...and by trouble, we don't mean the help. [rimshot] Leona Helmsley left $12 Million to her adorable pooch, Trouble (cute name). However, two of her four grandchildren get nada. Sounds like the Queen of Mean is still working her evil magic from her posh stained-glassed mausoleum. Nice. Sadly, this reminds us of Sean Wilsey's exquisitely penned memior, Oh the Glory of It All. For more info on Helmsley's will, go here.......

SFist Rita is out of town for work, so we are donning our tiara and gown for this weeks Swells analysis. Tra-la-la! Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 57. Total number of people pictured whom we recognize/know: 23. This high number is because of the SF Library event with lots of writers, including Amy Tan, Vendela Vida, Dave Eggers, Stephen Elliot, Ben Fong-Torres, Michael Lewis, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Sam Barry,......

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......

SFist Ced graciously allowed us to take a small break from weekly-reading and political-junkie-ing for a lovely evening out at the Opera -- thanks, Ced! The few times we've gone to the opera previously, we've only been able to afford the seats that are so high up in the building that Jon Krakauer is writing a book about our trek up the stairs (contrary to the rumors, we were not short-roped) -- what a treat to be down on the main floor where the oxygen is so thick and water boils at the regular 212 degrees Fahrenheit! It's a totally different scene on the first floor -- the lines for the bathroom are shorter, women wear sparklier dresses, and -- who knew? -- there's a cafe in the basement! We looked for Sean Wilsey's stepmother in the audience but the program said that she usually sits in Box O on the second floor. Rodelinda is a Baroque-era opera written in 1725 by George Friederic Handel (you may remember him from such hits as The Hallelujah Chorus). Rodelinda is the queen of Naples, who has just been told that her husband, King Bertario, has been found dead. Bertario's rival, Duke Grimoaldo, will take the throne in his place. Turns out Grimoaldo's been in love with Rodelinda for years (despite being engaged to Bertario's sister Eduige) and threatens to kill Rodelinda's son Flavio if she doesn't agree to marry him. Tough breaks! Making things more complicated, Bertario's not actually dead, he's just escaped back into the kingdom. Will Rodelinda marry Grimoaldo to save her child? What about Bertario's kingdom? And why is the sinister bass singer named Garibaldo always lurking around? The Opera also made one of those "controversial" moves in the operatic community, and decided to shift the setting of Rodelinda from 18th century Italy to the 1940s, and designed the sets with a modernist, film noir-type feel instead. So instead of the usual (faux-)ermine robes and scepters you think of when you think of Baroque opera, the women wore snazzy vintage suits and the men wore bow ties and tuxes. And the "kingdom" consisted of city buildings and bridge underpasses, instead of the usual moats and turrets you'd expect. After the jump: a mezzo writhing on the floor, molls and gangsters, and -- was that booing we heard when the set designers took a bow? Picture from the SF Opera...

We were finally coming to terms with the fact that we're cheap bastards who are breaking the library and the publishing industry at the same time, when friend of SFist Christine let us know that she's finally getting the Sean Wilsey book she's had in her reserve line forever! We're both hoping that this means that folks are taking their online reserve list a little more seriously and are only reserving stuff that they're......

As regular readers of this column know, this is the little intro section where we talk about using the San Francisco Public Library's online reserve system, but our dear Friend of SFist Christine gave us an important message to pass on to all of you. Our regular book discussion can be found upon expansion, but for now please give all your attention to Christine, and follow her bidding: Due to your numerous mentions of......

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 ...