C M Y K C2
DAILY 03-09-10 MD SU C2 CMYK
C2 S KLMNO TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2010
THE RELIABLE SOURCE
Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger
THIS
The gold shoulder
JUST IN
a71 Lil Wayne is
finally in jail. After
several delays
(dental work, a fire
W
ho knew short documentaries in the courthouse),
could pack in so much drama? the rapper was
Early in Sunday night’s sentenced Monday
Academy Awards telecast, to serve a year on Lil Wayne
producer-director Roger Ross gun charges and
Williams came onstage to accept the taken in handcuffs directly from the
Best Short Documentary Oscar for N.Y.C. courtroom to begin his term.
“Music by Prudence,” a film about a71 Plácido Domingo is at home
TONY POWELL
disabled musicians at a school in recovering from colon cancer
Rahm Emanuel with Adm. Michael Zimbabwe. Seconds into it, his speech surgery. Doctors in New York
Mullen at the fundraiser on Sunday. was cut short by Elinor Burkett — the removed a localized malignant polyp
film’s co-producer, also named as a last week; the tenor has been
Desirée Rogers
winner — who appeared out of ordered to rest for six weeks,
nowhere and took over the although he’ll continue working for
is mum on plans
microphone. the Los Angeles and Washington
What was that all about? operas.
“He was sprinting!” Burkett told our a71 Sportscaster Frank Herzog,
After weeks of lying low, outgoing colleague Marissa Newhall on Monday. longtime voice of the Redskins, is
White House Social Secretary “Most people wait for each other, go up retiring this month. In a memo to
Desirée Rogers attended her first together, pretend they like each other. the WTOP staff Monday, Herzog, 65,
big party since announcing her But I’m still in my seat, and he’s up said he has two grandchildren to
resignation, joining the high-wattage there talking!” spoil and a “wife who has endured,
crowd (Rahm Emanuel, Michael Not surprisingly, there’s bad blood without complaint, 41 years of long
Douglas, Joint Chiefs of Staff between the filmmakers. Burkett, a seasons, frequent road trips and
Chairman Mike Mullen, Sen. John former journalist and author who weird schedules.”
Kerry, Justice Anthony Kennedy, splits her time between Zimbabwe and
Mayor Adrian Fenty, Fareed the Catskills, discovered the film’s
MARK J. TERRILL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Zakaria) at the Kuwait-America subjects. Williams got involved, artistic A behind-the-scenes spat between “Music by Prudence” filmmakers Roger Ross
Foundation dinner Sunday. visions diverged, a lawsuit was filed, Williams and Elinor Burkett led to a tense moment at the Oscars.
Rogers was mulling her next step. and things were settled out of court.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she told us. Then came the nomination. Both Monday were unsuccessful, but he Burkett did get her statuette (“I’m UPDATE
“I’m going to take my time — stay in producers said they were under the posted his cut-off acceptance speech carrying it around in a plastic bag, A U.S. District
Washington until the end of April so impression the Motion Picture on his movie’s Web site. He would have because I have no other way to carry Court jury in
that I can say my proper goodbyes to Academy would allow only one person addressed Prudence Mabhena, a key it”), but didn’t bury the hatchet: “After Washington on
all the people who have been so to make a speech, and they didn’t talk subject of the film who was in the you get off the stage there’s an Monday found
supportive of me.” She declined to beforehand. The tension boiled into an audience, saying: “We don’t always assembly line where we’re hairdresser
discuss her claim last week that she awkward showstopper, a la Kanye recognize the gifts we get, and photographed and interviewed Andre Chreky,
had, in fact, placed a staffer at the West at September’s MTV Video Music Prudence, I’m so very happy to be a together, and Roger would not speak to who counted
door during the now-famous state Awards. part of recognizing you tonight.” And me,” Burkett says. “That’s how bad it Laura Bush as a
dinner (“I’m not talking about that”) Attempts to reach Williams on he would have thanked Burkett. was.” client, guilty of
Andre Chreky
or her designer outfit (“I’m not sexual
talking about that, either. Why does harassment and awarded a former
it matter?”). But she called serving employee $2.3 million in damages.
the Obamas “an incredible honor” Ronnie Barrett, a colorist who
and said she would miss the people worked for Chreky, said he harassed
of Washington. Any regrets? “No.”
At this school, an Oscar honor roll
her on multiple occasions, including
The party, hosted by Ambassador a 2004 incident in which he
Salem Al-Sabah and his wife, Rima, allegedly shoved her down in a chair
was the “alternative Oscars party,” Big day for Arlington’s Washington-Lee High School, which can newly boast
Bullock,
in his office and demanded oral sex.
said Kerry, who gave a shout-out to three Oscar-winning alums: Shirley MacLaine (’52), Warren Beatty (’55) and
Washington-Lee
She was fired shortly thereafter and
Academy Award winner Douglas as now actress Sandra Bullock, former cheerleader from the Class of 1982.
golden girl.
later filed suit. In a two-week trial,
“someone who actually got to be an Students heard a third-period announcement Monday about the big win, 14 witnesses testified on Barrett’s
American president.” The dinner and principal Gregg Robertson sent a letter of congrats and an invite for the behalf. Chreky, whose salon at 16th
honored Greg Mortensen, author of actress to come back for a visit. and K was one of the city’s most
the best-selling “Three Cups of Tea,” “Every young person in the program connects with her,” said Keith popular, denied all the allegations.
for bringing education to girls in Cassidy, the school’s theater arts teacher. “We feel a sense of ownership of And that’s not the end: Another
Pakistan and Afghanistan; the her career.” But he (wisely) declined to offer any acting pointers for the former employee, Jennifer Thong,
CHRIS PIZZELLO/
$2 million raised will fund 5o new famous alum: “I would not presume.” ASSOCIATED PRESS has a harassment case against
schools in the region. Chreky scheduled to start March 22.
GOT A TIP? E-MAIL US AT
RELIABLESOURCE@WASHPOST.COM. FOR THE LATEST SCOOPS, VISIT WASHINGTONPOST.COM/RELIABLESOURCE
BOOK WORLD
A postwar chronicle: The long, hard road out of Korea
Chang-rae Lee
tive Speaker,” followed by courtly sack janitor; and Sylvie Tanner, her son, Nicholas, whom she with an undeniable power, and
by Donna Rifkind old Doc Hata in “A Gesture Life” the lovely but damaged object of raised alone while stoically build- her post-traumatic behavior is
charts the deflected
and midlife-tragicomic Jerry Bat- both June’s and Hector’s affec- ing her business. Nicholas de- believable. But as an adult she
C
hang-rae Lee’s three previ- tle in “Aloft.” In creating these af- tions. parted hastily for Europe after congeals into a cliche, a tarnished
paths of three
ous novels were all com- fecting first-person voices, Lee These three wayfarers’ jour- his high school graduation eight beauty from some lesser-known
mandeered by forceful nar- proved to be as ardent a student neys first overlap in 1953, just af- years ago and has been only Maugham story who speaks in
memorable
rators, each with a distinct voice of the American literary canon as ter the end of the war, in a make- sketchily in contact since. stiff, romance-novel sentences.
and each struggling to find his he is a keen contributor to it, tra- shift orphanage in the South Ko- For thorny reasons, before Hector, meanwhile, has only
moorings in a swiftly changing versing the intersection between rean countryside not far from June leaves she must enlist the
characters
one note from the beginning.
