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Feature

Ol' Blue Screen

New software lets anyone sing like Sinatra or compose like Mahler. But do we really want computers that make country-and- western stars croon on key?

By Matt Smith

Published: October 21, 1998

As Greg Tomassian, lead singer of Soul Candy, steps onto the slate-black auditorium stage, the din of the crowd sweeps over him like a warm tide. When he snaps his microphone off its stand and...

News

Dog Bites

By Laurel Wellman

Published: October 21, 1998

Papering the Town The local office of the Rainforest Action Network bombarded Bay Area media with press releases last week, urging all of us to boycott Home Depot because the chain sells...

News

How to Pie

Seven steps to ephemeral pastry fame

By Jack Boulware

Published: October 21, 1998

Last week, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman exited a conference on education at the Marriott Hotel, a man mashed a coconut cream pie into Friedman's face. Environmental activist Al...

News

Capitalizing on Y2K

Computers won't know what to do when 1999 becomes 2000; but lawyers and other profit-seekers will

By Joel P. Engardio

Published: October 21, 1998

After Dick Clark catches his breath from counting down the last seconds of this millennium, he is speechless in the next when the portable klieg lights that illuminate his rooftop broadcast booth...

Letters

Letters

Published: October 21, 1998

Surf City, Here We Come Pretty good story ("The Selling of a Wave," Oct. 14). But Jeff Clark could not have seen the outcome of revealing the spot. Commercialization was inevitable, especially...

Music

House of Tudor

By Silke Tudor

Published: October 21, 1998

For over six months, multimedia artist NG Yrizarry and his roommate, potter and jewelry maker William Richard Kuchler, have lived without heat or electricity. They have waded through a bog of...

Music

Riff Raff

By Robert Arriaga, Johnny DiPaola, Jeff Stark, Silke Tudor, Heather Wisner

Published: October 21, 1998

The Many Faces of essence Dear Riff Raff Readers: We recently realized that, for the first time ever, we had been holding out on you, hoarding precious materials for ourselves like selfish teen-age...

Music

Reviews

By Dave Clifford, Sam Prestianni, Melissa Piazza

Published: October 21, 1998

The Murder City Devils Empty Bottles, Broken Hearts (Sub Pop) Sunny Day Real Estate How It Feels to Be Something On (Sub Pop) What is it with guys and their feelings these days?...

Music

Hear This

By Robert Arriaga

Published: October 21, 1998

Ill Repute, Agent Orange, SNFU Eighties punk is not dead. Like random lineages through the Great Plague, a few bands survived through the dark early 1990s, maintaining a link to the famed...

Music

Into the Groovy

By Will Hermes

Published: October 21, 1998

Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture By Simon Reynolds (Little, Brown) Let me begin by stating that I have seen Simon Reynolds do the...

Music

Hear This

By Sam Prestianni

Published: October 21, 1998

Anonymous 4 Anonymous 4 is one of a handful of peculiar a cappella groups to top the Billboard classical chart in the past decade by making the church palatable for the spiritually bereft...

Music

Wammies Winners

Published: October 21, 1998

Americana/Roots The Eric McFadden Experience Hard Rock Old Grandad Hip Hop/Turntablist Invisibl Skratch Piklz International Omar Sosa Jazz/Swing Lee Press-On & the Nails...

Eat

Inner Sunset Wholesome

By Naomi Wise

Published: October 21, 1998

Park Chow 1240 Ninth Ave. (at Lincoln), 665-9912. Open daily 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., until midnight Friday and Saturday. Brunch is served Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The...

Film

Reel World

By Michael Fox

Published: October 21, 1998

Two Thousand Maniacs! It's some kind of travesty -- if not a tragedy -- when a visiting film legend is completely ignored in cinema-crazy San Francisco. Ignored by everyone but Reel World,...

Film

The Devil Made Him Do It

By Joe Mader

Published: October 21, 1998

Apt Pupil Directed by Bryan Singer. Written by Brandon Boyce, from the novella by Stephen King. Starring Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro. Opens Friday, Oct. 23, at the Century Plaza, the AMC 1000...

Film

Un-Happiness

By Gregg Rickman

Published: October 21, 1998

Happiness Written and directed by Todd Solondz. Starring Jon Lovitz, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Dylan Baker. Opens Friday, Oct. 23, at the Bridge. Sartre's No Exit done over in suburban pastels,...

Night&Day;

Flights of Fancy

By Heather Wisner

Published: October 21, 1998

Brian Eno's Music for Airports unfurls slooowly, the way the neon-lit motorized walkway at Chicago's O'Hare Airport does after a red-eye flight on Vicodin. Back in 1978, Eno created the walkway's...

Halloween

Night Crawler

By Silke Tudor

Published: October 21, 1998

Twenty Reasons SF Weekly's Ninth Annual Wammies Music Awards Were Just Like Any Other San Francisco Night 1) Outside Bimbo's 365 Club, an artcar created by Harrod Blank blares music for folks in...

Night&Day;

Night + Day

By Heather Wisner

Published: October 21, 1998

Wednesday October 21 Skid Marks on My Heart It's purely coincidence that country crooner Neko Case shares a birthday (Sept. 8) and birthplace (Virginia) with the late Patsy Cline, but...

Night&Day;

Cothran

By George Cothran

Published: October 21, 1998

Jurisprotuberance A few months back, some friends and I were having some beers at Kate O'Brien's on Howard Street, and we couldn't stop staring at the cop at the bar smoking and drinking on...