Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 34

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS Using star maps, find out where they live, camp outside, then bump into them and drop a bag of groceries. Singer Bob Seger. 58. Singer Jimmle Dale Gilmore, 58. Hollywood Squares host Tom Bergeron (left).

48. Actor George Clooney, 42. Touched by an Angel actress Roma Downey, 40. Hootie the Blowfish guitarist Mark Bryan, 36. Associated Press Esai Morales of NYPD Blue, on how to start a romantic relationship with a celebrity, in Jane magazine ABC The Arizona Republic Tuesday May 6, 2003 E2 'IDOL CHATTER' A 'shocking' twist: Josh moves ahead of Ruben PEOPLE Compiled by Suzanne Condie LambertThe Arizona Republic LeBlanc ties knot amid circle of 'Friends' THE LIST Early jobs of 6 business giants 1.

Richard Thalheimer (Sharper Image): sold encyclopedias door-to-door. 2. Michael Eisner (Disney): NBC page. 3. Ty Warner (Beanie Babies): sold cameras door-to-door.

4. Ralph Lauren: glove salesman. 5. Amar Bose (Bose MIT professor. 6.

Fred Smith (FedEx): crop duster. World Features Syndicate 3 nma JO Joshua Gracin Ruben Studdard It was the shock heard 'round the TV world. Last week, front-runner Ruben Studdard landed in the bottom two on American Idol, alongside Whitney wannabe Trenyce, allowing lightly talented Marine Joshua Gracin to stay afloat another week. Our local panel of ex-Idol contenders, Quetzal Guerrero, Lindsey Gort and Rebecca Bond, reflect on the results. QUESTION: Were you surprised that Ruben was in the bottom two? AM Til REBECCA: I Url IV was shocked, (.

but I think American thafS what Idol' American Idol 7 tonight and wanted for us 7 30 t0 snocked. woHnl'ew I can't believe UiiilA. A fetched $400 to $800 per copy. King has been unavailable for comment to confirm whether the stories are his, said his personal assistant, Marcia DeFllippo. Troubled by Twain Country singer Shanla Twain's reported interest in buying high-country property in New Zealand has upset outdoor groups who fear the sale could jeopardize their access to it.

Twain, who lives in Switzerland with producer husband Mutt Lange and their infant son, is reported to have offered $9 million for the Motatapu Station, near Lake Wanaka on the South Island, the New Zealand Herald reports. The price would be four times the government valuation of the land. Mike Floate of the Federation of Mountain Clubs said he would be concerned about public access if the sale went ahead. "Sometimes overseas owners do not understand the Kiwi (New Zealander) tradition of allowing public access to beautiful places on their land," he said. Matt LeBlanc's Friends pals were there for him this weekend when the actor married longtime fiancee Melissa McKnight in a cliffside wedding on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

LeBlanc, 35, and McKnight, a former model believed to be in her late 30s, became engaged in 1998. She has two children from a previous relationship. Syndicated television show Extra reports that LeBlanc's fellow Friends stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow attended the ceremony, as did Aniston's husband, Brad Pitt, and Cox's husband, David Arquette. Works of a boy King? Copies of the Lisbon (Maine) High School student newspaper from the mid-1960s have become collectors' items because they contain two original stories by an author listed as "Steve King." The stories, The 43rd Dream and Code Name: Mousetrap, are believed to be among the earliest published works of Stephen King, who grew up in Durham and attended Lisbon High, Reuters reports. The old newspaper copies were discovered last year when retired English teacher Prudence Grant cleaned out her file cabinet.

She sold the copies on the online auction site eBay, where they on Channel it. I'm almost pleading the Fifth on telling 10 (KSAZ). azterrtralcom Get more celebrity stories and offbeat news updated throughout the day at thebuzz.azcentral.com. Sang TanAssociated Press Shania Twain has New Zealand outdoor enthusiasts singing the blues. GO-SECOND SURF On the Web, first impressions are often last impressions.

has lost weight and she looks fantastic. Ruben looks the same. The only thing I can think of is maybe (Josh) is used to doing so much physical activity as a Marine, and now he's living the good life and it's catching up with him. REBECCA: Maybe they're feeding him really well. It seems that as the show goes on, you would be losing weight.

I thought Kimberley Locke was losing weight for a while, but I don't know what happened last week. She put on those jeans and I was like, "Oh wow!" The front-runners still seem to be Ruben and Clay Aiken. But can you imagine Clay singing a hit song that is played on the radio? QUETZAL: No. There's something about the way he sings. He does sound Broadway.

