In the New York Times recently, Edward Rothstein wrote about the "sense of wonder" that the best science museums instill in visitors. He was reviewing San Francisco's Exploratorium and the California Academy of Sciences, which opened last year in Golden Gate Park.

Wonder is not puzzlement, bewilderment or confusion. But it is also not satisfaction, completion or understanding. It is more open-ended … In the wake of wonder, we are literally moved. We cannot remain still. We are spurred to explore.

The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History is frantically getting ready for its own opening November 20, so I can't speak to the success or failure of the new 166,000-square-foot facility, designed by Legorreta + Legorreta, the famous Mexico City architects. Dallasites should recognize their distinctive style from the Latino Cultural Center: big, bold shapes and Southwest colors, open courtyards and an 'urban lantern' tower. (The museum's donation project is even called Light the Lantern.) When I visited last week, most of the exhibit galleries were still under construction (coincidentally, one of those exhibitions is on tour from the Exploratorium.)

But one attraction was up and functioning — and it was filled with wonders. The museum's Noble Planetarium has the first Zeiss hybrid planetarium system in the Southwest. That insectoid-mechanoid piece of equipment up there is the "star projector" part of the system, the Skymaster ZKP-4. Forget your old grade-school visit when you got to see constellations light up overhead. The ZKP-4 is capable of showing thousands more stars than were previously displayed by planetariums (it projects both southern and northern hemispheres, for instance), and thanks to fiber optics, it shows them with far more clarity.

But that doesn't begin to convey how stellar this thing is. It's the online information that the Skymaster can access that makes it whoa-baby 'cosmic.'  Because of the huge amount of digital data compiled by places like NASA, the 'skies' that Skymaster shows us can be seen from almost any angle and in practically reach-out-and-touch detail. It zooms through the solar system, stops and pivots around individual planets, showing their daytime and nighttime sides. Then it can peer at them up-crater-close. And all of these images are kept fresh: You're seeing Jupiter's clouds from just a few days ago.

It's also the contexts, the ways of seeing these stellar wonders, that fascinate. At one point — as planetarium director Linda Krouse kindly put the equipment through some of its paces for us — the overhead images retreated from the solar system to reveal all the stars encircling Earth 10 light years away — it was shown as a red ball — and then we saw the larger ball of stars 100 light years around us. Pulling back even further, we saw that ball in relationship to the entire Milky Way galaxy. Let's get seriously small:  A single light year is nearly six trillion miles. So that circle of stars is six hundred trillion light years across. Yet with the Milky Way, it looked like a softball tucked under someone's arm.

When it comes to the more grounded and concrete realm of space displays, the entrance to the Noble will exhibit some of what Frank Zappa called "cosmic debris": The replica of NASA's Manned Maneuvering Unit (above) was still being unpacked. The MMU was the little rocket-powered easy-chair that astronauts used to zip around outside the Shuttle. There'll be a Sputnik, a meteorite, plasma screens with real-time images from both the Charlie Mary Noble Observatory at UNT and the Hubble Telescope.

Certainly, there are grander, more elaborate planetariums around. The Hayden in New York, let's face it, is awe-inspiring (it holds more than four times the Noble's 100-seat capacity). But there is something that distinguishes the Skymaster's software abilities.

It's live and interactive. It doesn't have to follow a set program.  The operator can veer off to answer specific questions. Our tour came to a slack-jawed halt as Krause took requests. Could she show us the Voyager missions? Up popped the paths of the space probes, arcs of light soaring out of the solar system. Cassini? Galileo? The Crab Nebula? Because the entire room seemed to shift and spin, my producer  had to flee the auditorium — the ZKP-4's cosmic leaps are dizzying.

Oh, the places you'll go. Come prepared with some suggestions on what you want to see. The Noble can pack a lot of universe into its little space.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Art&Seek was on the ground for Monday's dedication of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. KERA reporter BJ Austin filed the radio report below, while KERA videographer Ivey Suber shot the video above.

• KERA radio report:

• Online version:

Wednesday, Friday and Saturday … there are glittering galas to celebrate the opening of the five-venue Performing Arts Center. In the Wyly Theatre, a special “theatrical experience” will be hosted by actor Bruce Willis. In the new Winspear Opera House, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves will perform. Sunday, it’s open house – everyone’s invited to enjoy free concerts from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, saxophonist David Sanborn, Texas Ballet Theatre and more.

