September 21, 2000

Ben Brantley reviews Boxing 2000, play written and directed by Richard Maxwell; photo (M)

Space has become television networks' commercial frontier; NBC has signed deal to hold televised contest to send civilian into space aboard Russian-built rocket; Dreamtime Holdings Inc, company with ties to National Aeronautics and Space Administration, proposed--at meetings with CBS, ABC and Fox--a show that would use NASA facilities at Johnson Space Center in Houston to train 20 contestants hoping to be selected to spend a week aboard new International Space Station; Dreamtime is offering show to networks in conjunction with prominent Hollywood talent agency, Endeavor (M)

Michel Pastore, Swiss potter turned fabric maker, and Sylva Nasrallah, Lebanese fashion designer, are partners in clothing and home furnishings business in Cairo called Nagada; the interiors they design are quirky kind of fusion that hints of Europe and the Orient, and borrows architectural forms from Far East and Egyptian villages; photos (M)

Joel Brinkley article on his allegiance to WordPerfect in a word-processing world in which Microsoft Word's dominance now hovers between 93 percent and 95 percent; notes that Corel Corp, WordPerfect's owner, has had to make its software as compatible as it can with Word in order to survive; notes a few nice WordPerfect features, especially Reveal Codes button; drawing (M)

Interview with Christopher Gibbs, inveterate collector, antiques dealer and provenance fetishist on sale of his family's Manor House at Clifton Hampden in Oxfordshire and its eclectic contents; photos; longtime connoisseur of the weird and wonderful, now 62, is leading proponent of elusive brand of anti-decoration, high-bohemian taste favored by self-confident Englishmen (M)