Local superstar Gavin Newsom has assembled a crack team of ...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/news/ask-simone http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/news/fat-is-beautiful-activist-marilyn-wann-protests-japan-s-thinness-law It's nearly noon at Revolution Cafe in the Mission when Marilyn Wann begins her official Fat Crane count. "Matilda did ... 34 beautiful fat cranes," she says, sliding the vibrantly colored, folded paper birds into the yellow padded envelope that landed in her mailbox this morning. "We're on our w...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/news/fat-is-beautiful-activist-marilyn-wann-protests-japan-s-thinness-law http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/news/treasure-island-museum-in-witness-protection-program It may sound strange, but both the president and vice president of the Treasure Island Museum are uncertain exactly where their museum is.

Claire Isaacs Wahrhaftig, the president, is pretty sure it's in Building No. 3, one of the island's hulking former airplane hangars. But veep Walt Bil...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/news/treasure-island-museum-in-witness-protection-program http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/news/grand-jury-report-says-no-accounting-for-bad-followthrough What would you call a country in which the government never does what its elected officials tell it to? Where whatever the people want, the gears of bureaucracy keep turning in the same direction without pause? A dictatorship? An oligarchy? Wal-Mart?

Here in San Francisco, we call it "dem...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/news/grand-jury-report-says-no-accounting-for-bad-followthrough http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/news/the-clickable-clit-misadventures-on-okcupid

The Clickable Clit continues this week with more adventures from the personal diary of an SF-biased cybersex expert.

I am determined to have good c...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/news/the-clickable-clit-misadventures-on-okcupid http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/news/sf-weekly-letters No Room for Debate
Those darn kids: I was surprised by the description of the roommate collective in Cole Valley ["Room with a Few," Ashley Harrell, Feature, 8/20]. Not at the phys...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/news/sf-weekly-letters http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/tussle-offers-up-the-cream-of-the-beat Tussle's willingness to break rules isn't the only thing that makes it a bona fide San Francisco band. Although their music could be lumped into the post-techno category, the group's members have become susceptible to this town's lingering psychedelic vibe. After musing about the ways the "colors...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/tussle-offers-up-the-cream-of-the-beat http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/judas-priest-plods-through-history With its fellow Birmingham brethren Black Sabbath, Judas Priest has exerted a powerful influence on modern metal. Among lead singer Rob Halford's operatic falsetto wail, the blazing tandem guitars of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing, and the studs-and-leather look adopted by the group in the late '7...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/judas-priest-plods-through-history http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/love-as-laughter-gets-a-boost-from-modest-mouse Sam Jayne, the architect behind Brooklyn's Love as Laughter, has been toiling away at this rock 'n' roll thing for a long time. The story begins in early-'90s Olympia, Washington, where his noisy and highly influential band, Lync, counted a young Isaac Brock amongst its fans. More than a decade l...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/love-as-laughter-gets-a-boost-from-modest-mouse http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/mix-cd-fans-take-their-hobbies-public-in-bars-and-galleries Despite all the peaking and plummeting of trends in recorded music, compact discs have to stick around for one main reason: mix CDs. Making compilations for friends, crushes, and other peers in music fandom is an obsession that refuses to fall by the wayside, even as the medium has progressed fro...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/mix-cd-fans-take-their-hobbies-public-in-bars-and-galleries http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/the-verve Even in the best of times, the Verve has traveled a rocky path. The Greater Manchester quartet is as renowned for its richly textured stadium-size anthems as it is for its members' bouts with addiction and each other. The on-again, off-again act first bid the world farewell following its turbulen...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/the-verve http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/lee-scratch-perry Onstage and in interviews, Lee "Scratch" Perry's persona is a mix of giddy surrealism, folk wisdom, apocalyptic theology, and simple crudity (fart jokes, raw sex talk). And while there's fun to be had listening to him ramble, when you unpack his riffs, there are deep worries in there — his ...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/lee-scratch-perry http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/shwayze Almost everything you need to know about horny, go-getting Malibu newcomer Shwayze can be gleaned from this line in "Polaroid" on his self-titled debut: "Woke up with a semi-hard dick/In a fat chick/Three this week, call that a hat trick/But everybody know hockey ain't for black kids." Yeah, it's...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/shwayze http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/discord-down-under Melbourne's the Drones are much more turbulent than their moniker suggests. The band steers clear of warmly humming songs, embarking instead on a noisy, energetic amalgam of the styles cultured by fellow countrymen like the Dirty Three and the Birthday Party. Whether frontman Gareth Liddia...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/discord-down-under http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/severe-storm-alert Behold the basic yet mighty power of a monsoon — then add two supersimple guitar riffs, a drenching of sweat, and lots of body hair and you'll become Israel's Monotonix. Using only the most essential elements of '70s rock 'n' roll, this trio's distortion-soaked minimalism is merely a...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/severe-storm-alert http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/expletive-deleted Canada? Really? Scoff if you want, but one of the most crucial, unruly, and unpredictable punk bands on this continent hails from the land of free health care, clean sidewalks, and Celine Dion. That band is — pardon my language — Fucked Up. Fronted by a heavyweight howler calle...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/expletive-deleted http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/fools-and-urinals After forming in 1978, Los Angeles' Urinals perfected the "sound of three people struggling with their instruments," a singular approach that influenced the likes of the Minutemen and Yo La Tengo. The band's brief, monochord blasts of fly-buzz guitar, speedy surf rhythms, and brilliantly m...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/fools-and-urinals http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/dropping-the-h-ipster-bomb The electro scene has always flown its narcissistic fashion flag high, so no one should be surprised that its top DJs have adopted an upscale swankotheque like Vessel. Fortunately, Los Angeles' Guns 'n' Bombs remind you what was cool about electro in the first place — specifically, r...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/dropping-the-h-ipster-bomb http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/the-north-beach-drinking-olympics "You know I avoid the Olympics like the plague," my mom recently wrote in an e-mail, "but you have to see the opening ceremony. It is just amazing, especially all the parts where thousands of people have to act in perfect coordination. I have never seen anything like it." Then she attached a YouT...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/music/the-north-beach-drinking-olympics http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/dining/north-african-modern Sometime between the Summer of Love and Mabuhay Gardens' punkadelic heyday, four Moroccan restaurants of varying quality but almost identical cuisine and ambience opened and flourished in San Francisco. (We were just entering the modern era of Bay Area foodie-ism, and North African cuisine, like ...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/dining/north-african-modern http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/dining/new-restaurants Aroma Tea: 1806 Polk (at Jackson), www.aromateashop.com. Russian Hill. Tea bar.

