N.Y. Shows Model Its Better Side

She’s taken to wearing a button to stem the constant questions and she’s not sure all of the job offers are sincere, but model Marla Hanson, whose face was slashed with razors in an attack that she testified was vengeance, says she’s amazed at the “nice side” she’s seeing to New York. “The best thing is the reaction of the people,” she said. “People have been so nice--a lot of thumbs up, a lot of smiles, a lot of gifts.” Hanson, whose plastic surgeon testified that facial muscles were damaged, preventing her from smiling, beamed broadly at a press conference after the conviction of her former landlord for commissioning the attack. Hanson, 25, said she is relieved that Steven Roth’s trial is over. “I’m trying to focus on the fact that I’m really lucky to be walking around and lucky that I can resume my career. I think the worst thing (about the experience) is being labeled ‘the slashed model,’ or ‘the victim,’ ” she said. Although she has made some career moves, such as signing an option for a movie, Hanson said she’s being cautious. “I’ve a lot of offers, some crazy and some sincere. I’m trying to sort them out.”

--It may have died out because of the commercial connotations, but the traditional yuletide greeting in the Old South was “Christmas gift!” not “Merry Christmas,” says Mary Lee Sims, 39, of Marietta, Ga. Sims remembered her mother using the greeting and wrote to a periodical, asking whether others also recalled the salutation. She received scores of letters, mostly from writers in their 80s and 90s, who told her that its use started in the South during slavery days, although others said it came from “the old country” and that it was a Scottish, Welsh, Quaker or Irish custom. Sims seemed most drawn to the explanation that it referred to God’s gift in the birth of Christ. “My mother always used the greeting and, knowing her and her faith, I would think this is why she used it,” Sims said.

--Sources contacted by the Jamestown Post-Journal in New York probably won’t believe it when they get a call from reporter Mario M. Cuomo on a story. But the governor is planning to spend a day as a journalist in a role exchange proposed by the newspaper’s columnist. “What I am offering the governor--with my editor’s permission--is a chance to spend one morning on deadline here, writing one simple story for our readers and readers statewide,” Tim O’Brien had written in his column. Cuomo, who quickly took up the gauntlet, said “he doesn’t know how to type, but he’s already thinking of story ideas,” said spokeswoman Anne Crowley. “He’s sure he can help to make calls, do some legwork on a story.”