Author: sanfranchrisko

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Pruning

Today I started my winter pruning, aggressively hacking my way through ivy, jasmine, boxwood, clematis, grape, etc… Next week I plan to radically reshape the cotoneasters, the plum, and the brugmansia. Then the roses. I look forward to the roses the most, and save them for last. They are as old as my house (1929), Cecille Brunner, the old “sweetheart rose” of San Francisco, and run the entire length of my fence, and have been trained into one of the cotoneasters and the hawthorne at the top of my garden. I once made an artwork out of Dean Smith’s furry buns and called it “Sweetheart,” after the rose.

It used to be planted all over the city, but has fallen out of favor, bizarrely, as it is disease resistant, has an incredible profusion of flowers in the spring, followed by intermittent blooms through winter, can grow up to 20 feet in a season, and has a lovely little pale pink delicately scented flower.

Tonight I’m off to see Stalker at the Castro, and actually, have to leave.

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The Marjorie Wood Gallery

BC and I have been working on a project called the MARJORIE WOOD GALLERY. Remember the Barbara bel Geddes character, Midge, in Hitchcock’s Vertigo? Her full name is Marjorie Wood. This is the online art gallery that she started years after the events depicted in the film. I’m curating (as Midge) and designing the site, and Chris is to manage the business end of it. This is my first attempt at implementing my own web design, so any feedback on ease of use, design, etc is welcomed and appreciated. We haven’t officially launched, but most of the site is viewable, so check it out.

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A Bum Knee, Solaris, and Manny 18 Years Ago

I fell down my stairs, again, on Sunday, a few hours after banging into my “health chair” while grappling for the light in my studio downstairs. It didn’t bug me until tonight, my knee, after doing a little Christmas shopping, well, actually buying myself the new Criterion release of Contempt while shopping for my loved ones, and then after climbing my hill and the flight of stairs to my flat and, whammo, instant inflammation. I made a long entry last night in my blog about Manny–I spent an hour or so on it–but then inadvertently deleted it. So I’ll try to recap, although the throbbing in my knee and the half bottle of wine I drank at BC’s will surely temper the sentiment of last night into something perhaps less sappy and hopefully less lengthy.

So I went to see Solaris with Bob last night, a fairly decent stylish and moody remake of the Tarkovsky film, directed by Steven Soderbergh. George Clooney plays a psychologist, “Chris,” who is called to investigate the strange goings-on in the space station orbiting the planet Solaris. Upon his arrival, he discovers that two of the inhabitants of the station have killed themselves, and after a night of restless sleep filled with unsettling dreams of his recently deceased wife, who had also killed herself, he wakes to find her, his wife, actually there with him.

Last night was the anniversary of the night that I met Manny, 18 years earlier, while working at Marcello’s Pizza on Castro, when he picked me up (saying he was 40), despite my protestation that he should be picking on someone his own age (I had just turned 19). The movie made me think of a dream that I had of Manny in 1993, about a year and a half after his death, while renting a freezing cold apartment in Florence with Bob from the Marchsesa Frescobaldi. In my dream, while driving down Market Street, the sun setting, the city bathed in that late summer golden haze, I noticed a man on the side of the road who looked like Manny, seated in a wheelchair with a blanket over his lap, soaking up the last of the rays of sunlight. As I got closer I realized it WAS him, slammed on the brakes and ran to him, ranting hysterically, unbelievable. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing there, why he was alive, but I was so happy to see him again and to hold him. He held me for the longest time without saying anything, and then said, “Ya know, Christian (he always called me that, but it’s not my name), I’m really happy here, very cumftable (he grew up in the Bronx), and I’m going to be okay. And you’re going to be okay, too…” I got back in the car, drove away, and woke up, feeling that sadness that’s like a boulder on your diaphragm. Something was over.

For months after his death, I had thought that I had seen him here and there, and even once leapt from my car and chased a guy down, thinking it was Manny. I had so deeply and intensely loved him, a love bound to his physicality, the smell of his breath and the taste of his skin, that I couldn’t convince my senses that they were to be deprived of his molecules. Waking from my dream, I understood that he was completely gone, and more importantly, that I was letting go of him, too.

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An Old Sauterne and a New Apple Pie

During dessert last night at Peter and Luis’, Luis treated us to a 1949 Calvet Sauterne, an unexpected compliment to my apple pie and vanilla ice cream. I’ve never had a dessert wine so old, and it was a completely new sensual experience. Its color was a golden amber, the bouquet of honey and flowers, and the taste was only slightly sweet but intensely fragrant, like honeysuckle and daphne, fresh and smooth. It was like stepping into another time, running slowly through fields of flowers at sunset.

