Best Oracle With Alcohol: Ask Dr. Hal, Wednesday nights at the Odeon Bar.
Need help solving the fundamental questions of life and meaning Post911? Look up from the bottom of your glass, and avail yourself of the wisdom of a true scholar and gentleman, on tap, at your service Wednesday nights at the Odeon. Ask Dr. Hal Robins, aka Howland Owll, subgenius sage and erudite comics artist who is a veritable font of mellifluous esoterica and droll rejoinders to questions submitted by the audience.

It's simple, it's cheap (admission is free, but questions are answered according to the size of the accompanying honorarium), it's good clean fun. You write a question on a slip of paper, insert it in an envelope with some cash, and depending on the style of the interrogative, the generosity of the proffering, the mood and the synaptic fission of this Odeon oracle, you may well sit awestruck at the encyclopedic and possibly life-changing answer.
Especially good questions are rewarded with a complimentary shot of cheap liqueur, dispensed by co-host Chicken John. Wednesday, 9 pm-midnight, 3223 Mission Street @ Valencia, tel. (415) 550-6994 Free, but do tip the oracle!)

Best Romantic View Carved Out of the Presidio: Inspiration Point.
The GGNRA and Presidio Trust have been cleaning up this historic decommissioned army base, sprucing up its natural bounties and making them accessible to all. The recent removal of a stand of eucalyptus trees near the Arguello Gate has recovered a stunning vista overlooking the Bay aptly named Inspiration Point.

Trees are scarce in the City, but not in today's Presidio. In 1880, you would have found windswept grassland and barren sand dunes. Tree planting was a military operation: "In order to make the contrast from the city seem as great as possible, and indirectly accentuate the idea of the power of the Government, I have surrounded all the [Presidio] entrances with dense masses of wood," wrote Major William A. Jones in 1883.

Nothing exceeds like excess, and within a century a view once remarked on by the country club officer set was obscured by the eucs included in the Army's psycho-botanical experiment. Jones's caution appears not have been heeded:

"… we are in the midst of a great and growing city… the eyes of people of culture are upon us…it is within our power to treat this matter so as to win delight and approbation on one hand, or contempt and derision on the other. If it be worth while to plant trees… they should be planted effectively, and not dumped into the ground by the thousand, at random."

A mistake has been cleared, and now one can see for miles over the Golden Gate. Come by bus, car, bike, or on foot. Free Free Free. North on Arguello, enter the Presidio and continue past the Golf Club. On your right, 200 yards or less, there is a parking lot and signage to caption a view that kisses the eyes.

Best Gumshoe Bibliographer: Don Herron, whose Dashiell Hammett Walking tour has led hardboiled afficionados down some mean streets of the City since 1977.

Lasting 4 hours, and covering 3 miles, the tour visits key locations in The Maltese Falcon and Continental Op stories with raconteur Herron (author of The literary world of San Francisco & its environs), conjuring the San Francisco of writer Dashiell Hammett. Follow in the steps of private eye Sam Spade, whose partner Miles Archer "met swift death in the night-fog…with a smile on his mug and his pistol buttoned away under his overcoat."

These days Herron does the tour in May and October, meeting Sundays of those months at noon on the steps of the main branch of SF Public Library Center (n.w. corner is closest to the intersection of Fulton & Larkin), and other times by arrangement. Herron is readily recognizable in fedora and trenchcoat.

Hammett is but one of the authors in Don Herron's repertoire; he has also led walking tours of Fritz Leiber's classic novel Our Lady of Darkness set in 1970s San Francisco, and will no doubt someday lead the brave and the reckless in the footstep of Gary Warne and the Suicide Club's subterranean urban exploits, when the book he is writing with John Law is done and has found a publisher.
The Hammett tour costs $10. See website www.donherron.com or call 510-287-9540 to check dates or arrange a special outing.

Best New Blood in the Mission (degentrification watch): Having recently marked its first anniversary at new digs in the Mission, Borderlands Books has brought genre delicacies to a burgeoning row of booksellers on Valencia St.
It is a rare retailer who posts a Mission Statement on his wall, asserting a dedication to "providing a comprehensive selection of good quality and reasonably priced books and other items of interest for readers of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Macabre Fiction."

For rabid, hard-core fans and newbies alike - at Borderlands, one can delve deeper into Tolkien or Harry Potter, or scope out other fantasists like Lewis Carroll, the Oz or Narnia books - both the classics, and the pop cultural. There is a good small press section which includes chapbooks of James Tiptree, Jr.'s poems and memoirs of Frank Belknap Long, and cheap used paperback science fiction aplenty.

New mass market and specialty press editions of works by H.P. Lovecraft, Philip Dick, Rudy Rucker, Fritz Leiber, John Shirley, and just about anyone of interest to the speculative literature community can be found in this well appointed bookshop. Fetishists will delight in finding old copies of Weird Tales and the roaring sentinel gargoyle seen on Buffy the Vampire Slayer for sale.
If you're wondering where to start, the staff is very friendly and knowledgeable. The store hosts two book groups, as well as author appearances, and other events. Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia St.; www.borderlands-books.com. Tel. 415-824-8203.

Best Interactive Machine Art That Could Kill You: SEEMEN
Unlike the robots you see on TV, with SEEMEN's machines you can feel the tensing of pneumatic joints and hear their electrical whirr as you ponder your frail, flesh-based mortality before them.

These shows come at long intervals, and often are staged with minimal notice at obscure locations. There, in groups of 60-70, audience-participants are required to sign releases before being being hustled into a warehouse where they meet and mix with the macabre devices created by Kal Spelletich and his band of machine artists.

SEEMEN creates situations where audiences are encouraged to interact and operate devices like the Levitator. With this, you attache a respiration sensor to your chest, and as you breathe it lifts you into the air, with halo of fire billowing over your head. To regain terra firma, all you must do is remember to exhale.
Shows typically cost $10, and are best found out either via www.seemen.org, or sign on to the Laughing Squid list (at www.laughingsquid.org) In July, Spelletich will demo some of his interactive pieces in conjunction with the Media Lab of MIT at the Exploratorium. In Fall, he will be teaching a class on Robotics 101 at SF State.