LEARN WITH LAURA: We all know former First Lady Laura Bush was a librarian in a former life. And now she’s putting those high-level book-readin’ skills to use again as Honorary Chair of The Big Read Dallas. The event will happen in April and is sponsored by the Friends of the Dallas Public Library and D Magazine’s leadership group, D Academy. If you want to get a head start on the book everyone will be discussing, pick up a copy of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

NEW OPERAS: In May, the Fort Worth Opera will host “Frontiers,” a program of all new work. None of these operas has been published, and each will be presented with singers accompanied by piano. Interested? If you’re really up on your contemporary opera, FWO has released the list of participating composers and the pieces they will submit. And speaking of opera, don’t forget that this is tonight.

VISUALIZING THE FUTURE: Did you know that the current state of visual art is pretty much devoid of creativity? That’s the stance Camille Paglia, a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, makes in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. “Unfortunately, too many artists have lost touch with the general audience and have retreated to an airless echo chamber,” she writes. But before you go throwing your canvasses in the trash, Paglia has the solution: Capitalism! (This is The Journal.) Paglia explains the free market’s role in the art world in the column.