TheState.com: Life and Style

Go fish!

Fri, 16 May 2008 17:55 EDT

Let me get this out right up front: I don’t fish.

The closest I can remember being near fish in recent years is the $3.99 lunch special at Long John Silver’s.

But with the Bassmaster Elite Series bringing its Carolina Clash tour stop to Lake Murray this week, I felt an obligation as a professional journalist to find out what the excitement is all about. I was hoping to see if this non-angler could catch a case of bass fever.

Fortunately, I was able to hook up — oh, sorry, that was a lame fishing reference, wasn’t it? — with Skeet Reese, the 2007 Bassmaster Angler of the Year, who was gracious enough to take me out on the water for a half-day during Wednesday’s practice session.

Now Skeet didn’t actually let me fish while he looked for a few of Lake Murray’s top fishing spots. I was on board strictly as his executive fishing assistant, where my duties included not falling out of the boat, not stepping on any of his fancy rods and not asking too many dumb questions.

TALK BACK: Bad trip for Ravenel

Fri, 16 May 2008 17:55 EDT

The sad tale of Thomas Ravenel gets more sordid by the week. The recent revelation of his interviews with law enforcement investigators sounds almost like he was describing a bad late-’70s movie: “Cheech & Chong Meet The State Treasurer.”

Cheech: Hey, man, you can buy some of the magic dust, but don’t blow our cover.

Ravenel: Nobody will ever recognize one of South Carolina’s nine constitutional officers.

Chong: Dude, you’re the one who signs the checks?

Ravenel: I don’t like to brag, but, yes, I do. I also ran for the U.S. Senate.

Powwow host wrestles with balancing history, humor

Fri, 16 May 2008 17:55 EDT

As Rick Youngblood, professional wrestler, his performance is all about entertainment.

As Rick Byrd, powwow master of ceremonies, he tries to mix in a little education.

Byrd will command the microphone Sunday for the annual S.C. Indian Affairs Commission Unity Powwow. In that role, he tries to balance facts and fun.

“My job is to explain all the dances, all the drumming, and to keep things moving,” said Byrd, a member of the Cherokee tribe who lives in Cherokee, N.C. “I try to make it educational for the audience, but there’s nothing worse than the MC just sitting up there and telling the history. You have to tell a few jokes.”

If Byrd simply told his life story, the crowd would be entertained. He started in professional wrestling as a teenager in the 1970s, quickly working his way into the upper echelon of the business. Then he quit the ring in 1983 and headed back home, where he ran for, and won, a seat on the tribal council.

Hard Rock Park brings family-friendly amusements to Myrtle Beach

Wed, 14 May 2008 18:44 EDT

The Southeast’s first new amusement park in nine years sits partly on Myrtle Beach’s long-dormant Fantasy Harbor entertainment complex and partly on the rubble of the failed Waccamaw Factory Shoppes.

Hard Rock Park has 55 acres of rides, eateries and shops on a 140-acre site south of U.S. 501. It is about half the size of Charlotte’s Carowinds, eastern Tennessee’s Dollywood, or Islands of Adventure, which opened in Orlando, Fla., in 1999.

Closed only in January and February, it will be the northernmost four-season amusement park in eastern North America, and the first anywhere associated with the Hard Rock Cafe brand, which boasts about 125 bar/grill locations from Amsterdam to Yokohama. And it is the first theme park in the world hard-wired to the enduring appeal of rock ‘n’ roll.

The park’s five themed sections are arranged around a lagoon. Here’s a preview of what you will find:

• Born in the USA includes a midway-style games area; climbing structures for kids; an all-ages Shake Rattle & Roller coaster; plus the Slippery When Wet suspended coaster that’s an easy target for folks on the ground, who can blast riders with water cannons.

Gibbes names Angela Mack as new director

Wed, 14 May 2008 18:44 EDT

CHARLESTON — Angela Mack has been named director of the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston after 20 years as its curator.

Mack is the third director of the museum, which at 103 is the oldest art museum in the state, in five years. Todd Smith, hired in 2006, resigned in April.

“The idea of being director had crossed my mind and others’ minds before, but I always said, ‘no,’” said Mack, a native of Spartanburg. “This was the right time from a personal and professional standpoint.”

