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Chappaquiddick, My Lai, Altamont and Sesame Street were all introduced to Americans in 1969, but one of these places is not like the others. Reporter Michael Davis chronicles the history of the public broadcasting mainstay, which used state-of-the-art TV production techniques to teach basic math and language skills to preschoolers, in Street Gang (Viking, 379 pp., $27.95). Says Rosie O'Donnell in one of the book's celebrity interviews: "It always felt like a show about freedom to me, and it has always spoken to children in a pure and truthful way."

—Andrew Milner

Tue., Jan. 27, 6 p.m., free, Penn Bookstore, 3601 Walnut St., 215-898-7595, upenn.bkstore.com; Wed., Jan. 28, 7:30 p.m., $10, Gershman Y, 401 S. Broad St., 215-446-3021, gershmany.org.

Presenting rock photos as art is dicey. The paparazzi effect easily takes hold — images might be aesthetically unremarkable, but hey, they're of a famous person! Indeed, some of Mew Gallery's "I Heard You Looking" suffers from this banality: Ken Hinchey portrays Jonathan Richman as a blurry, bewildered guy, while Lauren Trzaska's photos of Slash and the Velvet Revolver crew have a drab sameness. Both photographers transcend the constraints of their "first-three-songs-no-flash" shooting, however, crafting moments of striking beauty and wit. For Trzaska, the standout is a close-up of Cat Power's Chan Marshall, mid-howl. For Hinchey, it's a playful candid of Jeff Buckley, flipping the bird at Silk City circa '94.

—John Vettese

Through Feb. 20, Mew Gallery, 906 Christian St., 215-625-2424, mewgallery.org.

To local dance fans, Rodney Mason is known for his role in Rennie Harris Puremovement's Rome & Jewels. To the folks in the rough-and-tumble South Philly 'hood where he grew up, Mason is recognized as the persona of Tony Sinclair, debonair British spokesman for Tanqueray gin. He's also done standup and a stint in the U.S. Marine Corps. It's been quite a life; in this hip-hop theatrical telling, Mason proves he listened when his mama made him promise to live up to his potential.

—Deni Kasrel

Fri.-Sat., Jan. 23-24, 8 p.m., $25, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St., 215-925-9914, paintedbride.org.

Joshua Delpech-Ramey nearly buried the lead when he told me about Yard Songs. "It's a performance piece about the life and death of the trains in Kensington," said the percussionist/singer, who's part of director Jebney Lewis' interactive production. At first, Yard Songs sounded like little more than a plea for life beyond gentrification: the motion-dance of workers slamming rails, elements of immigrant folk songs, ash-can drumming — I knew or cared little of that Kenso. Then I remembered my own youth, growing up with train tracks on different sides of me in Southwest Philly. "The audience will be inside the Crane Building, looking out the windows and seeing it happen, hearing the sound pumped inside, as well as seeing performers inside [and out]," says Delpech-Ramey. The culminating vocal-percussive swell becomes a requiem mass for the train era. That's a Kensington I could fall in love with.

—A.D. Amorosi

Sat., Jan. 24, 9 p.m., $10 (preceded by 7 p.m. panel discussion and 8 p.m. talk by Kensington historian Kenneth Milano), Crane Building, 1400 N. American St., 215-684-1946, nexusphiladelphia.org.

Franz Kafka never set foot on U.S. soil. But for him, the fact of America was not nearly so important as the idea of American skyscrapers and our massive industrialized workforce. Unlike Metropolis and Modern Times, however, Kafka's Amerika isn't so concerned with humanity being lost to mechanization; humanity is, as always, the problem, not the ideal. Translator Mark Harman vividly captures Kafka's hilariously bleak interior cityscapes in his new Schocken edition of Kafka's book.

—Shaun Brady

"A Bridge from Brooklyn to Boston?: Kafka Imagining America," reading and panel discussion, Wed., Jan. 28, 6 p.m., free, Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, 215-573-WRIT, writing.upenn.edu/~wh.