The Evening Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 13

i si 1 Ann Landers B8 Comics B7.B8.B9 Coping B9 Crossword B9 In short B2 Jeane Dixon B9 Movie listings B3 B11 M-l THE EVENING SUN, FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 1988 B1 Kevin Cowherd Stephanie am un rtS fa I 'I i nr i 'Jfc SI J.I mjwr, Vague, familiar xMen in Suits7 8ETT0 DAVIS Holly wwd, Cal. RONAID REAGAN Washington, p.C. A ITH SWIFT STR0KES of gray and "If IT Dlaclc. lots of gesso and surprising flashes of ochre, Ruth Pettus paints "Men in Suits." Working from photos taken by friends as far away as Stockholm, she recreates the pensive, still moments of anonymous men sitting on park benches and standing. Her men are faceless, but their gestures and postures recall something very personal.

The men in the large canvases, especially, seem hauntingly familiar. The larger works were created for her show at the Cultured Pearl and are well suited to the restaurant's stripped brick walls. Pettus was inspired to do her "Men" series by one of the Raphael cartoons at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. "I looked at one where all of these disciples were waiting in line for Christ in their sculptural togas with extraordinary pastel colors, and I thought, 'Boy, if that were today, these men would be wearing Some in Baltimore know Pettus as a poet. But first, she is a painter, who studied at the Corcoran School in Washington.

And Pettus has also begun to sing: Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Kurt Weill and "some real torchy songs from the '50s." It has been a year since Pettus had a brain tumor removed at Johns Hopkins, and she says she has been working a lot harder, "because you don't know what your future is." IN CHICK AND RUTH'S, ANNAPOLIS: A breakfast tray held high by a pretty waitress bearing milk, orange juice and a bowl full of Fruit Loops. towering straw bear on St. Paul Street has crumbled to the ground, turned to mulch Fate, thrust upon you: A spooky chain letter is making the rounds, through inter-office mail and on windshields. It's a good luck letter, its writer contends, but only if you send it out again. Those who win! lotteries; those who don't, die Last 1 night'? charity bash for the homeless at the Power Plant sponsored by Baltimore's young professionals is one way to pump money into an overwhelming problem.

By why not turn this doomed amusement park into a home for the homeless? Hey, "It's been a tax shelter for so many years," a friend says. So, why not a homeless shelter? From the red ripe strawberries to the Gulf Stream seafood, this grocery store was made for you and me: Friends and acquaintances who have discovered the new Safeway at Mount Clare Station rave as if they have found the Promised Land. One couple made a Tuesday night date to cruise the expansive aisles; another contentedly spent a recent Sunday afternoon there. Wednesday, midafternoon, the store was an extravagant still life of produce and gourmet packaging with few customers. One couple passed the seven varieties of chilies and lit on a pile of cacti.

"I know what these are and what these are," the woman said to her companion as she eyed the snow peas and other familiar sights. "But these are something rare!" A friendly grocer knew just how to cook it up. "Dethorn it, peel it, put it in boiling water. It's definitely different." the mummy Giza, Egypt BOJANGUS Yawgoo County, Georgia Take heart, there's help for a life in the fat lane IF YOU ARE FAT OR WRINKLED or worried about your heart stopping during a touch football game, this is a wonderful time to be alive. I am speaking here of the tremendous strides modern medicine has recently made to help people of those persuasions.

We now have a fat substitute that tastes great and has hardly any calories. We now have a skin cream that gets rid of wrinkles. We now have a wonder drug called "aspirin" that helps stave off heart attacks. Clearly, this is a great, great country. I can assure you these products are not available behind the Iron Curtain, where the pasteurization of milk is still considered a big deal.

It was not so many years ago that if you were fat or wrinkled or feared a heart attack, you had nowhere to turn. For instance, I remember how it was during the Carter administration. If you were fat back then, people gently steered you toward the salad bar and remarked how yummy the chick peas looked. If you were wrinkled, they simply called you "Gramps" and insisted it was a natural part of the aging process. As for heart attacks, there were so many people keeling over clutching their chests you would have thought it was D-Day at Omaha Beach.

