Until 2001, University Park had the peculiar distinction of being the nation's largest city without its own public library. Until then, residents had been able to use the Highland Park Library without charge. When that changed, an energetic group of volunteers called Friends of the University Park Public Library held book sales and other fund-raisers, allowing the new library to open in a bank building. Last year, librarian Lee Schuey, a veteran of 30 years with the Dallas Public Library, was hired. Now, according to Friends President Carol Ann Luby, the library boasts more than 50,000 books, videos, CDs and audio books. "We offer evening lecture programs in the fall and spring and have just completed a kids summer reading program," Luby says. "And our catalog is going online at www.uplibrary.org." Best of all, there is no University Park residency requirement, so all are welcome. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

With most theaters jobbing in actors (Dallas Theater Center gets 'em from New Yawk City, no less), a good old-fashioned repertory company is getting hard to find 'round these parts. Now in its second decade, the Kitchen Dog Theater's resident acting company still is composed mostly of SMU acting and directing grads (and professors) who created this theater for themselves 12 years ago (and named it after a reference in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot). In two acting spaces at McKinney Avenue Contemporary, artistic director Dan Day and his small band of gifted thespians--Tina Parker, Christopher Carlos, Tim Johnson, Bill Lengfelder--continue to create remarkably edgy and ambitious work in a nearly year-round schedule of full-length plays and cabaret shows. Always looking to shake up theatergoers' expectations, KDT has lined up a bold new season that includes Beckett's Happy Days (now playing), King Lear, George F. Walker's Heaven, the controversial prison play In the Belly of the Beast by Jack Henry Abbott and the Fifth Annual New Works Festival, including one main-stage production and seven staged readings.

For the past nine years, this writing and illustration competition has been making a difference in the lives of students at this mostly minority school in East Dallas by matching them with professionals who mentor them through a semester-long project. The mentors and young writers and artists usually meet for about an hour each week during the fall, and the work is assembled into a glossy booklet distributed at the program banquet in April. According to KWC founder Larry Estes, "Working with adult professionals helps our young writers develop skills and discipline that they just can't get from normal class work. Moreover, since many KWC participants come from homes where English is not spoken, this program gives them confidence in their abilities. Nearly 100 percent of our winners [three prizes are awarded in both the writing and illustration categories] go on to Talented and Gifted DISD schools. Since most of the mentors return year after year, it's obviously rewarding for them as well." Estes says there's always room for more mentors and those interested should give him a call.

If you had bought Theatre de Marionette season tickets for the little ones this year, you could have assured them of seeing fun, professionally done, European-style puppet performances of such kiddie classics as Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin & His Lamp, Peter Pan, and The Littlest Angel. This is not Freddie the Clown or Howdy Doody stuff. Russian puppetry artist Tina Gromova, who toured Eastern Europe and Asia with the renowned Moscow Puppet Theater, is this year's headliner. Recommended for kids 3-4 years old and up. Individual tickets are still available: $8 for adults, $7 for children.

If you're a fan of independent cinema--movies that don't suck, usually--here's the best deal in town, in the country...OK, in the world, whatever. Pay a small fee, and every other Sunday or so you can wake up a little early and be greeted by a sneak preview of a would-be art-house hit. Now, you won't know the name of the movie until you arrive at the theater, but the odds are good in this game of Reel Russian Roulette: Among the movies that have been part of Harlan Jacobson's Talk Cinema series are Gods and Monsters, Gosford Park, Sunshine State, No Man's Land, Pulp Fiction, L.A. Confidential and Breaking the Waves. The only downside is after the screening you have to listen to some local film critic, including on occasion some schmuck from the Dallas Observer, pontificate on the movie's meaning and the filmmaker's intentions before opening up the room for discussion. But, hey, that's the small price of being so danged special. For more information about Talk Cinema, which begins its new series September 29, go to www.talkcinema.com.

America loves an underdog, the saying goes. And we do, too. While it's consistent in the quality of the exhibits it organizes, Photographs Do Not Bend doesn't get the shower of praise some one-hit-a-season wonders do. PDNB represents artists working in a wide range of photographic styles and also owns a specialized archive of pictures. No matter what the exhibit is--themed collection from the archives, semi-famous contemporary photographer--it's worth driving down Routh Street and looking for this little house.

