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The gloriously ramshackle Soap Factory once again throws open its doors to Minnesota’s fairer seasons with a show about the L-word – or, to be more precise, “the emotionally disarming process of falling in love.” So you’ve been duly warned about the potential risks of some of the art. For instance, to examine Rama Hoffpauir’s specially commissioned lockets, approach one of the gallery attendants, who will be wearing them. You’ll have to “put yourself out there,” as is often the advice given to those seeking to emotionally disarm themselves in concert with another. Also on view: Brett Smith’s ziggurat mattress (temple of love?) and works from a couple dozen others. The opening-night reception hasn’t been officially designated a singles event, but we’re willing to spread rumors to that effect. 2nd St. S.E. & 5th Ave. S.E., Minneapolis; (612) 623-9176; www.soapfactory.org

Grab a brochure, map out a route, and get ready to art power-walk instead of crawl. One of the things we like best about Northeast’s annual open-gallery weekend is an expansiveness that encourages you to explore—fifteen thousand visitors are expected to descend on this neighborhood, but unlike, say, the Uptown Art Fair, they won’t all be packed claustrophobically into a few square blocks. That said, you’ll find the most art in a single place at the Northrup King building, 1500 Jackson St. This year’s special events include Walker Art Center-organized kids’ activities in Logan Park, a speed-painting contest, and the Saturday night After-Whirl concert at Spring Street Bar with local bands Latchhook, Work of Saws, and Walker Kong. (612) 788-1679; www.art-a-whirl.org.

Mikhail Baryshnikov was just in town a few months ago performing solo, but if he wants to come back so soon he certainly doesn’t have to twist our arm. He graces our cities again as the lead dancer in the world premiere of this dreamlike dance piece set in a remote Russian town during the days of Stalin. It’s the brainchild of Rezo Gabriadze, a writer, director, and puppeteer from ex-Soviet Georgia, whose first major U.S. work was an acclaimed restaging of the Battle of Stalingrad with enormous marionettes, which garnered surprisingly few comparisons to Being John Malkovich. 700 N. 1st St., Minneapolis; (612) 377-2224; www.guthrietheater.org

Kristin Hersh has long been one of our favorite songwriters from the post-punk flowering of the eighties, and we’re excited to see this new trio of hers, which promises to take full advantage of her ability to create full-on and ferocious rock (her solo and Throwing Muses work often strove for a more fragile beauty). Designed to be an energy-driven live act, 50 Foot Wave also operates on a short-sharp-shock philosophy for CD releases, with six-song EPs due every nine months; the first came out in March.

It’s 1979, and President Jimmy Carter is trying his damnedest. So are some of the finest new bands to emerge since the British invasion. Elvis Costello has just released Armed Forces, Talking Heads have offered up Fear of Music, and Neil Young has turned out Rust Never Sleeps. Yet Graham Parker’s Squeezing Out Sparks beats them all. Alas, as he sang many contracts later in “3 Martini Lunch,” the record biz is a “good life if you’re winning; it’s a killer if you’re not.” For Parker, it’s often been the latter; witness his being lowered to a free show at Brit’s last Bastille Day. Luckily, his chops and lyrics remain as keen as ever, and this time at least people will deservedly have to pay. He’s touring behind a brand-new disc, Your Country, on the likeminded indie label Bloodshot. 318 1st Ave. N., Minneapolis; (612) 338-8100; www.finelinemusic.com

Close your eyes during a Leon Redbone concert and you might imagine yourself on a rickety old back porch off the Louisiana bayou, sometime early last century, with banjoes strumming and an eccentric crooning to the harvest moon. Redbone has been crafting his unique blend of back-porch ragtime jazz and blues since the early seventies, with a charm and style that have gotten him called a “rural Bing Crosby.” With his ever-present white brimmed hat, dark sunglasses, and thick mustache, Redbone has become his own caricature, distinctive enough to be featured in a Far Side cartoon. His last album of all-new work was 2001’s Anytime, but he’s kept a busy touring schedule and even provided a voice for the recent Will Ferrell comedy Elf. 90 S. 9th St., Minenapolis; (612) 312-2828; www.bluestarjazz.com

Either childrens’ books have been getting progress-ively smarter recently, or our reading level has … Er. Let’s start again. Children’s books have been getting progressively smarter recently, what with the literary sophistication to be found in writers like Philip Pullman, Lemony Snicket, and, many would argue, J.K. Rowling. Hard Times is aimed at younger readers, too, but Alabama novelist and former Stillwater teacher Henderson doesn’t dumb things down, writing about violence and abandonment in moving and straightforward prose. Her fourth book for local publisher Milkweed is an absorbing story of survival during the worst years of the Great Depression. Twelve-year-old MaryJake, cast aside at the crossroads by her dirt-poor parents, disguises herself as a boy and strikes out on her own, sort of Huck Finn in reverse.

Hard-bop innovator Eric Alexander is always refining and reworking his vivacious sax styling, but remains true to his biggest influences—Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, and many of the original bebop pioneers. In 1991, at the tender age of 22, his rep blossomed after he placed second to Joshua Redman at the prestigious Thelonious Monk Inter- national Jazz Competition. JazzWeek named him artist of the year in 2003, and his momentum hasn’t slowed. The Second Milestone is a paramount showcase of Alexander’s energetic and freewheeling approach, while Nightlife in Tokyo, his latest, builds upon his strength as a composer. In forty years, jazz cats will be covering this guy like they cover Wayne Shorter today. Expect a vigorous night of the aggressive yet harmonious bop-based action that Alexander has made something all his own. 408 St. Peter St., St. Paul; (651) 292-1359; mnjazz.com

As documented by Legs McNeil in Please Kill Me, the definitive chronicle of the early punk era, Deborah Harry and Joey Ramone were good people—two of the few CBGB’s scenesters at the time who refrained from pretending not to care about success, while stabbing each other in the back to achieve it. Even at the top, Harry threw it all away to nurse her bandmate/lover Chris Stein, who was suffering from the rare and horrible genetic illness pemphigus. While Stein recovered, the mostly retired Harry ballooned up to Kate Smith size, the object of tabloid ridicule. She gets the last laugh, though, in last month’s comeback record The Curse of Blondie, in which she looks and sounds as crackling as ever, with her band following suit. (612) 332-1775; www.first-avenue.com

A twelve-year, twenty-five-volume project to reprint every Charlie Brown cartoon ever made? Good grief. Well, even if you’re sick to death of the civic-boosting Schulz statues dotting (or blighting) St. Paul, this first volume provides a good opportunity to reassess Sparky Schulz’s work without the commercializing excesses that have gotten in the way. Despite repeated quotation by scores of Lutheran pastors looking to funny up their Sunday sermons, Schulz didn’t pretend to pursue any great religious or political insights through Peanuts. (He hated that title, by the way—“It has no dignity. It’s not even a nice word,” he complained, but his newspaper syndicate insisted.) What he did offer was simple and homespun humor with an edge of bittersweet pathos; not exactly Camus, but a melancholy, contrapuntal rejoinder to the fifties’ bright and shiny surface. Oh, and it’s also where Snoop Dogg got his name, so that brings a whole new level of street cred.