cultural landscape. First was be- Cheeveresque suburban unease Seoul. Here, 20-some- help of Hector, whom Named for an epic hero and
reaved young Henry Park in “Na- and contemporary immigration thing Hector, whose she hasn’t seen in dec- raised in the Upstate New York
literature with uncommon fluen- movie-star looks mask ades and who is cur- factory town of Ilion, Hector has
cy. a despairing aimless- rently trudging mysterious self-healing qualities:
Lee’s latest novel, which has ness, has taken a job through a booze- He bar-brawls but never gets
been in the works for more than as a handyman after soaked half-life as a hurt; he drinks without getting
five years, veers into different ter- the U.S. Army dis- janitor in a rundown drunk. He lives with the guilty
ritory. Much bleaker than his ear- charges him. June, New Jersey mall. Hec- Greek-tragic certainty that he is
lier books, it is, like Jayne Anne who lands at the or- tor’s long-ago relation- condemned to immortality while
Phillips’s recent “Lark and Ter- phanage at the same ship with June was, to serving unwillingly as “the doom-
mite,” a story about the ruinous time, is a teenage refu- say the least, complex: ing factor for everyone but him-
effects of the Korean War on not gee who fled south Not only was he once self.” A little of this goes a long
one but several characters, told during the war, having June’s rival for Sylvie’s way, yet we get scene after scene
this time from a third-person lost her entire family THE attention, carrying on of this from Hector, who’s far
perspective. in a series of cruel SURRENDERED an affair with the mar- more invested in his unworthi-
BRIDAL
“The journey was nearly over,” deaths and disappear- By Chang-rae Lee ried missionary wom- ness than we ever could be and
Lee begins, a curious start for a ances. Sylvie, the wife Riverhead. 469 pp. an that ended cata- has no mood other than mopey-
TRUNK SHOW
long book that is more about en- of the American mis- $26.95 strophically; he is also, ness. When he reaches yet an-
durance than endings. During sionary who runs the unknowingly and not other low point and “hardly
this first chapter, we’re intro- orphanage, forms a altogether plausibly, seemed to care whether he was
duced to June Han, a complicat- particular bond with June, hav- Nicholas’s father. living or dead,” benumbed read-
ed personality who lodges in the ing suffered her own share of girl- We’re willing enough to go ers have little choice but to agree.
March 11 – 14
reader’s consciousness like the hood trauma when her aid-work- along with this dubious plot Contrast this with June, who
literary equivalent of an ear- er parents met horrific fates in point and several jarringly melo- blazes with obstinate life at every
Enjoy a
worm. By the time the book really wartime Manchuria in 1934. dramatic episodes that punctuate point of her journey: on a Korean
10% incentive is over, we will have come to un- The action swerves back and an otherwise coherent narrative. road southward as a refugee
during the event,
derstand June’s “diamond hard” forth among 1930s China, 1950s What’s harder to accept, from an child, where she ate mud to keep
as our wedding
character so completely that Korea and New York City in 1986, author for whom character has from dying of thirst; decades lat-
gift to you!
she’ll seem more real than some when June, battling stomach can- always been paramount, is the er in her oncologist’s office,
people we know. But her power is cer at age 47, is shuttering her lack of dimensionality in both where she wrests control of her
somewhat dimmed by the two successful Manhattan antiques Hector and Sylvie, who manage cancer treatment; and in the
Appointments
less compelling figures who, shop and preparing for yet an- to seem vaporous and wooden at book’s final scenes in Italy, where
suggested.
along with June, form the novel’s other journey. With her illness the same time. The scenes from even here, hazy with morphine,
Informal
central triad: Hector Brennan, an closing in on her, June plans to fly Sylvie’s childhood ordeal in Man- she insists on stumbling forward.
modeling.
American soldier turned sad- to Italy for a final reunion with churia are gruesomely violent, There isn’t an ounce of charm in
June, but her relentlessness al-
ways feels genuine.
Serious readers these days are
Celebrating Over 100 Years In Fashion
not so unsophisticated as to ex-
DOONESBURY by Garry Trudeau
pect a novel like “The Surren-
dered” to provide any sort of up-
lift — which it certainly does not
— or to teach them Very Impor-
tant Lessons about war and its
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202.223.4050
catastrophic effects. They will
1100 Connecticut Avenue, NW
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FOR ALL BRIDAL TRUNK SHOWS
Rifkind is a writer in Los Angeles.
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