SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

RESTAURATEUR HAS MANE ROLE IN 'THE GAME'


DATE: Friday, September 19, 1997
Section: SECTION: Silicon Valley Life
Page: 1E

LEIGH WEIMERS column

YES, WE deliberately have no Chelsea Clinton items in this space today. But if it's non-intrusive Palo Alto trivia you demand, then check out the opening bankers' club scene of the new Michael Douglas movie, ''The Game.'' The distinguished, white-maned ''banker'' sitting behind Douglas throughout the scene is Freddy Maddalena, who's pouring martinis and greeting guests at his eponymous P.A. restaurant and its adjoining Cafe Fino when he's not voluntarily putting himself in the public eye as a movie extra.


DISPOSABLE GLASSES, NOT:

As former executive editor of the Merc, Bob Ingle knows something about public eyes. It was his personal eyes that were the problem when he couldn't find his reading glasses. Four days later, he opened his mailbox at home and there they were -- along with a note from Green Valley Disposal. ''What apparently happened,'' says the president of Knight-Ridder New Media, ''was that as I took the recycling bins out Sunday night, the glasses slipped out of my shirt pocket and into one of the bins. Somehow GVD figured out which house they'd come from and returned them. That's pretty damned good customer service!'' Service that makes it easier for him to ''read all about it.''


ARTBEATS:

Sad to see the Kismet Gallery shut its doors (too much rent to pay, too little income), but don't despair for the SoFA arts district or art here in general. Georgetown U. poet/artist Roberto Severiano has been working since Wednesday with M Gallery's Mattison FitzGerald on some cutting edge SoFA exhibits. The Frederick Spratt Gallery opens its fall season today with works by New Yorker Larry Poons, whose paintings also hang in the N.Y. Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney. Noted Life magazine photog Hansel Mieth was at Santa Clara University's de Saisset Museum Thursday night, checking out her photos and those of others chronicling World War II Japanese-American internment camp life. And the Sept. 28 Kids ArtSunday program at the San Jose Museum of Art features the premiere of ''Ruby's Happiness Wish,'' a multimedia children's story featuring San Jose Symphony cellist Peter Gelfand, author/illustrator Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer, composer Irene Sazer and the San Jose Chamber Players, who've come up with a Chinese-Jewish fable. Perfect for our diverse place and our time.


KID STUFF:

Little Katie Donohoe came home from St. Elizabeth's Pre-School, all excited about a gadget in her new classroom. It didn't have a mouse or a printer and it was much more fun than the computer she was used to, she told her parents,Margaret and Dennis. After several days of hearing her gush, they finally got to see it. ''Tap, tap, tap,'' says Dennis. ''It was a typewriter.'' What exciting stuff will they come up with next?

There's ample excitement in the halls of San Jose Cleveland Ballet's school, which marked its first anniversary this month with a full complement of more than 200 students for the coming year and a healthy waiting list. The adult side of the equation is doing well, too. Ballet spokesman Jon Finck says subscriptions for the 1997-98 season are running 40 percent ahead of last year's, the probable result of the popularity of last year's Elvis Presley-flavored ''Blue Suede Shoes.''


A LITTLE TRAVELING MUSIC:

Here's Mark Waxman of SK Consulting, getting ready to fly back to San Jose from Dallas, when he learns a fellow passenger has his identical seat assignment and ticket. ''We were able to work it out,'' Waxman says, ''and he complimented me on flying coach and watching out for my client's bottom line. I had to compliment him for doing likewise, me and the rest of the people on the plane being his clients.'' And so Rep. Tom Campbell sat there with Waxman in the cheap seats and worked on constituent mail for the rest of the flight.

About 175 members of Serra Club, the group that fosters vocations to the Catholic priesthood and religious life, were temporarily stranded when chartered buses failed to arrive on time at the Westin Santa Clara Hotel last weekend. But hotel staffers directed them to the light-rail stop, where trolleys got them to their destination -- Mass at St. Joseph Cathedral/Basilica -- and the inevitable praise from Bishop Pierre DuMaine. For the trolleys' mass transit, of course.

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