LOS ANGELES - What savvy actress wouldn't want to play Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist and American pop icon whose 47 years on this earth would be unbelievable if they weren't true?

She survived a bus accident at 18 in which she was impaled on a metal rod - and nearly bankrupted her family during her convalescence. She began to paint as an outlet for her pain, which led her to a passionate and stormy relationship with fellow artist Diego Rivera; they married, divorced, then married again.

BUYERS’ MARKET
From bananas to batata, bargains abound at Haymarket
The Boston Globe, Oct. 19, 2000

You may think of Haymarket as a place to save dollars, but it's your senses that cinch the deal.

The people you see, the scents you smell, the tastes you anticipate, the languages you hear, the excitement you feel. And when you leave, you'll be richer not only in your purse, but because you've partaken of tradition and escaped from the shrink-wrapped world.

Try getting that at the supermarket.

SOMERVILLE — Three young caffeine merchants with an attitude are prospering in Davis Square, and just as they arrived ahead of the coffee wave out of the Pacific Northwest, they appear to be slightly ahead of other developments that could bring a renewed vigor to the square.

On Tuesday, their landlord will publicly announce plans to add four theaters to the Hobbs Building, already home to the Somerville Theater, and next month, the first phase of an Asian-theme mall is to open next door.

EAST DORSET, Vt. - There are plenty of rustic inns in Vermont. There are even plenty of inns in Vermont that are on the National Register of Historic Places. But there's only one inn in Vermont where the founder of one of the 20th century's great social movements was born.

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico -- At the end of a narrow, cobblestone street in San Cristobal de Las Casas, hopes for an ancient Mexican people and their home in the rain forest reside in the house of a jaguar.

PUERTO ANGEL, Mexico -- What seasoned tourist hasn't complained about the paving of paradise, those once-unique destinations that have been transformed into ugly commercial monsters by developers spurred on, well, by tourists?

Take Mazatlan, for example, or Acapulco. You can have them.
 
But then there's Puerto Angel, a tranquil fishing village down the coast where developers, thankfully, have missed the boat. Here, charm and character and ease have survived.

And there isn't a swinging hot spot to be found.

HAVANA -- If not for the embargo, I probably would have been no more motivated to vacation in Cuba than I am to go to Puerto Rico or Guadeloupe or any other Caribbean hot spot.

JAFFREY, N.H. - For 364 days a year, the high point in Jaffrey is Mount Monadnock, 3,165 feet tall and considered the second-most-climbed mountain in the world.

But on a latter Saturday in August every year, Monadnock is eclipsed.
 
That's the day of Jaffrey's Festival of Fireworks, when the ground shakes, the sky explodes, and the town's population bursts from its usual census of about 5,400 to more than 40,000.

BALTIMORE - Many cities boast about their array of fine art, science, and children's museums, and coastal burgs can throw in a brag about their aquariums, too. Baltimoreans can do that, but they'd just be getting started.

If you want to know the magnitude of the problem, look in your
closet. Or maybe the basement, or the garage, or wherever you've put
your old TV, computer, or any other piece of technology that has since
been upgraded.

Someday you're going to want to get rid of that stuff, and so is
everyone else. Last year, 56 million PCs were scrapped, more than were
sold, according to Jim Gardner of Metech International, a Rhode Island
company that's making money by taking in all those castoffs and
returning their parts to productive uses.