Who carried out the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States? People in the pay of Saudi Arabia, trained and maintained by the secret services of Pakistan.

Starting in 1959, over the course of five years and three movies, Hollywood's most famous closeted homosexual made love to Hollywood's favorite symbolic virgin, entertaining multitudes as legions of Miles Davis listeners and Norman Mailer readers shuddered to their core.

""September 11,"" commissioned by the French producer Alain Brigand as a response to the terrorist attacks, brings together 11 filmmakers from 11 countries, each contributing an episide that runs exactly 11 minutes, 9 seconds and 1 frame -- a formula that, spelled out as ""11'09""01,"" produced the date of the attacks in numerical date notation, as well as the title the film was released under in Europe last year.

The Moscow city government was instrumental last week in serving up a huge helping of contemporary dance, performed by major companies from France, Israel and Britain.

The United States' national parks have their charms, but solitude is not one of them. I've walked in Wyoming's Tetons, where trails can feel like a Starbucks coffee shop queue, and I've trudged up paths in Montana's Glacier with a gaggle of tourists, all of us yelling ""Hey bear!"" in case Mama Grizzly should be lurking around the next bend.

At an Italian restaurant in New York, I once had the good fortune to discover a terrific alternative to plain butter or olive oil on bread -- white beans and olive oil.

In the days that followed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, an exhibit of photographs opened without fanfare in downtown New York, within a short walk of the smoking ruins.

The Helikon Opera opened its 14th season with a revival of Georges Bizet's opera ""Carmen"" in a radical staging by Dmitry Bertman that has achieved almost classic status.

What's better than a cup of steaming, hot tea? How about an entire tea festival! Whether you're a connoisseur or simply enjoy a mug or two on a chilly day, you won't want to miss the International Tea Festival, held Saturday and Sunday on Vasilyevsky Spusk.

Blues music has come a long way in the last century -- from its humble beginnings in the shacks and cotton fields of the American South, the blues as a genre has influenced jazz, country and even classical music, had a major role in the birth of rock 'n' roll and produced such musical greats as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and B.B. King.