JERUSALEM - Perhaps it is a bit strange that Jerusalem, where Hebrew and Arabic are the native languages, is home to probably the world's largest club of English-speaking Scrabble players.

But its 50 or so members - and the three or four newcomers who drop in weekly - don't care about that. They just want to play.

``It's a social haven for every sort of Jerusalemite. Here, they have everything in common,'' said Sam Orbaum, director of the Jrslm Scrbbl Clb, as he likes to spell it.

If you know anything about Al Di Meola, it won't surprise you that he turned in a sizzling and precise guitar performance Thursday night at Toad's Place in New Haven.

After all, he has been perhaps the foremost jazz guitarist for almost two decades, since he flashed onto the scene as the teenage wonder of the all-star jazz band Return to Forever in 1974.

But the Di Meola who so satisfied the 200-or-so fans in New Haven was also passionate, playful, expressive and engaging, not to mention a fairly persistent huckster.

The Tangerine Dream show at The Sting Wednesday night, the first U.S. stop of the band's current North American tour, was not unlike the Hartford Whalers' opening night the day before.

Laser lights were important parts of the entertainment, and both would have been better if the performers had shown a little more emotion.

Luckily for the sizable crowd at the New Britain night spot, their event was much more successful than the Whalers' drubbing at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens.