Joan Didion

John Darnielle: Mountain Goat, American Idol

Noise Pop: Film School Makes Itself Known at Cafe du Nord

Apex Manor​Film School Apex Manor Gregory and the Hawk Melted Toys @ Cafe du Nord Thursday, February 24, 2011 Better than: A rainy night at the beach. I tumbled down the stairs to Cafe du Nord last night to find the stage being cleared, rather unceremoniously, of various music-making devices. I ... More >>

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HUM525: Hitting the Books

Your required reading for the fall semester.

Taking Woodstock does nothing more than recycle the same late-'60s tropes

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Conor Oberst succeeds despite the flaws

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For her hot new dog-mauling book Red Zone, eye-pleasing author Aphrodite Jones re-created dialogue and scenes; her publisher and the Chron don't seem to mind

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The last leg of a traveling exhibition on California's vanishing resources

American Pie

Eighteen-year-old novelist Nick McDonell is poised to become the new voice of his generation

The Long Way Home

Looking for that Great Bay Area Writer? He's been here for two decades, composing in longhand.

Pop Philosophy

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

Night + Day

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

Second Time Around

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

The Fall of Love

Chet Helms and his Avalon Ballroom were the heart and soul of the Summer of Love. Thirty years of stupid business moves later, love is all that's left.

Night+Day

Chet Helms and his Avalon Ballroom were the heart and soul of the Summer of Love. Thirty years of stupid business moves later, love is all that's left.

Anchors Awry

Up Close and Personal sinks lower than the intellectual wasteland of the TV news it depicts