October 2010 by Urbanite LLC

october 2010 issue no. 76

Special Section: The Future of Higher Ed

GHOSTS A stolen glimpse of Baltimore’s invisible street artists, and what they’re trying to tell us

CAR SHARING MEETS SPEED DATING ∙ A BREWERY IS REBORN ∙ MALCOLM GLADWELL ON CITIES

Andy Warhol. Self-Portrait. 1986. Mugrabi Collection. ÂŠ2010 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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october 2010 issue no. 76

contents

features 40

the oracle

from the walls of the city’s derelict buildings, messages about our past and future by elizabeth evitts dickinson

cuba comes home

clarence was one of those childhood friends i never forgot—and never expected i’d see again. until one day, there he was. by charles cohen

free to good home

in the offerings of a giveaway website, stories plucked from people’s lives by martha thomas

departments 9 editor’s note

open your eyes

what you’re saying

what you’re writing

bad education

sunrise, sunset: life and death, fiddler on the roof, and the baltimore she loves

corkboard

this month: tour du port, diy fest, and druid hill park turns 150

the goods: halloween goes to the dogs. plus: autumn boots, handmade pillows,

baltimore observed my car is your car

and a new bike shop

a vehicle-sharing solution for the digital era by john motsinger

81 35

thinking small

author malcolm gladwell on the potential of cities, the definition of success, and the power of creative people

interview by greg hanscom

this month online at www.urbanitebaltimore.com: resources: a map of gaia’s baltimore street art and images of his work, plus more baltimore graffiti

can baltimore-area colleges adapt to a shifting educational environment? by joanne cavanaugh simpson

space a brewery reborn

a social-service nonprofit renews an iconic building—and finds itself renewed.

interview: the full conversation with malcolm gladwell fresh content daily from our team of online editors

higher learning branching out

by brennen jensen

eat/drink pig time

in southern maryland, a fanfare for an uncommon ham by maren tarro

on the air: radio: urbanite on the marc steiner show, weaa 88.9 fm oct. 18: the understanding campaign oct. 27: graffiti and street art

81 83 85 87

reviewed: vino rosina and hunan taste wine & sprits: crazy for gin the feed: this month in eating art/culture one word at a time

a local writer campaigns for cross-cultural understanding. by michael corbin

on the cover:

plus: andy warhol’s last decade, ned balbo’s biographical poems, and this month’s cultural highlights

photo courtesy of gaia

eye to eye

urbanite’s creative director, alex castro, on fiber artist melissa webb w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m o c t o b e r 1 0

issue 76: october 2010 publisher Tracy Ward Tracy@urbanitebaltimore.com creative director Alex Castro general manager Jean Meconi Jean@urbanitebaltimore.com editor-in-chief Greg Hanscom Greg@urbanitebaltimore.com managing editor Marianne K. Amoss Marianne@urbanitebaltimore.com assistant editor Carrie Lyle Carrie@urbanitebaltimore.com editor-at-large David Dudley David@urbanitebaltimore.com online editors green/sustainable: Heather Dewar Heather@urbanitebaltimore.com home/design: Brennen Jensen Brennen@urbanitebaltimore.com food/drink: Tracey Middlekauff Tracey@urbanitebaltimore.com arts/culture: Cara Ober Cara@urbanitebaltimore.com literary editor Susan McCallum-Smith literaryeditor@urbanitebaltimore.com proofreader Robin T. Reid contributing writers Michael Anft, Scott Carlson, Charles Cohen, Michael Corbin, Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, Mat Edelson, Lionel Foster, Clinton Macsherry, Richard O’Mara, Andrew Reiner, Martha Thomas, Michael Yockel, Mary K. Zajac editorial interns Juliette Eisner, Jennifer Walker production manager Belle Gossett Belle@urbanitebaltimore.com design manager Lisa Van Horn Lisa@urbanitebaltimore.com designer Kristian Bjørnard Kristian@urbanitebaltimore.com production interns Ed Gallagher, Rachel Verhaaren senior account executives Catherine Bowen Catherine@urbanitebaltimore.com Susan Econ Econsusan@urbanitebaltimore.com Susan R. Levy Susan@urbanitebaltimore.com advertising sales/events coordinator Erin Albright Erin@urbanitebaltimore.com bookkeeping/marketing assistant Iris Goldstein Iris@urbanitebaltimore.com administrative assistant Shantez Evans founder Laurel Harris Durenberger Advertising/Editorial/Business Ofﬁ ces 2002 Clipper Park Road, Fourth Floor, Baltimore, MD 21211 Phone: 410-243-2050; Fax: 410-243-2115 www.urbanitebaltimore.com Editorial inquiries: Send queries to editor@urbanitebaltimore.com (no phone calls, please). The magazine is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork. Urbanite does not necessarily support the opinions of its authors. To subscribe or obtain assistance with a current subscription, call 410-243-2050. Subscription price: $18 per year. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission by Urbanite is prohibited. Copyright 2010, Urbanite LLC. All rights reserved. Urbanite (ISSN 1556-8105) is a free publication distributed widely in the Baltimore metropolitan area. To suggest a drop location for the magazine, please contact us at 410-243-2050. Postmaster: Send address changes to Urbanite Subscriptions, 2002 Clipper Park Road, Fourth Floor, Baltimore, MD 21211. Urbanite is a certiﬁ ed Minority Business Enterprise.

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Production intern Ed Gallagher is the quintessential jackof-all-trades, hailing from Westminster in northern Maryland. He has spent the last six years living in Baltimore, first as a student of the Maryland Institute College of Art and then as a starving artist. Although he recently moved back home, he stills tries to come to the city as often as possible. Since graduating from MICA in 2008 he has been painting, photographing weddings, sketching tattoos, and doing a bit of counseling. For this month’s issue Gallagher is responsible for the illustration on the title page of the “Art/Culture” section (p. 87).

photo by Paula K. Diatsintos

John Motsinger is a freelance writer and master’s student in the Johns Hopkins University science writing program. During the day, he writes about wolves and other critters in the Northern Rockies for the nonprofit environmental group Defenders of Wildlife in Washington, D.C. Before moving to Baltimore last year, Motsinger spent six years in California, mostly as an environmental writer and advocate. He likes to hike and bike in the hills of Maryland and tends a compost heap behind his apartment building. Joanne Cavanaugh Simpson is a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, a nonfiction essayist, and the author of Literature on Deadline. A former staff writer for The Miami Herald and Johns Hopkins Magazine, her literary essays have appeared in print or online at Creative Nonfiction, Urbanite, Utne Reader, and Style, as well as in Letters to J.D. Salinger and Signs of Life in the USA. She also has researched signs of life abroad as a foreign correspondent in Cuba, China, India, Argentina, and elsewhere. Her literary blog can be found at litdeadline.wordpress.com.

editor’s note

photo by Peter Barry

photo by Ed Gallagher

contributor s

Peter Barry saw the fi rst R.I.P.

in 1998. Across a wall on Whitelock Street, someone had spray painted “R.I.P. Troy.” Before long, he was seeing them everywhere. But they were like ghosts; no one else seemed to notice them. As an experiment, he wrote “R.I.P.” on a sheet of paper and showed it to people on the street. “Do you know what this means?” he asked. “Sure, rest in peace,” was the reply. “Have you seen this anywhere?” he asked. “Yeah, in the graveyard.” Barry was amazed. “Even people in the neighborhood were walking past Troy and not noticing,” he says. “They had become desensitized to it.” A photographer and musician since childhood, Barry decided to collect these messages from the city walls—the R.I.P.s, the images of tombstones and guns. Twelve years later, he has an archive of thousands, captured on slides and prints and in digital images. Despite the morbid subject matter, the images are quite beautiful. He’s posted a few of them online and thought about projecting the images across walls around town. “People see it in their own neighborhood, but they don’t understand that it’s everywhere,” he says. “There’s a lot of dead people in this city.” The walls in Baltimore speak of more than just death. Look closely and you will find messages stenciled, spray-painted, and scrawled across brick, concrete, and plywood. They are statements of defiance, warnings about gang turf, the self-expression of anonymous street artists. City work crews do their best to expunge this graffiti—which is illegal, except for on a few walls that have been set aside for artistic expression. But always, the messages reappear. And in this issue of Urbanite, we suggest that some of these messages are worth heeding. In “The Oracle” (p. 40), former Urbanite editor Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson writes about a young street artist called Gaia who is quietly transforming the cityscape with images of mythic creatures and old men. (Gaia’s grandfather looks out from the front cover of this issue.) And in “Cuba Comes Home” (p. 44), longtime reporter Charles Cohen tells of a chance encounter with a childhood friend that catapulted him into the shadow world of Baltimore’s graffiti artists. For more images of Gaia’s work and local graffiti, and for a link to a slideshow of Peter Barry’s images, head to our website, www.urbanitebaltimore.com. You’ll find lots of other surprises there as well: We spent most of a year redesigning the site, which we relaunched in July and now update daily with content from a team of online editors. Our goal is to keep you up to date on the city’s arts and culture, food and drink, home and design, style and shopping, and environment and green living scenes. In the spirit of Peter Barry, we hope to open your eyes to elements of this town that you might otherwise walk right by. —Greg Hanscom

ARE YOU MY MOTHER? Coming Next Month: A look inside the urban family www.urbanitebaltimore.com w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m o c t o b e r 1 0

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the wrong approach The education feature (“Onward and Upward”) in September’s issue continues a thirty-year tradition of a wrong-minded approach to public education. For the fi rst three-quarters of the 20th century the mission for public schools was to prepare young people to be productive citizens in their community. The college-or-bust mindset took root when we became obsessed with credentials and national standings. In every village, town, and city, we rely on an army of skilled labor that does not secure its expertise via college. Yet for three decades these vital skill sets have been publicly denigrated and often the wages connected with them suppressed. Meanwhile, our public schools have been retooled for testing and a college preparatory curriculum. Gone are the business, vocational, and technical courses. Gone is anything but a skeleton of a careers-based education programs. Our public schools should be providing a greater balance of career path choices. All productive work should be praised. We need the services of the dock worker as well as the doctor, the plumber as well as the poet. —Steve Bartley, Mount Vernon dreams versus reality The August issue dealt with dreams, but your Editor’s Note that praised the Inner Harbor is insulting to those living with the reality of Baltimore. Harborplace, which relies on tourism to survive, is an unreliable source of revenue for the city and its workers. It also

offers those visiting the city a false notion of what this town is all about. What’s more, Harborplace distracts from the deep-seated problems this city faces. Instead of dreaming about revamping a dying tourist attraction into a place where young professionals can go out drinking, why don’t we dream about a city without blocks of abandoned houses. Or a city that has a grocery store in every neighborhood so communities aren’t forced to eat unhealthily. Or even a city that has enough jobs and industry to support its population of people desperate for work. Brendan Walsh, a longtime member of the Sowebo community who, along with his wife, Willa, runs Viva House, recently shared with me some of his memories of the harbor. He watched a working harbor alive with tugboats and docks transform into the shopping pavilion it is today. He watched good, honest, unionized jobs disappear. “Those were real jobs, jobs you could support a family on,” says Walsh. With the loss of those jobs the family suffered, as both parents were forced to go to work. Children suffered; Baltimore suffered. Yes, the harbor is beautiful, but what it represents is not. Maybe the next time you ask us all to dream about the future of Baltimore, you should be a bit more mindful of the city’s past and what Baltimore has lost. —Rachel Mattos, southwest Baltimore

good dog, bad dog Re: “Villain or Victim?” September: As an owner of a pit bull and an employee of an all-natural pet food store in Baltimore City, I get to see a lot of these dogs. We all know what can happen when these or any animals are owned by irresponsible people, but it’s my responsibility as a pit mom to represent the breed at its best. I hope one day that things like breed-specific legislation no longer exist and the appreciation of these magnificent animals outweighs the fear they invoke. —Laura Henderson, Baltimore fur frenzy Re: “Meow” (Web-exclusive content): “Fur is a statement piece.” Yes, it certainly is. And what does real fur say about the thoughtless fashionista who chooses to wear it? It says that wearing the fur of animals who have been anally electrocuted, drowned, trapped, or beaten in the name of fashion is totally worth it. Dogs and cats are often victims of the international fur trade ... but again, as long as you look good it doesn’t matter, right? Often fur that is marketed as “faux” actually comes from the carcass of a dog or cat. People who are considering wearing fur in the name of fashion should think about that the next time they pet their cat or dog. Educate yourself: www.hsus.org/ furfree/dogs_cats/. —Tacky

from the web show me the arts Re: “This Is Your Brain on Art,” September: I don’t understand why people say Roland Park Elementary/Middle School is an “arts-integrated” school. This is my son’s sixth and final year at the school, and he is taught everything from science to language arts to social studies out of workbooks and worksheets. It is very formulaic. My daughter is in third grade at Park School where they tie all the subjects together and do meaningful, hands-on activities to back up the learning. The worksheets at Roland Park are not artistic. They are old-school, fi ll-in-the-blank sheets with clip art like we had in the 1960s. This is not creative! I wish someone would investigate the real story. There is a lot of hype about this school. There are some good teachers, and expectations are high, but it is not creative.

I agree, but I think vintage fur is a little different. Buying a fur from a thrift store is morally acceptable. The profits go to the thrift store and not a company that is responsible for killing animals. Fur is luxurious, but it is also practical in a sense. People have been wearing fur for thousands of years. And if you don’t agree with fur, I hope you realize that argument should apply to all leather goods as well. —Jenny Andrzejewski, Baltimore

We want to hear what you’re saying. E-mail us at mail@urbanitebaltimore.com or send your letter to Mail, Urbanite, 2002 Clipper Park Road, Fourth Floor, Baltimore, MD 21211. Please include your name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

—GPD-Balt

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illustration by Kristian Bjørnard

what you’re writing

Sunrise

the first time I wore red lipstick was for a

children’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. I was 11 years old, making my theater debut as Tzeitel, the eldest daughter of Tevye, the protagonist, who was played by a prepubescent, home-schooled boy named Shadow. The program was run out of a church in Baltimore City, which was problematic, as we were frequently forced to pause our rehearsal of “Tradition” when police sirens wailed past or homeless men ambled through the door. As Tzeitel, my featured scene in the show was the one in which I was wed to Motel the tailor. This part was the big innovation of our director, a woman in her late 50s who lived alone with four cats and three hundred embroidered pillows. She called it “breaking down the fourth wall.” The wedding procession was to come through the audience and then up on stage. It required a quick costume change and then a mass movement out the back door of the church, around the side of the building, and in through the main entrance of the theater. Fifteen minutes before my big scene I was left to my own devices in the cruddy, florescent-lit bathroom. I kneeled on a moldy stool and examined my wedding dress, an ivory lace frock donated by a woman who had gotten married in the 1920s. It was too big, so I had commissioned one of my pals to safety-pin loose bunches at my waist and back. Admiring my handiwork, I picked a tube of deep red lipstick off the counter and smeared a thick coat of paint across my lips. Much better, I thought. My parents videotaped our rendition of “Sunrise, Sunset,” a slow and depressing, not to mention off-key, version of the song. There I am onstage looking like a zombie vampire bride, with blood dripping from my mouth and skin as pale as the white paper programs rustling in the audience. My dress hangs lopsided from my gangly frame, and I fiddle with my hair that has gone wild from our run outside the church.

Sunset I laugh at the video now, but then, I felt like a star. —Emma Gross is a senior at the Park School of Baltimore and a recent graduate of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio. She enjoys playing classical guitar, creating chalkboard murals, and eating at diners late at night.

we’d been hiking Bright Angel Trail

since sunrise, and noon found the five of us—my siblings, Mike, Courtney, and Patrick; my brother-in-law, John; and me— overlooking the Colorado River from Plateau Point. We were in the Grand Canyon. It was 114 degrees. The sweeping view ran from rusty red to brown to green. I reached for my orange, the last of my food, only to find it had disappeared. I imagined it careening off the side of the cliff and walloping some rafter on the head. The idea to hike the 12-mile trail was hatched the night before, and our preparation involved grabbing water, electrolyte packets, protein bars, and oranges. And, because Mike thought we’d look more the part of hikers, bandanas. Mine was orange, like the dusty trail. Like my lost orb of fruit. The way down had been easy, but now we turned our backs on the panorama and began the trek up. The next six hours were hellish. My legs felt like logs. Patrick, who had hiked down at a jog, cursed with every step. We stopped at shelters to lie on our backs and raise our legs to drain the lactic acid. On one stop, Courtney and I, both in our 20s, accepted peanuts from a 50-year-old man whose look said, “you need these more than I do.” Our bandanas did not fool him. We gobbled the peanuts and continued to walk. “How much would you pay for a hot dog right now?” John asked. By 4 p.m., the going rate was $50. Even the view could not numb the pain. Look down at the river and you risked a loss of balance. Look up at the rim and you risked a bout of depression.

