Sapphire

Because rain, sun and the passage of time had rotted away all the flesh, the rings just hung on the skeleton's bony hands stretched out in the Pine Barrens. A sterling-silver band circled a finger bone on the right hand. On the left, a pair of diamond chips sparkled next to two sapphires on a gold band. "The ring was very tiny and very pretty, delicate and unusual," said Evesham Township Detective Jane Taylor, who finds her thoughts returning to the young woman's body found in the woods by two hunters one Sunday in mid- November.

She had to kill off Precious. That was what Sapphire, the 60-year-old author of the 1996 underground classic Push, the novel that was the basis for the unflinching movie Precious, concluded. The California-born literacy teacher, poet, and author had no choice, given her commitment to social realism: An HIV-infected black woman in the 1980s would not have lived long enough to make it past the first page of her sequel, The Kid (Penguin Press). So, the new book, to be published Tuesday, begins with Precious' funeral.

When SAP AG comes to town, it is not content to just bring jobs and big conventions. It brings an entire ecosystem. That's the term the German software company uses to describe the network of thousands of partner firms that help implement SAP's popular enterprise resource planning software. There is plenty of evidence of this ecosystem at SAP's big Sapphire '99 user conference, which wraps up today at the Convention Center. The meeting has drawn nearly 13,000 SAP customers and partners, ranging from powerhouses such as Microsoft Corp.

It's the end of the world as we know it ( The Road , 2012 ), our wives and/or children are being killed ( The Boys Are Back , Law Abiding Citizen , The Lovely Bones ), vampires and woolly beasts are on the prowl ( Twilight , Where the Wild Things Are ), a 1930s aviatrix and a 1960s Japanimation icon are flying high (Amelia , Astro Boy ), and the monosyllabic movie musical is back ( Fame , Nine , Dare )! And in a trend we might not see again for a while, if the Pennsylvania filmmaking tax incentive program bites the dust, a handful of the season's top titles hail from Philadelphia and the region.

In Push, the critically acclaimed first novel by Sapphire, the protagonist Claireece Precious Jones is raped by her father and bears two of his children by age 16. Though illiterate, she chooses homelessness rather than endure her mother's physical and sexual abuse. It is a disturbing, wrenching read, its horror made barely digestible only because it is a work of fiction. Or is it? The character may be invented, says Sapphire, but young women with real-life stories similar to Precious' are not. Precious exists everywhere - in the projects of Harlem and the trailer parks of Kentucky, in the bungalows of East Los Angeles and the rowhouses of Philadelphia.

On a Tuesday morning in a windowless basement in Kensington, a book group is discussing Push, the 1996 novel about Claireece Precious Jones, an obese, illiterate, HIV-positive African American teenager from Harlem who is beaten, neglected, and sexually abused by both her parents. The book club's members analyze the author's use of language. They trace Precious' character development. They savor the startling poetic beauty in her raw first-person account of degradation and redemption.

Shoppers flocked to area stores and the malls yesterday to take advantage of Black Friday sales. Here?s an informal count of what they bought, what they did, what they saw, and what they heard. 40: Number of "pocket bikes" (mini motorcycles) sold by noon at Pep Boys in Marlton. 400: Number of Game Boy Advance SP?s sold by noon at Toys R Us in Deptford, making it the hottest-selling toy there. 200: Number of shoppers who saw the 10 a.m. light show at Lord & Taylor in Center City.

"There is nothing worse in the world," said Aristophanes, "than shameless woman. " "Shameless woman," counters Laura Meister, "is brave, strong, and unafraid to live her life to the fullest. " Shameless women of all kinds and colors will challenge audiences once again in the University of Pennsylvania's second annual Women's Theater Festival. Beginning tomorrow and continuing until March 2, Meister and nearly 100 other Penn women (and a few good men) use music, movement, performance and theater to poke and prod at issues of race, gender and discrimination.

The Informant! Is agro-businessman Matt Damon a whistleblower, an opportunist, or an eccentric? In this off-center comedy from director Steven Soderbergh, the guy poised to blow the lid off a price-fixing scheme may be in his own ethical fix, frustrating an FBI investigation. With Scott Bakula and Melanie Lynskey. (Friday) Jennifer's Body Megan Fox is the high school hottie inhabited by a demon, munching on male classmates as if they were potato chips. Amanda Seyfried as her friend hellbent on ending the carnival of carnage.

Rosemary Hill slept with her fortune beside her, three white plastic shopping bags stuffed with diamond rings, gold watches, silver dollars - and $32,000 cash. It was all she had in the world. She didn't want her treasure locked away in a bank - didn't believe in them, then or now, she said - and preferred to keep it close by in her University City apartment. That arrangement, however unconventional, worked fine until yesterday. Philadelphia police say that at 1:30 a.m. yesterday, someone used a key to get into Hill's apartment, shoved her onto her bed when she struggled, then ran off with her savings.

