Fantasyland

Michael Eisner, in Hong Kong for today's opening of a Disneyland theme park, was asked by Associated Press to name his worst mistake during his reign as Walt Disney Co. chief executive. Eisner called the signing of Mo Vaughn by the Disney-owned Angels after the 1998 season "the worst personnel move I've ever made or approved, worse than the one you're probably thinking about." He was referring to the naming of Michael Ovitz as Disney president in 1995.

Tall, husky and sandy-haired, the visiting author is tired, favoring a sore wrist and nibbling on a cookie. Dressed casually in untucked shirt and jeans, he has just spent an hour signing stacks of books at Vroman's in Pasadena, and has many other bookstores to visit, a Yes concert to attend, interviews to give and a dinner with Universal film execs before he heads home to Britain in two days. Such is the new life of G.P.

Eric Schaeffer won the theatrical equivalent of a Super Bowl two summers ago by pulling off one of the biggest stage events of the young century, the Sondheim Celebration at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. With Schaeffer as artistic director, the six-show, $10-million retrospective played to great acclaim -- not least from Stephen Sondheim himself. As co-founder and artistic director of Signature Theatre, a 136-seat black box in Arlington, Va.

Cut! The Southland's wonderful little sports sequel closed production Monday, its stage in tatters, its stars in tears. A decade after being spawned by a movie of the same name, a hockey team's championship run was canceled one day short of history, a victim of the affliction suffered by the celluloid original. The story was simply too good to be true.

Harbin, China, glows every winter during the city's ice lantern festival. Blocks of ice embedded with tinted lights are stacked to re-create landmarks such as English castles and Paris' Arc de Triomphe. The result, says Camarillo reader Albert Huen, is a nighttime "fantasyland." The retired medical physicist visited in December, when temperatures hit minus 30. Heat packs in his bag kept the camera battery from freezing.

Florida Panther goaltender Sean Burke was Manny Legace's hero when both skated for the Hartford Whalers four years ago. Legace, then a callow youth just getting started in professional hockey, carried Burke's trading card in his wallet. Burke was still an object of envy Wednesday night, when Legace, the Kings' goalie by default, dove left, dove right, reached up with his glove and down with his stick and generally scored a 9.

Everything you're seeing now in St. Louis, the excitement, the joy, the history, it could have been Anaheim. You could have been part of it. You probably wouldn't have caught home run No. 62. But maybe you would have been at Edison Field when it was hit. More likely, you wouldn't have been but could have said you were 10 years from now, like people here say now about Kirk Gibson's home run at Dodger Stadium.

Peter O'Malley fondly remembers the first City Section championship baseball game played at Dodger Stadium 29 years ago. "There was a lot of anticipation to do it," he said. "None of us thought it would continue. I'm glad it has. It's baseball at its best. It's pure baseball." There are hundreds of former Los Angeles high school players who owe a debt of gratitude to O'Malley, who has made it possible for the City championship game to be played every season at Dodger Stadium since 1969.