MAD

Coffeehouse -- The 333 Coffeehouse will present Mad Agnes at 8 p.m. April 20 at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 333 Dubois Road, Annapolis. The trio mixes the elements of classic and folk music. Admission is $10 for adults and $8 for students and senior adults. 443-786-0463, or www.fsgw.org/333.

Books can help your child to know you. If a book makes you feel good -- or sad -- or mad -- take it home to your child and read it to her.-- Valerie & Walter's Best Books for Children by Valerie V. Lewis and Walter M. MayesPub Date: 05/09/99

Do you hear the tom-toms beating? Across the land -- at least among its most cinema- obsessed precincts -- a tattoo has begun, quietly at first and gaining force in the last two weeks: He's back, he's back, he's back.The "he" is Terrence Malick, whose new movie "The Thin Red Line" opens in Baltimore Friday. The World War II epic, based on the novel by James Jones, is Malick's first film in 20 years, the third in a career that began in 1974 with the release of "Badlands." That film, starring Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen as a young couple on a murderous rampage through the Midwest, was a debut on a par with Orson Welles and "Citizen Kane," and Malick was immediately compared to that more rotund but similarly philosophical auteur.

Ernest Gold, 77, the Oscar-winning composer who wrote scores for "Exodus," "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," "On the Beach" and "The Secret of Santa Vittoria," died of complications from a stroke Wednesday in Los Angeles.His most recognized work was the score of the 1960 movie "Exodus," for which he won an Academy Award and two Grammys. He received two Academy Awards nominations -- best score and best song -- for the 1963 film "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," and also received nominations for 1959's "On the Beach" and the 1969 movie "The Secret of Santa Vittoria."

It's one of the seven deadly sins. It has brought down kings and civilizations. It gave Midas the golden touch, made Scrooge pinch his pennies until they screamed and induces contestants on "Wheel of Fortune" to make just one more spin, even though they already know the answer.It's greed, a human emotion that leads to nothing but tragedy ... and, over the years, a lot of great movies. Most recently, it has given us "A Simple Plan," with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton as brothers who find a sackload of cash, agree to split it among themselves and another friend, then watch helplessly as the lust for money bends their moral compasses all out of whack.

One of the more complicated end-of-the-television-season rituals is saying goodbye to one-time hit series that have overstayed their welcome.In recent years, that list has included "Murphy Brown" and "Roseanne." Tonight, in that category comes "Mad About You" with Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser in a one-hour finale titled "The Final Frontier."The episode opens with Paul (Reiser) and Jamie (Hunt) Buchman in bed introducing a clip reel of some of their "favorite moments from the last seven years."

SAMUEL PENNINGTON publishes Maine Antique Digest, watchguards the antiques market, collects (historical bronze sculptures), and now and then catches public television's current hit, "Antiques Roadshow." Now and then his eyes, too, widen.May's issue of M.A.D., as the trade calls it, had 412 tabloid-size pages; 30,000-some subscribers rate M.A.D. without equal for Americana.Pennington, who founded M.A.D. in 1973, is from Baltimore (Calvert School, Johns Hopkins '52). Waldoboro, Me., offered lower costs, perhaps more action (recently a July 17, 1776, printing of the Declaration of Independence turned up in a Dumpster; clouded provenance, but worth at least $100,000)

The music of Richard Wagner's opera, "Tristan und Isolde," can affect you like a jingle; you can't get it out of your head. The difference is that it's not 60 seconds of harmless fluff. It's four hours of music, alternating between erotic yearning and erotic bliss, that continues to grind its gears in your ears long after it's over. Fortunate listeners get a persistent headache; less fortunate ones forget themselves and go mad.Performances of "Tristan" are rare. The current Washington Opera production, which opened last night at the Kennedy Center, is its first in almost 20 years.

"Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet," by Michael Wolff. Simon & Schuster. 288 pages. $24.We all know truth is stranger than fiction. Michael Wolff proves iagain with his latest book, "Burn Rate," a guided tour of the online world that resembles a zoo gone mad -- except that the creatures aren't caged.Wolff, a former journalist who worked as a New York Times reporter in the 1970s and author of "Where We Stand," which became a six-part PBS television series, was one of the pioneers of new media.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A recent story in the national racing magazine dubbed Michael Dickinson a "mad genius."Dickinson, the Maryland trainer, took offense. He telephoned the reporter."Please don't call me a mad genius," Dickinson said in his English accent, "just 'mad' will do."Then yesterday, he was spotted on the Churchill Downs' turf course, marching stiffly, kicking one foot forward and then the other, smashing his heels into the grass. He was checking the condition of the turf for the two horses he will saddle Saturday in the Breeders' Cup Mile and the Breeders' Cup Turf.

