San Francisco Chronicle Arts & Entertainment - Spoken Edition

My mother always used the word “entertaining” in that strange way that bourgeois-gathering guru Martha Stewart does. Sometimes we would be in a department store and my mother would hold up a large bowl and say, “This is just perfect for entertaining guests.” I used to wonder what guests would find so amusing about a bowl. And that concept stayed with me — the idea that you were supposed to entertain guests. I took it literally, in the showbiz sense.

I set a new personal record last week. I put my sunglasses to rest after a whopping three years of use. It was an emotional retirement ceremony as I placed them gently into the rear seat pocket compartment of my car. May they rest in peace. My previous record for not losing my sunglasses was, I believe, six months. They would disappear in all kinds of ways, falling off in the ocean, left at a truck stop, or forgotten in a rental car.

“Kin,” like its distant TV cousin “Stranger Things,” mashes up a lot of genres into something that’s familiar yet somehow different. It’s a film that mixes action, science fiction, a road trip, family drama and crime thriller into a creation that more or less resembles a movie.

Country rocker Jason Isbell was recently targeted by Republican senators as one of the faces of the “unhinged, angry left” for his criticism of Trump voters. The four-time Grammy winner and his longtime band, the 400 Unit, may take a few jabs at the state of the nation on his latest album, “The Nashville Sound,” but there’s so much more.

In just over four years, Sam Smith has risen from playing small clubs to headlining arenas. Despite the accolades, Grammys and stratospheric album sales — 12 million and counting for his breakthrough 2014 debut, “In the Lonely Hour” — he remains human after all.

The first scene of Guillermo Calderón’s “Kiss” seems to unfold sans complication, its scenario as recognizable as that of middle-period Woody Allen. A testy pas de deux, fueled by hate that’s the flip side of passion, multiplies into a love triangle, then a love quadrangle among a close-knit group of friends in Damascus, Syria. Each line seems to bring a fresh betrayal to one-up the one that came an instant before.

My grandfather, who died about a million years ago, lived alone for the last few years of his life. I went to visit him shortly before he croaked at the ripe old age of 92. I remember it like it was yesterday, because it taught me a valuable lesson about food. He was clearly on his last legs. His skin was withered, his teeth were gone, and he was confined to a wheelchair. He never left his dark, dreary apartment, and he had outlived my grandmother and all his friends.

Gary Soto is one of California’s most influential writers. He has published a dozen poetry volumes as well as several memoirs, children’s stories and young-adult novels. Chronicle Books recently reissued “The Elements of San Joaquin,” which established Soto’s reputation in the 1970s. Back then, he was one of the first American poets to spotlight the lives of immigrant laborers. “Campesino” epitomizes Soto’s themes.

Antiquarian bookseller John Windle has owned his business since 1974. He’s at 49 Geary St., a downtown building that houses many art galleries. At 9 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 19, when he stopped by there “for a little quiet catch-up on paperwork, there was a dead body in the recess at the front of the building.” Police and paramedics had just arrived, he emailed, and three hours later, had “finished clearing up the scene ... apparently a drug overdose.

A stripper performs Friday as the Nob Hill Theatre marks its closing. The building became a gay porn theater in the 1960s after being a nightclub and a jazz club. Adult film star Alam Wernik mingles with patrons at the theater. The property has been sold for more than $3 million, and the new owners won’t say what they are converting it into.

I remember it well. I was 20 years old, and I had met my soon-to-be wife while traveling in Greece. She was a French Canadian from Quebec, and I was a gringo from California. When I got home, I was telling my wise father about this new love of my life. “She’s beautiful, fun and sweet,” I gushed.

Jack White is among more than 300 artists who have started to create phone-free shows. For many concertgoers, it’s a return to a time when they could escape for two hours at a concert. That was the one request Jack White had during his show Thursday, Aug. 16, in San Francisco.

Long ago — and even now — a popular view held that athletes should keep their mouths shut. But as everything from the Olympic Games to race relations to current controversies involving the national anthem have proved, there’s a counter notion: Athletes can play a vital role in transforming society. Few athletes have demonstrated this more vividly than the late tennis player Arthur Ashe.

In the Roman Catholic calendar, today is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, a Holy Day of Obligation. This separates us from our Eastern Orthodox friends who believed in dormition. I’m no theologian, so here’s the gist: The Orthodox believe that Mary went to sleep for three days, and the Roman Catholics made the assumption that she went directly to heaven. In South Ozone Park, the feast was celebrated with the priests and altar boys of St.

Editor’s Note: It’s time for yet another installment from our nationally syndicated (in his dreams) advice columnist, that Doctor of Communications himself, well known to his legion of mythical fans as simply Doctor C. Dear Dr. C: I’m 27 years old, and I was always taught by my parents to respect my elders. With that in mind, I’ve always addressed my parents’ friends as Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones and not by their first names.