Put the name of Quebec billionaire Guy Laliberté, the mercurial founder of Cirque du Soleil, into YouTube, and the first result isn’t circus-related but a six-and-a-half-minute clip from a high-stakes game of Texas Hold ’em.

A typical Cirque du Soleil show is a long way from the “Greatest Show on Earth” of the early 1900s. Gone is the ringmaster entreating you to step right up and see a fabulous variety show, and animals and sideshows are nowhere to be seen. The Big Top, that is, the tent where it all goes down, is no longer a requirement either.

Ziggy Marley wants people to get up, stand up and be heard, especially when it comes to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The eldest son of the late reggae star Bob Marley is headlining a benefit concert at the Boulder Theater on Saturday, Jan. 21, in an effort to raise funds and awareness for the fight against GMOs.

In 1989, a jury found Brent Brents, then 18, guilty of raping two children. He spent the next 15 years in jail, and when he got out in July 2004, he went on a terrifying rampage, raping and assaulting dozens of men, women and children until his capture in February 2005.

How bad of a year was it for movies? As late as August, I was wondering if there would be enough films to fill a list of 10. Then came the fall movie season and everything changed. Overall, 2011 will be remembered as a mediocre year for cinema. But the bright spots burned really, really bright. These 10 films from 2011 were very worthwhile.

A recent feature story in The Atlantic took a funny and insightful look at Yonder Mountain String Band’s Harvest Music Festival, staged a couple of months ago in the Ozark National Forest in Arkansas. The piece was as much about the band-sponsored music festival phenomenon as it was about Yonder themselves (although the author was clearly a fan), and when we caught up to Jeff Austin and Dave Johnston last week, we asked them about the gig and whether it says something about what the 13-year-old progressive string band is (or may be) becoming midway through its astonishingly successful second decade.

Boulder Weekly’s attitude toward our annual “Best Albums of the Year” column has been pretty similar, considering the opening paragraph the first three years was pretty much devoted to debunking the idea that any art can be rated. Thus, this year we’re going with a “Great Albums” theme instead. And honestly, putting the 2011 edition of this column together was more fun than previous years because of readers’ participation.

Growing up in rural Montana, pianist George Winston didn’t have a lot of entertainment options. “We didn’t have any TV stations growing up,” Winston says. “And we only had one radio station. The seasons were our entertainment — playing in the leaves in the fall, sledding in winter, baseball in the spring.” Out of that early isolation, Winston crafted a musical style that evokes Eastern Montana at every turn. From the stark, plaintive beauty of winter on the frigid plains to the bouncy jubilance of the first spring thaw, Winston’s compositions are deeply rooted in the rustic landscape of his childhood.

Mickey Hart’s latest enterprise, in collaboration with scientists at Lawrence Livermore Labs and engineers at Meyer Sound Laboratory in Berkeley, revolves around tapping the sounds of space — literally — and converting them into musical compositions, both in an electronic and standard rock band context.

Nate Cook, frontman of Boulder band Yawpers, spun his wheels for years as a member of local rock band Ego vs. Id, but the band never gained traction. Now, less than a year after their first show, Cook and company are sounding their barbaric yawp all over Boulder/Denver. What gives?