Rock on

At the memorial service for longtime Twin Cities recording engineer Tom Tucker, 63, Saturday at St. Joan of Arc church in south Minneapolis, churchgoers clapped after every reading and remembrance (by his children, ex-wife, current partner, best friend's wife, etc.) and every musical performance (by Mary Jane Alm, Pamela McNeill, and others). The mourners roared with laughter after singer Jevetta Steele expressed her trepidation when she first met Tucker about a white man recording black church music. Then the Steele family quintet performed the stirring gospel tune "I Go to the Rock" in memory of Tucker, and the congregation responded with a roaring standing ovation. The Rev. Jim DeBruycker then stepped to the microphone and declared: "I feel like the whitest white man in Minnesota." -JON BREAM

Stadium-sized audience

In one webcast, the Minnesota Opera reached more than 11 times as many people as did the live production of "Werther" last month. This was the first time the opera company sent one of its performances out on the Web, in a collaboration with SoundQue and OperaMusicBroadcast.com. James Valenti and Roxana Constantinescu starred in the opera, which reached more than 77,000 households in 18 countries. Minnesota became the first major American opera company to webcast its work in this way. Allan Naplan, president and general director, said the company "not only efficiently reached a much broader audience than what is possible in the house, but the webcast also distributed an operatic experience of the highest artistic quality." Bravo! -GRAYDON ROYCE

Will play for Slim

There probably won't be a lot of Irishness in the Mad Ripple St. Paddy's Day Hoot for Slim other than red-haired host Jim Walsh's zeal. But the spirit of it should be truly celebratory and holy, considering the tip-jar money and guaranteed good vibes will go toward beloved local music legend Bob "Slim" Dunlap, the Replacements guitarist who is recovering from a severe stroke. Curtiss A, Dan Israel, Ashleigh Still, Martin Devaney, Joe Fahey, Katy Vernon, Ben Glaros, John Swardson and many others will play. (8 p.m. Sat., Amsterdam Bar & Hall. No cover.) -CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER

The Graywolf collection

The National Book Critics Circle announced the winners of its annual awards, and -- whaddya know? -- there's Minneapolis' Graywolf Press front and center once again. Graywolf, in recent years, has published one other NBCC award winner, collections by two Nobel-winning poets, one National Book Award finalist and a collection of poetry that won the Kingsley Tufts Award. This time around, it was Geoff Dyer's essay collection, "Otherwise Known as the Human Condition," which took top honors in the NBCC criticism category. The judges said that London-based Dyer is a "critic par excellence who showed his love of his various subjects in tour-de-force language." Dyer's book collects 25 years of essays and articles on topics ranging from art, music and literature to personal essays. -LAURIE HERTZEL

Horse play

"The Turin Horse," the final film by legendary Hungarian director Béla Tarr, will have its area premiere and theatrical run at Walker Art Center for four days, starting Thursday. The film, produced by the Minneapolis-based Werc Werk Works, was Hungary's official entry in the 2012 Academy Awards. Tarr's work has rarely been screened outside of film festivals, art museum retrospectives and other one-off events, yet he has earned a reputation as a master filmmaker. "The Turin Horse," his last project before his announced retirement from filmmaking, was inspired by an anecdote about philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In 1889, reportedly after he saw a coachman violently thrashing his horse in a piazza in Turin, Nietzsche threw his arms around the animal and collapsed in tears. Afterward, Nietzsche suffered a mental breakdown and spent the final decade of his life in silence. Tarr's film imagines what happened to the horse. -COLIN COVERT

Into the Black

When the cameras were rolling during his State Theatre show last May, Lewis Black had to think of a way to convince audience members that heckling him was strictly forbidden. "We do a special thing in these cases where we take you downstairs to a room where you have to listen to Michele Bachmann for 24 hours," the comedian and "Daily Show" alum threatened. It must've worked: The performance was heckle-free enough to be turned into his newest special, "In God We Rust," which premieres Saturday at 9 p.m. via EpixHD. This is Black's second time using Minneapolis audiences for one of his projects; his 2003 album, "Rules of Enragement," was recorded at Acme Comedy Club. We're curious if the televised version -- which, probably due to the timeliness issues, was actually light on political banter -- will show the sweet scene of Black's 90-something-year-old parents in the crowd, laughing heartily at the jokes. They certainly weren't alone. -CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER