The doctor is in, but first this query
In the waiting room before a doctor’s appointment on Monday, July 24, Linda
Wardell overheard the receptionist ask another patient if there had been any changes since she last saw the doc.
“I had a heart attack since my last visit,” said the woman.
“Oh,” replied the receptionist. “But has your address changed?”
Ten years after Brian Copeland’s “Not a Genuine Black Man” first played at the Marsh, it’s coming back there from Aug. 19 to Sept. 30. Copeland recently learned that high school children in Chicago and Texas used portions of it for speaking competitions, and in Missouri, a performance of an excerpt by 17-year-old Mitchell Huston won him second place in the prose category of the 2017 National Speech and Debate Tournament.
At the Cantina in Mill Valley, says John Cross, “I ran into a boisterous group of Giants fans celebrating the team’s latest one-game win streak. You’d have thought they just won another World Series.”
And a get-well wish to the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s Velina Brown, who stumbled into an open trapdoor on stage during a performance Sunday, July 23, of “Walls” at Yerba Buena Gardens, and then, off-balance, tumbled off the stage. Fellow cast members rushed to her aid and helped her hobble away. The rest of the performance was canceled, as was a scheduled show for benefactors on Tuesday, July 25. The Troupe says Brown suffered no broken bones and is expected back shortly.
Although acoustic world-music-loving band Beaucoup Chapeaux has sold out the Red Poppy Art House in San Francisco twice, most of its performances — and familiar fans — are in its native Nevada City. A few weeks ago, however, band founder Maggie McKaig got the kind of call that’s legendary in showbiz: A band previously booked for the Fenix in San Rafael on Saturday night, July 29, had canceled; would Beaucoup Chapeau do the gig? Oh, yes.
The Fenix, a dinner/performance venue that streams live shows, seats 50 to 60 people. McKaig was excited ... and edgy. Then a donor stepped up to buy tickets for kids from a Larkspur nonprofit, ELM (Enriching Lives Through Music). The organization, which provides music education for underserved kids, will send a group of them to listen and jam. With young groupies on the way, McKaig is less edgy now.
At the opening of “Resistance” on Saturday, July 22, a group show at the Arc Gallery on Folsom Street, Sean O’Donnell overheard two artists having a spat. “You treat my heart the same way you paint,” the woman said to the man. “With reckless abandon.”
Commercial developments: Thanks to Rachel Anderson for a NextDoor listing in Berkeley: “Anybody have about a quarter to a half cup of varnish/shellac/SafeCoat Polyurethane that they are not using and want to trade for some homemade raspberry kombucha?”
It used to be, says Abe Battat, “if an attractive woman spent a lot of time standing on a street corner, she was probably selling something. These days, she is just waiting for her Uber driver.”
At a St. Helena lemonade stand, Ken Salomon overheard one of the four little girls behind the counter describing the offerings: “That lemonade is made fresh-squeezed from our lemon tree with bits of lavender sprinkles for ‘finish.’ ”
Learning of the Smith Rafael Film Center’s “Mr. Mitchum: Celebrating the Centennial of Robert Mitchum” film series — from Aug. 13 to Sept. 3 — reminded Risa Nye of going to see Mitchum live, followed by a screening of his “Pursued” at the Castro in 1983. Nye, who lived in Oakland, had hired a babysitter for her small children. She had to leave before the movie was over, and she was curious how it ended.
So she called Peter Stack, The Chronicle’s movie critic at the time, but he hadn’t seen it, hadn’t been there. Stack suggested she call the screenwriter, Niven Busch, who lived in San Francisco. She found his number in a phone book (remember those?), and when Busch himself answered, told him that she’d had to leave early, and asked about the ending. “Oh my dear,” he answered, “I don’t remember.”
“Pursued” is not playing in this Rafael series. But to answer Nye’s question, (spoiler alert!) Wikipedia, which surely can be trusted in this matter, says that at the end of the film, Mrs. Callum “asks for and receives forgiveness from Jeb and Thorley, and advises them to look to the future and enjoy their lives together.”
PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING
“I can’t wait for Caroline to drop the ball.”
Woman to woman, overheard in a small Gold Country town by Peter Yedidia
Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik @sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik