It's a bird . . . it's a plane . . . it's ? ? ?

Mike Conway, of England, goes airborne before crashing into the fencing after colliding with Ryan Hunter-Reay (37) during Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Sunday, May 30, 2010.

(AP Photo/Mark Miller/ May 30, 2010)

"the gentlemanly Hall of Famer"

You might say that actor Eddie Frierson is infatuated with Christy Mathewson, the dominating pitcher who was part of Cooperstown's inaugural class of inductees.

For nearly half his 50 years, Frierson has brought the gentlemanly Hall of Fame right-hander to life on stage in the one-man play "Matty: An Evening with Christy Mathewson."

Written and performed by the actor, it's a labor of love that drew glowing reviews during an off-Broadway run in the 1990s. These days, with Frierson dressed in dead-ball era New York Giants flannels and cap, it is reprised up to 20 times a year by the actor, a former Santa Monica High baseball coach and UCLA walk-on.

"I figure I can do it for at least another five years," says Frierson, who already has outlived his subject, who was 45 when he died in 1925. "I was going to retire it a few years ago, but it's too much fun and people keep asking me to do it."

"Muggle Quidditch" ???

Bronx High School of Science lost 50 to 30 to Lenox High School of Lenox, Mass., as Central Park played host to an exhibition of Quidditch, the soccer-like game invented by "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling.

In the books, Quidditch is played by wizards and witches on flying broomsticks. The real-life version with Muggles — non-magical folk — started in 2005 at Middlebury College in Vermont and is now played at more than 150 colleges and 100 high schools.

In Muggle Quidditch, chasers try to throw the quaffle — a volleyball — through a hoop. For defense, beaters hit opposing players with a bludger — a dodgeball. The team's seeker runs after the snitch, a fast runner holding a tennis ball in a sock, which the seeker has to grab like the flag in flag football. In the fictional game, the snitch is a winged ball.

The players race around after quaffles and snitches while holding their brooms between their legs.

"This version of the game is the best it could possibly work in real life, short of flying brooms," said Alex Benepe, 23, commissioner of the International Quidditch Assn.

Benepe said Sunday's exhibition was intended to announce the incorporation of the Quidditch association as a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Quidditch and literacy education.

Documentary Honors All Fighting Men Who Served Their Country

When Chew-Een Lee was growing up in western Sacramento during World War II, he was eager to enlist in the military to fight for his country. He joined the ROTC in high school and enlisted in the Marine Corps as soon as he graduated.

"I wanted to dispel the notion about the Chinese being meek and obsequious," said Lee, whose father was a farmer and prominent figure in the Chinese community in Northern California.

But to Lee's disappointment, he was given a job in a language school rather than a combat billet. He stayed in the Marine Corps after the war and in 1950, as an infantry platoon leader, he got his long-awaited chance for combat as Marines from Camp Pendleton were deployed to Korea. His bravery at the battle of the Chosin Reservoir — a Chinese American officer battling Chinese army troops who had surrounded the American forces — is part of Marine Corps lore.

And now it is the subject of a documentary, "Uncommon Courage: Breakout at Chosin," set for broadcast on Memorial Day on the Smithsonian Channel.

"His fighting style was ferocious and his leadership was inspirational," Joe Owen, who fought beside Lee and is now 85 and retired in upstate New York, said in a telephone interview. He said Lee "was always up with the assault squad."

The weather was frigid; the mountainous terrain was rugged; weaponry was often unreliable at subzero temperatures. The Marines were mostly untested in battle, but Lee had driven them hard during training to make them sharp.

The Chinese regulars, disciplined and numerous, assaulted in waves. Fighting was close in and fierce, including with bayonets. Lee, a lieutenant, was assigned to lead several hundred troops to reinforce a Marine company holding a position that was key to allowing thousands of Marines to move southward and escape the Chinese encirclement.

"I would have kicked ass and done whatever was necessary," said Lee, 84, retired and living in Washington, D.C. "To me, it didn't matter whether those were Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, whatever — they were the enemy."

Wounded, he refused to be evacuated and, after getting medical attention, stole a jeep to get back to the front. While other officers shed all insignia to avoid being targets for snipers, Lee donned an orange vest so that his men could see him in the blinding white of the snow.

David Royle, Smithsonian Channel executive vice president for programming and producing, said he was drawn to Lee's story as emblematic of the courage and loyalty that is central to Marine Corps culture. The documentary makers rounded up former Marines who served with Lee and whose memories of the battle remain sharp.

