Louisiana Philharmonic Scattered to the Four Winds by Hurricane Katrina. Sprung from the remains of the bankrupt New Orleans Symphony, it is the only full-time symphony in America owned and operated by its members. They were to open their 2005-06 season last night. The Nashville Symphony has arranged for the LPO musicians to reunite in Tennessee for a benefit concert on October 4. Offers of possible employment, housing, and concert attire have been posted to Adaptistration.

We received our first Christmas catalog in the mail on Wednesday. That’s September 15th. How did they know I hadn’t finished my holiday shopping yet?

David Bowie returned to the concert stage last week after taking a year off to recover from his emergency heart surgery. His comeback show at Fashion Rocks included a song with Montreal band Arcade Fire (who swing out to the west coast tomorrow). He made a surprise (though hinted at on BowieNet) appearance at their Central Park concert last night. It’s a little surreal to remember that I was pregnant when I last saw him live at his Seattle tour stop in 2004.

I’ve decided that “experiments with gravity” would be an excellent phrase to print on a baby onesie and toddler t-shirt. (It would also be a good name for a band.)

When I recently posted that Patti Lupone will be starring on Broadway in Sweeney Todd, I neglected to unearth that the production is a John Doyle creation complete with his trademark of casting actor-musicians (dreamed up originally to save money on hiring an orchestra). Lupone, who played sousaphone in her high school marching band, will be hoisting a tuba onstage. Michael Cerveris in the title role will put down his straight razor (we hope) to sing along with his own guitar accompaniment. And the musicians’ and actors’ unions have agreed on a compensation plan for this overlap arrangement.

When I read “The Outsiders” as a teenager I somehow knew that author S. E. Hinton was a woman, in fact I knew her first name as “Sue”. Perhaps it was on the jacket of that or one of her other books (“Rumble Fish” or “Tex”) or maybe it was in a study guide, though I didn’t read her books for school. I didn’t know that she was somewhat of a mystery as she kept a very private life, nor did I know that she published “The Outsiders” when she was 17 (!!). Now in her 50s and still residing in Tulsa, Hinton consented to speak with the NY Times, prompted by the release of a recut version of Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders” on DVD. She reveals an unpleasant childhood and, not a surprise, a high school where Greasers (from the working class) clashed with the Socs (Tulsa’s oil rich). Her latest novels are for adults and have a touch of the paranormal. Happily married, with a son in college, Hinton says “my goal from being a child was to have a happy home life.”

If you have never heard of Kepler’s Bookstore in Menlo Park, California, you won’t feel the full weight of my next sentence.

Kepler’s went out of business on August 31st.

To give you some sense of this loss, it may help to note that the New York Times, a newspaper of some repute on the other side of the country with much more critical human losses to report last week, took notice and published a full article. In it Stewart Brand calls Kepler’s “a pillar of local civilization.”

A letter from Clark Kepler, also posted on their website, announced the sad news to visitors to the store.

“After 50 years of bookselling in Menlo Park, Kepler’s is going out of business. The decision to close our doors has been one of the most difficult in my life. As much as we love what we do and would like to continue another 50 years, we simply cannot. The economic downturn since 2001 has proven to be more than we can rebound from.”

Community efforts are underway to see if the store can be saved: www.savekeplers.com. On the website you’ll see photos of the messages scrawled on scraps of paper and posters taped to the store, flowers left at the locked doors. And of course there are links to numerous newspaper articles lamenting the closing. The mayor of Menlo Park has spoken up and apparently the city has been involved for a few months in negotiations between Kepler and building owner, the Tan group.

I could write a page or two on what Kepler’s meant to me…the fact that it had an actual separate section for Cognitive Science books, that every Christmas I would go to find interesting cookbooks for gifts, that there wasn’t a shelf I found boring, that every time we saw more books shelved facing out (meaning less inventory to store spine out) I worried the end was near. The fact remains that I sometimes shopped online because it was more convenient and at used bookstores because I love that browsing experience (and I’m a cheapskate). But I did not want Kepler’s to go away.

I decided to dig a little deeper into what happens to the butter sculptures created of the dairy princesses of the Minnesota State Fair. The NY Times reported on the Buttery Glory of “Princess Kay of the Milky Way” whose likeness was carved in a 90-pound block of butter (Grade A, salted) while she posed for the artist in a specially constructed observation fridge kept at 38 degrees F. Each princess in the dairy court is accorded the same honor. After the fair they get to keep their butter replica. Some are put to good use, others languish in freezer chests for years. Two are being saved for weddings and two have been used for weddings (for display and consumption). Baking is a popular use, not surprisingly. They’ve also been used for pancake feeds and corn roasts. One had its nose bitten off by a dog. But many remain in freezers as special keepsakes.

Unwanted side effect of using first initial + last name in your phone directory listing: if someone with the same first initial + last name is an offending debtor, collection agencies will call. Often.

The oddest product I’ve seen in weeks: MycoSpored Oils are chain-saw lubricants that infuse mushroom spores into the cut surface of stumps. Three varieties are available: Pearl Oyster and Shiitake for decidious woodlands, Conifer Tuft for conifer woodlands. (via the hungry tiger)