After a lovely and much-needed long weekend of sun, sand, ice cream and fireworks on the shore, it's time to catch up with my doings in this week's issue of Time Out New York. It's a big issue, too: the annual Fall Preview, with a few choice picks for happenings in New York between now and December. So join me as I…

… admit to taking the gracious and talented Renée Fleming for granted these past seven years, in a feature about her current doings at the Met.

… preview the best of what's included in "The Best of All Possible Worlds," the massive Leonard Bernstein celebration that's being presented by the New York Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall — and also suggest a few things that went missing.

… lay out some odds — tongue wedged firmly in cheek — for the Miller Theatre presentation of Xenakis's music-drama Oresteia. (This was a running gag common to every section's Fall Preview feature pages.)

Over on the pop side of the fence, I was tapped to script a useful chart painstakingly calculated to help you break out of your boring old routine by choosing a show that's diametrically opposed to the one you'd normally pick. Thinking about Carcass ("Liverpool's original gore-grinders return from the dead")? Try Céline Dion ("Equally scary")! Okay, okay, maybe not so useful — but a handy list of a dozen big fall shows, with some modestly witty descriptions.

I also wrote a  preview of the first local gig in more than a decade by the infamous No Wave act James Chance and the Contortions. The show happened on Saturday, right here in my own neighborhood at P.S.1. I'm sorry to have missed it — though not too sorry, given a therapeutic weekend that's even now winding down to a gentle end.

Playlist:

King Crimson – Park West, Chicago, IL, August 7, 2008 (DGMlive official download)

Jay-Z – The Blueprint (Roc-A-Fella)

Nas – Illmatic (Columbia)

Silvestre Revueltas – Sensemayá; Inocente Carreño – Margariteña; Antonio Estévez – Melodia en el Llano; Arturo Márquez – Danzón No. 2; Aldemaro Romero – Fuga con Pajarillo (from Suite for Strings No. 1); Alberto Ginastera – Estancia (selections); Evencio Castellanos – Santa Cruz de Pacairigua; Leonard Bernstein – Mambo (from West Side Story) – Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/Gustavo Dudamel (Deutsche Grammophon)

Kanye West – Graduation (Roc-A-Fella)

Tupac – Me Against the World (Amaru/Jive)

Eric B. & Rakim – Paid in Full (Island)

Ice Cube – AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted (Priority)

Lejaren Hiller – Computer Cantata – Helen Hamm, University of Illinois Contemporary Chamber Players/Jack McKenzie; Quartet No. 6 for Strings – Concord String Quartet; A Portfolio for Diverse Performers and Tape – Gregg Smith Singers (New World)

Dr. Dre – The Chronic (Death Row)

A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory (Jive)

Boogie Down Productions – Criminal Minded (B-Boy)

Anna Clyne – Rewind; Fits and Starts; Rapture; Choke; 1987 (MySpace)

Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam)

Joell Ortiz – The Brick (Bodega Chronicles) (Koch)

Kurt Rosenwinkel – The Next Step (Verve)

Asher Roth, Don Cannon & DJ Drama – The Greenhouse Effect, Vol. 1 (mixtape)

Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 5 – Vienna Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein (Deutsche Grammophon)

Charles Ives – Symphony No. 2; The Gong on the Hook and Ladder; Tone Roads No. 1; Hymn; Hallowe'en; Central Park in the Dark; The Unanswered Question – New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein (Deutsche Grammophon)

Jean Sibelius – Symphony No. 2; Luonnotar; Pohjola's Daughter – Phyllis Curtin, New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein (Sony Classical)

Luigi Cherubini – Medea – Maria Callas, Fedora Barbieri, Gino Penno, Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala Milan/Leonard Bernstein (EMI Classics)

Grateful Dead – Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, February 23, 1993 (private tape; Ornette Coleman guests; stream it here)