Out There :: Strolling Into the Season

It has begun, the 2015 holiday season. From now until year's end, it's all a mad rush of holiday parties, familial obligations, work-family dos, festive imperatives, and the wanton decking of halls. Don't look now, Madge , you're soaking in it.

Last week Out There attended the kick-off for Union Square SF's Winter Walk. This is a pop-up pedestrian plaza set up along two blocks of Stockton Street that comes alive with light shows, food trucks, and music, through Jan. 1. It's a boulevardier's liberation in pleasing AstroTurf and plastic public seating, and best of all, yet another impediment to soul-destroying single-occupancy vehicles hogging up the city's downtown core. Pedestrians only! You have nothing to lose but your carbon footprint!

The media kick-off concluded with an afterparty at 140 Maiden Lane, home of the only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building in San Francisco. The erstwhile Xanadu Gallery behind its artful brick facade, it was built in 1949, its spiraling inner ramp a direct antecedent to the great American architect's later inspiration for the Guggenheim Museum in NYC.

The previous evening, OT was in the house with our good buddy Wilder Ceplo at Sotheby's San Francisco's new One Sansome Street gallery, for a VIP reception and private viewing of highlights from Robert Frank: The Americans. This exhibition of prints from Frank's iconic book of photography comes from the personal collection of Ruth and Jake Bloom, on public view in San Francisco and Los Angeles before the New York Photographs auction on Dec. 17. It was a swank affair, to celebrate some important art photos.

Then we returned to Chez Wilder in time for the annual broadcast of Rankin/Bass ' stop-motion Christmas classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on CBS. Our host is an expert in all things Rudolph and proud owner of a truly impressive collection of Rudolph memorabilia, so watching the Red-Nosed Ur-Text with him was somewhat like screening Zapruder film footage with the Warren Commission . "If you watch Hermey the elf's neck carefully in this scene, you can see the spring mechanism inside."

Bay Area cabaret duo Sandy and Richard Riccardi sing their "Holiday Dinner Party" on YouTube to the tune of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer." "Charlie could not have cheddar, cause it clashes with his meds/Leigh's on a low-carb diet, couldn't sample any breads./Anya could not have onions, cuz they fill her up with gas./Elsie could not have eggnog, cuz it knocks her on her ass." That's real holiday spirit!

Short Takes

1. The [UK] Guardian has the word on "a letter in which author Ian Fleming asserts that his lesbian Bond girl Pussy Galore 'only needed the right man to come along to cure her psycho-pathological malady.'" This shameful Fleming memorabilia was sold in auction in London last month.

"The letter, which is also included in the just-published collection of Fleming's James Bond letters 'The Man with the Golden Typewriter,' was written in response to a Dr. Gibson. Gibson had written to Fleming that while he enjoyed 'Goldfinger,' 'although not a psycho-pathologist, I think it is slightly naughty of you to change a criminal lesbian into a clinging honey-bun (to be bottled by Bond) in the last chapter.'" Oh, how they misunderstand.

2. Thai Visa Forum reports that "the latest film from Thailand's most decorated director was named best film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards" last month. "Apichatpong 'Joe' Weerasethakul 's 'Rak ti Khon Kaen' 'Love in Khon Kaen'), known internationally as 'Cemetery of Splendour,' won the Best Feature trophy in Brisbane, Australia, at the ninth annual awards show, which recognizes cinema in 70 countries, from Russia to New Zealand. Set in the artist's hometown, the dreamy mystery-romance centers on a middle-aged nurse (Jenjira Pongpas Widner) who cares for a soldier lost in an unexplained coma." The openly gay Weerasethakul is probably best-known in this country as auteur of the international art-house hit 'Tropical Malady.' His accolades keep coming.

3. The San Francisco Film Society announced the latest honorees to be added to Essential SF, their ongoing compendium of the Bay Area film community's most vital figures and institutions. This year's inductees are filmmaker and curator Craig Baldwin, longtime film distributor California Newsreel, Mill Valley Film Festival director of programming Zoe Elton, journalist Michael Fox and filmmakers Jenni Olson and Jennifer Phang. Congratulations, you filmees!

Fresh Stew

OT enjoyed the powerhouse performance of "Notes of a Native Song" by Tony Award-winning writer/musician Stew and co-composer Heidi Rodewald last Saturday night, part of the "Curran: Under Construction" series at that fabled theater. Homage to the great gay African-American writer and activist James Baldwin, Native Song is a collage of songs, texts and video inspired by Baldwin's brave, visionary life. The show, born as part of Harlem Stage's season celebrating Baldwin's 90th birthday, offered Jimmy B. as boy preacher, blues singer, Bard of Harlem, intellectual brawler and expat social conscience of America. Stew, Rodewald and their band the Negro Problem were kick-ass great in songs and asides. It was an unforgettable night at the theatre.