Imagery

Its dimensions and power inspire urban awe: the second-largest field of neon on the East Coast, a 120-by-70-foot spectacular electrical blaze that has cast its blood-orange radiance across the upriver waters of the Patapsco since April 25, 1951. "The sign has 650 neon tubes searing a 760-amps-per-hour image into the psyche of Charm City," as a Sun article described it a decade ago. Baltimore's iconic Domino Sugars sign (the final S is never pronounced, nor is it part of the company's official name)

Karl Connolly produces paintings rich with illusion and allusion, as his current exhibit at the C. Grimaldis Gallery shows.Those aspects of his work come together best in the seven works of the series "Stage Paintings.""Stage Painting #1: Mona" shows a heavy-set, almost nude man in underwear sitting on a metal stool in a field with a row of trees jTC in the background. A leaf painted on his underwear recalls the fig leaf strategically placed in some sculptures and paintings of male nudes.

The first thing that strikes you about "Sachamanta Salamanca" -- the latest work by the Argentinean troupe, Diablomundo -- is that there are no puppets. The company, which made its Baltimore debut in May with "Memories, Dreams and Illusions," is known for its puppet skills.But, impressive as those skills are, they're barely missed in "Sachamanta Salamanca," a ritual journey of discovery that is receiving its world premiere at Towson State University under the auspices of the Maryland Arts Festival and the Theatre Project.

Inside Baseball: The Best of Tom Verducci Sports Illustrated Books/318 pages Tom Verducci, a veteran journalist who has been the lead baseball writer for Sports Illustrated since 1993, doesn't really write features or profiles. Instead, he writes epics. This is hardly news to the weekly devotees of SI, who have been quietly raving about Verducci's gifts for some time now. But reading the recently released anthology of his magazine work, Inside Baseball: The Best of Tom Verducci, one can't help but be awed, once again, by the carefully chosen rhythm of Verducci's sentences, and the authority with which he tackles narrative journalism.

"Hubble 3D," a celebration of the orbiting space telescope and the NASA crew that gave it new life last year, provides a glimpse of how star systems looked a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. It reveals the borders of the visible universe. It drinks in the spectacle of celestial bodies born in fiery pillars of clouds. The content is scientific. The imagery gets biblical. In fact, after Baltimore-based astronaut John Grunsfeld witnessed a positive power check on a Hubble camera he'd installed, he said, "Let there be light."

Peter Greenaway's "Prospero's Books," now at the Rotunda, straddles the thin line between the highbrow and the really highbrow.It is not, to dispel one rumor, in any way a production of Shakespeare's "Tempest," at least not in any normal usage of that word. It is rather a visualization, a distillation, a conceptualization of the Bard's work. As the 1956 sci-fi classic "Forbidden Planet" opened the play for access by the masses, "Prospero's Books" closes access down to exclude the masses: It's a forbidden planet for no one but the most recondite of tastes.

When: 8 p.m. Feb. 16.Where: Painters Mill Theatre, Owings Mills.Tickets: $20.50.Call: 481-6000 for tickets, 581-2212 for information.Slayer singer Tom Araya can't help but smirk. Considering the way current events are catching up to those described in the song "War Ensemble," from the album "Seasons in the Abyss," Slayer suddenly seems uncannily prescient. Does he feel a bit prophetic when he sings those lyrics now?"Oh, just a little," he says with a laugh.It's not a pretty song by any means.

Joseph Sheppard has painted a president, sculpted a pope, written books on art and shown his work across the U.S. and Europe. But a new art gallery that opens Tuesday marks perhaps the greatest achievement of all for the Maryland-born artist: It will be the first time that a permanent gallery has opened in the state to house the works of a single living artist. "I think it's my best work," the 79-year-old Sheppard says. "If this happens at all, the artist is usually dead. This is quite unique."

For all you complaining about the less-than-stellar season six premiere, feast your eyes on the scintillating second episode. “The Collaborators” delves into themes of desire, putting on a good face for show and the sin rooted deep in Don's history: prostitution. The death and suicide images are still there, but toned down a bit from last week's one-and-a-half deaths. That's always a plus. Don runs into the good -- but not good enough for his wife -- doctor in the elevator before slipping away to sleep with said wife.

When the Rev. Melvin C. Green was installed formally as pastor of Christian Community Church of God on Sunday, he was presented with two ministerial robes trimmed with African kente cloth.Also on Sunday, to mark the Rev. Vashti McKenzie's fifth anniversary as pastor of Payne Memorial AME Church, her congregation gave her a light blue robe of silk edged in an African-style gold embroidery.These ministers -- of different sexes and denominations -- show how the revolution in clergy dress in the black church has become mainstream in recent years.