Utopia

The fin of this siecle has been an astonishingly positive period, far more positive than most people in the 1980s, and certainly the gloomy 1970s, would have thought possible.. . .[But] few people, even in the fortunate places where high standards of living and fairly secure liberties have long been taken for granted, are anything like as optimistic as [this] . . .. If this century has taught us anything, it is that progress is not linear, or like a ratchet, but rather that it can go into long periods of ruinous reversal - and that the idea of human perfectibility, of an attainable Utopia, is the most dangerous idea of all. The hard-won liberty enjoyed by many in the 1990s, and that hoped for by the billions of people who have yet to win it. . . . is a liberty valued as a protection against purveyors of dogma, ideology and certainty of any kind.

Salvage concludes Tom Stoppard's epic trilogy The Coast of Utopia at Lincoln Center. It is a melancholy and somewhat disappointing finale, but that's Russian history for you. Or, for that matter, Stoppard suggests, anybody's history, life being what it is, people being who they are. In the brilliant beginning, Voyage, we meet a group of friends, young, intellectual revolutionaries working for the overthrow of czarist repression, longing to...

Cheri S. Bailey is trying to make an important point with "A Midsummer Night's Dream - A Big-Girl Playground!" at Club Damani on Saturday: "Everyone's accepted. " Of course, to make sense of the name for the monthly "Utopia" parties, you have to know that they cater to women size 12 and up (and their admirers). "These events are pretty much held in every city," says Bailey, who promotes the party through her company, C.A.K.E - Creating Access to Kurvaceous Experiences. "Philly never had its own. " On the scene since April, the party has been popular, drawing people from all over Philly, New Jersey and Delaware, though it has taken time for the trend to hit here.

As the classical music world observes the centenary of conductor Herbert von Karajan with a plethora of compact discs and DVDs, you realize he represents not just his own huge talent but something larger - a musical utopia. Many dream about such things, but Karajan created one, in which the typical limitations of rehearsal time, production money, and most manifestations of human frailty all but ceased to exist. Perfection, of sorts, was achieved. Seen, however, from the relatively short distance of 19 years after his 1989 death at age 81, his lost utopia is hardly inviting.

Can we learn anything about today's Russian writers and intellectuals by examining their predecessors? Get a jump on which Russians are coming (are coming!) by pondering a few who are going - that is, Tom Stoppard's 19th-century Russian intellectuals, once his hit Broadway trilogy, The Coast of Utopia, closes next month? Consider this an attempt by a devoted Russophile and ex-Fulbright professor in Russia - from Philadelphia with love - to spur the conversation as Tony time approaches and Coast awaits its nominations.

William Shakespeare's Arden was a mythical forest, but right down I-95, about seven miles north of Wilmington, there's a real Arden that looks like a forest but is actually a village so buried in foliage it's almost invisible. The Delaware Arden should be mythical because it sounds like a place that's too good to be true. It has an odd but equitable tax scheme, community spirit out of a Jimmy Stewart movie, and a lot of artists. This isn't surprising, because Arden was founded 100 years ago by a sculptor and an architect who were trying to invent a more perfect form of society.

Architectural movements, like the buildings they produce, come and go. First you love them. Then you hate them. And then, despite everything that nagging voice in your ear is saying, you start to find them interesting again. A century ago, Modernism with a capital M was the movement that gripped the public imagination. It promised a machine-made utopia of freestanding high-rises surrounded by green parks and wide-open parkways, where drivers could tool speedily along. But the towers soon became slums; the highways backed up, and Modernism became the house style for corporate America.

A drink of cool water that has risen through layers of limestone from a clear underground river running beneath the hot Texas Hill Country is a taste of Utopia - that is, Utopia Spring Water bottled in Utopia, Texas. Farther north and not nearly as hot, South Poland, Maine, is the site of the Poland Spring House, a resort built in the mid-19th century. New Englanders flocked there to drink the water bubbling from the ground. Utopia and South Poland are a state of mind and thousands of miles apart, but both enjoy some of the finest water the good Earth offers - and the economic boon of bottling it in the 1990s.

One can only hope that some day abortion will become unnecessary - that all in our sexually obsessed society will intelligently, maturely and non- impulsively consider the consequences of sex, produce wanted children, keep their minds clear, be educated in the use of birth control and stop killing themselves with illegal and self-induced abortions. But until this Utopia arrives one might agree with everything said and implied in Margaret Mead's statement: "Abortion is a nasty thing, but our society deserves it. " Robert E. Kay Paoli.

