“Janet lived alone in a Paris hotel,” Murray tells me, “so she didn’t have to worry about housekeeping and chores and all of that; she could just concentrate on being a writer.”
February 10, 2000
News & Stories
New Yorker's Janet Flanner, my mother, and me
Lap-Dancing on the Web
Notebooks and pens in hand, the students file into a nondescript meeting room at a Mission Valley hotel. They include retirees, business managers, college-age youths, middle-age men, and tall, thin blondes who look like models. …
February 10, 2000
Fox Populi
'Fox Fox Fox Fox FOX FOX FOX FOX!" You know who they're yelling about: he's the granite-jawed guy standing above everybody else in the hall. Vicente Fox Quesada. Over six feet tall -- and, some …
February 10, 2000
Influence Peddler
Union-Tribune editor-in-chief Herb Klein has been advised by San Diego city clerk Chuck Abdelnour that he may have to register as a lobbyist. Klein, whose behind-the-scenes lobbying of city councilmembers on behalf of the taxpayer-financed …
February 10, 2000
Hike or bike to sandstone-studded Rocky Peak, overlooking the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County.
In 1990 the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (a state agency charged with acquiring land for parks in the Los Angeles area) entered negotiations with entertainer Bob Hope to purchase Rocky Peak Park -- a 4369-acre …
February 10, 2000
Travel Bug
"WAKE UP, HONEY. MOM FELL" It was 2:30 a.m. and the words were coming from my wife Terry. Accustomed to composing myself at any hour, I found myself resistant to doing so now, probably because …
February 10, 2000
Duct tape madness
Duct tape has saved me only once. I’ve used it plenty but only needed it one time. My Oldsmobile ruptured a radiator hose on the Mass Pike on the way to a Boston Bruins playoff …
February 10, 2000
Why are bowling shoes always the same wherever you go, and why are they so ugly?
Dear Matthew Alice: I've been a bowler for more than 40 years. And it's only last week that it finally hit me. Why are bowling shoes always the same wherever you go, and why are …
February 10, 2000
If traveling at the speed of light, would your headlights shine?
Dear Matthew: Okay, here's one that keeps me up nights. If you were driving a car traveling at the speed of light and you turned on the headlamps, would any light project ahead of you? …
February 10, 2000
Why isn't your column titled "Go Ask Alice?"
Dear Matthew Alice: Why isn't your column titled "Go Ask Alice"? You've never been ten feet tall? -- Chuck W, Oceanside If you pile the elves on top of each other, they'd be about five …
February 10, 2000