He'd probably be a good ballad singer, but I couldn't imagine him doing something like Justin Timberlake or a rock album. I don't think it would fit his voice. REBECCA: You know what? I can. He's got a voice that's very distinctive. When you hear it, you say, "That's Clay Aiken." He's very versatile.

I just love his sound. LINDSEY: No, and I think it's kind of frustrating. He's just so natural, so unique, but I think the thing that throws people off is the way he looks. He even looks too Broadway. Maybe everyone is used to a certain type of image.

My mom said she loves listening to him, but as far as putting $3 million into his album? No way. That's why I think Ruben will win. Randy Cordova The site Delivers THE BUZZ Graduation, then nice nap Associated Press Promises Web community devoted to the faerie-centric world of artist Brian Fraud and family. www.worldoffroud.com Most of the content here serves as ads for the family's various books, but for hard-core fans there's news, forums and a few other goodies. my opinions right now on these events.

LINDSEY: I was shocked. I just didn't know what to think. It just goes to show you that this competition is not really about who has the most talent. It's like they want the Marine to stay in. I lost faith in the show when I saw Ruben in the bottom two.

How is Josh surviving? He's obviously the least talented of the group. QUETZAL: As far as stage presence and performing go, yeah, he's the least talented. I think he's survived by who he is and what he stands for. He's kind of like the ail-American boy middle America is probably in love with him because of that. LINDSEY: The fact that Josh wants to be a country singer means he shouldn't even be in the competition.

They're not going to have an American Idol be a country singer. I'm sure that the fact that he's a Marine has helped him. Plus, doesn't Josh seem to be gaining weight every episode? LINDSEY: Oh my God, I can see that. Kimberley Locke www.faeriegrove.com Whether you're a true Online seller of faerie paraphernalia wings, gowns, crowns, ears and horns. believer, a Goth rebel or just a Halloween shopper, some of this stuff is faerie fabulous.

But pricey! TOLEDO, Ohio Don Flickin-ger is the most senior of the graduating seniors at; the University of Toledo. Just two days shy of his 96th birthday, Flickinger is getting his associate's degree in technical studies. Flickinger began taking classes in 1928. Calvin Coolidge was president and Babe Ruth was hitting home runs for the Yankees. But when the Depression started, he had to quit school.

He returned in 2001. Flickinger probably won't be partying much with fellow grads. At his age, Flickinger says celebrating means getting a good nap. www.faerieveil.com "Not all faeries are sweetness and light. We see beauty in the darker, more sensual side of fae.

Respect the unknown and proceed with caution. Dare you believe?" Lots of interesting art, from Fraud to tattoos to "photo evidence," plus advice on faerie fashions and a well-selected links page. 5 mice: We value this Web site more than our job. 4 mice: Bookmark it, baby. 3 mice: Worth another 60 seconds.

2 mice: Worldwide yawn. 1 mouse: Relief is a click away. Magical tide washes Faeryland onto red rocks of Sedona FESTIVAL from El jtwr 1. iff dim 'J S-t 1 1 i i tlJA 0m1 in everyday life that we can't express openly," says Ari Berk, a professor of folklore at Central Michigan University. "Fairies have always spoken to the human desire to have some kind of conversation with the environment around them." They've populated art and literature for centuries, not just as fairy tales, but also in Shakespeare and in the poetry of William Butler Yeats.

More recently, they appear in the Lord of the Rings films, as the elves. Although children are naturally drawn to fairy tales, the current pop phenomenon is not really about children. Froud's art, for example, is not only well researched but very adult. "Fairies have been relegated to the nursery for far too long," Froud says. "That's a 20th-century point of view really.

Fairies have always been dangerous creatures. That's why they had to be placated. That's little gifts were left out at night, little saucers of milk, or, otherwise, your cattle died, or, indeed, your children were stolen or people died. The word 'stroke' comes from 'elf stroke' because a fairy had touched you. So fairies have always been dangerous.

