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Feature

Safety Zone

By Liza Goodwin

Published: December 20, 1995

When Phoenix-based Huber, Hunt & Nichols won the $244 million City Hall seismic retrofit contract, the general contractor also won something else: the obligation to comply with no less than 19...

Feature

Dome and Dumber

Q: How's it possible to spend $244 million to renovate one city building? A: Do the words "toilet partition metal head assembly" mean anything to you?

By Ellen McGarrahan

Published: December 20, 1995

of $44 million will go for design and management for the seismic retrofit and the Prop. A work. Much of that money goes to outside consultants. But not all of it. Some makes its way back into the...

Feature

Minority Report

By Ellen McGarrahan

Published: December 20, 1995

In San Francisco, nondiscrimination is more than just a good idea. It's the law. But as the City Hall retrofit project shows, enforcing the law isn't always as straightforward as it might...

News

Sudden Death

Needle-exchange pioneer John Watters' interrupted journey

By Paul D. Kretkowski

Published: December 20, 1995

CSF psychologist John Watters was something of a hero to people who didn't even know his name. His scholarship on injecting drug users (IDUs) changed -- maybe even saved -- many of their lives....

News

Dog Bites

By Jorge Aquino, Amy Linn, John Sullivan

Published: December 20, 1995

Delay of Game For decades, tenants of San Francisco's projects have complained about everything from broken ceilings, bad plumbing, and rotten wiring to the shootings and rapes the Housing...

News

Chatterbox

Published: December 20, 1995

This just in from the San Francisco Republican Party Central Committee: "Willie Brown did not receive a mandate on Election Day" because 43 percent of the voting electorate cast ballots against...

News

Picture This

A photography exhibit at the S.F. Art Institute sparks a censorship debate

By Jeff Stark

Published: December 20, 1995

Art student Pamela Buchwald was looking for a reaction with the 10 self-portraits she shot for an exhibit at the San Francisco Art Institute's Diego Rivera Gallery. She photographed her own butt...

News

The Supes List

Published: December 20, 1995

Fifty-seven potential candidates, 14 active candidates, and rising ... Deep Tout, a San Francisco political devotee who craves publicity and anonymity in equal portions, maintains a frequently...

Letters

Letters

Published: December 20, 1995

Whose Call Is It? Regarding "Calling It Rape" (Dec. 13): As I was reading the story, I thought, Wow, what a woman! She's telling everyone the real name and location of the guy who raped her 22...

Music

Samples

By Silke Tudor, Sia Michel

Published: December 20, 1995

On Broadway Despite the dangers of entering an oversaturated jazz club market, Max Young, owner of the Desert Moon and Blue's, and his brother Sam have shown much savvy with the opening of Max...

Music

Night Crawler

By Silke Tudor

Published: December 20, 1995

"How do you miss a gang of a hundred marauding Santas?" my photographer asks incredulously as we circle Union Square on his motorcycle. We've received an anonymous tip about the second annual Santa...

Music

Recordings

By Silke Tudor, Aidin Vaziri, Josh Wilson, D. Strauss, J. Poet

Published: December 20, 1995

Various Artists American Rumble Volume One (Schizmatic) Cashing in on the second coming of rockabilly, American Rumble is a neobilly primer, a must-have for any real gone guy or...

Music

Dub Warriors

Macro Dub Infection relays a genre where nothing is true, and everything is permitted

By Christopher Porter

Published: December 20, 1995

At the millennium, if musical scholars convene to discuss the past hundred years, they'll be faced with the most turbulent and ebullient period in history. From Stravinsky's rhythmical advances in...

Eat

Dish

By Paul Reidinger

Published: December 20, 1995

Casing the Joint Patrons of the Saturday farmers market at Ferry Plaza may have noticed that the Gingrass Charcuterie stall has been replaced by Gingrass Family Sausages. The Gingrasses are...

Eat

Globe-Trotter

Carta proposes a different cuisine every month

By Paul Reidinger

Published: December 20, 1995

Carta is the restaurant equivalent of a multiple personality. On the first Tuesday of every month, the place starts turning out dishes from another of the world's cuisines; maybe that's why the...

Film

Gothic Fun House

The City of Lost Children is a dark paradise of visual wonders -- but not much else

By Paul Reidinger

Published: December 20, 1995

The City of Lost Children has the darkly narcotic beauty of a dream that's melting into nightmare, and like most dreams it doesn't make much sense. The filmmakers, artistic director Marc Caro and...

Film

Delusion = Death

Shanghai Triad shows the fatal fallacy in ignoring reality

By Daniel Mangin

Published: December 20, 1995

As a gangster's double cross disintegrates before his eyes, his victorious adversary in Shanghai Triad asks another of the film's principals, "Now do you see?" This last character is one of several...

Night&Day;

Night+Day

By Johnny Ray Huston

Published: December 20, 1995

wednesday december 20 Meet the Beatles ... Again In case you've spent the past month on Pluto, there was another Fab Four revival recently, with TV specials, a new double LP of rare and...

Halloween

REAL ASTROLOGY For an Unreal World

By Rob Brezsny

Published: December 20, 1995

Aries (March 21-April 19): I want to express my admiration for the adventures you've risked in 1995. You've had a sixth sense about when it's best to ignore all the "No Trespassing" signs. And yet...

Halloween

Slap Shots

By Jack Boulware

Published: December 20, 1995

DDIY Italy has discovered its newest star -- Joan Ellis. You haven't heard of her? You are out of the loop, my friends, because Joan Ellis is it. She's captured the imagination of an entire...