Atwater

"That's the hard part right now," says Darin Atwater, composer and pianist. "I find myself in a place where I'm composing a lot differently."Atwater, 27, who is featured as composer and piano soloist on the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's annual "Live, Gifted and Black" free concert wrote the piano concerto he'll be playing as a throwback to the romantic era.It's based on the spirituals "I Want Jesus to Walk Wid Me" and "Steal Away," and the piano part sounds as though Rachmaninoff were improvising over these familiar songs.

SAN DIEGO -- For the Denver Broncos to have any chance of stopping Green Bay's rushing attack, the Broncos must get the best game of the season from starting defensive ends Neil Smith and Alfred Williams, and tackles Keith Traylor and Maa Tanuvasa.Then, the Broncos need equal run-support effort from safeties Steve Atwater and Tyrone Braxton.Green Bay enters Super Bowl XXXII with one of the most punishing ground games in the league, averaging 119.3 yards a game, and paced by running back Dorsey Levens, one of the team's most versatile athletes.

"Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater," by John Brady. Addison-Wesley, 320 pages. $23.Lee Atwater is remembered these days as a ruthless, cynical Republican political operative who invented much of what is bad in American politics: negative campaigning, the hunt for trivial but divisive "wedge issues," like flag-burning, and racist tactics, like the notorious Willie Horton commercial of 1988. He was a man who believed in nothing - neither religion nor the conservative political ideology he served.

History is rusting away at Aberdeen Proving Ground.An imposing Mark IV tank, for example -- which was built by the British and helped drive German forces out of France in the 1918 battle of Armentieres -- is collapsing from the inside.Rain, ice and snow have seeped into its interior and are rusting out the floor. Changes in temperature, acid rain -- even bird droppings -- are eroding its exterior walls and tracks.The Mark IV and many other weapons that survived conflicts from World War I to Desert Storm now face a deadly assault by Maryland's weather.

Somewhere in "Sunset Boulevard," silent-screen queen Norma Desmond bitterly dismisses these new-fangled talkie movie stars, saying, "We had faces then."Memo to Norma: See "Up Close & Personal." There are some faces left.And if you love faces, you'll probably love "Up Close & Personal," which gets into such dramatic magnification of the iconographic, mythological beauty objects Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer it should be called "Up Close & Nasal."In other departments it's sadly lacking, both undernourished dramatically, over-nourished politically, fatuous, meretricious and not even very entertaining after the first hour or so. It drags.

By now, we should be used to it: the example of the politician who does something so unexpected that it shocks even the most politically jaded news watchers.And, in a way, we are used to it. We know it's just a matter of time before another Richard Nixon or Wilbur Mills or Gary Hart shows up on Washington's Richter scale of political shocks.In fact, it happened last week.But this time there was a new twist to the old scenario.This time, Washington insiders weren't confronted with the familiar shock of a politician lying, cheating or taking bribes.

The Annapolis City Council will hold a public hearing tonight on plans to build a 185-unit townhouse development on 18 acres off Bywater Road that was to have been the site of Oxford Mews.That project fell victim to the savings and loan crisis and has left the city holding a $145,000 note that may not be repaid.Atwater Development Co. of Annapolis has a contract to purchase the site from the Resolution Trust Corp., which acquired the property when federal regulators seized the Second National Federal Savings Bank and its assets in 1992.

Let's say you're Christmas shopping at Towson Marketplace. You've found a spiffy warm-up suit for junior when you notice something strange going on in the former showroom of Shavitz Furniture.You walk in and someone asks you to select a button from a display bearing such slogans as: "US Troops Out of the Middle East" and "Boycott Excessive Packaging"; someone else hands you a slip of paper and asks you to write down an issue and put the paper in a top hat.And oh yes, a third person asks you for $7 and hands you a program for Mother Lode Productions' original theater piece, "Abbie/Other Works of Art/Lee," written by Joe Brady and Karen Bradley and subtitled "An interactive journey through an art gallery with the mythic figures of the American left and right: Abbie Hoffman and Lee Atwater."

Ken Atwater likes being a big man on a small campus.That's where the new dean of students at Howard Community College feels at his best, giving students individual attention and helping them as they proceed in higher education.That's also where he finds his rewards: the knowledge that he has a hand in guiding students, furthering their goals and molding them into well-educated, productive members of society."It's just ideal," he said. "I like the opportunity to be able to respond to community needs.

HOUSTON -- A few steps from Neiman-Marcus displays of $14 chocolate popcorn truffles and one aisle over from Princess Marcella Borghese's cosmetic spa, Ron Franks was having a Clark Gable fantasy.Mr. Franks and many of Maryland's 100-member Republican National Convention contingent were doing their best to revive the Houston economy.Until yesterday, the GOP conventioneers were a disappointment the shopkeepers here. "Windowshop 'til you drop" seemed to be their motto.But Mr. Franks had come to help change that -- with style.

