October 16, 2005

Jennifer Friedlin and husband Steven Weiss spent anguishing seven months subletting series of apartments in New York City while waiting for completion of new two-bedroom apartment in Park Slope; builder originally promised occupancy in August 2004, apartment was not ready until February 2005; photos (M)

With the clock expired, a dramatic victory secured and the echoes of Notre Dame's grand past again awakened, the Fighting Irish student section poured onto the field in jubilation. But instead of an upset over top-ranked Southern California that would resonate for years in these parts, the Irish ended up on the wrong side of one of the most memorable games in this storied rivalry.

In a notebook belonging to Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, amid notations about Iraq and nuclear weapons, appear two small words: ''Valerie Flame.'' Ms. Miller should have written Valerie Plame. That name is at the core of a federal grand jury investigation that has reached deep into the White House. At issue is whether Bush administration officials leaked the identity of Ms. Plame, an undercover C.I.A. operative, to reporters as part of an effort to blunt criticism of the president's justification for the war in Iraq.

WITH about four minutes to go in the University of Tennessee football team's home loss last weekend to Georgia, Vicky Fulmer, the wife of Tennessee's head coach, Phillip Fulmer, decided it was time to leave the press box and to head down to the field. Her husband's team was down 27-7 at the time -- they'd eventually lose 27-14 -- and a significant number of the more than 108,000 fans at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville were exceedingly depressed. Not a few were frustrated with Mr. Fulmer, whose loss to Georgia was his second of the season, two more than hardcore Southeastern Conference football fans can typically stomach in a single year.

NEW ART CITY By Jed Perl. Illustrated. 641 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $35.

For three quarters, Saturday's game between Penn State and Michigan was tight, cautious and almost tedious. Neither team accomplished much on offense, and the crowd at sunny, breezy Michigan Stadium was about as subdued as 111,249 people can be. But when dusk descended and a nearly full moon rose above the grandstand, the lights grew bright and the mood shifted with jarring swings of momentum. The lead kept changing hands and the fans roared and then roared some more into the Midwestern night.

THE old man in the khaki pants, white high-tops and navy windbreaker crooned a tune of his own composition as he wandered slowly down Buffalo Avenue past a green sedan held together with duct tape. What you say What you gonna doooooo -- They gonna close the hospital. A smiling figure in a black sweatshirt called out to him. ''Hey, you better have good health insurance.'' Without turning his head, the singer continued his ambling toward nowhere in particular. ''Man, I been coming here since Bush was president, the first Bush,'' he remarked. ''But I got the same coverage as Bush, man.''

MOST Broadway shows introduce themselves to the theatrical press with a photo op, a selection of songs and maybe a Styrofoam cup of coffee in a humble rehearsal studio. Not ''In My Life.'' It was a sign of how unusual both the production and its producer were that the musical, which opens at the Music Box on Thursday, instead said hello with passed canapés and flutes of champagne in the Pool Room at the Four Seasons. But the luxe inducements were not the only reason the famous room was packed that July afternoon. After a two-year gestation involving several much-discussed readings and workshops, ''In My Life'' was widely expected to be one of the weirdest productions to reach Broadway in years. There was, for one thing, the plot involving a singer-songwriter with Tourette's syndrome, a song about a tumor and a swishy dead accountant who dances with God. There was the dare-the-critics poster art featuring large, Magritte-like lemons. And then there was the creative team, in particular the composer, lyricist, book writer and director, none of whom had worked on Broadway before and all of whom were in fact the same man: a 67-year-old former jingle writer and Hollywood anomaly named Joe Brooks. Most exciting to the flopophiles, though, was the knowledge that he had gotten these jobs thanks to his special intimacy with the producer -- for that was Mr. Brooks, too.

DURING the summer of 1980, Lynn Wagenknecht spent most of her time on West Broadway between Duane and Thomas Streets, helping to renovate an old cafeteria that would soon become her first restaurant. The neighborhood was peopled by municipal and factory workers during the day and, at night, by no one. Each evening after work, Ms. Wagenknecht and her partners would step onto a dark and barren street. ''You'd see the trade towers to the south and the Empire State to the north, and nothing else,'' she said. The restaurant, modeled after the brasseries of Paris, was none other than Odeon, and it became no less than a late-night clubhouse for a whole generation of New Yorkers, the place where the go-go 80's played out. The art dealer Mary Boone was a regular, as were Lorne Michaels, John Belushi and Jay McInerney, whose novel ''Bright Lights, Big City'' featured an image of the restaurant on its cover. Odeon's chef, Patrick Clark, was young and relatively inexperienced, but he would soon redefine French cuisine, developing an elegant but unfussy version that jibed perfectly with the casual spirit of the times.

WHILE other big airlines have been suffering through a disastrous slump the last few years, Southwest Airlines has been like a speed skater on a dark river, deftly avoiding ruts and leaping over barricades that tripped up its less-nimble competitors. It kept its employees happy and their compensation fat when other airlines could do neither. It expanded into several major new markets while others were quitting some cities altogether and reducing service elsewhere. It capped prices to deal with the intense fare wars encouraged by the Internet. It hedged its fuel costs while others watched helplessly as prices doubled in a matter of months. Most important, Southwest remained profitable throughout. And in that way, it served as a beacon for competitors who were losing billions of dollars and trying to retrench under bankruptcy protection.

WHAT do Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, and Britney Spears, the former princess of pop, have in common? Both have real estate that will not sell. Those who watch the market know that there are some listings that languish on the market for months, even years. Mr. Welch's 1985 seven-bedroom Georgian-style manor in Fairfield, Conn., has been on the market off and on for three years, after starting at $13 million. Last March, the price was lowered to $9.5 million as listed with the local broker Rick Higgins of the Higgins Group, who represented the seller at the time but no longer does.

WITH his T-shirt-and-jeans demeanor, thick build and pale head of stubble, Dan Houser hardly looks like the mastermind of a plot to corrupt the youth of America. But listen to certain politicians and advocates and one might think Mr. Houser, the 31-year-old creative vice president of Rockstar Games, is a threat to national security. Since Mr. Houser founded Rockstar with his brother and three friends in 1998, the company has become one of the best-known and most successful video game developers, largely on the strength of its wildly popular Grand Theft Auto franchise. Propelled by street humor and a modern style, the series provides a wide-open stage for urban mayhem. Grand Theft Auto games have sold more than 50 million copies since 2001, generating more than $1 billion in revenue.