All about Amanda Last weekend was a busy one for writer Neil Gaiman (who lives in western Wisconsin) and singer/model Amanda Palmer. On Friday they announced their engagement on Gaiman's blog. On Sunday they attended the Golden Globes, where the movie "Coraline," adapted from Gaiman's novel, was a nominee. The movie didn't win, but Palmer garnered a lot of attention. First she posed for a photo while lying on the red carpet like a crime victim in a transparent dress and thigh-high stockings. Later, after the lovebirds attended an NBC party, she changed dresses as photographers shot her and Gaiman looked on, bemused. Is Gaiman game for a drama queen wife who actually likes the paparazzi? Yes, per an interview Palmer gave to the Huffington Post. "Neil is always game," she said. "That's why I'm marrying him. He's so unfazed by my Amanda Palmer-ness."

CLAUDE PECK

Microtheater at Seven Corners "Someone said it's a nihilistic take on dating; someone said it's as if [the creators] have never dated, and some said, 'I think the whole cast is dating each other,'" said co-director George McConnell of "The Thing," which is conducting several sold-out performances for audiences of 20 this weekend in Minneapolis. Being performed in the 1419 art space on Washington Avenue S., the play is non-narrative -- "the sculptural version of collage," McConnell said. It features everything from music by Metric to Jif peanut butter used as an expression of young love. While the piece is collaborative, it was started by McConnell, a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, and Samantha Johns, a U theater graduate. In the coming months, Johns will be working on "Welcome to Dystopia," which will be released by the Four Humors company in March, and both will be organizing the upcoming 10-Minute Play Festival at the Bedlam Theatre.

REBECCA LANG

Town's new Criers Back again as co-host of First Avenue's Best New Bands showcase, Cities 97 jockey Jason Nagel saw something of a seismic generational shift in last weekend's crop of young newcomers. Or at least Nagel was stunned to hear Peter Wolf Crier frontman Peter Pisano ask, "Who's that?" when he saw old photos backstage of the club's veteran stage manager, Conrad Sverkerson. Onstage, a euphoric Pisano suggested that "every Friday night be about local bands -- of course, that's predicated on the idea that you all are gonna show up." Close to 1,000 fans did show up, witnessing everything from No Bird Sing's dusty whirlwind of blues/hip-hop to mad-scientist Slapping Purses' electrical storm to the bizarre finale by cosmic cultists Moonstone (see next item) wherein it felt like all of First Ave might blast off to the moon. Red Pens frontman Howard Hamilton was brought back down to Earth, though, when he got hung up between songs. "This is my worst nightmare: Having to change the tuning of my guitar onstage at First Ave," he said. Hey, at least there are still new bands that bother to tune.

CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER

Moonstone sandwich There's a new religion in town so gilded in neon-tinted jargon and un-Google-able lore that it makes the preferred religion of Tom Cruise seem like spring stock at Pottery Barn. Orthodox Lunarianism is the name, and it's being promulgated by Twin Cities band Moonstone. Its spiritual leader, Reverend Micah Mackert, lays down poems, prose and cryptic excerpts from "court documents" at Moon stoneministries.blogspot.com. In a paragraph about a "laughable glass bee," he ends with the admission, "I'll just busy myself completing the sandwich you started." A profoundly postmodern statement about collaboration and creation, charged with passive-aggression? Probably. Then there's the postulation that "the consciousness of human beings is crystallized at the back of the throat." Ponder that on your morning commute, but remember that "flesh is a deceptive sheath which conceals the mind's factual protrusion." The band will have an actual protrusion, for its CD release Feb. 27 at the Turf Club .

REBECCA LANG