John Fugelsang starts his one-man show, All the Wrong Reasons: A True Story of Neo-Nazis, Drug Smuggling, and Undying Love, by acknowledging that he isn’t performing a “proper piece of solo theatre. The stories here are not brave, the stakes are very low, my arc is flimsy at best, I’m not a heroic character; I don’t come out of the closet, go to Iraq or kick drugs; and the only time I mention Palestine is in this sentence.” Like everything else in All the Wrong Reasons, his disclaimer’s funny because it’s true. Although the autobiography that Fugelsang unfolds seems out of place in New York Theater Workshop’s voluminous space, it manages to stay aloft on the strength of his self-deprecating wit and warm personality. more ›

Even though Central Park's famous gay penguin couple Silo and Roy broke up (Silo, the Anne Heche of the penguin world, took to a lady penguin named Scrappy), they were immortalized in the adorable children's book, And Tango Makes Three. And Tango Makes Three recounts how Silo and Roy were given a fertilized egg to hatch, after they unsuccessfully tried to hatch a rock - and baby girl Tango was born. more ›

, at the Bryant Park Reading Room as part of Coliseum Books’ “Word for Word” lunchtime reading series. more ›

Perhaps you were as surprised as Gothamist when you saw a meteorologist mentioned in the Sunday Styles section of the Sunday Times. In the essay David Carr offers his explanation of how the "changed the world" genre of pop history books that have recently become popular. You know the kind, "How the Irish Saved Civilization"; "Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World"; and "Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time" to name just a few. Along the way Carr comes to blame MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz for this phenomenon, citing Lorenz's 1963 paper presented to the New York Academy of Sciences. In discussing his research Lorenz quoted a meteorologist as saying "if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever", meaning that small changes in initial conditions can have enormous consequences later on. Lorenz later dropped the seagull in favor of a butterfly, in part because his calculations looked like a butterfly when graphed (you can watch the butterfly, or Lorenz attractor, in action). Carr may not have realized it but Lorenz's insight changed how meteorologists viewed the atmosphere and introduced the world to chaos theory. In his classic, for weather geeks, paper "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow" Lorenz wrote more ›

A.O. Scott sums up why everyone is so fascinated, especially himself, with The True Story of Stephen Glass, a.k.a Shattered Glass, in his Times review: 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 ›

Kelefa Sanneh gives a backhandedly sorta positive review of this year's Siren Festival and basically says that it wasn't that adventurous but it was rather comforting with all these younger bands aping styles of the Rolling Stones, Liquid Liquid, and New Wave bands. He also notes that the Coney Island venue that offered daylight was something new for the bands and their fans: "dazed-looking hipsters, blinking in the sunlight." Among the performers Sanneh mentions: Idlewild; The Kills; Datsuns, !!!, "scene-stealing" plus a song called "Me & Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard (A True Story)"; Hot Hot Heat; Northern State; Ted Leo, who appeared at Tinkle on Sunday; and Jen's favorite, Modest Mouse, whose uneven act was challenging. more ›