Warmth

Most performers looking to make a connection with their audience tend to do so by reaching out in some way, by opening up and extending themselves to the crowd. At the Paradise on Thursday, Pinback frontman Rob Crow -- noticeably uncomfortable with stage banter, willing to chastise talkative patrons near the front of the stage, and singing most of his songs with his eyes closed -- chose instead to make the audience come to him. That's a much tougher road, but Pinback traveled it without too many bumps.

Throw open the windows and break out the sunglasses. Warm weather and sunny skies will roll into the Boston area starting Monday, with highs in the 60s expected daily until at least Saturday, according to the National Weather Service in Taunton. Monday will probably be the warmest day, with temperatures in the upper 60s, according to the weather service. From Tuesday through Saturday, the mercury is not expected to register daytime highs below 60. Tuesday is the only day when showers appear possible, estimated at 40 percent likely.

CAMBRIDGE - Not the least pleasure of the Back Bay Chorale's Friday performance of Felix Mendelssohn's "Elijah" was the match of repertoire and venue. Bach's sacred works seem to divide their time between stone cathedrals and a theological library's austere riches; Handel, even at his most pious, never strays far from footlights and a proscenium arch. But the intimate Victorian grandeur and carved-wood warmth of Sanders Theatre were an architectural echo of Mendelssohn's sure-footed, unfailingly polished biblical epic.

AMY BUTLER "Sari Bloom" organic cotton duvet cover, $99.99 (twin) to $129.99 (queen) at Bed Bath & Beyond, 401 Park Drive, Boston, 617-536-1090, and other locations, bedbathandbeyond.com K STUDIO "Crying" pillow in organic cotton, $152 at Magpie, 416 Highland Avenue, Somerville, 617-623-3300, magpie-store.com TULU TEXTILES "Mutlu" organic cotton-filled queen-size quilt, $398 at Twelve Chairs, 319 A Street, Boston,...

There was drama at the end of last night's Boston Symphony Orchestra concert when music director James Levine, after acknowledging the standing ovation, turned to exit, tripped, and sprawled to the floor. In a horrified silence he stood up, and to renewed applause, danced a little jig. He returned to the stage a final time, ostentatiously dusting off his tails to demonstrate that he was OK. There was even more drama in the concert, which paired Arnold Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony with Beethoven's Ninth.

All summer's warmth was stored there in the hay. Thom Gunn

It was just an offhanded remark about the wintry conditions outside, but it was tempting to read into Stephin Merritt’s pronouncement. “We’re depending on you for warmth,’’ he cracked at the top of the Magnetic Fields’ show Wednesday, the first of two nights at the Wilbur Theatre. Warmth isn’t the first thing that springs to mind with Merritt’s songwriting. Here’s a guy who can write a love song whose chorus flashes a sweet smile only to bare its fangs: “Every hour kills a flower/I’m falling out of love with you.’’ Besides, the Magnetic Fields, which got its start...

WASHINGTON — It will probably come as a surprise to most Americans, but the winter just finished was the fifth-warmest on record, worldwide. Sure, nearly two-thirds of the country can dispute that from personal experience of a colder-than-normal season. But while much of the United States was colder than usual, December-February — climatological winter — continued the long string of unusual warmth on a global basis. And parts of the United States did join in, with warmer-than-normal readings for the season in New England and the Pacific Northwest.

CHITTENDEN, Vt. -- We hadn't thought much about the name of this central Vermont getaway, the Mountain Top Inn & Resort, until we approached after dark and found ourselves following a twisting, snow-glazed road ever upward as the full moon illuminated snow-filled meadows and white-tipped pines. But the twinkle of lights on the entry arbor told us we had found it, and we pushed inside to the warmth of a stone fireplace in a wood-beamed lobby lounge. The view down the mountain to the Chittenden Reservoir and across to the gently mounded peaks of North Pond and South Pond hills...

Few things can strike such apprehension in a critic as the news that a company will be performing an evening of excerpts of earlier dances. Such "greatest hits" compilations are often problematic, whether they're Bob Dylan songs or a postmodern dance company's works. Yet "Sporen (Traces)" - the concert-length dance that the Netherlands-based Leine & Roebana performed this past weekend at the Institute of Contemporary Art - suffers not from a surfeit of unrelated material, but rather from an occasionally benumbing lack of movement...

