PRICKLY POLITICS: Things are getting heated in Irving, where the city is trying to partner with a developer to build an entertainment complex in Las Colinas. The developer asked the city for an extension on raising the $80 million it has pledged toward the project, which the council granted Monday night. And that led to a whole lot of arguing about whether political contributions the group has made to city council members influenced the vote. The wild scene is recapped over at dallasnews.com.

TO THE SOURCE: On Thursday, the Dallas Opera will open its take on Tristan and Isolde, which runs through Sunday at the Winspear. So it’s pretty lucky that the opera’s general director and CEO, Keith Cerny, got to attend the opera festival in Bayreuth last summer – the epicenter of all things Wagner. He writes about what the learned from the experience on theaterjones.com.

V-DAY HELP: Trying to crank out a Valentine’s Day love poem for that certain someone in the hopes that he or she won’t realize that you actually didn’t get them anything? There’s some handy help – and an explanation as to why they’re so tough to write – at npr.org.