What They Don't Tell You in Earth Science:

The cool nights and the rising blush of the leaves, the students' reluctant returning and the summer folks' reluctant leavetaking--the season labors on toward Labor Day. Still summer, but long past the illusion of endless summer. And each year it seems, a day or two less of it, in contradiction to global warming. In my youth, I swear, summer was at least 200 days long--lying on a dock with a wet towel for a pillow while all those great summer songs poured out of the radio like grill smoke. But some time ago we traded in all that kick back and tan, neck with your baby music for ice-cool postmodern angst-ridden song-shaped objects. And so the summer has dwindled, becoming the season of West Nile and melanoma. These songwriters need to get out more--in the daytime.