Before the Muppets take over the cineplexes this Thanksgiving (which, don't get us wrong, is going to be awesome!), brush up on some of the lesser-known, and sometimes less-kid-friendly puppets to make it to the silver screen at BAM's "Puppets on Film" exhibit. more ›

Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum went mostly off the grid for over a decade following the 1998 release of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, a move that may have made him even more of a legendary figure in the music scene, even if that wasn't the outcome he was going for. The mysterious musician would pop up now and again at his friend's shows over those years, eventually easing himself back into the public eye with his own smaller shows. Then last month he played at Town Hall. Mangum was noticeably uncomfortable in the venue, asking the house lights to be turned on and for the audience to sing along, in an effort to make the experience "more human." So it was somewhat surprising that he's going back on the road, announcing new tour dates. more ›

Hey, locavore cinephiles, have we got the the film series for you! Tonight is the first night of BAMcinématek's "Brooklyn Close-Up" series, a celebration of 90 years of the borough's film history, and they're kicking if off with the most badass Brooklyn movie of all time: The Warriors. more ›

If the blazing heat this week has you wishing for Arctic climes, here's a teaser for an upcoming show at BAM that will have you wishing for the days of shorts and sandals in no time. Master marionette craftsman Erik Sanko (who wowed us with The Fortune Teller) has been working on a new show at BAM called 69°South, following the trials and tribulations of Arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1916. more ›

Despite the wishy washy weather, you can really tell Summer has begun by the new jamz that have begun to leak this week. And foremost among those leaks are new tracks from heavyweights Kanye West and Arcade Fire. Kanye began working on upcoming new album Good Ass Job almost two years ago, right after Graduation, but instead took a detour route into the world of auto-tune and self-pity on 808's and Heartbreak. "Power," the first single from the September-bound album, appeared online today (and features a King Crimson sample to boot!). Also this week, Arcade Fire announced their third album, The Suburbs, due out August 3rd, and released a double-sided single featuring the Kinks-influenced title track, and scuzzy rockabilly "Month of May" to whet appetites. more ›

It was a rousing week to be a fan of The National: their newest album, High Violet, was finally released on Tuesday, celebrated by a string of events hosted by the band at the High Violet Annex in lower Manhattan, as well as an appearance on David Letterman. more ›

It can sometimes spell trouble for the audience when a play has no likable characters, but not so in the riveting revival of August Strindberg's 1888 play Creditors at BAM, which features three miserable characters as appalling as they are enthralling. Set entirely in a high-ceiling, sun-drenched room at a seaside resort, the 90 minute "tragicomedy" pulls you in with force of a relentless riptide, dragging you helplessly into the vortex of one of the most brutal love triangles in modern theater. At some point you might feel like you're drowning in the torrid passion of these characters, but then the bitterly dark humor of David Greig's adaption breathes fresh air into your lungs. more ›

Click through for more on Magnetic Fields, this year's ATP Festival in New York, and the Pope! Also This Week:

• Yoko Ono and her Plastic Ono Band (including Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, and others) rocked BAM
• An Interview with Stew
• New bands are running out of ideas for band-names
• Guns 'n Roses played an impromptu, 3 a.m. gig during Fashion Week (also, Sebastian Bach saved Axl's life)

Last night BAM housed quite an insane lineup, all part of Yoko Ono's We Are The Plastic Ono Band one-night-only concert. We were lucky enough to be at the show, where the widow of John Lennon celebrated her 77th birthday (it's tomorrow) just like the rest of us would—with friends like Bette Midler, Eric Clapton, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Paul Simon... you know, just a small gathering of some the biggest names in music. more ›

Last year the website Roadify launched a parking spot availability website in the ironically named neighborhood of Park Slope; when a participating driver vacates a precious parking spot, they text the location to an online database, which is referenced by desperate motorists searching for a miracle. Now the site is trying a similar knowledge-sharing service for bus commuters, starting with the chronically delayed B67. Forget waiting for street-level countdown clocks to tell you how far off the friggin bus is; BusesAroundMe is promising to "change your life… seriously," according to Roadify: more ›

Last night BAM's Eat Drink & Be Literary series featured playwright and actor Wallace Shawn. The warm BAMcafe was packed with convivial Brooklyn liberals, listening in rapt attention as Shawn read from his insightful new book of essays (called Essays), which explore the contradictions of being a lefty man of privilege who's "up to my neck in being an American, whether I like it or not." During the Q&A that followed, moderator Daniel Menaker asked Shawn about his dogged political dissidence and wondered, "Why don't you just give up?" After a long pause, Shawn replied: more ›

If Paul D. Miller was an insect, he'd have extraordinarily long antennae. Miller, who makes music under the name DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, is a walking encyclopedia of music, known for a catholicity of taste that makes room for everyone from John Cage to Kool Keith. And his expansive curiosity extends beyond the cultural, to the environmental and political; his newest creation is Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica, a multimedia production that uses film and music to examine global warming. more ›

