-- Paranoia, feeding faux stories, and NYT's Laura Albert (AKA Miss Leroy) article. Depressing is right, Rita. [CultureBlog] -- Newsom defends Halloween shutdown. [BAR] -- San Francisco's other (but not nearly as stellar!) Matty. [BeyondChron] -- Pssst. We heard a rumor that the Bay Bridge will close during Labor Day Weekend. Pass it around. [511] -- Mandy Moore at the Fillmore. Eeeeeeeeee! [SF Weekly] -- SFBG's political art of the week. (Yay, Kool-Aid guy!)......

The Sunday Styles section of the Chronicle does it again! Not content to rest on its laurels after watching poor Jennifer Bumblebee Siebel decimate herself, Styles next turns its gimlet eye on two other prominent members of the Swells set: Denise Hale and the inimitable bicycle-intimidator Dede Wilsey. Sunday Styles RULES. Turns out Pat Montandon, mother of Sean Wilsey and ex-wife of Dede's late husband Al Wilsey, has decided to pen a book of her......

Photographer Drew Altizer goes to all the good parties! Drew reports in from Saturday's birthday party for DJ AM (Adam Goldstein, former fiance of Nicole Richie and just-dumped boyfriend of Mandy Moore) at Mezzanine, featuring not only the birthday boy himself on the turntables, but also Travis Barker (from +44 and the defunct Blink-182, as well as a former Paris Hilton fling and the back-on again husband of Shana Moakler, of reality TV fame).......

'Tis the season, already, for record companies to inundate the shelves of Target and Wal-mart with gift-worthy releases of greatest hits, Christmas collections, and repackaged favorites. You already know about the huge releases by Destiny's Child and Eminem, and we're betting that critics' darling Rufus Wainwright will be covered extensively elsewhere. Here are some of the releases that intrigued and amused us for the week of November 16th. In the "Best Of"s category, we recommend......