Dollhouse

The dollhouse saw its proudest days in the 1950s, when department store shoppers in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Chicago would crowd around to peek into its six rooms and admire the details: furniture, wallpaper, curtains, books on the shelves, hearth.Those were the days when the little toy company that could, Richwood Toy, flourished briefly in the Eastport section of Annapolis before it was driven out of business in 1958 by competition from large manufacturers. The dollhouse was packed away, the furniture wrapped and boxed, never to see the light of day for more than 30 years.

C leaning out your closets can be overwhelming, yet satisfying. So imagine how it feels to clean out approximately 500 strangers' closets for a school yard sale: exhausting, yet fabulous! Well, maybe it wasn't so fabulous when I opened a trash bag full of in-line skates and kneepads that had obviously been nibbled on by a mischief of mice. But most of the stuff donated to our public high school's music foundation flea market was in decent condition. Still, it takes a special kind of volunteer to work all day unpacking and sorting other people's treasures.

A HOBBY AS enduring as stone and mortar took up residence in the heart of Evelyn Jones one Christmas Day nearly 30 years ago. That was the day her husband, the late Army Maj. Nelson Jones, presented her with a two-story colonial dollhouse. The foundation for a lifetime hobby was laid. Jones' collection has grown to nearly 20 pieces, and in time for October's National Dollhouse and Miniature Month, it is on display in the Pascal Center for the Performing Arts Gallery at Anne Arundel Community College.

William S. Miller, a retired mechanical engineer who was also a model railroad and dollhouse enthusiast, died Wednesday in his sleep at Emeritus at Pikesville, an assisted-living facility. He was 101. William Samuel Miller, whose parents emigrated from Lithuania, was the son of a tailor and a homemaker. As a youth, he worked in his father's shop while attending Polytechnic Institute, from which he graduated in 1927. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1930 in mechanical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University.

There once was a girl who wanted a dollhouse but didn't get one as a child. The girl, Anne Smith, grew up, moved away from her native Iowa and was living in New York, dealing in antiques, when she came upon a grand old dollhouse from 1870 in need of a little love. It was a beautiful thing to behold: 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide, handcrafted from wood, with bay windows on its side and a smoky blue glass transom above its front door. She bought it on the spot and took it home for a retired jeweler she knew to restore.

Gary Kachadourian has built a better art show, and the world is beating a path to its doorstep. On a recent weekday afternoon there must have been 15 or 20 people at once in the fine arts gallery of University of Maryland, Baltimore County, several times the number one expects to encounter in local galleries. And it's easy to understand why.UMBC asked Kachadourian to curate the current edition of "A View From Baltimore to Washington," its biennial regional show. Kachadourian, himself an artist of miniature works, asked 22 artists to create works based on the concept of the dollhouse.

Youth is far too painful to be wasted on the young. That's the tragic thrust under the mordant hilarity of Todd Solondz's new film, "Welcome to the Dollhouse," opening today at the Charles.What a sad, funny poem to the exquisite agonies of being aseventh-grader, gifted and a nerd! Poor Dawn Weiner (Heather Matarazzo), christened "Weinerdog" and "Lesbo" by her sensitive peers, is a walking geek tragedy crammed into 4-feet-5 inches and 85 pounds, behind lenses thick as thumbs.She attracts persecutors in a way remarkably similar to the sugar and its cloud of flies.

Fox has a new and improved dream girl for the Friday-night fantasies of teenage boys, and she arrives tonight wearing a hey-look-me-over, super-short dress - the perfect model of female allure and submission. Her name is Echo, and she's at the heart of a dark new drama, Dollhouse, created by Joss Whedon, the Hollywood producer who gave us Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Sarah Michelle Gellar, once upon a time. I liked Buffy, and I even learned to find messages of female emancipation in its imitators, like James Cameron's Dark Angel, featuring Jessica Alba.

Most people think about retirement as a time when life's pace becomes less hectic and more relaxed.Such has not been the case for 69-year-old Finksburg resident Cliff Keffer.Since retiring from Ford Automotive Shops in Baltimore in 1982 and his job as an insulator in 1987, Mr. Keffer has been the ultimate volunteer. He freely and willingly offers his varied skills to help family, friends, neighbors, his church and community organizations.Doing everything from repairing lawn mower engines for neighbors to handiwork around the house, Mr. Keffer goes at each project with the enthusiasm of a child at play.

'Dragons in the Clouds' Learn the principles of kite design, construction and decoration Saturday at Towson University's Asian Arts and Culture Center. Kites will be created around motifs from the "Dance of the Dragon" exhibition, honoring the most prestigious animal of the Chinese Zodiac. The family workshop will include a demonstration followed by kite-making and a small competition. The "Dragons in the Clouds" workshop takes place 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Saturday at Towson University's Center for the Arts, Room 225, 8000 York Road.

