Panache

Party season is upon us, and one thing you can count on -- right on through New Year's Eve, you'll be asked to bring something to a potluck. Maybe several potlucks.Whether or not you can cook, if you have a full-time job and a family, you probably have less time for it than you used to. But say you want to do more. You want some recognition of your good taste, if not your culinary ability.What to do? Buy your way out. But not in a way that will make your friends narrow their eyes in a sidelong glance at you that says, "You didn't cook this."

Historically, travel hasn't been fashion-friendly. No matter how you pack, your clothes are destined for Wrinkleville. And that expensive bottle of perfume in your checked bag is likely to arrive broken or not at all. But fret not. Designers and cosmetic companies have taken note, launching mini-sized, wrinkle-free or collapsible products that help travelers stay fashionable while jet-setting. "So many designers and companies are conscious of travel-friendly fabrics and products," said Stephanie Bradshaw, a stylist based in Cockeysville.

Dressed in a straitjacket with a telephone cord wrapped around her torso, Sara Felder balances on a small seesaw while the audience sings "You Are My Sunshine." June Bride, Felder's largely autobiographical one-woman show at the Theatre Project, may have a conventional title, but it defies convention in both its style and subject matter. And this defiance couldn't be more fitting. June Bride runs through March 18 at the Theatre Project, 45 W. Preston St. $16. 410-752-8558.

To launch her second season at the controls of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, music director Marin Alsop set her sights on the final frontier. Using an engulfed Valhalla as a sort of launching pad, last night's journey at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall was steeped in imagery of alien beings, things and places. The Valhalla part came in Brunnhilde's "Immolation Scene" from Wagner's Gotterdammerung, that drama-rich finale to the Ring Cycle, when the realm of the gods goes up in flames, paving the way for renewal of the human domain.

Paris.Is the United States still a superpower? This is a facile question inviting a polemical response. However, it deserves an answer.What is a superpower? Obviously a country which possesses surpassing material, industrial and military resources -- as does the U.S. One which believes that its own society is a model for others. Americans have that belief. However, the operative element in being a superpower is the willingness and ability to use power to impose a certain order on the international scene, together with a willingness to pay the costs of doing so.The United States possessed that quality in the past.

Michael Dalesio seems to like to get restaurants started and then move on. First it was Dalesio's in Little Italy, then Michael's Riviera Grill at the Brookshire downtown, and then Sam's Waterfront Cafe in Annapolis.Now he's back in Baltimore, in a most unlikely setting. He's turning out bar food at Ransome's Harbor Hill Cafe.Of course, this is bar food with panache. It's clams Adriatica and fTC homemade spinach lasagna and seafood Neapolitan. But it's also buffalo wings and a crab cake sandwich with french fries and cole slaw.

MARY CARROLL Alderman is all about fashion. She owns the Panache clothing store in Green Spring Station and is one of the best advertisements for the place. At work, and off, this Ruxton resident is always a fashion plate. An unconstructed tunic top, skinny white jeans and fabulous shoes are what she throws on to meet friends for a casual dinner at Tark's Grill at the Station. Alderman knows how to put the va-va in voom! Age: "I'm still 44." Residence: Ruxton Job: Owner of Essentials by Panache Self-described style: "Classic, but updated and a little bit trendy."

Perhaps it is a tradition carried over from Easter bonnets, but hats have always been a part of the Flower Mart festivities. It takes a certain panache to pull off wearing a hat - some are better at it than others. It takes a bit of courage, self-confidence and whimsy, as well as a love of times gone by that, for a few hours, can be recaptured and enjoyed.

When vests were first taken up by women, they were designed pretty much as a novelty item. Either they were patterned after those worn by men or, more often, they were made more shapely and decorated with bows, medallions, dangling pins and such.Now simplified, with the frills removed, it is made in every fabric and every length from midriff to mid-calf.These new vests function like a jacket or even a coat. But because they are sleeveless and usually only fasten -- if at all -- with a button or tie at the breast, they are lightweight and floaty, a perfect component in today's fluid silhouettes.

PHILADELPHIA - Like a lot of designers, Polly Clement got into the fashion biz because she couldn't find precisely the garment she wanted. Clement was looking for a coat that would sit well over a hard-to-fit back and still be comfortable. And look stylish, of course. Although there were plenty of coats out there, nothing on the racks seemed to work, so Clement - whose hobby just happened to be sewing - decided to tailor one herself.It was a great success. Friends started asking if she would make similar coats for them, and it wasn't too long before someone suggested she go into business.