There's a wide mix of films and TV shows being released on DVD this week. One Day, Grade A-minus: Screenwriter David Nicholls has adapted his novel about Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and Emma (Anne Hathaway), a pair of college students who spend graduation night together. That sets the mile marker for them as we peek in on their lives on that same day over the next 20 years. As with real life, the day can be monumental or it can be uneventful. It's been a long time since a movie has celebrated the joy of love and ached with its pain as brilliantly as One Day. 30 Minutes or Less, Grade C-plus: A pizza delivery guy ends up with a bomb strapped to his chest and an order to rob a bank.

There's a wide mix of films and TV shows being released on DVD this week. One Day, Grade A-minus: Screenwriter David Nicholls has adapted his novel about Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and Emma (Anne Hathaway), a pair of college students who spend graduation night together. That sets the mile marker for them as we peek in on their lives on that same day over the next 20 years. As with real life, the day can be monumental or it can be uneventful. It's been a long time since a movie has celebrated the joy of love and ached with its pain as brilliantly as One Day. 30 Minutes or Less, Grade C-plus: A pizza delivery guy ends up with a bomb strapped to his chest and an order to rob a bank.

Nearly 50 years into his career, Todd Rundgren has been called "a wizard, a true star" (the title of his 1973 album) more times than imaginable. That title is ridiculously apt. The Upper Darby native, who now lives in Hawaii, has been a pure pop composer, an inventive multi-instrumentalist, and a noteworthy producer (Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell , Patti Smith's Easter , among many) who turned away from the quirky, cosmopolitan hit-making of his earliest works for the role of progressive rock avatar, early Internet adopter, and sonic provocateur.

MANY GOLFERS who spend their weekends chasing tiny white balls across long ranges of green grass consider the sport an almost religious experience. "Seven Days in Utopia" takes that spiritual approach one step further to show how one man finds true religion through golf. Based on David L. Cook's novel, "Golf's Sacred Journey: Seven Days at the Links of Utopia," the movie follows Luke Chisholm (Lucas Black) as he finally reaches the goal his father has pushed him to obtain: a chance to play professional golf.

GREEK government bonds have been reduced to "junk" status, and it's highly likely that Spain, Portugal and Ireland will suffer the same fate. For years, we've been brainwashed about the wonderful world of globalization. You wonder if the bleak futures of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland will soon befall the U.S. Decades of crushing taxation, wild spending and plain thievery have created an environment that spells economic disaster. Ephraim Levin, Philadelphia Should we bail out the Greeks?

Colin Beavan, who spent a smelly year leaving no carbon footprints on mother earth, is the kind of earnest fellow who invites ridicule. In his documentary "No Impact Man," he gets plenty of it. Beavan shrewdly defuses his own "guilty liberal" persona by citing the early criticism that greeted his ultra-green project. What's strange is how much of it comes from the environmental left. Whatever good he may accomplish by growing his own, composting, buying local, etc., they holler, is compromised by the fact that he might make a buck from it (aside form the movie, there's a book)

As the classical music world observes the centenary of conductor Herbert von Karajan with a plethora of compact discs and DVDs, you realize he represents not just his own huge talent but something larger - a musical utopia. Many dream about such things, but Karajan created one, in which the typical limitations of rehearsal time, production money, and most manifestations of human frailty all but ceased to exist. Perfection, of sorts, was achieved. Seen, however, from the relatively short distance of 19 years after his 1989 death at age 81, his lost utopia is hardly inviting.

It was a special event, a three-part piece of theater whose cultural imprint was larger and deeper than any other on Broadway this past season. It was one work, but three plays - and reviewed three separate times, always on the radar. It was a theatrical juggernaut, constantly discussed (and not always liked), the big ticket, the most expensive Broadway outing because if you saw the trilogy, you paid three times for your seat. In a place where buzz counts, buzz buzzed. In hindsight - admittedly, a comfortable place to be - this year's Tony Award for best play, bestowed Sunday night on Tom Stoppard's exhaustively researched and often compelling The Coast of Utopia, was determined even before its third part had debuted on a Lincoln Center schedule about as complex as the plot itself.

And the big Tony Award winner on Broadway is - the 19th century! Two stage works set in the 1800s were named the season's best musical and best play last night - the bold rock musical Spring Awakening, about teenage love and angst, and Tom Stoppard's sweeping trilogy of plays about Russian intellectuals, The Coast of Utopia. The two shows dominated the 61st Tony Awards, whose three-hour ceremony, broadcast nationally on CBS, was studded with celebrity presenters, many of whom have careers not only on stage, but in television and films.

Can we learn anything about today's Russian writers and intellectuals by examining their predecessors? Get a jump on which Russians are coming (are coming!) by pondering a few who are going - that is, Tom Stoppard's 19th-century Russian intellectuals, once his hit Broadway trilogy, The Coast of Utopia, closes next month? Consider this an attempt by a devoted Russophile and ex-Fulbright professor in Russia - from Philadelphia with love - to spur the conversation as Tony time approaches and Coast awaits its nominations.