Entertainment

The nerd-epic (and I use that term with the deepest feeling of endearment) "Game of Thrones" is returning next month, and no one is more excited than our friends at Entertainment Weekly (and me!) . The magazine has dedicated not one, but four covers to the lengthy, complex fantasy series.  As I nerd myself, I couldn't be more excited. I shamefully admit to buying the "Game of Thornes" board game last month in a moment of weakness (don't judge).  Anyway, you're excited.

After convincing his mostly preschool audience to chant, "Dance, Kinderman, dance" a few times, John Taylor pretended to timidly oblige. But he cleverly surprised his young spectators when he flamboyantly cocked his right hip and unleashed a sample of the flashy footwork and smooth moves that long ago earned him the title of Disco King. The exuberant 2- to 6-year-olds screamed their approval, smitten by the mischievous leader with the wide grin and calming voice as he led the church school's students and staff through 45 minutes of learning wrapped up in movement and song.

A nonprofit foundation paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Baltimore Police Department as part of the commissioner's signature training program reported that nearly 40 percent of the foundation's expenditures over two years covered entertainment, meals and travel, a review of tax records by The Baltimore Sun has found. The expenses reported by the Center for Research on Institutions and Social Policy included more than $34,000 spent on entertainment in 2009 and 2010, the most recent years for which records are available.

Back in May, we reported on a 47-year-old attorney and magician who ran an entertainment company in Baltimore County, was charged with flying to Florida to have sex with a 14-year-old boy. The Essex man, Howard Scott Kalin, ran Funhouse Entertainment on York Road in Lutherville, and was known for making balloon animals for children. Police said that he met the boy over the Internet. The only problem was that the "boy" was an undercover police detective with theLake County Sheriff's Office cybercrime division.

This is the time of year when the media engage in the rather morbid task of revisiting all the noteworthy deaths that occurred during the previous 12 months, and readers mutter to themselves, "He died this year? I thought he was already dead. " I often end up feeling badly for the people whose deaths pretty much escaped notice the first time around. And for the people whom I don't even recognize. You have to be glad they are not around to endure these slights. I read over this year's list of the famously departed with the same question in mind that daily obituary readers have: "Older than me or younger than me?"

Ruth L. Thomas, whose philanthropic interests ranged from medical and educational institutions to helping newly arrived immigrants, died Wednesday of complications from a stroke at Springhouse Assisted-Living in Pikesville. Mrs. Thomas would have celebrated her 98th birthday this coming week. The daughter of Jacob Legum, founder of Park Circle Motor Co., and Rose l. Legum, a homemaker, Ruth Legum was born in Norfolk, Va., and moved with her family to Fairview Avenue in Forest Park in 1917.

Seemingly without fail, every time the Ravens and Indianapolis Colts meet, the days leading up to the game are filled with articles about then-team owner Robert Irsay's decision to move the Baltimore Colts to Indianapolis in the middle of the night on March 29, 1984, and the resulting outcry from the Baltimore community. John Harbaugh has been a part of that storyline, dutifully answering questions when the teams clashed in the 2008 season and then twice in the 2009 campaign, but the Ravens coach wasn't in an entertaining mood when the subject was broached during his weekly media briefing Wednesday.

The Baltimore Development Corp. said Thursday it was reissuing a request for proposal to develop three properties, including the former Parkway Theatre, one of the most prominent landmarks in the city's Station North Arts and Entertainment District. The BDC in 2009 confirmed a proposal for the Parkway Theatre project by Cormony Development and Seawall Development Co. But due to "changing conditions" over "considerable periods of time," the city chose to renew the RFP process, according to M.J. "Jay" Brodie, president of the BDC. Samuel Polakoff, head of Cormony Development, said the BDC never told him and Seawall why it was no longer supporting them as developers.

If we've learned anything so far in the effort to bring slot machine gambling to Maryland - and especially to downtown Baltimore - it's not to get too excited by early promises and glitzy artist's renderings. The gap between promise and reality seems to have a tendency to stretch on in unexpected ways. That said, the proposal by the head of Caesars Entertainment Corp. to the state's slots licensing commission for a Harrah's casino on Russell Street just south of M&T Bank Stadium is clearly more promising than anything we've seen thus far for the Baltimore site and stands a chance to give the Cordish Cos. casino under construction at Arundel Mills mall competition for the state's top slots site.

There's a restaurant scene partway through Act 2 of "La Cage aux Folles" that spotlights Christopher Sieber, playing Albin, the reigning drag queen of Saint-Tropez in the propulsive and entertaining production at the Hippodrome this week. Albin, decked out like an overstuffed Margaret Thatcher and still hurt by perceived slights from the most important people in his life, is called upon to sing a little something. Sieber's whole body subtly softens and seems to glow as he sings in gentle, conversational tones: "Hold this moment fast, and live and love as hard as you know; make this moment last, because the best of times is now. " No great shakes as a lyric or a tune, but Sieber's nuanced singing sells it so affectingly that you'd swear it was the most divinely inspired song in the Broadway canon, a bittersweet anthem as much for those in love as for those who feel threatened.