TheState.com: The Buzz

Europe’s music ‘Europhia’

Mon, 28 May 2012 00:12 EDT

The Udmurts fell short.

The singing grannies who hail from the Udmurt region of central Russia have captured plenty of hearts but couldn’t quite win the Eurovision Song Contest, held Saturday evening in Baku, Azerbaijan.

They came in a distant second to Sweden’s Loreen and her song “Euphoria.” It may have been Sweden’s biggest victory over Russia since 1700 at the battle of Narva — which probably didn’t feature the special effects, zooming cameras and relentless passion that define Eurovision.

This is an annual evening devoted to pop music, in all its excess. The Jedward twins from Ireland wore knight-in-shining-armor-meets-Buck-Rogers outfits. Epaulettes (of the John Paul Jones variety) popped up more than once. The Turks had a nautical theme, with vaguely Japanese-looking waves on the screen behind them, an occasional anchor popping up, and male dancers in capes who formed a boat at one point. (“Hope this lot go to Somalia with their ship,” read one tweet.)

Three shirtless acrobats back-flipped in to start the French selection. Then shirted Norwegians did the same thing. Singers crooned, wailed, shrieked. “You make me want your aphrodisiac,” sang Eleftheria Eleftheriou of Greece.

One-armed 14-year-old pitcher in it to win it

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:33 EDT

Following Monday night’s Pony League game, Johnsonville coach Kyle Daniel tried to find the words to express his deep admiration for Coleman Shannon, but somewhere on the journey from mind to tongue, they slipped away.

He tried again, but winced. He is a baseball coach, not a bard. Describing what the 14-year-old pitcher has meant to him, his team and his community defied simple turns of phrase.

Finally, he asked forgiveness and to allow him to put pen to paper. The next day, this is what he had written:

“Cole is such a competitor but, most of all, (he is) an inspiration to those who know him and know the obstacles he has overcome. He could have easily given up as a child and never played the game but instead he chose to put his doubts and subconscious feelings aside and make the most of his opportunities.”

There are myriad reasons behind Coleman’s no-hitter last month. You can say at 6 feet – with a mop of flaxen hair bursting beneath an overmatched ballcap – he is an imposing figure on the pitcher’s mound. You can say at 14, he’s one of the oldest players in Pony League.

VIDEO, PHOTOS & SNAPSHOTS: Pole dancing competition

Sun, 27 May 2012 19:56 EDT

Pole Dance America Tour's Ms. South Carolina and Ms. North Carolina Pole Dance Fitness Competition was held at the Columbia Marriott Downtown Saturday.

Check out our photos • snapshots

Movie review: ‘Men in Black 3’

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:08 EDT

In pop culture terms, it has been light years since the “Men in Black” franchise’s last installment.

A full decade has passed since Agents J and K last battled nefarious aliens bent on the destruction of Earth, and after numerous false starts, rumors of an embattled production and an estimated $375 million budget, “Men in Black 3” has arrived, bearing little trace of its reportedly tortuous creation.

Re-teaming stars Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones with director Barry Sonnenfeld, this briskly paced episode provides modest entertainment, finding surprising pathos in an otherwise lightweight narrative, even as it waves away the stench of the financially successful but unsatisfying “Men in Black II.”

Once more, the gregarious J (Smith) and the taciturn K (Jones, whose performance more or less serves as a bookend) are keeping the world safe for humanity, but something’s troubling K. As the Men in Black mourn the loss of leader Zed and welcome the new chief, Agent O (Emma Thompson, in a glorified cameo), Agent K disappears suddenly, sending Agent J hurtling back to 1969 to meet up with the younger version of his partner (Josh Brolin). Together, they must stop the menacing Boris (a wasted Jermaine Clement, “Flight of the Conchords”) from annihilating humanity.

While Jones provides some early, welcome doses of surly comic relief, “Men in Black 3” is really a Will Smith vehicle. He’s in nearly every scene and, despite Etan Cohen, David Koepp, Jeff Nathanson, and Michael Soccio’s breezy script, provides plenty of obvious improvisation. Together with Brolin (whose imitation of Jones is eerily accurate), the pair keeps the film humming and brings the chaos to an unexpectedly poignant conclusion.