We walked. And walked. At sunset, the rim of the canyon was within reach, and I had a full bladder. With no shrubs in sight, my siblings and John formed a wall around me and stood guard as I urinated on a national park, proving what I already knew to be true: My dignity lay somewhere over the edge of that canyon alongside my wayward orange. —Jennifer Holden is a student in the MA in Writing program at Johns Hopkins University. When she’s not teaching English, she enjoys traveling and hiking.

it was august 1987. My mother’s breathing was raspy and labored as she drifted in and out of consciousness. I knew she would die soon. I stood by her bed, looking down at a woman wasted by breast cancer and emphysema. Her blue-gray eyes were usually vacant, but suddenly they quickened and focused on me. Her lips trembled as she whispered, “Do you have anything to tell me?” Puzzled, I thought, “What is she after?” Several possibilities occurred to me, but one stood out: “I’m gay.” Throughout my life, it seemed my mother never missed an opportunity to make anti-queer cracks in my presence. Since moving away a year before—and no longer living under her influence—I had painfully begun coming out. For a moment, I maliciously thought I would tell her. But then I asked myself, “Why should I confirm her suspicion and hurt her as much as she’s hurt me?” “No,” I answered her. “I’ve nothing to say.” She turned her head away, and the vacant stare returned. She died the next day. —Ed Schneider and his partner of twenty years were married last June in D.C. District Court. He will be completing his MA in theology at the Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary’s Seminary this fall.

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the sun slowly fades over the harbor. The industrious concrete jungle with its imperfections, pollution, and herds of people is now engulfed by the shadows of night. Gone is the sight of trash that floats in murky water behind a vacant pier. Explicit graffiti has transformed into a beautiful dark silhouette. Gone are the sounds of drills and jackhammers that woke me before my alarm sounded. Above me, the dark sky is fi lled with glowing beams from streetlights and towering buildings. Their reflections dance across the water in a repeated rhythm— today it is slow and gentle. I walk the short distance to Federal Hill. As I climb the steep steps, the anxiety of my day slowly begins to dissipate. Once at the top, the panoramic view reveals a festival of lights from buildings rich in history and culture. I take a seat on a bench and glance at the older woman sitting beside me. She wipes away a tear and then smiles. Softly she says, “This is the Baltimore I love.” ■ —Jennifer Ganz resides in Baltimore City with her husband and greyhound. In her spare time she enjoys boating, collecting sea glass, reading, and writing personal narratives and poetry. Her work has been featured in Celebrating Greyhounds magazine and the quarterly publication of the Baltimore City Association of School Psychologists.

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ALL OF THIS UNDER ONE ROOF

“What You’re Writing” is the place

for creative nonfiction from our readers. Each month we pick a topic. Use the topic as a springboard into your own life and send us a true story inspired by that month’s theme. Only previously unpublished, nonfiction submissions that include contact information can be considered. We reserve the right to edit heavily for space and clarity, but we will give you the opportunity to review the edits. You may submit under “name withheld” to keep your essay anonymous, but you do need to let us know how to contact you. If you’ve already changed the names of the people involved, please let us know. Only one submission per topic, please. Send your essay to Urbanite, 2002 Clipper Park Road, Fourth Floor, Baltimore, MD 21211, or e-mail it to WhatYoureWriting@urbanite baltimore.com. Submissions should be shorter than four hundred words. Because of the number of essays we receive, we cannot respond individually to each writer. Please do not send originals; submissions cannot be returned.

topic The Dinner Table Out with the Old Love and Hate

deadline Oct 4, 2010 Nov 8, 2010 Dec 6, 2010

Publication Dec 2010 Jan 2011 Feb 2011

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PeoPle are caPable of doing amazing things. Take our flexible undergrad and graduate students at College of Notre Dame of Maryland. These women and men are defining and redefining themselves and their careers, and they’re often doing so while carrying a full load of responsibilities outside of school. They have spouses, families, jobs, commitments. It’s why we do everything we can to work around their schedules and provide the kind of flexibility that few colleges even attempt. Our programs in business, education, nursing and the arts will propel you to what’s next in your life without taking you away from the life you currently have. Visit us soon.

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Sugarloaf Crafts Festival

Oct 1–3

More than 250 craftspeople display and sell their sculpture, furniture, pottery, and other creations at the Sugarloaf Crafts Festival. Attendees can also learn how to forge iron and spin copper, take in live music and theater performances, and nosh on seasonal soup, cider, and chutneys. Discounted admission coupons available on the website.

Maryland State Fairgrounds 2200 York Rd. $9 at the door; $7 online; children younger than 12 free 800-210-9900 www.sugarloafcrafts.com

Tour du Port

Oct 3

Wheel through historic neighborhoods in Baltimore City and County for Tour du Port, an annual ride organized by nonprofit One Less Car. The scenic, gently rolling routes range from 12 to 63 miles. Don’t forget a helmet! Urbanite is a sponsor of this event.

Ride begins and ends at Canton Waterfront Park, 2903 Boston St. $60 walk-in registration 410-960-6493 www.onelesscar.org

150th Anniversary of Druid Hill Park

Oct 12–16

Mark this milestone for “Baltimore’s Central Park” with five days of events, including lectures on park history and the surrounding communities, a gala at the Druid Hill mansion, and a history and community sports day with walking and bike tours, food, and entertainment.

443-469-8274 www.druidhillpark.org

Hampton Harvest Day

Oct 17

The Hampton National Historic Site in Towson hosts a fall festival, with demonstrations of traditional skills like making apple cider, canning, and blacksmithing, plus tours of the elegant Georgian-style Hampton Mansion.

1 p.m.–4 p.m. 535 Hampton Lane Free 410-823-1309 www.nps.gov/hamp

Sustainable Speaker Series

Oct 23

Lima bean expert and Delaware Secretary of Agriculture Ed Kee is the featured speaker at this installment of Baltimore Green Works’ Sustainable Speaker Series. He’ll give a talk about the history of the Chesapeake Bay canning industry; afterward, attendees break into small groups to discuss sustainable fishing, schoolyard gardening, and other topics. Urbanite is a sponsor of this event.

10 a.m.–2 p.m. Baltimore Museum of Industry 1415 Key Hwy. $10 suggested donation 410-952-0334 www.baltimoregreenworks.com

DIY Fest

Oct 24

Interested in homebrewing beer, flat-tire repair, or infant care techniques? Learn how—or share skills you already have—at DIY Fest, held at St. John’s Church, a.k.a. 2640. This year’s event also includes a panel discussion on alternative business models, featuring speakers from the worker-owned and -operated Baltimore Bicycle Works and Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse.

Noon–6 p.m. 2640 St. Paul St. Free www.diyfest.org

Photo credits from top to bottom: courtesy of Armando Suarez; no credit; no credit; courtesy of Hampton National Historic Site; © Richard Gunion | Dreamstime.com; courtesy of Baltimore DIY Fest

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

GATEWAY TO A SPECIAL EDUCATION

photo by David Rehor

B Y R O B I N T. R E I D

Yisrael Doniel Jacobson writes while his teacher, Vicki Stetler, watches.

Yisrael Doniel “YD”

Jacobson’s first day of school was fantastic. On that day, the nine-year-old Gateway School student spelled out f-a-n-t-as-t-i-c almost perfectly. It can be a tricky word for a child that age to spell aloud; but for Jacobson, who has a form of autism, it’s even trickier. In another classroom across the hall at Gateway, another nine-year-old was also making great strides of his own. Nathaniel Epstein was coloring a picture of a birthday cake. Using a purple marker, he drew around the sides and then colored in the center. “For him even to color is a huge deal,” said his mother, Jennifer Bishop. “When he first got to Gateway, he’d just spin the pencil or just make a dot. Now, he’s attending to a basic task, and that just blows my mind.”

Gateway is a private school in Baltimore for children aged three to twelve. Founded in 1960 by Baltimore nonprofit the Hearing and Speech Agency, it specializes in working with children who have communication disorders related to autism, developmental delay, or other conditions to develop speech and language skills to their full potential. “Language is the basis of all social and academic development—learning, interacting with others, reading, being able to express a need. It all depends on having communication skills,” said Jill Berie, the school’s educational director. “If a communication difficulty is barring the way to a child’s development, Gateway is an excellent place for that child. When we can open the door to communication, often a child’s development just takes off.”

Preschool, kindergarten and elementary-school classes consist typically of no more than six students, one teacher, and two assistants. The children are placed in classes based on a combination of factors: chronological age, language proficiency, academic performance, social skills, and behavior. Nobody gets graded here; the emphasis instead is on developing language and social skills and helping each child to be as independent as possible. “Our goal is to get our kids into the mainstream,” Berie said. “About 50 percent of them have autism. We have more boys than girls, because more males are identified with disorders. Girls don’t get identified because they don’t immediately cause problems in classrooms.” Gateway has students from Baltimore City and

County, as well as Carroll, Anne Arundel, and Howard counties. Some come courtesy of public schools when they cannot provide an appropriate Individualized Education Program (IEP). This provision stems from federal laws passed in the 1970s that children with disabilities have a right to free, appropriate, education. Jennifer Antezana came to Gateway after a teacher in her public school noticed that the nine-year-old was having trouble speaking, reading and negotiating friendships. An evaluation at HASA revealed that she had a speech-language impairment. After two years at Gateway, Jennifer is one of the most popular children in school. “She’s making great progress, especially in language therapy group,” said Gateway social worker Naomi

The IEP Process

photo by Jennifer Bishop

Getting a child with special-

Nathaniel Epstein, 9, has learned to communicate what he wants at Gateway.

Berkenbilt. “Gateway has been heaven for her.” Jennifer Bishop is also pleased with her son’s progress at Gateway. Nathaniel came to the school when he was four, because of multiple disorders affecting both his physical and mental abilities. “I looked at all the school options,” she said, “my local school, the city’s special-ed school, and some of the other nonpublics. Each time, I’d think that there weren’t any kids like him here. Then I came to Gateway, and I could see that he’d be part of a peer group. He’d get fun out of the socialization. “Everything is about language,” Bishop continued. “The teachers promised they’d use everything to see what caught on with Nathaniel. In the last year he’s started to use words and pictures. He has to come up with something to get what he wants … he’s more cooperative and independent than he was even two years ago.” At the end of their time at Gateway, students go on to the public or private schools that best suit their needs. “We spend a lot of time getting them ready,” Berie said. “If we didn’t, then we wouldn’t be doing our job.” Gateway School 5900 Metro Drive Baltimore, MD 21215 410-318-6780 www.hasa.org/index.php/school/about/ Ages: 3 to 12

needs the “free and appropriate public education” guaranteed by federal law sounds perfectly justified on paper. But making it happen can be complicated. And that’s where the Maryland Association of Nonpublic Special Education Facilities can help. Dorie Flynn, MANSEF’s executive director, explained the law, how it’s changed, and gives advice on how to ensure that it’s carried out to a child’s best advantage.

Q: Explain the federal laws that gave way to the IEP concept.

A: The Individual with Disabilities Edu-

cation Act (IDEA) is our nation’s special education law. The IDEA guides how states, school districts, and public agencies provide early intervention, special education, and related services to more than 6.5 million eligible children with disabilities. Congress originally enacted IDEA in 1975 to ensure that children with disabilities have the opportunity to receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE) just like other children. Each child who requires special education services must have an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The IEP dictates the type of services the child needs to obtain educational benefit. In addition, the IDEA mandates that there be a continuum of placement options for children with special needs.

Q: How does the IEP process start? A: Parents can start the process by

asking—the request should be in writing— for a team meeting to review their child’s educational needs. The school system can also start the process.

Q: What sort of assessment does one

request for a child? Who does the assessing and what does it include? Who pays for it? How much does it cost?

A: The types of assessments can include

a psychological, educational evaluation, a social history, and any other evaluation that the school system recommends and parents agree to. The assessments are conducted by qualified and/or licensed professionals, many of whom who are employed by the schools. In addition, the school system can contract out for the assessments and evaluations. It is responsible for identifying children with special needs and therefore pays for the assessments. However, parents can also obtain

independent assessments on their own and at their own expense.

Q: Does the IEP dictate where the child goes to school?

A: No. The school system and the parent

need to look at all the options when providing services to children with special needs. It is important to place children in the least restrictive environment before seeking more intensive services. The IDEA mandates that children with disabilities be educated with their nondisabled peers. The school may have many programs within their system that serve children with special needs that would necessitate a child not being served in their zoned school. When the public school system does not have the internal resources to implement the IEP, then it makes a referral to a nonpublic special education school. The intent is for the child to obtain educational benefit regardless of where the service is delivered.

Q: How much does the public school system pay the private school?

A: Since the public school system is

obligated to provide a free and appropriate public education, they then place the student in a nonpublic special education school approved and accredited by the Maryland State Department of Education. The cost of the tuition is based on a formula established by state law. The local school system shares in the cost of educating students in nonpublic special education placements. The intensity of the program and the services it provides have a direct impact on cost, because some children require more intense support and service.

Q: Where can folks find advocates (lawyers, etc.) if they don’t have the money to pay for help in the process?

A: Each county in Maryland now has a

hotline to reach a “family navigator”; these individuals will provide assistance over the phone. The list can be obtained from the Maryland Coalition of Families for Children’s Mental Health (www.mdcoalition.org). In addition, there is the Parent’s Place of Maryland (www.ppmd.org). Parents can also visit the MANSEF website (www.mansef.org), and click on the section “Download Membership Directory.” There they will find a list of advocates and educational consultants.

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Flower Power

Robert Honaker’s floral and garden studio, Design by Nature (1534 Fleet St.; 443-467-0501; www.designbynaturemd.com), is just as friendly to the earth as it is to the community. In addition to freshcut flowers—grown locally or on eco-conscious fair-trade farms— the shop also carries soy candles, colorful photographs of flowers, and wooden wine stoppers, all made by local craftsmen. “We want to re-educate people on how to be more planet-conscious, selfconscious, and neighborhood-conscious,” he says. Honaker also caters to those who don’t have a green thumb: He sells soil-free plants that only need to be watered once a month.

photo by Rachel Verhaaren

—Jennifer Walker

Sweet Ride

photo by Rachel Verhaaren

Warning: A visit to Twenty 20 Cycling Company (725 W. 36th Street; 443-759-5620; www. twenty20cycling.com) can cause a strange kind of vertigo. Spend an hour in the light-fi lled, brick-walled, rehabbed interior ogling the sleek racing cycles and burly mountain bikes, and you’ll step out onto the street expecting to find yourself in Boulder, Colorado, or Seattle, Washington. Located on the Avenue in Hampden, the shop carries cycles—including street bikes and commuter rides—from companies such as Specialized, Spooky, Nine, Look, and Blue Competition Cycles. There is a whole host of bike-related accessories and a special women’s section to boot. And while the bikes may be upscale, there’s no pretension here. Asked what distinguishes the shop from others in town, owner Kristopher Auer, a longtime racer who hails from New Hampshire, says simply, “We’re more friendly.” —Greg Hanscom

photo by Demon Cats Photography

Boot-Scootin’

From rainy day walks in the city to weed-pulling sessions in your backyard garden, Hunter boots provide both style and function. Urban Chic (811 Aliceanna St.; 410-685-1601; www.urbanchic online.com) carries colors that range from classic chocolate, olive green, and graphite gray to spunky teal, violet, and yellow. There’s even a black boot embossed with a funky python pattern. Prices range from $125 for solid color boots to $240 for the textured style. —J.W.

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m o c t o b e r 1 0

Buy Local advertising section

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2. Charles Nusinov & Sons Since 1923 Charles Nusinov & Sons has provided the Baltimore area with affordable fine jewelry, quality repair workmanship, and a total devotion to their customers. As the Home of Diamonds Direct, Charles Nusinov & Sons will beat any diamond price from another store or even the Internet. 3. Zia’s Zia’s is a café, juicebar and caterer. They offer healthy, delicious, quick nourishment for breakfast, lunch or dinner, using organic, free-range & local ingredients. From meateaters to vegans, vegetarians to raw foodists, they believe everyone deserves fresh, cleanly produced food. Zia’s invites you to discover how delicious healthy eating can be! 4. Poppy and Stella Shoes and handbags that combine modern detailing with timeless appeal, as well as a handpicked assortment of jewelry and accessories for embellishments that inspire. Like stepping into the closet of the most stylish woman you know, Poppy and Stella has everything you need to make that closet your own. 5. Waterstone Bar & Grille Introducing Mt. Vernon and Seton Hills newest wine bar & grille with an eclectic menu. Large variety of premium wines, liquor, and beer. Chef specials offered daily with wine parings. Walking distance from The Hippodrome, Lyric, Meyerhoff and Mt Vernons Historic Monument. eat. drink. lounge. waterstone.

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Playing Dress-Up

Halloween is the biggest season of the year at Pretentious Pooch (1017 Cathedral St.; 443-524-7777; www.pretentiouspooch.com), the shop in Mount Vernon that carries goodies and supplies for dogs (and cats). The boutique carries a wide assortment of pet costumes in preparation for the holiday—and its annual Halloween Walk, during which costumed pups parade around to area businesses for treats. Small to large dogs can pass themselves off as a ladybug, a Mardi Gras dragon, a blue owl, or any number of other creatures. For some reason, the costumes aren’t as popular with felines. “I’ve sold one cat costume in five years,” says co-owner Chris Woodside.

