Elephants don't forget, either

Loosely Speaking by Nancy Gaines

LOOSELY SPEAKING

Why is former US congressman Peter Torkildsen (a six-year state rep and North Shore Republican who supported Governor Paul Cellucci) without a nifty patronage job this season -- and, it seems, without anything? His phone doesn't even answer. And this while so many other GOPs and deflected Dems have been well rewarded by the gov. When Torkildsen ran last year to recapture his congressional seat, which he'd lost in 1996 to John Tierney in the second of two breathtakingly close elections, he used what were perceived as anti-union ads. They pissed off Boston union leader George Cashman, a major Cellucci contributor. Cashman reportedly asked Torkildsen to pull the ads, but he didn't.

Never mind that Torkildsen ran for lieutenant governor against Cellucci in 1990. And sued Bill Weld and Cellucci over their right to run together.

King of the gotchas Leslie Epstein, the BU creative-writing head and prize-winning author of King of the Jews (his eighth novel is due in September), appears not only to have gotten mad at, but also even with, the New York Times' Michiko Kakutani. In a fictive epistolary flourish in the April issue of Harper's, Epstein -- under his nom de plume, Leib Goldkorn -- damns with fustian praise the influential, politically proper Kakutani, who has panned him in the past. Epstein's prolix evocation of Vladimir Nabokov -- appearing the same month as the reissue of Speak, Memory, commemorating the 100th birthday of Lolita's creator -- fearlessly chases every ethnic stereotype he can net. There's a "Nipponese cleaning lady," "a far-flung Finn," a "woman of heft . . . a cup number C," a "definitely hairless . . . old Jew . . . who must make water eight times in the night," and assorted other items that Nabokov -- who lived for years in Cambridge, taught at Wellesley, and was, most formidably, the keeper of the butterfly collection at the Peabody Museum -- would have cherished.

What a drag

The joke was on Peter Mueller, sixtyish veteran bad boy of the cocktail crowd, when he recently wound up sharing his flirtatious ways with a transvestite named Evil. With long blond hair, makeup, and androgynous clothes, Evil looked for all the world like a gal as he and Mueller cozied, fondled, and kissed at the bar at 29 Newbury. Never mind that some patrons, who'd earlier been at a drag-queen party, knew Evil's gender. No one clued in Mueller, whose habit of telling off-color, anti-gay, and sexist jokes is known to offend people. After he found out, Mueller said he had two choices: throw the "thing" (as he referred to Evil) through the plate-glass window, or try to forget about it.

The long good-bye

The bitter, drawn-out divorce trial of 29 Newbury restaurateurs George Lewis and Debbie Lewis seems, at long last, to be over, although the terms will not be public, says George Lewis. Testimony in the split -- which court sources said included arguments over their 10-year-old son, the multimillions in George's trust funds (he's a Saltonstall), their $2 million-plus home in Sherborn, the popular Back Bay restaurant, Debbie's posh family house on Nantucket, and George's holdings in Lansdowne Street nightclubs -- took almost 10 months. At one point, Debbie Lewis was heard to say she intended to write a book about the ordeal -- alluding to society chronicler Dominick Dunne's The Two Mrs. Grenvilles -- recasting herself and her in-laws as The Three Mrs. Lewises.

Perhaps for an encore he'll part the Red Sea

Producers of Providence, the NBC-TV ratings hit, promised Mayor Buddy Cianci they'd make his city look good -- if Cianci helped. And he has, by halting construction work at a location shoot, closing a hurricane barrier in order to pump up a river, and appearing in a cameo touting the state's Johnson & Wales University (as well as his own brand of spaghetti sauce). The colorful Cianci -- who had a "food fight" three years ago with Boston mayor Tom Menino over their culinary skills -- joked recently that the mayor of Baltimore had asked him how he got a great show like Providence to come to the city. Said Mayor Kurt Schmoke, according to Cianci: "I have a great skyline, beautiful scenery, and I've got a show, too -- it's called Homicide."

Ahead of his time

The national food and philanthropic communities were shocked to learn last Thursday of the death of Stephen Elmont, whose entrepreneurial style -- and business acumen -- helped change the way Boston eats. Elmont, 54, who dropped dead of an apparent heart attack in Miami, founded the city's first high-style catering service, Creative Gourmet, 25 years ago. After selling his business, which serviced Kennedys, captains of industry, and social lions, in 1989, Elmont devoted himself to community service. A man of diminutive stature, finely tailored suits, and artistic instincts, Elmont was brought in by the founders of Boston Chicken four years ago to help boost that local chain to national prominence. And, as he recently noted, he got out (in 1997) before the company fell from grace. In 1993-'94, Elmont was chairman of the board of the National Restaurant Association. But Elmont may be most appreciated locally for running, with his wife Linda Schwabe, the Newbury Street restaurant Mirabelle in the mid-1990s. While that restaurant helped vitalize the city's gourmet-bistro business, it fell victim to the proliferation of competitors it spawned, a poignant postscript that Elmont's local obituaries failed to note.

Native intelligence

Bethany van Delft, well-known club gal, exhibits her standup gig next week on Channel 2's Basic Black. . . . Consider the fancy-schmantzy Ritz-Carlton patron who, taking oh-so-literally hotel policy that the front desk must answer within four rings, failed to get an answer by the third ring and called the cops to ask if there had been a burglary -- and got Boston's finest to respond. . . . In our enthusiasm to promote hometown superathlete and University of Kentucky basketball star Wayne Turner in last week's column, we mistakenly wrote that Kentucky won the championship the past two years. They won last year but placed second to Arizona in '97. Turner, a point guard, hails from Mission Hill and was a high-school star at Newton's Beaver Country Day School. He was recruited by Celtics coach Rick Pitino when Pitino coached Kentucky and starred in the Final Four in 1997, and again in 1998, and did damn okay in the (predictable) Kentucky loss this year. We enjoy the opportunity to mention him again.