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... more ›

THEATER: The fall theater season gets curiouser and curiouser with the start of The Alice in Wonderland Puppet Festival at HERE. (The festival, which is not recommended for children under twelve, will feature a tea party after every show.) Tonight curiouser & curiouser fuses text from Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll’s diary entries and his muse Alice Liddell’s memoirs to try to decipher what destroyed their unique friendship. - John Del Signore more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a partial roof collapse on Union St. in Brooklyn, a person under a train at Coney Island and Brighton Beach Aves. in Brooklyn, and a slashing at Dyckman St. and Broadway in Manhattan.
• Artie Fufkin speaks! Paul Schaffer, who was the musical director of the Blues Brothers, keyboardist for Bill Murray's lounge singer character on SNL, and the bandleader for David Letterman's "The World's Most Dangerous Band" since 1982, is publishing his memoirs. Yeah!
• A local moving company is converting a number of its trucks from diesel to biodiesel fuel in an effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
• The producer of a Broadway show called "My First Time" is employing a mindreader to determine who gets free tickets to the show. Recipients must affirm via a psychic they are virgins.
• A 17-year-old was shot several times in the head as he lay in bed in the middle of the afternoon while visiting relatives in the Bronx.
• Juana Yolfo is a Spanish-speaking 106-year-old woman who was born in Puerto Rico before moving to Brooklyn and then settling in the Lower East Side more than 40 years ago. She's celebrating her birthday this week after more than 50 years as a NYC resident.
• Al Sharpton as Apollo Creed? The reverend is getting in shape to pummel Giuliani if there's any hope the latter's electoral prospects brighten.
• Carroll Gardens parents are in a huff about youthful neighborhood ruffians, who are disrespectul to adults and unmindful of younger children as they engage in shenanigans and otherwise behave like hooligans.

edited by Rachel Fershleiser and Smith, to be published by Harpercollins in 2008. But that's just the beginning, as Smith is quick to point out. Gothamist chatted with Smith about his very common last name, print vs. web magazines, and why six words can be enough to tell a good story. more ›

THEATER: It’s “go time” for The Butane’s Group’s Operation Ajax, which ingenuously sets the CIA’s 1953 overthrow of Iran’s first democratically-elected government in the context of a casino. “Constructed from no less than 25 text sources (memoirs, documentaries, plays, poetry, novels, films, reality tv shows), the densely-layered performance explores how the addiction to risk and gambling has become a potent metaphor for U.S. foreign policy.” (For an enhanced theater experience, explore the show’s thorough bibliography, with links to all source material.) - John Del Signore more ›

Michael Malice, Evil Genius, Editor, Overheard in New York, Subject, Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story more ›

This week's new film releases are a lovely New York melting pot: ballroom dancing teens, Arab/Israeli anxieties, motor skills-challenged geeks, neurotic female friends, and a thoughtful Polish director thrown in for good measure. Spring may have sprung outside but it's also a great time to be inside at the movie. more ›

- Nicolette Sheridan does not look over-Botoxed with fish lips! more ›

No don't worry. Gothamist doesn't plan to subject you to yet another film Top 10 list. If you want a good ... uhm ... "overview" of this year's Top 10 lists, you might want to check-out The Reeler's Top 10 Top 10 lists. (Nos. 10-6 appeared yesterday. The top five went up this morning.) If you're looking for something more traditional, you should probably look at 's Take 7 film critics poll. more ›

Here we go: it's a huge weekend for year-end Oscar-bait and questions abound. Will audiences flock to see the "forbidden" love of ? (No.) Is it any good? (It's OK.) Will people be turned off by the heavy (and occasionally heavy-handed) allusions to Christian imagery? (Possibly, but we were moved more by Aslan's humiliation and sacrifice than Jesus' in Mel Gibson's biblical slasher film) more ›

, about the length of the Tony-award winning play he wrote and turned into the memoir. The success of the play, coupled with Crystal's brilliant sense of humor, prompted me to pick up the sort of book I wouldn't normally read - one with the author's photo featured prominently on the cover. Unlike other celebrity memoirs, though, Crystal's 700 Sundays isn't about his fame or fortune or the perils therein. 700 Sundays is about family. Heading to spend the holiday weekend with mine, I decided to give Crystal a chance to amuse and maybe even move me. more ›

Julie Powell, author, Julie & Julia, creator, The Julie/Julia Project more ›

CONTEST ALERT: We're part of a joint blog contest thing that we don't completely understand, but here's what you need to know: FREE iPod Nano! Filled up with the soundtrack from Elizabethtown. You can enter here, and you should. Seriously. Do it. more ›

Susan Shapiro, author, Lighting Up and Five Men Who Broke My Heart: A Memoir more ›

Rachel Johnson, Filmmaker more ›

So much for that rain yesterday, eh? Today they're saying scattered thunderstorms, high of 84. Gothamist now knows that "scattered" is the forecasting equivalent of "giant shrug." more ›

BookExpo America will be in NY next year; for Chicago news, certainly check out Chicagoist. And when Gothamist remembers to think of it, we do watch Book Notes. more ›

Franz Lidz looks at the timeless story of the Collyer Brothers for the Times' City section. Two educated brothers, Homer and Langley Collyer, lived in Harlem at the beginning of the 1900s and soon their house would have 180 tons of garbage, much of it newspapers, in it. The main impetus to save was when Homer went blind, and Langley, while taking care of him (like feeding him oranges for his sight), saved newspapers for him, adding to a collection that included 10 pianos, a disassembled car (or two) and a dozen gas chandeliers among other things. Unfortunately Langley died when he sprung on of his homemade burglar traps, becoming buried beneath mounds of newspapers, and Homer died from starvation. Police found Homer's body, but did not find Langley's rat-gnawed body until weeks later within the debris, after searching the city for him. more ›

WTC redesign architect Daniel Libeskind is shopping around his memoirs; the Post also reports that he intends to donate the a portion of proceeds to children of September 11 victims. His agent says, "It's going to be a solid memoir for the general reader. It's not going to be experimental or avant-garde." more ›

News from Page Six that porn star Jenna Jameson was having her autobiography ghostwritten by NY Times rock critic Neil Strauss instantly made it a must-read for Gothamist whenever it does come out. Yes, it should be a wild and crazy book about being the hottest porn star today, but more importantly, Neil Strauss is ghostwriting it. Strauss' last contribution to pop culture memoirs was with the one of the best books about living the rock and roll life, The Dirt, the autobiography of Motley Crue. Sure, Tommy Lee was married to Heather Locklear and Pamela Anderson, but the book starts out with Tommy dating a girl the other band members called Moose because she was so ugly. Read a few pages to understand why. It's also one of Gothamist's standby "don't need to overthink because it'll be liked" last-minute gift books, alongside Kitchen Confidential.
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An ethics committee in Maryland ruled that Police Chief Charles A. Moose cannot profit from the proceeds of a book deal he made. The committe stated, "Accepting remuneration for services directly and immediately related to an employee's governmental activities violates the prestige-of-office prohibition because, to paraphrase the state ethics commission, those services `go with the job.'" more ›