—Marianne Amoss

Feathered Friends

Jen McBrien grew up in a sewing family but didn’t start making her whimsical pillows until her grandmother passed away five years ago. “I wanted to do something to remember her,” McBrien says. Finding inspiration wasn’t a problem: After moving from Fells Point to the leafy Northwood neighborhood of north Baltimore, she became fascinated by the birds that gathered in her backyard. For this Clothesline Birdy Bird Party Pillow, she added owls to the scene. Visit McBrien’s Etsy shop (www.etsy.com/ shop/jennyjen42) to purchase her pillows and other bird-inspired wares: bags, eyeglass cases, coasters, and more. Although McBrien sells one piece at a time, she can fill additional orders upon request; commissions are also available.

—J.W.

photo by Jen McBrien

History House

photo by Rachel Verhaaren

Norman Finnance bought a house in Ridgely’s Delight because of its history. Built in 1798 by a fierce abolitionist, the structure’s basement may have been a safe haven for slaves fleeing the south. George Washington once visited here too, seeking assistance after he fell off his horse. So when Finnance partnered with his sister and nephew to turn the house into Rachael’s Dowry Bed and Breakfast (637 Washington Blvd.; 410-752-0805), he didn’t want to change much. “I’m into preservation,” he says. Antique furniture, including a few historic Baltimore Chairs, add to the first floor’s old-world décor. Upstairs, the inn’s four rooms—two more are to be finished in the fall—combine elements of Federal and Victorian styles, such as arched doorways and marble mantelpieces, with such modern conveniences as TVs and iPod decks. For rates and reservations, visit www.rachaelsdowry bedandbreakfast.com.

—J.W.

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m o c t o b e r 1 0

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Admission: $10 adults $8 seniors $6 students/young adults (18–25) 17 and younger FREE members FREE Organizer: Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic is organized by the New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Ct.

SPONSORS:

HOURS:

Wednesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

The exhibition at the Walters Art Museum is made possible through the generosity of the Wieler Family Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Women’s Committee of the Walters Art Museum, the CANUSA Corp. Charitable Fund, the David and Barbara B. Hirschhorn Foundation, the Nancy Patz Reading Fund, the Van Dyke Family Foundation, the Linehan Family Foundation/the Ivy Bookstore, Meredith and Adam Borden/the London Foundation, Lynn and Philip Rauch, Mr. and Mrs. Austin George, the Susan Katzenberg Fund, and Kate and David Powell.

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Come What He

See

When Walter Wick was working on his sixth book, Can You See What I See? On a Scary, Scary Night, he was stumped as to how to treat the interior of the scary, scary castle he wanted to draw. The solution? The Walters Art Museum’s Chamber of Wonders. So the celebrated artist and his wife, Linda, traveled from their home in Hartford, Connecticut, to Baltimore to see the eclectic display. “It really solidified for me just what type of person should live in my castle: a collector of wonders and curiosities,” Wick told Walters Director of Education and Public Programs Jacqueline Copeland. “Also, I already had a spiral staircase planned. When I saw the spiral stairs at the Walters, it really cinched it for me.” Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic, the first museum retrospective of his work, is on display at the Walters Art Museum from September 19, 2010, to January 2, 2011. The exhibition has forty-eight large-scale photographs selected from his books and six models that Wick and his assistants built to be photographed in his books. Models and photographs from Scary, Scary Night can be seen side by side with photos of the Walters’ Chamber of Wonders. The exhibition also includes behindthe-scenes video clips to help visitors understand how Wick creates the images in his books. “The photographs will be enlarged to 5 or 6 feet wide with details, colors, and tones not possible in book reproductions,” said Wick, noting that the exhibition will present a “playful

sense of scale, space, and the unexpected.” He honed his skills while working in a commercial studio for several years, experimenting with mirrors, time exposures, multiple exposures, photo composites, and other tricks. “Some thirty years later, all the techniques, tinkering, and experiments are folded into my work,” he added. Wick’s props and artifacts are very often things he has accumulated. “I now have a vast collection of items, perhaps in the tens of thousands if you count all of the beads, buttons, marbles, and other small items that I store in quantity,” he said. “I like to reuse things over and over, so I could easily do an entire book without going out for more props. It all depends on the project.” One of the stars of the show will be the never-before-seen 4-by-7-foot Jolly Roger model pirate ship from Wick’s newest book, Can You See What I See? Treasure Ship (2010). Five largescale photographs from the same book will be on display as well. The artist sees some similarities between his work and the Walters’ collection, namely the attention to detail and the plethora of topics that emerge when discovering what’s there. “My hope is that lively discussions emerge between the kids and adults inspired by the prevalent themes in my work—puzzles, science, illusions, and the wonders of the physical world,” he said. “Such topics offer an inexhaustible source of intellectual stimulation for all ages.”

Saw

Exhibit of Walter Wick’s Artwork Opens at the Walters By Robin Reid

PARKING:

In addition to metered parking spaces on the streets, the Walters is within walking distance of three garages and two parking lots.

* Franklin Street Garage on West Franklin Street between Charles and Cathedral streets; and

The closest is across from the museum at the corner of Centre and Cathedral streets; visitors are eligible for reduced rates here, so stop by the visitor information desk to get your ticket stamped. The others are:

* an open lot between West Franklin Street and Centre Street near Park Avenue.

* Peabody Garage at Centre and St. Paul streets;

Also, the Peabody Court Hotel at the corner of Cathedral and Monument streets offers valet parking.

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Uncover Treasure

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

in Your Backyard Walters Art Museum Collection Covers Five Thousand Years of History

(both people and animals), and one of the nation’s great jewelry collections (with two imperial Fabergé eggs). At the Walters you can take a walk through time and around the world in the company of gifted artists and skilled craftspeople, without ever leaving Baltimore.

Q: Why should folks visit the Walters?

Q: How big is the collection?

A: Because the Walters is one of the great museums in the country, with more than five thousand years of art from five continents. Right in your own backyard you’ve got something like the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Louvre, and the Vatican, all rolled into one. But it’s small and personable, and we will greet you with a smile. Plus, admission to the Walters’ permanent collection is FREE!

A: We have thirty-two thousand works in all, but we can show only about 15 percent. We are still discovering wonderful things in our own vaults. Some are real treasures, and our visitors can see them as they are brought into our conservation lab, in preparation for their display in our galleries. There is a window into the lab that is open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and a conservator is there with a piece of art he or she is working on. Stop by and chat with a conservator.

Q: What can someone get from visiting an art museum? A: Think of an art museum as a place where you can take time out, be with people, and encounter the authentic—sort of like a farmers market. William T. Walters believed that there is a profoundly personal benefit to being with art, like being in a park with fresh air and a green landscape. It’s almost therapeutic, though in the case of the Walters, the refreshment to the mind and spirit comes from encountering wonderful things from the past, made by talented people. This is truly a uniquely human experience. Q: What’s there to see? A: The question is: what will you discover in this treasure chest of five thousand objects covering five millennia? We don’t look like most other art museums. Sure, we have a few galleries with rows of paintings, but we also have a stuffed alligator on the wall, medieval reliquaries with real bones in them, suits of armor, mummies

Q: How long has the museum had a lab? A: Conservation began at the Walters in 1934, making the museum’s lab one of the oldest and most respected in America. There are four departments: paintings; objects; paper, rare books, and manuscripts; and, as of just a few years ago, conservation science.

We have five ArtCarts loaded with free activities that focus on our ancient Greek, Renaissance, 19th-century, and Asian art collections. Children can borrow a drawing kit, pick up a puzzle, try on a costume, play seek and find, or choose a children’s art book to read in the galleries. The carts are available on the weekends and during school break weeks. We also have two classrooms where kids can roll up their sleeves and do stuff. Q: And how about activities and events for adults? A: The adult programs include distinguished speakers from around the world, historic music presentations, and interviews with authors of books about art. I do the interview, and then we open it up to questions from the audience. Q: You’ve just changed your logo.Why?

A: They have great fun engaging with art. Children see things with fresh eyes, so it’s much easier to talk to a child about art because what they see is what they see; we have a naked Apollo, for example, and children always say, “Why is this person naked?” Now that’s a really good question that adults never ask. If you have anybody with you under the age of ten, the Walters can be your home on Saturday and Sunday. On weekends, this place is always humming with families.

In recent years we’ve moved a long way from the exclusive, almost “clubby” feel of the Walters of the past, and so our logo needed to be brought up to date. After all, we are a public institution with a public mission. We are as good as the value we give to the community. The Walters mission is to bring art and people together for enjoyment, discovery, and learning. Enjoyment is a loose term for what the art experience is all about, and discovery can be anything; we like to think that you’ll discover something about yourself. And as for learning, that’s the knowledge you take with you when you leave the Walters.

November:

December:

Q: What can children do at the Walters?

event calendar

October:

Saturday, Oct. 23, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. — Free Family Festival of Wonders. Tiptoe around the museum in search of hidden objects, create inventive works of art, and celebrate the special Walter Wick exhibition. Performers dazzle visitors of all ages with feats of fantasy, and Wick himself is scheduled to sign his books and say hello. Be sure to check out student artwork from the Works of Wonder Student Competition.

Sunday, Nov. 7, noon to 3 p.m. — Day of the Dead Celebration. The Walters’ second annual Day of the Dead party is a jovial Mexican holiday honoring family and friends who have died. Visitors enjoy traditional Mexican dance performances, a live mariachi band, food, and art activities for the whole family—all for free.

Thursday, Dec. 2, 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. — Monument Lighting Family Festival. Celebrate the holiday season and the annual lighting of the Washington Monument during this free event at the museum. Enjoy seasonal performances and music, refreshments, and special art activities for children. The monument, just a block away from the museum, is lit at 7 p.m., and then the sky itself is lit by fireworks. Urbanite Magazine sponsors this event.

The Avenue. Extended. A neighborhood favorite for almost 40 years, the Rotunda continues in its tradition of convenience and service. Where else can you grab a quick bite, then dash around (on one single level!) satisfying all your weekly errands? Before you’re done, indulge in some YOU time: a few cute fashion accessories, the latest NYT best seller, a cool cut and blow-out for that movie date later. And you only had to look for parking ONCE!

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urbanite october 10

baltimore observed John Hasacar Sally Needsacar

6:01 P.M.

6:17 P.M.

John leaves his office and drives home.

John parks his car in front of his house after returning from work.

7:50 P.M.

7:32 P.M.

Sally unlocks his car with a radio frequency ID card and drives to her destination.

Sally leaves her house and walks to the location of John’s vehicle.

t r a n S P O r tat i O n

My Car is Your Car A vehicle-sharing solution for the digital era

by john motsinger

illustration by jenna kaminsky

wenty-six-year-old entrepreneur Shelby Clark was riding his bike across Boston in the dead of winter when he was struck with inspiration. He was working on his MBA at Harvard at the time, and he didn’t own a car. Instead, he had signed up for a “car sharing” service, which, for a small annual fee, allowed him to rent cars

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urbanite october 10

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placed strategically around the city and pay by the hour. He was on his way to pick up just such a vehicle when the epiphany hit: All those other cars parked on the street were unrealized opportunities to make money. Thus, RelayRides was born. RelayRides, which is being tested in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is essentially a mash-up of Zipcar, the nation’s largest car share company, and an online dating service like Match.com, minus the awkward first encounter. The backbone is a Web-based, peer-to-peer network that allows car owners and renters to find each other virtually. To rent a car, you locate one online (vehicles are fitted with GPS transponders) and make a reservation. Swipe your personalized card across the reader on the windshield to gain access to the vehicle and drive away. Return it when you’re finished. The owner, who you may never meet, will get a check in the mail from RelayRides based on an hourly or daily rental rate charged to your credit card. Ultimately, Clark, now 28, envisions cities where cars become a shared commodity among distributed networks of users. “People are realizing that they don’t need to own a car to have great mobility,” he says. The idea that people might be willing to rent out their personal vehicles to perfect strangers may sound far-fetched, but car owners aren’t just taking their chances: Renters are covered by a $1 million insurance policy. Rental prices are set by each owner but are typically $1 to $2 per hour cheaper than Zipcar, and as of now there are no registration or annual fees. RelayRides takes a 15 percent cut on all transactions, 20 percent is passed through to the insurance company, and the remaining 65 percent goes to the owner at the end of each month. In Cambridge, where thirty car owners have enrolled since the launch in June, the fi rst round of checks went out in early August. The top earner—an owner of a Toyota Prius who made his car available frequently—made $600 for the month of July, according to RelayRides Director of Marketing Boris Mordkovich. Several others made $200 to $300. “Financial motivation is very powerful,” says Tiffany James with the Baltimore City Parking Authority, who tried to set up a cityrun car share program in 2008 and talked with RelayRides about launching its program

here. “When people are being furloughed and laid off and not getting raises, they’re going to make choices that maybe they wouldn’t have made years ago.” Clark and his partners thought seriously about launching in Baltimore but bagged it for the same reason that other car sharing companies have failed to get off the ground here. In a word: parking. Few Baltimore neighborhoods have dedicated parking for residents, meaning that parking in a consistent spot, where people can easily find the car, is next to impossible. Occasionally, an apartment or rowhouse will have a dedicated parking space, but a locked fence or garage is generally a deal-breaker in the car sharing business. So is a sketchy alley in a questionable part of town. But there are signs of movement here. At the end of June, Zipcar added twenty new vehicles to its Baltimore fleet, aided by twenty dedicated on-street parking spaces that the city donated in prime locations near downtown. And as Zipcar ramps up its presence in Baltimore, the idea will become more mainstream, potentially setting the stage for RelayRides’ arrival. James believes that could be good for this city. Paying per trip reveals “the true cost of transportation,” he says, encouraging “trip chaining”—instead of making four separate trips to the post office, dry cleaners, grocery store, and shopping mall, you might combine all these errands into one excursion—and making people more likely to bicycle, walk, or use public transit. There’s also a social equity benefit, James says: Almost a third of Baltimore’s residents don’t have access to a car, according to a 2005 report by the Abell Foundation. OK, but would James toss her own car into the pool? After only a moment’s hesitation, she says yes. “I have four car seats and a lot of Cheerios on the floor, so I’m not sure people want to rent my minivan,” she says. “But maybe someone needs the car seats … I’ll charge extra for that.” ■ —John Motsinger moonlights as a freelance environmental writer. For his day job as a writer for a nonprofit environmental group, he commutes to Washington, D.C., via MARC train, Metro, and his own two legs. He sold his truck two years ago and replaced it with a road bike.

A sampler of the fresh, Web-exclusive content posted every day at www.urbanitebaltimore.com

UrBanite OnLine

baltimore observed

Trout to Shout About F R OM F OOD / DR INK According to Ollie Collier, the best fish on planet Earth can be had at his food stand at the downtown farmers market.. http://bit.ly/urbanitetrout Slow the Rain, Save the Bay F R OM GR E E N / SUS TA IN A BL E Ashley Traut of the Baltimore Water Alliance explains the hows and whys of rain gardening. http://bit.ly/urbaniteraingarden

Everyman Art Collector F R OM HOME / DE SIGN Plumber Chris Jensen has turned his modest Charles Village rowhouse into self-styled celebration of local artists. http://bit.ly/urbaniteplumber Fall is in the Air F R OM S T Y L E / SHOPPING Local designer and former shop owner Shabdiece Esfahani is on the hunt for fall fashions. http://bit.ly/urbanitefallfashion Playful Paintings F R OM A R T / C ULT UR E Kenneth Yee’s works in paint and oil pastels explore childlike instincts. http://bit.ly/urbanitepaintings

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urbanite october 10

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vOiCeS

baltimore observed

Thinking Small

Author Malcolm Gladwell on the potential of cities, the definition of success, and the power of creative people interview by greg hanscom

alcolm Gladwell wants to change the way we look at the world. In his 2000 bestseller, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference, he looked at trends like the runaway success of Hush Puppies shoes in the 1990s and the sudden drop in crime in New York City and decided that these social shifts were best understood when examined through the lens of epidemiology. In his most recent book, 2008’s Outliers: The Story of Success, he sets out to debunk the idea of the self-made man. Citing examples ranging from Canadian national hockey champions to computer pioneer Bill Joy, a.k.a. “the Edison of the Internet,” he argues that success is based not solely on native intelligence or in-born talent but also on factors such as how much money your parents have (no great surprise, perhaps) and the day you were born (which dictates,

among other things, how old you are compared with your classmates). “People don’t rise from nothing,” he writes. Gladwell, a staff writer for the New Yorker and a former business and science reporter for the Washington Post, comes to Baltimore on November 17 to deliver the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore. (Urbanite is a sponsor.) We got a preview of what he has to say and found that, as usual, he is full of surprises. Cities such as Baltimore are poised to make a comeback, Gladwell says, rebuilding not with large factories, but small businesses. And driving this return to the core is not a collapse a la the Downtown Partnership’s last guest speaker, doomsayer James Howard Kunstler, but rather a shift in attitudes and a changing definition of success. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m o c t o b e r 1 0

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urbanite october 10

URB:

You’re coming to Baltimore next month to talk about the role place plays in creativity and innovation. MG: Yes. I am an environmentalist. I don’t mean that in the sense of someone who is for clean water and air. I believe very broadly that the most important determinants of the way we think and the way we behave are the influences that we receive from the outside. URB:

And why are urban environments of particular interest?

