Nameless

AT 40, I realize nobody ever accused mine of being the greatest generation - those born between the late 1950s and 1970. We were overshadowed and outnumbered by the colorful, rebellious Baby Boomers and never really had a name that defined us. But I also plainly see those terrorists of Sept. 11 tore out a chunk of my nameless generation, leaving a hole like the charred one in the Pentagon. Our uneventful ride through American history was over, and suddenly it was personal. Looking at the faces and reading the snapshot life stories of the casualties is like leafing through a midlife yearbook.

It is surely not as hard a slap in the face to Baltimore's sense of media identity as the makers of John Waters' "Hairspray" filming the movie version in Toronto. But now comes official word from the producers of MTV's "Skins" that this American version of the Brit teen hit won't be filmed in Baltimore — nor will it even be set here. It will be filmed in Toronto instead — and set in a "general eastern seaboard" city, according to Bryan Elsley, the co-creator and executive producer of both the BBC series and its American spinoff, which debuts early next year.

The alternative high school that opens today in Crownsville will remain nameless until later this year, after students and faculty members make recommendations.County school officials said that after a spate of complaints, some from local members of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution and prominent families, they decided against using the temporary name they had chosen this month.Board members and school officials had agreed on the name Arundel Academy for the high school for disruptive students.

How old is too old when it comes to a computer? I have a 9-year-old son and a computer that was given to us by a family member. The computer is about five years old. The only thing it showed on the front was 52X max. There is no brand name. It has a CD drive and a slot for the smaller disks. Is this one even worth keeping or trying to upgrade? - Stephanie Duran In general, a computer is too old when it won't do the jobs you need done. Almost any computer of that age can be used for letters or e-mail.

The way Peter Bergstrom sees it, names mean a lot, whether they're labels for people, places or things. That's why he has undertaken a mission to name Anne Arundel creeks, coves, streams and lakes that for years have gone nameless, been misidentified on maps or are known by two names. "We tend to care more about things that have names," said Bergstrom, a biologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Annapolis. Bergstrom and the Severn River Association are seeking a $6,000 grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust to carry out the naming project.

EPITAPHS.Bill Pronzini.Delacorte.232 pages. $19.After nearly 20 novels and numerous short stories, little is known about the San Francisco private investigator called Nameless. The few details are that he is nearly 60, dark-haired, and of Italian descent.In "Epitaphs," Pierto Lombardi, a friend of Nameless, asks a favor. He wants Nameless to investigate his granddaughter, Gianna, who is charged with stealing money from her landlord.When Nameless begins looking into the matter, the charges are dropped by a terrified landlord, who had been beaten -- and Gianna cannot be found.

Title: "The Crocodile Bird"Author: Ruth RendellPublisher: CrownLength, price: 361 pages, $20 English suspense writer Ruth Rendell has created a memorably mysterious setting for her new novel. Shrove House, a remote stone mansion miles from any neighbors, is the only world 16-year-old Liza Beck has ever known. She and her mother, Eva, live in the gatekeeper's cottage, looking after the property, which stands empty most of the year.In this isolated milieu, Eva has given her daughter a classical education -- Liza understands Latin and French, and has read the great works of Shakespeare and Dickens.

Baltimore's nameless Canadian Football League team was to make what may amount to a last stand for its chosen name today in a Chicago courtroom.Attorneys for the franchise were to try to persuade a panel of U.S. Court of Appeals judges to throw out a court order issued last month by an Indianapolis federal judge.The injunction, sought by the NFL, temporarily barred the CFL team from calling itself the Baltimore CFL Colts or any similar-sounding name likely to be confused with the NFL's Indianapolis Colts.

It is alleged to be the highest level of security ever mustered at a public gathering: bomb-sniffing dogs, 12,000 armed guards, video cameras, X-ray machines, helicopters and metal detectors. Yet someone has managed to sneak a 3-foot-tall, 40-pound, multicolored Olympic mascot out of the main Olympic media center in downtown Salt Lake City. A voice on the public address system asked for the return of the gumdrop-shaped mascot from the 1998 Nagano Winter Games "no questions asked." A spokeswoman for the Olympic museum, where the mascot was last seen, said pranksters had moved the nameless fluff ball several times, but never off site.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads-- Henry David ThoreauI don't think Henry wore a hat at Walden.It seems his head was bared to every wind,to sun and soil water bird and beast, even1/2to the woodchuck (though its undisciplinedconsumption of his beanfield bothered himat times). The laws of Concord didn't bind1/2him to a blind allegiance, nor was it whimthat led him to obey a different principlethan "thou shalt not." To skim1/2across the surface like a water-bug or lulloneself to sleep with pious platitudes wasnot to live at all. Living is the miracle1/2of choice pursued by few amid the buzzand gossip of the nameless thoughtless crowd.

