Personal Appearance

The attorney for a gang member kicked in the head by an El Monte police officer at the end of a televised car chase thinks his client has a great case. On Thursday, Nick Pacheco filed a $5-million legal claim against the city on behalf of the 23-year-old. But just in case, the attorney said his heavily tattooed client will be getting an extreme makeover in time for a trial, complete with a thick Tom Selleck mustache -- think "Magnum P.I."

A shock rocker with 2 feet of black-dyed hair, 10-gauge earrings and a pronounced tongue hoop isn't most employers' idea of the perfect hire. But in today's job market, even self-described Gen X freaks with the right skills are finding their way into mainstream workplaces. That's what happened to Elton Palmer, 25, who moved to Los Angeles from Denver to make it big in rock 'n' roll but soon learned he needed a day job.

Female warblers go gaga for potential mates who serenade them with extensive song repertoires. Red jungle hens favor a rooster not for his strutting, heft or fineness of feathers, but for the length of his comb and the brilliance of his wattle. The female scorpion fly is a stickler for symmetry, losing her head over a fella with wings identical in length, width and shape.

Cara Fitzsimmons was sure she'd die of embarrassment. Other girls in her class were equally upset and vowed to voice their outrage in a petition. Cara, 12, and her friends had just endured a shorts inspection: They were lined up and told to place their hands at their sides, and teachers then checked to make sure each girl's shorts were no higher than her fingertips, per the school's new dress code.

Buddy Biancalana will remember this winter as long as he lives--because people have remembered him. "This is all new to me," Biancalana said one recent morning after another personal appearance in the Kansas City area. "Usually I just sit around home, work out and get bored." This winter has been about as far from being boring as the Midwest is from the summer sun.

You pug, you knob, you button-head, know that I glory in this nose of mine, for a great nose indicates a great man--genial, courteous, intellectual, virile, courageous--as I am--and such as you--poor wretch--will never dare to be even in imagination. --"Cyrano de Bergerac" * Before and after. When is a nose news?

A series of polls and studies has dished up some real dirt on the French: Fewer than half take a bath or shower each day. What's more, 40% of French men, and 25% of women, do not change their underwear daily. Fully 50% of the men, and 30% of women, do not use deodorant. Why is this so, in a nation that has done so much to set modern Western standards for polite behavior? It is not for want of means--almost every French household is equipped with a shower or bathtub.

A woman who claims she was fired from her hotel job because she has a mustache has been offered her job back. "We are profoundly sorry that this incident ever happened," Larry Sternberg, general manager of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, said at a news conference Tuesday. Licia Joy Galinsky, 30, and her supervisor, Roy Peterson, filed a complaint last week with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

This spring, women can indulge in the nostalgia of neo-hippie bell-bottoms, the flourish of a poet's attire, the femininity of sheer fabrics or the exotic look of Chinese cheongsams, with slits that give new meaning to the term high rise. But can you wear any of this to the office--or should you give up being fashionable during daylight hours and stick with "Dress for Success" uniforms?

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Humaira Momand's customers aren't much to look at. The first brave patrons of the only working beautician in this ravaged Afghan capital depart her salon shrouded in the head-to-toe burka that obscures their stylish new haircuts, hennaed highlights and facial make-overs from any appreciative glances.