sfbg Archives — Page 47 of 59 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

.meggie. on the beach, off Union Square

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February 9, 2009

By Laura Peach

Although San Francisco kisses the Pacific Ocean, the possibility of cold, fog and rain keeps its residents from looking like they live by the sea. Flip-flops rarely graze the sidewalk, and sheer sundresses are often eschewed in favor of warmer, more substantial fabrics and garments.

Petaluma native Meggie White wants to change that. Her breezy, beautiful new Union Street boutique, .meggie. — which is having a special sale event this Friday (see below) — is breathing fresh, sea-salty air into San Francisco’s shopping options. Walking into her shop is like walking into a beach house, bathed in bright pastels and punctuated by bleach white starfish and seashells scattered about the shelves.

Better yet, this beach house is a giant closet. Seersucker shirts with embroidered hems hang off cabinet corners. A rainbow of light, oversized scarves filters the sunshine pouring in the window. Shoes and boots trot up a stepladder. Loose knit throw sweaters hang beneath wooden picture frames. Delicate gold earrings dangle from white branches.

Those glittering hoops are what inspired White to open her beach house boutique. She wanted to stop selling the jewelry she designs and makes through stores so she could bring the prices down. And she wanted to create a space where other small, independent lines could thrive. “I know how hard it is to go knocking on store’s doors and get your label in there,” says White. “I have fun building relationships with local designers, I love hearing how excited they are when what they make flies out the door and I have to order more.”

Ask a Porn Star: Privacy issues, small penises

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February 9, 2009

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In which super sexy porn people answer questions — each week — from Bay Area locals. View the last installment here.
Mediated by Justin Juul

Fielding your questions this month is local celebrity, Lorelei Lee. Lee specializes in fetish porn (water torture, whips-n-chains, electrocution, etc.) and has a blossoming side-career as a writer. Check out some of her movies/pics here and then stop into The Makeout Room on Valentines Day (02/14/09) to hear her read at Writers With Drinks.

Michelle M: Are you ever concerned about your privacy?

Lorelei Lee: I’m not exactly sure what aspect of my privacy this question is meant to refer to. I’m not that famous. I mean, no one (to my knowledge) is searching through my garbage or anything, although I do occasionally get recognized in the grocery store or at a bar or walking down the street.

Sometimes people will come up to me and say hello or stutter something endearingly unintelligible. Often, people will say, “you look so familiar,” but they won’t be able to remember why they recognize me. They’ll ask me if I’m “on television” and I’ll say, “Sort of.” Recently I was leaving a BART station and a boy riding by on his skateboard actually fell down on the sidewalk and shouted, “Holy shit!” I was startled and looked at him, and he said, “Uh… you’ve been in movies, haven’t you?” I couldn’t help but laugh. I shook his hand and said, “nice to meet you,” and he kind of stumbled off in the other direction.

The Larder: Peko-Peko gets sole

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February 9, 2009

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Diana Dunkelberger gets the scoop on yummy local edibles. View her last installment here.

For this week’s installation of The Larder, we’ve gotten some help from Sylvan Mishima Brackett, the longtime assistant to Alice Waters at Chez Panisse, and the owner of Peko-Peko, a fantastic Japanese catering company that specializes in the robust fare of the izakaya (Japanese tavern). Sylvan, who was born in Kyoto, named his company after a rather onomatopoeic Japanese word that means “really really hungry, like spikes of pain are ripping through your body.”

These days, when Sylvan is “peko-peko,” he prepares Rex Sole Karaage. (“Karaage” is a Japanese cooking technique that involves marinating meat and then deep frying it. In this case, Rex sole, a delicious type of fish.)

The king of sole, delightfully fried. Photos by Aya Brackett

Sylvan’s favorite place to buy fish is the eco-conscious Monterey Fish Market at Pier 33, which sells sole caught 150 miles up the coast in Fort Bragg for the very affordable price of $5.99 per pound. Sylvan first discovered this recipe while he was working at a Japanese restaurant in the countryside, two hours away from Tokyo, surrounded by rice paddies. For him, the best part of this dish is that you can eat the entire sole — crispy, crackly bones and all.

RECIPE: REX SOLE KARAAGE

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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February 9, 2009

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SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See her last Street Threads installment here.

Today’s Look: Michael, 18th St. and Castro

Tell us about your look: “My fashion philosophy is all about layers. The weather is so unpredictable; I just always layer up in the morning.”

Very happy ox: Chinese New Year’s parade pics

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February 8, 2009

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Text and photos by Ariel Soto

The Year of the Ox started with a bang of firecrackers and a gigantic parade that made its way through downtown San Francisco. Families lined up early to get a prime viewing spot along the parade route, while munching on steam buns and pot stickers to keep them warm. Colorful dragons pranced along with dancers and fanciful floats. Happy New Year … Gung Hay Fat Choy and Gong He Xin Xi!

Romantically delicious: Le P’tit Laurent

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February 6, 2009

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SFBG TV goes to Le P’tit Laurent restaurant in Glen Park. Video slideshow by Ariel Soto

My first orgy: A beginner’s guide to group sex

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February 5, 2009

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By Rita Sapunor

Live in San Francisco long enough, and you’re going to get invited to a sex party. Stay longer and it’s only a matter of time before you’re considering throwing one yourself. When this time comes, you’re going to have a lot of questions to ask yourself, questions like: Which friends would be the least awkward to have sex in front of? Should my sex party be more about spiritual connection or hardcore action? What is the range of this whip, and should I tape off a safety boundary for liability purposes? Unfortunately, there’s no Judy Blume novel to get you through this challenging rite of passage. This is where San Francisco’s Center for Sex and Culture comes in.

CSC’s mission is to provide sex-positive education to diverse communities through informational lectures, experiential classes, and cultural events. Curious and not not horny, I trudged through the rain on a recent Friday night to attend CSC’s panel on group sex, lead by psychologist and sex party enthusiast Reid Mihalko.

With five minutes until curtain call, Mihalko is setting up, adjusting mic volumes and straightening the tablecloth. "Does everyone know where the bathrooms are?" he asks, breaking the silence. I can’t remember a time when a host of any sorts addressed bathroom location so immediately, but then Mihalko is no ordinary host. Blond, six feet five inches tall, and with a strong build, Mihalko is a play-party veteran with the penchant for linen to prove it.

Tonight he and his eight-member panel will reveal the ins-and-outs of what can make and break a play party, which is basically lifestyle community-speak for orgy: planned parties wherein the guests, in some manner, get it on — throw pillows optional. All the event’s panelists have not only attended, but have planned and staged play parties, some just for women, some just for men, some for "advanced players" and others for the tantra-inclined. The panelists double as massage therapists, sexologists, writers, teachers, and event planners who fell into the scene and took to it like fish to water.

We, the audience, are just here to watch and listen for tonight, but I get the impression that not everyone’s a novice here, as two long-lost friends recall a wild party from 20 years ago and many others touch and kiss as easily as they speak. One woman leaves her seat just before the show to return with a handful of hard candies. "Who wants something sweet?" she asks, in an Isabella Rossellini–esque accent. She passes them out to the most enthusiastic. "One left!" she announces. "Who wants one?"

"Why not?" postures one older gentleman in a fanny pack.

"Why not??" she asks in mock shock, retracting the cellophane-wrapped candy. "Do you want it or not?"

Share your Valentine’s nightmare — and win

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February 5, 2009

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By Breena Kerr

Send your personal Valentine’s day horror story (300 words or less) to culture@sfbg.com by Wednesday, Feb 11. We’ll print our favorite on the SEX SF blog, and its writer will win two tickets for a five-course meal and a show at Teatro Zinzanni.

Though it’s tempting to write off Valentine’s Day as a Hallmark holiday invented by Corporate America, the truth is that its origins extend back much further than American capitalism. In fact, it’s thought the celebration we know today started with the Christian appropriation of Lupercalia, the mid-February pagan festival ancient Romans celebrated to honor the coming of spring.

Back then, ancient priests (Luperci) sacrificed a goat and a dog for fertility and purification. The goat’s hide would then be sliced into strips and carried into the streets by boys who paraded around, dipping the lengths into bowls of sacrificial blood. Making their way across town, the young men slapped women and crop fields with the bloody strips, marking them with the promise of fertility for the coming year — and getting their girls horny in the process.

Thus the Valentine’s Day connection between sex and carnage was born. In our modern times, however, the carnage is often less literal and more emotional: impossible expectations, botched dates, ridiculous gifts, and horrible sex. In honor of this day of Great Disappointments, we invite you to send in your Valentine’s Day horror story.

I’ll get us started with mine, courtesy of V-Day 2008:

Blog Love: Hot dads online now!

