Style

Deirdre Newman Newport Heights Elementary School students got an Olympic-style workout Friday morning, when they ran to raise money for their school. The Newport Heights Olympics featured a parade of nations and a torchbearer, in addition to the annual jog-a-thon. This is the third year the PTA has organized the event, and it took place on the opening day of the international Olympics, an overlap that happened unwittingly. "That was really inspiring because we had [planned]

Some are good, some are bad, some are cool, some are not. Not people. Ideas. The Costa Mesa Hilton and the Balboa Bay Club and Resort have come up with an idea that is way beyond cool and definitely good, which eliminates bad and not. On Friday, the Costa Mesa Hilton inaugurated a new service, providing London-style cabs to chauffeur its guests near and far in a distinctively British style. The Balboa Bay Club will kick off its version of the Anglicized cab service this week.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Every other week, No Place Like Home will take readers on a tour of a local residence. Simple, bold and distinguished are the adjectives Kim Woods uses to describe this custom home in Irvine Terrace. Woods, owner of Kim Woods Interior Design in Newport Beach, worked with the homeowners for almost two years to achieve the perfect balance of comfort and style for this stunning family abode. Influenced by the wife's sabbatical in Florence, where she studied art history, the homeowners (who asked not to be named)

B.W. Cook The words "taste" and "style" are bantered about freely in society columns. Truthfully, there are only a minority of people in any given community at any given time that possess an innate sense of style that is expressed in their daily lives. OK, it sounds elitist. It sounds snobbish. And I suppose in an argument, I would lose this debate when asked, "How do you define taste and style?" Indeed, the definition of style is interpretive. Certainly, it is highly subjective.

The Newport under-10 boys' soccer team won the Costa Mesa Classic in style. Newport cruised though the tournament, outscoring opponents 16-2. Goals were scored by Jack Starnes, Dylan Hillson, Keegan Netherton, Kori Griscom and Will Debassio, with Jax Richards collecting many assists. Caden Garrido, Taegan Choi, Kori Griscom played well defensively.   Submitted by Paul Hillson  

A massive estate sale to auction off the belongings of late Harbor Island philanthropist Elizabeth Colyear Vincent brought in $2.3 million. The top items from the Nov. 8 auction were a Louis XVI-style gilt bronze glass-paneled cabinet from the late 19th century that was estimated to be worth as much as $20,000 and a pair of Louis XVI-style gilt bronze floor torcheres valued at $25,000 to $35,000. Vincent died Feb. 1 at age 94. The auto parts distributor’s heiress spent more than 30 years living on Harbor Island in an 11,000-square-foot home, which had nine bedrooms and a dozen bathrooms.

June Casagrande It was the 1930s. Newport Harbor High School had just been dedicated, the biggest employer in town was the Western Canners Co., and the city and the harbor were still young. In a classic 1930s style, each of the city's public docks was adorned with finials -- decorative tops to the two posts at the end of each pier. The blue finials, carved out of solid oak, were an expression of style as well as a helpful reference for boaters who needed to know whether the piers they were approaching were public or private.

Not satisfied with just rattling away at a drum, the Taiko Project brings new meaning to the word rhythm. It isn’t just the beats they create that bring style to the Japanese drumming performing arts group, it is the dynamic movements in their choreography, the grace in an arm movement, and the power in a step or yelp that breathes contemporary life into the ancient cultural art form. And the group was able to display its modern style of Taiko — Japanese for drumming — to patrons of the Orange County Fair on Tuesday night.

JUNE CASAGRANDE My cat, Eddie, has finally confronted his greatest demon, overcome a lifelong fear and learned to stand up to an oppressive power. After nearly 12 years of cowering, Eddie decided recently (perhaps inspired by the loss of his brother, Stevie) that life's too short to live in fear of the vacuum cleaner. Eddie, born a stray and abused by neighborhood boys before I took him in, still runs in terror from every friend who walks in my front door.

SEAL BEACH - Anyone who was at Seal Beach Tennis Center on Saturday afternoon was able to witness history, both individual and team. University High senior Gage Brymer rallied to defeat Rancho Cucamonga Alta Loma junior Victor Brown, 6-4, 6-0, capturing his third straight CIF Individuals singles title. Brymer staked his claim as the top boys' tennis player in Southern Section history. The scary part is that the 2013 Trojans might be able to say the same thing as a team. It was an all-University doubles final as well.

