Old hippy dude throwing down with a yuppy at a Michael Pollan talk. In Palo Alto! A small skirmish errupted when the bolo tie wearing hippy was upset by the yuppy not volunteering a saved seat (turns out was saving it for his mom) for an elderly gentleman. Things got good when sunglasses were grabbed, and Stanford students intervened. Isn’t eating well supposed to make you less angry? Oh, and the talk was really......

Michael Pollan: Come hear this foodie sensation talk about his latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, in which he suggests that you should not "eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food." (Impossible. Also, yes, Michael Leaverton, we DO need to know the exercise logs of the fowl we plan on eating.) Catch him tonight in conversation with restaurant critic, Hayes Street Grill chef/co-owner, and local food celeb......

The SFIFF is winding down - only two more days to cram in as much international film as you can! Or are you ready for a quick breather before diving back in? Then take a night off and head out to one of these happenin' events. Not exactly a face-off (these guys play for the same league), but bound to be just as interesting. Marion Nestle and Michael Pollan give a talk tonight on food......

The Commonwealth Club's 76th Annual California Book Awards have been announced, and two Cal faculty members are big winners this year: Ishmael Reed for "New and Collected Poems, 1964-2006," and journalism professor Michael Pollan for "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals."...

Our favorite Bay Area foodie starchild, and Omnivore’s Dilemma author, Michael Pollan, was at it again Wednesday night. He moderated a panel to discuss the 2007 Farm Bill on the UC Berkeley campus. The Farm Bill -– which gets reviewed about every five years – has been under the spotlight this year. ...

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....

We went to see John Mackey, founder/CEO of Whole Foods speak Tuesday night with journalist Michael Pollan of The Omnivore’s Dilemma fame and golden child for all things foodie and farm-related. We haven’t read Pollan’s book (it’s on our list!) but in it he takes a few jabs at Mackey and Whole Foods and how maybe Whole Foods is not the green do-gooder it claims to be. Maybe Whole Foods distorts the truth about some of its own food suppliers, and hurts the small local farmer by supporting large industrialized organic farms. (Something like that.) ...

While the San Francisco Public Library site is up, their search is not! Far be it from us to criticize anyone for the occasional technical bobble. Get well soon, SFPL search! SFist Rita just finished Fantasyland by Sam Walker, a book about how the author (a sportswriter for the Wall Street Journal) did in the most competitive fantasy baseball league in the country, in 2004. It's pretty hilarious even (or especially) if you don't know......

We've taken to leaving the house -- sometimes for hours at a time -- without a jacket, which can only mean one thing: it's Summer Book Club time. Dude, look at the stipulations: "Small incentive prizes will be awarded to enrolled children who have read for two, four and six hours during the eight weeks of Summer Reading." When we were a kid, we read six hours a day (our "honey, don't you want to......

SFist's online reserve queue from the SF Public is at a standstill these days, as we haven't heard about any books intrugoing enough to reserve. Please make some suggestions in the comments, so we can reserve or buy some new or used books from one of our local independent bookstores. We need MUNI reading! Help! At the Centre Pompidou bookstore, Jet-Setting SFist Mary-Lynn picked up Sophie Calle: Did You See Me? which is a......

One of SFist's favorite writers, Michael Pollan, was interviewed in California Monthly magazine. And we have the link!...