Photo via WJZ

I didn’t make it to last weekend’s House of Cards casting call in Bel Air, but around a thousand other people did — some coming all the way from New York, hoping for a brush with fame. After talking with a couple of folks who did attend, I’ve come up with a few tips for anyone planning on attending the next HoC extra free-for-all — or any other casting call, for that matter:
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In an interview with John Waters published last week on the Huffington Post, the questioner asks the famously filthy filmmaker why he “still” lives in Baltimore. (Hmmph!) But Waters’s answer is great:  “It’s where I get all my ideas. It’s where the cutest boys are. I have the most fun here. It’s the most mixed. It’s the most radical. We got edge here. Come on down.” But that doesn’t mean he’s not willing to criticize (gently). Below the jump, read what Waters has to say about The Wire, “the old, great sex bars,” and his occasionally contentious friendship with Martin O’Malley:
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Here’s your awww for the day: last week, students at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing traded TLC pointers with some of the nation’s most in-demand therapists:  volunteer therapy dogs from Pets on Wheels. The volunteer organization brings therapy dogs to places like Sandy Hook Elementary School, where they help heal trauma by, well, just being themselves. (The two golden retrievers in the photos were part of the Sandy Hook pet therapy team.)

Loyola biology professor David Rivers is the kind of bug guy who’s into cockroach racing, mealworm stir fries, and maggot spitting contests. (Seriously.) And his research is even grosser! But we’re not here to talk about flies that feed on fetal pigs (ick); it’s cicadas we’re interested in. And Rivers has some answers.
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Photo by Flickr user grant_j

I’ve always thought that Baltimore was the perfect distance from DC — close enough that I can just hop on the train to check out an exciting exhibit in the nation’s capital, but far enough away that I don’t run into politicians (or, worse, wannabe politicians) at the bar. The one fly in the ointment has been the lack of weekend MARC trains, which force weekend visitors between the cities to either drive (time-consuming and annoying) or take the Amtrak (more than twice as expensive). But not for long! Read More →

It ran in “T” Magazine, the paper’s glossy, seasonal travel publication, and was paid for by Visit Baltimore. Perhaps remembering that New York Times readers are really into how “quirky” Baltimore is, the four-page ad emphasized our city’s “classic gems and quirky delights,” from A(rtscape) to Z(appa, Frank) — with nods to the “Kooky! Kitsch! Kinetic!” sculpture race, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Prix, gay marriage, and Cafe Hon’s giant pink flamingo. It’s a little heavy on the kitsch, but there’s some substance there, too. As for the price tag? “For getting that kind of broad audience and that level of circulation, those projects tend to run about the same across the board,” Visit Baltimore’s chief marketing officer told the Baltimore Business Journal. You can see the PDF of the entire ad here — check it out and let us know what you think!

In the fight against obesity, many cities and states have begun asking restaurants to prominently post the calorie count of each menu item. The idea is that once you know how many calories are in that order super-size fries, you’ll think twice about scarfing them down. But, according to two Johns Hopkins public health researchers, calorie-posting doesn’t actually do that much — and so they’ve come up with a better way.
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The judges (and the voting public) have spoken:  Jacoby Jones, Ravens wide receiver, is an excellent dancer. If you haven’t been following along with the 16th season of Dancing With the Stars, now might be a good time to start:  The competition is down to its final four, and Jones stands a good chance of coming out a winner. Which means that Baltimore is incredibly close to winning the 2013 Triumphant Trifecta (which I just made up):  the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, and DWTS’s top spot, all in one year!
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If You Can Get to Buffalo, the latest offering by Station North theater company The Acme Corporation, premieres tonight (more info here), and takes as its subject the weird world of early Internet culture:  The world’s first social network premiered in 1993 on the newly minted World Wide Web as a virtual mansion comprised entirely of text. It was called LambdaMOO.  If You Can Get to Buffalo explores the rise and fall of this new utopia and the attempt of its creators to deal with the sinister puppet master that brought it crashing down during a wild party of virtual revelry.

Baltimore Fishbowl spoke with New York playwright Trish Harnetiaux about 1990s cyberculture, Baltimore’s theater scene, and what a play can do that television can’t:

The play is based on a 1993 Village Voice article about the first reported cyber rape. How did you first come across the article, and what about it made you think the subject matter could be transformed into a piece of theater?

Truth is I totally forget how I came across the article but I do know I was interested in the early days of the Internet – the language people used when it was new, the impact of never-before-encountered social situations, and the opportunity it offered to individuals. Something that we’re continually aware of is that we essentially know how the story of the Internet “ends,” now that it’s 20 years after the incident we’re exploring – and that’s definitely had an impact on how we’re telling it. Read More →

Students graduating from college face an uncertain future, a shaky economic climate, and an average of $26,500 in debt. So Washington College senior Tim Marcin, who graduates from the small Eastern Shore college this spring, is probably pretty happy that his school just wrote him a check for $61,192, his winnings from one of the largest college-awarded prizes in the country.
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