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Table of Contents


January 12, 1998 Issue

"Family court ruled that Olmos and his sons couldn't be alone in a room with Stella! ... Am I just being a wild man, an irrational fellow, as Mr. and Mrs. Olmos try to paint me?"
-- Harvey Keitel, "Circus of the Stars"

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FEATURES
Circus of the Stars
BY JOHN LOMBARDI

Imagine the Woody-and-Mia mess directed by Scorsese. Actually, you don’t have to imagine: Harvey Keitel is trying to win custody of his daughter from Lorraine Bracco, whose current husband, Edward James Olmos, has been accused of sexual misconduct. Keitel is madder than ever. And Keitel is not a man you want to make mad.

Defender of the Faith
BY MERYL GORDON

Yeshiva boy turned tough-guy lawyer Ben Brafman gained a reputation by successfully representing lost causes—Mafia types, drug dealers caught on tape. Now he’s defending Central Park murder suspect Daphne Abdela and, in a trial beginning this week, club owner Peter Gatien. Not bad for an old Catskills comic.

Filling a Knead
BY JOANNE KAUFMAN

The taint of massage parlors is history: It’s massage therapy now, and it’s so useful to hyperstressed New York professionals that home delivery is standard and even some HMOs will kick in. Rubbing is ducky.

Spas Attack
BY BETH LANDMAN KEIL

Time for some post-holiday pampering? Skip the Canyon Ranch: New York spas offer every kind of exfoliation, mask, and application imaginable. And if some of those highly touted new techniques (“galvanic currents”?) sound a bit bogus, they feel awfully good.

GOTHAM
A Giant collapse; ads for a really captive audience; New Year’s predictions for select New Yorkers. Plus: Gotham Style finds a Prada outlet

DEPARTMENTS
The City Politic
BY MICHAEL TOMASKY

Betsy Ross may be the new Democrat on the block, but she’s hardly a viable candidate for governor

The Insatiable Critic
BY GAEL GREENE

Gracelands: Tennessee Mountain offers barbecue fit for the King, but the Hog Pit is strictly Late Elvis

MARKETPLACE
Best Bets
BY CORKY POLLAN

ruits of a glassblower’s labors; spices in the fire; science meets magic on the Upper West Side

Sales & Bargains
Import-ance: After-Christmas sales of every international stripe

THE ARTS
Movies
BY DAVID DENBY

Robert Duvall’s The Apostle is the most honest movie ever made about a man of God

Theater
BY JOHN SIMON

Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge joins pomposity and mediocre acting

Dance
BY TOBI TOBIAS

No more chestnuts: Skip those Nutcrackers and sample this season’s exotica

CUE
The Moynihan who paints; natural energy comes to Jersey

Intelligencer
(Gossip)