Well, the Oxford English Dictionary has gone and announced their latest batch of new official words, and joining the likes of "OMG" and "muffintop" are "woot," "sexting," "retweet," and "cyberbullying." And the English language continues its slow, steady decline. more ›

A VP candidate is supposed to help the presidential candidate but both VP-wannabes have stumbled recently. Yesterday, Joe Biden talked about Barack Obama's brilliance and how the world would definitely test him, "Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy." Say it ain't so, Joe--and never say "gird your loins" again, either! Naturally, John McCain seized on that, but Sarah Palin said to fundraisers in Greensboro, NC last week, "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America. Being here with all of you hard-working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation," which prompted the Obama campaign to ask, "What part of the country isn't pro-America?" more ›

FOOD: Drinking With the Professor: a Look at Jerry Thomas and His Liquid Legacy: Join cocktail maestro Dave Wondrich as he shares recipes from his latest book, Imbibe! plus a few that were cut in the editing process. Wondrich has an in-depth knowledge of nineteenth-century classic cocktails, so step up and taste the benefits. - Laren Spirer more ›

In Samuel Beckett’s 1961 play Happy Days, a decidedly upbeat woman named Winnie spends Act One striving valiantly to make the best of her sticky situation: she’s irrevocably buried up to her waist in a “low mound.” True, Winnie has her reticent companion Willie for company, but she cheerily defies the barren void by holding forth for a seemingly nonexistent gathering of spectators. And Act Two finds Winnie still determined to make a go of it, despite a marked deterioration of her condition: she is now buried up to the neck. 47 years after Beckett finished it, the brutally funny and moving Happy Days is now the hot ticket at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. more ›

ART: Duke Riley brings his latest exhibit, After the Battle of Brooklyn: East River Incognita II, to Magnan Projects. Starting tonight and showing through December 22nd, the works imagine New York during the Revolutionary War and "interweave historical and contemporary events with elements of fiction and myth to create allegorical histories. His re-imagined narratives comment on a range of issues from the cultural impact of overdevelopment and gentrification of waterfront communities to contradictions within political ideologies as well as commerce and the role of the artist in society and at war." more ›

is the project that really encouraged his brilliant madness. It's one of the greatest potential disaster stories in film making and it won Herzog a best director prize at Cannes. more ›

A former Goldman Sachs analyst pleaded guilty to insider trading charges yesterday. Twenty-eight- year-old Eugene Plotkin, with fellow Harvard graduate Stanislav Shpigelman who worked at Merrill Lynch and fellow Goldman analyst David Pajcin, have all pleaded guilty to an elaborate scheme that netted them almost $7 million. more ›

MOVIE: This week's Bryant Park movie is All the Kings Men.... The movie follows the rise of politician Willie Stark from the rural country to the big city spotlight. "Along the way, he loses his initial innocence, and becomes just as corrupt as those who he assaulted before for this characteristic." Romance, women, intrigue, power...it's all there. more ›

What's eBay good for if not finding a place to buy and sell things like...John Gotti's cufflinks? more ›

MOVIE: By now you've all seen, memorized and lived your own version of neurotic New York love story Annie Hall, the classic Woody Allen film that's stood the test of time. But have you seen it under the open night sky? Didn't think so. Get there early for a seat. Get there even earlier for knitting lessons! more ›

Holy Crap! The Virtual LES launched! Words cannot describe, friends (speaking of which, let's be BFFs!). Clearly this is not meant for people who actually frequent the actual Lower East Side, but rather the people who read their blogs. Seeing all the places in creepy second life 3-D is pure Twilight Zone stuff. Highlights so far, while briefly browsing around the site are that you can shop at the Virtual American Apparel, attend virtual gigs like Leo Fitzpatrick DJing at the Virtual Darkroom and Against Me! playing the Virtual Cake Shop (so there, btw.) Best might be the descriptions of the clubs on this page. In particular, "Max Fish is to Lower East Side bars what the Smithsonian Institute is to American museums." Classic. more ›

