Garfunkel

Felix the elephant is having a baby, and the newest addition to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore can't arrive soon enough. With new leadership, a strong base of state funding and reduced ticket prices, the zoo in Druid Hill Park is poised for resurgence. An infusion of corporate dollars would greatly help it along, even with a new pachyderm in the house. The zoo, which reopened this weekend for the season, is a 132-year-old institution that's been showing its age for some time; its facilities are many and its maintenance needs too often deferred.

Some pop stars get trapped in their past and close out their careers endlessly replaying old favorites. Others get trapped by their past, struggling in vain to concoct new material that's as interesting or inventive as their back catalog.Paul Simon, though, has avoided both problems. Not only does his recent work, inspired by the music of Africa and Brazil, rank among his best, but -- as his performance at the Baltimore Arena last night demonstrated -- he even manages to make his oldest hits seem fresh and exciting.

Milton Garfunkel has no idea why he has lived to be 99, but finds it curious that his elder sister died at 102 and two brothers lived until they were 92 and 90. All he knows is that aside from bad knees that he blames on many years of handball, he feels fabulous. "I think I can be 120, the way I feel," says Garfunkel, a retired salesman who lives independently with his wife, Peggy, in Yonkers, N.Y. Peggy is 95 and isn't concerned about why she's lived so long. "Why?" she asks rhetorically.

An update on the concert scene: newly announced shows and ticket availability. For ticket information and purchase, call Ticketmaster at 410-547-SEAT unless otherwise noted. Just announced Simon and Garfunkel will perform at the 1st Mariner Arena June 14. Tickets go on sale Saturday. Metallica and Godsmack take the stage at the MCI Center in Washington Oct. 17. Tickets go on sale Saturday. Counting Crows and the Graham Colton Band play Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia July 21. American Idols III will be held at the MCI Center in Washington Aug. 22. Tickets go on sale May 22. The Capitol Steps play the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis May 29. Call 410-268-4545.

Intolerable Cruelty isn't the only Baltimore opening that comes adorned with Simon & Garfunkel gags. Near the start of Sweet Sixteen, a couple of Scottish delinquents hawk hot cigarettes at a pub. The barkeeper calls the two pals Simon & Garfunkel and orders them out. They each flip him the bird and squeal, "Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson." The saloon man makes a good call. Pinball is tall and scrawny like young Garfunkel; Liam compact and four-square, like Simon. And this duo is also destined to break up. Sweet Sixteen explores what drives kith and kin together and apart.

President Clinton gets to show himself in a light that has nothing to do with Paula Jones, Whitewater or even gimpy knees, tonight on VH1."Rising Sun" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45) -- Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes are detectives assigned to figure out how a young woman turned up dead under particularly odd circumstances inside the headquarters of a large Japanese corporation. Connery's the old pro called in because he understands the Japanese and their ways, while Snipes is the no-nonsense cop who simply wants to solve the case -- and isn't sure Connery's character has the same goal.

Clarifications to the Legend of Mama Cass Elliot:No. 1. Mama Cass Elliot did not die choking on a ham sandwich.No. 2. Mama Cass Elliot was hit on the head by a pipe, but it did not have the effect, as the Mamas and Papas repeated ad infinitum, of expanding her vocal range.No. 3. When Mama Cass Elliot was a sophomore, she didn't plan to go to Swarthmore, as the lyrics to "Creeque Alley" claim. Goucher was a more likely choice, but it didn't rhyme.No. 4. Mama Cass Elliot's daughter was not immaculately conceived as Mama Cass Elliot announced.

After nearly a decade of winning over local and out-of-town crowds as the lead singer of Fools & Horses, singer-songwriter Matt Hutchison suddenly became a solo act after the band broke up in October 2011. Since then, he's played wherever they'll have him — colleges, coffeehouses, the Night Cat in Easton, Joe Squared in Station North, to name a few places — trying to rebuild the interest his previous band earned. Consistent gigs are good, but it's difficult to gain listeners without releasing albums.

Some of the most familiar pairings in American annals migh not have prospered had the names been reversed.Roebuck and Sears.Costello and Abbott.Jill and Jack.A debate is now raging in corporate offices, think-tanks and government chambers over whether to call the new combined "common market" in this region the "Baltimore-Washington" metropolitan area, or the "Washington-Baltimore" area.Because the populace in the two regions ostensibly has more in common now, and because business leaders feel the consolidation would attract more international business and government aid to these parts, federal officials are expected to combine the two metropolitan areas into a single mega-market, on paper, by year's end.Fortunately, one criteria that the U.S. Office of Management and Budget does not use in deciding whether two metropolises merit a common market is how smoothly they decide whose name goes first.

Spoons in Federal Hill has earned well-deserved recognition as one of the city's most appealing coffeehouses. The 3-year-old establishment boasts 20 different kinds of coffees and a comfortable, exposed-brick ambience. We came, though, to try the food. Spoons Coffeehouse & Roastery offers a nice selection of soups, salads and sandwiches (as well as omelets, bagels and other breakfast foods in the mornings). After placing our order, we sat back in comfortable overstuffed chairs, played Trivial Pursuit and listened to Simon and Garfunkel on the sound system.