MUSIC: Come enjoy the Whitney after dark tonight as the museum's live showcase series invites Dan Deacon (pictured) to the stage. If you haven't seen Deacon before, get ready for some Casio keyboard electro-rock compositions and an art dance party. more ›

Natasha Lyonne – remember her? – has resurfaced, and not at the morgue! In fact, the young hellion seems to be doing quite well for herself – at least that’s the portrait painted by this convivial Times profile, in which reporter Robert Simonson smokes Marlboro Lights with her on the roof of Theater Row, where she’s to appear in the new Mike Leigh play Two Thousand Years. Though off the horse, the actress isn’t all yoga and Celestial Seasonings – she’s quick to point out that she usually smokes Marlboro 72’s, because they’re “like something Robert Mitchum would smoke.” more ›

Wallace Shawn has long enjoyed a fruitful career as a character actor in mainstream movies (Clueless, Princess Bride, Chicken Little). He also happens to be one of the world’s most significant dissident writers. His plays The Designated Mourner, Aunt Dan and Lemon and The Fever – to name just a few – have garnered much praise (and controversy) for their unflinching examinations of brutality. Shawn’s plays are political but not polemical; through his writing he questions everyone’s complicity – liberal intellectuals especially – in the horrors unleashed out of sight and out of mind. more ›

On Sundays, Gothamist runs opinion pieces on issues relevant to life in New York. The views expressed below belong entirely to the author. more ›

You know it's the Oscars when P. Diddy busts out the velvet suit! Gothamist loves the Oscars, and we're going to attempt to do a little liveblogging. We might need to order a vat of caffeine and an EMT team at the ready; not because Chris Rock will be boring, but because we think that Gil Cates might kill us with his newfangled ideas and because we're meh about this year's nominees in the big categories. Anyway, onto the show. more ›