Five stories that have North Texas talking: The Nasher hosts a ceramic show, the Dallas Opera’s opening weekend, have your umbrellas handy, and more:

• Cool ceramics at the Nasher: Lucia Simek has a confession to make: “Ceramics make me lusty.” “[There is] something in the nature of clay’s ability to be all at once fleshy, smooth or resilient … The feeling that things in clay give me is, not to mince words, nothing short of a desirous urge.” Well, then. Simek traveled to the Nasher Sculpture Center to take a closer look at an exhibit that features ceramics. It’s called Return to Earth: Ceramic Sculpture of Fontana, Melotti, Miro, Noguchi and Picasso, 1943-1963. Her review is on Glasstire.com. “The operatics of the ceramic objects on display here track the medium at a fraught time in the world—post WWII—when the whole planet found itself in a transitional moment, struggling to adapt to a world radically altered by violence, sorrow, and disillusionment,” Simek wrote. The Nasher says that these artists produced “significant bodies of work in fired clay that engaged the material in novel, inventive, even radical ways.”

• Dallas Opera’s new music director offers a “Magnificent Hello”: The Dallas Opera opened its season over the weekend – and its new music director, Emmanuel Villaume, made his debut. Art&Seek has a wrap-up of coverage. Sunday afternoon’s performance in the Winspear Opera House was a magnificent hello by Villaume and the company,” Olin Chism wrote: “The conductor led an often brisk and always disciplined performance, the cast was strong, and orchestra and chorus were in great shape.” The audience, though, was a tad chatty, Olin writes. (A friendly reminder: SHHHH!)

• Who killed President Kennedy?: Fifty years after President John F. Kennedy was killed in downtown Dallas, Americans are still uncertain as to who ended his life. A new national survey shows that more than 70 percent of those polled don’t believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. The poll was conducted by the History Channel. The survey also shows that 74 percent of those polled believe that Oswald “was the fall guy for a larger alternate theory.” The poll also helps promote an upcoming History Channel special on Nov. 22 that will reveal that there are a “whopping 311 distinctly different conspiracy theories in which the finger of blame has been pointed at 42 groups, 82 assassins and 214 people.”

• Grab your umbrellas: Expect heavy rain across North Texas on Wednesday and Thursday. The National Weather Service reports that up to 2 inches is expected in parts of Dallas-Fort Worth, with more than 4 inches possible in Paris, Canton, Palestine and other parts of East Texas. Scattered showers and thunderstorms developed overnight. A few severe storms are possible, along with damaging winds and hail. Most of the rain will end Thursday morning. By Halloween night, it should be dry, clear and pleasant, with temperatures falling into the 60s.  Here’s a video forecast from the National Weather Service:
  

• Final Four to generate lots of spending: The 2014 Final Four in Arlington is expected to generate $276 million in spending. The Dallas Morning News reports that figure is slightly more than the projected impact of the record-setting 2010 NBA All-Star Game in Arlington, but less than half the estimated spending for Super Bowl XLV in North Texas in 2011. The basketball games on April 5 and 7 will be the first Final Four in North Texas in 28 years.