Summer

NEW YORK - Stocks fell Thursday, with investors too worried about high gas prices and stagnant employment to be impressed by higher consumer spending. For much of August, with many traders on vacation and a dearth of major economic news, the market has lumbered more than galloped. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 106.77 points to 13,000.71. The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 11.01 to 1,399.48. The Nasdaq composite slid 32.48 to 3,048.71. The economic news that did surface Thursday was uninspiring to investors.

* BREAKING BAD. 10 p.m. Sunday, AMC. WATCHING SOME of the Hurricane Isaac coverage earlier this week, I found myself thinking of AMC's "Breaking Bad. " On the Weather Channel, particularly, the anchors seemed to be having trouble controlling their excitement as they discussed just what it would take for the then-tropical storm to pull itself up by its bootstraps and make its Gulf Coast debut as a full-fledged hurricane. Sure, hurricanes are bad, dangerous things and no one who witnessed the devastation of a Hurricane Katrina could hope to see that kind of history repeat itself.

Time and again in the summer months, you hear classical music concerts discussed with an air of impending defeat. We're powerless over the weather, say management types behind the scenes. The Mann Center sweltered this summer. In chilly Vail, the Philadelphia Orchestra's Brahms Symphony No. 4 had to be halted minutes after it began due to pelting rain. The Berlin Philharmonic was drowned out by rain this summer in one of its few outdoor outings. And with picnicing audiences, how much listening really goes on?

BEACH HAVEN, N.J. - Sondra Beninati had hoped to have her fire-devastated Long Beach Island restaurant and bed-and-breakfast, the Gables, renovated and filled with guests by Memorial Day. But major reconstruction of a 19th-century landmark, especially under the direction of someone with Beninati's eye for detail, can take longer than planned. With Labor Day looming, Beninati and her husband, Steve, finally flung open the ornate front door of the bright yellow-and-pink place last week, and have pinned their hopes on the Jersey Shore's "shoulder season.

SPIKE LEE'S "Red Hook Summer" is an erratic mix of one-crazy-summer high jinks and gathering unease that explodes, finally, in jarring conclusion. It has echoes, in that structure, of Lee's "Do the Right Thing" - Lee appears as the same character he played 23 years ago - though "Red Hook" lacks the sustained energy and poise of that landmark movie. "Red Hook" is the story of Flick, a suburban Atlanta teen dumped for a summer into the big-city tumult of a Red Hook housing development in New York.

For months I've waited for my favorite seasonal crops to arrive. But now, instead of two dozen tomatoes and a few tender zucchini, suddenly my kitchen is laden with a bushel and a peck. This year, determined to stay ahead, I planted only three varieties of summer squash, one plant each, and I promised myself to pick them young. Despite the desire to stay ahead, I have had 35 squash to cook and eat (or give away), and two plants are still going strong. And then there is the basil.

LAST SUMMER, Chris Wilson arrived on the Saint Joseph's campus, started classes, spoke with his coaches, met his new teammates and promptly got ignored. Well, ignored regarding basketball, which was why he got a scholarship to St. Joe's in the first place. The NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, mandated that coaches could have no basketball interaction with players, new or old, during the summer. Coaches could not even walk through the gym when players were there with a basketball. So, Wilson was left to figure it out on his own. So what was Wilson, along with some of his teammates, doing on the St. Joe's practice court this summer, surrounded by Hawks coach Phil Martelli and some of his assistants?

To their young charges, they're the slightly older arbiters of fun in the summer. The camp counselor is the hip role model who is cool to look up to. But the young people whose job it is to take care of campers during the summer say their jobs are about more than supervising the basketball game or taking the easy path to summer employment. Their role has increasing responsibility and requires training that has become more extensive and varied. "We see the kid whose parents are going through a divorce, or the kid coming in the same clothes day after day. Sometimes we see pain and suffering that they may be going through at home," said Josh Watters, 24, a counselor at the Diamond Ridge day camp in Jamison.

"Cooking" implies the application of heat, which, during the hot summer weather we've been having, is as hard to think about as wearing a mohair sweater under a down jacket. It also makes a mess that has to be cleaned up when everyone would rather be sipping wine or lemonade in an Adirondack chair. (This sentiment knows no season, of course, but it is more keenly felt during traditional vacation months.) Fight back by not "cooking. " Instead, "put things together. " Make this the law for at least a week, maybe longer.

The Prima Vera Half of asparagus spear (including top) ¾ inch celery ¼ inch shaved fennel bulb ¼ inch cucumber, peeled, one slice ½ ounce fresh lemon juice ½ ounce Cointreau 2 ounces aquavit Dash of agave 2 dashes of tarragon bitters, or muddle fresh tarragon around inside rim of glass   Muddle all vegetables in shaker, then add ice, shake, double strain into cocktail glass. Serve up with an orange twist. Serves 1.   Source: Daniel Miller, Vedge.