At the 1968 Democratic Convention, anti-war activists were denied permits to demonstrate by the city and spent most of the week getting their skulls cracked courtesy of the Chicago Police Department, witnessed by a television audience of over 50 million. A year later, eight of the most high profile radicals – guys like Abbie Hoffman and the Black Panthers' Bobby Seale – were tried on charges of conspiracy and inciting riots. The courtroom was......

MOVIE: MoMA is currently running a retrospective on Joan Blondell, titled The Bombshell from Ninety-first Street. Trace the metamorphosis of the Manhattan-born actress from a young blonde bombshell to...a blonde bombshell in more mature roles! Tonight you can catch her in Blondie Johnson (1933) and Nightmare Alley (1947). 6 and 8pm // MoMA [11 West 53 St] EVENT: This sounds like the perfect balance of science and romance...and freezing, freezing cold. Learn about your place......

- Check out DogSeat's amazing Phagwah set-- great Holga work. One example is above. - Guess there's no one left to mess with on Wall Street: Spitzer is going after spammers! - We love musical theater, but this is ridiculous! - Here's a smart idea: tracking ACS cases using the Compstat system. - Garth loves these Ansel Adams pix-- but they're of Los Angeles, so we remain unimpressed. - Kottke turned us on to......

The Post isn't pulling out any of the stops with its coverage of suspected rapist Peter Braunstein. The police found a "scenario that almost perfectly matched the home-invasion crime" last week where he disguised himself as a firefighter to attack a woman in Chelsea on his computer. The computer had been seized from him earlier this year when he was arrested from stalking an ex-girlfriend, and it was that ex-girlfriend who told the police she......

Last weekend Gothamist lucked out once again with tickets, and got to see Spamalot. The show has been relentlessly promoted, and with 14 Tony nominations now they’re especially shameless about it, but fortunately it’s a great production. We hadn’t seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail in some time, so after seeing the musical we decided to rent the DVD and do a little comparison. Eric Idle, who wrote the book and music for Spamalot,......

Gothamist readily admits to getting a major kick out of Michael Reidel's Wednesday and Friday theater beat columns in the Post. We love that directors punch this guy out when they dis their shows and that he seems to love to stir up controversy. He also seems to have a good feel for the mechanics of Broadway, so we took notice at his column yesterday when he declared that the upcoming Mike Nichols-directed prodcution of......

This week, Gothamist chatted via the telephone with director Niels Mueller about his first feature film now in theaters, The Assassination of Richard Nixon. With his film an official selection at Cannes this year and starring Sean Penn, Mueller gave us insight into the connections between the fictional story and the real man, his Midwest roots and how much indie directors really know about high fashion. Basics I was born during the Kennedy administration, in......

Of all of the reports about the stalled contract negotiations between Fox and the vocal talent of The Simpsons and current work stoppage, you have to hand it to Variety. Their article ended on this pearl of wisdon: Homer Simpson, in 1995 episode "The PTA Disbands," gave Lisa this piece of advice on work stoppages: "If you don't like your job, you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed.......