Saw Mozart’s Don Giovanni last Saturday night, the first night with a lot of firsts- first time I’d seen an opera that had a late-breaking story and real operatic drama attached to it. My dad informed me as we got ready to leave that the Donna Anna role was replaced at the last minute. Why? Official line is that the earlier performer was “not ultimately suited for the role”. You’d think they could have figured that out a little sooner than the dress rehearsal, so I bet there’s something else there. We were in nosebleed, but it was great. I really enjoyed the costuming and sets. Circa 1800s style instead of – I don’t know what I expected, something from Mozart’s time? And the Don Giovanni role was very athletic and burly. He’s got his shirt off in the first scene. Great arias, and notably (for me) were: Donna Elvira – I warmed up to her- and Ottavio. The new Donna Anna was great.
Tips for going to the opera on ridiculously crowded nights:
- Ask the usher to get you a cab in the last intermission
- Don’t eat in the neighborhood beforehand

Rigor mortis rat awaiting commuters at the Trans Bay Terminal this morning…

(Guess somebody partied a lil’ too hard over the weekend and lost the rat race?)

What’s interesting to me about the Google Street View thingy is that the contractors who took the pictures see the city the way most middle-class white people see it: that it doesn’t exist south of, say, Cesar Chavez St. (represented on the above image by the red line). Outside of a few freeways and main streets, the drivers of the multi-lensed camera vehicles eschewed the southern, and especially the southeastern, parts of the city.

A recent study shows that airlines are even less popular than the IRS. How to get leisure travellers into airplanes is becoming a dilemma.

Perhaps air passengers can use their reluctance & skepticism of the industry to find leverage in an era of rising fuel costs and recuded services.

Details on new summer travel offerings, hotel deals , domestic & international airline news from Southwest, Delta, Skybus & Jet Blue’s 30 day round trip ticket giveaway all after the jump…
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Wandering out in last night’s super dreamy fog only got better with a liberal application of wine and hooray, Hayes Valley Market is still dishing out art. Back when I was in the neighborhood, I swear I picked up a head of butter lettuce and some fruit nectar here at least a few times before the place was shuttered, gutted, and reborn as an artspace.

Flood is up now, a show of paintings by Felix Macnee, sculpture by Paul Spencer, and collages by our man Matt Gonzalez. After the cut, a bit of video of the scene: a man rowing an imaginary boat with an imaginary fog horn, and girls hugging.
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At the Cow Palace on Sunday, hundreds of bicyclists will head off on 7 day 575 mile journey to LA to raise money for AIDS charities.

The Escape From Alcatraz Triathalon starts on Sunday morn, drawing 2000 competitors from all over who start the event swimming from Alcatraz bright & early at 7am. There’s also a Fitness Festival expo open to the public near the finish line at Marina Green all day as well.

For the less athletic looking for things to do, the Union Street Festival is a short walk up from Marina Green, which will be winding up as well.

If yer out and about strolling through North Beach, consider Sunday’s Mamma Jamma “East Side Stories” at Rosewood Lounge which kicks off at 2 pm. It’s the first event of the summer for this crew who promise to highlight artists, revolutionaries and producers within 50′s, 60′s soul, 70′s RareGroove and funk, Latin jazz, afro cuban, bossa nova, samba, reggae, rocksteady, dub, nu jazz, broken beat and doo wop scenes.

Further down from Broadway at 750 Kearney, the Chinese Cultural Center will be showing Chinese made documentary films beginning at 1 pm.

More Info on the films, Sunday’s Union Street Festival entertainment schedule after the jump, and info on the seriously skilled selectors who will be dropping the needle on some ol school grooves at Mamma Jamma’s “East Side Stories” event.
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