I’ll admit straightaway that my take on Tim Burton’s show at MoMa is biased for two reasons. One was the crowd. I’ve been regularly attending the museum’s openings a couple years now, but have never seen the rank-and-file turn out like they did on Wednesday night. There were 20 times as many people as there were for say, Monet’s Water Lilies, and the long wait in a blue-lit corridor (which doubled as some hideous fiend’s esophagus) eventually lulled me into thinking I was waiting for something far more Space Mountain than museum exhibition. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing -- I like Space Mountain -- but after all the jostling with strangers, I expected an exhilarating ride.

Today's title paraphrases the Thin White Duke as word comes from a strange source that Rebel nightclub may be changing hands. I was asked to be involved with the renovation, so it just might be true. If so it will mark the end of an error and quite possibly the beginning of a new one. As a rock mecca back in the day, the space had a mediocre run as Downtime. I went to a few goth nights there cause they're always great fun for 15 or 20 minutes. I might have caught a long-forgotten band fronted by one of my waitrons as well. Downtime/Rebel was/is located on a "seam" block smack dab in the middle of the city at 30th Street and 8th Avenue. Although not far from anything and real easy to get to, the location was just never sexy. It always felt like I was in Jersey -- or worse, Philadelphia.

Any trip down the memory lane of nightclubs must pass by the Mudd Club. It opened in October 1978 and was the best joint in town -- some say the best ever. When it closed in 1983, it had morphed from the chicest of places to a punk/hipster haven. Any visit to the Mudd, even as a memory, must go through a door manned by Richard Boch. Mudd was located below Canal at the end of an alley at 77 White Street. At the time it was unimaginable that people could live down there, as it was a domain of rats and bag people with frequent visits from the new culture of graffiti artists. The music was rock and roll, and the crowds were punks and rock stars and rock stars who were punks, plus an uptown crowd slumming for flesh or drugs. Movie stars came through with their apricot scarves and that rarest of commodities: cash. It was a time before we thought of AIDS, and only Betty Ford went to rehab. Orgies and drugs in tenement squats were a common end to an evening on the town. There were few designer labels, save for Trash & Vaudeville or Natasha or Levi’s. But everybody wanted to get into the Mudd Club.

One day. That's how long it was possible to go without adding yet another scoop of fluffernutter to the ever-expanding bit of anthropology we'll call Gagaography. Last night, Her Highness of Unexpected Pop Conquest unveiled "Speechless" off The Fame Monster, while dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet pliéd along. The whole to-do celebrated the 30th anniversary of L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art.

An evening of art, music, and drinks provided the ideal atmosphere at Bowery Hotel for Art Rocks! The third annual benefit -- hosted by John Whitledge, Arden Wohl, and DJ Berrie -- was a late starter, and many thought it was over before it even began. But the slow build created a lounge setting that put everyone in a drinking spirit. The patrons took their time perusing art and swiping snacks early on, with easy access to the bar. After around five or six stiff ones, things started to get weird.

In case you haven't gotten enough of Olivier Zahm and his T&A-filled photos, they're coming to the Lower East Side. The king of soft core-meets-couture is having his debut art show at NYC's Half Gallery. Opening December 1 and on view through the new year, the show is likely to feature many of the same photos one can find on Purple Fashion's blog, Purple Diary. Lots of naked ladies, hard-partying celebrities, and the occasional beautiful shot of a Parisian garden or NYC skyline.

John W. Codling is not your average artist. When Wall Street began its tumble in spring of 2008 with the collapse of Bear Stearns, some financial honchos coped through yoga or a psychiatrist. Codling, who works in equities at Tellet Prebon, turned to Christopher Walken. Overworked and stressed out, Codling bought three canvases and started painting portraits of Walken every Sunday (see full gallery). The pieces range from "Walken This Way," a painting of Run DMC with Walken's face as Run's head to "I Follow Nobody," a painting of Walken with a collage of words incorporated in it. The series culminated into "Sundays with Chris," which is on display at the DVF Gallery until November 1. All proceeds from the sales will go to Team Continuum, a charity that assists cancer patients. I sat down with Codling at The Standard the evening before the opening.

Buenos Aires gallery owner Daniela Luna is just as likely to be caught reading The Harvard Business Review as she is to be seen dancing on a pole at six in the morning. She's the outspoken mastermind behind Appetite, where you can't turn a corner without coming face to face with photographs of sizable cocks, or more recently, a gigantic pink inflatable bear with breasts. Some of the city's best DJs have made their debuts at her War Club parties, and with Appetite showing everywhere from Lithuania to London, this international gallery is becoming more than just a downtown destination for the scrappy chic.

People are understandably disappointed in artist Shep Fairey for lying in court about which Associated Press image he did or did not borrow in creating his iconic “Hope” poster of future president Obama. Whether copyright infringement or instance of fair use, the important argument will now become secondary to the (seemingly deserved) public skewering of Fairey. Of course, this kind of debate would never come up in the literary world. Why? Because they actually have things like “plagiarism software”!. Initially designed to ferret out cheaters, it’s recently graduated to identifying brand new Shakespeare plays.

Take the Picture - There seems to be a never-ending plethora of artists dabbling in the at times indulgent art of self-portraiture these days, but few ever rise to the fierce degree of established and still relevant talents like Cindy Sherman or Robert Mapplethorpe. Photographer Gregory Moon is that rare exception, and though his work is way different from the aforementioned art greats, he adds his own singular touch to his work, which veers from the ultra-sexual to the uber-sexy. Constantly revealing and evolving, he shows absolutely no fear in expressing his unique vision of himself and gives pause to those seeking only an unhealthy dose of counterfeit astonishment.