January 9, 2006

From a certain spot here, there is concrete as far as the eye can see and in every direction. There are concrete roadways, parking lots, an incinerator smokestack, overpasses, buildings and, in a certain sense, ideas: ideas set in concrete about what it means to live in the suburbs. As currently conceived, the fixed idea about living in the suburbs is that one lives in a comfortable home on a tree-lined street, and that is pretty much all that matters. The rest of the space between one's doorstep and the world at large is space that one drives by, and as fast as traffic will allow.

Barney and Harriet left their 3,000-square-foot loft in Brooklyn and scampered back to the country. With their lease expired and their acting careers temporarily curbed, they went home to do what everyone in show business does between gigs: sit by the phone and wait for someone to throw them a bone. Barney, who is not exactly begging for work, can use the rest. He spent a year and a half taking bows alongside Marlo Thomas in ''Paper Doll,'' a theatrical production staged in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Connecticut. When that curtain closed, he left Marlo for Harriet, coming to New York for a role in ''Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,'' which ended a nine-month run on Dec. 31 at the Hilton Theater in Times Square.

Ankle deep in mud on Wednesday, Elizabeth Vargas had just welcomed viewers to the new afternoon Webcast for ABC News -- live from outside the coal mine in Sago, W.Va. -- when a voice from the control room in Manhattan began crackling in her earpiece. ''Go! Go! Go!'' it said.

It has been one of the most bizarre literary mysteries: Who is the novelist JT Leroy? An answer, at long last, is taking shape.

When Judge John G. Roberts Jr. appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September for hearings on his nomination to the Supreme Court, all of the participants were largely improvising. It had been 11 years since the last nomination, and the legal landscape, political climate and very state of the world had changed so radically that the old templates were of little use. Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., on the other hand, will have a fresh road map from the Roberts hearings when he sits to face the committee Monday for his own confirmation hearings. The topics to be covered, the nature and tenor of the senators' questions, and the limits on what Judge Alito will be willing to answer will almost certainly follow the path cut in September.