The state District Attorneys Association, having failed to convince Albany that reforming the Rockefeller Drug Laws was a bad idea, is employing a novel tactic in their attempt to keep upstate prisons stocked with convicts: Let the real experts on incarceration speak! They've released an audio recording (below) of a prison inmate with "a 27 page long rap sheet" talking about the reforms on the phone. The DAs think the recording will prove that offering drug treatment instead of prison will be exploited by criminals like this unidentified man, who derides the new reforms as the "Drug Dealers Protection Law... They just gave me the free for all. You know what that means? I'm burning the streets when I go home." more ›

Remember before all this financial crisis hullabaloo, we were all worried about things like the Montauk Monster? Those salad days have come and gone, friends...or have they? Step off that ledge and take a gander at the latest unidentifiable, washed up carcass! AnimalNY reports that "new beasts are still washing up." One even came ashore in Connecticut, though an "official from the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration claimed it had to be a raccoon, there's no other explanation." Or is there?! Even though another expert has made the same claim, some say these new deceased beasts are "another experiment gone bad from the shadowy animal disease lab at Plum Island," noting that even the sites where they are found are on "the path of the ferry which just happens to pass right past the island." Cue the X-Files theme. more ›

Playwright Michael Weller, who made his big theatrical debut in 1972 with a play about America's convulsions during Vietnam, is again dramatizing our deeply dysfunctional national psyche during yet another catastrophic war. His new play Beast is described by Weller as "a fever dream in six parts." And while some of those parts are definitely less compelling than others, Weller's "fever dream" is staged vividly here by director Jo Bonney. It's also brutally funny, in the tradition of other dark, absurd war stories like Full Metal Jacket. (If you're going to see it and hate spoilers, here's where you'll want to stop reading.) more ›

Beast, on the corner of Vanderbilt and Bergen Streets in Prospect Heights, serves a wide range of tapas and brunch plates with a Spanish flare. As befits the restaurant's bristling name, the first of two dining rooms is dark – almost medieval – and dotted with appropriately colorful creatures: monsters, gargoyles, and demons. The kitchen is open and separates the front from the back room; curious diners can usually observe a small army of toast and burgers on the grill. more ›