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February 5, 2009

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Juliette Tang shouts out to local bloggers. Read her last installment here.

There is a particular breed of San Franciscan male who is sensitive, nurturing, and never gets tired of communicating. I know what you’re thinking. What’s his phone number and why haven’t you met him yet? You haven’t met him because he’s at home, sitting in front of the computer, and taking care of the kids. He is the elusive San Franciscan stay-at-home dad blogger. And one thing’s for sure: Stay-at-home dads update their blogs frequently!

SFDad says his “main reason for existence is to provide you with news and information about the most important (at least to us) baby in the world, SFBaby.” Before you balk, jaded Guardian readers, first check out his blog. You’ll realize that his gushing dad syndrome is actually really heartwarming, even for us. I totally got hooked on the three-part-series of SFDad and SFBaby going to visit SFGrandparents without SFMom. And this story about how SFDad bought mittens for SFBaby at an import store in the Mission because he was on a budget and didn’t want to get them at Baby Gap.

Doodaddy is the kind of father who wants “dump a gallon of pond slime on a 7-year old girl” because she wouldn’t let your daughter play with her (ostensibly because the 7-year old was raised by “sociopathic coyotes in a cave somewhere”). He chronicles the lives of Blueberry, his 9-month old, and Boo, his 3-year old, and states “part of my very existence orbits around ways to pawn my children off on other people”. Now this is the kind of parenting blog we can all relate to! Though he claims he’s “just not much of a parent,” his blog reveals that he cares deeply about his children (I mean, his life literally revolves around them, attempted pawning notwithstanding), and he is dealing with it the way any young San Franciscan urbanite would: with a lot of befuddlement, some apprehensions, and a whole lot of love and patience.

God’s Girls bare their souls (and more)

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February 5, 2009

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Juliette Tang continues her journey into the altporn world. Read her interview with Vivid-Alt’s Eon McKaye here .

God’s Girls is an altporn site that is like SuicideGirls except for the fact that it’s not SuicideGirls – and nor does God’s Girls mention “Suicide” anywhere in the title, which makes me like them more on default. Plus, they have Stoya, and they don’t lock their models into impossible contracts. Based in California, God’s Girls offers user-submitted DIY erotic photos and videos, plus a social networking community with user blogs, discussion boards, original writing, interviews and more. In our current installment of altporn interviews, the SFBG sat down with Annaliese Nielson, founder of God’s Girls, to learn more about the altporn, DIY erotica, and the GG way of things.

SFBG: First, what is the story behind your site?
AN: God’s Girls was an idea that i developed over the course of the summer of 2005. I knew a lot of hot girls who seemed to have no problem with nudity and I knew some amazing photographers, most notably Matthew Cooke, who I met during my own foray into modeling. And I had a generous friend who was willing to loan me the money to get everything going. It was just a very natural thing for me to get involved in. I saw myself surrounded by all of this fun and sexual openness and creativity and I knew it needed to be documented. I felt that I could do a better job than some of the people who have alt-erotica sites. I felt that I could be more fair to models, create better content and put together something that girls are proud to be a part of. It all came together relatively easily and after shooting content for a year (God’s Girls has always been about amazing content and lots of it– even when it was just a concept without a website yet) and the site launched in June of 06. This has truly been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. I have met so many amazing girls and amazing members of my site.

SFBG: Can you describe how you get the content for God’s Girls? It’s all DIY, right?

All you need is love … and Disney?

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February 5, 2009

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by Laura Peach

Give a little love and get a flamboyant and fabulous evening of cabaret-style entertainment on the night before Valentine’s Day. (Yes, lonely people, I’m especially talking to you — it’s cheer up time.) The Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation is holding an all-star benefit performance Monday evening bursting with cabaret, Broadway, and silver screen stars. The proceeds from “All You Need Is Love”, which is hosted by the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation, will go to local non-profits like Sunburst Projects, which provides social and emotional support for families affected by AIDS. Which means your laughter and delight will be totally guilt-free as well.

Save a kitten: Look goofy for Jesus

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February 4, 2009

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By Juliette Tang

According to the “Passion for Christ Movement,” or P4CM, “We want you to rock it, but you better have confidence. People will be clowning on you. If you walk into a 7-11, people will be joking and snickering, and you almost want to direct it to those people, telling them, ‘You’re all laughing, but probably cuz you’re all still masturbating.”