The reaction of the punditocracy to Sarah Palin's abdication as Alaska's governor broke, not surprisingly, along gender lines. The guys were flabbergasted. The women were furious. It was almost fun to watch the men fumble for words in the wake of her decision to resign. When asked what her motive might be, they admitted their cluelessness. If this was her route to the presidency, they seemed to agree, it was through the wilderness. But the women were angry. "Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy," wrote Maureen Dowd of The New York Times in the first of two scathing columns.

Jazz@Lakers 10:30 p.m. [TNT] Kobe Bryant (left) and the Los Angeles Lakers can finish off Utah in Game 5. The problem the Jazz created by winning Game 3 was sort of like what you hear about shooting a bear: Be careful, because sometimes all that does is make him mad.

The major league-leading $200 million payroll, the offseason spending spree and the roster that reads like an All-Star roll call suggest the New York Yankees will be back in the postseason hunt in 2009. A team needs more than just talent and a hefty payroll to get to the playoffs, though. The 2008 version of the Yankees proved that. That's why Yankees second-year manager Joe Girardi canceled a February workout and took his players to a pool hall for an all-day billiards tournament. Team unity, thy name is Yankee.

Jennifer Shacreaw's name is not going to be found at the top of the Atholton Raiders' scoring or minutes-played lists, but on the court and in the locker room, Shacreaw, one of two seniors on the Raiders' 13-9 team this season, is the lifeline to a steady, stable performance and a direct line into what coach Maureen Shacreaw, her mother, is thinking. Jennifer Shacreaw has scored 27 points and gathered 32 rebounds in 21 games, but according to her mother, that's not where her strength lies.

1 Three into 12: Three of the women's top 12 - Duke (10) at Virginia Tech and Virginia (12) at North Carolina (2) - play tonight in a Comcast SportsNet-Plus doubleader (6:30). 2 Drive his car: With the Knicks in Washington to face the Wizards (7 p.m., Comcast SportsNet), you kind of wonder whether Eddy Curry might have trouble getting a taxi. 3 Edge, Chris Paul: Whatever the outcome of Hornets at Cavaliers (8 p.m., ESPN), CP3 is a better nickname than King James. 4 Lei up on that shot: Is this fair?

The documentary India begins tonight on MPT. And the six-hour miniseries will tell you more about India than you probably wanted to know. But the sub-continent is laid out, probed and oohed and ahhed over with such enthusiasm by host Michael Wood that viewers may just be swept up in the whole enterprise. One of the great pleasures in this series is that India is so un-American. There is simply very little about India that is comparable to this country or continent. And this production is beautiful.

If your mailbox is filling up faster than usual, thank your financial planner. Ever since the failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings in September that set off a panic, planners have been sending three to five times the usual number of newsletters and e-mail blasts to clients. "We have been sending out a lot of articles trying to reassure people that they need to hang in there as long as they can," says Annette Simon, a Bethesda financial planner. "The instinct for a lot of people ... was to get out and maybe stop contributing to their 401(k)

I'm mad. Let me qualify that - I'm black and mad. The mad I'm talking about I inherited from generations of black people before me. I learned early in life that this mad is not curable (not yet) but that I could manage it. But sometimes I get flare-ups of anger that defy management. I've been having such moments as Sen. Barack Obama has publicly rebuked remarks made by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Pastor Wright has been vilified for excerpts of sermons in which he's said some fairly outlandish things (for example, that "we" - America - started AIDS)

After attending Time magazine's entertaining annual Person of the Year symposium last week, I believe the "person" may turn out to be another "something." That is to say - the environment! Brian Williams, a regular of this annual panel, suggested Mother Earth. Whoopi Goldberg went for the "green," noting that even her grandson cares only for two things - "basketball and recycling." And MySpace's youthful creator Chris DeWolfe suggested Al Gore. He also noted the way our stock market and economy operated in 2007.

The first pitch of Game 7 of Sunday's American League Championship Series at Fenway Park was thrown out by Kevin Millar. In certain precincts north of here, he's better known as Kevin Mil-laaaaaaahhhh. And as the Cowboy Up guy. And as a key member of the 2004 World Series champion Boston Red Sox. Only as a trivia question, or as a "whatever happened to ... " answer, is Millar known there as a member of the Orioles, which is how he's known here. At least he was until Sunday, after which he was known as "traitor."