Sean Penn isn't the only person who was captivated by the Chris McCandless story (first made popular in the Jon Krakauer book, "Into The Wild," and now a major motion picture directed by Penn, promoted on Oprah, and playing at a theatre near you.) In the early '90's Chris McCandless abandoned all his worldly goods, took on the name Alexander Supertramp and embarked upon a Thoreau-esque adventure trekking around North America, ultimately perishing in an......

Remember last week when we said we had a whole bunch of books we'd been dying to read from the online reserve system? Well, we hated almost all of them. Doesn't it blow when you've heard so many great things and checked it out or bought it, only to find that you can't stomach it? Has this ever happened to you? Let us know in the comments. With all the rhetoric surrounding religious violence......

SFist Ced graciously allowed us to take a small break from weekly-reading and political-junkie-ing for a lovely evening out at the Opera -- thanks, Ced! The few times we've gone to the opera previously, we've only been able to afford the seats that are so high up in the building that Jon Krakauer is writing a book about our trek up the stairs (contrary to the rumors, we were not short-roped) -- what a treat to be down on the main floor where the oxygen is so thick and water boils at the regular 212 degrees Fahrenheit! It's a totally different scene on the first floor -- the lines for the bathroom are shorter, women wear sparklier dresses, and -- who knew? -- there's a cafe in the basement! We looked for Sean Wilsey's stepmother in the audience but the program said that she usually sits in Box O on the second floor. Rodelinda is a Baroque-era opera written in 1725 by George Friederic Handel (you may remember him from such hits as The Hallelujah Chorus). Rodelinda is the queen of Naples, who has just been told that her husband, King Bertario, has been found dead. Bertario's rival, Duke Grimoaldo, will take the throne in his place. Turns out Grimoaldo's been in love with Rodelinda for years (despite being engaged to Bertario's sister Eduige) and threatens to kill Rodelinda's son Flavio if she doesn't agree to marry him. Tough breaks! Making things more complicated, Bertario's not actually dead, he's just escaped back into the kingdom. Will Rodelinda marry Grimoaldo to save her child? What about Bertario's kingdom? And why is the sinister bass singer named Garibaldo always lurking around? The Opera also made one of those "controversial" moves in the operatic community, and decided to shift the setting of Rodelinda from 18th century Italy to the 1940s, and designed the sets with a modernist, film noir-type feel instead. So instead of the usual (faux-)ermine robes and scepters you think of when you think of Baroque opera, the women wore snazzy vintage suits and the men wore bow ties and tuxes. And the "kingdom" consisted of city buildings and bridge underpasses, instead of the usual moats and turrets you'd expect. After the jump: a mezzo writhing on the floor, molls and gangsters, and -- was that booing we heard when the set designers took a bow? Picture from the SF Opera...

A student at San Jose's Overfelt High was sent to the principal's this Monday for her strange behavior. In the principal's office, she said she was feeling so hot she wanted to take all her clothes off. The principal determined she was "on some sort of drug," and had her sent to the hospital. Investigations this week revealed that a number of students had been eating a plant growing in the yard of a guy who lived near the school, and that a middle school student had had similar experiences eating the same plant. Turned out the plant is locoweed,...