Somewhere between the subway and the gallery is a nursery school so luxuriantly lacking in handprints, messes and improvised playthings that the crowd of children out front seems almost inappropriate.

The works of Marilyn Minter, on display from November 12th to December 20th at Salon 94

David Smith couldn't have had a commoner name, but it also couldn't have been more appropriate. "Smith" is an occupational name, meaning that its bearer had an ancestor who was a blacksmith, forging horseshoes and other ironwork on an anvil. David Smith was always proud of belonging to Local 2064 of the United Steelworkers of America. He updated his ancestor's practices to weld both iron and steel into the powerful and quintessentially 20th century sculptures that had already earned him the reputation as America's greatest sculptor by the time he was killed in an auto crash in 1965. His masterpiece is "Australia" (1951), a vigorously-outlined 9 1/2-foot wide flying creature that towers above its creator in the photograph he took of them both. It also towers above the entrance to "David Smith: A Centennial," a retrospective exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the artist's birth and organized by Carmen Giménez, with nearly 120 sculptures and more than 50 paintings and drawings, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York until May 14, 2006.

Witnessing Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris conduct an orchestra, one is subject to sounds and expressions that suggest more than the mere playing of music. Rhythms repeat, clash, build to a crescendo and are swept away in the blink of an eye. Time tilts, as the atmosphere fills with a sense of discovery.

If you who are citizens of the conqueror continue to conquer, what will you do with the poets you have captured? The poems you have collected? The words you have stolen?

If Ely Wynton was wrapping up his cultural thesis American Skin during the first Oscar rush of the 2002-2003 season, he might've appended a chapter on the next big step by a major industry that brings a heel down on slices of whte-bread american life. The industry is Hollywood. The milestone is the film"8 mile". The occasion is the first true showcase of the white-american sub-minority. That is, Caucasian-Americans youth feeling burdened of their whiteness where hip-hop and it's preeminent blackness actually are the status quo. The"streets" of Detroit are one such place. The modern media's concept of"cool" is another, if only figuratively.

With an unshakeable faith in punk's do-it-yourself ethos, and a film title re-appropriated from a clueless white rocker, James Spooner documents and affirms the experiences of Black punks who have straddled uneasy alliances, even outright divorce, of their ethnic culture and their chosen mode of expression.

We are a thrown away people. Stolen centuries ago by the West, our ancestors built nation after nation, until they were no longer needed and thrown away. They wondered through the world they created finding no home. They picked up left over meat and made it a meal. They picked out barren lands and made communities. They picked up horns and drums from dead Civil War soldiers and made Jazz.

I went to New Orleans to be saved. During the summer the days were getting brighter and every flaw in my life incredibly vivid. Nothing in me felt real except a loud emptiness. When I saw New Orleans fall apart it was my chance to join a cause that was undeniably good. The poor were fighting against nature and losing. They were innocent and could cure my guilt but that shallow reason for going left me helpless against their hunger and desperation. I was an emotional carpetbagger, a Northerner going south to re-create himself.

I hurried into the Franklin subway stop and saw five cops circling an older black man. His mouth tightened as he held out his wallet. The sergeant saw me watching and scowled. Our stares locked into instant hate. The C-train whooshed into the station. I was quietly thankful for the rush of wind that pulled me away.

Basquiat needed fame. He didn't need money or power but fame. The spotlight saved him from disappearing into the chaos rising in him. It gave him an image of himself he could exist within, a manufactured self to show the world and also hide behind. He of course was the audience member who didn't believe it. Again and again he fought his way out until nothing was left but a man who died in his dreams. Yes Basquiat did kill himself and we paid to see it.