Yesterday, we told you about a BYOB opera event in an art gallery. Consider tonight part two of your high-culture misadventures when you make your way over to Ido Sushi (29 Seventh Ave South at Bedford St; 212-691-7177, idosushi.com) for the restaurant’s weekly opera night. This time, there’s no staged production, though—the series is completely open-mike. Singers just show up with sheet music for the pianist and start belting out the arias.

Chef and part owner Tora recognizes the uniqueness of using a sushi joint as a classical-music venue, but he remains steadfast: “Some people got shocked by the high-frequency voices. So they left, and I said, ‘Bye bye.’” Tora, who takes voice lessons himself and encourages his daughter to practice on the upright Yamaha in the corner of the restaurant, is interested in creating an open environment for musicians and opera lovers. It seems to be working—between six and ten singers usually show up for the performance, which runs from 8 to 10pm. Should you have a song in your heart, you’re welcome to take the mike. “This is open for anybody,” says Tora. “If you have music, you can sing here.”

Image via Ido Sushi

Don’t miss out on an evening of opera and booze at ICO Gallery (606 W 26th St at Eleventh Ave; 212-966-3897, icogallery.com) in Chelsea tonight. Starting at 7:30pm, the multiuse gallery will host a performance of Madama Butterfly, produced by Opera Company of Brooklyn. This progressive company has been supporting young opera singers and musicians since 2000 and loves attracting new audiences through performances in unique venues. So bring some tissues and let yourself get carried away by the tragic love story—it certainly beats getting your heart broken for real.

Keep in mind the event is BYOB—just make a pit stop on the way over. We’re not exactly experts on wine-opera pairings, but the work was scored by Puccini, so we’re going to recommend something Italian. Tickets can still be purchased here for $20-35.

Image via icogallery.com

Do you have a heap of old pajamas and stinky T-shirts in your closet that you’ve been meaning to get rid of since 2004? Give them the new home they’ve been waiting for at “This Fable Is Intended for You: A Work Energy Principle,” an interactive art project cosponsored by the arts>World Financial Center and Under the Radar Festival. All you have to do is show up at 1 New York Plaza (Water St at Whitehall St) from now until Dec 20 and drop off any clothes you don’t want anymore; come January, the piece will be used in a performance piece that makes use of giant used-clothing ropes, all sourced from the dregs of New Yorkers’ closets.

“This is an opportunity for the community to actively engage in a common project from start to finish,” says artist MK Guth. That may be artist-speak for “Please help, I don’t want my large-scale public art piece to suck!” But still, it’s a good alternative to the Salvation Army (which only takes still-decent, usable clothes). To see the work-in-progress and chat with the artist, feel free to stop by Muth’s space anytime Tuesday to Friday from noon to 5pm. You’ll find him in an abandoned storefront between a Dunkin’ Donuts and a Subway.

The Gershwin Hotel (7 E 27th St between Fifth and Madison Aves; 212-545-8000, gershwinhotel.com), which was host to last month’s Magikal Charm series, is all about unusual performance art. And if you’re into miming, beat-boxing and “sonic cartoons,” don’t miss tonight’s act by comedian and sound artist Zero Boy (8pm, $10). In addition to touring the U.S. and Europe, Zero Boy appears regularly on NPR for a segment called “Stump Zero Boy,” where listeners call in with outrageous and challenging scenarios (like “a woman giving birth on a U-57 submarine that’s under attack”), which Zero Boy must then enact using only his voice.

Tonight’s show, A Trip to Coney Island with Zero Boy, started as a three-minute bit in his regular stand-up routine, but when Zero Boy saw how well audiences responded to the material (e.g., hot dog eating contests), he reworked it into a 45-minute play. Drawing on major events in Coney Island’s history, Zero Boy infuses the colorful tale with his own brand of cartoonlike and zany narration. Audience members get to join in on the fun at the end of the play, when Zero Boy asks, “The future of Coney Island is ___” and then acts out scenarios based on audience’s suggestions.

