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Feature

Planet Wars

Last year, two Bay Area astronomers said they had discovered planets outside our solar system and became instant media celebrities. Now, Paul Butler and Geoff Marcy face prominent scientific challengers who contend some of the new planets are nothing but

By Matt Smith

Published: July 2, 1997

Superstars of the Universe Paul Butler leans his gangling 6-foot-2 frame into a tiny office chair, sweeps the back of his hand toward the fuzzy ball of light on a nearby video screen, and...

Letters

Letters

Published: July 2, 1997

Cronkite and Murrow Are Still Safe I have enjoyed reading SF Weekly. But now I have to wonder about the accuracy of everything I've read in the past. Your article on the murder of Carmel...

News

Mosquito Coast

On the trail of Culex pipiens

By Tara Shioya

Published: July 2, 1997

A green Alameda County pickup truck stops outside Urban Ore, the gentrified junkyard in the Berkeley flats, on a recent weekday afternoon. The driver, a 30-ish woman in white work coveralls and...

Music

Get It While You Can

Jerry Ragavoy and the ghost of Janis Joplin

By Robert Meyerowitz

Published: July 2, 1997

The new collection Songs of Janis Joplin: Blues Down Deep is merely the latest in a series of outrages foisted upon a gullible public by the House of Blues, a nightclub chain and music label that...

Music

Barely a Ripple

How bad management made a mess of Making Waves '97

By Sam Prestianni

Published: July 2, 1997

The colossal foam heads of the absurdist band Idiot Flesh loom in the shadows of Embarcadero high-rises. Halloween magic erupts from the stage as the night engulfs the longest sun of the year....

Music

Riff Raff

By Robert Arriaga, Michael Batty, Johnny DiPaola, Karl D. Esturbense, Jeff Stark, Silke Tudor, Bill Wyman

Published: July 2, 1997

Kinetics Kop Krackerite Three Thursdays ago, at one of the Kinetics' regularly packed shows, at Bruno's, a promising future began to unfold for the band that was born out of the long-lost Loved...

Music

Racket

By Andi Zeisler

Published: July 2, 1997

Julia Sweeney begins her monologue God Said Ha! by 'fessing right up to why she's an actress: She craves attention. As one of those people who tends to go ignored in daily life, she's subject to...

Music

Night Crawler

By Silke Tudor

Published: July 2, 1997

I'm as guilty as anyone. I decided early on in my life that I would never again live in a city that didn't have a gay population formidable enough to be a primary voting demographic. This was more...

Music

The House of Tudor

By Silke Tudor

Published: July 2, 1997

Just as Hunter S. Thompson had his Dr. Gonzo, Jack Kerouac had his Neal Cassady. (Well, actually, Dr. Gonzo wasn't real, but that never stopped Thompson.) The film The Last Time I Committed Suicide...

Eat

Carnaval Cruise

By Naomi Wise

Published: July 2, 1997

All that hot weather and samba in the streets at San Francisco Carnaval last month put me in the mood for a cruise to Bahia. Instead, I settled for a cruise through the local Brazilian eateries....

Film

Hommes en Noir: Film Blanc

By Michael Sragow

Published: July 2, 1997

Men in Black Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. Screenplay by Ed Solomon, from the comic book by Lowell Cunningham. Starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. Opens Wednesday at area theaters. One...

Film

Ragin' Reggae

By Michael Sragow

Published: July 2, 1997

The Harder They Come Directed by Perry Henzell. Written by Henzell and Trevor D. Rhone. Starring Jimmy Cliff. At the Castro, July 2-8. The Harder They Come premiered at Los Angeles' Filmex in...

Film

Second Time Around

By Gregg Rickman

Published: July 2, 1997

Why Did Herr F. Run Amok? Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the prolific and profligate German filmmaker who died in 1982 after having logged just about as many films as years he was alive (37), began...

Night&Day;

Night+Day

By Heather Wisner

Published: July 2, 1997

wednesday july 2 Burning Rubber Americans are still unclear on how to negotiate traffic circles (and around these parts, red lights mean nothing so much as full-speed ahead), but we love...

Halloween

Savage Love

Published: July 2, 1997

Hey, Faggot: A friend of mine has developed a sort of vibrator phobia. She read about some doctor who claimed that vibrator use has been linked to urinary incontinence in women due to electrical...

Halloween

REAL ASTROLOGY For an Unreal World

By Rob Brezsny

Published: July 2, 1997

Aries (March 21-April 19): Don't feel guilty if you decide against carrying out this week's assignment. The kind of heroic introspection I have in mind is a luxury that may only be available to a...

Halloween

Unspun

By Phyllis Orrick

Published: July 2, 1997

More Howard Stern The San Francisco radio market is the most volatile it's been in years. Stations are changing owners and formats at such a rapid clip that many observers -- including many...

Halloween

Slap Shots

By Jack Boulware

Published: July 2, 1997

Fare Thee Well, Gentle Might Publishing circles are abuzz over the newest press release from Might magazine, co-edited since its inception by Smarter Feller! comic artist Dave Eggers. In a...

Stage

Stage

By Michael Scott Moore, Julie Chase

Published: July 2, 1997

Death the Jester Memento Mori. By Chrystene Ells. Directed by Roberto G. Varea. Starring Ells, Lorna Aquino Chui, and Mark Hidzick. At Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St., through July 5. Call...