MOVIE: Tonight the Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series delivers two very different films. First up is The French Riviera, described as "a road documentary that follows a truck driver on a mission to earn enough money selling ice cream in the Icelandic countryside to go on a vacation on a French beach." Next up is About A Son, the "intimate and moving meditation on the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain, based on more than 25......

MOVIE: Delve into the mind and life of H.L. “Doc” Humes (pictured) in a documentary by his daughter. Titled Doc, the 96-minute film focuses in on the counterculture icon. "In the 1950s and early '60s, Doc co-founded The Paris Review, wrote two acclaimed novels, and was a gregarious fixture of the cultural scene in Paris, London and New York. Doc was a 1950s NYC intellectual, a 60s free speech militant, and a 70s visionary crazy......

MUSIC: When we talked to Jonny Greenwood (pictured) back in October, Radiohead's In Rainbows wasn't the only focus. His composition titled Popcorn Superhet Receiver will be performed tonight by The Wordless Music Orchestra with Brad Lubman as conductor. When we asked Greenwood if he would be in attendance, he said "I’d love to but I can’t really justify the flight just to come to that. I’d feel a bit weird about it. If I was......

READING: It's another First Tuesday event at McNally Robinson, and this time around author and activist Mark Crispin Miller invites Anthony Lappe to center stage. The executive editor of the Guerilla News Network also produced an award-winning documentary on the war in Iraq for Showtime. More recently, he's created a graphic novel called Shooting War with illustrator Dan Goldman, which is "a spoof of the network news, the war in Iraq, and the burgeoning 'citizen......

In Ryan Seacrest is Famous, his debut collection of pop-culture enthused short stories, Dave Housley makes you think, makes you laugh, and, if you're a writer, inspires you to run to your computer and get started on that premise you've been putting off. Whether it comes in the form of an alcoholic clown, people obsessed with Fight Club, or a DJ hiring a prostitute in an attempt to win back his old flame, Housley's stories......

We'll be liveblogging the MTVU Woodie Awards tonight (hopefully Jared Leto won't break our blogging fingers) -- if you're looking for something else to do though, here are some suggestions... READING: Spend an evening with Global City Review contributors Linsey Abrams, Fred Tuten, and Michelle Yasmine Valladare. The publication "celebrates the difficulties and possibilities of the 'global city' and other constructions of community...while honoring the subversiveness and originality of ordinary lives," and reflects on New......

Lauren Weedman's memoir, A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body, isn't the standard memoir. It's not about getting addicted to drugs and going to rehab or about living on the streets and selling her body. It's about what happens when you start doing stand up for ten minutes every night at the dinner table when you're eight because you don't want your adopted parents to send you back to the adoption agency because you didn't......

REMINDER: Don't forget about the Atlantic Antic Festival, which we wrote all about yesterday. EVENT: The d.u.m.b.o arts center (dac) presents the 11th Annual Art Under the Bridge Festival. The three-day fête takes up 30 blocks bringing together over 1500 visual artists, 250 open studios and offices, and an expected 20,000 attendees. Given much of the music biz in this city has offices in that area, they'll be taking part as well. The Deli Magazine......

MOVIES: It's a perfect night to head to the movies. Get a double-feature in at the MoMA with Fabricating Tom Zé followed by David Cronenberg's Crash. Let's focus on the former film. Tom Zé (pictured) is a Brazilian songwriter and composer and this documentary (filmed during a 2005 European tour) charts his "personal universe". Zé is an "uncompromising and inspired artist...seen by many (including David Byrne and Arto Lindsay) as revitalizing the ever-evolving Tropicalia movement.......

FUNDRAISER: It's the 3rd Annual Summer, Sex and Spirits cocktail and shopping extravaganza. Planned Parenthood of New York City (PPNYC), in conjunction with Brooklyn Indie Market join forces for the fundraiser, "an evening of mixing and mingling with retail therapy!" There will be $4 drink specials, 1/2 price sangria pitchers, a deejay and a giveaway...we're also guessing everyone will walk away with at least one free condom. 5 to 8pm // Sugar [311 Church St]......

MOVIE: Audrey Hepburn, a doll filled with heroin, Alan Arkin and the West Village in the 60s. What more could you ask for? Come check out Wait Until Dark tonight, but don't wait until dark to get there - the lawn fills up fast! Lawn opens at 5pm // Bryant Park // Free READING: Pamela des Barres is the Queen of the Groupies, and would likely never have referred to herself as a "band-aid". She......

DANCE: Since the Copacabana is closed for now, get your dance on under the night sky. WhatsUpNYC tells us that every Monday through July 23rd (though the NYC Parks site says through August 13th), the Parks and Rec department will conduct Dancing Under the Stars. Get dance lessons from the experts at American Ballroom Theater, then grab a partner and tear up the dancefloor. 6 to 7:30pm // Directions here // Free MOVIES: It's a......

It's the longest day of the year, so you should be able to fit Shepard Fairey's exhibit and at least one of the following events in. READING: Tommy Trantino was convicted and sentenced to death in 1964 for the murder of two New Jersey police officers. While doing time, he wrote to Leonard Weinglass, the lawyer who defended the Chicago Seven. From the letters came a book deal, and his stories (along with poetry, drawings......