Image via zeroboy.com

Photographs by the Drunken Photographer

Artists and corporate sponsors mingled with local celebrities—including stage legend Joel Grey, Mad Men’s Bryan Batt and soap star Scott Evans—at GLAAD’s eighth annual OUT Auction at the Metropolitan Pavilion on Sunday night. The lavish event auctioned off work by GLAAD-approved artists in order to raise money to continue GLAAD’s awareness and antihomophobia programs. (Disclosure: TONY was a media sponsor of the event.) During his speech, GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios referenced a national headline from last month about a Chicago high school student who reported a teacher for using the term black fag (and eventually got the teacher suspended) as a way to remind people why they were there, though it is questionable whether the loosened-up crowd, who required some shushing, got the message. The art collection as a whole was somewhat of a mixed bag, and it seemed GLAAD’s art-loving guests weren’t quite as enthusiastic as organizers were hoping. Read more »

Proteus Gowanus

Ever try to get work done in a café? Among the screech of the milk steamer, the tempting triple-chocolate mousse cake on display and the people at the neighboring table comparing bra sizes, it’s not exactly fertile ground for productivity. Find some real peace and quiet (and get past page one of your great American novel) at Proteus Gowanus (543 Union St at Nevins St, Gowanus, Brooklyn; 718-243-1572, proteusgowanus.com), which launches its new Study Hall program this week.

What is that exactly? “Well, at this point, it is an idea,” admits staff member Tammy Pittman. But the name pretty much says it all: free Wi-Fi, tables and chairs, and productivity-enhancing silence will be available to Study Hall members any weekday from 10am to 5pm. There will even be coffee and bread available, which should satisfy those procrastinatory munchies without the overindulgence of rich, overpriced café fare.

If you’re interested in attending, e-mail your name to info@proteusgowanus.com to sign up for an information session (Wednesday at 11am, or Thursday at 3pm). Prospective members will get to see the space, discuss what the guidelines for the program will be, and even apply for the position of Study Hall proctor. No degree necessary.

Let your hair down tonight at “Illuminate: A Spiritual Dance Club,” an artsy party with a shamanic twist. Get ready to bring out your inner witch doctor—this unconventional approach to a disco is hosted by the Open Center, an interactive healing school and community center that recently moved to a bigger midtown space, making events like this possible.

Israeli spiritual healer Parashakti will be conducting her “Dance of Liberation,” a technique she developed to get people to loosen up on the dance floor. DJs, drumming and yogic breathing exercises all help participants “ride the wave of sacred rhythm.” But while spirituality is certainly an important aspect in this, don’t be intimidated. “Overall, it’s just a dance party,” an Open Center marketing manager explains. “And since I’ve been here, they haven’t done anything like this.”

After an opening ceremony featuring Parashakti, medicine woman Joani Henry, and Native American elder Wakia Un Manee, you can make like a maenad and hop between the “Chill Out Room” and the “Tipi Room,” where from 10:30pm to 1:30am, the dancing will take place.

If the wind and rain haven’t squashed your will to get out and do something tonight, why not keep your hands busy with some arts and crafts at Spacecraft (355 Bedford Ave between South 4th and 5th Sts, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 718-599-2718, spacecraftbrooklyn.com)? From the stain on your jeans to the hole in your hat, you probably have something that needs bedazzling. If not, just get creative. “We had a gentleman come in to make an Obamoctopus,” explains store manager Christine. “He knitted an octopus and the pattern had Obama’s face on it.”

Visitors to Spacecraft’s “Church of Craft” (6-9pm, free) are welcome to bring along any project of their choosing, from quilting to embroidery to drawings with crayons. No one’s there to judge, though you may pick up some pointers on inventive uses of toilet paper.  Half of the store’s space is taken up by a long wooden table, around which visitors sit, drink wine and get crafty. Supplies (scissors, needles, rulers, etc.) are provided by the store, but  you should either bring your own materials or buy them from Spacecraft’s wide selection.

