When you think of the Flatiron District, its wholesale shopping, its long surpassed skyscrapers still reaching heavenward, rarely would you have had occasion to consider the morality of homosexual dolphins, the predatory instincts of bears, or to ponder the reproductive imperative of ants. But thanks to the Museum of Sex‘s latest exhibit “Sex Life of Animals” you may find yourself doing just that.

It begins innocently enough: slightly flirtatious manner, revealing clothing, subtle innuendo. In 15 minutes though we are in an orgy in Death Valley, fondling naked Realdolls, watching Looners erotically busting balloons, Gainers suggestively eat cake, engrossed in Robot reproduction, we are watching Pam and Tommy do, what we imagine Pam and Tommy do, in just another 5 minutes we are lost, like foreign tourists, asking directions on our own sexual road-map.

Our minds think back to simpler times. I was 16, she was 18, it was a cool summer’s night, we were in love. Flickering candlelight cast long foreboding shadows against the back wall as we undressed. Cruelly, ridiculously, she played Madonna’s greatest hits as we lay together, forever coupling my first time with “Like a Virgin.”

Such innocence has no place here, not the Museum of Sex, not in modern New York, when the Puritans set sail from Plymouth covered head-to-toe in frilly knickers, wide-brimmed hats and God’s honest truth, one imagines that this compendium of kink is exactly what they were fleeing.

Laid out across three floors, the MOS covers everything we wanted to know about sex but never knew to ask, Jungle Quest anyone? Film, photography, art, politics, disease, contraception, it flicks between erotic ‘how-to’s’ to parental ‘don’t-do’s’.

Ever wanted to be wrapped like a thanksgiving Turkey, apple in mouth, legs bound to your body, then stuffed in a mock oven? Maybe Cannibal play is for you. Ever wanted to dress up like a frontier pioneer and ride your mate like a Blackpool pony? Ponyplay, I’m just saying. Ever wanted to dress head-to-toe in latex like a living doll? Ok now that’s just strange. Ever wanted to dress up in leather gimp gear and have mock-doctors inject an obscene, leg-crossing quantity of fluid directly into your scrotum? Medical play is just a google away.

[Some images after the jump are mildly NSFW]

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Tonight! The street-art friendly Pandemic Gallery is holding an opening party for the solo show of artist Don Pablo Pedro, entitled “Fuck Don Pablo Pedro.”

While Don Pablo Pedro himself has been working for years, he says it wasn’t until he was laid up after a surgery that amputated one testicle that he was really able to bring his art to fruition. Appropriately, most of his imagery features sexual mutations, violence, and depravity.

This show is made up of muslin scrolls painted with, as he puts it:

“anatomical abnormalities, oozing orifices, and sexual oddities. Pasty figures desecrate one another situated in an empty space, alone, or engaged with others in orgasmic and violent activity.”

So come for the drinks, stay for the art, and leave guaranteed to have the most frightening wet dreams imaginable.

Pandemic is at 37 Broadway between Kent and Wythe.

Ninja of Die Antwoord was in town last weekend for that Governor’s Island show and left a little “Thank You” note for Bushwick.

[via All City Art]

Rubulad, the carnival-like art party powerhouse located on Flushing Avenue in Bed-stuy, is having a pretty tough few days. Last week city officials stopped by to tell them the years-long party was over. They had one hour to get everything out of the building, or risk losing it all.

Hundreds of helpers heeded the call to help move an insane amount of art, furniture, and residents’ belongings across the street and into storage.

Now, they’re under an “Order to Vacate,” which prevents residents from entering the building. But here’s the suck: it’s starting to sound like a false alarm, “some element of harassment” by NYC fire marshals who have for years put up with Rubulad’s semi-frequent parties.

Sari Rubinstein and Chris Thomas, Rubulad’s “co-conspirators,” wrote in to Laughing Squid with the story.

On the morning of Tuesday, July 20th, NYC fire marshals entered Rubulad and announced we were being ‘evicted.’ We were informed that representatives of the Department of Buildings were on their way to padlock the space and that we had an hour to remove our essential belongings.

There appears to be some element of harassment at work here as, at the close of business on the third day of this ongoing fiasco, the DOB has not arrived to padlock the premises and indeed we have spoken with them on the phone and they have assured us they have no intention of doing so.

However, the fire department has issued an ‘Order to Vacate’ disallowing us from entering the ground floor of our space. The DOB represents that they can and will undo the Order, but again nothing further has happened and as of now the Order stands.

