Renaissance Man

When British West Indian playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah came to Center Stage last month for the first rehearsal of Elmina's Kitchen, he arrived with cookies for the cast. Then he apologized for not bringing the cookies from England. Center Stage's production is the American premiere of the award-winning Elmina's Kitch-en -- and, for that matter, the American premiere of any play by Kwei-Armah. Though he's hardly a household name in this country, Kwei-Armah is a celebrity in his native Britain.

Renaissance is everywhere in Baltimore County - the word, not the era. It's in county literature, in county legislation, in big letters on the mezzanine-level walls of the old county courthouse. County Executive James T. Smith Jr. can't seem to get through a speech without using the word at least once, and a recent fund-raising letter has three references to, you guessed it, renaissance. He's even used the word, which the dictionary says is a noun or adjective, as a verb on occasion. "Renaissance" is for Smith what "Believe" has become for Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley - a catchword that both defines and symbolizes the aims of his administration.

Outside The low-impact workout of water aerobics is drawing a number of fans to city pools this winter, page 28 Scene The People's Poetry Awards 2004 celebrate the accomplishments of the city's poetic wordsmiths, page 26 Family "Santa's Big Broadcast" at the Radio and Television Museum in Bowie celebrates the history of holiday-themed radio and TV programming, page 29 Eats The centerpiece of Woodfire Grill in Severna Park is, shockingly, a wood-burning...

FOR YEARS, when I'd see that "You've got a friend in Pennsylvania" slogan, I'd often think of Les Lanyon. When he died unexpectedly last month, at 55, from a blood clot, the bay lost an extraordinary scientist. The first time I met Les he was weighing cow manure on a little Pennsylvania dairy farm, and thinking as big as the future of planet Earth. The Penn State agriculture professor was recording every pound of everything entering the farm -- feed, fertilizers, even peanut hulls for livestock bedding -- and also measuring all farm outputs, from milk to manure.

A searcher after unfathomable things, a painter of disquieting smiles that suggest the riddles of human personality, and of hands that point to mysteries beyond the earth, he seemed to his contemporaries a sort of magician, and to men in later centuries an Italian Faust."

Murray Horwitz is a Renaissance man in an age of specialists. He's been a professional circus clown, songwriter, playwright, public radio executive and arts administrator. He's directed TV soap operas, worked for the New York State Assembly and appeared on stage with performers ranging from Jonathan Winters to Wynton Marsalis. "Specialization is highly overrated. We are living in an age when everybody is encouraged to specialize ... and we're discouraged from knowing anything outside of our own particular ken," he says.

Most people think of Bing Crosby -- when they think of him at all -- as the ultra-square pop crooner who was overtaken by the very hip Frank Sinatra and eventually thrust aside by the raw power of rock and the growth of cynicism and distrust in American society. Almost nobody knows that the young Crosby was one of the hottest jazzmen around. He was the first singer to popularize a gentle, conversational style speckled with held notes like groans, a pioneer who traded innovations with good friend Louis Armstrong and may very well have been the single most influential American musician of the 20th century.

Donald S. Elliott, a retired teacher and children's book author regarded as a Renaissance man, died Tuesday of heart disease at his Owings Mills home. He was 72. He taught at the private Garrison Forest School in Owings Mills from 1966 until he retired six years ago. In the 1970s and early 1980s, he wrote three music-teaching children's books, "Alligators and Music," "Frogs and the Ballet" and "Lamb's Tales From Great Operas." All were illustrated by artist Clinton Arrowood. "He was one of the most gifted, natural teachers I've ever seen," said Archibald Montgomery IV, Gilman School headmaster.

At St. John's College, they know from Renaissance men. But even among the classically trained tutors of that venerable institution who spend their lives reading and teaching the likes of Machiavelli, Bocaccio and Shakespeare, Elliott Zuckerman is more of a "uomo universale"- a true "Renaissance man" - than most. Over the years, Annapolitans have come to know Zuckerman as the poet, scholar, musician, pianist and cultural sage whose poetry readings, preconcert talks and lecture-demonstrations on the piano music of Frederic Chopin have helped bring high culture alive for the general public.

When he was mayor of Baltimore, his promoters insisted he was married to the city, had no other life, lived only to serve. With William Donald Schaefer, life surpassed hype. He compiled an extraordinary record of achievement in Baltimore, devoting himself to its welfare for half a century. Machine Democrats launched him, but his own success in office gave him invincibility. Stratospheric poll rat- ings allowed him to leverage costly public works projects.Unseen innovations that made government more responsive were also part of his legacy.