MG: More and more people are coming to understand that when they define the good life, a lot of what they mean is the chance to live in a culturally alive, aesthetically pleasing, diverse community. People are no longer solely defining a good life in terms of how much money they make. We don’t know how long this economic downturn will last, but it’s clear that as a society we are reevaluating that particular metric of success. One of the most attractive [new] definitions is being offered by repopulated, reinvigorated, dense urban areas. I spent a week this summer in Berlin. These are people who do not make a lot of money, but they live in these beautiful, dense, affordable, urban neighborhoods. They bicycle everywhere. There are lots of cafes where you can eat affordably. There are lots of places for your kids to play, and the schools are good. People don’t have cars. They take mass transit everywhere. Their apartments aren’t very large. But I’m sure that people there are profoundly happy with the lives that they’re living. That’s what cities offer: an alternative to what I believe is a moribund definition of success in American society. I can offer you a good school for your kids, a place to ride your bike, a job that challenges you, and if I can give you those things, then you don’t care that your apartment is half as big as your neighbor’s in the suburbs and that you don’t have a car. URB:

Can Americans buy back into the urban dream?

Not everybody has to. We’re not trying to convert all Americans to this. Baltimore only has to appeal to some small fraction of people who live in the extended region to be successful. But I suspect that there is a much larger number of Americans than we know, who, if they realized that this kind of life was an option, would eagerly seize it—and that there is a much larger degree of unhappiness and MG:

dissatisfaction with the traditional American suburban lifestyle than I think we know. If even 10 percent of Americans had a chance to live this way, it would be an enormous achievement. URB: I hear very faint echoes of James Howard Kunstler, who writes about the collapse of the suburbs and the retraction of the population back into urban areas. MG: I’m not apocalyptic. There are two things going on here. One is that there is this wholesale restructuring of our economy right now. There is a class of well-paying, middle-class job in America that is disappearing. We need to reinvent a lifestyle and a social network for that kind of person. That’s the downside. But the upside is that there is a whole young generation that has very different expectations. I’m writing a story right now about General Motors. I was talking to a guy who is in the automobile business, and he [pointed out that] there has been a dramatic change in the age at which kids get their driver’s license and the number of kids who actually drive before their twenty-first birthday. The desire on the part of that generation to have a car or even know how to drive a car is diminishing in a way that no one expected. That’s really interesting. That’s a whole group of people who don’t want to drive their car to work in the morning. That’s the kind of person who is quite happy living in an urban neighborhood in a city like Baltimore and taking mass transit and riding their bicycle. They’ve already made that transition. They are looking for a place to live that lifestyle. And it is up to cities like Baltimore to provide a home for that. URB:

That’s great, but what kinds of opportunities can cities offer this younger generation?

MG: I live in the West Village. I walk down Bleecker Street or Hudson Street, and I see all these tiny stores. There’s a reason they exist now and there. It’s easy now in a way it has never been in history to open a small business. You can do your shipping and fulfillment online—you name it. Then there are these old buildings where rents are not too crazy, and there’s an insane amount of foot traffic, so you don’t have to advertise—all these things are conducive to creating small businesses. That’s where we’re headed in a certain sense. That’s the thing that the density of the city can give. We’ve got to get smarter about exploiting that for economic growth and renewal. It’s an excellent time for everybody to go back and read their Jane Jacobs. That book [The Death and

Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961] has never been so contemporary. She is talking about America in 2010, because she was interested in this whole question about what makes small businesses possible. That’s why you hold on to old buildings. That’s why small, discrete neighborhoods are so crucial. Fast-forward fifty years, and we’re in this environment where a whole series of technological innovations make it possible to open a small business in a way that you couldn’t even twenty years ago. The environment is ripe for it. The question is, can cities that have the physical infrastructure for small businesses capitalize on those other changes and innovations and grow that portion of the economy?

vOiCeS

baltimore observed

URB:

What kind of businesses are you talking about?

MG: I had a conversation recently with someone who, she and her sister are getting into the garment business. They’re making a line of leather scarves, and they are really beautiful and distinctive. It’s a textbook example of what we’ve been talking about. They’re running the business from the corner of a loft in the Garment District in Manhattan. Their scarves are being manufactured in Queens. They’re being sold on Bleecker Street and a million other boutiques all over the place. And they’ve got a website, and all their fulfillment is done by some third party. That’s the modern model. Where is that business based? I don’t know. This business exists simultaneously in an office in Midtown, in a manufacturing facility in Queens, in a boutique in the West Village, and all around the world on the Internet. We can’t say there’s going to be a plant here and a store there. In the new world, things are everywhere. You shouldn’t over-think this. Baltimore just wants that person. Let them figure out how they want to organize their business. They’ll make use of Baltimore in some way, but basically, you want people like that, who want to live in Baltimore and who find it thrilling. How they choose to construct their business, God only knows. These days there are a million ways you can do it. URB:

So it’s no longer a game of bringing one huge factory to town.

MG:

No. It’s about bringing people. ■

Tickets to Malcolm Gladwell’s keynote address cost $130 for Downtown Partnership members, $175 for nonmembers. Info at www.godowntownbaltimore.com.

Web extra: For more of the conversation with Malcolm Gladwell, including a discussion of his most recent book, Outliers: The Story of Success, go to www.urbanitebaltimore.com. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m o c t o b e r 1 0

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From the walls of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s derelict buildings, messages about our past and future

The Oracle by elizabeth evitts dickinson photograph by marshall clarke

courtesy of Gaia

It’s easy to overlook the abandoned building near the corner of Park Avenue and Franklin Street on the edge of Mount Vernon. Traverse this city enough, and the sagging facades, the sunken roofs, the boarded windows become so commonplace that they are invisible. But here, on a weathered brick wall, a drawing of a man looms over the alley demanding attention. White, elderly, plump with success, he is rendered in black and white and looks toward Franklin with a dispassionate eye. His presence somehow amplifies the condition of the structure: With the roof gone and the windows blown out, sunlight pierces a seemingly moth-eaten shell. Trees grow where they shouldn’t. Exposed wood roof trusses give the feeling of a beached ship, as though the building has been marooned and left to rot. Suddenly, you see the building. Really see it. And this is exactly what the artist known as Gaia wants. Since arriving in Baltimore three years ago from his native New York to study at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Gaia—a slender, baby-faced 22-year-old with a shock of curly hair— has been papering the city with exquisitely executed drawings, block prints, and paintings. (It’s not exactly legal, thus the alias.) While his work has gone largely unnoticed—or at least unrecognized—here, Gaia has made a name for himself in the global cultural phenomenon called street art. Street art has grown in popularity in the last two decades thanks to artists such as Shepard Fairey, known for his ubiquitous Andre the Giant “Obey” signs and the blue-and-red-hued “Hope” poster of President Obama. The British artist Banksy’s irreverent, politically charged street art installations have drawn scrutiny and praise around the world, and include a much publicized trompel’oeil painting on a security fence in the West Bank. Street art is a cousin to graffiti—work is placed illegally on buildings and urban infrastructure—but it is an art form unto itself. Graffiti artists, who work mostly with spray paint, tend to communicate with one another via a kind of codified shorthand. Pass a piece of graffiti and you may register its color and form, but the message may not be readily legible. Street artists, on the other hand, employ a whole host of materials and usually attempt to communicate something to passersby. There is a desire to co-opt urban space in order to make a statement. Martin Irvine of Irvine Contemporary gallery in Washington, D.C., has exhibited numerous street artists over the years—including Gaia, who had a solo show at Irvine this summer. He distinguishes street art from graffiti in this way: “The conventional graffiti artist is really working with stylized letters often connected to a name. In its purest form, graffiti is name writing. The street artist combines everything—painting, drawing, block printing. For them, it’s about how the work speaks in the living context of the city. “As an art form, I think it’s one of the most important stories of our times. It’s as important as the pop art movement of the 1960s,” Irvine says. “The best of these artists are doing something really important, innovative, and changing the whole visual landscape of cities.” Gaia’s lustrous images could stand on their own, but placed in the urban landscape they take on new meaning. The drawing on Park Avenue is the image of his grandfather, and its position on a disintegrating building creates an arresting dissonance. “My grandfather is a representation of the old patriarchal hierarchy

that has defined this nation’s coming of age,” Gaia says. Here, the grandfather could be the iconic planner of the past, a prosperous white man who designed and owned the city, who also, perhaps, abandoned it with the post-modern exodus and is now forced to return and reckon with the aftermath. It is man’s complicated relationship to the city and the environment that first drew Gaia to produce street art as a high school senior. “Growing up in New York, I personally felt like I never had a connection to nature; it was so distant and idealistic,” he says. “My generation is experiencing the globalized world and its effects. There is the feeling that the trajectory we are on is not sustainable, yet I feel bound to this monstrous system.” His alias is the name of the goddess of the earth in Greek mythology. “It was a choice to align myself with a feminine character and express my interest in depicting a romantic nature in my art,” he says. Gaia’s art frequently depicts creatures that are half human, half-animal—people with the heads of bears and birds. “The animal/man hybrids have now become their own canon of deities in a way,” he says, “expressive of the contention between the wild and civilization.” In the piece Saint John, posted near the corner of West North Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue, a human body topped by a rooster head gently cradles the severed head of a man who strongly resembles the man depicted in Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes. Saint John was a messenger of Jesus who lost his life for promulgating the word of God. For Gaia, it seemed an apt metaphor for modern life. “He wasn’t listened to,” Gaia says. Today, “we know that we are going on the wrong path, and there are messengers telling us that our lives aren’t sustainable, but no one is listening.” The abandoned relics of the city, then, are the perfect vehicles for Gaia’s message. “Baltimore’s been a fantastic canvas, which is sad because ultimately my work wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t any neglected space,” he says. “What that neglected space allows for is a certain freedom and grassroots, democratic, public space. The artist has full agency, and there aren’t any boundaries or obstacles for an artist to produce work besides the law of posting on property.” Physically getting the work up on the street is a process that Gaia has refined over the years. Some of his paintings, block prints, and drawings are done on site, but others are developed in his studio. The images are affixed to structures using wheat paste and glue and topped with an acrylic medium that effectively plasticizes the work to slow its deterioration. Gaia has cut a street-sweeping broom down to fit inside a 5-gallon bucket filled with the adhesive so that he can brush the work onto surfaces quickly. Smaller artwork can take mere seconds to apply, while an 8-foot poster might take about five minutes. “It’s really quick, really fast,” he says. “There’s an urgency. It makes your process more efficient. You can bang out more work, and you are constantly progressing.” Gaia’s art can be found in cities from San Francisco to Seoul, Korea. He has had numerous gallery shows exhibiting both his street art and his studio work. His prolific pace and sophisticated execution have earned him a spot in a recent anthology titled

“We know that we are going on the wrong path, and there are messengers telling us that our lives aren’t sustainable, but no one is listening.”

continued on page 94 courtesy of Gaia

Cuba Comes Home by

charles

cohen

photography by scott fagley

Clarence was one of those childhood friends I never forgot—and never expected I’d see again. Until one day, there he was. The long-gone factory, rotting railroad-side, begged

for trespass. It was the kind of place Clarence and I had always searched for as kids as we pedaled our bikes with the tapes peeling and streaming off the handlebars. Leaving our Mount Washington homes behind, we would explore under the Jones Falls Expressway, looking for a path or enough sure-footed rocks to get us down the Western Run to a place of endless adventure. Now, I looked over at Clarence, thirty-five years after those pre-teen days, gazing out on what was once perhaps a truck depot, now a lost civilized outpost, a Fort Apache in the weeds.

Talk about straying from the routine. The

only reason I found myself on this side of the tracks was because I crossed the street on a Saturday night on my way to a Fells Point bar, led astray by the inviting masses loitering outside a gallery. It was more like a dive-punk-club crowd than the usual wine and cheese wall-gazers. Before long, I found myself wading through a retrospective of Baltimore’s graffiti scene that went back to hip-hop music’s early beginnings in the 1970s. On the hooks were framed Pollock-like scribble and pieces of urban ﬂotsam, including a bus window used as canvas. I was intrigued. I knew Baltimore had a graffiti scene, but here, in the crowd, there mingled a cultural context that begged for documentation. The city’s hip-hop stylings, I learned, could be traced to one guy with a spray can: a Maryland Institute of Art student known as Revolt, who spent his New York City youth drawing those bubblelicious letters that were the set dressing for break-dancing and hip hop back in the Grandmaster Flash days. Revolt didn’t make the art opening, but his Baltimore understudy, Cuba, did, to the thrill of the sidewalk throng. This variety of anonymous style writers and retired spray can rattlers all hailed the presence of Cuba, now San Francisco-based. “Billy Stevens, Boyd Derlinger, Cuba—these guys learned from Revolt,” Joe Vespa told me, listing the names of well-known New York graffiti artists. “They learned that hand style, that New York Style, before us.” Vespa, now a West Coast fi lmmaker and entrepreneur, had just landed a graffiti piece in the Smithsonian’s hip-hop exhibit, but still, Cuba was el supremo. They all urged me to meet Cuba, but by the time I finally found him—slumped in a corner exhausted, his long, gray dreadlocks tied back, his eyes wild, and the tell-tale signs of street life pressed into his face—there was no time to talk. Someone had called the

cops. Apparently the crowd in front of the gallery was too loud. The party was on the run. Later that night, I got a briefing on Cuba from Adam Stab, a well-known Baltimore graffiti artist himself (see Urbanite March ’04), who had gone to San Francisco to bring Cuba back for the opening. Having learned from Revolt, Cuba opted to make his way to San Francisco in 1984 rather than go to New York and get lost in the competition. Out in the Bay Area, Cuba injected the New York style of loopy letters onto the West Coast walls, which back then were gang tag turf. (Cuba’s artwork had nothing to do with gangs.) “Nobody was doing that style of graffiti then,” Stab said. “There were a few people who picked up on that version of style writing— the New York method and means. But he was the first.” I finally got a chance to shout at Cuba the next day from a far end of a long restaurant table. He and his compadres were plotting a major spray paint bombing run to celebrate the rare assembly of out-of-town writers in Baltimore. The clandestine session came off more like a zany bank heist sit-down, with cell phones ablaze and people breaking off into banal grocery-list conversations. Exasperated with the chatter, Stab turned and said, “Nowadays it ain’t done until you have your little digi [camera] so you got something to post on the Net. I bombed more on the cut—that’s what ended up happening. You didn’t bomb on a mission. You bombed on the ﬂy. You were out. It got late. You were drinking. Somebody had some cans ...” In between all this I started firing questions across the table at Cuba, asking him for his name and age and where he grew up. Clarence Robb, 44, Mount Washington. That’s when the whole room went sideways.

Friends come and go.

But Clarence was one of the handful whose impression stuck long after he was gone. We hung out as pre-teens in the 1970s, when black power, revolution, rock, and the sputterings of punk stirred together. It was the summer of 1974. I had just finished seventh grade at Fallstaff Middle School, where the highlight of my year was surviving being jumped in the hallway by a short guy named Booger and two sidekicks. Maybe it’s some bastard strain of the Stockholm Syndrome, but thinking back I have an odd affection for those days. In between the punches there was a lot of talking across the racial divide that I seldom experience today. This was an era when, at school, we played War’s “Cisco Kid” and the entire cafeteria did

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the Bump, where we would pretend to know kung fu and dropkick wood stolen from shop class. (“Kung Fu Fighting” was on the charts at the time.) This was an era when Richard Pryor could put out album called That Nigger’s Crazy; when the King of TV, Archie Bunker, grimaced every time Lionel Jefferson got close to his daughter. There were fragments of honest talk, and there was enough latitude for laughter. Even at age 12 I had a romantic sense of mission as I turned down my mother’s offer to send me to private school. So that summer I was left to wonder what eighth grade would bring; I knew that if I didn’t improve my grades I would be off to Northwestern High School where there were stories of a student who brought a gun to school—and this was way before metal detectors. Somewhere that summer I spotted Clarence riding his bike. We had the exact same model and color, an ugly white Sears Free Spirit. From then on, we were bonded like blood brothers. We took our bikes as far as they could go. We pushed through the thickets of Robert E. Lee Park. He was a black kid; I was white. I lived on top of the hill, a merchant’s son. Clarence lived on the bottom of the hill in a tiny hamlet of houses that was built during postCivil War reconstruction segregation. Some friends gave me grief for hanging out with him. After leaving my house once, he was pulled over by police wanting to know why he was in the neighborhood. “This is my neighborhood,” he said. I didn’t know much about his family, his background. He was just Clarence, the only kid I knew whose idea of a good time wasn’t sitting around on a summer’s day watching baseball. He just liked to take off anywhere, and that constant state of motion, riding fast through traffic, was where a hyperactive misfit like myself felt at peace. Little did I know that in a few years, Clarence would set the pace by spray painting under that very bridge where we would snag crayfish and tagging the walls of the Mount Washington Pharmacy (now a salon) where we got our Strange War comics—or that hanging out at the Hopkins Spring Fair a few years later in high school, he would meet an artist who would change his life.

The last I had heard of Clarence was that he had died

from a heroin overdose back in the ’80s. Yet here we were, a hundred years later, doing the Tom Sawyer-Huckleberry Finn with a pack of graffiti artists in an industrial outpost lost among the ghetto palms.

