If you were a bad person, this would be your enemies list: the known celebrities who've seen Avenue Q (including lots of the Sesame St. principals, like Elmo, Bob, Maria, and Snuffy). Also, this disclaimer:

Adults love AVENUE Q, but they seem a little, er, fuzzy on whether it's appropriate for kids. We'll try to clear that up. AVENUE Q is great for teenagers because it's about real life. It may not be appropriate for young children because AVENUE Q addresses issues like sex, drinking, and surfing the web for porn. It's hard to say what exact age is right to see AVENUE Q—parents should use their discretion based on the maturity level of their children. But we promise you this—if you DO bring your teenagers to AVENUE Q, they'll think you're really cool.

There were lots of excited but confused little kids in the theater both times I saw the show, along with their freaked parents. Sometimes it's not obvious how one's neighbors in row W got there, unless they checked off a box somewhere that said "Yes, I like Broadway shows! I'll show up for anything regardless of content." Actually, that pretty well describes me (though Broadway tickets aren't, as everyone knows, for ordinary theater fans anymore, which is offensive), but it wasn't at all the case for the pissed couple next to me who couldn't understand what everyone thought was so funny. They didn't laugh once. That was a shame for everyone.

In other arts news, there's a new Flux Factory show afoot, this time of cartoonists, on the heels of the big novel-writing installation/experiment. The stylishly drawn website explains the plans of each of the participating artists: Ian Burns, Daupo, Brian Dewan, Andrea Dezso, Michelle Higa & Leah Beeferman, Aya Kakeda, J. Keen, Yunmee Kyong, Jason Little,“Pirate” Brian Matthews, and Doug Skinner. All of them are making machines that suggest "the antique entertainment devices of the 19th century," like kinetoscopes, a motorized funhouse ride, an "interactive console for creating enigmatic rubber stamp comic strips," a multilayered rotating mechanical theater, a phenakistiscope (looking forward to seeing what that is), etc. Cool! If all of life were like the Boston Children's Museum circa 1979, you wouldn't hear me complaining. The Comix Ex Machina reception is this Friday the 18th, 7 p.m. at the Flux Factory.

Yunmee Kyong's hand-cranked scroll for the exhibition reminds me of the ingenious book-roll machine invented by big-thinking novelist Allen Kurzweil, which I got to see in action. Kurzweil's entrancing story of watches, obsessives, and blocked NYPL librarians, The Grand Complication, came out in September 2001, so if you missed it it's definitely worth looking into now. He also just wrote a kids' book, I'm happy to see: Leon and the Spitting Image, and the first chapter is here. Leon is a fourth grader at the Ethical School who magically outwits the school bully—could that be in the Randyland School District of The Ethicist's dreams?