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Feature

Magnificent Obsession

For 40 years, Craig Breedlove has sacrificed everything in pursuit of speed. Now all he needs is $1.5 million to build a car that will do 800 mph. Is that too much to ask?

By Bernice Yeung

Published: November 15, 2000

More than once, Craig Breedlove's obsession has nearly killed him, and still he can't let go. The last time was four years ago, when he set out once again to break the world land speed record by...

Matt Smith

What's Green and Black and Blue All Over?

Maybe Nader voters should be slapped around a bit; their leftist purity will likely bring us four very squalid years

By Matt Smith

Published: November 15, 2000

I don't usually go on record siding against the victims of battered-partner syndrome. But there comes a time when any God-fearing person is forced to put his foot down and take an uncomfortable...

Dog Bites

Dog Bites

Who Still Wants to Be a Millionaire?; Bush Leads Prop. L by 337 Votes; Readers’ Freeway Comments

As told to Laurel Wellman

Published: November 15, 2000

Who Still Wants to Be a Millionaire? It's taken most of the fall, but something has gone out of the air. The sense of fevered pressure that pervaded the city last spring -- the Dot-Com...

Night Crawler

Two to Say Go

The woman who would bike the length of North and South America, and the man who's running around the world

By Silke Tudor

Published: November 15, 2000

On June 1, Chrystine Roy , a 29-year-old occupational therapist from Quebec, rose from her sleeping bag and gazed over the sparkling, hard-packed tundra she had waited five long years to see....

Bay View

A HAL of an Idea

Dr. David Stork is trying to create a new computer that thinks like a human being. But he needs your help.

By Mark Athitakis

Published: November 15, 2000

On Jan. 12, 1992, Dr. David G. Stork hosted a birthday party for ... well, you might say a friend. Stork is a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, as well as a huge fan of Stanley...

Postscript

Revenge of the Wimp

Why Miami's Democratic mayor abandoned Al Gore and cost him all the votes he needed to be president

By Jim DeFede

Published: November 15, 2000

Where's Alex? In the midst of the closest presidential election in U.S. history, at a time when the eyes of the world are riveted on South Florida, our sexy little mayor is nowhere to be found....

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Letters from November 15, 2000

Published: November 15, 2000

The Spotted Ones Hoping for the best: Thank you for the excellent, informative article you wrote about LyP featuring [my daughter] Julie ("The Cheetah Club," Nov. 1). It gave us hope that...

Music

Bad to The Bone

With an unorthodox take on classic rock, The Bone has become the Bay Area's newest radio sensation

By Dan Strachota

Published: November 15, 2000

On Sept. 15, a San Francisco radio station set a record that most likely won't show up in the Guinness Book of World Records. That day, KSAN-FM (107.7) -- or, as it's known in common parlance,...

Music

It's a Wonderful Life

Jim Greer fights the shrinking music scene and an indifferent industry with a smile and a song

By Denise Sullivan

Published: November 15, 2000

Meet Jim Greer, one of the most sincere, idealistic, and committed people you're likely to come across in the music business. Much like the hero in the Frank Capra movie Mr. Smith Goes to...

Music

Pop Philosophy

Anger and disenfranchisement make good musical bedfellows; National Novel Writing Month

By Dan Strachota

Published: November 15, 2000

Would you like some cynicism with your latte? Just when it seems like the populace can't get more cynical, we learn what a sham the presidential election is. Why should anyone bother to vote when...

Music

Charlie Parker

The Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings (1944-1948) (Savoy Jazz)

By Sam Prestianni

Published: November 15, 2000

The hipper-than-thou scholarship that fuels the jazz industry is both its savior and its bane. For self-styled hepcats and academics who long for comprehensive intimacy with a legendary figure like...

Music

Mojave 3

Excuses for Travellers (4AD)

By Silas Paine

Published: November 15, 2000

In the early '90s, the British group Slowdive used an endless collection of swirling guitar effects to create loud-yet-atmospheric albums for the Creation label. After being dumped by Creation in...

House of Tudor

House Of Tudor

Badly Drawn Boy; Squirrel Nut Zippers; Spike & Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation; Los Amigos Invisibles

By Silke Tudor

Published: November 15, 2000

Considered by the British press to be the greatest songwriter since Bob Dylan, Badly Drawn Boy (aka Damon Gough) recently garnered the prestigious Mercury Music Award for outstanding album of...

Hear This

Hear This

Kimara

By Sam Prestianni

Published: November 15, 2000

The music of Oakland pianist Kimara flows like a narrative episode one might experience just before waking, when the dreamer begins to direct his dream. Far from being a sleepytime affair, however,...

Eat

How Blue Can You Get

Cobalt Tavern

By Greg Hugunin

Published: November 15, 2000

Two months after moving from San Francisco to Covina -- a suburban hamlet wedged between San Dimas and Pomona amid the pedestrian-unfriendly eastern reaches of Los Angeles County -- my friend...

Eat

Tuscan Treasures

Caffé Centro

By Matthew Stafford

Published: November 15, 2000

Late in the 15th century a Florentine scholar by the name of Bartolomeo Sacchi gave the blossoming Renaissance a culinary conscience in the form of his wildly influential cookbook, Concerning...

Social Grace

Giving, Receiving, Returning

Gift-Giving Protocol

By Social Grace

Published: November 15, 2000

Dear Social Grace, I would be so grateful if you could suggest a solution for this common etiquette issue! I was married in June, and there are still a number of guests from whom we haven't...

Film

Talking Turkey

A spectrum of families takes form in Los Angeles to ask What's Cooking?

By Gregory Weinkauf

Published: November 15, 2000

Given the stress and emotional turmoil associated with family holidays, in the cinema as in life, it's very peculiar that anyone feels obliged to entertain the notion of Thanksgiving anymore....

Film

Family Values

You Can Count on Me starts small but works its way to bigness

By Bill Gallo

Published: November 15, 2000

The moods of Kenneth Lonergan's You Can Count on Me are so artfully mingled that it's difficult to get a fix on this highly personal independent feature. Set in a quiet little town in upstate...

Reel World

Reel World

David Latham; closing of the St. Francis I & II

By Michael Fox

Published: November 15, 2000

Without You I'm Nothing A puzzling full-page ad beginning "Dear Helen Hunt" appeared in Daily Variety in late October. "Congratulations on a bravo performance in Pay It Forward , " it read....