Frank Ocean, the Black Keys and Fun. Lead Grammy Nominations

The rock trio fun. dominated the nominations for the four most prestigious Grammy Awards on Thursday, receiving nods for album, song and record of the year, as well as for best new artist.

Frank Ocean, the young R&B singer, was also nominated in three of the major categories, getting nods for best new artist, record of the year (which goes to the best single) and album of the year for his critically acclaimed debut “Channel Orange.”

The rest of the nominees for album of the year seemed to reflect a resurgence of rock after several years in which pop singers seemed ascendant. That list included “El Camino,” by the blues-rock duo the Black Keys; “Babel,” by the British folk-rock quartet Mumford & Sons; and “Blunderbuss,” by the garage-rock innovator Jack White.

In the overall nominations tally, several artists had six, including fun ., Mumford & Sons, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z and Kanye West.

Chick Corea, Miguel and the Black Keys racked up five nominations apiece. Dan Auerbach, the Black Keys' vocalist and guitarist, was also nominated for producer of the year (among the LP's he made was Dr. John's “Locked Down”), giving him a total of six nods as well.

The list of nominees in 81 categories was unveiled during a televised concert at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. It was the first time the Recording Academy had done the nominations show in country music's hometown, and Taylor Swift, the reigning queen of country-pop, served as the host, along with LL Cool J.

Though the concert took place in county's house, the performances were eclectic. The Band Perry and Dierks Bentley opened the show with a rousing version of Johnny Cash and June Carter's hit “Jackson.” Maroon 5 offered a medley of their recent hits, doing the reggae-inflected “One M ore Night,” the campy “Moves Like Jagger” and ending with “Daylight.” Fun. rushed through their hit “We Are Young” with Janelle Monáe. Luke Bryan and Ne-Yo also performed, before Maroon 5 closed out the show with “Payphone.”

The nominations for record of the year, the award for best single, drew from across the radio dial, from blues-rock to neo-R&B to country-pop, but left out hip-hop. The short list included the Black Keys's “Lonely Boy”; fun.'s “We Are Young,” featuring Ms. Monáe; Gotye's “Somebody That I Used to Know”‘ Mr. Ocean's “Thinkin Bout You”; and Ms. Swift's “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”

The list for best new artist was one of the strongest in years. Besides fun. and Mr. Ocean, the contenders are the 21-year-old country newcomer Hunter Hayes, whose hit “Wanted” topped the country radio chart, the gritty roots-rock band Alabama Shakes, best known for their song “Hold On,” and the Lumin eers, the folk-rock trio from Denver whose song “Ho Hey” went to No. 1 on the rock chart.

Besides “We Are Young” by fun., the nominees for song of the year - which is the category for songwriters rather than performers - included last summer's anthem “Call Me Maybe,” written by the singer Carly Rae Jepsen with Tavish Crowe and Josh Ramsay; “Adorn,” by Miguel Pimental, whose stage name is Miguel; “The A Team,” by Ed Sheeran; and “Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You),” the Kelly Clarkson song written by Jorgen Elofsson, David Gamson, Greg Kurstin and Ali Tamposi.

Lawsuit Claims Racial Discrimination at a Building in Sunnyside

In February, according to a lawsuit, when Lisa Darden went to a building in Sunnyside, Queens, and inquired about a one-bedroom apartment, the superintendent told her there were none available, and that he did not know when one might be.

Just over an hour later, the lawsuit states, another woman made the same inquiry. This time, the superintendent showed her a vacant apartment, told her he'd knock $100 off the rent because she was “nice people,” and handed her a rental application, according to the suit.

Ms. Darden is African-American, the other woman is white. The race-dependent availability of apartments was a pattern at the 107-unit apartment building at 41-41 46th Street, according to the Fair Housing Justice Center, a nonprofit group that sent both women out as discrimination “testers.”

The justice center and three African-American testers filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday against the building's owner, the Nasa Real Estate Corporation, and the building's superintendent, Irfan Bekdemir, who the suit said acted as Nasa's agent.

According to the complaint (see also below), filed in in federal court for the Eastern District in Brooklyn, the three African-American testers were prevented from viewing apartments on separate occasions in February.

Mr. Bekdemir also quoted higher rents to the African-American testers, the complaint states, telling Ms. Darden that rents were generally between $1,500 and $1,700, while telling the white tester who fo llowed her that he could rent her the apartment for $1,400.

“This building is choice people. Not everybody,” Mr. Bekdemir told the white tester, according to the complaint.

Elizabeth S. Saylor, a lawyer of the firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady who is representing the plaintiffs, said that investigations like the one conducted by the justice center were one of the only ways to expose discrimination.

“Systemic housing discrimination still persists throughout New York City, and most of this discrimination is not known because of the subtle and stealthy nature of the housing discrimination,” she said. “He did not tell the African-American testers you can't live there because they're black. They wouldn't even know they were being discriminated against if it wasn't for what he told the white testers.”

Bruno Ilibassi, who is listed as the principal executive of Nasa Real Estate Corporation, did not return a request for comment left with som eone who answered the phone at his office. Someone who answered the phone at Mr. Bekdemir's apartment said he was not available and would not give a time when he would be.

The investigation was prompted by the neighborhood's demographics: black households make up 2 percent of the renters in the eight-square-block census tract that the building sits in, while they make up 18 percent of renter households in Queens, the justice center said.

The plaintiffs are seeking damages as well as other forms of relief, such as “the creation of non-discriminatory policies, training, and monitoring.”

The justice center has been involved in several similar lawsuits throughout New York and in New Jersey.

Housing Discrimination Complaint (PDF)

Housing Discrimination Complaint (Text)

New York City Opera to Hold Online Auction

New York City Opera, seeking to shed decades' worth of old sets, costumes and props, has decided to auction off most of the material next month, the company's general manager and artistic director, George Steel, said on Wednesday. An online auction will begin in mid-January and run through Jan. 24.

