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Spiritual CULTivation

In China, Falun Gong practitioners are beaten and persecuted, so the U.S. is granting them asylum. But is this movement as harmless as it seems?

By Joel P. Engardio

Published: March 15, 2000

Meeting Jenny Lian for the first time, Chung Phang was struck by her warm smile and gentle demeanor. The attorney wondered what had compelled his client to flee her home in China, leaving her...

Dog Bites

Dog Bites

Planetary alignment, book proposals, and parking speculation

As told to Laurel Wellman

Published: March 15, 2000

Spring Is Here! Spring Is Here! Wandering through Hayes Valley, enjoying the warmth, sunshine, and window-shopping possibilities -- OK, we may have tried a few things on -- Dog Bites was...

Bay View

Closed Shop

Organizer out of work after bucking SEIU 790's Willie Brown lovefest

By Matt Isaacs

Published: March 15, 2000

Criss Romero suspected he might ruffle some feathers around the union hall when he went to work for Tom Ammiano's mayoral campaign last November, but he didn't think he would lose his job. When...

World Series

If They Could See Us Now

Our fashion editor's dispatch from the Vividence coming out ball

Matt Smith

Published: March 15, 2000

The party faithful were out in force leap night, noshing and joshing and just plain reveling in this wonderland we call Webopolis. The Place: San Francisco's Exploratorium. The Occasion: a...

Music

Hippie Chic

Foxgluv's emergence on the rave scene has been a series of happy accidents and absurd coincidences

By Darren Keast

Published: March 15, 2000

Arranging the sights, sounds, memories, details, connections, and synchronicities that revolve around Foxgluv into a story is like interpreting a riddle. Asking more questions and following...

Music

Making Up Their Minds

S.F.'s Other Minds Festival continues to blur the boundaries of modern composition

By Stacey Kors

Published: March 15, 2000

People consider that composers are, for the most part, dead," says New York composer/performer Annie Gosfield. "So the fact that festivals give people the opportunity to see that composers are in...

Riff Raff

Riff Raff

Street Hassles

By Mark Athitakis

Published: March 15, 2000

Street Hassles Most musicians -- or even music fans -- don't read the Wall Street Journal regularly, but perhaps they should. The March 2 edition of the paper featured a front-page story...

Record

Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd

Monk's Dream

By David Cook

Published: March 15, 2000

Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd Monk's Dream (Verve) Forty years ago, Thelonious Monk went to New York's 5 Spot club to hear a young soprano saxophone player named Steve Lacy; a few...

Record

Fiona Apple

When the Pawn...

By Sam Prestianni

Published: March 15, 2000

Fiona Apple When the Pawn... (Clean Slate/Epic) Committing to a fledgling pop star is a lot like establishing trust and intimacy with a new lover. How many times have we been jilted when...

House of Tudor

House Of Tudor

Ledenhed, Big Lou's Polka Casserole, "Revealing Bodies," Wisecräcker,

By Silke Tudor

Published: March 15, 2000

"If I strangle all my fears for you," sings Ledenhed in a halting but crystalline voice, "would you give me something else to do?" Faint washes of synth and a simple, delicate, obsessive guitar...

Hear This

Hear This

Adam Lane's Full Throttle Orchestra

By Sam Prestianni

Published: March 15, 2000

Adam Lane's Full Throttle Orchestra Everything (and nothing) about Adam Lane's debut album Hollywood Wedding evokes the spirit of composer/bassist Charles Mingus. From the super-tight, soulful...

Eat

Hog Heaven

By Matthew Stafford

Published: March 15, 2000

There's an old joke about a GI who was stuck in an Italian prison camp for two years: "Well, at least he ate well." The punch line doesn't work if you substitute any other national adjective for...

Eat

Voilà! Viola.

By Paul Adams

Published: March 15, 2000

Bistro Viola is the kind of bistro you wish were right on your block. Of course, if you do happen to live by Bistro Viola, you're doing pretty well: You probably get your bread fresh at Acme and...

Side Dish

Side Dish

From the Bleachers, The Great Debate, Star-ing

By Harry Coverte

Published: March 15, 2000

From the Bleachers Have you been by to check out the stadium yet? They're charging $10 for a tour of the place! Ten bucks to admire the pristine pissoirs at our new stadium? That seems...

Film

Boobs a Lot

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: March 15, 2000

The film is called Erin Brockovich , but it might as well be titled Julia Roberts . Never before in the actress' erratic career has a film been so custom-made for her; it's as though a...

Film

Turning Japanese

By Gregory Weinkauf

Published: March 15, 2000

The gun is a coward's weapon, always has been, always will be. Likening it to the sword is like equating rape to romance. However, for reasons that can only be attributed to collective insanity,...

Reel World

Reel World

You're a Big Boy Now and The Conversation

By Michael Fox

Published: March 15, 2000

You're a Big Boy Now A tale of two filmmakers: S.F. State alumna Lisanne Skyler started out in documentaries during her mid-'90s tenure in San Francisco. Oldtimers (made with Todd Walker) was a...

Night&Day;

Collage Industry

"Lawrence Jordan: A Mosaic of Personal Selections"

By Gary Morris

Published: March 15, 2000

"I consider myself a maker of moving collages," Lawrence Jordan once told an interviewer, but this self-assessment is deceptive in stressing craft over art. In the early 1950s, Jordan (born in...

Night&Day;

Digital Dystopias

Ian Kerkof's "Wasted"

By Gary Morris

Published: March 15, 2000

It's too bad -- and also hard to believe -- that Ian Kerkhof isn't an American. He'd have made an ideal fifth member of the infamous "NEA Four." The sensibility evident in his films, with...

Stage

Chekhovian Heebie-Jeebies

By Michael Scott Moore

Published: March 15, 2000

Three Sisters is quintessential Chekhov, as far as it deals with mooning, overeducated, well-to-do people in the country who wish they were mooning, overeducated, well-to-do people in the city,...