Photograph of Washington Square Park chess table by Paulo C on Flickr Brilliant, reclusive and eccentric, Chicago-born and Brooklyn-bred Bobby Fischer died at age 64 in Iceland. His spokesman said the cause was kidney failure, after a long illness. Fischer, who grew up playing in chess clubs in Brooklyn and Manhattan, beat Boris Spassky in a 1972 match, becoming the first and only American to become world champion, a Cold War hero, and popularized......

DISCUSSION: Is New York losing it's New York charm? Tonight contributors to the new tome "The Suburbanization of New York" will talk about just that (and is conveniently located down the street from H&M and Pottery Barn). The panel includes Marshall Berman, Eric Darton, Francis Morrone, Matthew Schuerman, Neil Smith, Michael Sorkin, and Suzanne Wasserman. 6:30pm // The Gotham Center at the CUNY Graduate Center [Elebash Recital Hall, 365 Fifth Ave] // Free EVENT: This......

The Holidays have fallen upon us like a pack of ferocious ice weasels, so we'd feel appropriately guilty if we didn’t suggest some relevant theater options. Of course, if you’re seeking a diversion for out-of-town visitors, The Radio City Christmas Spectacular is (literally) a no-brainer, provided they’ve got deep pockets: Tickets to the glorified burlesque show can cost up to $250 - per rube. You could also take the kids to the new Broadway production......

THEATER: It’s Friday night, and what better way to cut loose than an evening of interactive theater – set in plague-ravaged New York City! In All Fall Down, a savage battle rages for the dwindling supplies of the vaccine, but soon a question arises: "Is the cure worse than the disease?" Theatre Recrudescence vows to explore our “post 9/11 hysteria with elements of carnival, clowning and rock and roll.” (All Fall Down is in previews,......

As we stated before, there is far far more to CMJ than our little series of parties. Over 1000 bands were in town last week, and while nobody could possibly catch them all, the idea is to see as much as you can and maybe discover a few new favorites. Rather than scrape together a drab roundup of the day by day, we decided to award certain aspects of CMJ for making a mark on......

READING: KGB Bar's Non-Fiction Night is playing host to the Subway Chronicles - Boris Fishman, Elise Jurka, and Amy Holman are all reading their stories from that anthology, edited by Jaqueline Cangro. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras 7pm // KGB Bar [85 E 4th St] // Free THEATER: Sam Shepard’s The Tooth of Crime originally premiered in 1972, but in 1983 La MaMa brought it to the next level with a now-legendary rock and roll production.......

THEATER: The MoMA Dada exhibition ends Monday, and if you haven't gone yet here's even greater incentive to beat the deadline. Kate Valk, Scott Shepherd and Ari Fliakos of the Wooster Group are performing just three times at the museum in Who's Your DADA?!. This trio last mesmerized audiences in Emperor Jones and we're very curious to see what they do with original Dada materials. (The MoMA website tantalizingly mentions the appearance of "special guests".......

Andre Agassi's career has officially ended. After a four set loss at the hands of a familiar tennis foe. Agassi lost 5-7, 7-6 (7-4), 4-6, 5-7 to German qualifier Benjamin Becker (no relation to Boris). Over his 21-year career, Agassi played 1144 matches, won 60 titles, and played in 21 consecutive US Opens. The 36 year-old Agassi is a two-time US Open Champion in 1994 and 1999 and a four-time runner-up. The crowd at Arthur......

A while back, we noted how many of the NY Times "Hunt" columns by Joyce Cohen happened to feature real estate hunts by cat owners. And one of the stories we loved was the one about a Brooklynite who needed a subletter to not only take care of her apartment, but her cat Boris as well. Cohen, who blogs at Hunt Grunt, let us know that two years after the column appeared, Boris may have......

The week is short and there really isn't a huge amount going on in the venues until the weekend. Plus, it's going to be about 1000 degrees, so packing in to a small sweaty venue isn't highest on our list of priorities. Here's what we do suggest, and as usual - feel free to list some shows in the comments. Tonight Sunn O:))), Oren Ambarchi, Boris are at Avalon. Sunn O:))) is probably the most......

The art world is still buzzing about Wednesday night's amazing $95 million bid for a rare Picasso at Sotheby's, namely because no one has a clue about the bidder, who spent over $100 million during the even. The NY Times article sheds light on the rarefied world of art auctions: The "high-rollers" are seated in the front or in skyboxes (plied with Champagne), agents bidding for billionaires are usually on a cellphone (unlike this man)......

Now that you're finished pretending you care about football, it's time for the music version of Monday-morning quarterbacking: What are you going to do with your week? To the videotape.... We're going to do things a little bit differently this week, just in case you can't be arsed to read the whole post, and start things off with what we consider to be the show of the week, the absolute don't-miss if you're a rock......

Since the New Yorker introduced their weekly back-page caption contest, Radosh has been running his own subversive anti-caption challenge, asking people to come up with the WORST caption for that week's cartoon. For instance, some of this week's entries for the drawing shown above: Dammit, Boris, if you're going to pick up strange women, at least have the decency not to bring them into our home. Are you even listening to a word I'm......

We enjoyed last Sunday's "The Hunt" column in the NY TImes about Cragslists once again bringing roommates together. And we loved the photograph of one roommate's cat, Belvedere (right). Then we started to realize that we see lots of cats in "The Hunt" - as well as other pets, but mostly cats. A few felines we found Jorge the cat (and his owner James) in Greenpoint, Gabriel the cat (and owner Martha) on the Upper......

Kemp Powers, author, The Shooting: A Memoir...

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Buckminster Fuller's patent for the geodesic dome, the U.S. Postal Service has created these awesome Buckminster Fuller stamps. Based on a Time magazine cover illustration by Boris Artzybasheff, Gothamist loves how Fuller's head is a dome - we'd dig a doll like that. And Fuller's first name was Richard, but came to be called "Bucky." Gothamist was obsessed with bucky balls, which are "carbon-composed clusters of 60 carbon......

While we say this about everything, Gothamist thinks there's a movie in the NY Times real estate story about a Clinton Hill resident Nicole Davis trying to find a cat-sitter for her travel-phobic pet, Boris, while the owner was in Montauk learning to surf. After much searching (Were people scared of the G train? Are people too suspicious of a too-good-to-be-true deal of cat-sitting in exchange of living in an apartment?), Davis found fresh-faced college......