The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 71

IU1 ET3 "0 ft 0 dia, wastaccompanied to Tian Mu by two Chinese botanists and was able to chart and map many of the region's exceptional flora. He concentrated, however, on the lofty ginkgo. His slide-lecture focuses on the botanical' history of the tree, its use in Chinese medicine and the remarkable forest of trees with fan-shaped leaves on Tian Mu mountain. Fee for the lecture is $12, telephone 524-1718. Can you just a little more festivity? The Boston Harbor Hotel restages the Boston Wine Festival, now in its second year.

The felicitous four-month-long series of events includes chef Daniel Bruce's elegant, innovative dinners plus many of California's legendary winemakers, food and wine pairing menus, wine auctions and a New England Wine Weekend on March 22-24. Costs are $45 to $125 per person including food, wine and gratuities. A special hotel rate of $95 per room per night is based on availability. Featured wines include those of Beaulieu Vineyards, Chateau Montelena, Heitz, Clos Pegase, Ferrari-Carrano, Mer-ryvale, Groth, Caymus, Iron Horse, Joseph Phelps, Pine Ridge, Saintsbury, Sonoma Cutter, Champagne Veuve Cliquot. Next Friday's gala opening features wines from 30 California vineyards, as well as the first dinner-with-vintner event, a Beaulieu Vineyard Retrospective tasting and dinner with Beaulieu's Anthony Bell.

On Jan. 17, look for Bill Wren at the Merryvale Vineyards Dinner. On Jan. 23-24 it will be George Bursick of Ferrari-Carano. Telephone 439-7000.

Lynda Morgenroth slower tunes like Grunwald's "Primrose Path" and Kaplan's "Lost and Found." There's also a rough edge, sharpened on their second record with the band by drummer James Vincent and guitarist Tim Condon, who injects a spitfire solo into Kaplan's winsome "Bell Jar." Even better is Grunwald's rocking "Beekeeper," which tosses in an a cappella break. Salem 66 predated the surge of women rockers in recent years, but the traded lead vocals and harmonies of Kaplan and Grunwald remain distinctive to this day. As one door shuts, another one opens. Drumming on Glass has emerged as one of the most promising bands on the local scene with its debut "Asparagus Tea" (Aurora). The trio finds new depth and hardness with producer Lou Giordano, who has worked with Christmas and Mission of Burma.

Oddly enough, Drumming on Glass suggests what avant-punk fore-bearers Burma would have sounded like as a psychedelic garage band. Guitarist Eric Krauter's grey vocals remind of Burma's Roger Miller, while the band has a penchant for atmospheric slashing and busy rhythms. But the tumbling, spiraling music of Drumming on Glass is original. Especially novel is bassist Chris George's use of si-tar, which lends immediate icing to the feedback gristle and pounding propulsion of "All the Colours." Other standouts include the churning waltz "Slippery Slide," in which the refrain "Falling. provides apt imagery, and "Thrill of It All," heavy on the reverb with twinkling guitar notes over a sliding bass echo.

As tempestuous as they are trippy, these guys aren't afraid to fool with song structures, but they don't forget the melody. Drumming on Glass entices without becoming overbearing. Also produced by Lou Giordano is "Tillin' Up the Ground" (Diggy Daggy), a somewhat harsher, jumpier disc by the band Hunting Sleeve. The lead track "Mary" seems straight forward except for Brian Overall's loopy alto sax, "Gravel Road" adds acoustic guitar for a country rock feel, and "Nothing's Working" turns out rootsy rock akin to Soul Asylum. But Hunting Sleeve throws plenty of other stuff into this mere 28-minute outing, including a short Zappa-like monologue about utensils under the bed, the funk-crazed "Crab Orchard" and the wild 'n' weird closer "Here are Pigs" which reveals you can sound like a hog by inhaling.

At the other end of the spectrum, "Center Street Interiors" is a warm, whimsical reflection with a sunny sax melody. Best of all, Hunting Sleeve pulls off its diverse tricks without appearing too willfully eclectic. Not an easy band to get a handle on, but another talented act to watch as it fnrcres its iHntitv. SOUND Cindy Kallet's quiet way Cindy Kallet has quietly become one of folk music's most respected singer-songwriters. Her pretty, peaceful songs spill over with the quiet lessons of nature, with deep honesty and a tough reluctance to tie up hard truths in easy lines.