At dedication ceremonies, AT&T Performing Arts Center Board Chairman Howard Hallam told the crowd that this Center is the start of something big for Dallas, and all of North Texas.

Hallam: "It will offer us opportunities to expand our minds and grow as individuals and as a community. That is the power of the performing arts."

That is not lost on Dallas School Superintendent Dr. Michael Hinojosa. The school district’s Booker T. Washington School for the Performing and Visual Arts is next door to the Opera House, across Flora Street from the Wyly, and has as its front yard the Sammons Performance Park.

Hinojosa: "This is just going to be incredible. They can just walk across the yard to come participate in these activities. And they can perform on this stage. They’re going to have tremendous careers because of everything that’s here at their disposal. So it’s going to be great."

Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert says a thriving arts complex and community is critical to the vitality and future of Dallas.

Art&Seek presents This Week in Texas Music History. Every week, we’ll spotlight a different moment and the musician who made it. This week, Texas music scholar Gary Hartman looks at the short by influential life of bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson.

You can also hear This Week in Texas Music History on Saturday on KERA radio. But subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss an episode. And our thanks to KUT public radio in Austin for helping us bring this segment to you.

And if you’re a music lover, be sure to check out Track by Track, the bi-weekly podcast from Paul Slavens, host of KERA radio’s 90.1 at Night.

• Click the player to listen to the podcast:

• Expanded online version:

This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll honor a Texan who performed in both churches and bordellos before becoming one of the most prolific and influential blues musicians of all time.

Blind Lemon Jefferson was born in Couchman, Texas, on Sept. 24, 1893.  As a young man, he performed in churches, brothels and on street corners in Deep Ellum, alongside other pioneering Texas-based blues players, including Leadbelly, Lightnin’ Hopkins and T-Bone Walker (original moniker: "Oak Cliff T-Bone").  Between 1926 and 1929, Jefferson made dozens of recordings for Paramount Records and became the best selling “race” artist in the country.  His tremendous commercial success helped persuade major labels to begin recording other blues artists, thereby helping to bring blues to a worldwide audience.  As remarkable as Blind Lemon Jefferson’s career was, it did not last long. Following a performance in Chicago on December 22, 1929, he froze to death while walking back to his hotel room.  Nevertheless, Jefferson had an enormous impact on his contemporaries and on an untold number of younger musicians.  His “Matchbox Blues” became a hit for 1950s rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins, as well as for the Beatles.  Elvis Presley borrowed from Jefferson’s “Teddy Bear Blues” to produce one of his earliest hits, “Teddy Bear.”  And Bob Dylan included Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” on his debut album.

Next time on This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll celebrate a Texas singer who earned the first gold album in country music history.

Art&Seek presents This Week in Texas Music History. Every week, we’ll spotlight a different moment and the musician who made it. For the week of Sept. 12, Texas music scholar Gary Hartman looks back at an event that pushed the Texas punk scene into the national spotlight.

You can also hear This Week in Texas Music History on Saturday on KERA radio. But subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss an episode. And our thanks to KUT public radio in Austin for helping us bring this segment to you.

And if you’re a music lover, be sure to check out Track by Track, the bi-weekly podcast from Paul Slavens, host of KERA radio’s 90.1 at Night.

• Click the player to listen to the podcast:

• Expanded online version:

This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll recall an unexpected incident that helped propel the state’s punk music scene into the national spotlight.

Punk music, which reached its peak popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s, symbolized a rebellion of sorts against mainstream rock 'n' roll. Such pioneering punk bands as the Clash and the Sex Pistols emphasized volume, raw energy and emotion over polished performances. By the mid-1970s, Texas was home to several popular punk bands, including the Skunks, Toxic Shock and the Judys, along with such notable punk venues as Raul’s, Club Foot and the Hot Klub. It was on September 19, 1978, that the Austin-based punk band the Huns got into an altercation with police at Raul’s. The incident resulted in several arrests and was featured in the leading national music magazine Rolling Stone. This high-profile coverage put the Texas punk rock scene on the world map and helped solidify Austin’s growing reputation as a vibrant live music Mecca. Not only did several Texas punk bands, including Joe King Carrasco and the Crowns, achieve national success, but one of the most popular punk bands of all time, The Clash, chose Austin as the location for the filming of its 1982 classic video, Rock the Casbah.