About 90 percent of the contents of its New Jersey warehouse will be put up for auction, with the company saving generic props and costume items: weaponry, top hats and shoes, for example. Several dozen historic costumes, some associated with the former City Opera diva Beverly Sills, will also remain with the company, Mr. Steel said. The warehouse costs more than $500,000 a year to rent, he said. “It costs us way more to store that stuff than we save by using it,” he explained.

Mr. Steel said there was no way to estimate how much could be earned by the auction, but he added that some 10 other opera companies had expressed interest. A spokeswoman said a “couple of thousand” lots would be put up for auction, and the sale would include 60 complete sets and 38 shows' worth of costumes. Bidders will be allowed to visit the warehouse to preview the items. The auction was reported on Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal.

Rockaways Newspaper Is Back in Ink After Weeks Only in Cyberspace

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times The Wave, the weekly newspaper in the Rockaways, has resumed printing after Hurricane Sandy ruined its offices. On Wednesday, Susan Locke, the publisher, worked on the computer, while Sandy Bernstein, the general manager, tried to keep the phone lines working.

Never has the name of The Wave, the weekly newspaper of the Rockaways, seemed so apt.

“Wa ve Of Fire, Wall Of Water,” read the headline atop The Wave last Friday, its first printed edition since Hurricane Sandy sent more than four feet of water crashing through its offices on Rockaway Beach Boulevard five weeks ago. It had been the first time the paper failed to publish in its 119-year history.

Like everybody else fighting to recover from the storm, the paper and many of its employees lost almost everything, lulled into complacency by their experience with Tropical Storm Irene. Like everybody else, they needed cars, electricity and a dry place to sleep.

Like other local companies, The Wave has been forced to cut back on labor. It may be in the news business, but it is also a small business, and the staff knew it would live or die by how quickly they were able to start putting out a newspaper again.

“Right now, we're trying to stay alive and do what we do,” said Howard Schwach, the editor, who has worked at The Wave since 1982. “I knew I couldn't do every story, but I wanted to keep The Wave alive.”

So, relying on scraps of luck and good humor, that is what they did.

The lone full-time reporter, Nicholas Briano, happens to live in an untouched part of Brooklyn. He could drive, and when he ran out of gas, he could make calls and update the newspaper's Web site and its Twitter account, which has doubled its number of followers since the storm.

Mr. Schwach, whose extended family lost three apartments and five cars in the hurricane's aftermath, fled the cold and dark to his daughter's house in Long Island. “It was very frustrating to be at arm's reach when so much was going on,” he said.

As limited as The Wave's reporting had to be, its readership in the days after the storm was even more so, as Rockaway residents could neither charge their ele ctronics nor find Internet or cellphone service.

There were fortunate breaks. The general manager's son, who works on the business staff, happened to be in New Rochelle the night of the storm, which saved his car from the flooding. His great-aunt, the publisher, Susan Locke, had an intact house, so she could offer the general manager, Sandy Bernstein - whose house and cars were gone - a home. And the empty second-floor room above The Wave's offices proved to be just big enough for a makeshift newsroom, where the staff worked until midnight Thursday. (The staff calls it the “Wave Cave.”)

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times The Wave is operating out of a crampe d space that once housed a church.

The devastation downstairs was almost total. The bound archives, spanning 118 years of Rockaway history, were destroyed. So were furniture, kitchen appliances, an expensive copy machine and a mail labeler, and the computers that Mr. Bernstein thought would be fine if they were on top of the desks. That was not high enough. Among the few things to be spared were two wall-mounted clown heads - memorabilia from the old Playland amusement park - that now stare over a room stripped down to wall studs and concrete.

Before Tropical Storm Irene hit, the newspaper's staff had taken everything to the second floor, but this time it decided the storm threat did not merit the trouble.

As the downstairs was being cleaned out in the first weeks after the hurricane, the upstairs space, which once housed a tiny church, began to fill up. A medical center donated computers. New tabletops from IKEA, mildly damaged shelves from down stairs and wooden bases were turned into temporary workstations. Mr. Bernstein reinstalled software.

“A bunch of things went wrong last week, and I'm sure a whole bunch of things will go wrong this week,” he said.

He does not have a solution to the biggest problem of all: the future. The Wave is likely to become a barometer for the pace of the Rockaways' economic recovery, as its finances rise and fall alongside the small businesses that advertise in it. Not all of them will reopen. Not all of the subscribers will return. And Mr. Bernstein is not sure he will be able to bring back all of the paper's freelance artists and part-time reporters.

Before the paper's distribution resumed, Mr. Schwach went through the new issue and crossed out the ads scheduled well in advance for each business wiped out by the storm. Then bundles of free copies went out to churches, open stores and warming stations. People grabbed them by the handful, delighted to see a neighb orhood institution back in business.

The front-page article told readers that The Wave was born of a disaster (an 1892 fire that inspired a local printer to start his own paper) and that the papers' staff had ridden out the storm just as they had, and it ended with hope that the edition would serve as a commemoration of the storm. “Rebuilding Begins,” a photo caption said.

Ms. Locke, the publisher, has not yet made plans to rebuild the newsroom, but she is adamant about one thing.

“This time,” she said, “we'll put everything up high.”

Raphael Drawing Fetches Nearly $50 Million

A Renaissance drawing from one of the most famous collections in Britain sold at Sotheby's in London on Wednesday night for $47.8 million, slightly more than twice its high $23.8 million estimate.

Four bidders fought for 17 minutes to win Raphael's “Head of Apostle,'' a study dating from around 1519 that was created for a figure in one of the artist's greatest late paintings, “Transfiguration,'' which belongs to the Vatican Museum in Rome.

The drawing, in black chalk, was from Chatsworth, the Derbyshire home of the Duke of Devonshire (who is deputy chairman of Sotheby's board of directors). It had belonged to the Duke's family since William Cavendish, the 2nd Duke of Devonshire, acquired it sometime either late in the 17th century or early in the 18th.