CANNES, France — After the success of Bridesmaids, the actor Chris O'Dowd was mostly getting scripts for mediocre romantic comedies — "bad versions of Bridesmaids," he says. "I figured I should go and do something very different, otherwise I'll kind of get stuck," O'Dowd said in an interview at the Cannes Film Festival this week. "So an Aboriginal musical made sense. " And that could well be the first time such a sentence has been uttered. In the genre of Aboriginal musicals there is but one entry: The Sapphires, which premiered in Cannes to a lengthy standing ovation and eager debate over whether it was this year's out-of-left-field success story at the festival.

She had to kill off Precious. That was what Sapphire, the 60-year-old author of the 1996 underground classic Push, the novel that was the basis for the unflinching movie Precious, concluded. The California-born literacy teacher, poet, and author had no choice, given her commitment to social realism: An HIV-infected black woman in the 1980s would not have lived long enough to make it past the first page of her sequel, The Kid (Penguin Press). So, the new book, to be published Tuesday, begins with Precious' funeral.

On a Tuesday morning in a windowless basement in Kensington, a book group is discussing Push, the 1996 novel about Claireece Precious Jones, an obese, illiterate, HIV-positive African American teenager from Harlem who is beaten, neglected, and sexually abused by both her parents. The book club's members analyze the author's use of language. They trace Precious' character development. They savor the startling poetic beauty in her raw first-person account of degradation and redemption.

It's the end of the world as we know it ( The Road , 2012 ), our wives and/or children are being killed ( The Boys Are Back , Law Abiding Citizen , The Lovely Bones ), vampires and woolly beasts are on the prowl ( Twilight , Where the Wild Things Are ), a 1930s aviatrix and a 1960s Japanimation icon are flying high (Amelia , Astro Boy ), and the monosyllabic movie musical is back ( Fame , Nine , Dare )! And in a trend we might not see again for a while, if the Pennsylvania filmmaking tax incentive program bites the dust, a handful of the season's top titles hail from Philadelphia and the region.

The Informant! Is agro-businessman Matt Damon a whistleblower, an opportunist, or an eccentric? In this off-center comedy from director Steven Soderbergh, the guy poised to blow the lid off a price-fixing scheme may be in his own ethical fix, frustrating an FBI investigation. With Scott Bakula and Melanie Lynskey. (Friday) Jennifer's Body Megan Fox is the high school hottie inhabited by a demon, munching on male classmates as if they were potato chips. Amanda Seyfried as her friend hellbent on ending the carnival of carnage.

Riding Sapphire, his gold-medal-winning mount in the Athens Olympics, McLain Ward won the $75,000 Budweiser Grand Prix of Devon last night. McLain prevailed with the only clean round in the five-horse jump-off from the starting field of 28 in the marquee event at the Devon Horse Show. Ward was first to go in the jump-off and made an incredibly tight turn. That turn was so tight it caused second-place Hidden Creek's Perin, ridden by Margie Engle, to tear off a shoe. "The inside turn was not an option," Ward said.

Shoppers flocked to area stores and the malls yesterday to take advantage of Black Friday sales. Here?s an informal count of what they bought, what they did, what they saw, and what they heard. 40: Number of "pocket bikes" (mini motorcycles) sold by noon at Pep Boys in Marlton. 400: Number of Game Boy Advance SP?s sold by noon at Toys R Us in Deptford, making it the hottest-selling toy there. 200: Number of shoppers who saw the 10 a.m. light show at Lord & Taylor in Center City.

Most joggers like to travel light. No driver's license, no keys. Maybe just a Walkman and the open road. But such freedom can turn problematic if a car accident occurs, as the search for the name of the Haverford Township jogger identified yesterday as Cynthia Neary proved. Neary, who police said ran into the path of a car on busy, windy Darby Road, was listed in stable condition at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center yesterday. She suffered a broken leg and severe head trauma, officials said.

When SAP AG comes to town, it is not content to just bring jobs and big conventions. It brings an entire ecosystem. That's the term the German software company uses to describe the network of thousands of partner firms that help implement SAP's popular enterprise resource planning software. There is plenty of evidence of this ecosystem at SAP's big Sapphire '99 user conference, which wraps up today at the Convention Center. The meeting has drawn nearly 13,000 SAP customers and partners, ranging from powerhouses such as Microsoft Corp.

In Push, the critically acclaimed first novel by Sapphire, the protagonist Claireece Precious Jones is raped by her father and bears two of his children by age 16. Though illiterate, she chooses homelessness rather than endure her mother's physical and sexual abuse. It is a disturbing, wrenching read, its horror made barely digestible only because it is a work of fiction. Or is it? The character may be invented, says Sapphire, but young women with real-life stories similar to Precious' are not. Precious exists everywhere - in the projects of Harlem and the trailer parks of Kentucky, in the bungalows of East Los Angeles and the rowhouses of Philadelphia.