In the October 25th issue of The New Yorker, Our Lady of Art Deco Typeface delivers Tad Friend's dramatic account of one couple's struggle against the 200-mph menace that is threatening their pastoral lifestyle in Orinda, California - that tiny ("semirural"!) town eight miles North of Oakland where that one friend of yours might be from. Depending on how you feel about organic suburbanites, Sport Utility Vehicles, White Guilt, illegal immigrants and gas-powered garden tools in general, the piece (which includes the wonderful phrase "death metal sur l'herbe") is either a pleasure to read or just a caricature of some obnoxiously short-sighted Orindans. more ›

It looks like Survivor: Cook Island winner Yul Kwon won't get to serve you air-pumped, sugary, dairy-like deliciousness. After getting ready to set up a Red Mango chain in North Beach, and after being granted a building permit and signing a lease, his permit was pulled after he was "told he ran afoul of the strict North Beach ordinance against 'formula chain' stores," or so says the Gate. Kwon went on to say, "I sorely regret the day that I decided to open a restaurant in San Francisco, and I will never make that mistake again." Ouch. True and choice words, Puka Puka tribesman. more ›

Chucky appears to be back on the homeless beat this week with two stories about it. One is something that might piss people off, the other something that might not piss people off. We'll start with the one that might piss people off one first so we can cheer everyone up at the end with the one that won’t piss people off and make the post heart-warming, just in time for the holidays. more ›

-- Cinewhores Present Midnight Cowboy (1970): Although tame by today's smut-filled standards -- oh, you heard right! -- Midnight Cowboy has the distinction of being the only X-rated film to have ever snagged the Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The film -- about the friendship between Joe, a rookie New York City hustler, and Ratso, a terminally-ill New Yorker -- is prefaced by a reading by queer author Kirk Read. (Oh, and Sylvia Miles is simply fucking awesome in Midnight Cowboy.) Doors open at 6:30 p.m. at ATA; $5-$20 (all donations go to benefiting the St. James Infirmary.) more ›

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We were super-excited when we got the chance to talk with Alex Ross, the New Yorker's resident classical music critic (and blogger). Ross's writing has profoundly affected the way we think about music and music writing in all its genres and forms, and his twin enthusiasm for new classical music of the 21st century along with his deep love of the profoundly musical Icelandic pixie that is Björk always liven up our weekly periodicals reading list. (Thanks for helping set it up, M.C-!) more ›

We've talked about the controversial documentary The Bridge here on SFist before, but for those who couldn't bring themselves to see the film in a theater, you've got your chance for a cozy TV viewing on IFC tonight at 7:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. At least at home you can cover your eyes and scream "OH MY GOD!" without bothering a theater full of people. more ›

Last week's winner, the Bay Guardian. More problems with the construction at Hunters' Point (this time: asbestos). Chris Daly is on it. A construction worker falls off the Golden Gate Bridge and his employer avoids liability because they used the wrong legal name on the OSHA citations it received. Send all legal paperwork to FSist, everyone! More taxi permit shadiness. Man vs. Wild -- who cares if he stayed in a hotel, he drank water from elephant dung. KUSF! Some bands playing this week. Cover article: Photography in SF. The Guardian doesn't hate the new Mission Italian joint Farina. And an Iranian filmmaker retrospective at the Pacific Film Archive. more ›

Other events (all movies, because Monday's a tough night): more ›

Last night was the book release party for Shannon O'Leary's Pet Noir, a comic anthology of true pet crime stories published by San Francisco's very own Manic D Press. If you weren't there you missed one hip affair. more ›

We've got some minicomics this week, some of which were written by locals. But this is a little awkward -- the best ones are by non-Sanfranciscans. WTF, local comics folk? Where is the local answer to a boy. That's what makes it so awkward. more ›

We had a great time at the Between the Bridges reading/concert on Friday night and got all excited about the upcoming week. So what else is out there in Litquake World? more ›

SFist interviews John Ringhofer of Half-handed cloud on the Asthmatic Kitty label more ›

