Your perfect Saturday has the ring of truthiness to it, as does the statistic that 24 percent of Americans believe news spoofs like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are replacing actual news programs as places to learn about current affairs. Colbert writers address this very point at “The Truthiness Behind the Lines.”
We hope you can handle the truth; sometimes it can be shocking, like the fact that Superman cocreator Joe Shuster illustrated a series of erotic artworks, and you can draw these superhero fetish poses at Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School.
If that blows your mind, just lose it at rock & roll events like Target First Saturdays at the Brooklyn Museum or Bruce Springsteen at MSG.
Sounds like your perfect Saturday all right, ain’t that the truth.
Drinking events
Cask Ale Festival
The second day of the “living brews” fest, which includes tipples like “Fuggelicious Wet Hopped Harvest Ale” and “Norm’s Raggedy Ass Ale.”
Clubs
One Step Ahead: Dante Ross
A funk-fueled evening of dusty-groove antics with Dante Ross, a major player in NYC’s hip-hop scene since the mid-’80s
Fitness
Workout with a Crunch trainer
Personal trainers Taj Harris and Karina Arrue conduct a one-mile group run/walk and a free 30-minute abs-and-stretch class at a nearby Crunch gym. You’ll also receive a complimentary three-day pass to a Crunch gym.
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Do trivia contests leave you cold? Do you lack the will to memorize seemingly meaningless minutiae? Well, perhaps we have the question-based drinking activity for you. As a TONY reader you will have thoroughly explored the city, and that’s all the experience you need to triumph at the NYC Trivia Rumble, run by the Lower East Side History Project at the Bowery Poetry Club.
If you’re able to answer questions like “On which lower-Manhattan bridge does the bike trail run through the center?,” you could win discounts to local museums, books and, most importantly, bragging rights.
You can compete with a group or own your own, but you must be there at 6pm sharp with the minimum suggested donation of $6. If you can’t get out of work on time, you can always challenge yourself by following the quiz online. Make us proud.
The Russian composer Rachmaninoff was also an accomplished pianist; but you probably wouldn’t know, as he died in 1943, and recording technology at the time struggled to capture his virtuosity clearly. Before you become despondent at that news, listen to this alternative. The computer software group Zenph Studios has developed a method of analyzing Rachmaninoff’s recordings and replicating the nuances of his playing on a modified Steinway D piano. It’s a little bit like an android Rachmaninoff, although they have neglected to build a robot body for him.
Zenph presents a “reperformance” tonight at 7pm in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, and their marketing bods are offering 100 free tickets (normally $35–$50). R.S.V.P. to tsheehy@breakawaycom.com with RSVP CARNEGIE as a subject header. Winning applicants will be notified by e-mail, and tickets will be collected with a valid ID at will call.
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The monthlong celebrations by the Bowery Mission for the 100th anniversary of its chapel culminate this weekend. A celebration of the Bowery Mission’s work will be held on Friday at 1pm with visiting dignitaries and music from Broadway performer Nina Negri (Les Miserables) and Lower East Side jazz musician Steve Elson.
The Mission’s exhibit “Now & Then: Photography of the Bowery,” a selection of vintage photographs and 17 artists’ photographs and works, has also been extended through the weekend (The Bowery Mission Chapel, 227 Bowery between Prince and Rivington Sts; bowery.org. Fri 2–5pm; Sat 9am–1pm, 3:30–5:30pm; Sun 10am–1pm, 3:30–5:30pm. Free). As you can see from the pictures above, it includes some fascinating and beautiful imagery. There are also free tours of the Bowery Mission’s buildings. Here’s to another 100 years.
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Gale Saddy,
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Sashaying in with inimitable style, it’s your perfect Friday. Of course, it’s stolen its look from the Museum at FIT’s exhibit “American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion” and artist E.V. Day’s “exploding couture” at the New York City Opera.
Sharpen up your blades and head to The Pond at Bryant Park which opens for ice-skating today, or polish up your tankard for the start of the three-day Cask Ale Festival.
Night owls should check out TONY Approved comedy, Sasha at Blkmarket Membership or the experimental rock showcase The Chinese Underground Invasion.
Strike a pose! Your perfect Friday is watching.
Sex
2010 NYC Sex Blogger Calendar Release Party
Meet your favorite wordsmiths turned pin-ups and snag goody bags filled with condoms, penis-shaped lollipops and vibrators.
Books
Lynne Tillman + Hannah Tinti
Two top-shelf and entertaining New York writers read their fiction.