Next time on This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll honor a Texan who performed in both churches and bordellos before becoming one of the most prolific and influential blues musicians of all time.

Emma Rodgers ran Black Images Book Bazaar for 30 years.  Since its closing in 2007, she has kept busy as a full-time volunteer, working with causes such as the African American Male Achievement Bowl (to be held next year), Rites of Passage Program for Girls, Inc (leading tours to Ghana), the Irma P. Hall Theater Festival for middle and high school students, and the African American Museum in Fair Park. And that's just a sampler. She even has an award named for her, the EMMA, honoring writers of Black romantic fiction.

On Saturday, TeCo Theatrical Productions will host a blow out bash at the Bishop Arts Theater Center to celebrate Miss Emma's 65th birthday. The event is sold out, but you can wish Miss Emma an early happy birthday with this week's Art&Seek Q&A:

Art&Seek: Your life has had such a positive impact on the careers of countless authors – have you ever been tempted to write a book yourself?

Emma Rodgers: Sure, if I could stop volunteering. My daughter-in-law Kenya says I need to learn how to say no. When I came on the board of TeCo in March 2009, I said that it was the last new organization I would volunteer with. Then David Robinson Jr. with DCCCD, creator of the African American Male Achievement Bowl, contacted me about serving on the steering committee. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to infuse the competition with some of my burning questions. For example, there are only four canopy walkways in the world - name the countries each of these are found in; or, Argentina is named after what chemical element?

A&S: What is your all-time favorite book?

E. R.: My all time favorite book is always the book I’m reading. Now I’m reading Douglass’ Women, a novel by Jewell Parker Rhodes about American hero, abolitionist, former slave Frederick Douglass and his two women who loved him – his black wife and his white mistress.

A&S: If given the power and resources, what changes would you make to improve the current state of the African American literary community in North Texas?

E. R.: I would establish a foundation or work with a foundation that is committed to literacy and other organizations such as Project Manhood that works with students. This organization would work with established organizations (sororities, fraternal organizations, churches) that have a youth component to organize book clubs, take the children to the Dallas Children’s Theater, exhibitions at museums like the "George Washington Carver: An Extraordinary Man with a Mighty Vision” at the African American Museum in Fair Park.

If I had the resources, my next project would be to fund a “Reading to the Womb” series. We would be stationed in county hospitals, at Head Start Centers, early childhood development centers on college campuses, and church and community preschools. In other words, places where you are likely to find pregnant women. We would establish some kind of reward system, like Earning by Learning for the parent.

A&S: If you could speak for one minute to the 15-year-old Emma – yourself, 50 years ago - what would you tell her?

In a power speed minute – like those disclaimers that are made at the end of a product that has 20 side effects:

You have to ask the right questions – this pearl of wisdom is inspired by Aunt Ester in August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. All that glitters in not gold – the moral of the story in Zora Neale Hurston’s novella The Gilded Six-Bits. My happiness is mine – the converse of what a Toni Morrison character said in Sula. The character said, “My loneliness is mine” – which means I’m responsible for my loneliness and conversely I’m responsible for my happiness. Nothing in life is free – you pay a price now or later. Everything is not as it appears – look for a deeper meaning, look beyond the surface, peel the onion back. Take care of your temple - eat right, plenty of fruits and vegetables, make water your beverage of choice, don’t drink coffee or smoke, consume only legal substances, exercise and walk.

Read the newspaper, and listen to the radio. I’m an NPR junkie. My 41-year-old son listens to NPR because that’s all he heard growing up. Now to get the 22-year-old to model her mother’s behavior regarding the radio will be a coup. But I must say that she does have 90.1 programmed in her car, so we are moving in the right direction. Her godmother, Sybil, also has it programmed in her car radio, so that when we are out and about I can listen to NPR. I have it programmed in my husband’s car also.

