Tapestry

The Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie thinks of Baltimore as "an old woman who's resigned and not very happy, who used to be very beautiful and is aware she no longer is very beautiful and is not very happy about it." Adichie lived here on University Parkway for about a year while she worked on getting her master's degree in creative writing from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. She'll be back in the area tonight, reading from her much-acclaimed debut novel Purple Hibiscus at Barnes & Noble, at the Avenue at White Marsh.

City Room, by Arthur Gelb. Putnam. 672 pages. $29.95. The recent upheaval at The New York Times stemming from a reporter's elaborate fabrications shocked the journalistic community everywhere. After all, such things weren't supposed to happen to the good gray lady long regarded as the queen of American newspapers. The scandal evoked a torrent of questions about the Times' policies and whether its golden reputation was overblown. Arthur Gelb, who started out as a copyboy and worked his way up to managing editor over a 45-year span, gives a generally glowing review of the paper's achievements while taking us on a revealing and captivating walk through the City Room.

William Morris, a leader of the 19th-century arts & crafts movement in England, was a polymath who created designs for textiles, wrote poetry and published magnificently crafted, illustrated books. During his lifetime, he was something of a contradiction: a well-born aristocrat who championed socialism, a Renaissance man of the industrial era and an unapologetic romantic who drew much of his inspiration from the Gothic art of the Middle Ages. Now Morris' wide-ranging interests are highlighted in a small but delightful show of his designs for fabrics, wallpaper and tapestries at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The show includes many beautiful examples of Morris' elegant woven woolens, block-printed cotton fabrics and floral designs inspired by Near Eastern and Asian art. As an interior designer, Morris aimed to create total environments that would surround a home's inhabitants with beauty.

To most in America, the Africa that exists beyond the game parks and tourist attractions is a continent mired in poverty and famine, rife with disease and despair, resistant to persistent efforts to raise it out of its terrible state. Even many who take pride in tracing their heritage to its soil can do little but blame those who have oppressed and exploited Africa for its seemingly never-ending travails. There is no doubt that these problems exist. In some parts of Africa, merely surviving is a daily challenge.

In Mount Vernon, Greek Orthodox senior citizens dye nearly 1,000 eggs a brilliant red as a reminder of the blood shed during Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. Polish families mob Ostrowski's Famous Sausage in Fells Point for the kielbasa to break their Lenten fast. Several African-American churches move out of their sanctuaries and rent the city's largest venues for Easter morning extravaganzas. And many choirs face their busiest time of the year, nursing sore vocal cords as they soldier through Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" and other seasonal pieces they'll sing during four services in four days.

Attention, New Agers and others seeking spiritual sustenance through music: Tapestry, a Boston-based vocal ensemble of three women, will perform at St. John's College's McDowell Hall at 7 p.m. Sunday. This group's spiritual programming draws from a variety of sources. Its concerts abound with music of the medieval period, Eastern European folk songs and religious chants, Hebrew prayers, and contemporary fare. The group's recent compact disc, "The Fourth River: The Millennium Revealed" (Telarc 80534)

Stained and tattered, the letters came from young women from as far away as China. They touched on suffrage, Prohibition, world wars and world travels.Stuffed in a worn black binder and discovered in a cardboard box in Des Moines, the letters are part of a chain of correspondence spanning almost five decades. They provide snapshots of the lives of Goucher College's Class of 1903 and a compelling glimpse of history.The letters were written because the Class of '03 did one thing most people only promise to do: They kept in touch.

Nothing symbolizes the humanitarian efforts of Baltimore's newest nonprofit organization, Lutheran World Relief, more vividly than the hundreds of thousands of quilts it delivers each year to communities in need around the world.Made by members of 18,000 Lutheran congregations, often at old-fashioned quilting bees, the bedspreads provide warmth for victims of wars or natural disasters in areas such as Kosovo, East Timor and earthquake-stricken Turkey. Beyond that, their handcrafted quality sends a message to recipients that someone, somewhere, cares about them.

Towson University's Maryland Arts Festival has found riches in "Rags." The 1986 musical was one of Broadway's bigger flops. Its speedy demise was all the more surprising considering the credentials of its creators -- librettist Joseph Stein ("Fiddler on the Roof"), composer Charles Strouse ("Annie") and lyricist Stephen Schwartz ("Godspell"). At the Maryland Arts Festival, however, this moving, highly melodic, large-scale musical is the jewel of a three-show summer season that, in its entirety, is one of the strongest this festival has ever produced.

Abdoulaye Kasse sits hunched at his giant loom, his fingers flying across and through the strings as he weaves colorful wool strands into a tapestry.The 48-year-old Senegalese master weaver and tapestry maker has brought his 300-pound handmade loom from his west African homeland to Columbia's African Art Museum of Maryland, which is exhibiting 21 of his medium-size tapestries until March 8.This is Kasse's first visit to the United States and the first time...