Hollywood's 'erotic' new tourist attraction

LOS ANGELES -- One of Hollywood's newest tourist attractions is easy to mistake for adult shops along the popular Walk of Fame.\nThe nude pictures, sex toys and stag films aren't meant to arouse, but to edify at the Erotic Museum, which pays tribute to all things sexual, from the tame to the tawdry. It chronicles sex through the ages with nude abstracts by Pablo Picasso, erotic jade figurines from ancient China, vintage sex toys and sultry computer-animated dancers. For a $13 admission fee, visitors can touch rubber toys or peruse patent applications for various oddball erotic inventions such as a diagram of a newfangled "female security device." No one under 18 is admitted.\nThe museum, just blocks away from the Kodak Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, distinguishes itself with a nod to celebrities. Among the highlights are a mosaic of Farrah Fawcett and a 56-year-old X-rated film that purportedly features a young Marilyn Monroe.\nWASHINGTON -- A nearly 400-year-old manuscript on display at the Folger Shakespeare Library is probably a prototype of the coffee table book, its richly illustrated history providing a glimpse of the world from Adam and Eve to a plot to blow up King James I and his Parliament.\nThe 600 pages of pictures and text -- only 87 are in the display that opened Wednesday -- was compiled by Thomas Trevelyon and known as the Trevelyon Miscellany.\nThe library considers the collection "a prototype coffee table book," according to the exhibit, "created for the entertainment, education and edification of his friends and family."\nThe manuscript also depicts the 1605 "gunpowder plot," in which loyal officials foiled the plot by Catholics seeking to take power from the Protestant king. Guy Fawkes was caught with barrels of gunpowder in a coal cellar under the Parliament building.\nMidwest Entertainment is bringing hip-hop to Bloomington 7 p.m., Saturday at the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre. Admission is $12 for the event, which features local talent. The showcase opens with The B-Town MC Showdown, which will be a battle between MCs. Featured acts City Council, Carma and Mr. Vigilant, Desperado, Fifth Element, Moe Z and Face. Mike Lee will follow the Showdown. For additional information, call (812) 323-3022.\nComedian Heywood Banks will perform at 8 p.m on Friday, Jan. 23 at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, with a $15 admission price for students and seniors and $17 for general admission. Heywood has been featured in Rolling Stone and People magazines. He won first place in the Johnnie Walker Comedy Search Contest. Heywood has appeared twice in A&E's "Evening at the Improv," six times in MTV Big Shows and in MTV's ½ Hour Comedy Hour, CNN Hollywood Minute, Caroline's Comedy Hour, Entertainment Tonight, Showtime Comedy Club Network and 12th Annual HBO Young Comedians Special with Paul Rodriguez. In addition, he has appeared on the Bob & Tom Radio Show and the Dr. Demento Show, where his songs, "Toast," "Wiper Blades" and "18 Wheels" with Bob & Tom, were featured.