Archive Search

Feature

Russian Roulette

The Western Pacific gray whale, once thought extinct, clings to life in a remote Siberian sea. Biologists fear their research is serving as cover for massive oil drilling that could wipe out this lost tribe once and for all.

By John Dougherty

Published: April 25, 2001

   This is the second in an occasional series on the gray whale -- its questionable health, its environmental symbolism, and the cultural conflicts it is generating from the Siberian...

Matt Smith

Cats and Dogs

A video project with canine penetration and feline skinning brings on self-censorship at the S.F. Art Institute

By Matt Smith

Published: April 25, 2001

I don't know much about performance art, but I know what I like. And I really like it when 100 performance and other artists assemble to talk about freedom of speech, and then spend two hours...

Bay View

The Return of the Screw

PG&E; is doing to New England what greedy, polluting, out-of-state energy suppliers have done to PG&E; and California

By Jeremy Mullman

Published: April 25, 2001

Reporting to shareholders 10 days after putting its utility subsidiary under bankruptcy protection, PG&E; said it absorbed a $4.12 billion loss in the last three months of the year, turning what...

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Week of April 25, 2001

Published: April 25, 2001

Butterflies Are Free The flutter over a proposed museum: Thank you for Matt Smith's delicious deconstruction of certain social butterflies' misguided goal of destroying the Embarcadero's...

Music

Star Gazing

For Stars ditch the lo-fi ghetto for a big rock opus. But will their fans follow?

By Dan Strachota

Published: April 25, 2001

There seems to be an endless supply of sad-sack troubadours, singers who spill their guts for art and turn personal pain into pretty poetry. Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, Mark Eitzel, Elliott Smith:...

Pop Philosophy

Pop Philosophy

The difference between "naff" and "wack"

By Dan Strachota

Published: April 25, 2001

While few people will own up to actively courting indie cred, many will flock happily to a survey that tabulates hipness levels. To that end, Brooklyn native Shirley Braha has put together an...

House of Tudor

House Of Tudor

Silke Tudor praises the Virgin Mary, bored writers, and drunken punters

By Silke Tudor

Published: April 25, 2001

On last year's Cantigas de Santa Maria , the French ensemble Alla Francesca meticulously interpreted 17 pieces from the 13th-century Spanish manuscript written by the King of Castile, Alfonso...

Hear This

Hear This

Experimental composer Koji Asano explores the beauty and terror of electronic sound

By Sam Prestianni

Published: April 25, 2001

Over the past six years, composer has explored the beauty and the terror of experimental sound on 20 self-produced CDs for his Barcelona-based label Solstice. An adept pianist and guitarist, the...

Eat

The Homespun Hipster

Johnfrank

By Matthew Stafford

Published: April 25, 2001

It looks like spring has finally sprung in Northern California -- or at least it has in the Duboce Triangle, where an evening stroll to the crossroads of the F and the J does not require a jacket...

The Mix

Darling Clementine

Everyday people every night on Clement Street

By Greg Hugunin

Published: April 25, 2001

Inner Clement Street wears a multitude of faces. You could call it the other Chinatown, Little Saigon, New Bohemia, or the place where people of every description go to browse books at Green...

Film

Filmed on the Body 2

Week 2 of the San Francisco International Film Festival

Published: April 25, 2001

The Claim (U.S.A., 2000) There's a majesty and a terrible, icy chill to Michael Winterbottom's new film. Winterbottom, the director of the wrenching Jude -- based on Thomas Hardy's Jude...

Film

East Meets Fest

Middle Eastern and African offerings

By Frako Loden

Published: April 25, 2001

Thanks to the continuing narrative creativity of Iranian cinema, several eloquent French-North African co-productions, and various supple political dramas, this year's Middle Eastern and African...

Film

Sacré bleu!

French films make war, not love

By Michael Fox

Published: April 25, 2001

Sobering news, friends: The war between the sexes has reached the land that invented romance (or at least the cinematic myth of it). French films have always provided genteel tips for seduction and...

Film

Troubles With Harry

The spirit of Hitchcock pops up in a deft French thriller

By Bill Gallo

Published: April 25, 2001

Just when we culturally deprived, mystery-starved Americans were convinced that that most delicious of movie genres, the French thriller, was dead and buried, a literate and exciting new filmmaker...

Reel World

Reel World

Scumrock and 25 -- A Brief History of the Festival

By Michael Fox

Published: April 25, 2001

Rock 'n' Roll High School "Dude, this is a movie about rock 'n' roll," proclaims Jon Moritsugu, his enthusiasm sparking the phone line from his Inner Richmond flat. "It's a sprawling epic about...

Night&Day;

International Flavor

Language is no barrier at the Euro-San Francisco Poetry Festival

By David Cook

Published: April 25, 2001

As Ezra Pound said about political speech, "Let the candidate fill his mind with the finest cadences he can discover, preferably in a foreign language, so that the meaning of the words may be less...

Night&Day;

Survival of the Fittest

June Watanabe uses dance to heal painful memories

By Lisa Hom

Published: April 25, 2001

Some experiences are impossible to translate into words, especially if they're particularly traumatic or joyful. So how do you express them? If you're choreographer and performer June Watanabe ,...

Stage

Musical Lit 101

Stuck in a rut with Geoffrey Chaucer & Co.

By Michael Scott Moore

Published: April 25, 2001

For some reason all I've seen lately are musicals. This is not by choice: The city is plagued with them. In the last month or so I've seen most of my favorite myths and characters put to music for...

Stage

Killing My Lobster Breaks the Bank

A new batch of crowd-pleasing satire from the notorious sketch comedy troupe

By Karen McKevitt

Published: April 25, 2001

Chicago may be the epicenter of sketch comedy, but Killing My Lobster has the potential to put San Francisco on the map. The group gained notoriety through the San Francisco Fringe Festival and was...

Stage

Richard II

A gutsy debut from Shakespeare Etc.

By Karen McKevitt

Published: April 25, 2001

Shakespeare Etc. is pretty gutsy. Most new theater companies wouldn't debut with a weighty history about the fall of a king -- especially one that requires three generations of background...