Daily Magazine -- Philadelphia Inquirer

The Opera Company of Philadelphia will coproduce and present a newly minted opera in the 2007-08 season by an opera administrator who has never written an opera before. Carolyn Turgeon's debut novel finds a young girl who's mostly ignored at home and mostly ridiculed in her few moments away from it and follows her as she runs away to join the circus. For all the dizzying splendor ofthe hot new film Dreamgirls, for all the razzle of the costumes, the dazzle of Beyonc e , and the blinding star power of Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy and newcomer Jennifer Hudson, the movie's forgettable songs amount to the musical equivalent of Chinese food: They leave you craving more.

If you stopped by Whiskey Bar over the holidays, hoping to make sense of the world, you'd have found that instead of the usual elegant and well-reasoned essay, a picture of Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig greeted you under the words, That's All Folks! Heroin, be the death of me/ Heroin, it's my wife and it's my life, sang Lou Reed in '67. A generation later and Pete Doherty, once hailed by critics as the Very Salvation of rock-and-roll, seems poised to divorce that faithless whore, smack, and marry heroin chic pioneer Kate Moss (whose own drug rumors have involved cocaine). The surprising popularity of the documentary film March of the Penguins confirmed that Americans love birds.

In fact, about 46 million of us are considered bird-watchers, from Britney Spears to Laura Bush, according to a report by NBC News. George Takei, who appears on Heroes this month, will make another guest appearance on the Disney Channel's Washington-set series, Cory in the House.