We've been huge fans of Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For for, like 10 years now (we're latecomers -- she's been drawing the strip since 1987), and her first graphic novel, Fun Home, about her relationship with her closeted gay father totally blew our mind with......

Dude, she was shot at Jonestown! it doesn't matter she didn't win her race for Lieutenant Governor. Former State Senator Jackie Speier speaks at the Commonwealth Club tonight about the book she co-authored, This Is Not The Life I Ordered, which tells not only her story, but the story of three of her friends as well. $18, reception at 6, reading at 7, at 595 Market 2nd Fl. (x 2nd). Other events: --The Stars and......

You've still got the Berkeley World Music Festival today, and Indiefest's Hole in the Head fantasy/sci-fi/horror film fest is in full swing! Your other options include: --This looks like a can't-miss! ACT is presenting Fields of Gold, a musical about Amish teens in the throes of rumspringa (sampling the modern world). Set to the music of Sting. We quote: The songbook of Fields of Gold features a mix of Sting and The Police’s most beloved......

Friend of SFist judy b. is moderating a discussion about San Francisco's criminalization of poverty at the Little Roxie tonight, which is co-sponsored by the People of Color Coalition of the SF Green Party, POOR Magazine, and the SF People's Organization. Sup. Ross Mirkadreamy is scheduled to speak, as is PD Jeff A-Hotty-dachi. 6:30 p.m. and $5-15, but since it's about poverty, no one will be turned away for lack of funds). (Note: the......

It's almost the end of April and we didn't even realize it was National Poetry Month! We're going to make it up to everyone by passing along tonight's Poems Under The Dome event. Poems Under The Dome is an open-mic poetry event in the big reception area of the SF City Hall and sponsored by the city -- show up and read whatever poem you'd like! (One poem per reader, time limits will be......

SFist Wendy, contributing Last week we attended the premiere of Lunafest, a festival of films “by, for, about women” at the Herbst Theater. Lunafest proceeds went to the Breast Cancer Fund. The nine shorts were a treat, and we can’t do them all justice here, so check out the Lunafest site and keep them in mind when opportunity presents itself again. Among those that have stuck with us over the past few days are Lori......

Is it wrong that when we saw the movie Koyaanisqatsi, about not despoiling the earth, we left the theater thinking, "wow, San Francisco would be a great city to live in!" Well, San Francisco is a great city to live in, not the least of which being that we're hosting a live performance of the Qatsi Trilogy this weekend. SF Performances is screening all three Qatsi movies -- Koyaanisqatsi (Life Out Of Balance) tonight, Powaqatsi (Life In Transformation) on Saturday and Naqoyqatsi (Life As War) on Sunday -- with live accompaniment of the famous Philip Glass score by the eponymously-named Philip Glass Ensemble. Phillip Glass himself is also in town, and will be speaking on Saturday afternoon at Herbst Theater. The screenings all take place in Symphony Hall -- buy tickets here. Or save yourself some money and buy a Glass Pass, all three movies plus Glass speaking. Glass Pass, ha. ...

Saturday night, every Jew in Jewville went off to the Herbst Theater to see Tiffany Shlain's new film, the Tribe. Being a card-carrying member of the Tribe, we were there. First off, we have to give Ms. Shlain credit for wracking up the PR as the Herbst was almost sold out. She also managed to turn a fifteen minute movie into almost an hour-and-a-half of event-ness (plus more if you went to the after-party at the Rickshaw Bar). There was a film crew and a spotlight, local Jewish celebrities, and a drag queen emcee. All this, again, for a fifteen minute film. The movie is an exploration of Jewish identity using the Barbie doll as the conversation starter. Why Barbie? Turns out the maker, Ruth Handel, was Jewish. Who knew? Yep, the ultimate Shiksa Goddess is, in fact, a Heeb. In all honesty, we're pretty up on who’s a Jew and who’s not a Jew, but this we were clueless about. It’s not a surprise, though: a whole bunch of American icons were created by Jews. In fact, you could argue that 20th Century American culture, a culture that defines us to ourselves and to the world, was created by Jews. See Hollywood. Or Superman. ...

