Hooping it up

By Mark Shanahan and Paysha Rhone, Globe Staff  |  August 21, 2008

Celtics guard Eddie House and retired legend Cedric Maxwell presented Randolph mom Eden Fignole with her dream yesterday: A place where her kids, nieces, and nephews can play basketball and stay safe. The Fignole family, which includes Eden, her sister, and their six children, ages 10 to 17, got a driveway "Home Court" makeover from the team and RE/MAX of New England. Their driveway was transformed with a sealant, Celtics logo, painted key and 3-point line, new hoop, ball racks, and basketballs. The kids also got their own customized jerseys before heading to Randolph High School for a clinic with the b-ballers. "Eddie House was in my driveway this morning! I'm very excited abut it," said Fignole, who wrote an essay to win the court. She wrote that her sister is recovering from breast cancer and needs a peaceful home with the kids playing safely outside. The kids - and their neighborhood friends - are diehard fans, Fignole said. "I have a little Celtics team in my yard every day."

Matt Damon and wife Luciana are parents times three; the couple welcomed their new daughter, Gia Zavala, yesterday. "Everyone's doing great," Damon's rep, Jennifer Allen, told People. "She is a healthy baby girl." That makes a house full of women for the Cambridge star, who already has 2-year-old Isabella and 10-year-old stepdaughter Alexia. The Miami Herald reported yesterday that the Damons have been holed up at Memorial Regional Hospital in Broward since Tuesday. Meanwhile, on the other coast, a coy Jennifer Garner finally confirmed she and Ben Affleck are giving Violet a sibling. When Tony Potts of "Access Hollywood" congratulated her on baby no. 2, Garner answered, "Oh, I'm not pregnant. I just had a lot of carbs for breakfast. It's just - what do they call it? A breakfast pouch?" But she soon relented with a "thank you," adding "We're so excited, obviously." Garner told Potts the rampant speculation over her pregnancy makes her giggle. "It always makes me laugh when people say 'Is she?' 'Isn't she?' It's like, eventually you will know, so just chill out for a minute," she said. Still a mystery? The baby's sex.

Want a front seat on Boston Ballet's first tour of Korea? Ballerina Sarah Wroth (inset) will be blogging about her experiences at www.bostonballet.org. She plans to start writing and posting photos when the dancers take off Saturday. Artistic director Mikko Nissinen will lead the company in performing three repertory works in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do: George Balanchine's "Concerto Barocco," Christopher Wheeldon's "Polyphonia," and Twyla Tharp's "In the Upper Room."

The Red Sox wives are getting all gussied up for their seventh annual fashion show, From Fenway to the Runway. The Red Sox Foundation benefit extravaganza and luncheon will be held on Sept. 12 at Natick Collection. So far, the guest list is looking tres chic. Liz Brunner of WCVB-TV will emcee, while Tiffany Ortiz, Shonda Schilling, Bertha Lowell, Dawn Timlin, Ashley Papelbon, Jacque Francona, Yuka Okajima, Georgia Nua, Maria Crisp, and Kelli Pedroia will strut the catwalk.

Former Go Go Belinda Carlisle treated herself right while in Boston. (She played at the Bank of America Pavilion last night with other '80s acts.) Carlisle dropped by Mario Russo salon on consecutive days, first for a color treatment and blow dry, and then for a mani/pedi and a blow dry. Our lips are sealed. . . . Eric Clapton's yacht the Blue Guitar has been docked on Martha's Vineyard for a few days.

Never mind the breakfast of champions, what's the wedding dinner of champions? At least in the case of Celts star Ray Allen, it's scrumptious. Ben deForrest and Stacy Reilly, partners in the Martha's Vineyard restaurant Balance, prepared the menu for Ray's weekend wedding to girlfriend Shannon Walker Williams, and it included rib-eye, lobster, and chicken, with deep-fried mac and cheese, scallops, and corn risotto. (The cake was courtesy of Cakes by Liz on the island.) "It was a labor of love for us, just a great day," said deForrest. "We tried to provide exactly what they wanted."

Turns out Joshua Allen, recent winner of "So You Think You Can Dance," has a local tie: The Texas dancer attended the School at Jacob's Pillow in 2006, studying under Richard Gonzalez and Rosemarie Roberts in an intense two-week cultural dance program. "It was amazing," said the 19-year-old hip-hopper, who heard about the Becket dance center through a choreographer he worked with at Six Flags in Texas. "It was on a mountain. It was like being at a dance resort." Pillow aside, Allen's spent little time in dance classes. So he was especially happy that he and Stephen Laurel Boss, a.k.a. Twitch, were the last two standing on the Fox reality show - two street dancers with little formal training. "He's a cool dude," said Allen (above, during his time at the Pillow). "We didn't have animosity toward each other." Good thing - they'll be on a top 10 contestant tour together soon. And we're sure Allen will have his own little cheering section when he performs at Boston's Agganis Arena on Oct. 29-30. "We're all very excited for him," said Mariclare Hulbert, Jacob's Pillow communications coordinator. "I'm sure we'll put together a group of people and go."

As you might expect, celebrated historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. accumulated quite a few books during his lifetime - 12,000, to be exact. What to do with them all? That's John Wronoski's job. After Schlesinger's death last year at the age of 89, the owner of Lame Duck Books in Harvard Square arranged to donate the bulk of the books to the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, where the Kennedy confidante was on the faculty. But the most valuable volumes in the impressive collection are being catalogued. One, on display now at Wronoski's shop, is particularly poignant. It's a collection of inaugural addresses by presidents from George Washington to John F. Kennedy. The book is inscribed: "For Arthur Schlesinger jr. - The President was going to give you this for Christmas - Please accept it now from me - With my deepest appreciation for your devotion to Jack - and all our shining memories of him." It's signed "Jackie" and dated "December 1963." (JFK was assassinated the month before.) "It's very moving," says Wronoski. And expensive. The book is priced at $35,000. But that's not the costliest item in the shop. That'd be the manuscript for the Jorge Luis Borges story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," which is priced at $650,000.

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