Tooth

Here's what happened, I'm pretty sure. I'm dreaming the sweet dream, the one with Katharine Ross at Super Bowl VII. Midway through the second quarter, I call timeout and marry her on the spot. No tux. Just me in my Vikings uniform and her in that cotton thing she wore in "Butch Cassidy." It's a pretty common dream. Most men have it. When suddenly, some kid awakens me from this dream and climbs into bed with us. Me and my first wife. The kid and her stupid teddy bear. "What's wrong?"

BOSTON -- Eight-year-old Martin Richard was a bright, sunny boy who loved to ride his bike and went “wild” when he played offense on his soccer team, scoring the winning goal in a championship game last year. Krystle Campbell was the vivacious assistant manager of local steakhouse, the first to backstop fellow workers by running plates from the kitchen. She could instantly smooth over diners' complaints with her smile. They were both cheering on the sidelines of the Boston Marathon on Monday when two bombs went off with a thunderous boom and cloud of white smoke, claiming them as the first victims of the blast.

NEW  YORK -- The hounds-tooth check is turning out to be a trend with some serious legs this season. After first gathering steam at the Milan and Paris men's ready-to-wear shows (at Calvin Klein, Paul Smith  and Versace, among others), we first spotted it running wild  this side of the Atlantic at the Tommy Hilfiger men's runway show in a range of sizes and colors.  (That's where we also learned, thanks to the screens flanking the exits streaming real-time social media reactions, that the Spanish equivalent of hounds-tooth is “la pata de gallo,” which translates as “crow's foot.”)

The shark tooth weapons were the kind of cool stuff that drew marine conservation biologist Joshua Drew to the Field Museum of natural history in Chicago. The postdoctoral researcher was admittedly a bit burned out from a job search and the demands of a newborn child.  So Drew and his colleagues went down a floor to check out the collection of menacing swords and knives laced with dozens of shark's teeth, which once were used to hack enemies to death in the Central Pacific's Gilbert Islands.

Russell Brown's hilarious, acutely knowing "The Blue Tooth Virgin" takes its title from a screenplay an aspiring screenwriter, Sam (Austin Peck), has given to his friend David (Bryce Johnson), a successful magazine editor, to read. David finds the script terrible, a murky business about a troubled young woman with an urge to morph. David tries to let Sam down easy, but Sam, who did write a well-received TV series that ran one season, can't take criticism. Returning to his apartment, Sam is further dismayed to discover that his wife (Lauren Stamile)

"Do you want to see the tooth?" Dr. Mehrdad Makhani asked me Friday morning at the free clinic being staged inside Inglewood's Fabulous Forum. "Come. I'll show you." Jenny McLean, 36, opened her mouth and Makhani aimed a little flashlight in there. "You see here?" he said. The area around a back tooth was red and swollen, and McLean's eyes were teary with discomfort. She'd endured the pain for more than a year because she's had neither insurance nor the money for a dentist since losing her job as a social worker.

When her daughter lost her first tooth, Julie Kentera felt uncomfortable playing the role of a cash-doling tooth fairy. "It just felt wrong that the celebration for such a milestone had become -- cash," says Kentera. "Where's ceremony or sentiment in that?" The incident inspired the stay-at-home mother of two to create DreamPearls for Girls, a handcrafted bracelet made of Swarovski crystals and sterling silver.

The revolution is over - and big wheels have won. The "29er" mountain bike, which first appeared on the scene a decade ago with monster-truck tires 3 inches taller than the age-old 26-inchers, now dominates the market. It's easy to see why: The bike makes you faster and safer, gaining more momentum and floating better over sand and rocks. This year, the demand's so hot for huge hoops that some companies don't even sell 26ers anymore. Others have started experimenting with different-size big wheels, like the 650B, a "27.5er" (reviewed below)

Thank you for the provocative essay by Hughes. Such concern needs frequent utterance, but courage to set it forth is rare. There is reason to doubt that human beings will ever get beyond the eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth stage of morality. Yet we occasionally meet persons who try to live and work without hate or recrimination. Supporting them are teachings and examples from history's choicest souls. Supporting them too, I hope, is a rising tide of concern for merest human survival, which depends ultimately on a morality of mutual trust and good will.

"I felt like it was kind of like David fighting Goliath--and Goliath was able to use a weapon." Jalen Rose, Chicago guard Jalen Rose, who got a chipped tooth from a Michael Jordan elbow during the Bulls' 101-93 loss to Washington on Saturday night.

