In high school, science classes were typically taught by someone unfortunate in the social-skills sphere but quite gifted in the left-brain department. Contrarily, art classes were always taught by that cool guy or gal who would look the other way while students smoked and allowed the class to listen to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd or Nirvana.
And you, gentle reader, were probably good in one or the other subject, but not both. Well, get ready for a crash-course collision of your right- and left-brain hemispheres, courtesy of the world-debut exhibit of X-rays-as-art entitled "'X': An Exhibition of X-Ray Photographs and Prints," created by Russian-born Dmitry Gelfand and Belarussian Evelina Domnitch. For this show, Gelfand and Domnitch have X-rayed combinations of natural objects (including human specimens), allowing their simplicity to luminesce through, along with hidden beauty and patterns unappreciated by or invisible to the naked eye.
So how did St. Louis get such an ultramodern, unique show by a dynamic duo who have had other science-meets-art exhibits in New York, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Minsk and St. Petersburg? Gelfand attended Parkway Central and has come back home to visit (it always comes back to high school, doesn't it?).
Come check out the globetrotters and their back-lit biological images in the space formerly known as Kroma at 4655 Maryland Avenue on Friday at 8 p.m. (The show runs until February 21; call 314-651-2542 or visit www.portablepalace.com.) Enjoy the open bar and entertainment and be inspired by the science of art, the art in science and the dark netherworld where they meet. -- Alison Sieloff
Hard Snow Cones
S'no lie, dude
FRI 1/16
The organizers of the Third Fridays open houses at Third Degree Glass Factory are sitting on a gold mine. We hear good things about their glass-blowing stunts, such as stretching a strand of molten glass the length of the room, but even better things about their bar, which features spiked Snow Cones. Just imagine that high-sugar, blue or red Snow Cone syrup collecting at the bottom of the cone, only with booze mixed in -- it's basically Mad Dog on shaved ice in a paper cup. Now think of the holy hell that could be raised if they sold these things along with turkey legs and funnel cakes at a Sunday-school picnic or a state fair; this could be bigger than fried Twinkies (6 to 10 p.m., 5200 Delmar Boulevard, 314-367-4527, free, www.stlglass.com). --- Byron Kerman
Fast and Furious
A $1,000 scavenger hunt
SAT 1/17
Scavenger hunting goes high-tech and "extreme" on your jaded ass with the inaugural St. Louis Street Games. This mysterious contest invites you to form a team of four (the Web site encourages specialists in such fields as art history and computer programming) and race around looking for "objectives" in a race for a $1,000 prize. The mystery is compounded by the list of equipment you're supposed to have, which includes a camera-equipped phone (to receive clues and orders), a swimsuit and a bathrobe. If you need more help during the contest, you can buy it for $100 a clue, but Night and Day has it on good authority that the final prize is buried "under a giant T." (That's a It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World joke, by the way.) The Street Games cost $25 per player and take place from 10 a.m. to midnight. Sign up and get more information at www.bravosmart.com/game.htm. -- Niles Baranowski
Ice in His Veins
THUR 1/15
Climbing Mount Everest is hard. Shackleton's Antarctic expedition was hard. Just ask über-climber Conrad Anker, who summited Everest (and found the body of explorer George Mallory there) and appeared in Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, a film about another plucky adventurer now showing at the Omnimax Theatre. Anker holds forth at the St. Louis Science Center (5050 Oakland Avenue, 314-289-4464) at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $12. But why see him? Because he's there. -- Mark Dischinger
