WORD CHOICE MATTERS: With Art Basel going down this week in Miami, the visual arts are at the center of the creative world. So it’s as good a time as any to polish up on our art smarts.

Mike Gerra, co-owner of the contemporary gallery art251 in Keller, has written a handy piece on the distinction between “contemporary” and “modern” art. No doubt those terms will be used interchangeably by many down in Miami this week, but as Mike points out, they aren’t the same. If you haven’t checked out art251’s blog yet, it’s definitely worth a look for you visual art fans.

(On a side Art Basel note, do you think this artist is ticked?)

ROSS, ONLY RICHER: Arts & Letters Live announced its upcoming season yesterday, and among the guests will be New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, who will appear in February. And as the announcement was being made here, Ross was in London picking up a fat check at The Guardian Book Awards. His history of 20th Century music, The Rest is Noise, picked up the prize for best first book and the £10,000 check that goes with it (that’s about $15,000 to you and me).

If you’ve got some time to kill, you should check out Ross’ Glossary of Musical Terms. If you’ve don’t know your passacagalias from your pentatonic scales, Ross spells it all out for you, usually with companion audio examples.

VIDEO REPRESENTATION: Nominations for the Grammy Awards were announced Wednesday, and many of the usual Texans (George Strait, Kirk Franklin, LeAnn Rimes) made the list. Dallas’ Erykah Badu also landed a spot in the best short-form music video category for her video for “Honey.” If you haven’t seen the video, it’s proof that music videos are an art form and not solely a tool for selling singles. Check it out here.

In an unrelated note, this video featuring David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal might be the funniest of the year. (Warning, this one might fall into PG-13 territory)