Florida Today from Cocoa, Florida • Page 35

From 'Sir to sitcom Tracy Morgan takes his act from late night to prime time in new NBC series, 5E. Missy Elliott, left, and s-i I Madonna are featured in VSdkWl tl ine cioiniers new Tan aa campaign, 3E. Wednesday, juiy 30, 2003 Section Suzy Fleming, features content editor, sflemingfiatoday.net Tongue twist: I'll take Gene's Gap girls PEOPLE The chick on the metro line had purple hair and the chalky pallid skin of the Un-dead, and she appeared to be working on something in her mouth, like a kernel of shucked corn or something else that refused to dissolve or crumble. A series of casual glances in her direction and the details sharpened. She was sucking on a chunk of metal or was she? No.

No. It was a metal stud lanced clean through her tongue. 1 But hey, it was cool, this was San Francisco, she was discreet, and no doubt it tSJIlS lily i jjctvui 7 i 'I I I 'ill fefVw gave her idle moments a focus that might have otherwise engaged considerably less wholesome subjects. This was a decade or so ago, my first encounter with tongue piercing. And although metallic tongues have become more passe in the ensu- Dlliy til recently, when I be nny an reading about the People ration, that I realized just how Old School I'd Emily Barnes, FLORIDA TODAY Saiful-lslam Abdul-Ahad, left, Dr.

Lin Osborne and Dr. Stephen Le- UCF campus in Cocoa, beginning Aug. 25. The course has been vensohn will teach the course "MosesJesusMohammed" at the BCC- taught before, but never co-taught by a Muslim, Christian and Jew. Scholars unite to spread religious revelations at BCC By Billy Cox FLORIDA TODAY Meet the scholars ven a relatively brief chat with three local scholars Ei For more information What: "MosesJesusMohammed" course Where: BCC-UCF Cocoa campus When: 6-9 p.m.

Mondays, beginning Aug. 25 Cost: $283.26 Call: 632-1111, ext. 65614 to inaugurate an experiment called the I i grown. Two months ago, a story about the Illinois state Legislature's efforts to outlaw tongue-splitting or bifurcation threw a light on the rise of the thousands of freaks who, with the aid of surgeons' scalpels, lasers, or needles and thread in the bathroom, enjoy showing off their retro-fitted reptile mouths whenever they yawn. Though many split-tongues must re-learn how to talk after their surgeries, the virtues of being able to wiggle symmetrical tongue flaps indepehdenuy of each other, particularly at close quarters, apparently is enough to compensate for the attendant lisp.

i Call me old-fashioned, call me a hayseed, but I remember the good old days, when a simple, unadorned, God-given tongue was its own reward. It started with my pet toad, Croaky. I spent countless hours peering into carboard box, watching the amphibious carnivore hit mealworms and flies I'd ripped the wings off with its lightning-quick tongue. After I'd worked up enough courage to test Croaky's aggressive reflexes on my fingernails, Yd invite my friends over for speed-and-extension demonstrations. "Look'a that tongue go, fellas!" Thunk! Thunk-thunk! Thunk! When artist Ruby Mazur's garish lips-and-tongue logo was adopted by The Rolling Stones in the 1970s, I thought it was Western culture's answer to the Parthenon.

True, it was a static image, it wasn't Croaky. But to see a muscle which, for centuries, had been firmly relegated to the inside of the human mouth by the etiquette police suddenly come exploding onto everything from album covers to dirigibles well, it was a grand thing. But it wasn't until last week, when news about the first human tongue transplant broke out of Austria, that I got to thinking about how maybe I needed to get with the 21st century and reconsider tongue transfiguration after all. Confession: I'm in awe of Gene Simmons. Not because of his KISS glitter-rock stage persona (necessarily), but because of the tongue.

This guy was always better than Croaky. Croaky was a one-trick, um, pony programmed for automatic strike-retract predation. Simmons, on the other hand, was and is blessed not, only with enough coil to pluck crumbs from his chin and massage his temples, but with enough tongue strength to flicker like the rattle on a diamondback, for hours without rest. There are rumors of pushups with his arms behind his back. This is a gift.

Anyway, last week, surgeons performed a successful tongue transplant at Vienna General Hospital on a man who'd lost his tongue to cancer. Among their many concerns was transplant mobility. But apparently, the patient's new tongue is wagging and swiveling up a storm. So: What's the point of waiting until your life is threatened for a tongue transplant? Life is short. We should all be able to shop for tongues more compatible with our needs.

They can clone these things now. I already know the one I want. I want the Simmons. BCC-UCF Center for Humanities and World Religions reveals common ground ravenous curiosity along their diverse and twisting routes to God. One is a Vietnam veteran who rejected his Baptist roots and immersed himself in Catholicism before converting to Islam.

One is a Jew who has foraged Muslim Morocco, Beat literature and the enigma of Jesus. The other, an ordained Methodist minister, has turned his globetrotting odyssey into a multimedia sanctuary and, at age 80, is reinventing the future. wear glasses during the day, but I don't need them at night when I go to sleep," chuckles Dr. Lin Osborne, architect of the big-screen Theatre 360 on Brevard Community College's Cocoa campus. "Because you die every night, and things become clearer.

