Facets

Dear Karen: I'm contemplating an Internet business. Should I first trademark my logo? Answer: Move concerns about your logo way down your business start-up list. Too many individuals shell out money upfront on things like design before they've worked out their business plan or determined whether entrepreneurship is right for them. Take a step back and figure out what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur, said Phil Holland, a serial entrepreneur and founder of My Own Business Inc.

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.

Romantic wedding traditions are back, complete with religious ceremony, reception, honeymoon--and the diamond engagement ring. "More than 75% of all brides now receive a diamond engagement ring. That's up 9% in the last two years," says Kae McCulloch, fashion consultant to the Jewelry Industry Council. McCulloch discerns a trend toward unusual and individually-designed engagement rings.

A free forum on "Catastrophic Medicare Coverage for 1989" will be offered from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. July 26 at Western Medical Center's Bash Auditorium, 1001 N. Tustin Ave., Santa Ana. Under a 1988 amendment to the Medicare program, the 32 million elderly and disabled who rely on the federal health care program to help pay medical and hospital bills have improved protection if they are beset by catastrophic illness or injury.

Ramaa Bharadvaj and Uma Suresh bill themselves as "the dancing twins of South India." Students and teachers of both the Bharatha Natyam and Kuchipudi styles of dancing, the Orange County-based duo has spent several years developing and producing "Facets of Siva,"a devotional pageant to various aspects of the Hindu Lord of the Dance. The work was first shown in Madras last summer.

In addition to Aron Ranen's cool, matter-of-fact "Sex and Religion" trilogy, which was presented at Vidiots last May, three new Ranen shorts will be shown Friday and Saturday at9 p.m. at the Cinema Cafe, 7160 Melrose Ave. They are examples of provocative video reportage at its most economical. The eight-minute "Surveillance in L.A."

Behind an evergreen hedge and wrought-iron fence in downtown Pasadena sits the Theodore Parker Lukens house, the perfect vehicle for a bit of time travel. Roger Kislingbury makes the trip every day. Kislingbury purchased the Lukens house, an elaborate, 5,000-square-foot Victorian gem, in 1971. He and his wife, Ellen, now live there with their 3-year-old son, James, and Kislingbury's daughters, Anne, 16, and Amy, 14. "Living here is old-fashioned fun," he says.

Up until five years ago, William Clarke worked as a machinist, helping build B-1 bombers and space shuttles, and escaping nights and weekends to blow his harmonica in a handful of inner-city blues clubs. He'd been playing blues on the sly like this since the blues revival of the mid-1960s, when most of his friends were more interested in the hard rock and psychedelia of the era.

World Outside the Window: The Selected Essays of Kenneth Rexroth; edited by Bradford Morrow (New Directions: $22.95; 326 pages) A single essay in "World Outside the Window" will serve to illustrate the extraordinary intellectual inventiveness of the late poet, translator and essayist, Kenneth Rexroth.

or rice, as the case may be. It is also tradition, community and culture. In the exhibition "Banquet: A Feast for the Senses" at the Pacific Asia Museum, 14 Asian and Asian American artists reflect on the topic, coming up with some unexpected contemporary takes. Instead of servings of sushi, there are servings of bead-encrusted fake sushi in the sculpture of Kohei Nawa.