We’ll Make Great Pets

SAT 12/11
No More Homeless Pets (a coalition of veterinarians, humane societies and rescue groups, among others) hosts a collective open house Saturday, with 16 metro-area shelters participating. Expect raffles, refreshments and T-shirts for donations — or just come to adopt. Call 816-333-7387. — Annie Fischer

Ars Poetica

THU 12/9
In addition to chalking pastel odes on Loose Park sidewalks and Muddy’s coffee-shop walls, Allen Heinrich leads a band of poets called Opus. See Heinrich and company instigate, pontificate and occasionally rhyme at 9 p.m. Saturday at the 13th Street Grill and Bar, 417 East 13th Street. Call 816-942-9966 for more information. — Harper

Benny and the Greats
The passers-by had no idea.

SAT 12/11
The 1994 documentary A Great Day in Harlem tells the story of Art Kane’s first assignment for Esquire, when the rookie photographer assembled 57 New York jazz luminaries for a mass photo on the stoop of a Harlem brownstone. In the famous shot, Charles Mingus lurks in the middle, a cigarette hanging dourly from his lip. Above Count Basie (who sits on the curb with some schoolboys), Dizzy Gillespie sticks out his tongue at Roy Eldridge. And at the very top, standing stock still and smiling in a jacket and tie is newcomer Benny Golson. Now, Golson and the photo are both so universally famous that they appear together in Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal. We’ll get to see Golson in the flesh Thursday at Screenland (1656 Washington), where, prefacing his concert at the Folly on Friday, he appears for a free showing of Great Day at 8 p.m. (following a reception at 7). Call 816-444-4744.

— Jason Harper