Urban Discoveries Baltimore

For those Baltimoreans not tied up this week with Ramadan or Rosh Hashanah, there are a few nerdily specific things going on. Not many, but all of quality. Happy ritual self-purification, everybody else.

1. The Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper presents the easily misinterpreted Trash Bash ’09 at Nick’s Fish House {www.nicksfishhouse.com} in the Inner Harbor (2600 Insulator Drive). The annual fundraiser helps support the Waterkeepers’ efforts to restore and maintain the Baltimore Harbor and the Patapsco River. The Bash will take place from 2:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.  on Saturday the 19th and will feature live music from Can’t Hang, S.T.O.R.M., and Derek Sholl, in that order. Predictably, there will also be loads of food, drink, and eco-amorous vendors. A ticket will run you $25.

2. Local labor of love Smartish Pace is sponsoring a poetry reading at the Walters Art Musuem in Mt. Vernon (600 N. Charles Street) on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. This won’t be just any blithely patched-together open mic hour of lineated prose heavy on flow and light on grammar, though God bless if you if you’re into that. Phillis Levin and Elizabeth Spires will read, and if you ask nicely, they’ll even sign a book for you. To be clear, I know some of the folks behind Smartish Pace, but regardless the reading is free and will be worth every penny.

3. The World Stem Cell Summit will take place September 21 – 23 at the Baltimore Convention Center in the Inner Harbor (1 W. Pratt Street). Researchers, educators, policy makers, fans (plausible, right?), and anyone else even peripherally affiliated with the study or use of stem cells will be there. Governor O’Malley will get an award, which should look pretty sweet on the mantle, next to the bodhrán. Registration is pricey; even the student rate ($395) is basically prohibitive. But it’s worth just knowing that these folks are coming to Baltimore to discuss work of such medical and historical significance. Thanks, Hopkins, for existing. Again.

What will you be doing this week other than fasting?

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