At a studio in the old Sears building at Mission and Cesar Chavez on Sunday, friends gathered to celebrate the 75th birthday of Diane di Prima, the city's fifth designated poet laureate.

Ron Turner of Last Gasp Press, noting that di Prima will not be sworn in officially until February, performed his own version of an inaugural ceremony for the crowd. Turner's ritual specified that the laureate use "all of your power to guard, honor and propagate poetry of all kinds for all people in all walks of life, and remind them to celebrate the world in all its mystery."

A lush and full laurel wreath was placed upon the head of the poet, whose right hand lay upon a volume of the collected works of John Keats, and who accepted the honor "in the name of all the poets and all the alchemists of all time."

A long list of fellow poets was read, including Catullus, Ezra Pound and Michael McClure, who was, with the city's fourth poet laureate, Jack Hirschman, among the revelers.

A slight breeze wafted through the studio, as poetry lovers found their natural post-ceremony affinities: Some hovered over a bountiful display of food, others fervently lobbied each other for the legalization of pot, and still others were at the windows, admiring the parade of antique cars owned by Central American refugees and parked on Mission Street.

"There is no season that is not a season of song," the honoree had said in the ceremony. It was a great day for poetry.

Renowned wine importer Kermit Lynch's new CD, "Man's Temptation," will be in stores in late September. The notes that arrived with the album by Lynch, whose earliest career goals were musical, include his account of being hired as record reviewer for the Berkeley Barb, in the late '60s.

"In return, I received a stack of Barbs at no charge. All I had to do to earn a few bucks was to get out early Friday morning, rain or shine, and hawk them one by one to students. ... Plus, I was entitled to one free dinner a week home-cooked by Jane Scheer, wife of the Barb's publisher, Max. Thank you, Jane, wherever you are - those meals came in handy to a starving singer. I only wish we'd gone ahead and had the affair Max always suspected we were having."

Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" show on the Travel Channel this week is about San Francisco. Bourdain's blog expresses his begrudging love for our town, "in spite of every effort over the years to find fault, to dismiss, to sneer."

Bourdain's targets: "political correctness, veganism, rich hippies, sanctimoniousness about food, food fetishism, animal rights terrorists, gastro-dogma and loud locavores who actually get their produce flown in from Chino Farms in San Diego." However, "sooner or later you learn to accept the good, bad and silly all together. It's all part of the package when you know, without any question, that you want the package. ...

"OK ... it does still drive me berserko watching a blissed out St. Alice, burning up a few cords of firewood (in Berkeley no less!) to cook two eggs for an unusually credulous Lesley Stahl. But in general, I got it all wrong, didn't I?"

-- Soprano Angel Blue, who as Clara sang "Summertime" in the San Francisco Opera's recent "Porgy and Bess" production, has taken second prize in Placido Domingo's Operalia, a worldwide opera contest for young singers. Singing Spanish operetta music, she also took first place for women in Operalia's zarzuela competition.

-- Last week's JCC Maccabi Games, the first in San Francisco, featured 1,500 Jewish athletes and coaches competing as well as participating in two Days of Caring and Sharing. They cleaned up 17 San Francisco parks.

-- Sharon Gless, who provided comic relief between headliners that included her old TV-cop pal Tyne Daly, was the surprise guest at Help Is On the Way 15, a recent benefit show for the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation.

The Ballad of the Disappointed Car Owner, overheard by The Chronicle's Walt Addiego (* replaces two letters but shh about that): "A piece of *it does not mean a clunker."

Open for business at (415) 777-8426 or e-mail lgarchik@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle