Thurs. Dec. 21

You're going to pick up a calendar or two, right, as the New Year approaches? You don't really want to hang up that tacky one the insurance company sent, do you? Well, there's lots of choices - many of them gag-filled - but why not take a turn for the serious this year and pick up "Poetry Calendar 2007." David Barber, poetry editor for the Atlantic, poet laureate Robert Pinsky, Lloyd Schwartz and six others of that ilk will be at the Brookline Booksmith Thursday Dec. 21 at 7 p.m. We're guessing they'll be sharing some of their work and touting that calendar. Free. (In that mammoth photo: Pinsky.)

279 Harvard St., Brookline, 617-566-6660 brooklinebooksmith.com

Wed. Dec. 20

God, we love deep male voices sad music. Tindersticks, Willard Grant Conspiracy, Leonard Cohen, the Magnetic Fields, Nick Cave. Playing in this league is a fella by name of Mark who goes by M. who sings and writes for the band the Milling Gowns. There's no guitarist in the quartet; pianist Sharon Crumrine is the main instrumentalist. The songs on their debut EP are mostly slow, stately and sad. Gorgeous too. It's not the kind of music people tend to go out to see for a classic "good time." But the rewards are there and sometimes deeper. The Milling Gowns - with added electric violinist  Betty Widerski -  play the Abbey Lounge with HENRY (it's their residency gig), the Triple Dids and Gutta on Wednesday Dec. 20. Starts at 9 p.m. Tickets: $7.

3 Beacon St., Somerville, 617-441-9631 abbeylounge.com

Wed. Dec. 20

Lots of choices out there for Christmas fare. One of the most powerful soulful voices of the past - well, half-century - is in our midst Wednesday Dec. 20 at the Museum of Fine Arts' Remis Auditorium. That would be Odetta, the singer who inspired Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin, who marched in the civil rights movement, wh sang for presidents. For this 7:30 p.m. show, she will draw from her recend CD "Gonna Let It Shine: A Concert for the Holidays." We don't think anything would be more inspirational than this. Tickets: $25.

465 Huntington Ave., 617-369-3306 mfa.org

Tues. Dec. 19

What the world needs now is a new ... Beth Orton or Beth Gibbons? Well, we've always loved Portishead and its ethereal singer (Gibbons) and now we've got Natalie Walker in our midst with her debut disc, "Urban Angel," and a gig at the Paradise Lounge Tuesday Dec. 19. Walker was raised in Indiana, part of a Born Again Christian family. Did she rebel? Not exactly. She praises her parents as being "great, but ... strict." School, college, classmates - not so cool. Walker's music floats gently, comforts. There are bits of electronica, shimmering guitars, slow-to-mid tempos. It's easy on the ears, but not in a saccharine (bad) way. She lulls you into her dreamy world. Religious? Walker calls herself "sensitive, but also goofy. I'm caring and creative. .. I don't want to glamorize my image. Yet, I don't want to give the impression that I'm this conservative, religious girl, either. People watch you like a hawk. It's silly." Ok, Nat, we'll just sit back and let the gentle waves wash over us and chill out. (Trivia: She used to sing in Daughter Darling and her songs have been heard in "Entourage" and on the TV trailer for "Marie Antoninette.")  Tickets: $10. Doors at 7 p.m.

969 Commonwealth Ave., 617-562-8801 thedise.com

Mon. Dec. 18

Among the things we didn't know existed: Silent films made during the sound era. Films between 1970 and 2005, even. Harvard Film Archive has three of them, Malcolm Le Grice's "Berlin Horse," Harun Farocki's "Workers Leaving the Factory" and Guy Maddin's "Cowards on Bended Knee." HFA is calling it "The Silents of Sound." The first is a short about the process of film production and exhibition, the second considers questions of observation and realism in film and re-examines Lumiere's 1895 film, the title of which he's borrowed. The third, comprised of 10 chapters, is party autobiograhical about a Winnipeg hockey star's encounter with an oversexed Chinese woman. Maddin says it's "a lovingly self-loathing peek at myself but only as I would have enough courage to look - through a cracked glass made foggy by hairspray." Starts at 7 p.m. Admission: $8.

24 Quincy St., Cambridge, 617-495-4700 harvard.edu/hfa