Remarkable Life

Richard J. Bing of La Cañada Flintridge got good and mad at his power company last month and fired off a letter to the editor to share his tale of woe. "I know injustice when I see it," said Bing, whose venting was made all the more impressive by his age. "I am a retired, 100-year-old physician. " If I were so lucky as to ever see 100, I'd want it to be like this — still throwing punches. I called Bing, who explained in a German accent that SoCal Edison cut off power in his neighborhood Aug. 2 to make repairs.

I get lots of mail from inmates proclaiming their innocence, but early last month I got a letter from an 88-year-old Marina del Rey man confessing to a crime. A minor crime, to be sure. Petty theft. But it was a crime against my family, and it was committed roughly 77 years ago. Henry "Hank" Cervantes saw in a column that I grew up in the little fishing and industrial town of Pittsburg, near San Francisco. So he wondered if, by chance, I was related to the people who ran the Lopez market on Black Diamond Street.

Geoff Boucher examines the remarkable life of Moby's album "Play" and the unusual route it took to become a success.

Richard J. Bing of La Cañada Flintridge got good and mad at his power company last month and fired off a letter to the editor to share his tale of woe. "I know injustice when I see it," said Bing, whose venting was made all the more impressive by his age. "I am a retired, 100-year-old physician. " If I were so lucky as to ever see 100, I'd want it to be like this — still throwing punches. I called Bing, who explained in a German accent that SoCal Edison cut off power in his neighborhood Aug. 2 to make repairs.

Regarding Joseph Giovannini's review of Michael Cannell's "I.M. Pei: Mandarin of Modernism" (Feb. 18): As someone who has a background similar to that of Pei (graduated from the same university in China, emigrated to the United States during the same period), I have followed Pei's career with great interest and am quite proud of what he has accomplished in his adopted country. This biography, being written by a non-architect, is meant to chronicle the highlights of a remarkable life and little else.

Thank you for the article on the life of former Los Angeles Times Publisher Otis Chandler (obituary, Feb. 28), a fascinating glimpse into the world of this prominent and accomplished man. The accounting of Chandler's life in the historical context of Los Angeles in those days was outstanding; the reader got a real sense of the enormous significance of the transformation of The Times under his leadership and its effect on the city as a whole....

Regarding "The Old Man and the Boy: a Father-Son Bond Grows," June 19: What heartwarming story! In a wonderful contrast to the daily grind and tragedy that occurs, Leon T. Graves' remarkable life makes me proud to be human. At the same time, his example in adopting and raising Roy Chung should make us all ashamed for not doing more, not only in terms of money, but in terms of compassion. Here's to seeing more coverage of this type of "real" news. It's almost irrelevant that Graves is black and Chung is Korean, but all the more enlightening for those of us who live in this city.

Re "Driver Who Killed 10 Is Charged," Jan. 6: The deaths of the people at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market as well as the fate of the driver is tragic. In the desire for accountability, real culpability may be better placed with lawmakers and Department of Motor Vehicles officials, who should set standards and means of enforcement regarding the revocation of licenses for elderly people with diminishing facilities. This horrible event should be raising a much larger issue than who was at fault on that particular day. This is a true public safety concern that must be dealt with in a broad manner.

At our house, every day is Mother's Day. That's just the way we roll. The morning begins with the arrival of trumpeter swans, who lay their eggs on satin pillows in the kitchen. That's breakfast. Generally, my wife, Posh, prefers her swan eggs scrambled and served over little tufts of caviar. We farm our own caviar these days — in the end, it's cheaper. For that, we keep a beluga sturgeon in the master bath. "Wow, your beluga is really getting big," house guests are always saying.

History can weigh heavily on a filmmaker, and that is what happens with "Amelia," a disappointing rendering of the remarkable life of Amelia Earhart. The pioneering aviatrix lost in flight is a figure so iconic, and director Mira Nair so tentative with her legend, that all the reverence and tiptoeing around grounds a film that should have soared. The life of Earhart, who burst on the scene in 1928 flying airplanes when they were still the province of men, is exactly the sort of saga Nair loves to tell.

