Our most-talked-about stories in Art, Design & Style, and Performing Arts, March 5 - 9, 2012:

ART

— It's Armory Week in New York City! Did you notice? Julia Halperin reported from the fair, where the Armory Show's Contemporary section opened with strong sales, especially amongst the biggest exhibitors. In the Armory Show's Modern section, Judd Tully noticed that despite a slower pace, the booths were enlivened by inspired choices and first-rate pieces.

— At the week's other major fair, the classy ADAA's Art Show, Shane Ferro reported slow-but-steady sales, with several booths selling out on the first day.

— With so many collectors in New York, Julia Halperin took a look at 10 of the most conspicuous characters you might pass in the art fair aisles, from Basma Al-Sulaiman to John Waters.

— With so much emphasis on female artists among this year's fairs, Shane Ferro asked 5 experts — including artist Sarah Sze and ADAA executive director Linda Blumberg — for their thoughts on the market for works by women.

— ARTINFO also had reports from the smaller Armory Week fairs, including Independent, Volta, Scope, and Moving Image.

DESIGN & FASHION

— Collectors may be Armory Week's power players, but at the fair's vernissage the most stylish were the artists. We snapped photographs of the most eccentrically dressed.

— Ann Binlot followed the fashionable crowd from the piers to MoMA, for the museum's benefit and official Armory Show party, which included a set by Neon Indian.

— The upcoming Frieze New York stole a bit of the spotlight when it unveiled designs for its wavy Randall's Island pavilion designed by New York architects Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu.

— Janelle Zara reported from Japan Society, where outspoken Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas lectured on Japan's Metabolist architecture movement.

— Online purveyor of artist-designed objects Grey Area launched its first brick-and-mortar showroom in SoHo this week with a series of artful VIP badges by artists including Hank Willis Thomas and Dustin Yellin.

PERFORMING ARTS

— ARTINFO film correspondent J. Hoberman says Disney's quarter-billion-dollar Cowboy and Indians on Mars boondoggle "John Carter" isn't as disastrous as some had hoped.

— Scarlett Johannson — whose current arm candy is an avid art collector — has been cast as shower stabbing victim Janet Leigh in the upcoming backlot drama "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho."

— Members of the horrorcore hip-hop collective Odd Future continue to confuse with their crazy videos. The latest is "NY (Ned Flander)."

— If we survive Armory Week, there's season 2 of "Game of Thrones" to look forward to; this week a new trailer whetted our appetite with glimpses of the medieval fantasy show's increasingly epic action.

— American indie-auteur Paul Thomas Anderson's mid-century period piece "The Master" — starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Laura Dern, Amy Adams and more — is rumored to be getting released in October and also rumored to be a thinly disguised riff on Scientology.