LEAH GARCHIK

Leah Garchik

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

"The Gates" is over and done, "fantastic and memorable,'' writes Sally Carlson, who went to New York to see Christo's artwork with her daughter. The project, of course, was about art and not government. But pondering whether San Franciscans had reveled in anything like the pride of New Yorkers about being in their city at that time, the event that came to mind was about government and not art. It was February of last year, the time of same-sex marriages.

The prevailing feeling in both cases: "This is why I live here and why I'm glad of it.'' Euphoria is too often fleeting; longer may it reign.

P.S.: Ken Maley says that in the mid-'80s, he proposed that Christo wrap Coit Tower as a condom, as part of a safe-sex project. The answer came from Jeanne-Claude, the artist's wife (now his collaborator): "Christo only wraps things he thinks of himself.''

Music was bamming and booming, plunking and plinking everywhere on Friday night. At Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, after the Other Minds' concert, fans of new music emerged from the performance deep in conversation and not whistling a single tune. Unpredictability is sort of the point of the thing.

Went from there to the Odeon in the Mission, where the sweetly named band Cotton Candy performed minor-key, Kurt Weill-like ditties with naughty lyrics: "My landlord is a pervert/ And that's all right to me./ He keeps his house in order/ And sometimes stays for tea. ... He's very fond of enemas ...'' (will stop right there while you finish your breakfast).

And then it was on to Slim's to catch a few late-night minutes of its Barbara Boxer appreciation show. The Baby Boomer parents of the youngish people who'd been grooving to the accordion at Odeon were sweating and swaying (thank goodness the smell of non-tobacco smoking finally won out) to that old- time rock 'n' roll, Bob Weir and the Flying Other Brothers, and then Boz Scaggs and G.E. Smith. Missed the earlier performances, but a spy tells me T Bone Burnett, who's music director for a forthcoming movie about Johnny Cash, "performed right after Country Joe and may have stolen the show.'' A huge hanging banner said, "Election 2008 Countdown. 1,352 Days.''

The latest Rolling Stone takes a crack at East Bay-founded MoveOn.org, claiming that its campaigns have so far failed and the values of its founders are too far left to speak for most voters in the Democratic mainstream. "Insiders worry that putting left-wing idealists in charge of speaking to the center seems about as likely to work as chewing gum with your feet.'' Is Rolling Stone, hell-raisers' bible, going all red-state on us?

Donald Frolli was poking through a Haight Street vintage shop when a young clerk asked what era clothing he sought. "Something prior to World War II,'' he said. "We only go back to the '30s,'' she said.

The rites of Oscar have come and gone, too, but wisecracks live. Herbert Gold cites his late friend Bernard Pechter's observation that Oscar night is "the gay High Holiday.'' Meanwhile, George Michalski noticed that Sean Penn was wearing a Gonzo pin, honoring Hunter Thompson. (Regarding Penn's defense of Jude Law: They're working together in the cast of "All the King's Men.'')

One last thing: TJ Walker, a media trainer who seems to be to public speaking as Mr. Blackwell is to fashion, has given our beloved hometown hero Clint Eastwood an award for worst speaker of the night. "Dirty Harry might be cool when it comes to gunfighting, but he stammered and scratched his head so often in a look of befuddlement that he appeared to be portraying George Bush explaining where WMDs are.'' Never mind. Eastwood rocks. Denise Hale says the dinner crowd at the Vanity Fair party -- Rupert Murdoch, Barry Diller and the like -- gave him the biggest cheers of the night.

Burning Man has put out a call for an administrative manager, with duties to include "oversight of the administrative functions of satellite offices,'' "oversee day-to-day Human Resources functions,'' and "enforce, review and update policies and procedures.'' Is this the Burning Man of old?

Meanwhile, Beau Bonneau Casting of San Francisco is looking for "fabulous and amazing drag queens'' (you've come to the right city, baby) to participate in a scene in "Rent."

P.S.: Milt Moskowitz, whose work is to compile lists of the best places to work (published in such places as Working Mother, Fortune and Mother Jones), got married last week to Elizabeth Campbell Rollins. The bride, once married to Gordon Parks, is the daughter of the late illustrator E. Simms Campbell.