When it comes to the six Republicans competing for lead dog of the GOP leadership, all are on point: They love Ronald Reagan, are pro-life, advocate small government and promise more diversity and fewer taxes. They are also, with one exception, locked and loaded - armed in Second Amendment solidarity. During a 90-minute debate this week at the National Press Club, only Michael S. Steele, the former Maryland lieutenant governor, confessed to owning no guns. Say what? In a race where Mr. Steele's conservative bona fides are already held in suspicion, did his admission unseal any deal?

Late this summer, one of the top food books on Amazon.com dangled an enticing promise: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The book's popularity is testament to how people love fresh bread but loathe the idea of losing a day to bake it. Bread intimidates. The time commitment is a huge part of that, but people also fear the mess or think they'll need an expensive mixer or an advanced yeast degree. And yet, they're drawn to it because, ironically, home-baked bread represents, like almost nothing else, the essence of simple living.

Gwyn Williams, a Web site developer and manager, died of lung disease Saturday at her Rock Hall home. The former Homeland resident was 64. Born Gwyn Atwater in Baltimore, she was a 1961 Bryn Mawr School graduate who attended Washington College and the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. After living in Westchester County, N.Y., for many years, she moved to Rock Hall in 1991. She worked at Chesapeake Bay Internet Associates as a Web manager and site host for many Eastern Shore businesses, tourist agencies and towns.

It was all ambitious but frustratingly disjointed. Washington composer Darin Atwater set out to do something daring with Paint Factory, a "hip-hop symphony" that premiered Friday night at the Music Center at Strathmore. The program's purpose was to explore hip-hop's more "redeeming" and "positive" qualities. Splendid idea, but it wasn't realized. Instead, Atwater used shades of smooth jazz, contemporary gospel and '90s-style power pop as a backdrop for his sap-encrusted, pie-in-the-sky lyrics.

The uglier side of urban music, represented by the inflammatory and derogatory lyrics that have come to represent hip-hop culture, take a direct hit in Paint Factory, an ambitious, often effective, evening-length work for rappers, chorus and orchestra by Darin Atwater. The new piece, premiered to a wildly enthusiastic reception Friday night at the Music Center at Strathmore by Atwater's Soulful Symphony (and repeated Saturday at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall), is not quite "a hip-hop symphony," as the marketing had it. Paint Factory is more of a freeform oratorio that incorporates gospel, jazz and pop idioms, with only three rapped movements out of 16 (not much fire to fight fire)

About 10 years ago, the desire to craft beats and rhymes brought together high school friends Derrick "Panama" Beasley, James "Japiro" Nealy and Ezekiel "Prophet" Givens. Since then, the three, collectively known today as M.E.P (Making Everything Possible), have worked tirelessly to establish themselves as a musically daring hip-hop unit in Baltimore and beyond. Now, after nearly a decade of making independent singles and regularly performing in talent showcases and small clubs around the city and in Philadelphia, M.E.P has received a major jolt in its fledgling career.

Even on a frigid day like yesterday, the parking lot was full at Belvedere Square and the market was buzzing with customers. Melanee Stroovman and Randy Cornish, colleagues who work in Mount Washington but come to the market nearly every day for lunch, were among the patrons warming themselves with soup from Atwater's soup counter and bakery. "Whenever we come in, especially during the week ... these tables are always full," Stroovman said. Indeed, Belvedere Square in North Baltimore has seen a resurgence in recent years.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- In 1919, as a young Army colonel, Dwight D. Eisenhower crossed the country in a military convoy -- 62 arduous days over desert sand, through rivers and on basic roads that crumbled beneath wheels, tipping vehicles over. Eisenhower wrote that it was one of the worst experiences of his life. Fittingly, 50 years ago this month, in 1956, President Eisenhower launched a drastic undertaking -- construction of the federal interstate highway system. The highway web, now nearly 47,000 miles long, transformed American life, making it possible for families to travel throughout their vast country, and greatly boosting interstate shipping.

Andre Braugher is returning to series television, and once upon a time, that would have been very big news. In the 1990s, he was widely considered as good as it gets when it comes to TV acting. The Stanford University and Juilliard School graduate was nominated three times for the Emmy for Best Male Actor in a drama series, and, in 1998, he won for his performance as Detective Frank Pembleton in the NBC drama Homicide: Life on the Street. That year, Entertainment Weekly labeled him "Andre the giant: the best actor on TV."

Composer, conductor and pianist Darin Atwater and poet-photographer Ellis Marsalis III have combined their talents to put together an innovative musical and photographic work that tells their story of the long, sweeping struggle of a people in transition from Africa to America. They've collaborated for nearly a year on the 10-part concert suite, Evolution of a People, which will premiere at 8 p.m. Tuesday during the sold-out 20th annual State of Maryland Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.