Long before Big Bird and Fraggle Rock, Jim Henson was dabbling in avant-garde cinema. Check out a young Henson appearing in his own far-out short, called Time Piece, which owes no small debt to John Cage. "Dislocation in time, time signatures, time as a philosophical concept, and slavery to time are some of the themes touched upon in this nine-minute, experimental film, which was written, directed, and produced by Jim Henson – and starred Jim......

Books, or at least book shelves, must be on this couple's wedding registry: The Post has a cute story about a couple whose engagement took place at the Strand Bookstore. Joshua Reich and Shianling King "always told friends they met at the Strand," but they actually met online - their first date was supposed to be at the Museum of Modern Art, but the lines were so long that they went to the Strand instead.......

Today, all over the city, ordinary parking spaces will be transformed into temporary public "parks." The Trust for Public Land has organized a nationwide Park(ing) Day, and there are a number of these Park(ing) projects all over the city - Open Plans has the details on the NYC locations. For instance, Colin Beaven, "No Impact Man," will be sponsoring a Park(ing) Lot at 7th Ave, between 24th and 26th Sts.; Times Up & Green......

The Smart car has arrived in the States, and measuring at 8 feet and 8 inches long and 5 feet wide, the miniscule vehicle got some big attention in the Big Apple this week. The car is around 3 feet shorter than the Mini Cooper, and could probably fit inside most of the gas guzzling SUVs in town. The 1800-pounder will hit the market stateside in early 2008, but will anyone want it? Business Week......

The NY Times explores what happens to celebrity architects’ drawings, models and telephone logs culled from decades in the design trenches. Hint: They’re for sale. Frank Gehry is the prime starchitect examined in the article. Gehry’s archive includes 30,000 square feet of models, a slide library, a digital archive and 5,000-plus drawings, what someone called a "beast." The Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal offered Gehry $1.5 million for papers and drawings related to......

Jeremy Blake, an artist whose works have been shown at the Whitney and on Times Square's Jumbotron, is presumed to have killed himself by walking into the ocean at the Rockaways on Tuesday. On July 10, Blake discovered the body of his girlfriend, filmmaker Theresa Duncan, in their East Village apartment; he had planned to attend Duncan's memorial service, which is being held today. According to the NY Times reports that Blake was seen "taking......

We've got a few pairs of passes to give away to the following Tribeca Film Festival events, and we want to give them to you... DOCUMENTARY • Scott Walker: 30 Century Man is a documentary (with a blog) that explores the life, music and career of its subject. From bass player on the Sunset Strip, "to mega-stardom in Britain’s swinging 60’s pop scene as lead singer of The Walker Brothers, to his evolution into one......

SCIENCE: The science series at this cafe includes an informal discussion "about some of the most pressing scientific questions of our day, led by Columbia University’s foremost scientists.” It also includes a free drink! This week's topic is Galactic Cannibalism: You Are What You Eat! 5:30pm // Picnic Market Cafe [Broadway at 102nd St] // $10 FILM: Fassbinder's epic (and over 15 hour long television miniseries) Berlin Alexanderplatz (adapted from the Alfred Doblin novel) first......

Sol LeWitt, geometrically-inspired sculptor and artist, leader in modern American art, died yesterday (from complications of cancer) in New York at age 78. Turning down awards, declining interviews and notoriously camera-shy, Lewitt was the opposite of artist-as-celebrity. In a 1980 work called “Autobiography” he took over 1,000 photographs of every inch in his Manhattan loft, documenting everything that happened to him in the course of taking the pictures. Yet he only appears (small and......

They don't make "downtown It girls" like Edie Sedgwick any more, which is why it's fortunate that Andy Warhol spent so much time capturing her on camera during the height of their artistic collaboration. The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens is devoting a retrospective to these films starting this weekend and running through Apr. 8. Featuring 15 16 mm movies, many loaned by the Museum of Modern Art, the series also includes footage......

Don't you just love that feeling of "discovering" a new artist that no one else knows about yet? The New Directors/New Films festival curated by the Film Society at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art's Film department have been keeping New Yorkers ahead of the cinema curve for 35 years now with their annual series. In the past they've showcased such newbies as Chantal Akerman, Pedro Almodóvar, Héctor Babenco, Terence Davies, Guillermo del......

The NY Times reports that David Rockefeller is selling a 7-foot Rothko painting that he bought in 1960 for $10,000. Sotheby's will auction "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender)" and has reportedly given him a guarantee of $46 million. The record for a Rothko was a 2005 sale at Christie's, when Homage to Matisse was sold for $22.4 million. Rothko lovers, if you're wondering why Rockefeller, who has a long history with the Museum of......

If you haven't heard about Christina Ricci, Samuel L. Jackson and Justin Timberlake's Southern Gothic exploitation movie, Black Snake Moan, you may have been living under a movie-free rock. Ricci plays a bad, bad girl who must learn to mend her ways under the racially and sexually fraught tutelage of jazz musician Jackson. How shall he do that? Why chain her to the radiator until she repents of course. One of this movie's key words......

Get your creepy crawly on with two potentially frightening movies out this weekend. Yet another '80s horror staple is getting the remake treatment with Dave Meyers' The Hitcher. Little do the college couple Grace (the former Mrs. Chad Michael Murray, Sophia Bush) and Jim (Zachary Knighton) know what's in store for them when they pick up John Ryder by the side of the road. Though it would seem clear from his various bad guy roles......

Yesterday afternoon, the midtown walls outside the Museum of Modern Art and surrounding buildings were bathed in a beautiful, expansive new video installation from artist Doug Aitken. The work, Doug Aitken: sleepwalkers, was commissioned by both the MoMA and Creative Time, and it turns the museum into public art space. A total of eight screens (outside the MoMA on West 53rd Street, in an empty lot onto Museum of Folk Art's exterior wall, and......

