Michael Kirby

Leaning back in a deck chair aboard the Prospector, Dwight Pate peered over the top of his book, a nautical history of the discovery of the California coast, and surveyed the competition. Up and down the Newport Harbor shoreline, double-parked alongside the hometown yachts nestled in their slips, a veritable fleet of sloops and schooners was assembling. By sunrise today, from as far away as San Francisco there will have gathered 556 sailing craft with crews numbering into the thousands.

SAN DIEGO -- Sickeningly rich food serves as a central metaphor for "The American Plan," Richard Greenberg's somber 1990 comedy about American outsiders incapable of filling themselves up in a culture of ravenous appetites. Set in the Catskills in 1960, the play -- which is receiving its West Coast premiere at the Old Globe in a production that can't quite make sense of all the convoluted action -- features much conversation about the grotesquely elaborate buffets around which guests organize their days.

"REIT." The mere mention of real estate investment trusts can send many investors scurrying, given how many REITs went sour in the 1970s and '80s. But in the past two years some REITs have performed well, particularly those investing in health care properties. So in that friendlier environment, a newly organized REIT named LTC Properties Inc., which is investing in nursing homes, has just raised $142 million by going public.

The year was 1947, and Michael Kirby, a 22-year-old actor and sometime figure-skating teacher, was skating by himself at a West Los Angeles ice rink when the manager approached him. The manager asked Kirby if he'd like to skate with the owner of the arena. "I told him I'd be honored to," Kirby said. Who wouldn't have? The name of the arena was Sonja Henie Westside Ice Palace, and the owner, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, was one of the most famous athletes and movie stars in the world.

Paddy McElhinney, 28, wants to believe that peace is at hand for him, his wife, Anne, and their four children. But then the strapping taxi driver is dubious as he recalls that awful Halloween five years ago at the Rising Sun pub. As he sipped a soda and was about to return to his shift in nearby Londonderry, two gunmen burst into the lounge. A third man with a double-barreled shotgun stood watch. One invader yelled "Trick or treat!"

The stage is filled by a long table reminiscent of congressional hearings, and the characters at that table have names like Timothy Leary, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. At the far end of the table, sporadically reciting information that comes her way via a headset, is an actress playing Ann Rower, a baby sitter for Leary during the LSD guru's Cambridge days. It's the '50s and '60s according to the Wooster Group, a New York-based ensemble that lands in Los Angeles next Sunday.

With the Canadian public's mood swinging freely as if buffeted by the icy winds of late fall, voters here will pick a new government next week in an election dominated by an emotional debate over the proposed free trade agreement with the United States. Recent public opinion polls point to a dead-even race between Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and his Liberal challenger, John Turner. But these same polls seem to suggest that even if Mulroney wins on Nov.

In 1973, Hollywood offered "Soylent Green," a futuristic movie depicting life in a terrarium-like environment. Sandy Fitzpatrick, coach of the San Diego Surf Hockey Club, can relate. "San Diego plays what I call a greenhouse type of hockey," Fitzpatrick said, referring to the natural surroundings that keep ice hockey in a survival mode. Surf Hockey is the latest attempt to resurrect the sport in San Diego, where people prefer their surf with sand and sun rather than sticks and sweaters.

Just Opened Blade Runner. Re-release of Ridley Scott's 1982 look at Los Angeles in the future, based on Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" starring Harrison Ford as a "replicant" hunter, Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah as his prey and Sean Young as the woman he's attracted to. Bob Roberts. Tim Robbins stars as a right-wing self-made millionaire folk-singer Senate candidate from Pennsylvania. Also starring Gore Vidal, Alan Rickman, Giancarlo Esposito and Ray Wise.