Frank Nardi, Jr. (pictured), who appeared as a surprise guest on Fox reality show Moment of Truth to ask his married ex-girlfriend Lauren Cleari if she believes she should have married him instead, has come forward to tell the New York Post that he “really just wants all of this to be over.” The Post’s weekly circulation is usually in the neighborhood of 650,000. Cleari, an aspiring actress who works part-time at a hair salon,......

Bacaro: Frank DeCarlo of Peasant and his wife Dulcinea Benson transport you to Venice in their 80-seat wine bar/restaurant on the Lower East Side. Northern Italian menu offerings include cicchetti, (think Venetian bar snacks) like crostini, sardines, artichokes, and more, cheeses selected by Lou DiPalo, and pastas, quail, and duck for those seeking heartier fare. 136 Division Street, between Orchard and Ludlow Streets, 212-941-5060. Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar and Grill: The Blue Ribbon team is......

Just when we thought Roger Stone, the GOP operative accused of leaving a menacing voicemail for Governor Spitzer's father, couldn't be more amusing, he outdoes himself. Stone's assistant sent The Politicker's Azi Paybarah some photographs of Stone, supposedly "taken at The Ink Monkey tattoo shop in Venice Beach, California" where he was "getting a tattoo on his back of Richard Nixon’s face." Really. Why bring up a bizarre tattoo and photographs? Because Stone says......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

This season Shakespeare in the Park started off with Romeo and Juliet, a play that surprisingly hasn't seen the outdoor Delacorte Theatre since 1968, when Martin Sheen played Romeo to Susan McArthur's Juliet. On July 8th the run will end, and A Midsummer Night's Dream will finish up the season. With notoriously long ticket lines to gain the free pass to a show, many miss out on these performances due to lack of time alone.......

Jill Cunniff keeps a blog (a "MamaLog") about being a mom and a musician in New York, but you probably know her best as the lead singer and bass player of early-90s band Luscious Jackson. The band broke up in 2000, but Jill is still creating and performing music - all while being a mom, a wife, and doing her part to clean up New York's beaches. This weekend she'll perform at the Mermaid Parade......

A Manhattan jury found four women guilty of gang assault for attacking a man outside the IFC Center last summer. The man, Dwayne Buckle of Queens, said that the group of lesbians attacked him because he was straight, while the women contended Buckle had used slurs and threw a cigarette at them - and that another man stabbed him. Patreese Johnson, who claimed Buckle said, "I'll f--- you straight" to her, was found not......

Remember when a filmmaker claimed that a group of lesbians attacked him outside the IFC Center last summer? And it was revealed that the women felt they were defending themselves, with one woman saying, "I admit I did cut him one time for my own safety"? Well, the case has made it to court. Manhattan prosecutors say that Dwayne Buckle was viciously attacked - he was stabbed, punched, and kicked - by Patreese Johnson, Venice......

Ruth Ann Swenson, who just six weeks ago finished chemotherapy for breast cancer, has begun a six week run of Handel's “Giulio Cesare." She's been a mainstay soprano at the Metropolitan Opera, yet after this run - the Met may be letting her go after more than twenty years of performances there (her debut was in 1988). Swenson told the NY Times, “It’s hurtful. I’m a New Yorker. I’ve sung here for many, many years.......

Over a million people packed into Times Square to ring in 2007. The weather probably encouraged even more people to wait and party for hours. Mayor Bloomberg, clad in his festive American flag sweater, pushed the button to released the Times Square ball with ten members of the armed forces. One woman who traveled from Venice, Italy to celebrate in Times Square told the AP, "This is the center of the universe. There is......

The -ists this week had politics on the brain. And what goes better with politics? Partying-- that's two great tastes in one. Oh, and Kevin Federline...can't forget about Kevin Federline. That's three great tastes in one. -Chicagoist celebrated the election news but cried in their Beer of the Week as Da Bears lost for the very first time. And in continuing with our theme, previewed an actual K-Fed show! -DCist caught the President stumped......

Blogs aren’t just for socially-awkward shut-ins anymore and we’ve got proof: many successful, outgoing theater types maintain weblogs. While they don't get as much glory (or contempt) as their influential music-blog counterparts, they do have their dignity. And there's sometimes drama! Here’s a small sampling of some theater blogs that keep us busy at work. If you like James Urbaniak the actor, you’ll want to know James Urbaniak the blogger. At Voucher Ankles, the man......

One of the many things I love about this town is that there are a thousand places where you might find yourself saying, “It doesn’t even feel like I’m in New York City anymore.” I started driving a yellow cab, in large part, to try to find as many of those places as I could. I’ve discovered quite a few. The first time I drove down those steep streets in upper Manhattan I imagined I......

