The mighty Quinn

On YouTube, Quinn Sullivan looks like a guitar-playing prodigy, a precocious kid channeling Eric Clapton. On the phone, he sounds like every other 9-year-old boy from New Bedford. Well, sort of. "I've played with Buddy Guy four times," Sullivan says. "He's like my best friend." The mighty Quinn, as his parents call him, has become an ace guitarist since picking up the instrument five years ago. (He got interested after listening to a Beatles greatest-hits collection.) Sullivan's been on TV with both Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey, with whom he sat down a few weeks ago. "Oprah was awesome," says the third-grader. "Really nice." Like a lot of kids, Quinn says he wants to be a rock star, but in his case there's reason to think he might actually achieve his goal, and sooner rather than later. "Buddy Guy's my idol, but I want to be like Clapton, like how he is now," says Sullivan, aware apparently that EC's had his ups and downs. To celebrate his appearance on Oprah, Sullivan's parents invited several of their son's pals for cake. "We had a very fun time," he said.

If anyone was questioning the commercial viability of the reunited New Kids on the Block, looks like the man band might end up selling a few records. "Summertime," the new single from Donnie Wahlberg, Joey McIntyre, Danny Wood, and Jonathan and Jordan Knight, is this week's highest debut on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. You can credit the New Kids' sales surge to iTunes, where "Summertime" racked up up almost 39,000 downloads last week.

All you "Narnia" nerds should check out "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion." The behind-the-scenes book is written by Ernie Malik, a veteran Hollywood publicist who was on the set for all 136 days of shooting. Malik, who's in town for several weeks working on "The Surrogates," told us the "Narnia" set cast an uncommon spell on the actors and crew. "Six couples met on the first film and they're all either married or still together," he said. But you won't read about those romances in the book. Malik wrote a chapter titled "Falling in Love in Narnia," but it ended up on the cutting-room floor.

For causes big and small, Ben Affleck continues to put his celebrity to good use. The actor will be in West Virginia in the fall to raise money for an athletic complex in his wife's hometown. Ben and his bride, Jennifer Garner, will be honorary hosts of a fund-raiser Sept. 19 at the University of Charleston, according to the school's president, Ed Welch.

Alice Cooper showed up at the Wayland Country Club yesterday looking more like a suburban dad than the shock-rock singer of "School's Out." Now 60 years old, Cooper was sans eyeliner and wearing a V-neck sweater and golf shoes. "I'm usually on the tee every morning at 6:30 a.m.," Cooper told us. "I took up golf 26 years ago when I quit drinking. . . . I just traded one addiction for another." Yesterday the Billion Dollar Baby knocked the ball around at WZLX's benefit tourney for Shriners Hospital for Children and, believe it or not, he's not half bad. In fact, he's a four handicap. "I take it seriously," he said. Back in the day, Cooper kept his golf obsession closeted, concerned that his hardcore fans might think he'd gone soft. Not anymore. Cooper's loud and proud on the links. "It's the perfect game for a guy on tour," he said. "You wake up in Wichita and there's nothing to do except golf." If you're wondering whether he walks or rides a cart around the course, Cooper confessed that he's all about creature comfort these days. "Hell, if I could take a '69 Mustang out there, I would."

Grad student Larissa Kelly (inset), who grew up in Newton, made some history on "Jeopardy!" this week. Kelly, 28, became the highest-money-winning woman in the game show's long history, tallying $146,197 in just four games. Kelly, who attends UC-Berkeley, will try to extend her winning streak next week.

Father's Day arrived early for Gloucester Stage Company founding director Israel Horovitz (left), who was surprised when his son, Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz (right), showed up the other night at New York's Westside Theatre for an evening of readings by the New York Playwrights Lab. Seems no one told Dadrock that Adrock was hosting the event.

It's all work for Mark Wahlberg (left), who was in Berlin this week with director M. Night Shyamalan (right) to promote their new film, "The Happening." The Dorchester-bred actor's got four more films in the works, including "The Brazilian Job," "The Fighter," "The Lovely Bones," and "Max Payne."

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