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Feature

Dead Mud Walking

A ballot measure that would create a Municipal Utility District has so many legal flaws, it's all but DOA. In fact, passing the measure might delay the advent of public power here for years.

By Peter Byrne

Published: October 10, 2001

Energy consultant Emmitt James Simpson stood alone in front of the dais at San Francisco City Hall late last month, trying to save his $90,000 contract. Simpson had been hired in August to study...

Matt Smith

Cleaning House

To work against terrorism, new money-laundering laws will have to be enforced in the world headquarters of cash-washing: the U.S. of A.

By Matt Smith

Published: October 10, 2001

Elizabeth Shwiff, principal of the accounting firm Shwiff, Levy & Polo, is a real go-getter. She started her business in 1989 by knocking on doors, talking her way in, and making her pitch,...

Dog Bites

Dog Bites

Don't Take This With You to Your Polling Place Nov. 6; War Is Bad. Or Good, Depending.

By Peter Byrne

Published: October 10, 2001

Don't Take This With You to Your Polling Place Nov. 6 On Oct. 3, the San Francisco Bay Guardian published its endorsements for the Nov. 6 election. Every election cycle, year after year, the...

Letters

Letters to the Editor

You Don't Have to Tell Us About the Clowns in This City; Maher Is Less; Responding to Terrorism; Leftovers; Correction

Published: October 10, 2001

You Don't Have to Tell Us About the Clowns in This City As do Board of Supes meetings: I was pleased to see San Francisco's Clown Conservatory and its new training program receive attention in...

Music

Stairs' Way to Heaven

Former Pavement guitarist Scott Kannberg strikes out on his own with Preston School of Industry

By Elizabeth Montalbano

Published: October 10, 2001

There is a song on Preston School of Industry's new full-length, All This Sounds Gas , that hearkens back to Scott Kannberg's stint as guitarist for one of the greatest indie rock bands of all...

Music

Vincent Gallo

When (Warp)

By Philip Sherburne

Published: October 10, 2001

Maybe quiet really is the new loud. What else would explain the seeming incongruity of bad-boy filmmaker Vincent Gallo producing an album as simple, understated, and moving as When ? Best known...

Music

(The Real) Tuesday Weld

Where Psyche Meets Cupid (Kindercore)

By Chris Baty

Published: October 10, 2001

Some songwriters can't sing about love without the use of noxiously sweet clichés and greeting-card metaphors. Stephen Coates -- aka (The Real) Tuesday Weld -- has a stranger problem. He...

Pop Philosophy

Pop Philosophy

Street closing; not enough coffee, man

By Dan Strachota

Published: October 10, 2001

There's nothing clear about it Clear Channel Communications caught a lot of flak recently for passing around to its affiliate radio stations a list of songs deemed potentially upsetting in the...

House of Tudor

House Of Tudor

Gothic blues, creature features, and a respite for the H.E.A.R.-ing impaired

By Silke Tudor

Published: October 10, 2001

The Rose He Lied By , the debut album by Baltimore quartet Love Life , is a musical bête noire , a silky black beast skulking in the corners of grace, dragging its claws across musical...

Hear This

Hear This

Gregg Bendian's Interzone

By Sam Prestianni

Published: October 10, 2001

In the liner notes to Requiem for Jack Kirby , the new album by Gregg Bendian's Interzone, comic book illustrator Mark Evanier explains, "Jack Kirby was bold and innovative, & he did the...

Eat

Strike Zone

Curve

By Matthew Stafford

Published: October 10, 2001

Remember those final years of the 20th century, when the market was as vertical as the rent on a Russian Hill one-bedroom, recession talk was as meaningless as your standard Web site, and the air...

Social Grace

Service With a Grimace

The perfect retort to a rude diner

By Social Grace

Published: October 10, 2001

Dear Social Grace, Tonight, while waiting on a couple at dinner, it was brought to my attention that I'd forgotten to bring their drinks. I apologized profusely, but I hoped the couple would...

The Mix

Swerving on Irving

Some bars in the Sunset are made for regulars

By Greg Hugunin

Published: October 10, 2001

The stretch of Irving Street to the west of 19th Avenue is a self-contained village of pho houses, Chinese restaurants, bakeries, cafes, and bars that people return to again and again. Case in...

Film

Hollywood Hells

David Lynch crashes on Mulholland Drive, but the wreckage is smashing

By Gregory Weinkauf

Published: October 10, 2001

Ask David Lynch, and he will tell you that apple-pie America just isn't what it seems. People behave strangely, sometimes violently, and sometimes they even transform into different people without...

Reel World

Reel World

A Berkeley documentary filmmaker takes audiences inside the wild world of futures trading

By Michael Fox

Published: October 10, 2001

Cadillac Desert "For a lot of people, viewing this film is like being held under water," Jon Else remarks wryly about Open Outcry , his one-hour documentary shot on the floor of the Chicago...

Night&Day;

Chaos Theory

KaitO is the successor to musical noisemakers like Sonic Youth and Stereolab

By Todd Dayton

Published: October 10, 2001

Impatient fans of Sonic Youth or Stereolab who have long awaited successors to such indie experimentation can finally put their worries to rest. KaitO 's music grafts itself onto such dissonant...

Night&Day;

Women's Work

Lisa Kokin uses other people's discarded photos as inspiration for her sculptures

By Lisa Hom

Published: October 10, 2001

I've always been wary of throwing away old photographs. There's something distinctly unsettling, even blasphemous, about casting off those images, as if by doing so I'll erase the past....

Stage

Shaky Landing

The Shotgun Players' third Approach still hasn't got it quite right

By Michael Scott Moore

Published: October 10, 2001

In one of his novels, I think it's The Tin Drum , Günter Grass takes a wry swipe at the writers of modish European minimalism who lined up behind Beckett after the Second World War to strip...

Stage

Swanwhite

Transparent Theater launches with an unconventional play based on a dreamer's subconscious

By Karen McKevitt

Published: October 10, 2001

In today's daunting economic climate, the folks at Transparent Theater have accomplished an amazing feat, launching a new company in a new space (a converted church) with Jacob Christfort's world...

Stage

The Celebration and The Room

Two one-acts compare Pinter and the beginning and later stages of his career

By Michael Scott Moore

Published: October 10, 2001

The pair of Pinter one-acts at ACT works as a brief, two-punch retrospective at which audiences can compare the playwright's first play, The Room (1957), with one of his latest, The Celebration...