The bones of this house — which spent most of its life as a barn — date to the 1800s. But nearly everything else is new. Amy and Iain Kerr bought the weathered old barn in 1997 and slowly turned it into a living space with windows, exposed beams and open rooms. But they kept some of the original details — including a metal haylift that hangs from the second-floor ceiling — to pay tribute to its initial purpose. All the major systems in the house — from the natural gas furnace that provides radiant heat, to the electrical wiring — are less than 12 years old. The Kerrs replaced...

ROCK Ryan Adams , ‘Ashes & Fire' Following an uncharacteristic hiatus, singer-songwriter Ryan Adams returns with this lovely, low-key effort. A man of ever-changing moods - from brash rock to country jaunts to shimmering pop - Adams is in a mellow frame of mind on "Ashes & Fire. " The largely acoustic album throws off the aural equivalent of a warm, low lamplight and could serve as a perfect soundtrack for meandering late-night conversations about love and hope and sex and dreams, both wistful and optimistic.

All summer's warmth was stored there in the hay. Thom Gunn

JILL SCOTT With Anthony Hamilton, Doug E. Fresh, and DJ Jazzy Jeff At: Bank of America Pavilion, Tuesday Jill Scott does not waste her breath or time. The gifted singer was onstage for little more than an hour Tuesday at the Bank of America Pavilion, yet nearly every note and nuance seemed perfectly placed to give the packed house an emotionally rich concert. Scott, who has been vocal about all the ups and downs she's recently experienced (divorce, brief engagement, baby, major weight loss)

It’s not easy, being a homicide detective. Their clients are dead. The witnesses can be infuriating. The killings are often so pointless they defy basic logic. Every day, in so many ways, they see the worst of human nature. Meaning that you could forgive them for growing numb to it all, for turning a blind eye to the suffering. And yet, please consider the work of a few Boston detectives who went out of their way over the past year to help a woman living out the last months of her life.

MUSCAT, Oman — Abdul Assis, normally a quiet, respectful 17-year-old, had turned insistent. He wanted us to come swimming. It was the third time he had mentioned it in 10 minutes. Never mind the miles of 4-by-4 terrain and hairpin turns we wanted to tackle before dark. We went swimming. My husband, Andy Tyson, and I and our good friend Gabe Rogel had come to Oman not knowing what to expect, simply looking for adventure and a respite from the long, gray drudgery of winter. While friends and family questioned our decision to travel to the Persian Gulf...

Recently, a friend of mine and I each got a copy of Judith Flanders's splendid book, "Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England" (Norton, $34.95), and, comparing notes, discovered that we had both zeroed in on the chapter called "The Bathroom and the Lavatory. " After all, the mysteries of Victorian sex are as nothing to those of its plumbing. I have always wondered what arrangements existed in such places as Bleak House, and have never felt at all clear on the question of "drains," even though, based on my reading, they were as disquieting...

The new dorm tower at Massachusetts College of Art and Design is the most interesting Boston high-rise in years. Even though it isn't finished, it's already an architectural landmark, rising like a multicolored flag above Huntington Avenue. There's a youthfulness about this building, a feeling of play, of experiment. Those are qualities an art school ought to have. College buildings need donors to give them names. For the time being, this one is known as the MassArt Residence Hall.

Passing through Cohasset Village in the dead of winter, it’s easy to forget that there is, in fact, life on Earth. Welcome, then, are the lights in Ava Cucina, the warmth of its husband-and-wife owners, and the wonderful length of hot radiators they installed beneath the tables. This is the former, well-loved Bernard’s restaurant, now a good, affordable, family-style Italian spot. With Vincent Agostino in the kitchen, wife Annette running the front of the house, and the couple’s five grown children working the place on and off, this is truly a family affair.

WASHINGTON — It will probably come as a surprise to most Americans, but the winter just finished was the fifth-warmest on record, worldwide. Sure, nearly two-thirds of the country can dispute that from personal experience of a colder-than-normal season. But while much of the United States was colder than usual, December-February — climatological winter — continued the long string of unusual warmth on a global basis. And parts of the United States did join in, with warmer-than-normal readings for the season in New England and the Pacific Northwest.