Arts and culture : Buzz

The folks who put on the Academy Awards are taking their iconic gold Oscar statuette on a roadtrip. And Baltimore is one of the stops.

The first ever Oscar Roadtrip started in New York Feb. 4 and is hitting Baltimore Feb. 8. Oscar promoters are letting fans in 10 cities know what it's like to hold a gold statue in their hands.  Philadelphia, Chicago Washington, D.C., and Phoenix are some of the other places they will hit. The last stop is, of course, the live broadcast of the Academy Awards Feb 24 in Los Angeles.

It's unclear where exactly the Oscar will stop in Baltimore, as a lot of the decisions will be made at the last minute, the website says. You can follow @OscarRoadTrip on Twitter to follow their adventures or Tweet suggestions on places to visit around town. 

Jane Austen aficionados from around the world are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the penning of "Pride and Prejudice" this month. 

Among those celebrating is Goucher College in Towson, writes the New York Times. It opened "Pride and Prejudice: A 200 Year Affair" Jan. 28.

The exhibit features what it bills as the largest Jane Austen collection in North America, including the first edition that was published and rare and illustrated editions. The exhibit runs through July 26. 

The rivalry between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens is pretty intense  — to put it mildly.

But the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Steelers' hometown newspaper, tells its readers to spend some of their time and money in a "city that abounds with great food and art."

The travel story tells readers to check out the Baltimore Museum of Art, Fort McHenry, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Little Italy restaurants and other venues. "Today, its most famous site is the landmark Inner Harbor, a historic seaport that was redeveloped from the late 1960s through the '80s," the Post-Gazette writes about Baltimore.

We'll ignore the little tidbit on picking a good Steelers bar. 

Baltimore filmmaker Matthew Porterfield is debuting his latest film, "I Used to Be Darker," at Sundance next month. The movie tells the story of a runaway who goes to live with her aunt and uncle in Baltimore and confronts a family struggle afterwards. "Darker" is one of ten films in the film festival's NEXT program, which highlights innovative storytelling in film. 

You can read more about the NEXT films here on film site Indiewire or in this writeup in the New York Times. 

Porterfield garnered rave reviews for "Putty Hill" in 2010. The Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University selected the Hamilton native for its 2012-2013 Artist Residency Awards. Porterfield has also won the Sondheim Prize and was included in the Whitney Biennial. 

A business school dean calls the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director "a folk hero" in the most recent issue of Forbes magazine.

Doug Guthrie, dean of the George Washington University School of Business, got to know Marin Alsop because she was the first speaker in the school's Conversations on Creative Leadership series. 

"She is a woman in a field dominated by men, but she is so much more," Guthrie writes in Forbes. "A visionary who understands the connection between ambition and achievement. A crusader who knows how music can transform lives. A leader who accepts the risk that comes with great rewards. A trailblazer who is as adept at the trail as the blazing."

You can read the rest of the story here. 

Arrive Magazine, the publication that Northeast travelers receive on Amtrak, has crafted a feature highlighting the Baltimore Museum of Art's recent expansion.

"The highlight of the new pieces is a site-specific reimagining of the museum's modern and contemporary collections in sculptural forms placed in the ceiling, walls and floors," Arrive writes.

The magazine also mentions the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, Everyman Theatre and the Hippodrome.

You can read the entire story here. 

The Walters Art Museum's latest exhibit, which explores the depiction of Africans in Renaissance art, gets a writeup in the New York Times.

"Visually the exhibition is a gift, with marvelous things by artists familiar and revered — Dürer, Rubens, Veronese — along with images most of us never knew existed," the Times writes. "Together they map a history of art, politics and race that scholars have begun to pay attention to."

"Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe" runs through Jan. 21 and features paintings, drawings, sculptures and printed books depicting black Africans in Europe from the 1400s to the 1600s. Africans living in or visiting Europe at this time included artists, aristocrats, saints, slaves and diplomats.

You can read the entire Times' review here. 

Greater Baltimore breathed a sigh of relief when they missed the worst of Category 1 Hurricane Sandy. 

Schools and many offices closed, leaving residents confined to their homes. So how did folks in Baltimore cope with cabin fever?

Some turned to video streaming provided by Netflix, CNNMoney says. "Viewership doubled on the East Coast, with major spikes in cities including New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.," writes CNNMoney. 

So what movies are popular among Netflix subscribers in Baltimore? Charm City has diverse movie tastes, with "Tyler Perry's Laugh to Keep From Crying," "2001 a Space Odyssey," and the 2001 French horror flick "The Brotherhood of the Wolf" all ranking among the top 10 movies that are favored more in Baltimore compared with other cities. That's according to the Netflix site. 