And one way that people have tried to make them safer is to turn them into fairy stories, something that was safe, and say, 'Oh it's just for children, isn't Froud, 56, lives in Dartmoor, England, an area he says is slightly wild and desolate, and whose landscape influenced his palette. "When I looked at trees and rocks and hills when I moved to the country, I wondered what the inside of them looked like," Froud says. "And as I was wondering that, then I started painting fairies, and they were indeed at the souls of trees and landscapes." He was inspired by illustrations of fairy tales and did a lot of research with his collaborator, Alan Lee, for his first book, Faeries, which they published in 1978. It has sold more than 5 million copies, including more than 100,000 since last October, when a 25th-anniversary edition was published. Froud followed up with several other titles, including Good FaeriesBad Faeries, whose paintings sometimes verge on the erotic, with lithesome near nudes, a merging of several tingling and anticipatory fantasies, and decidedly not for children.

His art was the inspiration for the Jim Henson films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, and Froud's wife, Wendy, was one of the puppetmakers who designed Yoda for the Star Wars films. Since he began painting fairies, Froud says they now present themselves to him as, he believes, they present themselves to others. The paintings, he says, are like maps that allow people to safely go on their fairy journey, as he puts it. "A lot of people go on the journey and don't return because they lapse into madness," he says. Saturday's festival in Sedona promises plenty of controlled madness.

"Right now, everything's so heavy and intense on the planet that I think people need a fantasy to go to where they feel like they have power, where they feel they have something to go to," says Emilio Miller-Lopez, one of the festival's organizers. "What our events offer people is a chance to participate. Everybody's part of the show." Miller-Lopez is a spritely fellow of 28 with a shaggy gnome's beard and a shock of hair long enough to evoke memories of the early 1970s. His wife, Kelly, 27, has cascading Maid Marian locks and glittery makeup. Both dress elfin, in earth tones and billowing sleeves.

They draw stares even in Sedona. The couple perform in Woodland, a band with Celtic-music roots and a rich New Age sound, which will play at the festival. Kelly says she has seen fairies since she was a child, and she first latched onto Brian Froud's work when she saw The Dark Crystal and then bought the Faeries books, which she eventually showed to her husband. Together, they sought out Froud's agent, Robert Gould, who is also a fantasy artist, well known as the illustrator for Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone novels. Working with Gould's company, Imaginosis, they staged multimedia fairy shows in Prescott, Santa Fe and Los Angeles.

Fairy fans turned out in droves. "It was incredible," Gould says. "People were standing in line for an hour. Everyone was in costume. Families came.

It was pretty wild." The Santa Fe show took place on Halloween, and the upcoming Sedona festival is just after May Day, which, as Kelly Miller-Lopez explains, are those times of the year when the veil fairy pictures that sell big at teenage boutiques, and fairy cards and posters in New Age bookstores. And a British artist named Brian Froud has sold more than 8 million large-format books of paintings of fairies, which he, like most fairy folk, spell the old-fashioned way: "faeries." "Faeryland is like the sea," Froud says. "It's like the tide, and sometimes the tide is out a long way and Faeryland is very difficult to reach. And sometimes the tide is in. And it does seem to me that the tide was out for some years, but it's really come in now." That tide has come in far enough that promoters expect more than 4,000 people to attend an all-day Faer-ieworlds Festival on Saturday at Sedona Cultural Park.

The festival will include music, multimedia shows, live interactive performances and, especially, Froud and his artwork. The expected attendees will be true believers like Ford, but also Renaissance Faire fans, families with young children, masqueraders, New Age dabblers, Goth kids who have "discovered Faery," as one promoter put it, and even "folks factioning out of the old Grateful Dead days who don't have anywhere to go." Fairies originated in Celtic folklore, and, more often than not, they were frightening, otherworldly forest beings that were blamed for unexplain-able events, such as ill children, people turned mad and dark thoughts. "They're about expression of things Courtesy of World of Fraud Brian Froud's Gwynnefar. The artist says fairies communicate with him. is thinnest between the real world and the fairy world and human-fairy encounters are more likely.

Gould would like to take the show on the road and maybe develop it into a Cirque du Soleil-style of interactive performance. As for the people who claim to see fairies, even Froud is not sure how many really do. "It took me a long time to actually work that out," he says. People constantly ask him how they can see them, too. "You don't use your eyes," he answers.

"You see a fairy through your heart." Reach the reporter at (602) 444-8994 Fighting Mars bloterrorism mysteries Eyes of a Butterfly Professor Ron Rutowski Specialist, Animal VisionBehavior Professor Phil Christensen Geological Sciences Research Review A KAET PRODUCTION Jonathan Fink V.P.Research Charles Arntzen, Director ASU Biomedical Institute Ron Calhoun Mechanical Aerospace Engineer.