“Head of Apostle'' isn't the first drawing by Raphael to achieve a staggering sum. “Head of Muse,'' a study for a figure in “Parnassus,'' one of four frescoes also in the Vatican, brought a slight ly higher price â€" $47.9 million â€" when it was bought by the New York financier Leon Black at Christie's in London three years ago.

You Never Know Who\'ll Sit Beside You on the Train. Right, Jay-Z?

Ellen Grossman/Recession Art “Elucidation: Anything That Can Go Wrong” (2010). Metallic gel pen on Chromatica paper.

O.K., so Ellen Grossman didn't recognize Jay-Z when she sat next to him on the subway the other week, as touchingly demonstrated in the video below that's been making the rounds. (“Are you famous?” Ms. Grossman asks her seatmate as the cameras roll? “Not very famous,” he replies. “You don't know me. But I'll get there someday.”)

But then Jay-Z didn't seem to recognize Ellen Grossman, either. Ms. Grossman, 67, is a fellow New York-based artist whose mathematical-but-organic-looking drawings and sculptures riff off “topographic maps, satellite photos, scanning electron microscope images, astronomy and the unfolding of intertwined relationships,” according to her Web site.

Perhaps it is time for Jay-Z, who chose a Warhol that hangs over his fireplace for the cover of his memoir, “Decoded,” to add a Grossman or two to his collection. Here are a couple from a show she had at Recession Art on the Lower East Side last month.

Ellen Grossman/Recession Art “Proliferation of Voices” (2008). Metallic gel pen on Chromatica paper.

Ms. Grossman also spoke to our colleague Tanzina Vega at Media Decoder, who has known her for years.

Getty Museum Acquires Rare Illuminated Manuscript

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles bought an illuminated manuscript by the Flemish master Lieven van Lathem at a Sotheby's auction in London on Wednesday night for nearly $6.2 million.

The “Roman de Gillion de Trazegnies,'' considered one of the finest examples of the golden era of Flemish manuscript illumination, contains eight painted half-page miniatures and 44 historiated initials - the enlarged letters incorporating pictures that begin sections of text. The work had been on loan to the Getty in 2003, when it was a highlight of its exhibition “Illuminating the Renaissance.''

“The acquisition of this richly illuminated manuscript by the greatest illuminator of the Flemish high Renaissance adds a major masterpiece to the Getty Museum's collection and represents a landmark in the Department of Manuscripts' unrivaled record of superb acquisitions over the past 30 years,'' said Ti mothy Potts, director of the Getty Museum, in a statement announcing the acquisition.

The “Roman de Gillion de Trazegnies” tells the story of the bizarre adventures of a nobleman from the family of Trazegnies, whose seat was in Hinaut (now Belgium). Part travelogue, part romance, part epic, it traces the exploits of Gillion on his journeys to Egypt, where he becomes a bigamist, and then dies in battle, a hero.

Alicia Keys Has a Fifth No. 1

Alicia Keys has earned her fifth No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with her latest, “Girl on Fire” (RCA), topping recent titles by Taylor Swift, Rod Stewart and One Direction in the relatively slow sales week after Thanksgiving.

“Girl on Fire” sold 159,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, a lower opening than Ms. Keys had for any of her five previous albums, but enough to return her to the top slot. (“The Element of Freedom,” her last record, stalled at No. 2 three years ago, but otherwise all of her albums have reached No. 1.) Promotion for the album included a prominent commercial for Citigroup and a light show last week at the Empire State Building synchronized to her songs.

With no other major new releases last week, Ms. Swift's “Red” (Big Machine) held at No. 2 with 137,000 sales in its sixth week. Mr. Stewart's “Merry Christmas, Baby” (Verve) rose three spots to No. 3 wit h 117,000 sales; One Direction's “Take Me Home” (Syco/Columbia) fell one to No. 4 with 92,000; and “The World From the Side of the Moon” (19/Interscope) by the latest “American Idol” winner, Phillip Phillips also fell one, to No. 5, with 74,000 sales. Last week's No. 1 album, Rihanna's “Unapologetic” (Def Jam), dropped to No. 6 with 72,000.

Holiday albums take up the next three spots on the chart: Michael Bublé's “Christmas” (143/Reprise), released last year, is No. 7, Lady Antebellum's “On This Winter's Night” (Capitol Nashville) is No. 8, and Blake Shelton's “Cheers, It's Christmas” (Warner Brothers) is No. 9. Look for them to climb higher in the weeks to come. Kid Rock's “Rebel Soul” (Atlantic) rounds out the Top 10 this week.

The digital tracks chart shows how valuable some good TV promotion can be. Will.i.am's latest song, “Scream & Shout,” featuring Britney Spears, opened at a distant No. 66 on last week's chart, after a partial sales week. But after the song's music video had its premiere on “The X Factor” last week, it shoots to No. 1 with 196,000 downloads, bumping Psy's “Gangnam Style” to No. 2 with 143,000 sales.

For Some Visitors to Art Basel Miami Beach, a Reminder of Sandy\'s Ravages

Few events at Art Basel Miami Beach start before 11 A.M., so that everyone can recover from the previous evening's partying.

On Tuesday night, before the fair opened for big collectors and VIPs at the Miami Beach Convention Center on Wednesday morning, the big event was the opening of the exhibition “Bill Viola: Liber Insularum” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami. Guests arrived by bus, taxi and limo, and many made their way to one of Mr. Viola's best known works, “The Raft,” a 2004 piece that had particular resonance for northeasterners in the crowd who had lived through Hurricane Sandy before coming south.

The video starts with a large group of people - Asian, black, white, old, young, in business and casual attire - standing together and waiting, as if for a bus. As one person riffles through a pocketbook, another reads a book, a nd a third stares into space; without warning, gushes of water slam into them from both sides. The torrent then stops as suddenly as it began. Recorded with high-speed film, this drama unfolds over several minutes in slow motion, revealing each person's reaction - shock, anguish, bewilderment, relief and concern for those around them.

