EVENT: Into anime? It's your lucky weekend, the New York Anime Festival is in town! There will be previews, screenings and panels galore. Check out their website for more details. All Weekend // Jacob Javits Convention Center [655 W 34th St] // $30 day pass, $55 weekend pass SHOP: FIT and the Design Mavens come together for a 3 day shopstravaganza. Tons of designers we're not cool enough to have ever heard of will be......

Paramore Arrives One of our favorite albums of the year is by these girl-fronted teenage pop-punkers, and they were in town this week to headline their largest local show yet at Roseland Ballroom. It was the last show of a massive national tour, but you wouldn't know it seeing front woman Hayley Williams running around stage with the rest of her band. Paramore may not win any originality contests, but they've got more fire and......

A midtown hotel got an earful from the Catholic Church this week when the contents of a planned art exhibit became public. Artist Cosimo Cavallaro was scheduled to display his piece "My Sweet Lord" at the Roger Smith Hotel on 47th St. and Lexington Avenue before New York's archbishop objected. The sculpture was a six-foot-tall representation of a naked Jesus, made out of chocolate. The Catholic League's President, Bill Donohue, is not a fan of......

Gothamist is feeling a bit under the weather today, literally and figuratively, so we'll just get straight to it, if you don't mind: Monday it's singer-songwriter night at Bowery Ballroom, with Vic Chesnutt, David Bazan (of Pedro The Lion), Mark Eitzel, and Will Johnson (of Centro-Matic) all playing each other's songs together, as the Undertow Orchestra. That's a lot of emoting on one stage, folks. For the ultimate in lameness, check out INXS at Avery......

On Saturday, Gothamist ventured to buy a Christmas tree on Greenwich Street in Tribeca (thanks, Super Fun Christmas Tree Map). Perhaps that was our first problem - shopping in Tribeca. Anyway, we noticed a very lovely tree, perhaps about 7-8 feet tall, and inquired about the price. The seller said in a friendly manner, "I don't want to stick shock you, but it's $200." Baby Jesus, we were shocked! It was a noble fir which......

The NY Times looks at how people feel when Christmas is on a Saturday and its repurcussions. Many service workers feel they miss out on another day they could be making money, while some employees feel they should get another day off. Of course, there are the people who like the fact that Christmas (and New Year's) falls on a Saturday, but we were amused by the fact that Jews would suffer because the Saturday......

Earlier today, Russell Tyrone Jones, aka Ol' Dirty Bastard (as well as Osirus, Joe Bannanas, Dirt McGirt, Dirt Dog, Unique Ason, and Big Baby Jesus) collapsed in a Manhattan studio and died at the age of 35. O.D.B and his cousins the RZA and the Genius were founding members of the Wu-Tang Clan as well as a successful solo artist. Besides his successful career, O.D.B. will also be known for getting in trouble with the......

We're not going to pretend we know where to begin with Ol' Dirty Bastard, a.k.a. Old Dirty Bastard, Dirt McGirt, Osirus, Cyrus, Dirt Dogg, Big Baby Jesus, Unique Ason, Joe or Russell Tyrone Jones. However, new blog, tale of two cities (one person blogs from NY, the other from LA - get it?), has a review of ODB's CMJ performance ("unpredictable, terrible, amazing, hilarious, sad, depressing and miraculous") at the Bowery Ballroom Knitting Factory. It......