An exhibition organized by Mack and the museum, “The Landscape of Slavery,” just opened at the Gibbes after being shown in Virginia. She has overseen about 300 exhibitions at the museum and organized 34 shows, including “In Pursuit of Refinement: Charlestonians Abroad, 1740-1860” in 1999 and “Merton Simpson: The Journey of an Artist” in 1995.

Mack holds an undergraduate degree in art history from Vanderbilt University and did post-graduate study at the University of Virginia, Tulane University and New York University.

Becoming one with nature

Tue, 13 May 2008 09:28 EDT

They each wore hats — wide-brimmed straw hats, floppy canvas hats, ball caps. None of the headgear was a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker, but the five women most certainly were detectives.

Susan Creed of Columbia examined the small plant and called out the clues to her partners in their Master Naturalist class.

“Small plant with berries. Pause. White flowers. Pause. Four petals. Pause. Trumpet shape. Pause. Leaf is smooth. Pause. Flower is fuzzy, sort of hairy.”

Susan Siegel of Elgin, Anne Quigley of Lugoff and Hilda Flamholtz of Columbia thumbed through guidebooks, searching for the identity of this mystery wildflower blooming along a trail at Congaree National Park.

They searched and searched and searched some more. “I don’t think it’s in Porcher,” one detective said.

Talk: Helping spread the test-taking misery

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:46 EDT

Parents, put down that cup of coffee and the Toaster Strudel. If your children must go to school today and take the PACT, then you should share their pain.

That’s why, for the eighth straight year, The State will be administering the TACT (Talk Achievement Challenge Test), which also is the state Legislature’s only way of knowing if taxpayers are keeping up with the world around them.

Hey, no complaining out there. Just get out your No. 2 pencil, and wipe off the kitchen table. And please try not to get Toaster Strudel frosting on your paper.

Here goes.

1. Barack Obama leads the Democratic presidential race in number of delegates, number of states and number of actual votes. By Hillary Clinton’s calculations, she is: A) winning; B) right where she wants to be; C) on a roll; D) all of the above.

Of a Certain Age: Library not quite what I imagined

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:46 EDT

Musings amid the mess ...

I have my library, Dr. Simpson: When I was in high school and could be depended on never to have a date on a Friday or Saturday (or a Monday or Wednesday), I sometimes would baby-sit for the family of Ted Simpson, an engineering professor at USC.

As I remember, Dr. Simpson was a bookish-looking man. He wore glasses and had a ready smile, a hint at his sense of humor. I read somewhere later that he had engineered a cockroach zapper out of dowels and rubber bands or some such, which seemed in keeping with what I perceived as a whimsical nature.

When he picked me up to go to the Simpson house, and when he took me home again, we would talk about our dream homes and the rooms we would build if he were not but a teacher and I, just a high school girl. Our fantasies always involved libraries.

Well, I have my library now, though it isn’t the grand room I had painted in my mind or in words for Dr. Simpson. There are no skylights, no umpteen-story walls requiring ladders on casters for access.

Review: Town Theatre strikes out with ‘Damn Yankees’

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:46 EDT

The musical “Damn Yankees” reveals all the flaws, big and small, at Town Theatre these days.

The few good aspects of the show — some singing and design — can overcome the small problems. But overriding all of this is a lack of conceptual imagination.

The biggest flaw with the production of this large-cast show from 1955 is that it’s lifeless — too bad for a show about someone selling his soul and finding life.

Middle-aged Washington Senators fan Joe Boyd, in a moment of frustration while his team gets walloped again, is visited by the devil in the form of Mr. Applegate. In exchange for his soul, Joe will be reincarnated as Joe Hardy, the best player ever, one who can help the Senators beat the New York Yankees.

The show starts off promisingly, with a group of baseball widows, all in terrific 1950’s housewife costumes, singing and dancing about their plight.

Review: Trustus takes on too much in ‘Sissies’

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:46 EDT

The poignant play “Southern Baptist Sissies” gets an interesting but undeveloped interpretation at Trustus Theatre.

Director Chad Henderson’s slick production moves well and contains some stunning visuals.

But in the end, the production falls short due to weak character development and a failure to create an emotional connection between audience and performers.

The 2000 play by Del Shores follows four young gay men in Texas and the various ways they cope when they discover urges within themselves that go against their Southern Baptist upbringing.

