For those few of my gentle readers who are not amongst the cognoscenti, I have to tell you that Oscar night, along with Halloween and San Francisco Pride weekend, constitute the total of gay high holidays for the year. Keith McCullar and I, as keepers of tradition, did then yesterday quickly absent ourselves from another engagement, hieing away home to watch the Academy Awards. What a waste of time, but much much more on that in a bit.

I rather misspoke in the first paragraph, as our watching the Oscar ceremony is just not keeping the faith with other gay men, but rather with one in particular. It was our habit many years ago to annually watch the Oscars with a group of friends, one of whom was particularly dear. Larry would always make this an event, including cold cracked Dungeness crab, with a variety of seasoned mayonnaises. That all this occurred in San Francisco and environs you’ve probably already divined. It did, of course, and sadly most of those with whom we enjoyed this annually are now gone, including dear Larry, dead in 1992 of HIV. Keith and I don’t always speak of it, but we know in our heart of hearts our insistence on watching the Oscars and having cold cracked Dungeness crab is in memory of former days. We have, though, consigned Larry’s insistence on serving strawberry margaritas along with the crab to the dustbin of history.

Last night was a crappy show, doubtless made worse by the Academy’s decision to go forward without a host. Sans host, it was apparently also the decision to generally scrap anything fun and lighthearted. Where is Billy Crystal when you need him? Mind you, I am not taking issue with the Academy’s decision to offload the comic who was scheduled to host. His not so subtle attacks on those in the LGBT community contained within his comedy act were not just offensive but antithetical to the inclusivity the Academy is at long last accomplishing. That he said he had dropped all of this from his act is a matter of too little much, much too late. Too late indeed, as the offensive material was a component part of his act- not 30 years ago, not 20 years ago- but less than 10 years ago. His public mea culpa on Ellen Degeneres’ TV show was characterized by Ellen as redemptive, but here she and I part company.

But all this specific controversy aside, the plain fact is the Oscars ceremony has been running downhill for years, simply because it is a bore. Too slow, too much auxiliary fluff, and not enough action. I enjoy big screen entertainment, and I want to be entertained watching the small screen, too. What now passes for entertainment- although the why of this mystifies me- is the red-carpet arrival of the celebrities. What was for decades an incidental part of any Hollywood gathering has now moved centerstage, with female stars victimized by the fashion industry, forced to pose for photos- backs arched and chests pushed out- then pulled aside and forced to make unintelligible response to vapid questions posed by the hosts of TV morning shows.

This year it was the year of the train, with so many of these poor women wearing a gown odd in itself, to which a superfluous train had been appended. How so many of the women were able to navigate the red carpet, to say nothing of ascending steps to the stage if they were so lucky I’ll never know. This, of course, compounded by the obscenely high heeled shoes they all wore. Note for next year’s ceremony- have some game female presenter catch her heel in her train and fall on her tush- it will be the hit of the show. Poor Bette Midler was underutilized in last night’s outing- put this up to her, and I’ll bet she’d be game.

What to do, what to do? Shall we plan to watch next year’s ceremony? It is frankly now an open question in our household, despite our nostalgic, albeit wistful, connection with the Oscars. I would opine it is likewise an open question for the presenting network, with so very few advertisers underwriting the broadcast we counted a number of small, local businesses hawking their wares. While our counting the number of local adverts in the run of the Oscars might seem an odd occupation, it broke the monotony of the show, and is, I suppose, emblematic of the tedium the Academy Awards ceremony has now become.

The big news in the trade this morning is the increase Christie’s has posted for buyer’s premium. It always surprises the numbers of people who assume, when the hammer falls in the saleroom, that that is the ultimate price of the item sold. Far from it, with Christie’s now charging the purchaser a minimum of 25% over the hammer price on lots up to £225,000, 20% for up to £3,000,000, and a full one percent increase to 13.5% for anything above £3 million- just for the privilege of doing business with them. Put another way and cribbing figures cited in the relevant article in this morning’s edition of Antiques Trade Gazette, if one were to purchase a painting at Christie’s flagship King Street saleroom, if the hammer fell at £500,000, the invoice presented including the auction premium charged the buyer would now total- wait for it- £611,250. For the higher end lots, the increase is staggering. For a £10,000,000 purchase, expect the invoice to now total £11,560,000. Mind you, that doesn’t include the 17-1/2% Value Added Tax (VAT) charged by Christie’s on the premium portion, or the applicable sales tax on lots sold in the United States. For my local California readers, expect to pay a minimum of yet another 8% if you make a purchase at Christie’s in New York.