Movie review: ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’

Thu, 24 May 2012 18:22 EDT

What a drag it is getting old — especially for the generation that once went around singing, “What a drag it is getting old.”

“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” is a movie about a specific variety of old age, what could be called early old age. The characters in this latest film from John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”) are not decrepit, and most still have romantic aspirations. Yet they have the sense that time is getting shorter, as well as a bewildered awareness that the world might be passing them by, or getting ready to. And as they are from a culture and an era that only values youth, they see no compensation in old age and can’t even pretend at any wisdom beyond resignation.

The film brings together a handful of people from various conditions of life and places them in a funky old hotel in the hectic Indian city of Jaipur. Some of the residents are broke and think they might want to settle in India, where Western money goes far, and some are there for other reasons. If there is an unintended lesson in this movie, it’s this old favorite: Don’t get old with no money. Provide, provide.

There are two other possible lessons: India’s a colorful place for a travelogue, and Dev Patel, who plays the hyper hotel manager, has more in him than “Slumdog Millionaire.”

Perhaps I should admit that a part of me just wants to keep “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” at a distance, because there is something about it so glum and hangdog — and hangdog in that distinctly British, expect-nothing-from-life sort of way — that I’d rather not believe it. I’d rather not believe that just being 70, for example, is so inherently miserable that it gives people no choice but to be contemplative, angry or pathetic. In this case, we define pathetic as seemingly happy, but in a way that incites pity, not envy.

Lexington man on ‘redneck’ reality show

Fri, 25 May 2012 01:08 EDT

A Lexington man is one of 12 contestants being swept off to “Redneck Island” in a new reality series on CMT.

The show, which debuts June 9, features “the ultimate redneck competition.” On a remote island, contestants go through a series of mental and physical challenges, a la “Survivor,” with the winner getting $100,000.

Eric Bradford, described by CMT as “the party boy jock,” is listed as a professional wrestler and former cheerleader. His Facebook page shows an image from the University of South Carolina.

In a hint of his demeanor on the show, the press release further describes Bradford as “extremely energetic and highly competitive, but can sometimes come off as abrasive and selfish.”

Video: Where’d the big snake go?

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:08 EDT

Specialists went looking for Healthwood's by-now infamous giant reptile Thursday.

Heathwood snake slithers to stardom

Fri, 25 May 2012 07:03 EDT

From the second it was caught on camera, a large snake spotted slithering up a tree in Heathwood has been climbing for notoriety.

Heathwood resident Andrew Philson snapped photos of what to him appeared to be a 15-foot python hanging in a tree behind his Devereaux Road home Monday. Officials with the state Department of Natural Resources say the critter is not the monster it appears to be in photos and is really a 6-foot-long black rat snake.

Regardless of the serpent’s size, the snake has been a hot topic in Columbia the past few days.

“People will get in a frenzy and it will blow over in a few days,” DNR herpetologist Steve Bennett said.

Philson was home for the day, taking care of his sick 3-year-old son when a neighbor told Philson there was a snake in his back yard. He went out back expecting to find a small serpent and was surprised by the thing making its way up the tree.

His TV remote channeled our lives

Tue, 22 May 2012 21:03 EDT

Couch potatoes everywhere can pause and thank Eugene Polley for hours of feet-up channel surfing. His invention, the first wireless TV remote, began as a luxury, but with the introduction of hundreds of channels and viewing technologies, it has become a necessity.

Just ask anyone who’s lost a remote.

Polley died of natural causes Sunday at a suburban Chicago hospital, said Zenith Electronics spokesman John Taylor. The former Zenith engineer was 96.

In 1955, if you wanted to switch TV channels from “Arthur Godfrey” to “Father Knows Best,” you got up from your chair, walked across the room and turned a knob. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

Or you could buy a new Zenith television with Flash-Matic tuning. The TV came with a green ray-gun-shaped contraption with a red trigger. The advertising promised “TV miracles.” The “flash tuner” was “Absolutely harmless to humans!” Most intriguing of all: “You can even shut off annoying commercials while the picture remains on the screen.”

Vista Queens strut their stuff (+ VIDEO)

Tue, 22 May 2012 12:28 EDT

Polly Gripp, played by Gerald Floyd, took home the Vista Queen title Monday night at Trustus Theatre. Floyd’s Gripp won the crowd and judges over with her talent on piano and a voice that hit all the high notes.

There were six contestants in this year’s pageant, including The State features writer Otis Taylor. The drag pageant, in its 14th year, features some of Columbia’s best-known men and is a fundraiser for the theater.

'Avengers' sinks 'Battleship" to remain No. 1

Sun, 20 May 2012 16:33 EDT

"The Avengers" continues to muscle out everything else Hollywood throws at it, easily sinking naval rival "Battleship" and other new releases.

With $55.1 million domestically, Disney's superhero sensation remained No. 1 for a third-straight weekend and took in more than the three big newcomers combined. Overseas, "The Avengers" added an additional $56 million.

The film is approaching the $1.2 billion mark worldwide, totaling $457.1 million domestically and $723.3 million internationally.

"'The Avengers' is dominating the marketplace so profoundly that the newcomers are having a tough time breaking in now," said Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

Universal's "Battleship" opened a distant No. 2 with $25.4 million domestically, well below industry expectations.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg ties the knot

Sun, 20 May 2012 01:10 EDT

A day after the historic Facebook IPO, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg updated his status Saturday to "married."

Zuckerberg wed 27-year-old Priscilla Chan, his girlfriend of nearly a decade, according to a guest authorized to speak for the couple. The person spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

The couple married at his Palo Alto, Calif. home in front of fewer than 100 stunned guests who thought they would be attending a party to celebrate Chan's graduation from medical school.

Zuckerberg gave his new bride a ring he had designed with a "very simple ruby" to end an incredibly eventful week, according to the guest.

On Monday, Zuckerberg turned 28 and Chan graduated from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, where she'd studied pediatrics.

Day Two of Book Festival Draws Thousands

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:27 EDT

From book vendors to cooking demonstrations to bestselling authors, the S.C. Book Festival had something for everyone as an estimated 3,400 turned out for day two of the three-day festival held at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center in Columbia on Saturday.

Among the day’s many scheduled events, the largest turnout arguably was for Walter Edgar’s conversation with bestselling author and South Carolina favorite, Pat Conroy.

“I have no idea what we’re going to talk about,” said a smiling Conroy before Saturday’s talk.

Once on stage, however, the 66-year-old settled into an easy conversation with Edgar, known for his own work, “South Carolina: A History,” and soon had the audience rolling in laughter.

Conroy was one of more than 90 authors scheduled for the 16th annual event, which also included more than 100 exhibitors.

Jack Hitt: Writer in search of truth

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:42 EDT

Our recognition, perception and reasoning are sometimes tripped up by our most trusted instrument: our brain.

“We do sort of edit reality before we perceive it,” Jack Hitt said. “The science is showing we pre-edit reality into something we can understand.”

Hitt will get into science — precisely, neuroscience — during “Making Up the Truth,” the one-man show he’ll perform at Spoleto Festival USA. The performance is built around Hitt’s stories, and the Charleston native, a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine and NPR’s “This American Life,” is known for telling them. His run at the festival begins Friday.

Storytelling has become a popular theater genre, and there have been masterful performances at Spoleto. Danny Hoch’s riveting “Hip-Hop Theater: An Evening With Danny Hoch” in 2006 immediately comes to mind. Of late, storytellers have come under fire for exaggerating or falsifying information, drowning the title of Hitt’s show in a pool of irony.

In March, Mike Daisey was rebuked for fabrications in a story about the working conditions in Chinese factories that make Apple products. The story aired on “This American Life,” the weekly public-radio program that features first-person narratives understood to be true. Last week, the facts in pieces contributed to “This American Life” by humorist David Sedaris were scrutinized.

Review: Cohen struggles to stay on-script in ‘The Dictator’

Sat, 19 May 2012 01:09 EDT

With “The Dictator,” Sacha Baron Cohen and his partner in comic crime, director Larry Charles, leave the improvisation of “Borat” and “Bruno” behind and return to the more structured world of scripted comedy. And the strain shows.

The unruliness, the chaos of their improvised “gotcha” mockumentaries, is missing. Cohen, forced to remember lines, stick to a script and sustain a character who only exists when the director says “Action,” struggles with the voice, the persona.

The result is a fitfully hilarious farce made up of patched-together comic “bits” – the bit where the dictator stages his own Olympics (and shoots other sprinters to win his race), the bit where the dictator, having anointed himself his nation’s chief surgeon, attempts to deliver a baby (with the camera taking an in-utero point of view), the bit where the dictator and a flunky have an amused, animated pseudo-Arabic chat about exploding fireworks, American landmarks and Osama bin Laden in front of tourists on a New York helicopter tour.

Most of the bits are funny, but the film that connects them is flat, the performances – especially Cohen’s – incomplete, under-developed and poorly cut together.

Cohen plays General-Admiral Aladeen (think “Aladdin,” with an accent), dictator-for-life of the North African nation of Wadiya. Any resemblance to Libya is purely intentional.

Facebook IPO one of world’s largest (+ survey)

Fri, 18 May 2012 18:29 EDT

Facebook’s initial public offering of stock is shaping up to be one of the largest ever. The world’s definitive online social network is raising at least $16 billion, a big windfall for a company that began eight years ago.

Facebook priced its IPO at $38 per share on Thursday, at the high end of its expected range.

If extra shares reserved to cover additional demand are sold as part of the transaction, Facebook Inc. and its early investors stand to reap as much as $18.4 billion from the IPO.

The IPO values the company at around $104 billion, slightly more than Amazon.com, and well above well-known corporations such as Disney and Kraft.

The $38 is the price at which the investment banks orchestrating the offering will sell the stock to their clients.

Review: Expect laughs in ‘What to Expect’

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:40 EDT

“What to Expect When You’re Expecting” is a “Valentine’s Day” take on impending parenthood. Assorted couples cope with pregnancies, planned and unplanned, adoption and the epic change that is coming to their lives.

It’s wafer-thin, but it has plenty of laughs – a lot of them involving pregnant women’s bodily functions, the rest coming from Chris Rock, who unloads lots of daddy-to-be wisdom on one prospective father. But what’s surprising is how touching this film from the director of “Waking Ned Devine” manages to be. Kirk Jones and the screenwriters found real pathos in adapting the Heidi Murkoff self-help book, dubbed America’s “pregnancy bible.”

Elizabeth Banks plays Wendy, a self-help book author, a pregnancy “expert” who has never been able to get pregnant herself. Until now. She and hubby Gary (Ben Falcone) are all set to glow with the “angel’s kisses” of “this miracle.” And then her husband’s ex-race car driver dad (Dennis Quaid) and his trophy bride (Brooklyn Decker) one-up them. Father and mother-in-law are expecting twins.

Anna Kendrick is the food-truck chef whose one-night tumble with a high school flame (Chace Crawford), also a food-truck cook, put her in a family way.

Cameron Diaz is a super-fit TV fitness guru newly pregnant with her “Celebrity Dance Factor” partner (Matthew Morrison of TV’s “Glee”). Sure, she found out she was pregnant by throwing up on live TV. But she figures as fit as she is, she can do this pregnancy thing in her spare time.

The SC Book Festival introduces audiences to Sissieretta Jones and other once-famous people

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:15 EDT

Stardom is hard to achieve and even harder to maintain, especially once a career has ended. Some stars just fade while others are forever forgotten.

Until their stories are unearthed and told in a book.

Such is the story of Sissieretta Jones, once the highest-paid black concert singer in the United States. Jones toured the world, enchanting audiences with her operatic soprano during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

She predated Josephine Baker, the first black female to star in a widely released movie. Baker is sometimes credited for being the first female to integrate an American concert hall, but Jones was singing in front of mixed audiences years before Baker was born in 1906.

And Jones did it in the South.

Coffee buzz: Study finds java drinkers live longer

Wed, 16 May 2012 17:20 EDT

One of life's simple pleasures just got a little sweeter. After years of waffling research on coffee and health, even some fear that java might raise the risk of heart disease, a big study finds the opposite: Coffee drinkers are a little more likely to live longer. Regular or decaf doesn't matter.

The study of 400,000 people is the largest ever done on the issue, and the results should reassure any coffee lovers who think it's a guilty pleasure that may do harm.

"Our study suggests that's really not the case," said lead researcher Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute. "There may actually be a modest benefit of coffee drinking."

No one knows why. Coffee contains a thousand things that can affect health, from helpful antioxidants to tiny amounts of substances linked to cancer. The most widely studied ingredient - caffeine - didn't play a role in the new study's results.

It's not that earlier studies were wrong. There is evidence that coffee can raise LDL, or bad cholesterol, and blood pressure at least short-term, and those in turn can raise the risk of heart disease.

What’s Good Here? Wine Down on Main

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:23 EDT

What’s good here?

Wine by the glass or bottle. Owner Patti Butler regularly attends wine shows and tastings to find a wide variety – at least 20 selections – of wines from Italy, France, Oregon, California, South America and Australia. Servers are knowledgeable about the nuances of each variety. Besides typical white and red wines, as well as some blends, there are a few dessert wines: a Chanelli-Italian sparking wine with Italian peaches and a Chocolais white French wine with Holland cream and Swiss chocolate. Champagnes are the real deal – from the Champagne region of France. Also on the menu are a few beers: India pale ale, lager, and Guinness. Each month or so, new wines are offered depending on what Butler discovers in her travels and research.

What else?

With a glass of wine, customers are treated to a basket of French bread. There is also a bar area featuring a complimentary smattering of crackers, cheeses, nuts, fruit, marinated vegetables, and chocolates. Free Wi-fi is offered for those interested in working or checking emails while enjoying a drink.

How did Wine Down get established?

Eaten alive: Hilton Head man recovers from flesh-eating infection

Tue, 15 May 2012 07:18 EDT

By most accounts, Barry Ginn should be dead. Fortunately, the Hilton Head Island resident has several guardian angels watching out for him.

Ginn survived a rare bacterial infection that attacks soft tissue and muscle, often leading to amputation and, in some cases, death.

In February, Ginn had severe pain in his shoulder and a fever. He thought he had torn his rotator cuff again and went to the doctor.

Instead, he learned — nearly too late — that bacteria was ravaging his body, eating him from the inside out.

To save him, three doctors removed most of Ginn’s upper shoulder and a large portion of his upper arm. He underwent nine surgeries in four days.

PBS's ‘King of Late Night': Johnny Carson, deeper down

Sun, 13 May 2012 20:53 EDT

Looking for something to do in Kansas on a sunny Saturday last spring, I chose darkness, and drove to Hutchinson (pop. 42,000) to take a tour of the subterranean salt mines at the edge of town. At a museum, you buy a ticket and ride a large, clanky freight elevator 650 feet underground, into pitch black.

There was no crowd. I had the vast, dimly lit caverns almost to myself — and what a place. A long series of featureless gray tunnels gave up millions of tons of rock salt over the last century (and still do), excavated over decades by laborious room-and-pillar mining techniques. Down there, it's always dry and a perfect 67 degrees. You take a little train through the dark and learn a lot about drilling and geology.

The most interesting part of the mines, however, is entirely off limits. Nearly 2 million square feet of tunneled rooms have been profitably repurposed for film and document storage. Hollywood rents some of the space and so does the government. Shelf after shelf of original negatives of movies and old TV shows are kept here below the prairie, safe from almost any apocalyptic or meteorological scenario you can imagine, secure even from the hungry eyes of YouTube and Hulu.

Included in this stash are more than 4,000 episodes of the legendary “Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” His farewell episode aired 20 years ago this month. At some point, the entire archive of tapes — the rights to which Carson fully acquired in one of his many highly publicized contract renegotiations with NBC — came here for eternal rest. Except for the standard clips you see from time to time (one of Joan Embery's small zoo critters urinating on Johnny's head; various Carnac the Magnificent routines) and the retrospective DVD sets that come and go, the real breadth and achievement of the Carson era is difficult to grasp if you didn't live through it.

