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"China Design Now" is a comprehensive exhibition of hundreds of objects elaborates on the booming innovations presently taking place in the fields of design, fashion, and architecture throughout China. The exhibition is split into three sections, corresponding one of those design areas with an eastern coastal city: Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing. The exhibition continues through Jan. 11, 2009. $8 for adults; $6 for seniors/college students; $4 for children ages 6-17; free for members and children under age 6.

Eight-six thousand pounds and counting: add a few of your unwanted pounds ... of old technology. The Hamilton County Solid Waste Management District has already recycled that much computer equipment this year. There’s still time to add your old monitors, CPUs, hard drives, mice, keyboards, laptops and other assorted modern technologies. Take any of the aforementioned items to Technology Recycling Group (5139 Kieley Place, St. Bernard) 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday–Friday until Dec. 30. Hamilton County residents need to show proof of address — driver’s license, utility bill, etc. — to recycle equipment.

The sheer beauty of the work is reason enough to pay a visit to "Illusion and Reality: Prints by Jiri Anderle," but the perceptive viewer will find much to think about beyond the skill of this Czechoslovakian artist. Turning adversity into a virtue is something artists are good at. The adversity of being an artist in a Communist society that forbade direct social criticism steered Anderle into a body of work well suited for comment on the human condition. So prints became Anderle’s dominant form of expression through much of his career. The exhibition continues Tuesday-Sunday through Jan. 3, 2009.

The desire for love is a fundamental urge, but perhaps as basic is the drive to remake the object of your affection. That's the funny and poignant premise of Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts' off-Broadway musical, which Cincinnati Playhouse staged it successfully in 2000; it's back for a second run in the Shelterhouse through the holidays. It's a perfect date-night show but also one for mature audiences. Tuesday-Sunday through Dec. 31.

Ryan McGinness' exhibition of new paintings creates an optical second reality in the Vance-Waddell Gallery at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Lights are turned off; heavy, dark curtains hang in the doorway; black lights shine onto the wood panels and bring everything painted there to life. It's a little disconcerting, looking into a painting and feeling as though you might trip into some "Alice in Wonderland" alternative universe. Tuesday-Sunday through Feb. 15, 2009.

With 300,000 new LED lights twinkling in the Festival of Lights display at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical gardens this year, the zoo will save $30,000 on their Duke Energy Bill. What that means in practical terms is enough power to supply 36 homes for an entire year. And the lights are cool, too. Open nightly 5-9 p.m. (closed Dec. 24-25). Guests can enjoy half-priced admission Dec. 1-3, 8-10 and 15-17.

Throughout the autumn, the walls of the new Iris BookCafé (1331 Main St., Over-the-Rhine), have been graced with black-and-white photographs by William Messer and Marc B. Suda. Selections from Suda’s Botanica Noveau series are assertive and austere in the midst of the elegance and quirkiness that is the café. The larger set of works by Messer roams through Claude Monet’s famous gardens in Giverny.

Although it’s highly specialized, the Lloyd Library continues to find ways for non-specialists to engage with their collection. In July, book artist Kate Kern served as artist-in-residence at the Lloyd Library, funded by a grant from the Ohio Arts Council. The library invited local educators, scientists, students, artists, librarians and others to take part in Kern’s residency program. Thirteen works of art, made mostly — and remarkably — by non-artists, now represent the workshop participants in The Alternative Field Guide, on view in the Lloyd’s gallery Monday-Friday through Dec. 30.

Santa Claus is coming to town, and he’s delivering flowers to all the good little boys and girls. This year the Krohn Conservatory is celebrating 75 years of their Holiday Floral Show with An Old Fashioned Holiday. Designed by landscape-extraordinaire Tim Young, this season’s winter wonderland reflects the amazing history of Cincinnati through Young’s replications of neighborhood street parks, all decked out for the holidays. Visitors can spot new varieties of poinsettias on display along with traditional plants like pines, spruces, bayberry and boughs of holly … fa, la, la, la, la, la, la! In addition to the holiday foliage, mini Cincinnati landmarks and historic park architecture will be placed in and around the community square. Show is open daily from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. through Jan. 4.