Places To Go,  Book Look,  Movie & Videos,  The Arts,

Calendar, Games,  Crossword

Book Reviews Elsewhere  (fresh daily from the Web)

 Movie Reviews Elsewhere  (fresh daily from the Web)

Places To Go

4th ‘Owl Prowl’

[OCT. 4, 2002]  The Illinois Raptor Center invites visitors for an evening educational tour of the center’s property with owls displayed in their appropriate habitat. The tour will end in the Sangamon River floodplain, where participants may hear wild barred and great horned owls.

4th annual Owl Prowl fund-raiser

Date:  Friday, Oct. 25, and Saturday, Oct. 26

Time and place:  6:30 p.m. at the Illinois Raptor Center, 5695 W. Hill Road, Decatur

Cost:  $15 per adult; children half price (includes prowl and refreshments)

Prowl rain or shine. Bring a flashlight and dress appropriately.

Call (217) 963-6909 to make a reservation or send an e-mail to barnowl@illinoisraptorcenter.org.

This year the Illinois Raptor Center is also offering private owl prowls for organizations and businesses Oct. 21-24. To book a private prowl, call (217) 963-6909 by phone or TTY or e-mail the center.

[News release]

Lee Gurga leading haiku lecture and workshop

[SEPT. 21, 2002]  Lee Gurga will present a haiku lecture and workshop at the Japan House, 2000 S. Lincoln Ave. in Urbana, on Wednesday, Oct. 9, from 7 to 9 p.m.

Dr. Gurga, a Lincoln dentist, is past president of the Haiku Society of America and editor of the journal entitled Modern Haiku. In 1998 the Illinois Arts Council awarded him a poetry fellowship for his work in haiku. Two of his books have won first prize in the Haiku Society of America’s annual book awards.

Workshop participants will be given a brief introduction to the art of Japanese haiku. Participants will also have a chance to write their own haiku and share insights with others. Haiku is a social art as well as a literary art, and sharing is an important part of the haiku tradition. This sharing allows both the writer and the listener to grow.

The registration deadline is Oct. 4. For more information call Japan House at (217) 244-9934.

[News release]

‘Workshop: Methods of Work’

[OCT. 3, 2002]  ^"Workshop: Methods Of Work." Jim Richey, editor and illustrator, Taunton Press, 2000, 234 pages.

"At my house my shop is my sanctuary, my little kingdom, the place I go to unwind and tinker," writes author and woodworking enthusiast Jim Richey. During his tenure as editor and illustrator of the "Methods of Work" column in Fine Woodworking magazine, he has assembled a wonderful collection of submissions from woodworkers across the country. The collection contains a variety of topics pertaining to home shop strategies, including how to set up a shop, workbenches and sawhorses, tools, measuring devices, and other components found in a woodworker’s shop.

Proper setup of a shop is the key to efficient use of its space, tools and materials. Richey includes instructions on installing or making your own space-saving devices, including shop organizers, lumber storage systems, hardware storage racks and eye-protection cleaning stations. One of the more interesting projects is the construction of a shop moisture gauge built from wood.

These interactive devices play a pivotal role in any project. Workbenches and sawhorses provide safe work surfaces necessary for working with wood; vises are used to secure materials in place while you work on them. Depending on their purpose, vises can come in many different types and include bench, universal, horizontal and portable. The same is true for workbenches — such as for sawing and assembly, rolling two-level and outdoor. Although basic sawhorses are a staple of any shop, the frame and foot sawhorse is useful for supporting cabinets or laying cuts in long boards.

After setting up a shop the first projects to consider are shop-made hand tools and fixtures. Richey includes instructions for making a wooden mallet, hammer shield and triangular scraper. For the more ambitious woodworker there are plans to build devices for dovetails — pin markers, two modified dovetail saws and dovetailing chisel.

Any woodworker will tell you that tools are only as good as the condition in which they are kept. Richey offers several methods and devices for keeping tools in optimum condition. Grinding wheels, honing tools and sharpening stones are just some of the things used for tool maintenance. For those who have damaged the hardness in carbon-steel-edge tools while sharpening, Richey has a simple three-step process that will reharden the edge and increase the tool’s performance.

Power tools are a common fixture in a shop; they can also be expensive. It is important to properly maintain them and maximize their use through the right tool fixture. Power tool fixtures that should be a part of any shop include stop blocks, circular saw templates and drilling jigs. One tip that will be beneficial to electric drill users — use a masking tape flag around the bit stem for a depth stop.

[to top of second column in this review]

Precision measuring is the secret to achieving perfection when working with wood. There are many tools that aid the woodworker in perfecting the fine detail required in many projects. These devices vary depending on whether the project calls for straight lines, curves or both. Among the most useful are the preset mortise gauge (for chairs), overhang marking gauge, guide for drawing parallel lines and ellipse drawing aid. Richey reminds us to always keep an open mind about tools that may be helpful in the workshop — he includes a cloth dressmaker’s tape (used to measure curved items when a metal tape is impractical).

The remaining chapters discuss some of the tricks of the trade employed when using sandpaper, glues and clamps. Sandpaper can be manipulated into many useful functions: curved or flat sanding blocks, two-faced slabs, and hand or belt sanders. To incorporate glue into your projects you need some kind of injector system, mixing bowls and pot heaters for mixing. If you add too much glue to a clamped joint, don’t worry — simply scoop up the excess glue with a piece of paper and rub some sawdust on it. The sawdust will create little balls of glue that remove all traces.

