Gangster

When Froggy staged a crime spree to finance his wooing of Miss Mousie, children's book author Kevin O'Malley had the court send him to prison for a long stretch.But when O'Malley's fanciful "gangster" version of the old folk tale got the boot from Baltimore County elementary schools last spring after one parent complained, the author never had his day court -- neither a hearing nor notification of the ban. The rules don't require it.Now, after appeals from O'Malley and from Clara Grizzard, a neighbor and art educator, school officials have decided to allow O'Malley to plead his case.

Kids, here's a bit of sage advice for the future: Sometimes the worst career move you can make is to have a career.That seems to be so in the case of Quentin Tarantino, who made a brilliant film called "Reservoir Dogs," which elevated him to cult hero status. Then he issued "Pulp Fiction," which made him not only famous but powerful as well, and the inevitable backlash set in.The backlash mainly settled on the issue of plagiarism: Was "Reservoir Dogs," which seemed so powerful, so original, so shockingly new, stolen from a 1987 Chinese gangster film called "City on Fire," directed by heist specialist Ringo Lam?

Time for Mayor Martin O'Malley to get cable. Because he doesn't watch HBO, Baltimore's mayor came out of his first foray into the world of New York celebrity feeling a bit like a small-town rube. And his unwitting encounter with a TV gangster made the gossip columns. During a recent trip to the Big Apple to recruit new business to Baltimore, O'Malley and his deputy mayors found themselves in the famous East Side show-biz watering hole, Elaine's. While they dined with former New York City Deputy Police Commissioner Jack Maple, who's been hired to help cut Charm City's murder rate, O'Malley was approached by a big man with a thick New Jersey accent.

VIDEOSHoffman as a gangster"Billy Bathgate" passed quickly from the screen last fall as one of the biggest flops of the year. But the film, with Dustin Hoffman as the gangster Dutch Schultz, was certainly worth seeing, even if it lacked the dynamism of the '30s gangster films and the operatic grandeur of the "Godfather" films. Hoffman's vitality kept it afloat. The movie only foundered when it left him and instead followed the less interesting adventures of young Billy (Loren Dean). Rated R. ** 1/2 stars.

STILL ANOTHER biography of the late Alphonse "Scarface" Capone has appeared ("Capone," by L. Bergreen, Simon and Schuster). In it, the author includes the story of Capone's four-month stay in Baltimore. It is a scholarly, well-documented and authentic (including reporting and observations by H.L. Mencken himself) account, and if you want to know Mr. Bergreen's (and the prevailing) version of that story you will have to read the book.For the insider's story of Capone's time here, there's the version told by the late Menasha ("Menash")

THESE GUYS are definitely dressed to kill.The mobsters are back, and they aren't content to rule movie screens. They're gonna get you guys in your closets and stuff you back into sharp-as-knives suits.Gangster glamour has been shooting from screens with summer's cartoonish "Dick Tracy," fall's stylish "GoodFellas" and this season's "The Godfather Part III." In a chicken-or-the-egg scenario, the exquisitely garish tailoring of many mobsters has subtly influenced current men's fashions, which have been looking rather like the 1940s, say industry observers.

SpiderI wassitting so long a spider seized me,dropped his guideline from my sweater,commenced his killer's cartwheelsand lunges, weaving and wanderingin space on silk.I could not let such spinning stop.I sat still and watched him dance designsin the dazzled air.BatThe gray headed fruit bat hangs upside down,bears her baby upside down, panting,showing her assassin's pointed teethin a rosebud mouth.She licks her baby into life, covers himwith her lady gangster's black leather wings.ManThe Afrikaner told how he and other officers shota young black student, made a fire.

Barry Levinson and his wife woke up yesterday morning around 5-ish, West Coast time, and wondered, "Well, should we turn on CNN?"They did, and their decision not to roll over and fall back asleep was rewarded with this news: the former Baltimorean's most recent movie, "Bugsy," was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, more than any other film this year."

MUSICCello festival at TSUAs part of its international cello festival, Towson State University will present the St. Petersburg Quartet this evening at 8:15 in the Fine Arts Concert Hall, Osler and Campus drives. The quartet, which is in residence at the St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) Conservatory, will perform works by Mozart and Brahms as well as by Russian composers Tchaikovsky and Borodin. Tickets are $19 for general admission, $6 for students, seniors and TSU staff. Call (410) 830-3451.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Fourteen months after an inner-city Housto teen-ager aimed his 9mm gun at the neck of a Texas state trooper outside Victoria and pulled the trigger, the question before the court is this: Does life imitate rap?The answer will reverberate nationwide from the Austin courtroom -- from the boardrooms of the record industry to the mean streets of gangster rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur. It will be felt from the small Texas town of the trooper's widow to the jail cell of Ronald Ray Howard, a reputed cocaine dealer and seventh-grade dropout who killed the officer.