Buzz

Looks like Baltimore illusionist Spencer Horsman might make it back to “America’s Got Talent”, according to the Baltimore Sun. Co-host Howard Stern chose Spencer Horsman as one of his wild-card picks. His competitors will include Ben Blaque, who uses crossbows and Todd Oliver whose dog doubles as a ventriloquist doll.

Read more here. 

Everyone knows by now that Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian in history, with 22 medals. 

But he's struck gold in social media as well, according to a Reuters story that appeared in the Huffington Post. 

Reuters reports that Phelps added one million followers during the London Olympics, bringing his total count to nearly 1.3 million. He also has 800,000 Facebook fans. Jamaican track-and-field athlete Usain Bolt is ahead of the race, with 1.5 million Twitter followers. 

And in other Michael Phelps news, the Rodgers Forge native is set to appear in his own reality show. Don't get too excited. We probably won't see our hometown boy engage in crazy antics a la Real Housewives. He'll be playing golf on the Golf Channel's the Haney Project, the Hollywood Reporter writes. 

For his upcoming album, electronic composer Dan Deacon drew inspiration from his hometown of Baltimore, according to an interview with Deacon that appeared in Rolling Stone magazine.
 
“The aptly titled America, due out Aug. 28 on Domino Records, is Deacon's tribute to the country he has come to love, from the deserts of New Mexico to the Guilford Avenue Bridge in his hometown of Baltimore,” the magazine writes.

Deacon hopes to ignite citizen pride through America, which presents “the beautiful deserts, the mountains, the forests, the coasts. But also the beautiful cities that are rapidly decaying in front of our eyes," he tells Rolling Stone.

Deacon also channels the pop beats of Wham City and recalls visits to Baltimore County’s Pretty Box to spark creativity. He also presents a chamber ensemble mixed with the Peabody Institute and the city’s music scene.

Rachael Ray says Baltimore has one of the nine best Little Italys. In the September issue of Everyday With Rachael Ray, which comes out Aug. 14, Ray mentions Germano's Trattoria and calls the area “a pocket of cozy brick buildings” that “feels like home," writes Richard Gorelick in the Baltimore Sun. 

John Waters had enough of hitchhiking and headed back to the stage. To commemorate the 25^th anniversary of his film set in his hometown city, he will launch Hairspray: In Concert! next year, according to Broadway World.

Hairspray: In Concert! will premiere with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Jan. 11-13, 2013, and with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Jan. 24-27, 2013, writes Broadway World.

The cast includes Broadway stars Nick Adams, Marissa Perry and NaTash Yvette along with Waters himself. Read more about it in Broadway World. 

Last month, local food blogger Dara Bunjon wrote an extremely popular story that highlighted dining destinations on the Charm City Circulator Banner Route.

Mary Beth Marsden of 1090 AM WBAL Radio asked Bunjon how she got the idea for the story and to name some of the highlights of her culinary tour on wheels. The journey took her from Locust Point to the Inner Harbor. You can listen to the interview here. 

Bunjon authors the Dining Dish blog and is the Baltimore Dining Examiner for Examiner.com 

We know you can't get enough of Michael Phelps, now that the Rodgers Forge native is the most decorated Olympian of all time. 

And neither can Australian Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe. The five-time Olympic gold medalist says Michael Phelps' slow start at the Olympics, when he came in fourth in his opening final race, made his career that much more special. 

"People were stunned when he came fourth in his opening final," Thorpe writes on the BBC News website. "They can see he is human now and that makes him all the greater. He deserved his gold-medal finale on Saturday. I doubt we will ever see the likes of Phelps again, considering how strong swimming has become on a global stage."

You can read the rest of Ian Thorpe's column here. 

Now that Michael Phelps has retired from competitive swimming after winning 22 Olympic medals, you might wonder what he's going to do with his time.

It turns out that most decorated Olympian is going shark diving with his South African competitor Chad Le Clos. He told NBC's Bob Costas in a post-race interview that he's fascinated by the creature and plans to go diving in South Africa with the swimmer who has long regarded Phelps as his idol.

“That’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and Chad (Le Clos) and I were talking, and Chad said ‘why don’t you come to South Africa?’ So I said ‘let’s dive with great whites together.’ And he said ‘OK, let’s set it up,’" Larry Brown Sports writes. 

He also talks about taking up golf to maintain his competitive edge. 

But will the Olympian stay in Baltimore after selling his Fells Point condo for a $400,000 loss? A source tells WBAL News that he purchased another property in Canton. 

