Big Thing

Ryan McDonough dreams of being America's next guitar god. And he thinks his big break could come next week. The Harford County teen will be one of eight finalists Saturday at Guitarmageddon in Los Angeles, the guitarist's version of American Idol. The tournament began in March with 3,000 contestants competing in Guitar Center stores nationally. The winner gets a new car and a gig as the opening act for Sum 41 - and a dose of invaluable exposure. On a recent afternoon McDonough, 19, gave a demonstration of how he plans to take Guitarmageddon.

Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune is a play about intimacy -- physical intimacy at the beginning and emotional intimacy by the end. The journey from one to the other makes up the middle of this candid look at midlife love, receiving a provocative but poignant production at Everyman Theatre, under Vincent M. Lancisi's direction. Candid, in this case, means nudity and what is commonly referred to as "frank sexual content." But while there's more of this than audiences may be accustomed to at Everyman, Frankie and Johnny is one of the gentler, more romantic plays by the Tony Award-winning author of Love!

VIERA, Fla. - A man who knows a little something about power hitting in Baltimore believes Sammy Sosa will have a productive season at Camden Yards. "There's no doubt in my mind that he will," said Washington Nationals manager and former Orioles great Frank Robinson. "I don't know what people are measuring him by, maybe by hitting 60 home runs or whatever. "I don't think he'll hit 60, but I think he'll have a real good year. That's a very good ballpark to hit in." It may not happen right away, but Robinson expects Sosa to return to form, despite switching leagues.

COLLEGE PARK - Ralph Friedgen didn't spend much time yesterday reflecting on or analyzing what went wrong for Maryland during the 2004 season. Whatever happened, it was in the past, and instead of reliving four months of frustration, he preferred to look ahead. "I'm pretty focused right now," Friedgen said. Much of Friedgen's focus over the next eight months will be deciding on Maryland's quarterback for 2005, a situation that is, in some respects, just as muddled now as it was a year ago. Friedgen said that there will be no clear-cut leader going into spring drills, and that Jordan Steffy, Sam Hollenbach and Joel Statham will all have plenty to prove if they want to win the job outright.

Say you're an up-and-coming contemporary art enthusiast and you're trying to spot the Next Big Thing. What to do? Well, you could bone up on your connoisseurship - sharpen an expert eye for line, color, etc. But maybe you've done that; the next best thing might be to look for "dark matter." Artistic "dark matter," like the celestial kind astronomers search for through their telescopes, is that 90 percent of the whole enchilada we can't see, even though we know it's got to be there. It's what Baltimore Museum of Art contemporary art curator Chris Gilbert calls the welter of images, objects, performances, happenings and collective projects by mostly younger artist-activists that lie just under the radar screens of mainstream institutions like art museums and galleries.

PRESIDENT BUSH exhibits a moral certitude toward the war in Iraq, and it serves him well. If the war is about fighting "evil," it doesn't much matter what the evil looks like; it could be found in weapons of mass destruction or dictators' torture chambers or fanatic beheaders or roadside bombers. If evil is the target, Iraq must surely be the right place to fight it, because there's plenty of it there. The president strips aside the little things, and concentrates on the one big thing -- what we advisedly would call the American crusade in the Middle East.

NEW YORK - Chic, sexy people mill about the joint - chatting, laughing, nursing cocktails. For industry insiders, the place to be on a rainy May evening is Crash Mansion, a multilevel club in Manhattan with stone-embedded walls and sleek furniture. It is here at a well-attended showcase where newcomer Ricky Fante, a Maryland-raised homeboy, will preview what is supposed to be one of the year's hottest debuts. On this night, the release of Rewind, the singer's album in stores tomorrow, is two months away.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - As the Orioles conclude another morning workout, with players gathering on the main field for some last-minute instruction, the sky suddenly grows dark, as if a switch has been flicked to the down position. A large shadow encases each uniformed body, and it's no longer necessary to squint. Have storm clouds moved in, or is Walter Young blocking the sun again? Young is listed at 6 feet 5, 296 pounds, but he's about more than just size. The Orioles weren't looking for a defensive lineman when they claimed him off waivers from the Pittsburgh Pirates in November, though he played end for his Mississippi high school.

WASHINGTON -- I am an optimist by nature, and last week in Tel Aviv an Israeli friend told me he knew why. He said it was because I was short -- and short people tend to be optimists because they can only see the part of the glass that is half-full, not the part that is half-empty. These days, though, even someone at my eye level is having a hard time seeing the part of the glass in Iraq that is half-full. I am still an optimist on Iraq, but a "worried optimist." My optimism is based on one big thing that has happened -- and my worrying is based on two smaller things that have not. The big thing that has happened in Iraq, which you can really feel when you're there, is that there is a 100 percent correlation of interests between America's aspirations for Iraq and the aspirations of Iraq's silent majority.

Juan isn't in charge at the Hotel Mahahual, in Mexico, but he might as well be. Of several employees sitting in the office on a slow Sunday afternoon, he is the one most interested in dealing with my inept Spanish and in practicing his equally shaky English. Any time our clumsy conversation wanders into an area he thinks might interest other visitors, he asks for the English translation. "Hot water," he repeats carefully. "Where would you like to call?" he asks, hovering over the hotel's phone, the only place in town to make international calls.