Published this year by the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, quite pricey at $89.95, this book is it, the authority, the comprehensive catalog of anything and everything that grows in this part of Texas. Years in the making, one of a series of books that will one day cover the entire state, this book is written so that lay people can understand it. But it is also a serious scientific resource, replete with beautiful illustrations. If you own this book, you are the ultimate authority, until somebody else you know gets it. The editors are George M. Diggs Jr., Barney L. Lipscomb and Robert J. O'Kennon. You can order it from Yonie Hudson, Publications Assistant, Botanical Research Institute of Texas, 509 Pecan St., [email protected].

Undermain Theatre stalwart Bruce DuBose excels at roles in which self-absorption can be easily confused for intensity. Onstage, he's often as serenely soporific as one of his voiceovers for KERA Channel 13 or a truck company, and veteran theatergoers have grown so accustomed to his rich-throated narcotic stylings, they forget that the role can be played in a way not dependent on Nyquil chic. Imagine our surprise when we discovered what has been a widely known phenomenon in the Dallas theater scene for quite a while--DuBose's tendency to pitch major, lung-blasting hissy fits with little provocation. Late last year, we called DuBose at home--he'd given us the number a couple years ago--to invite him to lunch, with the expressed intent to nail down those rumors about the Undermain Theatre's uncertain future. Straight out of the gate, DuBose's voice was a self-righteous sneer ("We're not interested in addressing rumors"), but it quickly gathered into a thunderhead tantrum of adolescent bohemian outrage. Why, he wanted to know, were we calling people at home? Because messages left at the Undermain office are not returned. We, in turn, asked why calls weren't answered, and why press releases weren't sent out to help us inform the public of the Undermain's status. "I don't consider the Observer press!" (get in line on that one, Bruce) was not the corker of the short conversation. That would have to be: "Why should we conform?!" The yelling made his sentences incomprehensible, so we had to hang up on him. The Undermain's imminent displacement after 16 years of excellence is truly tragic, but to have one of its founders represent the company's legacy with such petulance is confounding.

This theater space, like a good actor, never does it the same way twice. For every play, the 32,000-square-foot interior of this glass and concrete space is reconfigured. Sometimes it's arena-style, sometimes thrust. For Book of Days, the Lanford Wilson drama performed this summer, actors trod a long runway that ran nearly the full length of the theater. For Always...Patsy Cline, the 200 seats and stage were shifted into an intimate, clublike setting. But aside from the aesthetic aspects of the space itself, what WaterTower offers is a remarkably high-quality approach to its productions. Artistic director Terry L. Martin mixes it up with the choices of plays each season, with even the tried-and-true titles getting a fresh twist. This year offered theatergoers the classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but with a new emphasis on the men in the play instead of the bitchy gal in the slip. Wilson's serious Book of Days was a modern, dour take on Our Town, followed by the unapologetically sentimental twang of Always... Patsy Cline. Their 2002-'03 season begins in October with the old standard You Can't Take It With You, followed in January by the area premiere of The Laramie Project, Moises Kaufman's portrait of America inspired by the murder of Matthew Shepard. And forget the Dickens-style Christmas show. Out in Addison, you'll get David Sedaris' bitterly funny account of life in Macy's elf hell in The Santaland Diaries again this year. With other local theaters struggling to stay afloat, WaterTower has seen attendance increase more than 50 percent over the 2001 season. Good actors, good directing, good plays, good time. Simple as that. Oh, and let's not forget the cushy new theater seats they've recently installed. Audience appreciation is always appreciated.

The best public sculpture is something that doesn't blend into the background of everyday life. No matter how many times--every day, once a week, once a year--that it's seen, it never ceases to attract attention. Meet "Harrow," a steel sculpture in Lubben Plaza Park. It always amazes us. A giant rust-brown cone that resembles a household screw enlarged to the size of a child revolves around a sand-covered track, making a complete circle once a day and creating rings in the sand. Artist Linnea Glatt designed it to move slowly and effortlessly, so you never actually see it making its revolution. But pass by it a few hours later, and you'll notice its progress and the concentric circles. And you'll keep noticing it.@choice:Pegasus - Atop the Magnolia Hotel 1401 Commerce St.