Staggering, and bear in mind, what the buyer pays, the consignor of the sold lot pays a nearly equivalent amount in seller’s premium, plus everything from soup to nuts in what the trade refers to as junk fees- the cost of illustrating the lot, cost of extraordinary handling, and the cost of insuring the lot while it is in Christie’s possession.

While Christie’s is the first to announce this increase, Sotheby’s will doubtless shortly follow suit. In fact, based on Sotheby’s financial performance, it is surprising they were not the first to announce. Christie’s as privately owned one must assume that this increase is to shore up its bottom line. Sotheby’s as publicly traded is an open book. Of interest, Sotheby’s closing share price today of $40.50 is 26% lower than it was a year ago, and 35% lower than its 52-week high in June, 2018, of $60.

And both Christie’s and Sotheby’s need the money. As many times as the international press reports an impressive sale, there is some offsetting report of auction house mismanagement or malfeasance. The story just now making the rounds is of the consignment to Christie’s of a painting by Francis Bacon for sale by private treaty, with Christie’s then selling it publicly- and without the consignor’s permission- for many millions of dollars less than they had guaranteed the consignor. As I am writing about increased auction house premiums, it is apropos to remind my gentle readers that a price fixing scandal involving Christie’s and Sotheby’s colluding on the establishment of premiums that put Sotheby’s star auctioneer Dede Brooks and its chairman Alfred Taubman in jail.

But with all that, I have to acknowledge that the auction house business is an expensive one, with a huge expense in personnel, so huge in fact that Christie’s and Sotheby’s regularly winnows out the upper and middle range staff, replacing them with those fresh of face with art history diplomas with the ink still wet. Oh, yes- and that command a much lower salary. And of course, trimming the bottom line is the name of the game, with both Christie’s and Sotheby’s, although they’ve sought to be a retail vendor of fine art and antiques and seek ever yet to be a force online, facing blistering competition that has increased at a nearly exponential rate from innumerable online selling platforms.

While it appears that I am crying crocodile tears about the vicissitudes of Christie’s and Sotheby’s, I will admit that over the years I’ve done business with them, and profitably. By weight of numbers, one will find the occasional bargain- a sleeper, as David Dickinson on BBC’s ‘Bargain Hunt’ would have it. Banking on the rapidity with which items consigned must be cataloged- and the inexperience of those doing the cataloging- there are, not often but occasionally, pieces on offer to be had for not precisely a song, but for a price at which I can add value and then resell at a profit. Bear in mind, the risk for me is that what an item sold for is available online for anyone who cares to to look and see. As recently as a week ago I spoke to a buyer in Canada who questioned me about an item I had purchased at auction in London. I gleefully told him that it was me who spent time to view, assess and bid on the item, it was me who spent time and money making arrangements to ship the item, it was me who spent time and money directing and paying for the restoration to put the item in saleable condition, and it was me who researched, accurately described and photographed the item and presented it, at long last, for sale.

So, with Christie’s and Sotheby’s, while making an auction purchase has always been expensive and risky, expensive has crossed the threshold into prohibitive territory- and is no less risky. Lots of the aphorisms that apply not in a positive way are applicable when dealing with them- phrases like ‘the price is not the cost’, ‘as-is, where-is’, and the perennially apt- ‘caveat emptor.’

Just now, Loew’s Regency on Park Avenue is famed as the pied a terre of in-it-up-to-his-neck Trump minion Michael Cohen. For Keith McCullar and me, this present scandal is an aside from one of our favorite features of Loew’s Regency, its basement serving as it once did as the venue for Michael Feinstein’s cabaret. An extraordinary talent himself, he booked in some great performers during times he himself was not onstage. I don’t think I am going out on any kind, for the benefit of the cognoscenti, an ‘outing’ limb, but a fair old number of the performers were if not divas then at least ladies part of a grand Broadway tradition, and one of these was Carol Channing.

