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 co-creator 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-and-roll events like Target First Saturdays at the Brooklyn Museum or Bruce Springsteen at MSG.
Sounds like your perfect Saturday alright, ain’t that the truth.
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.
Music
Fucked Up
The Canadian punks play a full album, with Andrew W.K. and the Vivian Girls.
Party
The Baroness’s Fetish Retinue Party
Be there for a special edition of the kinky monthly bash—it’s a birthday celebration for both the party (ten years running) and the Baroness herself (one does not ask a baroness her age).
Comedy
Mike Birbiglia: I’m in the Future Also
The approachable and entrancing storyteller brings us his latest.
Dance
Tacita Dean
The filmmaker presents 2008 footage of Merce Cunningham and his dance company performing in an abandoned Ford Motor Company factory in California.
Gay & Lesbian
Unitard
Twisted sarcasm is the specialty of this unapologetic comedy-sketch trio: David Ilku, Nora Burns and Mike Albo.
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Sex & Dating
Women as Design
There’s more to it than those Virgin Cola bottles that mirrored Pamela Anderson’s curves. British author and design critic Stephen Bayley discusses the influence of the female form on architecture.
Eat Out
Cuisine of Alsace
Learn to cook Alsatian staples, then wash them down with crisp rieslings and gewürztraminers.
Spas & Sport
“The Bathtub Alchemist: Creating Therapeutic Baths”
Ah, the joys of a deep bath. Find out how to make yours even more relaxing—and health-inducing—with the use of therapeutic bath soaks.
Books
Mitch Albom: Have a Little Faith
The Tuesdays with Morrie author discusses his latest, not so dissimilar tome (Albom interviews a dying man—in this case, a rabbi—and turns their conversations into a narrative).
Comedy
Stand-Up for Heroes
Stephen Colbert, Bruce Springsteen and Brian Williams bring humor to an important cause at this NYCF kickoff.
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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.
See all recommended events today
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.
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.
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.
Photo credit: Thom Kaine
Halloween
Purgatorio
We wouldn’t recommend a haunted house-themed nightclub in Times Square if it weren’t worth it. Enter, and you’re led through a vaudevillian “funeral home,” featuring a granny stripper, a bloody virgin and other surprises not for the claustrophobic. It ends with all-out dancing and an outdoor bar.
Clubs
Feeling Gloomy
The London mopefest makes its NYC debut, just in time for SAD season.
Dance
Morphoses/the Wheeldon Company
Christopher Wheeldon rolls into City Center with two programs and a pair of premieres.
Music
Snoop Dogg + Method Man & Redman + Devin the Dude
Nokia Theatre hosts a lineup of legendary weed smokers.
Eat Out
Finger on the Pulse Presents: A Dinner Party
R.S.V.P. to receive the secret location of this foodie gathering, featuring choice cuts from Prime Meats chef David Colston, with beer pairings by Brooklyn Brewery’s Garrett Oliver.
See all recommended events today
Dance
Merce Cunningham memorial
Iconic choreographic Merce Cunningham died in July; tonight, dancers and musicians will gather to perform at a public memorial in his honor. Read an interview about the memorial with dancer Rashaun Mitchell, and check out TONY’s archive of all things Merce.
Eat Out
Taste of Greenmarket
Sample seasonally minded small plates in a swank penthouse to benefit Greenmarket’s youth-education outreach program.
Music
Revive Da Live with Pharoahe Monch
The rapper has a commanding presence, multisyllabic rhyme schemes and a new album in the pipeline called W.A.R. (Let My People Go).
Comedy
Vampire Tales
The Sopranos’ Michael Imperioli and The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi perform scenes from classical bloodsucker tales by Bram Stoker, Stephen King and more.
Discussion
“The Future of the Stock Market and the World Economy”
No one has a crystal ball for the economy, but the financial analysts at this event will do their darnedest to make sense of where we’re heading.
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Drink Up
Scouting Single Malts
Trust us: It’s more fun than scouting players for your fantasy football team.
Eat Out
Brooklyn Eats
And so do you, for a price. Ante up for the chance to sample grub from more than 30 of the borough’s best eateries (mmm, cider-glazed ribs from Buttermilk Channel).
Discussion
“Good Riddance to Mainstream Media”
Media experts–including Vanity Fair’s Michael Wolff and New York Times columnist David Carr–debate an issue close to our heart.
Comedy
The Vampire-Werewolf Summit 2009
In an act of blatant Nobel Prize baiting, Christian Finnegan brings vampire slaves face-to-face with lycanthrope activists to lay a centuries-old beef to rest.
Gay & Lesbian
Naughty Auction
Support AIDS research by quaffing vodka cocktails and bidding on all sorts of swanky fare.
Image courtesy of Brandy Library.
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Halloween party
Something Wicked This Way Comes
MC Donny Vomit will oversee Sugar Shack Burlesque’s festivities, which include a go-go contest and live burlesque performances by Stormy Leather and RunAround Sue.
Music
La Roux
The British synth-pop duo behind “Bulletproof” hit town.
Comedy
Tell your friends
See your favorite comics tell jokes that Comedy Central will air about a year from now.
Gay
Musical Mondays: Wicked Anniversary Bash
The weekly video bash celebrates the sixth anniversary of Wicked, taking you into the late-night “Curtain Call” party at 11:30pm, when cast members take to the stage.
Theater
Chance and Chemistry: A Centennial Celebration of Frank Loesser
Big-name Broadway stars like Hugh Jackman, Ana Gasteyer and Brian Stokes Mitchell gather to celebrate the work of the legendary composer-lyricist responsible for Guys and Dolls and The Most Happy Fella.
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Even urban blight can be poetic today, such is the power of your perfect Sunday. For proof, head to the opening of “Toxi City: Brooklyn’s Brownfields,” where photographer Robin Michals has managed to isolate the beauty.
