Newspaper readers can be such sourpusses. One of the top-read stories on fresnobee.com this afternoon is a short, unbylined, non-earth-shattering piece about a guy who lives just north of Clovis who got in a big fight with his wife. He put a bunch of her possessions on their front lawn, where they languished for a few days, and then got irked when people thought it was a yard sale and tried to buy her dishes. He ended up having to post a sign chalking up this public spectacle to an "ugly divorce."

OK, like I said, not exactly the top news of the day. But unusual, yes, and definitely water-cooler fodder. And obviously interesting to online readers, who had clicked on it 2,155 times by 5 p.m.

Of course, many of the comments appended to the story are typical harumph jobs:

• ... Unless the cops are shooting or beating up somebody, or CSU Fresno is messing up somewhere, The Bee has nothing to report on.
• Wow! What a really lame story!!!
• ....why can't The Bee report on news that is worthy.
• Must of been a slow news day......

So, um, why are y'all taking the TIME to comment on a story that you obviously read and felt compelled enough about to register your opinion? Cracks me up.

I am entranced with Danielle Jorn's performance as the sad Aunt Bella in "Lost in Yonkers."

There are rare times I feel I'm in the presence of an actor truly inhabiting a character on stage, and Jorn reaches that summit in the Good Company Players production at the 2nd Space Theatre. What makes her performance even better is the strong ensemble cast backing her up with warmth and precision in this autobiographical Neil Simon play.

As Bella, aunt to the teen-age protagonists (the younger Arty, played by A.J. Barco, and Jay, played by Michael Gregory, pictured above with Jorn) who in the early 1940s are forced to move in with their fearsome grandmother, Jorn finds within her character the humorous threads that Simon intended, including her exaggerated absent-mindedness. (She sometimes forgets where she lives.) But Jorn also beautifully connects with Bella's deep loneliness and frustration. Doctors told Bella's mother that her daughter would never be more than a child in terms of mental capacity, and she's lived a life of diminished expectations. Whether Bella deserved that subdued adulthood is left up in the air in Simon's play, but in Jorn's accomplished hands, you certainly feel her character's ache at her life circumstances.