Fans of the hit TV show Seinfeld might remember that certain foods got special attention on the comedy. 

There was the soup from the "Soup Nazi," black-and-white cookies and muffin tops. 

Actor Larry Thomas, aka the "Soup Nazi," has featured all of these foods and more on a food truck that visited different cities, including Baltimore Aug. 6. The Seinfeld "No Food For You" food truck gave away the food for free at the Maryland Science Center.

It already stopped in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Read more in the Baltimore Sun and USA Today. 

Baltimore is one of the nation's coolest cities, according to Forbes. 

The magazine ranked 65 largest cities according to their "coolness," using seven measures. Cities were graded on the number of recreational activities, entertainment options, restaurants and bars per capita, as well as cultural composition, median age, unemployment rate and net migration. It used the help of Sperling's Best Places to assess the entertainment options. 
 
“Baltimore is in transition because it has been down and out for a long time but it’s beginning to come back because it’s affordable,” says Sperling’s Best Places in Forbes.
 
Houston, Texas took the top honor because it enjoyed a 2.6 percent job growth last year, which drew plenty of young professionals to the sprawling metropolis. Really. 

Our neighbor to the South, Washington, D.C., took the No. 2 spot. 

You can read the entire story and a slideshow here. 

It has gotten off to a rocky start, to say the least. 

But now there's some good news for the Baltimore Grand Prix. Organizers of the Baltimore Grand Prix announced that they have landed several new sponsors for this year’s race, including Sunoco, Dr. Pepper and Giant Food, CBS News reports. 

The city terminated its contract with Baltimore Racing Development, the group that put on last year’s event, and dissolved its contract with Downtown Racing. Now, could it be that the third time is the charm with Race On LLC?

We'll find out Aug. 31 to Sept. 2, when the second Baltimore Grand Prix is slated to run. 
 

Michael Phelps isn't the only Olympian from Maryland. 

Baltimore Fishbowl recently listed eight athletes from our state who are competing in the London games:

Julie Zetlin, born in Silver Spring, lives in Bethesda – rhythmic gymnastics
Bobby Lea, Easton – cycling
Keli Smith Puzo, University of Maryland  - field hockey
Sandra Uptagrafft, Annapolis – shooting
Andrew Gemmell, born in Columbia, lives in Wilmington, De. – swimming
Katie Ledecky, Bethesda – swimming
David Banks, Churchill High alum – rowing
Matt Centrowitz, Broadneck High alum – track and field

And last month, the online magazine ran a feature on Maryland Olympians, mentioning locals competing in sailing, field hockey and kayaking. 

The National Park Service has given tourists another reason to visit Maryland.

On Monday, July 31, it launched the Star-Spangled National Historic Trail, kicking off the event in Fells Point. The 560-mile route traverses land and water in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., and takes visitors to important marks in the War of 1812. 

"By land or water, by bike or on foot, in a car or on a boat, visitors can follow the routes taken by the British during the 1813 and 1814 invasions of the Chesapeake, which resulted in the burning of the White House and Capitol, the capture of Alexandria and the battle for Baltimore, culminated in the writing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner,'" writes the Washington Post.

You can read the Post's entire story here. 

For the first time in 21 years, Johns Hopkins Hospital slipped from the No. 1 rank on U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals. Johns Hopkins fell to No. 2 while Massachusetts General Hospital took the coveted No. 1 spot. 
 
The battle for first was very close. Both hospitals had 30 honor roll points, but Massachusetts General claimed first with its 16 nationally ranked specialty programs, compared with Hopkins’ 15.
 
Still, Hopkins didn't do too shabbily. The hospital is ranked No. 1 in Maryland and the Baltimore metro area. Five of Hopkins’ 15 nationally ranked specialty medical programs are the best of the country: neurology and neurosurgery, rheumatology, geriatrics, psychiatry, and ear, nose and throat.
 
Rounding out the top five hospitals were the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
 
See the complete list here. 

While the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation filmed scenes in Washington D.C. last week, the Netflix movie House of Cards recreated the nation’s capital right here in Baltimore, reports the Washington Post.
 
House of Cards shot overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning at the Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Institute, which was “transformed into the fictitious ‘Hotel Cotesworth,’ a supposedly historic D.C. institution where the presidents have slept,” writes the Post.
 
The political thriller has also used the offices of the Baltimore Sun as the set for the show’s fictional newspaper, the Washington Herald.
 
House of Cards stars Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright and Kate Mara and is directed by David Fincher, director of Fight Club, The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.