Catalog

When pioneering alt-rockers Smashing Pumpkins announced an intimate club date at Rams Head Live, the response from fans was swift. The 1,400 tickets for Monday's show sold out in five minutes, according to Sarah Sample, the venue's marketing director. The Smashing Pumpkins are "something a lot of us grew up with," Sample said. "They fit into the soundtrack of your life. It's a huge opportunity to see them live." Though frontman Billy Corgan is the only original member in this incarnation, he has long been the heart and soul of the Pumpkins.

Question: Is ordering plants from catalogs or the Internet a good idea? Answer: Beware plants from the West Coast that may harbor Sudden Oak Death disease (Phytophthora ramorum). Last year an infected nursery shipped 28 plants to Maryland customers. Twenty-two were tracked down, tested, and an infected witchhazel was found and destroyed. Not only oaks but a vast number of plant species are killed by this disease. If it gets loose here, it would devastate the East Coast. To avoid that possibility, buy from local nurseries and garden centers.

The number of visitors to the Enoch Pratt Free Library increased by 20 percent in a six-month period, prompting library officials to suggest that the Internet is helping boost usage at an institution known for its printed word and paper collections. "It's been a steady increase, across the boards," said Carla D. Hayden, the library's chief executive. "People are using our Web site to find the treasures we have in here. New digital technologies have opened up the collections to so many more people."

January is National Mailorder Gardening Month, and the mailboxes of gardeners will soon be stuffed with tomatoes and melons, peas and perennials. Although most of these catalogs are photographic wonders, few will have the graceful and historic beauty of the catalog the D. Landreth Seed Co. has produced to celebrate 225 years of teaching people how to garden. "Starting in the 1840s, the Landreths educated Americans about gardening - and about more than gardening," said owner Barbara Melera.

J anuary is National Mailorder Gardening Month, and the mailboxes of gardeners will soon be stuffed with tomatoes and melons, peas and perennials. Although most of these catalogs are photographic wonders, few will have the graceful and historic beauty of the catalog the D. Landreth Seed Co. has produced to celebrate 225 years of teaching people how to garden. "Starting in the 1840s, the Landreths educated Americans about gardening - and about more than gardening," said owner Barbara Melera.

The Johns Hopkins Hospital and a handful of other medical centers around the country are set this week to begin collectively monitoring and tracking dangerous reactions to blood transfusions, the first piece of a nationwide "biovigilance" program that is arriving in the United States years later than in most other developed nations. The ultimate goal of the project, a collaboration between federal agencies and private medical associations, is to reduce the number of infections, allergic reactions, clerical errors and other complications related to blood transfusions.

The biodefense lab at Fort Detrick in Frederick began a thorough search of its freezers yesterday to ensure that it has an accurate inventory of the deadly bacteria, viruses and toxins accumulated there over a period of 40 years, Defense Department officials said. Col. John P. Skvorak, commander of the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases, ordered a "stand-down," or pause in ordinary operations, and a complete inventory last week after 20 vials of "biological select agents and toxin" (BSAT)

After fighting with record labels over its everything-for-99-cents stance, Apple said yesterday that it would start offering different songs at different prices. Apple is the No. 1 music seller in the nation, so the fact that finally it is doing what capitalists everywhere always have done - charge more for, say, a hot new Lil Wayne track and less for an old tune by Yanni - is sure to ripple through the music industry and could give consumers more reasons to buy digital downloads. In the new iTunes pricing system, songs will cost either 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29 each.

When distinguished Baltimore artist and museum board member Amalie Rothschild died in 2001, at the age of 85, she left behind more than 1,200 paintings, sculptures and drawings in her Pikesville studio. Soon after her death, the artist's daughter and namesake, filmmaker-photographer Amalie Rothschild, decided to honor her mother's achievement with a coffee-table book documenting her best work, to be published later this year. Rothschild moved the contents of the Pikesville studio to a storage facility and began compiling a detailed list of titles and dates.

Listening to presidents reporting on the State of the Union, you would conclude that they came from Lake Wobegon, since every one of them, by his account, is well above average. Just once, I'd like to hear one say what would be true of many: "Because of my mistakes, the state of the union has gotten worse." The striking thing about President Bush's final State of the Union address is that even the successes he claims are largely fictional. Judged by his own criteria, the speech was a catalog of failure in almost every realm.