City Paper

In this week's City Paper, Mary K. Zajac reviews dinner at Piedigrotta Bakery in Little Italy, and Van Smith reviews Cafe Gourmet at the University of Maryland Biopark. Wish I'd thought of those. If you know a place that's ripe for a review or a reappraisal, tweet  @gorelickingood, or email me at richard.gorelick@baltsun.com Here's Mary's Piedigrotta review and Van's of Cafe Gourmet . Piedgirotta is the bakery owned by the man who invented tiramisu.

Lee Gardner, editor of Baltimore's City Paper, is leaving the alt-weekly to become a senior editor of the Washington-based Chronicle of Higher Education. Gardner, 47, said 17 years at the City Paper — including 10 as the editor — was simply enough time to be in one place. "When I got here, I figured I would stay about two years," he said. "Well, here I am. " Gardner, who studied English at the University of Tennessee and Towson University, began his tenure at City Paper as its music editor.

Baltimore author Michael Kun just finished writing his second novel last month. But he won't have to wait long to see what readers will think of "Our Poor Sweet Napoleon."That's because Mr. Kun's 592-page novel -- set almost entirely in Baltimore -- will be serialized in the City Paper, the city weekly arts newspaper. The first chapter is included in the Sept. 3-9 issue, and the City Paper will publish further chapters for about the next half- year, says editor Michael Yockel.Mr. Yockel says he decided to serialize "Our Poor Sweet Napoleon" after Mr. Kun, an attorney in the downtown office of the Piper & Marbury firm, sent him the first two chapters a few weeks ago. "The whole idea of serializing a novel appeals to me. Newspapers used to do that a lot a long time ago."

Weekly linking makes no sense! It has to be done daily. There is so much good stuff out there. So, look for daily linkage beginning on Monday. In no particular order, except for the Duff item: Duff Goldman was the surprise entertainment at Baltimore Magazine's Best of Baltimore party, held Thursday night at the Hippodrome. There are photos on Suzanne Loudermilk's In Good Taste blog. Olive Garden's annual $8.95 Never Ending Pasta Bowl deal began on Monday and continues through Oct. 9. There are 42 combinations (seven pastas, six sauces)

A Baltimore Realtor has filed a $16 million defamation suit against the company that publishes City Paper over an article that appeared last month in which his business practices were questioned.In the suit filed last month in Baltimore Circuit Court, Gary Waicker, president of two realty companies in the 3400 block of Erdman Ave., is seeking $1 million in compensatory damages and $15 million in punitive damages from Scranton Times Limited Partnership, which publishes the free weekly newspaper.

AS a former City Paper writer, I read Mary Corey's Jan. 23 article about the paper's recent editorial turnover with great interest. I was born, raised and educated in Baltimore, and my first job out of college was as a staff writer at the City Paper in 1985. Russ Smith was editor then, and my first assignment was to ride an elephant in the Ringling Brothers Circus parade and cover it for Rump, the CP's obnoxious gossip column.In contrast to the City Paper's present, more corporate incarnation, when I was there the writers sat at beat-up old desks in a sticky garret office in Charles Village.

Michael Yockel, the editor of City Paper, Baltimore's largest alternative weekly newspaper, was fired yesterday after five years on the job."I was entirely shocked," said Mr. Yockel, a 41-year-old Baltimore native who has worked at City Paper off and on for 14 years. "I have no idea why I was dismissed."The paper's general manager, Donald Farley, walked into the editorial offices after this week's edition was sent to the presses, Mr. Yockel said, and announced, "I think it's time for a change, and that Michael Yockel and City Paper ought to have a parting of the ways."

Jim Duffy's long City Paper article, "Kill the Messenger: The Last March of Bill Moore," is the winner of this year's $500 A. D. Emmart Memorial Award for published writing in the humanities.Mr. Moore, a 25-year-old Baltimore postman and civil rights activist, was shot dead in April 1963 while walking alone along an Alabama highway. He was carrying a sign that read, "Black or White, Eat at Joe's. End Segregation in America."Honorable mention and a $100 prize go to Linell N. Smith for her Sun Magazine article, "One Day at a Time: Living With Depression," and to Arthur J. Magida for his Jewish Times article about the Holocaust Museum in Washington, "Out of the Silence."

So this is Sono Motoyama, you think, as she eases into the room, head down, smile hesitant and hand reluctantly extended. This woman, who in her silk shirt and leggings, looks even thinner than 95 pounds and seems almost meek as she makes small talk about crime in the city and her cat named Petunia.This is the same woman who has written about sadomasochism in Baltimore, a biker named Killer, psychic fairs in Towson and intimate aspects of her personal life, including an abortion she had several years ago.But perhaps Ms. Motoyama's most surprising move came weeks ago when she took over as editor of City Paper, Baltimore's largest alternative weekly newspaper, replacing editor Michael Yockel who was fired abruptly after 10 years there.