Halloween’s coming: Get advice from the stylists at Halloween Clothing Swap and Low-Cost Costume Design Party, then give your outfit a test drive at Shells Halloween Costume Party.
Sorry, clubbers, you’re going to have to chose between Pete Tong at Dance.Here.Now and Danny Krivit’s 718 Sessions Seventh Anniversary. That’s sometimes the problem with your perfect Sunday—you’re spoiled for choice.
We know where the kids are at on your perfect Saturday: They’re in the pumpkin patch at the Central Park Pumpkin Festival. Larger kids, however, will be reenacting the Marshmallow Civil War with that crazy gang from Newmindspace.
Celebrating its first birthday is the youthful 92YTribeca, and it’s got Sufjan Stevens at its party.
If, as a child, you had an overactive imagination, you’ll love the neo-Victorian outfits at Steampunk II, although it may be too scary for the rug rats, as will the Scottish Catherine Wheels Theatre Company’s production of Hansel and Gretel.
The kids are all right, but your perfect Saturday is better.
Five, four, three, two, one: Your perfect Friday has lift off, and it’s not the only thing launching today. The Big Apple Circus returns with leaping dogs and Bello Nock the clown. Then there’s the party for new book Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records with music from Merge founders Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance. Go-go boys and $1 shots help transmen mag Original Plumbing get going and 3rd Ward has the grand opening of its second, extended space. Not launching, but embarking is Chris Gethard’s Magic Bus of Haunted Stories.
Houston we have a problem: Kevin is geeking out again, this time Kevin Geeks Out About… Vincent Price!
Your perfect Friday has the right stuff.
Art
Marlene Tseng Yu
The Chelsea Art Museum stays open until 8pm tonight, so take advantage of the chance to see these paintings exploring the breathtaking qualities of water.
Event
The Linnaean Libation League’s Oktoberfest Celebration
Chow down on treats from pickle purveyors Rick’s Picks and local artisan cheese from Sprout Creek Farm; wash it all down with craft brews like Dogfish Head’s Punkin’ Ale.
Clubs
Grandmaster Roc Raida Tribute
Turntablism’s elite—including members of the X-Ecutioners (Raida’s former crew)—honor a fallen soldier.
Comedy
Susie Essman
Curb Your Enthusiasm’s most proficient swearer gets back to her roots.
Music
The Citizens Band: The Debt Rattle
The performance troupe fixes its eye on America’s financial woes.
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Music
Fool’s Gold
The Talking Heads–influenced L.A. world-pop outfit plays a CMJ showcase at Bowery Poetry Club.
Eat Out
Landmarc R.E.S.T. Benefit
Enjoy food from chef Marc Murphy and wine from Merry Edwards Winery. Proceeds benefit R.E.S.T., a nonprofit that provides bedside massage therapy to chemo patients.
Lecture
“The Future of Women’s Fashion”
Fashionistas, huddle up: Designer Isaac Mizrahi and fashion plate Ashley Olsen (yes, as in the twins) discuss trends and style for ladies.
Clubs
Fixed: Aeroplane
The talented Belgian beatsmiths of Aeroplane make their live U.S. debut.
Classical & Opera
Meredith Monk: Songs of Ascension
The latest opus from this true American original plots paths to enlightenment via song, movement and video.
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Music
Wiz Khalifa
The Pittsburgh MC—best known for his Alice Deejay-sampling hit “Say Yeah”—gets his CMJ shine with an opening set for Wu-Tang’s U-God.
Eat Out
City Harvest Bid Against Hunger
You’ll never get through $250 worth of cocktails and nibbles from the likes of Locanda Verde and Per Se, but you’ll leave feeling satisfied—the annual event benefits City Harvest, an organization that fights hunger in New York.
Drink Up
Champagne Tuesdays
Frat heaven gets even frattier with this over-the-top, recession-friendly special: $25 buys all-you-can-drink champers, personally sabered by a little person dressed as a pirate.
Books
Gore Vidal
The acclaimed critic, novelist and wit presents a slide show and discusses Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History’s Glare.
Gay & Lesbian
Gay Fairy Tales
The titles of these queer shorts from Lola Rock’N'Rolla speak for themselves: “Dragzilla,” I Was a Tranny Werewolf” and “Night of the Living Gay.”
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Music
Franco Battiato
Italy’s famed singer-songwriter–who’s opened for the Velvet Underground and Brian Eno–plays his first New York concert in over a decade.
Books
Chinua Achebe
The author of Things Fall Apart reflects on his new collection of autobiographical essays.
Clubs
Deep Space: Dimitri from Paris
Get ready for a night of dubbed-out disco doings.
Dance
“The Unsinkable Peter Gennaro”
Chita Rivera talks about choreographer Gennaro’s contributions to West Side Story at this panel discussion and tribute.
Music
Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough
Broadway stars like Christine Ebersole, Norm Lewis, Capathia Jenkins and tap dancer Kendrick Jones perform Michael Jackson’s songs.
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Will your perfect Sunday be as legendary as Ella Fitzgerald? Only if you win Amateur Night auditions at the Apollo and attain the level of achievement Ella did. If that doesn’t happen, your day can still be memorable. After all, you’ve got the Times Square Dog Day Masquerade and the image of costumed chihuahuas last year still haunt our dreams.
If you fancy a bit of dressing up yourself check out the Pontani Sisters’ Fabulous Flea Market or raid a drag queen’s closet at the Halloween Drag Exchange.
Debut your new togs at the Closing Party and Book Launch for Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, a stalwart of downtown cool who’s joined by Bambi the Mermaid, Bunni Luv and Mahalchick.
Your perfect Sunday truly will not quit.