Although a brilliant guitarist with a clean, lulling alto voice, she seems afraid to get caught being a songwriter, being crafty or clever. Celebrating the release of "Dreaming Down a Quiet Line" (Folk-Legacy), her entirely beautiful fourth album, Kallet performs at Passim tomorrow-Sunday with engaging newcomer Barb Schloff. Kallet has never attempted nor desired a full-time musical career. She worries it would affect the vision of her songs; worries also that she would miss the full feeling she gets from her many other jobs. For several years on Martha's Vineyard and now in Rockland, Maine, the 35 year-old songwriter has taught environmental education as well as public school, worked in wildlife sanctuaries, run a wildlife museum and aquarium, shucked scallops, been a baker and carpenter, and worked in an entomology lab (she is a Bennington-educated biologist).

She indulges her love of harmony singing in a trio with Michael Cicone and Ellen Epstein and has happily added motherhood to her career list. "I've always liked to do a lot of things," Kallet said from her home. "I never wanted to depend on music, to end up having to write songs about being on the road. I've seen musicians worn out from too many days on the road, the pushing to get jobs, which I don't like to do. For some it works beautifully; they really enjoy that kind of stimulation.

I'd just rather come home and chop some wood." Many of her best songs are like the thought wandering we do while chopping wood, walking along a beach, driving down a dark road. Although a specific person, topic or observation might trigger the mind, it is diverted by something touching the eye, old memories, sudden revelations. As listeners, we may never learn much about the the friend; the childhood event or news story which inspired the song. The initial conflict remains unresolved, but truth is passetf along, the way. 1 Sound: Cindy Kallet "I think my songs are kind of sideways," she said.

"There are some people who give me grief about that. They say you're here, then you're there; it's hard to follow. And yet some of those songs I like a lot I like putting out this thought, then that, or this larger world thought and then this personal one. Then people can sew it together into whatever pattern they like." Being a mother has changed her vision, not inwardly toward her family but further toward seeing the world as a family home. Increasingly, world problems find voice in her songs as she looks at her children; worries for their safety and the home we are preparing for them.

In the gorgeous anthem "Rain Night," she asks if candlelight vigils, peace marches and fasts can really soften the world's meanness. But the chorus does not rah-rah or exhort. "Oh, when you're near me," she sings tenderly, "Oh my love, oh my joy There's nothing ever to weary meOh my darling one." "Being a mother makes the personalpolitical connection even more pointed for me. I have two boys, and boys girls too, but mostly boys are still being taken to kill other people. That's a very sharp image for me right now.

But if I don't connect what's happening in the world to somebody in my small world here, it's not going to really mean anything to me." Scott Alarik FOLLOW UP Art, ancient trees and festivities Entrancing, enigmatic, whimsical and, 'wdndrduV small J. scale sculptures are the focus of a new show in the Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts, 549 Tremont St. in Boston's South End. The show runs Jan. 11 to Feb.

9 with an opening night reception, 6 to 9. Works of nine sculptors are featured in media including wax, wood, steel, plaster and stone. Recycled materials are part of the media-array, along with familiar objects in unfamiliar juxtaposition. John Proulx' work uses bulky phone books, water coolers, insulation, motor oil and tree stumps in ingenious cross sections. Margaret Stark makes her architectural building blocks from plaster.

John Scott's brightly painted steel kinetic sculptures dance in the wind. Other artists include Carol Keller, Pia Massie, Garrick Dol-berg, Chris Osgood, Carol Dris-coll and Jod Lourie. Mills Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 12 to 4 p.m. and Thursday from 12 to 7. Telephone 426-8835.

If you have visited Boston's Public Garden in autumn and seen a magisterial tree of lemon yellow fan-shaped leaves, you are at least passingly acquainted with the ginkgo tree, or Ginko bilboa. Because of its graceful, oriental beauty and botanical antiquity it has survived since the age of the dinosaurs it has many devotees, a kind of low key, arboreal fan club. High priest in this club must surely be Peter Del Tredici of the Arnold Arboretum, who went so far as the trees of Tian Mu mountain in China in the fall of 1989 to study and photograph the statuesque and rare wild ginkgo trees. Tredici describes this mythical voyage in a slide-lecture on "The Evolution and Natural History of the Ginkgo Tree" Sunday, Jan. 13, 2 to 3 p.m.

in the Visitor Center of the Arnold Arboretum. Del' editor of Arnbt-'. LOCAL PRESSINGS Swan song takes a new dimension The band Salem 66 was always underappreciated in Boston. So it's only typical that last year's breakup of the group co-led for eight years by singer-songwriters Judy Grunwald and Beth Kaplan went by without fanfare. But Salem 66 did make a swan song, "Down the Primrose Path" (Homestead), which ranks among the best of the band's four albums and one EP of lyrical garage rock.

Once again, guitarist Grunwald and bassist Kaplan both pen songs of lost and uncertain love, but those feelings take on a new dimension here. More than half of "Down the Primrose Path" was recorded after Salem 66 decided to call it a day. In turn, there's a melancholv flavor to the especially in'j.