Shock Value

The contemporary-music ensemble Relache premieres many new works every season, but seldom one as important and highly visible as Arvo Part's Fratres. The Estonian composer, 54, has taken the world by storm since emerging from the Soviet Union in 1976, yet little if any of his bleakly elegiac music has been performed in Philadelphia. It is embarrassing that a work so famous and broadly disseminated as Fratres has had to wait so long (nearly a decade) to be heard here; embarrassing, too, that the work was left to our new-music specialists rather than being embraced by mainstream groups.

I had to see "Confronting Cancer through Art" for a second time before I could fully digest the contents of this unique exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania. When I attended the opening at the invitation of sponsor Vivian Potamkin, I never got past the first room of the exhibition at the Arthur Ross Gallery. Photographer Becky Young was standing in front of her own work, a photo of her twin sister. It was the day after her sister had died from cancer. The rest of the exhibit was a blur after that.

SAY . . . SPA-A-A-A-H It's Borgata Spa Experience week at the luxe Atlantic City gaming complex through Friday, with prices starting at $85 for treatments at Spa Toccare and Immersion at the Water Club, plus free seminars and demos. 609-317-1000 or theborgata.com. HEH-HEH The boys are back. Mike Judge's, um, trailblazing cartoon "Beavis & Butt-head" returns to MTV at 10 p.m. Thursday with new episodes. BUCKS STOPS Should you need a reason (other than the fall foliage)

With the eye-rolling dementia of Klaus Kinski, a peeping-Tom establishing scene (call it a Klaus encounter), and its robust Pino Donaggio score, Crawlspace initially looks like the work of a depraved De Palma. Yet what's profoundly disturbing about writer/director David Schmoeller's effective slice 'n' dice is that after its opener, Crawlspace doesn't trade in the common currency of sexual terror. Dealing as it does with a genocidal maniac - a cross between Hitler and Captain Queeg - Crawlspace's transactions have uncommon shock value.

I'm enclosing a picture of a vase shaped like a monkey. I know it is majolica, but that is all I know about it. Can you give me more information? Your figural monkey pitcher is English majolica, the richly colored, lustrously glazed pottery produced between 1869 and 1885. According to New York dealer Bonnie Heller, a specialist in majolica, at least five sizes were made, ranging from 6 inches to 11 inches high. A complete set is striking. All the monkeys appear to be carrying sheaves of banana leaves.

"Thank you for watching 'Unsolved Mysteries,' " says the middle-aged man facing the camera. "My daughter's killer was caught because a viewer saw her story . . . Please watch 'Unsolved Mysteries.' It really helps. " The man is no actor. He appears in one of three new promotional announcements for "Unsolved Mysteries," which premieres as a weekly series on Wednesday, Oct. 5. The spots have been airing during NBC's Olympics coverage. "Mysteries," which aired as the occasional special last season, is nonfiction TV that resembles Fox TV's "America's Most Wanted.

Anyone who has ever gazed into the lurid mouth of a kid who has just eaten a blue Popsicle or swallowed a bottle of "blue raspberry" Lifesavers Squeeze juice has to wonder: Why? And why now? What's the deal with blue food? Supermarket shelves offer candy, cereal and juice in shades that until recently were confined to toilet-bowl cleaners and Caribbean vacation brochures. You can buy blue Hawaiian Punch Typhoon Blasters, "cool blue" Gatorade and an aquamarine beverage called All Sport that looks like anti-freeze.

Yves Saint Laurent put his ever-elegant stamp on a Paris season that, at last, has returned classy clothes to the limelight. And who can be more classy, and classic, than Saint Laurent? He has reigned for more than 30 years by designing refined apparel that makes women look beautiful. His show Tuesday was a fitting finale to the weeklong fall fashion previews here, a week in which conservative style took hold. French designers rediscovered wearable, well-made clothes and showed them instead of their standard outrageous fare.

"Carrie," the 1976 film directed by Brian De Palma and based on the best-selling Stephen King novel, created horror-movie conventions that are copied to this day. "The Rage: Carrie 2" merely swipes from the original and a slew of more recent teen horror flicks, such as "Scream. " In short, it's a bloody bore. It's 23 years later in the same suburban town where "Carrie" was set. There's a new telekinetic (having the ability to move objects with the mind) girl named Rachel in school.

Republican George Ruch, a school administrator who had never before run for public office, upset three-time mayoral candidate Frank McGuckin in the race for a two-year unexpired mayoral term. In a township where registered Democrats hold a substantial voting edge over Republicans, Republicans have sat in the mayor's chair for eight straight years. McGuckin had been expected to break that hold in the contest against Ruch, but when the votes were counted late last night, Ruch had narrowly outpolled his better-known rival.