Unicorn

The Lady and the Unicorn, by Tracy Chevalier. Dutton. 248 pages. $23.95 In the National Museum of the Middle Ages, better known as the Cluny Museum, in Paris, one room is devoted to six enormous tapestries. Each depicts a richly robed noblewoman and a white unicorn, on a colorful background of animals, trees and flowers -- a millefleurs background, literally, "a thousand flowers." The tapestries are so beautiful, and so strangely mesmerizing, they inspire a kind of awe: How could human hands have done this?

See that above? On the right, you have the present-day girls' Big Bird costume. On the left? That's me in the 1982 version of the girls' Big Bird costume. Wait, my bad. Back then, it was just a Big Bird costume, no gender roles necessary. I mean, I know this has been going for ages, and that Halloween has turned into a way for people (grownups, one hopes) to let out their sexpot side for a day. (Check out this illustration of how costumes evolve from unicorn to sexy unicorn, nurse to sexy nurse, bee to sexy bee.)

London. -- The last unicorn to survive without human care in the wild was slaughtered in 1972 by a motorized hunting party in the Omani desert.But the species (Oryx leucoryx) has been rescued by nature reserves and zoos in Europe and North America breeding the creature in captivity. And the first full wild herd of what must be one of the earth's rarest mammals has now been re-established in Oman under the care of a nomadic tribe.Operation Oryx is an outstanding success story of the global nature-conservation movement.

It seems as though dreams really do come true as the 'Glee' gods grant my wish of having Idina Menzel, aka Rachel's mom, Shelby, return as a guest star in season three. Even better? A Rachel and Shelby duet, of course! The dynamic duo sang "Somewhere There's A Place for Us" from West Side Story , which is also the school play this year. Their performance was nice, but it sort of lacked the awesomeness of their slo-mo version of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" in season one. But even their mediocre is better than most people's best.

INTERESTED IN unicorns? You'll want to see the whimsical collection of Amber Knabe on display at the Linthicum Library through August. A glass globe with a unicorn in it and almost 30 figurines are included.Amber, 11, said she started her collection when she received a unicorn statuette as a gift about seven years ago. Wherever she went, she looked for more.Most of her unicorns are on display at the library, except for one that has a broken horn. The horn is most delicate, said Amber."I have teeny, tiny ones that break real easily to a 7-inch-tall brass one a friend gave me. That one needs polishing," she said.

"Wish on a Unicorn" by Baltimore native Karen Hesse isn't about fantasy or sorcery, but it is one of the most magical books published in the last few years.Rarely are readers in the 8-10 age range offered stories that plug into as many emotions as "Unicorn" does. Its honesty will entrance fourth-graders who think they are too busy to bother with stories anymore. Plus, the vocabulary isn't daunting, and the length (108 pages) is inviting."Wish on a Unicorn" (Henry Holt and Co., $13.95, ages 8 and up)

TRAPPE -- Where to go for a five-volume set of Charle Dickens' "Pickwick Papers," printed on vellum and hand-illuminated in bright inks and gold leaf like medieval manuscripts?Or how about a page from a 15th-century Psalter, a 1644 Dutcedition of Capt. John Smith's 1612 map of Chesapeake Bay or even acollectible first edition of a Tom Clancy or Stephen King thriller?Why, to the sign of the mystical Unicorn, of course. You'll find it in Trappe, a dot on the highway between Easton and Cambridge whereroaring traffic along U.S. 50 hammers the senses day and night.

Under their own power. That didn't seem possible when the five teenage girls stepped aboard Unicorn in Atlantic City, N.J., just five days earlier or when they stood their first nighttime watch or when they wrapped their hands around the smooth, wooden wheel of the 118-foot schooner. It certainly seemed beyond the horizon when they took their first tentative climbs into the rigging more than nine stories above the deck. But there they were Friday - alongside veteran officers and deckhands, raising and trimming the sails, responding to commands from the helm and bringing the tall ship into the Inner Harbor - under their own power.

"The Hunt for the Unicorn Killer" is a heckuva story that kept me pinned to the couch beginning to end.But, I warn you, it's docudrama, which means we don't know when and where truth is stretched to be more prime-time entertaining. And this is the kind of story in which what you believe to be true can have profound cultural implications.With "Unicorn," NBC takes us back to the 1960s. Before you run screaming from the TV set at the memory of "The Sixties," the miniseries that turned a cultural revolution into idiot psycho-babble and melodramatic mush, you need to know "Unicorn" does a much better job with the decade.

UNICORN -- A Baltimore County trash company has applied to operate a rubble fill in a 58-acre soybean field here, uphill from the only warm-water fish hatchery on the Eastern Shore and across the street from an old county landfill.Residents of this dot on the map on the way to Delaware are furious, fearing irreparable damage to Unicorn Lake from contamination,and from huge trucks roaring down narrow roads spilling trash and causing property values to plummet."There's going to be noise, dirt, tractor-trailers going by. It's going to stink and everything," said Allen Boyles, who lives a few yards from the proposed rubble fill.

Under their own power. That didn't seem possible when the five teenage girls stepped aboard Unicorn in Atlantic City, N.J., just five days earlier or when they stood their first nighttime watch or when they wrapped their hands around the smooth, wooden wheel of the 118-foot schooner. It certainly seemed beyond the horizon when they took their first tentative climbs into the rigging more than nine stories above the deck. But there they were Friday - alongside veteran officers and deckhands, raising and trimming the sails, responding to commands from the helm and bringing the tall ship into the Inner Harbor - under their own power.

MILLINGTON -- As a sheet of greenish water slipped over a dam, Steve Minkkinen squatted on the wet rocks near the bottom, wielding a power drill and a plastic tube. He was building a water slide, but not for humans. It's for American eels - a slime-slicked, pop-eyed species that boasts one of the most remarkable life cycles in the animal kingdom. Because eel populations have been dwindling in the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere, the federal government is considering endangered species protections, which would prohibit fishing for them.

WHERE IS MISS Nancy when we need her the most? You remember the star of Romper Room and her Magic Mirror. She could see Julie and Donnie and Timmy and Susie. Maybe she could have helped us last week find Ronnie and Lynn and Petey and Howie. The high-ranking boys and girls of the Department of Natural Resources were missing in action at a hearing on an emergency bill to help protect a state park and fish hatchery they oversee. Instead, it was a bunch of citizens and several environmental groups that rallied around legislation filed by state Sen. E.J. Pipkin to stop the creation of a rubble landfill next to Unicorn Fish Management Area in Queen Anne's County.

Tracy Chevalier knew she had a good story brewing as soon as she read the magazine article about a set of six mysterious medieval tapestries hanging in a Paris museum. "Alarm bells went off," the novelist recalled recently, "and I said, `Aha, there's stuff to be filled in here!' " What sort of stuff? Well, who, for instance, was the elegant woman in each of the elaborate tapestries, which are known as The Lady and the Unicorn? Who designed them? Who wanted them enough to pay a fortune for them?

The Lady and the Unicorn, by Tracy Chevalier. Dutton. 248 pages. $23.95 In the National Museum of the Middle Ages, better known as the Cluny Museum, in Paris, one room is devoted to six enormous tapestries. Each depicts a richly robed noblewoman and a white unicorn, on a colorful background of animals, trees and flowers -- a millefleurs background, literally, "a thousand flowers." The tapestries are so beautiful, and so strangely mesmerizing, they inspire a kind of awe: How could human hands have done this?

Artistry in quilts Mary Simon designed some of the most sophisticated, beautiful and intricate quilts ever produced in this country. But apparently she made none for her own use. That's just one of the mysteries waiting to be unraveled in Appliqued Artistry, a new exhibit of album quilts at the Baltimore Museum of Art through May 9. In album quilts, each square is the equivalent of a personalized page from an autograph album. Often, each square is "signed" by the needle worker. According to exhibit curator Anita Jones, Simon, a German immigrant who moved to Baltimore in the 1840s, apparently designed, backed and sold individual squares that were completed and signed by another quilter.

Somewhere in Clement Greenberg's last book, "Homemade Aesthetics," the famous critic and champion of abstract art remarked that while the very best modern American painting of his era was certainly abstract, the next best painting was figurative and representational. Greenberg was at pains to avoid the implication that abstract art was in principle "better" than other kinds of art: It was just that in New York in the 1950s and early 1960s, the very best art happened to be abstract. That did not alter the fact that figurative painting could be very good - much better, indeed, than second-rate abstract art, which Greenberg thought was about as bad as you could get. A couple of local shows seem to bear out the idea that the era produced many artists whose works remain touching and true despite their traditional style.

The Queen Anne's County Board of Appeals has rejected a Baltimore County trash company's application to operate a rubble fill in a 58-acre soybean field south of Millington and uphill from Unicorn Lake, the only warm-water fish hatchery on the Eastern Shore.

Somewhere in Clement Greenberg's last book, "Homemade Aesthetics," the famous critic and champion of abstract art remarked that while the very best modern American painting of his era was certainly abstract, the next best painting was figurative and representational. Greenberg was at pains to avoid the implication that abstract art was in principle "better" than other kinds of art: It was just that in New York in the 1950s and early 1960s, the very best art happened to be abstract. That did not alter the fact that figurative painting could be very good - much better, indeed, than second-rate abstract art, which Greenberg thought was about as bad as you could get. A couple of local shows seem to bear out the idea that the era produced many artists whose works remain touching and true despite their traditional style.

The Queen Anne's County Board of Appeals has rejected a Baltimore County trash company's application to operate a rubble fill in a 58-acre soybean field south of Millington and uphill from Unicorn Lake, the only warm-water fish hatchery on the Eastern Shore.