LIVE MUSIC: Parenthetically named '80s pop outfit Was (Not Was) is known for the song, "Walk the Dinosaur" And that ditty? Went a little something like this: "Open the door, get on the floor/Everybody walk the dinosaur/Boom boom acka-lacka lacka boom." Bring your favorite Gen-Xer to hear them live at Cafe Du Nord. *FILM: Just in time to make you feel less bad about being single on Valentine's Day is Woody Allen's Annie Hall.......

Don't just read any words -- read good words, accurate and specific, tasty and gratifying and placed in sequences that make you shake your head in disbelief that anyone could possibly have ever used those words in sentences other than the ones on the page in front of you. You certainly won't find that here; but check out Booksmith tonight, Modern Times tomorrow, and 826 Valencia on Monday for that snake-charmer of the English......

In case you haven't heard, tonight, at precisely 12:01, THE VERY FINAL HARRY POTTER BOOK WILL BE RELEASED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!! OH MY GOD!! OH MY GOD!! And by final, we mean final. The end. Finito. And with it, all the answers to all those pressing questions will be answered: will Harry die? Is Snape good or evil? Will Ron and Hermione finally get it on? And by the way, we just discovered Hermione is in Microsoft Word’s spell check. That’s crazy. ...

Looking to do some crafty shopping or have something you've been making that you want to share with the world? Here are a few ways to get your fix. Modern Times, one of our favorite independent bookstores in the city, will be hosting their first ever craft fair in August and there's still time to register to sell your crafty goods. For up to the minute registration forms and info check out their myspace page. When: August 11th Noon-8pm Registration deadline: August 1st We've already told you how much we love the SF Craft Mafia, meet them for yourself and do some crafting with them on August 12th at Stitch Lounge. The event will feature DIY activities, including jewelry making, clothing customization, and cupcake makeovers. ...

--Audacia Ray, the editor of the sex worker zine $pread and a Fleshbot [nsfw] contributor, talks at Modern Times about the commodification of sex on the Internet. 7:30 p.m., 888 Valencia (x 20th) --Kearny Street Workshop, Intersection for the Arts, and Galeria de la Raza are throwing a reading and book release party for their 2007 Intergenerational Writers Lab collection, at Capp180 (180 Capp Street 3rd Fl., x 16th and Mission). $5-15 sliding, 7 p.m.......

The Asian Art Museum's monthly throwdown, Matcha, kicks off around 6pm with DJs, tours, workshops and cocktails. The Live Action Cartoonists, a performance troupe that combines comics and theatre, will perform highlights from Science (Fiction) an experimental production that re-interprets Tezuka Osamu’s Astro Boy. 200 Larkin St., SF. Dance away your Independence Day hangover at the Rickshaw Stop! Fleeting Joys(shimmery, Cocteau Twins-esque tunes out of SacTown) Christopher Willits (think Postal Service, but better) and......

A variety show and a chance to help out Killing My Lobster? But of course! The Romane Event, the monthly music/film/comedy/spoken word event at the Make Out Room the last Wednesday of every month and hosted by Paco Romane, is a benefit for local comedy group Killing My Lobster, and will feature their sketches and movies tonight. Looks like fabulous fabulist Harmon Leon'll be there too! $7-15 sliding scale, 8 p.m., at the Make Out......

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......

Flight was already at the top of our list of books to read. Then we read the New York Times review of it this past Sunday and felt a new urgency to go out and buy it. The review was beautifully written, sincere, and completely lacking the typical elitist jargon one usually finds while reading reviews of books in well-known papers. And so on our flight back to San Francisco we read Flight in......

Author/artist/director/performer/etc Miranda July came by Modern Times Bookstore in The Mission last night to read from her new collection of short stories, and the arty-coiffed standing-room-only crowd of fans spilled out the door onto the sidewalk....

Well, all of San Francisco politics is trivial, isn't it? Get that confirmed at tonight's 4th Annual Political Trivia Contest, featuring Chris "Whiskers" Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, and Jake McGoldrick, at a benefit for the John Muir PTA, for a spelling bee for the Western Addition. Categories of questions include: "Streets (and Transportation) of San Francisco," "Interesting Characters of San Francisco," and, in a bracing slap of reality, "Only Trivia That A Policy Wonk Would......