Successive rounds of visitors who were walking through the darkened rooms broke out in applause at the video's conclusion.

With a guard closely monitoring access to the exhibition as the night wore on, the museum's galleries functioned as a quiet refuge from the mob packed into the outdoor party. There was barely room to air kiss while waiting on line for a paper cup filled with pasta or a bagged sandwich. (More experienced attendees had filled up on oysters, shrimp and crab legs at the official welcome reception that Art Basel and the City of Miami hosted at the Raleigh Hotel earlier in the evening.) The only food station there th at seemed to remain untouched by the Size 0 galleristas tottering on spiked platform heels was serving dessert.

“Ancestors,” an example from Mr. Viola's latest body of work, was also on display. This vertical video shows a couple walking through a shimmering desert toward the viewer as if emerging from a mirage. Other pieces from this series could be found elsewhere at the fair, and the artist will be speaking at the convention center on Friday.

Maybe a Bathroom With a Nice Shower?

The Bates Motel from Alfred Hitchcock's classic film “Psycho” has a kind of architectural landmark status as far as horror films go. And the A&E Network is asking fans to take part in a Facebook contest to help create the 15-second opening title sequence for a new original drama series called “Bates Motel,” which will have its premiere in March. The contest began Wednesday at facebook.com/BatesMotelAETV and runs through Jan. 3.

“We're looking for an awesome fifteen-second title sequence that captures the feel of Bates Motel - not as a slasher/horror show, but as a complex, character-based thriller,” Carlton Cuse, the executive producer, said.

Contestants must submit a 15-second video. Mr. Cuse will judge the submissions based on how well they represent t he mood, tone, and overall feel of the series. The prize will be $2,500 and the possibility that the winner's idea will become the title sequence of “Bates Motel.”

Starring Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore, “Bates Motel,” is a contemporary prequel to “Psycho.”   In the series Norman Bates is a teenager who lives with his beautiful mother, Norma, owner of the Bates Motel.

In Performance: Joaquina Kalukango of \'Emotional Creature\'

Last week we introduced “In Performance,” a theater video series featuring actors performing excerpts from their new shows. The first video was from the actor Aasif Mandvi in a scene from Ayad Akhtar's play “Disgraced.”

This week's video is a scene from Eve Ensler's “Emotional Creature,” a show of songs and spoken-word pieces about the problems facing young women around the world. In this excerpt the actress Joaquina Kalukango plays Marta, a young woman in Congo whose afternoon shopping with friends is violently disrupted by a group of soldiers.

Over the next few weeks watch for perform ances by Shuler Hensley (“The Whale”), Michael Learned (“The Outgoing Tide”), Jackie Hoffman (“A Chanukah Charol”) and others.

Authorities Seize Items Said To Have Been Looted from Indian Temples

He's been called “one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world today” - a longtime Manhattan antiquities dealer alleged to have trafficked more than $100 million worth of looted Indian cultural artifacts.

And on Wednesday Federal authorities added to the litany of thefts attributed to Subhash Kapoor, who is now facing criminal charges in India. In a raid at the Port of Newark, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with Homeland Security Investigations, working with Indian authorities and the Manhattan District Attorney's office, seized a 14th century statue of a Hindu deity called a Parvati and four other bronze figures from the Tamil Nadu region, valued together at more than $5 million.

Authorities said they had been stolen from Indian temples. Even though the Parvati, a goddess of love and devotion, had been listed on an Interpol database of stolen works, it had “passed though the hands of six different dealers and been given multiple layers of false provenance over the past six years,” said a press release from Customs Enforcement. From 1974 until his arrest last July in Germany, Mr. Kapoor had operated his Art of the Past Gallery on Madison Avenue at 89th Street, listing many prominent institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to which he had donated or sold antiquities.

Christopher M. Kane, Mr. Kapoor's lawyer in New York, said he did not have enough details of the latest seizure to comment but added: “There are a lot of allegations. Nothing's been proven.”

Ben Brantley Answers Readers\' Questions

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Matthew Broderick, center, in the Broadway musical “Nice Work if You Can Get It.”

Below are answers to selected reader questions about the theater world from Ben Brantley, the chief theater critic of The New York Times. Check back for more answers tomorrow.

Q.

I'm wondering whether the really old days where people knew a score before going in was a good thing. - Fred Landau, N ew York City

A.

Though Broadway musicals â€" at least new musicals - are less likely to be filled with songs that have hit the top 40, the way they were 50 years ago, I'd say that in many cases, audiences are still familiar with the scores of the shows they're seeing. That's because so many Broadway productions these days recycle old scores (as in “Nice Work if You Can Get It”) and songbooks (“Rock of Ages,” “Jersey Boys”). People seem to want to hear what they already know. But I see your point: it's exciting to be engaged and even startled by a fresh set of songs you've never he ard before. Sadly, that rarely happens on Broadway anymore.

Q.

Do you feel, as I do, that theater is becoming an ever more unpopulist medium? I see so few shows that treat the stage as simply another way to tell a story and so many that are about a subset of theater culture pandering to itself. - Maddi Chapin, Livingston, N.J.

A.

There are a lot of forms of theater out there, especially in New York, and I think it's always possible to find a production to match your tastes, though sometimes it requires more investigation and research than you may feel is worth it. Off-Broadway companies like Playwrights Horizons and the Mint Theater specialize in conventional, narrative-driven plays â€" new works in the case of Playwrights and old (and often rare) dramas from the past a t the Mint.

If theater is less populist, I think it's as much a matter of economics as anything. Broadway shows, in particular, have priced themselves out of the reach of all but the most dedicated middle-class theatergoer, except as an occasional thing. And the pressure to justify the prices often leads producers to, as you put it, “pander” with star vehicles and showstopper-packed musicals.

But the narrative drive that you love about the theater is still in existence, and there are writers who still dedicate themselves to perpetuating it. Broadway probably isn't the first place to look for satisfying theater, though.

