Everest

Mt. Everest has been climbed in a day from base camp. It has been climbed from Nepal with the help of Sherpas. It has been climbed from China with the assistance of yaks. It has been climbed solo, and without oxygen. It has been climbed in the spring and the fall, from the North Col and the South Col. It now has been climbed by American women. It has been climbed so many times that Sir Edmund Hillary, who made the first ascent of the 29,028-foot peak with the Tenzing Norgay in 1953 has called Everest "a junk heap overloaded with a multitude of expeditions and their refuse."

You spend a whole lot of time just staying alive. --Lisa Coffey On the surface, the problem seemed insurmountable. The surface was Las Vegas, where Lisa Coffey lives with fiance Randal Grandstaff. The problem was spending a little quality time together. Randal, as is his wont, was about to leave on another business trip, this one lasting 3 1/2 months. Lisa thought it would be nice to join Randal for a month or so. Randal thought it would be nice too.

An eight-member, American-led team trying to scale the 26,906-foot Cho Oyu peak in the Himalayas has pitched its second bivouac camp, the Ministry of Tourism said Monday. It said the camp was established at 20,800 feet on April 20, only three days after the party, which includes a British climber, set up its first camp at 19,420 feet. The climbers hope to reach the summit in May. Led by attorney James Frush, 34, of Trinidad, Colo., the team is preparing for a 1988 climb of Mt.

In reviewing my "Poetic License," Disch is indignant about the "passionate enthusiasm" he takes me to display toward "language poetry," specifically to the work of Lyn Hejinian and Steve McCaffery (which, for the record, occupies approximately 15 (roughly 5%) of my book's 352 pages). "Why," he asks vituperatively, "does (Perloff) praise those who traffic in" the "pseudo-scientific silliness" (of language poetry)? "Because, like Everest, it's there." Well, choice of mountain notwithstanding (surely Parnassus would have been more apt than Everest)

There is no obvious heir apparent lined up to take over the University of California system after Mark Yudof retires as president. Yudof was the first true outsider selected to run the sprawling institution in more than 100 years. So experts predict the search for a new president will look to leaders of large public university systems elsewhere in the country that, like UC, have faced dramatic declines in state financial support. Some observers expect the hunt to extend beyond academia, to government or business leaders.

The most famous comment about the reason for climbing Mt. Everest was made by a man who never made it to the top. Or did he? That would be British mountaineer George Mallory, who replied, "Because it's there," when asked why he wanted to conquer the highest peak in the world. Mallory looked on his quest as "the wildest dream," and an absorbing new documentary called "The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest" deals with the climber's fate and his legacy in an unexpected combination on ways.

Sir Edmund Hillary, who in 1953 became the first man to stand on the peak of Mt. Everest, makes Indiana Jones look like "the shy, retiring type," according to actor Gerald McRaney. McRaney, the popular star of television's "Simon and Simon" detective series, nearly upstaged the famous explorer at last week's "An Evening with Sir Edmund Hillary," the fifth annual UC San Diego Medical Center Auxiliary celebrity dinner.

The Antidote Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking Oliver Burkeman Faber & Faber: 256 pp, $25 Oliver Burkeman's book "The Antidote" begins with thousands of people trying to think positive thoughts together. A British journalist, Burkeman attends a "Get Motivated!" session in a Texas baseball stadium. In exchange for a pricey admission fee, he gets to hear President George W. Bush deliver a talk on the power of optimism. And he listens as Robert H. Schuller, the self-help guru and founder of the Crystal Cathedral, confidently reveals the secret of success.