Estelle Getty, born Estelle Scher on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1923, and perhaps best known for her role as Sophia on the Golden Girls, has died. Getty was 84 (she would have been 85 on the 25th) and living in Los Angeles; Bloomberg.com reports that "she had been ill for several years with what doctors eventually diagnosed as Lewy body dementia, a brain disorder that causes cognitive problems as well......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

ART: As a "happy anniversary" to The Velvet Underground and Nico (40 years!), John McWhinnie honors the rock legends (and the release of that album) with a collection of rare memorabilia and art(rock)ifacts. Come by to check out film stills by Warhol, "never before published or publicly shown photographs of the band by Adam Ritchie, Paul Morrisey and Doug Yule," and original lyrics by Lou Reed. More info here. 10am to 6pm // John McWhinnie......

Just in time for restless New Yorkers to cut loose (men to dress in drag, women to dress as sluts - hey, we're not judging, just observing), it's a surprisingly mild Halloween today. While there were a fair share of parties over the weekend (we took the subway with naughty nurses, ballplayers, witches, and angry New Yorkers!), tonight is the real deal, with the Village Halloween Parade getting started at 7PM, as revelers walk......

While teaching in the public schools is not an easy job, is it so bad that teachers need to fake their sick days and take up other jobs? It was discovered that Dorrit Matson, a teacher at a Chelsea high school, had been falsely calling sick days when she was actually leading an orchestra! And the school's principal found out because he was listening to public radio and the broadcast said she was conducting the......

Jill Singer, Mediabistro Deputy Editor...

So, Ross woke up and found himself next to Suzanne Pleshette. Joey found the one-armed man in the basement of Central Perk. The Korean War ended. And the rest of the Friends got sucked into the Hellmouth, after realizing that their little NYC was actually all set in a snowglobe. No, not really. The AP Arts > Ross, Rachel Together in 'Friends' Finale" href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-TV-Friends.html">promptly covers the finale's details. The best quote comes from Ellen DeGeneres:......

After tackling behavior modification schools for teenagers yesterday, the Times turns its attention to nude summer camps for teens. American Association for Nude Recreation runs a variety of teen nudist camps and according to the article, "The nudist association, the larger of two nationwide, sees this as a place to train 'youth ambassadors' to what nudists call the 'textile' world." Reporter Kate Zernike and the AANR go to great lengths to tamp down suspicions that......

The hubbub about there being more sexual references on TV, like the articles in the Times and Daily News made me wonder how affected kids are by it. When I was growing up, I watched shows like Night Court and L.A. Law, certainly not shows aimed at children, but I watched them nonetheless. And who could forget about The Golden Girls, those sassy grannies in Florida? And as timing would have it, the NY Post......