The strength of Shores’ work is in strong, clearly defined characters. But this production depends on high technical elements and material superfluous to the core, and creates a lengthy and confusing experience. In short, the production is too big for the play, and the play is deeper than this production.

Media Day: What’s new in music, movies

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:33 EDT

New on DVD

Films: “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “The Great Debaters,” “Youth Without Youth”

Classics: “Indiana Jones: The Adventure Collection,” “The Rat Pack Ultimate Collector’s Edition”

Television: “Two and a Half Men: The Complete Third Season,” “Saturday Night Live: The Complete Third Season,” “Mission: Impossible — The Fourth TV Season,” “Lovejoy: The Complete Season Three,” “The Adams Chronicles”

Tuesday’s tunes

Spruce up your plants with cute-as-a-button flowers

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:33 EDT

If spring has yet to blossom at your house, create a preview of the season’s colors by livening up your houseplants with vibrant button flowers.

For each one, thread an 8-inch length of 26-gauge green florists’ wire up through a stack of colorful buttons, then back down, as shown.

Twist the wire just below the stack to secure it, then insert the flower in your plant’s soil.

— FamilyFun magazine, McClatchy-Tribune

Tips to keep your child calm during PACT

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:33 EDT

Standardized testing is coming. You know it, and your kids certainly know it.

South Carolina students in grades 3-8 will be taking the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests this week and next.

And, as they sharpen their No. 2 pencils, students of all ages are bound to feel some anxiety.

You can’t dismiss the fear of test-taking, says Dr. Robert Rees, director of education and humanities for HeartMath, a nonprofit institute that has developed a program to help people manage test and other anxiety.

“Test anxiety is an almost universal experience,” Rees says.

As President Bush prepares for his daughter’s wedding, S.C. man remembers his role in Tricia Nixon’s big day

Fri, 09 May 2008 21:19 EDT

South Carolinian Fred Ortmann knows a little about the excitement that’s in the air this weekend because of a president’s child’s wedding.

Ortmann served as a White House social aide in 1971 when Tricia Nixon married Edward Cox in the Rose Garden. In fact, Ortmann’s duties the day of the celebration, June 12, 1971, involved escorting the wedding party to the appropriate places prior to the ceremony.

“It was a great day, and when it was over, we were all exhausted,” Ortmann said during an interview in his Columbia office, Ortmann Healthcare Associates.

A retired Air Force colonel, Ortmann, 62, recalls fondly the period of time about 40 years ago when he had the “privilege and honor” of serving as a White House social aide. Aides are honorary positions granted to members of the military to assist with affairs of state.

“It’s a bit of a plum assignment for a young officer,” said Steve Greene, archivist with the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, Calif. “Over the six years of the administration, there were probably hundreds of young officers who served in that role and dozens on that particular date because of the wedding.”

TALK BACK: At least Mom gets my jokes

Fri, 09 May 2008 21:19 EDT

Let me send out a big salute to my mom here on Mother’s Day weekend.

My wonderful mother always supported me and helped shape me into what I am today — a fourth-rate columnist at a third-rate newspaper. Or is it a third-rate columnist at a fourth-rate newspaper?

OK, it doesn’t matter. I just know that my mom always laughed at all my jokes.

Not a few of them. Not some of them. ALL of them.

And that’s really saying something, as regular readers will attest. Now here’s this week’s roundup of headlines, Mom. They’re sure to crack you up.

Look-alike contest winners

Fri, 09 May 2008 21:19 EDT

Do you look just like your mom? That’s what we asked readers. More than 20 of you answered “yes” and sent a photo to prove it for The State’s Mother’s Day Mom-Look-alike Contest.

The results of the online voting are in, and the winning mom and daughter are Meredith Ruddle Bilbro of Orlando, Fla., and her mom, Joey Ruddle Rothfuss of Columbia. Rothfuss will receive a gift basket, including a gift certificate for Mother’s Day brunch at the Columbia Marriott.

Here’s what Bilbro wrote about her mother:

My mother is one of the most beautiful women I know, inside and out. She teaches me about love, hope, independence and to always follow God. She loves and accepts me for who I am and encourages me to grow.

My mother, raised on a farm, has a solid work ethic. She is a very talented, athletic person (and is) good at everything, including her profession as a piano teacher.

