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Article - News; by Marilyn Recknor - 8/19/10

Beating the Summer School Blues

Government officials learn how to prepare for such unexpected and budget-busting events as this year’s record snowfall

You expect the people working for your local government to be in the know and up to the minute on all the issues you care about. So to get a head start in working for you, officials from Maryland’s 23 counties and Baltimore city go to summer school. From August 18 to 21, while you’re soaking up the last rays of summer, they’re taking classes at the Maryland Association of Counties’ Summer Conference. “Local government officials actually go to school 24-seven, every...

Article - Live Music; by Katie Dodd - 8/19/10

What's In a Name?

For this local, four-man band, hopefully the makings of stardom

The Names’ idea man Charlie Evans stops mixing sound just long enough to beg a glass of ice. It’s a warm and breezy Friday night, but inside Tsunami, it feels close to 90 degrees. The dining room has long since emptied, but at the bar, the night is beginning. Beneath dim lights, 100 people are crammed into a tiny space, sweaty bodies close enough to spill each other’s drinks with one wrong step. No one minds, though. They’re too interested in what’s moving them:...

Article - Live Music; by Ron Stein - 8/19/10

The New Music City, U.S.A.

Chesapeake Country has long had its own grass-roots music community, but with the rise of local talent combined with the draw of renowned musicians and their loyal fans, Maryland’s capital city is becoming the music capital of the East

These last days of August, you might think you were living in Nashville or Austin, what with the waves of musical talent from near and far rolling onto our shores. From August 19 to 21, the legendary Four Freshmen re-capture the Big Band Era and draw hundreds of fans to Annapolis in the group’s 2010 international convention. The following weekend, the music amps up on the 28th in the first-ever Annapalooza Music and Arts Festival. Organizers hope that the concert grows as big...

Article - Live Music; by Ron Stein - 8/19/10

Questions & Answers with Kenny Liner of The...

The Bridge, from Baltimore, headlines Stage 2 at Annapalooza. The bluesy Baltimore rock band has a strong local following and a relentless touring schedule. Cofounder Kenny Liner adds two distinctive elements to the band: He mimics a beatbox using only his mouth. This hip-hop tactic is unheard of in a rock band. Liner also plays the mandolin, an instrument more common in bluegrass, folk, and country than rock bands.

Q How did you first discover you could beatbox? A In elementary school, I loved the Fat Boys [a 1980s hip-hop group among the first to beatbox]. They were my favorite. I started imitating them when I was about five or six years old. I used to get kicked out of school and class for doing it all the time. It was kind of like a nervous habit. Q What made the group decide to include a mandolin? A Me and Chris started the band,...

Article - Theatre Reviews; by Davina Grace Hill - 8/19/10

The Buddy Holly Story at Annapolis Summer Garden...

Expect great music — if not great theater

Buddy Holly was a remarkable music innovator; he heard disparate influences and blended them to expand the limits of the newly named rock and roll musical genre. He was so remarkable that his short three-year career and his short 22-year life span are both still being celebrated and appreciated today, 51 years after his death in a plane crash. The comet-like trajectory of Buddy Holly’s life deserves an equally intense and glowing theatrical presentation. I’m sorry to say that Buddy...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 8/12/10

Great Balls of Fire

Goodness gracious!

In the deepening twilight, Venus, Saturn and Mars blink into view above the west horizon. Thursday the waxing crescent moon joins the fray, with none farther than seven degrees from any other. The planets set around 10pm at week’s end, and while Mars and Venus remain just a few degrees apart through most of the month, Saturn drops from sight over the next few days. The moon reaches first-quarter Monday, and only then does its light last past midnight, leaving clear skies for this year...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 8/12/10

The Fisherman’s Holiday

That’s when the fisherwomen bring home the fish

As we entered the Atlantic and the big ocean swells effortlessly lifted our 85-foot head boat, Thelma Dale IV, I recalled the words of one of my favorite authors, Tom McGuane: “I fish all the time when I’m at home, so when I go on vacation, I make sure to get in plenty of fishing.” That has always been my guiding philosophy. Our annual family vacation at Bethany Beach had been for many years, at my insistence, a time for a lot of oceanside and Assawoman Bay angling and...

Article - News; by Janie Suss - 8/12/10

Osprey Down

Exhausted learning to fly, this young fish hawk needed many helping hands

At 7:45am on Tuesday, July 21, my phone rang. Rosemary Roberts, who lives down the road in Chesapeake Beach, announced she’d found an osprey in the middle of the road. “It can’t fly. It needs help,” she screeched. Roberts had read my book, Oscar and Olive Osprey (www.oscarandolive.com) so she was sure “the osprey lady” would know what to do. I didn’t, but I knew who would. Holland point neighbor Colleen Sabo — an artist whose work features birds of prey (www.colleensabo.com) — is also a raptor...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 8/12/10

Extra, Extra! Read all about it!

Bay Weekly’s new and improved online edition gives you a voice

I’m writing these words on a screen, and it’s more likely than ever that’s where you’ll be reading them. Not that newspaper readers have abandoned print pages in their run to e-journalism. Millions are still print readers: 385 million people buy a newspaper each week, meaning we print-makers have, conservatively, one billion weekly readers. Count me among them. It’s no doubt conditioning, but I love reading a newspaper. Having the known world delivered each day to me in five or six sections...

Article - Correspondence; by M.B. Lefkowitz - 8/12/10

Beechener Gave Me Hope

Dear Bay Weekly: I’d like to add my belated praise for Diana Beechener’s July 15 story “Hope Is In the Melody,” on the group that entertains wounded soldiers. In a time when so much news evokes cynicism, I’ve rarely found a story so moving. Well done! –M.B. Lefkowitz, Holland Point