Art
Shana Lutker
This live event, part of Performa 09, incorporates accordion and invites audience participation by soliciting script suggestions for the actors.
Dance
Will Rawls
As part of a 100-hour creative residency at DTW, Will Rawls presents a work-in-progress showing of The Planet-Eaters.
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Updated with how to enter to win tickets for the 1pm ceremony.
Is your heart swelling with pride today? Can you almost taste the salty tears of defeat streaming down your Phillies-supporting cubemate’s face? (We can, ha!) Tastes sweet, doesn’t it?
Start preparing your excuse for missing work so you can attend the ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes today, Friday, November 6. The parade will begin on Broadway at Battery Place at 11am and proceed north to Chambers Street with the sidewalks open to the public.
The parade will culminate with a ceremony at 1pm in City Hall Plaza, when Mayor Bloomberg will present the Yankees with the keys to the city. The ceremony will be shown on a large screen in City Hall Park.
Wish to gaze at the site of success? Take our neighborhood tour of the new Yankee stadium.

“I love Windsor Terrace more than you can understand,” begins TONY associate Web editor Jonathan Shannon. “I’m a saunter away from Prospect Park, the nighttime delights of Fifth and Seventh Avenue are in stumbling distance, and there’s a friendly stoop culture. Plus one of my neighbors has a cool collection of choppers (the bicycles, that is) and there’s often a mesmerizingly beautiful husky parading the streets. A slew of new spots are opening, and the classic haunts are hanging in there—all concentrated on, or just off, a few blocks of Prospect Park West. And if you’re feeling snobby (or you’re a realtor), you can say it’s the South Slope.”
Read about his favorite spots after the jump. Read more »
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Live in New York starting Monday, November 16: Barneys’ holiday windows, which will have a Saturday Night Live theme. Simon Doonan’s elves are toiling in their studios, but the wild and crazy creative director—the same genius who gave us the “Tribute to Cher” holiday window in 2002—took a moment to tell TONY about why Barneys chose this year’s theme: “SNL was the perfect match for us: 35 years of imagery and names and phrases which have embedded themselves in the national consciousness. Cheeseburger! Cheeseburger! King Tut! Debbie Downer! Roseanne! The Coneheads! Whatever we did, I knew it would give people a chuckle. And God knows this is the year of the much-needed chuckle.”
The tableaux will include “The Coneheads at Christmas,” “The Guys of SNL,” “The Gals of SNL” and “A Salute to 35 Years of Saturday Night Live.” Doonan recommends keeping an eye out for the wallpaper in the Coneheads window. “There are loads of bad puns,” he says. “Like Tallulah Conehead and the Cone Ranger.” Read more »
Music
Girls
The San Francisco band subverts the sound of the ’60s with a brooding undercurrent at Maxwell’s.
Drinking
Day of the Dead
Honor the deceased by drinking tequila at Mayahuel with limitless appetizers and libations mixed by Philip Ward.
Comedy
WitStream Launch
Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, Pete Holmes and more celebrate this new comedic-tweet aggregator.
Music
Fuck Buttons
Maybe they’re rock, maybe they’re dance. Regardless, the duo from the U.K. know how to put on a live show.
Home design
“Speed Decorating: A Fabulous Home in a Week or Less”
Professional stager Jill Vegas, who has worked for companies like Sotheby’s and Halstead, explains how you can change the look of your home for the better in seven days or fewer.
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Books
Gary Giddins
The author discusses his new critical cornerstone: Jazz.
Talk
“The ‘Transcriptease’ Solar-Powered Oyster Reef”
Artist Mara Haseltine built New York’s first solar-powered oyster reef in 2007. Tonight she’ll chat about her project and the need for native oysters in New York City.
Books
Gravity’s Rainbow
Novelists Robert Stone (Dog Soldiers) and Emily Barton (Brookland) join editor Gerald Howard to discuss Thomas Pynchon’s metafiction classic.
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On your marks, get set, go forth to your perfect Sunday and the NYC Marathon. Of course, that’s not the only way to get chaffed nipples today. If you play your cards right, the Vandam Masquerade Ball will probably oblige.
Joking aside, there are more serious events today, like “Looking”, a consideration of perception and articulation by writers and filmmakers, and the performance art biennial Performa 09.
Frank Bruni uses his mouth to speak instead of eat at the 92nd Street Y and a local independent record label shows of its roster at Fang Records Night.
Make sure you keep pace with your perfect Sunday.