We gained access to the old factory through a gap in a galvanized wall what was once a loading dock. Crawling through it was a journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth experience, and we emerged in a giant space, long and eerie, one wall bashed out as if a tank had rolled back and forth on a search-and-destroy mission. Half a dozen artists were already at work, squatting and painting in their appointed spots. They paid us little mind. Stab’s crew ventured through the gashes and set up under a busted-out skylight where a few drops of rain fi ltered through a la Blade Runner. Stab squatted down with his sacks of cans, all shapes and brands. He pulled out handfuls of nozzles, fat ones and skinnys. A plan was made: Make your tags but finish with orange on top. Stab wanted to let the next band of graffiti artists know that this wall was a combined effort of free-form signatures. For the next hour, squeezing out every strand of gloaming light, they worked. An unnatural ozone settled in the building, and even the vets began to gag on the fumes. I sat there in the rubble and watched the passion that can be found in the most reverent studios both famous and undiscovered. Each writer formed his or her letters differently. There was the writer who only identified himself as Dyzer, creating diamond shapes criss-crossed with spray to form blocky, robotic letters. There were the comic slants of the artist from Oklahoma and the tangled tendrils of Stab’s letters. Among these, Clarence’s style stood out for its skull shards and curvaceous ﬂow. Calling graffiti “art” is still debatable, especially in my neighborhood, where brazen writers have been hitting nontraditional sites with pretty trite scribbling—a Mickey Mouse character on the side of a beauty salon comes to mind. But out here, there was no one to offend. Nobody on the outside would ever see the work. And according to the graffiti writer’s “nothing is sacred” creed, the work would be doomed to be covered by another graffiti artist. It was the work that mattered. In the end, the same frustrated questions that are heaped on abstract art can be posed about this stuff. Graffiti challenges people’s perception of space, of what is supposed to be there. It’s OK to look at an oppressive set of pipes, bridges, telephone poles, towers, and peeling billboards cluttering the sky—but having a tag in the mix is somehow unacceptable? “Look at this: This is one breathing ground for our culture. It’s one of the last cities we have left,” said a rambler who went by the name Baser and hailed from “the dirty bottom where Katrina stomped.” He squatted down next to me and dished out a running commentary on the scene in front of us. “Miami’s not the same, continued on page 94

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In the offerings of a giveaway website, stories plucked from people’s lives The weirdest offering I’ve ever seen on Freecycle.org was a frozen moose head “in a large tote” that the giver claimed had been used in a documentary film shoot. I also ran across someone offering a wedding dress, size 18, “never worn, tags still on,” a description that made me think of Hemingway’s famously heartwrenching six-word short story: “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.” Freecycle is a Web and e-mail network, launched in 2003 by a do-gooder in Tucson who worked for an organization that provided recycling services to businesses and found transitional employment for Arizonans in need. His initial list of thirty or forty names has grown into thousands of groups in eighty-five countries, and the organization has received nonprofit status (which means that you can count Freecycle offerings as charitable donations—although I’m not sure how you calculate the freebies you may acquire). After signing up for a local group, members can post what they have or ask for what they need, with items often left on the porch, the stoop, or the driveway for pickup. The site represents everything good about the Internet: a way of connecting people in cheerful anonymity. The members of a Freecycle group share more than stuff; we share values. The givers pat themselves on the back for keeping their collection of wire shirt hangers, plastic ice cube trays, or “bag of girl’s 6X clothing must take all” out of the landfill. The receivers find something they need—or think they might need: a bag of wine corks for an art project, clothes for their 6-year-old. I’ve found a nice piece of Berber carpet for my basement, a reel lawn mower, and two solid wooden armchairs for my porch—although they needed paint and new cushions. But I have to admit: I love reading Freecycle for the abbreviated, often mundane stories it tells—a child is outgrowing Exersaucers and board books; an industrious gardener is looking for canning jars; a parent is sending a teenager off to college—as much as By Martha Thomas photography by christopher myers

for the stuff I might be able to use.

G a r de n G n o m e s Lucy Robins, left, and sister Irma Robins

“One day my sister was going on (as she sometimes does) about her neighbors’ ‘yard art’ in the front yards of their townhome development. She was particularly ‘offended’ (in a humorous sort of way) by gnomes. Her birthday was coming up, and I decided that I wanted to gnome her front yard. “I had nothing to lose by posting a request on Freecycle. A man contacted me and told me he had inherited a collection of garden gnomes. He didn’t want to use them, but he also didn’t want to throw them away. My husband picked them up, and they were great—old, slightly worn, and very charming ceramic figurines. “The night before my sister’s birthday, my husband and I went to my sister’s under cover of darkness and put gnomes on her front steps, in her flower beds and her bushes, and even in the mailbox. Over time, she actually grew to like the gnomes a bit. But I guess they missed me, because one evening they appeared in my yard.”

Doghouse Kevin O’Brien

“I had a Jack Russell. Her name was Sydney, and she was my best friend. She did everything with me. She was a feisty little thing. Me and my neighbor built the doghouse. It was too big for her, but a nice doghouse. My wife painted it black and white. We found out Sydney had cancer of the bladder, and it totally destroyed me. After she died, I tried to give the doghouse to someone who had a rescue dog, but they never came through. I had about thirty people inquire about it, but nobody showed up. Finally this one guy picked it up, but I wasn’t there when he came. “I’m not ready for a new dog yet. [Sydney’s death] affected me so bad, I made a shadow box for her, with her collar, pictures of her, her tags, some hair—we shaved off some of the hair before she passed away. It’s in the family room.”

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urbanite october 10

P l ay e r pi a n o ro l l s Kerch McConlogue (right, pictured with Mike Annen, recipient of the piano rolls)

“My dad rebuilt player pianos as a hobby. He was an engineer, and the joke was: A normal person would learn how to play a piano, an engineer would make it play itself. He died twentyeight years ago. “I had a bunch of odd rolls he had for the piano, nothing you’ve heard of, although my favorite—which isn’t in the pile to give away—is an old WWI song, ‘When it’s nighttime in Italy, it’s Wednesday over here.’”

G ro u t Barbara Svoboda

“I saw a listing for a giveaway of a whole long list of different color shades of grout. I do mosaics and was really excited. I waited all day for an answer and was deeply disappointed when I did not receive one. I gave on up the idea. “A couple of days later, I received an e-mail from the grout folks. They had had about fifteen people who asked for it and wanted a chance to go through the e-mails and pick the best one. They chose me! I was so thrilled. It turned out that the guy’s mom had died a year ago, and she was a mosaic artist as well.” ■

—Writer and avid freecycler Martha Thomas once posted a bag of kitchen compost she had collected for two weeks in anticipation of a new backyard bin (that turned out to be rodentfriendly). While there were no takers, she got lots of free advice on pest-free urban composting. —Photographer Christopher Myers is no stranger to the world of the perfect free find. Much of the odds and ends around his house were either roadside finds or thrift store treasures. He has even incorporated “ free stuff ” into his artwork by documenting found objects from the streets of Baltimore.

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naTur al selecTIon Is daIly and hour ly scruTInIZIng, ThroughouT The Wor ld, ev ery var IaTIon, ev en The slIghTesT; r eJecTIng ThaT WhIch Is bad, pr eservIng and addIng up all ThaT Is good; sIlenTly and InsensIbly Wor k Ing Whenev er and Wher ev er opporTunITy offers. —charles darWIn, the origin of SPecieS

 . Darwin knew it back in the 19th century when he teased out the nuances of beaks and other characteristics that allowed finches to survive on the Galapagos Islands. Today, in and around Baltimore, an evolutionary cycle is taking place among another sort of species: institutions of higher learning. For evidence, witness the transformation of local colleges into universities. In the past year, two area colleges have changed their names to universities: Loyola University Maryland (formerly Loyola College in Maryland) and Stevenson University (née Villa Julie College). A third, the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, plans to become a university too, with trustees now deciding just what name will appear on the sign that welcomes students to the leafy north Baltimore campus. Such transitions apparently mark a postmillennial trend nationwide. Incoming college freshmen—who face the dual whammy of increasingly expensive degrees and an unpromising job market—are hedging their bets on schools with a greater array of options, including master’s degrees, researchoriented PhDs, and professional doctorates. In a recent survey, more than 80 percent of students said they preferred the term university over college, according to higher

ed consulting firm GDA Integrated Services. “We ask students: ‘What is the difference between a university and a college?’ They say size and graduate programs. They think that universities have more options,” says the company’s president, George Dehne, who is an advisor to Stevenson and Notre Dame. Twenty-eight of GDA’s four hundred-plus clients have made the name change. Baltimore is already known as a college town, boasting sixteen area institutions and upwards of 120,000 students, according to Baltimore Collegetown Network. Yet schools taking on the university moniker will find it’s not so easy putting the “higher” in higher education: When it comes to launching the hallmark of the university—the advanced degree—institutions are hamstrung by a tangle of funding woes, politics, history, and proprietary battles. In Darwinian terms, many territories are already claimed by schools elsewhere in the state—and institutional rules and traditions keep competition to a minimum. As a result, Baltimore is a great place to get an undergraduate degree in nearly any field and a master’s in many. Yet if students want a terminal degree, especially in the humanities, they tend to have to go elsewhere.

“The reason we haven’t had as much programmatic growth is pure and simple politics,” says Anirban Basu, chairman and CEO of Sage Policy Group Inc. and one of the area’s leading economists. “There are strong notions of turf in Maryland. Under the state’s higher education system, incumbent programs don’t want to compete with newer programs, so they set up obstacles. It’s an intolerable situation.”

central hurdle in the evolution of higher education is the struggle for resources: money and, as Basu notes, turf. The cost of launching new higher degree programs, especially in the midst of a recession-logged economy, is intimidating at best. PhD programs are multi-million-dollar propositions requiring highly paid faculty and pricey research facilities, as well as tuition funding and low faculty-to-student ratios. “Schools can’t afford it,” Dehne says. Even when schools do have the resources, state oversight can create an anti-Darwinian environment. A state board called the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC for short) approves collegeto-university designation changes and also decides whether an institution can offer a

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HIGHeR leaRNING

—Stevenson University President Kevin J. Manning new program. MHEC was created decades ago partly to help balance state funding resources and protect the viability of established programs. According to its mandate, the commission ensures that Marylanders “have access to a high quality, diverse, adequately funded, effectively managed, and capably led system of postsecondary education.” (Other states have similar governing boards, some more active than others.) Under Maryland law cited by MHEC, the state should not allow “unreasonable program duplication which would cause demonstrable harm to another institution.” So when a university or college proposes a new program, the idea is shopped around to leaders of other public and private institutions, who can raise objections. “We are an arm’s-length voice that can look at the situation, for example in the greater Baltimore area, and then identify the needs,” says Maryland Secretary of Higher Education James E. Lyons Sr., who reports to the commission. “If there are major battles, we try to bring the institutions together and hope that we can resolve things and come to a final decision.” MHEC approves fewer than one hundred undergraduate and graduate degree programs a year. (Of nineteen new programs approved between January 1 and April 30 of this year, eight were graduate level, according to a June 23 MHEC report.) Dozens of proposals annually are withdrawn or denied. Even with private universities, the commission has some authority: If a private university or college offers a program that MHEC has recommended against, the commission can urge the state to decrease funding to that institution. “It’s not that we don’t want students to be served,” says Lyons, “but there’s a state commitment of resources.” As a result of what some term an anticompetitive philosophy, the state’s older institutions, especially the two research universities—the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University—which tend to offer more PhD and doctoral programs, have a lock on traditional academic areas of study, such as English. The University of Maryland, College Park, offers nearly ninety PhD

programs in fields ranging from American studies to psychology. Towson University, a sister institution that was a college until the 1970s, has grown to serve a burgeoning population of 21,000 students. That campus offers just four doctorates and one PhD. Towson, which focuses mostly on teaching, does not try to match the researchintensive profile found at College Park. Yet Towson leaders would like to add more doctorates in applied research that could center on solving problems in technology industries, for example. Territorial disputes, however, prove daunting. A few years ago, Towson, whose undergraduate business program was the largest in the state, was barred from adding the logical next degree: a master’s in business administration, or MBA, because the University of Baltimore (UB) already had one. “It was hurting us significantly,” says Towson University President Robert L. Caret. “Top faculty want to come to a school with an MBA program.” After various negotiations and appeals to MHEC, Towson ended up with a jointdegree with UB in 2005. Since then, however, Morgan State University has protested that degree, saying it duplicates an MBA program already in place at Morgan. “It’s frustrating,” says Caret, a former Towson faculty member who returned to become president in 2003 after nine years leading San Jose State University in California. “One of the things standing in the way of me saying yes to coming back was this whole issue. I never ran into this in California. There, if you have the money and there’s demand for a program, the idea is, go for it.”

n a town that has already lost most of its manufacturing economy, nobody wants colleges or universities to go the way of the dodo bird in a brutal contest of survivalof-the-fittest. Yet critics wonder whether strict centralized governance and the fiefdom politics that ensue are preventing area institutions from keeping up with the times—and, ultimately, stunting growth and development. “A significant key to economic performance in the 21st century is human capital,” says economist Basu. “And the regions of the

world with broader prosperity will be the most educated regions. [People with] PhDs are associated with higher income levels, higher taxes paid, and higher rates of business formation. They often become entrepreneurs—the people who help spread prosperity.” In other cities, like Philadelphia or Washington, D.C., a resident could go from college freshman to department chair in the same town, tapping several research universities. That’s harder in Baltimore. Hopkins and the University of Maryland’s campuses in the Baltimore area offer a range of higher degrees, but most serve selective, small cohorts of students or focus on medical or technology-oriented fields. And because many local schools are in the University System of Maryland, the options for growth are limited. The system’s board of regents has strict oversight over which programs are approved and funded within the state system and can bar schools from offering degrees already in place at College Park or elsewhere. And even if a proposal clears the board of regents, it still has to pass muster with MHEC. “Sometimes it’s harder than other times to show that there is a benefit to the state for a new program. Resources are so tight, it’s difficult unless the program is selfsupporting,” says Janet Rutledge, vice provost and dean for graduate education at University of Maryland Baltimore County, which has two dozen PhD programs ranging from biochemistry to sociology. “I would like to see a program in the humanities, but the time is not right now.” Further complicating matters are issues of racial equality. Historically black colleges often claim that new, competing programs thwart their efforts to attract more diverse students. Earlier this year, Morgan successfully blocked the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) from offering an online doctoral program for community college administrators because Morgan has a similar face-to-face program that attracts students from all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. In a controversial decision, MHEC ruled that UMUC can’t offer the state-supported degree program to Marylanders, but it can serve residents of other

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“A significant key to economic performance in the 21st century is human capital. And the regions of the world with broader prosperity will be the most educated regions. [People with] PhDs ... often become entrepreneurs—the people who help spread prosperity.”

HIGHeR leaRNING

—Anirban Basu, chairman and CEO of Sage Policy Group Inc. states. Morgan recently announced that it is offering an online version of its degree for in-staters. And Morgan’s challenge to the joint Towson-UB MBA has taken the issue into the courts. As a result of that conflict and others across the state (including Morgan’s protest of engineering programs at UMBC), a coalition of Morgan students has joined those at other historically black universities in filing a discrimination lawsuit against state leaders. Among other things, the suit contends that Maryland is not complying with a 2000 federal civil rights agreement to “remedy all policies and practices within the State’s higher education system that are traceable to the prior segregated system. This obligation specifically includes the unnecessary duplication” of academic programs at historically black universities by “geographically proximate TWIs,” or traditionally white institutions.

uch challenges beg the question: How can Baltimore colleges and universities thrive given all the restrictions? Many colleges and universities already are striving to adapt within the current system. Loyola, a liberal arts institution with a 158-year history, has expanded to add master’s degrees in nine academic disciplines. The six-thousand-student Jesuit university also offers a doctorate of clinical psychology and a PhD in pastoral counseling and is considering another doctorate in its new school of education. “Even in Baltimore people don’t understand the way the institution has grown,” says Loyola’s president, Rev. Brian Linnane. “More than 40 percent of our students are graduate students.” As Darwin might note, the key to survival could be finding the right niche. Increasingly, Basu says, “universities are not trying to be all things to all people. They are creating specialized centers of excellence.” Some area schools are establishing hyper specialties or refining a focus within a field. In 2004, for example, Notre Dame added a PhD in “instructional leadership for changing populations” for school administrators and others who serve a growing number of immigrants in Maryland.