Even the tooth fairy is feeling more generous as the economy recovers. The average amount that the tooth fairy (or parents, for those who scoff at Santa and the Easter bunny) gave to kids jumped 15.2% to $2.42 last year, up from $2.10 in 2011, according to an annual poll conducted by Delta Dental. Quiz: How much do you know about California's economy? Dubbed the Original Tooth Fairy Poll, it surveyed more than 1,200 primary caregivers for the average gift bestowed upon a child who lost a tooth.

NEW  YORK -- The hounds-tooth check is turning out to be a trend with some serious legs this season. After first gathering steam at the Milan and Paris men's ready-to-wear shows (at Calvin Klein, Paul Smith  and Versace, among others), we first spotted it running wild  this side of the Atlantic at the Tommy Hilfiger men's runway show in a range of sizes and colors.  (That's where we also learned, thanks to the screens flanking the exits streaming real-time social media reactions, that the Spanish equivalent of hounds-tooth is “la pata de gallo,” which translates as “crow's foot.”)

Sweet Tooth A Novel Ian McEwan Nan A. Talese: 320 pp., $26.95 Ian McEwan's storytelling at its best is a slow burn with a deliciously unexpected grand conflagration - taking the quiet life of a somewhat-flawed protagonist and throwing it into violent disarray with a few bad decisions and sadistic twists. The subject of "Sweet Tooth," McEwan's latest novel, would seem at first to be the perfect vehicle for this kind of storytelling. It is, after all, a '70s-era British spy novel in the mode of John le Carré, a cigarette-hazed world of secret backrooms and Cold War intrigue.

It's 9:19 a.m. and "Live! With Kelly and Michael" is in the middle of a commercial break. Newly appointed co-host Michael Strahan, who's spent the better part of the last 20 minutes chatting with his perky on-screen partner, Kelly Ripa, is now charming the studio audience. A few seconds before Strahan is due back in his seat to interview the morning's first guest, Jimmy Fallon, a young boy - perhaps 6 or 7 - asks for his autograph. "I promise I will, but I'm in the middle of something right now," Strahan replies, breaking into his trademark gap-toothed grin.

The duck-billed dinosaurs called hadrosaurids sported hundreds of bewilderingly complex teeth that were optimized for grinding away at the fibrous plants they ate, according to a new study. The hadrosaurids' teeth are made of six distinct materials, according to the report, published Thursday by the journal Science. That makes the teeth far more complex than humans', which are primarily made of two materials, enamel and orthodentine. They are even more complex than the teeth of horses and buffalo, which are made of four materials and also evolved to grind away at plant matter. The hadrosaurids have what scientists call a "dental battery," meaning they have hundreds of teeth that work together when they eat, with new teeth "erupting" into the mouth all the time.

Unbuckling the mailbag: Question: Let USC slide? Your article on USC appeared in today's Chicago Tribune. After reading it I checked online to see where you were located. Imagine my "surprise" when I found out that you are in Los Angeles. That fetid, putrid smell is actually coming from the USC athletic department. Since I work for the federal government as a forensic dentist . . . I know that smell. It is going to take more than one can of Lysol to remove it. SC deserves every sanction that can be given to them.

Given the resources of the State Department, officials could have rewritten the history of civilization in eight months, let alone Glaspie's explanation of her memos to Saddam. I prefer the truth to the tooth fairy. MAX SHULDINER, Los Angeles

His business card says "General Dentistry, Adults and Children," but recently Nick St. George found himself peering into a horse's mouth and hoping he wasn't about to be bit by a set of stained, 30-millimeter teeth. "I was a little apprehensive," said St. George, 40, who rehearsed in his Downey dental office on an extracted horse tooth before he began working on the 3-year-old gelding, Zane Bay. "I hadn't done bonding on a horse before."

The Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits is now home to a "ferocious" saber-toothed-cat puppet featured in a performance titled "Ice Age Encounters. " On Wednesday the life-sized animatronic puppet will be "prowling" Miracle Mile, and to celebrate, the museum has commissioned free Coolhaus "saber-toothed cat" ice cream sandwiches (snickerdoodle ice cream with red velvet cookies). It's "the Ice Age plus ice cream," get it? From 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. catch the saber-toothed cat and Coolhaus on the northwest corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Curson Avenue.

We learned the other day that the average allowance given to kids is now $15, according to the American Institute of CPAs. Now comes word that the Tooth Fairy is also pretty generous. Our friends at Visa say the average chunk of change left under the pillow for teeth-losing kids is now $3 per tooth . And that's apparently at the low end of Tooth Fairy largess. Some kids receive as much as $20 per tooth. The experts say Tooth Fairy inflation is not to be taken lightly. When kids compare notes on how much they scored, it can be hurtful to little feelings if it's discovered that the Tooth Fairy leaves bigger bucks to some than to others.