November

GIVING THANKS FOR BRITNEY, NEIL DIAMOND, AND THE RETURN OF BOY GEORGE

SUNDAY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

1 An ex-Rolling Stone's musical roots are examined on Bravo's Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey. Like a very, very adult version of Blue's Clues.

2 The Rockettes recover from opening at Radio City yesterday by applying BenGay to everything in sight.

3 Pianist Horacio Gutierrez performs at N.Y.C.'s Alice Tully Hall. Eight P.M.: impassioned music critic meets colleague in lobby, praises Gutierrez's ability to explore "the space between the notes."

4 The Counting Crows perform at Michigan State University. Lead singer Adam Duritz's dreadlocks set off ripple of hair-care innovation among impressionable

5 Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida opens this week at L.A.'s Ahmanson. Nearby restaurant markets tie-in food item, "Aida fajita."

6 Madame Butterfly at N.Y.C.'s Metropolitan Opera. "Lo Yankee vagabondo," "real American wife," the titular geisha: let the sonic booming begin!

7 The Country Music Awards, the only musicawards show that regularly features banjos.

8 MTV European Music Awards. Dude, c'esf, like, totally magnifique.

9 L.A.'s Wiltern Theatre: KCRW presents "A Sounds Eclectic Evening" with—in case you didn't get enough of her on the seventh—Grammy winner Shelby Lynne, and others.

10 Folkie Steve Forbert at the College of Staten Island. His new CD is called Evergreen Boy. (Steve Forbert: future Sierra Club mascot?)

11 At N.Y.C.'s Avery Fisher Hall: the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala. To be relished: ensembles of both the sartorial and musical persuasion.

12 "The Music of Tito Puente," at Avery Fisher Hall. Our guess: louder and more fun than last night's offering at the same location.

14 London theatergoers flock to Taboo, Boy George's autobio-musical; rom Stoppard and Harold Pinter chuckle inwardly.

15 Yakov Kreizberg conducts violinist Pine has Zukerman at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center. Week before: mad rush to secure tickets erupts in violins homonym.

16 Former Pavement front man Stephen Malkmus plays at N.Y.C.'s Roxy. Malkmus ups the ante for foxy, literate rock stars; Sting, Schming.

18 HBO, where we recently saw an uncooked steak thrown at Tony Soprano, now airs live a Britney Spears con cert, thus securing the network's position as the Quivering Flesh Channel.

20 The fabulous Cecilia Bartoli sings Mozart and Haydn arias in Frankfurt. Frankfurters delighted. Hamburgers jealous.

22 Thanksgiving. Thousands of addled senior citizens call the Butterball Turkey consumer hot line and complain, "Someone put my dentures in my box of stuffing mix!"

23 An ocean of cute: the Vienna Boys Choir at Chicago's Symphony Center. Small boys emitting high-pitched vibrations audible only to dogs.

24 Ibrahim Ferrer and Ruben Gonzalez (Buena Vista Social Club) at N.Y.C.'s Beacon Theater. And you thought Latin was a dead language.

25 Paul Anka at New York's Westbury Music Fair. "You're Having My Baby"changed to "You're Having My Great-GreatGrandson."

26 Neil Diamond plays Phoenix tomorrow. All Arizono-based women of a certain age begin vibrating, applying glitter, -e

27 The San Francisco Opera opens The Merry Widow. The Castro tingles expectantly.

28 Michelle de Young sings Berlioz, Brahms, others, at the Kennedy Center this week. Honeyed sharps and flats waft gently Potomac-ward.

29 N.Y.C.'s Metropolitan Museum of Art: 50th anniversary of the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition held tomorrow. Music honored at an art museum—this could get very interdisciplinary.

HENRY ALFORD