So, while they’re not sure exactly what they should do or where they should go, they are looking for potential new digs to continue throwing the parties they’ve become so well-known for:

We are asking: If anyone has any ideas of alternative spaces we might hold our next event(s) Do pass them along. We like large space, multiple rooms, outdoor space if possible.

[h/t & photo via Laughing Squid, previous coverage at Brooklyn Paper]

Spotted this “If You See Something, Skate Something.” poster under the BQE on Union this weekend. The website Hardcore Bike Polo saw it too.

It reads:

If you see a possible ledge spot, rail, or gap on the street or in a park, don’t keep it to your self. Don’t tell a cop, tell a friend or an NYC Skate Employee. Or call the toll free Shred Hotline. All calls will be kept confidential, for shredding emergencies call 911.

For the out-of-towners, that’s a play on the MTA’s famous (and copyrighted) “If you see something, say something” slogan.

You can grab the poster for $10 or shirt for $15 at skatesomething.com.

Frankie Leone is a 25-year-old native New Yorker who lives in a graffiti-covered warehouse building “in the center of all the beautiful new ones” on Kent Avenue.

He writes fiction, but what he’s most passionate about are his interpretations of his own experiences with women — the best of which he saves for Craigslist’s Missed Connections.

That’s where I found him, the author behind a well-written listing titled, “I’m the incompetent workman you hired a month or two ago.” I told him we’d like to publish a piece on FREEwilliamsburg. He said he’d be honored.

“I’m simultaneously horribly ashamed and sickeningly proud that I’ve done this before,” Frankie told us. “Fucked up with women terribly, captured it in text, and posted it on missed connections.”

He admitted he never thought anything would come from posting them on Craigslist but the entertainment he gets “reading the judgement/commentary of strangers and masturbating my warped romantic ideals.”

Here’s “Ponce Funeral Home”:

“Ponce Funeral Home” by Frankie Leone

You can find Frankie on Facebook or MySpace. He runs Nice Moves Movers, a small moving business that’s gotten some local internet interest because of a flyer. They’re on Yelp, where they’re said to be, “Very sweet personable guys. Easy to coordinate with, easy to talk to. Handled my stuff with care, perk is they were cute.”

The Brooklyn Studio Lab Theatre group has done something awesome in bringing to life the stage adaptation of Edward Scissorhands here in Williamsburg at the Bayard Street Theatre.

The world stage premiere for the adaption of the now classic story began June 24th and wraps up this Saturday, July 3rd, with two final shows. Yep, it’s a shorty, but damn you guys if it’s not a goodie.

“The gothic fairy tale returns, this time on the stage, in New York. The classic story gets it’s world stage premiere at Bayard Studios. Edward is created and is incomplete. He has everything a human has, except his hands, which are scissors….”

Clocking in at 1hr and 40 mins of performance time, split by a 15-minute intermission, the experience could be seen on the longer side. But with such a talented and passionate cast, its immersive set design, and a story you probably know and love, the show is well worth the $15 price of a ticket.

The Theatre’s set design, conceptually developed by artist Tom Taylor to match director Richard Crawford’s interpretation of the story, is fantastically arranged for the experience. It’s economically-constructed from the mind of Edward – maniacal, mysterious – yet somehow overwhelmingly accessible.

You’ll notice this immediately after entering the two curtain-draped doors at the face of the warehouse on Bayard Street, where one enters under the guise of a caricatured Edward himself. Here, theatre-goers are greeted by the ghostly sounds of a sole harp player seated across from a theatre bar serving light refreshments. Guests sit at a series of white, cloth-draped numbered tables out in the center of the building’s floor. I was seated at lucky number 13…

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“Look, tenants like the guy. Yazmany’s young and hip, which matches our renter profile,” says David Sigman, senior vice president at LCOR, a building that has commissioned the artist behind those “The Assassination of Hillary Clinton” and “The Assassination of Barack Obama” faux-galleries.

Just for the Northside Festival, the Street Art loving Gallery Pandemic, on Broadway between Kent and Wythe, is holding a silk-screening party. Street artists buildmore, celso, darkcloud, deeker, gay sex, keely, matt siren, royce bannon and more will put their art on your on t-shirts, paper, tote bags, underwear, or whatever else you want. Stop by on Sunday between 12pm and 6pm, drink a bloody mary, eat some bbq, and get some art on your clothes.

More pics after the jump.

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I feel you, McGinley– sometimes I wanna throw glass bottles at models’ heads too. Whoever can tell us who soundtracks the film (in the comments) gets a present! [Via]