Reach for a higher plane tonight at “Sacred Music in a Sacred Space,” a classical concert series that’s been held in the Upper East Side’s St. Ignatius Loyola (980 Park Ave between 83rd and 84th Sts; 212-288-2520, stignatiusloyola.org) for the past 20 years. Directed by Kent Tritle, who also heads the Manhattan College of Music’s choral department, tonight’s show will include music from Handel, Purcell and 20th-century composer Herbert Howells. The latter once penned a tribute to President John F. Kennedy titled Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing, which you can hear tonight.

The renowned St. Ignatius Loyola choir begins the main program at 8pm, but Nancianne Parrella will warm things up with an organ recital at 7pm. You can get tickets here ($40, seniors and students $30). Regardless of when you arrive, don’t forget to look up when you walk in: The 45-foot organ weighs 30 tons and contains more than 5,000 pipes!

Image via St. Ignatius Loyola

Photo: Joe DiNapoli

Casual astronomers and romantic stargazers, take note: Every Tuesday this month, you can visit the High Line (enter at 835 Washington St at Little W 12th St, thehighline.org) from dusk until 9:30pm and get a free tutorial from a member of the Amateur Astronomers Association. From “What’s the point of constellations?” to “How big is the universe?,” these guys will entertain all your cosmic quandaries, and they’re more than happy to let you have a go on their fancy high-powered telescopes. Just don’t try to turn the lens toward those racy Standard Hotel room windows everyone always talks about.

Image via aaa.org

Ascend for poetry.

The propaganda-covered KGB Bar (85 E 4th St between Bowery and Second Aves; 212-505-3360, kgbbar.com) has hosted literally thousands of poets since opening its Monday-night literary series in 1994. Tonight from 7 to 9pm, the free poetry event features an appearance by cofounder Star Black (catch her in this video reading from her 1999 collection Balefire), as well as Poets House staffer Stephen Motika and widely published NYC poet Howard Altmann. The event is not an open mike, but if this warm weather has put you in the mood to spout a verse or two, you can always check out these places.

No Longer Empty, a nonprofit artist collective that temporarily takes over abandoned NYC buildings, is founded on the concept of art in strange places. But when you show up at its current exhibition tonight (51 Bergen St between Court and Smith Sts, Brooklyn; nolongerempty.com), don’t be surprised if there’s more action going on in the elevator than in the rest of the building. Starting at around 3pm, Giuseppe Stampone, who has scribbled verses from Dante’s Divine Comedy over the elevator shaft walls, will film an hour-long video of Julia Kent playing her cello while in the elevator. Though audience members cannot cram inside during filming (for obvious reasons), Kent will give a more traditional performance at 7pm on the main floor.

After that, from 8pm to 8:30pm, visitors are invited to take a ride in the elevator, which has been reimagined by Stampone as the boat used to carry souls across the River Styx. Inside “Charon’s Bark,” visitors will be able to listen to recordings of Kent’s music and read the Dante excerpts on the shaft walls as they rise “from Hell, through Purgatory, to Heaven.” Naomi Hersson-Ringskog, director of development, explains, “The windows at the top, where Heaven is, have been improved and reinstalled. So especially during the day, you can really sense the escalation into Heaven.” If you happen to miss tonight’s piece (though we can’t think of anything more alluring than an elevator ride to heaven on a Saturday night), you can visit “Charon’s Bark” Thursday to Sunday, from noon to 8pm. How long does it take to get to Heaven? You’ll just have to find out for yourselves.

The ABC Carpet & Home building. Photograph: Dick Uhne

When the Interdependence Project, a nonprofit Buddhist meditation and eco-activism group, started planning their fall 2009 fund-raiser, conventional methods like bake sales and kissing booths were quickly rejected. After all, what’s the one thing a meditation group can do really well? Sit! So that’s what they’re doing with “Sit Down, Rise Up,” a 24-hour meditation marathon staged in the windows of ABC Carpet & Home.

