Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, usually closed Mondays, will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. to give vacationers an extra day to visit the newly reopened Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries of decorative arts, "Whales/Tohora" from New Zealand's National Museum, and enough other displays and exhibitions to fill a day or more (412-622-3131 or www.cmoa.org).

Stanley Kubrick's classic "2001: A Space Odyssey" at The Hollywood Theatre, 1449 Potomac Ave., Dormont, at 6:45 p.m. Admission is $6. For more information, visit www.hollywooddormont.com or call 412-344-1245.

The Pittsburgh Opera throws its own New Year's Eve ball, "Auld Lang Syne," at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland. A dinner "reminiscent of grand Viennese style" starts at 7 p.m., and two hours later comes a concert featuring Marianne Cornetti and the company's resident artists followed by dessert, dancing and that midnight champagne toast, all with music from favorite Viennese operas such as "Die Fledermaus" and "The Merry Widow." Tickets for the entire evening are $300, for the concert and party are $125, and for the concert only are $75. Call 412-281-0912.

Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange presents a poetry workshop for children and youth, followed by a series of thematic readings at the Future Tenant Gallery, 819 Penn Ave., Downtown, as part of the city's First Night Celebration. The workshop begins at 6:30 p.m., the readings at 8 p.m. Participating poets include Ann Curran, Ziggy Edwards, Angele Ellis, Marc Jampole, Christine Doreian Michaels, Liane Ellison Norman, Judith Robinson, Sankar Roy, Richard St. John, Christine Telfer and Michael Wurster. For more information, call 412-481-(7636).

Carnegie Science Center offers a free preview of "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure" at 8 p.m. in the Rangos Omnimax Theater. The 45-minute film, narrated by Kevin Spacey, highlights the true story of polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated 1914-16 British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The free preview is open to the general public, but online registration is required at www.CarnegieScienceCenter.org. Online registration runs through Wednesday or until capacity is reached. For more information, call 412-237-3400.

This is the last day to see the last exhibition of the Westmoreland Museum of American Art's 50th anniversary year, "Four Perspectives on Fifty Years," a look at the collection through the eyes of a patron, a critic, a collector and an artist. If you visit by Thursday and were either born or married in 1959, your admission is free (724-837-1500 or www.wmuseumaa.org).

Critics Andrew Druckenbrod and Scott Mervis talk about music on "The Beat," available exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.