“Johnny Carson: King of Late Night,” a heartfelt and at times beautiful and melancholy two-hour documentary airing Monday night on PBS's “American Masters” series, is a fine effort by filmmaker Peter Jones to both exalt and deconstruct the man. He has access to all the great stuff down in the salt-mine vault, but he's after something deeper in Carson's private persona. Talk about dark caverns. What we come away with is a portrait of someone who was brilliantly witty and easygoing, so long as the camera was on.

The SC Book Festival is more than Pat Conroy.

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:32 EDT

Though his presence will loom large over the SC Book Festival, Pat Conroy isn’t the only author coming to the three-day festival. Conroy, who lives on Fripp Island, is the author of “The Prince of Tides,” “The Lords of Discipline” and “The Great Santini.” He is a graduate of The Citadel, and South Carolina has had a significant role as a backdrop for his work.

Conroy will make two appearances at the festival. The first is at 12:45 p.m. Saturday in the Carolina Ballroom, where he’ll have a conversation with Walter Edgar. The special guest at the session is Conroy’s daughter, Melissa, who is one of the 80 authors attending the festival. On May 20, Conroy will moderate “Pat Conroy Recommends,” a session with authors Bernie Schein, Scott Graber and John Warley.

All events Saturday and May 20 at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center are free, but seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis, which is to say capacity will be reached quickly for the Conroy sessions. Who else is there to see? Here are nine others to check out.

1. Brett Anderson: Anderson, a restaurant critic and a features writer for The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, edited “Cornbread Nation 6,” a compilation of the best southern food writing. “Southern Recreated: More than Cookbooks,” 1:15 p.m. Sunday , Lexington Meeting Room A

2. Eric Jerome Dickey: Dickey has charted on the New York Times’ bestsellers list more than 10 times. His latest book, “An Accidental Affair,” is a murderous affair with plenty of mystery. “An Accidental Affair,” Noon Sunday , Richland Meeting Room A, B, C

'Time' cover: Shocking or no big deal? + survey, video

Fri, 11 May 2012 09:27 EDT

Survey: Did 'Time' go too far? | Video: Jamie Lynn Grumet on 'Today' Friday morning

Shocking or no big deal? A woman breastfeeding her 3-year-old son is the cover photo of this week’s Time magazine for a story on “attachment parenting,” and reactions ranged from applause to cringing to shrugs.

The photo showed Jamie Lynne Grumet, 26, a stay-at-home mom in Los Angeles who says her mother breastfed her until she was 6 years old. She told the magazine in an interview that she’s given up reasoning with strangers who see her son nursing and threaten “to call social services on me or that it’s child molestation.”

“People have to realize this is biologically normal,” she said, adding, “The more people see it, the more it’ll become normal in our culture. That’s what I’m hoping. I want people to see it.”

Some questioned why the magazine used the photo of Grumet, a slim blonde pretty enough to be a model, to illustrate a story about a style of childrearing that’s been around for a generation. The issue includes a profile of the attachment parenting guru, Dr. Bill Sears, who wrote one of the movement’s bibles, “The Baby Book,” 20 years ago.

Knitting the fabric of friendship

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:23 EDT

The half-dozen friends begin strolling through the doors of the Forest Acres Books-A-Million – in no certain order – around 2 o’ clock each Wednesday afternoon.

With an inventory of needles, yarn and stitch holders and an ambitious share of newspapers and the occasional hardback, they scout out a table and settle in for their weekly together time. For two hours they’ll discuss everything from politics to transportation to the energy grid and charitable giving – all while keeping a careful hand on the week’s work of art.

It was a love of knitting that first drew the six Columbia women together nearly three years ago. Today they’re still nurturing their artistic passions, and their friendships, with their weekly time at the local bookstore.

“We’ve talked about all the non-pronounceable names in makeup that is [sic] going into our bodies,” Pat Lare, revealed offhandedly during a recent gathering.

Lare and the others — Renee Graham, Barb Richstad, Lucrecia Herr, Jackie Harrington and Jane Gillespie — have been meeting at the Books -A-Million in Trenholm Plaza each week for about 2½ years, after initially visiting in each other’s homes for six months.