You'll recall that last week Transportation Alternatives held their Biking Rules PSA Festival at BAM, featuring 40 PSAs created to promote bike safety and responsible cycling (i.e., not pedaling fiendishly down the sidewalk and running over pedestrians, etc.). The videos competed in two main categories, "Why Biking Rules" and "Street Code." Here's one of the winners in the shorter "Street Code" category, which will be broadcast on local TV, at outdoor summer films, and at cultural venues like BAM. Winners Aldo Arias and Pam Tietze also got a cool two grand, which will buy a lot of magical bike lights. more ›

Next Tuesday night BAM will host the Biking Rules PSA Festival, which will be followed by after-party in the BAM lobby with free beer from Brooklyn Brewery. The event is part of Transportation Alternative's initiative to get scofflaw cyclists to follow certain rules, such as giving pedestrians the right of way and obeying traffic lights. (But what about biking with a belly full of free beer?) Earlier this year, the group solicited imaginative PSAs to help promote their Biking Rules, and received submissions from more than 80 artists and filmmakers. Here's one of our favorites: more ›

Also this week: more ›

John Cassavetes's wrenching film Opening Night, released in 1977, stars Gena Rowlands as a famous actress who becomes increasingly unhinged after seeing a young autograph hound hit by a car outside the theater where she's starring in a Broadway-bound play. Acclaimed Flemish director Ivo van Hove—whose bold interpretations of plays like Hedda Gabler and The Misanthrope have been hits in NYC—has crafted a large-scale theatrical adaptation of Cassavetes's award-winning film. more ›

Last year the first Takeover BAM went down, and the number one complaint was that it was a bit overcrowded. Hopefully they've worked out some kinks in the past year, because the 2nd one-night-only, all-night open house party is coming up on September 27th. more ›

Swing Vote, anyone? You know, starring Kevin Costner as an “apathetic, beer-slinging, lovable loser, who is coasting through a life that has passed him by, until his daughter sets off a chain of events which culminates in the election coming down to one vote: her dad’s!” HAHAHA! Take it away, Boston Globe: “Swing Vote is a satire that's afraid to satirize. It's predicated on so many forces of incompetence converging in a single spot that it feels like farce for dummies. Why are we still microwaving Frank Capra's old casseroles?” more ›

Another jewel in the BAM Cultural district crown has been revealed with the recent announcement that the city-owned Strand Theatre at 647 Fulton Street will be renovated for expanded use by BRIC – the Brooklyn cultural organization that manages Celebrate Brooklyn!, BCAT, and the Rotunda Gallery, among other programs – and UrbanGlass, an educational glassworks group. Both organizations already have facilities at the former theater. more ›

Director David Gordon Green, called "one of the most interesting and idiosyncratic independent filmmakers of the last decade" by The Believer, will be sharing his lyrical take on southern culture with Brooklyn moviegoers starting Thursday, when BAMcinematek kicks off All the Real Americans: The World of David Gordon Green. more ›

In 2004, Mayor Bloomberg agreed to set aside property in Fort Greene for the construction of a $48.5 million, 299-seat classical theater (above) designed by Frank Gehry and Hugh Hardy for Theater for a New Audience. The itinerant company has not had a permanent home since it started in 1979; the glassy new building would be built on city-owned land in Fort Greene opposite the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in a planned BAM “Cultural District.” more ›

Next week some of the best films from this year's Sundance Festival will unspool at BAM during their third annual Sundance Institute takeover. The ten day mini-fest features 10 dramatic features, 12 documentaries and 36 shorts. Most of these selections screen just once or twice, and not all of them have distribution, so you've got to stay on your toes if there's something you want to see. more ›

Elaine Stritch's long and colorful career is packed with so many memorable roles that it's impossible to really say what she's best known for. Her show-stopping rendition of "Ladies Who Lunch" in Sondheim's Company? Or maybe her Tony-nominated performance in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance? Her movie and television appearances in everything from Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks to 30 Rock? Or her critically-acclaimed solo cabaret show, which she's taken from Broadway to the intimate Cafe Carlyle, just downstairs from her home in the Carlyle Hotel? And this season fans of the incomparable Stritch have another winner to add to their collection: her short but poignant portrayal of Nell in Samuel Beckett's Endgame. more ›

THEATER: We saw Fiona Shaw in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days on Saturday and highly recommend it. Shaw is mesmerizing in her performance as Winnie, crystallizing in her 90-minute virtuoso performance all the desperation, self-delusion and absurdity of an entire lifetime. (Her little-seen costar Tim Potter is also a hoot as Willie.) The production is as bitterly funny as it is affecting, and, as a metaphor, the blasted landscape that devours Winnie is as potent as it was in 1960, when the play was written. In our interview with Fiona Shaw she mentioned talk of a Broadway transfer, but don't take any chances; see it at BAM before it closes on February 2nd. – John Del Signore more ›

The Brooklyn Academy of Music kicked off their fourth season of Eat Drink & Be Literary last night at the BAMcafé. The sold-out event revolved around author George Saunders, a craftsman of absurdly hilarious short story and essays that lovingly lift American consumerism and mass media to surreal heights. His laugh-out-loud short story Pastoralia, for instance, concerns a man and a woman portraying full-time troglodytes in a theme park exhibit. In 2006, Saunders, who has a degree in geophysical engineering, was awarded a MacArthur "Genius" Grant for “bring[ing] to contemporary American fiction a sense of humor, pathos, and literary style all his own.” more ›