Animated fantasy adventures are standard movie fare for family audiences. Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox teamed up to produce the colorful "Rio" and very successful "Ice Age" films. Along with director Chris Wedge, they turn up the production values in the lush visual feast of "Epic. " A hidden race of tiny people live in a beautiful enchanted forest. Brave leafmen ride on the backs of hummingbirds to patrol and protect their woodland. Their idyllic world is threatened by the invasion of nasty Boggans bent on destroying nature's bounty.

Although the lights were dimmed and the studio soundless, a chair, front and center, bespoke a human presence. Taped to the wall, a sign declared that a set of ankle bells had recently gone missing. Before long, the pitter-patter of pint-sized feet filled the room as did sollukatu - rhythmic syllables corresponding to the sounds produced by musical instruments. Ramya Harishankar demonstrated immaculate body posture, hand gestures and expressions while clad in traditional Indian attire.

Many of us believe the college admissions process has spiraled out of control. Plenty among us also feel that our education system has become too test-centric. And at the intersection of the two lies the SAT, the most dreaded, derided and feared test in the world. How loathed is the SAT? I googled the term "hate the SAT" and found chatrooms where anxious students unloaded their grievances against the college admissions test. It "ruins lives" was a typical comment. One YouTube video showed a student beating up his SAT study guide.

Q: Does God ever tell us to do something, or to believe something, that contradicts the Bible? A friend of mine says the Bible is out of date and we need to let the Spirit guide us in new directions, but I'm not so sure about that. — S.Y. * A: You're right to be skeptical of your friend's views — because God never tells us to do anything that He has clearly forbidden in His Word, the Bible. God does not change, and neither does His Word. After all, one reason God has given us His Word is so we can know what is true and right — and also what isn't true and right.

Cindy Dole and Marena Padden, grade-level advisors of the Newport Chapter of the National Charity League, hosted an event this week at the newly opened Hood Kitchen Space in Costa Mesa. More than 30 of the chapter's eighth-grade girls participated in an interactive cooking class led by Italian chef Marco Palazzo. The menu featured Italian regional cuisine. The venue was perfect for this mother-daughter evening and allowed the group ample space for the cooking demonstration and dining.

A successful Orange County interior designer with aspirations of catering to high-end shoppers has expanded his business to a new two-story showroom in Costa Mesa. Marc Pridmore Designs, 3089 Bristol St., displays a variety of furnishings but also offers custom flooring, drapery and interior design. The 42,000-square-foot showroom held its grand opening Thursday. FOR THE RECORD: This story has corrected the spelling of Marc Pridmore and Marc Pridmore Designs. Also, bedroom sets go up to $40,000, not bedding.

Visits from the Vienna Philharmonic and the Boston Pops Orchestra are a few of the highlights ahead in the 2013-14 Philharmonic Society of Orange County concert season. The season for the Irvine-based nonprofit, which has presented world-class music for the county's music lovers since 1954, is also the last for Dean Corey, its president and artistic director since 1993. Last summer, Corey told me he plans to retire in the south of France after a lifetime of organizing music in a behind-the-scenes capacity.

Matador Alcove is a place where men get to be, well, men. One step into the place and it's clear: top-shelf liquor prominently displayed on a bar, sports flickering on a television and plenty of dark, richly colored furniture and decor, including the key leather couch. A cave-like wooden door halts visitors, who, like at an underground speakeasy, must display the secret knock in order to be let in. Talk about a dream mancave. The mastermind is Costa Mesa resident David Zimmerman, 52. He opened the private gentleman's club — a cross between a hair salon and social club — at 333 E. 17th St. #4 about five years ago, coming up with the idea with stylist John Alanouf.

Whenever I hear people talk about the conniving, scheming nature of the media, it just makes me laugh. I spent enough time working at news organizations to know the closest thing true journalists have to an agenda is the desperate desire to meet brutal deadlines in understaffed newsrooms while figuring out how they'll pay their rent once talking heads and TMZ finally run real news-gathering organizations out of business. Manipulating the masses doesn't exactly figure prominently on the average reporter's list of priorities.