Gangster

AUSTIN, Texas -- Fourteen months after an inner-city Housto teen-ager aimed his 9mm gun at the neck of a Texas state trooper outside Victoria and pulled the trigger, the question before the court is this: Does life imitate rap?The answer will reverberate nationwide from the Austin courtroom -- from the boardrooms of the record industry to the mean streets of gangster rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur. It will be felt from the small Texas town of the trooper's widow to the jail cell of Ronald Ray Howard, a reputed cocaine dealer and seventh-grade dropout who killed the officer.

Twenty-five years ago Al Pacino was walking down Sunset Boulevard with some friends when he passed a revival theater showing Scarface, the 1932 classic directed by Howard Hawks and written by Ben Hecht about the rise and fall of a Chicago gangster, played by Paul Muni. Pacino promptly purchased a ticket. "I had been wanting to see it since '74, when I had done a workshop production of Arturo Ui," said Pacino, referring to Bertolt Brecht's Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, a thinly veiled fable about Hitler's rise to power set in the world of Chicago gangsters.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- Race continues to pervade the American consciousness in subtly pernicious ways, making us an edgier and ever more divided country, and there are many little signs that it's getting worse. But here and there are a few big signs that suggest the opposite, and they're as welcome as the first shafts of sunlight after a storm.Last Sunday the Washington Post gave about a page of space to a young black reporter's reflections on the indirect racism he sees everywhere about him. He didn't mean the name-calling bigotry of the past, he explained, but the race-based responses of white taxi drivers to blacks seeking to hail them, of white women finding themselves alone in elevators with black men, of whites of all sorts confronted by black belligerence.

Children's author Kevin O'Malley will know within 10 days whether his "gangster" version of the old folk tale, "Froggy Went A-Courtin' ," will be restored to Baltimore County elementary school libraries.Phyllis Bailey, associate superintendent for educational support services, listened for more than an hour yesterday as Israel Weitzman of Pikesville explained his complaint that led to the book's being banned in the spring. O'Malley rebutted the arguments, and school officials explained the procedure they used to remove the book.

"Cagney," by John McCabe. Knopf. 439 pages. $27.50.Actor James Cagney was a man of contradictions.On screen he personified restless energy and lurking violence, but off screen he was a quiet, introspective, private man who wrote poetry, painted and backed environmental causes.In an industry known for promiscuity and excess, Cagney was faithfully married for 65 years; he avoided parties and rarely drank alcohol. He maintained lifelong personal and professional relationships with his three brothers and one sister, but his minimal contact with his adopted children eventually led to estrangement.

WASHINGTON -- Critics of vulgar, violent, gangster-style rap music make a mistake when they write off rap stars as stupid, immoral and self-destructive. They may be immoral and self-destructive, but they're not stupid. As one of my readers observed in a thoughtful e-mail, they're making a rational economic choice. The reader wrote: "I had to stop and ask this question to myself: `Would I call my mother a `ho' or my sister a `bitch' if I could make a couple of million dollars and get out of poverty and live a pretty good life?"

IF YOU thought ''GoodFellas'' was violent, wait until you see ''Miller's Crossing.'' When it comes to bloodshed, this one has the Martin Scorsese film beat a mile.That, however, is about the only area in which the new film beats the Scorsese film. Its trouble is that it isn't able to settle on any particular mood. It wants to be brutal and is. It also wants to be funny and is not.''GoodFellas'' is funny, in part, but the humor is the natural sort. The humor in ''Miller's Crossing'' is self-conscious, contrived and never that successful.

One of the many, many things we film scribblers will have to answer for when we go before the Big Critic in the Sky is the ruination of Abel Ferrara. Once upon a time, he was a good solid exploitation filmmaker, with such sensational atrocities to his credit as "Ms. .45" and "The King of New York."Then, with "The Bad Lieutenant," he was discovered by the literati and the A guys started writing exegesis rather than reviews. Instead of saying, "It hits with the ramrod slam of a red hot fireplace poker!"

Talk about a marathon window-shopping session: three full days spent prowling the 1,200 showrooms in the 15-story Atlanta Apparel Mart during the annual fall fashion market last month.Here are some trends and neat things spotted on the racks, runways and backs of manufacturers' reps and buyers.* Trendiest footwear to team with your new pantsuit: Cowboy boots.* Simplest way to update last year's long jacket: Cinch it with a wide, big-buckle belt.* Cheapest way to look chic next fall: Buy an inexpensive ($15 or so)

New York -- When is this guy going to fail? This success stuff is really getting boring. He just keeps churning out the hits. Where's the drama? Where's the giddy existential edge of doom, the bold streak of self-loathing?But no. Clumpa-clumpa, another hit. Maybe not so big a hit and then again maybe a really big hit. But very quietly, "Bugsy" is looking like it'll be another one.Or can he at least get an entourage? Say, 20 guys in Armani suits and nuclear mousse who run around saying, "Barry can't see you now" and laugh oh-so-loudly at the boss' excellent jokes and hover obediently to add fresh cubes to his Pellegrino and point out to everybody how brilliant he is?