Here at SFist, we'll admit to a bias toward events where fabulousness and social conscience go hand in hand. That's why we're looking forward to Sunday night, when The Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation is presenting Help is on the Way for the Holidays VII. Northern California’s largest annual Aids benefit concert, this night of performances from stage and screen stars will benefit the HIV/AIDS Program at Children’s Hospital Oakland, Project Inform, and Maitri. You can......

Making jokes about the President is pretty easy. It's even easier to make fun of him these days what with his 38% approval rating and the Republicans sudden discovery that he's not wearing any clothes. In fact, it's so easy to do it now that there's an element of kicking a man when he's down to it. Which makes us feel kind of guilty about it. Oh, wait. Check that. You can never make enough fun of the President. This Saturday night is the The 2nd Annual George Bush Going Away Party: An Evening of Political Comedy. The first one was held about this year in an attempt to raise money to defeat him. Obviously, it being the "second annual" means that the first one didn’t succeed. While saying that it's yet one more attempt to send our President back to Crawford might be a joke, the money for the show will go to the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors' (CCCO) "Military Out of Our Schools Program," those people trying to prevent military recruiters out of possibly excercising their freedom of choice and choosing the military. Comedians include Bill Santiago, Diane Amos, Scott Blakeman, Lisa Geduldig, Alana Devich, Ross Turner, and Aundre the Wonderwoman (who according to the press release is an Anti-death penalty advocate by day; comic by night-- those death penalty activists are always a hoot.) ...

Big ups to SFist Eve for this week's Wednesdays post title! Wednesday: Get all in the Wednesday SFist Reads mood with a cavalcade of options: Barbara Ehrenreich at Clean Well-Lighted (7:00), a Dr. Atomic discussion at City Lights (7 p.m.), Caroline Kennedy at Grace Cathedral via Books Inc. (7:30, $25 tickets at Books Inc.), Terry Pratchett at Cody's on Telegraph (7:30), and Salman Rushdie at the Herbst Theater (8:00, buy tickets here). Thursday: our biggest local purveyors of hip classical music, the Kronos Quartet, kick off the first of two shows to support their new album of Bollywood standards at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The divine Asha Bhosle will be singing, and classical Chinese pipa-ist (that's the new Gothamist site, we know it!) Wu Man will play as well. Friday: You're going to our Webzine kickoff party, right? Right? SFist's hosting Webzine 2005's kickoff party at Cafe Du Nord, from 8-10 p.m.. Everyone's invited, even if you're not going to Webzine itself. Come by, check out our cool DJs, meet your favorite staffer, and see what SFist-themed toys we can scrounge up by then! (Contrary to rumors, we will not have a cardboard picture of Chris Daly for you to take pictures with. We will have Mrs. Chris Daly shirts for sale, though! Well, maybe we'll have them for sale. Hey, can we borrow your car to drive the Mrs. Chris Daly t-shirts over to Cafe Du Nord on Friday night?) Got an event you want to tell us about? Go right ahead!...

Ha! Hee! Yeah, we need a laugh. Who doesn't? And we don't mean the normal April Fool's Day prankish jokes either. We want belly laughs. So we're looking towards the 7th Annual Funny Girlz show tomorrow night. "A Smorgasbord of Women's Humor" sounds like it might be just the ticket to stave off any mid-spring malaise. Featuring comics Cathy Ladman, Shann Carr, Carla Clayy, Gretchen Rootes, Alana Devich (she has a blog!), Lisa Geduldig,......

Way back in the day, we were fairly convinced that the Smashing Pumpkins were going to be the new Led Zeppelin. They were tripped out, looked great in velvet, and frickin’ rocked. In fact, we still occasionally put on our old casette of “Gish” and do some serious head-banging. We thought “Siamese Dreams” was cool if a bit over-done and thought “Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” was mighty impressive if a bit too long.......

For those of you who like your ethnomusicology less with the pan flutes and more with the non-Western modalities, the San Francisco World Music Festival is presenting a number of innovative programs for the next two weeks. Headlining the festivitires is San Francisco's own Kronos Quartet, who are playing a special local show, sandwiched in between their European tour and their upcoming BAM Next Wave performance in New York....

Softball article on Maureen Dowd....