Nell Blaine: A Glowing Order (Tibor de Nagy, 724 Fifth Ave., up through Oct. 13). A gorgeous little show of paintings and watercolors by a Hans Hofmann pupil who broke decisively with abstract expressionism, then spent the rest of her life turning out boldly colored still lifes and landscapes that portray the visible world imaginatively but never literally. Not to be missed (TT).

Margaret (Fox Searchlight, two discs). Kenneth Lonergan’s masterpiece, the wrenching story of how a seventeen-year-old New Yorker (Anna Paquin) is brought face to face with the terrible fragility of life. Because Margaret nearly vanished without trace–it was only seen in a handful of theaters–the release of the film on home video is by definition a major event. Anyone who was moved by Lonergan’s You Can Count on Me will be shaken to the core by Margaret. The Blu-ray disc contains the shorter theatrical version, the DVD the full-length extended cut (TT).

Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series (Corcoran Gallery, 500 Seventeenth St. NW, Washington, D.C., up through Sept. 23). Seventy-five abstract paintings and works on paper made by Diebenkorn between 1967 and 1987, the years when he was creating the most original works of his career in a studio in the Ocean Park neighborhood of Santa Monica. This brilliantly curated show is one of the most satisfying museum retrospectives ever devoted to an American artist. You must see it, no matter how far you have to travel to get there (TT).

Classic Coleman Hawkins Sessions 1922-1947 (Mosaic, eight CDs). An overflowing cornucopia of key recordings by the de facto inventor of jazz saxophone, exquisitely remastered from the original 78 sides. Loren Schoenberg’s masterly liner notes are worth the price of the package all by themselves (TT).

Tribes (Barrow Street Theatre, 27 Barrow St., closes Jan. 6). A well-wrought drama by Nina Raines about a self-consciously arty family of compulsive talkers whose youngest member (Russell Harvard) is deaf. David Cromer’s theater-in-the-round staging maximizes the considerable strengths of Tribes (including its biting, often brutal humor). Not only is it the best show in New York, but the off-Broadway run has just been extended into January. What are you waiting for? (TT).

Pat Metheny, Unity Band (Nonesuch). Nine new compositions by the master guitarist, all performed by his latest working band, a quartet that features Chris Potter on tenor saxophone. This is the first time that Metheny has recorded as a leader with a saxophonist since 1980, and Potter’s presence is galvanizing. All hands–including Ben Williams on bass and Antonio Sanchez on drums–play with colossal vitality. This one’s a keeper (TT).

Elijah Wald, The Dozens: A History of Rap’s Mama (Oxford, $24.95). This impeccably researched study of the classic black insult game may be the funniest work of serious scholarship ever published–and the one that will give newspaper reviewers the most trouble, since virtually every paragraph of is studded with obscenities of the highest possible voltage. That said, The Dozens is a superlative piece of work, which won’t surprise anyone who’s read any of Elijah Wald’s earlier books. If I ran the world, I’d give him a MacArthur (TT).

Shining Night: A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen (Song Without Borders). This is the documentary by Michael Stillwater that I wrote about with the utmost enthusiasm earlier this year in The Wall Street Journal. I can’t recommend it strongly enough now that it’s available on home video, both as an introduction to one of this country’s best composers and as a model of how to tell an artist’s story on film (TT).