THEATER: Adventures in Mating uses the “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel device to stage this comedy about “a girl, a boy, and their stunning inability to make even the most basic of decisions. Miranda and Jeffrey are on a blind date... a magical date? A disasterous one? Only you, the oh-so-fickle public, can decide.” The show opens tonight in New York after a successful debut at the 2005 Minneapolis Fringe Festival. - John Del Signore......

You know it's the beginning of January when the gyms are filled with New Years resolution exercisers and the movie theaters are filled with post-New Years dreck. Frankly, it's best to focus on getting caught up on last year's best (see our Top 10 and the subsequent comments for suggestions) and leave this week's releases for suckers with movie money to burn. Hilary Swank often stars in Oscar-lauded movies but her newest about an inner-city......

Only a few more days until the end of the year (and the cut off for the 2006 Oscar season), so of course the movie theaters are glutted with choice new releases. If you have your copy of Bridget Jones' Diary always near the DVD player for easy access, might we suggest checking out Renée Zellweger in Miss Potter. Sort of like a Sex in the City but set during the Victorian era, Zellwegs plays......

The big holiday weekend is upon, and the pickins are slim, here are some things to keep you busy while you start your holiday vacation... MUSIC: The Mooney Suzuki and The Pierces play Maxwell's tonight. The Pierces are just back from a UK tour with Albert Hammond Jr., the duo is backed up by a pretty solid band consisting of: Russell Simins (drums – Jon Spencer Blues Explosion), Sammy James Jr. (bass – lead singer......

New York mid-December always smells vaguely of pine and peppermint, despite our recent springtime temperatures. Bring that cozy holiday feeling with you into the cineplex for a couple of new feel-good holiday movies. Will Smith will tug at your heart strings big time as the struggling dad trying to become a stockbroker in The Pursuit of Happyness. Set in the '70s in San Francisco, Smith plays Chris Gardner, a door to door medical equipment salesman......

THEATER: Three time Obie winner and “titanic force” Mac Wellman has brought his Two September to The Flea Theater, which he co-founded a decade ago. The action takes place in various locations in China and Vietnam after the Japanese coup of March 9th, 1945. It is told through the eyes of blacklisted writer Josephine Herbst and the young Vietnamese revolutionary leader who becomes Ho Chi Minh. - John Del Signore 7pm // The Flea [41......

If you're in need of a fairly inexpensive holiday gift - or are a sucker for any cute NYC tchotchke - then look no than the MUJI New York City in a Bag at the Museum of Modern Art Store. As irresistible to adults as it is to children, MUJI's New York in a Bag comes with nine wooden city structures and six wooden cars. Included are New York City icons such as the Chrysler......

Doesn't it seem like you no sooner put down the fork at the Thanksgiving table and the Christmas themed movies have flooded the theaters? If you're ready to start ho ho hoing your way to the cineplex, the new slapstick family comedy Deck The Halls starring Danny DeVito, Matthew Broderick and Kristen Davis is out this weekend. Hopefully all of these jokes about covering your house in light effects makes more sense in the suburbs.......

Who doesn't like sassy judges? Last year, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said the city's attempt to stop Marc Ecko's graffiti party was a "flagrant violation of the First Amendment". (He said that if the graffiti party were banned because it might incite graffiti, what about street performances of Hamlet or Oedipus Rex?) Now he has ruled that a Picasso worth tens of millions can be sold at Christie's tonight. Julius H. Schoeps claims......

Those mother-bleeping snakes. That mother-flipping plane. You know what we're talking about. This weekend marks the premier of the film that blog buzz built, Samuel L. Jackson's action adventure Snakes on a Plane. Hopefully it will be as cheese-tastic as it seems from the trailers and the title. However, whether you're first in line tonight at a midnight screening or not, there's still loads coming up to see at the movies. As for the other......

This weekend at the movies means a bunch of overblown new releases. Clerks II is out this weekend and if Kevin Smith didn't think he was the coolest before, he does now that Joel Siegel's walked out of one of his press screenings. You can read about the whole back and forth then decide if you too will be more offended by some reference to bestiality or that Jay and Silent Bob still have cultural......

Holy Temple of Dendur! The Metropolitan Museum of Art has raised its suggested admission fee to $20, up from $15. The important thing to note is that the Met does not require people pay an admission fee - you can donate a dollar or a few coins (or nothing at all) and you can still get in. While the Met says the increase was prompted by a $3 million annual operating deficit, we have......

MOVIES: Don't forget, the Bryant Park movies start tonight! The movie won't begin until sunset - which is about the same time the rain and thunder are scheduled to begin. Tonights features in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, The Birds. Be an early bird (heh) and get there at 5 for a good spot on the lawn! 5pm // Bryant Park // Free ART: Like Sculpture? Like to hear people talk about it? Then attend MoMA's On......

We got a peek at the newly named Philip Johnson Terrace, part of Museum Tower, the Cesar Pelli-designed residential building next to the Museum of Modern Art (Pelli designed the new federal courthouse in downtown Brooklyn). Formerly the museum's roof, the eighth floor space, designed by Francois de Menil, features a stone floor and a steel pavilion with perforated sheets in the spirit of modernists Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe. Acquired by......

Whoa-- apparently the prolific and insanely talented NYC street artist Swoon has three pieces up at the Museum of Modern Art! Wooster Collective alerted us to the "Printmaking Now" show, which runs until September 18th: Oversized cut-out figurative prints by Swoon (American, b. 1977) appear on three walls of the Paul J. Sachs Prints and Illustrated Books Galleries. Printmaking is essential to Swoon's practice: the linoleum cut and woodcut techniques provide the bold lines......