We get catty about the New Yorker and discuss our cringeworthy past, after the jump! more ›

Once upon a time a famous New Yorker cartoon suggested, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Now a day, nobody cares if you are a dog. The Internet is awash with dogs posting of their own profiles to communicate with other canines and humans alike. more ›

More folks than we'd ever expected mentioned the January 16th New Yorker article about Bunkerd Faphimai and his gym, Fight and Fitness to us, perhaps because our favored male companion trains there. more ›

For fear of catching metal, we are not one to get involved in the whole East Coast – West Coast rivalry thing, but we would like to point out one big difference between dog friendly San Francisco and, uh, well, much less dog friendly New York. In San Francisco we can take our dogs wine tasting on the weekend. In New York, the latest fashion for the canine crowd is rubber boots. This is not an accessory; this is a necessity, as the streets of New York are alive with random electrical currents that are shocking dogs to death. more ›

Gavin Newsom + Sofia Milos! We can't get enough! more ›

DCist helps us make more sense of the world this week. Posts like this concert review are the reason for Scott Stapp. DCist also enumerates the reasons for playing ultimate frisbee, Condi's tight buns, their love of a local convenience store, and their jealousy of a person in Seattle calling the city. more ›

So many moons ago, we wrote a post about Other Magazine. We were still young, unknown punks on this here locally scribbler scene. Nearly a year and a half later, we're still young punks at least (though we'll just be punks before long), mostly by virtue of being accepted by actual literary luminaries like Charlie Anders and Annalee Newitz. Granted, they're not hard to find, with Charlie MCing Writers With Drinks at the Makeout Room every month. more ›

Anil Dash shares some timely insights into online communities. Danah Boyd finds herself caught in the middle of the debate over Wikipedia. Tom Foremsi and felow journos sup on Google sushi while their old employers crumble around them. And Jeff Nolan explores some novel theories about Yahoo's purchase of del.icio.us. more ›

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. more ›

SFist interviews Samantha Chanse more ›

As we all know, it doesn't matter if you can write your way out of a paper bag, all that matters is if you can compete on the field of intramural athletics. We have a theory that your personal relationships won't ever really evolve past high school, so the kings on the field will be the kings at the office for the rest of your life (it applies especially to you Ivies). Self-reflection and a feeling of intellectual superiority is just a crutch -- the only real accomplishment is a two-out, go-ahead RBI. more ›

Hey, congratulations to local magazine Dwell (on contemporary design and architecture) for winning the National Magazine Association's prestigious "Ellie" award, for best magazine with circulation from 100,000 to 250,000! Dwell beat out Baseline, Foreign Policy, Los Angeles Magazine, and Teacher Magazine for the cute li'l Alexander Calder elephant statuette. In other local Ellie Award news, San Francisco Magazine was nominated for an article about the Santa Clara Law School Innocence Project in the public interest article category, but lost to Seymour Hersh's Abu Ghraib coverage in the New Yorker. Eh, we guess there was probably no real surprise in that category, huh? And finally, you'll all also certainly be shocked to hear that our little site here did not win (and was not even nominated for) the special "general excellence online" award, for "weblogs that have a significant amount of original content." That went to Style.com, of the Conde Nast machine. more ›

Our New Yorker finally made the arduous trek from the Conde Nast building and across the high Sierra mountains to our little hinterlands mailbox, exhausted. We opened it up, and to our shock, it featured our little burg in an article! (Article is not online, of course). The piece is an excerpt from the book "Oh For The Glory Of It All," by Sean Wilsey, a McSweeney's editor. OFTGOIA is a tell-all memoir about Wilsey's mother, San Francisco social butterfly and society columnist Pat Montandon; his evil stepmother and A-lister Dede Wilsey; various shenanigans with his family and the Traina-Steeles'; and his own delinquency. San Francisco socialites are set to be scandalized, with Armistead Maupin saying, "there hasn't been a wicked stepmother like that since Cinderella." Yikes! But what's intriguing to us, firmly ensconced on the San Francisco Z-list -- is that Wilsey confirms that his mother, Ms. Montandon, is the basis for the character of Prue Giroux in Maupin's Tales of the City! No way! Like Prue, Montandon was a daffy society columnist who gets all new-agey, seems a little psychotic, and then goes on a number of vaguely dippy save-the-world crusades, with poor Sean in tow. Anyways, the articles are pretty entertaining (though not entirely in the good way), and worth a read. Though Sean -- geez, love your mom much? Paging Mr. Oedipus Rex, extension 333, paging Mr. Oedipus Rex. Picture of May Kay Place as Prue Giroux in the Showtime Tales of the City movie more ›

