From The Lady Chablis and all of us here at South Magazine, wishing you and your loved ones happy holidays!

Last night was one for the books! Club One and The Lady Chablis celebrated their Annual Children’s Toy Drive and Holiday Party. Those who attended donated an unwrapped gift that will be given to Greenbriar Children’s Center and SCMD’s Koppa Clause.

The performances by Liquid Ginger, the Club One Cast Cabaret and the Lady herself were filled with holiday cheer splashed with sass! The crew here at South Magazine thanks everyone at Club One and the remarkable Lady Chablis for the memorable evening!

editors note: Stay tuned for a special Holiday Wish video from Lady Chablis herself!

SCAD’s deFINE ART Festival has been a great success so far this week with great seminars and discussions. But what everyone seems to be the most excited about is the upcoming performance by internationally acclaimed artist Nick Cave. With the use of his soundsuits, or performative wearable sculptures, Nick plans to create, in his words, a spoken word, dance, DJ music extravaganza.

In preparation of the final event with Nick Cave and his multimedia cube, hours of rehearsal have been taking place to ensure the audience will not be disappointed.

Cave has created a 4-channel video piece that will be projected onto the sides of a 12′ x 12′ cube on top of the stage and as the video ends a crane will lift the cube up revealing a performer inside wearing a sound suit to begin the dance performance.

On Saturday evening as I sat in a large conference room surrounded by a few hundred people, some old, some young, many male, although a few female, I couldn’t help but feel terribly out of place.

“How many of you are on X-Box Live?” a man who stood at the front of the room and goes by the name of Major Nelson asked the crowd.

The majority of the people sitting around me raised their hands. I shouldn’t have been surprised after all Major Nelson (also known as Larry Hryb) was one of the keynote speakers for Geekend 2009, a conference dedicated to technology, design, social media, blogging, and, well, pretty much anything and everything else “geek” related. Being no stranger to most of these, I expected to fit right in with the crowd. But, as I sat with my hand rested in my lap, I felt out of the loop.

“We have over 20 million members, in less than six years,” said Major Nelson, who is not only a well-known video gaming aficionado and blogger but also a professional geek (his words, not mine) working for Microsoft as their official X-box expert. “OK, so maybe Halo helped out a little,” he joked of the company’s most popular video game.

He threw out another interesting stat. “Every five seconds someone else gets an account,” he said. Every five seconds? That’s a lot of people worldwide connecting with each other on a whole new realm of existence that I’m not a part of.

Ruby Gettinger may have lost 400 pounds, but she has gained a whole lot more. The reality TV star speaks the truth—get ready to listen.

“Truth” is not a word many would expect to be associated with reality television.

That oft-maligned genre essentially took root in 1992 with the premiere of MTV’s landmark series The Real World, and in the years since has become a mainstay of American broadcast and cable TV. Relatively inexpensive to produce (compared to scripted dramas or sitcoms) and—for some—infinitely more compelling and habit-forming than traditional serial programming, reality television has captured the hearts and minds of viewers in most every target demographic. Yet despite its moniker, most folks—including even a wide swath of the most loyal reality TV followers—would be hard pressed to vouch for the validity of what is currently found on so-called reality shows.

She may be Savannah’s queen of the kitchen, but Paula Deen can’t help but throw a life lesson or two into the pot.

Fresh out of the shower, Paula Deen walks into the kitchen of her Wilmington Island home. Her wet hair is tucked under a black, rhinestone-studded baseball cap emblazoned with the popular Sweet Potato Queens movement logo. She wears glasses, a baggy turquoise shirt and black leggings. Her face is devoid of makeup—and she’s late.

“I’m so sorry, but I just had to have a shower,” she apologizes.

No problem. Deen coughs a little. She’s just getting over a case of pneumonia, and her voice is still a little raspy.

We sit down at a table in her kitchen, the same one featured on her TV show, full of antiques and beautiful cabinetry. Now the symbol of Southern cooking, Deen is gearing up for her busy season: full of tapings, travel and her trademark twang. Deen invited South into her home for a chat about where she’s going and where she’s been.

25 facts you may not know about Savannah’s film history, from the city’s motion picture trivia man.

1. Under Southern Skies was the first movie filmed in Savannah. It was shot in 1915.
2. Ten Academy Awards have gone to movies filmed in Savannah.
3. Johnny Mercer was nominated for 19 Academy Awards and won four.
4. Five prop benches were made for the movie Forrest Gump.
5. The first movie with sound filmed in Savannah was The View from Pompey’s Head, in 1955.

With a paintbrush and a spot of English charm, Katy Gilbert breathes new life into America’s celebrities.

You’ve seen them around town: Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, Angelina Jolie. James Brown belts it out at Jazz’d while James Gandolfini hangs out at Bacchus Wine Lounge. And of course, John Lennon is right at home in Churchill’s Pub on Bay Street.

It’s not uncommon for Hollywood hotshots to appear around town, especially during the Savannah Film Festival, but their presence in local fine art is due to the efforts of Katy Gilbert, Savannah’s resident celebrity portrait painter. Rendering famous faces with a pop art flair, her pieces appear on the walls of select Savannah bars and restaurants.

Entirely self-taught, Gilbert’s career began at home in England. Driving past a gallery, she saw a painting of actor Michael Caine. “[The artist] had done a modern take on it, and I liked it,” she recalls. After inquiring the price, she decided to try out her own version of celebrity painting, which was an instant hit.