As luck sometimes has it, we happened to be in New York and staying at Loew’s Regency, as I had been invited to speak at an interior design conference at the nearby D & D Building. We were unaware that Carol Channing was performing literally under our noses until we checked in, and I have to admit, it was Keith who insisted we change our evening plans to take in her show. What we would have missed had Keith not prevailed! A sidebar- Keith has had me under his thumb for the last 38 years, so for those of you interested in these kinds of things, he has long since prevailed.

To start with, Feinstein’s in that location was intimacy itself- a real cabaret, dark, and painted a deep red, and seating at most 60 people- virtually all ringside. We booked on the day but nevertheless had a great table the two of us, good food and plenty to drink. For me, sluggard that I am, this is usually enough to guarantee a satisfactory night out. Well, hold on- then there was Carol herself.

What a performer. I am bankrupted for superlatives. She came on stage and her friendliness was a perfect match for the intimacy of the room. We felt as though we’d gone to an afterhours mixer. She sang, she danced, she told jokes, she told stories. Her show was themed ‘The First 80 Years are the Hardest’, and despite the fact that Miss Channing was then 84, the show was a tour de force. A funny aspect, though, as an octogenarian she could recount stories of fabled performers that predated her and one of these was Tallulah Bankhead. As Miss Channing told it, in her early days on Broadway she was so keyed up after performing she’d have trouble sleeping at night. Once Miss Bankhead came back stage, and Miss Channing confided this to her. ‘Dahling, do as I do, and just pop a tablet or two of phenobarbital’. ‘But Miss Bankhead, aren’t they terribly addictive?’ ‘Nonsense, dahling- I’ve been using them every day for nearly 30 years.’

Seated behind us at a table alone was a small, dark man of a certain age who, from time to time, would shout something or other to the stage, and we initially thought he was a heckler. In the fulness of time, though, Miss Channing had the spotlight turned on this gentleman who she introduced as her husband, and childhood sweetheart, Harry Kullijian. What we took to be heckling was actually just throwing Miss Channing the occasional line- and the doing of this, as far as we were concerned, was the only indication that perhaps she was not as young as she once was. We chatted with Harry at the end of the show and he asked me how I liked my entrée, which happened to be braised lamb shank. When I said I did he told me that the inclusion of this Armenian specialty on the menu was, recognizing his own heritage, his real contribution to the show.

In short order, Miss Channing was there, and the four of us chatted for barely a minute and the two of them were off. ‘Selfies’ I’ve always considered very, very common, and they were not then ubiquitous, but were I possessed of an iPhone and the presence of mind I would have overlooked my scruples and taken a snap of the four of us.

Miss Channing is now gone, and even Michael Feinstein’s cabaret has moved, now to be found in the basement of the old Studio 54. Many of the divas are now gone- the performer who followed Miss Channing was none other than Kitty Carlisle. But if Keith and I live as long as Carol Channing, neither of us will forget a moment of the fabulous evening we spent watching the fabulous Carol Channing.

Keith McCullar and I would not immediately be described as gregarious, and in this benighted burg we spend quite a bit of time in our recliners watching our, I don’t know, 20,000 channels of TV. Yes, we do moderate a bit of that with nearly daily trips to the gym, trying to ameliorate the form our midsections have become to match the form of the recliner seats. But still, not much social contact beyond those limited to our business, and as Keith has it lately ‘I feel like a shut-in’.

Not too surprising, then, that Keith sought to take the matter in hand, deciding at long last to take advantage of the invitations posted by a local bon vivant to attend a Friday mixer for the local, shall we say, cognoscenti. We did go and found that as there were only a handful of folk attending, no drinks and conviviality were on offer, but only dinner. That we didn’t want- and didn’t need- and quickly therefore absented ourselves, followed, it must be said, by the bon vivant who had extended the invite, promising that in future a venue would be found more conducive to mixing. I hope so.

However, as Keith and I had made something of an effort and in anticipation of some refreshment, we decided to carry on to another watering hole. I have to say at this point that we do both of us enjoy a drink. For my gentle readers’ benefit, you needn’t smirk and nudge one another, as ‘enjoy a drink’ is not meant as euphemistic understatement. In fact, it is as just as written, that we like to go out once or twice a month, and have a drink each, and possibly some kind of bar snack shared between us, and then go home.

Sounds dull, I know, but it is a habit born in late years when we’d man our gallery in Jackson Square on Saturdays just the two of us, when we’d often be met by clients or colleagues at closing time, and it would be, appropriately, time for refreshments. For clients, this usually meant sampling the supply we did then and do now have on hand to slake the thirst and loosen the tongue. But for dealer colleagues, it was a different matter. Our premises were too much like their own premises, and we mutually would decide to enjoy each other’s company in a venue that looked less like the place of our labours. A couple of weeks ago I posted a photo on my Facebook page of Rick Scott, a friend of long standing and a San Francisco dealer of some renown, and it was Rick with whom, late on Saturday afternoon, we would frequently venture forth.

We were, frankly, spoiled for choice. As our gallery was on Jackson Street between Sansome and Montgomery, we could walk to Tosca or the Comstock Saloon along Columbus Avenue, or take advantage of the hotel bars in a number of nearby hostelries- the Palace, the St Francis, the Four Seasons, or what became our favorite, and remains the SF home away from home for Keith and me, Le Meridien at Clay and Battery. Initially drawn by their happy hour special of $8 Manhattans, we’d stay for their fine selection of bar snacks and happily found that, for years, the bar and kitchen staff were unchanged and cheerfully acknowledged our patronage whenever we were there. If all this sounds cloyingly like something out of ‘Cheers’ or even ‘Duffy’s Tavern’, you’d be correct. A drink out is really a drink out if it is accompanied by an hospitable venue.

This is all written, gentle readers, by means of prefacing our subsequent experience this last Friday, quickly leaving before we even got started what we had looked forward to as a casual, convivial early evening opportunity for a drink. Getting into the car, we decided to move on to a venue only a block from our offices. We don’t go there all the time, but at least locally, it is our favourite and most frequently patronized. Dimly lit and clubby- in a quilted red leather sort of way- and with a good selection of bar food, it is owned and run by a young man, the scion of a local grandee, who always recognized us and was in every way a good host. Lately, though, he’s been very much absent, taken up with the establishment of a small chain of- wait for it- poke restaurants. So, disappointing to say, when we went to our preferred venue, we were met by someone at the host’s station who didn’t know us- which is forgivable- but didn’t care to either. We know when we’re not welcome, so we left.

And where then what became for us a small quest take us? We went home, our thirst unslaked and our bottoms then planted in our pair of recliners in front of the TV. This is greatly condensed, this part, as Keith and I did in fact discuss other options, limited though they were, but none were appealing. We were faced with the naked fact of the dearth of local hospitality, with very few watering holes locally of the cocktail lounge variety, and virtually nothing of the hotel bars we’ve enjoyed elsewhere. Now I will readily admit that where we’ve lived in late years, and to those places we’ve had the opportunity to travel, we’ve been, as written above, spoiled for choice. Even so, our local burg has a population approaching a million, and why is it, I ask, that it cannot support a single four star, to say nothing of a five-star, hotel? This remains an open question.

This blog entry will seem familiar to one of my Facebook friends, the young man who cuts my hair and did so late yesterday afternoon, to whom I related this tale of droughty woe, but as befits his trade he has his ear to the ground and eye to the keyhole and was able to tell me that some relief was at hand. My gentle readers will doubtless remember my frequent encomia to Fresno’s premier bar and restaurant of blessed memory, The Daily Planet. It was taken over by a team of young caterers and run as an events venue as The Painted Table. There have been rumours for quite some time that the venue would open to the public, and apparently this has been confirmed in the local press, but more reliably by our gentleman’s hairdresser David Stone at LaVogue.

