The first thing you notice when you walk inside Alice Corcoran’s home is everything outside. A multitude of windows, unhindered by curtains, invite in the old apple tree, the gnarled lilac bushes, the frozen field and the forest beyond.

Somewhere in Schenectady, under a garage shelf or above a basement workbench, Handy Andy may still be on the job. If he is, Russ McPadden, Ann Wood, Stuart Oudt, Carole Prostak and their friends are the reasons. In 1954, as teenage entrepreneurs, they created the handy household helpers as part of a project for Junior Achievement.

Frank Vignola’s Hot Club blazed through Albany Saturday night playing to an awestruck, near capacity crowd at The Egg.

While it is the artwork of Fuertes that steals the spotlight for the exhibit, ‘Birds of New York: The Paintings of Louis Agassiz Fuertes’, it’s impossible not to also appreciate Elon Howard Eaton’s contribution to the book.

Word of a new bagel place reached me through the grapevine. Nice idea, I thought. Our local bagels have really improved; Price Chopper and Breuggers do excellent New York City-style bagels, but Bagel Heaven promises the real thing, shipped in from “NYC and Boston,” as it says on the menu.

Linda Cantave knows how to express herself. The 45-year-old Milton woman was born in Cap-Haïtien, on the north coast of Haiti, and moves her hands quickly — in small circles and wide gestures — when she talks about her home country. “I think the French people do this, we are very expressive,” said Cantave, a petite woman with dark hair and a big smile. “We feel what we are thinking.” Cantave has felt sadness and grief in early 2010. The catastrophic earthquake that shook Haiti on Jan. 12 killed at least 150,000 people and destroyed or severely damaged thousands of homes and commercial buildings.<

Codie Bascue sat in his maroon-and-white rocket and prepared for ignition. All systems were go. Confidence was high. Ten seconds, and counting. Shan Beebe, Bascue’s friend and partner, gripped the back of the 7-foot-long ship and scanned the ramp of thick, hard ice just ahead. Moments later, a safety light blinked green. Beebe took three quick steps and pushed the 450-pound rocket, down the bobsled run at Mount Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid.

Trumpeter Randy Brecker played with a full orchestra on his new album “Nostalgic Journey: Tykocin Jazz Suite,” recorded in Poland. At the Van Dyck on Saturday, he played with both imported and local talent: pianist John Werking from New York City and area jazz stalwarts, bassist Otto Gardner and drummer Dave Calarco.

Just a few hours to the west, Capital Region residents have a great treasure in the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. But how many of us have actually made the trek to Rochester to check it out? Now, thanks to a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, the George Eastman House brings some of its collection to the New York State Museum, part of the Bank of America Great Art Series.

An overflow crowd gathered at Skidmore College Friday night to celebrate the inaugural concert in the Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall, the chief performance space of the $32.5 million Arthur Zankel Music Center. The eight-member Ensemble ACJW appearing under the Carnegie Premieres label provided inspired listening.

The Albany Symphony Orchestra’s motto is to “listen adventurously.” For the 2010-2011 season, the orchestra’s 80th, that will be a basic requirement. Music director David Alan Miller said the season’s offerings reflect the wide range of what the orchestra is comfortable playing.

Brandi Carlile had been going for nearly an hour and a half in The Egg’s Hart Theatre Thursday night when her band cleared the stage and she sat down at the piano. Jaws were about to drop.

In a better world, Willie would be playing SPAC and more people would listen to vinyl.

Aviators and theater organists have a strange symbiosis. “It’s something about those buttons,” said Carl Hackert, who plays Proctors’ Wurlitzer theater organ, known as Goldie.

Randy Brecker is looking forward to a big reunion this weekend. On Saturday, the 64-year-old trumpeter and flugelhorn player will perform at the Van Dyck in Schenectady for the first time since the venue reopened last year — and for the first time in roughly three or four years.