Unrequited Love

To him, Christmas was a day of "unrequited love. " To her, it was a nightmare. He punched her in the face, and held her at gunpoint for 4 1/2 hours. To the police, Christmas was a day of peacemaking - talking the armed man into giving up his hostage. The abduction ended yesterday for Linda Graves, 24, when Detective Thomas Augustine talked Thurman Frazier, 30, into laying down his gun and releasing his ex-girlfriend, police said. Northwest Detective Dave Kaiser said Graves, of East Dorset Street near Stenton Avenue, was walking down Smedley Street near Chelten Avenue yesterday when she was allegedly abducted at gunpoint by Frazier, who lives around the corner from her, on Stenton near Dorset.

Ever wonder how Frank Sinatra got the nickname "Ol' Blue Eyes"? You can find the answer right here in Philadelphia, and it's easier than you'd think. Just turn east off Broad Street, onto Passyunk, and start looking for a parking spot when you see the black-and-white glossies of the "From Here to Eternity"-era Frank in the window of Frank Marcantonio's old-style barber shop. Follow the aroma of oven-fresh pizza to Marra's, drop a dollar, or five, into the jukebox, slip into a dark, wooden booth and order a half-carafe of red. If you're lucky, Connie Patrone will be your waitress, and she'll tell you the whole story about Frank and his fabled nickname.

Unrequited love drove a concert-goer to stab himself nine times as teen- agers cheered him on at a gloom-and-doom rock concert by the British band The Cure, police said. Jonathan Moreland, 38, was listed in good condition at UCLA Medical Center yesterday, the day after he stripped off his shirt, stood up on a chair and drove a hunting knife into his bare, tattooed chest before a crowd of teens dressed in black with their faces painted white. "As the crowd cheered louder, he said that he gained more energy, allowing him to shove the knife blade deeper and deeper," said Inglewood Police Sgt. Normand Brewer.

So ingratiating, stylish and historically iconic is the flute that it's hard to imagine why the instrument claims the spotlight so infrequently: Joshua Smith's flute concert Tuesday is a once-every-two-seasons occasion for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Educated at the Curtis Institute and ensconced in the Cleveland Orchestra's principal flute position for 21 years (he was hired at age 20), Smith now appears to be pursuing a solo career: He's recording Bach for the Delos label and is looking more like a movie star than a classical musician in his latest publicity photos.

The Drive-By Truckers have a well-earned rep for consistently delivering grungy Southern rock operas set in places where red meets neck and where dubious characters lead lives of self-inflicted quiet desperation: unanswered prayers, unrequited love, and unmitigated semiprivate disasters. The DBTs' just-released The Big To-Do is no exception, although it is quite exceptional in its capacity to sketch out the private hells of jaded pole workers, homicidal preachers' wives, and modern drunkards in high-def whiskey-hued v?rit?.

Night has fallen. High above the city, a singer and her pianist serenade Bill Penn as he stands penned-in and bored atop City Hall. They sing to the lights in the empty office buildings, to the boats docked at Penn's Landing, to the cars whizzing past on the Ben Franklin Bridge. They sing to each other. They sing for themselves. Theirs is a lonely job, because even though folks are sitting at tables a few feet away from their piano and stool, few are actually listening. The musicians provide the backdrop - to the view, the meal, the conversation.

Toxic friendship, unrequited love, hot sex and cold hearts: Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter rivals Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City or Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero for curdled portraits of young people squandering their lives. Theatre Exile's bold local premiere, directed by Joe Canuso, is splendidly performed by three intrepid actors. Matt (Matt Pfeiffer) is a playwright, and, of course, this playwright's central character; he is the self-described "quiet, nerdy one. " His best friend, Davis (Ian Merrill Peakes)

You're supposed to feel sorry for the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera - at least the way he was played by Lon Chaney and Claude Rains, and how he has been painted in Andrew Lloyd Webber's overblown Broadway libretto. Gaston Leroux's disfigured composer is a sad, soulful bloke, reduced to skulking around a cavernous maze beneath the Paris Opera House; he's love-struck and lonesome, and a loathsome sight to behold. But as played by Robert Englund - best known to moviegoers as stiletto- fingered maniac Freddy Krueger in the eternal Nightmare on Elm Street series - the Phantom is transformed into an utterly unsympathetic creature.

"September" is Woody Allen in his Ingmar Bergman mode. That is to say, Woody Allen with no laughs; Woody Allen seriously zeroing in on unhappy relationships. The theme is unrequited love and, in this film, there is quite a lot of that going around. Lane (Mia Farrow) has retreated to the family summer house in Vermont to recover from a suicide attempt. Howard (Denholm Elliott), a lonely widower who lives nearby, falls in love with her. But Lane has fallen for Peter (Sam Waterston)

There's an old "Monty Python" skit featuring Oscar Wilde, G.B. Shaw and James Whistler in a drawing room, staging an informal contest to see who can come up with the best one-liner. It end with a frustrated Shaw flailing emptily for a comeback then churlishly telling the whole group to bugger off. That's what you'll feel like saying to many of the characters in "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle,"a movie that resembles the Python skits in structure, but outdoes it in terms of self-indulgence.