Apex Hides the Hurt Colson Whitehead Doubleday / 224 pages / $22.95 We'll start with the essentials: Do not read this book. Not yet, anyway. Not unless you're already a Colson Whitehead fan - and you know who you are. If you're not, put down the newspaper and go to your neighborhood bookstore (my house remains an Amazon-free zone) and get The Intuitionist, Whitehead's first novel. The Intuitionist is possibly the only novel about rival elevator inspectors. It's also a startlingly unlikely pulp fiction debate between, yes, intuitionists and empiricists.

Set in a mythic time and place, filled with glory and daring and action aplenty, Hero is a grand and exhilarating epic, a moviegoing experience of the first order. That its central figures are Chinese and that they speak Mandarin may keep some people away, but that's their loss. Set in pre-China China, when the seven warring states had yet to unite under a common leader, Hero glorifies a warrior who thinks equally with his head and his heart, and asks us to consider the benefits of such a balance, how rare and wonderful it is. It's also a rousing battle flick, filled with flaming arrows and martial arts mastery and swordsmen who can cut with the best of them.

While an Annapolis historian searches for the names of African-Americans buried anonymously at the Crownsville Hospital Center cemetery, she has found a state delegate who wants to help her preserve the historic site. Del. Samuel I. "Sandy" Rosenberg introduced legislation yesterday that would require -- if the psychiatric hospital is closed as expected -- that the state maintain the cemetery and mark it with a monument. It also would ban the state from selling the cemetery and land that allows access to it. "We should make sure that these people have peace in death," said Rosenberg, a Baltimore Democrat.

Well, by Matthew McIntosh. Grove Atlantic. 288 pages. $23. The press materials for 26-year- old Matthew McIntosh's debut novel Well state with great excitement that his work is "reminiscent of Denis Johnson and Raymond Carver." Right there, my antennae went up - while I'm a fan of both writers, they are utterly dissimilar except insofar as they write about disillusioned, suffering working and lower-middle-class white people. And so it is with McIntosh. He doesn't write like either of these modern masters and his promising voice is utterly his own - the similarity to Carver and Johnson lies only in the milieu.

It is alleged to be the highest level of security ever mustered at a public gathering: bomb-sniffing dogs, 12,000 armed guards, video cameras, X-ray machines, helicopters and metal detectors. Yet someone has managed to sneak a 3-foot-tall, 40-pound, multicolored Olympic mascot out of the main Olympic media center in downtown Salt Lake City. A voice on the public address system asked for the return of the gumdrop-shaped mascot from the 1998 Nagano Winter Games "no questions asked." A spokeswoman for the Olympic museum, where the mascot was last seen, said pranksters had moved the nameless fluff ball several times, but never off site.

AT 40, I realize nobody ever accused mine of being the greatest generation - those born between the late 1950s and 1970. We were overshadowed and outnumbered by the colorful, rebellious Baby Boomers and never really had a name that defined us. But I also plainly see those terrorists of Sept. 11 tore out a chunk of my nameless generation, leaving a hole like the charred one in the Pentagon. Our uneventful ride through American history was over, and suddenly it was personal. Looking at the faces and reading the snapshot life stories of the casualties is like leafing through a midlife yearbook.

Set in a mythic time and place, filled with glory and daring and action aplenty, Hero is a grand and exhilarating epic, a moviegoing experience of the first order. That its central figures are Chinese and that they speak Mandarin may keep some people away, but that's their loss. Set in pre-China China, when the seven warring states had yet to unite under a common leader, Hero glorifies a warrior who thinks equally with his head and his heart, and asks us to consider the benefits of such a balance, how rare and wonderful it is. It's also a rousing battle flick, filled with flaming arrows and martial arts mastery and swordsmen who can cut with the best of them.

While an Annapolis historian searches for the names of African-Americans buried anonymously at the Crownsville Hospital Center cemetery, she has found a state delegate who wants to help her preserve the historic site. Del. Samuel I. "Sandy" Rosenberg introduced legislation yesterday that would require -- if the psychiatric hospital is closed as expected -- that the state maintain the cemetery and mark it with a monument. It also would ban the state from selling the cemetery and land that allows access to it. "We should make sure that these people have peace in death," said Rosenberg, a Baltimore Democrat.

The way Peter Bergstrom sees it, names mean a lot, whether they're labels for people, places or things. That's why he has undertaken a mission to name Anne Arundel creeks, coves, streams and lakes that for years have gone nameless, been misidentified on maps or are known by two names. "We tend to care more about things that have names," said Bergstrom, a biologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Annapolis. Bergstrom and the Severn River Association are seeking a $6,000 grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust to carry out the naming project.

A correspondent of the New York Herald furnishes the following interesting account of the desperate battle at Gettysburg on Thursday last: The Position of the Rebels. General Reynolds, it seems more and more clear, fought rashly on Wednesday, and very probably against the wishes of the commander of the army; yet this battle, which lost us many men, gave us full information of the where-abouts of the enemy's main body, and committed the enemy to the position north of Gettysburg, or perhaps led him to believe that we had a greater force in his front than we had, and so made him fear to make any such considerable movement as would be necessary to take up a new position in presence of this army.