In full bloom: Amid clashing of masculine, feminine scents, florals still abound at fragrance counter

Wed, 07 May 2008 18:59 EDT

Gardenias and woody florals are among the favorite notes of perfumers these days, as are scents that add a bit of masculinity to an otherwise classic female fragrance.

The purposeful clashing of manly and womanly smells probably can be traced to Thierry Mugler’s Angel, says Luca Turin, a scholar in olfactory science.

“It was a 5 o’clock shadow and chest hair on a floral with a touch of vanilla,” Turin says.

Turin and Tania Sanchez, a perfume collector and reviewer, reviewed more than 1,500 perfumes and colognes for their “Perfumes: The Guide” (Viking, 2008).

“Florals never really go away. We’ve seen a number of gardenias — which is rather unusual — but at least they smell like gardenias this time,” Sanchez says.

Trashy rafting: Earth-conscious folks to compete in Recycled Regatta

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:22 EDT

Used plastic barrels. An old wooden pallet. Tie-down straps. These are the ingredients of childhood Huck Finn dreams.

They also could be the building blocks for a winner Saturday in the Recycled Regatta, a new event in the annual Earth Fair celebration at Saluda Shoals Park.

The day begins at 10 a.m. with an 8K trail run, another new addition to the schedule. A 1-mile kids run is set for 11 a.m. Environmental groups will be at the park all day, spreading the message about conservation. There also will be bike, canoe and kayak demonstrations and guided birding hikes.

But the Recycled Regatta promises to be the highlight of the day. The Irmo Chapin Recreation Commission, which manages the park, designed the event to encourage recycling and reuse of what many people consider trash.

The contest rules require the only new items on a boat be tape, ropes or straps used to hold the recycled material together.

Online ‘Rookie’ episodes helping series-starved ‘24’ fans cope

Wed, 07 May 2008 18:59 EDT

An agile, young agent from the Counter Terrorist Unit slyly infiltrates a Mexican drug cartel to free a captured colleague, aided by images from tiny “marshmallow cams” and graphics sent to his cell phone. There’s the familiar ticking clock, windows showing what every character is doing, and lots of people saying “Copy that.”

We’re watching “24,” right?

Close. It’s the Fox series’ online offspring, “The Rookie,” starring Jeremy Valdez as young Jason Blaine, a character first seen in “24’s” fifth season aboard a Russian sub. “It’s sort of like what ‘CSI: Miami’ is to ‘CSI,’” Valdez says. “It’s something similar, yet different. It definitely has its own legs.”

The five-minute “Rookie” Webisodes, now in their third phase, couldn’t have come at a better time for “24” fans, who, due to the writers strike, had to go without their favorite show this season.

Titled “Day 3 — Extraction,” the current “Rookie” installment is presented as a 30-minute block of six parts and is available online at www.DegreeRookie.com, or on-demand through Comcast and DirecTV.

Bump boom

Mon, 05 May 2008 17:18 EDT

Forget the oversized aviators or the newest Jimmy Choos. Today’s “it” item isn’t on any boutique’s waiting list. Nope — this one’s all natural. Organic. In fact, it’s attached.

Baby bumps have gotten some serious airtime lately, bulging beneath Oscar gowns, peeking from beneath tight T-shirts, and popping up all over the Web. The momma-to-be look is in, and pregnant women are using their newfound figures to make a statement about their femininity and style. The belly-showing trend goes beyond bump-hugging fabric — ladies across the nation are painting, plastering and stripping down in front of cameras in order to immortalize their growing middles.

BELLY ART

Want a fun (OK, funny) way to celebrate your swelling tummy? Bring on the finger paint! Pregnant women everywhere are hopping on the bandwagon, unleashing their inner artists at baby showers, girls’ nights, and community fairs. Some play up their new (round) shapes by transforming them into beach balls, globes, or fishbowls, while some just take it freestyle (all with safe, water-based paint, of course). Avant-bellies, unite!

Henna is another hot trend in belly beautification. The cool, intricate designs traced in henna plant paste across a belly are a third-trimester tradition in countries like Morocco. Some believe it calms, soothes and allows for an easy birth and a healthy child. Need more incentive? It’s also said to ward off any evil spirits that might be hovering. (Well, that and it’s pretty.)