A pig wearing pearls deserves a cuddle

Glad that my broken kneecap was mending, I told myself that I would try for a bit to avoid crowded places with people drinking and jostling each other. The resolution got broken even before the New Year’s celebration began.

The San Francisco Symphony’s 19th Chinese New Year concert and banquet started with a reception for everyone — a big everyone, since Davies Hall was sold out — and simultaneous separate how-do-you-do in the Loge Lobby for friends of the swells, especially event chairs Gorretti and Lawrence Lui .We were guests of Doreen and James Ho, civic powerhouses and friends of the Luis. There wasn’t room for one additional embroidered peony in a space packed with lords and ladies in an array of silks, sequins and pearls, all aglimmer.

In one nook, a gaggle of fancily attired women in traditional Chinese gowns hitched up their formfitting skirts, fell to their knees and, hoping that their zippers were up to the strain, said hello to the belle of the ball, LiLou the pig.

In the Year of the Boar, LiLou, whose day job is SFO’s therapy pig, was an honored guest, decked out in pearls and red nail polish, the same color as City Hall’s dome was lit that night. LiLou herself is black and white and not at all camera shy. The sight of her brought out every cell phone at the party.

Of course, the main event at this “celebration of our community and its diversity,” said committee member Nanci Nishimura, is the concert, which featured Chinese music (mostly arranged for Western instruments) and was well received. That was followed by a multicourse banquet (by McCalls) in the Soundbox.

Mayor London Breed thanked the Luis for their philanthropy and presented them with gifts, and door prizes (including $500 in cash) were given out to lucky guests whose numbers were drawn. I mention this because at so many charity events, people who’ve already bought tickets are asked to contribute more by participating in postdinner auctions; at this one, people who’d bought tickets were given prizes.

My spiritual takeaway from the evening was porcine-inspired. Watching fancily clad partygoers cuddle up with LiLou, I asked Nishimura whether the pig, an animal to which most Westerners wouldn’t want to be likened, had such image problems in Asian culture. “All of the animals” in the Chinese zodiac “have very good qualities,” she said. “They all exude their own power.”

The Chinese zodiac includes a snake, a rat, a rabbit, a monkey, a goat, a dog. In Western culture, it’s not a compliment to refer to another person as one of those. “In Chinese culture,” said James Ho after dinner, “it’s wrong to put one over the other.” A tiger, for example, isn’t considered better than a rat. “Everything is equal. It comes from Buddhism. Killing an ant is like killing a person.”

And with that thought, Happy New Year.

In completely unrelated ethnic matters: I imagined that recovery would provide an ideal opportunity to cure my TV FOMO. At last, time to binge.

I hated “Mrs. Maisel.” There she is, an adorable tiny-waisted doll throwing f-bombs, an improbable and unlikeable Jewish Barbie princess with a father who manages to be both a whiner and a bully, a shallow style-over-substance mother, a loudmouthed and grumpy lesbian agent. She is beautifully dressed, she flirts, she always gets her way, men love her. All the stereotypes set my teeth on edge.

Onstage, she’s not funny, she’s mean. These aren’t self-canceling concepts, and thank you, Don Rickles, for proving that the best comedians can be both. Mrs. Maisel doesn’t have insights, she wears hats (which, BTW, no one was still wearing around 1960). She was so depressing that it was reason to get well.

The most irresistible press release received over the past two months was from a company that makes “the first intimate massager for women that is optimized to stimulate all nerves related to orgasm at the same time.” This is a vibrator meant to be used outside one’s clothing, creating “new opportunities for intimacy.”

The company says that “live public demonstrations are scheduled for the near future.” Bored at a meeting? Does that bus ride seem long? Why is the woman next to you smiling?

“It’s easier to fix a toilet than it is to fix a computer.” Man to man, overheard on Main Street in Martinez by Jamie Jobb