For a band with one independent recording under its belt, the White Rabbits have a lot going on. They appeared on Letterman in July - "Maybe U2 cancelled," joked bassist Adam Russell - and a feature-film documentary is in production. (See http://www.whiterabbitsdoc.com.)

Russell credits the band's publicist with the Letterman gig, and filmmaker Andrew Droz Palermo is a friend of the band dating back to some members' high-school careers.

But Russell said these early successes are a sign that people believe strongly in the band. "Having close friends that work with you does pay off sometimes," he said.

   For contemporary American audiences, the zither begins and ends with the soundtrack to the 1949 film The Third Man - which famously featured the instrument in its opening. (See the credits at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4JpDUMXBqo.) The tune was a number-one hit in the United States in 1950.

But the stringed instrument has a rich history in Europe and Asia and dates back more than two millennia.

Sean O'Harrow, the Figge Art Museum's executive director for the past seven months, sounds diplomatic. He says all the right, polite things about collaboration and about serving the community.

"I'm very keen on building bridges," he said last week.

The Cowboy Junkies first made a name for themselves with The Trinity Session, recorded live with a single microphone in a Toronto church in one night for a couple hundred bucks.

To mark its 20th anniversary this year, the Cowboy Junkies did it again.