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You have a couple of tempting options. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will be hosting a Sunday of Easter debauchery in Dolores Park, starting at 1 p.m. with a Bonnet Contest and ending with the infamous Hunky Jesus Contest at 3:20 p.m. God would want you to put on a pair of cut offs and a thorny crown. Perhaps you're in the mood for something a little more active. If that's the case, get thee to the eighth annual BYOBW (Bring Your Own Big Wheel) Race at Vermont and 20th. The race starts at 5 p.m . The Web site admonishes contenders that there are "no rubber wheels" and, ominously, no bathrooms. Happy Easter! (photo from apt_tyreseus' flickr )–Andy Wright

Famed science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke died yesterday at the age of 90. The New York Times has published a lengthy obit, while Salon waxes poetic about Clarke's eerie capacity to predict the future. You can listen to Clarke's final interview at Spectrum Radio in which he discussed, among other things, his reaction to Sputnik, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and something called a space elevator. And here's an excerpt from his diary, written while working on the set of 2001. In death, Clarke may finally make a celestial journey. He donated six strands of his hair to a company that plans to send human DNA into space. -Andy Wright

Abba drummer found dead in his garden. -Andy Wright

Reuters reported yesterday that a recent poll about who should be the top role model for British children found Richard Branson was preferred to Jesus. Branson ranked number two on the list, with Jesus trailing in third. In first place was the vague "Family Member." The billionaire entrepreneur also beat out Nelson Mandela and Princess Diana. –Andy Wright

Happy Birthday, Leap Year babies Byron, Richard Ramirez, and Ja Rule! You're....11 now, or something. -Andy Wright

Today marks the birthday of Joshua A. Norton, famous San Francisco crazy person! Born in 1819 in London, Norton did what every good fellow does when gifted with $40,000 from his fathers estate: he promptly invested in Peruvian rice. Sadly, this venture didn't work out so well for Norton and he hightailed it to San Francisco in order to avoid a lawsuit concerning his rice contract. ("What brings you to this lovely city by the Bay, old chap?" "Dodging a rice contract, guvnuh!" "Oh, quite, quite!" Polishes monocle.) Having picked perhaps the only city on Earth where an insane person can amass pretend political import, Norton proceeded to appoint himself emperor of the United States. He procalimed that the US Congress be dissolved by force and issued currency in his name that merchants actually accepted. His eccentricities earned him a lovable notoriety and he became a popular area figure. Mark Twain immortalized him in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as the character The King and Robert Louis Stevenson made him a character in his novel The Wrecker. Norman collapsed in 1880 on the corner of California and Dupont (now Grant Avenue.) If you are in the area, pour a nice snifter of brandy out for The King on his birthday. -Andy Wright

Reading this real estate listing on Curbed for available penthouse units in the Soundworks Residences at 542 Natoma (having formerly housed the likes of Radiohead and the Cocteau Twins *heh* as they "unwound between studio sessions") I feel an almost palpable pain over the fact that I am not, nor will I ever be, a filthy rich rock star. I knew I should have kept playing the guitar in high school. The units start at $1,350,000. Curse you fate! Read the description and weep, oh poor masses:

"Warmed floors of natural stone and quartersawn walnut will coddle your feet in wintertime...A gently terraced staircase leads to a combination kitchen and dining room that opens to a heated patio. Dishware displayed in the Scavolini cabinetry becomes an aesthetic statement against the understated Bauhaus design. Ascend to a large living room infused with natural light from clerestory windows at the top of the 18’ boxed cathedral ceiling. The flow of the home is effortless and dynamic, unified by coordinated elements of the finishes like the green glass accents throughout, and the warm dark wood... "

-- Brian Bernbaum

BY NATHAN LEE
What I want to say about the death of Heath Ledger is…nothing. No speculation on why he committed suicide, if he committed suicide. No comment on the chronology, the circumstances, the known facts or lurid details of his passing. No outrage at the ghoulish gathering outside his SoHo apartment, no interest in who may or may not have owned it, not even my revulsion – violent as it is – that New York Magazine no sooner posted news of Ledger’s death on their website than offered a link to a broker’s listing for a loft in the same building, as if this were just another colorful chapter in the story of Manhattan real estate.

No one saw it coming, everyone says, as if it would be any of our business if we did.

Ledger’s most recent performance belongs to a movie about the artist besieged by critics, cultists, acolytes, and skeptics, inundated with intrusions, expectations, adoration, disillusionment. (Read on after the jump)

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All that talk this week about the demise of Hillary turned out to be misplaced. Hillary Clinton, it seems, is very much alive. Yet Sir Edmund Hillary, the Kiwi beekeeper-turned-mountaneer who conquered Everest, is dead.

The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called "Ed" and considering himself just an ordinary beekeeper.

"Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities. In reality, he was a colossus. He was an heroic figure who not only 'knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity," New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said in a statement.

"The legendary mountaineer, adventurer, and philanthropist is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived," she said.

