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Feature

Would You Buy a Used Car From This Rabbi?

Ben Tzion Pil has alienated colleagues, intrigued prosecutors, and sold one heck of a lot of cars

By Phyllis Orrick

Published: January 22, 1997

Two days before Thanksgiving last year, a clear fall afternoon suddenly turned dark, as dense black clouds spewed into the sky. China Basin's Pier 48 was on fire. Thirty-two engines and a fireboat...

Letters

Letters

Published: January 22, 1997

Across the Board We are writing in response to Tara Shioya's story on our legislation prohibiting the city from spending taxpayer money on contracts with companies that discriminate in benefits...

Music

Hear This

By Jeff Stark

Published: January 22, 1997

Imperial Teen, Track Star, Henry's Dress At the Great American Music Hall, it's pop for pop's sake with two sweets and a sour. First up is Henry's Dress, an Albuquerque, N.M., transplant, who...

Music

The House of Tudor

By Silke Tudor

Published: January 22, 1997

We have seen the evolution of Henry Rollins from angry, young, punk vocalist to angrier, not-so-young, punk poet and publisher. The evolution is perhaps not as remarkable as the fact that Hank's...

Music

Hear This

By Sam Prestianni

Published: January 22, 1997

Graham Connah's NoPorkestra & Chorus Anyone who's seen jazz pianist Graham Connah in concert is familiar with his fun-loving fascination with language. From droll, between-song wisecracks to...

Music

Dead and Buried

By Michael Batty

Published: January 22, 1997

Swans, Windsor for the Derby Great American Music Hall Sunday, Jan. 12 Unsurprising, and heartwarming, was the conversation overheard in line at the Great American Music Hall. To...

Music

Samples

By Silke Tudor

Published: January 22, 1997

Boom-Boom Boomerang Two weeks ago, Boomerang, Haight Street's only surviving live music venue, began running large ads that read "Despite the rumors, Club Boomerang will continue with live...

Music

Short Circuit

By Sam Prestianni

Published: January 22, 1997

The Closure of the "Dark Circle Lounge Series," with the Splatter Trio Hotel Utah Tuesday, Jan. 14 "There's never been more than 7 1/2 people at the end of a Splatter Trio show," quipped...

Music

Recordings

By Curtis Bonney, Jeff Stark, Sam Prestianni

Published: January 22, 1997

10 cents Everybody Wins (Angel Dust Records) Remember grammar school recess when you were a kid and they were picking teams for, heaven help us, smear the queer? So much rode on where...

Music

Night Crawler

By Silke Tudor

Published: January 22, 1997

The Chameleon has the hush of a library. The cozy bar area is packed with the usual beer swillers, but absent are the normal raucous ramblings and punk rock profanities. There is something about...

Eat

Dish

By Paul Reidinger

Published: January 22, 1997

The Dirt on Kitchenette The people behind Kitchenette -- the new on-line magazine about Bay Area food, published from a Twin Peaks address -- were, understandably, unable to think up something...

Eat

Blue Moon

The food shines while the service flickers at Bella Luna

By Paul Reidinger

Published: January 22, 1997

There's something discreetly schizophrenic about Bella Luna. The Italian food is superior: dish after dish executed with splendor and verve by a kitchen that clearly believes in what it's doing and...

Film

Second Time Around

By Gregg Rickman

Published: January 22, 1997

The Kingdom Lars von Trier (Zentropa, Breaking the Waves) is probably the cruelest major film director to emerge since R.W. Fassbinder, the German Wunderkind of the 1970s. Just as Fassbinder's...

Film

Reel World

By Michael Fox

Published: January 22, 1997

Gone With the Wind As reported here last week, two multiplexes totaling 29 screens are now under construction in San Francisco. AMC is leveraging its Kabuki-built reputation with a 14-screen...

Film

What's Playing at the Roxie?

By Michael Sragow

Published: January 22, 1997

Normal Life Directed by John McNaughton. Written by Peg Haller and Bob Schneider. Starring Luke Perry and Ashley Judd. At the Roxie, Jan. 24-30. Troublesome Creek A documentary by Jeanne...

Film

Second Time Around

By Michael Sragow

Published: January 22, 1997

White Heat and All About Eve James Cagney's surplus energy expressed itself on screen in fellow-feeling and psychosis, in youthful high spirits as well as embittered rage, and in a 100-proof...

Night&Day;

Night+Day

By Heather Wisner

Published: January 22, 1997

wednesday january 22 Bloomin' Thespian Claire Bloom has been in Charlie Chaplin's Limelight, and was an accomplice to Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors. But the longtime film and...

Halloween

Slap Shots

By Jack Boulware

Published: January 22, 1997

No Fuckin' Around "Hey everybody, let's have some fun. You only live but once, and when you're dead you're done." The groovy melody of Ray Charles' classic "Let the Good Times Roll" fills the...

Halloween

REAL ASTROLOGY For an Unreal World

By Rob Brezsny

Published: January 22, 1997

Aries (March 21-April 19): Are you just another ordinary sinner? Or are you a gifted innovator who should have license to stretch the rules now and then? Are you simply another one of us survivors...

Halloween

The Grid

By George Cothran, Chuck Finnie

Published: January 22, 1997

More Heat, Less Light During the summer of 1995, a federal judge came within a hair's breadth of throwing the book at S.F. for failing to make sufficient strides on remedying race- and...