It's when we wake up that we're in a dream world." Next month, Osborne's pursuit of divinity's riddles will be aug- Stephen Levensohn Le vensohn, 72, mastered in philosophy and earned a humanities doctorate at Florida State University before obtaining a postdoctoral diploma in post-biblical studies from Jewish Theological Seminary in 1979. He retired from UCF this month. Saiful-lslam Abdul-Ahad Abdul-Ahad, 55, was raised a Christian, but converted to Islam in 1975. Specializing in modern Middle Eastern history, early American and military history, Abdul-Ahad joined UCF's history department in 1996. He is assistant director for Academic Support Services at the Cocoa and Palm Bay Lin Osborne Osborne, 80, is an ordained Methodist minister who designed Theatre 360 in 1978 as an innovative classroom for presentations based on his studies of religious origins in Egypt, India, Russia and the Holy Land.

After retiring from BCC this summer following a teaching run of 38 years, he signed up with UCF, wnich nowtias full access to the facility. mented by University of Central Florida professors Dr. Stephen Le-vensohn and Saiful-lslam Abdul-Ahad as an even larger intercollegiate alliance forges new terrain. Dr. James Drake, the University of Central Florida's Brevard Campus director and executive officer, is clearly optimistic about the initiative, which takes its first step with a pilot program titled "MosesJesusMohammed" on Aug.

25. "This course has been taught before, but never co-taught by a practicing Muslim, a Jewish faculty member and an ordained Christian at least, not that I'm aware of," Drake says. See Scholars, 2E Hepburn wills land to public, cash for granddad's church T7 Lurii I File photo A young fan browses through J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which set sales records for U.S. publisher Scholastic.

But the company continues to struggle, announcing job cuts and other spending reductions. Despite big sellers, book business lags Here are some of the highlights from Katharine Hepburn's will: 4.17 acres of land in Old Saybrook, for "exclusively public uses." Oscars and other awards, scripts, photos, will go to a charity of the executors' choice. Connecticut home and New York townhouse to family members. $10,000 to a tiny Maryland church where her grandfather once served as minister. countant, financial consultant and friend.

Four years ago, the home's value was set at $2 million, but real estate agents estimate it would sell for much more now. The land left for public use is bordered by a crescent-shaped beach that's rocky toward the water and sandy farther in. The rest of the land is filled with shrubs, cattails, beach roses and grasses. The will stipulates the land should go to a federal, state or local body or conservation organization for "the benefit of the general public." The Lynde Point Land Trust, which works to keep open space in Fenwick in its natural state, hopes to be the recipient of the property. Hepburn also left $10,000 to a tiny church in eastern Maryland where her grandfather, Sewell Hepburn, was a minister.

Christ Church, I.U., has only 30 parishioners. The 1860s Greek Revival church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Eleanor Noble, a cousin of Hepburn's, told The Hartford Courant it wasn't unexpected for the actress to leave money to the church, even though she hadn't visited in more than 20 years. "I would have been surprised if she didn't," Noble said. "Family was important to her." Most of estate goes to family Associated Press OLD SAYBROOK, Conn.

Four acres of beachfront property near Katharine Hepburn's home will become protected land for public use, according to the late actress' will. Hepburn, who died at 96 last month at her waterfront home in the Fenwick section of Old Saybrook, left 4.17 acres east of her driveway for "exclusively public purposes." Hepburn's will was filed Friday with the town's probate court. The document, written in 1992, asks that no memorial service or funeral be held for her. Instead, the intensely private actress asked that she be cremated and her ashes interred in the family plot in Hartford. Hepburn's Oscars and other awards, scripts, photographs, letters and costumes wiU go to a charitable organization of the executors' choice.

The executors will also decide which of her letters, manuscripts and other papers should be published. Most of the actress' estate will go to her family. She left her Connecticut home and New York townhouse to her brother, Robert Hepburn; her sister, ByHUlelltalie Associated Press NEW YORK This should be a great time for the book world. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" has set sales records. Hillary Clinton's memoir, "Living History," has sold more than 1 million copies.

Other recent successes include Oprah Winfrey's book club pick, "East of Eden," and Walter Isaacson's "Benjamin Franklin." But instead of celebrating, publishers have been cutting. Scholastic, the U.S. publisher of the Potter books, announced in May that 400 employees had been fired worldwide and said that in mid-July there would be additional spending reductions Simon Schuster, which released the Clinton and Isaacson books, announced this week that 75 employees would be laid off. "The fact remains that our industry continues to be challenged by any number of issues, including the most prolonged period of depressed sales in memory," Simon Schuster CEO Jack Romanos wrote in a companywide e-mail. For publishing people, the value of books like "Living History" and "Order of the Phoenix" isn't only in the splash, but in the ripples.

The industry had hoped the Potter boom would carry over to other titles, but most report either modest See Limmimimwrimi Margaret Perry; and to the families of her late brother, Richard, and late sister, Marion. The will doesn't say how much Hepburn's estate is worth. The Fenwick house, which has 13 acres on the Long Island Sound, should be put on the market soon, said Erik Hanson, the co-executor of the estate. Hanson was Hepburn's ac Is it true that KISS guitarist Gene Simmons can do pushups with his tongue? Billy Cox's column runs every Wednesday. He can be reached at 242-3774, or at bcoxflatoday.net..