Baked: 415 18th St. (at Missouri), 826-9455. Potrero Hill. Coffee and pastries.

Basil Canteen: 1489 Folsom (...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/dining/new-restaurants http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/film/spy-vs-why Despite his reputation as that rarest of creatures — a Hollywood intellectual — new evidence suggests that Steve Martin reads ... prepare yourself ... thrillers and spy novels. At least, that's the only conclusion you can draw from the "Story by" credit the comedian receives on Tra...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/film/spy-vs-why http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/film/no-regret No Regret begins as a perceptive glimpse into a specific gay subculture, then descends halfway through into Korean melodrama hell; put both parts together and it's still above the ghettoized-gay-movie par. Su-min (Lee Young-hoon) is a country orphan come to Seoul; fired from his factory jo...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/film/no-regret http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/film/year-of-the-fish Year of the Fish is the kind of really bad movie it takes a lot of misplaced conviction to make. A modern-day fairy tale unwisely told from the perspective of an omniscient, magical fish, David Kaplan's first feature follows Ye Xian (An Nguyen), fresh off the boat and conscripted into an i...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/film/year-of-the-fish http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/film/art-house Castro Theatre. The Little Mermaid singalong: An interactive presentation of the Disney feature, with prizes for costumes. Thursdays, Fridays. Continues through Aug. 28. West Side Story: The best music and choreography to be filmed in this country, maybe ever. Some is even pe...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/film/art-house http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/king-me I Served the King of England is hardly past its prime, and perhaps...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/king-me http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/round-and-round Giro di San Francisco riders take their first corner. Unlike the Tour of California, though, this race is a "criterium," meaning the fierce-looking athletes ride multiple laps on a shorter course — for the ...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/round-and-round http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/auto-immune Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/auto-immune http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/stand-and-deliver Stand-Up Paddleboarding, or SUP, finds itself trendy again. Part of its increasing popularity is that standing upright allows surfers to spot waves more easily and ...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/stand-and-deliver http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/because-you-can-t-wear-a-painting The New Yorker’...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/because-you-can-t-wear-a-painting http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/checking-out-books Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/checking-out-books http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/a-black-and-white-world Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/a-black-and-white-world http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/slow-ride Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/slow-ride http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/the-spirit-catches-you Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/the-spirit-catches-you http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/phoebe-the-smart-kid-sister Phoebe Seligman isn't one of them. Instead, she sees in a young man's photo the subtle tilt of an eyebrow indicating a sensitive nature, s...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/phoebe-the-smart-kid-sister http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/everything-but-thine Pericles is not one of the oft-produced plays in the Shakespeare canon. It has a dingy reputation compared to some of his other works, and scholars argue that parts of it weren’t even written by the Bard. Whoever did write Pericles took a kitchen-sink approach to the plot: ...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/everything-but-thine http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/berthe-mother Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/berthe-mother http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/thank-you-very-much-mister-lobato Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/thank-you-very-much-mister-lobato http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/artsy-crafty Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/calendar/artsy-crafty http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/culture/i-me-media I am here to tell you how to write for Harper's Magazine. Not having done it myself should not be a problem. Any self-respecting and/or self-deluding long-form journalist at least wants to write for Harper's. I will find out how for you from a new anthology of 15 articles fro...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/culture/i-me-media http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-08-27/culture/book-events-in-september Thursday, Sept. 4