Other schools are capitalizing on Baltimore’s natural strengths, including the health care and biotechnology sectors, which have the added benefit of offering more promising economic outcomes for students than, say, a degree in English. (The Humanities don’t have a strong track record at the moment. A 2010 joint report by the Council of Graduate Schools and the Educational Testing Service pointed out that the average road to a humanities PhD is a whopping 9.3 years, with half of students not finishing the degree.) And there is some room for duplication here: If university presidents can prove a serious need for a program, MHEC or the state Board of Regents is more likely to approve a new degree that is similar to those already offered. For example, last year Notre Dame launched a professional doctorate in pharmacology, a “PharmD,” even though UMB already offers a pharmacology doctorate. “There’s tremendous interest in the projected shortage of pharmacologists,” says Notre Dame President Mary Pat Seurkamp. Among other factors: An aging Baby Boom is fueling demand for prescription medications. In such fields, there are plenty of students to go around: Notre Dame’s PharmD program drew five hundred applications for seventy spots. This year, that number rose to nine hundred. MHEC has already approved a third pharmacology doctoral program at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES). A sustainable path to the future will only be found, however, if state officials acknowledge that neither Baltimore nor Maryland is an island. With an increasing share of higher education going online, local colleges and universities now face competition from educational institutions around the world. Therein, it seems, lies the real challenge. Linnane and others note that the future of higher degrees will likely prove less traditional. They might include an online component, limited residencies, or an accelerated format that could prove more flexible to students regardless of locale. Some area colleges are offering combined bachelor’s/ master’s degrees for students seeking access to advanced degrees. For example, McDaniel

College (which changed its name from Western Maryland College in 2002 partly to appeal to a broader range of students) has just launched a new five-year B.A./M.S. degree in aging issues. Students will earn both a B.A. in psychology and an M.S. in gerontology, which incorporates an online component. The new program is one of four five-year degrees offered at the college. “It’s a very time-efficient way to earn a master’s,” says Henry Rieff, Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies. “It’s a great package that allows young students to come out a step ahead.” Overall, higher education is trending toward such hybrid approaches, notes Stevenson University President Kevin J. Manning, who shepherded that school’s name change from Villa Julie College: “The Internet is having such a profound impact—like the car or electricity or fire. What we are going through is somewhat like what newspapers have faced: It’s difficult to see what’s over that wall.” Stevenson, which emphasizes students’ livelihoods post-graduation, offers four professional master’s degrees, including one in forensic studies that is offered mostly online with a capstone experience on the Owings Mills campus: a mock trial. Ultimately, the long-term survival of Baltimore-area institutions of higher learning may be best achieved through a mix of global, Web-savvy thinking and a sense of community endemic to Charm City. Amanda Bertele was a junior at Notre Dame when she heard about that school’s new PharmD degree. “I had looked at other colleges,” says Bertele, who majored in chemistry with a pre-pharmacy focus. “They did not have the same warm and nurturing environment that Notre Dame has.” She opted to stay put. “Notre Dame,” Bertele says, “is a family.” ■ —Joanne Cavanaugh Simpson went to the state’s two research universities, earning her bachelor’s in journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park, and her master’s from the Johns Hopkins University’s Writing Seminars. She is a former staff writer for The Miami Herald and Johns Hopkins Magazine.

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space A social-service nonproﬁt renews an iconic building— and ﬁnds itself renewed.

A landmark restored: Damaged by water, wind, and fire, the American Brewery’s roof was the architects’ biggest challenge. But once the three ornate protuberances on top were painstakingly rebuilt—and the rest of the building restored—Humanim, a social-services nonprofit, moved in to 1701 Gay Street.

BREWERY REBORN by brennen jensen

photography by paul burk

enry Posko Jr., president and CEO of the social-service nonprofit Humanim, vividly recalls the day five years ago when he fi rst entered the building that would become his group’s Baltimore home. After all, he was trespassing at the time. In late 2003, his Columbia-based organization merged with an East Baltimore charity, sending Posko on a protracted search across the city for a building to house the combined operations.

One dank afternoon in March 2005 he and a colleague were driving along a battered stretch of Gay Street when the striking—if not altogether haunting—silhouette of a building hove into view: the American Brewery, ornately erected in 1887 and vacant since 1973. Posko says he’d heard the decayed edifice that rose before them in the gloaming described as “Darth Vader’s castle and the Amityville Horror put together.” The pair stole inside the five-floor, eleven-story building’s plywood-covered front entrance, emerging into shadowy squalor, replete with mounds of rancid grain left over from brewing days. Despite the decay, by the time they’d scrambled up the only staircase that seemed passably safe and explored one of the brewery’s trademark towers, Posko was enthralled. “I kept thinking, ‘Wow! This could be a great space,’” he recalls. “The building stood as a symbol of the disinvestment in the neighborhood and if it were to come back, what were the possibilities?” A Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse sign stood on the property; the development company was in the early stages of stabilizing the city-owned building. Barely twelve hours later, Posko was having breakfast with company President Bill Struever. (Struever is an investor in Urbanite.) And four years and $24 million later, a Humanim sign was hung over the front entrance as part of an award-winning adaptive reuse of the city’s quirkiest hunk of Victorian exuberance. Humanim, which brought on Columbia-based Synthesis to serve as owner’s representative on the project, has seen its philanthropic profile revamped as well. The charity—which provides health, rehabilitation, and vocational services for the disabled throughout central Maryland, along with more general “welfare-to-work” programs—has been around since 1971. In Baltimore City, Posko says, “we’ve gotten more notoriety for Humanim in the last three years than we had in the first thirty. And it’s all because of the brewery project.”

Silo seating: With the addition of new flooring, the Brewery’s 10,000-bushel silo, made of stacked yellow pine boards, was refashioned as an impromptu seating area. Behind, vestigial air ducts, once used to transport grain to the upper floors, wrap around the building.

urbanite october 10

space

Top left: Open space: Instead of offices, the inside of the building is filled with meeting rooms and pods. This open floor plan leaves room to appreciate the large windows and the architecture that remains from the brewery’s working days.

Above: Redesigned steel: A curvilinear work area was crafted from an enormous steel tank on the first floor. The structure was once likely used to heat “wort,” a mix of malted barley and water. Underneath, the removed tank is memorialized with a gray circle of carpeting.

he edifice was erected by Bavarian-born John Frederick Wiessner as principal brew house for an eponymous brand of beer that poured forth until Prohibition. Another brewing firm made American Beer here until 1973, and that’s the name the building largely goes by, though Humanim renamed it the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Building to reward a nearly $3 million gift from the namesake foundation. Giving a name to the building’s allover-the-map architectural style, however, is the greatest challenge. Just for starters, there are Asiatic rooflines, heavy Victorian bracketing, and playful round windows. Teutonic pagoda? Bavarian Gothic? Even architect George Holback, whose firm Cho Benn Holback + Associates Inc. designed the renovation, is at a loss for words. “It’s just the most eclectic collage of architectural styles imaginable,” he says while showing a reporter through the reborn building. One of the architectural challenges was restoring the roof, long damaged by wind,

water, and fire. Three ornate tower components of galvanized tin, wood, and slate were painstakingly rebuilt. As for the structure itself, what wasn’t brick or slate had long been painted dark green, but the architects unearthed an aged color lithograph of the brewery from the Wiessner days depicting a much lighter champagne color, and comparative artistic renderings were created. “It was a no-brainer,” Posko says. “The green was all Gothic and dark, while with the champagne color, the building just popped.” The restoration drew on some $14 million in state and federal historic tax credits— funding with strings attached requiring that aspects of a building’s historical integrity be maintained. But the architects went beyond any requirements when it came to preserving and highlighting artifacts from the beer-making days. At the core of the building rises a multistory, 10,000-bushel grain silo constructed of stacked 2-by-6-foot yellow pine boards. This unique structure was maintained, given flooring, and opened

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Hot spot: When they’re not in the field, two hundred of Humanim’s employees work out of the brewery. President and CEO Henry Posko Jr. says that in Baltimore City, “we’ve gotten more notoriety for Humanim in the last three years than we have in the first thirty. And it’s all because of the brewery project.”

up to make impromptu seating areas. Snaking through the building are what appear to be vestigial air ducts; periodic Plexiglas panels placed on them allow glimpses of an automated system of belts and scoops once used to convey grain to the upper floors. And on the first floor, a massive steel tank likely used to heat a mix of malted barley and water called “wort” has been carved up to serve as a curvilinear work area. Where large beer tanks were removed in the renovation, their diameters and positions are memorialized with gray circles of carpeting. “We could have taken all this out, but we realized that we had just enough artifacts to tell the story of the brewery and give a real flavor of what used to be here,” Holback says. Curiously, one thing you won’t find in the 30,000-square-foot space is offices—at least not in the traditional sense. Humanim maintains its overall headquarters in Columbia, with only about 200 of its 650 or so

employees working out of the brewery. And most of these staffers spend their days in the field, assisting clients in homes, schools, and workplaces. The bulk of the building is given over to meeting rooms and “pods” (think low-walled cubicles) for employees in need of occasional desk space. The resulting open floor plans allow for greater appreciation of the building’s elaborate windows and bits of breweriana. And when the space isn’t being used by Humanim, it has become a de facto community center of sorts, rented out for community events, graduations, a kids’ movie night, and classes. Posko himself figured he’d be dividing his time between the brewery and the leafy suburban headquarters. But in more than a year’s time, he’s spent barely a week out in the office park. This is where the energy is. “We really underestimated the amount of attention the building would get,” Posko says. “The buzz about this neighborhood has increased tenfold.”

For a charity that by Posko’s own admission had largely worked “under the radar,” this has translated into a host of discussions with philanthropies, schools, and businesses about partnership opportunities and ways to bolster the mission. Talks are under way about converting an adjacent, city-owned, 65,000-square-foot former bottling plant into a charter school and space for Humanim’s programs for working families. “Moving forward, we are thinking of using this as a model of rehabilitation,” Posko says: “Taking an iconic building in other tough urban neighborhoods and saying, ‘It can be done!’” ■ — Brennen Jensen is Urbanite’s online home and design editor. For a weekly feed of his work, plus design-related events, product reviews, and links, go to www.urbanite baltimore.com and look for the Urbanite E-zines sign-up box.

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eat/dr ink

Pig Time

In Southern Maryland, a fanfare for an uncommon ham by maren tarro

photograph by la kaye mbah

reviews

wine & spirits

the feed

Vino Rosina and Hunan Taste

Ginned Up

This month in eating

Contemporary American Cuisine in a semi-formal atmosphere.

Awarded the Best New RestauRaNt in Maryland by the Restaurant Association of Maryland

938 South Conkling Street in Brewers Hill Complimentary Valet Parking

www.bluehilltavern.com 443.388.9363

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presents

This fall, AVAM celebrates its 15th anniversary! In celebration, we’re mounting our most delight-filled exhibition to date, exploring just “What Makes Us Smile?” We’ve invited master humorist and creator of The Simpsons Matt Groening & artist Gary Panter to help with this special show! “Smile” opens Saturday, October 9, 2010 and runs ‘til September 4, 2011. < Detail, “What, Me Worry?” bed by Patty Kuzbida

800 KEY HWY 78

urbanite october 10

BALTIMORE MD

n the third and final stop on my stuffed ham tour of Southern Maryland, I find myself in the unusual position of being sick of ham. But I’ve heard good things about W.J. Dent & Sons, a roadside grocery/bar in the small hamlet of Tall Timbers, deep in St. Mary’s County. So my husband and I decide to stop in for one last sandwich before turning north back to Baltimore. There, behind the counter, sits the unpromising-looking object of the day’s quest—a pinkish pile of sliced ham mixed with cooked greens and spices. Andy Dent, whose father, William, opened this lunch stop in 1978, slips behind the counter and piles a mound of meat and greens between slices of white bread. After a generous slathering of brown mustard, it’s wrapped in butcher paper and packed up to go. As we drive away, I unwrap it and nibble at the edge. My mouth fills with a spicy-sour blast of porkiness—a mix of briny meat, fiery chili heat, and savory kale and cabbage. Dent’s stuffed ham, liberally flecked with dried red pepper and whole mustard seeds, ranks several notches hotter than the other hams I’ve sampled today, and the flavor grabs my attention. “Stop the car,” I tell my husband. Moments later, we’re back at the grocery, requesting a full pound of meat for the road. Dent lets loose a knowing laugh. Three counties in Maryland—Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary’s—lay claim to stuffed ham, a star of the region’s church feeds and holiday tables in wintry months, when the weather cools and the greens are ripe. Served cold with biscuits (and not to be confused with the smoked country hams of neighboring Virginia), it’s a frequent centerpiece to a holiday buffet, ideally with some iced oysters nearby. Each county calls for subtle regional variations: Kale dominates the mix in the north, while cabbage tends to make an appearance in the south. But the technique is the same, as Dent explained to me. A stuffed ham begins as a fresh ham that is corned, or brined in kosher salt. Then he bones and scores the inside and stuffs it with a blend of cabbage, kale, onion, and spices. The ham, now weighing in at some 30 pounds of meat and greens, is tightly wrapped in cheesecloth, bound with butcher’s string, and boiled for several hours. It’s an arduous, daylong process for the home cook, and it needs to be done correctly to avoid food-safety problems. (A Chaptico church dinner that sickened more than seven hundred people in 1997 was widely blamed on salmonella from stuffed hams, dealing a lingering public relations blow to the stuffed ham brand.) That may explain

eat / drink why so many households outsource the ham-making these days. Dent says he sells around 230 hams from October to Easter, the traditional season for the dish. For homesick southern Marylanders, he’ll ship a ham overnight to as far away as Hawaii. Marie Cournoyer, now a Howard County resident, grew up in Charles County and remembers well how strict her mother was about just what made its way into their holiday ham. “My mother always used kale and watercress, never cabbage,” Cournoyer says. “‘That’s what those St. Mary’s people use,’ she would say.” Her family served the ham for Easter. Over the years, though, the tradition has made its way onto the table for other gatherings. “We started having it at Christmas, and now we have it at Thanksgiving, too. We love our stuffed ham.” On my journey along the ham highway, I sampled offerings from three St. Mary’s locations: In addition to Andy Dent’s, I tried the ham at Raley’s Market in Ridge, which was limp and tasted less than freshly prepared, and Chaptico Market in Chaptico, where the ham was lively on the palate with plenty of salt and a hint of heat. The origins of stuffed ham remain the source of some debate. Many trace its roots to an English dish called stuffed chine, made by slashing a pork backbone, brining it, then wrapping and simmering it for hours. But Andy Dent says that his brother, David, once saw an old church cookbook that credited the dish to the area’s plantation slaves, who would take the pork castoffs given to them by owners and combine them with greens in a cloth bag before boiling the concoction. Replacing the cut of meat with the more-desirable ham created a dish worthy of a holiday feast. “This dish,” he says, “is 350 years old.” There may be some merit to this story. Invert the pig-to-vegetable ratio, and you get another dish steeped in African American food traditions—greens simmered with chunks of pork. But unlike that staple of the Southern table, stuffed ham has made few inroads in other parts of the state and remains all but unknown outside Maryland. Dent insists there’s a pocket of stuffed-ham aficionados lingering on in parts of Kentucky, an artifact of the westward migration of Southern Marylanders during the late 18th and early 19th century. If they are indeed there, they are well hidden. Dent admits he’s a bit perplexed as to how the regional specialty he’s mastered has remained cloistered for so long: “I’m trying to figure that one out myself.” ■ —Maren Tarro has spent more than half her life exploring all aspects of the culinary world and the last five trying to explain it to others.

Stuffed Ham Feeling ambitious? Give stuffed ham a shot at home—and invite everyone you know to share in the feast. This recipe makes about fifty-five servings. 20 – 25 lb corned ham 3 medium heads cabbage 3 lbs large white onions 2 lbs kale Approximately 2 tbs each of crushed red pepper, ground red pepper, ground black pepper, mustard seed, celery seed, and salt Chop the cabbage, onions, and kale into coarse ½-inch pieces. Blend the chopped vegetables together with the spices to complete the stuffing mixture. De-bone the ham and lay it out flat on counter. Place stuffing mixture inside the ham and wrap the ham in cheesecloth, placing any remaining stuffing mixture in the cheesecloth. Tie with butcher’s cord. (An alternative to deboning the ham is to cut slits into the ham and press the stuffing mixture into the slits before wrapping with cheesecloth.) Place the cheesecloth-wrapped ham on a rack in a pot of boiling water, making sure the ham is submerged. Boil the ham for approximately four hours; ham must reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove ham from pot and drain. Cool the ham from 135 degrees Fahrenheit to 70 degrees Fahrenheit within two hours. Then cool to 41 degrees Fahrenheit as quickly as possible, total time not to exceed six hours. An ice bath can be used to decrease cooling time. After the ham has cooled, remove cheesecloth, slice, and serve. —courtesy of W.J. Dent & Sons

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Free Hot Dog with Bologna or 50% off any Sandwich* at the warehouSe in camden yardS only with thiS ad. (Not valid duriNg games) *with purchase of aNy driNk

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urbanite october 10

11:30

- 3 pm

photo by La Kaye Mbah

Vino Rosina

Neighborhood haunt: Vino Rosina is a sophisticated yet friendly wine bar in Harbor East.

photo by La Kaye Mbah

Hunan Taste

Authentic eats: Dishes at Catonsville’s Hunan Taste include “Divine Incense Mint Pork,” deep-fried pork belly accompanied by crispy mint leaves.

