Sotheby's big contemporary art evening sale is tonight in New York City (we'll take the star Twombly and those tasty Wayne Thiebaud cakes), so say a little prayer for the global art market around 7:00pm EST. Meanwhile, next Tuesday at its photographs sale in London, the auction house will sell a full set of Visionaire. We'll repeat that, in case your heart skipped a beat and/or you temporarily lost consciousness. Sotheby's is selling a full set of Visionaire:

Up for bid in lot 117 are all 53 issues of the legendary publication, published thrice a year since 1991 in exclusive numbered limited editions. According to Sotheby's, many of the issues are in original packing and unopened. The mind boggles. There's the inaugural issue (produced on a shoestring budget that wouldn't cover the costs of binding), the Edward Gorey-meets-Comme des Garçons black issue, the Biblical issue tucked inside a Philippe Starck-designed plastic "energy sphere," and of course, the issues that tackle the five senses, in which artists, photographers, designers, and other creative types were commissioned to define the tastes, smells, sights, sounds, and textures of concepts ranging from success and sadness to luxury and desire. Speaking of desire and sadness, Sotheby's estimates that the Visionaire lot will go for between £15,000 and £20,000 (a range of about $23,000 to $31,000, based on today's exchange rates). In our estimation? Totally worth it.

The New York Observer has done a bang-up job of covering the long and winding (did we mention long?) road to the White House, and while we hope that the post-election world doesn't mean an end to stellar, sprawling features written by Jason Horowitz, it did bring a fresh look to the front page of the salmon-hued weekly. The Observer's November 10 issue replaces the Robert Grossman campaign comics that have dominated the lead graphic slot for months with the artist's Claymation-esque sculptures of the candidates: a beaming Obama (cover line: "O Beautiful") and a positively cherubic—if much smaller—John McCain. Images of the sculptures, backed by cloud-strewn fields of opposing colors, accompany the Observer staff's hour-by-hour coverage of Tuesday's "Barackfest in New York" and Horowitz's election night reporting from Grant Park.

Meanwhile, the Observer is offering limited-edition posters of recent campaign-themed cover art. A must for those who find themselves within the intersecting Venn diagram circles of Political Junkies and Star Trek fans, Drew Friedman's "Be Logical, Captain!" (pictured at left) depicts McCain as a bumbling Captain Kirk while, at his left hand, a Vulcanized Obama/Spock keeps his cool. Each of the 200 custom-printed posters (yours for $99.50 plus shipping and handling) is signed and numbered by Friedman.

⇒ The presidential candidate with the Oprah Winfrey seal of approval is headed to the White House, but Winfrey's quarterly shelter magazine, O at Home, won't be covering Obama's new digs. Hearst has decided to fold O at Home back into the flagship O: The Oprah Magazine, FishbowlNY reports. Sad, because we root for any periodical that features a library (you guessed it—Oprah's!) on its cover.

⇒ And speaking of the death of print, don't miss Virginia Heffernan's recent New York Times Magazine column, in which she brilliantly explicates why Amazon's Kindle is so much more than the sum of its faults. Despite design flaws that include "bumpable buttons that constantly flip your pages and lose your place, the pointy and cruel keyboard that is stiff and ineffective" and an "ungracious and inaccessible" Internet interface, Heffernan deems the Kindle "somehow better than a book" for its sheer reading bliss. But we doubt it's more blissful than cuddling up with a signed first edition in Oprah's library.

On this post-election Wednesday, it's out with the old, in with the New Museum's tribute to soon-to-be-First Lady Michelle Obama. The nimble, mesh-covered New York institution today unveils Elizabeth Peyton's oil portrait of Obama listening to her husband address the crowd at August's Democratic National Convention with daughter Sasha snoozing in her lap. On view in public for the first time, the painting (at left) joins portraits of figures such as Kurt Cobain, Marc Jacobs, and Matthew Barney in the New Museum's current Peyton exhibition. "Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton" is the first survey of Peyton's work in an American institution. You have until January 11 to catch it at the New Museum; then it travels to the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the Whitechapel Art Gallery (London), and the Bonnefantenmuseum (Maastricht, The Netherlands).

A couple of quick news morsels before you settle in to watch the election returns:

⇒ Art dealer Richard Polsky has inked a deal for a sequel to I Bought Andy Warhol, the 2003 chronicle of his quest to acquire a Warhol canvas. The art world veteran's new book, coming soon from Other Press, will be entitled I Sold Andy Warhol (Too Soon). According to Publishers Marketplace, it will focus on the shift in power from dealers and galleries to auction houses [cut to shot of Damien Hirst in a bathtub filled with champagne, skulls, and diamonds] and on Polsky's own experiences selling his prize Warhol painting.

⇒ Whether or not your candidate pulls out a minimum of 270 electoral votes tonight, we can all celebrate the fifth anniversary of Design Observer. Michael Bierut, William Drenttel, Jessica Helfand, and the rest of the DO crew are throwing a party tomorrow at New York City club Element. The fun kicks off with cocktails and book signing at 7pm, followed by music curated by Kevin Smith (aka DJ Chroma), design/disco diva Debbie Millman, and Helevetica director Gary Hustwit. Because you haven't lived until you've spent the night in a 19th-century bank building with Michael Bierut and a 36,000-watt sound system.

