more ›

READING: Jeff Garigliano, Condé Nast Portfolio senior-editor turned author, will be reading from his debut novel titled Dogface. The story follows a rebellious 14-year-old boy who, like so many before him, gets sent off to a camp that specializes in "whipping mixed-up teens back into shape". more ›

READING: Our interviewee from yesterday, Adrian Tomine, will be reading tonight at Book Court. The graphic novelist not only has his work in some of the more prestigious rags, he's also got a full length graphic novel, titled Shortcomings. more ›

THEATER: Sarah Maxfield, the brains behind theater collective Red Metal Mailbox, brings THROW, the bi-monthly performance series she curates, to The Chocolate Factory in Long Island City. Imbibe cheap beer and vibe new work by Rebecca Davis, Betsy Miller & Dancers, and Tara O'Con. After each experiment, Maxfield moderates an exchange in which each performer interrogates the audience in hopes of culling constructive criticism from the increasingly lubricated crowd. Who’ll be the first to declare, “Worst performance art EVER”? - John Del Signore more ›

TIP: According to Paper's Mr. Mickey, Chloë Sevigny is having a tag sale on her block this Saturday. We're guessing there will be lots of vintage Balenciaga. Check out her apartment in House & Garden...pretty nice! more ›

EXPLORE: Last call to visit the historic Governors Island this season! Free ferry rides depart hourly right next to the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Sitting 800 yards off the southern tip of Manhattan and about 400 from the Brooklyn waterfront, it isn't often you can get a view of the city and a house like that one to the right all from the same place. more ›

Film Society of Lincoln Center more ›

The Debate Society is a taut little theater triad comprised of director Oliver Butler and wizardly actors Paul Thureen and Hannah Bos. Their 2006 production, The Snow Hen, took a Norwegian folk tale about an abandoned girl and wove it into a charmingly dark tapestry of melancholy and mystique. Now they’re back at the Ontological Theater (Richard Foreman’s regular digs) with The Eaten Heart, an enchanting mood-play very loosely inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th Century tome The Decameron, which packs in 100 stories told over the course of ten days by ten people killing time during the Black Plague. more ›

As we get closer to the kick-off of the much anticipated High Line Festival, let's take a closer look at what's to come, and at the man who co-founded and curated the whole thing, David Bowie. The eleven days of music, film, art and comedy starts Wednesday at Radio City Music Hall. Who else to play the first event at the inaugural festival than Bowie-beloved Arcade Fire? Pair 'em up with Brooklyn's The National and you've got a lineup that already beats most out there. more ›

SCIENCE: It's Secret Science Club night again at Union Hall. This week Gerry Moore tells us of The Secret Botanical Life of NYC. From the press release: "Is this city nothing but steel and pavement? Nein! We’re gushing with biodiversity. Put a nosegay in your buttonhole, and prepare for FLOWER POWER!" Also: the aromatic cocktails of the night will be "the walloping Planter’s Punch and the deadly Black Dahlia”...smells like a pretty drunk science club! more ›

Harry Houdini's funeral was held on November 4, 1926, in New York, with over two thousand mourners in attendance. He was buried at the Machpelah Cemetery in Queens where the crest of the Society of American Magicians is inscribed on his grave site. To this day, that Society holds their "Broken Wand" ceremony at the grave site on the anniversary of his death. With a new biography called “The Secret Life of Houdini” that came out late last year, and which in part questions the real reason for Harry Houdini's death, some people are calling for the body to be exhumed. Others are calling this a publicity stunt. more ›

The much anticipated, David Bowie-curated High Line Festival has finally announced a lineup. more ›

“The Secret” and its, dare we say, disciples, if you imagine it will come. Oprah did her own show on the topic, exclaiming, “I've been talking about this for so many years on my show, I just never called it The Secret!” And if Oprah's been talking about it, then you know it's gospel. more ›

If you come into contact with a $50 or $100 bill, check it carefully! The Secret Service says there's a lot more funny money floating around the NYC-metro area. more ›

