More than just a funny comedian, Elon James White (myspace) is becoming a notable force for his efforts to introduce new audiences to the sometimes overlooked diversity of talent within the world of black comedians. In other words, there’s more to black comedy than you might think by watching Def Comedy Jam. By creating The Black Comedy Project with comedian Baron Vaughn, White has helped cultivate an expanding community of artists who might be classified......

When news of 124 Rabbit Club’s opening broke, we dropped everything and headed down to MacDougal St. for some brews from the joint’s 40-plus beer list. Initially it was hard to find, then we saw the stairs leading down to an unmarked door and rang the bell only to find nobody home. At first we thought maybe we weren’t cool enough to gain admission, but it seems we weren't the only ones misinformed about......

Sufjan Keeps it Local We really enjoyed Sufjan's BQE show last Friday at BAM. It was a great, refined, change of pace evening for the indie rock crowd. The evening was really a sum of it's parts, all told. The entire presentation of the BQE piece was far more engaging than the actual music itself. It was solid, but not up to Suf's lofty magical standards. But the little things...the gritty video clips of the......

Most Overrated Live Band: Justice There is no denying the greatness of Justice's album, "Cross," and there is no argument from us that it isn't the type of music that is perfectly suited to be blasted in a massive dance club. But those two things alone do not automatically lead to a good live show. These two are sloppy, to put it simply. Too many changes were missed, beats were a half step off, and......

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......

We love it when we see the creativity of spirits mixology applied to beer - within reason of course. While there is a simple purity in a frosty pint of beer, sometimes it’s fun to play around. Our latest beer-tail to add to the collection, the Black and Blue, is case and point. It mixes things up just a little but doesn’t adulterate our brew. We tried the Black and Blue at the Blue Point......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A boat in distress at the Roosevelt Island Bridge, a homicide on Howard in Brooklyn, and a stabbing on Jamaica Avenue and 161st Street in Queens Hillary Clinton out-fund-raises Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama in New York, which makes sense since she's been building her donor list as a Senator from New York. The big mystery of NYC: Where the middle class live. A man was fatally hit by......

We've survived the sirens for many years, and if this truly was the last Siren Fest ever, it certainly went out with a bang. Coney Island was packed full of thrifty music fans for the 7th annual Siren Festival this weekend. Despite the current trend of awful weather for every worthwhile free outdoor concert this summer so far, nobody could complain about the perfect day at the beach this past Saturday. We got down there......

Yesterday the annual Siren Festival at Coney Island took place. We'll have a full report tomorrow, for now check out some photos of the day (taken by contributer John Del Signore). The first five are most definitely not PETA-approved. A chicken The Black Lips & a chicken Chicken feathers......

It's our favorite July 4th tradition, this side of smiley-face fireworks: The Annual Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, held at Nathan's in Coney Island. And this year's competition is particularly tantalizing: Current champion Takeru Kobayashi has been having jaw pains, while Joey Chestnut broke the hot dog eating record, by scarfing down 59.5 at a June event. So we shall begin our liveblogging, and Jen Chung and Tien Mao will be providing other commentary......

MUSIC: You know summer is just around the corner when the Seaport Music Festival has their first show of the season. Tonight Animal Collective, Danielson and XXXChange (Spank Rock) will all be on Pier 17 for a FREE show! Come, drink, listen. Friday // 7pm // South Street Seaport, Pier 17 // Free THEATER: Critics are loving Passing Strange and now it’s extending its run at The Public Theater to July 1st. The sly yet......

Day Night Day Night (directed by Julia Loktev) Living in New York and going about your daily life post-9/11 you really can't help but have the possibility of a further terrorist attack lurking in the back of your mind. This morbid potential tragedy is the subject of Julia Loktev striking first feature which played at this year's New Directors/New Films Festival and gets a theatrical release this weekend. However instead of making a big budget......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

ART: It's Dumbo First Thursday. The Gallery Walk will not only bring you to galleries, but also to artists' studios. "Gallery receptions, neighborhood dining and bars, and live music add to the evening’s festivities." Check out Space Invader's art while you're in the neighborhood. 5:30 to 8:30pm // Various Locations // Free EVENT: Hiroko & Steve Rodriguez (5boro Skateboards) invite you to the Grand Opening of Travessia (their gallery/boutique combo) tonight. There will be a......

A look at some noteworthy television programs this week: Nature: Dogs That Changed The World: The Rise of the Dog (Sunday, 8:00 p.m. WNET 13; Wednesday, 9:00 p.m., WLIW 21) The first of a two part look at man's best friend, the dog. Part one looks at the origins of domesticated dogs and inquires about the theory that links domestication to human's trash. A behind the scenes podcast looking into the challenges of filming dogs......

THEATER: Lear deBessonet culled material from sources as varied as Henrik Ibsen, Joan of Arc and Times contributor/author Russell Shorto (The Island at the Center of the World), scientific journals, and post-it notes from the desks of corporate secretaries to create the new play transFigures. She was also inspired by the Jerusalem Syndrome, the well-documented psychosis that causes ordinary tourists to channel Biblical figures, create togas out of hotel bed-sheets, and parade through the Holy......

If you tuned into WNBC last night at 10 p.m. you may have discovered that NBC’s The Black Donnellys has been canceled and in its place the supposedly funny Thank God You're Here. We loved the gritty drama and the fact that it was filmed on location in the city. As sort of the booby prize, we are getting the rest of the series online, but still that doesn’t really satisfy. Now this is all......

