One could hop on the snark wagon and refer to Darfur, the current Third World cause célebre, as the new Tibet or appreciate the 21st Century sensitivity to the non-universality of Christmas, but we are not that "one." The genocide going on in Darfur is pretty shocking and awful, and thus we applaud the efforts of the folks at Distortion 2 Static and Pumpkin Cutter Projects who are putting on The Save Darfur Tour......

We're not going to miss a rare opportunity to see Stalker (1979) by Andrei Tarkovsky (director of the original Solaris), screening tonight at the SF Art Institute (800 Chestnut St.) for free. This influential Russian film has many elements associated with Russian literature - epic length, existential ennui, depressing locales. A brief plot synopsis: Two disenchanted intellectuals wish to explore the Zone, a mysterious region at the center of which a room, said to offer......

Can you believe it's been fifteen years since the fire in the Oakland hills? On Sunday, October 20, 1991, a fire that had been smoldering near the Caldecott Tunnel burst out of control, jumping highway 24 (as pictured here) and burning down a swath of houses in Montclair, Rockridge, and the Berkeley hills, with fire-generated winds up to 50 mph. The fire burned right up to the famed Claremont Hotel, but the crews managed to......

We find this latest spate of murder-suicides (his dentist????) too depressing to go into right now, and the Vitale murder just gets sadder and sadder -- so it's a Friday Blotter of Other Crime. Geraldo Rivera's brother Craig was arrested on a DUI in Walnut Creek. Craig Rivera was working with Mark Furhman on a story for his brother's new show, about the Pamela Vitale murder (of course). A jury sentenced Marques Lott to life in prison for the killing of a college student right outside the Rockridge BART station in 1997. The victim, Lisa Smith, was an English major at St. Mary's who was taking Chinese classes at Berkeley over the summer. Lott, who is schizophrenic, was off his medication and decided to kill someone coming home late at night. ....and care to try J. Lo's Glow? The SF Fire Department was called to Macy's yesterday afternoon after a number of patrons reported "very mild respiratory distress" from a mysterious odor. Macy's claims it wasn't coming from inside the store, but the SFFD couldn't tell either way. ...