Fashion and music sometimes go hand in hand (for better or worse), and under the tents at Bryant Park, this doesn't change. Two years ago we found ourselves sitting front row at Cynthia Rowley's show, and as the models started to filter out - The Secret Machines "Nowhere Again" blasted in the air. It fit. more ›

In 2004 we asked a bunch of New York bloggers to suggest sonic stocking stuffers. This year, we asked New York bloggers, bookers, musicians and more, what they'd give as a gift this holiday season. Here you go...commence shopping! more ›

ART: Local artist Jen Dunlap is having an art show tonight. It's called Yeep! Yeep!, so it's sure to be fun. Check out her work here, then head over there to see it all up close, while enjoying some free drinks! more ›

THEATER: Harold Pinter’s taught two-hander, Ashes to Ashes, is running through Wednesday at the intimate Paradise Theatre in the East Village. The cryptic 45 minute one-act examines a refined couple’s quiet life at home, with the usual brutality menacing just beneath the surface. In a previous interview, Pinter blamed the male gender for the cruelty dramatized in his work, insisting that “God was in much better trim when He created women.” - John Del Signore more ›

This summer there's a series of (expensive) concerts going on at McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn. The site has been closed since 1984, and last year started undergoing renovations. Recently we received the following email from an unhappy local: more ›

Tonight San Francisco rockers with the middle class rasp, Two Gallants, come to Bowery Ballroom. We interviewed them last week, and you should really check them out while they're in town. For serious. Opening up for them are Sam Champion (the actual NY weatherman still comes up first in a Google search) and Cold War Kids. Elsewhere in the city, Pela is playing with Project Jenny/Project Jan (at the Delancey). more ›

If New York wasn't the center of the universe already, we'd say the title would go to MySpace. The phenomenon has even inspired a song. more ›

. It starts at 7PM and is free. more ›

Friday // 8pm // collective:unconscious [279 church] // Free more ›

So, it’s August and your shrink has split. Eleven months of listening to you has earned her a few weeks of rest, no? You, unfortunately, don’t get a break from your issues. All we have to offer by way of solace is a book that might make them seem minor by comparison to those of its subject: Dare Wright. The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll is Jean Nathan’s biography of Wright, an alarmingly eccentric beauty who wrote and photographed one of the oddest and most popular children’s books of the past fifty years. more ›

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl (Penguin, 2005) more ›

: In possibly another sign that the WTC rebuilding totally sucks, the president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Kevin Rampe, has resigned today. NY1 says he'll still serve on the foundation, but this sounds sketchy to us. Additionally, an appeals court threw out a lawsuit against Motorola that relatives of firefighters killed during September 11 brought forth, claiming Motorola's faulty radios caused their deaths. more ›

Last night we were told that the Secret Machines were playing a (secret?) show at the Apple Store in Soho at 10pm. We didn't go, and haven't heard a thing about it. Did it happen, was anyone there? We need closure. more ›

Here's the question for the day: Should Gothamist even mention sold out shows? There are a few of them this week. Mentioning sold out shows creates an environment where the "haves" are the winners and the "have nots" are the loser--unless the "have nots" turn in sexual favors with exes who thought ahead and bought two tickets. Is it right to pit the winners against the losers? Is it right to pour salt on the losers' ticketless wounds? Oh, whatever. The world is filled with winners and losers. Why tiptoe around the obvious? more ›

(1979) over at Makor at the Steinhardt Theater (35 W. 67th Street). No matter what ails you, a few sacreligious jokes by Eric Idle, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin will fix you up right quick. Poor Brian. He doesn't want to be the messiah. He just wants to join the People's Front of Judea. Or is it the Judean People's Front? All he knows is, "I'm not a Roman, Mum. I'm a kike, a yid, a heebie, a hook-nose. I'm kosher, Mum. I'm a Red Sea pedestrian, and proud of it!" more ›

Related: Listen to a .wav (scrolle to Ralph) of Ralph Wiggum saying, "The leprachaun told me to burn things!" and check out other Irish references on The Simpsons. more ›