Parody

Del. Nancy Jacobs, the Harford County legislator who distributed a parody over the Internet this week that was criticized as racist, has apologized to her colleagues, saying it "breaks my heart" that she offended people."

A Republican delegate from Harford County came under heavy criticism yesterday for distributing over the Internet a parody that fellow legislators described as insensitive at best and "pretty overt racism" at worst.Del. Nancy Jacobs, one of the most conservative members of the House of Delegates, used the General Assembly's computer system Tuesday to send a purported "liberal version" of the Aesop fable of "The Ant and the Grasshopper" to about 50 Internet users across the country.The parody, which includes references to the "NAAGB (The National Association for the Advancement of Green Bugs)

Sights and sounds from the Greater Patapsco Drainage Basin: Craig Maki reached for a handful of change to give the toll collector at the Harbor Tunnel. "It was a dollar's worth of nickels, dimes and quarters," Craig says. "I start to drive away and the toll collector stops me, comes out of his booth -- I thought I had shorted him or something -- and he hands me a penny and says something like, 'You gave me too much.' " . . . In Dickeyville, Skip Kolaja heard a car with one of those talking security systems -- "You're too close.

Boston -- It happened just in the nick of time. Monday morning, the United States Supreme Court came down unanimously on the side of parody. The justices ruled that 2 Live Crew's sendup of a classic that turned ''Oh, Pretty Woman'' into ''Big Hairy Woman'' wasn't necessarily an infringement of the copyright laws.This is an enormous relief to everyone who has ever imitated or ridiculed somebody else's style. But it also must be a great source of comfort to those creative forces in the capital who are busily trying to turn Whitewater into Watergate.

WASHINGTON -- In a ruling that could further liberate songwriting as a form of social criticism, the Supreme Court lowered yesterday the legal risks faced by composers who borrow music or words from a song for a new version that pans or ridicules the original.The unanimous decision appeared to go far toward rescuing musical parodies from legal action under federal copyright law, and to give wider legal leeway for comic parodists like television's Mark Russell.The ruling involved the rap group 2 Live Crew's rewrite of the classic Roy Orbison-William Dees rock 'n' roll ballad, "Oh, Pretty Woman."

For those who just love Martha Stewart, and for those who have seen, heard and read more of this domestic queen than they can bear, there's a new publication that both will adore."

In "Starcarbon," as in her National Book Award-winning "Victory Over Japan and her "Net of Jewels," Ellen Gilchrist offers us the voice of the modern world. Her perspective and tone are comic, always ready to resume the minimalist view when her characters come close to ruining their own or others' lives."Starcarbon" continues the story of the Hand family. The characters are parodies of 1990s losers, consumed by immediate need but willing to struggle.There is Helen, the smothered mother who leaves her husband and five children, only to seek pregnancy and marriage with another man. Then there is Olivia, the long-lost, half-American-Indian daughter of Daniel, the family alcoholic.

WASHINGTON -- In a ruling that could further liberate songwriting as a form of social criticism, the Supreme Court lowered yesterday the legal risks faced by composers who borrow music or words from a song for a new version that pans or ridicules the original.The unanimous decision appeared to go far toward rescuing musical parodies from legal action under federal copyright law, and to give wider legal leeway for such comic parodists as television's Mark Russell.The ruling involved the rap group 2 Live Crew's rewrite of the classic Roy Orbison-William Dees rock 'n' roll ballad, "Oh, Pretty Woman."

WASHINGTON -- For the first time, the Supreme Court pondered yesterday the right of performers to make fun of someone else's song with a parody. But it did so in totally unfamiliar cultural territory: the worlds of rap and rock 'n' roll.Dealing with tunes their children or grandchildren would more easily recognize, the justices kept mainly to the legal questions -- except for a passing remark by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wondering whether it was musical progress to translate "rock" into "rap."

A fitness expert says the best way to stay healthy is to get your minimum daily requirement of yuks. And most of us suffer from a humor deficiency."When people hear laughter, it's not something they take seriously," says Dr. Brian L. Seaward, 35, a professor of fitness and health at American University. But they should.Studies show that up to 70 percent of all disease and illness is stress-related, he told a relaxed lunchtime audience at Johns Hopkins University yesterday. And the best antidote to stress, he said, is a steady diet of one-liners, cartoons and comedies.

Cry-Baby, which officially opened at New York's Marquis Theatre on Thursday night, may have emerged from the same twisted pop-culture DNA as that earlier megahit, Hairspray, but critics aren't exactly embracing it as a second flowering of John Waters-inspired genius. Some have labeled it truly awful, while at least one critic raved. Most seem to find it OK, if not extraordinary. Few are predicting a hit anywhere near the level of Hairspray, which won eight Tonys in 2003 and was turned into a 2007 movie that grossed nearly $120 million in the U.S. alone.

Meet the Spartans, a parody free-for-all somewhat inspired by 300, was not screened for critics.

So now it would seem, from watching Balls of Fury, that Christopher Walken has joined the legion of stand-up comics, student actors and bar-stool mimics trolling for laughs by doing bad Christopher Walken impressions. This isn't necessarily a complaint. If anyone's earned the right to pan-fry his image, it's Walken. Even when hip-deep in the throes of broad self-parody, Walken almost justifies the existence of a fumble-footed knockoff like Balls of Fury. He plays Feng, a villainous outlaw table-tennis kingpin who dresses like Fu Manchu and talks like somebody doing a bad impression of ... well, we don't have to pound it into the floorboards, do we?

A company's reaction to its critics can tell us a lot, and in that regard, the owners of the virtual world Second Life told us plenty last week. Created and run by Linden Lab, Second Life is an anomaly among immersive online sites: It's often as scorned as it is popular. Its growth since its public launch in 2003 has been phenomenal, claiming more than 1 million "residents," and those numbers are all the more impressive considering that Second Life is not a game by traditional standards.

Guy wakes up in a hotel room with no memory of who he is, or why there's a dead body next to him, or where the suitcase full of money came from. Code Name: The Cleaner sounds like a parody of The Bourne Identity, and it's clearly envisioned as a star vehicle for Cedric the Entertainer. But it's not funny enough to work as parody, and Cedric has yet to show he has the chops to carry a film. Code Name: The Cleaner (New Line Cinema) Starring Cedric the Entertainer, Lucy Liu, Nicollette Sheridan.

Andy Baio isn't trying to pick a fight with Bill Cosby. Rather, he says, his recent legal tangle with the comedian is a matter of principle. Several months ago, Baio, the operator of Waxy.org, came across a set of animated videos online called House of Cosbys. The goofy and sometimes vulgar parodies revolve around the adventures that ensue from a house full of Bill Cosby clones. (Think South Park-style humor here.) The freely distributed cartoons from animator Justin Roiland were an instant hit with thousands of people.

Aaron Peckham is, by his own definition, an "enginerd." But this is one software engineer who loves earthly argot as much as cyber-coding. Peckham, 24, compiles the cultish compendium of old-school and fresh-from-the-street slang known as Urbandictionary .com. Last month, the best of the site was published in the real world - or meatspace, as the cyber-dudes call it. Although the 300,000 Web entries are pared to 2,000 for Urban Dictionary: Fularious Street Slang Defined (Andrews McMeel, $12.95)

Several months ago, Jeff Poirier witnessed firsthand the power of the magnetic ribbon bumper sticker. Poirier and his friends, who now run the Boston-based Web site SupportOurRibbons.com, decided the stick-on ribbon-with-a-message fad was widespread enough to start a business mocking it. So earlier this year, they thought up four parody slogans - "Support Our Ribbons," "I Support More Troops Than You," "One Nation Under Ribbons" and "My Ribbon is Better Than Your Ribbon" - ordered a wholesale shipment and put them up for sale online.

First came Paul vs. John, which begat Dirk vs. Nasty, which begat Eric vs. Neil. Monty Python member Eric Idle and comedic songwriter Neil Innes were the close friends and collaborators who created the Rutles three decades ago as a parody of the Beatles -- a very popular band, you may recall, whose bitter breakup left close friends/collaborators Paul McCartney and John Lennon at each others' throats. In the wake of the recently released straight-to-DVD The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch, Idle, who plays McCartney stand-in Dirk McQuickly, and Innes, who plays Lennon stand-in Ron Nasty and wrote the Rutles' dead-on parody songs, are still going at it. "Neil is a clever and gifted singer and songwriter who's determined to be a failure, and his determination succeeds," volleyed Idle, who wrote and co-directed the 1978 NBC special All You Need Is Cash and made a virtual solo project out of the new sequel.

Not everyone will love the profane and scatological Drawn Together. But there's a good chance Comedy Central's target demographic - the younger folk who eat up Jon Stewart's The Daily Show and have made Chappelle's Show a sketch-comedy sensation - are already finding Drawn to their liking. The animated show is a sometimes deft, sometimes dirty parody of reality TV and the animation genre. Drawn (10:30 p.m. Wednesdays) depicts eight characters living in the kind of tackily decorated house viewers recognize from The Real World or Big Brother.