MUSIC: The Stone has been bringing out the big names lately. Tonight Marc Ribot brings his solo act to the 8pm set, then follows himself up by delivering his experimental sounds with none other than Laurie Anderson. Avant-garde all the way. 8 and 10pm // The Stone [Ave C at E 2nd St] // $10 THEATER: In her multimedia musical theater piece North, Heather Christian, daughter of a go-go dancer and a blues musician, is......

Did contemporary art and music come together for the first time in New York? The holy (or unholy -- if you're not a Velvet Underground fan) union can be traced back to, where else, Andy Warhol's Factory scene. So why is the Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 exhibit being housed all the way in Chicago? The NY Times takes a look at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) show,......

COMEDY: Check out The 7:00 Workout tonight at UCB, where God's Pottery test out some new material on you. The show is listed as being at 6:30pm, which is just confusing - so, get there early? We interviewed the Christian duo last month, where they told us they'd only leave this fine city "if the Al Gore flooding movie is correct." So catch 'em while you can! 6:30pm // UCB Theater [307 W 26th St]......

The results are in for the 2007 Design Awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) New York Chapter. The jury, composed of notable architects and designers from around the world, reunited for a public symposium and discussion panel last night at the Center for Architecture. The judging criteria were defined as "Quality of design; resolution of the program or idea; and innovation, thoughtfulness, and technique." The following list includes only the highest award......

COMEDY: The Del Close Marathon is happening this weekend, the full schedule is here. "Del Close was the driving force behind improvisational comedy in Chicago for over 30 years influencing Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Mike Myers, John Belushi, Chris Farley and the Upright Citizens Brigade to name a few. After Del's passing in 1999, the UCB started the Del Close Marathon to celebrate their mentor and keep alive his name and teachings for future generations"......

PARTY: Disorient & Kostume Kult invite you to The Black & Light Ball; a Black-Lit Burner Formal. It's like a rave, in your dorm room...but in a gallery, with a lot more blacklighting than you could afford in college. With lighting art on display and blacklight flooding the space - we think it's okay if, just this once, you wear your sunglasses at night. Much more art, craziness and music (er, of the "techno" and......

THEATER: The Debate Society's "Snow Hen" was a quirky, dreamy take on an old Scandinavian folk tale about the Black Death; now, in "The Eaten Heart," the talented trio of Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen, and Oliver Butler riff on an Italian view of the plague, Boccaccio's bawdy classic Decameron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decameron as the second part of a plague trilogy. This is a workshop production, so while the group's work always seems fresh and engagingly inchoate, here......

Newsday has feature about a new book that looks at set designs of favorite TV shows - Sitcom Style by Diana Friedman. Apparently Friedman was obssessed with the Bradys' California split level as a child - the same way everyone else probably was (for instance, why were there only two bedrooms for the kids - and Greg's attic bedroom doesn't count) - and pulled together facts and trivia about the sets for lots of show,......

The Daily News has facts and figures from the NYPD's "war against graffiti". There's been a 93% jump in graffiti busts versus last year; might it be because police coordinators received digital cameras to document new tags? And did you know there's a computer program called "Graffitistat," much like Compstat which records major crimes? There's a quote from City Councilman Peter Vallone, the biggest graffiti hater in City Hall (this side of Mayor Bloomberg),......

If you're a fan of street art, tonight's discussion at McNally Robinson (50 Prince St) in Soho might be of interest. Moderated by the husband and wife team behind the Wooster Collective, the online resource for street art around the world, The City as Collaborator: Documenting Contemporary Art on the Street panel will focus on how street art has grown and contributed to the city. Other panelists include: Kelly Burns, the driving force behind the......

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Jessica Lappin, City Council Candidate...

Running through August 14th is the Counter Culture exhibition/walking tour. This caught our attention over at Gothamist for a number of reasons. Mainly the many ways you can go about participating in it. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The tour itself dives into the history of the Bowery neighborhood during the skid row era (that roughly spanned from the 1890's to the 1950's...yeah, we didn't know it lasted that long either). Six artists......

Every week art is freshly hung or taken down from the walls somewhere in this city. This week Gothamist suggests you check out these openings & closings... OPENING June 10th @ LEHMANN MAUPIN 540 WEST 26TH STREET ELIEZER SONNENSCHEIN Untitled, 2004 Artists from Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 10 June - 30 July 2004 Opening Reception Thursday, 10 June 2004, 6-8 PM The exhibition will be a significant opportunity to expose New York audiences to......

Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami is speaking tonight at the Public Art Fund. Best known for his subversions of Japanese anime images, and more recently embraced by fashionistas for his redesign of the Louis Vuitton bags (the colored LV logo), Gothamist loves his work and the fact that he splits his time between Tokyo and Brooklyn. He had a huge exhibit in Grand Central a few years ago, which had his sculptures hanging in......

Some of my friends at the great design agency Honest did the new New Museum of Contemporary Art site... I like it. Very new looking and white.......