Edgar Allan Poe

He was abandoned by his father, orphaned by his tubercular mother and raised by a wealthy but emotionally miserly new father. Edgar Allan Poe then watched in horror as consumption continued to spirit away nearly everyone he loved, including his dear wife. In time he too was consumed--by grief and by alcohol.

Gregory Poe, a fashion designer with an offbeat sensibility who caused a sensation in the late 1970s with a line of see-through purses and raincoats infused with plastic fish and other whimsical items, died Sept. 1 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 51. In poor health for several years, Poe died in his sleep, according to his brother, Jeffrey. Poe quickly established himself as a fashion talent in 1978, when he designed a line of plastic clothing and accessories that incorporated novel items: colorful plastic fish afloat in raincoat pockets and clutch bags with candy wrappers sewn into the flaps.

Whew. Talk about an antidote to any lingering holiday sweetness and light: "Gruesome, Gory, Grotesque Stories of Edgar Allan Poe," the latest production from the Serendipity Theatre Co., is a dark offering for ages 8 and up at the Coronet Theatre. The uneven mix of horror, romance and comedy by Sam Kuglen and directed by Katy Realista needs rethinking, but it has its chilling moments.

Elvis Costello has a new job: Starting next fall, the British songwriter will serve as Artist in Residence for UCLA Performing Arts. As part of UCLA's 2001-2002 arts season, announced today, Costello will direct four projects over the course of the season, including a collaboration with the Charles Mingus Orchestra in October.

A few weeks ago, at the California International Antiquarian Book Fair, a pale young man, not unhandsome, asked a dealer to pull down a slim volume of Elizabeth Bishop's first collection of poems, "North & South." He turned it over in his hands; he looked carefully at the signature on the frontispiece and pronounced it "loose." "Probably signed later than 1946," he mused, half out loud. He barely listened to the dealer.

"No, no, no," Bob Dylan says sharply when asked if aspiring songwriters should learn their craft by studying his albums, which is precisely what thousands have done for decades. "It's only natural to pattern yourself after someone," he says, opening a door on a subject that has long been off-limits to reporters: his songwriting process. "If I wanted to be a painter, I might think about trying to be like Van Gogh, or if I was an actor, act like Laurence Olivier.

WHEN Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes, young readers in London wore black armbands to mourn (and protest) the passing of their most beloved detective. Doyle eventually gave in to the public outcry and revived his hero in a series of prequels. No such reaction for Edgar Allan Poe's inspector, C. Auguste Dupin, whom Poe retired after three stories and who served as the model for Holmes.

For as long as he can remember, Dario Serrano's life was all screeching tires and echoing gunshots, babies' cries and barking dogs, a symphony, as he puts it, of "hood rats and gangsters," of "vatos and payasos" -- dudes and numskulls, loosely translated. By high school, he'd pretty much given up on himself. He bounced around between three schools. He started selling pot, though he always seemed to smoke more than he sold. His GPA fell to 0.

The day the butterflies were set free in Mark Z. Danielewski's West Hollywood apartment, music was playing, sewing machines were running and swaths of fabric with carefully stitched illustrations for the new edition of his novella "The Fifty Year Sword" were strewn around his living room. He'd painted one wall with magnetic chalkboard paint for sketching patterns and thrown out his couch to make room for the friends who joined his literary sewing circle - though at times, he admits, it seemed more like a literary sweatshop.