TRIBUTE: Youth Speaks presents its 15th Annual Bringing the Noise for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, a showcase of work by young writers throughout the Bay Area paying tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a real activist and real man, not a martyr or legend. (7 p.m., Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Avenue) more ›

--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) more ›

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 Room (3225 22nd, x Mission). more ›

Aaieeeee!! Just when you thought the Another Hole In The Head Indiefest horror film fest was over and it was safe to go back outside..... NO!!! Local stand-up splatter comics the Primitive Screwheads are presenting their blood-soaked Night of the Living Dead show, that both mocks -- and fears! -- the zombies stalking our land. $21, Doors at 7, show at 8, at the Hole in the Head Playhouse at 1333 Indiana (x 25th, in Dogpatch). Show runs through Saturday. And be warned: do not wear your nice clothes! more ›

A photo of San Francisco's new bandshell under construction in Golden Gate Park. more ›

with readings from the book, music, and a special Bloomsday feast at the Mechanics' Institute. 57 Post Street (x Market), $15, saloon opens 6:30, readings begin at 7:30. more ›

SFist ticket contest to hear Jello Biafra at Great American Music Hall more ›

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.) more ›

It's been forty-nine years of great cinema for the SF International Film Festival (SFIFF), and starting April 26 through May 10 2007, it'll be fifty! more ›

The first time we saw Imogen Heap was at the rodeo on Austin, Texas, about eight years ago when she was touring on her first album I Megaphone (we'd fished the record out the promo box at the used CD store where we worked and fell instantly in love). Performing a short set for a radio event, she sat alone at her piano and sang "Come Here Boy" with a voice that filled up the dirt-filled coliseum. Then she disappeared for four years, eventually reemerging as the voice of Frou Frou, a duo that rarely toured. Thanks to some love from Zach Braff and "The O.C.", her audience continued to grow, but when she recorded her second solo album Speak For Yourself in her London flat in 2004, she still didn't have a record label in the U.S. It's been a steady climb for Immi, so it was a pleasure to see her perform Sunday night to a packed crowd at the Warfield. more ›

If you happen to be walking down the street this week and hear this sonic boom over your head and the street rumble, it's not the Kin Jong Il finally launching one of his Dong Rockets, it's just that time of the year again, Fleet Week. This year featuring, once again, the Blue Angels. more ›

Wednesday's in a stage 2 heat emergency! Tonight: Feeling discombobulated by the big three-oh? The San Francisco Cody's is hosting the Bay Area editor and local contributors from the latest women-telling-it-to-you-straight anthology, The May Queen, featuring women in their 30s reporting about their lives today. The thirtysomething fun starts at 7 p.m. more ›

Who saw Pearl Jam this week? With three sold out shows at Bill Graham Civic Center, at least a few of you must have been there. We braved the packed, sweaty, drunken crowd on Sunday night to remind ourselves why we’re really no fan of large venues. It was hard to see from any vantage point on the floor if you weren’t over six feet tall, and even if you found yourself a decent sight line to the stage, you were inevitably bumped, tripped over or in the worst cases groped every few minutes as people either lumbered toward the stage or away from it. We thought the band’s performance was great; Eddie Vedder has one of the strongest, most distinctive voices of our generation and he sounds fantastic both live and on record. A highlight to the nearly three-hour set was when Eddie and Stone talked about some of the old punk songs they’d been covering because the political messages were still current and meaningful. They called Penelope and Greg up from The Avengers to play their song "The American in Me" with the band. We found this photo of Eddie and Penelope from Phil H's site, but it's also part of the show download from the official Pearl Jam bootleg site. If you went to any of the shows, please tell us about your show experience in the comments! more ›

50 out of 50 Wednesday precincts reporting -- Tonight: Come see newly-anointed state assembly representative Fiona Ma, along with DA Kamala Harris, performing at the SF Black Film Festival's Urban Slam spoken word event tonight, at the Theater Artaud. My name is Fiona/ Janet Reilly is bologna..... The Urban Slam starts around 8:15, after the 6:00 p.m. screening of the movie Sp!t, a documentary about the hip-hop poetry slam scene. $10 for the movie, $10 for the slam. Theater Artaud is at 450 Florida (x Mariposa). Tickets here. Thursday: Screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, who wrote that Sean Penn movie "21 Grams", will be at the Balboa for the 7:00 p.m. screening of "The 3 Burials of Melquidas Estrada," for which he won the Palme D'Or last year. Arriaga will be signing copies of his book The Night Buffalo starting at 6, and at 7, he'll be leading a discussion about screenwriting tips. The Balboa's at Balboa and 38th Ave. and Friday: Shoo-be-doo-waaaaaah -- the Pacific Mozart Ensemble presents an evening of a capella jazz and pop songs at the Green Room in the War Memorial Building on 401 Van Ness. $20. Finger-snapping is always our favorite. Download musical excerpts here. more ›