Peter and Luis used to be major arts and crafts queens, but over the past few years have completely reinvented themselves as collectors of what they call “chinese federal,” which includes a Tang dynasty ceramic horse, numerous Ming, Song, and Qing objets, a turkey chair, tonka paintings, etc… It’s like going to Auntie Mame’s house–and they’re just as fabulous!

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Eddie G.

I spent the entire day yesterday at the Castro theater, watching pre-code films. The films were selected by Mick Lasalle, our local film critic and the author of a book on female stars of the pre-code era, Complicated Women, which I wasn’t that crazy about. He’s an excellent critic–witty and insightful, but his book, although encyclopedic and thorough, didn’t offer an interesting or new perspective on the period or the women, although his passion for Norma Shearer is contagious, and his crush on her is a delight to witness. The showing of these films coincides with the release of his new book, Complicated Men. The first two films were only so so, typical dramas of the period with fast talking reporters, tough guys, and platinum blondes. But, Lord have mercy, the third film featured a performance by Edward G. Robinson that had me sobbing in the 9th row center.

The film was Mervyn LeRoy’s 1932 Two Seconds, referring to the two final seconds of brain activity following execution by electrocution. It opens with Robinson being led to the chair. As the switch to the electric chair is turned on, we slowly cut to the events leading to his death. Of course it’s a “tomato,” and of course it’s money. After Robinson’s best friend, a highly paid riveter, like Robinson (“That’s more money per week than a professor!”), falls off a building in an argument with Robinson about his wife being a slut (the camera follows him all the way to the ground!), Robinson becomes slowly and magnificently unhinged. Unable to work due to his nerves, his wife goes back to the dance hall, supposedly, but is actually sleeping around with the dance hall boss. When Robinson catches the two lovers together, he shoots and kills the floozy. I haven’t read about this film in any film noir anthologies, or maybe I have but forgot, a much more likely scenario, but it seems to be an important precursor stylistically and thematically.

Following his sentencing, he pleads with the judge that the state’s killing the wrong man, that although he had always wanted to kill his wife, he had finally paid his debts, that he should have been killed when he was living off of his wife’s indiscretions, when he wasn’t a man, that he was now free from her, free from his dept–he screams, “You should have killed me then, you’re killing the wrong man!!!” I was totally convinced, sobbing right along with him. God, what an actor. In all of his films that I’ve seen, he consistently moved beyond the character acting of the time into a realism that can still shock today.

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Bored

I’ve been bored. I’m at the office right now, bored. The boss is at the “doctor’s.” Is it time for a new botox injection already? We’ll have to wait until he gets back to find out what part of his body is being granted a temporary reprieve from the effects of gravity this month. I’m one hour into my big three-hour work week, and I’ve already finished all the work for the week and am now looking over the Boss’ rent boy expenses for the month and trying to enjoy porno on dialup. I need a change. Another big sale. Roma. A real job. Roma…

More later. I’m growing my beard back.

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The Lunar Society

Last night I had dinner at John’s house, a beautiful turn-of-the-century mansion on Gough Street, and a beautiful silver-haired man. John and I had a brief affair many years ago. His sister is the Catwoman. Every full moon, John hosts a dinner party for 10 men culled from various intellectual, artistic, and political circles for conversation, drink, and good food. I represented the artistic circle. He calls us the Lunar Society, after a similar group in the late 1700’s England which also convened on the night of the full moon, when the roads were lit for night-time travelers. So anyway, this was the 225th dinner. I’ve been going since, I think, 1989? The evening is highly structured, with cocktails at 7:30, dinner at 8. The theme of the evening was politics. Great. My suggestion that we forget about bombing Iraq and invade Israel and turn it into a secular state instead did not go over very well. Kevin McC was there. He’s currently adjudicating over the Barry Bonds 76th homerun baseball battle. Unfortunately, he couldn’t share. Jim H was also there, a lawyer closely associated with the Civic Center rehabilitation, and didn’t he run for something a few years ago? His mom died recently and so he was very excited about coming into a few bucks to do some remodeling around the house. Everyone else seemed very connected politically, even the cute little dudes, one of whom (didn’t have the chance to talk to him, though) seemed to be running for something. John typically starts off the dinner with a toast to the moon, and last night he focused on the feminine aspects of the moon, what a loyal companion she is to the earth, having never strayed from her orbit, and the romantic and secretive activities that happen under the light of the moon. The conversation that followed included discussion about the various ballot initiatives, Iraq, and a lot of trashy queen talk about local politics.

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Smooth Nude Chris

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