Kiss

It worked for "Roseanne" and ABC earlier this year. When Roseanne shared a kiss with a character played by Mariel Hemingway in an episode titled "The Kiss," it was the highest-rated "Roseanne" of the year.And now, it's working for Fox and "Melrose Place" with an episode some in Hollywood are calling "Son of The Kiss," which may or may not show Doug Savant's character sharing a kiss with another gay character tonight.Make no mistake, Fox and the producers of "Melrose Place" are practicing textbook hype with the will-they-or-won't-they?

It's time for us to "take stock" of the presidential election campaign, so that we, as voters, can make an informed decision about how much vodka we will need to get through it. In case you haven't been paying attention, here are the two top issues in this race so far, based on media coverage: 1. Al Gore's decision to kiss his wife, Tipper, on the mouth. 2. George W. Bush's decision to refer to a New York Times reporter by the nickname of another bodily aperture. That's right, voters: The theme of this presidential campaign is: "Orifices Making News."

In the soft autumn mist, the Tokyo parks are filled with young couples strolling together, doing what, more or less, their parents, grandparents and great ancestors have all done before.It would all merge into the hazy fog if not for the jarring new act known to occur. A kiss.Traditionally, the Japanese don't. Not in public. Not, it is said, even in private. Pornographic videos are sold at convenience stores, and there's nudity on late-night television. But lip-to-lip contact is something else.

To honor a year's worth of devotion to mayhem, anarchy, cool comics and alternative press, Atomic Books on Read Street is celebrating its first anniversary tonight in a way appropriate to a place dedicated to "literary finds for mutated minds." They've hired 11 local bands to perform at a local nightclub, playing nothing but old Kiss and Devo songs."It should be a fun party," said Scott Huffines, twentysomething owner, manager and sole employee of the funky book store. "There's been so much hype.

He never kissed Jennifer Hudson. This week on American Idol, the scroogy Simon Cowell was so impressed with Lakisha Jones' rendition of a Bon Jovi song that he kissed the contestant from Fort Meade. "You rose to the challenge, you absolutely nailed it," Cowell told Jones before smooching her. "And nice lips." A kiss may be just a kiss, but some, perhaps like Cowell's and Jones', belong in a Hall of Fame: Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty: Last month, mobs in India burned Gere in effigy after the silver-haired American dipped and kissed the Bollywood actress in New Delhi.

Don't deny it. Sometime or other, just about everyone would like to trade places with someone else. You look at a young woman, and she seems to have her whole life in front of her. You look at an old man, and he seems to have the world figured out.What you don't see is that the woman is actually terrified of life, and the man is sick and has only a short time to live.Craig Lucas' "Prelude to a Kiss," currently receiving a hauntingly evocative production at Theatre Hopkins, examines this grass-is-always-greener theory, along with the equally intriguing question of how well one person can ever really know another.

A senior at the Naval Academy has been grounded until graduation after he was found guilty of making unwanted sexual advances toward a female classmate, academy officials confirmed yesterday.The male midshipman was accused of waking a sleeping female classmate early in the morning of Jan. 17 and attempting to kiss her. He left her room in the Bancroft Hall dormitory after she refused his advances.The 21-year-old student, whom academy officials would not identify, has been restricted to Bancroft Hall except for military duty and classes for 60 days, said Cmdr.

Northwest Middle School principal Bronson Jones has promised to kiss a pig when his students complete 500,000 minutes of extra reading this fall.His promise is part of a motivational scheme to get students to enjoy reading, and to read more often, according to the school's reading specialist, Nancy Beimler.Ms. Beimler has challenged the students to "read across the country," starting in Oregon and ending in New Jersey. Each part of the route represents 100,000 minutes of reading.When the kids "cross" the Mississippi, Mr. Jones will kiss the pig.Ms.

Dennis and Barbara Rainey have six kids, ages 6 to 20, and they want each to experience their first kiss right after the minister says, "I pronounce you man and wife."Their goal for their children is that they arrive at the marriage bed as innocents, not just technically virgin.The Raineys, Christian broadcasters from Little Rock, Ark., state this goal with conviction, but with some trepidation. They are out there, and they know it."When we prepared this set of broadcasts, Barbara and I felt horribly vulnerable," says Mr. Rainey, executive director of Family Life Today, heard locally on WAVA (105.

The performances have been getting better and better over September Song's 18 years. And this year's is the best.Cole Porter's wonderful "Kiss Me, Kate" opened Friday night at Westminster Senior High School to a large, enthusiastic audience.While it is somewhat surprising that we had to wait 18 years for vintage Porter, it was worth the wait.Producer Arnie Hayes and new director, Stan Ziolkowski, along with veteran musical director MaryLee Schmall, have dealt with the many challenges offered by the marvelous score and time-tested story by Porter and Sam and Bella Spewack, writers of the book.