Jack Rabbit

When first produced in the summer of 2002, writer-director Matt Chaffee's “Fluffy Bunnies in a Field of Daisies” found a large and appreciative audience, as evidenced by its off-again, on-again three-year run. Obviously, Chaffee's send-up of the sexual absurdities of eight wacky young urbanites proved a blessedly silly diversion after the ravages of 9/11. It's all about the zeitgeist.  Now in its 10-year revival at the Arena Stage, the show remains inarguably fluffy and funny, yet what may have seemed over-the-top and outrageous in 2002 now seems ever so slightly dated.

Though it was cold and blustery outside, on the bandstand at Catalina Bar & Grill Tuesday everything was piping hot as the Australian Jazz Orchestra, a 12-piece all-star aggregation from Down Under, roared through a six-tune opening set of modern mainstream jazz that was always exciting and occasionally electrifying.

A series of spirited displays by Bill Holman, Teddy Edwards, Supersax and Buddy Collette were the focus of the lengthy "Jazz Pilgrimage '95" Sunday at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. The concert was a celebration of the era from 1945 to 1955 when be-bop reigned in Hollywood. Holman's orchestra opened the affair with his invigorating composition, "The '40s: Swing to Bebop."

Phil Jones walks across an open field, kicking shrubs and overturning rocks until a jack rabbit springs from behind a bush and darts across the High Desert floor. At that instant, the red-tailed hawk perched on Jones' gloved arm takes flight. The bird of prey swoops, grips the rabbit in its talons and devours it. "My adrenaline rushes when I go out hunting with the bird," Jones says. Jones is a modern-day falconer, hunting game with hawks and falcons.

An uncharged suspect in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case has been found dead in his Long Beach apartment, authorities said Wednesday, but the cause of death has not yet been determined. Foul play is not suspected. Robert Hamill Winkler, 35, a sometime oil rigger and handyman who was free on bail while awaiting trial on unrelated child sexual abuse charges involving a Torrance baby-sitting service, died in the early hours of Nov. 6.

Wimps are the winners on the freeway, says psychiatrist Martin Brenner. They are more relaxed, happier, likely to live longer, and, when they get to their destinations, they can use all the energy they saved on the road to be assertive where it is more appropriate. It only takes about 10 minutes to learn to be a freeway wimp, says Brenner, who officially calls his technique the Stress Care Driving Program. The trick, he says, is to practice it every time you get in the car.

Sam ELLIOTT has played his share of hardscrabble characters, plenty of them in the Old West. But the 63-year-old actor, famous for his bushy handlebar mustache and mane of silver hair, says that there is an emotional through line connecting his body of work, uniting the cowboys, military men and rebel bikers who have populated his 40-year career.