Q.

What do you hope for when you see a new work, or work by a new playwright? - Beth Derochea, Weymouth, Mass.

A.

I hope to hear a voice that is true to itself and to the logic it sets up within the play. This happens far less often than you might expect.

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times William Dudley in front of his projections for “The Woman in White.”

Q.

What role do you believe media/projections currently play in New York theater? - Bryce C. Cutler, Pittsburgh

A.

Projections play a huge role in the theater these days. This is equally true of a big musical like, say, “The Woman in White” â€" a short-lived Andrew Lloyd Webber costume musical (seen in New York in 2005) that was most notable for its substitution of elaborate two-dimensional video projections (by William Dudley) for three-dimensional scenery â€" and an off-Broadway production like the political bio-drama “Checkers,” currently at the Vineyard Theater, in which the designer Darrel Maloney draws changes of scenery into existence (via projection) as we watch. Wendall K. Harrington, whose video and digital work has enlivened many a major production in recent years, is probably the reigning master of this art.

Like all forms of design in theater, mixed media effects have been used effectively and ineffectively, sometimes enhanci ng the live human presence at the production's center and sometimes eclipsing it. But they're definitely here to stay. It's worth noting that when “Sunday in the Park With George” - the Stephen Sondehim-James Lapine musical about the artist George Seurat - was revived four years ago, projections had largely taken the place of more traditional cut-out scenery in making Seurat's art come to life. (The digital designs were by Timothy Bird and the Knifedge Creative Network.) And for me, the gorgeous act one finale (in which Seurat's masterpiece portraying the Ile de la Grande Jatte is summoned into being before our eyes) was every bit as magical in this latter-day incarnation as it was in the original.

Q.

My husband and I will spend one night in New York City on Jan. 5. We won't be back before many months. What s how should we, 27-year-old theater enthusiasts, go see? - Hélène Steiner, Minneapolis

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti in the Broadway musical “Once.”

A.

I don't know your specific tastes, of course, or what you've seen in the past. But given your ages, I'm thinking you might enjoy “Once,” which won the Tony for Best Musical this year, and is certainly the most original musical to open on Broadway in many months. It's a love story (aren't they all?) but one told via a gentle indie-rock-pop score and extremely inventive dance sequences.

“Peter and the Starcatcher,” which is closing soon, might sound like kid-stuff, since it tells the back story of the boy who became Peter Pan. But it is purely and wonderfully theatrical in the way that it tells its story, without elaborate props or scenery, but more imagination and innovation than you'll find in a host of Hollywood spectacles.

Q.

Is there a single theater on Broadway that has even halfway acceptable (re: size, cleanliness) bathrooms? - Chris Jehle, San Francisco

A.

I'd have to do more research to provide a satisfactory answer. My mind is usually so full of what's been happening on stage that I'm rarely aware of my surroundings at intermission, even in the men's room. I haven't noticed any exceptionally squalid environments, but then I'm not a white gloves kind of guy.

MoCA Los Angeles May Partner With U.S.C.

The financially troubled Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the expansion-oriented University of Sothern California are discussing a potential partnership, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The talks are “very preliminary,” the university's provost, Elizabeth Garrett, told the paper, but are aimed at exploring a “partnership that would enhance the missions of both institutions.” Lyn Winter, a spokesperson for the museum, told the Times much the same thing.

The Museum of Contemporary Art has suffered from financial problems for years, and in 2008 accepted a $30 million rescue package from the billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, a founding trustee. In recent months, it has refused to provide details about the state of its finances, although Mr. Broad wrote an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times saying its curr ent budget is $14.3 million, the lowest it has been for more than a decade.

Meanwhile, the museum has also been a focus of controversy over its curatorial program, after Jeffrey Deitch, the New York art dealer, was named its director-a move that many saw as influenced by Mr. Broad-and Paul Schimmel, its respected longtime chief curator, was pushed out in June. Several board members, including four prominent artists, quit last summer in protest over what they saw as the museum's excessively pop-culture focused program under Mr. Deitch.

The university, is in aggressive expansion mode, the Times reported, and is currently in the midst of a $6 billion fundraising drive.

The Fate of an American City: Mark Binelli Talks About Detroit

Detroit has become the most visibly distressed symbol of our hard economic times. In his new book, “Detroit City Is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis,” Mark Binelli traces the long history of racial and financial struggles there, documents the current crisis, and investigates the many ways - innovative, desperate and otherwise - that residents are trying to turn things around. In a recent e-mail interview, Mr. Binelli discussed the rise of urban agriculture in Detroit, apportioning blame for the city's problems and more. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation:

Q.

You grew up outside of Detroit. When did you leave it?

A.

I moved away in 1993, when I was 22, though my parents and brother remain in the area, so I've never let much time lapse between visits.

Q.

What inspired you to go back and write about it? And how long did you live there while you reported the book?

A.

I always thought I would write a novel about Detroit one day. But when the economy collapsed in 2008 and I saw Detroit becoming the poster city of (and all-purpose metaphor for) recession-era America, I started thinking about nonfiction - partly, I think, because the stories coming out of Detroit tended to be so tediously one-note. Detroit isn't just a tragic city of ruins; it's a deeply weird place, filled with the sorts of characters you'd have found in Joseph Mitchell's New York a century earlier. I moved back in 2009 and stayed until early 2012.

Q.

Is the story of U.S. manufacturing the clearest reason for Detroit's decline, the same way it caused the city's prosperity in the early part of the 20th century?

A.

I'd say it's up there, but the abandonment of the city began long before the collapse of U.S. manufacturing. And that abandonment had far more to do with race. An American city as important as Detroit would have never been essentially discarded if it had been 85% white instead of 85% black.

Q.

Do you see any way for the city's firm racial segregation to change?

A.

