Try drowning Dave Eggers, Michelle Tea, Stephen Elliott, Beth Lisick, Barb Bersche, Eileen Hassi, or 826 Program Director Erin Neeley, via a dunking booth, this Sunday afternoon at the first 8/26 Day Festival. The literary bash will feature live performances, cartooning, Everett Middle School's dance troupe, readings, local writers (pardon me, novelists), paper flower making, haiku writing, bon mots flying to and fro, and much, much, much more. The festivities go from 1 p.m.......

A passel of literary events tonight: LitPAC & Laughing Liberally Lab-SF Present a benefit for Slain Iraqi Comedian Walid Hassan featuring renowned writers Daniel Handler of Lemony Snicket, Andrew Sean Greer of Confessions of Max Tivoli, Michelle Tea of Valencia and Rent Girl, plus comedians, Joe Klocek, Sal Calanni of sketch group Tossing Alice, Ali Mafi of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, Samantha Chanse, Kurt Weitzmann and more. The benefit will be hosted......

We're heading down to the Make Out Room (3225 22nd St. b/w Mission and Valencia) tonight for LitPAC and LitQuake's Progressive Reading Series featuring Dave Eggers, Keith Knight, Mary Roach (author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers), and more, hosted by Stephen Elliott author of Looking Forward To It: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the American Electoral Process. This is the last of this year's series of monthly......

Tonight: We're running just down the street to Borders Books and Music (200 King Street at 3rd) for Making It: Writers on the Verge. Brought to us by our pals at Friends of the SF Public Library this event features Beth Lisick, Michelle Tea, and Stephen Elliott with moderator Oscar Villalon (SF Chronicle book editor) discussing how they started out and how they sustain their work. And it's free! Saturday: We're headed down to......

With Dr. Hunter S. Thompson moving on to bigger and better things, writers, critics, stoners and other hangers-on are organizing tributes around the country and around the world. But we have a feeling that the only one Hunter himself would have attended would be right here in San Francisco at the Edinburgh Castle Pub. Sure, Jahn Wenner will probably throw some blockbuster event full of literary luminaries in New York, but we all know......

Way back in the day, we were fairly convinced that the Smashing Pumpkins were going to be the new Led Zeppelin. They were tripped out, looked great in velvet, and frickin’ rocked. In fact, we still occasionally put on our old casette of “Gish” and do some serious head-banging. We thought “Siamese Dreams” was cool if a bit over-done and thought “Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” was mighty impressive if a bit too long.......

Sfist loves doing things for the good of humankind. We also love to drink. So we plan on attending a MoveOn.org fundraiser, for John Kerry, next week at The Make-Out Room. The FUNdraiser will be hosted by authors Stephen Elliott and Peter Orner, with appearances by authors such as Tobias Wolff, and Mr. Mark Eitzel, of American Music Club fame. The party takes place on Monday, August 9th at 7:30 pm. Admission is on a $10-$20 sliding scale; if you are at all paying for muni rides with your saved nickels (like we are), this is good news. We know a lot of you have been waiting to pitch in for Kerry. Here's your chance to do that, mingle, AND have a few beers!...