In the ongoing evolution of Harbor East eateries, the dapper and contemporary wine bar Vino Rosina seems to create—and fill— its own niche. Sophisticated without being intimidating, it’s a neighborly spot for a glass of wine, a selection of small plates, or a multicourse meal with plenty of creative touches. There’s a certain joie de vivre here, due in large part to the focused whimsy of Chef Jesse Sandlin, onetime contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef. Such menu items as bison tartare with eggs, the arugula BLT salad (with crumbled bacon and buttermilk dressing), and crispy duck—even the “crotchless” martini (so named to denote dirtier than dirty) with its pepperoncini and ham hock infusion— will bring a smile of recognition to Sandlin fans, who understand that she never met a hunk of animal protein she didn’t like. Vegetable lovers will appreciate her concessions: squash spaghetti (not to be confused with spaghetti squash) is a late season dish of shredded zucchini and summer squash, rich with olive oil and basil and tossed with lemon tomatoes. A signature dish, breakfast for dinner, is ahi tuna with a potato pancake and poached egg with hollandaise. The sous vide half-chicken is simple and delicious: skin crisped in the oven after

It’s a good sign, walking into a Chinese restaurant with friends, to find you are the only waiguoren in the place. Many Asian immigrants congregate at Catonsville’s Hunan Taste to dine on deeply authentic dishes made from parts of animals Americans don’t usually consider dinner. “Ah, lungs and tongues!” quips one of our party as we peruse the lengthy menu. Hunan Taste’s atmosphere is both elegant (carved rosewood, diaphanous curtains dividing the tables) and welcoming (giggling small children playing tag between tables). Our hostess, Na Yi, the wife of owner Weihe Zhang, seemed at first apprehensive at our questions .(Q: “What exactly is braised bullwhack?” A: “Very sacred part of the male cow, cooked with ginseng and good for male energy. Not for lady to eat!”) Our enthusiastic ignorance, however, quickly rallied her to rattle off recommendations. Signature dishes include whole duck, which we tried—irresistably crispy skin over fulsome flesh redolent of ginger and star anise—and steamed fish head, which we did not, despite a strong recommendation. (“People come from all over for our fish head!”) We did go Western on the golden walnut shrimp, skillfully fried in a lightly sweet white sauce.

its long simmer in a water bath and served on buttery wilted spinach, the meat tender and flavorful. There’s also a traditional crab “dipperoo” served in a cast iron pot with a hearty hunk of bread. The menu—like the restaurant itself, with its large bar in the front, designed for human interaction—is organized in an unthreatening way. The categories of “sample and share,” “oven-roasted,” and “raw” relieve the pressure of ordering in a traditional appetizerentrée-dessert order. It’s a format that encourages grazing, accompanied by wines in 3- or 6-ounce pours with many more by the bottle from a list with plenty of inexpensive choices. Beyond wine, the house-infused spirits take advantage of such seasonal flavors as raspberries and red peppers, and the beer list is offbeat and extensive. Desserts should not be missed: chocolate cake oozing salted caramel, bourbon and apple bread pudding, a selection of housemade ice cream and sorbet in mascarpone, melon, and blackberry. (Lunch Mon–Fri; dinner daily. 507 S. Exeter St.; 410-528-8600; www.vinorosina.com.)

reviewed

eat / drink

—Martha Thomas

(Better not to ask what’s in it. No, I’ll tell you: sweetened condensed milk and, of all things, mayonnaise.) Other standouts included “Divine Incense Mint Pork”—deep-fried pork belly (!) playing against an ingenious counterpoint of crisply deep-fried (!!) mint leaves. Be sure to ask what’s new: There are often last-minute offerings available, depending on what’s in season in China. That’s how we ended up with snow frog eggs cooked in a whole papaya: delicately sweet, with marvelous ocean-y umami undertones. Hunan Taste does not feature one specific chef but rather relies on a cast of talented cooks to prepare the 100-plus menu possibilities on any given night, and they’re fast. We at first ordered a whole steamed perch but moments later enquired if we might change to the crispy lobster. “I’m sorry, they’ve already killed your fish!” chirped our hostess. Presented as though in mid-swim, festooned with razor-thin slivers of sweet red and hot green peppers, the fish seemed too gorgeous to eat. But then the sweet, spicy, rich scent rose up, and we devoured it down to the bones. (Lunch and dinner Mon–Sun. 718 N. Rolling Rd.; 410-788-8988.) —Michelle Gienow

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“Langermann’s in Canton turns on the charm when it comes to food and service.” - Baltimore Magazine

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urbanite october 10

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eat / drink A quick history of the spirit that sparked the first “war on drugs” By Clinton Macsherry

onnoisseurs of Baltimore parochialism will recall that Bolton Hill was for a time nicknamed “the Gin Belt.” For me, that moniker evokes the neighborhood’s links to literati like F. Scott Fitzgerald, its echoes of the Jazz Age, its hints of swankier days. But then, I’m a gin lover. Not everyone shares my spiritual affi liation. For some, gin conjures up airs of dissipation that long predate its production in the proverbial bathtubs of the Prohibition Era. Genever—later shortened to “gin”— was born in 16th-century Holland as a medicinal beverage. Its name derives from the French word for juniper berry, gin’s primary flavoring agent, which imparts a piney taste. (Gin’s other “botanicals” vary widely, and most distillers keep their recipes secret.) Following the Anglo-Dutch “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, gin took hold in England. Sometimes doctored with turpentine—with potentially lethal consequences—it could be distilled cheaply and sold for pennies, and its popularity exploded among the working poor. Gin shops became something like the crackhouses of their day, their depravities famously depicted in William Hogarth’s engraving Gin Lane (pictured). Historian Jessica Warner argues that the English “gin craze” of the early 1700s became the first urban drug scare and that the series of Gin Acts initiated by Parliament in 1729 constitutes history’s first “war on drugs.” The Gin Acts had some salutary effects on production standards, and flavor profi les evolved from sweeter versions to the dry styles most prevalent today, but gin retained its association with rampant intoxication into the late 1800s. Somehow gin was transformed from a scourge of the working class into a favorite of the writers, intellectuals, and sundry sophisticates of early 20th-century America. I have no documentary evidence, but I believe this metamorphosis had everything to do

with the martini’s emergence as the epitome of cocktail sophistication. Baltimore’s H.L. Mencken, co-editor of the era’s influential magazine The Smart Set, called it “the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet.” In the stylish Thin Man fi lms of the 1930s and ’40s, husband-and-wife detectives Nick and Nora Charles traded bons mots with martinis ever in hand. Gin’s notoriety may in fact have been part of the martini’s allure. Dorothy Parker, whose circle of fellow New York writers formed the hard-drinking Algonquin Round Table, quipped “I like to have a martini/ Two at the very most/ After three I’m under the table/ After four I’m under my host.” Like many cocktails, the martini’s provenance is hopelessly murky, or so concludes classics professor Lowell Edmunds, whose Martini, Straight Up is widely considered the most authoritative—but by no means the only—book on the subject. Something about the martini attracts scholarly attention across disciplines. The re-release of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Bernard DeVoto’s martini paean, The Hour, earlier this year garnered coverage in the Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, and New York Times Book Review. My favorite survey, George B. Kauffman’s “The Dry Martini: Chemistry, History, and Assorted Lore,” appeared in the journal The Chemical Educator in 2001. The martini has inspired divergent orthodoxies governing its concoction and enjoyment (“shaken not stirred,” etcetera), and its devotees often seem hell-bent on pontification. Well, my karma ran over my dogma, as some bumper-sticker bodhisattva put it. I say mix your martini as you like. Use vodka, if you must. Garnish with an olive or a lemon twist or both (which some bartenders call an “Oliver Twist”); if you have a particularly fine anchovy fi let, try wrapping it around a cucumber slice. Personally, I find the old three- or four-parts-gin-to-one-partvermouth formulas undrinkable—and as Kauffman’s analysis shows, drier martinis don’t have significantly higher alcohol content. I prefer to baptize ice with a capful of vermouth in a shaker and strain it before adding the gin. Martinis not your thing? Other gin classics include the Tom Collins, the Gin Rickey, and the Southside—although some denizens of Baltimore County’s countryclub set would have you believe the latter must be made from rum. They should never have moved out of Bolton Hill. ■

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urbanite october 10

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921 East Fort Avenue Baltimore, MD 21230 At the Foundry on Fort 410-244-6166 www.the-wine-market.com

tHe Feed

eat / drink

This Month in Eating Compiled by Marianne Amoss

FarM FeSt

OCt 2

Celebrate local foods at Farm Fest, held at the newly opened Prigel Family Creamery in Glen Arm. Planned are live music from Caleb Stine and other area musicians, local food and drink, games for adults and kids, and a farmers market. Proceeds benefit 1000 Friends of Maryland’s Keep Farmers Farming program. (Urbanite is a sponsor.) $25. Noon–5 p.m.

Prigel Family Creamery 4851 Long Green Road, Glen Arm 410-385-2910 http://friendsofmd.org/events/ farm-fest-celebrating-all-thingslocal

OktOBerFeSt

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It’s October, and you know what that means: Time to break out the beer stein! More than eighty beers from fi fteen Maryland breweries will be available, plus German food from sour beef to schnitzel. There’s also a homebrew contest, live oompah music, and the Miss Oktoberfest Competition. Prost! $35 VIP admission; $25 at the door; $20 online; $15 designated driver; children 12 and younger free. Noon–6 p.m.; VIP entrance at 11 a.m.

Timonium Fairgrounds 2200 York Rd. http://dasbestoktoberfest.com/ maryland/show-info

BaLtiMOre Beer week

OCt 7–17

The second annual Baltimore Beer Week is eleven days of beer-themed events, dinners, and tastings. It kicks off with an opening celebration at the Baltimore Museum of Industry on Oct 7 and fi nishes with the inaugural Baltimore Beer Festival on Oct 17 at Canton Waterfront Park, featuring local, regional, and international brews—and a large-screen TV broadcasting the Ravens game. See the website for more details.

www.bbweek.com

itaLian wine dinner

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North Charles Fine Wine & Spirits teams up with Mount Vernon’s Sotto Sopra for a wine-drenched feast. The five courses include risotto with autumn vegetables and slow-braised lamb shoulder—all paired with Italian wines by Todd Ruby, a broker for a wine importer, who’s the evening’s host. $85; reservations required.

Sotto Sopra 405 N. Charles St. 410-625-0534 www.northcharlesfi newines.com

CeLeBritY CHeF tOUr

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During the Celebrity Chef Tour, foodies can meet some of the country’s top chefs, who’ll create multi-course dinners that are paired with wine, beer, or other spirits. Proceeds benefit the James Beard Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit that works to “celebrate, nurture, and preserve America’s diverse culinary heritage and future.” The five celebrity chefs visiting Baltimore include Jennifer Carroll and Marc Murphy. $140 per person. 7 p.m.

Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel 202 E. Pratt St. 720-201-1853 www.celebritycheftour.com

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89 community arts

Baltimore Print Studios

91 visual art

art / culture

Andy Warhol: The Last Ten Years

91 93

BOOK The Trials of Edgar Poe and Other Poems

the scene This month’s cultural highlights

true understanding

One Word at a Time A local writer campaigns for cross-cultural understanding. by michael corbin

illustration by ed gallagher

“The Understanding Campaign wants everyone in the world to read just one word of Arabic.” So opens Baltimore writer Justin Sirois’s big-hearted and ingenuous Web-based campaign. “Through true understanding we can break down stereotypes and taboos—our mission is to begin with a single word. By joining the campaign you are saying you support empathy and understanding over confl ict.” While it’s difficult to say who exactly would be against empathy and understanding, or how one word of Arabic works toward “true understanding,” by tracing the path Sirois has traveled, it becomes clear that the campaign springs from a very personal confrontation with America’s war in Iraq and this country’s ongoing confl ict with something we’ve labeled “terror” and often associate with places and people for whom Arabic is either mother tongue or word of God. This summer, America’s cultural confusion was in full display. In August, at a large protest at what we now call “Ground Zero” against the proposed building of an Islamic cultural center, a participant held the sign “All I ever need to know about Islam, I learned on 9/11.” That month, the Pew Research Center found that one in five Americans believe the president of the United States is a Muslim.

I filmed my own sex tape and “accidentally” sent it to everyone. The pop made me do it. William knows all too well what pop music can do to your life. If you or someone you know is dealing with a pop addiction, there is hope. WTMD 89.7. STOP THE POP INSANITY. LIstener supported radIo from toWson unIversIty

Downtown Partnership of Baltimore

2010 ANNUAL MEETING FEATURING MALCOLM GLADWELL Wednesday, November 17th Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM — Registration & Networking 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM — Program

“ The key to good decision making is not knowledge, it is understanding.” —Malcolm Gladwell

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urbanite october 10

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a photo, essay, or story about the experience. The website, www.understandingcampaign. org, glows with smiling faces next to the variously placed calligraphic exclamations of understanding. Through a Kickstarter Campaign fundraising effort that launched in late September, Sirois hopes to lay the foundation for a viable nonprofit. “The Understanding Campaign is an extension of our cultural work, but it encompasses art, design, literature, and fi lm; it can reach a bit further than our short stories and novel,” he says. Although he hasn’t yet made firm plans for the nonprofit, he is considering a book donation program thorough which American publishers and citizens can donate new books to Iraqi university libraries.

COMMUnit Y artS

Studio Art

Baltimore Print Studios at 18 W. North Ave., opening this month

This human connection was the alchemy by which Sirois and Alshujairy began to make meaning of their separate lives brought together by the conflict in Iraq. Such a relationship begins with small steps, sometimes one word at a time. Not enough people were talking about that issue at the time, and it was my duty, as a writer, to make work about the everyday people over there—people that I care greatly about.” The burned corpses of the American contractors dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge over the Euphrates and the subsequent devastation of the city seemed to both crystallize and confuse what this war was even about. Yet the personal and artistic sense of caring and purpose for Sirois led to an Internet-based collaboration with Haneen Alshujairy, a young, war-displaced Iraqi woman living near Cairo, Egypt. Alshujairy is from Baghdad, but her family is from Fallujah. Sirois found her in late 2007 when he was conducting online interviews with Iraqis about their experiences. After about four months of interviewing, Sirois asked Alshujairy to consult on his novel, Falcons on the Floor, and a book of short stories, MLKNG SCKLS—both of which are about the unreported experience of people in Iraq. This human connection was the alchemy by which Sirois and Alshujairy began to make meaning of their separate lives brought together by the confl ict in Iraq. Such a relationship begins with small steps, sometimes one word at a time. For the campaign, Sirois and his friends and fellow travelers have chosen the word Fuh’hem—“understanding”—and have printed stickers and pins with the word in Arabic script. Participants in the campaign purchase these stickers and buttons, document where they put them, and e-mail

art/culture

photo by Rachel Verhaaren

In this cultural muddle, Sirois, a local literary-arts factotum—poet, novelist, publisher and promoter of causes large and small, graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art—found a sense of clarity and purpose in the white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and scorched-earth campaign of the American military’s destruction of the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. This is where the Understanding Campaign found its origin. “Fallujah will prove to be a pivotal moment in world history,” Sirois writes with a categorical surety that marks several e-mail exchanges about his work. “I knew that in 2004 after the Blackwater mercenaries were murdered, but more importantly, when the U.S. military responded the way they did.

How pins and stickers, book donations, and the desires of the campaigners will actually translate into understanding is not clear. “It’s a goodwill gesture, an olive branch,” Sirois suggests, searching for the right metaphor. “It’s not religious or political. It’s a cultural project, a gesture that says ‘I’m open to learning more about a culture that is very misunderstood in the West.’” President Obama was similarly reaching for the right metaphor at the end of August in his Oval Office address proclaiming the “end of combat operations” in Iraq. Obama told Americans that it is time to “turn the page” on this more-than-seven-year war, where more than 4,400 U.S. soldiers died, where close to 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed, and where close to $1 trillion was spent in what its partisans claimed was a necessary front in the “global war on terror.” The struggle for true understanding here is still of that between Sirois and Alshujairy, a connection forged in a quest for personal reckoning. But the Understanding Campaign is an attempt to take this small gesture, share it, grow it, and have it mean something more in a world that can produce a Fallujah. “These are baby steps,” Sirois finally offers, “just baby steps.” ■ —Michael Corbin reviewed two books that examined the history of cultural and racial misunderstanding in the May issue.

ehind a metal door on North Avenue in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District, Kyle Van Horn is listening to indie rock on a small record player. In this room, he’s carefully arranged printing presses, cabinets holding metal type, screenprinting tables, drying racks, paper cutters, worktables—essentially anything anyone could want or need for making T-shirts, greeting cards, posters, books, and other paper and wearable goods. When the place opens this month, it will become Baltimore’s fi rst public-access print shop. Enthusiasm for printing by hand is in line with the surge of interest in do-it-yourself in recent years. Inexpensive, handmade art is very of the moment: The Internet is replete with sites selling it, from crafts site www.etsy. com to limited-edition art www.tinyshowcase. com. “There is an incredible niche market for affordable art,” says Van Horn, a graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art who’s helmed the school’s print shop since 2004. “It’s almost not even a niche market anymore.” Until now, access to presses—which are heavy, bulky, and require a fair amount of space—was tricky to secure for locals. MICA students can use the equipment at school, but for laypeople, the nearest place to learn these skills is Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Spring. But now, novices and experts alike can take advantage of Van Horn’s collection of presses, some on loan from folks whose studios or homes were too small to house them, others gathered from Pennsylvania, Indiana, and other locales. He plans to offer one or two basic skills classes per month and give experienced users an hourly rental rate. It’s a model that’s had some success in places like Providence, Rhode Island, and New York City. As Van Horn puts it: “Other cities have this—I can do it.” —Marianne Amoss

On the Air: The folks behind the Understanding Campaign on The Marc Steiner Show, WEAA 88.9 FM, on October 18

For more information, go to www.baltimoreprintstudios.com.