That's actually one reason for cautious optimism I express in the book: that historic segregation is slowly changing. The most recent census found Detroit's population had plunged nearly 25% in the 10 years since the last census, from just under a million to just over 700,000. Everyone r ead this as one more nail in Detroit's coffin, and of course, the numbers were bad news for the city. But many of the black residents leaving Detroit ended up in the surrounding suburbs, which had been more or less entirely white when I was growing up. Likewise, Detroit's white population rose for the first time in 60 years. One would hope that such increased diversity, however tentative, could lead to more regional cooperation, which both the city and the suburbs (also hurting in this recession) sorely need.

Q.

Coleman Young and Kwame Kilpatrick, two former mayors of Detroit, have taken a lot of criticism for the city's problems. How much of the blame would you place on a broken political system?

A.

Young's successes and failures are debatable; Kilpatri ck's failures are well-documented and worthy of condemnation. And there's certainly been a general level of political dysfunction over the years that has not been helpful to Detroit. That said, I think it's also been wildly overstated, and there's sometimes a tinge (occasionally a generous dollop) of racism inherent in the critiques. Detroit's main problem is that it has no tax base, and so can't provide basic city services to its remaining residents - who, quite sensibly, continue to leave the city in droves, further eroding the tax base. You could make Mike Bloomberg the mayor of Detroit tomorrow and he wouldn't be able to change that math. Unless he started writing personal checks.

Corine Vermeulen

Q.

Urban agriculture has sprouted on some of the city's abandoned land, but you write that it isn't a practical way forward for most people. I got the sense that the positive things Detroit is now best known for - farming, art collectives - are closer to hobbies than real solutions. Do you agree with that?

A.

“Hobbies” is a bit harsh, but yes, some of the positive Detroit stories that have gotten the most ink are more attractive metaphorically - gardens blooming from the wreckage of post-industrial America! - than practically. Detroit is not going to return to an agrarian economy, and conceptual art projects and artisanal coffee shops won't really dent the entrenched problems facing much of the city's population: crime, failing schools, chronic unemployment. Still, positive activity of any sort in Detroit can only be a good thing, and I think many of these projects embody the bottom-up, DIY energy that will be a crucial part of Detroit's next chapter.

Q.

You spent time with artists, politicians, volunteer firemen and others around the city. How would you rate the overall mood of the residents? Do they have the underlying optimism you express at times in the book?

A.

You'll find a pretty broad spectrum of moods across the city. There are boosters who won't hear a bad word about Detroit; there are lifelong residents who would leave in a heartbeat if they could swing it. In a recent poll in the Detroit News, 40% of the respondents said they hoped to move out of the city within the next five years, citing crime as the main reason. Part of this divide is the result of a decades-long problem in Detroit: the overwhelming bulk of t he resources are poured into core areas like downtown and Midtown, while many of the outlying neighborhoods continue go to seed.

Q.

The city had success for a while drawing Hollywood productions to town via tax breaks. Why did that stop?

A.

The Times just ran a great piece on the failure of a massive movie studio built in Pontiac, a troubled city about 30 miles north of Detroit proper. The article focused on the potential shadiness of certain of the investors, but I think somewhat underplayed why things really went south: Michigan's new Republican governor, Rick Snyder, ended the tax credit policy when he was elected in 2011, because he thought the state should make itself generally attractive to business (as opposed to picking favorites). Part of me agrees with him: that sort of racing to the bottom that states are forced to enga ge in, just to lure huge corporations, is repugnant. On the other hand, the studios do claim film shoots provide subsidiary economic benefits (catering, hotel rooms, etc.), so long-term the investment might have proved worthwhile.

Q.

You write extensively about “ruin porn” - photographs of the area's crumbling and abandoned structures. Does this trend of taking aesthetic pleasure from Detroit's troubles offend you as a native of the place?

A.

I'm not offended by photographers like, say, Andrew Moore, even though he's not from Detroit and spent very little time in the city â€" technically his work is stunning, and when you see some of these buildings up close, or s neak inside, there is a majesty and an aesthetic validity. I also sympathize with the point of view of people who have lived among these ruins for years, sometimes decades, and would happily see them all bulldozed tomorrow. I just hope a balance can be struck. Some of the industrial history, especially, is worthy of preservation, and could become tourist attractions - as opposed to, say, strip malls or stadium parking lots.

Canadian Wins Uncoveted Bad Sex in Fiction Award

Canadians who are ignoring their government's call to commemorate the bicentennial of the War of 1812 now have another point of national pride to rally around, or not: a surprise victory in The Literary Review's annual Bad Sex in Fiction Prize.

The uncoveted prize, awarded on Tuesday at a lavish ceremony in London attended by some 400 (apparently clothed) literati, went to the Calgary-born novelist Nancy Huston for a steamy scene in her novel “Infrared” featuring a photographer, her lover and much talk of “flesh, that archaic kingdom that brings forth tears and te rrors, nightmares, babies and bedazzlements,” to say nothing of a long passage that builds to a climax of “undulating space.”

Ms. Huston, who did not attend the ceremony, is only the third woman to win the prize since its founding in 1993, edging out a testosterone-heavy shortlist that included Tom Wolfe, Craig Raine and Sam Mills. Two early distaff-side favorites, J.K. Rowling's “Casual Vacancy” and E L James's “Fifty Shades of Grey,” were disqualified: Ms. Rowling's book because it was deemed insufficiently bad, and Ms. James's because the rules exclude books intended as erotic or pornographic.

Ms. Huston, 59, who lives in Paris and writes in French before translating her own work back into English, has won plenty of more conventional accolades, including France's prestigious Prix Goncourt des Lycéens and Prix Femina. In a st atement read at Monday's ceremony Ms. Huston, (who is married to the philosopher Tzvetan Todorov) took the honor in stride, saying, “I hope this prize will incite thousands of British women to take close-up photos of their lovers' bodies in all states of array and disarray.”

Recent winners include David Guterson, Jonathan Littell and John Updike, who in 2008 was given a special lifetime achievement award.

