Tragedy

Guests streamed through a Seal Beach salon Sunday to celebrate its reopening, sipping wine and mingling, marveling at design touches like the sleek barber chairs and travertine logo set into the floor. But it was more than a grand opening for Salon Meritage. And the efforts to get to this point took far more than construction and color choices. It took months for the owners to decide whether this was a project they could pursue. Just over a year ago, a man stormed into the salon one afternoon and opened fire.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. - Mitt Romney tried out many stories on the campaign trail this fall to illustrate his belief in the enduring spirit of America. Some were personal - delving into his ministerial duties as a leader in his church. Others were about people whose courage has inspired him. Ultimately, the Republican nominee settled on one story that has become the closing anecdote in many of his speeches: The tale of an American flag sent into outer space and recovered from the wreckage of the space shuttle Challenger in perfect condition.

The 12 men and women featured in Susan Polis Schutz's documentary "Seeds of Resiliency" have all worked awfully hard at overcoming tragedy, even if Schutz herself hasn't done a whole lot to make her film little more than a strung-together collection of interviews set to piano muzak. More like something you'd see at a seminar on perseverance than a movie, the featured interviewees are nevertheless remarkable examples of triumph: a young man born with spina bifida who can do flips in his wheelchair, an escapee of Idi Amin's regime who now helps African refugees, a Korean professor who quickly returned to teaching after becoming a quadriplegic.

Made under challenging circumstances, "The Black Tulip" is an earnest melodrama about Afghanistan's tumultuous recent past, told through the triumphs and ordeals of a progressive Kabul family. In addition to co-writing, producing and directing, first-time filmmaker Sonia Nassery Cole, an Afghan American activist, took one of the lead roles after the actress originally cast backed out because of death threats against the production - "from militants," per the press notes. Cole aims for a sweeping saga, but her feature is hamstrung by on-the-nose dialogue and uneven performances.

Khaled Holmes earned a degree in classics, so USC's senior center is well versed in the tragedy and heroism found in ancient Greek and Roman literature. Ask him which character he most identifies with and the bearded, bespectacled Holmes pauses. "Most of them are pretty tragic," he says, laughing. "So I don't know if I identify with any of them. " When pressed, Holmes ponders Odysseus. He considers Achilles. Finally, he chooses Hercules. "With everything thrown at him," he says, "he found a way to just conquer it somehow.

We are a month away from the 30th anniversary of an ugly moment in an oft-ugly sport. Let's hark back. There once was a tough kid from a tough town. His name was Ray Mancini and his town was Youngstown, Ohio. Ray, like his town, settled many issues with his fists. His nickname, perfect for his chosen profession of boxing, was "Boom Boom. " But he hadn't really chosen his profession, nor his nickname. His father was a fighter whose nickname had also been Boom Boom, and with the advent of his son's career, became just Boom.

"I've always had mixed feelings about this place," IndyCar driver Tony Kanaan said of Auto Club Speedway, and it's not surprising. Fellow driver Greg Moore, one of Kanaan's close friends, was killed in a racing crash at the two-mile Fontana track in 1999. "It's not something you want to remember," Kanaan said. "Having said that, every time I'm here I finish in the top five," Kanaan said, then added that the net result was "it's definitely a good feeling to come back. " Kanaan was seeking his first win this year when the Izod IndyCar Series held its season-ending race Saturday night at Auto Club Speedway, the first time Indy-style cars had raced there since October 2005.

On "Danziger Bridge Massacre," the concluding number of Christian Scott's second 45-minute set Thursday night at the Blue Whale in Little Tokyo, the furiously gifted young jazz trumpeter let loose with exquisite howls of pain. The song's title refers to the shooting deaths of two unarmed men (one of them mentally disabled) by New Orleans cops during the chaos that engulfed the city in the days after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Five former officers were found guilty in the subsequent civil rights and cover-up trials and sentenced to prison.

AURORA, Colo. - It was only a few hours into a day that already felt like it would never end. On July 20, Mayor Steve Hogan suddenly was presiding over a city that had become the home of one of the country's worst mass shootings. Looking out his office window at Aurora City Hall, he could see the cheerful pink neon sign of the Century 16 movie theater sparkling in the sun. That morning there were still so many unanswered questions, so many people still unaccounted for after a gunman burst into a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" and began shooting.