And In The Interest Of Equal Time, A Certain Fifteenth-Century Jacometto Sort Of Looks Like Al Gore*

Next time you bring the kids to the Met, enliven the visit with a game of Where’s Rudy:

Earlier this spring, Mary Carter, a professor of art education at Ball State University, in Indiana, came to New York for a conference. During a break in her schedule, she visited the Met with a friend. Carter is partial to the Renaissance, so they headed directly for the European collection on the second floor, where a helpful docent joined them. He shared a few stories about the museum’s costly purchase, in 2005, of the Duccio di Buoninsegna’s “Madonna and Child,” and then, as they stopped to look at a fifteenth-century Venetian painting of a monk, he leaned in and asked, suggestively, “Don’t you think that looks like Rudolph Giuliani?”

“Gosh, that’s uncanny,” Carter replied. Giuliani, as it happens, had just been campaigning in Indiana. “It was as if someone had Photoshopped Giuliani, but fixed it so the Byzantine conventions were right,” she said. “It was there in the eyes and the mouth. They were exactly him.”

The monk in the painting, by Carlo Crivelli, is St. Dominic, the patron saint of astronomers. He is robed, and clasps a holy book in his left hand and holds a white lily (purity, to an iconographer) in his right. (“I bet his hands even look like that,” Carter said of Giuliani.) He is mostly bald, and, instead of the old Giuliani comb-over, wears a tonsure, with a tuft of hair at the front of his forehead. His heavy-lidded gaze would not easily be confused with that of the stoic Giuliani of September 11th, say, or that of the sardonic Giuliani who faced down squeegee men and ferret owners, but possibly — and it’s a stretch — that of the forlorn Giuliani of divorce proceedings and the Bernie Kerik saga.

*No, check it out.

What’s The High Line?

We are all guilty of giving in to a full season of David Bowie’s arbitrary and capricious tastes:

David Bowie has been a rock god, a philosopher of the pop avant-garde, an actor, a fashion plate and a talent scout. But he has a little trouble taking seriously the job description for his newest gig: curator of the first High Line Festival.

“I love that word ‘curate,'” he said with a slight sarcastic chuckle. “One of the definitions is someone who oversees a zoo.”

To put together the High Line, an 11-day series of music, film, comedy and art that begins on Wednesday with a performance by Arcade Fire at Radio City Music Hall, Mr. Bowie said he followed his own tastes, booking old and new friends like Laurie Anderson, TV on the Radio and the British comedian Ricky Gervais. He also included curiosities like Ken Nordine, the octogenarian “word jazz” artist, and the Australian “kamikaze cabaret” performer Meow Meow.

“The point of the festival,” Mr. Bowie said during a phone interview last week, “is not to dig out as many obscure and unknown acts as possible. It’s to put on what I would go and see. There are certain artists you just never miss; when they come into town you go and see them. That’s how I treat virtually all of the people that are on this.”

. . .

Mr. Bowie’s programming has led to criticism that the festival is somewhat conservative: for a man known as a champion of new music, he has invited many groups that are not exactly uncommon sights in New York, like Deerhoof and the Secret Machines. Several headliners have other, non-High Line gigs booked around their festival appearances.

And the connection to the High Line itself — the 1.45-mile elevated industrial train line on the West Side left fallow since 1980 that is to be developed into a green corridor running from the meatpacking district to Chelsea — is vague. Most of the events take place near the High Line, and organizers describe the festival as partly an awareness-raising event, with some of the proceeds to benefit conservation efforts. For his own part Mr. Bowie said he had never been on the High Line and had “no particular feelings about it.”

They Work Hard For The Money

The Armory Show is happening this weekend, and struggling artists are hopeful that they will sell something, anything:

Hundreds of electricians and carpenters yesterday were putting the finishing touches on their transformation of Pier 94 into the venue for this weekend’s Armory Show.

While they wrapped up, art handlers began to install works that 150 galleries hailing from 22 countries are looking to sell.

“A lot of people are down on the Armory because everything is packed together like a big supermarket, but I love it,” said Bushwick-based artist Zak Smith, 30, who also performs in porn films under the name Zak Sabbath. “It saves you the trouble of having to go to shows all year long if you’re working all the time like me.”

Smith was helping his Chelsea gallery Fredericks & Freiser tack up a series of intricate ink drawings on small pieces of paper called, “Drawings I did around the time I became a porn star.”

Well Who Wouldn’t Want To Be Tim Robbins’ Charity Case?

Successful street musicians need nothing more than their own entrepreneurial spirit to guide them:

The intersection of 23rd St. and Seventh Ave. is arguably one of the busiest in Chelsea, a blur of auto and pedestrian traffic that would intimidate most aspiring sidewalk musicians for fear of being drowned out.

Vladimir Laksin doesn’t seem to mind. For a year and a half, the scrappy 55-year-old Polish immigrant with strawberry blond hair and raspy voice has made a second home of the intersection’s southwest corner, slapping away at his honey-colored Fender Squire Stratocaster and crooning his unique combination of blues and rock in front of the stairs to the Downtown 1 subway line, a stone’s throw away from the lively scene surrounding the nearby Hotel Chelsea.

. . .

A graphic designer and photo re-toucher by trade, Laksin fell on hard times three years ago when he was laid off and subsequently had a mild heart attack. While convalescing, he bought himself a guitar to pass the time in front of the television. Soon, he began playing outside the Lemon Lime coffee shop on Sixth Ave. between 20th and 21st Sts., which was owned by a friend.

“I didn’t play well at all, but people start giving me money. So, I says, O.K., that’s great,” said Laksin in a thick Eastern European accent. “That worked for a while, but when they sold the restaurant, I need a new spot.”

The corner nook created by the 23rd St. subway sign and DOCS health clinic appealed to him, with it’s MTV-like electronic billboard and close proximity to the famed Chelsea Guitars store. He befriended the guys at the shop, buying strings, and eventually his current guitar, from them and hanging out during breaks. That kept him coming back, and before long, he was showing up daily for “work.”

Response is generally mixed:

Actor Tim Robbins dropped a few dollars in his tip case and asked him for his telephone number a few months ago, and Laksin regularly runs into celebrity musicians who come by the guitar shop, including Carlos Santana on one occasion.

“I was playing my songs, and his bodyguards went, ‘All right, rock on, man,’ and went on and on and got all excited. Then this other guy just say very quietly, ‘Can you make it weep?’ before going around the corner. I didn’t realize it was Santana until after!” Laksin said wearing a Cheshire grin.

Other passersby are a nuisance at best and an occupational hazard at worst, however.

One man regularly puts a banana peel into Laksin’s tip case, and another came by frequently starting six months ago and tipped him in cash, only to proposition him for a threesome with him and his wife. When the guitarist told him to take his money back and bug off, the man grew hostile until another pedestrian called the police.

And even if the average music fan doesn’t “get it,” celebrities certainly know talent when they see it:

On occasion, opportunity knocks and he picks up more lucrative music gigs. Recently, a photographer snapping pictures of Laksin invited him to play at his exhibition on Varick St., netting the guitarist $150 for three hours’ work. The owner of B.B. King’s Blues Club also asked him to play in front of the famed venue last year; but New York’s Finest sent Laksin on his way for not having a permit, which the owner was subsequently unable to secure for him.

Then there’s the odd recording invitation, one of which was recently proffered by a session musician who used to play with Lou Reed.

“He wants to get together and record some of my tunes with his band,” said Laksin. “We’ll see.”

Meantime, the former bass player, who picked up a guitar for the first time just three years ago, works on his technique, entirely self-taught. He eschews standards, choosing instead to make up lyrics on the spot: “Woke up this morning. My baby’s gone. She took all my money, you know. She’s gone, and I’ve been wronged.”

When he’s feeling his mojo and picks up a head of steam, Laksin knocks his knees together in a butterfly stance like a young Elvis Costello and thrusts his head forward, his pale, gentle face scrunched up into a mean scowl like a true rock ‘n’ roll star.

Spectator Mike Fischer, a Queens resident who spends a lot of time in Chelsea, was less than impressed with Laksin’s playing on Monday, however.

“He needs some tuning up,” he said. “Maybe he can figure out where to go from here.”

It’s Never Too Early To Turn Young People On To The Magical Experience Of Broadway

The theatrical-industrial complex has American families by the horns . . . and pre-recorded horn sections:

Four hundred and fifty bucks. That’s what it cost the Agnew family for a Saturday night performance of “The Lion King.” Whether that considerable chunk was spent for two hours and 45 minutes of delight or for one flustered and fuss-filled act followed by a hasty escape at intermission came down to one person: Harris Agnew, age 3.

“We’re questioning the thought process at this moment,” said Jim Agnew of Williamsburg, Va., who was standing in line before the show with his wife, Julie, and their children, Clark, 6, and Harris.

“If it goes well,” Ms. Agnew said, “this will be a magical experience.” She looked at Harris uncertainly. “We’re hoping.”

The perception of Broadway as a destination for families with children has been growing for years, keeping pace with the rise of the tourist audience. According to the League of American Theaters and Producers, the proportion of Broadway theatergoers under the age of 18 rose from 4 percent in 1980 to a peak of 11.6 percent in the 2000-01 season. Last season 9.6 percent were under 18, with a third of those — or 384,000 theatergoers — under 12.

. . .

According to several ushers interviewed, most parents understand that they need to do something when a child becomes, well, a situation. But, said Dana Amendola, vice president for operations at Disney Theatricals, ushers try to move in before things get out of hand. In those circumstances, diplomacy is required.

“You can’t tell a parent, ‘This is not appropriate for your 4-year-old or your 5-year-old,'” Mr. Amendola said. “You give the parents an option,” which, he explained, could mean watching the show on a screen in the lobby, or from the back of the theater.

Nevertheless, the prospect of a tantrum is real, and a plan must be hatched. The Agnews discussed a one-parent/one-child split at intermission if Harris, the 3-year-old, became restless. (For the record, Harris stayed for the long haul and enjoyed himself.)