Wednesday has 100 gmail invitations left! Tonight: Former SF firefighter Caroline Paul reads from her first novel, East Wind, Rain (about 1940s Hawaii), at Clean Well-Lighted. Paul wrote an acclaimed memoir of her time in the SFFD, called Fighting Fire, but what's also notable is that her identical twin sister is the actress Alexandra Paul from Baywatch. (Caroline is the Gay Twin in the picture to your right.) Thursday: We're never going to be done celebrating the 1906 quake! The Exploratorium and the SF Arts Commission are presenting a spoken word event with WritersCorp youth poets from Everett Middle School, who will read from their new collection Solid Ground, and create interactive poetry with the audience. 6-8 p.m., $13 adults, $10 students, $8 kids from 4-12. and Friday: It's not just Lotta's Fountain's centennial -- it's Samuel Beckett's too! Celebrate a century of cheerful Irish nihilism with the ACT and the Commonwealth Club as scholars discuss his work and then actors read some of Beckett's greatest hits. (Will Godot ever show up?) The big one-oh-oh kicks off at 5:30 at 415 Geary Street, and admission is free. more ›

What a friend we have in Wednesdays! Today: You've always wanted to be in movies, we can totally tell. Well, stop by the DeYoung and get interviewed by film artist Lise Swenson about the new museum. Swenson's putting together a multimedia installation about citizens' perspectives on art museums as civic institutions. Interviews run from 1 to 5, and her documentary screens at 1:30 and 2:30. You've always wanted to be shown in museums! Thursday: Stop by the SF Zoo at 11 a.m. and watch them feed the turkeys -- before you go home and let your friends and relatives feed the turkeys to you. Bourbon red turkey Ben and his adoring throng of lady turkeys will be dining on mealworms and crickets. While you're there, stop by and check out the new reindeer too. Friday: Throw out that free MUNI transfer to Powell Street and spend the day after Thanksgiving at Artists Television Access celebrating Buy Nothing Day. ATA's showing anti-consumerist films and parody ads, along with art installations, spoken word, and musical performances by The Middleclass Assassins and I will kill you f***er. Show starts at 8. The crowds at H&M are gonna be nuts anyways. more ›

Everyone seems to describe spoken word artist and writer/poet Beth Lisick as "fizzy" -- but she really is! City Lights was packed to the gills with Missionistas who walked up Columbus from the Montgomery BART/MUNI stop, eager to send Ms. Lisick off in style for the first stop on her book tour. City Lights generously sprung for champagne, wine, and foccacia, but we were too worried about losing our seat to actually get any. Beth Lisick's new book, Everyone into the Pool is a collection of personal essays from childhood to 16th and Mission and onto motherhood, about "turning out too weird to fit into the mainstream world... but being too normal for the fringe." So, you know, essays about diligently attempting to be bisexual, the humiliation of SuperShuttle dropping you off on a crack block, dressing up like a banana for the Fruit Guys -- you know, living in San Francisco. It got an A from Entertainment Weekly! What it was like writing The Buzz Life SFGate column, after the jump. more ›

Like Yoga? Like Cycling? Want to support a good cause? Do all three by dropping in on Friend of SFist Tony Eason's benefit classes at Satori Yoga Studio. An expert on yoga for cyclists, and a LifeCycle veteran, Tony will be holding session from 6:30 to 8:00 tonight, with donations going to support his pledge for the AIDS LifeCycle ride. If you can't do it this Friday, drop by next Friday for a special session just for cyclists that will include a bike fitting and special tips. more ›

'Membuh tonight and tomorrow at the ODC Theater. more ›

Get together for drinks and lit at the Makeout Room this Saturday. more ›

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. more ›