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Last look: The final works of artist Andy Warhol, the creator of pop art, are at the Baltimore Museum of Art through January.

art

Final Legacy

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Oct 17–Jan 9

ndy Warhol was shot in June 1968 by Valerie Solanas, a disgruntled fan. The artist was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced clinically dead on arrival. Emergency room doctors were able to open up his chest and massage his heart to revive him, and, after many hours of surgery, Warhol was in stable but critical condition. He would survive. He was 39 years old and, arguably, the most famous artist in America.

In the 1960s, Warhol became famous for creating pop art, which elevated the banal and everyday to high-art status and shocked American audiences, more accustomed to the high-minded expressionist paintings of such artists as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. His best-known paintings included images of Marilyn Monroe, Campbell’s Soup cans, and automobile accidents. He also established himself as the epitome of celebrity, mingling with the rich and famous people he depicted on his canvases. Later, Warhol proclaimed painting to be old-fashioned and instead made movies, TV shows, and products like wallpaper. However, after he recovered from the shooting, Warhol returned to painting, his first love. Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is the first U.S. museum exhibition to focus exclusively on the pop icon’s late works, featuring more than fifty paintings created in the last ten years of his life. Despite his overwhelming success with commercial and mass-produced images, Warhol’s late work reaffirms the importance of painting in contemporary art; it also explores the quintessential American issues of fame, beauty, and death—topics that he had wrestled with throughout his career.

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art/culture

ith sly rhymes and sudden insights, the poems in The Trials of Edgar Poe and Other Poems weave stories of heroes and monsters into the author’s complicated biography—to surprising effect. Ned Balbo, who teaches in Loyola University’s writing department, won the 2010 Donald Justice Poetry Prize for this collection, which draws on history and pop culture from Poe to Vertigo to stage variations on his family drama. To avoid a scandal, Balbo’s birth parents gave him, secretly, to his mother’s half-sister when he was an infant. When the couple that raised him wanted to adopt, his birth parents refused. Balbo learned the secret of his identity when he was 13. The resulting disconnection and longing suffuses these poems from the first, beginning with the word “orphaned,” to the last, ending with the plea “tell me what to do … Lead me home again.” The most compelling poems explore the author’s early fascination with horror movies in biographical terms. Like Frankenstein’s monster he wonders, “Whose son am I?” and, when no easy answer comes, “Who was I then?” One sonnet evokes the resilience of a child whose sense of self seems completely external, like the Invisible Man’s bandages: “my one escape was to unravel, now/ the gauze that gave me form: to feel not fear/ but

This exhibit is a rare opportunity to see Warhol’s conceptual experiments with abstract painting, including his Oxidation series, which involved chemical reactions to human urine, and his revisiting, from the vantage point of a celebrity, “the representational images that he had first tackled as a young artist striving for recognition,” as BMA Curator of Contemporary Art Kristen Hileman puts it—including his original Campbell’s Soup can paintings. The show also includes several versions of da Vinci’s Last Supper, a variety of “fright wig” self-portraits, and collaborations with artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente. “The exhibition gives insights into the innovative ways in which Warhol redefined the medium of painting,” Hileman explains, “as well as the fascinating biography that makes him one of the most influential and provocative artists of the 20th century.” —Cara Ober For more information, call 443-573-1700 or go to www.artbma.org.

only certainty that nothing’s there.” Similarly, Balbo uses biographical coincidences with Poe, the father of modern horror, to explore “the trials” of a writer tormented by parental loss and shadowed by death. Although there are sonnets, sestinas, ballades (and more), what you don’t know about formal poetry won’t hurt you. Ignorance of the ghazal (a form with roots in ancient Arabia), for instance, won’t prevent you from being moved by “The Crimefighter’s Apprentice,” a poem in couplets written in the voice of Dick Grayson (Robin, from the old Batman TV show). In it, the repeated word “fall” accentuates the trauma of a boy who watched his circus-performer parents plummet to their deaths, but then, through each episode’s miraculous plot twist, gains the power to defy “merciless gravity.” As with many of the poems that reference pop culture, this one illuminates its appeal. We love these stories, we discover, not despite the cheesy plot device that allows our hero’s escape—the “deus ex machina extracted from a belt”—but because of it. In this poem and others in the collection, Balbo gives an original twist to the stories of familiar figures, revealing the surprisingly transformative potential of pain and loss. —Sondra Guttman

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urbanite october 10

TH E SC EN E: OCTOB ER CL ASSICA L MUSIC

On Oct. 14–16, 17-year-old conductor Ilyich Rivas (see Urbanite, Nov. ’09) leads the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in performances of Beethoven and Shostakovich. On Oct. 30, children can dress in costume for Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead, which introduces little ones to the instruments of the orchestra. (410-783-8000; www.bsomusic.org) The Concert Artists of Baltimore mark the two hundredth birthday of German composer Robert Schumann with performances of his Mass in C minor, Missa Sacra, and piano concerto in A minor. The concert takes place on Oct. 16 at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts, 3506 Gwynnbrook Ave. (410-625-3525; www.cabalto.org) A ME R ICA N MUSIC

Towson University’s Center for the Arts hosts All of U.S., an evening celebrating American music. Works to be performed range from classical pieces written in the 1700s to folk tunes to modern-day pop. Oct. 25. (410-704-ARTS; www.towson.edu/ artscalendar/music.asp) LOCA L MUSIC

On Oct. 9, local songsmith Caleb Stine hosts Hard Hittin’ Songs for Hard Hit People, an evening of roots and folk music to benefit Heart’s Place Shelter, an emergency family shelter in the former St. John’s Church at 2640 St. Paul Street. Performers include Nashville’s Channing and Quinn and New Orleans’ The Mumbles. (2640 St. Paul St.; www.redemmas.org/2640/) Jennifer Knapp, Kaki King, SEE-I, and the 14-year-old McTell Brothers are on the bill for the Station North Fall Music Festival on Oct. 9. Taking place on North Avenue between Charles Street and Maryland Avenue, the day also includes art and crafts

vendors and food. Urbanite is a sponsor. (410-962-7075; www.stationnorth.org)

art/culture

the city’s artist studios in the Open Studio Tour, Oct. 23 and 24. (1427 Light St.; 410396-4641; www.school33.org)

OPE R A

English-language company Opera Vivente kicks off the season with Lucy of Lammermoor, Gaetano Donizetti’s tragic 19thcentury tale about two disputing families, Oct. 22, 24, 28, and 30 at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 811 Cathedral St. (410547-7997; www.operavivente.org) THEATE R

Columbia’s Rep Stage presents two plays by J.M. Barrie (of Peter Pan fame): The New Word, about a father saying goodbye to his war-bound son, and The Old Lady Shows Her Medals, about a London woman’s attempts to “keep up with the Joneses.” Oct. 6–24. Performances take place on the campus of Howard Community College, 10901 Little Patuxent Pkwy. (410772-4900; www.repstage.org) The Strand Theater Company continues its mission of producing plays written by women with Rebecca Gilman’s The Glory of Living, a gritty, award-winning drama about a girl who grows up surrounded by abuse. Oct. 7–23. (1823 N. Charles St.; 443874-4917; www.strandtheatercompany.org)

Self-taught artist Morgan Monceaux’s portraits have been exhibited at the American Visionary Art Museum and are in the collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. From Oct. 21 through Nov. 6, Creative Alliance hosts Divas, an exhibition of his portraits of opera singers. (3134 Eastern Ave.; 410-276-1651; www. creativealliance.org) The Phoenix Shot Tower (801 E. Fayette St.) is transformed from into a vibrant gallery space for Hope Against Hope, curated by local artists Michael Benevento and Andrew Shenker. The show includes videos, lectures, site-specific performances, and more. Oct. 8–Dec. 4, with an opening reception on Oct. 8. (www.currentspace.com)

LITE R ATURE

Brian Evenson, Carolyn Parkhurst, Joanna Howard, and Matt Bell are the readers at the Oct. 16 installment of 510 Readings, Baltimore’s only dedicated fiction series. The reading is at Minas Gallery, 815 W. 36th St. (http://510readings.blogspot.com/) LECTURE

The Baltimore Speakers Series kicks off with Thomas Friedman, author of the bestselling book on globalization The World is Flat, on Oct. 12. The series continues through April 2011 at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. (1212 Cathedral St.; 410-7838000; www.baltimorespeakerseries.org) CULTURE

A RCH ITECTURE

This month for Free Fall Baltimore, cultural institutions around town offer free workshops, dance and musical performances, films, tours, and more. Urbanite is a sponsor. (410-752-8632; www.freefall baltimore.com)

Baltimore Architecture Week has ballooned into Architecture Month. Events include lectures on the American porch and urban landscape architecture, a walking tour of Mount Vernon, and the Excellence in Design Awards and Beaux Arts Ball. Urbanite is a sponsor. (410-625-2585; www. aiabalt.com)

Oct. 14 is the Mayor’s Cultural Town Meeting, where Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and leaders from the arts community discuss the importance of arts to the city. The public can attend the event at the Baltimore School for the Arts, 712 Cathedral St. (www.promotionandarts.com)

FASH ION

Fashion and philanthropy come together in Drive2Thrive’s Discover Wonderland event on Oct. 16. The evening, held at Port Discovery (35 Market Place), includes a runway show and appearances by such special guests as Project Runway’s Jay Sario and local designer Bishme Cromartie. Urbanite is a sponsor. (443-802-0454; www. theechelonlife.com)

FI LM

COM MUNIT Y A RTS

International documentaries get their due in the American Museum of Natural History’s Margaret Mead Traveling Film and Video Festival, Oct. 6 through Nov. 10 at Towson University. The films are meant to increase understanding about the complex, diverse cultures of the world. (410-7042128; www.towson.edu/cla/events)

The theme of this year’s Great Halloween Lantern Parade on Oct. 30 is giant garden stuff: 10-foot-tall farmers, huge beets, and more. More than a thousand folks will carry their handmade lanterns through Patterson Park in a spooky, glittering procession. (410-276-1651; www. creativealliance.org)

V ISUA L A RT

School 33 gives the public a behind-the-scenes view of

courtesy of Patrick Bergeron

Maryland Art Place and the Maryland Film Festival team up for Film + Art @ MAP, featuring a group of “contemporary, unique animation projects.” Featured are Glenda Wharton’s The Zo and the Invisible Friend, which screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and five animated shorts (including Patrick Bergeron’s LoopLoop, a still from which is pictured) chosen by Jed Dietz, the director of the Maryland Film Festival. Through Nov. 4. (8 Market Place, Suite 100; 410-962-8685; www.mdartplace.org)

Compiled by Marianne Amoss

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m o c t o b e r 1 0

The Oracle continued from page 43

Beyond the Street: The 100 Leading Figures in Urban Art. His success is such that he is now straddling the line between street artist and gallery art star, a line that has increasingly blurred. Street art has become one the darlings of the art world, with works by top artists selling for hundreds of thousands and going to A-list collectors. A 2010 documentary directed by Banksy called Exit Through the Gift Shop catalogues the rise and subsequent commodification of the art form. Some say the work loses its soul once the artist steps over the threshold of a gallery. Gaia disagrees. “That’s the definition of being an artist: the capacity to be amongst many different people. [Salvador] Dali could kick it with surrealists and be with a bunch of collectors.” Street art, he adds, is destabilizing the traditional art market in an interesting way. “The art world has seen street art’s power and taken it into its fold, and street art has seen the art world as a continuation of the process.” Standing at that corner of Park and Franklin, arrested for a moment out of the quotidian haze of urban life by the visage of an old man, it’s hard to deny the power of

Cuba Comes Home continued from page 47 Gaia’s imagery. One can almost hear the city speak. “For Gaia, it’s about finding out-ofthe-way spaces that people walk by a lot and might not notice, and putting up a piece that changes the environment,” Irvine says. “Something that people walk by and wonder, ‘What does this mean?’” ■ —Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, former editor of Urbanite, is a contributing editor with Architect and writes the Letters from Baltimore blog for Metropolis magazine. Web extra: For a detailed map of Gaia’s Baltimore street art and more images of his work, visit www.urbanitebaltimore.com. On the Air: A discussion about street art and graffiti on The Marc Steiner Show, WEAA 88.9 FM, on October 27.

New York’s not the same. Atlanta is not the same after the Olympics. Baltimore. Baltimore is holding it down.” Baser recognized Cuba’s tag and recalled that, when he was coming up, he admired its sensibility. Now he could watch it being done. “It looks so original,” he said. “The C flows into the U. The U roles into the B, the B loops into the A, and the A loops itself into the arrow. It’s not the most technically extravagant, but it’s fucking flowing.” Before we left that night, Cuba looked back at the abandoned factory. “I like looking for the most beat-up urban decay,” he said. “To me, that’s where my paintings look the most beautiful. It’s where creativity and decay meets. Plus, I used to play in those buildings before they became canvas.” A few days later, I sat down with Cuba, and he filled in some of the story I didn’t know. While I spent summer weekends working in the stockroom of my parents’ store, Clarence took a bus up to New York to visit his grandmother and his uncle, who was an architect and trumpeter. “It seemed to be totally lawless compared to here,” he said. “You could get served at the liquor store at 14 and 15 so long as you put on a shirt. It was

anything goes up there. We were confined to Queens where my grandmother lived, but once I discovered the Village it was on.” There, he got a taste of Washington Square Park and saw the bold viva la revolución writings of Revolt—writings, he realized, that were familiar. “The first throw-up I saw in [Baltimore’s] Chinatown was a Revolt throw-up,” Clarence said. “The wall is still there. It’s still red, but the throw-up is gone. But I can still see it as clear as day in my brain.” That’s why, back in Baltimore that fall at the Hopkins Fair, when Cuba saw some guy writing the name Revolt in an artist sketchbook, he became star-struck and started dogging him. “If it wasn’t for Revolt, there would be no Cuba,” he told me. Out in San Francisco in the ’80s, Cuba was a lone gun hitting walls for a while, but soon there were other writers and cliques, spray-painting gangs. Against his better judgment, Cuba ran with a few—“Basically a bunch of Mexican guys from the borough who would have been thugging if they didn’t have graf,” he said. But he soon grew tired of the politics that eventually led to beefs with other cliques. Even pretending to be a gang is a dangerous thing.

When asked about the name Cuba, he said it had nothing to do with the island 50 miles south of Key West. Rather, he was inspired by the 1980 XTC song “Living through Another Cuba,” and he liked how he could link the letters. “If you’re going to take an ass whipping, you want to at least do something to deserve it,” he said. To make ends meet, he worked retail jobs, rode for a bike messenger service, and did gigs as a DJ. That worked well with his painting lifestyle. What didn’t work well was his foray into drugs. He maxed on cocaine, and then came kidney failure. He got a kidney transplant, but his body rejected the new organ, and to this day he’s dialysis-reliant. “[Doing drugs] was a way to do myself in and still enjoy it until I got close [to death],” he said. “Then I realize I ain’t going out like that. I’ll take a bullet in the head. No I won’t. Fuck it, I’m never going to die.” The day before Cuba left, he and Stab took me out under a bridge where I-95 meets up with I-695. They were there to touch up pieces they had started the day before. We parked our car and cut through the woods, ambled the tracks, and I watched them set to work. Occasionally a freight train would

lumber and screech through, and Stab and Cuba would run down the embankment, identifying some of the work on the boxcars. I asked Cuba if he thought he would ever have to give up graffiti. He laughed. “By the time you get good, you’re too old theoretically to be doing it. But there is no such thing as too old, especially when the original guys are still out there doing it.” He walked down by the railroad tracks to look at his piece the way it would be seen by commuters. I looked at him, trying to remember him shorter with cropped hair, quieter. He limped back up the hill and sprayed the final touch on his signature “Cuba.” Then, in a nod to his Baltimore style-writing brethren, and going against the graffiti artists’ “nothing is sacred, nothing is permanent” creed, in small back letters, he wrote, “respect this.” ■ —Charles Cohen is a Baltimore-based writer and documentary filmmaker who has yet to try his hand at tagging. If he had his way, he would let the primo graffiti artists have at the concrete underbelly of I-83; call it an arts district.

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eye to e y e

Fiber artist Melissa Webb weaves time into her work. Her installation The Temporary Nature of Ideas has been exhibited twice, once at the 2009 Transmodern Festival (upper photo) and this fall at the School 33 Art Space (lower photo). As its title implies, the work deals with the ephemeral nature of art and life. More, it is about the metamorphosis of a situation. The first iteration of the work, which took place in a light well over a three-day period, required performers to stand on a second floor rooftop and lower objects downward into the space using a pulley. In the School 33 venue—a more formal space— gallery-goers directly controlled the placement of objects in the installation space over a two-month span. The fundamental concept of the work remains the same, but each manifestation is decidedly unique. In the process, we, and other gallery visitors, are allowed to become agents of change within this elusive, evolving work. —Alex Castro

urbanite october 10

Melissa Webb The Temporary Nature of Ideas Interactive mixed-media installation and performance First venue: Transmodern Festival 2009 Second venue: School 33 Art Center www.inamaterialworld.com