You know it's the fall movie season because it's all about actors and their performances. In the noir-lite period film, Hollywoodland, Oscar-winner Adrien Brody plays a LA two-bit gumshoe hired to investigate the mysterious death of actor George Reeves. What makes this movie worth a viewing is the strong acting by the whole cast. Ben Affleck as Reeves, a TV actor who always wanted to be more than his Superman persona, gives a performance that......

Last night, Gothamist and Palm Pictures arranged an advance screening of 13 Tzameti at Cinema Village near Union Square and we wanted to thank everyone who came out to see the film. Watching it on the big screen with an audience filled with people on the edge of their seats for this French thriller was tons of fun. A film written, directed and produced by first time director Gela Bablauni, the movie follows a......

A young man trying to help support his family with roofing gigs overhears a mysterious conversation on the job. His employer seems to be involved in some amazing money making scheme and when the man dramatically kills himself, our hero takes the train ticket and hotel reservation which has been sent to him. What he finds at the end of that trip only gets more dangerous by the minute in Gela Bablauni's movie, 13......

The movie releases list this week is determined to put the conception that summer is only about the blockbuster to the test. There are documentaries, foreign films and small indies about local hot button issues that are all worth a viewing. This weekend should be all about escaping the humidity with a quality flick. To get the mass market dreck out of the way first: Adam Sandler gets a universal remote to speed up and......

There is just no way to deny it. Those are going to be some idiotically sweet condos in that there tower. And yeah, Ian Schrager really is going to get to do the conversion of what was the world's tallest building from 1909 to 1913. Tower Trivia: Designed by Napoleon LeBrun & Sons and completed in 1909 the Tower, along with it's 11-story base which was completed in 1893, stands 700 feet tall at......

In this heartily American week some of the most appealing things to see are foreign, at least in part. For a more delicate food-related experience than Thanksgiving usually turns turn out to be, consider Lao She’s Teahouse, set in a Beijing establishment over the course of some fifty years that encompass three important moments in modern Chinese history, beginning in 1898. Sixty-plus characters that embody the vast changes in China come to life via the......

Today, the NY Times revisits a series of articles it did in 1955 that predicted what the city might be like in the coming years (you know, until, as La Bamba from Conan O'Brien voice, woudl sing, "In the year 2000..." or maybe even in 2005, when the Times decided to get around to digging them up from the archives). Titled "Our Changing City," a 20-part series of articles in The New York Times painted......

We've always been rather drawn to the work of French artist Sophie Calle, mainly because it's just plain weird. Over the course of her career Calle has: called up called up every person in a stranger's address book and then reported their observations of him to a newspaper, posed as a hotel chambermaid to document the belongings of the hotel guests, and followed a random stranger around Venice to record his every move. The voyeurism......

Thelma Golden, Curator...

Thanks to strategically placed displays in certain bookstore windows, Gothamist picked up Czech artist Miroslav Sasek's illustrated book, This Is New York, and fell in love. His elegant illustrations of the city crisply captured a New York and its dynamism that still rings true over forty years after its publications. There's a fine site dedicated to the Czech-born Sasek (he worked in Munich but traveled around the world) This is M. Sasek, that's loaded with......

New York fixture Robert De Niro may be granted Italian citizenship next month at the Venice Film Festival. The idea of De Niro becoming a citizen has drawn criticism from some Italian cultural groups. The Order Sons of Italy in America sent a letter to the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, in an attempt to change his mind. They believe that De Niro's movies damage the "collective reputations of both Italians and Italian Americans." Born......

This verges on Curbed territory, but Gothamist was very intrigued by a NY Times Real Estate mini-feature about an apartment for sale. Rather, apartments for sale - two apartments in two buildings, connected by a 40-foot traverse on the Upper East Side (you can find the listing on Fenwick-Keats if you do a search - sale, Upper East Side, 1 bedroom, between $500,000-999,000). We had recently admired the much-photographed traverse on Staple Street in TriBeCa......

Buboo Kakati, Filmmaker...

Tina Brown, Editor/Writer/TV Host...

Deborah Schoeneman, New York Magazine...

Todd Pruzan, Managing Editor of Print...

Gothamist's pick for any kind of moviegoing this weekend is by far, Lost in Translation, the best movie we've seen in a very long time. We were struck by it when we first saw it, and may have to see it again soon as it opens today. It has a brilliant performance from Bill Murray, who is being talked up for an Oscar nod at the very least (let's hope, unlike when he was......