It’s the last Roundup of the year — and it will have to last. The first one for 2009 won’t come until Monday as The Roundup takes a few days off to ring in the new year.
THIS IS NOT THE SOLUTION: Dallas Independent School District’s $84 million budget shortfall has been well-documented. As the district [...]

If you’re about to head into a four-day mini-vacation, you might consider taking advantage of a few museum deals.
First, if you are a Bank of America cardholder, you can flash your card and get free admission to the Dallas Museum of Art, Fort Worth Museum of Science and History and the Museum of Nature and [...]

Tony Cragg’s “Line of Thought” in front of the Rosewood Court complex at Pearl and Cedar Springs has become my favorite piece of public, outdoor sculpture in North Texas these days. Which isn’t saying a lot, actually, considering much of our outdoor art, which mostly consists of generic abstract corporate sculptures or popular but conventional [...]

R.I.P., ROBERT GRAHAM: It has been busy couple of days for deaths in the arts. First, Harold Pinter on Christmas Eve, then Dale Wasserman, who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, on Sunday. Those were followed Monday by jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who collaborated with Fort Worth native Ornette Coleman.
Add to that list [...]

Joel Shapiro, 20 elements
Never has there been a greater demonstration of meanness than the parking garages of Northpark Center on the Saturday after Christmas.

Mimmo Paladino, A Surrounded Figure (Assediato)
But it’s worth it, not just for the shopping, but for the generous supply of museum-grade art on view throughout the mall. [...]

Has everyone recovered from the four-day holiday weekend? No? Us neither — but we’ll get on to the Roundup anyway:
THE BOY NEEDS TO GROW UP: The Morning News checked in on the King Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art on Sunday, wanting to know how the Boy King is doing financially. From the [...]

While doing a little research on the Doubt commentary I did for the radio, I came across a trio of videos that Entertainment Weekly did with the cast of the Doubt movie. Three of the four main cast members — Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams — said they had seen the play [...]

If you don’t believe an author can create a city out of his own words,  you haven’t read Charles Dickens on London or Baudelaire on Paris.  No author has really done that for Dallas yet. But you can see that idea of “literature shaping our urban experience” made a little more tangible here: To celebrate [...]

T-minus 14 hours or so til Christmas. Done with all the shopping yet? If you’re out and about today finishing up (or even if you’re staying in) check out the holiday fare Art&Seek is providing on KERA (90.1 FM) today and tomorrow.
Today at noon: Tinsel Tales: NPR Christmas Favorites — Christmas is a time of [...]

To help you make it through Christmas without such arts-world news items as these:

Just like the Texas Ballet Theater, the Atlanta Ballet had to cut costs two years ago by nixing its live orchestra and going with taped recordings. Public scorn and a decline in ticket sales followed. Then two patrons donated $250,000 in September [...]