See, I read Liz Smith for the culture. I only saw this story in her column -- that the bronze dancing satyr found four years ago by Sicilian fishermen, and believed to be by Praxiteles(!) has gone on display at the Palazzo Montecitorio, the Italian Parliament.

Here is an article (in Italian) in Panorama, and one (in English) from ekathimerini.com.

Via greg.org, I learn that Maurizio Cattelan has created a limited (48) edition t-shirt that says I [heart] New York, in Arabic.

If the link fails, go to Printed Matter and find it.

In case anyone's feeling very generous, and wondering what to get me for my birthday coming up in June, may I suggest this Richter landscape?

I just heard about this music performance on May 18:

Sequitur
Sunday, May 18th, 2003
Power: A Cabaret

7:00 PM

Joe's Pub at the Public Theater

World-premiere songs commissioned by Sequitur:
Elena Kats-Chernin
Ned Rorem
Victoria Bond
Stephen Coxe
William Rhoads
Robert Maggio
Robert Carl
Frances Thorne

And classic cabaret favorites by:
Marc Blitzstein
Kurt Weill
Michael John LaChiusa
Noel Coward
Francine Trester

Now, why would anyone expect something sexy to happen in an opera about Don Juan? From MSNBC, the story of a production of Don Giovanni that had to be "edited". It's not enough for people to home-school their kids -- they have to arrange for censorship of any arts productions they might see too.

Opera Colorado directors have scrapped a racy scene from a production of "Don Giovanni" that prompted complaints from parents of home-schooled students who watched a dress rehearsal. The scene featuring a woman in a one-piece bustier, fishnet stockings, garter belt and high heels cavorting with a sometimes shirtless Don Juan Giovanni will be replaced with a food fight in some performances.

...

"It was kind of hard to miss what they were doing. It was pretty blatant," said Candice Cirbo, who attended the rehearsal with the group and her sixth-grade daughter.

Opera spokesman Rex Fuller said earlier this week that the graphic action in the opera had been ordered toned down several days beforehand by the opera president and general director, Peter Russell.

My iBook has been in the shop since last Thursday, so I'm not posting too often. I'm relying on my Dell desktop running, yes, Windows 98 until it comes back. What follows is a random assortment of my adventures and observations over the last few days.

On Sunday afternoon we went to Greenpoint to see Meredith Allen's show of Williamsburg art world people at im in iL. Since the G is not a train to be used lightly, we took the L to Bedford and walked the mile or so to the gallery in Greenpoint. I hadn't spent much time in Greenpoint, and was pleasantly surprised by the number of 19th century buildings, plus stores and streets that still have some integrity. We even saw a Greek Revival house just off Manhattan Avenue! There are several independent Polish language bookstores in the neighborhood, when Chelsea doesn't even have one independent "new books" bookstore. Another cool discovery was "Java and Wood", a furniture / coffee shop at 1011 Manhattan Ave. Check it out when you're in the area.

When we were waiting in the subway, I saw a young man with sunglasses, Capri pants, and an Aunt Jemima-style kerchief on his head. Fabulous! It was a welcome antidote to seeing a Chelsea boy at the gym earlier in the weekend wearing a du rag with his Abercrombie & Fitch cargo pants. Ugh.

Recently seen art of note:

• Stas Orlovski at Mixed Greens
• "Undesire", curated by Vasif Kortun, at Apex Art -- great, great show. There is a video of two young boys singing and dancing in an ATM room, by an artist named Fikret Atay. He lives close to the Iraqi border in Turkey, in a depressed village called Batman. I had trouble tearing myself away from the video to look at anything else in the show. The video by the Irish artist Phil Collins (not the singer), titled Baghdad Screen Tests, consists of several citizens of Baghdad sitting silently, looking at the camera -- filmed before the war started. It is accompanied by recordings of various pop songs, ranging from Elvis to The Smiths. Finally, the drawings of Dan Perjovschi, which you have probably seen on the invitation, are sweet and scathing at the same time.
• Carl Scholz's flawlessly "smoothed out" Jaguar at Momenta

One last art item is Emily Noelle Lambert at the Mini minimarket at 218 Bedford (near Earwax, etc.). We walked into the shop for the first time, and noticed Emily's work on exhibit in the store. After a few minutes we decided we had to purchase one of the (very affordable) works. I don't see something too close to what we bought on the web site, but check out a few interesting things I found on her site: Castle, Bird, and Charles and Smokey.