At our house, every day is Mother's Day. That's just the way we roll. The morning begins with the arrival of trumpeter swans, who lay their eggs on satin pillows in the kitchen. That's breakfast. Generally, my wife, Posh, prefers her swan eggs scrambled and served over little tufts of caviar. We farm our own caviar these days — in the end, it's cheaper. For that, we keep a beluga sturgeon in the master bath. "Wow, your beluga is really getting big," house guests are always saying.

"Breath Made Visible" is an admiring documentary portrait of Anna Halprin, a woman so remarkable it is hard to fit her into the confines of a film, let alone a sentence. Born in 1920, Halprin is the doyenne of avant-garde, experimental dance in this country, but to say dancing is her life is to both understate her passion and neglect all the other things that concern her and make her as much a natural force as a performer. During her more than 50-year career, Halprin, who still teaches twice a week on the Marin County redwood deck her landscape-architect husband, Lawrence Halprin, had built for her, has touched any number of bases.

History can weigh heavily on a filmmaker, and that is what happens with "Amelia," a disappointing rendering of the remarkable life of Amelia Earhart. The pioneering aviatrix lost in flight is a figure so iconic, and director Mira Nair so tentative with her legend, that all the reverence and tiptoeing around grounds a film that should have soared. The life of Earhart, who burst on the scene in 1928 flying airplanes when they were still the province of men, is exactly the sort of saga Nair loves to tell.

The Librettist of Venice The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte: Mozart's Poet, Casanova's Friend, and Italian Opera Impresario in America Rodney Bolt Bloomsbury: 430 pp., $29.95 * AS the subtitle of Robert Bolt's engaging biography "The Librettist of Venice" suggests, Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-1838) had a life as filled with improbable reversals as the plot of one of his operas.

Thank you for the article on the life of former Los Angeles Times Publisher Otis Chandler (obituary, Feb. 28), a fascinating glimpse into the world of this prominent and accomplished man. The accounting of Chandler's life in the historical context of Los Angeles in those days was outstanding; the reader got a real sense of the enormous significance of the transformation of The Times under his leadership and its effect on the city as a whole....

Re "Driver Who Killed 10 Is Charged," Jan. 6: The deaths of the people at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market as well as the fate of the driver is tragic. In the desire for accountability, real culpability may be better placed with lawmakers and Department of Motor Vehicles officials, who should set standards and means of enforcement regarding the revocation of licenses for elderly people with diminishing facilities. This horrible event should be raising a much larger issue than who was at fault on that particular day. This is a true public safety concern that must be dealt with in a broad manner.

While the end of Mark Hughes' life story is as unambiguous as the coroner's toxicology report, its beginning is a far more tangled tale. In a sworn declaration provided to The Times, current Herbalife International Chairman Jack Reynolds insists, "I was and I am Mark's legal and biological father." The declaration states that he and Jo Ann were married in Las Vegas in January 1955 and were divorced in March 1956. "Our son Mark" was born in Lynwood on Jan. 1, 1956.

Even now, those who knew the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago find themselves awash in the light of his extraordinary life. Perhaps no American cardinal has been more influential or quietly outspoken on vexing issues of our time--war and peace, abortion choice, care for the poor and anti-Semitism--than Bernardin, who died in 1996 of pancreatic cancer.

While the end of Mark Hughes' life story is as unambiguous as the coroner's toxicology report, its beginning is a far more tangled tale. In a sworn declaration provided to The Times, current Herbalife International Chairman Jack Reynolds insists, "I was and I am Mark's legal and biological father." The declaration states that he and Jo Ann were married in Las Vegas in January 1955 and were divorced in March 1956. "Our son Mark" was born in Lynwood on Jan. 1, 1956.

Geoff Boucher examines the remarkable life of Moby's album "Play" and the unusual route it took to become a success.