Is public humiliation really the cure for masturbation? Because we know that after your mom caught you masturbating that one time under the sheets, you completely stopped masturbating cold turkey. Riiiiight. Isn’t it enough that every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten and an angel loses his wings? No, not according to P4CM, the masturbation experts:

More hilarious shirts after the jump:

Aphrodesiacs: Edible sex organs

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February 4, 2009

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Ann Sims continues her list of sensual edibles to get you in the mood, with this little flower menu.

“Flowers are the plants’ sex organs,” writes Diane Ackerman in The Natural History of Love, “and they evoke the sex-drenched, bud-breaking free-for-all of spring and summer.” Bring the garden into your kitchen (and then into your bedroom) with a variety of edible flowers, including nasturtiums, chamomile, orange blossoms, dandelions, fuchsia, hibiscus, and honeysuckle.

For a delectable nectar, try this easy hibiscus cooler:

½ cup dried hibiscus or other edible flowers
2 drops essential oil of orange
¼ cup sugar or honey
orange slices for garnish

Up the wall: “Bay Area Graffiti” transcends urban scrawl

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February 4, 2009

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By Juliette Tang

There is some seriously beautiful graffiti in the Bay Area, along with some unbelievably atrocious scribbling as well.

Photographers Steve Rotman and Chris Brennan want you to focus on the beautiful. Their photo book of local street art, Bay Area Graffiti, drops this Friday with a launch party at 111 Minna. The bomb tome offers 208 pages of stunning landscape photos, as well as in-depth artist interviews with major players like JENKS, ABNO, CHUBS, HARSH, NESTA, REYES, CYMES, APEX and more – which “reveal personal stories, insights into inspiration, and harrowing tales of agility, all in the name of getting up.”

From Bay Area Graffiti

(The Online Graffiti Glossary, explains “getting up”: “Originally, “getting up” meant to sucessfully hit a train. Now it means to hit up anything, anywhere, with any form of graffiti, from a tag all the way up to a wildstyle burner — although the term implies the process of tagging repeatedly to spread your name. Tagging something once would be getting up, but would not make you an ‘up’ writer.” Etymology!)

Many of the up graffiti writers featured in the book will be making appearances at the launch bash.

Local Artist of the Week: Josh Hagler

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February 4, 2009

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LOCAL ARTIST Josh Hagler

TITLE Golgotha (72 by 108 inches, oil on canvas)

BIO Josh Hagler has exhibited artwork in galleries in London, Toronto, New York City, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. He is the recipient of the Wildgift Movement Grant. In the spring of 2010, he will have his first European solo exhibition at Galerie Raphael in Frankfurt, Germany.

SHOW "72 Virgins to Die For," Thurs/5 through March 1 (reception Thurs/5, 6–9 p.m.). Frey Norris Gallery, 456 Geary, SF. (415) 346-7182, www.freynorris.com

WEB www.joshuahagler.com, www.joshuahagler.blogspot.com

Tube socks lust: Director Eon McKai gets Vivid about his altporn mission

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February 4, 2009

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By Juliette Tang. Read her indepth article about the ironic hipster-altporn connection here.

They may look like a slightly trashier, more dolled up version of the run-of-the-mill American Apparel clad hipster, but the girls above aren’t really hipsters at all. They’re porn stars dressed as hipsters, and they make movies for Vivid-Alt, a subsidiary of Vivid Entertainment dedicated solely to, quite frankly, heterosexual hipster porn. And no, I’m not talking about those Richard Kern photographs in Vice Magazine. I’m talking about hardcore sex — in tube socks.

Alternative porn, or “altporn,” is nothing new, at least not since the advent of the Internet. While magazines like Hustler and Playboy have formulated the aesthetic of mainstream print pornography, the Internet created a democratic space inside which divergent interpretations of sexuality could be easily presented. Altporn began in the late 1990s with Web sites like GothicSluts and EroticBPM and was initially just an Internet anomaly. But due to the popularity of early altporn sites, new Web sites began to appear, altporn gained a measure of popularity, and by the time SuicideGirls surfaced in 2001, altporn was a full-fledged genre of pornography in and of itself. Seeing as early altporn followed the popularity of subcultures like the goth, punk, and emo movements, it was only a matter of time before altporn ‘turned all hipster’ (as everything is, it seems, these days).

