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More than a decade ago, Thompson released an extraordinary album called Small Town Romance which featured the man and his acoustic guitar unaccompanied, recorded live at the Bottom Line in New York City. It was one of those records that became a soundtrack for unspeakable personal heartbreak. Thompson later asked to have the record delisted—he supposedly wasn’t happy with it—but thank goodness it’s still in print. It’s a wonder he felt that way, since he’s one of the hardest working modern-day troubadors in the business, and this disk comes closest to capturing the man doing what he does best. Never mind all those years Dick spent at the head of folk-rock paragons Fairport Convention, or atop The Best Records Of All Time List (Shoot Out the Lights with ex-wife Linda). Some of us prefer to keep our mistakes within arm’s reach, the better to avoid repeating ourselves—but sometimes there’s nothing as beautiful as a train-wrecked relationship, or a painfully honest live performance.

In the late 1950’s, when comics like Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, and Nichols & May were storming club stages across the country, turning stand-up on its head, a mumbling, unassuming accountant from Chicago was supplementing his income by writing and performing comedy bits for local radio. His tapes made their way to Warner Brothers, who propped Newhart on a stage to do his routines before a live audience for the very first time. It was in the Tidelands Club in Houston, and the recording, released in 1960 as The Button-Down Mind, sold over 1.5 million copies. Newhart received a Grammy for Album of the Year and Best New Artist. His follow-up albums led to success in two sitcoms, portraying the same character—that mumbling, stammering, basset hound-eyed Everyman—throughout his career. We can only hope routines like “The Introduction of Tobacco to Civilization,” “Driving Instructor,” and “The Man Who Looked Like Hitler” are in the line-up when Newhart picks up the mike again and stammers live at Orchestra Hall.

Cynics say he’s “pulled a Santana” by collaborating with Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas and a host of other greenhorn superstars—Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, and Lee Ann Womack among them—on his latest album, The Great Divide. But you can’t accuse Willie Nelson of selling out, because his plainspoken country-folk has lost none of its substance in his decades as an eclectic master of the singer-songwriter mode. The new stuff is less twangy and lots more radio-ready than 1998’s captivating Teatro, or even the best of his outlaw heyday, but if re-entering the pop charts after a long, awkward hiatus is such a crime, then that Bono guy should have been deported months ago. Live, Nelson is no more prone to stage dives or explosive outbursts than he is to getting a crewcut, and that’s as it should be. Even when he’s indulging a jones for drippy romance on the Thomas-penned “Maria (Shut Up and Kiss Me),” or dusting off a nugget like “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In),” he’s the kind of sturdy, soulful, instantly engaging cowboy poet that more jukeboxes could use. Nobody needs a “comeback” less than this handsome stranger, and though his output shows no signs of slowing, it’s a good idea to catch him while you can.

An anonymous friend recently referred to Alison Krauss as the “prom queen of bluegrass,” and as snarky as that sounds, she oughta take it as a compliment. Already a favorite among fans of credible new-country and sprightly contemporary folk, her profile was raised a few extra notches last year by the unexpected success of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and the old-tyme-music feeding frenzy that followed. Besides her lack of facial hair, a major difference between Krauss and other bandwagon beneficiaries is that her skill as a musician is both immediately apparent and way beyond novelty. She’s been a first-rate fiddler since puberty, and her versatile voice can muster high-lonesome laments the same as rollicking down-home pop. She’s gifted, popular, and easy on the eyes—which might make some of the cool kids jealous, but that’s their problem, isn’t it. If she’s as smart as we think she is, Krauss will acknowledge our appetite for the uppity old-school folk she and her Union Station cohorts do best, though they’ll undoubtedly dig into a few of the deeper, more modernist tracks from last fall’s New Favorite, too.

What ever happend to alt-rock? By now you’d think lanky white twenty-somethings armed with cheap guitars, drum kits, lightweight keyboards, and the odd sampler would’ve more or less exhausted the possibilities. Think again. In different ways, both Washington state’s Death Cab for Cutie and Washington, DC’s Dismemberment Plan prove there’s still room for growth in the American indie rock marketplace, even if most of their peers are content to spend semester after semester in a dreary post-Archers of Loaf purgatory. True, you can hear Death Cab for Cutie’s pretty collegiate pop for free on Radio K any day of the week. But the Dismemberment Plan’s Change is a roundly rewarding album you prolly won’t hear on the airwaves here. The lowest common denominator between rock and rap isn’t Fred Durst. It’s urgent self-affirmation. Plan singer Travis Morrison flaunts his anxious affinity for everything from quirky art-core to lovelorn poetics to Public Enemy and D’Angelo, and he never fakes the funk. Even though they’ve opened for Pearl Jam, these guys are not rock stars, nor will they ever be. Which tells you, after nearly ten years of fiercely independent music-making, there’s lots more to them than a graduate-level interest in literature and a really bad name.

Here’s the feel-paranoid hit of the season. Nicole Kidman was originally slated to star in this dark, suspense-filled doozy from director David Fincher, but one too many can-can kicks on the set of Moulin Rouge forced her to back out at the last minute. Thankfully, her replacement is the all-too-scarce Jodie Foster. Fans of the original Clarice Starling can count on more than a little of her sizzle in this claustrophobic thriller. Panic Room centers on a hellacious night in the life of a New York divorcee whose spacious new brownstone is invaded by a trio of treasure-seeking felons (Forrest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, and a brutally corn-rowed Jared Leto). She and her daughter hole up in a special high-tech mini-fortress built into the house for just such a terrifying occasion. With a tension-monger like Fincher (Seven, Fight Club) at the helm, you can smell the shadowy interiors and perilous scenarios already—no wait, that’s the stale popcorn and “butter-flavored” topping. But you get the idea.

