SFist interviews Svea Vezzone, owner of Swarm Gallery in Oakland...

For those of you keeping track: --In Oakland, five people have been killed in the last 48 hours (from noon on Wednesday to early this morning). The one this morning is murder number 64 in Oakland. --In SF, they're investigating the death of Joe Konopka, a neighborhood anti-crime activist from the Upper Haight. No one's giving out many details but it looks S&M-related. Konopka started the group Residents Against Druggies, which confronted dealers on the......

-Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters get standing ovation from Congress for not voting for House resolution against the war. It'll make sense if you read it. -Gavin says restaurant shutdown ain't gonna happen. -DeAnza College rape case gets sent to the DA. -Rudy G. visits Oakland city. -What will become of Bay Meadows? -Cockfighting ring broken up in Oakley. Little Jerry is okay. -Berkeley City Hall finally named after Maudelle Shirek despite complaints......

-Barack Obama Superstar is a hit in the Bay Area. -UC Merced runs afoul of some shrimp. ...

Bear with us as SFist is experiencing technical difficulties this morning, mainly in that we're really hungover. -In Oakland, families of murder victims met to honor their loved ones. This story is all sorts of sad. -Meet your new Supervisor, Ed Jew. Gezundheit. -Mayor McDreamy says deal for city-wide WiFi could come as soon as next week, still down to EarthLink and Google. SFist wonders why we just spent a whole lot of money signing......

An exasperating, sodden, miscue-filled loss for our Raiders up in Seattle yesterday. What sort of headline should a recap of this game have? We explored this thought, and here's what we came up with. You should add some more in the Comments section. Here we go: ...

Whew, it's finally Halloween - is it just us or has Halloween become a multi-day holiday like Hannukah or Kwanzaa? Of course, we'll be eating our words (and half-price Halloween candy) tomorrow when stores start preparing for 2 months of Christmas. But tonight is Halloween, so cue the Halloween stuff to do. Space Gallery and The Hemlock are having a mini-block party with the closing reception for PHANTASM: (in)visible bodies & haunted spaces, an......

School stabbings at a high school in Fremont In Oakland yesterday, kids at Lafayette Elementary find a dead body in the school garden."This is a very abnormal, unusual situation," Oakland Unified Spokesperson Roqua Montez said of the incident at the Market Street school. For readers unfamiliar with standard composting procedure, this is not how it's usually done. And, no damage done yet, but we are anticipating eventual childhood trauma with the deployment of Extreme......

Public art is often the butt of jokes and viewed with contempt, along with performance art and washed up aging rockers on the county fair circuit. Whatever your feelings are about the role of government in the arts, many people support public art in theory, and its civic impact is meager compared to contracts for garbage disposal, cable television, and towing. Public art controversies are noteworthy in that one sees people get twisted knickers......

SFist interviews Jsason Munn proprietor of The Small Stakes, maker of rock n' roll posters...

It looks like the Bay Area is going to be getting a new film studio. In Oakland. Take that San Francisco. The people behind the new studio? The Wayans brothers-- Keenan Ivory, Damon, Shawn, Marlon, and Tito-- the auteurs behind "In Living Color," Scary Movie and White Chicks. On Tuesday, an Oakland City Council committee unanimously approved a preliminary plan to move their production facilities to the old Oakland Army Base. If the City Council approves the plan, the brothers have a year to put together an agreement. So far, the plan calls for retail stores, a 30-acre film production studio with offices and a 10-acre back lot for production. Oh, and a 30-acre theme park with a hotel. Yes, we said an amusement park. According to the plans, the brothers want to build an amusement park adjacent to the studio. The park will be like "Universal Studios in Los Angeles but with a hip, urban atmosphere reflected in the Wayans brothers' comedies." And yes, the mind boggles. The Homey the Clown Funland Park? Fly Girls of the Caribbean? The White Chicks Nightclub Ride featuring an animatronic Lindsey Lohan getting into a cat fight with animatronic Simpson sisters while an animatronic Paris Hilton does blow in the bathroom? Either way, we can hardly wait. ...