Black Lips Trash Bowery One of the nice things about being a music fan in New York City is that you rarely have to wait very long to see a band you're recently missed. The Black Lips famously played about 6,000 shows at SXSW this year, yet despite our interest in checking them out, we managed to catch them exactly zero times (with our final chance being cut short by that whole collapsing balcony thing.)......

Right now on South 4th Street in Williamsburg (between Bedford and Driggs) - there's some filming going on, for what looks like a bigger production. Anyone know what it could be? We know The Black Donnellys has been filming near the Williamsburg Bridge, but this looks like more of a movie production. Here are some shots of The Black Donnellys Olivia Wilde and her husband Tao Ruspoli - as well as their dog (the......

A look at some noteworthy televison this weel: Nature - The Best of Nature: 25 Years (Sunday, 7:00 p.m. WNET 13) Don't be fooled by the title, but this is a pledge drive clip show special. http://abcfamily.go.com/dukeboys">The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning (Sunday, 8:00 p.m. ABC Family) If you liked The Dukes of Hazzard, you will probably like this made for TV movie. The Winner (Sunday, 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. WNYW 5) The buzz......

A look at some noteworthy televison shows this week: Live From the Red Carpet: The 2007 Academy Awards (Sunday, 6:00 p.m. E!) The traditionally absurd Oscar pregame of celebrities arriving at the Oscars. 2007 Joan & Melissa at the Academy Awards (Sunday, 6:00 p.m. TV Guide Channel) Joan Rivers and daughter Melissa do their yearly schtick during the Oscar arrivals. An Evening at the Academy Awards: The Arrivals (Sunday, 6:30 p.m. WABC 7) Channel 7......

ART: Running through March 7th at Gavin Brown's enterprise at Passerby is "Radical Living Papers". Some of the passionate writers of forty years ago will have their words become a part of this exhibit, which serves as a snapshot of the Vietnam War era and a history of counter-culture and alt press. Publications (all from the 60s and 70s) include Rolling Stone, The Black Panther, Freep, The Seed and the Los Angeles Free Press. Friday......

EVENT: Nerd Alert! Come on by for Nerd Night tonight at Orchid Lounge where there are two geeked out presentations awaiting you. Presentation #1: "Genesis Rules! Wait, I Meant To Say Neurogenesis". Something about Adult Neurogenesis and Phil Collins, or something. Presentation #2: "TETROMINOWLEDGE: How Four Blocks, Arranged In Different Patterns, Have Changed the World, Kind Of". This one is mostly about Tetris. So put the Wii down and get out of the house. 7pm......

The end of the world as the producers of I Am Legend know it has arrived. The film started work on an elaborate "escape from New York" scene that involves thousands of extras, as well as tanks and helicopters. Many people went down to check out the scene in the cold, The Black Hawk helicopter was docked near the Brooklyn Bridge and huge klieg lights were shining onto the bridge. And since some bloggers......

- The great Chowhound uprising of 2007 seems like it will turn a corner; management promptly replies with fixes, explanations and small concessions. Give CNET some respect; they really do have to manage a loyal crowd who loves the site. - Jennifer Leuzzi cracks some clarification news about our next Inn over by what used to be everyone’s favorite how-do-I-find-it-street, Little West 12th. - Over on Grub Street Daniel Maurer highlights a good looking new......

There is tons of speculation all over the Internet about the Oscar nominations for films released in 2006. As an Oscars fiend, we're not going to digress about the calculus of vote-splitting. Instead, we'll point out a couple things we noticed: - Best surprise nomination: Ryan Gosling's Best Actor nomination for Half Nelson; Gosling plays a drug-addicted teacher in Brooklyn trying to help one of his students...it'll be on DVD in three weeks - see......

THEATER: Pot-au-Noir (The Black Hole) is a retelling of the story of Cain & Abel "through the lens of the Great American Myth -- combining images of Hollywood Film Noir, the Gold Rush, the Dust Bowl, and Manifest Destiny with a story that is at the core of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and, therefore, America." Jake Hooker’s new production promises lyrical text, contemporary dance and live music to tell a story of lies, deceit, jealousy,......

Dear lord, it's only mid-September but already the amount of new releases flooding theaters is getting a bit overwhelming. Brian De Palma's highly anticipated adaptation of James Ellroy's novel, The Black Dahlia hits theaters this Friday. Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart are Los Angeles detectives investigating an extremely grisly Hollywood murder of a young starlet in the late '40s. Hartnett's real life Girl Friday, Scarlett Johansson's also in the cast, as is Oscar winner Hilary......

THEATER: Less than a week post-Fringe, another festival is upon us: the Brick's new Clown Theater Festival, which starts tonight with a subway parade and "free-for-all pie-fight." Some of the participating local and international performers wear big red noses but these aren't the sort of clowns that kids get scared of at birthday parties, but rather the promoters of and participants in a vibrant physical format that's re-energizing theater; there are performances like Chiche Capon's......

We caught the "free outdoor music bug" this past weekend, thanks to Siren, and we're determined to go to as many of these shows as possible. Even if it's 18,000 degrees outside and our face is melting. One of our favorite venues of all time is the Seaport Music Festival stage down on Pier 17. There have been some changes (additions) that we're really excited about to some upcoming shows there: July 28th - Nicolai......