Dia de los Muertos
Mano a Mano
Gather the pieces needed to build an ofrenda (an altar to a lost loved one) at the Altar Building Marketplace, featuring items like incense, sugar skulls and more.
Clubs
Expansions
The venerable soulful-house acolyte Markus Rice takes over cozy club Sapphire for a classic tea-dance style hoedown, with New Jersey spinner Tee Mallory joining Rice in the booth.
Books
Galway Kinnell
The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet reads and engages the audience at the First Sunday reading series
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It’s only your perfect Saturday, but we like it. And it’s only Rock & Roll, but it still makes for a rollicking new exhibition. “Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present” opens to the public today at the Brooklyn Museum. We all know turntables are the new guitars though, so for something more current, go see DJ T. at the Basic NYC and KGB party.
Of course, it’s All Hallow’s Eve, which means you can chase zombies through the streets with the role-playing game Undead Invasion, and then march down Sixth Avenue with them and other ghoulish apparitions at the 36th Annual Village Halloween Parade.
And to find out how Madonna, Britney Spears and an amateur gay webcam pornographer fit into Dan Fishback’s new work, check out your perfect Saturday.
Clubs
Prowl Night: Kim Ann Foxman
Marcos Cabral of DFA recording combo Runaway helms this night of left-of-center house, disco and techno. Tonight’s holiday gala features visits from Kim Ann Foxman, the Hercules and Love Affair member who happens to be a killer DJ.
Clubs
Liquid Sound Lounge Halloween Costume Ball
Head to Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAMcafé for an evening of soulful house, jazz- and R&B-laced sounds, classics and more. Groove Collective’s Jay Rodriguez chimes in with live sax and flute, Pablo Vergara lays down accompanying keys, and HipBone Records’ Alexis P. Suter is on the mike.
Clubs
African Soul Jam Halloween Party
This pan-African throwdown at East Village world-music lounge Lava Gina covers hiplife, coupe decale, kwaito, naija, Afrobeat and more.
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Take good care of it, water it and let your perfect Friday blossom. Just like the flower who wants to be a person in the play A Lily’s Revenge. Also today, Yeasayer perform with a 3-D light show at It Came From Brooklyn and the Wingdale Community Singers bring old-time Americana to the Issue Project Room. Or buy a nifty old-school camera at the PowerShovel pop-up shop and go shoot the d’n’b heads dancing to U.K. DJ don LTJ Bukem.
Of course, you can get into the Halloween spirit and have your senses assaulted at the Haunted House of Yes, or your clothes ruined by the copious amounts of fake blood at Killgore: The Resurrection. All on your perfect Friday.

Dance
Fridays at noon
The Merce Cunningham Understudy Repertory Group performs a selection of Cunningham’s works.
Halloween
The Phantom of the Opera screening
A screening of the 1925 silent film version of The Phantom of the Opera is accompanied by organist’s Robert Ridgell’s adaptation of the score.
Clubs
APT: DJ Milo
Milo was a founding member of the Wild Bunch, the Bristol, U.K., sound system that gave rise to Massive Attack. Nowadays he spins disco and house.
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Photographs 1 to 12: Jolie Ruben
Movember is almost upon us. No, that’s not lax copyediting, it’s a global campaign asking men to grow a mustache in November to raise funds for and awareness of prostate and testicular cancers. It’s pretty simple: Shave at the start of the month, grow a mustache (rules after the jump), get sponsored, have a party at the end of the month. A few brave souls sacrificed their facial hair this morning, and we were there to capture it. We’ve also tacked on some fine examples of whiskers from last year to inspire you.
Head to movember.com to sign up, and no excuses. Don’t have a razor? Get yourself down to sponsor Dermalogica in Soho (110 Grand Street between Broadway and Mercer St, 212-219-9800) between 6pm and 9pm to bag complimentary amenity kits and gift cards. Can’t grow a mustache? You can join us as contenders in the “lamest mustache” competition at the closing party. Click past the jump for the grooming rules in full. Read more »
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Photographs: Jolie Ruben
Put down that bottle of Jack (and that groupie) and take a first look at the Brooklyn Museum’s big fall show “Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present.” The exhibit opens to the public tomorrow, but it’s being previewed to members today. As if that wasn’t enough thanks for their patronage, Blondie–yes, Blondie–will play a show for them tonight in the Beaux-Arts Court. We’re not saying you should rush the door, but it would be very rock & roll if you did. Otherwise, you can catch a show curated by Todd P of local indie faves at the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday, November 7, as part of the Target First Saturdays program.