I have to say, we have used The Painted Table on several occasions and found their catering service to be top notch- reasonably inventive cuisine professionally presented- and do look forward to their opening The Painted Table to the public, of whom Keith McCullar and I plan to be numbered. Mind you, The Painted Table chaps will have to clear a high bar given the longtime success of the Daily Planet, made even more successful in my mind’s eye with the passing of years. For the moment, though, we remain thirsty, but the prospective opening will be looked forward to in the same manner as the view of an oasis to a desert traveler.

In a fitting conclusion to the Chippendale tercentenary, The Furniture History Society has devoted its entire 2018 journal to current scholarship related to Thomas Chippendale the elder.

Arguably the most interesting of these journal articles was one penned by independent furniture scholar Ulrike McGregor. In it, she argues for Chippendale’s innovative use of newspaper advertising to puff not just the sales of The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director but also the Chippendale workshop generally. While as Ms McGregor lauds Chippendale’s entrepreneurship, kudos must be given her, as well, for her use of modern research methods to gain insight into Chippendale’s use of print media.

Using the British Library’s newly digitized Burney Collection of 17^th and 18^th century newspapers, Ms McGregor was able to collate the advertisements placed over time not just by Chippendale but his contemporaries. With Chippendale’s placements unique in their content, and extensive in their number, McGregor argues that this very much assisted in lifting Chippendale from obscurity and moved him into the vanguard of not only furniture design but into a position of leadership amongst the cabinetmakers of his day.

I would certainly not argue with anyone making a claim for Chippendale as an innovator, certainly in terms of the unique qualities and influence of The Director… and the success and longevity, despite many vicissitudes, of the Chippendale workshop. What does seem lacking if not entirely absent is an acknowledgement of the debt, quite literally, owed to James Rannie, Chippendale’s partner in the St Martin’s Lane workshop that was responsible for the extraordinary commissions that solidified the name Chippendale made for himself with the publication of his pattern book.

While McGregor acknowledges Rannie as Chippendale’s financial partner, she does so in so far as an ownership interest in the St Martin’s Lane workshop, and others cite the lease of the premises in the names of both Rannie and Chippendale, and date the beginning of the relationship from that time. However, there were clearly significant costs associated with not just the establishment of the workshop but also with the publication of The Director… that must have been fronted by someone. Indeed, prior to the opening of the St Martin’s Lane workshop, Chippendale occupied only meagre lodgings nearby shared with Matthias Darly, the engraver of the plates used to reproduce Chippendale’s designs. McGregor estimates just the cost of the initial advertisement of the publication of The Director… to have been between £5 and £7, and one is left to opine that cumulatively the extensive use of print advertising employed by Chippendale at this time must have cost much, much more. Indeed, McGregor cites forty-seven advertisements related to The Director… published between March, 1753 and December, 1754.

Although in contemporary Chippendale studies James Rannie is not the forgotten man, he is, I’d wager, the underappreciated man. It is generally assumed that Rannie was a man of property who brought only cash to the endeavors of Chippendale, but one wonders to what extent it was Rannie himself who gave primary impetus, supported by his own cash. What is known is that, upon Rannie’s death it was he who owned the lion’s share of the Chippendale workshop, such that it required the liquidation of the workshop’s stock in trade to satisfy the terms of Rannie’s will. Rannie was clearly not just a sleeping partner.

In fairness, though, there is little or no documentary evidence about the finances of Chippendale in the early years- and precious little later on- and nothing so far as is known about James Rannie from this early period, save his name jointly with Chippendale on the lease of the St Martin’s Lane workshop. The archives of Drummond’s Bank have but a handful of entries related to Chippendale, and nothing to do with Rannie. Indeed, very little conclusion about the start of the relationship between the two men can be derived but, as I have done so here, by inference.

At the conclusion of the Chippendale tercentenary, there still remains at least one skeleton, that of James Rannie, rattling around in the cupboard. Indeed, of the extensive advertising campaign that Ulrike McGregor cites, included are adverts published in James Rannie’s home country of Scotland, in Scots Magazine, Edinburgh Evening Courant, and the Caledonian Mercury. It will be an intriguing subject for future study to determine to what extent Thomas Chippendale sprang from obscurity, fully formed as a designer, craftsman- and self-promoter- or was aided and formed by the good offices and ample supply of cash of James Rannie.