THE LEFT LANE
Pretzel's Easter twist

In the early days of the Roman Catholic Church, the rules of fasting did not allow meat, dairy products or eggs. Small breads made from flour, water and salt were made to accompany the simple meals of fish, fruits and vegetables. Around the year 610, European monasteries wanted to remind people that the season of Lent was a time for prayer, so they baked bread in the shape of a monk's arms folded across the chest in what was then the traditional posture of prayer. The Latin term for these was bracellae, or little arms. The word pretzel comes from the German word brezel or prezel. Traditionally, the pretzel was made on Ash Wednesday and often constituted midday meals until Easter Sunday.

Comic script a winner

Bob Duerr's comedy script, "No Money Down," has won the Actor Choice Award at the Santa Fe Screening Writing Contest.

Duerr, of Hilo's Kappa Productions, now is shopping for a producer for the Hawai'i-based comedy, about Mama Machida and her adopted son, a failed sumo prodigy, who lose their home to a con artist in a real estate deal, and are forced to push their homeless shopping cart to redemption and aloha.

Kappa Productions, an outdoor writing, film and TV company, has won Telly Awards for "Thrill Ride," a music video that opened the first Space Shuttle Convention, and for the U.S. Treasury Department's Year 2000 Savings Bond Campaign. Duerr previously acted in Randall Duk Kim's acting troupe.

In-your-face Kitty

Fortune magazine has reported that "serious women are bringing Hello Kitty products into the boardroom. Is this in-your-face girliness the next edge in business?" The "Office Kitty" article in the February issue observes that high-powered women in the corporate world are toting Hello Kitty pens and cell phones with Hello Kitty pink glitter faceplates.

Faith Popcorn, founder of Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve, a marketing consultancy in New York City, said in Fortune that "this trend may be perfectly in keeping with the reality of today's businesswoman, who, unlike her unfortunate floppy-tie-wearing predecessors, doesn't have to look like a man in order to climb the ladder like one." She also sees the girlie look as an act of defiance. "They're bringing cutesy into the corporate sanctum. They're saying, 'Screw you, suits!' It's a small but very public act of rebellion."

Cameron tries TV

James Cameron is probably most widely known for his stint as director of the sprawling, 11-Academy Award-winning 1997 film, "Titanic." Now Cameron, who serves as co-creator and executive producer of Fox's "Dark Angel," will make his TV-directing debut with the May 3 season finale of the series, which focuses on a genetically enhanced human prototype making a life for herself in 21st-century Seattle.