The success of Carsten Holler’s interactive exhibition at NYC’s New Museum, which includes a slide and carousel, has proven that urbanites like to play when visiting their cultural institutions. Though Holler is closing this weekend, the Museum of Natural History is offering up some fun with a new interactive video game voiced by Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields.

Initially, Stephin Merritt's somber basso profundo is unsettling. And although he's not the kind to mince words, everything he says is so well-considered that extended moments of silence make you wonder whether something you've just said is heretic, or worse, stupid. But then you realize that The Magnetic Fields/The 6ths/The Gothic Archies/Future Bible Heroes frontman is, even in mid-conversation, is verging on his next stroke of brilliance. His latest such display -- an off-Broadway adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline -- began at the West Village's Lucille Lortel Theatre last week. And so, Merritt carved out a little time to discuss the three-dimensional triumphs of the stage and men in gorilla suits.