Fellowships

It's after midnight at the Art Theatre in Long Beach. A movie is in progress, but it's hard to concentrate on the screen because a mob of people in platform shoes, leather bustiers, rockabilly gear and Bride-of-Frankenstein-meets-KISS makeup are doing, er, the Time Warp. For the record, the Time Warp is a dance from the movie musical, sci-fi spoof and cult phenomenon known as "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

The middle edition of director Peter Jackson's three-part Middle-earth saga thundered to $26 million for its opening Wednesday. The figure includes midnight Tuesday showings in about half the 3,622 theaters where "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" is playing on 6,633 screens, but New Line Cinema didn't break out the early-show tally.

To bring the timeless tale of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" to the big screen, director Peter Jackson embarked on a quest that would have made even his Hobbit hero Frodo tremble: to conquer time itself. The latest film chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic work, which hits theaters this week, was produced by an army of more than 500 people that spanned 21 time zones across three continents.

For the last two decades, a Virginia mansion has been a private hideaway for world leaders, members of Congress, and even pop star Michael Jackson. Located on a quiet residential street, the $4.4-million estate called Cedars sits at the highest point of the Potomac River, with spectacular views of Washington beyond the pool and tennis courts. It is owned by the Fellowship, the nonpartisan Christian group that sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast.

Two Caltech researchers, two Los Angeles artists and a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer at the Getty Trust are among 24 people who received this year's so-called genius grants awarded by the MacArthur Foundation. Three other Californians also received the awards, the state thereby accounting for a full third of the recipients. Each of the 24 fellows will receive $500,000 over the next five years to use any way they want--no strings attached.

Your Aug. 6 article "State, U.S. Feud Over Teachers" states that "Gov. Gray Davis and lawmakers have made teacher recruitment and retention a priority...." This is true in oratory and fanfare, but not in practice. One example is the Governor's Teaching Fellowship Program. The program was announced nine months ago with much publicity and press coverage. The governor hailed it as a solution to the teacher shortage in California and a way to get qualified teachers directly into the areas where the need was the greatest.

The screenplays for the movie "Iris," the HBO presentation of "The Laramie Project" and an episode of NBC's "The West Wing" in which President Bartlet questions his faith in God were among the winners of 2002 Humanitas Prizes, the annual movie and TV writing awards established by the late Father Ellwood "Bud" Kieser. The awards were presented Tuesday at a luncheon in Universal City.

This year's installment of the City of Los Angeles' Individual Artist Fellowships, "C.O.L.A. 2002," is notable for two reasons. First, a one-time grant from the National Endowment for the Arts has funded four additional awards for designers and architects. Second, the diverse works by the 14 winners are remarkably consistent in the ways that they update Pop art.

Never mind the diamonds. A little gold ring is a girl's best friend, particularly if it looks enough like a wedding band to discourage those pesky Lotharios who can make single women travelers feel as if they're running the gantlet at a Tailhook convention. Ergo, the Faux Wedding Band, a new offering in the catalog of Santa Barbara travel outfitter Magellan's. "Men around the world know a ring means you're married.

Three months ago, David Wilson's cell phone rang in the middle of a meeting at his one-of-a-kind establishment, the Museum of Jurassic Technology. He was talking planning with Kelly Coyne, the museum's administrative director. "It was a pretty down period, and we were trying to figure out how we were going to get through November," he says. "Financially, every month is a juggling act. We get to places where we're OK for two or three months but then it goes back to week-to-week.