With due respect to Dirk Diggler, there’s never been a better film about empty sex and failed optimism than 1975’s Shampoo. As dim-witted hair stylist Warren Beatty dutifully knocks boots with Goldie Hawn, Julie Christie, Lee Grant, and Carrie Fisher, you can almost hear the cynicism of the Nixon era grabbing hold of the American consciousness. A new print of this titillating and politically tinted gem is the centerpiece of an inspired Oak Street retrospective, revisiting the career highlights of the late director Hal Ashby. He may never have picked up a Best Director prize on Oscar night—he was only nominated in the category once, for 1978’s fearless Vietnam flick Coming Home, which will be included here—but he remains responsible for some of the coolest and most distinctive movies this side of whatever Wes Anderson is working on now. From the dark comedy and unorthodox romanticism of the cult-favorite Harold and Maude to the gently intrepid satire of the classic Peter Sellers pic Being There, Ashby specialized in sharply scripted, character-driven fare.

Like Prince and Loni Anderson before him, Hollywood It-boy Josh Hartnett is proving to the rest of the free world that Minnesota can pull its weight on the breakout-sex-symbol production line. As we see in Black Hawk Down and the underappreciated Virgin Suicides, it doesn’t hurt that Josh can actually act. Oddly, his real debut as a big-time romantic lead (we don’t count Pearl Harbor) casts him as a recently dumped dude who swears off sex for Lent. As if the hormonal ramifications of his sudden celibacy weren’t grave enough, he’s got a new drop-dead gorgeous love interest in the picture to crank up the temptation quotient—A Knight’s Tale’s Shannyn Sossamon. With an R rating attributed to “strong sexual content, nudity and language,” it’s unlikely that 40 Days is a glorified instructional video for born-again virgins, if you know what we mean. Knowing Miramax, we think they’ll not only find a way to bring Hartnett’s character back into the carnally knowledgeable world, but they’ll do it with panache. Teen-movie slump be damned, we haven’t been this excited about a local boy making good since Apollonia’s skinny-dip in what she thought was Lake Minnetonka.

That glimmer of hope you see on the springtime motion picture horizon could be the return of Robin Williams from his teeth-hurting escapades as Sad Clown of the 90s. Patch Adams, Jakob the Liar, and Bicentennial Man—a cinematic trifecta from Hell. We are thankful Mr. Williams appears to be seeking redemption. In January, the Sundance Film Festival premiered the R-rated One Hour Photo, starring Williams as Seymour “Sy” Parrish, a nebbishy photo-lab employee who becomes obsessed with a family whose pictures he develops. Before Photo’s April release date comes Death to Smoochy, in which Williams portrays Rainbow Randolph, the host of a children’s television show. When Randolph is fired over a bribery scandal, his show is taken over by Smoochy, played by Edward Norton (Fight Club) in a fuscia rhinoceros costume. To make matters worse, Randolph finds out Smoochy is sleeping with his ex-lover, a top programming executive played by Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich). Randolph begins to plot his revenge. Death to Smoochy also features Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) as a network president, choreographed midgets in rainbow wigs, costumes Liberace and Elton John would have clawed each others’ eyes out for… did we mention Edward Norton as a fuscia rhinoceros? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Robin. Don’t screw this up.

From the air, the river looked innocent enough: A mocha-brown flow etched its way through the forest in lazy S’s. But paddling it was another matter. An unusually dry season reduced the normal torrent to a trickle. The shallow bottom and exposed rapids compelled us to carry our canoes more than they carried us. After four grunting sodden days, tragedy struck. Just before sunset my brother Nick, the team technologist, jumped out of the canoe for another pull when he stepped on a freshwater stingray. Its stinger whipped upward three times and impaled his foot, injecting massive amounts of venom.

According to the indigenous Machiguengas here, these stingrays are among the Amazon’s most feared creatures. Though their venom is not as lethal as, say, the surucucu snake’s, stingrays are harder to avoid, maddeningly well-camouflaged in the river’s murk. Few people die from the poison itself (ensuing infection is more dangerous) but as our Machiguenga companions warned, humans know no greater pain than stingray venom. We didn’t bother to ask if an antidote exists.

Nick yelped and leaped and performed a Christlike scramble across the water. On shore, he collapsed in a heap, writhing in pain. I hurried over to see what happened. Blood oozed from all three puncture wounds. The venom turned the surrounding flesh white and red, making his foot look like raspberry revel ice cream. We could see the poison working its way up Nick’s ankle. Where would it stop?

I tore apart my pack looking for the satellite phone Globalstar had graciously loaned us, and I dialed Hennepin County Medical Center (out of mindless, panic-stricken impulse, I suppose). In moments, I was miraculously put through to Dr. Dan Keyler, a co-director of toxicology research for the University of Minnesota. More miraculously, he is one of the world’s foremost snakebite experts. But when I told him I was phoning from a remote Amazonian tributary, he thought my call was a prank.

Somehow, my adrenalin-fueled jabber kept Dr. Keyler on the phone. “I’ve heard of these stringray attacks,” he told me. “But never actually treated one. They’re exceedingly painful.” I could hear him rifle through pages of medical text in search of a field treatment. Meanwhile, our Machiguenga companions had carried my moaning brother to a clearing in the jungle and were moving about. After 30 seconds which took an eternity, Dr. Keyler finally had an answer: Submerge the foot in water as hot as Nick could endure. “The heat will denature the venom,” he said.

I thanked Dr. Keyler profusely, promised to call back in a few hours, and hurried over to the Machiguengas to pass along the treatment, but they were way ahead of me. They had already started a fire, put water on to boil, and prepared to submerge the foot.