Our friends at powerHouse Books have picked a winner of the presidential election: Scout Tufankjian, the only independent photographer to cover Barack Obama's entire campaign—from before he announced his run through tonight's culminating festivities in Chicago's Grant Park. Slated for release next month, Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History Making Presidential Campaign will include more than 200 of Tufankjian's astounding total of 12,000 campaign photographs "from coffee shops and diners to auto manufacturing plants and bowling alleys." Click here for a sneak peek.

If you're like us, you find your cell phone's immutable display typeface blocky and depressing. Maybe it's time to move to England! There you can avail yourself of FlipFont, a new service that offers downloadable, mobile-optimized fonts to replace the factory-installed default that kills your design mojo. Developed by Monotype Imaging (the company behind fonts.com, among other font-related offerings), FlipFont is currently available only on select cell phones serviced by Vodafone UK, but the goal is to expand the service to operating systems and service providers worldwide.

"Users have tried to change their phone font and have 'broken' their phone in the process, so we've collaborated with Vodafone UK to ensure FlipFont is safe, fun, and easy to use," said Monotype Imaging marketing director Julie Strawson in a press release issued today. The service launches with a menu of ten scalable fonts, ranging from Dennis Pasternak's ITC Stylus (based on freehand architectural lettering) to the robust Musclehead. Prices start at £1.99 (about $3.19 at current exchange rates) per font. For those inclined to typographical restlessness, FlipFont includes a utility that allows customers to 'flip' to use a different font, or access additional fonts that can be previewed, licensed, and downloaded. AT&T, jump on this!

⇒ So much for the triumphant relaunch of Harvard alumni-themed glossy 02138. Only months after acquiring the magazine from Atlantic Media and planning an ambitious redesign, Manhattan Media has decided to fold the publication, FishbowlNY reported on Friday. Think of it as one less thing on Luke Hayman's to-do list.

⇒ Even in this troubled economy, Miami is chugging along. As the city giddily anticipates the opening of the Marcel Wanders-designed Agua Spa at the Mondrian South Beach, it's coping with a shortage of qualified workers to crew "superyachts," megaships that exceed 100 feet. Today's Miami Herald notes that, "1,000 motor yachts longer than 80 feet are under construction, a steep jump from the 87 such ships being built 10 years ago."

⇒ Meanwhile in Miami, the gallery scene keeps growing. The newest addition to the Design District is Wolfgang Roth & Partners Fine Art, an 8,000-square-foot gallery that opened earlier this month above the Luminaire design showroom. The inaugural exhibition features German photographer Horst Wackerbarth's portraits of people around the world, all photographed in the presence of a red couch. Visitors can examine the portraits or simply relax in the globe-trotting crimson sofa, something 02138's founders could probably use right about now.

Photo: UnBeige

Pinocchio, the Italian boy puppet who was the subject of a 1940 Walt Disney movie about his early life, died yesterday morning after falling from an upper floor of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Police have not determined whether the death was a suicide, homicide, or accident.

Pinocchio's body was found by Nancy Spector, chief curator of the Guggenheim, who discovered it floating in the fountain of the museum's Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda hours before the opening celebration for thanyspacewhatever, a group exhibition of installations by ten artists who emerged during the early 1990s. The show opens to the public today.

The only son of Gepetto, Pinocchio began life as a pine log and was the heir to one of Italy's smallest carpentry fortunes. He struggled for years in his attempts to become "a real boy," which he believed could be achieved with sufficient exhibitions of bravery, truthfulness, and unselfishness. After a dramatic early life marked by compulsive lying, influential encounters with a woman known as the blue fairy, emotionally scarring employment under the puppeteer Stromboli, and a harrowing journey into and out of a whale's stomach, Pinocchio enjoyed fame and steady income from the 1940 animated Walt Disney film based on his life. In 2004, he received an honorary degree in sociology from the University of Trento.

According to reports in the Italian press, Pinocchio had recently become estranged from his longtime insect companion, Jiminy Cricket. The split was rumored to have sent Pinocchio back to Pleasure Island, a rowdy playground-cum-work camp off the Amalfi coast. Shy, retiring, and reluctant to grant interviews, Pinocchio was last seen at New York's Marian Goodman Gallery with artist Maurizio Cattelan, who is known for his satirical sculpures.

(Photos: Times Square Alliance)

⇒ If you build it shiny and red, they will come. The Times Square discount ticket mecca known as the TKTS booth has been reborn with an expanded plaza and LED-illuminated red glass steps (pictured above). It's been a long time coming. The concept—by Australians John Choi and Tai Ropiha—was chosen from 683 entries in an international competition that was part of the millenial celebration. According to the Times Square Alliance, the Perkins Eastman-designed glowing glass staircase "mimic[s] a Greek amphitheatre [and] creates an instant international icon." Check out the design details here.

⇒ Like a lot of people, we didn't make it to Regent's Park this year for London's Frieze Art Fair (alas, British Airways refused to accept payment in blog posts). The New York Times' Roberta Smith has the scoop, noting that despite a chilly market, the fair's diverse exhibitors delivered "a random snapshot of an increasingly global and youthful art world in transition." Her favorite relational aesthetics moment? "The two-sided hand dryers in the fair's restrooms, courtesy of Dyson."

⇒ Tonight Lincoln Center hosted the Lucie Awards gala, honoring the achievements of the world's finest photographers. Among this year's honorees are Richard Misrach (for achievement in fine art), Patrick Demarchelier (fashion), Susan Meiselas (photojournalism), and Ewrin Olaf (advertising). Legendary photographer Elliott Erwitt presented the lifetime achievement award to Gianni Berengo Gardin, who you might know best as Renzo Piano's go-to photographer. Congratulazioni!