Rare \'Metropolis\' Poster Offered at Auction

Reuters A copy of the poster for “Metropolis” is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

There are several bidders for the world's highest-valued film poster - a rare copy of the groundbreaking 1927 science-fiction film “Metropolis,” according to the attorney handling the sale for a bankruptcy auction, Reuters reported.

The pos ter and eight other old film posters will bring at least $700,000 collectively at a Dec. 13 court auction in Los Angeles. The amount was set in an initial “stalking horse bid,” which sets a floor for bankruptcy auction prices. An original “King Kong” poster and an “Invisible Man” poster, both from 1933, are also for sale.

The “Metropolis” poster was bought by the collector Kenneth Schachter for $690,000 in a 2005 private sale. The poster is one of four known surviving copies. One is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

“Metropolis,” directed by Fritz Lang, was among the most expensive films at the time of its release and became a landmark of early filmmaking for its special effects and depiction of a futuristic dystopia.

Michael Richards Lands a Gig in TV Land

Is he ready for his close-up?

Michael Richards, the actor best known for his role as the goofy Kramer in the “Seinfeld” TV series, is getting ready to return to television as the co-star opposite Kirstie Alley and Rhea Perlman (both of “Cheers” fame) in the TV Land comedy pilot “Giant Baby,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show is about a Broadway star named Madison Banks (Ms. Alley), who is reunited with her long-lost son after the death of his adopted mother. Mr. Richards will play Banks's limousine driver and Ms. Perlman will play her assistant and best friend. 

The role marks the Emmy-winning actor's first potential series regular job since 2000, in the short-lived “The Michael Richards Show” on NBC. He was a guest star on a “Seinfeld” reunion episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and on Jerry Seinfeld's web series. In 2007 he announced that he was retiring from stand-up comedy after his racist tirade aimed at a heckler during a show at the Laugh Factory in November 2006 went viral.

An Evening of Dance for Wendy Whelan and More at Jacob\'s Pillow Dance Festival

Paul Kolnik/New York City BalletWendy Whelan and Albert Evans in “Agon” with New York City Ballet.

One ballerina, four dance-making partners. A new work inspired and performed by Wendy Whelan, the New York City Ballet principal dancer, called “Restless Creature” will be unveiled this summer at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, organizers said on Wednesday. Ms. Whelan will dance four duets with a different male partner, each of whom choreographed their number. The partners are Kyle Abraham, Joshua Beamish, Brian Brooks and Alejandro Cerrudo. Performances run Aug . 14 to 18. Jacobs Pillow also said in announcing part of its lineup that the recently resurrected Dance Theater of Harlem would open the season with a run from June 19 to 23. Repertory includes George Balanchine's “Agon,” Alvin Ailey's “The Lark Ascending” and John Alleyne's “Far But Close.”

Novelist\'s Debut Is Newest Pick for Oprah\'s Book Club

Elena Seibert Ayana Mathis.

It is a dream come true for a first-time novelist: a call from Oprah Winfrey with the news that your novel has been chosen for her book club. That dream recently came true for Ayana Mathis, the author of “The Twelve Tribes of Hattie,” (Alfred A. Knopf). Ms. Winfrey announced Wednesday that she has chosen the novel for the book club famously associated with her former TV talk show. In response to the endorsement, the publishers increased the book's first printing to 125,000 copies.

Now called Oprah's Book Club 2.0, the club was revived earlier this year with Cheryl Stray ed's memoir “Wild.” Dozens of books over the past 20 years became best-sellers because of Ms. Winfrey's endorsements, and Ms. Strayed's followed that trajectory. In a statement, Ms. Winfrey likened Ms. Mathis's book to the fiction of Toni Morrison.

“The opening pages of Ayana's debut took my breath away,” said Ms.Winfrey, now the chief executive officer of OWN, her television network. “I can't remember when I read anything that moved me in quite this way, besides the work of Toni Morrison.”

Ms. Mathis' novel - which goes on sale on Thursday - tells the story of the Great Migration through the life of an African-American teenager named Hattie Shepherd. Hattie leaves the racial terrorism of Georgia in 1923 for a new life in Philadelphi a. The 12 tribes are Hattie's children and the book follows their lives over the decades that follow. The novel has earned starred pre-publication reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and Booklist.

The book initially had a January publication date. But Paul Bogaards, a spokesman for Knopf said Wednesday that the endorsement changed everything. “We obviously had to advance our on-sale date,” he said. “The books with the Oprah sticker will be landing today. This is a book that everyone at Knopf is completely enamored of. As a result of Oprah's endorsement we took our printing up to 125,000, from 50,000. All kinds of retail windows have opened.”

An interview with Ms. Mathis will be broadcast on Feb. 3 on Ms. Winfrey's OWN network.

Cuomo Says \'Only Time Will Tell\' if Senate Coalition Will Succeed

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday said that Democrats had “squandered the opportunity” the last time they controlled the State Senate, but that “only time will tell” whether an unusual power-sharing arrangement forged Tuesday by Senate Republicans and a group of dissident Democrats will succeed.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who had angered some members of his own party by not pushing for Democratic control of the Senate, said that “dysfunction was legendary” in 2009 and 2010, when Democrats had a majority, and Albany “cannot afford to go back to a period of dysfunction.”

The governor made his comments in an op-ed piece that he wrote for The Times Union of Albany, which the newspaper published on its Web site on Wednesday. Mr. Cuomo said that he expected the Senate's leadership “to be fluid and subject to influence for some time” given the small gap between the number of seats held by the two parties in the Senate.

Mr. Cuomo wrote that he would withhold judgment until he sees how the Senate functions. He laid out what he described as a “litmus test” for the chamber that consisted of policy measures he wants lawmakers to approve, including raising the minimum wage, overhauling campaign finance laws and reforming New York City's stop-and-frisk policy. He also said he wanted the Legislature to address climate change and take steps toward permitting “limited and highly regulated casinos.”

“My opinion will be based on how those senators function as a leadership group and perform on the important issues for the people of the state,” Mr. Cuomo wrote. “In many ways, only time will tell. In the interim, function, order and decorum should be the standard we all follow.”