Author Sendak had special connection with Richland County library

Wed, 09 May 2012 07:34 EDT

Author Maurice Sendak was a man of many passions.

One of them was the Richland County Public Library.

A 46-foot-long mural depicting the benign monsters in his best-known children’s book, “Where the Wild Things Are,” has been a prominent feature of the Children’s Room at the downtown library since it opened in 1993.

Sendak didn’t paint it — a friend, Michael Hagen, did — but he gave his permission.

The library is the only place Sendak allowed his work to be used as public art.

Benedict queen seeks Ebony crown

Wed, 09 May 2012 23:29 EDT

Devin M. Jeter, a 2012 Benedict College graduate, is one of 35 women vying to be included in Ebony Magazine’s “Campus Queens” feature. Ten women will be selected for the magazine’s annual spread on queens from Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Jeter was Miss Benedict College 2011-12.

If Jeter makes the top 10 — online voting, which began Tuesday, will determine who makes it — Benedict will have a representative for a second consecutive year. Last year Tiffany Sorrells, Miss Benedict College 2010-11, place third in the online competition.

Votes for Jeter can be cast through May 31 at www.ebony.com/campusqueens/.

Octomom at crossroads, broke and considering porn

Mon, 07 May 2012 20:46 EDT

From Miracle Mom to Octomom and now, perhaps soon, Homeless Mom, the bizarre life of Nadya Suleman and her 14 children has been a subject that rarely fails to hit a nerve among those who have followed her personal soap opera.

With Suleman on the verge of losing her home and declaring bankruptcy this week with total debts as high as $1 million to everyone from her parents to her baby sitters to the water company, the Octomom Odyssey seems headed for darker days.

Beyond the fascination with her public foibles, such as posing topless in an obscure British magazine and talk of a solo porn film, is the very real concern about the welfare of her octuplets and six older children – all borne from her zeal for in vitro fertilization.

Three of her six older children have disabilities for which she receives government financial support, Suleman has said. One is autistic, another has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and the third a speech impediment. The older children range in age from 5 to 10.

Soon, they could all be out of a home. The house where they have lived the past two years in the suburbs of Los Angeles is going on the auction block Monday

Polo played again in Camden

Mon, 07 May 2012 11:41 EDT

CAMDEN - It wasn’t played in a stadium costing hundreds of millions of dollars. There was no multi-million dollar scoreboard. And the coaches had no million-dollar contract.

In fact, there wasn’t a coach.

It was polo, the ancient sport of kings, gutted out Sunday afternoon at the Camden Cup by six expert riders on horseback on a gently rolling Camden grass field 600 yards long by 160 yards wide – about nine acres, or six football fields. Riders typically have ridden many years, often in a sport like fox hunting, where sharp turns and fast-moving unexpected events are standard fare.

“In polo, the horse is 70-80 percent of the game in that the horse has to know what it’s doing and love what it’s doing,” said Mike Rippy, 54, of Anderson, a former polo player who gave updates about what was happening on the field to the crowd of some 400.

“It’s actually like playing with six legs and two brains,” Rippy said. “And it’s very fluid, you have to think the next play ahead of where you are now – it’s like chess.”

‘I’m there to get my Darlington stripe’

Sat, 05 May 2012 16:49 EDT

Stock-car racing’s traveling circus drops anchor in Darlington this week, and a smorgasbord of juicy subplots spice the main event, Saturday night’s Bojangles’ Southern 500.

Fans might wonder if there will be a renewal of the Kevin Harvick-Kyle Busch donnybrook at the finish of the 2011 race or if Dale Earnhardt Jr. can end his long victory drought.

Many of the 60,000 or more who fill Darlington Raceway will focus on Danica Patrick, who wants to use the week for a steppingstone toward success in stock-car racing’s top level.

Following Janet Guthrie (1977) and Shawna Robinson (2002), Patrick will become the third woman to start a Sprint Cup race at Darlington. Her credentials include third- and fourth-place finishes in the Indianapolis 500, and she has long-term ambitions for stock-car racing success.

“She’s a race-car driver,” Denny Hamlin, one of stock-car’s brightest stars said in delivering the ultimate compliment from one competitor to another.