READINGS: Jonathan Lethem reads from his new novel You Don't Love Me Yet. In it, Lethem leaves Boerum Hill for LA "to recount the near-fame experience of a Los Angeles alternative rock band". A girl, a boy and a band - sounds like a hipster love story to us! 7pm // Barnes & Noble [33 E 17th St] // Free Saul Austerlitz talks about his book Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video.......

THEATER: In September 2005, theater director Peter S. Petralia embarked on the Trans-Siberian Railway, connecting with artists from around the world for as long as the train stayed in the station. He would give them an art "package" and they, in return, would send something back to him. His collection of art objects and stories have culminated in Invisible Messages, currently running at P.S. 122 through Sunday. The multimedia work uses Petralia’s art-experiment as a......

THEATER: The Mint Theater, which has earned a formidable reputation by yanking old, forgotten plays out of oblivion, has struck gold again with their latest production of John Ferguson, an intense melodrama about a poor Irishman who will lose his farm unless his daughter marries some creepy tool. A 1919 edition of The Times called it a “smashing play”; 87 years later the Gray Lady stays regular with “thoroughly engrossing”. 7:00 p.m. // The Mint......

THEATER: P.S. 122’s Fall Season opens tonight with the U.S. premiere of “Tower of Babel” by Dutch artists Lidy Six and Robert Steijn. Running four nights only - for only 25 audience members at a time – the event is described as “a one-of-a kind, full immersion theatre experience”. Each audience member will be personally welcomed with tea and tucked into one of twenty-five individual beds (complete with nightstands). A live VJ and DJ will......

READINGS: A handful of good readings on the slate for you tonight - Claire Messud reads from the highly anticipated Emperor's Children at Barnes & Noble [see this upcoming weekend's Sunday review, too]; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reads from her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun at 192 Books; and finally, over at McNally Robinson NYC, political reporter Thomas Edsall reads from his new book, Building Red America: What the Conservative Realignment ­Really Means. Too......

THEATER: Most people will remember some awful tragedy that marked their high school years -- the rite of passage of discovery of mortality via car crash, or skiing accident, or overdose. In Le Wilhelm's The Death in the Juniper Grove, three adults revisit the dark forest they entered as teenagers with a fourth friend who never emerged, trying to determine what exactly happened back then and how it influences who they are now. The plot's......

THEATER: Last time we saw the National Asian-American Theatre Co. http://www.naatco.org/ was in the charmingly quirky Cowboy vs. Samurai. Now, for something completely different: their next show, which opens tonight, is The Dispute by Pierre Marivaux, an 18th century French dramatist. In it, a prince confines two male and two female orphans to an artificial "Eden" until they come of age, then he sets them loose to see what happens -- who will succumb first......

MOVIE: Get a little more in depth on the whole border crossing controversy with Woodstock in the City's screening of Crossing Arizona at +Art%2C+Dance%2C+Music+and+Film888The+Arts+%2D+Events888Makor+%2D +Film888Makor+Film+August888&productid=T%2DMM5FA06">Makor. There's a Q&A with the filmmakers Joseph Mathew and Dan DeVivo and a reception following the screening hosted by Indiepix.net. Roger Ebert said after the film screened at Sundance, “On the last day or two (of Sundance) you hurry between screenings, trying to catch films everybody tells you not to......

We've got a packed week of awesome events for you, so start tonight (5/10) at McNally Robinson NYC to catch Welsh author Niall Griffiths in a rare U.S. appearance, reading from his latest, Wreckage, starting at 7PM. Tomorrow night (5/11), head over to the 92nd Street Y to catch former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discuss religion and world politics with James Hoge - it's the subject of her latest book, The Mighty and the......

We know we've mentioned it before, but Gothamist can't get enough of Cringe. Not strictly a literary event, it's nonetheless amusing how literary we thought we were in our teens, which is half the comedy of Cringe, where people read from their high school diaries and journals about how totally misunderstood they were, and also their new hairdo. Cringe is happening, tonight (5/3), at Freddy's Back Room and Bar (Dean Street and 6th Ave in......

We're not entirely sure how much walking for your highbrow literary art you guys are willing to do, and with the holidays coming up there's a dearth of good readings going on in the city this week anyway, but Gothamist is here to get you to your literary events through snow, sleet, hail, transit strikes, whatever! So taking all that in stride, here are a few things you'll want to mark on your calendar. Something......

If you're a fan of street art, tonight's discussion at McNally Robinson (50 Prince St) in Soho might be of interest. Moderated by the husband and wife team behind the Wooster Collective, the online resource for street art around the world, The City as Collaborator: Documenting Contemporary Art on the Street panel will focus on how street art has grown and contributed to the city. Other panelists include: Kelly Burns, the driving force behind the......

Later today, as you're stumbling to the next bar, when you pass the little kids and somewhat bigger ones who have the middle-age spread wearing taped-up spectacles and wizard hats, you'll know that you have entered the Harry Potter Zone. The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is being released tonight at midnight, and as there is nothing that the media likes better than getting quotes from kids, don't expect to escape unscathed.......

The storm that the Weather Service and Gothamist thought would soak us over the weekend went a bit further east than expected and left us pleasantly dry. The storm is still out there churning away but it poses no threat to us. Instead high pressure is in charge and it's giving us a beauty of a day. Our first near-normal temperature day in almost two weeks. Tomorrow should be a repeat. Warmer Wednesday and Thursday......