STAYING IN

CHECKING OUR MAIL

And we thought Christmas trees by UPS was cool. Calyx & Corlla sips freshflowers diractfromthegroyiwrtoyour home or office via.Federal | Express,. They”ll send them | once, twice, every month for a year, only on special occasions, or every other Tuesday If you want them to. Prices are reasonable: nine stems of lilies are $26, while a tropical bouquet of 15 mixed flowers is $49. Call them at 1 -800-877-7836 for a catalogue.

LIVING WITH ART



PROFILE Walt Buster thinks ordinary life shouldn’t be ordinary. A self-taught jewelry designer and metal artisan. Buster left his job as an architect a year ago to plunge headfirst into a career as a professional artist. His goal: to meld his personal philosophy with an innate gift for design. And voila. His functional art was born. Buster’s line of architecturally inspired sterling coffee scoops transforms an everyday-kind-of-function into an artfu task. Constructed out of precious metals, these unique utensils are instant heirlooms; however, they’re not meant to be stored with the family silver. Buster wants you to incorporate them into your daily existence, mingling beauty with the mundane, scooping your morning Folger’s with a piece of art. -Anne Warren

Buster’s coffee scoops can be found at Stanley Korshak. To custom order, call him at 373-B338.

The Instant Garden



Yardwork With spring in the air, it’s time once again to turn full attention to “the garden.” This usually means weekends of work before the big payoff. But wait. While you can’t rush Mother Nature, no one ever said you couldn’t cheat. With ready-grown shrubs and hardy flowers, a bag of mulch, and a few hours’ time, live greenery and blooms can give you an instant garden of sorts.

Pick a small, prominent spot you’ll see every day. Five or six hours’ sun is ideal. For instant appeal, use perennials and shrubs in larger, one- to five-gallon pots. “Fill in with annuals,” suggests Carl Neels of Country Life Landscaping, who recently returned from visiting Prince Charles’s garden at Highgrove. “The English do.” For further interest add a flowering tree, a piece of driftwood, or even a craggy rock.

Improving the soil also pays off. Dig six to eight inches, adding composted organic materials to raise the bed level and aid drainage. Hand-water daily until plant roots spread into their new site.

In light shade, use mint, impatiens, or begonias; in sun, dwarf Indian hawthorn or crape myrtle with day lilies and black- eyed Susans. –Julie Ryan

The Family That Sweats Together

Health Get out of that easy chair and drag the kids away from the Nintendo. Slam the refrigerator door and go to your phone to make an appointment with a personal fitness trainer who’ll come in and get all of you in shape.

Family workouts are definitely the wave of the future for busy families. Instead of congregating over a pizza, more and more families are meeting over a weight bench. We’ve found four highly recommended fitness trainers who can get you on the right track.

Doug Murphy, 980-0204, has been doing everything from weight lifting to nutritional counseling for six years. Bruce Boyd, 790-8768, started teaching aerobics in 1984 and does a lot of cardiovascular and conditioning routines. Jessie Ryan, 699-9272, started out teaching aerobics. She specializes in body shaping rather than body building, John Ledbetter, 986-6125, has been a personal trainer for five years and has been involved in fitness since he was “six years old.”

After each family member is evaluated, the workout begins. The trainer’s program will vary for each family member depending on what goals you have each set, but they are all qualified to make you sweat. During your hour and a half workout you will do some stretching and conditioning exercises, strength training (with dumbbells or a weight bench), and cardiovascular exercises (jumping rope, riding a stationary bike, aerobics). With these guys there are no excuses. The trainers can bring their own equipment or they can improvise with what you have in your home.

These professionals suggest a guided workout at least three times a week (and they’ll probably ask you to do it on your own a fourth time-no cheating) to get the full health benefit of a consistent exercise routine. The average cost for a family of four, three times a week, ranges from $500 to $1,200 a month. -Sherri Gulczynski

BEANBAG REDUX

Sighted in three ur-ban homesteads: beanbag chairs. Is this a retro-fad rais-ing its ugly head, or are these new vehi-cles of comfort, avant cushions against the blows of reality? What next? Padded walls?

VIDEOS



DRUO DRAMAS

Videophiles say that film is a powerful vehicle for changing behavior. If so, these movies should be big guns in the war against drugs.

In Sid and Nancy (1986), the story of the late punk rocker Sid Vicious, Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb somehow make us care deeply about two thoroughly repellent characters whose lives would have been a mess even without heroin and booze. A graphic, violent indictment of the drug culture.

Long before we discovered enablers and co-dependents, Hollywood’s first hard look at alcoholism. The Lost Weekend, swept the 1945 Academy Awards. Its unlikely happy ending must make AA counselors cringe, but Ray Mllland’s portrayal of a would-be writer’s journey to the bottom holds up well today.

