PIECE BY PIECE: If you want to see how a piece of art literally comes together, stop by the Irving Arts Center today or Wednesday as a team will be assembling the Ten Thousand Spring Pavilion. Here’s the catch: it’s in 3,000 pieces and will be put together without using any nails. The work is  carved from red sandalwood and is a model of a classic Chinese pavilion in Beijing. It’s on loan from the Smithsonian Institution and will be put together by the Institution’s senior curator. Hope that guy has plenty of patience.

CAN YA SPARE A NICKEL?: If there was anyone who could understand the tough times of the working man, it was Woody Guthrie. To that end, Theatre Three is offering tickets to any performance of its current show, Woody Guthrie’s American Song, for five cents to anyone who is unemployed. To get in at the special rate, just call the box office and tell the theater the name of your last employer when you make your reservation. Then just bring some proof of your unemployment to the theater when you go to the show.

TRUE GRIT: Karla K. Morton of Denton is perseverance personified. It’s a trait she’s relied on while battling breast cancer. And it’s also what’s driven her to becoming the 2010 Texas poet laureate. Earning the post is something she’s reached for since middle school.But her time battling the disease is when she needed her poetry the most, as evidenced by her soon-to-be-published collection of related poems, Redefining Beauty. “I needed that leather strap on my teeth, and I couldn’t find it. So I wrote it,” she tells The Dallas Morning News.