Imagery

SALISBURY - As far as Salisbury University senior Tim Kane is concerned, he's one of the lucky ones. Lucky he wasn't at the World Trade Center - where he'd worked all summer on the 23rd floor of Building 7 - when the nearby twin towers came crashing down Sept. 11. Lucky that all his colleagues there survived the terrorist attack that devastated New York City's financial district. Luckier still, says Kane, is that his unusual blend of skills allowed him to do what so many Americans wanted to do - help.

There is a small, cranky, iconoclastic voice in me that occasionally wonders whether painting any longer has much relevance to the future of art in America. I say this, of course, in the full knowledge that any report of the demise of painting is almost certainly premature. In an earlier incarnation at this newspaper, for example, I once took a kind of perverse delight in announcing the death of poetry, say, or the end of jazz. Well, poetry and jazz still soldier on -- though somewhat anemically, one might argue, given their illustrious pasts -- so far be it from me to consign the art of painting to a similar fate.

Relax. Make big plays. Only in his dreams has Patrick Johnson been following a wide receiver's rules to live by lately. The third-year pro is a big believer in sports psychology, and he practices visualizing aspects of his trade like getting open, catching the ball and visiting the end zone. The real things have been hard to come by recently, as Johnson has just four receptions to show for the Ravens' last five regular-season games. With the Baltimore offense in a well-documented December funk since a bye four weeks ago, an unproductive receiving corps has come under greater scrutiny and pressure.

Jacob Lawrence, 82, whose colorful paintings chronicled the history of black America with subtle emotion and evocative simplicity, died of lung cancer yesterday at his home in Seattle. A National Medal of Arts winner in 1990, Mr. Lawrence was loved not only for his work but also for his generosity and kindness to those he met. Lawrence was highly regarded in the prolific art circles of Depression-era Harlem. Influenced by both Matisse and the Cubists, Lawrence was admired for his vibrant imagery as well as his commitment to social causes.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court justices yesterday examined the electronic mystery of why sexually explicit cable-TV images and sounds sometimes appear in the midst of other broadcasts, and they seemed unsure what to do about it.The justices spent an hour animatedly discussing the constitutionality of a 1996 federal law that was designed to shield children from accidental exposure to erotic cable programming that their parents have not chosen to receive.Such...

Love, betrayal, death and hats dance in fanciful tandem in "Illuminata," John Turturro's farce about life and theater that is by turns elegant and bawdy, but always transfixing.Indeed, "Illuminata" is about so many things, and expresses so many ideas in its giddy, rapid-fire way, that it's difficult to relegate it to any genre. Filled with slapstick physical comedy and ribald asides, it is certainly a comedy, but it is also suffused with such tenderness and intelligence that it qualifies as the most serious drama.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Robert Sewak, Ph.D., has some far-out cures he can't wait to tell you about. So please, have a seat in his music studio. And try to keep an open mind.Your organs each emit their own vibrations or sounds, Sewak explains as you ease into an old green recliner. Together, those vibrations form a "fundamental tone" or musical note for your body. And keeping your mind and body in harmony by exposing them to music can do wonders for your health, he says.By the way, that's a vintage, 1943 La-Z-Boy rocker you're sitting in. And -- whoa!

The only thing that can save Angel, the vampire lover of Buffy, is to drink the blood of a slayer. But the only slayer on hand is Buffy."Drink me," Buffy commands the fading angel, and, boy, does he ever, coming back to life as he drinks like you wouldn't believe.If this isn't a metaphor for sex (and, I might add, one of the more intense, sensual and violent metaphors for sex I have ever seen in a teen drama), then I'm the king of Transylvania, baby.The long-delayed and much-discussed season finale of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" will finally air tonight on the WB, and I hope every parent of a teen-ager and every adult who has been flapping his or her jaws about teens and popular culture since the carnage at Columbine will watch.

Ballet Theatre of Annapolis will bring to Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts this weekend a program of dance that should be of interest to the whole family.The all-classical program includes "Beauty and the Beast," a two-act ballet based on the ancient folk tale and choreographed by BTA's artistic director, Edward Stewart, and Act II of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake," choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov."Beauty and the Beast" will be a visual treat with elegant costumes and dramatic sets.

By the time the first air raid sirens sounded in the Baghdad night at 4: 17 p.m. (EST) yesterday, it had already been such a dizzying day of newsbreaks that you were left almost dumbfounded in front of your television set.But within 15 minutes came another stunning bulletin -- this time from Capitol Hill -- that the majority leader of the Senate, Trent Lott, did not back the military action taking place.Then, before the White House and Congressional correspondents could even start to digest that extraordinary statement, it was back to Baghdad and CNN's Christiane Amanpour as anti-aircraft guns started to boom.