When Journey guitarist Neal Schon and "Real Housewives of D.C." cast member Michaele Salahi celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary, they'll fondly remember Baltimore as the place that set the stage for their nuptials.

Schon proposed to Salahi — one half of the White House wedding crasher team — at a benefit concert at the Lyric Opera House for the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. 

"Salahi accepted the proposal with 'Open Arms,' according to [her manager] Gina Rodriguez," CNN.com writes. 

"Their relationship began under a cloud in September 2011 when the "Real Housewives of D.C." star was reported missing by her then-husband of nearly eight years Tareq Salahi."

You can read the whole story here. 

Centerstage has asked some of the nation's most prominent playwrights to create short films to answer the question "What is My America."

Neil LaBute, Baltimore-born Anna Deavere Smith and Lynn Nottage are some of the writers involved in the 50 films directed by 90s indie director Hal Hartley, Broadway World writes.

"From foreclosure to gay marriage, from the judiciary to the little-known circumstances surrounding the death of James A. Garfield, these monologues, with a wry mix of humor and heart, shine a light on our particular American moment—and tug at the seams of political rhetoric as only theater can," Broadway World writes. 

Centerstage, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, is releasing the videos weekly up until the Nov. 6 presidential election. You can read the entire story here. 

Baltimore City has proposed a plan to keep the former home of Edgar Allen Poe going under a plan that was approved by the Board of Estimates Oct. 3.

Under the proposal, the B&O Railroad Museum will get $180,000 to help the West Baltimore attraction continue operations, the Baltimore Sun writes. The museum had been in danger of closing. 

"The overriding idea is to turn the Poe House into a draw that will not only see increased attendance, which has fluctuated between 3,000 and 5,000 annually, but also make Baltimore a destination for Poe enthusiasts," the Baltimore Sun writes. "It also envisions an annual operating budget of between $200,000 and $300,000 — substantially more than the $85,000 the city had been spending annually on the Poe House."

You can read the rest of the story here. 

The Washington Post features the Baltimore Museum of Art's much anticipated $24.5 million renovation of its contemporary wing, set to reopen Nov. 18. 

"Planning for the entire renovation — which will also include changes to the American and African Art spaces, as well as a new lobby and other visitor amenities — began a decade ago and is expected to be completed in 2014, when the museum celebrates its 100th anniversary," the Post writes. 

The renovated BMA wing will also feature two murals by Baltimore street artist Gaia, best known for organization Station North outdoor art project Open Walls Baltimore. 

Talk about flea market finds.

A Virginia woman bought a Renoir painting at a flea market for $7 that was set to go to auction and expected to fetch as much as $100,000.  

But then the Washington Post found that "Paysage Bords de Seine" may have been been stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art. A copy of the 1951 police report provided by the Baltimore police shows the painting was indeed stolen, the paper writes. 

"The new details could trigger a legal showdown over the painting’s ownership among several players: the historic Baltimore museum; the company that insured the painting and paid a $2,500 claim for the stolen artwork; the six-year-old auction house; and the Virginia woman who unwittingly purchased the Renoir at the Harpers Ferry Flea Market," the Post writes. You can read the entire article here. 

Whoever thought that a neighborhood in Baltimore would be featured alongside Williamsburg, New York City, Silver Lake, Los Angeles, and Chicago's tony Wicker Park?

Forbes has done the favor to Hampden, ranking it No. 15 on its list of hippest hoods. 

"Bars, restaurants and independent coffee houses co-mingle with two-story rowhouses harking back to the neighborhood's days of mills and factories," Forbes writes of this "retro cool" neighborhood. 

Silver Lake took the top spot, followed by San Francisco's Mission District and Brooklyn's Williamsburg. 

San Francisco's Nextdoor.com helped Forbes compile the data, assessing each neighborhoods walkability, number of food trucks, locally owned eateries, art galleries and other hipness factors. You can see the entire list here. 

The reviews are in and, according to the Washington Post, Rain Pryor has boosted the profile of the Strand Theater Co.

"The person who just took over leadership of the Strand might ring a bell, though. Rain Pryor, Richard’s 43-year-old daughter, is now running the ship," the Post writes.

"And while Pryor is candid about volunteering “to pimp my name” to get the shoestring troupe a little more visibility, her theater bona fides are strong. Pryor is currently enjoying off-Broadway success with her solo show “Fried Chicken and Latkes,” an autobiographical monologue with jazz music featuring Pryor’s takes on her famous father, her Jewish mother, showbiz and more."

Pryor has been living in Baltimore since 2006, the Post writes. The New York Times also recently featured Pryor.

Founded by Jayme Kilburn, the Strand is located in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District and operates on a shoestring budget of $30,000.