Noise

Towson University officials offered neighbors of the campus a look at final plans for a $68 million athletic center at a meeting Tuesday. The university, which expects to break ground on the 5,000-seat arena this spring, encouraged residents to ask questions and comment on the design as well as landscaping and lighting. Patrick Foretich, board member of the Rodgers Forge Community Association, said before the meeting the neighbors' greatest concerns surround the actual construction activity and the ensuing debris as well as the noise during daytime hours.

Kenneth A. Savage has been preaching for nearly a decade inside a double-wide rowhouse on East Lombard Street in Highlandtown. The pastor of Holy Truth Temple of Deliverance House of Praise says he's reached out to the corner boys who set up their drug shop on nearby narrow Mount Pleasant Avenue and welcomed the homeless to help them find housing. Kevin L. Bernhard has been working for years to improve his neighborhood, too. The president of the Highlandtown Community Association has canvassed door-to-door with police to inform residents about crime problems and helped to clean up litter.

A 51-year-old Eastern Shore man has been charged with building and selling improvised bombs after investigators spent four months trying to learn the source of loud noises in Queen Anne's County, according to the Maryland State Fire Marshal. Dale Anthony Rocknak of Lee Road in Chester was charged in a criminal summons with five counts of manufacturing and selling explosive devices. He faces a maximum 20 years in prison if convicted of each count; his trial is scheduled for June.

Just three months after Milan opened its doors, billing itself as a restaurant-lounge "where food meets fashion," it seems a few more introductions are in order: Milan, meet Little Italy. And Little Italy, meet what could be the future. The old city neighborhood that's been known to split bitterly over bocce court lighting has turned its feisty spirit on the sleek newcomer. Complaining that Milan is more nightclub than restaurant, attracting noisy crowds and employing outside promoters, a group of neighbors has petitioned the city not to renew Milan's liquor license.

When I first encountered iTunes, the wildly popular music app that allows fans to compile their own digital library, I was agog. After 20 years of amassing music, I had more than 4,000 albums, most of them stacked precariously in my basement. The more I used iTunes, the more slavish my devotion grew. If I wanted to play a particular song, I no longer had to go hunting through those stacks. I just clicked a button. If I wanted to make a mixed CD -- a process that had taken me hours, particularly in the cassette era -- I had only to create a new playlist.

Silhouette Stages presents this classic comedy by novelist/playwright Michael Frayn through March 14 at Slayton House in the Village of Wilde Lake. Shows are 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 3 p.m. today and March 14. Tickets are $15 for general admission, $12 for seniors and students. Call 410-461-7373.

In letters and at community association meetings this week, neighbors of the Senator Theatre are voicing concerns over its possible takeover by Towson University radio station WTMD. Complaining that the university has not been a good neighbor in the past, they want assurances Towson officials will pay closer heed to their concerns once even more students start flooding the area. "There's certainly more of a potential for disruption in the area than when it was just a movie theater," says Debbie Jones, who has lived in the Lake Evesham community just north of the Senator since 1988.

With drums, bells and other instruments, children were raising the roof Sunday at Port Discovery in Baltimore, as part of the 10th annual "I Have A Dream Weekend" festivities honoring the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. On Day 2 of the three-day celebration, scores of children sat in a large studio of the children's museum, beating djembe West African drums while others shook cowbells and whacked tambourines. They tried to keep up with Jonathan Murray, drum circle facilitator, and his partner, Daveed Korup, who built the African rhythms to a crescendo as loud as an Eastern Shore summer thunderstorm.