The truth about legendary columnist Herb Caen's world is that it didn't really exist. At least not in the way you or I, or anyone not blessed with the artist's gift for seeing beauty in the banal, might experience it.

So to step into the annual Herb Caen Day lunch—now in its eighth year at Moose's—is to be reminded of how much the famed writer breathed life into his characters. Of how he created a vivid, Technicolored world out of black-and-white newsprint. For outsiders, attempting to appreciate Caen's world can be as challenging as diving into the last volume of Proust first. To wit: upon surveying a room filled with conservatively dressed seniors, a recent transplant to the city asked the Socialist innocently, "Why are these people interesting and important?"

Good question. Apart from the obvious intrigue of money and power, perhaps it's simply that a great city needs its own institutional memory, so that the values that made it distinctive live on. When I first returned to the city two and a half years ago, Wilkes Bashford, a Caen friend and column fixture, mentioned over lunch at Le Central how he'd heard that almost half of San Francisco residents had lived here less than ten years. That's a helluva lot of newbies, and many, no doubt, have never read Caen and aren't familiar with his brand of three-dot journalism. Caen's former assistant, Carole Vernier, who helped him with column items, fretted out loud whether "San Franciscans would always remember Caen." (Alas, we are all mortal: just ask anyone under 40 who Walter Winchell is.)

In the face of all the new century's change, it's probably reassuring that some things remain the same. At Moose's, a mix of over 100 old and new San Francisco boldfaced names—many former Caen characters—paid tribute. And visited with old friends. Ann Moller Caen, his widow, turned up in a lipstick-red suit and personally stopped by each table. At one table were philanthropist and genteel do-gooder Cissie Swig and the irrepressible symphony patron Barbara Brookins Schneider. Dapper Matthew Kelly and Diane Chapman showed as well, as did Glide Memorial's Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani and regular Caen contributor Strange de Jim. Chronicle writer Carl Nolte seized the mic for a long monologue recounting Caen's life. And in a rerun of past lunches, Moose's owner Ed Moose ran around polling people to see "if this should be the last year we hold the Herb Caen Day lunch." Indeed, although the event was well attended, a significant number of Caen regulars were notably absent: Harry de Wildt, Willie Brown, Bashford, and even son Christopher Caen missed the fete.

For a glimpse of the city's future and how the marketing and retail forces have inserted themselves as a character in the scene, one need only have dropped in on the Splendora/eBay Peacock Party fashion show. Owing to Splendora's Gina Pell's persuasive powers, the Socialist, along with Evening Magazine's Amanda Hencmann, ended

up judging the contestants, who paraded their eBay designer finds as '80s bubblegum songs blared. They were joined by throngs of women who came for cocktails, free manicures, massages, and that crucial marketing bribe: a well-stocked goody bag. Actress Rosario Dawson (in town to film Rent) dropped by and ended up chatting extensively with Google's Larry Page. "He was hands down the most eligible bachelor in a party of close to 1,000 women," said a spy. Rosario who?