Xanadu

Demons may live down there. If so, they have a lot to contend with: Gas lines, water mains, utility cables, sewers, subways, steam pipes, abandoned tunnels, treasure vaults, burial chambers, rivers--even seas. Regarded by people all over the globe as a dwelling place of spirits, often evil ones, the nether regions have been a rich source of myths and legends through the ages. But the realities of what lies underfoot are sometimes even more surprising.

From the real estate developer who brought us the Parking Palace, One Harbor Drive and the Hillcrest Union Bank building, it's Live from Xanadu. Designs for Neil Senturia's $35-million entertainment complex in the Gaslamp Quarter were approved unanimously Friday by the Centre City Development Corp. The 285,000-square-foot Live From Xanadu center would include a night club, a multiplex movie theater, restaurants and retail stores.

In 1988, William Dalrymple and a friend set out to retrace the route of Marco Polo, from the shrine of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to Shang-tu, the summer palace of Kubla Khan in Inner Mongolia (the Xanadu of Samuel Taylor Coleridge). The journal of their 12,000-mile trek across Asia is a highly entertaining blend of geography, personal anecdote and history, as the author describes various places along their route in both the past and present.