The Left Lane
Bravo does Broadway

MOORE: Part of Nov. 12 concert in New York

The concert, scheduled for Nov. 12 in New York, also will feature Trisha Yearwood, Jill Scott, Cyndi Lauper, Lee Ann Womack, John Hiatt and others interpreting Broadway standards.

Frank Wilhorn, the show's artistic director, said the concert would not only "show the durability and timelessness of classic Broadway shows, we will cross over to a new generation who might otherwise not be aware of the rich tradition of Broadway musical theater." The event, expected to air on the Bravo cable channel in March, will benefit Bravo's Children's Theater Relief Fund.

Bookmark memos

Linda Frisby and Donna Malin, sisters, longtime schoolteachers and avid readers, got tired of losing track of their places in books, searching vainly for passages they meant to mark, trying to remember to whom they'd loaned beloved volumes and keeping track of titles they wanted to recommend to friends, colleagues or students.

So they invented BookTrackers: folded, three-hole-punched bookmarks that fit into handy binders and contain spaces for notetaking, recording the title and author, outlining the plot, scribbling down a special quote, reminding yourself to whom you loaned the book. Each BookTracker serves as a bookmark while you're reading, then is stored in a binder that can accommodate up to 30 trackers. Bookworms can learn more at www.booktrackerstore.com; starter sets are $14.95 each.

Chess has a reputation of being highbrow, but it is a great game for kids, according to an article in the October issue of Child magazine. Not only can this game of strategy improve your child's thinking and problem-solving skills, it can also help improve math and reading scores.

The U.S. Chess Federation says the number of members 14 and younger has increased more than tenfold, from 3,000 in 1990 to more than 35,000 today. Communities everywhere are starting chess programs and clubs. New Jersey even includes chess in its school curricula. For more information, log onto www.child.com or www.uschesslive.org. The public is invited to free chess classes, 7 p.m. Tuesdays, at Pearlridge Center Uptown, 488-0981; and to periodic chess exhibitions and lessons (the next is Wednesday) at Windward Mall, 235-1143.

Hip-hop scholars

STANFORD, Calif. — Some Stanford students are bringing hip-hop's tongue-twisting rhymes into the classroom as part of a linguistics course. While fellow students wrestle with Shakespeare and Melville, 31 classmates in "The Language of Hip-Hop Culture" study the lyrics of rappers Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Killarmy while the sounds of Mos Def play in low volume on a boombox.

Course instructor H. Samy Alim, editor of Stanford's Black Arts Quarterly, said hip-hop studies explore an important cultural influence. "Hip-hop is the next chapter of African American folklore," Alim said.

The course focuses on connections among language, youth culture, ideology and identity. Meanwhile, the University of California-Berkeley offers a class on the poetry and history of Tupac Shakur, and Harvard University will establish a hip-hop archive next year.