The Bay Area Hip-Hop Theater Festival kicks off its two-week run of politically-inspired and racially-conscious dramatic and spoken word arts at Berkeley's La Pena Cultural Center at an event featuring the teen poets of Youth Speaks and their Brave New Voices College Tour. $10, 8 p.m., 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley (between Ashby and Alcatraz Aves.) Other events: --A documentary about Patrice Lumumba, an anti-colonialist who became the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of......

Tonight at Biscuits and Blues (401 Mason St.), legendary New Orleans pianist, Henry Butler performs solo piano, combining the classical and jazz elements he absorbed at Louisiana School for the Blind and Southern University with the gospel, blues and R&B sounds he heard growing up in New Orleans. (8pm & 10pm shows) Saturday Grab a boombox and head on over to Mission Dolores Park (18th and Dolores) for Unsilent Night 2006, composer Phil Kline’s annual......

Wow, there's a whole lot of benefits for worthy causes going on this weekend, as well as a head-spinning amount of other stuff to do: Friday that's tonight, and it's the kick-off for Creativity Explored's (3245 16th St. at Guerrero) Annual Holiday Art Sale, a bargain hunter’s paradise of original artwork by artists with developmental disabilities. And it’s all on sale for rock bottom prices – many items as low as $5. Creativity Explored......

Like us, you may have been inundated over the holiday weekend with stories of relatives' vacations and medical maladies or the accomplishments of the person sitting next to you on the plane's prodigious offspring. Tonight, we are looking forward to more interesting narratives: At Femina Potens, (465 South Van Ness @ 16th St) Sarah-Katherine Lewis reads from Indecent: How I Fake It and Make It as a Girl for Hire, a sex-worker memoir. Lewis......

It is kind of silly to assign politics to restaurants or diets. But Cha-Ya, a relatively new Japanese restaurant serving only vegan food, struck us as a magnet for people left of the Kucinic wing of the Democrat party. Maybe Green party supporters or unrepentant Chomskyists. Or just basic wanna-be commune-living combi-driving Berkeleyans, as Cha-Ya is the sister restaurant of the similarly named Shattuck Ave eatery. Of course, this being SF, the place is packed.......

Independent opinion journal The Nation magazine kept us sane through a red state adolescence and early adulthood, and we ripped off opinions from editor Victor S. Navasky on a pathetically pathological basis. Times have changed -- now, we're far more likely to try to pass off the thoughts of Lisa Schwarzbaum as our own, but that doesn't mean our fondness for Navasky has decreased even a whit. That's why we're so happy to see the......

Though we do tire, at times, of the alpha-male genre, few comic books or movies do it with more relish and gusto than Frank Miller's Sin City. So unless you're some kind of sobbing tree-kisser who doesn't like cartoonish violence and macho grandstanding, you'll be glad to hear that Frank Miller is hosting a screening of the film this Sunday at the Act 1&2 in Berkeley. The whole shebang benefits the Comic Book Legal......

Hey -- it's winter; the flu is running rampant, colds abound -- why not give the gift of health? Okay, so it's off the beaten path. But this is EssEff, what would be more appropriate? Vitamin Express is a great place for vitamins (duh), supplements, healthy snacks, lotions, aroma therapy, gum, and more. Why is this one of the best places to shop in SF? Well, it's family owned and operated, there's a wide selection,......