If somothing about Jack Lemmon in Dad bothered you, wash away the memories with The Days of Wine and Roses (1962), another movie that’ll make you think twice about the next party-hearty beer commercial. Great scene: Lemmon, the amoral PR man, tries to explain to his father-in-law, a blunt what he does for a living.

James Woods has made a career of playing hyper, driven men teetering on the brink. He falls off in The Boost (1988) as a struggling salesman for that extra edge. This movie is powerfully affecting, especially near the end, when Woods’s char-chance to pull himself from the gutter.

-Chris Tuckar

BOOKS



SIGNIFICANT WOMEN

The recent death of Mary McCarthy, vi-per-tongued racon-teuse and social critic of the modern age, forced a quick look at other significant women who wielded mighty pens. Our biographies of choice:

Mary McCarthy: A Life, by Carol Gelder-man. McCarthy was a major fixture on the American Intellectual scene for more than 40 years. Gelder-man’s bio is a fascinating look at a woman who on paper was abrasive and cold, but in real life could charm the pants off anyone- and frequently did.

Dorothy Park.Br: What Fresh Hell Is This?, by Marlon Meade. Parker’s scandalous and flamboyant approach to life and her sophisticated humor earned her the reputation of a serious party girl-with a brain. Meade handles Parker’s wildness and self-destructive tendencies without discounting her literary contributions.

Lillian Hellman: Her Legend end Her Legacy, by Carl Rollyson. Rollyson’s critical biography of the acerbic Hallman attempts to balance her unquestionable talent with her penchant for fabrication. Hellman enhanced that her accounts of it were nothing but the truth-at least as she saw it .

Katharine Anne Porter: A Life, by Joan Givner. Porter was born in a log cabin in Texas. By the end of her outrageous life 90 years later, she had totally created the woman she wanted to be-and became. As she said, “My life has been incredible. I don’t believe a word of it.” Givner’s account Is right on target.

-Anne Warren

All the World’s a Collection

ECLECTICA There’s a new ethnicity on the home furnishings front, a decided move toward eclectic collectibles, with interesting pieces of art, pottery, and sculpture being mixed, matched, and mingled on walls, floors, and tabletop.

An amazing variety of authentic collectibles is available through a number of galleries and retailers. A brief list:

Ziano, 7001 Preston Rd., Suite 105 (520-8850). Art, pottery, sculpture, furniture, and accessories from Spain, Italy, Portugal, Peru, and Mexico, all handmade by a carefully selected group of artisans. Prices range from $10 to $1,500.

Shango Galleries, 2916 McKinney (744-4891). The show, Blades of the Belgian Congo (Feb. 24-March 17), will feature an array of African weapons from 19th-century Zaire valued between $200 and $8,500.

Civilization, 2504 Cedar Springs (871-3071). A stunning collection of ancient art and archaeology with Roman glasses, Phoenician potteries, Byzantine mosaics, and Greek and Egyptian artifacts and antiquities. Prices range from $50 to $50,000.

Real de XIV, 2507 Knight St. (528-1400). An incredible (and extensive) assortment of Mexican art, pottery, ironwork, furniture, and architectural pieces. Prices: from $35 to $10000. -Anne Warren

Cleaning House



Homework To see you through the dreaded spring cleaning season, here’s a handy list of folks eager to assist when the going gets tough.

Windows. City Window Cleaning Company, 270-9494. $6 per window ($7.50-$10 for the more complicated storm windows) for window cleaning inside and out.

Hardwood Floors. French-Brown, 363-4341. 30 cents per square foot for cleaning, waxing, and buffing.

Mini-blinds. Ultra Blind Cleaning, 727-8820. $8-$I5.50 per blind for a machine-cleaned and dried job.

Outside Gutters. City Window Cleaning Company, 270-9494. 10 cents a foot for removal of debris.

Garage Cleaning. Chris Liston, 528-4605. $17.50 an hour for a one-car garage, $25 an hour (using a two-person crew) for a two-car garage gets things organized and cleaned per your specifications.

Flower Beds. At Your Service, 224-6164. $50 to have two medium-sized (about 90 square feet) beds cleaned out and weeded. Price also includes turning the soil and adding a soil conditioner.

House Cleaning, Dana’s Housekeeping Inc., 350-055. $92.88 for an eight-hour clean sweep of your home. The only things they won’t do are outside windows, floor stripping, and carpet cleaning.

Chimney Sweeping. Chimney Doctor, 783-0900. $55 for a one-story, $65 for a two-story (both prices also get you a “one year no service fee” bonus) to have your chimney swept, cleaned, deodorized, and inspected. -Lucie Nelka