Louisiana Museum

? Headed for Europe? See the great capitals and famous museums, of course. But then take the unbeaten path. Avebury, England: Never mind Stonehenge. Avebury, about 20 miles north, is one of the best ? and eeriest ? Neolithic monuments in Europe, made of multiple concentric stone circles set in and around a medieval village that grew up later. The surrounding Wiltshire downs are fine too, especially from up top on the old Ridgeway Path. Info: 011-44-1672-539250, http://www.

? Headed for Europe? See the great capitals and famous museums, of course. But then take the unbeaten path. Avebury, England: Never mind Stonehenge. Avebury, about 20 miles north, is one of the best ? and eeriest ? Neolithic monuments in Europe, made of multiple concentric stone circles set in and around a medieval village that grew up later. The surrounding Wiltshire downs are fine too, especially from up top on the old Ridgeway Path. Info: 011-44-1672-539250, http://www.

With the help of a donation from a fund established by Charles Simonyi, the Louisiana Museum in Denmark is scheduled to undergo a $22-million renovation. The Hungarian-born Simonyi developed the Microsoft programs Word and Excell. The museum is showing the exhibition "I Hate You," which includes work by Sigmar Polke, Raymond Pettibon, Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley. Louise Roug

With the help of a donation from a fund established by Charles Simonyi, the Louisiana Museum in Denmark is scheduled to undergo a $22-million renovation. The Hungarian-born Simonyi developed the Microsoft programs Word and Excell. The museum is showing the exhibition "I Hate You," which includes work by Sigmar Polke, Raymond Pettibon, Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley. Louise Roug

Huey P. Long: icon or the closest this country came to having a dictator? Louisiana state historians will renew this debate on Long, "The Kingfish," in a new museum. The fiery governor and U.S. senator will be featured alongside Louis Armstrong in a permanent exhibit called "Huey and Louis: Two Louisiana Icons" at the Louisiana State Museum's Baton Rouge museum, to open in early 2005. Armstrong was an easy pick. His influence on the world of music is unquestioned. But mixing Louis with Huey?

The corporate-takeover shark played by Michael Douglas in the movie "Wall Street" brandished a replica and bragged about it as "the rarest gun in the world." An Indonesian billionaire paid $1 million for the real thing, and it became known as "the million-dollar Luger." That was in the late 1980s, when the Douglas line "greed is good" captured the spirit of the times. On Sunday, under very different economic circumstances, the coveted .45-caliber Luger found a new owner for half that price at a public auction in Anaheim.

Jenny Holzer will be the 1991 Zeitlin Lecture speaker at Cal State Long Beach's University Theater on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Holzer, an artist from New York who represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1990, is best known for the messages she flashes on light-emitting diode signs, text-art that adopts the familiar form of commercial messages on T-shirts, billboards and park benches in order to address such issues as sexuality, death and war.

Huey Long is going to graduate from high school--more than half a century after he was assassinated. Louisiana's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted unanimously Thursday to approve the honorary degree from Winnfield High School, in Long's hometown about 200 miles north of Baton Rouge. Long's son will accept the diploma on Aug. 30--the 100th anniversary of his father's birth--as part of the dedication of the Louisiana Political Museum in Winnfield.

NEW ORLEANS -- The jazz collection that for two decades before Hurricane Katrina was housed in the Old U.S. Mint in New Orleans will be overhauled, updated and, in about two years, moved back into its historic French Quarter home. The collection includes sheet music, photographs, records, manuscripts and instruments from some of the city's earliest jazz musicians. Among the most prized items in the collection is a cornet once played by Louis Armstrong.

As an art historian who is immensely grateful for the resources and personal assistance available in the truly specialized museums in New Orleans' Vieux Carre, I take exception to free-lance writer Carol P. Smith's article on special museums in the French Quarter (Sept. 28). Apparently in the struggle to include a few offbeat "gee-whiz" attractions, the writer not only strayed outside the historic quarter to find another, but neglected to mention the majority of genuine specialized museums in the Vieux Carre.

Huey P. Long: icon or the closest this country came to having a dictator? Louisiana state historians will renew this debate on Long, "The Kingfish," in a new museum. The fiery governor and U.S. senator will be featured alongside Louis Armstrong in a permanent exhibit called "Huey and Louis: Two Louisiana Icons" at the Louisiana State Museum's Baton Rouge museum, to open in early 2005. Armstrong was an easy pick. His influence on the world of music is unquestioned. But mixing Louis with Huey?

* With parties, parades and balls, Mardi Gras is one of the greatest shows on Earth. Make your reservations early. It runs from the Feast of Epiphany and ends on Mardi Gras Day, or Fat Tuesday, which this year is Jan. 6-Feb. 24. (504) 566-5011. * "Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou," Feb. 1-April 11. This nationally touring show finds a natural stop in New Orleans. Paintings, handcrafted vessels, hand-sewn fabric arts and voodoo altars. New Orleans Museum of Art, City Park, (504) 488-2631.

"Sunshine & Noir: Art in L.A. 1960-1997," the first-ever European survey of postwar art made in Los Angeles, arrives in Los Angeles after a yearlong international tour that began at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. The survey, which opened Wednesday at the UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, will examine more than 150 works from a European perspective. Designed as an "introduction" to L.A.