Facets

Heejo Nam issues a firm command to his class of 20 Korean youngsters, all clad in white uniforms with white belts wrapped loosely around their waists. They respond by shouting back and kicking their right legs forward. One underestimates his own power. His sneaker sails into the bushes, and it's all over for Nam. The boy's classmates break into laughter. Distractions are a prime enemy of teachers at the Korean Language School, which is held Saturday mornings at Crescenta Valley High School.

Thanks to a staging of extraordinary delicacy and insight at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" comes across like a familiar acquaintance glimpsed in a fresh light, forcing us to realize how much we've taken him for granted. There's not a wasted moment in Williams' eloquent autobiographical portrait of flawed characters, life's turning points, and tragedy inflicted through ignorance.

The cloning debate has suddenly shown its face again, with a Massachusetts company announcing recently that it had created cloned human embryos that survived for several days. Advanced Cell Technology Inc. said it was not planning to make humans, only harvest tissue to treat people with diabetes, Parkinson's and other diseases.

The Visual Communications Film Fest 2002: The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film & Video Festival opens tonight at the Directors Guild with a gala premiere of Justin Lin's "Better Luck Tomorrow," a tale of high school overachievers gone wrong. In addition to screenings at the Directors Guild, the festival will run through May 23 at the David Henry Hwang Theater in the Union Center for the Arts and the Japan America Theater, both in Little Tokyo.

"Top of the Lake" is the first miniseries from filmmaker Jane Campion of New Zealand ("The Piano," "Bright Star"). I have seen only the first three of its seven parts, which begin Monday with two episodes on Sundance Channel, and though I suppose there is some chance it all will go off the rails, early signs suggest it will bend toward something even more mysterious, beautiful, unsettling and satisfying than the mysterious, beautiful, unsettling, satisfying...

Wanda Ferrin fills her husband's prescription for the generic antibiotic doxycycline at a Target in Simi Valley. For years, the medication has cost her $6 a month. In February, however, the price tripled to $18 for 30 pills. And this month, it skyrocketed to $133. This is noteworthy enough. But what happened next makes the entire business of drug pricing a study in lunacy. "A pharmacy clerk at Target suggested running the prescription through the company's discount program," Ferrin, 61, recalled.

With a rhythmic shimmer of light and a burst of flickering hand-vibrations by two silver-suited dancers, the U.S. premiere of Bella Lewitzky's three-part suite "Facets" began in Marsee Auditorium of El Camino College on Saturday night. Commissioned by the Chateauvallon Festival in Southern France, "Facets" exploited bold dynamic contrasts and the technical prowess of what is largely a new generation of Lewitzky dancers.

In his heart of hearts, who was the King of Rock 'n' Roll? Was he rockin' Elvis? Crooner Elvis? Hillbilly Elvis? Movie Elvis? Vegas Elvis? All of the above? The wide array of artists gathered Monday for the 16th annual Elvis Birthday Bash at the House of Blues pondered nothing so philosophical, but they did illuminate most of those facets during the 4 1/2-hour celebration. Hosted by co-founder Art Fein, the show marked what would have been Elvis Presley's 66th birthday.

Dentists and dental lab technicians in the United States have been slow to accept them, but sapphire stems to hold replacement teeth are favored over metal implants, oral surgeons say. Sapphires, a gem usually found in expensive jewelry and more recently used in microchips, is ideal for use as a dental implant, said Dr. Francis Howell, chairman of oral medicine at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla.

Folkie singer-songwriter Jewel showed Friday night at the Greek Theatre that she's quite capable of a-changin' with the times, but her familiar sensitivity was always part of the show. Wearing tight jeans and a strategically torn red T-shirt, the 28-year-old artist didn't spend much time talking to the audience. Instead, she let her music make most of the emotional connections during the two-hour set, even treating the near-capacity crowd to two new songs written just days earlier.