Dressing just so for a towering occasion

CYAN
TUESDAY D1
COLUMBIA
•
MAGENTA
YELLOW
BLACK
SOUTH CAROLINA
LIFE& STYLE
TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2006 • SECTION D
MEDIA DAY
What’s new in movies,
DVDs, music and games
29 YEARS LATER
Elvis, NASA
& Madonna
Tuesday’s Tunes
“Back to Basics” is Christina Aguilera’s first
album in four years, and at 23 songs, it’s a
long one.
Yanni returns to the trenches with “Live:
The Concert Event.”
Disney Channel hits pay dirt again with
“Cheetah Girls 2.”
Eminem protege//Detroit rapper Obie Trice
has a bullet lodged in his skull, but he’s still
as threatening as ever on “Second Round’s
on Me.”
Thoughtful, blue-collar country singer Trace
Adkins hits the racks with “Dangerous Man.”
On the day the King died, for a moment
we were all connected
By BOBBY BRYANT • [email protected]
T WAS A TUESDAY. The day Elvis Presley died
was Tuesday, Aug. 16, 1977. Tomorrow, for the
29th time, Elvis fans around the world will look at
the date on a newspaper they’re reading or a check
they’re writing, stop for a second and feel the chill
they felt on the afternoon of Aug. 16, 1977, when they
got the news from Graceland: The King is dead.
In Memphis, this is the annual “Elvis Week,” a citywide remembrance that builds to a candlelight vigil.
And why not? A 2002 Harris Poll found that 1 out of 4
Americans still remembered
ON THE WEB
where they were, whom
Share your
they were with and what
memories
they were doing when they
of the day Elvis
heard Elvis had died.
Presley died at
In honor of this year’s
www.thecolumbia
anniversary of what fans call
record.com
Elvis’ Death Day, we’ll attempt to re-create that day
with vignettes and factoids
— and to show that, yes, if you look hard enough, you
can even find a connection between the King, NASA
and Madonna.
I
Video gaming
Unravel the past to
protect the future in
“Final Fantasy VII:
Dirge of Cerberus.”
(PS2)
“Ninety-Nine Nights”
combines large-scale
combat and fantasy
action. (XB360)
Raise cows, sheep,
chickens and ducks in
“Harvest Moon.” (DS)
Have fun with the Disney Channel twins in
“Suite Life of Zack & Cody.” (GBA)
Tuesday’s DVDs
Sex, violence, togas and naked ambition,
it’s all in “Rome — The Complete First Season.”
Luckily, Bart and Lisa will never grow up —
otherwise we’d never have “The Simpsons —
The Complete Eighth Season.”
Robin Williams and
Cheryl Hines took their
act on the road for the
comedy “RV.”
We’re waiting for the
sequel to “Scary Movie
4.”
Two longtime leading men have new
sets — “James Stewart
— The Signature Collection” and “Ronald
Reagan — The Signature Collection.”
■■■
BUSINESS AS USUAL
On the day Elvis died, he roped one of his pals into
playing a middle-of-the-night game of racquetball, then
took to a piano and played “Blue Eyes Crying in the
Rain,” then went to bed early in the morning.
On the day Elvis died, his horoscope in the morning papers (the syndicated Carroll Righter version)
warned him that his intuition was not accurate, and
advised him to “study a new project that interests you.”
On the day Elvis died, the comic-strip character
Hagar the Horrible was menaced by a shark.
On the day Elvis died, NASA technicians prepped
the Voyager II space probe for a Cape Canaveral
launch on a tour of the solar system.
On the day Elvis died, the top-selling fiction book
in the nation was Colleen McCullough’s “The Thorn
Birds.”
On the day Elvis died, the Food and Drug Administration ordered off the market all deodorant sprays
containing zirconium, a possible cause of lung tumors.
Coming Wednesday
Healthy snacks to bring for those school activities and festivities. Life&Style.
SEE ELVIS PAGE D3
New for you
Friday, Saturday and Sunday in The State.
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE FILE PHOTOGRAPH
WEEKEND
A new way to look at your
Weekend. A new format
and new features, including
Otis Taylor and his gang,
who troll Midland’s nightlife
for On the Scene.
Dressing just so for a towering occasion
HOME & GARDEN
A one-stop section for home and garden help
and ideas.
S
YOUR HOME
Find it, fix it, sell it. Everything about adding
value to your property.
Talk
Back
Neil White
ntwhite@
thestate.com
COMICS D6
ATURDAY IS THE official
move-in day for USC
students, but for the first
time since 1958, no students will
move into the Towers.
Incoming freshman no longer
will be able to experience the
uniquely ugly yet oddly classic
veilblock dorms also known as
the Honeycombs.
Originally a complex of six
buildings built in 1958 and 1965,
the Towers quietly lost Baker
and Burney to demolition 10
years ago. The remaining four
residence halls — Moore,
Douglas, Snowden and LaBorde
•
DEAR ABBY D7
•
— won’t go without fanfare
before their September
knockdown.
USC is inviting former
residents to campus for a
farewell reception and tour of
the halls on Friday, Aug. 25.
From 4:30-6:30 p.m. in the
Towers lobby, the reception will
feature photo displays,
yearbooks and music, as well as
a presentation on the history of
the dorms, which have housed
about 50,000 students.
If you need the perfect piece
of apparel to wear to this
commemorative shindig, Rhett
TELEVISION D8
•
Davis, an ’87 USC grad and
former Snowden man, has just
the thing for you.
Upon hearing of the
impending demise of the
Towers, where he lived for three
years in his college days, Davis
created a Web site offering an
offbeat line of merchandise to
salute the end of this era.
Davis, a Columbia native
who has lived and worked in
Atlanta for 15 years,
understands the sentimental
attachment former students
have to the structures where
they “came of age.” He thought
T-shirts would be a great way
for them to celebrate their
college years.
“I knew this day was coming,
and I knew there would be a lot
of nostalgia,” he said.
Davis’ site is at
www.cafepress.com/sctowers
and features shirts, boxers,
coffee mugs, beer steins,
coasters and mouse pads. All of
it has a picture of the Towers
that looks to be circa mid-1960s.
“Someone e-mailed that
picture to me years ago. Where
W W W. T H E S T A T E . C O M
SEE TALK PAGE D3