Cruciverbalists rejoice! New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz, widely considered the best puzzlemaster in the world, is speaking tonight at Cal Performances. Shortz was profiled in the documentary Wordplay and is credited with modernizing and popularizing crossword puzzles with witty clues, aesthetically satisfying designs, and pop cultural awareness. Folks like Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton (above, with the puzzle he made in yesterday's paper here) swear by Shortz's puzzles, and you will too (if......

3.... 2.... 1.... blast off! Yuri's Night at NASA's Ames Research Center is a science-sound-music-art shindig that sounds fun and interesting. Hosed by Keynote Speaker (and hottie!) Anoushe Ansari, the first privately funded femme space explorer. There's demos, organic food and drink, robots, and interactive art, yo. This World Space Party is one of 90 events in 30 countries, and celebrates Yuri Gagarin, who was only 27 when he was the first human to......

We're getting so upset to have to keep writing the same post over and over again -- yet another San Francisco independent bookstore is shutting its doors. This time, it's the not-so-long-ago opened Cody's SF, next to the Virgin Megastore in Union Square, who made it about a year and a half before the news today. Is that retail space cursed or what? The store's last day will be April 20, but the Cody's......

We see it all the time, and we are fairly certain there is good money to be made doing it - public art is the topic of tonight's workshop in Southern Exposure's SoExchange series of artist-led workshops. How Do I Make My Art Public Art? features panelists, Seyed Alavi, Louise Bertelsen, Packard Jennings, Wang Po Shu, and Rigo 23. It takes place at the Mission Cultural Center (2868 Mission St at 25th) and covers how......

One of our favorite independent bookstores, Modern Times, (888 Valencia St. at 20th) presents author, Nick Mamatas reading from his hilarious new novel Under My Roof, the story of telepathic tween Herbert Weinberg, whose father Daniel decides to strike a blow for freedom by building a nuclear device, planting it in the lawn jockey in his front yard, and declaring independence from the United States. Plus special guest, local firecracker and Audre Lorde Award-winning performance......

Monday is our favorite day to do laundry, thus we are thrilled by the possibility of satisfying our dire needs for both clean socks and weird live music at once at the Brainwash Café (1122 Folsom St. @ 7th). The Jardin Noir Dark Circus Radio Project blends psychedelic jazz improv and world music with strange and compelling results for free. (7-10pm) We instantly got a craving for pancakes when reading about this one: CalHOP......

--Sofia Milos is back in town. --Maria Shriver admires Gavin's partying skills. (And yes! He did have a pair of ceremonial scissors!) --Rob Anderson tells his side of the Matt Smith story about his lawyer and his bikes in SF plan. --The SFPartyParty notes the irony in Gavin Newsom donating his parking space to make a performance art park last week, when he keeps insisting on making an actual park into a parking space on......

One Wednesday you're in, and the next you're .... out. Tonight: Independent bookstores all over town are closing left and right. Help the one on the left stay open at a benefit for Modern Times tonight. Local musicians, artists, and performers like Solidad diCosta, Ghost Family, Bahiyyih Maroon, Seeley Quest, Grant Donnelly and Joolie Geldner are donating their time and talent. Plus -- food and drink! Valencia x 20th, 7-9 p.m. Thursday: As part of......

With San Francisco as the home of Survival Research Laboratories, the birthplace of Combots and Robolympics, and the location of Fucking Machines secret lair, we have to wonder just what is in that good old SF tap water... So when we heard that Bay Area resident Timothy Archibald was hosting a slideshow from his new book "Sex Machines: Photographs and Interviews" at Modern Times tonight, it made perfect sense -- in the same way......