But those days are over now. For one thing, I understand Carter is no longer president. And under this new guy, Reagan, scientists are working to make available the same exciting medicalcosmetic benefits currently enjoyed by singer Michael Jackson. Speaking from a purely selfish point of view, I was most happy to hear about the fat substitute. This is because unlike "Bad Michael" himself, I have always tended toward overweight, ever since grabbing my first fistful of Oreo cookies as a child.

From there, it was a simple leap to grabbing fistfuls of Big Macs, sausage pizza, fried chicken and Twinkies. All of this combined to leave me with the same silhouette as that of a large pear, an outline that follows me around to this day. The new fat substitute may change all that. The product is called Simplesse and is marketed by the NutraSweet whose PR folks insist it can pinch-hit for fat in products from ice cream to salad dressing and not leave them tasting like Elmer's Glue. This may be of particular interest to you ladies, since all the savings in calories will help you maintain the same lean, mean physique as that enjoyed by singer Michael Jackson.

The new wrinkle cream is also intriguing, as I have many deep creases in my forehead, giving the impression that someone has struck me repeatedly with a meat cleaver. I also have bags under my eyes, mostly from working so diligently at this newspaper brisk 15-minute lunches, 14-hour days, etc. although I realize this is not the place to discuss one's work habits. Anyway this new anti-wrinkle cream, Retin-A, may help change all that. If it works as well as they say, I will surely take longer lunch hours, if for no other reason than to show off the new smoothness of my complexion.

If the cream does not work, I could always move on See COWHERD, B4, Col. 1 By Mike Rieigliano Special to The Evening Sun TTfoexfoystferiei over Heflei-Ji Elise ise T. Cbisoim TRIXIE CALLS. "I'm getting new skin!" she yells. Betty calls.

"Isn't this the best news since the invention of the curling rod? I can get new skin and probably a younger man." Is this hysteria or what? The onslaught of news about the new wrinkle remover has reached a manic state. Skin doctors are being besieged with pleas for the prescription, and when I was in my favorite pharmacy last night an obsessed woman was going to take my pharmacist hostage unless he gave her some Retin-A. But listen, it is not an over-the-counter drug, yet. I repeat, it is not an over-the-counter drug! OK, OK, keep your hat on especially in the sun. Stay cool until you look at all sides of this acne drug that supposedly peels away wrinkles.

Yeah, yeah, I have two tubes in my medicine chest left from when one nf picture of the discoverer of the acne drug that turned out to be a wrinkle basher, Dr. Albert Kligman, 72, and sure enough, the dude does look about 60 he used the drug on his own face. Side effects are minimal, says USA Today, but the drug must not be used in conjunction with sun and wind. And you can't use Retin-A with medicated soaps, cleansers, after shaves or facial products that contain alcohol, spice or astringents. But listen, out there, Americans spend $25 billion yearly on over-the-counter beauty and health aids.

Take me, I have used Porcelana, Oil of Olay and Preparation to no avail, except that it made me feel I was helping my skin to feel loved, and it gave me something to do while I watched the disasters on the evening news. Here's some advice: Leave your skin man alone for a few weeks. He's on vacation in the Bahamas tanning his own skin. He needs the rest because this is going to be a big year for him. Trixie just called back with some reservations and read to me from her PDR (Physician's Desk Reference), skin looks younger than mine and he is five years older.

But I can tell you, girls, I have stashed the leftover tubes in a secret hiding place along with some of my favorite things. I was thinking of taking the tubes to a safety deposit box at the bank, but I think they will be safe at home. But please, no calls. Pester your skin doctor, you can't have my tubes! Women with wrinkles and women without wrinkles but expecting wrinkles are going a bit bonkers over the news, partially because we women aren't allowed to have wrinkles as we age, but men can, and wrinkled men seem more acceptable on television and in the super market. Right? Monday's USA Today had a cover story on the marvels of the new wrinkle remover.

