Cutting Edge

The National Endowment for the Arts was created in 1965 to use tax dollars for, in part, the "encouragement of excellence" in artistic achievement in America.Today, however, the NEA faces extinction. Many in Congress believe, as Newt Gingrich does, that the NEA is dedicated to spending tax dollars on "the weird."While it funds many noncontro- versial projects, the NEA also funds pictures and actions that many consider obscene, disgusting or sacrilegious.Susan Lubowsky, director of the NEA Visual Arts Program in 1989, offered this defense: "I think that controversy has always been endemic to art, that certainly it's been endemic to 20th-century art. Even as far back as Caravaggio, people complained because he painted the Virgin too naturalistically, with dirty feet.

Fifty-eight years after it opened in Highland, Boarman's Old-Fashioned Meat Market is still, in many respects, living up to its name. Boarman family members still mix spices for the pork sausage made in house, the staff butcher still stuffs the sausage skin, still cuts meat to order and, more recently, started smoking bacon with apple wood he gets from a neighbor. Boarman's is possibly Howard County's last all-purpose market that's not part of a chain, offering everything from household cleaners to beer and wine, canned goods, produce, house-made crab cakes and custom cuts of meat.

Next season, Baltimore audiences won't lack for cutting-edge shows that explore adventurous themes and nontraditional storytelling techniques. Both Rep Stage and Single Carrot Theatre have selected for their 2010-2011 season shows that either are rarely produced or represent Baltimore premieres. "It's a season of imaginative and spiritual odysseys," says Michael Stebbins, Rep Stage's producing artistic director. "Even when we've chosen to stage classics, they're a bit more obscure.

About six years ago, the Baltimore rock band Arbouretum played at a club in Chicago for an audience of almost no one. You could count the members of the crowd on one hand, singer/guitarist David Heumann recalled, but one of them happened to be Bettina Richards, the founder of indie record label Thrill Jockey. She liked what she heard. "There literally was nobody there but me," Richards said. "It was great. I totally was hooked. " Richards signed Arbouretum to Thrill Jockey.

For years now, directors have been throwing Shakespeare into unusual settings, largely for the recondite pleasures of confounding critics. But now somebody's really broken through a membrane: "Taming of the Shrew" on ice!As awful as it sounds, "The Cutting Edge" is an enjoyable piffle, completely divorced from any recognizeable reality (and from Shakespeare), which may be part of its charm. D.B. Sweeney, heretofore unremarkable in films like "Memphis Belle" and "Gardens of Stone," gets to work a little snap-crackle-and-pop into his routine; he's linked to rich girl and snooty princess Moira Kelly.

For years now, directors have been throwing Shakespeare into unusual settings, largely for the recondite pleasures of confounding critics. But now somebody's really broken through a membrane: "Taming of the Shrew" on ice!As awful as it sounds, "The Cutting Edge" is an enjoyable piffle, completely divorced from any recognizeable reality (and from Shakespeare), which may be part of its charm. D.B. Sweeney, heretofore unremarkable in films like "Memphis Belle" and "Gardens of Stone," gets to work a little snap-crackle-and-pop into his routine; he's linked to rich girl and snooty princess Moira Kelly.

Parents and children have been stopping by York and Belvedere for that tearful, final cut in the barber shop that smells like a shoe store.2 "But then, everything ends," said Mrs. DeCola.

LINTON, N.D. -- When travel agent Hal Rosenbluth began planning a 16-bedroom lodge and conference center in the middle of the North Dakota prairie, a lot of professional meeting planners and travel managers probably thought he had gone over the edge.After all, there isn't a fancy golf course, beach or dramatic range of mountains for hundreds of miles around the center. Nor are there the cultural draws of major cities, such as a wide choice of restaurants, theaters or museums.But one visit to the Rivery, on Little Beaver Creek Trail outside Linton, may convince the skeptics that Rosenbluth is on the cutting edge of a trend in the conference business.

Staples are becoming a major threat to the environment. According to Jim Becker, Andy Meyer and Doug Meyer, staples are filling up our landfills faster than anything except disposable diapers.These enterprising men have invented a way to take care of staple waste with their "Green Staple Machine." This little green box transforms staples into coins using the same technology the government uses at the Denver Mint. An environmentally conscious product, it is available only from their new catalog, "The Cutting Edge" (MacMillan)

LONG BRANCH, N.J. - Over the years, this once-vibrant vacation spot watched its sandy beaches and its tourism erode. Then came the fire in 1987 that destroyed the city's fishing pier, boardwalk and an amusement park called Kid's World.Now, after a decade that left it faded and abandoned, this stretch of Atlantic coast is on the brink of a comeback and, curiously enough, the cutting edge of urban planning.Five developers are negotiating with the city to build housing, a restored pier, an entertainment center, restaurants and shops all connected by resculptured streets lined with trees, walkways and bicycle paths.

