THE BELL CURVE:Can’t please all of Newport

I’ve had this recurring dream for the last couple of months. In my dream, my calendar says 2017, and when I dig my morning newspaper out of the bushes and extract the Pilot, a front-page headline tells me that the 137th plan for a site to build a new city hall has just been voted down by the Newport Beach City Council.

Ah, but there is hope. The 138th plan is gathering strength, backed by federal funds and Mayor Steve Rosansky, who has changed the rules of succession and been mayor since 2006 under the banner of “This, too, shall pass.”

The dream plan would build an island in the Back Bay for the new city hall, with a connecting bridge to the mainland. This would completely avoid any mainland traffic or crowding problems, and would not displace any existing structures.

The only early opposition has come from the Audubon Society, which contends that the hot air thus generated will scare away much of the bird population.

Polls suggest that 51% of residents approve, but the council is evenly split, with one undecided.

I had that dream in what was left of Tuesday night, and when I awakened to the real world on Wednesday morning, I hurried to the TV set to see if Mayor Rosansky was still railing at the shabby thinking of the four council members who had just opted for the purity of a park behind the public library rather than Rosansky’s Park Plus plan that would have taken a bite out of the park to build a new city hall.

The vote seemed to reflect a strong feeling I shared — that trying to have it both ways simply doesn’t work.

Rather than everyone winning, it is more likely that everyone would lose. Speakers at Tuesday night’s council meeting were as evenly divided as council members — and a lot more civil. As the outcome became apparent, Rosansky railed at the park supporters while the room emptied. When he asked the departing backs, “Am I boring you?” the question was purely rhetorical.

So it’s back to square one for the council in its quest for the ideal site. There is clearly no solution possible with universal appeal, and the search for the closest answer should not depend on the 15% of voters who would turn out for a special election or a plan based on having it both ways.

It’s time to accept the fact that somebody is going to lose — and then get on with it.

Seeing those young kids, spiffed up like movie stars to attend an Oscar party at a local restaurant, on the front page of the Pilot on Monday reminded me of the 15 years my kids attended the real thing. Because I reviewed films and covered Hollywood for the National Observer, the now-defunct weekly stepchild of the Wall Street Journal, I got two tickets to the Academy Award ceremonies plus my press pass.

The suits are probably running a tighter ship now. But when I had these perks back in the ‘80s, the novelty — along with the walk up the red carpet accompanied by groans from the people in the bleachers who wanted movie stars, not the families of reporters — wore off, and my wife and three children began sharing their tickets. So a cluster of their close pals, and the three foreign students we hosted and a handful of my UC Irvine students got to hang out with movie stars in the lobby of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion before and after the show. And some of them still talk about it — especially Stephen Silverman, who is now an editor at People magazine and has written some fine biographies of motion picture royalty.

All this remembered history produced a feeling of nostalgia as I watched the Academy Awards at my extended-family annual Oscar bash, with increasing irritation at the sluggish pace. I couldn’t leave early because my ride home was determined to see it through, but I think if I had known at the two-hour mark that we were only a little over halfway done, I would have at least considered calling a cab.

The entertainment low point came when a special award — highly deserved — was given to a cinematographer, on camera, who didn’t speak English, and his halting, lengthy acceptance speech was painfully translated, sentence-by-sentence by Clint Eastwood, surely the highest-priced interpreter in human history.

Maybe the Oscar producers who make such decisions will ponder this year’s numbers — the third lowest viewership in the last 15 years and the high rate of drop-outs among viewers who sampled the show — when they are tempted to lay another four-hour wallow in self-congratulation on the faithful next year.

Me, I’m just glad I was around when the producers didn’t confuse overkill with entertainment.

If the name Annie Leibovitz is unfamiliar to you, I’d be willing to bet the farm that you’ve connected with her frequently over the last three decades — in the pages of America’s most prestigious magazines at one extremity and the halls of some of our finest museums at the other.

She has turned photography into an art form as creative as the finest paintings, and if you think that is excessive, you can check for yourself at San Diego’s Museum of Art where a traveling exhibit of Leibovitz’s finest work is on display until April 22. When Leibovitz came to town, I joined a press tour to study her work.

Turned out foul weather in New York delayed her arrival in San Diego, but the work was there and spoke eloquently for her.

It numbers almost 200 photographs that run the gamut from portraits of her family to a broad range of public figures to high-style advertising to striking reportage from world battlefields and domestic crises like Richard Nixon’s resignation.

Nothing is stock. The tiniest detail is significant in all of her work, whatever the subject.

The museum in Balboa Park is a little over an hour’s drive from Newport-Mesa, and I strongly recommend the Leibovitz exhibition to you. She was recently designated a living legend by the Library of Congress. A few hours with her work will tell you why.