Zara Stone

San Francisco

Freelance Journalist at Freelance

Culture reporter @sfstandard | tech, biz, + SF life | 🇬🇧➡🇺🇸 | Author "Killer Looks: The History of Plastic Surgery In Prisons." [email protected]

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Articles

SF fans brave long lines and late nights for the Nintendo Switch 2

3 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | Zara Stone

At 9 p.m. on Wednesday — a less dramatic time than New York City’s midnight drop — the $449 Nintendo Switch 2 became available for in-store pickups in San Francisco. It was the first major upgrade to the game console since it debuted in 2017, and gamers were twitching in anticipation.
In San Francisco, orgy DJ is a real profession

1 month ago | sfstandard.com | Zara Stone

At a recent orgy at a home in the East Bay, DJ J. Maximilian had to politely ask an amorous group to stop using his gear for support. Their activity was shaking his equipment. “They were so focused on each other that they didn’t realize,” he said. It wasn’t the first time. The sex parties he DJs — held in mansions, Airbnbs, speakeasies, and warehouses all over the Bay Area — rarely come with a proper booth. “Sometimes they give you a folding table or a coffee table.
In San Francisco, orgy DJ is a real profession

1 month ago | flipboard.com | Zara Stone

NowWater began flowing from a pipe onto hundreds of acres of dry, sunbaked lake bed as California officials filled a complex of shallow ponds near the south shore of the Salton Sea in an effort to create wetlands that will provide habitat for fish and birds, and help control lung-damaging dust around …
A phone-free prom night? These high schoolers asked for it

1 month ago | sfstandard.com | Zara Stone

For Saahil Mishra, student body president at Lick-Wilmerding, the elite private high school in Ingleside, this year’s prom was the culmination of a dream. The theme was Enchanted Forest, complete with an ice cream sundae bar, a tarot reader, a glitter tattoo station, and a band, all set inside San Francisco’s golden-domed City Hall. But while Mishra looked appropriately classy in a tuxedo with a navy blue bow tie and shiny shoes, one item was conspicuously missing from his fit: a smartphone.
Exclusive peek at Frontier Tower, where mid-market meets the singularity, sorta

1 month ago | sfstandard.com | Zara Stone

Mid-Market has earned its reputation as the city’s no-man’s-land. Despite attempt after attempt to rehabilitate the area (see: new IKEA, dead Whole Foods, abandoned Twitter HQ), it remains mostly empty retail spaces, shuttered offices, and many people visibly high on drugs.
The best books to read this summer, according to bestselling Bay Area authors - The San Francisco Standard

1 month ago | sfstandard.com | Zara Stone

Recommendations are a dime a dozen, but in Pro Tips, we go directly to the source, asking experts for their professional opinions on the city’s best cultural offerings. As you make your summer plans, don’t forget to leave room in your suitcase for a great book. To help you figure out what to read next, we asked eight Bay Area writers — who read constantly, obsessively, and very, very opinionatedly — for their go-to selections.
I flew to Reno without a REAL ID and nobody stopped me

1 month ago | sfstandard.com | Zara Stone

Today is Real ID deadline day, so The Standard sent a reporter out to fly without one. Would she make it to Reno and back? I expected chaos. I set an alarm for 5 a.m., hailed an Uber, and hustled out to SFO, where I would attempt to fly to Reno without a Real ID on Real ID deadline day. And guess what happened? Nothing. I sailed through TSA, no questions asked or extra screening necessary. For weeks, the TSA has warned: no REAL ID, no domestic flight, starting May 7.
How Aella became San Francisco’s sex goddess

2 months ago | sfstandard.com | Zara Stone

Possibly the most surprising entry on The Standard’s SF100 is Aella, who sits among better-known talents like George Kittle and Zac Posen in our Performers category. An independent sex researcher, X provocateur, and wildly popular Substacker, Aella is suddenly everywhere: on Lex Fridman’s podcast, featured in The Atlantic, and now, appearing in our guide of the most powerful and influential people in San Francisco.
Oppenheimer dances at the Nuclear Rave for SF Climate week

2 months ago | sfstandard.com | Zara Stone

To court Gen Z, nuclear activists threw an atomic dance party to get down with the meltdown. As an EDM mix of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” blasted on Sunday night, Charles Oppenheimer, grandson of the father of the nuclear bomb, jumped around a packed dance floor in SoMa, wearing a glittery green jacket and a T-shirt printed with a giant white atom. It was his 50th birthday, and he was celebrating at the Nuclear Rave, sponsored by SF Climate Week.
SF’s social wellness scene is blowing up

2 months ago | sfstandard.com | Zara Stone

In March, the line to enter MNT, a new pilates and coworking space in the Marina that bills itself as San Francisco’s “first wellness social club,” wrapped around the block.