For 17 years Jennifer Bishop's photographs appeared every week in the pages of the City Paper, Baltimore's alternative weekly, helping to define the look of the metropolis and its people. Bishop even had her own regular space, which she could fill with any image that pleased her, unfettered by second-guessing editors; she used it to record the quirky moments, sudden epiphanies, visual paradoxes and poetic ironies that define the strangeness of everyday life in this city. Yet oddly, the photographer who chronicled the soul of Baltimore so relentlessly - and lovingly - has never until now had a one-person exhibit of her pictures in the town she has lived and worked in for the past 25 years.

In this week's City Paper, Mary K. Zajac reviews dinner at Piedigrotta Bakery in Little Italy, and Van Smith reviews Cafe Gourmet at the University of Maryland Biopark. Wish I'd thought of those. If you know a place that's ripe for a review or a reappraisal, tweet  @gorelickingood, or email me at richard.gorelick@baltsun.com Here's Mary's Piedigrotta review and Van's of Cafe Gourmet . Piedgirotta is the bakery owned by the man who invented tiramisu.

Neighborhood: Violetville Location: Southwestern Baltimore Average sales price: $135,000 (January through June) Notable features: This little triangle of a neighborhood, anchored by St. Agnes Hospital, started life as a 19th-century village and still has a small-town feel. Some streets are lined by rowhouses, some by single-family homes, all with yards. Foliage abounds. A park with ball fields and tennis courts gives kids a destination, and for the adults: Interstate 95. Nothing like slicing your commute time by living a minute from the on-ramp.

The deputy director of the Great Blacks in Wax Museum, where a 20-year-old man was fatally stabbed during a fight at a party Friday night, said he was cutting ties with a local promoter who had described the parties to museum officials as Christian fundraisers. Fliers for the parties, posted on a Web page for Big Les Productions, describe them as events for young adults and "mature" high school students. Many of the posters show young men flashing what appear to be gang signs or raising their middle fingers, and promise a "sexy ladies dance contest."

The deputy director of the Great Blacks in Wax Museum, where a 20-year-old man was fatally stabbed during a fight at a party Friday night, said he was cutting ties with a local promoter who had described the parties to museum officials as Christian fundraisers. Fliers for the parties, posted on a Web page for Big Les Productions, describe them as events for young adults and "mature" high school students. Many of the posters show young men flashing what appear to be gang signs or raising their middle fingers, and promise a "sexy ladies dance contest."

The wacky bakers at Charm City Cakes recently whipped up a big confection made to look like a bright yellow newspaper box. It was for a party celebrating City Paper's Best of Baltimore issue, which, as it turned out, bestowed one of its Best Of awards on the bakery. But the honor felt more like a pie in the face. The bakery, featured on The Food Network's Ace of Cakes, took the paper's "Best Cakes" category in 2003. This year, it won "Best Form Over Function." "There's no denying that the carefully sculpted confections of Charm City Cakes are beautiful," the paper wrote.

Mike Nguyen has no grand plan to become a publishing magnate. He just wants to get the word out. Working on a shoestring, the 30-year-old graphic designer has put together the first issue of a pocket-sized, full-color magazine about Baltimore nightlife, entertainment, food, bands and other subjects "dear to the hearts of the partying class," he says. It's something he has wanted to do for nine years. "The impression was always that if you wanted to do anything cool as far as clubs or going to a concert, you had to go to D.C.," Nguyen says in his modest home office on North Calvert Street in Charles Village, where the local Donna's coffeehouse serves as a handy spot for staff meetings.

Andy Markowitz was poised to leave journalism and enter film school when he was tapped as the City Paper's new editor earlier this month.His sudden U-turn had everything to do with the City Paper and nothing to do with second thoughts about quitting newspapers, Mr. Markowitz says in his airy Mount Vernon office."

An article in yesterday's editions implied that a report by city comptroller candidate Julian L. Lapides on his opponent, Joan M. Pratt, and her attendance at pension board meetings preceded an article in City Paper on the same subject. In fact, the City Paper article came first.The Sun regrets the error.

John Bernard Naditch, a retired News American and Sun pressman, died of lung cancer Thursday at his Carney home. He was 79. Born and raised in Baltimore, he attended city public schools before enlisting in the Navy during World War II. He served with the Seabees in the Pacific. After the war he became a pressman at the old News-Post and worked there until its successor paper, the News American, folded in 1986. He then joined The Sun and retired about 15 years ago. A duckpin bowler, he competed in a league at the Patterson lanes on Eastern Avenue.