Sensation

Ted Williams, the homeless Ohio man who became an overnight sensation earlier this year, will be bringing his "golden voice" to Charm City in August when he serves as announcer for Baltimore Fashion Week, the event's executive director, Sharan Nixon, confirmed. Williams signed a contract Tuesday morning that results in him live announcing designers each day of the four-day event. In addition, Williams will do radio spots and attend promotional events associated with Baltimore Fashion Week, which runs Aug. 18-21.

The New York rappers Das Racist made a career out of a one-note joke. A couple of years ago, they became Internet demi-celebrities for a song that consists of a variations of a simple verse on loop: "I'm at the Pizza Hut (what?)/I'm at the Taco Bell (what?)/I'm at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. " It was a perfect Internet meme, easy to describe in 140 characters, practically made to go viral on YouTube. And it did. Dan Deacon talked about it on an online music magazine, and soon after, the multiracial duo of Victor Vazquez and Himanshu Suri — along with hype man Ashok Kondabolu — were being interviewed in The New York Times and discussed in the New Yorker.

Denard Robinson, QB, Michigan Buzz: He became the first player in FBS history to pass for 200 yards and rush for 200 yards in a regular-season game twice in his career when he led the Wolverines on a game-winning drive Saturday against Indiana. Up next: No. 17 Michigan State, Saturday. Terrelle Pryor, QB, Ohio State Buzz: A strained left quadriceps derailed his performance Saturday against Illinois and showed why the Buckeyes need Pryor in the lineup.

This year's Maryland State Fair has become the go-to event of the summer with just two words: Justin Bieber. The teen pop music sensation will perform at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium on Sept. 5, as part of the new tour dates recently added to his "Justin Bieber My World 2.0" tour. Also scheduled to perform at this year's fair are country music star Gretchen Wilson on Aug. 27 and former Poison frontman Bret Michaels on Sept. 1. All concerts start at 7 p.m., and tickets go on sale June 12. The fair runs Aug. 27 to Sept.

In the early 1990s, a teenage punk fan named Damian Kulash wanted to release a compilation CD of songs from his favorite Washington bands. But Kulash, a Washington native and disciple of the city's DIY movement, needed cash to fund the project. He went to Dischord Records founder Ian MacKaye, the figurehead of the Washington punk scene, and asked for a loan. MacKaye agreed to give Kulash $2,000 — but not before laying a guilt trip on the kid. "He said, 'If you don't pay back this money, I won't have it to lend to somebody else, and you will singlehandedly be the person who shut down the D.C. scene.

One news article - with a potent mix of excessive alcohol, class warfare and a stabbing in a neighborhood where crime seldom happens - created an online phenomenon Monday as readers and commentators followed the reporting as it evolved. The posting about violence at a South Baltimore pub crawl generated almost 80 percent of the 18,500 page views on the Crime Beat blog and gave the public a virtual look into Baltimore Sun police reporter Justin Fenton's notebook, something only possible in this digital age. The story, briefly, is that a fight erupted Saturday afternoon during and after a five-hour pub crawl through South Baltimore to raise money for the Baltimore Hitmen flag football team.

DUNEDIN, Fla. -Caladesi beach is a secret getaway in Florida, an undiscovered gem. That's what I wanted to tell you, but honestly, I can't. Why? The secret's out. Way out. Since Caladesi Island State Park beach near Tampa/St. Petersburg was named the best beach in the United States last year, the hordes have descended. "The first month, oh, man, it was insane," says park ranger Carl Calhoun, who hasn't seen anything like it in 25 years of working on the island. "It used to be slightly remote.

Gratins have a bit of seasonal affective disorder. They turn up in fall and winter but disappear when the sun comes back out in springtime. That is surprising considering how well everything at peak of green right now goes with cheese and sauce, and how easily a quick pass through the oven makes them all rich and bubbly together. Asparagus, artichokes, green garlic, dandelions, even not-so-green new potatoes can be transformed by the gratin treatment. The super-fresh aspect makes gratins especially tantalizing once you start to feel a little bored by the vegetables that tasted so new just weeks ago. A steamed artichoke is always a thing of satisfying beauty, but if you pare it to its heart, combine it with many more and bake them with green garlic and cheese, you get a whole new taste sensation.

In Colonial Players' current offering of the play Hauptmann, a case can be made to find the Annapolis troupe guilty of producing riveting courtroom drama. Set in 1936, the year of Bruno Hauptmann's execution after being tried and found guilty of the kidnapping and killing of the 20-month-old infant son of American hero Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Hauptmann presents a fair-minded account of the actual proceedings while capturing the sensationalism, prejudices and celebrity worship of the era. In the program notes, Colonial Players director Beth Terranova writes that "Hauptmann's trial triggered the mass media age in trial coverage because of the nature of the crime and the accessibility of information surrounding the case."