Angels

Cleve Duncan, 78, whose soaring tenor voice as lead singer for the Penguins helped propel the 1954 doo-wop ballad "Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)" to rock 'n' roll immortality, died Nov. 7 in Los Angeles. "Earth Angel," which has sold more than 10 million copies, was the Penguins' only hit. But its rhythmic, wailing plea to an idealized young woman captured the spirit of the just-emerging rock generation. Rolling Stone magazine placed it on its list of the 500 greatest songs ever, and films like Back to the Future have used it to conjure an era. Cleveland Duncan was born July 23 of either 1934 or 1935 in Los Angeles, and learned to sing in his church choir and glee clubs.

THE DIAGNOSIS was death. Maybe if Angel Garcia had thought a little less like a man and listened to his family when the pain in his throat started, the doctors could have caught things earlier. But by the time Garcia finally sought medical attention, the cancer in his throat had advanced to stage four. Without successful chemotherapy treatment, Garcia said he was told, he had 6 months to live. He thought about how he and his wife, Maritza, had both moved from Puerto Rico as children and found each other in Philadelphia.

LOS ANGELES - It was supposed to be a slow but smooth journey to retirement, a parade through city streets for a shuttle that logged millions of miles in space. But Endeavour's final mission turned out to be a logistical headache that delayed its arrival to its museum resting place by about 17 hours. After a 12-mile weave past trees and utility poles that included thousands of adoring onlookers, flashing cameras, and even the filming of a TV commercial, Endeavour arrived at the California Science Center Sunday to a greeting party of city leaders and other dignitaries that had expected it many hours earlier.

The camera caught him coming in low and aiming high, like a rolling ball of butcher knives, a middle linebacker steaming along on the base paths, his uniform pigsty filthy with a warrior's colors, telling you he's down and dirty, his face contorted with the effort, seeking out a collision, and you are struck with this thought: The prudent man steps aside. Mike Trout, coming through. Here is how he is introduced in the antiseptic world of cyberspace: Michael (Mike) Nelson Trout.

The Millville Meteor continues to light it up. On Sunday, Angels phenom Mike Trout opened with a walk and a stolen base in the first inning and added a homer in the seventh in Los Angeles' 5-4 win over the Texas Rangers in the first game of a day-night doubleheader. The swipe was Trout's 48th, and the dinger off Yu Darvish was his 30th, making Trout the first major-league rookie to have 30 homers and 40 stolen bases in the same season. The 21-year-old is also the youngest player with a 30-30 season.

A little semiprofessional theater amid the farmland of Hammonton, N.J., has become the beneficiary of more than a half-million dollars in grants and low-interest loans from a most unlikely arts angel: the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Eagle Theatre, in the center of what's known as the blueberry capital of the world, is wasting no time spending that money - its backstage area is filling with building materials and spiffy, soon-to-be-installed sound and lighting equipment, and construction has begun on a lounge-cum-wine bar for its patrons.

RIGHT AFTER Albert Pujols struck out to end the Los Angeles Angels' final home game of the regular season, Angel Stadium shot off a big blast of the postgame fireworks usually reserved for wins. After 156 games, the Angels still don't know whether they'll be back home for the playoffs - and this disheartening loss suggested those fireworks might not be worth saving for October. John Jaso hit a two-run homer and an RBI double for Seattle, and the Angels wasted a golden chance to get within one game of an AL wild-card spot with a 9-4 loss to the visiting Mariners on Thursday.

THE WAY things are going for the Los Angeles Angels, it's difficult for Jered Weaver to focus on the fact that he is one victory away from his first 20-win season in the majors. Then again, the only reason the Angels still have a shot at a postseason berth is because their ace keeps winning. Weaver kept them within striking distance in the AL wild-card chase, posting his league-leading 19th victory on Sunday with a 4-1 decision over the visiting Chicago White Sox. Albert Pujols reached the 100-RBI mark for the 11th time in 12 big-league seasons with a two-run double as the Angels remained 2 1/2 games behind Oakland for the second wild card.

IN "END OF WATCH," Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena take viewers inside a police car patrolling the worst parts of South Central Los Angeles. It isn't pretty. But it is violent, funny and similar to riding through a war zone with your brother from another mother. In such a movie, chemistry is everything, and Gyllenhaal, who spoke with the Daily News earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival, said that developing the chemistry and the camaraderie that two partners have for each other was a lot of work.

At the end of Angels in America Part Two: Perestroika , the characters talk about the politics of a changing world: "You can't wait around for a theory. The sprawl of life, the weird . . . interconnectedness . . .. Maybe the sheer size of the terrain. " This is the perfect description of Tony Kushner's monumental Angels in America . And although there's no lack of theories (both within the play and about the play), the sheer force of it as life lived, the sprawl of these complicated, passionate relationships through these two long plays ( Part Two is 3¾ hours)