Mark Reid lost his girlfriend when he started body painting three years ago. "She didn't like the fact that I was painting another naked woman, and yadda yadda yadda," he says.

For a long time, Washington, D.C. was without a fictional chronicler—someone to tell the stories of its people, not just its politicians. Edward P. Jones made a bid at the role in his 1993 debut collection, Lost in the City, but he claims it outright in his latest book, All Aunt Hagar’s Children, a powerful group of stories about African-Americans adrift in the District of Columbia in the 20th century.

Takacs String Quartet, one of the world’s premier quartets, will return to Albuquerque this weekend. Takacs brings equal parts passion and intellect to their repertoire. The performance will take place at the Simms Center for the Performing Arts, on the campus of Albuquerque Academy (6400 Wyoming NE), on Sunday, Sept. 24, at 3 p.m. with a free pre-concert lecture at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 268-1990, visit www.cma-abq.org or purchase your tickets at Chamber Music Albuquerque's office at the Symphony Center (4407 Menaul NE). Tickets are $19-$38 in advance or $21-$40 when purchased at the door. Students are half price.

Thirty-five photographs from one of America’s pioneers of modernist photography will go on display starting this weekend at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. In the summer, Paul Strand lived and worked in New Mexico from 1930 through 1932. During this time, he created these pieces depicting Southwest landscapes, portraits of Strand's wife, and ghost towns and abandoned haciendas. There will be a free opening for the public with live music and a cash bar on Friday, Sept. 22, from 5 to 8 p.m. Admission to the museum is $4 to $8. For more information, visit www.okeeffemuseum.org. The show will run through Jan. 14.

Read and Converse—The Lannan Foundation's annual Readings and Conversations series gets cooking this week with a heated dialog between legendary muckrakers Seymour Hersh and Amy Goodman. Ever since he uncovered the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam in the late '60s, Hersh has been pumping out some of the finest in-depth investigative pieces to be found anywhere. Due in part to his network of sources within the power structure of our federal government, he's been able to write some of the most informative (not to mention terrifying) investigative articles about our war in Iraq.