A clip of The Doll Underground, directed by Eon McKai

I got a chance to chat with director Eon McKai, who has made movies for Vivid-Alt like Girls Lie, Debbie Loves Dallas, and The Doll Underground, a movie that, as improbable as it seems, is actually inspired by the Weather Underground. Eon, who calls himself an “aging hipster,” says that everyone at Vivid-Alt is “a part of the subcultures that we represent, so if you look at the people who are behind it, I think you’ll find that they are pure to the street, and everything is authentic.” And he is totally, completely serious about his mission.

Objects of Obsession: Special V-Day treats for your sweet

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February 3, 2009

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SFBG’s Laura Peach rounds up local items and experiences to die for

Valentine’s Day gift giving can be tricky. You need to choose something that’s romantic and significant, yet appropriate for your relationship status and your budget. These special treats for your Valentine sweet are sure to please.

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1. Stay sexy

The Alanya Room

Book a night in San Francisco’s sexiest hotel rooms, the SugarLuxe and Alanya at Hotel Des Artes ($69-$189). Yes, Playboy and pornography inspired these female artists to paint scantily clad, larger than life women on the walls. Yet nothing about the pop-artesque murals seems sleazy. To us anyway.

The SugarLuxe Room

Hotel des Artes, 447 Bush, SF, 415-956-3232; www.sfhoteldesartes.com

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2. Get fresh

All natural, Berkeley based personal care company Nancy Boy has concocted a sumptuous signature body oil that is perfect for massages ($21). Stock up at the clean, calming Hayes Valley store and let your hands get to work.

Nancy Boy, 347 Hayes, SF, 415-552-3636; www.nancyboy.com

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Just before V-Day, slip on a rubber …

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February 3, 2009

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By Juliette Tang

…. placemat, at Branch:

If your special Valentine is the type of person who likes getting a desk or a side table for Valentine’s Day, it would behoove you to know that Branch, an online furniture store specializing in sustainable, eco-friendly modern furniture, is having a Valentine’s Day sale. And, the best part about this sale is that, unlike other Valentine’s Day events (like going out for fondue or checking out that new shitty Renee Zellweger movie) you don’t even need a Valentine in order to go. In fact, unlike other Valentine’s Day events, this one is actually more fun to attend alone, because this beautiful handmade Cortiça Chaise Lounge only seats one, and Branch only has one floor model of it in stock. And this wine pitcher only comes with one cup. I’ll be using that cup to drink on my one rubber placemat. So there!

PS: if you mention that you heard about this via the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Branch will offer an extra 5% discount beyond their already discounted prices. You’re welcome!

Branch Warehouse Sale
11:30AM to 5:00PM
Saturday, February 7
245 South Van Ness Ave. Suite 304
415-626-1012
www.branchhome.com

Girls Rock! on DVD

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February 3, 2009

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By Natalie Gregory

In the 90’s, there were girls who rocked. Kim Deal, Courtney Love, the girl from White Zombie. I didn’t realize it at the time, but these women were an inspiration. They still are; a big fat middle finger to anybody who says girls can’t rock out and rock hard. This is a big theme in the insightful documentary Girls Rock!: girls today have some pretty commercialized, f&*%#d up role models. It’s about a rock and roll camp for girls in Portland, Oregon and follows a few first-timers throughout their weeklong journey of songwriting, guitar playing, and all the compromises in between. By the end of it, these male directors manage to illustrate the girls gaining confidence and a better understanding of their own capabilities.

‘Hold On’: Marianne Faithfull’s most recent cover comp is worth the dig

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February 3, 2009

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410pzzWVVJL._SS500_.jpg

MARIANNE FAITHFULL
Easy Come, Easy Go
(Naïve/ Love Da)

By Todd Lavoie

As gifted a songwriter as she has proven herself over the years, Marianne Faithfull has always been a flawless interpreter of other people’s compositions. Singing cover material, after all, was how the pop icon started out, upon being prodded into a musical career in 1964 by Rolling Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham.

Her first single, “As Tears Go By” was a Jagger/Richards composition – the equally famous Rolling Stones version wouldn’t appear for another year. Back then, Faithfull had a delicate, songbird-like voice, and much of her mid-’60s material consisted of lilting, swaying string-laden treatments of other songwriters’ material: Jackie DeShannon’s “Come and Stay With Me,” The Beatles’ “Yesterday,” Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “If I Never Get to Love You,” for example.