IDP members will be sitting in four-hour shifts, while Ethan Nichtern, who founded the group four years ago in the East Village, aims to hold it down for the entirety of the event, which runs from 6pm tonight until 7pm tomorrow. You can go here to make a donation. Otherwise, stop by for the opening ceremony at 6pm, or anytime tonight or tomorrow.

Image via flickr

Feeling the onset of a cold? Maybe a little kundalini yoga is all you need. Often known as “that crazy intense yoga,” kundalini focuses on the relationship between emotions and physical health, by activating your chakras and opening up the energy flow inside your body. But while the benefits of kundalini are great, so are its demands. Chanting and “breath of fire” play large roles, and it’s not uncommon to have to hold difficult poses for three minutes at a time.

Tonight at 6pm, the New York Open Center (22 E 30th St between Fifth and Madison Aves; 212-219-2527, opencenter.org) will be hosting a free introductory class, which a staff member assures us would be “light” and “basic.” We sure hope so! Donna Davidge, who has taught kundalini in NYC for 25 years, will be familiarizing newcomers with some of the basic kriyas (breathing, postures, mantras and meditation) and the concepts of kundalini in general. The entire monthlong series (four classes plus this intro) runs from November 11 to December 16, and while today’s intro class is free, the series costs $70 as a package, or $18 per class.

Image via New York Open Center.

You know those friends who just like to talk? And talk? And talk? They’re not interested in hearing your response, they don’t care if you’re going into cardiac arrest—they’ve got something on their minds, and they’re not stopping until it’s said. Well, one outlet for them might be Cornelia Street Café’s (29 Cornelia St between Bleecker and W 4th Sts; 212-989-9319, corneliastreetcafe.com) semimonthly Speakeasy Stories ($10 plus one drink/food item minimum), a chance for NYC storytellers to have their moment in the spotlight and spin their favorite yarns.

Host Sherry Weaver, who puts on these events out of a sheer love for storytelling, will informally audition anyone who’s interested in sharing their own winning anecdotes—just send her an e-mail at sherry@speakeasystories.com, meet her at a café for a glass of wine and gab away! Past Speakeasy Stories performers have included Mike Daisey, Jonathan Ames, and Reno, although really anyone who can enrapture an audience for twenty minutes is eligible. Official lineups can be found beforehand at speakeasystories.com.

The storytellers and listeners congregate downstairs in the café from 9 to 11pm; make it a late dinner and order from the café’s menu, which is offered until 10:45pm. In fact, bring a date. The burden of conversation will almost certainly be lightened.

Image via roboppy.

Photographs by Alex Schechter

As up-and-at-’em tourists sat down to an early breakfast in nearby Midtown cafes, the Saint at Large’s All Saints Halloween After Hours party at Club Purgatorio was just getting started. We stopped by around 8am to join the crowd who had chosen strobe lights over daylight. Upstairs from the quiet, cozy coat-check lobby was a thriving dance party, and the crowd—mostly shirtless (and very attractive) men—showed no signs of slowing down. Junior Vasquez, who started his set around 9am, had the packed dance floor in a trance that was broken only during a brief interlude of burlesque-ish sideshow performances. These included the spectacular Narcissister (who actually makes a show of putting her clothes back on, rather than taking them off), Xander the Witch Doctor, and a contortionist. Scantily clad hotties took turns up on the dance podiums, and one dancer was even kind enough to offer the whole club an impromptu peep show. Let’s just say he was good with his hands.

Healing hands: Center for Pranic Healing founder Grandmaster Choa

If you went out last night or even just looked out the window, you probably saw that round moon sitting plump in the sky. But tonight is the actual full moon—and on All Souls’ Day, no less!  To celebrate, The Center for Pranic Healing is hosting a free Full Moon Meditation session at 7:30pm, led by a master Pranic Healer. The center is located in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, but the healer will be doing his thing at Moving Body Resources (112 W 27th St between Sixth and Seventh Aves, fourth floor; 646-320-2002), a midtown meditation space that fortunately does not require a cross-Hudson commute.

