Taylor is a PETA person; local psychic has a ball

GOING OUT ON A LIMB Just a few weeks ago, the Tremont Tea Room was dead. But with the new year fast approaching, the joint's jumping. "Everybody wants to know what's going to happen to them in 2004," said Alex Palermo, spiritual guardian of the tea room and one of the psychic salon's six full-time predictors. "Stockbrokers, football weirdos, you name it. They're all coming in." So, what is going to happen? Well, Tom Brady and the Pats will play in the Super Bowl, but Palermo hasn't divined the outcome just yet. And, yes, the Sox will square off against the Cubs in the World Series, but Palermo can't say if the Curse of the Bambino finally will be broken. Politically, the Tea Room, which opened in 1936, is predicting that Howard Dean walks away with the Democratic presidential nomination, and Mayor Tom Menino's prescription drug plan makes him a national player. As for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez? "There's a better chance of Liza Minelli getting married than him," said Palermo, who contends he's accurate three-quarters of the time. Otherwise, 2004 could be remembered as the year of the celebrity acquittal -- Martha Stewart, Robert Blake, Phil Spector, Michael Jackson, and Kobe Bryant are all getting off. Only Scott Peterson, the fertilizer salesman accused of killing his wife, will not. "Ray Charles could see that one," Palermo said.

ROLL CREDITS Knowing what he does about film projection, Chapin Cutler could be operating a movie theater someplace, or a whole chain of them. But then that'd be boring. "I wanted to take things to an extreme," Cutler said. "(I) set out to do something people said couldn't be done." And, in his capacity as technical director of the Sundance Film Festival (which kicks off in a few weeks in Park City, Utah), Cutler's doing it. Over the past few years, Boston Light & Sound, the company Cutler created 26 years ago with Larry Shaw, has designed and installed most of the state-of-the-art projection equipment and sound systems used at Sundance. "I convinced them that if they're going to have a world-class film festival, they need world-class systems," he said. And Sundance founder Robert Redford is not Cutler's only celebrity client. A year ago, Cutler handled the 20th anniversary screening in Hollywood of Steven Spielberg's "ET," with John Williams conducting a 100-piece orchestra. And then there was the time he screened the silent film, "Napoleon," in Francis Ford Coppola's backyard. "He had a big meal, and Danny DeVito was introduced as Napoleon's long lost cousin," Cutler said. "It was cool."

WE'LL LOOK FOR HER SOON Actress Julie White, who will star in the Huntington Theatre's production, "Bad Dates," (Jan. 2 to Feb. 1) made New York Times theater critic Bruce Weber's list of the 10 New York theater highlights of the last year. White was ranked No. 8 for her "two irresistibly charming performances -- as a harried wife in Daniel Stern's comedy "Barbra's Wedding," and as a harried single woman in Theresa Rebeck's one-woman show "Bad Dates."

HEADS WE WIN, TAILS YOU LOSE The improbable Patriots may have won 12 consecutive games to finish the season, but they actually lost 11 coin tosses. (The call of "heads" or "tails" determines who kicks and who receives.) Anyway, Saturday was "Military Appreciation Day" at Gillette Stadium, and Purple Heart recipient and Wrentham native David Ainslie helped out with the coin toss. Guess what? The Pats won one.

Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253.

Stargazing

Ellen DeGeneres became a hero to gays in 1997, following a highly publicized coming-out. But she soon lost her ABC sitcom, "Ellen," and her girlfriend, actress Anne Heche. A second sitcom, "The Ellen Show" came and went in 2001. But since the September premiere of her syndicated talk show, "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," the 45-year-old has become a hot commodity and the show's ratings continue to climb. "I'm savoring this," she told The New York Times for Sunday's editions. "It's interesting, you try to plan every step when you have a career," she said. But, she added, "To think that we're ever controlling anything is just ridiculous."

Even though Andrew Firestone and Jen Schefft from "The Bachelor" have called off their engagement, they can't seem to stay away from each other. "The truth of the matter is, we are still very good friends," Firestone told In Touch Weekly magazine for its Dec. 29 issue. "I just spoke to her this morning. We speak every day."

Nick Cannon is busy these days. The 23-year-old star of "Love Don't Cost a Thing" has his own Nickelodeon show, has just released a self-titled album, and has a role in the upcoming "Garfield" movie. He also is executive producer of the action-adventure film, "Underclassman."

FROM WIRE REPORTS