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Feature

Heartbreak Hotel

Traveling room to room in the Columbia, a Tenderloin SRO, shows that fixing a building up is one thing. Repairing broken lives is another.

By Ellen McGarrahan

Published: January 24, 1996

Behind the door of Room 213 at the Columbia Hotel, chaos waits. The back wall of the room is gone, blown away in the fire that burned through here 10 months ago. Plaster and wood and metal and...

News

The Laborer-Saving Device

Go Boy is here for your cash and to save your working-stiff ass

By Paul D. Kretkowski

Published: January 24, 1996

Boy sounds pissed -- tired of being ignored, tired of begging, tired of being broke. Might be nice to just go home and rest, quit panhandling for a change. But God has given some orders, and it...

News

Dog Bites

By John Sullivan, George Cothran, Jack Shafer

Published: January 24, 1996

Missing Out in the Mist You're standing in the dense drizzle next to a Muni shelter (An ironic label for a billboard, you think), waiting for the J train. It has been more than half an hour on...

News

In the Land of Tennessee

Tennessee Williams authorized biographer Lyle Leverich on his book and his subject

By Joe Brown

Published: January 24, 1996

His friends called him Tennacity Williams, you know," says Lyle Leverich, who should know. And "tenacity" seems a pretty good term to describe Leverich, too. Tennessee Williams' hand-picked...

Letters

Letters

Published: January 24, 1996

A Neo-Geezer Speaks The paper is improving tremendously, but your Gen-X reporters need to do their historical homework. Robert Wilonsky's claim that Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade "used the...

Music

Night Crawler

By Silke Tudor

Published: January 24, 1996

A group of women dressed in filmy scarves form a loose circle around a whirling, genielike beauty clad in a flowing garment of forest-green silk and glinting gold jewelry. They click their tongues...

Music

Samples

By Silke Tudor

Published: January 24, 1996

Notes From Underground Here today, gone tomorrow. The 16th Note record store on 16th Street near Guerrero lasted just over a year, but owner Karen Carney was not sad to see it go. "I was a...

Music

Recordings

By Tim Kenneally, Sam Prestianni, Zoe Anglesey, Jeff Stark, Spence D.

Published: January 24, 1996

NOFX Heavy Petting Zoo (Epitaph) "There's something grand about being nothing," sings NOFX bassist Fat Mike on "Philthy Phil Philanthropist," concluding, "There's something lame about...

Music

The Great Escape

Blur's class act

By Andrew Goodwin

Published: January 24, 1996

The last time Blur came to town, I inadvertently found myself attending Bimbo's post-gig party. There I stood at the bar, unhappily sandwiched between Blur's Alex James and Graham Coxon, both...

Eat

Dish

By Paul Reidinger

Published: January 24, 1996

Tough Nut to Crack The Acorn, that cozy Folsom Street restaurant with the lush garden and fine California cooking, is no more. Owner Christopher Stellman closed the place at the beginning of...

Eat

Clattering Platters

Bustling and informal, Le Charm is a true French bistro

By Paul Reidinger

Published: January 24, 1996

"This isn't noise!" one of my companions said to me across our table at Le Charm, raising his voice just enough so that I could understand him over the tinkles and scrapes flowing from the nearby...

Film

Shortchanged

Two Bits swindles with syrupy sentimentality; The Convent turns out stone cold

By Paul Reidinger

Published: January 24, 1996

Two Bits hopes to capture the dusty golden glow of a happy memory, but mostly it looks like a TV commercial for Pepsi. This is not surprising: The director, James Foley, has made music videos for...

Night&Day;

Night + Day

By Johnny Ray Huston

Published: January 24, 1996

wednesday january 24 Mr. Mouth Along with Karen Black's amazing cabaret turn, A View of the Heart (which featured a Wagner-esque cover of "Eleanor Rigby"), James Lecesne's Word of Mouth was...

Halloween

Savage Love

Published: January 24, 1996

Hey, Faggot: I am a 36-year-old male, approximately 30 pounds overweight. I have always battled with my weight and have learned to live with the ups and downs. However, no matter how much weight I...

Halloween

$uicide $queeze?

By Jack Shafer

Published: January 24, 1996

Water is flowing uphill. The sun is rising in the west. And the San Francisco Giants are preparing to build a $250 million ballpark on the bay with their own money. The preliminary sketches of...

Halloween

REAL ASTROLOGY For an Unreal World

By Rob Brezsny

Published: January 24, 1996

Aries (March 21-April 19): It'll be a good week to tattle on big bullies who're feigning innocence, or to fight arrogant bozos who think it's cool to scapegoat underdogs, or to outwit manipulative...

Stage

The Lady in Question

Sara Felder's screwball comedy mixes conventions and convictions, with mixed results

By Mari Coates

Published: January 24, 1996

Among the many questions that concern playwright Sara Felder in Theatre Rhinoceros' revival of The Lady Upstairs (directed by Mary Coleman) is: Can you mix screwball comedy and its conventions with...

Stage

Aisle Seat

By Deborah Peifer

Published: January 24, 1996

Gotta Dance When I dream about reincarnation, my chief fantasy is that I can dance, that I can move with grace and sensuality. In this lifetime, I'd love to be able to do a time step (step,...