Anyone who enjoys working in their shop or is contemplating building a shop at home should become familiar with Jim Richey’s "Workshop: Methods of Work." These tips are the culmination of 25 years of experience in the woodworking field from people all across America. Richey writes, "Every once in a while we have a clever idea, a solution to a long-standing shop problem that makes us smile … it’s these clever ideas that this book is about." This book is recommended for anyone who has enjoys the art of woodworking or is considering adding an at-home workshop.

[Richard Sumrall, Lincoln Public Library District]

Mid-Illinois Book Center offers online book club

[SEPT. 24, 2002]  So many good books, so little time. The Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center has been offering free audio book selections to members and is now launching a new free service: an online book club that delivers books electronically.

If you like audio books, you can listen to them in your e-mail by signing up for the audio book club. This is a great way to discover great books if you are too busy to visit the library or cannot visit the library because of a disability.

 Each day, Monday through Friday, the library e-mails subscribers a book portion that takes about five minutes to read, and subscribers can read three chapters during a week.

Each week the club features new books, and with seven book clubs to choose from, there is something for everyone. Patrons can read fiction, nonfiction, romance, business, good news and teen books. Soon there will be a mystery book club.

The Talking Books online book club is delivered to you through a service provided by http://www.chapteraday.com.

Chapter-A-Day founder and CEO Suzanne Beecher said, "It’s an honor to welcome Talking Books to our e-mail online book clubs. Talking Books helped me through a difficult time in my life. I have an eye disorder, and for a while I walked with a red and white cane and spent many afternoons on a sofa in my sunroom listening to Talking Books. They were my lifeline to a better quality of life for me at the time."

[to top of second column in this article]

Readers can sign up for the service at http://www.chapteraday.com/library/mitbc/.

 For more information on the program or for an application, call 1 (800) 426-0709 or 1 (800) 537-1274 toll-free. 

The Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center provides free library service including books and magazines on tape and playback equipment to individuals unable to read regular print because of a visual or physical disability.

The Talking Book Center is funded by the Illinois State Library, a division of the Office of Secretary of State.

[News release]

• Lincoln Community Theatre

• Logan County Arts Association

LCHS fall play ‘The Curious
Savage’ opens Friday

[OCT. 8, 2002]  The LCHS fall play, "The Curious Savage" by John Patrick, will be presented at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and at 3 p.m. on Sunday in the auditorium at Lincoln Community High School.

The cast includes Betsy Buttell as Mrs. Ethel Savage, a "mature" widow whose stepchildren — Sen. Titus Savage, played by Stanton Schumacher; Lily Belle Savage, Amanda Perry; and Judge Samuel Savage, Tim Fak — decide to have their mother committed because she is spending what they consider to be their multimillion-dollar inheritance. Not only has she decided to finance her own play, but she also tries to "send a ship full of orphans on a cruise around the world... while there’s still a world to go around." Her goal is to provide people with enough money to indulge their own foolish fantasies.

When she arrives at "The Cloisters," the home where she will be evaluated by Dr. Emmet, Brian Welter, and looked after by Miss Willie, Amanda Shelley, Mrs. Savage encounters a "perfectly normal" group of "residents." Led by the "statistically inclined" Hannibal, Ty Sank, the group waits with concern to meet the new resident. Fairy May, Lindsey Boerma, worries that Mrs. Savage will be a beauty, challenging her position as the prettiest. The elegant and. lovely Florence, Allison Kessinger, takes the change in stride as she focuses on her son, John Thomas. Jeffrey, Doug Rohrer, tries to hide his "hideously scarred face" from Mrs. Savage, and Mr. Paddy, Brandon Davis, who "hates everything in the world," throws in his own touch of escapism by turning off the lights at every opportunity.

[to top of second column in this article]

As the plot unfolds, the Savage stepchildren prove they will stop at nothing to regain control of their estate. More importantly, the "Savages" prove that residency in a "home" should not be taken as the only proof that one is unbalanced. Even though Mrs. Savage must accept the fact that the gentle residents of The Cloisters have indeed lost touch with some of the harsh realities of the world, she realizes that their company is infinitely more desirable than that found in the jungle of her Savage stepchildren.

The play is directed by Carolyn Schreiber with the assistance of student directors Tom Swanson and Bo Wright.

[LCHS press release]

Movie classics

Logan County Arts Association upcoming films

All upcoming monthly features in the Logan County Arts Association series of classic films will start at 7 p.m. at the Lincoln Cinemas, 215 S. Kickapoo.

Thursday, Oct. 10

Horror/sci-fi double feature

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1931)

Frederic March, Miriam Hopkins

Based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson. Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that there are two distinct sides to men: a good and an evil side. He faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run wild with a potion that changes him into the animalistic Mr. Hyde.

[to top of second column in this section]

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951)

Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe

An alien (Klaatu) with his mighty robot (Gort) lands their spacecraft on cold-war Earth just after the end of World War II. He tells the people of Earth that we must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets.

Tickets will be available at Serendipity Stitches, 129 S. Kickapoo; the Lincoln Public Library Annex; at the door; or by calling (217) 732-4298. Ticket prices are $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $2.50 for children 13 and under. These features are one show only, with limited seating.

[Logan County Arts Association ]

Lincoln Community Theatre’s box office, phone 735-2614,  is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday for the summer season. The office is located in the lobby of the Johnston Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Lincoln College.

Performances of "Dearly Departed" are scheduled for July 12-20, and "The King and I" will be presented Aug. 2-10. Show times are 2 p.m. on Sundays and 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

The LCT mailing address is Lincoln Community Theatre, P.O. Box 374, Lincoln, IL  62656; e-mail: lincolncommunitytheatre@yahoo.com.

Visit the LDC website at www.geocities.com/lincolncommunitytheatre/index.html. Pictures from past productions are included.

Back to top