Word from China and Santa in chief
On the cover of the greeting card is a picture of President Trump wearing a Santa hat, and the line, “Making Christmas Great Again!” Open it and you hear the president’s real voice saying, “We’re going to start saying ‘Christmas’ again ... Merry Christmas!” and read his pronouncement: “Christmas is not fake news.” (For doubters, a sticker on the outside assures authenticity: “It’s really Donald’s voice.”)
The back of this Trump talking Christmas card — $9.95 on Amazon.com — says it is produced by Our Friendly Forest, a company with wares visible on www.potusgreetings.com. The back of the card also proclaims that it is “Made in China.”
It was a “spectacular clear fall day” when, at the top of the new World Trade Center in New York, Bob Heywood sends the overheard: “Can you see the Farallons?”
I made my way through what seemed to be a herd of Salesforce elves holding onto bobbing balloons during the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 9. At the top of the steps to the Powell Street BART Station, I altered my path to skirt a man lying there, motionless, with his eyes closed, as though he’d collapsed.
He was sprawled on the sidewalk at the very top step, an unsheltered place not likely to have been chosen for a siesta. His pants were down over his hips. One hand was stretched out, and the pieces of bread from a sandwich he must have been holding were strewn over the sidewalk.
A San Francisco police offer was patrolling a few steps ahead, so I ran after him, pointed to the man and asked if he would get him some help.
“He’s just sleeping,” said the patrolman. Look at his position, look at his sandwich, I said. “Oh,” he said, “they’re all over the city,” and he shrugged and walked on.
Mark Allan Davis, who was a cast member when the first production of “The Lion King” opened on Broadway, was at the Minskoff Theatre in New York a few weekends ago for a reunion marking the 20th anniversary of the show. Davis has been an assistant professor in the San Francisco State School of Theatre and Dance for about a year. He choreographed the S.F. State production of “Chicago” that ran this spring.
At the gathering — which included director Julie Taymor — it was said that there are something like 323 performers who have been in the show, which has nine productions running around the world. At the end, Elton John sang “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” with the Broadcast cast.
Among the guests were many who’d been children when they were in the show, including the first Simba, Scott Irby-Rannier, now 33. “They have all grown up to be these spectacular beings: Stunning. Pigtails and dreadlocks to man buns and beards and locks down to the shoulder and Jimmy Choos.” When Paul Wiefels went to Walgreens in Mill Valley to get his flu shot, the pharmacist prepared the needle and then assured him, “This vaccine is free of preservatives. Most people ask about that.”
Adda Dada traveled to the land across the water, Emeryville, and visited IKEA, where he and his pal Ken Duffy noticed a shelf of books, not for sale, but just being used to display bookshelves. They were all in Swedish, even Eugene Schoulgin’s “Federico! Federico!” and Siba Shakib’s “Samira och Samir.” Spending money to ship books used for decorative/display purposes seems a bit wasteful. And Dada is wondering if they “came with IKEA assembly instructions and a hex key wrench . ... I guess we have an open book policy on immigrating books, but not for immigrating people.”
“Lying prone in a brand new pair of Costco boxers before a minor surgical procedure,” Bruce Lamott was relieved when the surgical nurse informed him (“gleefully,” he says) that “according to the sticker affixed to my derriere, I had already been ‘inspected by No. 6.’ ”
A reader who calls herself “Wasp” suggests a new political party: “What the ___?” with “the third word to be inserted at the discretion of the new party member. The lapel pin will be an upside-down Stars and Stripes.”
“I guess solitary confinement for a Saudi royal is a table for one at the Ritz-Carlton,” observes Dan St. Paul.