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Postcard from Arkansas

If you think ''Delta blues'' refers only to the music of Mississippi, you're missing part of the story. True, it was in Clarksdale, Miss., at the crossroads of Highways 49 and 61, that Robert Johnson is reputed to have sold his soul to the devil in return for his genius as a blue guitarist. But I turned north at Clarksdale and crossed the Mississippi River into Helena, Ark. That's where I found the rest of the story, still being told on a radio show that has been on the air since 1941.

The King Biscuit Time radio show is broadcast weekdays from the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, where Johnson spent much of his time. The center contains a permanent exhibit on the Delta blues and pays homage to Johnson, as well as Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Nighthawk, Robert Lockwood Jr., and others.

King Biscuit Time has been sponsoring a blues festival for more than 20 years. It has grown into a four-day event that in some years has drawn 100,000 people to Helena, a small, poor city that is one of the bluesiest stops

Postcard from Rhode Island

Sometimes we need to feed our fantasies, to see what would be possible if we were spectacularly rich -- say, if we won a really, really big Lotto jackpot. When I lived in California, I liked to drive by the sprawling Mediterranean-style mansions of Malibu, Beverly Hills and the Hollywood Hills. Now, visiting a cousin in Warwick, R.I., I set out for Newport, 30 miles away, to see some of America's original summer homes.

Newport, founded in 1639 and home port to the first U.S. Navy before the British destroyed the harbor, was the summer colony for the industrial magnates of the late 19th century. They built fabulous houses. The Breakers, owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt II, resembled a 16th century Italian palace, with 70 rooms. The Elms, built for coal mogul Edward Berwind, was modeled after the Chateau d'Asniere near Paris.

Rosecliff, built by the famed architect Stanford White, with an 80-foot ballroom, was Gatsby's mansion in the film The Great Gatsby . Marble House, owned by another Vanderbilt, was named

Postcard from Mississippi

The Mad Potter of Biloxi is headed for some pretty fancy digs designed by Frank O. Gehry, but I ''met'' him when he was still hanging out at the public library.

George E. Ohr, 1857-1918, was a Mississippi potter with a singular eye for design and an inclination for self-promotion. He dubbed himself ''The Mad Potter'' and claimed to be the greatest art potter on earth. His pottery -- he called his works ''mud babies . . . no two alike'' -- was in fact unusual. He crimped edges, poked holes and crumpled the curves of his paper-thin creations. Some now consider him the father of American art pottery.

I first learned of Ohr during a trip to Biloxi in 1999. Bored with playing blackjack in the just-opened Beau Rivage and uninterested in the usual alternatives -- golf and fishing -- I went to the Biloxi Library and Cultural Center, which had a large permanent exhibit of the Mad Potter's work. I was entranced.

A Fort Lauderdale lawyer's love for Highwaymen paintings keeps the spirit of Old Florida alive

How Fort Lauderdale lawyer Scott Schlesinger came to be one of the largest collectors of Highwaymen art began with boyhood memories of his father's Hollywood law office.

Sheldon Schlesinger's 1960s walls had been decorated with cheap but beguiling oils of Florida landscapes by some of the 26 mostly self-taught African-American artists from Fort Pierce who sold art from the trunks of their cars along the state's coastal roads. Today, these artists are known as the Highwaymen.

The images evoked by those paintings -- the deep-hued brilliance of poinciana trees, wind-swept palms bent against the foamy sea, backwoods roads at dusk -- would lie dormant within Schlesinger's memory for more than two decades before they reemerged.

Review | 'Trauma': a pointless drama

Trauma, 9-10 p.m. Monday, WTVJ-NBC 6

The Hollywood writers' strike has been over for more than a year now, but Trauma seems to be some sort of final shot across the studios' bow: See, guys, this is what a show would look like if you tried to make it without screenwriters.

Midair chopper collision! Massive freeway pileup! Gas-tanker explosion! Midair tracheotomy! Bullit -style car chase through the San Francisco hills! No intelligible dialogue! No discernible plot! No viewers! The death of network television! Chaos! Mass cannibalism! Cancellation of the Emmys!