Spa

At a certain age, as the French philosophe Catherine Deneuve observed, a woman must choose between her face and her derri?re. Deneuve, like most European women, chose her face. (Wouldn't we all?) Besides, on the Continent, exercise is something one does tottering on heels from boutique to bistro, or by lifting fork to mouth. American women, being greedy, want a fabulous physique and luminous skin. They want results now. Day spas have exploded in this country - up 20 percent in the last two years, and 36 percent in the Northeast, where there are now 2,800, according to an International Spa Association survey.

SINCE DAN GROSS is on vacation this week, it's up to Tattle to fill you in on MTV's "Real World" Philly cast.SINCE DAN GROSS is on vacation this week, it's up to Tattle to fill you in on MTV's "Real World" Philly cast. This is the group you razzed and threw stuff at when they were here and will see romping around the city when the show starts its 15th season on Sept. 7. Karamo, 23: Valley Village, Calif. An African-American from Houston with Jamaican roots. Attended Florida A&M. Issue: He struggles with his feelings about interracial dating.

When I saw the look on my daughter Cheryl's face last September at the final Phillies game at the Vet, I decided then and there to surprise her with a weekend of spring training games in Clearwater, Fla. Until two years ago, she didn't know a fly ball from a flyswatter; what little interest she had in baseball came from my association with the Phillies (for 18 years I have worked for the team as an advertising consultant) and from her younger brother, who had plastered his bedroom walls with Larry Bowa posters.

THERE IS someone in America who has never heard of Beyonce. He's Reynold Caleen, he's 91 and he lives in Florida - and if not for Beyonce's band he wouldn't have a car anymore. Police said Caleen, a feisty great-grandfather of nine, tried to fight off a knife-wielding assailant when he grabbed the elderly man's wallet in the parking lot of a Palm Beach Walgreen's store Tuesday. Caleen knocked the thug's knife out of his hands and kicked him several times as the pair wrestled to the ground.

A massage therapist whose wandering hands led to indecent assault charges was sentenced in Bucks County Court yesterday to house arrest and probation. Kevin McGovern, 39, of Chalfont, pleaded no contest in October to one count of aggravated indecent assault and six counts of indecent assault against three women. All had been his clients at Toppers Spa in Newtown between Dec. 21, 2002, and Jan. 4, 2003. The only victim in the courtroom declined to comment before or after the sentencing.

Gail Danckert picks her way over the soggy ground toward the gazebo sheltering a pool of brackish gold water. As new executive director of the nonprofit Historic Yellow Springs, Danckert is getting her feet wet in more than one way. She concedes it will take her months to familiarize herself with issues challenging this cultural gem, set off a main drag in an area brimming with new development. One of her tasks, she said, is clear. "I plan to do some serious fund-raising. " "The challenges just to survive are huge," she said, looking beyond the gazebo to a tranquil landscape of wildflowers and marsh grasses.

Millions of dollars were at stake for the fledgling business groups trying to persuade a panel of investors to fund their new products. How about a shoe with an easily detachable high heel for women who like to walk a lot and still look good? Or a multi-service spa in which clients can break glass objects for fun and hurl their bodies against padded walls to relieve stress? Or inexpensive devices to find lost items - proponents said they could make $30 million in three years by becoming "the affordable Sharper Image.

The spa at Yellow Springs, Chester County, held a prominent place socially and medically for more than 125 years in Pennsylvania history during the 18th and early 19th centuries. During the 1840s, renowned English actress Fanny Kemble, who lived in the Cheltenham area, enjoyed taking the waters at the spa. She wrote of a "beautiful valley in the midst of an exquisite spring of mineral water, rejoice in the title Yellow Springs . . .," according to "Historic Yellow Springs . . . " by Carol Shiels Roark in Pennsylvania Folklife (Fall 1974)

What would you eat if you vacationed at one of the country's most luxurious spa resorts? If you chose Miraval Life in Balance Resort and Spa in Catalina, Ariz., where the per-person double-room rates range from $495 to $945 a night, your dinner might consist of a cream-less cream of asparagus soup thickened with potatoes rather than cream; barley risotto with wild mushrooms, served with a four-ounce filet mignon and steamed baby vegetables; and, for dessert, white chocolate mousse made with buttermilk and fat-free yogurt.

For about a year, the people who knead people in the Spa at the Four Seasons Hotel have not been the luckiest people in the world. They were trying to put together a new massage themed directly to the city, a Philadelphia pretzel massage. They could twist you OK, but they couldn't find anything appropriate to rub all over you. They couldn't get the mustard to work right. Well, they took a different path - or in Philly, maybe a cobblestone alley - and on Oct. 28, the Four Seasons will roll out rubs linked, you might say loosely, to Philadelphia.