It's an early Thursday afternoon and the world's most widely read astrologer is busy divining the future.
Lying in bed with his head propped up on pillows, Sydney Omarr, blinded and paralyzed from the neck down by multiple sclerosis, waits for a cue from his editorial advisor, Capricorn Valerie Barbeaux.
Seated before an old IBM Selectric II typewriter prepped with a blank sheet and carbon paper, Barbeaux says, "Syd, this is for Friday, Dec. 6 ... moon in Capricorn. Aries."
His blue eyes begin to dart back and forth as though reading a scroll unfurled in midair.
"Expect some changes in connection with business, career," he says in a monotone. "Written word plays major role; get ideas on paper."
"We need another line, Syd."
After a moment, the 76-year-old astrologer says, "Flirtation begins innocently but could become hot and heavy."
At Omarr's Westside apartment, where the walls are covered with framed photos of him posing with friends and celebrities, from sexpot actress Aries Jayne Mansfield to controversial author Capricorn Henry Miller, it was just the beginning of what would be another busy day in Omarr's 61-year career as an interpreter of the starry firmament.
In an adjacent room, assistant and friend Sagittarius Paul Smalls was organizing Omarr's daily pay-per-call telephonic astrological forecasts, and assembling material for the 13 books -- one for each sign of the zodiac and one for the entire year -- that his boss writes annually. His books have sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, making him a wealthy man.
He also was fielding calls from Omarr's prospective dinner guests, adoring women and his bookie.
A warm blanket draped across his bone-thin shoulders, Omarr struggled to catch his breath, then smiled with an explanation: "About those adoring women: It's the astrology they're in love with, not me."
As for the gambling, "I win more than I lose."
Well, of course.
Would anything else be expected of a man who has worked so hard to promote the ancient practice of divining a person's future from the juxtaposition of the sun, moon and planets?
Would anything else be expected of a man who, even when he was a teenager, worked so hard to promote himself?
Indeed, Sydney Omarr has made himself the horoscope master to the masses. He's also been a consultant of the rich and famous. A bon vivant. A gambler. And survivor.
His own horoscope indicates that, with Jupiter in the fifth house, he is poised for success through publicity and entertainment. Perhaps that's why he's now doing something he hasn't done in years -- grant an interview.
He comes off as confident yet modest, spiritual yet rebellious, part mystic, part ordinary Joe -- anything but the herbal tea-sipping soul one might expect. Instead, this Leo in winter still caps his workday the way he always has -- with a hard-earned shot of good Scotch and a hand-rolled cigar.
Astrologers, of course, are not for everybody. Pagans, some call them. Con men, say others.
Since losing his sight a decade ago to the disease that was diagnosed in 1971, Omarr, whose column appears in more than 200 daily newspapers, has kept a low public profile.
Now, as his physical foundations erode to painfully diminished levels, Omarr is once again speaking out on his favorite subject.
Just don't ask him how it works. He's not exactly sure.
"No one knows what gravity is either," he likes to say, "but we don't fear falling off the world."
With an ear cocked toward a television in his den tuned to a baseball game on which he had placed a significant wager, Omarr turned briefly introspective: "I wish I'd taken better care of myself. I wish I'd boxed more. I wish I had children."
Then Omarr, who has a tough time staying serious, excused himself to take a call from a "certain representative of a bookmaking concern."
A few years ago, Barbara Snader, a former paramour who recently died of cancer, suggested they write each others' obituaries.
"I said, 'Syd, I'll write, He was a scholar and a gentleman' " she recalled in an interview shortly before her death. "He said, 'No. I want you to say, He was a defender of astrology.' "
Snader added with a laugh: "He wrote mine, but I didn't like it because it began with the word 'seductive.' "
Omarr was born Sidney Kimmelman at 10:27 a.m. Aug. 5, 1926, in Philadelphia, with the sun, Mercury and Neptune all in Leo, and Libra on the ascendant.
In other words, he is by nature fiery and romantic, and a glutton for attention, with a particularly strong need to be cooed at and cuddled. Even as a boy, he was fascinated with magic, spending his money on magical accouterments and books about the mystical arts.
At 15, he already was performing sleight-of-hand tricks in magic shops and local talent shows when he saw a movie called "Shanghai Gesture" starring Victor Mature as a character named Omar -- with one R.
In accordance with certain numerological formulas, he added another Y to his first name and a second R to Omar to add pizazz to his life and career.