There is a my daughters was 15 with pimples and usea me stun unaer doctor orders; and I have half a tube left from when mv husband was having sun spots taken off POLITICAL NOTES: David Blumberg, city jail librarian, unsuccessful Republican candidate for City Council president, wishful thinker, wants to spike his party with a little life. In honor of Lincoln's 179th birthday -Feb. 11, Blumberg and the city GOP are sponsoring their First Annual Abe Lincoln See STEPHANIE, B6, Col. 1 nis lace; ne was a sun lover who spent too much time in the sun. Retin-A nams through in both cases it worked.

His ZEL WA! A Wonder'ful new show debuts Sunday on ABC In Cry Freedom Biko was just a role By Michael Hill ENZEL WASHINGTON freely admits that he knew who Stephen Biko was but not what he had done. "I knew Evening Sun Staff AMID THE THE HORRIFIC HOOPLA of a Super Bowl seems an odd place to find a gentle, insightful comedy. But ABC is not wasting the huge audience that tunes in for pro football's annual extravaganza. It is handing them over to "The Lou Cedrone 1 A 1 A L2L mm Bowl ends Sunday night, probably around 10:30 p.m. and unfortunately too late for many who would appreciate it, is set in 1968 in suburban America.

The main character is 12-year-old Kevin Arnold. The year 1968 was a strange time to live in the suburbs; it was even a stranger time to be 12 years old. After all, here you are on the verge of your own adolescent breakdown, and the whole world is having one of its own all around you. What's more important, the war in Vietnam or the fight you're going to have with the school bully? Whom do you fear more, Lyndon Johnson or your school principal, Ho Chi Minh or your father? As for the suburbs, by 1968 it was painfully obvious that the single-family, detached house with two cars in the yard that your father had worked so hard to make a part of his American dream was not where the action was. Depending on your point of view, that was to be found on the streets or in the surf, in the ghetto or the rice paddies, but See HILL, BIO, Col.

1 something about him but not a lot," he said. "I knew he was a South African who was killed by the government, but I didn't know much more than that." He doesn't feel he had to. "It is acting, after all," he said. "You don't have to shoot somebody to play a murderer." Washington plays Biko in "Cry Freedom," the epic film that opens here Feb. 19.

The film was supposed to have opened here in December, but the studio decided to "platform" the drama, show it in "key" cities, then send it into general release. Biko was a political activist in South Africa. He was only 30 when he was declared a banned person, someone who becomes, in effect, "non-existent." That was when he met Donald Woods, the white newspaper owner who became Biko's friend and supporter. When Biko died iri 1977, after "interrogation" by the South African police, Woods, himself, became a banned person and was forced to flee his yvonoer Years. This half hour, the latest and one of the best entrants in the new dramedy form, is a show of unusual depth.

Its layered construction gives it the ability to appeal to three or four generations at once. It could well become the "Leave it to Beaver" of a era that demands sophistication and yet yearns for innocence. And yet all that complexity does not diminish the fact that, in addition to its consistently amusing comedy, there are two or three lines in this pilot that will crack you up in laugh-out-loud style, even though you're not given the cue by the laugh track. "The Wonder Years," which will show ud country. All this is recalled in the epic film, which was directed by Richard Attenborough Attenborough said he really wanted to have a South African play Biko but couldn't find the man he wanted, so he asked Washington to do it.

Washington is 33. He is married and the father of two small children. Born in Mt. Vernon, N.Y., he graduated from Fordham University, won a scholarship to the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco then made his stage debut in New York, in "Ceremonies in Dark Old Men." See CEDRONE, B3, CoL 1 DENZEL WASHINGTON Filmed in Zimbabwe on Channel 13 (WJZ) whenever the Super.