Tom Bradley terminal at LAX -- into the 21st century

Travelers arrive at the Tom Bradley International Terminal, where they are greeted by high-tech lighting and a video screen that projects a time-lapse photograph of vehicular traffic at LAX.

Los Angeles as seen from the Goodyear Blimp

An aerial view of downtown Los Angeles from the Goodyear Blimp, shot with a fisheye lens. May 27, 2010. Click on the heading above for more spectacular aerial views on the Los Angeles Times website.

You'll find it at Geno's

Geno's Steaks is a Philadelphia restaurant specializing in cheesesteaks, founded in 1966 by Joe Vento. Geno's is located in the South Philadelphia neighborhood at the intersection of 9th Street and Passyunk Avenue, directly across the street from rival Pat's King of Steaks, which claims to have invented the steak sandwich in 1933. The cheesesteak has become a signature dish for the city of Philadelphia

"puzzling your way around Florence"

Feel like puzzling your way around Florence, Rome or Venice this summer? And we mean in a fun way. Select Italy, a Chicago-based tour operator, has started "Made Easy" tours that give a sampling of each city for those with little time but lots of curiosity. Each tour features an interactive, high-tech scavenger hunt that provides clues through cellphone texts to help travelers solve a puzzle. Activities and prices vary. The Florence tour, for instance, includes a reserved ticket to see Michelangelo's statue of David, plus a two-hour guided bicycle tour past all the must-see buildings and monuments. For a weekend date in June, it cost $88.34 a person for two or $80.36 a person for four. Info: Select Italy, (800) 877-1755,

—Mary Forgione

Gardens and Vistas

A self-guided tour lets visitors to Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Calif., discover architect Julia Morgan's floral and aquatic outdoor contributions at their own pace, without a guide.

(Jan Fietsbel, Los Angeles Times)

"Chez Colette"

Colette was a woman whose life arced across one of the most fascinating periods in French history, from the ebullient belle époque to the German Occupation and slightly beyond. For half a century, she scandalized Paris, lopping off her long schoolgirl braid and varnishing her toenails, gallivanting around town in an apparent ménage à trois with her husband and his girlfriend, cross-dressing for her lesbian lover, baring her breast onstage, divorcing, remarrying and seducing her teenage stepson.

Whenever she hit rock bottom, Colette remade herself, resulting in a resumé that reads like the Yellow Pages: journalist, critic, pornographer, music hall performer, lecturer, screenwriter, advice columnist, beautician (though her aging looks were no advertisement for her skills).

A naturally liberated woman, Colette despised feminists. She ate gluttonously and got fat; loved animals but monstrously ignored her only daughter; saved her third husband, who was Jewish, from World War II concentration camps while earning a living writing for the Nazi-controlled press.

Seemingly every insult you can throw at Colette sticks. In spite — or maybe because — of that, she earned plaques that mark her passage all over France.

"Older than old"

This statue at Los Angeles National Cemetery was thought to have been erected in 1942, but it actually dates to 1896. About 10,000 Civil War soldiers are buried here.

Cheryl Wilkinson, a student of Waugh's, researched the cemetery for her honors thesis and found that the statue dates to at least 1896, when a Times article mentioned its arrival.

Wilkinson also disputed a book about military cemeteries that says it is the likeness of a Revolutionary War soldier.

She pointed to the figure's kepi (hat) and the "US" stamped on its haversack to show that it was a Civil War soldier.

Though the name of the sculptor is unknown, it's questionable whether he saw combat since the figure is shown doing something a soldier would never do: draping his hand over the muzzle of his rifle.

(Steve Harvey, For The Los Angeles Times / May 29, 2010)

"That was then and this is now"

Las Vegas —A prominent sandstone arch at Valley of Fire State Park in southern Nevada has collapsed.

Park rangers said it appeared Natural Arch was claimed by forces that would eventually destroy about 300 other arches in the park: gravity and erosion.

They said horseback riders notified them about the damage Wednesday, and no one has reported seeing it fall. It's unclear exactly why and when the arch collapsed, but there's no evidence of vandalism, rangers added.

The Beginning of the Gigantic Oil Leak

In this aerial photo taken in the Gulf of Mexico more than 50 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig burned on April 21.