Hillary's life was marked by grand achievements, high adventure, discovery, excitement — and by his personal humility. Humble to the point that he only admitted being the first man atop Everest long after the death of climbing companion Tenzing Norgay.

He had pride in his feats. Returning to base camp as the man who took the first step onto the top of the world's highest peak, he declared: "We knocked the bastard off."

Click here to read a very thorough obituary from Associated Press. As you'd expect, it's quite the ripping yarn.

— Joe Eskenazi

Artwork | Oil on canvas by Edward J. Halliday, 1955. Courtesy of the Auckland Museum.

Yes, those of you who had Spice 1 in the pool please hand your paperwork to members of the SF Weekly street team and collect your cash prize.

The 37-year-old rapper (real name: Robert Green) was driving his Cadillac Escalade through Hayward early yesterday morning when he was interrupted by a possible car-jacker. The assailant decided to leave Green a memento — a bullet in the chest.

Green, who has shared the mic with Method Man, Ice-T and 2Pac, is recovering in an East Bay hospital.

"He's in pain, but otherwise he's coming along really well," his mother, Jean Green-Craven, 57, told the Chronicle from Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley.

— Joe Eskenazi

By Joe Eskenazi

Truly, this has been the winter of discontent for Owen Wilson. The talented actor and writer's apparent suicide attempt is something we're not going to make jokes about.

On the other hand, given Wilson's very public ordeal, one can't help but undergo a triple-take at the above bus shelter antidrug ad at Geary and Webster:

First take: "Oh, another overbearing antimarijuana ad."

Second take: "Holy crap! That vagrant with the snow in his hair looks just like Owen Wilson!"

Third take: "Man, it's been a rough road for Owen Wilson. Lemme check again to make sure that's not really him."

In fact, let's take a closer look after the jump ...

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Talking shit (and pish and farts) with Yiddish-language maven Michael Wex

By Joe Eskenazi

The recitations of St. Augustine don’t usually make a cameo during lectures on the dynamics of the Yiddish language.

And yet, earlier this month, there was Michael Wex quoting the Fourth Century church father -- albeit about substances more commonly found in a chamber pot than a lecture chamber.

“St. Augustine said, ‘Inter faeces et urinam nascimur’ – ‘we are born between feces and urine’ so we shouldn’t be too proud of ourselves. Looking at it from a Yiddish point of view, you can see that St. Augustine was a nice guy – but, ultimately, a bit of a goyishe kop.”

The Saint got it all wrong, see? We start with urine and end with feces – at least in Yiddish. A young person is a “pisher,” hearkening to a newborn pissing babe. And an old man is an “alter kocker” – an “old shitter” and you know all too well what this hearkens to.

“Life is simply one long waiting period from one movement to the other with increasing discomfort as we get closer and closer to the anti-climax of life,” said Wex, author of...

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“Some weird things happened that night…”

By Joe Eskenazi

You may recall the tempest in a taxi that was raised when God-fearing local cabbie Michael Byrne unsuccessfully attempted to have the Taxi Commission change his medallion from No. 666 to a number that’s not the Mark of the Beast.

Well, things went badly for Byrne. He lost his bid and was ridiculed by his fellow cabbies in the process. But one of his former brethren can understand why Byrne wouldn’t have wanted to drive about the town in the Devil’s Taxi. Larry Sager is now a downtown San Francisco lawyer, but 12 years ago he spent a memorable night of his own behind the wheel of Cab No. 666.

“The dispatcher gave me a choice…

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Sing us a song, Piano Man – about how you dumped 58,000 gallons of bunker oil into the Bay.

By Joe Eskenazi

The weathervane of blame allotting responsibility for the Cosco Busan oil spill has been spinning like a taxi odometer these days.

There’s the Coast Guard radiomen who failed to inform the pilot of a 900-foot-long ship he was veering into the Bay Bridge, the pilot who dubiously claims every last electronic system on his ship done kicked the bucket simultaneously and a ship’s crew whose proficiency in English may not have extended to “left” and “right.”

Now, however, investigators have found a new culprit: Billy Joel.

The song-and-dance man, who redefined the term “greatest hits” with a series of single-car crashes and Toonces the Cat-like driving in recent years, was inexplicably...

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John Gaul has many a story to tell. But it is a race occasion, such as this, that he will

By Joe Eskenazi

Listen! John Gaul has come unstuck in time.

Bedecked in a bowler hat, a sky blue shirt, a red-striped tie and with a Liberty’s head dollar dangling from a chain on his houndstooth gray vest just above his steel-plated cane, Gaul looks as if he’s just clamored out of a portrait of Charles Darwin, late in life.

But Gaul does not want to talk about the artificial selection of pigeons in Victorian London, as Darwin did in the first chapter of “On the Origin of Species.” No, the 82-year-old wants to tell you a story about the creator of Treasure Island – and he doesn’t mean that hunk of landfill in the middle of the Bay.

At 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 13, Gaul will revive a tradition...

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