“And how do you spend your livelong day?”

Posted: 31 Aug 2010 04:08 PM PDT

Election officials call the job description that goes with each political candidacy the "ballot designation." It's most often a description of the candidate's occupation, or major source of income, and I'm told the state issues 12 pages of guidelines covering the terminology.

The Voters' Registrar at City Hall nixed school board candidate Margaret Brodkin's request to be listed as a "children's advocate." Brodkin is director of the nonprofit New Day for Learning; the description became "education nonprofit director." As to fellow candidate Starchild, his approved designation is "erotic service provider."

-- Congrats to all the keen-eyed passers-by who saw the marquee at the Castro Theatre over the weekend, featuring Marilyn Monroe in "Ho to Marry a Millionaire."

-- T-shirt Carol Livingston saw in Vermont: "Midwives help people out."

-- The entertainment at the Sonoma Valley Harvest Wine Auction dinner this weekend will be by the volunteer dance troupe Ladies of Magnum Force. The 19 dancers in the troupe are all connected with the wine biz: one CEO, they say, one executive director, winery owners, grape farmers, vintners, oenologists and wine business managers. Each dancer not only performs, but also donates a magnum of wine that will be auctioned.

-- Tom Marioni, who in the name of art presided over a series of free beer-drinking gatherings at SFMOMA last year, has taken his installation to the Hammer Museum. Bartenders include Ed Ruscha and Chris Burden.

-- An insider tells me the Giants staff was alerted to the possibility that there might be protesters against the Arizona immigration law trying to get onto the field during the team's recent series with the D-Backs. Nada. The only protest - booing - on Saturday was for pitcher Barry Zito, who presided over the decline and fall of the Giants on Italian Heritage Night.

-- On two sides of a construction barrier at California and Sansome, Chris Fazio saw the same elegantly worded sign: "Post Not Bills." And just to prove what an elegant city this is, Marty Nolan was on the Hyde Street cable car when he heard a gripman say to a tourist, "Don't forget your lens cap, sir. We get a lot of these at the end of the day. A lens cap isn't much use without a camera."

-- Strolling along scenic Mid-Market on Wednesday - from the Mint Plaza Farmers' Market to Blick art supplies - I heard strains of zydeco music. Left Coast Special was playing outside a stretch of closed storefronts as part of the Market Street Music Festival. Picture the summertime grace of an outdoor music festival in the Wine Country, but with winos. Loved it. And no tip jars; the musicians are paid by the organizers, People in Plazas (peopleinplazas.org). There's a full schedule on the site.

The newly opened art supply store Blick was busy, which seemed odd because the closed art supply store hadn't been. Prices, prices, prices, I was told; this one's cheaper. My farmers' market peach cost $1.85.

-- The grass is always greener and there's always someone grayer. Artist Stanley "Mouse" Miller, most famous for psychedelic rock posters in the 1960s, has a show at Rockin Roses in Healdsburg. At its recent opening, a passing couple peeked in but decided, in the words of one, "This is too hip for us."

Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay non-celibate Episcopal minister in the country, was here last week working with writer Andrew Corsello on a proposal for "God Believes in Love, Straight Talk About Gay Marriage," the tentative title of a book about religion and gay marriage. The co-authors met when Corsello, a senior writer at GQ, interviewed Robinson for that magazine.

(Corsello wrote in the August edition of O, the Oprah Magazine, about his 11-year marriage to the Rev. Dana Corsello, first female rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in San Francisco. "I am the spouse of the rector of St. Luke's Church," he writes. "She took my name when we married, and now she's taken it; in this town, 'Corsello' means her, and it's only by beneficence that I'm allowed to partake of it.")

Public Eavesdropping

"Oh, don't worry if you're allergic. My dog's hypoallergenic."

Dog owner after dog jumped on sitting woman and her blanket, overheard in Alta Vista Park by Melanie Vuynovich

This article appeared on page E - 10 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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Job Description

Tuesday, August 31, 2010