Is this chicken what I have, or Wednesdays? Tonight!: The SF Cinematheque is featuring an evening of experimental film called "How to Philosophize With a Flicker." Their website describes it: "Less of a 'how-to' manual than a hall of mirrors, these works move beyond the True, the Beautiful, and the Good to pose their questions with a flicker, wrestling with the world of appearances and searching out subjective spaces rather than smashing them to smithereens." We have absolutely no idea what that means but it sounds like there'll be some cool-looking movies! The flickering starts at 8, at the California College of the Arts. Thursday: it's go go go! The Exploratorium presents "Executive Order 9066," a show by puppet troupe Lunatique Fantastique about the Japanese-Americans internment camps in World War II, as envisioned through found household items. The description warns that children under 13 may need parental guidance. 8 p.m. in the McBean Theater. SFist Jeremy also wants us to remind you to go check out Joshua Wolf Shenk at Cody's SF tonight, who'll be reading from "Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness," which you may remember him discussing just the other day! If those options are too heavy for you, there's also the Bay Guardian's 2005 Goldies Award party at 12 Galaxies starting at 9, celebrating Outstanding Local Discoveries in art and music. Two Gallants is playing, and the $10 door donation goes to the Bay Guardian Community Fund and Katrina relief. And Friday: Remember when people used to rant about sex on paper and not on the Internet? Lisa Suckdog Carver does. Throw it back to the early 90s and Sassy Magazine's "zine of the month" column as Lisa reads from her new memoir, "Drugs Are Nice," at 7:30 at Modern Times. ...

Caaaaaan yooooooou ..... dig it??? Tonight: Check out StartSOMA's Group Show tonight -- 40 artists, hundreds of works, and complimentary mojitos to boot! Hotel des Arts (447 Bush Street, x Grant) from 7-10, admission is free. The flyer also says they'll be featuring "the skateboard decks of Jason Lee." The Jason Lee? Thursday: You can enjoy the precious thoughts of New Yorker writer Adam Gopnick as he reads from the children's book he and his softballer son Luke have written together (awwwww), at Cody's on Telegraph at 7:30 -- or the harder-edged sex/death musings of Mary Gaitskill and her new novel Veronica, at 12:30 at Modern Times. And Friday: It's the Harvest Festival at the SF Botanical Garden! There's a farmers' market, you can meet the Bat Lady, and kids of all ages can decorate pumpkins and learn about "smelly, slimy, creepy, crawly plants." 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park at 9th and Irving. ...

Wednesday: Share your oral diatribes with the world through the magic of the Internet! San Francisco podcasters are meeting at 7 p.m. at Sauce (131 Gough Street) to talk iPod XML feed turkey. (We have absolutely no idea what that means!) Or share oral diatribes of another sort at the Best Sex Writing of 2005 reading at Modern Times (7:30), hosted by contributor SFist Violet and featuring friend of SFist Annalee Newitz's nerd convention erotica. (We think that's Annalee's piece, anyways!) Thursday: The Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad troupe bring their comedy/burlesque pro-Semitic act to the Red Devil Lounge. Show's at 8, $10/$5 students. They promise "a rendition of L'Chaim with a fist in the mouth;" what's not to love? Friday: The latest issue of Asian-American glossy-zine Hyphen is out! Come celebrate the release of Hyphen's Body Issue with electronica DJs and a raffle, from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the Social Club (1751 Fulton, at Masonic). Articles include: transgender Asian fetishists, the sartorial tragedy that is Bai Ling, and the results of the sex survey. RSVP on the evite -- sliding scale admission, but if you pay $10, you get the new issue. ...

Tonight, economist, columnist, and professor Paul Krugman will speak in conversation with longtime journalist and KPFA radio host Larry Bensky in a benefit for KPFA and Pacifica Radio. The event is at 8pm in the auditorium of Martin Luther King Middle School (1781 Rose Street in Berkeley)....

Calling all feminist hipsters (and those looking to pick up the same) – the second Ladyfest Bay Area will be hitting the Mission this weekend (July 29-August 1). Ladyfest is the feminist DIY post-riotgrrl community art, activism, and punk rock festival, which started in 2000 in (where else?) Olympia, WA, and has since spread throughout the land and throughout the world. So naturally, girl bands play, spoken word poets rant, knitting circles purl, self-defense classes take out the eyes and kneecaps of the oppressor, and positive female energy rules the day. It’s volunteer-organized, non-corporate sponsored, and appears mainly to have been advertised by spray-paint stencils on Valencia Street....