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Mid-Summer Reading Guide

Still time to escape in a good book

The Pleasures of a Good Book

Here’s to one more summer of reading

15,000 Little Free Libraries and Counting

Mine makes 15,001

The Freshwater Alternative

Sweet fish swim in sweetwater

A Most Wanted Man

The everyday banalities of saving the world

Your Organic Gardening Primer

Lesson 3: Jumpstart your garden with compost tea

The moon reappears in our evening skies Thursday as a thin crescent low in the southwest at dusk. Lined up to the west is the twinkling blue-white star Spica and beyond that golden Saturn. Friday the moon is just a few degrees below the second-magnitude star Zubenelgenubi, the fulcrum of the celestial scale Libra. Saturday the moon stands before Scorpius, with its red heart Antares trailing less than 10 degrees from the moon. The next evening, it is the red star that leads...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll; 9/1/11

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

Because it’s not that scary

When a small, somber girl arrives at a creepy Rhode Island house, all hell breaks loose. Well, annoying basement monsters break loose, but you get the idea. The film follows young Sally (Baliee Madison: Just Go with It), who is sent by her mother to live with her father (Guy Pearce: The King’s Speech) and his new girlfriend, Kim (Katie Holmes: The Romantics). Dad and Kim don’t have much time to soothe little Sally, for they’re busy redoing the sinister...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener; 9/1/11

Class Is In

Once your school days are behind you, it’s time to learn for fun

Whoever said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks was barking up the wrong tree. Or visiting the wrong classroom. In a tough economy, taking continuing education courses can make you a better job candidate. The National Bureau of Labor says that the more education you have, the more likely you’ll be hired. Most of those that choose to go back to school are female, according to the U.S. Department of Education, but men are enrolling more frequently. ...

Article - Features; by Diana Beechener; 8/25/11

Flying High

My dad waited too long to learn to fly. I’m correcting his mistake.

A mile above the beach, I soar higher than the gulls, crisp air bathing my outstretched arms, bare feet dangling in the void. The faint whoosh in my ears could be my unfettered thoughts, some vacant, some frantic as bees. I’ve always been enchanted by the dream of flight, the Icarus myth. This is my dream come true, my ultralight flying experience, my life’s greatest rush and the reason for my current obsession: flying lessons. High-Performance Slowness ...

Article - Features; by Jane C. Elkin; 8/25/11

Back to Learning

Is this fall your time to soar?

Do you envy the kids, just a little bit, as they load up on school supplies, dress up in new clothes and walk to the corner to meet the school bus? Maybe not the school bus part of the proposition. At least for me. My first day on the school bus, which coincided with my first day at a new and distant all-girls’ high school, ranks as one of my life’s traumas in a minor key. Those were the days before backpacks, and we carried our books in our...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 8/25/11

This Week’s Creature Feature ... A New Tree Grows in...

Pumpkin Ash found at Jug Bay adds to number of native species

When your official list of trees includes only 29 species, the addition of one more makes a big boost. Anne Arundel’s rise to 29 from 28 came from the addition of Fraxinus profunda. Profunda, familiarly known as the pumpkin ash, was identified and measured at Jug Bay Wetland Sanctuary this month by Maryland Big Tree volunteer Dan Wilson of Harford County. The pumpkin ash has its peculiarities, one of which is its territorial preference for the...

Article - Creature Feature; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 8/25/11

So Much So Soon

They shouldn’t have been biting. But they were. And I was catching.

At so many levels I suspected the morning was going to be a waste of time. Plus, getting up at 5:30am, though always painful for me, is even more so when I’m not expecting to catch anything. I was going to try plugging the shallows for rockfish. It’s my favorite kind of fishing but an end-of-September activity, not promising during a long August heat wave. I was determined to go, however, and I went alone because you can’t really subject...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle; 8/25/11

Brown Leaves in Summer

What’s the deal?

At the Thursday Deale Farmers Market, a number of Bay Weekly readers have asked what is causing so many trees to turn brown. This year the browning of leaves started in late June and has progressed rapidly. The browning has nothing to do with drought, which some people blame. The black locust leaf miner is responsible. Because of the rapid spread, it appears that the insect over-wintered and had an early start on this year’s foliage. During the most...

Article - The Bay Gardener by Dr. Francis Gouin; by Dr. Francis Gouin; 8/25/11

The Fastest Light of All

More than stars and planets brighten our night skies

The moon wanes through week’s end, reaching new phase Sunday. Friday the thin crescent rises around 4am, trailing a dozen degrees behind the Gemini twins Castor and Pollux to slightly to the north and ruddy Mars a little to the south. Saturday, the last sliver of moon rises at 5am. Mars is far to the west, while between the moon and the horizon is the bright glow of Mercury. You should have no trouble spotting Mars, but you may need binoculars to isolate Mercury and...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll; 8/25/11

Fright Night

Vampires finally get to be the bad guys in this clever remake

Vampires have been in a sorry state for over a decade. With the advent of Twilight, True Blood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, these creatures of the night have been defanged by popular culture. Turned into tortured and misunderstood souls, the once great monsters became the mopey teens of the horror genre. That’s why it’s a delightful surprise that Fright Night allows its vamps to have some bite. The film follows high schooler Charley (Anton...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener; 8/25/11

Mid-Summer Reading Guide

The Pleasures of a Good Book

15,000 Little Free Libraries and Counting

The Freshwater Alternative

A Most Wanted Man

Your Organic Gardening Primer

Following the Moon’s Light

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

Class Is In

Flying High

Back to Learning

This Week’s Creature Feature ... A New Tree Grows in...

So Much So Soon

Brown Leaves in Summer

The Fastest Light of All

Fright Night

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