The long-standing legal battle between the city's artists and Department of Parks and Recreation has started to heat up.

Yesterday, the city's artist vendors asked Richard J. Sullivan, U.S. District Judge of the Southern District of New York, to consider new evidence in their suit against the city.

That new evidence? They claimed via letter that the Department is unfairly and illegally prohibiting craftsmen and artisans from selling their wares in city parks, since entertainers are allowed to perform for money again.

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If reading books or papers on the train doesn't quite satisfy your lit fix, Runnin' Scared has some wonderful news!

Shortly after launching a new arts in transit app, the MTA today announced the restoration of Poetry in Motion, which places poems alongside art in the transportation system.

Poetry in Motion, which operated from 1992 to 2008, was so greatly missed that the MTA's Arts for Transit and Urban Design team decided to bring it back, group director Sandra Bloodworth tells Runnin' Scared.

"I would often be out in public and have people constantly saying to me: 'When is the poetry coming back? ' It was a very personal plea," she says. "I think throughout the MTA, various staffers and leadership heard this loud and clear."

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Even the best New Yorkers can sometimes feel a little antsy after spending too much time in the city. Perhaps this is why rich folks have their summer houses out in the Hamptons, and there is a new four-story REI in Soho trying to convince people to give hiking and adventuring a chance.

Now, a new Gowanus-based art project called the Bureau of Unknown Destinations is offering "temporary displacements" to people who wish to get out of the city and experience something new.

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Mark Lugo, the Hoboken wine steward accused of a number of art thefts including that of a $275,000 Picasso sketch in San Francisco, is due to be arraigned in New York today. Lugo just finished a 138-day sentence in California for the Picasso; the arraignment in New York is related to two art heists at Manhattan hotels, according to the AP's source.

Lugo became a suspect in several art thefts in New York after the San Francisco crime, in which he walked into the Weinstein Gallery, casually took the drawing "Tête de Femme" off the wall, and moseyed out into a taxi.

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Scott LoBaido, a Staten Island painter, describes himself as a "Creative Patriot." According to his website, his most ambitious works have been the world's largest version of the American flag (he claims) and a project where he painted 50 flags on one rooftop each state. He's also a religious Catholic and was so offended by the Brooklyn Museum's exhibition of David Wojnarowicz's "A Fire in My Belly," a video that features a shot of ants crawling over a crucifix, that he decided to take matters into his own hands. LoBaido painted a portrait of Brooklyn Museum director Arnold Lehman nude and sitting on the edge of a truly icky green toilet bowl and tried to hang it in the museum himself. He was removed by security.

But the portrait has found a new home -- in Staten Island Borough Hall.

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Fairey's original design

Shepard Fairey caught quite a bit of flak recently for making an Occupy Wall Street poster in the image of his famous Obama "Hope" design. That kind of thing is anathema to OWS, a movement that prides itself on not aligning with either political party. Fairey has publicly supported the movement; he told Gallerist NY that "The people from Occupy Wall Street aren't rabble rousers. They think democracy has failed them and they are using rights that we theoretically have in this country, because they don't have the power that corporations do, with lobbyists and other kinds of tools. It's not a level playing field."

But OWS'ers weren't happy with the poster, which treads a little too far into the political mainstream for their taste.

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The Sucklord

Earlier this year, New York magazine's culture blog, Vulture, asked Work of Art co-producer Sarah Jessica Parker, after this season's shooting had started, if she foresaw any breakout characters. She laughed. "Um, I suspect there might be one."

The one is Sucklord, who went from the designer-toy world's biggest jerkbag to a defensively blunt antagonist to a softer, genuine, teary-eyed art-builder, all in the course of six episodes. Evidence of his real-world rise has already started to trickle into his day-to-day: he's selling more work online, his brand-identity is through the roof, he's been recognized publicly, (at a recent visit to the art-supply store, the manager "backwards to help me find something they didn't even have because he knew who I was") and even sold work to someone who'd stopped him on the street.

Last night, the Sucklord was eliminated from the show. (He responded by making a self-mocking Jerk of Art Morgan Phillips action figure.) We spoke with him this morning, via BRAVO monitored phonecall, about the street-art challenge that did him in, what he has in common with Simone de Pury, and how his Work of Art arc related to Star Wars.

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Last night, the gallery world's Top Chef eliminated our man Sucklord, the Chinatown-based bootleg toymaker we splashed on the Village Voice cover in September. Throughout the course of the first six episodes, the Sucklord was the reality competition's clear breakout personality: the Sucklord got the most airtime, the most character development, the most massaged subplots, the most televised quotes about "balls," and even a chance to spraypaint China Chow's (clothed) breasts.

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Rebecca Nathanson

On Saturday morning, Art in General, an alternative art space at 79 Walker Street in Tribeca, opened a new exhibition called "I'll Raise You One..." in which a group of people sit in the gallery's storefront window space and play strip poker for all to see. The exhibition is now three days into its seven-day run, and the fascination has not begun to dwindle.

At 1 p.m. this afternoon, a crowd of more than 30 had amassed in front of the windows, spilling out into the streets as everyone tried to take pictures of the events unfolding (and undressing) inside. The space itself is a small orange room with a round table in the center. Around it sat six people -- two women, four men. One of the men was the artist, Zefrey Throwell, who has participated in the game each day; the other five were total strangers who were just there for the day.

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Yufeng Luo, Chinese Internet celeb.

A Chinese Internet celebrity named Yufeng Luo (whom we've covered before as "Feng Luoyu") is apparently looking for love here in new York City. Animal NY picked up a flyer being handed out near Zuccotti Park that purports to be from Luo, a "human meme" in China who papered Shanghai with leaflets advertising her search for a husband and who claims to have received 300,000 marriage proposals. Not good enough, apparently, because the search continues here:

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