Lamb of God Singer Charged in Fan\'s Death

The lead singer of the metal band Lamb of God has been formally charged with causing the death of a fan in the Czech Republic, the BBC reported.

The singer, Randy Blythe, is accused of pushing a fan who rushed the stage during a 2010 show; the man hit his head when he fell and died two weeks later.

In June, Mr. Blythe, 41, was arrested as the band arrived in Prague for a concert. He was held in jail for five weeks before being released on bail.

But no formal indictment was lodged against him until Friday, when a court in Prague charged him with causing bodily harm resulting in death. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

The band's manager, Larry Mazur, said Mr. Blythe intended to return to Prague for the trial and “fight vigorously” to cle ar his name. In a statement on Monday, Mr. Mazur said Mr. Blythe had done nothing improper during the scuffle and blamed lax security and a flimsy barricade for the sequence of events that led to the fan's death. He pointed out that several people had jumped a barrier and swarmed the stage.

“We believe Randy responded professionally to the numerous amount of fans rushing the stage that day,” Mr. Mazur said.

Mamet\'s \'The Anarchist\' to Fold on Dec. 16

“The Anarchist,” David Mamet's two-character play about a Weather Underground-style prisoner and her jailer, will close on Dec. 16, its producers announced Tuesday night. The closing is one of the quickest exits for a new work by a name playwright on Broadway in several seasons.

The production at the Golden Theater, starring Patti LuPone and Debra Winger in her Broadway debut, will have played 23 previews and 17 performances when it closes.

Critics drubbed “The Anarchist” upon its opening, calling the language stilted and wondering whether at 70 minutes it deserved to be on Broadway. StageGrade, a review aggregator, gave the show, which Mr. Mamet directed, a D rating.

Still, the rapid closing comes as a surprise, since playing on the same street as “The Anarchist” is a revival of Mr. Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning “Glengarry Glen Ross” at the Schoenfeld Theater - with the same lead producers - which has been the biggest box-office success of the fall season, even before its official opening this weekend. The “Glengarry” cast includes Al Pacino, Bobby Cannavale, and Jeremy Shamos.

Mr. Mamet's last new play on Broadway, “Race,” closed in 2010 after a solid 297-performance run. But a revival of his early “Life in the Theater” the same year was short-lived, and a revival of his “American Buffalo” closed in 2008 after only 20 previews and 8 performances.

Owney, the Post Office Dog

Smithsonian Institution Owney, the unoffical postal mascot, wore a jacket with mail tags. Though he was only a mutt, Owney endeared himself as a worldwide traveling postal mascot.

Dear Diary:

The other day I was in the post office near my Midtown apartment to buy stamps.

I asked the clerk if they were still selling the stamps of the dog. “The one that looks like a mutt,” I added.

“Do you mean Owney?” the clerk asked. “The post office mascot?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“It's Owney,” she said. “We stopped selling those. Bu t he was quite a dog.”

“He was?” I asked.

“Well, sure,” she said. “In the 1800s he traveled with the mailmen. He won all sort of awards. He had celebrations in his honor…”

“How do you know all this?” I asked, incredulously.

“I read about it,” she said. In a lower voice, she asked me, “And do you know how Owney died?”

“No.”

“He went crazy. And one day he attacked some mail carriers. And then they shot him. Dead. A bullet to the head. Bang! Just like that!”

“Wait,” I said, trying to take this all in. “You mean the post office dog went postal?”

“That's right,” the clerk said.

By now a line had formed behind me.

“I'll just take the flag stamps,” I said.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissi ons guidelines. Reach us via e-mail: diary@nytimes.com or telephone: (212) 556-1333. Follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

In Poll, New Yorkers Like Cuomo for Governor and Clinton for President

As Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo approaches the midpoint of his first term, a large majority of New York voters say they are prepared to re-elect him, according to a new poll released Wednesday by Siena College.

But voters are far less enthusiastic about the idea of Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, seeking national office. Only 39 percent said they would like to see him run for president in 2016, compared with 54 percent who said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should mount another White House bid, the poll found.

Among Democratic voters, the gap between Mr. Cuomo and Mrs. Clinton, who formerly represented New York in the United States Senate, was even wider. Sixty-nine percent said they wanted Mrs. Clinton to seek the presidency in four years, while 43 percent supported a bid by Mr. Cuomo.

“New York Democrats overwhelmingly want to see Hillary Clinton run,” said Steven A. Greenberg, a Siena pollster. “If Hi llary were to announce that she was not running for president, my guess is that would impact the answer to the question of whether Cuomo should run or not.”

The poll, which was conducted from Nov. 26 to Nov. 29, presents good news for Mr. Cuomo as he looks toward the second half of his term. Seven of 10 voters said they had a favorable view of him, and 6 in 10 said they would vote to re-elect him. Even about half of Republican voters said they would choose to support Mr. Cuomo for a second term.

“The man started out popular as governor and has remained popular through two years,” Mr. Greenberg said. “So I'm not surprised that, at least initially, two years out, the re-elect number is as high as it is.”

Asked about leadership of the Legislature, voters appeared to reject the argument advanced by Democrats in the State Senate that every Democrat elected to the chamber should vote for Democrats to control it. Roughly two thirds of voters said it was acceptable for senators to switch their allegiances and vote for the opposing party to control the Senate. Voters also agreed by 2 to 1 that Mr. Cuomo should not get involved in helping one party or the other win control of the Senate.

One senator elected in November has already switched sides: Simcha Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat, said shortly after the election that he would align with Republicans in the Senate. Another, Malcolm A. Smith, a Queens Democrat, said he would leave his party's caucus and join a four-member group of breakaway Democrats known as the Independent Democratic Conference. The Independent Democrats reached a deal on Tuesday to form a coalition with the Republicans to share control of the Senate when the next legislative session begins in January.

The poll, conducted by telephone of 822 registered voters, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.