Eccentric

Soon after Crabby Dick's opened on South Broadway in 2000, co-owner John Buchheit started catching one of the best compliments a restaurateur ever gets. "I would sit on the bench out front and hear people say, `Oh yeah, Crabby Dick's -- they been there forever,'" Buchheit said. "That's what you want to hear." In a couple of years, Buchheit and business partner Dale Slotter built a Fells Point tourist staple. And when the restaurant closes Sunday, they'll be leaving Baltimore the best possible way -- on top. "We're closing on a high note," Buchheit said.

Eccentric California (Bradt/Globe Pequot Press; $19.95) Of course, many non-Californians consider California an eccentric place to begin with. And, in truth, eccentricity here is not the same as eccentricity in, say, Utah. The state is known for its cutting-edge social conventions, and, admittedly, many firsts originated in the Golden State (from motels to skateboards and drive-in churches). Clearly, author Jan Friedman has her work cut out for her, but she seems up to the challenge, discussing festivals and events, peculiar pursuits, museums and collections, "quirkyvilles" (towns with a twist)

Agood children's movie isn't afraid to be a little wistful. You can have your dog-run-riot-in-the-supermarket scene, your kiddie name-calling. But add a tinge of sadness and regret and you're on to something. Because of Winn-Dixie gets that. Kate DiCamillo's award-winning novel about a girl and the dog she found at a supermarket has been charmingly adapted by the folks who produced Holes, which is the new yardstick against which smart kids' entertainment is judged. Winn-Dixie is occasionally laugh-out-loud funny.

Poles Apart: Why Penguins and Polar Bears Will Never Be Neighbors By Elaine Scott. Viking, $17.99. Ages 9-14 years. One might expect the histories of exploration and of animal populations here, but what Elaine Scott does so well is convey the basic differences between the Arctic and the Antarctic themselves. Why is the Arctic not a continent, when Antarctica is? Because the Arctic "is a frozen sea, surrounded by the frozen edges of many different lands. ... Antarctica ... is a continent -- a mass of land surrounded by icy seas."

Howard Hughes was rich. Howard Hughes was weird. That may be as much as most Americans know about Hughes, who entered adult life as one of the richest men in America and died in 1976 an emaciated recluse. But there was far more to the man than that. Hughes was an American original - brash, phobic, visionary, flawed, pioneering, obsessive, charismatic, womanizing. Having inherited millions thanks to a drill bit invented by his father, he spent huge chunks of money on his passions: flying and making movies.

There are at least two Nicolas Cage personae. One is the wildly eccentric, Oscar-winning character of Leaving Las Vegas, as well as similar loose cannons in Adaptation, Raising Arizona and Wild at Heart. The other is the action hero of The Rock, Con Air and Gone in 60 Seconds. National Treasure, which opened Friday, combines both of them. Cage plays an eccentric, scholarly treasure hunter who seeks riches possibly buried by our Founding Fathers, who wanted to prevent the booty from falling into British hands.

I've never met a school lunch I liked. Anything consumed at a school, at midday, is hardly my idea of a lunch. I was reminded of this earlier this week, on a cheery visit to my old friend Eleanor Beers, the mother of Bill, a Loyola High School classmate of mine. She is an accomplished cook and entertainer. Bill and I ate lunch together for four years. His lunch bag, prepared by Eleanor, was a four-course treat: sandwich, homemade cake, home-packed bag of potato chips and a piece of fruit.

The Magrath sisters are having a bad day - "a real bad day," as youngest sister Babe would put it. But a bad day for the three siblings at the center of Crimes of the Heart is a good day for theatergoers at Totem Pole Playhouse in Fayetteville, Pa., where Beth Henley's 1981 Pulitzer Prize-winning play is receiving a luminous production. Bad days are nothing new to the three Magrath girls. Their mother had one years ago and hanged herself - along with the family cat. Now it's the 30th birthday of the eldest sister, Lenny; her prized horse has been killed by lightning, and Babe is about to be released on bail after shooting her abusive husband in the stomach.

When I called the box office at the Metropolitan Opera to buy a seat for a particular performance of Der Rosenkavalier in 1990, the ticket agent responded, "I must point out to you that Luciano Pavarotti will not be in the cast that day." Back then, when he still had lots of voice and ease of mobility, Pavarotti would occasionally don a costume for this Richard Strauss opera and send audiences into a tizzy singing the brief, soaring aria in the one-scene role of the Italian Singer. I hope I didn't sound too condescending when I replied, "I couldn't care less about Pavarotti.

You know them when you see them, or remember them beyond all others - the particularly eccentric ones who wore festive plumage, or whose wardrobes consisted mainly of Orioles give-aways, the ones who gained a special place in Baltimore's baseball memory by standing out from the crowd, raining love from the rooftops, leading a charge with a bugle or barking like a dog. We do not have records on all of them, and you will not find their names in old programs...