Know your directions – north, east, south, west. Always have a pen and paper in your purse, backpack, car. Use your initiative. Don’t wait for someone to ask you to do something. Take charge when you see that something needs to be done. Don’t take everything personally. It’s a big world – everybody is not looking or thinking about you. Don’t let anyone limit your ability to grow. Life is what you make it.

The Art&Seek Q&A is a weekly discussion with a person involved in the arts in North Texas. Check back next Thursday for another installment.

Art&Seek presents This Week in Texas Music History. Every week, we’ll spotlight a different moment and the musician who made it. For the week of Sept. 5, Texas music scholar Gary Hartman takes a look at Milton Brown, whose meeting with Bob Wills in Fort Worth led to the formation of one of the most distinguished acts in the history of western swing, the Light Crust Doughboys.

You can also hear This Week in Texas Music History on Saturday on KERA radio. But subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss an episode. And our thanks to KUT public radio in Austin for helping us bring this segment to you.

And if you’re a music lover, be sure to check out Track by Track, the bi-weekly podcast from Paul Slavens, host of KERA radio’s 90.1 at Night.

Click the player to listen to the podcast:

• Expanded online version:

This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll meet the “other” King of Western Swing.

William Milton Brown was born in Stephenville on Sept. 8, 1903. At an early age, he was singing church hymns and sentimental love songs, but he also enjoyed the upbeat pop, jazz and fiddle hoedowns he heard from traveling medicine shows. By 1930, Brown was living in Fort Worth. There he met a young fiddle player named Bob Wills who shared his eclectic musical tastes. Before long, Brown and Wills were performing regularly on KFJZ as the Light Crust Doughboys. Because they played such a broad variety of musical styles, including fiddle breakdowns, blues, ballads and swinging jazz numbers, the group gained a huge following. However, Brown soon left the band over disputes with the manager, Pappy O’Daniel. He formed his own group, Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies, which included fiddles, piano and the first amplified steel guitar. For a while, Brown was the most prominent band leader in western swing, and he helped define the sound of country music for generations to come. Had he not died in 1936 from complications following a car wreck, some argue that Brown would be known today as the true “King of Western Swing.”

Next time on This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll recall an unexpected incident that helped propel the state’s punk music scene into the national spotlight.

Photo by Diana C. Vargas Martinez.

As an eighth grader at W.E. Greiner Middle School in Dallas, Maria Lupe Vargas won a music scholarship. The scholarship was created specifically for Greiner by the late Martha Vaughan in honor of her son, Stevie Ray, who died in a plane crash in 1990. Before becoming a legendary guitar hero, Stevie Ray grew up in a musical family in Oak Cliff – just like Lupe Vargas.

Today Lupe brings the musical erudition full circle. She teaches orchestra and mariachi at her junior high alma mater, and on October 4th, Lupe Vargas will be an honored guest at the 15th Annual Stevie Ray Vaughan Remembrance Ride and Concert. First, she is this week's Art&Seek Q&A:

Art&Seek: Is there something special about the cultural climate of Oak Cliff that produces musicians?

Lupe Vargas: I think that Oak Cliff makes you close to your family. Family is everything in my book. They were and always are there for me for any kind of support, and being a musician, you really need all the support you can get. They drove me to my lesson, to the performance, to the rehearsal. I needed particular clothing for performances, they had to sign permission slips, I needed instrument rental money… Without a caring family, it's really hard to get these things. I believe Oak Cliff promotes a sense of unity and culture. It allows all cultures to express themselves.

A&S: How did you first hear about the Stevie Ray Vaughan Memorial Scholarship?

L. V.: My teacher, Mr. David Large (now at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts) informed the orchestra class at Greiner that scholarships were being offered for students who planned to continue taking music throughout high school. I was very excited to think that at age 14, I could receive a scholarship that would benefit me in college, and make my parents proud.

A&S: What has your musical life been like between the time you were a student at Greiner and your return here as a teacher?

