Yesterday was a rare, low-humidity day in June - - shocking! I took this as a sign. After several days of false starts I managed to get myself into the car and head over to St. John Baptist Church for early voting. I don’t know if you remember, but there was a bit of an uproar when St. John Baptist built their new church on the corner of Tamar and 175. Some people seemed to suggest that James Rouse had forbidden church buildings as a part of the Columbia Plan. Since then I’ve observed so many ways that this congregation has connected with the community and opened its doors to educate and to serve. I wonder if the naysayers have noticed? A few things. Something yellow caught my eye in the parking lot. What office is the duck running for? I’m serious. That’s a duck. Apparently it’s associated with Linfeng Chen, whose enormous sign you can see in the center of the photo. I don’t know if there are any electioneering rules which expressly forbid duck signs. But what would happen if every c...
Image you see the following signs. What’s the difference? We probably think of “adult books” as ones containing overtly sexual content. The kind that we generally limit to “special stores” away from children. Then what’s an adult book fair? A book fair with naughty books? I’ve found myself pondering this as two of our local indie bookstores have hosted adult book fair events: Queen Takes Book, and The Novel Refuge. Despite any initial giggle I might have had, I was pretty sure these were book fairs for adults, not book fairs selling Adult Books. There’s been quite a bit of online discussion in recent years about nostalgic memories of childhood book fairs - - largely the Scholastic ones. For example: Those rosy-hued reminiscences have grown into a full-blown phenomenon. The events in our own community are a part of a national trend. Just one thing, though. I’ve noticed something about the use of the word adult in many of these events. It often means more than simply “adults ...