Love Bytes: No more "googling" of perspective dates or mates for Marissa Mayer (head Google gal and a Board of Trustees member for both the SF Ballet and SFMOMA) and Zachary Bogue (lawyer, real estate broker and both a Harvard and Georgetown Law grad). The dashing duo announced their betrothal to 350 friends and family last weekend during a holiday-themed soiree at Marissa's Peninsula residence.
Little elves with large ears whispered the warm and warm-hearted celebration (Silver Snowflakes and Silver Screens) was replete with tasty tidbits served up by Meme Pedersen's Taste Catering and a Robert Fountain-designed Winter Wonderland featuring an ice-skating rink and real snow on the front lawn. As well as a a frost-your-own-cookie station and the long-anticipated debut of Mayer's snazzy in-home theater.
Marissa is already a noted glam-niac, (a glamorous-brainiac). But the generous couple displayed a silly side for their City-centric friends in organizing round-trip shuttle service to the party which required guests to utter a wryly-themed password: Blades of Glory.
Director Ian Robertson and the San Francisco Boys Chorus/By M. Farruggio
Boys (and Girls): Bubbly Susan Brown gleefully (hint) relays the news that two of "her students" are attending the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama in D.C.
Susan is director (as well as sandwich maker and mother hen) of an outreach program for boys (chosen from schools in under-served neighborhoods such as Bayview-Hunters Point and the Western Addition, as well as Marin County's Canal District) who are recipients of the Willie L. Brown Jr. Music Scholarships (founded by her dad, Da Mayor Willie Brown) to the San Francisco Boys Chorus.
Two of Susan's students, Erik Anderson and Dominque Shaw, are winging to this sparkly shindig with 84 other student members of the Grammy-winning Boys Chorus (with Director Ian Robertson) and the Grammy-winning San Francisco Girls Chorus (with Director Susan McMane).
All of whom were invited to the 56th Presidential Inauguration by our very own Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who presides as Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.
To assist our young singers in getting to the Capitol (where they'll rub shoulders with other musical luminaries such as Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman), donations are welcome here.
The selections for the Chorus' Inaugural program will be finalized after the holidays.
"Right now, we're scheduled to sing 30 minutes of patriotic standards," said Chorus spokesman Scott Horton. "It certainly won't be a torch song medley. The Feds aren't nearly as much fun as we are, here in San Francisco!"
Bad Reporter Holiday Gift Cards/Don Asmussen
Bad Reporter: Just in time for the holidays (well,oops, maybe next year ... and sorry 'bout that, sweetie!), Chronicle cartoonist Don Asmussen, alter-ego of the nutty-naughty Bad Reporter, sends word that he is offering (well, selling, actually, for a T.B.D. and negotiable fee) his brilliant skewerings of ANYONE for ANY occasion (holidays, included) to create a one-of-a-kind greeting card.
Asmussen, possessor of a rapier wit and well-honed keyboard, has long "penned" personalized birthday and "goodbye" strips for departing colleagues at The SF Chronicle. From whence there has been much leave-taking. (And, uh, hey, Don? So, um, you're, like, still working on my card ... Right?). Anyhoo -- they're smashing! And hysterically funny! And Don has decided to firmly establish his crafty cards as a "regular thingy."
Follow the instructions on the sample image above. Soon you, your loved ones or favored frenemy can enjoy the same shameless, 4-color, 4-panel ignominy as Ron Jeremy. Or rogue pirates. Or, yep, even Phil Bronstein.
Act now! An operator is standing by.