"the longest supersonic combustion ramjet-powered hypersonic flight"

An X-51A Waverider flight-test vehicle successfully made the longest supersonic combustion ramjet-powered hypersonic flight May 26 off the southern California Pacific coast. The more than 200 second burn by the X-51's Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne-built air breathing scramjet engine accelerated the vehicle to Mach 6. The previous longest scramjet burn in a flight test was 12 seconds in a NASA X-43. Air Force officials called the test, the first of four planned, an unqualified success. The flight is considered the first use of a practical hydrocarbon fueled scramjet in flight.

"overnight stays - $153 -- the view - priceless"

Yosemite's hike-in High Sierra Camps are so sought-after that the pickings can be slim for travelers who wait to book overnight stays during the short summer season. The good news: If you stay two consecutive nights at Merced Lake Camp (with dinner and breakfast daily), the park concessionaire will throw in the third night — a $153 (plus tax) savings. Merced Lake Camp boasts more cabins than the other High Sierra Camps. It has a good inventory in July and August; its two nearest neighbors, Sunrise and Vogelsang, are sold out for the season. The bad news: The Merced camp is a long walk. Count on 14.6 miles by the shortest route from Tuolumne Meadows and Tioga Road. Check availability online:

http://www.yosemitepark.com/Accommodations_HighSierraCamps_Availability.aspx or call (801) 559-4909.

Here's a spectacular shot of Multnomah Falls in Oregon"

While visiting Portland, OR on a short weekend trip in March, "llien" decided to make the drive out on an early Sunday morning in order to beat the crowd so that he and his wife could enjoy the falls all to themselves.

Submitted May 20, 2010 to Your Scene -- Los Angeles Times, by "llien"

"You can get back to the place but not the time"

America's iconic buffalo, some say, have made a comeback. But with more than 400,000 bison in mainly fenced, commercial herds in the U.S. and Canada, they are not the free-roaming breed of yore. But today, an attempt is underway to relaunch wild herds on public and tribal lands in Utah, Colorado and South Dakota.

"It's never too late"

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — It's never too late to earn your college degree. Just ask 94-year-old Hazel Soares.

The San Leandro woman was one of about 500 students to pick up diplomas Saturday during a commencement ceremony at Mills College, an Oakland liberal arts college for women that also offers coed graduate programs.

"It's taken me quite a long time because I've had a busy life," said Soares. "I'm finally achieving it, and it makes me feel really good."

Soares, who has six children and 40 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, is believed to be the world's second oldest person to graduate from college.

Sierra Club Seeks Legislation for Mountain Preservation

Hikers follow a trail near the middle fork of Lytle Creek in the Cucamonga Wilderness. "Our aim with this legislative proposal is to protect the one-third of the Angeles National Forest that is still unspoiled open space," said John Monsen, regional representative of the Sierra Club. "The trick is to get it introduced in time for this Congress to vote on it. If it is delayed another year, there is no telling what will happen."


(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

"The Fork in the Road"

If there’s a place in Pasadena where two roads diverge and is easily accessible to the public, Bob Stane would like to stick a fork in it.

The 18-foot fork has stood at South St. John and Pasadena avenues since Halloween, when Stane’s friends erected it as a surprise for his 75th birthday. The unusual monument caused a stir with residents and city officials overwhelmingly in favor of the tongue-in-cheek art.

The fork is rooted in land owned by Caltrans and leased to Pasadena strictly for landscaping use, Caltrans spokeswoman Maria Raptis said. In November, Caltrans agreed to allow the fork to stay for six months. Although that deadline has passed, Raptis said Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard recently sent a letter to a Caltrans director asking that the fork be allowed to stay. A discussion on the fork’s location is forthcoming, she said.

But Stane, who co-owns an Altadena coffee gallery and showroom with the fork’s creator, Ken Marshall, said he spoke to a Caltrans official who gave him until the first week of June to find a new plot for the fork.

“They think it’s dangerous, that it might fall over, and they’re afraid people will run across the street to be photographed with the fork and be run over,” Stane said.

Stane has spent the last month scouting places where the fork could be relocated. He envisions a spot where it can serve as a landmark for large crowds. Although Stane and his friends once hosted a canned food drive at the fork, a planned Valentine's Day celebration was canceled by the city due to possible traffic issues.

Stane's ideal location? “Where Colorado Boulevard hits Orange Grove. It’s got a great big lawn, and that’s where the Rose Parade starts. It would be great if the parade came and turned right at the fork on the road.”

-- Corina Knoll (Photo: "The Fork in the Road," at South Pasadena and St. John avenues. Credit: Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)