PASADENA, Calif. — His career is dwarfed by his incision. "It's the ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction while using the Palmaris longus tendon," he said. "That's why they call it Tommy John surgery. " But it is actually the Frank Jobe surgery. The Dodgers' orthopedist performed the first one in 1974 on John, who recovered to win 20 or more games in three different seasons. He went 6-3 with a 2.65 ERA in 14 playoff games. The career that was supposed to end with one faulty pitch on July 17, 1974, wound up lasting 26 years, one short of the all-time record.

At first glance, the Baltimore Contemporary Print Fair looks like a low-wattage shindig. To the casual observer, the occasional gallery visitor, names like Barbara Takenaga, Deborah Kass and Madeleine Keesing have little resonance. That's because few in the printmaking world are household names. But the fair, held this weekend at the Baltimore Museum of Art , has been a showcase for leading printmakers, well-known and obscure, for over 20 years. This year, over 2,000 prints from some 20 presses, publishers and dealers will be on display, for prices ranging from the affordable to the downright indulgent.

The Contemporary Museum , which has featured provocative works by a broad sampling of cutting-edge artists, announced a new executive director this week who promises to keep things innovative. Sue Spaid doesn't officially start until Dec. 13, but the Pennsylvania-based curator and educator has already planned more than 50 events for the next six months or so and has already sketched out exhibits through 2013. "I'm a Virgo, so I'm big at planning," Spaid, 49, said Wednesday.

Sergei Prokofiev, the brilliant Russian composer, shook up the early part of the 20th century with works full of startling percussive energy. Fittingly, his grandson, Gabriel Prokofiev, is doing pretty much the same thing in the early part of the 21st, if in a decidedly different manner. The current Prokofiev, immersed in the world of techno dance and hip-hop, has written a Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra and string quartets that include remixes. The U.K.-based Prokofiev will make his Baltimore debut Friday at the Windup Space, along with fellow Londoners GeNIA, a Russian-born pianist with a flair for performing avant-garde repertoire (one of her impressive recent recordings on the innovative Nonclassical label is an all-Gabriel Prokofiev disc)

Next season, Baltimore audiences won't lack for cutting-edge shows that explore adventurous themes and nontraditional storytelling techniques. Both Rep Stage and Single Carrot Theatre have selected for their 2010-2011 season shows that either are rarely produced or represent Baltimore premieres. "It's a season of imaginative and spiritual odysseys," says Michael Stebbins, Rep Stage's producing artistic director. "Even when we've chosen to stage classics, they're a bit more obscure.

When you see Justin Timberlake — all right, a character portraying him — take a deep breath, puff out his cheeks and prepare to fly, the sight is at once absurd, funny and a little sweet. You could say the same about many scenes in the absorbing play that finds this pop music idol flitting about in a seriously troubled young girl's fantasies, boasting of his avian capabilities and providing her with various forms of comfort. But there's a decidedly creepy streak, too, in Sheila Callaghan's "Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake)

Picture floating high above Pratt Street in a ski-lift-style gondola, soaring over the Inner Harbor on a seven-minute journey from the Convention Center to Fells Point. Trey Winstead of Winstead Brothers LLC has been studying, planning and engineering such a 1.3-mile route along overhead cables for six years. Now along with his brother Peter Winstead he's ready to pitch the plan to put Baltimore on the cutting edge of urban aerial transit to the city's design panel. "This is going to be the best new attraction in the country," said Winstead, a civil engineer who came up with the idea with his brother after they moved to downtown Baltimore in 2002.

Once on the cutting edge of city planning and social idealism, Columbia has grown into a respectable and successful community.To their credit, some residents are taking advantage of the fact that the city marks its 25th anniversary this year by dusting off the old goals and taking a hard look at the future.Toward that end, a forum examining the way Columbia is governed drew 150 people last week -- an impressive number for a Saturday morning. While final recommendations won't be aired until fall, the forum uncapped a clear desire for change in the way the city is governed.

They huddled around the computer in Jeremy Smith's physics classroom during study hall at Hereford High School, scanning columns and columns of numbers. "It's delayed a minute - we have to wait," Andrew Linhard, 17, said to fellow senior Scott Forster, also 17, who was manning the mouse. They and several classmates kept examining the screen and tried to reconcile two dizzying windows of data - which they hoped were correctly collected from a device hooked up to the computer.