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Thin Crusts in Glen Park
These days, every San Francisco neighborhood seems to have a boutique pizzeria. With Gialina, Glen Park has one of the best. Until a couple years ago, getting your teeth around a good Neapolitan-style pizza in the Bay Area required reservations at Zuni, A16, or Chez Panisse Café (or the patience to wait for a table at Pizzetta 211.) That changed in 2005, when Pizzeria Picco and Pizzeria Delfina opened. Each combined San Francisco's obsession with sourcing perfect ingredients with an artisan's attention to technique. The result: traditional Neapolitan-style pies with local ingredients, and the beginning of a new trend.
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At The Independent
Born in the Bronx and bred in Virginia, hip hop duo Clipse brings their raucous rhyming style to SF's Independent. Download geeks and hip hop heads alike can recall the early 90s hit "Grindin", where they first made their mark as hip hop's "meanest, smartest hip hop duo", followed by a hugely popular "We Got the Remix" mixed tape project.
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The Best Shows for September
Is there a night more difficult to make it out than a Sunday? By the time it rolls around it feels that just making it through "Entourage"/"Flight of the Concords" is accomplishment enough. Creating that unique balance between the soulful and the experimental Dub Mission has been rockin' steady every Sunday for the past 11 years at the Elbo Room.
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SF Station Blows It Up
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs played a very special small venue set in San Francisco's legendary Fillmore last Tuesday night and as always destroyed it. With Karen's amazing stage presence, Nick's guitars licks and Brian's unstoppable drums the trio drove the crowd wild. Being right at the front for the first three songs was a very interesting thing because from the first word out of Miss O's mouth I could feel the entire crowd surge forward. If you didn't make it into the building you missed out a few costume changes and even some new tunes from The Is Is EP out in stores now.
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Released on Capitol Records, 7/10/07
After two critically acclaimed albums and a grueling touring schedule following the release of Antics, the New York based band Interpol was due for a bit of a break. Fortunately for fans, Interpol was back in the studio in early 2006 knocking out tracks for their latest effort, Our Love To Admire. This album is the first for the band on their new label (Capitol) and includes an abundance of keyboards in many of the arrangements, making it a bit of a departure for the band. However, this infusion of new elements appears to have only improved an already solidly talented band.
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Released on Jdub Records, 6/12/07
Josh Dolgin grew up in the outskirts of Ottawa, a suburb named Chelsea, as one of the only Jewish kids in a predominantly Protestant area. He took part in typical childlike activities in the face of such an unconscious cultural and religious divide. He joined a Christian gospel group and played piano. He also joined a salsa band, a folk band and, the detrimental-to-any-teenage-musician, a rock and roll band. It was around this period that Dolgin was introduced to hip hop by one of his God-loving gospel band mates.
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Released by Zoë/Rounder, 07/24/07
On Tainted Love Shivaree puts aside their impressive songwriting in favor of material from an eclectic bunch of writers including Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, Motley Crüe's Nikki Sixx, early country music star Spade Cooley, Gray Glitter and blues shouter Lead Belly. They also step away from the gloomy, ambient soundscapes that made their previous albums so moody.
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Don't Get Chumpatized
In the early 80s there was one videogame that stole the hearts (and quarters) of ardent gamers across the country. Successfully conquering this game required catlike reflexes, impeccable timing, and some obsessive compulsive tendencies rivaled only by "Rainman". The name of the game alone inspires fear: Donkey Kong.
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A Global Warming Primer
Global warming (or, if you prefer a less alarmist phrase, climate change) is real. The question, at least within the scientific community and among environmental activists isn't whether global warming exists or not, but how long we have before climate change becomes irreversible.
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Apocalypse Now
Playing on the post-9/11 fears that have already spawned at least one paranoia-induced phenomenon -- Keifer Sutherland's "24" - Right At Your Door explores a doomsday scenario that is by now familiar: Los Angeles has been struck by the detonation of dirty bombs that leave its citizens covered in toxic ash and dangerously contagious. Lexi (Mary McCormack) is caught in the midst of the chaos; her husband, Brad (Rory Cochrane) is trapped at home, frantically hoping to learn her whereabouts but powerless to do more.
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A Must-See Documentary if There Ever Was One
When genocide occurs in Africa, the international community does nothing or if it acts, it acts too late. As both Rwanda and now Darfur have proven, Western governments, acting alone or acting through the United Nations, can be slow to condemn the actions of authoritarian regimes (especially where strategic natural resources like oil or gas aren't involved).
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A Promising Debut
Written, directed by, and starring Julie Delpy, 2 Days in Paris, a romantic comedy/drama set in (where else) Paris, is a surprisingly effective, insightful exploration of romantic relationships, cultural differences, and how the two, when mixed together, can cause serious problems.
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A Lackluster End for a Beloved Character
British comedian Rowan Atkinson (Johnny English, Black Adder) first essayed one of his most well known characters, Mr. Bean, in 1990 for a limited half-hour television series that ran on British television for five years. Often described as a "child in a man's body," Mr. Bean is the genial, clueless, walking disaster whose addled antics usually leave innocent bystanders worse -- much, much worse -- for wear, but had all-ages laughing at his outrageous behavior.
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Beautiful Revolution
Babylon: in Jamaica, this term is an all-encompassing euphemism for oppression and those who oppress. Take it from Jamaican native Sean Stewart, proprietor and mastermind behind Babylon Falling, a newish joint in the Tendernob district. With an overarching theme of revolution, this shop houses a unique and winsome combination of books, toys, skate decks, clothing and collectibles that provides one more reason to love San Francisco.
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Through a Glass, Very Darkly
New technology always generates new art forms, mediums, and modes of exhibition. The rapid digitization of our globe -- with its accompanying technologies of hyper-communication, intimate surveillance and documentation -- stands as no exception. "Dark Matters" at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts addresses the information-technology drenched society we reside in head-on, uniting a range of artists, each one using a dramatically different medium to reveal the invisible and the shrouded.
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