Question: In two months I'm due to be married. I've been with my fiancee for five years. I do love her. She is a wonderful person and she's sacrificed so much for me. She moved when I asked her to, far away from family, friends, and career. She took jobs that were beneath her and supported me while I finished my legal education. She's always been the giver; I'm the one who takes. Last year she (jokingly, I think) asked me if I would ever marry her. On impulse I bought an engagement ring and proposed.

So ingratiating, stylish and historically iconic is the flute that it's hard to imagine why the instrument claims the spotlight so infrequently: Joshua Smith's flute concert Tuesday is a once-every-two-seasons occasion for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Educated at the Curtis Institute and ensconced in the Cleveland Orchestra's principal flute position for 21 years (he was hired at age 20), Smith now appears to be pursuing a solo career: He's recording Bach for the Delos label and is looking more like a movie star than a classical musician in his latest publicity photos.

Sunday Here comes the knight Kira Obolensky's The Return of Don Quixote is a free adaptation of Don Quixote of La Mancha , the second part of Miguel de Cervantes' tale, in which the retired errant gentleman is forced by the publication of his adventures to retrace and reconsider his path. The show goes on at 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday at People's Light & Theatre Company , 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, and continues on a Tuesday-through- Sunday schedule to Oct. 16. Tickets are $25 to $45. Call 610-644-3500.

It's been an amazing ride for Phillies fans over the last few years, but not for Mike Cybularz. He got off a few stops back when the road was still bumpy and marked with potholes, and the final destination - a championship and a long-overdue parade - was still off in the distance. Cybularz's story is sad and tragic, one he thought would be about unrequited love for the rest of his life. If only he had stuck it out, Cybularz would have gotten the happy ending he and the other romantics have always wanted.

The Drive-By Truckers have a well-earned rep for consistently delivering grungy Southern rock operas set in places where red meets neck and where dubious characters lead lives of self-inflicted quiet desperation: unanswered prayers, unrequited love, and unmitigated semiprivate disasters. The DBTs' just-released The Big To-Do is no exception, although it is quite exceptional in its capacity to sketch out the private hells of jaded pole workers, homicidal preachers' wives, and modern drunkards in high-def whiskey-hued v?rit?.

In movies and books, love sparks like this: A low-lit room, soft music, murmurs and laughter and perhaps the tinkling sounds of glasses toasting. Two people spot each other, their eyes lock, they move toward each other. They talk for hours. This is another version: The crowded R6 platform, the rattle of rails as the train pulls in. She rushes to the newspaper box to grab something to read. He hands her a paper, says "Hello," then gets on the train. Then he does it again.

The year was 1970, I think. My best friends, Sherry and Denise, and I excitedly flipped through Soul, the monthly newsletter put out by the R&B station in the San Francisco Bay area. In our young, impressionable eyes, Soul was the equivalent of People magazine. Under the headline "Groups To Watch," there was a picture of five good-looking boys, the youngest doe-eyed and caramel-colored with cutest pug nose you'd ever want to see. The one named Michael, who stole the show every time.

Ever had your heart broken? Agonizing stuff. Half the time, you watch bad movies with the shades drawn while wondering what went wrong. The other half you spend hoping that, if you hang in there long enough and stay in touch, your ex will have a sudden epiphany and take you back. Eventually, your friends step in and give you a good talking to and help you move on. Right now, Mo Cheeks could use some pals like that - a support group to shake him out of the fog he's in. Yesterday - three days after the 76ers told him to empty out his sock drawer and hit the curb - Cheeks sat in front of the Sixers logo in the Hall of Fame Room at the Wachovia Center.

"Love In the Time of Cholera" turns out to be the dreaded Butt-Number in the Time of Oscar Season. It's one of the those ambitious attempts to translate a great book that goes wrong almost from the get-go: You see the actors in their laughable old-age make-up, and you know you're one flashback away from at least four decades of high-tone soap opera. The magical realism and Latin sensibility of Gabriel Garcia Marquez seem almost completely missing from this adaptation by Mike Newell ("Four Weddings and a Funeral")

Toxic friendship, unrequited love, hot sex and cold hearts: Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter rivals Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City or Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero for curdled portraits of young people squandering their lives. Theatre Exile's bold local premiere, directed by Joe Canuso, is splendidly performed by three intrepid actors. Matt (Matt Pfeiffer) is a playwright, and, of course, this playwright's central character; he is the self-described "quiet, nerdy one. " His best friend, Davis (Ian Merrill Peakes)