Cookies and scents at Pop-Up Magazine

Walking into the Curran theater for the Pop-Up Magazine event Thursday night, Sept. 20 — the start of a three-day run of onstage storytelling, with The Chronicle as media sponsor, it must be said — audience members were handed programs that contained cellophane-wrapped envelopes, and also cellophane-wrapped cookies. Don’t open them now, we were told; each contained a surprise to be revealed during the performance.

The sense of anticipation that provoked is pretty much a metaphor for the whole Pop-Up Magazine concept, at least to a theatergoer (like me, for example) who likes to be surprised. I didn’t read the program beforehand; I didn’t study up. I wanted each of the 10 storytellers to carry me to a place I’d never visited, then excite me/lull me/fascinate me with a tale very different from whatever the person before had shared.

A variety of performance enhancers — graphics behind the storytellers, audio quotes inserted into the stories and onstage music by the Magik*Magik Orchestra — were employed, making each tale distinct from the one before. The cookies, it turned out, were part of Hrishikesh

Hirway’s “Cookie Explorer,” about the creation of the perfect cookie, and even more about his scientist father’s difficulty in putting taste before food technology, and even more about his exasperation and love for his father.

The “Ghost Flower” packet that had been affixed to the program contained a piece of paper scented with the aroma of an extinct flower, which Rowan Jacobsen said had been re-created from its saved molecules.

When we emerged from the theater, a friend asked which presentation I’d liked best. I started talking about one thing —

Meg Smaker’s “Jihad Rehab,” part of a movie she’s making about former terrorists trying to turn their lives around in Saudi Arabia — and then, reminded of a captivating moment, jumped to another.

It was like attending a party, where there was no need to bore yourself by presenting your own oft-told getting-toknow-you story. Instead, you were free to move from person to person, story to story, some so smooth that you knew they’d been burnished to a gleam, others showing a few edges, even more touching.

P.S.: Between speakers, these Pop-Up Magazine evenings, all around the country and now in Canada, too, include advertisements. This is somewhat jarring in an evening of theater, but not in a magazine. Hey, we’ve all gotta eat, and man/ woman cannot live on cookies alone.

“Whatever food and drink comprise Betty White’s diet,” says Janice Hough, “can someone please forward the details to Ruth Bader Ginsburg?” White, of course, is older, but Ginsburg’s workouts seem to be keeping her fit whatever she’s eating.

To wit, “Of course they have 10 vegan flavors of ice cream,” said a young woman overheard by Adda Dada at Holy Gelato in the Sunset. “It’s San Francisco.”

“I may be old,” said the bumper sticker Mark Maberley saw in Sonoma, “but I got to see all the cool bands.”

“Mad About Trump,” a brand-new special edition of the Mad humor magazine, includes a dedication, reports Gar Smith, “To Hillary Clinton, without whom this book would not be possible.”

Singer Denise Perrier had heart surgery recently at California Pacific Medical Center. The surgeon, Glenn Egrie, was a jazz fan (and saxophonist) who had the patient’s album “Denise Perrier Live at Yoshi’s” played while he worked. He’s promised to be at her first performance after her recovery.

The new Lefty O’Doul’s, at 145 Jefferson St., has softly reopened. Festivities will follow, but you can go in there and get a drink now.

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING “We don’t hang out with him anymore. He gets too many haircuts.” Man to man, overheard in Menlo Park by Sheryl Nonnenberg

East Bay lawyer Tom Miller submitted an Amazon customer review for “The History of Havana,” by Dick Cluster and Rafael Hernández. His review described the book positively and included the phrase “It is also filled with fascinating stories, such as how many years ago sex workers formed an alliance.” Nope. Amazon wrote him that the review didn’t adhere to guidelines.

Miller sent along a link to the guidelines. Was it “Don’t post content that is obscene, pornographic, or lewd, or that contains nudity or sexually explicit images” or “Some sexual content such as nudity and sexually explicit images or descriptions is restricted because audiences within our Community may be sensitive to that content?”

Or is it just the word “sex”? That filter seems to be leaking. If you go to Amazon. com, and type in that word, you get “over 200,000 results.”