L. V.: As you know, I now teach at my alma mater, Greiner! I love it there! Since Greiner, I continued on to Molina High School where my mother and I literally began the orchestra program. Throughout high school I took free private lessons from a violinist from the Dallas Symphony, Sho-mei Pelletier, through the Dallas Symphony's Young Strings Program. The Program introduced me to summer chamber music camps and also gave me opportunities of performing at the Meyerson Center. I also played in the New Conservatory of Dallas Orchestra directed by another musician from the Dallas Symphony, Arkady Fomin.

I went on to the University of Texas at Arlington where I had a music scholarship. I majored in Music Education and took private lessons, played in the orchestra, and also joined a mariachi band on the side. The mariachi band helped economically as I was in college and needed the extra money for gas. My uncle Mando taught me how to use my knowledge of music and apply it to my Hispanic culture music, norteno music. I initially played the violin and he played the bajo sexto (12 string guitar), then I began to take interest in the button accordion, learning it by ear, norteno style. We eventually took on gigs at quinceaneras, weddings and private parties. We made it a family affair. My mother sang the second voice, my uncle sang the first voice and played the bajo sexto, my brother played the electric bass and I played the button accordion as well as the violin.

A&S: What made you decide on teaching orchestra and mariachi?

L. V.: Since I love orchestra and mariachi, and I play in a professional mariachi on the weekends, why not start a student mariachi at Greiner? The school already owned a guitarron and a vihuela and some guitars. These instruments are the heart of mariachi. There are so many talented students at Greiner – it gives them another ensemble to play with that is a little more relaxed than orchestra. It also keeps them off the streets and makes their families happy, playing music from their culture.

A&S: Can you give us a quick primer on what makes good mariachi?

L. V.: A good mariachi is attitude. Also, the more, the merrier! People are wowed by the size of the Greiner mariachi; we usually have seven guitar players, two guitarrones, one or two trumpet players and ten violins! Yes!

The Art&Seek Q&A is a weekly discussion with a person involved in the arts in North Texas. Check back next Thursday for another installment.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

University of North Texas professor Walton Muyumba joins us for this week's Art&Seek segment on Think TV. Muyumba is a critic and blogger and the author of the newly released The Shadow and the Act: Black Intellectual Practice, Jazz Improvisation, and Philosophical Pragmatism.

Art&Seek presents This Week in Texas Music History. Every week, we’ll spotlight a different moment and the musician who made it. For the week of Aug. 31, Texas music scholar Gary Hartman takes a look at Charline Arthur,  who blazed a trail for gender equality in music.

You can also hear This Week in Texas Music History on Saturday on KERA radio. But subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss an episode. And our thanks to KUT public radio in Austin for helping us bring this segment to you.

And if you’re a music lover, be sure to check out Track by Track, the bi-weekly podcast from Paul Slavens, host of KERA radio’s 90.1 at Night.

Click the player to listen to the podcast:

• Expanded online version:

This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll look at a singer who was born in a railroad boxcar but went on to tour with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Charline Arthur was born Charline Highsmith on September 2, 1929, in a railroad boxcar near Henrietta, Texas. At the age of 12, she had written her first song, “I’ve Got the Boogie Blues.” By the age of 15, she had her own radio show in Paris, Texas. Charline Arthur was a versatile musician who sang country, blues and boogie-woogie. She also played guitar, fiddle, mandolin and banjo. By the 1950s, Arthur was performing on the popular Dallas-based radio program, the Big “D” Jamboree. She also toured with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis on the famous Louisiana Hayride. Charline Arthur rebelled against the prevailing image of women in country music as demure and “ladylike.” Instead, she wore pants while performing, pranced and strutted across the stage and sometimes sang sexually suggestive lyrics. RCA Records eventually dropped Arthur because she refused to conform to the label’s notion of a “prim and proper” lady. Nevertheless, Charline Arthur is now widely regarded as a champion for gender equality in the music industry and as a pioneer in fusing country with boogie-woogie to help create rockabilly. Next time on This Week in Texas Music History we’ll meet the “other” King of Western Swing.

In the Saturday Spotlight, we’re talking books. The 7^th Annual Tulisoma South Dallas Book Fair and Arts Festival promotes literacy in South Dallas. The festival got its name from the Swahili word for “we read.” Visiting authors will be on hand at the African American Museum and other venues to talk about their love of books and reading. Click here for a complete schedule of events.