In case you didn’t catch the CBS segment on it, Pranic Healing is similar to acupuncture or Reiki in its focus on “clearing away” harmful or toxic energy. You don’t have to be diseased or going blind to participate tonight, though; the healer will be using the collective energy of the group to “bring down” a blessing on the whole earth, made extra-powerful by of the Scorpio full moon. In the wake of Halloween, New York could definitely use a blessing, so get there and do your part.

Bookmaker Esther Smith

Halloween isn’t the only show in town. Head down to Proteus Gowanus (543 Union St at Nevins St, Gowanus, Brooklyn; 718-243-1572, proteusgowanus.com; fixerscollective.org; 5–7pm, $10) on Sunday to ring in Dia de los Muertos with some good old bookmaking. And book burning.

The arts-and-crafts-centric gallery (also popular for its Fixers Collective) is hosting Esther Smith, who has literally written the book on bookmaking, How To Make Books, Magic Books & Paper Toys. While tradition usually calls for an altar filled with objects that nourish the souls of the dead, this workshop will have you making little books out of random “found papers”—as in, pick up that newspaper on the subway—then decorating them however you see fit (stamp them, step on them, bleed on them), and finally consummating the project by tossing them into a little bonfire outside.

Because the gallery’s theme this year is transport, and because burning these handmade offerings will “transport their messages to the Great Beyond,” this incendiary little fete is quite relevant. If you choose to hang onto your book, the gallery won’t mind, but we can’t say the same for ravenous, communication-starved souls.

The Gershwin Hotel

If you’ve got the pre-Halloween jitters and just can’t wait for Saturday night to roll around, here’s one way to sate your ghoulish, after-dark desires. The Gershwin Hotel, which prides itself on kooky, artsy performances, hosts the final installment of Magikal Charm, starting at 8pm ($10). It’s a sensory-overload piece of performance art that combines spoken word poetry, a DJ, a slide projector, and some funky masks.

Confused yet? When we spoke to a hotel rep, she described the three-week series as “more like a Halloween-y kind of show,” while Paul, one of the leaders of Magikal Charm, spoke of it as a “happening” with themes of ”reincarnation, rebirth, life, death and…rebirth, man.” Awesome. What we have been able to verify so far is this: There will be dancing as well as wine, and masks will be provided at the venue. Paul will show off some of his moves in a video projected onto the wall (“It’s a symbol of the struggle and fight to stay alive”) while reading selections from his poem “The Book of the Dead”; cogroovesters MC Anthony and Kate, who offer a taste of their magic in this video, will share the stage. “It’s supposed to have an eerie feel to it,” warns Paul. “But the wine flows freely, and the grooves are gonna be kickin’.”

Raise your hand if you're the next Regina Spektor.

Tonight, head to the Upper West Side’s Manhattan School of Music (120 Claremont Ave at 122nd St; 212-493-4428, msmnyc.edu) to catch the student-run concert series “Jazz Café.” Enter at the main entrance on West 122nd Street, and follow some stairs down to the cafeteria, also known as the Mitzi Newhouse Pavilion. Students, who actually fulfill performance requirements and receive class credit for these cozy gatherings, decorate the intimate space with hanging fabric and candles to make the audience feel welcome; and since it’s a cafeteria, expect some nibbles as well. Keep in mind, the lineup is always different, so there’s no telling which ensembles will take the stage on any given night. But a quick look at the school’s list of prominent alumni (Harry Connick Jr., Herbie Hancock, Billy Joel, Regina Spektor) should give you some sense of the pedigree. The event, which usually runs for about two hours, starts at 7:30pm, and is nonticketed. So savor the moment; in a few short years, you might be paying top dollar just to see this budding talent onstage!