Both have a penchant for writing and seeing the world, so Author James Michener and Karol Cardinal Wojtyla got along just fine. The meeting, which took place last July in the Cardinal's garden in Cracow, was to tape a segment of James Michener's World, an eight-part PBS special, narrated by Michener. After finishing the segment, entitled Poland:

The Will to Be, which airs Nov. 26, Michener observed about the man who was to become Pope John Paul II: "He reminds me of a north Texas high school gung-ho football coach in his late 40s who has been through hard times but takes it with a wonderful spirit." The Pope, says Michener, "isn't pompous at all, but quietly strong." Also humorous. "If this show goes well," John Paul II told Michener, "I'll expect a phone call from Hollywood."

A sexual fantasy in space? Why not? In television's latest Star Wars spinoff, The Star Wars Holiday Special, Nov. 17 on CBS, Diahann Carroll plays Mermia, a romantic vision from a water planet. She arrives on the screen when Attchituck, a 400-year-old member of the Wookie family, sits down at a special machine designed to enliven the imagination, closes his eyes and thinks X ratings. "I was very happy for him that at age 400 he could still have sensual, sexual fantasies," says Carroll, 43. "As a mere human, I was very jealous. I don't have that to look forward to."

Washington's "other monument" got together with the pop world's rising star, and the talk was strictly bearish. Singer Teddy Pendergrass, a.k.a. Teddy Bear, had stopped off at the Embassy Row home of Alice Roosevelt Longworth to present her with an oversized, cuddly guess-what. The visit was to mark the 75th anniversary of the first Teddy bear, named after Alice's father, Teddy Roosevelt. "It has a great big fat swollen face, with a little mouth on the edge. It's just waiting to be loved," shrugged the tart-tongued Princess Alice. "I'm supposed to cherish it. I guess," added Longworth, now 94, who stopped collecting Teddy bears long ago.

On Jan. 16, 1979, at 4:30 in the afternoon, Swiss time. Conservative Columnist William Buckley knows just what he will be doing: starting his third novel. The author of Saving the Queen and Stained Glass is going to Rougemont, Switzerland, and has set aside five weeks to churn out another thriller. Apres-ski and pre-harpsichord practice, Buckley, 52, plans to produce 1,500 words a day. Why the regimen? "The 20th century notion that you should stare at the ceiling until the afflatus [inspiration] hits you is self-indulgent," harrumphs Buckley, who does admit to slight concern about having no plot so far. But, he adds brightly, "by January I'm confident that the ideas will come rolling out like toothpaste."

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