MARY CARROLL Alderman is all about fashion. She owns the Panache clothing store in Green Spring Station and is one of the best advertisements for the place. At work, and off, this Ruxton resident is always a fashion plate. An unconstructed tunic top, skinny white jeans and fabulous shoes are what she throws on to meet friends for a casual dinner at Tark's Grill at the Station. Alderman knows how to put the va-va in voom! Age: "I'm still 44." Residence: Ruxton Job: Owner of Essentials by Panache Self-described style: "Classic, but updated and a little bit trendy."

A FEW years ago when my birthday raised around $265,000 for the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York, I never dreamed Mike Bloomberg, his board and I were going to make charitable fund-raising history. Few New Yorkers had ever heard of this discretionary fund back then. Recently, an online guide, Charity Navigator, named the Mayor's Fund the No. 1 "slam dunk" nation's charity. The four-star rating was based on fiscal management, overall organizational efficiency and capacity. Charity Navigator investigated more than 5,000 other charities.

Dressed in a straitjacket with a telephone cord wrapped around her torso, Sara Felder balances on a small seesaw while the audience sings "You Are My Sunshine." June Bride, Felder's largely autobiographical one-woman show at the Theatre Project, may have a conventional title, but it defies convention in both its style and subject matter. And this defiance couldn't be more fitting. June Bride runs through March 18 at the Theatre Project, 45 W. Preston St. $16. 410-752-8558.

The Baltimore Opera Company's 2007-2008 season will resemble the 2006-2007 lineup - three Italian works and one non-Italian, with a Puccini favorite as the finale. And, although all of next season's operas have been performed by the company before, three of them will be returning after long absences. Verdi's brooding tragedy, La forza del destino, which contains some of his most stirring music, will open the season next October, re-entering the Baltimore Opera repertoire for the first time in 21 years.

Perhaps it is a tradition carried over from Easter bonnets, but hats have always been a part of the Flower Mart festivities. It takes a certain panache to pull off wearing a hat - some are better at it than others. It takes a bit of courage, self-confidence and whimsy, as well as a love of times gone by that, for a few hours, can be recaptured and enjoyed.

Brimming with sex, violence and substance abuse, Andrew Lippa's musical adaptation of Joseph Moncure March's 1920s narrative poem The Wild Party is pretty racy fare for relatively sedate Theatre Hopkins. But Todd Pearthree's direction, choreography and casting imbue The Wild Party with a style that elevates the material above its seamy foundation, without falsely prettifying it. Just watch the ensemble slither across the stage in tightly choreographed unison, displaying a movement vocabulary that can change in a moment from celebratory to predatory.

Night turned into Day-Oh ... when Harry Belafonte broke into song at HeartFest 2000. The King of Calypso wowed a crowd of 1,600 at the Martin's West shindig -- sharing the night's honors with his longtime friend and renowned Johns Hopkins cardiac surgeon, Dr. Levi Watkins Jr. Belafonte's two-song concert (the other song, his classic "Matilda") topped off a heartfelt, and heart-healthy, evening. The partygoers dined on low-fat offerings from area restaurants and caterers, and danced to music by Stevie V. and the Heart Attackers, a group of doctors and health-care specialists from Hopkins and Howard County General Hospital.

The great cellist Gregor Piatigorsky always exhibited a virtuosic flair that never eschewed exquisite taste. That quality also characterizes the playing of his student Nathaniel Rosen, who gave the first Piatigorsky Memorial Concert in the Shriver Hall Concert Series back in 1978 and who returned last night to give the 17th in what has become an important annual event.Piatigorsky was as distinguished a teacher as he was a performer, and like most great pedagogues he did not turn out carbon copies of himself.

On paper, this week's Baltimore Symphony Orchestra program may look ever so ho-hum - evergreens by Rachmaninoff and Bartok, plus a short burst of (fairly) new music. In actuality, it adds up to another decidedly potent night at the Meyerhoff. Italian conductor Roberto Abbado is back on the podium two years after his memorable BSO debut, again revealing quite an affinity for orchestral coloring, richly communicative phrasing and rhythmic solidity. And Russian powerhouse pianist Denis Matsuev, in his first BSO collaboration, couldn't be much more impressive.

The death two weeks ago of B film director Doris Wishman in Coral Gables, Fla., brought the name of Baltimore's premier ecdysiast, Fannie Belle Fleming, better known as Blaze Starr, back into the news. Wishman, called "the greatest female exploitation director in history" by drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs, in 1962 made Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, in which Starr plays herself - what else? - during a romp at a nudist colony. It was her only movie. Until hanging up her G-string and pasties in 1984, Starr was known as the Queen of Burlesque and the nation's premier exotic dancer, honors she proudly held for decades.