Tango

Just wanted to pass along a heads up about two great deals spotted on Baltimoreonthecheap.com : 1. Save 40 percent off Cirque du Soleil TOTEM tickets , via Travel Zoo, for shows tonight and next week; 2. Sign up for eight Argentine tango lessons at Centerstage and pay only half price --- just $10 per class.

Freshly sprung from college in 1979, I was giddy with excitement after landing my first "real" job. Hired as a publishing house secretary, I could barely comprehend all the perks coming my way. Paid vacation! A business card with my name on it! My elation fell flat, however, when I saw the hand-me-down office chair parked in front of my desk: a lumpish gray cube, upholstered with what seemed a hybrid of burlap and sandpaper. Dubious stains splattered the seat, which was so low-slung that while typing I looked like a chimpanzee swatting at bananas above my head.

"Metroland," Philip Saville's adaptation of the Julian Barnes novel that opens today at the Charles, features another steady performance from its star, Christian Bale, as well as a welcome unmannered turn from Emily Watson ("Breaking the Waves"). As a tasteful take on a minor novel, "Metroland" is genteel enough, but it lacks the urgency and scope of a must-see movie.Bale and Watson play Chris and Marion, a married couple living in suburban London in 1977. Chris' best friend, Toni (Lee Ross)

Singing Rain led most of the way, and Ritchie Trail made a pulsating late run.But Silver Tango won the race.The 5-year-old mare, with Michael Luzzi on board, charged past Singing Rain at the sixteenth pole and held off a late run by Ritchie Trail to win the $60,000 Conniver Handicap at Laurel Race Course yesterday.A combined attendance of 13,809 for Laurel and Pimlico was announced yesterday, the third highest of the fall and winter meet at Laurel. There were 9,696 at Laurel and 4,113 at Pimlico for the simulcast races.

LAST SUNDAY, I was raking leaves, and the Ravens were winning. It seemed like a perfect fall afternoon. Sunset came early and, as I snapped off the transistor radio that had informed me the Ravens had secured a victory, I paused to admire the backyard patio. It was leaf-free. By the next morning, however, the patio I had been so proud of - clean and well-kept - had become a sea of sodden leaves. During the night, the winds had blown, rain had fallen, and so had a fresh batch of leaves.

Among the top two county boys basketball games on tap tonight are No. 11 Broadneck (5-1) at No. 10 Annapolis (7-1), and charging Old Mill (4-3) at No. 17 Glen Burnie (5-1).A pair of games matching arch-rivals?No and yes. Annapolis doesn't consider Broadneck its arch-rival, but Glen Burnie and Old Mill are neighbors and are considered such."Broadneck is not our arch-rival. Our real rivals are Meade and Southern," said Annapolis coach John Brady. "Our kids don't enjoy playing Broadneck. It's like trying to get a dead man to dance."

Yay! It's Stevie Wonder night! I'm pretty stoked about this. The show starts with Stevie at the top of the stage in front of an elaborately fantastic backdrop. There are dancers, but we get A LOT of extended Stevie close-ups. I guess it's easier to do that when the singer can actually, you know, sing. Then Hunter Hayes comes out and I'm sure he's a nice kid and all, but next to Stevie Wonder ... eh. I mean, not a lot of people are going to come off well in that comparison.  I'd say even for a guy that was a Beatle and IS a knight had a rough go of it. Tom joins Stevie and Hunter on stage and Tom says, “We are so happy to have you here on Stevie Wonder night.

The show opens with Tom and Brooke alone on the stage, acknowledging the tragic events Boston today. I understand the need to address it, and I'm also glad to have my silly dancing show to distract me from the awfulness. The show opens with the pros in an enclosed corridor offstage and then they all come out for a group dance, joined by the former pros that will presumably dancing with the couples tonight. That's tonight's gimmick: this season's couples will be doing their routines alongside a pro couple.

LAUREL -- The passing of the torch could not have been more timely, more smooth, more symbolic.Silver Tango completed a transition yesterday for the Capuano family. The filly picked up right where Silano had left off when winning the Francis Scott Key Handicap at Laurel Race Course."We hope she'll carry us now, the way Silano did for all that time," said the family patriarch, Phil Capuano.Yesterday morning, Capuano decided to retire Silano, an 8-year-old gelding. "He'd been too good to us to let him go toward the bottom," he said.

The owner of Sky Lounge/Tango Tapas will sell his liquor license after reaching an agreement with several Federal Hill residents who say the establishment turns into a rowdy after-hours dance club that disrupts the community. John Hargrave will transfer his license in the next six months in exchange for the residents' withdrawing their protest of the renewal of his liquor license. The agreement was accepted by the city liquor board at a hearing yesterday afternoon. Hargrave will be allowed to operate the restaurant, in the 1000 block of Marshall St., in the interim but will not be allowed to have after-hours parties, disc jockeys or dancing.