By the time of the release of her 1969 single “Sister Morphine” – co-written with Jagger and Richards, and once again preceding the Rolling Stones version – she had begun to show the depths of her songwriting abilities, but ultimately most listeners would probably consider her first and foremost as an unimpeachable interpreter, a modern equivalent of the jazz singers of the ’30s and ’40s who would tackle whatever songs caught their ear.

Eco-Boutique of the Week: Wildlife Works gets it all the way

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February 2, 2009

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SFBG’s Juliette Tang peeps the best eco-friendly products and boutiques.

It seems that the biggest trend in fashion these days isn’t the ankle boot, the harem pant, or the high-waisted jean, but the color green. Everything is being dyed green lately, no? And by green I don’t mean the color of that pretty John Galliano dress. I mean green as in producing goods in a socially conscious manner, inflicting as little harm as possible on the environment, and considering the sustainability of the planet as a meaningful paradigm in the relationship between labor, assembly, and production. Green as in the type of clothing one might find in boutiques like Wildlife Works, a green fashion label headquartered in San Francisco whose mission is to save endangered wildlife in Kenya.

Unlike much of the clothing on the market that is labeled ‘green,’ the products at Wildlife Works are actually green. Sadly, ‘green’ is often a misnomer used to mislead consumers. It seems everyday we’re hearing news of fraudulent eco-friendly products that aren’t nearly as green as they claim to be. Says Mike Korchinsky, founder and CEO of Wildlife Works, “Is everything that claims to be eco-friendly really eco-friendly? No, absolutely not. The marketing world has caught onto the green buzz and has been making a lot of hay out of the green movement.” From poor quality goods to deceitful advertising, spurious greenwashing is everywhere.

Snack Time: Spicy pupusas and soccer fans

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February 2, 2009

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SFBG’s Juliette Tang gets a little satisfaction.

What do you do if you find yourself in the Mission District at 4:00 PM, don’t want to ruin your appetite for dinner, but really really need a snack, so direly that you’re acting like a cranky bitch toward your friends? I found myself in this predicament yesterday, and as I gazed longingly into my purse (as cavernous and empty as my stomach) I knew that plunking down $8 for grilled veggies at Bi-Rite was beyond the realm of possibility.

But budgeting constraints shouldn’t mean that my only snack option is a can of Pringles at the Walgreens at 16th and Mission, and lucky for me, San Francisco has a cornucopia of cheap snack options that are as equally appetizing to the palate as they are the bank account.

Street Threads: What the heck are you wearing?

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February 1, 2009

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SFBG photog Ariel Soto hits the streets each week to scope out SF’s best looks. View her last installment here.

Jennifer, Van Ness Muni station

Terry, Mission and Virginia

Kate, Prospect and Cortland

Who is Mr. Slim?

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January 29, 2009

2

Text by Sarah Phelan

Is “Slim” really Mr. Slim’s real name? And who is this scary-sounding guy, anyways? News junkies should probably be asking these questions now that Carlos Slim Helú has loaned $250 million to the New York Times, and may ultimately take over the financially troubled company, which reportedly is $1.1 billion in debt.

When I first read Mr. Slim’s name, coupled with the phrase “the Mexican billionaire,” I thought there was no way this could be his real name. It had to be a nickname, a scary one at that, evoking comic book-style images in which a burly mobster darkens the newspaper’s door with a long shadow, a cloud of cigar smoke and the threat that “Mr. Slim intends to slim down the newsroom, starting with your left pinkies, if he doesn’t see some profits soon.”

But while it’s true that Mr. Slim is looking for a 10 percent profit at the Times—a scary sounding goal for reporters in an increasingly shrinking media world —it turns out Slim really is Mr. Slim’s real name, albeit a modification of the name of his Lebanese father, Youssif Salim, a Maronite Catholic, who emigrated to Mexico at the tender age of 14.

Upon reaching Mexico, Mr. Slim’s father changed his name from Youssif Slim to Julián Slim Haddad, adding his mother’s surname, Haddad, for good measure, as per Mexican-naming customs.

As the perhaps future king of the NYT, Slim, 69, already exerts influence on the telecommunications industry in Mexico and much of Latin America, and may well be the richest man on Earth, with a net worth of $60 billion, having possibly surpassed Warren Buffet in the recent global economic turmoil. All of which makes me fear that there is a fat chance that Slim will be suffering expanding word counts at the New York Times, any time soon.