THEATER: The ever-diminishing returns for theater producers have conditioned many playwrights to pre-emptively cut costs by keeping their character census down. So it's nice to see Tribeca's Flea Theater making room for Mark Greenfield's new play, I.E., In Other Words. "Using highly stylized language, this Boy Meets Girl/Horatio Alger tale-gone-wild" involves thirty-three characters played by a cast of fourteen. Greenfield's sprawling canvas, which is still in previews, is stretched to accommodate "adventure, love, songs, and lots of punch lines." - John Del Signore more ›

May 12: Brooklyn Pigfest more ›

DISCUSSION: Noam Chomsky will be taking questions on US foreign policy tonight, following a screening of Harold Pinter's 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. Get your questions ready, smartypants. You can watch the video of Pinter's speech here, too. more ›

January 13: Seasonal Game Cooking Class more ›

EVENT: “Solstice in Times Square” is a celebration of the Summer Solstice which began at 7am, but you still have time to partake. The dawn til dusk event includes a “Mind Over Madness” yoga-thon and live music. Doing yoga in Times Square seems like it might be the worst idea ever, but if you're up for a challenge, go for it. more ›

If you've been following the trial of Nicholas Minucci, who beat Glenn Moore to the point of Moore's skull fracturing, you'll find a NY Times "Reporter's Notebook: Cracked Knuckles, as Loud as Words" article interesting. The local color of the courtroom is described, from Minucci's demeanor to his relatives' support, plus Reverend Al Sharpton's offer to testify. But most interesting to us was elaboration on a point brought up last week - a photograph shown by the defense:

Hinting that Mr. Moore was grandstanding for his civil lawsuit, [Minucci's defense attorney Albert] Gaudelli asked him about leaving the hospital on the back of a motorcycle. When Mr. Moore denied this, Mr. Gaudelli pulled out a New York Post article from last summer with a photograph of a man wearing a helmet on a motorcycle. The caption calls it Mr. Moore returning home. Mr. Gaudelli smelled blood as Mr. Moore looked at the article. 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 ›

Hmm, this is quite a follow-up to a summer story about men cruising certain subway stations for sex: An undercover cop broke up what the Post delightedly calls a "group grope orgy" at the Jay Street-Borough Hall station in Brooklyn. The Post also enjoys mentioning that the "six men outside the men's room coming and going in two- to three-minute intervals" were doing this "right below NYC Transit headquarters." Words escape us. At least two men were charged with public lewdness and indecent exposure. Is Jay Street really "Gay" Street? When the Daily News wrote about it, the main hypothesis was that dingy Bronx stations were hotbeds for hookups. Maybe it's like we learned in our gay studies cinema class - once you look for homosexuality, you start seeing it everywhere! Hello, Time Warner Center bathrooms! more ›

It was only a matter of time before the power of Cafe Press would be harnessed to express what many people are thinking! The Village Voice reported that shortly after the NYPD announced they would be checking subway - and bus - riders' bags randomly, Tony Lu created these t-shirts online. Lu, an immigrants rights activist, is concerned that immigrants and other poor New Yorkers are most vulnerable to the NYPD's tactics, even though the police claim they will not be racially profiling. (The Voice adds, "Lu will not get a cut. The shirts' manufacture, sale, and shipment, will be handled by the online retailer. Lu encourages budget-conscious New Yorkers to make their own and wear them everywhere.") more ›

Meanwhile, police are talking to witnesses about Monday afternoon's shooting at the Wall Street 4/5 station where a man fired at another passenger (missing him) that got off the train. The Post reports more details on what the shooter had been saying: "I hate this country. I'm tired of this country. I want to leave this country"; and later, after the intended victim said something to him, "Oh, you think you're so big! I'm gonna cap your ass!" Words to live by. more ›

Amanda Berkowitz, Techie/Musician more ›

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