On Tuesday, Kola, a one-year-old pit bull mix, had successfully chased away a burglar who attempted to break into her family's New City, NY home. When her owners came home, they discovered a "window was broken" and "muddy footprints in the house." Nothing was taken but Kola, who was rescued from a dog-fighting ring and adopted by the Rosen family earlier this year, was missing! And the Rosens were especially worried since Kola has an infected leg and needs medication. Last night, the pup surfaced in NJ. Someone found her tied to a pole at a Costco and took her to a shelter, where Mitch Rosen ID'd her and took her home. more ›

EVENT: In the book Love & Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships David Levy goes where no man has gone before. Hopefully. From the book's description: "Love, marriage, and sex with robots? Not in a million years? Maybe a whole lot sooner.From a leading expert in artificial intelligence comes an eye-opening, superbly argued book that explores a new level of human intimacy and relationships—with robots." We're not even ready to see Lars and... more ›

Whether or not you're going to the annual Village Halloween Parade this evening, it'll probably effect your day in some way if you live or work in the area. If you want to avoid the mayhem, don't be anywhere in the vicinity of 6th Avenue between Spring and 22nd Steets. The streets intersecting the route will be closed off at 5pm sharp! more ›

FESTIVAL: The New York Ukulele Festival has arrived. The weekend includes: "nonstop Ukulele Fun! Concerts, Vendors, Workshops, Jams! 40,000 Square Feet, Two Concert Stages! FREE BEER ALL WEEKEND. FREE UKULELE DOOR PRIZES AT EVERY CONCERT!!” more ›

FILM: Who doesn't like a rendez-vous? Tonight come to Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. The event is in its 12th year and will introduce you to what's been playing on Parisian movie screens. Tonight is the first night and Olivier Dahan’s La Vie en Rose plays - the film will educate you on French legend Edith Piaf. more ›

Jude Narita’s solo show Walk the Mountain, currently running at Theater for the New City, delves into the horrors endured by women who survived the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge. The text of the play is inspired by interviews Narita conducted with Vietnamese and Cambodian women; throughout the performance she plays a wide variety of roles to create a detailed portrait of human suffering. more ›

Bread and Puppet is coming to town for the holidays! And it looks like they've got an adult show and a kids show lined up: more ›

READING: Here's something awesome to spice up your week - from Housing Works Used Book Cafe's website: "Jest Fest 06, a celebration of the 10th Anniversary of David Foster Wallace's INFINITE JEST. Join John Krasinski (The Office), Todd Hanson (The Onion), Lev Grossman (Time Magazine), and Laura Miller (Salon) in reading from and talking about the book. Audience participation strongly encouraged!" Nerdy goodness abounds! - Krissa Corbett Cavouras more ›

THEATER: Jude Narita's one-woman show, Walk the Mountain, is about the hellish effects of the Vietnam War. In the wrong hands, this might make for an unbearably ponderous evening, but the Times review puts us at ease: “In dramatizing unspeakably horrific events, must an artist end up brutalizing her audience as well? [Jude Narita] reminds us that it's possible for a performer to treat both her material and her audience with respect.” For Walk the Mountain, Ms. Narita interviewed Vietnamese and Cambodian women who survived the horror and traces the country’s history of resistance back to 39 A.D., when a Chinese invasion was thwarted. L.A. Weekly called it “haunting and heroic.” - John Del Signore more ›

Along with producing shows by up and coming playwrights, one of the things off-off-Broadway does best is to resurrect plays first presented ages ago that have hardly been seen or thought of since. One such is V.R. Lang’s Fire Exit: A Vaudeville For Eurydice, which is nominally a modernization of the Orpheus-Eurydice myth but in actuality, at least in this incarnation, is more an opportunity for some majorly bizarre antics by a brave, eager cast. It’s the 1950s, and Orpheus, a hotshot young composer, marries Eurydice, who comes from a family of carnival folk, only to break her heart by caring more about his career than their life together. Fortunately, Eury grew up with the good examples of some wacky “aunts” – one of them played by director Barbara Vann – and she finally learns to embrace the performer in herself and not look back. more ›

We read in the Times this weekend that today is supposedly one of the most depressing days this year, according to some sort of logarithm computed by Health magazine, and that seems entirely plausible to us – January is not a friendly month, even when it’s not super cold. One would think that the default theatrical antidote for the winter doldrums would be some sort of peppy, bright-eyed musical, but for some reason right now a great deal of the work in that genre seems to be aimed at kids or family audiences, not really our cup of tea. There’s one that might do the trick, though: I Love You Because, which doesn’t officially open until Feb. 14 but is in previews now at the Village Theatre. Ryan Cunningham wrote the book and lyrics and Joshua Salzman furnished music for this mixed-up take on Pride and Prejudice, in which a greeting card writer faces a turn of events quite distinct from the schmaltz he turns out for a living, when he discovers that his girlfriend is sleeping with another man and so has to start dating again and learn how to love someone else. This might sound like the makings of a horror show rather than anything pleasant, especially since the dating scene in question is New York, but from the sound of it this play is squarely in the feel-good humor camp. more ›

The cool air inside theaters that we touted all summer isn’t exactly an attraction now – at times you might find yourself wishing you were under the nice warm spotlight – and most off-off-Broadway shows don’t have plush seats you can snuggle into, but there are a number on this week that should make you forget the cold, at least mostly. House of No More, at Dance Theater Workshop, sounds like the kind of show that will both enthrall and assault you enough to do this warming well. It’s the final installation of Caden Manson/Big Art Group’s Real Time Film trilogy and uses three cameras and three screens to manipulate images and create, um, a real time film. It sounds like the plot (a thriller about a woman searching for her missing child) takes a distant third in importance compared to the artistic philosophy and avant-garde execution, but we’ll go with it – just from the trailer on the group’s website, it looks pretty overwhelming, in a good way. more ›

THREE DAY WEEKEND! THREE DAY WEEKEND! THREE DAY WEEKEND! THREE DAY WEEKEND! THREE DAY WEEKEND! THREE DAY WEEKEND! more ›

Is that the sun that woke us up this morning? It won't last for long so enjoy it while you can. It's the unofficial start to summer this long weekend, and unless you're one of those people who uses the word "summer" as a verb, then you're sticking around the city. Hopefully you get to leave the office a little early though... more ›

Jason Eaton, Children's Book Author more ›

I'm thinking about doing a little volunteer work for a theatre group this summer - do you have any suggestions? I have lots of experience both onstage and backstage, but am not particularly interested in pursuing it career-wise. Thanks for your help! more ›

The recent move by Governor Pataki to block the city's, and Mayor Bloombergs's, attempt at refinancing the city's $2.5 billion debt - which was approved by the state legislature - is the latest in the the ongoing fractious that is the New City Mayor-New York Governor relationship. The Times describes it as "not unlike a bad marriage in which one partner keeps up appearances even when the whole world is predicting divorce behind their backs." more ›