Starchitect Moshe Safdie's K.C. mega-shell bandstands are finally opening, and it's a twin marvel for the city's downtown skyline. Two stand-alone halls sheathed in stainless steel, and featuring a 65-foot-tall glass wall, the Kauffman Center will be the home of the city's symphony, opera company, and ballet. The opening weekend of September 16th will aptly feature a performance by Placido Domingo. Already, downtown Kansas City, on the Missouri side, is one of the coolest enclaves in the country, a best-kept secret of Barton Fink-like vintage hotels (the Roosevelt, Hotel Phillips) and neon signage, neat little boutiques and antique finds emporiums, late-night jazz joints, and golden age bars (the Drum Room, the Savoy). Nice time to take a train, plane, a bus, just go just the same, come fall. You'll be surprised.

It's been a while since Manhattan has hosted a new steak house downtown, and this one's been trying to since June. Last week, Sam Bahri's Steak House finally and quietly opened on Sixth Avenue across the street from Da Silvano and Bar Pitti in the old Scuderia space. Shared chunky tables, a handsome bar, dry-aged porterhouses, lamb chops, shrimp dishes and foie gras are some of the feasty plates. Expect a lighter atmosphere than the genre's norm. We'll be checking it out this week to see if the west side of Sixth, always beleaguered by fast closings, will finally have one that sticks around.

Early next month, the gorgeous film opens at indie theaters in New York and Los Angeles, then goes wide in October.  Go see it. Starring Eric Elmosnino as Gainsbourg, who made a living in Nazi-controlled Paris as a youth playing the piano in bar, the film follows the great lover of women through his childhood and into his later years, where he ushered in jazz, reggae and even electronica, despite being known mostly for his breathy duet with Bardot, "Bonnie and Clyde." A drunk, a louse, but a one of a kind guy. It's a fun, avant-garde adaptation of Sfar's own graphic novel. And Laetitia Casta, portraying the bombshell Bardot, does the now-old -but-iconic broad justice. When it opened last year in Paris, it won two of the top Cesar Awards (for best first feature and best actor). In Manhattan the film opens August 31th at Film Forum. If you're not hitting the beaches, hit Paris, vicariously. A decidedly different take on the City of Lights than Woody Allen's uber-smooch-y lit-fantasy, Midnight in Paris.

As we approach the 10th anniversary of the worst tragedy in New York City's history, a treasure of talents are coming together to tell people's stories of the city that never sleeps. Or forgets.

Here is the information on a great, and likely moving, benefit performance, being held on September 8^th and 9th:

The biggest stars of film, television and stage - including more Oscar, Emmy and Tony Award winning talent than has ever been on one stage at one time - will gather on September 8th and 9th to commemorate the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 with a benefit reading of Sarah Tuft's, "110 Stories," a play based on first-person accounts of 9/11. Participating cast includes Lauren Ambrose, Mario Cantone, Billy Crudup, Samuel L. Jackson, Melissa Leo, Ralph Macchio, Aasif Mandvi, James McCaffrey, Vincent Piazza, Jeremy Piven, Andre Royo, Stelio Savante, Pablo Schreiber, Tony Shalhoub, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Tamara Tunie, Kathleen Turner, Ben Vereen, Merritt Wever and Frank Whaley.
* subject to change

According to 110 Stories' Playwright Sarah Tuft, "It's the human side of history, without politics and agenda, giving voice to those who experienced 9/11 directly."  Net proceeds will go towards the New York Says Thank You Foundation, a non-profit organization that works to transform the annual 9/11 anniversaries into a positive, hands-on platform for national volunteer service.

There will also be an opening-night reception with the cast and a closing-night party for VIP ticket holders. Email tickets@110storiesplay.com for information.

Tickets are currently available through the NYU Skirball Center box office at (212) 352-3101 or http://skirballcenter.nyu.edu/page/tickets. For more information visit www.110storiesplay.com or follow the play on Twitter at www.twitter.com/110storiesplay.

If you're planning on visiting NYC for the 9/11 memorial opening and need a place close by to stay, Gild Hall and Smyth are within walking distance of the memorial.

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Lykke Li

Why no God? Because the guy's God-given talents weren't given a chance through half his life. And you have to assume that some of the atrocities that befall characters in the book hit very close to his own home.

The cast includes a Huck Finn-like orphan boy, a pedophile and a serial killer couple (who call their victims their "models"). That's the Flannery aspect. The Carver comes in the sparse, smart, tight dialogue and story telling. It's a chiller, both for its Midwest Gothic violence of nonsensical proportions, and for the fact that this blue-collar dude has more writer's gifts than the staff of The New Yorker.

Interviewed on NPR, the charmingly humble Pollock twanged along that he started his penmanship, so to speak, by typing out some of his favorite novels from beginning to end. It helped, but didn't provide him the life-experience stories already etched in his brain and forearms.

Set in between WW2 and the '60s, the book takes place mostly in Pollock's hometown of....Knockemstiff...the name of an actual town. Can't make this stuff up. He describes Knockemstiff as one tough place, where "nearly everyone was connected by blood through one godforsaken calamity or another." I'll drink (rotgut) to that.

Hardcover, 261 pages, Random House, $26.95

Check this out, just do it, or we'll clock ya':

Donald Ray Pollock On Finding Fiction Late In Life : NPR; www.npr.org

It's clean-lined, nicely sized and rather terrifying. And if your boy who fancies eyeliner is having trouble at school with kids stealing his lunch, it will end that once and for all. Or cause a cafeteria clear. This highly-functional lunchbox bag is available through ThinkGeek.com, for $19.99.