REPLETE WITH BLACK dress appropriate for the coming blacklist, the Oscar show did go on. Since the ceremonial promotional interviews that take place on the red carpet were canceled this year, Joan Rivers and daughter Melissa were forced to comment on the stars from on high – one might say the chief camera angle during E!'s preawards coverage was a vulture's-eye view. Even so, certain nagging superficial questions emerged. What unidentified sparkly object was trapped in Cloris Leachman's hair? Were the dark spectacles Halle Berry wore on her way into the auditorium preparation for sitting next to Jack Nicholson, the master of throwing shade who wears his sunglasses at night, indoors?

A big chill descended on the room as the festivities began, and not because so many boomers in attendance had finally tipped the Oscar scales toward their favorite fugitive, Roman Polanski. (Oh, to be a tape recorder in the mind of Nicholson or Anjelica Huston as their old acquaintance was honored with an award and repeatedly praised.) At moments, the occasion was eerily reminiscent of the documentary film that didn't win, Prisoner of Paradise, in which cabaret performer Kurt Gerron is forced to write and direct Nazi propaganda from a concentration camp. But when a few of the marionettes began cutting their strings, it was truly amazing that some of the Republicans funding this occasion didn't drop from heart attacks on the spot. Props go to the peaceniks: particularly Chris Cooper, for opening the floodgates; Gael Garcia Bernal, for bringing Salma Hayek out of her seat; Michael Moore, who managed to upstage even himself with a grandstanding counterpropaganda maneuver that was supremely unselfish, getting our homies Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco onstage; and, of course, Adrien Brody, for bringing down the house.

The statuettes won by The Pianist – particularly Polanski's Best Director victory – provided some of the night's few surprises, proving that Harvey Weinstein doesn't in fact own the Oscars. Polanski may have been helped by Samantha Geimer's media appearances last month. Geimer, the victim in the statutory rape case for which Polanski remains at large, wrote an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times and appeared on CNN's Larry King Live to argue that Polanski the artist shouldn't be condemned. Perhaps the justice system has lost its ability to garner sympathy for its campaigns. There was a certain irony in the fact that the Best Picture itself detailed the folly of U.S. judicial processes. Were we supposed to be unhappy about that? (Johnny Ray Huston and Susan Gerhard)

Neighborhood watch

The netherworld of Civic Center is usually populated by municipal bureaucrats and those who make day use of the manicured lawns. Of late, however, it's become the hippest neighborhood in town – and not because of the highly anticipated opening of the new Asian Art Museum, but because of antiwar activists. Last Thursday, it so happened, was the peak day for both audiences. The queue looped around the block to get into the extensively renovated beaux arts museum on its first (and free) public day, and the fans of Asian art were clad in dark colors, as were the throngs of protesters, making it sometimes difficult to tell one from the other. Few of the protesters, however, could be seen taking the "solace" in art that museum directors so often speak of. No, it was the Main Library that became the nerve center as the weekend unfolded, with its offers of books, seating, DVDs, and abundant plumbing. The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, on Van Ness Avenue, reported a notable spike in attendance on demonstration days (and a picture of the sign-wielding crowds in the Civic Center is posted on its Web site www.sfacgallery.org). And View 155, a gallery it operates in the window of a seismically challenged building on Grove Street, may just be the most visible art venue in town these days as thousands file past weekly, prior to staging die-ins in nearby intersections. A video installation by Karina Aguilera Skvirsky opens this week, fittingly titled Go Go Go. (Helfand)

SUV = WWIII?