The Mayor's Limo; Mighty Thor/Fixer/Pure Dream Ladder/Sküm; "Sonic Garden"; Jonathan Ames/David Rakoff/Melissa Bank/Augusten Burroughs Read; Mütter Museum Photos; the Richard Wright Project; Strausbaugh, Thometz and Vizzini at DUMBO Art Under the Bridge

The reopening of the 9/11-shattered World Financial Center's Winter Garden a month ago is sure helping that area to feel more like its old self. Now, just when things are settling down, here comes Creative Time to stir things up a bit, with "Sonic Garden," an aural exhibition by four of the city's most notorious sound experimenters and warpers. Beginning Thurs., Oct. 17, strollers under the Garden's soaring glass atrium and giant palm trees might hear Catskills comedians' one-liners, and accompanying laughter, coming through the sound system, courtesy of David Byrne; or Laurie Anderson's strings and electronics wafting through the fronds. That delightful plink of stones skipping across water isn't an hallucination, it's Marina Rosenfeld's recorded contribution to the installation, and yes, you're in the WFC, not the Mercantile Exchange, despite what Ben Rubin's piece makes you think. Remember who these artists are, though?there's no way the Winter Garden's going to sound sunny and pastoral. Daily, through Nov. 30. West St. (betw. Vesey & Liberty Sts.); www.creativetime.org.

Bald, sexy, touring, kind of famous and actually getting paid for his craft, New York Press contributor Jonathan Ames keeps living the dream this week with a reading at Joe's Pub Thurs., Oct. 17, at 7:30. He might do material from his latest, My Less Than Secret Life, and you never know when Ames will simply pull out the fictional story of his getting e-mailed by a Columbia coed, rushing in on the subway to meet her and performing oral sex on her without learning her name. He's joined by David Rakoff (Fraud), Melissa Bank (The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing) and Augusten Burroughs, whose Running with Scissors cover neatly apes the work of a lesser New York Press alum. The evening is a benefit for a Bellevue hospital program, so the cost is $20. 425 Lafayette St. (betw. E. 4th St. & Astor Pl.), 539-8777.

Over the past decade, a bunch of great photographers honchoed by Blast Books' Laura Lindgren have been taking amazing photographs inside Philadelphia's Mütter Museum, the famous collection of anatomical and medical wonders. Skulls, skeletons, sliced-up brains, two-headed babies, bizarre Victorian medical implements?all transformed, through the vision of artists like Joel-Peter Witkin, William Wegman, Rosamund Purcell, Max Aguilera-Hellweg and many others, from the grotesque and squeamish-making into...grotesque and squeamish-making photographs of truly rare and stunning beauty. Ricco/Maresca Gallery is putting a wealth of them on display in a group show, "Mütter Museum," which opens Thurs., Oct. 17, and runs through Nov. 16. Many of the photographers will be on hand for the opening reception Fri., Oct. 18. 529 W. 20th St., 3rd fl. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 627-4819, www.riccomaresca.com.

Did you know that Richard Wright, the great black novelist, was from Fort Greene? Well anyway, the Fort Greene Park Conservancy, African Voices magazine, Griot Reading Programs and Johnny Temple's Akashic Books have all teamed up to toast his legacy in the Richard Wright Project. On Thurs., Oct. 17, at 7 p.m., there's a book release party for Hazel Rowley's bio, Richard Wright: The Life and Times, at Indigo Cafe & Books, 672 Fulton St. (betw. St. Felix St. & Ashland Pl.), Brooklyn, 718-488-5934. Then on Sun., Oct. 20, 3-7 p.m., South Oxford Space hosts a roundtable discussion and reception with Rowley, Nelson George, April Woodward, Kevin Powell and John A. Williams. 138 South Oxford St. (betw. Atlantic Ave. & Fulton St.), Brooklyn, 718-398-3078.

The DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival runs this weekend, Fri.-Sun., Oct. 18-20. Its biggest draw, as in years past, is the chance to mill around the windswept trapezoid between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges looking at art. But when you get chilly come inside the Water Street Bar and check out a reading by John Strausbaugh, Kurt Thometz and Ned Vizzini on Sun., Oct. 20, at 3 p.m. Strausbaugh is the mackinator at New York Press and author of Rock Til You Drop, which just keeps getting more poignant as the Stones have mounted their new tour; Thometz is responsible for Life Turns Man Up and Down, a collection of pamphlets from mid-20th-century Nigeria; and Vizzini will be reading from his first novel, which is only a slight progression from the smarmy stories in Teen Angst? Naaah? that he sells like crizz-ack to nerds across America. 66 Water St. (betw. Dock & Main Sts.), Brooklyn, 718-625-9352.

A perture, the superb journal for serious photography, has not only survived to the hoary age of 50?geriatric for any magazine, never mind an arty quarterly?it has turned itself into a New York institution. Founders Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Minor White might not recognize some of the photography Aperture still publishes in its sassy middle age if they saw it today, but that's because the magazine has kept up with the times. No midlife crisis here: Aperture embraces such new photography as Adam Fuss' camera-free images made with animal guts on photo paper and Gregory Crewdson's wildly imagined set shots just as avidly as it does the prim f/64 esthetic the founders favored. Aperture marks the Big 5-0 with a lushly illustrated new book, Photography Past/Forward: Aperture at 50 and two commemorative issues of its quarterly magazine, as well as a two-week birthday bash at its gallery on 23rd St., starting Mon., Oct. 21. 20 E. 23rd St. (betw. B'way & Park Ave. South), 505-5555; details at www.aperture.org.

The last real, honest-to-goodness flea circus to play Times Square (professionally, at least) vanished almost 50 years ago, when Prof. Leroy Heckler closed up shop and left Hubert's Dime Museum, which he and his fleas had called home for some three decades.

Well now, a mere two blocks from the site of the original Dime Museum, the old-timey Victorian flea circus is making a comeback. Every Saturday and Sunday through December, Professor A.G. Gertsacov and his Acme Miniature Circus will amaze and astound even the most cynical and nearsighted of visitors.

Watch! As Midge and Madge?Prof. Gertsacov's two professionally trained fleas?pull a tiny chariot! Gasp! As they frolic on the tightrope! Marvel! As they perform several other amazing circus tricks! Wince! As the Professor cracks an endless stream or corny jokes! So maybe something good is finally happening in Times Square, in the wake of the Real Rain. And if we're lucky, maybe it marks the beginning of a new historic cycle. Sat. & Sun. at 12 and 1 p.m., through December. 125 W. 42nd St. (betw. 6th Ave. & B'way), 726-1935; $8, $6/s.c, children under 12, and the unemployed, www.trainedfleas.com.