Email Author Mark Athitakis

2001 Stories by Mark Athitakis

• Organ Failure

  published December 26, 2001

  Walking inside the massive pipe organ at Temple Emanu-El in Laurel Heights, organist John Fenstermaker is trying to be careful. He crouches as he... More >>

• A Little Fine Tuning

  published December 26, 2001

  A Little Fine-Tuning Dec. 31 marks the last day of KRON-TV's affiliation with NBC, officially ending the station's 52-year... More >>

• One Foot Off the Gutter; Snitch Factory

  published December 26, 2001

  Peter Plate's story is one of hardscrabble redemption. A self-taught San Francisco writer, he draws from his years spent in poverty in the Mission... More >>

• Dog Bites

  published December 5, 2001

  Au Couture, Mon Frére! As much as journalists like to snicker at the end of the dot-com boom, in our more honest moments we... More >>

• Most Sparkman invective is resereved for the Chron's touchy-feely columnists.

  published November 28, 2001

  Waffling With Authority Is it us, or has the Board of Supervisors gone soft? It's been barely a year since our current batch of... More >>

• Peace, Love, and Misunderstandings

  published November 28, 2001

  The last two months haven't been easy for Faustin Bray. Bray is a self-proclaimed "profound seeker," and she's recently lost her guide. For the... More >>

• I, the Divine

  published November 21, 2001

  San Francisco artist and author Rabih Alameddine is a literary gamesman, which is a polite way of saying that much of what he writes is... More >>

• Boonville

  published October 31, 2001

  Boonville is a real place. Tucked between Santa Rosa and Mendocino, it's an Anderson Valley hamlet that, according to Alaska Airlines... More >>

• Southern Discomfort

  published October 24, 2001

  "Do you want to see something weird?" asks Travis Somerville, pulling a Ku Klux Klan hood off a bust of John F. Kennedy. The bust is actually... More >>

• Dog Bites

  published October 24, 2001

  What Did You Sing in the War, Daddy? The folk song "We Shall Overcome" has been enjoying a bit of a revival since Sept. 11; it's... More >>

• Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906

  published September 26, 2001

  It's always been true that time changes the meaning and worth of a book, and it's even clearer now. Nostradamus' opaque predictions are currently... More >>

• Dog Bites

  published September 12, 2001

  Dead, But Not Dead Enough We were in a pretty good mood last week. With fall fast approaching, it's a time for small thrills, tiny... More >>

• Through a Different Lens

  published September 5, 2001

  "The Golden Gate Bridge is a cliché," says Richard Misrach. "No serious photographer would be caught dead trying to photograph... More >>

• Leading the Blind

  published August 29, 2001

  Bill Gerrey is going home, but first he's going shopping. He tells the cabbie to drop him off near a produce stand a few blocks from his Lower... More >>

• Dog Bites

  published August 29, 2001

  Overpriced Sports Star Joins Local Team Skip Bayless' farewell sports column for the Chicago Tribune began with three... More >>

• The Making of Stephen Elliott

  published August 8, 2001

  Stephen Elliott is perched on a stool at the Uptown Bar, a roomy, frills-free joint on 17th and Capp streets that does everything in its power to... More >>

• Various Artists

  published August 8, 2001

  Like a lot of great compilation albums, the first volume of The Funky Precedent got to have it both ways -- celebrating the past while... More >>

• Dog Bites

  published August 1, 2001

  Recently, Mayor Willie Brown and many other dignitaries attended an unveiling for a proposed new monument for the city of San Francisco. The $115... More >>

• That Secret Shame

  published July 25, 2001

  In the film As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson plays a bitter, aging hack writer. His chosen genre is romance novels. Writing 62 of them... More >>

• A Romance Glossary

  published July 25, 2001

  Amazon.com -- Evildoers, according to some romance authors. Amazon promotes the sale of used copies on the... More >>

• Looking for God at Berkeley

  published June 20, 2001

  In a crumbling UC Berkeley research lab, Jed Macosko is looking for God. Macosko is a molecular biology researcher who holds chemistry degrees... More >>

• Dragon Bites

  published June 13, 2001

  A Beautiful Day to Be Irradiated It was a warm, sunny day with a light breeze, and the view from the high ground there alongside... More >>

• Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire

  published May 23, 2001

  On his first two records, 1998's Thrills and 1999's Oh! The Grandeur, Andrew Bird presented himself as an exceedingly bright and... More >>

• Read It, Hug It

  published May 9, 2001

  On April 29, the Chronicle launched its much-trumpeted new edition. Alas, the result that thudded on Bay Area doorsteps wasn't exactly the... More >>

• Filmed on the Body

  published April 18, 2001

  Like life, good film festivals have a rather dull unifying force and lots of fascinating satellite themes. The 44th annual SFIFF is no... More >>