Miracle Laurie didn't want to get a role on just any TV show. She wanted to be on a Joss Whedon TV show. And now she is, and Fox has renewed Dollhouse for a second season, and life just couldn't be a whole lot better. "I auditioned for Buffy (the Vampire Slayer) at least a thousand times. I tried out to be a series regular on Firefly. I auditioned for years for his stuff," says Laurie, who will be in Baltimore this weekend, signing autographs and posing for pictures with fans at the annual Shore Leave sci-fi convention at the Hunt Valley Marriott.

Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni are engaged Cynthia Nixon is engaged to her partner, Christine Marinoni. Charlotte Burke, a representative for the Sex and the City actress, confirmed the engagement. No other details were given. Nixon showed off an engagement ring at an ActionMarriage Equality rally in midtown Manhattan on Sunday. She has two children from her relationship with photographer Danny Mozes. Will Ferrell, Pearl Jam set for O'Brien's first 'Tonight Show' Will Ferrell and Pearl Jam will be part of Conan O'Brien's first Tonight Show.

Fox has a new and improved dream girl for the Friday-night fantasies of teenage boys, and she arrives tonight wearing a hey-look-me-over, super-short dress - the perfect model of female allure and submission. Her name is Echo, and she's at the heart of a dark new drama, Dollhouse, created by Joss Whedon, the Hollywood producer who gave us Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Sarah Michelle Gellar, once upon a time. I liked Buffy, and I even learned to find messages of female emancipation in its imitators, like James Cameron's Dark Angel, featuring Jessica Alba.

Sara Cross Douglas creates dream homes. Her creations are decorated with the finest furnishings, and some have walls that contain hand-painted murals. On the outside are gazebos, elaborate gardens and fully stocked sheds. "My own house might be in disarray, but these houses don't have one item out of place," said the 78-year-old Timonium resident. "People would love to live in any of them." If they weren't less than 2 feet tall. The houses are miniature structures that Douglas creates and collects.

The Carroll County Farm Museum will offer a taste of an old-time Christmas at its "Christmas Crossings" holiday tour. The tour will take visitors through the holiday from 1850 to 1910. "It's a journey through the decades, a basic education back to a time when you didn't have Wal-Mart and you had to be creative and use what you had," said Dottie Freeman, museum administrator. Each room on the first level of the 1850s-era farmhouse is decorated to depict a different decade. The main entry hall is decorated with burgundy swags going up the banister, interspersed with handmade tapestry bags filled with ivy and peacock feathers.

Susan Sullivan picked up a doll head from a desk in the basement of her Carroll County home and sanded an area on the face that she had filled with Apoxie Sculpt, a self-hardening repair compound. "This doll had a crack above the eye," Sullivan said, dusting some of the debris from the sanding pad. "Once I've finished sanding it, I'll paint it with an airbrush." The doll is one of many that Sullivan, a certified doll doctor since 2004, repairs in her home-based "doll hospital." Her desire to repair dolls resulted from her fascination with dolls that were not in perfect condition, she said.

William S. Miller, a retired mechanical engineer who was also a model railroad and dollhouse enthusiast, died Wednesday in his sleep at Emeritus at Pikesville, an assisted-living facility. He was 101. William Samuel Miller, whose parents emigrated from Lithuania, was the son of a tailor and a homemaker. As a youth, he worked in his father's shop while attending Polytechnic Institute, from which he graduated in 1927. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1930 in mechanical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University.

For adults yearning for a little taste of childhood, Debbie Hooper has the answer -- start a hobby with miniatures.The 37-year-old mother of two said she began working with miniatures five years ago after buying her mother a dollhouse for Christmas.Since then she has started making and decorating dollhouses and "room boxes;" her younger daughter has one dollhouse and wants more.Mrs. Hooper has just donated an original room box in 18th-century Colonial style and worth an estimated $500 to $800 -- to the YWCA for its "Make a Little Room" benefit auction to help the homeless.

Susan Dunn is a shopaholic who isn't looking to reform her ways. Instead, when she launches her new magazine, PaperDoll, she's looking to indulge others just like her. She also wants to disprove naysayers who say there's no shopping in Baltimore. "It's a good time for [a shopping magazine] in Baltimore," said Dunn recently, over iced coffee at Starbucks in Mount Washington Mill. "There's lots of exciting stores coming here." The Ruxton resident starts to name them, ticking them off the way a mother lists the names of her children.