The crowd at the Castro Sunday night, at the Asian-Am film fest's centerpiece presentation for Evans Chan's documentary Sorceress of the New Piano was about one-third new music aficionados, one-third Asians who'd played piano in the past, and the remaining one-third seemed to be people who thought a woman who played the toy piano would be interesting to learn about. Yup, the toy piano. Like Schroeder. Margaret Leng Tan, called "the diva of avant-garde pianism" by the New Yorker, has been exploring the limits of the sounds that can be created by the piano for the last 20-30 years. Tan started out with the standard classical repertoire in her studies at Julliard, but by the time she began working on her doctoral dissertation there, she was becoming more and more intrigued by the possibilities of the piano beyond the keyboard and more as a percussive instrument in its own right. She worked closely with John Cage on his pieces for prepared piano (where screws, nails, and plates are inserted in the strings of the piano to affect the sound), began playing the works of Menlo Park's Henry Cowell (who wrote pieces not just for the fingers but for the whole arm, where the arm presses down on long spans of the keys -- like when a cat sits down on the piano), performed pieces where the piano lid is closed and the pianist drums on parts of the piano, and performing works by George Crumb, involving strumming, pulling, and bowing the strings of the piano. So what comes after that? A toy piano performance. Yeah! Picture of Margaret Leng Tan at the toy piano from her publicity stills more ›

SFist loves us some writers. And by writers, we mean "bombers," "graffitos," "vandals,", "artists," what have you. One in particular caught our eye on our travels around the city -- that inimitable man of mystery wielding grease pens, Neck Face. We've seen his tag from the Haight to the Mission and most everywhere in between. Then, last year, we started seeing it on the innerweb in places like New York, Boston, LA and Tokyo. The kid gets around. more ›

...all of which we picked up at Oakland's 24 hour newsstand! Starting with last week's winner, the Weekly -- a genius Photoshop cover of Matty G. reclining on a Getty-like carpet. So genius it's replacing the picture of the car running over the Weekly box (but only for this week!). Photo credit to Darrick Rainey. Mr. Rainey, we shake your hand in congratulations! This illustrates the cover article on "2004: Gonzalez's First Year As Mayor." Surely you remember Matty G's triumphant inauguration – and the scandal that broke out when he allowed hipsters to marry! And those quotes from the New Yorker Matty profile: "Almost everyone in San Francisco knows a small black child who has been shielded from a hail of bullets by Gonzalez." SFist Chesh, you'll be pleased by the fastidious font replications seen here, and SFist Jon, we're sure you'll find the Chron columns shown entirely typical. ("Sports: Bruce Jenkins is on vacation"). You know, after wiping away our tears of laughter, we find that we have nothing more to say about the rest of the paper. Picture of Al-Gore-fat loser Gavin Newsom!!!! Ha!!!! (SFist Jackson, we hope you get home before this issue is yanked from the stands -- it's that good.) On a soberer note, the Guardian. A slew of defensive corrections about last week's coverage of the development freeze in Potrero Hill. There's a protest next Tuesday at 4 pm at City Hall against raising MUNI fares. Annalee Newitz is worked up about the FCC and cable modems. Paul the food critic got a free meal when his chicken was underdone at Foggy Bottom Cafe on Irving and Eighth. Cover article: This year in movies (obscure art-flick edition). The EBX and the weekly of the week (like you don't already know which one it is) after the jump. more ›

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