While we're stuck with shows about boring old Helen Keller, the people of London are basking in the warm news that their Royal Opera House plans to mount a production of Anna Nicole, an opera based—duh—on the life of superstar Anna Nicole Smith. We implore any New York-based opera company reading to get the wheels in motion to bring this sure-to-be-amazing production to our shores. New York, after all, deserves its pig snop.

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Each week intrepid reporter Gerry Visco takes hundreds of pictures, here are our favorites from her latest batch!

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Some enterprising New Yorker has finally mapped out the legal parking places all over this fine city. Parallel spaces is "a Map for us, the New Yorkers whose several hundred thousand cars are on the street right this minute." The project started as a labor of love and has turned into quite the feat. And while I'd love to explain it to you, it's 3 p.m. Friday afternoon and this thing looks a bunch of Egyptian hieroglyphics right now. It's confusing, and I really don't feel like going through the tutorial, so that's all you.

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If the incredible views of Downtown, Midtown and Jersey City aren’t enough to look at, The Standard Hotel is offering something else for its guests to take a look at: The StandART Channel. As of March 5, the Meatpacking District hotel will show the channel, which features work from 10 celebrated video artists and was created in a partnership with the public art fanatics at Creative Time.

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In a bit of politics/public speaking 101, Fight Back NY is doing what makes sense: Get a famous person to speak slowly and persuasively to explain politics and raise awareness. The organization is using famous lady Cynthia Nixon, who lots of women (and their gay friends) see as their smart, confident, successful, older gal pal due to Sex and the City, and having her explain how her own personal rights and freedoms are being subverted by New York State lawmakers. 

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Call it wishful thinking, but we'd like to believe Google Maps considers bicyclists as big a pain as we do. That it too is tempted to shove those two-wheeling terrors right off their banana seats ever time it sees them riding on the sidewalk not in a bike lane where they belong. How else would you explain why its new bicycling directions are potentially putting cyclists' lives in peril?

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I attended the Shara Worden-curated event "Diamonds, Teeth and Yarn" at 92Y Tribeca mostly because I'm a big fan of her work as My Brightest Diamond. But I was most impressed that evening by the "tableau vivant" constructed by Sarah Small (in which Worden sang an aria and Small herself was involved, dressed in traditional Balkan clothing since she was also singing as part of Black Sea Hotel) and her photographs on view at the 92Y gallery. This happens to be Small's first solo show in the city, and the tableau vivant was originally dreamed up as a way to promote the photos. While they can appear gimmicky—with old/young people dressed/clothed in stark, sexy juxtaposition—they actually have a much deeper quality and Small has incredible raw talent. There's a gallery opening tonight in the space from 6-8 p.m. and Small will also be serving Delirium Tremens drinks. It's sure to be a sensual evening.

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When the Baryshnikov Arts Center decided to open its new Jerome Robbins Theater in Hell’s Kitchen, conversations quickly turned to who would christen the space as the first resident theater company. From the very beginning, BAC executive director Stanford Makishi said The Wooster Group was at the top of the list. “The ensemble represents the kind of creative thinking and exploration the BAC is interested in,” Makishi explained. “It’s always forward looking, and the level of artistry they put in to any of their productions is really at the highest level. Everything is so much at the top of their field.”

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Time magazine is wondering if Stumptown is the new Starbucks this week in its piece, "Is Stumptown the New Starbucks—or Better?". Glad they finally caught up, since we essentially started that conversation last summer when we published a piece by Ethan Epstein titled "Totally Stumped" about the Portland mini-chain's invasion into New York and how the coffee messiah, Duane Sorenson, was stumping for his coffee beans with unbridled zeal. Coffee blog TheShot pointed out the similarities before we could get to it and also rails on writer Josh Ozersky for couching the entire coffee development as coffee's "third wave." Ozersky says these evangelists of third wave coffee "tend to be male, heavily bearded, zealous and meticulous in what they do." Sounds like the same thing with craft beer guys or just about every other person we see sitting on the L train. But at least he was creative in not using the dreaded h-word.

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After all of the horrors that have plagued the upcoming Broadway production of Spiderman, Turn Off The Dark—funding issues that have lead to releasing the cast from contracts and numerous rumors that the show will never go up—actress and Marilyn Manson fiancee Evan Rachel Wood has dropped out of the show.

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