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Feature

The Parking Police Academy

How regular folks learn the thankless, sometimes dangerous, metier of meter monitoring

By Jeff Stark

Published: November 20, 1996

"This is where you will spend the next two weeks of your life," the blue-shirted Jeanie Slominski tells her new class of 10 recruits. "It is not a nice place. It is not a comfortable place."...

Letters

Letters

Published: November 20, 1996

Piedmont Rhapsody The recent "Ultimate Guide to Bay Area Filmgoing" (Nov. 6) describes our theater as "typically efficient" and concludes with a "Yawn." Such remarks grossly underestimate the...

News

Turkey Jerking

How poultry breeders have given new meaning to the phrase "bird lover"

By Tara Shioya

Published: November 20, 1996

It's a story of big breasts, heavy petting, and weird science. More simply put, it's the story of the Thanksgiving turkey -- that plump, juicy bird so many will feast on in a few short days....

Music

Recordings

By Curtis Bonney, Martin Johnson, Michael Batty

Published: November 20, 1996

Rig Rock Deluxe: A Musical Salute to the American Truck Driver (Upstart/Diesel Only) One has to wonder who the intended audience is for a trucker song: us general Joes with soft spots...

Music

Hype! Dreams

A conversation with the Seattle scene's chroniclers

By Jeff Stark

Published: November 20, 1996

In 1992, producer Steve Helvey approached filmmaker Doug Pray about documenting the Seattle music scene. Pray thought it a terrible idea. Anyone who followed the rumblings in the Pacific Northwest,...

Music

Hear This

By James Sullivan

Published: November 20, 1996

Come/Railroad Jerk/Skeleton Key Here's an unusually solid triple bill, one with more parallels than most. In Skeleton Key, percussionist Rick Lee hits an assortment of metallic junk with...

Music

The House of Tudor

By Silke Tudor

Published: November 20, 1996

In 1990, Diamanda Galas presented her acclaimed requiem for the sufferers of AIDS, Masque of the Red Death Plague Mass. In 1992, she followed with the companion piece, Vena Cava, which explored...

Music

Hear This

By Sam Prestianni

Published: November 20, 1996

Miya Masaoka She's improvised with bees and let giant cockroaches creep across her naked flesh. Early next year she plans to "illuminate the commodification of eroticism/the body and music in...

Music

Hear This

By Sam Prestianni

Published: November 20, 1996

Miss Murgatroid Hellbent on retooling the nerdy reps of the much-maligned squeeze-box and its practitioners, pseudonymous accordionist Miss Murgatroid (aka Alicia J. Rose, former booking maven...

Music

Cash Rehash

By Jeff Stark

Published: November 20, 1996

Johnny Cash, June Carter, The Mother Hips At the Fillmore, Saturday, Nov. 9. The Man in Black wore black, and the rest of the night was equally surprising. That's not to say that Johnny Cash was...

Music

Beer-Soaked Lambs

Hype! surpasses its title

By Sarah Vowell

Published: November 20, 1996

The week before the election, I spoke to a friend who had just returned from Kansas -- Lawrence, not Russell -- where he and his wife were invited to the house of America's crank laureate. He says...

Music

Suspicious Minds

By Sarah Vowell

Published: November 20, 1996

There are two adjoining rooms I've grown to love in a house in another city where friendship and music cannot be separated from each other. A table greedily takes up most of the space in one, and...

Eat

Dish

By Paul Reidinger

Published: November 20, 1996

The Friendly Skies Flying Kamikazes, the rock 'n' roll sushi joint in the Marina that lost its name in a fight with Kamikaze Sushi of San Rafael, has taken to the air again as Ace Wasabi's. The...

Eat

That's a Wrap

At Fresca, the joy of roast chicken, and the world in a tortilla

By Paul Reidinger

Published: November 20, 1996

Imagine a fugitive liaison between Boston Market and World Wrapps: Roast chicken (with two side dishes) meets a world of cuisines folded in brightly colored tortillas. Their love child might easily...

Film

Zoom Lens

By Michael Sragow

Published: November 20, 1996

The Club Foot Orchestra Eleven San Francisco-based musicians known as the Club Foot Orchestra have made a specialty of steaming away the mustiness that can settle on revered old movies. They...

Film

Zoom Lens

By Gregg Rickman

Published: November 20, 1996

"N.I.C.E. '96" New Italian Cinema Events is a nearly 20-year-old happening making its first visit to S.F. Seven new Italian films, directed by seven new Italian filmmakers, are being presented...

Film

Fools for Love

By Michael Sragow

Published: November 20, 1996

The English Patient Directed and written by Anthony Minghella, from the novel by Michael Ondaatje. Starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Kristin Scott Thomas, Willem Dafoe, and Naveen...

Film

Second Time Around

By Michael Sragow

Published: November 20, 1996

Point Blank With a rugged but never hulking torso, a shock of white hair, and a slablike face marked by a mashed nose and piercing eyes, Lee Marvin was a startling, wired big-screen presence....

Film

Second Time Around

By Gary Morris

Published: November 20, 1996

"A Salute to Dean Martin!" This double bill is being touted as a tribute to "lounge culture," aka the "three V's": Vegas, vodka, and velour. The problem with enshrining Dean Martin in the...

Night&Day;

Night+Day

By Heather Wisner

Published: November 20, 1996

wednesday november 20 Mission: Possible One week can make all the difference in the world, if what happened to author Victor Martinez is any indication. Just six people showed up for his...