TOUCHING TALE FROM THE PRAIRIE

By Candace Chaney

CONTRIBUTING THEATER CRITIC

For a respite from the holiday sales and the yearly bombardment of television commercials with slogans like "Duh," look no further than A Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas at Lexington Children's Theatre.

Box office

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media by Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Wednesday.

MUSIC: THE BEST

Record labels self-destructed, but music thrived

By Walter Tunis

CONTRIBUTING MUSIC WRITER

Nothing dominated. But maybe that was for the best. Looking back at 2007, we saw a corporate music industry going up in flames of its own making. Record sales sank as major labels bet their futures on American Idol finalists and the hope that Britney Spears' latest meltdown would somehow translate into at least some sort of temporary sales.

TELEVISION: THE BEST

Plenty worth watching, at least before fall

By Robert Philpot

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

In 2007, TV had three seasons: a good spring, a great summer and a mediocre, strike-affected fall. Yet there were plenty of big, mad reasons to watch. These are just 10 of them.

POP!

Kentuckians axed from 'Amazing Race'

The Gothtuckians' amazing race came to an end Sunday night. Kynt Cothron and Vyxsin Fiala, the Louisville couple who stood out from their competitors on the CBS reality competition The Amazing Race because of their Goth style, were eliminated from the show after coming in last among the five remaining teams. Bad luck appeared to haunt them through the entire leg, which took them from Italy to Mumbai, India. After starting the leg in last place, they were forced to perform a task that the other teams...

FEB. 9

your guide to a month's worth of fun sun mon tue wed thu fri sat 1 2345 CD Central CD release party. Store open 10 a.m.-8 p.m. for release of Radiohead's album In Rainbows. Free refreshments. Concert at 2 p.m. by "in-house experimental drone band Everyone Lives Everyone Wins." CD Central, 377 S. Limestone. (859) 233-3472. www.cdcentralmusic.com.

ALPHABET MYSTERIES

A Louisvillian and her letters

By Evan Henerson

LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS

Sue Grafton may be running out of letters, but the ideas are still flowing freely. In T Is for Trespass -- the author's 19th novel -- Grafton's sleuth, Kinsey Millhone, matches wits with an elder-abusing sociopath who is working under a stolen identity. Because the novel is told from the points of view of both Millhone and her quarry, T Is for Trespass is Grafton's stab at writing an "open mystery."

NEW YEAR'S EATS

By Cheryl Truman

CTRUMAN@HERALD-LEADER.COM

It's after midnight on New Year's. The party's over. Way over. You've stopped the liquid portion of your celebration: Farewell to the champagne. Also the mojitos, cosmopolitans and Alabama slammers (for the uninitiated, that's Southern Comfort, sloe gin, amaretto and lemon juice).